IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS FOR THIRD YEAR STUDENTS AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY THROUGH PORTFOLIO

Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Rationale In English teaching, the main objective is to prepare students for communication in the real world and it is very important for a learner to efficiently equip himself with four skills, together with relatively sufficient background knowledge However, obtaining a good command of English communication is not easy for all students; it needs a great effort from them which emphasizes much practice, especially self-study Of the four language skills-Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writingthat all language learners are supposed to acquire Listening is believed to be the most challenging due to the complex and subtle nature of listening comprehension in a second or foreign language Teaching listening is not an easy job at all when we, the English teachers, face the fact that learners have met many difficulties in comprehending the information due to unfamiliarity with the pronunciation of the target language and a lack of listening skills To overcome those difficulties, it is necessary for students to keep on practice overtime, and one of the ways to make students practice is by using portfolios to learn at home This means of study is rather effective for students to improve their listening skills as portfolios are systematic, purposeful, and meaningful collections of students' works in one or more subject areas and they reflect the actual day-to-day learning activities of students For the third year English major students at Hong Duc University, they can not avoid common problems related to listening When dealing with a listening lesson, they often experience a lack of background knowledge and cultural understanding, poor ability to understand spoken language, irrelevant teaching materials etc Besides, two periods (45 minutes each period) of listening every week is not enough for students to be good listeners if they not spend much more time than that on their self-study Clearly, portfolios which reflect what has been done at home are an important element in language teaching and learning, which on one hand helps the teachers to assess what their students have done at home and on the other hand keeps students continuously learning Hence, they need a lot of modifications for the Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí sake of perfection To enhance students’ listening skill development, it’s the teacher’s job to create more opportunities for the students to learn from their own strengths and weaknesses as well as their peers' weaknesses and strengths It is, therefore, necessary to bring them opportunities to overcome those difficulties and among the suggested solutions, listening portfolios are of great help Good portfolios with carefully prepared contents are a useful means to help students keep on their self-studies effectively It is obvious that portfolios can improve students’ listening skills as well as encourage them to work on their own, which is the useful factor for their success It is undeniable that exploiting portfolios effectively is challenging for teachers because they have to take many things into consideration, such as the objectives, the instructional skills, the criteria, the students’ needs, etc when giving out the contents of a portfolio However, for the benefit one can gain from them, it is worth doing so For the above reasons, we decided to choose the thesis entitled “Improving listening skills for third-year students at Hong Duc University through portfolio" The study emphasizes the importance of portfolios to the students' self- study in general and the listening skills in particular Pedagogically, the findings of the study are believed to be useful for teachers to be aware of the essential role of portfolios to the students' self- study in the listening skills Moreover, we would like to investigate the effectiveness of the listening portfolios currently used and from that finding out the strong and weak points of them in order to establish the most relevant one in terms of the contents From the results obtained, the suggestions for portfolio contents, which are based on the theoretical background and the present use of them at the Foreign Language Department, HDU, are thoughtfully given, with the hope that they would help students to enhance their listening skills as well as the teachers to improve their teaching methodologies in relation with the process of renovation for teaching at the Foreign Language Department, HDU currently 1.2 Aims of the study Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí Our research focuses specifically on the investigation of portfolio contents used by the teachers at Division of Language skills Development and give some suggestions for applying the portfolios to enhance the students' self - learning for improvements in their listening skills The specific aims of the research are as follows: - To investigate the teachers' and students' attitudes towards the application of listening portfolios in self-learning - To find out the most common portfolio contents exploited by the teachers at Division of Language skills Development - To examine the students’ preferences for the portfolios - To give some suggestions for using the portfolios to enhance students' self-listening learning 1.3 Research questions As a basis for my investigation, the following research questions were formulated: What are the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the application of listening portfolios in self-learning? What are the teachers’ and students’ opinions of the current portfolio contents? How can portfolio contents be improved to help students develop their self-listening study? 