How to improve english listening skill by using transcription technique

MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------ GRADUATION THESIS HOW TO IMPROVE ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL BY USING TRA

MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE

INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

- -

GRADUATION THESIS

HOW TO IMPROVE ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL BY USING

TRANSCRIPTION TECHNIQUE: A CASE STUDY

STUDENT’S NAME: TRAN QUYNH NHU

Student Name: ………

Supervisor’s Name: ………

“I certify that this work is entirely my own and has not been accepted as part of a submission

to another purpose else where.”

Signed: ………

Word length: words

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the graduation thesis is entirely my own work prepared under the

guidance and supervision of my supervisor and has not been submitted for assessment any elsewhere

I also certify that my thesis does not involve plagiarism or collusion Any sources or materials

of other people used or quoted in my thesis are fully acknowledged in accordance with

completed references

May, 2017 Tran Quynh Nhu

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 2

SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS 3

OPPONENT’S COMMENTS 4

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 5

1.1 Statement of the problem: 5

1.2 Research goals 6

1.3 Research questions 6

1.4 Significance of the research 6

1.5 Scope of the study 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Definitions of key terms 8

2.1.1 “Transcribe” and “ transcription” 8

2.1.2 Definitions of listening 8

2.1.3 Difference between listening and hearing 8

2.2 The importance of listening 9

2.3 Listening process 10

2.4 Classifications of listening 11

2.5 Some problems relating to listening in English 12

2.6 Teaching listening techniques 13

2.7 Transcription technique 14

2.7.1 Stages of transcription 14

2.8 Related review 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Introduction 17

3.2 Participants 17

3.2.1 The researcher 17

3.2.2 Participants for questionnaire 17

3.2.3 Participants for the interview and test 17

3.3 Data collection instruments 17

3.3.1 The questionnaire 17

3.3.2 The interview 18

3.3.3 The listening test 19

3.5 Data analysis procedure 19

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

4.1 Listening experience, practice and opinions 21

4.1.1 Years of English learning 21

4.1.2 Students’ average score on listening 22

4.1.3 Students’ opinions toward English listening skill 22

4.1.3 Students’ problems with listening skill 24

4.1.4 Students’ frequency of English listening practice 25

4.2 Students’ listening strategies 25

4.2.1 Students’ methods to overcome their problems in listening 25

4.2.2 The most effective methods used to improve English listening skill 26

4.2.3 Students’ desire to try a new technique 28

4.3 The participants’ experience with transcription technique 28

4.3.1 Students’ self- evaluation about their listening skill before using the technique 28

4.3.2 Prior experience with transcription technique 30

4.4 The interview and the test 37

4.4.1 Transcription technique in Listening tests 37

4.4.2 Transcription technique in Listening class 37

4.4.3 Results from the test 38

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 39

5.1 Conclusions 39

5.2 Recommendations 40

5.2.1 Recommendation for learners 40

5.2.2 Recommendations for teachers 41

5.2.3 Recommendations for further study 42

REFRENCES 43

APPPENDICES 45

THE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 52

APPENDIX 2 58

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Years of English learning

Table 4.2: Students‟ opinions toward English listening skill

Table 4.3: The most effective methods used to improve English listening skill

Table 4.4 : Students‟ attitude toward the technique‟s effect after applying it

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1: Students‟ average score on Listening

Figure 4.2: Students‟ attitude toward English listening skill

Figure 4.3: Students‟ problems with listening skill

Figure 4.4: Students‟ frequency of English listening practice

Figure 4.5: Students‟ method to overcome their problems in listening

Figure 4.6: Student‟s desire to try a new technique

Figure 4.7: Students‟ self- valuation about their listening skill before using the technique Figure 4.8: How the students knew about the technique

Figure 4.9: The reasons why transcription technique was chosen

Figure 5.0: Students‟ self- valuation about their listening skill after using the technique

Figure 5.1: How long they have applied the technique

Figure 5.2: Students‟ frequency of applying the technique in practicing

Figure 5.3: Students‟ evaluation toward transcription procedure

Figure 5.4: Students‟ attitude toward the technique‟s effect after applying it

Figure 5.5: Students‟ satisfaction with the results transcription technique brought about Figure 5.6: How likely the participants would recommend the method to another friends

