A study on the attitudes of 12th grade students in listenning lessons at a high school in Bac Ninh province = Nghiên cứu thái độ của học sinh lớp 12 trong

The study aims at exploring the attitudes of 12th grade students, reasons for these attitudes and their expectation during their English listening learning and proposing some suggestions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

faculty OF POST-GRADUATE studies

-

ĐỖ THU HÀ

STUDENTS IN LISTENING LESSONS

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

(Nghiên cứu thái đô ̣ của ho ̣c sinh lớp 12 trong giờ ho ̣c nghe

Tại một trường THPT ở tỉnh Bắc Ninh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

CODE : 60.140.111

Hanoi, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

faculty OF POST-GRADUATE studies

-

ĐỖ THU HÀ

STUDENTS IN LISTENING LESSONS

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

(Nghiên cứu thái đô ̣ của ho ̣c sinh lớp 12 trong giờ ho ̣c nghe

Tại một trường THPT ở tỉnh Bắc Ninh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

DECLARATION

Do Thu Ha, hereby certify that my M.A thesis entitled “A study on the

attitudes of 12 th grade students in listening lessons at a high school in Bac Ninh province” is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for

Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi I commit that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree

Hanoi, 2013

Đỗ Thu Hà

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my

supervisor, Dr Mai Thi Loan, for her invaluable inspiration, assistance, guidance

and encouragement during the time I have tried to complete this thesis She has been willing to give help and advice whenever I expect

I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all lectures

and the staff of Department of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages

and International Studies, Hanoi for their interesting and helpful lectures and

suggestions for the topic of my study

I am in debt of many authors’ works and ideas, which enhance me to

complete my study with sharp evidences

My appreciation and gratitude are also extended for the teachers and

students of grade 12 at Que Vo 1 High School, who participated in doing the

survey and responding to my interviews

Last but not least, I wish to express special thanks to my husband and my beloveds for their everlasting, care and encouragement

ABSTRACT

In recent years, though the importance of listening in English learning has been acknowledged by researchers and educators all over the world, there remained a sad reality of English listening learning and teaching at Que Vo 1 high school, Bac Ninh province Most of the students possess negative attitudes towards learning listening skill

The study aims at exploring the attitudes of 12th grade students, reasons for these attitudes and their expectation during their English listening learning and proposing some suggestions for teachers to enhance students’ positive attitudes in listening lessons

Three instruments, including questionnaires for students, class observations and interview questions with teachers, were employed to achieve the purposes of the study

The subjects involved in this study were 120 students, including 50 males and 70 females belonging to two different fields of study, namely Natural Science and Social Science They were invited to participate in the survey questionnaire Besides, six teachers of English agreed to join the study to support the researcher better her research

It was induced in the study that most students of 12th grade at Que Vo 1 High School exhibited negative attitudes to learn listening skill, which resulted from the teachers’ behaviors, teaching methods and infrequent use of teaching aids, students’ lack of vocabulary, the gender and the field of study

Based on the findings, some suggestions were given to teachers with the hope that they will collaborate with the school to make certain positive changes to this problematic reality

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 The research questions 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Method of the study 3

7 Design of the study 4

PART B: THE STUDY 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Theoretical background of attitude 5

1.1.1 Definition of attitude 5

1.1.2 Language attitude 6

1.1.3 Aspects of language attitude 7

1.1.4 The role of attitude in language learning and teaching 8

1.2 Theoretical background of listening skill 9

1.2.1 Definition of listening and listening comprehension 9

1.2.2 The listening process 10

1.3 Review of previous studies related to language learning attitudes 12

1.4 Summary 13

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14

2.1 The setting of the study 14

2.1.1 The school 14

2.1.2 The curriculum and text book 14

2.2 Participants 15

2.2.1 The teachers 15

2.2.2 The students 15

2.3 Data collection instruments 16

2.4 Data collection procedure 17

2.5 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 18

3.1 Data analysis on the questionnaires for students 18

3.1.1 Students’ attitudes towards learning English 18

3.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning listening skill 19

3.1.2.1 Students’ favorite English lessons 19

3.1.2.2 Students’ perception on the importance of learning listening 20

3.1.2.3 Students’ amount of time practicing listening………20

3.1.2.4 Students’ behaviors in listening lessons 21

3.1.2.5 Students’ feelings in listening lessons 22

3.1.3 Students’ perception on factors affecting their attitudes towards learning English listening skill 23

3.1.3.1 Demotivational factors to learn listening skill of students 23

3.1.3.2 Motivational factors to learn listening skill of students 26

3.1.3.3 The teachers’ use of teaching aids and motivational strategies in listening lessons 27

3.1.4 Students’ expectation on learning listening skill 28

3.1.4.1 Students’ anticipation from the teachers 28

3.1.4.2 Students’ anticipation with the teachers’ use of motivational strategies during listening lessons 30

3.1.4.3 Students’ expectation from the school 31

3.2 Data analysis on class observations 31

3.3 Data analysis on teachers’ responses from the interviews 36

3.4 Summary 38

PART C: CONCLUSION 39

1 Summary of major findings 39

1.1 Findings from questionnaires for students 39

1.2 Findings from class observations 40

1.3 Findings from interview questions with teachers 40

2 Suggestions for teachers 40

3 Recommendations for further studies 42

4 Conclusion 42

REFERENCES 43

APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 VI APPENDIX 3 XII APPENDIX 4 XVIII

Besides, as listening skill, together with speaking skill, is considered the most important skills of the four basic skill in learning English, hence, to be able to listen and speak effectively is very essential for all English language learners According to Hubbard, John, Thornton & Wheller (1995), (quoted from Pangsapa, 2006: 111), listening is even more significant than speaking when one wants to be a successful communicator in English Supposing that you master English speaking proficiency, you can still get failure in interacting with others and make them confused if you have a poor listening skill

