(SKKN HAY NHẤT) some solutions to improve the teaching english listening skill to the 11th form students at quang xuong 1 high school

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS QX 1 school ELS QX 1 high school English Listening Skills LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Students’ attitudes towards the importance of listening skills Table 2 Teachers’ te

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1 3 Scope of the study

1 4 Methods of the study

1 5 Significance of the study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Introduction of language teaching and learning conditions in QX 1 school

2.1.1 Students

2.1.2 Teachers

2.2 Teaching and learning conditions

2.2.1 Teaching aids

2 2.2 Teaching hours

22.3.Classsize 2.3 The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook

2.3 1.Form11listeningobjectives 2 3.2 Listening lessons

2.4 Research questions .

2.4.1 Data collection instruments

2.4.2 Instrument one: Questionnaires

2.5 Questionnaires

2.5.1 Questionnaires for students

2.5.2 Questionnaires for teachers

2.5.3 Results of the intervie ws

2.6 Findings and suggested solutions

2.6.1 Findings

2.6.1.1 Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching ELS

2.6.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning ELS

2.6.1.3.Students’difficultiesinlearningELS2.6.1.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ELS to grade 11 students

2.6.2.1 Doing pre-listening activities effectively

2.6.2.2 Encouraging students to practice ELS outside the class2.6.2.3 Giving support and encouragement

2.6.2.4.Upgradin

gteachingaids2.6.2.5 Adapting and re-designing the tasks

2.6.2.6 Equipping students with listening strategies PART3:CONCLUSI

ONS

3.1 Summary of the study

3 2 Recommendations for further study

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers

Appendix 3: Interview questions for teachers

Appendix 4: Four teachers’ answering interview questions

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

QX 1 school ELS

QX 1 high school English Listening Skills

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Students’ attitudes towards the importance of listening skills

Table 2 Teachers’ techniques of encouraging students

Table 3 Factors affecting students in learning ELS

Table 4 Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS

Table 5 Teachers’ assessment of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 11” textbook

Table 6 Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons

Table 7 Difficulties encountered by the teachers

Table 8 The frequency of teachers’ using techniques in a listening lesson

Table 9 Teachers’ suggested solutions to improve listening teaching

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PART 1:

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

In Vietnam, in the recent years, the teaching and learning of English havebeen gaining significance firstly because it is an international language;

secondly it is also seen as a means to promote mutual understanding andcooperation between Viet Nam and other countries There have been anincreasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping

up with the latest modern technology in the world English has now been taughtnot only at all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior highschool and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary schools

At QX1 school, where the author studies, English is a compulsory subject

in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high schoolexamination It is taught with the purpose that students have some basicknowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to scienceand technology However, there still exist many difficulties facing Englishlanguage teachers at QX1 school, especially in teaching listening skills tostudents The teachers of English at QX1 school find it difficult to teachlistening lessons successfully

Listening has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by manysecond language learners It takes much time and energy to make progress inthis skill For listening teachers, it is a difficult task to get students involved inlistening lessons

At my school, teaching listening is really a problem In addition to the lack ofwell-equipped facilities, teaching listening methods are not satisfactory Anotherproblem is students’ low level of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar,pronunciation, skills and so forth It is the reason why students find it difficultand tough to listen to and they are not confident enough to do listening taskssuccessfully Moreover, learning habits do not help much to improve theirlistening in classroom

All of the above reasons have inspired the author to do the research

form Students at Quang Xuong 1 High School” with the hope to make a small

contribution to the quality of teaching and learning listening skill at QX 1school

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

Within the framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at:

- Clarifying the practices of teaching and learning ELS in 11th form in QX 1 school

- Finding out the difficulties teachers and students in 11th form in QX 1 school have had to undergo

- Suggesting some feasible solutions to the teaching of ELS for 11th form students

It may appear contradictory that in the first two concentrations, the studyattempts to investigate both teaching and learning of ELS whereas the maintopic raised in the title of the study is only about the teaching However,according to Brown (2007), it is not a contradiction “if we look at the teachingprocess as the facilitation of learning.”

1.3 Scope of the study

Learning a second language as a scholar once said “is a long and complexundertaking” Therefore, teachers of a second language certainly have manyproblems during their teaching In the scope of this research, however, theresearcher only has ambition to investigate the difficulties that teachers in QX 1school have been facing when teaching listening skill for 11th graders

Hopefully, they will have more smooth and successful listening lessons Also, it

is not expected that the study can bring solutions to the ELS teaching forstudents of all levels

1.4 Methods of the study

The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods

Besides, many resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers andsome sources on the Internet have been read by the researcher

In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will becollected through two survey questionnaires One survey questionnaire is for

180 students from four different groups in grade 11 in QX 1 school and the othersurvey is for 10 teachers The data, then, will be processed and analyzed to yieldconclusions for the study

Along with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained

by informal interviews with some teachers to collect further information aboutthe real situations of teaching and learning ESL in grade 11 at QX 1 school

1.5 Significance of the study

This research provides an insight into the problems that are often met byteachers teaching English for 11th form students in QX 1 school In addition, this

2

research also points out some feasible solutions which are beneficial for both teachers and students.

Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help

to the improvement of the teaching and learning ELS of Vietnamese students ingeneral and of QX 1 school students in particular The study also gives someguidelines for teachers to help their students overcome their listeningcomprehension problems The results of this study may also be useful for thosewho are interested in this field

PART 2: CONTENT OF STUDY 2.1 Introduction of English teaching and learning conditions at QX 1 school

2.1.1 Students

The level of English for grade 11 students is targeted at pre-intermediatelevel though a few actually reach the standard As their lower-secondary yearswere spent with the grammar translation method, most students are good atgrammar, but bad at listening and speaking the target language They can dowritten exercises on English grammar accurately but they can hardlycommunicate in English Using English to communicate is a big challenge formost of them who think that learning a foreign language means learninggrammatical rules or a list of irregular verbs

Students at QX1 school are seventeen years old and have experienced inEnglish, including listening skill for five years at lower -upper schools

Nevertheless, they basically are beginners of English They are likely to bemotivated or de-motivated easily This matter of fact should be taken intoaccount in using teaching methods and approaches in order to foster and developtheir listening skills efficiently

Methodologically, the teachers at QX 1 school are familiar with traditionallanguage teaching English They lack teaching experience, particularly teachinglistening skills

2.2 Teaching and learning conditions

2.2.1 Teaching aids

Facilities in QX 1 school are brought into question The classes are notwell-equipped with tapes, cassette players, speakers, TVs, CDs or overheadprojectors except for a board, chalks, pictures or other visual aids designed byteachers themselves There are two modern classrooms for language teachingand learning equipped with teaching aids such as overhead projectors and theInternet Students only have a chance to use these devices when the teacherspresent model lessons on special occasions such as Women’s Day andVietnamese Teacher's Day Therefore, students do not have many chances to useboth visual and audio aids to practice listening skills often

2.2.2 Teaching hours

Students in high schools, in general, have three periods of English a week;

each period is supposed to deal with one lesson in a unit lasting 45 minutes In

QX 1 school all the classes have 3 periods of English per week

2.2.3 Class size

The average number of students in a class in QX 1 school ranges from 40

to 50 Students are arranged to sit at desks in four rows, each of which includes

5 - 6 desks of two students

2.3 The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook.

The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook composed by Hoang Van Van (2012)has been in use since 2012 as the official textbook to obtain general English atgrade 11 The textbook consists of 10 units in terms of 10 topics There are sixparts in each unit represented through 6 lessons: Getting started, Language,Skills, Communication and Culture, Looking back and Project respectively Thebook adopts two new approaches: learner–centered and communicative aiming

at students’ better use of English as a tool of communication at basic level interms of listening, speaking, reading and writing

2.3.1 Form 11 listening objectives

The aim of the course is to equip students with English listening skills forbasic communication For 11th form students, the objectives are to developlistening comprehensive skills such as intensive listening, extensive listening,listening for specific information, listening for gist, etc

2.3.2 Research questions

In order to find out the problems that the teachers and students of form 11

in teaching and learning ELS, it is necessary to answer the following questions:

1 What is the present situation of teaching and learning ELS at QX 1 school?

2 What difficulties do the teachers and the 11th form students encounter in teaching and learning ELS?

3 What are the suggested ways to effectively improve the current situation of teachingand learning ELS at this school?

2.4 Data collection instruments

In order to obtain in-depth, rich data and information for investigating thesituation and the problems that teachers and students encountered in teachingand learning ELS, the study used two methods of data collection: questionnairesand informal interviews

2.4.1 Instrument one: Questionnaires

The questionnaire for the students was written in Vietnamese so that theywould not misunderstand the questions The questionnaire was designed toinvestigate the students’ attitudes toward the learning of listening, thedifficulties they encounter in learning ELS, and the students’ expectations forbetter teaching and learning ELS

The questionnaire delivered to the teachers was strictly conducted inEnglish It aimed to find out the teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching oflistening, the difficulties they encounter in teaching ELS, the teachers’

knowledge of teaching listening and the teachers’ expectations for betterteaching and learning ELS

Questionnaires for students and teachers both had closed questions Aftercollecting all the questionnaire responses from both teachers and students, theresearcher calculated the numbers of responses and the percentages respectively

of the questions in each questionnaire

2.4.2 Instrument two: Interviews

In order to understand better about the reality of listening teaching andlearning and difficulties that teachers had to face with listening lessons, theresearcher had unconventional talks with 4 teachers The questions in theinterview were basically based on those in the questionnaire in order to find outthe real reasons for their answers as well as to understand more about the reality

of teaching and learning ELS Hopefully, the results from the interviews wouldcontribute much to finding out the solutions to the improvement

2.5 Questionnaires 2.5.1 Questionnaires for students

Question 1: How are English listening skills important to you?

Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards the importance of ELS

As shown in table 1, nearly half of the students (48%) thought that listeningwas important and even 30% revealed that it was a very important skill 12% ofparticipants stated that it was of little importance and the smallest percentage(10%) underestimated the significance of this skill In general, most of thestudents highly appreciated the importance of English listening skills, especiallycommunication ability However, it seems to be contradictory to the low level of

their participation in classroom activities in fact This was also a challenge forboth students and teachers to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learningELS at QX 1 school.

Question 2: How does your teacher encourage you to listen?

Table 2: Teachers’ techniques of encouraging students

Table 2 shows students’ evaluation on teacher’s ways of encouragingstudents to learn listening skills According to 40% of participants’ responses,their teachers often encouraged them to listen in the class by offering highmarks Some students stated that their teachers used good comments (36%) orprizes (7%) to motivate students’ involvement In contrast, 17% thought theirteachers did nothing to encourage them It was understandable that mostteachers gave their students high marks to stimulate them In addition, teachersshould give students good comments to build up the confidence in their ownlistening ability It is advisable that all teachers should use some ways ofencouraging students more often

Question 3: What makes it difficult for you to learn ELS?

E Lack of background knowledge in listening topics 110

Table 3: Factors affecting students in learning ELS

According to the statistics from table 3, students’ low level of Englishproficiency was the most important factor of reluctance in listening accounting to

revealed that bad quality of cassette tapes and CDs caused them difficult.

Besides, some other factors such as speakers’ fast speed, bad quality of cassette

tapes, limited time, teachers’ inappropriate teaching methodology, large class

sizes, boring topics and activities also accounted for factors affecting students’

learning ELS These four biggest factors should be noticed by all the teachers of

English It was high time teachers found solutions to help students overcome

their problems and to improve the quality of the teaching aids Only by doing

these problems, teachers could involve more students in their listening lessons

Question 4: In your opinion, what should teachers do to better teaching ELS?

B help students improve their knowledge of the

100language and of the world

C guide students to listen outside the classroom 45

E exchange experiences and methodology among the

54English staffs

F encourage students to listen by giving evaluation

77(comments, feedback and marks)

Table 4: Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS

Table 4 shows the suggestions that students expected their teachers to do

to increase the involvement 61% of participants highly appreciated teachers’

instructions Next, 56% of students expected that teachers should help them

improve their knowledge of the language and of the world 47% desired that

teachers would offer them more English songs and games in listening lessons

Then teachers are always expected to encourage students to listen by giving

evaluation (comments, feedback and marks) according to 77 students (43%)

And 30% thought that teachers should exchange experiences and methodology

among the staffs Besides, the same number of students (25%) hoped that their

teachers re-designed the listening tasks and guided them how to listen

effectively outside the classroom Although students really wanted to learn

listening skills and they knew its importance, there were only 15-minute

listening tests at the school

2.5.2 Questionnaires for teachers

The questionnaire was conducted among 10 teachers in QX 1 school All

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share the same views towards listening teaching Their ideas are shown clearly

in the answers to questions below

Question 1: What do you think about listening tasks in the textbook?

Table 5: Teachers’ assessment of listening tasks in the textbook

Regarding the textbook “Tieng Anh 11”, nearly half of the teachers (43%)confirmed that the tasks in the textbook were difficult to students The Englishtextbook 11 consisted of 10 topics (see Appendix 5) relating to Gloabalwarming, further education, our world heritage sites, etc and the tasks were true

or false statements, gap-filling, summarizing main ideas, comprehensionquestions, multiple-choice questions, filling in the table, listening andnumbering pictures The same number (four teachers) thought that the taskswere suitable for students And only two teachers found the tasks boring interms of authentic materials Surprisingly, none of the teachers stated thatlistening tasks were interesting The researcher found that listening skills werenot only difficult to the students but also to the teachers at the school

Question 2: What is your students’ attitude towards listening lessons?

Table 6: Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons

Table 6 shows that 43% of the teachers thought that their students were notinterested during listening lessons 29% stated that students were sometimesinterested to learn this skill and the same number (29%) complained that theirstudents were totally ignorant to listen to English The result showed thatstudents had no interests in studying ELS although 78% of the students wereaware of the importance of learning this skill This result also matched withstudents’ opinions of their classmates’ participation during listening lessons Inthis reality, one could conclude right now that listening teaching at the schoolneeds improvement in order to involve more students in this difficult skill