Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng các hoạt động trước khi nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn

In listening comprehension, it is commonly recognized that pre-listening is very important because it can make students interested in the listening tasks and they can listen to the tasks

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHAM THI HOAI DIEP

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’

SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION

(Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng các hoạt động trước khi nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú

cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2020

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHAM THI HOAI DIEP

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’

SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION

(Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng các hoạt động trước khi nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú

cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn)

M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D

THAI NGUYEN – 2020

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “An investigation into the application

of pre- listening activities to activate learners’ schemata for better comprehension”

is my own study I further certify that it has not been submitted before for any degree

or any examination to any other university Any reference to work written by any

person and institution obtained from other sources have been cited and referenced

Thai Nguyen, 2020

Approved by Supervisor Student

Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D Pham Thi Hoai Diep

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my faithful gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D for her patient guidance, stimulating suggestions and encouragement throughout my research

I wish to thank all the staff members of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University, for providing me the best environment to fulfill my thesis

My sincere gratitudes also go to my college from Tran Phu, Hoang Quoc Viet and Vo Nhai high schools The supports that they gave me truly help with my progress and completion of the research Especially, I would like to express my special gratefulness to my family who offered me their love, care, support and encouragement so that I could accomplish my study

Last but not least, I would like to express appreciation to my students in Tran Phu high school who were very enthusiastic to support me and participate in the process of collecting data for this research

ABSTRACT

Listening skill is one of the four core language competences fostered for students in high school’s English curriculum, especially in Vo Nhai district Although listening skills are being applied in English lesson, student’s proficiency still remains low During the teaching time, the researcher realized that the main reason for this problem is students are not interested in listening skills and are not well-prepared from the pre-listening stage Therefore, it is extremely necessary to conduct a study with the aim of raising students’ interest in listening comprehension

by reinforcing pre-listening activities In the study, questionnaires were employed

to check the students’ listening interest and students’ attitudes when teacher used varied pre-listening activities The findings of this study suggest that students’ listening interest was much better after being exposed to various pre-listening activities Results also showed that the students had improved attitudes towards learning listening skill after the introduction of varied pre-listening activities Hopefully, the thesis can be considered as a contribution to a more effective teaching practice at Tran Phu high school and the ongoing process of renovation for teaching and learning listening skills

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Background of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Significant of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT……… 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATIRE REVIEW 5

1 Theoretical background of listening skills 5

1.1 Definition of listening 5

1.2 Listening comprehension in language learning and teaching process 7

2 Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension 9

2.1 Linguistic factors 10

2.1.1 Unfamiliar topics 10

2.1.2 Pronunciation, speech and intonation 10

2.1.3 Reduced forms 12

2.1.4 Listeners’ vocabularies’ limitation 12

2.2 Non-linguistic factors 13

2.2.1 Listeners’ background knowledge 13

2.2.2 Lack of concentration 14

2.3 Pre-listening stage 16

2.3.1 Definition 16

2.3.2 The role of pre-listening stage 17

2.4 How do various pre-listening activities affect student’s listening skills? 19

2.5 Pre-listening activities 20

2.5.1 Brainstorming 20

2.5.2 Class discussion 21

2.5.3 Pictures 21

2.5.4 Prediction of content 21

2.5.5 Pre-teaching of new words and difficult key words 22

2.5.6 Pre-questions 22

2.6 What is schemata?……… 23

2.7 Previous research studies 24

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 28

2.1 Definition of action research 28

2.2 Characteristics of action research 29

2.3 Process of action research 30

2.4 Benefits of action research……… 32

2.5 The method(s) of collecting data ……… 33

2.6 The respondents/participants 34

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 36

3.1 Data collected from questionnaire for students 36

3.1.1 Data collected from questionnaire for students part 1 36

3.1.2 Data collected from questionnaire for students part 2 37

3.2 Data analysis on the teachers’ questionnaire 38

PART III: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 52

1 Conclusion 52

2 Implication 54

3 Limitation of the study 56

REFERENCES 58 APPENDICES

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: The table of teacher’s frequency of using pre-listening activities 41

Figure 1: Simple Action Research Model adapted from MacIsaac (1995) 30

Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model adapted from Susman (1983) 31

Chart 1: Students’ comments about pre-listening activities 36

Chart 2: Students’ comments on the varying pre-listening that the teacher applied 37

Chart 3: Teacher’s purposes of using pre-listening activities 39

Chart 4: Teachers' opinions of the most effective pre-listening activity to the students 43

Chart 5: Teachers' techniques for pre-teaching new vocabulary and grammatical structures 45

Chart 6: Teacher’s problems in using pre-listening activities 49

Chart 7: Teachers’ comments on pre-listening activities in the textbook “English 11” and their suggestions 50

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Background of the study

Listening is an essential skill in acquiring a language and it can be defined as the process of understanding speech in a second language or foreign language As mentioned in Richards (2008), listening is the most frequently used in communication It is stated that people spend 50 percent on listening, 25 percent on speaking, 15 percent on reading, and 10 percent on writing Moreover, according to Morley (1984), listening is a key to all effective communication without the ability

to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood In listening comprehension,

it is commonly recognized that pre-listening is very important because it can make students interested in the listening tasks and they can listen to the tasks better Pre-listening is a preparation of the listening class In this stage, teachers tend to arouse learners' expectation and interest of the language text they are going to listen They can also motivate learners by providing background knowledge of the text; organizing learners to discuss a picture or a related topic which involves in the text; asking some related questions to the text In general, pre-listening plays a role in warming-up and the main aim of this stage is to make learners focus their attention

on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the text

It can be said that the pre-listening is a kind of introductory work which used make the content explicit, clarify the purposes and establish roles, procedures and aims for listening In real life it is unusual for people to listen to something without having some idea of what they are going to hear Underwood (1989) described pre-listening as follows: before listening, students should be “tuned in” so that they know what to expect, both in general and for a particular task This kind of introductory work is generally described as pre-listening work or just pre-listening

