Techniques for improving listening skills of 11th form students at me linh hing school

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY No2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY - - -    - - - NGUYEN THI GIANG TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS OF 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL GR

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY No2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY

- - -    - - -

NGUYEN THI GIANG

TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS OF

11TH FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL

(GRADUATION PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH)

Hanoi, 2014

It is my pleasure to thank those who make this thesis possible

First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyễn Thị Phương Lan, M.A, Lecturer of Foreign Language Faculty, HPU2 This thesis could have probably not completed without her patient, enthusiastic and instructive supervision and encouragement

I also would like to express my sincere thanks to all the lecturers in the Foreign language Faculty for devoting time and efforts to enrich, broaden and deepen my knowledge My special thanks go as well to the Foreign Language Faculty for giving

me the opportunity and permission to implement this thesis

Besides, I am heartily thankful to my classmates, who have enthusiastically supported and provided me with valuable suggestions

I am also deeply indebted to my family for their constant encouragement which motivated me to perform best during the thesis

Lastly, I would like to offer my regards and blessings to all the readers of this paper I appreciate all the constructive comments on it and hope that my study will be useful for those who also take interest in this subject

ABSTRACT

Techniques for improving English listening skill is the topic that has got much concern of experts Many books about this issue have been published Different authors dealt with different aspects of the topic However, the difficulties that learners often have in learning listening and solutions for the problems mentioned in some books have not been clearly dealt with in full and sometimes caused confusion to learners of English

As a result, students of English often find listening difficult because they do not have appropriate methods to get over the difficulties Therefore, this research is aimed

at studying factors relevant to listening comprehension, structure of a listening lesson and conducting a survey for collecting data about the students‟ difficulties in learning listening

Based on the results of the survey, the difficulties have been found Solutions to the problems have been suggested

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Title: Techniques for Improving Listening Skills of 11 th form students

at Me Linh High School

(Graduation paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Bachelor

of Arts in English)

I certify that no part of this report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other person‟s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance from my supervisor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement I Abstract II Statement of authorship III Table of contents IV

Part I INTRODUCTION

I.1: Rationale 1

I.2: Research objectives 1

I.3: Research scope 2

I.4: Research tasks 2

I.5: Research methods 2

I.6: Research significance 2

I.7: Research design 3

Part II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND II.1.1: Literature review 4

II.1.2: Introduction 5

II.1.3: Listening comprehension 5

II.1.4: Classification of listening 7

II.1.4.1: Informative listening 7

II.1.4.2: Appreciative listening 9

II.1.4.3: Critical listening 10

II.1.4.4: Discriminative listening 12

II.1.4.5: Empathic listening 13

II.1.5: Steps of a listening lesson 15

II.1.5.1: Pre-listening 15

II.1.5.1.1: Definition and purposes of pre-listening stage 15

II.1.5.1.2: Types of pre-listening activities 15

II.1.5.1.3: Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities 16

II.1.5.2: While-listening 16

II.1.5.2.1: Definition and purposes of while-listening stage 16

II.1.5.2.2: Factors affecting the choice of while-listening activities 16

II.1.5.2.3: Types of activities for while-listening 17

II.1.5.3: Post-listening 18

II.1.5.3.1: Definition of post-listening stage 18

II.1.5.3.2: Factors affecting the choice of post-listening activities 18

II.1.5.3.3: Types of post-listening activities 18

II.1.6: Potential difficulties that students may have in learning listening 18

II.1.6.1: Inability to control over the speed at which the speaker speaks 19

II.1.6.2: Inability to concentrate 19

II.1.6.3: Problems in hearing sounds 19

II.1.6.4: Problems in understanding different accents 20

II.1.6.5: Problems in limited vocabulary 20

CHAPTER TWO AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CURRENT SITUATION OF LEARNING LISTENING OF 11 TH FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL II.2.1: Method of study 21

