A study on teaching listening comprehension to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School - Bac Giang = Nghiên cứu về việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho h

list of tables Table 1: Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school N = 380 Table 2: Why is listening skill difficult?. Table 3: The expectations of the students towards

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Ph¹m ThÞ YÕn

A sutudy on Teaching Listening Comprehension

to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet

high school – Bac Giang

Nghiªn cøu vÒ viÖc d¹y kü n¨ng nghe hiÓu cho häc sinh líp 10 trường THPT Lý Th-êng KiÖt – B¾c Giang

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10

HA NOI - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Ph¹m ThÞ YÕn

A sutudy on Teaching Listening Comprehension

to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet

high school – Bac Giang

Nghiªn cøu vÒ viÖc d¹y kü n¨ng nghe hiÓu cho häc sinh líp 10 trường THPT Lý Th-êng KiÖt – B¾c Giang

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10

SUPERVISOR: Ph¹m ThÞ h¹nh , MA

HA NOI - 2010

Table of contents

Acknowledgements Page Abstract

Table of contents

List of abbreviations List of tables and pie charts Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1 Rationale 2

2 Aims of the Study 3

3 Methods of the Study 3

4 Scope of the Study 3

5 Design of the Study 3

chapter II - Literature review

1 Introduction 5

2.1 The definition of listening and listening comprehension 5

2.1.1 Definition of listening 5

2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension 6

2.1.3 Listening Comprehension Process 7

2.2 Types of Listening 10

2.2.1 Listening in real-life 10

2.2.2 Listening in classroom 10

2.3 The importance of listening comprehension 11

2.3.1 Listening as the final goal of learning a language 12

2.3.2 Listening as a mean of acquiring language 12

2.4 What makes listening difficult 13

2.4.1 The linguistic factors 14

2.4.1.1 The type of language input 14

2.4.1.2 Pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation 15

2.4.2 The non – linguistic factors 15

2.4.2.1 Listener’s ability to concentrate 16

2.4.2.2 Listener’s background knowledge 16

2.5 The procedure of teaching a listening lesson 17

2.5.1 Pre-listening stage 17

2.5.2 While-listening stage 18

2.5.3 Post-listening stage 18

chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1.1 Introduction 20

2.1 The participants 20

2.2 The course book 20

2.3 The 10th form students 20

2.4 The teachers of English 21

3.1 The data collection instrument 21

3.2 Data collection and analysis 23

4.1 Conclusion 24

chapter IV: data analysis and discussion 25

I Questionnaire for the students 25

1 Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school 25 (Question 1) 25

2 The difficulties encountered by 10th form students when learning listening 26

2.1 The importance of learning listening of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School 26

2.2 The students’ difficulties when learning listening at school ( Question 4, 5,6) 26

2.2.1 Listening difficulties encountered by 10th grade students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School 26 2.2.2 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill

(question 5) 27

3 Students’ attitude after listening lesson (Question 6,7 and 8) 29

4 Students’ need in learning listening 29

4.1 The students’ effort (question 9) 29

4.2 Teachers and their teaching methods (Question 10) 29

4.3 The things that school can do to help students in their learning English 31

II The teachers’ questionnaire 31

1 Teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school 31

2 Teachers’ opinion about the aspects of language taught at school 32

3 Teachers’ opinion of teaching listening comprehension (question 3,4,5 and 6) 33

3.1 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching listening (Question 4, 5 and 6) 34

3.2 Teachers’ activities to help students overcome the difficulties in learning listening process ( Question 7) 35

4 Teachers’ attitude toward class-listening activities (Question 7, 8,9,10, 11 and 12) 36

4.1 Teachers’ opinions about three-listening stages (Question 7) 36

4.2 Teaches’ comments on the pre-listening activities in the textbooks and their suggestions (Question 8,9) 37

4.3 Listening exercises teachers often have students practice in a listening lesson and their effectiveness (Question 10,11) 37

