ANIMATED FILMS AS a LISTENING SUPPLEMENT FOR EFL LEARNERS a STUDY AT a HIGH SCHOOL IN THANH HOA

A number of studies have shown the positive influence of comprehensive listeningcourses on students’ listening comprehension but there has not been any research onwhat supplements of a c

Audio-visual aids, including animated films, have been considered a great tool inlanguage teaching, yet past research in Vietnam has not paid attention to the use ofanimated films in English language teaching This research was carried out with theaim to see whether using animated films for EFL learners at high school has anyimpacts on their listening comprehension development In the experiment, two groups,one control and one treatment, were set up Before and after the six week experiment,both groups were asked to do the pre-test/post-test and to answer a pre-treatment andpost-treatment motivation questionnaire During the treatment, the treatment groupreceived four animated films based lessons while the control group did not The resultsshowed that the treatment group achieve higher level of listening comprehension andgained greater motivation to study English

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Tran Thi Ngoc Yen, who Ibelieve is the most wonderful supervisor, for her valuable direction, keen insight,precious orientation, warm encouragement, and continuous support throughout thisproject Her enthusiasm and positive attitudes were sparkling in such a way that ithelped to make my research a serious yet fun task to fulfill

I also wish to thank my Principal, Vu Tien Ca, who approved of my research, mycolleagues who would come along during the project right from the first days I began

it Without that, it would have been harder for me to finish the project

I would also like to thank the board, teachers, and students at Tinh Gia2 High Schoolfor their cooperation and help

Finally, I would like to delicate this work to my parents and family, who have beenalways supporting me with love and sympathy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 4

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Scope of the study 4

1.5 Thesis organization 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Listening process 6

2.1.1 Definition 6

2.1.2 The nature of listening 7

2.1.3 Listening in foreign language 7

2.2 Listening comprehension 9

2.3 Assessing listening ability 11

2.3.1 Indicators of listening ability 11

2.3.2 Methods to assess listening ability 11

2.4 Teaching the listening skill 13

2.4.1 Factors affecting EFL learners’ listening ability 13

2.4.2 Difficulties EFL learners have when learning listening 14

2.4.3 Principles for teaching EFL listening 14

2.4.4 Techniques for teaching EFL listening 16

2.5 Animated films in English language teaching 16

2.5.1 Kinds of audio-visual aids 16

2.5.2 The importance of audio-visual aids in language teaching 17

2.5.3 Principles for selecting animated films for EFL learners 18

2.5.4 The benefits of animated films for EFL learners 19

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 22

3.1 Research questions 22

3.2 Study setting 22

3.3 Participants 22

3.4 Materials and instruments 23

3.4.1 Materials 23

3.4.2 Instruments 25

3.5 Procedure 25

3.6 Pilot testing 26

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29

4.1 Results 29

4.1.1 General English test results 29

4.1.2 Pre-test and post-test results 31

4.1.2.1 Results of pre-test 31

4.1.2.2 Results of post-test 33

4.1.3 Comprehension increases in the comprehension listening course 35

4 2 Conclusion 41

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS 42

5.1 Summary of the main findings 42

5.2 Pedagogical implications 43

5.3 Limitations 45

5.4 Suggestions for further research 46

REFERENCES 47

APPENDIX 52

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF FIGURES

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

It goes without saying that English has developed into a world language It isconsidered international because of its significance in cultural aspects in not onlyformer British colonies but also in other countries due to integration Besides, English

is regarded as global thanks to the dominance of the language in this informationtechnology age It is a common knowledge that any modern citizen of this rapidlygrowing twenty-first century mastering the English language is determined tooverpower those who do not Still, there remain some opponents of this trend whodecide to go against the flow to probably avoid the domination of the language and itsculture Notwithstanding, any practical and serious thinking individual could easily tellhow that conservative idea is hardly working at this point now that English has beendeeply rooted and undoubtedly here-to-stay in our society In other words, one,needless to say, greatly depends on English to survive and thrive in this contemporaryworld

The teaching and learning of English; therefore, has been immensely concentratedaround the globe English language is even separated into four distinctive skills to beeasily taught to non-native speakers of English As a child, we learn to listen before wespeak, so it is fairly clear that input should come first before output As a result,Reading and Listening are supposed to be taught before Writing and Speaking Novelmovements in teaching English language also share the same opinion on placing moreattention to the communicative purpose of the language by focusing on Listening andSpeaking Yet, reality has showed inconsiderable improvement in learners’ listeningskills accompanied by a bitter truth of listening remaining a struggle for Englishlearners

