chuyên đề effective techniques to motivate students to listen to english

Reasons for motivating students in listening lessons ……….. Rationale Listening is one of the four main skills of a language, thus mastering the listening skill is of great importance in

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Introduction ……… 2

I Rationale ……… 2

II Purpose of the Study ……… 2

B Development ……… 3

I Reasons for motivating students in listening lessons ……… 3

1 Students’ anxiety in listening lessons ……… 3

2 Motivation ……… 4

2.1 The importance of students’ motivation ……… 4

2.2 Classification of motivation ……… 5

II Techniques to motivate students to listen to English ……… 8

1 Making listening more engaging for students ……… 8

2 Helping students understand spoken English ……… 9

3 Making predictions ……… 9

4 Building up an unconstrained atmosphere ……… 10

III Suggestions for adapting listening activities in the textbook of English 10-Advanced ……… 11

1 Unit 2: People’s background ……… 11

2 Unit 6: School outdoor activities ……… 14

3 Unit 7: The Mass Media ……… 15

4 Unit 10: Conservation ……… 15

5 Unit 13: Theatre and movies ……… 17

C Conclusion ……… 18

References ……… 19

A INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Listening is one of the four main skills of a language, thus mastering the listening skill is of great importance in the process of teaching and learning a foreign language

in general and in teaching and learning English in particular

However, to the majority of students, listening is a difficult aspect Many of my students expressed their negative attitude toward listening when being asked about their opinions of listening lessons and the listening skill Some students said they did not care much about listening, because there is no listening in University Entrance

forget what they have heard while their friends claim that they often fall asleep in listening class because they cannot completely comprehend Yet a good sign can be observed from a small group who like listening because they do not have to think as much as in writing or speaking lessons

It is well recognized that students’ anxiety is a rather common phenomenon in

listening classes This kind of anxiety may stem from students’ poor ability or the wrong perception of the skill Perhaps they are not accustomed to acquiring the listening skill seriously and regularly Besides, many of them think that this is a passive skill and learn it in a passive way despite the fact that it is a receptive, but not a passive, skill As a result, students are easily distracted from listening, which means that furnishing motivation in listening is of great concern Hence, it is really valuable

to think about the effective techniques to get students more excited in listening classes and encourage them to master the listening skill in a more serious and relaxing way This is also the aim of this study

II Purpose of the Study

It is widely accepted that keeping students motivated to learn is one of the biggest challenges any teacher faces It is sometimes appropriate for teachers to take an active role in trying to improve the motivation levels of a group A highly motivated group of students is generally a lot easier and more fun to teach Obviously most teachers have come across de-motivated students at some time in their careers and it is often worth addressing the problem when we recognise it before it escalates further There are often many factors that contribute towards a lack of motivation and these should be taken into account Here are some ideas that I have put together which may

go some way towards increasing motivation levels in a group or at least addressing the problems and bringing them out into the open

Therefore, one of the purposes of the research is to find out why students often feel anxious or embarrassed while listening to English In other words, this study seeks

to identify the factors or causes that make students stressful and nervous while listening to English in the language classroom setting This includes considering the factors that originate from listening text, listeners, speakers, and listening environment

More importantly, basing on the data collected, I would like to suggest some practical techniques which can help to motivate students to listen to English

B DEVELOPMENT

I Reasons for motivating students in listening lessons

1 Students’ anxiety in listening lessons

It is widely accepted that listening comprehension is not only an essential skill but a requirement for oral proficiency as well Most learners of English as a foreign language experience considerable difficulties in listening comprehension, and these difficulties appear to be main causes of anxiety which should be taken into consideration In order to make students motivated in listening lessons, it is crucial to identify problems which listeners face in understanding the spoken language

Until recently, many foreign language studies have been conducted to find out the specific factors which can help motivate or distract students during the listening lesson

According to Underwood (1989), seven problems learners may encounter when learning to listen: fast speed; unrepeated thing; the listeners’ limited vocabulary; failure to recognize the “signals”; interpretation; concentrate; and learning habit Underwood (1989) sees these problems as being related to learners’ different background such as their culture and education

Rubin (1994) believes there are five factors that affect listening comprehension: (1) text characteristics such as speech rate, pause phenomena and hesitation, level of perception, stress and rhythmic patterning perception, L1/L2 difference, syntactic modifications, redundancy, morphological complexity, word order, discourse markers, and visual support for texts, (2) interlocutor characteristics such as gender and language proficiency, (3) task characteristics such as task type, (4)listener characteristics such as language proficiency level, memory, attention, affect, age, gender, learning disability in L1, and background knowledge; and (5) process characteristics top-down, bottom-up, and parallel processing, listening strategies, and negotiation of comprehensible input

