Using note taking strategies to improve listening skills for students of second year study

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY \ FACULTY OF ENGLISH ====== M.A THESIS USING NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS OF SECOND YEAR STUDY (CẢI THIỆN KĨ NĂNG NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM BẰNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP NOTE-TAKING) PHAN VU HONG TRANG Date of birth: 03/01/1985 Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong Hanoi, 2023 ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled USING NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS OF SECOND YEAR STUDY submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master 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, 2023 Phan Vu Hong Trang Approved by SUPERVISOR Nguyen Thi Van Dong Date:…………………… ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to offer my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who was instrumental in the successful completion of this thesis It's possible that I wouldn't have been able to complete my work without their guidance and input To begin, I would like to express my most sincere appreciation to my advisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong Throughout the process of completing this thesis, Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong has supported me, generously supplied me with insightful direction, and provided me with helpful criticism; without her, the thesis would be a long way from being done Without her, the thesis would not be nearly as complete as it is now In addition, I would want to express my appreciation to each and every one of the presenters Second, I would want to express my gratitude to the members of the English Faculty at Hanoi Open University Their academic expertise, insightful lectures, and clear directions were all really helpful to me as I worked to finish the assignment Thirdly, I would like to express my gratitude to the teachers at the Library Department of Hanoi Open University They made it much simpler for me to search the resources needed for this thesis and borrow them Finally, I would want to express my gratitude to my family, my seniors, and my instructors for your consistent support and encouragement over this time period ii ABSTRACT This research is anticipated to improve the auditory comprehension of Hanoi Tourism College sophomores by teaching them effective note-taking techniques The paper aims to achieve the following objectives: Examining the strategies employed by students when responding to the listening task and determining whether note-taking strategies can have a positive impact on students' listening skills; determining how note-taking strategies aid students' listening skills To accomplish the purpose of the study, the researcher utilized a sequential mixed method of explanation that incorporated quantitative and qualitative techniques Sequential explanatory is a hybrid method in which quantitative data collection is followed by qualitative data collection in order to strengthen the quantitative data Students' pre- and post-test results are qualitatively analyzed to extract pertinent information Assessments and interviews are used to collect information using quantitative methodologies Tests and interview results are communicated utilizing descriptive language Examining whether note-taking strategies have a positive impact on students' listening skills; determining how note-taking strategies aid students' listening skills The results of the test imply that note-taking strategies could improve the listening skills of sophomores at Hanoi Tourism College According to the results of the interview, students believed that taking notes improved their listening skills ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language HTC Hanoi Tourism College IELTS International English Language Testing System St1 Student St2 Student St3 Student LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: The results of Pre-listening test and Post-listening test Table 2: Statistical Table of Pre-test and Post-test Results Figure 1: The results of Pre-listening test and Post-listening test 26 27 28 Figure 2: The number of Students Applying Strategies 36 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: Introduction 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aim and objectives 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 3 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Structure of the study 6 CHAPTER II: Literature Review 2.1 Listening skills 2.2 Note-taking strategies for listening skills 2.3 Effects of note-taking strategies 2.4 Types of note-taking Strategies 2.4.1 Mind Mapping Strategies 2.4.2 The Cornell note-taking Strategies 11 12 12 14 2.4.3 Outlining Strategies 2.4.4 Listing Strategies 2.4.5 Sentences Strategies 16 17 17 2.5 Previous Studies 2.6 Summary 17 18 CHAPTER III: Research Methodology 3.1 Research design 3.2 Population and sample 19 23 3.3 Data Collection 3.4 Methods of Analysis 3.5 Summary 24 26 28 ii CHAPTER IV: Using note taking strategies to improve students’ listening skills 4.1 The results of tests 4.2 Applying strategies results 4.3 The results of interviews 4.4 Note taking strategies to improve students’ listening skills 4.5 Summary 30 36 37 47 50 CHAPTER V: Conclusion 5.1 Recapitulation 5.2 Concluding remarks 5.3 Limitation of the study 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for further research 51 53 55 56 REFERENCES APPENDICES ii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale It is true that students often struggle with listening skills, particularly second- year non-English majors The majority of students struggle with their listening abilities, and a