Listening is considered the most frequently used skill in everyday life

According to Burley-Allen (1995), more than forty percent of our daily communicationtime is spent on listening, thirty five percent on speaking, sixteen percent on reading,

and only nine percent on writing (cited in Miller, 2003) In fact, listening can help students build vocabulary, develop language proficiency, and improve language usage, improve pronunciation and develop speaking skills (Bacon, 1998) Therefore, listening

is a very essential element in successful communication

Despite the acknowledged value of listening in language acquisition/learning and its complexity, the skill is still not receiving the attention it deserves in the ELT world as compared to literacy skills (Thanajaro, 2000) In Vietnam, many students have difficulty understanding spoken English when communicating with native

speakers in spite of a long time studying at schools, which leads to communication breakdown Moreover, some students often panic when they hear the English language

on television, radio, or in situations in which speech is fast and nothing is repeated This results from students’ lack of exposure to such real language listening Thus, there

is an increase in the need of using authentic materials to teach listening According to Martinez (2002), authentic materials help learners improve English communicative proficiency Authentic materials refer to teaching resources that are not purposely produced for language teaching such as newspaper articles, movies advertisements, maps and comic books (Nunan, 1989) Therefore, the researcher decided to use movies

in listening lessons

According to Garcia (2011), using movies is the best way to learn English, improvesthe learners’ listening skills, and increases their vocabulary and English languageexpressions Besides, watching movies helps the learners to improve pronunciation

As a teacher at a High School District, the researcher finds that the first-year highschool students encounter a lot of listening problems They complained that they hadhad few chances to listen to English frequently in class at lower-secondary school andtheir listening skills had been scarcely developed, leading to the frustration andpressure about listening examination Exposed to real English through movies, thestudents are believed to learn English in a natural and effective way as they learnedtheir mother tongue To some extent, it makes students more interested in listening

English when they acquired the language for the purpose of entertainment, not merelyfor completing a compulsory subject

The apparently undesirable situation of teaching and learning listening skills hastriggered a passionate need in every teacher or instructor of English language to inventnew ideas to combat the problem As one myself, I have been concerned enough toconduct a study on the effectiveness of using animated cartoons as supplementarymaterials in enhancing students’ listening skills at Tinh Gia 2 High School in ThanhHoa province

A number of studies have shown the positive influence of comprehensive listeningcourses on students’ listening comprehension but there has not been any research onwhat supplements of a comprehensive listening course will cause the greatest increaseand how comprehension increases will affect on English learners

This thesis explores the effects of the use of supplements of nominated films toschedule comprehensive listening skill A group of participants followed thecomprehensive listening course with one, two, three, and four sessions in a week.Another group of participants allowed with the same period of time without anysupplement of animated films The results were compared to see which group gainedthe greatest increase

It is essential for language teachers to help our students become effective activelisteners It has been proved that By providing further active listening practice such assupplements of animated films can learners improve their comprehensive listening

I have realized that animated films have not only humorous actions, funny context usalso communicative contents usefully and easy imitation The lively images andfascinating sound of animated films will attract student’s interest to pay attention tolistening while watching With real and natural voices in conversations, students willlisten to characters’ intonation and can guess the meaning of vocabulary throughwatching That will make them enjoy and take an interest in learning to listen The

animated films are suitable for low-level students and curriculum communicationEnglish

The quality of teaching English should be enhanced much more than before because ofthe available equipment of technology and teaching aids such as internet, computers,projectors Teaching listening skill is not a most difficult task, so each teacher findseffective methods to teach For these reasons I was encouraged to take the courseleading to Master of TESOL and to undertake the innovation

A more detailed description of the program is specifically elaborated in theMethodology chapter

According to Edisto (2012), learning materials could be regarded as information orknowledge contained in various different media and formats to support the purpose oflearning and they should strictly follow the objectives or requirements of educationalcurricula Materials can also be informally and briefly defined as things needed inorder to do a peculiar activity In every syllabus of any subject learned at school, a set

of fixed materials called textbooks or course books is compulsory since it plays thekey role in focusing on the primary goals of the course Teachers need to refer to thetextbooks to ensure that the important knowledge is properly covered Similarly,course books are necessary for students to be aware and keep track of their own intake

of information

Ideally, learning materials are supposed to support, not to restrict students andteachers Thus, when teachers discover that the provided materials are only partiallyhelpful, they are allowed to determine how and to what extent a book or other learningmaterials should be used in the classroom It is little wonder that supplementarymaterials can be considered as equally important as textbooks Supplementarymaterials are defined as any materials used addition to textbook (Spratt, Paleness, andWilliams, 2005: 114) They act as extra materials to supplement the fixed coursebooks when there is a lack of suitability and variety In order to boost the motivation in

listening classroom, supplementary materials should be audio-visual Moreover, toachieve the practical purpose of listening class, supplementary materials had betterhave a strong relation with the real world

