Difficulties and some solutions to enhance listening skill for the second year english major students at hung yen university of technology and education

Student: Nguyen Thi Phuong Student Number: 11317103 Trang 2 FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --- GRADUATION PAPER FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS DIFFICULTIES AND SOME SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE LIST

HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPER FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS DIFFICULTIES AND SOME SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE LISTENING SKILL FOR THE SECONDYEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM KỸ THUẬT HƯNG YÊN) Supervisor: Nguyen Nang Tuan, MA Student: Nguyen Thi Phuong Student Number: 11317103 Hung Yen – 2021 HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPER FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS DIFFICULTIES AND SOME SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE LISTENING SKILL FOR THE SECONDYEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM KỸ THUẬT HƯNG YÊN) Student: Nguyen Thi Phuong Student Number: 11317103 Supervisor: Nguyen Nang Tuan, MA (Ký tên) Hung Yen – 2021 i DECLERATION I certify my authorship of the study report entitle “Difficulties and some solutions to enhance listening skill for the second-year English major students at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education” This graduation paper is the result of my own research and the substance of this thesis has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution and that if this declaration is found to be false, disciplinary measures and penalties can be taken and imposed in accordance with university policies and rules Hai Duong, June, 2021 Signature ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received many necessary assistances, precious ideas and timely encouragements from my teachers, family and friends This paper could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and support from a number of people who all deserve my sincerest gratitude and appreciation First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor-Mr Nguyen Nang Tuan, the English teacher of Faculty of Foreign Languages, who has always been willing to give me valuable advices and suggestions in order that I can complete successfully this study I also would like to take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all my teachers at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, who have handed me basic knowledge to complete this study I am so thankful to students of K17 at the Faculty of Foreign Languages for their whole-heart participation in the study I would like to acknowledge my thanks to all the authors of the books, magazines, and the other materials listed in the reference part for their ideas that have been reflected and developed in the study I am equally indebted to my classmates for their suggestions and encouragements in the process of my study Last but not least, my particular thanks are given to my parents for their encouragement and support which played an important role in my graduation paper iii ABSTRACT Listening skill is one of the most necessary skills to communicate in the real life In learning a foreign language, it is more and more important to learn this skill Everybody knows that in order to listen to a message is not as simple as hearing it, so the listener has to understand the message and respond in the right manner The thesis will study the subjective and objective difficulties of the students in learning the listening skill Then, it would like to find out the reasons for those problems and the solutions for both teachers and students in teaching and learning the listening skill Therefore, I applied the quantitative methods to the research So the collecting data instruments like questionnaires, interviews were used to the study The results of the research will point out the difficulties that students meet when they learn the listening skill More importantly, the study helps me find out the causes of those difficulties so that I can work out the right solutions to the problems With the hope of improving students’ listening competence, I have tried my best to this thesis by my own experiences and knowledge in English teaching methodology iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents DECLERATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS vii LIST OF ABBREVIATION .viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 The aims of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 The scope of the study 1.5 The method of the study 1.6 The organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Overview of listening 2.2.1 Definition of listening 2.2.2 The importance of listening skill 2.2.3 Types of listening skill 2.2.4 The process of listening 2.3 Difficulties in learning the listening skill 2.3.1 What makes listening so difficult? 2.3.2 What problems students have with listening? v 2.4 Factors affecting the English listening 10 2.4.1 The class atmosphere 10 2.4.2 Students’ motivation 10 2.4.3 Quality of Recorded Material 10 2.4.4 Speech 10 2.5 Some common strategies of listening skills 11 2.6 Summary 12 CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY 14 3.1 The setting of study 14 3.2 The participants 14 3.2.1 The teachers 14 3.2.2 The students 15 3.2.3 The textbook (Skills for Success 2- Listening & Speaking and Get ready for IELTS Listening) 15 3.3 Data collection instruments 15 3.3.1 The survey questionnaire 15 3.3.2 Data collection procedures 16 3.4 Data analysis and discussion from the questionnaire 16 3.4.1 Teachers' and students' opinion about listening skill of the second-year students in FFL at UTEHY 16 3.4.2 The causes of difficulties in English listening skills for the second-year English majors at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education 20 3.4.3 Solutions to improving listening skills for the second year English majors at UTEHY 24 3.5 Main finding and discussion 29 3.5.1 Opinions of students about