To catch up with the new trends in language teaching, Vietnam is trying to launch reforms in education step by step Teachers, for example, are investing time and effort to help students improve their English, especially listening It is the fact

that, communicative approach is used to teach English according to the policy of the Ministry of Education According to the 2020 Project of Vietnam’s Government, listening and speaking are more and more important in learning English Moreover,

in high school, textbooks contain four skills which focus on students’ communication therefore; there are various effective methodologies for teacher to apply in teaching listening However, the students’ listening is still low due to some reasons Firstly, the English background of students in rural areas such as Tran Phu, Vo Nhai and Hoang Quoc Viet high schools are low because most of them come from remote areas, they did not have chances to exposure to English like the ones in the big cities The other reason might be the lacking of English learning facilities such as there is

no specializing room for learning English The students share in the same room with the other subjects in which headphones and computers are not provided This directly affects students’ listening attitudes and listening comprehension The number of the students in class is normally about 40 to 50 whereas the ideal class for studying language is about 20 to 25 members This could be another reason why students listening skills cannot be improved As a result, the students are not interested in listening skills; therefore the teachers have no motivation to teach listening

In conclusion, pre-listening stage is very essential in the process of teaching listening The purposes are to involve students into the topic and make them interested

in the listening lesson so that they will have higher level in listening comprehension Moreover, the testing and assessment system in Vietnam is primarily concentrated on grammar, vocabulary and reading ability This partly explains the reason why listening, one of the very important parts in learning a language, does not seem to be improved effectively in Vietnam

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at examining the use of various pre-listening activities in the pre-listening stage to improve students’ listening comprehension

3 Research questions

With the above mentioned aims, the study attempts finding answers to the following research questions:

How do pre-listening activities activate learners’ motivation?

What are the teachers’ attitudes toward pre-listening activities in enhancing listening comprehension?

4 Scope of the study

The study concentrates on the effects of alternating pre-listening activities to activate students’ motivation and the teachers’ attitudes toward pre-listening activities in enhancing learner’s listening skills The subjects of the study were Tran Phu high school students who are at low level

5 Method of the study

The researcher used two kinds of data collection instruments including questionnaire and observation to collect information about student’s listening comprehension The observers were fourteen English teachers from high school in

Vo Nhai district also participate in the research

Hopefully, after the research, students will be interested in listening lessons;

as a result their listening skills will be improved

6 Significant of the study

By reviewing the literature about listening, the researcher, firstly, emphasizes the importance of listening skills in English language classes and, secondly, revealing

a literature gap in the factors affecting student listening comprehension After reviewing a number of studies, articles and journals, a list of factors influencing students’ listening skills will be chosen to be the theoretical framework of this study

During the time implementing conventional teaching method, the researcher realizes that the students are not interested in the listening lesson and their listening comprehension is low One of the reasons for this is the teachers’ teaching method;

especially the pre-listening activities were not used in the listening lessons due to the lack of time The same activities in the textbook could not be useful and effective for students’ listening comprehension Because different listening tasks require different pre-listening activities to get students’ background knowledge, interests and motivation so students could better comprehend the listening skills

The researcher hopes that after four weeks of experiment, the students would participate in the varying pre-listening activities They would show great interest in pre-listening activities They felt more confident to work in groups, pairs to discuss their ideas about the topic before listening to the audio and they will have good attitude with the pre-listening activities Consequently, their listening skills will be better comprehended

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATIRE REVIEW

This chapter reviewed the literature on the theories of listening comprehension The first section provided basic theories about listening comprehension and the second part discussed some factors that affect students’ listening comprehension Next, the listening stages of the listening lesson were reviewed In addition, some pre-listening activities were provided to help teachers and students improve listening comprehension Some previous researches were presented in the final part of the chapter

1 Theoretical background of listening skills

1.1 Definition of listening

Listening skills are considered an important role in receiving information and are regarded as active, rather than passive, skills in that a response is needed to demonstrate that one has correctly perceived individuals It is thought as the first skill

to start off the learning and acquisition process and plays an important role in the early ages of the learners This skill is considered as the base for speaking skill and its correlated with the other skills The relation between these two skills and their correlation is a complex process Listening has long been the neglected skill

in second language acquisition In Nunan (2000), it has been emphasized that, listening is the Cinderella skill in second language learning Yet, it has been often overshadowed by its elder sister: speaking This is because speaking and writing abilities are what most people refer to when they claim they know a second language Listening and reading are therefore secondary skills, i.e they are means to other ends, rather than ends in themselves

Goh (2002) referred to listening as the most frequently used language skills, which accounts for as much as fifty percent of human’s everyday communication time Sharing this opinion, Rubin (1994) stated that listening is used far more than any other single language skill in our daily lives, twice as much as we speak, four

times more than we read and five times more than we write Good listening, therefore, significantly contributes to the success of communicating process Understanding spoken English is much more challenging to language learners than figuring out meanings of a written text Thus, the teaching of listening comprehension is of great importance

Rost (1994) argued that listening is a crucial element of communication and it

is also an important factor for interaction A learner can express himself orally but never able to communicate with speakers of English if he is unable to understand what is said to him In general, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in our daily lives We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times than we read, and five times more than we write

Underwood (1989) claimed that the listening skills includes everything from learning particular sounds to comprehending complicated messages Without this skill, communication can break down Therefore, successful communication really depends on listeners or receivers of messages Listening is defined as the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear It is different from hearing which is simply the process of recognizing the sound system of spoken words Listening skill is composed of everything from learning particular sounds to comprehending complicated messages More specifically, listening involves understanding a speaker’s accent, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary to grasp his or her meaning He also believed that listening to spoken language also requires the ability to understand the implicative in a conversation Moreover, he added that next difference is the sounds that can be easily mixed up As an example she uses words with vowel sounds like “sit and seat” Then there is the stress and intonation, which functions as a means to highlight words that carry the main information or to change the meaning of a speech without changing the order of the words The spoken English is also very often much simpler than written version and speakers even use incomplete sentences and less specific vocabulary

