Using video as a supplementary material in teaching listening skill to second year english major at hanoi national university of education

PHẠM THỊ THU THỦYUSING VIDEO AS A SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILL TO SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION Sử dụng Video làm tài liệu bổ

PHẠM THỊ THU THỦY

USING VIDEO AS A SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILL TO SECOND-YEAR

ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

Sử dụng Video làm tài liệu bổ trợ dạy nghe hiểu cho sinh viên chuyên ngành

tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học sư phạm Hà Nội

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Hanoi, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ THU THỦY

USING VIDEO AS A SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILL TO SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

OF EDUCATION

Sử dụng Video làm tài liệu bổ trợ dạy nghe hiểu cho sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng

Anh tại trường Đại học sư phạm Hà Nội

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English Teaching Methodology

Code : 60.14.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Minh Tuấn

2 Definition and benefits of using video in language classroom 8

1.1 Students‘ assessment on the improvement in their listening competence 211.2 Students‘ attitude toward learning with video material 231.3 Students‘ assessment on the role of video in learning listening skill and the 24effectiveness of using video in listening lessons

1.4 Some difficulties encountered when using video in teaching listening skill 25

3 Suggestions for further studies 32

Chart 5: Students‘ assessment on effectiveness of video material 24

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Videos are not only for entertainment, but for decades they have been used as useful materialsand important tool for teaching listening and speaking in the world In recent years, combiningvideo with IT, information technology, is being developed It allows teacher to transportvirtually the target language environment into classroom so that live or prerecorded news,music, sports from all over the world can be viewed by students in real time The advantages

of using video in the language classroom have been recognized by many researchers in appliedlinguistics The main advantage of using video as a technology for language teaching isconsidered to be its ability to present and immerse learners into complete communicativesituations (Lonergan, 1984) Another greatest advantage is the ability of video to cover non-verbal aspects of communication and its cross-cultural comparison potential (Stempleski &Tomalin, 1990) In addition, using video in the classroom allows differentiation of teachingand learning according to students‘ abilities, learning styles and personalities

I myself enjoy watching videos and English movies and find that my students are interested inthem, too I have tried using some clips as well as extracts from several films for my teachinglistening and found them rather promising There have been some questions arisen Doesvideo material motivate my students to learn better? Does it affect a student‘s academiclistening comprehension in classroom? How should video material be designed and used in

my listening lessons?

These questions motivated me to carry out the study on ―using video as a supplementary material in teaching listening to second-year English majors at the Faculty of English,

HNUE.” With this study, the researcher mainly focused on carrying out a quasi-experimental

research to investigate the effectiveness of using video material on improving students‘listening competence

2 Hypothesis

This study was carried out to test the following hypothesis: video material can be used to enhance students‟ motivation in listening to English; improve their listening competence as well as enhance their retention.

3 The aims of the study

The study aims to reach the following target: to investigate the effectiveness of using video inteaching listening skill to second-year English major students

4 The scope of the study

The research limits its scope to listening skill and to its participants of second-year Englishmajors of intermediate level at Hanoi National University of Education

Of four skills of language teaching, I choose listening skill to deal with as I have tried outsome listening lessons using videos and I have found that listening in the classroom derivedfrom the use of videos is very interesting and hopeful In addition, I also realize the changes in

my students‘ attitudes toward learning listening skill

The choice of participants is simply a matter of convenience as I am teaching listening forsecond-year English majors at HNUE Personally, I suppose that students at this level are moresuitable for the application of this teaching method Hence, audio-visual lessons are verydemanding to most students, and require them relevant background knowledge to comprehend

The materials for my listening lessons are collected from different sources and mostly involveauthentic videos such as movies, documentaries, news or clips downloaded from the internet.Although the availability of video materials for teaching listening is high, the choice of videos

is the key which can make videos useful or useless in a lesson plan Teachers picking a videowithout consideration of their lessons can turn a lesson into a disaster Stempleski and Arcario(1992) claimed that different purposes have to be served with different methods of materials

However, as Underwood (1989) pointed out that what determines the difficulty of a teachingmaterial is not just the material itself but also what the students are asked to do with it.

