A study on the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening for non-major English students at Phuong Dong University = Nghiên cứu tính hiệu quả của việc s

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN

A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO

IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS

AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY

NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO

TRONG DẠY NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH KHÔNG CHUYÊN

TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology

Code: 601410

HANOI, APRIL 2009

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-***** -

BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN

A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO

IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS

AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY

NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO

TRONG DẠY NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH KHÔNG CHUYÊN

TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Mr Lê Thế Nghiệp, MA

HANOI, APRIL 2009

1.2 The Roles of Listening in Language Teaching and Learning 6

1.2.3 To be the final goal of learning a language 8

1.3.1 Video Generating Interest, Motivation and Concentration in Listening 9

1.3.3 Video Helping Learners Study Non-verbal Aspects of Communication 11

1.4.1 Pronunciation 12

2.6.1 Factors That Cause Difficulties in Learning Listening 18

2.6.4 Students’ Favorite Activities While Watching Video Films 20

2.6.5 Students’ Attitude towards the Effectiveness of Video in Listening Lessons 21

2.6.6 Some Negative Results of Using Video in Teaching Listening 23

Chapter three Implications in Using Video in Teaching Listening 31

3.1.1.2 Choosing video materials according to the linguistic content of

REFERENCES

Charts:

Chart 1: Students’ difficulties in learning listening 15 Chart 2: Students’ attitude towards video lessons 16 Chart 3: Students’ manner of watching video films 16

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

In Vietnam in recent year English has been widely used as a means of communication in many fields of life as in economy, science, education, culture and so on The number of English learners who wish to use English to communicate successfully has been increasing rapidly As a result, teaching and learning English has been paid more attention to and English becomes a compulsory subject in colleges and universities Being aware of the importance of the language many students want to be successful listeners and speakers

Having been a teacher of English at Phuong Dong University (PDU) for nearly six years,

I have found out that among the four skills listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and speaking seem to be the most challenging to students In many listening and speaking classes beside the students who manage to understand the recorded materials or try to express their ideas,

I also see tired faces of those who struggle to follow the lesson Some students even said:

“Teacher, I feel sleepy with the listening” or “Teacher, I‟m tired of listening, ” I felt really sad and showed this situation to other experienced teachers and found out that this is a common problem among non-major students of English This also puzzled many other teachers Most of them advised me that I should be patient and let students get used to with the subject themselves gradually However, in my opinion, it is the role of teachers who should make a great deal of effort to create and maintain the students‟ interest in the lessons and avoid boredom It is also because as teachers “we want, and indeed we are expected, to produce students who can comprehend accurately and speak with confidence” (Hill, B 1989: 1)

From that point of view, I think it is so important to help students have the feeling of interest and enjoyment in the process of listening To hold student‟s interest, there are some ways such as: using games, songs, stories, flash cards, pictures, overhead projector transparency, films, video, television and so on Among these, I think video seems to be the most effective and

helpful in developing aural skill as Stemplesky, S & Tomalin, B (1990: 3) argue: “Children and adults feel their interest quicker when language is experienced in a lively way through television and video This combination of moving pictures and sound can present language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium.” That is the reason why I chose video as the

means to do an experimental research on how to interest students in listening lessons The thesis goes as:

“A study on the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening for non-major English students at Phuong Dong University”

2 HYPOTHESIS

This study was designed to test the following hypothesis:

Video can be used as a motivator to generate students‟ interest and maintain their concentration in listening to English as well as to improve both their top-down skills (clarifying context, inferring ideas, identifying topics) and bottom-up listening skills (recognizing vocabulary, identifying sentence stress and intonation), thus enhancing their listening comprehension

3 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening to non-major students so that some suggestions of how to use video in teaching listening skills in the classroom can be given to help students improve these skills

The specific aims are as follows:

 investigating the students‟ attitudes towards listening through video

 finding out the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening

 suggesting some techniques of using video in teaching listening in the classroom

4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

In this study, at first the researcher intended to examine how effective video is to listening and speaking skills However, due to the limitation of time and page number of a minor thesis, the researcher could only conduct a survey on the using of video in teaching listening to find out how to improve students‟ listening skills through video

