APPLYING DICTATION ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION AT DONG HY HIGH SCHOOL, THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

-LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ personal information………..…….34 Table 2: Evaluation of listening skill………..…………..35 Table 3: Types of lessons used in the process of learning listening

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUYEN TRANG

APPLYING DICTATION ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION AT DONG HY HIGH

SCHOOL, THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

trường THPT Đông Hỷ)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN - 2020

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUYEN TRANG

APPLYING DICTATION ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION AT DONG HY HIGH

SCHOOL, THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the research titled “Applying Dictation on Grade 11 Students’ Listening Comprehension at Dong Hy High School, Thai Nguyen province” is my own unaided work I further certify that it has not been submitted before for any degree or any examination to any other university Any reference to work written by any person and institution obtained from other sources have been cited and referenced

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Ngo Thi Bich Ngoc, who gave me a lot of significant suggestions, consideration and encouragements throughout my research

I wish to convey my thanks to teachers and all my students at grade 11 at Dong

Hy high school, who contributed to the data of my research

My sincere thanks go to my all members of my beloved family, who have constantly supported me in my study

ABSTRACT

Effective listening comprehension has been acknowledged as a key factor to

an excellent academic performance among students In fact, it is always a hindrance

to students Therefore, many students feel streessed to understand the information For these reasons, the aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of dictation

on the development of grade 11th students’ listening ability at Dong Hy high school The instruments for the collection of the data were pre-test, post-test and questionnaires The participants were 90 grade 11th students at Dong Hy high school and they are divided into two groups, experimental and control group with the same students The data was collected by questionnaire, pre-test and post-test From the calculation of t-test, the result of the data analysis revealed that t-value of 6.648 was higher than critical value of 1.987 at 0.05 level of significance It meant that the students who were taught with dictation performed better than those taught without this technique

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 7

1.1 Rationale 7

1.2 Research questions 8

1.3 Scope of the study 9

1.4 Method of the study 9

1.5 Thesis structure 9

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 General concepts of listening 11

2.1.1 Definitions of listening 11

2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension 12

2.2 Model and theories of listening comprehension 12

2.2.1 The intake model 12

2.2.2 The monitor model 13

2.2.3 The pragmatics model 13

2.3 Affective motivation on listening 13

2.4 Kinds of listening 14

2.4.1 Initial listening 14

2.4.2 False listening 14

2.4.3 Selective listening 14

2.4.4 Partial listening 14

2.4.5 Full listening 14

2.4.6 Deep listening 15

2.4.7 Discriminative listening 15

2.4.8 Biased listening 15

2.4.9 Evaluative listening 15

2.4.10 Sympathetic listening 16

2.4.11 Therapeutic listening 16

2.4.12 Appreciated listening 16

2.5 The process of listening 16

2.5.1 The process of receiving the information 16

2.5.2 Attending 17

2.5.3 Comprehending 17

2.5.4 Responding 17

2.5.5 Remembering 17

2.6 The nature of listening 18

2.7 The importance of listening 19

2.8 Stages in listening 20

2.9 General concepts of dictation 20

2.9.1 Definitions of dictation 20

2.9.2 Characteristics of dictation 23

2.9.3 Kinds of dictation 23

2.10 Advantages of dictation 26

2.11 Principles of dictation 28

2.12 Connection between dictation and listening 29

2.13 Potential problems while using dictation 30

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 Research Design 31

3.2 Participants 31

3.3 Data collection instruments 31

3.3.1 Questionnaire 31

3.3.2 Tests 32

3.4 Research procedure 32

3.5 Data analysis 32

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 33

4.1 Result of questionnaire 33

4.1.1 The students’ background information 33

4.1.2 Evaluation about listening skills in the process of studying English 35

4.1.3 Types of exercises usually used in listening English lessons 35

4.1.4 The students’ listening level 36

4.1.5 The students’ attitude about listening skills 36

4.2 Result of tests 38

4.2.1 Distribution of pretest scores of the two groups 38

4.2.2 Distribution of posttest scores of the two groups 40

4.2.3 Level of effectiveness of dictation technique 41

4.2.4 Level of the students’ listening comprehension reflected by pretest 43

-4.2.5 Significant difference between the listening comprehension of students taught with dictation and group without this technique 43