Possessing the two aforementioned characteristics of being audio-visual and authentic,some animated cartoons are obviously the leading candidate for the idealsupplementary materials for listening classes It is also noteworthy that cartoonsshould be maintained as supplementary materials since they help illustrate as well asimprove the natural or real use of English However, they should not replacepedagogically simplified materials as these guarantee the accuracy of language use

Moreover, teachers should pay attention to the level of difficulty while selectingsupplementary materials as both super-easy and over-challenging materials may eitherdiscourage or demotivate learners Consequently, students might not work as diligentlyand fail to adequately meet the learning goals In short, appropriate level of difficulty

in supplementary materials helps enable students to do wonders in their Englishclasses

1.2 Aims of the study

The researcher primarily aims to figure out how the use of animated films in EFLclassroom increases students’ motivation and their listening comprehension As aresult, recommendations are made to further improve the effectiveness of the use ofanimated films in EFL classes at Tinh Gia 2 High School, Thanh Hoa

1.4 Scope of the study

The focuses of the study are levels of motivation, students’ attitudes to the use ofmovies in classroom and positive changes in their listening comprehension Theresearcher used only 1 grade 10-class at the same age and of elementary andintermediate level of English, and four animated films to carry out an action researchstudy on the topic of using animated films as a teaching aid instrument in EFLclassroom for six-week period

1.5 Thesis organization

The thesis consists of five chapters

Chapter 1 is the introduction, which provides a brief introduction, rationale, and anoverview of the thesis

Chapter 2 is the literature review, in which previous research about the nature oflistening, the nature of listening comprehension, importance of listeningcomprehension, difficulties of listening skill, and comprehension listening materials as

a supplement will be discussed

Chapter 3 presents the methodological method of the experiment

Chapter 4 deals with the findings and discussion about the result analysis, which is areplication study of two issues in the research questions, and is also extended in order

to explore other effects and motivation of listening comprehension materials

Chapter 5 contains the summary of the main findings, implications, limitations, andsome suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Listening process

There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension Listeners use

‘top-down’ processes when they use prior knowledge to understand the meaning of amessage Prior knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, thetext-type, the culture or other information stored in long-term memory as schemata(typical sequences or common situations around which world knowledge isorganized)

Listeners use content words and contextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratoryfashion On the other hand, listeners also use ‘bottom-up’ processes when they uselinguistic knowledge to understand the meaning of a message They build meaningfrom lower level sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings inorder to arrive at the final message

2.1.1 Definition

Listening is not simply hearing and perceiving spoken sounds but a multi-stage process

in which listeners actively grasp the facts and feelings by attending to what the speakersays, to how the speaker says it, and to the context in which the message is delivered

Listening is an invisible metal process, making it difficult to describe Listeners mustdiscriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpretstress and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the largersocio-cultural context of utterance (Wife, 1984) Roost (2002) defines listening, in itsbroadest sense, as a process of receiving what the speakers actually says (receptiveorientation); constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation);negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation) and,creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformativeorientation)

2.1.2 The nature of listening

Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in foreign language classrooms.There are several reasons for this growth in popularity By emphasizing the role ofcomprehensible input, second language acquisition research has given a major boost tolistening As Roost (1994, p.141-142) poets out, listening is vital in the languageclassroom because it provides input for the learners Without understanding input atthe right level, any learning simply cannot begin Listening is thus fundamental tospeaking

Specifically, listening theory is about an active process in which individuals focus onselected aspects of aural input, construct meaning form passages, and relate what theyhear to existing knowledge (O’Malley, Chabot, Kipper, 1989: 418.) During the process

of interpreting aural input, listeners extensively deploy both linguistic knowledge(phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse) and non-linguistic knowledge(knowledge about the topic and about the context, and general knowledge about theworld and real life.)

River and Temporally (1978: 63) defined listening as a complex operation integratingthe distinct components of perception and linguistic knowledge It is not a passive but

an active process of constructing a message from a stream of sound with what oneknows of the phonological, semantic, syntactic potentialities of the language

All in all, listening has been conceptualized in different ways and from different points

of view However, the role of context-based listening is also found and highlighted inmany definitions

2.1.3 Listening in foreign language

Listening is a complex, active process of interpretation, in which listeners match whatthey with what they already know

Listening comprehension as a separate component of language learning and instructioncame into its own only after long and significant debate regarding its validity A largevolume of research has demonstrated the critical role of input, and particular

‘comprehensible input’ in language acquisition, underlining the primacy of the roleplayed by listening comprehension in second language teaching

