A study on the teachers application of task based method and the 10th form students use of learning strategies in their listening lessons at tran phu high school in vinh phuc

Foreign language learners’ listening comprehension strategies 22... The students’ better learning strategies in listening lessons 39 APPENDIX I Survey questionnaire for students III APPE



-đặng Thị Thu Thuỷ

A STUDY ON THE TEACHERS’ APPLICATION OF

STUDENTS’ USE OF LEARNING STRATEGIES IN

THEIR LISTENING LESSONS

AT TRAN PHU HIGH SCHOOL IN VINH PHUC

NghiÊn cứu về việc áp dụng ph-ơng pháp dạy học giao nhiệm vụ của giáo viên và việc sử dụng các thủ thuật của học sinh lớp 10 trong các bài học nghe

tại tr-ờng T.H.P.T trần phú

- vĩnh phúc M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: English Methodology

Hanoi, December 2008



-đặng Thị Thu Thuỷ

A STUDY ON THE TEACHERS’ APPLICATION

FORM STUDENTS’ USE OF LEARNING

STRATEGIES IN THEIR LISTENING LESSONS

AT TRAN PHU HIGH SCHOOL IN VINH PHUC

NghiÊn cứu về việc áp dụng ph-ơng pháp dạy học giao nhiệm vụ của giáo viên và việc sử dụng các thủ thuật của học sinh lớp 10 trong các bài học nghe tại tr-ờng

T.H.P.T trần phú

- vĩnh phúc M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: English Methodology

SUPERVISOR: Dr đỗ Tuấn Minh

Hanoi, December 2008

II Aims and research questions of the study 2

I Innovations in language teaching method 4I.1 Language teaching methods focusing on developing grammatical competence 5I.2 Language teaching methods focusing on developing communicative 6competence

I.3 Task-based Method – the strong version of CLT 10

II.1 Synthetic syllabus versus analytic syllabus 12

III.3 Common methods in teaching listening 19III.4 Three stages in a listening lesson 20III.5 Foreign language learners’ listening problems 21III.6 Foreign language learners’ listening comprehension strategies 22

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS, DISCUSSIONS AND SOLLUTIONS 25

II Data analysis, findings and discussions 27II.1 The students’ performance in listening lessons 27II.2 The students’ preparation for listening lessons 28II.3 The students’ motivation before listening 29II.4 The student’s learning strategies used in listening lessons and their 30experiences to listen effectively

II.5 The frequency of the teachers’ activities to motivate the students before 32listening

II.7 The frequency of using pair-work and group-work in listening lessons 33II.8 The teachers’ treatment with listening tasks 34II.9 The combination of reading, speaking, and writing skills in listening lessons 35

III.1 More effective warm-up activities 36III.2 Facilitating the students with the language inputs before listening 37III.3 More meaningful listening tasks 37III.4 Using more pair-work and group-work in listening lessons 38III.5 Using more reading, speaking and writing skills in listening lessons 38III.6 The students’ better preparation before listening 39III.7 The students’ better learning strategies in listening lessons 39

APPENDIX I Survey questionnaire (for students) III APPENDIX II Survey questionnaire (for teachers) V APPENDIX III The tape-scripts of listening texts VII APPENDIX IV Different kinds of tasks in listening lessons XVIII

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

TABLES

Table 1: The students’ performance in listening lessons

Table 2: The students’ preparation for listening lessons

Table 3: The students’ learning strategies used in listening lessons Table 4: The pre-listening activities

CHARTS

Chart 1: The students’ motivation before listening

Chart 2: The students’ learning experiences to listen effectively

Chart 3: The frequency of teachers’ activities to motivate the students

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE

Together with the development of international relationships between Vietnam andother countries in the world, the need to learn English in our country is sharply increasing.English has become a compulsory subject in every Vietnamese school and university.However, the fact in Vietnam shows that there is now not only an urgent lack of the number ofpeople speaking English fluently somewhere but also an impressive demand for the quality ofEnglish teaching and learning in the whole Vietnamese education system In order to solvethese problems, we have no alternation but to apply innovations to the process of teaching andlearning English in our country

Theoretically, the innovations in second language (L2) teaching and learning over thetime have always based on the findings that come from Second Language Acquisition (SLA)Research Moreover, they can take place in two parallel directions: changing in teachingmethod as well as in syllabus design The theories also state that there must be a mutualrelationship between innovations in these two directions They must be relevant to each other

to contribute to the success of language teaching and learning

In the late twentieth century, we have witnessed the successful application of TBM inCommunicative Language Teaching (CLT) in many places all over world In Vietnam, TBMhas gradually replaced traditional teaching methods Together with the new textbook series, ithas resulted in outstanding outcomes in teaching and learning English, especially in improvingspeaking and listening skills However, we must confess that these outcomes are quitedifferent when we observe various English classes in Vietnam

Being an English teacher at high school, I myself have seen not only the success of thenew method and the new textbook series but also the difficulties and sometimes failures whenapplying them One of these failures that attracts my most attention is my students‟ badperformance in listening lessons This explains why I choose to carry out a study on the use ofthe new method in teaching listening for my students in this thesis, which is hopefullydesigned to help my students to overcome the problems

II AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS OF THE STUDY

The study firstly aims to draw out the mutual relationship between the new method andthe new textbook which ensures the success of our lessons In addition, the thesis is designed

to investigate the teachers‟ application of TBM and the 10th form students‟ use of learningstrategies in their listening lessons at TPHS in Vinh Phuc Next, a comparison is made to testwhether the application of the new method here is relevant to the new textbook Last but farfrom least, the study is concluded with some solutions, which help these students improvetheir listening skill

In order to implement the study, two research questions are raised: (1) Whether the teachers‟ application of TBM and the 10th form students‟ use of learning strategies are

effective in their listening lessons at TPHS in Vinh Phuc? and (2) Is there a close relevance between the teaching methods used to teach listening for these students and the textbook? III SCOPES OF THE STUDY

Due to the time limit as well as the lack of knowledge on the part of the writer , it is impossible to cover all aspects of teaching listening in this thesis Therefore, my study will only discuss the effect of using TBM in teaching listening, which is considered one the most important factors contributing to the success of each lesson IV METHODS OF THE STUDY

It is obvious that the thesis would not be in this form without qualitative method usedduring the writing process First of all, the data were collected from two survey questionnaires,informal interviews with the teachers and classroom observations The data, then, requiredsystematical classification to put them into different parts Finally, logical contrastive analysiswas of great help

V DESIGN OF THE STUDY

While this thesis generally presents the topic: “A Study on the Effect of Using TBM inTeaching Listening for 10th Form Students at TPHS in Vinh Phuc”, each of the chapterscarries out its own task far different from that of the others The first chapter states rationalesfor, aims, scope, method and organization of the study The theoretical background in thechapter II covers issues most relevant to the topic The next one focuses on analyzing figures

and giving out some findings We also find in this chapter some solutions to solve the given problems Finally, the forth chapter concludes the study.

