Using some authentic techniques to enhance the 10th grades listening skill at nhu thanh high school

When teaching listening skill to the 10th grade students at Nhu Thanh High School the author find out that pre – listening stages and listening activities are very important in teaching

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Nowadays English has become an international language because it is widely used in many parts of the world English may not be the most spoken language in the world, but it is the official language in a large number of countries It is estimated that the number of people in the world that use English

to communicate on a regular basis is about 2 billion In the tendency of integration of the global economy, English is one of the effective communicative tools for everybody The role of English is considered to be very important in the fields of economics, politics, science, culture and education Especially, Vietnam’s official membership of WTO on 7th November 2006 opened a new door for integrating into the world economy Hence, more and more people want

to learn English to communicate with foreign partners, tourists, study tours; or getting good position in the work force

Thanks to the innovation of ways in teaching English which is stated by the MOET, English lessons are taught with four skills (speaking, reading, listening, and writing) in one unit Moreover, there exist three stages Pre -While - Post - teaching in one lesson This really helps students improve their skills beside the grammar exercises to pass the exams

Among these four skills, listening skill is the language modality that is used most frequently It has been estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their in - school information through listening to instructors and to one another Often, however, language learners do not recognize the level of effort that goes into developing listening ability Far from passively receiving and recording aural input, listeners actively involve themselves in the interpretation of what they hear, bringing their own background knowledge and linguistic knowledge

to bear on the information contained in the aural text Not all listening is the same; casual greetings, for example, require a different sort of listening capability than do academic lectures Language learning requires intentional listening that employs strategies for identifying sounds and making meaning from them

When teaching listening skill to the 10th grade students at Nhu Thanh High School the author find out that pre – listening stages and listening activities are very important in teaching listening and it also has significant effects on the students’ performance If students do not prepare well enough or if they are not motivated they can not listen well, they can not even listen any thing at all In addition, the listening tasks also have important effects on students’ listening skill Therefore, in this study I present some techniques which I have used successfully in classes of different sizes and levels to improve the students’ listening skill at Nhu Thanh high school

Based on the results of this innovation in teaching some changes and improvements could be applied in the author’s lessons, and some appropriate strategies needed to be designed with the hope that students will work more effectively in a listening lesson Hopefully that the results of this study would be shared with any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who is interested in this study

II AIMS OF THE STUDY

Listening, one of the two communicate skills, has always a significant position in language teaching Nevertheless, how to teach and learn listening effectively often poses great problems to both teachers and students For the teachers of English at high school, listening is considered a difficult skill to teach Some of them even ignore teaching listening skill and focus only on grammar exercises for the exams However, nothing is difficult if we, the teachers make decision to make it easier That is the reason why I start this study

with the title : “ Using some authentic techniques to enhance competence of

the 10 th graders’ listening skill at Nhu Thanh high school.

III RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study aims at finding answer to the following research question: How can some authentic listening techniques help the students at Nhu Thanh High School improve their listening skill?

How do Practical listening activities affect the students’ listening performance?

IV PARTICIPANTS

The subjects chosen for the research include 80 grade 10th non – major English students in class 10C1, 10C2 of Nhu Thanh High School with the survey questionnaires, and 7 teachers who are currently teaching English To be more specific, the teachers’ ages range from 30 to 44 Their experience of teaching English varied from 8 year to 20 years The research was carried out during the academic year 2016 - 2017 at Nhu Thanh High School

V METHODS OF THE STUDY

The study is basically a qualitative research, which employs the following methods:

1 Data is collected by means of three sets of questionnaires, one on the teachers and the others on the students in pre – improvement stage and post – improvement one The questions are of the three – kinds: close – ended questions, open – ended questions and scaling

2 Other sources of data come from listening tasks from the textbooks English

10 of the MOET The analysis of the data hopefully will bring about reliable findings useful for the teaching of listening to non – major students at Nhu thanh high school Thanh Hoa

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

I OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTIC TECHNIQUE.

Authentic technique is real activity It is a style of activity that encourages students to create a tangible, useful product to be shared with their world Once

an educator provides a motivational challenge, they nurture and provide the necessary criteria, planning, timelines, resources and support to accommodate student success The teacher becomes a guide on the side or an event manager, a facilitator not a dictator Processes become the predominant force and the content collected is organized appropriately into portfolios

Authentic techniques allow students to create a meaningful, useful, shared outcome They are real life tasks, or simulated tasks that provide the learner with opportunities to connect directly with the real world

II OVERVIEW OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION.

