Using interactive process to improve first year students’ listening skills at hanoi college of education

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --- PHẠM THỊ HẢI HÀ USING INTERACTIVE PROCESS TO IMPROVE FIRST-YE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

PHẠM THỊ HẢI HÀ

USING INTERACTIVE PROCESS TO IMPROVE

FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILLS

AT HANOI COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

SỬ DỤNG TIẾN TRÌNH TƯƠNG TÁC ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN

KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT

TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

PHẠM THỊ HẢI HÀ

USING INTERACTIVE PROCESS TO IMPROVE

FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILLS

AT HANOI COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

SỬ DỤNG TIẾN TRÌNH TƯƠNG TÁC ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN

KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT

TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof PhD Trần Xuân Điệp

HANOI - 2014

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DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled: “Using Interactive Process

to Improve First-Year Students’ Listening Skills at Hanoi College of Education”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Master of Arts in English Language Teaching Methodology at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, is the result of my own work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other university or institution wholly and partially

Hanoi, 2014

Phạm Thị Hải Hà

I would like to extend my special thanks to all the research participants Without their valuable opinions and ideas in the questionnaires, the study would not have been accomplished

Last but not least, I owe my parents their continuous support Their patience and love have helped me go beyond what sometimes looks like an insurmountable task

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ABSTRACT

This study was intended to investigate the impact of interactive process on first-year students’ listening skills at Hanoi College of Education More specifically, the researcher strived to (1) investigate problems related to interactive process the students may have while learning listening, and (2) examine the effects of using interactive process in teaching listening to the first-year students

To achieve the above mentioned objectives, an action research was conducted with the participation of 60 first-year students from two classes at Hanoi College

of Education The study included: (1) a pre-test and a questionnaire, (2) the instruction of interactive process, (3) a post-test and a questionnaire, (4) and students’ diaries Later, all the data were collected and analysed

The main findings of the research were as follows: (1) Such problems as difficulties in new vocabulary and structures, background knowledge of the topics, the unfamiliarity of topics, the inability to catch up with what speakers said, the students’ limited ability of pronunciation as well as listening to stress and intonation were what caused the students troubles in listening (2) After interactive process had been applied, the students’ scores in the post-test were higher than in the pre-test Overall, the instruction of interactive process improved their listening skills

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TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Procedures of the Study 26

Table 2: Results of Question 1 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 27

Table 3: Results of Question 2 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 27

Table 4: Results of Question 3 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 27

Table 5: Results of Question 4 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 28

Table 6: Results of Question 5 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 28

Table 7: Results of Question 6 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 29

Table 08: Results of Question 7 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 30

Table 9: Results of Question 8 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 30

Table 10: Results of Question 9 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 30

Table 11: Results of Question 10 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 31

Table 12: Results of Question 11 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 31

Table 13: Results of Question 12 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 31

Table 14: Results of Question 13 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 32

Table 15: Results of Question 14 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 32

Table 16: Results of Question 15 in the Questionnaire after the Pre-test 33

Table 17: Paired Samples Statistics 35

Table 18: Paired Samples Correlations 35

Table 19: Paired Samples Test 36

Table 20: Students’ Evaluation of the Learning Session 38

Figures Figure 1: Action Research Model 21

Figure 2: Comparison of Students’ Performance in the Pre-test and Post-test 34 Figure 3: Subjects’ Satisfaction with the Course 36

