An exploration into difficulties faced by the teachers in teaching listening to non english major students at hanoi university of industry

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ĐẶNG THỊ HỒNG NHUNG AN EXPLORATION INTO DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE TEACHERS IN TEACHING LISTENING TO NON –ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy nghe cho hệ không chuyên trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Course: 16 Hanoi - 2010 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ĐẶNG THỊ HỒNG NHUNG AN EXPLORATION INTO DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE TEACHERS IN TEACHING LISTENING TO NON –ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy nghe cho hệ không chuyên trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Course: 16 Supervior: Phạm Minh Tâm, M.Ed Hanoi - 2010 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Certificate i Acknowledgements ii Table of contents iii List of tables, charts and pie charts v CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study and research problem statement 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Methodology 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study CHATER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of Listening 2.2 Nature of Listening Comprehension 2.2.1 Listening Comprehension 2.2.2 Listening Process 2.2.3 The Features of Spoken English 2.3 Procedure of Listening Lessons 11 2.3.1 Pre – listening stage 11 2.3.2 While – listening stage 12 2.3.3 Post – listening stage 13 2.4 Roles of Teachers in Listening Lessons 13 2.5 An Overview of Common Difficulties in Teaching Listening 14 2.6 Previous Studies 14 2.7 Conclusive Remarks 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 Research Context 16 3.2 Research Questions 16 iv 3.3 Research Approach 16 3.4 Participants 17 3.5 Data Collection Instrument 17 3.6 Data Collection Procedure 17 3.7 Data Analysis Procedure 18 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 4.1 Data Analysis and Results 19 4.1.1 The teachers’ opinions towards teaching listening comprehension 19 4.1.2 The teachers’ perception of factors making their teaching of listening difficult 19 4.1.3 The teachers’ perception towards the importance of the features of spoken English in learning listening comprehension 20 4.1.4 The teachers’ exploitation of the features of spoken English into teaching listening 21 4.1.5 The teachers’ activities in pre – listening stage 23 4.1.6 The teachers’ activities in while– listening stage 24 4.1.7 The teachers’ activities in post – listening stage 25 4.1.8 The teachers’ exploitation of teaching aids 26 4.1.9 The teachers’ exploitation of the listening materials 27 4.2 Findings and Discussion 28 4.2.1 The teachers’ lack of experience in teaching 28 4.2.2 The inefficiency in the teaching methodology 28 4.2.3 The teachers’ limitations in exploiting teaching materials and teaching aids 30 CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMENDATIONS 31 5.1 Developing the listening materials 31 5.2 Encouraging the students’ internal factors 32 5.3 Combining intensive listening with extensive listening 32 5.4 Applying three stages in teaching listening effectively 33 5.5 Teaching listening strategies for students 34 5.6 Combining teaching listening comprehension with teaching other aspects of English 36 v CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 36 6.1 Summary of the findings 36 6.2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 37 REFERENCES APPENDIX vi LIST OF TABLES AND PIE CHARTS List of pie charts Pie chart 1: The teachers’ view of the importance of teaching listening comprehension Page 14 compared with other skills List of tables Table 1: The teachers’ perception of factors making their teaching difficult 14 Table 2: The teachers’ perception towards the importance of the features of spoken 15 English in learning listening comprehension Table 3: The teachers’ exploitation of the features of spoken English into teaching 16 listening Table 4: The teachers’ activities in Pre – listening stage 16 Table 5: The teachers’ activities in while listening stage 19 Table 6: The teachers’ activities in post – listening stage 20 Table 7: The teachers’ use of teaching aids in teaching listening comprehension 21 Table 8: The teachers’ exploitation of the course books 22 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study and research problem statement As an international language, English has been remarked with many changes, notably the changes in the movement towards the teaching of English Teaching and learning English in Vietnam is not excluded from the international trend as Vietnam is broadening and improving the relationship and co – operation with other countries in many fields of life As a result, English has become a compulsory subject at various schools and universities Teaching a foreign language refers to teaching different aspects including: grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and four skills which are: writing, reading, speaking and listening These different aspects are equally significant in mastering a language and they should be developed thoroughly Along with other skills, listening has been of great importance as Brett (1997, p.39) stated that “listening is a key language skill, it has a vital role in the language acquisition process” The research by Morley (2001) concluded that average people can expect to listen “twice as much as we speak, four times more than what we read and five times more than we usually write” In addition, Michael Lewis (1993, p.32) emphasized that “Almost all the world‟s natural language output is spoken rather written” Therefore, there has also been an increase in the number of studies on the role of listening in communication and in language learning (Dunkel, 1991; Anderson and Lynch, 1988) Listening provides input, consequently, improving listening ability helps to widen students‟ input Thus, teaching listening effectively is very necessary and important in order to support students‟ input and improve students‟ language acquisition However, listening seems to get less attention by a number of learners as they suppose that listening is the most difficult skill among four skills At Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI), listening is a big challenge for many first year students who rarely have chance to practice listening at high schools The students have the habit of ignoring listening which makes the teaching of listening become a challenge for the teachers Moreover, the ineffectiveness in teaching listening is the key reason that creates troubles for the teachers in their work 2 1.2 Aims of the Study The study is intended to examine the teachers‟ difficulties in teaching listening comprehension to the first students The study will find the answers to the following questions: What are the difficulties as perceived by the teachers in teaching listening at Hanoi University of Industry? What are the possible suggestions and recommendations to overcome the difficulties perceived by the teachers in teaching listening comprehension? 1.3 Methodology The study was conducted in accordance with the survey approach That is because the study focused on the teachers‟ attitude at HaUI towards the teaching of listening comprehension to find out their difficulties The data was collected from the survey questionnaire done on 30 full time teachers of English at HaUI 1.4 Scope of the study This minor thesis was conducted in Hanoi University of Industry in order to investigate the difficulties as perceived by the teachers in teaching listening comprehension The study focused on surveying the methods that the teachers at HaUI use to teaching listening comprehension which has created troubles for themselves The thesis also offered some suggestions and recommendations to overcome the problems 1.5 Significance of the study This study contributed to list out the difficulties faced by the teachers at Hanoi University of Industry in teaching listening comprehension More importantly, the results of the research are believed to serve the purpose of improving the teaching of listening to the first year students at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) 1.6 Design of the study The study contains of six chapters Chapter 1: presents the background, the significance, the aims and scope of the study Chapter 2: presents the theoretical background relevant to the study Chapter 3: describes the setting of the study which is the current situation of teaching and learning listening comprehension at Hanoi, University of Industry Chapter 4: deals with analyzing the data collected Chapter 5: provides the findings of the study and recommends suggestions for improving the teaching of listening comprehension at HaUI Chapter 6: gives the summary of the thesis and suggestions for further study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of listening Listening is one of the four important skills in learning a foreign language which are: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing For years, listening and reading were thought of as passive skills while speaking and writing were active skills Indeed, until the late 1970s, listening received not much attention as other skills Present studies on listening have different views from the former one According to Helgesen (2003, p.24) “listening is an active, purposeful of making sense of what we hear” Similarly, Rubin (1995, p.7) defined listening as “an active process of understanding speech in which listeners select and interpret information which comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express” Following Anderson and Lynch„s definition (1988), “listening is really a receptive skill along side reading skills and the role of the listeners is no – longer passive but active” Listening is quite different from hearing In Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary, listening is defined as “to give attention to someone or something in order to hear them” while hearing is defined as “the ability to hear” In other words, “listening requires the active attention – and an active intention – on the part of the hearer” (Helgesen, 2003, p 4) In teaching listening, it is necessary to mention about listening skills and listening strategies Rost (1991) emphasized the skills necessary for listening comprehension which are perception skill (for example: discriminating between sounds or recognizing words…), analysis skill (such as identifying grammatical grouping of words) and synthesis skill (for instance: connecting linguistic cues like intonation and stress and non – linguistic cues like gestures and relevant objects to construct the meaning of spoken texts In addition, Rost (1991) mentioned about using background knowledge and context to predict and understand spoken texts These above factors make up a person‟s listening