4.3 Discussion 44

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 47

5.1 Findings 47

5.2 Conclusion 47

5.3 Recommendations 48

5.4 Limitation of the study 50

REFERENCES 51

APPENDICES 54

-LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Students’ personal information……… …….34 Table 2: Evaluation of listening skill……… ………… 35 Table 3: Types of lessons used in the process of learning listening

skills……….….35 Table 4: Dificulties students have to face in listening……….……….37 Table 5: Students’ assesment of dictation……… 38 Table 6: The number of correct answers in the pretest of control group and

experimental group……… ….39 Table 7: The number of correct answers in the posttest of control group and

experimental group……….… 40 Table 8: Mean gain score of the two groups……….… 42 Table 9: Test of difference in the mean pretest correct answers between group using dictation technique and group without

dictation……….…………43 Table 10: Test of difference in the mean posttest scores between experimental class and control class in terms of listening

comprehension……… ………….………… 44

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: Students’ listening level……… 36 Chart 2: The students’ attitude about listening skills……… ….37

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the rationale, objectives, research questions, research methodology, scope and thesis structure

1.1 Rationale

Language is the most important thing for people as a means of communication

It is basically a means of both spoken and written communication People use language to express their ideas and wishes to other people such as when they need others help so that close relation among members of the group can be carried out (Ramelan, 1993: 8) Ramelan (1993) further states that “the use of language enables the members of a social group to cooperate with one another for their own benefit.”

It is important to learn English because it is an international language which is used

in many countries over the world and widely used in many sectors such as information, trade, aviation, science, education, etc

In Vietnam, the importance of English has been realized because English is considered to play a crucial role on the path of industrialization and modernization of the country as well as on the way of regional and international integration Therefore, English is now taught in all levels of schools all over the country in order that the students are familiar with English and can use and communicate in English well Of all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, listening is always considered

to be the most difficult for teachers to teach and for students to improve themselves, which leads to the fact that most learners have low level of proficiency in their listening skills In fact, in the process of teaching and learning English, listening plays

an important role since it involves various kinds of learners‟ knowledge and it is closely related to other skills, especially speaking skills White (1998) pointed out that being a good listener involves collaborating with speakers and taking an active role in asking for clarification when you do not understand Later on, the ability to understand the native speakers on the radio or tape may be important for learners to further study the language and communicate in it

At Dong Hy High School where the researcher has been working, like at other high schools in Vietnam, English has been a compulsory subject for many years

However, the teachers of English here are facing the problem of their grade-11 students’ low level of listening in their classrooms While there has been a variety of techniques used to improve listening skills for these students, most of them have not been really effective One idea of using dictation to improve listening skill for the students has exercised my mind Moreover, according to researchers’ opinion, dictation has a number of advantages For instance, Brown (2000) states that dictation can be done with any level, depending on the text carefully designed and applied and

it can be graded for a multi-level class Besides, Montalvan (2006) points out that dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is During and after the dictation, all students prove very active The dictation passage can be completely prepared in advance and administered quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher Likewise, Pappas (1977) considers dictation as a good means of developing learners’ listening skills

For grade-11 students’ problems of low listening competence and as one of the teachers of English of this school, the researcher would like to improve grade-11 students’ listening skills, and hope to be able to apply in the high schools where most

of the students have low listening competence All considered, the researcher chose

to conduct a study on “Applying dictation on grade 11 students’ listening

comprehension at Dong Hy High School, Thai Nguyen province”

1.2 Research questions

This reasearch aims at investigating the use of dictation technique in teaching English and finding out whether the use of this technique is useful in improving listening skills for grade-11 students at Dong Hy high school, Thai Nguyen province

Particularly, this research tried to find the answers for the following questions:

of learners who are given dictation technique and the listening comprehension ability of those who are not applied the dictation practice?

 To what extent does the practice of dictation improve grade 11th students’ English listening comprehension at Dong Hy high school?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study focused on using dictation technique in listening comprehension for the students at grade 11th at Dong Hy high school Due to the students’ result of English subject at grade 10, the researcher chose 90 students who have low level of English to be participants of the study Because of the limit of time, the researcher divided 90 students into two different groups The intended outcome of the result was

to draw conclusions on the use of dictation as a learning tool

1.4 Method of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, the researcher uses both quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires for teachers and listening tests for students

1.5 Thesis structure

The thesis contains five main chapters Each chapter discusses the content as follows:

Chapter 1: The Introduction reveals the rationale of the study, the objectives

of the research, the research questions and the scope of the study The chapter ends with the structure of the thesis

Chapter 2: The Literature Review explores the relevant literature and an attempt to develop the theoretical framework for the study

Chapter 3: The thesis methodology presents the method of the research It also declares the information of the research participants, instruments, methods of collecting data and method of analyzing data

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion provide the details of the analysis which consists of general description, data analysis and findings and discussion

