EXPERIENCES IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS EFECTIVELY IN GRADE 10 AT NONG CONG 3 HIGH SHOOL

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION I Reasons for choosing topics Along with science and technology, Education - Training is a top national policy, aiming to improve the people's knowledge to train human resources and foster talents See investment in education as an investment in the future The Education and Training sector has constantly innovated in terms of content and teaching methods The English subject has been taught since the elementary level to help students grasp the common language of the world To achieve that goal, it is necessary to have an active orientation in teaching to give students a strong foundation as the basis for further study and to communicate well through English The new English program has been implemented nationwide until now for nearly ten years The outstanding innovation of this program content is to create the maximum opportunity for students to practice the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing on topics and situations or communicative content related to the environment at home and abroad The above change facilitates teaching and learning English in general schools to become language teaching instead of word teaching as many years ago However, in the practice of training English skills for students, teachers have to deal with many difficulties, especially forging listening skills Through reality at my school, when starting to learn a foreign language, most students like to learn, but gradually students get bored of learning Most of the children are very weak in listening skills It is difficult for children to understand the content of an essay or conversation After each class, teachers find it very difficult to check the information they have heard and checking the old lessons is often not easy Facing this situation is a teacher directly teaching grade 10 English, the subject has been exposed to the English language through the junior high school years, I myself wonder a lot how students can master, listening comprehension to get information and apply it proficiently In the process of both teaching and observing students, I discovered that the practice of listening skills of students has many problems Most students not know how to learn to listen, and students often find listening practice the most difficult In class, students often say that even though there are many known words in the text, they cannot be heard How to help students apply their vocabulary and grammar structures to effective listening comprehension? Therefore, in the teaching process, I look for some positive, simple, easy-to-understand methods that are practical to ensure science, in order to develop students' thinking ability, speculation and creativity With this small scope of experience, I boldly go into a problem "Experience teaching English listening skills for students effectively in grade 10" II Aims of the research English subjects have been widely popularized in schools across the country But it is still considered one of the subjects that students have most difficulty with So how to teach - learn English to achieve high results, especially improve listening ability for students That requires a lot of teaching methods innovation of teachers and the hard work, enthusiasm, inquisitive and learning of the students As a high school English teacher, I have grasped the strengths and weaknesses of the children in the learning process Therefore, I always struggle to find a new and most effective teaching method suitable for students to help them understand the lesson and encourage them to love English, especially improve their listening ability So, how can students practice their listening skills quickly, effectively and easily? Especially when applying them to practical communication activities when interacting with foreigners? Affordable, this is the teacher's trick! III Scope and object Subjects - Grade 10 students at Nong Cong High School - Teaching English in grade 10 Scope of research: - Teaching listening skills in English for the 10th grade from 2020 to 2021 aims to improve the quality of teaching in the subject IV Researching Methods The problem is how we can overcome the above weaknesses to contribute to improving the quality of learning listening skills, helping students to be more confident in communication, using English as a second language, be proficient in every word and sentence, especially for rural students like students in Nong Cong district I examined the characteristics of the 10th grade students' situation, students’ learning ability, and listening skills I used a listening exercise in school English program Listen and complete the dialogue Lan: Hello, Hoa Hoa: Hi, Lan You seem (1)……………… Lan: I am I received a (2)………………….from my friend Nien today Hoa: Do I know her? Lan: I don’t know I think so She (3)………….my next door neighbor in Hue Hoa: What does she (4)…………….like? Lan: Oh, she is (5)…………… Here is her (6)………… Hoa: What a (7)………….smile! Was she your (8)………………? Lan: Oh, no She wasn’t old (9)………… to be (10)………….my class Keys: happy letter was look beautiful photograph lovely classmate enough 10 in RESULT Number excellentl of y Order Class student SL % s 10C1 38 2.6 10C2 50 Poorly well fairly Weakly SL % SL % SL % SL % 10 26.3 19 50 13.2 7.9 13 46 14 26 23 10C4 TOTAL 49 8.2 12 24.5 25 51 14.3 137 6.6 35 25.5 67 48.9 19 13.9 5.1 Through the above results, I realize that their listening skills are still limited They have not understood the lesson