Some suggested strategies to encourage high school students to learn listening skill

TABLE OF CONTENT INTRODUCTION………………………………………… 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Subjects of the study 1.4 Research methodology 2 CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 The process of listening 2.1.2 The priciples for teaching listening .4 2.2 Practical background 2.3 Solutions to the problems 2.3.1.Suggested strategies 2.3.1.1.What Should Teachers Do ? 2.3.1.2 Helping Students Focus on Meanings,Not Just Words .9 2.3.1.3 Selecting Materials 10 2.3.1.4 Using Texts and Tapes or CDs 11 2.3.1.5 Arranging Engaging Activities 11 2.3.2 Applying the study in teaching 12 2.4 Effectiveness of the teaching experience 17 CONCLUSION………………………………………… 18 REFERENCES……………………………………………………… 19 Some INTRODUCTION: 1.1 Rationale: The application of the new English textbooks at high school level in the year 2006 has made Vietnamese teachers and students more familiar with listening skill However, there come two trends when teachers respond to the task of teaching listening to their students Some may think, "Wow, this is an easy class to teach!" or some may feel, "Boy, this is going to be boring!" Both of these responses are common ones, but actually they not reveal how difficult it is for students to listen and comprehend a foreign language, nor how challenging it can be for a teacher to help them If you have taught listening, you may have noticed that your class is divided between those that seem to manage to "get" a fair amount, and those that struggle to understand recorded materials I have observed that a class often contains three types of students: those who have grasped the process of listening, those who understand certain aspects of the process, and those who really have no idea about how to listen in a foreign language Those in the first group will continue to progress in their listening ability as they build their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary Once they know how to listen, they can continually apply those principles Those in the second group may slowly improve their listening However, those in the third group may flounder with little progress, no matter how many listening exercises they What is the problem? What makes one student a successful listener while another does not seem to progress at all? Certainly, knowledge of grammar and vocabulary are essential to good listening, but they are not enough; some students who have memorized many words, and can well in grammar exercises, still have a difficult time understanding spoken English A student must have a good technique for listening While all of us have learned to listen in our native language with little training or conscious effort, only a small number of students intuitively know how to listen in a second language Many students not only come to listening activities with little knowledge of how the listening process works, but also with serious misconceptions about what will make them successful in listening Our role as teachers includes planning and managing the activities of the classroom, but we also have another role, which is to coach students as they learn The coach' s job is to watch what the player/student is doing, see where he is going wrong, and help him find more effective ways of completing the task Many students like to be told explicitly how to study, which means pointing out not only the ineffective techniques they are using, but also the incorrect ideas on which those techniques are based In this study, I would like to focus especially on what is needed to help those listeners who are not progressing in their listening skills 1.2 Aims of the study: Teacher: Page Some The study aims to: + Analyze the major cause to the students’ reluctance to get more involved in learning and practicing listening + Suggest some strategies so as to change students’ attitude toward listening skill and some ways to select appropriate materials to attract students’ attention in listening lessons 1.3 Subjects of the study: + The students in 10th grade at Ha Van Mao high school 1.4 Research methodology: + Reading reference books + Discussing with other teachers + Applying in teaching + Observing and drawing out experiences Teacher: Page Some CONTENT: 2.1 Theoretical background: 2.1.1 The Process of listening A variety of new insights into the listening process have been developed in the past 15 years, and yet there are two points on which most researchers and teachers continue to agree: First, listening is an active rather than a passive process, and second, listening is both a top-down and a bottom-up process We can see that listening is active because there is often a great difference between what is said and what the listener hears It is obvious that the listener is constructing his or her own meaning, which sometimes corresponds to the speaker' s meaning, and sometimes does not This happens both in our native language and in a second language This is sometimes described as an "interactive" process, where both the input and the activity of the listener' s mind interact to form an understanding Researchers also tend to agree that the listening process contains both bottom-up and top-down elements Bottom-up processing refers to the listening processes that start with discriminating sounds, identifying words, and comprehending grammatical structures, and build eventually to the comprehension of meaning This is a somewhat mechanistic or "data-driven" (Brown 1994: p67) view of processing, and has been the focus in some styles of teaching Top-down