Luận văn challenges perceived by teachers in how to teach and motivate ethnic minority students to learn listening comprehension skill at langson teachers' training college and solutions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRUONG THI THANH HUYEN CHALLENGES PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS IN HOW TO

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRUONG THI THANH HUYEN

CHALLENGES PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS IN HOW TO TEACH AND MOTIVATE ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS TO LEARN

LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILL AT LANG SON TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE AND SOLUTIONS

(NHỮNG KHỎ KHĂN CÚA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG VIỆC GIANG

DẠY VẢ KHÍCH LỆ SINH VIÊN NGƯỜI DÂN TỘC THIẾU SO

HỌC KỸ NÀNG NGHE HIỂU TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐĂNG SƯ

PHAM LANG SGN VA MOT SO GIAI PHÁP)

MA, MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410

SUPERVISOR: LE THE NGHIEP, M.A

LANGSON, 2010

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methods of the stidy

3 Organization of the Be sit

PART TI: THE DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER TI: LITERATURE REVIEW

L1 Theoretical background of listening comprchension

1.1.1.W hat is lisfeHing?

1.12, Nature of listening

1.1.3 Significance of listening

1.1 Teaching listening skill:

The process of listening

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOG’ 4 IL1, General description of the current course-book and participants’ background

41 1.1 General description of the current course-book Ad

IU 12 Participants’ hackground information “4 TLL2.1, English Majer Students cccccccccsscessssereieieuassieseeinasiassneinasinnnanneddl

TIL Questionmaires

IIL 2 Class observations

TIL3 Findings

JEL3.1 Teachers’ challenges when dealing with listening techniques and some

IEL3.2.Students' preferences for listening techniques -.84

4H.3.3 Teachers’ and students opinions about listening activities in the course-book

‘Listen in 1° by David Nunan they are using

i

IV.2, Some useful activities used for students during the class -time

PART TTT: CONCLUSION

T Summary of the stud;

IL Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

REFERENCES

APPENDIXE

APPENDIXE IT

APPENDIXE IIL

APPENDIX IV

vì

LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS

LSTTC: Langson Teachers’ Training College

DIL: Department of Foreign Languages

CFL: College of Forcign Languages

VNU: Vietnam National University

T: Teacher

Ss: Students

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Table 1: Teachers’ pre-stening techniques

‘Table 2: Yeachers’ while- listening techniques

Table 3: Teachers’ postelistering techniques

Table 4: Teachers’ difficulties in pre-listening techniques

Table 5: Teachers’ difficulties in while- listening techniques

Table 6: Teachers’ difficultics in post-listening techniques

‘Table 7:

Students’ preferences for pre-listening techniques

: Students’ preferences for while-listening techniques

Teachors’ comments mm the lislening setivities in the eaurscbook Causes that make students uninterested m hstening

Students” preferences for post-listening techniques

Students’ comments on the listening aclivitiss in the courscboak

PART TI INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English is, nowadays, needed in every field of our lives and for a long time it has been not only a compulsory subject in schools in Vietnam but one of three major subjects in the entrance exams Lo some Universities and Collages as well

Among the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening is always considered to be the most difficult for teachers to teach and for students to learn ‘This leads to the fael thal carers are afraid of leaning listening skills There are various reasons for this: students’ poor background knowledge, their limited reservoir of vocabulary and structures,

their lack of motivation and preparations for the task, etc (Boyle, 1984) Many students have

associated Hislening courses with pain and boredom and usually complain that they benefil

they can make progress and feel interested in listening comprehension courses

In fact, in the process of teaching and learning English, listening plays an important role

since il involves various kinds of the listener’s knowledge and if 1s closely related to other skills, especially the speaking skill While, G (1998) pointed out that being a good listener involves collaborating with speakers and taking an active role in asking for clarification when

you do not understand Ilowever in the process of teaching listening of teachers at LSTTC, the students’ motivation in lcaming this skill is sometimes low and the listening lesson is said

to be boring despite the teacher's much effort in their teaching time Consequently, these sindents’ listering skills are poor since they are nol interested in the snbjeci, and they Gud il

difficult to focus on listening if there are many distractions They do not know much about the

tasks of the lesson ‘hus, creating a motivating learning environment for ethnic minority sindents ina lislerring class is a challenging task for teachers

This fact has encouraged the author to investigate into the challenges percerved by

teachers in how to teach and motivate ethnic minority students to learn Listening

Comprehension Skill at LST'TC, to find out more reasons for those problems, and then, to

give some suggestions for mostly meeting and solving those challenges Hopefully, the siudy

will be helpful in some way for the author and other teachers to find out most suitable techniques to stimulats their students in listening lessons

rs

2, Aims and significance of the study

The purpose of this study is to find ont the most suilable teaching techniques and solutions

to the challenges perceived by the teachers, in order to teach and motivate ethnic minority

students at LSI'C to leam listening comprehension skill effectively ‘To he specific, the

major aimns of the study are as follows

- to find out ewrent challenges faced by teachers and ethnic minority students at LSTTC

in their process of teaching and learning nglish listening comprehension skill

- lo stuily teaching tectmiques used by these teachers 1a icach their sludenls listening comprehension skill

- to investigate students’ attitudes and their feedbacks on the teaching techniques used by their teachers

- to provide some suggestions and practical recommendations to help in the process of teaching and leaming listening comprehension skills of ethnic minority students and teachers

al this collage

The study hopes to give an insight into the ways used and problems faced by teachers in

how to teach listening comprehension skill for ethnic minority students at LSC ‘he result

of the study is also usefial for teachers at this college in reviewing their teaching practices, thus paying more allzntion to the issus of leaching listening skills

