Effectiveness of information transfer activities in teaching listening for the 10th form non english major students at bacninh specialized high school

Hanoi university of languages and international studies Department of postgraduate studies -------NGO THI THANH THUY EFFECTIVENESS OF INFORMATION-TRANSFER ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING LIST

Hanoi university of languages and international studies Department of postgraduate studies

 -NGO THI THANH THUY

EFFECTIVENESS OF INFORMATION-TRANSFER ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR THE 10 TH FORM NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT BACNINH SPECIALIZED HIGH SCHOOL

(HIệU QUả HOạT động chuyển đổi thông tin trong việc dạy nghe cho học sinh lớp 10 không chuyên TIếNG anh tại tr-ờng thpt chuyên bắc ninh)

MA MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY

CODE: 60 14 10

HANOI, 2009

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Department of Postgraduate Studies

NGO THI THANH THUY

EFFECTIVENESS OF INFORMATION-TRANSFER ACTIVITIES IN

NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT BACNINH

SPECIALIZED HIGH SCHOOL

(HIệU QUả của hoạt động chuyển đổi thông tin trong

việc dạy nghe cho học sinh lớp 10 không chuyên TIếNG

ANH tại tr-ờng THPT chuyên bắc ninh)

Hanoi, 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

Lists of abbreviations v

List of tables and charts vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Scope of the study 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 Aims and research questions of the study 2

5 Method of the study 2

6 Design of the study 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Background concepts of listening 4

1.1.1 Definition of listening 4

1.1.2 Listening skill 6

1.1.3 Listening process 7

1.1.3.1 Bottom-up process 7 1.1.3.2 Top-down process 7 1.1.4 Stages of a listening lesson 8

1.1.4.1 Pre-listening stage 8 1.1.4.2 While-listening stage 9 1.1.4.3 Post-listening stage 9 1.1.5 Listening activities 9

1.1.5.1 Pre-listening activities 10 1.1.5.2 While-listening activities 10 1.1.5.3 Post-listening activities 11 1.2 Background concepts of Information-transfer activities 12

1.2.1 Definition of Information-transfer activities 12

1.2.2 Why should we employ Information transfer-activities 14

1.2.3 When should we employ Information transfer-activities 16

Chapter 2: THE STUDY 19

2.1 Background of the study 19

2.1.1 The settings 19

2.1.2 Population 19

2.1.3 Sampling 20

2.2 Listening material 21

2.3 Data collection instruments 22

2.3.1 Survey questionnaires 22

2.3.2 Observation 22

2.4 Data collection procedures 23

2.5 Data analysis 24

2.5.1 Analysis of the Survey questionnaire for teachers 24

2.5.2 Analysis of the Survey questionnaire for students 30

2.5.3 Analysis of the researcher’s class observation 36

Chapter 3: MAJOR FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS 38

3.1 Major findings 38

3.1.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitude toward IT activities 38

3.1.2 How teachers of English at BnSHS employ IT activities 39

3.1.3 Difficulties teachers and students at BnSHS encounter in employing IT activities 39

3.2 Suggestions for more effective employment of IT activities 40

3.2.1 Using some soft-wares to edit listening materials 40

3.2.2 Making the visual aids more attractive 41

PART 3: CONCLUSION 44

References

Appendices

: Ministry of Education and Training

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS TABLES

Table 1 : Johnson’s classification of a sample

Table 2 : Aspects of a listening text students pay attention to

Table 3 : Students’ preferences for activities in while-listening stage

Table 4 : Problems students encounter in IT activities

Table 5.1 : Teachers’ preferences for activities in while-listening stage

Table 5.2 : Common tendency of Teachers’ preferences for activities in while-listening

stage………

Table 6 : Aims of employing IT activities

Table 7 : Teachers’ comments after employing IT activities

Table 8 : Teachers’ difficulties when employing IT activities

CHARTS

Chart 1 : The place students come from

Chart 2 : The time students have been learning English

Chart 3 : Students’ evaluation on language skills

Chart 4 : Students’ interest in listening skill

Chart 5 : The necessity of improving listening skill at high schools

Chart 6 : Students’ evaluation on IT activities in their current textbook

Chart 7 : Students’ preferences for participation in IT activities

Chart 8 : Teaching-years of teachers at BnSHS

Chart 9 : Listening aspects ………

Chart 10 : Teachers’ evaluation on IT activities in their current textbook

Chart 11 : Frequency of IT activities in teaching listening

Currently with the entry into the WTO and opening markets to the outside world, language policies of Vietnam put more emphasis on communication skills in English than ever The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) of Vietnam made reforms in national education system In 2006 the MOET introduced a new high school curriculum This lead to a significant change in English teaching and learning methods: from deep-rooted grammar- translation method to communicative one English 10 designed by a group of authors: Hoang Van Van, Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong, Nguyen Quoc Tuan consists of 16 teaching units Each unit contains five 45-minute periods corresponding to five parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language focus.Among the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), listening isconsidered to be the most difficult and challenging for both teachers and students, whichleads to the fact that non- English major students, at Bacninh Specialized High schools areafraid of learning listening They seem to neglect listening skill during their languagelearning process As a result their listening skill is often weak.