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages

IUH: Industrial University of Industry

L2: Second language

ABSTRACT

English has been considered an international language for a long time It brings people from every corner of the world in contact This results in the dramatic increase in the need of communication in Vietnam recent years although learning English is really challenge, especially English listening skill Therefore, finding a way to master the skill is still a matter that needs addressing Among of methods applied, transcription technique gets attention by a large number of students these days However, the number of students can make sure the outcome the technique brings about are still a question For that reason, the researcher had a long desire to carry out a survey on the difficulties students often face and how transcription can help The survey was conducted with the help from 150 English majored students, who are at their first year and second year at university in random of FFL at IUH

The intention of the study is to mainly examine the effects of transcription technique

in English listening practice The thesis focuses on the reasons why English majored students

of FFL at IUH knew about the technique and how they applied it Beside that, the results of the study suggest that students should use more reliable resources and spend more time practicing themselves Furthermore, English teachers can use it as a reference for teaching listening Limitation and suggestions are also presented to help those who ever applied the transcription technique and faced failure to turn it into progress

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis would have never become reality without the valuable help from many individuals My heartfelt to the people who directly and indirectly gave me invaluable guidance and priceless ideas, generously told me what they really thought, suggested me what

I should improve, and offered me continuous encouragement that strengthened my self- esteem I am especially indebted to those who sent me steady stream of love and believed me

no matter how isolated I became over the last three months

Firstly, I am highly indebted to Ms Le Thi Thien Phuoc, my supervisor, for giving me useful guidance and advice that helped me finish my thesis successfully She was always there for me when I needed help the most and listened to me, answered my endless questions and patiently kept me on schedule My life would not be the same since the day I had the chance to be supervised by her

Secondly, I would like to express my special thanks to Ms Nguyen Thuy Truc Linh,

Ms Phan Thi Bich Ngoc, Ms Le Thi Thien Phuoc and Mr Tran Duy Tuan from FFL for allowing me to enter their classes and give their students questionnaires

Besides, I sincerely thank for the English majored students from DHAV11 and DHAV12 who sacrificed their time for me when I needed them to complete my questionnaire and join the interview after that as well

Not forgetting, the great support from my parents made me brave during unbearably tough times of internship and work balance They always made sure I could head home whenever I felt tired and depressed I am so blessed to be their daughter and owe them an apology for not having tried as much as possible

Lastly, I am really grateful to everyone who has ever taken time to read and shed light

on my internship report and helped bring it into the world

SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS

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SUPERVISOR: ………

SIGNED: ………

OPPONENT’S COMMENTS

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Final grade awarded: ………

SUPERVISOR: ………

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem:

Living in an ever- changing world, the needs of communication among those who are from many different countries has risen sharply in spite of language barriers English is such a bridge language for that reason Although considered as the compulsory tongue or second language in many countries, many English learners still cannot communicate with the others

or even understand a part of film or a piece of news According to Mendelsohn (as cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011), Listening plays an important role in communication as it is said that, of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%; speaking, 25-30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9%.As can be seen, if measure of communication is time, people tend to spend time listening than other activities Therefore, listening play an important role in communication and connecting people

Finding a right way to improve English listening skill is nothing new, but it is not an easy thing to do This is because students are introduced a huge number of ways of learning English, and the dilemma is that they have never experienced these ways before An approach

of learning may be effective to someone here, but ineffective to someone there Therefore, if they choose a right method to apply which is the most suitable to them, it may help to save them some of time and energy from struggling with improving the skill, and make good progress of self-studying As the writer believes, Vietnamese students also have difficulties when they enter a listening class, and English- majored students at IUH are not an exception Some of them come from the countryside where hardly facilitates their English studying, others do not get accustomed to practicing listening skill frequently, and other bunches of reasons hinder them from English proficiency There will be tough problems for them if they still do not know to study themselves when listening skill is a very tool to succeed interpretation and many other subjects of the third and fourth year at university

As a senior student of FFL at IUH, the writer shared the same experience when studying the language, and saw good changes of studying as well Therefore, the writer decided to carry out the research with the hope of helping those who are freshmen and sophomore of English majored improve the macro- English skill in particular, and English learners in general Also, English teachers can use the results of this thesis as a reference in teaching listening and help to co – operate with their students more effectively

1.2 Research goals

The thesis is conducted to analyze the effect of transcription technique in improving English listening skill Suitable steps are also recommended for students who applied the technique and failed to get a success and who desire to change their current methods of practice listening Beside that, by using the results from the questionnaires and the interview, difficulties English learners often have when it comes to listening are presented for discussion

1.3 Research questions

Based on research questions, some problems can be solved completely, and readers can avoid some mistakes and obstacles as well Hence, the research is carried out to answer the following questions:

1 What are the problems of English majored students in listening skill?

2 Which causes these problems?

3 How can the transcription technique help to limit the problems?

4 How can the technique be applied?

1.4 Significance of the research

With the goals above, the research will first help English teachers recognize their students‟ problems in struggling with English listening skill Furthermore, the research suggests a new technique in English listening practice Thanks to that, they can change their current ways they teach their students and experience a new technique to help them overcome the obstacles Through the results of the research, teachers partly understand the expectation from their students in practicing and improving such a skill

Also, English majored students and non- English majored students, especially those who are having trouble finding a suitable way to enhance listening skill, can benefit from the research They can easily uncover their problems in listening class or self-study listening Then, they can learn to study effectively without any hindrance That is because the research helps to list shortcomings most of them have to face and encourage them to start over by themselves Additionally, anyone who intends to change the way of practice listening skill can experience the technique introduced Those who are still confused about the transcription technique will have more firm evidence for their choice and save time as well

In short, both English teachers and English learners can further their language learning journey thanks the research The research, in some points, helps to better the study habits and address the limitations as well

1.5 Scope of the study

The very first aim of the study is to examine the effect of transcription method in listening skill improvement Therefore, the result is unpredictable Despite of mentioning to problems every learner may have, the study does not look at them intensively They are pointed out to show readers problems making listening skills so hard and students will have opportunities to overcome by themselves after that The writer, because of the time limit, also cannot carry out the study on the large number of students As a result, only 150 English majored students from FFL in random got involved Furthermore, now that the data was mainly collected by giving questionnaire to students and interview some of them, the results from the study may not be the same for all English learners with the same level Hopefully, both teachers and learners somehow will make good use of this study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of key terms

2.1.1 “Transcribe” and “ transcription”

In Cambridge Dictionary, the word transcribe is defined as “to record something

written, spoken, or played by writing it down”

Meanwhile, transcription refers to a written records or music / the process of transcribing something Transcription (from Latin transcribere, „to transcribe‟) means “any

graphic representation of selective aspects of speaking and of one or more persons‟ behaviour and setting concomitant with speaking” (O'Connell & Kowal, 1995, p 646)

2.1.2 Definitions of listening

Listening has been defined in various ways by famous linguists According to Shelagh ( 1986), “listening is conscious attention to what is said” In the same sense, Howatt and Dakin (1974) emphasized that listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning

Underwood (1989) simplified the definition of listening to "the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear" (p 1)

Listening, additionally, is defined 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” (Purdy, 1997, p 8)

Besides, Rost ( 2002) conceived listening comprehension as “inferential process The author also described listening as “a process of receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding, and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy.”

In conclusion, listening skill is not only one out of four language components but also

a process that requires the participant of many spontaneously physical stages

2.1.3 Difference between listening and hearing

In fact, in order to have an insight into anything, the first and foremost thing to do is understanding it Although there is a significant difference between the two terms “ listening” and “ hearing”, they are sometimes misused

In Cambridge Dictionary, hear means to receive or become conscious of a sound using your ears Meanwhile, listen is defined as give attention to someone or something in order to

hear him, her or it In addition, Rost ( 2002) stated that although both hearing and listening involve sound perception, the difference in terms reflects a degree of intention

Easily can be seen here, the most visible difference between “hear” and “listening” is attention People use their ears to hear, but together with attention, listening then comes However, the question is whether attention is enough to differentiate the two terms Therefore, many distinctions arose as following

Lesley Barker ( 2001) proves that : “ listening, however, is more than just be able to hear and understand what someone else say, listening skills involve etiquette, asking for clarification, showing empathy and providing an appropriate response.”

Furthermore, Sheila ( 2007) once remarked that listening is more complex than merely hearing It is a process that consists of four stages: sensing and attending, understanding and interpreting, remembering and responding The stages occur in sequence but we are generally unaware of them

According to Rixon (1986:28), “ hearing is only the recognition of sound, as we say, „I

am sorry, I did not hear exactly what you said” Listening implies some conscious attention to the message of what is said, as when we say, “Are you listening to me?” ”

To sum up, that improving listening skill is very necessary is because listening is also the information receive process People listen to the information, then analyze and give the best responses for that Whereas, hearing is simply an unconditional reaction of one‟s body with their ears to the external sounds and noise without effort

2.2 The importance of listening

Listening has long been considered crucial in many aspects of live The University of Minnesota indicated that in the business world 60% of misunderstanding can be traced to poor listening and 1% to poor reading Mendelsohn‟s (1994) study points out that of total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40 – 50%; speaking, 20 – 30%; reading, 11 – 16%; and writing about 9% Therefore, when compared to other skills, misunderstanding in listening is more likely to result in time wasting, mistakes or even conflicts which are never hoped to happen

