Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS diversification of pre listening activities to improve students’ listening skill action research at industrial economics technology college

INTRODUCTION

Rationale of the study

Listening is an important skill in acquiring a language and it can be defined as the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language Listening is the most frequently used in communication It is stated that during conversations, people spend 50 percent of time on listening, 25 percent on speaking, 15 percent on reading, and 10 percent on writing (Richards, 2008) Moreover, according to Morley (1984), listening is the key to all effective communication Indeed, without the interlocutors‟ ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood

However, generally, students are fearful of listening, and can be disheartened when they listen to something they understand very little It is also harder for them to concentrate on listening if little or no interest in a topic or situation is developed before The initial pre-listening phase should prepare students by helping them activate their background knowledge and clarify their expectations and assumptions about the listening text by, for example, initiating some discussion about a picture involved in the listening text or discussion of some questions related to the listening passages An ideal pre-listening task is the one in which the teacher, through carefully constructed questions, helps students activate their background knowledge and language components needed to comprehend the text In general, pre-listening activities play a critical role and the main aim of this stage is to make learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage, to build confidence and to facilitate comprehension

As cited in Medley (1977), pre-listening activities can be divided into readiness activities and guidance activities Readiness activities focus on motivating students‟ preliminary knowledge through asking students to read the title, make predictions or guesses what they are going to hear, explore new and/or key words that may appear in the listening text, look at accompanied pictures, interpret the listening tasks, and providing them with scaffolding support before listening Guidance activities concentrate on letting students know what they are going to do with the tasks or what they want to do with the tasks

Ur (1984) proposes that listening is an active and complex process and he believes that pre-listening activities activate student‟s background knowledge and provide them with the bases for forming hypotheses, predictions and inference With diverse pre-listening activities, student feel less anxious, so they will become more confident in the listening lesson From this perspective, students will be more motivated to listen, and as a consequence, and ultimately gain a higher level of comprehension, success and become effective learners

In my college, many students are from northern midland and mountainous areas of Vietnam whose background knowledge is poor, so it is difficult to help students there improve their listening competence Moreover, most teachers of English in Industrial Economics Technology College, to my knowledge and in my experience, tend to prepare little for the pre-listening stage due to several reasons: insufficient teaching time, or even their misconception that it is unnecessary to conduct this stage That may be the reason why students are not motivated to participate in the lessons Some even feel exhausted and inactive in class, and often complain that listening is the most challenging skill

As previously discussed, the pre-listening stage is very essential in the process of teaching listening Do teachers and students at my own college understand much about pre-listening tasks? If sufficient understanding has been secured, how do they deal with pre-listening tasks? What kind of activities do they apply and how effective are these activities? Are these activities sufficiently diverse to attract students and maintain their concentration? If not, how to diversify them? These questions require a careful study to seek their answers

For those reasons, the researcher conducted this research under the title

“Diversification of pre-listening activities to improve students' listening skill: an action research at Industrial Economics Technology College”.

Aims and scope of the study

The long-term goal of the research is to develop a series of appropriate pre-listening activities that help my college‟s students in listening comprehension However, within the scope of this action research, the author first tried out a variety of pre- listening activities for diversification and see how they work, which works well and which not Based on that, a useful framework or guiding principles can then be built for developing appropriate pre-listening activities for the particular kind of students

Therefore, the objective of this action research is merely to examine whether diversification of pre-listening activities in the pre-listening stage improves my college‟s students‟ listening comprehension; In passing, the study also made some investigation on students‟ reflection towards diversification of pre-listening tasks, because feedbacks from students are highly useful to teachers who always have to design teaching-learning materials, or at least design good lesson plans to deliver the intended objectives of each lesson, especially listening lessons

The study concentrated on the effects of alternating pre-listening activities on improvement of students‟ listening skill in Industrial Economics Technology College

Participating in the study were 40 second-year students in class K9 at IETC who have studied English for 3 semesters with six 45-minutes lessons per week After studying 2 semesters of English they are now at pre-intermediate level The textbook was adapted from Market Leader, which is an extensive business English course designed to bring the real world of international business into the classroom

It has been developed in association with the Financial Times, one of the leading sources of professional information, to ensure the maximum range and authenticity of international business content The purpose of adaptation is to make it suitable to local students and the instructional curriculum In the adapted version, English teachers in the Industrial Economics Technology College (IETC) added a wide range of Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) activities such as reading comprehension, photo choosing listening, listening comprehension, and so on.

Research questions

To examine the effectiveness of pre-listening activities in order to deliver the afore- mentioned objective, the following question was formulated:

1 To what extent does diversification of pre-listening tasks help students at my college improve their listening comprehension?

2 What are these students‟ attitudes towards diversification of pre-listening tasks?

Summary of Chapter 1

In summary, listening is an important skill for any English learner but not many can master this skill, which provides a gap for this study to explore This study mainly focused on the second year students at IETC whose English is at pre-intermediate level The aim of this study was to access how much diversification of pre-listening activities can help to improve students‟ listening skill.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Theoretical background of listening skill

Goh (2002) referred to listening as the most frequently used language skill, which accounts for as much as fifty per cent of human‟s everyday communication time

Sharing this opinion, Rubin (1994) stated that listening is used far more than any other single language skill in our daily lives, twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read and five times more than we write Good listening, therefore, significantly contributes to the success of communicating process Understanding spoken English is much more challenging to language learners than figuring out meanings of a written text Thus, the teaching of listening comprehension is of great importance

Rost (1994) stated that listening is a crucial element of communication and it is also an important factor for interaction A learner can express himself orally but is never able to communicate with speakers of English if he is unable to understand what is said to him In general, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in our daily lives We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times than we read, and five times more than we write

Underwood (1989) states that the listening skill includes everything from learning particular sounds to comprehending complicated messages Without this skill, communication can break down Therefore, successful communication really depends on listeners or receivers of messages Listening is defined as the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear It is different from hearing which is simply the process of recognizing the sound system of spoken words Similarly, Emmert, Brandt, Watson, and Barker (1994) stated that listening is an active process Listening skill is composed of everything from learning particular sounds to comprehending complicated messages More specifically, listening involves understanding a speaker‟s accent, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary to grasp his or her meaning (Underwood, 1989) He also believes that listening to spoken language also requires the ability to understand the implicature in a conversation

2.1.2 Listening comprehension in language learning and teaching process

It is believed that listening is a significant and essential area of development in a native or second language; therefore there have been numerous definitions of listening comprehension which present different views towards this concept

For instance, Buck (2001) defines listening comprehension as an active process of construction of meanings, done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound, involving both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge In order to construct meanings from what one hears, other researchers agree that context plays an important role and should be taken into appropriate consideration Garrod (1986) and McDonough and Shaw (1993) share the same idea that listening comprehension requires the activation of contextual information and background knowledge

Meanwhile, Lynch (1995) gives a more detailed description of listening comprehension, which is a process in which listeners interact with the text Their level of interest, emotional reaction to the content and motivation can either facilitate or interfere with comprehension Successful listening seems to involve a comparison and integration of new information with established knowledge structures Similarly, Mendelsohn and Rubin (1995) believe that listeners not only passively understand the text, but also actively construct their own knowledge and then monitor the incoming information in order to keep developing it

The concept of listening and listening comprehension is also defined as everything that impinges on the human processing which mediates between sounds and the construction of meaning (Underwood, 1989) This definition once again emphasizes the activeness of listeners in processing the information heard Generally, listening is agreed to comprise both top-down and bottom-up processes, with top-down meaning the listener activates his/her previous knowledge to decipher what he/she gets from the listening passages in the „bottom-up‟ process.

