Students' perception of effective English listening strategies, a survey at Dong Hu hight school, Thai Nguyen = Nhận thức của học sinh về chiến lược nghe tiếng

In order to help learners get most from a listening lesson , a lesson plan of listening is usually divided in to three stages :The first stage which is called “pre- listening” means acti

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Nhận thức của học sinh về chiến lược nghe tiếng Anh hiệu quả Một nghiên cứu tại

trường THPT Đồng Hỷ, Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Ha Noi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Nhận thức của học sinh về chiến lược nghe tiếng Anh hiệu quả Một nghiên cứu tại

trường THPT Đồng Hỷ, Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR VÕ ĐẠI QUANG, PhD

Ha Noi, 2014

STATEMENT OF THESIS ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

Effective English listening strategies for students at Dong Hy High school, Thai Nguyen

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA in English Linguistics

Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Ha Noi, 2014

Đàm Quang Vinh

ACKNOWLEDMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratetude to Assoc Prof

Dr Võ Đại Quang , my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulate ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic reseacher

A special word of thanks goes to my teachers, lectures, and the staff at the Department of Post-Graduate Studies at Ha Noi University.and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for

me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my colleagues and students at Đồng Hỷ high school for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

ABSTRACT

This study is aimed at improving listening skill for 10th form students at Dong

Hy high school (DHHS) The research is designed as a survey research to find out what listening strategies the students think as effective to them Data were collected from questionaires and experimental lessons The general information and the major factors affecting listening process as well as the listening techniques of students have been uncovered to serve as a basic background foundation assisting the experimental lessons In addition, the comparison of students in the experimental and control experimental groups were examed to see the progress of students At the end of the paper, recommendations for further studies were proposed to facilate achieving a deeper and more convincible result supporting for language learning enhancement Hopefully, the findings will be of some use to those who are in favor

of the topic and who intend to do for further research in this area

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS TABLES

Table 1 Listening problems encountered by students at Dong Hy high school 19

Table 2 Activities needed in the three stages of a listening lesson 22

Table 3 Students‟feeling after the listening lesson 26

CHARTS Pie-chart 1: The students‟ experience of English learning 18

Pie-chart 2: The most difficult language skill in students‟ view 18

Pie- chart 3 Students‟ opinions of using pictures in the listening lesson 27

Pie-chart 4 Studens‟ opinions of the effectiveness of using pictures 28

Pie- chart 5 : Students‟ opinions about pair work and group work 28

Pie-chart 6 : Students‟ expectations in pair work and group work 29

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Statement Of Thesis Originality i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Lists of abbreviations iv

List of tables and charts v

Table Of Contents vi

Part A : INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims and Objective of the research 2

3 Scope of the research 2

4 Significance of the research 2

5 Structural organization of the thesis 2

Part B: DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: Literature Review 4