ability Thus, in order to improve learners‟ listening skill, teachers should encourage their students to use listening strategies which help them become better listeners “Strategies are effort to compensate for uncertainties in understanding, and could include inferences, realizing where misunderstandings have occurred, and asking for clarification.” (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 9) According to Michael Berman (2003, p 2), there are key strategies improving listening ability which are: predicting, identifying main ideas, note taking, processing details, guessing vocabulary from context The strategies should not be separated from the content teaching so that learners can see the applications of them to the development of listening ability 2.2 Nature of listening comprehension 2.2.1 Listening comprehension Listening comprehension has been defined by various researchers, in which Gary Buck gave a definition in very clear words According to Gary Buck (2001, p.31), “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 and non – linguistic knowledge” He supposed that “comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect the comprehension of the message” (Gary Buck, 2001, p.31) There exist controversies on the nature of listening comprehension According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), there are two influential views: traditional view and alternative view Traditional view regarded the listener as a tape-recorder and the listener took in and stored aural messages in much the same way as a tape-recorder Anderson and Lynch criticized this view as inappropriate and inadequate This notion is not a tenable one Alternative view considered the listener as an active model builder This kind of listener could combine the new information with his previous knowledge and experience to reach full comprehension of what had been heard Anderson and Lynch agreed with this view It emphasized the active interpretation and integration of incoming information with prior knowledge and experience Clark and Clark (1977, pp 43-44) gave both a narrow and broad definition of listening comprehension “Comprehension has two common senses In its narrow sense it denotes the mental processes by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker intended to convey Comprehension in its broader sense, however, rarely ends here, for listeners normally put the interpretations they have built to work” 6 Listening comprehension process consists of three steps: receiving, attending and understanding in sequence The understanding step may be followed by responding and remembering as listeners may respond immediately or remember the message to respond at a later time (Wolvin and Coakly, 1985) Listening is not a single skill It includes many different components and is a complex process involving an interaction between listeners, speakers and spoken texts Michael Rost (1991) divided listening into two elements: the component skills and what a listener does What a listener does is a list of activities that listeners take to understand messages The listeners must take decisions of things such as the kind of situation, important words or units of meaning… Listening comprehension is of great importance in foreign language learning “Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learners Without understanding input at the right level, any learner simply can‟t begin” (Rost, 1991, p.141) In order to take part in communication activities, it is clear that ones must have the ability to absorb the information from speakers through listening Since listening is important to understand spoken message, the teaching of listening cannot be neglected from the teaching of English 2.2.2 Listening process Basing on how the listeners process the input, researchers have classified listening process into two types: bottom up process and top down process 2.2.2 Bottom – up processing Bottom – up process is the text based process The listeners try to make sense of what they hear by focusing on the different parts: the vocabulary, the grammar or functional phrases, sounds… (David Nunan, 1999, p.6) Bottom – up “is a process of decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (or phonemes) to complete texts In other words, the listeners make use of “his knowledge of words, syntax, and grammar to work on form” (Rubin, 1994, p.20) 2.2.2.2 Top – down processing Top down process is the process in which listeners employ background knowledge or textual schema to make sense of what they hear The knowledge may be the general knowledge based on life experience and previous learning, or the knowledge of language and content used in a particular situation 7 In fact, the two processes can not be separated during listening comprehension In other words, listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing, but an interactive process during which listeners use both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding Anderson and Lynch (1988, p.13) illustrated the relationship between top down and bottom up processing in comprehension in the below figure Figure 1: Information sources in comprehension (Anderson and Lynch, 1988, p.13) Background knowledge schematic knowledge →→→ C ↑ O - factual ↓ - social Procedure knowledge M ↑ ↓ - how language is used in discourse P R ↑ - ↓ - E Knowledge of situation H - physical setting, participants, etc Knowledge of co – text context ↑ →→→ E ↓ - what has been/ will be said (written) N S ↑ ↓ I Knowledge of the language system O - semantic ↑ ↓ N - syntactic systematic knowledge → - phonological 2.2.2.3 Intensive listening and extensive listening Rixon (1986) had a different way of classifying listening He divided listening into two types: intensive and extensive listening Intensive listening is listening for detailed information, for example: listening to the announcement or listening to the weather forecast Intensive listening requires listeners to understand the meaning of each discourse and, ultimately, to understand every sentence and word Generally, intensive listening requires listeners to listen to a text several times, or divide the text into paragraphs and sentences to understand each one The goal is for students to understand every sentence 8 Extensive listening, on the other hand, is listening to natural language for general ideas, not for particular details Extensive listening does not require students to understand every sentence, and every word, instead, students are encouraged to grasp the general meaning of the passage The listening passage can be long (listening to stories) or short (listening to jokes, poems) The key point of listening is to understand the content The purpose of intensive listening is to build basic listening skills, while extensive listening is to strengthen and enlarge effectiveness of intensive listening in order to improve overall listening ability 2.2.3 The features of spoken English It can be recognized that spoken English has different features from written English Being taught to recognize and make use of the features of spoken English in learning listening is very useful for learners to improve their listening ability According to Mary Underwood (1989), the differences happen on sound, stress and intonation, the organization of speech, syntax and vocabulary, pauses and fillers, and formal and informal language 2.2.3.1 The sounds In English, there are sounds which are unknown or unusual for foreign learners, as a result they may fail to catch such sounds or to distinguish from similar sounds In other cases, listeners may find that sounds are distorted, elided or lost altogether It is also a frequent fact that listeners with only little listening experience fail to connect the sounds they hear with words they have seen and recognized in written form, which makes them confused and discouraged when listening It will be of much help for the students to learn this knowledge in continuous speech so that they can associate what they hear with the language they already know in written form (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 9) 2.2.3.2 The stress and intonation Stress is widely used in spoken English, which aims to carry the main information speakers wish to convey and emphasize Obviously, words in spoken continuous speech are often not given the same stress as they receive when they are said in isolation Students need to be explained and shown stressed words as well as unstressed words which helps them avoid the feeling that comprehension is impossible as they fail to hear all words clearly (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 10) 2.2.3.3 The organization of speech Speaking is a creative process, in which speakers are almost in the position of formulating what they are saying Therefore, there is no certain way of knowing how a speaker‟s speech will be organized However, there are some “markers” which listeners can use to convey what speakers are saying For example, to show agreement, speakers often use phrases like: “Yes, it is”, “Mm” … or to show disagreement, speakers may use “Yes, but…” or “Well, er…” In addition, certain expressions are very useful for conveying information or keeping up with spoken texts For instance, when there are events or examples in a time sequence, time words such as: “first, second, third, next, last…” are usually used In other case, when speakers make comparisons or contrasts, they often use “but, however, in contrast…” When students develop the skill of recognizing those “markers”, they will find it easier to follow “the flow of information” (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 11) 2.2.3.4 The syntax and vocabulary of speech In Teaching the Spoken Language, Brown and Yule identify a number of differences between spoken discourse and written discourse (as cited in Teaching Listening, Mary Underwood, 1989, p 12) a Most speakers of English produce spoken language which is simpler than written language in terms of syntax In stead of using subordinate clauses as in written form, speakers tend to use separate sentences When subordinate clauses are used, they are generally linked by simple conjunctions such as: “and, but, then” more than relative words b Speakers often use incomplete sentences c The vocabulary of spoken discourse is usually “much less specific” than that in written discourse For instance, speakers usually use “it / somebody/ they/ you” to refer to people in general, which can be understood by relating them to the immediate context in which they are used d Interactive expressions in spoken language like: “Well / Oh, Uhuh” e Information is “packed very much densely” in spoken language than in written discourse It can be very helpful for students to know such characteristics of spoken language Being aware of such information, they can apply them into their listening to get better result (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 