1.4 Methods of the study To seek answers to the research questions, the data are analyzed from material collection and were collected from survey questionnaires First of all, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials on listening skills and portfolios have been collected, analyzed and synthesized carefully with the due consideration for the teachers’ and students’ teaching and learning situations Secondly, the questionnaires are carried out with the teachers and the students to collect the most reliable data for the study 1.5 Design of the study Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí The thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter I: Introduction; Chapter II: Literature review; Chapter III: The study; Chapter IV: Major findings and Discussions and Chapter V: Conclusion Chapter I: Introduction This chapter provides an overview of the study such as the rationale, the scope, the aims, research questions, significance and methods of the study Chapter II: Literature review This chapter conceptualizes the nature of the listening comprehension, the importance of listening and the importance of students' self-access listening, definitions of the portfolio, portfolio based learning, the content of portfolio, principles in using portfolio, portfolio assessment, stages of portfolio implementation and the importance of portfolio in learning listening Chapter III: The study The chapter presents the methodology used in the study including the setting, sample, instrumentation, data collection and data analysis It also points out the detailed results of the surveys and covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected from the questionnaires Chapter IV: Major findings and Discussions The chapter shows some major findings, suggestions for using the portfolios Chapter V: Conclusion The chapter revisits the main points discussed in the paper and some limitations of the study and future research will be presented Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1 Introduction This chapter discusses a variety of issues in the theories of the listening skills and portfolios Three main features will be presented: theoretical background of listening skills, theoretical background of portfolio and its importance in learning the listening skills Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí 2.2 Theoretical background of listening skills 2.2.1 What is Listening Comprehension? 2.2.1.1 Definitions Listening is believed to be a key and essential area of the development in a native language and in a second or foreign language as well; hence, there have been varieties of definitions of listening by Bulletin (1952); Bentley & Bacon (1996); Grey Buck (2001); Scarcella and Oxford (1992) which hold different views towards the concept According to Bulletin (1952), listening is one of the fundamental language skills It's a medium through which children, young people and adults 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 the day of mass communication (much of it oral), "it is of vital importance that our pupils be taught to listen effectively and critically" he says Bentley & Bacon (1996) state that listening, an important part of the second language learning process has also been defined as an active process during which the listener constructs meaning from oral input Grey Buck (2001: 31) shares the idea that " 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" In another expression, Grey Buck (2001: 31) points out "comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect the comprehension of the message." Scarcely and Oxford (1992) also point out that comprehension of a spoken message can either through isolated word recognition within the sound stream, phrase or formulae recognition, clause or sentence, and extended speech comprehension Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí Woven and Coakley (1985) hold the different idea They see listening as "the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli" This definition indicates that listening is a complex process which students have to deal with The task of listening is not only perception of sound, but it also requires comprehension of meaning This definition is the same with second language theory which regards listening to spoken language as an active and complex process in which listeners pay much attention to aspects of aural input, generate meaning, and link what they hear to existing knowledge (O'Malley & Chabot, 1989; Byrnes, 1984; Richards, 1985; Howard, 1983) Scott Shelton (2008) thinks that listening effectively is a demanding and involved process One must be able to deal with different accents or pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise, and also make a conscious effort to not 'switch off' or become distracted while listening All of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identify and understand the meaning in any given message To sum up, the issue of whether which view is the best is controversial However, in the final analysis, the definition of Wolvin and Coakley (1985) which considers listening as the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli; that is, message transmitted through the medium of