II.2.1.1: Purposes of the survey 21

II.2.1.2: Population of the survey 21

II.2.1.3: Type of the survey……… 21

II.2.1.4: Preparation of the survey 22

II.2.1.4.1: Test items 22

II.2.1.4.2: Arrangement of the test items 22

II.2.1.5: Administration of the try-out 23

II.2.1.5.1: Preparation of the try-out 23

II.2.1.5.2: Try-out 23

II.2.1.6: Method of data analysis 23

II.2.1.7: Results of the survey 23

CHAPTER THREE SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 11TTH FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL II.3.1: What should students do to improve listening skills? 32

II.3.1.1: The necessity of clearly identifying their purposes of listening 32

II.3.1.2: The necessity of learning listening actively 33

II.3.1.3: The necessity of frequent listening practicing 34

II.3.2: Requirements for teachers 34

III.3.2.1: Pre-listening 34

II.3.2.1.1: Introducing the topic 34

II.3.2.1.2: Pre-learning vocabulary 34

II.3.2.1.3: Asking students to look at picture(s) 35

II.3.2.1.4: Listening with visuals 35

II.3.2.2: While-listening 35

II.3.2.2.1: Listening for the gist 35

II.3.2.2.2: Listening and filling 36

II.3.2.2.3: Listening for specific information 36

II.3.2.3: Post-listening 37

II.3.2.3.1: Jigsaw listening 37

II.3.2.3.2: Role-play/stimulation 38

Part III CONCLUSION Conclusion 39

References 42

Appendix 43

PART ONE INTRODUCTION

I.1 RATIONALE

It can not be denied that English is not only the most popular language in the world, but it is also the international medium in the fields of science, technology, culture, education, economy and so on It is considered the key language to promote the mutual understanding and cooperation among countries

In Vietnam, English has become more and more popular and important Thus, the Vietnam Education Ministry has considered English as a compulsory subject at most secondary and high school Among these schools is the Me Linh High school However, teaching and learning process in Me Linh High school seems to focus too much on grammar, structures and vocabularies Students are very good at doing exercises of written forms which mostly concern grammar, reading or writing As a result, students have many difficulties in listening

This situation can be caused by a lot of things Most students have had listening practice at school, but they have rarely been taught or given instructions about how to listen to English effectively Moreover not all listening lessons interest students, sometimes because teacher does not have appropriate methods to motivate students, sometimes the listening topic is too difficult for them Another thing leading to the students‟ difficulties in learning English listening is that students do not appreciate listening skill, they only pay attention to grammars, vocabularies, structures with the aim of coping with exams

For all those reasons, my study is conducted with the hope of improving listening skill for students form 11th at Me Linh High school

I.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The purposes of this study is to examine the areas of difficulties in learning English listening encountered by students form 11th at Me Linh High school and what they desire to do in listening lesson

Therefore the study will aims at finding the answers for the questions as follow:

- What difficulties do students form 11th at Me Linh High school have in learning English listening?

- What do students want to do in each step of listening lesson?

- What can teachers and students do to improve students‟ listening skill?

I.3 RESEARCH SCOPE

The difficulties which students may have in learning English listening is various, so it is impossible to discover all the aspects of this issue Within the scope of this graduate paper, the researcher can only conduct a survey on the students of 11thform to identify common listening problems experienced by the students, after that suggest some techniques to help them improve their listening ability

I.4 RESEARCH TASKS

The study involves fulfilling the tasks of studying the definitions and process of listening comprehension; researching into the classification of listening; discussing steps of a listening lesson; studying potential difficulties students may have in learning listening and conducting a survey to find out the difficulties students form 11th at Me Linh high school have in learning listening and which activities they desire to do in each steps of a listening lesson On the basic of the findings, possible solutions to the problems are suggested to help students overcome the difficulties and improve their listening ability

I.5 RESEARCH METHODS

To achieve the objectives of the study, researcher have applied six methods which are collecting documents from books listed in the references; consulting the supervisor, experienced teachers and friends; doing a survey on the learning listening

to English from 100 students of 11th form at Me Linh High school; collecting data for the analysis; assessing the difficulties and evaluating the best techniques that are most suitable

I.6 RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

This study may provide insights into the process of learning comprehension skill for students in general and students form 11th at Me Linh High school in particular

It is hoped to make a small contribution to the effectiveness as well as the improvement in teaching and learning listening skill for student form 11th at Me Linh High school