5 The methods of the study

The major method which was used in study is qualitative All comments, remarks,assumptions and conclusions of the study were based on the data and analysis Datacollections for analysis in the study were gained through the following resources: surveyquestionnaire, observations, tests for students, as well as reference books

A survey was carried out at the end of the semester The participants of this survey werestudents from experimental group which had been taught listening with video as asupplementary material The aim of this survey was to investigate the students‘ attitude towardthe use of video materials as well as their self-assessment on the effectiveness of videomaterial

Two tests, one pre-test and one post-test were delivered, marked, then the results of these testswere analyzed, compared so that the researcher could use them to support for her conclusion

6 The design of the study

The study consists of three parts as follows:

Part 1 presents the rationale the topic, the aim of the study, the scope of the study and themethods applied

Part 2 develops the theme into three main parts:

 Chapter 1 sets up some theoretical backgrounds that are relevant to the purpose of the research

 Chapter 2 presents the methodology

 Chapter 3 analyzes the results collected from survey questionnaire and two tests

 Chapter 3 deals with the discussion of findings, some personal recommendationsPart 3, Conclusion, briefly revisits the objectives, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theories of listening comprehension

1.1 Introduction and definitions of listening comprehension

Research has demonstrated that adults spend 40-50% of communication time listening(Gilman & Moody, 1984), but the importance of listening in language learning has only beenrecognized relatively recently (Oxford, 1993) Since the role of listening comprehension inlanguage learning was taken for granted, it merited little research and pedagogical attention.Although listening played an important in audio-lingual methods, students only listened torepeat and develop a better pronunciation (for speaking) The role of listening has beenconsidered as a tool for understanding and a key factor n facilitating language learning.Listening has emerged as an important component in the process of second languageacquisition (Feyten, 1991)

Listening is an invisible metal process, making it difficult to describe Listeners mustdiscriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stressand intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-culturalcontext of utterance (Wif, 1984) Rost (2002) defines listening, in its broadest sense, as aprocess of receiving what the speakers actually says (receptive orientation); constructing andrepresenting meaning (constructive orientation); negotiating meaning with the speaker andresponding (collaborative orientation) and, creating meaning through involvement,imagination and empathy (transformative orientation)

Listening is a complex, active process of interpretation, in which listeners match what theywith what they already know.

Specifically, listening theory is about an active process in which individuals focus on selectedaspects of aural input, construct meaning form passages, and relate what they hear to existingknowledge (O‘Malley, Chamot, Kupper, 1989: 418.) During the process of interpreting auralinput, listeners extensively deploy both linguistic knowledge (phonology, lexis, syntax,semantics and discourse) and non-linguistic knowledge (knowledge about the topic and aboutthe context, and general knowledge about the world and real life.)

River and Temperly (1978: 63) defined listening as a complex operation integrating the distictcomponents of perception and linguistic knowledge It is not a passive but an active process ofconstructing a message from a stream of sound with what one knows of the phonological,semantic, syntactic potentialities of the language

All in all, listening has been conceptualized in different ways and from different points ofview However, the role of context-based listening is also found and highlighted in manydefinitions

1.2 Listening processes

There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension Listeners use down‘ processes when they use prior knowledge to understand the meaning of a message.Prior knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text-type, the culture

‗top-or other inf‗top-ormation st‗top-ored in long-term mem‗top-ory as schemata (typical sequences ‗top-or commonsituations around which world knowledge is organized) Listeners use content words andcontextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratory fashion On the other hand, listeners alsouse ‗bottom-up‘ processes when they use linguistic knowledge to understand the meaning of amessage They build meaning from lower level sounds to words to grammatical relationships

to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the final message

Listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing, but an interactive,interpretive process in which listeners use both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge inunderstanding messages The degree to which listeners use the one process or the other willdepend on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose of

listening For example, listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing, whereaslistening for specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves primarily bottom-upprocessing to comprehend all the desired details.