1.1 Theoretical background 4

1.2 Previous studies related to the theme of this research 11

1.3 Summary 13

Chapter 2 : Methodology 14

2.1 Research – governing orientations 14

2.1.1 Research methods 14

2.1.2 Data Collecttion Instruments 15

2.1.3 Questionnaire 15

2 2 Participants 15

2.2.1 The students 15

2.2.2 Data collection procedures 16

2.3 Questionnaire and test implementations 16

Chapter 3 : Findings & Discussions 18

3.1 The students‟ experience of learning English 18

3.1.1 Amount of time spent on English learning 18

3.1.2 The most difficult language skill in students‟ view 18

3.2 Findings 19

3.2.1 Listening problems encountered by students at Dong Hy high school 19

3.2.2 Activities needed in the three stages of a listening lesson 21

3.2.3 Post–listening questionnaire 23

3.3 Findings obtained from the 1st experimental listening lesson 23

3.3.1 The participants 23

3.3.2 The procedures of the 1st experimental listening lesson ( See appendix 3) 24

3.3.3 Teacher‟s remarks on the lesson 24

3.4 Findings obtained from the 2th experimental listening lesson 25

3.4.1 The participants 25

3.4.2 Students‟ opinions about pair work and group work 28

3.4.3 Students‟ expectations in pair work and group work 29

3.5 Summary 30

3.6 Recommendations for teachers of English 31

3.6.1 Recommendations for students 35

3.6.2 Summary 36

PART C : CONCLUSION 37

1 Recapitulations 37

2 Conclusions on each of the thesis objectives 37

2.1 What difficulties do the students report they are encoutered with while learning listening skill? 37

2.2 What listening strategies do they think are effective to them? 38

2.3 Limitation and suggestion for futher study 38

REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I

Part A : INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

It is undeniable that English has become the key to success for many people in different fields since it is widely used as an international language Therefore, English learning holds an important position in the process of teaching and learning foreign languages It is clearly that English in general and listening in particular play a vital role in our daily life because the need to communicate with foreigners is increasingly rapidly To keep up with the flow of world economic intergration, the necesity of using English as a second language is emphasized globally In Vietnam, English has become the most popular foreign language and one of the compulsory subjects in most high schools

Having studied English for more than 7 years, my students are quite confident in doing grammar exercises, they can deal with them with less difficulty However , their language skills are limited, listening skill seem to be the most difficult and weakest among students‟s four language skills The difficulties which hinder students from developing their listening skill are various Students in most high schools have had listening practice in their classroom, but they have rarely been taught or received guidance on how to listen to listening tasks effectively Students may find themselves bored with listening tasks Therefore, listening skill can easily be neglected in the language classroom while successful listening is acquired over time and with lots of practice

self-Being a teacher of English at Dong Hy high school, I am aware of the teachers‟ important task in increasing students‟ knowledge of English, and improving their listening skills because they have had neither much practice nor experience in listening Moreover, it is essential and urgent to help my students to improve their listening ability The wish to help the students to overcome the obstacles in learning English encouraged the researcher to carry out this study

2 Aims and Objective of the research

The purpose of this study is to find out what listening strategies the students think as effective to them The study is therefore designed to answer the following questions:

1 What difficulties do the students report they are encoutered with while learning listening skill?

2 What listening strategies do they think are effective to them?

3 Scope of the research

This research is confined to identifying of possible strategies and activities considered to be effective for the improvement of different types of listening

This survey was conducted at Dong Hy High school on a number of selected students in two classes 10a2 and 10a3 as members of the control and experimental groups

4 Significance of the research

The significance of this thesis mainly lies in the practical values it may bring about Readers of the thesis may benefit from the employable teaching strategies, activities worked out via the research With the insight gained via the thesis, both teachers and students are, to the possible extent, better oriented towards the choice and application of listening skill teaching techniques

5 Structural organization of the thesis

The thesis is organized into three main parts:

Part A, Introduction, presents the rationale for the study, aims and objective

of the reseach, scope of the research, significance of the research and structural organization of the thesis

Part B, Development, which has the following three chapters

+ Chapter one is entitled Literature Review This chapter provides a report

on the theoretical preliminaries as tools for the research and a review of previous research related to the theme of the thesis

+ Chapter Two is entitled Methodology This chapter provides readers with a

detailed description of how the study has been carried out This chapter is divided into three sections The first section describes the data collection instruments The second section describes the subjects The third section presents the procedure of the study

+ Chapter three is Findings and Discussions This chapter is divided into 4

sections The first three sections present the preliminary results obtained via the questionnaires, the interviews and the classroom observation The last section presents the discussion In fact, this chapter provides the answer to the research questions

Part C is Conclusion This part provides a recapitulation of the main points

raised in the thesis Specific conclusions on each of the objectives are herein provided Limitations of the thesis and suggestions for future research are also supplied in this part

In addition to the three major parts mentioned above, at the end of the thesis

are the References and Appendices parts

Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review

This chapter briefly highlights exiting information related to listening in second and foreign language, the use of aural authentic materials and the effect of listening strategies The terminological definitions and the findings of the previous studies are also supplied

1.1 Theoretical background

* Definition of listening comprehension

Listening, an important part of the second language learning process, has been defined as an active process during which the listeners construct meaning from oral input (Bentley and Bacon, 1996)

