(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) an initial evaluation of the listening materials for first year english majors at the faculty of english language teacher education, ULIS, VNU as perceived by students and teachers a needs

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations vi List of tables and figures vii INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Listening and teaching listening in the foreign language classroom 1.2 Needs analysis in language teaching 12 1.3 Materials evaluation in language teaching 20 1.4 Materials adaptation in language teaching 28 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 32 2.1 Description of the context 32 2.2 Description of the participants 34 2.3 Methods of data collection 34 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com v 2.4 Methods of data analysis 37 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 39 3.1 Students’ listening needs 39 3.2 Evaluation of the current in-class listening materials for first-year ELT students as 46 perceived by the Ss and Ts 3.3 Discussions 60 CONCLUSION 64 Recapitulation 64 Recommendations 65 Significance, limitations of the research and recommendations for further study 67 References 69 Appendices I TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a foreign language ELT English Language Teaching ESL English as a second language ESP English for specific purposes FELTE The Faculty of Foreign Language Teacher Education L1 First language L2 Foreign language / second language ME Materials evaluation NA Needs analysis PSA Present situation analysis S(s) Student(s) T(s) Teacher(s) TSA Target situation analysis ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VNU Vietnam National University, Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Title Page Figure 1.1: Systematic approach to designing and maintaining language curriculum 16 (Brown, 1995) Figure 3.1: Ss’ overall opinions on their main listening problems 40 Figure 3.2: Ts’ overall opinions on their Ss’ main listening problems 41 Figure 3.3: Comparison between Ss and Ts’ opinions on Ss’ main listening problems 41 Figure 3.4: Comparison between Ss and Ts’ opinions on Ss’ main listening problems 42 Figure 3.5: Ss’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials 48 for first-year ELT Ss in terms content Figure 3.6: Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials 49 for first-year ELT Ss in terms of content Figure 3.7: Ss’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials 50 for first-year ELT Ss in terms of recordings Figure 3.8: Ss’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials 50 for first-year ELT Ss in terms of recordings Figure 3.9: Ss’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials 51 for first-year ELT Ss in terms of topics TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com viii Figure 3.10: Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials 52 for first-year ELT Ss in terms of topics Figure 3.11: Comparison between Ss and Ts’ opinions on the aspects of the current 53 in-class listening materials for first-year ELT Ss Figure 3.12:Comparison between Ss and Ts’ opinions on the aspects of the current 53 in-class listening materials for first-year ELT Ss Table 1.1: NA / initial assessment components (Brindley, 1984) 17 Table 2.1: Assessment in the “listening – speaking 1” course 34 Table 3.1: Opinions of Ss and Ts on Ss’ listening proficiency and attitudes towards V the importance of listening skill Table 3.2: Ss and Ts’ opinions on Ss’ main listening problems VII Table 3.3: Opinions of Ss and Ts on Ss’ wants in learning listening skill VII Table 3.4: Coding for listening needs interview transcript – question VIII Table 3.5: Coding for listening needs interview transcript – question IX Table 3.6: Ss and Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials for XIV first year ELT Ss Table 3.7: Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials XV for first-year ELT Ss in terms of objectives Table 3.8: Ss and Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials XV for first-year ELT Ss in terms of layout / graphics TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ix Table 3.9: Ss and Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials XVI for first-year ELT Ss in terms of content Table 3.10: Ss and Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials XVII for first-year ELT Ss in terms of recordings Table 3.11: Ss and Ts’ overall judgement on the current in-class listening materials XIX for first-year ELT Ss in terms of topics Table 3.12: Coding for listening materials evaluation interview transcript XX Table 3.13: Ss’ performance in listening tasks – theme “employment” XXVII Table 3.14: Ss’ performance in listening tasks - theme “holidays and festivals” XXVII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role in Ss’ language development According to Krashen (1985), a language is acquired by understanding the linguistic information people hear Morley (2001: 70) claims that on average, people can expect to listen “twice as much as we speak, four times more than what we read and five times more than we usually write” The significant role of listening in communication and language learning is also recognized by other researchers such as Dunkel (1991), Anderson and Lynch (1988) This skill can be considered as a very important input in foreign language learning; therefore it deserves sound attention from teachers (Ts) and learners Having spent two years teaching in the English Division 1, the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE), University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU), the author has had a number of informal talks with students (Ss) about their studies Many complaints and worries