Tg Thj Mai Hucmg vd Dig Tgp chi KHOA HQC & CONG NGTTE 175(15) 109 114 E F F E C T S O F P O R T F O R L I O S O N I M P R O V I N G L I S T E N I N G C O M P R E H E N S I O N S K I L L F O R S T U D[.]
Trang 1E F F E C T S O F P O R T F O R L I O S O N I M P R O V I N G L I S T E N I N G C O M P R E H E N S I O N
S K I L L F O R S T U D E N T S : A C A S E S T U D Y A T T H A I N G U Y E N U N I V E R S I T Y
O F E C O N O M I C S A N D B U S I N E S S A D M I N I S T R A T I O N
Ta Thi Mai Huong', Nguyen Van Thinh, Nguyen Thi Hanh Hong
TNU Univeisity of Economics and Business Administration
SUMMARY
In the current trend of globalization, the demand on language skills for the workforce is becoming more lugent To help students well prepare for their iiiture career as well as enhance then-communication skill, teachers of English at Thai NgUyen University of Economics and Business Administration have kept looking for new teaching techniques and been contmuously applying modem teachmg methods to maximize the efficiency of the teaching process In this study, the
comprehension ability then based on the findmgs to make suggestions for the effective use of listenmg portfolios to help develop students' listening ability and partly contribute to improving their language proficiency
Keywords portfolios, listening comprehension, listening ability, communication skill, Thai
Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration
TNTRGDUCTION
In the current trend of globalization, the
demand on language skills for the workforce
is becoming more urgent T o better prepare
students for their future career, in addition to
providing quality training of their majors
Thai Nguyen University of Economics and
Business Administration also put the focus on
the teaching of English Since 2 0 1 1 , students
have been required to have a certificate
proving that their language proficiency
satisfies the graduation requirements to be
able to get the university degree The
advisable language test is Test of English for
International Communication (TOEIC);
however, the outcomes are still limited
To help students well prepare for those
demands as well as enhance their
communication skill, teachers of English at
the University of Economics and Business
Administration, Thai Nguyen University
(TUEBA) have kept looking for new teaching
techniques and been continuously applying
modern teaching methods to maximize the
efficiency of the teaching process However,
Tel: 0983826327; Email khanhha27IO@gmail com
due to some subjective factors such as students' limited background knowledge,
t h e u lack of autonomy in studying and objective factors such as the inadequate number of class hours, the application of learning activities has not yet shown significant and apparent efficacy
To better control students' self-studying- time and improve students' autonomy, which consequently helps develop listening ability, listening portfolios have been employed in some language classrooms Previous researches into the application of portfolios in some other educational institutions have shown that portfolios not only facilitate teachers in evaluating learners' self-studying process but also have positive influence on learners' independence in studying
Tn this study, the authors looked at the effects
of using portfolios in helping enhance students' listening comprehension ability then based on the findings to make suggestions for the effective employment of such method for the improvement of students' listening ability, which significantly contributes to their success in taking the TOEIC and boosting their general language proficiency,
Trang 2METHODOLOGY
Research questions
The study aimed at investigating the influence
of portfolios on the listening skill and based
on the findings to make some suggestions on
using portfolios to enhance the listening skill
With such objectives, the study aims at
answering the following research questions:
1, To what extent do portfolios influence
students' listening skill?
2, How can teachers improve the content of
portfolios to help develop student's listening
skill?
