A study on the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening for non major english students at phuong dong university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO TRONG DẠY NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH KHÔNG CHUYÊN TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI, APRIL 2009 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES -***** - BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO TRONG DẠY NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH KHÔNG CHUYÊN TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Mr Lê Thế Nghiệp, MA HANOI, APRIL 2009 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Hypothesis Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter one Literature review 1.1 Listening Comprehension 1.1.1 What is Listening Comprehension? 1.1.2 Listening Comprehension Process 1.2 The Roles of Listening in Language Teaching and Learning 1.2.1 To Acquire Language 1.2.2 To Develop Speaking Skill 1.2.3 To be the final goal of learning a language 1.3 The Benefits of Using Video in Teaching Listening 1.3.1 Video Generating Interest, Motivation and Concentration in Listening 1.3.2 Video Lowering Anxiety in Listening 10 1.3.3 Video Helping Learners Study Non-verbal Aspects of Communication 11 1.3.4 Video Providing the Background of Communication 11 1.4 Aspects of Video That Can Be Improved Through Video 12 1.4.1 Pronunciation 12 1.4.2 Vocabulary 12 1.4.3 Comprehension 13 Chapter two The Survey 15 2.1 The Context of The Study 15 2.2 The Subjects 15 2.3 The Data Collection Procedures 16 2.4 The Use of Video in the English Lessons 17 2.5 The Questionnaire and the Tests 17 2.6 Data Analysis and Discussion 18 2.6.1 Factors That Cause Difficulties in Learning Listening 18 2.6.2 Students’ Attitude towards Video Lessons 19 2.6.3 Students’ Manner of Watching Video Films 19 2.6.4 Students’ Favorite Activities While Watching Video Films 20 2.6.5 Students’ Attitude towards the Effectiveness of Video in Listening Lessons 21 2.6.6 Some Negative Results of Using Video in Teaching Listening 23 2.7 Tests’ Result Analysis 24 2.7.1 Analysis of the Pre-Test 24 2.7.2 Analysis of the Post-Test 26 2.8 Discussion of the Findings 28 2.8.1 Successes 28 2.8.2 Problems 29 Chapter three Implications in Using Video in Teaching Listening 3.1 Techniques of Teaching Listening Skill with Video 3.1.1 Selecting Video Materials 3.1.1.1 Choosing video materials carefully 31 31 31 31 3.1.1.2 Choosing video materials according to the linguistic content of students’ course book 3.1.2 Some Techniques for Using Video 3.2 Activities designed From Video 32 32 34 3.2.1 Diagram Labeling 34 3.2.2 Bubble-Filling and Event- Linking 34 3.2.3 Dictation 34 3.2.4 Spotting Activities 35 3.2.5 Gist Listening 35 3.2.6 Note-taking 35 3.2.7 Predicting Language 36 3.2.8 Who Said What? 36 PART C: CONCLUSION 37 Summary of the Study 37 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 37 REFERENCES APPENDICES I APPENDIX : Survey Questionnaire for Teachers I APPENDIX : Survey Questionnaire for Students II iv LIST OF ABREVIATIONS ESP : English for Specific Purposes GE : General English IT : Information Technology N : Number PDU : Phuong Dong University SD : Standard Deviation T/F : True/ False v LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Tables: Table 1: Students’ favorite activities while watching video films 17 Table 2: The effectiveness of video in teaching listening skill 18 Table 3: Some negative results of using video in teaching listening 19 Charts: Chart 1: Students’ difficulties in learning listening 15 Chart 2: Students’ attitude towards video lessons 16 Chart 3: Students’ manner of watching video films 16 Chart 4: Raw marks in listening pre-test 21 Chart 5: Raw marks in listening post-test 23 PART A: INTRODUCTION RATIONALE OF THE STUDY In Vietnam in recent year English has been widely used as a means of communication in many fields of life as in economy, science, education, culture and so on The number of English learners who wish to use English to communicate successfully has been increasing rapidly As a result, teaching and learning English has been paid more attention to and English becomes a compulsory subject in colleges and universities Being aware of the importance of the language many students want to be successful listeners and speakers Having been a teacher of English at Phuong Dong University (PDU) for nearly six years, I have found out that among the four skills listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and speaking seem to be the most challenging to students In many listening and speaking classes beside the students who manage to understand the recorded materials or try to express their ideas, I also see tired faces of those who struggle to follow the lesson Some students even said: “Teacher, I feel sleepy with the listening” or “Teacher, I‟m tired of listening, ” I felt really sad and showed this situation to other experienced teachers and found out that this is a common problem among non-major students of English This also puzzled many other teachers Most of them advised me that I should be patient and let students get used to with the subject themselves gradually However, in my opinion, it is the role of teachers who should make a great deal of effort to create and maintain the students‟ interest in the lessons and avoid boredom It is also because as teachers “we want, and indeed we are expected, to produce students who can comprehend accurately and speak with confidence” (Hill, B 1989: 