A study on teaching listening comprehension to the 10th form students at ly thuong kiet high school bac giang

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES Phạm Thị Yến A sutudy on Teaching Listening Comprehension to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet high school – Bac Giang Nghiªn cøu vỊ việc dạy kỹ nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Lý Th-êng KiƯt – B¾c Giang M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 HA NOI - 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES Phạm Thị YÕn A sutudy on Teaching Listening Comprehension to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet high school – Bac Giang Nghiên cứu việc dạy kỹ nghe hiểu cho häc sinh líp 10 trường THPT Lý Th-êng KiƯt – B¾c Giang M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 SUPERVISOR: Phạm Thị hạnh, MA HA NOI - 2010 iii Table of contents Acknowledgements Page Abstract Table of contents List of abbreviations List of tables and pie charts Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Rationale 2 Aims of the Study 3 Methods of the Study .3 Scope of the Study Design of the Study chapter II - Literature review Introduction 2.1 The definition of listening and listening comprehension 2.1.1 Definition of listening .5 2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension 2.1.3 Listening Comprehension Process 2.2 Types of Listening 10 2.2.1 Listening in real-life 10 2.2.2 Listening in classroom 10 2.3 The importance of listening comprehension .11 2.3.1 Listening as the final goal of learning a language 12 2.3.2 Listening as a mean of acquiring language 12 2.4 What makes listening difficult 13 2.4.1 The linguistic factors .14 2.4.1.1 The type of language input 14 iv 2.4.1.2 Pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation 15 2.4.2 The non – linguistic factors .15 2.4.2.1 Listener’s ability to concentrate 16 2.4.2.2 Listener’s background knowledge 16 2.5 The procedure of teaching a listening lesson 17 2.5.1 Pre-listening stage 17 2.5.2 While-listening stage .18 2.5.3 Post-listening stage 18 chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1.1 Introduction 20 2.1 The participants 20 2.2 The course book 20 2.3 The 10th form students .20 2.4 The teachers of English .21 3.1 The data collection instrument 21 3.2 Data collection and analysis .23 4.1 Conclusion 24 chapter IV: data analysis and discussion .25 I Questionnaire for the students 25 Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school 25 (Question 1) .25 The difficulties encountered by 10th form students when learning listening 26 2.1 The importance of learning listening of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School .26 2.2 The students’ difficulties when learning listening at school ( Question 4, 5,6) .26 2.2.1 Listening difficulties encountered by 10th grade students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School 26 2.2.2 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill v (question 5) .27 Students’ attitude after listening lesson (Question 6,7 and 8) 29 Students’ need in learning listening .29 4.1 The students’ effort (question 9) 29 4.2 Teachers and their teaching methods (Question 10) 29 4.3 The things that school can to help students in their learning English 31 II The teachers’ questionnaire .31 Teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school 31 Teachers’ opinion about the aspects of language taught at school 32 Teachers’ opinion of teaching listening comprehension (question 3,4,5 and 6) 33 3.1 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching listening (Question 4, and 6) 34 3.2 Teachers’ activities to help students overcome the difficulties in learning listening process ( Question 7) .35 Teachers’ attitude toward class-listening activities (Question 7, 8,9,10, 11 and 12) 36 4.1 Teachers’ opinions about three-listening stages (Question 7) 36 4.2 Teaches’ comments on the pre-listening activities in the textbooks and their suggestions (Question 8,9) 37 4.3 Listening exercises teachers often have students practice in a listening lesson and their effectiveness (Question 10,11) 37 4.4 Students’ achievement from a listening text (Question 12) 39 Teachers’ suggestion in teaching listening 40 vi 5.1 The teachers’ effort (Question 13) 40 5.2 Teachers’ need in having effective listening lessons (Question 14) 5.3 Teachers’ suggestion to the administrators in order to have 41 effective listening lessons.(Question 15) 43 chapter v: recommendations and conclusion 44 I Findings and suggestions 44 II.Limitation and suggestions for the further study 46 vii list of abbreviations  CLT :Communicative Language Teaching  LCT :Listening Comprehension Teaching  LTK HS :Ly Thuong Kiet High School  N :Number  ESL :English as a Second language  Ss :Students  Ts :Teachers viii list of tables and pie charts A list of tables Table 1: Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (N = 380) Table 2: Why is listening skill difficult? Table 3: The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill Table 4: Teaching techniques help students listen better and more effectively Table 5: Teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school (N=7) Table 6: Overall ranking of the aspects of the language taught at school Table 7: Teachers’ activities to help students overcome the difficulties in learning listening process Table 8: Teachers’ opinions about three- stage process Table 9: Listening exercises used Table 10: What those students can get after listening lessons Table 11: Teachers’ effort to have effective listening lessons Table 12: Teachers’ need in having effective listening lessons B list of pie charts Pie chart 1: Students’ attitude towards listening skill Pie chart 2: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill Chapter 1: Introduction Rationale In the recent years, English language is described as an international language and the need for communication between groups of people It is not only the main language spoken by native speakers but also the official language in many countries as well as an important language in a lot of nations throughout the world In Vietnam, where people are carrying out the modernization and industrialization, English has become more popular and important Thus, Ministry of Education in Vietnam has considered English as a compulsory subject at most upper secondary schools However, how to teach and learn English effectively and how to popularize it are not simple matters For most of students, English is always considered a difficult subject which has four skills: Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing In these skills, listening skill seems to be the most difficult and weakest skills among students’ four language skills The difficulties which hinder students from developing their listening skills are various Moreover, most high school students have had listening practice in their classroom, but they may find themselves bored with the listening tasks For listening teachers, correspondingly, it is a difficult task to get students involved in listening lessons Nonetheless, just as other teachers do, listening teachers should create an interesting and motivating learning environment on one hand; and on the other hand, they must become aware of difficulties and problems facing their students, then, select the best techniques to help them My school is Ly Thuong Kiet High School (LTK HS) in Bac Giang, which is a mountainous province in the Northeast of Ha Noi Teaching and learning listening there is really a challenging job In addition to the lack of well-equipped facilities, teaching listening methods are quite new and unfamiliar to teachers Another problem is students’ low levels of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth It is the reason why students find it difficult and tough to listen and they are not confident enough to listening tasks successfully Moreover, learning habits not help much to improve their listening in classroom The students often get bored, tired and indifferent in listening lessons because of the quality of teachers’ voice and pronunciation, uncreative tasks and activities, topics, and so on Being a teacher of English, I am aware of the teachers’ important task in increasing students’ knowledge of English, and improving their listening skills Therefore, I would like to study to know more the ways to help my students to improve their listening skills So that is the reason why I chose the theme: “A study on Teaching Listening Comprehension to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet high school – Bac Giang.” Aims of the Study The new “ TiÕng Anh 10”, which has four language skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening, is first introduced in Vietnam Thus, there are a number of problems facing both the teachers and the students The main purposes of this study are to find out the real situation of teaching and learning listening skill at LTK HS, the areas of difficulties in listening encountered by 10th grade students and their needs in learning listening to English Therefore, the teachers could find out the way to teach listening English effectively The study aims to find the answer to the following questions: How is listening comprehension taught and learnt in Ly Thuong Kiet high school? What difficulties the teachers and 10th form students face in teaching and learning listening comprehension? What teachers and students need in teaching and learning listening comprehension? What techniques can teachers and students use in order to teach and learn listening skill more effectively? Methods of the Study To achieve the aims mentioned above, the reseacher chose the survey reseach, qualitative comprehension Most of the teachers at LTK HS who responded to the questionnaire had some difficullties in methodology They were aware that they needed to update their knowledge and gained experience from their colleagues That helped them find out the most appropriate ways to deal with certain difficulties in teaching For research question 3: (What teachers and students need in teaching and learning listening comprehension?) To take advantage of teaching and learning listening in the new textbook and its underlying communicative methodology more effectively, greater efforts should be made on the part of the teachers, the students, the administractors, and the whole society in general The following recommendations are listed to be taken if improved quality is desired: * For the administractors: The students contributed two suggestions: Firstly, the administractors should apply them enough teaching and learning equipments, especially has labs in learning listeninging Secondly, it was useful for the administractors and teachers to provide students with extracurricular activities These activities would foster learning because it provided a necessayr environment for language use The teachers added also some suggestions for the administractors, i.e.