Improve listening skills for weak students by redesigning some tasks in the while listening part english 11 (pilot program) in the direction of the department’s test approach

TABLE OF CONTENT CONTENT PAGE PART A: INTRODUCTION Reasons for the study……………………………………… .… The aims of the study…………………………………… The method of the study………………………………… … 4 The scope and time of the study……………………………… … PART B: CONTENT CHAPTER 1: Theoretical and practical background 1.1 Theoretical background……………………………… … 1.1.1 Definitions of listening skill……………………………… …… 1.1.2 The importance of learning listening skill…………………… 1.1.3 Factors affecting learning listening skill……………………… 1.1.3.1 Students’ motivation……………………… ………… 1.1.3.2 The speed of the speakers………………………………… 1.1.3.3 The background knowledge…………………………… … 1.1.3.4 Accent……………………………………………… …… 1.1.3.5 Characteristics of tasks…………………………………… 1.1.3.6 The quality of recorder material…………………………… 1.1.4 Perspectives and principles of teaching and learning listening comprehension skills 1.1.4.1 Perspectives on teaching and learning listening comprehension skills 1.4.1.2 Principles of teaching and learning listening comprehension skills 10 1.4.1.3 General principles in designing Listening exercises 11 1.2 Practical background…………………… … …… …… 11 CHAPTER 2: Solutions 13 2.1 Gap -fill: Applied in Unit 1, Unit 13 2.2 Game: Applied in Unit 16 2.3 Using Mind-map: Applied in Unit 18 2.4 Using multiple choice: Applied in Unit 4, Unit 20 2.5 Chart: Applied in Unit 5……………… ………………… 23 2.6 Using Kahoot: Applied in Unit 8…………………… 25 2.7 Using picture: Applied in Unit 9…………………… … 26 CHAPTER 3: A survey of the urgency and feasibility of the proposed solutions 28 3.1 The purpose, content, methods and subjects of the survey 28 3.2 The survey results on the urgency and feasibility of the proposed solutions 30 CHAPTER 4: Findings and evaluation 32 PART C: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES 38 PART A: INTRODUCTION I REASON FOR THE STUDY Learning English Language is considered as an important aspect at every stage of educational process Enhancing the quality of education in general and the quality of English subject in particular is one of the top concerns of the current education When English is known as a universal language of the world, people can use it as their second language Of the four English language skills – Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, Listening is supposed to be the most difficult due to the complex and the ability of keep up the speed of listening comprehension in second language For many students, learning listening skill likes a nightmare Most of the children have depression, fear and sleepiness when studying listening As a result, when taking the test, they did the listening part by choosing the big answer or "beating luck" Leads to the results of the listening section, as well as the overall score is not high After a period of teaching in Yen Thanh high school, I found that there are two objective reasons leading to the above situation as follows: + Firstly, Yen Thanh School is located in a mountainous area with special difficulties and low quality of life Therefore, the conditions for children to come into contact with modern technology are almost very difficult They don't have time and tools to practice at home + Secondly, the tasks in the English textbook are designed for the while listening skills part that is too difficult and not really suitable for the level of students in the area, as well as the semester exam structure of the Department  Exercises in the textbook include the following format:  Listen and decide whether statements are true or false (Unit 1, 5, 7, 9)  Listen and choose the best option (Unit 1, 2, 7)  Listen and note down the ideas in the table (Unit 5, 7)  Listen and fill in the gaps in the summary (Unit 9)  Listen and answer the questions (Unit 2,3,6)  Listen and fill in the missing information (Unit 4, 5, 8)  Listen and number the pictures (Unit 10)  Listen and match the information (Unit 3)  Listen and tick the correct box (Unit 10) However, the midterm and final term test in recent years of Nghe An Department of Education and Training has come out in two forms: “Listen and decide whether statements are true or false” and “Listen and choose the best option” These are two forms of moderate difficulty However, because of not having much time to practice at home as well as through listening lessons in class (due to the tasks are designed as analyzed), almost students not get high results Faced with this situation, as an English teacher, I myself always ponder and think to find a solution to overcome the above situation I find that the second objective reason is the reason that a teacher like me can help them overcome That's why I'm bolder and more enthusiastic about the topic “Improve listening skills for weak students by redesigning some tasks in the while listening part – English 11 (pilot program) in the direction of the Department's test approach”  The novelty of the initiative: Redesigning the listening exercises in the textbook to closely follow the test form of the Nghe An Department of Education and Training to help students have more time to practice with the regular test form of the Department Thereby improving the quality of the subject Redesigning the listening exercises in the textbook from easy to difficult to help all students in the class can participate in the listening lesson more actively and proactively The types of exercises in the Listening