12) 10 2.2.3.5 Pauses and fillers Pauses occur in speech to give listeners time to think about what has been just said and to relate it to what has gone before Long gaps in speech are often filled with sounds/ expressions such as “Er…/and er….” to avoid silences Being explained these facts helps students recognize them and know that they are nor part of the essential message (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 13) 2.2.3.6 Formal and informal language There is often a distinction between the language spoken in “formal” and “informal” situations Many language learners have limited experience of English language in informal situation as in their lessons; they tend to use formal language Consequently, they may have difficulties in understanding informal spoken discourse (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 14) 2.3 Procedure of listening lessons Along with teaching and explaining the features of spoken language to the learners, designing listening lessons contributes greatly to the success of teaching listening In order to help learners get most from a listening lesson, a lesson plan of listening is usually divided into three stages: things learners before listening, things learners during listening, things learners after listening In other words, procedure of a listening lesson consists of three stages: pre – listening, while – listening and post listening 2.3.1 Pre – listening stage Pre – listening stage is the stage that prepares students for listening tasks This stage asks students to get to think about the topic they are going to listen In other words, this stage helps students “focus their minds on the topics” by narrowing down the things that the students expect to hear and activating relevant knowledge and already known language (Mary Underwood, 1989, p.31) When planning lessons, time must be allocated for pre – listening activities and the activities should not be rushed Pre – listening work can be done in a variety ways Some of the activities are clearly preparation for listening, while the others might be the setting – up of the while – listening activity However, all different activities in pre listening stage provide students‟ opportunities to gain some knowledge that will help them to follow the listening text In addition, in this pre – listening stage, students are likely to use the words which they will shortly hear in the text This will assist them when they come to match 11 what they hear with their store of knowledge Moreover, students can increase the sense of realism thanks to being provided information about when, where, by whom and to whom the words were spoken And obviously, the fact that all the students understand what they have to before you start to play the listening text is of much importance to the students‟ success in listening Pre – listening work can consist of a whole range of activities, including: - the teacher giving background - the students reading something relevant - the students looking at pictures - discussion of the topic/ situation - a question and answer session - written exercise - following the instructions for the while – listening activity - consideration of how the while – listening activity will be done (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 31) 2.3.2 While – listening stage While – listening stage is the stage in which students are asked to tasks during the time that they are listening to the texts While- listening stage helps students listen better, more accurately through a list of designed comprehension tasks As Rixon (1986) pointed out that the purposes of while listening stage is to challenge and guide students to handle the information and the message from the listening text However, to reach that goal, while – listening activities should be interesting, so that students feel they want to listen and carry out the activities Moreover, they should be things which most people can They must vary at different levels and in different cases Some while – listening activities are successful with groups of varying levels of ability Exercises which require students to check, tick, draw, circle… make good while listening activities and should not be rejected because of their simple structure In addition, the topics and the content of the listening texts plus the students‟ interest decide the success of while – listening activities Therefore, choosing appropriate materials for while – listening stage is of great importance to the improvement of learners Mary Underwood (1989, pp 49 -50) recommended various while – listening activities: - marking / checking items in pictures 12 - multiple – choice questions - putting pictures in order - text - completion - true / false exercise - making models/ arranging items in patterns - completing grids 2.3.3 Post – listening stage Post – listening stage is the stage in which all the work related to a particular listening text are done after listening is completed Some post listening activities are extensions of the work done at the pre – listening and while – listening stage and some relate only loosely to the listening itself (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 74) Some common forms of post – listening activities are the answering of multiple choice questions or open questions based on the spoken text Post – listening activities aim at checking whether the students have understood what they need to understand and whether they have completed whatever while – listening task has been set successfully There is a number of ways to reach this purpose: by the teacher giving the answers orally, by pairs checking each other‟s answers, by the teacher showing the answers on the blackboard, by group discussion …Another purpose of post – listening stage is to reflect on why some students have failed to understand or missed part of the message At this stage, discussions are often employed, and then the teachers have opportunities to draw attention to specific parts of the listening text and focus on the forms, functions, lexis, stress and intonation which have caused problems for the listeners This stage also aims at expanding the topics and the language of the listening texts This can help students gain some certain knowledge on the topics they have listened to, which widen their background and languages abilities for further Here is the list of post listening activities offered by Mary Underwood (1989, pp 82-83) - role – play - summarizing - establishing the mood/ attitude/ behavior of the speaker - written work - form/ chart completion - matching with a reading text 13 2.4 Roles of teachers in listening lessons English listening is very helpful to all students to deepen or to improve their language skill To have effective listening lessons, the role of teachers is very crucial Mary Underwood (1989, pp 21- 22) supposed that in listening classes, a teacher needs to be imaginative and creative in developing their teaching methods to develop good atmosphere and make English lessons more exiting In this way, the listening teacher has to be able to create interesting materials for the students in the process of teaching and they have to know how to apply them The influence of the materials and the methods of the English teacher in teaching listening is really vital, because students will be more interested in their study The competence of the teacher in teaching listening will also influence the success of students Teacher should have a set of exercises, tasks or other activities for the students in their classes It is really beneficial and positive experience to try various classroom activities because successful materials of the subject matter depend on the use of teaching method 2.5 An overview of common difficulties in teaching listening comprehension As mentioned above, to master a language, it is necessary for learners to develop all aspects of a language equally and it is necessary for teachers to teach all aspects effectively However, the teaching of listening is not really as effective and successful as the teaching of other parts In her research in Da Nang University, Ton Nu Xuan Huong (2007) found out that there are three main factors leading to this fact Firstly, the teaching of listening can be a hard work due to learner element Learners with their limitations in terms of language ability and listening experience may make the teaching of listening less successful Secondly, lacking of teaching facilities and equipments, to some extent, prevents the teaching of listening from reaching the best results Thirdly, and most importantly, it is the inefficiency in teaching methodology when teachers conduct their lessons should be responsible The effectiveness of listening lessons depends greatly on the ways teachers plan their teaching in class This thesis focused on investigating the teachers‟ methodology and activities in listening classes to find out the problems that the teachers have to face when teaching listening comprehension 2.6 Previous studies There have been other researchers who studied about teaching listening over the world and in Vietnam 14 Over the world, some researchers have conducted their studies on English teaching in general and teaching listening in particular For instance: Ekasari, F (2002) carried her paper “English Teaching Learning Process using Communicative Approach in SD Negeri Tegalrejo 1” She described the strength and weakness using communicative approach that makes the students active in classroom activities Mawardani, A (2000) carried out his research “The Implementation of Teaching listening At the Third Year Student of SMU Negeri Surakarta” He described teaching learning process in the classroom especially about the implementation of teaching listening to the third year student of SMU Negeri Surakarta Listening difficulties perceived by learners and teachers have attracted some investigators at the Post Graduate Department of Vietnam National University, College of Foreign Languages Phung, Thi Hoai Thu (2008), carried out the study: “Listening difficulties perceived by teachers and students in using the new English Textbook for grade 10 at Que Vo II upper secondary school in Bac Ninh.” Nguyen, Thi Kim Ngan (2008) carried out the study: “Difficulties in teaching listening comprehension in the coursebook “Head for business” to 2nd year students at Economics Department, HaNoi Open University and some solutions” 2.7 Conclusive Remarks In this chapter, the relevant literature which is needed to form the theoretical framework for the present study is presented First of all, prominent definitions of listening, listening skill and listening strategies were given according to some leading researchers Then the nature of listening comprehension and listening process were introduced This chapter also mentioned about procedure of listening lessons with three very necessary stages: pre, while, post listening