1) From that point of view, I think it is so important to help students have the feeling of interest and enjoyment in the process of listening To hold student‟s interest, there are some ways such as: using games, songs, stories, flash cards, pictures, overhead projector transparency, films, video, television and so on Among these, I think video seems to be the most effective and helpful in developing aural skill as Stemplesky, S & Tomalin, B (1990: 3) argue: “Children and adults feel their interest quicker when language is experienced in a lively way through television and video This combination of moving pictures and sound can present language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium.” That is the reason why I chose video as the means to an experimental research on how to interest students in listening lessons The thesis goes as: “A study on the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening for non-major English students at Phuong Dong University” HYPOTHESIS This study was designed to test the following hypothesis: Video can be used as a motivator to generate students‟ interest and maintain their concentration in listening to English as well as to improve both their top-down skills (clarifying context, inferring ideas, identifying topics) and bottom-up listening skills (recognizing vocabulary, identifying sentence stress and intonation), thus enhancing their listening comprehension AIMS OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening to non-major students so that some suggestions of how to use video in teaching listening skills in the classroom can be given to help students improve these skills The specific aims are as follows:  investigating the students‟ attitudes towards listening through video  finding out the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening  suggesting some techniques of using video in teaching listening in the classroom SCOPE OF THE STUDY In this study, at first the researcher intended to examine how effective video is to listening and speaking skills However, due to the limitation of time and page number of a minor thesis, the researcher could only conduct a survey on the using of video in teaching listening to find out how to improve students‟ listening skills through video The survey was conducted on first-year students and the students are from two classes at the same level The video lessons were experimented for the period of 15 weeks (one term) with the purpose of practicing the listening skills for students through video They were used at the end of the lesson as an extra activity Finally, the study focused on the use of video language teaching materials made for the classroom without taking care of other kinds of categories such as television programs, specialist films or self-made video films The video materials were taken from the Oxford English Video – Lifetime, Level by Tom Hutchinson (1999) and from the website http://www.schoolstube.com/ METHODS OF THE STUDY In order to achieve the above aims, the qualitative method was used and the data for analysis in the study were collected from the different resources:  Survey questionnaires were designed for collecting data for analysis from 50 students of two elementary level classes at PDU (these students had access to video in class)  Interviews: the researcher also interviewed some students to double check the information gained from the questionnaires However, the interviews were sometimes applied if the author find that the answers of respondents were not clear enough  Tests for students: the aim of the tests is to find out what progress videos help students to make in their listening skills The tests were delivered to students at the beginning and at the end of the second term DESIGN OF THE STUDY The paper is designed with three parts as follows: Part A, “Introduction”, presents the rationale of choosing the topic, the aim of the study, the scope of the study and the methods for the fulfillment of the study Part B, “Development”, is divided into three chapters:  Chapter one presents some theoretical backgrounds that are relevant to the research topic such as the listening processes, the role of listening, the benefits of using video in language classes, aspects of listening that can be improved through video  Chapter two investigates the situation of using video at PDU This chapter also focuses on the data collection, findings and discussion to find out the students‟ point of view about using video in listening lessons notes taken It is important to note that the primary focus must be on how to listen and what to listen for There is a number of exercises to be employed to teach this skill as:  Taking short notes  Longer guided note-taking  Free note-taking 3.2.7 Predicting language Getting students to predict the language being used can be useful and motivating  Give students the script with key items removed e.g expressions/verbs/key words/questions  View with sound off and students use the visual clues to brainstorm the missing items  View with sound to check predictions and complete View again if needed 3.2.8 Who said what? Note-taking (Activity 6- Appendix 2) This activity is aimed at improving students‟ recognition ability by aural practice: fostering syntactical and phonological knowledge A simplest form of “Who said what” just requires the students to indicate that the given utterance is said by whom The more complex form requires the students not only to recognize who said what but also to identify the intonations or