processes may be described as holistic or "conceptually driven" (Brown 1994: p68) in that they focus on the overall meaning of a passage, and the application of schemata Schemata are mental frameworks based on past experiences which can be applied to and help us interpret the current situation Inferring ideas, guessing words' meanings, and identifying topics are all examples of top-down processing Figure lists various examples of bottom-up and top-down exercises Figure Examples of bottom-up and top-down exercises (adapted from Brown 1994) Exercises for bottom-up processing Exercises for top-down processing - discriminating sounds - listening for emotions - listening for word ending - getting the gist - discriminating intonation patterns - recognizing the topic - word recognition - finding main ideas - recognizing reduced forms ( for - making inferences example, "didya"?) and linked words - making and checking predictions - using stress to understand words and - using background knowledge to fill in find key ideas gaps - using organizational cue words - identifying discourse structures and speaker's purpose It is useful for students to recognize the importance of both of these types of processing, and for teachers to arrange opportunities to work on both Teacher: Page Some aspects Generally, bottom-up exercises will be more useful for beginners, and top-down exercises will be more necessary for intermediate and advanced students, but both types should be used for all levels Recently, teachers have put much stress on activating students' schemata, that is, helping them anticipate a situation and what they may hear based on their previous knowledge In some circumstances this could also involve the teacher introducing cultural background, and thus beginning to help students build a new schema The ability to anticipate and guess may be less developed in students from a traditional learning system; thus, teachers may need to show students how to make use of schemata properly to increase their comprehension Similarly, teachers may need to help students see how to take information from within a passage and make inferences from it While students may need much help in these areas, teachers need to make sure not to ignore bottom-up exercises that are also critical for improving listening 2.1.2 The principles for teaching listening a Expose students to different types of processing information: bottom up vs top down The bottom up vs top down processing of information has been proposed by Rumelhart and Ortony (1977) and expanded upon by Chaudron and Richards (1986), Richards (1990) and others The distinction is based on the way learners attempt to understand what they read or hear With bottom up processing, students start with the component parts: words, grammar and the like Top down processing is the opposite Learners start from their background knowledge, either content schema (general information based on previous learning and life experience) or texual schema (awareness of the kinds of information used in a given situation).There is also interactive processing The use of the combination of top down and bottom up data processing is called interactive processing b Expose students to different types of listening: Any discussion of listening tasks has to include a consideration of types of listening Here tasks as well as text should be considered When discussing listening text refers to whatever the students are listening to, often a recording The most common type of listening exercise in many textbooks is listening for specific information This usually involves catching concrete information including names, time and so on At other times students try to understand in a more general way This is global or gist listening In the classroom this often involves tasks such as identifying main ideas, noting a sequence of events and so on But these two types of listening not exist in isolation Inference is another critical type of listening This is “listening between the lines”- that is, listening for meaning that is implied not stated directly It is a higher level skill c Teach a variety of tasks Learners of listening need to work with a variety of tasks Since learners the task as they listen, it is important that the task itself does not demand too Teacher: Page Some much production of the learner If for example a beginning level learner hears a story and is asked to write a summary in English, it could well be that that the learner understood the story but is not yet at the level to be able to write the summary It may also be the case that they fail to respond even though they understand It may so happen that they understood at the time but forgot by the time they got to the exercise In this example of a summary task based on a story, it may be better to have a task such as choosing the correct summary from two or three choices d Consider text, difficulty, and authenticity Spoken languages are very different from written language It is more redundant, full of false starts, rephrasing and elaborations Incomplete sentences, pauses, and overlaps are common Learners need exposure to and practice with natural sounding language When learners talk about text difficulty, the first thing many mention is speed, indeed which can be a problem But the solution is not to give them unnaturally slow, clear recordings Those can actually distort the way the language sounds Speed, however, is not the only variable Brown (1995) talks about “cognitive load” and describes six factors that increase or decrease the ease of understanding - The number of individuals