4.4 Students’ achievement from a listening text (Question 12) 39

5 Teachers’ suggestion in teaching listening 40

5.1 The teachers’ effort (Question 13) 40

5.2 Teachers’ need in having effective listening lessons (Question 14) 5.3 Teachers’ suggestion to the administrators in order to have 41 effective listening lessons.(Question 15) 43

chapter v: recommendations and conclusion 44

I Findings and suggestions 44

II.Limitation and suggestions for the further study 46

list of abbreviations

 CLT :Communicative Language Teaching

 LCT :Listening Comprehension Teaching

 LTK HS :Ly Thuong Kiet High School

 N :Number

 ESL :English as a Second language

 Ss :Students

 Ts :Teachers

list of tables and pie charts

A list of tables

Table 1: Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (N = 380)

Table 2: Why is listening skill difficult?

Table 3: The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill

Table 4: Teaching techniques help students listen better and more effectively

Table 5: Teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school (N=7)

Table 6: Overall ranking of the aspects of the language taught at school

Table 7: Teachers’ activities to help students overcome the difficulties in learning listening

process

Table 8: Teachers’ opinions about three- stage process

Table 9: Listening exercises used

Table 10: What those students can get after listening lessons

Table 11: Teachers’ effort to have effective listening lessons

Table 12: Teachers’ need in having effective listening lessons

B list of pie charts

Pie chart 1: Students’ attitude towards listening skill

Pie chart 2: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill

Chapter 1: Introduction

1 Rationale

In the recent years, English language is described as an international language and the need for communication between groups of people It is not only the main language spoken by native speakers but also the official language in many countries as well as an important language in a lot of nations throughout the world In Vietnam, where people are carrying out the modernization and industrialization, English has become more popular and important Thus, Ministry of Education in Vietnam has considered English as a compulsory subject at most upper secondary schools However, how to teach and learn English effectively and how

to popularize it are not simple matters

For most of students, English is always considered a difficult subject which has four skills: Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing In these skills, listening skill seems to be the most difficult and weakest skills among students’ four language skills The difficulties which hinder students from developing their listening skills are various Moreover, most high school students have had listening practice in their classroom, but they may find themselves bored with the listening tasks

For listening teachers, correspondingly, it is a difficult task to get students involved in listening lessons Nonetheless, just as other teachers do, listening teachers should create an interesting and motivating learning environment on one hand; and on the other hand, they must become aware of difficulties and problems facing their students, then, select the best techniques to help them

My school is Ly Thuong Kiet High School (LTK HS) in Bac Giang, which is a mountainous province in the Northeast of Ha Noi Teaching and learning listening there is really a challenging job In addition to the lack of well-equipped facilities, teaching listening methods are quite new and unfamiliar to teachers Another problem is students’ low levels of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth It is the reason

why students find it difficult and tough to listen and they are not confident enough to do listening tasks successfully Moreover, learning habits do not help much to improve their listening in classroom The students often get bored, tired and indifferent in listening lessons because of the quality of teachers’ voice and pronunciation, uncreative tasks and activities, topics, and so on

Being a teacher of English, I am aware of the teachers’ important task in increasing students’ knowledge of English, and improving their listening skills Therefore, I would like to study to know more the ways to help my students to improve their listening skills So that is the reason why I chose the theme: “A study on Teaching Listening Comprehension to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet high school – Bac Giang.”

2 Aims of the Study

The new “ TiÕng Anh 10”, which has four language skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening, is first introduced in Vietnam Thus, there are a number of problems facing both the teachers and the students The main purposes of this study are to find out the real situation of teaching and learning listening skill at LTK HS, the areas of difficulties in listening encountered by 10th grade students and their needs in learning listening to English Therefore, the teachers could find out the way to teach listening English effectively The study aims to find the answer to the following questions:

1 How is listening comprehension taught and learnt in Ly Thuong Kiet high school?

2 What difficulties do the teachers and 10th form students face in teaching and learning listening comprehension?

3 What do teachers and students need in teaching and learning listening comprehension?

4 What techniques can teachers and students use in order to teach and learn listening skill more effectively?

3 Methods of the Study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the reseacher chose the survey reseach, qualitative

approach, which involves two survey questionnaires, is employed to collect the data for the study The first survey questionnaires are for students, which dealt with students’ needs and difficulties in learning listening The second survey questionnaires are for teachers, which aims to find out the real situation and the difficulties that teachers face in teaching listening skill at LTK HS

4 Scope of the Study

This minor study is conducted at LTK HS in order to perceive the real teaching and learning listening skills of both teachers and 10th form students The study focuses on describing the problems and factors causing such challenges, for instance, facilities, students’ English listening proficiency and teachers’ methodology The thesis also offers some appropriate suggestions to better the current context It was my intention to examine all the seven teachers of the school and 8 classes with 380 students

5 Design of the Study

The study is divided into five chapters which are summarized as follows:

The first chapter is introduction including a rationale for study, the aims, and the methods, scope of the study as well as the design of the study.The second chapter is literature review discussing the theoretical background, which is relevant to the purposes of the study.The third chapter is on the study which gives a detailed description of how the study was implemented The fourth chapter is to report the data analysis Discussion about the results is also made

in this chapter

The final chapter gives the conclusion as well as some recommendations for the teaching and learning activities at LTK HS

Chapter II - Literature review

1 Introduction

In this chapter, I would like to provide a theoretical background to the study to know more and deeply about Listening Comprehension Teaching It is composed of four sections The first section is to examine different views on the definition of listening The second section is the importance of listening comprehension The thirdth section is designed to look

at the factors that make listening difficult The finally section is the procedure of teaching a listening lesson

2.1 The definition of listening and listening comprehension

2.1.1 Definition of listening :

It is believed that listening is a significant and an essential area of development in a native language and in a second language; therefore, there are different point of views on the definition of listening, which present different views of scholars towards the concept

As Celce-Murcia (1991:88) puts it, “Listening can be defined broadly as everything that impinges on the human processing which meditates between sound and the construction of meaning” Listening, as Mary Underwood simply put it, “is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear” (Underwood, 1989:1) The author also emphasized: “To listen successfully to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, not simple to understand the words themselves” (Underwood, 1989:1)

2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension

There have been a large number of definitions for listening comprehension made by methodologists According to Anderson and Lynch (1988) listening is really a receptive skill

along side reading skills and the role of the listener is no longer passive but active After a period of listening, the learners are expected to be able to talk or write about what they have

heard, that is the objectives of listening comprehension Therefore, "The role of the successful

listeners has to be thought as an active one" Anderson and Lynch (1988: 6) There has also

been the idea that listening comprehension is pointed out that listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound

Another definition of listening and listening comprehension is pointed out that “Listening

comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound” in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non linguistic knowledge” (Buck, 1984:31)

While Brown and Yule (1983) list the four degrees of comprehension on which listening exercises can be constructed:(1) The listener can repeat the text.(2) The student should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used in that text.(3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric reference and to determine which was referred to.(4) The student should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied

Therefore, the concept of listening and listening comprehension can be broadly defined as everything that improves on the human processing which mediates between sounds and the construction of meaning When listeners are expected to attend to what they hear to process it,

to comprehend, to interpret, to evaluate and to respond to the incoming data In order to do all these things, they have to get involved in the process and become active listeners

From the concept of listening comprehension above, in this study the students’ listening comprehension is their performance on the listening tests

2.1.3 Listening Comprehension Process

The process of listening may be understood as the decoding an aural message and making

sense of it Brown (1994) suggests that after the psycho motor process of receiving sounds waves through the ear and transmitting nerve impulses to the brain, the process of comprehension immediately takes place However, this is a complex process which can be assumed to consist of these following processes:

· Perception

The initial process of comprehension is the perception process The hearer processes what is called “raw speech” The holds an image of it in short term memory This image consists of the constituents (phrases, clauses, cohesive markers, and intonation or stress patterns) of a stream of speech

