An evaluation of the listening component in the textbook new headway elementary to teach listening skills for non major english college freshmen at hanoi university of industry

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ THANH XUÂN AN EVALUATION OF THE L

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ THANH XUÂN

AN EVALUATION OF THE LISTENING COMPONENT IN THE TEXTBOOK NEW HEADWAY ELEMENTARY TO TEACH LISTENING SKILLS FOR NON-MAFOR ENGLISH COLLEGE FRESHMEN

AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

(Đánh giá phần nghe trong cuốn giáo trình New Headway Elementary

để dạy kĩ năng nghe cho sinh viên cao đẳng không chuyên Tiếng Anh

tại trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.14.01.11

Hanoi - 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ THANH XUÂN

AN EVALUATION OF THE LISTENING COMPONENT IN THE TEXTBOOK NEW HEADWAY ELEMENTARY TO TEACH LISTENING SKILLS FOR NON-MAFOR ENGLISH COLLEGE FRESHMEN

AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

(Đánh giá phần nghe trong cuốn giáo trình New Headway Elementary

để dạy kĩ năng nghe cho sinh viên cao đẳng không chuyên Tiếng Anh

tại trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.14.01.11

Supervisor: Dương Thu Mai, PhD

Hanoi - 2014

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly or partially

Hanoi, July 2014 Trần Thị Thanh Xuân

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Ms Duong Thu Mai, PhD from Vietnam National University, University of Languages and International Studies, for her precious advice, academic guidance and support Without her invaluable assistance, this thesis would not have been fulfilled

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all lecturers and the staff

of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University for their useful lessons and materials which are of great values to my thesis

I am appreciative of all my colleagues, and the non- major English college freshmen at Hanoi University of Industry for their precious cooperation in giving valuable information

Last but not least, I find myself in debt to my dear family, and my friends who are always supporting me with their considerations and encouragement

The participants included 110 students chosen randomly among non- major English college freshmen at HaUI and 22 teachers who were in charge of teaching English for non- major English college freshmen Two survey questionnaires were employed to discover the participants‟ perspectives of the students‟ listening needs and how the materials met these needs Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse data obtained from the aforementioned data collection instruments Quantitative data were processed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)

The findings of the research provided insight into the listening needs of non- major English college freshmen at HaUI as well as how the textbook New Headway Elementary was evaluated in the students and teachers‟ viewpoints It can be clearly seen from the results of the study that listening to English was a challenge to the students Hence, they needed support in various forms such as facilities, materials, teachers‟ guidance, etc in order to improve their listening skill The results were generally in favour of the textbook However, there was a need to improve some elements of the book such as language input, post- listening and pair or group activities, active listening periods, visual materials, etc to better meet the Ss‟ needs Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations for the materials being evaluated and other elements of the listening course were suggested

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL : English as a foreign language

ESL : English as a second language

ESP : English for specific purposes

FCE : First Certificate in English

HaUI : Hanoi University of Industry

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1.1: Comparison different criteria for materials evaluation

Figure 3.1: Ss‟ needs in the aim of listening in a course

Figure 3.2: Ss‟ in lessons and kowledge of the lessons

Figure 3.3: Ss‟ needs in three stages of listening

Figure 3.4: Ss‟ needs in activities

Figure 3.5: Ss‟ needs in topics

Figure 3.6: Ss‟ needs in methods

Figure 3.7: Ss‟ needs at the end of a course

Figure 3.8: Ss‟ needs in layout and practical concerns

Table 3.1: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on textbook‟s aim in terms of listening Table 3.2: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on lessons and knowledge of students Table 3.3: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on listening

Table 3.4: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on topics in listening

Table 3.5: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on method used for listening periods Table 3 6: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on assessment after the course

Table 3.7: Ss and Ts‟ overall judgment on layout and practical concerns

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

PART I INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the thesis 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 2

6 Design of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Materials in language teaching and learning 4

1.1.1 Definitions and Classifications of materials 4

1.1.2 Roles of materials in language teaching and learning 4

1.2 Materials Evaluation 5

1.2.1 Definitions of materials evaluation 5

1.2.2 Materials evaluation in English language teaching and learning 6

1.2.3 Criteria for materials evaluation 6

1.3 Listening comprehension and teaching listening comprehension 8

1.3.1 Definition of listening comprehension 8

1.3.2 Communicative competence in teaching listening comprehension 9

1.3.3 Three stages of listening sessions 11

1.3.4 Methods of teaching listening communicatively 12

1.3.5.Potential problems in learning listening comprehension 13

1.4 Needs analysis (NA) in language teaching 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 Current situation of teaching and learning English listening at Hanoi University of Industry 16