3 Scope of the study

The scope of this thesis is limited to the teachers” challenges in how to teach and motivate cthnic minority students to learn listening comprehension skill and the recommendations to overcome these challenges at Lang Son Teachers’ Training College, The result trom this thesis could also be used to inform concemed educational administrators in Tang Son in particular and in various regions throughout the country in gencral

With that intention, this study is designed to cover the following issues:

- Description of the course-book used for students in listening and ifs teaching and learning context

- Challenges teachers often fice in teaching and motivating their students to leam listening

+ Recommendations on haw to suppor! teachers so hat they oan Leach more effectively

4 Methods of the study

‘The study was carried out on the basis of quantities research method including questionmaire and class observation

Questionnaires are designed as a means fo make the researcher’s evaluation more objective The questiomaires are given to first-year ethnic minorily students and teachers af English Department at LSTTC with the hope to find out their attitudes towards their current leaming and teaching listening comprehension as well as their comments and suggestions for ths problains they often face

In addition, more information needed for the findings of the study will be gathered from class observation

4, Organization of the thesis

The study consists of threc parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion,

‘The introduction provides the basis information such as rationale, aims, significance, scope and methods of the study

The development consists of 4 chapters Chapter J, Literature Review, conceptualizes the nature of listening and listening comprehension skills, teaching listening skills, motivation, and current challenges in leaching and learning listening comprehension Chapler IT presents

the general description of the courss-book, participants’ background information, and the methodology used in the study Chapter II] shows the detailed results of the surveys and covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected from the questionnaires and class observations, The last chapter offers some suggested solutions to the teaching procedures thai can help motivate students to learn the listening comprehension skill

‘The conciusion is a review of the study, future directions for further research and limitations

of the study.

PART TITHE DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LLITERATIRE REVIEW

L1 Theoretical background of listening comprehension

In language teaching, the phrase “listening skills’ is often used 10 mean “listening and understanding skills’ or ‘listening comprehension skills’, And this is the sense in which istening skill’ is used in this thesis, where ‘listening’ is taken as meaning trying to understand the oral messages people are conveying

FAT What is Gstening?

There are different definitions of listening

“Listening is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear

To listen encceeefilly to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when ticy use particular words in paricular ways on particular occasions, and nol simply Lo understand the words themselves.”

(Mary Underwood, 1989)

The quotation above suggests that listening can be done in a narrow and limited way

or it can be done in a way that enriches communication,

‘Themlison’s (1984) definition of listening includes “active listening,” which goes beyond comprzhending as understanding the message conlent, 10 comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker, According to Ronald and Roskelly (1985), listening,

is an active process requiring the same skills of prediction hypothesizing, checking, revising,

and generalizing that writing and reading demand

islening is an invisible mental process, making it dilficull to describe, Listeners mush discriminate between saunds, understand vocabnlary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and

intention, retain and interpret this within the iramediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the

methodology of listening comprehension in order lo improve listening leaching oulcornes and

make students recognize that listening comprehension is the crucial part of English learning From the point of view of constructivisl linguistics, foreign language leaching should focns ơn

language form and structure, thus, listening teaching 1s undertaken in each of the four aspests

of language form (including sounds, words, sentences and discourses) When students are laugh to understend a passage of text, teachers first let thom discriminals bolween the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, then understand vocabulary, sentences and discourses ‘The goals of this listening teaching model from the “bottom-up” is to help simdzrls undersiand the meaning of vocabulary by discriminating soumds, to understand sentence meaning, and to monitor and control the meaning of discowses by understanding

sentence meaning

Since the 1970s, with the development of functional language theory, there has beer

an emphasis on the research of language function in society Functional linguistic experts

recognize language as a communicative tool, but not an isolated structure system

Consequently the teaching of listening is not simply intended lo make sludents hear a sound, a word or a sentence, rather, the goal is to cultivate students” abulities to undsrstand speakers" intentions accurately and communicate with each other effectively

Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching, it is essential for

Tangnage teachers to help sludents become effsclive listeners, In the communicative approactt

to language teaching, this means bulding model listening strategies and providing listening

practice in authentic situations: precisely those that learners are likely to encounter when they

use the language outside classroom

L2 Teaching listening skills

12.1 The process of listening

With a greater understanding of language quality and the development of teaching theory, there has been a recognition of the process of lisenmg comprehension as needing preater emphasis Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe

However, it is recognized by Wipf (1984) that listeners must discriminate between sounds,

understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret slross and intonation, understand intention and retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural

context of the utterance

Rost (2002) defines listening, in ils broadest sense, as a process of receiving whal the

speaker actually says (receptive orientation), constructing and representing meaning

(constructive orientation); negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding

(collaborative orientation); and, creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation) Listening, then, is a complex, active processes of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know

1.2.2, Strategies of listening

Listening stiategies are techniques or activities that contubute directly to the

comprehension and recall of listening input According to Peterson (1991) and Brown (2001),

listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input

(1) Top-down strategies are listener-hased: The listener taps inta background knowledge of the topic, the situation or comtext, the type of text, and the language This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next, Top-down strategics include: (getting the gist, rccognizing the topic, using discourse structure to enhance listening strategies, identifying the speaker, finding the main ideas (listening for the main idea),finding supporting details, predicting, making inferences (drawing infcrences),understanding, organizing principles of extended speech, summarizing)

