An integrated approach to teaching listening and note taking skills to first year english majors at binh duong teachers training college m a 60 14 10

To identify the students’ reality of learning the listening and note-taking subjects, a survey was conducted to discover: 1 their inhibition in listening and note-taking activities in li

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO

TEACHING LISTENING AND NOTE-TAKING SKILLS

TO FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT BINH DUONG

TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF TESOL

SUBMITTED BY: NGUYEN NAM PHUONNG

SUPERVISOR: SIDSEL MILLERSTROM, Ph D

HO CHI MINH CITY: JANUARY 2010

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINAL

I certificate my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TEACHING LISTENING AND TAKING SKILLS TO FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT BINH DUONG

NOTE-TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Thesis in Master’s Programs issued

by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award

of any degree or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, January 2010

Nguyen Nam Phuong

RETENTION AND USE OF THESES

I hereby state that I, NGUYEN NAM PHƯƠNG, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) accepted the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research,

in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, January 2010

Nguyen Nam Phuong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratefulness to my thesis supervisor, Dr Sidsel Millerstrom together with Dr Nguyen Hoang Tuan who willingly gave me valuable evaluations and comments on my project any time I needed it I am thankful for her support in my preparation and completion of this thesis

I would also like to thank the organizers of the Post Graduate Study Program

in TESOL, Mr Le Huu Phuoc, Head of the Department of Post Graduate, and Ms Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Head of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature of HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities

Last, but not least, I wish to give my profound gratitude to my colleagues of the Department of Foreign Languages, Binh Duong Teacher Training College where I work and as well as the first-year English-majored students at the college for their kind help and enthusiastic support that have facilitated me to conduct the survey and complete the thesis

ABSTRACT

The learners of English referred to in this project are defined as the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Provincial Teachers’ Training College who have taken up the English language as their future professions Therefore they are expected to master all the language knowledge and train to enhance all the language skills On developing their listening and note-taking skills, they have to cope with numerous problems affecting their abilities of understanding of spoken English and of note-taking in listening class as well as in other English subjects in their college syllabus

To identify the students’ reality of learning the listening and note-taking subjects, a survey was conducted to discover: (1) their inhibition in listening and note-taking activities in listening classes and college lectures requiring their taking notes for later tests or exams, (2) listening tasks, activities and teaching techniques selected and applied by their teachers

The implications of the findings in chapter four prove that most of the students (1) are afraid of the listening subject and get very little acquisition in it, (2) are inhibited by several factors in listening and note-taking activities, and (3) find that listening tasks and activities and teachers’ teaching techniques are not consistent, effective or encouraging Eventually, the findings of the learners’ reality

in listening and note-taking greatly hinder their abilities of communication in spoken English as well as in learning other subjects needing their taking notes for their tests or exams

Finally, some effective teaching strategies and activities integrated with note taking will be applied to improve their quality of understanding oral English in listening class and college lectures

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINAL i

RETENTION AND USE OF THESES ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF FIGURES vviiiii

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 1

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 2

1.4 TERMINOLOGY 2

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

1.6 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 4

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 CONCEPTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LISTENING SKILL 5

2.1.1 Definitions of listening comprehension 5

2.1.2 Purposes of listening 7

2.1.3 Stages in listening 8

2.1.4 Listening techniques 10

2.2 CONCEPTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF NOTE-TAKING 11

2.2.1 Definitions of note-taking 11

2.2.2 Purposes of note-taking in listening comprehension 12

2.2.2 Note-taking techniques 13

2.3 TEACHING LISTENING INTEGRATED WITH TAKING NOTES 17

2.3.1 Aspects of integrating listening and note-taking 17

2.3.2 Getting ready to listen to a lecture and make notes 18

2.3.3 Listening and note-taking strategies 19

2.4 SUMMARY 20

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research design 22

3.2 Subjects 23

3.3 Questionnaire 23

3.3.1 Questionnaire for students 23

3.3.2 Questionnaire for teachers 23

3.4 Instruments and Data Collection Procedures 23

3.5 SUMMARY 25

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 FINDINGS OF QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 26

4.1.1 Students’ reality of practicing the listening skill 26

4.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards listening classes at high school 32

4.1.3 Students’ participation in listening activities 35

4.1.4 Students’ understanding of note taking and note-taking techniques in listening class at high school 40

4.2 FINDINGS OF QUESTIONAIRE FOR TEACHERS 48

4.2.1 Teachers’ assessments on the listening subject and the act of teaching listening to the freshmen majoring in English 48

4.2.2 Teachers’ assessments on Pre-listening stage 50

4.2.3 Teachers’ selections of listening activities and tasks 51

4.2.4 Teachers’ degrees of preparation to involve students into listening act in class 52

4.2.5 Teachers’ degree of teaching students how to take notes in listening

class 54

4.3 SUMMARY 55

Chapter 5 IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Implications and Recommendations 56

5.2 Suggested classroom techniques in teaching listening integrated with note taking techniques 57

5.2.1 Introduction to the topic and/or situation of the listening texts and/or conversations in the pre-listening stage 58