2.1.1 The context of the study 16

2.1.2 The material description 17

2.2 The study 17

2.2.1 Research questions 17

2.2.2 Participants of the study 18

2.2.3 Data collection instrument 18

2.2.4 Methods of data analysis 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 21

3.1 Students‟ listening needs 21

3.1.1 Students‟ needs in the aim of listening in a course 21

3.1.2 Students‟ needs in term of lesson and knowledge 21

3.1.3 Students‟ needs in activities 22

3.1.4 Students‟ needs in topics 25

3.1.5 Students‟ needs in methods 26

3.1.6 Students needs at the end of a course 27

3.1.7 Students‟ needs in layout and practical concerns 28

3.2 Evaluation of the textbook New Headway Elementary for non –major freshmen at HaUI as perceived by the Ss and Ts 29

3.2.1 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of aim of listening 29

3.2.2 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of lessons and knowledge 30

3.2.3 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of listening activities 31

3.2.4 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of topics 34

3.2.5 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of methods used in listening periods 34

3.2.6 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of the student assessment 36

3.2.7 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of layout and grammatical concerns 36

3.3 Interview findings 38

3.3.1 Students‟ needs to improve their listening skills 38

3.3.2 Students‟ opinions on the book‟ changes in order to better meet their needs 39

3.4 Discussion of findings 39

3.4.1 Students‟ needs analysis 39

3.4.2 Evaluation of the textbook New Headway Elementary for non –major freshmen at HaUI as perceived by the Ss and Ts 40

PART III: CONCLUSION 42

1 Conclusion of the study 42

2 Recommendations for material improvements 42

3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 43

REFERENCES 45 APEENDIX I

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the thesis

Listening comprehension plays a key role in language learning Rost (1994,

as cited in Nunan & Miller, 1995) confirms that listening is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for learners Without understanding inputs at the right level, any kind of learning simply cannot occur Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency

An important issue in the teaching and learning of listening is the material Hutchinson and Torres (1994: 3) state that the material is “an almost universal element of English language teaching and learning” Tomlinson (2003: 2) also asserts that material “include anything which can be used to facilitate the learning of

a language.”

Among available material, careful consideration is needed in order to evaluate and choose the best materials The importance role of material evaluation has been recognised by many researchers and experts in foreign language teaching such as Ellis (1997) and Robinson (1991), who claim that material evaluation should be carried out not only to choose the most suitable for one‟s particular situation but also to determine whether the chosen ones work for that situation after having been used for a period of time It can also bring general insights into how teachers use materials and suggest directions both for materials development and professional development activities (Hutchinson & Torres, 1994)

At Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI), listening skills have been taught for

non-major English college freshmen based on the textbook New Headway

Elementary (the third edition by Liz and John Soar) for a long time From the

researcher‟s observation and professional experience as a teacher of English, teaching and learning listening skills have still faced some difficulties and the students‟ ability to listen English has not improved much However, no research has

been done to evaluate the listening skill section in New Headway Elementary

Therefore, an evaluation of listening skills in the textbook New Headway

Elementary from teachers and students‟ perspectives was carried out with an

expectation that a solution for the situation of teaching and learning listening skills

at HaUI with the textbook New Headway Elementary will be found

2 Aims of the study

New Headway textbook is used for first year students during two semesters

or twenty weeks Each unit is instructed in nine or ten periods of teaching and learning The listening component is studied in one or two periods The research aims to both evaluate the usefulness of the book and determine whether the textbook is suitable for teaching listening in the limited time More specifically, this study seeks to examine the following research questions

1 What are the non- major English college freshmen‟s needs when learning listening skills at HaUI?

2 To what extent does the current listening in-class component in New Headway Elementary meet their needs at HaUI?

3 Scope of the study

Due to the small scale of the study as well as the limitation of time, this study only focuses on evaluating the current listening component in the New Headway Elementary for non- major English college freshmen at HaUI from the perspectives

of the users of these materials (e.g the students and teachers taking part in teaching and learning with the New Headway Elementary in school year 2013-2014 The other components such as speaking, reading and writing are not within the scope of this study

4 Significance of the study

The findings of the thesis may serve as useful information not only for the researcher, the course book designers but also for the teaching staff and the non- major English college freshmen at HaUI It is also hoped that the thesis will make great contributions towards the development of the listening materials at HaUI

5 Method of the study

To achieve the aims stated, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used The data collected for the study come from two survey questionnaires (of 110

non- major English college freshmen at HaUI who have just finished studying New

Headway Elementary ,and 22 teachers who have taught non- major English college

freshmen using the textbook) and interviews from 10 random ones among 110 students

6 Design of the study

Part I: Introduction includes the rationale, aims, scope, significance and

methodology of the study

Part II: Development

Chapter 1: Literature review presents literature related to the study including

material and material evaluation such as definitions and classifications of materials and materials evaluation, and criteria for materials evaluation Theoretical backgrounds to listening and teaching listening includes definition of listening comprehesion, approaches to the teaching of listening skills, methods of teaching listening communicatively, and potential diffificulties in listening The last part is need analysis in language teaching and learning

Chapter 2: Methodology shows the procedure for carrying on the research

such as selection of sample, instruments for data gathering, and methods of data analysis