There have been differently points of view on the matter of listening

According to Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is ability to identify

and understand what others are saying This process involves understanding a speaker’s accent and pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary and comprehension of meaning An able listener is capable of dong these four thing stimulatory

Bulletin (1952), listening is one of the fundamental language skill It is a

medium through which children, young people and adult gain a large portion of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideas, sense of value, and their abreactions

Carol(1993) described listening as a set of activities that involve “the

individual’s capacity to apprehend, recognize, discriminate or even ignore

Wolvin and Coakley (1985) pointed out that listening is “the process of

receiving, attending to and assigning to aural stimuli” This definition suggests that listening is a complex, problem-solving skill The task of listening is more than perception of sound This view of listening is in accordance with second-language theory which considers listening to spoken language as an active and complex process in which listeners focus on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning, and relate what they hear

to existing knowledge

Recently, Imhof (1988) stated that listening is “the active process of

selecting and integrating relevant information from acoustic input and this process is controlled by personal intentions which is critical to listening”

Rost (2002) confirmed, “Listening is experiencing contextual effects” which can

be translated as “listening as a neurological event (experiencing) overlaying a cognitive event creating a change in a representation”

In the general meaning, listening is a critical element in the competent language performance of all learners, whether they are communicating at school,

at work, or in the community they truly need a good listening skill

III SOME FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE LISTENING PROCESS

Listening is a demanding process, not only because of the complexity of the process itself, but also due to factors that characterize the listener, the speaker, the content of the message, and any visual support that accompanies the massage

1 The listener

The interest in a topic increases the listener's comprehension; the listener may tune out topics that are not of interest A listener who is an active participant in a conversation generally has more background knowledge to facilitate understanding of the topic than a listener who is, in effect, eavesdropping on a conversation between two people whose communication has been recorded on an audiotape Further, the ability to use negotiation skills, such

as asking for clarification, repetition, or definition of points not understood; enable a listener to make sense of what they hear

2 The speaker

Colloquial language and reduced forms make comprehension more difficult The extent to which the speaker uses these language forms impacts comprehension The more exposure the listener has to them, the greater the ability to comprehend A speaker's rate of delivery may be too fast, too slow, or have too many hesitations for a listener to follow Awareness of a speaker's corrections and use of rephrasing ("er I mean That is ") can assist the listener Learners need practice in recognizing these speech habits as clues to

3 Content

Content that is familiar is easier to comprehend than content with unfamiliar vocabulary or for which the listener has insufficient background knowledge

4 Supporting equipment.

- Tape recorder, or CD, Listening laboratory

- Visual support, such as video, pictures, diagrams, gestures, facial expressions, and body language, can increase comprehension if the learner is able to correctly interpret it

IV THE STEPS IN A LISTENING LESSON

The teacher can facilitate the development of listening ability by creating listening lessons that guide the student through three stages: pre - listening, the listening task, and post – listening

Engage the learners in a pre – listening activity.

This activity should establish the purpose of the listening activity and activate the schemata by encouraging the learners to think about and discuss what they already know about the content of the listening text This activity can also provide the background needed for them to understand the text, and it can focus attention on what they listen

While listening tasks.

The task should involve the listener in getting information and immediately doing something with it

Engage in a post – listening activity.

This activity should help the listener to evaluate success in carrying out the task and to integrate listening with the other language skills The teacher should encourage practice outside of the classroom whenever possible

CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS

I THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL

Nhu Thanh high school’s board of managers always deeply care about the English teaching condition of the teachers and students The school has been equipped with full conditions about facilities for study like language laboratory, books, tapes, and radios However, after many years teaching English in this mountainous school, I have noticed the fact that the majority of students in this high school are afraid of learning English Moreover, they constantly have a heavy feeling in the English lesson, especially in a listening lesson In addition, there is a deep seated belief in their mind that they can not evenly listening any thing These are a truly barrier for the quality of students’ listening skill

Bearing in mind, I really indeed want to make students have a real enthusiasm about learning a foreign language, namely English subject and make students look forward to and hope for this subject without feeling bored

Or, how to help students be able to understand when listening to a foreigner? Therefore, I start on this study to try to find out the effect of some practical listening techniques to help my students integrate to the new world

II THE PRACTICAL SITUATION OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

1 The advantages of teaching listening lesson:

1.1 For students:

Most students in Nhu Thanh high school have studied English since they were in secondary school and the knowledge they are provided at this level of education is relatively high on grammar, vocabulary Most students are obedient and hard working

