Chiến lược nghe của sinh viên trong môi trường học tiếng anh kết hợp

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES - LẠI THỊ DIỆU THƯƠNG STUDENTS’ LISTENING STRATEGIES IN A BLENDED LEARNING ENGLISH ENVIRONMENT (Chiến lược nghe sinh viên môi trường học Tiếng Anh kết hợp) M.A MINOR PROGRAME THESIS (Type I) Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 H N I – 2021 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES - LẠI THỊ DIỆU THƯƠNG STUDENTS’ LISTENING STRATEGIES IN A BLENDED LEARNING ENGLISH ENVIRONMENT (Chiến lược nghe sinh viên môi trường học Tiếng Anh kết hợp) M.A MINOR PROGRAME THESIS (Type I) Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga H N I – 2021 DECLARATION I hereby certify that this thesis is entirely my own piece of work except for citations, whereby each and everyone of their sources has been properly acknowledged The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any formal course of study i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to record my gratitude first and foremost to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, for her invaluable ideas, guidance, patience and support in the pursuance of this study At the same time, I wish to thank all the students of the Faculty of Vietnam Study at Hanoi University of Industry for answering the questionnaire and interviews, which is indispensable for my study I also would like to take this opportunity to thank all lecturers at Faculty of post- graduate studies for their interesting and valuable lectures, advice and suggestions when I was attending M.A course Last, but by no means least, my gratitude goes to my dearest parents, my husband and my little son for their endless love, support and encouragement Hanoi, 2020 Lai Thi Dieu Thuong ii ABSTRACT In the 21st century, technology has been playing an important part in almost all fields of our life In education area, it is claimed that technology should be brought into operation within any subjects, including languages In the context of teaching and learning listening skill at Hanoi University of Industry, the research aims at examining the effects of using listening strategies in blended learning English environment In order to achieve objectives, two instruments, namely questionnaires and interviews were conducted to collect relevant data Eighty six students and five teachers at the target students were involved in the study via questionnaires and interviews Firstly, the results showed that both teachers and students at the target university strongly advocated the difficulties of teaching and listening skill and the importance of the listening strategies in learning online listening Secondly, the investigation revealed that students did utilize a wide range of listening strategies; nevertheless, the utilization was low in frequency Thirdly, teachers are aware of and getting used to utilizing listening strategies and technology in preparing, delivering lessons and evaluating listening skill for students Key words: listening skill, listening strategies, technology, blended learning iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1: Direct listening strategies ( Adapted from Oxford 1990) 11 Table 2: Indirect listening strategies (Adapted from Oxford 1990) 13 Chart 1:Reasons of students to learn listening English .31 Chart 2: Students' opinion on the importance of listening strategies 32 Chart 3: Memory listening strategies in blended learning English environment 33 Chart 4: Cognitive listening strategies in blended learning English environment 34 Chart 5: Compensation listening strategies in blended learning English environment 35 Chart 6: Metacognitive listening strategies in blended learning English environment 36 Chart 7: Affective listening strategies in blended learning English environment 37 Chart 8.Social listening strategies in blended learning English environment 38 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and objectives of the study Significance of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study .3 Design of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Listening skill .5 2.1.1.Definition of listening 2.1.2 Significance of listening 2.1.3 Listening process .7 2.1.4 Listening sequence 2.2 Listening strategies 10 2.3 Blended learning 15 2.3.1 Roots of blended learning .15 2.3.2 The Concept of Blended Learning 16 2.3.3 The Process of Blended Learning 17 2.3.4 Common benefits and limitations of blended learning 17 2.4 Review of previous studies 20 2.5 Summary 22 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 23 v 3.1 Participants 23 3.1.1 Students 23 3.1.2 Teachers 23 3.2 Instruments 23 3.2.1 Survey questionnaires .24 3.2.2 Interview 24 3.3 The blended learning context in Vietnam and at Hanoi University of Industry 25 3.3.1 The blended learning policy in Vietnam 25 3.3.2 The blended learning context at Hanoi University of Industry .26 3.4 Summary 30 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 31 4.1 Findings from questionnaire 31 4.2 Findings from student interview 38 4.3 Findings from teacher interview 41 4.4 Summary 43 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .43 5.1 Major findings of the research 43 5.2 Limitations of the research 48 5.3 Suggestions for the further studies .48 5.4 Contribution of the research .48 REFERENCES 49 APPENDICES I APPENDIX I APPENDIX V APPENDIX VI vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Listening is a skill of language so it can be developed through practices Teachers can help students enhance their listening skills using media such as videotape, audiotape or computer with activities to complete either at home or in the language laboratory with particular materials Students can practice listening to learn vocabulary, sentence structures and dialogues in the target language Moreover, students listen in different ways depending on what and why they are listening to Students use some strategies to control a conversation by asking a person to speak more slowly, explain what they have said, and repeat something If not, they will lose the opportunity to learn and communicate successfully Furthermore, at university level listening is a major skill that