Enhancing the quality of teaching learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and contents of the new textbook tieng anh 8 in phu yen province

ABSTRACT Together with the movement which the total Education-Training Branch making best efforts in innovating the teaching-learning method at middle school level – in the tendency of s

HO THI VIET LUAN

M.A THESIS in TESOL

ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING-LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRICULUM AND CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 8

IN PHU YEN PROVINCE

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN VAN MUOI, Ph D

HO CHI MINH CITY – 2005

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

“ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING-LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRICULUM AND CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 8 IN PHU YEN PROVINCE”

In terms of the statements of requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee

HCM city, December, 2005

Hồ Thị Việt Luận

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Ho Thi Viet Luan being the candidate for the Degree of Master of TESOL accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the University Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis

deposited in the University 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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Van Muoi, for his valuable assistance, instructions and encouragement during the time of implementing the thesis

I am also greatly indebted to the Phu Yen DOET for creating favourable conditions for me to collect the essential data from the English teaching staff in the secondary schools in Tuy Hoa town

My sincere thanks are also to the principals of two secondary schools: Nguyen Du and Tran Quoc Toan for their warm supports for me to carry out my study in their schools

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 DOET: The Department of Education and Training

2 MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training

3 GTM: Grammar-Translation Method

4 ALM: Audio-Lingual Method

5 CLTM: Communicative Language Teaching Method

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 The frequency of implementing the three-stage procedure Figure 4.2 Degree of difficulty of the pre-listening stage

Figure 4.3 Difficulties of the pre-listening stage

Figure 4.4 Degree of difficulty of the while-listening stage

Figure 4.5 Difficulties of the while-listening stage

Figure 4.6 Degree of difficulty of the post-listening stage

Figure 4.7 Difficulties of the post-listening stage

Figure 4.8 The students’ attitude to learning listening

Figure 4.9 Degree of confidence before listening

ABSTRACT

Together with the movement which the total Education-Training Branch making best efforts in innovating the teaching-learning method at middle school level – in the tendency of stimulating the learners’ dynamism, active creativity in all the learning activities, the demands of enhancing the quality of teaching-learning language skills for the above trend have been being raised for not only those who are directly carrying out the process of teaching language skills but also education managers and researchers who are very interested in improving effectiveness of teaching-learning language skills in the system of secondary school education Under the current situation, the thesis is developed and focused mainly on listening skills in the pursuit of enhancing the quality of teaching-learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and the

contents of the new text book Tieng Anh 8 of MOET The data is handled

and collected during the process of the study according to the descriptive and qualitative analysis The questionnaires, observations and interviews are implemented as the surveys with a hope of finding out the potential obstacles that teachers and learners have encountered in teaching-learning listening and presenting some implications, suggestions and

recommendations in order to improve teaching-learning listening skills in the secondary schools more effectively

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Retention and use of the thesis ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of abbreviations iv

List of figures v

Abstract vi

Table of contents vii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 The aim of the study 2