(1) being given conditions to enlarge their knowledge in methodology or in English and (2) having democratization in their school (3) the administractors should require students to have an listening test (may be a 45- minute test or a 15 or 10 minute test), * For the teachers: being a teacher of English of LTK HS for nearly ten years, the researcher have employed the same way as the finfings of the teachers shown without recognition of its ineffectivrness After the three year- MA courses and with all the knowledge acquired from the lessons provided by the lecturers as well as the realities I have found from my research, I found that innovation should be the ultimate goal of the teachers of English in my school First of all, the important implication for the teachers was to vary their techniques and activities so as to involve more students in the lesson and to reduce the boredom of the lesson The learning environment also played an important part Some teaching aided like picture, games, songs, funny, stories help students reduce tension during the lesson Besides, The teachers always help students build up a positive attitude, motivation and confidence, help them set a purpose and help students develop listening strategies Secondly, School language teachers needed teacher-training course which would be more effectively organized and with appropriate syllabus and in which the participants would have more opportunities to practice either their problem or the suggestions Finally, the researcher expected herself and other teachers like her to more than that when she contributed five suggestions to the teachers, which include (1) have technical and theoretical knowledge, (2) accept new technology, (3) create activities which could be completed outside of class, (4) have enthusiasm in teaching and (5) try their best in enlarging their knowledge in taching methodology * For the students: the students in LTK HS should have positive attitudes and active particiption to learning English, especially learning listening In the teaching and learning process, besided the role of the administractors, they also realized that their effort contriibuted much to any success.The other important thing is that students need have an appropriate learning method to gain the highest score For the research question 4: (What techniques can teachers and students use in order to teach and learn listening skill more effectively?) What have been discussed and analyzed in chapter IV shows that the students in LTK HS more and less knew something about listening skill and they utilize it in dealing with the listening tasks However, the number of the students being effective listeners is modest while the rest of the students seem to be ineffective ones So what techniques teachers and students can use in order to teach and learn listening skill more effectively Besides the techniques which the teachers of English at LTK HS usually use to help their students study effectively I would like to suggest and emphasize some ideas and techniques to fulfil the students' need at LTK HS From the findings of the survey, there are some things should be done to aid students in three stages of a listening lesson as follow: 4.1 Techniques for Pre-listening It is clear that the students at LTK HS were usually bored with listening lesson so the most important thing is that the teachers should create students' interest in pre-teaching part Pre-listening activities included all the preparatory work, which is done before while listening, Its purposes are to arouse students' interest in learning It is also the time for the teachers to prepare students to deal with problems they may face with while listening In pre-listening, teachers may choose the most suiable and efficient techniques to introduce the topic which made students pay attention to such as using pictures and visua aids, play a game, listen to a pie of music, and look at a short film so on Moreover the teachers should always encourage their students to predict and select the contents they are going to be heard Listeners can improvve their listening skills by predicting what the listening text is about or what the speaker is going to say next This technique can help students develop their listening skills and this is also a good way to keep the class actively involved in a listening lesson This type of activity is particularly helpful for practicing newly learned vocabulary with early students (10th form students) 4.2 Techniques for While-listening: From the fiding of the survey, teacher should select or combine different activities to assist their students In order to help students well in while-listening teachers must have listening activities which give practice in prediction; matching and interpretation For students at LTK HS, the good way to help students to well the tasks is decrease the diffuculties and the long of the tasks So that teachers should plan the lesson carefully to find the most suiable exercises for their students During while-listening stage, the teachers should be willing to help students whenever necessary and encourage them to take note of necessary things for late use and encourage co-operation among the students by asking them to work in pairs or in groups then give feedback when everything is still fresh in their mind 4.3 Techniques for Post-listening: Techniques for Post-listening are very necessary and important The purpose is to see whether the students have understood what they have just listened, or to give the students the opportinity to expand the topic The suggested techniques which I think are suitable to the students at LTK HS are matching exercises, Multipe choice, role play and summary the text In short, in order to have an effective listening lesson, the teachers should follow all the three stages with the above-suggested activities Therefore the teachers need to vary their activities to make ful use of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses so that studennts in LTK HS interest in the listening lessons and achieve more successin listening comprehension II Conclusion Listening teaching, as mentioned above, is an important aspect of foreign language methodology Being an English teacher, the research is really concerned with