came from their difficulties and the lack of self-confidence in their own ability and performance in listening comprehension Their mid-term and end-of-term test results also showed that to many Ss, listening skill was a bigger challenge than other three English learning skills The results showed that many Ss did well with the reading, speaking and writing tests with some having maximum scores (i.e 10 out of 10) However, they were not as successful with the listening tests The scores for these tests were far lower than those for the other three ones, with some Ss scoring very low This indicates that a lot of attention should be paid to helping Ss improve this skill It is undeniable that materials play a crucial role in language teaching and learning According to Hutchinson and Torres (1994: 3), materials are “an almost universal element of *English language+ teaching Millions of copies are sold every year, and numerous aid projects have been set up to produce them in *various+ countries” Tomlinson (2003: 2) suggests that materials “include anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of a language.” He also claims that the needs and wants of the learners should be taken into consideration when designing materials Many researchers (Nunan, 1988; Peacock, 1999; Richards, 2011; Rubdy, 2003) share the same idea with him From this point of view, Ts should identify learner expectations and attitudes about how languages are learned and also explain the reasoning behind classroom methods in order to reduce any gap between learner and teacher beliefs This is a valuable source of data for Ts in designing, evaluating and adapting materials The importance of materials evaluation has been recognised by many researchers and experts in foreign language teaching such as Ellis (1997) and Robinson (1991) They claim that materials TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com evaluation should be carried out not only to choose among the available materials the most suitable for one’s particular situation but also to determine whether the chosen ones work for that situation after having been used for a period of time It can also bring general insights into how Ts use materials and suggest directions both for materials development and professional development activities (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994) The listening materials used for first-year English majors at FELTE, ULIS, VNU have been employed in the “listening - speaking 1” course since 2006 Some changes have been made to them based on informal feedback from some Ts at the end of the course During the end of term meetings for English division (which is in charge of the implementation of the course), Ts are requested to give comments on the materials they have been using during the semester The criticism that they make is discussed among all Ts and based on the final conclusion, the necessary changes will be made to the materials for the next school year However, no research has been done on a bigger scale to find out how Ss and Ts evaluated the materials As Ferris (1998) stresses, it is important to use both student and faculty informants when looking at the needs and difficulties of ESL Ss in various academic settings This would help to provide a well-rounded picture of the academic needs of those Ss whose first language is not English Therefore, to the author’s mind, a study with reflection of both Ts and Ss on the current materials will bring more validity and reliability to the materials evaluation Because of the given reasons, the author decided to use a needs-based approach to discover how the Ss and Ts evaluated the current in-class listening materials in order to help the Ss improve their listening skill Aims and objectives of the study This study aims to analyze and evaluate the listening materials for the first semester for first-year English majors FELTE, ULIS, VNU by seeking answers to the following questions: What are the first-year English majors’ needs when learning listening skill at FELTE, ULIS, VNU in Ss and Ts’ perspectives? To what extent the current listening in-class materials for the first semester meet their needs in Ss and Ts’ perspectives? Scope of the study Due to the small scale of the study as well as the limitation of time, this study focuses on evaluating the current listening materials for the first semester for first-year English majors at FELTE from the perspectives of the users of these materials (i.e Ss and Ts taking part in the listening-speaking TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com course school year 2010-2011) The materials to be evaluated include in-class materials in the form of handouts delivered to Ss in each lesson and CDs containing listening recordings for the tasks in the handouts Teacher’s pack with suggestions for lesson plans and supplementary materials are not included in this study Participating in the research are 100 first-year English majors of the school year 2010-2011 and 12 Ts in charge of teaching listening skill in the first semester The evaluation took place in the first semester of the school year 2010-2011 from September 2010 to January 2011 Methods of the study Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed in the research using the following tools: Questionnaires Two questionnaires on needs analysis were delivered to 100 Ss and 12 Ts at the beginning of the first semester of the school year 2010-2011 to collect the information about the Ss’ listening needs Two questionnaires on materials evaluation were delivered to the Ss and Ts at the end of the semester to ask them about their evaluation of the listening materials used during the semester After two random listening lessons, two questionnaires were delivered to 50 Ss chosen