Until recently, listening comprehension activity in foreign or second languageclassroom was limited to testing listening comprehension The underlying rationalewas that if students are successfully learning the target language, they shouldautomatically be able to decode the aural version of structures and vocabulary theylearn in their textbooks Success at this decoding was typically measured by correctresponse to WH (information) questions Responses to such questions taggedsuccessful retrieval of information from an aural text Knowledge of target languagesyntax and lexis was deemed sufficient to enable this retrieval and was ultimately theway how students were tested Listening is now treated as a much more complexactivity and one that is the cornerstone of language acquisition (Krashen, 1994)

Recognition of listening’s critical role in the language acquisition process has greatlyinfluenced contemporary language teaching practice The view that listening is anactive and interactive process has, for example, cast the learners in a role rather thanthe passive receiver of aural input (Rost, 1993) Classroom emphasis is now on auralintake through active negotiation of meaning In face to face interaction, the listener,not just the speaker, engages in the active making of meaning It is believed that thismutual negotiation of meaning between speakers activates the cognitive and socio-cognitive processes necessary for language acquisition to occur (Breen and candling,1980; Pica and Doughty, 1985)

Listeners use meta-cognitive, cognitive and socio-affective strategies to facilitatecomprehension and to make their learning more effective Meta-cognitive strategiesare important because they oversee, regulate or direct the language learning process

Cognitive strategies manipulate the material to be learned or apply a specific technique

to a listening task Socio-affective strategies describe the techniques listeners use tocollaborate with others, to verify understanding or to lower anxiety Research showsthat skilled listeners used more meta-cognitive strategies than their less-skilledcounterparts (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990, Vandergrift, 1997a) When listeners knowhow to

 analyze the requirements of a listening task;

 activate the appropriate listening process required;

 make appropriate predictions;

 monitor their comprehension;

 evaluate the success of their approach

they are using meta-cognitive knowledge for successful listening comprehension,which is critical to the development of self-regulated learning

Listening requires not only hearing and perception of sounds but also understanding ofthe speaker’s intended message Listening comprehension is also described as aninteractive, interpretive process in which listeners engage in a dynamic construction ofmeaning with the involvement of linguistic knowledge, background knowledge,meaning construction and responding The background knowledge, discoursecompetence as well as guessing ability facilitate effective listening

2.2 Listening comprehension

Research has demonstrated that learners spend 40-50% of communication timelistening (Gilman & Moody, 1984), but the importance of listening in languagelearning has only been recognized relatively recently (Oxford, 1993) Since the role oflistening comprehension in language learning was taken for granted, it merited littleresearch and pedagogical attention Although listening played an important in audio-lingual methods, students only listened to repeat and develop a better pronunciation(for speaking) The role of listening has been considered as a tool for understandingand a key factor in facilitating language learning Listening has emerged as animportant component in the process of second language acquisition (Fey ten, 1991)

Listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing, but aninteractive, interpretive process in which listeners use both prior knowledge andlinguistic knowledge in understanding messages The degree to which listeners use theone process or the other will depend on their knowledge of the language, familiaritywith the topic or the purpose of listening For example, listening for gist involvesprimarily top-down processing, whereas listening for specific information, as in aweather broadcast, involves primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all thedesired details

On one hand, research from cognitive psychology has shown that listeningcomprehension is more than extracting meaning from incoming speech It is a process

of matching speech with what listeners already know about the topic Therefore, whenlisteners know the context of a text or an utterance, the process is facilitatedconsiderably because listeners can activate prior knowledge and make the appropriateinferences essential to comprehend the message (Byrnes, 1984) Therefore, teachersneed to help students organize their thought, to activate appropriate backgroundknowledge for understanding and to make predictions, to prepare for listening Thissignificantly reduces the burden of comprehension for the listeners

On the other hand, listeners do not pay attention to everything; they listen selectively,according to the purpose of the task This, in turn, determines the type of listeningrequired and the way in which listeners will approach a task Richards (1990)differentiates between an interactional and a transactional purpose for communication.Interactional use of language is socially oriented, existing largely to satisfy the socialneeds of the participants; eg., small talk and casual conversations Therefore,interactional listening is highly contextualized and two-way, involving interaction with

a speaker A transactional use of language, on the other hand, is more oriented and is used primarily to communicate information; e.g., news broadcasts andlectures In contrast with interactional listening, transactional listening requiresaccurate comprehension of a message with no opportunity for clarification with a

massage-speaker (one-way listening) Knowing the communicative purpose of a text orutterance will help the listeners determine what to listen and, therefore, which process

to activate As with the advantages of knowing the context, knowing the purpose forlistening also greatly reduces the burden of comprehension since listeners know whatthey need to listen for something very specific, instead of trying to understand everyword

