An integrated approach to teaching listening and note taking skills to first year english majors at binh duong teachers training college

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HCM CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTE-TAKING SKILLS TO FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT BINH DUONG TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF TESOL SUBMITTED BY: NGUYEN NAM PHUONNG SUPERVISOR: SIDSEL MILLERSTROM, Ph D HO CHI MINH CITY: JANUARY 2010 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINAL I certificate my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTETAKING SKILLS TO FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT BINH DUONG TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE in terms of the statement of Requirements for Thesis in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution Ho Chi Minh City, January 2010 Nguyen Nam Phuong i RETENTION AND USE OF THESES I hereby state that I, NGUYEN NAM PHƯƠNG, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) accepted the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses Ho Chi Minh City, January 2010 Nguyen Nam Phuong ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deep gratefulness to my thesis supervisor, Dr Sidsel Millerstrom together with Dr Nguyen Hoang Tuan who willingly gave me valuable evaluations and comments on my project any time I needed it I am thankful for her support in my preparation and completion of this thesis I would also like to thank the organizers of the Post Graduate Study Program in TESOL, Mr Le Huu Phuoc, Head of the Department of Post Graduate, and Ms Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Head of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature of HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities Last, but not least, I wish to give my profound gratitude to my colleagues of the Department of Foreign Languages, Binh Duong Teacher Training College where I work and as well as the first-year English-majored students at the college for their kind help and enthusiastic support that have facilitated me to conduct the survey and complete the thesis iii ABSTRACT The learners of English referred to in this project are defined as the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Provincial Teachers’ Training College who have taken up the English language as their future professions Therefore they are expected to master all the language knowledge and train to enhance all the language skills On developing their listening and note-taking skills, they have to cope with numerous problems affecting their abilities of understanding of spoken English and of note-taking in listening class as well as in other English subjects in their college syllabus To identify the students’ reality of learning the listening and note-taking subjects, a survey was conducted to discover: (1) their inhibition in listening and note-taking activities in listening classes and college lectures requiring their taking notes for later tests or exams, (2) listening tasks, activities and teaching techniques selected and applied by their teachers The implications of the findings in chapter four prove that most of the students (1) are afraid of the listening subject and get very little acquisition in it, (2) are inhibited by several factors in listening and note-taking activities, and (3) find that listening tasks and activities and teachers’ teaching techniques are not consistent, effective or encouraging Eventually, the findings of the learners’ reality in listening and note-taking greatly hinder their abilities of communication in spoken English as well as in learning other subjects needing their taking notes for their tests or exams Finally, some effective teaching strategies and activities integrated with note taking will be applied to improve their quality of understanding oral English in listening class and college lectures iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINAL i RETENTION AND USE OF THESES ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES vviiiii LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 1.4 TERMINOLOGY 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 CONCEPTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LISTENING SKILL 2.1.1 Definitions of listening comprehension 2.1.2 Purposes of listening .7 2.1.3 Stages in listening 2.1.4 Listening techniques .10 2.2 CONCEPTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF NOTE-TAKING 11 2.2.1 Definitions of note-taking 11 2.2.2 Purposes of note-taking in listening comprehension 12 2.2.2 Note-taking techniques 13 2.3 TEACHING LISTENING INTEGRATED WITH TAKING NOTES 17 2.3.1 Aspects of integrating listening and note-taking 17 v 2.3.2 Getting ready to listen to a lecture and make notes 18 2.3.3 Listening and note-taking strategies 19 2.4 SUMMARY 20 Chapter METHODOLOGY 22 3.1 Research design 22 3.2 Subjects 23 3.3 Questionnaire 23 3.3.1 Questionnaire for students 23 3.3.2 Questionnaire for teachers 23 3.4 Instruments and Data Collection Procedures 23 3.5 SUMMARY 25 Chapter DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 26 4.1 FINDINGS OF QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 26 4.1.1 Students’ reality of practicing the listening skill 26 4.