PART I INTRODUCTION TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1 Introduction 1 1 1 Rationale for the study 1 1 2 Aims of the study 1 1 3 Scope of the study 1 1 4 Research questions, methods and instruments 2 2 Content 2[.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction .1 1.1 Rationale for the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Research questions, methods and instruments .2 Content 2.1 Theoretical background of listening skill .2 2.2 English teaching and learning at Tinh Gia Upper Secondary School 2.3 Listening tasks at the 11th grade and MBA/MBT .3 2.4 Data analysis and findings 2.4.1 Initial data 2.4.1.1 Results from pre-listening test 2.4.1.2 Results from pre-action stage observations 2.4.1.3 Results from students’ questionnaire 2.4.1.3.1 Students’ evaluation about listening skill and their own listening competence 2.4.1.3.2 Students’ opinions about listening tasks in English 11 .5 2.4.1.3.3 Students’ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11 2.4.1.3.4 Students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks to their listening competence 2.4.1.3.5 Students’ preferences for listening tasks .6 2.4.1.3.6 Students’ opinions about the way their teachers treat listening tasks .7 2.4.2 Results from document analysis 2.4.2.1 English 11 .7 2.4.2.2 Listening tasks in listening sections of English 11 2.4.3 Conclusion 2.4.3.1 The hypothesis 2.5 Data collected in the action stage .10 2.5.1 Results from action stage observations 10 2.5.2 Results from Questionnaire 10 2.5.3 Results from teaching diaries 11 2.5.4 Results from post-test 12 2.5.5 Summary of major findings and discussions 12 2.5.5.1 The unsuitability of listening tasks in the textbook and its effects on students’ listening comprehension .12 2.5.5.2 Students’ preferences for listening tasks 13 2.5.5.3 Modified listening tasks could help improve students’ listening comprehension 13 Conclusions and recommendations .13 skkn 3.1 Conclusions 13 3.2 Recommendations 14 3.3 Limitations of the study 15 3.4 Suggestions for further study .15 References Appendices Appendix 1: Pre-test Appendix 2: Điều tra nghiên cứu Appendix 3: Phiếu điều tra nghiên cứu Appendix 4: Observation sheet Appendix 5: Teaching diary Appendix 6: Post - test skkn LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS - EFL: English as a foreign language - AR: Action research - TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages skkn Introduction 1.1 Rationale for the study The years 2006, 2007 and 2008 marked a milestone in the ways of teaching and learning English when the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) introduced the new sets of English textbook English 10, English 11 and English 12 to school curriculum The aim of MOET is to develop students’ communicative competence so as to meet the demand of integration and globalization That is the reason why in the new textbooks, four skills including reading, speaking, listening and writing are put in priority and integrated Of the four skills mentioned above, listening is considered to be the most challenging one Most students find it hard to master this skill and soon feel bored with listening periods The reasons for this are various, such as uninteresting topics, fast speed, students' poor pronunciation or lack of background knowledge and cultural understanding Eleven graders at Tinh Gia upper secondary school have encountered such a lot of difficulties when dealing with listening lessons However, after eighteen years of teaching English 11, I also discover that the listening tasks themselves are also a factor affecting students’ listening comprehension It is obvious that suitable tasks make students more interested in the listening passages and then help them develop their listening skills Inappropriate tasks, on the contrary, can demotivate students In listening sections of English 11, some tasks are too difficult or too long and some are boring In this case, it is necessary for teachers to modify listening tasks to make the tasks more suitable and interesting for learners, even though it is not an easy job for the teacher as modifying tasks means having to take many things into accounts such as the objectives, the criteria or the student’s needs However, for the benefit of students, it is worth doing so For the above reasons, especially for the researcher’s desire to help her students better at listening, the choice of the study entitled “Improving 11th form students’ listening comprehension through modified listening tasks of the textbook English 11 at Tinh Gia upper secondary school, Nghi Son” is not accidental 1.2 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 Tinh Gia 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 1.3 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 skkn only conducted for only weeks with the four listening lessons and in the context of 42 eleventh-grade students at Tinh Gia upper secondary school in the academic year 2021-2022 only Hence, the results of the study is only limited to the above teaching context and participants 1.4 Research questions, methods and instruments In the attempt to achieve the afore-mentioned aims, the following research questions are formulated so as to gather necessary information and data: i) What is the level of the 11th graders’ English listening skill, and what difficulties they may face with in listening? Why? ii) What makes listening lessons in English 11 difficult and why? iii) What additional activities can be designed to help the students address those difficulties? To seek answers to the three research questions above, I will apply the following methods and instruments: Question 1: - Interviewing a number of 11th graders to find out what difficulties they expect to encounter in listening lessons in the 11 th grade and causes of those difficulties; - Discussing with English teachers at my school to gather more information on difficulties 11th graders have faced with, or may have to face with, and their causes Part of the information from teacher discussions will also help answer question below Question 2: Analyzing listening tasks, texts and audio resources in English 11 to identify problems and their possible causes, including new words, pronunciation, speed, intonation, etc Question 3: Designing supplementary activities and modifying listening tasks to help address the difficulties identified so that listening tasks are easier, more suitable and interesting to the students Content 2.1 Theoretical background of listening skill 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 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 2.2 English teaching and learning at Tinh Gia Upper Secondary School As you know, Tinh Gia Upper Secondary School is located in a coastal area Thus its English teaching and learning has several difficulties Firstly, the skkn class size far exceeds the standard number for a language class, with approximately or more 40 students each Secondly, the number of technologyaided classrooms is very limited; therefore, teachers cannot apply electronic lessons to the extent that they desire for Moreover students’ motivation in learning foreign language is quite weak, especially listening skill Finally, there is lack of visual aids such as pictures and portable boards from the school Thus, the teachers and students are not offered the most convenient and modern environment to the teaching and learning of English 2.3 Listening tasks at the 11th grade and MBA/MBT CLT underpins the design of English Textbook 11, so the structure of each unit includes four skills: reading, speaking, listeningand writing Linguistic knowledge such as phonetics, vocabulary and grammar areconsidered the means and condition to form and improve communicative ability In fact, the learnercentered approach is also adapted in order to promote students' activeness and creativeness, in which teachers act as theorganizer