A STUDY ON THE TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS TO 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT HOA BINH ETHNIC BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL

SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS TO 10 TH GRADE STUDENTS AT HEBHS The effectiveness of the using pictures and pair work/group work has been described and approved in the

Chapter three : IMPLICATIONS

3.1 SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS TO 10 TH GRADE STUDENTS AT HEBHS

The effectiveness of the using pictures and pair work/group work has been described and approved in the experimental listening lessons in the previous chapter In this chapter, the investigator with the desire to help students listen to English more effectively, would like to suggest some more techniques, which should be employed by the teachers to improve their students’ listening skills Moreover, the suggested listening strategies also can help students achieve more success in listening comprehension

3.1.1 Giving background information

As a whole, students will take a listening session more effectively if they are given some background information about the topic, situation or context of the listening text The technique is usually performed by the teacher in pre-listening stage Because in while-listening, students may encounter some potential problems For example, it can be

confusing for students to distinguish the words which have similar sounding like bed and bad, see and sea, pat and pet, knew and new, etc The homophones and homonyms in the

language are not many but as existing in listening, they may lead students to mishear what the speaker saying Therefore, if the students are provided the background information as

an overall view of the listening text, they will place the context into the consideration while listening, this will help them to understand the listening text with less confusion Moreover, the native speakers often speak very fast, so if students are foretold about the overall view

of the listening passage, they can guess the meaning of the sentence or predict the missing words according to what they expect or what they think may happen The techniques can

“bring to the forefront” (Ur, 1996, p.113) Especially, giving background information can draw students’ attention to the listening, encourage them to work together of known lexis and syntax which will assist students to over come obstacles created from their infrequency and inexperience in listening practice However, the technique employed by the teacher should be simple, brief and realistic to students which can both draw students’ attention and arouse their interest as well as the curiosity from the listening text The time for giving background information can be from two to five minutes depends on the students’ English knowledge level and the difficulty of the listening text

For example: Unit 10

Task 1 Listen and number the events in the order you hear

a A campfire near a heap of leaves may easily cause a forest fire

b In late summer, fire is the greatest danger to forests, and sometimes people are not allowed to go into them

c All of us must care for our great forests and save them from fire

d It is an unpleasant thing to see a great forest fire

e A forest fire destroys valuable wood wildlife and good soil

(English 10, 2006, p.108) Teacher: “You are going to listen to someone talking about a forest fire that can be caused by people’ careless actions like leaving a campfire burning near a heap of leaves or burning something for food in the forest, especially a forest fire can easily occur in the dry season A forest fire may make people’ life more difficult and awful You will get more details about forest fires from the listening in task 1 Now please read through the task 1 before you listen to the tape”

Giving background information like this before listening is really helpful to students for completing the listening task

3.1.2 Encouraging prediction and selection

Prediction and selection can be employed in the pre-listening or while-listening stage Listeners can improve their listening skills by predicting what the listening text is about or what the speaker is going to say next In order to encourage students to imagine and predict what they are about to hear, teachers may tell students something about the speaker(s) or the topic of the listening text The technique can help students develop their listening skills and this is also a good way to keep the class actively involved in a listening lesson

Predicting grammar: Before listening, students can be asked to predict the grammatical structures that will be frequent in the listening text

Predicting vocabulary: Students can also be asked to make a list of words, phrases that relate to the topic and may appear in the listening text When students have a certain vocabulary in their minds, they will be able more self-confident in a listening lesson

For example: Unit 1 (English 10, 2006, p.16)

In the task 1 of the listening lesson in unit one (English 10, 2006, page 16), students will hear Mr Lam, a cyclo driver in Ho Chi Minh, talks about his morning activities The pictures in the textbook on page 16 describe his activities Listen to the tape, and then number the pictures in the correct order By asking students to look at the pictures and predict what tense may be mostly used in the listening text, most students guess that Mr Lam will use present simple tense to talk about his morning activities Besides, students may guess a list of words which relates to Mr Lam’s morning activities based on the pictures such as: get up, passengers, ride, park, routine, district, breakfast, etc This will help them find the listening task more interesting and less challenging