stage In addition, roles of teachers in listening lessons were discussed as they are vital factors to the success of the lessons Next, an overview of common difficulties that teachers meet in teaching listening was presented and taken into consideration Lastly, the chapter listed out previous studies over the world and in Vietnam on the similar or same matters which are teaching listening and difficulties in teaching listening comprehension 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the current situation of teaching and learning listening comprehension of non – major English students is described as the setting for the study The data gathered from the questionnaire are discussed in terms of their purposes and how they are exploited in the study 3.1 Research context The study was conducted at Hanoi University of Industry, which is one of the universities in the north of Vietnam The university mainly has been training workers and engineers of technical majors who need English for their jobs The teaching of English at HaUI is divided into two phases In the first phase (the first and second semester), students study general English with four skills: writing, listening, reading and speaking One teacher is responsible for teaching English during the whole semester for one class In the second phase (the third semester), students study English for specific purposes matching with their majors The students have two lessons every week with three periods for each lesson (each period is 45 minutes long) 3.2 Research questions The study has been conducted to answer the two research questions: What are the difficulties as perceived by the teachers in teaching listening at Hanoi University of Industry? What are the possible suggestions and recommendations to overcome the difficulties perceived by the teachers in teaching listening comprehension? 3.3 Research approach The study was conducted in accordance with the survey approach That is because the study focused on the attitude of the teachers at HaUI towards the teaching of listening comprehension to find out their difficulties The data was collected from the survey questionnaire done on 30 full time teachers of English at HaUI 3.4 Participants The English teaching staff at HaUI consists of 115 teachers whose age ranges from 23 to 40 Most of them are female and hold B.A degrees or M.A degrees from English 16 Department in different universities of foreign languages, mainly from Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies The study employed 30 teachers (11 teachers less than 24 years old, 16 teachers aged from 24 to 35, teachers over 35 years old ) to complete the survey for teachers in terms of teaching listening comprehension All the teachers surveyed teach the same course book: New Headway Elementary for the first year students 3.5 Data Collection Instrument The questionnaire with 10 questions was used as the instrument for collecting data for this study In this study, the questionnaire was employed as the instrument for collecting data as it enabled the participants to the survey easily by choosing suitable options for multiple choice questions and give written answers for an open – questions At the beginning of the questionnaire, the purpose of the study was stated The questionnaire for the teachers consists of questions about personal information, 10 multiple choice questions and open – ended question Personal information of the teachers was used to inform the researchers of the teachers‟ profile Question aimed at gathering information about the teachers‟ attitude towards teaching listening Question to question was used to investigate the ways the teachers carry out their lessons Question to question was used to find out the application of teaching aids and teaching materials into teaching listening Question 10 was used to collect the suggestions from the teachers to teach listening comprehension more effectively 3.6 Data Collection Procedure The questionnaire was administered to 30 teachers At the end of the first - year, the teachers were given the questionnaire to complete all the questions The teachers were asked to the survey when they had break and they completed the survey at the teachers‟ room All the survey papers were collected by the researcher right after the teachers had answers to all the questions 3.7 Data Analysis Procedure The answers for the questions in the questionnaire were used to analyze Descriptive statistics were mainly employed to examine the collected data In addition, raw data was transformed and illustrated in pie charts and tables which made the data easy to understand and compare 17 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This part of the thesis presents and discusses the findings that arise from the specific questions in order to answer the research questions 4.1 Data analysis and results 4.1.1 The teachers’ opinions towards teaching listening comprehension The first question in the questionnaire aims at discovering the teachers‟ judgment on the importance of teaching listening comprehension in comparison with other skills (speaking, reading and writing) Pie chart 1: The teachers’ view of the importance of teaching listening comprehension compared with other skills More important Equally important Less important 100% Don't know All the teachers surveyed agree that teaching listening comprehension of the same importance as teaching other skills This reflects the idea that the teachers understand the necessity of teaching their students to develop four skills equally 4.1.2 The teachers’ perception of factors making their teaching of listening difficult From the teachers‟ perception, there are various reasons influencing their work in teaching listening comprehension Table 1: The teachers’ perception of factors making their teaching difficult Kinds of factors Results Big class size 13.3 % Lack of necessary facilities 10% 18 Lack of time 16.6% Students‟ inexperience in listening 46.6 % Students‟ low level of English 66.6% Students‟ mixed levels of English 56.6 % Teachers‟ methodology 63.3% Teachers‟ experience in teaching 53.3% Others…………… The majority of the respondents share the same idea that students‟ low levels of English challenges them much when they teach listening (66.6%) Student‟ mixed levels of English in the same class adds more trouble to the teachers‟ work (56.6 %) In addition, 46.6 % suppose that they find their work more difficult due to the fact that the students lack of listening experience at high schools Only a small of the respondents blame on the lack of necessary facilities (10%) Also, not many respondents state that lack of time and big sized class create problem for them in teaching listening (13.3 % and 16.6% respectively) Importantly, the teachers are aware of a big difficult in their teaching comes from themselves 63.3% of the teachers realize the fact that it is their teaching methodology make their work more challenging and 53.3% claim that their lack of experience in teaching listening should be counted as one reason 4.1.3 The teachers’ perception towards the importance of the features of spoken English in learning listening comprehension Table 2: The teachers’ perception towards the importance of the features of spoken English in learning listening comprehension 1.Very important Important Not very important Being aware of phenomenon of sound Not important 36.6% 50% (assimilation, elision…) Being aware of stress and intonation 73.3% 26.7% 13.4% 19 Being aware of “markers” (e.g: “Er/ Erm/ Well…” 30% 56.6% 13.4% and their meaning Being aware of pauses and “fillers” (for example: 26.6% 63.3% 10.1% “Er…/ and er….”) during long silences and their meaning Being aware of formal and informal language in 20% 63.3% 16.7% situations The above table shows that the majority of teachers highly appreciate the importance of being aware of stress and intonation in learning listening comprehension (73.3% chose “very important” and 26.7 % chose “important”) The result is lower for other features of spoken English According to 36.6% of the respondents, being aware of phenomenon of sound such as assimilation, elision … plays an important role in developing listening 50 % has the idea that knowing phenomenon of sound is not very important and the rest (13.4%) not think that being aware of phenomenon of sound has positive effect on learning listening comprehension A great number of teachers also refuse to accept the importance of recognizing “markers”, pauses and fillers in the development of listening Only 30% of the teachers judge that “markers” and 26.6% consider pauses and fillers important The rest share the idea that they are not very important or not important at all The situation is quite different for knowing formal and informal language 20% think that having the knowledge of formal and informal language is very important towards learning listening In addition, 63.3% believe that this feature is important while 16.7% keep the idea that it is not very important 4.1.4 The teachers’ exploitation of the features of spoken English into teaching listening Here is the result of the teachers‟ frequency in exploiting the features of spoken English to teach listening Table 3: The teachers’ exploitation of the features of spoken English into teaching listening Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely Never 20 ( to times (4 to times ( to times (1 to times a a month) a month) a month) month) Explain and provide practice for different (no times ) 13.3% 20% 23.3% 43.4% phenomenon of sound when there are such kinds in listening texts Interpret the use of stress, intonation 56.6% 23.3% 13.3% 7.8 % Help the students recognize “markers” and their 10% 16.6% 26.6% 47.8% meaning Help students recognize and understand the 16.6% 26.6% 30% 27.8% 46.6% 23.4% 20% 10% meaning of pauses and filler (“Er/ Erm….”) during long silences Provide and explain formal and informal language used in listening texts As can be seen in the table, nearly half of the respondents never explain and provide practice of different phenomenon of sound to their students (43.4%) 20% sometimes include this activity in their teaching and 23.3% rarely it Only 13.3% of the teachers often take this activity into consideration in their listening lessons The similar situation happens to other features of spoken language A small number of the teachers often pay attention to helping the students recognize and make use of “markers”, pauses and fillers in conveying the message when they study listening (10% and 16.6% respectively) Most of the teachers hardly or never guide the students to concentrate on these two features to understand what speakers really mean However, stress and intonation, formal and informal language receive more consideration from the teachers 56.6% of the teachers often interpret stress and intonation while teaching listening 23.3% sometimes it, 16.6% rarely and 10% never it 46.6 % of