Listening, as defined by Underwood (1989), is “the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear” Howatt & Dakin (1974) also shares the same idea that “listening is the ability to identify and understand what others saying” The listening process is also described from an information processing perspective as "an active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express" (Thompson &

Rubin, 1996, p 331)

Theoretically, listening comprehension is viewed as an active and conscious process in which listeners construct meaning by using cues from contextual information and from existing knowledge (Byrnes, 1984; Nagle & Sanders, 1986) to

“understand what others are saying” (Saricoban, 1999) Listeners also generate information in their long-term memory and make their own interpretation of the oral texts (Murphy, 1985; Mendelsohn, 1994) “It also involves bottom-up and top- down processing of listening comprehension processes” (Tran Thi Thu Hang, 2007) Nunan (1997; Richards, 1994)‟s studies also showed that bottom up and top down listening strategies are very important to help learners listen better

* Definition of listening strategies

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input (Rubin, 1981)

Listening comprehension strategies are steps taken by learners to help them acquire, store, retrieve, and/or use information (Young 1997, p.1)

Being communicatively competent in a language must, of course, include the ability to comprehend oral input Consequently, second language listeners need to actively choose, use, and continually evaluate the effectiveness of their listening strategies in order to successfully construct meaning from second language oral input

* Types of listening strategies

Nunan (1999) suggested that until now two views of listening have dominated language pedagogy over the last twenty years These are the „bottom up‟ processing view and the „top down‟ interpretation view

The bottom-up model assumes that listening is a process of decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (or phonemes) to complete texts It means that phonetic 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

The top-down view suggests that the listener actively constructs (or more accurately, reconstructs) the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds

as clues In this reconstruction process, the listener uses prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes place to make sense of what

O‟Malley & Chamot (1990) divides language listening strategies into four categories: management strategies, cognitive strategies, social strategies and affective strategies Each category can be further divided into several smaller ones: functional planning, advanced organizers, selective attention, self-monitoring, self-evaluating, classification, inference, note-taking, elaboration, cooperation, questioning for, clarification, self-talk and positive attitude development

Oxford (1990) provides the classification of direct and indirect language learning strategies, which can be used in four language skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing It means that listening skills are also classified into direct and indirect strategies with memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective

and social strategies

* Three stages of listening session

+ Pre – listening

In order to help learners get most from a listening lesson , a lesson plan of listening is usually divided in to three stages :The first stage which is called “pre- listening” means activities learners do before listening, The second stage that is called “while- listening” means exercises and activeties are done by learners when the discourse is played, and the third stage called “post- listening” means things learners do after listening

In teaching real- life listening, methodologists have taken expectation and purposes of listeners in to account These makes listeners feel as in real- life listening situation in their native language The teacher can effectively help their students to arouse their expectation and see the purpose before a listening lesson Therefore, in pre-listening “It would seem a good idea when presenting a listening passage in class to give students some information about the content, situation and speakers before they actually start listening” (Ur, 1992, p.4)

There has been a definition of pre-listening stage as follows: “Before listening, students should be “turn in” so that they know what to expect, both in general and

particular tasks This kind of preparatory work is generally described as “Pre- listening” work or just “Pre- listening” (Underwood, 1990, p.30)

According to Underwood (1990), pre- listening work can consist of a whole range of activities, including: the teacher giving background information, the students reading something relevant, the students looking at pictures, discussion of the topic/ situation, a question and answer session, written exercises, following the instructions for the while-listening activity and consideration of how the while-listening will be done

These activities may provide an opportunity for students to gain some knoledge which help them to follow the listening text Moreover, each of these activities help students focus their mind on the topic by narrowing down the things that students expect to hear However, the teacher when choosing an activity should consider the factors which Underwood (1990) mentions: the time, the material is available or not, the interets of the class and the teacher, the place in which the work

is being carried out, the nature and the content of the listening text itself If one of these forgotten, the whole process of activity can be failed She especially emphesizes on the importance of the nature of the listening text, because each listening text itself has an especially appropriate type of activities When the teacher pays attention to this factor properly, the activity chosen for students will be more specific and effective