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Before studying the teachers‟ application of TBM and the 10th form students‟ use of learning strategies in their listening lessons at TPHS in Vinh Phuc, we should now have an overview of changes in language teaching and learning through out the history with two directions: innovations in language teaching methods and innovations in syllabus design I INNOVATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHOD

It is necessary now to distinguish these three confusing concepts: approach, methodand technique A scheme was proposed by Edward Anthony (1963, pp.63-67) In his viewpoint, approach is at the top, method is in the middle and technique is at the bottom of avertically hierarchical line Approach determines method, then method determines technique.Here three concepts is distinguished clearly However, the limited point of this distinction isthat the hierarchical line only goes downward The determination is only in one direction,there is no interaction between these three concepts

Richards and Rodgers (1986, pp.18-20) make this distinction quite clear In their point

of view, approaches are views of the nature of language or language teaching An approach isaxiomatic Whereas method is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of languagematerial A method is procedural No part of a method contradicts and all of the method isbased upon a selected approach And lastly, techniques are the actual activities the teachers do

in the classroom In the expression „innovations in language teaching methods‟, the term

„method‟ is used with a broad meaning so that it takes over other terms

Looking at the flowered development of SLA Research and the history of languageteaching methods in the past few decades, we can find that there is a close relationshipbetween researches in SLA and the changes in language teaching methods, that is, the latterhas reflected recognition of changes both in the kind of proficiency learners need and in theory

of the nature of language and language learning, resulted from the former

Based on the proficiency learners need, we can classify language teaching methodsthrough out the history into two groups The first group helps to develop grammaticalcompetence and the second one communicative competence

I.1 Language teaching methods focusing on developing grammatical competence

Most of traditional teaching methods belong to the first group which concentrates onthe development of grammatical competence, that is the ability to recognize and produce thegrammar with a set of distinctive forms and rules, the lexicon and the phonology of a languageand the ability to use them effectively in producing grammatically or phonologically accuratesentences in the target language

Focusing on developing grammatical competence, traditional language teachingmethods have undergone two different periods: focusing on meaning and on forms Theformer aims at developing learners‟ proficiency of reading comprehension and sentencewriting, whereas the latter pays much more attention to the rules and structures

The Grammar-Translation Method is one example of teaching language focus onmeaning With this method, the students‟ native language (L1) is the medium of instruction It

is used to explain new items and to enable comparisons to be made between L2 and L1.Furthermore, grammar is taught deductively and explicitly, that is, by presentation and study

of grammar rules, which are then practiced through translation exercises From these aspects,

we can see the distinctive feature of the method, i.e the sentence is the basic unit of teachingand language practice and much of the lesson is devoted to translating sentences into and out

of the target language

Although this method has been used widely and considered a very effective one, it stillhas some drawbacks A lot of SLA researchers have shown that numerous errors appearing inthe process of L2 acquisition are the result of L1 transfer That is because the two languagesare not the same, so we cannot have a proper translation between them In addition, when themethod has been put into practice it has only been proved effective for the very beginners oflanguage teaching All these problems cause the Grammar-Translation Method in particularand language teaching methods focusing on meaning in general to change

The second period of language teaching methods, focusing on forms, is evident in theTraditional Approach Under the light of this approach, language learning is a process ofaccumulating distinct entities Learners are required to treat language primarily as an object to

be studied and practiced bit by bit and to function as students rather than as users of the

language Grammar is also taught explicitly Moreover, each lesson is traditionally carried out

in three fixed steps : presentation, practice and production (P-P-P)

Although the procedure with three steps P-P-P has been quite famous and applied inmany English classes all over the world, Traditional Approach in particular and teachingmethods focusing on forms in general have still revealed some unreasonable aspects Firstly,the approach does not motivate learners‟ creation The rules and the forms are quite fixed and

it is the teacher but not the learners who decide which ones to teach and how the lesson takesplace in the classroom Secondly, the aim of the method is to ensure the accuracy of the rulesand structures but not the meaning and the actual use of language in communication That iswhy there is a restriction in the use of language outside the classroom

From the investigation of the two above language teaching methods, we find thatconcentrating on developing only grammatical competence will not provide the learners withthe ability to produce sentences or utterances which are appropriate to the context or tointerpret perfectly such utterances

I.2 Language teaching methods focusing on developing communicative competence

Now, it is time for us to discuss the second group of teaching methods whichconcentrates on developing communicative competence

The term communicative competence, which was coined by Dell Hymes (1971, p.96),

is the development of Noam Chomsky‟s notion of linguistic competence cited in Ellis (1994,p.12) Chomsky defines linguistic competence as the ability of a speaker-hearer to speak andunderstand language in a grammatically correct manner In other words, linguistic competence

is the use of grammatical rules of a language in communication Hymes then expands onChomsky‟s view by considering the social factors of a culture‟s language So, communicativecompetence, in Hyme‟s definition, is the use of not only grammatical rules of a language butalso social language rules in communication

According to Hymes (1971, p.98) communicative competence consists of fourcomponents: grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence andstrategic competence He states that the first two components, which constitute linguisticcompetence, reflect the use of the linguistic system itself and the last two, which constitute

pragmatic competence, define the functional aspects of communication.