paralinguistic features that accompanied the utterances PART C: CONCLUSION SUMMARY OF THE STUDY This study is done in the hope of making a strong statement that listening is the most communicative language skill, plays a very important role in the process of teaching and learning English It is, therefore, needs to be taught and studied carefully And with an experimental research on the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening, she wants to find out a new application of video in teaching English, and then offer some suggestions on how to use video to enlighten the work of teaching listening By collecting data through the questionnaires, the tests, and the informal interview, valuable findings were revealed, analyzed, discussed and the result can be summarized as follows: Firstly, it is asserted through the study that video can be used as an effective means to generate students‟ interest and maintain their concentration in listening Almost all the participants were activated in the listening lessons They were more active and involved in the listening tasks The atmosphere of the class was, therefore, more joyful and exciting The students themselves agreed that they felt like listening much more than before Secondly, video also proves to be an effective approach to improve students‟ some top-down and bottom-up listening skills and therefore, enhance their comprehension in listening LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY In any research papers, limitations is unavoidable The study presented in this minor thesis is of no exception Firstly, the author‟s practical experience in using video to teach listening for non-major students and the knowledge of the subject matter are limited, therefore, the suggestions in the last chapter are likely to be subjective and incomplete, leaving the issue open for debate Secondly, the study was carried out to examine the effective use of video in listening skill only, not taking care of other skills such as speaking, reading and writing It is, therefore, important that studies on these three skills should be carried out for better English teaching and learning with video Finally, the study has already dealt with the application of video use in promoting some topdown and bottom-up listening skills However, it has not gone deeply into how and in what way video can improve each of these sub-skills The researcher, therefore, really hopes that this paper can call for further research and applications REFERENCES Allan, M (1985) Teaching English with Video Longman Anderson, A & Lynch, T (1988) Listening Oxford: Oxford University Press Arthur, P.(1999) “Why Use Video? A Teacher‟s Perspective” VSELT, 2:4, 4 Baltova, I (1994) “Impact of Video on the Comprehension Skills of Core French Students”, Canadian Modern Language Review, 50:3, 506-531 Brown, H Douglas (1994) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Prentice Hall Regents Brimfit, C.J.(1983) Video Application in English Language Teaching London: Pergamon Press Byrnes, H D (1984) The Role of Listening Comprehension: A Theoretical Base Foreign language Annals Canning, C & Wilson (2000) “Practical Aspects of Using Video in the Foreign language Classroom” The Internet TESL Journal http://iteslj.org/Articles/Canning -WilsonVideo.html Doff, A (1988) Teach English – A training course for teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 10 Gower, R & Walters, S (1995) Teaching Practice Handbook China: Macmillan Education 11 Griffin, L.(2001) “Using Video in the Classroom” Library Video Company http://www.libraryvideo.com/articles/article13.asp 12 Harmer, J (1999) How to Teach English Malaysia: Longman 13 Litterwood, W (1981) Communicative Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 14 Lonergan, J.(1984) Video in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 MacCarthy, P (1978) The Teaching of Pronnunciation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 16 Matiru, B & Schlette, R (1995) Teach Your Best Germany: University of Kassel 17 Nguyễn Quốc Hùng (2004) Video-Assisted Language Teaching and Learning Ho Chi Minh City: Hochiminh city Publishing House 18 Rost, M (1994) Introducing Listening London: Penguin 19 Sricoban, A (1999) “The Teaching of Listening” The Internet TESL Journal http://iteslj.org/Articles/Saricoban-Listening.html 20 Schwarts, A M (1998) Listening in a Foreign Language Washington, DC: Center for Applied linguistics 21 Sherman, J (2003) Using Authentic Video in the Language Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 22 Stempleski, S & Tomallin, B (1990) Video in Action UK: Prentice-Hall International 23 Tomallin, B.(1986) Video, TV and Radio in the English Class London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd 24 Underwood, M (1990) Teaching Listening Hong Kong: Longman 25 Ur, P (1996) Teaching Listening Comprehension Cambridge: Cambridge University Press I APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Survey questionnaire This survey questionnaire is designed for non-major students of English with the aim of serving my study of the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening skill Your help in completion of the survey is highly appreciated Thank you very much! Male : Female: What difficulties you have in learning to listen? a vocabulary b grammatical structures c stress and intonation d speaker‟s accent e speaking speed How much you like learning listening through video? a very much b much c I don‟t know d not much e not at all What you normally while you