Listening is an essential competence in language teaching and learning On account of the features of listening teaching and the role of pre-listening stage, it is vital to design and arrange appropriate pre-listening activities in a listening lesson

A well-planned pre-listening activity could prepare the students to deal with the listening text smoothly It is also helpful to build up students‟ confidence and motivate them to listen During the pre-listening process, teachers can take the opportunity to introduce world knowledge and related language knowledge related

to the text Moreover, it devotes to fulfill the whole process of a listening lesson in making the work more effective and efficient However, even though pre-listening

plays a significant role in the whole listening process, it does not mean that it needs

to occupy too much time in the classroom teaching The length of pre-listening part could be flexible in different circumstance

+ While-listening

The while- listening stage consists of activities that students are asked to do The purpose of while listening activities is to help students develop their skill of listening to the spoken language Rixon (1986) points out the purposes of while- listening stage is to challenge and guide students to handle the information and the message from the listening text Activities of this stages must be interesting and carefully chosen They must vary at different level and in different cases

At the early stage, students need to learn how the language sounds, how to distingguish of be aware of the relationship between written words and their spoken forms As students listen, they usually apply the skills, the same uses in listening in their mother-tongue, predict what they wil hear and try to match them with the things they actually hear Therefore, in teaching listening, the teacher should try to give practice in interpreting, matching and predicting to help students fulfill their listening task less complicatedly

The topic and the content of the listening text plus the students‟interest decide the success of the while-listening activities Students may get bored if they have to do the same kind of work over and over again Thus, for each purpose and on different occasions, various activities are needed Moreover, it is advisable to have activities which are locally relevant, of the common interest and not too long or laborious

Approriacy is considered a characteristic of while-listening activities Activities of this stage should be suitable with students‟ability This means that while-listening activities can be done by most students, from the low students to the best ones Because failure can quickly discourage students to listen In the early stage, activities which are tricky should be used sparingly, but sometimes it is necessary to give students some challenges

Besides, according to Underwood (1990) teachers should consider some other points when selecting while-listening activities such as: the possibilities for varying the level of dificulty if required, the inconvenience of carying out the activities which require individuals to give their response orally in the classroom, whether the work is to be done by students with the teacher‟s presentation or whether it is to be done as private study either in a listening center or at home and whether of not the while-listening activities generate material or ideas which might be used for others

+ Post-listening

Post- listening activities in this stages are done after the listening is completed

Some post-listening activities are extentions of the work done at the pre-listening and while-listening stage and some relate only loosely to the listening text itself

According to Underwood (1990), the first purpose of post-listening activities

is to check how well the students understood and whether they have completed the listening task The teacher may give an answer orally, showing the answer on the board or on the over – head projector or ask students to check again the answers in the book Students can work in pairs to check each other‟s answers or work in groups to discuss any problems related to the listening text The second purpose of post-listening work is to reflect on why some students have failed to understand or miss parts of the passage

Another purpose of post listening activities is to expand on the topic or the language of the listening text Students are asked to deal with activities which are now more or less general language learning activities Sometimes, this does not mean that they should not be done, but it should be recognized they do not give practice in listening skills, although the additional language learning can well enable students to listen more successfully in the future

The fourth purpose is to give students opportunities to consider the manner and attidute of the speaker in the listening text This is also important because the listeners can see the aims of the speaker(s) basing on his / her attidute

Additionally, the general factors listed in pre-listening and while-listening, Underwood (1989) indicates that the attention should be given to the following factors in selecting post-listening activities: how much language work you wish to

do in relation the particular listening text ; whether there will be time to do much post-listening work at the end of the listening lesson; whether the post-listening work should consist of speaking, reading or writing; whether the post-listening stage is seen as an opportunity for pair or group work; whether it is necessary to provide post-listening activities which can be done outside the classroom; how motivating the chosen activity will be and whether it may be more motivating

As can be seen that the learning language programme consists four skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing In fact, speaking, writing, and reading can arise from listening, especially from post-listening work The order and organization of a language lesson are usually not decide by the teacher However, the teacher can give the students listening experience at the same time intergrating these in to other language skill work For instance , the students listen and respond

in writing , the teacher ask students to answer orally Therefore , listening exercises always involve in the rest three skills