or objects in a text - How clearly the individuals or objects are distinct from one another - Simple relationships are easier to understand than complex ones - The order of events - The number of inferences needed - The information is consistent with what the listener already knows Any discussion of listening text probably needs to deal with the issue of authentic texts Virtually no one should disagree that texts students work with should be realistic However, some suggest that everything students work with should be authentic However the issue of authenticity is not so simple as it sounds Most of the recordings that accompany textbooks are made in recording studios And recordings not made in the studio are often not of a usable quality Brown and Menasche (1993) suggest looking at two aspects of authenticity They suggest this breakdown: - Task authenticity - Input authenticity e Teach listening strategies In considering listening, it is useful to note the items Rost (2002, p 155) identifies as strategies that are used by successful listeners *Predicting: Effective listeners think about what they will hear * Inferring: It is useful for the listeners to listen between the lines * Monitoring: Good listeners notice what they and not understand * Clarifying:Efficient learners ask questions and give feedback to the speaker * Responding: Learners react to what they hear Teacher: Page Some * Evaluating: They check on how well they have understood 2.2 Practical background: After conducting observation, unstructured interview with several of my own students, I found that problems are clearer than ever before The following part mentions what problems I have found listening skill at Ha Van Mao High school Why Do Students Have Trouble in Listening? In some cases, students may lack specific bottom-up and top-down listening skills In other cases, they not have a vocabulary large enough nor a sufficient grasp of the structures of English for the materials they are listening to There are two other things that may specifically interfere with students' listening: their misconceptions about how to listen and their fears of failure Since we all learned to listen in our mother language without much effort, we may not be aware of how we learned to listen Therefore, it is easy to make incorrect assumptions about what will lead to successful listening One misconception students may have is that when they listen in their native language, they pay attention to and remember every word; they thus assume that this is what they should in a foreign language Actually, native speakers can listen to and comprehend 30 phonemes per second (Chastain), but we obviously not pay conscious attention to each of them— they seem to be instantly processed and are not stored in memory Much research shows that for listeners, most storage in memory is the storage of meanings rather than the exact forms that the speaker used Whether in our native language or a foreign language, only on rare occasions we pay attention to the exact words that were used We regularly have evidence of this when we discuss with a friend what a third person said Going back and reconstructing the exact wording is often a challenge because in most cases (except those we regard as critical) we almost immediately dispose of the exact words, and only retain the meanings In a foreign language, listeners need to learn to process sounds quickly, and while they must initially pay conscious attention to this processing, the process needs to become automatic in order to improve their listening ability Naturally, when listening to a complex passage, an unusual accent, or an entirely new idea, anyone has to pay more attention to individual sounds and words, but students should be taught that they not need to concentrate so much attention on consciously processing each sound or word in ordinary situations Another common misconception students may hold is that they understand everything they hear in their mother language They forget that there are times when they mishear or misunderstand another' s words There are other times when native listeners not understand, and simply choose to let something pass because they not perceive it to be important In addition, students may not consider that they often make inferences, because the Teacher: Page Some speaker' s message was somewhat ambiguous or because the speaker only gave the minimal information needed if they believe a listener has the necessary background knowledge Because everyone does this so easily in their mother tongue, they are not always aware of it, and it is not always easy to apply these same strategies to foreign language listening Thus it may be useful for teachers to make students aware of these misconceptions by helping them realize that listening in their native language requires less attention to specific words and more guessing than they may have thought Fear also interferes with students' ability to listen One of the most common fears students have is that not understanding a word will keep them from understanding the meaning of a sentence Actually, this may often be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because when students cannot understand a word, they stop listening and, while puzzling over that one word, may miss several phrases If instead they listened to the rest of the sentence, rather than worry over that one word, they might well guess the word from the context, or at least not miss so much of the material that follows Because this behavior belongs to the affective or emotional region of learning, it is not