Using Youtube Videos In The Lesson To Enhance Students’ Listening Comprehension.pdf

` VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ************************ TRỊNH THỊ HOÀNG MAI USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS IN THE LESSON[.]

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TRỊNH THỊ HOÀNG MAI

USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS IN THE LESSON TO ENHANCE

STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION

SỬ DỤNG YOUTUBE VIDEOS TRONG BÀI HỌC ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN

KỸ NĂNG NGHE HIỂU CỦA HỌC SINH

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI – 2021

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TRỊNH THỊ HOÀNG MAI

USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS IN THE LESSON TO ENHANCE

STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION

SỬ DỤNG YOUTUBE VIDEOS TRONG BÀI HỌC ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN

KỸ NĂNG NGHE HIỂU CỦA HỌC SINH

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI – 2021

on my own and it depicts my own research work All sources of information are clearly cited in the references and bibliography sections I also further declare that this thesis has not been submitted in any universities to get a degree

Ha Noi, 2021 Trịnh Thị Hoàng Mai

supervisor for detailed guidance, valuable suggestions and encouragement during the completion of this minor thesis

In addition, I want to send my sincere thanks to all qualified and experienced lecturers from the Post Graduate Studies Faculty for their informative lectures, which lays a fundamental foundation for my thesis

I am also thankful to all of my students who have taken part in the research, without them, it would be impossible to accomplish this thesis

I am greatly indebted to my parents and siblings, who always stand by me and motivate me

Last but not least, I would like to thank my baby, thank you for your kicks in

my belly, which are my biggest motivation to complete this thesis

A special word of thanks is also sent to my husband because of his incredible patience, whole-hearted support and motivational words

center in Ha Noi and the application of YouTube videos in tackling these issues The main purpose of the research is to explore the effectiveness of integrating YouTube videos in enhancing students’ listening comprehension and interests in listening Data from the study was collected through pre-test, post-test, questionnaire and teaching diary, and the results were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively The final results indicate that most of the students made a significant progress in listening skill after the implementation of YouTube videos They also participated in the lessons more actively and felt more interested in listening through watching videos Moreover, the findings of the research also suggests some good ways the teacher can use to teach listening skills from YouTube videos more effectively For example, teachers can make use of some possible YouTube channels as supplementary materials, designing useful tasks or letting students work in pairs or groups

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aim and Objectives 2

1.3 Research question 2

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the thesis 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 4

2.1 Listening comprehension 4

2.1.1 Definition of listening 4

2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension 5

2.1.3 Listening comprehension process 6

2.2 Listening strategies 8

2.2.1 Definitions of listening strategies 8

2.2.2 Classifications of listening strategies 8

2.3 YouTube videos 10

2.3.1 Overview of YouTube videos 10

2.3.2 Types of YouTube videos 10

2.3.3 YouTube videos as a good source of listening comprehension 11

2.4 Previous studies 13

2.5 Summary 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 15

3.1 Context of the study 15

3.1.1 Setting of the study 15

3.2 Research design 16

3.2.1 Action research 16

3.2.2 Participants 17

3.2.3 Research procedure 17

3.2.4 Materials 20

3.3 Data collection instruments 22

3.3.1 Preliminary Questionnaire 22

3.3.2 Pre-Test and Post-Test 22

3.3.3 Survey Questionnaire 23

3.3.4 Teaching Diary 24

3.4 Data analysis methods 26

3.5 Summary 26

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 27

4.1 Influence of YouTube videos on students’ listening comprehension 27

4.1.1 Analysis of test results: Pre-test and Post-test 27

4.1.2 Analysis of Survey Questionnaires 29

4.1.3 Analysis of the “Effectiveness” section in the Teaching Diaries 33

4.2 Students’ attitudes towards the teacher’s use of YouTube videos in the classroom 34

4.2.1 Analysis of Survey Questionnaire 34

4.2.2 Analysis of “The Attitudes” section in Teaching Diaries 37

4.3 Findings and Discussions 38

4.3.1 To what extent does the use of videos from Youtube influence students’ listening comprehension? 38

4.3.2 What are the attitudes of students towards practicing listening via Youtube videos? 38

4.4 Summary 39

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 40

5.1 Recapitulation 40

5.2 Concluding remarks 40

5.3 Limitations of the current research 41

5.4 Recommendations for further research 42

REFERENCES 45 APPENDICES I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1.1.1: The comparison between the results of the pre-test and post-test 28 Table 4.1.1.2: The scores of students in both tests 28 Table 4.1.2.1: Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of YouTube videostowards their listening comprehension 29 Table 4.1.2.2: Students’ awareness of listening strategies after YouTube videos are applied 31 Table 4.2.1.1 : Students’ attitudes towards applying YouTube videos in the classroom and audios in textbooks 35 Table 4.2.1.2 : Students’ attitudes after the YouTube application in the listening classroom 36

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IELTS: The International Language Testing System VNU: Vietnam National University