Moreover, Doff (1994) holds the idea that listening has a significant effect on developing speaking In addition, Michael Lewis (1993) noted that almost all the world‟s natural language output is spoken rather written

Listening is like the act of “decoding", people can get information to understand them Therefore, a lot of efforts are needed if one person wants to be a good listener not only in real life but language contexts That can explain the reason why Morley (1991) states that we can

expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write ( p 82)

In short, listening skill has a great influence on one‟s language ability Like any kid‟s, one‟s language exposure to speaking is always preceded by listening, and most of time spent

of communication activities is on listening Therefore, understanding and putting more concentration on teaching and practicing the skill should not be neglected

to comprehend or to retain so that he can (vii) respond or react

Related to this process, “enabling skills” named by Willis (1981 : 134) are listed as below:

 predicting what people are going to talk about

 guessing at unknown words or phrases without panicking

 using one‟s own knowledge of the subject to help one understand

 identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information

 retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)

 recognizing discourse markers, e.g., Well; Oh, another thing is; Now, finally; etc • recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as and which, including link words, pronouns, references, etc

 understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which give clues to meaning and social setting

 understanding inferred information, e.g., speakers‟ attitude or intentions Additionally, Wheeldon (1981) claimed that attentive listening involves the following process:

 taking in a stream of more or less continuous sounds

 recognising units within this stream of sound

 recognising meanings which these units are believed to have

 recognising/appreciating the relationships between these units

 retaining these semantic units, whilst continuing to "decode" the stream

of sound assailing the ears

 modifying on the basis of further decoding the meaning ascribed to previously decoded sound

 perceiving the physical and psychological features in which utterances are made

 judging which features are relevant and which are not

 interpreting the speaker's attitude to what he/she is saying

 adopting an attitude to what is being listened to

 judging it and reacting to it

 seeing and interpreting speaker's facial expressions, paralanguage Coakley & Wolvin (1986) suggested that listening comprehension in a L2 (second language) is the process of receiving, focusing attention on, and assigning meaning to aural stimuli It includes a listener, who brings prior knowledge of the topic, linguistic knowledge and cognitive processes to the listening task, the aural text, and the interaction between the two

Meanwhile, Rost (1991: 3) split the listening process into two parts First listeners integrate component skills such as discriminating between sounds; recognizing words; identifying grammatical group of words; connecting cues such as intonation and stress to gestures; using background knowledge; and recalling important words and ideas Second listeners must make decisions about what is being listened to such as determining the situation; making a plan for listening; determining the important words and units of meaning; and asking if the message makes sense (Rost, 1994: 4)

Briefly, Fischer and Farris (1995) stated that listening comprehension is a process by which students actively form a mental representation of an aural text according to prior knowledge of the topic and information found within

As a result, listening process requires not only physical efforts but also mental concentration Hence, in order to make one‟s listening ability better, he firstly should get involved this process together with using his understanding about the language

2.4 Classifications of listening

Listening skill is considered as “ the least understood aspect of language of foreign language learning” ( Belasco, 1964) Paradoxically, listening skill is also the most important skill widely used in the real life Therefore, understanding the skill is really important when listening is more complex than people could imagine

Burn and Lowe (1966) categorized listening into three types: (1) appreciational (enjoying the development of a story; listening for pleasing rhythm; reacting to the mood set

by the author); (2) informational listening for the answer to a specific question; listening to follow directions; following sequence; listening for main ideas); (3) critical (discriminating between fact and opinion; detecting prejudice and bias; sensing the speaker's purpose

Meanwhile, Allen (1976) classified listening as six types as following: (1) simple listening - hearing sounds without any particular meaning to the sounds , (2) discriminative listening - listening to hear and identify the likenesses and differences in sounds, (3) listening for information, (4) listening to organize ideas, (5)listening for main points, (6)listening for varied points of view, (7)critical listening, (8) creative listening

2.5 Some problems relating to listening in English

There are many problems that hinder students from improving listening skill, particularly those who do not feel familiar to the language

Firstly, the speed of a speaker speaks is different from the others‟, controlling or predicting that of speakers is beyond what listener can do Underwood (1989) pointed out that many language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension, as opposed to reading comprehension, is that listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks (p.16)

Secondly, “it is extremely hard for the teacher to judge whether or not the students have understood any particular section of what they have heard” (Underwood, 1989, p.17) In fact, there is very few situation that listeners can have a second chance to listen more than once to comprehend what they have just skipped or missed, especially in a real test where gestures and facial expressions do not show up

