Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
It can be seen that language is the most important communicative tool of humankind and English is an important tool for today‘s international communication (Richards & Rodgers, 2001) As ―the last 50 years have witnessed the rise of English from an international language to the position of the first truly global language in the history of the world‖ (Hung, 2002, p.33), the need for English in Vietnam has increased significantly It is likely that the needs and requirements of Vietnamese learners have changed In the past, students put more focus on learning grammar and tried to be good at grammar, attempting to achieve good results in formal examinations
Nowadays, English is needed for daily communication and employment
However, despite the fact that in English teaching, one of the main objectives is to prepare students for the communication in the real life and it is of great importance and necessity to efficiently equip students with the four skills together with relatively sufficient background knowledge, the teaching of English in Vietnam has been widely criticized for the weak ability of the students in using the language outside the classroom Indeed, the outcome of English as a foreign language (EFL) education in secondary schools and universities is far from effective (Ngan, 2004; Nguyen, 2002; Tran, 2006)
Compared with other students in Asian region, Vietnamese students generally have lower proficiency; most can hardly communicate or pursue a study program in English, and thus experience disadvantages in the international work force (Huynh, 2006) Although some students are very good and achieve such high scores in grammar-based examinations, they are unable to produce a perfect sentence in both written and spoken forms (Huy,
2006) Hence, this failure in education has set the theme for the researcher to search for what can be done and how English should be taught to fully meet the requirements of each of language level
Regarding listening in EFL, it has been considered as one of the most important language skills in EFL as an input for the other skills Listening seems to become a bridge of productive skills since it is an activity that happens in order to get or receive information which plays a very important part to learn a foreign language In other words, it provides input for the learner Without understanding input, student cannot learn anything It is also admitted that listening is the most frequent skill used in everyday life Rivers and Morley (2008) assume that we listen twice as much as we speak, four times as much as we read, and five times as much as we write Besides, listening is a highly integrative skill playing a crucial role in language acquisition It is not simply the perceptions of sounds, but a complex process in second or foreign language Due to its complex nature, listening comprehension has been so far believed to be one of the most challenging skills for EFL learner to develop Therefore, a lot of students face the fact that they have met many difficulties to comprehend the information and to tackle with listening skill
Being a teacher of English for secondary students at Clever School for nearly two years, I realize that my students get difficulties in listening not only because of lack of grammatical knowledge or prior knowledge in English but also inappropriate learning language technique as well In addition, it seems to be an obstacle for learners lacking background knowledge and cultural understanding in a listening lesson As a result, students have less motivation to learn listening Therefore, it is essential for the teacher to find out the effective teaching approaches to make the lessons more interesting so that s/he can attract students‘ attention and help to improve their listening proficiency as well Besides it is the teacher‘s job to create more opportunities for students to master language skills in the class due to the fact that the crucial objective of English lesson for Junior high school is to develop communicative skills in both spoken and written forms Based on this, the students will achieve ability to use language to meet the demands of daily needs such as ability to read newspaper or understand a video well
Realizing the gap between the theory and current situation of teaching listening skills for students, the above – mentioned reasons put the researcher on the path to conduct a research project of Dictogloss applied in listening lesson in the hope of improving students‘ listening ability as well as enhancing students‘ motivation and attitudes towards English listening learning at a secondary school in Vietnam Accordingly, this thesis namely
―Using Dictogloss technique to improve the effectiveness of eight – form students‘ listening comprehension‖ aims to find innovative ways to help Vietnamese secondary students to feel more motivated to learn listening and to enhance students‘ comprehension in the development of listening skills The findings suggest that dictogloss technique, a multiple skills and system activity (Vasiljevic, 2010), can be used to improve students‘ understanding and retention of spoken English in listening lessons It is undeniable that exploiting Dictogloss technique effectively is challenging for teachers because they have to take many things into consideration However, if the lesson is carefully designed, dictogloss will potentially enhance both students‘ listening and communication skills.
Aims and research questions
The major purposes of the study are
1 To explore whether Dictogloss technique is applicable
2 To explore the effect of Dictogloss technique in students‘ listening proficiency
3 To find out students‘ attitudes towards Dictogloss technique used in listening skills
With these initial targets, the result is expected to raise implications for teachers of English, students and educators
In order to achieve the aforementioned aims, the paper seeks the answers for the following research questions
1) What are the students‘ attitudes towards Dictogloss – applied listening lesson?
2) To what extent does Dictogloss technique help to enhance the effectiveness of students‘ listening comprehension?
Based on the rationale of the study, the research hypothesis is formulated as follows: Dictogloss technique can improve the effectiveness of students‘ listening comprehension of 8 th graders at Clever School.
Significance of the study
Vietnamese researchers have so far conducted extensive research about English teaching and learning in an EFL context Therefore, this research continues to contribute to the growing body of research conducted by Vietnamese researchers This research will add to the literature of the implementation of Dictogloss technique in listening lessons in particular and in language teaching in general in the Vietnamese context
To my best knowledge, there has been little work which examined the effectiveness of Dictogloss in language teaching in the Vietnam context
Specifically, Nguyen (2013) conducted a study on dictogloss tasks which focused on its effectiveness on teaching grammar Therefore, the results of the study are expected to bring a very new practical benefit for teachers to teach English, especially teaching listening For the teachers, the study hopefully provides practical lessons and principles of Dictogloss technique as one of the innovative methods available for the choices of language teachers to increase the motivation of secondary school students to learn listening and use output in communication effectively For the students, it can also useful to facilitate them to improve their listening comprehension and cooperative learning.