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

With the globalization trend these days, English has become a more and more powerful language Among four skills in English, according to Mendelsohn (1994), listening plays a vital part in communicating and this skill accounts for 40-50% of the whole time spent on communication Despite the fact that teaching listening comprehension has been “somewhat neglected and poorly taught aspect of English in many English as a foreign language (ELF) programs”(Mendelsohn,1994, p9), listening skill is the most essential prerequisite that second language students should acquire and it is crucial in second language acquisition This is true for students who have participated in the research because the purpose of listening lessons is not only

to help them enhance the skill but it also equips them with language input for other skills such as speaking, reading, writing In addition, listening skill not only allows students to expand their knowledge but it also assists them with higher education and provides them with many good job opportunities in the future However, for EFL students, they find listening comprehension challenging to be good at As stated by (Ur, 1997: 11-14), they often face obstacles in listening to the sounds, understanding intonation, stress and guessing new words

The growth of English language has shifted the focus from the teacher to the students, from boosting the quality of teaching to expressing great concerns about how students study a second language and how they could study more effectively (Marco, 2011) The technological development and its applications into education has broken down many learning barriers and changed our education system for the better The emergence of digital technology such as the Internet and computer has led

to a new generation of learners who are technically literate One of the most useful media tools that is applied into teaching language is videos Canning (2000:2) indicates that students like learning via videos Another advantage presented by King ( 2002) is that video is a rich and important source that exposes learners to a variety

of voices, slangs, reduced speeches, stress, accents and dialects of native people In

addition, Canning Wilson (2000, p.5) indicates that video is a powerful teaching tool which not only draws attention from English learners but it also provides them with opportunities to enhance their capabilities of understanding listening input

As being an English teacher, the researcher is aware of the importance of listening skill and problems that her students encounter in listening To the teacher’s observation, most students find it difficult in understanding the messages in listening and grasping the meanings of some key words and phrases Furthermore, most of them are reluctant to listen to a long text, especially those with fast speed As students are constantly forced to listen to textbook audios and do listening tasks on the handouts throughout the lesson, they seem to feel tired and bored As a result, this leads the researcher to the study “Using YouTube videos in the lesson to enhance students’ listening comprehension”, which integrates fascinating videos from YouTube to teach students and aid them to improve their listening comprehension as well as develop their keen interest in listening skill

1.2 Aim and Objectives

1.4 Scope of the study

The researcher conducted this research to find out the effectiveness of applying videos from YouTube website in enhancing academic listening comprehension skills and interests for the target participants of this study, who aimed

to reach intermediate level after the course Therefore, the application of other teaching methods or any levels of students beyond these levels would be beyond the scope Students who study listening skills for communication purpose are also not included in this study

1.5 Significance of the study

Within this study, the research examined the effective way of boosting students’ listening comprehension skill and motivating students to learn, whereas regarding practice, the findings of this study could be used as reference for any teachers who want to help students to develop their abilities to understand the meaning of listening input

1.6 Organization of the thesis

Chapter 1 is the Introduction, including the rationale, aims, objectives, research questions, scope and the significance of the research

Chapter 2 is the Literature Review, reviewing theoretical issues associated

with listening comprehension, listening strategies and its classification, the use of videos in teaching listening, its importance, relevant activities as well as previous studies on the integration of Youtube videos on teaching listening

Chapter 3 is Methodology, presenting the methodology of the study, which

consists of information about the context where the research was executed, the subjects, the instrumental tools used to collect the data and the procedure of collecting the data

Chapter 4 is Data analysis and Findings, providing a thorough description of

data analysis In addition, it shows the summary of the findings, followed by a discussion of the findings

Chapter 5 is Conclusions, which summarizes main issues and remarks of the research The limitations and suggestions for further research are also presented in this

part

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

FRAMEWORK

Introduction: Chapter 2 provides a discussion of main theoretical issues

to the study, which are associated with listening skill and the application of Youtube videos to improve students’ listening comprehension This chapter also reviews previous studies related to the current study

2.1 Listening comprehension

2.1.1 Definition of listening

When it comes to listening skill, there is no consensus on an exact definition

of this skill (Witkin, 1990) According to Byrnes (1984) despite the fact that over the past decades, attempts have been made to listening literature so that all listening components would be unified in all associated studies and a listening definition base would be formed, more research is still needed to formulate the universal listening conceptualization since listening is considered “high complex problem solving activity”(p.318), which can be broken down into a set of distinct subskills Therefore, different researchers define listening skills in different ways

As stated by Morley (1972), listening includes audio discrimination, aural grammar, choosing relevant information, remembering and associating it to the procedure between sound and meaning form, whereas Goss (1982) considered listening as a process of understanding the content and arranging it into lexical elements to which meanings can be found

Listening is regarded as an “active process”, according to Purdy (1991), which includes “the active and dynamic process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering to the expressed (verbal and nonverbal) needs, concerns and offers by other humans being” (p.11) Moreover, Rubin (1995) also supported the definition of listening as “an active process” and in this process, information from audio and pictures is chosen and demonstrated by listeners to find out what they are hearing and the message that the speakers want to deliver Imhof (1998) shared the similar

viewpoint about listening, “an active process”, in which related information is picked

up and integrated into audio input This procedure is under control by each individual’s intention, which plays a crucial part in listening

With a different viewpoint, Vandergrift (1999) held a belief that listening is considered as an integrative process because it requires prerequisite skills that students need to develop so that they can acquire vocabulary and grammar structures

To summarize, despite varying definitions of listening skill show researchers, it is generally understood that listening is a dynamic process, which listeners receive and decode the information to understand what the listening messages delivered to them

2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is an important term regarding teaching listening It

is necessary for teachers to gain an insight into listening comprehension so that they can know clearly what to teach and how to teach effectively in the English classroom The term has been defined differently by various language methodologists