Now, let us consider these four components in detail Grammatical competence isknowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semanticsand phonology It is the competence that we associate with mastering the linguistic code of alanguage Next, discourse competence is considered the complement of grammaticalcompetence in many ways It is the ability we have to come at sentences in stretches ofdiscourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterance The third component,sociolinguistic competence, is defined as the knowledge of socio-cultural rules of languageand of discourse This type of competence reveals an understanding of the social context inwhich language is used, of the roles of the participant, of the information they share and of thefunction of the interaction Only in a full context of this kind can judgments be made on theappropriateness of a particular utterance Finally, strategic competence is the verbal andnonverbal strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns incommunication due to performance variable or due to insufficient competence

We can explain the shift from language teaching methods focusing on developgrammatical competence to those concentrating on developing communicative competenceunder the lights of the researches in SLA Firstly, many researchers such as Krashen (1981,p.72) makes a clear distinction between acquisition, that is, the subconscious process ofpicking up a language through exposure and learning, that is, the conscious process ofstudying a language These researches also indicate that acquisition is much promoted in acommunicative classroom where students are exposed to continuous communication Besides,Krashen‟s Comprehensible Hypothesis (1981, p.206) states that an important condition forlanguage acquisition to occur is that the acquirer must understand the inputs and the inputsmust be comprehensible, i.e slightly beyond his or her current level of proficiency Thisrejects the teacher‟s opportunity to teach what they want without paying attention to learners.Then, Long‟s Interaction Hypothesis cited in Brown (2007, p.132) adds explanation for theshift The hypothesis claims that inputs can be made comprehensible via interactionaladjustments or negotiation of meaning in interlanguage talk (the communication amonglearners) and in teacher talk (the communication between teacher and learners) Finally, we

can consider innovations in teaching method according to Skehan‟s Motivation Hypothesiscited in Ellis (1994, p.258) which concludes that motivation promotes L2 acquisition andlearners quickly acquire what they pay attention to.

With the theories of communicative competence, we have seen the emergence ofCommunicative Approach in the late 1960s and the wide application of CommunicativeLanguage Teaching (CLT) in the last two decades The preference of this new teachingmethod can be attributed to the fact that it provides learners with activities selected according

to how well they engage the learner in meaningful and authentic language use rather thanmerely mechanical practice of language patterns In order to promote learning, these activitiesmust ensure the CLT principles of communication, task, and meaningfulness That is,activities in CLT classes are designed in form of different tasks which exposing learners to realand meaningful communication

Howatt (1984, p.279) distinguishes between a strong and a weak version of CLT Theformer which has become more or less standard practice in the last 10 years, stresses theimportance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicativepurpose and characteristically attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program oflanguage teaching The latter, on the other hand, advances the claim that language is acquiredthrough communication, so that it is not merely a question of activating an existing but inertknowledge of the language, but also a question of stimulating the development of the languagesystem itself We can see that while the week version of CLT could be described as learning touse English, the strong one entails using English to learn it

In order to have a clearer look at characteristics of CLT, Finocchiaro and Brumfit(1983, p.91) contrast the major distinctive features of the Audio-Lingual Method and theCommunicative Approach:

Audio-Lingual Communicative Language Teaching

Attends to structure and form not meaning Meaning is paramount

Demands memorization of structure based Dialogues if used center arounddialogues communicative function and are not

normally memorizedLanguage items are not necessarily Contextualization is a basic premise

contextualized

Language learning is language structures, Language learning is learning tosounds or words communicate

Mastery or over-learning is sought Effective communicative is sought

Drilling is a central technique Drilling may occur but peripherally

Native speaker like pronunciation is sought Comprehensible pronunciation is soughtGrammatical explanation is avoided Any device that helps the learners is

accepted varying according to their age,interest, …

Communicative activities only come after a Attempts to communicate may be encouragelong process or rigid drills and exercises from the very beginning

The use of the students‟ native language is Judicious use of native language is accepted

Translation is forbidden at early level Translation may be used where students

need or benefit from itReading and writing are deferred till speech Reading and writing can start from the first

is mastered day if desired

The target linguistic system will be learned The target linguistic system will be learnthrough the overt teaching of the patterns of best through the process of struggling to

Linguistic competence is the desired goal Communicative competence is the desired

goal (the ability to use the linguistic systemeffectively and appropriately)

Varieties of language are recognized but not Linguistic variation is a central concept inemphasized material and methodology

The sequence of units is determined solely Sequencingisdeterminedby any

by principles of linguistic complexity consideration of context, function, or

meaning that maintains interestThe teacher controls the learners and Teacher helps learners in any way thatprevents them from doing anything that motivate them to work with the languageconflicts with the theory

Language is habit so errors must be Language is created by the individual, oftenprevented at any cost through trial and error

Accuracy in terms of formal correctness is a Fluency and acceptable language is theprimary goal primary goal Accuracy is judged not in the

abstract but in contextStudents are expected to interact with the Students are expected to interact with otherlanguage system, embodied in machines or people either in the flesh, through pair orcontrol materials group work or in their writing

The teacher is expected to specify the The teacher cannot know exactly whatlanguage that students are to use language students will use

Intrinsic motivation will spring from an Intrinsic motivation will spring an interestinterest in the structure of the language in what is being communicated by the

language

I.3 Task-based Method – the strong version of CLT

Task – based Teaching can be regarded as a strong and recent version ofcommunicative methodology and seeks to reconcile methodology with current theories ofSLA Many researches indicate that while traditional teaching methods focus on meaning and

on forms in order to develop grammatical competence, Task-based Teaching focuses on form

to develop communicative competence According to Ellis, the term form is intended toinclude not only phonological, lexical and grammatical aspects of language but also pragma-linguistics ones

Being a version of CLT, TBM has all the above listed characteristics We now repeatthe most important ones Firstly, the focus of teaching is on process rather than product.Secondly, basic elements are purposeful activities and tasks that emphasize communicationand meaning Last but not least, learners learn language by interacting communicatively andpurposefully while engaged in the activities and tasks

From the characteristics of CLT in general and of TBM as particular, we can see that

in a task-based lesson, the teacher does not predetermine what language will be studied.Instead, the lesson is based around the completion of a central task and the language studied isdetermined by what happens as the students complete it

Now it is time to consider what exactly takes place within a task Willis (1996, 62) recommends different components in a framework of tasks: the pre-task stage, the task cycle and the language focus

pp.52-At the pre-task stage, the teacher first introduces the topic in the way that mostmotivates the students Then, clear instructions on what they will have to do with the task arealso given If these steps are well planned and successfully complimented, they might help thestudents to recall some language from their outcomes that may be useful for the task The pre-task stage can also include playing a record of people doing the task This gives the students aclear demonstration of what they will be expected in the task Lastly, the students can takenotes and spend time preparing for the task