The survey was conducted on first-year students and the students are from two classes at the same level The video lessons were experimented for the period of 15 weeks (one term) with the purpose of practicing the listening skills for students through video They were used at the end of

the lesson as an extra activity

Finally, the study focused on the use of video language teaching materials made for the classroom without taking care of other kinds of categories such as television programs, specialist films or self-made video films The video materials were taken from the Oxford English Video – Lifetime, Level 1 by Tom Hutchinson (1999) and from the website http://www.schoolstube.com/

5 METHODS OF THE STUDY

In order to achieve the above aims, the qualitative method was used and the data for analysis in the study were collected from the different resources:

 Survey questionnaires were designed for collecting data for analysis from 50 students of two elementary level classes at PDU (these students had access to video in class)

 Interviews: the researcher also interviewed some students to double check the information gained from the questionnaires However, the interviews were sometimes applied if the author find that the answers of respondents were not clear enough

 Tests for students: the aim of the tests is to find out what progress videos help students to make in their listening skills The tests were delivered to students at the beginning and at the end of the second term

6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The paper is designed with three parts as follows:

Part A, “Introduction”, presents the rationale of choosing the topic, the aim of the study, the scope of the study and the methods for the fulfillment of the study

Part B, “Development”, is divided into three chapters:

 Chapter one presents some theoretical backgrounds that are relevant to the research topic such as the listening processes, the role of listening, the benefits of using video in language classes, aspects of listening that can be improved through video

 Chapter two investigates the situation of using video at PDU This chapter also focuses on the data collection, findings and discussion to find out the students‟ point of view about using video in listening lessons

 Chapter three emphasizes the implication of the study as well as some suggestions for using video to improve listening skills to the students at PDU

Part C, “Conclusion”, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPEMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Listening Comprehension

1.1.1 What is listening comprehension?

It is widely believed that listening is a major component in language learning and teaching and in recent year the language teaching profession has placed a great emphasis on listening comprehension There have been numerous definitions of listening, which present different views of scholars towards the concept

According to Gary Buck (2001), “listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to incoming sound.” Listening is also defined “as an active process during which the listener constructs meaning from oral input” (Bentley & Bacon, 1996: 3 ) That is to say in order to be successful listener, the first thing anyone must have is the ability to absorb the pieces of information from the speaker by listening

Brown and Yule (1983) list the four degrees of comprehension on which listening exercises can be constructed:

 The listener can repeat the text

 The student should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used in that text

 The students should be able to resolve anaphoric reference and to determine which was referred to

 The student should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied

That is to say, the word comprehension would come to mean differently in different contexts However, understanding an oral speech does not only mean “to understand the verbal message” but also “to understand it in the contexts in which it occurs.”

In short, in order to be successful in listening, we should remember that listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and then ignored while other skills are developed There must be regular practice with increasingly difficult material (Rivers Wilga, M 1986)

1.1.2 Listening comprehension process

Based on the ways listeners process and comprehend what is heard, there are two underlying modes of language processes in listening, namely top-down and bottom-up processes (http://nunan.info)

 Top-down process: In this reconstruction process, the listener uses prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes place to construct the orginal meaning of the speaker Context and situation include such things as knowledge of the topic at hand, the speaker and the relationship to the situation, as well as the relationship between the speakers and prior events

 Bottom-up process: 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 decoded and linked together to form words, words are linked together to form phrases, phrases are linked together to form utterances, and utterances are linked together to form complete, meaningful texts In other words, the process is a linear one, in which meaning itself is derived as the last step

in the process

Imagine the following situations:

 Over lunch, your friend tells you a story about a recent holiday, which was a disaster You listen with interest and interject at appropriate moments, maybe to express surprise or sympathy

 That evening, another friend calls to invite you to a party at her house the following Saturday As you’ve never been to her house before, she gives you directions You listen carefully and make notes

How do you listen in each case? Are there any differences? With the holiday anecdote, your main concern was probably understanding the general idea and knowing when some response was expected In contrast, when listening to the directions to a party, understanding the exact words is likely to be more important – if you want to get there without incident, that is! The way you listened to the holiday anecdote could be characterized as top-down listening This refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message Background knowledge consists of context, that is, the situation and topic, and co-text, in other

words, what came before and after (Morley, C 2007) The context of chatting to a friend in a casual environment itself narrows down the range of possible topics Once the topic of a holiday has been established, our knowledge of the kind of things that can happen on holiday comes into play and helps us to „match‟ the incoming sound signal against our expectations of what we might hear and to fill out specific details

