Suggestions to improve the teaching of listening comprehension for intermediate learners of english at foreign language centre of ho chi minh city university of education luận văn thạ

HO CHI MINH CITY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION FOR INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT

HO CHI MINH CITY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING OF

LISTENING COMPREHENSION FOR INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTRE OF HO CHI MINH

CITY UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of arts (TESOL)

Supervisor: ĐẶNG THỊ HƯỞNG, EdD

Student: LÊ VĂN HÙNG

Ho Chi Minh City, February 2007

STATEMENTS OF AUTHORITY

I certify that this thesis entitled “Suggestions to improve the teaching of listening comprehension for intermediate learners of English at Foreign Language Centre of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education” is my own work

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in my other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, February 2007

Le Van Hung

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor, Dr Dang Thi Huong, who read my manuscript with great care, gave thoughtful and insightful comments, supplied extremely valuable advice, and provided valuable support for my thesis improvements and completion With the great encouragements and constant guidance, she has been really my great help to complete the thesis successfully

Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to send my special thanks to all of

my colleagues who have been great help for my survey done in the busiest time of the year during the course

In addition, my special thanks go to the learners in two classes in UEFLC who gave me their useful and helpful advice and experience during my carrying out the survey Without their help, the thesis could not have been possible

Finally, yet importantly, I am greatly indebted to my mother and my wife for their wholehearted support during the thesis being done

ABSTRACT

The thesis aims 1) to investigate the listening problems of the intermediate learners of English at one of the foreign language centre of University of Education (UEFLC); 2) to examine the

factors that could affect the listening competence of

intermediate learners of English at UEFLC; and 3) to suggest ways to be better in teaching listening comprehension for those

learners

Both quality and quantity were employed in the survey to explore their benefit to make clear what the real obstacles of intermediate learners of English are In order to do this, the survey questionnaires were delivered to intermediate learners

of English and Vietnamese teachers of English at UEFLC An interview was also conducted with teachers to collect data to be able to understand the teaching and learning of listening

comprehension at UEFLC

Teachers’ experiences and learners’ requirements as well as their reactions to the listening teaching and learning at UEFLC shows that (1) listening is an active process and a key point that learners should not ignore because it helps them a lot

in studying other English skills; (2) school facilities are in a bad condition, causing

a lot of difficulties for intermediate learners of English in learning listening comprehension; (3) listening activities need teachers’ good preparations in the lesson plan to make it more feasible; (4) intermediate learners of English at UEFLC are still weak at their listening comprehension for many reasons

The thesis suggests that (1) the development of listening techniques and strategies should be encouraged; (2) teacher should teach, not test listening comprehension, and try to avoid using activities that tend to focus on memory rather than on the process of listening comprehension; (3) teacher should be a main factor and creative in making lesson plans to meet the learners’ requirements; (4) textbooks used for listening comprehension should be authentic and relevant; and (5) school facilities should be in good conditions

Obviously, teachers, learners, materials, and school facilities are important elements for the success of teaching and learning English listening comprehension

at UEFLC

2.1 Several basic concepts of listening comprehension 7

2.1.1 Definitions of listening comprehension 9

2.1.2 The role of listening comprehension 9

2.1.3 Different views of listening comprehension 10

2.2 Listening comprehension activities 13 2.3 The differences between teaching and testing listening

23

2.5.1 The Direct Method Approach 24 2.5.2 The Audio-Lingual Approach 25 2.5.3 The Communicative Approach 28 2.6 The roles of teachers and learners 29

CUP Cambridge University Press

EFL English as a foreign language

IELTS International English Language Testing System

MA Master of Art

OUP Oxford University Press

TEFL Teaching English as a foreign language

TESOL Teaching of English to speaker of other languages

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language

TOEFL IBT Test of English as a Foreign Language – Internet Based Test TOEIC Test of English for International Communication

UEFLC The University of Education, Foreign Language Centre at Ho

Chi Minh City

LIST OF TABLES

Page 3.1 Background information about the learner subjects 37 3.2 Background information about the teacher subjects 38 4.1 Learners’ frequency in practising listening comprehension 46 4.2 Learners’ difficulty in listening to pronunciation 52 4.3 Learners’ responses to vocabulary in listening comprehension 53

4.4 Learners’ responses to topic 55 4.5 Learners’ responses to a short listening task 57 4.6 Learners’ responses to a long listening task 59

LIST OF FIGURES

Page 4.1 Learners’ idea of listening materials applied in at UEFLC 47 4.2 Learners’ listening comprehension improvements 49 4.3 Learners’ opinions about how to improve listening

4.8 Teachers’ preference for the direct method 70 4.9 Teachers’ preference for Audio Lingual Method 71 4.10 Teachers’ preference for Communicative Language Teaching

