FACTORS AFFECTING THE STUDENTS OF CLASS 11a11 IN LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

The importance and purposes of the listening skill in the language learning process...2 2.1.3Phrases in the listening learning process...3 2.1.4.. At class 11A11, Yen Dinh1 secondary sch

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA

TRƯỜNG THPT YÊN ĐỊNH I

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

FACTORS AFFECTING THE STUDENTS OF CLASS 11A11

IN LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: ITRODUCTION 1

1.1Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Purpose of the study 1

1.3 Scope of the study 1

1.4 Methods of the study 1

1.5 Significance of the study 2

II: DEVELOPMENT 2 1 Theoretical background of listening skills 2

2.1.1.What is the listening skill? 2

2.1.2 The importance and purposes of the listening skill in the language learning process 2

2.1.3Phrases in the listening learning process 3

2.1.4 Potential problems in learning to the English learning skill 4

2.1.4.1 Speed of delivery 4

2.1.4.2 Inability to get things repeated 4

2.1.4.3 Limited vocabulary 4

2.1.4.4 Unrecognizing the signals 5

2.1.4.5 Listeners’lack of contextual knowledge or background knowkedge 5

2.1.4.6 Inability to concentrate 5

2.1.4.7 Learning habit 5

2.2 The setting of the study 5

2.2.1 the setting of the school and objects 5

2.2.2 The students’background and their english levels 5

2.2.3 Listening text books 6

2.3 Findings from the current situation 6

2.4 Factors affected by the students of class 11A11 in the listening skill 7

2.4.1 Sts’ attitude towards the importance of studying the listening skill 7

2.4.2 Problems related to the listening materials 7

2.4.3 Problems related to the learners 7

2.4.4 Problems related to the environment 8

2.5 Suggestions for teaching and learning the listening skill 8

2.5.1 For the students 8

2.5.1.1 Positive attitude 8

2.5.1.2 Practice listening frequently outside class 8

2.5.1.3 Practice using listening strategies .8

2.5.1.4 Considering signals 8

2.5.2 For teachers 8

2.5.2.1 Activating the students’ Vocabulary 9

2.5.2.2 Giving extracurricular activities 9

2.5.2.3 Pronunciation 9

2.5.2.4 Encouraging the students to relate their background knowledge with the

topic they are going to listen 9

2.5.2.5 Guiding the students which listening strategies should be used for each task 9

2.5.2.6 Using the tapes and radios with good quality 10

2.5.2.7 Providing and trying to gain as much feedback as possible 10

2.5.2.8 Improving the learning environment of the listening skill 10

2.6 Applying suggestions in teaching the listening skill for 11th fỏm sts 11

2.7 Results 17

2.8 Findings……… 18

III Conclusions 18 REFERENCES

I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Today English is considered one of the most important factors to the trend

of globalization in all fields of life all over the world Thus, English as SecondLanguage has been taught in many countries and the demand to use Englishfluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essentialamong all students However, to master a language is not easy at all Of thefour language skills - Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing-that alllanguage learners are supposed to acquire, listening is believed to be the mostchallenging due to the complex and subtle nature of listening comprehension inthe second language or foreign language It takes much time and effort to makeprogress in this skill

At class 11A11, Yen Dinh1 secondary school, students often find itdificult and feel nervous during listening lessons and they can hardly listen toanything which causes the bad result in learning the listening skill This is verychallenging for me, and I have tried my best to find out factors that make mystudents unable to listen However, I began to find some simple suggestions thatworked for them and we began to make some progress That’s why I chose the

topic:“Factors affecting the students of class 11A11 in listening skill and some suggestions for improvement” I hope this will help both teachers and

students to realize the factors obstacling the students in learning the Englishlistening skill, then find out solutions to this problem

1.2 Purpose of the study

The main purpose of the study is to find out difficulties made by thestudents of class 11A11 at Yen Dinh 1 secondary school in Thanh Hoa province

in learning the listening skill This also offers some appropriate suggestions tobetter the current context

Research questions:

a What are difficulties in English listening skill that the students of class 11A11

at Yen Dinh 1 secondary school often made?

b what are guggestions for teachers to use in teaching to solve the problems?

