Action research on applying the interactive approach to develop listening skills for second-year non-english major students at Hanoi University of Industry

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************** NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ ACTION RESEARCH ON APPLYING THE INTERACTIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOP LISTENING SKILLS FOR SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ VIỆC ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP TƯƠNG TÁC ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ HAI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************** NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ ACTION RESEARCH ON APPLYING THE INTERACTIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOP LISTENING SKILLS FOR SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ VIỆC ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP TƯƠNG TÁC ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ HAI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof KIỀU THỊ THU HƯƠNG HANOI - 2017 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled: “Action research on applying the interactive approach to develop listening skills for second-year non-English major students at Hanoi University of Industry”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Language Teaching Methodology at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, is the result of my own work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other university or institution wholly and partially Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà i ACKNOWLEDGTMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Kieu Thi Thu Huong, my supervisor, for her assistance, encouragement as well as the guidance she gave me while I was doing this research Second, I would like to express my special thanks to all the lecturers of the Post Graduate Faculty of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge and amazing lectures that have helped to increase my interest for English Methodology and my teaching job I also wish to show my appreciation to my second-year students of the class E6.1_K9 for their whole-heated participation in the study Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my parents, my younger sister and my friends who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study ii ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating the impact of interactive processing on second-year students’ listening skills at Hanoi University of Industry More specifically, the researcher strives to (1) investigate problems that the students may encounter while learning listening, and (2) examine the effects of applying the interactive process in teaching listening to the second-year students To achieve the above mentioned objectives, an action research is conducted with the participation of 42 second-year students of class E6.1_K9 within twelve weeks A pre-test, a post-test and two questionnaires are used as instruments to collect data for analysis The findings show that there are six problems that cause difficulties to students in listening They are (i) lacking of vocabulary, (ii) structures of spoken language, (iii) speech rate, (iv) various and unfamiliar accents, (v) stress and intonation, (vi) lacking of background knowledge about the topic After interactive processing has been applied, the students’ scores in the post-test are higher than in the pre-test Overall, the instruction of interactive processing improves their listening skills iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGTMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LISTS OF FIGURES, CHARTS & TABLES vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Statement of the problem Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methodology of the study Significance of the study Structure of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theory on listening 1.1.1 Definitions of listening 1.1.2 Types of listening 1.1.2.1 Real-life listening 1.1.2.2 Classroom listening 1.1.3 Listening processes 1.1.3.1 Bottom-up processing 1.1.3.2 Top-down processing 1.1.3.3 Interactive processing_ the inclusion of bottom-up and top-down processing 10 1.1.4 Factors affecting listening processes 11 1.2 Teaching listening skills 12 1.2.1 Stages of a listening lesson 12 iv 1.2.1.1 Pre-listening 12 1.2.1.2 While-listening 13 1.2.1.3 Post-listening 14 1.2.2 Interactive processing in teaching listening skills 15 1.2.2.1 Teaching bottom-up processing 15 1.2.2.2 Teaching top-down processing 16 1.3 Review of previous works 17 1.4 Concluding remarks 19 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 20 2.1 Rationale of the using action research 20 2.2 Research setting 21 2.3 Selection of participants 22 2.4 Data collection instruments 22 2.4.1 Pre-test and post-test 22 2.4.2 Questionnaires 22 2.5 Data analysis procedures 23 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25 3.1 Preliminary investigation 25 3.1.1 Analysis of students’ preliminary questionnaire 25 3.1.1.1 Students’ attitudes on listening skills 25 3.1.1.2 Students’ self- assessment of their listening competence 26 3.1.1.3 Students' use of strategies in listening 27 3.1.1.4 Student's difficulties in listening 27 3.1.1.5 