Method

73

4.11 Teachers’ preference for the textbooks used at the Centre 76 4.12 Teachers’ responses to audio equipments at UEFLC 78

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This study looks into the listening problems of intermediate learners of English at one of the foreign language centres at the University of Education (UEFLC) in Ho Chi Minh City and examines the aspects influencing their listening comprehension competence We do hope that the findings will help

improve English learners’ listening comprehension in the target language by finding the causes of difficulty and providing the learners with the possible ways to overcome these difficulties This chapter presents the background to

the study, the aims and the structure of the thesis

1.1 Background to the study

In recent decades, English has been a very important language all over the world, which many researchers have been concerned about One of the well-known authors who did such a research is Fennell Talking about the number of English

speakers nowadays, Fennell (2006, A History of English www.danshort.com) stated that “the English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language or in a mixture with other languages,” and “English is the official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.” For the advanced development of these countries, the means to propagate technology, business, and trade is in English Therefore, English has spread worldwide, becoming the first and key language in most of the countries around the world for employment, education, and especially for international interchange of business and culture Thus, the requirement of English study has developed rapidly

The same situation of English development could be found in Vietnam English has marked its appearance in Vietnam War when American soldiers came to the south of Vietnam Being involved in this event, the President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, Kehoe (1968:129, cited in Do Huy Thinh, 1999) made the following prediction: "What the role of English may be in Southeast Asia will depend on the outcome of the conflict there."

Do Huy Thinh (1999) said that the choice of English in particular and foreign languages in general, to be taught in an educational system for the most part, bears the political, economic and social imprints of that society After experiencing a lot

of difficulties in the period of 1975-1985, Vietnam decided to carry out the

‘renovation’ or ‘Doi Moi.’ Vietnam's transition began with ‘Doi Moi' enacted in

1986, which paved the way for radical economic reforms along with the advancements of many other aspects in the society He said that conditions for a thorough look at the role of foreign languages, especially English, in national development started to emerge after many changes throughout the country

As a result, more English-speaking foreigners began to visit Vietnam along with products and advertisements in English Do (1999) said that English began to become popular and was used not only between the Vietnamese and foreigners but also between the Vietnamese themselves All this prompted the emergence of English as the main foreign language taught at almost high schools, universities, colleges as well as at foreign language centres

In consequence, Vietnamese learners of English have the chance to improve their English by studying in extra classes With the changes in consideration

of English, the needs and requirements of Vietnamese learners when studying English have undergone a big change Instead of focusing on grammar and vocabulary for reading, and writing, English learners need to be fluent in the four language skills However, their competence of English, especially in listening comprehension has not been as good as expected The difficulty in English listening comprehension prevents them much from understanding what their teachers have taught This is why their English competence could not meet the requirements of the society Some learners could not catch the English sounds, understand the gist, get the details, identify the function,

investigate the speaker’s stance or the organization of the listening task These learners complained that they mainly learned grammar, reading, writing and little listening, which hinder them from good listening comprehension and communication Therefore, we are aware that, for Vietnamese learners of English, listening and speaking should be a focus because listening comprehension is always closely related to the speaking

skill

In order to improve their English, many learners tend to study in extra classes, mostly in foreign language centres Many foreign language centres or schools have been set up to meet these learners’ demands According to 'Nguoi Lao Dong' (The Labourer), a Vietnamese newspaper (January 1 st 2006), about 640 foreign language schools and centres have been established (up to August 25 th 2005) in Ho Chi Minh City, most of which are English schools or centres In this thesis, I would like to investigate the teaching and learning of listening comprehension for intermediate learners of English at one of the foreign language centres at Ho Chi Minh City University of

Education

Nowadays, UEFLC is regarded as one of the most popular foreign language centres in Ho Chi Minh City At this centre, there are three languages to be taught, which are English, French, and Chinese For English teaching and learning in particular, there are three basic levels of English study: elementary, intermediate and advanced Learners of English at intermediate and advanced levels could move to international certificate preparation courses such as TOEIC, TOEFL, and IELTS after finishing the required courses which help them improve their reading, writing, speaking, and listening From elementary to advanced levels, they usually learn the four language skills with eight classes At the intermediate level, they need to

successfully complete six English classes with different levels from lower to higher, and three English classes within six months for specialized intermediate courses before taking an exam for national certificates At this level, they study one of the following textbooks: Streamline English or Life