Scope of the study
The study is concerned with exploring the effects of using dictogloss technique in helping students to learn EFL listen more effectively at Clever school In other words, the study is limited in its object of study In more details, I will carry out my research among 8 th graders at Clever school, a language school in Hanoi Due to the limitation of time and human resources, this paper only attempts to research on a small group of participants, namely
Added to this, the researcher only studies on the use of Dictoloss technique to teach and enhance students‘ effectiveness in their listening comprehension
Other approaches or techniques to teach listening skills for students would be beyond the scope.
Methods of the study
To seek the answers to the research questions, the data are analyzed from the material collection and were collected from observation, students‘ reflection and face-to-face interviews with students
First of all, for the theory, a lot of reference materials on listening comprehension and Dictogloss technique have been collected, analyzed and synthesized carefully with the due consideration for the teacher‘s and student‘s teaching and listening situations
Secondly, the interviews and observation are carried out with the students to collect the most reliable data for the study.
Thesis organization
The study is divided into three parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion
The introduction states the problem identification, objectives, significance and research method It also narrows the scope of the study and briefly presents an overall out-line of the research study
Part B: Development – consists of three chapters
Chapter one called “Literature review” reviews the theoretical background of the study It presents overview of listening comprehension and Dictogloss technique
Chapter two describes in details the research methodology which comprises the information of the research subjects, instruments for data collection and procedure for data collection
Chapter three presents results and the analysis of the collected data The results are the basement to determine the effects of using Dictogloss technique on teaching listening
This chapter closes the study by summarizing the main contents and providing suggestions for further study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Listening comprehension in ESL
The topic of the study ―listening comprehension‖ has been received a wide variety of approaches and understandings However, within the framework of this study, the focus is put on investigating ―listening comprehension‖ which is defined profoundly by Clark (1977, cited in Xu (2011), p.161) He gives both a narrow and broad definition:
―Comprehension has two common senses In its narrow it denotes the mental processes by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker intended to convey … Comprehension in its broader sense, however, rarely ends here, for listeners normally put the interpretations they have built to work” (p.161)
In the study, the two terms ―listening comprehension‖ and ―listening skill‖ are used as alternative terms
Listening has been so far considered as one of the most important language skills Feyten (1991) indicated that ―listening time accounts for more than
45% of communicating time” Since the importance roles of this skill as a tool to understand and facilitate language learning in overall language ability, there are a lot of researchers taking listening for granted Each scholars holds a different views towards the concept ―listening‖ or ―listening comprehension‖, so there have been varieties of definitions surrounding what listening is
According to Nunan (1998), listening in general is defined as ―an active process that involves deciphering and constructing meaning from verbal and nonverbal messages” In other words, it might be understood that listening process requires a variety of skills such as prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising and generalizing that writing and reading demand
Accordingly, listeners actively select what they want to know and interpret the information they get
O‘ Malley, Chamot and Kupper (1989) share the same view about listening that ―listening comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning using cues from contextual information and from existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirements‖ It seems that listener obtains the input as well as actively processes the message to comprehend Therefore, the objective of listening comprehension is that the learner is able to talk and write about what he has heard after listening
In short, it can be seen that listening is a language skill involving a wide range of ―sub-skills‖ It is more than simply hearing, it decodes sounds and understand the meaning behind those sounds Accordingly, students should learn to decode, follow verbal instruction, infer word meaning, listen for detail and sequence, extract the main idea, distinguish fact from opinion and identify mood during listening (Abelleira, 1987)
1.1.2 Nature of learning listening 1.1.2.1 Listening is more than hearing
It can be said that hearing is a completely automatic activity Whenever sound waves appear, you hear Listening, however, goes far beyond the mere reception of sound due to the fact that it is a complex activity As can be seen, listening process involves a lot of factors such as intellectual, emotional and social factors In addition, who is talking, when, where and why one listens are also considered Therefore, listening is not only a simple activity called absorbing audio signals but also an active intellectual process of decoding, interpreting, understanding and evaluating messages as mentioned above
1.1.2.2 Listening has a strong attachment to other skills
The purpose of language learning is to improve the speakers‘ four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, with the base of large vocabulary and grammar However, this is not the final purpose The final purpose is to let speakers be able to use the language It can be seen that a lot of speakers can read and write quite well, but they can hardly communicate, or even express themselves with their own words Aderson and Lynch (1988) suggest that improvements in speaking depend on successful listening, if speaking and listening are separated, the conversation will be broken down In the relation to reading, both listening and reading comprehension are receptive skills comprising both a physical process and interpretive, analytical process
Generally speaking, these four skills cannot be separated due to the fact that the goal of learning listening is to leaner how to understand the actual speech in order to communicate in English Accordingly, learners should be given opportunities to practice all sets of skills and to integrate them in the conversation
No one can deny that the importance of listening skills in foreign language learning because the key to acquire a language is to receive the language input Krashen, Terrell, Ehrman, and Herzog (1984) claimed that acquisition takes place only when students absorb enough comprehensible input
As an input skill, listening has made great contribution to students‘ language development Rost (1994) emphasizes this importance of listening
“Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learners Without understanding the input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin”
Brett (1997:39) shares the same view with Rost that listening is one of the most important sources of input that a human brain has He states that
―listening is a key language skill It has a vital role in the language acquisition process‖ Being an essential skill for most interaction, listening 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
Besides, in comparison with other skills, Morley (2001) states that in an ordinary day, the listening skill is exercised almost twice as much as the speaking skill, and around four to five times as the reading and writing skills There are more and more studies indicating the importance of listening in language learning and communication such as Anderson and Lynch (1988), Dunkel (1991) or Michael Lewis (1993)
Given the importance of listening in language teaching and learning not only a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language prophecy, it is essential for language teachers to help students become effective listeners.