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the Study 2

1.3 Objectives of the Research 2

1.4 Research Questions 2

1.5 Scope of the Study 3

1.6 Significance of the Study 3

1.7 Methodology 3

1.7.1 Approach 3

1.7.2 Sample 3

1.7.3 Instrumentation 4

PART B DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6

1.1 Theoretical Background 6

1.1.1 Definitions of Listening 6

1.1.2 Listening Comprehension 7

1.1.2.1 Characteristics of Spoken Discourse 7

1.1.2.2 Bottom-up Processing and Teaching Bottom-up Processing 8

1.1.2.3 Top-down Processing and Teaching Top-down Processing 11

1.1.2.4 Interactive Processing 13

1.1.2.4.1 A Combination of Bottom-up and Top-down Processing 13

1.1.2.4.2 Teaching Interactive Processing 15

1.1.2.5 Listening Strategies 17

1.2 Review of Previous Studies Related to the Research Area of the Thesis 18

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1.3 Summary 21

CHAPTER 2: METHODS 22

2.1 Research Setting 22

2.2 Subjects 22

2.3 Research types 23

2.4 Research Approaches 23

2.5 Data Collection Instruments 25

2.5.1 Pre-test and Post-test 25

2.5.2 Questionnaires 26

2.5.3 Diaries 26

2.6 Intervention: Instruction of Interactive Process in Class 27

2.6.1 Listening Materials 27

2.6.2 The Instruction in Interactive Process 27

2.7 Data Collection Procedures 28

2.8 Data Analysis 30

2.9 Summary 31

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 32

3.1 Preliminary Investigation 32

3.1.1 Findings 32

3.1.2 Discussion 34

3.2 Evaluation 34

3.2.1 Research Question 1 34

3.2.1.1 Results from Questionnaire 1 34

3.2.1.2 Discussion 39

3.2.2 Research Question 2 40

3.2.2.1 Results from the Pre-test and Post-test 40

3.2.2.2 Results from Questionnaire after the Post-test 42

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3.2.2.3 Results from Diaries 45

3.2.2.4 Discussion 47

3.3 Summary 48

PART C CONCLUSION 49

4.1 Recapitulation 49

4.2 Limitations of the Study 50

4.3 Suggestions for Further Studies 51 APPENDIX ………I

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PART A INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

According to Barker, Edwards, Gaines, Gladney, and Holley (1980), college students spent 52.5% of their time listening More recent studies of time spent communicating (Emanuel Adams, Baker, Daufin, Ellington, Fitts,

et al., 2008) suggested that people listened for as much as 55% of their day Nunan (1998, cited in Jonathan Newton, 2009) stated that in fact over 50% of the time that students spent functioning in a foreign language would be devoted

to listening Listening plays such an important role that Powell (1969) stated:

It is impossible to overemphasize the immense need humans have to

be really listened to, to be taken seriously, to be understood Listen to all the conversations of our world, between nations as well as those between couples They are for the most part dialogues of the deaf

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As a teacher at Hanoi College of Education for three years, the researcher has found that first-year students whose major is English teaching must encounter a lot of listening problems Although their grammar and vocabulary are quite good, it is still difficult for them to listen to English materials Most

of the students complained that they had few chances to listen to English frequently in class at high school and their listening skills were scarcely developed Consequently, students were at a loss, which might create high levels of anxiety and stress among students that could interfere with listening comprehension

For these reasons, it is essential to help students improve their listening skills There must be an efficient method with its techniques and characteristics that suit the first-year students in learning listening skills Then interactive process

is believed to be able to help students in learning listening

1.2 Aims of the Study

The purpose of the study is to investigate to what extent the first-year students’ listening skills at Hanoi College of Education are improved by receiving instruction in interactive process Then, recommendations on how

to use interactive process to improve students’ listening abilities are given

1.3 Objectives of the Research

The specific objectives of the research are as follows:

- To investigate problems related to interactive process the students may have while learning listening

- To examine and study the effects of using interactive process in teaching listening to the first-year students

1.4 Research Questions

This survey aims at addressing the two following questions:

1.5 Scope of the Study

Within the frame of this study, the researcher would like to work on using interactive process to improve the first-year students’ listening skills at Hanoi College of Education The research was restricted to the first-year English-majored students from two classes K39A, and K39B at Hanoi College of Education

1.6 Significance of the Study

The study is expected to contribute to the development of teaching and learning listening skills It aims at helping students improve their listening skills by using interactive process The significance of this study is that it will provide teaching implications for EFL teachers in dealing with interactive process In other words, this is significant for educators in providing implications for developing their listening syllabus, methods of teaching and assessment Lastly, this research can be used as a reference source for those who have interest in this issue and a supplement to the previous studies on discourse processes

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The target population of this study was from two classes K39A, and K39B with 60 first-year English-majored students at English Department, Hanoi College of Education

1.7.3 Instrumentation

To attain the aim of the study, three data collection instruments were used: tests, questionnaires, and students’ diaries

1.8 Structure of the Study

The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion

Part 1 includes Chapter 1 which states the rationale, aims, objectives,

research questions, scope and significance of the study as well as its methodology

Part 2 consists of three chapters, namely theoretical background and

methods

- Chapter 1 provides the background of the study, including an

overview of listening skills, listening as comprehension, and interactive processing

- Chapter 2 demonstrates the research methods applied in the study with

details on how and why these methods were implemented Besides, the data collection procedure and data analysis methods are also illustrated

in this chapter

- Chapter 3 presents data analysis, the results and discussions

Part 3 summarizes the main ideas covered in the paper, and presents the

limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies in the research area

Following this chapter are the References and Appendixes for the whole research

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PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Theoretical Background