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards listening classes at high school 32 4.1.3 Students’ participation in listening activities 35 4.1.4 Students’ understanding of note taking and note-taking techniques in listening class at high school 40 4.2 FINDINGS OF QUESTIONAIRE FOR TEACHERS 48 4.2.1 Teachers’ assessments on the listening subject and the act of teaching listening to the freshmen majoring in English 48 4.2.2 Teachers’ assessments on Pre-listening stage .50 4.2.3 Teachers’ selections of listening activities and tasks 51 4.2.4 Teachers’ degrees of preparation to involve students into listening act in class 52 vi 4.2.5 Teachers’ degree of teaching students how to take notes in listening class 54 4.3 SUMMARY 55 Chapter IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 56 5.1 Implications and Recommendations .56 5.2 Suggested classroom techniques in teaching listening integrated with note taking techniques 57 5.2.1 Introduction to the topic and/or situation of the listening texts and/or conversations in the pre-listening stage 58 5.2.2 Giving listening tasks to students before the while-listening stage .61 5.2.3 Identifying and making notes of information or ideas related to the while-listening tasks 62 5.2.4 Guessing meanings, contents and/or ideas from identified and understandable words and expressions 63 5.2.5 Taking notes on statistics mentioned in listening texts 64 5.3 LIMITATION 66 5.4 CONCLUSION 67 BIBLIOGRAPHY 69 APPENDICES APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 71 APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS 74 APPENDIX C SAMPLE LESSON PLAN vii 77 LIST OF FIGURES Chapter Figure 1: Teachers’ degrees of paying attention to students’ needs and interests in learning the listening subject Figure 2: Teachers’ degrees of application of Listening Activities and Tasks Figure 3: Teachers’ degrees of asking and instructing students to take notes in listening class at college Figure 4: Teachers’ degrees of requiring and instructing students to take notes in listening class Chapter Figure 5: A printed photograph of the conversation about checking into a hotel viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ degrees of practicing listening to spoken English Table 2: Students’ Assessments on Listening subject Table 3: The basic listening activities given to students in listening classes at high school Table 4: Students’ acquisition of study skill and note taking at high school ix Recommendations and Implications facts about situations It is commonly known that “statistics are expressed as a percentage or fraction” For instance, forty-five percent of the students investigated are not aware of the importance of making notes in listening class Moreover, they have not acquired any techniques to taking notes at all in English listening classes or in any other classes in which many lectures are given, and the students are naturally supposed to take a lot of notes for their later revision for tests or exams Statistics are very common in college or university lectures On applying the activity and task of listening to statistics suggested by Tanka and Barker (2007), our freshmen majoring in English are always instructed to identify the statistics figures included in the listening text or the college lecture by associating them with some relevant words and expressions The words and expressions related to statistics defined by the two authors are useful and necessary prompts that facilitate students to recognize statistics mentioned in a text or college lecture They consist of the following nouns, verbs and other phrases: Noun Verbs percent - increase, go up, rise number - decrease, decline, go down half - double third quarter Other phrases - less than - more than - equal to or the same as On giving later tasks of listening to statistics, the above associated words and expressions are always reviewed as reminders to help students understand the text or conversation and specify the figures needed to complete the task In this ways, 65 Recommendations and Implications our freshmen are never tasks related to statistics, figures are given to the students, the above words and expressions are always reviewed to remind the students how to get the figures as quickly and as easily as possible in order to complete their tasks For a listening text referring to statistics, we suggest teachers remind the students to pay close attention to the information combined with the words or expressions given above In this way, students are able to realize the statistics figures mentioned in a listening text or in a certain lecture delivered by an authentic teacher in classroom It is advisable that teachers should ask students to pay attention to the numbers only so that they can fulfill the listening tasks given by their teachers first The students should be motivated not to worry about any words or expressions that are not comprehensible to them during their first listening In other words, teachers should tell them that they will understand them when they listen to the text again and more tasks Teachers should also teach the students to identify words associated with the task they are supposed to complete only Hence, students should be advised to temporarily ignore the words unrelated to the present listening task they are taking As mentioned above, teachers should give students more tasks to when they listen to the text again For example, teachers can give students tasks to help them to get more detailed information from the text Thanks to the later tasks, students will be more likely to understand more ideas or details from the text In order to carry out more listening tasks successfully, our students are commonly involved in doing more effective listening activities and tasks such as True – False, matching and gap-filing exercises 5.3 LIMITATIONS Not much research about note-taking is available, thus it is difficult for the researcher to