I.7 RESEARCH DESIGN

The study includes 3 parts:

Part one, “Introduction” presents the rationale, the objectives, the scope, the tasks, the methods, the significance and the design of the study

Part two, “Development” has three chapters:

Chapter one mentions different points of views about teaching English in

general and how to improve listening skill in particular The concepts relevant to the research topic such as the definitions of listening comprehension, classification of listening, three steps of a listening lesson, and potential difficulties students may have

in learning English listening are also presented in this chapter

Chapter two is named “An investigation into current situation of learning

listening of students form 11th at Me Linh High school” It has two sections Section one is devoted to the survey The second deals with the common difficulties that students have in learning listening

Chapter three is entitled “suggested techniques to improve listening skill for

students form11th at Me Linh High school” which provides some techniques to help better the students‟ listening skill

Part three – Conclusion: Summarize discussed points, limitation of the study as well as suggestions for further researches

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

II.1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

How to improve listening skill is not a new topic today It has been studied by many experts like Luisa Fernanda, Russell N.Campbell, William E.Rutherford, Yo Hamada, Christine C.M Goh and so on Each of them has his own way of discussing about how to improve listening skill

Luisa Fernanda (1980) deals with the basic principles common to all good language teaching, set up by using ideas from sociology, psychology and pedagogy She also mentions the requirements for teachers to have an effective English lessons, the process of teaching English, the ways to use material properly and to teach well

In the book Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Russell

N.Campbell and William E.Rutherford introduce a variety of techniques and many different teaching methods to help learners improve their English in general and their listening skill in particular

In the book Assessing Listening,(2002), Gary Buck gives a quite understandable

picture of listening process and suggests how language is used to convey meaning and what is unique to listening comprehension

Yo Hamada (2012) develops a new effective teaching technique for listening in

An effective way to improve listening skill through shadowing in which she gives the

definition of shadowing, the effectiveness of shadowing, and the variety of shadowing usage

The article Active Listening (2010 ) of the University of Adelaide introduces the

benefits of active listening Besides, three key elements of active listening which are paying attention, showing that you are listening, providing feedback, responding appropriately and deferring judgment are also discussed in the article

Christine C.M Goh (1939) in the book A Cognitive Perspective on Language

Learners’ Listening Comprehension Problems offers a cognitive perspective on the

comprehension problems of second language listeners by identifying real-time listening difficulties faced by a group of English as a second language learners such as quickly forget what is heard, do not recognize words they know, understand words but not the intended message, neglect the next part when thinking about meaning and so on

In short, much research has been done on how to improve listening skills Each research discusses different aspects of this topic, some mention effective ways to teach English, some study the whole process of listening comprehension, some other discuss how to learn listening well However, only Christine C.M Goh, (1939), gives the difficulties that learners have in English listening and solutions In fact, there are far more listening problems that learners may meet, and solutions that can solve the problems Therefore, it is essential to have a comprehensive study of the common English listening difficulties and techniques to get over them

II.1.2 Introduction

To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the reexamination of concepts most relevant to the thesis‟s topic Firstly, come the different points of view about listening comprehension Secondly, the classification of listening comprehension is discussed Thirdly, there is a discussion of the steps of the listening lesson Finally, the potential problems in learning listening are also referred to

II.1.3 Listening comprehension

Like reading, speaking, and writing, listening plays a significant role in daily communication and education process It is one of the factors which contribute successful conversations Without listening, we are not able to understand what people are saying, respond to the speaker, as a result, we can not build a rapport with the people around us and be able to resolve problems we have in our life and our study as well In spite of the fact that listening is very important, it has long been the neglected skill in many areas especially in teaching In school, teachers tended to concentrate much more on improving reading, speaking and writing skill for students than on bettering students‟ listening skill That was one of the reasons why students were not motivated to learn listening It was not until recently when people have recognized and

understood the importance of having good listening skill, they have paid more attention to how to make their listening ability better, and listening skill has also got more concern from educators and students

