An exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at a university in HaNoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THU TRANG AN EXPLORATOTY STUDY ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF TOEIC LISTENING SKILL AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI (NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TOEIC TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC Ở HÀ NỘI) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 HÀ NỘI – 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THU TRANG AN EXPLORATOTY STUDY ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF TOEIC LISTENING SKILL AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI (NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TOEIC TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC Ở HÀ NỘI) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor : Kiều Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D HÀ NỘI – 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION …………………………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT …………………………… …………………………… ii ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………… iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS ……………………………………………… vii ABBREVIATIONS ……………………………………………………………… viii PART A: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………… ………… 1 Rationale ………………………………………………………………… ……… Objectives of the study …………………………………………………… …… Significance of the study ………………………………………………………… Scope of the study ………………………………………………………… …… Methodology ……………………………………………………………… …… Organization ……………………………………………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………………… … CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ……………………… ………… 1.1 Notions of listening …………………………………………………… ……… 1.2 Process of listening…………………………………………………………….… 1.3 Classification of listening ………………………………………… …………….6 1.4 Affective factors in listening ………………………………………………… …7 1.4.1 Listener factor ……………………………………………………………….11 1.4.1.1 Experien ce and practice in listening ………………………… …… 11 1.4.1.2 Background knowledge ……………………………………………… 11 1.4.1.3 Knowledge of the target language ………………………….…………12 1.4.1.4 Psychological factors ………………………………………………… 12 1.4.2 Speaker factor ……………………………………………………………… 12 1.4.2.1 Speaker’s production …………………………………….…………… 12 iv 1.4.2.2 Speed of delivery ……………………………………………… …… 12 1.4.3 Material and medium ……………………………………………… ………13 1.4.3.1 The language used …………………………………………… ………13 1.4.3.2 Content and concepts ………………………………………….………13 1.4.3.4 The support provided ………………………………………………… 13 1.5 Stages of a listening lesson ………………………………………………………13 1.5.1 Pre-listening ………………………………………………… .…………13 1.5.2 While-listening ……………………………………………… …………….14 1.5.3 Post-listening ……………………………………………………….……….14 1.6 TOEIC ………………………………………………………………………… .15 1.6.1 Overview of a TOEIC test ………………………………………………… 15 1.6.2 TOEIC listening ……………………………………………….……………17 1.7 Review of previous studies ………………………………………………………20 1.8 Situation of teaching and learning TOEIC listening skill at HLU … ………22 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY………………………………………………… …… 23 2.1 Subjects ………………………………………………………………………… 23 2.2 Research instruments ……………………………………………………………23 2.3 Procedure ………………………………………………………………… …… 24 2.4 Results and discussion ……………………………………… …………………24 2.4.1 The teaching of TOEIC listening …………………………………………… 24 2.4.1.1 Teachers’ genera information………………………………….……… 24 2.4.1.2 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching TOEIC listening …………………… 27 2.4.2 The learning of TOEIC listening ……………………………………… …….30 2.4.2.1 Students’ general information ……………………………………………… 30 2.4.2.2 Students’ general difficulties in learning TOEIC listening ………………… 34 2.4.2.3 Students’ specific difficulties in TOEIC listening parts ……………… …… 36 2.5 Recommendations ……………………………………………………… …… 39 v 2.5.1 To the teachers ………………………………………………………………….39 2.5.2 To the students …………………………………………………………….……41 PART C: CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………… 43 Summary of the study……………………………………………………… … 43 Limitations of the study………………………………………………………… 44 Suggestions for further study …………………………………………………….45 REFERENCES …………………………………………………… ……………… 46 APPENDICES ………………………………………………… …….……………….I APPENDIX …….……………………………………………… … ………………I APPENDIX …………………………………………………………………….… IV vi LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES Figure 1: A classification of aural texts Table 1: Affective factors in listening Table 2: TOEIC test structure 16 Table 3.1: Teachers’ difficulties at pre-listening stage 27 Table 3.2: Teachers’ difficulties at while-listening stage 28 Table 3.3: Teachers’ difficulties at post-listening stage 29 Table 3.4: Teachers’ other difficulties 29 Table 4: Students’ feelings in learning TOEIC listening 33 Table 5.1 Students’ difficulties related to Listener factor 35 Table 5.2 Students’ difficulties related to Speaker’s factor 36 Table 5.3 Students’ difficulties related to Material/medium factor 36 Table 5.4 Students’ difficulties in Part 37 Table 5.5 Students’ difficulties in Part 38 Table 5.6 Students’ difficulties in Part 38 Table 5.7 Students’ difficulties