have enough resources to carry out the study 66 Recommendations and Implications 5.4 CONCLUSION The thesis has analyzed the first-year English-majored students’ reality and quality of their learning listening at high school as well as of note taking in listening class and lectures during their school year at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College The implications of the findings prove that most of the sixty-seven respondents did not involved in listening activities or rarely practice listening to develop their understanding ability to verbal English The discussions of the findings demonstrate that almost most of the students were not guided to use the strategies or techniques to comprehending listening texts so as to complete tasks given by their teachers before they actually heard the texts or conversations in class On the basis of the implications of the findings in Chapter four and the relevant literature reviewed in Chapter two, Chapter five gave some effective techniques or strategies and activities to help increase the students’ listening competence integrated with note taking ability in listening comprehension class in their first-year syllabus Besides, some strategies or techniques and activities will also be suggested to facilitate the students take notes in college live lectures requiring the students’ great deal of note taking for their later revision for tests and exams With reference to the findings of the teachers’ reality of teaching listening to the first-year English-majored students, some teaching experiences will also be concluded for further teaching and learning the listening subject at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College Generally, the thesis can be of usefulness because of the following reasons: Firstly, it has provided an overview of the first-year English- majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College with their background of English listening and note taking such as their degrees of practicing listening to verbal English in class, their acquisition and application of basic listening strategies and activities at high school, Secondly, it has brought out the importance of the teaching materials and the teacher’s roles in speaking tasks and activities 67 Recommendations and Implications Thirdly, it has demonstrated an urgent need for all the teachers in charge of teaching listening to English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College to investigate the students’ profiles and backgrounds as to their interest in learning listening as well as teaching them the strategies to listening and note taking not only in listening class during their college course but in college lectures as well The findings of the thesis have also raised a broad hint for further research to improve the teaching and learning of spoken English to the college English-majored students in general on the perspectives of the learner-centered and communicative approaches to teaching and learning foreign languages in modern times Finally, the thesis may give a practical reference to teachers who teach verbal English to EFL students in general and the students at Binh Duoung Teachers’ Training College in particular with the hope of improving their English listening competence more proficiently and communicatively 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, A and Lynch, T (1991) Listening Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Beebe, Steven A and Beebe Susan J (2000) Public Speaking Boston: Allyn & Bacon Brown, H.D (2000) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching New York: Longman Buck, G (2001) Assessing Listening Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Creswell, John W (1994) Research Design – Qualitative & Quantitative Approaches, The USA: Sage Publication, Inc Dillon, Ann G (2007) Making Connections – Study Skills, Reading, and Writing Boston: Thomson Wadsworth Doff, Adrian (1988) Teach English Great Britain: Cambridge University Press in association with The British council Frazier, Laurie and Leeming, Shalle (2007) Lecture Ready – Strategies for Academic Listening, Note-taking, and Discussion Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Hedge, Tricia (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Hutchinson, Tom (1999) Life Lines Pre-intermediate – Student’s Book Hong Kong: Oxford University Press James, Gary, Whitley, Charles G., and Bode, Sharon (1990) English on Campus: A Listening Sampler USA: Wadsworth Publishing Company James, K., Rordan, R and Mathews, A (2001) Listening Comprehension & NoteTaking Course Ho Chi Minh City: Ho Chi Minh City Press Jones, Leo and Alexandra, Richard (1999) International Business English – Communication Skill s in English for Business Purposes Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Langan, John (2002) Reading and Study Skills Boston: McGraw-Hill Lucas, Stephen E (1998) The Art of Public Speaking – Sixth Edition The USA: McGraw-Hill Morley, J (1991) Teaching English as a Second or a Foreign Language Boston: Heine & Heine Publishers Nunan, David (1999) Second Language Teaching and Learning USA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers 69 Nunan, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dunkel, Patricia and Pialorsi, Frank (1982) Advanced Listening Comprehension: Developing Listening and Note-taking skill Hong Kong: Newbury House Publishers Patricia, Dunkel and Frank Pialorsi (2005) Developing Aural and Note-taking Skills USA: Thomson Heinle Phyllis, L Lim and William, Smalzer (2005) Listening and Notetaking Skills – Third Edition USA: Thomson Heinle Richards, Jack C (1999) The Language Teaching Matrix USA: Cambridge University Press Richards, Jack C and Renandya, Willy A (2002) Methodology in Language Teaching USA: Cambridge University Press Rivers, Wilga M (1968) Teaching foreign Language Skills, Chicago: University of Chicago Press Rivers, Wilga M (1981) Teaching Foreign language Skills Chicago: Chicago University press Robertson, Heather (1991) Bridge to College Success USA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Sanabria, Kim (2006) Academic Listening Encounters – Life in Society Hong Kong: Cambridge University press Sarosy, Peg & Sherak, Kathy (2007) Strategies for Acadamic Listening, Notetaking, and Discusssion, Book Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Sarosy, Peg and Sherak, Kathy (2006) Strategies for Acadamic Listening, Notetaking, and Discusssion, Book Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Tanka, Judith and Barker, Lida R (2007) Interaction – Listening/Speaking, Student’s Book & Teacher’s Book Singapore: McGraw Hill Underwood, Mary (1990) Teaching Listening Hong Kong: Longman Ur, Penny (1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Weaver, C (1972) Human Listening: Processes and Behavior New York: BobbsMerrill Yancey P., Macgillivray M & Malarcher C (2007) Mastering Skills for the TOEFL® iBT Advanced Ho Chi Minh City: The Youth Publishing House 70 APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTE-TAKING SKILLS SOME EFFECTIVE WAYS OF IMPROVING THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISHL MAJOR STUDENTS' LISTENING SKILL BY INTERGARTING LISTENING AND NOTE-TAKING TECHNIQUES AT BINH DUONG TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE **** **** **** *** This survey is carried out to investigate the reality and quality of the firstyear English-major students in listening activities at High school and at Binh Duong Teacher Training College It is also aimed at identifying your understanding of basic listening and note-taking techniques and the integration of listening and notetaking Your co-operation in completing the following items is highly appreciated You will not be identified in any discussion of the data At high school, how often you practice …… ? Always Often Sometimes Reading Writing Listening Speaking Grammar                Much Not very much At high school, did you like to learn …? - Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing     71 Seldom Never           Not at all         - Grammar & language function  - Vocabulary exercises?      Always Often Sometimes Seldom At high school, did your teachers ….? Introduce the topic before a listening task      Carry our warm – up activities before a listening task      Give you key works in every listening text      Explain clue grammar point from a listening text      Give you clear instructions before letting you listen to recording      Give you gap – filling tasks   Ask you to answer questions   Give you matching exercises       Never      Give you true – false exercises      Ask you to listen for gist      Ask you to listen for details      Teach you how to identify gist in a listening text      Ask you to listen to work by word in listening texts      st Stop to check if you can fulfill a listening task after the or 2nd time of listening 72      Let you discuss the answer keys in pairs after finishing listening      Let you discuss the answer keys in pair after finishing listening      At high school, did your teacher …? Tell you the integration of listening with note – taking      Ask you to take notes during a listening task      Ask you to write down main ideas from a listening text      Tell you to note gist down from, a listening text      Teach you how to take notes in listening activities      COMMENTS: Thank you very much for your cooperation 73 APPENDIX B Topic: AN INEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTE – TAKING SKILIS Please, introduce yourself Name: Age: Gender: ……………………………………… Working place: Please, give your answers and explain them if possible: Do you pay attention to the need and interest of student when you teach them listening? Why or why not? Is pre – listening stage important to you? Why or why not? What you at this stage? Please, choose the activities and tasks to which you usually resort in teaching listening comprehension to the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College Identifying and choosing picture  Describing and drawing  Listen and check items Storyline picture sets Following a route on a map in order to arrive at a place Recognizing mistakes in texts Role play Matching True or false        10 Multiple choices 11 Comprehension questions 12 Form/chart/grid completion    74 13 Dictation 14 Taking notes 15 Gap filling 16 Summarizing 17 Prolem – solving and decsion making  19 Interpreting the relationship/atttude/mood of speak  Did you …? Always Often Sometimes Seldom Introduce the topic before a listening task     Carry out warm – up activities before a listening task     Give the students key words in every listening text     Never        Explain clue grammar points from a listening text      Give the student clear instructions before letting them listen to the recording     Give them gap – filling tasks     Ask them to answer question     Give them matching exercises     Give them true – false exercises     Ask them to listen for gist     Teach them how to identify gist in a listening text     Ask them to listen to word by word in listening texts     75         Stop to check if your students can fulfill a listening task after the 1st or 2nd time of listening      