Information- transfer (IT) activities have now become commonplace in language teaching.However the application of these activities in teaching Listening for non-English majors athigh schools has not got much concern

This fact has encouraged the author to investigate into the effectiveness of transfer activities employed by teachers of English at Bacninh Specialized High School.Hopefully, the study will be helpful for the author and other teachers to find out appropriateways to handle Information-transfer activities effectively to develop students‟ listeningskill

Information-2 Scope of the study

Listening is a broad and complex field that many linguists take much time to study Therehave been many activities designed to improve learners‟ listening skill Therefore my studyfocuses mainly on Information-transfer activities employed by teachers of English inteaching listening for the 10th non- English major students at BnSHS

3 Significance of the study

The study highlights the important role of listening skill in general and transfer activities in particular

Information-The findings of this study reinforces the value of IT activities in teaching listening.Moreover, the author hopes that the suggestions of this study can help high school teachersemploy IT activities effectively in teaching listening for non- English major students

4 Aims and research questions of the study

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of Information-transferactivities employed by teachers of English at Bacninh Specialized High School Thespecific aims of the research are:

To investigate the teachers‟ and students‟ attitude towards Information-transfer activities

To find out how teachers of English at Bacninh Specialized High School employ those activities

To give some suggestions for employing IT activities more effectively to developlistening skill of non- English major students at BnSHS

The investigation has been carried out to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are teachers‟ and students‟ attitude toward IT activities?

(2) How do teachers of English at BnSHS employ those activities?

(3) What are difficulties facing teachers and students at BnSHS in employing

IT activities in teaching and learning listening?

5 Methods of the study

In order to accomplish the study, the author used Survey Research method which is a study

of a large group through direct study of a subset of that group These research methods arewidely used to gather data at a particular point in time to:

• Describe the nature of existing conditions

3

-• Identify standards against which existing conditions can be compared

• Determine the relationships that exist between specific events

Survey methods have been used by second language, bilingual education and foreign language researchers to study a wide variety of issues that impinge on language learning:

(1) The policies affecting learning and teaching

(2) Program administration

(3) Attitudes of teachers / learners toward a teaching method

(4) Classroom practices

(5) Target language norms

(6) Responses of people toward a language phenomenon

(7) Sociolinguistic studies of language use

(8) The institutional settings

The specific aims of the author are to investigate the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudetowards IT activities and how teachers of English at Bacninh Specialized High Schoolemploy those activities These aims match with ones of Survey Research method (3-

Attitudes of teachers / learners toward a teaching method and 4- Classroom practices).

Therefore the author used Survey Research method.

6 Design of the study

The study consists of 3 parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion

The first part, “Introduction”, describes the basic information such as rationale, scope,

significance, aims and research questions as well as methods of the study

The second part, “Development”, comprises 3 chapters:

• Chapter 1, Literature Review, provides theoretical background of listening and

information-transfer activities

• Chapter 2, The study, presents the settings to the study, target population, sample,

instrumentation and data analysis

• Chapter 3, Major findings and suggestions, offers some main findings and

recommendations on how to make IT activities more effectively

The last part, “Conclusion”, is a review of the study, the limitations and directions for

future study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter involves different issues in the theories of the listening in a foreign languageand Information-transfer activities Two main features will be presented: backgroundconcepts of listening and of IT activities

1.1 Background concepts of listening:

1.1.1 Definition of listening

It seems to be difficult to define what listening is People in different professions such asapplied linguists, anthropologists, psychologists define listening in many different ways.That‟s because there is no universally accepted definition for the term “listening‟

Howatt and Dakin (1974) define listening as the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his

grammar and vocabulary, and grasping his meaning An able listener is capable of doingthese four things simultaneously

Thomlison's (1984) definition of listening includes “active listening”, which goes beyond comprehending as understanding the message content, to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker Furthermore Gordon (1985) argues that empathy

is essential to listening and contends that it is more than a polite attempt to identify aspeaker‟s perspectives Rather more importantly, empathetic understanding expands to

“egocentric prosocial behavior” Thus, the listener altruistically acknowledges concern forthe speaker‟s welfare and interests

According to Ronald and Roskelly (1985) listening is an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and

reading demand; and these authors present specific exercises to make students activelisteners who are aware of the "inner voice" one hears when writing

Significance of listening

Listening is the Cinderella skill in second language learning and teaching (Nunan, 1997).For most people, being able to claim knowledge of a second language means being able tospeak and write in that language Listening and reading are therefore secondary skills.However, listening comes into fashion In the 1960s, the emphasis on oral language skills