in Part 39 Chart 1.1: Teachers’ age ranges 25 Chart 1.2: Teachers’ teaching qualifications 25 Chart 1.3: Teachers’ extra responsibilities 26 Chart 1.4: Teachers’ length of time teaching TOEIC listening 26 Chart 2.1 Students’ gender ratio 30 Chart 2.2 Students’ reasons for studying TOEIC 31 Chart 2.3 Students’ length of time studying TOEIC 31 Chart 2.4 Students’ listening practice 32 Chart 2.5 Students’ evaluation of the level of difficulties of TOEIC listening 33 Chart 2.6 Students’ evaluation of the most difficult part of TOEIC listening 34 vii test ABBREVIATIONS HLU Hanoi Law University TOEIC Test of English for International Communication IELTS International English Language Testing System TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language viii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale As English nowadays has become a prerequisite for job seekers, there is a growing number of English learners who wish to sit for worldwide standardized English tests such as IELTS, TOEFL or TOEIC Among these, TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) has been increasingly applied in both workplace and educational institutions Many universities offer English courses basing on the students’ TOEIC test scores Enterprises and organizations also use TOEIC scores as one criterion for employing new recruits and promoting employees At Hanoi Law University (HLU), the TOEIC test has been used since 2010 as a standardized test to classify students’ English proficiency, place them into the right classes and evaluate their learning progress Students have to get at least TOEIC 450 scores to meet the requirements for graduation Traditionally, a TOEIC test consists of two sections, which are designed to test candidates’ two skills: listening and reading Generally, listening skill is always considered the most essential as well as the most difficult skill for both teachers to teach and for learners to learn Listening in TOEIC is not an exception because it comprises different task types with various topics “An exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at a university in Hanoi” has been conducted to gain insights into the difficulties encountered by teachers and students in TOEIC listening with the hope to contribute to the improvement of English teaching and learning at HLU Objectives of the study The purpose of this study is to explore the real situation of teaching and learning TOEIC listening skill at HLU Therefore, the study aims to answer the following research questions: 1 What difficulties students encounter in learning TOEIC listening skill? What difficulties teachers encounter in teaching TOEIC listening skill? What are some suggestions to improve the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at HLU? Significance of the study This study investigates the real difficulties that teachers and students at HLU face in the listening part of the TOEIC test By doing this research, the researcher wishes to help HLU students foresee the problems and overcome them in order to improve their listening scores Also, the study has been done to help HLU teachers beware of some teaching problems and adopt appropriate techniques to teach listening skill Scope of the study The study focuses on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at HLU The study has been conducted under the scope of an exploratory study with a small number of teachers and students who are teaching and studying TOEIC courses at the university Methodology The major research method used in the study is quantitative The data are collected from two survey questionnaires which intend to find out the difficulties teachers and students encounter in the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at HLU Basing on the data collected from the respondents, the researcher examines and analyzes the causes of those difficulties and suggests some solutions to improve the quality of teaching and learning TOEIC listening at HLU Organization Part A Introduction presents the rationale, objectives, significance, scope, methodology and organization of the study Part B Development is divided into two chapters: Chapter Theoretical Background lays the theoretical foundation for the research and reviews the previous studies Chapter The study deals with the subjects, research instruments, and procedure as well as results and discussions Some recommendations based on the findings are also provided in this chapter Part C Conclusion summarizes the major findings of the study Limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research are mentioned as well The Appendices where the survey questionnaires can be found come after the References 2.5.2 To the students First and foremost, students should devote time for practicing listening and develop learning autonomy It is suggestive that students spend a certain amount of time every day to listen to English in different text types similar to TOEIC listening format (announcements, weather forecast, news report, advertisements, telephone conversation, etc.) This practice will help students familiarize with the language, speakers’ accents as well as English stress and intonation