INTRODUCTION
The role of English as “global language” has now been asserted with many eloquent testimonies of its usefulness and contributions in many fields of life such as science, technology, culture, education, economy, entertainment and so on
English has helped people closer in „global village‟ (Nguyen, T N., 2008) and helped them broaden their knowledge as well With its wide use as the dominant language in media, books, etc, English has brought people many chances to get to know about other countries and their cultures, literature works, traditions, etc., thus, broaden their knowledge with the help of the common and popular language
English is used as the most common language in external communication of many fields Since “Đoi moi” with “opened” policy, Vietnam has been “closer” to the dynamic outside world Vietnamese people now can easily access information, entertainments, books, science, and high technology which are usually in English
Businessmen, tourists, scientists, etc come to Vietnam bringing with them many chances to help develop the country in many aspects Most of them often use English in communication that makes the use of English in Vietnam more and more widely and important
In the Educational System of Vietnam, English has now been a compulsory subject in curriculums in schools and universities English is considered not only an interest or a favourite subject but also practical and great demand for students for their higher study as well as for their success in the future Thus, “its study is considered as an academic pursuit” (Nguyen, T N., 2008)
In learning English for communicative purposes, learning skills receives great interests Although each of the four skills – reading, listening, writing, speaking, has their own characteristics and they are challenging in their own way, listening is considered the most challenging skill The factors that affect the students‟ listening ability are various, they may come from the students themselves (their background knowledge, motivation, interest…), from the learning context, from the learning material, or from teaching syllabus
In attempt to improving students‟ listening skills, I have decided to carry out a study namely “ Developing Listening Skills through Gap-fill Tasks for the First
Year Non-English Major Students: an Action Research Project at Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment”
The main purpose of this research is to study the effects of using gap-fill tasks on improving the students‟ listening skills at Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment (HUNRE) The specific objectives of the study are:
- To figure out difficulties perceived by students in learning listening skills
- To find out effective ways to help improve students‟ listening skills
- To investigate whether doing gap-fill listening tasks can help students improve their listening skills from students and teacher‟s perspectives
In order to obtain the objectives of the study, the following research questions were formulated:
1) What are the difficulties experienced by the first – year students at HUNRE in learning listening skills?
2) What should be done to improve the students’ listening skills?
3) To what extent do gap-fill tasks help the first-year students at HUNRE improve their listening skills, from both students’ and teacher’s perspectives?
With the limit of a minor thesis and due to the limited knowledge and time, I could just carry out the investigation on a small scale This action research was conducted for only nine weeks with three listening lessons and in the context of 45 first-year students at HUNRE in the second semester of the academic year 2012-
2013 In additions, as aforementioned, this study focuses on using gap-fill exercises to teach listening skills to the above students Hence, the results of this study is limited to the above teaching context and participants
To realize the objectives of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used The data for the study were collected through the following instruments:
- Talks with colleagues and students: were conducted at the very beginning of the study to identify students‟ problems in learning listening skills
- Document analysis 1: the analysis focuses on listening tasks in the course books to see whether they are suitable with students level and interests or not
Then some adjustments could be made to match students‟ level and interests
- Document Analysis 2: The analysis of students‟ results of the first semester was conducted to have deeper understanding of students‟ right competence in English
- Pre-test was designed to find out the students‟ listening skills through gap-fill tasks, before taking the action
- Learning diaries were done by students (with clear instruction of the researcher) to record their comments on the tasks and exercises as well as the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties perceived by the students during the lesson, and their general comments on the learning listening skills through gap- fill tasks
- Teaching diaries were written after each lesson to record the students‟ reaction or performance in learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks The diaries also record the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties occurred during the lesson in the perspective of the teacher
- Post-test was designed to find out the students‟ listening skills through gap-fill tasks, after taking the action
The study consists of three parts as follows:
Part I: The Introduction provides the basic information such as rationale of the study, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, methods of the study and the design of the study
Part II: The Development consists of three chapters Chapter I is the literature review in which theoretical background relevant to the purpose of the study is discussed In the second chapter, Chapter II, the methodology of the study is explained with detailed description of how the study is conducted The last chapter is to report the data analysis as well as the results of the study
Part III: The Conclusion summarizes what has been studied Then some recommendations are proposed, some limitations of the study are pointed, and some suggestions for further research are offered.
DEVELOPMENT
1.1.1 Definitions of listening and listening comprehension 1.1.1.1 Listening
The definitions of listening vary from author to author and in fact it is not easy to describe as well as to have a thorough view of it Accordingly, Field (1989) states that “listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe
Learners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large socio-culture context of utterance.” (Field, 1989)
Brown (1994) also shared the above view when arguing that listening is a skill in which to identify and understand what is being said, listeners must comprehend “a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary” To make it easier to understand, Rost (2002) gave a clear description in which he defined
“listening, in its broad sense, is a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation); constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation)
It can be seen from the above views that listening is not a simple activity of hearing things but it is a complex mental process requiring a listener to have certain competence to understand an aural message
As with listening, listening comprehension is defined differently by different authors, but we can see a common view that listening comprehension is thought not to be a single activity but a complicated process According to Boyle (1983),
“Listening comprehension is defined as the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language When comprehending something, we can understand what is said It is assumed that speaking and writing are the process of encoding the message while listening and reading decode them Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perspective skill involving identifying and retaining information orally received.” Garry Buck (2001) emphasizes that it is “an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound” In this active process, “a number of different types of knowledge are involved; both linguistic knowledge and nonlinguistic knowledge” By this he means that listening requires much more than just using ears to receive sounds If one doesn‟t have enough required knowledge of both linguistics and non-linguistics, he can‟t do the listening comprehension well
Rixon (1986) makes a classification of listening comprehension basing on its different involvements The classification consists of two types: intensive and extensive listening Extensive listening involves listening to get general understanding, for example, watching a film, understanding and enjoying a story; or listening and carrying out instructions Intensive listening, on the other hand, involves more detailed analysis of the language used or listening for specific information Listening for specific information involves finding answers to specific questions
Brown and Yule (1983) prefer to use the terms “degrees of comprehension” when discussing listening comprehension The authors suggest a list of four degrees of comprehension on which listening exercises or tasks can be designed These degrees are (1) The listener can repeat the text; (2) The student should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used in that text; (3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric and to determine which was referred to; and (4) The student should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied
In short, in order to comprehend an oral message in foreign or second language, the listener is required much more than understanding the verbal message He must have the background knowledge needed to accomplish the given tasks of such an active process
1.1.2 Listening skills in learning a foreign language
For a long time in the history of language teaching, students were expected to be structure competent Such approaches as Grammar Translation or Audio-Lingual focus on learner‟s imitation of dialogues or grammar and pronunciation drill and get their little attention to listening In addition, the syllabuses used for these approaches also show their emphasis on learner‟s identification of language
“products”, but cursory role of listening in recognition of those products in the syllabus In those cases, learners were considered inactive in listening lessons and listening was just a passive skill in language learning In listening lessons, learners mainly heard the message, trying to elicit the meaning from individual syntactic and semantic components of utterances and discourses They often paid almost no attention on the importance of the other factors apart from words, structures of the discourse such as background knowledge of speech, intonation, stress, and speaker‟s intention Following this trend, the teacher often conducted the lesson as testing listening comprehension rather than teaching it Students were not given enough instructions of what to do before they listen to the tape This brought about a lot of challenges for students and they could not manage to get the meaning of the utterance without support of the teacher with their own experience of success
For the last few decades, in a number of studies, there have been changes in the view of listening comprehension, in which it has no longer a passive skill but has become an active skill in language learning According to Littlewood (1981), listening demands active involvement from the hearer In order to construct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic
Nunan & Miller (1995) define the important role of listening in learning a foreign or second language as “listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development spoken language proficiency.” This point of view follows Rost‟s (1994) ideas in which he also appreciates the important role of listening as follows:
- Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin
- Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since the learner must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of language is essential
Moreover, learners‟ failure to understand the language they hear is impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning
- Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand language as it is actually used by native speakers
- Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners‟ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language (Rost, 1994:141-142, cited in Nunan and Miller, 1995)
According to Doff (1988), listening skill is crucial in improving communicative ability because “we cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skill
Indeed, if we want to speak well, we firstly must listen to what others say and understand them clearly.”