The task cycle consists of some certain activities: task, planning and report In taskactivities, the students complete a task in pairs or groups using the language resources while

the teacher monitors and offers encouragement Then, it is the time for planning: A short oral

or written report is prepared by pairs or groups of students to tell the rest of the class whathappened during their task They then practise what they are going to say in their pairs orgroups Meanwhile the teacher is available for the students to ask any language relatedquestion they may have At the report stage, the students report back to the class orally or readthe written report The teacher decides when they present their reports and may give themsome quick feedback on the content and their performance

At the language focus stage, both analysis and practice activities take place First of all,that is the case of analysis activities The teacher highlights interesting features on the contentand the performance of the students‟ reports Some serious errors that the students make intheir reports can also be raised The students then discuss these interesting features as well aserrors in their pairs or groups In practice activities, the teacher selects language aspects topractise based on the needs of the students and what emerged from the task and report phases.The students then do their practice activities to build up their confidence and make a note ofuseful language contents

II INNOVATIONS IN SYLLABUS DESIGN

As said above, in order to ensure the success of English classes there must be a mutualrelationship between teaching method and syllabus Therefore, SLA researches cause not onlyteaching methods but also syllabuses to change

Before looking at the innovations in syllabus, it is necessary to look at different views

of the importance of inputs in L2 acquisition It is self-evident that L2 acquisition can onlytake place when the learner has access to inputs in the L2, but the idea of the importance ofinputs for and their contribution to the success of language classrooms is controversial

Behaviorist theories emphasize the importance of inputs They claim that the wholeprocess of acquisition can be controlled by presenting learners with inputs in right-sized dosesand then reinforcing their attempts to practice them However, Chomsky challenged thetheories in the 1960s and concluded that there was a very poor match between the kind oflanguage found in the inputs learners received and the kind of language they themselvesproduced

On the contrary, the mentalist view underemphasizes the importance of inputs Itstates that the mind or the „black - box‟ of learners is most important for L2 acquisition whileinputs only function as a trigger setting off some internal language acquisition devices Thementalist view of inputs hypothesizes a set of mental processes which take place inside themind of the learner and which convert the language in inputs into a form that the learner couldstore and handle in production However, researches in SLA took this view into consideration

by showing that interaction can provide learners with “scaffolding” that enables them toproduce structures that would be beyond them

Next comes the interactionist view of inputs It emphasizes the importance of bothinputs and interaction Researchers who advocate this view suggests that learners acquire alanguage through the process of learning how to communicate in it and inputs shaped throughinteraction contribute directly and powerfully to acquisition

Now, it is time we distinguished three confusing concepts: curriculum, syllabus andtextbook According to Richards (2001, p.16), curriculum is on the top of a hierarchicallyvertical line and is the most complicated It is a generalization of needs of a group of learners,aims or objectives for a program to address those need, appropriate syllabus, course structure,teaching method and materials, and an evaluation of the application of the language program

as well Whereas, a syllabus is at the next descending step of the line It is a specification ofthe content of a course of instruction and list what will be taught and tested A textbook, on thecontrary, is the conveyance of the content of the course raised in the syllabus in forms ofdifferent activities such as tasks, exercises, and drills In this thesis, „syllabus‟ is used as acommon term which takes over the two others

II.1 Synthetic syllabus versus analytic syllabus

According to Beglar and Hunt (1987, p.96), there are two kinds of syllabus: syntheticsyllabus and analytic syllabus The former divides the target language into discrete linguisticitems such as points of grammar, lexical items and functions The designers who use this type

of syllabus assume that learners will be capable of resynthesizing these discrete pieces oflanguage into a coherent whole which they can use in communicative situations The latter is anoninterventionist, experiential approach which aims to expose learners to real-life

communication This type of syllabus supplies learners with samples of the target languagewhich are selected with the purposes for which people use language In this case, theassumption is that learners will be able to analyze grammatical and lexical usage during theprocess of using the target language to communicate.

Grammar-Translation syllabus is an example of synthetic syllabus The textbook hereconsists of statements of abstract grammar rules, lists of vocabulary, and sentences fortranslation In addition, speaking foreign language is not the goal when the syllabus isdesigned, and oral practice is limited to students reading aloud the sentences they translate Allthe sentences found in the textbook are constructed to illustrate the grammatical system of thelanguage and bore no relation to the language of real communication

From the description of Grammar-Translation syllabus as well as the characteristics ofGrammar-Translation Method, we can see a clear relevance between how to teach (teachingmethod) and what to teach (syllabus) Theoretically, all the grammar rules, lists of vocabulary

as well as different kinds of sentences in the syllabus perfectly match the method of translationfrom L1 to L2 This helps to explain for the success of Grammar-Translation classrooms overthe history of language teaching and learning

For analytic syllabus, White cited in Murphy (2003, p.352) lists its most salientcharacteristics as follows: (a) it is primarily concerned with how materials are learned(processes–oriented ); (b) some degree of negotiation between learners and teachers occurs;(c) the content is fundamentally defined as what the subject means to the learner and what thelearner brings to the subject in terms of knowledge and interest; (d) assessment is partially

decided based on the learners‟ own criteria of success; (e) the instructional situation is farmore cooperative than in traditional classrooms

Task - based syllabus is an example of analytic syllabus According to Crookes andLong (1992, p.131), beside the characteristics just described above, task-based syllabuses arelargely derived from what is known about SLA For instance, SLA Research supports a focus

on form which uses pedagogical tasks to draw learners‟ attention to particular aspects of thelanguage code which are naturally embedded in the tasks Tasks also provide inputs to learnersand opportunities for meaningful language use, both of which are generally considered

valuable in promoting language acquisition That explains why tasks hold a core position inthe syllabus Moreover, the conclusion of some types of instructions on the formal aspects ofthe target language can be found in most recent formulations of task-based languageinstructions All these aspects of task-based syllabus enable real communication to take placenaturally and frequently in the classroom.