5.2.2 Giving listening tasks to students before the while-listening stage 61

5.2.3 Identifying and making notes of information or ideas related to the while-listening tasks 62

5.2.4 Guessing meanings, contents and/or ideas from identified and understandable words and expressions 63

5.2.5 Taking notes on statistics mentioned in listening texts 64

5.3 LIMITATION 66

5.4 CONCLUSION 67

BIBLIOGRAPHY 69

APPENDICES

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 4

Figure 1: Teachers’ degrees of paying attention to students’ needs and interests in

learning the listening subject

Figure 2: Teachers’ degrees of application of Listening Activities and Tasks Figure 3: Teachers’ degrees of asking and instructing students to take notes in

listening class at college

Figure 4: Teachers’ degrees of requiring and instructing students to take notes in

listening class

Chapter 5

Figure 5: A printed photograph of the conversation about checking into a hotel

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Students’ degrees of practicing listening to spoken English

Table 2: Students’ Assessments on Listening subject

Table 3: The basic listening activities given to students in listening classes at high

school

Table 4: Students’ acquisition of study skill and note taking at high school

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L1 First Language / Native language

L2 Second Language / Foreign Language SLA Second Language Acquisition

EFL English as a Foreign Language ESOL English for Speakers of Other Languages

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Studies of Langan [2002: 43] have showed that within two weeks learners probably will forget 80percent or more of what they have heard, and in four weeks they are lucky if 5percent remains To guard against the relentlessness of forgetting, students must take notes of the information presented in class and study the notes so that they understand and remember the ideas However, the problem is that most of the first year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College

do not know how to take notes when they listen to listening texts, their teachers or their classmates And so they write down or copy down every word they have listened to so that they don’t have enough time to do it and typically record incomplete notes, usually 20-40 percent of the important lecture ideas They don’t know how to use abbreviations along with symbols to keep up with the professor’s lectures The more complete their notes are when they review them, the more likely they are to master the material

Being a teacher at Binh Duong Provincial Teachers’ Training College for a number of years now, we have always been concerned in improving our English-majored students’ speaking and listening ability And since I was placed in charge

of the subject of note-taking some years ago, I have found it essential to improve the students’ listening and note-taking skills effectively, particularly the first-year English-majored students

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The study is aimed at investigating the reality of the first-year majored students’ learning listening comprehension at high schools (before they entered college) as well as their reality and quality of their practicing and developing their listening and note-taking of spoken English in the first year at Binh

English-Duong Teachers’ Training College Through those findings, the study suggests some recommendations for improving students' motivation in listening and note-taking through an integrated approach

Note-taking is one way to enhance listening, and using a systematic approach

to the taking and reviewing of your notes can add immeasurably to your understanding and remembering the content of lectures Effective listening and note-taking require not only the ability to attend but other skills as well At the same time students have to write down what a lecturer has said, they must be able to listen to what he or she is saying and to decide whether it is important enough to write down as well Also in a rapid lecture they must be able at times to store one or more ideas in their memory so that they will be able to write them down next If they can “listen ahead” and process and remember what they hear at the same time that they are writing rapidly, they will be listening efficiently Their brain will be able to work along with and ahead of their pen [Langan 2002:43]

1.4.2 Integrated approach

An integrated approach to curriculum planning provides a way of exploring concepts across subject boundaries It enables students to make connections between their own experiences and the ever-changing world outside

An integrated approach begins with a big idea which is (1) a rich concept with potential to develop students’ understandings of themselves and their world, (2) relevant to students’ interests, (3) appropriate for the particular age and learning environment and (4) a potential site for student investigation using a range of processes

Connecting ideas from several learning areas are identified, a context is developed and a sequence of learning experiences for students is planned For example, “When I was One” is the title of a unit which might be appropriate for students in prep/one classes It provides opportunities to investigate personal histories, using poetry as a context for the consideration of students’ likes and dislikes, abilities and achievements Students develop an awareness of the similarities and differences between individuals

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Listening and note-taking practice are an important part of interaction and communication among people in general A person good at listening comprehension skill will be able to participate more effectively in communicative situations It is best-known among teachers of EFL and ESL that listening is one of the four basic language skills in order of listening, speaking, reading and writing Listening, together with reading, is regarded as a receptive skill, and receptive skills give way

to productive skills This brings us to the obligation of integrating language skills It

is hoped that the study can be of some value in teaching and learning English in Binh Duong province

Within the contexts of at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College and taking, this study used a survey to examine the current use of note-taking techniques amongst first-year students I examined the practices of general student note-taking and adoption of and attitudes towards note-taking The results of this study

note-contribute to the understanding of the principles involved in supporting listening comprehension especially of note-taking It is hoped that the study can be of some value in teaching and learning English in Binh Duong province In the other hand, this data provides guidelines that will hopefully enable the continued research of interfaces to better support note-taking skill

1.6 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

Chapter 1, the Introduction, explains the background to the research, the statements of purpose, research questions, the significance of the research, the assumptions, the limitations, the methodology, and the overview of the study

In Chapter 2, the Literature Review presents the theoretical background to the study, the role of listening in language teaching, categories of listening, note-taking techniques, and some aspects of integrating listening and note-taking in teaching English

Chapter 3, Methodology, describe the subjects, data collection instruments, and the procedure of the study process

Chapter 4, Data Analysis and Discussion, consists of the results of the questionnaires, the results of the interviews, classroom observations, discussion of the data, and the conclusion

Chapter 5, Recommendations and Conclusion, suggests some integrated techniques and activities to teach listening and note-taking skills, the limitations of the study, suggestions for further research, and the conclusion of the research