every English student must have in the target language Moreover, ―listening remains one of the least understood processes in language learning‖ (Kavaliauskiene, 2011, p 1) The simple definition of traditional learning is face-to-face learning This method is used by the teaching staff in the lecture rooms In this method, the students meet with the instructor at the same time in one place and mainly rely on the teacher for lecturing and discussing the topics with them This on-going classroom based process can become monotonous, as students come to the class listening to the recording, then doing the task on the paper as given by the lecturer In traditional learning, the students are not active in listening activities Because the students are given materials by the lecturer, there is no preparation from the learners before they learn the material Considering the factors above, some lecturers change the way of teaching They try to blend between traditional learning and e-learning or it is called blended learning Blended learning is the solution for language learning in listening class for students In blended learning situations, one needs to consider how students learn through both face-to-face and online discussions Blended learning is the application of high-technology in blended listening that can be combined with traditional learning in listening subject This learning can be called the best style in listening skill because blended learning processes not only occur in the classroom or face to face but also outside the classroom using media It‘s an effective teaching method in teaching listening Considering the review above, it is worth to adopt blended learning approach in the researcher‘s listening classes, in which most of the students dealt with listening problem.Data from the preliminary studies uncovered that the major source of the difficulty was insufficient exposure to authenticlistening input resulting in unfamiliarity with English pronunciation and vocabulary –typical problems encountered by learners (Hamouda, 2013) The vast majority of them said that they mainly practiced listening in the classroom Taking this consideration into account, this current research is carried out to survey the effect of blended learning approach by teaching listening strategies to optimize the students‘ aural skill.The context of this research tends to apply situation of blended learning taking place mostly in face-to-face mode, while the online activities are in the form of listening activities weekly units Aims and objectives of the study Initially, the study aims at the perceptions and evaluations of listening strategies from both teachers and students perspectives in blended learning English environment Secondly, each specific listening strategy in blended learning English environment employed by students together with its frequency of use is discovered and analyzed Basing on findings, some pedagogical implications and suggestions are proposed by the researcher in the hope of supporting teachers to help their students to promote their listening skills In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the research was conducted to seek the answers for the following questions How university teachers and students perceive the importance of listening strategies in blended learning English environment? the issue Nevertheless, despite their limited knowledge of the field, both groups of respondents agreed on its significance and strongly advocated teaching listening strategies in both classroom practice and in blended learning Secondly, specific listening techniques utilized by students in applying technology to aid comprehension as well as its frequency were comprehensively examined Results from questionnaires and interview can help divide the strategies into four groups The four popular strategies include ―Taking note‖, ―Getting the idea‖ quickly‖, ―Paying attention‖ and ―Identifying the purposes of a language‖ Ten unpopular strategies are using pictures, practicing with sounds, guessing from phonological clues, finding out about the language learning, seeking practice language Using music to relax, self-rewarding, listening to your body, writing a diary and cooperating with peers are quite popular The four fairly unpopular strategies consist of placing new words into context, semantic mapping, guessing from linguistic clues, asking for clarification The rest strategies belong to fairly popular groups The afore-mentioned findings convincingly showed that students employ a wide range of listening strategies Nonetheless, their application of strategies was scattered and complicated Moreover, the levels of implementing listening strategies can be broadened to course-level blending, program-level blending and institutional-level blending Considering the difficulties anticipated by teachers in teaching listening strategies, awareness training and an integrated model were proposed Finally, classroom techniques and activities were compiled in the hope of assisting teachers with specific guidance on developing listening strategies in blended learning English environment In the main, the findings of the study relating to student expectations of listening strategies in blended learning English program supported previous research in a number of ways: students have various expectations of blended learning,actual experiences of learning listening strategies in blended learning courses 44 The interaction between students and instructors plays an important role in the learning process In this study, the participants who commented on the instructor, did so in relation to performing a supportive role and being prompt in replying to student questions and inquiries In the main, the findings of this study revealed positive student and instructor interaction experiences Yet this study suggests that there were different levels in the interaction with the instructors and that it seems that, if they wanted an effective interaction, they needed to be the one who first actively engaged in this process The reduction of the face-to-face sessions as mentioned previously was said to influence the interaction between students and instructors The reduced