Sample choosing
Participants; Twenty students, aged 19 -20 at
Thai Nguyen University of Economics and
Business Administration participated in the
study Participants were classmates at an
evening classroom who were received regular
listening tasks as homework twice every week
Instrumentation- Pre and post questionnaires,
a designed portfolio with listening files for
ten weeks and a pre-test and post-test were
used to collect data for analysis
Scope ofthe study
The study is concerned with using portfolios in
teaching the listening skill to the second-year
non English major students of TUEBA The
listening tasks used for thejDortfolios focus on
getting students to practise to well prepare for
the TOEIC, the advisable language test for
learners' graduation outcome,
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Listening comprehension
Regarding listening comprehension, authors
such as Buck (2001)[ I ], Underwood
(1989)[2], O'Malley and Chamot (1989)[3]
all agree that it is "an active and conscious
process" in which listeners constructing
meaning by applying knowledge to the
incoming sounds According to Scott Shelton
(2008)[4], the process of effective listening is
demanding and involved as learners need to
deal with different accents or pronunciation
unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise to be able to succeed in communication process, "
Portfolios
A portfolio is often defined as "a purposefii] collection of students' work" [5] that not only
"exhibits students' effort, progress, and achievement" [5], but also takes the role of
"an assessment tool that allows creator to pul his or her best foot forward and document the knowledge and skills mastered through the learning process" [6]
Portfolios exist in a number of types, each serves its own purpose and has differenl required elements According to Wolf and Dietz (1998) [7], there are three purposes of portfolios: (i) learning portfolio, (ii) assessment portfolio and (iii) employment portfolio These authors stated that portfolios normally contain selected evidence of performance and products in various contexts accompanied by a teachCT's comments and reflections
Previous studies
Portfolios have been in application for some decades as an altemative assessment tool In language teaching and leaming, a large number
of researches were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of portfolio instructions; however, the main focus is on writing and reading skills In Vietnam, as recognized by the researchers of the current research paper, there were three researchers including Giang (2010) [8], Hoa (2011) [9] and Trang (2013) [10] who showed their interest in investigating the influence of portfolio mtervention on the teaching and learning of listening skill for thek non-English major students Findings from their studies showed that most participants had positive attitudes towards the application of portfolio and some progress has been made However, some tasks and activities were reported to be over-challenging, therefore need
to be revised to meet students' needs and belter correspond to their language proficiency
no
Trang 3RESULTS
D a t a collected from the pre- s u r v e y
questionnaire
Students' learning experience
• AU of the students have learnt English for at
least 5 years However, many reported that
grammar was the main focus o f t h e lessons at
their secondary schools As a result, all
students taking part in the survey found it
difficult to Ieam listening and felt unwilling
to do the assigned tasks
IJ^fcr-10°/j^M''
I5',^m':'.'
•Not very often
•t'N nOSeii
Sjfeo% aveiy often
QNever
Figure 1 Students 'frequency of practicing the
listening skill after class (Source: Questionnaire)
As can be seen from figure 1, a very small
number of students (10%) reported that they
usually practiced listening after class while
the majority rarely did it at home (60%) 1 5 %
of the students never practiced doing things
related to listening
Student's knowledge of listening portfolios
When being asked about listening portfolios,
100% of students said they had no ideas about
it and had never done it before
D a t a collected from t h e post- s u r v e y
q u e s t i o n n a i r e
Students' attitude towards the port/olios
According to the summary of students'
response to the question on their awareness of
the role of listening portfolios, shown in table
I, a total of 9 5 % were conscious of the
importance of portfolios to the improvement of
their listening skill and autonomy Only 5 % of
the students thought that it was not very
important and no response refused the role of
portfolios in promoting listening ability
According to table 2, most students, which
account for 6 0 % and 8 0 % find the portfolio
contents interesting and useful, respectively
More specifically, students stated that their
background knowledge in terms of
vocabulary and grammar structures was
enriched However, roughly two third (65%)
of students thought that the contents of the listening were difficult because of new vocabulary, native accents, speed of speaking, proper names, etc
Table I, Students' awareness ofthe importance of
listening portfolios
Attitude
Very important Important Not very important Not important
Total {%)
Response with agreement (%)
80
5
100
(Source: Survey questionnaire)
Table 2 Students' general evaluation ofthe
contents of listening audios
Attitude/ Interesting Useful Difficult Opinion
Agree (%) 60 80 65
Total {%) 100 JOO 100
(Source Survey questionnaire)
The results of the survery also showed students' perspectives on the advantages of listening portfolios after this method was applied to t h e u classrooms Generally, more than half of the students (75%i) found portfolios beneficial in helping them build a habit of practising listening, improve self-studying of listening after class (75%), help evaluate language outcomes (60%) and most students confirmed that portfolios were good for improving team-work skill (85%.),
