Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến khả năng nghe hiểu của học sinh lớp 8 tại một trường trung học cơ sở thái nguyên

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DANG THI LE THUY FACTORS AFFECTING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF THE 8TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN THAI NGUYEN CITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến khả nghe hiểu học sinh lớp trường Trung học sở Thái Nguyên) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DANG THI LE THUY FACTORS AFFECTING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF THE 8TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN THAI NGUYEN CITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến khả nghe hiểu học sinh lớp trường Trung học sở Thái Nguyên) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Minh Loan Ph.D THAI NGUYEN – 2019 DECLARATION I certify that this thesis paper is the result of my own research and the substance of the research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution I assure that all references and citations to ensure the correctness, accuracy and honesty Thai Nguyen, July 2019 Author’s signature Dang Thi Le Thuy ACKNOWLEDGMENT For the completion of this thesis, I have received great assistance and support from many people without whom the work could not have been fulfilled First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and my profound appreciation to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Minh Loan- from Thai Nguyen University, School of foreign languages for her guidance, precious suggestions, invaluable critical feedback and encouragement in the process of completing this thesis I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all the lecturers of the School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for their interesting lectures and suggestions for the topic of my study Thanks are also due to my students grade and my colleagues at a Junior High School, Thai Nguyen City for their assistance and cooperation in completing the questionnaires and interviews Last but not least, I would like to give my deepest gratitude to my parents, my husband and my friends for their moral support and encouragement throughout my training course ABSTRACT The aim of the study was to discover the factors affecting the listening comprehension of 8th-grade students at a junior high school in Thai Nguyen The participants of the study included 90 grade students from classes 8A1, 8A2, 8A3 and teachers of English at Nha Trang junior high school in Thai Nguyen In this article, researchers had looked at the terms listening, listening comprehension, factors that affect listening comprehension After conducting the research steps, the researcher discovered factors that more or less affected the listening comprehension of grade students such as, process, task, listener, input, affect, and context Among these factors, it was found that specific problems that affected students' listening comprehension were: grammar, structure and vocabulary, accents, speaking speech, unfamiliar topics and poor listening equipment The finding of the research indicated that when teachers were aware of the factors that affected students’ listening comprehension, they could help their students develop effective listening strategies and ultimately solve those difficulties in listening and improved listening comprehension TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Organization CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Listening comprehension .4 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Listening comprehension process .5 2.2 Factors affecting listening comprehension 2.2.1 Definition 2.2.2 Taxonomy of factors affecting listening comprehension 2.3 Previous studies on factors affecting listening comprehension 2.4 Summary 12 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .13 3.1 Subjects of the study 13 3.2 Data collection instruments 13 3.2.1 Questionnaire (see Appendix 1) 13 3.2.2 Interview 15 3.3 Procedures of data collection .16 3.4 Data analysis 17 3.5 Summary 17 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18 4.1 Findings 18 4.1.1 Findings of the questionnaire 18 4.1.2 Findings of the interview 26 4.2 Discussion 27 4.3 Summary 30 CHAPTER 5: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION 31 5.1 Implications 32 5.1.1 For teachers .32 5.1.2 For students .35 5.2 Limitations of the study .37 5.3 Suggestions for future research 37 5.4 Conclusion 38 REFERENCES 38 APPENDIX .43 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students' choices about factors that affected their listening comprehension 18 Table 2: Process factor 20 Table 3: Task Factor 21 Table 4: Input Factor 22 Table 5: Listener Factor 23 Table 6: Affect Factor .24 Table 7: Context Factor 25 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study Listening is an important language skill to develop in second language learning Despite its significance, language learners consider listening as the most difficult language skill to learn Moreover, listening is the most important skill in language learning because it is the most widely used language skill in normal daily life Listening has an important role not only in daily life but also in the classroom environment Most people believe that being able to write and speak in a second language means that they know the language However, if they not have efficient listening skills, it is impossible to communicate effectively That is, listening is the basic skill in language learning Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understanding input on the right level, any learning simply cannot start A lot of research has been done on this issue (Chang & Roebl, 2011, Kutlu &Aslanolub, 2009) The results of previous studies have largely supported the difficulty of listening to new languages from the text, listeners, speakers, and tasks Almost all previous studies in listening skills and listening comprehension skills have identified important factors affecting the ability of the learner’s listening comprehension such as