It is to say that, the need of learning listening skills is inevitable as listening ability plays an essential role in the success of learning a foreign or second language in particular and in global communication in general
1.1.3 Difficulties in learning listening skills
LITERARUTE REVIEW
Listening skills
1.1.1 Definitions of listening and listening comprehension 1.1.1.1 Listening
The definitions of listening vary from author to author and in fact it is not easy to describe as well as to have a thorough view of it Accordingly, Field (1989) states that “listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe
Learners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large socio-culture context of utterance.” (Field, 1989)
Brown (1994) also shared the above view when arguing that listening is a skill in which to identify and understand what is being said, listeners must comprehend “a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary” To make it easier to understand, Rost (2002) gave a clear description in which he defined
“listening, in its broad sense, is a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation); constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation)
It can be seen from the above views that listening is not a simple activity of hearing things but it is a complex mental process requiring a listener to have certain competence to understand an aural message
As with listening, listening comprehension is defined differently by different authors, but we can see a common view that listening comprehension is thought not to be a single activity but a complicated process According to Boyle (1983),
“Listening comprehension is defined as the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language When comprehending something, we can understand what is said It is assumed that speaking and writing are the process of encoding the message while listening and reading decode them Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perspective skill involving identifying and retaining information orally received.” Garry Buck (2001) emphasizes that it is “an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound” In this active process, “a number of different types of knowledge are involved; both linguistic knowledge and nonlinguistic knowledge” By this he means that listening requires much more than just using ears to receive sounds If one doesn‟t have enough required knowledge of both linguistics and non-linguistics, he can‟t do the listening comprehension well
Rixon (1986) makes a classification of listening comprehension basing on its different involvements The classification consists of two types: intensive and extensive listening Extensive listening involves listening to get general understanding, for example, watching a film, understanding and enjoying a story; or listening and carrying out instructions Intensive listening, on the other hand, involves more detailed analysis of the language used or listening for specific information Listening for specific information involves finding answers to specific questions
Brown and Yule (1983) prefer to use the terms “degrees of comprehension” when discussing listening comprehension The authors suggest a list of four degrees of comprehension on which listening exercises or tasks can be designed These degrees are (1) The listener can repeat the text; (2) The student should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used in that text; (3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric and to determine which was referred to; and (4) The student should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied
In short, in order to comprehend an oral message in foreign or second language, the listener is required much more than understanding the verbal message He must have the background knowledge needed to accomplish the given tasks of such an active process
1.1.2 Listening skills in learning a foreign language
For a long time in the history of language teaching, students were expected to be structure competent Such approaches as Grammar Translation or Audio-Lingual focus on learner‟s imitation of dialogues or grammar and pronunciation drill and get their little attention to listening In addition, the syllabuses used for these approaches also show their emphasis on learner‟s identification of language
“products”, but cursory role of listening in recognition of those products in the syllabus In those cases, learners were considered inactive in listening lessons and listening was just a passive skill in language learning In listening lessons, learners mainly heard the message, trying to elicit the meaning from individual syntactic and semantic components of utterances and discourses They often paid almost no attention on the importance of the other factors apart from words, structures of the discourse such as background knowledge of speech, intonation, stress, and speaker‟s intention Following this trend, the teacher often conducted the lesson as testing listening comprehension rather than teaching it Students were not given enough instructions of what to do before they listen to the tape This brought about a lot of challenges for students and they could not manage to get the meaning of the utterance without support of the teacher with their own experience of success
For the last few decades, in a number of studies, there have been changes in the view of listening comprehension, in which it has no longer a passive skill but has become an active skill in language learning According to Littlewood (1981), listening demands active involvement from the hearer In order to construct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic
Nunan & Miller (1995) define the important role of listening in learning a foreign or second language as “listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development spoken language proficiency.” This point of view follows Rost‟s (1994) ideas in which he also appreciates the important role of listening as follows:
- Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin
- Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since the learner must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of language is essential
Moreover, learners‟ failure to understand the language they hear is impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning
- Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand language as it is actually used by native speakers
- Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners‟ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language (Rost, 1994:141-142, cited in Nunan and Miller, 1995)
According to Doff (1988), listening skill is crucial in improving communicative ability because “we cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skill
Indeed, if we want to speak well, we firstly must listen to what others say and understand them clearly.”
It is to say that, the need of learning listening skills is inevitable as listening ability plays an essential role in the success of learning a foreign or second language in particular and in global communication in general
1.1.3 Difficulties in learning listening skills
Gap-fill tasks
As listed in the previous part, gap-fill tasks that usually belong to listening for specific information purpose are those of major tasks in learning listening skills It can be seen clearly that gap-fill exercises are widely used throughout the language teaching world Commonly, gap-fill exercises are often considered as a means for students to demonstrate their understanding of vocabulary in context, discouraging memorization of translations (Smith et al, 2010) However, with various type of gap-fill (or cloze) tests nowadays, the task of gap-filling doesn‟t only mean to fill in the blank with a certain word but also choosing from a bank of given words or alternative options, etc
Moreover, the gap-fill (or cloze) test is valued as an effective instrument which has great reliability and validity in measuring general language proficiency This view can be seen studies of cloze tests of many researchers, such as Anderson, 1976;
Brown, 1983; Fotos, 1991; Weir, 1990, cited in Simon et al, 2010 )
In order to gain success in learning listening skill, it is crucial for students to be given appropriate tasks at certain stage of listening as well as at certain level of language competence Those students with low level of English competence could not accomplish such complicated tasks as making inferences or listening for gist In this case, it seems to be more effective for students to do tasks that help them understand the text well Those tasks including gap-fill tasks in which students may be required to listen and fill in the gap themselves or they may choose from suggested answers to fill in the gaps
1.2.2 Types of gap-fill exercises or tests
Gap-fill exercises are widely used throughout the language-teaching world And up to now, many types of gap-fill exercises (or cloze) have been created and applied in language-learning classroom
Cloze test was first introduced by Taylor (1953) 1 with the basic form of “the entire word is rationally or randomly deleted” from the sentence or text Nowadays, gap- fill (or cloze) test can be designed differently with different feature Following are common types of the cloze test (cited from the above-mentioned website)
- Open gap-filling: students are given a text with some missing words or phrases
They are asked to listen to the recording and fill in the blank of the texts
- Banked gap-filling: choose the appropriate word from a bank of alternatives
- The fixed-ratio cloze (the random cloze): Every n th word is deleted to be suitable for assessing overall language abilities (Alderson, 2000; Bachman, 1985; Oller, 1979; Steinman, 2002) The following is an example of a sixth-word deletion cloze test
Example of fixed-ratio cloze test
People today are quite astonished by the rapid improvements in medicine
Doctors 1) _ becoming more specialized, and 2) _ drugs are appearing on the 3) daily At the same time, 4) _ are dismayed by the inaccessibility 5) _ doctors when they are needed 6) _ doctors‟ fees are constantly on 7) _ rise, the quality of medical 8) _ has reached an abysmal low
1 The literature review presented in 1.2.2 is cited from document retrieved from http://www.ukessays.com/dissertation/literature-review/literature-review-of-the-cloze-test-english- language.php
I just make some small adjustments to fit the purpose of this study.
- The rational cloze: Only specific words are deleted to be appropriate for a particular purpose, such as testing grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary (Bachman, 1985) As can be seen in Example 8, a rational cloze test where functional words are deleted to assess grammar is presented
Example of rational cloze test
Typically, when trying to test overall understanding 1) the text, a tester will delete those words 2) seem to carry the main ideas, or 3) cohesive devices that make connections 4) texts, including anaphoric references, connectors, and so 5) However, the tester then needs 6) check, having deleted key words, that they 7) indeed restorable form the remaining context
- The conversational cloze: some words or sentences are deleted to determine the communicative language skills of native- and the non-native-test-takers (Hughes,
2003) The student is required to fill in what is missing in the blanks, as shown in the following example
David: Hello, Mike How are you?
Mike: Not too bad, David, and you?
David: OK You know, (1) been trying to work out (2) to go on holiday this year (3) a real problem I really can‟t decide where to go Any ideas?