Chapter 5 presents conclusions of the research, limitations and suggestions for further researches

In the last part of the study, to assure that the study is really valid, the researcher gives references and appendices

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, a brief review of the literature related to listening comprehension and diction technique will be presented The review will cover a brief discussion of definition, listening strategies, motivation, and several previous studies

2.1 General concepts of listening

2.1.1 Definitions of listening

There are different points of views on the definition of listening Listening is

an essential element of communication and it is also essential for interaction A learner can express himself orally he/she is never able to communicate with speakers

of English if he/she is unable to understand what is said to him As Rivers (1981) observes speaking does not in itself constitute communication unless what is said is

“Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe Learners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate

as well as the large social-cultural context of utterance”

While listening is also defined by Rost (1990: 41) as follows “Listening is vital

in the classroom because it provides the input for students Without understanding the input at the right level, any learning simply can’t begin”

Grant (1987:19) states that the listening skill includes everything from learning particular sound to comprehending complicated message Without this skill, communication can break down Therefore, successful communication really depends on listeners or receivers of messages Steil & Watson (1982: 22) also suggested that listening is a major communication activity

Listening is supposed to be one of the most frequent language skill was used

It plays a vital role in communication and the education process According to Brown (2000), this receptive skill is spent more than 40% in our everyday communication

It means that nearly half of the adult working day and more than half of the students’ classroom activity time is spent on listening

Richards (2008) defines listening is a receptive skill which helps students to comprehend the conversation

Cohen (1990) showed that listening consists of giving attention to the sounds

in order to gain meaning The message must be given adequate attention that it can

supersede all other competing sounds and be understood Moreover, Buck (2001) indicated that listening comprehension is a “complex and multidimensional process” This process requires listeners to use the phonological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic knowledge to comprehend an aural input Many factors are involved which determine how successfully a listener comprehends a message she/he listens Furthermore,Hoven (1999) states that listening comprehension is also influenced by listeners’ interaction with the text, the process and the interlocutor

2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension

The term “listening comprehension” has been defined by different authors According to Brown and Yule (1983), listening comprehension means that a person understands what he/she has heard If he/she learns the text through hearing it, he/she will understand it Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor (1984) defined listening comprehension as the product of teaching methodology and is matched by terms such

as speech understanding, spoken language understanding, speech recognition, and speech perception Beside, Rost (2002) and Hamouda (2013) defined listening comprehension as an interactive process in which listeners are involved in constructing meaning Listeners comprehend the oral input through sound discrimination, previous knowledge, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, and the other linguistic or non-linguistic clues

According to Nadig (2013), listening comprehension is the various processes

of understanding and making sense of spoken language These involve knowing speech sounds, comprehending the meaning of individual words, and understanding the syntax of sentences

2.2 Model and theories of listening comprehension

2.2.1 The intake model

According to Richards (1986), our brain receives the information and stores, arranges and organizes this information Therefore, our brain further affects to decisions and produces responses to the speaker Sometimes listener receives the information, but our mind may be not process it

2.2.2 The monitor model

In this model, the students can understand input language when they are just a bit beyond their current level The students may comprehend the messages if discourse markers showed the internal connection of the lessons because the speaker conveyed the information and support the students’ schemata to build

2.2.3 The pragmatics model

According to Sperber and Wilson (1986), the goal of pragmatic model is comprehension which is used to explain how comunication happens in social contexts Learners stimulate their previous knowledge in order to interpret the meaning of the announcement They selectively join in the utterances, they explain their propositional meaning via phonological-syntactic analysis Moreover, the make the interpreted propositions and order it into a hierarchical representation The listeners also clarify a possible pragmatic meaning of expression which is a plausible intention in a special contexts The main theory of this model is that the stages are interdependent

Van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) stated that listeners have tendency to use two major techniques in comprehension which are global and local coherence Global techniques are considered as top-down technique which discover macro-structure of the discourse topic, recognize the main ideas and the relationship between major ideas While local techniques are believed as bottom-up that connect clauses to make sense of discourse

2.3 Affective motivation on listening

Affective motivation has been revealed by many researchers that it plays an

important role in the performance of the learners According to Buck (2001), listening

comprehension tasks include different topics, new vocabulary, or unfamiliar accents

Another affective thing is motivation with the reason that listening is an active process Motivation and cognitive strategies are part of clusters of variables which contribute to the learners’ listening, and learner’s language development through keeping a listening log is improved by enhancing schemata, motivation, cognitive and comprehension