3.1.3 Presenting essential items

It is very important for the teacher to be aweare of the special role of presenting the essential to students in a listening lesson New words, new grammar structures and expressions which are essential for students to understand, are considered as essential items

in a listening lesson However, sometimes teachers only need to present a particular word which is so important that if students do not know this word, they may fail to catch the main idea of the text When presenting the essential items, the teacher should help students know its pronunciation and its spelling These are fairly obvious characteristics that should

be paid proper attention The teacher needs to make sure that both these aspects are accurately presented and learned In presenting a grammar structure, it is necessary for the teacher to be aware that good presentation should include both oral and written forms and both forms and meaning The teacher should avoid spending too much time on how to

pronounce the new words or how to use the new grammar structures Another important thing is that before the listening lesson, teacher must be sure of word or structures that need presenting

However, each teacher has his/her own way to present the essential items and the time for this technique also depends on the number of new words and structures that needs

to be presented When the technique is used properly, it will bring great usefulness and effectiveness in a listening lesson It should be applied in the most of listening lesson Students may find the listening tasks less difficult

For example: In unit 12 (English 10 , 2006, p.128) students have opportunity to

hear a listening text about Van Cao-the very famous Vietnamese musician Before listening, the teacher should let students know some words which can be used to describe Van Cao’s music such as: sweet and gentle, lyrical, rousing, solemn, etc The teacher may ask students to describe Van Cao’s music, student may think of some words in Vietnamese Then, these words can be quickly presented on the board with their spellings and meanings, teacher reads aloud these words, students listen and repeat

Moreover, the way of presenting new words in the second experimental lesson (see appendix 4) is appreciated by students Most of them feel comfortable and interested

in learning new words about the Statue of Liberty when the teacher uses card and picture to present new words to them

3.1.4 Giving dictations

Giving dictations to students is considered as one of the most effective and suitable techniques to improve listening skills of 10th grade students at HEBHS Some teachers think giving dictation as an old-fashioned technique that should not be used nowadays In fact, teaching a foreign language for upper secondary school students should include this technique Giving dictations is like a bridge between written and spoken English through listening It not only helps students consolidate written structures, vocabulary but also is a useful test of students’ listening comprehension The technique can be applied effectively when the teacher carries out the following steps:

Firstly, the teacher prepares the text which suits the students’ level It is inadvisable

to choose a text with too many new and difficult words for students to dictate Students may be bored with dictating the text which is strange and irrelevant to their learnt lessons They often desire to widen their knowledge based on the general knowledge and what they are interested in Before giving dictation, it is important for the teacher to present the new words or essential items by speaking out and writing them on the board Moreover, the teacher must be sure that all students know what they are supposed to do

Secondly, the teacher should let students hear the text at least three times The first time, the teacher reads the text aloud at rather high speed, students listen only and get the general idea of the listening text The second time, the teacher reads the text, sentence by sentence at normal speed, students listen and take notes When dictating the passage to the students, the teacher should go round and see how their students write it The thirst time, the teacher can read the whole text through again This helps students correct their dictation

themselves After the dictation, the teacher should check students’ work and encourage them by giving mark for the best ones

For example: I have let students dictate the following passage which seems to be

suitable to 10th grade students at HEBHS After dictation, most students are satisfied with their work, they are interested in dictating the passages with popular topics which have average length, simple expressions and grammar structures

HELP YOUR DOCTOR TO HELP YOU The leading causes of death in many countries are now heart disease, cancer, accidents, flu, pneumonia, etc Moreover cigarettes, alcohol, physical inactivity and overeating also add to the causes of several of these killing diseases Medicine has little help to offer, however, to persons who cannot get rid of habits harmful to their health Surgery is the only means to offer any chance of survival for the people with lung cancer Although psychiatrists have tried to stop people from drinking, they have not been successful Neither have doctors How then can our health be improved? The answer is simple, though perhaps not very pleasing Ordinary people can do it themselves They are able to make good advances in the prevention of disease

If: The overweight could eat less

If: Drinkers could drink less

If: Smokers could stop smoking

If: Everyone could take a little more exercises

Then they could save more life years and get rid of those diseases This would be better than even the best and most expensive methods of modern treatments

(English 12, 1998, p.84) From the dictation of this reading text, students can not only practise listening skills but they can also improve their hand writing as well as increase their vocabulary related to health care

