A study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long University

A study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long UniversityA study on using YouTube in teaching listening skills to the first year English major students at Ha Long University

MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

BUI LAN NHI

A STUDY ON USINGYOUTUBEIN TEACHING LISTENINGSKILLS TO THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORSTUDENTS

AT HA LONGUNIVERSITY

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

Hanoi – 2024

MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

BUI LAN NHI

A STUDY ON USINGYOUTUBEIN TEACHING LISTENINGSKILLS TO THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORSTUDENTS

DECLARATION BY THE AUTHOR

The thesis entitled“A study on using YouTube in teaching listeningskills to the first year English major students at Ha Long University”is

conducted under the supervision of Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, an instructor ofEnglish at Hanoi University, and Dr Tran Ngoc Duc, an instructor of Englishat Hanoi University of Industry.

I declare that the information reported in the current paper is the resultof my own work, except where reference is made The thesis has not beenaccepted for any degree and is not concurrently submitted to any other degreeor diploma candidature.

Bui Lan Nhi

This study has been completed thanks to the help of many people fromwhom I have received support I would like to express my appreciation to allof them.

I wish to expressmydeepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs NguyenThuThuHa,forhersupport,guidance,anddevotionduringmystudy.Shegavemeencouragement at all the stages of completingmystudy Being supervisedbyher,Iwasnotonlyinstructedcarefullybutalsolearnedmanyvaluablethings

Last but not least, I am grateful to my parents for their mental supportand encouragement They also gave me a lot of advice and encouragement.They motivate me to overcome all the difficulties in completing the study Inaddition, I would like to say “Thank you” to my friends, thanks for their beingside by side with me Again, thank you so much!

The aim of the studyisto investigate students’ attitudes towards usingYouTube videos to improve their listening skills The study used thequantitative method.Thesurvey was employed as a tool for theresearch.Thesurvey included a 15-item questionnaire to collect thedata.Theparticipantsof the study consisted of 28 first-year English major students in class TAK9.2atHaLong University They were chosen through purposive sampling becausethey enrolled in Academic English The course was offered during the firstsemester of the school year 2023.Theresults were analyzed by percentage,mean, and standard deviations.Thestudy's findings showed that students hadpositiveattitudestowardusingYouTubevideosintheclassroom.Basedonthis

consideration,thispaperwillreviewsomeoftheadvantagesanddisadvantages of employingYouTube videos in teaching listening skills The researcher also recommends somestrategies thatmayhelp this skill through YouTubevideos.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Information aboutthecourse 22

Table 3.1.Thepercentage ofparticipants 27

Table 3.2.Theduration of the participants'Englishstudies 28

Table 3.3.Thepercentage of the participants’ frequency of using English in dailylife 28

Table 3.4.Thepercentage of the participants’ frequency of using English skills 29

Table 3.5 Watching YouTubevideosfrequency 30

Table 3.6 Motivation to watchYouTubevideos 30

Table 3.7 Mean, standard deviation andoverallattitudes 31

Table 3.8 Mean and standard deviationofaffection 32

Table 3.9.Thepercentage of participants’ responsesforaffection 33

Table 3.10 Mean and standard deviationofbehavior 35

Table 3.11.Thepercentage of participants’ responsesforbehavior 36

Table 3.12 Mean and standard deviationofcognition 38

Table 3.13.Thepercentage of participants’ responsesforcognition 39

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

S.D: standard deviation

EFL: English as a foreign language mins: minutes

INTRODUCTION1 Rationale

OneessentialEnglishskillislistening.Itdiffersfromotherabilitiesthat need tobe mastered Listeningisthe ability to identify and understand what others aresaying.As it isestimated that listening takes up between 40 and 50 percent ofthe time spent talking, compared to other skills, listening plays a significantpart incommunication.

Through receptive skills, including listening, students gain informationwhile learning a language The development of students' linguistic skillsdependsontheirabilitytolisten.Listeningisthefoundationforgettingprimary

contactwiththetargetlanguage;however, listeningisoneofthemostdifficult skills inlearning English Besides, students lack motivation since they believemasteringlisteningskillsischallenging.Whilelistening,studentsareexpected

torespondtoandinterprettheinformationbeinglistenedtoactively.Toresolve this problem,showing movies, news and videos are used in class to help learning listening(Lopez,2020).

Technology now permeates every aspect of life People utilizetechnology in their daily lives, and YouTubeisformerly considered to be agood source of online videos In the field of learning to listen, the researcherconsiders that itisappropriate to use YouTube as an online video to improvelistening skills.Tran (2022) found that using YouTube videos helped students'listening abilities.This isdue to the fact that YouTube offers audio and visualcontenttolearners,enablingthemtounderstandthespeechorwordstheyheard whilestudying the subject's content and enhancing their language skills Also, YouTube videoscould improve students' vocabulary, pronunciation, accent, listening, reading, writing, andspeaking in learning English (Chhabra,2012).