learning and teaching listening skill Therefore, when choosing the theme for the the dissertation, teaching listening was given fisrt priority This paper was done in the hope of contributing some suggestive techniques for the teaching ang learnning of listening skill and it was also with the pupose of fining the answer to four questions To fulfill these purposes, I carried out two servey questionnaires which are for students and teachers at LTK HS to find out the real situation of teaching and learning listening skill at LTK HS, the areas of difficulties in listening encountered by 10th grade students and their needs in learning listening to English Therefore, the teachers could find out the way to teach listening English effectively From the rusults of the study, the writer has presented some suggestions to the teachers, students and the administractors It is hopes that some these suggestions may contributte the students' success in listening III Limitation and suggestions for the further study Like other researcher, it is apparent that the certain limitations are un avoid in the study The study presented in this minor thesis is of no exception Fisrtly, the investigator only uses survey questions for the investigation into the teachers and the 10th form students' listening difficulties and their needs in teaching and learning Secondly, not all the suggested techniques for teaching and learning listening are experimented properly, so the investigator can not draw out a conclusion of their effectiveness Therefore, the suggestions to improve listening skills of 10th form students at LTK HS may be subjective and incomplete The researcher hopes that in the future there are many the investigators will study about this topic to make it clearer and more effective ix Appendix Questionnaire for the students The survey questions aim to find out your opinion of Listening skills and the listening of listening skillsat Ly Thuong Kiet high school for my research on how to improve the teaching of English listening comprehension at this school Please respond to all the following questions and statements Your effort in completing this questionnaire would be highly appreciated and of great use to my study You can be positive that you are not going to be identified in any discussion of data Thank you very much for your cooperation For all the questions, please answer by ticking one or more of the boxes or writing in the given spaces In your opinion, the purpose of learning English at your school is to … communicate effectively in English entertain pass the school graduation exam at the end of in year 12 study abroad complete a compulsory prepare for future job Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… How you find the importance of learning listening comprehension at high schools? very important alittle important important not important 3.How you find learning listening skills? very difficult easy x difficult very easy If you find it is difficult, then listening skill is difficult to learn because… the themes of the listening passages are unfamiliar to students the listening passages have too many newwords and structures the accents of the speakers are hard to hear the speakers speak very fast in the listening passages, many people speak at the same time the videotapes or the tapes are of low quality the class time is too limited Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… What you expect your teachers to to help you overcome the difficulty in learning listening? Provide you with certain amount of words needed for listening activities Equip you with necessary strategies in listening comprehension Design more suitable listening tasks to students’ listening levels and interests Recommend other supplementing listening material besides classroom activities, Explain more clearly about the nature of spoken English Be flexible in organizing listening activities xi After listening lesson, you are …………………………… satisfied un satisfied If you are satisfied, that is probably because you understand the content of listening text can practice with provided listening tasks have enhanced your knowledge & increased vocabulary communicate effectively in English have a relaxing atmosphere in the class Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… If you are unsatisfied, that is probably because of … forgetting what have been heard dealing with too difficult listening tasks learning nothing from the lesson getting fatigue while listening having little time for listening Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… What you often to improve your learning English? Share experience with your friends Read relevant books or journals at home xii Listen to English regularly Do all the homework Search for information on the Internet Find out useful references Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… 10 What have your teachers done to help you listen better and effectively? Encourage students to activate your previous knowledge into listening texts Create comfortable environment for students to exchange information before listening Offer students as many chance for them to listen again as they expect Provide students with certain key words Explain clearly about the listening contexts Suggest students essential listening strategies needed for each kind of listening tasks Exploit different kinds of listening materials suitable to the students Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… 11 What you think your school should to help you in your learning? Have enough teaching equipments Have labs in learning listening English Have useful and effective reference books in the school library Arrange opportunities to speak English outside class for the students xiii