lesson are redesigned to ensure the classification of students' levels in order to help all students to be able to perform well in class Thereby motivating both weak students and good students to study English better II THE AIMS OF THE STUDY - The main purpose of this study is to work out some adapted activities for listening part instead of using original tasks in textbook, with the aim of attracting and motivating students in learning listening skill - Through the study, students can have another vision and change their attitude in learning listening skill Especially the weak students can the tasks which are suitable for their level III THE METHOD OF THE STUDY - Draw from experience of my teaching - Consult many documents and ask my colleagues about their teaching experiences IV THE SCOPE AND TIME OF THE STUDY - Students in grade 11 (11A5,11A8) (make up the majority of weak students) - Time: school year 2022-2023 PART B CONTENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Theoretical background 1.1.1 Definitions of listening skill The study of listening skill is one of the topics that many people are interested in Therefore, it is not strange to have so many definitions of it According to Oxford Living Dictionaries, to listen is to give attention to sound or action Howatt and Dakin (1974) defined listening as the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his meaning Hirsch (1986) gave another definition: “Listening as an aspect of skills: involves neurological response and interpretations of sounds to understand and to give meaning by reacting, selecting meaning, remembering, attending, analyzing and including previous experience” Listening differs from obeying A person who receives and understands information or an instruction, and then chooses not to comply with it or not to agree to it, has listened to the speaker, even though the result is not what the speaker wanted Listening is a term in which the listener listens to the one who produced the sound to be listened A semiotician, Roland Barthes characterized the distinction between listening and hearing." Hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is a psychological act." We are always hearing, most of the time subconsciously Listening is done by choice It is the interpretative action taken by someone in order to understand and potentially make meaning of something they hear According to Roland Barthes, listening can be understood on three levels: alerting, deciphering, and an understanding of how the sound is produced and how the sound affects the listener Alerting, being the first level is the detection of environmental sound cues This means that certain places have certain sounds associated with them This is the best explained using the example of someone's home Their home has certain sounds associated with it that makes it familiar and comfortable An intrusion, a sound that is not familiar (e.g a squeaking door or floorboard, a breaking window) alerts the dweller of the home to the potential danger Deciphering, the second level, describes detecting patterns when interpreting sounds An example of this level is that of a child waiting for the sound of his mother's return home In this scenario the child is waiting to pick up on sound cues (e.g jingling keys, the turn of the doorknob, etc.) that will mark his mother's approach Understanding, the third level of listening, means knowing how what one says will affect another This sort of listening is important in psychoanalysis , the study of the unconscious mind Barthes states that the psychoanalyst must turn off their judgment while listening to their patient in order to communicate with their patient's unconscious in an unbiased fashion This is the same way that listeners must turn off their judgment when listening to other All of the three levels of listening function within the same plane, and sometimes all at once Specifically, the second and third levels, which overlap vastly, can be intertwined in that obtaining, understanding and deriving meaning are part of the same process In that the child, upon hearing the doorknob turn (obtaining), can almost automatically assume that someone is at the door (deriving meaning) 1.1.2 The importance of learning listening skill Learning English or any language, the ability to listen is extremely important As a newborn baby, to learn how to speak he must listen to a lot of what others convey Through the listening process, you will gain more vocabulary, sentence structures and identify standard sounds When we can neither write and read nor speak, we can still use physical language to communicate But if we cannot listen what others say it means the communication has failed Moreover, we cannot develop speaking skill unless we also develop listening skill To have a successful conversation, students must understand what is said to them Later, the ability to understand spoken English may become very important (for listening to the radio, understanding foreign visitors, studying…) To develop this ability, students need plenty of practice in listening to English spoken at normal speed Without listening, the man becomes backward in each minute of their lives Listening to spoken English is an important way of acquiring the language – of “picking up” structures and vocabulary Therefore, it is understandable why listening skill ranks the first among the four language skills As an integrative skill, listening plays an important role in the process of language learning or acquisition