Traditionally, listening is considered as a passive language skill along side the reading skills It means that learners are almost passive in practicing listening skill in

the classroom like “tape recorder or trained parrot” Anderson and Lynch (1988)

Learners just hear what they are to listen without paying sufficient attention to the discourse such as the background knowledge of the speakers as well as their intentions, attitude, implication and other shades of meaning, etc This view of listening comprehension seems to be inappropriate and inadequate because it does not capture all the relevant features of comprehension Therefore,

In addition, Buck (2001) described that listening is a complex process in which the listener takes the incoming data and interprets it based on a wide variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge Briefly, the linguistic knowledge includes knowledge of phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, discourse structure, pragmatics and sociolinguistics The non-linguistic knowledge included knowledge of the topic, the context and general knowledge about the world and how it works Thus, vocabulary and grammar knowledge are important issues in listening comprehension Learning new words and grammatical structures in pre-listening activities will lead students to better listening comprehension by recognizing them in the listening text This knowledge not only provided encouragement but also develops students’ confidence in their ability to deal with listening problems

Ur (1984:4) argued that what are the main characteristics of real language situations, as for example listener having a purpose for a listening and some expectations In real situations people that are communicating can see each other and receive some visual or contextual clues during listening Discussion is usually divided

to short conversation As a result, it is different from formal spoken text in the quantity of redundancy, noise and colloquialisms

1.2 Listening comprehension in language learning and teaching process

It is believed that listening is a significant and essential area of development

in a native language and in second language; therefore there have been numerous definitions of listening comprehension which presents views of scholars towards this concept

Buck (2001) defined listening comprehension as an active process of construction of meaning, done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound, involving both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge

Regarding listening comprehension, many researchers agreed that context plays an important role and should be taken into appropriate consideration Garrod (1986) and Mc Donough and Shaw (1993) shared the same idea that listening comprehension requires the activation of contextual information and background knowledge

Lynch (1995) gave a more detailed description of listening comprehension, which is a process in which listeners interact with the text Their level of interest, emotional reaction to the content and motivation can either facilitate or interfere with comprehension Successful listening seems to involve a comparison and integration

of new information with established knowledge structures Similarly, Mendelsohn and Rubin (1995) believed that listeners not only passively understand the text, but also actively construct their own knowledge and then monitor the incoming information in order to keep developing it

The concept of listening and listening comprehension is also defined as everything that impinges on the human processing which mediates between sounds and the construction of meaning, Underwood (1989) This definition once again emphasizes the activeness of listeners in processing the information heard

So far, a number of methods to evaluate students’ listening comprehension ability have been suggested In this study, listening comprehension is measured by students’ performance on their listening tests He also divides listening process into three stages There are two level activities of the aural process: recognition and selection The first level is that the structure and relationship between syntax and phonology of the language are recognized At this level, the sound goes into a sensory store called the “echoic memory” “Echoic memory” is just the short term memory because there is continuous arrival of new information before the listener has opportunity to deal with it That is why there is the following stage which is called

“selection” In this level the listener selects what he finds most interesting or

important or comprehensible in the utterance At this point, words or groups of words are checked and compared with information already held in the long term memory and the meaning is extracted from them (Underwood, 1989: 2) Therefore, the listeners usually remember the meaning rather than the exact word spoken when he has to recall what has been said The basis of listening comprehension is the ability

to recognize and select the specific details in the discourse

2 Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension

A great number of factors affecting listening have been reported so far According to Brown and Yule (1983), there are four groups of factors including the speakers (the number of speakers, speakers’ speed, accents); the listeners (the role of listeners, the listeners’ interest in the subject); the content (vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge) and the support (pictures, diagrams, visual aids, etc…) Krashen (1981) emphasizes performers with self-confidence and a good self-image tend to do better in second language acquisition and low anxiety seems to be conductive to second language acquisition, whether measured as personal or classroom anxiety Boyle (1984) states there are 3 classes of factors influencing listening, dividing them into listener factors, speaker factors and factors in the material and medium On the basis of the analysis of Boyle and some other researchers such as Brown (1989) and Anderson and Lynch (1988), proposes from cognitive perspectives that three interrelated aspects contribute to the difficulty of listening, namely text features, task features and contest features After the examination of the analysis of the above mentioned and some other researchers, the classification of two factors contributing to the effective factors of listening performance are proposed: the subjective factors and objective factors The subjective factors include lack of vocabulary of the topic, lack of background knowledge of the topic, lack of confidence The objective factors are the material, the medium, and the surroundings In this thesis, I concentrate on the relative contribution of pre-listening activities to the students’ performance in listening comprehension As a result, the following part of pre-listening activities was also discussed He also divided the

influential factors into three different categories including the type of language, the purpose in listening and the context in which the listening takes place Their experiments showed a number of factors that may impede students’ listening performance: the organization of information, the familiarity of the topic, the explicitness and sufficiency of the information, and the type of referring expressions used and the relationships described in the text (dynamic of static relationships)

Regarding influential factors affecting listening comprehension result, Helgesen, Brown (1994), Dunkel (1991), and Ur (1984) introduced a list of characteristics of spoken language, which are also troubling to listeners Those factors include clustering, redundancy, reduced form, performance variable, colloquial language, rate of delivery, stress, rhythm and intonation and interaction

In summary, it can be concluded that listening comprehension is influenced

by both linguistics and non-linguistic features In this study, the researcher shall focus

on some major problems faced by her students

2.1 Linguistic factors

2.1.1 Unfamiliar topics

Unfamiliar topics have remained one of the most challenging problems for listeners According to Ur (1984) and Rixon (1986), as we rarely know exactly what

we are going to hear although we may have already had some general expectations,

it is much easier to process a familiar topic than a strange one

Similarly, Rost and Candlin (2014) stated that listening to unfamiliar topics which are not addressed to listeners is more problematic than listening to popular ones As listeners comprehend better with a common topic, it is suggested that teachers’ selection of input in the early stage should surround themes that frequently occur in real life conversations This not only facilitates students at the beginning of the course but also helps ease the learning and teaching process Anderson and Lynch (1988)