Overview of current teaching and learning ESL learning situation in
situation in Vietnam 1.2.1 Current teaching and learning ESL learning situation in
English is introduced as a compulsory subject at Grade 3 in most schools in Vietnam The syllabus and textbooks have been redesigned several times with the aim to help teachers and students move away from the traditional focus on grammar to the focus on all rounded skills and communication skills
However, it seems that habit is hard to change It is claimed that most schools in the system still pay more attention to English grammar, reading and vocabulary (Luu, 2011) As a consequence, listening and speaking skills do not seem to be paid due attention in teachers‘ lesson plans Thus, English teaching and learning in Vietnam has strongly remained grammar/examination - focused Indeed, most English exams are composed in order to test students‘ knowledge of grammatical structures and vocabulary more than students‘ all rounded skills (Luu, 2011)
Moreover, language skills are usually taught separately in most language schools in Vietnam In other words, the interrelationship among four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) is not paid due attention Listening is often taught separately from speaking, whereas, in real life interaction, listening and speaking are integrated skills Aderson and Lynch (1988) suggest that improvements in speaking depend on successful listening, if speaking and listening are separated, the conversation will be broken down
Consequently, many Vietnamese students still cannot communicate successfully with foreigners even in simple daily conversations despite the fact that they are good students with high marks in English tests (Nguyen,
Teaching approach is also worth mentioned here Overall, the Vietnamese English classroom is described as a ―cultural island‖ in which the teacher- centered approach to teaching is an outstanding feature (Le, 2000) In other words, the English learning environment in Vietnam seems to put more burdens on the teachers as the imparter of knowledge of The teacher plays a crucial role in designing the syllabus, deciding the learning purposes and learning paths for students, transmitting knowledge and providing assessment through examinations In such teaching context, students, instead of being active learners, seem to become passive receivers or good imitators of the teachers Besides, given the absence of an English communication environment, ELT practice in Vietnam has undoubtedly prioritized preparing knowledge about the English language rather than developing ability to use English
1.2.2 Problems of teaching and learning listening comprehension in
Of the four language basic English language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), listening skill seems to be the most challenging skill to be acquired by Vietnamese students
The first problem might be laid on students‘ and teachers‘ attitudes towards listening comprehension As for students, there are many problems or difficulties they have to deal with in listening comprehension In fact, it seems fairly difficult for the students to find out the main ideas in the listening text, or the students cannot find the specific information as well as the meaning of the words and phrases in the listening text Also, the students cannot identify the communicative purposes contained in the listening text Therefore, the students might not be interested in listening skills (Nguyen, 2008) This might put a negative effect on students‘ learning listening As for teachers, teachers‘ attitudes towards listening somehow are mentioned earlier Teachers only want to measure the students‘ listening skill but not teach it For instance, the teachers just only give the questions or materials without any explanation Accordingly, the students are not able to digest all the information with their limited vocabulary, grammar and socio knowledge In fact, the students do not have time to reflect on what they have just listened
Another point can be seen is that the materials which the teachers are too difficult for students to understand It means that the teacher may set too high standard for students to reach It is not suitable with the learner‘s level Thus, the students would have a sense of depression, and they would not be interested in the lesson
The failure of students in listening may also originated from the fact that the teaching and learning process of listening is not conducted effectively and the inappropriate teaching method is applied by the teacher In other words, the students may find the strategies which the teachers use not interesting and effective enough to develop their listening comprehension
In short, the factors as described above had an overarching effect on the teaching practice and teaching outcomes especially on implementing a new pedagogical approach with the more learner-centered learning activities With a growing demand for English for communication in the current era, changes are urgently required for the situation This necessarily involves change in teachers‘ classroom practice toward encouraging a more active learning style
In the position I myself of a researcher consider that a dictogloss listening lesson, if implemented appropriately, will help the students promote their positive attitudes towards listening skills as well as improve their effectiveness in their listening learning