and facilitating the emergence of other language skill According to Nord (1980, p.17), listening is the way of learning the language “It gives the learner information from which to build up the knowledge necessary for using the language When this knowledge is built up, the learner can begin to speak The listening-only period is a time of observation and learning which provides the basis for the other language skills” (Nation, 1990, p.12) Most learners will spend more time listening to the foreign language than producing it themselves Failing to understand spoken language, people may miss important information presented to them or respond in a funny way So training in listening is really necessary It helps students make the transition from classroom English to the real-life English more easily and effectively Cheung, Y K (2010) discussed the importance of listening comprehension in learning English as a foreign language and argues that more emphasis should be given to listening comprehension in his study His study cited significant research findings in SLA and reviewed the relationship between listening comprehension and language learning suggesting that listening is prerequisite to other skills and it should be the primary skill to be acquired in language learning 1.1.3 Factors affecting learning Listening 1.1.3.1 Students’ motivation Students’ motivation is one of the crucial factors that affect listening comprehension It can be difficult for students maintaining the concentration in a foreign language learning classroom In listening comprehension, even the smallest pause in attention may considerably spoil comprehension When students find the topic of the listening text interesting, comprehending would be easier For all that, students find listening very boring even if they are interested in the topic because it needs a huge amount of effort in order to not miss the meaning 1.1.3.2 The speed of the speakers It can be said that this is an objective factor that influences students' learning listening Messages on the radio or recorded on tape cannot be listened to at a slower speed Even in conversation it is impossible to ask the speaker to repeat something as many times as the interlocutor might like Many students were confused when they could not keep up with what the speakers were saying in the cassette player Because they just focus on trying to hear and understand each word so with the listen in tape have rapid speed, keeping up with it becomes even more difficult Gradually, the omission of information will make students bored and not want to continue to listen to the tape anymore The limitation of vocabulary and grammatical structures with the fast speed of the tape makes students face many challenges when learning listening skill 1.1.3.3 The background knowledge According to Rubin [19, 209] background knowledge has a lot of impact on understanding the listening topic Learners construct the meaning of the listening exercise by breaking down what they listen (or read) into meaningful units, then put them together, based on social knowledge and their native language, and then use logical speculation to fill in the blanks People learn with the background knowledge on a topic at different levels will understand and interpret the new information into different ways By using the available knowledge and their strategy, learners try to solve the meaning of new information through linking with familiar ones According to Boyle [24, 25] "Knowledge of a specific thesis or topic" as a factor influence on listening comprehension in a foreign language Learners find it easier to listen to a lesson on a familiar topic than a new one To help learners become familiar with the topic of the listening lesson, teachers should start the learners' background knowledge before performing the listening task, help them use what they already know about the topic, and facilitate the listening comprehension process takes place effectively 1.1.3.4 Accent Learners tend to be used to their teacher’s accent or to the standard variety of British or American English They find it hard to understand speakers with other accents Munro and Derwing (1999) expressed that too many accented speech can lead to an important reduction in comprehension According to Goh (1999), 66% of learners mentioned a speaker’s accent as one of the most significant factors that affect listener comprehension Unfamiliar accents both native and non-native can cause serious problems in listening comprehension and familiarity with an accent helps learners’ listening comprehension Buck (2001) indicated that when listeners hear an unfamiliar accent such as Indian English for the first time after studying only American English will encounter critical difficulties in listening This will certainly interrupt the whole listening comprehension process and at the same time an unfamiliar accent makes comprehension process and at the same time an unfamiliar accent makes comprehension impossible for the listeners 1.1.3.5 Characteristic of tasks Another factor affects to learning listening skill of students is characteristic of tasks they have to A given task with understandable and logical content is easier to complete than a vague task The content is usually not well organized In many cases listeners cannot predict what speakers are going to say, whether it is a news report on the radio, an interviewer’s questions, a daily conversation Therefore, the kind of task influences significantly on the result of doing test of