1.3 Scope of the study

This study is conducted among the students of class 11A11 at Yen dinh 1Secondary School during the school year 2019- 2020 in order to perceivedifficulties in learning the listening skill of the 11th form Sts

1.4 Methodology of the study

- First of all, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials onlistening skills have been collected, analyzed and synthesized carefully with thedue consideration for the students’ learning situations

- Secondly, Tests and observing teaching listening lessons: To fulfill thisstudy, I observed class 11A11 in teaching and learning listening lessons in thefirst semester in school year 2019- 2020 in order to find out the effectiveness of

using some suggestions when applied in teaching and learning English listeningskill, then two tests were dilevered to students before and after experiment tocheck the results of the techiques that I used in the experiment

1.5 Significance of the study

This study may provide insights into the process of learning the listeningskill for the students It can help students understand why they have difficulties

in the listening skill It also gives some suggestions to help students overcomethe difficulties It may play a crucial role in enhancing the listening skill to thestudents

II DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Theoretical background of the listening skill

This second chapter provides readers with an overview of the study byintroducing some key concepts necessary for the best understanding of thisresearch, as well as the review of previous studies related to the topic There aresome most crucial concepts chosen to be clarified in this part such as definitions

of listening skill, the importance and purposes of the listening skill in thelanguage learning process, phrases in the listening learning process

2.1.1 What is the listening skill?

There have been a variety of definitions of listening by different linguistsbut one of the most popular ones is by Richards and Schmidt (2002) they stated

“Listening comprehension is the process of understanding speech in a first orsecond language The study of listening comprehension in second languagelearning focuses on the role of individual linguistic units ( e.g., phonemes,words, grammatical structures) as well as the role of the listener’s expectations,the situation and context, background knowledge and topic”

2.1.2 The importance and purposes of the listening skill in the language learning process

It can’t be denied that listening plays a vital role in our daily lives Peoplelisten for different purposes such as entertainment, academic purposes orobtaining necessary information

The importance of the listening skill can not be denied, however, differentscholars give their own views about how it is important

Some practitioners believe that language learning is a linear process,starting with the spoken language medium (listening and speaking) and thenmoving to the written medium (reading and writing) Listening is the means toinitiate oral production, which tends to be an imitation of spoken texts Thesecond view places listening along with the other three language modalities(speaking, reading and writing) in an intersectative mode All four modalitiesshould be thought simultaneously, so that practice in one area can reinforce anddevelop the other forms of communication (Rivers, 1987)

A third view emphasizes listening as the primary source of linguisticinput, which activates the language learning process Rost (1994) claimed that

'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” According to this scholar, without understanding input

appropriately, learning simply can not get any improvement In addition,without listening skill, no communication can be achieved

Though different linguists give a number of views about the importance

of listening, they all claim that listening play a vital role in communication and

in learning a language Listening is essential not only as receptive skill but also

to the development of spoken language prophecy

2.1.3 Phases in the listening learning process

The pre-listening stage: It is vitally important if we want our students to

get as much as possible out of listening The choice of listening is the first thing.Teachers shouldn't inflict on their students topics they believe will be of little or

no interest In this stage called" introductory or preparatory", students arerequired to bring their attitudes, previous knowledge about the topic… they aregoing to tackle They should be given a reason to listen, a chance to discuss andpredict what they are going to hear since the teacher can not let his student do alistening blind of information and without any point of reference, in addition tothe pre-teaching of some vocabulary which may be problematic can also be auseful part of this pre-listening stage All these activities related to this phase arewell presented by Hedge (2000) "Predicting content from the little of a talk,talking about a picture which relates to the listening text, discussing the topic,answering a set of questions about the topic and agreeing or disagreeing withopinions about the topic"