* The relation among the three stages of a listening lesson

The three stages of a listening lesson are closely connected with one another, sometimes there is no clear distinct lines between the two continuous stages, especially between pre-listening and while-listening stage, Ur (1989) confirms many pre-listening are part of a continuum of activity which flows naturally in to the while-listening stage The purpose of while-listening activities is developing learners‟ skills of realizing the massage from the spoken passage The while-listening should not be isolated from pre-listening phase for the activities in this phase depend much on the previously held knowledge and this can be done or recalled in pre-listening stage

The post-listening stage embraces all the work done in the two previous stages The purposes of this stage in Underwood (1989) include checking learners‟ understanding , finding the reasons that made the learner fail to understand or miss

the parts of the listening text, giving learners an opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speaker In this stage, learner together with the teacher evaluate the knowledge and experience got through the lesson Post-listening and pre-listening stages can consist of reading, writing, speaking or all three In other words, other languge skills can arise from listening , especially in pre and post-listening work This characteristic will provide opportunities for listening to be intergrated with the other part of the learners‟ work

* Language learning strategies that are useful for listening

A variety of language learning strategies have been found to be beneficial to all language skills or to one particular skill such as reading or writing (Oxord, 1990) Among them a large group is believed to be useful for the cause of L1 and L2 listening development They fall into a number of strategy groups i.e memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitve, affective and social

Representing sounds in memory, for example, helps learners to store what they

hear in their mind better by “making auditory rather than visual representations of sounds” (Oxford, 1990, p 63) This requires associating new lexical iems with familiar words or sounds from any language Another example of listening supportive

strategies is formally practicing with sounds and writing systems In studies into

language strategies aimed at developing one or more macro-skills Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) is often employed (Oxford, 1990)

1.2 Previous studies related to the theme of this research

There have been quite a few studies focusing on the types of listening strategies that learners use (O‟Malley, Chamot, & Kupper, 1989; O‟Malley et al., 1985; Thompson & Rubin, 1996; Vandergrift, 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1998, 2003;

Wu, 2003a) and the way in which they use them (Bacon, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c; O‟Malley et al., 1985; Rubin, 1994;)

Vandergrift (1997a) provides a very useful and thorough chart of these listening strategies and their definitions, categorized according to O‟Malley and Chamot‟s model (1990) of metacognitive, cognitive, and socio affective strategies

Rubin (1994) classifies the strategies and shows the types of listening strategies used by comparing the strategies that are acquired at different levels, the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, the relation of the strategy use to text, task, and setting, etc the author considers the types and application of listening and the relationship to other learning factors

Murphy (1985, 1987) also identified the types of strategies used and contrast strategy usage at different proficiency levels Murphy (1985) found out 17 specific strategies college students used by analyzing their oral and written responses to listening selections Although the students were at different levels, they still distinguished the frequency of listening strategies they used The better listeners tend to use the strategies of elaborating, inferencing, anticipating, conclusion drawing, self-description, etc., more frequently than less-proficient learners Murphy (1985) also explored the sequential patterns of the strategies that both more proficient listeners and less proficient listeners followed He concluded that more proficient listeners tended to apply “wide distribution” strategies (i.e., in relation to

an open and flexible use of strategies) while less proficient listeners were found in use of “text heavy” strategies (i.e., in relation to reliance on the text and paraphrasing)

Bacon (1992a, 1992b, 1992c) implemented a series of studies in foreign language listening He also found out the effect of different factors on listening comprehension processes He pointed out that there are remarkable differences on usage of listening strategy, confidence, and affective response between male and female listeners The significant differences between effective and less effective listeners in both their level of comprehension and learning were revealed (1992b)

He confirmed that authentic input for listening is necessary (1992c)