Factors affecting students‟ listening comprehension

A great number of factors affecting listening have been reported so far According to Brown and Yule (1983), there are four groups of factors including the speakers (e.g the number of speakers, speakers‟ speed, accents); the listeners (e.g the role of listeners, the listeners‟ interest in the subject); the content (e.g vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge) and the support (e.g pictures, diagrams, visual aids, etc)

Anderson and Lynch (1988) divide the influential factors into three different categories including the type of language, the purpose in listening and the context in which the listening takes place Their experiments showed a number of factors that may impede students‟ listening performance: the organization of information, the familiarity of the topic, the explicitness and sufficiency of the information, and the type of referring expressions used and the relationships described in the text (dynamic or static relationships)

Regarding influential factors affecting listening comprehension results, Helgesen, Brown, and Brown (1994) Dunkel (1991), and Ur (1984) introduced a list of characteristics of spoken language, which are also troubling to listeners Those factors include clustering, redundancy, reduced form, performance variable, colloquial language, rate of delivery, stress, rhythm and intonation, and interaction

In conclusion, factors affecting listening comprehension could be listed as follows:

Unfamiliar topics have remained one of the most challenging problems to listeners

According to Ur (1984) and Rixon (1986), as we rarely know exactly what we are going to hear although we may have already had some general expectations, it is much easier to process a familiar topic than a strange one Nunan (1988) also confirms that listening to unfamiliar topics which are not addressed to listeners is much more difficult to comprehend than listening on familiar topics which are addressed to them

Similarly, Rost and Candlin (2014) state that listening to unfamiliar topics which are not addressed to listeners is more problematic than listening to popular ones As listeners comprehend better with a common topic, it is suggested that teachers‟ selection of input in the early stage should surround themes that frequently occur in real life conversations This not only facilitates students at the beginning of the course but also helps ease the learning and teaching process (Anderson and Lynch, 1988)

Learners should be familiar with the cultural knowledge of language that has a significant effect on the learners‟ understanding If the listening task involves completely different cultural materials then the learners may have critical problems in their comprehension It is the responsibility of teachers to give background knowledge about the listening activities in advance (Azmi, Celik, Yidliz, & Tugrul, 2014)

2.2.3 Pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation

Rost (1994) states that pronunciation is one of the major sources of difficulties students encounter in the listening process Sharing the same idea, Rixon (1986) claims that word stress, strong form and weak form in natural spoken utterances make listening comprehension far more challenging than reading a written text

Assimilation and elision are other sources of complication, as Helgesen et al (1994) added These features of spoken English can be a terror to a number of learners

Rhythm and intonation also contribute to making listening more troublesome The unfamiliarity with rhythm and intonation patterns makes listening become more difficult Brown (1977) sees rhythm as part of general look of how the speakers of their language speak it With its own characteristics, the rhythm of English is worth much attention since it is also the guide to the structure of information in the spoken message

According to Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, and Tugrul Mart (2014), when listening texts contain known words it would be very easy for students to them If students know the meaning of words this can arouse their interest and motivation and can have a positive impact on the students‟ listening comprehension ability A lot of words have more than one meaning and if they are not used appropriately in their appropriate contexts students will get confused Students may sometimes try to guess the meaning of the word from the context but this strategy isn‟t very helpful when the speed of speaking is fast

2.2.5 Length and Speed of Listening

Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, and Tugrul Mart (2014) stated that the level of students can have a significant role when they listen to long parts and keep all information in their mind It is very difficult for lower-level students to listen more than three minutes long and complete the listening tasks Short listening passages make easy listening comprehension for learners and reduce their tiredness According to Underwood (1989), speed can make listening passage difficult If the speakers speak too fast students may have serious problems to understand L2 words In this situation, listeners are not able to control the speed of speakers and this can create critical problems with listening comprehension

According to Hamouda (2013), during listening lessons students are required to be attentive since in a very restricted time they are required to process and understand a strand of newly introduced information Failure to concentrate will result in the students missing some of the content, which will eventually affect their understanding of the whole listening task.

Listening Comprehension in EFL Classrooms

Normally the listening lesson is divided into three stages which are pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening Each stage has its own characteristics and time allocation

Pre-listening stage involves the activities that are often carried out in a short period of time (seven to fifteen minutes) aiming at preparing necessary background for learners to understand the spoken text They may also elicit students‟ previous knowledge about the topic of listening, making them aware of the vocabulary items, related experience and consequently capture their interest As summarized by Baker and Westrup (2000) as well as Lewis and Hill (1992), the pre-listening stage contains purposeful activities which can help arouse interest in the topic, provide certain linguistic preparation for the text, then promote and activate a flexible learning environment Through giving learners a reason for listening, this stage undoubtedly initiates willingness for listening Before listening, students need assistance to activate what they already know about the ideas they are going to hear

Simply being told the topic is not enough Teachers must help them to build up prior knowledge, pre-teach some key words or structures and establish purposes for listening

Lewis and Hill (1992) emphasizes that pre-listening stage plays an important role in teaching listening to students Pre-listening is a preparation of the listening class In this stage, teachers tend to arouse learners‟ expectation and interest of the language text they are going to listen They can also motivate learners by providing background knowledge of the text; organizing learners to discuss a picture or a related topic which involves in the text; asking some related questions to the text In general, pre-listening plays a role of warming-up and the main aim of this stage is to make learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the text These activities can also promote an active and flexible learning environment, help increase learners‟ motivation for learning, motivate learners by giving a reason for listening and provide them with some language for the listening