Lines

In addition, at UEFLC, the school facilities do not contribute much to an ideal environment for teaching and learning of listening comprehension Except for TOEFl iBT preparation classes with well-equipped computers that are suitable for listening comprehension, most of the rooms do not have suitable equipments for a listening comprehension class Learners do not have adequate media conditions to study listening comprehension Big rooms

could also prevent learners from good listening comprehension

In this study, I wanted to focus on how the learners of English at intermediate level study English listening comprehension with difficulties, and have a critical look at the reasons why there exist listening comprehension problems for intermediate learners of English at this centre I do hope that this study may assist learners to study English listening comprehension effectively at UEFLC, and teachers may have some positive ideas for solving the learners’

problems

1.2 The aims of the study

The aims of the study are the following:

(1) To find out the difficulties most of the learners of English have when studying listening comprehension at intermediate level;

(2) To identify the aspects influencing the English learners’ listening comprehension skill at the intermediate level;

(3) To suggest better ways for the teaching and learning of listening comprehension effectively at UEFLC

1.3 The structure of the study

This study is composed of five chapters Chapter One mentions the introduction providing background to the study Chapter Two provides the relevant literature review Chapter Three presents methodology including research questions, research design, characteristics of the subjects, instruments and implementations

of the study Chapter Four reports the results of the study and discussion of the findings Chapter Five presents the conclusions and suggestions for the improvement of teaching and learning listening comprehension and the materials used at UEFLC

This Chapter has presented the introduction to the study The next chapter, Chapter Two, will give the details of the theoretical framework for the study

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

The background information to the study has been presented in Chapter One Chapter Two provides the relevant literature review for the study including the following: several basic concepts of listening comprehension, including definitions of listening comprehension, the role of listening comprehension, different views of listening comprehension; listening comprehension activities; the difference between teaching and testing listening comprehension; listening comprehension stages; some popular methods of foreign language teaching available in the Vietnamese context; the roles of teachers and learners; and finally

a summary of this chapter

2.1 Several basic concepts of listening comprehension

2.1.1 Definitions of listening comprehension

There are various aspects in listening comprehension, so it is likely not easy to give a vivid definition Anderson and Lynch (1988: 64) said: “listening comprehension means different things to different people.” In the same sense, Wolvin and Coakley (1992) presented a list of 24 proposed definitions of listening comprehension given by different researchers in literature from 1925 to 1987 Similarly, Dunkel (1991) and Brownell (1996) said that there were possibly fifty definitions of listening comprehension that other authors had mentioned All these authors pointed out the difficulty of a universal definition of listening comprehension

However, it can be said that listening comprehension is an important skill and an integral part of the teaching of the four language skills Morley (1991) suggested that in the daily activities, listening comprehension is a necessary and prior requirement for a good communication In normal daily communication, listening

comprehension usually occurs in conjunction with speaking One person speaks, and the other, through attending by means of the listening comprehension process, responds

Wolkin and Coakley (1985: 74) said: “listening is a significant and essential area

of development in a native, second as well as foreign language for receiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to aural stimuli.” Listening is more than just perception of sound, although perception is the foundation; listening also requires comprehension of meaning

Spearit (1962: 3-4) pointed out that listening comprehension was “an action which involves directed attention to the sounds such as spoken words, musical sounds, mechanical or other noises.” In the context of verbal communication, he also referred to listening comprehension as “an active process involved in attaching meanings to the sounds is the spoken words.” It can be said that listening comprehension is one of the fundamental language skills that everyone could gain

a large portion of their education, information, and understanding of the world and

of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation

In the study of effective listening comprehension simply aiming at catching sound for extracting the meaning, or taking in information, Ur (1992: 3) suggested: “it is the channel used most often for learning One serious misconception is that listening comprehension is the same as hearing, which could be believed that effective listening comprehension is instinctive.”

2.1.2 The role of listening comprehension

We have just reviewed some definitions of listening comprehension To be able to understand the nature of listening comprehension, it is necessary to classify whether listening comprehension is active or passive

Views on listening comprehension could be varied from person to person Ur (1992) said that some of the most successful purposes of counselling and psychotherapy rely on listening comprehension skills, as well as the most effective ways of achieving group development Smith, Packham, and Mc Evedy (1986, cited in Nguyen, 1997: 13) presented a rationale of listening comprehension as an

“active process consisting of a number of macro and micro skills, many of which have to be carried out simultaneously” to be able to improve language skills, a necessary requirement for language development Spearrit (1992, cited in Nguyen, 1997) suggested listening comprehension is as active as speaking, and could be more difficult since learners’ attention, said, interpretation, and imagination are all required Listening comprehension is considered as receptive learning activities which distinguish from the productive language activities of speaking and writing

In contrast, Wolkin and Coakley (1992, cited in Nguyen, 1997) criticized that listening comprehension is primarily a passive activity Meanwhile, Rivers (1981: 60) emphasized that listening comprehension is neither a passive nor a receptive skill, but a creative skill because “listeners not only takes in the raw materials for spoken words, but also creates a significance of what the speaker is saying in their mind based on the arrangement of words, and the rise and fall of the voice.”