Brown and Yule (1983) propose four main groups of factors including the speaker (speech rate, varied accent), the listener, the content (vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge), and support (whether there are pictures, diagrams visual aids,etc.) can cause difficulty in listening comprehension Yagang (1994) attributes the difficulty of listening comprehension to four sources: the message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting (or listening environment)

I also believe that these four sources could make my students more nervous and anxious while listening to the target language It is necessary to help them to reduce their stress while listening

2 Motivation

2.1 The importance of students’ motivation

Since motivation is not only a vital but also a highly complex factor determining more or less successful language learning, it is necessary to examine approaches to motivation in learning in order to bring about better insights into it

Over the years there have been in number able studies on motivation in foreign and second language learning In these studies, researchers have attemped to explain what is meant by motivation

Keller (1984) (quoted in Ellis, 1994) sees 'interest' as one of the major components of motivation, defining it as “a positive response to a stimuli based on existing cognitive structures in such a way that learners’ curiosity is aroused and sustained”.

However, most of studies on motivation in foreign and second language learning have been influenced by the work of Gardner (1985) (quoted in Spolsky, 1998), who defines motivation as consisting of effort, plus desire to achieve the goal of learning, plus favourable attitude towards learning the language

Another theory on motivation can be seen from Littlewood’s perspective (1998)

that “in second language learning as in every other field of human learning, motivation is the crucial force which determines whether a learner embarks on a task

at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he perseveres It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on”.

Apparently, Littlewood, not only highlighting the important role of motivation

in second language learning but also emphasizing the ‘highly complex construct’ of

motivation claimed that if a learner is motivated she will probably decide to undertake

a particular task with certain amount of energy and time needed for it

Furthermore, McKay and Tom (1992) point out that the need to communicate with others in a new language provide strong motivation for most learners

This is more or less similar to Lightbown and Spada’s (1999) definition of

motivation in second language learning that “motivation in second language learning

is a complex phenomenon which can be defined in terms of two factors: learner’s communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second community”

They also add that '' if learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or to fulfill professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of the second language and will therefore be motivated to

acquire proficiency in it Likewise, if learners have favourable attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will desire more contact with them.”

Learners’ motivation can change overtime and effect on their language learning Various studies have found that motivation is strongly related to success in language learning

Gardner (1985) (quoted in Spolsky, 1998) sums up “… it seems clear that achievement in a second language learning is influenced by attitudinal/motivational characteristics Postulating that achievement in a second language learning is promoted by an integrative motive is not tantamount to saying that this is the only cause or predictor”.

However, many research findings shows that successful learning can enhance motivation, and the relationship between learning achievement and motivation is an interactive one As Gardner and Smythe (1981) (quoted in Hedge, 2000) claim that the high correlation between motivation and successful learning confirms the crucial importance of motivation in the classroom whether learners arrive with it or whether they acquire it through classroom experience

2.2 Classification of motivation

In general, according to Lewis (2007), motivation can be categorized into two main kinds: Extrinsic motivation and Intrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation refers to motivation that comes from outside an individual The motivation factors are external, or outside, such as rewards These rewards provide satisfaction and pleasure The pleasure they anticipate from some external reward can continue to be a motivator even when the task to be done holds little or no interest The possibility of a reward will be enough to keep the learners motivated in order for him

or her to put forth the effort to do well on a task

Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that comes from inside an individual rather than from any external or outside reward The motivation comes from the pleasure one gets from the task itself or from the sense of satisfaction in completing or even working on a task Learners who are intrinsically motivated want to learn for the sake of learning This does not mean, however, that a person will not seek rewards It just means that if the assignment does not interest them, the possibility of a reward is not enough to maintain their motivation to put any effort into the project

It is obvious that intrinsic motivation is more important and teachers should try

to include it in their teaching process

In particular, according to Scrivener (1994), learners’ motivation can be identified as follows:

Exams and grades

Parents

Peer pressure

Relationships

Gender/ Gender ratio

Class contract

Class goals Amount of control on lesson content/activities

“Face” (how they are perceived by others) Self-esteem

Age (younger and older teens) Time of day

Exams and grades: certain schools, parents and teachers, as well as cultures, can

place a lot of emphasis on the results of tests As such, these can have a large role to play in learner motivation or can place a lot of stress on learners who may think certain activities are not useful to do in class because they are not in exam format – why waste time in “game-style” activities when tests are near