2.3.2 While-listening stage and post-listening stage

These are the main stages of the listening process According to Rost and Candlin

(2014), the purpose of while-listening activities is what students are asked to do during the time they are listening to the text As far as listening comprehension (for example listening for meaning) is concerned, the purpose of while-listening activities is to help learners develop the skill of eliciting messages from spoken language The nature of while-listening activities should be interesting, so that the students feel they want to listen and carry out the activities Part of the interest can stem from the topic and the content of what is said, and the listening text should be chosen with the interest of the students in mind

After pure listening process, post activities are usually carried out to provide students with opportunities to practice using the language items acquired Post- listening activities often fall on information transfer tasks, or summary writing and similar activities

In this research, the writer will investigate the activities which are often made use of in the first stage of listening, the Pre-listening activities

2.3.3 The roles of pre-listening activities

It is obvious that students may find the listening lessons difficult when they do not know what they are going to listen Although the words are familiar, they may not understand the speaker because they may be lack of basic knowledge, the context of the speaker

Thus, the listeners‟ expectation and purposes should be taken into account These make listeners feel as in real-life listening situation in their native language

Teachers can help their students to arouse their expectations and see the purpose before a listening lesson This kind of work is described as “pre-listening activities”

The two main aims of pre-listening is to help to activate students‟ background knowledge, guess the topic of what they are going to hear and provide certain context for the listening task The teacher should vary the activities such as two people having a conversation about their daily life and ask students to complete the true or false questions or vocabulary building for student before the listening task (Nunan, 2002).

According to Sheerin (1987), pre-listening activities significantly help arouse students‟ interest in listening A good pre-listening stage should provide students with linguistic items necessary to understand the listening text and make them feel more interested in the recordings With the acknowledged significance of the stage, a variety of pre-listening activities have been introduced and recommended for use by various researchers namely Baker and Westrup (2000), Doff (1988), (Lingzhu,

2003), Rost (1994), Underwood (1989) and Ur (1984) In the following part of the study, the researcher will provide a list of different activities for pre-listening stage

According to Berne (1995), pre-listening activities also help students prepare for what they are going to hear, and help mitigate the anxiety which comes from listening in a foreign language, by providing a clear context Moreover, pre- listening activities can offer opportunities for class discussion and more interaction among students There are certain pre-listening activities which can be adapted easily for different classes and levels, as well as for general English and listening lessons

The prediction of information surrounding a topic before listening about it encourages learners to focus on a topic and conceivably develop a relatively high sense of self-esteem while conducting the task To make use of this activity, the teacher may begin by posing a question word and idea, then ask students to brainstorm the plot and share ideas with their friends The activity can intensify student‟s attention on the content of the upcoming recording and expand their knowledge during the process of exchanging ideas with other students

This is a very common form of pre-listening activity, principally when students are going to hear a recorded text This activity can be started by the teacher‟s instruction to students about the topic of listening text The teachers generally give their students some background information, begin to talk about the topic and indicate what the students should expect to hear Pair and group discussions before listening are essential for students They engage students in the sharing of ideas and render them concentrate more on their job Lingzhu (2003) Generally, teachers raise guiding questions and discussing topics When organizing groups, teachers should gather students of different levels so that they can help themselves in expressing ideas as well as prepare students with some background of the topic and get them more willing to listen

According to Greher (2002), in some pre-listening activities, pictures can be exploited as a useful teaching aid Listeners are often asked to match pictures with given words, or guess words from pictures or activities of the sort which aim at eliciting the topic-related vocabulary as well as maintaining learners‟ focus on the theme of the listening

It is suggested that when carrying out such activities, teachers should avoid using a plethora of unknown words and long explanations as they may distract listeners and sometimes even demotivate them from continuing the task

The activity helps activate students‟ background knowledge Once listeners have had some ideas about the context of the listening, they usually become more inquisitive about the listening and the comprehension of the spoken text will likely be more accurate One way to encourage the prediction of content is asking students to anticipate the context and content of the listening through the title or illustrating pictures

The prediction of the listening can also be done by asking students read through the questions of the listening tasks, which prepare them for the content of the listening and facilitate their process of comprehension

Another predicting activity is through True or False statements Teachers provide a variety of statements which are based on the general or detailed information of the listening The principle is that teachers let students discuss among themselves, make prediction but do not reveal their decision of true or false statements until they finish the listening task

Pre-teaching of new words and difficult key words

Previous research

Ash Pekin, Janset Muge Altay, Didem Baytan (2001) carried out an interesting study about listening activities He found out contrast between effective and ineffective listening habits to become effective listeners He said that instructors should provide various chances for students to practice listening skill and to become actively engaged in the listening process He emphasized that there are three stages in listening process: pre-listening, during listening and after listening He defined pre-listening help students with cultural background, build prior knowledge, and stimulate students‟ interest in the listening lesson However, in his study, he suggested that instructors should let students watch movies than listen to the tapes because it can help students pay more attention to the listening Students can both practice listening and see manner and culture visually It may be good to apply in teaching but depending on the modern technology condition

Being one of the most challenging language skills, listening comprehension has caught attention of a number of pedagogy specialists Berne (1995) has shown the impact of listening habits on listening comprehension The researchers suggested teachers to provide students with numerous listening opportunities, thus help them become actively engaged in listening As defined by those researchers, listening process has three inevitable phases including pre-listening, during listening and after listening, among which the purpose of the first phase is to prepare students for cultural and lexical background knowledge, review necessary listening skills and stimulate students‟ interest in the listening task As concluded by the group of researchers, good habits of listening make effective listeners, and according to them, listening to movies is much better than to tapes due to the fact that movies are more attractive to listeners They explained that when watching movies, students have opportunities to both listen and observe the speakers‟ manner Although the suggestions of this researcher group appear compelling and can be beneficial to their teaching environment, the application of them in Vietnamese teaching context may be a big challenge due to a shortage of necessary facilities

Hui Sui Yuehua Wang (2002) also concluded that a number of pre-listening activities not only motivate students, help change them from passive to active listeners, but also effectively increase the language input According to these researchers, it is necessary for teachers to make good effort to design and apply pre- listening activities in their teaching process for the sake of their students

Another proponent of varying pre-listening activities, Nguyen Van Trao (2002) indicated that pre-listening activities are useful as they make students feel well- prepared, thus minimize the fear of listening The study was successful in showing the influence of pre-listening activities on listeners‟ effectiveness of listening comprehension However, it is suggested that the results of pre-test and post-test should be analyzed for more details such as the changes in each section of the listening test Moreover, the research result would be more reliable if the experiment were carried out in a longer timeframe rather than only one month

In an M.A thesis, Duong Thi Bich Thuy (2005) made an experimental research to investigate whether pre-listening activities motivate students before the listening and therefore improve their listening comprehension The experiment group was provided with numerous pre-listening activities while only new vocabulary and structures were given to the control group students in the first phase of listening While and post-listening activities were the same for both groups The effectiveness of pre- listening activities was evaluated by comparing the difference between the results of a pre-test and post-test The result showed that the application of various pre-listening activities has positive influence on the test results of the experiment group