and facilitator in the class The content of the book is theme-based, with 16 units covering different topicswhich were contextualized to be suited to Vietnamese students Further, learning is task-based, with the activities are designed in the way in which students are offered opportunities to interact and co-operate In English Textbook 11, Listening is the most challenging and important skill in each unit It is put after two other skills due to its productive nature and dependence on input from other skills In the 11th grade, students are expected to work on a variety of listening tasks, each of which goes with a particular topic 2.4 Data analysis and findings This section, first of all, analyzes the initial data collected from pre – listening test, questionnaires and teaching diaries Then, the hypothesis and planning and action phases are presented Finally, the researcher discusses the techniques used for supplementary listening activities and modifying listening tasks as well his attempts to evaluate the action research 2.4.1 Initial data 2.4.1.1 Results from pre-listening test As stated in Chapter 2, on the first day of week students would 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 910 Numbers 20 10 of students Percent 21% 48% 24% 7% 0% From the table, it can be seen that 69% of the students scored below average, whereas students achieving average scores made up 24% and only 7% could get from mark to mark 10 The result of the test showed that most of the skkn students were quite weak at listening skill Students need to be helped to improve this skill 2.4.1.2 Results from pre-action stage observations At pre-action stage, the researcher taught Unit (Friendship) and Unit (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: Class: 11B5 Number of students in class: 42 Time: 45 minutes Unit 1: Friendship Period 5: C - LISTENING 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 you admire in your best friend?) Then, students worked in pairs to ask about their best friends in 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 deciding True/False statements They were asked to work individually, run through the 11 sentences in task 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 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 and the observer only used four items to observe students’ involvement in the tasks The highest mark for each item was 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 Units Marks of students’ Unit (Friendship) skkn Unit (Personal experiences) involvement in the tasks Percent 40% 45% It can be seen from the table that level of students’ involvement in the tasks was quite low In Unit (Friendship), the percent of students who involved in the tasks accounted for 40%, while in Unit (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 2.4.1.3 Results from students’ questionnaire 2.4.1.3.1 Students’ evaluation about listening skill and their own listening competence (Questions and 2) 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 out of 42 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 2.4.1.3.2 Students’ opinions about listening tasks in English 11 (Questions 3, 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 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 Answering Filling Decidin Numberin openmissing g T/F g the ended words stateme pictures questions (%) nts (%) (%) (%) 84% 24% 24% 10% Multiple Completing Ticking choice missing the questions information things (%) in the table/ you hear charts (%) (%) 12% 4% 10% 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 skkn 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 skkn 2.4.1.3.3 Students’ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11 Question No 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 Very interested (%) 2% Interested (%) 6% Normal (%) 38% Bored (%) 0% Very bored (%) 54% 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 2.4.1.3.4 Students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks to their listening competence Table 5: Students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks Very effective (%) 6% Effective (%) Not clear (%) 8% 34% Ineffective (%) 52% Table presents that only 6% and % 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 2.4.1.3.5 Students’ preferences for listening tasks Question 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 Answerin Filling Deciding Numberin Multiple Completin Tickin g open- missin T/F g the choice g missing g the ended g statement pictures question informatio things questions words s (%) s n in the you (%) (%) (%) (%) table/ hear charts (%) (%) 2% 36% 29% 30% 64% 16% 28% 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 skkn students Percent 63% 72.5% 75.5% 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 was 63%, 72.5% in Unit 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 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 2.5.3 Results from teaching diaries 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 and 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, and 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 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 12 skkn the good points and existing problems after each lesson so that there are more appropriate adjustments to enhance students’ comprehension 13 skkn 2.5.4 Results from post-test 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 910 Numbers 15 20 10 of students Percent 8% 30% 40% 20% 2% 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 2.5.5 Summary of major findings and discussions 2.5.5.1 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 tasks in English 11 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 14 skkn 2.5.5.2 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 2.5.5.3 Modified listening tasks students’ listening comprehension could help improve The action plan was implemented during three lessons (Unit 3, Unit 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 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 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 Conclusions and recommendations There are four sections in this chapter The first section deals with conclusions The second section states some recommendations Following are some limitations of the present study The last section suggests some suggestions for further study 3.1 Conclusions 15 skkn 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 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, 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 3.2 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 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 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 16 skkn 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 3.3 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 42 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 3.4 Suggestions for further study This study is of small-scale with limited participants Therefore, a similar study with bigger scope of subjects at other school might be conducted so as to get a fuller evaluation of the listening tasks in English 11 Other studies on modifying activities in such skills as reading, speaking and writing may be also helpful for EFL learners THE RECTOR’S CONFIRMATION Nghi Son, 9th May, 2022 I am absolutely sure that this study belongs to me, not copying the contents or the study from anyone (Signature and full name) Lê Hoài Phương 17 skkn ... of modified listening tasks of English 11 on improving 11 th form students? ?? listening comprehension at Tinh Gia Upper Secondary School The specific objectives of the study are: To investigate... attract students? ?? attention 2.4.3.1 The hypothesis The analysis and discussion of the initial data formed the following hypothesis: Modified listening tasks in listening sections of English 11. .. 2.4.2.2 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