Nghiên cứu nâng cao kỹ năng nghe qua hoạt động nghe điền thông tin còn thiếu cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên Anh tại trường Đại học Tài nguyên và Môi tr

It is hoped that the present study will be helpful for English teachers who share the same wish to help students solve their problems in learning listening skills at HUNRE... 3 To what e

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

NGÔ THỊ HÀ

DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS THROUGH GAP-FILL TASKS FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

(NGHIÊN CỨU NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG NGHE ĐIỀN THÔNG TIN CÒN THIẾU CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC TÀI

NGUYÊN VÀ MÔI TRƯỜNG HÀ NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 6014.0111

HANOI – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

NGÔ THỊ HÀ

DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS THROUGH GAP-FILL TASKS FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

(NGHIÊN CỨU NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE QUA HOẠT ĐỘNG NGHE ĐIỀN THÔNG TIN CÒN THIẾU CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC TÀI

NGUYÊN VÀ MÔI TRƯỜNG HÀ NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 6014.0111

SUPERVISOR: Prof Dr HOÀNG VĂN VÂN

HANOI - 2013

I hereby declare that this thesis is the result of my own research and that the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi, December, 2013 Ngô Thị Hà

This thesis has been accomplished with the help and encouragement of many people

I would like to express my deep gratitude to all of them

First and for most, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân His profound knowledge in both linguistics and language teaching methodology has been of great benefit to me Without his precious guidance, insightful comments and suggestions, and invaluable encouragement, my thesis might not have been finished

I would also like to send my deep thanks to the staff of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies for their help and to all the lecturers for their interesting lectures and supports, which are really useful for this research

Besides, my special thanks should also be expressed to my colleagues and students

at HUNRE Their cooperation brought great contribution to the success of my study

Last but not least, my sincere thanks were sent to my family and my friends for their encouragement and moral supports Without them beside me, I might not have completed the research

Initial investigation of the study showed that almost students at HUNRE found listening challenging and many difficulties perceived by students were revealed Among those, the biggest problems were of the unsuitability between the listening tasks and students‟ level To better the situation, an action plan was made with focus on using gap-fill tasks to help students develop their listening skills

The intervention was fairly successful in improving students‟ listening skills Their listening ability was upgraded and they also felt more interested in listening lessons Basing on the findings of the research, some conclusions were drawn out Recommendations, limitations and suggestions were also discussed

It is hoped that the present study will be helpful for English teachers who share the same wish to help students solve their problems in learning listening skills at HUNRE

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HUNRE: Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment L2: second language

TESOL:Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

GE: General English

ESP: English for Specific Purpose

NCE: New Cutting Edge

MA: Master

PhD: Doctor of Philosophy

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLE

CHARTS

Chart 1: Students‟ results of the first semester

Chart 2: Results of the pre-test

Chart 3: Results of the three meetings

Chart 4: Students‟ comments about vocabulary of the recordings

Chart 5: Students‟ comments about the grammar‟s difficulty of the recordings Chart 6: Students‟ comments about the length of the recordings

Chart 7: Students‟ comments about the speed of the recordings

Chart 8: Students‟ comments about the level of tasks‟ difficulty

Chart 9: Students‟ comments about their accomplishment of the tasks

Chart 10: Results of the post test

Chart 11: Students‟ improvement through tests

TABLES

Table 1: List of topics conveyed in each module of the course books

Table 2: List of listening tasks in each module of the course books

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of abbreviations iv

List of Charts and Tables v

Table of Content vi

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.Rationale of the study 2

2.Aims of the study 2

3.Research questions 2

4.Scope of the study 2

5.Methodology 2

6.Design of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: LITERARUTE REVIEW 5

1.1 Listening skills 5

1.1.1 Definitions of listening and listening comprehension 5

1.1.1.1 Listening 5

1.1.1.2 Listening comprehension 5

1.1.2 Listening skills in learning a foreign language 7

1.1.3 Difficulties in learning listening skills 8

1.1.4 Listening material 9

1.1.5 Listening tasks 11

1.1.5.1 Definition of task 11

1.1.5.2 Types of listening tasks 11

1.2 Gap-fill tasks 13

1.2.1 Gap-fills tasks in learning listening skills 13

1.2.2 Types of gap-fill exercises or tests 14

1.3 Previous studies 17

CHAPTER II: THE METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Context of the study 18

2.1.1 An overview of teaching and learning English at HUNRE 18

2.1.2 Facilities and learning condition 19

2.2 Course books analysis 20

2.3 The Participants 20

2.4 Data collecting instruments 21

2.4.1 Talks with colleagues and students 21

2.4.2 Pre-test 21

2.4.3 Learning diaries 21

2.4.4 Teaching diaries 22

2.4.5 Post-Test 22

2.5 The research procedure 22

2.5.1 Phase 1: Diagnosing 22

2.5.2 Phase 2: Action Planning 23

2.5.3 Phase 3: Taking Action 24

2.5.4 Phase 4: Evaluating 24

2.5.5 Phase 5: Specifying Learning 25

2.6 Summary 25

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 26

3.1 Diagnosing data 26

3.1.1 Analysis of the text book 26

3.1.2 Analysis of talks with colleagues 28

3.1.3 Analysis of talks with students 29

3.1.4 Analysis of the students‟ results of the first semester 30

3.1.5 Analysis of the pre-test 30

3.1.6 Concluding remarks 31

3.2 Action planning 31

3.2.1 Meeting 1 32

3.2.2 Meeting 2 33

3.2.3 Meeting 3 33

3.3 Taking action phase 34

3.3.1 Results of the exercises in four meetings 34

3.3.2 Results of learning diaries 35

3.3.3 Results of teaching diaries 39

3.3.4 Results of post-test 40

3.4 Action research evaluation 40

3.4.1 Students‟ improvement through tests 40

3.4.2 Students‟ involvement in listening tasks 41

3.5 Major findings and discussions 41

3.5.1 Effect of gap-fill tasks on developing students‟ listening skills from perspective of the students 42

3.5.2 Effect of gap-fill tasks on developing students‟ listening skills from the perspective of the teacher 42

PART III: CONCLUSION 43

3.1 Recapitulation 43

3.2 Conclusion 44

3.3 Recommendations 44

3.4 Limitation of the study 45

3.5 Suggestions for further study 46

REFERENCES 47 APPENDICES I

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The role of English as “global language” has now been asserted with many eloquent testimonies of its usefulness and contributions in many fields of life such