However, the learner was seen as an active model builder in the alternative view New information and listeners’ own background knowledge were combined to reach full comprehension of what had been heard Anderson and Lynch (1988) agreed with this view, which emphasized the active interpretation and integration of listeners on incoming information Littlewood (1981) supported this view as well The author remarked that listening required active involvement from listeners The nature of listening comprehension was that the listeners should be encouraged to be engaged in

an active process of listening for meaning, using not only the linguistic cues but non linguistic knowledge as well

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Listening was viewed as an active process in which individuals focused on selected aspects of aural input, constructed meaning from passages, and then related what they heard to existing knowledge (Bentley & Bacon, 1996) In other words, listening was an active process of constructing meaning and this was done by applying listeners’ knowledge to the incoming sounds in which numerous types of knowledge were involved including linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge (Gary Buck, 2001:31) because “comprehension takes place when input and knowledge are matched against each other” (Faerch & Kasper, 1986, p 264)

1.1.2 Listening Comprehension

To understand the nature of listening processes, it was essential to have a good insight into the characteristics of spoken discourse and the potential problems they caused for listeners

According to Halliday (1989, p.31), spoken language had the following characteristics: (1) variation in speed - but it was generally faster than writing; (2) loudness or quietness; (3) gestures - body language; (4) intonation; (5) stress; (6) rhythm; (7) pitch range; and (8) pausing and phrasing Moreover, spoken discourse was usually instantaneous It meant that listeners must process spoken texts immediately and there was no chance to listen again Often, spoken discourse stroke the second-language listener as being very fast, although speech rates varied considerably For example, radio monologs might contain 160 words per minute, while conversation could consist of up

to 220 words per minute The impression of faster or slower speech generally resulted from the amount of intra-clausal pausing which speakers made use

of Lastly, incoherent, inarticulate, and repetitive in unplanned talks might occur in spoken discourse and there were a significant number of false starts,

 Bottom-up processing

One of the views of listening dominating language pedagogy since the early 1980s was bottom-up processing Bottom-up process was proposed by Rumelhart and Ortony (1977) and expanded upon by Chaudron and Richards (1986), Richards (1990) and others Nunan (1992) regarded the bottom-up

processing model as a listening process of “decoding the sounds that one

hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts” In this view, phonemic units were decoded and linked together to form words, words were linked together to form phrases, phrases were linked together to form utterances, and utterances were linked together

to form complete, meaningful texts Therefore, students needed to know the code in order to decode sounds The code consisted of how the sounds worked, how they strung together and how the code could change in different ways when it was strung together This process was a linear one in which meaning itself was derived as the last step It was called the “listener as tape recorder view” of listening because listeners took in and stored messages consecutively, in much the same way as a tape recorder - one sound, one word, one phrase, and one utterance at a time (Anderson and Lynch, 1988) Moreover, the ways how the linguistic competence of a listener worked to 'build' toward comprehension of a message were described by bottom-up

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processes According to Peterson (2001), these were the lower level processes that worked to construct meaning from recognition of sounds and words, which, when identified, were fit into larger phrasal units and then matched with related ideas stored in long-term memory Brown (2007, p 312) noted that bottom-up processing focused on sounds, words, intonation, grammatical structures, and other components of spoken language At lower levels of language proficiency, the activation of bottom-up processing was thought to impose a great strain on conscious attention and working memory

In bottom-up strategies, listeners relied on the language in the message which was a combination of sounds, words, and grammar that created meaning These strategies consisted of: listening for specific details, recognizing cognates, and recognizing word-order patterns Depending on listeners’ purposes for listening, they needed to learn how to use the process

to their advantage Mendelsohn (2001) pointed out that in real-life listening people listened in different ways, depending on their purpose of listening

 Teaching bottom-up processing

Ur (1985)’s teaching bottom-up processing of was composed of: identifying the antecedents of pronouns; recognising if a sentence was active

or passive; distinguishing between sentences containing causative and causative elements; identifying major components of a sentence; recognising the use of intonation; recognising the time reference of a sentence; distinguishing between positive and negative sentences; identifying particles

non-in rapid speech; and identifynon-ing missnon-ing particles non-in colloquial speech

What is more, Richards (1990) concentrated on text-based aspects when using bottom-up process A typical exercise was given, for example, hear a word and repeat it: “I will hear a word and I repeat it over and over” The author also presented other ways to make use of the process such as listening

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for structure “Students listened for verbs, and then tried to fit them with nouns”; listening for specific details and recognising cognates (1995, p.29) Besides, Rubin (1994) suggested that listeners focused on the meaning of individual like:

- Recognising individual phonemes

- Recognising stressed syllables

- Recognising syllable reduction due to weak forms and/ or elision

- Recognising assimilation, this was when a sound changed to become more like another sound which followed or preceded it

Peterson (1991) and Brown (2001) shared the same views of using

bottom-up processing in teaching listening which included:

- Discriminating between intonation contours in sentences

- Discriminating between phonemes

- Listening for word endings

- Recognising syllable patterns

- Being aware of sentence fillers in informal speech

- Recognising words, discriminating between word boundaries

- Picking out details

- Differentiating between content and function words by stress pattern

- Finding the stressed syllables

- Recognising words with weak or central vowels

- Recognising when syllables or words are dropped

- Recognising words when they were linked together in streams of speech

- Using features of stress, intonation and prominence to help identify important information

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- Listening for specific details

- Recognising cognates

- Recognising word-order patterns

Nunan (1992) explained that such things as knowledge of the topic at hand, the speaker or speakers, and their relationship to the situation, as well as

to each other and prior events were all related to context and situation Similarly, Richards (1990) pointed out that the background knowledge required for top-down processing might be previous knowledge about the topic of discourse, situational or contextual knowledge, or knowledge in the form of “schemata” or “scripts” - plans about the overall structure of the events and relationships between them

The top-down processing referred to how listeners used their world knowledge to attribute meaning to language input; how their knowledge of social convention helped them understand meaning Listeners applied top-down processing when using their context and prior knowledge like topic, genre, culture, and other schema knowledge in long-term memory to build a conceptual framework for comprehension

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Another study made by Buck (1994) considered top-down processing as one in which listening comprehension was achieved through processing that involved prediction and inference on the basis of the hierarchies of facts, propositions, and expectations by using an internal source such as prior knowledge Using this process, listeners could ignore some detailed information and researchers could consider the fact that listening comprehension might not a unidirectional ability

 Teaching top-down processing

Ur (1985) highlighted the following steps for using top-down process to teach listening:

- Listening to part of a conversation and inferring the topic

- Looking at the pictures, then listening to conversations about the pictures and matching them to the pictures

- Listening to conversations and identifying the settings

- Reading a list of key points to be covered in a talk, then numbering them in the sequence heard while listening to the talk

- Reading information about a topic, then listening to talk on the topic and checking whether the information was mentioned or not

- Reading one side of a telephone conversation and guessing the other speaker´s responses, then listening to the telephone conversation

- Looking at the pictures of people and guessing what they might

be saying or doing, then listening to how the story really ended

Richards (1990) brought out a top-down learning strategy with some illustration that teachers could apply in class The researcher presented a careful procedure with these steps: (1) listening for topics, then details – students started thinking about what could be electric; (2) putting a series of

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pictures or sequence of events in order; (3) listening to conversations and identifying where they took place; (3) reading information about the topic then listening to identify whether or not the same points were mentioned, or inferring the relation between the people involved

Also, Chamot (1994) brought a model up for teaching top-down processing In this model, listeners must think about the situation, try to understand the speaking purpose, and try to understand the speaking attitude Then, they predicted what speakers would say The last step was to focus on conversation themes

Rubin (1994) appreciated that listeners might emphasize the gist of the whole listening instead of the meaning of individual words Picture details and global processing details might be included

1.1.2.4.1 A Combination of Bottom-up and Top-down Processing

 The need for an inclusion of the bottom-up and top-down processing During a long period of time, many studies have been done on using the bottom-up and top-down processing to teach listening As a consequence, diverse results have been drawn

The effects of training in top-down comprehension skills against

bottom-up recognition training were investigated by Polmes (2003) No significant differences between the two groups in the final comprehension measure were found Polmes attributed this finding to a discrepancy between the contents and exercises of the training and testing conditions, as well as the insufficient training

However, Osada (2001) used bottom-up processing on a study and attributed the lack of success in listening Based on the analysis of answers to question on idea unit analysis, the researcher found that low-proficiency

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Japanese students of English tended to adopt a mental translation approach to listening Osada was in favour of more emphasis on a top- down approach because beginner level listeners could not construct meaning when they processed connected speech on a word-by-word basis only Thus, they used previous knowledge in order to contextualize a situation

Conversely, Hulstijin (2001) suggested that the development of top-down strategies be inadequate for linguistic input to become an intake for L2 learning The researcher also argued that bottom-up skills needed to be developed at the beginner level so that all the components of the acoustic signal became meaningful units for the listener Moreover, the researcher stated that bottom-up and top-down strategies did not act independently While the relationship between both was not fully understood, it was clear that there was some sort of compensatory relationship between them In case one process did not work effectively, the other would assist listeners in order

to have meaningful listening comprehension

From the results of such previous studies above, it was essential to have an appropriate processing to teach and learn listening Consequently, interactive processing, an inclusion of the bottom-up and top-down processing, came into being The processing was expected to be a good method for teaching and learning