However, the researcher has experienced the teaching career for six years, she has also had chance to work in two high schools where she has noticed that listening lessons have been neglected which results from the test – based teaching method Particularly, most of the teachers ignore listening and speaking lessons in order to focus on reading comprehension, grammar and vocabulary The students, therefore, merely spend most of their time learning what their teachers ask them, which includes new words, grammar rules to get good marks in their final exams Despite the crucial role of attitude and listening skill in language learning as

mentioned earlier, there have never been any researches on students’ attitudes towards learning listening skill, especially on this issue at Que Vo 1 High school

To conclude, the study proceeds from three main reasons, the first of which lies in the decisive role of students’ language learning attitudes in their learning success and achievement Next, regardless of the importance of listening skill, it has been ignored at the researcher’ school, she thus wants to make some positive changes on this problematic reality Lastly, the researcher has found that there have never been any researches on students’ attitudes towards learning listening skill at

the selected school

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at:

- Exploring the attitudes of 12th grade students towards learning English and learning listening skill

- Investigating the factors affecting their attitudes in listening lessons

- Examining students’ expectation when learning listening skill

- Proposing some suggestions for teachers to foster students’ positive attitudes towards learning listening skill

3 The research questions

With the given aims of the study, the study implies four research questions: 1/ What are the attitudes of 12th grade students at Que Vo 1 high school towards learning listening skill?

2/ What factors affect their attitudes?

3/ What do students expect during the listening lessons?

4/ What should the teachers do to enhance their students’ positive attitudes to learn listening skill?

4 Significance of the study

The study has been conducted with the expectation that the findings will help teachers of English at Que Vo 1 high school acknowledge the significance of listening skill

in learning English, which forces them to spend more time and effort preparing listening lessons, giving students more interesting and effective classes

Still, the researcher harbors the hope that the teachers will understand their students’ attitudes, study the reasons for such attitudes, from which they will know how to foster positive attitudes or motivation and eliminate negative attitudes of their students to help them obtain progress and fruitful achievements in learning English and English listening comprehension

5 Scope of the study

The study was conducted at Que Vo 1 High School, Bac Ninh province Because of limited time, it only focused on investigating the attitudes of 12th grade students in listening lessons, factors affecting such attitudes and students’ expectation during listening lessons

The participants were students from three classes 12A1, 12A3 and 12A15, who were non – English major students and six teachers of English

6 Method of the study

The study was carried out by some steps as follows:

First, the survey questionnaire was delivered to students to find out their

attitudes towards learning English and learning listening skill, affecting factors on such attitudes and their expectation during listening lessons

Second, class observation was made to study teachers’ teaching methods,

and students’ performance in listening lessons

After that, personal interviews with six teachers were conducted in order to:

- Survey their perception on the magnitude of learning listening skill in students’ learning English

- Study their students’ involvement in listening activities

- Find out the difficulties in their listening teaching and their way of carrying out the lessons

- Exploring their own suggestions to strengthen their students’ positive attitudes in listening lessons

- Give teachers a chance to offer some proposals to increase students’ positive attitudes in listening lessons

After the data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and

qualitatively, realistic results were obtained

To end with, pedagogical implications for enhancing students’ positive

attitudes in learning listening skill will be proposed based on the results found from all data collection instruments

7 Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts:

Part A, Introduction presents the rationale of the study, the aims, the research

questions, the significance, the scope, the method and the design of the study

Part B is The Study including three chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature Review, reviews the theories on listening and language

learning attitudes

Chapter 2, Methodology, describes the participants, the setting of the study

involving the school, textbook and curriculum Moreover, this chapter shows how the researcher applied the data collection instruments and her procedure of conducting the study

Chapter 3 is Data analysis and Discussion, in which the researcher used both

qualitative and quantitative method to study and analyze the figure and information collected

Part C is Conclusion, which summarizes all findings explored and brings

out useful suggestions for the teachers to strengthen students’ positive attitudes in learning listening skill An overall picture of what has been done in this study and suggestions for further studies are also included in this part

PART B: THE STUDY

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter focuses on studying the theoretical background of attitude, considering the definition of attitude, language attitude and aspects of language attitude It also deals with the theoretical background of listening and listening comprehension, including definition and its component processes It ends with review

of some studies related to language learning attitudes

1.1 Theoretical background of attitude

1.1.1 Definition of attitude

In the line of researches and studies, the term “attitude” has shaped the

landscape of education (Saracaloglu, 2004: 50) However, how to identify this term

sufficiently is not simple at all, and there have been a number of views on this issue

Some researchers have shared the same position when defining attitude as a state of mind, which is influenced by feelings, experiences of the world and belief Particularly, in Triandis’ (1971) (cited from Saracaloglu, 2004: 40), attitude is a manner

of consistency toward an object or it is characterized by a large proportion of emotional involvement such as feeling, self, relationship in community Additionally, Gardner (1985: 91-93) states that it is the evaluative response to the referent, which can be inferred by the individual’s beliefs or opinions about it Hence, attitude is linked to a person’s values and beliefs and promotes or discourages the choices made in all realms

of activity, whether academic or informal

Some others, namely Montano and Kasprzyk (2008) (quoted from Abidin, 2012: 120), claim that attitude is determined by one’s beliefs about the results and attributes when performing the behaviors, which can be measured by the evaluation on those outcomes and attributes As a result, one who believes that their performing behaviors will be positively evaluated will have a positive attitude toward the behavior, and inversely, one who believes that their performing behaviors will be negatively

valued will have a negative attitude

Another group of scholars, including Weden (1991) and Kara (2009) (quoted from Abidin, 2012: 121), define attitude by showing the components involving in it

