Some strategies to improve listening skills for the first year students at faculty of english hanoi open university

DECLARATION Title: SOME STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY I certify no part of the above report has been c

DECLARATION

Title: SOME STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY

OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

I certify no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced from any person‟s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

I also would to express my special thanks to all teachers at the Faculty

of English, who have provided me with not only knowledge but also the study condition during my student life, as well as their useful advice in completing this graduation paper

I would also like to extend my thanks to 100 students of first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for their support in implementing the survey

Finally yet importantly, I am indebted to my family and friends who have encouraged and supported me so much in the completion of this paper If there had not been great help from the above people, the study could not been fulfilled

Hanoi, 2nd May 2015

Student

Kieu Bich Ngoc

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDEGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Scope of the Study 2

4 Subject of the Study 2

5 Research Questions 2

6 Methods of the Study 3

7 Design of the Study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1.The Definition of Listening 5

1.2.The Importance of Listening 7

1.3.What Makes Listening Difficult? 9

1.4 The Listening Skills 11

1.4.1 The definitions of listening sub-skills 11

1.4.2 The Classification of Listening Sub-skills 13

1.4.2.1 Skimming 13

1.4.2.2 Guessing Meaning of Words or Context 14

1.4.2.3 Listening and Note-taking 14

1.4.2.4 Scanning 15

1.4.2.5 Inference 16

1.4.2.6 Listening for Total Comprehension 17

1.4.2.7 Predicting 17

1.4.2.8 Summarizing 18

1.5 Summary 18

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY 20

2.1 Data Collection Method 20

2.2 Data Analysis 21

2.3 Summary 31

CHAPTER III: SOME EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES AND TEACHING METHODS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY 32

3.1 Strategies for Achieving Good Results in Listening 32

3.1.1 Pre-listening 32

3.1.2 While-listening 34

3.1.3 Post-listening 35

3.2 Applying Listening Sub-skills 37

3.2.1 Improving Skimming Sub-skills 37

3.2.2 Listening and Note-taking 38

3.2.3 Scanning 41

3.2.4 Guessing Meaning of Words or Context 43

3.2.5 Inference 44

3.2.6 Listening for Total Comprehension 45

3.3 Summary 48

PART C: CONCLUSION 49 REFERENCES

APENDIX

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Communication plays an important role in human life, and language which is one of the most useful tools for communication Nowadays, the development of global economy demands people to have more than one foreign language in communication English has become one of the main foreign languages which are used all over the world It is also known as an international language in communication and business

When we think of learning a new language, normally we think about four learning skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing It is the fact that listening is listed first because it is used most Listening is not only hearing but also understanding what is being said Listeners must receive and encode the information that they hear and react They also need to check any prediction they have made and understand the speaker‟s meaning by their intonation, stress or emotions

In comparison with other skills, listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks because it is a complicated process for learners It demands many other skills, so that is the reason why many students learning a new language often get into trouble dealing with them

In the learning process, the author of this paper and other students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University have to cope with difficulties

in listening comprehension Therefore, the author decided to choose the topic

“Some strategies to improve listening skills for the first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University” as the subject for the graduation

paper Through this study, the author would like to present some listening comprehension knowledge and suggest some effective strategies to improve the listening skills for the first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University

2 Aims of the Study

This study aims at finding meaning, problems and understanding all of the current situations related to teaching and learning listening skills for the first-year students at HOU as well as recommending some suggestions that they could use in learning to improve their listening-skills and extend their abilities to listen effectively in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes

3 Scope of the Study

Listening comprehension is a wide field for research Through the graduation paper, the study mainly focuses on some issues the first-year students at the Faculty of English, HOU often face They have been taught English listening skills for a considerable time and must have had knowledge

of some typical skills to some extent

4 Subject of the Study

In this study, the author focuses on the students who are the first-year students in Hanoi Open University In the process of learning English at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University, they have to face many problems

in listening skills Especially, the policy requiring that students who graduate from 2013 onwards need to satisfy a language standard (a minimum band score of 6.5 on the IELTS scale for the English language proficiency) to be awarded a university degree also makes English increasingly important

5 Research Questions

There is no doubt that listening plays an important role in our life and students of HOU, they always have trouble with it The objective of the study

is to find out some strategies which help students improve their listening comprehension skills This study focused on the following main points:

 What difficulties in listening do the first-year students face?

 What are some suggestions for students to improve their listening skills?