as science, technology, culture, education, economy, entertainment and so on English has helped people closer in „global village‟ (Nguyen, T N., 2008) and helped them broaden their knowledge as well With its wide use as the dominant language in media, books, etc, English has brought people many chances to get to know about other countries and their cultures, literature works, traditions, etc., thus, broaden their knowledge with the help of the common and popular language

English is used as the most common language in external communication of many fields Since “Đoi moi” with “opened” policy, Vietnam has been “closer” to the dynamic outside world Vietnamese people now can easily access information, entertainments, books, science, and high technology which are usually in English Businessmen, tourists, scientists, etc come to Vietnam bringing with them many chances to help develop the country in many aspects Most of them often use English in communication that makes the use of English in Vietnam more and more widely and important

In the Educational System of Vietnam, English has now been a compulsory subject in curriculums in schools and universities English is considered not only an interest or a favourite subject but also practical and great demand for students for

their higher study as well as for their success in the future Thus, “its study is considered as an academic pursuit” (Nguyen, T N., 2008)

In learning English for communicative purposes, learning skills receives great interests Although each of the four skills – reading, listening, writing, speaking, has their own characteristics and they are challenging in their own way, listening is considered the most challenging skill The factors that affect the students‟ listening ability are various, they may come from the students themselves (their background knowledge, motivation, interest…), from the learning context, from the learning material, or from teaching syllabus

In attempt to improving students‟ listening skills, I have decided to carry out

a study namely “Developing Listening Skills through Gap-fill Tasks for the First

Year Non-English Major Students: an Action Research Project at Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment”

2 Aims of the study

The main purpose of this research is to study the effects of using gap-fill tasks on improving the students‟ listening skills at Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment (HUNRE) The specific objectives of the study are:

- To figure out difficulties perceived by students in learning listening skills

- To find out effective ways to help improve students‟ listening skills

- To investigate whether doing gap-fill listening tasks can help students improve their listening skills from students and teacher‟s perspectives

3 Research questions

In order to obtain the objectives of the study, the following research questions were formulated:

1) What are the difficulties experienced by the first – year students at HUNRE

in learning listening skills?

2) What should be done to improve the students’ listening skills?

3) To what extent do gap-fill tasks help the first-year students at HUNRE improve their listening skills, from both students’ and teacher’s perspectives?

4 Scope of the study

With the limit of a minor thesis and due to the limited knowledge and time, I could just carry out the investigation on a small scale This action research was conducted for only nine weeks with three listening lessons and in the context of 45 first-year students at HUNRE in the second semester of the academic year 2012-

2013 In additions, as aforementioned, this study focuses on using gap-fill exercises

to teach listening skills to the above students Hence, the results of this study is limited to the above teaching context and participants

5 Methodology

To realize the objectives of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used The data for the study were collected through the following instruments:

- Talks with colleagues and students: were conducted at the very beginning of

the study to identify students‟ problems in learning listening skills

- Document analysis 1: the analysis focuses on listening tasks in the course

books to see whether they are suitable with students level and interests or not Then some adjustments could be made to match students‟ level and interests

- Document Analysis 2: The analysis of students‟ results of the first semester was

conducted to have deeper understanding of students‟ right competence in English

- Pre-test was designed to find out the students‟ listening skills through gap-fill

tasks, before taking the action

- Learning diaries were done by students (with clear instruction of the

researcher) to record their comments on the tasks and exercises as well as the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties perceived by the students during the lesson, and their general comments on the learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks

- Teaching diaries were written after each lesson to record the students‟ reaction

or performance in learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks The diaries also record the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties occurred during the lesson

in the perspective of the teacher

- Post-test was designed to find out the students‟ listening skills through gap-fill

tasks, after taking the action

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts as follows:

Part I: The Introduction provides the basic information such as rationale of

the study, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, methods of the study and the design of the study

Part II: The Development consists of three chapters Chapter I is the

literature review in which theoretical background relevant to the purpose of the

study is discussed In the second chapter, Chapter II, the methodology of the study

is explained with detailed description of how the study is conducted The last chapter is to report the data analysis as well as the results of the study

Part III: The Conclusion summarizes what has been studied Then some

recommendations are proposed, some limitations of the study are pointed, and some suggestions for further research are offered

PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Listening skills

1.1.1 Definitions of listening and listening comprehension

1.1.1.1 Listening

The definitions of listening vary from author to author and in fact it is not easy to describe as well as to have a thorough view of it Accordingly, Field (1989) states that “listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe Learners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large socio-culture context of utterance.” (Field, 1989) Brown (1994) also shared the above view when arguing that listening is a skill in which to identify and understand what is being said, listeners must comprehend “a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary” To make it easier to understand, Rost (2002) gave a clear description in which he defined

“listening, in its broad sense, is a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation); constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation)

It can be seen from the above views that listening is not a simple activity of hearing things but it is a complex mental process requiring a listener to have certain competence to understand an aural message