Parents: learners can be assisted by parents and encouraged or, alternatively, their

parents my think languages are not important, and may provide little support at home with homework and building confidence

Peer pressure: dependent on cultures as well as the age of the learner If placed next

to “funny” or “talkative” learners, others may also become distracted – equally this can also assist when other learners are motivated and keen, it can be used to create a more productive atmosphere – models or goals to aim for (to be as good as person A)

“Face”: (how they are perceived in the classroom by others) – If learners are keen and

motivated they may be teased by other learners Correcting learners in front of their peers can be embarrassing and care should be taken over how and when this is done This can also be affected by age and gender – as they become more self-aware and aware of the opposite sex

Self-esteem: this can also be affected by correction techniques, as well as how much

praise is given when they contribute in class and take part in activities and book work – no one likes to be continuously told they are not good at something! You must also remember to give praise for the small things as well – interaction with others, sharing, taking turns, etc as this has an effect on classroom dynamics and group/pair work

Relationships: (between learners as well as the teacher) – Team or pair work could be

difficult to set up between opposite genders and between groups of “friends” Learners may also be less inclined to speak if the teacher is listening – they need to be familiar with the teacher monitoring regularly and closely and therefore become more accustomed to it

Gender/gender ratio: as learners develop, both genders go through a lot of hormonal

and physical changes Awareness of their body and how they look, awareness of the opposite sex, how they interact with adults – are a few areas that can affect how they act in class Gender ratio may also affect class motivation A higher ratio of one gender may be more difficult due to socializing and the minority gender may feel more self-conscious or isolated

Age: younger and older teens, young teens being similar to kids and old teens like

adults – younger learners may be less self-conscience and teaching may need to be more game-like and activities changed regularly to keep interest, while with older learners the opposite may be true More in-depth analysis of language is possible with older teens – maybe not so with younger learners, who have difficulty with abstract concepts

Amount of control on lesson content/activities: if given the opportunity to choose

topics and activity types, motivation can change for the better Learners are more likely

to talk about things they are interested in, and have more to say They may also be more inclined to ask about, extend and try to remember vocabulary related to such topic

Class goals: especially if the whole class is held accountable for not completing

tasks/taking part fully in lessons or homework – with punishments given to the whole class for class goals not met! Care should be taken that peer pressure does not turn into bullying These can be agreed and set up with contribution from the whole class and teacher – so it comes from all members and is not just teacher controlled

Class contracts: similar to class goals, contracts can be agreed upon in the first few

lessons Learners are aware of what is expected of them and they can also have input into what is expected of the teacher, e.g if all learners complete tasks to a high standard they will be rewarded with “game” activities they like It can be displayed on the wall of the classroom so it can be referred to when needed

Time of day: if the lesson is at the end of the day, they may be less likely to

concentrate due to tiredness If it is just before lunch, they may have low motivation due to hunger After lunch or sports, they may be more excited or have more energy In the morning, they may be difficult to motivate, again, due to tiredness

II Techniques to motivate students to listen to English

1 Making listening more engaging for students

Many of us will rely on course books for the listening material we use in the classroom and this material may or may not be suitable for our students Thus, great

care needs to be taken when selecting listening texts, which are appropriate and interesting for students so that it can create more opportunities for students to experience, at least, small success in the target language If the students are attracted

by the listening message, they will have incentive to make greater efforts Therefore, listening texts should not be much more difficult than the students’ level, as too advanced speech will not be comprehensible for students Listening messages of simulated real-life situation are usually of great interest to the students

In addition, as suggested by Thomson (2005), it is important to consider ways

in which we can supplement listening materials in course books with materials which will motivate our students

One possibility is to ask students to bring prepared songs or any other listening material in English to the classroom When we have done this we may be very surprised to see how much work students put in to prepare the material if asked to do so

Students often seem to enjoy bringing a song on tape to school with the words suitably gapped Apart from anything else, in this situation the students decide themselves what they are going to listen to instead of having a listening activity imposed on them by the teacher This is a key to motivating our students

Another idea that has worked well in Thomson’s lesson is to record a short interview with one of his fellow teachers He finds that he gets a lot of mileage out of a 10-minute interview with an English-speaking colleague and that students are really interested in hearing about the life of one of the other teachers at school

