INTRODUCTION 1 1 Rationale
Aims of the study
The main purpose of this research is to study the effects of modified listening tasks of English 11 on improving 11 th form students‟ listening comprehension at Kinh Mon Upper-Secondary School The specific objectives of the study are:
To investigate students‟ attitudes towards listening tasks in English 11 and the difficulties they face
To study whether the modified listening tasks could help students improve their listening comprehension
Research questions
As a basis for my investigation, the following research questions were formulated:
1 What makes students uninterested in listening lessons?
2 How can the modified listening tasks help improve students‟ listening comprehension?
Scope of the study
Due to the limited knowledge, energy and time, the researcher was unable to carry out the investigation on a large scale This action research was only conducted for only 8 weeks with the four listening lessons and in the context of 50 eleventh-grade students at Kinh Mon High School in the academic year 2011-2012 only Hence, the results of the study is only limited to the above teaching context and participants.
Design of the study
This study consists of three parts:
Part I: The introduction: provides the basis information such as rationale for the study, aims of the study, research questions, methods of the study, scope of the study and the design of the study
Part II: The development: consists of three chapters The first chapter is literature review which discussed theoretical background relevant to the purposes of the study The next one is the methodology which gives a detailed description of how the study was conducted The last chapter is to report the data analysis as well as the results of the study
Part III: The conclusion: summarizes the action research Then some recommendations are proposed, some limitations of the study are pointed out as well as some suggestions for further research are given out.
DEVELOPMENT 3
Definitions of listening
In our daily life, outside the classroom, listening is used twice as often as speaking, which in turn is used twice as much as reading and writing (River, 1981) Inside classroom, the two often used skills are listening and speaking (Brown, 1994) Therefore, listening plays an important role in the processes of learning and communication essential to productive participation in life
What is listening? Through years, various definitions of listening have been proposed Listening is more than merely hearing words It is considered to be an active process by which students receive, construct meaning from, and respond to spoken and or nonverbal messages (Emmert, 1994)
Brown (1994) argues 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”
Sharing similar ideas, Barker (1971) defines listening as “the selective process of attending to, hearing, understanding and remembering aural symbols”
In short, no matter how variously listening is defined, it is obvious that listening is the most important skill for learning to speak a language It provides a foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development.
Definitions of listening comprehension
Regarding listening comprehension, Boyle (1981) suggests that listening comprehension refers to the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language It is a perceptive skill through which listeners can identify and retain information they get from the speech
Woven and Coakley (1985) define listening comprehension as "the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli" This definition shows that listening comprehension is not only a process of perception of sound but it also requires comprehension of meaning
Rixon (1986) divides listening comprehension into two types: extensive and intensive listening Extensive listening involves listening to a recording to get a general understanding, for example, watching a film, understanding and enjoying the 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 the answers to specific questions “What is the speaker‟s favorite kind of music?” would involve listening for specific information because the students listen for that particular response
To sum up, listening comprehension is a demanding and involved process One must be able to deal with different accents or pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise and also make a conscious effort to not 'switch off' or become distracted while listening All of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identify and understand the meaning in any given message.
The significance of listening comprehension
Listening comprehension is very important in the process of learning a language
According to Rost (1994: 141), listening comprehension is “vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understanding input at the right level, any learner simply can‟t begin” He also argues that “Spoken language including listening provides a mean of interaction for the learners Because learners must interact to achieve understanding access to speaker of the language is essential Moreover, learner‟s failure to understand the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning” Obviously, listening comprehension is an essential skill for almost interaction It is therefore the most primary medium for input in language learning process and by speeding up the students' ability to perceive speech, the amount of input they get will increase and thus aid students' language acquisition
To conclude, given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching, it is essential for language teachers to help students become effective listeners.
Factors affect students’ listening comprehension
It can not be denied that listening comprehension is a crucial skill that all learners should acquire when learning a language However, it is not easy to grasp In fact, many learners complain that it is the most difficult skill in comparison with reading, speaking and writing Why is listening comprehension so difficult and what factors affect learners‟ listening ability?
According to Brown and Yule (1983: 74), there are four main factors:
-The speaker: including the number of speakers, the speaker‟s speech speed and the speaker‟s accents
-The listeners: involving the role of the listener, the level of response required and the listener‟s interest in the subject
-The content: consisting of grammar, vocabulary, information structure and background knowledge
-Support: pictures, diagrams, visual aids, e.t.c…
Anderson and Lynch (1988) suggest five factors which make listening difficult as follows:
-The organization of information -The familiarity of the topic -The explicitness and sufficiency of the information
-The type of referring expressions used -Whether the text describes a „static‟ or „dynamic‟ relationship
Similarly, Joseph P Boyle believes that the difficulties in listening comprehension come from three factors as follows:
- Listener factors: including experience in listening to the target language, general intelligence and background knowledge as well as physical, educational and especially psychological factors
- Speaker factors: referring to language ability of the speaker, speaker‟s pronunciation, accent or voice, speaker‟s speed of delivery and prestige and personality of the speaker
- Materials and medium: referring to the language used in the listening passage such as stress, intonation, strong or weak forms…, the difficulty of the content and concepts and distractors like noise or interference
Shortly, there are a variety of factors which influence students‟ listening of difficulties in listening comprehension resulting from topic familiarity, language speech, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, difficulties of the oral texts as well as their own psychology.
