Some measures to improve listening skill for students at primary school effectively 1 1 Background 1 1 The reason for selecting the topic Together with science and technology, education and training is the top national policy, aiming to improve people's knowledge and training human resources Investing in education is investing in the future The education and training sector is constantly innovating in terms of content and teaching methods English has been taught at elementary level to help stude[.]
Trang 11 Background 1.1 The reason for selecting the topic.
Together with science and technology, education and training is the top national policy, aiming to improve people's knowledge and training human resources Investing in education is investing in the future The education and training sector is constantly innovating in terms of content and teaching methods English has been taught at elementary level to help students master the common language of the world To achieve that goal, there must be a positive direction in teaching to provide students with a solid foundation for later learning and communicating through English
The new English program has been implemented nationwide so far for many years The highlight of this program is to provide maximum opportunities for students to practice four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing on living environmental topics and situations in and out of the country This change facilitates the teaching and learning of English in the school as a language instead
of teaching words as many years ago However, in practicing for students' English skills, teachers face many difficulties, especially for listening skill In fact, at school, when I began to study foreign languages, most students liked to study, but gradually the students became ill Most of them are very weak in listening skill It
is difficult for them to understand the content of a text or conversation After each lesson, it is very difficult for the teacher to check the information they have listened
to, and checking the lessons is not easy
Facing that situation I myself who teaches English to elementary students am very concerned about how students can master, listen to information and apply information In the process of teaching I observe my students and discovered that the training of listening skill of students has many problems Most students do not know how to learn to listen, the most common practice listening is the hardest In the classroom, students often say that in the listening list there are many words that are known but not heard How to help students to use their vocabulary and grammatical structures to understand effectively? As a result, in the process of teaching, I find myself some positive, simple, easy-to-understand methods to develop students' thinking, their creativity With this small range of experience, I boldly go into the issue of " Some measures to improve listening skill for students
at primary school effectively "
1.2 The studying purpose.
English has been widely popular in schools across the country But it is still considered one of the most difficult subjects for students So how do teaching - learning English to achieve high results, especially to improve the ability to listen
to students That requires a lot of innovation in the teaching methods of the teachers
Trang 2and the hard work, enthusiasm, research and learning of the students As an elementary school English teacher, I learned the advantages and disadvantages of children in the learning process So I'm always anxious to find a new, best-fit teaching method for students to help them understand and encourage their love of English, especially to improve their listening ability
So, how can students develop their listening skill quickly, effectively, and easily? Especially when applying them to actual communication when interacting with foreigners? Is this the trick of the teacher?
1.3 The studying subjects
- Grade 5 students of Chau Loc Primary School
- English teaching for grades 1,2,3,4,5
1.4 The studying methods
After nearly 10 years of teaching English in primary school in the innovative way I realize that most of us do not know how to learn foreign languages The use
of English in life is limited, they do not dare speaking in English, communicate with friends in English Also, during the learning process, they are weak in listening skill and find difficulties in listening In order to practice effectively, students must learn and practice listening to a variety of speech patterns
Moreover, the formation and training of skills for students, teachers not only pay attention to the transfer of knowledge in textbooks, use the means of teaching but also attention to the organization too The teaching program aims is activating learners' activities, enhancing and promoting the active role of active creation of students in learning and organizing students to acquire knowledge by their own activities, but most students do not understand the importance of learning listening comprehension so it is very lazy or just learn through speakers and do not use it, including students in grades 3, 4, 5.New knowledge that is so far away from the mother tongue is very afraid to learn
In this experimential initiative, I use some methods of studying such as survey
methodology , collecting information and compare the results of the students.