Mike: Well, I suppose you could try the South (4) France
David: No, I don‟t really think so I don‟t know why, exactly Maybe it‟s (5) bit expensive down there
- The multiple-choice cloze: Every n th word or specific words are deleted and choices of approximately two to five words are also provided for each deleted part
So the multiple-choice cloze provides more choices, is easier than traditional cloze tests (Chapelle & Abraham, 1990), although its construction seems to be complicated (Hinofotis & Snow, 1980) However, the multiple-choice cloze test can be utilized for testing both specific skills and language proficiency
Example of Multiple-choice cloze
A farmer‟s daughter had been out to milk the cows and was returning home, carrying her pail of milk on her head As she walked along, she (1) _ thinking:
(A) started (B) had to (C) prepared (D) began to be
- The matching cloze: each deleted word, with or without additional distractors, is usually provided in alphabetical order and put in a column on the right of the cloze passage This form of language test, featuring ease of construction and scoring, is suitable for measuring specific knowledge of English language such as vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension for native and non-native elementary students (Baldauf & Propst, 1979) Students are required to match the correct word provided in the right column with the numbered blanks, as shown in the following example
Ken and Tom like dogs (1) like big brown dogs (2) little white dogs Tom (3) a brown dog He likes (4) with his dog
It‟s going to school with him a and b dog c has d playing e they f Tom
- The cloze elide: Irrelevant words are added to the original text, and the students‟ task is to find these additional words and delete them (Alderson, 2000; Steinman,
2002) However, the cloze elide test is very difficult to construct and is suitable for assessing reading speed (Alderson, 2000)
In short, each type of the above mentioned exercises has their own strong points
It, however, requires careful consideration of choosing the suitable type for certain learners, in certain contexts, and with certain purposes For those students who are at elementary and pre-intermediate level, open gap-filling, banked gap-filling, conversational cloze, multiple-choice cloze, and matching cloze sound more suitable than the rest mentioned.
Previous studies
Some recent studies of teaching and learning listening skills also mentioned the use of gap-fill tasks as a method to improve student‟s listening skill Tran, Thi Oanh
(2011) carried out a study entitled “The use of song to improve listening skills for students” at her workplace In her study, Oanh found out that her students were interested in gap-filling tasks and often “felt excited” when doing this tasks
However, gap-fill tasks are just one of many tasks she used in her study In an attempt to help students improve their listening skills, Nguyen, Thi Anh Tuyet
(2007) conducted a study in which she tried to find out the real problems faced by her students and offered some solutions to help improve her students‟ listening ability Sharing the same wish to help students develop their listening skills, Tran, Thi Lan (2006) suggested some techniques to help improve students‟ listening ability after finding out that her students encountered a lot of difficulties in their learning listening skills Her suggestions focus on techniques applied at three state of listening (pre-, while- , and post-listening) Having a quite profound study on listening tasks, Vũ, Thị Thành Dinh (2011) in her “Improving 11 th form students’ listening comprehension through modified listening tasks of the new textkook English 11 at Kinh Mon High School, Hai Duong” concluded that “modified listening tasks were quite effective as the tasks could help be students more engaged into the lessons and their listening competence was enhanced” Dinh used four types of listening tasks so the results of the study were distributed by all the four modified listening tasks, not any single one
In sum, those studies focus on many need-to-be-solved problems at one time and the results of the studies involve many factors In addition, in those researches, gap- fill tasks were applied simultaneously with other tasks such as T/F listening; Q&A listening, etc., thus the results of these studies may not reveal exactly how much gap-fill tasks contributed to the improvement of students‟ listening skills
CHAPTER II THE METHODOLOGY 2.1 Context of the Study
The study was carried out at HUNRE where I have been working for about five years The description of the study‟s context is given as follows
2.1.1 An overview of teaching and learning English at HUNRE
Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment (HUNRE) is a newly upgraded university from Hanoi College of Natural Resources and Environment The university belongs to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment The university has seven major faculties – Faculty of Geology, Faculty of Environment, Faculty of Information Technology, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Hydrographic Meteorology and Water Natural Resource, Faculty of Landing Management, and Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography The English Department is directly under the management of the university managing board
English language teaching at HUNRE is undertaken by the English Department‟s staff of 16 teachers whose ages range from 25 to 55 Most of them were educated in the English language department either at the University of Language and International Studies (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) or Hanoi University, and the rest graduated with English major from other universities One of 16 teachers is now a PhD student; nine out of them have obtained M.A Degrees in TESOL, and four others will get their M.A Degrees in one or two year‟s time
Most of the teachers have more than five years of teaching experience and they have always shown great enthusiasm and interest in their work
The students at HUNRE come from different areas in Northern and Central Parts of Vietnam Most of them learnt English for three or seven years at school while only a few of them learnt other languages such as French, and there are no students who did not learn any foreign language at all In fact, the students‟ English proficiency is various Some of the students are quite good at English, while a big number of them have just little English Some others even know nothing about English at all
The English training program at HUNRE is prescribed to the curriculum for the first and second year students with the amount of 210 class hours in total, of which 150 class hours are spent on General English (GE) in the first and second semester and 60 class hours are on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in the third or fourth semester In GE courses, the students are taught English for general purposes and the course books in use are the first and second ones (Elementary and Pre-Intermediate) in the series of New Cutting Edge written by Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor (first published 2005) After GE courses, the students are expected to cover basic grammatical points of the English language and a certain amount of general vocabulary In terms of language skills, they are supposed to have ability to communicate in English at elementary and pre-intermediate levels
As mentioned above, due to short age of development and financial obstacles, the university cannot facilitate its teaching and learning condition with hi- tech equipment At present, there are about 50 classrooms and each of which has about 35-70 seats for students Meanwhile, each class has about 50 to 80 students so classes are usually too crowded and in fact, are not suitable for English lessons where it should be suitable for upto 25 students each In terms of teaching curriculum, the students have 150 lessons of 45 minutes in their two first semesters for learning GE In the first semester they have 75 lessons and 75 more for the next one This amount of time shows that students don‟t have much time to practice English because the time allowed is divided among teaching the four skills as well as teaching grammar and structures It can also be seen that the amount of time allocated on listening skill is modest, meanwhile listening is considered a “complex skill” and requires a lot of practice At present, there is no language laboratory which is very effective for learning listening Cassettes are used for teaching listening that is challenging for students because of the crowded classes Those students who sit at the end of the classroom sometimes can not hear the sound clear enough or at least they may have difficulties of concentration
The course book New Cutting Edge is written for international students It takes CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) as the main teaching method The four core skills are integrated to foster comprehensive linguistic development Its design is for language skills learning, along with supplying the students needed language items and vocabulary
To some extent, the course books (elementary and pre-intermediate versions) are thought to be not really suitable for the students at HUNRE In fact, most students are not used to learning skills because when learning at high school they spent most of their time doing multiple-choice tests and had little time to practice listening or speaking as they were not the target in their exam In addition, some tasks in the course books are too difficult or not familiar with the students
Especially, the results of the talks with students and colleagues show that the listening tasks in the course books are difficult and some of them are not suitable for the students This results in the fact that the students are not interested in and cannot accomplish the given tasks
I graduated in 2005 and have 8 years of experience in teaching English I have been teaching English at HUNRE for about 5 years I am now attending a Master course at University of Languages and International Studies
Three colleagues who took part in the talks are those of experienced teachers with more than 5 years of teaching experience and they are also having classes of the same level as mine
The main subjects of the study are 45 first- year students (32 males and 13 females) in my class - class ĐH2K1 2 at HUNRE in the academic year 2012-2013
Their ages are between 18 and 20 They are supposed to have pre-intermediate level of English In fact they are not really good at English This can be proved by their results in the final examination of the first semester as well as their daily
2 In the first semester, the class had 54 students, however, 3 of them had dropped their study and 6 others had changed their major or moved to other faculties performances in class Although they have finished English 1 in the first semester, their English competence is much lower than expected
2.4 Data collecting instruments 2.4.1 Talks with colleagues and students (See Appendix 1 and 2)
THE METHODOLOGY
Context of the study
The study was carried out at HUNRE where I have been working for about five years The description of the study‟s context is given as follows
2.1.1 An overview of teaching and learning English at HUNRE
Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment (HUNRE) is a newly upgraded university from Hanoi College of Natural Resources and Environment The university belongs to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment The university has seven major faculties – Faculty of Geology, Faculty of Environment, Faculty of Information Technology, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Hydrographic Meteorology and Water Natural Resource, Faculty of Landing Management, and Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography The English Department is directly under the management of the university managing board
English language teaching at HUNRE is undertaken by the English Department‟s staff of 16 teachers whose ages range from 25 to 55 Most of them were educated in the English language department either at the University of Language and International Studies (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) or Hanoi University, and the rest graduated with English major from other universities One of 16 teachers is now a PhD student; nine out of them have obtained M.A Degrees in TESOL, and four others will get their M.A Degrees in one or two year‟s time