From the definition of Richard (1992), listening comprehension is described as “the process of understanding speech in second or foreign language” (p.216) According

to Brown (1994), “listening comprehension” is considered as an interactive process where listeners have to complete lots of activities to understand and react with the speakers (p.236) Rost (2002) and Hamouda (2013) shared the same viewpoint since listening comprehension is characterized as an interactive process in which learners engage themselves in meaning construction Listeners understand the audio input through distinguishing sounds, activating earlier knowledge, grammar structures, stress and intonation and other linguistic hints This view is followed by the research

in which YouTube videos are applied In this research, students also understand the content of YouTube videos via sounds, visuals or prior knowledge

In addition, according to Chamot (1995), listening is also considered as a cognitive process when the auditory and visual receptors of listeners get the information from its sounds form, then the information is filtered by their short term memory, working memory or long term-memory Vandegrift (2006) shared the same opinion that listening comprehension is the process in which the information is picked

up and demonstrated by listeners so that it could be understood Similarly, Nadig (2013) indicated that listening comprehension is about gaining understanding and finding out the meanings of language, which includes acknowledging sounds in speech, figuring out individual word’s meaning, and comprehending sentences

In summary, although there are different definitions about listening comprehension, listening comprehension generally can be understood as a process in which listeners perceive auditory information and try to comprehend the meaning of the listening content

2.1.3 Listening comprehension process

There are two teaching approaches to listening comprehension mentioned by Nunan (1998), which are bottom-up and top-down The former refers to a teaching listening approach, in which the speech stream is taught by dividing it into different constituent sounds, connecting and organizing them all together to make clauses or sentences It has an assumption that listening is a process in which the sounds from the smallest and meaningful units are deciphered to form utterances and then utterances are joined together to form meaningful texts The latter associates with teaching listening in which listeners are activated previous knowledge about the situations and contexts to understand what they listen to

According to David Nunan (1999, p6), the bottom-up approach focuses on the process based on the text, which means listeners try to find out the meaning by paying their attention to four main parts: the vocabulary, the grammar or functional phrases and sounds, whereas in top-down process, listeners use their previous situational or contextual knowledge to make sense of listening contents (Vandergrift, 2002)

As suggested by Peterson (1991), it is crucial for both poor and good listeners

to make an effective use of two listening approaches Students have to use both what they have already known before and their linguistic knowledge to comprehend the listening texts

In general, bottom-up and top-down approaches are equally important in the listening comprehension process

2.2 Listening strategies

2.2.1 Definitions of listening strategies

When defining listening strategies, Rubin (1987) perceived them similar to all learning strategies with the same characteristics; therefore, he said that listening strategies are similar to techniques or activities, making direct contributions to help language learners comprehend and recollect listening input

Regarding the role of learning strategies, they are so important for language learners, because they are assisting tools that allow learners to self-direct them and actively engage in listening According to O'Malley, Chamot and Kupper (1989) and Vandergrift (1997), listening strategies include steps that language learners take to assist them in acquiring, storing, retaining, and using information

2.2.2 Classifications of listening strategies

With regard to the classification of listening strategies, according to O’Malley and Chamot (1990, p.44), language learning strategies are classified into three types namely cognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies and social/ affective strategies Firstly, according to Rubin (1981), cognitive strategies are the steps language learners use in tackling problems, which their learning materials need to be analyzed, directly transformed, and synthesized As indicated by O’Malley & Chamot (1990, p.44), cognitive strategies “operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning” They entail imagining, rehearsing, elaborating, inferencing, summarizing, translating, transferring, deducting/inducting, replacing, grouping, and note-taking

Secondly, unlike cognitive strategies, which are limited in applying to particular types of tasks, metacognitive strategies are applicable to a diverse range of language learning tasks Metacognitive strategies consist of mental activities that guide language learners to their process of learning According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990), language learners who acquire metacognitive strategies make their efforts in focusing on learning activities and ignore distractions around them Metacognitive strategies involve paying attention, planning, monitoring, and assessing

Thirdly, social and affective strategies are associated with how language learners communicate with others and how they control their emotions and attitudes Social and affective strategies involve asking to clarify, cooperating, self-encouraging, relieving anxiety and controlling emotions Some typical instances of those who use this kind of listening strategy are that they collaborate with each other, question themselves to solve listening tasks, and feel at ease when being afraid of not understanding other people

As mentioned earlier by Rubin (1987), listening strategies are similar to language learning strategies Therefore, models for learning strategies can be used for listening

Therefore, the researcher finds the most comprehensive and specific model is the one proposed by Oxford (1990) In this model, learning language strategies are classified into two kinds: direct and indirect, which are subdivided into six-subgroups, which consist of memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategies The first type, Direct strategies, is like the Performer, who handles and works with a new language in various particular tasks and situations The initial type includes memory strategies, memory strategies, and compensation strategies First of all, memory strategies are used to memorize and fetch new information, whereas the purposes of cognitive strategies are to grasp and produce the language and compensation strategies are to use the language in spite of having gaps in knowledge In contrast, the second type, Indirect strategies, is similar to the Director Indirect strategies are related to generally managed learning, which are composed of meta-cognitive strategies (coordinate the process of learning), affective strategies (control emotions), social strategies (cooperate with other individuals in learning) Both direct and indirect strategies serve its functions to make language learners responsible for learning The Director (indirect strategies) take in charge of

a variety of functions, such as concentrating, instructing, organizing, reviewing, correcting, training, motivating, and uplifting the language learners and making sure that the Performer collaborates well with others

