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

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 IMPROVEMENT Người thực hiện: Trịnh Thị Hiền Chức vụ: Giáo viên SKKN thuộc mơn: Tiếng Anh THANH HỐ, NĂM 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS I: ITRODUCTION 1.1Rationale for the study 1.2 Purpose of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Significance of the study II: DEVELOPMENT Theoretical background of listening skills 2.1.1.What is the listening skill? 2.1.2 The importance and purposes of the listening skill in the language learning process 2.1.3Phrases in the listening learning process 2.1.4 Potential problems in learning to the English learning skill 2.1.4.1 Speed of delivery 2.1.4.2 Inability to get things repeated 2.1.4.3 Limited vocabulary 2.1.4.4 Unrecognizing the signals .5 2.1.4.5 Listeners’lack of contextual knowledge or background knowkedge 2.1.4.6 Inability to concentrate 2.1.4.7 Learning habit 2.2 The setting of the study 2.2.1 the setting of the school and objects 2.2.2 The students’background and their english levels .5 2.2.3 Listening text books 2.3 Findings from the current situation 2.4 Factors affected by the students of class 11A11 in the listening skill 2.4.1 Sts’ attitude towards the importance of studying the listening skill 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 2.5 Suggestions for teaching and learning the listening skill .8 2.5.1 For the students 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 2.5.1.4 Considering signals 2.5.2 For teachers .8 2.5.2.1 Activating the students’ Vocabulary 2.5.2.2 Giving extracurricular activities 2.5.2.3 Pronunciation 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 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 Second Language has been taught in many countries and the demand to use English fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essential among all students However, to master a language is not easy at all Of the four language skills - Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing-that 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 the second language or foreign language It takes much time and effort to make progress in this skill At class 11A11, Yen Dinh1 secondary school, students often find it dificult and feel nervous during listening lessons and they can hardly listen to anything which causes the bad result in learning the listening skill This is very challenging for me, and I have tried my best to find out factors that make my students unable to listen However, I began to find some simple suggestions that worked 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 English listening 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 the students of class 11A11 at Yen Dinh secondary school in Thanh Hoa province in learning the listening skill This also offers some appropriate suggestions to better the current context Research questions: a What are difficulties in English listening skill that the students of class 11A11 at Yen Dinh 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 Secondary School during the school year 2019- 2020 in order to perceive difficulties in learning the listening skill of the 11 th form Sts 1.4 Methodology of the study - First of all, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials on listening skills have been collected, analyzed and synthesized carefully with the due consideration for the students’ learning situations - Secondly, Tests and observing teaching listening lessons: To fulfill this study, I observed class 11A11 in teaching and learning listening lessons in the first semester in school year 2019- 2020 in order to find out the effectiveness of using some suggestions when applied in teaching and learning English listening skill, then two tests were dilevered to students before and after experiment to check 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 listening skill for the students It can help students understand why they have difficulties in the listening skill It also gives some suggestions to help students overcome the difficulties It may play a crucial role in enhancing the listening skill to the students II DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Theoretical background of the listening skill This second chapter provides readers with an overview of the study by introducing some key concepts necessary for the best understanding of this research, as well as the review of previous studies related to the topic There are some 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 the language 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 linguists but 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 or second language The study of listening comprehension in second language learning 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 People listen for different purposes such as entertainment, academic purposes or obtaining necessary information The importance of the listening skill can not be denied, however, different scholars 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 then moving to the written medium (reading and writing) Listening is the means to initiate oral production, which tends to be an imitation of spoken texts The second view places listening along with the other three language modalities (speaking, reading and writing) in an intersectative mode All four modalities should be thought simultaneously, so that practice in one area can reinforce and develop the other forms of communication (Rivers, 1987) A third view emphasizes listening as the primary source of linguistic input, 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 are required to bring their attitudes, previous knowledge about the topic… they are going to tackle They should be given a reason to listen, a chance to discuss and predict what they are going to hear since the teacher can not let his student a listening blind of information and without any point of reference, in addition to the pre-teaching of some vocabulary which may be problematic can also be a useful part of this pre-listening stage All these activities related to this phase are well 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 with opinions 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 listening practice During performing the listening activities, Students are denied all the physical and visual clues that make face to face communication easier, and they are left with only disembodied voice on what may be a technically poor piece of equipment, sometimes video can cover these difficulties but still in other cases, teachers when using tape recorders must be encouraged to offer visual clues to help students (flashcards, white board…) While- listening, activities guide the students to collect or catch the necessary information