Listening tasks
“Task” is defined variously Task is considered to be a kind of activity which is designed to help achieve a particular learning goal Crooke (1986) defined task as „a piece of work or an activity, usually with a specified objective, undertaken as a part of an educational course, at work, or used to elicit data or research‟
However, the fullest and the most logical definition about task is of Lee‟s (2000) In Lee‟s view, “a task is „(1) a classroom activity or exercise that has: (a) an objective obtainable only by interaction among participants, (b) a mechanism for structuring and sequencing interaction, and (c) a focus on meaning exchange; (2) a language learning endeavor that requires learners to comprehend, manipulate, and/or produce the target language as they perform some sets of work plans‟
Whatever task is defined, it is undeniable that in teaching and learning, tasks play a vital role With tasks, teachers and learners can measure the improvements
1.2.2.Criteria of a good listening task
A good listening task in CLT approach has several features:
Goal: Establish a clear purpose for listening: to use language to accomplish a goal, not to use language merely as language itself
Input: Require listening to an authentic, connected piece of discourse Activities: Activities must
- Reflect a subject or topic that will interest students
- Provide a topic that is broad enough for every listener to approach from some angle or understand
- Involve in solving a true problem or relate to learners‟ own life
- Allow enough time for listeners to respond to the listening task (written or oral) in some meaningful way
Learner role: A good listening task
- Motivates listeners to consider their knowledge of the topic
- Allows Ls to use all of the language skills they have, rather than specific forms or vocabulary, and tend to self-correct when they realize they need to
- Allows listeners to make use of contextual and nonverbal cues
In order to develop students‟ listening comprehension, understanding about kinds of listening tasks is very important Listening tasks are very diversified However, according to Ur P (1996), listening tasks can be classified by the natures of students‟ response
With no overt response, listening tasks can be categorized as follows:
Following a written text: Students listen to and read it at the same time Listening to a familiar text: Students listen to an already known text This kind of task requires not much listening comprehension skills but simply gives pleasant experience in listening to meaningful English sounds
Listening aided by visuals (e.g pictures, diagrams…): Students look at visual materials while simultaneously following a spoken description of it
Listening to an informal talk: Students can listen to their teacher or any good speakers of
Listening to something entertaining (e.g stories, songs, films, and television programs): this kind of task provides students with useful interludes to put in before or after more demanding exercises, or when students‟ concentration is at low ebb
Some kinds of task students can do in the form of simple and short answers are Following instructions: Students listen to commands; they will show their comprehension by complying with the commands Responses can be physical movement (e.g stand up, sit down…), building models and picture dictation (draw as you are told to)
Ticking off items: Learners tick beside the items: Learners tick beside the items that they hear in the listening
True/False: Identify whether the statement is true or false based on the listening
Detecting mistakes: Some fact is mentioned with intentional mistakes for students to point out
Cloze: students make a guess of what can be fill in the blanks in the listening text
Guessing definitions: this is synonymous with guessing games Sts listen to a definition or description of something and guess what it is For example, a number of pictures which have some similarities are not given Sts have to listen and choose the right choice
Skimming and scanning: learners have to make out some general ideas (skimming) and details (scanning) of the listening
Pictures: one picture or a series of pictures may be used Sts are then asked to identify pictures or components as they are referred to, either naming or ordering them in the order in which they are mentioned
Maps: Using a map, students are asked to name a specific place as they listen Besides that, changes can be made Sts have to listen and mark these changes
Ground-plans: ground-plans are a kind of maps but single sketch can be interpreted in many different ways relating to various listening tasks Its advantages lies in its simplicity: it can be very easy to trace
Grids: a grid is simply a rectangle marked off into squares and used to display data Sts may be presented with an inadequately or inaccurately filled-in grid, fill in or correct the information on the grid as they listen
Family trees: family tree is a kind diagram Students listen to stories or descriptions of families, then identify family member relationship
Graphs: Students are given a graph with some missing details While listening to the information, they fill in the missing details
With longer response, listening tasks can be:
Answering questions: based on the content of the listening, students are required to give longer and full answer to the questions
Note-taking: students take notes of the talk
Paraphrasing and translating: students use their own words to rewrite or retell the listening texts either in the same language or in their mother tongue
Summarizing: learners write a summary of the content of what they have just listened
Long gap-filling: similar to a cloze exercise, the only difference is that the information to be filled in the gap is longer
Dictation is also a recommended kind of task which can boost learners‟ listening skills a lot
Predictions: after hearing the first part of an utterance or passage, students make a guess at the possible continuation Prediction can be effectively practiced when integrated with other skills in the exercises based on passages of discourse
Tasks of this kind are on the whole more demanding than those of other kinds
Listening serves as a basis and starting point for other activities Students are expected not only to understand the listening material but also to be able to compare or collate its different parts of aspects, analyze, interpret, evaluate and reason from it In some ways, these may be called communicative tasks as they involve students‟ feelings, attitudes, tastes and values as well as their intellectual abilities
Problem solving: students listen to all the information relevant to a particular problem and then set themselves to solve it, either individually or through group discussions
Jigsaw listening: this activity is used very much like jigsaw grouping for discussion In jigsaw listening, different groups of students listen to a different but connected passage, each of which supplies some parts of what they need to know After that, they come together to exchange information and possibly to discuss or evaluate that information
Interpretative listening: students listen to somebody‟s speech The meaning of what he says is not the only thing students absorb Students may also take into account many other things, such as what kind of person the speaker is, the way he speaks, his mood, his attitude, etc The ability to make such interpretations is one of the communicative abilities
Evaluative and stylistic analysis: recordings used for this type of tasks can be interviews, comedy, drama, advertising, rhetoric and poetry When students are able to understand the information explicitly conveyed in the listening text as well as appreciate some of the implicit “message”, they may try to analyze its style and assess its impact Obviously, to do these kinds of task, students have to be highly proficient in spoken English.
Material adaptation
Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix) argues that adaptation is an action of employing „one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content‟ Similarly, Tomlinson
(1998) believes that adaptation means “reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing.”
