Rationale
Listening is considered the most frequently used skill in everyday life
According to Burley-Allen (1995), more than forty percent of our daily communication time is spent on listening, thirty five percent on speaking, sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing (cited in Miller, 2003) In fact, listening can help students build vocabulary, develop language proficiency, and improve language usage, improve pronunciation and develop speaking skills (Bacon, 1998) Therefore, listening is a very essential element in successful communication
Despite the acknowledged value of listening in language acquisition/learning and its complexity, the skill is still not receiving the attention it deserves in the ELT world as compared to literacy skills (Thanajaro, 2000) In Vietnam, many students have difficulty understanding spoken English when communicating with native speakers in spite of a long time studying at schools, which leads to communication breakdown Moreover, some students often panic when they hear the English language on television, radio, or in situations in which speech is fast and nothing is repeated This results from students’ lack of exposure to such real language listening Thus, there is an increase in the need of using authentic materials to teach listening According to Martinez (2002), authentic materials help learners improve English communicative proficiency Authentic materials refer to teaching resources that are not purposely produced for language teaching such as newspaper articles, movies advertisements, maps and comic books (Nunan, 1989) Therefore, the researcher decided to use movies in listening lessons
According to Garcia (2011), using movies is the best way to learn English, improves the learners’ listening skills, and increases their vocabulary and English language expressions Besides, watching movies helps the learners to improve pronunciation
As a teacher at Hanoi Law University, the researcher finds that the first-year Law students who major in English must encounter a lot of listening problems They complained that they had had few chances to listen to English frequently in class at high school and their listening skills had been scarcely developed, leading to the frustration and pressure about listening examination Exposed to real English through movies, the students are believed to learn English in a natural and effective way as they learned their mother tongue To some extent, it makes students more interested in listening English when they acquired the language for the purpose of entertainment, not merely for completing a compulsory subject.
Aims of the Study
As mentioned above, using movies in lessons may assist the student’s listening comprehension Therefore, the study aimed to improve the students’ listening skills by using movies in listening lessons.
Objectives of the study
There were two main objectives which were set for the study Firstly, the study was expected to investigate whether using movies in teaching listening could improve their listening ability Secondly, the researcher expected to find out the attitudes of the students towards watching movies to improve their listening skills in class.
Research questions
This survey aims at addressing the two following questions:
1 To what extent does using movies in teaching listening improve the students’ listening skills?
2 What are the students’ attitudes towards learning listening with movies?
Methodology
Action research was chosen as the primary research method in order to meet the aim and objectives of the study This method is also justified to offer significant benefits for the researcher, who is also an EFL teacher
The target population of this study was from one class K39B with 30 first- year students majoring in English in Law at English Department, Hanoi Law University
To attain the aim of the study, two data collection instruments were used: tests, questionnaires.
Scope of the study
Within the frame of this study, the researcher would like to work on using movies to improve listening skills for the first year students who major in English in Law at Hanoi Law University The study restricted to the first-year students from class K39B to whom the researcher was in charge of teaching listening Their level of English was intermediate It meant that this research mainly focused on the intermediate students.
Significance of the study
The study is expected to contribute to the development of teaching and learning listening skills It aims at helping students improve their listening skills by using movies The significance of this study is that it will provide teaching implications for EFL teachers in teaching listening In other words, this is significant for educators in providing implications for developing their listening syllabus, methods of teaching and assessment Besides, this research can be used as a reference source for those who are interested in this issue and a supplement to the previous studies on using movies to teach English.