Generally, YouTube videos are rich sources of authentic materials to improvestudents’ listening (Alqahtani, 2014).

At HaLong University, students often encounter the followingdifficultieswhilelearninglisteningskills.Firstly,theyareunabletounderstand the contentof the listening material Secondly, they cannot keepupwith the speaker's pace inthe listening materials Thirdly, they face many unfamiliar words Fourth,they have difficulty in distinguishing sounds in English Moreover, they lackbackground knowledge, not understand the requirements of the task Thus,teachers are advised to employ teaching media to simplify the teaching andlearning of listening to lessen this issue.Theuse of YouTube videosisone ofthe alternate methods for language training that offers audio- visual content.Itishoped that the study will contribute to improving the learning of English ingeneral, and listening skills through YouTube videos in particular, among thefirst-year English majors atHaLongUniversity.

2 Aims and ObjectivesoftheStudy

The aim of the study is to improve listening skills by using YouTube videos in the listening classes.

The objective of the study is to find out the attitudes of the first-year students English majors at Ha Long University toward using YouTube videos to improve their listening skills.

3 ResearchQuestion

The research aims at addressing one research question:

What are the students’ attitudes towards using YouTube videos to improve listening skills?

4 ScopeoftheStudy

Inthisstudy,theresearcherwouldliketoworkonusingYouTubevideos to improvelistening skillsforfirst-year students who are English majors at HaLongUniversity.

The study could not touch upon all the students atHaLong University Itwas restricted to the first-year studentsinclass TAK9.2 to whom the researcherwould be in charge of teaching listening skills The English levelofthestudents in this classisintermediate level Therefore, this research mainlyfocused on intermediatestudents.

5 SignificanceoftheStudy

Thesignificantfindinghelpstheresearcherunderstandtheeffectofusing YouTubevideos to enhance students’ English listening skills Based on thefindings,theresearchermayunderstandstudents’attitudestowardslearningbylisteningwith YouTube videos and findsomeuseful techniques to teach listening skills.Hopefully,the finding will enable the researcherto give some suggestions forteachers to teach these skills better, an opportunity to develop the student’slisteningskills.

6 StructureoftheStudy

Introduction -Provides the basic information such as the topic of this

paper, the study's background, the study's rationale, the study, the aims andobjectives of the study, research questions, the scope of the study, thesignificance of the study and an outline thesis in the paper.

Chapter 1: Literature review -Conceptualizes the study’s theoretical

background and presents the concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis:definitionsoflistening,teachinglisteningskills,listeningdifficulties,andusing the YouTubevideos to teach listening skills, includinganoverview of the YouTube videos, itsadvantages, disadvantages, and the previousresearch.

Chapter 2: Research methodology -Consists of parts research setting,

researchmethods,participants,anddatacollectioninstruments:datacollection from thesurvey questionnaires, research procedures, data analysis tools andethicalconsiderations.

Chapter 3: Results, findings and discussions -Provides the

interpretation of the data, the results and the findings of the study.

Conclusion- Summarizes the study, implications, limitations, and

suggestions for further studies.

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW1.1 LISTENINGSKILLS

1.1.1 Definition

Listening skills are considered to be a key and essential area ofdevelopment in both a native language and a foreign language Scholars haveproposed many definitions concerning these skill.

According to Vandergrift (1999), listening can be viewed as asophisticatedanddynamicinterpretationprocessinwhichthelistenerconnects what theyhear to what they have heard in the past.Asstated differently, Sharma (2011)highlights that listening may be characterized as acommunicationprocessinwhichthelistenermustcomprehendandextrapolate thesignificance of the contents they have been exposed to If the listener'slisteningcomprehensionwasgoodenough,theymightbeabletocommunicate better withothers, comprehend messages better, and cooperate better Peoplemaylackfocussincetheytypicallypaylittleattentiontowhattheyarelistening to.

Listeningisone of the most crucialabilities thatstudents studying Englishmust acquire Hearing the speaker's voice and deriving meaning fromitare theprocesses of listening Rost (2011) states that while someone is listening, theytake in what the speakerissaying and process the information Moreover, Gu(2018) describes hearing as a listening comprehension that involves activelytaking in incoming facts and interpreting them in a different way Toputitanother way, listening can be thought of as an exchange ofmessagesorinformationbetweenthespeakerandthelistenertounderstandand

communicate.

andtryingtounderstandsomethingwehear.Besides,HowattandDakin(1974) asserts thatlisteningisthe ability to identify and understand what others say.Thisinvolvesunderstandingaspeaker’saccentandpronunciation,hisgrammar and hisvocabulary, and grasping hismeaning.

activityofattending,perceiving,interpreting,remembering,andreactingtothe needs,worries, and information expressed (verbally and nonverbally) by otherpeople.Oneofthewidestdefinitionsoflisteningisprovidedbythisone,which characterizeshearing as a complex activity involving the connected actionsofboth speakers andlisteners Not all listeners engage in listening alone Thelistener'scapacitytounderstandspeakers'language,bothverbalandnonverbal,isgreatlyinfluenced.