randomly from 100 participants They were used to collect information about the difficulties they encountered while doing the tasks in these lessons Further explanation for this set of questionnaires is presented in chapter 2, “methodology” Comment [YUN1]: Hang 2: questionnaire Em có giải thích rõ dùng questionnaire sau dự vào chương – methodology Follow-up interviews At the beginning of the first semester of the school year 2010 - 2011, an interview was conducted with 10 Ss randomly chosen among the participants to collect information about their listening needs At the end of the semester, another interview was done with 10 other Ss randomly chosen among the participants to judge how the materials met their needs in learning listening skill and what changes they would like to be made to the materials to better meet these needs The reason all the interviewees were Ss will be explained in chapter 2, “methodology” Observation Comment [YUN2]: Hang 3: Em thấy sinh viên chưa có khả diễn tả kiến vào questionnaire Chính sau trị chuyện gợi mở với em, em có câu trả lời rõ cho phần open-ended questionnaires GV có khả diễn đạt ngắn gọn đầy đủ ý tưởng nên em khơng thấy cần phải vấn hỏi họ nhắc lại viết questionnaire TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com During the semester, two random listening lessons in different classes were chosen for observation in order to obtain a general idea of how the Ss participated in activities in class and how well they performed in these tasks Task performance measurement After each observed lesson, all Ss’ papers were collected and analysed to gain insight into their task performance Significance of the study The findings of this research will be useful not only to the researcher and the materials developers but also to the teaching staff and first-year English majors at FELTE First of all, the research will provide Ts with insightful information on Ss’ listening needs and preferences as an input to materials design This information could possibly be used as additional evidence for some current hypotheses about first – year English majors’ listening needs in EFL within Vietnam Moreover, thanks to the research, Ss and Ts had an opportunity to raise their voice about what the Ss needed in learning listening skill, how well the current listening materials met these needs and what changes should be made to the materials in order to better facilitate the Ss Additionally, the outcomes of the research will help form a foundation towards improving the quality of the current listening materials They are to contribute to the database of English division in their regular materials reviewing activities Furthermore, it is hoped that the results obtained from the research will make some contributions to the field of materials evaluation Design of the study The study is divided into three parts as follows: Part A, “Introduction” includes the rationale for the study, the purposes, scope, significance, methods and design of the study Part B, “Development” starts with Chapter “Literature review” presents background knowledge to the study, the concepts and definitions to be used in the study such as the nature of listening comprehension, listening process, listening skills, listening difficulties in EFL as identified by former researchers, needs analysis, materials evaluation and adaptation This chapter would lead to the theoretical background that is used as the foundation for the study TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XXXIV This is the end of the questionnaire THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP! TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XXXV APPENDIX 11 LISTENING MATERIALS EVALUATION SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS This questionnaire is designed in order to gain your evaluation of the in-class listening materials used in the first semester for first year English majors Your assistance in completing the following items is greatly helpful and highly appreciated All the information provided by you would be used solely for the study purpose You can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank you very much for your co-operation How effectively did the materials help your students improve their listening skill? Circle the number 1,2,3,4 or to indicate your choice Very Effectively Neutral Ineffectively Very effectively ineffectively How interesting were the materials to your students? Circle the number 1,2,3,4 or to indicate your choice Very interesting Interesting Neutral Uninteresting Very uninteresting TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XXXVI How difficult were the materials to your students? Circle the number 1,2,3,4 or to indicate your choice Very difficult Difficult Neutral Easy Very easy Here is a checklist for evaluating the in-class listening materials for first year English majors Please tick √ the appropriate box Categories Statements Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly agree Layout / graphics disagree The materials are visually attractive (i.e good printing quality, colourful and appealing illustration, etc) Content The materials are up-todate The materials encourage your students‟ active involvement The materials encourage your students to take responsibility for their own learning There is a problem-solving and competitive element TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XXXVII The content is appropriate to your students‟ needs 10 Your students are equipped with skills and strategies which will allow them to operate effectively in English in professional/occupational situations 11 There is a balance between subject-specific language items (grammar, vocabulary, discourse structure) and operational skills and strategies in language