It is also quite necessary to differentiate the terms “adapting” and “adopting”
Adaptation is a process subsequent to, and dependent on adaptation In addition, while adoption deals with the whole course book, adaptation is only concerned with the parts that make up the whole Last but not least, adoption is related to evaluation, but adaptation is related to changing or adjusting various parts
In short, adaptation matches internal to external factors It involves changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to better suit a particular circumstance
Cunningham (1995) has pointed out that “Materials are not always clear regarding the methodology they use in terms of „what‟ and „how‟ to teach There are also cases of inconsistency between stated and actual methodology Moreover, course book cannot relevant to all teaching/ learning contexts” Hence, adapting materials is badly in need
Teachers should adapt published materials according to their students‟ needs and proficiency
Besides that, it will be useful to compare our own reasons with those in the following list (Proposed by McDonough and Shaw, 1993: 86).This list indicates some of the possible areas of mismatch which can be dealt with by adapting in this study
- Not enough grammar coverage in general
- Not enough guidance on pronunciation
- Not enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty to these learners
- Subject- matter inappropriate for learners of this age and intellectual level
- The communicative focus means that grammar is presented unsystematically
- Amount of material too great/ too little to cover in the time allocated to lessons
- Too much/ too little variety in the activities
- Dialogues too formal, and not really representative of everyday speech
- Vocabulary list and a key to the exercises would be helpful
In this study, the theories of material adaptation as well as the list of reasons presented above will be certainly helpful for modifying some listening tasks in listening sections of English 11
It is obvious that material adaptation is necessary However, this process can not be done casually and arbitrarily It must follow some certain principles According to McDonough and Shaw (1993), adapting materials must ensure three principles, namely
„Personalizing‟ refers to increasing the relevance of content in relation to learners‟ interests and their academy, educational or professional needs
„Individualizing‟ addresses the learning styles both of individuals and of the numbers of a class working closely together
„Localizing‟ considers the matters of international geography of English language teaching and recognizes that what may work well in this learning environment may not do so in that environment
In brief, the above principles play a vital role in adapting materials In this study, the author also bases on these principles for modifying listening tasks of English 11
To adapt materials, McDonough and Shaw (1993) offer a list of techniques as follows:
Adding: The term “Addition‟ mainly means that materials are supplemented by adding more to them “while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation‟ There are two ways of adding, namely extending or expanding Extending means teachers supply more of the same type of materials to make a quantitative change in the material
Expanding means adding some things different to the material to make qualitative change
Deleting or omitting: Like technique of addition, a teacher can delete or omit materials both quantitatively ( by subtracting ) or qualitatively ( by abridging )
Modifying: „Modification‟ at one level is a very general term in the language applying to any kind of change In order to introduce further possibilities for adaptation, we should restrict its meaning here to an internal change in the approach or focus of an exercise or other pieces of materials It is a rather important and frequently used procedure that is like all other techniques; it can be applied to any aspect of „content‟ It can be sub- divided into two kinds: rewriting and restructuring
Simplifying: When simplifying, teachers can make many elements of a language course such as the instructions, explanations, exercises or activities become easier and more accessible to learners
Re-ordering: Re- ordering refers to the possibility of putting parts of a course book in a different order This may mean adjusting the sequence of presentation within a unit or taking units in a different sequence from that originally intended
Tanner and Green (1998: 122) also propose four different techniques for adapting materials They are changing, removing, replacing and adding
Changing: Changing means making small changes to the existing material in the course book to make the material more appropriate to students
Removing: Removing means that a course book‟ activity will be removed from the lesson
Replacing: Replacing means that one activity in an area not covered sufficiently in the book will be replaced by a more suitable activity
Adding: It means that the teacher can add an extra activity in an area not covered sufficiently in the book
In short, there are a large variety of techniques which can be used to adapt a material However, the most commonly used ones may be modifying, replacing, adding and simplifying As a teacher of English, the researcher thinks that these techniques can be used individually or in combination with others according to learning context as well as students‟ level, needs and interests
Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels
Macro adaptation is ideally done before the language program begins The teacher can compare what is covered in a textbook with what is required by the syllabus or examination to find that some certain areas or even whole unit of the textbook can be omitted and certain contents need to be supplemented
Macro adaptation is quite significant in such a way that it helps teachers and students avoid waste of time and energy and especially, helps teachers see in advance what they needs to supplement so that they can keep an eye on materials that could be used
Adapting a unit could be done through reordering the activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise material, etc Unit adaptation is beneficial as it helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and cohesive and helps the teacher better fulfill the aims of a unit
The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit Occasionally an activity is regarded as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in a particular class
If the teacher still wants to use the activity, he or she needs to adapt it
2.1 Research method of the study
To carry out the research, action research (AR) was used
2.1.1 An overview of action research
Action research is known by many other names: participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning or contextual action research There are a number of definitions of AR
Action research is a form of collective self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social or educational practices, as well as their understanding of those practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out… The approach is only action research when it is collaborative, though it is important to realize that action research of the group is achieved through the critically examined action of individual group members (Kemmis and McTaggart 1988: 5-6) Simply, action research is “learning by doing” It means that a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again Wallace (1998: 1) and Coles and Quirke (2001:14), AR is the process of systemic collection and analysis of data in order to make changes and improvement or solve problem