sound is highly appreciated 2.2.1.2 The listening Comprehension process It can't be denied that listening is the least explicit of the four language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing, making it the hardest skill for English learners It involves physiological and cognitive processes at different levels (Field, 2002; Lynch, 2002; Rost, 2002) along with the attention to contextual and "socially coded acoustic clues" (Swaffar & Bacon, 1993) Listening comprehension is a primary process in understanding the words of the speaker It is a complex communication process which requires instant thought and individual ability to construct the meaning Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí The development of listening comprehension varies depending on the personal, social, and cultural experiences of the student Effective listeners are able to recognize the speaker’s main points or ideas and identify the supporting details and examples Comprehensive listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker’s accent, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and meaning (Howatt and Dakin 1974) Listening comprehension is influenced by the listener’s world knowledge, linguistic knowledge, text structure knowledge, and met cognitive knowledge The following figure shows that the listening comprehension process is established through the relationship between the two main sources of information which Widowson (1983) refers to as (1) systematic or linguistic knowledge (knowledge of phonological, syntactic, and semantic components of the language system) and (2) schematic or non-linguistic information In fact, it is hard to differentiate between what was actually said and what we have constructed by integrating the spoken words with students' own knowledge and experience Background knowledge - factual Systematic knowledge - social Procedural knowledge - how language is used in P R Knowledge of situation - physical setting, participants, E H context (written) E N S I Knowledge of the language system - semantic - syntactic - phonological O M discourse etc Knowledge of co-text - what has been/ will be said C O N systematic Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí knowledge Figure Information sources in comprehension (Adapted from Anne Anderson & Tony Lynch, 1988, p.13) According to Mendelson (1994: 94, cited by Vandergrift, 1999: 176), the performance checklist for listening comprehension process is to be used during learner's listening process: Name: _ Date: Question: After first listening Guess? Reason(s) V Before second listening Other possibilities? Where? (setting?) When? (time? time of day? season?) Who? (speakers? their relationship?) How? (tone? mood?) What? (what is it about?) Why? (goal? particular circumstances?) Figure Performance Checklist for Listening Comprehension (Adapted from Mendelson (1994: 94, cited by Vandergrift, 1999: 176) V= Verification (check in this column when your guess has been verified) What I found easy: What I found difficult: What I will the next time: A number of researches in L2 listening instruction have been done by different authors such as Rost (2002); Lynch (1988, 2002); Rubin (1994); Mendelsohn (1988); Richards (1990) All focus on the critical role of both Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí bottom-up and top-down processes in comprehension Listeners use topdown process when they use context and prior knowledge (topic, genre, background knowledge, and other schema knowledge in long-term memory) to construct framework for comprehension Listeners use bottom-up process when they build meaning by accretion, gradually combining increasingly larger units of meaning from the phoneme-level up to discourse-level features Richards (1990:50) breaks down the process used in listening comprehension into two distinct types, referring to them as 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' processing The former is described in Cook's Discourse (1989) as: 'Interpreting the lowest-level units first, and then proceeding to an interpretation of the rank above, and so on upwards.' In other words, we sometimes need to rely on our knowledge of grammar, syntax, and lexis, and apply that knowledge when confronted with an incoming message in order to achieve comprehension On the other hand, we might apply a top-down approach to aid comprehension This is defined as: 'Interpreting discourse by hypothesizing about the most general units first, then moving downwards through the ranks below.' This means applying our background knowledge to aid in understanding the meaning of a message Richards (1990:51) explains that:" This may be previous knowledge about the topic of discourse, it may be situational or contextual knowledge, or it may be knowledge stored in long-term memory in the form of 'schemata' and 'scripts' - plans about the overall structure of events and the relationships between them." Anderson and Lynch (1988:22) argue that research has shown that the assumptions in the 'bottom-up' model are incorrect They state that: "Listeners would not be able to perceive speech as successfully as they if they were in fact engaged in a process of building up the recognition of words solely by attempting to identify their constituent phonemes." Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí In teaching listening skills, we need to be aware of how these processes work and guide our students, through the use of different tasks if we are to aid them in improving their listening comprehension I believe we can help advanced learners by drawing attention to these strategies and overtly practicing these listening skills in the classroom 2.2.2 The importance of Listening Listening is getting more and more important in many foreign language contexts, which have until relatively recently focused their efforts on the development of other language skills such as writing skills This growing importance is reflected in the proliferation of commercial listening courses The importance of listening in second and foreign language learning is admirably summarized in a recent publication by Rost (1994): 'Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learners Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin' Brett (1997: 39) also states that "listening is a key language skill It has a vital role in the language acquisition process" In comparison with other language skills, some researches on listening suggests that on average people can expect to listen "twice as much as we speak, four times more than what we read and five times more than we usually write" (Morley, 2001) More importantly, there are more and more studies indicating the sheer importance of listening in communication and language learning (Anderson and Lynch, 1988; Dunkel, 1991) What's more, Michael Lewis (1993: 32) highlights "Almost all the world's natural language output is spoken rather written" Being an essential skill for almost interaction, listening is therefore the most primary medium for input in language learning process and by speeding up the students' ability to perceive speech, the amount of input they get will increase and thus aid students' language acquisition It is obvious that we listen for many different purposes in and out of the classroom; this has an effect on the way we listen Yule and Brown (1983) make a useful distinction between interactional and transactional communication McCarthy, (1991) in Discourse, defines transactional Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí Chart 9: Students' preferences for contents in the portfolios As mentioned before, index of listening files, listening files, reflection checklist, and glossary are often used in the listening portfolios Moreover, these can be implemented in certain ways As a result, the author would like to examine the students' preferences for these parts In the first place, different parts used in the index of listening files are shown in the following chart Chart 10: Students' preferences for contents used in index of listening files A1 Title of files A2 Type of files (Audio/Video) A3 Source of files A4 Day of retrieving files A5 Text type of files A6 Accent of files From the chart, we can see that 45 out of 62 informants like to cover source of files in the index of listening files This can be viewed as a Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí helpful part to enable the students to know where the source comes from; they may revisit the source someday for another purpose The next part, which can interest a large number of the students (34), is title of files It is easy to realize that fact as it helps the students, the teachers and even the readers to preview the portfolio contents Similarly, text type of files also attracts the attention of certain number of informants (30) Thanks to this, the students are more aware of the text type they are working with It is a good way to help them listen better Another part used in this content is accent of files, which appears only 17 students in the research Finally, day of retrieving files and type of files are said to be useful for students This can be because they are not very influential to the students' knowledge Chart 11: Students' preferences for contents used in listening files B1 The files must not have a transcript available B2 The files must feature either British English or American English B3 Each listening file in the portfolios consists of file identification and full script As can be seen from the chart above, the files must not have a transcript available appears more preferable to lots of students (38) because they think that without transcript, they have to work harder and more seriously in order to meet the requirements of the portfolios The files must feature either British English or American English is supported by 33 students in the survey because it offers them more apportunities to get access to both British and American English And more importantly, it is much more convenient for them to choose the Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí materials Finally, most students don't like the part: Each listening file in the portfolio consists of file identification and full script since they complain that it is hard for them to complete the full script due to their limitations of time and knowledge Only out of 62 students like this Chart 12: Students' preferences for contents used in reflection checklist C1 Reflection on vocabulary of the files C2 Reflection on structures of the files C3 Reflection on Phonological Aspects of the files C4 Reflection on the contents of the files C5 Reflection on strategies used in the files C6 Reflection on listening difficulties of the files As said before, reflection checklist is useful for the students since they enhance students' challenging and meaningful self-learning Nevertheless, reflection checklist may be of different parts with numerous choices of the informants 54 out of 62 students reflection on strategies used in the files and reflection on the contents of the files a favor because