(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) a survey on the perception of students at thanh liem a high school of the benefits of fre listening activities in learning listening skills

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES  VŨ THỊ THẢO A SURVEY ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS AT THAN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



VŨ THỊ THẢO

A SURVEY ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS AT THANH LIEM A HIGH SCHOOL OF THE BENEFITS OF PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS

(Nghiên cứu khảo sát về nhận thức của học sinh Trường THPT Thanh Liêm A đối với lợi ích của

các hoạt động tiền nghe hiểu đối với việc học kĩ năng nghe)

M.A MINOR THESIS

CODE : 60.14.0111

HANOI – 2013

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



VŨ THỊ THẢO

A SURVEY ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS AT THANH LIEM A HIGH SCHOOL OF THE BENEFITS OF PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS

(Nghiên cứu khảo sát về nhận thức của học sinh Trường THPT Thanh Liêm A đối với lợi ích của

các hoạt động tiền nghe hiểu đối với việc học kĩ năng nghe)

M.A MINOR THESIS

CODE : 60.14.0111

SUPERVISOR : Dr TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN

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Statement of authorship

I certify that the minor thesis entitled “A survey on the perceptions of students at Thanh Liem A high school of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills” is the result of my own work It is submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirement for the degree of Master of Education This minor thesis or any part of the same has not been submitted for any other universities or institutions

support from a variety of people

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien, my respected supervisor, for her close and experienced guidance, encouragement and invaluable detailed critical feedback in the process of completing my thesis

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the M.A lecturers who have been teaching K20 M.A course in Vietnam National University - University of Languages and International Studies and the post-graduate staff for their contributions to the success of the course

My sincere thanks are also for all teachers of English at Thanh Liem A high school for their help in answering the interview questions, for their constructive suggestions to this research, and for their willingness to share their relevant problems with me

I wish to convey my thanks to the students of classes 10A1, 11A6 and 12A7

I have visited in order to gather information for survey questionnaire and observed Without their help, this study would not have been successful

Finally, I am grateful to my family for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement

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ABSTRACT

This research focuses on the perceptions of students at Thanh Liem A High

School of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills With a

desire to study and analyze the benefits of pre-listening activities to improve

listening skill and introduce them to the teachers at Thanh liem A high school, the author has found out related researches as the theory background of the thesis From that, the researcher has enough reasoning base to support and protect the thesis The data are collected from survey questionnaires for 100 students, observation of three classes and interview with six teachers The results show students’ preferences and comments on the pre-listening activities in three textbooks From major findings of the study, the author mentions recommendations for implementing pre-listening activities, significance of the proposed research supporting for teaching in this school, pedagogical implications from the findings, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Statement of authorship

6 Significance of the study

7 Structure of the study

iv vii viii

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1 1 1 Definition of listening and listening comprehension

1 1 1.1 Definition of listening

1 1 1 2 Definition of listening comprehension

1 1 2 The process of teaching and learning listening lesson

1 1 3 Factors make listening difficult

Chapter 2: CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND

LEARNING ENGLISH AT THANHLIEM A HIGH SCHOOL

2.1 The institution

2.2 The teachers

2.3 The students

2.4 The listening materials

2.5 The teaching and learning English at TLAHS

3 2 Instruments of collecting data

3 3 Data collection procedure

4.1.1 Students’ attitude towards listening skill

4.1.2 Students’ perceptions of pre-listening activities

4.1.2.1 Students’ opinion about the necessity of using pre-

listening activities

4.1.2.2 Students’ opinion about the teacher’s frequency of

using pre-listening activities

4.1.2.3 Students’ preference for teacher’s applying pre-

listening activities 4.1.2.4 Students’ benefits from pre-listening activities

4.1.2.5 Students’ point of views about pre-listening activities

in the textbooks 4.1.2.6 Students’ suggestions for the changes of pre-listening

activities in the textbooks

4.2 Discussion of the results collected by means of the classroom

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4.3 Discussion of the results collected by means of the interview