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion report the main findings obtained from

the data collection and discuss the prominent aspects

Part III: Conclusion, which is the last chapter, followed by references is the

summary of the whole study The limitation of the study and suggestion for further study are also recommended

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Materials in language teaching and learning

1.1.1 Definitions and Classifications of materials

According to Tomlinson (1998), materials will be considered anything which is used to help language learning Examples include: coursebooks, workbooks, CDs, flashcards, and CD-ROMs

Richard (2001) states that materials can be instructional, experiential, elucidative, and exploratory but they must provide experience of the language in use and help learners to make discoveries about the language

According to McGrath (2002), materials include those that have been either specifically designed for learning and teaching language (e.g textbooks, worksheets, computer software); authentic materials ( e.g off-air recordings, newspaper articles) that have been specially selected and exploited for teaching purposes by the classroom teacher; teacher-written materials; and learner-generated materials However, in the local setting, textbook seem to be most widely used material in the language program

As being a kind of materials, the textbook New Headway Elementary is used

in this study for evaluation of teaching and learning listening skills at HaUI

1.1.2 Roles of materials in language teaching and learning

In the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, materials are an important aspect of the curriculum They are the most observable feature of a teacher‟s methodology, and can contribute greatly to a course‟s syllabus (White, 1988)

Stressing on the role of materials, Richards (2001) points out that materials can serve as the basis for much of the language input that the learners receive and as the source for much of the language practice that occurs in the classroom Richards (2001) further explains that materials provide basis for the content of the lesson, the balance of skills taught, and the kind of language practice students take part in In

addition, good materials are of great help to inexperienced teachers and poorly trained teachers (Nunan, 1991) They can serve as “a form of teacher training” (Richard, 2001: 251) and teachers can get ideas on how to plan and teach the lesson from the materials

According to Bell and Gower (1998, as cited in Rubdy 2003: 39), materials

“provide teachers and learners with a range of professionally developed materials within tried and tested syllabus structures”, allowing teachers to spend their valuable time on facilitating learning than materials production Materials can be adapted and supplemented to meet the needs of specific classes

Obviously, according to all the authors above, materials are a key and crucial component in any language teaching and learning contexts, the teacher needs to take account of the roles as well as the requirements of materials when designing or selecting materials for his/ her own teaching situation to facilitate the most learning from the students

1.2 Materials Evaluation

1.2.1 Definitions of materials evaluation

According to Brown (1995), evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum and assess its effectiveness within the context of the particular institution involved It is understood that information be gathered and analyzed in a systematic manner and that only relevant information should be included, that is other information can be ignored

Nunan (1988) states that evaluation be “a process not a final product” that means it takes place at any time of the material design It is essential to determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are being attained

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) present that evaluation is really a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose “Given a certain need, and

in the light of the resources available, which out of number of possibilities can

represent the best solution? There is no absolute good or bad- only degrees of fitness for the required purpose”

In sum, it can be concluded that materials evaluation involves the determination of what needs to be evaluated, the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements determined

1.2.2 Materials evaluation in English language teaching and learning

Ellis (1997) gives two main reasons for carrying out materials evaluation The first reason is that there are too many materials available to choose, and it is needed to get the most suitable one The second one relates to a need for materials evaluation to determine whether the material which has been chosen works for that situation after it has been used for a period of time

Robinson (1991) adds that evaluation can be used as part of quality control The advantages and disadvantages as well as the effectiveness of the being used materials can be seen by evaluating Therefore, the decision choosing materials for language teaching and learning can be reused or it needs to be adapted to meet the need of the particular teaching situation or needs to be changed absolutely

In short, materials evaluation will provide the input for responsible people to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials

1.2.3 Criteria for materials evaluation

Criteria are what evaluators use to “reach a decision regarding what needs to

be evaluated” (Tomlinson, 1998: 220) Before evaluating materials, evaluators must know the definition of criteria Criteria for materials evaluation depend on what is being evaluated and why they need to be evaluated (Dudley – Evans and St John, 1998)

Ur (1996 ) presents a list of several criteria composed of nineteen features.These features include: objectives being explicitly laid out in an introduction and implemented in the material, approach educationally and socially

to the target community, clear attractive layout and easy print to read, appropriate

visual materials available, interesting topics and tasks, varied topics and tasks, clear instructions, systematic coverage of syllabus, clearly organized and graded content, periodic review and test sections, plenty of authentic language, good pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar explanation and practice, fluency practice in all four skills, encouraging learners to develop their own learning strategies and to become independent, adequate guidance for teacher; audio cassettes, and being readily available locally

Zabawa (2001) suggests a checklist of criteria for the Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE) textbooks that he argues will work for all EFL textbook This checklist considers 10 categories: layout and design, material organization, language proficiency, teaching reading comprehension, teaching writing, teaching grammar and vocabulary, teaching listening comprehension, teaching oral skills, content, and exam practice