Goh (2002) covered himself with the mental tactics or specific techniques through which a general strategy is operationalzed Chinese learners of ESL in Singapore were the subjects of the study He found out that, learners related new

information to a wider familiar context by using tactics such as placing input in a social or linguistic context, finding related information on hearing a key word, or relating one part of text to another in order to operate the contextualization strategy They might use tactics such as identifying words or ideas not understood, checking current interpretation within the context of the message or prior knowledge, or confirming that comprehension has taken place to use monitoring strategy

Tang (2006) investigated the use of listening strategies among Non-English Major postgraduate students She used questionnaire based on Oxford‟s SILL, Su Lianyun‟s Questionnaire and the theoretical framework of the study to collect data She found out that the cognitive strategies were the most common used strategies whereas social and management strategies were the least used strategies Affective strategy usage in the study showed the learners‟ positive attitude toward English She suggested that strategy instruction studies need to focus on management and social strategies

Chapter 2 : Methodology

2.1 Research – governing orientations

As mentioned in the Introduction, this thesis seeks answers to these two research questions:

1 What difficulties do the students report they are encoutered with while learning listening skill?

2 What listening strategies do they think are effective to them?

In this research , thirty students in class 10a2 were involved in an experimental lasting six weeks For comparison, thirty other students in class 10a3 were also selected to take part in a control experimental group Each week students

in the experimental group were in exposure to two listening practices The practices were designed with four kinds of activity: True / false exercies, pictures matching, gaps filling and answering questions The main purpose of the application was to practice and enhance listening ability for 10th grade students Students had a chance

to be familiar with the English sounds during the course and guided thoroughly by the teacher The researcher not only provided them with helpful strategies for effective listening but also pointed out the common mistakes that the majority of learners encountered in each lesson Likewise, in order to ensure the effectiveness

of the application, after each lesson the participants were often asked for opinions about if the contents, speeds, vocabularies, structures were appropriate, attractive if they should be adjusted

2.1.1 Research methods

This thesis has been designed mainly as a servey research Two survey questionaires are conducted to collect the data for the study The first question, pre-listening questionaire , deals with students‟ difficulties and the activities which students desire to do in the three stages of a listening lesson The second one is post-listening questionaire, collected from the two experimental lessons in which the techniques used by the teacher can be evaluated by students themselves

2.1.2 Data Collecttion Instruments

In conducting the research, the questionnaires is main instruments employed

to collect needed data The combination of the two instruments ensures careful insight in to the object under study because the two techniques can be supportive for

each other

2.1.3 Questionnaire

Questionnaire is one of the most useful and efficient instruments to gather large scale information ( Brown, 1995 ) Firstly, it is comparatively popular since it allows the researcher to collect statistics in field setting and the data themselves are more crediable and easy to analyze than discursive data like free-form field notes, the transcripts of oral language ( Nunan, 1992, p.143 ) Secodly, questionaire is efficient because it can be delivered simultaneously to numerous respondents in a field setting and requires only one administrator Futhermore, written questionnaire is often designed carefully with precise content before publishing so the statistics is relatively concise ( Brown, 1995 ) Because of these advantages, questionnaire is

preferred as one of the major techniques in data collection in order to fulfil the research

In this research, two questionnaires were designed for 10th grade students to

collect data for the study They are pre-listening questionnaire and post-listening questionnaire After the respondent submitted their responses to the pre-listening

questionnaire, students will be invited to join the experimental lessons After the experimental lessons, the same groups of respondents would respond to the post – activity questionaire including 5 questions for evaluative information concerning the techniques used by the teacher Data gathering from responses of the students in the two questionnaires was sorted and analyzed statistically to fulfil the aims of the reasearch

2 2 Participants

2.2.1 The students

For the student survey, 2 questionnaires (Appendices 1 & 2) were delivered to

40 students of grade 10A2 at Dong Hy High school with the help of the researcher

These students have studied English at their secondary and high schools for over 7 years, but they have not focused much on listening because they do not have good English environment and listening test in the exams Therefore, their listening skill

is not very good and sometimes they are bored with listening lessons in class This

population was chosen randomly among 14 classes at my school

2.2.2 Data collection procedures

This section demonstrates the main steps of data collection All the necessary data were gathered from March to May, during the second term , of 2014, in class 10a2 and 10a3 at Dong Hy high school