students 1.1.3.6 Quality of Recorded Material Many learners find it more difficult to listen to a taped message than to read the same message on a piece of paper, since the listening passage comes into the ear in the twinkling of an eye, whereas reading material can be read as long as the reader likes The listening material may deal with almost any area of life It might include street gossip, proverbs, new products, and situations unfamiliar to the student Also, in a spontaneous conversation speakers frequently change topics Noise, including both background noises on the recording and environmental noises, can take the listener’s mind off the content of the listening passage Listening material on tape or radio lacks visual and aural environmental clues Not seeing the speaker’s body language and facial expressions makes it more difficult for the listener to understand the speaker’s meaning Unclear sounds resulting from poor-quality equipment can interfere with the listener’s comprehension In sum up, there are many elements affect students’ learning listening comprehension, so in the process of teaching teachers should try to minimize these limitations to gain a success listening lesson 1.1.4 Perspectives and principles of teaching and learning listening comprehension skills 1.1.4.1 Perspectives on teaching and learning listening comprehension skills  The first view is that when listening, students use their linguistic knowledge to process audio signals to understand the content In other words, students use information immediately in speech to understand the meaning Such information is in the lexical and grammatical units of speech, and students rely on the meaning of words, clauses, sentences, and intonation to understand the content of the information Thus, if students encounter strange knowledge or new words, they will not pay attention to the next information, as a result, students will not comprehend the entire content of the listening text  The second view holds that individual knowledge or understanding and experience of the listening content plays a more important role than linguistic knowledge When listening, students rely on the context and connect the content they are listening to with their personal experience and knowledge about the problem they are listening to in order to absorb the information they need to hear  The third view is built on the basis of the communication approach that listening comprehension is a process in which language knowledge and common understanding of students interact with each other to help them grasp the necessary information In other words, the listener must know how to combine both elements in listening comprehension: (i) language knowledge and (ii) background knowledge When applying this point of view in listening comprehension activities, teachers often let students conduct some activities before listening in two directions:  Activate vocabulary and grammar related to the listening topic  Suggesting existing experiences and understandings related to the topic to be heard 1.4.1.2 Principles of teaching and learning listening comprehension skills  Emphasize listening comprehension process over listening comprehension results Like reading comprehension, listening comprehension is often considered a passive skill In fact, these two skills are highly active because students have to simultaneously mobilize many different psychological operations to process and understand information Students must first hear what is being said, and then understand the content by relating what they hear to what they already know In fact, if students not have certain understanding of the issue being talked about, listening comprehension will be very difficult On the other hand, assessing students' listening comprehension is very intricate because teachers can only rely on the results of listening exercises available in textbooks, teachers need to design the following listening activities to further evaluation the level of listening comprehension student's  Appreciate the deep understanding of the information of the listening text Research results in psycholinguistics confirm that listeners not memorize in a "copy" way Listeners not remember every sentence, every word, in other words, the purpose of listening comprehension is not to test students' ability to memorize mechanically or instantly remember Listening comprehension exercises in high school textbooks such as filling in information, choosing true/false information, choosing among the information a correct option with the given information, etc., are to develop listening comprehension ability The secondary or superficial details of the message are often overlooked and remembered  Arrange listening comprehension activities logically There are many factors that affect the difficulty of listening comprehension activities These factors can be divided into three basic groups: (i) listening purposes (ii) knowledge of the language, style or style used in listening and (iii) conditions, situations or positions of the listener Therefore, instead of having students the listening exercises in turn in the textbook, the teacher can rearrange the listening exercises to suit the students' level and the purpose of the lesson based on the three factors above  Combine listening comprehension skills with other languages Combining listening comprehension skills with other languages, especially speaking, plays an important role in the development of language skills for students That is why in