Besides, there are some articles, which research the effect of the use of video on listening comprehension tests Londe (2009) examined two video formats (close- up view of the head of the lecturer, and full body view of lecturer) and compared theses to 28 the audio only format in a listening comprehension test setting A stimulated classroom lecture is videotaped and used, and one hundred took the test

The aim of the research is to explore whether there are any performance differences when students take these tests in the different formats The results of the present study show that the addition of the visual channel does not contribute to or take away from the performance in English as a second language listening comprehension test

Moreover, Farrokhi (2012) carried out a study on the effects of two pre-task activities (glossary of unknown vocabulary items and content related support) on improvement of Arian EFL learners‟ listening comprehension The study showed that offered pre-task activities for listening tasks improved learners‟ listening performance It is concluded that pre-task activities had different supportive roles on low and high proficient learners‟ performance

Vu Thi Thanh Ha (2006) carried out an experiment to examine the effects of pair and group pre-listening activities on Dong Do university first year English major students‟ attitudes, their motivation and her listening comprehension in comparison with the whole class pre-listening activities The results of the study showed that pair and group pre-listening activities were better at helping students increase their motivation and improve their listening comprehension better than in whole class pre-listening activities This study makes a contribution to teaching and learning English at Dong Do University If there were more efforts and contribution, the study has been more successful

Moreover, Duong Thi Ngoc Tu (2012) explored the effects of the use of video in pre-listening stage on grade 10 students‟ motivation in English listening lessons at Tran Hung Dao School She emphasized that the students also showed great interests in listening activities They were willing to share knowledge and opinion as well as positively discuss the listening topic before listening to the tape script or doing the comprehension tasks when the teacher used video in the pre-listening stage

A lot of studies have been done on pre-listening activities and one common conclusion that can be drawn is that pre-listening activities play an important role in helping language learners to understand the listening task better However, none of those studies have showed how it helps when pre-listening activities are diversified.

Summary of chapter 2

In conclusion, listening is an important skill which is frequently used skills and plays an important role in having a successful conversation Listening comprehension requires both linguistic knowledge such as understanding of sound systems, grammar and non-linguistic knowledge such topic-related knowledge

There are a lot of factors which can affect listening comprehensions, some of which could be listed such as unfamiliar topics, cultural differences, pronunciation, speed of speaking, etc The impact of such factors can be reduced by applying different pre-listening activities, and pre-listening activities have been proven to a good approach to help language learners to have better comprehension In this study, the researcher explored how effective it was when the teacher uses diverse pre-listening activities in listening lessons.

METHODOLOGY

Research methodology

There are many different definitions of action research that have been presented as follows:

According to Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2004, p.186) “Action research is a small-scale intervention in functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention” In the 1940s, Kurt Lewin, a German-American social psychologist who is widely considered to be the founder of his field coined the term action research Those basic principles of action research that were described by Lewin are still in use to this day

According to O'Brien (1993), action research is known by many other names, including participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, and contextual action research, but all are variations on a theme Put simply, action research is “learning by doing” - a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again While this is the essence of the approach, there are other key attributes of action research that differentiate it from common problem-solving activities that we all engage in every day

According to Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2011), action research are procedures which are done by teachers to obtain information about what should be improved in school or organization about teaching or learning process The general goal is to create a simple, practical, repeatable process of iterative learning, evaluation, and improvement that leads to increasingly better results for schools, teachers, or programs

Abbott and Mayes (2014) also state that action research involves a self-reflective, semantic and critical approach to enquiry by people who are simultaneously members of the context in which the research takes place The objective of action research is to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research is carried out

According to Creswell (2002), action research design has the following features: practical focus, the educator-researcher‟s own practices, collaboration, a dynamic process, a plan of action, and sharing research

It is clear that action research‟s target is to approach an actual problem in education environment It means that action research focuses on practical issues which can bring advantages to education The problem might be a concern either from a teacher or many educational institutions In this research design, it is common that the researcher may be interested in producing their own practice rather than studying other studies According to Schein (1995), within all the definitions of action research, there are four basic themes: empowerment of participants, collaboration through participation, acquisition of knowledge, and social change In conducting action research, we structure routines for continuous confrontation with data on the health of a school community These routines are loosely guided by movement through five phases of inquiry action research cycle: identification of problem area, collection and organization of data, interpretation of data, action based on data and reflection

Action research has been analyzed in many ways MacIsaac (1995) has created a simple model of the cyclical nature of the typical action research process (figure 1)

There are four steps in each cycle: plan, act, observe, and reflect

Figure 1 Simple Action Research Model adapted from MacIsaac (1995)

To this model, Burns (2009) added a fifth step: dissemination, where the result of the research is made known through presentations and publications to a larger audience The essentials of action research design are considered by Elliott in Rudduck and Hopkins (1985) as per the following characteristic cycle: Initially an exploratory stance is adopted, where an understanding of a problem is developed and plans are made for some form of interventional strategy (The Reconnaissance and General Plan) Then the intervention is carried out (The Action in Action Research) During and around the time of the intervention, pertinent observations are collected in various forms (Monitoring the implementation by Observation)

The new interventional strategies are carried out, and the cyclic process repeats, continuing until a sufficient understanding of (or implement able solution for) the problem is achieved (Reflection and Revision) The protocol is iterative or cyclical in nature and is intended to foster deeper understanding of a given situation, starting with conceptualizing and particularizing the problem and moving through several interventions and evaluations

Additional, Susman (1983) emphasizes that action research have five steps and it is presented in a cycle as below:

Figure 2 Detailed Action Research Model adapted from Susman (1983)

As can be seen from figure 2, firstly, a problem is identified This is followed by a collective postulation of several possible solutions, from which a single plan of action emerges and is implemented Data on the results of the intervention are collected and analyzed, and the findings are interpreted in light of how successful the action has been At this point, the problem is re-assessed and the process begins another cycle This process continues until the problem is resolved McKay (1992)

In his study Burns (2009) emphasized action research process is a sequence of cycles which consists of eleven phases: Exploring, identifying; planning; collecting dada, analyzing/reflecting; hypothesizing; intervening; observing, reporting; writing and presenting

Based on diverse definitions of action research, with the aim of my study, the process of my action research will follow seven steps: identifying a problem; collecting data; Analyzing data and generating hypothesis; planning action; implementing the action plan; collecting dada monitor change; analyzing dada and evaluating the change