sizeable proportion cannot hear anything Humans are capable of communication, mutual understanding, and the sharing of the roles of speaker and receiver Heylen (2009) contends that the interaction process involves a speaker and a passive listener who considers and comprehends the discourse Listening is a fundamental talent that must be learned, as stated by Rest (2011) and Ahour and Bargool (2005) Students need to be able to listen to audio in English and have a complete understanding of the content or dialogue being conveyed in order to be successful in learning a second language such as English Language learning is facilitated by participating in this activity According to Nunan (1999), the ability to listen is on par with that of Cinderella in terms of prestige (published in 1993 by Oxford, and in 1992 by Scarella and Oxford) Listening is a skill that is necessary for second-language learners to develop in order to be able to acquire the other three skills, such as reading, speaking and writing Listening is widely recognized as a fundamental skill; hence, it is crucial that students of any language be instructed in the capacity When it comes to studying English as a second language, students at higher education institutions are a good example of English language learners who should work on improving their listening abilities There are two methods in which students digest what they have heard, and those are top-down processing and bottom-up processing The process in which listeners translate sounds into words, words into phrases, and clauses into sentences In contrast to the bottom up method, the top down method enables viewers to comprehend information that goes beyond words or phrases This indicates that various viewers have varied methods of analyzing the information that they receive The students have the ability to choose the alternative that best suits their needs However, it is crucial that top-down be an efficient strategy for eliciting correct information since it pushes students to evaluate phrases beyond their literal meaning This is why it is essential that top-down be an effective technique "Note-taking" is a skill that, when used regularly, may help a person improve their listening capacity as well as their ability to retain information According to Boch and Piolat (2005) and Gur, Dilci, Cosgun, and Delijan (2013), which are also quoted in Ahour and Bargool (2015), taking notes is an essential method for both listening to and reading material Students are unable to use this method when new material is offered to them, despite the knowledge that practicing it might increase their memory and problemsolving skills and that they are not able to it currently In this particular scenario, English teachers encourage their students to take notes while they are reading and listening to assignments so that they may enhance their overall performance and their ability to take notes According to Dunkel and Pialorsi (2005) and Haswell and Lee (2013), when students are given the opportunity to take notes while listening to a lecture, they report feeling more at ease while responding to post-listening questions Some students have difficulties, as a result of challenges, isolating the most essential ideas from the auditory stimuli According to research done by Brown and Yule (1983) and Nunan (1991), the four things that make listening difficult are the speaker's accent and pace, the role of the audience, the content, and the use of visual or practical assistance The findings of the investigation indicate that certain students at Hanoi Tourism College have trouble listening and taking notes This is the reason why this research is being carried out: to establish which strategy is applied, and how it contributes to the improvement of students' listening abilities It was found via casual observations and conversations with the author's students that one of the issues impacting their listening skills was their poor use of listening strategies This was determined based on the findings of these observations and conversations The purpose of this study is to investigate the different methods of note-taking that students use A great number of research, such as the one that Kirkgoz (2010) carried out, have been carried out on the topic of "note-taking strategies in listening" in order to nurture note-taking abilities for regular listening skills and educational institutions where English is the language of instruction A number of studies, including Khavazi et al (2018), Hayati and Jalilifar (2009), Ahour and Bagool (2015), and Boran and Yi (2012), study the impact that taking notes has on one's ability to well in listening tasks The purpose of this research is to explore the methods of note-taking that students who have successfully finished English for Academic Purposes have used in order to enhance their English listening abilities There has been no previous research carried out on this subject so far In addition, the precise tactics used by each student are investigated throughout this research 1.2 Aim and objectives It is anticipated that the research will assist students in their second year at HTC to enhance their listening comprehension by making more effective use of note-taking practices The following are some of the goals that the paper intends to accomplish: • Discovering the strategies that the students used in order to respond to the listening assignment and determining whether or not they may have a beneficial effect on the listening abilities of students • Understanding how students may improve their listening abilities by using note-taking strategies and what note-taking strategies can assist students to improve their listening skills 1.3 Research questions What different kinds of note-taking strategies the students use? Can they have positive impacts on students’ listening skills? How might students improve their listening abilities by using an approach that involves taking notes? 