Learning styles and their influence on listening skills development among 11th form students

Specifically, the researcher focuses on the difficulties experienced by the targeted students and their styles adapted in learning listening comprehension.. Secondly, in terms of the stu

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

LEARNING STYLES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

PHONG CÁCH HỌC VÀ SỰ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA PHONG CÁCH HỌC ĐẾN SỰ PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG

NGHE CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Lục Đình Quang

Sinh viên: Trịnh Thanh Huyền

Khoá: QH.2009

Hà Nội – Năm 2013

ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Trịnh Thanh Huyền, QH2009.F.1.E4, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature:

Trịnh Thanh Huyền

April 25th , 2013

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to show my heartfelt appreciation and thanks to my supervisor Luc Dinh Quang, M.A whose careful instructions and useful advice certainly bring about the birth of this rewarding thesis

Secondly, the teachers of the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education deserve

my gratitude for their guidance and support during the conduct of my research

Thirdly, I am heartily thankful to the students in the Foreign Language Specializing School, ULIS, VNU for their willingness and co-operation during the completion of

my survey questionnaires and interviews

Fourthly, I would like to express my deep appreciation to the authors of the books, journal articles for their great ideas that have been reviewed in my paper

Fifthly, my heartfelt thanks also go to my family and friends whose continuing encouragement and support enabled me to develop my confidence and success of my worthy thesis

Last but not least, my sincere gratitude also goes to my readers for their constructive comments on this paper

ABSTRACT

This study investigates learning styles and their influence on listening skills development Specifically, the researcher focuses on the difficulties experienced by the targeted students and their styles adapted in learning listening comprehension In addition, the research site and subject is 195 students in 11th-form in the Foreign Language Specializing School, ULIS, VNU, Hanoi The data collection instruments were survey questionnaires, and interview It was firstly revealed from the results that five most typical obstacles barrier the targeted students from effective listening comprehension, they are psychological factors, limited vocabulary, speaker’s speech, long listening texts, and difficult grammatical structures in listening texts Secondly, in terms of the students’ learning styles adapted in developing listening skills, four underlying styles are unveiled, they are reflective, global, visual, and sensing Basing

on these finding, the researcher offers some pedagogical suggestions for the sake of the effectiveness of 11th-form students’ adaptation of suitable learning styles in developing listening skills

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Significance of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Overview of listening skills 5

2.1.1 Listening comprehension 5

2.1.2 Listening micro skills 8

2.1.3 Real-world listening and in-class listening 10

2.1.4 Students’ difficulties in listening skills development 12

2.2 Overview of learning styles 12

2.2.1 Definitions of learning styles 12

2.2.2 Distinctions among learning styles, learning strategies, and learning skills 13

2.2.3 The formation of learners’ styles 15

2.2.4 Types of learning styles 16

2.3 Learning styles adopted in developing listening skills 19

2.3.1 Ways to change a learning style 19

2.3.2 Ways to adapt a learning style in developing listening skills 19

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 21

3.1 Research design 21

3.2 Participants and the selection of participants 21

3.3 Data collection instruments 22

3.4 Data collection method and procedure 24

3.5 Data analysis method and procedure 25

3.5.1 Data analysis method 25

3.5.2 Data analysis procedure 25

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27

4.1 Findings 27

4.1.1 Students’ difficulties in listening comprehension 27

4.1.2 Students’ perceptions of real-life listening and in-class listening 35

4.1.3 Students’ learning styles adopted in developing listening skills 39

4.2 Discussion of the results 45

4.2.1 Students’ difficulties in listening comprehension 45

4.2.2 Students’ learning styles adopted in developing listening skills 46

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 49

5.1 Summary of the major findings 49

5.2 Pedagogical suggestions 49

5.3 Limitations of the study 52

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 53

REFERENCES 54

APPENDICES 58

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Classes allocated with survey questionnaires 22