· Decoding

This decoding process consists of several stages which all occur:(1) The hearer determines the type of speech event that is being process(2) The hearer infers the function of the message(3) The hearer brings a plausible interpretation to the message by recalling background information ( or schemata) relevant to the particular context and subject matter.(4) The hearer assigns a literal meaning to the utterance(5) The hearer assigns an intended meaning to the utterance

· Recording for storage

Brown also suggests the following two stages of information storage after the hearer has successfully decoded the oral input: (1) The hearer determines whether information should be retained in short-term the hearer Short-term memory is appropriate, for example, in contexts that simply call for a quick oral response from the hearer Long-term memory is more common when, say, hearer is processing information in a lecture (2) The hearer deletes the original form of the message in 99 percent of speech acts

Important information, if any, is retained conceptually

Based on the ways listeners process and comprehend what is heard, listening is said to be existed of two underlying modes of language processing which interact in a cooperative process, namely top-down and bottom-up processes (http://nunan.info)

Top-down Processing: It is listener based The listener actively constructs (or more

accurately reconstructs) the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues

In this reconstruction process, the listener uses prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes place to such of what he or she hears Context and include such things as knowledge of the topic at hand, the speaker and the relationship to the situation,

as well as to each other and prior events

Bottom-up Processing: It is text based This model assumes that listening is a process of

decoding the sound that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts According to this view, phonemic units are decided and linked together to form utterances, and utterances are linked together to form complete, meaningful texts In other words, the processes are a linear one, in which meaning itself is derived as the last step in the process

The two underlying modes of language processing act as the basis on which the aforementioned stages of comprehension take place so that a complete understanding of the oral message is achieved

2.2 The importance of listening comprehension

One of the most difficult aspects of teaching and learning English as a foreign language is the teaching and learning listening The importance of listening comprehension must be taken into consideration for anyone who wants to learn English with great success A lack of listening comprehension skill causes a lot of trouble in discussion and communication The importance roller of listening comprehension in second and foreign language learning is summarized in a recent publication by Rost, (1994:141) as follows: “ Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner without understanding input at the right level, any learner simply can’t begin” So listening comprehension is very necessary

when you study any language “It is true that listening is of great essence not only as a respective skill but also to the development of the language proficiency Listening skill is obviously a necessary preliminary to the success of the language learning process”

Listening is tied to the essential cognitive elements of comprehension and understanding In order to take part in oral communication, clearly, the first thing anyone must have is the ability

to absorb the pieces on information from speakers by listening When nobody listens to a speaker or when a listener fails to understand the message communication is broken down, listening is an important way of acquiring the language, a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures Teaching listening to spoken language is therefore of primary importance

2.3 What makes listening difficult?

Listening has gained a strong position in a lot of experimental studies These studies have been conducted aiming not only at seeking the ways to teach the listening skill effectively but also trying to answer the question of what makes listening difficult

In the eyes of many teachers and learners of English, listening is usually regarded as a difficult skill If they are asked to rank the four macro language skills: speaking, reading, writing and listening in order of difficulty, listening skill will probably be one of those which are put at the top of the list They often complain people speak too fast, speakers pronounce the words differently, or speakers often swallow the words

Brown and Yule (1983:74) suggested that: “…there are four main groups of factors, which can cause difficulty in listening comprehension These are the speaker (that includes the number of speakers, the speaker’s speech, and the speaker’s accents): the listener (this consists

of the role of the listener, the level of response required and the listener’s interest in the subject): the content (vocabulary, grammar, and information structure and background knowledge): and support (whether there are pictures, diagrams visual aids…)”

Anderson and Lynch (1988: 202) group the factors that confront listeners into three main categories: the type of language; the purpose in listening; the context in which the listening

takes place They did a lot of experiments and found that listening is difficult because of the following factors: (1) The organization of information (2) The familiarity of the topic (3) The explicitness and sufficiency of the information (4)The type of referring expressions used (5) Whether the text described ‘static’ relationships (for instance, geometric figures) or dynamic relationship (e.g a car accident)