4.3.1 Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill

4.3.2 Teachers’ opinion on pre-listening activities in the textbooks

they are teaching

4.3.3 Teachers’ frequency of teaching pre-listening

4.3.4 Teachers’ opinion on benefits of pre-listening activities in

teaching and learning listening skill 4.4 Recommendations

4.4.1 Encouraging students to learn listening skill from the

beginning stage of listening

4.4.2 Improving teachers’ teaching method in pre-listening stage

4.4.3 Improving the pre-listening activities in the text books

4.5 Summary

PART C: CONCLUSION

1 Summary of the study

2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

IT: Information Technology

NCLRC: the National Capital Language Resource Center

SLA: Second Language Acquisition

TLAHS: Thanh Liem A High School

VNU: Vietnam National University

Table 2: Teacher’s frequency of using - listening activities

Table 3: Students’ preference for teacher’s brainstorming activities

Table 4: Students’ preference for pre-teaching new vocabulary

Table 5: Students’ preference for introducing the content of the

listening passage Table 6: Students’ preference for types of questions

Table 7: Benefits of pre-listening activities

Table 8: Students’ point of views about pre-listening activities in the

textbooks

Table 9: Students’ suggestions for the changes of pre-listening

activities in the textbooks

Chart 1: Students’ perception on the importance of listening skill

Chart 2: Students’ attitude toward learning listening skill

Chart 3: Students’ preference for discussing technique

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

One of the most important elements necessary to acquire a language is listening skill Not only in terms of the first language, but also of the second language, listening skill is of primary importance for listeners to receive the

messages "We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than

we read, and five times more than we write." (Morley, J 1991: 82) Like learners

elsewhere in Viet Nam, learners at Thanh Liem A high school encounter great difficulties in learning listening skills They can hardly receive spoken messages if they fail to take listening input Therefore, pre-listening activities play a crucial part

in easing learners’ anxiety before learning listening lessons and help motivate

students’ interests in learning listening skills

Many researchers have shed light on the effectiveness of pre-listening activities A research by Hong, L T T (2006), investigated on pre-listening techniques to motivate students at Lomonosov upper-secondary school to improve the listening skills According to the study, sometimes the students were not highly motivated by the pre-listening techniques that the teachers applied The differences between teachers’ and students’ preferences for pre-listening activities still existed Another research related to pre-listening stage was done by Huyen, N D (2010) She investigated the effects of pre-listening activities on the listening performance

of 10th grade students at Nguyen Gia Thieu High school, Hanoi The findings of the study showed some pre-listening activities used by the teachers had good effects on the students’ listening comprehension In addition, Ha, M T H (2010), also studied on effectiveness of appropriate pre-listening activities on 10th-form students’ English listening comprehension Both teachers and students really appreciated pre-listening activities in motivating students learning listening skills These studies concerned benefits of pre-listening activities on learning listening

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skills of students at different schools However, the 11th and 12th-form students have not had opportunity to show their perceptions on this stage of listening skills yet From the observation and personal experience as a high school teacher of English, the researcher has realized that each learner has his own attitude and approach to learning listening skills Although the design of new English text books

is task-based and four practice skills, many students focus on learning reading and grammar They do not pay much attention to learning listening skill because they think this skill is not necessary for them in national examinations and because listening in one-way situations is difficult for them to comprehend when they do not have any opportunity to interact with the speakers The researcher is always haunted

by the question that what method deals with listening skill more effectively and how pre-listening activities play a role in learning listening of learners at Thanh Liem A high school

For all the above reasons, the researcher would like to conduct a survey on the students’ perceptions of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills It is also hoped that the study will make some suggestions for the teachers and learners to improve the teaching and learning English especially listening skills

at school

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at investigating students’ attitude towards the benefits of listening activities in learning listening skills To be more specific, the objectives of this study are:

pre carrying out an investigation on students’ perceptions of applying those benefits to teaching and learning listening skills in grade 10, 11 and 12 at Thanh Liem A High school, Ha Nam province

- studying and evaluating benefits of pre-listening activities in listening lessons

- giving some suggestions to increase the effectiveness of applying pre- listening activities in promoting students’ learning English

It is hoped that the findings from this study will have some benefits to teachers and students at TLAHS

3 What are the effective pre-listening activities to students?

4 Scope of the study

Despite the fact that four skills of language learning are very important factors, the author confines the thesis to listening skill and focuses on the benefits of pre-listening activities to students at TLAHS where she has been teaching for more than ten years Other activities such as while-listening activities and post-listening activities are out of the scope of the study

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used of such as the researcher’s observation for three classes of three grades, and interview questions with six other teachers at the school