DIAGNOSING Identifying or defining a problem

SPECIFYING LEARNING Identifying general findings

TAKING ACTION Selecting a course of action

EVALUATING Studying the consequences of an action

ACTION PLANING Considering alternative course of action

Action research can be a worthwhile pursuit for educators for a number of reasons

Foremost among these is simply the desire to know more According to Schein

(1995), action research focuses on school issue, problem, or area of collective interest The participants of action research are normally students and teachers

Moreover, action research is seen as disconnected from the daily lives of educators

And it is also comforting for parents, or education administrators outside of the school, to know that a teacher is not just blindly following what the latest study seems to suggest, but is transforming the knowledge into something meaningful

In addition, action research allows teachers to grow and gain confidence in their work Action research projects influence thinking skills, sense of efficacy, willingness to share and communicate, and attitudes toward the process of change

Through action research, teachers learn about themselves, their students, their colleagues, and can determine ways to continually improve The other important advantage is it potential to impact school change He also emphasizes that action research can serve as a chance to really take a look at one‟s own teaching in a structured manner While the focus of action research is usually the students, educators can also investigate what effect their teaching is having on their students, how they could work better with other teachers, or ways of changing the whole school for the better.

The research questions restated

To what extent do diversification of pre-listening tasks help students improve their listening comprehension?

The participants

The participants involved in this research were students in Industrial Economics Technology College and two experienced teachers in IETC that were specified in the following table:

Participants Population Age Means of collecting data

The participants in this research were 40 students in class k9 in Industrial Economics Technology College Listening skill has always been trained from the first year, so the second year students are quite familiar with it Therefore, the researcher chose one class of second-year students to be the participants

Two-experienced teachers were asked to observe the class They were trained how to do the observation After being familiar with the observation worksheet and being introduced about the way to do the observation, they were invited to observe the class during the time when the researcher implemented the action plan.

Data collection instruments

In order to answer the research question of this study, the researcher chose three kinds of data collection instruments including tests, learners‟ questionnaires and observation to collect information about students‟ listening comprehension

So far, a number of methods to evaluate students‟ listening comprehension ability have been suggested In this study, listening comprehension is measured by students‟ performance on their listening tests

Brown (1977) argues that tests are one of good tools to collect both quantitative and qualitative information Moreover, tests can provide information about general level of students, detailed problems that students may have with the language and their achievement in previous programs In this study, two major tests were constructed by the researcher to meet the aims of the current study which discovered the participants‟ progress during, and achievement after, the intervention The first test was administered at the beginning in order to investigate students‟ listening comprehension Then, the researcher used the second at the end using varying pre- listening activities to check whether students‟ listening comprehension is improved

The pre-test and post-tests are in form of the TOIEC listening test because most of the listening tests in the text book follow the TOEIC test structure so students are familiar with this kind of test The two tests were collected from Longman preparation series for the new TOEIC test In twenty minutes, students were required to complete twenty listening questions The level of difficulty of the two tests is equal so that the author can easily recognize the student‟s changes across the tests There are four parts in each test which consists of 20 multiple choice questions Part 1 is picture description, part 2 is questions and responses, part 3 is conversations and part 4 is talks

Questionnaire is a form used in a survey design that participants in a study complete and return to the researcher It is a valuable tool to do a research (Creswell, 2002)

By using questionnaire, the researcher can collect a large amount of information with a big number of participants Using questionnaire is time- and financially efficient, analysis of answer to closed question is straightforward, less pressure for an immediate response, respondents‟ anonymity (Gillham, 2000).

Action research procedures

After teaching class K9 for the first term, the researcher realized that students‟ listening comprehension was weak They were unable to understand most of what the speaker said in the recordings Students also did not have positive attitude towards improving their listening skill They could not enhance their listening competence to their fullest potential mostly because the teacher used the same pre- listening activities in the textbook Moreover, the author seldom designed various pre-listening activities for students The main contents of the lesson were quite lengthy so chances are that she was afraid of running out of time She used merely

1 or 2 pre-questions for the listening task The students‟ background was not sufficiently built to answer the questions so they were actually demotivated in further listening activities Because students were not well-prepared for the listening tasks, their lexical resources remain significantly low for listening comprehension

In the long run, the ultimate result was that their listening competence show little improvement after a course It could be concluded that the teachers‟ pedagogy in pre-listening stage was inadequately effective to facilitate students‟ listening skill It is suggested the author modify their teaching method and add more pre-listening activities into the lesson in order to improve the students‟ listening comprehension, and therefore listening skill An action plan based on the theory is mentioned in chapter 2

The main cause for the students‟ low listening comprehension were discussed in chapter I Therefore, the pre-test and post-test, learner questionnaire and the observation were conducted for the experiment time

3.5.3 Analyzing data and generating hypothesis

After teaching students in IETC for 3 years, the teacher recognized that the cause of students‟ low listening comprehension was that they were not well-prepared for the pre-listening stage Therefore, the researcher planed to check the assumption that if the students were better prepared for their listening in the first stage of listening lesson their listening comprehension was expected to increase

Because students‟ listening comprehension was low, an action plan was applied

The researcher developed an action plan to diversify pre-listening activities to increase students‟ listening skill based on the theoretical background of the role of pre-listening activities and the factors that affect student listening skill It is expected that carefully designed pre-listening activities could help them improve listening skill In the action plan, teacher implemented diverse pre-listening activities which students find useful and interested in to help them better understand the listening lesson The pre-listening activities were selected depending on schools‟ curriculum, the textbook, students‟ level, and interest

Because the problem was students‟ low listening skill, an action plan of varying some pre-listening activities was developed to increase students‟ listening comprehension based on the theoretical background of the role of pre-listening stage It was expected that various kinds of pre-listening activities were implemented to help student well-prepared for the listening tasks

The action plan was applied for the eight weeks after a month of the second term

The participants were the students in class K9 at IETC The teacher was the researcher of the study In addition, the observers were the two English teachers in IETC During the eight weeks of experiment, the students were provided with an array of pre-listening activities closely linked to the listening texts Through these activities and the tests, the researcher could identify whether students‟ comprehension increased or not

Some pre-listening activities which the researcher used in her lessons included:

 Guess what the listening is about? Show students images, maps, or diagrams and ask students to guess the theme of the listening Students can write pre-listening comprehension questions, then listen to see if their questions are answered

 Brainstorming & Word webs: Provide students with the topic of the listening and ask students brainstorm words related to the topic With students‟ help draw semantic maps on the board with the words, focusing on the relationships between the words, the topic, and sub-topics that might come up in the listening

 Teach me: Give each student a couple of words and/or expressions Ask them to explain the words/expressions to one another in pairs They may refer to the dictionary if they need to Help students with pronunciation of the words or phrases Quickly check with the whole group, and students then predict if the words/phrases will occur in the listening itself Students can listen and tick the ones they hear

 Chinese whispers: Have students queue in two lines, whisper a word/expression to the first in the line This one whispers it on to the next in line, and so on until the last student in the line shouts out the word/expression they hear or writes the word/expression on the board Score points for correct words The line with more points is the winner Use a sentence or expression related to the theme of the listening

 Sing along: Teach students a short song, a rhyme, or a jazz chant on a topic related to the text they are going to listen to

 Graphic organizers: Give students a blank graphic organizer which summarizes the information in the text under headings Students listen and fill-in key words that they hear in the correct places

3.5.6 Collecting data to monitor change

The action plan was implemented in 8 weeks They had an observation sheet for their observation including the way the teacher taught, the pre-listening activities the teacher applied and the students‟ attitudes towards the teachers‟ activities

3.5.7 Analyzing data and evaluating the change

The action research was evaluated based on the collected data.