However, Richard (1992) said that language researchers nowadays have a tendency to consider listening comprehension as an active, no longer a passive skill Although once labeled with a passive skill, listening is an active process

of selecting and interpreting information from auditory and visual clues

2.1.3 Different views of listening comprehension

Because of the active role of listening comprehension in language training, it indicates the necessity of having a better and more active view of listening comprehension There have been two views of listening comprehension so far Nunan (1999) and some of the other researchers indicated that two views of listening dominating language pedagogy over the last twenty years are bottom up process and top down interpretation

Nunan (1999: 200) said that the process view of bottom up listening comprehension is a linear one, in which “meaning itself is derived as the last step

in the process.” In addition, Anderson and Lynch (1988, cited in Nunan: 1999: 200) argued that listener is considered as a tape-recorder view of listening because

it assumes that the listener takes in and stores messages in much the same way as a tape recorder Moreover, Rost (1990: 29) claimed that “bottom up processing model assumes that listening comprehension is a process decoding the sound that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaning units (phonemes) to complete the texts.” In this kind of listening comprehension, learners are required

to be fluent in the incoming language data, from sounds, to words, to grammatical relationships, to meanings which are serially linked together to purpose completion and meaningful texts It refers to deriving the meaning of the message based on the stress, rhythm and intonation

Meanwhile, in the top-down view, Nunan (1999: 200) said: “listener actively constructs or re-constructs the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues.” In this reconstruction process, the learner or listener presents his

or her current understanding from the listening context Discussion could be one

of these requirements to view one point presented in the listening context It refers

to utilizing background knowledge and global understanding to derive meaning from and interpret the message as Nunan (1999: 200) stated:

In preparing for training on the operation of a new floor polisher,

top-down processing is activated as the learner engages in an activity

that reviews what the learner already knows about using the old floor

polisher This might entail discussing the steps in the polishing

process; reviewing vocabulary such as switch, on, off, etc.; or

generating a list of questions that the learner would like to be

answered in the training

Both bottom-up and top-down listening comprehension views have their own importance Learners need to be aware that both of these processes affect their listening comprehension, and they need to be given opportunities to practise employing each of them Nunan (2001: 209) argued:

In order to comprehend, listeners need to reconstruct the original

attention of the speaker by making use of both bottom – up and top –

down processing strategies, and by drawing on what they already

know to make use of their knowledge

Listening comprehension is, therefore, a constructive process, and learner is an active participant

2.2 Listening comprehension activities

As stated, in the two listening comprehension points of view, each has its own importance However, whether it is the bottom-up or top-down view, listening comprehension activities should always be performed According to Ur (1996: 113-114) listening comprehension activities can be classified into four categories, including 1) no overt responses, 2) short responses, 3) longer responses, and 4) extended responses with the own purpose each

1 No overt response

In this kind of listening comprehension activity, Ur (1996: 113) indicated that learners should be required to get the meaning through “facial expression, body language signal understanding, or non-verbalization response, such as

story telling, jokes, songs and video.”

2 Short responses

Short responses are the ways learners react briefly to what they just heard This should be often done in lower level To make clear what we should do,

we will consider the five important aspects which Ur (1996: 113) has listed:

1) Obeying instructions: Learners must perform what they are told (physical exercises, drawings, general instructions)

2) Detecting mistakes (True or false): Teachers hand out a series of statements about a video or aural recorded text which the learners are going to watch or listen

to, then learners watch or listen to the recorded text and decide which statements are true or false

3) Cloze test: Learners receive a handout of a text with gaps to be filled in before listening to a complete text, and then fill in any missing words

4) Guessing definitions: Learners get these messages from descriptive context, they will find out what it is

5) Skimming and scanning: Learners listen to a short text and have to identify the general idea/gist (skimming) or else to a specific piece of information (scanning) from the initial questions handed out by a teacher

3 Longer responses

If learners are at a higher level, such as intermediate or upper-intermediate level, longer responses should be used Ur (1996: 114) said: “they could be note-taking, paraphrasing a listening comprehension text, summarizing a listening comprehension text, filling in more than one word in a gap, or discussing a problem that was heard.” Teachers may bring the class a recorded literary passage, ask learners to listen before commenting and identifying the tone (dramatic, ironic, sarcastic, comic, happy, etc.) of a passage read aloud It seems like skimming and scanning in short responses, but learners are required to listen to a longer text

4 Extended responses

This listening comprehension activity is seen as a means of introducing another ability like writing or speaking to build a combined skill lesson Ur (1996: 114) remarked that “listening is only a ‘jump-off’ point for extended reading, writing,

or speaking: in other words, these are ‘combined skills’ activities.” Thus, learners may hear a passage that will serve as a bridge to foster a discussion to write an essay or a short composition This is very often found in higher level, especially in TOEFL iBT In this activity, learners will be asked to read a passage and required

to listen to a conversation, or a talk before answering a question in writing or speaking This activity could surely be found in top down listening comprehension view