Moreover, it is necessary for students to improve their vocabulary An effective way is reading extensively, which helps widen vocabulary as well as background knowledge Do more vocabulary exercises on TOEIC topics such as travel, news, office, restaurants, etc To overcome the confusion of similar-sound words and related words, for instance, students should learn homographs (words having the same spelling but totally different meaning such as bear(animal)/bear(to stand); bank(financial institution)/bank(river side) and homophones (words having the same pronunciation but different meaning such as aunt/ant; buy/by; I/eye ) Learning minimal pairs (pairs of words which differ in only one phonological element) in English is a good way to help students identify the difference between similar sounds and avoid choosing the wrong answers especially in Part and Examples of minimal pairs are bag/bad, pit/pet, pen/pan Last but not least, the learning of TOEIC listening skill will be much easier if students learn its sub-skills Among the sub-skills of listening are (1) ability to follow the general trend of what is said (2) ability to understand specific details (3) ability to check a specific piece of pre-knowledge against what is said 41 (4) ability to understand the speaker’s intention (why did s/he say something?) (5) ability to understand the speaker’s attitude (how s/he felt) (Lewis & Hill, 1992:62) Therefore, it is advisable that students try to improve sub-skills in order to become an efficient listener 42 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study TOEIC is a challenging examination and there is no magic way to help students to get a higher level immediately However, the awareness of the difficulties in TOEIC listening and adoption of the appropriate strategies and techniques can help students to perform to the best of their ability This present study has displayed an exploration into the difficulties in the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at a university in Hanoi The difficulties as identified by teachers and students are highly related It seems that one problem results in another within a circle, which causes ineffective teaching and learning To answer the research question 1, the difficulties faced by teachers in teaching TOEIC listening can be categorized into different stages of a listening lesson At prelistening stage, teachers have some difficulties such as motivating learners to listen, designing extra pre-listening activities and having enough time for pre-listening activities Difficulties at the while-listening stage come from several sources, including designing various listeing tasks, adjusting tasks to suit students’ ability and interest, providing extra authentic listening texts and varying the level of difficulty of the text Regarding post-listening stage, the barriers found out from the data analysis consist of having enough time for post-listening activities, involving all students into post-listening activities, and desiging extra tasks and activities Other teaching difficulties are related to big class size and the environmental noise To answer the research question 2, students’ difficulties in the learning of TOEIC listening skill are viewed from two perspectives From the first perspective, students’ difficulties can be systematized into Listener factor, 43 Speaker factor and Material/medium factor From the other perspective, difficulties can be divided into specific parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part and Part 4) of TOEIC Listening test On the ground of the Listener factor, limited knowledge of the language (especially English phonology and vocabulary), little experience of listening, and lack of practice cause the most difficulty to students Regarding the Speaker factor, students have troubles in speakers’ fast speed, different accents and stress/intonation Among the difficulties related to Material/medium factor, specialized content and lack of gestures and visuals are the most outstanding ones The four parts of the TOEIC listening test are different in their text types and tasks Accordingly, difficulties faced by students in each part vary as well Part is troublesome in terms of similar-sound words, words related to the correct answer and words in another context whereas inappropriate response to a question type and understanding the speaker’s intention are tricky in Part Part is difficult due to incorrect inferences and details Lastly, unfamiliar topics, too long listening passage and following the organization of the talk are typical problems of Part To answer the research question 3, the researcher has suggested some solutions to the teachers and students on the basis of the most common difficulties they encounter To the teachers, it is advisable that the size of the TOEIC classes be reduced Teachers should improve teaching techniques and develop listening materials in order to motivate students to learn Also, teachers provide learners with listening strategies and tips related to separate parts of the test To the students, they are advised to practice more listening, improve power of vocabulary and learn listening sub-skills