yet, have not yet applied the knowledge they have learned I am very concerned, not know how to help students practice listening well in English, help them to be eager to learn With many years of direct experience in teaching English, initially carefully training students listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, I give some of the following experiences in the process of teaching as well as practicing skills PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW I The Basics of listening skills: What Is listening? • Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process • Listening is key to all effective communication Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood • Listening is one of the most important skills you can have • An active process of getting information, ideas • “Listening is the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken II Process of Listening –Receiving • Is the intentional focus on hearing a speaker’s message? • This stage is represented by the ear because it is the primary tool involved with this stage of the listening process 2- Understanding • In the understanding stage, we attempt to learn the meaning of the message, which is not always easy • Deciding what the message means to you 3- Remembering • Remembering begins with listening; if you can’t remember something that was said, you might not have been listening effectively • However, even when you are listening attentively, some messages are more difficult than others to understand and remember Highly complex messages that are filled with detail call for highly developed listening skills 4- Evaluating • The fourth stage in the listening process is evaluating • Evaluations of the same message can vary widely from one listener to another • The stages two, three, and four are represented by the brain because it is the primary tool involved with these stages of the listening process 5- Responding • Responding - sometimes referred to as feedback - is the fifth and final stage of the listening process • Your reaction to the message It can be emotional and intellectual • For example, you are giving positive feedback to your instructor if at the end of class you stay behind to finish a sentence in your notes or approach the instructor to ask for clarification The opposite kind of feedback is given by students who gather their belongings and rush out the door as soon as class is over • This stage is represented by the lips because we often give feedback in the form of verbal feedback; however, you can just as easily respond nonverbally III The Benefits of Being a Great Listener Being a good listener has many benefits This is especially true at work, but consider how family and social relationships could also be improved as you were to acquire great listening skills People with good listening skills are more productive, make better partners and colleagues, are better problem solvers, and have healthier interpersonal relationships There are some other, less obvious, benefits too For example, purposeful listening actually helps with stress management, boosts confidence, builds rapport, and helps engender trust Who’d have thought it! Learning to be an effective listener has all-round benefits, and there are no losers CHAPTER 2: SOME IMPLEMENTATION MEASURES I Some experiences to help teachers effectively teach listening skills Listening skills are influenced by speaking skills Listening skills are influenced by speaking skills, so teachers must regularly help students in the class practice speaking a lot to compensate for their listening skills Because when practicing speaking, students will remember words and sentences that they are constantly in contact with, therefore, students will develop listening skills Moreover, while listening, if we encounter long and difficult sentences, it is required that we just stop at the level of listening to understand and feeling the main meaning of the sentence, not having to hear all the words in the sentence clearly For long essays that want to hear and understand well, you must focus your mind for a long time, depending on the ability of the brain to withstand pressure under great psychological pressure If you are too much, you can divide into many small sections to listen and then listen to them all at once It is necessary to focus on listening to the pronunciation and intonation, and directly understanding in English, the better, if it is difficult, you can contact Vietnamese Remember, when you listen, you need to look at the pictures and relate the image of the thing or event in your mind During the listening process, if encountering words or sentences that not sound clear, after listening to them, you can stop to reflect on the sentence If you can't listen forever, you can look in text script and then listen again Remember "hearing with your eyes" is more effective and less boring than "hearing with your ears" For example: In listening part - Unit 1: A day in the life of… When teacher teaches Listening part Teacher lets students observe the pictures in the textbook on page 16, and then create a scenario of the listening lesson: “Mr Lam is a cyclo driver, He is talking about his morning activities Listen and number the pictures in their correct order” At this time, the teacher asks students to practice speaking by describing Mr Lam's activities through pictures + What is he doing in picture a,picture b……? He is riding his cyclo in picture a He is eating something in pictre b He is riding his cyclo with some children in picture c A man is sleeping in his cyclo under a big tree A