2.4 Kinds of listening

2.4.1 Initial listening

Sometimes when we listen we hear the first few words and then start to think about what we want to say in return We then look for a point at which we can interrupt We are also not listening then as we are spending more time rehearsing what we are going to say about their initial point

2.4.2 False listening

False listening is considered when a person pretends to listen but actually she/he does not hear clearly what is being said The listeners may smile and show that they are understanding in almost the right positions, but do not take in anything is said This is a skill that may be honed by people who do a lot of inconsequential listening Their aim is to create a good impression in short space of time

2.4.3 Selective listening

Listening for particular part and ingoring other one is selective listening Listener have tendency to hear what they want to hear and pay less attetion to unneccessary detail

a short while This can be embarrassing, of course, if they suddenly ask your opinion

A tip here: own up, admitting that you had lost the thread of the conversation and asking them to repeat what was said

2.4.5 Full listening

Full listening happens where the listener pays close and careful attention to what is being said, seeking carefully to understand the full content that the speaker

is seeking to put across This may be very active form of listening, with pauses for summaries and testing that understanding is complete By the end of the conversation, the listener and the speaker will probably agree that the listener has fully understood what was said Full listening takes much more effort than partial listening, as it requires close concentration, possibly for a protracted period It also requires skills of understanding and summary

2.4.6 Deep listening

You listen between the lines of what is being said, feeling the emotion, observing the body language, perceiving values It is called deep listening The listener need a deep understanding of psychology and pay attention not only to the words by the whole person in order to listen deeply

2.4.7 Discriminative listening

This is the most basic kind of listening which the difference between sounds

is identified The listener study to discriminate sounds within our own language early, and is unable to discriminate the different phonemes of other languages This is why

a person from one country feels that it is not easy to use another language to communicate perfectly The main reason is that they can not distinguish the sounds clearly Listening is not only a visual as well as auditory act because people use body language to express Thus, people need to have ability to discriminate muscle and skeletal movements

2.4.8 Biased listening

The person who only listens to what she/he wants to listen is considered as biased listening Biased listening is listening through filter of personal bias when the person only hear what they want, especially misinterpreting what others says

2.4.10 Sympathetic listening

Sympathetic listening means the listener discover other people’s feeling When listening excellent discrimination and attetion to emotional signals, the listener can feel the speaker’s feeling In this kind of listening, the listener care about the other person and express emotion for their feelings

2.5 The process of listening

There are 5 steps in the process of listening: The first one is the process of perceiving sounds from the listener Then, the sounds which the listener has perceived will be decoded and recognized as certain linguistic part which means attending the process Thirdly, the listeners continue to decode the form in order to comprehend the meaning of the form Fourthly, after understanding the message, the listeners respond to the speakers and try remember as the fifth step to finish the process of listening Kline (1996) showed that the three former steps are important and it is almost obliged in the listening process when the two latter may happen or not which depends on the listeners’ purposes

2.5.1 The process of receiving the information

According to Kline (1997), receiving the message happens when the receivers hear the sounds and try to perceive the information In other words, receiving is the process the message by hearing and distinguish the sounds Moreover, when listening the listeners should concentrate on what the speakers is saying to take the information

If they do not pay attention to the sounds and what being said, they will miss the messages

2.5.2 Attending

Klein (1997) also indiciated that this step takes place when the listeners pay attention to the message In other words, attending means concentrating on what the speaker is saying This process will not happen if the listeners are absent-minded or lose concentration

2.5.3 Comprehending

There are two main reasons causing misunderstanding the message The first reason is that there are numerous different words with the same meaning, so understanding the message correctly is necessary for communication The second one

is that the wrong predictions what will be said by the speakers which the listeners can not use language to communicate smoothly untill they comprehend the message In conclusion, understanding the message helps the listeners be successful communicator

2.5.4 Responding

Responding is an action which the listeners reply to the speakers’ message such as answering the questions, asking for clarification or paraphrasing Therefore, reponding is considered as a kind of feedback The listener have to understand the message to respond the speakers by giving spoken or written answers

2.5.5 Remembering

It is believed that this is the final part in the listening process It is not obliqued

to respond to the message Our memories relates to long-term and short-term memory Long-term memory is the process of remembering the information in their minds which had been received for a long time, while the latter keeps less amount of information in a short time then the listeners forget quickly

According to Kline (1997), remembering is ability of keeping the information

in the listeners’ mind and after that the listeners can use the message to discuss it even though it is not too important

In short, receiving, attending, comprehending, responding and remembering are lists of stages to get a succesful listening