Data collection instruments
In order to do this action research successfully, pre and post data were collected by using qualitative and quantitative method with pre and post tests, survey questionnaire, classroom observations, document analysis (listening tasks) and teaching diaries
2.2.1 Pre- test (Appendix 1) and post- test (Appendix 6)
Testing was chosen as a mean of collecting data for this study firstly because test results students‟ improvement as the test score can show a relative degree of validity and reliability
In this study, the researcher used tests to measure students in two periods: one was done at the pre-action stage to test students‟ listening level at that time and one was at post-action stage to measure students‟ improvement Both these tests were done within fifteen minutes
Questionnaire 1 is used to identify the real situation of the student‟s learning listening skill and probe how students self-evaluate the listening tasks in English 11
Questionnaire 1 consists of 9 questions Question 1 is used to find out students‟ opinion about learning listening skill Question 2 probes how students self-evaluate their listening competence Question 3 aims to discover whether students always complete listening tasks in the textbook Question 4 examines frequency of appearance of types of listening tasks in English 11 Question 5 is about students‟ opinions about listening tasks in the textbook
Students‟ feelings when doing listening tasks are the focus of question 6 Question 7 examines students‟ opinions about the effect of listening tasks on their listening competence Question 8 probes what kinds of listening tasks students like best in listening lessons The last question seeks how the teacher treats listening tasks in class
Questionnaire1 is written in Vietnamese in order for students easily understand It does not require students to provide their name to ensure confidentiality The questionnaire copies will be distributed to the students on Monday of week 2 and collected on Saturday of the same week
This questionnaire is adapted from Peacock (1997) It is to evaluate students‟ improvement created by the modified listening tasks in listening lessons during three weeks of the implementing phase
The questionnaire is made up of two questions The first question is to probe whether students enjoy and satisfy with the modified listening tasks In this question, there are three closed items on a semantic differential scale of adjectives showing students‟ opinions about modified listening tasks i.e boring/interesting, unsatisfying/satisfying and inappropriate/appropriate From boring/interesting, there are five ranges applied: boring, monotonous, acceptable, pretty interesting and interesting It means that each item can be scored from one to five Students‟ comments and suggestions to make the listening tasks more appropriate are the focus of question 2
Like Questionnaire 1, Question 2 is written in Vietnamese and does not require students to provide their names The questionnaire copies will be delivered to students at the end of each lesson and collected in the next lessons
The observation sheets were used five times, twice at the pre-action stage (week 2) and three times at the action stage (week 5-7) by a non-participant observer The class was observed twice in week 2 to find out whether original listening tasks could make students satisfied The class was also observed three other times when the modified listening tasks were applied to investigate whether the modified listening tasks could help students better in listening For each lesson, the non-participant observer observed 45 minutes She has a set of checklist involving students‟ concentration on the listening tasks, their involvement in the tasks and their enjoyment and persistence She also observed students‟ reactions to the modified listening tasks and their preferences for listening tasks
The observation sheet consists of six items, each of which is ranked on the scale of one (low) to five (high) A non-participant observer completes the sheet until the lessons ends and after that she will work out the daily total score
Five listening lessons are observed Unit 1 (Friendship) and Unit 2 (Personal experiences) are observed at the pre-action stage with the original tasks to see whether the tasks are suitable and motivating students Unit 3 (A party), Unit 4 (Volunteer work) and Unit 7 (World population) are observed during the action stage with modified tasks
All the information collected from the class observations along with data from other data instruments were analyzed to evaluate the effects of modified listening tasks on students‟ listening comprehension
Teaching diaries refers to the recording what the teacher do in classrooms By gathering information about what is going on in the classroom, analyzing and evaluating the information, the teachers can identify what is appropriate to students or what is not
Then some changes and improvements are made Normally, teaching diaries reflect the lesson plans, the way of teaching and learning
Textbook analysis is focused on analyzing the text material systematically
There are different ways to analyze a textbook The analysis can include the structure of the text, the focus of the author, design and organization, language content, topic and methodology of the book or the usefulness of the learning assists and the aims and approaches
In this study, listening tasks in listening lessons of English 11 were analyzed to see whether they are suitable or not These listening tasks were analyzed basing on the criteria of a good listening task mentioned in Chapter I, Section 1.2.2 This analysis helped the researcher have a sufficient evaluation of the listening tasks in the textbook Then, the researcher could decide which tasks in the textbook should be modified to better student‟s listening comprehension
The results of the textbook analysis are presented in Chapter 3.
Participants
This study was carried out in the school year 2011-2012 at Kinh Mon High School, where the data were collected, analyzed and improvement strategies were tried out The people who took part in this study were
The researcher has been teaching English at Kinh Mon High School for 6 years She is thirty years old She graduated from Hanoi National University- College of Languages and International Studies and now she is attending a Master Course in TESOL at this college, too
The observer invited to take part in this study is a teacher of English at Kinh Mon High School She got a B.A in English from Hanoi National University- College of Languages and International Studies She is at the age of forty and has been teaching English for 15 years
The subjects of the study are fifty grade 11 students (28 females and 22 males) in the researcher‟s class- Class 11I- at Kinh Mon High School in the academic year 2011-2012
Their ages are between 16 and 17 They come from different communes of Kinh Mon district All of them have learnt English since class 6 However, their English proficiency is quite low, especially listening skill Most of them do not pay attention to listening study as they think that this skill is not very important and especially it is not tested in any National Examination In the school year 2011-2012, the student has a 45 –minute period per week for the listening skill.