1.3 General concepts of Dictogloss technique 1.3.1 What is Dictogloss?
Dictogloss was first introduced as an alternative method of teaching grammar by Ruth Wanjryb (1990) It then was developed and used for different teaching focuses such as listening comprehension, reconstructing the writing text and integrated skills to ease students‘ cooperative learning and learner autonomy (Vasiljevic, 2010) In regard to teaching listening, dictogloss brings a means for the teacher to change the focus from assessing how much has been understood to helping learners to understand more (Prince, 2013)
Wilson (2003, p 341) also claims that dictogloss could be a ‗practical, student-centered way of dealing with perceptual errors‘ On the other hand, Vasiljevic (2010) suggests that dictogloss helps the process of teaching English listening overcome its limitation of often being assessed but rarely taught (Sheerin, 1987) by offering ‗a unique blend of teaching listening comprehension and the assessment of student listening ability‘ (Vasiljevic,
2010, p 46) The following section will describe the usual dictogloss procedure to explain why this technique can be used with multiple aims in a lesson
Dictogloss typically comprises four phases: first, students are given time to find out about the topic and do some preparatory work Then they listen twice to a short text, the first time without taking notes, the second time noting down what they can; then they work in groups or pair to reconstruct the text
Finally they compare their production with one another and with the original (Wanjnryb,1990; Wilson, 2003)
(1) In the preparation stage, the teachers give students clear commands about the task that the students have to do and organize them into groups before the listening stage begins These activities aim to prepare learners to the known and unknown vocabulary for the text as well as brief understanding about the topic This makes students more receptive to the listening stage Jimenez and Perez (2012) state that learning vocabulary requires learners a constant exposition to texts by most of the possible means transmitted and perceives by students
(2) In the listening stage, the students listen to the text which is read at normal speed from the tape or by the teacher and take fragmentary notes The first time, they should not take notes Kondo et al (2012) claim that during the first reading, learners are instructed to grasp the gist of the text They are not allowed to take notes, so that they can focus on the meaning of the text (Prince, 2013) In the second listening, they need to take notes about the key words used to put the text together in the reconstruction stage
METHODOLOGY
Setting of the study
The study was conducted at Clever School in Hanoi Currently, there are 31 classes with nearly 600 students enrolling in Clever School English classes
The ages of students range from 11 to 15 The teaching and learning conditions are good due to the fact that it is a private centre, so in order to attract students the center is well-equipped with teaching and learning technologies such as projectors, TV, CD player, computer with internet access and so on They are always available to English classes Besides, the class size of grade 8 is limited to 20 students All the students in each classes are carefully selected through placement test For this reason, almost students in one class are in the same level of English proficiency Dictogloss has been used in listening lessons in several classes at the school This study was designed to investigate student attitude toward dictogloss lessons and to find out the extent dictogloss technique can help to enhance student learning of English.
Participants
The subjects of the study were 18 8 th form students learning English as a foreign language at Clever School They come from different schools in Hanoi but they share the relatively similar English level All of the students are at the age of 14 and have been studying English for at least 5 years There are 13 females and five males Besides, these students are very well- perceived, hard-working and sociable They really like learning English, but they express the negative attitude towards learning listening These students are attending English lessons with the course book: My world 4 is designed on the basis of topic with 16 units and there is listening part in each unit The book, in fact, provides students with a wide range of listening texts with a view to helping students improve their listening skill
At Clever school, there are about 10 English teachers The researcher chose the head English teacher of class M5 as a participant in the study She has two-year experience of teaching English for secondary students with good knowledge of modern language teaching methodology Moreover, she is especially experienced in dealing with classroom problems, organizing class activities and willing to adopt a new teaching method for the sake of the students‘ progress.
Data collection methods
My hypothesis was that using Dictogloss technique in listening lesson could enhance the effectiveness of students‘ learning listening comprehension In increasingly confident and engaged; students‘ autonomy would be developed in such a process Furthermore, dictogloss technique applied in listening lessons could improve students‘ attitude towards learning listening because they are encouraged to use its input in the context related to the real world
The students were given opportunities to express their attitudes toward this technique
This qualitative research comprises of classroom observation, student reflections and face-to-face interviews with students and the teacher in one of the classes using dictogloss technique in their listening lessons Using these kinds of instrument allows the researcher to collect the data in ―qualitative form‖ Besides, the researcher found it easy to summarize, analyze and report the collected data Besides, the participants had an opportunity to express their attitudes towards listening lessons with the implementation of Dictogloss technique
According to Potter (1996), the observation is the method used in research in order to obtain data of a specific topic through contact with an individual or a group of individuals documenting their characteristics in their natural state or applying some variations In this study, the observations were conducted during listening lessons with the main purpose of gathering information about the students‘ comprehension and attitudes towards lessons These observations were also documented through field notes due to the detailed support that those filed notes can provide Also, the field note was made to investigate the teaching and learning process using Dictogloss technique in the listening lessons The researcher conducted class observation in four different listening lessons with the same students and teacher For each lesson, the researcher observed 60 minutes and all the activities the teachers and students were doing in the real classroom setting and took notes in a checklist The checklist for listening class observation was made by the researcher concerning teachers‘ activities in different periods of Dictogloss listening lesson, and students‘ involvement
At the end of each lesson, the researcher delivered the reflection sheets for the students in the class to write their thoughts about the lesson with the application of dictogloss technique The aim of writing reflection is to discover factors such as students‘ difficulties, students‘ preferences in the listening lesson, the advantages and disadvantages of dictogloss lessons compared to the traditional listening lessons they approached before Also, it helps students to show their expectation to the teacher From that, the researcher will gain recognition of applying Dictogloss technique in the real environment
Finally, based on the information collected from classroom observation and students‘ reflection, the researchers also conducted the interview with the students and the teacher of the class According to Brinkmann (2008:470), interview is conversational practice where knowledge is produced through the interaction between an interviewer and an interviewee or a group of interviewees Most of the interview questions were open-ended in an attempt to ―allow the respondents opportunities to develop their responses in ways which the interviewer might not have foreseen‖ (Nunan, 1992, p 99)
Accordingly, by asking open questions related to the role of listening and their attitudes toward dictogloss technique, the researcher would identify the effectiveness of students‘ listening learning in the dictogloss- applied lessons
Accordingly, the data collected from the classroom observations, students‘ reflections and mainly from the interview was analyzed to find out students‘ attitudes towards Dictogloss technique used in listening skills as well as to explore the effect of Dictogloss technique in enhancing students‘ listening proficiency.