2.1.2 Pronunciation, speech and intonation

The first factor is learners cannot control the speaker’s speed Many English language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension, as opposed to reading comprehension, is that the listener cannot comprehend as quickly

as the speaker speaks Obviously, listeners cannot always repeat the words many times This is a serious problem in learning situations In the classroom, the decision

as to whether or not to replay a recording or a section of a recording is not in the hands of students Teachers decide what and where to repeat listening passages; however, it is hard for the teacher to judge whether or not the students have

understood any particular section of what they have heard

Rost (1994) stated that pronunciation is one of the major sources of difficulties students encounter in the listening process Sharing the same idea, Rixon (1986) claimed that word stress, strong form and weak form in natural spoken utterance make listening comprehension far more challenging than reading a written text Assimilation and elision are other sources of complications, as Helgesen et al (1994) added These features of spoken English can be a terror for a number of learners

Speech and intonation also contributes to make listening more troublesome The unfamiliarity with rhythm and intonation patterns makes listening become more difficult Brown (1977) saw rhythm as part of general look of how the speakers of their language speak it With its own characteristics, the rhythm of English is worth much attention since it is also the guide to the structure of information in the spoken message

Moreover, Nunuan (1988) confirmed that listening to unfamiliar topics which are not addresses to listeners is much more difficult to comprehend than listening on familiar topics which are addressed to listeners The level of students play a great role when listening long parts and keeping all the information in the mind It is not easy for the lower level student to listen more than three minutes long listening then completing the desired activities Short listening texts facilitate listening comprehension and diminish boredom, keep learners concentration alive If the text contains a lot of information, it is not easy to store everything in mind, exceptional listening ability and strategy required to understand Another reason makes listening

text difficult is the speed If the speakers speak faster than normal listener may have difficulties to catch target words He also states that on the contrary of reading comprehension the listener cannot control speed of the speaker and this cause the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension It is clear for most language learners and teachers that a slower speech speed would facilitate beginner learners listening comprehension The speed of the speech also supplies cues for catching the main points As a matter of fact, the natural talk is very fast to second language learners so

it makes up some trouble to the non-native speaker Nevertheless, in the streaming of listening students would notice that sometimes the speaker speaks a bit slower and clearer than he did before This is mostly the points of the listening It is the chance for students to capture the necessary information in a listening text Emphasis is a natural factor in speaking so speaker also emphasizes to signal the most significant ideas What students should do is to pay attention to the speed and the intonation of the speaker and identify the points

2.1.3 Reduced forms

As Ernestus, Baayen, and Schreuder (2002) explained, “these forms involve unstressed vowels, omitted sounds, and other alternations of the full form, such as assimilation, contraction, and blending (p 230) The term-reduced forms refer to a phenomenon commonly observed in the informal speech of native speakers One type

of reduced form is called neutralization of vowels, which in most cases results in a schwa sound Reduced forms are very common in native conversation

2.1.4 Listeners’ vocabularies’ limitation

The other factor which affects students’ listening is vocabulary If the learners have a limited vocabulary, it could be a challenge when doing the listening task The speaker may choose words the listener does not know Listeners sometimes encounter

an unknown word, which may cause them to stop and think about the meaning of that word thus causing them to miss the next part of the speech According to Ur (1984), the listener’s limited range of vocabulary is another obstacle in listening

comprehension Although listeners can stop the speaker and asks if they do not understand the conversation but she or he has to try her/his best to understand what the speaker says In the native language, listeners are generally able to continue with the interaction and to respond, despite understanding only a part of what a speaker means In mother tongue, when the listeners cannot hear clearly they will dismiss the meaning of a word in context In foreign language, limited vocabulary can be the barrier of understanding the meaning of a word or a sentence In Rost and Candlin (2014), it is said that 89.4% of the participants suffer from incomplete comprehension Some listeners thought that meaning resides within the unfamiliar words so they need a huge amount of vocabulary On facing a new word, they tend

to find out the meaning rather than infer it from the context The basic strategy is to use the clues which are the words or phrases coming after the unknown words Nevertheless, students have to make sure that they do not spend much time on guessing the unfamiliar word or they will miss the speaker’s next point In addition,

the speakers may use synonyms, antonyms or appositives to explain the words

2.2 Non-linguistic factors

Students employ listening strategies throughout the day, whether engaging in social situations or participating in learning activities In general, listening comprehension improves when they are interested in the topic Bring students into the discussion by relating the lesson to something they are familiar with Teach averages by talking about a popular baseball player’s batting average, explaining how

it is calculated If you simply explain the process of calculating averages without making it practical, students with poor listening skills may tune out When the subject matter presented grabs the student ‘s interest, he becomes actively involved in learning and begins to interpret what he hears

2.2.1 Listeners’ background knowledge

Background knowledge can be understood as the listeners’ preliminary insight about the culture where the language is used, the knowledge about the subject matter of the listening that he is going to hear, the familiarity with the topic and command of the linguistic aspects of the listening text, Nguyen Van Trao (2002) It is common that listeners may lack contextual knowledge therefore sharing knowledge and common context makes communication easier Even if listeners can understand the basic meaning of the text, they may have considerable difficulties in comprehending the whole meaning of the passage unless they are familiar with the context Non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, nods, gestures or tone of voice, can also be easily misinterpreted by listeners from different cultures

According to Carrell and Eisterhold (1983), background knowledge falls into two different categories including content and formal schemata The former consists

of respects such as cultural knowledge, topic familiarity and the previous experience with a field The latter, formal schemata concerns people’s knowledge of discourse forms which are text types, theoretical conventions, and the structural organization of the text These two factors if well combined can help listeners easily comprehend the listening text