Table 2 Structure of students’ survey questionnaire 23

Table 3 Structure of students’ interview 24

Table 4 Outstanding difficulties in listening comprehension 28

Table 5 Factors related to the speaker’s speech 30

Table 6 Students’ responses when having listening problems 34

Table 7 The differences between real-life listening and in-class listening 37

Table 8 Methods to improve listening skills 41

Table 9 Students’ preferred methods to improve listening skills in each class 42

Table 10 Students’ expectation from the teachers’ method to help adopt learning styles 44

Table 11 Students’ preferred methods to improve listening skills and the corresponding styles 47

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Listening types classified by John A Kline (1996) 7

Figure 2 : Relationship among learning styles, learning strategies, and learning skills 15

Figure 3 : Kolb’s learning style model (Adopted from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/kolb.html) 17

Figure 4 : Learning styles classified by Felder and Silverman (1988) 18

Figure 5 The difficulty of listening period (Question 1, Appendix 1A) 27

Figure 6 Outstanding difficulties in listening comprehension 28

Figure 7 Frequency of students’ problems in class 11G with regard to the speaker’s speech (Question 2, Appendix 1A) 29

Figure 8 Frequency of students’ problems in class 11B with regard to the speaker’s speech (Question 3, Appendix 1A) 31

Figure 9 Frequency of students’ problems in class 11D with regard to the speaker’s speech(Question 3, Appendix 1A) 31

Figure 10 Frequency of students’ problems in class 11E with regard to the speaker’s speech (Question 3, Appendix 1A) 32

Figure 11 Types of listening exercises causing troubles for students (Question 4, Appendix 1A) 33

Figure 12 Students’ responses when having listening problems(Question 5, Appendix 1A) 34

Figure 14 Students’ choices of listening to a lecture (Question6, Appendix 1A) 35

Figure 15 Students’ choices of listening to a conversation (Question 6, Appendix 1A) 35

Figure 13 Students’ choices of listening to both a conversation and a lecture (Question 6, Appendix 1A) 35

Figure 16 Students’ perceptions of the differences between real-life listening and in-class listening(Question 7, Appendix 1A) 37

Figure 17 Students’ perceptions of the easiness in regard to real-life listening and in-class listening(Question 8, Appendix 1A) 38

Figure 18 Importance of learning styles in developing listening skills(Question10, Appendix 1A) 39

Figure 19 Students’ preferred methods to improve listening skills(Question 11, Appendix 1A) 40

Figure 20 Students’ expectation from the teachers’ method to help adopt learning styles to better learning listening comprehension (Question 12, Appendix 1A) 43

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

FSLL: Foreign Language Specializing School

Int: Interviewer

S: Student

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies VNU: Vietnam National University

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter, which includes rationale of the study, aims, research questions,

scope and significance of the study, would hopefully provide readers with an overview

of the whole paper

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study

In recent years, the needs to study foreign languages of Vietnamese people have increased significantly Besides the needs for other languages such as Chinese, French, German; English has been the most popular language that Vietnamese learners want to master With its position as a global language in the context of globalization, English

is thought to bring many people the opportunity to have good jobs, the chance to study abroad and to do business with foreigners, and the chance to live in English speaking countries Thus, English has become more important than ever to many people in general and Vietnamese people in particular

Having realized the importance of English, English teaching and learning have been paid much attention to by many schools and universities in Vietnam The shift from traditional teaching methods to communicative language teaching (CLT) which ―sets

as its goal the teaching of communicative competence‖ (Richards, 2006:2) has brought significant results to teaching and learning English It has a huge focus on language proficiency development In other words, a good command of communicative English, especially listening skills, is the burning concern of almost all Vietnamese learners to achieve high language proficiency since ―listening comprehension is at the heart of language learning‖ (Kurita, 2012:30)