In short, second language (L2) listening comprehension is a complex process, crucial

in the development of second language competence Listeners may use all of the aboveprocesses to comprehend Guiding students through the process of listening not onlyprovides them with the knowledge by which they can successfully complete a listeningtask; it also motivates them and puts them in control of their learning Therefore,teachers can help students develop their listening comprehension skill through theseprocesses by designing appropriate listening tasks and activities

2.3 Assessing listening ability

For the two last decades, listening comprehension skills have begun to receive a lotmore systematic attention in language teaching classrooms A wide range of books,articles, and materials aimed at assisting teachers to develop learners’ listening skillsare now available, and a variety of comprehension-based methodologies have beenproposed However, although many of the tasks used for teaching listening arevirtually identical to those which appear in tests, assessment of listening ability hasreceived relatively limited coverage in the language testing literature

2.3.1 Indicators of listening ability

Communicating orally (ability to learn oral language) addresses the necessary skillsand their prerequisites for the acquisition of oral language

Purposes of communication addresses the use of oral language within our socialcommunications

Conventions of language addresses the rules governing the sounds, sentences andgenres of oral language

Ideas communicated addresses the meanings of words, sentences, discourse and topics

of language

2.3.2 Methods to assess listening ability

The method used for assessing oral communication skills, including listening abilitydepends on the purpose of the assessment A method that is appropriate for givingfeedback to students who are learning a new skill is not appropriate for evaluatingstudents at the end of a course However, any assessment method should adhere to themeasurement principles of reliability, validity, and fairness The instrument must beaccurate and consistent, it must represent the abilities we wish to measure, and it mustoperate in the same way with a wide range of students

Listening is usually defined as a receptive skill comprising both a physical process and

an interpretive, analytical process (Lundsteen, 1979) However, this definition is oftenexpanded to include critical listening skills (higher-order skills such as analysis andsynthesis) and non-verbal listening (comprehending the meaning of tone of voice,facial expressions, gestures, and other nonverbal cues)

Listening tests typically resemble reading comprehension tests except that the studentlistens to a passage instead of reading it The student then answers multiple-choicequestions that address various levels of literal and inferential comprehension.Important elements in all listening tests are (1) the listening stimuli, (2) the questions,and (3) the test environment

The listening stimuli should represent typical oral language, and not consist of simplythe oral reading of passages designed to be written material The material shouldmodel the language that students might typically be expected to hear in the classroom,

in various media, or in conversations Since listening performance is stronglyinfluenced by motivation and memory, the passages should be interesting andrelatively short To ensure fairness, topics should be grounded in experience common

to all students, irrespective of sex and geographic, socioeconomic, racial, or ethnicbackground.

In regard to questions, multiple-choice items should focus on the most importantaspects of the passage - not trivial details - and should measure skills from a particulardomain Answers designated as correct should be derived from the passage, withoutreliance on the student's prior knowledge or experience Questions and responsechoices should meet accepted psychometric standards for multiple-choice questions

An alternative to the multiple-choice test is a performance test that requires students toselect a picture or actually perform a task based on oral instruction For example,students might hear a description of several geometric figures and choose pictures thatmatch the description, or they might be given a map and instructed to trace a route that

2.4 Teaching the listening skill

According to Underwood (1989, p.90), there are at least four common methods ofteaching second or foreign language listening: grammar translation, grammar method,audio lingual method and task based method

2.4.1 Factors affecting EFL learners’ listening ability

Of the four basic language English language skills, listening skill seems to be the mostcomplex skill to be acquired by students Many authors have mentioned this problemsuch as Underwood (1989), Ur (1996), Rost (1994) or Lynch (2005) in theirresearches

According to Underwood (1989), there are seven problems relating to listeningaptitude that students may come across: (1) lack of control over the speakers’ speakingspeed; (2) inability to get information repeated; (3) the listener’s narrow vocabulary;(4) failure to catch the signals; (5) issues of interpretation; (6) inability to concentrateand (7) established fixed learning habit She explained that these frustrating issuesrelate to students’ different educational and cultural backgrounds Students whose

“culture and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally ‘better’ at listening than those from a reading and book-based culture and education background” Furthermore, “students for whom the stress and cadence which occur in English are logically more familiar and have less trouble than those whose own language is based on different rhythms and tones” (Underwood,

1989) From that point of view, students in Vietnam whose language is made ofdifferent tones encounter a great deal of difficulties in learning listening skills Despitethe consequences, when teaching listening, teachers should be able to expose students

to “real-life situations” as they need to teach students to listen with a purpose One

more pain lies in the lack of a variety of listening materials which causes dullness andboredom in the classrooms Conventional textbooks and constructed audio files are notonly repetitive but also counter-productive when it comes to the long-term purpose oflearning listening skills Learners need to develop certain interest in order to obtain theintegrative motivation to successfully master the skills Inadequate audio visualmaterials are mostly to blame in this situation