In summary, there are a number of factors that make listening difficult The list ranges from linguistic factors to non- linguistic factors such as the listeners and support However, teaching experience has told that students really panic when coping with the following factors:

2.3.1 The linguistic factors

2.3.1.1 The type of language input

The type of language input the author refers hereafter to the colloquialism and the formal language The formal is usually both spontaneous and colloquial and claimed to hinder the students’ listening comprehension The later is characteristically neither Broadly speaking, the degree of colloquialism of speeches affects its pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, and these cause difficulty in comprehending a listening text It is quite true that a listener listening to spoken discourse in the foreign language will probably not comprehend a word he has not learnt yet However, what is also true is that he will, too, fail to recognize many words he has learnt but is not yet sufficiently familiar with to identify when they occur within swift stream of speech (Ur, 1984)

Most learners of English often find it very difficult to deal with colloquial language, which

is said to be the language of spontaneous, produced speech This type of language is usually used in everyday talk, television interviews, gossip, and family quarrels etc In fact, many language learners have limited experience of English language used in such situations In their lessons, they seem to be exposed most of their time to Standard English or textbook language

as Underwood (1989) called and tend to use formal language, because this is what is expected when teachers and students talk to learners have limited experience of English language used

in such situations In their lessons, they seem to be exposed most of their time to Standard English or textbook language as Underwood (1989) called and tend to use formal language, because this is what is expected when teachers and students talk to each other The students, therefore, have difficulty in understanding the formal spoken discourse (Anderson & Lynch, 1988)

2.3.1.2 Pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation

One of the most apparent sources of difficulty for a learner of English is the way in which it

is pronounced There are words, which are stressed when people speak, but there are words that bear no stress Stress is, from an articulator perspective, an aspect of this; some words lose their clarity The Pronunciation of English, therefore, can cause students problems in recognition, and in comprehension (Rixon, 1986) The difficulty in recognition of words is also caused by the phenomenon of elision and assimilation Elision is the loss of sounds, which occurs in rapid speech Assimilation is the way in which most speakers modify pronunciation to save effort

These prosodic features of the English language as Brown (1994) exclaims, can be a terror for some learners as mouthfuls of syllables come spilling out because of stressed points Another reason why listening to English is not easy is that the listeners are not used to the rhythm and intonation patterns of the English language Brown (1977); Ur (1984) Rixon (1986) agree that the English system of intonation and rhythm can interfere with foreign listeners’ understanding of spoken English

2.3.2 The non – linguistic factors

2.3.2.1 Listener’s ability to concentrate

Concentration is essential in doing anything Lack of concentration is really disastrous because even a shortest break in attention can seriously affect comprehension (Harmer; 1991) Concentration difficulty may fall on the topic of the listening The listener will concentrate

easily if the listening topic is interesting enough It is much easier if the topics are related to family, personality or other social subjects

It is, too, hard for listeners to concentrate if the material or the tape recorder is not good Certain varieties of the language and the length of the time listeners are required to listen are also believed to be the factors that make concentration very difficult

2.3.2.2 Listener’s background knowledge

In order to improve listening comprehension skills listeners should pay attention to both linguistic factors and the system of the foreign culture whose language they are studying Without background knowledge of the culture of a second language, which is involved in what they are to hear listeners will have to cope with many obstacles (Anderson & Lynch, 1988: 35) Therefore, the cultural background of listeners plays a very important role in comprehending the listening text

To sum up, a language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of language, the two facets are intricately interwoven in such a way that one can not separate from the other without losing the significance of either language or culture That is why listeners can not achieve effective listening proficiency without good background knowledge of both linguistic and non linguistic factors with listeners’ experience To make the listening tasks easier for students to deal with some suggestions in view of improving listeners’ background knowledge can be provided by pre-listening activities