2 The content of initiative 2.1 The theoretical basic.
Education Law was amended 2010 stipulates that “educational methods must promote the positiveness, self-awareness, activeness and creative thinking of students, training the learners’ abilities of self-studying, the ability of practicing, passion for learning and the will to rise
The goal of universal education is " Helping students develop comprehensively
of ethics, intellect, constitution, aesthetic and basic skills , promote personal
Trang 3abilities , dynamism and creativity , make up the Socialist Vietnamese personality ,build status and responsibilities as citizens , prepare for students to continue studying for further education or come into labor life , participate in building and protecting their country"
Any one language in the world, to communicate with it, requires us to have a source of vocabularies Because vocabulary is an indispensable component in the language used for communication activities Therefore, the mastery of vocabulary
to use is a very important job
In English we can not train and develop the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing of students that are not based on the foundation of the vocabulary Indeed without the necessary words, they will not be able to hear, and its consequences are not able to speak, read and write well, whether they have mastered the structures of sentences
If we put this initiative into practising in Primary School , we can help students feel more confident when they communicate, or participate in activities and games
in English
2.2 The real situation of the studying issue.
2.2.1.The stage:
* Advantages:
- The school board always take their interest and create necessary conditions of the facilities and professional documentation served for the lecturing such as pictures, wordcar, recorders , projector, ect
- Local authorities and associations in and outside schools always support the
teacher in the process of teaching
- Teachers themselve always receive support from other teachers and professional groups and colleagues
- The majority of students in the class loved to learn English and prepare books and utensils for learning So some students feel excited, or interested in this subject, so most students are very positive
- The majority of parents are interested and create conditions for their children's learning
* Difficulty:
- English in primary schools in general and Chau Loc Primary School in particular was difficult especially in learning and using the vocabulary So teaching students how to learn and use English is to give students a living treasure dictionary of words and sentence structure and is an essential requirement in learning English, specially with primary students English is considered to be new to elementary school students in recent years
- According to the current program distribution, English in almost primary schools
is taught with 2 per week, but each lesson always has new words and even in
Trang 4exercises But if we want to make lessons to become more vivid, teachers must make pictures, maps to illustrate, enabling them to easily remember words and the attention of the children on the themes or focus on the lessons Besides, because of difficult conditions and circumstances, parents do not understand the importance of the English language, so they have not paid more attention to this subject and urged them to study In addition, due to the development of all aspects is limited, conditions for elementary school children are exposed to mass media, entertainment programs using English are limited That leads to the possibility of their communication is limited, so communicating in English becomes more difficult
- To the students, besides some students study English positively, a large number of
children consider it perfuntorily, do not inculcate the words into memory, do not learn to read, write regularly, two-dimensional non-sense When teachers ask they will not succeed
- In addition, teachers also have difficulty in checking or guiding them to learn at home because English is a foreign language, not the mother tongue they know This
is a very difficult problem in managing the student's learning at home
- In addition, the way of students’learning vocabulary is also attentive, students often learn vocabulary by reading words in English and try to remember them in Vietnamese, writing them in the notebooks to deal with teachers, but have no sense
of self-check themselve, to inculcate new words and available vocabulary Therefore, they are easy to forget and easily confuse the words with other words, and many students get bored and neglected school So teachers need to pay attention to the students' psychology
2.2.2 The results of the current state:
The question is how we overcome these weaknesses in order to contribute to improving the quality of learning and listening skills, help students feel more confident in communicating, using English as a second language, Proficiency in each word, especially for rural students like students in Hau Loc district
First of all I survey the situation characteristics, health practitioners, and listening skill of students in grade 5 I took a listening exercise of elementary English program I did a survey at the beginning of the year as follows
Listen and complete the dialogue
Lan: Hello, Hoa
Hoa: Hi, Lan You seem (1)………
Lan: I am I received a (2)……….from my friend Hung today
Hoa: Do I know her?
Lan: I don’t know I think so She (3)………….my old friend in Hue
Trang 5Hoa: What does she (4)……….like?
Lan: Oh, she is (5)……… Here is her (6)…………
Keys:
5 beautiful 6 photo
Result:
No Class Numbers of
students Mark
(9;10)
Mark ( 7; 8)
Mark ( 5, 6) Bad mark
As a result, I found that their listening skills were limited They have not understood the lesson, have not used the knowledge they have learned I am very anxious concern, not knowing how to help students good English listening, helping them studious With many years of direct teaching experience in the subject of English, initially to train the students in the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, I give some experience in the teaching as well as skills sounds like the following
2.3 Initiatives and solutions used to solve problems
2.3.1 Some experiences help teachers teach effective listening skills.
* Listening skill is influenced by speaking skill.
