Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng của sự lo lắng đến việc nghe hiểu của học sinh lớp 12 trường trung học phổ thông Gia Viễn A.

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LƯƠNG THỊ THÚY HẰNG A SURVEY RESEARCH ON THE INFLUENCES LEFT BY ANXIETY ON LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 12th STUDENTS AT GIA VIEN A HIGH SCHOOL Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng lo lắng đến việc nghe hiểu học sinh lớp 12 trường Trung học Phổ thông Gia Viễn A M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hà Nội- 2016 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LƯƠNG THỊ THÚY HẰNG A SURVEY RESEARCH ON THE INFLUENCES LEFT BY ANXIETY ON LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 12th STUDENTS AT GIA VIEN A HIGH SCHOOL Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng lo lắng đến việc nghe hiểu học sinh lớp 12 trường Trung học Phổ thông Gia Viễn A M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Phan Văn Quế Hà Nội- 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED ABSTRACT ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED TABLE OF CONTENTS I LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED PART I INTRODUCTION III RATIONALE FOR THE RESEARCH III AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH V THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS V SCOPE OF THE STUDY V METHOD OF THE STUDY VI SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY VI DESIGN OF THE STUDY VII PART II DEVELOPMENT VIII CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW VIII Definition of listening comprehension VIII Significance of listening VIII Process of listening comprehension IX Anxiety IX Foreign Language Anxiety X Anxiety in listening comprehension Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER METHODOLOGY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED Restatement of research questions Error! Bookmark not defined The fitness of the research approach Error! Bookmark not defined Context of the study Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1 Setting of the study Error! Bookmark not defined 3.2 Listening skills in the textbook Error! Bookmark not defined 3.3 Participants Error! Bookmark not defined Research instruments Error! Bookmark not defined Data collection and analysis procedure Error! Bookmark not defined Summary Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 3.1 Students’ attitudes towards listening lessons and listening skill.Error! Bookmark not de 3.2 The students’ anxiety when learning listening Error! Bookmark not defined 3.3 Reduction of the listening anxiety Error! Bookmark not defined 3.4 Concluding remarks Error! Bookmark not defined PART III: CONCLUSIONS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED SUMMARY OF THE STUDY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 2.1 Select material of general interest level Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2 Use teachers’ prior knowledge of the material to guide the listeners.Error! Bookmark n 2.5 Use more teaching aids to support for listening lessons.Error! Bookmark not defined 2.6 Be sympathetic and sensitive to student anxiety about LC and FL learning Error! Bookmark not defined LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED REFERENCES XI APPENDICES ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale for the research English is the most popular language in the world It plays an important role in our social- economic life of human beings Indeed, it is no longer an issue They argued that English has become a world knowledge by the virtues of the political and economic progress made by English speaking nations in the past 200 years It is now the main of language books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports, international competitions, music and advertising Nowadays we live in the age of globalization so we need English language because it is the language of this age The number of foreign language learners is increasing, and foreign language educators and researchers have been putting efforts into teaching English more effectively Along with the desire to find more effective ways of teaching English, concern over dealing with learners’ negative feelings and attitudes while learning English has also increased This concern over learners’ negative feelings and attitudes is based on a few language learning theories proposed by a number of language researchers( i.e., Krashen, 1988; Onwuegbuzie, Bailey, & Daley, 1999; Young, 1991) A number of factors influence foreign language learning, and anxiety when learning a foreign language has been identified as one critical factor interfering with foreign language learning and achievements( Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1991) Among the many skills required to use a language( i.e., speaking, listening, reading, and writing), listening comprehension is at the heart of language learning Language learners are expected to understand what the interlocutor is saying in order to continue the conversation When learners have difficulty with listening comprehension, it is likely that their listening anxiety will increase, which in turn will negatively affect their performance Being exposed to a natural context and an authentic environment is claimed to be desirable for foreign language learning Hadley( 2001) asserted that learning and practicing language in meaningful contexts is more appealing; however, this way of practicing a foreign language is not always affordable or feasible Some foreign language learners may experience higher language anxiety when talking with native speakers face-to-face, and some may not have an opportunity for exposure to an authentic environment Many students may have experienced some degree of helplessness and anxiety when doing the listening comprehension In traditional listening classes, students are given listening materials but not taught “how” to listen Most of them not have appropriate listening strategies Ever since language teaching and learning have shifted from the teacher-centered model to the learner-centered model A number of studies have been undertaken from the students’ perspective Foreign