1.1.1.2 Listening comprehension

As with listening, listening comprehension is defined differently by different authors, but we can see a common view that listening comprehension is thought not

to be a single activity but a complicated process According to Boyle (1983),

“Listening comprehension is defined as the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language When comprehending something, we can understand

what is said It is assumed that speaking and writing are the process of encoding the message while listening and reading decode them Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perspective skill involving identifying and retaining information

orally received.” Garry Buck (2001) emphasizes that it is “an active process of

constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming

sound” In this active process, “a number of different types of knowledge are

involved; both linguistic knowledge and nonlinguistic knowledge” By this he means that listening requires much more than just using ears to receive sounds If one doesn‟t have enough required knowledge of both linguistics and non-linguistics,

he can‟t do the listening comprehension well

Rixon (1986) makes a classification of listening comprehension basing on its different involvements The classification consists of two types: intensive and extensive listening Extensive listening involves listening to get general understanding, for example, watching a film, understanding and enjoying a story; or listening and carrying out instructions Intensive listening, on the other hand, involves more detailed analysis of the language used or listening for specific information Listening for specific information involves finding answers to specific questions

Brown and Yule (1983) prefer to use the terms “degrees of comprehension” when discussing listening comprehension The authors suggest a list of four degrees

of comprehension on which listening exercises or tasks can be designed These degrees are (1) The listener can repeat the text; (2) The student should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used in that text; (3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric and to determine which was referred to; and (4) The student should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied

In short, in order to comprehend an oral message in foreign or second language, the listener is required much more than understanding the verbal message He must have the background knowledge needed to accomplish the given tasks of such an active process

1.1.2 Listening skills in learning a foreign language

For a long time in the history of language teaching, students were expected to

be structure competent Such approaches as Grammar Translation or Audio-Lingual focus on learner‟s imitation of dialogues or grammar and pronunciation drill and get their little attention to listening In addition, the syllabuses used for these approaches also show their emphasis on learner‟s identification of language

“products”, but cursory role of listening in recognition of those products in the syllabus In those cases, learners were considered inactive in listening lessons and listening was just a passive skill in language learning In listening lessons, learners mainly heard the message, trying to elicit the meaning from individual syntactic and semantic components of utterances and discourses They often paid almost no attention on the importance of the other factors apart from words, structures of the discourse such as background knowledge of speech, intonation, stress, and speaker‟s intention Following this trend, the teacher often conducted the lesson as testing listening comprehension rather than teaching it Students were not given enough instructions of what to do before they listen to the tape This brought about

a lot of challenges for students and they could not manage to get the meaning of the utterance without support of the teacher with their own experience of success

For the last few decades, in a number of studies, there have been changes in the view of listening comprehension, in which it has no longer a passive skill but has become an active skill in language learning According to Littlewood (1981), listening demands active involvement from the hearer In order to construct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic

Nunan & Miller (1995) define the important role of listening in learning a foreign or second language as “listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development spoken language proficiency.” This point of view follows Rost‟s (1994) ideas in which he also appreciates the important role of listening as follows:

- Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin

- Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since the learner must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of language is essential Moreover, learners‟ failure to understand the language they hear is impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning

- Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand language as it is actually used by native speakers

- Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners‟ attention

to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language (Rost, 1994:141-142, cited in Nunan and Miller, 1995)

According to Doff (1988), listening skill is crucial in improving communicative ability because “we cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skill Indeed, if we want to speak well, we firstly must listen to what others say and understand them clearly.”

It is to say that, the need of learning listening skills is inevitable as listening ability plays an essential role in the success of learning a foreign or second language

in particular and in global communication in general

1.1.3 Difficulties in learning listening skills

Difficulties occurring in learning listening skill are unavoidable because of plenty of factors Underwood (1989) lists a wide range of difficulties that students may face with in listening lessons: (1) lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak; (2) not being able to get things repeated; (3) the listener‟s limited vocabulary; (4) failure to recognize the signals; (5) problems of interpretation; (6) inability to concentrate; and (7) established learning habit She also emphasizes that

“culture and education includes a strong storytelling” and oral communication tradition are generally “better at listening than those from a reading and book-based culture and education background” and that “student for whom the stress and intonation which occur in English are reasonably familiar have less trouble than those whose own language is based on different rhythms and tones” It reveals

students from different language system may face with lots of problems when they learn a foreign language, especially when they listen to that language

In Ur‟s (1996) point of view, students may have difficulties in learning listening skills such as trouble with sounds, have to understand every word, cannot understand fast and natural native speech, need to hear things more than once, find

it difficult to keep up, and get tired It seems to be a complicate activity in which students need much more than the competence of grammar and structures of the language

Another reason of the student‟s ineffectiveness in listening is that they receive

no supported materials such as “texts, pictures, diagrams or other visual aids” (Lynch, 2005) Their listening activity is simply listening to the recording and doing given exercises or tasks Meanwhile Rost (1994) discusses the problems occurring

in listening lessons in different dimensions In his view, these problems may be of

“motive, transfer, access to input and neurological development” It means that, without motivation, ability to transfer the message, ability to access the meaning of the message, and last but not least, sufficiency of neurological development, students could not be successful in listening

In terms of the three stages of listening (perception, parsing and utilization), God (2000) lists some problems that may occur:

- At the perception stage: non-recognition of familiar words (students may not match the sounds automatically to words because of having not stored the sounds

of words efficiently in long term memory)

- At the parsing stage: students can quickly forget what is heard (students may understand words for the gist or general meaning, but not exact meaning because they cannot remember key words or phrases)

- At the utilization stage: L2 learners can understand words but not the intended message because they cannot connect words to external sources such as background knowledge or knowledge of discuss structure

1.1.4 Listening material

Listening material is very important in language learning in general and in

students‟ improvement in learning listening skills Materials which are suitable with the students have to be interesting, in the right level of students‟ proficiency, and are presented in various activities (Puspita in Hasyuni, 2006:4, cited in Inggris, B., 2008) A material, with interesting topics or various activities but too difficult for students, may be considered an unsuitable material, and vice versa