Listening comprehension is a complex process which encompasses the multiple steps involved in understanding and making sense of spoken language These include recognizing speech sounds, understanding the meaning of individual words, and understanding the syntax of sentences in which they are presented Listening comprehension can also involve the prosody with which utterances are spoken (which can, e.g., change intended meaning from a statement to a question), and making relevant inferences based on context, real-world knowledge, and speaker-specific attributes (e.g., to what information the speaker has access and about what he/she is likely to be talking) There have been a number of ideas about what listening comprehension is According to Littlewood (1981), listening demands active involvement from hearer In order to construct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources Only by applying the knowledge of language, can the hearer divide the continuous stream of sound into meaningful units and only by comparing these units with the shared knowledge between himself and the speaker, can the hearer interpret their meaning The nature of listening comprehension means that the hearer should be encouraged in an active process of listening for meanings, using not only the linguistic cues but also has nonlinguistic knowledge

From the point of view of Broughton (1978), listening is divided into intensive and extensive listening Extensive listening is related to the freer, more general listening to natural English, not necessarily under the guidance of the teacher whereas intensive listening is much more concerned just one or two specific points

Aderson and Lynch (Listening, (1995), Oxford University Press) have another point of view They consider the listener as active model builder They say that in order to listen successfully we have to construct our own “coherent interpretation” of any spoken massage Both parts of this term are important First, it needs to be coherent both with what we believe has just been said and with what we already know about the speaker, the context, and the word in general Second, it is an interpretation,

in the sense that it is our version of what the speaker meant, as far as we are able to assess that meaning

In short, in order to be successful in listening, we should remember that:

“listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and then ignored while other skills are developed There must be regular practice with increasingly difficult material”.(River, Wilga M.(1986) Teaching Foreign Language Skill,p.157)

There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension Listeners use 'top-down' processes when they use prior knowledge to understand the meaning of

a message Prior knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text-type, the culture or other information stored in long-term memory as schemata (typical sequences or common situations around which world knowledge is organized) Listeners use content words and contextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratory fashion On the other hand, listeners also use 'bottom-up' processes when they use linguistic knowledge to understand the meaning of a message They build meaning from lower level sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the final message Listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing, but an interactive, interpretive process where listeners use both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages The degree to which listeners use the one process or the other will depend

on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose for listening For example, listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing, whereas listening for specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all the desired details

II.1.4 Classification of listening

II.1.4.1 Informative listening

Informative listening (listening for information) is a process, by which an individual listens with attention and focus to what somebody is saying, so as to grasp some knowledge Informative listening is very important if one want to learn something new Proper informative listening will lead to increased wisdom and knowledge

Informative listening is a type of listening that we use all the time when our primary concern is to understand a message from someone This may be in the form

of instructions, a presentation, speeches, a lecture … How much you learn from informative listening depends on how well you listen and concentrate on the central message

There are however three variables that impact on informative listening skills They are vocabulary, concentration and memory Knowing these variables can help people begin to improve their informative listening skills; that is, they will become increasingly successful in understanding what the speaker means

Vocabulary: Increasing vocabulary will support the understanding of messages

from the speaker

Concentration: There are lots of reasons why people‟s concentration might slip

when they are supposed to be listening to someone including: being distracted by outside stimuli, trying to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, lack of interest

in subject or person, lack of motivation Therefore in order to have a successful conversation, people should be sure that they focus on what the speakers are saying

Memory Memory is an especially crucial variable to informative listening;

people cannot process information without memory More specifically, memory helps the informative listening in three ways

a It allows people to recall experiences and information necessary to function

in the world around them In other words, without memory people would have no knowledge bank

b It establishes expectations concerning what people will encounter They would be unable to drive in heavy traffic, react to new situations, or make common decisions in life without memory of their past experiences

c It allows people to understand what others say Without simple memory of the meaning of words, people could not communicate with anyone else Without memory of concepts and ideas, they could not understand the meaning of messages

In summary, informative listening is an important skill in the range of different listening skills we need in our every day lives Using informative listening well allows

us to acquire information or instructions and understand messages that a speaker is trying to get across