The while listening stage: This phase refers to the time of listening in

classroom Most teachers use tape recorders for their classroom listeningpractice During performing the listening activities, Students are denied all thephysical and visual clues that make face to face communication easier, and theyare left with only disembodied voice on what may be a technically poor piece ofequipment, sometimes video can cover these difficulties but still in other cases,teachers when using tape recorders must be encouraged to offer visual clues tohelp students (flashcards, white board…) While- listening, activities guide thestudents to collect or catch the necessary information for an overall listeningcomprehension, those activities ensure the active nature of the process in the factthat grasping every word when listening is not necessary, as well as involvingthe students to develop good listening habits, which consists in getting theinformation and immediately performing something with it Many activities aresuggested for teachers to use in this phase: - Comparing the listening passagewith the pre-listening stage - Filling in gaps while listening to a conversationwhere students are given the utterances of one part of the conversation andasked to complete the missing one of the other Or filling the blanks of a passagewith the appropriate missing words like in a song's lyrics - Depicting the

irrelevant information from a listening passage - Sequencing, where studentsare asked to give the right order of events like in a story for example - Listeningfor specific information or item

The post listening stage: The feed back to a listening activity in general

is important It is good for students to realise they have been doing somethinguseful and interesting For that reason, post listening activities refer to allactivities which can be practiced after the second phase Those listeningactivities are used as a springboard onto other language skills such as reading,speaking and writing Post listening activities are considered to be a source ofmotivating Students are given the opportunity to get more information about thetopic (this interest is not confined only to the original passage but it tends toinclude student's impressions, opinions, attitudes…) (Hedge, 2000) This phase

of post listening may include: - Multiple choices or true false questions to bedone by students to reflect their comprehension of the passage Summarizing thepassage depending on student's notes which had been taken during the whilelistening stage - Check answers to any comprehension tasks in pairs or groupswhich are less motivating for many students who find listening difficult, or pushdifferent groups to listen to different passages might be linked together afterwhich they exchange information to complete the whole original text or passage(a story for example) - Using debates, discussions, role plays…as means forpracticing speaking as well as writing messages and letters to practice thewriting skill

2.1.4 Potential factors affecting in learning English listening skill

There are a lot of potential factors in learning a language skill For thelistening skill, Underwood (1989) offers seven conceivable causes of obstacles

to efficient listening comprehension

2.1.4.1 Speed of delivery

Sometimes, listeners cannot control the speed of delivery, especially forbeginners Learners often feel that the utterances disappear before they can sortthem out or they can get the message The reason is that speakers speak too fast,learners can not keep up with the speed They can not hear what is being spoken

2.1.4.2 Inability to get things repeated

Secondly, listeners cannot always have words repeated This is a seriousproblem in learning situations This problem happens not only in the classroom,but outside it as well Outside the classroom, listeners are not always able to askthe speaker to repeat his utterance This can lead their failure in listening

2.1.4.3 Limited vocabulary

When listening, there are words or phrases that the listeners do not know

In other words, listeners have a limited vocabulary The listeners may wonderabout the meaning of new words, so they can not concentrate on listening thenext part of the listening

2.1.4.4 Unrecognizing the signals

Fourthly, listeners may fail to recognize the signals, which indicate thatthe speaker is moving from one point to another, giving an example, orrepeating a point In informal situations or spontaneous conversations, signalsare more vague as in pauses, gestures, increased loudness….These signals arenot easy to be recognized at all

2.1.4.5 Listeners’ lack of contextual knowledge or background knowledge

Another problem is that listeners may lack contextual knowledge That isthe knowledge that we possess previously about the context or passage (Ur,1985) which can helps us make some predictions and understand the listeningpassage more easily

2.1.4.6 Inability to concentrate

Sixthly, it can be difficult for listeners to concentrate in a foreignlanguage This can be caused by a number of things such as : the bad quality ofmachines, the poor quality of listening materials Other reason for loss ofconcentration is that the topic is not interesting or not familiar and learners find

it difficult to understand

2.1.4.7 Learning habits

The last is students may have established some learning habits such as awish to understand every word Therefore, students often feel nervous whenthey can not hear some words This leads to their lack of confidence in listening

2.2 The setting of the study

2.2.1 The setting of the school and objectss

The study was conducted at Yen Dinh 1 Secondary School established in

1965 in Yen Dinh district, Thanh Hoa province

There are 51 classes at Yen Dinh 1 Secondary School and it isconsidered to be the most crowded one in Thanh Hoa Classes at the school arevery crowded with from 35 to 48 students in each class In addition, the desksare often arranged traditionally with rows of four desks with a narrow isle in themiddle and two narrower on the sides There is no other empty space left whereteachers and students can move to and from if they conduct different interactionactivities Also, unavoidable noise in a big class usually has bad effects onstudents’ concentration and sound quality