A listening material (or spoken English) involves a number of features and it is important to help students aware of such spoken material so that it will help improve their listening ability

Underwood (1989) points out a list of features of spoken English These features are the sound, stress and intonation, the organization of the speech, syntax and vocabulary, pause and fillers, and formal and informal language

When dealing with listening material, students can face some problems as unfamiliar topics, difference accents, speed of the speech, or strange sounds

- Topics in listening texts are often various, from daily conversations to formal or academic speeches and students may feel unfamiliar with some of them Thus, students often feel confused and anxious because there are many new words or phrases and also they don‟t have any background knowledge of these topics In this case, students need help to get familiar with the topics and it is the teacher who can help them by providing them vocabulary and knowledge concerning the topics

- Accents in recordings of printed materials are often various and “accent is potentially a very important variable in listening comprehension” (Buck, 2001) Thus, for L2 or foreign language listeners, accents can be a big challenge They often meet difficulties when listening to a recording with new or strange accent Buck also agues that “an unfamiliar accent can make comprehension almost impossible for listener”

- Students may loose their control when hearing something too fast Speed of speech can affect on students success in listening comprehension Usually, students find it difficult to keep up with the fast native speeches and they are distracted their attention from accomplishing the given listening tasks To help students, teachers should ask students to catch important or key words that are necessary to complete the tasks and encourage them to speak out as much as they can

- It is worth noticing that “the weak relationship between English sounds and the way they are spelt in the written language, changes in sounds when they occur in rapid, connected speech, the rhythm pattern of English speech, different ways of pronouncing the “same” sound” (Rixon, 1986) These features of native speakers‟ pronunciations of English may be challenges for foreign language or L2 listeners Other problems perceived by students in terms of sounds and pronunciation may come from their ability to perceive sound accurately as Ur (1991) argues that “most learners rely mostly on context for comprehension; they are often themselves unaware of inaccurate sound perception” The role of teacher in this case is crucial because students need introduction and practice of strange sounds which is essential

to get the meaning of the words and main ideas of the speech

1.1.5 Listening tasks

1.1.5.1 Definitions of task

Definitions of task are various from author to author Task is considered a kind of activity which is designed to help achieve a particular learning goal According to Crooke (1986), task is “a piece of work or activity, usually with a specified objective, undertaken as a part of an educational course, at work, or used

to elicit data or research” Lee‟s (2000) even gives a full and logical definition about task Task in Lee‟s is defined as (1) a classroom activity or exercise that has: (a) an objective obtainable only by interaction among participants, (b) a mechanism for structuring and sequencing interaction, and (c) a focus on meaning exchange; (2) a language learning endeavor that requires learners to comprehend, manipulate, and/or produce the target language as they perform some sets of work plans”

Although task is defined with different words, we see a common view that tasks play an essential role in teaching and learning language It is clear that tasks help learners make improvement in language proficiency

1.1.5.2 Types of listening tasks

Helgesen and Brown (2007) argue that „there is no such thing as a complete list of listening tasks‟ and tasks that we can recommend are just „limited by our

stimulating their readers‟ imagination Those listening tasks are: (1) dictation – make the questions part of the task by dictating them to students before they listen

to the text; (2) fill in the blank; (3) multiple choices; (4) open answer; (5) predict (guess) answers, then listen; and (6) true / false

In his “Teaching Listening Comprehension”, Ur (1984) suggests a list of

tasks that are possible to be designed as well as applicable in listening classroom, as follows:

- Dictation exercise: This is common listening exercise which is usually practices

in the earlier years of school education It requires students an integrative knowledge of the phonological, syntactic and semantic systems of a language To

do this task, teacher gives students handout, omitting some sentences of the text, then plays the tape and asks students to listen to the text and write the missing sentences down

- Ticking off items: Learners tick beside the items that they hear in the listening

- True / False: Identify whether the statement is true or false based on the listening

- Detecting mistakes: Some fact is mentioned with intentional mistakes for

students to point out

- Gap-filling: Students are given a passage with several gaps in it, they have to

listen and fill in the missing words in the gaps

- Pictures: one picture or series of pictures may be used Students are then asked to

identify pictures or components as they are referred to, either naming or ordering them in the order in which they are mentioned

- Answering questions: based on the content of the listening, students are required

to give longer and full answer to the questions

Continuously, Ur (1996) classifies listening tasks basing on the natures of students‟ response

(1) No overt response: with No overt response listeners don‟t have to do any thing

to response to the listening However, their “real response” reveals through their facial expression and body language which often show whether they are following

or not It includes following a written text; listen to a familiar text; listening aided

by visual; listening to an informal talk; and listening to something entertaining

(2) Short Response: involves following instructions; ticking off items; true / false;

detecting mistakes; cloze; guessing definitions; skimming and scanning; pictures identification; mapping; ground-planes; grids-filling; drawing diagram; and graph

- filling

(3) Longer Response: includes answering questions; note-taking; paraphrasing

and translating; summarizing; long gap-filling; dictation; predictions

(4) Extended Response: tasks of this kind are on the whole more demanding than

those of other kinds Listening serves as a basis and starting point for other activities In other words, these skills activities are combined together It includes

problem-solving; jigsaw listening; interpretation; evaluation stylistic analysis

In sum, we always have a purpose for listening We listen in different ways and do different tasks based on our different purposes Our listening will be more effective with a certain purpose set

1.2 Gap-fill tasks

1.2.1 Gap-fill tasks in listening skills

As listed in the previous part, gap-fill tasks that usually belong to listening for specific information purpose are those of major tasks in learning listening skills It can be seen clearly that gap-fill exercises are widely used throughout the language teaching world Commonly, gap-fill exercises are often considered as a means for students to demonstrate their understanding of vocabulary in context, discouraging memorization of translations (Smith et al, 2010) However, with various type of gap-fill (or cloze) tests nowadays, the task of gap-filling doesn‟t only mean to fill in the blank with a certain word but also choosing from a bank of given words or alternative options, etc