Qualitative data analysis
In qualitative research, raw data is gathered from the transcripts of interviews or notes from archival materials (Vierra, et al.1998) Qualitative data in the present study include students‘ responses in the reflection form and the semi- structured interviews regarding student‘s effectiveness in learning listening comprehension and their attitudes towards dictogloss technique applied in listening lesson The responses in the semi-structured interviews were first given to students in the form of Vietnamese language and then transcribed
After collected, the data will be complied and analyzed In this study, NVivo software was employed for qualitative analysis All focus group interviews were transcribed anonymously in to Vietnamese to avoid data loss and ensure the privacy and confidentiality of respondents Then, themes were created based on constructs from the research questions and the literature review
RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The students’ attitudes towards Dictogloss – applied listening lessons
The triangle data gained from three sources mentioned above at the end of the course showed that generally the majority of students got involved in the lesson and they hold their positive attitudes towards dictogloss tasks.I organized into some perspectives as the reasons why the students hold this attitude towards dictogloss technique, namely dictogloss in helping students improve their attitudes towards listening learning, and students‘ perception in performing dictogloss tasks
3.1.1 Dictogloss tasks foster students’ interest for listening comprehension
With regarding to listening comprehension, the majority of students showed excitement to the dictogloss lessons, and expressed their strong support for these lessons in the interviews These students suggested that dictogloss was an interesting technique One student noted ―I really love the reconstruction stage It is very interesting and I have chance to work with my friends I can learn a lot of things‖ Another commented that ―I like speaking about the topic before listening very much I really want to show my understanding about the topic.‖This finding can be also supported by the results gained from the students‘ reflection and class observation One student shared the similar point of view in commenting in their reflection that she loved working with her friends, and she could do finish the exercises more quickly Obviously, dictogloss procedures make students feel more motivated in their learning listening comprehension through addressing their various needs in learning listening
The topic of listening lessons also attracts students‘ concerns From the observation, the researcher found that students seemed to show lots of interest in the first and third listening topic namely ―advantages and disadvantages of playing sports‖ and ―activities after school‖ However when it comes to a bit more challenging topic in the second and fourth lessons called ―smoking in public‖ and ―recycling‖, the students sounded to be not excited Similarly, one student said in her reflection form that ―I don‘t like the topic about smoking
It‘s very boring and hard for me to say about it I want my teacher to choose other topics like teenager‘s life or advantages of Facebook It would be much more interesting for us‖ Another student also mentioned that ―I somehow feel easy when the topic is easy like the previous lesson talking about favorite sports; it‘s quite familiar with teenagers I can talk more and therefore I can listen better‖ This raised a question for the teacher to choose the suitable topic to suit students‘ interest From the class observation, the researchers found that the teacher of the class had changes in choosing various topics addressing students‘ learning preference from the second teaching to the fifth one
However, there are some students who did not seem to favor this technique
Some of them indeed did not care how the lessons were run; therefore they did not show their involvement in the lesson Some students seemed to be struggled to adapt the new technique as they had to change their learning habits when getting involvement in dictogloss lessons The observation also revealed that some students even did not really participate in the class activities; they found it hard to deal with different tasks in dictogloss process
3.1.2 Dictogloss tasks: challenging but interesting
Although the majority of students liked dictogloss procedures and showed a lot of concerns about the technique, some others opinioned that they found dictogloss a bit challenging One student claimed that ―I found it very hard to listen and take notes at the same time I cannot do it‖ As can be seen from the observation, students seemed to struggle with this listening strategy namely taking notes In the first listening lesson, even though the teacher said that they only took notes the key words However, as the researcher observed, some students tried to write down the whole sentences or long phrases but not key words It raised a question for teaching to give the instructions clearly at the beginning of each stage Another suggested that ―it is very difficult to reconstruct the text close to the original version‖ Some other difficulties were also explained, such as: ―it‘s hard for me to follow the listening text There are a lot of new words It‘s short but I still found it difficult‖ or ―I don‘t know this topic much, so it is very difficult for me to speak before listening‖
Overall, a large number of students suggested that dictogloss tasks are fairy difficult but interesting Typical responses in interviews were: ―although it was difficult, I enjoyed the activity very much‖, ―the technique helped me develop my listening skills‖, or ―although it was challenging, I enjoyed it and it was good to study at our own space‖.