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, Literature Review, some concepts, characteristics and purposes of listening and note-taking defined by previous methodologists will be reviewed as the theoretical basis of the project Besides, some basic techniques or strategies, activities and tasks of listening and note taking will also be stated to help solve the first-year English majors’ problems inhibiting their acquisition and progress in listening class or any class lectures that require them to take a lot of notes for their later revision for midterm tests, semester tests and/or final exams

Ultimately, on the basis of these fundamental theories, some practical solutions will be applied in the process of teaching the listening comprehension and note-taking subjects to the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College The suggestions will be stated in chapter five, and they will be used to develop the students’ competence of understanding spoken English

in listening class during their first-year curriculum at the college Moreover, they will simultaneously be used to enhance the students’ note-taking capacity in listening class and/or in any classes of English specialized subjects in which teachers deliver many lectures

2.1 Concepts and characteristics of the listening in real life and in language teaching and leaning

2.1 1 Definitions of listening comprehension

First of all, some definitions of listening comprehension suggested by previous methodologists will be reviewed hereafter as the basic understanding of the listening act in real-life oral communication and interaction between or among people They are more important to be reviewed as the basic understanding of the listening act in language learning and teaching in class of ESL and EFL as well

According to the methodologist, Nunan [1999: 199], the listening skill in language teaching and learning plays a much more important role than the speaking one It is generally known that human beings naturally listen to the language they learn first of all and then they gradually get to understand it at a certain level before

they are able to speak it as a child learns to speak its mother tongue And when learners of a second or a foreign language are able to speak it, they can initially utter some simple words only Later on they can just utter some simple and easy sentences In order to speak the language correctly and fluently, it takes them a rather long time to practice speaking the language

As mentioned above, the human natural listening act and the listening skill in learning and teaching the English language in class is of great importance and is always focused to be developed before other language skills as speaking, reading and writing Thus, Nunan [1997: 199] states, in his course book entitled as Second Language Teaching and Learning, “listening is the Cinderella skill in second language learning, and all too often, it has been overlooked by its elder sister – speaking”

It is apparent that understanding oral English is so indispensable in any process of verbal communication and interaction between or among speakers Without one or both speakers’ comprehending the language, their conversation can hardly or even impossibly be carried out But in actual fact, learning a second or foreign language as English, for many people, means being able to speak and write that language rather than understand it in both spoken and written form Hence, listening and reading are therefore regarded as secondary skills As a matter of fact, people are not really aware of the importance of the listening act and the difficulty

in understanding spoken English in the process of verbal communication between or among speakers in their community

Doff [1988:198] refers to listening as a crucial factor of any human oral communication as well as any classroom verbal interaction In the aspect of language teaching and learning, the listening act proves to be of greater importance Students must understand what is spoken to them if they want to have a successful conversation, and it is impossible to develop students’ speaking skill if their listening ability is not preferentially enhanced Listening is therefore an effective way of acquiring the language one studies such as grammar structures and

vocabulary The author states two types of real-life listening: casual listening and focused listening The first one occurs without the listener’s particular purpose and concentration in mind The later one is carried out on the purpose of finding out specific information

In his course book, The Language Teaching Matrix, Richards [1999: 50] also advocates the same two types of processes involved in teaching and learning listening comprehension as “bottom-up” and “top-down” From Richards’s concept, learners’ understanding a language begins with his or her acquisition of the language as sounds, vocabulary, grammar and their analysis of such knowledge of the language

2.1.2 Purposes of Listening

When people listen – whether they are listening to a lecture, a discussion, a news broadcast, or a joke, or are engaging in a conversation – they are listening to a stretch of discourse In fact, listening is the most frequently used language skill in human everyday life Researchers (eg., Morley 1991; Rivers 1981; Weaver 1972) estimate that people commonly listen to twice as much language as we speak, four times as much as they read, and five times as much as they write It is thus remarkable that human beings spend much more time on listening than any other activities of communication in their communities or by the mass media

It is actually admitted that the act of human listening occurs everywhere Whenever two or more people meet and communicate, they talk and listen to one another They listen to various forms of spoken language all day everyday For instance, office workers listen almost everyday or even every hour on telephone or cell phone; scientists or politicians listen to reports or discussions in workshops and

at conference; students listen to lectures at school However, each person has his or her completely different purpose of listening

Thus in this part of the chapter, 2.1.2 some of human genuine purposes of listening will preferentially be reviewed And on the basis of the revision, the

purposes of students’ listening in language classes will be determined so as to help develop their listening skill more practically and effectively

With reference to Hedge [2000: 235], in her course book Teaching and Learning in Language Classroom, people have three main reasons for listening in their daily life The three purposes defined by Hedge, Tricia [2000: 235] will be quoted hereafter to show their accuracy and liveliness:

(1) “listening is reciprocal or participatory,

(2) listening is to enjoy the gossips,

(3) listening is to contribute the occasional amusing comment or anecdote, (4) listening is to get information needed to do something specific”

More human aims of listening in real life are determined by other methodologists For instance, the two authors, Beebe and Beebe (2000) present, in their course book “Public Speaking, an Audience-Centered Approach”, four more purposes of the listening act According to Beebe and Beebe (2000:65, 66), people commonly listen to a language in its spoken form because of four practical aims In actual fact, they get involved in the listening act because of the following stated reasons:

(1) they want to be amused, or just to be pleasure,

(2) they need to “emphasize” something, for example to have empathy means you attempt to feel what the speaker is feeling,

