Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng các hoạt động trước khi nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES PHAM THI HOAI DIEP AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF PRELISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’ SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION (Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng hoạt động trước nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2020 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES PHAM THI HOAI DIEP AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF PRELISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’ SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION (Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng hoạt động trước nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D THAI NGUYEN – 2020 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “An investigation into the application of pre- listening activities to activate learners’ schemata for better comprehension” is my own study I further certify that it has not been submitted before for any degree or any examination to any other university Any reference to work written by any person and institution obtained from other sources have been cited and referenced Thai Nguyen, 2020 Approved by Supervisor Student Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D Pham Thi Hoai Diep i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my faithful gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D for her patient guidance, stimulating suggestions and encouragement throughout my research I wish to thank all the staff members of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University, for providing me the best environment to fulfill my thesis My sincere gratitudes also go to my college from Tran Phu, Hoang Quoc Viet and Vo Nhai high schools The supports that they gave me truly help with my progress and completion of the research Especially, I would like to express my special gratefulness to my family who offered me their love, care, support and encouragement so that I could accomplish my study Last but not least, I would like to express appreciation to my students in Tran Phu high school who were very enthusiastic to support me and participate in the process of collecting data for this research ii ABSTRACT Listening skill is one of the four core language competences fostered for students in high school’s English curriculum, especially in Vo Nhai district Although listening skills are being applied in English lesson, student’s proficiency still remains low During the teaching time, the researcher realized that the main reason for this problem is students are not interested in listening skills and are not well-prepared from the pre-listening stage Therefore, it is extremely necessary to conduct a study with the aim of raising students’ interest in listening comprehension by reinforcing pre-listening activities In the study, questionnaires were employed to check the students’ listening interest and students’ attitudes when teacher used varied pre-listening activities The findings of this study suggest that students’ listening interest was much better after being exposed to various pre-listening activities Results also showed that the students had improved attitudes towards learning listening skill after the introduction of varied prelistening activities Hopefully, the thesis can be considered as a contribution to a more effective teaching practice at Tran Phu high school and the ongoing process of renovation for teaching and learning listening skills TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Background of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Method of the study Significant of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………………… CHAPTER 1: LITERATIRE REVIEW Theoretical background of listening skills 1.1 Definition of listening 1.2 Listening comprehension in language learning and teaching process Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension 2.1 Linguistic factors 10 2.1.1 Unfamiliar topics 10 2.1.2 Pronunciation, speech and intonation 10 2.1.3 Reduced forms 12 2.1.4 Listeners’ vocabularies’ limitation 12 2.2 Non-linguistic factors 13 2.2.1 Listeners’ background knowledge 13 2.2.2 Lack of concentration 14 2.3 Pre-listening stage 16 2.3.1 Definition 16 2.3.2 The role of pre-listening stage 17 2.4 How various pre-listening activities affect student’s listening skills? 19 2.5 Pre-listening activities 20 2.5.1 Brainstorming 20 2.5.2 Class discussion 21 2.5.3 Pictures 21 2.5.4 Prediction of content 21 2.5.5 Pre-teaching of new words and difficult key words 22 2.5.6 Pre-questions 22 2.6 What is schemata?………………………………………………………… 23 2.7 Previous research studies 24 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 28 2.1 Definition of action research 28 2.2 Characteristics of action research 29 2.3 Process of action research 30 2.4 Benefits of action research………………………………………………… 32 2.5 The method(s) of collecting data ………………………………………… 33 2.6 The respondents/participants 34 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 36 3.1 Data collected from questionnaire for students 36 3.1.1 Data collected from questionnaire for students part 36 3.1.2 Data collected from questionnaire for students part 37 3.2 Data analysis on the teachers’ questionnaire 38 PART III: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 52 Conclusion 52 Implication 54 Limitation of the study 56 REFERENCES 58 APPENDICES LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: The table of teacher’s frequency of using pre-listening activities .41 Figure 1: Simple Action Research Model adapted from MacIsaac (1995) 30 Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model adapted from Susman (1983) 31 Chart 1: Students’ comments about pre-listening activities 36 Chart 2: Students’ comments on the varying pre-listening that the teacher applied 37 Chart 3: Teacher’s purposes of using pre-listening activities .39 Chart 4: Teachers' opinions of the most effective pre-listening activity to the students 43 Chart 5: Teachers' techniques for pre-teaching new vocabulary and grammatical structures 45 Chart 6: Teacher’s problems in using pre-listening activities .49 Chart 7: Teachers’ comments on pre-listening activities in the textbook “English 11” and their suggestions 50 PART I: INTRODUCTION Background of the study Listening is an essential skill in acquiring a language and it can be defined as the process of understanding speech in a second language or foreign language As mentioned in Richards (2008), listening is the most frequently used in communication It is stated that people spend 50 percent on listening, 25 percent on speaking, 15 percent on reading, and 10 percent on writing Moreover, according to Morley (1984), listening is a key to all effective communication without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood In listening comprehension, it is commonly recognized that pre-listening is very important because it can make students interested in the listening tasks and they can listen to the tasks better Prelistening is a preparation of the listening class In this stage, teachers tend to arouse learners' expectation and interest of the language text they are going to listen They can also motivate learners by providing background knowledge of the text; organizing learners to discuss a picture or a related topic which involves in the text; asking some related questions to the text In general, pre-listening plays a role in warming-up and the main aim of this stage is to make learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the text It can be said that the pre-listening is a kind of introductory work which used make the content explicit, clarify the purposes and establish roles, procedures and aims for listening In real life it is unusual for people to listen to something without having some idea of what they are going to hear Underwood (1989) described prelistening as follows: before listening, students should be “tuned in” so that they know what to expect, both in general and for a particular task This kind of introductory work is generally described as pre-listening work or just pre-listening To catch up with the new trends in language teaching, Vietnam is trying to launch reforms in education step by step Teachers, for example, are investing time and effort to help students improve their English, especially listening It is the fact that, communicative approach is used to teach English according to the policy of the Ministry of Education According to the 2020 Project of Vietnam’s Government, listening and speaking are more and more important in learning English Moreover, in high school, textbooks contain four skills which focus on students’ communication therefore; there are various effective methodologies for teacher to apply in teaching listening However, the students’ listening is still low due to some reasons Firstly, the English background of students in rural areas such as Tran Phu, Vo Nhai and Hoang Quoc Viet high schools are low because most of them come from remote areas, they did not have chances to exposure to English like the ones in the big cities The other reason might be the lacking of English learning facilities such as there is no specializing room for learning English The students share in the same room with the other subjects in which headphones and computers are not provided This directly affects students’ listening attitudes and listening comprehension The number of the students in class is normally about 40 to 50 whereas the ideal class for studying language is about 20 to 25 members This could be another reason why students listening skills cannot be improved As a result, the students are not interested in listening skills; therefore the teachers have no motivation to teach listening In conclusion, pre-listening stage is very essential in the process of teaching listening The purposes are to involve students into the topic and make them interested in the listening lesson so that they will have higher level in listening comprehension Moreover, the testing and assessment system in Vietnam is primarily concentrated on grammar, vocabulary and reading ability This partly explains the reason why listening, one of the very important parts in learning a language, does not seem to be improved effectively in Vietnam Aims of the study The study aims at examining the use of various pre-listening activities in the pre-listening stage to improve students’ listening comprehension Implications for Further Research The limitation and the scope of the study leave the gaps for other researches in the field of using pre-listening activities on teaching English skills to fill in First, the further studies can investigate into the factors influencing listening skills in which have not been done here, to complete a picture of factors of affecting students’ listening skills In addition, the study was carried out with the grade 10 students whose knowledge and language competency were rather low; therefore, the approach can be applied to these