Summary of chapter 3

In this chapter, action research was presented as the research method because this method can help researcher identify problems, solve the problems and suggest some solutions to improve learning and teaching English Moreover, the data collection instrument, the reasons for the method selection was also discussed The implementation of the action plan and the post data collection ways were implied to clarify the difference before and after applying the new method in teaching listening in IETC.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Results from the pre-test

Level of mark Low Average Good Excellent Number of participants Mean Standard deviation marks 2-4 5-6 7-8 9-10

It is clear that the students‟ score ranged from 2 to 8 The mean score was 4.25 and it standard deviation was 1.62 In detail, 21 students achieved from 2 to 4 points, accounting for 54.5% which correlated to weak students 16 out of 40 (38%) students scored from 5 to 6 points (i.e average level) Only 3 students (7.5%) were at 7 to 8 (i.e good level) None scored 9 to 10, which means no student in the class was at excellent level.

Results from the post-tesst

Table 4.2 The post-test results

Low average good Excellent Number of participants

Figure 4.2 The post-test results

The researcher gave the students the post-test after the eight weeks of experiment

The test was designed for 40 students after the treatment to assess students‟ listening proficiency at the end of the experiment Generally, marks are calculated from 1 to 10; however, in this test, students generally got from 2 to 9 The mean score of students‟ marks increases from 4.25 in the pre-test to 5.40 in the post-test and its standard deviation was 1.37 The number of students receiving low grade were 12 which accounted for 30% 19 out of 40 (47.5%) students got marks 5 to 6 (i.e “average” level); 8 students had good mark (from 7 to 8) and one student (2.5%) got 9 point (“excellent” student).

Comparison of the pre-test and the post-test

Table 4.3 Comparison of the pre-test and post-test

Low Average Good Excellent Number of participants

Figure 4.3 Comparison of the pre-test and post-test

As can be seen from the table, the results of the pre-test and the post-test had different mean scores It is clear that at the beginning, the number of low points at the pre-test were 21 which accounted for 54.5% After 8 weeks of the experiment, the students were required to do the post-test and there was a decrease of 24.5% in the number of students who received low scores The medium scores in the post-test were also higher than in the pre-test In other words, the number was 37.5% from the pre-test and it went up to 47.5% in the post-test In the next level, the students receiving good points were at 13%, an increase from the pre-test, and there was one student who obtained 9 points Consequently, the mean of experiment test (the post- test) was also greater than that of the conventional test (the pre-test) The p-value is 0.00 it means that the difference between the two methods applied with the one class is significant

In conclusion, after the treatment, the student could understand and comprehend better than the first term in the listening lesson It means that using a variety of pre- listening activities, students have a better comprehension of listening tasks.

Data collected by questionnaire part 1

Table 4 4 Students’ comments on pre-listening activities

5 Pre-listening activities are appealing 4.20

Figure 4 4 Students’ comments on the varying pre-listening that the teacher applied

The results from the table 4.11 showed that the mean score of most questions are higher than 3.00 This revealed that the students found the listening lesson enjoyable, useful, satisfying and appealing They were attracted by the ways teacher used pre-listening activities because they could easily understand the listening lessons and comprehend the lesson better However, question number 2 illustrates that the number of students felt that pre-listening activities are dull

Data collected by questionnaire part 2

Table 4.5 Students’ comments on the varying pre-listening that the teacher applied

6 They are suitable to your knowledge 4.14

7 They can expand your vocabulary and structure 4.15

8 They extend your knowledge in many fields 3.67

9 They are effective for you to complete the listening task well 4.27

10 Pre-listening activities should be used in the next listening lesson 4.12

Figure 4 5 Students’ comment on the varying pre-listening that the teacher applied

The table illustrates that after the experiment, all the questions had mean scores higher than 3.0 in which question 5 was the highest score It means that the majority of students liked the pre-listening activities in the listening lesson and they thought that these activities were effective in helping them complete the task better 85% of students felt that the pre-listening activities that the teacher used were interesting and 65% of them thought that these activities could expand their vocabulary and structure The number of students who thought that these lead-in activities also expanded their knowledge in many fields is the same as the above number

Moreover, 64% of students said that these activities were suitable to their Mean score

Questions knowledge Finally, the number of students who thought that teachers should use more pre-listening activities in the future is 83% From these evidences, it is possible to conclude that various activities in the pre-listening stage that the teacher applied could help students with good motivation towards listening lessons and this led to better understanding of the listening.

Data collected by observation

Results from observation: students‟ on-task behavior Percentage

Figure 4 6 Students’ on-task behavior

In lesson 1, 3 out of 40 students worked on the activity on the lesson 11 times among a total of 12 times observed 9 students had 10 times on-task, while 11 students had 9 times on-task 10 students engaged themselves in the task 8 times while 5 of them were on-task 6 times and there was one student on-task 5 times and one 4 times To sum up, the students‟ average on-task percentage was 60.5%

In lesson 2, 5 of the students had 11 times to be on-task while 9 students were on- task ten times 10 students had nine times to be on-task, 10 of them had eight times to be on-task 5 of them had six times, and one student was on-task twice and there were no students who did not concentrate in the listening lesson The average percentage of student on-task behavior was a bit higher

In lesson 3, there was an increase of 2.1% in the number of students‟ on-task behavior The number of students being on-task 11 times is 6 and while 8 of them had 10 times and 8 of them had 9 times, there were 10 students were engaged in the task 8 times The students were on-task 7 time is 6 and there were only 2 students on-task 6 times There were no students who off-task in the listening lesson The average percentage is 63.5%

In lesson 4, there was 1 student involved in the task 12 times, with 8 of them participating in the task 11 times and 3 of them 10 times There were 8 students who were on-task 9 times and 10 had 8 times, 8 students had 7 times While there were only 2 students who had 3 times on-task and no one did not participate in the lesson