The roles of Dictogloss tasks in improving the effectiveness of students’
3.2.1 Dictogloss tasks increase students’ comprehension of the information heard
The data collection instruments evidenced the opportunities that dictogloss tasks offered to participants in order to improve their overall understanding of the listening text In this study, dictogloss tasks were included so the participants had other alternatives to comprehend the aural information; this particular finding evidences the role that Dictogloss tasks have in the development of listening comprehension skills The data taken from students‘ reflection sheets also support this category For instance, one of the students commented that ―I feel more confident in listening when my teacher provides me key words from the beginning of the lesson It makes me understand more about the topic, and I feel listening easier to get the information‖ Holding the same views, another student responded that ―I think it‘s necessary to supplement the vocabulary and some grammatical structures before listening,
I therefore would understand the listening text better later on‖ Feytein (1991) states that the process performed by the listener in order to understand becomes even more important when it comes to developing listening skills In the study, dictogloss tasks provide students with alternatives to comprehend the aural information It can be seen that students were provided with key vocabulary at the beginning of the task as input to follow, understand and reconstruct the text in the preparation stage According to Wanjnryb (1990) it prepares learners for the subject matter and makes them more receptive to the listening in the next stage Moreover, reconstruction stage encouraged participants‘ listening comprehension, and analysis and corrections allowed students recognize the mistakes when they are retelling the text One of the students confirmed that ―in reconstruction stage, I can use what I listen from the listening text well to rewrite the story, so it makes me understand the information heard more deeply‖ In other words, dictolgoss tasks allowed participants to have a great deal of comprehension of the information heard
According to Feyten (1991) who states that the process performed by listener in order to understand becomes even more important for teachers to understand when it comes to developing listening skills Obviously, this particular finding evidences the role of Dictogloss tasks have in the development of listening comprehension skills
3.2.2 Dictogloss tasks offer students different strategies to develop listening comprehension skills
It can be drawn from the listening class observation with the implementation of dictogloss that strategies students use in listening stage prove to be a great help to facilitate their comprehension of main events of the listening text
Wanjryb (1990) proposes that students must listen at least twice; the first time they must not write; they just have to listen in order to indentify the main events from the text In other words, students in the first listening are instructed to grasp the gist of the text but not allowed to take any notes (Kondo et al., 2012) In the second time of listening, students must take notes to identify and write key words related to the text This finding revealed that the strategies which students used to comprehend the text seemed to be a key for the understanding of the text, which latter facilitated them to reconstruct the text.
3.2.2 Dictogloss tasks offer students different strategies to develop listening
Dictogloss tasks improve students interactions in listening lessons
Firstly, many students showed their interest in working in groups in order to reconstruct the text close to original version Students indicated that they realized the advantages of collaborative work One of the students said that
―there are a lot of new words but thanks to group working, I can understand the content of the text better‖ Another claimed ―when I work in groups with my friends, I could have opportunities to share my own skills and I can also listen to my friends‘ ideas Especially, it‘s better to work in group than to do alone We solve the tasks quicker‖ Some showed their interest to the ‗out-put stage‘ in dictogloss lesson: ―I like the reconstruction stage most because I can learn with my friends It‘s very interesting and each member in my group feels free to express our own ideas about the topic and the most important thing is that I can learn a lot of new words from my friends‖ Generally, most students see that learning become more fun and effective through cooperative learning
Secondly, the majority of students expressed their high involvement in the integrated lesson The findings of this study support Vasiljevic‘s (2010) comments that dictogloss helps to overcome the limitations of traditional teaching where four skills are taught separately Most students expressed their preference of using dictogloss in listening lessons rather than the traditional teaching with purely listening and exercise-doing on the reflection forms and in the interviews They appreciated the activities and tasks blended in dictogloss class These activities varied and may include: individual work, group work, reading, writing and speaking which were designed suitable and challenging to students‘ levels as well as stimulating them in their study In the listening lessons with the application of dictogloss technique, the students not only focus on listening skill but nearly all four skills For example, one student mentioned ―I like the way the teacher gave the lessons In listening class, I do not only listen but also practice speaking and writing I love discussing with my friends in groups because I can learn a lot‖ Another student suggested that ―in listening lessons, besides listening, my teacher also creates chances for me to share our understanding about the topic I find my speaking ability improve a lot‖ Some others also seemed flavor speaking: ―I like the skills-integrated learning method, and I love speaking It‘s so boring when I just learn reading, writing or listening only‖.
Dictogloss helps to direct students’ focus on both meaning and form of the language
The findings of this study also suggest that dictogloss helps to direct students‘ focus on both meaning and the form of the language (Brown, 2001; Swain,
1999) Indeed, all students commented that thanks to the integration of different activities in dictogloss lessons (as the students listened to the text, wrote the reconstruction version and engaged in comparative analysis), they were able not only to learn new words and useful grammatical structures but also to gauge the use of language with that of native speakers and modify this usage when necessary For example, one student remarked that ―after receiving feedbacks from the teacher on the writing, I have opportunities to induce grammar pattern in a new way instead of learning structures presented as normal in textbooks by heart, and it is easy for me to remember, and I can remember it longer‖ Clearly, dictogloss, which requires learners to listen, take notes, and think about the language use with their partners, seems to lead them to get involved with linguistic forms deeper.