6 Methods of the Study

The author implemented a survey with subjects who are the first-year students at the Faculty of English and then find out the current situation of teaching and learning listening skills and then introduce some effective strategies for the first-year students of HOU Besides, the author has acquired all the literature from many sources of data such as the Internet, newspapers and linguistics book in the Library of the Faculty of English, HOU Personal observation consulted and discussed by the supervisor in the process of researching also contributed much to the completion of this study

7 Design of the Study

The study is divided into three main parts:

Part A: Introduction

It is like a touch on the chosen subject such as reason for the study, aims and objectives, methods performed in the study

Part B: Development

It is the most important part of my paper, including three chapters:

Chapter I: Literature Review: The chapter provides and introduces some

definitions and theories related to listening

Chapter II: The Study: It is the main part of study, which discloses the

current situation of teaching and learning listening skills for first-year students

at HOU and identifies their problems in listening

Chapter III: Some effective strategies to improve listening skills for the first- year students at the Faculty of English, HOU

In this chapter, the author wants to give out some suggestions and solutions

to deal with difficulties in learning listening skills

Part C: Conclusion

This chapter is the concluding part where the author gives the conclusion and sum up the main ideas of the graduation paper

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

The importance of listening in communication is enormous When you are not listening, you are not learning When you are not listening, you are preventing opportunity The fact that you do not listen reveals the reality that your mind is closed When you are not listening, you are preventing intelligence When you are not listening, there is nothing new There are only your reactions If you wish to live life to its fullest, and then listening is vital

For almost all learners of foreign languages, listening is considered the most difficult skill It brings many problems through our student life In order to deal with the problems, this study would provide an overview of listening issues to help students be aware of the listening skills more clearly

1.1 The Definition of Listening

People can easily find many definitions of listening skills on the Internet or books Although there are many definitions of listening in different ways, they have the same point of view about listening In general, listening is

an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe Listening is the process of making sense out of what we hear Listening is an active process of receiving, processing, and interpreting aural stimuli Apart from that, listening involves taking in meaningful sounds and noise and in some ways, retaining and using them Just as we speak for different purposes, we also listen for different purposes We listen for enjoyment, information, and evaluation

According to Dunkel (1986) “Listening is receiving language

through the ears Listening involves identifying the sounds of speech and processing them into words and sentences When we listen, we use our ears to receive individual sounds (letter, stress, rhythm and pauses) and we use our brain to convert these into messages that mean something to us.”

From the point of view of Rost (1990), the person who defined

listening in the most comprehension way, “Listening is one of fundamental

language abilities that allow users of language to get not only information but also instruction.” In addition, Brown (1994) defined that “Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his meaning.”

Meanwhile, Peter Sense (2002) added: “To listen fully means to pay

close attention to what is being said beneath the words You listen not only to the “music”, but to the essence of the person speaking You listen not only for what someone knows, but you listen what he or she is, Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silence in yourself, so you can slow our mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to the meaning.” So listening means you are paying attention to

what you are hearing Listening means you paid attention and understood what was said, even being motivated by what you hear

In contrast, one of the most complete and detailed definitions of

listening is the one provided by Brownell (1996) “…it is not a skill, but a set

of skills all marked by the fact that they involve the aural perception of oral signals … [it] is not necessary for almost any other work with language, especially for speaking and even for writing.”

In short, no matter how listening is defined, it is obviously that listening is the skill that we use the most when learning a second language And in our own language, listening is usually the first skill that we learn

1.2 The Importance of Listening

In this paper, the importance of listening is considered in two aspects communication, in general, and studying language in particular (English) In term of communication, listening plays an important role

According to Maureen Staiano (2006) the importance of listening in

communication is enormous People often focus on their speaking ability believing that good speaking equals good communication The ability to speak well is a necessary component to successful communication The ability to listen is equally important The importance of listening in communication is often well illustrated when we analyze our listening skills with those close to us This is actually quite common and yet we think we are good communicators In order to communicate effectively we have to be able

to hear what the other person is saying Not just hearing because the acoustics are good or because the other person is speaking in a loud enough tone It is important that we hear what the person saying because we have taken the time

to actively listen Listening takes work and when it comes to improving our communication, there is no getting around that When we are listening to music or watching TV We can certainly let our minds wander If we want our communication but instead concentrate fully on what the other person is saying No doubt this can be difficult Not every conversation we are in is particularly interesting The importance of listening in communication is something worthwhile to consider Good listeners are often some of the best speakers because they have taken the time to find out what people are truly interested in If you understand what is important to people than you understand how to teach them

Brett (1997) also states that “Listening is a key language skill It has

a vital role in the language acquisition process.” In comparison with other

language skills, some researches on listening suggests that on average people

can expect to listen “twice as much as we speak, four times more than what

we read and five times more than we usually write” (Morley, 2001) More

importantly, there are more and more studies indicating the sheer importance

of listening in communication and language learning (Anderson and Lynk,

1988, Dunkel, 1991) What‟s more, Michael Lewis (1993) highlights “Almost

all the world’s natural language output is spoken rather written.”