use 12 Learning activities have outcomes or products which will help your students to evaluate their performance 13 The materials can accommodate different learning styles Recordings 14 Recordings are well recorded (i.e good sound quality with no hissing, distortion, background noise, etc) 15 CDs are of good quality construction TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XXXVIII 16 Recordings are authentic to an acceptable degree (i.e they are real language such as TV and radio broadcast, daily conversations, meetings, documents, speech, and films, etc) 17 Recordings are accompanied by background information, questions and activities which help comprehension 18 In the recordings, the speed of delivery is appropriate to your level 19 Recordings contain varied accents 20 Recordings are set in a meaningful context 21 Topics are varied Topics 23 Topics relate to your (People description, places, couples, sports, shopping, employment, rich, rules, fashion, holidays and festivals) students‟ knowledge system, i.e the knowledge of the world that they bring with them 23 Topics are suitable for your students‟ age group 24 Topics are sophisticated enough in content, yet within your students‟ language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XXXIX level Objectives of the course 25 The objectives of the materials correspond closely with these of the course 26 How should the materials be changed in order to better meet your students‟ needs? This is the end of the questionnaire THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP! TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XL Theme 10 - holidays and festivals A Warm up Work in pair and solve the following puzzle about festivals and feast-days TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com XLIX B Let’s Listen Task a You are going to listen to a woman talking about a terrible journey by plane Put the pictures in the correct order b Listen again Take note and recall the story from your memory TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com L Task Listen to the song “Warm and Fuzzy” by Billy Gilman and fill in each gap with ONE word Sleigh bells ringing choirs singing (1)………………… what 'ole Santa's bringing It's the warm and fuzzy time of year Snow flakes fall the (2)…………………is dropping Families out together (3)…………………… It's the warm and fuzzy time of year * Elves are working overtime Making all our (4)…………………… Reindeer hooves on all the (5)…………………… Of good little girls and boys Big old cups of (6)……………… cider Fall asleep by a cozy (7)………………… It's the warm and fuzzy time of year (repeat *) It's the warm and fuzzy time of year Santa's on his way C Follow-up Think about a difficult/ dangerous/ enjoyable…journey that you remember Tell our journey to your group TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 51 APPENDIX 12 SAMPLES OF THE IN-CLASS LISTENING MATERIALS FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT FELTE, ULIS, VNU Theme - employment A Warm-up Job Fair Match the word with the picture Then cross out the word not related to the job pilot: train/flying/plane programmer: hardware/software/calculator architect: plans/sea/building journalist: poetry/reporting/newspaper pharmacist: grain/medicine/prescription dentist: toothbrush/scientist/drill mechanic: repair/machine/sew business person: office/client/radio TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 52 Among these jobs, which one would you like the most? Why? B Let’s Listen Task 1: What they do? Listen and circle the correct job Then listen again and write the number of years people have been in their jobs pilot/journalist _ year(s) in the job teacher/dentist _ year(s) in the job mechanic/programmer _ year(s) in the job architect/pharmacist _ year(s) in the job Task 2: Who earns the most? Listen and check () the person who gets paid the most Then listen and complete the information about salary and the number of years she or he has worked a  housekeeper b  teacher Salary: Years in the job: a  computer programmer b  lawyer Salary: Years in the job: a  secretary b  waitress Salary: Years in the job: b  pharmacist a  travel agent Salary: Years in the job: Task 3: Do you like your job? Listen and write down the jobs Then listen again and find out what she/he likes best about the job Job Like best TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 53 Task 4: Choosing a job Listen and circle the job each person has now Then listen again and write the job or jobs the speaker had in the past artist dentist pilot waitress auto mechanic bus driver architect office worker taxi cab driver journalist pharmacist science teacher Past job(s) C Follow-up Complete the chart about the jobs of two people you know Then ask your partner Use: What jobs they do? What two words you associate with each job? People you know Name Job Two words associate with the job People your partner know Name Job Two words associate with the job TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 54 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 55 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 56 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ... purposes FELTE The Faculty of Foreign Language Teacher Education L1 First language L2 Foreign language / second language ME Materials evaluation NA Needs analysis PSA Present situation analysis S(s)... serving as the basis for much of the language input learners receive and the language practice occurring in the classroom especially in English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language. .. designing, evaluating and adapting materials The importance of materials evaluation has been recognised by many researchers and experts in foreign language teaching such as Ellis (1997) and Robinson