(3) Listening to evaluate, when you evaluate a message, you are making a judgment about its content,

(4) Listening for information, since elementary school you have been in listening situations in which someone wanted you to learn something 2.1.4 Stages in listening

In the aspect of language teaching and learning, it is obviously known among teachers of ESL and EFL that the process of teaching and learning a language skill

in class consists of three basic stages: pre-, while-, and post- Nevertheless, the three

official stages involved in developing a language skill of listening comprehension defined by prior methodologists are still preferentially reviewed hereafter in this part of the chapter as the theoretical basis to the study And on the perspectives of the theory, the three stages which are written in details in chapter five will be applied in teaching listening comprehension to our first –year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College

First, the three essential stages of teaching and learning the English listening subject in English classroom and their functions advocated by Hedge [2000: 249] in her book of Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom, will briefly be reviewed below

(1) Pre-listening is the first stage in which teachers “decide what kind of listening purpose is appropriate to the text” Then they introduce the topics of the listening text, and select the kind of listening aims to involve their students’ participation in listening activities and tasks in the while-listening stage,

(2) In the while-listening stage, students need involving in “an authentic purpose for listening” and encouraging to “attend to the text more intensively or more extensively, for gist or for specific information” During the while-listening stage teachers are obliged to give their students’ one or more listening tasks to complete,

(3) Post-listening is the last stage in which students are involved in “”a more intensive phases of study”

The three fundamental stages of teaching and learning listening in English class are also defined by another methodologist, Underwood (1990:30, 45, 74) In the pre-listening stage, the author suggests that students need to be told what their teachers really expect them to listen to Without the teacher’s introduction to the topic of the listening text or the situation of the conversation, students, as stated by Underwood, Mary [1990: 30], may not be able to understand the text even if they can recognize the sounds and the words they hear clearly

Underwood [1990: 45] defines the while-listening as the stage during which students are facilitated to develop their “skill of eliciting messages from spoken language” Hence, teachers are advisable to give their students one or more tasks to

do during this very stage In other words, the while-listening activities are defined

by the author as what students are requested to do during the time they are authentically hearing to the text or the conversation

The post-listening stage in language teaching and learning, as identified by Underwood [1990: 74], consists of all the activities concerned with “a particular listening text” The activities are given to students after the listening act finishes In fact, the post-listening tasks include the extensive activities

2.3.1 Listening techniques

First of all some useful pieces of advice called “listening tips” recommended

by Lucas [1998] will be stated hereafter as a efficient theoretical reference to the project

The author Lucas [1998] advocates some factors that can make someone become a good listener by resorting to the listening tips which are regarded as listening techniques to the project On listening to a class recorded text, students are advisable to:

(1) take the listening act seriously,

(2) resist distractions,

(3) suspend judgment,

(4) focus on listening Listening to main points Listening for evidence Listening for techniques,

(5) develop note taking skills

Another author recommends some of the most important strategies or techniques to teaching students how to listen to a text and get to understand it thoroughly In his course book Second Language Teaching & Learning, Nunan (1999:219) suggests the following helpful techniques to helping students master any listening texts:

(1) For a listening task with the requirement of mastering detailed information, teachers teach students to use the strategy of Listening for gist For example, the

“or” question “Is the speaker describing a vacation or a day in the office?” can be offered to involve students in catching gist from the text,

(2) Listening for purpose is the second technique to identify the speaker’s/speakers’ implication of their speech acts To help students recognize the right information, the “or” question such as “Are the speaker making a reservation or ordering food?”, should, once again, be opposed,

(3) Another technique to listening that can efficiently be used to identify the major content of a listening text is Listening for main idea,

(4) In order to stimulate students’ deductive ability in listening class, teacher can employ the strategy of Listening for reference, which obliges students to infer the answer or answers from the relevant information,

(5) “How much did they say the tickets cost?”, “Why did the speaker say he was studying Chinese?” are the sample clue questions (given by Nunan (1999:219)) to exert the technique of Listening for specific information,

(6) Once again the “or” question can help students find out concrete details by the Listening for phonemic distinction technique, e g Did the speaker say first or fourth?, Did the speaker say can or can’t come to the party?,

(7) Another strategy of listening based on the aspect of phonetics recommended by Nunan (1999:219) is Listening for tone/pitch to identify speaker’s attitude,

(8) To help students determine the important information to which the speaker would like mention in a recorded text or conversation, teachers are able to instruct students to realize the stressed words by using the technique of Listening for stress, e.g the question “What is more important, where he bought the watch or when?”

2.2 Concepts and Characteristics of Note taking

In this part of the chapter, some notions and characteristics of the note taking act in both real life and in lectures at college or university will be reviewed as a theoretical basic of the research

2.2.1 Definitions of note-taking

The act of note taking is commonly known to be carried out in class by students at schools or during lectures by collage or university students In actual

fact, it is genuinely admitted that human do take notes in many daily life activities For instance, business people make notes during business meetings and conferences

or during their transactions with customers or counterparts throughout the world; office workers note down what they are told to undertake or fulfill at work everyday Hence, the three authors, James, Jordan and Mathews [200: 9] state, in the introduction to their course book Listening Comprehension & Note-Taking Course, the aims of the note-taking act in real life According to the three authors, people really need to take notes during a talk so that they are able to focus on what a speaker is saying to them