the teachers usually care about helping students distinguish formal and informal language 23.4% choose “sometimes”, 20% rarely and 10% never spend time for that activity 21 4.1.5 The teaches’ activities in Pre – listening stage Table 4: The teachers’ activities in Pre – listening stage Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) month) month) month) month) Design activities or games to help students Never 20% 63.3% 16.7% activate knowledge Pre teach new words and structures related to 30% 46.6% 16.6% 6.8% listening texts Guide students to discover pictures related to 20% 36.6% 26.6% 16.8% listening texts Give students time for pair or group discussion of 10% 10% 26.6% 33.4% 20% the topics they are going to listen Explain instructions about what and how to 30% 43.4 26.6% with tasks clearly Ask students to read through questions and 23.7% 30% 46.6% exercises (done in while listening) Others As clearly shown in the table 4, the teachers employ a variety of activities in pre listening stage with different levels of frequency It can be easily noticed that a higher percentage of the teachers always or often pre – teach new words and structures related to listening texts (30% and 46.6% respectively) 16.6% sometimes use this activity before playing the tape and 6.8% seldom it Almost the teachers are not in favor of designing games or activities which help students relax and activate their knowledge 63.3% rarely and 16.7% never spend time for it while only 20% sometimes it When there are pictures related to listening texts or listening exercises, a small rate of the teachers always guide their students to discover the pictures before they start to listen 22 This number account for 20% The rest, 36.6% choose “often”, 26.6% choose “sometimes” and 16.8% choose “rarely” Giving students time for discussion in pairs or in groups about topics that students are going to listen is not a frequent activity of the teachers Only 10% always exploit this activity while 20% ignore it 33.3% rarely, 26.6% sometimes and more 10% often give their student the chance Clear and useful instructions are necessary for students to get main information and complete tasks 30% of the subject always and 43.4% often give time for it compared to 26.6% sometimes follow this activity However, after providing students instructions about what to and how to tasks, a high rate of the teachers (46.6%) rarely ask students to read through questions and exercises which they have to complete in while – listening stage 30% sometimes and the rest often (23.7%) include this activity in their teaching 4.1.6 The teachers’ activities in while – listening stage Table 5: The teachers’ activities in while listening stage Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) month) month) month) month) Guide students make connections with ideas and Never 10% 13.3% 16.6% 33.4% 26.6% information they know Decide what is and is not important to understand Ask students to predict what is coming next, using both 100% 23.3% 43.4% 33.3% their general knowledge and the clues they have heard Encourage students to understand listening texts based on 16.6% 20% 36.7% 26.7% 23.4% 30% 26.6% 10% the context, the intonation Help students recognize transition words (e.g: although, but, for example…” and what they indicate Encourage students to examine how or why their answers 36.6% 43.4% 20% are not correct Others……… 23 In while – listening stage, all the teachers (100%) decide what is and not important to understand A high number of the teachers tend to concentrate on checking the students‟ answers and encourage the students to examine how or why theirs answers are not correct (36.6% always and 43.3% often) Nevertheless, the teachers not apply other activities in this stage frequently During this stage, only few teachers (10%) always guide students to connect what they hear with ideas and information they know The majority rarely or not use this activity (33.4% and 26.6% respectively) Many teachers hardly or even never ask students to predict what is coming next, using both their general knowledge and the clues they have heard or encourage them to understand listening texts based on context and intonation (43.3%.and 33.3%.respectively) Transition words, for example: “although, but, then…” contribute greatly to the understanding of message, however, unluckily not all the teachers really have the habit of making use of them in teaching listening 30% sometimes help students recognize these words and what they indicate, and there are still 26.6% hardly and 10% never it 4.1.7 The teachers’ activities in post – listening stage Table 6: The teachers’ activities in post – listening stage Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) month) month) month) month) Ask students to discuss in pairs or in groups about the Never 43.4% 33.3% 23.3% topics Encourage students to respond to what they‟ve 63.3% 23.3% 13.4% listened (by questions) Organize role – play activity 20% 26.6% 33.4% 20% Ask students to write a summary of the main points 33.3% 40% Ask students to look at typescripts and help them deal 26.6% 33.4% 40% with form, stressed words, intonation or new 26.7% 24 structures Give students extra listening (related to the topics) Others……… 20% 26.6% 36.7% 16.7% According to the table, the teachers tend to hold oral activities in this stage 63.3% often use questions to ask the students to respond and 43.4% usually ask the students to discuss in pairs or in groups about the topics they have listened However, role – play is not very popular in this stage Only 20% often use it, while 33.4% seldom and other 20% never apply it The reason collected after analyzing the data for this matter is that this activity is time - consuming as the students need much time for preparation before conducting role – play Writing activity is not widely used by the teachers 40% rarely ask the students to write a summary and 26.7% never employ it A majority of the teachers also fail to make use of the tape scripts to help students deal with stressed words or new structures 40% never hold this activity and only 26.6% sometimes it 20% of the respondents often care about providing the students more listening practice, but 36.7% hardly supply their students extra listening along with the listening tasks in the textbook 4.1.8 The teachers’ exploitation of teaching aids Table 7: The teachers’ use of teaching aids in teaching listening comprehension Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) month) month) month) month) Kinds of teaching aids CD player and CDs 100% VCD/ Projector Tasks in the course books Never 26.6% 50% 56.6% 23.4% 43.4% Pictures, handouts 30% 53.3% 16.7% Music, games 30% 70% 25 Others All the teachers always use CD player and CDs to teaching listening comprehension as they are provided by the university And the teachers focus on exploiting tasks in the course books It is not very common for the teachers to employ other means of teaching aids like VCD or projectors In addition, the teachers hardly use pictures, handouts or add some more listening activities, for example, listening to songs to motivate their students 4.1.9 The teachers’ exploitation of the listening materials Table 8: The teachers’ exploitation of the course books Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) month) month) month) month) Teachers’ exploitation of the course books Use only the textbook and its procedure without Never 60% 26.6% 13.4% 30% 53.3% 13.3% 3.4% creating or designing others listening materials or activities (due to the lack of time) Make advantage of the procedure in the textbook and add more tasks/ activities Replace some inappropriate parts with other 36.6% 33.3% 23.3% 6.8% listening tasks/ activities to motivate students‟ interests Provide students with more listening tasks based on 33.3% 36.7% 20% 10% the available text to practice (use handouts) When using the two course books, 60% of the teachers often only use the textbook and its procedure without creating or designing others listening materials or activities (due to the lack of time) And not many of the teachers (30%) often make advantage of the procedure in the textbook and add more tasks or activities In addition, replacing some inappropriate parts with other listening tasks or activities to motivate students‟ interests is 26 usually applied by only 36.6% of the teachers Nearly one third (about 30%) rarely or never provide more listening practice to their students as supplementary materials 4.2 Findings and discussion Through the analysis of the questionnaire, it can be found that the teachers at HaUI meet a lot of difficulties in teaching listening comprehension The difficulties mainly come from the reasons: the teachers‟ lack of teaching experience, the inefficiency of their teaching methodology and the limitation in exploiting teaching materials and teaching aids 4.2.1 The teachers’ lack of experience in teaching English teaching staff at HaUI all has good background knowledge in terms of language and skills All of them have graduated from English Department of different colleges or university of foreign Language Nearly one third of them have Master degree on the same major However, most of them are young teachers, thus they lack of experience in teaching listening New and young teachers are often appointed to be charged of teaching first year and second year students Their years of teaching listening range from one to three years which may be not long enough for them to apply the teaching effectively 4.2.2 The inefficiency in the teaching methodology 4.2.2.1 The teachers’ low perception and use of the features of spoken English As mentioned in literature review, being aware of the features of spoken English is very necessary and useful for learners to get improvement in learning listening Unluckily, most of the teachers lack of high perception of this matter The teachers not evaluate the features of spoken language thoroughly and fairly Among all the features, the teachers only highly appreciate the importance of stress and intonation and formal and informal language In teaching, they tend to focus on drawing students‟ attention to these two features only Meanwhile, others characteristics such as: sounds, pauses and fillers… are ignored to be exploited in teaching by the teachers It is the low perception and exploitation of all features of spoken English that creates difficulty for the teachers in their work Without the teachers‟ explanations and instructions to recognize and understand all characteristics of spoken language, the students get certain troubles when learning listening They may fail to connect the sounds they have heard with those they have known as they lack of knowledge of assimilation or elision…In other cases, they may misunderstand the message as they not focus on some redundant but very important 27 words like “Er/ Well/ Erm…” Lacking the knowledge of characteristics of