5 gave it a boost It became fashionable again in the 1980s, when Krashen's (1982) ideasabout comprehensible input gained prominence A short time later, it was reinforced byJames Asher's (1988) Total Physical Response, a methodology drawing sustenance fromKrashen's work, and based on the belief that a second language is learned most effectively

-in the early stages if the pressure for production is taken off the learners Dur-ing the 1980s,proponents of listening in a second language were also encouraged by work in the firstlanguage field Here, people such as Gillian Brown (1990) were able to demonstrate theimportance of developing oracy (the ability to listen and speak) as well as literacy, inschool

Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in both first and second languagelearning and teaching According to Rivers (1981) listening is used nearly twice as much asspeaking and four to five times as much as reading and writing That finding confirmedwhat Wilt had found in 1950 that people listen 45 percent, speak 30 percent, reading 16percent and write 9 percent of the time they spend communicating

By emphasizing the role of comprehensible input, second language acquisition research hasgiven a major boost to listening Rost (1994: 141-142) summarized the role of listening insecond language learning as followed:

- Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for thelearners Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannotbegin

- Listening to spoken language gives us opportunities to acquire the language - topick up structures and vocabulary If learners are living in a country where English

is the first language, they have plenty of exposure to the language - they hear it allthe time, and acquire it more easily than learners do not hear English spoken aroundthem So we need to give these learners as much opportunity to listen to spokenEnglish as possible

Doff, A (1988:198) agreed that to have a successful conversation, students must understandwhat is said to them Later the ability to understand spoken English may become veryimportant We cannot develop learners‟ communication skill unless we also developlistening skill Therefore students need a lot of practice in listening to spoken language

Types of listening

There are many different types of listening that can be classified according to a number ofvariables, including purpose for listening, the role of the listener, and the type of text being

listened to… These variables are mixed in many different configurations, each of whichwill require a particular strategy on the part of the listener Doff, A (1998:199) pointed outtwo ways in which we often listen:

*.“Casual” listening: we listen with no particular purpose in mind and often withoutmuch concentration, for example listening to the radio while doing somehousework, chatting to a friend Usually we do not listen attentively if we do nothear something that particularly interests us, and then we may forget much of what

we hear

*.“Focused” listening: we listen for a particular purpose, to find out information weneed to know Examples of this kind of listening are: listening to a piece ofimportant news on the radio, listening to someone explaining how to operate amachine In these situations, we listen much closely; but we do not listen toeverything we hear with the same concentration – we listen for the most importantpoints or for particular information

1.1.2 Listening skill

There have been many terms relating to listening, such as listening ability, listening skill,listening comprehension, listening performance…but I would like to focus on listeningskill

Listening skills are related to the main process the teacher used to train learners to be able

to understand listening tasks or to gain listening comprehension in order to reach listeningability through sub-skills or micro-skills as follows (Field, 1998):

i.Discrimination or a bottom-up level skill enables learners to distinguish

minimally different words through ear training and teacher‟s dictation

ii Segmentation enables learners to identify words in continuous

speech through the teacher‟s dictation, such as focusing on weak forms.

iii Exploration asks learners to work out the spelling of

unrecognized words via the teacher‟s dictation and learner‟s guessing.

iv Anticipation or a top-down level skill requires learners to work

out what came next via the teacher‟s playing half a sentence and learners‟

completing

v.Reference enables learners to relate pronouns to the items they refer to

vi Monitoring for information requires learners to monitor a long

text for key words.

7

-vii Relevance asks learners to identify important points made by

fillingspecific and general points in tables

Listening skills are believed to be essential for learning since they make students be able toacquire insights and information, and to achieve success in communicating with others

1.1.3 Listening process

In recent years there have been two major terms explaining the listening process - ratherunfortunately called “bottom-up” and “top-down

1.1.3.1 Bottom-up processes

Hedge, T (2000: 230) states that the knowledge of “bottom-up” processing comes from the

work of three groups of researchers: psycholinguists interested in speech perception (for example Bever 1970); the work of communication researchers (for example Cherry 1957) and of those interested in memory (for example Neisser 1982).

Bottom-up processing refers to deriving the meaning of the message based on the incominglanguage data, from sounds to words, to grammatical relationship, to meaning Nunan, D(1999: 200) considers this process as “a process of decoding the sounds that one hears in alinear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (or phonemes) to complete texts”

During bottom-up processing, stress, rhythm and intonation play a role as we segmentspeech into identifiable sounds and impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases,clauses, sentences and intonation patterns /p/ is recognized as being /p/ not /b/, /i:/ as being/i:/ not /i/ or /e/ These sounds are then combined and the individual words are decoded –the listener recognizes that (s)he has heard /pi:t/ and not /pit/ or some other word Thewords are then combined into sentences and the listener works out the meaning of /pi:t/ as

in We met Pete yesterday or I bought some peat for the garden.