2.6 The nature of listening

Listening, speaking, reading and writing are four main skills that students have

to acquire in learning language process They are divided into two groups of skill: the productive skills (speaking and writing) and receptive skills (listening and reading) According to Rost (2002),Listening is classified as one of the receptive skills because this involves receiving and building language instead of producing Listening thus is considered a receptive process which the listeners build sense of language According

to Vandergrift (1999), listening comprehension is:

“A complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socia-cultural context of the utterance”

This means that listening skill is active which the listeners are provoking the schemata, so there is a connection between their schemata and the information the listeners actually hear Although listening comprehension is an active process, it is also a complex skill It is complicated because the listeners need to distinguish different sounds and comprehend grammar and vocabulary Moreover, they also need

to concentrate on stress and intonation of the speakers’ voice The listeners also need

to have a background of English culture and society All these factors help the listeners to comprehend the meaning of the verbal message In short, to listen and understand what is being said acquire the complex thinking process

Brown (2006) also supported that listening is a complicated process to be mastered by students Listening in a foreign language is a difficult activity since it take lots of attention to remember the information and interpret it Listening requires the previous knowledge to facilitate the understanding The listeners also need to follow a list of steps to understand the information: perceiving, attending, interpreting, remembering and responding to what is being said

In addition, listening is dynamic because the listeners have to pass through many steps Firstly, giving awareness and concentrating on the message the listeners hearing After that, trying to understanding the meaning of message by using former knowledge, short-term as well as long-term memory Finally, applying information

to react and reply to the speakers

Hook (1950) indicated that when listening the listeners can use mental process

to understand the message There are numerous purposes of listening: listening to get information, listening for evaluating, so on

In conclusion, listening is a process which is dynamic, interpretive, and active Therefore, understanding listening’s nature is extremely vital for teachers and students

2.7 The importance of listening

Studying a foreign language in general and studying English in particular, students can improve their ability to comprehend the speech of the speakers through listening In addition, this skill also enhance learner’ pronunciation The more the learners listen and understand the language, the more they increase their pronunciation to be excellent speakers According to Hasan (2000), “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills” Thus, this skill can help the learners to receive the information and it is a tool to stimulate speaking and writing skills

Rost (1994) indicated that there are many reasons which can be roofs for interesting listening skill Firstly, learning starts when the learners receive input and listening supplies input for them Secondly, students have to pass the challenge to comprehend the English as a native speaker Finally, activities of this receptive skill considered as strategies help teachers draw the learners’ concentration on grammar and vocabulary For deep explanation, listening is important for lots of aims It provides ideas and knowledge to the learners Therefore, students have to comprehend the message to acquire knowledge

- Show images which are related to the topics;

- Give students background knowledge before listening;

- Make a discussion with the students through questions or funny activities related to the topic

It means that pre-listening is considered as a wam-up activity before starting lessons Thus, teachers present pictures or some suggestions to help students have a view of what they are going to listen

After that, during while-listening stage, students will try to comprehend the main idea of the message when teacher reads it twice Teacher provides students some questions to make students focus on the certain information During this time, the students take notes and check their notes after the second time of listening Students need to pay attention to listen carefully with the aim of writing down the messages and have general ideas Students then check their writing after the second listening Finally, the students respond their answers by comparing their notes with their partners or check it by themselves

The last stage is post-listening activity In this step, students use their previous knowledge to improve other skills, such as writing and speaking Students are expected to practice dictation, paraphrase and express their understanding In conclusion, these three stages both give students motivation in listening and enhance their knowledge as well as improve other skills

2.9 General concepts of dictation

2.9.1 Definitions of dictation

Dictation is a widely researched device of language teaching It is useful when well integrated with the teaching activities It is a teaching technique which has

proved extremely effective at all levels of instruction It ensures attentive listening, trains students to distinguish sounds, enables students to learn to transfer oral sounds

to written symbols, helps to develop aural comprehension and assists in evaluation Several experts gave their statements about dictation that are very useful for teachers Oller (1979: 39) states that:

self-“Dictation is a task which requires the processing of temporally constrained sequences of material in the language, divided up the stream of speech and then refers down what is heard requires understanding the meaning of the material”

According to Richards, Platt and Weber as quoted by Fachrurrazy (1989),

“Dictation is a technique used in both language teaching and language testing in which a passage is read aloud to students, with pauses during which they must try to write down what they heard as accurately as possible.”