spoken language, to some extent, prevents the students from developing their listening ability to the best And it is the consequence of the teachers‟ inadequate perception of the matter 4.2.2.2 The teachers’ inefficiency in applying three listening stages Applying the three stages (pre, while and post) in teaching listening and other skills is an important factor leading to the success of lessons Although the teachers at HaUI are aware of this fact, the way they conduct the three stages is not really effective and useful In pre – listening stage, the teachers have a tendency to use and reuse certain activities such as: pre – teach new words and structures related to listening texts and give clear instruction about the tasks the students have to complete Many teachers hardly or even never organize other useful activities in pre – listening stage, for example: design games which helps students relax and activate knowledge before listening or give time for pair or group discussion about the topics In addition, a number of teachers fail to exploit pictures which are available in the textbooks Pictures are very common and useful visual aids which interest most students and promote their understanding However, the teachers not guide students to discover and understand the pictures illustrating the topics the students have to listen and complete the tasks followed This demotivates students and prevents them from getting the main information to complete the tasks One more pity is that there are teachers who rarely give students time to look through the exercises before listening Reading through the tasks helps the students orient in advance what information they should get which give them general ideas to expect to hear In while –listening stage, the teachers not always or often apply necessary activities to develop students‟ listening strategies In this stage, the teachers focus on helping students listen to information to fulfill the tasks more than encouraging them to understand the whole texts Listening strategies play a vital role in studying listening comprehension, which contribute much in developing listening skills Nevertheless, the teachers are not highly aware of this In fact, the teachers hardly help students develop predicting strategy by asking them to predict what is coming next based on what they have heard and general knowledge Also, making inferences based on context or intonation is not usually promoted as the teachers not spend much time for this activity 28 In post – listening stage, the teachers not balance kinds of activities Oral activities are usually given priority while others aspects are hardly mentioned One purpose of post listening work is to reflect why some students have failed to understand or missed parts of the message (Mary Underwood, 1989, p 75) To this, the teachers should draw attention to specific parts such as forms or stress and intonation However, very few teachers at HaUI pay attention to this in post listening stage Written work is not often used which prevents the integration between listening and writing skill 4.2.3 The teachers’ limitations in exploiting teaching materials and teaching aids The teachers have limitations in exploiting teaching materials and teaching aids thoroughly and effectively Most of the teachers base much on the tasks available in the course books without changing or adding activities Many of the teachers are not ready to re – design the tasks or find more useful materials to replace what already have in the books Meanwhile, not all the tasks in the textbooks are suitable to the students‟ ability For instance, it is very hard for students at beginner level to listen to a long interview or story and then a true – or false exercise or answer questions Therefore, it is easier for the students if the teachers design new tasks such as multiple choice exercise or putting events in order The way the teachers exploit the materials create themselves the obstacles As they are not flexible and active in using the course books, their teaching does not interest students When the students get bored with the lessons, they lose concentration which prevents the two processes: teaching and learning listening skill It is also very necessary for the students to have further listening practice along with the tasks in the textbooks This depends on the teachers who should provide them supplementary in class and recommend the materials that the students may use for their self – study Nevertheless, giving supplementary seems not very popular among the teachers surveyed In terms of using teaching aids, the teachers just use CD player and CDs to teach listening The limitations in using other means like projector, computers, to somehow, make the lesson less interesting and useful CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 29 The previous chapter shows that the teachers at HaUI have encountered a great deal of difficulties in teaching listening comprehension Thus, this chapter aims at giving recommendations and conclusions to minimize teachers‟ troubles to the least The suggestions include: developing the listening materials, encouraging students‟ factors and combining intensive listening with extensive listening, applying three stages in teaching listening effectively, teaching listening strategies for students and combining teaching listening comprehension with teaching other aspects of English 5.1 Developing the listening materials As mentioned at the beginning of the research, the official books being used at HaUI are New – Headway Elementary and New – Headway Pre – Intermediate Each book consists of 14 units In these books, listening skill is integrated with three other skills: Speaking, Reading and Writing The students‟ expectation on the listening materials should be taken into consideration by the teachers in exploiting the materials For instance, when listening to a long interview (New Headway Elementary, Unit 8, listening task: How did you two meet; Unit 12, listening task: Futures Plans…), it is a challenge for the students to catch the information as there are many questions and answers from different voices Meanwhile, the tasks in the books are often answering questions which the students can hardly complete If the teachers replace the tasks in the books by a list of multiple choice questions following the order of the interviews, the students will get more willingness to the tasks It is also advisable for teachers to provide more supplementary materials along with the tasks in the course books The supplementary tasks should be closely related to the main tasks that the students‟ have just done For example, when students learn to listen to telephone number, date, time or price, the teachers should provide students more practice for separate parts In this way, the teachers can exploit the materials more deeply and more effectively Moreover, when the teachers organize or design lessons using various kinds of teaching aids (not only CD player and CDs), the success of the lessons will be greatly increased Paying attention to students‟ interest is also very important in developing materials Obviously, students will be eager to listen to what they find interesting, thus the teachers had better provide students the materials which attract the students Through the 30 discussions with a number of the students, it can be realized that the students seem to prefer listening to something related to sports or songs for entertainment Therefore, the teachers should sometimes give their students chance to listen to what they favor which can make the learning process more enjoyable 5.2 Encouraging the students’ internal factors Students and their own factors such as: their feelings, their needs and their interest have great impact on the success of the teaching process Thus, it is essential to assist the students to build up their strong motivation for listening by raising their awareness of the importance of listening Moreover, students should be encouraged to build up confidence in learning When students feel comfortable before doing the activities, they can maintain their concentration In contrast, teachers shouldn‟t put pressure on students by demanding the results after their listening Encouraging them to report the information through a variety of activity is a better choice to make the teaching successful In addition, it is a good advice for teachers to consider the students‟ needs and interests while designing and employing exercises to sustain students‟ long – term motivation 5.3 Combining intensive listening with extensive listening In teaching listening, both intensive and extensive listening should be combined to promote the development of the productive listening habits, and the ability to understand the text Therefore, teachers must encourage students to engage in intensive listening in class, requiring students to understand the general meaning and also to become familiarized with English pronunciation, intonation and the changes in language flow The students had better be encouraged and given chance to have extensive listening both inside and outside the classroom Being familiar to extensive listening is a good way to develop students‟ listening skill Extensive listening is the general listening to natural language for general ideas, not for particular details The level of language should be appropriate to students‟ ability so that they will have interest or pleasure The listening passage exploited may be listening to a play, a story or an interview It is useful to ask students to listen for main ideas without doing any work during their listening This can activate their concentration to the best for extensive listening In activities outside the classroom, students need to engage in extensive listening with different sources such as: TV programs, radio, the Internet 5.4 Applying three stages in teaching listening effectively 31 In current teaching situation, the teachers are not really successful in applying three stages: pre – listening stage, while – listening stage and post – listening stage In each stage, various changes should be conducted to improve the teaching and learning‟ results As mentioned above, the purpose of pre – listening stage is to help students ““focus their minds on the topic” (Mary Underwood, 1989, p.31) It means that the teachers should narrow down the things that the students expect to hear and activate relevant prior knowledge and already known language Teachers must also make sure that their students know exactly what is required for them in this stage All the students need to know what they have to before they start listening Before listening, it is necessary for students to be provided with meaning and pronunciation of new words which have been taken into consideration by most of the teachers In addition, the teachers should employ other activities more regularly so that the students can have a