Students' perspectives on the knowledge gained most
Also fi-om the questions on the knowledge gained most after weeks of compiling portfolios, 8 0 % of the respondents believed that they knew more phrases and expressions used in everyday activities, 7 5 % students approved that doing activities on portfolios help them enrich their vocabulary and knowledge However, only 55%) of students are confident about their improvement of using listening strategies thanks to the application of listening portfolios
Trang 4Students' preferences for working
arrangement on the portfolios
According to the response of the survey
questionnaires, 80% of the informants
preferred to work in groups Groupwork gave
students an opportunity to share their
knowledge and experiences with others, and
learn more valuable things from their partners
A bigger proportion of students (90%) found
working in pairs effective and only 20%) said
they liked working on their own
Students' preferences for task requirements
on the portfolios
In the study, the researcher designed different
types of listening task in order to figure out
student's preferences for types of task in the
portfolios The response indicated that most
students (60%)) considered multiple choices
their favourite type Sentence completion and
ordering were less popular with 2 0 % and 3 0 %
respectively Writing the tape scripts appeared
the most difficult and lime-consuming as only
10% response showed positive attitude
towards this type of task Also, the scores
students got for muhiple choices and
information ordering were higher than for
writing tape scripts In fact, most students left
those questions unanswered or with some
separate words only
Students' difficulties in the listening
portfolio process
According to students' reports, 8 0 % agreed
that one of the biggest difficulties they
encountered was the speakers' fast speed in
speaking The accents of native speakers in
authentic listening audio were also one
problematic factor as 6 0 % of the participants
agreed that they were confused by unfamiliar
accent Besides, proper names in the
recordings were reported to cause students'
difficulty in completing the listening tasks by
6 5 % of the participants Time-consuming
(50%) was also mentioned as one of the
factors affecting students' portfolio
completion Surprisingly, though the majority
of students liked working in group, it was
reported that conflicts among group members,
which sometimes led to disagreement, was an
112
affecting factor that decreased interests and motivation for portfolios, 15%) of the informants blamed their members for being uncooperative and 2 5 % admitted that their groups lacked leadership Only 10% of students thought that the quality of audio fil^ was troublesome for them
Data collected from students' pre and
post-test scores
Table 3 Summary ofthe score results students
received before and after the intervention of
Scores/ Test
Pretest Posttest
portfolios
Below average score {%)
70
45
Above average score (Vu)
30
55
Total
{%)
100
100
(Source: Pre-test and post-test results)
From the summary of the figures in the table, obviously, the application of portfolios has made a significant impact on the improvement of students' listening skill More specifically, before the application of portfolios, two third of the students' got below average score for listening Thanks to the frequent practice of different listening activities in the portfolios, the post-test i esulls showed some progress made by students when only 45%) of students got below average score The number of students got above average score increased by 2 5 % to 55% after portfolio's instructions Though the change might not be satisfying enough, this change confirmed that the use of portfolios had some positive influence on the improvement of students' listening ability,
P E D A G O G I C A L I M P L I C A T I O N S Basing on the findings from different date collected, the researchers made the followmg suggestions with a view to reducing the drawbacks as well as making the best benefit from the application of portfolios for students
Frequent tasks to form students' habit of learning listening after class
The responses from the questionnaire showed that most students were not really autonomous and active in learning, which was
Trang 5conducive to the slow progress Thus, it is
advisable that teachers assign frequent and
suitable task for students to do at home on a
regular basis and cheek work done carefully
to help students form good habit of listening
Clear instructions of portfolio implementation
to help students overcome the obstacles
"Portfolios" was a newly introduced concept
for students; therefore, to Increase the
possibility of success with this type of
intervention, teachers should provide students
with the clear instructions before assigning
listening tasks then repeat the instructions
regularly during the teaching process;
building up disciplines for group portfolio and
making right selection of group leaders are
also what need to be done In addition, a brief
introduction of portfolio and its potential
benefits should also be clarified in order for
students to be better motivated in following
their teachers' instructions
Careful selection of listening materials and
designed tasks
Among the challenges the students dealt with
during listening, the speaking speed, the
accents of native speakers in authentic
listening audios, time limit as well as the
quality of audio files were the most
problematic Therefore, it is suggested that for