6 Significance of the study

This study is designed to investigate the students’ perception towards listening activities at TLAHS and then some recommendations would be given to help teachers in using communicative teaching methods to improve students’ learning listening skills Therefore, this study will be an interesting reference material which helps teachers in teaching listening especially pre-listening at school, as there are solutions on how to help students learn listening in communicative teaching It also helps students become well aware of their listening problems which they might not have paid any attention before, especially for those who are in favor of improving their listening

pre-7 Structure of the study

This study is designed in three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

The first part includes the rationale for choosing the topic of the study, the aims, the research questions, the scope,the methodology, the significance and the structure of the study

The second part comprises four chapters Chapter one deals with the theoretical background which is relevant to the research topic including listening, listening comprehension and pre-listening activities Chapter two discusses the current situation of teaching and learning English at TLAHS Chapter three presents the research method, which focuses on the participants, the data collection methods, the data collection procedure Chapter four presents findings from data analysis, discussion and suggests implications of the study in teaching and learning listening skill at school

The last part summarizes the mains findings of the study, presents some suggestions for further research and points out the limitations

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 1 Theory of listening

In this chapter, the researcher mentions some theories related to the topic to have a background academic knowledge for the research from professional authors and previous researches

1 1 1 Definition of listening and listening comprehension

According to Mary Underwood (1989: 1), “listening is the activity of paying

attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear”, the author also

states that to listen to spoken language successfully, the listeners not only merely understand the words themselves but also comprehend what speakers mean basing

on the words they use in particular ways on particular occasions

Another definition identifies listening is "an active process in which listeners

select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order

to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express" (Thompson,

I., & Rubin, J 1996: 331)

Purdy, M (1997:8) defines listening as "the active and dynamic process

of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the expressed (verbal and nonverbal), needs, concerns, and information offered

by other human beings"

Rost, M (2011: 2-4) has the same view on listening when the author points out listening as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding, creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy

1 1 1 2 Definition of listening comprehension

Buck, G (1984:31) considers “Listening comprehension is an active process

of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound” and the listeners are required to have both linguistic knowledge and non

linguistic knowledge

The definition of listening comprehension by Anderson, A and Lynch, T (1988:6) is stated as follows: listening is really a receptive skill alongside reading skill and the role of the listeners is no longer passive but active After a period of listening, the learners are expected to be able to talk or write about what they have

heard, that is the aims of listening comprehension Hence, “the role of the successful

listeners has to be thought as an active one”

In short, from these opinions above, it is clear that no one can give all the ideas and features of what listening is Each definition reflects what listening means

as seen from the scholar’s own view However, all definitions reveal their common

features, the nature of listening – “receiving and understanding”, in which they

emphasize on listening process, listening message and listeners

1 1 2 The process of teaching and learning listening lesson

“In a typical lesson, there are “pre” activities, “while” activities and “post”

activities” (Brown, S 2006:3) According to Underwood, M (1989), listening

activities are described in term of three phrases: pre, while and post listening activities The teachers of English follow these three parts of teaching listening Each part is relative to two other parts in the process that is (i) pre-listening is a

Top-down process is listener based, which means “using our prior

knowledge and experiences; we know certain things about certain topic and situations and use that information to understand” (Brown, S 2006: 2) Flowerdew,

J and Miller, L (2005: 25) have the same view on this process Top-down process

“emphasizes the use of previous knowledge in processing a text rather than relying

upon the individual sounds and words” This approach is useful for “predicting information, brainstorming ideas, drawing inferences or summarizing” (http://

www.nclrc.org/ essentials/ index.htm)

Bottom-up process, on the other hand, is text based We use “the information

we have about sounds, word meanings and discourse markers to assemble our understanding of what we read or hear one step at a time” (Brown, S 2006: 2) In

the same view, Flowerdew, J and Miller, L (2005: 24) claim that listeners start understanding from the smallest units of the acoustic message: individual sounds or phonemes, continuing with larger ones such as words, phrases, clauses and

sentences This approach includes listening for “specific details, recognizing

cognates or word order patterns” (http:// www.nclrc.org/ essentials/ index.htm)

In Kurita’s view (2012: 32), both top-down process and bottom-up process have been paid attention to by many researchers in SLA in listening comprehension Top-down process refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message Bottom-up process, on the other hand, focuses on using the incoming input as the basis for understanding the message Combinations of top-down process and bottom-up process in teaching listening skill should be considered

1 1 3 Factors make listening difficult

To many learners of English especially those in rural areas, listening is considered a difficult skill They often complain people speak too fast, speakers pronounce the words differently and speakers swallow sounds constantly Brown,