Despite its importance, listening skills are still a big challenge for Vietnamese learners and they find them the most difficult skill to learn As far as the researcher is concerned, there have been a great number of studies on the factors that influence listening skills acquisition; for example, Fan Yagang (1993:16) states that there are

four main factors affecting listening skills acquisition, i.e the message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting; Vandergrift (in Kurita, 2012:30) assumes that it is the teachers that affect learning listening process of students as they do not teach students the effective ways to learn listening

Among many factors, the researcher’s prior concern is learning styles; in other words, leaners’ characteristics in learning because of three main reasons First, different learners have different attributes, different responses to the learning environment, so understanding of these differences is an useful means to fulfill almost every need of students and enhance the learning outcomes, accordingly Second, there are a great number of researches on learning styles and learners’ styles but the researches on the relationship between learners’ learning styles and listening skills acquisition are rather small in number Therefore, investigating this relationship, in the researcher’s mind, is very necessary and practical Last but not least, learners’ styles are not paid much attention to and even neglected by Vietnamese teachers, especially high school teachers Since teachers do not understand students’ styles, most teachers do impose many things on students in learning process; gradually, students’ motivation would decrease

Because of these reasons, the researcher has decided to research into “Learning

styles and their influence on listening skills development among 11 th -form students in the Foreign Language Specializing School, ULIS, VNU” Hopefully, the research

would make contributions to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between learners’ styles and listening comprehension development as well as to enhancing teaching and learning English, accordingly

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

When conducting the study, the researcher’s primary aim is to find out the

difficulties experienced by 11th-form students in the Foreign Language Specializing School (FLSS), ULIS, VNU in listening In addition, the researcher would like to investigate styles of those students in learning listening Furthermore, the relationship between learners’ learning styles and listening comprehension development will be revealed When these aims are achieved, the research would bring significant implications for better listening skills development in the teaching and learning context It should be noted that the objectives of this study is 11th-form students in FLSS, ULIS, VNU, no matter what language they major in

1.3 Research questions

This study is carried out to answer two following questions:

1 What are the difficulties experienced by 11th-form students in listening comprehension in the Foreign Language Specializing School, ULIS, VNU?

2 What learning styles have those students developed or adapted in developing their listening skills?

1.4 Significance of the study

In general, significant picture of students’ current situation will be revealed, i.e their difficulties in learning listening In addition, the study is of great importance when it somehow lights up the overall view of students’ psychology and differences Because of these, big benefits will come to teachers, students and other researchers First, with regard to teachers, this research is the source of information to understand students’ difficulties in learning listening better as well as their styles in learning listening, teachers may find out many interesting points about students’ attributes Only when teachers have in-depth understanding of students’ differences can they adjust appropriate methods, and strategies to fulfill almost every need of them and

push them forwards in their learning process That will improve the efficiency of teachers’ tasks and enhance learning quality

Second, as for students, finding out the relationship between their styles and listening skills development is of substantial help in finding the key to successful learning Specifically, because the research will broaden the knowledge of learning styles, students will have a sharp insight into their psychology, attributes, as well as styles, which are related to listening acquisition development From that point, students will

be able to adjust themselves according to their listening development purposes and make progress

Last but not least, as for other researchers who may have interests in doing research in the same field, this research can provide them with reliable source for references Added to this, the researcher is going to suggest further studies, so others may find it useful to decide their scope of study

1.5 Scope of the study

As previously mentioned, the study puts focus on learners’ learning styles Specifically, the researcher would like to find out the difficulties of students as well as their styles in learning listening In addition, the matter of the relationship between learning styles and listening skills acquisition will be revealed Furthermore, the research site and subject is 11th-form students in FLSS, ULIS, VNU, Hanoi

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter has been designed to review the literature related to the thesis’s

issues Hopefully, it would provide readers with background knowledge to understand the rest of the paper better