Summary
This chapter presented the research method of the study, instruments and the data collection procedure and analysis as well as the description of the participants Given the aims and objectives of the research, the researcher decided to employ survey questionnaires, the observation sheet, teaching diaries and document analysis Next chapter-chapter three- will present the data analysis and findings
CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
This chapter, first of all, analyzes the initial data collected from observations, questionnaires, textbook analysis and teaching diaries Then, the hypothesis and planning and action phases are presented Finally, the researcher discusses the techniques used for modifying listening tasks as well her attempts to evaluate the action research
3.1 Initial data 3.1.1 Results from pre-listening test
As stated in Chapter 2, on the first day of week 2 students would do a test to measure their level
Below are the results of the test
Table 1: Results of the pre-test Marks Marks 1-2 Marks 3-4 Marks 5-6 Marks 7-8 Marks 9-10
From the table, it can be seen that 74% of the students scored below average, whereas students achieving average scores made up 20% and only 6% could get from mark 7 to mark 10 The result of the test showed that most of the students were quite weak at listening skill Students need to be helped to improve this skill
3.1.2 Results from pre-action stage observations
At pre-action stage, the researcher taught Unit 1 (Friendship) and Unit 2 (Personal experiences) with non-modified tasks The lessons were observed by another teacher
During the observations, this teacher took notes and gave the total marks of students‟ involvement in the tasks in the two periods The following is the description of one lesson:
Number of students in class: 50
As usual, the lesson started with warm-up The teacher asked her students some questions
(Who is your best friend?, How long have you known each other?, What qualities do you admire in your best friend?) Then, students worked in pairs to ask about their best friends in 4 minutes After calling one pair to ask and answer in front of the class, the teacher introduced the lesson (Today we will listen to two monologues of Lan and Long They are talking about their best friends) Before students listened to the passages to complete the tasks, teacher introduced some words and phrases Then students continued the lesson with task 1 deciding True/False statements They were asked to work individually, run through the 11 sentences in task 1 and underline the key words Then teacher played the tape twice
After that, the teacher asked students to give answers However, few of them had all the answers Some even paid no attention to the task The teacher stopped by each sentence for checking
Students, then, came to task 2 in which they had to take notes of what Lan and Long like about their friends and how and where they met The teacher again played the tape twice
However, this task seemed to be difficult for students as almost no student noted down anything The teacher had to provide help The lesson flew slowly
Finally, the teacher gave some cues and asked students to work in pairs to talk about Lan‟s and Long‟s best friends
Here are the results from the observations First, it should be mentioned that the observation sheet had six items, but during unit 1 and 2 the observer only used four items to observe students‟ involvement in the tasks The highest mark for each item was 5 and the highest mark for the whole class in each lesson was 20 The highest total mark for the observations during two lessons was 40
Below are the concrete results:
Table 2: Students’ involvement in the tasks
Unit 2 (Personal experiences) Marks of students’ involvement in the tasks
It can be seen from the table that level of students‟ involvement in the tasks was quite low
In Unit 1 (Friendship), the percent of students who involved in the tasks accounted for
40%, while in Unit 2 (Personal experiences) was a bit higher with 45% This figures showed that more than half of the students paid no attention to studying listening They barely participated in the lessons This may be resulted from two main reasons: the first one, maybe, is that the tasks themselves are uninteresting; the second one is probably due to students‟ low level of listening competence
3.1.3.1 Students’ evaluation about listening skill and their own listening competence
When answering the first question about their evaluation about learning listening skill, most of the students (96 %) admit that learning listening skill is difficult, even extremely difficult
Regarding to students‟ self-evaluation about their own listening comprehension ability, only 1 out of 50 students confidently said that her listening ability was very good; whereas 78% thought that they were very bad at listening In listening lessons, they almost hear nothing
3.1.3.2 Students’ opinions about listening tasks in English 11 (Questions 3, 4 and 5)
When answering the question how often they completed listening tasks in listening lessons, 2% of the students said that they always completed listening tasks, 14% often finished, but 84% sometimes could finish the tasks The result also showed that 66% of the students confirmed that kinds of listening task in the textbook were not very diversified
Question No 4 tried to seek the frequency of listening tasks in listening lessons The results are clearly presented in the table below:
Table 3: Frequency of listening tasks in listening lessons
Completing missing information in the table/ charts (%)
Ticking the things you hear (%)
As can be seen that the most frequently used tasks in listening lessons are answering open- ended questions Filling missing words and deciding T/F statements rank second with 24% for each kind Such kinds of task as numbering the pictures, multiple choice questions and ticking the things you hear are sometimes present Only the tasks of completing the missing information in the table/charts are rarely used The information in this table once again confirmed that listening tasks in English 11 are not very plentiful
3.1.3.3 Students’ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11
Question No 6 examines students‟ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11 The results can be seen in the following table:
Table 4: Students‟ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11
When asked to express their feeling when doing listening tasks in English 11, the majority of the students (accounting for 54%) said they felt very bored with the listening tasks in the textbook 38% of them felt normal and only a small number of students were interested in the tasks
It is obvious that listening tasks in the textbook dissatisfy most of the students, which can not motivate students to participate in the lessons as well as not to encourage them to develop their listening skill
3.1.3.4 Students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks to their listening competence
Table 5: Students‟ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks
Very effective (%) Effective (%) Not clear (%) Ineffective (%)
Table 5 presents that only 6% and 8 % of the students thought that listening tasks in the textbook were very effective and effective, while 34% of them spoke that they were not clear whether the tasks could help them improve their listening comprehension Especially,
52% believed that their ability for listening comprehension was not improved They claimed that the tasks were totally ineffective
3.1.3.5 Students’ preferences for listening tasks
Question 8 was used to collect information about the listening tasks that students preferred
The results are shown in the table below:
Table 6: Students‟ preferences for listening tasks
Completing missing information in the table/ charts (%)
Ticking the things you hear (%)
The hypothesis
The analysis and discussion of the initial data formed the following hypothesis:
Modified listening tasks in listening sections of English 11 could help improve student’s
To help improve students‟ listening comprehension, an action plan was designed In this action plan, the original listening tasks were modified to make them more appropriate and interesting to students when they deal with listening lessons.