G and Yule, G (1983: 74) claim four main groups of factors causing difficulty in

listening comprehension

 The speakers: includes the number of speakers, the speakers’ speech and the speakers’ accents

 The listeners: consists of the role of the listener, the level of response required and the listener’s interest in the subject

 The context: involves vocabulary, grammar, and information structure and background knowledge

 The support: comprises pictures, diagrams and visual aids

Boyle, J P (1984: 35) points out three factors influencing listening, namely, listener factors, speaker factors and factors in the material and medium

Anderson, A and Lynch, T (1988: 202) indicate five causes of obstacles to efficient listening comprehension: (i) the organization of information, (ii) the familiarity of the topic, (iii) the explicitness and sufficiency of the information, (iv)

the type of referring expressions used, and (v) whether the text describes a “static”

or “dynamic” relationship

Underwood, M (1989: 16-19) reveals seven factors making listening difficult

as follows:

 Listeners cannot control the speed of delivery

 Listeners cannot always have words repeated so they have to guess the meaning of words from the context

 Listeners have a limited vocabulary They sometimes encounter an unknown word which may cause them to stop and think about the meaning of that word and thus cause them to miss the next part of the speech

 Listeners may fail to recognize the signals which indicate that the speaker is moving from one point to another, giving an example, or repeating a point

 Listeners may encounter problems of interpretation because of lack contextual knowledge

 It can be listeners’ inability to concentrate in a foreign language

 Students may have established certain learning habits such as a wish to understand every word

From these opinions above, it is clear that two factors affecting students’ listening ability are the subjective factors and the objective factors The subjective factors relate to lack of vocabulary of the topic, background knowledge of the topic and confidence The objective factors consist of the material, speakers’ speech and accents, the medium and the surroundings In order to help students improve their listening ability, pre-listening activities that the author discusses in the next step play a crucial role in listening process

1 2 Pre-listening activities

1 2 1 Definition of pre-listening

Pre-listening work is carried out before learners learn listening skill

According to Rixon, S (1986: 63), pre-listening is “things to do before the students

hear the passage, to help them get the out most of what they are going to hear”

Underwood, M (1989: 30) states pre-listening is a stage in which students should

be “turned in” or provided some relevant information so that they know what to

expect both in general and in particular tasks Sharing the same opinion, Larry

Vandergrift (1999: 172) defines it is a phase in which “teachers prepare students

for what they will hear and what they are expected to do”

These above opinions are not exactly the same, but they all show that listening establishes the purpose of the listening activity and provides the background need for students to understand the listening text Therefore, it is important for anyone to understand what pre-listening is For the teachers who teach

pre-3

listening, knowing that each student has his own background such as beliefs, attitudes, bias to the listening experience and how the background affects the message they receive is necessary Before listening, besides knowing the topic, students need to be helped to apply what they have known to the ideas they are going to hear

1 2 2 Pre-listening activities

There are many activities that have been applied in preparing for listening stage These activities relate to the outline for listening to the text and teaching cultural key concepts The teacher may choose key words, important grammatical structures and proverbs to introduce through the discussion about the

while-topic or request their learners to guess the situation they are going to hear, based on

the knowledge they have already had (Gilakjani, A.P & Ahmadi, M R 2011: 982)

Underwood, M (1989: 31) lists the activities to help focus the students’ minds on the topic as follows: (i) the teacher giving background information, (ii) the students reading something relevant, (iii) the students looking at pictures, (iv) discussion on the topic/ situation, (v) a question and answer session, (vi) written exercises, (vii) following the instructions for the while-listening activity and (viii) consideration of how the while-listening activity will be done

Another list of pre-listening activities is proposed by NCLRC including:

 looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs

 reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures

 reading something relevant

 constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)

 predicting the content of the listening text

 going over the directions or instructions for the activity

 doing guided practice

(http:// www.nclrc.org/ essentials/ index.htm)