Limitations of the study Though the study has been carried out to the best of the researcher’s effort, there remains several shortcomings for a number of reasons 44 Firstly, the research only involves a small number of teachers and students at HLU Therefore, the results cannot be generalized to teachers and students in other educational contexts Secondly, as the only instrument used in the study is survey questionnaires, there is possibility that not all questions were answered with due care Thus, the results of the study would have been more reliable if other research instruments were exploited Finally, since the researcher’s practical experience as well as professional knowledge in teaching TOEIC listening skill is limited, the recommendations are likely to be subjective and incomplete Suggestions for further study The issues mentioned in this study can be reviewed and studied again Further studies might look into the undone aspects of the research such as difficulties in the teaching and learning of TOEIC reading, writing and speaking skills or techniques and strategies in learning TOEIC listening skill 45 REFERENCES Anderson, A & T Lynch (1988) Listening Oxford University Press Bension, P & Voler, P (1997) Autonomy and independence in language learning London:Longman Boyle, J P (1984) Factors affecting listening comprehension ELT Journal 38(1) 34-8 Brown, G & Yule, G (1983) Teaching the spoken language Cambridge University Press Brown, H D (1987) Principles of language learning and teaching Englewood Clifs, JC: Prentice Hal Bui, T H (2009) Problems faced by Vietnamese learners in learning IELTS listening MA Minor thesis Hanoi: ULIS, VNU, Resources Center Byrnes, D (1986) Teaching oral English Longman Duzer, V C (1997) Improving ESL learners’ listening skills: at the workplace and beyond Center for Applied Linguistics Project in Adult Immigrant Education (PAIE) Field, J (1998) Skill and strategies: Towards a new methodology for listening Oxford: Oxford University Press Galvin, K (1985) Listening by doing – Developing effective listening skills National Textbook Co Lincohn Wood, Illinois Lewis, M & Hill, J (1992) Practical techniques for language teaching Hove: England Lougheed, L Longman preparation series for the new TOEIC test: Introductory course Fourth edition Pearson Longman 46 Nguyen, T P Q (2010) Current situation in teaching and learning English listening at Tay Ho high school in Hanoi and solutions M.A Minor thesis Hanoi: ULIS, VNU, Resources Center Nhu, H P (2012) Common errors made by pre-intermediate students in the TOEIC listening test and some suggested solutions MA Minor thesis Hanoi: ULIS, VNU, Resources Center Nunan, D (1991) Language teaching methodology Prentice Hall Nunan, D (1992) Research methods in language learning Cambridge: CPU O’Malley, J M & Chamot, A U (1989) Learning strategies in second language acquisition Cambridge University Press Rost, M (1994) Introducing listening London: Penguin Rubin, J (1994) A review of second language listening comprehension research The Modern Language Journal 78(2) Taylor, A & Byrne, G (2008) Beginning TOEIC test-taking skills: Very easy TOEIC Second edition Compass Publishing English Testing System (2008) TOEIC Examinee Handbook: Listening and Reading (2008) Retrieved from www.ets.org Underwood, M (1989) Teaching listening London New York Verma, G K & Mallick, K (1999) Research education: Perspectives and techniques London: Falmer Press White, G (1998) Listening Oxford: New York 47 APPENDICES APPENDIX DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING TOEIC LISTENING SKILL (A survey questionnaire for teachers) Dear my colleague My name is Nguyen Thu Trang, a teacher of English at the English Division I am now conducting “an exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at a university in Hanoi” The questionnaire is designed to collect data for my MA thesis Please indicate your opinions by completing these following items based on your experience I hereby certify that all the information achieved from this questionnaire would be dealt with anonymously Thank you for your cooperation! Please respond to the questions by putting a tick or fill in where appropriate You can tick more than once Part 1: Teachers’ general information Age: a 21-30 b 31-40 c 41-50 d 50+ Which of the following qualifications you have? a B.A in English teaching b M.A in English teaching Others (please specify): …………………………………………………………… I Do you have any extra responsibilities in the university? a Class lecturer b Division management Others (please specify): …………………………………………………………… How long have you been teaching TOEIC listening skill? a 1-3 years b 3-5 years c 5+ years Part 2: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching TOEIC listening Which of the following you find difficult in teaching at pre-listening stage? a providing the context of the listening passage b explaning tasks/giving instructions c providing vocabulary/grammar related to the passage d designing extra pre-listening activities e motivating learners to listen f having enough time for pre-listening activities g providing students with listening strategies and techniques Others (please specify): ……………………………………………………………… What are your problems in teaching at while-listening stage? a Designing various listeing tasks b Providing feedback on students’ mistakes c Adjusting tasks to suit students’ ability and interest d Offering help in case students cannot listen and get the message e Varying the level of difficulty of the text f Providing extra authentic listening texts II Others (please specify): ……………………………………………………………… Which of the following difficulties you face in teaching at post-listening stage? a Having enough time for post-listening activities b Involving all students into post-listening activities c Desiging extra tasks and activities d Working on form (vocabulary/grammar) Others (please specify): ………………………………………………………… Have you got any difficulties related to………… ? a Noise in/outside the classroom b Big class size c Listening facilities (CD player, CDs) d Textbook Others (please specify): ………………………………………………………… THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION! III APPENDIX DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING TOEIC LISTENING SKILL (A survey questionnaire for students) My name is Nguyen Thu Trang, a teacher of English at the English Division I am now conducting “an exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at a university in Hanoi” The questionnaire is designed to collect data for my MA thesis Please indicate your opinions by completing these following items based on your experience I hereby certify that all the information achieved from this questionnaire would be dealt with anonymously Thank you for your cooperation! Please respond to the questions by putting a tick or fill in where appropriate You can tick more than once Part 1: Students’ general information Gender: e Male f Female What are your reasons for learning TOEIC? c To fulfill the requirements of a training course d To be prepared for the future job e To improve English proficiency f To satisfy your interest Others (please specify): …………………………………………………………… How long have you been learning English? IV g Less than years h 3-5 years i 5-7 years j 7+ years How you practice listening to English? k Only learn English at the university l Go to English extra classes in the evening m Get access to media in English n Talk to foreigners Others (please specify): ………………………………………… How you often feel in TOEIC listening? a Confident b Stressed c Comfortable d De-motivated e Motivated f Unable to concentrate g Nervous h Tired i Confused Part 2: Students’ common difficulties in TOEIC listening In your opinion, the level of difficulty in the TOEIC listening test is……… a Little difficult b Difficult c Very difficult d Extremely difficult Which TOEIC listening parts you find the most difficult? a Part (Photographs) b Part (Question-Response) c Part (Conversations) V d Part (Talks) Decide whether the following statements are True/False basing on your experience: A Listener factor My difficulties in listening are due to … True False little experience of listening in English lack of practice limited background knowledge limited linguistic knowledge phonology vocabulary grammar cohesion analyzing/selecting ideas lack of motivation in listening lack of purpose in listening poor attention and concentration B Speaker factor I have problems with …………… True False pronouncing/recognizing sounds in English different accents stress/intonation in English fast speed C Material/medium factor VI I find it difficult to listen because of True False too colloquial / formal language style specialized content long passage poorly-organized discourse background noise on the recording environmental noise lack of gestures and visuals Have you got any other difficulties in learning to listen? Please specify ………………………………………………………………………… Part 3: Students’ difficulties in separate parts of TOEIC listening test What difficulties you face in Part 1? a Unclear and invisible photograph b Similar-sound words c Words related to the correct answer d Words used in different context e Incorrect details f Incorrect inferences Others (please specify): ………………………………………………………… 10 What difficulties you face in Part 2? a Similar-sound words b Repeated words c Words used in different context d Incorrect verb tense or person e Inappropriate response to the type of question VII f Not understand the intention of the speaker Others (please specify): ………………………………………………………… 11 What difficulties you face in Part 3? a Words that sound like the correct answer b Words in a different context or a different meaning c Incorrect details provided d Incorrect inferences made e Irrelevant details provided f Listening to two speakers Others (please specify): ………………………………………………………… 12 What difficulties you face in Part 4? a Words that sound like the correct answer b Words in a different context or a different meaning c Incorrect details provided d Incorrect inferences made e Irrelevant details provided f Too long listening text g Unfamiliar topics h Cannot follow the organization of the talk Others (please specify): ………………………………………………………… THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION! 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