On one hand, research from cognitive psychology has shown that listening comprehension ismore than extracting meaning from incoming speech It is a process of matching speech withwhat listeners already know about the topic Therefore, when listeners know the context of atext or an utterance, the process is facilitated considerably because listeners can activate priorknowledge and make the appropriate inferences essential to comprehend the message (Byrnes,1984) Therefore, teachers need to help students organize their thought, to activate appropriatebackground knowledge for understanding and to make predictions, to prepare for listening.This significantly reduces the burden of comprehension for the listeners

On the other hand, listeners do not pay attention to everything; they listen selectively,according to the purpose of the task This, in turn, determines the type of listening required andthe way in which listeners will approach a task Richards (1990) differentiates between aninteractional and a transactional purpose for communication Interactional use of language issocially oriented, existing largely to satisfy the social needs of the participants; eg., small talkand casual conversations Therefore, interactional listening is highly contextualized and two-way, involving interaction with a speaker A transactional use of language, on the other hand,

is more massage-oriented and is used primarily to communicate information; e.g., newsbroadcasts and lectures In contrast with interactional listening, transactional listening requiresaccurate comprehension of a message with no opportunity for clarification with a speaker(one-way listening) Knowing the communicative purpose of a text or utterance will help thelisteners determine what to listen and, therefore, which process to activate As with theadvantages of knowing the context, knowing the purpose for listening also greatly reduces theburden of comprehension since listeners know what they need to listen for something veryspecific, instead of trying to understand every word

In short, second language (L2) listening comprehension is a complex process, crucial in thedevelopment of second language competence Listeners may use all of the above processes tocomprehend Guiding students through the process of listening not only provides them with

the knowledge by which they can successfully complete a listening task; it also motivatesthem and puts them in control of their learning Therefore, teachers can help students developtheir listening comprehension skill through these processes by designing appropriate listeningtasks and activities.

1.3 Listening in language learning and teaching

Listening comprehension as a separate component of language learning and instruction cameinto its own only after long and significant debate regarding its validity A large volume ofresearch has demonstrated the critical role of input, and particular ‗comprehensible input‘ inlanguage acquisition, underlining the primacy of the role played by listening comprehension insecond language teaching

Until recently, listening comprehension activity in foreign or second language classroom waslimited to testing listening comprehension The underlying rationale was that if students aresuccessfully learning the target language, they should automatically be able to decode theaural version of structures and vocabulary they learn in their textbooks Success at thisdecoding was typically measured by correct response to WH (information) questions.Responses to such questions tagged successful retrivial of information from an aural text.Knowledge of target language syntax and lexis was deemed sufficient to enable this retrievaland was ultimately the way how students were tested Listening is now treated as a much morecomplex activity and one that is the cornerstone of language acquisition (Krashen, 1994)Recognition of listening‘s critical role in the language acquisition process has greatlyinfluenced contemporary language teaching practice The view that listening is an active andinteractive process has, for example, cast the learners in a role rather than the passive receiver

of aural input (Rost, 1993) Classroom emphasis is now on aural intake through activenegotiation of meaning In face to face interaction, the listener, not just the speaker, engages inthe active making of meaning It is believed that this mutual negotiation of meaning betweenspeakers activates the cognitive and socio-cognitive processes necessary for languageacquisition to occur (Breen and candling, 1980; Pica and Doughty, 1985)

Listeners use meta-cognitive, cognitive and socio-affective strategies to facilitatecomprehension and to make their learning more effective Meta-cognitive strategies are

important because they oversee, regulate or direct the language learning process Cognitivestrategies manipulate the material to be learned or apply a specific technique to a listeningtask Socio-affective strategies describe the techniques listeners use to collaborate with others,

to verify understanding or to lower anxiety Research shows that skilled listeners used moremeta-cognitive strategies than their less-skilled counterparts (O‘Malley & Chamot, 1990,Vandergrift, 1997a) When listeners know how to

 analyze the requirements of a listening task;

 activate the appropriate listening process required;

 make appropriate predictions;

 monitor their comprehension;

 evaluate the success of their approach

they are using meta-cognitive knowledge for successful listening comprehension, which iscritical to the development of self-regulated learning