II.1.4.2 Appreciative listening

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, appreciative listening is a type

of listening behavior where the listener seeks certain information which will appreciate, for example that which helps meet his/her needs and goals One uses appreciative listening when listening to good music, poetry or maybe even the stirring words of a great leader It involves listening to music that one enjoys, people who the listener likes to listen to because of their style and the choices the listener make in the films and television he/she watches, radio programmes and plays and musicals in the theatre Unlike informative listening, appreciative listening does not rely on the message from the speaker it is how one responds as a listener

Our appreciation of what we hear will vary depending on our individual tastes However the quality of appreciative listening depends in large part on three factors: presentation, perception, and previous experience

a Presentation

There are many different factors that encompass presentation including the medium, the setting and the style and personality of a presenter Normally, in a conversation the listeners often stop listening to the speakers because there‟s something in the way they present themselves that the listeners don‟t like or find irritating Of course this works both ways and equally the listeners will have been entranced by others because of the force of their personality and their delivery style

The setting can also impact on the listeners‟ appreciation of the presentation Seating, temperature, clarity and volume of sound will all impact on whether it‟s a good or poor experience

it would be awful It was something that I didn‟t want to do, so I had already decided what it would be like If I‟d been more open to enjoying it, then it may well have turned into a good experience

The perception and expectations are driven by attitudes which determine how people react to and interact to the world in which they live The perceptions affect all areas of o life and are crucial in determining whether people listen at all or how much they do or don‟t enjoy or appreciate things they listen to

c Previous experience

Some of people‟s perceptions are clearly influenced by their previous experience and impact on whether or not they enjoy listening to something, or whether they are even willing to listen I always listen to music on a low volume This is because I grew up with my brother‟s music thumping through the bedroom walls and it really stressed me out I associate any loud music with those memories Whether the memories evoke pleasant or unpleasant, reminders will affect people‟s appreciation However, it‟s important to remain open to new experiences

In short, presentation, perception and previous experience are all key factors in determining how well people use their appreciative listening skills The most successful appreciative listeners are those who prepared to put aside any unpleasant experiences and be open to learning something new

II.1.4.3 Critical listening

Critical listening is listening in order to evaluate and judge, forming opinion about what is being said Judgment includes assessing strengths and weaknesses, agreement and approval

This form of listening requires significant real-time cognitive effort as the listener analyzes what is being said, relating it to existing knowledge and rules, whilst simultaneously listening to the ongoing words from the speaker

Critical listening means using careful, systematic thinking and reasoning to see whether a message makes sense in light of factual evidence Critical listening can be learned with practice but is not necessarily easy to do Some people never learn this skill; instead, they take every message at face value even when those messages are in

conflict with their knowledge Problems occur when messages are repeated to others who have not yet developed the skills to discern the difference between a valid message and a mistaken one Critical listening can be particularly difficult when the message is complex Unfortunately, some speakers may make their messages intentionally complex to avoid critical scrutiny For example, a city treasurer giving a budget presentation might use very large words and technical jargon, which make it difficult for listeners to understand the proposed budget and ask probing questions

Critical listening is first and foremost a skill that can be learned and improved There are some techniques that people can use to become a more critical listener

a, Uncovering assumptions

If something is factual, supporting evidence exists However, we still need to be careful about what evidence does and does not mean Assumptions are gaps in a logical sequence that listeners passively fill with their own ideas and opinions and may

or may not be accurate When listening to a public speech, you may find yourself being asked to assume something is a fact when in reality many people question that fact For example, suppose you‟re listening to a speech on weight loss The speaker talks about how people who are overweight are simply not motivated or lack the self-discipline to lose weight The speaker has built the speech on the assumption that motivation and self-discipline are the only reasons why people can‟t lose weight You may think to yourself, what about genetics? By listening critically, you will be more likely to notice unwarranted assumptions in a speech, which may prompt you to question the speaker if questions are taken or to do further research to examine the validity of the speaker‟s assumptions If, however, you sit passively by and let the speaker‟s assumptions go unchallenged, you may find yourself persuaded by information that is not factual

b, Rely on reason and common sense

If you are listening to a speech and your common sense tells you that the message is illogical, you might be right You should be thinking about whether the speech seems credible and coherent In this way, your use of common sense can act as