Dictogloss tasks help to develop students’ critical thinking and autonomy 31
The results from the observation and interviews also revealed that dictogloss activities are student-centered oriented, with the teacher serving as a facilitator Dictogloss seems to create a lot of space for students to boost their learning autonomy, to develop their critical thinking as well as to identify their identities in their learning Students suggested that ―I have to think a lot before speaking I need my background knowledge to talk about the topic‖
Other realized: ―what I get from listening is not enough and I need the knowledge outside the lesson If I have wide background knowledge, I can speak more than other students‖ Some indicated that ―I like listening to other students, and I can learn many things from them I see that my friends speak English better than me and they give a lot of interesting ideas‖ Moreover, some students shared the same ideas that after each dictogloss lesson, they felt more excited and eager to prepare for the next lesson In this case, student‘s autonomy proved to develop in a positive way
PART C: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This section recapitulates some implications of the research followed by some recommendations for using technique Next, suggestions for further study are also addressed Last but not least, it comes to the conclusion of the study.
Implications of the study
Having concluded the results of the research, the findings lead to some implications for the innovative teaching of listening using Dictogloss technique
In teaching listening, Dictogloss tasks should be run in an interesting way and adapted to be suitable with student‘s levels by teachers It is crucial for the teacher to fully provide students with the roles, the aims and steps of dictogloss activities in learning listening at the very beginning stage For those learners, who may feel insecure in understanding the instructions of the dictogloss tasks on their own, the teacher may consider integrating some explanation within the progression of those tasks It can be seen that teachers‘ encouragement and support are indispensable elements in students‘ highly active involvement in dictogloss tasks
From the results of the present study, Dictogloss technique is seen to provide learners with various opportunities to engage in productive language process
In other words, listening acts like the starting point for the execution of writing, speaking, and reading activities Taking this into account, Dictogloss is recommended as a task that involves the four communicative skills with a student-centered language learning scenario
It cannot be denied that using dictoloss technique in teaching offers many demonstrated that the students and teacher revealed some drawbacks of dictogloss technique Taking these into account, the researcher would like to propose some suggestions Hopefully, these suggestions would be helpful to teachers who want to apply dictogloss technique effectively in their teaching
The teacher suggested that preparation for a dictogloss lesson was often more time consuming The implementation stage also required the teacher – acting as a facilitator – to be aware of many factors such as: understanding student needs and difficulties, putting students in group and facilitating them in a way to make them work together, providing support to each and every group in the text reconstruction phase The teacher mentioned that these were challenging tasks She also suggested that being a facilitator was sometimes harder than being the controller in traditional listening lessons For this reason, the teacher should prepare the lesson with the application of dictogloss carefully before teaching A lot of factors as mentioned above should be taken into consideration with great concern Based on those, the teacher can anticipate different problems in the class and the lessons would go smoothly
The teacher and students also recalled the time when the dictogloss first applied in listening lessons They claimed that it was a hard period when they all had to try to change their teaching and learning habits Even though all of the students in the class had high motivation in learning English, they had to struggle for a long while to change their role from passive listeners to active participators They all suggested that they were lucky to have a wonderful teacher leading their way, so now most of them feel comfortable with the new teaching technique Nonetheless, not all students liked the change Two students revealed that they did not like group work These students also wrote in their reflection forms as: ―I don‘t like working in groups I think it‘s a waste of time Some of my friends only chat in group without doing exercise‖ and ―I only want to learn from my teacher‖ This raised a question for the teacher in organizing group activities that can motivate all the students in the class.
Limitations of the study
While the present study sheds light on some important issues in relation to students‘ attitudes toward listening and the use of Dictogloss to enhance listening comprehension, it cannot avoid some limitations
First of all, the study represents a snapshot of the views of a small number of eighteen students The small sample size evidences that the number is not large enough to generalize its results
Besides, the participants chosen for the study are by no means representatives of Vietnamese secondary students The school in the study is a language center in Hanoi in which the infrastructure or circumstances are normally different from the general context study of secondary schools in Vietnam
Especially, the teaching and learning conditions are well-prepared with different facilities The class size limited to 20 students is a good condition for the teacher to conduct communicative activities
The most important issue is that students only have chance to experience learning listening via dictogloss technique at Clever school but not at their official schools In other words, dictogloss is not popular used in schooling systems in Vietnam Therefore, Dictogloss technique is somehow new with them The problem, in which students do not have frequent opportunities to practice dictogloss tasks, might have caused numerous students to feel that dictogloss tasks are difficult If they get chance to experience more frequently, they might have different feelings
Finally, the methodology of the study is also worth mentioning Interviews, students; reflection and observations over a short period of time are not sufficient enough for the researcher to get deep understanding of students‘ attitudes towards dictogloss as well as measuring their improvement in listening comprehension skills Therefore, the study makes no claim to a broad generalization Further researches with larger sum of size over a long period of time may overcome these limitations.