Rost (2002) also says that listeningisthe process of taking in what thespeaker actually says, developing meaning through engagement, imagination,andempathy,communicatingthatmeaningtoothers,negotiatingmeaningwith the speaker,andresponding.

Generally, listening is a multi-stage process in which listeners activelygrasp the facts and thoughts by paying attention to what the speaker says, howthey say it, and the context in which the message is delivered Listening is notsimply hearing and perceiving spoken voices.

1.1.2 Teaching listeningskills

Teaching listening involves assisting students in improving theirlistening abilities and comprehension of the material they are hearing(Richards, 2006) This can be accomplished by utilizing top-notch educationalmaterials and carefully designed lesson plans The utilization of resources can

accomplish the objectives of teaching listening and thoughtfully plannedactivities (Etman, 2012).

The traditional approach to teaching listening places more emphasis onmemorizing and oral repetition than on functional aspects (Rost, 2001).Teachersasktheirstudentstolistentoarecordedaudiodialogueormonologue

thatisdelivered by the teacher or by native speakers In the meantime,itisrequired of students to be able to correctly pronounce andrecallwords Thewords that they have remembered are expected to be pronounced accurately,grammatically,andwiththeappropriatedialect,intonation,andaccentasthose of nativespeakers Lesson materials are either delivered orally by the teacherwithmultiplepauses,orbyaudiocassette,whichtheteacherwouldplayintoa segment.When necessary, the teacher can pause the recorded audio chat, provided that thelearning objectives are met Under the traditional technique, the teacher controlsthe classroom activities and the students participate passively.

On the other hand, Ayu (2016) shows that the present approachemphasizes how importantit isto develop listening skills in a communicativeand practical way In order to accomplish these objectives, teachers employauthentic materials when instructing students, and the students should designgroup projects Every activity designed provides students with the chance tohonetheirabilitieswhilealsoexpandingtheirunderstandingofthematerialand skills they arelearning These are setupin this manner because the current approach requiresstudents to learn independently in a supportive setting and within a real-worldcontext.

Different from the traditional approach, teaching authentic materialsextendsbeyondtheuseofaudiorecordings.Itcouldbeobtainedfromanumber

of reliable sources, including songs and videos by English native speakers Asa result, the current method uses a student-centered approach wherein theteacher has less control over the classroom and the students take an active rolein learning.

Students who are taught about the elements of the listening process,listening levels, and listening factors are more likely to identify their ownlistening skills and participate in activities that help them become proficientlisteners According toKarakaş(2005), listening activities aim to support thelearner's perception of the text by preventing failure and are divided into threesubcategories including pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listeningactivities.

Pre-listeningactivities:Theeffectivenessofpre-listeningpractices,such as outlining

how to listen to the text and explain culturally significant themes,isstrongly supported byschema theory The listening teacher may choose certain words, challenginggrammatical constructions, and expressions to be discussed during the topicconversation Based on the information they have already been given, thestudentsmayalso be asked to forecast the content or what the speakers wouldsay Prelistening exercises often aim to accomplish twomainthings:(a)helpstudentsactivatetheirpriorknowledgeandraisetheir anticipation for theinformation that will be presented, and (b) give thecontext thatisrequired for theparticular listening task A listening comprehension exercise, like two peopleconversing about their everyday lives, could be the teacher's next step Inresponse to true or false questions, students must refer back to their priorlistening assignment A drill exercise that mimics the same vocabulary orstructure might beanexample of a controlled practiceactivity.

While-listening activities:Engaging fully in the listening process

increases the likelihood that listeners will understand the speaker's spokenwords and nonverbal cues and create appropriate meaning Students validateandadjusttheirguessesastheylisten.Theirinterpretationsandconclusionsare derived fromwhat they heard In order to identify the text's major ideas, alisteningteachercouldaskstudentstowritedownimportantterms.Asstudents listen to thenarrative speakers, they complete comprehension questions and choose certaindetails to fill in the text's accompanying table Activities that involve listeningtypically aim to accomplish the following: they should concentrate students'understanding of the speaker's languageandideas; they should draw theirattention to specifics details like the speaker'sorganizationalstyle,andtheyshouldstimulatecriticalthinkingandindividualresponsestothe speaker's ideasand language use Following that, there might beanunstructured exercise that givesstudents the opportunity to practice asking questions and practicing listeningcomprehension while discussing their everyday lives in class Itisbest for

withtheknowledgeandskillsthatstudentscurrentlypossess,allowingthemto expand onthose areas through related tasks Utilizing the same listening resources but assigningstudents A and B to work in pairs on a worksheet with some information missingisoneway to modify the – filling in the missing word listeningactivity.