Like in other schools, students at Yen Dinh 1 Secondary School aretaught all the subjects, one of which is English English is taught in classroomswith five parts: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and Grammar within 40weeks

2.2.2 The background of class 11A11 students and their English levels

The study was carried out to investigate the current situation of teachingand learning English listening skill to class 11A11 at Yendinh 1 secondary

school Class 11A11 has 46 students, includes 13 boys and 33 girls All the

students in class have similar backgrounds such as come from villages in

Yendinh district such as Dinh Hai, Dinh Tien, Dinh Hoa… They have alreadyfinished secondary school with four years of learning English Although theyhave had for over four years of learning English, their English proficiency hasbeen very low and they are very bad at English listening Especially, Englishlistening skill is not often practiced in the class, except the Language focuslessons Furthermore, in English lessons, English is used much by teachers andgood students, the others are lazy or reluctant to practice and do exercisesbecause they have no effort and aim to learn In addition, in their opinion, it isnot easy to master English and they do not pay much attention to it while themost important ones are mathematics, physics and chemistry.

2.2.3 Listening text books

Like students at other secondary schools, students at Yen Dinh 1 useEnglish books published by Education publishing house, Grade 10 students use “Tieng Anh 10”, Grade 11 students use “Tieng anh 11”, and “Tieng anh 12” isused for grade 12 All of students here learn the Basic English level

“Tieng Anh 11” is the sixth volume which continues a series of Englishtextbooks for grade 6 to grade 10 Unlike the old textbooks where languageinput was presented in terms of linguistic structures which were thenmechanically practiced through a series of rule-focused exercises, “Tieng Anh11” is underpinned by a theme-based approach to the introduction of languageinput Lessons are arranged according to topics which are true to life

“Tieng Anh 11” consists of sixteen units; each unit presents a themewhich is relevant to many aspects of the daily life: friendship, birthday party,hobbies, Tet holiday and so on Those themes are represented via five sections:reading, speaking, writing, listening and language focus respectively

2.3 Findings from the current situation

To find out some current situations in using some suggestions in teachingEnglish listening skill in class 11A11 with 46 students at Yendinh 1 secondaryschool, I survey the current situations by using tests of which the specificcontent is shown and I found out some following results

Table 1 Result of the test before experiment

From the table 1 above, only two students got the very good marks(8à10), account for 4.3% 8.7% of the students (4 students) got 7à7.9 (good

marks) Most of the students (28 students) got 5à6.9 (average marks), accountfor 60.9% 26.1% of the students (12 students) got under 5 (poor marks).

As we can see, the effectiveness of the lessons before experiment was notgood and the score for the test is not high Only a few students got high marksand a lot of students got poor marks

2.4 Factors affected by the students of class 11A11 in the listening skill

I have taught class A11 for two years so I had a chance to observe mystudents during listening lessons I took notes what they felt, what they did asmaterials for this study and I found some common difficulties

2.4.1 Students’ attitude towards the importance of studying the listening skill.

Most of the students from cass 11A11 at Yen Dinh 1 Secondary Schoolhighly appreciate the importance of listening skill Of four English skills,however, listening seems to be the most difficult Therefore, they are notconfident when learning this skill and self-rate their proficiency levels inlistening skills “average or bad”

2.4.2 Problems related to the listening materials

The material itself may be one of main sources of listening comprehensionproblems A lot of students think that some types of listening tasks are difficult,especially “Questions and answers”

A large number of students from this class find that listening topics areboring and not interesting and they often feel sleepy or do not pay attention tothe tape few learners state that it is easy to understand the listening topics.Most of the students think that the speed in listening texts is fast so they hardlyunderstand what the listening texts are about This is not surprising at allbecause students tend to work out the meaning of every utterance they hear inthe second language They are so busy trying to work out the meaning of onepart that they miss the following one; consequently, they fail to grasp the overallmeaning of the listening text Furthermore, a lot of students are not good enough

to comprehend what they are listening to They often try to catch everythingthey heard, so they feel panic when they fail to recognize a word or a structure