2.3 The differences between teaching and testing listening comprehension

I would like to identify the differences between teaching and testing listening comprehension to avoid the possible mistakes in the process of teaching and

learning listening comprehension Field (1998, cited in Richards and Renandya, 2002) remarked that in the process of teaching and testing of listening comprehension, there are contrasts formed between the language elements being tested or taught and other language structures Being presented in several different contexts, often over repeated trials, the two processes are not as readily apparent to those who are learning about them for the first time as compared to practicing clinicians It is necessary to make the differences between them more apparent by exploring the nature of the two processes

Field (1998) said that language testing and teaching differ considerably in terms of their goals The goal of testing is to determine whether a learner knows and uses a particular language element In contrast, the goal of teaching is to instill knowledge of what a particular language element means or does Thus, testing aims at asking learners of English what a particular part of language means or does; the purpose of teaching is to tell them what something means or does

Field (1998) also pointed out that testing and teaching are quite different in terms

of the methods used to meet these goals, but they also share some attributes To test for language knowledge, the tester isolates the element under examination so that learners’ knowledge of the meaning or function of the element can be evaluated The most direct way of isolating and then testing the meaning of a language element is to ask learners direct questions However, learners in shortage

of vocabulary and analytical insights about language will find it difficult to answer In order to obtain their answers, we need to use indirect questions Therefore, it is necessary to provide an answer that is as valid as one that would be given in response to the direct question if the responder understood the question

In many cases, teachers still tend to teach listening comprehension through correcting answers to listening comprehension questions and task Field (1998, cited in Richards and Renandya, 2002: 243) argued:

We overlook that fact that there may be many ways of achieving the

correct answer One learner may have identified two words and

made an intelligent guess; another may have constructed a meaning

on the basis of 100% recognition of what was said

Field (1998) proposed that wrong answers could be more informative than the correct ones, because from these wrong answers, teachers could know what their learners need in listening comprehension Field (1998, cited in Richards and Renandya, 2002: 245) said that learners should be required to practise their weak points in listening comprehension remedially to “ensure that students interpret them correctly the next time they encounter them.” Field (1998) then suggested one way to ease listening comprehension task by dividing the task into several small ones instead of a long one According to Field (1998), it is much more fruitful to allow time for an extended post-listening period in which learners’ problems can be identified and tackled

Therefore, it is important to make a distinction between teaching and testing of listening The practice of asking learners to listen to something with no support or asking them to answer the questions right after listening without any pre-listening introduction has many drawbacks It concentrates too much on the testing of comprehension or memory rather than encouraging learners to develop strategies for coping with the spoken message This kind of methodology tends to overload the learners’ capacity for processing and retaining information Thus, the emphasis

is placed on assessing what the learners have understood rather than in supporting their understanding so that they can show that they have understood

From what has been mentioned above, we were aware that testing is the common way for teachers to use for checking what their learners have just learned by

handing out and getting learners’ results Teaching helps learners face some likely difficulties, and overcome these listening obstacles next time

2.4 Listening comprehension stages

Field (1998, cited in Jack and Willy, 2000: 242-244), suggested three stages in listening classes: pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening He listed:

2.4.1 Pre-listening: preparing learners for listening comprehension

Field (1998, cited in Jack and Willy, 2000: 242-244) said that in pre-listening stage, “learners should be involved in some vital tasks of motivation, contextualisation, and preparation that should be achieved before any listening comprehension.”

Motivation

It is enormously important that before listening comprehension, learners are motivated to practise listening in the pre-listening stage in order to have a preparatory step for whole listening stage A text should be selected to make it interesting and tasks should be designed well to arouse learners’ interest and curiosity

Contextualisation

In daily activities, learners hear language within its natural environment that gives them a huge amount of information about the linguistic content Listening to a tape recording in a classroom is a very unnatural process The text has been taken from its original environment and teachers need to design tasks to help learners to contextualise the listening and access their existing knowledge and expectations to help them understand the text

Preparation

There could be specific vocabulary or expressions that learners will need It's important to teach these vocabularies and expressions in advance because learners could know how to deal with the listening tasks and its requirements

Moreover, in pre-listening, learners are required to answer the overall comprehension questions after one listening, predict for clarification, and use non-verbal cues For example, using video can help learners develop cognitive strategies As they view a segment with the sound off, learners can be asked to make predictions about what is happening by answering questions about setting, action, and interaction in the pre-listening stage These increase chances for successful listening, and make it easier for English learners to follow the listening tasks Field (1998, cited in Jack and Willy, 2000: 243) assumed:

Some kinds of pre-listening activity are now usual: involve

transforming vocabulary, re-viewing areas of grammar, or discussing

the topic of the listening text This phase of the lesson usually lasts

longer than it should A long pre-listening session shortens the time

available for listening

To sum up, pre-listening stage helps learners overcome the listening obstacles in the listening context If this could be done successfully, learners could feel less stressed when dealing with the listening task

2.4.2 While-listening

After learners have been warned of any listening obstacles in the pre-listening stage, they are required to answer many questions available in the tasks Field

(1998) said that there are many ideas on the number of times learners should have for listening comprehension after pre-listening Some agreed that listening once is enough to adapt to the real life situation However, the practicing of listening comprehension requires more than once, so learners can follow the pitch, speed and the quality of the voice

In the preset questions, Field (1998) said that learners could listen in an unfocused way, as they have no clear purpose without any pre-questions Then pre-questions indicate their importance helping learners set their purpose in listening, not just memorizing what they heard

In the listening tasks, Field (1998) assumed that learners should carry out the tasks extracted from any text in real life, such as labeling, selecting, drawing, etc best done in pairs, so that learners could make something of what they heard without relying too much on the available questions provided Listening to a foreign language is a very intensive and demanding activity, therefore learners are required to have time to think and compare their answers, which gives them the chance not only to have a break from the listening, but also to check their understanding with a peer and reconsider before listening to the audio again

2.4.3 Post-listening comprehension

Field (1998) said that, in this stage of listening comprehension, learners are required to respond to what they heard from the listening task It could be the comparison between the notes and discussion, or any responses However, it is noted that time for examining the grammar of the listening text is no longer necessary because it just presents a structural view, reinforcing recently learned materials He emphasized that teachers should pick out any functional language and draw learners’ attention to it It is only when teachers direct the students’

attention to the purpose of listening task beforehand and provide a suitable framework for providing access to the spoken message can they actually teach listening comprehension These are reactions to the content of the text, and analysis of the linguistic features used to express the content Such post-listening task activities would help the learners much to focus on what to listen from the topic or vocabulary taught in advance, to assess how accurately they succeeded, and to transfer the listening comprehension skill to the world beyond the classroom

Reaction to the text

It is important to focus on learners’ reaction to the content, which arises in our daily activities There is always a reason for listening, and generally a following

reaction

Analysis of language

Field (1998) stated that the second of these two post-listening task types involves focusing learners on linguistic features of the text This is important in terms of developing their knowledge of language, but less so in terms of developing learners’ listening skills It could take the form of an analysis of verb forms from a script of the listening text or vocabulary or collocation work English learners will deal with the forms that express those meanings much easier as the learners have already developed an understanding of the text

To sum up, the process of post-listening comprehension examines functional language and infers vocabulary meaning from the listening text

2.5 Some popular methods of foreign language teaching available in the Vietnamese context

Through its definitions as well as its nature, we could imagine the difficulty of teaching and learning listening comprehension As its role in a language, approach to language teaching should meet the typical requirements in the Vietnamese context, which explains why the main approaches to language which could be applied for the teaching of listening comprehension will be looked at These approaches, largely, followed the approaches to general syllabus design and teaching methodology As these general approaches have changed for years, new methods of teaching listening comprehension been advocated Different approaches can be seen by examining exercises and tasks in published material Richards (1993:3) stated that one way to improve the teaching of listening comprehension is “through the use of instructional materials that are based on finding of current theory and research.” In fact, many English schools make use of current materials for their learners Moreover, Richards (1993: 6) maintained that “instructional materials can have a profound effect on teaching and that teachers rely on such materials to define the language courses they teach,” which helps teachers of English save

time and energy for a preparation

Many approaches available could help teaching listening comprehension in some ways In this chapter, I wanted to consider some typical approaches that could be applied in the Vietnamese context These approaches could be as those of the oral approaches for language teaching, including the direct method approach, the audio-lingual approach, and the communicative approach In each approach, the main learning goal was identified with respect to listening comprehension in the Vietnamese context

2.5.1 The Direct Method Approach

The Direct Method Approach was based on the idea that learners can best learn what is natural to them and that an oral system of teaching them was appropriate for this purpose This method’s effectiveness relied on the use of monolingual teaching; secondly, teachers and learners use that language in class

This Approach focuses on teaching listening comprehension first and other language skills later Mendelson (1984) suggested that learners just learn listening comprehension through what was being said just because there was no systematic attempt at teaching listening comprehension or at developing teaching listening comprehension strategies in the learners

