Improving listening skills among non major english students through listening to conversations with subtitles an action research project at a university in hai duong province

This study focuses on improving students’ listening skills through listening to conversations with subtitles. Besides, it investigated the students’ attitudes towards this technique. The study adopted action research approach and was conducted by survey questionnaires, interviews and test among the participation of 32 non major English students at a university in Hai Duong. Based on the data collection and analysis, the findings revealed the improvement of the students’ listening comprehension and their overall positive attitudes towards the technique.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

(Cải thiện kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ thông qua nghe đàm thoại

có phụ đề: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường đại học ở tỉnh Hải Dương)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi - 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

(Cải thiện kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ thông qua nghe đàm thoại

có phụ đề: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường đại học ở tỉnh Hải Dương)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph D

Hanoi - 2020

DECLARATION

I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Improving listening skills among non - major English students through listening to conversations with subtitles: An action research project at a university in Hai Duong province” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research

has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi, 2020 Student’s signature

Nguyễn Thị Nhung

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, my supervisor, for his assistance, encouragement as well as the guidance he gave while I was doing this research

Second, I would like to express my special thanks to all lectures of the Post Graduate Faculty of University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge that helped

to enhance my interest for English Methodology and my teaching career

I also wish to show my appreciation to my non - major students of the class K10 for their whole - hearted participation in the study

Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my parents, my young sister and my colleagues, my friends who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on improving students’ listening skills through listening to conversations with subtitles Besides, it investigated the students’ attitudes towards this technique The study adopted action research approach and was conducted by survey questionnaires, interviews and test among the participation of 32 non - major English students at a university in Hai Duong Based on the data collection and analysis, the findings revealed the improvement of the students’ listening comprehension and their overall positive attitudes towards the technique

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LISTS OF FIGURES & TABLES vi

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Method of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Structure of the thesis 4

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Overview of listening skill 6

2.1.1 Definition of listening skill 6

2.1.2 The importance of listening skill 7

2.2 Overview of listening to conversations with subtitles 9

2.2.1 Definition of subtitles 9

2.2.2.Types of subtitles 10

2.2.3 Advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles 11

2.2.4 The effects of listening to conversations with subtitles 13

2.2.5 Previous studies 14

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Research approach: Action research 16

3.2 Research setting 18

3.3 Participants 18

3.4 Data collection instruments 18

3.4.1 Comprehension Test 19

3.4.2 Questionnaires and Interviews 19

3.5 Data collection procedures 20

3.6 Data analytical framework 24

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25

4.1 Findings 25

4.1.1 The improvement of the students’ listening skills after the intervention 25

4.1.2 The students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles 28

4.2 Discussion 33

4.3 Summary 35

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION 36

5.1 Summary of the study 36

5.2 Recommendations for listening to conversations with subtitles effectively 36

5.2.1 Some recommendations for teachers in teaching listening skills 37

5.2.2 Some recommendations for students in learning listening skills 38

5.3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 41

REFERENCES 43 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1 PRE - TEST I APPENDIX 2 POST - TEST IV APPENDIX 3 POST - INTERVENTION QUESTIONNAIRES VII APPENDIX 4 CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT SAU KHI CAN THIỆP X APPENDIX 5 POST - INTERVENTION INTERVIEWS XIII APPENDIX 6 SAMPLE LESSON PLAN XV

LISTS OF FIGURES & TABLES

Figures

Figure 1 Steps of action research process 17 Figure 2 Data analytical framework 24 Figure 3 The comparison result between the pre - test and the post - test 27

Tables

Table 1 The procedure of the syllabus 21 Table 2 The score of pre - test and post - test of 32 students 25

Table 3 Descriptive paired samples statistics for 32 non - major English

students on the Pre - Test & Post - Test 26 Table 4 Paired Samples Correlations 26 Table 5 The result of paired sample test 26

Table 6 The students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with

subtitles after the intervention 29

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents a general overview on the rationale; aims and objectives; research questions; scope and method, significance of the study; the structure of the thesis are also provided