Post-listeningactivities:Post-listeningexercisesarecrucialbecausethey help students

become more proficient listeners The best results frompost-listening exercises areobtained just after the listening session Well-thought- out post-listeningexercises promote interpretative, critical, and reflective thinking and allowstudents to relate what they have heard to their own beliefsandexperiences.Post-

listeningexercisesalsoallowteacherstoevaluateand

verify their students' comprehension, elucidate their understandings, andmovebeyond literal comprehension to interpretative and critical comprehension After listening, students can be given severalcomprehension questions to discuss They can then exchange informationtofinish the -whole class chart,connecting what they have heard to arrive at the overall idea.Theclass mightlisten to the audio again if queries remain unanswered after the informationexchange activity and after the first or second listening Afterwards,insteadofthe teacher giving the answers immediately, the students will attemptto figure out the answers to the questions they had notpreviouslycomprehended.

Underwood(1989)liststhefollowingfourapproachesascommonways to teachlistening in a second or foreign language: grammar-translation, grammar method,audio-lingual technique and task-basedlearning.

Usingthegrammar-translationapproach,studentshearanexplanationofthe secondlanguage's rules in their own language Therefore, when using thesecondlanguage,listeningactivitiesconcentrateontranslatinglexicalelements orgrammarstructures.

Tofollowthegrammaticaltechnique,theteacherassignsstudentstolook at a written textand listen to a recording.Thiscompels students to employ various skills, includingidentifying words based on where they appear in sentences, figuring out howphrases relate to one another, applying signals for both forward and backwardinference, and making deft judgments based on textualcues.

The audio-lingual style of listening places a strong emphasis onmimickinggrammarandpronunciationformsthroughdrillsandexercisesafter firsthearing them The cornerstones of this method's classroom practice are dialogues anddrills Students are advised to pay close attentionw h e t h e r

listeningtotheteacherreadaloud,thetapedrecording,adialogue,orapractice Then, theyeither record their own rendition of the dialogue or drill or repeatspecificpassagesinresponsetopromptsfromthetrainers.Ingeneral,students'

memorization of the structure will get stronger the more times theyrepeatanaccurate phrase orsentence.

The task-based learning approach emphasises the exercises orassignments students complete in class to improve their communication skills.A task-based syllabus ought to be designed taking into account the level ofcomplexity of the assignments that students must complete at various pointsduring the course.

In short, these four approaches to teaching listening are not mutuallyincompatible and can be combined in any course or class However, since theadventofcommunicativelanguageteaching,listeninginstructionappearstobe moresignificant for students sinceitgives them the opportunity to improve both theirlistening comprehension and other language proficiency Teachers should actas a guide to support and encourage students who are hesitant to listen, asmany of themdo.

In general, to capture students' attention in a listening classroom, ateacher's presentation of the material needs to be dynamic and engaging(Gardner & Lambert, 1972) Additionally, teachersmustgive their pupilsorganizedandmethodicalopportunitiestolearnhowtoidentifythetopicofanutterance or discussion, as well as whoisspeaking and to whom, and how toinferthemoodandattitudeofthespeakers(Underwood,1989).Inorderforthe students tofeel safe, at ease, and unthreatened by the listening activities,it ispart of the teacher'sresponsibility to make sure the lesson proceeds inanorganized andeffectivemanner.

1.1.3.Listening difficulties

Numerous studies have been conducted regarding the challengesstudents have when learning English as a foreign language regarding listeningcomprehension A number of research specifically looked into the causes oflisteningdifficultiesutilizingaqualitativeapproachandvariousdatacollection techniques.Through interviews, Maulida (2018) identifies some of the issues that students face whenlistening, such as a lack of vocabulary, inadequate grammar knowledge, spoken textlength, unfamiliar subject, difficulty focusing, anxiety, disinterest, different accents,pronunciation, low-quality tapes or disks, andaninability to use listening strategiesandconcentrate.

Darti (2017) carries out another study in which the data collectiontechniques included observation, questionnaires, and interviews According tothe study, there are four main reasons why students struggle with listeningexercises and learning new skills These include the short amount of timeprovided to master the skill, the lack of suitable facilities, the students' limitedvocabulary, and the paralinguistic elements (accent, noise, rate of delivery,pronunciation, and intonation) Furthermore, using a questionnaire andinterview, Hamouda (2013) identifies several significant listening issues,including accent, pronunciation, speech rate, vocabulary deficiency, accentvariation, inattention, anxiety, and poor recording file quality.

In their study, Butt et al (2010) find that students' lowvocabularymadeitdifficultforthemtounderstandwhatisbeingsaid,whichisthemainobstacle to listening comprehension Even if they are unfamiliar with the theme,studentswillfinditsimplertofollowlisteningsectionswithwell-knownwords Understandingthe meaning of the phrases could spark students' enthusiasm in studying and improve theirlisteningskills.