Also discussing the influence of background knowledge on listening comprehension, Alderson and Urquhart (1984) believed that listeners with different cultural backgrounds have different levels of listening comprehension Little cultural understanding can present a number of quandaries for comprehending the message

To understand what is said, it is important for listeners to have sufficient and relevant knowledge of the culture, which is relevant to the particular instance of the language they are concerned with Brown and Yule (1983b) It is undeniable that listening comprehension partly depends on their background knowledge, which necessitate the decode of the auditory input, Rixon (1986) This fact makes the provision of background knowledge more meaningful to listeners

2.2.2 Lack of concentration

Nichols (1948) emphasized that the inability to concentrate while listening is also one worrying issues It is sometimes the low quality of the listening materials that cause troubles Besides, the unfamiliarity of topic can interfere with listeners’ concentration The break in attention, even very short can have negative impact on the effectiveness of listening Therefore, concentration plays an important role in the listening process Sometimes the listeners may not concentrate on the listening because of some private reasons In listening comprehension, it is clear that even a short break in attention can seriously impact the result of the listening activity If the students find the listening topic is amazing, they may pay more attention to the lesson However, students sometimes feel the listening task very tiring even if they are interested because it requires an enormous amount of effort to follow the meaning

The lack of ability to concentration while listening is also one of the big problems It is sometimes the consequence of the bad quality of the materials and electronic devices used to play them which make the trouble Besides, the unfamiliarity of topic also causes difficulties in concentration The break in attention, even very short can have negative impact on the effectiveness of listening Therefore, concentration plays an important role in the listening process Students’ motivation

is one of the crucial factors that affect listening comprehension It can be difficult for students maintaining the concentration in a foreign language learning classroom In listening comprehension, even the smallest pause in attention may considerably spoil comprehension When students find the topic of the listening text interesting, comprehending would be easier

Moreover, students should establish certain learning habits such as trying to understand every word Traditionally, teachers often hope that students understand every word they hear by repeating and pronouncing words carefully, by grading the language to suit their level, by speaking slowly and so on Consequently, students tend to become worried if they fail to understand a particular word or phrase and they will be discouraged by the failure It is thus sometimes necessary for students to tolerate vagueness and incompleteness of understanding To sum up, there are varieties of factors which influence students’ listening comprehension However, in

this thesis, the researcher focused only on the pre-listening activities to motivate students in to listening

2.3 Pre-listening stage

Normally the listening lesson is divided into three stages which are listening, while-listening and post-listening Each stage has its own characteristics and time allocation

pre-2.3.1 Definition

Pre-listening stage involves the activities that are often carried out in a short period of time (seven to fifteen minutes) aiming at preparing necessary background for learners to understand the spoken text They may also elicit students’ previous knowledge about the topic of listening and making them aware of the vocabulary items, related experience and consequently capture their interest As summarized by Baker and Westrup (2000) as well as Lewis and Hill (1992), pre-listening stage is a purposeful activity which can help arouse interest in the topic, provide certain linguistic preparation for the text, then promote and activate a flexible learning environment Through giving learners a reason for listening, this stage undoubtedly initiates willingness for listening Before listening, students need assistance to activate what they already know about the topics they are going to hear Simply being told the topic is not enough The teacher must help them to build up prior knowledge, pre-teach some key words or structures and establish purposes for listening

As cited in Rixon (1986: 63), pre-listening is “Things to do before the students hear the passage, to help them get the out most of what they are going to hear.” In

the other word, the teacher has to prepare the students to achieve the most from the lesson More specifically, Underwood (1989) defined pre-listening is a kind of

“preparatory work” which students should be “tuned in” or provided some basic

information so that they know what to expect, both in general and for particular tasks

Ur (1992: 4) also presented that “It would seem a good idea when presenting a listening passage in class to give students some information about the content,

situation and speakers before they actually start listening.” It means that the teachers

should prepare knowledge about the listening tasks before listening lesson so that would have more motivation to listen Underwood (1989: 31) lists different possibilities of pre-listening activities:

“The teacher gives background information

 The students read something relevant

 The students look at pictures

 Discussion about the topic or situation

 Asking a question and answering it

 Written exercises

 Students follow the instructions for while-listening activity

 Students and the teacher consider how the listening activity will be done”

2.3.2 The role of pre-listening stage

It can be said that pre-listening stage is necessary an in a listening lesson Buck (1995) argued that a context for interpretation and background knowledge can be provided by pre-listening activities Mendelsohn (1995) also mentioned that the

importance of pre-listening activities is to “activate the students’ existing knowledge

of the topic in order for them to link what they comprehend and to use this as a basis

of their hypothesis – information, prediction, and inference” (p.140) Normally, when

people listen to something they often have some ideas or background knowledge about the context of the listening passage For example, when listening to a radio channel, they will probably know which topic is being talked In mother tongue, we rarely have trouble understanding listening But, in a second language, it is a challenging skill because there are various unfamiliar sounds, words and structures This is even more difficult if we do not know the topic under discussion, or who is the speaker So, providing listeners with the knowledge or contextual support

required for the task can orient them to what they are listening to and thus direct their attention to the task rather than having them listen aimlessly According to Underwood (1989: 44)

Lewis and Hill (1992) emphasized that pre-listening stage plays an important role in teaching listening for students Pre-listening is a preparation on of the listening class In this stage, teachers tend to arouse learners’ expectation and interest of the language text they are going to listen They can also motivate learners by providing background knowledge of the text; organizing learners to discuss a picture or a related topic which involves in the text; asking some related questions to the text In general, pre-listening plays a role of warming-up and the main aim of this stage is to make learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the text These activities can also promote an active and flexible learning environment, help increase learners’ motivation for learning, motivate learners by giving a reason for listening and provide them with some language for the listening