Some students themselves and their parents have realized the importance

of learning English so they have had the interest and considerable investment

in many aspects to this subject, and it is no longer considered a subordinate subject

1.2 For teachers:

Teachers have satisfied the school’s demand as well as education and applied the new teaching methods

Most teachers have long lasting experience in teaching English

2 The disadvantages of teaching listening lesson:

2.1 For students:

There are so many different students in class and the quality of each student is uneven

Many students haven’t determined the importance of English in the current period, so they aren’t aware of their own learning

Some students have a limited vocabulary so they can’t know understand the meaning of the words in listening materials

The number of students in classes is crowded, while there are only 40 cabins in the language laboratory Some of these machines couldn’t work properly

2.2 For teachers:

There are still some teachers who have difficulty in teaching listening skills and choose suitable material for each lesson

Teachers don’t assign the tasks to students clearly

Teachers don’t pay much attention to listening activities

2.3 Specific survey in classes 10C1, 10C2

I have use the whole procedure of teaching and learning similarly to all students of the classes of different sizes However, due to the limit of the study, I only focus to collect information from the learning engagement of two classes (C1, C2) during this process as the data for analysis

At the beginning of the academic school year 2016 - 2017, I have test students

on their listening skill and the statistics will be shown below

Survey: Practical Situation of learning Listening Skill at Nhu Thanh High School.

Questions for

students

1 Do you like

studying listening

lesson?

Very Much 10%

Not Very much 20%

Do not like 30%

Really do not like 40%

2.What do you

think of listening

skill?

Very essential 24%

Essential 50%

Not really essential 16%

Not essential at all 10%

3 Does the teacher

provide you with

suitable activities?

Really suitable 4%

Suitable 12%

Monotonous 41%

Really boring 43%

From the survey, we can see that even though listening skill is considered

to be very necessary, its importance has not been paid much attention in Nhu

Thanh high school Consequently, student often feel that listening is a difficult, boring skill to acquire

Basing on the Experimental English Curriculum of the National Foreign

Languages 2020 Project, I really want to help students to improve English

communication which will certainly bring them variety of chances in the work

force Then I decide to work on this research

CHAPTER 3:

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE STUDENTS’ ENGLISH

LISTENING SKILLS

I RECOMMENDATIONS

Basing on the result of the above survey, I personally found that it is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective listeners

In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom Listening is a pre – step to advance student in communicating in English thanks to the variety accent, vocabulary, etc

Therefore, I am going to give “Some authentic techniques to enhance competence of the 10 th graders’ listening skill at Nhu Thanh high school.”

II PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS

1 Using Authentic Pre – listening Activities.

To effectively activate the students' prior knowledge, I often use Top -down activities in my listening classes and will introduce some of them here in this study

1.1 Picture - Based - Questioning Activities.

I have used this many times with grade 10th learners because they are good at reading pictures If you want to check whether the students can name some of the items in the listening text, pre-listening "looking and talking about"

is an effective way of reminding the students of lexis which they may have forgotten or never known It will also help them to focus their attention on the coming topic This is very good for narrative or descriptive passages

In addition to this, usually teachers ask students questions after they finish listening Here my suggestion is giving them the questions before they listen to the target text This task more closely relates to what happens in the real world

We most often listen to the speaker to find answers to the questions in our minds, relating to a certain topic, or to confirm what we already thought to be true Pre - passage questions induce a selective attention strategy If we use a certain textbook, in which questions always follow a passage, we may ask the students to read the questions first By reading the questions, students may build

up their own expectations about the coming information, and also by trying to find answers to these questions, their prior knowledge on the topic can be

activated They can even have a framework of the organization of the passage to

be read if the questions are arranged in a well-arranged order

For instance, In unit 1: A Day In A Life Of… – Part C listening, students are

expected to answer the following questions before they listen to a passage

• Have you ever traveled by cyclo?

• What are the benefits of traveling by cyclo?

• What do you think a cyclo - driver often does everyday?

• Do you think that working as a cyclo is a hard work?