In contrast, when listening to directions to a friend‟s house, comprehension is achieved by dividing and decoding the sound signal bit by bit The ability to separate the stream of speech into individual words becomes more important here, if we are to recognise, for example, the name of a street or an instruction to take a particular bus

The two underlying modes of language processing act as the basis on which the above mentioned stages of comprehension take place so that a complete understanding of the oral message is achieved Therefore, it is advisable to the teacher to help their students understand the importance of those listening processes, from which they would utilize suitable listening strategies for comprehension

1.2 The Roles of Listening in Language Teaching and Learning

According to Harmer, J (1999), one of the major reasons for teaching listening is because

it helps students to acquire language subconsciously even if teachers do not draw attention to its special features In learning a language, exposure to the language is a fundamental requirement for anyone wanting to learn it Listening to appropriate tapes provides such exposure and students get vital information not only about grammar and vocabulary but also about pronunciation, rhythm, intonation, pitch and stress

1.2.2 To develop speaking skill

According to Anne Anderson & Tony Lynch (1988), effective speaking depends on successful listening To be a proficient partner in conversation, a learner needs to be skilled as both speaker and listener To prove this point, they conducted communication experiments in which a speaker had to instruct a listener in drawing a diagram or in arranging a set of objects, and they found that the most effective spoken performances came from speakers who had previously been listeners on a similar task Experience as a listener was more beneficial than practice in the speaking role, as it seemed to highlight the needs of the listener for clear and explicit instructions Many of the speakers failed to produce „listener- friendly‟ messages without prior listening practice (Anderson, Brown, & Yule, 1984) In a word, listening and speaking are interdependent with each other

1.2.3 To be the final goal of learning a language

According to Donoghue (1985), listening occupies the basic portion in the context of the language arts and the progress in reading, speaking and writing is directly governed by listening ability It is the most important of the four arts since nearly half of the adult‟s working day and more than half of the child‟s classroom activity time is spent in listening Apart from communication interaction, much of the enjoyment in second or foreign language comes from listening activities like watching films and plays or watching TV or listening to songs In class students learn a lot from their teacher They also learn from the tape or from each other through the act of listening

Moreover, students can gain a lot of experiences of listening to a wide variety of samples

of spoken English It also helps the students know different varieties of language such as standard

or regional, formal or informal language As a result, the amount of language contact through communication increases

Listening is, therefore, regarded to be among the most important educational goals It increases an individual‟s level of vocational skills and it results in great emotional response changes in attitude It also provides students a stimulus for other activities such as discussion, reading and writing, which are the main language skills

1.3 The Benefits of Using Video in Teaching Listening

The process of listening involves the ability to understand a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasp his meaning (Howwatt & Dakin, 1998) This, therefore, requires the listener to have a high sensibility and discerning ability in pronunciation and its connection with word meanings Especially when listening to a foreign language, it is very hard for the listener to have an immediate response to the information and catch the meaning if s/he does not process enough linguistic and other relevant knowledge of the language That is the reason why freshmen feel anxious and confused in listening lessons They also worry about how to avoid making mistakes in the listening tasks in order to save face They even get nervous, which slows down their normal thinking speed and distracts their concentration

It stands to reason that a tense classroom climate can undermine learning and demotivate learners ( MacIntyre & Young, 1999) On the other hand, learner motivation will reach its peak in

a safe classroom climate in which students can express their opinions and feel that they do not run the risk of being ridiculed