They agree that attitude concerns three interrelated components, namely cognitive, affective (emotional in Kara’s) and behavioral one Cognitive component refers to beliefs, thoughts, viewpoints about the object of attitude, while affective component includes the individual’s feelings and emotions towards an object, whether (s) he likes

or dislikes, and the other component of attitude is behavioral one, which involves the tendency to adopt particular learning behaviors

In conclusion, attitude is the individual’s feelings about or evaluation and reaction to an object, a situation, it is inner mood or emotion, the cognition of that person about the referent and then expressed outside by the manner of his behaviors Positive attitude will lead to positive behaviors towards the target objects; positive outcomes will thus be easily obtained On the opposite extreme, failure or disappointment usually results from negative attitude Accordingly, in language teaching context, it is advisable for teachers and curriculum designers to take into consideration students’ attitudes towards the target language, for it is the key element for success or failure in language learning and teaching Specifically, positive attitude should be enhanced and fostered in language classrooms

1.1.2 Language attitude

As attitude is one of the key prominent factors for success in language learning, numerous studies have already been conducted in the field of language attitude (Alhmali, 2007; Ghazali et al., 2009) (cited from Abidin, 2012: 121) Moreover, it was advocated by Saidat (2010) (quoted from Abidin, 2012: 120 )that language attitude research has been considered in the previous 50 years because of the growing relation between the importance of the language use and the nature of individuals

Lambert (1972) and Padwick (2010) (quoted from Abidin, 2012: 121) both concur that the ability of students to master a second language is not only influenced by the mental competence, or language skills, but also by the students’ attitudes and perceptions towards the target language They then approved that attitude concept could enhance the language learning process, influence the nature of students’ behaviors and beliefs towards the other language, its culture and community, which will identify the tendency to acquire that language

Researches on language attitude have been, therefore, indispensable in the field

of language learning “In the life of a language, attitudes to that language appear to be important in language restoration, preservation, decay or death” (Baker, 1992: 9) If a learner does not have the interest and tendency in acquiring the target language to communicate with others, this learner will possess a negative attitude and will not be motivated and enthusiastic in language learning Correspondingly, learners’ attitudes could incorporate in language learning Language teachers, researchers and students had better acknowledge that students’ positive attitudes facilitate second language learning and strengthen them to achieve a proper outcome

In brief, language attitude is the attitude towards the target language, which is considered one of the most important factors intensifying or impairing students’ success in language learning, apart from students’ mental competence Hence, educators are supposed to take into account students’ language attitude, especially positive attitude during their learning process to ensure best accomplishment

1.1.3 Aspects of language attitude

As mentioned above, according to Weden (1991) and Kara (2009) (cited from Abidin, 2012: 121), the attitude concept involves three attitudinal aspects: behavioral, cognitive and emotional (affective) one

Behavioral aspect of attitude implies the way a person behaves or reacts in certain situations Actually, the success in learning language can intensify the learners

to identify themselves with the native speakers of that language and acquire or adopt various aspects of behaviors characterizing the members of the target language community In the same work, Kara states that students who have affirmative attitudes will behave positively towards the course and possess the desire to learn more They are more willing to solve the problems, to acquire information and skills helpful for daily life and engage themselves emotionally

Cognitive aspect of attitude refers to the beliefs of language learners about the knowledge they receive and their understanding in the process of language learning There are four steps of this aspect of attitude, namely connecting the previous knowledge and the new one, creating new knowledge, checking new knowledge and applying the new knowledge in particular situations

Emotional aspect of attitude involves the ability of foreign language learners to

express their likes or dislikes for referent objects or surrounding situations In Choy & Troudi (2006: 120), they advocate that the inner feelings and emotions of foreign language learners influence their perspectives and their attitudes towards the target language This is also reached by Feng and Chen (2009: 94) that, learning process is, in fact, the emotional process, which is affected by different emotional factors In the learning process, both teachers and learners engage in numerous emotional activities and yield varied fruits of emotions

To sum up, attitudes involves three interrelated components, counting behavioral, cognitive and emotional one Thus, it would be better to consider all these components when studying students’ language attitude in order to make suitable

changes during language learning process to attain their learning goals

1.1.4 The role of attitude in language learning and teaching

There has existed a question that why some people can learn a second or foreign language easily, and successfully while others, given the same opportunity to learn, find it difficult or almost impossible

The answer has been reached in the line of researches that cognitive performance can only be achieved if learners who learn English as a foreign language have positive attitudes and enjoy acquiring the target language The affective perspective, especially attitude thus should be considered in language research This goes in accordance with Gardner and Lambert (1972) (cited from Abidin: 121) that success in mastering a foreign language would depend not only on intellectual capacity and language aptitude but also on the learner’s attitudes towards that group Therefore, the learner’s motivation for language learning would be determined by his attitudes and readiness to identify and by his orientation to the whole process of learning a foreign language Similarly, Oller et al (1977) (cited from Porkaew, 2004: 71), in their study of Chinese – speaking foreign students at American universities, has found that attitudes towards the target language group are positively correlated with the proficiency

While some emphasize the importance of positive attitudes, others value both negative and positive attitudes Lambert (1987) (cited from Porkaew, 2004: 71) states that favorable attitudes towards the second language and the speakers of it lead to successful learning of that language, while negative attitudes can upset and disturb the

motivation to learn the target language and thus may obstruct success in learning Sharing the same idea, Stern (1983) (cited from Saracaloglu, 2004: 39) claims that both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the success of language learning, the attitude of a person is determined by different stimuli and it is undeniable that the affective component, not mental competence or cognitive skills, has more influence on language learning