1.3 The structure of the thesis .3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Listening and listening process 5

2.1.1 The importance of listening 5

2.1.2 Listening process 6

2.2 Stages of teaching-learning listening comprehension 9

2.2.1 Pre-listening 10

2.2.2 While-listening 12

2.2.3 Post-listening 14

2.3 Uncertainty of learners 16

2.3.1 Uncertainty of confidence 16

2.3.2 Uncertainty of spoken language 17

2.3.2.1 Redundancy 19

2.3.2.2 Noise 19

2.3.3 Uncertainty of vocabulary and grammatical structures 20

2.3.4 Uncertainty of listening strategies 22

2.3.4.1 Predicting 22

2.3.4.2 Selective listening 23

2.3.4.3 Inferencing 23

2.3.4.4 Personalizing 24

2.4 Teaching methods 24

2.4.1 Grammar-Translation Method 25

2.4.2 Audio-Lingual Method 27

2.4.3 Communicative Language Teaching Method 28

2.5 Summary 30

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 31

3.1 Research setting 31

3.2 Research questions 31

3.3 The study 32

3.3.1 Background to the study 32

3.3.2 The design and content of the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 32

3.3.3 The objects of the study 34

3.4 Methods for the study 35

3.4.1 Questionnaire 35

3.4.2 Questionnaire design 36

3.4.2.1 Questionnaire for teachers 36

3.4.2.2 Questionnaire for students 38

3.4.3 Observation 39

3.4.4 Interview 41

3.5 Summary 43

Chapter 4: FINDING AND ANALYSIS 44

4.1 The background of the English teachers 45

4.2 The potential obstacles in teaching-learning listening 46

4.2.1 The content of the listening lessons in the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 46

4.2.2 The issues concerning teaching listening 51

4.2.2.1 The issues concerning performing the three-stage teaching procedure 51

4.2.2.2 Pre-listening stage 54

4.2.2.3 While-listening stage 56

4.2.2.4 Post-listening stage 59

4.2.3 The issues concerning learning listening 62

4.3 Teaching methods of listening via the classroom observations and the small interviews with three observed teachers 69

4.3.1 The first class observation 69

4.3.2 The second class observation 71

4.3.3 The third class observation 72

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION-IMPLICATIONS-SUGGESTIONS 75

5.1 Conclusion 75

5.2 Pedagogical implications 79

5.2.1 Implications for teaching 79

5.2.1.1 How to use the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 79

5.2.1.2 How to implement the three-stage procedure of teaching-learning listening 80

5.2.1.3 Teaching methods 83

5.2.1.4 The other essential teaching techniques 84

5.3 Suggestions to students 88

5.4 Suggestions to the education managers in Phu Yen DOET 90

5.5 Limitation of the study and recommendation for further research 91

BIBLIOGRAPHY 93

APPENDICES 98

Appendix A: Questionnaire for English language teachers in secondary schools in Phu Yen province 98

Appendix B: Finding 101

Appendix C: Questionnaire for the grade-eight students 104

Appendix D: Findings 106

Appendix E: Interview questions with the observed teachers in the secondary schools and interview questions with the DOET’s teachers and Phu Yen College’s English teachers 107

Appendix F: Classroom observation sheet (1) 108

Appendix G: Classroom observation sheet (2) 113

Appendix H: Classroom observation sheet (3) 116

in the mother language and providing them a more thorough language competence.” (The Resolution 40/2000 -The Tenth National Assembly)

The set of the new textbooks Tieng Anh 6, 7 has come into use

officially in the whole country for the past school years 2002-2003,

2003-2004, in the pursuit of achieving the MOET’s objectives More importantly,

the textbook Tieng Anh 8 employed in the school year 2004-2005 has a developing structure of the lessons quite different from the one of Tieng

Anh 6, 7 The big change in the process of developing lessons in the

textbook Tieng Anh 8 means that the four language skills are taught and

developed separately and concentrated on the specific periods, whereas

according to the developing structure of the lesson of the text books Tieng

Anh 6, 7, the language skills are taught in integration and only expressed in

combination with the various drills

However, after three school years carrying out the new curriculum of the new text books with the Communicative Language Teaching Method, almost the secondary school teachers in Phu Yen province are still in a state of confusion and in-confidence in teaching listening skills, which partially causes any influence on the quality of teaching-learning foreign language in the province

Apparently, teaching-learning a foreign language is to develop at full capacity for four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing Moreover, for learners, listening is often regarded as the most difficult one

in the four language skills; and for secondary school teachers who have not been familiar to developing the language skills separately, helping learners improve listening skills effectively is still a great challenge

As a language teacher working at Phu Yen Teachers’ Training College where is completely in charge of organizing the seminars and workshops of the innovation of teaching methods for the secondary school teachers of the province, the author focuses a special interest on enhancing the quality of teaching-learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and contents of the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 The research will be a scientific and practical contribution towards achieving the main objectives in innovation of teaching-learning methods for the cause of Education and Training in Phu Yen Province

1.2 The aim of the study

Checking and evaluating teaching-learning listening skills in all the secondary schools in the province, organized annually by DOET, shows that the effectiveness of teaching-learning listening skills is the lowest Therefore, it is quite worthwhile to consider this issue carefully in order to decrease the negative results as much as possible