Listening skill is influenced by speaking skill so teachers must help students
in many classes to compensate speaking and listening skills Because when they practice speaking, they will remember the vocabulary and sentences that they often encounter, so students will develop listening skill Moreover, while listening, if you meet long and difficult sentences, then you just need to stop at the level of understanding the meaning of the sentence, and do not need to hear all the words
in the sentence
Trang 6For long essays that want to hear well, focus on the mind for a long time, depending on the ability to withstand the pressure of the brain under great psychological pressure If it is too much, it can be divided into small sections to hear and then to hear once again It is necessary to focus on pronunciation and intonation, understand directly in English , if possible you can contact to Vietnamese
Remember that when you listen you should look at the picture and associate the image of things or events in your head In the process of hearing if the words or sentences are not clear, after listening you can stop to reflect on the sentence If you can not hear it, you can watch it in textscript and listen to it again Remember that " listening with the eyes" is more effective and less boring than
"listening with the ears”
Example: Lesson 2- Unit 2 : I always get up early How about you?Part 4: Listen
and number- Class 5
Teachers let students to observe the pictures in the textbook page 15, and then set up a situation of listening: "Some Students (Mai, Linda, Tom and Nam are talking about daily routines Listen and number the pictures in their correct order
At this point, the teacher asks the students to practice speaking by describing their activities through the pictures
+ What are they doing in picture a,picture b……?
-Mai is going shopping in picture a
-Nam is having lessons in picture b
-Linda is doing her English project in picture c
-Tom is playing computer game in picture d
Trang 7It can be said that speaking skill plays an important role during the listening process, the more you talk, the better you listen
* Help students figure out how to learn to listen effectively
Like other skills, listening plays an important role in gaining knowledge of English It may sound a little harder than other skills, but there are also more benefits If we listen well we will improve our pronunciation and communicative ability Normally students who learn English practise listening exercises by doing their homework in listening books However, the lessons in books are not updated regularly, so students do not have much opportunity to acquire knowledge in modern life I suggest that teachers should give students useful advice to help them find the best way to learn listening
Learn to listen from the beginning.
When learning a foreign language in general and English in particular, should start as soon as possible In this way, it will help students get familiar with the sounds of that language Thus, learning to pronounce will become easier When you first start learning English, find all the tapes that come with the accompanying version Whenever you do not understand a word on tape, look at the version and look up the word on the dictionary
Listen multiple times a content
Listening to the same content is a good way Guide students to choose an interesting video and listen to it many times While listening, try to memorize useful sentences
Then recall and rehearse the sentences, trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation After some times students will notice that the words and phrases on the tape have become part of themselves
Students will start using them in their own sentences Pronunciation and listening skills will definitely be improved
Listen everyday.
Instruct children to practice listening every day, practice each day a little If possible,you should equip yourself with a suitable hearing aid
Record and preset your favorite English tapes so you can listen whenever you can
Listen to what?
Help students find listening contexts that are easy to understand and meaningful to them Select materials for appropriate topics to ensure student interest
Choose a pleasant voice for the student to listen and expect to hear every day
Trang 8 Principles of listening skills
Listening is probably the hardest skill for most English learners as a second language The most important thing for students is to improve their listening and listening more offen Help students realize that not only they do not understand If you still do not understand, then do not be discouraged or disappointed Orientation for students:
- Accept the fact that you do not understand anything
- Keep calm when you do not understand anything, even may not understand for a long time
- Do not try to translate them into Vietnamese
- Pay attention to the gist of what you are listening to Do not focus on details until you know the main idea