(3 Bottom-up strategies are text-based, in which the listener relies on the language in the message, thal is, the combination of soumds, words, and grammar thal croales moaning,

Bottom-up strategies include:(discrminating between intonation contours in sentences, recognizing syllable pattems, being aware of sentence fillers in informal speech, picking out dolaits (listening Cor specific details) differentiating belween content and function words by stress patterns, recognizing words with weak or central vowels)

Listening comprehension tends to be an interactive, interpretive process in which lists

ers use prior knowledge and linguistic knowledys in understanding messages Moreover,

O'Malley et al also showed that the use of these strategies types differed according to a division of the students inlo effective and ineffective listeners, The more effective lisløners used a more “top-down” approach, the less effective concentrated on a word-by-word approach, “bottom-up”,

According lo Noonan, D (1999-218) “Key strategies tliat ean bs taught in the listening classroom include selective listening, listemmg for different purposes, predicting, progressrve

structuring, inferencing and personalizing” Noonan D (1999) also introduces a list of

important stralogies, along with examples

Listening for gist Ts the radio report aboul news or weather?

ening for purposes Are the speakers making a reservation or

Listening for specific information How much did they say the ticket cost?

Listening for phonemic divtinetions Did the speaker say first or four?

Listening for tone pitch to identify Did the speaker enjoy the wedding or nol?

speaker's attitude

Listening for stress What is more important, where he bought

the watch or when?

1.2.3 Stages of a listening lesson

‘the teaching of a listening text can be divided into three main stages: pre-listening,

essential part in the whole process of a listening lesson The pre-istening activilies are aimed

at preparing leamers with everything necessary for listening and understanding the listening, text, Normally, pre-listening stage often lasts fom five to twelve minutes depending on sch lesson, Hedge, T(2000) argues that “At the pro-listening stage, the teacher will need to decide what kind of listening purpose is appropriate to the text, The leamers will need to tune into

the context and the topie of the text, perhaps express attitudes towards that topic, certainly

bring to the front of their minds mything that they already know about the topic and most probably hear and use some of the less familiar Janguage in the text which would otherwise

distract ar create anxiety during listening”

12.3.2 While-listening stage

‘This stage is the main part of a listening lesson aiming at facilitating leamers’ listening

and checking their comprehension Time allocation for this slage is nearly iwo-thirds of the

whole lesson The work at the while-listening stage needs to link in relevant ways to the pre-

listening work While they listen, leamers will need to be involved in an authentic purpose for listsning and encouraged to allend Lo the text more intensively or extensively, far gist ar for

specific information (Hedge.T, 2000)

12.3.4 Post-listening stage

This the Last step of a listening lesson so il is the time for students’ production The

activitics at this stage are aimed at helping learners to use what they have had from the

listening text he teacher should make up and vary the activities for leamers to do depending

on their levet of English This slage oflen occupies ten or fifleen rnimutes Post-tistening

activities can take the students into a more intensive phase of study in which aspects of

bottom-up listening are practised (Hedge, I 2000) It is important to note that post-listening

work can also usefully involve integration with other skills through developrnent of the topic into reading, speaking or writing activities

1.2.4, Potential problems in teaching and learning to listen to English

Language leamers often feel worried about problems when they first attempt to listen

to a new language Although the problems are many and various, they are not all expericneed

by all students from diffrent backgrounds So that m thus part, I just focus on some of the most common problems that listeners may encounter in learning to listen

- Lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak

Many English language leamers believe the greatest difficulty of listening comprehension is that the listener can nat control how quickly a speaker speaks They fect

that the uticrances disappcar before they can sort them out This frequently means that students who are leaming to listen can not keep up They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part Or they simply ignore a whole chimk because they fail to sort it all oul quickly cnough Fithor way, they fail

- The listener's limited vocabulary

We know that choice of vocabulary is in the hands of the speaker, not the listener ‘I'he

listner has ta do the best he/she can lo follow For people Hstening to a forcign Jangmage, an unknown word can be likely a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech It is believed thal this tendency to stop listening and concentrate on the immediate problem oflen resulis

when leamers have been taught their English in a way which has given more emphasis to accuracy than fluency and which has been more concerned with mastery of the forms of

language rather than with how itis used Thus style of teaching leads students to focus on the

language word by word, to work out its structure, and then to decide on its meaning,

- Failure 10 recognize the ‘signals?

There are many ways in which a speaker can indicate that he/she is moving from one point to another, or giving an example, or repeating a point, or whatever ‘These signals are not

immediately sel evident to a person lislening to a foreign language and can easily be missed

And when speakers show clearly that they are about to begin a new point, they may pause or

make a gesture or move slightly [hey may mark a change to a new point by increased Joudness or a clear change of pitch In spontaneous conversation, a speaker will make use of

different intonation to indicate whether he/she is introducing a new idea or saying something

the listener already knows

- Problems of interpretation

Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in

interpreting the words they hear even if they can understand their ‘surface’ meaning Problems of interpretation can even occur when the speaker and the listener are from the same background and use the same language For example, if you have an appointment with

somebody you do not know and then that person phones you and says ‘I’ll be a bit late’, you

will not know what ‘a bit” means, but if an old friend with whom you have an appointment

phones and says the same thing, you will probably know how long you will have to wait

because the friend in question is always about half an hour late

+ Inability to concentrate

Inability to concentrate can be caused a number of things, but in listening work it is a

major problem, because even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension If the students find the topic interesting, they will find the concentration