1.1 Rationale

Communication is always important in every day life People got to communicate by using language to interact with people and to express their feelings or share ideas and thoughts Everybody acquires our native language through our social environment since we were children However, we are demanded to be able to communicate well not only in our language but also

by using an international language like English English is used internationally in business, political, cultural relations, and education as well Thanks to the widespread use of English, different countries compared to every other to figure out problems and strive for a prosperous community Vietnamese learners find the significance of English, they have made efforts

to be good at English The study of English becomes easier because of communication with foreigners and using modern equipment Besides, people still get difficulties in learning English Out of all four language skills mentioned, listening is the basic skills needed for communication Listening is the ability to spot and understand what others are saying It is said that listening is the most difficult skill for students learning English in practice, especially the non - major English students because they do not have a chance

to practice frequently in upper schools Listening is a child’s first

communication activity, it is essential for learning about and participating in life According to Wilt M.E (1950), it was found that 45 % of communication was listening, 30 % speaking, 16 % reading, and 9% writing Listening may

be a skill that has got to be at the forefront of English learning skills Listening is not only crucial for the learners to understand how to study the language but also it is an important life skill Without listening skills, there can be no language learning, and hence no communication, listening skill is the most important interaction human beings are involved in However, the listening competence of non - major English students are, as a matter of fact, not qualified enough At high schools they did not have chances to practice English listening frequently, they mainly concentrate on grammar - related skills They are trained to do grammar and reading exercises But, at universities and colleges, all language skills are focused, especially speaking and listening It is a common problem that most of the students are unable to communicate confidently

Because of awareness of the importance of listening skills, students are always trying to find ways to improve learning skills One of the most useful methods is listening to English conversations with subtitles This method offers a lot of advantages to the development of students’ abilities To help students have a better understanding of this technique, the researcher

conducted a study: “Improving listening skills among non - major English students through listening to conversations with subtitles: An action research project at a university in Hai Duong province” It is hoped that this

study will encourage students to learn English, especially listening skills

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The ultimate aims of the study is to see how listening to conversations

with subtitles improve Especially, this study has two objectives:

1 To find out the extent to which listening to English conversations with subtitles improved the non - major English students’ listening skills

2 To investigate the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles

1.3 Research questions

The researcher plans to answer the following questions:

1 To what extent does listening to conversations with subtitles improve the students’ listening skills?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles?

1.4 Scope of the study

This study was conducted to improve the students’ listening skills such

as hearing and getting main information, catching key words, remembering key words in short - term memory and understanding phrases or sentences to communicate clearly and slowly, discriminating among the sound of English, recognizing stress and intonation patterns through listening to conversations with subtitles The linguistic and technic subtitles were used in listening process

1.5 Method of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, action research was applied There were eight lesson plans, which were designed and taught at a class with 32 non - major English students at a university in Hai Duong province so that the

researcher find out how to improve listening skills through listening to conversations with subtitles by a quantitative method The students did the pre

- test and post - test Besides, the researcher investigated the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles The teacher designed a survey to collect data and interviewed students, related to listening

to conversations with subtitles Other research instruments were also designed and applied A pre-test and a post - test were given to evaluate improving listening skills for students after the intervention The students’ scores in the post - test were compared with the students’ score in the pre-test to the effect

of listening to English conversations with subtitles on improving learning listening skills Finally, the data were collected and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain the results

1.6 Significance of the study

As mentioned above, the study is carried out to help students to know how to learn listening skills better and deeply understand the effect of listening to English conversations with subtitles on improving learning listening skills

1.7 Structure of the thesis

The thesis consists of mainly five chapters:

- Chapter I is introduction, presents the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, the methods, the significance and the structure of the thesis;

- Chapter II is the literature review with the main key theories “the definition of listening, the importance of listening, definition of subtitles,

types of subtitles, advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles and the effects, previous studies

- Chapter III is the methodology This chapter introduces research approach - action research, research setting, participants, data collection instrument and data collection procedures;

- Chapter IV is the study, findings and discussion;

- Chapter V is the conclusion that provides summary of the study, recommendations for listening to conversations with subtitles effectively and limitation of the study

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the researcher presents the relevant literature on listening skill and conversations with subtitles The first part deals with listening skill, which is followed by the definitions and the importance The last section of this chapter discusses conversations with subtitles including definitions of subtitles, types of subtitles, advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles, effects of listening to conversations with subtitles on improving learning listening skills and previous studies