2.4.2 Difficulties EFL learners have when learning listening

It can be seen second language learners at beginning level have to deal with a greatdeal of difficulties in listening comprehension as listening is a receptive Consideringvarious aspects of listening comprehension, Underwood( 1989) points out the sevenlistening problems Goh (2002) investigates listening comprehension problems instudents in college EFL studies Findings include ten listening comprehensionproblems in relation to three cognitive processing phases

2.4.3 Principles for teaching EFL listening

Expose students to different ways of processing information: bottom-up vs top-down

To understand how people make sense of the stream of sound we all hear, it is helpful

to think about how we process the input A useful metaphor often used to explainreading but equally applicable to listening is “bottom-up vs top-down processing,”proposed by Rumelhart and Ortony (1977) and expanded upon by Chaudron andRichards (1986), Richards (1990), and others The distinction is based on the waylearners attempt to understand what they read or hear With bottom-up processing,students start with the component parts: words, grammar, and the like Top-downprocessing is the opposite Learners start from their background knowledge, eithercontent schema (general information based on previous learning and life experience)

or textual schema (awareness of the kinds of information used in a given situation)

Expose students to different types of listening There’s an adage in teaching listeningthat says: It’s not just what they are listening to It’s what they are listening for.Listeners need to consider their purpose They also need to experience listening fordifferent reasons Any discussion of listening tasks has to include a consideration oftypes of listening We will consider tasks as well as texts When discussing listening,text refers to whatever the students are listening to, often a recording

Teach a variety of tasks If learners need experience with different types of listeningtexts, they also need to work with a variety of tasks Since learners do the tasks as theylisten, it is important that the task itself doesn’t demand too much production of thelearner If, for example, a beginning level learner hears a story and is asked to write asummary in English, it could well be that the learner understood the story but is not yet

at the level to be able to write the summary Tasks that require too much productioncan’t be done or can’t be done in real time -and if students get the answer wrong, youdon’t know if they really didn’t understand, or if they did understand but didn’t knowhow to respond, or if they understood at the time but forgot by the time they got to theexercise

All of this doesn’t mean, however, that we need to limit ourselves and our students to

only a few receptive “check the box” and “number the pictures” exercise types As

mentioned before, half of the time people are speaking is spent listening At times,students need experience with production tasks Our students need exposure to a widerange of tasks in order for them to deal with different types of texts and respond indifferent ways Incorporating different tasks also increases the students’ interest Iflistening work in class follows too narrow a pattern, it is easy for the learners-and theteacher-to lose interest

2.4.4 Techniques for teaching EFL listening

In the diagnostic approach, teachers typically do some prelistening and then havestudents listen to the text and perform a variety of tasks Teachers evaluate students’comprehension based on the correctness of their responses and proceed to the nextactivity Implicit here is the focus on the result, the product of listening in the form ofcorrect answers This approach tests students’ listening comprehension, informingthem that they failed at certain points, but does little to teach how to listen, that is, tohelp 12 Teaching Listening them understand what went wrong with their listening andhow it could be repaired Field (2008) calls for a diagnostic approach to listening,which allows teachers and students to attend to listening difficulties and practicestrategies to diminish them Characteristics of the approach are described as: (1) Usingincorrect answers to detect weaknesses, and designing activities to help, (2) Avoidinglistening tasks that require memorization, (3) Helping students develop a wider range

of listening strategies ineffective listeners rely on a single strategy, (4) Differentiatingbetween listening skills, (5) Providing top-down and bottom-up listening practice

2.5 Animated films in English language teaching

2.5.1 Kinds of audio-visual aids

Jack Shaw (2011) showed that Audio-Visual Aids are educational materials directed atboth the sense of hearing and the sense of sight To enhance learning and teaching,visual aids provide materials teaching such as pictures and sounds with purpose tosupport visual information Audio-visual aids involve videos and films which are used

to arouse and maintain interest, simplify instruction, accelerate learning and improveand aid retention.

According to Jeremy Harmer (2007: 308), listening comprehension is not only thehearing of an audio tract but also watching film clips, DVDs or online while listening

Harmer also proposed that "There are many good reasons for encouraging students to watch while they listen” The development of various technology, nowadays, can

supplement listening development of students easily in learning innovation methodsuch as mp3 and visual players (VCD and DVD) (Kutlu and Aslanoglu, 2009).Besides, Jia-Jeng Luo (2004) indicated that high school students' listeningcomprehension was improved through the instructions of using DVD films used intheir learning This was assessed by the results of statistical analyses for a motivatinglearning environment

