Trang 1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYEN TRANG BICH THUY TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS Field: Theory a
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYEN TRANG BICH THUY TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 8140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Hien BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN TRANG BÍCH THỦY NHẬN THỨC VỀ VIỆC HỌC KĨ NĂNG NGHE TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO Ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học bộ môn tiếng Anh Mã số: 8140111 Người hướng dẫn: PGS TS Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the information reported in the thesis “Tran Hung Dao High School Students’ Perceptions of Learning English Listening Skills” is the result of my own work and attempt No references are used in the study without acknowledgment Also, no parts of the thesis have been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma Binh Dinh, 2023 Nguyen Trang Bich Thuy ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have accomplished this thesis without the considerable assistance, encouragement, and contributions from my supervisor, colleagues, friends and family I take this chance to express my heartfelt gratitude toward those who offered me valuable advice and wholehearted support for my research Firstly, I am deeply grateful to my thesis supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Hien I sincerely appreciate her step-by-step directions, excellent suggestions, valuable advice, great encouragement, endless patience, and critical comments so that I can complete my study on time Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to all the lectures that taught me throughout my MA course and gave me sensible advice Thirdly, my thanks are due to Tran Hung Dao High School for facilitating my attending the MA course at Quy Nhon University Fourthly, I also express my warmest thanks to Quy Nhon University, Post-graduate Department, Department of Education, and Foreign Languages Department for the administrative assistance Next, I would like to thank the students at Tran Hung Dao High School, who dedicated their time to participating in my research They enthusiastically completed the survey questionnaires and attended the interviews Special thanks also go to my dear friend Ms Nguyen Thi Thuy Kieu, who always encouraged me when I met obstacles during my study and gave me some helpful advice on my thesis I feel lucky to have her support Last but not least, I owe my family a great debt of gratitude for their greatest encouragement and support throughout my MA course iii ABSTRACT Listening is one of the important language skills; however, many learners have trouble learning this skill This study aimed to investigate students’ perceptions of learning English listening skills To achieve the aim, quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed to collect and to analyze the data The data were gathered from 200 Tran Hung Dao high school students via the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews The findings showed that most students were aware of the importance of English listening skills as well as teachers’ listening teaching methods They also find listening comprehension interesting but challenging Many students encountered listening problems related to listening materials, teachers’ teaching methods and themselves as listeners As for means of practicing listening skills, listening to teachers and classmates in class and listening to English news and English songs were the ones employed by most of them, whereas a smaller number of students watched YouTube English talk shows or short videos, British or American television channels and used mobile applications Moreover, there were just a few using voice chat on the Internet to talk with foreigners The study had significant contributions to teaching and learning listening skills Keywords: learning listening skills, students’ perception, the importance of listening, listening problems, practice listening skills iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Rationale 1 1.2 Aim and Objectives 4 1.2.1 Aim 4 1.2.2 Objectives 4 1.3 Research Questions 4 1.4 Scope of the Study 4 1.5 Significance of the Study 5 1.6 Organization of the Study 6 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2.1 Perception and its Importance in Teaching and Learning 7 2.1.1 Definition of Perception 7 2.1.2 Importance of Perception in Teaching and Learning 8 2.2 Overview of Listening 9 2.2.1 Definition of Listening 9 2.2.2 Definition of Listening Comprehension 11 2.2.3 Importance of Listening Skills in Language Learning 12 2.3 Teachers’ Roles in Listening Activities 13 2.4 Principles for Teaching Listening Skills 14 v 2.5 Factors Affecting EFL Students’ Learning English Listening Skills 16 2.5.1 Listeners 16 2.5.2 Listening Texts 18 2.5.3 Teachers’ Teaching Method 20 2.5.4 Physical Setting 21 2.6 Related Studies on Students’ Perceptions of Learning English Listening Skills 22 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 28 3.1 Research Design 28 3.2 Research Setting and Participants 28 3.2.1 Research Setting 28 3.2.2 Research Participants 30 3.3 Research Instruments 31 3.3.1 Questionnaire 31 3.3.2 Semi-structured Interview 32 3.4 Data Collection 32 3.5 Data Analysis 33 3.6 Reliability and Validity 34 3.6.1 Scale Reliability Analysis 34 3.6.2 Validity 34 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 35 4.1 Students’ Perceptions of The importance of Listening Skills 35 4.2 Problems Students Face When Learning Listening Skills 42 4.2.1 Students’ Problems Related to the Listening Materials 43 4.2.2 Students’ Problems Related to Teachers’ Teaching Methods 49 4.2.3 Students’ Problems Related to The Listener 53 vi 4.3 Means Students Use to Practice Listening Skills 58 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 66 5.1 Summary of the Study 67 5.2 Implications 68 5.3 Limitations 69 5.4 Suggestions for Further Research 70 REFERENCES 71 APPENDICES CD vii EFL L1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L2 MoET Compact Disc English as a Foreign Language First Language Second Language Ministry of Education and Training viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Summary of Participants’ Background Characteristics 30 Table 3.2 Reliability Statistics of the Questionnaire 34 Table 4.1 Students’ Perceptions of Importance of Listening Skills 36 Table 4.2 Detailed Description of Importance of Listening Skills 37 Table 4.3 Detailed Description of Difficulty of Listening Skills 38 Table 4.4 Detailed Description of Appeal of Listening Skills 39 Table 4.5 Detailed Description of Sufficient Training in Listening Comprehension 40 Table 4.6 Detailed Description of Listening Strategies 41 Table 4.7 Students’ Problems Related to Listening Materials 43 Table 4.8 Detailed Description of Unfamiliarity of the Topic 44 Table 4.9 Detailed Description of Unfamiliar Vocabulary 45 Table 4.10 Detailed Description of Difficult Grammatical Structures 45 Table 4.11 Detailed Description of Speech of Spoken Texts 46 Table 4.12 Detailed Description of Stress, Pronunciation, Intonation and Accent 46 Table 4.13 Detailed Description of Length of Spoken Texts 47 Table 4.14 Detailed Description of Poor-quality Recordings 48 Table 4.15 Students’ Problems Related to Teachers’ Teaching Methods 49 Table 4.16 Detailed Description of Pre-teaching Important Vocabulary 50 Table 4.17 Detailed Description of Warming-up Activities 51