Thirdly, the limited vocabulary knowledge of the listeners may prevent them from completely understanding what the speaks are talking about Underwood (1989) stated that

“choice of vocabulary is in the hands of the speaker, not the listener.” It will take listeners a lot of time to guess what is mentioned which easily make listeners distracted and miss the next part of the speech

The fourth problem, according to Underwood (1989) is the listener‟s failure to recognize signals that the speaker is using to move from one point to another In formal situations, discourse markers like „secondly …‟ or „finally…‟ or „then…‟ generally show that there will be a moving to a next/new point In informal situations however, signals like repeating a point, giving an example or using of different intonations that may indicate the

missed Similarly, Scarcella and Oxford (1992) state that "ordinary speech contains many ungrammatical, reduced, or incomplete forms; it also has hesitations, false starts, repetitions, fillers [e.g., `uh,' `urn,"yehl, and pauses, all of which make up 30-50 % of any informal conversation" (p.146)

Underwood (1989) also pointed out the established learning habits in the classroom aimed to have students understanding everything in the English lesson as a potential problem Teachers traditionally want students to understand every word they hear while listening They ensure that students meet this goal by repeating and pronouncing words carefully, by speaking slowly and pausing frequently The author explains that because of this, students tend to feel worried if they fail to recognize/understand a word or phrase when they are listening and may

be further discouraged

Besides, Yao‟s (1995) study found that the speaker‟s speed, accent, vocabulary, as well as the listener‟s background knowledge and listener‟s interest affected listening comprehension Among of these factors, the speed and accent of a speaker were considered the most important factors influencing students‟ listening comprehension The study also found that clear pronunciation and speech have a great impact on their comprehension (Yao, 1995)

By the same token, Rixon (1986) indicated that problems in listening arise because spoken words do not stay still to be scrutinized and puzzled over as written words

Meanwhile, lack of sociocultural, factual, and contextual knowledge of the target language can present an obstacle to comprehension because language is used to express its

culture (Anderson and Lynch, 1988)

2.6 Teaching listening techniques

Zaytoun (1988) recommended a few techniques for teaching listening for foreignlearners as following: (a) Teacher if possible should expose the students to real life situations inwhich native speakers of English use the language in a spontaneous conversationaland communicative way (b) An other technique to teaching listening is using shorttaped-segments of Radio or TV news and weather reports (c) To encourage the use

of language laboratory A method of teaching listening should take into account the skillelements and their subsequent development

Candlin (1987) agreed that effective teaching of listening involves motivation and stimulation The teacher before teaching or introducing any activity, should ask some questions to motivate the learners so as willingly to involve them in the activities Listening is

a complex operation integrating the distinct components of perceptionand

linguistic knowledge in ways, which are poorly, understood (Rivers and Temperly, 1978) Some linguistic maintain that knowledge of the same system of grammaticalrules of a language is basic to both listening and speaking Some psychologists, on theother hand, believe the rules we apply are different and that we employperceptual strategies for surface scanning of what we are hearing, stopping to penetrate tounderlying relations only to resolve ambiguities or untangle complexities

2.7 Transcription technique

2.7.1 Stages of transcription

Step 1: Find audio or video having transcription with it to check after listening That could be a favorite song, a piece of news, a part of movie, or documentary films The audio should be appropriate with student‟s level, not too long or short, an audio lasting under 10 minutes is highly recommended In addition, it might be easier when a person does things he likes Choosing favored genre is first and foremost period then

Step 2: Play the audio and listen to it for the first time, but do not take a look at the transcriptions While listening, the listener should try to determine the main idea or key information of the audio This may help to avoid getting lost in an audio full of information and new words After that, the listener listens to that audio as much as possible and write down all the things he can hear

Step 3: Compare the work to the original transcript Find out what is missed or misunderstood and the reasons for that Mispronunciation could mislead in some cases Also, new words or new grammatical structures can make the listener get stuck in defining the contents and main ideas of the audio A good way to bear in mind and avoid making mistakes the next time is taking note in the prepared notebook, make an example and use it in a real context

2.8 Related review

Although the teaching of listening comprehension has long been ―somewhat neglected and poorly taught aspect of English in many English Foreign Language programs These general listening skills are developed into focused listening skills, like when learners are trying to isolate a sound or some structure in the midst of what they are listening to If their general listening skills have atrophied, then they will have much more trouble developing your focused listening skills Listening skills deteriorate because what we do with our attention will affect our abilities So, for example, if we end up being more interested in our own ideas and ensuring people understand that, rather than understanding clearly what

placing less attention on our listening and guess what happens? Moreover, the issue of unclear pronunciation of some speakers is also considered as a source of listening problem Many students thought that unclear pronunciation causes much difficulty for them in understanding their English listening Some learners stressed the importance of grammar in relation to listening comprehension Lack of words was another major problem that impedes students‟ listening comprehension

