Luận văn the use of songs to improve listening skills for students at itc foreign language centre in haiduong

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES RRERAAARA RAK TRAN TIT OANIIT THE USE OF SONGS TO IMPROVE LISTE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES

RRERAAARA RAK

TRAN TIT OANIIT

THE USE OF SONGS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR

STUDENTS AT ITC FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTRE

IN HAL DUONG

( SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÁT NHÃM CẢI THIỆN KỸ NÀNG NGIIE CTIO

SINH VIÊN TẠI TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ ITC, THẰNH PHỚ

HAI DUONG)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Ficld: Knglish Teaching Mcthodology Code: 60 1410

HA NOL - 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES

TRAN TH] OANH

THE USE OF SONGS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR

STUDENTS AT ITC FORELGN LANGUAGE CENTRE

INIIAI DUONG

( SỬ DỤNG BÀI HÀT NHẰM CAT THTEN K¥ NANG NGHE CHO

SINH VIEN TAI TRUNG TAM NGOAI NGU ITC, THANH PHO

HAI DUONG)

MLA MLNOR THESIS

Ficld: Kinglish Teaching Mcthadology Code: 60 1410

Supervisor: Tran Hién Lan, M.A

HA NOT - 2011

vì

TABLE OF CONTENT Certificate of originality

Acknowledgements

Abstract

List of abbreviations

List of tables and charts

Table of coments

PART I: INTRODUCTION

Rationale

Aims of the stutly

Research questions

Methodology

Design of the study

1

2

3

4 Scope of the sindy

3

6

PART TH: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter t: LITERATURE REVIEW

a The definition of listening skill

b Listening skill in leaning a foreign language leaching

v

—

i ‘The importance of listening skill in foreign language teaching

ii "The difficulties in learning listening skill

iii Teaching listening skill acoordiry ta CLT

¢ Teaching listening skill through English songs

i ‘The importance of songs in foreign language teaching

fi, Using songs as a motivator for sindents to leam listening skill

Hi — Tasks đcsigncd fw listeningtext

4 Summary

He

Chapier 2: USING SONGS TO TEACTI LISTENING FOR STUDENTS AT ITC

FORFIGN LANGUAGE 2.1 Hypothesis

2.2 ‘The setting of the study

2.2.1 Students’ background information -

2.2.2 The teachers and teaching methods

2.2.3 Materials and facilities

2.3 The subjects

2.4, Methods of data collection

2.5 Procedures and methods of data analysis

2.6 Data analysis and discussion

2.6.1 Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill

2.6.2 Students’ attitude towards hstening skill

2.6.3 The

sons cause students? difficully in listening skill

2.6.4, Teachers’ attitudes towards using songs to teach listening skill

2.6.5 Students’ attitude toward using songs to lear listening skill

2.6.6 The siluation of using songs to teach listening skill

2.6.7 Reasons that students listen to English songs

2.6.8 Teachers” opinion about advantages and disadvantages

of using songs to leach listening skill

2.6.9 Students’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of

using songs to leam English

2.6.10, Favorite activities while students listen to English somgs

7 Discussion of the findings

2.8 Summary

Chapter 3: TMPLICATIONS

3.1 Criteria of song selection

3.2 Prablorns to bs faced with by studonts

3.3 Some suggested tasks designed from songs

PART HI: CONCLUSION

L Sumunary of the study

2, Limitations and suggestions for futher study

References

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 HaHonak

‘the Vietnam’s participation in World ‘Trade Organization in 2007 has given us good chance to integrate in the global development, We can sce changes in all ficlds of life suuh as cultural, social, cconomic and educational ones, Many forcign companics have recently invested in Vietnam, which has boosted our economy to develop remarkably, it is the reason why English has played a very important role in our saciely nowadays

As we know, in 2008 the Ministry of Education and ‘raining made a decision on

approval of tha project “Teaching and loarring forcign languages in the national odncation system period 2008 2020” Its main purpose is to reform the teaching and leaming of foreign languages in the national education system at all levels so that students will have een able to achieve a remarkable improvement in learning forcign languages by 2015 Also, students at colleges and universities will be able to use the foreign language contidently in communication in an environment of integration, multi — ianguages, multi — cultural variables to sorve the cause of industrializaling and modemizating of the country