This brings to the thought that motivating students to learn is, therefore, of paramount importance To be motivated to learn, students need both ample opportunities to learn and steady encouragement and support of their learning efforts Because such motivation is unlikely to develop in a chaotic classroom, it is important that the teacher organize and manage the classroom as an effective learning environment Furthermore, because anxious or alienated students are unlikely to develop motivation to learn, it is important that learning occurs within a relaxed and supportive atmosphere (Good and Brophy, 1994: 215) For this sake, video seems to

do very well

1.3.1 Video generating interest, motivation and concentration in listening

Video can help maintain the interest and concentration in listening Balatova (1994) suggests that unlike a student, who listened in sound only conditions, the use of video and sound conditions were more consistent in their perception of the story She notes that scenes where utterances were backed up by an action and/or body language, were considered easier to be understood by students Whereas, less lively scenes, which involves relatively long stretches of conversation, were labeled as more difficult It can be concluded that visual cues are often

intrinsically interesting and attractive as many people are more familiar with watching television and video than listening to audio material

According to Susan Stempleski & Barry Tomalin (1990), the outstanding feature of video films is their ability to capture the interest of viewers and stimulate their motivation in listening

In other words, students feel their interest faster when language is experienced in a lively way through video The combination of moving pictures and sound can present language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium and more realistically too

Similarly, Balatova (1994) also states that video maintains students‟ interest and concentration better than sound only learning environment Therefore, using a video in class is one best thing for experiencing the listening sequence in real life

In addition, video can take students into the lives and experiences of others Lonergan, J (1984) adds the point,

“…at their best, video presentations will be intrinsically interesting to language learners

The learner will want to watch, even if comprehension is limited The learner will want to see more, to ask questions, to follow up ideas and suggestions if the material is motivating”

In this way, by generating interest and motivation, the video films can create a climate for successful listening

1.3.2 Video lowering anxiety in listening

Video can lower anxiety when practicing the skill of listening (Arthur, 1999) In order to reduce classroom anxiety, it is necessary to make the learning context less stressful In fact the use of video is considered the most useful to deal with body language and help students to interpret it before they listen through silent viewing

Getting students to focus on these factors can help to raise awareness of what will come in the listening They will at least have developed a conceptual framework for what they need to understand and will build up some expectations of what they will hear Video, therefore, can make the listening easier and more enjoyable

1.3.3 Video helping learners study non-verbal aspects of communication

According to Susan Stempleski & Barry Tomalin (1990), our gestures, expression, posture, dress and surroundings are as eloquent as what we actually say Video allows us to see this in action and to freeze any moment to study the non-verbal communication in detail

The American psychologist, Robert Merabian, estimated that as much as 80 percent of our communication is non-verbal Lonergan, J (1984) seems to share this point as he states:

“paralinguistic information, such as facial expressions or hand gestures, is available to accompany aural clues of intonation” The reason is that the speakers in dialogues can be seen and heard, and other participants in the situation can be seen as well The language learner can readily see the ages of the participants, their sex, perhaps their relationships one to another, their dress, social status, and what they are doing, and perhaps their mood or feelings

Tomalin, B (1986) adds the point that the learner can also concentrate in detail on visual clues to meaning such as facial expression, dress, gesture and posture of the character of the people seen „frozen‟ on the screen Even without hearing the language spoken, clues to the meaning can be picked up from the vision itself

1.3.4 Video providing the background of communication

The use of video is also beneficial to language learners in the way that it makes the setting

of communication clear According to Jack Lonergan (1984), through video films “the language learner can see on the screen where the action is taking place This information may help to clarify whether the situation is very formal, or perhaps informal” He also argues that these audio-visual features of video films, of course, are found in cinema films and television broadcasts too But these other media do not offer the same facilities for classroom exploitation

of the material and content that video recorders do In the same way, video, as a moving picture book, gives access to things, places, people, events and behavior, regardless of the language used Canning & Wilson (2000) state that video provides stimuli such as environment and this can lead

to and generate prediction of the listening and a chance to activate background schemata To this extent, the use of video helps students predict information, infer ideas and analyze the world brought into the classroom

In short, video offers foreign and second language learners a chance to improve their ability to understand comprehensible input Videos also allow teachers to ask both display and

referential questions However, video tasks should be multi-layered in order to exploit all information and elements contained in the aural and visual texts Additionally, it is essential that video tasks and lessons be perceived by the language learners as a challenging and requiring effort Teachers should make sure that their students are able to answer questions based on their ability to comprehend aural input so that the use of video in teaching listening is more beneficial