real life, linguistics skills are always closely connected, on the other hand, the mobilization of many sense organs in the process of practice will make the formation of language skills faster and more sustainable 1.4.1.3 General principles in designing Listening exercises When redesigning exercises for the listening section in the textbook, teachers need to make sure to follow some of the following principles: i The questions in the listening task must follow the order of the information of the listening passage 10 ii Exercises must be designed from easy to difficult to be suitable for each student in the class Level Exercise Format Understanding Application Circle or tick the sentences/ the things you hear  Put pictures or statements into the right order  Decide whether the statements are true or false  Choose the best answers  High application Fill in the missing information  Complete the table or mind map  iii Select and retain the exercises in the textbook suitable to the student's level and the midterm and final exam matrix However, teachers can reverse the order of exercises to suit the teaching process and access to students' knowledge 1.2 Practical background At my school, students seem not to be interested in listening lesson Therefore, my colleagues and I encounter many problems in teaching listening skills in the classroom Below are the most common problems: - Lack of motivation Many students find listening boring and difficult to learn because they cannot hear anything and understand what speaker is saying in the tape The main cause is they not have learning goal and future orientation In addition, they are not aware of the importance of listening skill in communication Repeating the listening activity without understanding makes students feel tired Gradually, they are afraid of listening lesson - The quality of equipment My school is located in mountainous area with the poor people’s living Hence, the condition of equipment for learning is not as good as other schools in district This is a disadvantage for both teachers and students of my school during the teaching and learning process - The difference of students’ level 11 Some students can work very fast and all of activities with good result On the other hand, there are some students that cannot work fast and get good marks because they lack of the ability in English In this situation, teachers feel hard to organize the class and give the appropriate activities with their level because of the time limitation in each lesson From these situations, I think teachers need to design listening exercises in post -listening part with various learning activities to motivate students in learning listening These activities can be organized in pairs or groups to ensure all students participate in the listening tasks and must be appropriate for students’ level Through my own teaching and colleagues' classroom observation, I realized that students were still passive, not really keen on learning English Most of them spend time learning grammar and ignore to listening Statistics table: LISTENING test score for the beginning of school year 2022-2023 Note: Sts = Students Score Class 9-10 SL % 7-8.5 5.5-6.5 SL % SL % ≤5 SL % 11A5 (40 Sts) 0% 0% 10 25% 30 75% 11A8 (40 Sts) 0% 0% 10% 36 90% According to what is shown from the table, it can be realized that no one in both class 11A5 and 11A8 has good The proportion of students who has average and bad marks is very high This proves that not only students but also teachers are facing many problems in learning and teaching listening skills From that fact, I have tried to find solutions to improve the effective of learning listening skills for students And first of all, it is changing the tasks in the textbook by redesigning adapted activities CHAPTER 2: THE SOLUTIONS Through the lessons, I realized that the purpose of listening period is to develop the listening comprehension of students such as intensive listening, extensive listening, listening for specific and listening for gist and detail However, the tasks in the textbook are quite difficult for students to Therefore, we need to design some adapted activities for while-listening part in order to attract and motivate students in learning listening Mind map: It is used to create the students’ thinking and generalize all the information in logical way  Gap-fill: It is used to remember and complete the missing information 12  Chart: Students can systematize all information in the shortest way Games: This activity helps students relax and develop students' competitiveness, motive them in learning especially working in group Multiple choice: This activity helps students exercises easily This exercise is suitable for weak students  Using pictures: This activity helps students exercises easily  Using app Kahoot: This app created as a game with the aims at motivating students in learning and helping them 2.1 Gap – fill  Applied in Unit 1: GENERATION GAP a Aims of activity: The statements in this section are a bit difficult for weak students to do, because they are not exactly the same as in the audio file, so it is not easy for students to listen and deduce the answer at the same time Therefore, when switching to gap-fill exercise, students listen and fill in the information in the order of the listening test This makes it easier for students to b Time for activity: 10 minutes c Way of organizing: pairwork d Preparation: handout e Procedure - Step 1: Teacher delivers the handouts for students and give them