Cunningsworth (2002) states a model of coursebook evaluation which contains 45 criteria in different domains such as the aims, design, language content, skills, and methodology He provided easy and useful cousebook evaluation checklists to assist people to have ideas how to evaluate coursebook and also provide great demonstrations for this reasearch

Harmer (1998) states that there are nine main areas which teachers should consider in the books they evaluate: price, availability, layout and design, methodology, skills, syllabus, topic, stereotyping, and the teacher‟s guide

The similarities in the above well-known authors‟ criteria for material evaluation can be summarized in the following table:

(1996 )

Zabawa (2001)

Cunningsworth (2002)

Harmer (1998)

Figure 1.1: Comparison different criteria for materials evaluation

From the table, it can be seen that several criteria stand out, including aim, lesson/ knowledge, activities, method, assessment, and layout and practical concerns These will be used in this study and will be more clearly presented in the chapter of methodology

1.3 Listening comprehension and teaching listening comprehension

1.3.1 Definition of listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is more than obtaining meaning from utterance It also involves a process in which students match utterance with what they already know about the topic When knowing the concept or the topic, they can activate their prior knowledge to get something from that knowledge which is needed for comprehending the message Brown (2001: 2) states “One very important idea for teaching listening is that listening courses must make use of student‟s prior knowledge in order to improve listening comprehension”

According to Buck (2001: 31), listening comprehension is an active process

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

sounds” in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge”

Vandergrift (1999: 168) states that “listening comprehension is an active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all the above and interpret it with the immediate as well as the larger context of the utterances”

To sum up, there are two points to note One of these is that listening is an active, conscious and complex process and the other characteristics is that listening

is the interpretation of what listeners hear It matches with what they already know

to comprehend the messages taken in The next one is that listeners do not receive information passively but applied and moderated their background knowledge to

assist the understanding of input actively Therefore, in the current study, the term

“listening” would be treated the same as the term “listening comprehension”

due to its learners‟ ultimate goal of listening is to comprehend what they hear as defined in this part

1.3.2 Communicative competence in teaching listening comprehension

English language teaching profession has changed tremendously in the light

of Communicative Language Teaching approach In order to use English effectively, learners need to develop communicative competence Therefore, it is important to teach listening skills in communicative approaches Canale and Swain (1980) and further developed by Canale (1983) provide the basis of the communicative competence by including a variety of competences, more precisely those of grammatical competence; sociolinguistic competence;

strategic competence; and discourse competence The grammatical competence refers to the linguistic features of language which involves

lexicon, pronunciation, spelling, word formation and sentence structure The

sociolinguistic competence is related to the sociocultural conditions that can affect

participants‟ language use The strategic competence involves a set of

strategies which may be used to solve any problem caused during the

communicative event Finally, the discourse competence is understood as the

ability to produce and interpret coherent and cohesive spoken or written texts

beyond the level of the sentence

In addition to this, Bachman and Palmer‟s model (1996) proposes a

communicative model which consists of organisational knowledge and pragmatic knowledge Organisational knowledge is composed of abilities which engage in a

control over formal language structures, i.e of grammatical and textual knowledge Grammatical knowledge includes several rather independent areas of knowledge

such as knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, syntax, phonology, and graphology

Textual knowledge enables comprehension and production of (spoken or written)

texts It covers the knowledge of conventions for combining sentences or utterances

into texts Pragmatic knowledge refers to abilities for creating and interpreting

discourse Two areas of knowledge are contained: knowledge of pragmatic conventions for expressing acceptable language functions and for interpreting the illocutionary power of utterances or discourse (functional knowledge) and knowledge of sociolinguistic conventions for creating and interpreting language utterances which are appropriate in a particular context of language use (sociolinguistic knowledge) Strategic knowledge is conceived in the model as a set

of metacognitive components which enable language user involvement in goal setting, assessment of communicative sources, and planning

It can be seen from models of Canale and Swain (1980), Canale (1983), and Bachman and Palmer (1996) that Bachman and Palmer‟s model is more complex, more comprehensive and much clearer than the model of Canale and Swain It is preferable because of its detailed and at the same time very organisational description of basic components of communicative competence

Beside the knowledge of language competences discussed above, English teaching methodology of teachers are greatly contributed, which entails different approaches, methods of language teaching and learning, activities and learning

styles, and the material This is to make sure that they can connect to evaluate the textbook New Headway Elementary for teaching listening skills

1.3.3 Three stages of listening sessions

There are often three main stages in a listening session They are: listening stage, while-listening stage, and post-listening stage Each stage has its own aims and activities

pre-Pre-listening stage

Pre-listening stage prepares student by getting them to think about the topic

or situation before they listen to the texts In other words, it gives students a purpose

to listen It also gets students to relate to what they already know about the topic and

arouses their interest in listening During pre-listening the teacher may

 assess students' background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content of the text

 provide students with the background knowledge necessary for their comprehension of the listening passage or activate the existing knowledge that the students possess

 make students aware of the type of text they will be listening to, the role they will play, and the purpose(s) for which they will be listening

 provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for background reading or class discussion activities