2.3 Questionnaire and test implementations

In the first step, the pre–listening questionnaire was conducted Before asking students to fill out the questionnaire, to gain the credible responses, a short but clear introduction about the researcher and the aims of the research topic was given to all the respondents All of the respondents were carefully instructed to complete the information in the questionnaire Futhermore, students were encouraged to ask questions if anything was vague It took students about 20 minutes to complete the pre-listening questionnaire In fact, the number of handouts given was 40 and the responses received was 38 Among the 38 responses, all the questions were fully addressed The second step of data collection procedure was the first experimental lesson The lesson lasted 45 minutes From the results of the lesson, a comparison of understanding between the two groups: experimental and control groups to know their general level

The third stage was the second experimental lesson, held in week 4 of the experiment The results of the lesson was utilized to analyze whether there was any change or improvement between the experimental and control groups

The final, but equally important, was the post-listening questionnaire It was distributed to thirty students of the experimental group after the experimental

lessons ended At this stage, the participants were asked to present their opinions and evaluations about the effectiveness of the trial lesson Simultaneously, the questionnaire also focused on exploring the participants‟comments and expectations

in the material application

* Data analysis

Once the data have been collected, they are subject to analysis in search of possible findings The findings from the questionnaires and two experimental lessons were classified and illustrated in the form of charts and tables and were devided into five main categories in accordance with the research questions

+ The difficulties that students reported they are encountered with while learning listening skill ( Ls )

+ The strategies that students think are effective to them

+ The progress of students through the two experimental lessons after exposure to the materials application

+ The students opinions and evaluation about the study

Chapter 3 : Findings & Discussions

This chapter provides a report on the findings from analysis of the questionnaires and experimental lessons The findings will be presented in accordance with the research questions A discussion of the results and solutions will also be offered in this chapter

3.1 The students’ experience of learning English

3.1.1 Amount of time spent on English learning

The researcher examined the students‟ experience of learning English The results were shown in the chart below

The students' experience of Enghlish learning

Pie-chart 1: The students’ experience of English learning

It can be seen from the chart that most of students have had over 7 years of learning English ( 70.73% ) and only 4.48% of them have learned English for under 5 years Therefore, it can be said that the students had good bases of learning English

3.1.2 The most difficult language skill in students’ view

The most difficult skill in students' view

27.50%

38.75%

Listening Reading Speaking Writing

Pie-chart 2: The most difficult language skill in students’ view

As seen from the chart, of the four skill, listening was considered as the most difficult for more than 38 % of students Writing and speaking came next with 27.5

% and 21.25% in turn Reading occupying about 12,5%, was regarded as less difficult than the other three

It is obvious that listening was one of the most difficult and challenging for students However, the enhancement of listening requires a long and patient process Therefore, the strategies for improving students‟ listening ability should be implemented as soon as possible

3.2 Findings

3.2.1 Listening problems encountered by students at Dong Hy high school

Obtions

Question 1 Which listening difficulties affect your

listening practice at school ?

A little practice based on the textbook

B poor equipments and materials

C no listening tests , no motivation

listening to the tape recording ?

A Native speakers‟ speed

B New vocabulary & new grammar structures

C Unable to predict the listening content

D Unable to concentrate & easy to get boredom in listening

From the figures shown in table 1 , the majotity of students ( 68%) have the motivation to study for the only result of the examination In other words, they lack motivation in learning listening to English when they do not have any listening tests through school year, they only practice listening under the control of their teachers 54% of the students criticize that the listening tasks in the textbook are not various enough for them to practice, and 60 % of them complain about the poor equipments and materials for learning listening 57.2% of them think that the listening tasks offered by their teachers for extra practice are too difficult and challenging

It can also be seen in the table 1 that the portion of the students has to cope with the problem of new vocabulary and grammmar structures while listening to the tape is higher than other suggested difficulties 47.5% of the students find the listening text more challenging with unknown words or grammar structures, especially when listening to the conversations Generally, spoken language in real life is usually ungrammatically formed It is not easy for the listeners to understand

or guess the meaning of the grammar structures in spoken language 35% of them confirmed that they are unable to predict what will happen next in the listening text The other two difficulties in listening: the speed of native speekers and inability to concentrate are indicated with the same portion 30% When the native speekers speak too fast, the listeners can not catch the listening text, also when the students can not concentrate on the lesson, they will not grasp the ideas of the listening task

It can be seen that the figures shown in table 1 suggest 10th grade students of DHHS cope with common listening difficulties with almost learners of English encountered in learning listening skill

3.2.2 Activities needed in the three stages of a listening lesson

Options

before listening ?

