The effectiveness of dictation improving english listening note taking technique of english majored students at saigon university (sgu)

SAIGON UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES mis The Effectiveness of Dictation Improving English Listening Note-taking Technique of English-Majored Students at Saigon University

SAIGON UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

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The Effectiveness of Dictation Improving English Listening Note-taking Technique of

English-Majored Students at Saigon University

(SGU)

Scientific discipline: Educational Sciences Students’ Name: Nguyen Thuy Khanh An

Duong Thanh Phu Tran Thi Ngoc Anh

Instructors: Tran The Phi

Nguyen Thi Hoang Lan

HO CHI MINH CITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2, LITERATURE REVIEW 2

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3 RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE 4

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5 RESEARCH METHODS 5

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7, PROPOSED CHAPTER OUTLINE 10

8 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS 11

9, PROPOSED TIME-SCALE 12

10 REFERENCES 13

1 INTRODUCTION

“The single most important key to success is to be a good listener.” - Kelly Wearstler

Listening note-taking is a crucial skill in daily life as well as in language learning, especially in an era where effective communication transcends borders As educators, we recognize that students’ ability to understand spoken language significantly impacts their overall language proficiency

According to the rankings recently announced by the EF English Proficiency Index (EPI), Vietnam ranked 65/100 countries and regions regarding English proficiency The Netherlands continues to lead the 2020 rankings Specifically,

in 2020, Vietnam scored 473/800 points, ranked 13/24 in Asia and 65/100 countries and regions in the world The two cities with the highest English proficiency in Vietnam are still Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City However, compared to the world, this score is still only in the low proficiency group Thereby it can be seen that in most high schools in Vietnam, language skills are not the focus of the English teaching and learning process Hence, listening skill is one of the language skills that is a handicap for a large number of high school students Stepping into college and university, English-majored students have to familiarize themselves with professional environments where almost all lectures are delivered in English This seems to be a challenge for most first- year students who have yet to get used to listening comprehension Therefore, our group has chosen " The Effectiveness of Dictation Improving English Listening Note-taking Technique of English-Majored Students at Saigon University "as our subject of study with the aim of helping those students overcome such a hurdle

In this study, we delve into the effectiveness of using the dictation technique to enhance listening note-taking among English-Majored Students at Saigon University

2, LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definitions of key terms

2.1.1 Listening According to Underwood (1989, as cited in Valeria, 2022, p 6), listening is

“the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something that we hear.” In language teaching, it is a receptive skill which involves making sense of any sound that we hear

2.1.2 Dictation:

Dating back to the sixteenth century (Standsfield, 1985), dictation is among the oldest techniques used in foreign language teaching and assessment In this

technique “a passage is read aloud to students or test takers, with pauses during which they must try to write down what they have heard as accurately as possible.” (Richards & Schmidt, 2013, p 170)

* Types of dictation:

There are several types of dictation including standard dictation, partial dictation, running dictation, dicto-gloss and dicto-comp, competing noise, elicited imitation, and combined cloze and dictation according to Oller (1979,

as cited in Khoti and Pourhassan, 2010)

standard

combined cloze and dictation

dicto- gloss

Types of

competing

elicited imitation

2.1.3 Dictation and Note-taking:

While dictation has been primarily associated with listening and writing skills, Its potential impact on note-taking skills has garnered attention Anderson and Lynch (1988) explored the connection between dictation exercises and improved note-taking abilities, emphasizing the transferable skills acquired through regular practice in transcribing spoken language

2.2 Previous studies

According to Smith (2015) in "The Impact of Dictation on Listening Skills and Vocabulary Acquisition" Smith's study investigated the broader effects of

dictation exercises on language skills The research indicated that regular dictation sessions positively influenced students’ listening comprehension and contributed to vocabulary development While note-taking wasn't the primary focus, the study suggested a potential link between dictation and overall language proficiency

In "Enhancing Language Accuracy through Dictation: A Meta-analysis" (Johnson et al., 2018), Johnson and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of studies examining the impact of dictation on language accuracy The findings revealed a consistent positive correlation between dictation exercises and improved language accuracy across various language skills, including listening and writing The results may shed light on how dictation can enhance specific components of language, including those relevant to note-taking