Post-listening stage

Post-listening stage involves activities related to a particular listening text (whether recorded or spoken by the teacher) which are done after the listening is completed

The purposes of post-listening activities are:

 To check whether the learners have understood what they need to or not

 To see why some students have missed parts of message

 To give the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speaker of the listening text

 To expand on the topic or language of the message and to transfer learned things to another context

 To make introduction for the planned work

1.3.4 Methods of teaching listening communicatively

Brown( 2001), Mangubhai ( 2002) state methods of teaching listening comprehension include:

a) Motivating students to focus on the learning objectives

Understanding the purpose of a particular listening comprehension activity clearly,

students may focus on essential vocabulary and grammar and listen for specific

information This will motivate them to doing activities more effectively

b) Applying appropriate teaching methods and techniques

It is important that teachers should apply the following methods and techniques

to make the lessons challenging, effective, and interesting to the students

Use a variety of activities

If a teacher always uses the same activities, they will become boring for students It is necessary to vary activities to stimulate the students‟ interest and challenge them with something new It is also important to consider activities that involve group work and problem solving and that instigate communication and listening comprehension development

1.3.5.Potential problems in learning listening comprehension

Underwood (1989) presents seven problems which learners often encounter

in learning listening Firstly, it is difficult for them to catch speakers‟ speed Secondly, the listeners are not able to get things repeated Another difficulty is learners‟ limited vocabulary The next, they are not able to recognize the „signals‟

by which a speaker can indicate that he/she is moving from one point to another, or giving an example, or repeating a point, or whatever Listeners‟ problems of interpretation are also mentioned by Underwood Students who are unfamiliar with the recording may have considerable difficulty in interpreting the words even if they can understand their „surface‟ meaning Especially, this can even occur when the speaker and listener are from the same background and use the same language Besides, inability to concentrate is a major problem to the listeners, because even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension The last problem is learners‟ established learning habits due to the fact that their teachers aim to teach them to understand everything in the English lesson Consequently, students are worried if they fail to understand a particular word or phrase when they are listening

Goh (2000) attributes ten listening comprehension problems in relation to three cognitive processing phases – perceptions, parsing, and utilization Firstly, learners reported most difficult ones are: „do not recognize words they know‟,

„neglect the next part when thinking about meaning‟, „cannot chunk streams of speech‟, „miss the beginning of texts‟, and „concentrate too hard or unable to concentrate‟ Secondly, listeners complained of problems such as „quickly forget what is heard‟, „unable to form a mental representation from words heard‟, and „do not understand subsequent parts of input because of earlier problems‟ Third, in the utilization stage, „understand the words but not the intended message‟ and

„confused about the key ideas in the message‟ were often mentioned (Goh, 2000) These reported difficulties partially reflect Underwood‟s (1989) views on second language listening problems

Yagang (1994) attributes the difficulty of listening comprehension to four sources: the message, the speakers, the listeners and the physical setting

As a whole, there are four main factors that contribute to the difficulty of listening comprehension: speaker factors, the listener factors, the content of the listening, and the physical environment The aforementioned potential listening problems have been chosen to be the basis of some items in the questionnaires on listening needs analysis (NA) in this study

1.4 Needs analysis (NA) in language teaching

From goal-oriented perspectives, needs can be defined as what students should be able to do at the end of their language course or “what the user-institution

or society at large regards as necessary or desirable to be learnt from a program of language instruction” (Mountford, 1981, p 27)

According to Brindley (1984), needs refer to wants, desires, demands, expectations, motivations, lacks, constraints, and requirements From this point

of view, needs of students may be in a great harmony or in opposition to the requirements of course designers

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) categorize two types of needs:

Needs

Targets needs Learning needs

Necessities Lacks Wants Psychological Attitudinal/ Material

Target needs are defined as “what the learner needs to do in the target situation” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p 54) They are broken down into three categories: necessities, lacks and wants Necessities are considered to be “what the

learner has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation” (p 55) Lacks are defined as

• Teaching and learning styles with which the learners are familiar

• Appropriate or ineffective teaching and learning methods

• Knowledge of specialized contents that teachers should have

• Suitable instructional materials and study location

• Time of study and status of English for specific purpose (ESP) courses

• Expectations about what learners should achieve in the courses

• How necessary the courses are for the learners

Wants mean learners‟ needs based on their data relating themselves and their environment Learning needs are understood as “what students need to do in order

to learn”

Needs analysis has been proven to play a crucial role in language teaching According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), a NA is usually seen as being most beneficial for an ESP course, “an approach to language teaching which aims to meet the needs of particular learners” (p 21) Nunan (1988) considers it as the initial process for the specification of behavioral objectives It is from these objectives that detailed aspects of the syllabus such as functions, topics, lexis and structures are derived The research to date emphasizes the significance of a NA for devising a course, writing textbooks or coursebooks, and the kind of teaching and learning that takes place (Robinson, 1991; Jordan, 1997) Yet it is recommended that a NA should be carried out continuously because “as students become more involved with the course, their attitudes and approach may change” (Robinson, 1991, p.15)