they can lead them to experience the self-learning and hard work to deal with Another group (31) prefer reflection on Phonological Aspects of the files and Reflection on vocabulary of the files as they may help them to improve their vocabulary and distinguish some certain words concerning pronunciation, intonation and etc Another belief comes from 23 students, they share that they are interested in reflection on listening difficulties of the files since they can Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí find out their strengths and weaknesses through this part Reflection on structures of the files only attracts 13 out of 62 students Glossary of the portfolios that can enhance improvements in the students' self-learning as well as listening skills, different points of view of students' preferences for glossary are pointed out as follows More than half of the students (55%) are fond of examples (taken from index of the listening files) because they can learn much from this They not only master the use and the meaning of words or phrases, but also gain knowledge from the listening Phonetic transcription is favored by (35%) of the informants as this may help them listen and speak English better The next group (15%) prefer words/ phrases and parts of speech since these may be useful for their later listening Only (5%) like meaning of words/ phrases as it helps them understand the listening clearly 3.5.2.4 Student's suggestions to improve the portfolios for their self-learning It is not surprising to find out that there is not much distinction between teachers' suggestions and students' ones improve portfolio contents for students' self-learning Over 90% of the students confirm that designing more suitable portfolio contents and providing clear guidelines for portfolio implementation are the main factors that need to be done to improve portfolio contents for students' self-learning They also share the same ideas with teachers about making them more aware of the importance of self-learning and providing more useful websites and softwares as a good source of portfolios 3.6 Summary To sum up, this chapter has dealt with the implementation of the study in which an overview of the situation analysis, sample and sampling, instrument and date analysis has been presented in details This chapter lays a basic foundation for the major findings and suggestions for using the portfolios, which will be discussed, in the chapter Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí Chapter IV: Major findings and suggestions for using Portfolios 4.1 Major findings and discussions The data gathered from questionnaires are analyzed statistically to answer the research questions, from which the prominent findings are presented along with the discussion of the relating studies in the field 4.1.1 The role of portfolios in students' self-listening Portfolio appears to be a key to any learning This is quite true in the listening skill case Needless to say, portfolios are of great usefulness for home or self-listening It seems that without the listening portfolios, the students won't have many chances to access to different sources of listening materials, work with other students However, designing a good portfolio for students' self-listening is a challenging task It is supposed to rely on several factors such as students’ needs, interests, feelings, teachers' efforts, and other outside factors Whatever problem is, teachers’ teaching techniques seem to be based on to increase the students’ motivation for self - learning, especially for the home listening portfolios What’s more, when dealing with portfolio contents, the students often encounter some difficulties, which may affect their attitudes for self-study 4.1.2 The frequency of using the contents in the portfolios Being aware of the importance of applying portfolios prior asking the students to the self - study, all the teachers try to employ a specific content in some way with a view to enhancing the students to improve their listening skills The order of frequency for portfolio contents identified from the teacher's and students' survey questionnaire is as follows: Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí • The most frequently used portfolio contents are: + Cover sheet + Index of listening files + Attached disc or tape + Reflection checklist + Glossary + Making text outline of each listening file + Listening files It is obvious that these are meaningful contents for the self - learning portfolios The fact is that all the teachers are accustomed to applying them in the portfolios Furthermore, they help the teachers to handle the portfolio contents • The other group refers to portfolio contents that are sometimes applied: + Team work - Collaboration peer assessment + Work distribution Teachers think that all the above contents are also good for the selfstudy portfolios Nevertheless, it is not necessary to employ them in every portfolio because it depends on the teacher's purposes of the portfolio, students' needs, interests and even levels of language proficiency • The group of rarely employed portfolio contents includes: + Portfolio assessment checklist Assessing the portfolios takes the teacher lots of time and efforts so it is scarcely applied, especially for the inactive and old teachers • The least frequently used portfolio contents are: + Declaration and statement of authorship + Collaboration peer assessment sheets The reason for this can be the fact that it is not much influential to the students' self - learning