2 Definition and benefits of using video in language classroom

According to Lonergan (1994), the term ‗video‘ has two meanings For some, it means nomore than replaying television program on a video recorder, for viewing in class or privatestudy For others, it implies the use of video camera in class to record and play back to learnerstheir activities and achievements in a foreign language Lonergan defines the term ‗video film‘

as a photographic process, involving the effects of light and chemicals on sensitive paper Healso categorized the sources of video materials used in language teaching as follow:

 video recording of language -teaching broadcasts and films;

 video recordings of domestic television broadcasts, such as comedy programs and news programs;

 video recordings of specialist films and television programs, such as documentariesproduced by industry, or educational programs;

 video language-teaching materials made for the classroom rather than for public transmission as broadcasts;

 self-made video films, involving the teachers and learners

An important attribute of video is the ability to use both auditory and visual symbol systems(Baggett, 1984.) It appears that when audio and visual systems are presented together, eachsource provides additional and complementary information that retains some of thecharacteristics of the symbol system of origin Baggett (1984) observed that informationobtained visually was more memorable, on the basis of her finding that summaries written aweek after viewing a movie were judged to be more complete than those written a week afterlistening to the audio-only version Kozma (1991) also supported the fact that the visualcomponent is memorable He argued that simultaneous processing of auditory and visualinformation may aid learning In addition, video might be efficient for learning complex skillsbecause it can expose learners to problems, equipment, and events that cannot be easilydemonstrated.

According to Dusenbury, Hansen, & Giles (2003), video-assisted instruction has the benefits

of standardizing messages, so it might be able to increase the fidelity of implementinginstruction The M.A thesis conducted by Nguyen M., T (2005) also summarized generalbenefits of using video in language classroom as follow:

 It is quite easy to notice the compelling power of video in the classroom, a powerthat is even enhanced by concentration on short sequences Video, in other words, stimulatesstudents‘ motivation, and maintains their interest and concentration better than sound-only learningenvironment

 Using video in language teaching can enhance students‘ understanding and retention

of information It also brings students kinds of situation, with full contextual back-up

 Video is used to help enhance the meaning of message trying to be conveyed by thespeakers through the use of paralinguistic cues In addition, it allows students to see body languageand speech rhythm in second language discourse through the use of authentic language and speech

in various situations

 Video is a window on English-language culture

 Video can be used as stimulus or input for discussion, for writing assignment,

projects or the study of other subjects

 Video, as a moving picture book, gives access to things, places, people, events and behaviors, regardless of the language used.

 Using video in language teaching allows differentiations of teaching and learningaccording to the students‘ abilities, learning styles and personalities Teaching with video can widenthe range of activities in the classroom

 The students dealing with video in their learning improve a range of social skills,

including communication, negotiation, decision-making and problem-solving

He also found out that video course not only teaches English through video but gets students

to use the English they have learned in talking about the video In addition, using video creates

a great number of tasks and activities that stimulate communication and particular spokenlanguage among students

In the book titled Video in Action, Stempleski & Tomalin (1990) stated that the introduction of

a moving picture component as a language teaching aid is a crucial addition to the teacher‘sresources

First of all, children and adults feel their interests quicken when language is experienced in alively way through television and video Using a video sequence in class is the best thing toexperience the sequence in real life

Second, through communication, teachers have observed how a video sequence used in classmakes students more ready to communicate in the target language

Thirdly, through non-verbal aspects of communication, video allows us to see gestures,expression, posture, dress, and surroundings – the setting of communication and to freeze anymoments to study the non-verbal communication in detail

Finally, through cross-cultural comparison, observing differences in cultural behaviour is notonly suitable training for operating successfully in a different community It is also a richresource for communication in the language classroom

To sum up, the use of video can make language more accessible to learners by:

 making it easier to integrate and contextualize listening, speaking and

pronunciation, reading and writing activities

 motivating learners and helping them in their efforts to use the language naturally

in their own lives by seeing how the characters succeed in communicating with native speakers andgetting things done in their everyday activities

 bringing native speakers into classroom (on video), providing additional models forpronunciation, intonation, and rhythm besides that of the teacher

 raising learners‘ awareness of non-verbal aspects of communication

 increasing listening comprehension: paralinguistic features (facial expression, bodylanguage, context, setting…) help learners comprehend more than from listening to audio tape only

 stimulating learners‘ interaction and communication with co-learners as they discuss the video itself or ways it relates to their lives and experiences

 raising cross-cultural awareness: learners enjoy observing similarities anddifferences between the behaviour of the characters in a video clip and that of their own families andfriends