a warning system for you

If the message is inconsistent with things you already know, if the argument is illogical, or if the language is exaggerated, you should investigate the issues before accepting or rejecting the message Often, you will not be able to take this step during the presentation of the message; it may take longer to collect enough knowledge to make that decision for yourself

c, Relate new ideas to old ones

As both a speaker and a listener, one of the most important things you can do to understand a message is to relate new ideas to previously held ideas Imagine you‟re giving a speech about biological systems and you need to use the term “homeostasis,” which refers to the ability of an organism to maintain stability by making constant adjustments To help your audience understand homeostasis, you could show how homeostasis is similar to adjustments made by the thermostats that keep our homes at a more or less even temperature If you set your thermostat for seventy degrees and it gets hotter, the central cooling will kick in and cool your house down If your house gets below seventy degrees, your heater will kick in and heat your house up Notice that in both cases your thermostat is making constant adjustments to stay at seventy degrees Explaining that the body‟s homeostasis works in a similar way will make it more relevant to your listeners and will likely help them both understand and remember the idea because it links to something they have already experienced

If you can make effective comparisons while you are listening, it can deepen your understanding of the message If you can provide those comparisons for your listeners, you make it easier for them to give consideration to your ideas

II.1.4.4 Discriminative listening

The next type of listening is discriminative listening By being sensitive to changes in the speaker‟s rate, volume, force, pitch, and emphasis, the informative listener can detect even nuances of difference in meaning By sensing the impact of certain responses, such as “uh huh,” or “I see,” relationship listening can be strengthened Detection of differences between sounds made by certain instruments in the orchestra, or parts sung by the a cappella vocal group, enhances appreciative listening Finally, sensitivity to pauses, and other vocal and nonverbal cues, allows

critical listeners to more accurately judge not only the speaker‟s message, but his intentions as well

There are three things to consider about this type of listening

a Hearing ability

Obviously, people who lack the ability to hear well will have greater difficulty in discriminating among sounds Often this problem is more acute for some frequencies, or pitches, than others For example, a person may be less able to discriminate when the sound is coming from a bass voice than from a higher pitched one

b Awareness of sound structure

Native speakers become quite proficient at recognizing vowel and consonant sounds that do or do not appear at the beginning, middle, or end of words For example, a listener might hear “this sandal” when what the speaker said was “this handle”; but since English words do not begin with “sb,” one would not mistake “this bean” for “this sbean.”

Attention to the sound structure of the language will lead to more proficient discriminatory listening A person who pays attention to sound structure would recognize that a rapidly spoken “Idrankitfirst” could mean either “I drank it first” or

“I‟d rank it first.” Recognition of the two meanings would cause the listener to seek clarification

c Integration of nonverbal cues

We accept that action, nonaction, and vocal factors are important in understanding messages Nowhere is attention to these factors more important than in effective discriminative listening Words don‟t always communicate true feelings The way they are said, or the way the speaker acts, may be the key to understanding the true or intended meaning

II.1.4.5 Emphatic listening

Empathic listening is defined as a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding and trust It enabling the listener to receive and accurately interpret the speaker‟s message, and then provide an appropriate response It is also called active listening or reflective listening

The Benefits of empathic listening

Here is a list of benefits that arise through empathic listening

1 Builds trust and respect

2 Enables the one in need to release his/her emotions

3 Reduces tensions

4 Encourages the surfacing of information

5 Creates a safe environment for sharing and problem solving

The process of empathic listening

a, Give the person you are connecting with your full attention

Remember that the person in front of you is your sole focus at this singular moment in time Multitasking is a great thing, but not appropriate when working empathically with another person, particularly when practicing empathic listening Their problem is in your hands, so your understanding and your time are reversely in theirs

b, Do not speak when the other person is in the middle of communicating their

issue

Empathic listening means that it is your job to actually hear what is being said, and reach to the heart of the topic to achieve full understanding of the situation In doing this you need to find out specifics such as who is involved, what the actual problem is, and what are the extenuating circumstances that circle the problem All of this information goes to help you give the best informed resolution you can find Without it, perhaps through the act of not listening closely enough, you might miss an intrinsic part of the problem

c, Offer a summary of what you have heard to the speaker, when they are done

talking

This means you take what you have heard and reword it, offering them a summarized version of what they have said It need be no more than an outline going over all of the most important key points of their problem This affirms to them that you were listening, and reaffirms to yourself what you heard