opportunities to directly communicate with the instructors meant that students may not have sufficient feedback The capacity of students to be able to engage with course content is also generally agreed to be a vital part of learning It is reported that students are selective and intentional in their interaction with course content with students tending to choose to use the course materials which they perceived to be directly related to achieving high scores Lecture notes are among the materials which are usually seen as very useful by the students Time constraints are reported as the main reason why students selectively access course content It is also noted that supplementary content was largely ignored by students, as they tended to rely upon instructors to provide relevant course content Course materials (lecture notes, course guides, supplementary materials such as reference books and audio or video aids) were also identified by the participants as valuable Previous research such as that by Sharafuddin and Allani (2011) concluded from survey data that the majority of students at a Kuwait university agreed and strongly agreed about the efficiency of the teaching materials including books, course guides and audiovisual aids The design of the learning interface is important as it can significantly affect 45 the learning experience for the student As described by Mijares (2012), the ―interface design refers to elements related to the look and feel of the blended learning system‖ Many of the participants commented favourably on their learning experience as a result of the user-friendly interface The study adds to research by drawing on experiences from students in Vietnam It also suggests a number of application of listening strategies such as usefulness, and accreditation, which have not been identified in the literature Also, unlike previous research which identified both positive and negative results, this study only concluded the former Further exploration of why this was the case is outside the scope of this study Furthermore, at Hanoi University of Industry, there is no evidence of a definition of listening strategies and blended learning in place or use Rather it would seem that the notion of listening in blended learning program, as involving a combination of face-to-face and blended learning, is the de-facto definition While the literature suggests that the weightings of each of these components can vary significantly, this does not appear to be the case at this context Rather it seems to the contrary, that there is a rather fixed view of these weightings, with the dominant amount of time being awarded to the online component, and with face-to-face assuming more of a secondary role According to the findings of this study, participants indicated that the fast and direct communications with instructors and peers during the face-to-face classes made their studying effective They felt they did not have to wait long to get an explanation or to receive the answers for their questions They also felt they could share knowledge and skills with other students of the same course This study seems to add more information that students said they not want the face-to-face sessions to be reduced in number or duration It is significant to note that although there were some contradictory reports about how often the face-to-face learning sessions were conducted, a majority of students said that the traditional lessons were limited in numbers In fact, they 46 indicated that the amount of face-to-face in their courses had reduced over the time of their enrolment, and that they were not happy with this reduction Almost all of the participants expressed the need to maintain or increase the numberof those lessons As they elaborated, they felt the face-to-face session helped promote student engagement as well as avoiding the dropout rates As a teacher, the researcher admitted the strong points of listening strategies and their effectiveness on blended learning program She agreed on the suitability of the content and level of difficulty of the online listening exercises to students Thanks to these exercises, students have chances to apply listening strategies and improve listening skill She emphasized that guessing intelligently in listening, results from the interviews indicated they did not have a full understanding of this strategy She all thought of guessing strategy as guessing the answers from the topic and the key words of the listening The researcher explained that students can base on instructions and key words of tasks in listening to guess the meaning Moreover, because of the background knowledge factor as a guessing clue, it is shown that the teachers were not fully aware of the detailed system of specific techniques in guessing intelligently in listening The teachers often asked students some information relating to the topic of the listening and helped students identify the key words of the questions or the statements provided before students listened Class observations also showed the teachers‘ efforts of helping students to use strategies intelligently However, these techniques are not enough to develop a full system of specific strategies in listening for students because they only concentrate on some clues such as the topic and the key words In conclusion, the teachers at held some understanding of listening strategies in blended learning environment but they failed to reach a full knowledge of the specific strategies The reason for this limited knowledge lies in the fact that listening strategies have not been properly investigated and introduced to English teachers and learners By this, the researcher meant the necessity of teaching 47 strategies in listening to students in blended learning program However, it is necessary to be equipped with more useful techniques to help students develop guessing strategies effectively 5.2 Limitations of the research Due to the time constraints and limited scope, the study remains certain shortcomings First, as students involved in this study came from one faculty at the target school, they partly narrowed the scope of participants If possible, the whole population of students should