Most of the teachers have more than five years of teaching experience and they have always shown great enthusiasm and interest in their work
The students at HUNRE come from different areas in Northern and Central Parts of Vietnam Most of them learnt English for three or seven years at school while only a few of them learnt other languages such as French, and there are no students who did not learn any foreign language at all In fact, the students‟ English proficiency is various Some of the students are quite good at English, while a big number of them have just little English Some others even know nothing about English at all
The English training program at HUNRE is prescribed to the curriculum for the first and second year students with the amount of 210 class hours in total, of which 150 class hours are spent on General English (GE) in the first and second semester and 60 class hours are on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in the third or fourth semester In GE courses, the students are taught English for general purposes and the course books in use are the first and second ones (Elementary and Pre-Intermediate) in the series of New Cutting Edge written by Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor (first published 2005) After GE courses, the students are expected to cover basic grammatical points of the English language and a certain amount of general vocabulary In terms of language skills, they are supposed to have ability to communicate in English at elementary and pre-intermediate levels
As mentioned above, due to short age of development and financial obstacles, the university cannot facilitate its teaching and learning condition with hi- tech equipment At present, there are about 50 classrooms and each of which has about 35-70 seats for students Meanwhile, each class has about 50 to 80 students so classes are usually too crowded and in fact, are not suitable for English lessons where it should be suitable for upto 25 students each In terms of teaching curriculum, the students have 150 lessons of 45 minutes in their two first semesters for learning GE In the first semester they have 75 lessons and 75 more for the next one This amount of time shows that students don‟t have much time to practice English because the time allowed is divided among teaching the four skills as well as teaching grammar and structures It can also be seen that the amount of time allocated on listening skill is modest, meanwhile listening is considered a “complex skill” and requires a lot of practice At present, there is no language laboratory which is very effective for learning listening Cassettes are used for teaching listening that is challenging for students because of the crowded classes Those students who sit at the end of the classroom sometimes can not hear the sound clear enough or at least they may have difficulties of concentration
The course book New Cutting Edge is written for international students It takes CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) as the main teaching method The four core skills are integrated to foster comprehensive linguistic development Its design is for language skills learning, along with supplying the students needed language items and vocabulary
To some extent, the course books (elementary and pre-intermediate versions) are thought to be not really suitable for the students at HUNRE In fact, most students are not used to learning skills because when learning at high school they spent most of their time doing multiple-choice tests and had little time to practice listening or speaking as they were not the target in their exam In addition, some tasks in the course books are too difficult or not familiar with the students
Especially, the results of the talks with students and colleagues show that the listening tasks in the course books are difficult and some of them are not suitable for the students This results in the fact that the students are not interested in and cannot accomplish the given tasks
I graduated in 2005 and have 8 years of experience in teaching English I have been teaching English at HUNRE for about 5 years I am now attending a Master course at University of Languages and International Studies
Three colleagues who took part in the talks are those of experienced teachers with more than 5 years of teaching experience and they are also having classes of the same level as mine
The main subjects of the study are 45 first- year students (32 males and 13 females) in my class - class ĐH2K1 2 at HUNRE in the academic year 2012-2013
Their ages are between 18 and 20 They are supposed to have pre-intermediate level of English In fact they are not really good at English This can be proved by their results in the final examination of the first semester as well as their daily
2 In the first semester, the class had 54 students, however, 3 of them had dropped their study and 6 others had changed their major or moved to other faculties performances in class Although they have finished English 1 in the first semester, their English competence is much lower than expected
2.4 Data collecting instruments 2.4.1 Talks with colleagues and students (See Appendix 1 and 2)
In order to identify the difficulties in learning listening skills, I have conducted some talks with both my colleagues and students In the talks with the students the topics were about the students‟ interest in learning English in general and listening in particular The students were also asked about the difficulties they perceived when learning listening skills They were also asked to express their wish of how to make their learning listening more effective In the talks with the colleagues, the topics were also about the students‟ interest in learning English in general and listening in particular, in perspective of their teachers The difficulties in learning listening skills as well as solutions to improve it were also discussed
A pre-test was administered to the students at the diagnosing phase The test consists of three tasks with 25 questions in total Task 1 is a multiple choice cloze including 5 questions Task 2 is a banked cloze with 10 questions Task 3 is an opened cloze with 10 more questions The purpose of students‟ doing the pre-test is to identify students‟ real English competence in term of listening skills, particularly in intensive listening Basing on the students‟ scores, teacher make plan of next steps to improve their target skill
After each meeting (or lesson), the students were asked to complete a learning diary (with clear instruction of the researcher/teacher) to record their feelings about the tasks they had just done (about grammar structure and vocabulary; about the speed and difficulty level of the recording), their interests, satisfaction as well as the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties perceived by the students during the lesson, and their general comments on learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks With the hope to make it easy for the students to complete the diaries, learning diary forms were designed in form of optional choices so that the students only had to tick at the option they want to choose and there were also spaces for them to write their comments
The Participants
I graduated in 2005 and have 8 years of experience in teaching English I have been teaching English at HUNRE for about 5 years I am now attending a Master course at University of Languages and International Studies
Three colleagues who took part in the talks are those of experienced teachers with more than 5 years of teaching experience and they are also having classes of the same level as mine
The main subjects of the study are 45 first- year students (32 males and 13 females) in my class - class ĐH2K1 2 at HUNRE in the academic year 2012-2013
Their ages are between 18 and 20 They are supposed to have pre-intermediate level of English In fact they are not really good at English This can be proved by their results in the final examination of the first semester as well as their daily
2 In the first semester, the class had 54 students, however, 3 of them had dropped their study and 6 others had changed their major or moved to other faculties performances in class Although they have finished English 1 in the first semester, their English competence is much lower than expected.
Data collecting instruments
In order to identify the difficulties in learning listening skills, I have conducted some talks with both my colleagues and students In the talks with the students the topics were about the students‟ interest in learning English in general and listening in particular The students were also asked about the difficulties they perceived when learning listening skills They were also asked to express their wish of how to make their learning listening more effective In the talks with the colleagues, the topics were also about the students‟ interest in learning English in general and listening in particular, in perspective of their teachers The difficulties in learning listening skills as well as solutions to improve it were also discussed
A pre-test was administered to the students at the diagnosing phase The test consists of three tasks with 25 questions in total Task 1 is a multiple choice cloze including 5 questions Task 2 is a banked cloze with 10 questions Task 3 is an opened cloze with 10 more questions The purpose of students‟ doing the pre-test is to identify students‟ real English competence in term of listening skills, particularly in intensive listening Basing on the students‟ scores, teacher make plan of next steps to improve their target skill
After each meeting (or lesson), the students were asked to complete a learning diary (with clear instruction of the researcher/teacher) to record their feelings about the tasks they had just done (about grammar structure and vocabulary; about the speed and difficulty level of the recording), their interests, satisfaction as well as the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties perceived by the students during the lesson, and their general comments on learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks With the hope to make it easy for the students to complete the diaries, learning diary forms were designed in form of optional choices so that the students only had to tick at the option they want to choose and there were also spaces for them to write their comments
After each meeting, I myself also wrote a teaching diary in order to record the students‟ involvement, interests, and satisfaction in learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks The diaries also recorded the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties occurred during the lesson in the perspective of the teacher
The post-test was designed to find out the students‟ listening skills through gap-fill tasks after taking the action The post-test is designed in the same form with the pre-test It also consists of three tasks with 25 questions in total.
The research procedure
The research was developed and carried out during 9 weeks from week 4 to week 13 of the second semester As mentioned above, the main subjects of the study were 45 students who took part in the research from the beginning to the end
Data were collected at both the pre-action stage and during the action stage The research action was conducted using the action research cycle suggested by Susman
(1983) The research cycle consists of five phases: diagnosing; action planning; taking action; evaluating; specifying learning
With 5- year experience of teaching English at HUNRE, I myself find out that students have lots of difficulties in learning English Some difficulties are clear to be seen, such as crowded classes, lack of learning equipments, and time limitation There may be some other difficulties that need deeper investigation That leads me to the first research question: What are the problems experienced by the first – year students at HUNRE in learning listening skills?