II.1.5: Steps of a listening lesson

There are three main steps of a listening lesson, they are pre-listening, listening and post-listening Each step has its own characteristics and activities

while-II.1.5.1 Pre-listening

II.1.5.1.1 Definition and purposes of pre-listening step

It is true that learners will find it extremely difficult to do a listening lesson when they have no idea of what they are going to hear Even if the sounds and the words which they hear are familiar, they may still be unable to understand because they lack certain kinds of knowledge of the topic, setting and the relationship between the speakers Thus, the listeners‟ expectation and purposes should be taken into account These make listeners feel as in a real-life situation in their native language Teacher can help their students to arouse their expectation and see the purpose before a listening lesson This kind of work is described as “pre-listening activities”

II.1.5.1.2 Types of pre-listening activities

Pre-listening work can be done in various ways and consists of several types of activities Therefore teachers should select the most effective activities for each situation and teacher need to find the most suitable way to provide suitable pre-listening support for their students in order to help them get the purposes that a listening lesson requires

 The teacher introduces the listening topic, gives background information

 The students read something relevant

 The students look at picture, read through question if asked

 The students discuss the topic situation

 The students follow the instruction for the while-listening activity

 The students consider how while-listening activity will be done

Each of the above activities will help the students focus on the main points of the listening passage However it is very important to remember that the amount of pre-listening activities may vary according to each class, the level of difficulty of material and the students‟ language ability

II.1.5.1.3 Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities

The choice of pre-listening activities depends on a number of factors, such as:

 The time available

 The material available

 The interest of the class

 The interest of the teacher

 The place where the work is taking place

 The nature and the content of the listening text itself

It is very necessary for teacher to consider all the factors that are mentioned above when choosing an activities as each factor contributes an important part to the result of an listening lesson

II.1.5.2: While-listening

II.1.5.2.1: The purposes of while-listening stage

The while-listening stage involves activities that students are asked to do during the time that they are listening to the text The purpose of while-listening activities is

to help learner develop the skill of eliciting massages from spoken language

There are of course other reasons why students need to listen to the language they are studying The main thing is that to learn to recognize how it sounds (the pronunciation of words, the stress, the rhythm, the intonation that they can use what they can hear as a model for their own speech)

When developing the skill of listening for comprehension, while-listening activities must be choose carefully They must vary at different levels and different cases

“Good while-listening activities help learner find their way through the listening text and build upon the expectations raised by the pre-listening activities” (Underwood, Teaching Listening, 1990, p.46)

II.1.5.2.2: Factors affecting the choice of while-listening activities

In while-listening activities students can check their comprehension of what they expected/predicted and what they actually hear Therefore the choice of while-listening activities may focus on the following criteria:

 The content What are the topics and sub topics? How are topics and sub topics related?

 The speakers‟ use of language What words do the speakers use to introduce

a new idea? How do they change the topic? How do they express uncertainty? How does their intonation change during the text?

 While-listening activities may also prompt students‟ reactions to the ideas in the listening text; for example, students may ask themselves questions like „Do I agree with what they say? Is there another side to what they say?‟ while listening

II.1.5.2.3: Types of activities for while-listening

This stage, as it arises from the name, contains activities done by the students during the listening passage The aim of activities done during this stage is to help the students to catch the main meaning of the text so that they have enough information to interpret the text

In this stage, teachers can apply some activities like following learners are given a set of instructions and are supposed to show whether they understood them by a physical response; filling in exercise-students listen to a dialogue and are asked to fill in the missing information; information search- during the listening learners focus on specific items; matching- students are asked to match items according to the recording; sequencing- students are given a set of pictures and they have to put them into the correct order and spotting the difference- learners make responses only when they hear something different to what they already know about the topic or the speakers

instructions-II.1.5.3: Post-listening

II.1.5.3.1: Definition and purposes of post-listening activities

Post-listening activities are the activities which are done after the listening is completed Some post-listening activities are extensions of the work done at the pre-listening and while-listening stage and some are related only loosely to the listening text itself