process, input, listener, task, affect and context factors However, the subjects of those studies were often high school and university students in Vietnam or other non-English speaking countries In Vietnamese schools, especially in Nha Trang junior high schools in Thai Nguyen, most students thought that learning the listening skills was the hardest, and some students thought the listening skills were relatively new, even though the students experienced the least English learning years in primary school and in grade 6, Meanwhile, the period of training at junior high school according to the distribution of each semester was more than 50 periods (3 periods/ week), in 18 weeks in a semester, the amount of time spent on listening comprehension was too little time and use other means of collecting information such as observation tables, or tests Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn 5.4 Conclusion The purpose of the study was to explore the factors affecting the listening comprehension of grade students at Nha Trang junior high school in Thai Nguyen Participants of the study included 90 grade students and teachers of English at Nha Trang junior high school in Thai Nguyen This study used two tools that were questionnaires and interviews The research results showed that the main factors affecting the ability of students to listen in grade at Nha Trang junior high school in Thai Nguyen through questionnaires and interviews including: process, tasks, inputs, listeners, affect and context These factors had relatively effect level on students' listen ability Among these factors, specific issues such as grammar, structure and vocabulary, speaking speech, accents, unfamiliar topics and poor listening equipment were also mentioned by teachers that they had a significantly affected on their students' English listening comprehension Based on the findings of the study, the researcher gave the implications for both teachers and students, the inevitable limitations of this research and some suggestions for future research Hopefully, this information will help teachers and students in teaching and learning listening skills, helping researchers make better research in the future REFERENCES Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn Abbas G & Naries S (2016) The Significance of Listening Comprehension in English Language Teaching In Theory and Practice in Language Studies (Vol 6, No 8, pp 1670-1677) Abbas G & Naries S (2016) Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review In Canadian Center of Science and Education ( Vol.9, No.6) Abbas G & Mohammad A ( 2011) A Study of Factors Affecting EFL Learners' English Listening Comprehension and the Strategies for Improvement In Journal of Language Teaching and Research( Vol 2, No 5, pp 977-988) Alderson, J C., Figueras, N., Kuiper, H., Nold, G., Takala, 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Please tick (✓) your answers (from 1- strongly disagree to – strongly agree) I Process factor Questions Before listening, it is always difficult for me to predict from the visuals what I will hear It is always difficult for me to relate what I hear with something from an earlier part of the listening text While listening, I always have problems making meaningful personal associations with the new information During listening, I always have difficulty checking whether I correctly understand the meaning of the whole chunks of the listening text I have always difficulty with finding out what the main purpose of the listening task I am going to is When I always listen to texts in English, I experience difficulty with listening for the main idea of the text I always find it challenging to focus on the text when I have trouble understanding While listening, I always find it difficult to guess the meaning of unknown words by linking them to known words I always find it difficult to make a mental summary of information gained through listening While listening, I always have difficulty to check my understanding of the text based on what I already know about the topic 10 I always find it difficult to use the context to guess those parts of a listening text that I cannot hear clearly 11 After listening, I always find it difficult to evaluate the overall accuracy of my comprehension Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn II Task Factor 12 I always find it difficult to listening tasks, such as filling a grid, for which I need to draw on specific information from the text 13 I always find it difficult to listening tasks for which I need to combine information to make generalization while listening to the text 14 I always find it difficult to answer Wh-questions in a listening task III Input Factor 15 I always find it difficult to understand listening texts in which there are too many unfamiliar words 16 I always find it difficult to understand the meaning of words which are not pronounced clearly 17 I always find it difficult to understand listening texts which have difficult grammatical structures 18 I always find it difficult to understand well when speakers speak too fast 19 Unfamiliar stress and intonation patterns of English interfere with my listening comprehension 20 I always find it difficult to understand the listening text when speakers speak with varied accents 21 I always find it difficult to understand the listening text when the speaker does not pause long enough 22 I always find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a long listening text 23 I always have difficulty understanding speakers with unfamiliar accents IV Listener Factor 24 When thinking about meaning of unfamiliar words, I always neglect the next part of the listening text 25 I am always slow to recall the meaning of words that sound familiar 26 I always find it difficult to quickly remember words or phrases I have just heard Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Cơng nghệ thơng tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn 27 During listening, although some words sound familiar, it is always difficult for me to recall their meaning immediately 28 When I hear the new words, I always forget