Planning action steps
In this action plan, the researcher focuses on modifying inappropriate listening tasks basing on the principles and techniques for adapting presented in sections 1.3.3 and 1.3.4 of
Chapter 2 to make the tasks more appropriate for students at Kinh Mon High School The choice of each specific technique depends on students‟ opinions and the analysis of original listening tasks With a carefully prepared plan, the researcher wishes to attract students to listening lessons, then, in part, help them better at listening
The followings are some techniques exploited to modify listening tasks
In Task 1 of Unit 4 (Volunteer work), students are required to listen to a passage and fill in the missing information However, the missing information is mostly numbers, so it is not very informative It is the reason why Task 1 is replaced by the following one:
Modified task: Listen to the passage again and then underline false information in the following sentences
1 Dance , theatre, singing and folk music classes were set up in 1998
2 Children from these classes raise money to continue their studying and Performance Arts classes
3 The school requires volunteers to help organise their fund-raising dinner in which children dance, sing and play music at one of the largest clubs in HCM City
4 They need foreign volunteers to contact students‟ parents and help to expand the school activities
5 Volunteers are required from February until July to help organise the events
Besides that, according to questionnaire 1, most of the students felt bored with such the repetitive listening tasks as answering the questions Moreover, this kind of task seems a bit difficult for students In Unit 4 (Volunteer work), task 2 (Answering five questions) would be replaced by the following task
Modified task: Listen to the passage about Spring School, a special school in Ho Chi Minh City and then choose the best answer:
1 The aim of Spring School is ………
A to teach disadvantaged children all over the country
B to teach disadvantaged and poor students how to dance and sing
C to provides classes to disadvantaged children in Ho Chi Minh City only
2 The number of students at the school is …………
3 The school set up English classes in………… in the cooperation with………
A 1996/ The Organization for Education Development
B 1997/ The Organization for Ecomomic Development
C 1998/ The Organization for Education Development
4 The fund-raising dinners are held………
A Once a year B Twice a year C Every two year
5 At fund-raising dinners, the children often………
A Sing and dance B Dance and play music C Sing, dance and play music
As mentioned in section 3.1.3.2, some tasks in the textbook are too long for students to complete in a limited time For Unit 3 (A party), there are two tasks In task 1, students have to listen and decide True/False statements (5 statements) In task 2, students listen again and answer open-ended questions, but this task seems to be too long with seven questions included To ensure to have enough time for two tasks, two questions of task 2
(Questions No 3 and No 5) are omitted
Changing is another technique used for this research Task 2 of Unit 7 (World Population), the five open-ended questions are quite long and a bit difficult for weak students to understand Therefore, the task would be changed to help students easier to understand as follows:
Modified task: Listen to the passage again and then answer the following questions:
1 According to the expert, how many people will there be by the year 2015?
2 How is the rate of population growth in different parts of the world?
3 What are the bad effects of population explosion?
4 What are the four solutions offered by the expert?
In brief, three main techniques employed for modifying the tasks in the textbook are
Data collected in the action stage
In the action stage, the researcher applied modified listening tasks in three listening lessons (Unit 3, 4 and 7) Three observation sheets were completed by a colleague teacher The sheet included six items, the highest mark for each item was 5, the highest mark of the whole class in each lesson was 30 and the highest mark for three observed lessons was 90
Table 10 shows score for students‟ involvement in tasks:
Table 10: Students’ involvement in tasks
Marks of students’ involvement in tasks
It can be seen from the table that students‟ involvement in tasks increased gradually through the lessons which used modified listening tasks In Unit 3, more than half of the students (63.3%) paid attention to the lesson In Unit 4, the percent of students‟ involvement in tasks was 10% higher than that of Unit 3 It means that students were more and more engaged in modified listening tasks In the last lesson of the action plan- Unit 7- students‟ involvement in tasks added up to 76.7% Obviously, modified listening tasks increased students‟ interest in learning listening However, the average percentage of students‟ involvement in tasks in three lessons (71.1%) was not so high as it is expected
There were some students uninterested in modified listening tasks This encourages the researcher to continue adjusting modified listening tasks so as to increase students‟ participation in the lessons
Questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) was delivered to each student after finishing each lesson during three weeks (from week 4 to week 7) to see how students evaluate the modified listening tasks
The total number of questionnaires collected during three lessons was 150 The questionnaire had four items and highest mark for each item was 5, the total score for a questionnaire was 20 and the total score of the whole class was 1000
The results of the questionnaire were illustrated in the table below:
Table 11: Students’ evaluation about modified listening tasks
The figures from the table showed that most of the students found the modified listening tasks more interesting, meaningful and appropriate The percentage of students who preferred the modified tasks increased lesson by lesson In Unit 3 was 63%, 72.5% in Unit
4 and 75.5% in the last lesson
It proved that students had positive opinions about modified listening tasks Most of them felt satisfied with the changes made by the teacher Especially, according to what they said in their comments after each lesson, the modified listening tasks of the teacher help facilitate their process of listening They somewhat felt less stressful when dealing with the tasks as they could be easier get information from the listening passages and finish most of the given tasks They, finally, expressed their wish that the teacher often modified the tasks to help them listen easier and better
In brief, the results from the observations and questionnaire 2 once again confirmed that modified listening tasks increased students‟ involvements in the tasks Students concentrated more on the lessons and most of them could complete the listening tasks themselves In other words, students‟ listening competence was partly improved because of more appropriate listening tasks
With the hope of following closely what was happening during the lessons, how effective the modified listening tasks were as well as what problems came up, the researcher wrote teaching diaries after each lesson
As mentioned above, at the pre-action stage, when the teacher taught Unit 1 and 2 with non-modified listening tasks, nearly a half of students paid no interest to the lessons They even didn‟t finish the lesson in 45 minutes However, this situation changed when modified tasks were applied in Unit 3, 4 and 7
As perceived by the researcher through her teaching diaries, students‟ listening comprehension was improved a lot during three lessons at the action stage The modified listening tasks really had good effects on students‟ progress Most of the students could finish the tasks themselves They also found the tasks more interesting and satisfying; therefore, they were more engaged into the lessons and felt less nervous when solving listening tasks That also explained why the class atmosphere during three weeks of action stage was at ease
However, according to what was written in the teaching diaries, there were some off- task students These students stayed silently in class and could do a part of tasks This showed that the modified tasks should be adjusted a bit to attract more students