2.3 YouTube videos

2.3.1 Overview of YouTube videos

Technology plays an integral part in teaching language and it offers learners a variety of materials and websites to learn online The integration of technology encourages people to learn and keep them paying attention for a long time The research results by Maness (2004) proposed that by applying authentic videos into language classrooms, students will learn more effectively

YouTube is a popular website in the globe and it includes a vast amount of important online materials in teaching and learning language It was first launched in

2005 by three founders whose names are Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim and now it has been one of the most commonly accessed websites in the world, with

100 million videos being streamed per day (Educause, 2006) and the company itself has been a multi-million dollar company In addition, Youtube is also the most popular video website which is free of charge and this is one of the reasons that contributes to the further soaring growth of this website In 2008, a report released by Comscore indicated that the 99.5 million Americans watched 5.3 billion online videos

on YouTube during October It costs no money to register on YouTube and even unregistered users feel free to watch any videos that they want For famous YouTube channels who receive thousand or million viewers, YouTube provides people many opportunities to earn money and the channel itself in turn makes huge profits from advertising and other services

In other words, to conclude, YouTube website is not only a vast source of videos but it is also a user-friendly and convenient website for all users who can access it easily with the Internet, computers or any digital devices

2.3.2 Types of YouTube videos

There are diverse types of videos on YouTube in different kinds of languages, which make it one of valuable sources for language learners

Regarding the educational value of YouTube videos, million videos are uploaded on Youtube from students, lecturers, teachers and researchers Many schools, colleges, and universities possess their own channels and there is no doubt

that YouTube is a great platform for them to provide and share knowledge with each other The benefit that YouTube provides learners is an enjoyable experience of watching videos and involving in the content (Educause, 2016) According to Chhabra (2012), learners can utilize videos on YouTube to enhance their lexical resource, intonation, pronunciation, listening, reading, speaking and writing skills Also, YouTube is a great tool to support self- study of the language because students can find million videos of teaching language, which are totally free on YouTube In addition, YouTube videos also make students more open-minded through watching various videos in different fields

2.3.3 YouTube videos as a good source of listening comprehension

One of the innovative teaching methods in listening is exploiting YouTube videos There are diverse ways of YouTube applications, from listening to videos, doing listening tasks to supporting teachers in demonstrating the lessons There are various benefits of YouTube videos, which includes enhancing students’ listening skill and their lexical resources, developing their listening strategies, boosting their motivation in learning

The first positive impact of YouTube videos is that they are audio-visual videos and they facilitate the process of acquiring vocabularies Obviously, students can memorize words faster for a longer period through illustrations and sounds in YouTube videos

The second advantageous effect is that these audio-visual videos from YouTube are also useful in helping students develop compensation listening strategies Language learners can be exposed to a variety of linguistic clues in the videos such as the speakers’ intonation, behaviors, emotions, illustrations in the context and rely on these clues to comprehend the listening input better

In addition, YouTube videos allow students to develop their cognitive and metacognitive listening strategies With the facilitation of audios and visuals, students can find it easier to recognize the structures or patterns of the listening task or get the meanings of what the speakers say more quickly (cognitive strategies) and these audio-visual videos attract more their attention to the information that they need to

find in listening tasks (metacognitive listening strategies)

Another benefit of YouTube videos is that they boost learners’ social listening strategies as it allows them to communicate and discuss with their friends to clarify and understand more about the content (Alastuey, 2001) Brown (2014) also showed that YouTube-based classes provide students with many chances to talk freely, raise their voice, and give comments with their teachers and classmates Additionally, YouTube is also a meaningful teaching method that widens students’ knowledge and understanding about cultures around the world As stated by Wagner (2007), the use

of videos in the classroom gives language learners authentic listening information about cultures Hence, they develop a sense of sympathy toward cultural differences and acknowledge others’ emotions

Furthermore, according to Barr (2012), YouTube-based videos could solve issues existing in the language classroom, for instance, they can relieve students’ boredom and routine in learning Moreover, as stated by Brook (2011), applying YouTube videos in the listening classroom can motivate students to involve in the lesson and increase their self-confidence YouTube-based videos make them feel less anxious and nervous in the listening lessons, which also contributes to the improvement of their effective listening strategies All of these opinions are followed

in this research which applied YouTube videos in the classroom

Last but not least, as indicated by (Snelson and Perkins, 2009) YouTube videos increase students’ motivation in learning as students can listen to audio input and enjoy watching stunning visuals in the video simultaneously In fact, there are many high quality and free videos on YouTube and they suit students at different listening proficiency levels, thus students can download videos from the website and listen outside the classroom

From the teachers' side, they can access a vast number of learning materials

on YouTube and easily search for videos that make the lessons more engaging and motivating for students to learn YouTube is extremely convenient because it allows teachers to download and save videos

2.4 Previous studies

There have been many studies regarding the use of videos from YouTube to increase students’ listening comprehension skill in listening but few of them took place in Viet Nam

Research entitled “Enhancing Listening Skills through Movie Clips on YouTube, was conducted in Thailand, by Damronglaohapan and Sevenson (2012) The research focused on discovering students’ attitudes towards using YouTube videos in listening classrooms There were 78 participants from the Business Administration Faculty taking part in the study And the final results showed that the students found YouTube videos more useful in practicing listening skill, and in learning and understanding vocabulary, compared to the listening tasks in their textbook