easy for teachers to change this fear response However, making students aware of the fact that they can understand a sentence without hearing or understanding one of the words should increase their confidence Listening causes anxiety for students for another reason: Unlike in reading, listeners cannot control the rate at which information comes to them In the case of conversation, they may be able to ask the speaker to repeat information or slow down, but in many other listening situations (such as listening to a lecture or radio program), they will hear the information only once and cannot adjust the rate Students are aware of these problems, and are often quite anxious about them To address this problem, teachers can help students see how much redundancy exists in speaking, and how much they can infer from the immediate context and more generally from the schemata In addition, as students see that their goal is to get main ideas and important details, they realize that there is not such a great need to understand and remember every word Exercises in the listening classroom may also increase students' performance anxiety They may feel a pressure, whether internal or external, to get the right answer immediately In addition, lack of success can cause them to anticipate that they will not understand and lead to a spiral of expecting failure and then actually failing It is vital for teachers to give appropriate tasks and training so students can frequently experience success in their listening It is especially important for teachers to have realistic expectations for what their students will be able to hear and remember, so that they will not feel they are always struggling with listening activities 2.3 Solutions to the problems: 2.3.1 Suggested strategies: Teacher: Page Some 2.3.1.1 What Should Teachers Do? One of the first things a teacher may want to is discover what students understand about the listening process and help to correct misunderstandings (Figure lists various strategies to discuss) This could be done by giving a survey, collecting written paragraphs, questioning a small group, or having a class discussion which would help in finding out what students expect or believe about successful listening If they have misconceptions about the importance of listening to every word, or have not considered the importance of applying background information, then a teacher can plan lessons to emphasize these points Having students analyze miscommunications in their native language might also be useful in helping them consider how they listen in their own language Similarly, if students have not grasped the importance of bottom-up skills, then a teacher would certainly want to pay attention to these skills Figure Listening strategies to share and discuss with students - When listening to a taped text only once, practice making a quick estimation of the topic from hearing just the first one or two sentences - Listen for repeated words, related words, and concepts to find key ideas - Be prepared to change gusses-to evaluate if you anticipation or guesses are actually correct in light of information you hear later in the passage - Try to guess how various details may fit together into one main idea - Think carefully about what you already know on the subject, and balance this with being prepared to hear new ideas about the topic ( Richard-Amato) - Focus attention as completely as possible on what being said - Relax and let the ideas flow into your mind - Do not be upset if you not understand everything - Relate what you hear to what you already know - Listen for key words and ideas - look for overall meaning - Do not be afraid to ask relevant questions about meaning when it is appropriate - Make guesses about what is being said - In conversation, check out your guesses by using confirmation checks, for example, " Is this what you are saying?" - Whenever possible, pay attention to the forms fluent speakers of target language are using and check if they match your own - Keep a notebook to write down what you have learned: new words, meanings, concepts, structures, idioms, etc Before the class listens to a text, a teacher will usually want to help students think about a schema for what they will be listening to This includes telling them if they will hear a story, dialogue, excerpt from the radio, or lecture Knowing this information can help them be more mentally prepared Teacher: Page Some for what they will hear Introducing new, difficult, or important vocabulary can also help them begin to anticipate what they will hear In addition, a teacher may first want to ask students to predict from the title or a picture what they will hear Asking this question and giving students a few minutes to think it over, and perhaps briefly letting them tell their ideas to a partner, will help them set up schemata so that they can fit what they hear into some sort of framework Students need to be warned that sometimes they will anticipate incorrectly and that it is important for them to check their guesses and at times correct them One of the maxims in listening classes today is that it is the teacher' s job not only to prepare students for what they will hear, but also to set up a purpose for them In real life, we "tune out" when we lose a sense of purpose for listening, which explains students falling asleep in class and friends' complaints of "Are you listening?" Thus each time students listen to a passage, teachers should give them a purpose The purpose could be broad, such as, "Listen for the general idea." However, the more specific the