Students' expectation towards teachers 28 3.1.2 Results of students’ pre-test 29 3.2 Evaluation 30 3.2.1 Comparison of results from students' pre-test and post-test 30 3.2.2 Analysis of the students' post questionnaire 31 3.2.2.1 Activities motivating students in pre-listening stage 31 v 3.2.2.2 Activities attracting students in while-listening stage 32 3.2.2.3 Useful and effective activities for students after listening 33 3.2.2.4 Students’ opinions about the listening tasks 34 3.2.2.5 Students’ opinions on the teaching methods 35 3.2.2.6 Students’ opinions on learning listening with the interactive approach 36 3.2.2.7 Students’ opinions about their listening skills after the course 36 3.3 Concluding remarks 37 PART C CONCLUSION 37 Recapitulation 38 1.1 Difficulties students encounter when studying listening skills 38 1.2 The effects of applying the interactive approach to teach listening skills 38 Implications 39 2.1 The neccessity of applying the interactive approach 39 2.2 The neccessity of arousing students' motivation and interest 40 2.3 Changes in conducting three stages of a listening lesson 40 2.3.1 Pre-listening 40 2.3.2 While-listening 42 2.3.3 Post-listening 42 Limitations of the study 42 Suggestions for further studies 43 REFERENCES 44 APPENDIX I APPENDIX III APPENDIX V APPENDIX VII APPENDIX IX vi LISTS OF FIGURES, CHARTS & TABLES Figures Figure 1: Action research model 20 Charts Chart 1: Students’ attitude on the importance of listening skills 25 Chart 2: Students’ interest in learning listening skills 26 Chart 3: Students’ self-assessment of their listening competence 26 Chart 4: Students' use of strategies in listening 27 Chart 5: Comparison of the results from pre-test and post-test 31 Chart 6: Students’ opinions on learning listening with the interactive approach 36 Chart 7: Students’ opinions on their listening skills after the course 37 Tables Table 1:Some kinds of bottom-up exercises for beginners 16 Table 2:Some kinds of top-down exercises for beginners 17 Table 3: Students’ difficulties in learning listening 27 Table 4: Students' expectation towards teachers 28 Table 5: The overall results of students’ pre-test 29 Table 6: The overall results of students’ post-test 30 Table 7: Activities motivating students in pre-listening stage 31 Table 8: Activities attracting students in while-listening stage 32 Table 9: Useful activities for students after listening 33 Table 10: Students’ opinions on the listening tasks 34 Table 11: Students’ opinions on the teaching methods 35 vii PART I: INTRODUCTION Statement of the problem Recently, listening has gained more and more attention in foreign language learning In learning English as a foreign language, it is suggested that the most important step should begin with an effort to listen Rubin & Thompson state: Listening, quite possibly, is the most important of the language skills, since people spend approximately 60% of their time listening… In addition, listening will give you an opportunity to get a “feel” for the language and will have you improve your overall ability in it If you don’t learn to listen effectively, you will not be able to participate in conservations in the foreign language Rubin & Thompson (1994, p 85) Rost (1994, p 141) emphasizes that listening can be regarded as a necessary skill in the preparation of foreign language students and can even be considered as a good predictor of language achievement Consequently, listening plays a vital role in foreign language learning At present, listening is incorporated in all English syllabuses used at all levels of Vietnamese education However, there was a long time when most English textbooks in Vietnam paid attention to grammar, translation and reading materials, it was almost impossible to find anything related to teaching listening skills As a result, listening is considered to be the most challenging skill in teaching and learning compared to the other skills Being a teacher of English at Hanoi University of Industry for more than two years, the writer has found that the non-English major students are uninterested in listening lessons They are unwilling to any listening tasks and perform poorly in the listening tests The question arises here is to find out the suitable approach to help the students develop their listening skills Next, teachers should provide necessary clues such as contextual information of the speakers of the relationship among speakers, etc to help learners to cope with their problems they come across in the process of listening While-listening is not only a stage to encourage listeners to demonstrate their comprehension and to make their problems plain to the teacher rather than hide them, but also a stage for teachers to teach and help learners build up their listening skills and strategies so as to increase listeners’ chances of success in listening tasks 2.3.3 Post-listening Post-listening is a part that is often neglected by many teachers Actually, there are a lot of things to after listening Activities such as problem solving, summarizing, group discussion and writing as follow-up are necessary Instead of spending time examining the grammar of the listening text, we take post-listening as a means of reinforcing recently learned materials If necessary, the teacher can play the