Students' listening issues may come from the input (Goh, 2000), whenthere are too many unfamiliar terms in listening materials, studentsfinditdifficulttounderstandthetext.Healsostatesthatunfamiliarterminologycould

potentially provide a barrier to students' comprehension of the listening text Besides, theinclusion of unfamiliar terms in the text that the audienceisunfamiliar with may cause theaudience to pause and consider the meaning for a littlewhile.

In addition, students perceive that listening texts are challenging tocomprehendbecauseoftheircomplexgrammaticalstructures.Morepracticeisnecessaryto unlock complex grammatical structures, as thesemaybe the primary causeof students' difficulties with listening comprehension (Hasan, 2000).

Regarding listening difficulties, Underwood (1989) identifies thefollowing seven issues while taking into account various components oflistening skills: (1) Lack of control over the rate at which speakers talk; (2)inability to get things repeated; (3) listeners' limited vocabulary; (4) failure toperceive"thesignal";(5)problemwithinterpretation;(6)inabilitytofocus;and

(7)establishedlearningpatternsareonlyafewofthefactors.Accordingtoher, these issuesare tied to the diverse educational and cultural backgroundsofthelearners.Sheobserves that students with a strong oral heritage ofstorytelling and communication in their culture and school tend to havestronger listening skills than those with a reading- and book-basedbackground.Goh (2002) looks into the issues with listening skills that college EFLstudentsexperience.Tenlisteningskillissueswerediscoveredinrelationtothe

theperceptionstage,learnersdisclose theirbiggestchallenges,suchastheir

inabilitytofocusandtheirinabilitytorecognizetermstheyalreadyknow.They also skip thenext section while considering the meaning According to Goh's research from 2002,listeners experience issues during the parsing stage such as forgetting what they heardrapidly, struggling to represent what they heard mentally, and having trouble

Understandingthewordsbutnottheintendedmessageandbeingperplexedby themessage's main ideas are consideredasthe third stage of usage (cited inCheng,2005).

In general, listeningisthe English skill that presents the biggestchallenge for EFL students Several complex barriers stem from learners'internal characteristics, including their affective states, listening preferences,informationprocessingskills,Englishproficiency,andself-perceptionsoftheir listeningability Additional obstacles pertained to the characteristicsoflistening techniques and thelistening contentemployed.

1.2 USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS TO TEACH LISTENINGSKILLS1.2.1 YouTubevideos

The worldwide web YouTube was created exactly in February 2005 Itis a video-sharing website that allows people to easily upload, share, and viewvideo clips It has become the most widely used resource for online videos(Burke & Snyder, 2008).

YouTubeisawebsitethatisconsideredtobeanattractivesocialmedium which hasmany contributions to education, especially in the field of teaching and learning English as aforeign language Teachers and students can search and find numerous useful videos

availableforfree.AccordingtoTerantino(2011),YouTubeprovidesquickand enjoyableaccess to instructional videos and language-based contentf r o m

around the world Therefore, students can be inspired to engage in educationalinteractions with popular cultures through English-language videos by usingYouTube'sabundanceofauthenticculturalcontent.ByusingYouTubevideos, studentscan practice their language skills anywhere and at any time, which keeps themengaged in the learning process (Baniabdelrahman,2013).

1.2.2 Advantages

Today, the English Language teaching process has been energized withthe arrival of YouTube On this popular video-sharing website, users canupload, view, and share video clips, which means it has become an excellenttool for teaching and learning.

Oneofthe significant advantages of using YouTubeismotivation.Students believed that YouTube videos encouraged them to learn listeningskills (Kelsen, 2009) This study's findings discovered that when YouTubevideos are used in listening classrooms, students become more motivated andengaged in learning to listen Due to the simultaneous picture and audio in thevideo, students can improve their pronunciation, expand their vocabulary, andfinditsimpler to find ideas and create sentences while listening.Thestudentsare able to learn the material more quickly and feel more comfortable with thelesson.ThespeakersintheYouTubevideos,mostofwhomarenaturalEnglish

speakers,wereverywarmlyreceivedbythestudents.Themorestudentswatch the video,the easieritbecomesforthem to practice listening on their own,whichhelpsthembecomemorefluentlisteners.Itisundeniablethatthevideos includedsound effects, colourful scenes, and character conversations which were supported byvisuals English videos can provide teachers with more optionsforclassroomactivities This helps students avoid boring listeninglessons.Asaresult,studentswillbeabletoimprovet h e i r listeningabilities

effectively, and teachers will meet their objectives when teaching English.(Wang, 2015)

Furthermore, the combination of oral input with visual images in videoshas persuaded numerous language teachers to adopt videos as listeningpractice Through listening to the input sounds and watching video images,EFL learners can receive the utterance visual stimulation to enhance theirlisteningcomprehension.Çakir(2006)statedthatitiscommonknowledgethat audio-visual elements greatly aid in motivating and facilitating languagelearning.Thesestatementsringtruewhenonenotesthatusingvideostoelevate

listeningskillsprovideslearnersopportunitiestoimmerseinauthenticcontents and contexts;as a result, the learners can improve their language skills and access materials for asecondlanguage.