goals It only focuses on the format of the portfolio Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí 4.1.3 Teachers’ difficulties when applying the portfolios in teaching listening The biggest difficulty for the teachers is the design of portfolio contents for the students' self - learning In reality, the tasks and projects for self - study reveal their drawback Portfolio contents seem to be new to most teachers and students and are not available in the course books If available, they are not very suitable or meaningful enough To create a good portfolio content for the students, teachers should take many things into consideration such as the students' needs, levels, interests and even the suitability for the course objectives Clearly, designing an appropriate one takes a lot of time and effort Another problem for the teachers is the fact that handling the students' self - study is sometime out of the teachers’ control For instance, teachers can not make sure that all the groups work in the right way and the group members have more chances to co-operate with each other Portfolio contents, which are not of the students’ interests, surely ask for troubles So, teachers should analyze the students’ interests before applying the contents 4.1.4 Contents of portfolios that can help to enhance the students' self - study The data from the teacher’s survey indicate that reflection checklist, making text outline of each listening file are by far the most effective ones in making the students more interested in the self - learning portfolios It is also the reason why they always adopt these contents in the portfolios Glossary, attached disc or tape are found to be good contents as they help the students to get involved in vocabulary development Work distribution is said to be a good content for students’ self-study However, the teachers sometimes or rarely use it because it takes them time and sometimes it is hard for them to handle Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí The least effective content in the portfolio is declaration and statement of authorship It is not a main content for the students' self - study Consequently, teachers never use it in the portfolios 4.1.5 Students’ preferences for portfolio contents It is surprising to find out that the students' preferences for portfolio contents differ from what the teachers believe and what they often use in the portfolios The students reveal their interests in such contents as reflection checklist, making text outline of each listening file, work distribution and glossary The following are the reasons for their choices: • Because these contents are meaningful and purposeful in terms of the subject area • It offers us a chance to share ideas or information with others • We can peer - coach each other • It not only enables the students to be more aware of the importance of self - study but it is also useful tool for students' life long learning process Another important finding is that such contents as cover sheet, attached disc or tape, listening files, and are viewed to be normal despite the fact that they are applied very often by the teacher Clearly, it indicates the distinction between teachers and students about portfolio contents as mentioned before However, both teachers and students hold the same idea with such contents as declaration and statement of authorship, final grapes report form, portfolio assessment checklist They all think that these are not meaningful and purposeful in terms of content 4.1.6 Students’ preferences for working on the self learning portfolios It is true that a large number of students (75%) are more interested in working in groups than in working in pairs or independently The fact is that group work may help students to have more chances to work with other people As a result, they can share their experiences, peer - coach each other and enhance the participation of all the group members Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí 21% of the informants are interested in working in pairs since they think that it is much easier for them to complete the portfolio on time and reach the agreement easily between two members The rest (4%) are fond of working independently 4.2 Suggestions for applying the portfolios As mentioned above, portfolio is a useful tool for students' self-study However, enhancing students to get actively involved in the listening portfolios depends on several factors The researcher intends to find out the impact of portfolio contents on the students' self - learning From the data gathered from the two survey questionnaires, major findings have been pointed out to enable the author to have an overview of employing portfolio contents in the Foreign Language Department for the third year students The findings help the author to give some suggestions to improve the situation for the sake of the students 4.2.1 Designing portfolio contents which are purposeful, meaningful and suitable for students' interests and levels of language proficiency The fact shows that contents applied by the teachers in the portfolios must be purposeful, meaningful and suitable for students' interests and levels of language proficiency, otherwise, counter-productivity will be experienced among students, especially for the students' self - learning portfolios The findings from the survey show that it will be necessary and helpful for the students if good and suitable contents in the portfolios are used It is imperative that the teachers take such things into consideration as