Let them discuss the answer keys in pairs after finishing listening      Let the students discuss the answer keys in group after finishing listening      Did you ….? Always Often Sometimes Seldom Never Tell the students integration of listening with note – taking      Ask them to take notes during a listening task      Ask them to write down main ideas from a listening text      Tell them to note gist down from, a listening text      Teach your students how to take notes in listening activities      COMMENTS: Thank you very much for your cooperation 76 APPENDIX C SAMPLE LESSON PLAN OF AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTE-TAKING SKILLS In this part of the project, a concrete lesson plan of listening to statistics as mentioned in 5.1.5 will be suggested as a typical sample in our process of teaching listening comprehension to our freshmen English majored integrated with taking notes of figures The lesson plan is designed to guide the students to listen to recorded tape scripts 10.3 and 10.4 in the course book “Life Lines Pre-intermediate – Student’s Book” by Hutchinson (1999:82) It is ultimately aimed at instructing the students to understand the statistic figures of calories that an average person’ body burns for some kinds of his or her daily activities a Pre-listening step: Teacher initially motivates students to identify the topic of the listening text by giving them handouts with some questions relevant to the topic Teacher then asks them to practice asking and answering the questions in pairs or transferring information in groups The questions are stated hereafter as the sample ones: Do you very light activities everyday? What you do? What light activities you everyday? Do you any moderate activities? What are they? Do you any energetic activities in your daily life? What you do? Do you ever any tremendous thing in your typical day? What you do? How many calories you think your body burns when you each kind of thing? In order to assure that the students are likely to specify the text topic, teacher by asking them if they know what the text will be about or what they think the speaker is going to talk about 77 Next, a task will be given to the students before they genuinely hear the text The task designed in this lesson is filling a chart with figures of calories burnt when an average person does a certain activity The task is illustrated below (1) Listen to some information about the activities printed in the first column of the chart and match each of them with figures of calories it burns in an hour How many calories can you burn in one hour? Type of activities Calories Rest 400 – 600 Every light activities 60 Light activities 100 Moderate activities 100 - 200 Energetic activities 75 Strenuous activities 200 – 400 600 - 800 b While-listening step: - Teacher plays the tape Students listen to the text and try to take notes the figures related to each kind of activity Students are reminded to notice the words associated with statistics as about, between … and …, number, percent, less than, more than - After the first listening, teacher gets feedback by asking students to compare the figures they heard then tell the teacher the results - Teacher should never correct them but give them more suggestions or prompts to identify the right information during their second listening - Teacher asks students to hear the text again and match the correct calories with the activities - Teacher then asks students to give their answers and teacher correct them 78 - After that teacher gives students one more task to For example, teacher requests students to listen to the text again and note down the typical examples of each type of activities - To get the feedback, teacher can combine the listening activity with the developing students’ speaking skill by saying what activities they often and the calories they burn in one hour c Post-listening step After the While-listening stage, teacher involves students in speaking activities by applying the knowledge they have learned to talk about their daily activities and the calories they use The teacher may utilize any of the following suggestions: (1) Students individually talk about their daily activities, the calories used doing them and their comments on such activities in front the class (2) Students work in pairs and ask and answer questions about each type of activities they and the calories burnt on doing each of them: -> Do you any energetic activities? -> Which energetic activities you do? -> How long you it? -> How many calories you use doing it? -> Do you any tremendous things everyday? -> What you do? -> Do you think such tremendous activities are useful for you both physically and mentally? Students work in groups and discuss the types of activities they do, the calories they use doing them and the usefulness of such things in their life Students then choose each group representative to present their group’s “outputs” in front of the class 79 ...CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINAL I certificate my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTETAKING SKILLS TO FIRST- YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT BINH DUONG. .. What kinds of techniques and activities in listening and note taking were learners exposed to at high school and at Binh Duong Teachers? ?? Training College? 1.4 TERMINOLOGY 1.4.1 Note- taking Note- taking. .. descriptive data as well as possible difficulties of the teachers when applying an integrated approach to teach listening and note- taking to the first- year English- majored students at Binh Duong Teachers? ??