cyclo driver is riding an old man in the picture f Keys: 1e 2f 3a 4c 5b 6d It can be said that speaking plays an important role during listening practice, the more you practice speaking, the better listening skills will be developed Help students find effective listening strategies Like other skills, listening plays an important role in acquiring knowledge of English It may sound a little harder than other skills, but there are also many benefits If we listen well, we will improve our pronunciation and communication skills Usually students learn English listening practice by doing exercises in the listening books However, the lessons in the book are often not updated on a regular basis, so students not have many opportunities to acquire knowledge in modern life I think teachers directly teach, need to give students the most timely and useful advice to help them learn to listen most effectively 2.1 Learn to listen from the beginning When learning foreign languages in general and English in particular, you should start as soon as possible In this way, the student will become familiar with the sounds of the language Therefore, learning pronunciation will become easier When you first start learning English, you need to find enough tapes with versions Anytime you don't understand a word on tape, look at the version and look up the word in the dictionary 2.2 Listen to the same content multiple times Listening to the same content over and over is a good way Direct students to choose an interesting video and listen to it over and over While listening, try to remember useful sentences, even paragraphs Then recall and practice saying those sentences again, trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation After a number of times students will notice that the words and phrases on the tape have become part of themselves Students will begin to use them in their own sentences The students' pronunciation and listening comprehension skills will certainly improve as well 2.3 Listen every day Instruct the children to practice listening every day, practice listening a little every day If possible, equip yourself with a suitable hearing aid Record and pre-install your favorite English tapes in the player so you can listen whenever possible 2.4 Hear what? Help students find songs that are both easy to understand and meaningful to them Select materials on suitable topics to ensure interest to students Choose a voice that is pleasing to the speaker so that students enjoy hearing and look forward to hearing each day 2.5 Principles of listening skills Listening is perhaps the most difficult skill for most learners of English as a second language The most important thing is to help students improve listening skills and listen regularly Make students see that they are not alone If you still not understand what you listen to, not be discouraged or disappointed Need orientation for students: Accept the fact that you don't understand anything Stay calm when you see nothing, or may not even understand for a long period of time Don't try to translate them into Vietnamese Pay attention to the gist of what you are hearing Don't focus on details until you understand the main idea II Good and flexible use of techniques in a lesson in listening skills Warm up: An hour of listening can be effective if the teacher knows how to make the listening lessons more lively, interesting and engaging One of the first things a teacher can is to prepare well for a “Warm up” activity Here are some specific Warm up activities that teachers can apply to make their listening lessons really attractive and effective A Read stories Stories, If their content is interesting and professionally told, it will attract the attention of most students Therefore, before letting students listen to the tapes, teachers should read slowly to their students a short story with simple and easy-to-understand content Then, the teacher can ask a few questions related to the content of the story for the students to answer Or the teacher could tell only part of the story, then let the students discuss and come up with the end of the story for themselves This will make students feel very interested in the lesson as they are given their own opinion Especially for students who are weak at using English, they will be surprised and happy because they can understand a story in English From there, they will be more motivated to try to learn B Ask and answer Before starting the listening session, the teacher could spend about to 10 minutes asking students a few questions related to the topic of the listening lesson This will help students shape the topic of the listening lesson, from which they will systematically systemize the background knowledge of vocabulary and grammar related to the topic, making listening lessons become more effective Example: A teacher can use some of the following questions to ask his / her students in Listening period Unit 2: School talks What are you talking this semester? Do you like football/your class/travelling, etc? How long are you staying there? Are you traveling with your friend/parents? Would you like to go somewhere for a drink? Students’s answers I’m talking English I really like it For a work No, I’m traveling alone That’s great Now, you are going to listen to four conversations and match them with the pictures When answering such open-ended questions, students visualize what they have to do, the main contents to be grasped when listening Moreover, this also makes the atmosphere between teachers and students -secretary (n): (translation) - helpful (a): (explaination) -shy (a): (explaination) -excuse (n): (translation) Check vocabulary: Slap the board Open prediction Set the scene Listen to an old campany director talking about his experience of learning how to use a computer Guess whether the statements are true (T) or false (F) The man was worried when his son bought a computer The man became worried when his secretary asked him to buy a computer The man decided to take some computing lessons 4.His son didn’t understand about the computer The man understood the lessons very well The man continued to learn how to use a computer after a few lessons Feed back students’prediction While listening techniques The purpose of the activities at this stage is to help students practice listening skills which means that through words, information needs to be conveyed Have students listen and the homework If the previous section tells students to guess what the listening content is, in this section let students compare what they heard with what they expected For difficult listening lessons, teachers can divide the listening process into listening exercises from easy to difficult For the long listening lessons, it is possible to easily convert the listening lessons into exercises suitable for the student's level Here are a few specific tips a Selecting - Teacher shows students a set of pictures in which there are similar pictures, but some places are different - Teacher describes one or two of them - Pictures are marked in numerical order or in alphabetical order - Students listen and mark the picture that the teacher is describing b Delibrate Mistaken (Error detection) - Teacher asks students to predict what's in the living room in advance Then the teacher describes the picture In the reading, the teacher made a few mistakes Each time a student hears something wrong, they raise their hand and ask for their opinion or say aloud, "That's wrong." c Grids - Teachers draw tables on the board (or big paper) and hang on the board, students draw in their notebooks Based on the content in that chart, students listen to details of each specific problem and then fill in the chart the ideas they heard Students then compare each other to check answers and teacher reread them two or more times until everyone has agreed on their ideas Example: The listening lessons of Unit 13: Films and cinema Lan Hương Mon Tue Wed Work and go to the singing club Thu Fri Sat Sun d Listening and draw - Teacher gives students diagrams, maps, or a chart Students listen to, then fill in, draw, and paste in those diagrams For example, a teacher could hand out a map of a house to each student (one store on the right, a bookstore on the left, a post office on the opposite, a temple, or a park nearby) - Teachers read students write to these locations in each position that students hear In addition to the tips above, teachers can use the following tips: + Defining True – False + Check the correct answer + Matching + Filling in the grip / chart / gap + Answering comprehension questions Example: To perform Listening session of Unit 6: An excursion (Task Listen and number the pictures in the order you hear) I have students take turns to talk about the activities that take place in each picture, ask them to look at the pictures to relate or guess about the activities they take turns to during the weekend Or I can ask them to rearrange the pictures in the correct order of the activity they did Then the teacher let the children listen again and check their guess, then the teacher let them listen for the last time and arranged the pictures according to the correct order of the story Teacher gives answers for students to correct mistakes *Keys picture a, picture e, picture b, picture c, picture f, picture d Post listening techniques The purposes of post-listening activities are to: Check to see if the students understand the required information and if they are able to complete the “While-listening” activities Find out why some parts of the listening exercise are inaudible or not understood by the students Help students have an opportunity to evaluate the expressive attitude of the person presenting a conversation through the intonation of communication Use extended exercises according to the listening topic using additional skills to practice listening Some of the following activities can be used: Ask students to compare their answers and discuss what they heard and understood in pairs or groups Encourage students to respond to what they have heard Example: When appropriate, the teacher may ask questions such as: Do you agree? Encourage argumentation at the same time, as this will lead to students thinking more deeply Ask each pair, and the group to write a summary of the main idea in the essay Students then compare and check if they have come up with all the main ideas Play the video again and ask students to say “stop” out loud at the response they heard earlier Ask students to write in their notebooks new words they find necessary and memorize + Some tips in this stage - Gives answers and feedback - Have students remind or repeat some of the things / sentences they heard Feedback (While-listening) - Organize for students to talk about themselves or about you by relying on information in the listening text - Have the students give some comments about the group's listening results - Have students role-play to show the conversation they heard - Use the exercises to give students more information about the listening text Depending on each specific period, the teacher can use one of the above activities Depending on the characteristics