To sum up, the teaching diaries together with observations and questionnaires helped the researcher evaluate the effectiveness of modified listening tasks on students‟ progress more exactly The researcher could identify the good points and existing problems after each lesson so that there are more appropriate adjustments to enhance students‟ comprehension
After the researcher had applied the modified listening tasks in teaching, she prepared a test with the aim of probing whether students really could improve their listening comprehension through the modified listening tasks
The table below presents the results:
Table 12: Results of the post-test Marks Marks 1-2 Marks 3-4 Marks 5-6 Marks 7-8 Marks 9-10
Obviously, students achieved certain progresses in this test The number of students getting below average marks reduced remarkably More than half of the students scored better marks than in the test before This figures once again confirmed that the modified listening tasks had good effect on students The majority of them got some success in improving their listening comprehension
Action research evaluation
In this section, an evaluation of the action research was made based on the data collected from pre- action stage and action stage to see whether students‟ listening comprehension could be improved through modified listening tasks
3.5.1 Students’ involvement in tasks before and after action plan
Chart 1: Students‟ involvement in tasks before and after action plan
As can be seen from the graph, the percentage of students‟ involvement in tasks at the pre- action stage was 40% in lesson 1 and 45% in lesson 2 It means that nearly the other half of the class was off-tasks During the action stage, some changes could be seen clearly The percentage of students‟ participation in tasks increased gradually from 63.3% in Unit 3 to 73.3% in Unit 4 and 76.7% in Unit 7 Obviously, the majority of the class was attracted to the lessons using modified listening tasks They involved into these lessons much more than the previous ones This once again confirmed that students gained some improvements in listening when the action plan was implemented in the action stage
In short, the data collected from both initial stage and action stage indicates that students‟ listening comprehension was improved During the lessons of the action stage, the percentage of student on-tasks gradually increased This proves that the modified listening tasks are quite effective
Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 Unit 4 Unit 5
Students‟ involvement in tasks before action plan
Students‟ involvement in tasks after action plan
3.5.2 Students’ progress reflected through tests
Chart 2: Students‟ progress reflected through tests
The chart indicates that after implementing the action plans, students gained some progresses The score of the post-test was much higher than that of the pre-test In details, the number of students who got bad marks decreased by half, while the number of students achieving good marks went up dramatically This proved that students‟ listening comprehension was improved
3.5.3 Summary of major findings and discussions
3.5.3.1 The unsuitability of listening tasks in the textbook and its effects on students’ listening comprehension
There have been a large number of researches investigating factors affecting students‟ listening comprehension These factors are various It may come from the teachers or the students themselves However, basing on what has been analyzed in questionnaires and observations, the researcher found out that the unsuitability of listening tasks in the textbook also has a great influence on students‟ listening competence
The data from questionnaire 1, pre-action observations and the analysis of the textbook show that most of the students find the listening tasks in the textbook very boring and almost ineffective in helping them develop listening skills This exposes that the listening
Result of the pre-test Result of the post-test tasks in English 11 do not meet students‟ needs and interests There exists some appropriateness
The unsuitability of the tasks in the textbook English 11 may fall into three categories The first is the tasks which are too difficult for students They are not appropriate with students‟ level, therefore, students often feel very stressful when dealing with this kind of task The second is too long tasks, which students can not finish in the time limited The last one is repetitive kinds of task Monotonous tasks could not motivate students as they soon feel bored with doing the same kind of task every day
Obviously, inappropriate tasks could not create a motive and interests for students to learn, thus, students‟ listening competence can not be improved much as expected
3.5.3.2 Students’ preferences for listening tasks
There are many different kinds of listening tasks such as answering questions, completing the missing information However, the three kinds of tasks which are most favored by students are multiple choice questions, True/False statements and gap-filling Students like doing these kinds of task probably because such kinds of tasks are appropriate to their level They can feel at ease when meeting these tasks, which create good psychology for them when solving the tasks
3.5.3.3 Modified listening tasks could help improve students’ listening comprehension
The action plan was implemented during three lessons (Unit 3, Unit 4 and Unit 7) with the modification of the listening tasks in English 11, i.e replacing, omitting and changing the unsuitable tasks
The results from observations, questionnaire 2 and teaching diaries clearly indicate that with the modified listening tasks students are much more eager to participate in the lessons The percentage of students‟ involvement in tasks increases lesson by lesson
(63.3% in Unit 3, 73.3% in Unit 4 and 76.7% in Unit 7) More importantly, students find the lessons more interesting, meaningful with appropriate tasks During three lessons at the action stage, the majority of students feel satisfied as they can complete the tasks themselves
Modified listening tasks have positive effects on improving students‟ listening comprehension because of the following reasons:
First of all, the modified tasks not only closely followed the theories of listening and principles for adapting materials but they were also based on students‟ opinions Hence, the modified tasks fit students‟ needs and interests
In addition, after each lesson, the researcher immediately got reflection from students through questionnaires, from a colleague teacher through observations and she herself kept teaching diaries This helped the researcher have proper adjustments for the next lessons to fit students‟ needs Therefore, all the modified listening tasks were certainly prepared
Last but not least, the researcher tried to employ the various techniques for adapting the material to ensure the modified tasks more appropriate to her students.
CONCLUSION
Conclusions
The action research was conducted within eight weeks In the first week, by observing lessons, discussing with colleague teachers and talking with students, the problem of students‟ uninterest in listening lessons was identified In the following week, at the pre- action stage, observations, questionnaire 1 and document analysis were employed to confirm the problem After analyzing data from these instruments, the unsuitability of listening tasks in the textbook English 11 was found to be one of the main reasons which made students bored with listening lessons The fact is that most of the students are not good at listening, whereas some listening tasks in the textbook are so difficult that students can not deal with Besides that, some tasks are too long for students to complete in a short time
Finding the answer for the first research question led to the hypothesis whether modified listening tasks could help increase students‟ listening comprehension
To solve the problem, an action plan was prepared by modifying listening task in the textbook The modification of the tasks was based not only on the principles for adapting materials but also on students‟ real needs and interests The techniques used for modification were replacing, omitting and changing
Three weeks following, the action plan was applied in three lessons (Unit 3, 4 and 7) The data collected from questionnaire 2, observations and teaching diaries clearly showed that most of the students made progresses in listening Despite some shortcomings, the modified listening tasks were quite effective as the tasks could help students more engaged into the lessons and then their listening competence was enhanced.