 The importance of interactive processing

Nunan (2002) clarified that listening comprehension was neither top-down nor bottom-up processing It was an interactive, interpretative process where listeners employed both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge to make sense of the incoming message It was necessary that the learner got awareness of how to use those learning strategies in efficient and effective ways Learners would need to balance top-down with bottom-up strategies

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during the listening comprehension process While a top-down approach would help learners develop real-life listening skills, bottom-up would help them develop word recognition skills

Listening comprehension was an inferential process (Rost, 2002) Linguistic knowledge and world knowledge interacted as listeners created a mental representation of what they heard Bottom-up and top-down processes were applied to get to this mental representation and achieve comprehension Rost (2002) defined listening as a process of receiving what the speaker actually said, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding, and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy To listen well, listeners must have the ability to decode the message, the ability to apply a variety of strategies and interactive processes to make meaning, and the ability to respond to what was said in a variety of ways, depending on the purpose of the communication Listening involved listening for thoughts, feelings, and intentions To sum up, it was widely admitted that listening comprehension was not merely the process of a unidirectional receiving of audible symbols, but an interactive process (Brown, 2001) In the eight processes of comprehension (Clark & Clark, 1977; Brown, 2001) the hearer, after receiving the information, assigned a literal meaning to the utterance first and then assigned an intended meaning to the utterance A key to human communication was the ability to match perceived meaning with intended meaning

The interactive processing overcame the disadvantages of bottom-up processing and top-down processing to augment the comprehension It was more generally accepted that both top-down and bottom-up listening processing should be combined to enhance listening comprehension

1.1.2.4.2 Teaching Interactive Processing

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The degree to which listeners used the one process or the other would depend on their knowledge of the language, the familiarity with the topics or the purpose of listening For example, listening for gist involved primarily top-down processing, whereas listening for specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involved primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all the desired details

Listening as a process, therefore, required listeners’ conscious use of strategies and should involve the parallel interaction between bottom-up and top down processing This interactive process known as parallel processing required the learner to use background knowledge (top-down) to interpret meaning and linguistic knowledge (bottom-up) in order to discriminate between familiar sounds The goal was for the language listeners to use parallel processing in order to perceive, interpret, and respond to the information being heard (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2009, p 185)

A typical lesson in current teaching materials involved a three-part sequence consisting of pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening and contained activities that linked bottom-up and top-down listening (Field, 1998) The pre-listening phase prepared students for both top-down and bottom-up processing through activities involving activating prior knowledge, making predictions, and reviewing key vocabulary The while-listening phase focused on comprehension through exercises that required selective listening, gist listening, sequencing, etc The post-listening phase typically involved a response to comprehension and might require students to give opinions about

a topic However, it could also include a bottom-up focus if the teacher and the listeners examined the texts or parts of the text in detail, focusing on sections which students could not follow This might involve a microanalysis

of sections of the text to enable students to recognize such features as blends,

a look at the development of listening strategies through decades

In 1990, O’Malley and Chamot marked a body of language comprehension learning strategies, and an accompanying classification scheme grounded

strategies in cognitive theory Listeners used meta-cognitive, cognitive and

socio-affective strategies to facilitate comprehension and to make their learning more effective Meta-cognitive strategies were important because they oversaw, regulated or directed the language learning process These strategies, which involved thinking about the learning process, included planning, monitoring, and evaluating Cognitive strategies manipulated the material to be learned or applied a specific technique to a listening task Socio-affective strategies described the techniques listeners used to collaborate with others, to verify understanding or to lower anxiety Studies showed that skilled listeners used more meta-cognitive strategies than their less-skilled counterparts (Vandergrift, 1997a) When listeners knew how to (1) analyse the requirements of a listening task; (2) activate the appropriate listening processes required; (3) make appropriate predictions; (4) monitor their comprehension; and (5) evaluate the success of their approach, they were using meta-cognitive knowledge for successful listening comprehension This was critical to the development of self-regulated learning (Wenden, 1998) Also, Thompson & Rubin (1996) investigated the effects of meta-cognitive and cognitive strategy instruction on the listening comprehension performance of American university students learning Russian They found