better - for example, "What does the speaker want to persuade us to do?" With an easy text, or one that students have heard several times, the purpose could be to listen in order to retell the story In other cases, it could be to listen for specific information 2.3.1.2 Helping Students Focus on Meanings, Not Just Words There are several ways to help students worry less about paying attention to each word Exercises that require them to make a response concerning meaning rather than to recall specific words or phrases will help with this An example would be giving several pictures and asking students which one is described in the listening material Another type of exercise is asking students to find the topic of a passage Similarly, two or three general comprehension questions that focus on summary ideas rather than details may help them to focus on meanings rather than individual words As mentioned above, teachers can help students see that important ideas often come up in a text in different ways Some texts may be suitable for introducing students to the fact that informal language often includes redundant features Stories and authentic dialogues are especially useful for this type of activity If students listen to a text and look at a transcript, they can see instances where ideas are repeated or elaborated and words that are used merely as fillers This can help them see that not all words or even all ideas are essential to understand a message In addition, teachers can present texts from which they have removed words, sentences, or clauses, and show students that they can understand the ideas even though there are gaps Though listeners not need to catch every word to comprehend meaning, they need to guess information given in some of the gaps Many students need help in learning how to use context to guess words or phrases they have not heard clearly A teacher can sometimes help by identifying a word or idea Teacher: Page 10 Some that students have missed, and asking them to find related ideas which they may have heard and understood When doing exercises related to guessing words from context, it is useful to ask students to identify the clues that helped them guess (when possible) Guessing the right answer is only part of the solution; being able to identify useful clues shows they have acquired a valuable long-term skill Students may be more willing to make guesses as they listen and anticipate in advance, if they not need to put their ideas before the entire class, or if they not feel they will be judged by the teacher on their success or failure Thus it may be wise to ask them to write down ideas they anticipate before they listen or answers that they may not be sure of when they are checking answers An alternative is to have them verbalize these ideas with a partner, which can help them gain ideas from one another and think more broadly They can also have a sense of competition—to see whose idea is correct if their guesses are different and gain confidence if their guesses are similar Working in pairs or jotting down guesses gives students a "safe place" to test their ideas with less pressure 2.3.1.3 Selecting Materials One important issue is choosing which materials students will listen to Often a listening class is associated with a CD player There are several advantages to listening to tapes: They can be listened to repeatedly, they offer chances to hear different voices and accents, and there may be exercises published with them There are also several disadvantages: They may require the teacher to set a context, students may come to depend on hearing passages multiple times, and there is typically little to no visual support Two alternatives to cassettes are to have students listen to each other and to the teacher One of the greatest advantages in both of these is the opportunity for students to ask questions for clarification Listening to other students is also useful because a student' s classmates tend to use familiar vocabulary or at least to work from the same level of vocabulary The greatest problem may be pronunciation, and grammar is also likely to be less than model Nonetheless, communicating in small groups is a kind of listening practice that should be comprehensible and helpful A teacher can also tailor what she says to suit the students' level and particular needs, especially by controlling vocabulary and grammar This gives her an excellent chance to review words, phrases, or new structures When she gives a mini-lecture or tells a story, this is a kind of authentic communication, putting students into a more immediate and life-like listening situation She should also come up with responses that students are expected to make to this kind of listening, whether discussing in a small group, writing a summary or outline, or asking questions Since many listening exams consist of listening to a tape, students need to be confident in their ability to comprehend the disembodied, Teacher: Page 11 Some context-less speaking which tapes usually present However, in class, students may also appreciate less tense and more realistic types of listening Teachers should make the most of different activities to help students develop their skills (see Figure for a sample lesson outline) Figure Sample listening lesson outline (1) Begin with a warm-up, perhaps an interesting story of what the teacher did on the weekend, or students speaking and listening in pairs about their weekend activities (2) Listen to a taped text with associated sttivities (3) Do discrimination drills on particular English sounds, words, or intonation (4) Introduce a listening strategy for sudents to work on ( see Figure 2) (5) Do a second taped activity, give a mini-lecture, or tell a story, and afterwards have students discuss in groups how the listening strategy worked (6) Ask students for voluntary, brief reports on any extracurricular listening they have done 2.3.1.4 Using Texts and Tapes or CDs Using a textbook and a tape or a CD for some of the lesson activities can be quite useful Textbooks often give questions that can be used to give students a purpose and focus their concentration on particular aspects of meaning However, it is useful for the teacher to examine the questions and choose some for the first time students listen, others for a second listening, and perhaps others for a third time Otherwise, students may be overwhelmed with listening for too many things at once, or they may get stuck on difficult questions She should also keep in mind that some books may tend to focus on only one type of listening process (bottom-up or top-down), and it is up to her to make sure she asks questions appropriate for her students' level and needs If students listen to a taped passage several times, it may be best to give them different purposes each time to help them concentrate and not feel they are doing the same thing over and over The first time or two, students should listen for general ideas or factual information, and in succeeding times the questions can become more specific and complex In addition, teachers can offer up optional questions which more advanced students can listen for In general, listening to a well-chosen text three times should be sufficient It may occasionally be suitable to listen four times if the majority of students are interested, and if the teacher believes they are close to comprehending points they have missed Though students may say they want to hear a passage again, many are not able to concentrate on the same piece for an extended period, so it is wiser to stop before they are thoroughly bored It is probably more useful to make a copy of the tape for interested students, so that they can listen later as many times as they wish 2.3.1.5 Arranging Engaging Activities Teacher: Page 12 Some Teachers can give students opportunities for success, including chances to listen to passages that are easy or enjoyable Sometimes a teacher may want to choose a text that is easy so as to show students that they can comprehend some things easily; this gives them a sense of accomplishment If all the listening materials are at the same fairly challenging level, students can become weary and lower-level students might get discouraged (Of course, listening to too many texts that not present enough of a challenge may cause some higher-level students to lose interest.) Choosing content that is interesting to students will help energize them Listening to music or stories usually helps students think of listening as a pleasurable activity rather than a classroom exercise or personal struggle When students have a negative association with listening, they become tenser, whereas if they are more relaxed, they are likely to comprehend more Some teachers regularly begin class with something easy and interesting, such as a funny story, or have music playing in the background before class to set a more relaxed tone for the lesson In addition, finding listening texts that address issues that interest students helps them become more involved in finding meaning, and makes the learning process more enjoyable Finally, teachers can encourage students to find things that they enjoy listening to outside class Often this might be music, but it might also include listening to books on tape or English radio broadcasts, or watching movies In any case, encourage students to find materials at a suitable level, so that they not become too frustrated 2.3.2 Applying the study in teaching In the new “Tiếng Anh 10”, different listening skills are utilized depending on what to listen for Listening for general understanding, listening for specific or detailed information, predicting, guessing and interpreting are several typical examples Listening tasks are various and flexible based on linguistic difficulty level, topics and students’ interest The bottom-up approach to listening is to segment the stream of speech into its constituent sounds, then link these together to form words, clauses and sentences and so on Nevertheless, its inadequacy can be easily demonstrated Take listening part in Unit (“Tiếng Anh 10”, 2006:86) as an illustration Task asks students to listen and decide true and false information given Students had better find out the key words in each sentence then note down or compare familiar sounds or words because they have no idea about Popffero, a town in English, and its changes The teacher also suggests that if students are asked to listen and write down as much of the text as they can recall, they generally remember some bits of the text and forget others By and large, they can not fulfill the tasks if they focus on linguistic items rather than the message or the information Unit (“Tiếng Anh 10”, 2006: 98) is also a difficulty topic with complicated words, the tasks not focus on specific information or linguistic items On the contrary, they help to develop predicting and guessing skills via Teacher: Page 13 Some true or false sentences With such a difficult topic, teacher should ask students not to concentrate on every sounds or word but general information only The top-down view of listening is the use of inside the head knowledge, that is, knowledge which is