low level of students, teachers should be
really careful in choosing the audio files
which are clear enough and suitable with
students' English proficiency in order not to
make them demotivated Besides, getting
students to watch some interesting videos
with subtitles then get them to listen again
without subtitles can be another good ways to
encourage students to practise listening more
outside their classrooms
Regarding the listening tasks, as writing
tapescripts caused the biggest problems to
students and sometimes made them
demotivated, it is advisable that teachers use
it less regularly and make some adjustment
such as changing it into dictation notes to
prevent the negative feelings that may arise in
students' self-studying process
Advice on tactics for listening and additional help
As the appearance of proper names In the sound recordings was reported to be challenging, which often took students much time to figure out because of strange pronunciation, it is advised that these proper nouns be introduced lo students before they
do the listening Also, it is necessary for teachers to provide some useful techniques for recognizing proper nouns so that students know what to expect when hearing a totally new word Similarly, other tactics applicable
to different types of listening task should be introduced to students so that they know what
is best to do with each type of task Additionally, it is suggested that teachers give full tape scripts and get students to carefully analyze the content as well as to listen a number of times to master the recordings In this way, students know exacdy what they can and can't hear and whether they correctly understand what is communicated in the recordings, which is of great important for their future success in direct communication, CONCLUSION
From the data analysis, it is obvious that the implementation of portfolios helps students improve their comprehension and feel more confident with their listening ability, provides
a good set of daily expressions and vocabulary which are useful for their real communication Also, thanks to the frequent exposure to various listening activities, students are better
at dealing with different types of test question Besides, as part of portfolio intervention's benefit, students develop both their team-working skill and independence in completing different task, which are necessary for them in their future career
Based on the findings, suggestions were also made to improve the use of portfolios for listening skill's enhancement Assigning task
on a regular basis, together with a careful selection of recording and listening activities which are suitable for students' certain level, looking for interesting tapes and videos,
Trang 6giving clear instructions and getting students
familiar with portfolio instructions are
essential things that teachers should consider
when applying portfolio approach Additional
help with listening techniques and tactics are
also what teachers should provide to facilitate
their students' self-studying process, prevent
negative feelings, better motivate students in
completing portfolios and gain most benefits
R E F E R E N C E S
1 Buck, G (2001), Assessing Listening,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2 Underwood, M (1989), Teaching Listening,
New York: Longman
3 O'Malley, J M, & Chamot, A U (1989),
language acquisition Applied Linguistics,
Vol 10(4), p.420
4 Shelton, S (2008), "Teaching Listenmg to
Advanced Leamers: Problems and Solutions",
reUieved from http ://wvinA' develop in gteachers, com/articles_tchtraining/l ist 1 _scon,hlm
5 Paulson, P.R & Meyer, C A (1991), "What
Makes a Portfolio a Portfolio?" Educalioiud Leadership, 48(5), pp.60-63
6 Rieman, P & Okrasinki, J (2007), Creating your leaching portfolio: Presenting your professional best, Mc Graw-Hill Education
7 Wolf, K & Dietz, M (1998), "Teaching
portfolios: Purposes and Possibilities", Teacher Education Quarterly, 25(1), pp,9-22
8 Le Huong Giang (2010), Using portfolios in teaching listening skill to the first year non-English major students of Accounting Department, Academy
of Finance, MA Thesis of TESOL, ULIS
9 Do Van Hoa (2010), Improving listening skilh for third-year students al hong Due University through Portfolio, MA Thesis of TESOL ULIS
10 Nguyen Thuy Trang (2013), A study on the use
of portfolios in improving listening skill of second-year students al Hanoi University of Industry, MA
Thesis of TESOL ULIS
T O M T A T
T A C D O N G C i l A V I E C SU" D U N G H O S O B A I T A P L E N SlT P H A T T R I E N
K i N A N G N G H E H l £ u C U A S I N H V I E N : N G H I E N C U t J TRUCfNG H O P
T A I TRUCfNG D A I H O C K I N H T E V A Q U A N T R I K I N H D O A N H
- D A I H O C T H A I N G U Y E N
Ta Thi Mai Hirong , Nguyen Van Thjnh, Nguyen Thj Hanh Hong
Truang Dgi hoc Kinh le vd Quan tri kinh doanh - DH Thdi Nguyen
Trong xu the loan cau hoa ngay nay, nhQng doi hoi ve nang luc ngoai ngtt doi voi ngu6n nhan lire
rieng va gop phan phat trien nang luc giao tiep bang ngoai ngu noi chung, giang vien ngogi ngii'
truong Dai hoc Kinh te va Quan tri kinh doanh - Dai hpc Thai Nguyen luon tim toi va ap dung
phuong phap day hpc hien dai vcti muc lieu toi da hoa hieu qua hoat dong day hpc Trong nghien ciru nay, nhom lac gia tim hieu tac dpng ciia viec sijr dung ho so bai tap trong viec phat trien kt
nham phat trien kT nang nghe hieu, gop phan cai thien trinh dp ngogi ngu cho sinh vien nha truimg
Tir khoa: ho sa bdi tap, nghe hieu, khd ndng nghe, kl nang giao tiip, tru&ng Dai hgc Kinh le vd Qudn In hnh doanh - Dgi hgc Thdi Nguyin
Ngdy nhdn bdi: 16/11/2017; Ngdy phdn biin: 01/12/2017; Ngdy duyit ddng: 29/12/2017
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