2.5.2 The importance of audio-visual aids in language teaching

Reasons for incorporating audio-visual aids as supplementary materials into

classrooms are to add a diversity to lessons, to give more practice in grammar,

vocabulary and pronunciation, to complement extra practice in skills such as speaking,listening, reading or writing, to replace course book materials that the teacherconsiders inappropriate, to add something missing from the course book, and torespond to learners’ demands for materials with a particular theme or topic

As Biemer (1992) pointed out, in the classroom, the final decision is made by theteacher (p 21) If teachers are given a textbook to use in the classroom, they need to beflexible and use the book innovatively (Yien, 1996, p 271) Second, the teacher needs

to decide how much of what to teach, namely, “which parts of the book to focus onand to enrich” (Biemer, 1992, p 21) Finally, supplementary materials are necessaryfor creating motivation - the key factor in learning (Brown, 1994, p 152) Thequestion is what can be done to supplement the book and encourage the students Thefirst step in inspiring the students is to understand how they learn Then, additionalmaterials may be designed to help the students learn better

It is vital that teachers design their own supplementary materials to develop effectivelisteners among the students and for listening lessons to handle the difficulties faced

by teachers Teachers, not the textbook designers, are those who know the studentsbetter and by designing their own materials, it is hoped that the students will profitfrom it

On designing supplementary materials for listening, it is necessary that teachers need

to refer to resources The resources used can be put into two categories (Marsh, 1996);

“Resources available in the class or school” and also “resources available beyond theschool” With these resources, teachers will have ideas on what to teach and preparestudents for the next lesson There are myriad resources that teachers can use to help inmaking the teaching and learning development more motivating According to Marsh(ibid), the distinctive types of resources can be used to accommodate the various range

of interest and learning styles among students It depends on the teachers to chooseand use the resources obtained for the betterment of the students in consuming newinformation In the teaching of listening, resources that regard real-life circumstancesare usually the most suitable to exploit Students need being exposed to “real-life” oflistening as this will permit them to understand the topic and purpose of learning

Consequently, it is up to the teacher to use and select which resources that may be aptfor the students’ interest and need These resources provide students with additionalinformation needed to meet the requirements of a particular group of students In short,teachers should take the initiative to apply their own supplementary materials intolistening lessons and consequently, they should refer to the textbook as an aid to varythe activities and tasks to be used in the classroom

In conclusion, audio-visual aids are undeniably crucial in English language teachingand learning due to the fact that simplified constructed materials are not varied,motivating, and authentic enough for EFL learners Teachers as well as syllabusdesigners should consider implementing more authentic and motivating materials like

animated cartoons in the process of language learning in order to reach enhancement

in English skills in general and English listening skills in particular

2.5.3 Principles for selecting animated films for EFL learners

According to the web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animated_film (accessed on June10th, 2013), animated film is defined as a sequence of images, which is as a motionpicture or video program to create an illusion of movement, is accomplished withcombination between images with techniques and to be presented on a projector or acomputer viewing screen

When choosing animated films for EFL learners, the teachers need to consider thefollowing criteria:

2.5.4 The benefits of animated films for EFL learners

Second Language learning can be supported by accessing TV, video equipment in theearly years and the computers recently have created more opportunity to use audio-visual materials at all levels of foreign language teaching Language classes have toused them effectively such as used internet in accessing teaching materials (Meskill,1996; Kikuchi, 1997: 2; Ryan, 1998; Weyer, 1999; Lewis & Anping, 2002; Kothari,Pandey & Chudgar, 2004) With previous research about the effect of audio-visualmaterial, some of these researchers and later researchers did their study on applyingvideos, films, and animated films in teaching listening comprehension Jing-meiChung (1999) studied the effects of using video texts supported with captions onlistening comprehension for subjects as Chinese College students The participants inChung’s study, who were aged 17 to 19, participated in the study to evaluate results ofquality through a combination of research methods – i.e., quantitative and qualitative

Chung found that the effects of using video with captions serves to enhance theteaching, because the results of study had been to facilitate student listeningcomprehension and to give them the opportunity to receive visual as well as auditorymessages A few years later, the effects of using videos with captions on listeningwhich was investigated by Paula Winke, Susan Gass and Tetyana (2010), the effects ofusing videos with captions on listening were also confirmed to be beneficial Subjects

of that study were second and fourth year foreign language students After using mixedmethods to collect data, the assessment showed that students concentrated their interestmuch more, and enhanced the acquisition of vocabulary through multiple modalities

Films or animated film along with audio visual materials with subtitles were evaluated

by Hayati, A and Mohmedi, F (2011) who carried out the study with participants asstudents with the average age of 22 at a University of Iran That study covered howlistening comprehension was affected by films with and without captions To evaluatestudents’ listening comprehension levels, the researchers assessed using bothquantitative and qualitative methods The results of the study indicate that studentsreacted positively with supporting films for listening comprehension However, filmswith English subtitles could be used to enhance students’ vocabulary to bring theircomprehension to a higher