3 The application of video in language teaching

The application of video in the classroom has offered exciting possibilities for languageteaching and learning so far There have been a lot of books studying and presentingtechniques for using video in the classroom Teaching with video equipment does not implythat an entirely new methodology should be taken over but relate to the teacher‘s ownprofessional experience and local conditions

In the book titled ―Video in Language Teaching”, Lonergan (1984) introduced teachers and

teacher trainers to some general principles concerning the use of simple video equipment inthe language classroom With these insights into teaching with video, teachers can developtheir own techniques and language-learning materials However, the book only limits to simplevideo equipment: basically, a camera and video recorder Also, there is a limit to what newtechnology can offer the language learners of the future Therefore, as he pointed out: ―theteacher should analyse what the technology can offer; apply sound pedagogical principles tothat, and adapt and use the technology for his or her own specific language-teaching situation.‖(1984: 12)

Another book discussing about video techniques is Video in Action by Stempleski and

Tomalin (1990) It provides a full-scale collection of recipes for using video in class Once theteacher has chosen a sequence of video, he or she can browse these recipes until finding asuitable one This book not only deals with equipment and the ways how to run a video librarybut also answers a number of questions about video and its use

As it is stated by Stempleski & Tomalin (2001) in the book titled Film, the video, and in

particular films, offers some advantages for enhancing listening skills Although films arescripted, they are made to sound natural to the native speaker and thus they do representauthentic language Since students do not live in an ESL context, films can to some extentsubstitute for the input students cannot get from outside the classroom

Real spoken language is full of false starts, incomplete sentences, and hesitations Sometimespeople mumble, some others may have an unusual voice quality There are regional, ethnic,and even gender variations and differences in level of formality These are hard to indicate intextbooks, yet we find good examples in films in plausible contexts In these contexts, teacherscan explore with students issues of appropriateness and pragmatics while observing linguistic,paralinguistic, and nonverbal behavior

When we teach or practice listening skills in the classroom, we usually focus on intensivelistening and most often this is listening for specific information Films provide theopportunity to observe how native speakers use interactional language combined withappropriate body language and other pragmatic behavior Students can also practice extensivelistening, focusing on following what is going on in the story without worrying too muchabout every single word If a film has a motivating story line, students are propelled along bytheir own curiosity about the content, similar to the way they watch a film in L1—forentertainment The listening task becomes more realistic When we do this, we can also pointout some strategies to use and encourage students to find strategies that work for them, forexample, viewing a scene a second time and changing the caption option or paying attention tobody language

The application of ITC in general and video in particular in Vietnam has considerablyenriched the variety of methods, resources and a range of activities for learning languages On

one hand, it gives more opportunities for communication between peer learners On the otherhand, it breaks the routine of learning words or grammar patterns and adds to the positiveattitude of both learners and teachers Video has gained popularity in language-teachingclassroom in recent years in Vietnam Several language-teaching centers, schools anduniversities use teaching materials aided with audio-video However, using video-assistedteaching materials is very time-consuming and expensive due to the need of facilities forstudy Only well-equipped schools or language centers can meet the requirements of thecourse using video.

Another thesis conducted by Bach, T., H., Y., (2009) studied on the effectiveness of assisted instruction on teaching listening for non-English majors at Phuong Dong university.This is quasi-experimental research in which the participants wee divided into two groups: thecontrol (A) and the treatment (B) Both of the classes were second-year non-major students.The results from pre-test showed that the listening competence in class A was better than class

video-B However, after one semester applying video-assisted instruction to class B, the students‘

listening competence was better than those in class B who were not taught with videomaterials.

The common point of these two theses is that they are both applied to non-major studentsonly The researcher feels an urge to conduct an investigation on the effects of video as asupplementary material on English majors‘ listening competence at Faculty of English atHNUE

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2 presents the methodology applied in the study including the descriptions of theparticipants, the type of method, materials, instrumentation and procedures of data collectionand data analysis

1 Participants

The research was carried out at the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of