1.2.5 Teacher’s roles in teaching Hstening comprehension

As many students feel afraid of listening, teachers should be a guide to help them, to encourage them, Rost, M (1994) slates hal language teachers need Lo provide various lypas of support to their learners to help them to develop listening skills This includes talking to leamers in the target language, raising leamers’ awareness of their listening styles and strategies and introducing a range of malsrials, spcaking styles and listoning situations, Another mmportant part of teacher’s role is to ensure that the lesson proceeds in an orderly and productive way so that the shidents feel secure and relaxed and unthreatened by the listening tasks Thus, if is very essential for the teachers lo plan and conducl Tistening sessions ina

Motivation is a desire to achieve a goal, combined with the energy to work towards

thal gòl Somelimes a distinction is made belween positive and negative motivation: Positive motivation is a response which includes enjoyment and optimism about the tasks that you are involved in Negative motivation involves undertaking tasks for fear that there should be undesirable outcomes, og, failing a subject, if tasks are nol completed (Ngvow, Karen Ysok-

1.3.2, The importance of motivation in listening classes

Many researchers consider motivation as one of the main elements that determne success in developing a second or foreign language, it determines the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 leaming, (Oxford & Shcarin, 1994) Listening to English is regarded to be hard for students who are either English majors or not Krom the researcher’s observation and discussion with students, she has realized that many students have associated listaning courses with pain and boredom and oft complain that they become bred of listening to the tape from the beginning to the end and benefit little trom listering lessons

‘Therefore, it is necessary for English teachers to realize the importance of how to make listaning classes more interestitys and Lo know how to motivate students so thal they ean

develop their listening comprehension It can be seen that the traditional way of teaching,

Lynch, 1988) So, how to keep students interest in leaming must be focused Without interest,

motivation and variation in teaching and learning, students certainly (eel bored with listening

To sum up, it is known that motivation is difficult to be measured, but teachers can notice when their students are motivated by their facial expressions, attitudes and also by their

participation in class Motivation is an immporlant factor that contribule lo the success in

teaching and leaming foreign languages in general and in teaching, and learning listening, skills in particular

14 Current challenges in leaching and learning listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is a complex psychological process of listeners’ understanding language by sense of hearing (Robin Wills:2004), It is an interactive process of language knowledge and psychological activities Tlowsver, this process is nol simply decoding, the message; it also involves the combining of the decoding of the message process

with its reconstruction as meaning (Ma Lihua, 2002) Although teachers of English at Lang

Son Teachers’ Traming College have allempied ta teach listening and listening comprchensive competeney, all loo oflen, the teaching outconies have proved less than adequate, The results have shown that even when teachers have doubled their efforts the results have heen consistently disappointing And the reasons for these outcomes are explored

as follows

LAL Students’ psychological obstactes influence their listening capacity

Psychological factors refer to those non-mental factors not direetly involving cognitive process, such as students’ intcrests, attention, learning cmotion, attitudcs, and willpower

‘These non-mental factors are directly influential in the students’ learning process, they, therefore, play a part in promoting and controlling learning effectiveness For example, two

this attitude has influenced the official assessment processes ‘Thus students generally pay less aliention to developing listening comprehension because they recognize il gains a lower parcentage of marks in examinations, while reading and writing are highly rewarded, Students understand they will gain high scores only if they master the prescribed knowledge of grammar and wriling

As a direct consequence of the factors mentioned above, many students in this college lack confidence in their oral Linglish language capability and they frequently have a self-

defeating and defensive attitude to their engagement in iL In the listening classroom, lcachers expect students’ active participation but, having so many students who lack confidence and who feel nervous and anxious, makes the task of generating discussion and conversation particularly difficult, Thus, il is unsurprising that collage students, who are under pressure for

a considerable period of time, are often stressed and depressed in their efforts to improve their English proficiency

1.4.2 Grammar knowledge affects listening comprehension

Language knowledge is the foundation of leaming English If students’ knowledge of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary is insufficient, it is probable that their English listening comprehension will be negatively affected by lack of language knowledge However, the most basic outward shell of language is pronunciation, Therefore, the first step

of listening, comprehension is leaning how to identify and select sound signals according to pronunciation, and pronunciation knowledge must be developed When students” pronunciation knowledge is inadcquate, their capacity to discriminate will be weak and will affect listening comprehension,

For the students of Fnglish in this college, the challenge of listening poses particular demands because there are many sentence types that arc complex and very different from the native language, For example, if the student is unable to distinguish the main clause from a subordinate clause and is unable to understand their relationships, despite understanding the

ning of every word in > hecomes confised aboul relationships in a

sentence and connections between sentences and this student is often unsure of relationship within sentences ‘To conclude, lack of grammatical knowledge can reduce Lnglish listening levels,

1.4.3 Culueral background knowledge and thinking affect listening comprehension

According to Iadgill (1983), language is rather like a mirror that reflects the national cullure of ils speakers, The American linguist Sapir (1921: 60-90) maintains that language

cannot exist without culture Culture can be explained as what the society thinks and does, and the language is the expression of the ideas of the society Thus, Ihe mariage helween language and cultwe 1s inseparable; language is the carrier of culture and the capsule that holds a way of thinking

Language caries knowledge and cultural information and iL reflects the substantiat and particular ways of thinking of that person, And, culture is embedded in even the simplest act of language (Liddicoat, 2000), it is an inseparable part of the way in which we live our

to prosper, they must be grounded in a sound knowledge of the society in which the language

is based.