Here, we find another example of the relevance between teaching method and syllabus

We all see that tasks are not only the main activities in TBM to expose students to real-worldcommunication but also the core element in task-based syllabus which are designed topromote students to communicate in real contexts

We now take an example of the irrelevance between how to teach and what to teach.That is the case of the weak version of CLT While the syllabus is communicative, i.e a list ofnotions and functions, the teaching method is traditional and non communicative, i.e P-P-P.Advocators of the weak version of CLT base on the assumptions that the components ofcommunicative competence can be identified and systematically taught in order to explain forthe irrelevance to which its failure is attributed when the weak version of CLT has been putinto practiced

From these above examples, we find that in order to theoretically ensure the success oflanguage teaching and learning there must be a relevance between teaching method andsyllabus

Now, let us have a brief look at the textbook designed to teach English for 10th formstudents in Vietnam in general and at TPHS in Vinh Phuc in particular who are the subjects ofthis thesis

The textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” compiled by Van et al (2006) is among a new series oftextbooks which are designed in task-based orientation in order to teach English forVietnamese students in the school education system The design of the whole series oftextbooks has adopted „the principle of relevance‟ that we mentioned above In this case, that

is the relevance between the use of the task-based textbooks and the application of TBM inevery English classroom in Vietnam

II.2 Tasks in task-based syllabus

As can be seen from the characteristics of task-based syllabus, tasks can function as auseful device for planning a communicative curriculum, and that is why they provide the basisfor the whole language curriculum in Task- based Language Teaching However the question

“What is exactly a task?” is quite controversial

Long cited in Ellis (2003, p.2) gives a broad definition which includes two types oftasks: tasks that requires language, for example, making an airline reservation and tasks thatcan be performed without language, for example, painting a fence Whereas Nunan‟sdefinition of task cited in Ellis (2003, p.2) is much narrower He defines task as an activitythat necessarily involves language In my study, I advocate the definition by Bygate, Skehanand Swain (2001, p.57) “A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with theemphasis on meaning, to attain an objective, and which is chosen so that it is most likely toprovide information for learners and teachers which will help them in their own learning”

From the definition by Bygate, Skehan, and Swain, six criterial features of a task arelisted (Ellis, 2003, p.9): (a) a task is a workplan; (b) a task involves a primarily focus onmeaning; (c) a task involves real-world process of language use; (d) a task can involves any ofthe four language skills; (e) a task engages cognitive process; and (f) a task has clearly definedcommunicative outcome

There is a need to distinguish between task, i.e the core unit of task-based syllabus andexercise, i.e the main activities in traditional one Tasks and exercises have the same overallpurpose, i.e learning a language The difference lies in the means by which this purpose is to

be achieved While tasks are activities that call for primarily meaning-focused language use,exercise activities call for primarily form-focused language use A task is concerned withpragmatic meaning, i.e the use of language in context However, an exercise is concerned withsemantic meaning, i.e the systemic meanings that specific forms can convey irrespective ofcontext

Before looking at the tasks in a task-based syllabus, it is necessary to make adistinction between different kinds of tasks: focused versus unfocused tasks, one-way versustwo-way tasks, open versus close tasks

Both unfocused and focused tasks are used to stimulate communicative language usebut the former is not designed with the use of a specific linguistic feature in mind On thecontrary, when being designed the latter targets the use of a particular, predetermined feature

of language

One-way tasks and two-way tasks are distinguished in terms of whether theinformation to be shared is split one-way, i.e held by a single person or between two or morepeople In the case of one-way tasks, the burden of completing the task successfully is placed

on the participant who holds the information, although other participants can contribute bydemonstrating when they comprehend or when they do not Conversely, in two-way tasks allthe participants are obligated to participate in the tasks in order to complete it

Open tasks are those in which there is no predetermined solution In this case, manyoptions can gap the task and learners are free to decide on the solution In contrast, close tasksare those that require the students to reach a single, correct solution or one of a small finite set

of solutions

Let us now look at listening activities designed in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” which

is also one of the subject of this study and shown in appendix IV There is a fact that some ofthese activities are only pseudo-tasks That is because they do not meet all the criteria of tasksgiven above For example, the exercises of true/false, numbering, and ticking in appropriateinformation do not involve real-world process of language uses and have not clearly definedcommunicative outcome

The rest of listening activities in the textbook, however, are of various kinds of tasksranging from one-way tasks (e.g Work in groups, retell the story then report your result –After you listen, Unit 4) to two-way tasks (e.g Work in pairs, discuss the change in your ownhometown or home village – After you listen, Unit 8); from closed tasks (e.g Match thepictures with the conversation – While you listen, Unit 2) to opened tasks (Work in group,answer the questions: what would you plan for a picnic with your class? – After you listen,Unit 6); from unfocused tasks (e.g Fill in the blanks with the exact words you hear - Whileyou listen, Unit 6 ) to focused tasks (e.g Work in pairs or groups, ask and answer about MrLam then report your result – After you listen, Unit 1)

Breen (1987, p.184) distinguished between two terms task-as-workplan, i.e thedesigned task with the intension of the designer and task-as-process, i.e the learners‟ actualperformance of the task Then, these two terms have widely used by other researchers.

In Murphy‟s article (2003, pp.352-360), he states that learning outcomes are a product

of three main factors: the task-as-workplan, the task-as-process, and the situation in which thetask is carried out So, the task itself is not enough to ensure the intended pedagogicalobjectives of the task designers In many cases, the task-as-workplan does not match the task-as-process That is because any pre-designed tasks can be changed by the way the learnersinteract it

According to Breen (1987, p.226), there are two main ways in which learners interact with the task If learners find that a task relates closely to their own learning needs, they will adopt an achievement orientation On the other hand, if they are unable to see the relevance of the task to their perceived needs, learners are likely to adopt a survival orientation and performthe tasks with minimal effort He also claims that even if the purpose of the task is found relevant and learners adopt an achievement orientation, they may still select procedures to carry out the task which differ from the direction given in the task-as-workplan That is why it

is vital for the pedagogical objectives of the tasks to be made clear to the learners III

THEORY IN LISTENING

III.1 Definition of listening

Among four language skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing, listening is oftenconsidered the most difficult one which challenges both teacher and learners in languageclassroom Now, it is time we had a look at the definition of this skill

According to Field (1998, p.38), “Listening is an invisible metal process, making itdifficult to describe Listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary andgrammatical structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within theimmediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance”

In my study, I adopt a simpler definition of listening by Anderson and Lynch (1988,p.21): “Listening comprehension means to understand what a speaker says: the listener has acrucial part to play in the process by activating various types of knowledge, by applying what

he knows to what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker means.”