1.4 Methods of the study The purpose of this research is to discover how students might enhance their listening abilities via the use of different note-taking procedures and to evaluate the improvement of students' listening skills by the students The use of note-taking tactics so considerably aided students in answering test questions, and these students may enhance their listening skills by employing note-taking strategies After taking notes, students demonstrated a significant improvement in their self-assurance while responding to questions based on listening According to the findings of the interviews, the students held the belief that taking notes was an efficient way to carry out their listening obligations This conclusion was based on the findings of the interviews When they use an outline, they have the ability to be more explicit about the sequence in which they require the information The last category is one that focuses on sentence construction It was considered more accurate, despite the fact that it was a longer process However, it was not frequently employed 5.2 Concluding remarks As was said before, the findings of the research may be summarized up using the following observations The results of the study suggest that teaching students how to take notes might help them become better listeners Diagramming, listing, and writing whole sentences were some of the ways that students took notes 21 students used the listing method, 23 students used the outlining technique, and 16 students used the phrase strategy The most popular strategy was the listing strategy The results of the pre-listening test and the post-listening test were analyzed, and the findings showed that the students' accomplishment on the post-test was greater than on the pre-test, and that their achievement grew by 27% from the pretest to the post-test The pre-listening test and the post-listening test were both taken by the students The use of note-taking tactics so considerably aided students in answering test questions, and these students may enhance their listening skills by employing note-taking strategies They noted that students' capacity to reply to questions is improved when 54 they take notes because they have a written record of the auditory content they are listening to The students were also confronted with challenges, such as the rapid pace of the audio, which led some of them to miss out on essential information The students' level of difficulty was also affected, in part, by the speakers' regional or linguistic backgrounds and accents They contended that the variations in dialects were to blame for the mistakes in the note-taking Students reported feeling more confident in their answers on listening comprehension questions after having the opportunity to take notes According to the findings of the interviews, the students felt that taking notes was an efficient technique for carrying out their listening obligations This belief is supported by the findings of the interviews Students have the ability to be more specific about the sequence in which they must provide the material necessary to answer the question when they use an outline The end of the class led to a rise in the students' sense of self-assurance, which may be attributed to the fact that taking notes gives them a better degree of control over the process of learning, helps them to engage with auditory materials, and enables them to retain essential information This shows that teaching strategies that foster student initiative in the learning process will boost student involvement in the material being covered in class In addition to this, students displayed an increased capacity to prioritize information and an increased understanding of the relevance of this information In addition to this, they underlined the need of reading the IELTS instructions thoroughly and identifying connection terms in order to more successfully follow the primary topics Taking notes allowed students to acquire additional abilities related to language acquisition, which was necessary for achieving this goal However, students were not assisted in the process of designing their very own abbreviation system by this research Even though, it seems that students valued having more control and 55 autonomy over their learning process, they wanted supervision from the instructor still This indicates that it is beneficial to give fewer tasks and offer more regular feedback when teaching new abilities This will enable the teacher to monitor the students' progress and provide them with feedback This shows that it is advantageous to provide fewer assignments and provide more frequent feedback when teaching new skills In addition, there was a discernible relationship between linguistic ability and note taking Instruction on how to take notes need to include both vocabulary and pronunciation in order to overcome this issue Due to the limited amount of time available, some of material may need to be completed as homework Before beginning class, students might be encouraged to study new vocabulary, check their pronunciation, or practice coding words in groups or pairs This would be done in preparation for the lesson The last category is sentence structure, which was less common but was believed to be more accurate (although being slower) The vast majority of students were of the opinion that taking notes was useful, as it assisted them in correlating their listening work and improved the accuracy of their listening understanding 5.3 Limitation of the study There are a few problems