best preparation before listening  Exploiting visual aids such as pictures, drawings, tables or charts relevant to the topics  Raising questions for pair or group discussion to explore the topic  Brainstorming words, terms, phrases or providing students with new words, terms, phrases they may meet during listening  Asking students to make prediction of the topics  Giving students time to read through the exercise they need to complete in during their listening In the while – listening stage, it is advisable for teachers to concentrate on develop students‟ listening comprehension strategies and make use of their background knowledge It‟s obviously useful when students have more than once chance to listen For each time, they need to complete specific goals The levels of difficulty for goals should be increased After the first time, teachers give students to report the main ideas or check through the answers Reminding them about the next goal they need to complete before the second listening helps students pay more attention to their work Pair checking or group checking before the last time of listening can maintain the students‟ interest by creating doubt or comparison Predicting should still be maintained in this stage, using both general knowledge and what they have heard as clues Guiding students to recognize transition 32 words is very beneficial to help students keep up with spoken texts and get main information Giving feedback is also essential in this stage It is time for the teachers to see how well their students have done the tasks Positive feedback is important when students perform the tasks successfully It helps to generate more confidence, motivation and interest In cases when students‟ answers are incorrect, the teachers‟ feedback needs to save them from being hurt and encourage them to better in the next time Post – listening stage will be much more effective when the teachers balance the use of post listening activities Along with employing oral activities like discussion in pair or group, role – play…the teachers may create more activities for students to after each lesson to enhance the knowledge they have just gained after listening, for example: written work or using information to complete charts or tables g It is also important that in this stage, the teachers need to give prompt and critical feedback on students‟ performance Helping the students recognize and practice new forms or structures, stress and intonation or different phenomenon of sounds is very necessary in this stage in order to get better results for further listening 5.5 Teaching listening strategies for students The goal of teaching listening comprehension is to train them to become effective listeners Lacking of listening strategies leads to obstacles for students and for teachers during listening lessons Paying attention to introduce listening strategies can contribute greatly to improve the listening teaching and learning quality Here are some of the most important strategies that the teachers should employ to teach their students Predicting: Knowing what they are going to listen can help students be more attentive Training students how to predict about the topics is activating their background and knowledge It is useful for the students to know the type of listening task, whether it is a story, a conversation or a lecture In addition, the teachers should ask students to predict vocabularies and ideas which may be heard in lectures from the title or a picture or any clues they have (maps, charts, outlines…) to prepare for what they are going to listen After raising the questions, the teachers need to give students a few minutes to think it over before asking for their responses Obviously, prediction can not always be correct, 33 therefore, students should be warned about that before they start listening, which prevent them from being confused when the information does not match with their prediction Moreover, predicting should be maintained in while – listening stage as well Students should be asked to make prediction about what kind of information might come next based on the clues they have heard and based on context, stress and intonation Listening for main ideas Listening for main ideas is a very useful strategy that students need to be trained so that they can be successful in learning listening The students at HaUI often have the habits of paying attention to separate words While they are listening, they tend to try to catch familiar words As a result, it is very hard for them to catch the main ideas of the listening text To train students this strategy, the teachers should help students recognize discourse markers or certain phrases that tell listeners a main idea is coming Here are some examples: The main point is……… What I’m going to talk about today is……… The important thing here is……… Another key to help students develop the ability to listen for main ideas is drawing their attention to repetition or how many times a word or phrase is repeated When something is repeated several times, it is usually important Once you know important words and phrases through repetition, it is much easier to identify main ideas of lectures Moreover, visual aids such as outlines, pictures, charts…often provide obvious clues to main points in spoken texts These types of visual aids should be taken advantage of by the students when they practice listening Making inferences Inferences are largely based on background knowledge; consequently, it is of much use if the students are provided background knowledge about topics which help them make inference during their listening In case of lacking background knowledge, students can learn to rely on the visual or auditory cues It is a good idea that the teachers guide students to pay attention to maps, charts, photographs or the background noises, then they will be able to draw logical conclusion and interpret the messages 34 Learning to infer from types of listening texts is also of great use for students For example, when listening to a conversation, students should have the information about who, where, when the conversation involve in; when listening to a play, the major events is important Guessing from context It is the fact that learners can not catch every word while they listen, therefore guessing meaning from context is an important skill Teachers should sometimes give help by identifying a word or idea that students have missed, and asking them to find related ideas which they have caught or understood When guessing words from context, it is useful to ask students to identify the clues that help them guess For example, the students should be encouraged to use the words and phrases surrounding the unknown words to make guesses about its general meaning In case speakers use unfamiliar terms, they usually offer definition or an explanation of such terms Students should know and realize this clue 5.6 Combining teaching listening comprehension with teaching other aspects of English Listening comprehensive ability plays an important role in acquisition and improvement of language skills Therefore, in listening teaching, there is a need to combine the development of listening ability with the development of other skills On the other hand, the course book New Headway is an integrated book in which four skills are combined with each other In all units, listening is usually combined with speaking or reading When listening is along with reading, reading is often the pre – activity It is essential for teachers to exploit reading task effectively to lead to listening task The reading texts always provide learners with the context and certain knowledge for listening activity Students may meet some words that they are going to hear from the listening task later Teachers should take the chance to help students be familiar to those words in terms of both pronunciation and meaning This can be done by explanation and practice for pronunciation Furthermore, students need to practice reading aloud amongst themselves By such activity students will learn to combine the act of listening with reading It is important to strengthen listening through speaking and to improve speaking through listening Students need to retell and discuss the material they have just heard in order to 35 synthesize their understanding In this way they learn to combine listening with speaking properly In the textbooks, when listening is combined with speaking, speaking is often the post – listening activity However, to prepare for listening activity, there are always pictures, charts or maps…Making students focus on these means by raising questions for them to guess or analyze the information is a good pre – listening activity After listening, students should be supported by the amount of knowledge they have caught through listening which helps them the speaking tasks Students who are able to this can overcome their passive response to the situation and gradually they learn to feel safe when they respond The interaction between teachers - students and students - students should be emphasized as opportunities for a free exchange of opinions when participants can consolidate their listening approaches and skills during the process of communication The outcome of listening can be seen clearly in this part, which brings students the feeling of success for what they have done Similarly, by combining listening with writing, teachers can help students develop the two skills thoroughly First, students might answer teachers‟ questions in written English after listening to spoken language material Then, students should be asked to write a summary about the topics they have listened In Every day English part in all units, there are always listening activities The situations happen in daily life, for example: the conversation in the shops, asking and giving directions on the street, asking for information at the airport or train station… To make the listening teaching of this part effectively, students should be clear about the context, purpose of listening They should be provided certain structures or prompts which are often used in those situations Thanks to this, it is possible and easy for them to catch the popular expressions Practicing the conversations after listening activities is necessary to produce the authentic result Through a variety of listening-reading, listening-writing and listening-speaking activities, students can not only strengthen their language skills but also develop their interests and raise their motivation to improve their learning efficiency 36 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION This chapter aims to give the summary of the study, and then it discusses the limitations and provides some suggestions for further research 6.1 Summary of the findings Through the five chapters, the study investigates the difficulties of the teachers in teaching listening skill at