In English classes, accuracy (i.e., tenses, subject-verb agreement, pronouns, linkers, etc.) is mostly taught via grammar text books which are not attractive and challengeable due

to their traditional methods in using pattern practice New trends are not so popular in today contexts Thus using media materials may be a new and attractive method in teaching and learning language skills, especially listening accuracy

Listening and then transcribing could help both skills of listening and writing simultaneously Many students try to improve their listening skills by performing listening comprehension activities While such exercises have value, students do not know how to decode individual sounds Additionally, some English learners listen to television or radio programs, yet they do not actively follow how native speakers say words and sentences

Contrary to what many believe, building listening skills does not have to be boring, as there are many interesting activities that build listening skills The pinnacle of these activities

is transcription work You can begin strengthening transcription skills by finding audio or video material that has a transcript with it, and begin practicing Doing so is extremely beneficial, as it is possible to learn from your mistakes A transcript is valuable for it allows students to go back after the initial attempt so that they can check to make sure they can hear and understand everything, increasing their interest and confidence in further listening

According to Mahesh Kumar (2016), he shows us some steps to practicing transcription:

1 To begin with, find an audio that comes with a transcript, but do not look at the words Choose an audio file that is equivalent to your level of comprehension

2 Next listen to a short section of the audio multiple times and try to write down what you hear

3 Then compare what you wrote to the actual transcript

4 Finally, think about your problem areas Ask yourself where you need to improve and also what words or sounds you did not hear

(Retrieved May 25, 2017 from improve-listening-skills-transcribing/)

http://blog.transcriptioncertificationinstitute.org/can-For the transcription technique, it is important to compare what you've said to the transcript When practicing listening comprehension in English, it is expedient to record one's speech on audio to compare it with the original audio/video recording containing listening material I believe that for practicing listening comprehension and speaking in English it is a good idea to include various practical topics for potential needs of learners with comprehensive vocabulary on each topic As we all know, the content of materials matters a great deal Thematic dialogues, questions and answers on conversation topics, thematic texts (informative texts and narrative stories), grammatical usage sentences and sentences with difficult vocabulary on various topics, especially with fixed phrases and idioms can be used in practicing listening comprehension in English

Evidence from students who used transcription technique to improve their listening skills clearly showed that they benefited from multimedia materials Describing the words and sentences that the majority was done via listening and transcription would be useful for language learners to value the importance of advanced learning English about writing and reading

One of the ways which could help the learners to encounter few problems in the future (when there is no more listening accuracy teaching in the class) is to find a way by which the learner takes the responsibility for his/her learning In other words, the autonomy of the learner plays a crucial role in language learning Its use as a teaching method is not regular or sufficient enough to allow students to use it adequately, especially when compared to the emphasis given to it in the teaching English In reality, deciding on the use of transcriptions falls upon the teachers, learners as a goal for students to focus on during further listening practice in the classroom, outside the classroom As students see their personal experiences transcribed into the written word, they also gain a greater understanding of the processes of listening English and can make the bridge to learning English independently

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the participants who contributed a lot to the thesis completion and the instruments used to gather the data as well as data collection procedure will get involved

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 The researcher

The study is conducted by Tran Quynh Nhu, a senior student majoring in English of FFL at IUH

3.2.2 Participants for questionnaire

The study initially intended to carry out with all of the English majored sophomores of FFL at IUH Having said that, there are 150 participants taking part in the survey, and the rest

do not engage because of the time limit allowed to complete the thesis The participants were chosen randomly from five classes of DHAV11 and enthusiastic to help the researcher

Second year English majored students are ideal ones for the research for some reasons Firstly, freshmen like their name, are really fresh to the way of learning at university They are still influenced by the traditional ways of learning like they were at high school What is more, all of them are from different regions of Vietnam where the most obvious difference are reflected by education However, they have long time enough for practicing and experiencing