Through the results of the studies, it is clear that using YouTube videosas support media in listening classes has a positive impact on developingstudents' listening skills.

Julianto and Qamariah (2023) claimed that learning English throughYouTube is influenced by non-standard language Many videos are uploadedby individuals without any official teaching experience or training in English.This may result in the usage of difficult-to-understand terminology, slang, oraccents English language learners may develop poor usage habits if they areused to hearing and copying mispronounced words or colloquialisms.

Besides,Çakir(2006)assertsthatusingspecialeffects,imagesorscenes inYouTube videos can distract students, making them unable to hear or fullyunderstandthecontentofthevideo.Therefore,teachershavetoopenthevideo more thanonce, which sometimes takesupa lot of class time In many cases, thelessonisaffected due to lack oftime.

The limitation of social interactionisalso a drawbackforstudents wheninvolving in listening skills.Forthe purpose of enhancing speaking andlistening abilities, social interaction during language acquisitioniscrucial.

discussion,developintonation, and expand their vocabulary through directcommunication However, students might passupthis significant chancebecauseYouTubeisa

frequentlyusedresourceforEnglishteaching.Theyareunabletocommunicate with otherstudents or native speakers face-to-face in real time Face-to-face communicationismoreeffective for language learning than online comments or arguments,which makeupthe majority of social interaction on YouTube.Learnerswhohavenothadmuchpracticeorexperiencewithdirectconnections may feel lesssafe in situations where face-to-face contactisnecessary in the realworld.

Thus, using YouTube as a teaching tool in the classroom to improvestudents' listening skills may result in unintentional outcomes.

YouTube videos help students become better listeners.Thisresearchrevealed that teachers can create activities on YouTube that aim to improvestudents' listening skills and teach them to recognize vocabulary, contractions,speed,andspeechtempo.Additionally,YouTubeprovidesstudentswithaudio andvideo content that helps them improve their language abilities byunderstandingthespeechorwordstheyhearwhilelearningthesubjectcontent

andenhancingtheirlanguageskills(Ayu,2016).Thefutureresearch,according to the author,should examine the problems and challenges that could arise when teaching listeningthrough YouTubevideos.

A study aimed to find out how first year students at Universitas NegeriMakassarIndonesia'sEnglishEducationDepartmentfeltaboutusingYouTube as a tool intheir English language learning process.Theresearcher's conclusions demonstratedthat most students who had a positive viewofYouTube and were motivated to

foundthatthestudentshadbeenusingYouTubetoassisttheminfinishingtheir homework andcourse duties Therefore,itcan be said that thes t u d e n t s '

encouragedmethodofimprovingtheirEnglishlanguageskillswasbywatching EnglishYouTubevideos.

Woottipong (2014) looks into how well video resources worked forteaching listening skills to college students 41 Thai undergraduates fromThaksin University majoring in Englishparticipated A pretest-posttest designwas used in this investigation The T-test scores, mean, and percentage wereused in the data analysis The findings showed that after watching educationalvideos, pupils' listening comprehension abilities in English considerablyincreased The results also showed that students' opinions about watchingvideos to improve their listening abilities were favorable.

In his study, Tran’s (2022) research examined the effects of YouTubevideoclipscoveringarangeoftopicsonstudents'listeningskills inanEnglishas aMedium ofInstruction (EMI) class The course instruction included seven YouTube video clips with differentthemes.Aspart of a pretest-posttest one group design, thirty-one studentsreceived their student assessment questionnaires The results demonstratedthat students had improved significantly on the post-test, and they also

usingYouTubevideos.Additionally,thestudentsseemedtofindthetopicparts humorous andinnovative, and they suggested that future classes include more video clips intheclassroom.

In summary, many scholars from throughout the world use YouTube toteach English YouTube is thought to be a reliable source of instructionalmaterial that may be used to teach any language skill or component Thisresearch shall be conducted to explore students’ attitudes towards the use ofYouTube videos to improve listening skills.

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.1 RESEARCH SETTING

This research was carried out at the Faculty of ForeignLanguages,HaLong University, Uong Bi City, Quang Ninh Province, whichconsisted of360 students They came from different provinces in the country, but most of themliveinruralareas,sotheirEnglishlevelisnotgood.At HaLonguniversity,the students havea lot of difficulties in learningEnglish.

Each lesson began with a chosen YouTube video related to the week'stheme.Theduration of the YouTube videos ranged from 5.06 to 8.22 minutes.