with this research This study only used a small sample size (n=125), thus future research should investigate the usefulness of techniques for taking notes with bigger populations, populations of varying ages, and/or populations with varying levels of English proficiency It is envisaged that future studies would investigate big data sets to compare and evaluate the different approaches used by students while taking notes Moreover, the audio should be expanded to include all three portions or the whole IELTS listening test when it is used in further study In spite of the author's best efforts to create work of the greatest possible quality, errors and limits are unavoidable in this thesis As a result, the author would be very appreciative of any input on the author's more completed work 56 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for further research This thesis focuses only on the practice of taking notes as a means to enhance the listening abilities of students enrolled in the second year of the Hanoi Tourism College In light of these constraints, the following suggestions for directions to go in terms of future study on this subject may be offered In further study, note-taking techniques should be adapted to cover a wider range of topics They can use this research to conduct additional studies focusing on the application of note-taking strategies to the learning of other skills, such as writing, speaking, and reading, or on how students respond to note-taking strategies as an effective learning strategy and to better comprehend how note-taking strategies facilitated their learning Alternatively, they can focus on how students respond to note-taking strategies as an effective learning strategy It is envisaged that future study would investigate big data sets in order to evaluate and contrast the different approaches used by students while taking notes Because this study only used a small sample size (n=50) from the overall data, it is required to more research to test the efficacy of various note-taking procedures with bigger populations, people of varying ages, or people with varying levels of English ability The instrument that was utilized in this study consisted of just two portions of the IELTS listening test, which is a rather low sample size This was done so that the researcher could collect information regarding taking notes It is recommended that future studies expand the audio to include all of the IELTS listening test or at least three parts 57 REFERENCES Bakhtin, M (1999) The problem of speech genres, in A Jaworski and N Coupland, (Eds.), The discourse reader (pp 98–107) New York, NY: Routledge Boch, F & Piolat, A (2005) Note taking and learning: A summary of research The WAC Journal, 16, 101-113 Boyce, C & Neale, P (2006) Conducting in-depth interview: a guide for designing and conducting in-depth interviews for evaluation input New York, NY: Path finder International Tool Series Boyle, J R (2010) Note-taking skills of middle school students with and without learning disabilities Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(6), 530-540 Brown, H D (2000) Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.) New York, NY: Longman Brown, H D (2001) Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy San Francisco, LA: Second Edition Longman Buzan, T (2012) The Ultimate book of mind maps: Unlock your creativity, bost your memory, change your life New York, NY: Harper Collins Candlin, C and Keobke, K (1999) What We Know and What We Do: Matching Materials to Theory Paper presented at the 25th Annual International Conference on Language Teaching and Educational Materials Expo, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan, October 1999 Carrell, P L (2007) Note taking strategies and their relationship to performance on listening comprehension and communicative assessment tasks (TOEFL Monograph Series No RS-35) Princeton, NJ: ETS 10 Cotterall, S., & Murray, G (2009) Enhancing metacognitive knowledge: Structure, affordances and self System, 37, 34-45 58 11 Creswell, J W (2003) Research design qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (second edition) New Delhi, India: Sage Publications 12 Creswell, J.W (2012) Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (fourth edition) Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc Darti., & Asmawati, A (2017) Analyzing students’ difficulties toward listening comprehension 3(2), 208-222 13 Dunkel, p & Pialorsi, F (2005) Advanced listening comprehension: developing aural and note-taking skills (3rd ed.) Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle 14 Flowerdew, J (1994) Academic listening: research perspective New York, NY:Cambridge University Press 15 Gilakjani, A., & Ahmadi, M R (2011) A Study of Factors Affecting EFL Learners’ English Listening Comprehension and the Strategies for Improvement Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2(5), 977-988 16 Haswell, C G., & Lee, R A (2013) A comparative study of listening comprehension and organization of lecture notes in intermediate English classes Polyglossia, 24, 16-25 17 Heylen, D (2009) Understanding speaker-listener interaction ISCA, 2151-2154 18 Howat,A., & Dakin, J (1974) Language laboratory material, techniques in applied linguistics London, England: Oxford University Press 19 Lowes, R., Peters, H and Turner, M (2004) The international student’s guide: Studying in English at University London, England: Sage Publications 20 Pauk, W (2001) How to study in college New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Rost, M (2011) Teaching and researching listening (2nd ed.) London, England: Pearson Education Limited 59 APPENDIX I: SAMPLE OF CLASS OBSERVATION 60 61 APPENDIX II: SAMPLE OF INTERVIEWS Q1 Teacher: To begin