According to Richards and Schmidt (2002), dictation is “ a technique used in both language teching and language testing in which a passage is read aloud to students or test takers, with pauses during which they must try to write down what they have heard accurately as possible” Moreover, dictation is the process that students copy down words what is being said aloud correctly

According to Ezenwsou (2001), students should be required to follow the steps: listening carefully, paying attention and then writing from dictation In other words, dictation is copying what is read directly after listening and paying attention

to the message According to Oller and Streiff (1975), “dictation taps the learner’s internalized grammar of expectancies at work during the listening”

Another explanation is that teacher dictates a passage to aid students to have the information in written To copy down the information, students need to listen accurately to have better comprehension It means that dictation technique is a useful technique in the process of teaching listening

According to Furman (1968), dictation is an exercise which has two advantages Firstly, it pushes the ability of reading and writing, punctuation, and spelling Secondly, it helps our ears to be sharpened Moreover, dictation is considered an useful technique in learning listening skill because it helps students

understand and remember what they have heard Moreover, Valette (1964) proved that dictation helps students to learn a foreign language effectively by showing what they can understand in written form and students need to understand the meaning of words to choose the suitable written form

Pappas (1977) stated that the aim of dictation is to improve listening skills, strengthen the memory and then guide students to copy down words of the message Therefore, the teacher should train students’ listening and concentration to create the ability of copying words from the passage

There are many kinds of dictation Sawyer and Silver (1972) points out that there are four kinds of dictation They are the phonemic item dictation, the phonemic text dictation, the orthographic item dictation and the orthographic text dictation

Dictation is a strategy which can be used for not only a testing technique but also it is applied as a learning exercise assisting students to improve and develop their accuracy in listening (Morris, 1983) Moreover, Morris also indicates that dictation

is the most efficient tool in order to pratice and improve listening

According to Davis and Rinvolucri (1993), dictation is the process of decoding the sounds and recording them by writing It means that when the teacher reads the information three times The teacher reads at a normal speed in the first time The second time the teacher reads phrase by phrase with suitable pausing to allow students

to copy down what they have listened The teache reads at a normal speed again in the last time in order that the students have time to check their work

From the definitions above, we can understand that dictation is a process of listening words, sentences or passages from the teacher and the students remember these information in their mind to write down When the teacher dictates the passage

to the students, the students not only concentrate on the sounds of words but they also comprehend the meaning and have ability to transfer the information to write It proved that dictation is used to evaluate the ability of the students, in this case is listening

From the definitions above, it can be said that dictation is an activity where a student transcribes a word, phrase, sentence or passage he hears

2.9.2 Characteristics of dictation

According to Zhiqian (1989) dictation serves the teacher and the students efficiently It has several characteristics as follows:

 Dictation can be used with a class of any size When the dictation is given, all

of the students are working, even in a very large class

 Dictation ensures attentive listening When the students are doing a dictation, their attention will totally be focused on the exercises

 Dictation gives the students a chance to get practice in the sort of note taking that many courses require This is a very important part of the students‟ needs

in using language

 Dictation requires the students to make the transfer from the spoken to written language The written record proves their ability to reproduce spoken language in a correct visual form

 Dictation, if properly varied, can provide practice in listening comprehension, vocabulary building, increasing reading speed and comprehension, as well as elementary aspects of hand-writing, punctuation, spelling, and composition formation Certain types of dictation also lend themselves to the grammar class, and train the students to distinguish sounds and grammatical elements

2.9.3 Kinds of dictation

Dictation has numerous kinds of which the teacher can choose one of them in teaching in the classroom According to Sawyer and Silver (1972), there are four kinds of dictation: the phonemic item dictation, the phonemic text dictation, the orthographic item dictation and the orthographic text dictation

Firstly, the phonemic item dictation involves presenting the individual sounds

by the teacher to students for transcription It fosters the students’ competence in distinguishing the sounds of language Moreover, it also helps to facilitate their accure and correct production

Secondly, the phonemic text dictation is a technique which consists of transcribing a short text phonetically by students, which is read by the teacher The phonemic text dictation, is an extension of the phonemic item dictation It consists of

the teacher reciting a passage which students phonetically transcribe The phonemic item dictation is valuable as a way to understand how English sounds change in connected speech

Thirdly, the orthographic item dictation is a useful dictation which refers to the dictation words in isolation for transcription It is used as a spelling test to assess spelling

Finally, students transcribe a united text instead of individual words in following the orthographic text dictation This is used to identify grammatical and semantic mistakes

The above kinds of dictation are divided following to the teachers’ purposes One illustration is that if the aim of the teachers is to evaluate spelling, the most useful item is the orthographic item dictation Each kind of dictation develop a certain skill