Ask the students to read the questions carefully, they will know the main idea of the passage is day in the life of a cyclo - driver, and the speaker will mainly talk about his activities

We can also use the student-generated questions by giving them a topic, letting them ask questions about what kind of information they would like to know, and then ask their classmates to give answers to the questions Before they listen to a dialogue between a policeman and a thief, tell them who the two speakers are, then ask what they may talk about You may also ask the learners

to role play the dialogue

1.2 Brain storming Activities.

Brain storming is originally an effective activity to evolve students to new lesson because this lets students to feel active to new lesson Consequently, teachers should take the advance of this kind of activity Some of the useful activities which the author of this innovation has used are presented below

1.2.1 Word association task.

This method helps to determine what prior knowledge students bring to

the new topic before they listen to the passage In teaching Part C: Listening,

in English 10 text book, Unit 5 Technology and you, students will be asked to

respond to a key word or phrase such as “ Using Computer” They can write

down as many words and phrases as possible in five minutes' time related to this topic, or they may write freely on this topic While they write, they should not worry about the words and sentences they write, just pay attention to the content The whole process takes about ten minutes The teacher can write down the main ideas on the board Then according to the information, the teacher should adjust his/her teaching plan The free association method of assessing background knowledge was originally developed as part of a pre-reading plan Later it was further developed as a measure of prior knowledge The learners are usually given three content words or phrases related to a topic and asked to write anything that comes to mind when they hear each word or phrase We can also use the semantic webbing method In this approach, teachers graphically connect the various concepts and key words surrounding a particular topic on the blackboard, helping students to see the possible relationship between ideas discussed Here we are not creating new knowledge, but making students aware

of the knowledge they already have by giving structure to the content

information This process will enable them to connect what they are going to learn with what they have already known

1.2.2 List making activity.

This teaching process can be done as group work Students can be divided into several groups to discuss the topic Usually each group will come up with different ideas After a few minutes, the instructor can ask the group leader to report their discussion results, and help them to put their ideas into appropriate groups and label them properly The students are encouraged to refer to a dictionary as they generate their ideas

When the text contains lists, even short lists of possibilities /ideas /suggestions or whatever, it is often a good idea to use list making as the pre-listening activity This way the students can use their lists during the pre-listening stage While the students make the list, they can use the words and phrases they have already known, or they can ask their partners to help Any checking type activity carried out while listening can then be limited to matching with known language This can increase the likelihood of students succeeding with the task

So it is a very motivating activity, especially for the lower level students

1.3 Regular - Song Listening Activity.

Since this activity aims at having students practice listening more frequently Teacher should hold this activity regularly to improve listening comprehension skill of students, not only for pre – stage in a listening lesson.

Normally in listening skill, the most typical reasons that lead to misunderstand the meaning of what we listen are possibly the different accent, speed of speaking, so the author has help students get acquainted to different accent by way of listening to English songs Moreover, listening skill in English itself is a communicative skill Students should be motivated to practice listening at home by themselves so that they can improve their communicative skill In this practical research I gave my student some English modern songs to practice listening Surprisingly, some students who dislike or even hate listening classes become more excited about listening lessons After 1 month, I hold a singing club in order that my students have chance to perform what they have learnt And the author found that most of the students not only are getting more and more interested but also more active in acting in front of their classmates

2 Using Authentic While - Listening Activities.

2.1 Gap filling Activities.

This technique can be done by way of emptying some words in a passage,

a dialogue or a sentence Then teacher asks students to listen to the tape spoken and then fill in that empty words However, the author suggests that in addition

to leaving out some blanks, teachers should give along some suggested words for student to choose from

2.2 Choosing Menu Activities.

In while - listening tasks, students are usually asked to listen to the tape and answer the questions This, however, may be a giant barrier for students since they may possibly get in stuck while comprehending the listening text The students are unable to understand the text thoroughly because of different accents, speed of speaking Although, choosing menu activities are not new type

of activities in English grammar exercise, in this innovation the author suggests that teacher can ease the listening tasks by way of choosing menu activities Some of them are multiple choice and true false statement questions By using this list of questions, it is certainly become easier for students to full fill their listening tasks

2.3 Rearranging activities.

This technique is done by giving the sentences, paragraphs, or pictures hiatus to students Students are asked to listen to the spoken text and then rearrange the sentences, paragraphs, or pictures in the right order By using this kind of activity students must concentrate on the text to get the meaning This activity also helps student to develop general skills; such as taking note, guessing

III SOME PRACTICAL LISTENING ACTIVITIES USED AT NHU THANH HIGH SHOOL

Example 1: Using “Picture – Based – Questioning Activities” Before students start listening.

Unit 14: THE WORLD CUP

Part C: Listening

Course book: English 10 Text Book (Published by the Ministry of Education and Training)

Task 1: You will here some information about Pelé, a famous Brazilian football player Listen and complete the table below.

(1) _ Born In Brazil

1956 (2) _

(3) First world cup Champion ship

(4) 1,200th goal

1977 (5) _