students' needs, interests and levels of language proficiency before applying portfolio contents to certain situations 4.2.2 Introducing the idea of portfolios to the class and specifying its contents From the experience of a listening teacher for some years in the Foreign Language Department, the researcher realized that it is essential for teachers to introduce the idea of portfolios to the class and specify its Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí contents before implementing them If this is well - done, surely that the students will their work better as there clearly know what they are going to and implement it in the right way The author would like to take our working portfolio as an example With the first class of the fifth semester, the teacher began the lesson with the introduction of the idea of portfolios to the class He pointed out what the purposes of portfolios were and the contents the students had to implement He also gave out the way of working, dividing group members and selecting group leaders, format of portfolio, submission of portfolios, numbers of listening files and providing some useful websites for students' references, and etc 4.2.3 Encouraging students' positive attitudes and motivation towards the portfolios Beside the portfolio contents, the teachers should take such things into account as the students' feelings, attitudes and motivation when applying the self-learning portfolios Obviously, it is of significance to encourage students to build up their positive attitudes and strong motivation for self-study by raising their consciousness of the importance of portfolios to improve in their listening skills Moreover, it is advisable to enhance the students' realistic consciousness of their personal strengths and weaknesses in such a challenging skill 4.2.4 Recommending the websites and soft-wares as useful tools for students' self-learning portfolios To complete the portfolios successfully, students need the assistance of information technology The role of technology as a resource for instruction of listening learners is increasing as teachers recognize its ability to create both independent and collaborative learning environments in which students can acquire and practice listening skills Through the use of the Internet, softwares and websites, students can engage in individualized instruction designed to meet their specific needs and participate in cooperative portfolios that foster communication with peers in their classrooms and throughout their Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí lifetime It is the teacher's job to recommend softwares and websites as powerful tools for students to work with their portfolios A list of useful soft-wares and websites is provided in Appendix, p.xxi-xxix 4.3 Summary In conclusion, the chapter has so far discussed the important parts of the study - the major findings and suggestions for using the portfolios for students' self-learning to the context of the Foreign Language Department of Hong Duc University Based on the findings and discussions, some pedagogical suggestions will be provided in the last chapter of the study Chapter 5: Conclusion There are three sections in this chapter The first section, Conclusion, deals with a summary of the major findings and discussions and some conclusions are made The second section states some limitations of the present study The last section suggests some suggestions for further research in the field of portfolio application in teaching and learning Following this chapter is the references for this study and the appendices, which include all documents relating to the study: the contents of listening portfolios, the observation sheets, the teacher and learner questionnaires 5.1 Conclusion It is obvious that teachers and students at Foreign Languages Department often have several difficulties when dealing with the students' self-learning One of these is that the teachers find it difficult to control the students' self-learning, especially outside the classroom Another one is that designing portfolio contents is rather hard because it is time-consuming and the teachers also have to take such things into account as students' needs, interests and other outside factors Teachers often find it challenging to get students actively involved in Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí their self-learning Meanwhile, the students are not always highly attracted by the contents their teachers used in the portfolios There are varieties of factors affecting the students’ interests and desires in learning the listening skills in general and in self-listening portfolios in particular From the data analysis, it is important to spot that the portfolio contents have great impact on the students’ motivation on self-learning Although both teachers and students are fully aware of the importance of portfolio contents and teachers also apply some in their portfolios, these techniques not result in students’ strong effects for students' life long learning process To improve the situation, the teachers should take into consideration things such as teaching and learning objectives, the listening materials, portfolio contents, learning strategies, students' awareness of the importance of self-learning and their preferences In more details, employing interesting and meaningful portfolio contents, encouraging students’ internal factors and improving the methods of assessment are by far the best solution To conclude, it is much hoped that the study will be of