Recommendations
As discussed in this study, the application of modified tasks can be effective in improving students‟ listening comprehension So as for EFL teachers to have effective modifications,
I have some recommendations as follows:
First of all, teachers should spend time talking to students to find out which kinds of listening task they are fond of as well as which kinds of listening tasks do not meet students‟ needs and levels
Secondly, a plan about modifying listening tasks should be well and thoroughly prepared
The teacher must point out what he/ she intends to do with the tasks
Thirdly, after each modified listening taught to students, a small survey or an informal interview may be helpful as it will help teachers measure the appropriateness of the modified tasks
Last but not least, the researcher also recommends some useful techniques which can be often used to modify listening tasks These techniques are omitting, replacing, changing, adding or simplifying Depending on a particular situation of each class, the teacher can choose some suitable techniques for the action plan.
Limitations of the study
The study has gained some success in improving students‟ listening comprehension through modified listening tasks However, it still bears some limitations
First of all, the whole research lasted for eight weeks and the modified tasks were applied within three weeks merely with three lessons The results would be more reliable if the researcher had more time to study and experiment with more lessons
Secondly, within the scope of the study, the participants in the study were limited in a class with 50 students The researcher really wishes that she could conduct the research on a larger scale to produce better results
Finally, the study would be more effective if the researcher were much better at academic language proficiency, and had more experience in carrying out the research.
Students’ involvement in tasks before and after action plan
Ticking the things you hear (%)
According to the information in the table, the most preferred listening task is multiple choice questions The next one is tasks with filling missing words Tasks of deciding T/F statements rank third Followings are such kinds of tasks as ticking the things you hear and completing missing information in the table/charts respectively The least favorite one is answering open-ended questions
3.1.3.6 Students’ opinions about the way their teachers treat listening tasks
Table 7: Students‟ opinions about the way their teachers treat listening tasks
9 In what way does your teacher teach listening tasks in the Textbook?
Options Result (%) a The teacher always follows the given tasks in the textbook 76% b The teacher sometimes replaces difficult tasks for easier ones 8% c The teacher often modifies listening tasks to fit students‟ level 16%
Most of the students said that their teacher always follows the given tasks in the textbook without any adapting, while 16% stated that the teacher usually modifies listening tasks to help them listen better and 8% admitted that their teacher occasionally replaces the difficult tasks for easier ones These figures clearly show that most of the teachers still depend too much on the textbook They hardly have any changes to fit their students‟ level
3.1.4 Results from document analysis 3.1.4.1 English 11
English 11 was officially in use in the year 2007 It is developed from a theme-based syllabus Like English 10, English 11 consists of 16 units Each unit presents a topic as shown in the below table:
2 Personal experiences 10 Nature in danger
4 Volunteer work 12 The Asian Games
8 Celebrations 16 The wonders of the world
There are five parts in each unit arranged as follow: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language focus Each part starts with the items: pre-activities, while-activities and post-activities with a variety of activities and tasks All the tasks and activities are designed to help students develop communicative competence
3.1.4.2 Listening tasks in listening sections of English 11
For listening sections in English 11, the main aim is to help students improve their listening comprehension relating to the topics of the units Therefore, all the activities and tasks are designed with the hope of achieving this goal fully
Normally, a listening section consists of two tasks Task 1 often involves filling in the gap, deciding True/False statements or choosing the best answer Task 2 often deals with comprehension questions The table below shows more clearly types of listening tasks in English 11:
Table 9: Types of listening task in English 11
Types of listening task Units
True/False statements Multiple choice questions
True/False statements True/False statements
True/False statements Multiple choice questions
Gap-filling Multiple choice questions
Multiple choice questions True/False statements
True/False statements True/False statements Comprehension questions Comprehension questions
Multiple choice questions True/False statements Comprehension questions Comprehension questions
As can be seen from the table, listening tasks in this textbook are not various in forms and styles There are always repetitive tasks such as deciding on True/False statements or comprehension questions, which can lead to students‟ boredom in listening lessons
In addition, when perusing these tasks, it appears that not all the tasks are suitable with students‟ background and knowledge, especially, with students in a mountainous area like Kinh Mon district
For example, in Unit 3 (A party) although the listening topic is quite familiar; task 2 is too long with seven comprehension questions, not to mention some questions which can cause students‟ difficulties in answering
In Unit 4 (Volunteer work) the listening passage is about a special school named Spring School in Ho Chi Minh City It can be certain that most of the students have never heard about this school before Besides that when dealing with task 2, students can meet difficulties in answering question 3 (Why do children participate in fund-raising performances?) and question 5 (Why are foreign volunteers needed?) as to get answers, students must listen to very long sentences, which require them to have good skills of remembering and taking notes
In short, despite some good points, listening tasks in English 11 are not really diversified Some tasks seem not to be appropriate as they do not fit students‟ level This unsuitability of the original tasks might lead to the boredom and then affect students‟ listening comprehension
The data analysis at the initial stage of this research clearly shows that most students are not very interested in doing listening tasks in English 11 In fact, they feel very bored with the repetitive tasks and believe that these tasks hardly help them improve their listening competence It is due to the unsuitability of the original tasks which discourages students from engaging in listening Then the answer for the first research question „What makes students uninterested in listening lessons?‟ was found out
Furthermore, basing on collected data, the researcher can draw out some causes of unsuitability of the original listening tasks First of all, some original tasks are beyond students‟ knowledge and competence Secondly, some tasks are too long Finally, the repetition of some kinds of task can not attract students‟ attention
The analysis and discussion of the initial data formed the following hypothesis:
Modified listening tasks in listening sections of English 11 could help improve student’s
To help improve students‟ listening comprehension, an action plan was designed In this action plan, the original listening tasks were modified to make them more appropriate and interesting to students when they deal with listening lessons
In this action plan, the researcher focuses on modifying inappropriate listening tasks basing on the principles and techniques for adapting presented in sections 1.3.3 and 1.3.4 of