On the other hand, junior and senior students of the major have a lot of difficult subjects to handle, such as interpretation which requires good listening skill to master it or even pass it Therefore, right from the second year at university, those who feel their English listening skill

is not good enough to some extent can benefit from the research

3.2.3 Participants for the interview and test

The study, as mentioned in chapter 1, aims at inspecting the impact of transcription

technique on listening skill improvement of English majored sophomores Therefore, 61

students who did apply the technique into listening practice got invited to the student interview Nevertheless, only 18 of them could make it That is because many of the rest did not leave the exact contact, some of them were too busy to come, and some of them refused to take the interview

3.3 Data collection instruments

3.3.1 The questionnaire

Questionnaires are one of the most effective means to gather the data for any survey They are affordable to be used in delivering a large number of people in short time

Meanwhile, the results getting from them are reliable and easily to be classified Therefore, questionnaires have been used for a very long time This research is not an exception The writer chose questionnaires for data gathering at the beginning of the research to find out the subjects she want The questionnaires are made of total 19 questions and all of them are in Vietnamese in case of no misunderstanding can go between the meeting

The first part includes 8 questions ( from question number 1 to number 8) with the purpose of finding the difficulties English majored sophomore at IUH have to struggle with listening skill during years of English learning, the methods they used to boost it, and their average score for the subject Apart from exploring the ways used those students did use, question number 5 was designed to look for the students who applied transcription technique into practicing listening skill in different ways, and this will be used as the main data for the other part of the survey In part 1, most of the questions are in the form of multiple choice which can be answered by a tick or circling the best answer(s) Nevertheless, students can supply their own choices in question 3, 5 and 6

Part 2 of the survey consisting of the 12 questions is attached to part 1 and was made for those who confirmed that they applied transcription technique in practicing listening The main purpose of this part is to find out students‟ listening ability of them before and after using the technique Moreover, some more questions were added to inform the researcher of the process they tried to master the skill by using transcription technique including the span and the frequency they practise listening with the technique Question number 9 in this part asks for students‟ view toward the degree of difficulty, and the scale of the answers ranges from extremely easy to extremely difficult In the next question, the researcher desires to know how students evaluate their results after applying the technique Hence, she forms the question into a checklist with the subscale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree and disagree, neutral and agree in between Generally, part 2 has the similar structure to part 1 when most of the questions are multiple choices Participants were encouraged to ask the research if there is any misunderstanding and they were given time enough to complete the questionnaire

that, they had 2 weeks to practise intensively with the technique and came back for the listening test

3.3.3 The listening test

Another instrument for collecting data is the listening test designed with the purpose

of measuring students‟ improvement after the two – week intensive practice The test is constructed of part 3 and part 4 of an IELTS listening test The participants were allowed to finish the test within 20 minutes including time for filling the answer sheet and return it to the researcher

3.4 Data collection procedure

The study was conducted in the second semester of the academic year 2016 – 2017, from February to May of 2016 The questionnaire was created and prepared for delivering on March 2nd, 2016 4 classes of English majored students were randomly selected to be delivered the questionnaire All of them completed 150 pieces of questionnaire with the full answers Because the researcher longed to see them again for the interview and the listening test, students‟ detailed information was considered compulsory to some extent However, some of them did not leave any information except their full names Therefore, the researcher encountered some minor difficulties contacting with them Fortunately, she at last could keep

in touch with 18 students and they were willing to take the interview and the listening test after that

The interview was held on March 24th, 2016 with 5 open questions answered within

10 minutes They were designed in Vietnamese to avoid time consuming for misunderstanding and the researcher transcribed their answers while listening to their responses After taking the interview, all of the participants were instructed in the purpose, the use of transcription technique and how to apply it in the limited time They were encouraged

to thoroughly practise in 2 weeks

After 2 weeks of practicing intensively with the technique, 18 participants gathered to take the listening test for the experiment They listened to the instructor‟s instruction and had enough time to do any step they often do in their listening classes, such as read the instruction

or predict the answer before the test All of their behaviors in the test were observed and jotted down by the researcher, which will be summarized in the next part

3.5 Data analysis procedure

All the questionnaire was coded in numbers after being collected in order to facilitate the data analysis procedure The answers from open ended questions were sorted in the appropriate categories Luckily, 150 questionnaires were delivered and carefully completed

with the valuable help of 150 students so none of them were eliminated without a doubt For the data of the interview, all the responses were transcribed into words in Vietnamese Also, the listening tests results were calculated and compared to their previous results for more insights

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This part of the thesis will present how the data collected from the questionnaires and interview conducted on 150 FFL‟s English majored sophomores is analyzed There were 2 parts in the questionnaire, so there are also 2 parts to be analyzed The results will be shown

in tables and charts and will be the firm evidence to answer the research questions