1.1.3.2 Top-down processes

Top-down processing starts from the opposite side: It refers to utilizing schemata(background knowledge and global understanding) to derive meaning from and interpretthe message In other words, it involves the knowledge that a listener brings to a text,sometimes called “inside the head” information

According to Hedge, T (2000: 232) top-down listening, then, infers meaning fromcontextual clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of

prior knowledge which listeners hold inside their heads Contextual clues to meaning comefrom knowledge of the particular situation, i.e the speaker or speakers, the setting, thetopic, and the purpose of the spoken text and from knowledge of what has been saidearlier Let‟s see the following example Someone told you:

“Pete brought me another present today It was too late to save it so I buried it in

the garden I think I’m going to have to put a bell round his neck.”

You will certainly understand all the words in this passage, but do you understand themeaning? The first sentence probably went quite smoothly But there was more than justdecoding of words going on Without your being aware of it, subconscious expectations

were forming in your mind based on your knowledge of the world - Pete is a friend, probably a man as only the surname is used and the present will be something nice.

Had you worked it out or may be you are still in the dark You need some contextual

knowledge which can help you understand - not what‟s in the text: Pete is the name of my cat Combine that with your knowledge of the world (the habit of cats: bringing their owners “present” of half dead mice or birds which they‟ve caught; and the fact that the noise of a bell will prevent the cat from creeping up on them unheard) then you have the

meaning of the passage

These days it is generally recognized that bottom-up and top-down strategies are necessary.Learners need to be aware that both of these processes affect their listening, and they need

to be given opportunities to practice employing them

1.1.4 Stages of a listening lesson

Normally language teachers often facilitate the development of listening skill by creatinglistening lessons that guide learners through three stages: pre-listening, while-listening andpost-listening

1.1.4.1 Pre-listening stage

It is widely accepted that this stage is conducted before learners listen to the text The listening phase is a kind of preparatory work which: “( ) ought to make the contextexplicit, clarify purposes and establish roles, procedures and goals for listening” (Rost1991:232) Thus its main aim is to contextualize the listening text, providing anyinformation needed to help learners appreciate the setting and the role relationshipsbetween participants

pre 9 preAgreeing with that Hedge, T (2000:249) points out “at this stage the teacher will need todecide what kind of listening purpose is appropriate to the text The learners will need to

-“tune in” to the context and the topic of the text, perhaps express attitudes towards thattopic, certainly bring to the front of their minds anything that they already know about thetopic and most probably hear and use some of the less familiar language in the text whichwould otherwise distract or create anxiety during listening”

1.1.4.2 While-listening stage

While-listening activities can be shortly defined as all tasks that students are asked to doduring the time of listening to the text The nature of these activities is to help learners tolisten for meaning that is to elicit a message from spoken language Rixon (1986:70-1)points out that, at the while-listening stage students should not worry about interpretinglong questions or giving full answers, but they should concentrate on comprehension,whether they have understood important information from the passage

The work at the while-listening stage needs to link in relevant ways to the pre-listeningwork While they listen, learners will need to be involved in an authentic purpose forlistening and encouraged to attend to the next more intensively or more extensively, for gist

or for specific information (Hedge, T 2000:252)

1.1.4.3 Post-listening stage

This is the last stage of a lesson so it is for student‟s production Post-listening activitiesallow the learners to „reflect‟ on the language from the passage; on sound, grammar andvocabulary as they last longer than while-listening activities so the students have time tothink, discuss or write (Rixon 1986:64-97 and Underwood 1989: 78)

Activities for this stage are aimed at helping learners to use what they have learnt from thelistening text Therefore teachers should create and vary the activities for learners to dodepending on their level of English Hedge, T (2000:252) emphasizes that the work at thisstage can also usefully involve integration with other skills through development of thetopic into reading, speaking and writing activities

1.1.5 Listening activities

Many activities have been designed to develop listening skills However when teachersemploy listening activities, they should take into consideration many factors: teaching

stages (pre, while or post teaching), learners‟ language knowledge, personal general knowledge or life experience, background knowledge ….

1.1.5.1 Pre-listening activities

At pre-listening stage, Yagang (1993 in Kral ed 1994:194-95) suggests a variety of

activities, such as:

Brainstorming: where the teacher asks the students to predict the words and

expressions which are likely to appear in the listening passage

Starting a discussion (Speculating) about the topic (possibly based on visuals and

titles); where the students infer from the title what the topic of a conversation may

be and the teacher encourages them to exchange ideas and opinions about the topic

Games; e.g miming the words or expressions

Guiding questions, asked or written by the teacher (ibid.).

Mary Underwood in her book on teaching listening presents some other activities which can be conducted in pre-listening (1989:35-44):

Looking at a set of pictures and naming or labeling the items which are likely to

occur in the listening text

Ordering statements or events: teachers give some jumbled sentences referring to

the listening text for students to reorder personally

1.1.5.2 While-listening activities

During the while-listening phase students usually respond somehow to a listening text:

 Multiple choice: teachers prepare questions about the ideas in the listening text For each question, there are three or four options for students to choose from.