English listening skill 30 vi 3.5.2 Factor affecting English listening skill 30 3.5.3 Suggestions for improving English listening skill 30 3.6 Recommendations 32 3.6.1 For students 32 3.6.2 For teachers 32 CHAPTER 4: INCONCLUSION 34 4.1 Summary of the study 34 4.2 Limitation of the study 34 4.3 Suggestions for the further study 35 REFERENCES 36 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR TEACHERS V vii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS LIST OF CHARTS Chart 3.1: The students' assessment of learning the listening skill 17 Chart 3.2: Teachers and students’ attitudes towards the importance of English listening skill 19 Chart 3.3: The frequency of students having problems in learning English listening skill 20 Chart 3.4: Teachers opinion about factors influences students' learning listening skills 24 Chart 3.5: Students should before learning listening 25 Chart 3.6: Teachers should before teaching listening 26 Chart 3.7: Suggestion while listening 27 Chart 3.8: Suggestion after listening 28 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Teacher’s assessment on difficulties of English listening skill 18 Table 3.2 The factors affecting English listening skills for students 20 Table 3.3: The teachers' assessment about factors affecting English listening 22 Table 3.4: Factors influences students' learning listening skills 23 Table 3.5: The ways to overcome difficulties in learning listening 28 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATION FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages UTEHY: Hung Yen University of Technology and Education K17: The name of second-year English major students at Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education T: Teachers S: Students TV: Television 31 The before listening stage is very important because it is the base for the listening process Before listening activities such as should predict the content of the listening texts by the teacher's activities are the things to before the students hear the passage to help them get the most out of what they are going to hear In order to understand a piece of spoken discourse, the students has to have not only knowledge of the language but also some background knowledge of the world Before listening activities make it possible for all students to share common background knowledge before listening because it is impossible to expect all students to have the same level of knowledge about a particular world event While listening activities While listening stage is the time for students to listen to the text and understand it It is not necessary for students to understand all about the listening text They not need to memorize the exact words or sentences that are said They just need to listen and take notes There are various kinds of techniques which can be used to lead the students to focus on the general idea and the subject matter of the text they are listening to Directed listening helps the students to extract the relevant information from the spoken discourse Thus, teachers should ask more global rather than partial comprehension questions Specific questions are asked only after the students have recognized the major ideas of the listening texts Moreover, the teacher should prepare beforehand some forms or worksheets for the learners to fill in when they listen After listening activities As it has been introduced in the background, in this stage, students take the information they have gained from the listening text and use it for another purpose Some following activities can be applied for this stage • Summarizing: learners write up the information that they have in their listening They reconstruct the text in their own words using the notes or drawings as cues They can practice writing in groups, in pairs, or individually 32 • Recalling the story: it is another form of summarizing the story but in oral way Learners re-tell the story in the listening text in their own words They practice speaking in groups or in pairs • Role play: learners dramatize the listening text, taking the roles of the characters in the story they have just heard 3.6 Recommendations 3.6.1 For students The students want to learn the listening better, they themselves ought to try their best and to improve their background knowledge And to develop the listening skill for the long term, students also should practice daily for short memory by listening to short news or dialogues then take notes and repeat the contents of the passages According to the survey, before listening, students should predict the content of the listening texts by the activities that the teacher gives This can help students understand the content of the lesson better and become more confident Therefore, guessing the content is a necessary step in the process of listening When listening, the learners should summarize the ideas they listen to and take notes It is a positive activity which helps students a lot training the listening skills both in the English class as other real-life situation Moreover, outside the listening class, students have to practice regularly such as listening to English songs, listening to English radio to improve students' English listening comprehension so as to get acquainted with the native accent in normal speech In addition, the students improve themselves more about vocabulary and grammar Help students develop thinking, listen faster, more accurately, support in absorbing lessons in class 3.6.2 For teachers Teachers play a crucial part in improving learners’ listening skills Learn more grammar, vocabulary and often practice listening actively was the most considered factor that the learners mentioned in the survey In teaching the listening skill to beginners, the teachers have to pay attention to the following elements Additionally, teachers should provide more interesting topics for further listening The authentic listening material is usually interesting because the listeners are exposed to 33 real life With the listening text in the textbook, the teachers can create more exciting activities to motivate