The students say that pronunciation in the tape is strange to them and isvery different from what they often listen to in their class This might be caused

by linking words, elision and the students often hear a word in isolation, with aclear sound from their teacher so it is not easy to recognize a word when it is in

a long sentence

2.4.3 Problems related to the learners

All the students of class 11A11 at Yen Dinh 1 Secondary School wereborn in Yen Dinh Most of their families live on agriculture so that they do nothave the best conditions to learn English Although they practice listeningEnglish at home, the main purpose is to relax by listening to English songs,watching films with English subtitle They do not really want to do the practice

to improve their listening skills

Many students take part in all the activities in class but they do not useany listening strategies Moreover, many of them do not do “ Before you listen”

or “ After you listen” activities which help them get ready for the topic andwiden their vocabulary as well as grammar, whereas their English background

on vocabulary, grammar, sound system is rather poor They also do not paymuch attention to signals which are important in understanding a message

2.4.4 Problems related to the environment

Not only do the difficulties come from the problems mentioned above, butalso come from the environment surrounding the students It is too noisy forthem to concentrate on listening because there is not any listening room whilestudents learning physical education subject outside are talking so loudly Inaddition, 85% of the students think the difficulties in listening comprehensionwere due to the poor- quality tapes or disks

2.5 Suggestions for teachers and sts in teaching and learning the listening skill

2.5.1 For the students

Although it is not easy to learn listening skills, students can follow thesuggestions below to overcome the difficulties in the process of their learning

2.5.1.1 Positive attitude

Have a positive attitude and motivation towards learning listening skills.The students need to have a clear goal in learning English and feel confident aswell as comfortable when listening to the tape

2.5.1.2 Practice listening frequently outside class

Try to practice listening outside class Besides listening to the listeningpart in “Tieng Anh 11, the students should spend time watching English content

on TV, listening to the radio or watching online videos Listen attentively todevelop sentence structures, sound system, and interpretation and so on Hearingthe same word frequently can be the best way to develop their Englishvocabulary They will eventually be able to imitate what they hear and say itwith confidence

2.5.1.3 Practice using listening strategies

The students must identify which strategies should be used for eachactivity They should create for themselves a habit of using listening strategiesinstead of trying to catch the meaning of every word they hear

issued by Bureau of Education and Training (Vietnam) But the teacher can do

something to help the students better learn English listening skills such as

providing the students with suitable background and linguistic knowledge;creating pleasant classroom conditions; and designing useful exercises to helpthem discover effective listening strategies Here are some helpful ideas:

2.5.2.1 Activating the students’ vocabulary

The teacher can activate students’ vocabulary by asking them to guess the

meaning of words used in the listening before explaining the meaning to them, since whenever students are able to relate what they have already known to what they are supposed to listen for, they are likely to listen better or more effectively.

2.5.2.2 Giving extracurricular activities

According to the students, the topics in the textbook are not interestingenough for them but the material can not be changed Therefore, the teachershould give extracurricular activities with radio news, films, TV plays,announcements, everyday conversation, interviews, storytelling, English songs,and so on about the matters that the students are interested in The students willtake part in the activities enthusiastically and get accustomed to the listeningskill gradually

2.5.2.3 Pronunciation

The findings in the study show that incorrect pronunciation hinders atleast many students from listening comprehension, so teachers need to helpstudents expose themselves and get familiar with precise pronunciation of nativespeakers By doing that the students’ pronunciation capacity is much moreimproved, which will help students find listening to native speakers effectiveand efficient As mentioned above, many teachers think that students’ accuratepronunciation is of great help for them in listening acquisition They also believethat one of the ultimate results of listening acquisition is to train students toproduce accurate pronunciation

2.5.2.4 Encouraging the students to relate their background knowledge with the topic they are going to listen.

The teacher should encourage the learners to think about and discuss thetopic they are going to listen to Teachers can also provide the backgroundinformation needed for them to understand the text, and it can help them payattention to what to listen for Consequently, students begin to predict what theymight hear and make connections with what they already know, increasing therelevance of the information