Education with the participation of 50 second-year English major students, from two different classes A and B, with 25 students each Two classes met once a week for two-hour listening lesson during 13 weeks Most of them had been learning English for at least eight years (i.e from lower secondary) However, their age and their learning conditions in high schools were quite different Some of them did not pass the entrance exam for the first time, so they were older than their classmates Those from Hanoi had more opportunities to listen to English tasks in the textbook than the others due to the sufficient equipment and experienced teachers There are some reasons for the choice of these second-year participants Firstly, considering the syllabus which stated the listening skills should be mastered by second-year English majors after finishing semester 4, the researcher realized that many of these skills such as identifying roles, relationship; understanding purpose and attitude; note taking, etc could be improved and achieved by using appropriate listening tasks from video material Secondly, second-year students were chosen because they had spent one year learning listening skill in traditional method with audio-only material This point made it feasible for the researcher to make some comparisons between two methods: the one with audio-only material and the one

with the aid of video material Therefore, she could partly evaluate the effectiveness videomaterial to her students‘ listening competence.

2 Type of method employed

Actually, this research is a quasi-experiment which has pre-test; post-test; experimental andcontrol groups but no random assignment of subjects

3 Materials

It is very important for the researcher to select appropriate video material which could be used

as supplementary material in enhancing her students‘ listening skill Consequently, before theresearcher decided to employ any video material she had considered the following criteriacarefully

3.1 Types of video material

In general, there is a variety of video sources from which teachers can exploit to designlistening tasks They can be popular feature films, drama programs, documentaries on subjectswhich interest students and the daily news Teachers who enjoy watching video themselveswill know how to make use of the available source of video as a rich source of materials fortheir teaching

There is a wide range of types of video recording which can be exploited, such as: dramavideo (films, soaps, etc), documentaries, TV news and weather, interviews, TV commercials,sports programs, talk shows, game shows, educational films

3.2 Authentic or Instructional videos

Authentic videos are produced as entertainment for native English speakers They generally present real language that is simplified and is spoken at a normal speed with genuine accents Instructional videos are such productions that have been created for use in classrooms or in other educational settings This kind of videos has considerable advantages: they are likely to already have been evaluated for language, content, and length, and many instructional videos are packaged as multimedia resources that include student workbooks, teacher guides and video transcripts

3.3 The level of difficulty of video material

As it is stated in the research conducted by Nguyen, M.T (2005) when selecting video toteach, a teacher has to consider its level of difficulty compared to the participants‘ level ofEnglish proficiency

The features that hinder comprehension are:

 high verbal density, i.e a lot of speech with very little action

 words unmatched to the action; or words conflict with the action

 a high degree of naturalism in the speech, e.g everyone talking at once, mumbled asides, actors with their backs to the camera, inconsequential dialogue

 too many dialects and regional accents

 period language, e.g some classics contain some words and phrases which are not

common in modern languageThe features which help comprehension are:

 clear conventional story lines: straightforward love stories aimed at adolescents,children‘s film drama, and science-fiction drama, which have simple plot lines and special effectswhich lighten the verbal comprehension burden

 clearly enunciated speech in standard accent - this criterion rules out a lot of excellent regional films

 stylized acting: old movies are acted like plays – only one character speaks at a time; always clearly and always to camera

3.4 The objectives of the course

As it is stated in the syllabus, after finishing semester 4, English major students at FOE should

be master in the following listening skill:

 identifying roles, relationship and location

 understanding purpose and attitude

 note-taking and blank-filling

 listening for specific information

 anticipating and predicting

After considering carefully the criteria above, the researcher decided to select the following video materials:

 Two documentaries titled Planet Earth, Caves (2006) and An Inconvenient Truth (2007) were employed For the sake of language teaching and learning, these documentaries were

selected because they are not difficult to understand, the commentary usually has a sober style withstandard phraseology and a standard English accent; the pace is slower than the news, theinformation less dense and the visual element more supportive More importantly, by using theextracts from these documentaries, the researcher could design appropriate listening tasks whichhelped students enhance their note-taking and blank-filling skills

 Two clips and one piece of news were selected: one is about famous single Susan Boyle; one is about nature (the clip titled The birth of Solar system); and one is about technology (What is the future of the Internet?) They were exploited because of the following reasons Firstly,

their content matched the topics of three units in the syllabus Secondly, their paces are appropriatefor students to comprehend Thirdly, by using them, the teacher was able to design listening tasks tohelp her students practice the skills required in the sessions; in particular the skills of understandingattitude, listening for specific information and deducing the meaning of the words In addition,watching these clips, the students could also update the information and enlarge their backgroundknowledge as well