Another study’s title was “Social Media Tool as Learning Resources”, conducted by Liu (2010) in order to discover student preferences on using two different social media to learn The study revealed that the proportion of students using YouTube was 70%, while the proportion of students using podcasts was only 30% The result also showed that students preferred using YouTube because it was accessible and it comprised a huge amount of authentic listening materials It also allowed them to improve analytical skills and other language skills

Similarly, the research conducted by More (2015) also found out students’ attitudes toward integrating YouTube videos in listening lessons His findings showed that using videos not only enhanced their motivation but also motivated them

to participate actively in the classroom

In addition, a research was carried out on 48 undergraduates who enrolled in

an Advertising English Course, at a Technical University, from Southern Taiwan The results finally indicated that by applying YouTube videos in language classrooms, students’ comprehension skills and lexical resources were greatly improved YouTube videos also made them aware of listening strategies and enabled them to access useful listening materials

In Vietnamese setting, the study “The effectiveness of using YouTube videos

as supplementary materials on enhancing students’ listening skills” by Vi Dieu Thuan- the researcher, was conducted on two groups of fifty first-year students from

a VNU- University of Engineering and Technology, VNU- University of Economics and Business, VNU- University of Social and Humanities After six weeks of using YouTube videos in the classroom, students in the experimental group got higher scores in the post-test and showed more interests in listening to YouTube videos than their counterparts in the control group

From all the research above, it is clearly seen that YouTube is a popular topic for many researchers and it is a powerful teaching and learning tool for both teachers and students In fact, so far, in Vietnamese educational settings, there has been few research on YouTube videos’ effectiveness in enhancing Vietnamese students’ listening skill, especially on academic listening; therefore, the researcher has decided

to do action research to find out more about efficient ways to apply YouTube videos

in her lesson

2.5 Summary

This chapter has so far presented all important points in the literature review regarding the integration of Youtube videos in the listening classroom, which contributes to the formation of the theoretical and conceptual framework It initially involves the definitions of listening skill and listening comprehension, then the following part includes the exploration of Youtube videos and reviews its importance and some previous research on applying Youtube videos to enhance students’ listening comprehension All of these lay the foundation for the action research, which will be clearly presented in the next Chapter

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Introduction: Chapter 3 Methodology depicts specific steps by which

the research was conducted and the data was collected The setting of the research, research participants, instruments, materials and methods are also

presented thoroughly in this chapter

3.1 Context of the study

3.1.1 Setting of the study

The research was carried out at an English center in Ha Noi, which has been established since 2015 Since then, it has had a total of 2 branches, which have provided over 500 English classes with about six thousand students The center offers five main types of courses ranging from elementary to advanced levels, which are suitable for different levels of students The objectives of the courses are to equip students with grammar and vocabulary and to help them enhance their English skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing

The teaching staff comprises 18 Vietnamese teachers, who have from 2 to 5 years of teaching and all of them graduated from English Faculty in leading universities in Ha Noi or in the UK (United Kingdom) such as Foreign Trade University, University of Languages and International Studies or the United Kingdom Brighton University The researcher herself spent 4 years pursuing a bachelor degree at University of Languages and International Studies and now she has continued learning a Master degree there There are also three native teachers, all of them have acquired degrees in TESOL and have been teaching for over 10 years In addition, there are about 20 teaching assistants, who assist teachers enthusiastically in preparing the handouts and teaching equipment during the period

of teaching

In this center, Vietnamese teachers usually take on classes whose students are from elementary to upper-intermediate, and for advanced classes, native teachers are accountable for teaching speaking and writing At this English center, 4 skills in

English are the focus of any courses and the lesson content revolves around knowledge, tips and tasks to practice listening, reading, speaking and writing Most

of the students choose to study here because they really want to improve their English skills, so that they can pass the English international exams such as IELTS with high scores or seek for high-paid income, so most of them already have intrinsic motivation and set goals to learn English Besides learning in class, they can have many opportunities to take part in extracurricular activities like English Speaking and Writing clubs at the weekend, which not only creates a more lively learning atmosphere outside the classroom but it also provides students with many chances to upgrade their English skills

Apart from the model above, Nunan (2001) also suggests more detailed steps in the action research procedure, which is closely relevant to the research:

● Step 1: Initiation: Identify the issues that leads to action research

● Step 2: Preliminary investigation: Collect the data to understand more deeply

about the problems in the class

● Step 3: Hypotheses: A hypothesis is formed after the initial data results

● Step 4: Intervention: A number of research methods are applied to tackle the

problems

● Step 5: Evaluation: The effectiveness of the intervention is assessed

● Step 6: Dissemination: The researcher writes a report and the report is written

from his/ her research experiences

● Step 7: Follow-up: Different measures for the problems are continued to be

is to find out and solve problems in terms of teaching and learning listening skills This research approach and the action research model by Nunan are relevant to the purpose of the current study, which investigates the degree that using YouTube videos helps students to enhance their listening comprehension and attitudes towards listening skill

3.2.2 Participants

There were thirteen students in Listening Course A who were involved in the research and among these students, there were eight girls and five boys who were all willing to participate in the research Students in the research were from secondary schools, high schools and universities, and they were at the age between 14 and 22 years old