Obviously, there is an interaction between language learning and environmental components in which the students grew up because attitude influences one’s behaviors, inner mood and therefore learning

In a word, because of affective variables, taking account of that attitude has significant influence on the success of second and foreign language learning, discovering students’ attitude about the language learning will facilitate both teachers and students in teaching – learning process Hence, it is advisable to consider the crucial role of these affective elements

1.2 Theoretical background of listening skill

1.2.1 Definition of listening and listening comprehension

Most researchers identify the two terms, listening and listening comprehension when they characterize listening as a process of negotiating the meaning from the speaker’s intended message and corresponding to it at the same time In Howatt and Dakin (1974), Underwood (1989: 1), listening is simply defined as the ability to pay attention to or the ability to hear what others are saying attentively and identify or understand their intended message Besides, Rost (2002: 59) consider listening as a complex and inferential process, which concerns receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding, and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy In other words, linguistic knowledge and world knowledge interact as listeners create a mental representation of what they hear In order to listen thoroughly, listeners are supposed to possess the ability to decode the message, the ability to apply a variety of strategies and interactive processes to make meaning, and the ability to respond to what

is said in a variety of ways, depending on the purpose of the communication Listening involves listening for thoughts, feelings, and intentions

However, Hasan (2000) gives the distinction of these two terms, he argues that listening is just process of listening to the message without interpreting and responding

to the text while listening comprehension is a process including the meaningful interactive activity to understand the text

Basing on the definition of listening and listening comprehension, some authors give requirements for a successful listener According to Anderson and Lynch (1988: 6) an able listener needs to reach understanding from what the speaker says by applying his own knowledge, not in the language only, but his life experience also More specifically, Mendelsohn (1994: 9) agrees that a competent listener is required to have the ability to decipher the speaker’s intention, besides other abilities like processing the linguistic forms like speech speed and fillers, coping with listening in an interaction, understanding the whole message contained in the discourse, comprehending the message without understanding every word, and recognizing different genres Listeners must also know how to process and how to judge what the illocutionary force of an utterance is- that is, what this string of sounds is intended to mean in a particular setting, under a particular set of circumstances - as an act of real communication Besides, Howatt and Dakin (1974) say that listening process encompasses understanding a speaker’s accent, pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning Therefore, an able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously

To sum up, listening is not simply hearing something consciously, but it is the inner complex process involving the listener’s capability of getting the information aurally, processing the information using both linguistic and non – linguistic knowledge and then corresponding the speaker’s intended message For that reason, it would be better to consider listening a component stage in listening comprehension or incorporate them in the listening process rather than distinguish them as two independent concepts

1.2.2 The listening process

There have been two tendencies of describing listening processes in the line of researches According to the first tendency, listening process engages three stages, consisting of the perceptual, parsing, and utilization (Anderson, 1983 Rivers, 1992)

(quoted from Ly, 2011: 13)

In perceptual stage, the listener has to recognize the sound patterns in bounded segments related to phrase structure This stage is very fleeting and the listener has to

be dependent on echoic memory

During the parsing stage, the listener must instantly start to process and identify the groupings detected according to the content of his/ her central information processing system

Last, the listener has to recycle the material he/ she organized through the immediate memory, thus building up an auditory memory which helps to retain the segments he/ she is processing

The second tendency consensus that there are two distinct processes involved in

listening comprehension, namely “bottom – up” and “top - down” processes (Caroll,

1972; Chaudron & Richard, 1986; O’Malley, Chamot, & Kupper, 1989) (cited from

Ly, 2011: 13) and Gillian Brown (1997: 150) (quoted from Lan, 2012: 5)

The listener uses 'bottom-up' process when he uses linguistic knowledge to understand the meaning of a message He builds meaning from lower level sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the final message In other words, the listener makes use of his knowledge of the target language

in the bottom-up processing (Rubin, 1994: 210) This process is closely associated with the listener’s linguistic knowledge Conversely, bottom-up process has its weak points Understanding a text is an interactive process between the listener’s previous knowledge and the text Efficient comprehension that integrates the textual material with listener’s brain does not only depend on one’s linguistic knowledge

In top-down process, the listener is required to employ his background knowledge in comprehending the meaning of a message Carrell and Eisterhold (1983) point out that in top-down processing, the system makes general predictions based on a higher level, this is general schemata, and then searches the input for information to fit into the practical satisfaction in higher order schemata In other words, listener employs 'top-down' process when he uses prior knowledge to understand the meaning of a message Prior knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text-type, the culture or other information stored in long-term memory as schemata

(typical sequences or common situations around which world knowledge is organized) The listener uses content words and contextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratory fashion

In a word, listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing, but an interactive, which can overcome the disadvantages of the two above processes This is where listeners use both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages The degree to which listeners use the one process or the other will depend on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose for listening For example, listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing, whereas listening for specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all the desired details

1.3 Review of previous studies related to language learning attitudes

It is obvious that learning attitude plays a crucial role in learners’ language learning achievement and it is worth doing research on learners’ attitudes towards language learning in order to enhance their motivation or positive attitudes to learn second or foreign language

Many foreign researches have been conducted to examine the nature of students’ attitudes towards learning foreign language generally and English as a foreign language particularly Namely, Meldim & Rahman (2009: 682) investigated Jordanian college students towards learning English as a foreign language and found that almost half of the students exhibited negative attitudes, which could impede students’ progress and interfere with classroom harmony