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that the subjects who received strategy instruction in listening to recorded texts improved significantly over those who had received no instruction

video-Furthermore, Laviosa (1999) examined the implementation of a cognitive apprenticeship approach to L2 listening comprehension with intermediate learners of Italian This model with teacher's and students' interrelated activities consisted of such steps as eliciting, modelling, observing, coaching, scaffolding, and fading assistance Vandergrift (1999) had also explained how L2 listeners could use strategies to enhance their learning processes and how teachers could nurture the development of listening strategies

In short, there were a number of listening strategies which could indeed be practiced in order to improve learners’ listening ability Teachers could use different strategies which should be suitable for the students’ situations to enhance their listening The study would be focused on the cognitive strategies that linked bottom–up and top-down during the listening comprehension task

1.2 Review of Previous Studies Related to the Research Area of the Thesis

Al-Qaraghooly & Al-Bermani (2010) conducted a research on the effect of bottom-up and top-down processing on developing EFL students’ listening comprehension The researchers chose 130 second-year students at Department of English, College of Education, University of Babylon as samples of the study in order to get better results in conducting their experiment The population was divided into two sections Section A, with fifty-three students, was randomly chosen to be in the bottom-up processing group, and section B, with fifty-three students, was randomly chosen to be in

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the top-down processing group Twenty-four students were randomly chosen

as a pilot sample Two students were excluded because they did not attend the post-test administration Thus, the total number of the main sample was 104 students: 52 students in each group The results of the research indicated that although the two groups achieved success in listening, the similar standing of both bottom-up and top-down processing in developing the learners’ listening comprehension gave support to the view that advocated utilizing the two types of processing at the same time Incorporating both bottom-up and top-down processing interactively yielded better results than handling each of them alone It was concluded that listening comprehension was a complex, active and interactive process in which both bottom-up and top-down processing operated and contributed to the ultimate aim of understanding auditory stimuli

Villegas (2013) made a study on the use of the inclusion of bottom-up and top-down processes in listening comprehension tasks for second semester students from an English license program The research was conducted in a state university located in the growing-region of Colombia with six participants from the degree program Such students were exposed to listening tasks designed by the researcher The exposure took approximately one month Each lesson taught to the participants included three phases (pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening) which were made by the combination of bottom-up and top-down processes After the research, it was found that the learning of bottom-up and top-down strategies through the guided implementation of different strategies as inferring, contextualization, and prediction allowed the learners to connect previous knowledge with new information which facilitated the understanding of the audio In relation to the students perceptions of bottom-up and top-down, a positive perspective in the

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listening comprehension task was perceived as most of the participants argued

to feel supported in their understanding of listening activities, something they considered to increase their motivation The participants argued that bottom-

up and top-down strategies were necessary as they raised their listening comprehension, and made them become aware of the importance of taking the advantage of available information to identify specific details

Duong (2012) did an MA thesis about using bottom-up techniques in teaching listening skill to the first-year students at Thai Nguyen University of Technology This study was carried out with the participation of 70 first-year non-majored English students who are at elementary level The subjects took part in the 17-week experimental teaching The research was conducted as a quantitative study, using the pre-test, mid-term test and post-test along with the questionnaire to collect data After the experimental teaching, it was found that the first-year students at Thai Nguyen University of Technology had shown a good view to bottom-up techniques Bottom-up techniques brought positive effects on the students’ listening skills Then, it was concluded that bottom-up techniques could be used to enhance Thai Nguyen University of Technology first-year English students’ listening comprehension

Apart from these studies, there were a plenty of works conducted related to using the integration of bottom-up and top-down processing Several conclusions could be reached from these studies First, although bottom-up and top-down processing positively had different influences on students’ listening, they should be combined to get better results in teaching and learning Second, realizing the benefits of using both bottom-up and top-down processing after the instruction, most learners started to learn how to use it to raise their listening comprehension Finally, there were studies on applying discourse processing to teaching listening in Vietnam However, these studies

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CHAPTER 2: METHODS 2.1 Research Setting

The study was conducted at Hanoi College of Education There are 9 departments, about 150 lecturers, and 9000 students in the college Foreign Language Department there has two majors, English language teaching and Business and Tourism, focusing on two main languages, English and Chinese There are 3 classes in each major so the department has 6 classes studying English and 6 classes studying Chinese

The study just focused on first-year students in English language teaching classes It is a special point in the college that students majoring in teaching have to be from Hanoi Thus, their English proficiency is quite equal and most of them have favourable learning conditions In students’ first year at the college, they had two semesters mainly studying four English skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) The listening materials used in 30 periods in

semester 1 are in 1 and Let’s talk 1 and those in semester 2 are

Listen-in 2 and Let’s talk 2 After usListen-ing these textbooks to teach class K39A, K39B,

and K39C in semester 1, the researcher received students’ reflections which showed that they could not find any good method to study listening well Due

to the students’ confusion about learning listening, the researcher decided to apply a new method in teaching with a high expectation of improving their listening skills