2.1 Overview of listening skill

2.1.1 Definition of listening skill

Listening is the skill that students will be judged most in real life situations It is an important part of everyday interaction

Listening, as Howatt and Dakin (1974) define, is the ability to spot and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker’s accent and pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his meaning The listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously Thomlison’s (1984) definition of listening includes “active listening” which matches beyond comprehending as understanding the message content, to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker

In the view of Ronald and Roskelly (1985), listening as a lively process It requires an equivalent skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand; and

these authors present specific exercises to make student active listeners who are aware of the “inner voice” one hears when writing

As defined by Oxford (1993: 206), “Listening is a complex, problem solving skill” and it is “more than just perception of the sounds Listening includes comprehension of meaning bearing words, phrases, clauses, sentences and connected discourse”

A noticeable definition given by Rost (1990) is that “Listening is one

of the fundamental language abilities that allow users of language getting not only information but also instruction”

According to Rivers and Temperley (1978: 63), listening comprehension is “not a passive but an active process of constructing a message from a stream of sounds with what one knows of the phonological semantic and syntactic potentialities of the language”

Another definition of listening was offered by Saricoban (1999):

“Listening is more than merely hearing words It is a process in which students receive, construct meaning from and respond to spoken or nonverbal messages”

In general, listening is a dynamic and conscious mental activity in which learners construct understanding by using clues from the contextual information or the previous cognition

2.1.2 The importance of listening skill

Listening plays an important role in communication in people’s daily lives As Guo and Wills (2006: 3) state “it is the medium through which people gain a large proportion of their education, their information, their understanding

of the world and human affairs, their ideals, sense of values”

According to Mendelson (1994: 9) “of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40 - 50 %; speaking 25 - 30 %; reading 11-

16 %; and writing about 9 %”

Emphasizing the importance of listening in language learning, Peterson (2001: 87) states that “no other type of language input is easy to process as spoken language, received through listening … through listening, learners can build an awareness of the interworkings of language systems at various levels and thus establish a base for more fluent productive skills” Listening has a crucial role not only in lifestyle but also in classroom settings

Anderson and Lynch (2003: 3) state that “we only become conscious of what remarkable feats of listening we achieve once we are in an unfamiliar listening environment, like taking notes of a language in which we have limited proficiency” Most people think that having the ability to write down and speak during a second language means they know the language; however,

if they do not have the efficient listening skills, it is not possible to communicate effectively That is, listening is the basic skill in language learning and over 50% of the time that students spend functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to listening (Nunan, 1998) Rost (1994) explains the importance of listening in language classroom as follows:

1 Listening is significant within the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understanding input at the proper level, any learning simply cannot begin

2 Speech provides a way of interaction for the learner Because learners must interact to achieve understanding Access to speakers of the language is essential Moreover, learners’ failure to know the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning

3 Authentic speech presents a challenge for the learner to know language as native speakers actually use it

4 Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language (p 141-142)

To summarize, listening has a crucial role both in lifestyle and in academic contexts because it is crucial for people to sustain effective communication Emphasizing the importance of listening, Anderson and Lynch (2003) state that listening skills also are important as speaking skills because people cannot communicate face-to-face unless both types of skills are developed together Listening skills are also important for learning purposes since through listening students receive information and gain insights (Wallace, Stariha & Walberg, 2004)

2.2 Overview of listening to conversations with subtitles

2.2.1 Definition of subtitles

According to Sydorenko (2010), on- screen text can be shown in various forms: subtitles (L1 text, L2 sound), reversed subtitles (L1 sound, L2 text), or captions (sound is in the same language as the text) Jacob B Scheffer (2014) states that the terms “captions” and “subtitles” are used somewhat interchangeably “Captioning”, initially invented as a way to help the impaired hearing for television, is the use of an equivalent language text

on a video screen concurrent with the audio of the spoken text (Price, 1983)

“Subtitles”, as defined by Livingstone (2013), are usually within the viewer’s L1 or other language text on screen concurrent with the L2 spoken audio, and therefore the text could also be paraphrased so that the text on the screen matches the scene However, according to Danna (2004), captions are “called

teletext subtitles in Europe, with subtitles in the same language as the sound track” (p.68)

Therefore, in this study, I just focus on subtitles as captions with L2 sound and L2 text (both in English) In other words, the term “subtitles” and