In order to identify the problems, I conducted talks with five students and three colleagues about learning and teaching English in general and learning and teaching listening skills in particular I also observed my students and recorded classroom interaction in listening lessons In addition, I analyzed the students‟ results of the first semester to have a clearer view of students‟ ability in term of learning English subject
After more than a week, I could come to a conclusion that a major number of first-year students at HUNRE faced with difficulties in learning English, especially listening They often feel uninterested in listening lessons and could not get success after each lesson The reasons for this ineffectiveness are clarified that students always find it difficult to accomplish the listening tasks Some tasks are thought to be not suitable with the students‟ level And students also complained that they were not made aware of the topics and they were not provided enough vocabulary before the listening starts Sometimes they did just few pre-listening activities and usually went straight forward to the listening activities to do tasks as required Thus, they often failed to finish the listening tasks After the talks with my colleagues, I once more found out that the students faced with a lot of difficulties in learning English and listening was thought to be the most difficult to the students In order to strengthen the identification, I analyzed the students‟ results of the first semester
The results showed that more a half (67.9%) of the students failed their final exam (with under-five scores) and the rest of them just got modest results (5-7/10 scores)
I also analyzed the course books to see the suitability of the listening tasks in the course books with students‟ level
After the problems identification, I realized that something should be done to help students learn listening skills better The data collected from the previous phase were analyzed Certain problems revealed and solutions were proposed to solve the problems Among the problems revealed, I found out that the most common problems faced by the students were from the unsuitable tasks in the textbooks I hypothesized that gap-fills would be one of the measures to help the students improve their listening skills Thus, I decided to apply gap-fill tasks with the hope to improve their students‟ listening skills Before taking the intervention, I would spend some time to find the answer for the second research question which was formulated at the beginning of the second phase The question is: “What should be done to improve the students’ listening skills?” and the answer may be “ through gap-fill tasks” In addition, a pre-test was prepared and administered to the students of class DH2K1 The students did a test in 25 minutes and the test papers were collected for marking The students‟ scores help me identify the students‟ current level of listening
Basing on the hypothesis, I took a careful review of gap-fills tasks and its uses in listening lessons Then listening lessons were planned carefully and in detailed, exercises and activities were adapted or redesigned for the action Also, I prepared learning and teaching diaries for meetings in the “Taking action” phase
After everything has been prepared already, the real action took place There were three meetings conducted in this phase Each meeting lasted for 45 minutes
This aims at studying the effects of applying gap-filled tasks on improving the students‟ listening skills
After each meeting, the students were asked to complete a learning diary form with clear instruction of the teacher/researcher And they could hand in the diaries at the beginning of the next meeting At the same time, I also wrote my own teaching diaries It is for a comparison between the students‟ and teacher‟s perspectives about the lessons
Finally, a post-test of listening was followed up to measure the students‟ improvement
In this phase, the data collected from the third phase were analyzed These data reflect the students‟ listening skill improvement in listening lessons using gap- fill tasks The data analysis was done to find answer to the third research question:
“To what extent do gap-fill tasks help the first-year students at HUNRE improve their listening skills, from both students’ and teacher’s perspective?” Moreover, it was also to indicate what I had learnt and experienced from these lessons
Basing on the results of the data analysis, some general findings were identified The effect of using gap-fill tasks was clarified and some recommendations are given for further studies.
Summary
This chapter presents the context of the study, its participants, the course book analysis, data collections instruments and the methodology and procedure of conducting the study In the next chapter – chapter 3, I will present the data analysis and findings of the study.
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
Diagnosing data
3.1.1 Analysis of the text book 3.1.1.1 New Cutting Edge (NCE) – Elementary and pre- Intermediate
New Cutting Edge (Elementary and pre-intermediate) are coursebooks used at HUNRE Each book consists of 15 modules In the second semester students have to learn module 11 to module 15 of NCE-elementary and Module 1 to Module 6 of
NCE–pre-Intermediate Each module conveys a certain topic as shown in the following table:
NCE – elementary NCE pre-Intermediate
11 The World around Us 1 Leisure and Lifestyle
13 Learning for the Future 3 At Rest, at Work
14 Keeping in Touch 4 Special Occasions
Table 1: List of topics conveyed in the course books
It can be seen from the table above that the topics in the course books are familiar to the students because those topics concern their daily life Having experienced from previous semesters, I myself also find out that the topics in the coursebooks are familiar to my students and I have rarely heard my students complaining about strange topics In addition, the students seem to be very interested in some topics such as “The world around us” in Module 11 (about animals and pets), “Learning for the Future” in Module 13 (about dream jobs), or
“Important Firsts” in Module 2 (about past events), etc
To have a closer view of listening tasks in the course books, I make a list of listening tasks as in the following table:
NCE – elementary NCE pre-Intermediate
Module Listening Tasks Module Listening Tasks
11 - Listen and answer the open-ended questions
- Listen and fill in the gaps
12 - Listen and choose the best answer (multiple choice)
- Listen and tick at true sentences
2 - Listen and choose pictures at describes the stories
- Listen and answer the open-ended questions
13 - Listen and answer the open-ended questions
14 4 - Listen and complete the information in the table
15 - Listen and mark the picture with the extracts
- Listen and complete the sentences
6 - Listen and make a list of problems mentioned in the story
- Listen and make a note of problems mentioned in the story
Table 2: List of listening tasks in the course books
The table above shows the main listening tasks in the course books In fact, there are some other listening sections designed as subsidiary parts of the other skills or language focuses
It can be seen that the tasks listed in the above table are various I myself experienced that students don‟t usually finish all those listening tasks They often have difficulty with such complicated tasks as Answering open-ended questions;
Notes taking; Completing charts or tables; or Gap-filling It is because their vocabulary is limited and they are not skilled enough to accomplish these given tasks Sometimes, they are also successful in doing such tasks as numbering pictures or sentences, ticking at things heard, or deciding True / False These tasks are considered easier for the students because they just have to follow the instructions and mark their choices
3.1.2 Analysis of talks with colleagues
When talking to my colleagues, I realize that they share a view that students have a lot of difficulties in listening lessons They also agree that there are many factors affected the students‟ listening ability Firstly, crowded classes are not suitable for listening lessons Secondly, students‟ level or proficiency is not good enough to follow the listening lessons In addition, the syllabus and course books are also challenges because the amount of time in the syllabus for listening portions are limited and many tasks in the course books seem not to be suitable with students‟ ability
“…some tasks in our course book are not really suitable with the students‟ level and we need to adjust them to be more suitable.” (From Talk 1-Appendix
In terms of tasks in the course books, my colleagues agree that some of them are not really suitable with students and need adapting And they also admit that due to the limited time and other factors, they just follow the instructions given in the course books and rarely have adaptations
“I find that some tasks in the course books are not really suitable with our students
They are difficult for them because the students‟ level is not as expected However, due to some factors, I don‟t have time to adjust the given tasks I usually follow the instructions given in the course books.” (From Talk 2-Appendix
Sharing about how to help students improve their listening ability, the colleagues agree that they cannot change the classes, or the coursebooks, or the syllabus; but they can make some changes with their lesson plans and teaching methods They give some possible suggestions, such as:
“I sometimes replace a difficult task in the course books by an easier one of the same topic or let my students do some pre-listening tasks to be aware of the topic before listening.” (From Talk 3- Appendix
The talks with my colleagues help me consolidate my diagnosis that students had many difficulties in learning listening I was also inspired to seek out ways to help students improve their listening skills
3.1.3 Analysis of talks with students
All the students participating in the talks shared the same point that learning listening skills is very difficult They complained that crowded classes constrained the effectiveness of their learning listening Their learning habits and English proficiency were also mentioned as factors that affect their learning listening
However, the most important factor of that ineffectiveness was the recordings and tasks in the course book
“Many recordings are too fast for me to listen and some tasks are also too difficult for me to accomplish.” (From talk 4, Appendix 2 – researcher’s translation)
Those students complained that they have to listen to fast recordings without enough pre-listening activities and suitable tasks to do, so they failed to finish the tasks They also thought that if they had more time to be aware of the topic, have enough vocabulary and tasks that are suitable with their level, they would implement the listening tasks easily and more effectively
“I think that if I have enough vocabulary, get familiar with the topic of the listening, and suitable tasks, I can succeed in those listening tasks regardless of fast-speeded recordings.” (From talk 5, Appendix 2 – researcher’s translation)
After talks with students, I can come to a conclusion that students had to face with many challenges in their listening skills Some of those problems are unchangeable (the crowded classes, the course book, the syllabus), but some others can be changed by teachers, such as adapting tasks in the course and making it more suitable to students‟ ability
3.1.4 Analysis of the students’ results of the first semester
Action planning
In this phase, I spent my effort finding the ways to make tasks more suitable with the students‟ level Some suggestions have been pointed out, however, due to limit of time, I would like to focus on one suggestion that I think to be potential
The suggestion was using gap-fill tasks to help students develop their listening skills Then the tasks in the course books were redesigned basing on types of gap- fill tasks presented in sections 1.2.2 of Chapter 2 Especially, gap-fill exercises were applied in not only the while-listening stages, but also in the pre-listening or post listening stages because this kind of exercises is considered to be useful to enhance students‟ vocabulary and their comprehension as well
The original listening tasks in Module 2 are (1) listening and choosing the pictures that illustrate the stories and (2) listening and answering open-ended questions In task (1) students listen to the stories without any awareness of the content and they are not supported important vocabulary to comprehend the stories
In the second task, students have to listen and write the answers for the questions by their own words It would be impossible for them Thus, the tasks should be redesigned as follows (see Appendix 7 for details)
Firstly, students are given some phrases that help them identify the stories in the pictures They have to choose the phrases or sentences that best describe the pictures By doing this, students can be aware of what they will listen and they will be ready for the main part of the listening lesson This activity is carried out before the real listening starts
Secondly, the recording of the stories were quite fast and students might not catch the content using their ears only Thus, the tasks were redesigned in the form of gap-filling, including banked gap-filling and open gap-filling a Banked gap-filling
The first story was given in form of a text with some gaps Above the text, students can find a box of some words or phrases The number of words or phrases is bigger than the number of gaps need completing Students listen to the recording and choose a suitable word from the box to fill in each gap of the text b Open gap-filling
After listening to the first story, students were supposed to get more familiar with the topic as well as the task Thus, the second text was given with the same number of missing information, but without any suggestions It means that students have to listen and fill in the gaps by their own
Listening Task in Module 3 (page 29) is listening and completing a table
It may be challenging for students to listen without preparation Thus, some activities were designed for the pre-listening stage to help students get to know the topic Names of some common jobs were reviewed through a small game in which students work in group to complete the words or phrases with missing letters Then students were asked to have quick discussion (with clear instructions and helpful aids from the teacher) about qualifications to do these jobs and common tasks for each job
The listening task was redesigned to become banked and opened gap- filling Students were asked to listen to the two first recordings and choose a word from the box to complete the texts Then they had to listen and fill in the blanks in the two next texts by themselves (see Appendix 8 for details)
In listening portion in Module 4, students have to listen and complete a table with required information This listening task is considered challenging to students because their language competence is not good enough to listen and write down the information at the same time Thus, I make a small change with hope to help my students feel easier with the task
Before the actual listening took place, the students were given some minutes to discuss the involved topic, under the assistance of the teacher After the short discussion, students were asked to listen and complete the texts In the first recording, the exercises are designed in form of banked gap-filling And in the second recording, students had to complete the gap-fill exercise by themselves, without any suggestions (see Appendix 9 for details).
