An investigation into the current situation of using multimedia in learning listening skills of the first year english majors at vietnam national university of agriculture

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CURRENT SITUATION OF USING MULTIMEDIA IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS OF THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE KHẢO SÁT THỰC TRẠNG SỬ DỤNG CÔNG NGHỆ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH TẠI HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student: TO THI THUONG Student code: 621276 Major: ENGLISH Supervisor: NGUYEN THI HUONG, M.A Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled "An investigation into the current situation of using multimedia in learning listening skills of the first-year English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture" submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2021 To Thi Thuong Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date: …………………… i ABSTRACT Listening comprehension plays an important role in the language teaching and learning process In an attempt to enhance first year English majors' listening comprehension in English listening class at VNUA, this paper is practiced The study aims to find out the current situation of first-year English majors at VNUA in using multimedia tools in learning English; then offer solutions to improve students' listening comprehension The author used questionnaire and interviews as the principal sources of data Analyze of these data indicated that the multimedia tools really helped enhance students' listening comprehesion The students were found to have been attracted to the listening when the teachers used multimedia tools in teaching Based on the findings of this study, some pratical recommendations in application of these tools for teaching listening skill were presented ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale for the study Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES 1.1.1 Foreign research 1.1.2 Vietnamese research 1.2 DEFINITIONS OF LISTENING 11 1.3 FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS' LISTENING COMPREHENSION12 1.3.1 The linguistic factors 13 1.3.2 The non-linguistic factors 14 1.4 DEFINITIONS OF MULTIMEDIA 15 1.5 THEORETICAL BASIS OF USING MULTIMEDIA TOOLS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING 17 1.5.1 Constructivism 17 1.5.2 Cognitive Psychology 17 1.5.3 Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis 18 1.6 MULTIMEDIA TOOLS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING 20 1.6.1 Support for using multimedia tools in language teaching 20 1.6.2 Critiques of using multimedia tools in language teaching 22 iii 1.7 TEACHERS' ROLE AND STUDENTS' ROLE IN MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENT 24 1.7.1 Teachers' role 24 1.7.2 Students' role 25 1.8 MULTIMEDIA AT VNUA 26 1.9 SUMMARY 26 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 28 2.1 RESEARCH GOVERNING ORIENTATION 28 2.1.1 Research question(s) 28 2.1.2 Research types: 28 2.1.3 Data analysis method 29 2.2 RESEARCH METHODS 29 2.3 RESEARCH SETTING/CONTEXT 30 2.4 DATA COLLECTING PROCEDURES 31 2.5 SUMMARY 32 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33 3.1 STUDENT'S REAL SITUATIONS OF LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL 33 3.2 FINDINGS OF A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY 33 3.3 FINDINGS FROM INTERVEWS 46 3.4 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 49 3.5 SUMMARY 51 PART 3: CONCLUSION 52 Recapitulation 52 Concluding remarks 53 Limitation of the current research 54 iv Recommendations for using multimedia tools in teaching listening effectively 55 Suggestions for further study 59 REFERENCES 60 APPENDIX 66 APPENDIX 70 v PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study As an international language, English plays a vital role in the modern society It is needed for all areas in life In Viet Nam, English has been taught from primary school to higher education levels in recent years It is well known that listening comprehension plays a key role in foreign language learning Listening is one of the skills that form the basis of one’s communicative competence Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA) is a multidisciplinary training school, a key national university The English training program for students is one of the key and long-term strategies of VNUA In the training program of VNUA, English is compulsory for each student The first-year English major students are between the ages of eighteen and nineteen They have learnt English for many years at secondary and high school However, they mainly focused on grammar and writing but not listening They seem to feel unfamiliar with listening lessons and many students say that they feel difficult when doing the listening test on the computer They only study listening in the class with the CD player and text and say listening is boring and hard to study As a student in this school, the author questioned herself whether using multimedia tools will motivate the students in learning listening as well as improve their listening skills At VNUA, teachers use the textbook Starting Skills to teach English to English major students Usually, teachers would come to class, play the CDs and students would listen and the listening tasks in this book with no additional activities and exercises Therefore, listening lessons are usually boring and students not like these lessons Nowadays, information technology is developing faster and faster so the use of multimedia technology in learning English has many advantages For example, Gilakjani (2012) argues that "The use of multimedia in teaching and learning leads to higher learning " Healey et al (2008) also assert that the use of technology for teaching and learning is moving their institution in the right direction For all these reasons, the author would like to the research on investigating the current situation and suggested solutions of VNUA first-year English majors' multimedia-based learning listening skills Aims and objectives of the study 2.1 Aims The main aim of this