“captions” are used alternatively indicating the verbatim transcription of the original language (English) of the videos

2.2.2 Types of subtitles

Subtitles can be classified into various types, the majority of subtitling studies focus on two characteristics: linguistic and technical Therefore, according to Gottlieb (1997: 71-72), subtitles are categorized into linguistic and technical perspective

Linguistically, there are two different types of subtitles First, that is intralingual subtitling, within a similar language Both the subtitling of local programmes, subtitles within the same language for the deaf and hard of hearing and subtitles for people learning languages fall in this group Second, interlingual subtitling, between two languages

Technically, there are open and closed subtitles Open subtitles are associated with the initial film or the television version As to Gottlieb, all film subtitling belongs within this category, as “Even today, electronic subtitling is proscribed to television and video” (Op cit.: 72) Closed subtitles, which can be voluntarily added; both to teletext and satellite channels, offer various subtitled versions to different frequencies

Ivarsson (1992: 35), distinguishes multilingual and teletext subtitling The multilingual subtitling is for cinema and television, in which the translation appears in more than one language, as is often done in bilingual states The teletext subtitling is shown on television for the hard of hearing It

is reduced subtitling and similar to teletext in the subtitling of news or live events such as sports broadcasts; the translation of opera, theatrical works, conferences Ivarsson said that “the titles displayed on a special screen” (Op cit.: 35) It seems that Ivarsson has focused more on the technical than the linguistic aspects

Luyken (1991: 40), too, distinguishes between traditional subtitling and simultaneous subtitling The traditional subtitling has three subgroups of subtitling in complete, reduced or bilingual sentences

Linde (1999: 2) basically distinguishes between interlingual subtitling and intralingual subtitling for the hard of hearing and television, given that intralingual subtitling is, according to the author, non-existent in cinema

Díaz Cintas (2001: 24) also offers a classification of subtitles, distinguishing basically between traditional subtitling and simultaneous subtitling, bilingual subtitles, intralinguistic subtitles (for the hard of hearing, language students and karaoke) and interlinguistic subtitles, open and closed subtitles

To sum up, there are many types of subtitles, which do not follow any parameters We can combine to category into them As to Gottlieb’s proposal,

we divide the two parameters into two large groups: technical and linguistic There are, however, parameters that belong to the two groups and, evidently,

we add to each group all the parameters that we have considered

2.2.3 Advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles

In the 1980s, captioning or subtitles are utilized in foreign language classroom, they were believed to be an honest thanks to improve learners’ attention, reduce anxiety, enhance students’ understanding of what was heard

and increase motivation (Burger, 1989; Froehlich, 1988; Grimmer, 1992; Vanderplank, 1988) Recently, numerous researchers studied benefits of captions or subtitles on improving listening skills (Baltova, 1999; Danna, 1992,

2004; Garza, 1991; Markham 1993, 1999; Neuman & Koskimen, 1992)

As refered to as listening to English conversations with subtitles is extremely useful for college students nowadays There are several advantages

of listening to English conversations with subtitles Firstly, listening to conversations with subtitles can keep students’ interests and motivations in learning listening skills The students enjoy attending altogether activities within the classroom They are more motivated to examine and listen to the closet topics in real world situation Secondly, subtitles can improve students’ vocabulary They’re going to see new vocabulary and the way of the words are written and spoken Thirdly, subtitles can be improved students’ listening skills The students can easily understand about conversations when the speakers may speak fast in order that it is difficult for them to know what the speakers are talking Besides, subtitles help students to enhance speaking skills During this case, when students listen to the conversations with subtitles, they will note new vocabularies or new sentences on their notebooks These sounds are more memorable and applied for the important situations to develop successful conversations Finally, subtitles can be improved students’ pronunciation It is easy for students to mention the words after listening to conversations with subtitles They will imitate to pronounce within the models correctly

However, there are still some disadvantages to the process of listening

to English conversations with subtitles Firstly, the listeners are at a low level, they need just started learning English and listening skills are not

-concerned at secondary or high schools Because they have a lack vocabulary associated with the conversations, they can not continue and understand the contents of conversations quickly Moreover, the listeners can’t both listen and see the subtitles on the screen at an equivalent time The students’ abilities are limited and not active, even they are neglected at listening and bored, do not have interests in learning listening skills Lastly, the conversations consist of slangs, idioms, new vocabulary, which are obstacles to listening comprehension