Moreover, the gap-fill (or cloze) test is valued as an effective instrument which has great reliability and validity in measuring general language proficiency This view can be seen studies of cloze tests of many researchers, such as Anderson, 1976; Brown, 1983; Fotos, 1991; Weir, 1990, cited in Simon et al, 2010 )

In order to gain success in learning listening skill, it is crucial for students to be given appropriate tasks at certain stage of listening as well as at certain level of

language competence Those students with low level of English competence could not accomplish such complicated tasks as making inferences or listening for gist In this case, it seems to be more effective for students to do tasks that help them understand the text well Those tasks including gap-fill tasks in which students may

be required to listen and fill in the gap themselves or they may choose from suggested answers to fill in the gaps

1.2.2 Types of gap-fill exercises or tests

Gap-fill exercises are widely used throughout the language-teaching world And

up to now, many types of gap-fill exercises (or cloze) have been created and applied

in language-learning classroom

Cloze test was first introduced by Taylor (1953)1 with the basic form of “the entire word is rationally or randomly deleted” from the sentence or text Nowadays, gap-fill (or cloze) test can be designed differently with different feature Following are common types of the cloze test (cited from the above-mentioned website)

- Open gap-filling: students are given a text with some missing words or phrases

They are asked to listen to the recording and fill in the blank of the texts

- Banked gap-filling: choose the appropriate word from a bank of alternatives

- The fixed-ratio cloze (the random cloze): Every n th word is deleted to be suitable for assessing overall language abilities (Alderson, 2000; Bachman, 1985; Oller, 1979; Steinman, 2002) The following is an example of a sixth-word deletion cloze test

Example of fixed-ratio cloze test

People today are quite astonished by the rapid improvements in medicine Doctors 1) _ becoming more specialized, and 2) _ drugs are appearing on the 3) daily At the same time, 4) _ are dismayed by the inaccessibility 5) _ doctors when they are needed 6) _ doctors‟ fees are constantly on 7) _ rise, the quality of medical 8) _ has reached an abysmal low

(Adapted from Cohen, 1994: 234)

- The rational cloze: Only specific words are deleted to be appropriate for a

particular purpose, such as testing grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary (Bachman, 1985) As can be seen in Example 8, a rational cloze test where functional words are deleted to assess grammar is presented

Example of rational cloze test

Typically, when trying to test overall understanding 1) the text, a tester will delete those words 2) seem to carry the main ideas, or 3) cohesive devices that make connections 4) texts, including anaphoric references, connectors, and so 5) However, the tester then needs 6) check, having deleted key words, that they 7) indeed restorable form the remaining context

(Extracted from Alderson, 2000: 210)

- The conversational cloze: some words or sentences are deleted to determine the

communicative language skills of native- and the non-native-test-takers (Hughes, 2003) The student is required to fill in what is missing in the blanks, as shown in the following example

Example of conversational cloze

David: Hello, Mike How are you?

Mike: Not too bad, David, and you?

David: OK You know, (1) been trying to work out (2) to go on holiday this year (3) a real problem I really can‟t decide where to go Any ideas?

Mike: Well, I suppose you could try the South (4) France

David: No, I don‟t really think so I don‟t know why, exactly Maybe it‟s (5) bit expensive down there

complicated (Hinofotis & Snow, 1980) However, the multiple-choice cloze test can

be utilized for testing both specific skills and language proficiency

Example of Multiple-choice cloze

A farmer‟s daughter had been out to milk the cows and was returning home, carrying her pail of milk on her head As she walked along, she (1) _ thinking:

(A) started (B) had to (C) prepared (D) began to

be

(Extracted from Kaczmarek, 1980:152)

- The matching cloze: each deleted word, with or without additional distractors, is

usually provided in alphabetical order and put in a column on the right of the cloze passage This form of language test, featuring ease of construction and scoring, is suitable for measuring specific knowledge of English language such as vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension for native and non-native elementary students (Baldauf & Propst, 1979) Students are required to match the correct word provided

in the right column with the numbered blanks, as shown in the following example

Example of Matching cloze

Ken and Tom like dogs (1) like

big brown dogs (2) little

white dogs Tom (3) a brown

dog He likes (4) with his dog

(adapted from Baldauf & Propst, 1979:323)

- The cloze elide: Irrelevant words are added to the original text, and the students‟

task is to find these additional words and delete them (Alderson, 2000; Steinman, 2002) However, the cloze elide test is very difficult to construct and is suitable for assessing reading speed (Alderson, 2000)

In short, each type of the above mentioned exercises has their own strong points

It, however, requires careful consideration of choosing the suitable type for certain learners, in certain contexts, and with certain purposes For those students who are

at elementary and pre-intermediate level, open gap-filling, banked gap-filling, conversational cloze, multiple-choice cloze, and matching cloze sound more

suitable than the rest mentioned

of listening (pre-, while- , and post-listening) Having a quite profound study on

listening tasks, Vũ, Thị Thành Dinh (2011) in her “Improving 11 th form students’ listening comprehension through modified listening tasks of the new textkook English 11 at Kinh Mon High School, Hai Duong” concluded that “modified

listening tasks were quite effective as the tasks could help be students more engaged into the lessons and their listening competence was enhanced” Dinh used four types

of listening tasks so the results of the study were distributed by all the four modified listening tasks, not any single one

In sum, those studies focus on many need-to-be-solved problems at one time and the results of the studies involve many factors In addition, in those researches, gap-fill tasks were applied simultaneously with other tasks such as T/F listening; Q&A listening, etc., thus the results of these studies may not reveal exactly how much gap-fill tasks contributed to the improvement of students‟ listening skills