The purpose of this study is focused on investigating and seeking empirical evidence in order to have a thorough understanding of the current situations of teaching and learning English listening skills at the middle schools in Phu yen province so that the researcher can find out the potential strengths and weakness that teachers and learners express in the process of teaching and learning listening skills

It is also necessary to find out potential problems generating in teaching-learning listening in the secondary schools At the same time the researcher also explores the most urgent and necessary demands from the teachers who are directly responsible for teaching listening skills in a way

appropriate with the new textbook Tieng Anh 8

On the base of discovering the above-mentioned issues, in a limited scale, the thesis will try to present some appropriately-improved pedagogical implications and suggestions to help the secondary school teachers improving teaching-learning listening skills more effectively

1.3 The structure of the thesis

Chapter One presents an introduction including the following details:

1 Background of the problem

2 Aim of study

3 Structure of the thesis

Chapter Two presents the review of the literature and research relevant to the study including the following details:

1 The importance of listening

2 The theories of listening

3 The teaching methods

Chapter Three gives a detailed description of the methodology employed in the study

Chapter Four analyses and discusses the results of the investigations

of the issues mentioned in Chapter Three in order to orientate the pedagogical implications, the suggestions towards the next chapter

Chapter Five includes the conclusions together with the pedagogical implications for teaching, the suggestions to learning and managing teaching-learning English at secondary school level and the recommendation for further research

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of the chapter is to review the relevant literature for the study and also regarded as a theoretical evidence to support the researcher’s hypothesis

2.1 Listening and listening process

2.1.1 The importance of listening

According to Mary Underwood [39], listening is an activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear Therefore, listening keeps a vital role in every day communication To listen to spoken language, listeners need to be able to work out to what speakers mean, and this a skill which requires considerable efforts for foreign language learners

The point has frequently been made by Rivers [35] that of the time

an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9 per cent is devoted in writing, 16 per cent to reading, 30 per cent to speaking and 45 per cent to listening Apparently listening is used in the highest frequency

in comparison with the other skills Learners spend the very high proportion of time attempting to listen-comprehension in classrooms

Moreover, there emerges in the recent years an increasing trend of learning foreign language with interest oracy The ability to understand and participate in spoken communication is considered as the first-ranked concern of the education in Vietnam and this is the most basic and practical

objective towards which teaching-learning a foreign language has been making the best efforts to orientate It is the current interest in oracy that has generated a stronger focus on listening in the classroom, and developing good listening habits and strategies In other words, the foreign language acquisition cannot gain any achievement or any learning simply cannot begin without the comprehensible input, so listening plays a key part in language acquisition and listening is fundamental to speaking

It is undoubted that the development of effective strategies for listening becomes important not only for oracy but also for the process of acquiring language Learners need stressing the importance and role of listening in learning foreign language Language teachers are required to master how to help learners build scientific methods in dealing with authentic spoken English, aiming at gaining the best effectiveness in teaching-learning listening

2.1.2 Listening process

Listening is a “receptive skill”, and Trecia Hedge [17, p 227] cites that it has been described as the “neglected, “overlooked”, or “taken for granted” skill Certainly some teaching-learning methods have assumed that listening ability develops automatically through exposure to the language and through practice of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation

Listening is really a two-direction process of acquisition This is a combination of both listening and exposing the information or data with comprehending-decoding the acoustic signals and then catching the content

of the data and scoring in the long-term memory Such a process is clearly

an “active” and “constructive” one Indeed, the psychologists Bartlert (1932), Carrell and Eisterhold (1987) considered that the process of perceiving and decoding the acoustic signals goes on in two directions: bottom-up and top-down

In the bottom-up process, listeners use their knowledge of language competence to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents The listeners use information in the speech itself to try to comprehend the meaning The listeners segment speech into identifiable sounds and impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases, clauses, sentences and intonation patterns, all of which are available to infer the meaning from developing speech In other words, the process of bottom-up

is a linear one, in which meaning itself is derived as the last step in the process

Hedge [17, p 230] presents several listening strategies of the

bottom-up which enable the listeners facilitate in inferring the meaning from the developing speech:

-In the English language, the placement of stress on the meaningful words, the use of pauses which mark the edge of “sense” groups, and the relationship of stressed to unstressed syllables, plus increased tempo, clipped enunciation and accompanying non-verbal behavior such as head shaking and frowning, all provide listeners with

information as to the meaning, function and implicating emotion of a message

-Listeners employ the lexical knowledge to assign the meanings

to words and use logical reasoning to infer the relationship between them There are logical categories and relations which derive from the listeners’ experience of the world and which enable the listeners to impose the meaning on what they hear

-Listeners also use the knowledge of syntactic structure to infer meaning The listeners tend to expect a typical structure of sentences in order to impose the meaning from what is heard

All these strategies enable listeners to work out the links in discourses to hold word sequences which the listeners make sense of what

is heard as fast as possible

In the top-down process, the listeners actively reconstruct the original meaning of the speakers using incoming sounds as clues In this reconstruction process, the listeners use prior knowledge of the context and situation which the listening takes place to make sense of what they hear Context and situation include such things as knowledge of the topic, the speakers and speakers and their relationship to the situation, as well as to each other; or knowledge of language, socio-culture, life The prior knowledge which listeners bring to the process of listening has a very great impact on what they are able to get out of it and to infer the meaning of the content This process is completely contrast to the one that listeners

become embedded in determining the meaning of the individual words and certainly it brings more effectiveness for teaching-learning listening

It is no doubted that listening comprehension is not a passive process

of perceiving and decoding the acoustic signals like a cassette-recorder, but a really complicated process that requires the listeners to link both the function of the bottom-up and top-down strategies simultaneously and mutually Moreover, it requires the listeners to employ a range of the language competence in listening

The process from listening-receipting information to comprehending- decoding the acoustic signals, to inferring the content of the information, to scoring in the long-term memory proves that listening is not a passive process as thought before This is an actively interactive process in which linguistic information, contextual clues, and prior knowledge make some interactions to support comprehension In order to carry out listening-comprehension foreign language in the best way, listeners need to be aware of how to employ listening input and the factors from the insights effectively Therefore, a classroom procedure of developing listening needs to be designed the following steps: pre-while-post-listening

2.2 Stages of teaching-learning listening comprehension

From the late 1960s, the importance of listening in language classes was recognized and set aside time for practicing the skill A relatively standard format for the listening lesson developed at this time: Pre-

The procedure of teaching-learning listening in three stages is a good pattern for language teachers to modify considerably It not only has an effective impact on listening comprehension but also is an appropriate opportunity for listeners to employ both the bottom-up and the top-down strategies in the most productive way A language teacher makes sure that

a listening lesson proceeds in an orderly and productive way so that learners can feel secure and partially aware of what is expected from them, all of which help learners become more proficient in listening to English

Pre-listening is extremely essential for teaching-learning listening A language teacher needs to be creative and flexible not only to form the activities appropriate with the purpose of listening, but to exploit the learners’ prior knowledge and language competence as well The learners feel more confident when they are aware of what they are hearing and why they are hearing Pressure of listening is decreasing and the listeners become active in thinking and using their insights

Marry Underwood [39, p 31] supplies a whole range of activities for

-The teachers giving background information;

-The learners reading something relevant;

-The learners looking at pictures;

-Discussion of the topic/situation;

-A question and answer session;

-Written exercises;

-Following the instructions for the while-listening activity;

-Consideration of how the while-listening activity will be done

The nature and extent of the pre-listening activities can be changed

in some cases or situations, but the level of difficulty of the lesson needs ensuring, relevant to the lesson’s content and the population and ability of learners All the pre-listening activities are exploited to help learners receiving some necessary acoustic signals of information, storing in the short-term memory

Indeed, pre-listening is the most crucial step in the process of teaching-learning listening It provides a background to be able to carry out the next steps If the comprehension input gained from pre-listening activities occurs neither easily nor successfully, the next steps of decoding the acoustic signals will be certainly a great challenge for listeners A language teacher, thus needs to prepare the activities of pre-listening step

as carefully as possible Learners have to be equipped with a variety of activities bringing advantages for the next steps Especially, the activities concerning with a certain amount of vocabulary related to the listening text

Pre-listening should not be considered as a step with the isolated activities Pre-listening is the “build-up” to the actual listening, not only assisting with comprehension but also motivating the learners to get interested in listening