with, I'd like to know about your previous experience with note taking? Student: I had never learnt note taking before your class It was because I was not very serious with learning English and I did not really invest time into learning English I had no clear goal Q2 Teacher: I’d like to hear your experience with note taking in our class Student: It worked for me Listening happens too rash so sometimes I feel like I am overwhelmed But note taking helped me to keep important information But you know, if I want to take notes effectively, I must read fast enough The IELTS instruction (written on test papers) is very important I need to read it carefully to predict what to take notes for Teacher: Can you tell me about your experience with note taking when you first learnt it and now (end of the course)? Student: It was quite difficult for me at first I felt confused and maybe my listening ability at that time was not very good But towards the end of the course when my vocabulary was much better and I practiced more, I found it easier to take notes I also used note taking for other purposes For example, when I discussed with my tutor about my final assignment, I took notes of important information Q3 Teacher: Please tell me something good about note taking Student: When I used note taking, I could understand the recording better and could choose the most suitable answer To be honest, I had never understood the recording 100% But when I took notes, I wrote down the most important information Then based on the notes, I chose the most suitable answers It also helped me to understand opinions better I found it very useful for two IELTS question types, classification and multiple choice questions 62 Q4 Teacher: What problems/challenges did you have with note taking? Student: Listening happens too fast, And while I was not listening, I kept writing long words If I tried to think about what symbols or signs f should use for long words, then I got distracted Also, for some topics like Art, there were so many new words I found it hard to follow the recording, so I couldn’t take notes Q5 Teacher: Think of your experience with note taking, what would have made it better? Student: I would have done better if I could have more practice You know, I fell back to my old habits of writing long words when listening Witt more practice, I might have been better Also, I wish we could have learnt more vocabulary The lack of vocabulary influenced my listening Q6 Teacher: Is there anything else you would like to tell me about your experience? Student: I also want to tell you that note taking is more useful than writing down everything used to practice writing down everything heard But it was time taking and exhausting Note taking should be taught more I am not sure that I have understood everything that you taught us But I can make some use of note taking now And I know I mentioned it, but vocabulary is very important I had problems when IELTS paraphrase key words 63 APPENDIX III: SAMPLE OF PRE-TEST AND POST TEST Choose the correct letter, A, B or C Matthews Island Holidays 11 According to the speaker, the company A has been in business for longer than most of its competitors B arranges holidays to more destinations than its competitors C has more customers than its competitors 12 Where can customers meet the tour manager before travelling to the Isle of Man? A Liverpool B Heysham C Luton 13 How many lunches are included in the price of the holiday? A three B four C five 14 Customers have to pay extra for A guaranteeing themselves a larger room B booking at short notice C transferring to another date 64 Complete the table below Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer Timetable for Isle of Man holiday Day Activity Notes Arrive Introduction by manager Hotel dining room has view of the 15………… Day Tynwald Exhibition and Tynwald may have Peel in 16………… not 979 Day Trip to Snaefell been founded Travel along promenade in a tram; train to Laxey; train to the 17………… of Snaefell Day Free day Company provides a 18………… for local transport and heritage sites Day Take the 19………… Free time, then coach to Castletown – railway train from former 20………… has old castle Douglas to Port Erin Day Leave Leave the island by ferry or plane 65 What did findings of previous research claim about the personality traits a child is likely to have because of their position in the family? Choose SIX answers from the box and write the correct letter, A-H, next to Questions 21-26 Personality Traits A outgoing B selfish C independent D attention-seeking E introverted F co-operative G caring H competitive Position in family 21 the eldest child 22 a middle child 23 the youngest child 66 24 a twin 25 an only child 26 a child with much older siblings Choose the correct letter, A, B or C 27 What the speakers say about the evidence relating to birth order and academic success? A There is conflicting evidence about whether oldest children perform best in intelligence tests B There is little doubt that birth order has less influence on academic achievement than socio-economic status C Some studies have neglected to include important factors such as family size 28 What does Ruth think is surprising about the difference in oldest children’s academic performance? A It is mainly thanks to their roles as teachers for their younger siblings B The advantages they have only lead to a slightly higher level of achievement C The extra parental attention they receive at a young age makes little difference 67 Choose TWO letters, A-E Which TWO experiences of sibling rivalry the speakers agree has been valuable for them? A learning to share B learning to stand up for oneself C learning to be a good loser D learning to be tolerant E learning to say sorry 29 30 68