Nguyen Hai Chau et al (2007: 91), introduce some activities applied in listening stage including: the first activity is open prediction The teacher introduces the topic of the lesson, the students make some guesses about that topic; True/false statements prediction is the second type of pre-listening activity In this activity, the teacher gives out some statements about the main content of the listening, the students discuss in pairs or in groups to guess if those are true or false; Ordering is the third activity to be applied in teaching and learning listening The teacher lets students look at some pictures or read some statements then asks them to arrange pictures (statements) in a correct order; the fourth activity is pre-questions Students answer teacher’s questions relating the topic based on their own background knowledge; lastly, there should be word-storm activity in preparing stage of listening This activity aims to help listeners recall their vocabulary and build up the net of words relating to the listening lesson Some strategies can be used in this activity as Word Square or Noughts and Crosses

pre-The choice of suitable activities depends on the following factors: the time

available, the material available, the ability of the class, the interests of the class, the interests of the teacher, the place in which the work is being carried out, and the nature and content of the listening text itself, (Underwood, M 1989: 33)

In this study, the researcher just focuses on some typical activities in listening stage that are capable and suitable to TLAHS

pre Vocabulary and new structure introduction: Key words and structures

relating to the listening content may help students much in understanding the text and do the tasks better Vocabulary knowledge providing background on the topic is a critical predictor of listening comprehension The listener’s vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in bottom-up process The teachers should choose the important words and structures to introduce

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before students listen because listing too many words is a waste of time and students may lose interest in listening new things The teachers can use games, visual aids, synonyms, antonyms or translation to provide lexis and new structures

- Discussion: This activity aims at eliciting information about the topic

Through discussing in pairs or groups, students have opportunity to share ideas and knowledge and take part in the task as well as speaking English

- Asking and answering questions: Teachers ask students, or students ask students questions relating to the listening topic “We can use the student-

generated questions by giving them a topic, letting them ask questions about what kind of information they would like to know, and then asking their classmates to give answers to the questions”, (Lingzhu, J 2003) Flowerdew,

J and Miller, L (2005: 189) point out the teacher helps get students ready by

using focused questions and open questions which focus on “eliciting

background knowledge that may help in contextualizing the listening, checking whether pictures or diagrams are understood, checking whether students understand how the while-listening activity should be done” This

activity enhances students’ point of view on relating content

- Brainstorming, making list of relating words, phrases / ideas / suggestions:

on making the list, students can use the words and phrases they have already known, or they can ask their partners for help Students can participate in this activity in a relaxed atmosphere because there is no right or wrong answer on the list This activity is very good for pair work, group work or whole class

- Using visual aids: teachers use pictures, maps, film clips, etc to help

students predict the incoming information in listening Teacher may ask students to look at the picture(s) or watch a film clip and name the items and

phenomena relating to the listening text Pre-listening activity "looking and

talking about" is an effective way of reminding the students of vocabulary

which they may have forgotten or never known It will also help them to focus their attention on the coming topic This is very good for narrative or descriptive passages

- Games: This activity usually creates joyful atmosphere before listening and

therefore it motivates students listen more effectively Teachers may design games such as guessing game, play-acting, hangman, etc

In this stage of listening procedure, teachers need to prepare the students to listen by helping them pay attention to the content or the situation of the lesson; increase the learners’ learning motivation of the coming listening; take advantage of students’ background knowledge about the topic to help them listen better; and help students have chance to use discussion activities so that they can help one another in the lesson

1 2 3 Benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills

It is difficult for people to listen to something without having any idea about the topic that they are going to listen Pre-listening activities bring a number of benefits in learning listening and pre-listening stage plays an important role in teaching and learning this skill In the words of Underwood, M (1989:31), activities

in pre-listening stage help “to focus students’ minds on the topic by narrowing down

the things that the students expect to hear and activating relevant prior knowledge and already known language” The author also indicates: “such activities provide

an opportunity to gain some knowledge which will help them to follow the listening text” Pre-listening stage “helps you to call up the background knowledge and relevant language in preparation for what the lecturer says”, (Lynch, T 2004:5)

The previous study by Gilakjani, A P & Ahmadi, M R (2011: 982) pointed out

pre-listening activities “activate students’ prior knowledge, build up their

expectations for the coming information; and provide the necessary context for the

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specific listening task” Lingzhu, J (2003) considered “to bring to consciousness the tools and strategies that good listeners use when listening, and to provide the necessary context for that specific listening task” are two main goals of pre-

listening tasks

From those points of view, a teacher of English needs to help students prepare what they are going to hear or view with suitable pre-listening activities These activities help diminish students’ anxiety before listening and motivate students in learning listening skills