have taken part into the study so as to provide a complete picture of the situation in the school Concerning interview, owing to time constraints, only five students were selected to provide reports If time had been allowed, more participants should have been selected To sum up, those limitations need to be taken into careful consideration when further studies are conducted in the future In such a way, more fruitful results relating to the research topic will be produced 5.3 Suggestions for the further studies Future researchers who wish to conduct further study on the utilization of listening strategies in blended learning can delve into the topic by expanding and diversifying the participants of the study The scope can be also be varied by involving third-year or forth-year students In such a way, the topic can be expected to produce more generalizable results Additionally, apart from listening, the application of listening strategies in blended learning English into other three language skills should be investigated Henceforth, the whole picture of the exploitation of listening strategies in studying language skills in general will be drawn Furthermore, those further investigations can help to find out global implications for effective methods to develop listening strategies in blended learning English environment 5.4 Contribution of the research The application of language learning strategies into listening has been 48 identified and investigated in a number of studies, this study made a different investigation when discovering the issue through listening strategies in blended learning English environment Secondly, as the study explored a wide range of listening strategies, then delivered pedagogical implications for effective classroom techniques, it can serve as a detailed proposal to address communication technology in teaching listening To conclude, although the results of this study were not intended to be generalized, it is worthwhile for teachers to be aware of how listening strategies in blended learning English environment are currently employed by students, and what can be done to help them maximize the effect of application With detailed investigation, the researcher believes that this paper can be a reliable source of reference for not only teachers and students at the target school but also those who are undergoing the similar context of language teaching and learning in Vietnam REFERENCES Balci, M., & Soran, H (2009) Students‘ opinion on blended learning Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 10(1), 21-35 Retrieved from https://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde33/notes_for_editor/notes_for_editor_2.htm Bertrand, C & Bourdeau, L (2010) Research interviews by Skype: A new data collection method In J Esteves (Ed.), Proceedings from the 9th European Conference on Research Methods (pp 70-79) Spain: IE Business School Bliuc, A., Goodyear, P., & Ellis, R A (2007) Research focus and methodological choices in studies into students' experiences of blended learning in higher education The Internet and Higher Education, 10(4), 231-244 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2007.08.001 Cohen, A.D (1998) Strategies in learning and using a second language Essex, U.K.: Longman 49 Devine, T G (1982) Listening skills schoolwide: Activities and programs Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English Djiwandono, P I (2006) Cooperative Listening as a Means to Promote Strategic Listening Comprehension English Teaching Forum 44(3) Helgesen, M and Brown, S (2007) Practical English language teaching: Listening McGraw-Hill Hoang, V.V, Hoang, X.H, Do, T.M, Nguyen, T.P, Nguyen, Q.T (2006) English 10 Hanoi: Education Publishing House Hong-Nam, K & Leavell, A (2007) A comparative study of language learning strategy use in an EFL Context: Monolingual Korean and bilingual Korean-Chinese university students Asia Pacific Education Review, (1) 10 Ji, L Z (2003) Training the university English learners to predict in listening class (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No ED 482 582) 11 K R (2002) Blended learning: A strategic action plan for a new campus Seminole, FL: University of Central Florida 12 Lessard-Clouston, M (1997) Language Learning Strategies: An Overview for L2 Teachers 13 MOET (2007) Guidelines on Implementation of the Missions of the school year 2007-2008 about ICT (9584/BGDDT) 14 MOET (2009) Report on the development of higher education system, the solutions to ensure quality assurance and improve of education quality No: 760 /BC-BGDĐT MOET (2008) Directive 55 on Promoting Teaching, Training and Applying ICT in Education - Period 2008-2012 (55/2008/CT-BGDDT) 15 Murray, M., Perez, J., Geist, D., & Hedrick, A (2012) Student interaction with online course content: Build it and they might come The Journal of Information Technology Education, 11, 125-140 Retrieved from http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol11/JITEv11p125-140Murray1095.pdf 16 Nguyen, T.P.L (2007) An investigation into listening strategies applied by 10th form students at Ha Tinh Specializing Upper-secondary School An 50 unpublished MA thesis Hanoi: Hanoi National University 17 O'Malley, J.M & Chamot, A.U (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press 18 Oxford, R.L (1990) Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know Boston: Heinle & Heinle 19 Teng, H C (1998) A study of EFL listening comprehension strategies (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No ED 422 745) 20 Underwood, M (1989) Teaching listening New York: Longman 21 Ur, P (1984) Teaching listening comprehension Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University press 22 Vu, T.K (2004) Developing listening strategies for the learners of English at the Militiary Technical Academy An unpublished MA thesis Hanoi: Hanoi National University 23 Walters, B (2008) Blended learning - Classroom with On-line The Canadian Alliance of Life Skills Coaches and Associations Retrieved from http://calsca.com/Writings/walters_blended_learning.htm 24 Wang, S (2009) University student perceptions of effective e-learning strategies instructor used in blended courses Second