The act of taking notes is also considered to be indispensable in academic listening at college or university In fact, university students find it an obligation to make notes during a lecture As stated by James, Jordan and Mathews [200: 9], students take notes for the purpose of concentrating on what their lecturer is talking about Besides, the note-taking act also provides them with summaries for later reference or revision for their midterm tests or final exams In the authors’ opinion,

“the general principal in note taking is to reduce the language by shortening sentences and words”

2.2.2 Purposes of note-taking in listening comprehension

Making notes in academic listening at college or university is once again defined by Robertson [199: 02] as a study skill that every student is compulsory to acquire According to Heather [199: 02] note taking is a crucial study skill that students need a lot of practice to master

Other researchers also consider note taking to be essential study skills for every college student According to the definitions given by Dillon [2007: 200], students are supposed to “take thousands of pages of notes” on what they read in their course books as well as what they listen in live lectures and discussions Accordingly, Dillon suggests two kinds of notes that college students must take as textbook notes and lecture notes during class It seems to be apparent to all students that the later ones are much more difficult and require much of the students’ effort

to do during a listening class, a lecture or discussion It is because spoken words pass quickly at the moment of speaking, and they have no chance to listen again as they do with written texts in their course books

According to Robertson [199: 02], students taking any courses at collage or university are expected to take notes by their teachers or lecturers Most teachers and lecturers require their students to read the course books in advance before they attend a lecture Thus, in class teachers just provide them with “most up-dated” information that they can not find printed in their course books

2.2.3 Note taking techniques

The solutions suggested by Beebe and Beebe [2000:68-69] will be initially reviewed in this part of the chapter as effective strategies to making notes in every class and lecture According to the two authors, students should apply the following suggestions On listening to a text, a speech or a lecture, students are advisable to:

(1) get ready to take notes, take a pencil, or a pen and paper to every

class and lecture,

(2) determine whether they need to take notes or not,

(3) select the type of notes they need to take, “decide whether it is necessary

to outline the speech, identify facts and principles, jot down key words, or just record major ideas”,

(4) make their notes meaningful

Some other techniques to making notes will also be stated hereafter as the theatrical basis to the research Robertson [1991: 02] suggests, in his course book Bridge to College Success, four techniques to note taking for college lectures

(1) Students ought to attend all classes and are always ready to take

notes in their notebooks,

(2) it is advisable that students open their notebooks and get ready to make note before the lecture begins,

(3) students had better write down anything teachers write on board, or even make notes of what teachers do not write on board,

(4) in order to keep on making notes during a lecture, students should write down key words, and phases only, not write complete sentences

Thirteen other effective techniques to improving EFL students’ note-taking skill in class lectures are suggested by Langan [2002] According to Langan (2002:43), college students should be instructed to apply the thirteen techniques reviewed below:

(1) Students had better take as much information presented by teachers in class as possible because students, as stated by Langan [2002: 43] “will forget eighty percent or more of what” they have heard;

(2) Students ought to sit where they can see the board clearly and

easily, and where teachers can see them;

(3) Students are obliged to read their textbook materials in before each class because it helps them listen and make notes more easily;

(4) Record notes systematically;

(5) Students have to make an outline for their notes;

(6) Be alert for signals;

(7) Students are supposed to take notes from teachers;

(8) Write down details that connect or explain;

(9) Leave some blank spaces;

(10)It is advisable that students ask teachers any questions they do not get to master any points or what makes them confused;

(11)Students should keep on taking notes during discussions because ideas may arise in informal discussions;

(12) Students should keep on taking notes throughout their class until their class finished;

(13)Students should review their notes soon after their classes so as to avoid forgetting ideas

According to Dillon [2007: 201], there are two main types of notes in college: on textbook assignments and on lectures Taking notes on textbook materials is somehow easier than taking notes in lectures because students are not under as much pressure as they do during live presentation In actual fact, students can pace their textbook and take notes as they read and listen at the same time Moreover, they can stop to think about what they want to include in their notes and how to expand them into paragraphs Lecture notes, on the other hand, are taken during live presentation If students fail to understand any part of a lecture, they have no chance to listen to it again And it is not every polite to interrupt the lecturer often to ask what one fails to understand or to make notes Thus, they may get confused, and as a result they are unable to catch up with the lecture

James, Jordan and Mathews [2001:9] suggest some techniques to taking notes in English class more efficiently The techniques will be quoted in this part of the chapter as our reference to teaching the listening subject integrated with note taking to the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College According to the three authors, teachers are advisable to teach their students the following tips so as to help them make notes more proficiently in English listening class as well as in English lectures:

(1) Generally, if you want to take quick notes you must:

(a) omit completely certain sentences which are not essential to the main ideas Often examples can be restricted or omitted;

(b) concentrate on important sentences, i.e those which give most information, and on important words, i.e usually nouns, sometimes verbs and adjectives;

(c) write in short phrases, rather than in complete sentences;

(d) use common symbols or signs and abbreviations;

(2) You must show the connections between ideas by using:

(a) space: the presentation of the notes is important – you should be able

to see the main points clearly;

(b) numbers and letters (as here), e.g 1, 2, 3; (i), (ii), (iii); A, B, C; (a), (b), (c);

(c) underlining, to draw attention to something or to emphasize something;

(d) common symbols and signs, e.g x statement/answer ids wrong;

(3) common general abbreviations e.g i.e that is, cf compare Many of these are to be found in an appendix in a dictionary; others are commonly used

by English students;