Abidin (2012: 123) studied the attitudes in learning English Language of students who study English as a foreign language at Libyan School and it was also concluded that the students possessed negative attitude towards learning English with negative behaviors and they were always nervous when being asked to speak English

in front of others

Conversely, Shams (2008: 121) conducted a study making effort to examine students’ attitudes, motivation and anxiety towards the learning of English The results emphasized the students’ affirmative attitudes and high enthusiasm towards learning English

This was also reached by Momani (2009) when he investigated the secondary stage students’ attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language and their achievements in reading comprehension The same findings found by Al – Tamimi and Shuib (2009: 40) with the subjects of his study were Petroleum Engineering students

Some Vietnamese scholars have also studied students’ attitudes towards learning English and found that most students expressed affirmative attitudes towards learning English Among them, Phu and Lan (2012: 62-63) pointed out that all the students exhibited encouraging attitudes in learning English because they agreed that the English skills and proficiency acquired in the program would be useful for their future

Hang (2009: 169) mentioned that there has been a shift in Vietnamese students’ attitude in learning English, which particularly moved from resentment against foreign languages toward appreciation of, and motivation in learning them However, only a group of Vietnamese who have benefited from their English competence are fully aware of its importance

Moreover, Hoa and Ha (2009: 163) investigated the 100 upper secondary students in Quang Nam province and their study revealed that the students have positive attitudes toward learning English and are highly motivated to study it

As a teacher of English, I have experienced six years of teaching English at two high schools, I have noticed and explored that my students express a negative attitude towards learning English, especially when they are boys studying Natural Science subjects Moreover, listening is so important when students learn English; however it has been neglected at my school so far The reason underlined is the fact that listening

is not checked in tests and exams, they, therefore, do not spend time training listening skills and of course, they perform so badly in listening lessons Accordingly, I am interested in this topic, and I do think I should be responsible for making some positive changes on this sad reality

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter gives the picture of the study setting, which engages the school, the curriculum, the textbook It also provides information about the participants taking part in the study, the detailed description of data collection instruments and data analysis procedure

2.1 The setting of the study

2.1.1 The school

The study was conducted at Que Vo 1 high school, which is located in the center of Que Vo district, Bac Ninh province It ranks the first in the district and is one of two hundred schools having the highest percentage of students who overcome the entrance university exams in Vietnam The school has obtained national standard since 2012 with spacious and modernly equipped buildings

The school has 45 classes with a number of 30 to 50 students in each class Each grade has two classes, in which the students focus on the subjects of Social Science like Language, Literature, History and Geography, one class major in English and one in Literature, Geography and History, and three classes major in Basic Science including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology The students in these classes almost pass the university entrance exams with great results

The facility of the school is relatively good in comparison with the others in the locality However, teaching aids for teaching English is rather poor: the number of cassettes is not sufficient for all classes; there is no language laboratory in school Consequently, teachers have to face many difficulties in teaching listening; they thus usually teach listening by reading the listening passage themselves

2.1.2 The curriculum and text book

First and foremost, the curriculum is not suitable to the level of students All of the students have learnt English at secondary schools before they enter the school Still, they find it hard to catch up with the knowledge the teachers want to cover In addition, the teachers do not have enough time to deal with all the parts of a lesson within 5 periods Last but not least, the curriculum is not equivalent to the test design The curriculum focuses on 4 language skills: reading, speaking, listening, writing and

grammar part, pronunciation with language focus; however, the achievement tests designed only focus on grammar exercises and reading comprehension

In terms of the textbook English 12- basic curriculum, contents of the textbook are accurate and in accordance with Vietnam's realities and are arranged in a certain theme, including 16 units and 6 reviews The lessons are distributed and arranged in appropriate sequence with each unit corresponding to a particular topic and following language skills (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) and language

In terms of style and presentation, new textbook partially supported the teachers and students to innovative methods of teaching and learning foreign languages in school The textbook has a scientific presentation and good illustration

2.2 Participants

2.2.1 The teachers

Ten teachers of English at the school, aging from 28 to 46, are experienced and enthusiastic They are willing to help students overcome the challenges and difficulties in learning English They all have graduated from mainstream training program, and there are two of them having finished their M.A course Sadly, only six

of them aging from 30 to 45, enthusiastically agreed to take part in the research and answered the interview questions frankly, which enhanced the researcher to find out the nature of students’ attitudes in listening lessons as well as explore factors affecting their attitudes and suggest proper solutions or strategies to motivate students

The same reality occurs when they enter high schools, which is the fact that the importance of listening skill in learning English has not been acknowledged yet, and students still follow the curriculum just concentrating grammar, vocabulary and reading They gradually lose the concept of practicing listening English They seem

to cope with the teachers by searching for the answer keys for listening tasks before joining listening lessons

Hopefully, teachers and students will change their attitudes towards learning and teaching English listening comprehension, which leads to positive changes on the issue The researcher conducted this study on 120 students of grade 12 at Que Vo 1

High School They include 50 males and 70 females, whose fields of study are

different, namely Natural Science and Social Science (56 Natural Science students and 64 Social Science students) They are at pre – intermediate level They are randomly selected to participate in the questionnaire and the class observation

2.3 Data collection instruments

In order to gain reliable, objective and in – depth data on exploring the attitudes of 12th grade students in listening lessons, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed

Three instruments were applied in this study, including the survey questionnaire for students, the class observation and the personal interviews with teachers

The survey questionnaires for students: are in Vietnamese to avoid

anticipated misunderstanding and comprise three main parts:

- Part 1 consists of 6 questions, which investigates students’ attitudes in learning English in general (question 1), and listening skill in particular (question 2 to question 6)