2.2 Subjects

Subjects under this investigation are 60 students (2 males and 58 females) from two classes, K39A and K39B, at Hanoi College of Education, of which the researcher is in charge Before conducting the study, the subjects took a test to access their listening proficiency It is found that most of the students

in these classes are at pre-intermediate level

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There were three reasons for the researcher to choice the two classes Firstly, they were the ones the researcher was in charge of Secondly, the students took their first steps studying listening skills so they were at a loss how to listen well Finally, most students had little knowledge of the language they studied, which made it difficult for them to understand information while listening As a result, the two classes were chosen to use interactive process to improve listening as soon as they started studying listening skills It was expected that the students could enhance their listening skills and find a suitable way to study

2.3 Research types

The research was conducted as a quantitative and qualitative study in order

to achieve its goal which is using interactive process to improve the first-year students’ listening skills Quantitative data were collected by using pre-test, post-test, and questionnaires Also, students’ diaries were used to gather qualitative data

2.4 Research Approaches

The characteristics of action research were stated by Hult and Lennung (1980) and Mckernan (1991), which are as follows:

- Aiming at improving the quality of human actions

- Being in an on-going cycle process, i.e the feedback from data collected can be used to improve the next steps in the research

- Being formative, i.e the researcher may witness the alteration in definition, aims and methodology

- Contributing to a science of education

- Being collaborative, i.e the research involves all contribution to improve the understanding and action

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These features were reflected in this study Firstly, the aim of the study was to improve the current situation of teaching listening skills for first-year students at Hanoi College of Education Secondly, the study would contribute

to the science of language education Thirdly, the study included the researcher’s intervention on other participants’ listening competence Fourthly, the study was formed with several uncertainties and suspicions, thus, it needed the alteration and improvement from the research process Finally, the answers to the research questions needed answering as participants reflected on their own improvement, interest and emotion during the research In general, action research is a good choice for this study on account of the suitability in target, design and characteristics of the study Nunan (1992, p 19), Nunan, (1993, pp 41-42) and Bailey, Curtis, and Nunan, (2001, p 137) put forwards this action research model:

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Figure 1: Action Research Model

This study strictly followed the general steps of an action research cycle suggested by Nunan

2.5 Data Collection Instruments

2.5.1 Pre-test and Post-test

During the research, the students were asked to take two listening tests

The first test (See Appendix 1) was conducted at the first week The other (See

Appendix 2) was carried out in week 6 They were designed for students at

pre-intermediate level Both tests had the same form, number of questions, and level of difficulty Each test included two tasks with 10 questions, 4 multiple-choice questions in task 1 and 6 True/False questions in task 2 After marking two tests, the researcher compared the results so as to reveal any improvement that students had made during the experimental teaching

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2.5.2 Questionnaires

Two questionnaires were delivered to students after they had finished the pre-test and post-test

In the former questionnaire (See Appendix 3) conducted after the pre-test,

15 questions were designed in order to find out problems related to interactive process students might get when learning listening The first five questions were designed to investigate the subject’s English listening situation such as their listening results last semester, their thought of listening, their self-evaluation of listening skills, their own experience of listening, and the materials they had used in class The last ten questions were designed based

on Underwood’s seven conceivable causes of obstacles to efficient listening comprehension (1989) The first one listed a number of difficulties students encountered The next eight questions delved into specific problems students often got: speakers, vocabulary, unfamiliar words and structures, pronunciation, stress and intonation in spoken language, connected speech, and structures in spoken language The last question focused on what students expected the teacher to do so as to help them improve their listening skills

The latter questionnaire (See Appendix 4) consisted of two main parts: The

first part was composed of six questions which are to evaluate students’ satisfaction after the experimental teaching The second part asks for students’ suggestion for improvement in the next teaching

2.5.3 Diaries

To collect more data, each student was asked to keep a diary during the research program Diaries were described as “regular dated accounts of teaching/learning plans, activities and classroom occurrences, including personal philosophies, feelings, reactions, reflections, observations, explanations” (Burns & Hood, 1995, p.8) Thus, the students’ diaries helped

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the researcher accurately detect what the students learnt and how they thought and felt about the lessons Because diaries were essentially private documents, students were asked if they agreed with the researcher about using their diaries for the research After receiving their agreement, the researcher gave the students some hints based on Sinanu et all (2007) to write in their diaries