The article by Chen (2017) is about "Student Perceptions of Dictation in Language Learning" This research explored students’ perceptions of dictation

as a language learning tool The study delved into attitudes, motivations, and preferences regarding dictation exercises Understanding students’ perspectives

on dictation is crucial for your research proposal, especially when considering the acceptance and engagement of English-majored students at Saigon University with this pedagogical approach

According to the above theses, dictation is proved to not only improve students’ listening note-taking significantly but also increase their confidence, motivation in learning listening and their pronunciation The experimental groups in most of the experimental studies who were taught by using dictation techniques have higher achievements than the control group Hence, it can be seen that dictation is a beneficial technique for teaching and learning listening note-taking

The article by Dhea, S (2022) is about the use of dictation strategy in teaching listening Library research is a method of research, in which the researcher collected several sources related to the research, such as journals, articles, books, literature and scientific publications The researcher describes the data through the experts’ opinions Based on the research by using library research, researchers can make a conclusion that dictation is very suitable for teaching listening to students It can also bring benefits to the students, such as increasing their confidence and motivation, increasing their pronunciation, and improving their listening skills Although the data was collected from various sources of documents, the results and conclusion may be relatively general and difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the dictation strategy in teaching listening in real contexts

3 RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

This proposed research aims to investigate the effectiveness of dictation in improving English listening note-taking technique of English-majored students

at Saigon University Although research about dictation method is not unfamiliar, there is not deep research about using dictation to gain the ability of taking note while listening to English of English-majored students who are at low-intermediate level at Saigon University With the increasing demand for achieving high scores in international English tests, English-majored students

at Saigon University are looking for a way which can help them improve their listening skill Therefore, this research is significant which may help the students find out a better way to face with taking note while listening, especially in the international English tests Dictation can focus on both accuracy as well as meaning and give students the opportunity to notice features of pronunciation such as weak forms, linking and elision In addition, dictation and note-taking activities where students compare their version of the text to the original can increase their ability to notice aspects of the language which are sometimes overlooked, as well as mistakes which they commonly make This research also suggests measures for improving English listening note-taking technique which is a useful material for teaching If this experiment

is successful, dictation can be introduced and suggested to more and more English-majored students who will listen to English regularly Besides, it is not too difficult to practice at home when they have had a closer look at the effect

of dictation in note-taking English Or even, dictation and note-taking technique can be combined and applied in Listening classes which can help the rate of listening ability of English-majored students at Saigon University

increase

4 KEY OBJECTIVES/RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1 Is dictation effective in improving English listening note-taking technique of English-majored students at Saigon University?

2 How much time do the researchers need to help English-majored students at Saigon University practice dictation and apply note-taking techniques while practicing English listening?

3 How much time do English-majored students at Saigon University need to improve English listening note-taking technique through dictation practice?

5 RESEARCH METHODS

5.1 Research participant

Researchers need at least 200 first-year English-majored students (both English language department and English Language Teacher Education) at Saigon University who have finished “Phonetics and Phonology” course, got the score from 8.0 to 9.0 on the final exam and are going to begin the “Speaking and Listening 2” course to take a proficiency test, the listening section of the TOEFL iBT test (36 minutes — 28 questions) on Google Form

(https://forms.gle/sFm22 YKS9MDwDp5WA) This test not only requires the participants to answer the questions but also to submit the notes that they have made while listening This kind of test will also be used at the end of the experiment as a post-test The link of the test will be sent to students by contacting all first-year classes’ instructors and who has taken the test will have

a plus in training point Besides testing students’ listening skill, there are some questions to help the researchers have more information to choose the participants for the experiment:

Questions to collect information:

1 Which class are you in?

2 Have you finished the “Phonetics and Phonology” course? How many points did you get on the final exam?

3 Are you going to take the “Listening and Speaking 2” course? Which group-class are you in?

4 If possible, are you willing to be a participant of an experiment to help

us find out a new way in improving English listening?

