Improving listening comprehension of grade 11 students at dong anh high school through reading based listening skill development

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES oo0oo ĐỖ THỊ HỒNG DUNG IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 11 STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH READING-BASED LISTENING SKILL DEVELOPMENT (Nâng cao khả nghe hiểu học sinh khối 11 trường THPT Đông Anh thông qua việc kết hợp dạy kỹ nghe đọc) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi, 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES oo0oo ĐỖ THỊ HỒNG DUNG IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 11 STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH READING-BASED LISTENING SKILL DEVELOPMENT (Nâng cao khả nghe hiểu học sinh khối 11 trường THPT Đông Anh thông qua việc kết hợp dạy kỹ nghe đọc) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 SUPERVISOR: ĐỖ BÁ QUÝ, MEd Hanoi, 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract List of figures PART A: INTRODUCTION Rational for the study Objectives and significance of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Organization of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definition of listening and listening comprehension 1.1.1 Definition of listening 1.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension 1.2 Significance of listening 1.3 Nature of listening 1.4 Strategies of listening comprehension 1.5 Factors affecting listening comprehension 1.6 Approaches to teaching listening comprehension 1.7 Stages in teaching listening 1.7.1 Pre-listening stage 1.7.2 While listening stage 1.7.3 Post-listening stage 1.8 Relationship between teaching listening comprehension and reading Comprehension CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Background of the study 2.1.1 The syllabus 2.1.2 Participants 2.1.3 The teaching and learning conditions 2.2 Data collecting instruments 2.2.1 Pre and post-tests 2.2.2 Pre and post-questionnaire 2.2.3 Class observation 2.2.4 Interviewing 2.3 Procedure CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DICSUSSION 3.1 Analysis of the pre, post-test and interview 3.2 Analysis of the pre, post-questionnaire and interviews 3.3 Analysis of the class observations PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusions Teaching implications 2.1 Combining listening with reading and other skills 2.2 Providing background knowledge particularly the cultural knowledge in language teaching 2.3 Developing students’ micro skills 2.4 Textbook-based learning and other listening contexts 2.5 Combining “intensive listening" with “extensive listening” Limitations and suggestions for further study 3.1 Limitations of the study 3.2 Suggestions for further study REFERENCES APPENDICES LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Comparison of mean scores between the pre and post-test Figure 2: Comparison of results in English before and after the intervention Figure 3: Students’ assessment towards learning the listening skills in compared with other skills before a Figure 4: Student’s assessment of the importance of learning the listening comprehension before an Figure 5: Students’ evaluation of learning the listening comprehension before and after the intervention Figure 6: Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension Figure 7: Students’ attitudes towards the necessity of using reading-based listening strategies to imp after the intervention Figure 8: Students’ understanding in the listening lessons before and after the intervention Figure 9: Students’ feelings in the listening lessons before and after the Intervention Figure 10: Students’ confidence in the listening lessons before and after the Intervention Figure 11: Students’ behavior to improve their listening comprehension before and after the interventio Figure 12: Students’ involvement in the listening lessons before and after the intervention PART A: INTRODUCTION This part is comprised of five sections including the rationale for the study, the objectives of the study, the scope of the study, the methods used in the study and the organization of the thesis Rationale for the study It is widely accepted that English has become an international language Until now “it is listed as the official or co-official language of over 45 countries and it is spoken extensively in other countries where it has no official status.” (Krysstal.com) Therefore, mastering English will help people enrich their knowledge about the world For its great importance, English has now a mandatory subject in all schools in Vietnam in general and at High schools in particular In recent years, with the development of the communicative approach, students’ communicative competence has been stressed In other words, English must be taught as a tool for communication In this communicative process, listening comprehension plays an important role Obviously, communication does not take place when listeners not understand what is said Wilt (1950) argues that listening takes up about 45% of time spent in communicating in real life Therefore, it can be said that teaching listening comprehension must be at the core of teaching practice, and it is the area in which teachers need to concentrate their own efforts to improve their teaching Unfortunately, among the four language skills, listening comprehension seems to be the most challenging for many students This is also a big problem that most students in the researcher’s school are encountering As a teacher of English for over five years, the researcher has found out that many students in the researcher’s school suppose the listening skill to be the most difficult one This leads to the fact that listening lessons are often said to be boring and tedious As a matter of fact, there have been many studies on how to teach listening comprehension effectively However, with a glance into the existing literature, it is felt that there is a shortage of studies with respect to integrating reading comprehension into teaching listening comprehension in EFL contexts It seems that the EFL field is in need of further studies investigating the issue of teaching listening comprehension in integration with teaching reading comprehension For all the things mentioned above, the researcher finds it necessary to carry out the study on “Strategies to improve listening comprehension of grade 11 students at Dong Anh high school through reading-based listening skill development.” It is hoped that the results of this study will cast some light on this issue and pave the way for a better teaching of listening Objectives of the study The first and foremost aim of the study is to find out the difficulties facing grade 11 students in Dong Anh High school in leaning listening comprehension The second one is to discover the factors that cause trouble for students in listening comprehension The next