language anxiety is one of the best predictors in accounting for individual differences in language learning success in second language acquisition( SLA), and that it is proved to be one of the most essential and influential affective factors At my upper secondary school, learning listening is a really challenging job; especially, in grade 12 because of students’ low levels of proficiency in term of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth And they are the reasons that cause the anxiety when listening of students The anxiety makes students find it difficult and tough to listen to and they are not confident enough to listening tasks successfully The study is based on the assumption that unless teachers understand students’ anxiety, their teaching of listening comprehension will never be efficient and effective Although it is important to understand students’ anxiety so as to provide them with needed support, not a single study on the upper secondary school students’ perceptions of the anxiety they have faced with in comprehending the listening tasks in the textbook Being a teacher of English, I myself think that it is essential to a research on students’ listening anxiety so I decided on choosing the topic “A survey research on the influences left by anxiety on listening comprehension of grade 12th students at Gia Vien A High school.” Aims and objectives of the research The main purpose of the study is to investigate the anxiety of 12th grade students towards learning listening skill It also proposes some suggestions to minimize the influences on students when learning listening skill With the above aims, the objectives of this study were as follows: • Examining the effect of anxiety on students in listening lessons • Investigating the degree of these influences on students’ listening comprehension • Proposing some suggestions to minimize the negative effect on students when learning listening skill The research questions With the given aims and objectives, the study implies two research questions: - Does the anxiety have any influences on listening comprehension of grade 12th students at Gia Vien A high school? - What are the effects and sources of foreign language listening anxiety as well as suggested ways to reduce listening anxiety? Scope of the study The survey research was conducted at Gia Vien A High school, Ninh Binh province Because of limited time, it only focused on investigating the influences of anxiety on listening comprehension of grade 12th students, the sources and the degree of the impact The participants were 69 students from four classes 12B1, 12B3, 12B6 and 12B9( answer the questions in questionnaire), 10 students( answer the questions in interview) from classes 12B2, 12B4, 12B7, who are non- English major students 5 Method of the study The study was carried out by some steps as follows: First, the survey questionnaire for students was employed to find out the sources and effect of anxiety when learning listening skill Second, class observation was designed to study students’ performance in listening lessons After that, semi- structured interview was conducted in order to: Survey students’ perception on the magnitude of learning English and listening skill in students’ learning English Study the factors that cause their anxiety Find out the influences left by anxiety in their listening comprehension and their way of going on the lessons Then, the data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain realistic results To end with, pedagogical implications for minimizing students’ anxiety in learning listening skill will be proposed based on the results found from all data collection instruments Significance of the study The study has been conducted with the expectation that the findings will help students of English at Gia Vien A High school acknowledge the significance of the impact of anxiety when learning listening comprehension, which forces them to reduce the anxious emotion before listening, spend more time and effort preparing the listening lessons Still, the researcher harbors the hope that the teachers will understand their students’ anxiety, study the reasons for such anxiety, from which they will know how to foster positive attitudes or motivation and eliminate the anxious emotion of their students so as to help them obtain progress and fruitful achievements in learning English and English listening comprehension Design of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part I: Introduction presents the rationale of the study, the aims, the research questions, the significance, the scope, the method and the design of the study Part II: Development includes three chapters: Chapter 1: Literature Review, which reviews the theories on listening and English learning anxiety in listening comprehension Chapter 2: Methodology, describes the participants, the setting of the study involving the school, textbook Moreover, this chapter shows how the researcher applied the data collection instruments and her procedure of conducting the study Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings, in which the researcher uses both qualitatively and quantitatively method to study and analyze the Figure and collected information Part III: Conclusions, which summarizes all findings explored and brings out useful suggestions for the students to reduce their anxiety in learning listening skill An overall picture of what has been done in this study and suggestions for further studies are also included in this part PART II DEVELOPMENT Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of listening comprehension Listening comprehension is a process, a very complex process, and if we want to measure it, we must first understand how that process works An understanding of what we are trying to measure is the starting point for test construction The thing we are trying to measure is called a construct, and our test will be useful abd valid only if it measures the right construct( Gary Buck, 2001) And listening comprehension encompasses the multiple processes involved in understanding and making sense of spoken language These include recognizing speech sounds, understanding the meaning of