As for Paul.T Rankin, nearly half of an adult‟s communication time was listening A study by Wilt (1950), which found that people listen 45 percent of the time they spend communicating, is still widely cited (Martin,

1087 and Strother, 1987) Wilt found that 30 percent of communication time was spent speaking, 16 percent reading and 9 percent writing That finding confirmed that listening did not make any contribution in communication

To “communicate” defined by English Cambridge Dictionary is “to

share information with others by speaking, writing and moving your body or using signal.”Obviously, listening does not directly attend sharing

information in communication activities, so that is the reason why people often ignore this little skill Many claimed we were born with listening and there was no need to “learn how to listen.” Almost all of them did not realize the secret role of listening which helps people understand one another, but viewed it superficially

Being an essential skill for almost all interaction, listening is the most primary medium for input in language learning process and by speeding

up the student‟s ability to perceive speech, the amount of input they get will increase and thus aid student‟s language acquisition

It is obvious that we listen for many different purposes I and out of the classroom, this has an effect on the way we listen Yule and Brown (1983) made

a useful distinction between interactional and transactional communication McCarthy, (1991) in Discourse, defines transactional talk (and listening) as communication for getting business done Interactional communication, on the other hand, has to do with lubricating the social wheels In listening (1988) Anderson and Lynch describe them as (transactional) listening when the main purpose is to achieve a successful transfer of information, while interactional listening is defined as listening for social reasons, and to establish or maintain friendly relations between interlocutors

In brief, listening is essential not only as receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language prophecy

1.3 What Makes Listening Difficult?

Communication and language acquisition heavily depend on listening skills Just think with poor listening ability, you can‟t participate or continue a conversation You can‟t follow instruction correctly if at all Success at work, in a classroom, and elsewhere would be significantly more difficult to achieve

Unfortunately, it‟s easier to ask the question than to answer it A lot of research actually comes from native language development, as opposed to second language acquisition But we can still apply many of the findings to ESL and EFL learning For example, spoken language contains colloquialism and reduced forms like “donchya” for don‟t you” in English There are steps

that a listener goes through too, such as receiving the information, breaking it down, and identifying its purpose the listener‟s interest in the topic, the content, and any visual support (or lack of it) similarity affects listening These points are universally true for any spoken language The first reason stems from the fact that the pace, choice of vocabulary, phrase, and grammar, and the inflection or intonation is completely determined by the speaker The listener has only one chance to catch the meaning of a word or phrase This is quite similar to reading, as the writer similarly determines the language

In a series of experiments Anderson and Lynch found that the difficulty of listening tasks was particularly by the following:

1 The organization of information (text in which the order in which the information was presented matched its chronological sequence in real life were easier than texts in which the information was presented out of sequence)

2 The explicitness and sufficiency of the information

3 The familiarity of the topic

4 The type of referring expressions used (for example, geometric, figures) dynamic relationship (for example, a road accident)

The way these features were manipulated to produce texts which were similar generically but which were graded for difficulty can be illustrated by the task “trace the route” In the task, students listen to a description of the journey, route or tour and have to trace this route on a map The task designers systematically varied the type of map, the completeness of information, whether the start or end is given, the number of features and the congruence or otherwise of the information presented in the text and that

displayed on the map These variations changed the difficult level of the task It was found that maps which were laid out in a rectangular fashion with all roads marked were easier than those in which the roads and paths were irregular; these were in turn easier than maps consisting of natural landmarks In terms of completeness of information, task became increasingly difficult according to the number of items mentioned in the text which were missing from the map Those in which the start and end of the route were indicated on the map were easier than those in which they were omitted As the number of features (building, natural mark, etc.) increased, so too did the difficulty Lastly, in terms of referring expressions, it was found that reiterations were easier than synonyms The most difficult tasks were those in which there was contradictory information in the text and on the map In the text section we look in detail at the construction of a listening task which exploits these features

