the difficulties of non-major of english at haiphong foreign language center–haiphong university in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions = những khó khăn của sinh viên không chuyên anh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ PHƯỢNG THE DIFFICULTIES OF NON - MAJOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HAIPHONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER - HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ - ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÕNG TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP ĐỀ XUẤT M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ PHƯỢNG THE DIFFICULTIES OF NON - MAJOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HAIPHONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER - HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ - ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÕNG TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP ĐỀ XUẤT M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hoàng Văn Vân HANOI - 2014 i DECLARATION Honestly, the thesis has been resulted from my own research. Therefore, all the statistic given must be reliable. Moreover, all the reference information was quoted or summarized with the clear original sources which have been shown in the references part. I truthfully assure that the thesis has been completed by myself. Hanoi, 2014 Phạm Thị Phượng ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Hoàng Văn Vân, who guided me throughout the accomplishment of this research. If it had not been for his kind guidance, insightful comments and valuable support, my thesis would not have been completed. I also owe my gratitude to my family, who has always been very supportive with my study. In addition, I am grateful to all my colleagues and students at Haiphong Foreign Language Center, who have encouraged me and shared me useful information. Their cooperation helped me a lot to finish the thesis. Personally, I highly appreciate all the assistance. I am greatly interested in this study as it is of great help for me. However, I am responsible for any remaining mistakes and short comings that are found in this work. iii ABSTRACT Listening skill is one of the most neccessary skills to communicate in the real life. In learning a foreign language, it is more and more important to learn this skill. In fact, students often take the wrong way when listening and this leads them to the poor result. Realizing the problems from teaching experiences, the author would like to do a research titled “The difficulties of non-major students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center-Haiphong University in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions This study is an investigation into the problems experienced by non-major students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center-Haiphong University in learning listening skill. The subjects of the study were 75 non-English major students and 5 teachers at Haiphong Foreign Language Center (HFLC)-Haiphong University. The data were collected through the questionnaires from students, and the interviews from the teachers. The results of the research will point out the difficulties that learners meet when they learn the listening skill at HFLC. More importantly, it helps the author find out the causes of those difficulties so that she can work out the right solutions to the problems. With the hope of improving learners‟ listening competence, the author has tried her best to do this thesis by her own experiences and knowledge in English teaching methodology. The findings of the research will reveal the difficulties that learners experience when they learn the listening skill at the center. Some conclusions were drawn; recommendations were made, some limitations were pointed out and suggestions were offered. iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Purposes of learning English at HFLC Figure 3.2: Learners' time distribution in practicing four language skills Figure 3.3: Students‟ attitude toward listening skill Figure 3.4: Students‟ time allocation for self-study Figure 3.5: What the learners do before and while listening Figure 3.6: Learners‟ assessment on the listening tasks in the textbook Figure 3.7: Learners‟ interest in different listening activities Figure 3.8: Learners‟ interest in extra listening activities Figure 3.9: The objective factors affecting learners' learning the listening skill Table 1: Problems from the listeners Table 2: Problems from the listening material Table 3: Problems from environment factors v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Table of Contents i Declaration iv Acknowledgements v Abstract vi List of Figures and Tables vii PART I:INTRODUCTION 1 1 Rationale 1 2. Aim of the study and research questions 1 3. The Scope of the study 2 4. The method of the study 2 5. The organization of the study 3 PART II:DEVELOPMENT 4 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 1.1 What are listening and listening skill 4 1.1.1 Definitions 4 1.1.2. The importance of the listening skill 5 1.1.3. Potential difficulties in listening skill 6 1.1.3.1. Listening problems 6 1.1.3.2. Language problems 9 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 11 2.1. An overview of the current situations of teaching and learning the English listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center 11 2.1.1. Introduction 11 vi 2.1.2. Resources and materials 11 2.1.3. Teachers and Teaching methods 13 2.2. Data collection. 13 2.2.1. Participants 14 2.2.2. Data collection instruments 14 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 15 3.1. Intended research contents 15 3.1.1. Purposes to learn English at HFLC 15 3.1.2. Students‟ attitude toward listening skill 16 3.1.3. Students‟ strategies in listening 18 3.1.4. Learners‟ assessment on the listening task in the text book 20 3.1.5. Problems experienced by learners in learning English listening skill 23 3.1.5.1. Problems from listeners 23 3.1.5.2. Problems from the listening materials 25 3.1.5.3. Problems from environment factors 27 3.2. Summary 30 3.3. Suggested solution improving the teaching of English listening skill to learners at Haiphong Foreign Language Center 32 3.3.1. Recommendations for teaching English listening skill for non- major students at HFLC 32 3.3.1.1. Improving teacher‟s classroom techniques 33 3.3.1.2. Training students to become active listeners 34 3.3.1.3. Developing the listening materials 36 3.3.1.3.1. Adapting and improving listening materials 36 vii 3.3.1.3.2. Choosing supplementary listening materials 37 3.3.1.4. Improving teaching facilities and resources 37 3.3.1.5. Other problematic areas 37 3.4. Summary 38 PART III: CONCLUSION 39 1. Recapitulation 39 