Week 1:Thestudents watched the YouTube videos In this exercise,thestudents were instructed to list the names of places or people theyheardonYouTubevideos.BeforetheywatchedYouTubevideos,theteachersgavethemapre-listeningtasksuchaspractisingthealphabet Andthen,thestudentswere asked to writedown the names of countries that been mentioned in the YouTube videos or otherrequirements based on the content of the YouTubevideos.Finally,theteachergaveapost-listeningtaskbyaskingthemaboutthe mainpoint of the video clip they hadwatched.

Week 2:Thestudents watched the YouTube videos In this exercise,theparticipants were instructed to list the names of food groups and nutrition they heard on YouTube videos Beforethey watched the YouTube videos, the teachers gave them a pre-listening task such as practising the nutrition.Then, the students were asked to write down the names of nutrition that had been mentioned in YouTube videosor other requirements based on the content of the YouTube videos Finally, the teacher gave a post-listening taskby asking them about the main point of the video clips they hadwatched.

Week 3:Thestudents watched the YouTube videos In this exercise,thestudents were instructed to list the words related to the presentation Before they watched the YouTube videos,

example,“Whatkindofinformationdidstudentsthinkthepresenterwouldgive them?” Andthen, the students were asked to write down the tips that had been mentioned in theYouTube videos or other requirements based on the contentoftheYouTubevideos.Finally,theteachergaveapost-listeningtaskbyasking them aboutthe main point of the video clips they hadwatched.

Week 4:Thestudents watched the YouTube videos In this exercise,thestudents were instructed to list the words related the video’s topic Beforethey watched the YouTube videos, theteachers gave them a pre-listening task such as “What kind of information did students think the presenterwould give them?” And then, the students were asked to write down the information thathadbeenmentionedintheYouTubevideosorotherrequirementsbasedonthe content ofthe YouTube videos Finally, the teacher gave a post-listening task by asking themabout the main point of the video clip they hadwatched.

studentswereinstructedtolistthewordsoftheschoollibrarytheyheardonthe YouTubevideos Before they watched the YouTube videos, the teachers gave them a pre-listeningtask; for instance, “What kind of information did studentsthinkthepresenterwouldgivethem?”.Followingthat,thestudentswereasked to writedown the information that had been mentioned in the YouTubevideos or other requirementsbased on the content of YouTube videos Finally, the teacher gave a post-listening task by asking them about the main point ofthe video clip they hadwatched.

Week 6:Thestudents watched the YouTube videos In this exercise,thestudents were instructed to list the words of the safety at school they heardonthe YouTube videos.Before they watched the YouTube videos, the teachers gave them a pre-listening task, particularly “What kind of information did students think thepresenter would give them?” Afterwards, the students were asked to writedown the information that had been mentioned in the YouTube videos orother requirements based on the content of the YouTube videos Finally, theteacher gave a post-listening task by asking them about the main point of thevideo clip they hadwatched.

Table 1 included details on the weekly theme, video titles, the channelon which the video was found, the length of the video, and the weeklyobjectives.

Table 2.1: Information about the course

ThemeVideo titlesChanelLengthObjectiveWeek 1:

Making a new friend

Easy English 8.22mins

Listening fordetails andmain ideas.

Week 2:Food and cooking

Food groups and nutrition

ClickView 5.06mins

Listening fordetails andmain ideas.

Week

Presenting and public speaking tips - How to

Rachel Willis 6.11mins

Listening fordetail andmain ideas.

improve skills & confidence

Week 4:Work

Should children have jobs?

school-BBC Learning English

Week 5:On campus services

Promoting your school library

ALIANational 5.40mins

Listening fordetail andmain ideas.

Week 6: Staying safe

Staying safe at school

Wayzata Public Schools

Listening fordetail andmain ideas.

2.2 RESEARCH METHODS

Theaimofthisstudyistoimprovethestudents’listeningskillsbyusing theYoutube videos in teaching listening skills To achieve this aim, the study used thequantitative method The survey was employed as a tool for the research The surveyincluded a 15-itemquestionnaire.

of their first year of college They had studied a greatdealat high school topass the entrance exam, so their grammar and vocabulary were fairlyacceptable.Theydidnot,however,receivemuchinstructioninlisteninginhigh school Theywere chosen through purposive sampling because they enrolled in Academic English Thecourse was offered atHaLong university in Quang Ninh during the first semesterof the school year 2023 The duration of the course was seven weeks Generalinstruction was given for the first six weeks andanexam was given in theseventh week Each lesson lasted fifty minutes The participants wereinformed that their information would be kept confidential.