2.4 The procedure of teaching a listening lesson

Underwood (1989) describes listening activities in terms of three phrases: pre, while and post listening activities This three – stage listening lesson model is usually used by many teachers as it is very useful in teaching listening A listening lesson is usually divided into three parts: the pre-listening, the while-listening, and the post-listening Each part is really a constituent part on a continuum Pre-listening is a preparatory stage While-listening stage is

to complete the main listening task Post-listening stage serves as the further development part To help students succeed in listening, this model is the optimal solution Following is a further discussion on the three-staged model

Summary

Chapter two has, in general, provided an overview of the relevant literature in the field of the study This chapter has discussed different views of listening and listening comprehension,

on which the author based to work out the definition of listening The chapter has again made

it clear that listening is vital and more importantly, it has listed different linguistic and linguistic factors that make listening a challenge

Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1.1 Introduction

This study attempts to investigate the difficulties encountered by the 10th form students and the teachers as well as their needs in learning and teaching listening It first starts with an understanding about the school, then some information about the students and their learning requirements are addressed To achieve the aims mentioned above, two survey questionnaires are conducted to collect data for the study The first one is the survey questionnaire for students at LTK HS in which designed to collect information on students’ needs and difficulties in learning listening The second one is designed for the teachers at LTK HS in which they needs, the difficulties of the teachers are presented Then, some techniques and some suggestions to make listening lessons in the textbook less difficult are discussed

2.1 The participants

2.2 The course book

Ly Thuong Kiet High School which was founded in 2001 in Bac Giang, is one among the high schools which chose to use the new "English 10” textbook which was complied following the theme-based approaches The texts and the tasks were chosen from different sources of materials This, to some extent, stimulated students’ interests During the using period, both teachers and students have experienced many difficulties in teaching and learning English with the new textbooks

2.3 The 10 th form students

Having taught English at LTK HS for 9 years, the writer of this study recognizes that the majority of 10th form students are aged fifteen to sixteen from Bac Giang and they were born

in the peasant families Most of them have learnt English at junior high schools for four years They should have general knowledge of grammar and an active vocabulary which they can use

mostly in written form However, they can hardly say a couple of sentences intelligibly in the target language and hardly hear anything when first learning how to listen Therefore, when they learn this new text book, they have to deal with a lot of difficulties in learning how to listening English Because of these difficulties the majority of the students feel bored with listening lessons Moreover they are not aware of the importance of learning how to listen in a foreign language in general and English in particular as they simply know that they do not have to do the listening tests On the contrary, there are also a few students have positive attitude towards learning listening and a strong and clear motivation Besides, they gradually get used to listening to the tape-recorder and doing the listening exercises such as filling the missing words; choosing the best answers or answering the questions, etc

2.4 The teachers of English

Seven teachers who were teaching at the school invited to join the study Their ages range from late-twenties to thirty years old All of them are female teachers and have the University Bachelor’s Degree All the teachers at LTK HS are experienced and enthusiastic in teaching They are willing to help their students overcome the difficulties in learning English although they are still lack of experiences in teaching new English textbook

3.1 The data collection instrument

There are a variety of methods that can be employed to collect data such as: questionnaire; interviews; meeting; tests; observation and so on Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages The researcher chose questionnaire because it is one of the most popular instruments Hence survey questionnaire was chosen to collect teachers and students’ opinions and attitudes toward the importance of the listening comprehension and the difficulties and the needs they experience when teaching and learning listening The teachers and their students would also have opportunities to reflect on their experiences of teaching and learning listening The information, therefore, would be more detailed and more accurate

Questionnaires:

There are two sets of questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended questions used for both teachers and students Questionnaires which are administered to seven teachers and