of each lesson, teachers can carry out a three-step process of listening comprehension for students, especially the first step to help them develop and develop interest in the ability to concentrate , know how to use information to speculate what will hear As a result, students will be more proactive and confident when listening III Combine listening practice with other technical groups Technical group basic training These are tips that are prerequisite to forming English listening skills for students 1.1 Practice a habit of paying attention when listening Have the students listen to each sentence or paragraph, and the teacher calls students individually to repeat Practice your students consciously and practice listening to you One way to help students focus their attention on what you say is that teachers often ask questions that require students to reuse information from what their friend said to answer: Example: Student A says: “My house is in the countryside it is not big but very nice” After A has finished speaking, I call anyone who answers the question: Where does A live? How is his house? Once a week have students play a focused listening game Simon Says: This classic game from childhood allows children to practice active listening skills by paying close attention to directions, while using the information (“Simon says, touch your head”) to make a decision Popcorn Storytelling: In popcorn storytelling, each “player” takes a turn adding on to the story that the group is building together The first person can start with “Once upon a time there lived a great big purple dragon…” and the next person has to use their active listening skills to incorporate what they just heard in order to add on to the story This activity can be enhanced with picture cards or word prompts on dice Telephone: Another classic children’s game which provides children with the opportunity to listen closely, reflect, and repeat back what they think they heard 20 Questions: In 20 Questions, the person who is “it” thinks of an object that the other players have to guess The catch is, they can only ask 20 yes or no questions to figure out the clue! This game gets kids thinking about the information they have already heard and putting it together to ask the best questions that will provide them with the most information Did you notice?: I love this activity because it can be adjusted for a wide range of ages One version of this game is to set out a tray with several objects on it Show the children the tray of objects for 10 seconds, cover it with a towel, and then sneak one of the objects off of the tray Reveal the tray with the missing object and have the children guess what is missing This can be repeated several times Another fun version of the game is to have another child or teacher leave the circle and go where they cannot be seen Then ask the children to describe exactly what that person was wearing Both of these activities require paying close attention and practicing recalling information The Listening Game: Active listening is not only about noticing others, but also checking in and paying attention to what is happening with ourselves Check out this short video from Cosmic Kids featuring a fun listening game 1.2 Practice listening to word stress and sentence stress Word Stress and Sentence Stress Normally when we say "I feel stressed" it means "I feel anxious" Stress is a kind of worried feeling about life or work But there is another kind of stress that actually helps us understand This other kind of stress is an accent that we make on certain syllables and words when speaking English In some languages, for example Japanese, people say each syllable with equal force But in English, and some other languages, we put a big force (stress) on some syllables and no force on other syllables or words This can make it difficult for speakers of other languages to understand English that is spoken quickly Of course, for native speakers it is not difficult - in fact, stress actually helps native speakers understand each other So it is very important We shall talk here about WORD STRESS (stress on a syllable inside a word) and SENTENCE STRESS (stress on words inside a sentence) WORD STRESS Word stress is like a golden key to speaking and understanding English If you not already know about word stress, you can try to learn about it This is one of the best ways for you to understand spoken English - especially English spoken fast What is word stress? Take words: photograph, photographer and photographic Do they sound the same when spoken? No Because ONE syllable in each word is STRESSED (stronger than the others)    PHOtograph phoTOgrapher photoGRAPHic This happens in ALL words with or more syllables: TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera The syllables that are not stressed are "weak" or "small" or "quiet" Native speakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables If you use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your pronunciation and your comprehension If you have an English teacher, you can ask her to help you understand word stress Or you can try to hear the stress in individual words each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in films for example Your first step is to HEAR and recognise it After that, you can USE it Two important rules about word stress: One word, one stress The stress is always on a vowel SENTENCE STRESS Sentence stress is another golden key for speaking and understanding English With sentence stress, some words in a sentence are STRESSED (loud) and other words are weak (quiet) Look at the following sentence: We want to go Do we say every word with the same stress or force? No We make the important words BIG and the unimportant words small What are the important words in this sentence? Yes, that's right: WANT and GO     We WANT to GO We WANT to GO to WORK We DON'T WANT to GO to WORK We DON'T WANT to GO to WORK at NIGHT Now that you know that word stress exists, you can try to learn more about it You should KNOW that SENtence and WORD STRESS are VERy imPORtant !!! 