individual words, and/or 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 speakerspecific attributes (e.g., to what information the speaker has access and about what he/she is likely to be talking) For longer stretches of language or discourse, listening comprehension also involves significant memory demands to keep track of causal relationships expressed within the discourse( Fred R.volkmar, 2013) Moreover, listening comprehension refers to the understanding of the implications and explicit meanings of words and sentences of spoken language.” ( CDE Guidelines for Identifying Students with Specific Learning Disabilities, 2008) Significance of listening Listening is the first language mode that human beings acquire It provides the firm basis for all aspects of language and instinctive reflex development, and it plays a very important role in the processes of communication A journal by Tiffany P Hogan, Suzanne M Adlof & Crystle N Alonzo( 2014), listening comprehension has a huge effort on reading comrehension starting even in the elementary grades It also highlights a growing number of children who fail to develop adequate reading comprehension skills, primarily due to deficient listening comprehension skills Bulletin( 1952, cited in Naizhao Guo, 2005, p.3) said, listening is the fundamental language skill It is the medium through which people gain a large portion of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation In this day of mass communication, much of it oral, it is of vital importance that students are taught to listen effectively and critically According to second language acquisition theory, language input is the most essential condition of language acquisition As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role in students’ language development Process of listening comprehension Rost( 2002, cited in Masanori Tokeshi, 2003, p.27) said, the most common two-levels view is bottom-up processing and top-down processing In bottom-up processing listeners first attend to individual phonological units, and decode a larger unit of input in hierarchical order, from vocabulary to structures, and arrive at the meaning of the discourse In top-down processing, listeners make inferences on the basis of background information, contextual information and expectation Listening comprehension is considered to be an interactive process of bottom-up processing and top-down processing by utilizing linguistic and non- linguistic information( Rost, 1994, p.32; Nunan, 1999, p.221; Buck, 2001, p.1, cited in Masanori Tokeshi, 2003, p.27) Anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behavior, such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination( Seligman, M.E.P.; Walker, E.F.; Rosenhan, D.L.) According to Arlington( 2013, p.189), anxiety is a feeling of fear, uneasiness, and worry, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is only subjectively seen as menacing The anxiety also can be “a mental block that prevents acquirers from fully utilizing the comprehensible input they receive for language acquisition”( Krashen, 1985, p.3, cited in Fang Xu, 2011, p.1709) This block, called “the affective filter”, might be because “the acquirer is unmotivated, lacking in self-confidence, or anxious”( Krashen, 1985, p.3, cited in Fang Xu, 2011, p.1709) Anxiety always makes us nervous and affects on our performance in many aspects of life of human beings The feelings of anxiety and nervousness are intimately connected to the cognitive side of anxiety, which is worry Eysenck( 1979, cited in Fang Xu, 2011, p.1709) says that worry wastes energy that should be used for memory and processing on a type of thinking which in no way facilitates the task at hand Classroom anxiety became extreme for the student with the lowest proficiency It is helpful for teachers to understand the pressures felt by learners in the classrooms Foss and Reitzel( cited in Fang Xu, 2011, p.1710) suggested that knowledge and skills can best be dealt with through role play, drama, and oral interpretation Foreign Language Anxiety As the number of English learners is constantly increasing, English education is concerned more and more As MacIntyre, P D.; Gardner, R C.( 1994, cited in Shabnam Amini Naghadeh, Mansour Amini Naghadeh, Naser Amini Naghadeh, Hasan Aminpour, 2013, p.85), foreign language anxiety is the feeling of unease, worry, nervousness and apprehension experienced when learning or using a second or foreign language As Fotos( 1998, cited in Shabnam Amini Naghadeh, Mansour Amini Naghadeh, Naser Amini Naghadeh, Hasan Aminpour, 2013, p.85), these feelings may stem from any second language context whether associated with the productive skills of speaking and writing, or the receptive skills of reading and listening However, unlike English as a second language( ESL) instruction, EFL instruction in East Asian countries has focused on reading and writing for the last few decades) He says that nowadays, EFL curricula also emphasize the importance of oral and listening skills in English Because of the REFERENCES Argaman, O., & Abu-Rabia, S (2002) The influence of language anxiety on English reading and writing tasks among native Hebrew speakers Language, Culture and Curriculum, 15(2), 143-160 Arlington (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth ed.) 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The Modern Language Journal, 75(4), 426-437 48 Zhou, Dandan (2003) Listening anxiety and affective strategies the in second language classroom Foreign Language Teaching Abroad, 3, 56-58  ... LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 12th STUDENTS AT GIA VIEN A HIGH SCHOOL Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng lo lắng đến việc nghe hiểu học sinh lớp 12 trường Trung học Phổ thông Gia Viễn A M.A Minor Programme Thesis... students from four classes 12B1, 12B3, 12B6 and 12B9( answer the questions in questionnaire), 10 students( answer the questions in interview) from classes 12B2, 12B4, 12B7, who are non- English... listening comprehension of grade 12th students at Gia Vien A High school.” Aims and objectives of the research The main purpose of the study is to investigate the anxiety of 12th grade students towards