380 students in December are written in English

* A questionnaire completed by the students

The questionnaire consists of eleven questions, which categorized four parts (see Appendix 1) Part I (question 1) aims at exploring the students’ views on the aims of learning English at school In part II, by answering questions 2,3,4,5 students can express their views about the importance of listening and the difficulties they often get when learning listening The next part of questionnaire (question 6 to 8) is made to find out the students’ attitude toward learning listening lessons, and the final part (question 9, 10 and 11) is designed for the student’s need

in learning listening

*A questionnaire completed by the teachers

The questionnaire designed for the teacher’s aims at finding out the teachers’ need in teaching listening, difficulties they faced when teaching listening in order to find out the way

to teach listening skill more effectively (See appendix 2) Part I ( question 1,2,) aims at finding the numbers of years which they has taught, the teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school Teachers’ opinion about the aspects of language taught at school is expressed through the question 2 Questions 3,4,5,6 are about the teachers’ opinion of teaching listening By answering the question 7, 8 and 9; teachers can expressed their views about class-listening activities and the final part (question 10; 11; 12; 13 ,14 and 15) is about the suggestion in teaching listening

The investigator believes that from the information obtained, some useful suggestions could

be made to minimize the difficulties encountered and thus improve the teaching and learning

of the listening at Ly Thuong Kiet High School

3.2 Data collection and analysis

The questionnaire was filled out by both of the teachers and students The participants were asked to complete the questionnaire seriously within fifteen minutes in their classroom Eight classes (with 380 students) were selected randomly The researcher asked the teachers for permission to have personal contacts with the study population in order to explain the purpose, relevance and the importance of the study, as well as to clarify any questions that the students had

The data collected from the survey were read through to obtain a sense of the overall data They were then analyzed The information was then displayed in forms of table and figures while qualitative data from the open-ended questionnaire items were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents

4.1 Conclusion

This chapter presented the research questions, research methodology, instruments and the data collection procedure and analysis Given the aims and objectives of the study, the researcher decided to use two survey questionnaires By employing these questionnaires, the researcher hopes to achieve triangulation and more reliable, valid data Next chapter, chapter four will present the data analysis and discussion

Chapter IV: data analysis and discussion

I Questionnaire for the students

1 Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (Question 1)

Question 1 attempt to find out the aims of listening English identified by the students of the school The result of question 1 is presented in the table 1:

Communicate effectively in English 98 25.7%

Pass the school graduation exam at the end of in year 12 307 80,7%

Complete a compulsory subject 286 75.2%

Prepare for future job 134 35.2%

Table 1: Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (N = 380)

As shown in the above table, most of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School learned English in order to pass the school graduation exam (over 80 %), and over 75% of the students learnt English to complete a compulsory subject Only 25.7% learned it with the aims of communicating It was very surprising to discover that 0% to study abroad

It can be concluded that over 80 % students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School had a clear aim in studying English is passing the school graduation exam at the end of the 12 form Some learned English for communicating with foreigners and for their future job Nobody learned English for studying abroad Thus, they feel bored with listening lessons and they have passive attitude toward learning listening skills

2 The difficulties encountered by 10 th form students when learning listening

2.1 The importance of learning listening of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School:

In this section, students are asked to express their opinions of the listening skill in English learning (Questions 2 and 3) The collected information is presented in table below

20% Very important 48% Important 32% A little important

Pie chart 1: Students’ attitude towards listening skill

A noticeable finding in Pie chart 1 is that nearly 68 % of the informants considered

listening skill an important and very important skill And there are still over 30% of the students said it was slightly important None of them found listening not importance It is clear they realized that it was necessary to learn listening for not only listening to their teachers’ explanation, for communicating with teachers and classmates, but also for their long term purposes: Pass the school graduation exam at the end of in year 12

2.2 The students’ difficulties when learning listening at school ( Question 4, 5,6)

The aim of this section was to find out what makes listening difficult and the students’ expectations toward of listening

2.2.1 Listening difficulties encountered by 10 th grade students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School

Another finding worth mentioning is that nearly all the students claim that listening skill is difficult (84 %), of which 24 % grade it very difficult For these students, improving listening skill is a really a challenging task This can partly explain why learners feel uncomfortable and de-motivated when listening Only 6% of students find it is easy to learn listening skill

The answer of the question why listening skills were not easy to many students is shown in

table 2

The themes of the listening passages are unfamiliar to students 35 9.2%

The listening passages have too many new words and structures 139 36.5%

The accents of the speakers are hard to hear(stress and

intonation)

The speakers speak very fast 203 53.4%

In the listening passages, many people speak at the same time 36 9.5%

the videotapes or the tapes are of low quality 72 18.9%

the class time is too limited 230 60.5%

Other: They can hear but do not know how to write those words 175 46%

Table 2: Why is listening skill difficult?