are watching the video? a take notes b try to grasp the overall meaning c watch and try to get every word d just watch for fun How you like the following activities while watching? Circle one figure according to your preference: (1: the least interest and 5: the most interest) a gap fill b dictation c matching d answering comprehensive questions e note-taking f multiple choice g True/False In what ways does video help to improve your listening comprehension skill? Put a tick in the appropriate column: Learning listening through Strongly video… agree makes the listening lesson more enjoyable and relaxing makes me more concentrated on the listening lesson helps me recognize keys words better helps me understand stress patterns and intonation helps me discriminate English sounds better helps me study non–verbal aspects of communication helps me generate predictions and develops my guessing skill Agree Don‟t Strongly know Disagree disagree helps me clarify the setting of the listening helps me infer ideas before listening 10 helps me develop my confidence in listening 11 helps me listen to English better What you think of the disadvantages of video to your listening skill? a The visual distracts me from concentrating on the listening Yes No b Long video sequences make me tired Yes No c Some listening tasks are inappropriate Yes No The end Appendix activity – diagram labeling Watch the experiment and label the diagram with suggested ideas forms acid rain damages leaves sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants removes nutrients from the soil form acids which condense on tree in fog plus sunlight, creates ozone damages roots activity – Bubble filling View the extract and write the expressions in the speech bubbles We’ve got that program to finish We can’t come I think we can take a look at that now Can’t we it another time? Tim, here It’s an invitation to our party It’s party time! No No, it isn’t What’s this? Activity – spotting activities Which of the following things that Rebecca mentions? Tick the appropriate things In the morning she… gets up cleans her teeth gets dressed has breakfast listens to the radio washes her hair has a shower For breakfast she has… a glass of orange juice a grapefruit cereal jam butter toast coffee marmalade cheese goes to the gym sings rides a horse plays badminton goes to a dance class goes swimming skiing painting going to parties dancing cooking shopping In her free time she… She likes… Activity – multiple choice Watch and listen to Julia Tick the correct answers How much is the taxi fare? a $4.50 b $5.00 c $5.50 Who is talking on a mobile phone? a Rebecca b Gary c Tim Who does Julia ask for? a Martha b Frederick c Rebecca What is the extension number? Where does Ted say Julia is? a 4985 a at the entrance b 5894 b at the Front Desk c 5498 c at Reception Activity – note taking Watch and complete Frederick’s’ diary Write the correct times Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Activity – who said what? Watch to the end of Episode and answer the question: Who says each thing? Sentences Characters Ellie a I’m really sorry about it b Oh dear Poor Tim c Well, it was very strange d Look on the bright side e Gary! f Gary’s right g That’s great! Wonderful! h Oh, Tim I’m sorry Julia Rebecca Gary Appendix Listening pre-test Part listen and circle the right answer for each question When does the woman go running in the park? A in the morning B at lunchtime C in the afternoon D in the evening What does she on Monday evenings? A goes swimming B plays rugby C goes to the gym D visits her sister What time does she get up on Tuesday and Friday mornings? A 4.30 B 5.30 C 6.30 D 7.30 Where does her sister live? A in London B in Cardiff C in Manchester D in New York Which day does she train with her team? A Monday B Tuesday C Wednesday D Thursday Part Listen and decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F) Their house is 50 years old It is far from the centre of the village It is white There are four bedrooms in the house 10 The kitchen is quite small THE END Listening post-test Part listen and circle the right answer for each question How often does Jack play football? A once a week B three times a week C every day D once every three weeks How many children does he want to have? A two sons B two daughters C a son and a daughter D a son and two daughters When is Danny going to retire? A this year B next year C in two years‟ time D in three years‟ time Which country does Danny want to go scuba-diving? A France B Australia C the USA D Holland What is the name of his book? A Life begins at 16 B Life begins at 60 C Life begins at 15 D Life begins at 50 Part Listen and decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F) Ryan has lived in Japan for a year He worked for a big company four years ago He has flown in a jumbo jet lots of time He likes cooking very much 10 His girlfriend likes going out for meals THE END ... believed that listening is a major component in language learning and teaching and in recent year the language teaching profession has placed a great emphasis on listening comprehension There have been... is available to accompany aural clues of intonation” The reason is that the speakers in dialogues can be seen and heard, and other participants in the situation can be seen as well The language... pausing the video at the beginning of each dialogue and asking the students to predict the line they will hear - pausing at strategic points in the action and asking students to describe what