CHAPTER II THE METHODOLOGY 2.1 Context of the Study

The study was carried out at HUNRE where I have been working for about five years The description of the study‟s context is given as follows

2.1.1 An overview of teaching and learning English at HUNRE

Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment (HUNRE) is a newly upgraded university from Hanoi College of Natural Resources and Environment The university belongs to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment The university has seven major faculties – Faculty of Geology, Faculty of Environment, Faculty of Information Technology, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Hydrographic Meteorology and Water Natural Resource, Faculty of Landing Management, and Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography The English Department is directly under the management of the university managing board

English language teaching at HUNRE is undertaken by the English Department‟s staff of 16 teachers whose ages range from 25 to 55 Most of them were educated in the English language department either at the University of Language and International Studies (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) or Hanoi University, and the rest graduated with English major from other universities One

of 16 teachers is now a PhD student; nine out of them have obtained M.A Degrees

in TESOL, and four others will get their M.A Degrees in one or two year‟s time Most of the teachers have more than five years of teaching experience and they have always shown great enthusiasm and interest in their work

The students at HUNRE come from different areas in Northern and Central Parts of Vietnam Most of them learnt English for three or seven years at school while only a few of them learnt other languages such as French, and there are no students who did not learn any foreign language at all In fact, the students‟ English proficiency is various Some of the students are quite good at English, while a big number of them have just little English Some others even know nothing about English at all

The English training program at HUNRE is prescribed to the curriculum for the first and second year students with the amount of 210 class hours in total, of which 150 class hours are spent on General English (GE) in the first and second semester and 60 class hours are on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in the third

or fourth semester In GE courses, the students are taught English for general purposes and the course books in use are the first and second ones (Elementary and Pre-Intermediate) in the series of New Cutting Edge written by Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor (first published 2005) After GE courses, the students are expected

to cover basic grammatical points of the English language and a certain amount of general vocabulary In terms of language skills, they are supposed to have ability to communicate in English at elementary and pre-intermediate levels

2.1.2 Facilities and learning condition

As mentioned above, due to short age of development and financial obstacles, the university cannot facilitate its teaching and learning condition with hi-tech equipment At present, there are about 50 classrooms and each of which has about 35-70 seats for students Meanwhile, each class has about 50 to 80 students so classes are usually too crowded and in fact, are not suitable for English lessons where it should be suitable for upto 25 students each In terms of teaching curriculum, the students have 150 lessons of 45 minutes in their two first semesters for learning GE In the first semester they have 75 lessons and 75 more for the next one This amount of time shows that students don‟t have much time to practice English because the time allowed is divided among teaching the four skills as well

as teaching grammar and structures It can also be seen that the amount of time allocated on listening skill is modest, meanwhile listening is considered a “complex skill” and requires a lot of practice At present, there is no language laboratory which is very effective for learning listening Cassettes are used for teaching listening that is challenging for students because of the crowded classes Those students who sit at the end of the classroom sometimes can not hear the sound clear enough or at least they may have difficulties of concentration

2.2 Course book analysis

The course book New Cutting Edge is written for international students It

takes CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) as the main teaching method The four core skills are integrated to foster comprehensive linguistic development Its design is for language skills learning, along with supplying the students needed language items and vocabulary

To some extent, the course books (elementary and pre-intermediate versions) are thought to be not really suitable for the students at HUNRE In fact, most students are not used to learning skills because when learning at high school they spent most of their time doing multiple-choice tests and had little time to practice listening or speaking as they were not the target in their exam In addition, some tasks in the course books are too difficult or not familiar with the students Especially, the results of the talks with students and colleagues show that the listening tasks in the course books are difficult and some of them are not suitable for the students This results in the fact that the students are not interested in and cannot accomplish the given tasks

2.3 The participants

I graduated in 2005 and have 8 years of experience in teaching English I have been teaching English at HUNRE for about 5 years I am now attending a Master course at University of Languages and International Studies

Three colleagues who took part in the talks are those of experienced teachers with more than 5 years of teaching experience and they are also having classes of the same level as mine

The main subjects of the study are 45 first- year students (32 males and 13 females) in my class - class ĐH2K12 at HUNRE in the academic year 2012-2013 Their ages are between 18 and 20 They are supposed to have pre-intermediate level

of English In fact they are not really good at English This can be proved by their results in the final examination of the first semester as well as their daily

2 In the first semester, the class had 54 students, however, 3 of them had dropped their study and 6 others had changed their major or moved to other faculties

performances in class Although they have finished English 1 in the first semester,

their English competence is much lower than expected

2.4 Data collecting instruments

2.4.1 Talks with colleagues and students (See Appendix 1 and 2)

In order to identify the difficulties in learning listening skills, I have conducted some talks with both my colleagues and students In the talks with the students the topics were about the students‟ interest in learning English in general and listening in particular The students were also asked about the difficulties they perceived when learning listening skills They were also asked to express their wish

of how to make their learning listening more effective In the talks with the colleagues, the topics were also about the students‟ interest in learning English in general and listening in particular, in perspective of their teachers The difficulties

in learning listening skills as well as solutions to improve it were also discussed

2.4.2 Pre-test (See appendix 5)

A pre-test was administered to the students at the diagnosing phase The test consists of three tasks with 25 questions in total Task 1 is a multiple choice cloze including 5 questions Task 2 is a banked cloze with 10 questions Task 3 is an opened cloze with 10 more questions The purpose of students‟ doing the pre-test is

to identify students‟ real English competence in term of listening skills, particularly

in intensive listening Basing on the students‟ scores, teacher make plan of next steps to improve their target skill