1.5 Summary

So far, the relevant literature which is needed to form the theoretical framework for the present study has been presented in this chapter It is hoped that they will be of great help for the next chapter, which deals with the actual procedures of the study: methodology, and data collection procedures

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Current situation of teaching and learning English listening at Hanoi

University of Industry

2.1.1 The context of the study

Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) was officially established in 2005 on the basis of Hanoi Industrial College where thousands of skilled workers and engineers are trained every year HaUI is in the process of reaching one of the great universities of Southeast Asia

All non- major students at HaUI learn English for five courses: New Headway Elementary is used in the first and second course, in next two courses they study New Headway Pre- intermediate and specialized English is learnt in the last one English contains six credits in each course

The English teachers in the Faculty of Foreign Language consists of 130 teachers aged 23 to 45 years old At present, most of them have M.A degree or are doing an MA course There are a lot of teaching methods such as communicative method or learner- centred approach, etc It good to say that communicative method

is applied in teaching and learning English at HaUI

A majority of students are at the age of 18- 22 Most of them come from urban areas and they have learnt English for 3 or 7 years However, the problem is that most of them do not consider English as their major, so they did not pay much attention to study English at that time Besides, they are not really interested in learning English, especially in listening and speaking Moreover, they have been familiar with the tradition teaching and learning method focusing on grammar The teachers must work a lot to help their students

Teaching and learning facilities at HaUI are well equipped with a projector, a computer, a cassette player and two loudspeakers at the corners of rooms Moreover, colour photocopied books are used in order to get more students‟ interest in problem is that the class size for an English lesson is about 50 to 55 students each which causes noise during listening lesson

2.1.2 The material description

As already mentioned, a textbook plays a crucial role in the language learning process The listening component in New Headway Elementary has been chosen as a subject of this study for the following reasons (adapted from Desislava, 2000):

a) The authors Liz and John Soars state that Headway Elementary has been designed for adults and young adults who want to use English both accurately and fluently and all four language skills are developed systematically (Soars & soars 1993)

b) New Headway Elementary covers the initial stage of language learning This makes it suitable to work with beginners and false beginners like non-major English college freshmen at HaUI

c) Each teaching unit is about a certain topic which is structured into sections: Grammar, Vocabulary, Everyday English, Reading, Speaking, Listening, and Writing In listening part, texts and discussions are used to help students activate their knowledge about topics And then they must listen to the tape to check their ideas and listen more to do some related exercises The students sometimes practise speaking skills using conversation pieces in this part

2.2.2 Participants of the study

This study was carried out with the participation of 22 full-time teachers and

110 freshman students who were teaching and learning English as a foreign language at HaUI The 110 students under investigation were in their first academic year These students and teachers were randomly chosen from first year students at HaUI They were asked and answered questions by the end of the academic year when they have just finished the textbook

2.2.3 Data collection instrument

2.2.3.1 Questionnaires

It is obvious that questionnaires, as a common tool to collect data in research

on applied linguistics, offer certain advantages As Seilinger and Shohany (1989) pointed out, questionnaires do not take much time to administer as other procedures Also, since the same questionnaire is given to all the subjects at the same time, the data are more uniform, standard and accurate Lastly, questionnaires can be easily quantified because multiple-choice questions are used Due to these advantages questionnaires were used as a main data collection method in this study

In this study, two sets of questionnaires were used to get information about the students‟ needs in learning listening skills as perceived by the Ss, and the Ss and Ts‟ views on the current listening in the textbook The questionnaire type constructed by the author belongs to both „close-ended‟ and „open-ended‟ items The steps of constructing the questionnaires were performed as follows: (1) Constructing and piloting the questionnaires; (2) Revising the questionnaires; (3) Delivering the questionnaires

The first set of questionnaires – students’ listening needs

The content of these questionnaires was based on the literature in chapter 2

to answer the first question of the study The first part of the questionnaires includes questions 1 about their aims in listening in a course From questions 2 to questions

7, it is hoped to find out the students‟ needs in lesson and knowledge Questions 8-

16 seeks students‟ needs in activities Students‟ needs of topics are asked from

question 17 to 19 Methods in the book are investigated from questions 20 to 23 Questions 24, 25 aim to find students‟ needs after the course Issues of layout and practical concerns are designed in next 3 questions

The second set of questionnaires – an evaluation of the listening component in the textbook New Headway Elementary

The second one is designed with same items in the first set of questionnaire

to answer the question number 2 of this study so that it can be found out the suitability of the book to the students‟ needs

The questionnaires for students and teachers contain the same questions Questions 29 in the teachers‟ questionnaire is designed to find out teacher‟s opinions for improving the book Since the students were freshmen, the author assumed that it would be hard for them to understand all questions so they were translated into Vietnamese (see Appendix 2 and 3)