It makes the listeners misunderstand the meaning of the words or word phrases

in any important context

2.2.4 The effects of listening to conversations with subtitles

In general, listening to conversations with subtitles has more positive effects rather than negative ones The research can both positive and negative

effects

First, there are some positive effects of listening to conversations with subtitles in the classroom:

- improve student motivation;

- reinforce grammatical structures;

- enhance pronunciation and vocabulary;

- help memorize patterns making learning easier;

- develop other communication skills as speaking and reading

Second, there are some potential problems with listening to

conversations with subtitles:

- be very fast for learners;

- contains slangs or ungrammatical sentences (don´t…);

- has difficult vocabulary that even upper intermediate students will not understand

In 2010, Winke, P., Gass & Sydorenko conducted a study on the effects

of captioning videos for foreign language listening activities This study investigated the effects of captioning during video – based listening activities among second and fourth - year learners of Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Russian They watched three short videos with and without captioning in a randomized order After the second showing of the video, learners took comprehension and considered captioning more effective The interview data revealed that the learners used captions to increase their attention, improve processing, reinforce previous knowledge and analyze language The learners also reported using captions as a crutch

A study conducted by Shamsaddini, M., Ghanbari, B., & Nematizadeh,

S (2014), explored the potential effects of watching movies with and without subtitles on Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension There were 30 participants of Slovak University They were divided into three groups: English subtitle group (ESG), Slovak subtitle group (SSG) and no subtitle

group (NSG) The study examined the impact of watching English videos with or without subtitles by exploring the difference in listening and reading test scores between ESG, SSG, and NSG

Next, Rodgers & Webb (2017), showed the effects of captions on EFL learners’ comprehension of English - language television programs The study investigated 372 Japanese University students who watched ten 42 - minute episodes of an American television program with and without captions The results revealed that captions are likely to aid comprehension when episodes are most difficult Explanations for the findings and pedagogical applications are offered

The impact of subtitles on listening comprehension ability has been concentrated on many other studies such as Markham, P L (1993); Latifi, M., Mobalegh, A., & Mohammadi, E (2011); Garza, T J (1991); Hayati, A,

& Mohmedi, F (2011); Markham & Peter, (2003); Montero Perez, Peters, & Desmet, (2014) or Chung (1999)

From the previous studies, the authors generally confirmed that subtitles are very effective to develop skills in learning language, especially, listening and speaking skills Therefore, my action research was carried out for 32 non - major English students at a university in Hai Duong in order to recognize the improvement of listening to conversations with subtitles and the students’ attitudes towards this method

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with the methods that are employed for the achievement of the aims and objectives of the study The researcher analysed the research methodology then come up with the data collection instruments

so as to certainly find the factors experienced by the students The research questions are as following:

1 To what extent does listening to conversations with subtitles improve the students’ listening skills?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles?

3.1 Research approach: Action research

Action research had been defined in various ways Action research is often defined as the process of studying a true school or classroom situation to know and improve the standard of actions or instruction (Hensen, 1996; McTaggart, 1997; Schmuck, 1997) It is a scientific and orderly way for teachers to look at their practice or to explore a drag and a possible course of action (Dinkelman, 1997; McNiff, Lomax, & Whitehead, 1996) In Stephen Corey’s definition “Action research” may be a way within which teachers attempt to study their own problems scientifically, in an attempt to judge, guide and proper their procedures Action research is additionally a kind of inquiry that is preplanned, organized, and may be shared with others (Foshy, 1998; Tomlinson, 1995) According to Tsui (1993), action research may be a very effective way of helping teachers to reflect on their teaching and to return with their own alternatives to enhance their practice

The action research process involves five essential steps or parts The primary step is asking an issue, identifying a drag, or defining a neighborhood

of exploration Secondly, decide what data ought to be collected, how they should be collected, and the way often Third, collect and analyze data Fourth, describe how your findings are often used and applied The teachers create your plan for action supported your findings Finally, report or share your findings and plan for action with others (See figure 1)