1 3 Summary

In this chapter, the relevant literature which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the present study is presented First, it provides basic concept about listening in which definitions, processes of teaching and learning listening lesson and factors affecting students’ listening ability are taken into consideration Next, information of pre-listening activities is discussed

with definitions of pre-listening, pre-listening activities and benefits of pre-listening

activities in learning listening skills Some typical pre-activities are chosen to study including vocabulary and new structure introduction, discussion, asking and answering questions, making list of relating words, phrases / ideas / suggestions, using visual aids and games

Chapter 2: CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

ENGLISH AT THANHLIEM A HIGH SCHOOL 2.1 The institution

Founded in 1965, Thanh Liem A high school is the oldest and the best of five high schools in Thanh Liem District, Ha Nam Province In 2012-2013 school year, the school has 29 classes, with 414 students in grade 10 (9 classes), 442 students in grade 11 (10 classes) and 427 students in grade 12 (10 classes) The number of students in each class ranges from 40 to 48 There are 7 teachers of English in this school Three years ago, the school was recognized national standard school level I From then on, the school has been equipped with many modern facilities for English teaching and learning like computer, projector, interactive board, software applications, etc However, the application of the new modern equipment in teaching and learning is not frequent because of the limited basic IT ability of some teachers

Currently, all students of three grades at TLAHS use standard textbooks, unofficially called “Sach chuan” because 412 students (nine classes) in classes A1, A2 and A3 pursue Ban tu nhien (specialization in sciences), the rest of students study in Ban co ban (non-specialization) That is the reason why the researcher chooses the standard textbooks and students learning these textbooks to carry out the research

2.2 The teachers

There are seven female teachers of English at TLAHS They all earn University Bachelor’s Degree from different pedagogic universities in Vietnam such as VNU University of Languages and International Studies, Teachers’ Training College of Ha Noi or Thai Nguyen University At present, one teacher is studying for Master’s Degree at VNU University of Languages and International Studies Three youngest teachers have been teaching English for one year Although

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they are energetic and try to devote their time and energy to teaching, they have many difficulties choosing appropriate teaching methods The problem is that their experience in teaching English is not much Moreover, all seven teachers are at the age of 24 to 37, at which they have to spend most of their time for child bearing and child rearing They have little chance to access to the modern language teaching methods Therefore, the traditional method of teaching in listening lessons, which emphasizes translation activities, is still adopted by most of the teachers The success is based on how flexible and adaptable the individual teacher is to respond

to the requirement of the new teaching situation The researcher selected six teachers as the subject of the second questionnaire with the hope of finding out what pre-listening activities are applied, the students’ perceptions of these activities and the benefits of pre-listening in teaching and learning listening skills

2.3 The students

The students of this school mainly come from rural area of Ha Nam province Although they all started learning English when they were in grade 6, their ability of listening and speaking English is limited There are some reasons for this First, they do not have the habit of listening and speaking English in classroom and in daily life Most students prefer taking reading and grammar lessons to learning listening skills Second, they do not have to take any listening tests in graduation or entrance examinations so they pay little attention to learning listening lessons Students think that learning listening with no purpose is boring, and listening comprehension is difficult for them To help students know the importance

of listening skill in learning a language, and in their future study, the teachers should motivate them from the beginning of each listening lesson Pre-listening activities, which are designed multifariously by the teachers, play an important role

in improving students’ attitude towards listening

There are 1.283 students of three grades 10, 11 and 12, and all of them learn the standard textbooks The researcher randomly selects three among 29 classes for

investigation Three classes chosen for the study are 10A1, 11A6 and 12A7 which have 135 students who are not major in English Due to the lack of time and condition, 100 students have been selected to participate in the survey

2.4 The listening materials

Students at TLAHS are learning the standard textbooks which include

“Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”, and “Tieng Anh 12” by Hoang Van Van et al These text books are theme-based and include 16 units and six Test Yourself sections Each unit has a specific topic and consists of five lessons: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus Listening lessons are designed under the tendency of theme-based and task-based approaches The listening text in each unit is either a dialogue or a monologue and less than 250 words in length

There are three stages in each listening lesson, namely Before you listen, While you

listen and After you listen This minor thesis focuses on the first stage of listening

process Before you listen stage aims to help students get used to the topic and the

content of the listening text, pre-teach new lexis and structure, and make them ready

to listen

2.5 The teaching and learning English at TLAHS

According to the syllabus, students have three periods of English a week and each period lasts 45 minutes With the limited time in each period and the high number of the students in each class, students, therefore, have few opportunities to further practice with other listening sources