 True/false statements: teachers give some true and some deliberately false

statements about the listening text then students find out which are true

 Comprehension questions: these are questions related to the main ideas of

a text to check students‟ understanding.

 Gap-filling: teachers write a short paragraph with several blanks in it The blanks can be lexical or grammatical items or both Students listen and fill in blanks

with information they hear

 Information transfer: teachers change the listening text into grids, forms, lists, maps, plans, etc for students to fill in.

-11- Differences or mistakes detection: students respond only when they encounter something different or contrary to what they already knew about the

topic or the speakers

 Pictures or statements sequencing: students are asked to give the right order of a series of pictures or statements.

 Matching the items which have the same or opposite meaning as those the students hear, or matching the pictures with the descriptions heard.

 Ticking off items (bingo); where students listen a list of words and

categorize (tick off) them as they hear.

Information-transfer activities the author is studying are in while-listening stage Theseactivities help students concentrate on comprehension, whether they get main ideas orimportant information form the passage

 Retelling the story: students retell the listening text using their own words

or some provided words.

 Discussion: students discuss similar or related issues based on prompt questions or pictures.

 Jigsaw listening: this term was first coined by Marion Geddes and Gill Sturtridge in the late 1970s to describe a listening activities during which different

groups of students listen to different but connected passages and then the groupsexchange information in order to complete a story to perform a certain task(Underwood 1989:87)

 Problem solving activities during which students hear all the information relevant to a particular problem and then try to solve it by themselves.

1.2 Background concepts of Information-transfer activities:

1.2.1 Definition of Information-transfer activities

Information- transfer (IT) activities have now become commonplace in language teaching

In an article entitled “Information Transfer for Listening and Reading”, David Palmer(1982) gives a full description such as features and advantages of these activities

According to him, this kind of activities involves changing information from a linguistic

form into a diagrammatic or semi-diagrammatic form, or vice versa.

A listening/reading text

Information transfer activities require the learners to seek information from one source andtransfer it to another This is often a transfer between written or graphic information andspeech (either provided by the teacher or presented by students) In the process, thereading/listening text becomes reduced and its content is presented in a partly graphic orvisual form For example, the learners are told that a bank robber is being sought by the

police Witnesses have described the man as in his mid-twenties, tall and heavily-built, with fair hair and brown eyes A police file contains the following information.

NAME Mad Dog Mike Harry

Hammer Fingers Fred Slick Sam Nick the Knife Michael Boris

The learners are asked to identify the bank robber from the information given in the policefile Of course, it is not enough for the teacher simply to ask who the bank robber is

Learners are first asked to give a full description of the robber Then individual studentsexplain why other suspects are not guilty of the robbery This can take place at many

levels For example, from simple statements such as Mad Dog Mike is thin to full explanations such as Witnesses said the robber was heavily built, but Michael Boris is

plump.

There are many kinds of reading/listening texts: monologue or dialogue, narrative orrecount … Here are examples of information transfer activities used for different kinds oftexts:

Information transfer for a monologue

A very frequently used monologue is narrative A useful framework for helping studentsunderstand and remember better is logical order This means students have to put events ormilestones in the order they happened in the reading/listening passage Here is an example(Tieng Anh 10, pp.1148):

Task: You will hear some information about Pele, a famous Brazilian football player.

Listen and complete the table below

“Pele is considered one of the greatest football players of all time He was born in 1940 in Brazil As a football player, Pele was famous for his powerful kicking and controlling the ball.

He joined a Brazilian football club in 1956, and in 1962 he led the team to its first world cup championship Pele became the only player to participate in three World Cups in 1958, 1962 and 1970 By 1974, Pele had scored 1,200 goals and became a Brazilian national hero He played for an American football club for two years before he retired in 1977 Later Pele became an international ambassador for the sport, working to promote peace and understanding through friendly sport activities.”

Listen to the dialogue between two friends: Lan and Huong (Tieng Anh 10, pp 137).

Lan: Hi, Huong Titanic is on at Thang Tam Cinema next week Can you

go with me on Wednesday?

Huong: Wednesday? Sorry Lan I have lots of work to do during the day and

I’m going to the singing club at night Can we go on Thursday, instead?

Lan: I don’t think so I’m going to visit my grandparents on Thursday.

Huong: Well, what about Monday? I suppose you are free on Monday.

Lan: No, sorry I’m going to see a play with Tuyet on Monday What about

Friday?

Huong: Sorry Lan Friday is not a good time for me I’m taking Chinese

classes on Fridays How does your weekend look like, Lan?

Lan: Um…, I’m busy on Saturday But I’m free the whole day Sunday.

Huong: I’m going on a picnic to Hoa Lu with some of my friends on

Sunday I’ll be back late at night.

Lan: Well, I guess that we just leave … Uh, wait a second, what day are

we both free, Huong?