As a result, teachers need to find out the purpose of teaching to select suitable kind

of dictation

However, Oller (1979) divided dictation into five kinds: dictation

composition, standard, partial, elicited imitation and dictation with competing noise

First, dictation composition is the process when students are required to hear the paragraph read by the teacher to rewrite the message It means that the students remember the information to write again what they have been heard This type is a connection between dictation and composition For example, when the teacher reads the passage three times, the students only write the content after the teacher finishes the third reading It means that the students should recall the whole passage and write the story as a reproduction

The second type is standard dictation Students need to write the information when the message is spoken by the recording or examiner To explain more, if the students want to write correctly, they are required to listen accurately Students are expected to write verbal sequences of materials which was spoken by the teacher However, the teacher should notice that the materials used with a normal conversation speed and long enough for students to remember in short term

The third one is partial dictation which is believed as good technique to measure the ability of listening of learners According to Nation and Newton (2009),

in partial dictation, the students fill in the gaps on the written text when listening In this type, students are motivated to evaluate their listening Partial dictation is also known as spot dictation It has close relation with standard dictation However, the students are received spoken version and the written version of the text The students will listen to spoken material and fill in the missing words in the given text

Fourth, it is elicited imitation which students listen to the message, they will repeat what is being said rather than writing it This activity push the students’s ability

in short term memory

Finally, dictation with competing noise is considered as a more difficult kind

of dictation because the material is used with adding noise For instance, we have conversation with someone when the TV or the machine makes noise and we have to try to listen to the message

Quin (2008) said that there are other kinds of dictation which are dictogloss

and pair dictation

Dictogloss is a language teaching strategy used to teach the sentence structures It means that it is the production focusing on the form of language To explain more, dictogloss focuses on using listening to teach grammar, the use correct grammatical structure for summarizing the passage During the discussion in groups, the dictogloss activity helps students practice four skills in the classroom because the

students use grammar and vocabulary in studying According to Gibbons (2002),

dictogloss assists students more confident since they are sure in guessing meaning ability without fear

Pair dictation is mutual and interactive activity because this kind expects students to pairwork to connect two partials which are uncompleted into cohesive passage In this type, students will have chance to work together and dictate to each other To clarify more, pair dictation trains and enhance the ability of reading, writing and pronunciation of the students

These types of dictation are clarified based on purposes For example, dictogloss can assist students to be active, confident in using of grammar and vocabuary However, partial dictation is used to assess the progress of listening

According to Newton and Nation (2009), there are some dictation help

students break the routine and give them motivation Some of those are running dictation and guided dictation

Firstly, guided dictation is the process which the teacher reads the passage after writing on the board some difficult verbs, nouns and adjectives because they help the students be easier when listening Guided dictation facilitates not only the comprehension but also difficult words in the passage

The second point to illustrate is running dictation It is applied by posting a short text outside the classroom One of the students will be a writer, while the other

is runneer who go out and try to remember sentence by sentence to recall it to the writer who copies down what is being read As a result, this kind helps students to improve writing, speaking and listening Moreover, it can assist students to review grammar, vocabulary or word order and practicing listening as well as speaking

Another kind which is suggested by Leong (2003) is picture dictation It is an interesting activity which many instructors use it effectively in large classes Picture dictation has many strengthens: it makes students pay attention and listen to the message It also improve students’ listening and supports the teachers to control the class In short, picture dictation is a vital technique in classes with a huge number of the students

In conclusion, there are numerous different kinds of dictation which are useful and motivate the students Hence, students should apply it in the process of studying English, especially in listening skill

2.10 Advantages of dictation

Dictation has been used in language teaching and learning for several hundred years, and methodologists have often made pedagogical claims for its value Lado says that dictation is favoured by many teachers and students both as a teaching and testing device Davis and Rinvolucri (1998) define that dictation “decoding the

sounds of English and recoding them in writing is a major learning task” and Frodesen (1991) believes that dictation can be "an effective way to address grammatical errors

in writing that may be the result of erroneous aural perception of English Dictation can help students to diagnose and correct these kinds of errors as well as others."