- Part 2 includes three next questions, which examines affecting factors on students’ attitude to learning listening skill

- Part 3 encompasses the last three questions, which inquires students’ expectation in listening lessons

The questionnaire for students also exploits their personal information regarding their gender and field of study

The class observation: is made to record teachers’ and students’ activities

during listening lessons It aims at finding out teachers’ teaching methods, including their variety of activities, their use of teachings aids during listening lessons and students’ performance as well as reaction to teachers’ lectures Basing on the findings, the researcher proposes suggestions for teachers to strengthen their students’ affirmative attitudes towards learning listening skill

The interview questions for teachers: is made of five questions about

teacher’s perception on the importance of listening skill in their students’ English learning and their students’ attitude in learning this skill It also focuses on exploring teachers’ ways of conducting lessons and difficulties they have to encounter when teaching listening skill and their suggestions for enhancing students’ positive attitudes during listening lessons

2.4 Data collection procedure

The data are collected and analyzed by following steps:

- First of all, the survey questionnaire was delivered to 120 students of grade

12 at Que Vo 1 High School at the beginning of the first semester

- The researcher carried out observing three listening lessons in three classes: 12A1, 12A3 and 12A15 and wrote down the information on a class observation sheet

- Personal interviews for teachers were conducted to recommend some strategies for teachers to enhance their students’ positive attitudes in learning listening skill

- Subsequently, from the survey questionnaires for students, class observation and personal interviews with teachers, data collected were then synthesized and sorted

- After that, the results were analyzed and transcribed into tables and pie charts

- The findings were recapitulated and represented in Conclusion part

2.5 Summary

In a word, the researcher gives an overall description of students in this chapter, concerning their gender, fields of study and English competence to some extent Besides, the study context, including the school, the curriculum and the textbook are also incorporated Moreover, chapter 2 represents in details data collection instruments and data analysis procedure

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter deals with the analysis of data collected from three instruments, including questionnaires for students, class observation and personal interviews with teachers

3.1 Data analysis on the questionnaires for students

3.1.1 Students’ attitudes towards learning English

Question one was designed to investigate the students’ attitudes towards learning English in general The results of 120 respondents were shown as followed:

Figure 1: Students’ attitudes towards learning English

As can be seen from figure 1, encouragingly, 42.4 % of the students had positive attitudes towards learning English, in which 29.9% was extremely interested and 12.5% was interested in learning English These respondents were mainly girls pursuing subjects of Social Science

The number of respondents having negative attitudes towards learning English was lower than those possessing positive attitudes They were mainly boys studying subjects of Natural Science

About a quarter of the students (26.7%) possessed neutral attitudes in learning English

From the data collected, it can be interpreted that there is a slight difference in the participants’ attitudes towards learning English due to gender variable and field of study Particularly, female students had more positive attitudes towards learning English in comparison with male ones, and Social Science students exhibited more

encouraging attitudes compared with Natural Science ones

3.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning listening skill

3.1.2.1 Students’ favorite English lessons

Figure 2: Students’ favorite English lessons

Not surprisingly, language focus lessons ranks the first in term of students’ learning interest (37.5%) Second position is reading lessons The overwhelming percentage of preference for language focus and reading lessons may be influenced

by the curriculum and the test format, in which all the tasks prioritize checking reading comprehension and grammar points taught in language focus periods

Listening lessons ranks the fourth only with 11.7% percentage of preference, lower than writing lessons (15% of the students) and higher in comparison with

3.1.2.2 Students’ perception on the importance of learning listening

Figure 3: Students’ perception on the importance of learning listening skill

As can be seen from the chart, most of the respondents thought that English listening skill was important to them Of 120 students, 79 (accounting for 67.9%) acknowledged the crucial role of listening skills in learning English However, only 11.7% of the respondents (shown in figure 2) like listening lessons The rest of respondents (21.7%) found English listening comprehension was not quite important and only 12.4 % of students do not realized the significance of learning to listen English by responding to the option “not important at all”

The results show that the majority of the students realized the significance of listening skill in their learning English, which is inconsistent with the findings in figure 2 Students neglected listening skill even though they recognized its importance, which can be expounded to some extent in the next part when investigating factors affecting students’ listening learning attitudes

3.1.2.3 Students’ amount of time practicing listening

36.7%

23,3%

Every day Sometimes Only in class Never

Figure 4: Students’ amount of time practicing listening English

The chart indicates that a relatively large proportion of the respondents just practiced listening in class Ranking the second was the alternative “sometimes”, 28

of 120 students, accounting for 23.3%

Accidentally, the number of respondents drilled listening skill every day and the number of those never did this was the same (24 students, accounting for 20%)

In a word, a larger proportion of the students just practiced listening skill to follow the curriculum; the reason might lie in the fact that they covered this skill because it was a compulsory Only 20% of the respondents spent time on training listening skill every day, perhaps it was because they were really interested in learning this skill

3.1.2.4 Students’ behaviors in listening lessons

Items Strongly

Agree (%)

1 I do private things during

listening lessons 11.6 20.0 29.2 39.2

2 I enthusiastically raise my

answers to my teacher’s questions 15 20 40 25

3 I try to pass listening tasks

when the teacher does not pay

Figure 5: Students’ behaviors in listening lessons

As shown in the table, it seems to be that almost all students had a positive attitude in listening lessons Specifically, 82 of 120 (making up 68.5%) participants did not do private things in listening lessons, and only 31.5% of them did not pay

attention to their teacher’s lecture, but did other things

Surprisingly, 80% of the respondents disagreed with the statement “I try to pass listening tasks when the teacher does not pay attention to me” It means that they made efforts to complete all listening tasks given in the textbook and by their teachers