(4) Note-Taking

Once again, note taking is always considered so crucial and indispensable when a student takes the test of English as the foreign language (TOEFL) Thus, the three authors Yancey, Macgillivray and Malarcher (2007) state, in their book

“Mastering Skills for the TOEFL® iBT Advanced”, some tips that can be considered as helpful techniques to making notes Some of the tips are consistent with taking notes for conversations, some others with taking notes for lectures Some are able to be applied to make notes for both conversation and lecture They are reviewed below

With reference to Macgillivray and Malarcher (2007: 373) when a student take notes, he or she is advised to:

(1) to use the organization of a lecture as the introduction, body point or caparison/contrast), and summary Accordingly, the student can categorize the lecture for his or her own notes,

(point-by-(2) to pay special attention to the introduction to get an idea of the topic and the organization of the lecture Then he or she can use the information as road map to listen more effectively The summary by the speaker is critical when checking for missed information,

(3) to think ahead and anticipate what the speaker might say next,

(4) to take notes of major points and connections Try not to get lost in minor points and details,

(5) not to try to write everything down It may lead to distraction or confusion about the focus of the lecture,

(6) to attempt to make in his/her words It will help him/her summarize the lecture later

2.3 Application of teaching listening integrated with taking notes

On the perspectives of the book by Yancey, Macgillivray, and Malarcher [2007], some activities to teaching and learning listening to conversations and note taking will also be applied as an efficient way to improve students’ listening comprehension and note taking

2.3.1 Aspects of integrating listening and note-taking

In accordance with the notions of note taking mentioned in 2,2, it is obvious that note taking plays an indispensable in any listening act Therefore, Beebe and Beebe (2000: 68) suggests, in the book Public Speaking, some ways of improving students’ listening skills However, the author realizes that students can hardly everything they listen to unless they make notes of what they hear in a class or a lecture As stated by Beebe and Beebe (2000: 68), “Coupling improving listening skills with increased skills in taking notes can greatly enhance your ability to retrieve in formation

It’s a good idea to ask learners to take notes on the recorded listening text as they listen to it in class and then compare with each other or with replay of the original text Alternatively, brief questions might be given in advance so that the learners can listen out for the answers and note them down as they hear them (Ur 1996:26)

A student with good listening comprehension skill will be able to participate more effectively in any class activities and in communicative situations as well (Brown 2001)

Taking notes on lectures is an accepted part The act of note taking during a lecture benefits students in several ways First, the notes provide the student with a record of the information discussed by the professor in class, information that the professor believes is especially important for students to learn and review for their tests and exams Another advantage of taking notes is that it forces students to pay closer attention to the class lecture or group discussion Hence, doing two things at

the same time-listening and taking notes- is better than doing one thing at a time (Dunkel and Pialossi Developing listening and Note-taking skills)

Note-taking and listening comprehension are inseparable in teaching and learning English Actually, note-taking helps students get long-term memory and understand the contents and ideas of any texts Therefore, if students fail to take notes during class, they have less or even no materials memorized in mind so as to yield it into their comprehensible input So listening and note-taking should be integrated at the same time

2.3.2 Getting ready to listen to a lecture and make notes

In order to help students understand the lecture easily, good preparation is

to be done in similar way as in pre-listening stage in English listening class First

of all, students should be instructed to master the lecture topic The strategy applied hereafter is suggested by Frazier and Leeming [2007] in their course book Lecture Ready – Strategies for Academic Listening, Note-taking, and Discussion On the perspective of this technique, students are advisable to notice the words and expressions their teachers use at the beginning of a college lecture The teachers commonly use the words and/or expressions to introduce the lecture topic directly or indirectly

Besides the words or expressions, a lecturer usually gives students the lecture plan giving a general overview of the material and how he or she has planned to present it to the students Therefore, the students are advised to pay close attention to the words and expressions the teacher uses to make the plan so

as to guess the topic of the lecture

Once the students know the lecture topic, it is easier and more feasible for them to understand the lecture because they can narrow the aspects of knowledge the teacher will talk about during the lecture Besides, students can also guess the vocabulary range that will be used in it For example, a teacher in charge of English lexicology can begin his or her introduction to one of the

aspect of English lexicology – Morphology and Morphemes with the following sentences:

- “Today we are going to talk about another aspect of English lexicology – Morphology and the Varieties of Morphemes”

Or - “Morphology is one of the most important aspects of English lexicology It deals with the smallest meaningful units of a word”

The teacher then gives the lecture plan, a kind of a lesson outline On giving such a plan, the teach supplies the students with several lexicological terminologies The teacher introduces the lesson’s main contents as the definition morphology and morphemes by saying:

“Now look at these words and their derivations and say what the added morphemes mean I think it is very easy for you because they are very common

to you”

2.3.3 Listening and note-taking strategies

In order to master a college lecture more thoroughly and actively, students are advisable to do another indispensable preparation stage before they actually listen to the lecture The strategy advocated by Frazier and Leeming (2007) in their course book Lecture Ready – Strategies for Academic Listening, Note-taking, and Discussion Book 3 will be stated in this part of the project In fact, the technique is practically applied to guide the Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College first-year English-majored students to listen to a lecturer and take notes more effectively during a college lecture

On the basis of this technique, the students are advised to use what they have acquired from in the lecturer’s introduction to the lecture For instance, On the basis of the lecture topic, the words or expressions the teacher used to introduce the lecture and the lecture plan, students should predict what the professor will expand and discuss furthermore in the lecture It is necessary that

students write down any predictions they may think that the lecturer will expand and discuss furthermore before they really start listening and taking notes