Inthe past, most textbooks paid more attention to reading and grammar, but recently they have been rformed to develop the four language skills (listening, spoaking, roading, and writing) equally Despite the innovation in textbooks and teaching methods, we can see a little change in students, Among the four language skills “listening, speaking, reading and writing”, listening skill scems to be the most difficult to be mastered by the students and be

far more difficult than many people can imagine (Mee, 1990 cited in M Kadlij, 2000)

During an observation at an extra curriculum activity at IFC foreign language center in Hai Duong, students at level A could not understand what the native speaker said When asked, most of therm said that they felt tired at the cnd of the lesson and that thoy had no mood for listening to English on the tape

As a teacher of Fngfish, how to make the sindsnts understand spoken English during the

listening lesson is of my first concer I decided to study English songs to teach listening

skill to my students so that they want to leam the listening skill and therefore they can improve their listening abilities in English

TE Aims of the study

Aims of the slutty are

* To investigate the cffectives of using songs in tcaching listening skill to the students at ITC foreign language center

© To suggest some methods on how to use English songs to teach listening to students

TE Research questions

What is teachers and students’ attitudes to teaching and listening skill?

2 What are teachers’ and students’ attitudes at ITCFLC to using songs in teaching listening ski?

IIL Scope of the study

Tn dhris study, the author intended to use songs to help tevel A students at IPCFLC improve their listening skill without using other activities suchas siolies, games, or

poems,

IV Methodology

To fulfill the above aims, qualilative and quantitative method was chosen for the study All comments, remarks, assumptions and conclusion of the study were based on the observation, data and analysis, Data collections for analysis in this study were gainsd though the following resources

- Survey questionnaires,

- Interview;

- observation;

The questionnaire was designed for both students and teachers, However, sometimes interviews were also applied if the author found that the answer of respondents were not dei

cnongh

Y Design of the study

The minor thesis consists of three parts:

Part 1 is the introduction in which the author presents the rationale, hypothesis of the study, aims of the study, scope of the stud

Part ILis the development which is divided into 3 chaplets:

© Chapter 1 set up theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study,

ethodology and design of the study

© Chapter 2 investigaled the Teaming situation at ITC Foreign Language Center,

difficulties in teaching and learning listening skill and find out the students’ point of

view about using songs in classes

9 Chapter 3 cmphasives the implications of the sindy in wlnch discusses about the

problems when applying in classes and suggests some criteria of choosing songs and some suggested tasks designed from songs

Part IIT is the conclusion, summarizes the key issues in the study, points ont the

limitations and provides some suggestions for fiuther study

Chapier I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 ‘The definition of listening skill

Listening is one of the fundamental Janguage skills, and crucial in the development of the second language competence so there are many definitions of listening which present different views of scholars towards the conecpt

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), listening is really a receptive skill along side with reading skills and the role

of listeners is no longer passive bul active Rest (1994) says thal “istoning ts relirred to ø

complex process thal crables us to understand spoken language.” TLis an invisible mental

process, soil is very difficull to deseribe This involves understanding the speaker's accent or

promunciaticn, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howat and Dakin, 1974)

1.2, Listening skill in foreign language teaching

12.1 ‘The importance of listening skill In foreign language teaching

it cannot be denied that we spend a large portion of our time listening because it is a key clement of the verbal communication It has been estisnated that adults spond almost bal thair

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communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their in school information through listerang to instructors or to one another However, in the past, reading and grammar skills were paid much attention to while speaking and listening skills were taken for granted, As a resull, language learners did nol recognize its importanee in developing language skills

Rost (1994) cmphasizes the importanec of listening for several reasons below:

© Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understandable input at the right level, any leaming simply cannot begin

© Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the leamer Since the learners must interacl to achieve understanding, access lo speakers of the language is essenlial Moreover, learners’ failure to understand the language they hear is impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning,

© Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the leamer 4o attempt to understand language as it is actually used by native speakers

© Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing leamers” attention to new

forus (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language

Moreover listening is also an important condition for developing other skills, especially speaking skill as Doff (1988) suggests that we cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skill, indeed if we want to speak well, we firstly must listen to what others say and understand them clearly

‘To sumn up, listening skill has taken a very important part in learning English It is the most commumigalive and practiced skill thal needs lo be develaped as much as possible

1.2.2 The difficulties in learning listening skith

Of the four language basic English language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing), listening skill seems to be the most difficult skill to be acquired by students Many authors have mentioned this problem such as Underwood (1989), Ur (1996), Rost (1994) or Lynch (2005) in their writings

According to Underwood (1989), there are seven problems in listening skill that students may encounter: (1) lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak; (2) not being able

to get things repeated: (3) the listener's limited vocabulary, (4) failure to recognize the signals, (5) problems of interprclation; (6) inabilily lo concentrale and (7) csteblished leaming habit She explains that these problems of students relate to students’ different backgrounds such as their cullure and edncations Sludenls whose “culture and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally “better” at listening than those from a reading and book-based culture and education background” Funthormore, “students for whom the stress and intonation which occur in English arc reasonably familiar have tess trouble than those whose own language 1s based on different rhythms and tones” (Underwood, 1989), From that point of view, students in Vietnam whose Tanguage is made of different tones face a great deal of difficulties in tearning listening skills

1.2.3 Teaching listening skill according te CLT

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), decived from the late 1970s and eaily 1980s, can be said to be the product of educators and linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audiotingual and grammar-translalion methods of forcign language instruction IL ean be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how leamers lea a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom According to Richards (2002), “CLT was an attempt to operationalize the concept of communicative competence and to apply it across all levels of language program design, from theory, lo syllabus design, to tea

ing techniques.” In other

words, CLT makes use of real-life situations thal necessitate commnunicalion The Tcaeher

sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real lif, As a part of

communication, listening can be taught in a communicative way

According to Rost (1990), listening is given a new role in language learning in CLT: communicative approach views listening as an interactive functional basic mode of communication on rather than a skill to be learned aid tested CLT cmphasizes the usc of

extensive listening to material taken from “authentic” L1 situations where learners are

expected to sotocl the language they need to usc in order to perform language lasks

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it can be said that listaning plays an important role in CLT, It can enable the listeners to select a function of language ftom the presented listening model and to apply it in communication activities, Besides, it could stimulate communication by creating the need for

social interaction through simulation of real-lifz situations CLT regards listening a3 a

procedure in language leaming not as a target of learning by itself

1.3 Teaching listening skill through English songs

1.3.1 The importance of songs in foreign language teaching

No one can deny that music has played a very important part in our life Every ane likes

music, TL ascompanies wilh us very lime we fecl happy or sad Music is al everywhere, every time we need it: “when we exercise, when we work, when we play, when we worship and even when we die, music 1s there to reinforce or alter every mood and cinotion” (Lynch, 2005) Studics have shown thal music cam itmprovs concentration, improve memory, bring a sense of community to a group, motivate learning, relax people who are overwhelmed or stressed, make learning fim, help people absorb material

Due to its great value, music and songs have been taken into consideration as a method to

teach language as Medina (1993) says “it is currently a common practice to use songs in

the classroom to support sceond language acquisition” hecause musie can stimulate and motivate students to leam a new language It is really a language package that bundles culture, vocabulary, listening grammar and a host of other languags skills in just a few rhymes (Ingeris, 2008)

1.3.2, Using songs as motivatar for students fo learning listening skill

Songs can be used to show our emotions, it makes us happy, helps us ease the pain in the

best way Besides, songs ca be utilived in foreign language leaching for many purposes According to Eken (1996), songs can be used:

© To present a topic, a language point, lexis, etc

© To practice a language point, lexis, etc

+ To focus on common Icamer crrors in more dircet way

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