the instruction to Teacher asks students to read the statement carefully and predict the answer before listening - Step 2: Play the tape in twice Go around and follow the students - Step 3: Teacher calls some students and ask them to give answer, then play file again to check - Step 4: Students take note in their notebook Activity in the textbook: Listen to the conversation Decide if the following sentences are true (T) or false (F) STATEMENTS TRUE FALSE Linda's parents are pleased with her choice of clothes Tom shares Linda's opinion on clothes Linda wants to look more fashionable Tom's parents don't let him play computer games Playing computer games is a form of relaxation for Tom 13 Adapted activity: Listen to the conversation then filling the missing information into the blank LINDA TOM - Her parents keep complaining about (1)………………… They want her to wear casual clothes such as (2)…………… - His parents forbid him to play (4)……………… because they think all computer games are (5)……………… - Tom think that playing computer - However she wants to look more games helps him to (6)…………… elegant and (3)……………… Ansswer: clothes computer games Jean and T-shirt useless Fashionable Relax  Applied in Unit 6: GLOBAL WARMING a Aims of activity: Listen and answer the question is really difficult for weak students Because of their poor hearing ability and having to process and analyze information in the listening text to infer answers, these students cannot keep up with the content in the audio file Therefore, when switching to gap-fill exercise, students listen and fill in the information in the order of the listening test This makes it easier for students to b Time for activity: 10 minutes c Way of organizing: pairwork d Preparation: handout e Procedure - Step 1: Teacher delivers the handouts for students and give them the instruction to Teacher asks students to read the text carefully and predict the answer before listening - Step 2: Play the tape in twice Go around and follow the students - Step 3: Teacher calls some students and ask them to give answer, then play file again to check - Step 4: Students take note in their notebook 14 Activity in the textbook: Listen to the talk again and answer the questions According to Prof Linn, what are the greenhouse gases? What leads to the increase in temperature? What catastrophic weather patterns are mentioned in the talk? What can the catastrophic weather patterns lead to? Why is it necessary to be well-informed about the topic? Adapted activity: Listen to the talk and filling the missing words by using the words/phrases in the box millions global warming fossil fuels greenhouse gases climate change atmosphere Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of the earth due to the increase of (1) such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and water vapour The burning of (2) such as coal, oil, and natural gas and the cutting down of large areas of forests have contributed to the emission of a large amount of harmful gases into the (3) in recent years Global warming results in (4) and catastrophic weather patterns such as heat waves, floods, droughts and storms, which can affect human lives Hundreds of (5) of people may suffer from famine, water shortages, and extreme weather conditions If we not reduce the rate of (6) , this could also result in a 20-30% loss of animal and plant species Ansswer: Greenhouse gas Fossil fuels Atmosphere Climate change Millions Global warming 2.2 Game  Applied in Unit 2: RELATIONSHIP a Aims of activity: Listen and answer the question is really difficult for weak students Because of their poor hearing ability and having to process and analyze information in the listening text to infer answers, these students cannot keep up with the content in the audio file I think it's easier for students to substitute another exercise Therefore, I choose true false statements combined with playing games to motivate students, create excitement and make the class less boring 15 b Time for activity: 10 minutes c Way of organizing: individual, group d Preparation: handout e Procedure - Step 1: Teacher delivers the handouts for students and give them the instruction to Teacher asks students to read the statement carefully, underline the keyword and predict the answer before listening - Step 2: Play the tape in twice Go around and follow the students - Step 3: Teacher shows a game on the screen and give Students the instruction Teacher replays the tape after the students’ answer to check whether correct or not - Step 4: Students take note in their notebook Activity in the text book: Listen to the talk show with host Vicky Holmes and guest speaker Dr Dawson Answer the questions What is the main topic of the talk show? What teenagers need to to prepare for becoming adults? According to Dr Dawson, what should parents when their children experience break-ups in their relationships? Should parents strongly oppose their children's romantic relationships? Adapted activity: Listen to the talk show with host Vicky Holmes and guest speaker Dr Dawson Decide if the following sentences are true (T) or false (F) STATEMENTS TRUE FALSE The talk show is about how teenagers and their parents deal with problems The children need to learn to form safe and healthy relationships Parents should strongly oppose their children's romantic relationships Parents should criticize when their children experience break-ups in their relationships? 5.Children should not talk to their parents about their feelings and friendships 16