Pre-listening can consist of reading, writing, speaking or all three skills combined The integrated-skilled approach provides opportunities for learners to practise and use language in a natural and genuine way

2.2.2 While-listening

The work at the while-listening stage needs to have a logical link to the pre-listening work In this stage, learners become involved in an authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more intensively or more extensively, for gist or for specific information

“The purpose of while- listening is to help learners develop the skill

of eliciting messages from spoken language’- Marry Underwood [39, p.45] While-listening is to confirm learners’ expectation raised at pre-listening stage and to help them to get the necessary content of the listening text If the pre-listening is a stage which teachers cause some certain impacts on learners’ listening, equipping learners with stimulation, inferring orientation, preparing for acquiring information, then the while-listening is

a stage which listeners process the information in details Teachers play a quite important role in the stage The teachers creatively and skillfully select the activities relevant to the learners’ interests and levels so as to prevent the anxiety or de-motivation arising from the learners

Ur [41] emphasizes, “Teaching-learning approach is identified in diversity of form as well as content of the activities If there is one or two monotonous activities, it is difficult to maintain active atmosphere in classroom as well as learners’ motivation will decrease.”

Learners need to participate in as many activities as possible so that they will set up an active attitude in listening comprehension Through while-listening activities, learners are aware that listening comprehension not only supplies necessary information but also brings them a lot of excitement Therefore, while-listening activities should be interesting enough for learners to want to listen and to carry out the activities

According to Underwood [39, p 48] while-listening activities should

be things that most people can do The learners easily lose interests and lead to de-motivation when they get into too many difficulties and challenges in finishing the tasks So the level of difficulty of the while-listening activities is adjusted flexibly and creatively The while-listening work should be simple and easy to handle It is important to know that the purpose of the while-listening activities is to assist concentration and to guide listeners to go through the listening text, not to test the ability of listening or speaking or writing correct sentences based on the content of the listening text

Underwood [39] designs a range of the following while-listening activities:

-Marking/ checking items in pictures;

-Story line picture set;

-Putting pictures in order;

-Competing pictures;

-Picture drawing;

-Carrying out actions;

-Making models/arranging items in patterns;

-Seeking specific items of information

All of the above-mentioned activities are actually valuable sources

of reference for language teachers to select and design The choice of the activities depends on the level of response that is appropriate, not only to the type of the text but also to the level of the learners, all of which prevent anxiety and de-motivation

2.2.3 Post-listening

Post-listening is a stage in which activities are designed to take learners into more intensive phase of study in which aspects of bottom-up listening are practiced- Hedge [17, p 252]

On the base of comprehending the content of the listening text, the post-listening stage requires the learners’ listening and thinking to be activated in a higher degree The question words like why? how? are employed to stimulate learners to analyze, discuss and explain some problems related to the listening topic Although Harmer [16] says that the post-listening stage lasts only 10/45 minutes of a teaching period, it is extremely necessary for teachers and learners It is a good time when the learners have chances to express their own ideas in speaking or writing as

a way of reinforcing recently learned material, when the teachers check the learners’ listening comprehension and at the same time draw attention

to the specific parts of the listening text which cause the problems for the listeners, aiming at evaluating all the procedure of teaching-learning listening comprehension, including the process of selecting the listening text, designing and controlling the listening activities

If the pre-listening stage has built up expectations in the listeners, and the while-listening stage has satisfied these expectations, it is hard to sustain interest at the post-listening stage unless the post-listening activities are intrinsically motivating For this reason, Underwood [39, p 80] supplies several forms of the post-listening activities to maintain the learners’ interest:

-Sequencing/ grading;

-Matching with a reading text;

-Extending notes into written responses;

-Summarizing;

-Using information from the listening text for problem- solving and decision- making activities;

-Jigsaw listening;

-Identifying relationships between speakers;

-Establishing the mood/attitude/ behavior of the speaker;

-Role play/ simulation

Post-listening work can be also integrated with other skills through development of the topic into reading, speaking or writing activities The new sources of motivation always arise for the learners more than the interest of the original listening text The learners are eager to expand the topic or language of the listening text and to transfer things learned to another context It is very necessary for the language teacher to prepare the sorts of activities activating the learners’ knowledge and language competence