Structure of the study
The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion
Part 1 includes Chapter 1 which states the rationale, aims, objectives, research questions, scope and significance of the study as well as its methodology
Part 2 consists of two chapters, namely theoretical background and method
- Chapter 1 provides the background of the study, including an overview of listening skills, and watching movies for teaching and learning and the summary of the previous researches on using movies for teaching
- Chapter 2 demonstrates the research methods applied in the study with details on how and why these methods were implemented Besides, the data collection procedure and data analysis methods are also illustrated in this chapter
- Chapter 3 presents data analysis, the results and discussions Part 3 summarizes the main issues covered in the paper, presents the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies in the research area
Following this chapter are the References and Appendixes for the whole research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Researchers and linguistics have presented different definitions on the concept of listening, ranging from the simple to the complicated ones According to Rankin (1952, p.874), listening is “the ability to understand spoken language”
Underwood (1989, p.17) defines that listening is a process of “paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear” More expansively, listening is a process of attending to the speech sounds and trying to understand the message
While Field (1998, p.38) sees that listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe
The most comprehensive definition of listening is that of Purdy (1997, p.8) listening is “the active and dynamic process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the expressed (verbal and nonverbal) needs, concerns and information offered by other human beings” This is one of the broadest definitions as it describes listening as a complicated process that involves the interrelated activities of both speakers and listeners Listening is not the unilateral activity of listeners The language of speakers, verbal and nonverbal, has great impacts on the listening ability of the listener
Rost (2002) also broadly relates listening to a four-stage process regarding receptive orientation (receiving what the speaker actually says), constructive orientation (constructing and representing meaning), collaborative orientation (negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding), and transformative orientation (creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy)
As can be clearly seen, from the simple to the complex definitions, listening is understood as an abroad term that covers listening comprehension In other words, listening comprehension is not a separate process but a component stage in the multi-stage listening Throughout the thesis, listening comprehension is understood in the same light as listening
To sum up, listening is not simply hearing and perceiving spoken sounds but a multi-stage process in which listeners actively grasp the facts and feelings by attending to what the speaker says, to how the speaker says it, and to the context in which the message is delivered
Listening is considered the most basic of the four main areas in teaching and learning foreign languages-listening, speaking, reading and writing In the past, it was characterized as a passive activity (Bacon, 1989; Morley, 1990); however, according to modern theorists, it is an “active process of constructing meaning from a stream of sounds” (Berne, 1998; McDonough, 1999, cited in Thanajaro, 2000, p.25)
Byrnes (1984) further proposes that “listening comprehension is a complex, problem-solving skill” which covers a set of sub-skills in regards forming hypotheses, drawing inferences based on the context and the language used
Listening requires not only hearing and perception of sounds but also understanding of the speaker’s intended message as Byrnes (1984) indicates that listening requires
“an interplay between all types of knowledge” (p.322) Listening comprehension is also described as an “interactive, interpretive process in which listeners engage in a dynamic construction of meaning” with the involvement of linguistic knowledge, background knowledge, meaning construction and responding Thanajaro (2000) emphasizes the role of background knowledge, discourse competence as well as guessing ability in facilitating effective listening Shrum and Glisan (1999) denote:
“Listening is a cognitive process in which listeners and readers draw upon four types of competencies as they attempt to comprehend a message: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence” (p.124)
Vandergrift (1997) further stresses on the active character of listening by relating it to a mental activity in which
“listener must discriminate between sounds, understanding vocabulary and grammatical rules, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gather in all of the above and interpret it within the immediate as well as the large sociocultural content of the utterance” (p.398)
Furthermore, as Edwards & McDonald (1993) argue that input of the listening process is spoken language which must be comprehended instantly, especially when the text cannot be repeated; listeners do not have time to consult a dictionary or review the previous message, constant attention are also required to gain comprehension Flowerdew (1994) also points out “listening text exists in time rather than space” (p.10) This unique characteristic indicates listening as a real- time processing activity in which listeners must comprehend the message as it is uttered In other words, listening involves “attention to a continuous stream of speech which is not under the timing control of the listeners” (McDough, 1993, p.34, cited in Flowerdew, 1994) Schwartz (1998) shares the same ideas by characterizing listening as a transaction between a sender and a receiver involving short-lived message and the receiver’s lack of control over what he or she hear
In total, the process of listening comprehension is highly complex It as a real-time process leaves listeners at a lack of timing control and, at the same time, requires them to utilize different cues, both linguistic and non-linguistic in order to gain comprehension
According to Underwood (1989, p.90), there are at least four common methods of teaching second or foreign language listening: grammar translation, grammar method, audio lingual method and task based method
In grammar translation method, students listen to a description of the rules of the second language in the first language As a result, when the second language is used, the focus of any listening is on translation of lexical items or grammar structures