Taking action phase
Scores 0-2 scores 3-4 Scores 5-6 Scores 7-8 Scores 9-10
Chart 3: Results of the three meetings
The chart shows a gradual but positive change after each meeting The first change is the number of students who got 0-2 scores This number fell from 5 to 4 and to 1 in the three meetings respectively Another slight change could also be seen in the number of students with scores 7 or 8 At the first meeting, only 5 students could get scores 7 – 8, then in the second and the third meeting more students joined this group, making up 9 students in the last meeting
There was a coincidence seen between the change of number of students getting scores 3-4 and those getting scores 5-6 after the first and the last meeting
The table shows that in the first meeting 21 students scored 3 or 4 mark; and 14 other got 5-6 score In contrast, 14 students got scores 3 or 4 and 21 students got scores 5-6 in the last meeting Last but not least, the number of students scoring 7-8 increased gradually from 5 to 7 and to 9 after the three meeting
3.3.2 Results of learning diaries 3.3.2.1 Lexis of the recordings
Chart 4: Students’ comments on vocabulary of the recordings
The chart above shows that at the first meeting, over a half of students (23/45) complained that there were a few new words given before the listening started However, after the next two meetings, the number of those students decreased remarkably (4/45 in meeting 3) And at the same time, the number of students who felt satisfied with the vocabulary provided before each listening has been increased from meeting 1 to meeting 3 (16, 25, 34 respectively) Whereas, only 18 of them saw the vocabulary was enough for their listening in meeting 1 It can be also seen that a few students (6 or 7 in each meeting) said that there were more vocabulary than expected
3.3.2.2 Grammar points in the recordings
Chart 5: Students’ comments on the grammar’s difficulty of the recordings
In terms of grammar, it seems that the major number of students didn‟t have and 32 respectively) The chart also shows contrastive changes between the number of students who found grammar difficult and those who found it quite easy In the first meeting, 15 of 45 students had difficulties with grammar used in the recording
In the next meeting this number fell to 9, and then 5 in meeting 3 At the same time, the number of students finding grammar quite easy increased from 3 to 5, then to 8 after the three meetings
3.3.2.3 The length of the recordings
Chart 6: Students’ comments on the length of the recordings
As can be seen clearly from the chart that almost students (29 or 31 students) said the recordings had acceptable length and only a few of them complained that the recordings were long (7, 5, 6 students in meeting 1, 2, 3 respectively) Also a few others stated that the recordings were quite short
3.3.2.4 The speed of the recordings
Too fast Normal Quite slow
Chart 7: Students’ comments on the speed of the recording
The chart above shows that many students considered the speed of the recordings their problem Though the chart shows a little change of their comments, it still indicates that speed of recording can be challenging for the students
Chart 8: Students’ comments on the levels of the tasks’ difficulty
It can be seen from the chart that, at first, more than a half (25/45) of the students complained the tasks were difficult However, they gradually got used to this type of tasks and till the third meeting this number of students fell to 14 At the same time, the number of students felt the tasks were normal rose from 17 to 22 and to 24 after the three meetings Especially, after the training some students even found the tasks quite easy Though the number is modest, it could show a slight development of the students
3.3.2.6 The students’ accomplishment of the tasks
Finished all Finished some Couldn’t finish
Chart 9: Students’ comments about their accomplishment of the tasks
The chart above shows that a major number of students often partly completed the tasks given (36, 31, and 27 after meeting 1, 2, and 3 respectively)
However a big change can be seen in the number of students who managed to finish all the tasks In the first meeting, this number is only 5 but in the next two meetings it rises up to 11 and 17 In addition, those students who couldn‟t complete the tasks made up a modest number of 4 in meeting 1; 3 in meeting 2; and only 1 in meeting
The comments left by students in their diaries after each meeting show that students were making progress in learning listening In meeting 1, many students said that they had difficulties catching the words to complete the gaps though they had been provided enough vocabulary as well as had been aware of what to listen
“…I couldn‟t fill in almost the blanks because I couldn‟t hear the required word…”
“…The recordings were too fast for me to listen and write down the missing words…”
“…I am disappointed because I couldn‟t finish the tasks”
“…I could complete almost gaps but I still left some blanks because I couldn‟t hear any thing What a pity! ”
(Researcher’s translations from students’ learning diaries)
However, after three meetings, many students said they were interesting in doing those listening tasks and they were almost satisfied with what they could do
“…Wow, I‟m happy now because I can fill in all the gaps! It‟s great! ”
“… I got better result this time though I still couldn‟t complete all the blanks
Anyway, I am satisfied with myself…”
“… At first, I couldn‟t do any thing Now I am feeling great because I can listen and fill in the gaps more easily…”
“…It is an interesting lesson I want to have more lessons like this…”
“…The lesson is ok for me!”
(Researcher’s translations from students’ learning diaries)
In brief, students‟ learning diaries, together with their results after each lesson, help me have an overall look of my students‟ progress as well as their problems in learning listening In general, students‟ diaries were recorded exactly what were happening in the lessons and the students were honest to write about both their achievements and their problems The learning diaries sound more positive after each lesson because students were getting more interested in what they were learning A small number of students, however, seem unsatisfied with the lesson because they got little development during the lessons That reminds me that some more adjustments should be made to help my students more
To take a closer look at what was happening during the lessons to see how much the gap-fill tasks could help students develop their listening skills as well as to identify problems perceived by my students, I wrote teaching diaries after each lesson The diaries were written closely following the activities happened during the lessons
The teaching diaries show a positive change of the students‟ learning listening It can be seen that their listening ability is much improved during the three meetings of the Taking Action Phase The diaries indicate that gap-fill tasks could help students improve their listening skills The majority of students were able to accomplish the tasks and they felt satisfied with it After each time of getting success in doing listening tasks, the students seemed to be more interested in their learning, even some of them were eager for the next lessons
However, the teaching diaries also recorded some unexpected reactions from the students who still find learning listening skills their big problem They showed their nervousness and unsatisfactoriness during the lessons That is because they could not do the tasks given or could finish a few of them only The fact shows that there is still something that needs to be done to help those students
In short, teaching diaries are useful with me to have a clearer and more accurate view of the effectiveness of gap-fill tasks on developing students‟ listening skill
They help me have accurate evaluation of my students‟ progress in learning listening They also help me to identify the limitation during each lesson so that I can make adjustments to bring more effective lessons to my students
Mark 0-2(0%) Mark 3-4 (28.9%) Mark 5-6 (48.9%) Mark 7-8 (20%) Mark 9-10 (2.2%)
Chart 10: Results of the post test
Action research evaluation
Scores from tests are effective instruments to show students‟ progress
Scores of tests in this research are divided into five ranges: 0 – 2; 3 – 4; 5 – 6; 7 – 8; and 9 – 10 The chart below shows the scores from students‟ pre-test, three meetings‟ exercise, and post test
Pre-test Meeting 1 Meeting 2 Meeting 3 Post-test
Chart 11: Students’ improvement through tests
It can be seen from the chart that the students have much improved their listening skills after the action Firstly, the number of students who got lowest scores of 0 to 2 fell from 8 before the action (in the pre-test) to 0 after the action (in the post test) Secondly, the chart also shows a remarkable fall in the number of students getting scores 3 or 4 through their tests Before the action, more than half of the students (24/45) got 3 or 4 marks for the pre-tests However, this number fell gradually through the meetings of the Taking action phase and down to 12 students when they did the post tests
The most remarkable change seen from the chart lies on the change of the number of students getting score 5 or 6 Before the action phase, only 9 students got score 5 or 6 but this number increases after each meeting and in the post test 22 students could reach this score range Another positive change worth noticing is the change of the number of students scoring 7 or 8 from 4 students before the action taken to 9 after the action stage Especially one student could get score 9 after the training process This number is still modest, yet it is highly appreciated
In sum, the chart indicates that the action plan brought about good effect and students achieved some progress The results proved that gap-fill tasks could help develop students‟ listening skills
3.4.2 Students’ involvement in listening tasks
Together with the improvement in terms of test scores during the action, the teaching and learning diaries also recorded the change of students‟ involvement in the listening tasks As mentioned in the diagnosing phase, students were often uninterested in the listening tasks, or even afraid of learning listening because they found the tasks difficult to finish However, the situation has changed after the taking action phase The students gradually got interested in listening lessons and they became actively involved in accomplishing the given tasks That is because the tasks are of their interest, fit their level, and they could finish it more effectively.