CHAPTER LL METHODOLOGY

IL1 General description of the current conrse-book and participants’ background information

ILLL General description of the current course-book

The course-hook mainly used for first-year students of Engtist-major to pranlie their listening comprehension skill at LSTTC is the one named Listen in 1, This book is the first volume of the three books Listen in 1,2,3 by David Nunan, which are used for developing listening skill ranging from basic to advanced level Tach book covers 20 topics, which ars ananged irom very easier to more complex ones, There is a Review Unit which is designed after every five units with the aim of revising vocabularies and skills of the previous ones Objectively, this book is a gand one for students lo practice and improve their listening skitt

in general, but some parts of the book’s contents in each unit are rather Jong and difficult for

most of the first year students in LSI'TC ‘The reasons for this problem are the students’ poor

bavkground knowledge, their limited reservoir of vowabulary and structures, their lack of motivation and preparations for the task, ete, Beside the main coursebook, teachers at DFL, LSTTC sometimes use the book Tactics for Listening by Jack C Richards in theit teaching process The teachers often apply some parts of this book in every Review Unit of the main course-book Lister in J They regard the cxerciscs in this book as extra activitics aiming at improving the students” listening skill, In short, this book is also a good reference source for studenis to make new progress in their listening skill, tub ik is noi used regularly in their lessons

ILL2, Participants’ background information

The udy was carried oul with the participation of 9 toachers and 90 sluskerts whose

major is English from the Department of Foreign Languages (DFL), LSTTC

H.1.2.1 English - Major Students

‘As the author mentioned earlier there were ninety linglish:mmajer students who took part in the research, All of then are frst year students and come from thuce different classes (K13D1, K13D2, and K13D3) at DFL Among them, the ethnie minority students account for 99% These ethnic minority students mostly come from remote areas whose cument difficulties are low incomes, poor sconmuic conditions, bailly-buill- Toads, etc These difficulties may be the factors which can make these students have some limitations in their background knowledge and competence for foreign languages acquisition All of the selected siudsnls in the study are aged from 18-25, and the rate of fernale sindents is 90%, white Hal

of male ones is only 10% Of ninety students, seventy spent only three years at their secondary

schools learning English with the old text hooks Ten students had learned Tinglish for 5 years with the old text-books and 2 years with the new ones These students were also focused on gramunar translation method before they started this course of English ‘The last students are chosen from soma of the mos! difficult arsas of Langson, whore there is a big shortage of Junior High School teachers Besides, their secondary years were mostly spent with the old text books and the grammar translation method ‘This may be the reason why only some studsnis are good al grarmmas, and most of ther are bad al listening and spauking the targel language duc to some of their difficultics introduccd calisr Even some can do written exercises on English grammar they can hardly listen and communicate in English,

tudents al, DF, LSTTC

As the researcher has just introduced earlier, most af 1

were mainly affected by the grammar translation method when they were at secondary school

‘This best explains why they always try to listen to every ward or sentence of the utterances when they are asked to listen lo any listening text In addition to thal, they ars so busy workang out the meanmg of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part, As a result, they usually find it very difficult to catch up with the speed of recorded speech or listening text, and they often fail to finish the listening task Like any foreign language learners, most of the firs! year students of English at DFT, LSTTC ofien feo) warried aboul problems when they first attempt to listen to a new language Although the problems are various, they are not alll experienced by all students from different backgrounds Thus, during their process of practicing listening, most of these students often find the followings the most difficult:(Lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak, Limited vocabulary and

grammar structure, Inability te concentrate, Failure to recognize the ‘signals’

‘Thai Nguyen ‘Teachers’ ‘Training College, and two from in-serviced courses in some other universities, ‘Three toachers are in their lite fortics with mors than 15 yoars of teaching experience, two others in their late thirties with 10 years of teaching expenence, two others in their early thirties with 6 years of teaching experience, the last two aged 24 and 27 with only 3 years of teaching experience

‘The researcher selected all these teachers as the subjects of the first questionnaire with the hope of finding oul whal listening techniques are currenity applied, their problems of using listening techmuques in teaching listening skill, and their suggested solutions to their existing problems

112 Methods of data collection

This research is conducted by using survey questionnaires and classroom observation

‘The procedure of collecting data is the survey method employing self-administered questionnairs for both teachers and students In addition to the questiormaire, class observations are also carried out to support the findings

‘The survey method allows the tesearcher to collect the data needed in “quantitative form”, Qua

teachers when they use listening techniques to teach and motivate their students to listening

ionnairc designed for the teachers aimed at finding out the challenges perecived by these

skills, and their suggestions to improve the listening activities in the course-hook they are usg Whereas, questionnaize designed for the students tends to explore students’ unwillingness to take part in listening activities, their preferences for listening techniques, and

thsir comments on the listening techniques in the coursa-book they are using with the hope

thal the researcher can suggest some ways lo improve the material to increase students

motivation for listening comprehension

‘Totally 9 copies of the questionnaire are delivered to the teachsrs and 90 to the

students,

11.2.2, Class observation

‘The researcher attended 3 different classes, to which the researcher distributed the questionnaire, in order to observe some important points such as the teachers’ use of teaching techniques, the problems in teaching and leaming listening, and their students’ attitudes towards the teaching techniques currently used by the teachers, et ‘Ihe observation also aims

al checking the reliability of the data collzcied from the questionmire and clarifies whal has not been done through the questionnaire The reason for choosing, these classes is also the same as for the subjects of the study ‘Ihree observation sessions were carried out 3 times in

book For cach class, the these three classes with 3 different units of “Eivter in 7” cours

researcher observed a 90-minute period ‘Lhe checklist for listening class observation made by

the students’

the researcher includes the teachers’ pre, while and post-listening activi

participation in the teachers’ activities The three teachers under observation are different m terms of their ages and teaching experience One is 49 years old, the second 42 and the last

32

The following chapter of the thesis is the treatment of all the data collected tiom the

survey questionnaire conducted on 9 teachers and 90 students of the Linglish Department at

LSTTC and from the author's abscrvation in 3 classes, The calleeted dala will be presented in tables and charts, The scheme and coding tables and charts cmorged from an examination of the data rather than being determined beforehand and imposed on the data

The questionnaires and class observations are represented in Appendix T and TI,

respectively at the end of the study.

CHAPTER HL DICUSSIONS AND FINDINGS

TIT1 Questionnaires

TILL.1 Questionnaire for the Teachers

L114 Teacher's opinions about the necessity of motivating students to listen before a

listening lesson

According to the survey, 100% of the teachers report that they never go straight to a listening lesson without preparing something interesting for their students to do All of them highly appreciate the necessity of doing lead-in activities lo motivale their students to actively take part in each listening lesson,

As Lewis and Hill (1992) suggested, when teachers organize some lead-in activities bofors Histening, they thomsclves eroalc an aplive and relaxing teaching and learning environment, That should be one of the first and foremost things foreign language teachers need to remember Actually, several listening techniques, which include brainstorming, prediction, yap-filling, summariving, cic, have been used for some activitics which the teachers do in the listening lessons, That explains why the next questions of the survey are raised to find out which techniques the nine teachers use to motivate and teach their students

listening comprehension skill at the Department of Foreign Languages (DFL}- LSTTC

HLI.1.2, The situation of employing listening techniques at DFL

a Teacher's pre-listening techniques

Pre-listening techniques Number

of users

a Brainstorming words, structures or ideas 9

> Making students discuss in pairs or group the topic, the title or the 6

piclures about the item they are going to listen:

¢ Asking students some questions about the topic before they listen 9

e Making students predict the content of ths text 3

£ Give students time to read and understand the listening tasks 3

Table 1; Teacher's pre listening techniques

It can be scon from Table | thal nine Isachors apply the tochriques of brainstorming words, structures or ideas, and asking students some questions about the topic before they listen ‘These techniques are clearly their most popular ones Seven out of nine teachers respond that before listening, they pre-teach new words or difficult key words so that students would botler understand the topic of the Hiskmning loxl and find it casier to listen, 6 ont of 9 teachers confirm that they make their students discuss in pairs or groups the topic they are

going to listen After doing this task, their students would be able to both know more about whal they will listen and improve their speaking skill, Making siudenls prediel the content af the text and studying the listening task appears to be used by only 3 teachers

According to Boyle (1984), Baker and Westrupt (2000), each pre-listening techniques

hus jis own advantages and benefits’ to sluisnis motivation, which can lead to the success of listening comprehension, If the students lack motivation right trom the beginning of the lesson, their listening process may be negatively affected or example, if the students feel

cher cars

bored with the listening text, they will probably lake no participation init, or the

not make them pay attention to the Jesson and so on However, different teachers apply different pre-listening techniques to motivate their students

b, Teacher's while -listening techniques

of users

a Marking’ checkmg items in protures 2

Table 2: Teacher’ s while -listening techniques

‘Table 2 shows the author a very surprising fact of the teachers’ uses of while-listening

lechmiques, Most respondents (8,7,7 oul of 9 teachers) choose to usc truoflals: aclivitios, multiple-choice questions and ordering pictures exercises respectively duing the while- listening stage time ‘Ihe reason is very simple, the listening tasks are available in the course book so that they do not need to prepare It, therefore, does not take time for the teachers to sign the tasks for the students, Text completion (gap-filling) exercises are uscd by $ out of 9 teachers in this stage [hey explain it very confidently ‘This type of exercise would not be very difficult for their students as they have been provided with important or key words related before listening Only 1 or 2 out of 9 teachers apply the rest activities, including marking/ checking items in pictures, storyline picture sets, completing pictures and others

‘They think these activities are very difficult because they are unfamiliar with their students

“They also require the students to have a great deal of background knowledge about the topic,

sfy thal requirement, The researcher agrees wilh the ideas

made by Mary Underwood (1989) in “Teaching Listening”, there are a number of things

which can make while-listening work frustrating and demotivating, and these should certainly

‘bs avoided, More importantly, it is extremely difficull to listen and write al the same lime,

particularly in a foreign language It is impossible to expect students with limited listening

experience or knowledge of English to write anything more than a two- or three-word response during a while Tistening activity For this reason, we cleatly undersiand why most

teachers at DFL focus on truc/falsc, multiple-choice and ordering pictures cxcrelscs in this

stage

« Teacher's post -listening techniques

Table 3 illustrates clearly the teachers’ uses of techniques in the post-listening stage

Summarizing and answering multiple-choice questions after listening to the text are mostly

used by § ont of 9 teachers 5 out of all leachers answer that they oflen ask their sLudents to complete charts/forms, match words or phrases dom the listening text, and use information

from the listening text for problem-solving, decision-making activities or role-play They explain that these activities would encourage the students to try out some newly heard language ralher than simply using language they have already mastered in olher contexts

‘There are only 2 teachers who apply extending notes into written responses, and dictation is

often used by only 1 of 9 teachers

¢ Using information from the listening text for problem-solving and

decisionanaking ae

f Tdontify relationships bolwoon spoakcrs

g Establishing the attitude’ behavior of the speaker

h Role play

1 Dictation

3 Answer the multiple- choice questions

Table 3: Teacher's post listening techniques

by the teacher showing the answer on the overhead projector/ blackboard, by group discussion, by asking the sludenls to check against answers given in a book, and so on Importantly, every teacher of English should bear in mind that success at the post-listening stage is greatly enhanced if the activity has some purpose of its own

HL1L3 Challenges that teachers have to confront with when using listening techniques

The problem, which the teachers in the study always have to cope with, is the application of some listening techniques in teaching and motivating their students to learn

listening skill So, the researcher only focuses on their difficulties in using these lechniques in

‘the three stages of a listening lesson

a, Difficulties in prelistening techniques

From the description of Table 4, 7 out of 9 leachers answer Lhal brainstorming wards,

structures ot ideas is always the most difficult for them to make a successful lead-in before

asking students to listen to the text [he main reasons for this difficulty are their students” poor background knowledge of English words and phrases and limited experienwe of learning

a foreign language Since, when they apply this technique, most students just sit in silence As

a result, it often takes time for the teacher to finish this part

b Making students discuss in pairs or groups the topic, the tile or 5

the pictures about the item they are going to listen

¢ Asking students some questions about the topic before they ũ

Tisten

e Making students predict the content of the text 4

£ Give students time to read and understand the listening tasks 0

Table 4: Teacher's difficulties in pre -listening techniques

Similarly, 5 teachers consider making students discuss in pairs or groups the topic

ralher difficult since controlling a class of 40 sludens is sornclimes nol casy Making students

predict the content of the text seems to be less mentioned than brainstorming and discussion

as only 3 teachers comment on its difficulty

0 Difficulties in while-listening lechniques

‘Table 5 indicates that 5 out of 9 teachers find the technique of spotting mistakes very difficult for their students to follow successfully Since this technique requires good vocabulary and grammar structures, bul most of their students have a big shorlage of them

Next, the situation of completing pictues is the same as the early one To explain for this, 4

teachers state that their students’ concentration on the listening text is not good enough , so

bà B

that they can not listen to the text and draw at the same time, if they focus on one, they will lose another, Besides, seeking specific items of information and checking items in piclures seem to be applied more conveniently because only 3 teachers comment on the difticulty of these techniques ‘Text completion seems to be the least one which causes them obstacle to leach in this stage of listening

b Storytine picture sets

¢ Pulling pieturss in order

1 Seeking specific items of information

Table 5: Teacher’s difficulties in while -lisiening techniques

¢ Difficulties mn post-listening techniques

According to some researchers, summarizing can be done by extending notes made at the while-lisiening sfage or by simply depending on memory This is also a big probler for

the teachers at DFL to apply it This fact is best described in Table 6 Clearly, 6 out of 9

teachers respond that their students usually fail to get enough information fram the listening

text in the whilc-listening stage, so that they can not succeed in summarizing what has been

notes made al the while-listening stage can be extended into wrillen texts This activily i

difficult one It can only be done by students at a fairly advanced level Besides, identifying

the relationship between speakers and establishing the attitude of the speaker require students

a

to be aware of how language is used in particular social settings and in what ways In fact, their students can not satisfy the criteria of these three techniques Therefore, the rescarcher also shares the same idea of these teachers about the difficulty of applying these post-listening

techmiques.

e Using information fiom the listening text for problem-solving and

g Establishing the attitude’ behavior of the speaker 5

Table 6: Teacher’ s difficulties in post -listening techniques

Beside what has been mentioned above, these teachers also have to confront some other problems when they apply listening techniques It is always time-consuming to design these techniques for their students, and sometimes the techniques they usc in class time are not of students’ interests Therefore, the quality of their teaching is not good as they often

expect

FET.4.4, Teachers’ comments ond suggestions on the listening activities in the course baok

‘Listen in 1° by David Nunan they are teaching

It is possible to say that no course-book is completely perfect and no course-book can satisfy every lenrmsr's need and inkzrest, Whon being asked about the listening activilics available in the course-book, 89% of the respondents confinm that they are useful to stinmulate the students’ motivation and interest, and suitable for their background knowledge and level of English Actually, most of the unils provids different kinds of activilics through the whole listening lesson such as answering pre-questions, group discussions, tiue/false information, multiple-choice questions, role play, summarizing, and so on Nevertheless, some of the listening activities in several units are not interesting and motivating enough (agreed by 11%

1 useful ta stimulate stuederas ond interest

&, suitable for suudeats’ backsround and levels

Although most of the teachers agree that the listening activities in the course-

book are useful to stimulate students’ motivation and suitable for students’ level of English, all of them suggest that there should be more activities that need to be added in each umit

These activities must be relevant to students’ interest and background knowledge If this is

done well, the teachers do not have to spend much time finding more materials to design

listening activities for the whole listening text to suit their students’ needs In addition, when

students have opportunities to join in a diversity of activities, their motivation for listening will be surely increased

TIL.1.2 Questionnaire for the Students

III1.2.1 Students’ personal views of causes of their unwillingness to listen

Similar to Dunkel’s point of view (1991), not having large enough vocabulary nor sufficient

grasp of English structures causes students problems in their listening, Chart 2 shows the

highest percentage of responses to what makes students uninterested in listening It is the lack

of vocabulary and grammatical structures 49% of the students affirm that when new vocabulary hinders their concentration and listening comprehension, they would easily feel discouraged 28% of them admit that the lack of preparation before listening discourages their

listening If they are asked to listen without any preparation, they will find it not only difficult

but unwilling to listen

(Chart 2: Causes that make students uninterested in listening

2%

‘Da, Limitedvocabulary and grammatical structure

However, only 12% of the informants blame their insufficient background knowledge