To follow grammar method, the teacher requires students to look at a written text while they listen to a recording This forces them to do several things: identify words by their position in the sentence, work out the relationship between words and phrases, use forward and backward inference cues, and make intelligent guesses based on textual cues
Audio lingual method of listening emphasizes first listening to pronunciation and grammar forms and then imitating those forms by way of drills and exercises
PREVIOUS STUDIES
Within the recent decades, there have been many researches on using movies in teaching English worldwide, in which many have shown the positive results
Smith (2006) examined the use of film as a teaching tool for high school literature, which conducted in a middle school in rural Southeast Ohio The research involved forty students in the eighth grade Some students were high performing while others were low- performing, but all were in the same class The results of the study showed the effectiveness of using film in the classroom for learning literature Students enjoyed and were impressed with using film in the classroom as revealed in questionnaires The study showed a largely positive relationship between usage of film in the classroom and student response
Eken (2003) studied the use of feature films in the English classroom conducted by students of the Bilkent University, School of Applied Language Students deconstructed and analyzed films assigned by the teacher The results indicated that feature films help students improve their four English skills, obtain confidence in speaking in front of class and improve presentation skills
Fiorito and Torrie (2009) studied the use of subtitle foreign films in a second language classroom The instruments included lesson plans for reading fluency, lexicon, and grammar The results indicated that viewing films with subtitles helps students develop reading skills, learn new vocabulary and understand sentences
Thi Lan Anh (2010) examined the use of movies and videos to teach English vocabulary to tenth grade students The instruments comprised questionnaires and semi structured interviews The findings revealed that students had positive attitudes towards vocabulary learning Furthermore, students improved their pronunciation and learned new vocabulary from the movies
Duangemanee (2003) studied video techniques to enhance English listening abilities of freshman higher certificate vocational students and examine the students’ attitudes towards learning English through video The results indicated that the students’ listening skills and attitudes towards studying English increased after attending the experiment
In short, using movies in teaching English has been widely studied as a method of teaching by many researchers worldwide Movies are considered as authentic materials used to teach all aspects of a language as well as all skills Most of the studies stated that using these materials had the positive influence on the students’ language skills.
METHODOLOGY
The research is conducted to address the following two research questions:
1 To what extent does using movies in teaching listening improve the students’ listening skills?
2 What are the students’ attitudes towards learning listening with movies?
Since the study was designed to improve the first year students’ listening skills by using movies in teaching listening skills, the students’ role was put into great consideration Therefore, the participants are 30 first-year Law students majoring in English at class K39B at Hanoi Law University, of which the researcher was in charge
In the students’ first year at university, they had two semesters mainly studying four English skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) Their levels of grammar and vocabulary were quite good, as they had learned a lot in high schools in order to pass the entrance exam However, their listening skills were not practiced much at high school They have spent only 6 months learning listening skills at university However, compared to other Law students who did not major in English, these students’ listening skills were much better Their levels are intermediate The purpose of this course was to pass the listening tests at university and after 2 years with similar courses, they need to get IELTS certificate at least 6.5
The ultimate goal of this study is to improve the students’ listening skills by using movies in teaching listening To achieve the ultimate goal, the study used the quantitative Quantitative data were collected based on the results of the questionnaires, pre-test and post-test
Action research is adopted as the research approach to firstly answer the two research questions and finally achieve the aim and objectives of the study in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such an intervention” This method is also justified to offer significant benefits for the researcher, who is also a teacher Johnson (1995) points out three main advantages of action research namely to promote personal and professional growth, to improve practice to enhance student learning, and to advance the teacher profession
In order to conduct an action research, Nunan (1992) suggests seven steps:
These general steps were used in this action research
The data to be analyzed principally came from two main sources, namely listening tests and questionnaires
2.5.1 Pre- test and Post- test
The pre-test and post-test of listening skills (Appendix III and Appendix IV) were taken from Cambridge Practice Test for IELTS 5 (Vanessa& Clare, 2002) The reason the researcher chose the tests from this book because the goal of the students in this faculty is to get IELTS certificate Moreover, the aim of the syllabus was to improve the students’ listening skills and the tasks were designed to similar to IELTS test during the course The test consisted of only two first sections, each which was based on social situations Section 1 contains 10 note/sentence completion questions Section 2 contains 5 multiple choice questions The students listened to two separate sections twice The test lasted 20 minutes Grading scale was 10 points The pre-test and post-test were designed to have the same level of difficulty regarding the number of questions, question types, the length of the text, the text structure, the number of new words
Two questionnaires were delivered to students after they had finished the pre test and posttest