2.3 Uncertainty of learners

As far as listening-comprehension is concerned, three-stage listening

is an effective procedure of teaching-learning listening to a foreign language Its capacity develops more when the teachers master the kinds

of problems experienced by listeners Many learners of English encounter

more difficulties in listening than the other skills When listening to the natural speech, learners are exposed to loose flowing texts not the same as the dense, structured texts of reading And the learners often feel inundated with the problems when they first attempt to listen to the target language Trecia Hedge [17, p 236] categorizes some uncertainties which have a considerable influence on personality characteristics, attitudes and emotional responses to the process of learning listening

2.3.1 Uncertainty of confidence

Most the foreign language listeners often have an anxiety that they fail to catch the actual sounds or all the necessary information said in the listening comprehension materials The learners also fail to appreciate that

it is essential to integrate linguistics knowledge with the exciting experience and knowledge of such things as topic and culture and not to need to hear every word The effort to understand every thing often results

in effective comprehension as well as feelings of fatigue, failure and non- confidence Learners’ anxiety can be exacerbated by a classroom procedure which does not contextualize the text or prepare the topic by activating prior knowledge The procedure which asks learners to listen the text and then to answer the questions is testing listening ability rather than aiming to teach it When the learners are exposed to listen and to finish the tasks without the contextualized activities, they become too anxious to control confidence A language teacher needs to recognize learners’ this problem and to provide learners the positive classroom experiences It is

heard information-something learners do naturally in the source language Teachers make sure that the pace and length of a listening activity relatively relevant to learners’ concentration in order to avoid negative responses from learners

2.3.2 Uncertainty of spoken language

Although most listeners rely mainly on the context for comprehension, they are often themselves confused to catch fast and natural speech “Spoken language is very different from the language in written text.”- Hedge [17, p 238] Learners have to be aware to draw a distinction between formal speech and informal speech in spoken language There are many intermediate gradations, ranging from the extremely formal (ceremonial formulae, some politic speeches), through the fairly formal (news-reading, lectures), to the fairly informal (television interviews, most classroom teaching) and the very formal (gossip, family quarrels)

According to Penny Ur [41, p 6], informal spoken language is usually used in conversations both spontaneously and colloquially; formal spoken language is spoken in prose There is a distinct difference between the auditory effect of a piece of spoken prose and the one of informal conversation The former is characterized by a fairy even pace, volume and pitch On the other hand, spontaneous conversations have frequent pauses and overlap incomplete sentences; go faster and slower, louder and

speakers such as hesitations, exclamation, interruptions, surprise, anger, etc There is a constant change of the rhythm of speech in natural dialogues Moreover, spoken language is presented by either first language speakers or second language speakers with a variety of accents, phonological features such as pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation patterns

The foreign language learners should be exposed to as many spontaneous informal talks as they can so that they have opportunities to adapt and adjust the above-mentioned variables

The learners need to be engaged in the factors affecting listening to spoken language, especially informal speech such as redundancy, noise, colloquial language and auditory character

repetitions, false starts, incomplete sentences, re-phrasings, self-correction are typical of informal speech A foreign language learner who listens carefully for the exact sense of such redundancy and attaches importance

to it is actually hampering himself The redundancy in spoken language may make listeners somewhat confused, however, it is not as unnecessary

as it seems When speakers express what they really mean in providing an abundance of extra information, listeners have some time to catch the necessary ideas without concentrating very hard to understand all the words, phrases or sentences

2.3.2.2 Noise

When listening to someone speaking, listeners usually have to put up with a certain amount of noise The listeners can be interrupted by environmental noise, which affects partly on effectiveness of listening According to Penny Ur [41, p 7], noises can be caused not only by some outside disturbance, but also by a temporary lack of attention on the part of the listeners, or by the fact that a word or phrase is not understood because

it is mispronounced or misused or because the listeners simply do not know

it These reasons often cause some gaps in listening

Furthermore, the foreign language learners make more efforts to catch the meaning of the listening texts and they find these gaps far more difficult to take in their stride and they are afraid of that This is for three following main reasons First, the sheer number of gaps is much larger There are some items that listeners cannot understand simply because the

listeners neither know them nor get sufficiently familiar with them, so listeners cannot grasp the rapid speech even though the listeners could probably recognize them if they face with them in writing Second, the listeners are not familiar enough with the sound combinations, lexis and collocations of the language to make predictions to what is missing Third, when the listeners encounter too many gaps in listening, they fall in a non-balance state of psychology They feel that they are listening under compulsion to understand everything, which brings the listeners a complete failure in listening comprehension

2.3.3 Uncertainty of vocabulary and grammatical structures

Stanley [38, p 285] supposes that “lack of comprehension of every day speech by foreign learners arises from meeting new vocabulary.”