It is obvious that students may fell the listening lesson difficult when they do not know what they are going to listen Although they fell the words are familiar but they cannot understand the speaker because they may be lack of basic knowledge, the context of the speaker

Thus, the listeners’ expectation and purposes should be taken into account These make listeners feel as in real-life listening situation in their native language Teachers can help their students to arouse their expectations and see the purpose before a listening lesson This kind of work is described as “pre-listening activities” The two main aims of pre-listening are to help to activate students’ background knowledge, guess the topic of what they are going to hear and provide certain context for the listening task The teacher should vary the activities such as two people having

a conversation about their daily life and asks students to complete the true or false questions or vocabulary building for student before the listening task, Nunan (2002)

According to Sheerin (1987), pre-listening activities significantly help arouse students’ interest in listening A good pre-listening stage should provide students with

linguistic items necessary to understand the listening text and make them feel more interested in the recordings With the acknowledged significance of the stage, a variety of pre-listening activities have been introduced and recommended for use by various researchers namely Baker and Westrup (2000), Doff (1988), (Lingzhu, 2003), Rost (1994), Underwood (1989) and Ur (1984)

Each of these activities helps to focus students’ minds on the topic by narrowing down the things that the students expect to hear and activating relevant prior knowledge and already known language The pre-listening activities are not used separately; many pre-listening activities can be used in a listening lesson to gain best effects

2.4 How do various pre-listening activities affect student’s listening skills?

It is obvious that students may fell the listening lesson difficult when they do not know what they are going to listen Although they fell the words are familiar but they cannot understand the speaker because they may be lack of basic knowledge, the context of the speaker

Thus, the listeners’ expectation and purposes should be taken into account These make listeners feel as in real-life listening situation in their native language Teachers can help their students to arouse their expectations and see the purpose before

a listening lesson This kind of work is described as “pre-listening activities” The two main aims of pre-listening are to activate students’ background knowledge, guess the topic of what they are going to hear and provide certain context for the listening task The teacher should vary the activities such as two people having a conversation about their daily life and asks students to complete the true or false questions or vocabulary building for student before the listening task, Nunan (2002)

According to Sheerin (1987), pre-listening activities significantly helped’; arouse students’ interest in listening A good pre-listening stage should provide students with linguistic items necessary to understand the listening text and make them feel more interested in the recordings With the acknowledged significance of the stage, a variety of pre-listening activities have been introduced and recommended

for use by various researchers namely Baker and Westrup (2000), Doff (1988), (Lingzhu, 2003), Rost (1994), Underwood (1989) and Ur (1984) In the following part of the study, the researcher will provide a list of different activities for pre-listening stage

2.5 Pre-listening activities

According to Berne (1995), pre-listening activities also help students prepare for what they are going to hear, and helps mitigate the anxiety which comes from listening in a foreign language, by providing a clear context Moreover, pre-listening activities can offer opportunities for class discussion and more interaction among students There are certain pre-listening activities which can be adapted easily for different classes and levels, as well as for general English and listening lessons

2.5.1 Brainstorming

The prediction of information surrounding a topic before listening about it encourages learners to focus on a topic and conceivably develop a relatively high sense of self-esteem while conducting the task To make use of this activity, the teacher may begin by posing a question word and idea, and then ask students to brainstorm the plot and share ideas with their friends The activity can intensify student’s attention on the content of the upcoming recording and expand their knowledge during the process of exchanging ideas with other students It is suggested that students should find out ideas, possibilities or suggestions of the topic before listening Then they can use their ideas, possibilities or suggestions as basic knowledge for main listening activities The best advantage of this activity is that the student’s ideas can cover words and expression which they know, or which they learn

by asking for help as they brainstorm

2.5.2 Class discussion

This is a very common form of pre-listening activity, principally when students are going to hear a recorded text This activity can be started by the teacher’s instruction to students about the topic of listening text The teachers generally give

their students some background information, begin to talk about the topic and indicate what the students should expect to hear Pair and group discussions before listening are essential for students They engage students in the sharing of ideas and render them concentrate more on their job Lingzhu (2003) Generally, teachers raise guiding questions and discussing topics When organizing groups, teachers should gather students of different levels so that they can help themselves in expressing ideas as well as prepare students with some background of the topic and get them more willing

to listen Students are posed guiding questions or certain topics after that, they are required to talk in pairs or groups It is very important for students because this activity encourages them to share ideas and knowledge, and give opportunities for them to involve in the task as well as speak English It is noted by Doff (1988) that there should be fluent and less fluent students in one group because the former can help the latter confidently express their ideas

2.5.3 Pictures

According to Greher (2002), in some pre-listening activities, pictures can be exploited as a useful teaching aid Listeners are often asked to match pictures with given words, or guess words from pictures or activities of the sort which aim at eliciting the topic-related vocabulary as well as maintaining learners’ focus on the theme of the listening

It is suggested that when carrying out such activities, teachers should avoid using a plethora of unknown words and long explanations as they may distract listeners and sometimes even demotivate them from continuing the task

2.5.4 Prediction of content

The activity helps activate students’ background knowledge Once listeners have had some ideas about the context of the listening, they usually become more inquisitive about the listening and the comprehension of the spoken text will likely be more accurate One way to encourage the prediction of content is asking students to anticipate the context and content of the listening through the title or illustrating pictures

The prediction of the listening can also be done by asking students read through the questions of the listening tasks, which prepare them for the content of the listening and facilitate their process of comprehension

Another predicting activity is through True or False statements Teachers provide a variety of statements which are based on the general or detailed information

of the listening The principle is that teachers let students discuss among themselves, make prediction but do not reveal their decision of true or false statements until they finish the listening task

2.5.5 Pre-teaching of new words and difficult key words

The presence of new words and difficult key words in the listening text is a big problem to many listeners For students, a large number of unknown words may hinder listening, and certainly lower confidence Therefore, it is crucial to present the new words, especially items of great difficulty to the students’ comprehension, prior

to ask them to listen There are many ways to present the new words such as: using visual aids, using games, definitions or explanation and translation Among them, visual aids might be the most useful technique they help to make the language in class more real and alive Moreover, using visual aids is a quick way to reduce anxiety, stimulate self-confidence and improve language competence, Buck (2001)