1.4 Aspects of Listening Comprehension That Can Be Improved Through Video

1.4.1 Pronunciation

Video provides a good source of authentic listening for the practice of pronunciation (McKinnon, 2005) When students are viewing, it is easier for them to notice how new words are pronounced This activity can also be done with audio, but imitation is improved with video, since the students can see how mouth and movements fit with voice This makes students depend upon their ears and more importantly, realize how important to do so

Moreover, video is also a great source for designing recognition exercises to deal with sentence stress English is a stressed-timed language: certain syllables in a sentence have stress, therefore create a beat, while other syllables tend to be said quickly making it difficult for students to hear Stress, which is the speaker‟s choice, is used to convey meaning In this exercise, students hear and recognize the parts of the sentences which are prominent and practice sentence stress in context

1.4.2 Vocabulary

Video can help learners use the right vocabulary in the right situation (Lonergan, 1984)

In fact different social situations require different language Many language learners are able to achieve reasonable fluency and accuracy in the target language, in the context of the classroom The same learners then go on to make mistakes in personal dialogue with native speakers There may be no errors of syntax or concord, but in terms of the situation in which the language is used, the learner is saying something which is inappropriate In the native language, the normal language learner has enough competence to understand why certain utterances are too polite, too vulgar, too formal, or too full of slang expressions to meet certain situations The parameters which determine the appropriateness of a remark are more than linguistic They involve the full

range of paralinguistic features and inter-personal relationships These can be presented to the learner using the flexibility of the video recorder in class

According to Canning &Wilson (2000), visual cues found in videos are informative and enhance students‟ vocabulary recognition We know that deficiencies in vocabulary can make even a simple task very difficult for our students Video makes meaning clearer by illustrating relationships in a way that is not possible with words, which proves a well-known saying that a picture is worth thousand words

1.4.3 Comprehension

Lonergan (1984) states that the learner‟s potential for comprehension is greatly increased

if an audio-visual recording with moving pictures such as video is included in the presentation

To illustrate this, he gives an example taken from ESP Business It is from a short sequence between native speakers who are discussing the cash flow in a large organization The dialogue between the speakers is quite difficult to be heard on an audio tape because the level of language competence required of the learners for comprehension would be far higher than that required when watching it on video tape This is because the difficult syntax spoken by the native speakers

is marked and aided by various paralinguistic features In general, visual cues can aid comprehension They are often most meaningful as indicators of mood, emotions, or temperament

Similarly, in his book Teaching Listening (1990), Underwood indicates that the use of video recording enables teachers to point out the many visual clues which listeners use to help them understand what they hear Students will see whether the speakers are young or old, happy

or angry, requesting or complaining They will see the physical context in which the speakers are speaking They will see the facial expressions and gestures and, in some instances, the reactions

of those whom the speaker is addressing All of these factors are important not only because they contribute to the immediate act of comprehension, but because they help the students to build up the kind of knowledge of context which is important for successful listening

Video can be also used to help learners improve comprehension and aid in the retention of information (Heron,1995) Heron, Hanley and Cole (1995) also hypothesize that the more meaningful educational videos are, the more impact it can have on comprehension and retention

The findings from their studies show that video offer contextual support and helps learners to visualize words as well as meaning It can be argued that language found in videos could help nonnative speakers understand stress patterns and allow learners to see body rhythm and speech rhythm in second language discourse through the use of authentic language and speed of speech

in various situations

Summary

In short, this chapter is aimed at providing the theoretical background useful for the study First comes an overview on listening comprehension and listening comprehension process and then the roles of listening in language teaching and learning are discussed Moreover, the benefits

of using video in teaching listening are also referred to Finally, some aspects of listening comprehension that video can help to improved are examined so as to help bring about useful ideas for the study

CHAPTER TWO THE SURVEY 2.1 The Context of the Study

The study was conducted at the non-major English Faculty of Information Technology (IT) The students at the faculty have to take a five-year training course in which English is considered a compulsory subject Like many other subjects, English is taught in a formal setting, namely a classroom The teaching and learning of English is divided into two main stages - General English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