Hanoi University of Industry The research leads to these main conclusions The teachers at HaUI meet certain problems in teaching listening comprehension Three reasons could be blamed Firstly, the lack of experience in teaching creates obstacles for the teachers in managing class and conducting listening lessons effectively Secondly, the teachers‟ work is becoming more challenging as a result of the inefficiency in teaching methodology It is the way the teachers conduct the three stages (pre, while and post) creates difficulties for themselves Moreover, a number of the teachers lack of adequate reorganization on the importance of features of spoken language, which prevents them from applying these features in teaching listening Thirdly, the teachers‟ limitations in exploiting the materials and using different means of teaching aid make the teaching less effective In short, teaching listening comprehension is really a challenging work for the teachers at HaUI It is the teachers‟ responsibility to find and apply suitable solutions to overcome the difficulties Helping students to deal with their problem and improving the teaching methods are suggested as the main ways to improve the teaching and learning work 6.2 Limitations and suggestions for further study In doing a research, limitations are inevitable This study is of no exception The research has mainly based on one questionnaire with 30 informants at HaUI The ideas from a small number of participants may not be totally typical for all teachers‟ ideas In terms of time, the research was carried at the end of the semester, thus some of the suggestions are the writers‟ subjective opinions without being applied yet 37 In addition, as the researcher‟ practical experience in teaching listening and knowledge of this field is limited, the suggestions and recommendations are likely to be subjective and incomplete Further work, therefore, should overcome the shortcomings 38 REFERENCES Anderson, A & Lynch, T 1988 Listening Oxford: Oxford University Press Berman, M 2003 Advanced Listening DynEd International, Inc Boyle, J.P 1984 Factors affecting listening comprehension ELT Journal 38 Brette, P 1985 Multimedia for listening comprehension: The Design of multimedia – based resources for developing listening skills System 23 (1), 77- 85 Buck, G 2001 Accessing Listening Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Gillham, B 2000 Developing a Questionnaire London and New York: Continuum Helgesen, M and Brown, S 2003 Practical English Language Teaching: Listening Canh, Le Van 2004 Understanding Foreign Language Teaching Methodology, Vietnam National University Press Clark, Herbert H & Clark, Eve V 1977 Psychology and language: An introduction to psycholinguistics New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc 10 Dornyei, Z 2003 Questionnaires in Second Language Research Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers 11 Dunkel, P 1991b Listening in the native and second/ foreign language: Toward an integration of research an practice TESOL Quartely 12 Lewis, M & Hill, J 1985 Practical Techniques for Language Teaching London: Commercial Color Press 13 Larsen, D 1986 Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press 14 Morley, J.1991 Listening Comprehension in Second, Foreign Language Instruction Newbury House 15 Nunan, D 1999 Second Language Teaching and Learning Heinle and Heinle Publication 16 Nunan, D & Miller, L 1995 New ways in Teaching Listening Illinois: Pantograph 17 Rixon, S Developing listening skills London: Macmillan Publishers 18 Rost, M 1994 Introducing Listening London: Penguin 19 Rubin, J.1994 A review of Second Language Listening Comprehension Research 39 Modern Language Journal 20 Ton, Nu Xuan Huong 2007 An Investigation into the Difficulties in Teaching Listening Comprehension Skill to non – major English learners Dai hoc Da Nang 21 Underwood, M 1989, Teaching Listening London and New York: Longman 22 Ur, P.1996 A course in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 23 Ur, P 1994 Teaching Listening Comprehension Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers, New York: Cambridge University Press 24 White, G 1998, Listening Oxford: Oxford University Press 25 Widdowson, H G 1972 Teaching Foreign Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 26 Wolvin, A.D & Coakly, C.1985 Listening Dubuque: William C Brown I APPENDIX TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING LISTENING AT HANOI, UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY We would like to ask you to help us by answering the following questions concerning the teachers’ difficulties in teaching listening at Hanoi, University of Industry This is not a test, so there are no “right” or “wrong” answers and you don’t even have to write your name on it We are interested in your personal opinion Please give your answers sincerely as only this will guarantee the success of the investigation Thank you very much for your help! Please put a tick in the appropriate box (es) and write answer in the space provided Personal information Genders:  Male  Female Age:  Under 24  24 – 35  Over 35 Years of teaching: Questions: In your opinion, how important is teaching listening comprehension in comparison with other skills?  more important  equally important  less important  don‟t know In your opinion, what factors create difficulties in your teaching of listening?  Big class size  Lack of necessary facilities  Lack of time  Students‟ inexperience in listening  Students‟ activities in class  Students‟ language problems II  Students‟ mixed levels of English  Teachers‟ methodology Teachers‟ experience in teaching  Others…………… In your opinion, how important is being aware of the features of spoken language in learning listening comprehension? 1.Very important Important Not very important Not important Being aware of phenomenon of sound (assimilation, elision…) Being aware of stress and intonation Being aware of “markers” (e.g: “Er/ Erm/ Well…” and their meaning Being aware of pauses and “fillers” (for example: “Er…/ and er….”) during long silences and their meaning Being aware of formal and informal language in situations How often you help your students make use of the features of spoken English to learn listening comprehension? Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely Never ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) month) month) month) month) Explain and provide practice for different phenomenon of sound when there are such kinds in listening texts Interpret the use of stress, intonation Help the students recognize “markers” and their meaning Help students recognize and understand the meaning of pauses and filler (“Er/ Erm….”) during long silences III Provide and explain formal and informal language used in listening texts Interpret the use of stress, intonation How often you use these activities in pre – listening stage? Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely ( to times a (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a month) month) month) Never (no times ) month) 5 Design some activities or games to help students activate your knowledge Pre teach new words and structures related to listening texts Guide students to discover pictures related to listening texts Give students time to discuss or predict in pairs or group of the topics they are going to listen Provide students background information or knowledge of the topics they are going to listen Explain instructions about what and how to with the tasks clearly Ask students to read through questions and exercises (done in while listening) Others How often you use these activities in while – listening stage? Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely Never ( to times (4 to times a ( to times (1 to times a (no times ) a month) month) a month) month) IV Guide students make connections with ideas and information they know Decide what is and is not important to understand Ask students to predict what is coming next, using both their general knowledge and the clues they have heard Encourage students to make guesses based on the context, the intonation Help students recognize transition words (e.g: although, but, for example…” and what they indicate Encourage students to examine how or why their answers are not correct Others……… How often you use these activities in post – listening stage? Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely Never ( to times (4 to times a ( to times (1 to times a (no times ) a month) month) a month) month) Tell students to compare their notes and discuss in pairs or in groups about the topics Encourage students to respond to what they‟ve listened Ask students to write a summary of the main points Ask students to review their notes and add more information after giving feedback to their answer in while – listening stage Ask students to look at typescripts and help them deal with stress words or new structures Give students extra listening tasks Give students role – play activities Others……… How you make use of the course book “New Headway Elementary” and “New Headway Pre – Intermediate” in your listening lesson? V Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely Never ( to times (4 to times a ( to times a (1 to times a (no times ) a month) month) month) month) Use only the textbook and its procedure without creating or designing others listening materials or activities (due to the lack of time) Make advantage of the procedure in the textbook and add more tasks/ activities Replace some inappropriate parts with other listening tasks/ activities to motivate students‟ interests Use the teachers‟ voice because the students not understand the speakers „voice Provide students with more listening tasks based on the available text to practice and change the listening atmosphere (use handouts) How often you use the following teaching aids in listening lesson to motivate your students? Always Often 3.Sometimes Rarely Never ( to times (4 to times a ( to times (1 to times a (no times ) a month) month) a month) month) CD player and CDs VCD/ Projector Tasks in the course books Pictures, handouts Music, games VI Others………………… 10 Can you give suggestions to teach listening comprehension at your university more effectively? ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………… ... investigates the difficulties of the teachers in teaching listening skill at Hanoi University of Industry The research leads to these main conclusions The teachers at HaUI meet certain problems in teaching. .. in Hanoi University of Industry in order to investigate the difficulties as perceived by the teachers in teaching listening comprehension The study focused on surveying the methods that the teachers. .. the teachers in teaching listening at Hanoi University of Industry? What are the possible suggestions and recommendations to overcome the difficulties perceived by the teachers in teaching listening