2.2.3.2 Interviews

According to Brinkman (2008: 470), interviewing is a conversational practice whose knowledge is produced through the interaction between an interviewer and an interviewee or a group of interviewees They are useful for eliciting perspectives

In this study, interviews were carried out to obtain knowledge about students‟ personal perceptions on the students‟ listening needs and the current listening component in the textbook New Headway Elementary Since the student participants were all freshmen whose English was at a relatively low level, it was assumed that they might feel more comfortable expressing their ideas in their mother tongue when having an informal talk with the researcher Therefore, after the questionnaires on the matters above, unstructured interviews were conducted in Vietnamese to encourage the students to share their ideas about these matters Due

to limited time, in each interview, there were 10 participants randomly chosen among 110 participants

2.2.4 Methods of data analysis

2.2.4.1 Quantitative method

According to Jacobsen (2002), the fundamental starting point of the quantitative method is that the social reality can be measured by methods and instruments that give information based on numerical values This method was employed to analyze the date obtained from close-ended questionnaire items After each episode was coded, SPSS was used to produce the final data analysis results

2.2.4.2 Qualitative method

Qualitative data from the interviews and one „open-ended‟ question was analyzed in this study Each episode was coded and compared with every other episode for similarities and differences After that, analyzed data was grouped into categories, those categories were examined for how they were related to one another and then collapsed under a higher level category until the central category that explained most of variation in the data was revealed or „discovered‟

2.2.4.3 Data collection and analysis procedure

Data collection was conducted via the questionnaires for both teachers and the students First, the questionnaires were developed based on the criteria which are the most appropriate to this study And then, the Vietnamese questionnaires were given to the 110 students and they were requested to complete the questionnaires during the class time After that, 10 students were randomly chosen for interviewing

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents the data results, analysis and the discussions of these findings from the study

3.1 Students’ listening needs

3.1.1 Students’ needs in the aim of listening in a course

As can be seen from the figure 3.1, the students thought that it was important

to identify the aim of listening in the course This can be seen in the quite high percentage of students (23 64 %) choose the option 1(Strongly agree) and 64.55% students choose options 2(Agree)

Figure 3.1: Ss’ needs in the aim of listening in a course

3.1.2 Students’ needs in term of lesson and knowledge

Regarding the aim of lessons in term of listening in question 2, it was indicated clearly from the figure 3.2 that the largest components were “strongly agree” and “agree” Remarkably, most of the students stated that they needed clear lesson aims (54.5%) and 29.1% of them strongly agreed so None of them strongly disagreed with the statement Few of them did not satisfy or had no idea about it Regarding the vocabulary in question 3 and 4, the figure shows that there was

a strong agreement among the students about the suitable vocabulary to their level

(35.5% strongly agree and 53.6% agree) Almost all the students (90%) agreed that they needed interesting vocabulary Only 9% of the students were neutral and 0.9% disagreed with it Nobody had choice of “strongly disagree” Accordingly, the students‟ needs in vocabularies are positive

One of the basis for this view of listening comprehension is the listeners‟ grammatical (question 5) Understanding the importance of grammar structures, nearly 75% students agreed with the statement Hearing the sound is difficult for many learners because learners do not perceive certain English sounds with any accuracy because they do not exist in their first language Therefore, over 85 % students had desire of following sounds easily Going along with sound speed of the listening passage causes challenge for student It can be seen that the high percentage of agreement on ability to catch with the speed of the listening message

in question 7 was remarked

Figure 3.2: Ss’ in lessons and kowledge of the lessons

3.1.3 Students’ needs in activities

Students found the listening text less difficult when teachers presented background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content of the text through pre-

listening (question 8) It is good to see that 96% of students strongly agreed or agreed with this statement No one strongly disagreed to join these activities Only 1% was neutral with it Pre- listening activities conducted students to while – listening with various and suitable activities to students‟ level (question 9) Just when realizing the necessity of these activities, 27 % of the students chose the option 1, 67% of them got the second one and no one took the options 4 or 5 Nevertheless, there were 5.5% students were reluctant to choose doing various and suitable activities to their level In order to have an effective listening period, exercises after listening play an important role (question 10) Therefore, 82.7% of the students had agreement with the statement and 9.1% of strongly agreed However, still 8.2% students who did not find the questions after listening effective

or not Luckily, none of them were pessimistic in these three stages were not important

Figure 3.3: Ss’ needs in three stages of listening

Most students thought that they needed to take part in authentic and motivational activities, to be given suitable activities, to do activities from easy to difficult, to be well instructed in all activities, to join suitable pair and group activities

In term of authentic activities (question 11), the number of students strongly agreeing with this accounts for 26.4% and 62.4% students agreed with it No students thought they did not need to be taken in authentic activities

As can be seen from the result of question 12, the percentage of students agreed that they liked taking part in motivational activities was very high (81%) Only 2.7% students did not think that they needed motivational activities Nobody strongly disagreed with joining motivational activities