At the beginning of term in the first year, before being divided into a suitable class, the students take part in a placement test then the students of the same level of English proficiency will be placed in a class However, through informal interview with some teachers and students they said that the placement test is not effective because it is an optional test so those who do not take the test are placed in A classes (classes for students of elementary level) though their English competence is not at elementary level That causes uneven level among students in the English classes This uneven level posed great problems on the one hand for the teachers of English because they had to find the suitable way to cater for the needs of the entire class and, on the other hand, for the students themselves to deal with an English listening lesson Thus, there is a need for effective listening lessons to enhance students‟ English listening level in general in order

to benefit both the strong and the weak students

2.2 The Subject

In order to serve the purposes of the study and, at the same time, to facilitate data collection and analysis, a sample of 50 first year students were randomly selected at Faculty of Information Technology(IT) There are some reasons for the selection

First of all, the author chose 1st year non-major English students at PDU because she thinks elementary students will benefit most from the application of video It is also easier for her

to get more information from the students (because she is teaching English at Faculty of IT ), so she will have more clues to judge the validity and the reliability of the research data In addition, the male and female students under investigation aged from 19 to 21 have at least one term learning General English (GE) at the Faculty Thus, the students will have enough knowledge of

English to answer the questions given and the data collected from the survey would surely be reliable

Finally, being technical students, English to them was really an challenging subject As a result, when listening to the boring recorded tape, many of them felt asleep or did private things during the listening lessons That state often led to low results or even failure in the listening exams That was the reason why the researcher would like to carry out the research of using video as an aid in teaching listening skill in order to erase the students‟ prejudice against this skill, draw their interest to this very communicative skill and then help them improve their listening ability

2.3 Data Collection Procedures

The researcher used questionnaire and interview, along with the tests as the main sources

to collect data According to Burnes (1999:25), “triangulation involves gathering data from different sources so that the research finding or insights can be tested out against each other” As

a result, the reliability and validity of the research are better ensured

Using questionnaire and tests, the researcher could obtain data quantitatively, which later

on would assist in her study with persuasive figures concerning issues investigated

Using interviews to find out students‟ opinion on listening skill, the researcher could have more in-depth information on certain aspects that could not be unveiled from the questionnaire This helps prove that data collection was not only quantitatively but also qualitatively valuable

In her study she intended to investigate the process of using video in teaching listening skill, so these characteristics of a quantitative and qualitative study are particularly suitable for the research as what she wanted to gain was deep understanding of students‟ reaction to video and the effects that video can bring into a listening class The steps of the study were as follows:

1 The researcher taught 2 classes of 50 students for a week and then gave them a listening test as a pre-test and got their opinion on listening skill

2 Then she taught them listening for the whole term During that time, one class was taught listening skill with the use of video along with lessons from the students‟ book whereas the other class had lessons from the book only

3 A survey was done in the former class about their opinion on using video in listening

lessons And the same test (post-test) was given to both classes as a means to measure the effect of using video in teaching listening skill

2.4 The Use of Video in the English Lessons

In this study, videos were mainly designed in the form of tasks for students to solve at the end of the lesson as an extra activity They were commonly taught in about five to ten minutes at the end of each lesson via three steps as follows:

Firstly, the teacher planned for viewing by explaining the vocabulary, reviewing the worksheet handed to the student and reviewing the information about the content of the video

Secondly, after the students viewed the video without sound and they made a list of predictions about the content, the video was divided into sections for intensive viewing

Finally, the teacher played the video section by section and asked students to jot down key words they understand After playing the video twice, teacher asked students to answer the worksheet questions pertaining to the section

2.5 The Questionnaire and the Tests

In order to obtain the above objective, the questionnaire was designed with seven questions which focused on seven main aspects that the researcher would like to investigated as follows:

Question 1 investigated the students‟ difficulties in learning listening

Question 2 worked out the students‟ attitude towards video lessons

Question 3 and 4 clarified the favorite activities that students often do while they watch video films

Question 5 examined students‟ attitude towards the effectiveness of video in listening lessons

Question 6 brought about some negative results of using video in teaching listening Along with the questionnaire, two tests of listening (pre-test and post-test) were designed

by the author in the model of achievement test which is being used to assess students‟ listening skill every term The time for the tests was fifteen minutes During the test, the teacher worked as

a cassette player and examiner The marking of the test for the two classes was done by the

author in the same way of assessment and then it was analyzed in detail The tests were conducted in class A-the class which was taught with video, and class B- the one without video