From the second definition we can find that listening is a complex, active process ofinterpretation in which listeners not only recall their comprehensive knowledge but also matchwhat they hear with what they have already known

III 2 Classification of listening

Anderson and Lynch (1998, p.315) distinguish between reciprocal listening andnonreciprocal listening The former refers to listening tasks where there is the opportunities forthe listener to interact with the speaker and to negotiate the content of the interaction Thelatter refers to tasks such as listening to the radio or a formal lecture where the transfer ofinformation is in a direction only – from the speaker to listener

Let us take listening in classrooms as examples of these types of listening Forreciprocal listening, it is the case of listening tasks that expose learners to communicate witheach other or with their teacher Nonreciprocal listening takes place when students listen to thetape in the listening session

Richards and Schmidt (1983, p.129) classifies listening according to whether theyrequire the learners to engage in bottom-up or top-down processing In bottom-up processing,learners rely on their linguistic knowledge to recognize linguistic elements – vowels,

consonants, words, sentences to do the construction of meaning They build meaning fromlower lever sounds to words, to grammatical relationship, and to lexical meaning in order toarrive at the final message In top-down processing, learners use their prior knowledge to makeprediction about the text Prior knowledge can be that of the topic, the listening context, thetext-type, the culture or other information stored in long-term as well as short-term memory

Listening comprehension is not either bottom-up or top-down processing but is an bothinteractive and interpretive process where listeners use both prior knowledge and linguisticknowledge in understanding message The degree to which learners use this process or theother will depend on their knowledge being familiar with the topic as well as the purpose forlistening

III.3 Common methods in teaching listening

Underwood (1990, p.90) states that there are at least four common methods ofteaching L2 listening: Grammar-Translation Method, Grammar Method, Audio-LingualMethod and TBM

When Grammar-Translation Method is applied in a classroom, the students certainlylisten to a description of the rules of L2 in their L1 As a result, when L2 is used, the focus ofany listening is on translation of lexical items or grammar structures

To follow Grammar Method, the teacher requires students to look at a written textwhile they listen to a recording This focuses the students to do several things: identify words

by their position in the sentence, work out the relationship between words and phrases, useforward and backward related cues, and make intelligent guesses based on textual cues

Audio-lingual Method of teaching listening emphasizes listening to pronunciation andgrammatical forms and then imitating those forms by way of drills and exercises Dialoguesand drills are the basis of classroom practice with this method Students are encouraged tolisten carefully either to a taped recording of or a teacher reading out a dialogue or a drill.Basically, the more the students repeat a correct phrase or sentence, the stronger of theirmemory of structures will be

In TBM, a stress is placed on activities or tasks that learners do in class in order todevelop their communicative competence A task-based syllabus should be constructedaccording to the difficulty of the tasks required of the learners at different stages in a course

To sum up, the four methods of teaching L2 listening are not mutually exclusive and inreality they may be mixed in any particular course or classroom However, nowadays, with theappearance of CLT, teaching listening seems to be more meaningful to students due to the factthat they have chance to develop their listening skills and other language skills as well

III.4 Three stages of the listening lesson

In order to help learners get most from a listening lesson, a lesson plan of listening isusually divided into three stages: (a) things learners do before listening, i.e pre-listening; (b)tasks, exercises or activities are done by learners when the discourse is played, i.e while-listening; (3) things learners do after listening, i.e post-listening

There has been a definition of the pre-listening stage as follows: “Before listening,students should be „turn in‟ so that they know what to expect, both in general and particulartasks This kind of preparatory work is generally described as pre-listening work or just pre-listening” (Underwood, 1990, p.30)

Underwood also states that pre-listening work can consist of a whole range ofactivities, including: the teacher giving background information, the students readingsomething relevant, looking at pictures, at discussion of the topic, at a question and answersession and at written exercises as well as following the instructions for the while-listeningactivity and the consideration of how while-listening will be done

The while-listening stage consists of activities that students are asked to do Thepurpose of while listening activities is to help students develop their skills of listening to thespoken language Rixon (1986, p.253) points out the purposes of while listening stage is tochallenge and guide students to handle the information and the message from the listeningtext Activities of this stage must be interesting and carefully chosen They must vary atdifferent levels and in different cases

Appropriateness is considered a characteristics of while-listening activities Activities

of this stage should be suitable with students‟ ability This means that while-listeningactivities can be done by most students, from the slow students to the best ones Becausefailure can quickly discourage students to listen In the early stage, activities which are muchabove the students‟ level should not be used, but sometimes it is necessary to give studentssome challenges

Post-listening stage consists of activities that are done after the listening is completed.Some of these activities are extension of the work done at the pre-listening and while-listeningstages but some relate loosely to the listening text itself

Underwood (1990, p.77) indicates that the attention should be given to the followingfactors in selecting post-listening activities: how much language work you wish to do inrelation with particular listening text; whether there will be time to do much post-listeningwork at the end of the listening lesson; whether the post-listening work should consist ofspeaking, reading or writing; whether the post listening stage is seen as an opportunity for pair

group work; whether it is necessary to provide post-listening activities that can be doneoutside the classroom; and how motivating the chosen activities will be.

III 5 Foreign language learners’ listening problems

Before describing the problems that foreign language learners face in learninglistening, let us look back at the basic difference between reciprocal listening andnonreciprocal listening In reciprocal listening, i.e real listening, there is the negotiation ofmeaning resulted from the interaction between learners and learners or learners and teacher.Conversely, the information is transferred in only one direction in nonreciprocal listening and

no meaning negotiation takes place

Meaning negotiation plays an important part in listening comprehension as well as incommunication It is the adjustments which are found in the language of the speakersaddressed to the learners We can see these adjustments in foreigner talk, i.e the languageused by native speakers when communicating with non-native speakers, interlanguage talk,i.e the language that learners use to communicate with each other, as well as teacher talk, i.e.the language that the teacher used to address to the students

Apart from the problem of no meaning negotiation, listening comprehension inclassrooms also causes various problems for the students All these problems can be dividedinto two groups: listening problems and language problems Underwood also indicates theseven listening problems as follows: (a) lack of control over the speed at which speakersspeak; (b) not being able to get things repeated; (c) the listeners‟ limited vocabulary; (d)failure to recognize the “signals”; (e) problems of interpretation; (f) inability to concentrate;and (g) establishing learning habits In addition to this, Yagang cited in Rixon (1986, p 310)attributes the difficulties of listening comprehension to four sources: (a) the messages; (b) thespeaker; (c) the listener and the physical setting In order to make this clearer, the research onlearners‟ listening problems cited in Underwood (1990, pp.172-178) shows ten problemswhich occurred during the cognitive processing phrases of perception Then, fives problemsthat are linked to word recognition and attention failure during perceptual processing are alsogiven in the research: (a) do not recognize words they know; (b) neglect the next part whenthinking about meaning; (c) cannot chunk streams of speech; (d) miss the beginning of texts;

(e) concentration to hard or unable to concentrate.