Provide students opportunities to speak English to English speaking people Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… Thank you very much for your co-operation xiv Appendix Questionnaire for Teachers The survey questions aim to find out your opinion of Listening skills and the teaching of listening skills to 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet high school for my research on how to teach English listening comprehension effectively to this group of students at this school Please respond to all the following questions and statements Your effort in completing this questionnaire would be highly appreciated and of great use to my study You can be positive that you are not going to be identified in any discussion of data Thank you very much for your cooperation For all the questions, please answer by ticking one or more of the boxes or writing in the given spaces In your opinion, the purpose of teaching English at your school is to help your students to… communicate effectively in English entertain pass the school graduation exam at the end of in year 12 study abroad Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… What you focus on most in your understand more about English? ( Please rank tem in order of importance from to with being the most important) Grammar Language focus (Pronuncication and Vocabularry) Speaking Listening Reading Writing xv How you find the importance n? a very important c a little important b important d not important How you find teaching listening skill? a difficult c easy b very difficult d very easy If you find it difficult, then listening skill is difficult to teach because… a the themes of the listening passages are not familiar and intersting to students b the listening passages have too many new words and tructures c the accents of the speakers are hard to hear d the speakers speak very fast e in the listening passage, many people speak at the same time f the videotapes or the tapes are of low quality g the class time is too limited Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… What you often to help your students overcome the difficulty in listening? a Encourage students to activate your previous knowledge into listening texts b Create comfortable environment for students to exchange information before listening c Offer students as many chance for them to listen again as they expect d Provide students with certain key words e Explain clearly about the listening contexts xvi f Suggest students essential listening strategies needed for each kind of listening tasks g Explit different kinds of listening materials suitable to students’ listening ability and their interest What steps you often take in teaching listening? Pre-listening While-listening Post-listening All of the above Besides Pre-listening tasks in the text book, you design other pre-listening exereses or activities for students? Yes No If yes, what kind of exercises you offen use? Using group discussion about the topic of the text Making students brainstorm words, structures or ideas related to the topic of the text Using visual aids to introduce the topic of the text Using games to introduce the topic of the text Using pre-listening questions Making students predict the content of the text Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… 10 How many times would you usually play the tape recording in a listening lesson? Once Twice xvii Three times More than three times 11 What types of exercises you often have them practice in a listening lession? Filling in the gaps charts Matching the pictures Choosing the Multiple-choice questions Answering comprehensive questions Doing the True-False Numbering the pictures in the exercises correct order 12 What you think your students can get from listening? Information about the theme Some new words The main ideas Listening skills Nothing Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… 13 What you often to improve your teaching? Share experience with your colleagues Read relevant books or journals Search for teaching materials on the Internet Action research Search for teaching ideas on the Internet Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… 14 In your opinion, what does the teacher need to have an useful and effective listening lesson? Have enough teaching equipments xviii Teaching material is interesting and familiar to the students Have appropriate teaching method Have carefully lesson plans for the lectures before going to the class Students are active in learning process Teachers are enthusiasm in teaching Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… 15 What you think your school should to help you in your teaching? Investment in terms of teaching and learning equipments ( cassette recorders, tapes, language labs…) Give conditions to the teachers to enlarge their knowledge in methodology or in English Democratization of school management Activation of the teaching – learning process and school management Creating favorable conditions for schools to care for teachers’ financial lives Others( please specify)……………………………………………………………… Thank you very much for your co-operation ... interpretation to the message by recalling background information ( or schemata) relevant to the particular context and subject matter.(4) The hearer assigns a literal meaning to the utterance(5) The. .. hopes to achieve triangulation and more reliable, valid data Next chapter, chapter four will present the data analysis and discussion 1 Chapter IV: data analysis and discussion I Questionnaire... improve the teaching and learning of the listening at Ly Thuong Kiet High School 4 3.2 Data collection and analysis The questionnaire was filled out by both of the teachers and students The participants