 Two extracts from the films Up (2009) and You’ve got mail (1997) were exploited

since they have clear story lines, the language used is easier to understand and thespeed of conversations is more suitable for the participants‘ level of proficiency Moreimportantly, the listening tasks to improve participants‘ skills of listening for contextand deducing meaning could be designed by using these extracts

It can be seen clearly that all the video materials above are authentic not structural videos Theresearcher made this choice for the following reasons: Firstly, authentic videos with the nature

of their own provide with ‗real‘ English, which is central to language learning Secondly, they

are lively windows on the culture of the native people Thirdly, using authentic videos in theclassroom can provide opportunities for students to evaluate a medium that they use in theirdaily life Finally, most students find it interesting to watch authentic videos, which areoriginally produced as entertainment.

5 Procedure

The research was conducted through the following steps:

 Step 1: the researcher taught 2 classes of 60 students for a week and then gave them a listening test as the pre-test

 Step 2: Then she taught them listening skill for the whole term During that time, class

A (experimental group) was taught with the use of video as a supplementary material whereas class B(control group) has lessons from course book only

 Step 3: An attitude survey was done in the former class to investigate their opinionsabout the use of videos in listening lessons Then a test at the same level with pre-test was given toboth classes as a means to measure the effects of using videos in teaching listening skill

 Step 4: The results from the questionnaire and two tests as well as from theobservation checklist were analyzed to find out the answers for the research

questions

The procedure can be followed in the table below:

 Practice listing for gist through an exam-type exercise

 Provide students with some key exam skills

 Pre-test

Famous  To develop and practice the skill of recognizing and

2 People  Grammar point: adjectives used to show and express feelingsunderstanding attitudes

or attitudes

 Supplementary material: a clip about Susan Boyle

 Develop and practice listening for clues to location

Film  Supplementary material: an extract from the film Up

 Develop the skill of listening for specific information

 Supplementary material: clip The birth of Solar system

 Develop listening for taking notes or details

5  Supplementary material: extract 1 of „An Inconvenient

 Practice listening for taking notes and blank filling skill

6  Supplementary material: extract 2 of ‘An Inconvenient

Truth‟

7 Midterm test

 Develop and practice the skill of anticipating and predicting

8 Technology  Supplementary material: a piece of news: What is the futurePractice listening for specific information

of the Internet?

 Develop and practice the skill of deducing meaning

10 Transport  Supplementary material: an extract from the film You’ve got

mail

 Practice listening to taking notes

Nature  Supplementary material: an extract from Planet Earth,

caves

13

 Post-test

To obtain the objectives above, the questionnaire was designed with 8 questions which

focused on the following main aspects that the researcher would like to investigate:

 Question 1 aimed at finding out the students‘ attitude toward video material.

 Questions 2 and 3 worked out students‘ self –assessment on the importance and the role of video material

 Questions 4, 5, 6 and & clarified students‘ awareness of improvement in some aspects

of their learning listening competence

 Question 8, in the end, brought about some difficulties encountered by students when having listening lesson with video material

Along with the questionnaire, two tests of listening (pre-test and post-test) were included as the achievement test which is being used to access students‘ listening competence

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

1 The findings from questionnaire

The aims of the questionnaire were to explore students‘ self-assessment to their listeningproficiency, in particular, to what extent the video material helped to improve their listeningskill; and to explore their attitude toward the use of video material in learning progress inclass This point would partly prove the use of video material in teaching listening skilleffective or not All the survey questions were handed out to students in experimental groupwho had accessed to video material in class All below are what they revealed

1.1 Students’ assessment on their listening skill improvement

Result from the survey questionnaire among participants of experimental group revealed somechanges in their listening competence