3.2.3 Research procedure

According to the action research model by Nunan (2001), there are seven main phases involved in the study and the details in each phase are illustrated below:

Phase 1: Initiation (Identifying Problems):

During the time of teaching Listening Course A, the teacher observed and realized that many students faced common difficulties in listening Most of them had trouble understanding the information when they listened to audios, especially audios with fast speed One of the reasons was due to their limited lexical resource, which also made them struggle with listening and leave the listening tasks without answers

Moreover, a noticeable problem was that since students had to study all day

before coming to the center to study in the evening, they were demotivated to practice listening skill through long audios, which also included many words that they did not know its meanings Some of them were so tired that they did not pay attention to the lessons and even fell asleep during the class Some students asked teachers to organize more activities in the class make them feel more interested in learning listening skills

Phase 2: Initial Examination:

To tackle some issues above, first of all, the researcher needed to know their actual listening proficiency; therefore, she decided to make students do a pre-listening test Thirteen students took the placement listening test, and the final result showed that half of the students (approximately 53.8%) had lower scores, compared to the standard score at pre-intermediate level that they needed to achieve in the IELTS pre- test

To gain a deeper understanding into the reasons behind the placement test results in listening, I administered a preliminary questionnaireto them after the class When they were asked about difficulties in listening, ten out of 13 students (76.9%) reported that the listening skill was challenging because of many unfamiliar words Meanwhile, the lower percentage of students (69,2 %) said that the native speakers

in the audios spoke quickly, making them unable to grasp and make sense of the information 30,8 % admitted they had difficulties in understanding intonation and accents of native speakers, 23,1 % said it was for nervous feelings and only 7.69% said it was a lack of motivation in practicing listening skills

Furthermore, when it came to how they did the test, the majority of them (53,85%) reported that they did not use any listening strategies but they just listened and filled in the answers The lower figures for students (38,46% and 7,69% respectively) who said that they tried to catch key words in the listening test and guess the word meanings, word forms before doing the listening question type “Word Completion”

In general, the preliminary questionnaire results revealed that the majority of the students in the research did not fully acknowledge listening strategies in the

IELTS listening test

Phase 3: Hypothesis Formulation:

The students’ lower results of the pre- listening test, compared to the indicated that students’ poor listening comprehension skill were because of their lack of vocabulary, the fast speed, the native speakers’ intonation, a shortage of concentration, and their lack of motivation and confidence This spurred the teacher

to explore suitable videos from various YouTube channels and from these videos, create more listening activities for students to practice this skill With each video, the teacher also prepared to expose them to different voices, speeds and equipped students with useful vocabularies With the application of YouTube videos, she made

a hypothesis that these videos would probably make students enhance their listening comprehension, achieve their target, and improve their attitudes in practicing this skill

Phase 4: Intervention: Students are involved in six lessons, each lesson last

for 1 hour and a half, except for the first and the last lessons, which last for two hours

because it includes pre-test and post-test

Then, the students studied the first Listening question type “Form completion” with the application of YouTube videos Then, the teacher asked students to listen, and fill in the form with a limited number of words After that, they would work in groups and discuss with their partners about what they listened to and why they chose the answers

From the teacher’s first observation, all students paid full attention In

addition, when it came to group discussion, they were enthusiastic, which created a lively learning atmosphere in the class

Students reported that despite still having some difficulties in doing listening tasks, they still enjoyed the lessons through videos After the lesson, students were required to memorize new words from listening and do extra listening exercise via Youtube videos at home

From the 2nd week to 6th week

From the second week to the fifth week, the teacher continued teaching students other listening question types, and in each lesson, the teacher prepared listening handouts designed from YouTube videos in advance After listening and doing the tasks, the teacher required students to work in pairs or groups of three or four They discussed the content of YouTube videos and the answers and competed with other teams until the end of the lesson

At the end of the 6th lesson, students were asked to do the Final Listening Test

in the last 30 minutes of the lesson and the teacher collected the listening answer sheets for marking and evaluating

Step 5: Evaluation:

To assess to what extent the application of YouTube videos affect students’ listening comprehension skills and interests and to explore students’ attitudes toward Youtube videos used for listening tasks, the results of both pre and post tests, survey questionnaire, and teachers’ diaries are collected, analyzed and demonstrated

Step 6: Dissemination

The teacher discussed the impact of YouTube videos on students’ comprehension listening skills and attitudes and effective ways of applying YouTube videos in the classroom to other teachers at the center

The coursebook in the Listening course was compiled by the professional and experienced head-teacher at English center and it was based on the book: Listening

for IELTS, published by Collins Press The book is suitable for students who want to

improve their listening proficiency to Intermediate level The book includes authentic listening audios and tasks that help students to develop their listening for gist, main ideas, specific information and enhance their lexical resources

There were a total of six lessons, and in each lesson students had to learn how

to deal with one listening question type and practice it As can be seen from Appendix

F, the Syllabus, six listening question types includes: Form completion, Table completion, Map Label/ Flow chart Completion, Matching and Multiple choice Questions, Summary Completion, Note Completion The criteria the researcher consider to design handouts designed from YouTube videos were closely associated with six listening question types Moreover, the tasks had to include both easy and difficult questions and it must provide students with useful vocabularies after they finished doing handouts