the content which was mentioned before 29 I always lose the flow of speech because I concentrate very hard on understanding every word or phrase I hear 30 I always find it difficult to remember the meaning of a long listening text 31 I always find it difficult to really concentrate on listening 32 I always have difficulty comprehending the listening text because I don’t know which strategy to use while listening 33 I always have difficulty understanding a listening text because I cannot understand every single word I hear V Affect Factor 34 I always stop listening when I have problems in understanding a listening text 35 If I don’t arrive at a total comprehension of an oral text, I always feel disappointed 36 I find it difficult to reduce my anxiety before doing the listening task 37 Before doing listening comprehension tasks, I always fear that I cannot understand what I will hear VI Context Factor 38 Unclear sounds resulting from a poor-quality CD-player always interfere with my listening comprehension 39 Unclear sounds resulting from poor acoustic conditions of the classroom always interfere with my listening comprehension Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn APPENDIX INTERVIEW Question 1: How you work on listening skills in class? Question 2: How are the attitudes and the concentration of students when you give them a listening task? Question 3: Do you think that your students faced difficulty when they have listening comprehension lesson? What are they? Question 4: What factors you think are the most affecting when your students listen? Question 5: What should you to help your students improve their listening comprehension? Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn APPENDIX INTERVIEW NOTES SHEET T1: Teacher 1; T2: Teacher 2; T3: Teacher 3; T4: Teacher 4; T5: Teacher Questions Notes How you work on listening skills in class? T1: Teach students vocabulary and structure, then play the recording or times and ask students the tasks T2: Guide students listen by give them keywords then apply listening and help them the tasks T3: Play the record once then teach students new words and new structures, then play record times more and guide students the tasks T4: Guide students listen to the keywords and main idea of the text, then help them listen and the tasks T5: Introduce the topic that they will listen, then give them some keywords and play the record times, then guide them the tasks How are the attitudes and the concentration of students when you give them a listening task? T1: It depends on a lot of things like level of students, the difficult of listening text, the listening task T2: Students who learn English better will have a better attitude and focus on listening than other students T3: It depends on the level of students Moreover, a listening text too long will make students lose the concentration T4: A listening text has many unfamiliar words or strange structures, students will not care than others Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn Questions Notes T5: Beside the knowledge of students, the attitudes and concentration depend on the texts and the tasks The task too difficult for students will make their attitude not good and they don’t focus on the lesson Do you think that your students faced T1: Students always have difficulties difficulty when they have listening when they listening It can be grammar, comprehension lesson? What are they? speaking speech or strange topics T2: Students are definitely having difficulties each time they the listening task An unfamiliar topic or vocabulary and structure will cause difficulties for my students T3: The difficulties that my students often have that may be a strange accent or a difficulty topic… T4: The grammar is one of these affect to my students, some listening text have difficult grammar will make students feel depressed, not want to listen Sometimes, poor listening equipment also affect students’ listening ability T5: The structure and vocabulary, words stress, speaking speech, strange Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Cơng nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn Questions Notes topic or poor listening equipment are also affect students’ listening ability What factors you think are the most T1: The most affect is speaking affecting when your students listen? speech, after that is accents T2: The most affect is speaking speech, after that is vocabulary and structure T3: The most affect is speaking speech, after that is grammar T4: Grammar is the most affecting students listening T5: The most affect is speaking speech, after that is unfamiliar topic and poor listening equipment What should you to help your T1: Students should have a habit of students improve their listening predicting what will be listen comprehension? T2: Students should guess the meaning of words in the listening text T3: They should listen like a daily habit, then they practise some strategies to the related tasks T4: Listening and taking note the keywords and main ideas will help students get the information in the text Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn Questions Notes T5: Students should guess the strategies that use in the listening text Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn Xác nhận cán hướng dẫn Tiến sĩ : Nguyễn Thị Minh Loan Chữ ký học viên Đặng Thị Lệ Thủy Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Cơng nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn ... LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF THE 8TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN THAI NGUYEN CITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến khả nghe hiểu học sinh lớp trường Trung học sở Thái Nguyên) M.A THESIS Field:... Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.tnu.edu.vn sounds, understanding the meaning of individual words and understanding the syntax of Số hóa Trung tâm Học liệu Cơng nghệ... listening comprehension of 8th-grade students at a junior high school in Thai Nguyen The participants of the study included 90 grade students from classes 8A1, 8A2, 8A3 and teachers of English