Task: Write their plans for the next week on the calendar

1.2.2 Why should we employ IT activities

Linguists give many reasons why we should employ IT tasks in our language teaching and

learning Patrisius Djiwandono (1995:43) asserts that the IT task is authentic and communicative since it approximates a real job demand When our students enter the world

of work, a part of their daily routine will be to attend to information transmitted orally orwritten in memos or letters; later they must transfer this information to another intelligibleformat.

In his article Palmer (1982:30) believes the IT task carries potential for subsequent tasks.

The IT task forms a kind of pivot around which any of the language skills may revolve

While we are employing IT tasks such as doing oral reconstruction or checkingcomprehension, language skills are practiced (writing, listening and speaking).

-15-In addition, the IT task fosters the development of new learning skills Part of the content

that the students have to learn is vocabulary, and to some extent this requires a degree ofrepetition combined with attention In other words these vocabulary items and grammarstructures will be practiced for accuracy and fluency

Agreeing with those linguists, in his recently published book, Nation (2008) summarizes 4good reasons for using IT activities to encourage meaning-focused listening and to supportlistening:

1) The most obvious learning from IT relates to the information in theactivity After doing the activity about the landlady, the boarder and the plan of thehouse, the learners would be likely to remember the particular plan of that house

So in contrast to the use of comprehension questions, the visual structure of a designed diagram for IT provides a conceptual scaffold to assist comprehension.Put simply, the visual support makes learning easier

well-2) When used with listening, IT focuses learners‟ attention on listeningwithout the extra burden of having to read a list of questions or write long answers.The principle here is that when the focus is on listening skills, the activity shouldnot require learners to simultaneously read and/or write extensively IT activitiesthat involve learners tracking a journey on a map, filling in a chart or grid allcontrol the learning burden in this way by requiring minimal responses

3) These activities can easily be used to draw attention to important andgeneralize text structures and information For example, good note-taking from alecture presents the ideas in a diagrammatic way that highlights how the ideas relate

to one another Tree diagrams, maps and pictures can reveal the conceptualstructure of text types as well as the relationships between parts and between ideas

in a text The more generalisable the text structure that an IT activity drawsattention to, the more generalisable the learning This approach trains learners tolisten strategically for important information In other words, the conceptual workthat learners must do in a well-designed IT activity encourages deep understandingand is particularly good for intellectual development in young learners

4) IT encourages deep processing of input A key question that teachersshould ask about an activity is, “What quality of thinking does this activitypromote?” IT

requires learners to transform the input in some way, and this typically requiresmore mental effort than copying or responding to comprehension questions In a

sense then, IT activities are information transforming activities It is likely that this

deep processing provides good opportunities to learner new vocabulary andgrammatical items contained in the spoken or written text, particularly those itemsthat are focused on in the IT activity

The above four reasons all focus on the role of IT in guiding understanding of input Inaddition, IT also has a useful role in pushing learners‟ production It does this by providing

a simplified or diagrammatic representation of the original input which learners can use to

“reconstitute” the text in their own words This can be represented in the following way:

1.2.3 When should we employ IT activities

One of the simplest ways of helping students to recognize, know and use generic patterning

in reading/listening texts is through information transfer activities In information transfer,the graphic form can be seen to compartmentalize language - this essentially placeslanguage items in categories with boundaries so that students can notice them easily.Nations (1988) urges teachers to make the categories or parts generalizable so that theinformation gleaned from one particular text can be used for subsequent reading/listening

of other texts with a similar structure If the categories are used successively with othertexts we see that learners are provided with alternative forms of vocabulary and sentencestructure This provides powerful learning opportunities

Most IT activities focus the learners‟ attention on the details of information used in thepassage There are numerous possibilities For example, the learners listen to aconversation between a landlady and a new boarder and label a plan of the rooms of the

house using the information exchanged in the conversation Similarly, the teacher talksabout her family or an imaginary family and the learners complete a family tree.

-17-Information - transfer activities used in teaching listening must be closely related to thelearning and teaching goals That is, teachers should be clear about whether they are going

to teach the difficult sounds, stress, intonation, structures or whether they are going to helpthe learners understand the content of the listening texts This means whether our focus is

on “language goal” or on “skill goal” (Nation, 1991) When we want to focus oncomprehension or skill goal, we can find the scopes of Information transfer techniques asfollows:

Comprehension checking of the text

In while-listening stage, the first thing teachers often do is have students listen to the tapeonce or twice depending on the length or complexity of the listening text Afterwards, theremay be one or two listening activities aimed at helping students understand main ideas ofeach paragraph and/or the whole text And it‟s time they employ information transferactivities Teachers design an information transfer form (outline, chart, table…) withnumbered blanks on a poster It will be more attractive if teachers prepare an IT form withtechnical assistance (computer/laptop, Powerpoint program, projector) Then teachers stickthe poster on the board and ask students to work individually or in pairs/groups Letstudents listen to the tape again and complete the IT chart/ table/ grid Call students to go tothe board and fill in the blanks Finally, teachers check their answers and give comments

Oral reconstruction of the text

Normally we apply these activities at the end of while-listening stage, after checkingcomprehension However we can change the order of these activities It means we canemploy oral reconstruction before comprehension checking depending on students‟ level

or learning condition Teachers use the IT form completed in comprehension-checking ordesign another one It‟s necessary for the teachers to model oral construction first and letstudents prepare for a while Finally, invite students to come to the board and do oralreconstruction

So far as the scopes are stated above, information transfer activities will be seen as animportant method in helping learning listening However, information transfer activity isnot all-powerful but it should be used in combination with other activities So long as the

teacher employs information transfer activities effectively, both the teacher and the learnerswill be benefited.