2 Helping students understand spoken English

Another technique recorded by Thomson (2005) is helping students understand spoken English The technique can be described as follows:

After using a tape where students have to listen for the gist, teachers can pick out a tricky sentence and do a piece of intensive listening Here students listen several (maybe ten) times to the same sentence and have to work out how many words there are in the sentence then what the words are exactly Teachers may find teenage students enjoy doing this and a competitive element can be introduced by putting

students into teams A complex sentence such as "I asked him what the time was" can

be analyzed after the students have worked out what the words are Teachers can point

out that the 'k' in 'asked' and 'h' 'him' sounds disappear in this piece of connected

speech and that this is an example of elision Imitating the ways English is pronounced

is suggested a good way to gain good pronunciation Therefore, students should listen

to the spoken English, imitate it, record their imitation, and then compare what they have pronounced with what the native speaker did to revise Gradually, students would also be used to features of spoken English and would understand listening material more effectively

Sometimes teachers simply dictate a sentence like the one above at the beginning of a class as a warmer and follow the same procedure

Teachers should also give students a transcript of tapes they have listened to after they have completed the listening tasks Even if students only read and listen to part of what they have heard, it should allow them to become more aware of the difference between how spoken English sounds compared with how it is written

With reference to fast speech rate, teacher should encourage students to practice listening to English authentic texts every free time (inside and outside the classroom)

to make familiarize with the nature feature of the spoken English To identify the stress and elision of words in speech, teacher should give them some common phenomenon

of how real-English is pronounced

3 Making predictions

One of the most important things that teachers should do to motivate students is make information easier to process It will certainly help when the listener is able to make predictions about what they are about to hear before they listen

It is not easy for students to apply listening strategies effectively such as predicting what a speaker is going to say, getting the general ideas, and so on To improve the students’ listening strategies, teachers should design some listening activities purposefully in order to lead students to get the information with certain purpose and option To enhance the ability to take gist, students should know which the prerequisite of understanding the whole discourse are, or which is the most important, for example, listening for time, places, events, names, and so on To extract the main idea of the message, students should pay attention to the topic sentence, the concluding sentence and the transitional terms

To help students predict what is coming next, teachers, firstly, need to provide them background knowledge before recorded material is played and secondly, help them associate this prior knowledge with the clues from what they have heard to make

a successful guess The clues can be the heard words, printed words, the speaker’s mood or attitude, the interpretation of stress, intonation, loudness, pictures, and so on

It is advisable that teachers try to turn prediction activities into a game by putting my teenage students in groups before they listen and asking them to try to

predict the answers to listening tasks where they have to pick out detailed information Turning an activity into a game can also increase intrinsic motivation, which is very necessary in acquiring a language For example, students could try to guess the missing

information in sentences such as "The town of Sửng Sốt used to be ………"

Students are divided into groups, and each group is given a poster and some crayons They will draw what they imagine about Sửng Sốt Town on the poster in 5 minutes Then all the posters will be hung on the wall around class The next step is to have students listen and to see how good their predictions are The group having the poster with the most exact details will be the winner Besides, to encourage the winner I hang the poster on the wall next to the board in a week as a way to mark their honor My students always seem to enjoy this competitive element and it is always interesting to see who has made the best predictions It is clear that good listeners are often good at predicting

In an exercise where students have to identify who is speaking to on the phone (e.g a landlord / an architect / a builder) I would draw a grid on the board and ask students to predict the vocabulary, situation and tone of voice for each of the three possibilities Again, students could do this in teams and a competitive element could be introduced

4 Building up an unconstrained atmosphere

Teachers need to bear in mind that most students bring their fear and stress to the listening class Therefore, during listening practice, teacher should make the listening class go on in an enjoyable and relaxing way, where both students and teachers can breathe freely; otherwise no teaching method will work It is suggested that teachers’ behavior such as appropriate eye contact, gestures, movement about the classroom, sense of humor, and enthusiasm are highly-effective teaching behaviors which can help students alleviate their discomfort when listening to English Teachers also need to make clear instruction so that listening material makes sense, vocabulary

is not hard or jargon any more Teachers should be willing to help students whenever necessary, in supportive manner, rather than as a correction

We only ask students to give feedback when everything is still fresh in students’ mind Giving feedback help students know how well they have performed in the listening task, where students failed to comprehend or missed important things, and discuss why these happen From that they make an effort for the next listening lesson Teachers’ positive and supportive feedback is really helpful in alleviating students’ anxiety