1.4 The Listening Skills

1.4.1 The definitions of listening sub-skills

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt and Dakin)

An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously Willis (1981:134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she calls enabling skills They are: (1) predicting what people are going to talk about, (2) guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic, (3) using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one understand, (4) identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information, (5) retaining relevant points (note-

taking, summarizing), (6) recognizing discourse markers, e.g., well, oh,

another thing is, now, finally, etc., (7) recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such

as and which, including linking words, pronouns, references, etc., (8) understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which give clues to meaning and social setting, (9) understanding inferred information,

e.g., speakers' attitude or intentions [18, p.134]

Edurne Scott (2008) also points that the sub-skills that can be emphasized in a listening lesson include: (1) listening for specific information, (2) following topic shifts, (3) predicting, (4) recognizing transitions and sequence markers, (5) recognizing word boundaries, (6) identifying key words, (7) and taking notes

According to Austin Shrope (1970), it is listening on the fourth level that primarily concerns us our teaching Such listening may add an emotional and dramatic quality Radio and recordings highlight the importance of listening Listening is as active as speaking (the other productive skill), and in some ways even more difficult It well requires attention, thought, interpretation, and imagination To improve our learner‟s listening skills, they should be allowed to (1) adopt a positive attitude, (2) be responsive, (3) shut out distraction, (4) listen for the speaker‟s purpose, (5) look for the signals of what is to come, (6) look for summaries of what has gone before, (7) evaluate the supporting materials, (8) and look for non-verbal clues

Richard, J.C (2005) also provides such skills taxonomy for developing student‟s listening skills as presented in Appendix?

To sum up, as the focus of language teaching and has moved from teacher-centered approaches to more learner-centered ones, the focus of listening teaching and learning has also changed a lot That‟s why now listening is recognized as an active receptive skill (Anderson and Lynch:

1988) in which the listener activates and improves there listening comprehension

1.4.2 The Classification of Listening Sub-skills

Listening is a language skill which is involved in a large range of micro-skills It is much more complicated than hearing When we listen to a foreign language, we should listen in a variety of ways Some of the skills involved in listening can help students overcome difficulties and improve their listening comprehension

1.4.2.1 Skimming

When listening, a person rarely needs to understand every word they hear But, it is important that they understand the main idea This skill is called skimming We skim when we are listening to a news broadcast and we only want to know the main events of the day When skimming, a listener asks, “What is the main idea of what I am hearing?”

When you listen to the English language, you probably do not realize the processing that is taking place in your brain, because your listening skills are so advanced that they allow you to operate on “automatic pilot” When you begin to learn a foreign language, however your listening skills are not developed enough for subconscious processing You need to pay attention to a lot of information at one time Under these circumstances, it probably will not

be possible for you to understand everything, so you must “go with the flow” and not let yourself get hung up on a single word or phrase One way of speeding up your comprehension processes is to skim the passages to determine the main idea of the selection First, listen for a statement about a general topic; this usually occurs at the beginning of a monologue or conversation In the case of an oral presentation, you can use the titles of the

talk as a clue, or any accompanying visuals such as charts, diagrams, or graphs When viewing a video, the visual cues are much more useful because they will help establish not only the setting but also the attitude of the speaker

of speakers Now, formulate one or two hypotheses about what type of information you think will be provided based upon background knowledge For example, if the topic is financial aid , you would expect to hear about specific ways of obtaining grants and loans and eligibility; in a computer advertisement, you would expect hear the name, component parts, price, and a few of the qualities of the cognates and other familiar words and phrase that you have learned Do these words and phrases support your theory? Did you successfully predict some of the information? Remember, successful listeners are able to report the gist of the message even if they do not recognize or understand all of the information

1.4.2.2 Guessing Meaning of Words or Context

Context refers to the part of a spoken (or written) message that round a given word or phrase Context can provide clues to the meaning of unknown words and phrases Guessing from context helps the listeners (or readers) understand in situations when it would be either impossible or extremely time consuming to refer to a dictionary When you hear a spoken message, guessing from by unknown words or phrases and that pay attention to the surrounding information or “context” in which the conversation is taking place

1.4.2.3 Listening and Note-taking

Information presented in class often contains the central concepts of the course and the material most likely to be included on exams Yet, students frequently do not realize the importance of note-taking and listening

Learning to take notes is an important skill to master When taking note, make sure the main idea and important details are written down Notes

do not need to have small words like a, an, the, and, it The notes should be

short, succinct and easily understood days and weeks later To keep more organized the Cornell method is an excellent and can help make studying the notes later on much

Taking notes is an important part of the life of every student There are two main reasons why note-taking is important: (1) when you are reading or listening, taking notes helps you concentrate In order to take notes to write something sensible – you must understand the text As listening and reading are interactive tasks, taking notes help you make sense of the text Taking notes does not mean writing down every word you hear; you need to actively decide what is important and how is related to what you have already written (2) Notes help you to maintain a permanent record of what you have read or listened to This is useful when revising in the future for examinations or other reasons Good notes should be accurate, clear and concise They should show the organization of the text, and this should show the relationship between the ideas

1.4.2.4 Scanning

Sometimes in listening, the main idea is not even important The listeners may only need to look for specific information This skill is called scanning In a news broadcast, the weather man may discuss the temperatures for all of Asia But the Vietnamese listener would only scan for the temperatures of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City Or, if a teacher is calling of a list names, a listener will only listen for his or her own name It is not necessary

to always comprehend every word of sentences when scanning

In general, you should scan for information, so that you success in answering the questions Some questions depend on your general understanding of the text, and those are the ones you have probably answered

in the first listening

1.4.2.5 Inference

Inference is an important skill, but one that‟s often left out of elementary level textbooks since it is considered a higher level of comprehension This is unfortunate because learners really do need to be able

to “listen between the lines” from the very beginning Indeed, beginners who lack intensive vocabularies and knowledge of language functions and grammar often need to infer a lot, just to compensate for what they do not understand

Inference is neither magic nor pure imagination It is hearing meaning that is there, even when the words aren‟t How do we let students know about the different listening types?

Exercises like the one at the beginning of this article (which is based on one from Active Listening from Cambridge University Press) are useful to create awareness By regularly pointing out the task types, teachers encourage learners to notice of their own listening goals As useful as these three types

of listening are both for leaners‟ awareness and as a checklist for teachers planning classes, it is important to remember that the skills are rarely used in isolation at times; a specific word can helps to infer meaning The important thing is that students have experience with a variety of listening types and tasks

As important as these listening types are, they need to be considered within the overall framework the learners are using to make sense of what they hear

1.4.2.6 Listening for Total Comprehension

At certain times, it is important to listen for total comprehension Assume you are a visitor in town and you want to find the train situation before your train leaves in half an hour You ask a kind man for direction and you listen carefully to what he says If you do not understand something, you ask for clarification If you do not understand everything he says You may

go to the wrong place and miss your train In this situation, you must listen for total comprehension

Listen for total comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature of listening Indeed, in most methodology manuals listening and listening comprehension are synonymous This view of listening is based on the assumption that the main function of listening in second language learning

is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse We will examine this view

of listening in some detail before considering a complementary view of listening: listening as acquisition This latter view of listening considers how listening can provide input that triggers the further development of second

language proficiency

1.4.2.7 Predicting

Many times a listener predicts what a speaker will say next For instance, a listener must predict when the speaker will talk about something important, in order to listen more carefully As a student listens to a lecture,

he or she must predict when a new point is being introduced so that he or she

can listen more carefully and take proper notes Also, on the street, a listener must be able to predict what a stranger wants to talk about If an unknown man walks up and says, “Will you come into this bar I want to ask you something important” The listener will try to predict what the man wants, perhaps to sell something or ask a favor The skill of predicting helps a listener listen more carefully and respond more quickly

1.4.2.8 Summarizing

Similar to skimming is the skill of summarizing We summarize when

we repeat the main ideas of a text When summarizing, the listener will try to repeat or reduce the main points into fewer words We might use this skill when reporting the main points of the news to a friend

Summarizing brings what was said together to find a main idea or key points This is how you show that you understand what the speaker was talking about, and what was important in what was said Summarizing , or re-stating what the questioner said , aids the listening process by making sure there were no misunderstanding between what the questioner meant and what the listener heard Since all communication between people has to be interpreted (we cannot download exact meanings to each other), misunderstanding are common Re-stating can help avoid misunderstanding and allow the questioner time to clarify

1.5 Summary

Listening is an active skill that includes the use of many sub-skills Listening sub-skills are effective tools used to effectively understand opinions, suggestions and ideas Emphasizing the listening sub-skills helps students develop a sense of why they listen and which skill to use listen better Our learners‟ success at why they listen and which skill to use listen

better Our leaners‟ success at understanding the content of what they hear largely depends on their expertise in their use of listening sub-skills