2.3.2 Use good, flexible techniques during a listening session.
* Warm up
A lesson of listening will become more effective if the teacher knows how to make the text sound lively, interesting and engaging One of the first things a teacher can do is to prepare well for the "warm up" activity Here are some specific warm up activities that teachers can apply to make their lessons really engaging and effective
- Reading stories
The story, if the content is interesting and recounted in a professional manner, will attract the attention of most students pay Therefore, before the students listen to the tape, teachers should read slowly for their students to hear a short story with simple content, easy to understand After that, the teacher may set out a few questions related to the content of the story for the student to answer Or the teacher can tell only a part of the story, then let the students discuss and give the end of the story This will make students feel very excited about the lesson because students are being given their own ideas Especially for students who are weak in using English, they will feel very surprised and happy that they can understand a story in English From there, they will have more motivation to try to learn
- Ask and answer.
Before beginning the listening lesson, teachers may spend about 5 to 10 minutes asking students a few questions about the topic of the listening This will help students shape the topic of the listening, so that they will be able to learn the basics of vocabulary and grammar related to the topic of the lesson, and help them
to learn more effectively
Trang 9Example: Teachers can use the following questions to ask their students in Unit 5: Can you swim? Lesson 1-Part 3.
- Who are they in these pictures?
- What are they doing ?
- What abilities can they have?
Students can answer:
- They are Tony, Nam and Akiko
- They are talking about their abilities
- Tony can draw a picture, sing and dance Nam can cook, skip and ride a bike Akiko can skate, sing and read stories
Now, you are going to listen to three dialogues and tick the correct pictures
When answering such open questions, students will be able to visualize what they must do, what they need to know when they hear it In addition, this makes the atmosphere between the teacher and the student to become more friendly, and helps students gain confidence and excitement to pay attention to lessons
- Use pictures
In English, the sentence "a picture is worth as a thousand words" shows the importance and efficiency of conveying the message of the pictures So, teachers take full advantage of that strength, because the picture will make the lesson more lively, helping students to participate in the lesson more passionately
These are three of the many ways we can apply for warm up activities to prepare for effective listening
* Pre-listening techniques.
The purpose of the activities at this stage is to help students focus their attention on the topic, especially anticipating the information of the topic being heard To overcome the difficulties of listening during the class, the teacher should introduce the topic, context and situation of the content related to listening part, findimng out if whether the students know or not know what they will listen , suggesting curiosity, creating excitement for the activities
Have students think, anticipate things to be heard in a certain context
When we teach vocabulary, we should note that we should not introduce all new words, so let students guess the meaning of the word in the context
Provide listening purpose, compose requirements and listening assignments
Trang 10When conducting listening activities, the visualization of accompanying illustrations will be very helpful in clarifying the context of the upcoming story Pictures are also a means to check the level of listening comprehension of students
Show students the pictures or questions in the exercise to guess the topic, the information needed to hear
Here are some tips we can apply to the Pre-Listening section:
a True/False statement prediction
Teacher writes from 5 to 10 sentences on the board, based on the main idea of the listening: in which half of the sentence is true; Half of the sentences are false Students copy these sentences into their notebooks Each pair of students predicts which sentence is true (T), which is wrong (F) at the end of each sentence
- Students read out their predictions aloud (T / F)
- Teachers do not say right or wrong
- The teacher reads the listening content or opens the tape for the student to listen.( Teacher should play the tapes)
- Students listen and check, mark the sentences they think are right
- Students compare the results with each other, if there is a disagreement, the teacher re-listen to students and come to a consensus
b Open prediction
- Teachers do not give students any sentences
- The teacher sets the scene and asks the students to guess some things they will hear
- Students write down what they predict
- Students begin to pay attention to listening, the teacher reads, and students mark what is predicted correctly
c Ordering.
- Teacher gives students some sentences or some pictures on the board are arranged inorderly
- Students discuss in pairs, groups to predict the correct order
- The sentences or the pictures are marked as a, b, c
- Students rearrange order sentences, picture according to the logic of the story, marked 1-c, 2-a
- Students compare in pairs or in groups