(See Appendix 5)

2.6 Intervention: Instruction of Interactive Process in Class

2.6.1 Listening Materials

The textbook used as listening materials for the first-year students in

semester 2 was Let’s talk 2 Besides, Listen-in 2 was used as a supplementary

material, which students would use to practice listening at home There was a course outline with detailed information about what to teach and study each week during the course As the students had finished Listening 1 in semester

1 using Let’s talk 1, the textbook Let’s talk 2 was suitable for them to enhance

their listening skills in semester 2 In the book, there were a plenty of activities to help the students develop listening skills Thus, the research still used this textbook for the research However, in order to make the materials more efficient and effective, the research would add some extra materials out

of the textbook

2.6.2 The Instruction in Interactive Process

During a listening lesson, it was necessary to elicit the subjects’ knowledge through the use of listening activities Filed (1988) proposed a typical lesson that involved a three-part sequence consisting of pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening as well as contained activities that linked bottom-up and top-down listening

- Pre-listening activities: served as preparation for listening in several

ways The teacher set a purpose or decided in advance what to listen

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for, decided if more linguistic or background knowledge was needed and also determined whether to enter the text from the top-down process (attend to the overall meaning) or from the bottom-up process (focus on the words and phrases) Thus, this phase made students aware

of the type of text they would be listening to, the role they would play, and the purpose for which they would be listening

- While-listening activities: were directly related to engagement with

text, which students did during or immediately after the time they had listened Such activities as deciding what was and was not important to understand, used predicting to encourage students to monitor their comprehension as they listened, used questions to focus students' attention on the elements of the text which was crucial to comprehension of the whole would be done in this phase

- Post-listening Activities: Teacher wrote questions on the board and

asked students to answer them Students were also stimulated to talk and actively participate in the task; moreover, the teacher needed to encourage students to respond to what they heard For example, teacher might ask questions like “Do you agree?” which encouraged debate Thus, during listening activities learners could be provided with the general background and key vocabulary in advance

2.7 Data Collection Procedures

The procedures of the study were as follows:

Week 1: The pre-test was administered to the subjects After finishing and submitting the pre-test to the researcher, the subjects were introduced to the research program They had some background knowledge of interactive process Then, the subjects were asked to give their opinions on keeping their own diaries during the research It was assured that their diaries would be secretly kept and

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used only for the research After all, the researcher asked the subjects to respond

to the first questionnaire

Week 2 – Week 5: The experimental teaching started The researcher applied

interactive process to teach listening The textbook Let’s talk 2 was used During

this period, the subjects gradually got familiar with interactive process The procedures of teaching in a listening lesson suggested by Filed (1998) were as follows:

Firstly, based on the textbook, the subjects participated in activities involving activating prior knowledge, making predictions, and reviewing key vocabulary

at pre-listening stage The activities might be ready in the textbook or designed

by the researcher in order to be suitable for the subjects and the topic

Secondly, the while-listening stage focused on comprehension through exercises that required selective listening, gist listening, sequencing, and so on Also, depending on the difficulty of the record, the subjects could listen again and focus on sections they could not follow This might enable the subjects to recognize such features as blends, reduced words, ellipsis, and other features of spoken discourse

Finally, the subjects were asked to respond to comprehension or give opinions about the topic

Week 6: The post-test was given to the subjects After the test papers had been finished and collected, the subjects were asked to fill in the second questionnaire

All the study procedures are shown in the following table

Week

In-class

1 Introduction and - Subjects were introduced to the research

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orientation program

- Subjects were administered the pre-test

- Subjects were asked to fill in questionnaire 1

cooking

- Subjects received interactive processing instruction though the listening lesson

3 Relationships - Subjects received interactive processing

instruction though the listening lesson

4 Earning a living - Subjects received interactive processing

instruction though the listening lesson

5 Leisure time - Subjects received interactive processing

instruction though the listening lesson

6 Consolidation - Subjects were administered the post-test

- Subjects were asked to fill in questionnaire 2

Table 1: Procedures of the Study

2.8 Data Analysis

Three sets of data obtained from the data collection included:

- Pre-test and post-test: they aimed at exploring any improvement in the subjects’ listening skills after interactive process had been applied in the listening class After the tests had been finished, correct answers were manually counted The data collected from the tests were quantitatively analysed by SPSS tool

- Questionnaires: the data were quantitatively analysed using descriptive approach The descriptive analyses were then reported in percentages

so that the results of the preliminary investigation and intervention were clearly demonstrated