Most students wanted to be given suitable activities to the lesson aim (question 13) Therefore, over 85% of them had the options of “strongly agree” and

“agree” Exactly the same number chose “neutral”, “disagree” (7%), and even no one strongly agreed with it

Activities that are too difficult and challenging discourage students to take part in listening periods (question 14) Consequently, 85% students liked activities from easy to difficult Not surprisingly being seen 0% option of strong disagreement

When being asked about instructions of activities (question 15), the students said that they would perform better if all activities were well instructed 67.3% of them were optimistic about it with high percentage of respondents choosing

“agree” No one disagreed with this statement Moreover, 21.8% strongly agreed with it Few of them chose “neutral” (6.4%) and “disagree” (4.5%)

Pair or group activities (question 16) are very helpful in not only speaking skills but also listening skills Students were wise to say that they liked listening activities in pairs or groups through very high percentage of strong agreement (14.5%) and agreement (80%) Once again, no students had choice of number 5

Figure 3.4: Ss’ needs in activities

3.1.4 Students’ needs in topics

It can be seen clearly from figure 3.5 that there is a high level of agreement

on the significance of familiar topics in teaching and learning listening skills (question 17) Most students agreed that familiar topics were very important (23.6%) and important (66.4%) in teaching and learning listening skills Surprisingly, none of students thought that familiar topics were unimportant It

means that familiar topics should be taught and learnt

Beside familiar topics, interesting topics were mentioned, which got enthusiastic approvals from students (question 18) 20% students considered it very important and 69.1 of them thought it important The same with the above question, nobody found it unimportant

Learning a foreign language as well as learning listening kills, knowing various topics is very important (question 19) HaUI‟s students were interested in learning various topics with shown percentage (75%) in the figure 3.5 of question

19 In all three questions, none of students found them unimportant

Figure 3.5: Ss’ needs in topics

3.1.5 Students’ needs in methods

Teaching methodology is always vital in teaching and learning situation Thus, it is essential to take a close look at what the students need the actual teaching methods that teachers utilized during the teaching process of listening skill Notably and interestingly, seeing a number of students (almost over 80%) favoured with statement from questions 20 to 24 When being asked about motivation of focusing

on the listening objectives and clear listening context, 66.4% students found them important Most students (87%) liked being motivated to focus on the learning objectives and only 12.7% of them did not decide it importantly or not Happily, nobody found it not very important and unimportant Same activities make students bored, thus it should be varied activities to stimulate the students‟ interest and challenge them with something new Students shared their viewpoints with this statement, 25% of them considered it very important and 55.5% thought it important However, nearly 3% students did not consider they are encouraged to learning listening through activities This number is as same as the number of students who wanted to be passive in listening periods The left students (nearly 84%) indicated that they needed chances to be active in listening periods Moreover, the students reported that they expected to be explained clearly about the listening contexts (86%) The number of students chose the neutral option and not very

important one are equal (6.4%) As being shown in Figure 3.6, authentic recordings also contributed effective teaching and learning listening skills with 84% students were favourable of authentic recordings 1,8% students claimed that it is not important to listen authentic recordings No one said that authentic recordings were unimportant

Figure 3.6: Ss’ needs in methods

3.1.6 Students needs at the end of a course

In Vietnam, English has become popular and it is considered a compulsory subject at schools and universities Listening skills join partly in the process of learning English Thus, after synthesizing the statistics of the survey on question 24, the author met no surprise to find out that most students learn to listen for the purpose of passing the exam (over 75%) Besides, their needs of improving their listening skills (question 25) after the course also were recommended They found it important to improve their listening skills with quite high percentage (79.1%) In addition, 12.7% saw it very important No choice of unimportance was seen in two questions

Figure 3.7: Ss’ needs at the end of a course

3.1.7 Students’ needs in layout and practical concerns

Encouraging students in learning listening by using coloured textbooks, appealing illustrations is an interesting way of teaching and learning listening skills

As can be seen in questions 26, over 80% wished to own coloured textbook Following with textbooks, students liked to be given helpful visual materials such

as pictures, projector, video, etc As can be seen from the figure of question 27 below, one more the number of 80% said that it was important to access helpful visual aids Accessing recordings in good quality (noise, sound) (question 29) motivates students They hoped to be worked with good quality of recording (nearly 95%) Also, figure 3.8 displayed no one did not need to be given textbooks and recordings in good quality, helpful visual materials

Figure 3.8: Ss’ needs in layout and practical concerns

3.2 Evaluation of the textbook New Headway Elementary for non –major freshmen at HaUI as perceived by the Ss and Ts

3.2.1 Evaluation of the textbook in terms of aim of listening

Table 3.1: Ss and Ts’ overall judgment on textbook’s aim in terms of listening

According to the results presented in table 3.1, both the teachers and students had quite positive view of the clear textbook‟s aim especially in term of listening It can be seen in means (Ts‟ mean of 2.82 and Ss‟ mean of 2.95) That means the textbook‟s aim was clear enough for students to follow