The purposes of post-listening are to check whether the learners have understood what they need to or not; to see why some students have missed part of the message or failed to understand the message; to give the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and the manner of the speakers of the listening text; to expand on the topic or language of the message and to transfer learned things to another context and too make introduction for the planned work

II.1.5.3.2: Factors affecting the choice of of post-listening activities

According to Underwood, the attention should be given to some factors in selecting post-listening activities as the amount of language work the teacher wish to

do in relation to the particular listening text; the time which is allowed to do listening; the speaking, reading, writing skills should be included in the post-listening work; the student should work in pair or in group and the chosen activities should be made motivating

post-II.1.5.3.3: Types of post-listening activities

There are several activities that can be used in the post-listening stage, such as:

 Problem solving and decision-making tasks- where students are trying to find out a solution for a problem from the recording

 Summarizing- students can be asked to summarize a story they heard This activity can be linked with problem solving

 Written work- students can be asked to write the end of the story

II.1.6 Potential difficulties that students may have in learning listening

Of four language skills, listening is considered to be such a very difficult one

A great number of learners have difficulties with different areas of listening

comprehension Some have trouble with hearing sounds, some have trouble with understanding different accents The followings are some potential problems that should be considered so as to help learners to overcome them

II.1.6.1 Inability to control over the speed at which the speaker speaks

In learning English, the greatest difficulty in listening comprehension may be that learners are not able to keep up with the speed of the speaker They often feel that the speaker speaks so quickly that there is not enough time for them to get the message

“They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort

it all out quickly enough.” (Mary Underwood, Teaching Listening, Longman, 1989, p.16) One of the reasons for the failure of learners in control over the speed at which the speaker speaks is that they often try to understand everything they hear, and when they are not able to understand one part, the next parts will be missed As a result, they miss the whole meaning of what the speaker speaks

II.1.6.2 Inability to concentrate

Losing concentration when learning English is one of the problems that face many learners This can be caused by a number of things such as: the bad quality of machines, the poor quality of listening material, the noise Other reasons for the loss of concentration may be that the listening topic is not interesting or difficult, or the learners‟ health is not good, so they are not able to highly concentrate on listening The break in attention, even very short can affect the understanding of learners on the message

II.1.6.3 Problems in hearing sounds

There are many English sounds which do not exist in Vietnamese such as /θ/ as

in “think”, the /ð/ as in “this” Even more difficult, some sounds make it hard for learners to recognize such as /i/ in “ship” and /i:/ in “sheep” Thus learner have difficulties in distinguishing these sound, which affect much on the comprehension of the message In addition, there are some consonant-clusters that can make learners confused They may get the consonants in wrong order for instance, when hearing

“past” and “part” Therefore, in order to listen to and understand the easily confused word, learners should practice listening a lot to get used to the way these sounds are pronounced Another thing that they should do is to learn to pronounce these sounds correctly If they can pronounce accurately, it will be much easier for them to hear these sounds said by someone else

II.1.6.4 Problems in understanding different accents

Not all people who speak English have the same accent In fact, English accents are various, people from different places my have different accents Learners who are familiar with the accent of their teacher or the accent in their listening materials, may find it extremely difficult to understand someone whose accent is strange to them What we can do in this case is to instruct learners to study with materials which can help them become familiar with at least two most useful English accents, the British and American standard, and perhaps, let them have taste of some other kinds of accents simply to make them know more about other accents Learners who have some experience in listening to and understand a number of accents are more likely to be able to cope successfully with further than those who have only heard one or two Learner should try their best to get used to different accent by listening to authentic material as much as possible

II.1.6.5 Problems in limited vocabulary

Meeting new words when listening is not new to English learners While listening, there are words or phrases not known to the listeners The new words can impact the whole process of listening a lot Almost learners try to understand every word they hear Therefore, when they hear a new word, they will try to understand it, which can interrupt the whole process of comprehension as the listeners have to follow the speaker, when they pay attention to a new word, they will miss the next part of the speech Therefore, teacher should help learners know that there is no need to understand all the new words when listening