not directly encoded in words While few English learners would have little trouble in comprehending the sounds, words and clauses in the given messages, it is unlikely that they would able to demonstrate comprehension by listening to the text and writing a précis or providing a verbal account However if they are provided with a context for making sense of the text then the task becomes relative simple For example, if students are told that the text is about Van Cao’ life and works (“Tiếng Anh 10”, unit 12, 2006: 126), then the individual constituents are much more readily interpretable, and the task of recalling the information in it is much easier At the pre-listening stage, teacher can let students listen to Van Cao' s famous songs In effect, the title “Listening to Van Cao’s songs” enables students to bring knowledge form outside the text to the task of interpreting and comprehending the text itself This illustrates an important point: that meaning does not reside exclusively within the words on the tape recorder or on the page It also exists in the head of students or listeners Successful listeners and readers are those who can utilize both “in side the head” knowledge and “outside the head” knowledge to interpret what they hear * Sample teaching plan using the top-down process UNIT 6: AN EXCURSION Period 34: LESSON 3: LISTENING I Objectives: Students will be able to listen to a monologue about a weekend picnic II Lexical items: words to talk about outdoor activities or activities in an excursion III Structures/ Grammar: - The present progressive ( with a future meaning) - Be going to IV Teaching aids: - posters and pictures, CD player V Procedures: Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Presentation:(10 mins) a Teacher asks students to look at the - Work in pairs to answer the pictures and answer the question: questions " What are the pictures about?" -Some sts stand up and give their answer Teacher: Page 14 Some - Answer question individually b Teacher asks students to answer questions - Do you often go for a picnic? - Who you go with? - When is the best time for a picnic? - Why people go for a picnic? - Asks some sts to give their answer c Teacher asks students to read after the tape the words in the textbook without looking at them - Teacher introduces some new words +desti’nation (n): e.g.: the train to Hanoi: Hanoi is the ~ + ‘glo:rious (adj): famous /wonderful / beautiful + ‘spacious (adj) adj of space + ‘left-overs (n): foods left after a meal + de’licious (adj): good tasty - Teacher reads the words again and asks sts to repeat - Teacher asks students to read the words in pairs - Teacher asks some students to read the words again Teacher: - Read after the tape - Copy the words and phrases - Listen and repeat - Read the words in pairs and correct each other’s mistakes - Some individuals read the words aloud - Look at the pictures and listen to the T - Describe the pictures in pairs Page 15 Some Practice:( 24 mins) + Task 1: - Teacher asks students to work in pairs, look at the pictures in the textbook and describe each picture - Listen to the tape for the first time - Teacher gives one example: "In the first picture is a peaceful place with green trees, a big lake and white clouds in the sky." - Teacher introduces the situation about a student talking about a picnic to the Botanical garden and asks students to listen to the tape and number the picture in the correct order - Teacher plays the tape twice - Listen to the tape again and the task - Compare their answer - Give their answer Key: 1a – 2e –3b– 4c – 5f – 6d - Check their answer and then correct their work if they have the wrong - Teacher asks students to compare answer their answer in pairs - Work in pairs to read the passage - Teacher checks students' answers and try to fill in the gaps Teacher: Page 16 Some - Teacher plays the tape once again, stops where necessary and conducts the correction + Task 2: - Teacher asks students to have a look at the given sentences and read them in pairs and makes sure they understand them Teacher encourages students to guess the words/ phrases to fill in the gaps - Teacher asks students to listen to tape once or twice again , fill in the gaps with the missing words/phrases - Teacher asks students to compare their answer in pairs - Teacher checks students’ answers - Teacher plays the tape once again, stops where necessary and conducts the correction + Task 3: -Teacher asks students to read the questions in pairs and make sure they understand the questions and know what information they need to answer the questions - Teacher asks students to listen to tape once/ twice and take short notes to answer the questions - Teacher asks students to compare their answer in pairs - Teacher plays the tape once again, stops where necessary and conducts the correction - Listen and the task - Give their answer was just a few to pay a visit at the school gate a short tour playing some more - Check their answer, and then correct their work if they have the wrong answer - Work in pairs to read the questions - Listen and the task - Compare their notes - Check their answer, and then correct their work if they have the wrong answer It was very nice Yes, it was It was beautiful Because it was so peaceful and quiet in the garden They took pictures, played games, talked, sang and danced - Work in groups Production:(10 mins) - Teacher asks students to work in group and plan for their picnic this weekend -Two sts present - Teacher asks sts to pay attention to the time, means of transport, picnic sites, food, equipment - Teacher moves