2.4.3 Learning diaries (see Appendix 3)

After each meeting (or lesson), the students were asked to complete a learning diary (with clear instruction of the researcher/teacher) to record their feelings about the tasks they had just done (about grammar structure and vocabulary; about the speed and difficulty level of the recording), their interests, satisfaction as well as the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties perceived by the students during the lesson, and their general comments on learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks With the hope to make it easy for the students to

complete the diaries, learning diary forms were designed in form of optional choices

so that the students only had to tick at the option they want to choose and there were also spaces for them to write their comments

2.4.4 Teaching diaries (see Appendix 4)

After each meeting, I myself also wrote a teaching diary in order to record the students‟ involvement, interests, and satisfaction in learning listening skills through gap-fill tasks The diaries also recorded the effectiveness of the lesson, the difficulties occurred during the lesson in the perspective of the teacher

2.4.5 Post-test (see Appendix 6)

The post-test was designed to find out the students‟ listening skills through gap-fill tasks after taking the action The post-test is designed in the same form with the pre-test It also consists of three tasks with 25 questions in total

2.5 The research procedure

The research was developed and carried out during 9 weeks from week 4 to week 13 of the second semester As mentioned above, the main subjects of the study were 45 students who took part in the research from the beginning to the end Data were collected at both the pre-action stage and during the action stage The research action was conducted using the action research cycle suggested by Susman (1983) The research cycle consists of five phases: diagnosing; action planning; taking action; evaluating; specifying learning

leads me to the first research question: What are the problems experienced by the

first – year students at HUNRE in learning listening skills?

In order to identify the problems, I conducted talks with five students and three colleagues about learning and teaching English in general and learning and teaching listening skills in particular I also observed my students and recorded

classroom interaction in listening lessons In addition, I analyzed the students‟ results of the first semester to have a clearer view of students‟ ability in term of learning English subject

After more than a week, I could come to a conclusion that a major number of first-year students at HUNRE faced with difficulties in learning English, especially listening They often feel uninterested in listening lessons and could not get success after each lesson The reasons for this ineffectiveness are clarified that students always find it difficult to accomplish the listening tasks Some tasks are thought to

be not suitable with the students‟ level And students also complained that they were not made aware of the topics and they were not provided enough vocabulary before the listening starts Sometimes they did just few pre-listening activities and usually went straight forward to the listening activities to do tasks as required Thus, they often failed to finish the listening tasks After the talks with my colleagues, I once more found out that the students faced with a lot of difficulties in learning English and listening was thought to be the most difficult to the students In order to strengthen the identification, I analyzed the students‟ results of the first semester The results showed that more a half (67.9%) of the students failed their final exam (with under-five scores) and the rest of them just got modest results (5-7/10 scores)

I also analyzed the course books to see the suitability of the listening tasks in the course books with students‟ level

2.5.2 Phase 2: Action planning

After the problems identification, I realized that something should be done to help students learn listening skills better The data collected from the previous phase were analyzed Certain problems revealed and solutions were proposed to solve the problems Among the problems revealed, I found out that the most common problems faced by the students were from the unsuitable tasks in the textbooks I hypothesized that gap-fills would be one of the measures to help the students improve their listening skills Thus, I decided to apply gap-fill tasks with the hope

to improve their students‟ listening skills Before taking the intervention, I would spend some time to find the answer for the second research question which was

formulated at the beginning of the second phase The question is: “What should be

done to improve the students’ listening skills?” and the answer may be “through gap-fill tasks” In addition, a pre-test was prepared and administered to the students

of class DH2K1 The students did a test in 25 minutes and the test papers were collected for marking The students‟ scores help me identify the students‟ current level of listening

Basing on the hypothesis, I took a careful review of gap-fills tasks and its uses in listening lessons Then listening lessons were planned carefully and in detailed, exercises and activities were adapted or redesigned for the action Also, I

prepared learning and teaching diaries for meetings in the “Taking action” phase

2.5.3 Phase 3: Taking action

After everything has been prepared already, the real action took place There were three meetings conducted in this phase Each meeting lasted for 45 minutes This aims at studying the effects of applying gap-filled tasks on improving the students‟ listening skills

After each meeting, the students were asked to complete a learning diary form with clear instruction of the teacher/researcher And they could hand in the diaries at the beginning of the next meeting At the same time, I also wrote my own teaching diaries It is for a comparison between the students‟ and teacher‟s perspectives about the lessons

Finally, a post-test of listening was followed up to measure the students‟ improvement

2.5.4 Phase 4: Evaluating

In this phase, the data collected from the third phase were analyzed These data reflect the students‟ listening skill improvement in listening lessons using gap-fill tasks The data analysis was done to find answer to the third research question:

“To what extent do gap-fill tasks help the first-year students at HUNRE improve their listening skills, from both students’ and teacher’s perspective?” Moreover, it

was also to indicate what I had learnt and experienced from these lessons

2.5.5 Phase 5: Specifying learning

Basing on the results of the data analysis, some general findings were identified The effect of using gap-fill tasks was clarified and some recommendations are given for further studies

2.6 Summary

This chapter presents the context of the study, its participants, the course book analysis, data collections instruments and the methodology and procedure of conducting the study In the next chapter – chapter 3, I will present the data analysis and findings of the study

CHAPTER III DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 3.1 Diagnosing data

3.1.1 Analysis of the text book

3.1.1.1 New Cutting Edge (NCE) – Elementary and pre- Intermediate

New Cutting Edge (Elementary and pre-intermediate) are coursebooks used

at HUNRE Each book consists of 15 modules In the second semester students have

to learn module 11 to module 15 of NCE-elementary and Module 1 to Module 6 of NCE–pre-Intermediate Each module conveys a certain topic as shown in the

following table:

NCE – elementary NCE pre-Intermediate

11 The World around Us 1 Leisure and Lifestyle

12 A weekend away 2 Important Firsts

13 Learning for the Future 3 At Rest, at Work

14 Keeping in Touch 4 Special Occasions

6 Time off

Table 1: List of topics conveyed in the course books

It can be seen from the table above that the topics in the course books are familiar to the students because those topics concern their daily life Having experienced from previous semesters, I myself also find out that the topics in the coursebooks are familiar to my students and I have rarely heard my students complaining about strange topics In addition, the students seem to be very

interested in some topics such as “The world around us” in Module 11 (about animals and pets), “Learning for the Future” in Module 13 (about dream jobs), or

“Important Firsts” in Module 2 (about past events), etc

To have a closer view of listening tasks in the course books, I make a list of listening tasks as in the following table:

NCE – elementary NCE pre-Intermediate

Module Listening Tasks Module Listening Tasks

11 - Listen and answer the

open-ended questions

- Listen and fill in the gaps

1

12 - Listen and choose the

best answer (multiple

choice)

- Listen and tick at true

sentences

2 - Listen and choose

pictures at describes the stories

- Listen and answer the open-ended questions

13 - Listen and answer the

open-ended questions

3 - Listen and complete a

table

information in the table

15 - Listen and mark the

picture with the extracts

- Listen and complete the

sentences

5

6 - Listen and make a list of

problems mentioned in the story

- Listen and make a note

of problems mentioned in the story

Table 2: List of listening tasks in the course books

The table above shows the main listening tasks in the course books In fact, there are some other listening sections designed as subsidiary parts of the other skills or language focuses

It can be seen that the tasks listed in the above table are various I myself experienced that students don‟t usually finish all those listening tasks They often

have difficulty with such complicated tasks as Answering open-ended questions; Notes taking; Completing charts or tables; or Gap-filling It is because their

vocabulary is limited and they are not skilled enough to accomplish these given tasks Sometimes, they are also successful in doing such tasks as numbering pictures or sentences, ticking at things heard, or deciding True / False These tasks are considered easier for the students because they just have to follow the instructions and mark their choices

3.1.2 Analysis of talks with colleagues

When talking to my colleagues, I realize that they share a view that students have a lot of difficulties in listening lessons They also agree that there are many factors affected the students‟ listening ability Firstly, crowded classes are not suitable for listening lessons Secondly, students‟ level or proficiency is not good enough to follow the listening lessons In addition, the syllabus and course books are also challenges because the amount of time in the syllabus for listening portions are limited and many tasks in the course books seem not to be suitable with students‟ ability

“…some tasks in our course book are not really suitable with the students‟ level and

we need to adjust them to be more suitable.” (From Talk 1-Appendix 1)

In terms of tasks in the course books, my colleagues agree that some of them are not really suitable with students and need adapting And they also admit that due

to the limited time and other factors, they just follow the instructions given in the course books and rarely have adaptations

“I find that some tasks in the course books are not really suitable with our students They are difficult for them because the students‟ level is not as expected However, due to some factors, I don‟t have time to adjust the given tasks I usually follow the instructions given in the course books.” (From Talk 2-Appendix 1)

Sharing about how to help students improve their listening ability, the colleagues agree that they cannot change the classes, or the coursebooks, or the syllabus; but they can make some changes with their lesson plans and teaching methods They give some possible suggestions, such as:

“I sometimes replace a difficult task in the course books by an easier one of the same topic or let my students do some pre-listening tasks to be aware of the topic before listening.” (From Talk 3- Appendix 1)

The talks with my colleagues help me consolidate my diagnosis that students had many difficulties in learning listening I was also inspired to seek out ways to help students improve their listening skills

3.1.3 Analysis of talks with students

All the students participating in the talks shared the same point that learning listening skills is very difficult They complained that crowded classes constrained the effectiveness of their learning listening Their learning habits and English proficiency were also mentioned as factors that affect their learning listening However, the most important factor of that ineffectiveness was the recordings and tasks in the course book

“Many recordings are too fast for me to listen and some tasks are also too difficult for

me to accomplish.” (From talk 4, Appendix 2 – researcher’s translation)

Those students complained that they have to listen to fast recordings without enough pre-listening activities and suitable tasks to do, so they failed to finish the tasks They also thought that if they had more time to be aware of the topic, have enough vocabulary and tasks that are suitable with their level, they would implement the listening tasks easily and more effectively

“I think that if I have enough vocabulary, get familiar with the topic of the listening, and suitable tasks, I can succeed in those listening tasks regardless of fast-speeded recordings.” (From talk 5, Appendix 2 – researcher’s translation)

After talks with students, I can come to a conclusion that students had to face with many challenges in their listening skills Some of those problems are unchangeable (the crowded classes, the course book, the syllabus), but some others can be changed by teachers, such as adapting tasks in the course and making it more suitable to students‟ ability

3.1.4 Analysis of the students’ results of the first semester

At HUNRE, students have to take part in a final examination at the end of each semester The results of this exam will decide whether a student is qualified enough to be up-graded or not The subjects of this study also did an English test in the final exam of their first semester The test was designed to check students‟ three skills (reading, writing, and listening) as well as their competence of grammar structures and vocabulary In the first semester there were 53 students of DH2K1 attending the exam And bellow is the summary of their results (see the appendix10 for details)

Chart 1: students’ results of the first semester

The chart above shows that students got very low scores for their final exam 67.9% of students could not pass the exam Specifically, 11.3% of those students got very low scores of 0 to 2 and 56.6% got scores of 3 or 4 Whereas, only 32.1%

of the students passed the exam with average scores of 5 or 6 and none of them could achieve score 7 or more The result shows a fact that students were not successful in their exam in particular and in their English learning of the first semester in general

3.1.5 Analysis of the pre-test

As mentioned in Chapter 2, a pre-test was administered to 45 students of class DH2K1 The purpose is to measure the students‟ level Below are the results

of the test