for an overall listening comprehension, those activities ensure the active nature of the process in the fact that grasping every word when listening is not necessary, as well as involving the students to develop good listening habits, which consists in getting the information and immediately performing something with it Many activities are suggested for teachers to use in this phase: - Comparing the listening passage with the pre-listening stage - Filling in gaps while listening to a conversation where students are given the utterances of one part of the conversation and asked to complete the missing one of the other Or filling the blanks of a passage with the appropriate missing words like in a song's lyrics - Depicting the irrelevant information from a listening passage - Sequencing, where students are asked to give the right order of events like in a story for example - Listening for 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 something useful and interesting For that reason, post listening activities refer to all activities which can be practiced after the second phase Those listening activities are used as a springboard onto other language skills such as reading, speaking and writing Post listening activities are considered to be a source of motivating Students are given the opportunity to get more information about the topic (this interest is not confined only to the original passage but it tends to include student's impressions, opinions, attitudes…) (Hedge, 2000) This phase of post listening may include: - Multiple choices or true false questions to be done by students to reflect their comprehension of the passage Summarizing the passage depending on student's notes which had been taken during the while listening stage - Check answers to any comprehension tasks in pairs or groups which are less motivating for many students who find listening difficult, or push different groups to listen to different passages might be linked together after which they exchange information to complete the whole original text or passage (a story for example) - Using debates, discussions, role plays…as means for practicing speaking as well as writing messages and letters to practice the writing 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 the listening 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 for beginners Learners often feel that the utterances disappear before they can sort them 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 serious problem 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 ask the 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 not know In other words, listeners have a limited vocabulary The listeners may wonder about the meaning of new words, so they can not concentrate on listening the next part of the listening 2.1.4.4 Unrecognizing the signals Fourthly, listeners may fail to recognize the signals, which indicate that the speaker is moving from one point to another, giving an example, or repeating a point In informal situations or spontaneous conversations, signals are more vague as in pauses, gestures, increased loudness….These signals are not 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 is the knowledge that we possess previously about the context or passage (Ur, 1985) which can helps us make some predictions and understand the listening passage more easily 2.1.4.6 Inability to concentrate Sixthly, it can be difficult for listeners to concentrate in a foreign language This can be caused by a number of things such as : the bad quality of machines, the poor quality of listening materials Other reason for loss of concentration 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 a wish to understand every word Therefore, students often feel nervous when they 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 Secondary School established in 1965 in Yen Dinh district, Thanh Hoa province There are 51 classes at Yen Dinh Secondary School and it is considered to be the most crowded one in Thanh Hoa Classes at the school are very crowded with from 35 to 48 students in each class In addition, the desks are often arranged traditionally with rows of four desks with a narrow isle in the middle and two narrower on the sides There is no other empty space left where teachers and students can move to and from if they conduct different interaction activities Also, unavoidable noise in a big class usually has bad effects on students’ concentration and sound quality Like in other schools, students at Yen Dinh Secondary School are taught all the subjects, one of which is English English is taught in classrooms with five parts: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and Grammar within 40 weeks 2.2.2 The background of class 11A11 students and their English levels The study was carried out to investigate the current situation of teaching and learning English listening skill to class 11A11 at Yendinh 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 already finished secondary school with four years of learning English Although they have had for over four years of learning English, their English proficiency has been very low and they are very bad at English listening Especially, English listening skill is not often practiced in the class, except the Language focus lessons Furthermore, in English lessons, English is used much by teachers and good students, the others are lazy or reluctant to practice and exercises because they have no effort and aim to learn In addition, in their opinion, it is not easy to master English and they not pay much attention to it while the most important ones are mathematics, physics and chemistry 2.2.3 Listening text books Like students at other secondary schools, students at Yen Dinh use English books published by Education publishing house, Grade 10 students use “ Tieng Anh 10”, Grade 11 students use “Tieng anh 11”, and “Tieng anh 12” is used for grade 12 All of students here learn the Basic English level “Tieng Anh 11” is the sixth volume which continues a series of English textbooks for grade to grade 10 Unlike the old textbooks where language input was presented in terms of linguistic structures which were then mechanically practiced through a series of rule-focused exercises, “Tieng Anh 11” is underpinned by a theme-based approach to the introduction of language input Lessons are arranged according to topics which are true to life “Tieng Anh 11” consists of sixteen units; each unit presents a theme which 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 teaching English listening skill in class 11A11 with 46 students at Yendinh secondary school, I survey the current situations by using tests of which the specific content is shown and I found out some following results No Mark Result Number of students % 10 4.3 7.9 8.7 6.9 28 60.9