students to take part in On the other hand, the ways for their students overcome difficulties in learning listening skills teachers have the responsibility for providing grammar, vocabulary for the learners before they listen In addition, students need to concentrate and keep up spirit while listening In teaching, teachers should require the learners to obey some regulations For example, before and during listening, teachers always want their students to brainstorm, listen and take notes to express their own ideas and summarize information evidence let students discuss it together before giving confirmation When checking their answers, teachers should not be led by some strong students, but all of them must be asked and get information Because of the various differences in the learners, teachers should upgrade the level of the listening tasks in order to encourage them 34 CHAPTER 4: INCONCLUSION This chapter will deal with a summary of the major findings, limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies 4.1 Summary of the study To reach what the author aimed at this study, the study was divided into four chapters with their own purpose The first chapter provides basic information about the research process The second chapter brief covered the overview related to the study, shows difficulties and gives solutions to solve these difficulties which students meet The third chapter presented the author's finding of approach to listening for second - year students in FFL at UTEHY through the questionnaires This chapter also helps the author find answers for three research questions that stated in the introduction And the last one is some recommendations and suggestions for both teachers and second - year students in FFL at UTEHY to improve the listening skills in learning and teaching at UTEHY 4.2 Limitation of the study Although the study has certain strong points such as collection methods, namely survey questionnaires for students, due to limited time, lack of sources, the researcher’s ability and other unexpected factors, it is obvious that the study has got a number of shortcomings First of all, due to the limited of time, experience to some extent, the researcher could not conduct other methods such as classroom observation which can make the obtained results more reliable Secondly, due to the limitation of scope of the study, the researcher only focus on the second-year students in Faculty of Foreign Language which account for a small number of students at FFL, UTEHY Therefore, the result of the study can’t be generalized Besides, the researcher could not cover all the aspects of difficulties In addition, the techniques suggested in this research are selected from different reliable but limited sources 35 In spite of the mentioned limitations, I hope that this exploratory research will contribute to the better situation of teaching and learning English listening skill at FFL, UTEHY 4.3 Suggestions for the further study Because of the limitation, this study could not cover all of aspects of the study Besides, the study only focuses on difficulties for only second-year students at FFL in order to help them improve their listening skill Moreover, for the further studies, to get better results, the researcher should invite more participants and the data collection method Together with using survey questionnaires and interviews, observation is also necessary to get more persuasive conclusions All in all, despite the study can avoid to the limitation, the research has been completed under the guiding of the supervisor and self-effort Any comments and criticism will be highly appreciated for better further study 36 REFERENCES Anderson, A and Lynch, P (1998), Listening London: Oxford University Press Brown, G (1992) Listening to Spoken English London: Longman Press Brown, H.D (2001), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Second Edition Essex: Longman Bentley, S., & Bacon, S (1996) The all new, state – of-the-art ILA definition of listening: Now that we have it, what we with it? Listening Post, 56, 1- 5 Buck, G (2001) Assessing Listening Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Clack & Clack (1977), Psychology and language Gary Buck (2001), Assessing Listening Goh, C (1998), How ESL Learners with Different Listening Abilities Use Comprehension Strategies and Tactics Language Teaching Research, 2, 124-147 Gower, Phillips and Walter (1995), Skill and Strategies: towards a new methodology for listening Oxford OUP 10 Howatt, A and J Dakin (1974), Language laboratory materials, ed J.P.B Allen, S.P Corder 11 Lafi, T (2001), Teaching Listening Comprehension Regional Board of Education Monastir, Tunisia 12 Munro, M & Derwing, T.M (1999), Foreign Accents, Comprehensibility and Intelligibility in the Speech of Language Learners 13 Maggio (1993), Lifelines Oxford University Press 14 Nation, I.S.P (1990), Language teaching techniques Victoria University of Wellington English Language Institute 15 Nord, J.R (1980), Developing listening fluency before speaking: An alternative paradigm, System 37 16 Nguyen Thi Van Lam & Ngo Dinh Phuong (2006), English Teaching Methodology Vinh University 17 Pearson (2008), Introduction to Teaching English Oxford University Press 18 Scott Shelton (2008), Teaching listening to advanced learners: problem and solution 19 Underwood, M (1989), Teaching Listening New York: Longman 20 Ur, P (1984), Teaching Listening Comprehension Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 21 Wolvin, A and Coakley, C (1991) A Survey of the Status ofr Listening Training in Some Fortuner 500 Corporations Communication, USA 22 Yagang, F (1994), Listening: Problems and Solutions In T Krall (ed) Teacher Development I APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR STUDENTS This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into: “Difficulties and some solutions to enhance listening skill for the second-year English major students at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education" Your assistance in completing this survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you