The reason for choosing students who have finished “Phonetics and Phonology” course and got the score from 8.0 to 9.0 on the final exam is that they can understand precisely the way that the sounds work The researchers contact the Training Office of Saigon University to ask for the statistics table of

“Phonetics and Phonology” score of all first-year English-majored students and the list of students who have registered the “Listening and Speaking 2” course (will be collected after Courses Registration period)

In terms of choosing TOEFL iBT test, this kind of test requires test-takers to listen carefully and note down what they heard in the recording without seeing the questions until the recording ends Besides, the questions of the test are not only about the main idea but also about details This means that if students’ listening skill is not good enough, they are not able to note down anything

Researchers pick out 40 students who have got the listening section of TOEFL iBT score from 9-12 because it means they are both at the beginning of low- intermediate level The reason for not choosing the students with higher score

is that it is difficult to assess if practicing dictation helped them

5.2 Research instrument

The listening section of TOEFL iBT is used as pre-test and post-test of the experiment It is conducted on the given Google Form link and there are no correct answers shown after the pre-test The test includes 3 lectures, some with classroom discussion, each 3-5 minutes, 6 questions each; 2 conversations, each 3 minutes, 5 questions each The score scale is from 0 to 30 The

researcher uses the Grading Rubric to determine students’ score Questions that require multiple answers, usually in the form of tables, are worth two points For questions with two choices, if two choices are correct, students get one point If one of the choices is incorrect, students earn 0 points for the given questions If students correctly filled out the given table, give them two points

If they made one mistake in the table, give them one point If they made two mistakes or more, they earn zero points for the given question

points | estimate | points | estimate | points | estimate

5.3 Data Collection Procedures

In order to answer the question of the study, the experimental method design was implemented Two groups (treatment and control group) had the classes on the same days, with the same amount of time

According to Cohen J, researchers have made some adaptations and used this

procedure to conduct the experiment The ninety-minute-long classes meet

once weekly for 15 weeks (one semester at Saigon University) Researchers

divide 40 chosen students into 2 groups: the treatment group (20 students) and

the control group (20 students) The two groups are both taught by the same

teacher in 2 different classes and follow the same syllabus After ending each

main class, the researchers ask participants of the treatment group to take a 20-

minute extra session to conduct the dictation part with the researchers

The treatment group received a total of 12 dictations during the experiment

The dictations are taken from “New House 5: How a Dorm Becomes a Home”

(Andy Butler) and are serialized to build interest and maintain enthusiasm for

the experiment The reason for choosing this novel is that the content of it is

about students’ life at university which is suitable for the condition of

participants and related to the context of pre-test and post-test (TOEFL iBT’s

listening section) The dictated passages increase in length, range from 140 to

260 words (means the audios range from one to two minutes) to challenge

students step-by-step Furthermore, the story which is used as dictation

exercises is recorded by a native speaker

The procedure for the dictations is the same for every week but the first

Students in the treatment group recetve their previous week's dictation along

with a copy of the dictated passage and are asked to read over and compare

their work to the original They are then instructed to correct any errors,

omissions, or misspelled words This step is taken to refresh students of the

previous week's content and to serve as a potential consciousness-raising

grammar teaching activity (Kidd, 1992; Ellis, 1997; Nation & Newton, 2009)

Each review session takes roughly three to four minutes After editing their

dictations, the materials (the copy of the dictated passage) are then collected

and the participants are required to listen to the dictated passage again and note down it based on the tips which are introduced in the first week

Week Researcher

1 - Grtve clear instruction about the task that they have to do in

class and after class

- Introduce some techniques of note-taking to help the participants do note-taking exercises after dictation

- Set the context of the novel and arouse participants’ interest

- Monitor the class to dictate the first passage of the first chapter of the chosen novel

2 - Conduct the review session of the dictation

- Require the participants listen to the record of this passage again and make a note into given handouts

- Conduct the week’s dictation

3-14 - The same procedures with the second week are conducted

15 - Ask the participants of both treatment and control group to

take the post-test

-takin hni

| l | Write phrases, not full sentences

2 | Take notes in your own words

3 | Structure your notes with headings, subheadings and numbered lists

4 | Code your notes

5 | Use colours

6 | Underline, circle, star, etc

7 | If you miss something, write key words, skip a few spaces, and get the information later Leave a space on the page for your own notes and comments

8 | Use Symbols and Abbreviations

Abbreviations and acronyms for note-taking

1.Common | etc (etcetera) = and the rest para = paragraph

e.g = for example ch = chapter info = information no = number 1.e = that is diff = different n.b =note well, important C19 = nineteenth century

Pp = page (pp = pages)

2 Discipline- | These should be whatever is frequently used in your field of study

Specific In chemistry: Au for gold, Mg for magnesium

In the case of quantities and concepts, these are represented by Greek letters in many fields

A or a (alpha) B or b (beta)

3 Personal Develop your own set so that you don’t have to write every word in

full You can shorten any word that is commonly used in your lectures

¢« Gov = government