2.1 Overview of listening skills

2.1.1 Listening comprehension

2.1.1.1 Definitions of listening

There have been a great number of definitions of listening Nordquist (n.d.) considered listening as a process: ―the active process of receiving and responding to spoken (and sometimes unspoken) messages‖ Sharing the same viewpoint, Kanu (n.d.) added more detail, i.e listening is ―an active process‖, which comprises three main stages: ―receiving, processing, and interpreting aural stimuli‖ According to Goh (2002), listening involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning

In this light, the process of listening is not merely of ―receiving, responding, processing, and interpreting‖ It is the receptive skill, which requires listeners to understand four factors: accent or pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and meaning

In this study, the term ―listening‖ should be understood as the receptive skill, which consists of understanding four main factors: accent or pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and meaning

2.1.1.2 Models of the listening process

So far, there have been a great number of works on the models of the listening

process According to Flowerdew and Miller (2005), there are three well-known models, i.e the bottom-up model, the top-down model, and the interactive model First, the bottom-up model refers to the understanding the message

by starting with the smallest units of the acoustic message: individual sounds,

or phonemes These are then combined into words, which, in turn, together

make up phrases, clauses, and sentences (Fowerdew and Miller, 2005:24)

Sharing the same viewpoint, Richards (2008:4) agreed that bottom-up processing starts with ―successive levels of organization – sounds, words, clauses, sentences, texts – until meaning is derived‖ Therefore, in teaching and learning context, according to this model, teachers should begin teaching lexical and grammatical aspects first, and then these components will be used to ―work out the relationship between elements of sentences‖ (Richards, 2008:4), which, in turn, facilitate listening comprehension Regarding the top-down model, this model emphasizes on having prior knowledge in listening comprehension process Breaking utterances down into components is not an effective way to process comprehension Richards (2008:7) distinguished the bottom-

up model from the top-down model: ―Whereas bottom-up processing goes from language to meaning, top-down processing goes from meaning to language‖ The third model is the interactive model; this model is the combination of the bottom-up processing and top-down processing Flowerdew and Miller (2005:27) made known that this model enables listeners for ―individual variation in linguistic processing‖ In other words, depending on factors such as listeners’ purposes, topic or content of a text, teaching purposes; bottom-up model or top-down model may predominate each other for better listening comprehension

2.1.1.3 Types of listening

The researcher could find various ways of classifying listening types From the viewpoint of Kline (1996), listening falls into five types The following figure shows

in detail these five types:

In the context of teaching and learning, Cooper (n.d.) divided listening into four main types, which, in the researcher’s mind, is very popular In fact, some types of listening classified are similar to that of Kline (1996) that have been discussed above; the distinction here lies on the nature of listening in the classroom environment The first type is critical listening, Cooper made known that critical listening happens when students have judgments, opinions, or critical responses while listening In other words, a student analyzes information while listening to sieve the best information This type requires many efforts on the part of students because it is not ―an automatic

Figure 1: Listening types classified by John A Kline (1996)

response to what is said‖, Cooper stated Fortunately, critical listening can be achieved

by learning to listen critically When students’ critical listening skill develops, their critical thinking skill also expands, and that will promote their learning process The second type is dialogic listening; this type is linked to mutual comprehension That means, students or teachers interact with each other, exchange ideas to understand thoroughly certain issues By way of mutual interaction, students’ problems in their study will be solved remarkably Regarding the third type: informative listening, this is listening to understand the message Cooper said, ―If the listener misunderstands or does not pay close attention, informative listening is affected‖ Thus, in order to improve informative listening, students need to pay much attention to what is conveyed to understand it better The fourth type refers to appreciative listening Appreciative listening happens when students enjoy a speech, a lecture of the lecturer Those students have special interests and concerns about the subject matter discussed

by the lecturer The higher appreciative listening develops, the better it is for students

to enhance their motivation

Seeing that each type of listening has its own advantages, it is advisable that students should take advantages of various listening types, co-ordinate them appropriately to improve their learning process