Next, 98 of 120 respondents, making up to 81.7%, gave heed to their teachers conveying listening lessons There were merely 22 students among 120 ones did not concern with their teachers’ listening lectures

Nevertheless, responding to item 2, only 35% of the participants excitedly

raised their answers to their teacher’s questions while 65% of them were not active

in giving answers Moreover, the results from item 5 reveal that more than a half of the students (54.1) were passive in listening lessons and it was unexpected that only 14.2% of students participated enthusiastically in the listening activities Here appeared a contradiction in the results found from this figure and the figure 2, 3, 4

In short, based on the results collected from question 5, it was likely that most respondents had positive behaviors in listening classes Specifically, they paid much attention to their teacher’s lecturing and did not do private things during listening lessons In opposition to their positive behaviors, most of the students expressed to be passive in giving answers to teacher’s questions and joining listening activities

3.1.2.5 Students’ feelings in listening lessons

Items Strongly

Agree (%)

1 I am excited because I always give

correct answers to listening tasks 14.2 11.7 64.1 10

2 I am confident in giving answers

to listening tasks 20 40 17.5 22.5

3 I have good feelings in listening 17.5 22.5 20 40

lessons

4 I hate learning listening skill 30.8 54.1 4.1 11

5 I am nervous when being called to

response to my teacher’s questions 40 25 15 20

6 I find learning listening skill a

waste of time 41.7 24.2 15 19.1

Figure 6: Students’ feelings in listening lessons

Concerning the feelings of students in listening lessons, the table shows that students had unresponsive attitudes in listening classes 65 respondents (74.1%) disagreed that they were excited because they always gave correct answers for listening tasks Making up a smaller proportion, 25.9% of participants felt enthusiastic giving answers during listening lessons, among whom there were only 17 students possessing really enthusiastic mood

Astonishingly enough, 60% of the students were confident to give answers for listening tasks and 40% of them were not There should be a need to study these results when most of the subjects were confident enough to give the answers for listening tasks, they did not feel good during the listening lessons (60%) and they hated learning listening skill (84.9%) Moreover, they felt nervous (65%) when being called to present their opinions though they dared to give the answers for listening tasks and the same percentage of the respondents found learning listening skill a waste of time

3.1.3 Students’ perception on factors affecting their attitudes towards learning English listening skill

3.1.3.1 Demotivational factors to learn listening skill of students

Items

Strongly Agree (%)

1 My teacher is very unfriendly 37.5 22.5 28.3 11.7)

2 My teacher only care for good 40 20.8 27.5 11.7

students, so the other students feel

unconfident and dissatisfied

3 My teacher is not fair in accessing

students’ learning outcomes 38.3 19.2 31.6 10.9

4 My teacher seldom uses teaching

aids to motivate us 32.5 30.8 20 16.7

5 My teacher’s teaching method

makes me feel bored 40 25 20.8 14.2

6 Listening tasks are too difficult to me 37.5 29.2 20 13.3

7 Listening topics do not meet my interest 16.7 15 44.2 24.1

8 English tests do not check listening

skill, so I need not to learn it 48.3 10% 29.2% 12.5%

9 My parents advise me to focus on

reading comprehension and grammar

to get good results in tests and

exams, learn listening skill later

0 20 39.2 41.8)

10 Too large class makes me lose

concentration 15 21.7 35 28.3

11 The class atmosphere is usually

stressful, which makes me afraid of

learning listening skill

4.1 27.5 19.2 19.2

12 The school facility for teaching

listening skill is so poor 60 40 0 0

Figure 7: Demotivational factors to learn listening skill of students

The first five items indicate the factors affecting students’ attitudes towards learning listening skill pertaining to the teacher

Sadly, 60% of the subjects agreed that their teachers were not friendly while only 40% of them advocated item 1, in which just 14 respondents (11.7%) actually found their teachers friendly

Furthermore, 60.8% of the students were not satisfied with their teachers’ behaviors, instead of giving care to all students in class, he/ she just spent time with good students The low level students, hence, felt pessimistic and down

Besides, teachers were not fair in assessing them (57.5%), which obviously puts a negative impact on students’ feelings and emotions, which were components

of learning attitudes These students were males studying Basic Science subjects

There were merely 11.7% of the participants agreed with item 2

The uncreative teaching method and teachers’ infrequent use of teaching aids also impair students’ positive attitudes in listening lessons Particularly, 63.3% of respondents approved that their teachers seldom used teaching aids in listening lessons while only 36.7% opposed Next, 65% students felt bored with learning listening skill This figure was, to be honest, shocking to the researcher It can be inferred that teaching method plays a decisive role in fostering students’ positive attitudes towards learning

Items 6 to 8 were designed to examine whether listening topic, the difficulty level of listening tasks and the curriculum affected students’ learning attitudes As can be seen from the table, the listening tasks seemed to be too hard for students, which lessened their motivation for learning listening (approved by 66.7% of the

students)

However, most respondents (66.3%) realized that the listening topics were suitable for their age and met their interest meanwhile only 31.7% of them did not like listening topics The listening topics did not thus have much influence on

students’ learning attitudes in this case

In addition, the curriculum, especially the test form swayed students’ learning attitudes, 58.3% thought that they did not need to learn listening because their tests did not check listening competence, while 41.7% found it necessary to learn this skill

Item 9 proclaims there was little effect of parents’ opinions on their children’ learning attitudes, only 24 (20%) students agreed with this whereas 96 (80%)

disagreed and strongly disagreed

Data collected from responses to item 10 reveals that most of the participants (63.3%) opposed that large classes affected their motivation in learning to listen Consequently, students’ attitudes were not affected by class size in this study