Mendelson (1984) also stated that intermediate learners could make use of English from this Method although it is more suitable for lower levels, because the complexities of the language become too challenging for the approach For instance, learners waste a lot of time trying to work out complex rules for themselves from any listening task, and teachers using the learners’ first language waste time trying to convey abstract meaning using only the second language, when a simple translation would have been more efficient in explaining what has just been heard

2.5.2 The Audio-Lingual Approach

Views of listening comprehension in language education have varied with historical developments in linguistic analysis and learner language analysis Listening comprehension had not received systematic attention in language learning syllabus until much later in spite of widespread interest in direct methods for teaching language dating nearly a hundred years Rost (1990: 27) said:

With the advent of oral approaches, listening comprehension was

viewed as a problem of aural recognition of linguistic structure

Exercises to develop listening comprehension ability consisted of

various types of identification and discrimination, with verbatim

reproduction, a typical test of aural recognition

Rost (1990) stated that the U.S Defense Forces language programs generated the audio-lingual approach to language learning during and after World War II because of the instant requirements of service Since then, after the war, a number

of aspects influenced the way foreign languages were taught, such as the emergence of several international languages, the greater mobility of people, and the expansion education programs To cater to these new needs for languages, the

“Army Method” was developed in the United States This method became known

as the audio-lingual Approach Later variations of aural recognition exercises included recorded situational dialogues and read-aloud written texts – often played

or performed repeatedly – followed by the content What makes these exercises variations of the more clearly structure-based activities is that written texts are made similar to the listening texts

The Audio-Lingual Approach in term of the process of teaching and learning listening comprehension emphasizes its first listening comprehension on pronunciation, grammatical forms and forms of drills and exercises, which could

be seen clearly in Streamline English textbook In describing the audio-lingual approach, Richards, and Rogers (2001: 58) said: “the teaching of listening comprehension, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary are all related to development of aural fluency.”

Dialogues and drills are the basis of classroom practice with this approach Learners are encouraged to listen carefully either to a taped recording, or a

teacher’s reading of a dialogue or a drill They then record their own versions or responses to cues from the teachers to repeat parts of the dialogue or drill The idea behind such a technique is that it helps learners create good habits It is based

on the idea of contrastive analysis, in which the material writer attempts to minimize interference from the learners’ first language

Lado and Fries (1994) prepared a pronunciation textbook based on this Approach The Audio-Lingual Approach became a popular teaching method in the 1960s and early 1970s, when language laboratories were in fashion The Approach can still

be found, in different guises, and in many current classroom textbooks The advantage of this approach is that if learners can memorize a structure repeated, and teacher will be his or her help in correcting a wrong response before moving

to the next exercise

2.5.3 The Communicative Approach

Carroll (1972) argued that a message is adequate, to the extent that the listeners both comprehend whatever linguistic information is in the message, and then are able to relate that information to the wider communicative context For him, this had little effect at the time, but eventually the movement for the communicative approach developed primarily in response to the trend towards increased

‘communicative’ second-language teaching Carroll (1972) argued that the basic idea underlying the Communicative Approach is that language is used for the purpose of communication, in a particular situation and for a particular purpose, in which listening comprehension is one of these purposes, and the important thing is not what a person knows about the language, nor how grammatically correct they are Whether or not they are actually using it to communicate in the target language, the real-world situation of the language will be used, and then language proficiency is thus seen as communicative competence

It is not surprising that, having the interest in communicative language teaching, some scholars have attempted to describe listening comprehension skills in communicative terms An early attempt to do this was Aitken (1978) His taxonomy goes beyond basic linguistic processing and takes into account

a variety of skills that are concerned with relating basic linguistic processing

to the wider communicative situation Aitken (1970) does not claim that these constitute a complete description of the skills used in listening, but he does claim that the skills needed to process and comprehend speech Aitken (1970,

cited in Caroll, 1972: 42) suggested the following:

1 Understanding the vocabulary and being able to guess the meanings of unfamiliar or unclear words from their context

2 Understanding the syntactic patterns, the morphological forms characteristic of spoken language, and following the discourse patterns of spoken language

3 Understanding the flow of stresses and unstressed sounds, as well as intonation cues and other cues of oral punctuation

4 Identifying the speaker’s purpose

5 Drawing correct conclusions and valid references about the social situations, the listener and the subject of their discussion speaker’s intent, or the general context