All in all, this chapter has presented the relevant literature, which has helped to form thetheoretical and conceptual framework for the study Different aspects related to listeningskills and IT activities have been discussed

The next chapter will display the instrumentation and data analysis of the research in thelight of the theories mentioned above

-19-CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

In this chapter, the author outlines the current situation of teaching and learninglistening at Bacninh Specialized High School as well as the setting for the study.The rationale for the method chosen for the study presented in this thesis ismentioned The last issue will be the data analysis

2.1 Background to the study

2.1.1 The settings

The study was conducted at Bacninh Specialized High School, the only specialized high school in Bacninh province The school was established 17 years ago At first, it had only two classes, one majoring in Math and another in Literature Since then, the school often selects best teachers in the province Among 78 teachers at Bacninh Specialized High School, 30 teachers (38%) have completed their M.A course All students of the school have passed the entrance test in three subjects: Math, Literature and English Today, the school has 27 classes majoring in nine subjects: Math, Physics, Chemistry, Informatics, Biology, History, Geography, Literature and English.

In the school-year 2008 - 2009, the school was equipped with a multimedia room, alanguage laboratory and other modern learning and teaching facilities The schoolprovided the teachers of English groups with five cassette players and many disks foreach grade The school’s effort is to achieve the main task defined by the MOET and

the province “to look for and to foster talents for the province and the country; and to build the school into a center of high quality education of the province”.

2.1.2 Population

Population, an important term in a survey research, is the entire group of entities or persons to which the results of a study are intended to apply (Johnson 1992:110) In this study, the population was 185 tenth-form students and 8 teachers of English at BnSHS.

 The teachers of English

BnSHS has 8 teachers of English aged from 27 to 47 All of them graduated from the English Department at HULIS, VNU and have at least four years of teaching experience Two of them have Master’s Degree, two are going to complete their M.A course in a few months Four teachers have trained the National Team of English for many years and they often get excellent results Few teachers have chance to work or contact with native

speakers All of them have never been to an English speaking country However they are all willing to help their students overcome difficulties in learning English.

 The tenth-form students

The students are non-English major ones They come from 7 classes majoring in:Math, Physics, Chemistry, Informatics, Biology, History, Geography They are bothmale and female from 15 to 16 years of age Their knowledge of English is not ofthe same level as they are from different districts and towns in Bacninh province

At the time of investigation they were going to finish their school-year

2.1.3 Sampling

In survey research, sampling is a crucial methodological issue because it is usually not feasible to survey the entire group of interest (the population) Researchers usually select

a subgroup (a sample) to investigate Johnson (1992:111) classified a sample in Table1.

Simple random sampling

Table 1: Johnson’s classification of a sample

SystematicStratified samplingProbability Sample

Cluster

StageSample

Sample of convenience/volunteer

Sample by quotaNon-probability Sample Purposive

DimensionalSnowball

The sample of the study was drawn from two sources: from 185 non- English majorstudents and 8 teachers of English Therefore the investigator used Simple randomsampling, one technique designed to ensure that the essential characteristics of thesample being studied are like those of the population from which the sample is drawn.That means the samples for this study are chosen randomly from the entire group

is a compulsory textbook for all tenth-form non-English major students Thistextbook was designed under theme-based approach with 16 units covering 16topics It can be seen easily that the textbook provides a variety of activities andopportunities for learners to improve their language through four macro-skills.Similar to other skills, Listening is taught in 3 stages: Pre, While and Post-Listening Each stage is presented with colored and eye-catching pictures, tables, graphs and many interesting tasks (Unit 1, 2, 6, 13 - 16) There are 16 listening texts corresponding to 16

topics under 6 main themes: You and me; Education; Community; Nature & environment; Recreation and People and places The listening texts are monologues and dialogues from 120 to 150 words of length, which are really suitable for students’ language

proficiency The topics of listening texts are said to be interesting and familiar to students For example, students are asked to listen to a dialogue about Sally’s background in Unit 3

or a monologue about Pele, an internationally famous football player in Unit 14.