interest for not only the Hong Duc University English teachers but also of any language teachers who share the problems and interests in applying portfolios in teaching and learning and in the ongoing process of renovation for teaching English at the university 5.2 Limitations of the study The study would be more objective and more reliable if: The number of students participating in the study was much larger They may either be the students of the third - years or the students of the first and second years The researcher was much better at academic language proficiency, and had more experience in carrying out the study This study, therefore, can be offered as a basis for further research Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí 5.3 Suggestions for Further Study Within the field of portfolio contents, the following suggestions are made to investigate the effective ways to enhance the students’ self - learning in other language skills, as well as life long learning process First, further investigation into the most effective contents in the portfolios Second, further investigation into how to improve other language skills through portfolios Third, further investigation into how to enhance the students’ awareness of portfolios for life long learning process References Anderson, Anne & Tony Lynch (1988) Listening Oxford: Oxford University Press Banfi, S.C (2003) Portfolios: Integrating advanced language, academic, and professional skills ELT Journal, 57/1 Oxford University Press Barbara J Millis, "Putting the Teaching Portfolio in Context." To Improve the Academy, 10 (Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press, 1991) 215-229 Peter Seldin, The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí and Promotion/Tenure Decisions (Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc 1991) Benoit, J., and Young, H (1996) A redefinition of portfolio assessment based upon purpose: Findings and implications from a large scale program Journal Researc and Development in Education, 29/3, 181-191 Boyle, J.P (1984) Factors Affecting Listening Comprehension ELT Journal 38 (1) - Brette, P (1995) Multimedia for Listening comprehension: The Design of a Multimedia-based resources for Developing Listening Skills System 23 (1), 77-88 Brown, G (1986) Investigating Listening Comprehension in Context Applie Linguistics Brookfield, S (1995) Becoming a critically reflective teacher San Francisco Jossey-Bass Camp, R (1992) Portfolio reflections in middle and secondary school classroom In K Dunkel, P (1991b) Listening in the Native and Second/ Foreign Language: Toward an integration of Research and Practice TESOL Quarterly Edgerton, R., P Hutchings, and K Quinlan (1991) The teaching portfolio Capturing the scholarship in teaching Washington D.C.: America Association fo Higher Education Fenwick, T.J., and Parsons, J (1999) A note on using portfolios to assess learning Canadian Social Studies, 33/3, 90-92 Field, J (1998) Skills nd Strategies: Towards a New Methodology for Listeing EL Journal Volume 52/2 April 1998 God, C (2002) Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns Gottlieb, M (1995) Nurturing student learning through portfolios TESOL Journal 1, pp 12–14 http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/listening.html http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/list1_scott.htm http://www.goldwaving.com/downloads/gwave514.exe Ket-noi.com kho tài liệu miễn phí Hoa, Hoang Xuan & Minh, Nguyen Thi Thuy (2006) Research Method, Reading Package Huong, Nguyen Le & Al (2007) Practise Your Listening Skills Hanoi Nationa Uinversity Publishing House Jack Richards (1990) Designing instructional materials for teaching listening comprehension, in ‘The Language Teaching Matrix’, Cambridge Long, D (1989) Second Language Listening Comprehension: a schema theoretic perspective Modern Language Journal Mendelsohn, David, J (1998) Teaching listening, An Annual Review of Applied Linguistics Nachmias, C F & Nachmias, D (1996) Research methods in social sciences New York: Oxford University Press Nunan, D (1991) Language teaching methodology Sydney: Prentice-Hall Penny Ur (1984) Teaching Listening Comprehension Cambridge Peter Seldin and Linda Annis, "The Teaching Portfolio." Teaching at UNL [Teachin and Learning Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln] Vol 13, No (Septembe 1991) 1-2, Peter Seldin et al., Successful Use of Teaching Portfolios (Bolton, MA: Anke Publishing Company, Inc., 1993) Richards, L.C (1983) Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure TESOL Quarterly Rost, M (1990) Listening in Language Learning London: Longman Rost, M (1994) Listening London: Longman Shelagh Rixon (1986) Developing Listening Skills Macmillan Underwood, M (1989) Teaching Listening New York: Longman Ur, Penny (1984) Teaching Listening Comprehension Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wolvin.A.D & Coakly, C (1985) Listening Dubuque: William C Brown ... the thesis entitled Improving listening skills for third- year students at Hong Duc University through portfolio" The study emphasizes the importance of portfolios to the students' self- study... Development, Foreign Language Department, Hong Duc University Sixty-two students (100% of the third - year students) were selected to participate in the survey questionnaire These students were... tape for use in a self-access library • It's necessary that when a listening task involves searching for certain information, there is an answer sheet that the students can find easily for themselves