Like many other subjects, English is taught in a formal classroom without language environment As far as the teaching materials are concerned, the main objectives of textbooks are to provide students with basic communicative skills The four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) are focused on However, at the end of each term, students have to sit for a written examination which mainly tests students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary In order to

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motivate students in learning listening effectively, the teachers need to be flexible in applying new teaching methods in teaching, and pre-listening activities help them much in realizing their aims

2.6 Summary

This chapter has provided an overview of the current situation of teaching and learning English at TLAHS, given some information about the institution, the teachers and their methods of teaching, the students and their background knowledge The researcher has also presented general review of three textbooks Some problems that the teachers and students at the school face in the teaching and learning of listening are pointed out

Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHOD

3 2 Instruments of collecting data

The researcher uses survey questionnaires to ask for the needed information Meanwhile, class observation is conducted to support more information for the research The author also interviews teachers for further information In addition, the researcher takes notes what have been collected to find out factors that affect on pre-listening activities

To seek answers to the above research questions, first of all, a survey questionnaire with eight questions is used to identify the students’ opinions on pre-listening activities and to find out their expectation to achieve better listening competence Miles and Huberman (1994: 253) state three good reasons for this

method: “to see rapidly what you have in a large batch of data; to verify a hunch or

hypothesis; and to keep yourself analytically honest, protecting against bias” In

addition, using questionnaires in research may help participants approach the problem more easily Moreover, this research tool is also relatively more

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comfortable, time-saving and economical as compared with other survey methods like telephoning, mailing, video-taping However, this method has its own limitation that is the results collected may not reflect the matter proposed precisely

So as to reduce the invalidity and unreliability, the author will give clear instructions to the students, observe the class to make sure that the students answer each question themselves and the questionnaire for students is written in Vietnamese so that they will not misunderstand the questions The questionnaire consists of two main sections Section one aims at collecting information about the students’ background including their sex and the grade they are studying in Section two focuses on seeking information about the students’ attitude towards pre-listening activities, their difficulties in listening skills and their expectations of the teachers’ method and materials

Next, to make sure the data collected from the questionnaires about students’ perceptions of benefits of pre-listening activities, the author observes three listening periods in three classes 10A1, 11A6 and 12A7 The observation is carried out three times for different grades in these classes In each 45-minute lesson, the researcher observes and records all activities executed in the real classroom setting, especially pre-listening stage activities The checklist for class observation conducted by the author deals with teachers’ pre-listening activities and students’ attitudes towards these activities

Besides, the informal interview is carried out to have better insights into the research questions There are ten interview questions about the same matter as presented in survey questionnaires for six teachers

The instruments of collecting data are in the appendices

3 3 Data collection procedure

To collect the data for the study, eight questions for students and ten interview questions for teachers were designed to collect information They were

carried out after revising carefully and receiving comments from the researcher’s colleagues as well as the supervisor Classroom observation was carried out during the colleagues’ lectures in three lessons

To make it easy in analyzing data, 100 photocopied copies of the questionnaire were delivered to the students during the class time Before giving the questionnaires to the respondents, the researcher explained the purpose of the questionnaire, the requirements for the respondents and answered any questions asked by them Then, they were instructed to take as much time as they need to complete the questionnaire To make sure the collected questionnaires were all correctly completed, the researcher asked for permission to have another contact with the respondents after data collection so that she could clarify any unclear responses

Class observations in classes 10A1, 11A6 and 12A7 were conducted in three listening lessons The researcher then recorded all in the checklists

Ten interview questions were answered by 6 teachers of English

The data collected from the survey questionnaire, the interview and class observation were studied and analyzed to find out the students’ perceptions of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills From the findings, the researcher gave some recommendations to apply pre-listening activities in teaching this skill

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3.4 Summary

This chapter presents the participants, the data collection methods and the data collection procedure Having given the aims and objectives of the study, the researcher decides to use the survey questionnaire, classroom observation and informal interview with other teachers By employing these instruments, the researcher hopes to achieve a triangulation of the data, which helps to make data more reliable

Chapter 4: FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In this chapter, the author presents the analysis and discussion of the data collected from questionnaires for 100 students, from the observation of three classes and from the interview with six teachers Data from the questionnaire are classified into categories including students’ attitudes towards listening skills, their point of view about the activities used in pre-listening stage and their expectations of the teachers’ method Because the number of respondents is small, the data are manually analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentage) and interpretations The information is then displayed in forms of charts and tables Besides, the discussion

of the result collected by means of the interview with teachers and classroom

observation is presented

4.1 Discussion of the results collected by means of the survey questionnaire

The information gathered by means of eight questions for students can be analyzed one by one as follows:

4.1.1 Students’ attitude towards listening skill

very important important quite important not very important not important

Chart 1: Students’ perception on the importance of listening skill

(Please refer to question 1 in appendix 1)

5% 2%

39%

38%

16%

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As can be seen from chart 1, nearly all the participants (93% including very important, 38%-important and 16%- quite important) consider listening an important skill in learning English at school, whereas only 5% do not find listening skill important 2% choose a “not important” answer These numbers can result from the fact that the participants need to be able to listen to English even when they are at schools In other words, listening help them much in learning a language

39%-It motivates learners in communicating and in learning three other skills

0 5 10 15 20 25

Very difficult

difficult

Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12

Chart 2: Students’ attitude toward learning listening skill

(Please refer to question 2 in appendix 1)

According to the result in chart 2, most students (88%) find learning listening skill is not easy Actually, 28% of the students consider this skill very difficult Other 60% think it is difficult to learn listening Moreover, the number of students who complain learning listening very difficult is the highest in grade 12 (15%), the lowest in grade 10 (2%) In addition, seven in thirty 10th-form participants and only five in seventy 11th and 12th-form students think listening skill is not difficult Meanwhile the higher grade the learners learn listening, the more difficult they find

it

4.1.2 Students’ perceptions of pre- listening activities

4.1.2.1 Students’ opinion about the necessity of using pre- listening activities

To the question about the necessity of using pre-listening activities in teaching and learning listening skill, the result is presented in the following table:

Table 1: Students’ opinion about the necessity of using pre-listening activities

(Please refer to question 3 in appendix 1)

(1 Very necessary, 2 Necessary, 3 Quite necessary, 4 Not necessary, 5 Not necessary at all)

Scale rating

Question 3

a being provided new vocabulary and

structures relating to the content of the

text

62% 31% 6% 0% 1%

b discussing the questions relating to the

topic of the passage in pairs or in groups

15% 49% 28% 8% 0%

c watching short videos, listening pieces

of music or looking at the pictures about

the topic of the listening lesson

33% 41% 21% 4% 1%

d answering some pre-listening questions

relating the content of the passage: True/

False questions, Yes/ No questions

Open-ended questions

12% 46% 36% 5% 1%

e being introduced the topic of the

listening passage through games

13% 22% 46% 15% 4%

The results shown from table 1 indicate that the responses in this section spread from “very necessary” to “not necessary at all” for all items, except for item

of the students state it very necessary with these items but a rather high percentage

of the students find necessary and quite necessary of using pre-listening activities (77% for 3b, 62% for 3c, 82% for 3d), except for item 3e, only 22% of the students think it necessary to introduce the topic of the listening passage through games, and

it is not necessary to 15% of students Obviously, a considerable number of students find no necessities in introducing the topic of the listening passage through games because this activity can take much time

Item 3a illustrates the highest percentage of students about the need to provide new vocabulary and structures relating to the content of the text (99%), and only 1% of them assert it not necessary at all The items 3c and 3d also have a high

percentage of students who find it very necessary, necessary and quite necessary to

watch short videos, listen pieces of music or look at the pictures about the topic of the listening lesson and to answer some pre-listening questions relating the content

of the passage (95% and 94%) This is because the fact that in these activities, they

do not spend much time achieving background knowledge about what they are going to listen Moreover, students can enrich their knowledge, vocabulary and improve their communication ability through being provided new vocabulary and structures, discussing the questions or watching short videos, listening pieces of music and looking at the pictures

4.1.2.2 Students’ opinion about the teacher’s frequency of using pre-listening

activities

In question 4, the participants are asked to give opinion on the teacher’s frequency of using pre-listening activities The results of the responses are presented in the table below

Table 2: Teacher’s frequency of using pre-listening activities

(Please refer to question 4 in appendix 1)

(1 Always, 2 Often, 3 Sometimes, 4 Rarely, 5 Never)

Scale rating Pre-listening activities

Levels of frequency (%)

a providing new vocabulary and

structures relating to the content

b asking students to discuss the

questions relating to the topic of

the passage in pairs or in groups

c letting students watch short

videos, listen pieces of music or

look at the pictures about the

topic of the listening lesson

d getting students to answer

some pre-listening questions

relating the content of the

passage: True/ False questions,