study is to investigate the current situation of using multimedia in learning listening skills of VNUA first-year English majors 2.2 Objectives The overall purpose of this survey is to investigate the following issues: • Investigate the current situation of using multimedia in learning listening skills of VNUA first-year English majors • Propose some solutions to improve students' using multimedia in learning listening comprehension skills Research questions This study is conducted to seek the answer to the following research questions: a What is the current situation of using multimedia in learning listening skills of VNUA first-year English majors? b What are some solutions to improve students' using multimedia in learning listening comprehension skills? Scope of the study - Research subjects: the first-year English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture The total numbers of the first-year English majors: 139 Students • K65ENGA: 34 students • K65ENGB: 25 students • K65ENGC: 33 students • K65ENGD: 29 students • K65ENGE: 18 students - Research objects: Using multimedia in learning listening skills of first-year English majors at VNUA - Time: From January 2021 to July 2021 However, because the number of participants and time are limited, this study can not cover the whole issue of listening skill Moreover, the study could not touch upon all the students at VNUA It is confined to the first-year students in English majors at VNUA only Significance of the study This project will focus on researching and learning about multimedia-based learning listening skills The researcher tries to find out the effectiveness of using multimedia tools in learning listening and through which learners will gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of using multimedia in learning listening skills, and how to use efficiently and improve students' listening comprehension Design of the study Apart from abstracts, references & appendices, the study consists of three main parts: PART 1: INTRODUCTION, presents rationale of the study, aims and objectives of the study, research questions, the scope as well as the significance of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT is divided into chapters: • Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW, provides theoretical background for the study including definitions of listening as well as multimedia tools The difficulties of learning listening are provided in this chapter The author also shows the relationship between multimedia tools and learning listening, the roles of teachers and students in multimedia environment Many previous foreign and Vietnamese studies are included in this chapter • Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY, describes the methodology used in the research including the research governing orientation, data collection instruments, participants, the procedures employed to carry out the research • Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, reports and discusses the findings of the study PART 3: CONCLUSION, summarizes the research and states the conclusion, the limitations of the study as well as the suggestions for further study teaching aids and techniques The teachers should not depend totally on using multimedia tools because they cannot be replaced by many other methods For instance, in English listening teaching, tape recorders still play an important role So, the teachers are supposed to choose suitable teaching methods depending on the requirements of teaching context In short, language teachers should use multimedia tools properly in teaching and should not overuse them Teachers should clearly know that English teaching based on multimedia tools is not going to replace traditional teaching instruments and they should combine both of them flexibly in English language teaching to get the highest effectiveness Second, teachers should play a leading role in the language classroom Their positions cannot be replaced by any tools in the classroom The role of teachers is instructing and guiding students to participate actively in the classroom However, in order to instruct and guide students effectively in multimedia classroom, the teachers must know to use these tools clearly and they should determine whether to adopt these tools in English language teaching or not Some students presented in the questionnaire that sometimes they got troubles in using these tools It is agreed that the teachers should be trained to use multimedia tools before they apply them for teaching Some teachers may have little experience in using multimedia tools in language teaching; they may get troubles when guiding students or cannot deal with the problems which students met during the lesson This will affect the effectiveness of the lesson According to Davis, Preston, & Sahin (2009), ICT teacher training is urgent It is important not to think of providing the ICT equipment and infrastructure alone as the solution, but rather to include the offering of training to intended users to make sure they develop the required computer knowledge In other words, training and building teachers' technology 56 know-how is a crucial step toward enabling technological integration in the classroom Searching for suitable materials for teaching is also difficult for the teachers As the author mentioned above, materials for teaching in multimedia classroom are not only the textbooks, they can be other resources such as newspapers, videos, news, etc The teachers can search these documents on the internet but they must be suitable to the program and students' ability This is not an easy task for the teachers, and therefore "all teachers need to know now to use the Web as a resource for current authentic language materials in written, audio, and visual formats" (Chapelle & Hegelheimer, 2004) It has been, therefore, increasingly important to evaluate those materials systematically before use According to Chapelle & Hegelheimer (2004), after screening and evaluating materials, language teachers Should adapt or modify the materials to suit their own teaching situations As the author mentioned from the