Unfamiliar topics and the speed of the listening text account for 9% and 2%, respectively

Therefore, it is very difficult to expect the students to be interested in listening when they

encounter such factors That explains why the next questions of the survey are aimed to see students’ reaction and preferences for listening techniques

IIL.1.2.2 Students’ preferences for listening techniques

a Students’ reaction to their involvement in activities before listening

bạ a

It is important for teachers to note that pre-listening activities are beneficial to

students, especially for their motivalion and inlerest They will be mors motivated and eager

to listen if there are some interesting things, which are often done at the early minutes of a

lesson such as listening to some sort of music or playing some games, eto ‘his constitutes enjoyment and rearalion TL is a fael, thal 92% of the students, who were surveyed for their

attitudes toward activities before listening, reveal their enjoyment m doing such activities Ilowever, a certain number of students (8%) do not like participating in lead-in activities due

to the fael thal the activities employed by their teacher beyond their interest or unsuitable for

their ability of English

Support for the above result is also found from the researcher’s observation and

students’ real performance When allending some classes, the observer realized thal many

students positively participate in the lead-in activities while some others just sat still, chatted

with their friends or did their own things

A The students’ preferences for listening techniques used in the listening lessons

With the aim of finding out what listening techniques really interest and motivate

students, the next parts of the survey questions tend to see the students” preferences for listening techniques used in three stages of a listening lesson: pre, while, and post listening

BI Students’ preferences for pre-listening techniques

b Making students disouss in pairs or group the topic, the tile or the

pictures about the item they are going ta listen 48

6 Asking students some questions about the topic before they listen 45

i Pre-teaching new words or difficult key words 40

Making students predict the content of the text 10

£ Give students time to read and understand the listening tasks 9

Table 7: Students’ preferences for pre-listening techniques All the pre-listening techniques such as discussion(or werking in pairs/eroups), pre- questioning, pro-caching now vocabulary, cle, arc believed to be cffective to motivate students because these can be clearly seen ftom Table 7 Firstly, though working mm pairs/groups is considered the most difficult technique, the majority of the students prefer it than brainstorming words, struclures ar ideas, For studonls, this activily is suitable and motivational as it helps them to have far more chance to speak English about the topic with their partners before listening ‘This may give them a chance to activate their words or

structures for the text In contrast, brainstorming words seems to he less enjoyable for them,

explain they have apporluritics to get more information aboul the lopic from the questions

made by the teacher, This eases them in the listening tasks and their comprehension will be better Thirdly, pre-teaching new words is the choice for both the teachers and students

Finally, predicting the content of the Lox is thought to be not interesting cnough (11%) though

it is the most important skill in listening comprchension It is duc to the fact that students in LSITC are often reluetant to guess and their imagination is poor, so they find prediction insfleetive for their Hslening comprehension process

52, Students" preferences for while-listening techniques

While-listening techniques Number of students prefer

out of 90 students enjoy truc/falsc information cxercises They explain this type of cxereise

helps them feel more confident to decide the mght answers than the others However, more

sindents like to do the task of ordering pictures It may be due to the fact that stdents are

more interested in working with pictures, and these pictures may help the students feel more

relaxed to finish the task Whereas, form chart completion, multiple-choice questions, text

competion, and spolting mistakes appear lo be difficult They are not much paid allention to

by the siudents These tasks are nol casy for them to do welt because those tasks require

students to have a good background knowledge and experience of learning English while they can not meet such requirements at present

53 Students’ preferences for post-lustening techniques

It can be drawn fiom the survey that students’ most preferred post-listening technique

is role play as role play offers them a chance to improve their interaction and other skills such

as speaking, dicussing, and arguing In addition, it also stimulates their confidence and promotes an active and relaxing environment So it is prefered by a lot of the students

Chart 3: Students’ preferences for past -listening techniques 6%

However, students do not find other techniques including form/chart

completion, extending notes into written responses enjoyable at all They respond that these

techniques are very difficult for them to follow and practise because of their limited vocabulary and grammatical structures Moreover, such techniques as summarising or

answering multiple-choice questions are reported to have been regularly used in every lesson

so students do not like them at all In reality, many students are not capable of summarising

and dictation because of their poor background knowledge and limited English words and

structures

c Students’ benefits from listening techniques used by the teachers

A significant fact to note down is that most students agree they feel eager and ready to

take part in the listening lesson after doing and practising listening activities Pre-listening activities make the whole class more interested, encourage them to learn and to give them a

driving force to listen While-listening tasks help them to better their listening skills, get them

more involved in the tasks, Post-listening activities not only give them chances of expressing their own feelings and ideas about what they have listened from the text but also help them to

improve other language skills Therefore, instead of immediately introducing to students any

listening tasks, the teachers should let them do some their favorite activities which may help them feel free when learning the listening text

@ Students’ comments on listening activities available in the course-book

It is very interesting to get the ideas from 80 out of 90 students that they find most of the listening activities (such as working in pairs, true/false exercises, role-play, etc) in the course-

book “Listen in I” by David Nunan useful, motivating as well as relevant to their levels of

English Only 10 think that these activities are boring Some of the units consist of the listening activities which are inappropriate to the students’ ability.