Another important strategy students need to notify is to clarify new and old information It is obvious that that not all the information given throughout a lecture is new Sometimes the lecturer says a certain point several times using different words or expressions Therefore, students should take advantage of his

or her repetitions to identify the main points the professor really wants to emphasize

To identify the lecture’s emphasis on a point more easily, students are instructed to notice words and expressions teachers popularly say during their college lectures Some of the most common words and expressions suggested by Frazier and Leeming (2007) are stated below as our students’ reference:

In other words, … Which is to say, …

What I mean is … As I said …

So, what I’m saying is … Let me restate that …

That is … Let me say that another way …

(1) some concepts and characteristics of listening and note-taking in classes of English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL),

(2) a variety of fundamental techniques and strategies of listening comprehension and note-taking suggested by previous methodologists,

(3) several common basic listening activities and tasks applied to teaching the English language all over the world

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY

The research was basically conducted by both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies with the two questionnaires (see Appendix A and B) It was also carried out by some unstructured interviews with the respondents - the first-year English-majored students as well as the teachers who have been in charge of the English listening subject for years at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College Apart from the two above-mentioned methodologies, the statistic method will also

be exerted to process the data collected so as to be analyzed in Chapter four, Data Analysis and Discussions of the Findings

3.2 Subjects

The target population of the survey was, as mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College who had studied English for seven years at junior high school and high school The students have, as referred to in Chapter one, Introduction, now taken up the English language as their major at college and as their future careers such as teachers of English, translators, interpreters, or office workers in foreign businesses as well The population also composed some teachers who have taught the listening subject to English-majored freshmen as well

There were a total of sixty-seven English majors who have to take two courses on listening comprehension in accordance with their first-year curriculum in English as a foreign language (EFL) at Binh Duong Teachers' Training College The respondents were chosen randomly from the 2 English classes - called English

4 A and English 4 B - with the same profiles and level of English

The rest respondents to the project included six teachers of English who have, for years, been in charge of the listening subject They were unstructuredly selected from the English Department in Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College

3.3 Questionnaire

3.2.1 Questionnaire for students

The first questionnaire was originally designed for the population of year English-majored students (Appendix A) Hence, it was utilized so as to explore the students’ reality and quality of their learning the listening subject at high school before they entered the Teachers’ Training College as well as their acquisition of listening techniques and strategies followed by some unstructured interviews with some students as referred to in 3.1 The questionnaire had first been tried out with twenty students A discussion was held afterwards with them for their feedback and comments, which were then used for the revision of this official questionnaire (Appendix A) The survey mainly concentrates on the following problems:

first-(1) students’ reality and quality of learning the Listening subject at high school;

(2) students’ acquisition of listening and note taking techniques and strategies

(3) students’ acquisition of basic listening and note taking activities and tasks

in listening classes or any classes that require students’ making notes

3.3.2 Questionnaire for teachers

The questionnaire for teachers had been conducted with six teachers at the English department The survey was mainly aimed at exploring the difficulties the teachers cope with in the process of their teaching the listening subject to the first-year English majored students at Binh Duong teachers’ Training College It was aimed at investigating their application of teaching techniques to developing the students’ listening skill in their first year syllabus

3.4 Instruments and Data Collection Procedures

The first questionnaire (Appendix A) was multiplied into sixty-seven copies which were handed out to the sixty-seven first-year English-majored students chosen at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College The survey was successfully

conducted thanks to the assistance from the teachers in charge of Listening who generously spared the learners thirty minutes to answer the questionnaire The population’s English listening background that the research was intentionally designed to investigate consists of their degree of practicing listening to English spoken by both native speakers on cassette tapes or CDs and their teachers or classmates (which is commonly regarded as classroom language by methodologists)

at high schools It also includes their attitudes towards the listening subject and their understanding capacity of verbal English in general Moreover, the background includes the students’ acquisition of listening techniques, activities and tasks that influence their present comprehensibility of English spoken by native speakers recorded on tapes and CDs and/or by their teachers and classmates in class time during their first year at the Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College And the most important factor is that their present reality in the process of developing their listening skill in accordance with their note-taking skill must be preferentially surveyed so as to find out:

(1) the students’ reality and quality of learning the Listening subject at high school,

(2) the students’ acquisition of listening and note taking techniques and strategies

(3) the students’ acquisition of listening and note taking activities and tasks The purpose of the second questionnaire (see Appendix B) was originally made to study the teachers’ reality and effectiveness in their process of teaching the listening subject to the English-majored freshmen at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College The teachers who have, for many years, been in charge of listening as a compulsory English subject in the college’s first-year curriculum were hypothesized to encounter a lot of obstacles in enhancing the students’ listening skill during their first year at college They have been considered to accumulate many valuable teaching experiences that have facilitated first-year students to overcome all the inhibitions in English listening classes The teachers have,

therefore been successful in improving students’ listening skill in their first year as English majors at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College However, the research was still done to make sure if they knew their students’ profiles or whether they taught them the techniques to learning listening to help improve their listening skill

as effectively and communicatively

In brief, all their disadvantages in teaching listening will be overcome in our own teaching process of the listening subject And with the integration with note taking, the first-year English majors will be facilitated to practice and develop their listening competence as effectively and communicatively as possible