4.1 Listening experience, practice and opinions

4.1.1 Years of English learning

Table 4.1: Years of English learning

Just like a kid when learning his mother tongue, it takes time to master a certain language A 5- year- old child cannot use the language fluently and exactly when compared to

a normal 15- year- old student Therefore, students was asked to reveal their years of English study which is extremely indispensable in knowledge forming and skill improvement for the first question The answers were divided into 3 options for selecting As can be seen from the table, 79 % of the students have been studying English for more than 10 years, it means they started to study the language when they were at primary school Meanwhile, 17% of them told that they have been learning English since they were at secondary school, and the rest confessed that they began learning English when whey were at high school The difference in the length of time they have spent on learning English may cause the difference in their background as well as their level

4.1.2 Students’ average score on listening

Figure 4.1: Students’ average score on Listening

The bar chart presents the average score on Listening of the participants Out of 150 students completing the questionnaire, 90 of them ( 60%) got the average score from 5.1 to 6.9 of Listening Meanwhile, 29 of them ( nearly 20%) admitted that they could not get more than 5.0 The number of students having the good scores makes up more than the rest 20% of total Namely, 24 students ( 16%) gained the scores ranging from 7.0 to 7.9 and only 7 students are outstanding with their above 8.0 scores Therefore, the thing is no matter how long they have been studying English and many methods were applied, the number of students not good at Listening still overwhelms

4.1.3 Students’ opinions toward English listening skill

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Under 5.0 From 5.1 to 6.9 From 7.0 to 7.9 Above 8.0

According to the table above, there were a huge number of students (42%) considering listening skill difficult, while nearly a quarter students believe that it is quite difficult to deal with the skill Beside that, the number of responses indicates that English listening skill is very difficult and not easy nor difficult was 18% and 12.7 % respectively Whereas, only one person who felt easy to study or practice English listening skill accounting for 1% of all That

is mean none of them thought that learning listening is very easy

When comparing the figure 4.1 and the table, a surprise came to the researcher‟s mind Although 96% of the students revealed that they have been studying English for more than 5 years, 2.6% of them considered listening skill from quite easy to easy Therefore, teaching and learning the skill needs more attention to enhance the students‟ ability of the language

Figure 4.2: Students’ attitude toward English listening skill

The figure 4.2 helps to reflect the unequal portions in students‟ choices when they were asked to show their thoughts of English listening skill Students tended to choose difficult – answers

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Attitude toward english listening skill

Very easy

easy

Not easy nor difficult

Quite difficult

difficult

4.1.3 Students’ problems with listening skill

Figure 4.3: Students’ problems with listening skill

The question is given to question students‟ problems relating to listening skill The purpose of the question is to figure out the reasons why listening is always the most difficult skill in English 6 typical problems were selected through the writer‟s experience when practicing English listening One more option was also added to encourage them to supply their own choices

As can be seen in the figure 4.3, most of participants were challenged by “ liaison and elision phenomenon” and “ new words” in a listening test This might result from students‟ pronunciation mistakes and lacking of vocabulary Accounting for the third number of students‟ choices is distraction As mentioned in the chapter 2, listening activities happens with the highest rate in communication when compared to the 3 other skills Therefore, being distracted by something around is unavoidable New grammar points are selected by 24 out of

150 participants, and followed by lacking of interests and other answers which have the same rate When students were asked for more drawbacks in listening they have to face, they listed the problems with their enthusiasm Some thought that many slangs and accents may hinder them from understanding the content Some felt that the listening tests are not comparable with their levels which results in their low score of the subject Changes in intonation and unsuitable speed are also believed as the reasons leading to the misunderstanding when listening to some students The rest of them supposed that some topics and contexts were quite unfamiliar to them

Do not remember main ideas

Distraction Lacking of interests New words New grammar points Liaison and Elision

Others

4.1.4 Students’ frequency of English listening practice

Figure 4.4: Students’ frequency of English listening practice

After taking a look at students‟ troubles, the researcher started to question how and what participants did to solve those problems Question 4 intends to ask them how often they practise listening and the answers were illustrated as the figure above

According to the figure, 70 out of 150 ( 46.7%) participants told that they

“sometimes” practise the skill and 46 participants ( 30.7%) chose “usually” as their answer

21 participants (14%) are confident to confirm that they practise English listening skill everyday By contrast, 12 participants ( 8%) confessed that they seldom spend time practicing the skill, and only 1 participant ( 0.6%) admitted that he/ she never takes time to practise

4.2 Students’ listening strategies

4.2.1 Students’ methods to overcome their problems in listening

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Everyday Usually Sometimes Seldom Never