In summary, pre-listening activities are occasionally employed to supply students with prior information about the listening task, prepare them for the task and make them more focused on listening and therefore comprehend better However, in application of a diversity of pre-listing activities, there are some concerns that teachers should take into account Wilson (2008) presented some useful pieces of advice for planning listening At first, the recording of the listening should be checked beforehand to find out about the speed, accent and other things, that cannot be observed by reading the transcript only The machine should be checked as well It is

a good idea to plan out the time carefully so that the teacher knows how long the listening is going to take and be sure everything goes according to the plan The teacher ought to predict problematic parts of the listening and prepare how to help the students with them

2.6 What is schemata?

A schemata is considered as a mental structure which derives from all the particular experiences we have had (Nuttall 1982:7) Schemata theory was first proposed by the gestalt psychologist Bartlett (1932), who observed that when people were asked to repeat a story from memory, they often filled in details which were not included in the original but related to what they already knew based on their cultural background Schema then is culturally bound, as shall be shown in this essay The concept of schema can be found from anthropology to philosophy and has been considered for both instruction and assessment in language learning, examples of which will be referred to and considered later From that new information, concepts and ideas can only have meaning when they can be related to something already known by the individual This exemplifies how the idea of background knowledge in language-related performance has been around for centuries, if not actually coined as

a term at the time

Also, there is evidence that the contextual and background information given may not always necessarily be adopted by the learners However, there is little doubt that schema theory has positively influenced the teaching of reading and listening and that pre-activities can help to improve a learner's comprehension in many situations

Therefore, it makes sense for teachers to use such activities but not be assumptive that what we expect is in fact reality In other words, teachers should make sure that they check the usefulness of the activities used and pay close attention to possible schema-interference or non-activation In essence, we must do the most possible in order to increase comprehension, and thus, maximize overall performance

2.7 Previous research studies

Ash Pekin, Janset Muge Altay, Didem Baytan (2001) carried out an interesting study about listening activities He found out contrast between effective and ineffective listening habits to become effective listeners He said that instructors should provide various chances for students to practice listening skill and to become actively engaged in the listening process He emphasized that there are three stages

in listening process: listening, during listening and after listening He defined listening help students with cultural background, build prior knowledge, and stimulate students’ interest in the listening lesson However, in his study, he suggested that instructor should let students watch movies than listen to the tapes because it can help students pay more attention to the listening Students can both practice listening and see manner and culture visually

pre-Being one of the most challenging language skills, listening comprehension has caught attention of a number of pedagogy specialists Berne, J (1995) has shown the impact of listening habits on listening comprehension The researchers suggested teachers to provide students with numerous listening opportunities, thus help them become actively engaged in listening As defined by those researchers, listening process has three inevitable phases including pre-listening, during listening and after listening, among which the purpose of the first phase is to prepare students for cultural and lexical background knowledge, review necessary listening skills and stimulate students’ interest in the listening task As concluded by the group of researchers, good habits of listening make effective listeners, and according to them, listening to movies

is much better than to tapes due to the fact that movies are more attractive to listeners They explained that when watching movies, students have opportunities to both listen

and observe the speakers’ manner Although the suggestions of this researcher group appear compelling and can be beneficial to their teaching environment, the application of them in Vietnamese teaching context may be a big challenge due to a shortage of necessary facilities

Wang (2002) also concluded that a number of pre-listening activities not only motivate students, help change them from passive to active listeners, but also effectively increase the language input According to these researchers, it is necessary for teachers to make good effort to design and apply pre-listening activities in their teaching process for the sake of their students

Another proponent of varying pre-listening activities, Trao (2002) indicated that pre-listening activities are useful as they make students feel well-prepared, thus minimize the fear of listening The study was successful in showing the influence of pre-listening activities on listeners’ effectiveness of listening comprehension However, it is suggested that the results of pre-test and post-test should be analyzed for more details such as the changes in each section of the listening test Moreover, the research result would be more reliable if the experiment were carried out in a longer timeframe rather than only one month

In an M.A thesis, Thuy (2005) made an experimental research to investigate whether pre-listening activities motivate students before the listening and therefore improve their listening comprehension The experiment group was provided with numerous pre-listening activities while only new vocabulary and structures were given to the control group students in the first phase of listening While and post-listening activities were the same for both groups The effectiveness of pre-listening activities was evaluated by comparing the difference between the results of a pre-test and post-test The result showed that the application of various pre-listening activities has positive influence on the test results of the experiment group

Besides, there are some articles, which research the effect of the use of video

on listening comprehension tests Londe (2009) examined two video formats (close-

up view of the head of the lecturer, and full body view of lecturer) and compared theses to 28 the audio only format in a listening comprehension test setting A

stimulated classroom lecture is videotaped and used, and one hundred took the test The aim of the research is to explore whether there are any performance differences when students take these tests in the different formats The results of the present study show that the addition of the visual channel does not contribute to or take away from the performance in English as a second language listening comprehension test

Moreover, Farrokhi and Modarres (2012) carried out a study on the effects of two pre-task activities: glossary of unknown vocabulary items and content related support on improvement of Arian EFL learners’ listening comprehension The study showed that offered pre-task activities for listening tasks improved learners’ listening performance It is concluded that pre-task activities had different supportive roles on low and high proficient learners’ performance

Ha (2006) carried out an experiment to examine the effects of pair and group pre-listening activities on Dong Do university first year English major students’ attitudes, their motivation and her listening comprehension in comparison with the whole class pre-listening activities The results of the study showed that pair and group pre-listening activities were better at helping students increase their motivation and improve their listening comprehension better than in whole class pre-listening activities This study makes a contribution to teaching and learning English at Dong