purpose is to study the development of the students’ listening skills after the intervention including students’ readiness, interests and confidence in learning listening skill in particular and learning English in general Last but not least important, some effective ways for teaching listening comprehension are recommended with a view to improve students’ listening comprehension The study is done in a hope that it will help better the situation of teaching and learning English listening comprehension at Dong Anh high school Thus, it will help enhance students’ English competence Scope of the study With regard to the scale of this undertaking, this study only focuses on the mater within the group of grade 11 students at Dong Anh High school Furthermore, for the purpose of going deeply into the subjects’ matter, the researcher only concentrates on teaching English listening comprehension Methods of the study To realize the objectives of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used The data for the study were obtained through the following instruments:  Pre and post-tests were designed by the researcher to find out the students’ ability in listening comprehension  A pre and post-questionnaire was designed by the researcher to find out the students’ readiness, interests, confidence and behavior in learning listening comprehension and learning English in general  Classroom observation was conducted four times to investigate students’ readiness, interests and confidence in learning listening comprehension and learning English in general  Informal interviews were carried out to discover students’ attitudes towards learning listening comprehension Organization of the study The thesis consists of three main parts:  Part A is the introduction, which gives the rationale, the objectives of the study, methods used in this study and the organization of the thesis  Part B is the development, which includes three chapters as follows:  Chapter is the Literature review This chapter presents all the related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the information of the research  Chapter presents the methods of the study  Chapter is the data analysis and discussion In this chapter, the data collected are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively Afterwards, some teaching implications are drawn to improve the situation of teaching and learning listening comprehension at the researcher’s school  Part C is the conclusion which presents the study conclusions and teaching implications Besides, it also offers the limitations and suggestions for further study 10 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, all the related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the information of the research is presented They are: definition of listening and listening comprehension, significance of teaching listening, nature of listening, listening strategies factors affecting listening comprehension, approaches to teaching listening comprehension, stages in teaching listening and relationship between teaching listening comprehension and teaching reading comprehension 1.1 Definition of listening and listening comprehension Since the early 70's, listening has been paid attention as a tool for understanding and as a key factor in facilitating language learning Thus, listening has emerged as an important component in the process of second language acquisition 1.1.1 Definition of listening There have been various ways to define listening In Field’s viewpoints, “listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe Listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large socio-cultural context of the utterance (Field, 1989:38) Rost had another way to define listening by emphasizing the vital role of listening in second language learning In his opinion, “listening is vital in the classroom because it provides the input for students Without understanding the input at the right level, any learning simply can’t begin.” (Rost, 1991:141) 1.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension Researchers have different views on the definition of listening comprehension: “Listening comprehension is defined as the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language When comprehending something, we can understand what is 11 said It is assumed that speaking and writing are the process of encoding messages while listening and reading decode them Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perceptive skill involving identifying and retaining information orally perceived.” (Boyle, 1981:13) For Buck, “ Listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound “in which” number of different types of knowledge are involved; both linguistic knowledge and nonlinguistic knowledge.” (Buck, 1984:31) Anderson and Lynch also share the shame ideas with Buck They believe that listening comprehension requires not only the linguistic knowledge but also the nonlinguistic knowledge in order to reach the final message of the speaker in communication “Listening comprehension means to understand what a speaker says: the listener has a crucial part to play in the process by activating various types of knowledge, by applying what he knows to what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker means” (Anderson & Lynch, 1988:21) Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe However, it is recognized by Wipf (1984) that listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, understand intention and retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance Rost (2002) defines listening, in its broadest sense, as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation); constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation); and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation) In short, listening comprehension involves multiple skills It is a complex and active process of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know 1.2 Significance of listening Language learning depends on listening since it provides the aural input that serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication Listening provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays a life-long role in the process of communication A A with 10 A that Key: C C CLASS OBSERVATION PROTOCOL CLASS: 11A6 PERIOD: 99 UNIT 16: THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD C LISTENING I Aims: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: - Listen to a listening text about The Great Wall - Listen for specific information - Listen for general ideas AI Teaching aids: handouts, colored chalk, pictures III Anticipated problem: Students may be in short of some vocabulary related to the topic of listening and background knowledge of the Great Wall IV Procedure: Teacher’s activities Warm-up (5’) Quiz - Divide the class into two groups - Tell them that there is a