Suggestions for further studies
The outcomes of this study are useful to foster the development of listening comprehension skills through dictogloss However, the discussions also raised a number of areas of potential interest for further research, which are suggested below:
- In fact, there are variations of Dictogloss, which could be taken into account for further research studies Accordingly, we can describe the effectiveness of different strategies when it comes to teach listening skills by using Dictogloss variations Another interesting topic that this study suggests is how to transfer the same strategies in dictogloss technique to facilitate other skills such as reading, writing or speaking, because it can be seen that dictogloss is recommended as a task that involves the four communicative skills within a student-centered language learning scenario
- The present study also reveals very important results which might interest English teachers regarding the development of listening comprehension skills Indeed, dictogloss offers to teachers a different way when teaching English involving listening activities Moreover, it can be considered as an effective option to foster listening comprehension among language learners Therefore, it could be an interesting option for teachers to investigate the manner which students use dictogloss tasks to learn how to comprehend an English text.
Conclusions
This study was concerned with the implementation of dictogloss technique in teaching listening comprehension skills to eighth graders The purpose of the study was to explore the students‘ attitudes towards dictogloss tasks and the impact of dictogloss tasks in the development of listening comprehension skills
Concerning students‘ attitudes towards dictogloss technique in listening lessons, the data collected from the interviews and observation suggested that using dictogloss in listening lesson encourages students to learn listening comprehension The results reviewed that the majority of students showed their interest with highly active involvement in the listening classes The obvious findings to emerge from the study is that various dictogloss tasks motivate students in listening and that listening is taught with the implementation of this technique is funny, enjoyable and communicative
Regarding the effectiveness which dictogloss technique used to enhance students‘ listening comprehension, the results showed that the implementation of dictogloss tasks benefits students in many ways Indeed, it allowed students to acquire a great deal input and have better listening performance
Furthermore, thanks to the continuous practice of dictogloss technique, students could equip themselves effective listening strategies which foster their listening ability; therefore their listening comprehension ability improved gradually after each lessons It is promising for students to get good results in listening exams and use its input for communication later on
In summary, the outcomes of the study suggest that dictogloss tasks are feasible and appropriate instruments for teaching students‘ listening comprehension throughout the meaningful tasks It is a good solution for teachers to provide learners with the communicative activities through dictogloss tasks to enhance the effectiveness of students‘ listening comprehension
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Appendix I INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND SOME KEY ANSWERS
Date: 30 th July 2014 S: student I: interviewer
I: Why do you learn listening? Is it important in learning?
- S: yes, I think listening is important because it helps me a lot in improving my pronunciation
- S: as for me, it provides me with lots of interesting ideas, so it‘s very important to learn listening It will help me have more ideas to write and speak If you don‘t have ideas, why can you speak?
- S: sometimes, I can learn a lot of vocabulary and grammar structures through the listening text So it‘s very necessary for me to learn listening
- S: Listening a lot can help me master my intonation in my speaking I want to have a natural voice like a native speaker
I: Do you find it interesting and easy to learn listening comprehension using dictogloss technique? Which stage in dictogloss procedure do you like most?
- S: I really love the reconstruction stage It is very interesting and I have chance to work with my friends I can learn a lot of thing
- S: I like speaking about the topic before listening very much I really want to show my understanding about the topic.‖
- S: although it was difficult, I enjoyed the activity very much
- S: although it was challenging, I enjoyed it and it was good to study at our own space‖
- S: I like the reconstruction stage most because I can learn with my friends
It‘s very interesting and each member in my group feels free to express our own ideas about the topic and the most important thing is that I can learn a lot of new words from my friends
- S: I like the way the teacher gave the lessons In listening class, I do not only listen but also practice speaking and writing I love discussing with my friends in groups because I can learn a lot
- S: in listening lessons, besides listening, my teacher also create chances for me to share our understanding about the topic I find my speaking ability improve a lot
- S: I like the skills-integrated learning method, and I love speaking It‘s so boring when I just learn reading, writing or listening only
- S: It can be interesting and challenging to study by using various activities rather than only listening and doing exercises
I: How do you describe a typical dictogloss listening lesson? What do you think it would be effective for your listening comprehension?
- S: usually, the teacher first gives time for discuss about the topic of the listening Then she let us listen twice without taking notes In the third time, we take notes some key words Then, we work in groups of four to retell the listening text After that, each group takes turn to present our work at last, we speak and share our ideas about what was said in the listening text My teacher focuses more on the discussion in which we can speak a lot by using the information got from the listening text Equipped with such background knowledge I think that I can comprehend the listening text better
- S: the technique provides me with various useful listening strategies like taking notes, listening for gist …to help me improve my listening skills a lot
I see my improvement in listening after each lesson
- S: in some listening texts, I don‘t need to understand the whole text but main ideas of the text to answer the questions my teachers gave
- S: I think the students with better understanding of social knowledge will comprehend the listening text better
- S: I think it‘s necessary to supplement the vocabulary and some grammatical structures before listening
- S: I have to think a lot before listening, I need my background knowledge to talk about the topic Learning grammar only is not enough
I: What do you benefit from performing dictogloss tasks conducted in the past 5 weeks?
- S: I feel more confident in listening when my teacher provides me key words from the beginning of the lesson It makes me understand more about the topic, and I feel listening easier to get the information
- S: When I work in groups with my friends, I could have opportunities to share my own skills and I can also listen to my friends‘ ideas Especially, it‘s better to work in group than to do alone We solve the tasks quicker