International Conference on Computer and Electrical Engineering, vol.1, 586-590, 2009 doi: 10.1109/ICCEE.2009.276 25 Watson, J., Murin, A., Vashaw, L., Gemin, B., & Rapp, C (2010) Keeping pace with K-12 online learning: An annual review of policy and practice Evergreen Education Group report Retrieved from http://kpk12.com/cms/wp- content/uploads/EEG_KP2013-lr.pdf 26 Willing, K (1989) Teaching how to learn: Learning strategies in ESL Sidney: Macquarie University 27 Dao Thi Hong Yen (2014) The Application of Top-down Techniques in Teaching Listening Skills to English Non Major 10th Grade Students at Tam 51 Duong High School Unpublished M.A Thesis, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 52 APPENDICES APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS This survey questionnaire is designed for my study ―Students‘ listening strategies in a blended learning English environment ‖ Your assistance in fulfilling the following questions is greatly appreciated Please put a tick () in the given boxes to indicate your choice For some questions, you can choose more than one option Thank you so much for your help  General information? -Your age: ………………………… -How many years have you been learning English? What are your purpose(s) of learning listening? (You can choose more than one answer) A To get high marks of tests B To improve the communication skill C To study abroad D Others (please specify)……………… What you think of the importance of listening strategies in learning to listen in English in blended learning English environment? □Very important □ Important □ Normal □ Unimportant Which specific listening strategies are you learn listening skill in blended learning English environment? ((Tick in the box you agree with) 1: means “I never this” 2: means “I occasionally this” 3: means “I sometimes this” 4: means “I usually this” 5: means “I always this” Memory listening strategies in blended learning I English environment When hearing a new word, I connect the sound of the new word and an Image or picture on the word to help me remember the word I remember new English words or phrases what has been heard by remembering their location I think of relationship between what I already know and new things I hear in English Cognitive listening strategies in blended learning 5 English environment While listening , I pay attention to English patterns to understand the text better.go I look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in English that have been heard to help me understand better First, I focus to listen for main ideas, then for detail ideas While listening, I write notes, messages, down my notebook before giving an answer I pay attention to starting conversations in an English listening text to guess its meaning While listening, I try to translate words into Vietnamese to understand better I repeat English words which I not understand several times I try to make summaries of information that I hear to understand the whole text Compensation listening strategies in blended II learning English environment To understand unfamiliar words I hear, I make guesses While listening, I use situational context (e.g noise, speaker‘s voice,…) in order to understand the text better Metacognitive listening strategies in blended 5 learning English environment While listening, I consciously pay attention to information I need When listening, I had clear goals (listen for main ideas, listen for detail ideas or listen for identifying speakers‘ attitudes ) I think I am able to finish tasks in the listening While listening, I notice the mistakes which I had from listening texts and use that information to help me better Affective listening strategies in blended learning English environment I encourage myself to concentrate on listening English even when I can‘t hear anything I notice if I am tense or nervous while listening I share my feeling with my friends when I am listening English I try to keep calm and not be nervous while listening Social listening strategies in blended learning English environment I ask the teacher for clarification what I not III understand When listening, I exchange the information with friends to help me understand the text better Thank you again for your cooperation! IV APPENDIX Interview questions for students What you think about your listening competence? What are your general ideas about listening strategies in blended learning English environment? In your opinion, how necessary is it for teachers to teach students listening strategies in class? Do you think you are using different listening strategies to listen more efficiently in blended learning English environment? What you think are the difficulties students may encounter in learning listening strategies in blended learning English environment? What did you or what did you think you can to overcome the difficulties? V APPENDIX Interview questions for teachers What you think about your students‘ listening competence? What are your general ideas about listening strategies in blended learning English environment? In your opinion, how necessary is it for teachers to teach students listening strategies in class? Do you think your students are using different listening strategies to listen more efficiently in blended learning English environment? Can you give the names of listening strategies you have taught to your students? What you think are the difficulties teachers may encounter in teaching listening strategies to their students in blended learning English environment? What did you or what did you think you can to overcome the difficulties? VI ... STUDENTS’ LISTENING STRATEGIES IN A BLENDED LEARNING ENGLISH ENVIRONMENT (Chiến lược nghe sinh viên môi trường học Tiếng Anh kết hợp) M.A MINOR PROGRAME THESIS (Type I) Field : English Teaching Methodology... interviews Firstly, the results showed that both teachers and students at the target university strongly advocated the difficulties of teaching and listening skill and the importance of the listening... peers cooperating and 27.62% never practiced listening skill with their friends The finding was strongly supported by Oxford‘s summary (1990:147) ―Research shows that on their own, with no special