Do University If there were more efforts and contribution, the study has been more successful

Moreover, Tu (2012) explored the effects of the use of video in pre-listening stage on grade 10 students’ motivation in English listening lessons at Tran Hung Dao School She emphasized that the students also showed great interests in listening activities They were willing to share knowledge and opinion as well as positively discuss the listening topic before listening to the tape script or doing the comprehension tasks when the teacher used video in the pre-listening stage

Another research which is also related to listening stage is a study on listening techniques to motivate Non-English major students to develop their listening skills at the Faculty of Electro-Mechatronics at Phuong Dong University in Hanoi by Le (2006) The findings of the study revealed several techniques used at the

pre-first stage of listening lessons with the textbook “Lifelines” by Tom Hutchinson The students’ preferences for these techniques were also highlighted Then, basing on the teachers’ and the students’ comments, some suggestions to improve the situation of teaching and learning at Phuong Dong University were made Besides, Berne (1995) investigated how varying pre-listening activities effect second language listening comprehension According to the study, comparison of the listening comprehension

of second language learners completing three different pre-listening activities after one and two exposures to a passage shows that scores for subjects completing the question preview activity were higher than for subjects completing the filler activity and that additional exposure improves comprehension In addition, Chang and Read (2006) investigated the effects of four types of listening support on a listening test: previewing the test questions, repetition of the input, providing background knowledge about the topic, and vocabulary instruction The results showed that the most effective type of support overall was providing information about the topic, followed by repetition of the input Vocabulary

Long (1990) carried out a research with the results collected from ninety university students of Spanish classes of different levels of proficiency, talking immediate recall-protocols showed that topic familiarity had impacts on the scores of the recall measures and that there was a consistent increase in the comprehension scores across the different levels Furthermore, the results demonstrated no relation between topic familiarity and course level; that is, L2 listening proficiency, which disclosed that students of different course levels scored higher on the familiar passage

In summary, this chapter aimed at providing with useful the theoretical background for the research The theory was the definition of listening comprehension and then found out some factors that affected listening skills Moreover, it discussed some various pre-listening activities and the importance of pre-listening activities After that, it presented some previous research to compare the difference between them

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the research methodology used in the thesis Firstly, a general overview of the action research which is chosen as an appropriate approach

is provided Moreover, the research questions, the participants of the study are presented The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of the chosen research method, research design, research strategies, research instruments, and techniques of data analyses

2.1 Definition of action research

As cited in Creswell (2002), action research are procedures which are done by teacher to get information about what should be improve in school or organization about teaching or learning process

Cohen and Manion (1994) also stated that action research involves a reflective, semantic and critical approach to enquiry by people who are simultaneously members of the context in which the research take place

self-According to O'Brien (1993), action research is known by many other names, including participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipator research, action learning, and contextual action research, but all are variations on a theme Put simply, action research is “learning by doing” a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again While this is the essence of the approach, there are other key attributes of action research that differentiate it from common problem-solving activities that we all engage in every day

Moreover, Abbott and Mayes (2014) mentioned that action research involves

a self-reflective, semantic and critical approach to enquiry by people who are simultaneously members of the context in which the research takes place The objective of action research is to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research is carried out

2.2 Characteristic of action research

According to Creswell (2002), action research design has some following features: Practical focus, The educator-researcher’s own practices, collaboration, a dynamic process, a plan of action, and sharing research

It is clear that action research’s target is to approach an actual problem in education environment It means that action research focuses on practical issues which can bring advantages to education The problem might be a concern either from a teacher

or many educational institutions In this research design, it is common that the researcher may be interested in producing their own practice rather than studying other studies Within all the definitions of action research, there are four basic themes: empowerment

of participants, collaboration through participation, acquisition of knowledge, and social change In conducting action research, we structure routines for continuous confrontation with data on the health of a school community These routines are loosely guided by movement through five phases of inquiry action research cycle: Identification of problem area, collection and organization of data, interpretation of data, action based on data and reflection

2.3 Process of action research

Action research has been analyzed in many ways MacIsaac (1995) has created

a simple model of the cyclical nature of the typical action research process (figure 3.1) There are four steps in each cycle: plan, act, observe, and reflect

Simple Action Research Model

Figure 1: Simple Action Research Model adapted from MacIsaac (1995)

To this model, Burns (2009) added a fifth step: dissemination, where the result of the research is made known through presentations and publications to a larger audience The essentials of action research design are considered by Elliott in Rudduck and Hopkins (1985) as per the following characteristic cycle: Initially an exploratory stance is adopted, where an understanding of a problem is developed and plans are

made for some form of interventional strategy (The Reconnaissance and General Plan) Then the intervention is carried out (The Action in Action Research) During

and around the time of the intervention, pertinent observations are collected in various

forms (Monitoring the implementation by Observation) The new interventional

strategies are carried out, and the cyclic process repeats, continuing until a sufficient

understanding of (or implement able solution for) the problem is achieved (Reflection and Revision) The protocol is iterative or cyclical in nature and is intended to foster

deeper understanding of a given situation, starting with conceptualizing and particularizing the problem and moving through several interventions and evaluations

Additional, Susman (1983) emphasized that action research have five steps and it is presented in a cycle as below:

Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model adapted from Susman (1983)

Analyzing/ reflecting; hypothesizing; intervening; observing; reporting; writing and presenting

Based on diverse definitions of action research and the aim of my study, action research model proposed by McBribe (1989 as cited in Sadeghi, 2013) is adopted

in the current study because of the simplicity of the way presented by the author

as well as its appropriateness regarding the context of the study McBribes (1989) introduces a seven-step cycle of action research as follows: identifying a problem; collecting data; Analyzing data and generating hypothesis; planning action; implementing the action plan; collecting dada monitor change; analyzing dada and evaluating the change

ACTION PLANING Considering alternative course of action

EVALUATING Studying the consequences of

an action

TAKING ACTION Selecting a course of action