Major findings and discussions
In an attempt to figure out what make students‟ learning listening skills ineffective, many researchers have suggested a list of the problems The problems vary from the teaching and learning condition, from the teacher or the students themselves, or from the course books However, according to the results of the data analysis in this research, the main factor affects students‟ listening skills is the mismatch between students‟ level and the tasks‟ level of difficulty And the results of the data analysis also indicate that when the listening tasks are designed suitably with the students‟ level, the students would much more involve in the listening lessons and their listening skills would be improved
3.5.1 Effect of gap-fill tasks on developing students’ listening skills from the perspective of the students
In perspectives of the students, gap-fill tasks helped them much in improving their listening skills They showed their satisfaction during the action In their learning diaries, students reported their gradual change after each lesson Although their listening results were not very good at first, the students got more and more interested in the lessons and gained better scores after each lesson They said that they liked doing this type of tasks and it was useful for them
The scores of tests also proved that students got progress when involving the actions Before the action was taken, nearly two-third of students were at very low level of listening ability However, the situation changed much after the action A major number of students now could reach good scores and those with very low scores account just a small number
3.5.2 Effect of gap-fill tasks on students’ listening skills from the perspective of the teacher
Comparing the data recorded before and during the action, I noticed a big improvement of my students in learning listening skills Firstly, the students showed that they were interested in doing the listening tasks After three meetings of the
Taking action phase, students felt satisfied with what they had achieved: the majority of them could finish the tasks themselves and their scores were higher and higher after each meeting
The teaching diaries also describe the change in students‟ involvement in the lessons as well as their attitudes toward the listening tasks They found the gap-fill tasks interesting and suitable with their level so they were eager to complete the tasks.
CONCLUSION
Recapitulation
Listening skill, as aforementioned, is one of the four skills that are essential for communication In learning a foreign language, listening is considered first and foremost skill that one needs to be competent in order to learn the target language well It, however, is thought to be the most difficult skill of the four As a language teacher, I am always concerned how to help my students learn listening skills effectively Therefore, I decided to choose improving students‟ listening skills as my first choice for the theme of my thesis This study was carried out with the hope to contribute some suggestions for developing students‟ listening skills and it was particularly conducted with the purpose of finding the answers to three research questions: (1) What are the problems experienced by the first – year students at
HUNRE in learning listening skills?; (2) What should be done to improve the students’ listening skills?; And (3) To what extent do gap-fill tasks help the first- year students at HUNRE improve their listening skills, from both students’ and teacher’s perspective?
The theme of the thesis was born in mind basing on the view of my teaching context and the review of relevant literature as well By conducting talks with my colleagues and students and in combination with document (course books and tests scores) analysis, I saw that the students have encountered many difficulties in learning listening skills, among which, unsuitability of tasks in the course books revealed as students‟ big problem In attempt to help students develop their listening ability, I suggested using gap-fill tasks as one of the possible and effective ways to improve students‟ listening skills Then the real action was conducted including three class meetings Students‟ scores, learning diaries, and teaching diaries were collected for data analysis The results of data analysis help me gain some findings as well as conclusions of the effectiveness of applying gap-fill tasks on improving students‟ listening skills Beside a lot of advantages, I could also saw some problems Therefore, I have proposed some recommendations for teachers and researchers who are concerned to the same topics as mine.
Conclusion
The data analysis and findings mentioned in the previous part leads me to a conclusion that gap-fill tasks can help develop students‟ listening skills I can also point out the reasons of this help as follows:
Firstly, the students‟ level of English here is quite low so this type of tasks is suitable with them Those students of low English competence often lack of vocabulary, thus gap-fills tasks can meet their demand because gap-fill tasks help students enhance their vocabulary before real listening In listening, doing gap-fill exercises helps them catch the main idea as well as comprehend the speech
Without comprehension of the speech, students hardly can complete other tasks
Moreover, gap-fill exercises are various so students have chances to do various tasks in order to complete the exercises In doing gap-fill tasks students don‟t simply complete a word or phrase to fill in the gaps, they have to use their language competence of vocabulary, grammar and structure and they also have to use their back ground knowledge at the same time That makes the tasks interesting and the students are interested because they can achieve progress by their own
Last but not least, students often feel more confident when they succeed in completing the tasks That would make them more motivated in learning and find listening lessons more interesting Thus, their learning skills would be improved.
Recommendations
As discussed in the previous parts, gap-fills tasks are applicable to improving students‟ listening skills Thus, in order to help students gain success in learning listening, the following recommendations are made:
The first recommendation is that teachers should thoroughly understand their students‟ listening levels, their needs, as well as their difficulties in learning listening skills So that teacher would know what should be done to help their students
Secondly, after deciding a plan to help students, teachers should be carefully prepared for the plan In case of helping students through gap-fill tasks, teachers should be decisive in choosing suitable types of exercises to fit students‟ level and interest, as well as to avoid uninspiredness
The next recommendation that should be made is that: there is no task that is appropriate for all students Thus, researchers should carry out a small survey to see how effective the tasks affect on students‟ learning Learning and teaching diaries should be recommended in this case
Lastly, useful types of gap-fill tasks are recommended This is a helpful source for teachers in preparing good lessons to help improve their students‟ listening skills.
Limitation of the study
Although the study has some achievements in developing students‟ listening skills through gap-fill tasks, it still bears some limitations
Firstly, the study was conducted during only 9 weeks and the real action only took place within three weeks and with three lessons Thus, the results would be more satisfactory and reliable if the researcher had more time to take the action with some more lessons
The second limitation lies on the scope of the study The subjects of the study were limited to only 45 students of one class Thus, the results may not be applicable to other classes I hope that I could have chances to carry out the study with a bigger number of participants so that the results may be better and more reliable
Moreover, due to the constraint, I could use some types of gap-fill tasks and exercises The results would be more reliable if other types of gap-filling were applied
Finally, due to limited experience in conducting research as well as my modest academic language proficiency, the results of the study might not be as factitive as expected.
Suggestions for further study
As mentioned above, the scope of the study is limited to a small number of participants and limited time In addition, due to the limited time, only some types of gap-fill exercises were applied Therefore, a similar study with larger scale and more types of gap-fill exercises application might be conducted so as to have more comprehensive picture of the effect of gap-fill tasks on developing students‟ listening skills
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R: Hi! How is every thing?
C: Yeah, great! The second term has come and we have many things to do this term
R: Yes, many things need preparing!
C: That‟s it Oh, you are writing your minor thesis, aren‟t you?
C: What is your thesis about?
R: Improving listening skills By the way, do you think that learning listening skills is difficult for students at our school?
C: Certainly! I think it is the most difficult of the four skills
R: Yes, I think so So…in your opinion, why it is difficult to learn listening skills
C: Too many factors! Crowded classes, lack of teaching equipment, the syllabus, time limit, the course book, etc
R: Yeah, we all see these problems But, how to solve them, in your opinion?