A Learning pronunciation &

meaning of new words

topic in pair or in group

Question 5 After you listen which activity is

the most useful & effective to you

your teacher to play the tape in a listening lesson ?

D More than three times 65%

Table 2 Activities needed in the three stages of a listening lesson

Pre–listening: Data in table 2 states that most of the informants (61.2%) show

their expectation to give the answers to the questions which are related to the listening to pic before they listen These questions can guide them to the listening content, so they may find the listening task less hard Also a large portion of informants agree that predicting the vocabulary and general content of the listening text based on the pictures and prior knowledge is a helpful activity that they derise

to do before they listen 43.5 % appreciate learning word pronunciation and its meaning Therefore, teacher need to help students expose themselves and get familiar with precise pronunciation of native speakers, students‟ pronunciation capacity is much more improved, and this activity often helps them listening more effectively Discussing the listening topis in pairs or groups is approved by 51.6%

of respondents It can conclude that the techniques for pre-listening are various, the teacher should carefully choose the appropriate ones for each kind of listening task

While – listening : As can be seen from the table 3, 54.8% of the informants

think the noting down words, phrases they hear while they are listening to the tape

is helpful because in fact they can not remember all what they heard if they do not take notes 50% of them agree with “covering the instructions” may help them listen effectively While listening, nearly half of respondents (46.5%) pay attention to collecting the important information 40% of respondents consider predicting what will happen next by giving answer to the teachers‟ guiding questions as a useful way to make the listening less challenging It is necessary to see that the activities in while listening stage should be suitable with students‟ ability, because failure can quickly discourage learners to listen

Post – listening : The most preferred activity in post- listening by informants

is realized with the portion of 53% They appreciate the effectiveness of the discussing and comparing the answers in pairs of groups It is a good way to check students‟ understanding about the listening text 22.5% of them show their support

to retelling the main idea after a listening task Summarizng can be done by extending notes made at the while-listening stage which is an effective activity to 19% of the respondents Many informants seem not be interested in playing roles based on the content of the listening text, only 14.5% of them see the attraction of using listening as an input and it can provide the listeners with a selection of language appropriate to the roles Therefore, as Underwood (1990) states “post-listening activities can be much longer than while-listening activities because at this stage the students have time to think , to discuss and to write” (p.78)

When being asked about the times teacher should play the recording for students to listen Most informants (65%) need have more than three times for doing the listening tasks and 30% of them agree three times to listen is always needed Only 10% of them think listening to the tape twice is enough It seems more difficult for 10th grade at Dong Hy high school to fulfil the listening tasks if they do not have at least three time for listening

3.2.3 Post–listening questionnaire

Based on all findings that are presented and discussed in pre–listening

questionnaire The researcher tries helping students overcome their listening difficulties by exploiting two techniques are most frequently required to do in pre and post – listening stage of a listening lesson in the new English textbook for 10thgrade students because using pictures as visual aids and using pair or group work in some specific listening lessons are considered as useful and effective techniques to help students fulfill the listening tasks After teaching lessons, the researcher can objectively see the effectiveness of these two techniques from judging the lessons taught by himself and getting the students‟ evaluation and opinions about the two experimental listening lessons through the post-listening questionnaire

3.3 Findings obtained from the 1 st experimental listening lesson

3.3.1 The participants

The lesson was carried out with the participation of 30 students in class 10A 3

at Dong Hy high school on May 5th 2014, the students in this class are at the average level of English With the aim at letting students listen to the dialogues of native