Concerning the matter of comprehension and retention, more than half of the class confessedthat before using video material, they were able to understand only 20-30% of a listening text.Meanwhile about 40% declared their comprehension could reach 30-50% Only two students(8%) affirmed that they could understand 50 % to 70% of a listening text Amazingly, two-thirds of the students asked only remembered 20% to 30% of the text even when many of themwere able to understand 30% to 50% The rest reached the highest capacity of retention at therange from 30% to 50% The result brought about a fact that there was not a close relationbetween students‘ comprehension and retention It can be inferred that even if students canunderstand the listening text quite well, it does not mean that they will remember it well.The importance of context-based learning using real world context for enhancing learningoutcomes has been emphasized by sociocultural learning theorists (Merriam and Caffarella1999) It is believed that real world contexts, where there are social relationships, tools, and

engaged experiences, can make the best learning environments (Lave 1996) Context-basedlearning would be very effective and appropriate in teaching adult learners because theyalready exposed to diverse contexts and are ready to learn in the context through a variety ofexperiences Among the various technologies currently available, video technology is suitablefor context-based learning because it can convey the information or knowledge in a moreinteresting way and allows the portrayal of complicated contexts Therefore, theabovementioned fact calls for explicit introduction and effective exploitation of videomaterials, which by all means help enhance students‘ comprehension and retention in listeningclass.

Students’ perceived learning (understanding and retention)

According to the result of survey questionnaire, the majority of students stated that based material helped them remember and comprehend much better while the rest said only alittle The figures below showed the changed in percentage of students‘ retention andcomprehension after using video

before using video after using video

Chart 1: Change in percentage of students’ comprehension after using video

before using video

after using video

Chart 2: Change in percentage of students’ retention after using video

Two major trends emerged from the percentage of students‘ comprehension and retentionbefore and after using video As it can be seen from Figure 2, the largest percentage ofrespondents (64%) said that they remember only 20-30% of a listening text Only one studentaccounted for 4% was able to remember 50-70% of a listening text The rest (32%) rangedbetween 30-50% Outstandingly, these numbers changed after using video in class A largenumber of students (60%) stated that their range of retention increased from 30-50% 2 out of

25 students can remember 50-70% of a listening text Figure …showed the same increase inthe number of students who said that video-based learning material is much morecomprehensible Also, over half of the students said it is easier for them to get the informationbased on the context The majority responded that they were able to partly guess the meaningfrom other clues such as body language and gesture In brief, most of the participantsperceived that the video-assisted learning material was more comprehensible and memorablethan audio-only one in regarding to remembering and understanding the content

1.2 Students’ attitude toward learning with video material

like very much

like a bit

no idea dislike

Chart 3: Students’ attitude toward learning with video material

When being asked whether they like learning in listening class using video, all of the students

responded ‗yes‘ which a positive sign A large percentage (88%) said that they like learning in

video-assisted class a lot; only one student who takes up 4% said that he neither likes of

dislikes

Compared with the audio-only class, all of them declared their favor for the use of video in

listening class As reasoned by some students, video not only encouraged them to listen better

but also made them more enjoyable and interested The major responses of the participants

were as follow:

 ―The combination of watching the videos and discussing with my classmates made

the materials easier to remember than listening from the tapes.”

 “Because I find learning with video kept me more focused and actively involved.”

 “I prefer video-based materials because I can recall parts of videos due to the visual

interaction, where I am forced to think out the meaning The videos allow me to witness, not

calculate the meaning.”

 “Because the video clips stick in my mind, learning with video helped me retain

information.”

As it can be seen from the information above, video has greatly contributed to increasing

students‘ interest in learning listening skill which was considered to be boring and difficult by

many students

Concerning the matter of motivation, learner‘s perception of motivation was analyzed in term

of attention, concentration, satisfaction and student-student interaction The largest percentagebelonged to satisfaction when all the students felt satisfied with the teaching method usingvideo

1.3 Students’ assessment on the role of video in learning listening skill and the

effectiveness of using video in listening lessons

8%

4%

36%

very important important

slightly important unimportant

It can be seen that the majority of students expresses their eagerness and excitement to learnwith video material Accordingly, when being asked about the way video is exploited in theclass, more than half of the respondents chose ‗very effectively‘ Only one student withopposite opinion accounted for 4%

1.4 Some difficulties in using video in teaching listening skill

Question 8 in the survey helps to identify some difficulties encountered by students in dealingwith video The main responses were as follow:

 “I often pay much attention to watching the video rather than listening to its content

So I don‟t understand much about the meaning of words or expressions.”