2.5.2.5 Guiding the students which listening strategies should be used for each task.

Listening strategies are necessary to do listening tasks Different kinds oftasks must be done with different strategies For example, task 1 in part C, Unit3: A party (Tieng Anh 11, page 36) asks the students to listen and decidewhether the statements are true) or false (F)

1 Mai’s birthday party was held at home in the evening

2 Over twenty guests were at the birthday party

3 The birthday cake was cut at the beginning of the party

4 The birthday party lasted about three hours

5 All the friends stayed after the party to tidy up the mess

The purpose of this task is to decide which information is correct from thespeaker The listeners should know that bottom up strategy (listening for specificdetails) are appropriate for this task They must pick out the key words in thesentences and pay attention to these words while listening

However, the students may not know which strategies to be used in doingthat task That is why the teacher should guide the students how to do the taskand which strategies should be used

2.5.2.6 Using the tapes and radios with good quality

It has been a common belief in the second language teaching that a slowerrate of speech would facilitate listening comprehension Moreover, Englishlistening proficiency of the class 11A11 students is rather low so the teachershould choose the tape with a slower rate of speech It will be better if thespeaker in the tape is a native one so that the students can listen to accuratepronunciation Besides, radios used must have a good quality in order that thestudents will be able to listen to clear sounds without noise from them

2.5.2.7 Providing and trying to gain as much feedback as possible.

During the course, the teacher should fill the gap between inputs andstudents’ reply and between the teacher’s feedback and students’ reaction so as

to make listening purposeful This not only promotes error correction but givesencouragements as well It can aid students to heighten their confidence in theirability to tackle listening problems Students’ feedback can assist the teacher tojudge where the class is going and how it should be instructed

Moreover, when the teacher provides and tries to gain feedback from thestudents, they gradually erase the distance between them and the students so thattheir students can share difficulties in learning with them

2.5.2.8 Improving the learning environment of the listening skill

Learning environment for listening skill, which is listening laboratorybesides Cassettes tapes, tape recorders and written listening texts, is a vital keyaffecting the quality of both learning and teaching listening skill However, thefindings of this study show that the students are not satisfied with the learningenvironment Students argue that it still lacks well-equipped listening laboratory;consequently, the students find it hard and challenging to concentrate whilelistening It is, therefore, essential to upgrade the recent laboratory so that all ofthe students have equal and much chance to study listening skill in such amotivating environment for improving their listening skill

In addition, the teacher should choose the tape with a high quality and a suitablespeed based on their students’ English listening proficiency

2.6 Applying suggestions in teaching the listening skill for students from class 11A11.

From above suggestions, in the first term of this school year I myselfapplied them in teaching the listening skill Firstly, I held some extracurricularactivities recently in which my students could listen to English all the time Theylistened to the songs and guess what their nanes were, they also listened toteachers’ questions to answer….Furthermore, I spent time explaining what

listening strategies to use for each task top-down or bottom-up More

importantly, beside teaching pronunciation in the book, I taught my studentselision, linking words, tone, signals……

I also chose good tapes for my students and played twice or even manytimes for difficult listening lessons In general, most of the students madeprogress gradually However, there are still a few students who can not improvetheir listening skill and I anticipate that weak students may need extra help, extraexplanations

At the pre-listening stage: I have more time at the pre-listening stage by

shortening the post-listening stage At this stage, we carefully prepare the lessonreading the tapescripts and using The Teaching Listening Checklist Thefollowing activities can be used based on the content of each lesson:

- Revise and teach vocabulary

- Revise and teach grammatical structure

- Create a gap-filling task or other tasks based on the tapescript

- Train listening skills

- Train microskills for listening

- Give some listening tips

At the while-listening stage:

- Remember to tell the aim of listening before you let the students listen tothe tape

- Write a very easy question so that the students can answer after the firstlistening (to encourage them to listen, to make them have a feeling of success)

- Write more additional questions to the listening tasks to make them easyfor the students

- Ask the students to guess before they listen to the tape (Do not say whatthey guess is wrong or right, ask why they guess so if necessary)

- Be flexible when getting the students to listen to the tape Read thelistening text if you find it helpful to your students

- Instruct students how to make the answers while listening ( short answers

or main ideas)

Below is one of my lessons in which I have applied some ways to improvethe listening skill