In conclusion, this chapter is designed to helps learners get some general knowledge on listening skills And now, the writer turns to Chapter II for analyzing survey learning listening of the first-year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

The chapter is to report details related to data collection and analysis This survey was carried out among 100 K21 students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University They have got familiar with their listening lessons

and are all in need of upgrading their skills

2.1 Data Collection Method

In order to get information about the problems and challenges the first year students face when listening for essential information, a set of 10 questions are used Question 1 aims to find out students‟ attitudes toward listening skills Question 2 looks for the listening techniques that students often use to listen in class Question 3 is to find out what activities students feel most difficult in listening processes Question 4 is to focus on what type

of listening exercise students are interested in Question 5 addresses what kinds of materials students usually use to practice listening skills Question 6 shows what way students prefer to do with the listening task in class Question 7 reveals the students‟ opinion about improving English through games Question 8 and Question 9 aim to get the frequency of listening practice at home Question 10 aims to find out which strategies students employ when practicing particular listening tasks as required in IELTS, TOEFL, etc

2.2 Data Analysis

In the questionnaire survey, some questions are designed to find out the current situation of learning listening skills of the first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University The results are described as follows:

Question 1: How do you think about listening skills?

CHART 1: STUDENTS‟ OPINION ABOUT LISTENING SKILLS

As is shown in Table 1, 55% of first-year students find listening skills difficult after a year of practice at university, 16% of them find it very difficult while 25% find it a little bit difficult and 4% of them have the opposite answer This means that most of the first-year students consider listening skills a challenge to master A lot of them said that of the four basic English language skills, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, the most difficult one to acquire is listening comprehension It is also the one skill which cannot be “taught” because it requires a lot of time to practice if students wish to mater it Therefore, students should recognize the importance

of listening skills and pay more attention to these skills

Question 2: Which sub-skills do you often use while listening in class (you can choose more than one answer)?

The above table is created in order to get information about some listening techniques used by the students in the class As is presented in Table

2, 59% of the students often use predicting technique While predicting is a very important listening sub-skill, a considerable rate of the surveyed students (41%) are often reluctant to use, which is a point to for both teachers in charge of teaching listening and students practicing listening in class or at home to consider Following the prediction skill, the note-taking technique is also used by a relatively high proportion, at 56% Note-taking involves recording ideas and facts that students learn in class to help them remember and use the information later The percentage of students practicing guessing the meaning of words is 46%, which is good because it is a useful skill in learning foreign language; therefore, students should take advantage of it

In terms of scanning, skimming and summarizing, 31%, 20% and 21% respectively of the first-year students use them to support their listening Besides, 15% of them use Listening for total comprehension, 15% use Sensing styles and tones in their listening processes Different techniques which are employed by fewer than 10% of students include Sound discrimination (7%), Comprehending structure (8%), Critical listening (8%), Inferences (6%) Through this data, we can see that few of the important listening techniques are often used by most students surveyed while all of the techniques are important and useful; thus, students need to learn and practice them more often in order to understand and use them effectively

In fact, different listening stages demand different listening techniques Different listening stages need different listening strategies Each stage has its own listening tasks and activities, so different strategies should be applied

suitably for each listening task The following question is to find out students‟ problems in different listening stages

Question 3: What is the most difficult activity in listening processes?

CHART 2: THE MOST DIFFICULT ACTIVITY IN LISTENING PROCESS

The data above shows that not many students think Pre-listening is the most activity in listening process The rate is smallest (9 %) Meanwhile,

those ones who feel While-listening causes them get into trouble account for (58%) 33% of the students is the portion of students who think Post-listening

is the most difficult activity in listening skills The answers are useful hints for teachers who are interested in improving students‟ listening skills and also for students who are learning to listen as these pin point the stages students find most difficult to practice The next question will focus on favorite activities while learning listening skills

Question 4: What kinds of listening exercises do you find interesting?

D Answering comprehension questions 25%

TABLE 4: STUDENTS‟ FAVOURITE LISTENING EXERCISES

This question aims to find out students‟ favorite listening exercises It

is obvious that most the students prefer Gap filling (59%) True/false statement task seems to be less interesting to them (45%) It is also concluded that despite nearly a year of studying in university, the first-year students still prefer kinds of exercises which are related to scanning Quite low rates of