However, the class atmosphere and the facility condition had a deep impact

on students’ attitudes towards learning listening skill 61.6% of the responses were

in agreement with item 11 and incredibly, 100% wanted improvement for teaching and learning facility from school because they were too poor

3.1.3.2 Motivational factors to learn listening skill of students

Items

Strongly Agree (%)

1 I want to listen to and understand

English songs and watch foreign

films with English subtitle

35.8 30 12.5 21.7

2 I want to get a good 40 20 22.5 17.5

3 I want to study English people

and culture 15 21.7 43.3 20

4 I want to learn the pronunciation

of native English speakers and to

be native – like

15 29.2 35 20.8

Figure 8: Motivational factors to learn listening skill of students

When being investigated on the learning attitudes in listening lessons, a large proportion of the participants found themselves motivated in learning this skill because they desired to have a good job (60%) or they wanted to listen to and comprehend their favorite English songs or watch foreign films with subtitle in English (65.8%) On the opposite extreme, only 36.7% try to be like native English speakers, and of course, the same number of the respondents was interested in studying English people and culture

In brief, the students mainly found themselves instrumentally motivated in learning

listening skill rather than integratively motivated in it

3.1.3.3 The teachers’ use of teaching aids and motivational strategies in listening lessons

Items Always

(%)

Usually (%)

Sometimes (%)

Rarely (%)

Never (%)

1 Authentic listening (daily

conversations, native

speaker’s voice)

0 0 20 24.2 55.8

2 Cassette tapes/ disc 0 5.8 21.7 35 37.5

3 Teacher’s voice (teacher

read the listening passage) 40 29.2 19.2 11.6 0

4 CD/ VCD/ projector 10 9.2 15 47.5 18.3

5 Only tasks given in the

textbook 48.3 28.3 13.4 10 0

6 Adapt tasks relevant to

your students’ level 10.8 14.2 29.2 12.5 33.3

7 Handout (extra tasks to

help your students

understand thoroughly the

listening passage)

7.5 4.2 15.8 19.2 53.3

8 Pictures/ board/ video clips 9.2 10 15 30 35.8

9 Music (songs, ) 10 11.7 14.2 32.5 31.6

Figure 9: The teachers’ use of teaching aids and motivational

strategies in listening lessons

It can be drawn from the table that there was a problematic reality of using teaching aids in order to motivate students in listening lessons 80% of the students responded that their teachers rarely or never used authentic materials when teaching listening

Problematically, no student responded that their teacher usually used cassette

in listening lessons and 72.5% of the subjects gave answers of “rarely” and “never”

to this item This finding entails the results of the next item (item 3) that students

just learn listening skill by their teacher voice (69.2%)

Moreover, the teaching aids were likely to be insufficient, 65.8% of the students complained that they rarely or never had chance to attend the class with DVD/ VCD or head projector

Additionally, the teachers purely covered the tasked given in the textbook (76.6% of students), but not used different sources of listening tasks to get students higher motivated in listening lessons to obtain better outcomes Only a small percentage of the students (13.4%) showed that their teacher sometimes followed the tasks given in the textbook and 10% of the respondents revealed that their teacher rarely conducted listening lessons by following the textbook

Item 6 discloses that teachers did not give students handouts with extra exercises to help them understand more thoroughly the listening passages, particularly a remarkable proportion (45.8%) of the students whose teacher seldom and never delivered handouts to them and only 25% gave the opposite responses of “usually” and “always”

Item 7,8 and 9 show another factor leading to students’ negative attitudes in listening lessons The teachers did not use teaching aids and motivational strategies very often, or even did not use them at all in their teaching career In particular, 72.9% of responses were for that teachers rarely or never use pictures, video clips in listening lessons, 65.8% for that in terms of using music (songs) and 64.1% of using games

To conclude, the reality of the teachers’ use of teaching aids and motivational strategies was tricky Most of them mainly followed the tasks given in the textbook and hardly utilized teachings aids or motivational strategies in their teaching to foster their students’ positive attitudes to learn listening skill This may put a negative impact on students’ attitudes in listening classes

3.1.4 Students’ expectation on learning listening skill

3.1.4.1 Students’ anticipation from the teachers

Because teacher plays a central role in students’ learning attitudes, the researcher carried out students’ expectation about their teachers in order to propose some suggestions for them to improve their students’ attitudes in learning listening

skill The results were collected as follows:

Items

Strongly Agree (%)

1 My teacher gives positive feedbacks 45.8 54.2 0 0

2 The teacher will be more friendly

in order to foster encouraging class

atmosphere

65 35 0 0

3 The teacher will be fairer in

accessing my learning outcomes 38.3 19.2 31.7 10.8

4 Teacher will make use of teaching

aids and motivational strategies more

frequently to motivate us to learn

listening skill

37.5 35.8 15 11.7

5 Teacher will adapt listening tasks

to make them suitable for my level 35.8 29.2 19.2 15.8

6 Teacher sometimes find familiar

listening topics of our interest to

motivate us

16.7 15 44.2 24.1

7 Teacher will provide us with

vocabulary and background

knowledge requisite for listening

tasks before each listening class

44.2 40 15.8 0

Figure 10: Students’ anticipation from teachers

The table shows that 100% of the students expected positive feedbacks from the teacher, the same proportion waited for their teachers’ friendliness and a good relationship between teachers and students A slightly bigger numbers of students agreed

to be judged and assessed more impartially (57.5%) compared with 42.5% were satisfied with their teachers’ appraisement on their learning outcomes In comparison with figure

7, it can be induced that the most teachers at Que Vo 1 High school rarely used teaching