Before the intervention, or the experimental teaching phase, students filled out one survey questionnaire in order to provide insightful information regarding their prior experiences with learning through movies as well as their attitudes towards using movies in listening lessons The questionnaire covered 6 questions The first two questions were designed to investigate the students’ own experience of listening and the materials they had used in class The next two questions were designed to find out their experience of studying English with movies The last two questions focused on whether students expected the teacher to teach them with movies or not in order to help them improve their listening skills
After the intervention, the students were asked to complete another six-question survey questionnaire to express their attitudes towards movies –using lessons and give suggestions for improvement
Since the questionnaires were designed for collecting factual, behavioral and attitudinal data so that it used various types of questions regarding yes-no question, multiple- choice items, open-ended questions, and likert-scale However, most of the questions do belong to the two main kinds: multiple-choice and likert scale The survey questionnaires are in Appendix I and II
The data from the research results came from the information collected throughout three main phases, namely pre intervention, while intervention and post intervention With each stage, different data collection instruments were utilized in order to gain the most valid and reliable information The use of the instrument in the data collection process was primarily illustrated in the following timeline
The purpose of the first phase pre intervention, or before the experimental teaching phase, is find out the answer about the students’ attitudes towards learning listening with movies as well as the students’ listening abilities Therefore, one survey questionnaire and a test of listening comprehension were used as the data collection instruments for this stage
The procedure of data collection for the two instruments was carried out through three stages including piloting, delivering and collecting
This stage was carried out in order to assess the reliability of the listening test and the survey questionnaire The listening comprehension tests were pre tested with a sample group of 30 students Then after interpreting the collected data, weak, malfunctioning items were removed from the whole test, and some were modified
As to the questionnaires, ten volunteer students were chosen randomly from the sample group to complete the questionnaires They were encouraged to mark any items that they considered unnecessary, unclear and unsuitable Suggestions for improvement were welcome and highly appreciated Once the first versions were reviewed and completed, printed handouts were made for the researched participants
At the first stage, the pre-test was administered to all the students before the intervention The students were told that the result of the test was counted in the final learning result; therefore, all the students did the test to the best of their ability
The survey questionnaire was delivered at the break time of the class
Questions were exchanged frequently between the students and the researcher to ensure the comprehension of the questions and the accuracy of the collected data
After all, the researcher collected the data After all the questionnaire papers and tests were collected, the researcher checked whether all the given items had been collected or not Additionally, the participants got the researcher’s feedback for their questions about the questionnaires and the tests
The textbook used as listening and speaking materials for the first year students in semester 2 was Skillful Listening and Speaking 3 written by Mike Boyle &Ellen Kisslinger (2013) The textbook contains the syllabus, which was designed for teaching and learning at HLU during the second semester In order to fit in the listening syllabus, the researcher chose 10 movies that have the same topics as the ones in the syllabus They are sitcoms, drama and documentary films The humor of sitcoms motivates the students to over the language barrier to understand and focus on the lesson Besides, documentary films are useful because they have much more academic vocabulary and topics that are similar to those in the syllabus
On www.studyphim.vn and www.phimtienganh.com , movies were categorized into levels, so it was not very hard to find out the ones, which were suitable for the students’ levels The researcher only chose one part of each movie which lasted 7-10 minutes in order to fit the time of the lesson and the language content of the syllabus The films must be linked into syllabus through a certain topic, language items
DATA ANALYSIS: RESULTS, DISCUSSIONS
Before the intervention, the results of the first questionnaire suggested that most of the students were dissatisfied with their listening materials Most of the students did not find their listening textbook interesting
Figure 2: The students’ evaluation of listening materials used in the previous semester
The textbook only designed the tasks with a few pictures/illustrations and required students to listen and complete like a book for testing More than half of the subjects claimed that it did not contain many interesting tasks to help the students understand the background, instruct strategies, or build up vocabulary Pronunciation played important role in improving listening skills but there were few pronunciation tasks for them to practice before listening There were only a few pictures related to the topic Students claimed that they used to fall asleep when they listened to the recordings from the course book One student wrote that the materials did not catch their attention or motivate them to study listening skills and they went to the class for testing, not for learning
Question 3: Have you ever done any listening tasks that were designed from the movies?
Experience of using movies in studying English ever done never done
Figure 3: Experience of using movies in studying English
Regarding their experience with using movies in learning English, the result of questionnaire suggested most of the subjects had not done any listening tasks based on movies It was undeniable that tasks or books based on movies to be designed for learning English were scarce It was also time consuming to design new tasks instead of using available books Without any tasks designed, most of the students confessed that they sometimes or never watched the same movies more than twice to learn English It meant that the subjects did not utilize this kind of media for studying
Question 4: Do you often watch the same English movies more than twice to study English?