On average, the numbers of student on-task behavior were 65.6%

In lesson 5, ten students were on-task 7 times, three students were on task 10 times, and there were eleven students were on task 9 times, five of them were on task 8 times, nine students had 7 times, three of them had 6 times, one student had 5 times, and only two students had 2 times on task There were no students who did not concentrate on the listening lesson In comparison with the first lesson, there was an increase by 8.9% in the number of students on task

It is clear in unit 6 that the students were engaged on the pedagogic work slightly

Three students had 11 times to be on task, 15 of them had 10 times, eleven students had 9 times, three students had 8 times, six students had 7 times, there was only one student had 3 times and 1 time on task The number of students‟ on task increased to 71.2%, it was 9.9 % higher than that of lesson 2

In lesson 7, the students on task 11 times were 3, 10 times were 10, 9 times were 8,

8 times were 10, 7 times were 2, and there were 3 students were on task 6 times, 3 students had 3 times and only one students had 1 times on task Overall, the students‟ percentage of time be on task was 72.4%, there was an increase of 8.9 % compared to that in lesson 3

Finally, the students‟ on task in unit 8 continued to increase There were 7 students to be on task 11 times, 19 students had 10 times, 5 students had 9 and 8 times, 2 students had 7 times, 3 students had 6 and 5 times, only one of them had 1 time to be on task The number of students in lesson 8 was at the highest among the eight lessons, increased by 11% from the fourth lesson

The table showed the number of students‟ on-task in during the observation It is clear that the number of student on-task were regularly increased It means that the students were attracted by the activities teacher did in the classroom so they enjoyed the listening lesson After the eight weeks applying new teaching method the students were much more engaged in the pedagogic work.

Discussion

The data from the pre-test and post-test showed that the students‟ scores of the first test were quite low After the eight weeks of experiment, the students‟ scores were much better than that before the action plan In other words, in the post-test, there were fewer students who got low or average scores while the percentage of good score was greater than that in the first test It means that there was an improvement after using the new teaching method The findings proved that diversification of pre-listening activities had a positive impact on students‟ listening comprehension

So the answer is students listening skill can be improved if the teacher vary pre- listening activities in the first stage of the listening lesson

Secondly, diversification of pre-listening activities in the first stage of the listening lesson helps reduce difficulty in the listening process Results from the questionnaire showed that most students agreed that if the teacher used various pre- listening activities, the factors that affect students‟ listening skill could be diminished They also had positive attitude on the view of such activities in the future The students had motivation from the pre-listening stage, they could perform better while listening Moreover, when students try to complete the while-listening tasks well, they actually understand the listening texts better As a result, students‟ listening comprehension was improved after the experiment

In short, it is evident that the different pre-listening activities that the teacher used during eight weeks of the experiment enhanced the students‟ listening comprehension than the ones that were used in the pre-listening stage before the experiment

In conclusion, from the discussion above, diversification of pre-listening activities for students during the experiment time could help students be far more active and more involved in listening tasks than ever before.

CONCLUSION

Summary of the Result of the Study

By reviewing the literature about listening, the researcher, firstly, emphasized the importance of listening skill in English language classes and, secondly, revealed a literature gap in the factors affecting student listening comprehension After reviewing a number of research, articles and journals, the theoretical framework of this study was chosen, which includes a list of factors influencing students‟ listening skills

During the teaching time using conventional teaching method, the researcher realized that the students were not interested in the listening lesson and their listening comprehension was low The reason for this was the teachers‟ teaching method, especially the pre-listening activities The same activities in the textbook could not be useful and effective for students‟ listening comprehension Because different listening tasks require different pre-listening activities to activate students‟ background knowledge, interests and motivation, they could better comprehend the listening Students in class k9 were not well-prepared for the listening tasks, therefore the listening skill was low

After the experiment, the students participated more in diverse pre-listening activities They showed great interest in pre-listening activities They felt more confident to work in group, pairs to discuss their ideas about the topic before listening to the audio It means that students had good attitude with the pre-listening activities Consequently, their listening skills were better

With the data collected and analyzed, this study provides several important findings

The first finding is that it emphasizes the roles of teachers in organizing interesting and suitable activities in the listening lesson The lecturer‟s role in the classroom is essential in maintaining the interest and motivation of students to participate in listening classes Moreover, diversification of pre-listening activities encourages learning among students as they have chance to engage themselves to purposeful listening activities as well as to take initiative in preparing knowledge related to the listening passages It means that students tend to focus not only on the language itself but the tasks After the action plan, the students had higher levels of participation in the pre-listening activities varied by the researcher The students also showed great interest in pre-listening activities They are now more willing to share their knowledge and opinions as well as discuss about the listening topic before listening to the tape script or doing the comprehension tasks It means that their motivation has increased Consequently, the students‟ listening comprehension of the listening tape script was higher

In general, the findings of the present research would have a significant contribution to the improvement in teaching and learning English listening skill at IETC.

Limitations of the Study

Due to various constraints and scope of the study, the present research displays certain limitations First of all, due to objective conditions, the time duration of the intervention was limited in just two months with eight lessons, so it may limit the generalization of certain conclusions drawn from the findings

Secondly, due to the shortage of knowledge and experience in doing the research, the study cannot cover other factors affecting the listening achievement of students so it is hard to affirm that the students‟ listening comprehension has been improved by only applying varying pre-listening activities because there might be other the contribution factor such as students‟ needs, interest and felling, etc

Moreover, the small target population (40 second-year English major students at IETC) might have affected the results of the findings and implications of the study

The results of the study would have been more persuasive if the research had involved more participants

Finally, in terms of research methods, the researcher acknowledges the limitation of the chosen qualitative approach as well as the developed research instrument Using questionnaire with narrow questions and multiple choices, this research may miss some valuable information Although knowing that a mixed research method is a better choice which can help decrease disadvantages of both qualitative and quantitative research approach, due to the limited time, the research decided to use only qualitative approach which is suitable for answering the research questions and the duration of conducting the research

To sum up, this study could not be completed without flaws; however, as discussed above, the researcher did try to delimit it to provide preliminary findings.

Implications for Further Research

The limitation and the scope of the study leave the gaps for other researches in the field of using pre-listening activities on teaching English skills to fill in

First, the further studies can investigate into the factors influencing listening skill in which have not been done here, to complete a picture of factors of affecting students‟ listening skill

In addition, the study was carried out with the second year Business English students whose knowledge and language competency were rather low; therefore, the approach can be applied to the third-year and senior students

Thirdly, this thesis has not discussed about the other stage of listening (while- and post-listening) so this proposes further studies to make great usefulness for students to learn listening skill

Based on the findings as well as the limitations of this research, this study has implications for further studies, such as conducting with students at while-listening and post-listening stage The further study can also focus on the other students‟ level such as the third or the senior students

Moreover, as for teaching and learning practice, the teachers should focus on the factors that affect listening skill as in the study, the researcher only focus on pre- listening activities.