while text again and ask the students to compare their understanding of it in pairs or in groups, encourage them to disagree with each other, and increase their motivation for a second listening After playing the text for the second time, students can revise their views Instead of telling them who is right and who is wrong, the teacher can ask students to provide evidence to support their views In this way, listening becomes a much more interactive activity We can also take the chance to let students practise speaking and writing First they can have discussion and presentation, which at the same time can serve as a prewriting activity After sharing ideas, they can write something related to the passage At the end of the stage, teachers should make sure that necessary feedbacks to learners’ performance are offered and received Learners’ problems are summarized and tackled by reviewing the difficult parts, and newly taught skills and strategies will be reinforced by encouraging learners to apply them in their out-of-class listening practice Limitations of the study Due to the limitation of length and time constraints, this work remains some certain limitations 42 First of all, only one cycle is conducted in the study because of time constraints, whereas, another cycle could be done to improve the students’ listening skills based on feedbacks from collected data Secondly, the interactive process is only experimented in one group for only one term which may not be enough for the investigator to have better judgments Studies of using the process to improve listening skills for different groups of students at Hanoi University of Industry should be done Finally, the subjects for the study are 42 students of group E6.1_K9, so they may not exactly represent all second-year non-English major students at Hanoi University of Industry Thus, it will be better if the study is experimented with more students involved Suggestions for further studies The limitations and scope of the study leave the gaps for other studies in the field of teaching listening to fill in First, the study is carried out with the second-year nonEnglish major students whose level of English proficiency is rather low; therefore, the interactive approach can be applied to teach English major students Second, the study would be more reliable if two equal student groups were chosen as participants Of which only one group is applied the interactive approach The comparison of these two groups will show exactly how much effectiveness the approach brings Finally, studies on three other skills (reading, speaking, and writing) should be carried out in the near future for better English teaching and learning at Hanoi University of Industry It is because language is used as a means of communication, students should be encouraged to develop all four skills which are closely related to one another 43 REFERENCES Al-Qaraghooly, D.A & Al-Bermani, H K K (2010) The Effect of Top-down and Bottom-up Processing on Develoing EFL Students’ Listening Comprehension AL-Fatih Journal No.45 December Anderson, A & Lynch, T (1988) Listening Oxford University Press Bentley, S & Bacon, S E (1996) The all new, state-of-the-art ILA definition of listening: Now that we have it, what we with it?, Listening Post, pp 1-5 Brown, G (1990) Listening to Spoken English Longman Brown, H D (2007) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Pearson Education ESL; Edition (June 1, 2006) Buck, G (2001), Assessing Listening Cambridge University Press Davies, P & Pearse, E (2000), Success in English Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Faerch, C & Kasper, G (1986) “Listening in the Native and Second/ Foreign Language: Toward an Integration of Research and Practice”, TESOL Quarterly, 25(3), pp 264 Hulstijn, J H (2001) Intentional and Incidental Second Language Vocabulary Learning: A Reappraisal of Elaboration, Rehearsal and Automaticity (pp 258-286) Littlewood, W (1981) Communicative Language Teaching London: Cambridge University Press Lynch, T & Mendelsohn, D (2009) Listening In N Schmitt (Ed.) Introduction to Applied Linguistics London: Arnold 181-196 Mendelsohn, D (2001) Listening Comprehension: We’ve Come a Long Way, but Contact, 27(2), 33-40 Nunan, D (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning London: Cambridge University Press 44 Nunan, D (2002) Listening in Language Learning Oxford: Heinemann Osada, N (2001) Listening Comprehension Research a Brief Review of the past thirty years Recuperado el 10 de June de 2010, de Listening Comprehension Research: http://talk-waseda.net/dialogue/no03_2004/2004dialogue03_k4.pdf Peterson, P W (1991) A Synthesis of Methods for Interactive Listening Boston: Heinle and Heinle p.114-121 Peterson, P W (2001) Skills and Strategies for Proficient Listening In M CelceMurcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a Second Foreign Language Boston: Heinle & Heinle Rixon, S (1986), and Hubbard, R and Others (1984), Developing Listening Skills London: Macmillan Rost, M (1994), Academic Listening Cambridge University Press Rubin J, Thompson I (1994) How to be a more successful language learner: toward learner autonomy Boston, Mass : Heinle & Heinle Publishers Underwood, M (1989), Teaching Listening Longman Press Van Duzer, C H (1997) Improving