To carry out the research, the teacher downloaded videos from YouTube via Coc Coc and designed activities using these videos to prepare handouts for her students to practice All videos were downloaded from famous channels like Ted Talk, Ted-ed, What if, Food insider, CNBC International, True Food TV, Expedia, the Ellen Show There were various topics related to real life in the videos such as Interviews, Travel, Food, History, Environment, Psychology….because the teacher wanted to broaden students’ horizons after they watched these videos One of the criteria that the teacher considered in choosing the videos is that they should provide students with a range of vocabulary because her students really need to enhance their lexical resource Moreover, each video was spoken by different speakers so that students could expose themselves to different kinds of accents in listening Another two things that the teacher took into account is that she chose the video that had the same speed to the audio in textbooks, which was suitable for her students who wanted

to progress their listening skill to Intermediate level Last but not least, the teacher usually picked up or edited videos that lasted for about 5 minutes and the maximum

length is 8 minutes; so they would be suitable materials for each lesson All information about YouTube videos are included in the Syllabus ( Appendix H)

3.3 Data collection instruments

The current research used both quantitative and qualitative methods including preliminary questionnaire, pre-test, post-test, survey questionnaire and the teaching dairies By combining various data collection instruments together, it would give a more comprehensive overview about students’ listening proficiency and attitudes after integrating Youtube videos in the classrooms Each data instrument is discussed thoroughly below

3.3.1 Preliminary Questionnaire

After knowing the results of the placement listening test, the teacher made students do a short preliminary questionnaire with all students after the class The questionnaire includes two main questions “What difficulties do you have in listening skill?” to examine their weaknesses, from which the teacher can know to prepare and tailor lesson plans to help them improve listening skills Additionally, the teacher also asked them “How did you listen and do the listening placement test? Did you use any listening tips?” to discover whether students use any listening strategies to perform better in listening skill When collecting the data, the questions are translated into Vietnamese so that students find it easier to express their ideas

3.3.2 Pre-Test and Post-Test

Both the pre-test and the post-test were considered as one of the most essential tools in assessing students’ listening proficiency and their progress after the intervention In the research, students had to complete two listening tests in 30 minutes and write their answers on separate listening answer sheets Both these tests included 4 sections and students were allowed to listen to the audios only one time

The pre- listening test was taken from the book “Complete IELTS (4-5.0) and the post-test was taken from the book “ Cambridge IELTS Practice Tests” These two tests were published by Cambridge University Press and since IELTS is an international language proficiency test, the researcher picked these tests to check students’ listening proficiency

The scores of the two tests are marked according to IELTS listening schemes (after Appendix A, B **) The scores range from 1 to 9 and the scores are equivalent

to the number of the correct answers that students got in the tests For example, students who got from 10-12 right questions and they got 4 in IELTS listening and this means they are at Pre-Intermediate level Students who got scores below 4 are below Pre-Intermediate level At the end of the course, they are expected to get 16-

19 correct answers out of 40 questions, which are equivalent to 5.0 IELTS

3.3.3 Survey Questionnaire

Beside the pre-test and post-test, the survey questionnaire was also used in the research for two main purposes First of all, this instrument allowed the teacher to collect data in both quantitative and qualitative forms Secondly, via survey, the teacher could gain deeper insight into students’ attitudes toward listening to YouTube videos, listening strategies they applied to do listening tasks

The questionnaire comprised 16 questions, which were divided into three categories: seven questions about students’ attitudes, seven questions of how they applied listening strategies, and two questions of their motivation All these questions were arranged in order and students expressed their ideas based on a five-point Likert Scale, which ranges from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree When collecting the data, the teacher used Vietnamese version survey so that students could fully understand the questions

In terms of questions one to seven, students were asked to express their attitudes toward practicing listening via Youtube videos and this kind of question enabled the teacher to know whether Youtube videos improved their attitudes in listening skill

In the next seven questions, the students were asked which listening strategies they used in doing listening tasks designed from Youtube videos With the results, the teacher knew how her students applied listening strategies to listen to YouTube videos more effectively

The last two final questions were about students’ motivation, and these questions allowed the teacher to know whether the integration of YouTube videos in

the listening course encouraged them to spend more time on self-practicing and improving listening skill outside the amount of time they spent in the classroom

3.3.4 Teaching Diary

According to Elliot (1991), as teaching diaries contain “observations, feelings, reactions, interpretations, reflections, hunches, explanations”, they are considered as

an research instrument which are extremely important

There were a total number of six entries in the researcher’s teaching diary written after each listening lesson Before writing the teaching diary, the researcher (and also the teacher) created two sets of questions, which belonged to two separate categories: Effectiveness and Attitudes

After each lesson, regarding the “Effectiveness” category, the teacher wrote in

the diary some leading questions “Did all students do Listening tasks?”; “Did they

perform well in Listening tasks? If not, what difficulties did they encounter in Listening?”; “How did all groups/ pairs work?”; “What are good points of the lesson?”; “What are bad points of the lessons? How to improve them?” These

questions enabled the teacher to write about what happened in the class and how effectively YouTube videos were integrated to enhance students’ listening comprehension In addition, the teacher also had a chance to look back at positive and negative points of the lesson and could change the lessons and make a more suitable use of videos from YouTube more effectively

On the other hand, in terms of the “Attitudes” category, the teacher also wrote

using these questions “Which videos are chosen for the lesson? Did they make

students feel interested?”; “How did they involve in the lesson?”; “Did students pay full attention to the lesson?”; “Did students raise their hands to answer questions?”;