III 6 Foreign language learners’ listening comprehension strategies

As can be seen in the definition of listening, listeners make use of two kinds ofinformation to identify the meaning of listening text: their prior knowledge and linguisticknowledge Those who make effective use of the former can be said to use top-downprocessing On the contrary, those who make use of the latter are using the bottom-upprocessing and are forced to determined the meaning of individual words and then aggregateupwards to larger unit of meaning

According to Frch and Kasper cited in O‟Malley, et al (1989, p.421), listenersengage in a variety of mental processes in an effort to realize linguistic features of the oral text

as well as to match what they know with what they hear All these processes are referred to aslearning strategies

By definition, a language learning strategy is “an attempt to develop linguistic andsociolinguistic competence in the target language.” (Ellis, 1994, p.530) So, learners‟strategies are conscious or potentially conscious, they represent the learners‟ deliberateattempts to learn The Oxford Dictionary (1989, p.1776) defines them as “behaviors or actionswhich learners use to make language learning more successful, self-directed and enjoyable.”

There are three major types of learning strategies: cognitive strategies (e.g relatingnew concepts to other information in memory), metacognitive strategies (e.g organizing apersonal timetable to facilitate effective study of the L2) and social/affective strategies (e.g.seeking out opportunities to converse with native speakers)

The first two types of learning strategies, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, arerecorded to be used regularly by L2 learners (Wenden and Rubin cited in O‟Malley, et al

1989, p.437)

Cognitive strategies involve active manipulation of the learning task and include thefollowing: (a) rehearsal, repeating the names of objects or items that have been heard, orpracticing a long language sequence; (b) organization , or grouping information to be retained

in ways that will enhance comprehension and retention; (c) elaboration, or relating newinformation to information that has previously been stored in memory, or interconnecting

portions of the new text In these three strategies, elaboration is a particularly significantstrategy because of the benefits for comprehension and retention that have been demonstratedwith its use.

Metacognitive strategies involve knowing about learning and controlling learningthrough planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning activities Among these processes,monitoring has been described as a key process that distinguishes good learners from badones In listening comprehension, monitoring consists of maintaining awareness of the taskdemand and information content

From the above description, we find that metacognitive strategies are generallyconsidered to be applicable across a varieties of tasks, whereas cognitive strategies may bemore tailored to specific learning activities

Wenden and Rubin cited in O‟Malley, et al (1989, p.437), state that social/affectivestrategy is reported to be less often used by L2 learners but has an important role ininstructional systems designed for these students That is because these strategies entailcooperative learning, questioning for clarification and affective control over learningexperience

According to the research carried out by O‟Malley, et al (1989, p.422), significantdifferences are found between effective and ineffective listeners on self-monitoring, orchecking one‟s comprehension or production while it is taking place; elaboration, or relatingnew information to prior knowledge or to other ideas in the new information; and inferencing,

or using information in a text to guess at meaning or to complete missing ideas

For the strategy of monitoring, ineffective listeners in the research who use bottom-upprocessing report that when they encounter an unknown word or a phrase in a listening text,they usually stopped listening and failed to be aware of their inattention or to try to redirecttheir attention to the oral text Effective listeners, nevertheless, use top-down processing andseem to be able to monitor their attention lapses and redirect their attention to the text,especially if they are interested in the material

For the question of inferencing, the research shows that students who are good atlistening infer the meanings of important words for comprehension of the oral text by using

the context of the sentence or paragraph in which unfamiliar words appear Conversely,students who are bad at listening infer these meanings mainly through translation from L2 toL1.

In the case of using elaboration as a learning strategy, all the students who participate

in the research by O‟Malley, et al (1989, p.422) report to make use of prior knowledge at twopoints, to assist comprehension and to assist recall However, effective listeners are able torelate new information to prior knowledge in all three ways through world knowledge,personal knowledge and self-questioning

The research finally offers some pieces of advice on how to listen effectively First andforemost, the general approach used by more effective learners is to use top-down processingand to rely upon bottom-up processing only as needed Then, students should make full use ofuseful learning strategies such as self-monitoring, elaboration and inferencing during theirlistening lessons

In short, all the information presented in this chapter will directly or indirectly help toexplain for the objectives, the methods of as well as the findings and the solutions in the study

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS, DISCUSSIONS AND SOLUTIONS

I METHODOLOGY

I.1 Role of the researcher

The researcher is a teacher of English at TPHS in Vinh Phuc who has used the newtextbook “Tiếng Anh 10” compiled by Van et al (2006) for two years

I.2 Participants

The subjects for this study includes 437 participants belonging into two groups Thefirst group consist of 432 10th form students at TPHS in Vinh Phuc The second one iscomposed of five teachers who are in charge of teaching English for these students

I.3 The textbook

Following are some basic characteristics of the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” involving thetime distribution, the order of language skills, the content of the listening texts, as well as thelistening tasks

For the time distribution, the contents of the textbook are taught in two terms, eachterm has eight units and three test yourself lessons In each unit of the textbook, there are fivesections: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus All of five sections in oneunit serve the same topic, i.e the topic of the unit

In the textbook, listening lessons are taught in the third period of each unit afterreading and speaking lessons This is a reasonable arrangement although it is different fromthat in most of other textbooks and course books The order of language skills seen in manytextbooks and course books is often reading, listening, speaking and writing That is becausereading and listening are receptive skills, so they are often taught in advance with the aim toprovide the students with the language inputs that they will practise later in productive skills,i.e speaking and writing However, it is not easy for most Vietnamese students to realize thelanguage inputs in their listening lessons, let alone to receive them The facts that reading skillhelps to provide most of the students‟ language inputs and the difficulties the students faceduring their listening lessons may discourage them explain why listening is taught afterspeaking in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”