2.4 DATA COLLECTIONINSTRUMENTS

Survey questionnaires have been used as the major instrument for datacollection for this specific research in order to fulfil the study's principal goal.Afrin (2016) states that survey questionnaires are an indisputably helpfulinstrument for learning more about the attitudes, wants, and other informationheld by a group of interest, they are meant to be the primary source of data.Thus, it is undoubtedly helpful for the author to investigate how the studentsfeel about using YouTube videos to teach listening skills at Faculty ofForeign Languages, Ha Long University.

This methodissupposed to be of great advantage in the sense thatitiseasier for the respondents to answer the questions Besides, the surveyquestionnaire preserves the subjects' anonymity so they aremorelikelyto giveunbiasedanswers.Anotheradvantageisthattheresearchercangetinformation from a largepopulation in a short time.Onthe one hand, it makes the analysis of data easyand simple as all subjects answer the samequestions.

The questionnaire items were adapted from three previously used instudies conducted by Safranj (2015), Pimsamarn (2011) and Suphophak

(2021) The questionnaire was written in English and divided into two partswith 15 items of five-point Likert scales The questionnaire was based on afive-point Likert scale: (5) Strongly agree, (4) agree, (3) neutral, (2) disagreeand (1) strongly disagree.

Part 1:Background information on the respondents.

Closed-ended questions were utilized in the design of this section tocollect personal data, including gender, English study history, how frequentlyEnglish is used in daily life, and how often English skills are used.

Part 2:Attitudes of the students towards listening skills through the watching

YouTube clips.

This section included questions that investigated respondents' levels ofagreement with the given statements The initial five items were all aboutfeelings, and items 6 through 10 concentrated on responses to specificcircumstances The remaining five items concentrated on opinions aboutobjects.

2.5 RESEARCH PROCEDURES

The first-year English major students at Ha Long University receivedsurveystoaskabouttheiropinionsonwatchingtheYouTubevideostoimprove their listeningskills.Theresearcher waited until all questionnaires had been filled out bytherespondents.

2.6 DATAANALYSIS

Following data collection, the survey responses were converted tonumbers and analyzed using the SPSSv.20 computing program Tables offrequencyandpercentagemakeupthedescriptivestatisticsusedtopresentthe results.

2.7 ETHICALCONSIDERATION

In order to preserve the scientific copyrights of the researcher and theother researchers whose works are cited in this work, this study would go bythe ethical guidelines of scientific research to guarantee originality, honesty,non-reproduction, and accuracy To ensure the validity of all the documentsgathered, great consideration is also given to the accuracy of data analysis andreporting.

instruments, data collection procedures,anddata analysis The next chapter willpresent the study'sfindings.

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS3.1 FINDINGS

The aim of this studyisto investigate students’ attitudes towards usingYouTube videos to improve their listening skills The Statistical Package forSocialSciences(SPSS)version20.0wasusedtoanalyzethedataanddetermine means,frequencies, and percentages.Thefindings included twoparts:

Table 3.1: The percentage of participants

3.1.1.2 Years of studying ofEnglish

According to the results, the largest number of the participants (60.7%)had been studying English for 11–12 years, followed by 21.4% who had beenlearning for 7–8 years, and 17.9% who said they had been studying for 9–10years.

Table 3.2: The duration of the participants' English studies

3.1.1.3 Frequency of using English in dailylife

The majority of the participants (57.1%) said that they use English onceortwiceaweek,followedby32.1%whouseEnglisheverydayandonly10.7% who useEnglish three or four times aweek.

Table 3.3: The percentage of the participants’ frequency of usingEnglishindailylife

Chance to use EnglishFrequencyPercent

3.1.1.4 Frequently used Englishskills

To determine which English skills participants utilize most frequently,the questionnaire was also delivered The results showed that the largestnumber of the participants (35.7%) used English reading skills The othergroups reported using speaking, listening and writing abilities frequently, at32.1%, 17.9%, and 14.3%, respectively.

Table 3.4: The percentage of the participants’ frequency ofusingEnglishskills

3.1.1.5 Watching YouTube videosfrequency

According to the Table 3.5, the largest number of the participants(42.9%) watched YouTube videos once a week, followed by thosewhowatchYouTube videos regularly (39.3%) Furthermore, 7.1% of theparticipantssaid they watch YouTube videos three to five times a week and 10.7% of them watchedless than once aweek.

Table 3.5: Watching YouTube videos frequency

FrequencyofwatchingYouTube videos

Three-five timesaweek

3.1.1.6 Motivation to watch YouTubevideos

When the participants' motivations for watching YouTube videos wereexamined,itwas shown that 39.3% of the participants watch YouTube videosforamusement,morethanaquarter(28.6%)ofthemwatchedYouTubevideos toenhance their English language skills, while the others (32.1%) found theirinspiration in watching YouTubevideos.

Table 3.6: Motivation to watch YouTube videos

Language skillimprovement

Table 3.7: Mean, standard deviation and overall attitudes

Components of Attitude

3.39.Withastandarddeviationof0.90andameanscoreof3.63,thebehavioral