participant Thirdly, this thesis has not discussed about the other stage of listening (while- and post-listening) so this proposes further studies to make great usefulness for students to learn listening skills Based on the findings as well as the limitations of this research, this study has implications for further studies, such as conducting with students at while-listening and post-listening stage The further study can also focus on the other students’ level such as the lower level students in high school Moreover, as for teaching and learning practice, the teachers should focus on the factors that affect listening skills as in the study, the researcher only focus on pre- listening activities To sum up, this study could not be completed without flaws; however, as discussed above, the researcher did try to delimit it to provide preliminary findings Limitation of the study Due to various constrains and scope of the study, the present research displays certain limitations First of all, due to objective conditions, the time duration of the intervention was limited so it may limit the generalization of certain conclusions drawn from the findings The study cannot cover all the factors affecting the students’ performances in listening lessons The study only focuses on the effects of the activities used in pre-listening stage Thus, further research on effects of while listening activities and post-listening activities seem to be of great usefulness Secondly, due to the shortage of knowledge and experience in doing the research, the study cannot cover other factors affecting the listening achievement of students so it is hard to affirm that the students’ listening comprehension has been improved by only applying varying pre-listening activities because there might be other the contribution factor such as students’ needs, interest and felling, etc Moreover, the small target population (120 students grade 11 English in Tran Phu high school) and the number of the teachers took part in the survey might have affected the results of the findings and implications of the study The results of the study would have been more persuasive if the research had involved more participants REFERENCES Abbott, C., & Mayes, C (2014) Action learning for professionals: a new approach to practice Action Learning: Research and Practice, 11(1), 72-80 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2013.874772 Alderson, J C., & Urquhart, A H (1984) Reading in a foreign language Longman: Pub Group Anderson, A., & Lynch, T (1988) Listening Oxford: University Press Ash Pekin Janset Muge Altay, Didem Baytan (2001) Listening activities Retrieved August 10, 2009 from http://www.ingilish.com/listening activities.htm Baker, J., & Westrup, H (2000) English Language Teacher's Handbook: How to Teach Large Classes with Few Resources New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Berne, J E (1995) How does varying pre-listening activities affect second language listening comprehension? Hispania, 316-329 doi: 10.2307/345428 Brown, G (1977) Listening to spoken English Longman: London Brown, G., & Yule, G (1983) Discourse analysis Cambridge university press Brown, G., & Yule, G (1983b) Teaching the spoken language (Vol 2) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 10 Buck, G (2001) Assessing listening New York: Cambridge University Press 11 Burns, A (2009) Doing action research in English language teaching: A guide for practitioners Lon Don: Routledge 12 Carrell, P L., & Eisterhold, J C (1983) Schema theory and ESL reading pedagogy TESOL quarterly, 17(4), 553-573 13 Chang, A C S., & Read, J (2006) The effects of listening support on the listening performance of EFL learners Tesol Quarterly, 40 14 Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K (2004) A guide to teaching practice UK: Psychology Press 15 Creswell, J W (2002) Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative New Jersey: Upper Saddle River 16 Doff, A (1988) Teach English trainer's handbook: A training course for teachers Cambridge: Cambridge university press 17 Duong Thi Ngoc Tu (2012) The Effects of The Use of Video in Pre-Listening Stage on Grade 10 Students' motivation In English Listening Lessons at Tran Hung Dao High School MA thesis: Hanoi University 18 Duong thi Bich Thuy (2005) The Effects of Pre-Listening on Second-Year Students’ Listening Comprehension a Motivation at Langson Teacher Training College Unrepublished MA Thesis: Hanoi University of Foreign Studies 19 Dunkel, P (1991) Listening in the native and second/foreign language: Toward an integration of research and practice TESOL quarterly, 431-457 20 Ernestus, M., Baayen, H., & Schreuder, R (2002) The recognition of reduced word forms Brain and language, 81(1), 162-173 21 Farrokhi, F., & Modarres, V (2012) The effects of two pre-task activities on improvement of Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(1), 144 22 Garrod, S (1986) Language comprehension in context: A psychological perspective Applied Linguistics, 7(3), 226-238 23 Gillham, B (2000) Case Study Research Methods Lon Don: Bloomsbury Academic 24 Gass, S., Mackey, A., & Ross-Feldman, L (2005) Task-based interactions in classroom and laboratory settings Language learning, 55(4), 575-611 doi: 10.1111/j.0023-8333.2005.00318.x 25 Greher, G.R (1997) Picture This An interactive listening environment for middle school general music Ph.D thesis, Teachers College, Columbia University 26 Goh, C C (2002) Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns System, 30(2), 185-206 doi: 10.1016/S0346- 251X(02)00004-0 