Implications for Teaching and Learning Practice

Obviously, interaction is a process which involves a dynamic participation of teacher and students To help the stakeholders with teaching, learning and improving interaction, this research puts forward some suggestions based on the results discussed in the previous chapter

Though the finding of the study, it has been shown that the pre-listening activities had some positive effects on the students‟ listening skill However, to get better results the researcher gives some recommendations to benefit students in listening lesson

There are many factors that affects students‟ listening such as interests, needs, background knowledge, etc Therefore, they should be considered when investigating into the factors causing low listening comprehension Moreover, it is significantly important to raise students‟ awareness of the importance of pre-listening stage so that they would involve in this stage to improve their listening skill

In addition, when designing pre-listening activities, students‟ proficiency should be noticed, the activities should not be too challenging, that can make students lose motivation when dealing with other stages of the listening lesson There should not be too many activities because if teacher does too much before listening, the length of while and post-listening will be shorten, otherwise the students are bored and no longer want to listen

During the teaching time, the researcher found out that the teachers sometimes do not pay attention to the pre-listening stage because they thought that it is not as important as while- and post-stage Therefore, students are not interested in the listening lesson and they did not complete the task well Therefore, teachers should take time to design appropriate and flexible pre-listening activities although it may be time consuming and difficult

It is obvious that if various kinds of pre-listening activities can motivate students involve in the listening lesson but the tasks for the pre-listening should be presented more illustrations such as pictures, maps, diagrams, etc In other word, the pre- listening activities should not only activate student‟s knowledge but also raise their interest

According to the results, pre-listening were very important in listening lesson therefore, the students also play important role in helping themselves improve listening skill: The students should show their cooperative attitude with the activities the teachers designed in the classroom They should pay attention to the activities and take the initiative in asking teachers and classmates when the lesson and instructions are not explicit instead of keeping silent This can help them involve in the while listening, they may know more about the content of the listening task so their listening result can be better.

Final remarks

The teachers and students at IETC often have difficulty in teaching and learning listening skills One of the most common problems is that students are not well- prepared for the listening lesson This leads to students‟ low listening comprehension Being a teacher for several years, the researcher is aware of the importance of pre-listening activities at the first stage of the listening lesson This stage may have good influence on students‟ listening comprehension Therefore, the researcher decided to conduct an experiment on one class in IETC

The data analysis helps the researcher find out the significance, limitations as well as implications for teaching-learning and further research

In terms of significance, the research focuses on the importance of this research and its practical findings The pre-listening activities could provide students with some background knowledge to help them interact with others and the teacher in the class before listening and to find out the topic of the listening task Moreover, the implication of pre-listening activities can raise student‟s interest, motivation, concentration and level of enjoyment in the listening lesson

In terms of limitations, this chapter reveals some drawbacks of this study For example, this study was primarily limited in the scope of the research The population of the research is quite small; it may be more persuasive if there were more participants

Based on the findings as well as the limitations of this research, this study has implications for further studies, such as conducting with students at a wide range of competences and using a experimental Moreover, as for teaching and learning practice, the teachers should focus on other stage of listening skill for example while and post-listening

It is hoped that the research is surely of positive contribution to the improvement of teaching and learning English at IETC as well as those who are interested in this issue

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Encountered by Saudi Students in the EL Listening Classroom International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 2(2), 113-155

APPENDICES Appendix 1: The pre-test

In this section of the test, you will have the chance to show how well you understand spoken English There are four parts to this section, with special directions for each part

Part 1: Directions: For each question, you will see a picture in your test book and you will hear four short statements The statements will be spoken just one time

They will not be printed in your test book, so you must listen carefully to understand what the speaker says When you hear the four statements, look at the picture in your test book and choose the statement that best describes what you see in the picture Then, on your answer sheet, find the number of the question and mark your answer Look at the sample below

Now listen to the four statements

Statement B, "They're having a meeting", best describes what you see in the picture

Therefore, you should choose answer B

Part 2: Directions: You will hear a question or statement and three responses spoken in English They will be spoken only one time and will not be printed in your test book Select the best response to the question or statement and mark the letter (A), (B), or (C) on your answer sheet

Example You will hear: Where is the meeting room?

You will also hear: (A) To meet the new director

(B) It's the first room on the right

The best response to the question "Where is the meeting room?" is choice (B) "It's the first room on the right," so (B) is the correct answer You should mark answer (B) on your answer sheet

6 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

7 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

8 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

9 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

10 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

11 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

12 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

13 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

14 Mark your answer on your answer sheet

Part 3: Directions: You will hear some conversations between two people You will be asked to answer three questions about what the speakers say in each conversation Select the best response to each question and mark the letter (A), (B), (C), or (D) on your answer sheet The conversations will be spoken only one time and will not be printed in your test book

15 What is implied about the accountant’s daughter?

A She borrowed her father‟s car without asking C She was not careful with her father‟s car

B She was speeding D She is not careful with money

16 What is bothering the accountant?

A He will have to pay for damage his daughter inflicted on his car

B His car mechanic charges him too much money

C His insurance costs will go up because his daughter was in an accident

D His daughter was hurt in a car accident

17 What did the accountant’s daughter hit?

A a car B a cat C a garbage can D a garage door

Part 4: Directions: You will hear some short talks given by a single speaker You will be asked to answer three questions about what the speaker says in each short talk Select the best response to each question and mark the letter (A), (B), (C), or (D) on your answer sheet The talks will be spoken only one time and will not be printed in your test book

18 How would you describe this speech?

A an announcement of changes C an announcement of a retirement

B an announcement of an illness D a workshop

19 Where is this talk most likely to take place?

A a library B a classroom C an office D a conference

20 What is one change that is announced?

A More tests will be assigned C A term paper is now due on a different date

B New topics will be covered D More term papers will be assigned

In this section of the test, you will have the chance to show how well you understand spoken English There are four parts to this section, with special directions for each part

Part 1: Directions: For each question, you will see a picture in your test book and you will hear four short statements The statements will be spoken just one time

They will not be printed in your test book, so you must listen carefully to understand what the speaker says When you hear the four statements, look at the picture in your test book and choose the statement that best describes what you see in the picture Then, on your answer sheet, find the number of the question and mark your answer Look at the sample below

Now listen to the four statements

Statement B, "They're having a meeting", best describes what you see in the picture

Therefore, you should choose answer B