“Did they feel interested in discussions with their classmates?”; “Which Listening tasks students prefer most/ least? Why?” By writing the diaries using these questions,

it let the teacher know whether applying YouTube made students excited in practicing listening skills or not, then she knew to adjust the following lessons and make it more

interesting to students

3.4 Data analysis methods

Data from students’ pre-test and post-test were analyzed by the software named Microsoft Excel to calculate the mean, standard deviation and significance of the data Furthermore, the researcher made a quantitative analysis of data from the survey questionnaire in percentages Similarly, the data from teaching diaries was also analyzed qualitatively so that the researcher could understand more about the extent to which YouTube videos helped students to improve listening comprehension skill and motivation

3.5 Summary

This chapter provides detailed information about the setting of English center that the researcher has worked in and the action research approach that the researcher used Moreover, it also gives thorough descriptions of the process the research was carried out, the participants, materials, and data collection instruments: preliminary questionnaire, pre-test, post-test, survey questionnaire, and teaching diaries), and data analysis methods

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Introduction: This chapter analyzes the information collected for this

study and discusses its findings Specifically, this chapter attempts to present the findings related to the two research questions The first research question

comprehension The second research question seeks the answer on students’

attitudes towards teacher’s use of Youtube videos

4.1 Influence of YouTube videos on students’ listening comprehension

In order to find out the answer to the first research question “To what extent does the use of videos from YouTube influence students’ listening comprehension?”, data was analyzed from three data collection instruments: (1) pre-test and post-test, (2) survey questionnaire (question 6-14), (3) teaching diaries (the Effectiveness and the Attitudes)

4.1.1 Analysis of test results: Pre-test and Post-test

The pre-test and post-test data were analyzed in order to seek answers for the research question and investigate the extent that the YouTube videos impact students’ listening comprehension The pre-test was taken by students at the beginning of the research and after 6 weeks, the post-test was distributed and done to examine the effectiveness of YouTube videos in the listening classroom

The pre-test was taken before YouTube videos are applied in the class and after integrating YouTube videos in the listening classroom, the post-test was administered The pre-test was taken with the aim to find out about students’ listening proficiency levels and the post-test was administered at the end of the course to find out how much students progressed in listening skill after 6 weeks of applying YouTube videos in the classroom

Table 4.1.1.1: The comparison between the results of the pre-test and post-test

Table 4.1.1.2: The scores of students in both tests

The standard deviation numbers were used to measure the amount of variance toward the mean scores As can be seen from the fourth column, the standard deviation of the pre-test was 1.255756, compared to 1.029999 There was a fall in the standard deviation scores between pre-test and post-test, which means that more students improved their listening skill after a 6-week experiment with YouTube videos and the gap in their listening proficiency was narrowed

To examine the significance of the data, from the fifth column of the table, value was calculated; p(two-tail) = 0.0000001 < 0,05 As a result, it is evident that there was a significant difference between the data of pre-test and post-test

p-Furthermore, the data from the table 4.1.1.2 provides us students’ results of the pre-test and post-test and clearly, students made progress in their listening skill after integrating YouTube videos in the classroom

4.1.2 Analysis of Survey Questionnaires

a Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of YouTube videos towards their listening comprehension

Table 4.1.2.1: Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of YouTube videos

towards their listening comprehension

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Strongly

4 30,77%

8 61,54%

0 0%

1 7,69%

0 0%

7 I acquire more useful vocabulary from

YouTube videos than from textbook audios

5 38,47%

4 30,77%

2 15,38%

2 15,38%

0 0%

As can be seen from the table, with regard to the effectiveness of YouTube videos, in the sixth question, the proportion of students who affirmed that videos from YouTube websites are more helpful in improving their listening skill made up 92,31% while only 7,69% had an opposite opinion

As to vocabulary in listening, which is one main factor that made the majority

of students struggle with this skill, 69,24% agreed that they gained more useful words from YouTube videos than from audios in textbooks; 15,38% had neutral opinion, and 15,38% disagreed with it

As can be seen from the previous table 4.1.1.2 and the above table 4.1.2.1, there was a close connection Students said that listening to YouTube videos actually helped them to enhance their listening skill and vocabulary (question six and seven, table 4.1.2.1), and it can be seen from the table 4.1.1.2 (the scores results of both tests), 11 out of 13 students achieved higher scores in the post-test and there were 11 students reaching Intermediate level Not to mention, the post-test was more difficult than the pre-test In addition, some really good students (2,3,6,7,8) remained top students in the class and showed significant progress in listening skills They got 6 or 6.5 ( Upper Intermediate level) in the IELTS listening post-test while they only needed 5.0 to pass the course The most outstanding student is student 7, she got 29 out of 40 and one more right answer she would have scored 7 and achieved advanced level By contrast, for some students who had lower proficiency level of listening skills, for instance students (5,10,12) and the weakest ones( 1,4,9,11,12,13): although they did not perform well in these question types ( as they still got many wrong questions), they tried hard and made improvement in listening To illustrate this more specifically, students 4,5, 9,10,12, 13 passed the course Moreover, in the post-test, they got some correct answers in these listening question types, especially Maps, Multiple Choice Questions, Note Completion whereas in the pre-test, they left most

of the questions unanswered

To conclude, all of these evidence contribute to demonstrate that YouTube website is a useful tool for students to improve listening skills and lexical resources