6 Recognizing the speaker’s attitude to

7 Identifying the techniques and rhetorical devices, the speaker used to convey the message

2.6 The roles of teachers and learners

As stated in section 2.5.3, in teaching and learning listening comprehension, Communicative Approach plays a very important role; teachers and learners contribute to the success of a language training programme which communication

is always a focus

2.6.1 Teachers’ role

Teachers play a variety of roles in Communicative Approach It is the teacher who helps learners’ study through the organization of tasks and activities that really motivates them to learn better Richards (1985) stated that as with sub-skills and strategies, many attempts have been made to categorize essential criteria to consider when developing listening tasks In his own five criteria, Richards includes reference to the growing recognition that many traditional listening comprehension tasks simply serve to test rather than teach listening skills, and, moreover, that they often demand and test learners' memory rather than their skill

of listening comprehension The listening tasks that demand meaningful responses

to what is heard rather than answers to contrived true/false or written comprehension questions are not only more authentic and closer to real-life foreign language listening situations, but also potentially freer and less threatening

for the student Moreover, they can allow for recognition that there is not normally one 'right answer' in a listening situation, what is taken in and understood being greatly a matter of individual priorities and interpretation Sheerin (1987:128, cited

in Brown and Yule, 1985: 57) commented:

In listening comprehension exercises we should not expect learners

to produce answers that are one hundred per cent correct and

objective, as though they were walking tape-recorders with replay

possible at the touch of a button Rather, we should proceed on the

basis of requiring from foreign learners a 'reasonable interpretation

in the context'

Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to present and have their learners develop these activities to be checked It can be seen in Richards’ and Rodgers’ (1982, cited from Green and Candlin, 1990: 77) ideas about the teacher’s role:

Teacher has two main roles: the first role is to facilitate the

communication process between all participants in the classroom,

and between these participants and various activities and texts The

second role is to act as an independent participant within the

learning-teaching group, etc A third role of the teacher is that of

researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of

appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience

of nature of learning and organizational capacities

2.6.2 Learners’ role

Richards and Rodgers (1992, cited from Green and Candlin, 1980: 77) described the learners’ role within CLT as the following:

The role of learner as negotiator – between the self, the learning

process, the object of learning – emerges from and interacts with the

role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom

procedures and activities which the group undertakes The

implication of the learner is that he should contribute as much as he

gains, and thereby learn in an interdependent way

Nunan (1999: 75) said that learners are “passengers, being carried forward in the learning experience by the teacher,” and “they are thus cast into passive, reproduce roles.” It can be said that learners manage themselves in the process of learning They are just those who decide their needs of studying and when to develop their language performance In the meantime, White (1998: 9) argued that “by giving them more input into, and control of, the listening they did, these kinds of activities removed anxiety and made listening a more enjoyable process.” He noticed that a lot more of the class started participating, not just those who said they know the 'right' answer He also gained more insight into what his learners found difficult or easy in listening

In addition, Nunan (1999) stated that learners could monitor their learning process

of listening comprehension, and help their classmates do the same Learners should be the core of studying listening comprehension, and interacts with other learners well It is expected that learners could help correct each other in their learning of listening comprehension

Nunan (1999) also argued that, being as a negotiator, learners should be aware of the language to be used, the kind of relationship to be established, and social contexts to be considered

To sum up, the roles of teachers and learners could help teachers and learners a lot with their teaching and learning of listening comprehension They could assume

their responsibilities, and develop their teaching and learning in a cooperative and creative way for the outcomes of a training programme

2.7 Summary

This Chapter has provided the relevant theoretical framework for data analysis and discussion of the findings The next Chapter, Chapter Three, will deal with methodology

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

Chapter Two has presented relevant literature review for the study This chapter, Chapter Three, will provide methodology employed in the study including (1) research questions, (2) research design with the description of the subjects, instruments and (3) data collection procedure

3.1 Research questions

This study focuses on the actual difficulties of the intermediate learners of English and the causes for these difficulties as well How to deal with this problem and find out the solution for better teaching and learning listening comprehension at

UEFLC are the essential aims of this study Therefore, the research questions formulated are the following:

(1) What problems do intermediate learners of English at UEFLC have in the classroom?

(2) What are the aspects influencing these learners’ listening comprehension in the target language?

(3) What should teachers do to teach listening comprehension to intermediate English learners effectively at UEFLC?

3.2 Research design

In order to answer these questions, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used Krathwohl (1993) stated that the quantitative method describes phenomena in numbers and measures instead of words Qualitative research methods, which were developed in the social sciences to enable researchers to study social and cultural phenomena, describe phenomena in words instead of numbers or measures It is a strategy of inquiry which moves from the underlying philosophical assumptions to research design and data collection The choice of research method influences the way in which researcher collects data

In this study, interviews were used for teachers because “interview is a very good way of accessing people’s perceptions” (Punch, 1998: 174), and “it allows for richer interaction and more personalized responses” (Mc Donough, 1997: 184) It shows to be an appropriate means of collecting the in-depth information from complex situations since questions and answers could be explained in detail (Kumar, 1996) The categorization of data from teachers’ opinions and experiences of teaching listening comprehension, we do hope to get their flexible and appropriate suggestions to improve the learners’ English listening comprehension skills at UEFLC