round to check the - Do homework and prepare the next Teacher: Page 17 Some activities and to make sure that sts are lesson working effectively - Teacher asks two sts to report in front of the whole class - Teacher checks and gives remarks Homework:(1 min) Write a short paragraph( about 50 words) about your plan for the next weekeend picnic 2.4 Effectiveness of the teaching experience: These suggested activities have been applied in my teaching listening to th 10 grade students at Ha Van Mao high school and they seem to be useful to students Most of the students find it easier and more comfortable with listening lessons This is shown through their high motivation and interest in learning listening, their active participation in activities and many students at low levels can carry out listening tasks by themselves As a result, students’ listening skill, to some extent, has been improved during the school years Below is the result achieved from students of class 10A1 and 10A4 in the year 2016- 2017 when they are learning listening skill in comparision with the students of class 10A6 and 10A7 of the year 2013- 2014 who were taught without applying this study Chart 1: Teaching listening skill before applying the study Class Number of Good Moderately Average students good 10A6 39 ( 0%) (12.8%) 24 (61.5%) 10A7 40 (2.5%) ( 15%) 22 ( 55%) Chart 2: Teaching listening skill after applying the study Class Number of Good Moderately Average students good 10A1 35 ( 8.6%) (20%) 20 (57.1%) 10A4 40 (5%) (15%) 24 ( 60%) Weak 10( 25.7%) 11( 27.5%) Weak ( 14.3%) ( 20%) It is necessary that the teacher should not always pay atttention to the students’ mistakes Instead, the teacher should encourage them to use English as much as possible during the lesson and create a friendly learning environmment so that the students will be more confident and be ready to receive the new knowledge CONCLUSION Teaching listening is not a simple task, but it can be quite rewarding if we find ways to help our students improve, and help them see for themselves what their progress has been In some ways, we are helping them Teacher: Page 18 Some cope with vocabulary and grammar, as we in other subjects, but there are also many unique aspects of the listening process that we can help them grasp When our students understand how to listen and what to listen for, the foundation for continued improvement in listening will be set Our own ability to teach listening will also improve as we work to better grasp the strategies and skills our students need During the experimenting process, I have noticed four points to pay attention to First, it’s better for the teacher to pre-teach important new vocabulary, but no more than ten words If the teacher teaches all of the new words, the students usually get distracted by the vocabulary instead of focusing on listening Secondly, it’s good to give students questions to follow, but don’t give them irrelevant comprehension questions Since listening is unlike reading, students don’t get the reading material to follow and if the teacher asks about too many details, they may become frustrated Thirdly, unlike teaching reading, the teacher should not spend too much time on grammar One grammatical point per time is enough for the listeners to pay attention to as they listen Last but not least, the teacher doesn’t need to spend too much time on teaching listening per class Instead, fifteen minutes is enough for one listening activity What is more important is that listening is taught at least once per lesson As long as the teacher becomes familiar with the relevant teaching activities, she/ he can use one activity a day I hope that the teachers will have a better map of how to teach listening in class after reading and demonstrating these strategies and the students can become more effective listeners in their future Teacher: Page 19 Some REFERENCES Brown, H.D 1994 Teaching By Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Prentice Hall Regents 2.Chastain, K.1988 Developing Second Language Skills: Theory and Practice 3rd edition Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Chaudron, C and J Richards 1986 The Effect of Discourse Markers on the Comprehension of Lectures Applied Linguistics 7(2): 113-127 Nunan, D 1991 Language teaching methodology – A textbook for teachers Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd Nunan, D 2003 Practical English Language teaching McGraw-Hill Richard-Amato, P 1996 Making It Happen: Interaction in the Second Language Classroom: From Theory to Practice 2nd edition Longman Richards, J 1990 The Language Teaching Matrix Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Rost, M 2001 Teaching and researching Listening, Harlow: Pearson Education/ Longman Teacher: Page 20 Some XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG Thanh Hóa, ngày 09 tháng 05 năm 2017 ĐƠN VỊ Tôi xin cam đoan SKKN viết, không chép nội dung người khác Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Teacher: Page 21 ... cause to the students reluctance to get more involved in learning and practicing listening + Suggest some strategies so as to change students attitude toward listening skill and some ways to select... if students have not grasped the importance of bottom-up skills, then a teacher would certainly want to pay attention to these skills Figure Listening strategies to share and discuss with students. .. experience: These suggested activities have been applied in my teaching listening to th 10 grade students at Ha Van Mao high school and they seem to be useful to students Most of the students find