It can be seen in the table 2 that the number of the students who had to cope with the

accents of the speakers are hard to hear (mainly stress and intonation) is higher than with other suggested difficulties Only 9 2% of the students complained that listening is difficult because most of the themes of the listening passages are unfamiliar to students And another reason that cause the difficulty to the students was the speakers speak very fast gained 53% So in some classes, the students prefer listen to their teacher than listen to the radio Over 60% of the students considered that the time they had for listening is limited They had only one listening period of 45 minutes every two weeks Moreover, they had no chance, no time for listening English out side their classes Because of these difficulties, the students feel bored with learning listening skill

2.2.2 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill (question 5)

The students in this present study were assumed to have certain difficulties in learning listening; thus, when they were asked, “What do you expect from your teachers to help you overcome difficulties in learning listening?” They responded as follows:

of Ss

Percenta

ge

Provide you with certain amount of words needed for listening activities 198 52%

Equip you with necessary strategies in listening comprehension 264 69.4% Design more suitable listening tasks to students’ listening levels and

interests

Recommend other supplementing listening material besides classroom

activities,

Explain more clearly about the nature of spoken English 145 38%

Be flexible in organizing listening activities 109 28.6%

Table 3: The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill

As can be seen from the table, the students wished to get a great deal of support from their

teachers to overcome difficulties in learning listening The majority, 84% of all students expected the teachers to design more suitable listening tasks to students’ listening levels and interests Only 38% needed to to be explained more clearly about the nature of spoken English It was hoped that teachers were more flexible in organizing listening activities so that they could help students overcome difficulties in language learning, specifically in learning listening

3 Students’ attitude after listening lesson (Question 6,7 and 8)

After listening lesson, 152 out of students (40%) were satisfied with the lesson The reasons they showed are: They understood the content of the listening text (over 60%); they could practice with provides listening tasks (48%); they enhanced their knowledge and increased vocabulary ( about 57%) and they were able to communicate effectively in English (35%) On the contrary, 228 students (60%) were un satisfied with the lesson, and their reasons are that: they had little time listening (66%) and they dealt with difficult listening tasks (over 79%) Many of them said that they quickly forgotten what they had heard and they learned nothing from the listening lesson And the last but not least reason is because they easily got fatigue while listening

4 Students’ need in learning listening

4.1 The students’ effort (question 9)

In order to learn listening effectively, all of the students needed a lot of efforts But there were some students often tried their best in learning English They must do all their

exercises at home (78%) and found out useful references in their school library when they had free time They listened to English as much as possible, in class, outside the classroom and at home (nearly 55%) They also often read relevant books or journals at home They often shared experience with their friends (over 50%) to find out the best way of learning English Over 25% of the students usually found the related information to their lessons on internet or read relevant books or journals at home Besides their effort, they did not deny the role of the teachers who often help them much in learning

4.2 Teachers and their teaching methods (Question 10)

Encourage students to activate your previous knowledge into

listening texts

135 35.5%

Create comfortable environment for students to exchange

information before listening

kind of listening tasks

223 58.6%

Exploit different kinds of listening materials suitable to the

students

195 51.3%

Table 4: Teaching techniques help students listen better and more effectively

As can be seen from the table above, teachers had used a variety of method to help students listen better and more effectively Notably and interestingly, the most favorable way the teachers used was that they had tried to create a comfortable learning environment for students

to discuss and exchange information, which was admitted by 355 students ( over 90%) This indicated that teaches always desired to make their students feel comfortable and free to learn

at their best through sharing thoughts and experience with their learning partners Moreover, 80.7% of all the students hoped the teachers provide students with certain words Surprisingly,