27 Helgesen, M., Brown, S & Brown, S (1994) Active listening Building skills for understanding Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 28 Hui sui Yuehua Wang (2002) On Pre-listening activities English Teaching Methodology Vol 2, No p 1-4 29 Le, H T T (2006) A study on Pre-listening techniques to motivate NonEnglish major students to develop their listening skills at the Faculty of Electro- Mechatronics, Phuong Dong University in Hanoi VNU, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi 30 Lewis, M., & Hill, J (1992) Practical techniques for language teaching Hove, England: Language teaching publications 31 Londe, Z C (2009) The effects of video media in English as a second language listening comprehension tests Issues in Applied Linguistics, 17(1) 32 Long, D R (1990) What you don't know can't help you: An exploratory study of background knowledge and second language listening comprehension Studies in second language acquisition, 12(1), 65-80 33 Lingzhu, J (2003) Listening activities for effective top-down processing The Internet TESL Journal, 9(11), 1-5 34 Lynch, T (1995) The development of interactive listening strategies in second language academic setting In D.J, Medelsohn & Rubin, J A guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening San Diego: Dominie Press 35 MacIsaac, D (1995) An introduction to action research Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, San Francisco, CA, April 22-25 36 Mc Donough, J., & Shaw, C (1993) Materials and method in ELT Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd 37 McKay, J A (1992) Professional Development through Action Research Journal of Staff Development, 13(1), 18-21 38 Medley, D M (1977) Teacher Competence and Teacher Effectiveness A Review of Process-Product Research Washington D C: American Association Of Colleges 39 Mendelsohn, D J., & Rubin, J (1995) A guide for the teaching of second language listening: Dominie Press San Diego, CA 40 Morley, J (1984) Listening and Language Learning in ESL: Developing SelfStudy Activities for Listening Comprehension Practice Language in Education: Theory and Practice, No 59 Washington, DC: ERIC 41 Musante, K., & DeWalt, B R (2010) Participant observation: A guide for fieldworkers Rowman Altamira 42 Nichols, R G (1948) Factors in listening comprehension Communications Monographs, 15(2), 154-163 43 Nunan, D (1988) The learner-centred curriculum: A study in second language teaching New York: Cambridge University Press 44 Nunan, D (2002) Listening in language learning Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice, 238-241 45 Nguyen Van Trao (2002) Effects of Pre-Listening Activities on Listening Comprehension of The Third-Year English Major Students at Phuong Dong University Unpublished MA Thesis: Hanoi University of Foreign Studies 46 O'Brien, J (1993) Action research through stimulated recall Research in Science Education, 23(1), 214-221 47 Richards, J C (2008) Teaching Listening and Speaking New York: Cambridge University Press 48 Rixon, S (1986) Developing listening skills Lon Don: Macmillan 49 Rost, M (1994) Introducing listening USA: Penguin 50 Rost, M., & Candlin, C (2014) Listening in language learning London: Routledge 51 Sadeghi, M R (2013) Action research in reflective teaching Basic research journal of social and political sciences, 1, 71-7 52 Susman, G I (1983) Action research: a sociotechnical systems perspective Beyond method: Strategies for social research, 95-113 53 Sheerin, S (1987) Listening comprehension: teaching or testing ELT Journal, 41(2), 126-131 doi: 10.1093/elt/41.2.126 54 Schein, E.H (1995), Process consultation, action research and clinical inquiry: are they the same?, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol 10 No 6, pp 1419 https://doi.org/10.1108/02683949510093830 55 Underwood, M (1989) Teaching listening Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd 56 Ur, P (1984) Teaching listening comprehension Cambridge University Press 57 Vandergrift, L (2004) Listening to learn or learning to listen? Annual review of applied linguistics, 24, 58 Vu Thi Thanh Ha (2006) The Effects of Pair, Group and Whole Class PreListen ing Actvities on First Year English Major’ Motivation, and Listening Comprehension at Dong Do University Unrepublished MA Thesis: Hanoi University of Foreign Studies APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (English version) Part 1: Learners’ attitude about pre-listening activities which teachers used in the class room (Adapted from Peacock ,1997 ) The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect students’ attitudes about the result of using pre-listening activities that our teacher used to teach you in the listening lessons Please circle the number on each scale to show how you find the activities used in class today Question 1: un-enjoyable -5 enjoyable Question 2: dull -2 -3 -4 -5 -exciting Question 3: useless -1 -3 -4 -5 -useful Question 4: unsatisfying -1 satisfying Question 5: unappealing -2 -appealing Part 2: Learners’ opinions about pre-listening activities which teachers used in the class room (Adapted from Linkert ,1932) The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect your’ opinions about the result of using pre-listening activities that the teacher used to teach you in the listening lessons Please circle the number on each scale to show how you find the activities used in class today St D r i N u N A S e g t St at 1T sui fo yo he tab r ur kn o 2They yo can ur vocabula ry and 3They extend your knowledge in 4They are effective for complete the well 