3.5 SUMMARY

Chapter 3 has presented the methodology used in this thesis The qualitative method consisted of interviews, and observation The quantitative one involved teachers’ and students’ questionnaires Besides, statistic of figures will also be utilized to give a full analysis of the descriptive data as well as possible difficulties of the teachers when applying an integrated approach to teach listening and note-taking to the first-year English-majored students at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

The objective of this chapter is to present the results obtained from the questionaire The data relevant to the factors collected will thoroughly be analyzed

so as to find out the practical basis for the research The factors consist of:

(1) The problems with which the respondents investigated cope in English listening classes at high school that have still badly affected their quality of improving their listening comprehension competence as freshmen at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College,

(2) The students’ ability of exerting some fundamental listening activities and tasks to develop their listening skill in English classes at high school and in their first school year as English majors at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College, (3) Their degree of mastering and applying some basic techniques and strategies

of listening comprehension and note-taking when they officially began their listening class as compulsory subject at the college

4.1 FINDINGS OF QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS

4.1.1 Students’ reality of practicing the listening skill

First of all, the sixty seven respondents surveyed were asked to give the percentage

of class time they spared to learn the listening subject in English classes at high school The results will be analyzed and discussed to find out their degree of practicing listening to classroom English as well as the one spoken by native speakers on tapes or CDs On the basis of the findings, their English background will be identified to help develop their listening competence as efficiently and communicatively as possible during the first school year as English majors at the college

Table 1: Students’ degrees of practicing listening to spoken English

24 (35.82%)

8 (11.94%)

4 (5.97%) 1.2 Speaking 7

(10.45%)

13 (19.40%)

23 (34.33%)

13 (19.40%)

11 (16.41%) 1.3 Listening 00

(00.00%)

04 (7.46%)

14 (20.89%)

41 (61.19%)

8 (11.94%) 1.4 Grammar 16

(23.88%)

29 (43.28%)

15 (22.39%)

7 (10.45%)

0 (00.00%) 1.5 Reading 17

(25.37%)

24 (35.82%)

16 (23.88%)

8 (11.94%)

2 (2.95%) Referring to the first statistics figure in 3.1 (Table 1), none of the students

participating into the project was Always involved in listening activities in every

class of English at high school It is apparent that none of them was always facilitated to practice listening to classroom English spoken by both their teachers of English and their classmates Besides, they never got to listen to native English recorded on class tapes or CDs in every class of English at high school

The second data in 1.3 (Table 1) shows that just four of the sixty-seven the

students surveyed equaling just 7.46 percent were Often given listening activities

and tasks in English listening class at high school The result implies that few students were able to listen to English spoken by native speakers on tapes or CDs or to classroom English spoken by their teachers and classmates

In accordance with the third figure in 1.3 (Table 1), just fourteen

participants selected the answer Sometimes The figure demonstrates that only

one-fifths of all the sixty-seven respondents that occupies 20.89 percent of them

were Sometimes given chances to improve their listening ability in high school English classes The total number of all students who were Often and Sometimes

given listening activities to enhance their listening competence is just eighteen

of the population investigated Nevertheless, this figure makes up to just 28.35 percent of them

Some of the sixty-seven students participating in the research, when informally interviewed said that their teachers were unable to let them listen to English tapes or CDs played in every listening class because their schools could not afford enough cassette players or CD players for both teachers and students

to teach and learn the listening subject that is compulsory in secondary and high school syllabus of the English subject As said by the students, their teachers admitted they did not focus much on giving listening activities and tasks to their students for the following stated reasons:

(1) They were not supplied with tapes or CDs by the Ministry of Education; they themselves purchased tapes and CDs produced by HCM City Service of Education The tapes or CDs were of very bad quality Hence, both teachers and students found it very difficult to understand the English recorded on such tapes

or CDs Therefore they gradually limited the listening activities in class,

(2) Listening tasks were not officially included in their midterm tests, semester and/or final exams so teachers did not pay much attention to developing their students’ listening comprehension skill in every English class

With reference to the findings of high school students’ degree of practicing listening shown this part, most of the respondents have not had any

notions of listening comprehension in listening classes As a result, they have not acquired any competence of listening comprehension to spoken English in class These students find it hard to practice listening to native spoken English in class when they study English as their major during their first year at Binh Duong Teachers’ Training College Therefore they have not been able to get any understandable acquisition of verbal English when they hear it The findings obviously demonstrate the students have confronted great difficulties in listening

to native English played on tapes or CDs during class time or even find it impossible to understand classroom English spoken by both their teachers and classmates These first-year English-majors are apparently unable to get any progress in listening classes at the first stage at college Therefore they do not have a chance to enhance their understanding of oral English class at college

As a result, such students are inhibited from making progress or acquisition on studying other compulsory subjects in English that require the students’ good listening comprehensive ability in their first-year syllabus at college All the subjects of which teachers in charge are officially requested to speak English during class time consist of Speaking, Reading, and Writing In these very classes, such students can hardly get to understand what their teachers say for they are obliged to explain the lessons and give instructions in English all the time

The students find it even more unlikely to master other linguistic subjects

in their first-year curriculum at college The linguistic subjects such as English Phonetics and Lexicology seem to be pretty incomprehensible to the first-year English majors for they contain so many terminologies of linguistics that they had never studied at high school before they entered college In sum, the students’ poor background of understanding spoken English has deterred them