For doing the tests, the author played the cassette twice After each time the cassette was played, students had two minutes to choose the answers before author moved on to the next part Students were instructed to circle the correct answer for the listening task 1 and to mark the sentences true or false for the listening task 2 on the test sheets The total score was 10, with the main results of the pre-test and the post-test being the students mean scores The pre-test was conducted in week two of the second term and at the end of term (after 15 weeks), the post-test was given as a means to assess the effect of video on students‟ listening skill

2.6 Data Analysis and Discussion

2.6.1 Factors that cause difficulties in learning listening (Question 1 – Appendix 1)

Chart 1: Students’ difficulties in learning listening

According to the figures in chart 1, the most difficult thing facing most of the students was the speaking speed of the speakers (32%) A smaller figure of the students (28%) said limited vocabulary hindered them from listen comprehensively Stress and intonation caused difficulty for 20% of the students meanwhile 16% of them had problem in understanding the accent There are only a few students (4%) saying that grammatical structures caused them fewer difficulties in learning listening

It can be drawn from the above figures that in order to help students better their listening skills, it is important for the teacher to take these difficulties into consideration when applying

video in teaching listening to find out whether video can help students tackle the problems

2.6.2 Students’ attitude towards video lessons (Question 2 - Appendix 1)

Students' attitude towards video lessons

44%

40%

12% 4%

a lot rather little not at all

Chart 2: Students’ attitude towards video lessons

As shown in the above pie chart, most of the students were interested in video lessons There were a lot of students (40%,44%) saying that they paid great attention to video Only a small number (12%) had little concern about the video and there were still 4% expressing no love for video lessons These students said they not like video lessons because they found listening was too difficult in general and listening through video was, anyway, challenging and made them tired However, it can be concluded that the students of IT department held their interest in video lessons and they would be willing to take part in the listening lessons

2.6.3 Students’ manner of watching video films (Question 4 – Appendix 1)

Students' manner of watching video films

just watch for fun

Chart 3: Students’ manner of watching video films

From the above pie chart we can see that the figures shown students‟ manner of watching

video films were quite surprising Only a small number of 8% said they just watch video for fun whereas the rest tried to focus on the practice of listening skill Over half of the students (52%) tried to get every word of the listening and this is also their habit in normal listening lessons There were 24% trying to grasp the overall meaning of the listening through video Especially, 16% of them took notes during the lesson though they knew it is not an easy task All these figures proved that most students had their positive manner of while doing the listening through video

2.6.4 Students’ favorite activities while watching video films(Question 5- Appendix 1)

Note: 1- the least interest and 5- the most interest

Table 1: Students’ favorite activities while watching video films

It can be drawn from the data above that there were great differences among students‟ interest for the activities The most favorite activity to them is matching As much as 60% of them considered it the interest and the most interest one

When discussing about the reason, they all stated that this task is quite easy to do and it does not require much attention Interestingly, multiple choice and True/False are at second position with 44% Many students who liked these activities claimed that they are not really easy tasks but they could still choose the correct answers by concentrating on key words Surprisingly, the third position goes to gap-filling 40% of the students chose it the interest one When asked for the reason, they said that this task is challenging but also amazing They felt curious when doing it

Standing at the bottom of the list are both dictation and note-taking Only 16% of the students liked these activities The rest all claimed that they did not have much interest in these tasks as they are too difficult for them and they are also boring and time-consuming Answering questions stayed at the bottom as well with 20% This task is also considered one of the most difficult ones which many students feel reluctant to do The collected data shows that most of the students of IT department have great interest in activities that are easy, simple and do not require

a lot of sub-skill to fulfill

2.6.5 Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of video in listening lessons (Question 5 -

Helps me generate predictions and develops

my guessing skill

Helps me clarify the context of the listening 16% 8% 12% 32% 32% Helps me infer ideas about the listening 12% 20% 28% 28% 12% Helps me recognize keys words better 0% 8% 32% 44% 16% Helps me discriminate English sounds better 16% 20% 32% 20% 12%

Helps me pay great attention to stress patterns

and intonation

Table 2: The effectiveness of video in teaching listening skill