only serve the study purpose and you can be confident that your identification will not be revealed in any discussion of the data Please complete the following questions by circling your chosen options, write your answer in the provided blanks Thank you very much for your cooperation! Personal information: Your gender: A Male B Female How old are you? ……………………………………………………………… How long have you been learning English? A About years B About years C About years D Over years I Your opinion on studying listening skill How you feel about English listening skill? A Very difficult B Difficult C Quite difficult D Not difficult E Others: ………………………………………………………………… II What you think about the importance of English listening skill? A Very important B Important C Quite important D Not important E Others: ………………………………………………………………… How often you have problems in your listening skill? A Always B Often C Sometimes D Rarely E Others: ………………………………………………………………… II The causes of difficulties in English listening skill for the second-year English majors at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education How often you encounter these factors in learning listening? Factors affecting listening The non – authentic listening material Limited English vocabulary Poor grammar The spoken text is too length Always Usually Sometimes Seldom Never III Problem pertaining to understand every word in the text Unfamiliar topics Limited basic background knowledge Limited practice time at class Fast speech speaking What influences on your learning English listening skill? Items Most Influential A bit Not influential influential influential A Interesting topics B Exciting activities C Adequate equipment modern D Good teaching methods III Solutions to improve English listening skill What should you before learning listening? (more than one choice) A Should be pre-taught some related new words B Should predict the content of the listening texts by the activities that the teacher gives C Check/ understand the listening tasks D Do nothing IV E Other: ………………………………………………………… What should you while learning listening? (more than one choice) A Listen and take notes B Listen and answer the questions C Listen only D Other: ………………………………………………………… What should you after learning listening? (more than one choice) A Reflect on your difficulties B Summarize information C Recalling the story D Other: ………………………………………………………… In your opinion, what are the ways to overcome difficulties in learning listening skills? Overcome Pronunciation practice Often practice listening actively (listening English to radio, English songs, ect.) Base on pre – listening, key words, guess the infomation we need to hear with other important information Learn more grammar, vocabulary Concentrate and keep up spirit while listening Good equipment Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree V APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR TEACHERS This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into: “Difficulties and some solutions to enhance listening skill for the second-year English major students at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education" Your assistance in completing this survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you only serve the study purpose and you can be confident that your identification will not be revealed in any discussion of the data Please complete the following questions by circling your chosen options, write your answer in the provided blanks Thank you very much for your cooperation! Personal information: Your gender: A Male B Female How old are you? How long have you been teaching English? A About years B About years C About years D Over years I Your opinion about the English listening skill How you feel about English listening skill? A It is very interesting B It is very difficult C It is very difficult but very interesting D It is quite easy and very interesting E It is very difficult and boring VI What your students think about the importance of English listening? A Very important B Important C Quite important D Not important E Others: …………………………………………………… How often your students have problem in listening skill? A Always B Often C Sometimes D Rarely E Others: ………………………………………………………… II The causes of difficulties in English listening skills for the second-year English majors at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education How often your students encounter these factors in learning listening? Factors affecting listening The non – authentic listening material Limited English vocabulary Poor grammar The spoken text is too length Always Usually Sometimes Seldom Never VII Problem pertaining to understand every word in the text Unfamiliar topics Limited basic background knowledge Limited practice time at class Fast speech speaking What influences on your students’ learning English listening skill? (more than one choice) A Interesting topic B Exciting activities C Adequate modern equipment D Good teaching methods III Solutions to improve English listening skill What should you before teaching listening? (more than one choice) A Pre-taught some new words B Brainstorming C Giving guiding question, summarizing the listening texts D Other: ………………………………………………………… What should your students while learning listening? (more than one choice) A Listen and take notes VIII B Listen and answer the questions C Listen only D Other: ………………………………………………………… What should your students after learning listening? (more than one choice) A Reflect on their difficulties B Summarize information C Recalling the story D Other: ………………………………………………………… In your opinion, what are the ways for your students overcome difficulties in learning listening skills? Overcome Pronunciation practice Often practice listening actively (listening English to radio, English songs, ect.) Base on pre – listening , key words, guess the infomation we need to hear with other importion information Learn more grammar, vocabulary Concentrate and keep up spirit while listening Good equipment Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree