Applications of task based language approach in textbooks for grade 10 students in developing listening skills an action research

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ********* TRẦN THỊ MAI HUYỀN APPLICATIONS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*********

TRẦN THỊ MAI HUYỀN

APPLICATIONS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE APPROACH IN TEXTBOOKS FOR GRADE-10 STUDENTS IN DEVELOPING

LISTENING SKILLS: AN ACTION RESEARCH

(ỨNG DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP HỌC TẬP THEO NHIỆM VỤ TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 NHẰM PHÁT TRIỂN

KĨ NĂNG NGHE: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI – 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*********

TRẦN THỊ MAI HUYỀN

APPLICATIONS OF TASK-BASED LANGUAGE APPROACH IN TEXTBOOKS FOR GRADE-10 STUDENTS IN DEVELOPING

LISTENING SKILLS: AN ACTION RESEARCH

(ỨNG DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP HỌC TẬP THEO NHIỆM VỤ TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 NHẰM PHÁT TRIỂN

KĨ NĂNG NGHE: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

HANOI – 2020

DECLARATION

I guarantee that I myself write this thesis entitled “Applications of Task-based

language approach in textbooks for grade-10 students in developing listening skills” There is no plagiarism here and if anything is taken from others’ works, it is

surely written in quotation Then, the sources would be listed on the list of references I am ready to be inflicted any academic punishment if the proclamation proves inaccurate

Tran Thi Mai Huyen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisor, Prof Dr Hoang Van Van for his continuous support, invaluable feedback throughout the process of the study He provided me with constant guidance and encouragement which turned the demanding thesis writing into a smooth and fruitful process

I would also like to express my special thanks to all my dear colleagues of FPT High School, and my classmates of the Department of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi who never hesitated to help me and share their experience

Special thanks to all participants in FPT High School for their participation and patience during the process of the study in the academic year of 2018- 2019 semester

Finally, I am deeply grateful to all members of my family for being so motivating and patient throughout the study

ABSTRACT

Developing listening skills is an important sphere in studying a language This study focused on improving listening skills through Task-based language teaching (TBLT) TBLT is a methodology that develops from a focus on classroom tasks 30 grade-10 students in FPT High School were the participants of the study through an action research with two cycles of treatment employed A pre-test, the instruction, and two post-tests were given to the participants TBLT was applied for the participants The comparisons between the results of the pre-test and post-tests were made through paired sample t-tests The results indicated that the students after the treatment performed better The results were also supported by the data collected from interviews, questionnaires and class observations This study may have pedagogical implications for practitioners in the field and for syllabus designers to have suitable tasks in English textbooks and English teachers would use the most effective teaching methods for their students

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as Foreign Language

Ss: Students

T: Teacher

TBLT: Task-based language teaching

MOET: The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training

CEFR: The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1: Score interval for tests 23

Table 4.1: Kinds of tasks in while-listening stage 29

Table 4.2: Paired Samples Statistics (pre-test & post-test 1) 32

Table 4.3: Paired Samples Correlations (pre-test & post-test 1) 33

Table 4.4: Paired Samples Statistics (post-test 1 & post-test 2) 33

Table 4.5: Paired Samples Correlations (post-test 1 & post-test 2) 34

Table 4.6: Paired Samples T-Test (post-test 1 & post-test 2) 34

Table 4.7: Students' assessment on the teacher's teaching activities in listening lessons 34

Figure 3.1: The scheme of Classroom Action Research (CAR 21

Figure 4.1: Favorite listening tasks in listening lessons 28

Figure 4.2: Factors affecting in doing listening tasks 30

Figure 4.3: Students’ listening strategies 31

Figure 4.4: Students' improvement in listening skills 35

Figure 4.5: Effects of TBLT on listening comprehension 36

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Rationale for the study 2

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study 4

1.4 Research questions 4

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 A Summary of research methodology 5

1.6.1 Participants 5

1.6.2 Research instruments 5

1.6.3 Research procedures 6

1.7 Structure of the study 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Task-based language teaching (TBLT) 8

2.1.1 Definition of task 8

2.1.2 Task-based language teaching (TBLT) 9

2.2 Listening 12

2.2.1 Definition 12

2.2.2 Purposes of listening 13

2.2.3 Listening process 13

2.3 Previous studies 15

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Research settings 17

3.1.1 FPT High School 17

3.1.2 Teachers and students 17

3.1.3 Listening materials 18

3.2 Research method 19

3.2.1 Classroom action research (CAR) 19

3.2.2 Treatment 22

3.3 Data collection instruments 22

3.3.1 Listening tests 22

3.3.2 Questionnaire 23

3.3.3 Class observations 24

3.3.4 Interview 24

3.3.5 Data collection procedure 25

3.4 Data analysis 25

3.5 Summary 25

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27

4.1 Research question 1: 27

4.1.1 Favorite tasks in listening lessons 27

4.1.2 Kinds of tasks in listening lessons 29

4.1.3 Difficulties while listening 29

4.1.4 Students' listening strategies 31

4.2 Research question 2 32

4.2.1 Results from tests 32

4.2.2 Results from student questionnaire 34

4.3 Research question 3 37

4.3.1 Applications of TBLT in teaching 37

4.3.2 Teacher’ activities at listening stages 38

4.4 Results from observations 39

4.5 Discussion 39

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 40

5.1 Summary 41

5.2 Pedagogical implications 43

5.3 Recommendations 43

5.3.1 Recommendations for teachers 43

5.3.2 Recommendations for students 44

5.4 Limitations 44

5.5 Suggestions for further research 45

REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX I APPENDIX 1: STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX 2: TEACHER INTERVIEW III APPENDIX 3: SAMPLE OF CLASSROOM OBSERVATION IV APPENDIX 4: LISTENING TEST VII APPENDIX 5: TEST RESULTS XI

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

The first two decades in 21st century witnessed a huge change in teaching and studying English in Vietnam The traditional method of teaching and learning the second language – the Grammatical Method (GM) has been gradually replaced by a new one called Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) for the sake of students’ upgraded language proficiency Additionally, the National Foreign Language Project 2020 states that teaching English needs to focus on learner-centered styles and practices rather than on the old teacher-centered way and theory (Thủ tướng Chính phủ [The Prime Minster], 2008) To achieve this goal, task-based language teaching (TBLT) has widely been exploited effectively in teaching and learning TBLT is known as a method which can show functional and meaningful activities in a classroom Willis (1996) points out that TBLT is implemented to aid learning environment that discovers appropriacy in listening skills and integrates skills in the same task (p.97) Students will be an active learner since TBLT is seen

as communicative language teaching, so it can assist them in studying English, especially listening skills Generally, listening is thought to be a tedious aspect and many students get trouble in obtaining information from the recording; however, TBLT can make learners study in a different way, become active and easier to acquire information through listening According to Ellis (2003), TBLT is a teaching method that is regarded as a tool of communication rather than as an area for study Moreover, Lee (2004) suggested that TBLT has bettered students' learning attitudes, confidence and thinking skills

Undeniably, being one of the most updated approaches, task-based learning approach is now a very common method of teaching second languages around the world In many countries such as Europe and America, educators put a considerable effort to build up a detailed syllabus and procedures based on this approach Besides, there are numerous pieces of research done to find out how effective this

approach brings to second or foreign language teaching and learning These include the studies by Willis (1996), Michael and Hayo (2010), Pauline (1999) and Nazenin (2007) to name just a few

Clearly, there is some increasing evidence to suggest that the type of tasks used in instruction may have a positive influence on learners’ performance

1.2 Rationale for the study

Listening plays a vital role in studying English and it gives many benefits for

us in our daily lives Listening is seen as a key to unlock the work With listening, people could travel around, listen and understand what native speakers would like to talk, share and know how to reply to them so that they could keep up their conversations It is undeniable that through listening, people can get more knowledge and information from different sources like TV news, videos, talks and others Tyagi (2013) emphasized the importance of listening in work that the ability

to listen carefully will permit you to build a relationship with colleagues, bosses and customers, solve problems with them, even show them your support and find hidden meanings in what they say (p 5-8)

Listening is one of the four language skills to be taught in a foreign language Listening is the most important component in learning process and social interaction for three main reasons Firstly, listening is an essential communication tool in a civilized society Secondly, listening is one of the best ways to gather new knowledge a person has never known before Thirdly, with the development of technology, instead of using stored reading materials, teachers would rather choose listening materials along with pictures or videos, which would make learners access better to not only the history but also numerous current events As a result, through listening activities, the students can gain their insight and it could help them a lot in the future Obviously, students’ listening ability must be developed Teachers have responsibility for learners’ skill improvement The methods, techniques, and teaching media chosen and used by the teacher will influence the success of teaching and learning process of students In addition to good methods, techniques

and media, students are expected to become study enthusiasts This means when students acquire knowledge actively, it would be easier for them to improve their skills in the teaching and learning process

There are four skills in learning process: listening, reading, speaking, and writing In this research, the researcher will focus on listening skills Clearly, listening is not always an easy task for teachers and learners To master this skill, learners have to get used to listening more in classroom while this skill is less to be exploited in classroom Vietnamese students in certain regions do not have enough chance to approach listening sources at their early age, so many students have difficulty in understanding listening materials Furthermore, although students are taught listening skill, they are not trained methodically how to deal with listening exercises If schools are able to provide what the students need, there will be more success for everyone involved

Through the teaching experiences and observations, it is indicated that many students at FPT High School have problems in listening and completing the tasks in listening exercises and they usually miss the important information in those exercises Another problem in listening is the lack of vocabularies and also standard pronunciation From there, students are likely to believe that listening skill is challenging Consequently, the teacher must have knowledge of approach, method, and strategy in teaching listening skills as these things will assist teachers in making the teaching and learning process more effective Also, the research into TBLT employed in classroom practice in foreign language learning environment has not been adequate (Carless, 2004, p 389-396)

Basing on the background and stated problems of the study, the researcher

conducted a classroom action research on “Applications of Task-based language

approach in textbooks for grade-10 students in developing listening skills” to

improve English teaching and learning process and increase the listening proficiency of English learners

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study

The overall aim of this research is to investigate how effective the applications

of TBLT in listening lessons of grade 10 English textbook have been in improving listening skills for students

To achieve the general aim, this research seeks out for the following specific objectives:

1 Determining the meaningful effects of TBLT on the students’ improvement in listening ability;

2 Exploring how listening skills are taught in listening lessons at FPT High School;

3 Suggesting the recommendations for English curriculum designers and instructors/ teachers to include useful tasks to students so as to improve their listening ability

1.5 Significance of the study

Various studies on second/foreign language teaching have shown that traditional methods still exist This is the main source of the new EFL problems Traditionally listening was viewed as a passive skill through which teachers set goals, chose materials and controlled the equipment This means that there was little room for student preferences This approach has been dominant for a long time in the current EFL textbooks and classrooms and the efficiency of some approaches have sometimes been disregarded

Among the recent effective approaches, TBLT, also known as Task-based Instruction, has become an outstanding approach; in a way, that it is currently known as the dominant teaching approach to language instruction By conducting this research, it is hoped that the findings may encourage teachers to take advantage

of tasks in English textbook to make their lessons more interesting Also, students can be motivated to the diversity of tasks used to improve their listening skills Last but not least, for researchers who share the same interest in this topic, they can refer

to this paper as a source of updated and reliable information

1.6 A Summary of research methodology

in her listening class would support the research during the testing process and check the validity of the tests and questionnaires as well Moreover, questionnaires were prepared to collect the attitudes of the students towards using TBLT in listening lessons and the teacher would also be interviewed at the end of the study

1.6.2 Research instruments

An action research was employed in this study to measure participants’ listening achievement as well as the influence of listening tasks on their listening ability

To gather relevant data for this study, four research techniques were carried out:

- Using a pre-test and a post-test for cycle 1 to assess the improvement of students’ listening skills through the application of TBLT and then using a post-test for cycle 2

- Conducting class observations to evaluate the attitudes of the students towards the use of TBLT in listening lessons

- Designing a questionnaire to check more about how listening is taught with the applications of TBLT and its effects on the students' improvements in listening skills

- Interviewing the teacher who used TBLT in teaching process to support the findings from other instruments to help sharpen students’ listening skills with the applications of TBLT

Step 4: Administering the first post-test to measure the accomplishment of the method

Cycle 2:

Step 5: Continuing to employ TBLT as the treatment of action research

Step 6: Making some class observations to obtain whether TBLT helps increase students’ motivation and TBLT is applied effectively

Step 7: Administering the second post-test to measure the accomplishment of the method

Step 8: Designing questionnaires to check students’ attitudes towards the teachers' use of TBLT in listening lessons

Step 9: Interviewing the EFL teacher about the applications of TBLT in her listening lessons

Step 10: Analyzing the gathered data and discussing the findings for the conclusion and pedagogical implications

1.7 Structure of the study

Chapter 1: Introduction – provides background, rationale, aims and objectives, scope, methods, significance and design of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review – presents theoretical background related to

listening skills, TBLT, theoretical frameworks of TLBT and the previous researches concerning TBLT and listening skills

Chapter 3: Methodology – presents research methods, participants, data

collection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion – presents major findings and

discussion, recommendations for teachers and students

Chapter 5: Conclusions – summarizes the issues addressed, recapitulates the

research procedure, and further suggestions for future researcher

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews theoretical and research literature related to listening skills and TBLT Additionally, there will be a critical analysis of previous studies to explore how TBLT in English teaching is addressed by the scholars and education practitioners

2.1 Task-based language teaching (TBLT)

2.1.1 Definition of task

Tasks have been seen as a chief unit of instruction or as a building block in language learning in classrooms over the past few decades (Bygate, Skehan & Swain, 2001; Ellis, 2003) Tasks provide contexts for L2 use and acquisition, leading to the fact that this growing interest has been prompted As a result, tasks have become cardinal to both L2 pedagogy and research, and have provided an effective common ground between the two areas (Mackey, 2007)

Tasks, according to Ellis (2003, p.3), could be simple defined as language activities that concentrate on meaning Nunan (2004, p.4) states that communicative tasks are pieces of classroom work in which learners attempt to comprehend, manipulate, produce, and interact in the target language Nunan goes

on that tasks should also have a sense of completeness and should be able to stand

on their own as a form of communication and learning

There is another definition of task According to Prabhu (1987), a task is an activity that orders students to find out the results through a process of thought In this process, the teachers are expected to control and regulate the learning process Breen (as cited in Bygate, Skehan & Swain, 2001) states that a task is any structured language learning endeavor which has a particular objective, appropriate content, a specified working procedure, and a range of outcomes for those who undertake it Willis (1996) believes that a task is an activity with clear goals and students have to try to accomplish a real outcome Willis (1996) evidences this by saying that learners use whatever target language resources they have available in order to solve a problem, do a puzzle, play a game or share and compare experiences

Skehan (1996) defines a task as a language activity focusing on meaning A task is assessed as a successful one when learners achieve the learning outcome and tasks have to be equivalent to real-life language use (p 38-62)

A task is defined as a method of learning that is focused on the use of language and on the learner making use of the new language in as close to a real-life setting as is possible Task-based learning requires students to use the language in a practical way, meaning that they can apply the language learnt in their daily lives Clearly, there are variations in the definition of a task However, in this study, Willis's definition is considered the working one In listening skill, it is undeniable that a task is an activity that includes clear goals and the learners make efforts to achieve outcomes That the students are assigned the tasks by the teachers is appreciated highly because each task with apparent goals will contribute to the improvement of students' listening skills

2.1.2 Task-based language teaching (TBLT)

The English language is taught as a foreign language, whose main purpose is

to use it as an essential tool for international communication Despite this, it seems that the educational system in Vietnam seems to put stress on grammar and formal accuracy in teaching and learning English Le (2018) points out that National High School Exam has evaluated the only one skill- Reading while Listening, Speaking and Writing skills seem to be underestimated This explains why students are expected to learn and repeat the target forms and utterances during their learning process Consequently, students graduating from upper secondary schools could not communicate and express their opinions in English

Nevertheless, with the development in teaching and learning English as a foreign language, the educational system of Vietnam is directing their concentration

to the approaches that help develop learners’ communication skills where more natural and meaningful language can be employed, expressed and interacted in groups and pairs (Leaver & Willis, 2004) Learners are likely to use language freely and sustain communication

TBLT is believed to be one of the approaches that focus on real- life and creative language use In this approach, learners focus on meaning rather than form, meaning that students complete a group of communicative tasks instead of doing form- based discrete exercises It is expected that students give their opinions orally

or in a written mode about the topic of the lesson (Willis, 1996)

Nunan (2004) outlines characteristics of TBLT The first one is an emphasis

on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language Secondly, teaching materials have to be authentic texts into the learning situation Thirdly, this approach provides opportunities for learners to concentrate on both a language and the learning process itself The next characteristics of TBLT is that it highlights learners' personal experiences as an important part of classroom learning Finally, classroom language learning is linked with language activation outside the classroom

Willis (1996) explains that “within the TBLT framework, tasks and texts combine to give students a rich exposure to language and also opportunities to use it themselves” (p 101) Ellis (2006) cites several authors that propose various designs

of framework; however, they all coincide in three principal stages or phases Ellis (2003) indicates that there are three phases of a task, namely pre-task, during-task and post-task Pre-task phases occurs in order to prepare students to carry out the task in ways that facilitate language learning This preparation can be various, but mostly includes doing a similar task to the one being performed to practice or the instructor providing the context of task topic to the students Brainstorming and mind maps are the activities often used at this stage (p 244-250) There are some variations available to the teacher at the during-task phase Ellis (2003) notes that teachers can choose to set a strict deadline for completing the task, or allow the students to finish the task in their own time The other choice is whether to give students access to the date of feedback when they are completing the task These alternatives can impact the difficulty level of the task

The during-task phase has several variations available to the teacher Ellis (2003) states that teachers can elect to set a strict time limit on the completion of the task or let the students complete the task in their own time The other option available is whether or not to allow students access to the input date while they work on completing the task Such choices will influence the students' level of difficulty with the assignment Regarding the post-task phase, Ellis indicates the importance of three chief pedagogical goals The first goal is to provide an incentive for consistent task performance, the second one is to encourage reflection on how the task was carried out and the third one is to stimulate attention on form Those all help to give the students a deeper understanding and sense of perspective on the recently completed task

Willis (1996) points out that there are different phases of the task such as: 'pre- task', 'task- cycle' and 'language focus' (p.39) The pre- task phase plays a role as the introduction to the topic of the lesson The teacher illustrates helpful words and phrases and assists with guidance and preparations for pupils

The task- cycle consists of three sub- sections that are task, planning and report In the task section, students using provided language resources complete a task in pairs or in groups The next section- planning, in which students are given time to prepare a brief oral or written report to clarify what happened to the rest of the class

Students practice what they are going to say in their groups and then the teacher requires him or her to answer any student question or correct their errors The last section is the report one where students send an oral report or read their written report in front of the class and the teacher gives them some feedback This section's goal is to encourage students to practice on problem areas they may face with language

The language focus phase composes two sub- sections: analysis and practice

In the analysis section, the teacher can point out the language the students used to analyze during the report section The practice section occurs when the teacher

chooses specific language for students to practice according to the students' need that arose from the task and report sections In order to increase self- confidence and develop skills, the students perform the tasks

2.2 Listening

2.2.1 Definition

To the non-educator, listening and hearing are synonymous The perceptive educator recognizes the progression from hearing, a passive, innate physical skill inborn in all non-handicapped people to listening, an active, interactive, learned process that incorporates the added dimensions of comprehension and response Underwood (1989) indicates that listening allows listeners to focus on what the speaker say and try to understand it

Listening seemed to be a passive procedure, but to tell the truth, listening is a very active one since listeners have to make efforts to interpret it Underwood argues that while hearing can be thought of as a passive condition, listening is always an active process Rost (2002) defines listening as a process of receiving what 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)

For the purpose of clarity, and due to the fact that this paper focuses on upper secondary students, this research includes auditory memory as a necessary prerequisite in the listening skills continuum Additionally, Rost’s two comprehension levels (constructive orientation and collaborative orientation) can be combined into one level; simply, comprehension (Rost, 2002)

It is clear that a person wanting to own a good skill has to be taught and then practice with it Teachers always need to give students the chance to practice listening skills regularly Also, it is important that in listening lessons, all activities should be relevant to students and involve real life situations and tasks

2.2.2 Purposes of listening

In order to listen effectively, listeners are responsible for having a clear purpose of what they are listening for Johnson and Morrow (1981) point out that people usually set a purpose and then choose materials to listen to accomplish that purpose (p 81) Underwood (1989) claims that there are five main reasons for listening: to engage in social rituals, to exchange information, to enjoy yourself, to share feelings, and to exert control

Underwood (1989) believes that various different situations should be prepared by teachers, which helped students understand main concepts and determine the main information (p 81) There are many types of listening texts like news, weather forecasts, documentaries, etc that assist learners in collecting relevant information to develop their listening skills

Live situations are good materials used for listening to understand They could

be watching TV or plays, listening to a radio for pleasure and practice as well For instance, listening to a person giving a speech attracts the listener to understand the speaker’ viewpoints and attitudes Listeners complete the tasks when they try to follow instructions

Drawing on the sources above, it is clear that there are many reasons for listening The listener has to know what purpose they have for listening so as to make their listening skills more effective Teachers had better know exactly learners’ needs and try to prepare proper activities that meet those needs

2.2.3 Listening process

The process of listening occurs in four stages They are hearing, retention, comprehension and response

Hearing - Hearing is an activity to receive sounds from words, phrases

sentences to thoughts This level of the listening process would equate to the first level of Bloom’s taxonomy (Cognitive Domain), Knowledge

Retention - Listeners must keep listening material given orally in sequence in

order to employ it in tasks This level of the listening process would also equate to the first level of Bloom’s taxonomy (Cognitive Domain), Knowledge

Comprehension - The skill of drawing meaning from aural input, and

processing that input by activating prior knowledge, using context clues, and making predictions This level of listening would be equivalent to the second level

of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Cognitive Domain), Comprehension

Response - The skill of physical response to auditory input; using the

information presented orally to transfer information, retell a story, complete a project or task, etc This level is equivalent to the third level of Bloom’s taxonomy (Cognitive Domain), Application

2.2.4 Types of listening tasks

Dunkel (1986) has divided listening tasks into the following types: (p 104)

1 Matching: This task, whose purpose is to evaluate how well students can

listen to details, requires students to listen and then match a list of items with a set

of options

2 Selecting (multiple choice): This listening task requires learners to choose

the best option in 3-4 choices after they listen to the text The aim of this task is to check the learners’ detailed or general understanding of the main points of the listening text and their ability to answer the questions

3 Labelling: This task, whose aim is to assess the ability of students to

understand the descriptions of something, requires learners to listen to the text and choose the most suitable label to the blank parts of a visual task

4 Form-filling: This listening task evaluates learners' ability to evaluate the

relationships and details

5 Sentence completion: This task’s purpose is to measure students' ability to

concentrate on the main point of the text by completing a gap in each sentence using information from the listening text

6 Summary completion: This task requires students to complete a summary

and the purpose of this task is to assess the understanding of students about the overall meaning and mains points of the section summarized

7 Short-answer questions: The task requires learners to write a short answer

for a set of related questions about the listening text Such tasks evaluate the ability

of students to listen for concrete facts

In all, the material employed for this study consists of different listening tasks mentioned above Selecting (Multiple choice) and Short- answer questions are used the most Moreover, the teachers will adapt the material by adding Form-filling, known as Gap-filling in order to be more suitable to the level of the students

2.3 Previous studies

There were several previous studies carried out by some researchers concerning the impact of TBLT on listening skills of the learners and it is undeniable that the role of TBLT in teaching and learning process is significant Firstly, Maghsoudi & Golshan (2017) conducted a study about the influence of tasks on listening ability among Iran EFL learners and they focused on two task types, namely labelling and form-filling First, the participants took the task-based test of listening comprehension of labelling and form-filling types selected from IELTS listening tasks and each of task consists of five blanks Then, some guidelines and strategies were given to the students at the beginning of each session Regarding the lesson plan, the procedure throughout the course: pre-task, during-task and focus on form After eight treatment sessions, the participants in control and experimental groups were administered the post- test including labelling and form-filling In independent sample t-tests of listening ability of control and experimental groups with Form-filling, t=-0.76, df=61, p>0.05 demonstrate that form-filling did not have any effect on listening ability of the participants However, with Labelling, the findings (t=-3.27, df=61, p<0.05) indicates Labelling affected the listening ability of EFL learners Therefore, labelling task could enhance listening ability more than form-filling This is explained by the fact that form-filling as a productive task seems to be more demanding while the labelling task as

a receptive task provides pictorial and verbal input, so it is less demanding In general, the result of the research showed that students in EG who were exposed to

TBLT activities outperformed in their post-test compared to their pre-test, indicating the enhancement of students’ listening skills with the implementation of TBLT Moreover, this approach could help strengthen students’ motivation due to the real-life relevance TBLT brought

The second study is about the use of task-based activities to improve Listening and Speaking skills in EFL context by Saricoban & Karakurt (2016) They conducted the research at a State University in Turkey, School of Foreign Languages, Department of Basic English B1 and B1+ groups through task-based activities The results indicated the learners were able to develop their language skills over the course of the tasks In this study, some factors why TBLT has become effective were shown The first one is that this approach allowed students to use language authentically in real-life situations in order to complete the tasks effectively and the second factor is due to stress-free environment The friendly manner of the instructor made students feel comfortable and relaxed about their mistakes and the students were given suggestions and feedback as well, leading to the positive results from students Another significant factor is learners were motivated by the variety and challenge of the tasks given by the teacher

Zhang (2017) also conducted an experiment at a junior high school in China to check whether students’ motivation in studying English can be improved and their listening skills can be enhanced through TBLT Two junior high school classes with

74 students were in the experiment One was the control class using the traditional teaching method while the other was the experimental class applying TBLT Prior

to the experiment, there were no differences in their listening ability The analysis

of the results indicated the mean score of EG in the post-test was significantly different from that in the pre-test Moreover, the students in EG showed a more superior performance in their listening skills compared to those in CG

In conclusion, previous studies found that TBLT was effective in developing students' listening ability and the implementation of this approach increased their motivation during teaching and learning process All these points show why TBLT

is effective in improving listening skills of the students

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, I propose to lay out the methodology for my study to achieve the above aims and objectives of the study Here, there is a clarification of reasons for choosing the research instruments and specific techniques to gather information through these instruments

3.1 Research settings

3.1.1 FPT High School

FPT High School is known as a private school and boarding one as well Due

to the requirements of educational reforms, FPT High School was established Therefore, their top priority is to develop students’ English proficiency There has always been an English diagnostic test to categorize the levels of students Consequently, the number of students passing entrance exams to universities or studying abroad is higher than that in other high schools in Hanoi every year

However, besides the students good at English, especially listening skills, there have been many students who feel unconfident and puzzled when doing listening exercises, which becomes a formidable barrier in studying English Consequently, it is well-advised for teachers to ask students to do a variety of tasks

in order to encourage them to listen, understand the recording, complete the tasks successfully and lastly develop listening comprehension skills

3.1.2 Teachers and students

The process of data collection involved the participation of an EFL teacher and 30 grade-10 students in FPT High School in Hanoi

Students

30 students aged 15 in FPT High School, the participants of the research, had studied English for at least 8 years and had the same level of English proficiency and thus could easily follow the listening procedure used in the study Furthermore, most of them have an intention of learning IELTS for studying abroad or entering university straight, so they raise awareness about the importance of the four skills, especially listening skills

Teachers

There is one EFL teacher aged 34 She graduated from the English Department, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi Besides, she has more than five-year teaching experience and is partial to her teaching job and this research as well She would be responsible for applying TBLT to her listening lessons to improve the teaching methods

3.1.3 Listening materials

Tiếng Anh 10 (English 10) is written by Hoang Van Van (General Editor),

Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa (Editor), Phan Ha, Hoang Thi Hong Hai, Kieu Thi Thu Huong, Vu Thi Lan, Dao Ngoc Loc, and Chung The Quang It is published by Vietnam National Publishing House in collaboration with Pearson Education – a leading textbook producer in the world It is designed in accordance with MoET (Ministry of Education and Training)’s General English Education Curriculum (Bộ

giáo dục và Đào tạo, 2018), and is now being taught on a large scale throughout upper secondary schools in Vietnam

The textbook consists of 10 units (each unit is a topic) and 4 review units Each unit is divided into seven sections: (1) Getting started, (2) Language, (3) Reading, (4) Speaking, (5) Listening, (6) Communication and (7) Culture and Looking back In a review unit, students have a chance to revise and practise more about the preceding units Moreover, phonetic transcription of the new words in the units and their Vietnamese equivalents are shown in the glossary part at the last pages of the book

Generally, there is a variety of topics and grammar points shown in this book,

so it seems that the textbook meets the requirement of MoET which is appropriate

to the students’ educational psychologies together with the students’ cultural background and the cultural features of Vietnam and all over the world

However, in terms of listening lessons, listening exercises need adapting to be appropriate for the level of students With pre-listening tasks, sometimes instead of asking students to look at the pictures, the teacher can give them a video and ask

them some leading questions after that Regarding while-listening tasks, it is acknowledged that sometimes Comprehension questions are too challenging for the students, the teacher will change them into Gap-filling or Multiple Choice Similarly, post-listening activities will be adapted when they are not interesting enough

In a nutshell, depending on the characteristics of students in the class and their listening competency as well, the teacher will decide whether some of the listening task can be adapted for their suitability

3.2 Research method

3.2.1 Classroom action research (CAR)

The research method of this study is action research Action research has become popular in ELT recently In the past, teacher education did not value learning through action and unfortunately education was carried out by researchers out of the class

It goes without saying that action research is a method used for improving practice, so knowledge is created through action and at the point of application Furthermore, it can involve problem solving, if the solution to the problem leads to the improvement of practice

My basic interest is to identify how students practice to improve their listening skills through the application of TBLT; therefore, these things above are the reasons why an action research is chosen in this study, which is applied to an existing classroom aiming to improve certain problems as a result of the new approach implemented

The present study was an action research based on quantitative data gathered from the listening pre-test and post-tests in the academic year 2018-2019 of grade

10 students at FPT High School It is guaranteed that the data was collected during normal class time in an English class at high school

The working principles of CAR consist of four stages, namely planning, implementation of action, observation, and reflection There were two cycles done

in this research, each of which would be a series of activities which had close relation It was believed that the second cycle would be continued and improved from the first one

For cycle 1, at the beginning of planning stage, a listening pre-test was carried out for the participants to measure the listening comprehension competency of the students to determine the lesson plans for the intervention The test consisted of 20 questions with multiple choice, gap-filling and short answers, etc with the allotted time of 30 minutes The test results indicated that the listening comprehension ability of the students in pre-test did not meet the expectations; one third of the students were recorded with the mark under the average Hence, it is determined that the intervention should be employed to improve the efficiency of English listening comprehension teaching and learning at FPT Upper Secondary School through TBLT

According to the plan, there are two cycles, each of which consists of eight minute lessons, so the whole course will have 16 lessons during four months The teachers would apply different types of tasks to their lessons with the aim of engaging students and creating a facilitating learning environment The teachers would follow all the steps in a listening lesson: pre-listening, while listening and post-listening The first step, pre-listening, helps students to prepare what they are going to hear and this gives them a greater chance of success in any given task Therefore, pre-listening tasks could help teachers find out what students already know about the topic and also prepare students for the vocabulary and language structures in the text Moreover, these tasks could help mitigate the anxiety which comes from listening in a foreign language, by providing a clear context Pre-listening tasks would offer opportunity for class discussion and interaction among students and the most preferred task-based activities by the teachers in the listening lessons are group-work, pair-work, role playing and presentation Secondly, while-listening tasks known as task-based activities are a series of activities that learners need to do while listening to a passage so order to show their understanding of what

45-was heard of Most while-listening activities focus on these subskills: Listening for the gist, Listening for specific information and Listening for the speaker’s attitude

or opinion In the last phase, post-listening tasks consist of tasks which main aim is

to help students reflect on the listening experience After pre-listening and while listening activities, post listening ones are carried out Some common examples of post-listening tasks are Checking and Summarizing or Discussions In the first task, teachers can ask students to summarize the information orally or in writing to check understanding The second one- Discussions is to ask students to have a short discussion about the topic and the topic for the discussion must be taken from the listening task that they previously did and should be interesting enough to inspire comments and debates