3.2 SUGGESTED LISTENING STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS TO BECOME BETTER LISTENERS.

It is necessary for the teacher to spend time on helping his/her students overcome their listening difficulties in learning a foreign language like English Field (1998) proposed an approach to learners’ listening problems that should be taken into consideration and suggested a series of exercises for practising listening The teachers should first identify students’ listening difficulties so that they can deal with each problem specifically and effectively In teaching listening, if the teachers pay attention to only those areas that affect students’ comprehension most, they can use the limited teaching time more profitably Moreover, the teachers can help students improve their listening skills by providing them with practice in perception of the selected sounds, content word pronunciation of new words and intonation features However, the practice in perception alone will not be sufficient for preparing students to deal with listening for meaning

Therefore, it is essential that students should learn to adopt listening strategies which can help or enhance their comprehension According to Anderson (1995), there are three phase models of language comprehension named perception, parsing and utilisation Goh (1998) suggests three groups of strategies based on those three phase models that help students to become better listeners in learning English They are cognitive, metacognitive and social-affective “Cognitive tactics act directly on the input to make sense of it; metacognitive tactics manage cognitive process and difficulties during listening; social tactics involve other people in achieving understanding; effective tactics manage unproductive emotions during comprehension” (p 71)

The following suggested types of practice in perception and listening strategies by Goh(2000) can help students improve their listening skills In fact, listening strategies are vital for students’ success in listening, the more the students exploit listening strategies, and the more successful they get in a listening lesson

Types of practice for improve listening skills perception parsing utilization

I Perception practice

1 Listen to how new vocabulary items are

pronounced

2 Write down content words from short passages

3 Identify the most prominent word in short

utterances

4 Identify meaning groups in sentences of varying

lengths

5 Identify tones and their communicative value

6 Identify common discourse markers and their

functions

7 Identify common phrasal verbs & their meaning

II Listening strategy practice

Cognitive tactics

1 Infer missing or unfamiliar words using contexts

2 Predict general content before listening using

context & prior knowledge

3 Use prior knowledge to elaborate and complete

interpretation

4 Take short notes of important content words

5 Relate limited interpretation to a wider social /

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linguistic context

6 Relate one part of the text to another

7 Visualize scenes, objects, events etc, being

described

8 Reconstruct meaning using words heard

Metacognitive tactics

1 Preview contents in different forms

2 Establish purpose for listening

3 Listen selectively according to purpose

4 Pay attention to discourse markers

5 Pay attention to visuals and body language

6 Pay attention to tones and pauses

7 Monitor comprehension using contexts and prior

knowledge

8 Evaluate comprehension using contexts and prior

knowledge and external resources

9 Continue to listen for clarification in spite of

difficulty

10 Assess the importance of problematic parts and

decide whether to ignore them or actively seek

clarification

Social-affective tactics

1 Ask speaker for clarification and repetition

2 Paraphrase what speakers say to check

understanding

3 Learn to relax before and during listening

4 Encourage oneself to continue listening

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Note: The symbol (+) indicates the comprehension phase which can be facilitated by such practice

Therefore, it is very necessary for students to make their listening both active and conscious Students should be active in processing information and conscious in processing strategies

3.3 Summary

Some suggestions to improve the listening skills to 10th grade students at HEBHS have been provided in this chapter The effectiveness of using pictures and pair work/group work has been approved in the experimental listening lessons The teachers should employ other suitable techniques for each listening task Giving background information, presenting essential items, encouraging prediction and selection are among of useful techniques that may help students find the listening task less difficult Besides, giving dictation to students seems to be a helpful way for students at upper secondary school level

to enhance their ability in listening comprehension This technique does not require any modern equipment in teaching and learning, however, when it is used properly, students can develop not only their listening skills but the other skills may also be improved

Moreover, the teacher should adjust the time and effort to manage the class and make their students more involved in the listening tasks Students may need various strategies in the three phases of a listening lesson Being aware of these listening strategies can help students become better listeners of English So that, in teaching listening the teachers should pay attention to the types of practice for improving listening comprehension

It can be said that both the teachers and students expect the success after each listening task Therefore, it can be helpful and necessary for them to consider the suggestions in this chapter