2. Conclusions 39 3. Limitations of the study 40 4. Suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I 1 PART I INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Listening plays a significant role in daily communication. No one can deny the importance of listening skill in foreign language learning because it takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill. Listening plays an important role in communication. It is said that of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%. According to Devine (1982), listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas and information are taken in. Being good at communicators in foreign languages especially in English is always a desire of all foreign language learners. However, it requires them to speak and to listen well in which listening is considered the most challenging skill for every learner. In fact, there are many factors affecting the learners in listening acquisition. They may come from the listeners (their background knowledge, their interest or their motivation…), from the listening material or from the environment factors. Consequently, it is very difficult for them to master this skill. With thirteen-year experience of teaching English listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center and from what I observed many classes at HFLC, it can be found that many students failed in practicing listening skill. Some of the students complained that they were not confident with listening tasks so they could hardly understand the spoken messages Realizing the problem from teaching experiences, I have decided to carry out a study namely “The difficulties of non-major students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center-Haiphong University in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions”. 2. Aim of the study and research questions The aim of the study is to probe difficulties experienced by students at Haiphong Foreign Language Center (HFLC) in learning listening skill and to offer solutions to help students overcome these difficulties. [...]... 2, the methodology and findings describes the current situation of teaching and learning listening skill at HFLC Then it will introduce the participants, the data collection instruments, data analysis and research questions Finally, the author will analyze the results of the survey and the interviews in order to find out the current state of learning listening skill at HFLC Chapter 3 offers some solutions. .. difficulties, the researchers hope that these serve as a base in understanding to continue with other chapters related to them 10 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 An overview of the current situations of teaching and learning English listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center 2.1.1 Introduction In this chapter, the writer describes the current situation of teaching and learning listening skill at Haiphong Foreign. .. ideas based on what they heard Then, the listening activities affect the students‟ interest in learning this skill a lot 21 In order to motivate the students in learning listening skill, beside the listening activities given in the textbook, the teacher has to adapt them and create more interesting activities The survey collected their feedbacks about the listening activities that they would like to... aim, the following research questions are raised for exploration: 1 What are the problems experienced by learners in learning English listening skill at HFLC? 2 How can the teacher help learners overcome the difficulties? 3 Scope of the study The study is limited to finding out the difficulties that the learners at HFLC cope with in learning English listening skill The objects of the study are the learners... skill, listening plays an important role in the process of language learning or acquisition and facilitating the emergence of other language skill According to Nord (1980: 17), listening is the way of learning the language “It gives the learner information from which to build up the knowledge necessary for using the language When this knowledge is built up, the learner can begin to speak The listening. .. causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the text part of the speech” There are four situations relating to the vocabulary that the learners usually committed These situations are presented below: (1) Trying to understand every word In spite of the fact that they can hope with missing whole chunks of speech having conversation on a noisy street in our own language, ... learn English at HFLC (Q 1) 2 The students‟ attitude toward listening skill (Q 2 - 3) 3 The students‟ strategies in listening (Q 4 - 5) 4 The students‟ assessment on the listening tasks in the text book New English File Pre-intermediate (Q 6 - 9) 5 The problems experienced by the students in learning English listening skill (Q.10 - 11) All the questions in the survey were designed with a hope that the. .. listening examination (Rost, 1994) It should be noted that the learner‟s perception of their listening problem and strategies can affect their comprehension both positively and negatively (Wenden, 1986) Thus, in order to help students improve their listening skill, it is necessary to find out their listening problems, what cause them and how to solve them 1.1 What are listening and listening skill? ... level B of this program were interviewed directly about their own ways of teaching listening to the learners, and their comments on their students in learning that skill Also, the interviewer would like them to suggest some recommendations that are helpful to improve and to motivate students‟ learning listening skill In conclusion, this chapter describes the method using questionnaires to investigate students... do they distribute their time in practicing the four skills of language learning: listening, speaking, reading and writing? The following chart shows the differences in time distribution among them 20% Listening 51% 13% Speaking Reading Writing 16% Figure 3.2 Learners' time distribution in practice four language skills As can be seen from the chart, most students spend their time practicing listening . STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HAIPHONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER - HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM. The difficulties of non-major students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center -Haiphong University in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions . 2. Aim of the study and. titled The difficulties of non-major students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center -Haiphong University in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions This study is an investigation