Define question, problem, area of interest

Review the literature Plan data collection

Share findings and plan of action Collect and analyze data

Create an action plan

Figure 1 Steps of action research process

To sum up, action research may be a quite scientific study which is usually administered by a teachers or educators to unravel a practical problem during a classroom It focuses on the actions of both students and teachers Thus, it is often practical and useful for teachers

3.2 Research setting

All non - major English students are expected to communicate in English language fluently During the curriculum, the students have three semesters to learn basic English with three subjects at university Each subject has three credits with background of English proficiency in the real contexts

of our lives The teachers have to instruct how to learn or practice four skills completely Moreover, the students come from different locations in our country and they have various levels It is difficult to teach communication skills, especially in the listening lesson It requires to waste much more time

to listen and practice understanding conversations or texts The students are dealing with variety problems in learning listening skills Therefore, they need improving listening skills through listening to English conversations with subtitles

3.3 Participants

The participants for the survey questionnaires were 32 non - major English students at a class at a University in Hai Duong They are between 19 and 25 years old, including 18 males and 14 females Before becoming students, they had to pass a very challenging university entrance examination Most of the students have learnt English for at least 7 years at secondary and high schools, even primary schools However, they were rarely taught listening skill Therefore, they get many difficulties in learning listening to English

3.4 Data collection instruments

To collect the data for research, the author used both quantitative and qualitative methodology including videos, comprehension test (pre - test and post - test), survey questionnaires and interview for students These

instruments were employed to collect the data for the study as following:

3.4.1 Comprehension Test

The comprehension test was administered both as a pre - test and as a post - test They are the instruments given to evaluate improving listening skills The students did the tests based on the information in the videos, designed by the teacher The students’ scores on post - test will be compared with the scores of students on pre - test with the same level to recognize the effects of listening to conversations with subtitles

3.4.1.1 The pre - test

The pre - test was conducted with no special technique at the first week In the pre - test, the students were assigned to do the test through three conversations without subtitles to evaluate their listening comprehension abilities This test consists of three tasks as hearing five short conversations to choose the right answer, deciding true or false statements and filling in the blank to complete the conversation The total score’s test is 10 marks The test duration was 20 minutes (see Appendix 1, page I)

3.4.1.2 The post - test

The post - test was conducted after eight weeks with the same design as the pre - test, lasting 20 minutes The aims of the test was to assess how much students acquired after the process (see Appendix 2, page IV)

3.4.2 Questionnaires and Interviews

3.4.2.1 Questionnaires

The survey questionnaire for 32 non - major English students was designed with 2 parts consisting of 9 questions Part 1 was also about personal information and part 2 was to investigate the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles in learning listening skills for the non

- major English students (see Appendix 3, page VII)

3.4.2.2 Interviews

The researcher interviewed 5 non - major English students to clarify the attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles on learning listening skills The interview for students is with nine questions (see Appendix 5, page XIII) The data collected from the interviews were recorded or taken notes and transcribed for the purposes of the study

3.5 Data collection procedures

The teacher makes a syllabus and lesson plans for 10 weeks In the first week, the researcher identified problem of the study The pre - test was administered to the students After finishing the test papers, they were collected by teacher From the second to ninth week, the teacher prepared lesson plans were used to instruct for students in the class The participants were given a brief explanation of the action research The teacher gave instructions in each new lesson In the pre - listening, the teacher elicited vocabulary and some structures related to the conversation The students paid attention and did the assignments At the first listening time, the students listened to each conversation without subtitles and then did the tasks, gave their answers They listened to conversation with subtitles twice or three more times again After that they worked in groups or in pairs to discuss and checked correct answers The learning process will be repeated over eight weeks with various prepared videos In the tenth week, the post - test was used to measure students’ listening comprehension The teacher gave a survey and collected data To ensure that the students understand completely the questions, the researcher designed the questions both in Vietnamese and English The students were guided to complete the questionnaires All the study procedure are shown in the following Table 1

Table 1 The procedure of the syllabus

conversations with subtitle

+ examine students’ listening comprehension abilities;

+ be aware of important listening skills

Stage 2 -

Intervention

2 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 1 - How was your vacation?

+ hear & get information + guess & understand meaning of key words + recap key facts + retain chunks of language in short - term memory

+ discriminate among the sound of English

+ recognize stress and intonation patterns

3 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 2 - What kind of food do you like?