C: Well, some of them are changeable but some others are out of our ability In deed, we can‟t change the course book, the syllabus, the crowded classes or ask for new modern equipments so we have to try our best with what we have in our hands
R: Can you make it clearer?
C: Yes My students often complain that some recordings are too fast for them and that they can not finish many tasks in the course book I myself also see that some tasks in our course book are not really suitable with the students‟ level and we need to adjust them to be more suitable For example, in Module 2, my students didn‟t have enough vocabulary to catch main ideas of the stories; and they are nearly unable to answer the questions in exercise 3 So I think I will have to make it easier and more suitable with my students this semester
R: Well… that‟s a good idea! But do you think that the adjustment will work?
C: Yeah, in some extent, at least!
R: Yes, you are right We should try
C: It‟s time for my meeting with the rector I‟ve got to go now See you R: Yes, see you soon!
R: Hi, Thuy You look great today!
C: Oh, thanks! How are you?
R: Fine! A bit busy preparing for the new term and my thesis
C: Yeah, the second term is coming How is your thesis? Does it go on well?
R: Umm… it‟s hard to say now because I‟m just at the starting point
C: Oh, I see It takes a long time and lots of energy to carry out a research
R: Yes, lots of thinks need to be done
C: Well, your thesis is about listening skills, isn‟t it?
R: Yes, I‟m interested in listening skills
C: Yeah, but what exactly is it about?
R: It‟s about developing listening skills through gap-fill tasks
C: Gap-fill task? I like it I think it‟s useful with our students
R: Yeah, by the way, how do you think about our students‟ learning listening skills?
C: A lot of challenges, I must say! And their listening skill is the worst of the four skills You see, their results of the previous exam are very poor!
R: Yeah, I agree with you So, what is the cause of this, in your opinion?
C: Umm… the students‟ English level, their motivation; the syllabus, the course book, our teaching methodology, and so on
R: Yeah, it sounds complicated causes and hard to be improve
C: Yeah, we have lots of things to do for improving R: Yes, I think so But we can‟t change every thing at one time
C: That‟s right! We can‟t change our students, the course book or the syllabus but we can make some adjustment for our course book
R: Yes By the way, back to teaching listening How do you deal with listening parts in the course book?
C: To be honest, I often follow the tasks already designed though they are sometimes ineffective
R: Really? Can you make it clearer?
C: Well I find that some tasks in the course book are not really suitable with our students They are a bit difficult for them because the students‟ level is not as expected However, due to some factors, I don‟t have time to adjust the given tasks
I usually follow the course book
R: You mean that if we adjust some difficult tasks, students can learn listening skills better?
C: Certainly, I have once tried and found out that but I can‟t do it regularly
R: Thanks for your time with me Let‟s go to our class now
R: Good morning! Do you have time to talk with me for a while!
R: Thanks! I‟m searching ideas for my master thesis It‟s about improving listening skills for our students
C: Oh, it‟s a good topic We have a lot of things to talk about listening
R: Yeah, I hope so Do you think listening skill is difficult to our students?
C: Very difficult I see that it is the most challenging to our students
R: Really? So what is your students‟ attitude toward listening lessons?
C: Well, listening lessons are always unexpected The students are often afraid of listening time And they rarely succeed in listening lessons
R: So, what are problems, in your opinion?
C: Umm… a number of problems You know that our classes are so crowded and we don‟t have functional rooms for learning listening Our syllabus and time allowance are problems too Especially, the course book is not really suitable with our students‟ level All these make our students uninterested in listening lessons, thus they can‟t do it effectively
R: I see So can you suggest some solutions?
C: Well, we have to follow the syllabus and the course book; we can‟t divide classes into smaller ones But we can do something with our lesson plans
R: Um our lesson plans? What do you mean?
C: Well, we shouldn‟t use the course book passively but we should plan to change something to make it more suitable with our students‟ level
R: Can you give an example?
C: Yeah… I sometimes replace a difficult task in the course book by an easier one of the same topic or let my students do some pre-listening tasks to be aware of the topic before listening
C: Yes, at least it made my students more willing to listen and felt more satisfied after the lesson
R: How often do you adjust the tasks in the course book?
C: To be honest, I just do it occasionally because of the time and sometimes I am not sure what‟s good for my students to adjust
R: Yes It‟s not really easy for us Anyway, thank you for sharing me
C: You‟re welcome Good luck!
R: Chào em! Cô trò mình nói chuyện một chút được không S: Vâng, được ạ
R: Cô muốn hỏi về tình hình học môn tiếng Anh của em
S: Ôi, tệ lắm cô ạ Em học mãi mà vẫn dốt môn này cô ạ
R: Thế à Thế kết quả môn Tiếng Anh 1 của em thế nào?
S: Dạ, em được vừa đủ điểm qua cô ạ Mà môn tiếng Anh sao khó quá cô ơi!
R: Ừ môn học nào cũng có cái khó, cái dễ mà? Thế theo em sao môn Tiếng Anh lại khó vậy?
S: Dạ chắc tại em chưa quen với cách học mới cô ạ Hồi học phổ thông chúng em chủ yếu học ngữ pháp, từ vựng và làm các bài tập tự luận và trắc nghiệm Lên đây bọn em được học cả 4 kỹ năng nên hơi bỡ ngỡ cô ạ
R: Ừ, vì các em bị áp lực với kỳ thi tốt nghiệp và thi ĐH mà Thế khi học cả 4 kỹ năng, em thấy kỹ năng nào khó nhất
S: Em thấy kỹ năng nghe là khó nhất cô ạ Đôi khi em không thể hoàn thành được các nhiệm vụ nghe của bài học
R: Sao kỹ năng nghe lại khó với em?
S: Dạ, chắc tại vốn từ vựng của em không nhiều, lại ít được luyện nghe nên thế ạ
R: Thế em thường không thể hoàn thành được những nhiệm vụ nghe nào?
S: Dạ, em ít khi làm được dạng bài nghe và trả lời câu hỏi, vì em không nghe được từ và cũng không có vốn từ để viết câu trả lời Dạng nghe hoàn thành bảng biểu cũng thế ạ
R: Em không thể hoàn thành các nhiệm vụ nghe đó là do tốc độ bài nghe quá nhanh hay do không quen với chủ đề của bài nghe?
S: Dạ, cũng có một vài bài có tộc độ nói khá nhanh, nhưng đó không thực sự là vấn đề Chỉ là nếu bọn em được làm quen với chủ đề đó cũng như có vốn từ vựng nhất định thì có thể bọn em cũng hoàn thành được nhiệm vụ ạ
R: Ừ, rất vui được trò truyện với em Đến giờ cô phải đi rồi
S: Dạ, em cũng rất vui được “tâm sự” với cô ạ Em chào cô!
S: Em chào cô! Cô vẫn khoẻ chứ ạ?
R: Ừ, cô vẫn khoẻ Tình hình học tập của em thế nào?
S: Dạ vừa bắt đầu học kỳ mới nên em cũng chưa biết sẽ thế nào Nhưng kết quả học kỳ trước thì không như mong đợi cô ạ
R: Không như mong đợi là sao?
S: Dạ, có một số môn điểm của em rất thấp Điển hình là môn Tiếng Anh cô ạ
R: Lại một bạn nữa kêu điểm môn TA thấp nữa rồi! Thế em được mấy điểm?
S: Dạ…em được 4 thôi ạ Em vừa tham gia thi lần 2, còn chưa biết kết quả cô ạ
R: Uh, 4 điểm thì thấp thật Theo em, sao môn TA lại khó vậy?
S: Dạ, cũng tại hồi phổ thông em không dành thời gian cho nó nhiều, em chủ yếu tập chung học và ôn các môn khối A, B thôi ạ
R: Ừ, có nhiều bạn khác cũng nói thế Vậy nên dù các em học xong mấy năm Tiếng Anh ở bậc phổ thông nhưng khi đi học ĐH lại như quay lại từ đầu
S: Hơn nữa, cách học cũng hơi khác cô ạ Ở trường mình bọn em được học đầy đủ 4 kỹ năng Đọc, viết câu bọn em còn quen quen chứ nghe và nói thì bọn em bỡ ngỡ lắm ạ
R: Thế kỹ năng nào là khó nhất với em
S: Là kỹ năng nghe cô ạ Em rất sợ các tiết học nghe
S: Vì hầu như là em không hoàn thành được các bài nghe Cứ đến giờ nghe là em thấy rất nản ạ
R: Tại các bài nghe khó quá hay là vì em không thích học nghe?