THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS ON ENHANCING STUDENTS LISTENING SKILLS a STUDY AT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD PROGRAM

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********* VI DIỆU THUẦN THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********

VI DIỆU THUẦN

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS ON ENHANCING STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILLS – A STUDY AT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD PROGRAM, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI

TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC VIDEO TRÊN TRANG YOUTUBE LÀM TÀI LIỆU BỔ SUNG NHẰM CẢI THIỆN CÁC KỸ NĂNG

NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN HỆ NHIỆM VỤ CHIẾN LƯỢC,

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2015VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********

VI DIỆU THUẦN

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS ON ENHANCING STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILLS – A STUDY AT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD PROGRAM, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI

TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC VIDEO TRÊN TRANG YOUTUBE LÀM TÀI LIỆU BỔ SUNG NHẰM CẢI THIỆN CÁC KỸ NĂNG

NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN HỆ NHIỆM VỤ CHIẾN LƯỢC,

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Do Tuan Minh

Hanoi, 2015

To the best of my knowledge and belief, this minor thesis contains no materialwhich has previously been submitted and accepted for any other degree in anyuniversity The thesis is my own work and based on my own research It involves

no material previously published or written by any other person, except where duereference is made in the paper

Hanoi, 2015

Vi Diệu Thuần

The composing process of conducting this thesis is the most valuable journey

I have ever had Without this journey, I would not have been aware of all the joyand fortune I have been blessed with throughout my entire life

I consider myself one of the luckiest students to have a chance to work with

a distinguished advisor that opened my eyes and gained my complete respect bothacademically and personally Dr Do Tuan Minh, one of the most remarkable gurus

in EFL teaching in ULIS, VNU, devoted his time, effort and support to teach mehow to be a serious researcher Dr Minh, with his spectacular vision and insight, isthe one who provided all the help that I needed to complete such an enormous task

I am also obliged to express my gratitude to him for spending every minute of hisprecious time in proofreading this paper and giving me valuable corrections andsuggestions I was and still am amazed at Dr Minh’s critical thinking and efficiency

in problem solving From the interactions with Dr Minh, I witnessed hisoverwhelming power to focus on the overall research design, and at the same time,specific details in the study I also would like to acknowledge the support andassistance of Dr Minh for provoking my interest in the topic by asking crucialquestions, assisting in the editing of the draft, and making himself available to methroughout the final stage of completion

Last but not least, I want to thank my family for their unconditionalunderstanding and love My parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my friends –Thao, Lloyd, and Chris, have been my enthusiastic cheerleaders through the roughacademic path I have followed Many other people whose names are impossible to

be cited also contributed valuable help and support Though their names do notappear in this acknowledgement, they shall always be cherished and embraced in

my heart The writing process, though difficult, is indeed a delightful journey,through which I discovered that I got richer every day

Listening is one of the most pivotal skills, though; it is unjustly neglectedcompared to the other language skills It was previously considered as a passiveskill but now those ideas have been proved as myths Therefore seeking innovativemethods for teaching and developing listening materials for EFL students shouldnot be taken for granted Lack of adequate exposure and attention to listening setsthe ground for authentic listening materials to improve the context in Vietnam.There have been controversial ideas regarding the use of authentic listeningmaterials Specifically, their results ranged from total abstinence to completeutilization This study intends to investigate the impact of YouTube videos assupplementary materials to enhance listening skills of students at InternationalStandard Program, University of Languages and International Studies, VietnamNational University Hanoi To serve this aim, fifty students were randomly assigned

to two groups One group was exposed to YouTube vieos as listeningsupplementary materials (experimental group) and the other groups receivedsimplified listening materials (control group) A pre-test was used to measure thedifferences among the students’ listening level at the beginning of the study Aftersix weeks, a post-test was administered for both groups Besides a students’feedback survey was given to experimental group to evaluate their attitudes andopinions about the materials Analysis of quantitative study and comparing themean scores of two groups via t-test showed that students who were exposed toYouTube videos as supplementary materials performed better in post-test Theanalysis of the feedback survey also denoted their satisfaction and positive attitudestowards YouTube videos as listening materials

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS vii

CHAPTER ONE 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Background of the study 2

1.3 Statement of the problem 3

1.4 Aims and research questions 5

1.5 Significance of the study 6

1.6 Scope of the study 6

1.7 Design of the study 7

1.8 Conclusion 7

CHAPTER TWO 9

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 9

2.1 Introduction 9

2.2 Teaching listening 9

2.2.1 Definitions of listening skills 9

2.2.2 Characteristics of listening skills 11

2.2.3 Significance of listening skills 13

2.2.4 Difficulties in learning listening skills 17

2.3 YouTube videos 18

2.3.1 YouTube overview 18

2.3.2 Types of YouTube videos 20

2.3.3 Advantages of YouTube videos 23

2.4 Supplementary materials 38

2.4.1 Definitions of supplementary materials 39

2.4.2 Advantages of supplementary materials 40

2.6 Previous studies 42

2.6 Conclusion 44

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 45

3.1 Introduction 45

3.2 Research design 45

3.3 Participants 46

3.3.1 ISP Overview 46

3.3.2 The teacher 47

3.3.3 The students 47

3.4 Materials 48

3.5 Instruments 49

3.6 Data collection procedures 51

3.6.1 Verifying the instruments 51

3.6.2 Data collection from pre-post tests 52

3.7 Data analysis procedures 54

3.8 Conclusion 54

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND FINDINGS 56

4.1 Introduction 56

4.2 Quantitative data 56

4.2.1 Results of the pre- and post-treatment tests 57

4.2.2 Results of the questionnaire 60

4.3 Qualitative data 64

4.3.1 Specific aural skills practised 65

4.3.2 Reflections on the YouTube video treatment 65

4.3.3 Ideas about the pre- and post- tests 66

4.4 Conclusion 67

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS 68

5.1 Introduction 68

5.2 Discussions 68

5.3 Pedagogical implications 71

5.4 Limitations 73

5.5 Suggestions for further researches 74

5.6 Conclusions 76

REFERENCES 77 APPENDIX I

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Statistical results concerning the administration of the two IELTS listening tests to the same group 51

Table 2 Within-group comparison results for the experimental and control groups 58

Table 3: Between-group comparison results for the experimental and control groups

59

Table 4 Experimental group’s reaction to the multiple-choice questions of survey 60

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Frame grab of YouTube.com’s main page (http://www.YouTube.com) 20

Figure 2 Frame grab showing using browser Cốc Cốc to download videos from YouTube.com 24

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ISP: International Standard Program

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

VNU: Vietnam National University

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

IELTS: International English Language Testing System

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction

It goes without saying that English has developed into a world language It isconsidered international because of its significance in cultural aspects in not onlyformer Bitish colonies but also in other countries due to integration Besides,English is regarded as global thanks to the dominance of the language in thisinformation technology age It is a common knowledge that any modern citizen ofthis rapidly growing twenty-first century mastering the English language isdetermined to overpower those who do not Still, there remain some opponents ofthis trend who decide to go against the flow to probably avoid the domination of thelanguage and its culture Notwithstandingly, any practical and serious thinkingindividual could easily tell how that conservative idea is hardly working at thispoint now that English has been deeply rooted and undoubtedly here-to-stay in oursociety In other words, one, needless to say, greatly depends on English to surviveand thrive in this contemporary world

The teaching and learning of English; therefore, has been immensely concentratedaround the globe English language is even separated into four distinctive skills to

be easily taught to non-native speakers of English As a child, we learn to listenbefore we speak, so it is fairly clear that input should come first before output As aresult, Reading and Listening are supposed to be taught before Writing andSpeaking Novel movements in teaching English language also share the sameopinion on placing more attention to the communicative purpose of the language byfocusing on Listening and Speaking Yet, reality has showed inconsiderableimprovement in learners’ listening skills accompanied by a bitter truth of listeningremaining a struggle for English learners

The apparently undesirable situation of teaching and learning listening skills hastriggered a passionate need in every teacher or instructor of English language toinvent new ideas to combat the problem As one myself, I have been concernedenough to conduct a study on the effectiveness of using YouTube videos assupplementary materials in enhancing students’ listening skills at the InternationalStandard Program (ISP), University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS),Vietnam National University (VNU)

ISP provides a one-year English course during the very first school year of VNUstudents The ultimate aim is that after the end of the course, students achieve band5.5 - 6.0 IELTS so that afterwards, ISP students can part ways to return to their ownuniversities and easily study their majors in English A more detailed description ofthe program is specifically elaborated in the Methodology chapter

1.2 Background of the study

According to Mehisto (2012) learning materials could be regarded as information orknowledge contained in various different media and formats to support the purpose

of learning and they should strictly follow the objectives or requirements ofeducational curricula Materials can also be informally and briefly defined as thingsneeded in order to do a peculiar activity In every syllabus of any subject learned atschool, a set of fixed materials called textbooks or coursebooks is compulsory since

it plays the key role in focusing on the primary goals of the course Teachers need

to refer to the textbooks to ensure that the important knowledge is properly covered.Similarly, coursebooks are necessary for students to be aware and keep track oftheir own intake of information

Ideally, learning materials are supposed to support, not to restrict students andteachers Thus, when teachers discover that the provided materials are only partiallyhelpful, they are allowed to determine how and to what extent a book or other

learning materials should be used in the classroom It is little wonder thatsupplementary materials can be considered as equally important as textbooks.Supplementary materials are defined as any materials used addition to textbook(Spratt, Pulverness, and Williams, 2005: 114) They act as extra materials tosupplement the fixed coursebooks when there is a lack of suitability and variety Inorder to boost the motivation in listening classroom, supplemenatry materialsshould be audio-visual Moreover, to achieve the practical purpose of listeningclass, supplementary materials had better have a strong relation with the real world.

Possessing the two aforementioned characteristics of being audio-visual andauthentic, YouTube videos are obviously the leading candidate for the idealsupplementary materials for listening classes It is also noteworthy that YouTubevideos should be maintained as supplementary materials since they help illustrate aswell as improve the natural or real use of English However, they should not replacepedagogically simplified materials as these guarantee the accuracy of language use.Moreover, teachers should pay attention to the level of difficulty while selectingsupplementary materials as both super-easy and over-challenging materials mayeither discourage or demotivate learners Consequently, students might not work asdiligently and fail to adequately meet the learning goals In short, appropriate level

of difficulty in supplementary materials helps enable students to do wonders in theirEnglish classes

1.3 Statement of the problem

Supplementary materials are no doubt essential in English language learningprocess Specifically, they add a variety and avoid repetition of the coursebooksused in the classroom Plus, supplementary materials are flexible so teachers canfreely select and design some unique and original materials to make the lessonsmore theirs, which motivates teachers themselves more to teach the lessons

In reality, suggestions for supplementary materials are always listed in the syllabi.However, these are usually other similar simplified coursebooks with almostnothing especially different from the currently used textbooks of the course.Admittedly, all they seem to do is providing some more extra practice to the skillspreviously learned in the textbooks Such recommendations are honestlyunnecessary and impractical to effectively supplement the existing textbooks in thecourse

In this blooming era of information technology, Internet access has becomingomnipresent in educational contexts It is also more common that universityclassrooms are better-equipped with computers, speakers, and projectors to servethe language teaching and learning Practically speaking, teaching, and learningEnglish language at this age without exploiting the technological advantages seems

to be a waste or even devolution Audio-visual invention or video has been proven

to be effective in language learning and teaching, so it is advised to incorporatesuch materials more in the classroom

Students of EFL contexts also encounter another difficulty in learning the language

as they do not have as many opportunities to practice English outside the classroomdue to a lack of authentic environment Vietnam could be taken as a salient example

of this situation Being a former colony of China and France, Vietnam is not anEnglish speaking country The number of English speaking tourists and expatriotsliving and working in Vietnam has hardly been enough for the country to speak thelanguage as an official language Thereby, there exists an immediate need to addreal English to the classrom as often as possible for Vietnamese learners to be moreexposed to it

Educators around the world; of course, have noticed the situation and made certainindividual attempts to design supplementary materials A number of researchers

have studied the use of authentic audio-visual materials in language teaching andlearning environment Nevertheless, there have been quite few papers on the use ofspecifically YouTube videos in improving listening skills This research; thus, aims

at examining the effectiveness of using YouTube videos to enhance students’listening skills at ISP, ULIS, VNU

After finishing the course at ISP, students still often complain about their poor orinconsiderably improved listening skills, especially outside the classroom Thismight result from a lack of motivation and real-life English to listen to during thecourse Although the current textbooks seem to have certain effects on student’sability to communicate in English, both teachers and students are well aware thatthe materials could still be more effective to result in more satisfying listeningskills

The present study is a pilot study for an innovative approach in listening classes It

is expected to enhance student’s listening skills not only inside but also outside theclassroom Additionally, the syllabi of the English course at ISP are edited everyyear to make necessary changes to more satisfactorily meet the objectives.Hopefully, the suggested use of YouTube videos could make it to the official list ofsupplementary materials used in the course

1.4 Aims and research questions

The researchs primarily aims at investigating the effectiveness of the employment

of YouTube videos in listening classes at ISP, suggested ways to apply them to thelessons are consequently presented afterwards

In order to reach the aforementioned aim, the study focuses on finding the answers

to the two primary questions:

1 How effective are YouTube videos in listening classes at ISP, ULIS, VNU?

2 What are the students’ perceptions towards YouTube videos in listeningclasses at ISP?

1.5 Significance of the study

The paper hopes to make a humble contribution to the resource of studies on theemployment of YouTube videos in EFL classrooms Although several researchershave managed to investigate the relation between YouTube and language learningand teaching, few have targeted specifically listening classes at university level

At a more local scale, this study might contribute ideas to the editing and reform ofthe existing syllabi, especially the list of suggested supplementary materials of theEnglish course at ISP Furthermore, the researcher believes that the results of thestudy can somehow encourage other teachers to start using YouTube videos in theirlessons and provide pedagogical suggestions for their classroom practice Besides,teachers can understand more about students’ attitudes and preferences so that theycan choose appropriate materials in teaching listening In addition, other reserachersmight as well base on the results to conduct papers on the use of YouTube videos inimproving other language skills

Finally, the study is a personal important experience in my teaching practice anddoing research The results partly reflect the effectiveness of my own lessons andteaching methods Consequently, my students who have been struggling withlistening skills are the ones to ultimately benefit from the experiment and thereliable evidence for further implementation of the treatment to my other groups ofstudents in the future

1.6 Scope of the study

The research focuses on the use of YouTube videos in listening sessions in twoclasses that the researcher was in charge of last semester– both are of intermediate

level of English The classes are typical for any English class belonging toInternational Standard Program at ULIS, with both male and female students ofdiverse majors Although ISP is not such a large group, the nature of teaching andlearning English here as well as the characteristics of the students could beconsidered similar to that of other groups at ULIS The videos used throughout thestudy are taken from YouTube only Any other video sharing websites are out of thescope and therefore, the results and findings at the end should not be applied torandom situations The listening skills mentioned in the paper include the mostcommon listening skills taught in EFL environment such as listening for gist,listening for specific information, etc Thus, not only other professional teachers,instructors and researchers but any individual who is concerned about a relatedtopic can benefit from this paper

1.7 Design of the study

This study is divided into five main chapters in order to provide insights intodifferent aspects of the problem Pages of References and Appendices are alsoincluded

Chapter 1 presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, significance, and thedesign of the study

Chapter 2 deals with theories related to the study including YouTube, listeningskills and the previous related studies

Chapter 3 shows the procedure of conducting the research including participants,materials, data collection instruments, and methods of data analysis

Chapter 4 reports and discusses the findings obtained from the data Somesuggested solutions are also provided to help students overcome their difficulties inlearning listening skill

Chapter 5 summarizes the whole study

1.8 Conclusion

This chapter has provided a brief summary of the issues concerning the background

of the study, the statement of the problem, the research questions, the significance

of the study, the scope of the study and the design of the thesis paper

In the next chapter, there will be a thorough review of relevant literature related tolistening pedagogy, YouTube videos and supplementary materials

The third chapter gives information about the methodology used in the research.Details about the participants, materials, intruments, data collection procedure, anddata analysis procedure will be specifically presented

The fourth chapter reveals the process of data analysis of the study The summary

of the collected data, an analysis, and the summarized findings will be illustrated

Lastly, the fifth chapter displays the overall conclusion of the paper It will coverthe findings, pedagogical implications, limitations, and suggestions for furtherresearches

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Introduction

The present research aims at investigating the effectiveness of YouTube videos onthe improvement of learners’ listening skills An experimental research wasconducted to find whether the implementation of YouTube videos in listening class

es at ISP, ULIS, VNU in the academic year of 2014-2015 has improved thestudents’ listening competence or not

This chapter provides background information of the teaching of listening thenfollowed by detailed discussions of YouTube videos and supplementary materials

2.2 Teaching listening

2.2.1 Definitions of listening skills

Listening is one of the primary language skills and is critical in the progress oflanguage learning Consequently many scholars have presented their views inregards to the concept Listening is most generally understood as the ability tounderstand what others are saying Nunan believed listening is a process ofdecoding the sounds from step to step, specifically from each meaningful unit tocomplex texts (2009, p 197) In addition, he added that listening is an active course

of building or rebuilding the original meaning of the speaker baing on incomingsounds Thanjaro (2000, p 11-12) contended that listening is an active processinvolving four related activities i.e receiving aural stimuli, attending spoken words,understanding the aural signals, and responding to the received information Purdyand Borisoft (1997, p.6, 2012, p 515) explained that listening is the method ofreceiving, building meaning from, and responding to both verbal and non-verbalmessages Brownell called listening a complex activity defined in various ways

(2013, p 56) Listening is theoretically believed to be a process in which listenersfocus on the aural input to draw meaning from and relate what they hear to theirexisting knowledge (O’Malley, Chamot and Kupper, 1989) Anderson and Lynchstated that through the heard material listening is the inevitable path to speaking(1988) Listeners need to make certain efforts to process the message to understandthe meaning of a spoken text The purpose of listening comprehension is that thelearners can talk and write about what they have heard after listening Buck (2001,p.31) argued that listening is an active process of constructing meaning by utilizinginformation of the incoming sound and that this involves both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge He indicated that understanding a spoken passage is affected

by a series of factors in the surrounding environment, speakers or listeners;therefore, can unconsciously change the understood meaning (2001, p 59) Buck(2001, p 59) claimed that listening is a multi-aspect process whose sub-componentscan be understood from different viewpoints In short, it can be said that listening is

a language ability involving a wide range of “sub-skills” It is more than merelyhearing; it is “decoding” sounds and comprehending the connotation as well asdenotation behind those sounds (Forseth, 1996) Helgesen (2003, p 24) explained

that listening is an active and purposeful process of making sense of what we hear.

According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), listening is actually a receptive skill justlike reading since they both need active participants Listening is active becausethere is often a big difference between what is said and what is heard Clearly, thelistener is constructing their own meaning, which may or may not be the same asthe speaker’s planned message This state is described as an “interactive” process,during which the listener's mind interacts with the input to form a meaning Rost(1994) stated that listening is the complex process that allows us to understandspoken language Due to its invisible and intangible nature, it is tough to describelistening process Nonetheless, it is clear that in order to interpret correctly theoriginal meaning of a message, beside grammar and vocabulary, one also needs tounderstand the speaker’s intonation or pronunciation (Howatt and Dakin, 1974)

Bulletin (1952) as cited in Saricoban stated that listening is one of the “fundamentallanguage skills” and that it is of essential importance to teach students listening as acrucial skill in order for them to listen efficiently and decisively.

2.2.2 Characteristics of listening skills

Most linguists and educators share a comparable opinion about the distinctiveness

of listening According to Winkinson, Stratta, Dudley (1974), Brubridge (1986) and

Ur (1996) listening shares the following common characteristics

Firstly, listening shares similar traits with spoken language Both are usuallyunplanned and unprompted The speaker talks spontaneously without muchpreparation beforehand Therefore, the speech contains unfinished sentences,paraphrases, hesitation, repetition, and interruptions As a result, the students whoare good at constructed basic listening tasks are not necessarily good at real - lifelistening situations

The skill to understand spoken language could be supported a great deal by verbal clues It is said that people listen more successfully when they can see thespeaker’s facial expression, gestures, or more importantly, be directly involved inthe circumstance in which the speech is happening In turn, speakers may rely on alisteners' ability to productively understand these clues and respond accordingly.These non-verbal signals can put the speaker and listener in the same “world”,allowing the message to be more correctly communicated

non-In real-life listening, listeners often know in advance some information to assisttheir understanding, such as to whom they are listening, what they are going tolisten to and why they are listening Therefore, teachers of listening shouldconstantly pay attention to this trait so that they can have suitable pre-listeningactivities to prepare students for what they are going to listen to Ur (1996) also

claimed that listening is an interactive process Listeners do not just passively listen

to what speakers say because they have to take turns to reply Instead, both partiesnaturally and enthusiastically involve in the communication because they do it forsome practical purpose

The nature of the listening process can also be prominently illustrated from theviewpoint of native language research; it is a process of filtering “raw” speech intoshort-term memory first The selected information is then processed to createrational understanding of the whole subject, and this final outcome is only what isstored in long-term memory Thus, listening is an activity to produce meaning fromspeech instead of accepting speech in its original received form (Richard, 1983, p.219-240) This is in agreement with Stevick (1984, p 281-283) who stated thatlistening is a process of picturing visual images that might even include sensory,emotional, temporal and verbal characteristics stored together in memory.According to Byrnes (1984, p 317-329) listening plays an important role inbuilding a student's understanding, which is then crucial for developing otherlanguage skills Students widen these skills by referring to earlier retainedinformation This information gained by the students is then arranged to createbetter understanding (Lund, 1990, p 105-115, and Richard, 1983, p 219-240).Hadley (1993, p 127-151) on the other hand, illustrated listening as a problemsolving activity where at first the student forms a theory about what they hear andthen later several inferences are made to build the intended meaning of the speech.After having processed all the ambiguities and doubts, students will finally extractthe intended meaning of that speech Ghalib (1998) argued that the listeningprocedure can be divided into multiple stages First students use their backgroundknowledge in order to understand the delivered speech After this the speaker's cueswill help the listener focus on the planned meaning At the end, the exact meaning

is usually ignored and the translated message is what remains and is stored inmemory Nanda (1989) showed a slightly dissimilar idea that there are four simple

steps in the normal listening process consisting of hearing, understanding,evaluating, and responding This course involves the hearing of sounds represented

by words and sentences at the sensory stage first, perceptive recognition of meaningwill then be generated by the physical and emotional influences, resulting in theconclusion of the communication either for acceptance or refusal and finallymaking a suitable response following the situational and contextual demands

2.2.3 Significance of listening skills

In the past, listening actually did not use to be considered extremely vital inlanguage teaching and learning Back then, learning grammatically complicatedstructures, fixed sentence patterns and terminology, literary language and floweryvocabulary used to be considered a sign of upper class in the society However, inthe mid-nineteenth century, the significance of teaching grammar decreased as aresult of the existence of opportunities for achieving communicative skills inlearning a foreign language The reason was Europeans were traveling more andwanted to build business and personal associations through learning and using thelanguages of Europe On the other hand, it wasn't until the 1880s that pragmaticlinguists such as Henry Sweet in England, Wilhelm Vietor in Germany and otherreformers in the late nineteenth century shared a new approach in teaching foreignlanguages This view is now widely acknowledged as correct (Giles, 2015 p 1).Furthermore, toward the end of the 1950’s, the Audio Lingual Method (ALM) inthe U.S and Situational Language Teaching (SLT) in the U.K dominated the field

of language pedagogy These methods both emphasized speaking and listeningskills in language teaching

The unawareness of the importance of listening skills; however, still exists It hascommonly been regarded to be secondary compared to speaking skills (G.H Bowerand R.K Cirlio, 1985; G Brown and G Yule, 1983) in that listening tasks tend to

be viewed as supplementary to strengthen grammar learning David Nunan, a

well-known linguist, in his featured speech at the 4th Pan-Asian Conference in Taiwan inNovember, 2002 stated that listening is “the Cinderella skill in second languagelearning” Belasco (1965) shared Nunan's point of view that listening skill has alsobeen considered the “most underestimated and least understood aspect of foreignlanguage learning” In spite of the fact that listening is a decisive element in thecompetent language performance of language learners, this skill has not had enoughattention given to it, particularly in contrast to the other skills of language ability,namely speaking, reading, and writing.

A well-known research conducted by Rankin (1930) suggested that adults spend42.1% of their communication time listening in contrast with 39.1% speaking, 15%reading and 11% writing In addition, real communication in the classroom should

be based on efficient input through listening or reading According to Lewis,

“almost all the world’s natural language output is spoken rather than written.”(1993) Smith found over 90% of his interaction time involves listening, cementingthe ability as a major factor while communicating Listening is, in fact, the mostvital skill for learning a foreign language and enhancing students’ skill to perceivespeech and thus aid language acquisition Indeed, listening provides a “foundation”for all aspects of “language and cognitive development” (Lewis, 1993) It plays anenduring role in the process of learning and communication to productivelyparticipate in life

Naturally, the majority of people are now becoming more aware of the fact thatlistening must absolutely come first in communication Even as a baby, we humans

do a whole lot of listening before we begin to speak Listening is the precondition inlanguage learning and learners listen before they are able to speak, read, or write a

language (Bulletin 1952 as cited in Saricoban, 1991) Listening to a particular

language serves as scaffolding for any learners in mastering a language It isindisputable that to obtain a language, listening is a critical skill that a learner has to

possess in order to successfully learn a language Rivers & Temmperley (1978)believed that listening is nearly twice as evident as speaking and four to five timesthat of reading or writing According to Rost (1994), listening serves as thefoundation for the improvement of other language abilities in a language classroom.Through listening, the learners will be able to successfully speak, read, and write inthe language that they are learning in the classroom.

Krashen (1982) in his theory of “comprehensible input” identified that listeningskills are more important than they seem at face value The theory claimed that as alanguage practitioner, one needs to "realize" the importance of listening skills.Realizing that listening skills are vital in learning a language is imperative because

it equips practitioners of languages the “awareness” that listening has a main role inthe teaching of language From here, language practitioners will be able to plan andselect what actually constitutes “real-life listening” in their arrangement ofdelivering language lesson to the learners to achieve positive results in teachinglanguage Nesamalar et al (1995, p 41) stated that learners should be aware of thewords and structures from the real world before encountering the written form of alanguage Revealing the target language to learners allows them to converseeffectively, as listening helps learners to advance their vocabulary range andsmoothen the path of using the target language properly in the later skills ofspeaking, reading, and writing Adrian Doff (1996) stated that listening is animportant part of learning grammar and vocabulary To prove this point, he showed

a situation in which learners were living in a country where English was the firstlanguage He assured that these learners had such plenty of exposure to thelanguage as they heard it all the time that they acquired it much more easily than theothers

According to Paul Bress (2001), listening is also as significantly important as aguide to an easier way when feeling mentally lost due to the complicated

elaboration of a new language In other words, the more learners understand, themore dominating they feel and the more confidence they have in their ability toconverse This feeling of confidence is crucial as it helps foster the learners’motivation and maintain their interest in the lesson, putting the students on a smoothpath for gradual progress In short, the importance of listening in language learning

is unquestionable It is the most used and accomplished skill and needs to bedeveloped and valued as much as possible

The importance of listening skills in foreign language teaching and learning hasbeen reflected in a 30-year change towards interaction-based acquisition (Krashen,1981; Pica et al , 1987; Swain, 1985), rather than learning through the translation ofwritten texts and through formal grammar learning Though regarded as a receptiveskill, listening actually requires an active process in which listeners have to activateall their knowledge of different fields such as phonology, vocabulary, culture andtheir life experience in selecting and interpreting information (Richards, 1983;Rubin, 1995)

Rost (1994) emphasized the significance of listening for several reasons First off,listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner.Without comprehensible input at the beginning, any learning simply cannot begin.Second, spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since thelearners must work together to achieve comprehension, access to speakers of thelanguage is critical Furthermore, learners’ failure to understand the language theyhear is stimulation, not a hinderance, to interaction and learning Third, authenticspoken language presents a challenge for the learner to endeavor to understandlanguage as it is actually used by native speakers Fourth, listening exercisesprovide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms ofvocabulary, grammar, and structures in the language Plus, listening is also arequirement for developing speaking skill Still, Adrian Doff (1996) emphasized

this by stating that speaking skills rely on a foundation of listening ability In factthis is rationally obvious, a good speaker needs to be a good listener first, because

to have a successful conversation, students must understand what is said to themfirst and they can only do the understanding through listening To sum up, listeningskill has taken a very important part in learning English It is the mostcommunicative and accomplished skill that needs to be developed as much aspossible

2.2.4 Difficulties in learning listening skills

Of the four basic language English language skills, listening skill seems to be themost complex skill to be acquired by students Many authors have mentioned thisproblem such as Underwood (1989), Ur (1996), Rost (1994) or Lynch (2005) intheir researches According to Underwood (1989), there are seven problems relating

to listening aptitude that students may come across: (1) lack of control over thespeakers’ speaking speed; (2) inability to get information repeated; (3) the listener’snarrow vocabulary; (4) failure to catch the signals; (5) issues of interpretation; (6)inability to concentrate and (7) established fixed learning habit She explained thatthese frustrating issues relate to students’ different educational and culturalbackgrounds Students whose “culture and education includes a strong storytellingand oral communication tradition are generally ‘better’ at listening than those from

a reading and book-based culture and education background” Furthermore,

“students for whom the stress and cadence which occur in English are logicallymore familiar and have less trouble than those whose own language is based ondifferent rhythms and tones” (Underwood, 1989) From that point of view, students

in Vietnam whose language is made of different tones encounter a great deal ofdifficulties in learning listening skills Despite the consequences, when teachinglistening, teachers should be able to expose students to “real-life situations” as theyneed to teach students to listen with a purpose One more pain lies in the lack of avariety of listening materials which causes dullness and boredom in the classrooms

Conventional textbooks and constructed audio files are not only repetitive but alsocounter-productive when it comes to the long-term purpose of learning listeningskills Learners need to develop certain interest in order to obtain the integrativemotivation to successfully master the skills Inadequate audio visual materials aremostly to blame in this situation

2.3 YouTube videos

2.3.1 YouTube overview

In their research Mullen and Wedwick (2008) wrote that modern technology should

be adapted into the classroom so students can polish the basic skills for our currentdigital society Technology is marked as an important part of all aspects of ourlives; it is not surprising that it is getting more accepted in schools Educators areaccountable for qualifying students for the future and technology is a here-to-staypart of that future It is necessary that this whole task is placed at the beginning ofall education systems around the world Integrating technology into the classroom is

in fact not only constructive for students, but also for teachers as the lessons could

be more compelling and engaging (Yu & Smith, 2008) Educational technology can

be simplified as “using multimedia technologies or audiovisual aids as a tool toenhance the teaching and learning process” (“Definitions and terminology” n.d.).Besides, technology permits teachers to be aware of more types of learners (Gorder,2008) Each and every student learns their own way; thanks to technology teacherscan make their lessons more relevant for a wider range of student demands It isclear that the benefit is bilateral, so teachers had better be willing to apply

technology into the classroom regularly In other words, technology allows teachers

to cover cutting-edge ideas into their curricula and countries to have state-of-the-artinternet-based cultures whose civilians are actively excited by the computer screen

YouTube now ranks in third place among the three most visited websites on theglobe (Alexa, 2011) – only after Google and Facebook Launched in 2005 by ChadHurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim who named it “YouTube.com”, YouTube

experienced an astonishingly massive growth; over the first year, one hundredmillion video clips were watched every day (comScore, 2006) Until 2008, thewebsite attracted the attention of one hundred million Americans as its ownaudience within a 24 hour period That total was approximated to be more than twothirds of all Internet users in the United States (comScore, 2008) YouTube is alsorecognized to be the biggest free digital video company in the world when it comes

to viewer watching—the one-of-a-kind audience, the amount of time spent, and thenumber of views On a typical desktop in the United States, YouTube takes up 20%

of all video time spent and 10% of all Internet time spent (comScore, 2006).

YouTube always stands alongside the top downloaded mobile applications(comSource, 2006) and takes up forty percent additional usage on cell phones(YouTube, 2013) YouTube is without question the world's most popular videowebsite Its users watch four billion hours’ worth of video every month, and uploadseventy two hours’ worth of video every minute (YouTube, 2013) Registration forYouTube, which is also free, is only mandatory if someone wishes to upload videos,view flagged videos or flagged comments, like videos, add videos to playlists andpost comments on videos Unregistered users are permitted to freely watch anddownload videos as they like In other words, it is completely easy, convenient, andfree for anyone to access YouTube with simply the help of a computer and theInternet

Figure 1 Frame grab of YouTube.com’s main page (http://www.YouTube.com)

2.3.2 Types of YouTube videos

The ocean of videos on YouTube is as vast as the content on Google As for itscontent, YouTube is extremely diverse from the long, scripted programs and clipsnormally seen on TV or in films Actually, some similar contents like those mightappear on YouTube, but in general, it is not YouTube’s original and principal aim.The most popular content available on this website includes video clips, TV

clips, music videos, video blogs, and educational videos In an attempt by

Wikitubia.com to loosely categorize YouTube content, eight genres could be listed

as follows:

1 Music Video: Music videos are a tailor-made format for YouTube They are lessthan ten minutes, high quality, consistently new, supported by major, well-knowntalented singers

2 Personality-Driven: Personality-driven videos are the domain of video bloggers.They are considered daytime and late night talk shows of YouTube, and theirindividual content may fall into a variety of different categories such as explaininggames or commenting on the news

3 eSports and Game Explainers: The popularity of gamers talking over gameplay

on YouTube is so enormous that it establishes its own category

4 Clip/Segment of Full-Length: This type of video has a completely differentsource of material This is content from traditional media that has been trimmed intosmaller segments, either as part of a channel or may be content that is uploaded by auser and claimed on behalf of a media company Sometimes individual clips of ashow can even go viral in the way a full episode never could thanks to the suitablelength Most of the time, all clips of this type serve a promotional function

5 News Segment: Often, the type of news that gets the most views on YouTubetends to focus on sensational issues or celebrity gossips While there areindependent video news publishers, much of the content comes from clips oftraditional media outlets

6 Explainer/How-To: “How To” content might range from the amateur “How toTie a Bow Tie” videos to the expert “How to Make your Own Computer” ones.This content is often evergreen i.e may stay popular all the time, as opposed to hits-driven or viral videos, and attracts a very stable number of views every month

7 Scripted Comedy/Drama: This content may be live action or animated, serializedvideos or independent works

8 Other Non-Fiction: This category is very broad, from silly pet videos to obscureacademic conferences, from informative documentaries to formal TedTalk/academic educational lecture talk shows types

As for educational purpose, millions of YouTube videos display a wide range ofuser interests including those of educators, students, and researchers YouTubeEDU provides a part of the increasing academic contribution on YouTube sincecolleges and universities have been setting up their own channels to sharevideotaped and recorded lessons, lectures and other campus extracurricular events.YouTube has been a subject for discussion and debate because teachers, educators,and researchers ponder about the actual advantages and disadvantages related tosuch a dominant website (Chenail, 2008; Snelson, 2009, 2010) Some of the mostwell-known advantages of YouTube over conventional videos in the classroominclude the fact that it is more convenient than renting movies or recording clipslike news, commercials, and shows from your TV at home Teachers can nowdownload movie trailers and TV clips straight from YouTube without having tosearch for scenes in the DVDs Also, there exists such uncommon content ashistorical footage, classic TV shows, “how to” presentations, university lectures andold news broadcasts on this miraculous website Reasons for using YouTube maydiffer depending on each circumstance but mostly are to support learner self-study,enhance either general or specific knowledge on a variety of fields, build culturalawareness or provide cultural background information, act as warm-ups to lead in

or illustrate topics, trigger prompt discussions on different issues, etc In otherwords, YouTube videos are best to supplement not only pronunciation, grammarand vocabulary practice but also reading, writing, speaking and listening lessons Inshort, by establishing precise and clear learning objectives and previewing videosfor suitability of the audio visual quality, lesson fit, students’ preference, teacherscan willingly find appropriate videos by typing the key words of a topic, an author,

or a title into YouTube search bar

In order to exploit the diversity of YouTube video range, the videos used for theexperiment in this study were intentionally selected to be as varied as possible.They include comedy, TED talk, movie trailer, movie extract, tutorial, vlog,documentary, talk show, news, and even music videos The speciafically detailedinformation about all the applied YouTube videos in the listening lessons ispresented in the appendix part attached to the end of this paper

2.3.3 Advantages of YouTube videos

Since their beginning, most web 2.0 sites including YouTube (2005) have gainedremarkable reputation with over 100,000 videos created and shared on the site eachday (SIGTE Leadership and NTLS Program Committee, 2008 as cited in Jones &Cuthrell, 2011) This development has not gone unnoticed by the educationalcommunity as, according to Jones and Cuthrell (2011), educators at all levels ofinstruction are using sites like YouTube to “disseminate information, enhancelearning either by incorporating material from the sites in daily instruction, or bydisplaying student-produced projects and comments on the sites” (p 75) YouTubehas been integrated into language classrooms in multiple applications that rangefrom such simple task as watching video clips in order to supplement textbookmaterials to a more demanding task like an entire class of students creating andsharing their own videos The current researches on the use of YouTube in languageclassrooms have generally reported that it greatly boosted motivation (Alm, 2006;Malhiwsky, 2010) and enhanced validity of tasks (Malhiwsky, 2010; Mayora,2009; Pong, 2010; Kelsen, 2009), provided teachers’ knowledge and backgroundinformation for the lessons (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007) Furthermore, the use ofYouTube in its various forms has also been believed to enhance students’ oral,aural, and writing skills in action research studies (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007;Kelsen, 2009; Malhiwsky, 2010; Hazzard, 2006; Pong, 2010; Mayora, 2009; Alm,2006)

Mullen and Wedwick (2008) supposed that virtually anything from a viral musicvideo to a contentious political speech to a basic home-made movie can be easilyaccessed on YouTube Therefore, teachers are steadily starting to discover thepotentially extensive benefits of applying YouTube in an English lesson with such

an enormous range of applications Any individual after entering the YouTubewebsite can look for anything in the vast database of videos for their own particularneed and a registered user can even store videos in a playlist (Mullen & Wedwick,2008) In other words, teachers while seeking videos to prepare for their lesson, cansave the selected videos to their own account, which helps saving time spent inclass on searching for the videos again

It is tremendously convenient for teachers working in a classroom with high-speedInternet to re-access the videos in the class As for cases of schools without a stableInternet connection, it is advised for teachers to download the videos in advance viasoftwares like YouTube Downloader, YTD Video Downloader or web services likeKeepVid, SaveVid, ClipNabber, Deturl.Com, Video Grabber or browser extensionsand plugins like SaveFrom.Net, FastestTube, YouTube5, Video DownloadHelper,Easy YouTube Video Downloader, FVD Suite, Video Download or a even friendlyVietnamese browser called Cốc Cốc

Figure 2 Frame grab showing using browser Cốc Cốc to download videos from YouTube.com

The compilation of studies related to YouTube is still small but increasing Thatmostly explains the reason why the sources of reference in this research tend to bearchived from websites, e-newspapers, forums, and blogs Juhasz’s (2008) foundout that the idea of using YouTube in the classroom is not taken seriously, eventreated as a joke by some Burgess and Green (2009) pointed out a contradictingview by media since television news one day would compliment YouTube on beingsuch a practical and stimulating website then, soon after would blame YouTube forcyber bullying in a documentary In fact, several schools even blocked YouTubefrom their campuses as a consequence Honestly, how mass media representYouTube does not necessarily reflect how the millions of viewers have been usingthe website (Manovich, 2008) Palfrey and Gasser (2008) argued that the majority

of the troubles people encounter on the virtual world originates from real life; theinternet or YouTube unfortunately happens to be used as one of the means for these

bullies in this information technology age Dedicated advocates of YouTube such asHartley (2009) and Palfrey and Gasser (2008) have been making efforts inpersuading schools and opponents to start using and understanding the technologyrather than completely boycotting it Once digital literacy is gradually achieved bythe entire society, people will surely begin to recognize and utilize online resourceslike YouTube more effectively In conclusion, “Video is not an end in itself but ameans toward achieving learning goals and objectives.” (Duffy, 2008, p 124).

2 3.3.1 Advantages of YouTube videos as audio-visual materials

The last twenty years have liberally given a number of helpful audio-visual

technologies to language teaching and learning Since successfully applying the

technology into the process might still pose a challenge for some teachers, a carefullook into the audio-visual nature of the technology is believed to be necessary

Vision is no doubt the most powerful perceptive sense human beings use to processinformation (Gregory, 1972) Nowadays, visual technology has becomeexceedingly advanced, sophisticated, and prevalent Video has obviously turnedinto the most dominant medium of moving pictures Video is present almostubiquitously in the current world, becoming a regular part of our daily lives andshows apparent sign that it will be here-to-stay even in the far future Educatorshave admitted the effectiveness of video as an instructional tool and supplementarymaterials to use in the classroom As for ESL or EFL environments, video has beensupplementing listening skills (Mueller, 1980; Ariew, 1987; Secules, Herron, &Tomasello, 1992; Baltova, 1995) Some ESL researchers have proven that video' ismostly valued because it functions as a motivation for learners to attain their studygoals (Oxford, Park-Oh, Ito, & Sumrall, 1993); it helps understanding theparalinguistic or non-verbal nature of communication (Lonergran, 1983; Stempleski

& Tomalin, 1990); it acts as a rich source of authentic discourse (Geddes & White,

1978; Tomalin, 1987; Altman, 1989); it encourages cross-cultural understandingand compassion (Kramsch, 1993; Stempleski & Tomalin, 1995).

According to etymological findings of their Latin origin, “video” means “I see” and

“audio” indicates “I hear” In other words, video represents light and audio equalssound Now that students tend to be more visually driven these days as a result ofthe domination of television and the Internet, audio visual media have gained moreesteem in the classroom Kemp and Dayton (1985) believed that the strikingresemblance between video and films is that both can actively exemplify a subject

by natural sounds and suitable images These two factors concurrently help videosand films to preserve their motivation, interest, pacing and coherence, andprogression Videos provide appealing visuals in the EFL and ESL classroom.Besides, students can have a chance to be exposed to native speakers if theirteacher’s first language is not English Videos are also short enough to be frequentlywatched if teachers want to show a particular scene or action In addition, it is free

to download videos from YouTube and teachers can use their originality to designappropriate tasks for the selected videos Videos provide audiovisual stimuli forstudents to gain background knowledge of a topic Cundell (2008, 17) stated, “One

of the most powerful ways that video can be integrated into courses is for the visualrepresentation they provide for learners on otherwise abstract concepts.”

So far, although most learners’ reaction to video as an instructional tool has beenconstructive, it has been especially better for language instruction As for languagelearning, positive receptiveness might also be the result of the fact that when visualspresent, the auditory understanding becomes easier Video is well-known for beingmore useful, more powerful, and more understandable than other media for EFLand EFL learners (Brinton & Gaskill, 1978; MacWilliam, 1986; Tudor, 1987;Vanderplank, 1990) In a few researches, video-incorporated activities are widelyfavored over other audio-only tasks (Secules, Herron, & Tomasello, 1992;

Pederson, 1988) In a nutshell, audio visual material noticeably encourages students

to be more attentive to the listening tasks in the classroom

The simultaneous co-existence of video, audio, and graphics raises a question of the

amount of time spent on using these and their effect on the overall performance ofthe task One’s reaction to a medium is possibly decided by the level of familiaritythey have with it In terms of video, the importance it has been playing in modernlives is enormous Language learners have probably been unconciously acquiringthe language through film, television and the Internet In a way, they have already

been audio visually literate and psychologically ready for the video thanks to the

built-in skills and techniques gained over their past experience As a result, learnersare familiar with understanding the messages through videos for a long time Also,the mental requirement of multi-modal processing might lead to higherunderstanding and, increase task performance Moreover, there remains a differencebetween the aural input’s amount of time and the time needed for processing it Iffirst language is the primary tool of communication, mental development of theideas is responsible for this extra lag time; if second, or foreign language is the mainmedium, some more time will be added for simple decoding Notwithstanding, ifthere are other tools to help the aural process, the inclination to reach the overallmeaning from many aids may happen instead of individual sounds, words andsentences In other words, audio visual or multi-modal materials have the ability tosupport the understanding of the message YouTube videos, in short, possess every

of the aforementioned characteristics of audio visual materials and thus, provideclear supports for language learners as proven by studies

2.3.3.2 Advantages of YouTube videos as authentic materials

The immense sources of authentic materials are limitless, but the most frequentlyused are TV programs, movies and videos most of which can be simply accessedvia the Internet While other media get outdated very fast, the Internet is always

refreshing YouTube videos are so visually stimulating that they are able to promote

a more active approach to listening Practically speaking, omnipresent Internetaccess is now available for both students and teachers to discover limitless amounts

of information Economically speaking, searching for online materials from schoolsand homes is no longer a fiscal burden but only takes a little time In summary,authentic materials in the classroom are essential as students will interact with thelanguage and content instead of the form Therefore, learners will be more likely tosuccessfully use the target language when travelling, studying abroad, or in anyother contexts outside the classroom

According to Shrum and Glisan (2000: 133) “authentic materials provide aneffective means for presenting real language, integrating culture, and heighteningcomprehension.” They bring two reasons for believing that authentic materials areadvantageous Firstly, by exposure to such materials, students will be provided withthe chance to see language as is used in real world to serve a real purpose.Secondly, such materials can be measured as a rich source of cultural content.Gilmore (2004:367) believed that if our purpose in the classroom is to preparelearners for independent language use, then surely we are obliged at some stage topresent them with realistic samples of discourse… Swaffar (1981:188) contendedthat “the sooner the students are exposed to authentic language, the more rapidlythey will learn that comprehension is not a function of understanding every word,but rather of developing strategies…., strategies essential in both oral and writtencommunication” (cited in Maher Salah, 2008)

Although Velazquez (2007) valued both authentic and simplified texts since hebelieves that they both play an significant role in learners’ language development.Still he believed “authentic texts provide students with everyday use of languageand experiences in the target language” (p 1) Guariento & Morley (2001:347) alsovalued using authentic materials since they believe that drawing out real

information from a real text in a new or different language can be absolutelyencouraging Furthermore, Kelly et al (2002) stated that when used successfully,authentic materials help bring the real world into the classroom, and even to asignificant point, can bring life inside the EFL class By exposing learners tocultural features in a text a deeper understanding of the topic can be reached and;therefore, interest in the text might be raised On one hand, the students developtheir skill to recognize pertinent information, and on the other, they learn how todismiss what is not suitable Also, Paltridge (2001) stated that in order to produceunderstanding of language and its related skills, authentic materials must be used.Chavez (1998), in the same way agreed that using authentic materials is to thebenefit of the students because they are more favorable and students find anopportunity to interact with the language and its use Oguz and Bahar (2008)admitted the perk of authentic materials in engaging both the learners’ and teachers’attention in the target language “They have high interest value because of theirsignificance to the real world, keeping the students informed about what ishappening in the world they live.” (p:330-331) Haley and Austin (2004) andVelazquez (2007) encouraged the use of authentic texts since they believe that suchtexts can provide a correlation between the students’ level of interest on one handand the understanding of the target language and culture on the other hand Also theteacher is provided with “more opportunities to bring the real world aspects into theclass” (ibid: 93) As Burns and Seidlhofer (2002: 226) proposed, “authentic textscan introduce students to a full range of transactional and interpersonal speech” Asthey put it, “they can highlight language variation and choice rather than fixed andformal sets of rules.” Mishan (2005:44) introduced the concept of 3Cs by which shemeans culture, currency, and challenge in order to explain the advantages of usingauthentic materials Referring to culture she stated that authentic materials canrepresent the target language culture As she mentioned, currency of the authenticmaterials is a special feature particularly as the materials are extracted from themedia whose topics are of the “language in current use” Finally, elaborating on the