In another Chinese study addressing the interest of listening comprehension teachingsupplement, Shiao-Ling Tsai (2011) undertook research addressing the effect ofcartoon videos with English subtitles on children’s listening comprehension in Taiwan.The study was carried out with participants who are fifth grade students The results ofthe Tsai study were analyzed through test, questionnaire and interview on two groups

of objects, with English subtitles and without English subtitles Tsai also evaluated thatthese students were more excited in learning listening comprehension in the classroomwith cartoon videos, and increased students’ motivation to learn English However,some students, who watched cartoons videos with English subtitles, gained morevocabulary

To sum up, my innovation was supported by previous research With lower-levelstudents, I did my innovation with animated films in English As far as I know JeremyHarmer (2007: 144) suggested that the choosing of video materials which are not toodifficult or too easy with regard to content and appropriate to students’ level andinterest, will motivate their listening of learning According to Harm, additionally, heproposes students may pay less attention to what they hear if there are many visualsenses So, choosing animated films in English and without subtitles will help studentsconcentrate much more on listening of real voice, intonation, accents while watchingthese images on films Watching films with subtitles, which let students offer bothreading and listening, makes students to refer reading than listening (Vilma Tafani,2009: 88) To conclude then the purpose of this innovation is to train students’listening and approach reflective listening actively So, animated films, which weredubbed into English with simple and communicative contents, were suitable as thesource materials to administer as I did this research.

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research questions

The study aimed to seek the answers for the following questions:

- Does the use of animated films have any effect on EFL high school students'listening comprehension?

- Will the use of animated films help to increase EFL high school students' motivation

to study English?

3.2 Study setting

My experiment consists of general test, pre-post tests and treatment-control groups.The two groups took the pre-test at the beginning of the study and the post-test afterthe six weeks of the experiment The results of the two tests would then be analyzedand compared to find any differences indicating the effectiveness of the experiment Aquestionnaire was delivered at the end of the experiment to investigate the student’sattitudes and opinions of the materials used throughout the experiment Also, Aninterview was conducted for four randomly chosen participants of experimental group.The findings were the ground for further discussions and suggestions for other studies

in order to fill the unavoidable gaps of the research

This quasi-experimental research, I believe, is the most suitable method for my studybecause it practically reveals whether the intervention has been effective or not.Personally, it helps me to be more certain and determined of the use of a type ofsupplementary materials in my lessons The long-term benefit of this research will beprominent as my teaching career proceeds

3.3 Participants

The participants in the experiment were eighty-two students of two grade 10 classes ofTinh Gia2 High School in Thanh Hoa province, including thirty-nine males and forty-three females They were in their first year at High School They had been studying

English for at least three years at lower secondary school for approximately threeperiods a week The participants were following an English textbook that consisted ofgetting started, language, reading, speaking, listening, writing, communication &culture, and looking back & project lessons The component in the textbook wasdesigned in an innovative way Almost all the topics in ten units were suitable withreal-life situations However, the amount of vocabulary in each unit was rather much,which challenged a few students

The participants were divided into two groups Those who are in one class are in agroup One class was the control group (hereafter named group 1) which did notfollow the comprehensive listening course, but they were also asked to experiencetheir extra time in four same weeks as the other group without any animated filmsprovision The other was experimental group (hereafter named group 2) had one extra-session of comprehensive listening each week in the optional period of every Fridaymorning, and thus watched four animated films for fours weeks Group 1 and group 2both had 41 participants

The control group had 41 students and all of them sat the post-test, so the analysisincluded those 41 participants’ results Also, the analysis of the experimental groupincluded those 41 participants’ results

3.4 Materials and instruments

vocabulary of the units The while-listening stage carries on with simplified orconstructed listening tasks in the CDs packaged with the Students’ Book Post-listening involves several questions for further discussion at the end of each unit

In order to experiment on the treatment group, a series of animated films were chosen

from TiengAnh123 Finally, four animated films of around two minutes to six minutes

in total were selected and edited if necessary to be the ideal materials for theexperiment The animated films are listed below:

-“Cinderella” part 1 (2.04 minutes)

-“Cinderella” part 2 (5.01 minutes)

-“The Silly Tiger and The Smart Rabbit” (4.57 minutes)

-“The Little Princess and Seven Dwarves” (3.00 minutes)

All the animated films with creative cartoon characters like human or animals; containlove story content with communicative context With the episodes of animated filmsupported the students’ listening comprehension by conversations in it, besides theyalso help students’ intonation of English communication

Figure 1 Frame grab of TiengAnh123