beginning, listening is a difficult skill for the students The students said that they cannot hear and catch the listening ideas because of many reasons such as pronunciation, notation, accent, long sentences, etc The students also have few chances to communicate in English in their real life so it can be said that listening is a challenge for the students to learn and for the teachers to teach So, it is not easy for the teachers to choose suitable materials and to create suitable learning listening environment for students to practice to develop their listening comprehension There are various online resources in which teachers can find suitable materials to teach and students can practice In this study, the author would like to suggest some useful websites to learn and practice English listening skill for reference: English Language Listening Lab at https://www.elllo.org/english/ , EnglishClub.org at https://www.englishclub.com/esl-videos/ , 57 ManyThings.org at http://www.manythings.org/listen/, BBC learning English at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/ These websites are useful and suitable for teaching and learning listening because they have many different levels, diversity of topics, subtitles or transcripts, and interactive quizzes They are free, and can run online or be downloaded easily Another website which is recommended for teaching and learning listening is Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube videos are considered a powerful educational and motivational tool, and they are proven to produce positive results because students are shown the speeches of native English speakers It is also free and very easy to access and search the video These websites are hoped to help teachers in their English listening teaching and students in their English listening learning when using multimedia tools For students, according to Liuzhi (2011), they should be in the center position in the multimedia classroom They should clearly know that multimedia tools are complementary and they should be active in their learning Listening is a hard skill and it cannot be improved in short time, it cannot be better if students not try to practice They need to spend time to practice listening skill more at home They can request their teachers' help if they have any difficulty in their learning The students should also be trained to use the multimedia tools before they learn with these tools because some students described that they got troubles when using them In conclusion, Multimedia technology is become more and more popular in English teaching It is one of the best means to motivate students' interests in their English learning It also allows English teachers to flexibly present their curriculum in an innovative manner However, in order to get the highest result in language teaching in general and listening teaching in particular, the teachers should play the 58 leading role in their classroom, and they should combine between traditional teaching method and multimedia tools flexibly in their learning Suggestions for further study The author just conducted this research in terms of listening skills Hence, the follow-up research should be carried out on other language skills at VNUA such as speaking, reading and writing In addition, the objects of this research were first-year English majors at VNUA Therefore, future researchers should carry out studies on other objects such as second year students, third year students, major students at VNUA or at any other schools, etc Lastly, this research was implemented to investigate the reality of teaching listening skills Following researches can find out the 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Personal information: Question 1: Your gender: A.Male B Female Question 2: How old are you? Question 3: How long have you been leaning English? A About years C About years B About years D Over years Question 4: What is your English entrance test score? Your opinion on studying listening skill Question 5: In your opinion, English listening skill is A Very difficult B Difficult C Quite difficult 66 D Not difficult E Others Question 6: Do you like English listening lessons at class? A I like very much B I like C I don't mind D I don't like E Others Question 7: What you think about the importance of English listening skill? A Very important B Important C Quite important D Not important E Others Question 8: How often you have problems in your listening skill? A Always B Often C Sometimes D Rarely E Others Question 9: Do you have many chances to practice listening in class? A Always B Often C Sometimes D Rarely E Others 67 Question 10: Which of the following reasons make you difficult to learn listening English? A Poor-quality CDs and CD players B Unfamiliar content listening text C Limited practice time at class D Fast speed speaking E Others Question 11: Do you feel confident in your English listening ability? A Very confident B Confident C Quite confident D Not confident E Others Your opinion on the use of multimedia tools in learning listening Question 12: Do you like listening to the listening comprehension texts combined with multimedia? A I like very much B I like C I don't mind D I don't like E Others Question 13: How often you have difficulty using multimedia tools to learn English listening? A Always B Often 68 C Sometimes D Rarely E Others Question 14: Multimedia tools help you: (you can choose more than one) A Become interested in learning listening B Learn new words more easily C Catch listening lesson's ideas more easily D Practice at home more easily E Practice more various listening activities F Others Question 15: Do you feel that learning English based on multimedia technology is effective? A Very effective B Effective C Quite effective D Not effective E Others Thank you very much for your cooperation! 69 APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS Do you like learning listening with multimedia tools? Why/ Why not? Do you have any difficulty in using multimedia tools to learn listening? Do you have any suggestions for using multimedia tools to facilitate learning listening? 70