ESL Learners' Listening Skills: At the Workplace and Beyond National Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education, Project in Adult Immigrant Education Villegas, C E H (2013) The Inclusion of Bottom-up and Top-down Strategies in Listening Comprehension Tasks for Second Semester Students from an English Programa Retrieved from http://www.recursosbiblioteca.utp.edu.co Wilga, R (1986) Teaching Foreign Language Skill The University of Chicago Press Dao Thi Hong Yen (2014) The Application of Top-down Techniques in Teaching Listening Skills to English Non Major 10th Grade Students at Tam Duong High School Unpublished M.A Thesis, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 45 APPENDIX Pre-test (Time allowed: 25 minutes) Task 1: You will hear five short conversation You will hear each conversation twice Put a tick under the right answer What is the man buying for his lunch? When is Maria's party? Which postcard does the woman choose? How much does the woman pay for the DVD? What did the girl leave at Ben's flat? I Task 2: Listen Dan and Jess talking about evening classes at the community centre What club is on each day? There is one answer for each question A running E tennis B football F art club C music night G Spanish club D swimming H film club Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Task 3: Listen to Sam phoning Kate Richards about a Saturday job at her music shop Circle the correct answers The hours for the Saturday job are Where is the music shop? A am- 8pm A Near the university B am- 7pm B In the centre of town C 10am- 6pm C Across the river from Sam’s home The job will be mainly Which day will Sam visit the shop? A Adding up money A Wednesday B Cleaning the shop B Thursday C Serving customers C Friday How much can Sam earn? A £5.25 an hour B £6.30 an hour C £7.00 an hour Task 4: You will hear a woman asking for information about a festival Listen and complete the question Type of Festival: Food and Runs from: Friday to Opens from 11.00am to Take bus number: Try: II APPENDIX Post-test (Time allowed: 25 minutes) Task 1: You will hear five short conversation You will hear each conversation twice Put a tick under the right answer What time will the train arrive? What does the man want to buy? Where is the post office? What will they buy? How long will the man stay at the hotel in total? nights nights III night Task 2: Listen to Sam talking about his holiday What did he for each day? There is one answer for each question A read on the beach E went for a long walk B went canoeing F visit museums C went shopping G went swimming D climbed a mountain H returned home Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Task 3: Listen to Vanessa telling Paul about a visit to see a special James Bond exhibition at the Science Museum in London Circle the correct answers Vanessa went to the museum For lunch Vanessa decided to A on foot A take a picnic B on the underground B have a hot meal C by bus C get a snack Vanessa really liked James Bond's The exhibition will finish on A helicopter A 23rd April B car B 24th April C camera C 27th April The museum opens at A 9.00 B 10.00 C 11.30 Task 4: You will hear a woman asking for information about a city bus tour Listen and complete the question Bus Tours depart… Every minutes Last tour departs at Ticket prices: Adults: £10; Children: £ Tour Bus Office Address: Buses leave from Street The IV Hall APPENDIX Questionnaire after the Pre-test Dear students, This survey questionnaire is designed to gather your opinion for my thesis "Action research on applying the interactive approach to develop listening skills for second-year non-English major students at Hanoi University of Industry" Your completion of this questionnaire is highly appreciated and the data collected are used in this research only, not for any other purposes Your personal information, therefore, will be kept strictly confidential Please give your answers truthfully for a guaranteed success of the investigation by circling the appropriate for the following questions Thank you very much for your cooperation! How are listening skills important to you? A Very important B Rather important C Little important D Not important at all How you like listening lessons? A Very much B Rather C Little D Not at all To what extent you evaluate your listening skills? A Very good B Good C Neutral D Bad E Very bad Do you use any strategies in listening? Yes No V Which factors cause difficulties to you in learning listening? H Speaking speed of the speakers I Lack of vocabulary J Structures of spoken language K Unfamiliar topics L Various and unfamiliar accents M Lack of background knowledge about the topic N Poor listening equipment O No motivation P Other idea (please specify) What you expect your teachers to to help you overcome the difficulties in listening? A Provide you with certain amount of new words needed for listening activities B Equip you with necessary strategies in listening comprehension C Design more suitable listening tasks to students' listening levels and interests D Recommend other supplementary materials beside classroom activities E Other idea (please specify) VI APPENDIX Questionnaire after the Post-test Dear students, This survey questionnaire is designed to gather your opinion for my thesis "Action research on applying the interactive approach to develop listening skills for second-year non-English major students at Hanoi University of Industry" Your completion of this questionnaire is highly appreciated and the data collected are used in this research only, not for any other purposes Your personal information, therefore, will be kept strictly confidential Please give your answers truthfully for a guaranteed success of the investigation by circling the appropriate for the following questions Thank you very much for your cooperation! Which activities did teacher before listening to the tape recording? a Learning new words b Introducing new grammar structures c Giving back ground information d Brainstorming, discussing the topic in pairs or in groups e Answering relevant questions Which activities that teacher asked you to in while-listening stage? a Retain input while it is being processed b Recognize word and clause divisions c Recognize key words d Recognize key transitions in a discourse e Recognize grammatical relationships between key elements in sentences f Use stress and intonation to identify word and sentence functions g Use the key words to construct the schema of a discourse h Anticipate questions related to the topic or situation i Infer the setting for a text j Infer causes or effects k Infer the role of the participants and their goals l Infer unstated details of a situation VII After you listen, which activities is the most useful and effective to you? a Retelling the main ideas b Discussing in groups or pairs c Playing roles based on listening content d Summarize the text e Other idea (Please specify) How you think of the listening tasks that teacher has designed in class? a Interesting b Effective c Difficult d Boring e Stressful f Other idea (Please specify) How you think of the ways that teacher has organized listening activities in class? a Motivating students b Interesting c Tense/ stressful d Demotivating students e Boring f Other idea (please specify) Do you like learning listening with interactive process? Yes No What you think of your listening skills after a term with interactive listening process? a A lot of improvement b Better c Worse d No improvement e Other idea (Please specify) VIII APPENDIX SAMPLE LESSON I LESSON BACKGROUND Target learners: Second-year students at Hanoi University of Industry Aims: - Introduce Ss vocabulary relating to animals - Practice listening short talking - Listen for main ideas and specific information - Guide students write a postcard about a visit to a zoo Anticipated problems: Students may get confused with new words and sentences' intonation Time: 45 minutes Materials and aids: KET Student’s book (page 33), laptop, speaker, board, chalk, power point lesson plan II LESSON PROCEDURES Teacher’s activities Time Warm-up (5 mins) - Ask: ''Have you ever been to the zoo?'' "What animals did you see?" Students’ activities - Answer the teacher’s question - Make a list of animals Prelistening (8 mins) - Teach Ss some new words + bear (n) + horse (n) + monkey (n) + elephant (n) + dolphin (n) + lion (n) + cow (n) - Ask Ss to read after the teacher, and then read loudly in the class - Check spelling and pronunciation IX - Read after the teacher Whilelistening (20 mins) *Pronunciation - Before asking Ss to listen to the - Read after the teacher recording, demonstrate the pronunciation *I like horses, cows, dogs and cats * I like monkeys, elephants and bears - Ask Ss to give their sentences - Give their sentences - Listen and make comments - Listen to the teacher’s comments *Task 1: (using top-down technique mainly) - Ask Ss to read the requirement - Read the requirement - Play the tape twice, asks Ss to order the - Listen to the tape and order words in the textbook the words - Ask Ss to compare their answers with - Compare their answers with the partner the partner - Ask Ss to give their answers - Give their answers - Write on the board - Show the right answers - Ask Ss to predict the gist of the talk - Predict the gist of the talk based on the words in a group of or based on the words in groups - Call some groups to give their answers - Give their answers - Play the tape again, ask Ss to listen and - Listen again and check their check the answers answers - Make comments *Task 2: (using bottom-up technique mainly) - Ask Ss to read through questions to - Read the questions understand the meaning - Call Ss to give their answers - Give their answers - Ask others to listen to their friends and - Give their opinions X give more opinions - Play the tape again, ask Ss to listen and - Listen to the tape again and check their answers check their answers - Listen to the teacher and correct if - Correct their mistake if needed Postlistening (12 mins) needed - Ask Ss to work individually, write a - Work individually; write a postcard to a friend about a visit to a zoo postcard to a friend about a visit to a zoo - Ask Ss to compare their writing with - Compare their writing with the partner the partner - Choose one or two Ss’ writing to read - Listen to the teacher and loudly in front of the class and correct correct the mistakes with the whole class - Make comments and correct the common mistakes if necessary - Wrap up the contents of the lesson XI Listen comments to the teacher