Table 3: Student’s experience of using movies in studying English
In fact, in order to acquire language, it is very essential that they watch the same movies at least 3 times If students do not watch each movie again, they cannot learn anything from the movies because for the first time, normally we just focus on the content of the movies, not on the language that is necessary for their study From the investigation, it was necessary that a new method with the teacher’s guidance should be applied to change the unexpected situation
The improvement in listening performance was strikingly illustrated through difference in their listening results in the pre-test and post-test In order to examine the effect of using movies in teaching listening, SPSS software, more specifically the Paired Sample T tests, was employed to analyze and compare the students’ results in the pre-test and the post test Below is the result of the analysis process
Mean N Std Deviation Std Error Mean
Table 4: Descriptive Statistics for the group’s performance in the pre-test and post-test
As can be seen, there was a significant rise in the average score of the whole students In the pre test, the mean stood at 6.00 After five week training, this figure rose to 7.07, which is an indicator of the students’ general improvement
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Pair
Table 5: Results of the Pair Sample T-tests
As the level of significant shows, it was smaller than 0.05 in the results of the groups Therefore, the experimental teaching phase did have positive effects on the studied students’ listening ability It meant that the students got benefits from this intervention
According to the results from the questionnaire after the posttest, most of the students stated that the experimental teaching phase was effective for their study with ten students choosing “effective” and fifteen students choosing “quite effective”
Figure 4: Effectiveness level of the experimental teaching course
The students’ improvement was evidently shown, which demonstrated the necessity and effectiveness of using movies to enhance the students’ listening ability Most of the subjected confessed that they learned much from the course that provided them with vocabulary and pronunciation Moreover, the visual aids were helpful for them to understand and memorize the new words as well as the messages better Some students explained that they remembered what the teacher taught at class and they had fun while listening, which made it easier for them to focus on listening tasks
3.1.2 The students’ attitudes towards learning listening with movies
Regarding the students’ attitudes towards using movies in studying listening skills in class, the result of the survey showed that all of the students agreed with the effectiveness of using movies in studying English However, not many students watched the same movies more than twice to study and there were not many listening tasks based on movies Therefore, it was assumed that a teacher’s guidance was necessary to help the students utilize this media for their English improvement
Question 5: Would you like the teacher to use English movies to teach listening skills?
Figure 5: The students’ attitudes towards studying with movies at class
It was apparent that students were very eager to study English with movies in class The majority of the students (27) would like to watch movies with the teacher’ guidance for studying English It was predicted that they were motivated and excited to learn new things from movies at class Only 3 students had not decided yet Although the results of the first questionnaire could not prove that the students made progress with movies-using lessons but their answers showed that they would have more motivation to learn listening at class Once they had inspiration, they would focus more on lessons instead of falling asleep
The last question was to help the researcher find suitable movies for the students’preferences
Table 6: The students’ preferences in movies
Most of the students chose comedy and romantic movies and their second choices are science fiction and drama These kinds of movies were good for learning language because the characters talked a lot and the students would get used to many specific real life situations Documentary films were useful because they contained more academic words, suitable for prepare for IELTS, TOEFL tests
Action movies were amazing but they contained so many scenes and fewer words, so they were not suitable for studying
After the intervention, the subjects admitted that watching movies had positive influence on their listening skills They were very excited with the lessons and concentrated more on study at class The majority of the students confessed that they were satisfied with the five-week learning session as they gained considerable knowledge about the new way to learn listening skills Only 1 student were dissatisfied with the course
Figure 6: The students’ satisfaction with the course after the intervention
According to the results of questionnaire 5, 23 students said that they understood and guessed the contents more easily based on the scenes Most of the students paid more attention to listening when they were watching movies, it was undeniable that if the subjects would like to get the entertainment from movies, they needed to overcome the language barrier ;therefore, it really motivated the students to study at class instead of getting boredom All of the students confessed that they had fun while watching movies and listening at the same time They did not fall asleep as they liked the movies and the scenes attracted them Moreover, they learned a lot from the movies such as pronunciation, accent and new words used in real life situations Watching movies was really a new effective way to learn English skills at class
On the other hand, some students claimed that their listening skills were not improved much because many tests they are going to take have more academic words than those in movies A few said that they could not catch up with the speed of speakers and they were unfamiliar with some accents in movies