According to Morris (1983), dictation is not only a testing technique but also

it is a method which helps students to enhance their accuracy in listening and give concentration to speakers It also support their accuracy in writing and vocabulary Besides, dictation is the most useful tool to teach and pratice listening skill because dictation can encourage students and improve their accurate listening

Dictation also helps students discover and correct the mistakes, it makes sure attentive listening and give chance for teacher to train the students distinct sounds correctly As a result, the students understand the spoken language, find their own mistakes, cultivate listening skill as well as pronunciation

Alkire (2002) concluded that dictation has nine advantages:

that dictation is an important and helpful strategy in note taking

 Dictation aids the students to expand short-term memory To explain more, students keep the information they have heard in their mind and rewrite them immediately

class easier and create challenge by testing the students’ abilities

 Dictation helps the students rewrite words and sentences without realize or awareness It means that dictation build up unconscious thinking

dictation: partial dictation is an example, or they can correct their mistakes by themselves Thanks to this technique, the students are dynamic and motivated

reassess what they have learned

 Dictation can be applied for diversified level because this process is quite simple and easy to use for every students It can be used for students from primary school to university

every teacher even novice teacher can manage

pay attention and listen carefully by using body language

Furthermore, Davis and Rinvolucri (2002) indicated that we use dictation for many reasons Firstly, dictation creates opportunity to approach to interesting passage The teacher has tendency to use attractive texts in order to motivate students Therefore, using variety of texts which is suitable for the students make them interested in studying foreign languages in general and English in particular Secondly, when the teacher dictates an interactive passage, the students both practice writing what they have heard and communicate as weel as respond to the facilitator

It means that dictation provides oral communicative activities The last one is that dictation lessons help the teacher to distribute with different abilities in a class such

as advanced students and novice students in a class

In short, both teachers and students should have awareness of dictation’s benefits that contribute the the students’ achievements

2.11 Principles of dictation

Before beginning dictation, the teachers should investigate understanding and time to choose materials which both teachers and students need to obtain to have the effective results

The time of selection should be short, easy to hear to make students not be bored and disinterested Moreover, the materials should be varied to push students’ motivation It is also important to explain to the students the usage of dictation and guide students how to apply and confirm that all of them can understand what they are supposed to do

In other words, the guiders should create activities by applying different kinds For example, teachers run dictation and explain how to apply them One important thing is that the teachers should select exercises based on the level of their students Moreover, the teachers should vary the exercises to help students not be bored during using dictation

2.12 Connection between dictation and listening

There are lots of advantanges of dictation in improving English students’s listening According to Selasa (2010), one of the most difficult skill to master in learning a foreign language is listening because this skill need comprehending, interpreting and responses

John Flowerdew (1994) pointed that dictation help students have achievements in listening ability There is correlation between listening and dictation because dictation requires learners to hear then write down the spoken language Therefore, they not only check their writing but also measure their listening’s ability Teachers should help students to comprehend and recognize the spoken languages by giving them correct pronunciation In short, dictation demands attentive listening and

it requires attention to get understanding Nunan (1991) showed that students can understand the information during dictation by connecting phonemes, words to make

a whole sentences or using their previous knowledge

According to Jeremy Harmer (2001), teachers can use little dictation to start a new lesson Using dictation like “what is your favorite food?” Then, students will answer “my favorite food is ” enthusiastically and a class gradually will have a pleasant mood It proved that there is a link between listening and dictation Now the opinion of dictation changed to get an interative technique by varying exercises that activate students to study As a result, dictation is a successful strategy in the process

of teaching listening (Selasa, 2010)

In conclusion, since using of dictation demands listening, correct pronunciation, and excellent understanding, dictation and listening are interrelated

2.13 Potential problems while using dictation

Dictation is believed as a boring strategy British Council (BBC, 2005) showed that giving dictation has three potential matters The first problem is difficulty which mutil-level students find that it is difficult than other technique However, teachers should think many dictation activities to help the students overcome the difficulty of this For example, the teacher can ask the students to listen and fill in the gaps One important thing is that teachers need to take consideration the level of the text The teacher sometimes gives hard passage to the students to challenge them As a result, the teacher should choose more suitable texts and guide students to practice this technique in order to decline the difficulty

The second point is boredom Many students feel bored and lose motivation

in doing dictation exercises Thus, texts can be dictated from a small number of sentences to full texts while dictation Moreover, the facilitator can use different techniques and give students support to pay attention to accuracy and meaning to change the students’ attitude toward dictation

The third problem is accuracy in checking Most of students are not good at finding their own mistakes in their written notes when comparing to the original text They have tendency to discover the mistakes in other’s work easier than their one Therefore, teacher should be a person who gives some techniques for students to check errors An illustration is that taking space time among dictation and checking errors, peer-review to check mistakes

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter justifies the seletion of methodology for the study First, it presents and discloses philosophical viewpoints along with the choice of the method, the rationale for theemploymentof this method After that, it describes setting of the study including participants, instruments for questionnaire and tests Finally, reseach procedure is displayed detailing data collection process and data analysis