The foreign language listeners have difficulties in understanding spoken language because they have not learned or have not been familiar with plenty of vocabulary and structures used in colloquial speech or they

do not have enough time to search in the memory to recognize the meaning

of the words or structures they have learned The unknown words can be likely a sudden barrier causing listeners to stop and think about the meaning of the words and thus making listeners miss the next part of the speech The tendency of learning listening English which emphasizes to accuracy than how language is used, causes a negative impact on the effectiveness of listening The unsuccessful listeners often have a habit of

focusing on the language word by word, working out its structures and then deciding on its meaning

Indeed, Mary Underwood [39, p 18] says that good listeners are the ones who can tolerate vagueness and incompleteness of knowledge They often get surprisingly good results when they are aware of listening to what

is coming and letting things passing rather than dwelling upon them teaching of vocabulary or structures has now largely been regarded as an effective method The learners cannot expect all of the unknown words and structures to be explained in advance; instead, they have to learn to cope with situations where part of what is heard will not be familiar However, it is possible for the teacher to present a certain amount of the key words or structures at the beginning of the listening lesson in order to enable listening comprehension easier The learners also need to develop the skill of keeping up with the speaker even though some parts of speech pass without being understood because comprehension is not essential to catch the whole words and structures said

Pre-2.3.4 Uncertainty of listening strategies

Nunan [28] says that there are some key strategies of listening that learners feel confused and uncertain, including predicting, selective listening, inferencing and personalizing Richards [32, p.235] also claims that it is also important to teach learners the specific strategies that can

help them understand the processes underlying listening so that gradually they can assume greater control of their own learning If a listener can know any sort of thing that is going to be said next, he will be much more likely to perceive it and understand it well, it means that he is aware of how speaker is going to finish his sentences, how to select either significant information or redundant one However, gaining these abilities

is not easy at all for foreign language learners And to develop these skills, the above-mentioned strategies should be taught as well as practiced as much as possible

These strategies should not be separated from the content teaching, but woven into the ongoing fabric of the lesson so that learners can see the applications of the strategies to the development of effective listening learning

2.3.4.1 Predicting

According to Penny Ur [42] predicting is looking ahead, helps learners to anticipate what is to come This results in more effective learning because the learners are adequately prepared for the new material In order to encourage learners in predicting, teachers might give learners listen to the first part and then pauses to give them a chance to think forward, about the next part Learners can simply guess the possible meaning of the continuation The strategy is suitable for immediate feedback, matching exercises, multiple-choice format, filling the gaps or orally or in writing an incomplete sentence or passage

2.3.4.2 Selective listening

Krahnke [20, p 25] shows that selective listening is a strategy to establish an ability to perceive and follow one stream of speech or one conversation out of several that may be reaching the hearer’s ears The ability to select and follow one of listening texts, however, is not based on perceptual factors but on learners’ need and ability to use a continuous stream of language on which to build comprehension Knowing what goes before, and predicting what will come is a sequential comprehension process that allows learners to analyze and select necessary information Selective listening might be set up on the base of the activities such as answering comprehension questions about specific and selected pieces of information asked before hearing the passage; Indicating when a specific piece of information is heard

2.3.4.3 Inferencing

According to Karl Krahnke [20], inferencing is guessing from information available in a listening text and he recommends some activities on which the strategy is based to develop, including the following: Identification of stated and inferred information; answering comprehension questions requiring inferencing, asked after overall comprehension questions; Completion of incomplete texts; Guessing at unknown word meanings or unheard words