According to Jane and Barry‟s criteria of a listening text (1998, p.82) the listeningtexts of the textbook which are available in this thesis in appendix III have the followingcharacteristics: (1) learning-centered, the materials promote learning and help students todevelop their own strategies for learning; (2) humanistic, in the sense that the materials speak

to and interrelate with the learners as real people and engage them in interaction grounded intheir own experience; (3) problem-solving, the listening texts have focused contents so as toengage students in cognitive efforts and thus, provoke meaningful interaction; (4) task-based,the materials enable students to engage in various kinds of tasks; and (5) interesting, thecontents of the listening texts are familiar with the students and succeed in drawing theirinterest

As said in the previous chapter, some of the listening activities in the textbook are onlypseudo-tasks The rest are various kinds of tasks ranging from focused to unfocused tasks,one-way to two-way tasks, and open to close tasks Besides, the listening tasks in the textbookare put in the order from easy tasks that require listening strategies for general ideas to difficulttasks that require listening strategies for specific information

I.4 Materials and equipment for listening lessons

At TPHS in Vinh Phuc, there are two labs that are used only for teaching English Eachlab is well-equipped with forty-five computers connected with headphones for students, threemain computers for teacher, a projector, a large screen and a volume system Besides, eachEnglish teacher is provided with a cassette-player, tapes and disks that they require for theirteaching, as well as an amplifier in order to deal with large classroom

From the above list, we can see that all the necessary materials and equipments areavailable for teaching listening at TPHS in Vinh Phuc

I.5 Method of data collection

The study attempts to investigate the effect of using TBM in teaching listening for 10thform students at TPHS in Vinh Phuc In order to collect the data for the study, two surveyquestionnaires are conducted; then classroom observations and informal interviews with theteachers are also of great help

Survey questionnaires

There are two survey questionnaires used for the students and the teachers as theparticipants of this study The first survey questionnaires which is provided in appendix Iinclude six questions which deals with the students‟ difficulties they face as well as thestrategies they used in their listening lessons It is written in Vietnamese so that the studentscan understand the questions without extra explanation The survey questionnaire for theteachers shown in appendix II is written in English It consists of five questions which isdesigned to collect the teachers‟ opinions as well as experience on how to teach a listeninglesson

Totally, 432 copies of the questionnaire are delivered to the students and five to theteachers However some of the copies are not returned from the students and some others areincompletely filled As a consequence, only 400 copies of the questionnaire collected from thestudents and five from the teachers are put into analysis

Classroom observations

The researcher carries out classroom observations by coming to three different classes

of three different teachers to observe how these participants of the study deal with theirlistening lessons

All the procedures of these lessons as well as the activities of the teachers and thestudents are carefully noted down for the purpose of researching in appendix V

Informal interviews

Informal interviews with five English teachers are also arranged to get some furtherinformation about the teachers‟ opinions on listening skill as well as the new method and thenew textbook

II DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

II.1 The students’ performance in listening lessons

As can be seen from the data in table 1, 72.5 per cent of the students can finish from50% to 100% of their listening tasks This is not a bad result However, when we put it incomparison with 32.25% of students who say that they look at reference books for the answers

of the tasks before their listening lessons (shown in table 2), we need to raise a question to this

result The result certainly does not reflect the learners‟ actual performance in their listeninglessons.

In order to find out the reason why the students are not very successful with theirlistening lessons, it is necessary now to have a look at both students‟ aspects (the students‟preparation before the lessons, the learning strategies they use), as well as the teachers‟aspects (the way the teachers help their students to deal with the listening tasks)

Question 4 In your listening lessons, you often

(for students) …

A finish 90% - 100% of the tasks 6.25

B finish 70% - 80% of the tasks 26.5

Table 1: The students’ performance in listening lessons

II.2.The students’ preparation for listening lessons

From the figures shown in table 2, we can find that while 44.5 % of the students look

at the topic of listening section as well as the demand of the tasks in advance, there are up to21.75% of students who do not make any preparation for their listening lessons This 21.75%

of the students certainly could deal with their listening tasks much better if they prepared fortheir listening tasks in some ways

Besides, when 17% of the students who review the words and expressions in thereading and speaking lessons before they listen is compared with 78.25% of the students whoprepare for their listening lesson, we find that this 17% is a quite small proportion As saidabove, different sections in each unit of the textbook all serve the same topic Among othersections, reading is supposed to provide inputs whereas speaking is the process to put theseinputs into communication and then in learners‟ long or short memory These inputs thenoften occur in the next lesson, i.e listening So, the revision of the linguistic features learned

in reading and speaking lessons is a quite effective way for the students to get themselvesready for the listening tasks

In addition, there is not any research which shows that students can develop their

listening skill by looking at listening texts and glance at the answers of the tasks in advance.However, there are up to 32.25% of the students choose this way to prepare for their listeningsections This is obviously not an effective way Instead, it will be more useful if students look

at listening texts at the same time with listening to the tape after they finish their listeninglessons

Finally, there is only 5.5% of the students who give other ideas about how to preparefor listening lessons, in which the idea of listening to the tape at home before class is inmajority This is, in reality, good preparation before listening We, however, cannot ensure itscontribution to the success of the lessons which varies among the students

Question 1 How do you prepare for your

(for students) listening lessons? (You can choose

more than one option)

A Look at reference books, read 32.25the listening texts, and glance at the

answers of the tasks in advance

B Read the listening section in the 44.5textbook, guess the content of the

listening text, look at the demand

of the tasks in advance

expressions you have in previouslessons: reading and speaking

E Other ideas : …………

Table 2: The students’ preparation for listening lessons

II.3.The students’ motivation before listening lessons

We all know that motivation plays a very important part in language learning Themore motivated the students feel, the more successful they get So, the number of 78.25% ofthe students who do not often feel motivated before they listen (shown in chart 1) is not areasonable figure which can explain for the students‟ bad performance in their listeninglessons

Surprisingly, there are up to 10.25% of the students who never feel motivated before