4 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 3 - What

do you want to do after graduating?

5 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 4 - Planning a trip

6 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 5 - Hobbies

7 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 6 - Shopping

8 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 7 - Why

do you have headache?

9 Lesson plan implementation with conversation 8 - At the travel agent

+ investigate the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles;

+ find out the extent to which listening to

English conversations with subtitles improved the non - major English students’ listening skills The data was collected through the survey questionnaires and interviews for students

- Questionnaires: the researcher had a short introduction and then asked for students’ assistances During the time, the researcher could explain

if students had any confuses in each question After 30 minutes, all questions were collected

- Interviews: the researcher asked some students to answer some questions in the short breaks Like teachers, the researcher also recorded during the time of the interview

3.6 Data analytical framework

Figure 2 Data analytical framework

The chart shows the methodology of the study There were mix methods: quantitative and qualitative method, used in the data analysis procedure The quantitative method includes in comprehension tests and questionnaires The qualitative method is interviews for students The comprehension tests are the pre - test and post - test to answer the first research question, meanwhile the questionnaires and interviews deal with the second research question

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This study, as indicated in chapter II, was intended to find out how to improve listening to conversations with subtitles in learning listening skills for non- major English students at a university in Hai Duong In the section, data collected from the test and the questionnaires, interviews were presented and interpreted The second finding was investigated the students’ attitudes towards this technique

To answer the first research question, the score of listening pre - test and post - test were calculated using paired - samples T - Test in SPSS (statistical package for the social sciences) The results are shown in the tables

as below

Table 3 Descriptive paired samples statistics for 32 non - major English

students on the Pre - Test & Post - Test

Mean N Std Deviation Std Error Mean Pair 1

Score on the Pre Test 4.81 32 2.023 358 Score on the Post Test 7.84 32 1.298 229

Table 4 Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig

Pair 1 Score on the Pre Test & Score

Table 5 The result of paired sample test

tailed)

(2-Mean Std

Deviation

Std

Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

The findings from the statistics revealed that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the study samples in listening pre - test and listening post - test As illustrated in table 3, the mean

of students’ average score in the pre - test is 4.81 meanwhile the mean of their average score in the post - test is 7.84 Thus, the study samples indicated more improvement in their listening performance in the post - test than the pre - test It is also shown from table 5 that the sig = 0.000 (p value = 0.000 < 0.05) and T - value is significant at 0.05 so there was a significant difference

Figure 3 The comparison result between the pre - test and the post - test

As we can see from the chart 1, there was no student who got mark 9 in the pre - test, while there were 12 students out of 32 students (37.5%) got 9 in the post - test Especially, it is clear from the chart that the students made

progress with listening comprehension skills because 25 % of the students got

3 points in the pre - test while only one student (3.1%) of them got this terrible mark in the post- test Besides, there was one student got mark 0 in the pre - test, there was no student got 0 in the post - test Moreover, there were more students who got 7 and 8 in the post - test (25% - 28.1%) was much higher than in the pre - test (18.8% - 6.3%) In the pre - test, there were

7 students (21.9%) got mark 6 that decreased with 6.3% in the post - test There were some students who got mark 2, 4 and 5 in the pre - test with 6.3%, 12.5% and 6.3%, but there was no student got these bad marks It is noted that the students seemed to make progress in the post - test We can see that the students’ scores have positive and real improvement after learning listening skill through listening to English conversations with subtitles in the above

% of the students quite agreed that the teacher should teach vocabulary in the pre - listening and play videos with two times (93.8%), or three times (6.3%)

no one chose one time because of hard hearing information quickly After finishing listening, the students need to work in groups (68.8%), work in pairs (25%) and work in individuals (6.2%) Moreover, the best post - listening discussion time is about 3 - 5 minutes (86.6%) for checking their answers Some students thought that is 2 - 3 minutes (28.1%), 7 minutes (6.3%) For question 9, all students said that listening to conversations with subtitles can help to develop listening skills Besides, several students thought that it distracted from this technique The results are mentioned in the following table: (Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; No opinion = 3; Agree = 4; Strongly agree = 5)

Table 6 The students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with

subtitles after the intervention

Through listening to conversations with subtitles, I can

I can get the main ideas of the

I can keep my interest and motivation

in learning listening skills

I can understand sentences and

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