word in the T's mind T will give them pieces of information about the word, one by one, and members of each group can raise their hands at any time to guess what the word is Each 75 groups has only two chances to make a guess This word is a noun and it is about one of the most well- known wonders in the world You can see this from the moon It is the symbol of China Key: The great Wall T declares the winner Lead- in Have you ever seen the Great Wall on TV? (yes) How old you think it is? (Ss make a guess) Would you like to visit it some day? (Yes) pre-listening (7’) Now, you are going to listen to a passage about it First, I am going to help you with some new words Pre-teach vocabulary ancient ( ad) ~ very, very old 2.dynasty (n) ( translation) triều đại significance (n) = importance (n) Beijing( proper noun ) : the capital of China man-made (a)= artificial (a): nhân tạo stone (n): đá Checking - Ask Ss to complete the following sentences with the words just learnt and give them good marks if they can perform well (T can call Ss by their names.) a Was this wonder built during Ming ? b Hoi An is an interesting town in Viet Nam c I went to China last moth and I stayed in for a week d He has realized the of learning computer science 76 Suggested answers a Dynasty b ancient c Beijing d significance While - listening (20’) Task 1: Instructions “Now you are going listen about The Great Wall, one of the wonders of the world Listen and work in pairs to fill in the missing information Remember that the tape will be played twice” - Give handouts of gap- fill test - Play the tape twice - Call on some Ss to give the answers - Go over the answers with the class Suggested answers (1) the moon (2) 1987 (4) 200 (5) 200 BC (8) stone Task 2: Gap - fill - Give Ss handouts of activity Instructions: “Now listen to the listening text again and answer the questions in the handout You will listen to the tape twice” - Give Ss minute to read the questions - Play the tape twice - Call on some students to give the answers - Go over answers with the class Suggested answers In 1368 Thanks to its magnificence and significance (6) 6000 77 The part in the northwest of Beijing is the best choice for visit because it is still in its original state Post- listening (10’) - Ask Ss to work in groups of four and tell the partners why the Great Wall is considered one of the greatest wonders in the world and how it was built (base on the suggested words for sentences building) - Call some Ss to speak before the class and give marks for the ones who can speak well Sentence building Build these sentences The Great Wall/ said / visible / the moon it/ believe/ The great Wall/ built /defense purpose The Greta Wall/ symbol / the Chinese nation/ history A visit/ The Great wall/ bring tourists great excitement / each step / the wall Suggested answers The Great Wall is said to be visible from the moon It is believed that The great Wall was built for defense purpose The Great Wall is a symbol of the Chinese nation throughout history A visit to The great wall will bring tourists great excitement in each step of the wall Homework - Ask ss to write a short paragraph about this topic and prepare for the next lesson Tapescript for Unit 16 The Great Wall of China, which is said to be visible from the moon , winds up and down across deserts, grasslands and mountains of provinces It is considered one of the 78 greatest man-made wonders in the world thanks to its magnificence and significance In 1987, the Great Wall was enlisted the World Heritage by UNESCO The Great Wall we see today was mostly built during the Ming Dynasty for defense purposes It started in 1368 and took 200 years to complete Some parts of the wall are much older and go back around 200 B.C It stretches for about 6,000 km from east to west The wall is about 11 meters high and a stone roadway runs along the top of it The Great Wall is a symbol of the Chinese nation throughout history If you prefer to see the wall in a relatively natural state, you’d better go to the northwest of Beijing This part of the wall is best choice for it is still in its original state A visit to the Great Wall will certainly bring tourists great excitement in each step of the wall Reading assignment: (used before unit 16) The Great Pyramid of Giza, a monument of wisdom and prophecy was built as a tomb for Pharaoh Cheops in 2720 B.C It is one of the truly great man-made wonders of the world The Pyramids are made of stones Four sides of the pyramids are aligned and almost exactly on true north, south, east and west-an incredible engineering feat The ancient Egyptians were sun worshipers and great astronomers, so computations for the great pyramid were based on astronomical observations Explorations and detailed examination of the base of the structure reveal many interesting lines Further scientific study indicates that these represent a type of time line of events-past, present, and future Many of the events have been interpreted and found to coincide with known facts of the past Others have prophesied for future generations and are presently under investigation Approximately, how long ago was the Great Pyramid constructed? A 665 years B 2,720 years C 4,025 years D 4,730 years What does the words “man-made” in line refers to? A natural B artificial What are the pyramids made of? A wood B steels C stones D mud On what did the ancient Egyptians base their computations? A observation of bodies B advanced tool of measurement C advanced technology Why was the Great pyramid constructed? A as a solar observatory C as a tomb for the pharaoh Key: D B APPENDIX DETAILED SCORES OF THE PRE, POST TESTS & DETAILED GRADES OF THE ND ST SEMESTER AND THE SEMESTER 80 Order 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 81 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 82 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 83 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 11 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 84 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 85 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 86 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one  Select page range of PDF to merge  Select specific page(s) to merge  Extract page(s) from different PDF files and merge into one ... Definition of listening and listening comprehension 1.1.1 Definition of listening 1.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension 1.2 Significance of listening 1.3 Nature of listening. .. The subjects of the study are two hundred grade 11 students at Dong Anh High school They come from class 11A2, 11A5, 11A6 and 11A9 Their pre-supposed level in English is pre-intermediate; however,... enhance students? ?? English competence Scope of the study With regard to the scale of this undertaking, this study only focuses on the mater within the group of grade 11 students at Dong Anh High school