After the interventions through the applications of TBLT in the lessons, the reflections were conducted to measure the effects of interventions and to prepare for the next cycle A CAR is a continuous process; hence, the completion of the preceding cycle will trigger the beginning of the next cycle The second cycle conducted in another eight weeks was similar to the first one and at the end of this cycle, there was the second post-test for the students to check whether there was any greater improvement in students' listening skills from cycle 1 to cycle 2 The findings and conclusions of this study will support the reflection phase of CAR

)

Figure 3.1: The scheme of Classroom Action Research (CAR

(Source: Arikunto, et al., 2010)

3.2.2 Treatment

Some general guidelines and strategies were recommended to the students in each lesson They were reminded of these strategies before and even after each activity if necessary There were 30 students from one intact class- 10A9 The students were encouraged to deal with the listening tasks collaboratively during the first five lessons There are two cycles of treatment in this action research After the completion of the first cycle, review and feedback were given before the start of the next cycle Then in the rest of the course, they were expected to work on the tasks individually Concerning the sequence of class activities, the following procedure was implemented: pre-task, task cycle and post-task

3.3 Data collection instruments

Data collection is of great importance in statistical analysis In this research, there were four instruments for data collection including tests, questionnaires, class observations and interviews for collecting sufficient data for the analysis of studied issues

3.3.1 Listening tests

The first testing instrument is a standard proficiency test whose aim is to investigate the students’ proficiency level in this subject There are 20 questions with different tasks in 30 minutes for each test – pre-test and post-tests The pre-test

is for identifying the existing status of English listening comprehension skill of the students which will be conducted with 100% of the sample pool (30 students) before the applications of TBLT and then there was the first post-test and the second one conducted at the end of cycle 1 and cycle 2 respectively The post-tests are set to evaluate the improvement in listening competency of the participants The tests will be taken from the Testing Office in FPT High School The pre-test and post-tests, known as task-based tests, will be based on the framework, including primary, intermediate and advanced levels with 6 degrees, numbered from one to six- equivalent to A1 to C2 degrees in the CEFR to evaluate Vietnamese listening proficiency levels Therefore, the outcome of grade-10 students is between

the end of level A2 and the beginning of level B1 In these tests, there will be the

listening exercises that are related to the topics from the textbook Tieng Anh 10 -

Thi Diem taught in the first semester (2018-2019)

Each test has 20 questions in 30 minutes, each of which is given 0.5 point, so the total score was 10 points To make sure that these tests can give a reliable answer to the study, the researcher based on qualities of a good test as validity, reliability, discrimination, practicality, and wash-back

The classification of the students’ score is as follows:

Table 3.1: Score interval for tests

to measure the same thing Different forms of a test are known as parallel forms Obviously, the pre-test and post-tests are designed to have similar measurement characteristics; however, the post- test has to be more challenging compared to the pre-test

To check this, the last way to do is multiple raters Students from another grade-10 class in FPT High School are required to do the tests first and then the researcher will evaluate and adjust Finally, the tests are distributed to the participants in this study

3.3.2 Questionnaire

At the end of the study, students were asked to fill out a questionnaire designed to identify how listening skills are taught with the application of TBLT in FPT High School and how TBLT contributes to the improvement of students' listening skills There were eight questions in the questionnaire, all of which were asked in English (see Appendix 1)

Questionnaires are quite easy to summarize, analyze and report the collected data once the answers from all the participants were returned to the researcher

Moreover, more viewpoints about learning listening skills would be expressed in a free way when each student filled out the questionnaires anonymously and individually

3.3.3 Class observations

Class observation has been one of the most effective research methods used so

as to clarify and test the validity of information collected from questionnaires and interviews With classroom observation, the researcher could do many things to achieve different aims, namely learning from educators, describing instructional practice or bettering instructions through recording and evaluating what was happening in classrooms Moreover, class observation is considered as a chance to see real-life teachers in real-life teaching situations and give a true reflection (Bilash, 2009) In the class observation form, the researcher would write date, class, instructors, the number of students and duration Before observing, the researcher exchanged the information about the lesson first and then made class observations

in 45 minutes and took notes in observation sheets during the first semester of the academic year 2018- 2019 in FPT High School

3.3.4 Interview

Interview is considered as the place where the interviewees’ voice tones, their facial expressions, hesitations and miming shown clearly would help explore certain significant implications which cannot be touched through questionnaires Therefore,

it is the interview that “skillful interviewer can follow up ideas, probe responses and investigate motives and feelings, which the questionnaire can never do” (Bell, 1999, pp.135) Even though interviews do not match all situations, interview is still a very helpful means of inquiry Clearly, it is undeniable that interviews are useful means

to collect viewpoints by oral interaction Although the limitation of interviews is the data gathered through interviews is sometimes affected negatively due to interviewee’s belief, bias or other factors, interviews are used to support and confirm the data results collected from the questionnaires In this study, teacher interviews were made in order to know more about what the teacher implemented to boost listening skills of the students with the use of TBLT