1.3 Practice listening and identifying pairs of sounds that are easy to confuse, sounds that are difficult to pronounce correctly, and how to connect sounds while speaking by native speakers In fact, many students receive an English accent that is often not standard or contains many sounds that are not really similar to the pronunciation of native speakers This is also an obstacle for students when listening to native speakers Thus, it is necessary to train students to consciously recognize the sounds that are difficult to pronounce correctly, or the sounds that are easy to confuse as well as how to say sounds while speaking by native speakers This listening practice needs to be integrated and often in the lessons In addition, teachers can perform some games to help children relax and strengthen their skills in identifying and connecting specific sounds closer to native sounds 1.4 Expanded group of practice techniques Teacher Provides some additional practice exercises by choosing some materials of the same level from documents such as: Language in focus, new interchange to short weekly and monthly tests, correcting and evaluating right here The results of these lessons need to be saved by students on the cover to store their learning results in chronological order to help students easily recognize their own progress, as well as for teachers to discuss with parents about their children's education During the teaching process, I always create opportunities to help students practice listening and ask them to strengthen their English listening (via TV, radio, tape) especially listening to native speakers PART THREE: RESULT After applying the experiences mentioned above to teach the steps of a listening lesson, I have obtained some very positive results, with over 80% of students grasping and understanding the lesson quickly In addition, they also help children to be enthusiastic, excited, enthusiastic to speak, encourage them to explore and learn, exchange with their tablemates, groups, and ancestors, help them remember and deepen their knowledge wake up quickly and easily Below are the results I obtained after the quality test at the end of the first semester of 2020-2021 Order class Number excellently well of SL % students SL % fairly Weakly poorly SL % SL % SL % 10C1 38 10 26.3 20 52.6 21.1 0 0 10C2 50 15 30 30 60 10 0 0 10C4 49 14 28.6 29 59.1 12.3 0 0 39 28.5 79 57.6 19 13.9 0 0 Tổng 137 PART FOUR: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION I CONCLUSION After having applied the above techniques in listening lessons, I have got positive results in teaching and learning listening skill, especially guiding them how to listen an acedamic listening well at Nong Cong High School First and foremost, students participate in listening classes more enthusiastically They are used to making the detailed questions before listening At the end of the school- year 20202021, most of the students in class 10C1 and 10c2 can be able to listening in English at the simple level, some at the advanced level II SUGGESTION It is very necessary to finance more material facilities, tools of teaching aids for English teaching and learning The Headmaster’s identification Thanh Hoa, the 25th of May, 2021 I make sure that this study is my own work The writer: Đỗ Thị Lương The process of summarizing and writing certainly has shortcomings, I look forward to receiving comments from colleagues and people who are interested in this content I sincerely thank! INDEX CONTENT PAG E PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1-2 I Reasons for choosing topics 1-2 II Aims of the research III Scope of the research 3-4 IV Research methods 3-4 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW I The Basics of listening skills: II Process of Listening 5-6 III The Benefits of Being a Great Listener CHAPTER TWO : SOME IMPLEMENTATION MEASURES I Some experiences to help teachers effectively teach listening skills 6-9 II Good and flexible use of techniques in a lesson in listening skills 9-19 III Combine listening practice with other technical groups 9-23 PART THREE : RESULT 23 PART FOUR: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION I CONCLUSION 24 II SUGGESTION 25 REFERENCE BOOKS Listening Skills Presented by: Kamelia gulam Fun Games to Teach Active Listening- Marzanna Syncerz | Dreamstime.com Penny Ur ( 1998) A course in language teaching - Practical and Theory Cambrige university press Nguyen Hanh Dung Methods of teaching English at Secondary education ... Scope and object Subjects - Grade 10 students at Nong Cong High School - Teaching English in grade 10 Scope of research: - Teaching listening skills in English for the 10th grade from 2020 to 2021... help students practice listening well in English, help them to be eager to learn With many years of direct experience in teaching English, initially carefully training students listening, speaking,... remember Highly complex messages that are filled with detail call for highly developed listening skills 4- Evaluating • The fourth stage in the listening process is evaluating • Evaluations of