However, there are still some weak points in listening texts in the current textbook.Some listening texts contain many new and difficult words (e.g., the listening textabout Vang Trang Khuyet Club in Unit 4 or about the ancient town of Hoi An in Unit16) Some other texts are unfamiliar to students’ background knowledge Forexample, students are afraid of listening to the text about Whales in Unit 9

2.3 Data collection instruments

2.3.1 Survey questionnaires

The key instrument for data collection is questionnaires due to a number of

advantages (Wisker 2001) as follows:

oInformation about attitudes, behaviors, activities, and responses to events

oInformation received from a lot of people very quickly

oLess pressure for an immediate response

oLow cost in time and money

The questionnaires for teachers of English and students are a combination of closed and open questions

The questionnaire for teachers

The questionnaire was delivered to 5 teachers It comprises 9 questions presented

in 3 parts:

- Questions from 1 to 3 explore numbers of teaching-year, teachers’ preference

of listening activities and aspects of listening they often focus on

- Questions from 4 to 7 are to look for teachers’ attitudes toward IT activities, their aims, frequency of use and their comments on the effectiveness of these activities.

- Questions 8 and 9 are made to find out teachers’ difficulties when using IT activities and their suggestions for employing those activities more effectively

The questionnaire for students

This questionnaire (including 10 questions) was administered to 96 students It was designed to get information about students’:

- Background (question 1, 2 & 3)

- Evaluating ideas on listening skill and favorite activities employed in a listening lesson (from question 4 to 7)

- Attitudes toward IT activities and problems they encounter when using these activities (from question 8 to 10)

2.3.2 Observation

Observation can be a rich source of information for the researcher It enables him or her

to capture what people actually do rather than what they say they do (Wisker 2001).

As Lacey (1976:65) defined, there are two main kinds of observation: participant observation and non-participant observation.

fundamental issues and questions are going to be addressed by the observation.

This study used non-participant observation The author of the study chose 2

classes to observe She watched, followed and took notes all actions the teachersand students were doing in real classroom setting

The two observed classes are Class 10 majoring in Physics and Geography Thereare 35 students in Physics class and 22 in Geography one They are both male andfemale aged from 15 to 16 The observation was carried out once for 45 minutes ineach class The author has set a checklist for each observation including teachers’techniques employing IT activities and their teaching aids She also observedstudents’ reactions to these activities and results of employing these ones

The listening lessons the author observed are Unit 13 (p.137) and Unit 14 (p148) Thelistening text in Unit 13 is a dialogue in which Huong and Lan plan for the nextweekend and students are required to write their plans on the calendar A monologueabout Pele, a famous Brazilian football player, is the content of the listening text in Unit

14 Students are asked to complete the table of years and events These two listeningtexts are neither long nor difficult and their topics are familiar to students

2.4 Data collection procedure

From Unit 1 to Unit 12 in English 10, there are no IT activities in listening texts Thus the researcher cannot observe the application of those activities in real classrooms IT activities are designed at the end of this textbook (in Unit 13 & 14) so the data collection was carried out when students are in the middle of the second term (near the end of the school-year).

 Observation: The observation of two listening lessons in the classroom was conducted in March (Unit 13 in Class 10 majoring in Physics) and in April (Unit

14

in Class 10 majoring in Geography)

 Questionnaires: Both survey questionnaires for teachers and students were delivered at the end of April after they finish another IT

activity in Unit 15

-24-2.5 Data analysis

This part is the treatment of data collected from the survey questionnaires for 5teachers of English and 96 non- English major students at BnSHS and the author’s

class observation This study uses Descriptive Analysis, one of four types of data

analysis used in survey research, the results of which are often reported infrequencies (the actual number responding in a certain way) and percentages

2.5.1 Analysis of the Survey questionnaire for Students

Question 1, 2 & 3 are intended to find out students’ background

As can be seen from Chart 1, only 37 students (39%) are from city and towns,where the learning condition is believed to be favorable Most of the sample (61%)comes from the countryside in which the teaching and learning conditions are not

as good as those in towns and city

Question 2 “How long have you been learning English?” provides the researcher

with more information about the time students have been learning English.Students in our country typically receive four years of compulsory Englisheducation in secondary schools As students in the sample come from differentareas in Bacninh province, the time they have been learning English varies Afterinvestigating, the author divided the time into two groups:

The majority of the students (61 - 64%) have been learning English for 8 years andmore They must have mastered the basic knowledge of English language This is

an important advantage to improve their language skills at high schools Only 36%

of the students have been learning English for 5 or 6 years

Question 3 “Which language skill do you think the most difficult?” is students’

evaluation of four language skills.

This study was conducted when our students nearly finished their school-year.Therefore, students had got familiar with learning language skills and had theirown evaluation on them Looking at chart 3, one can easily realize that the biggestpercentage of the students (78 - 81%) find Listening the most difficult skill Writingskill is thought to be the second (11.7%) and speaking is the third (5.2%) Only twostudents (2.1%) believed reading is the most difficult

It can be inferred from the answers to the first three questions that the English proficiency levels of 10 th non- English major students at BnSHS are varied The reasons for this can be the fact that these students come from different areas in Bacninh province with different