2.3.4.4 Personalizing

According to Nunan [28, p 321], personalizing is to share your own opinions and ideas A challenge for teachers in the listening classroom is to personalize the content of the lesson so that learners are able to bring something of themselves to the task There are numerous ways in which listening can be personalized For example, it is possible to increase learner involvement by providing extension tasks which take the listening material as a point of departure, but which leads learners into providing part of the content themselves For example, students might listen to someone describing his or her work, and then create a set of questions for interviewing the person

The strategy of personalizing listening might produce its best effect

if teachers aware to make activities with instructional goals explicit to learners, to give learners a degree of choices and opportunities to activate their own background knowledge and experience in listening Teachers also need to prepare some tasks to develop a reflective attitude to the content of the listening text or to develop skills in self-monitoring and self-assessment

2.4 Teaching methods

The quality of teaching-learning listening comprehension almost depends on teaching methods Harmer [16, p 7] points out “If students find the teaching method boring, they will probably become de-motivated, whereas if they have confidence in the method, they will find it motivating”

Apparently, a lot of languages teachers and methodologists have made the best efforts to research teaching methods whose functions bring teaching-listening foreign language as much success as possible In the light of teaching-learning foreign language, there are numerous argumentative viewpoints of teaching methods Each of the methods has both strong points and restricted ones It is a good idea when a teacher is aware of how to employ a method skillfully and scientifically In the limited scale of the research paper, three quite popular teaching methods are focused in details: Grammar-Translation, Audio-Lingual and Communicative Language Teaching Methods

2.4.1 Grammar-Translation Method (GTM)

The GTM was born at the end of the nineteenth century and first used to teach the classical languages such as Latin and Greek Larsen-Freeman, D [23, p 4], therefore named it “classical method” With the GTM, lessons were divided up into a reading section which usually featured a well- known text selected for its intellectual content followed by vocabulary lists with translation equivalents Explanations of grammar were given in the students’ native language Proficiency in the language was often judged according to criterion such as the ability to analyze the language into its syntactic structure

In deed, the GTM is a language teaching method based on grammar analysis and the translation of sentences and text to and form the learners’ first and target languages_ Nunan [27, p 308] In grammar-translation

classrooms, learners typically know a good deal about the language but are unable to use this knowledge to communicate appropriately With grammar and translation drills, it is often difficult for learners to make the conceptual leap from the classroom to genuine communication outside the classroom This is not to say that drills of these kinds have no place in the language classrooms, but it means that they are insufficient The following

is the principles of Grammar-Translation Method that Richards and Rodger [32, p 32] present:

-Grammar rules and vocabulary of the target language are taught in mother tongue

-Students are taught to translate from one language to another

-Native language equivalents for foreign language vocabulary are required to memorize

-The teacher is the authority in the classroom

The GTM has received a considerable amount of criticism over the years, the main problem being the lack of everyday realistic spoken language content However as a methodology it requires few specialized skills on the behalf of the teacher and it can under certain circumstances promote an adequate reading knowledge in the language for the purposes

of academic study Tests of grammar rules and translation are relatively easy to construct

2.4.2 Audio-Lingual Method (ALM)

The ALM began to be used in teaching foreign language in the United States around the end of 1950s “Audio-Lingual Method is based on

an inductive approach in which rules are “caught” rather than “taught”_ Richard and Rodgers [32] In the audio-lingual classroom, learners are acquired to form a new linguistic habit; the skills are learned more effectively if oral precedes written, analogy not analysis This method also has learners memorize and manipulate the target grammar through various manipulation and substitution drills According to Nunan [28, p 241], Audio-Lingualism is a “3P” instructional cycle of presentation, practice and production The ALM supports the view that foreign language learning would be more effective if learners concentrate their efforts on mastering the basic sentence patterns of the language Once these patterns are memorized, new vocabulary can be “slotted-in” The role of teachers in the ALM is center and active, provides model and controls direction and pace and learners can be directed by skilled training techniques to produce correct responses

Of all modern methods of teaching language, the ALM has undoubtedly had the greatest impact In fact, the ALM is associated with a drill-based pedagogical culture Although the ALM is supposedly dead and buried, the drill-based culture is very much alive and well Teachers can employ the ALM to control the structures of sound, form and order or to control the pre-listening