5Pre-listening activities should be used in the next APPENDIX 2: BẢNG CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA DÀNH CHO HỌC SINH BẰNG TIẾNG VIỆT Phần 1: Điều tra thái độ học sinh, tham khảo từ nghiên cứu Peacock (1997) Mục đích bảng câu hỏi để lấy ý kiến học sinh kết việc sử dụng đa dạng hoạt động trước nghe học sinh có tăng hứng thú cho học sinh hay không Câu hỏi 1: Không hứng thú -5 hứng thú Câu hỏi 2: Không thú vị -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -thú vị Câu hỏi 3: Khơng hữu ích -3 -4 -5 -hữu ích Câu hỏi 4: Khơng hài lịng -1 hài lòng Câu hỏi 5: Hấp dẫn -1 -2 -4 -5 - không hấp dẫn Phần 2: Điều tra ý kiến học sinh, tham khảo từ nghiên cứu Linkert (1932) Mục đích phiếu điều tra để lấy ý kiến học sinh kết việc sử dụng đa dạng hoạt động trước nghe giáo viên Hãy khoanh tròn vào số phù hợp để thể ý kiến hoạt động giáo viên dùng lớp HK o h B ì n n n C Sá Tc T1P h ù h 2C ó th ể 3B ổ x u 4R ất h ữ 5N ên ti ếp tụ H Đ o n n APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS This survey questionnaire is adapted from Hopkins (1985) designed for my thesis: “An investigation into the application of pre-listening activities to activate learners’ schemata for better comprehension” Your assistance in completing the following items is greatly appreciated All the information provided by you is solely for the study purpose and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank you very much for your assistance! Please tick ( ) or write the answer where necessary What you often to start a listening lesson? A Ask students to listen to the text at once B Organize some pre-listening activities before asking students to listen to the text How you find the importance of pre-listening activities to students’ listening performance? A very important B important C not very important D not important at all How often you use pre-listening activities in a listening lesson? A Always B Often C Sometimes D Rarely E Never What are your purposes in using pre-listening activities? (You can tick more than one) A To provide background knowledge about the topic of the text B To motivate students to participate in the lesson C To teach new vocabulary and structures which appear in the listening text D To help students to predict the content of the listening text E To provide opportunities for students to communicate F To revise vocabulary and structures G To help students be more confident in listening lessons H Others: How often you use the following pre-listening activities? PA O S R N r l ft o ar ev A Pr ed ic B Pr ete ac C U si nD D is E Pr ev ie F B G Q ue H U si nI O th 6.erWhich pre- listening activity you think is the most effective to the students? Why? A Prediction of the content of the listening passage B Pre- teaching new vocabulary or grammatical structures C Using audio-visual aids to introduce the topic of the listening passage D Discussion E Previewing the listening tasks F Brainstorming G Questioning H Using games to introduce the topic of the listening passage Because Before asking students to listen, A You often make students guess the content of the listening passage basing on: A1 The title A2 Pictures B You often teach new vocabulary by using: (You can tick more than one) B1 Pictures, real objects, gestures B2 Synonyms or antonyms B3 Explanation and definition B4 Translation B5 A word web/ tree C You often introduce the topic of the listening passage using C1 Pictures C2 Short videos C3 Pieces of music D You often get students to discuss: D1 In groups D2 In pairs D3 With the whole class E You often ask students to preview: E1 All listening tasks in while you listen E2 The first listening task in while you listen F You often ask students to brainstorm: F1 Vocabulary in the listening passage F2 Grammatical structures in the listening passage F3 Ideas in the listening passage G The types of questions you often use are: G1 Multiple choice questions G2 Wh- questions G3 Yes-No questions What problem(s) you come across when using pre-listening activities? (You can tick more than one) A It is difficult to design them B Designing them is time-consuming C Doing pre-listening activities in a listening lesson is time consuming D Handling them is sometimes out of control E Sometimes the activities used are not of the students’ interests What you think of the pre-listening activities in the text book “English 11” for non- major students of Ministry of Education and Training? A Suitable for students’ background and levels B Sufficiently varied C Meet students’ interests D Boring E Other ideas (please specify) 10 In your opinion, what should be done to improve pre- listening tasks in the textbook? A Add more various kinds of pre-listening activities B Omit some pre-listening activities C Illustrate each listening lesson with more beautiful pictures D Other ideas (please specify) Thank you! ... LEARNERS’ SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION (Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng hoạt động trước nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics... UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES PHAM THI HOAI DIEP AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF PRELISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’ SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION (Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng. .. them are from Tran Phu High school, eight of them are teaching in Hoang Quoc Viet and Vo Nhai high school, and three of them are working in Tran Quoc Tuan high school After being introduced about