2.1.2 Listening micro skills

So far, the writer of this paper has found various researches on listening micro

skills According to Rost (1991) (in Saha and Talukdar, n.d.), listening comprises some component skills such as ―discriminating between sounds, recognizing words, identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning‖ Clearly, these skills mentioned require listeners to identify components from the small units such as sounds, words, grammatical word groupings, to larger components such as sets

of utterances, verbal or non-verbal cues that create meaning Therefore, we can infer

that those skills are somehow like bottom-up processing to listening comprehension Largely, Willis (1981: 134) provided more micro skills:

 predicting what people are going to talk about

 guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic

 using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one understand

 identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information

 retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)

 recognizing discourse markers, e.g., Well; Oh, another thing is; Now, finally…

 recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as and which, including linking words, pronouns, references, etc

 understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which give clues to meaning and social setting

 understanding inferred information, e g , speakers' attitude or intentions

In contrast to Rost (1991), Willis (1981) emphasized the top down processing to listening comprehension In other words, listeners should have micro skills of prediction, identification, recognition, the use of prior knowledge to understand the messages conveyed However, there is a shortcoming in both Rost and Willis’s viewpoint: they just provided too general listening micro skills, they did not point out whether these skills belong to real life listening or classroom listening In fact, different contexts require different micro skills, thus, it is vital to distinguish those in real life and those in academic setting This shortcoming is improved in Richard (1983)’s journal article named ―Listening comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure‖ in which he classified micro skills into two types: the first type is skills in

―conversational listening‖ and the second one comprises those in ―academic listening‖ According to Richard (1983:228-229), in conversational listening, listeners should have some micro skills such as ―retaining chunks of language for short periods, discriminating sounds, recognizing stressed words and rhythm, identifying unstressed words and reduced forms of words, recognizing vocabulary used in certain topics, process speech at different rates‖ Meanwhile, academic listening includes some micro skills such as ―identifying purpose, scope, and topic of lecture, infer relationship,

deduce meanings of words from context, detect speakers’ attitude, recognizing irrelevant matter, knowledge of classroom conventions‖ (Richard, 1983:229-230)

In the researcher’s point of view, micro skills are essential to develop listening skills When a person’s micro skills are excellent, there is no doubt that he/she can mater listening comprehension In addition, it is useful for listeners to develop those skills in certain context, i.e conversational, academic setting

2.1.3 Real-world listening and in-class listening

As a matter of fact, real-life listening is very different from in-class listening As mentioned in the previous part, real-life listening requires different micro skills from in-class listening Thus, adapt suitable micro skills in certain context is a matter of overriding concern for every skillful learner However, the differences between real-life listening and in-class listening is not just about micro skills As far as the writer of this paper is concerned, there are many works on those differences which characterize outstanding features of real-life listening Tsinghong Ma (2010:465-466) in the research ―Communicative Listening Training in English— Features, Strategies and Methods‖ said that:

In normal life we have reasons for listening, and interests and purposes, which our listening serves We are quite capable, in listening as in reading, of skimming over some bits of message which are not germane to our current purposes and then of paying particular detailed attention to those parts which seem to us most relevant

From Tsinghong Ma’s ideas, we know that real-life listening has two main features First, listeners have interests in and attention to what they are listening to because they have reasons for listening In daily life, we often listen for many purposes such as to understand instructions, to discuss problems, to follow other people’s advices or just relaxing by listening to music Another point that has been stated is that we are free to choose specific piece of information we like and ignore other information that we do

not like to hear In this point, the researcher is falling into the same lines with Tsinghong Ma

Largely, Ur (1984: 3-9) investigated more knowledge of real-life listening, i.e purpose, noises, immediate response, short chunks of heard discourse, interaction, redundancy, colloquialisms In fact, these features are not presented in all situations,

and certain circumstances may be short of some of these features

From the researcher’s point of view, listening in real-life also depends on speakers’ nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, gesture, eye-contact, movements Basing on those cues, listeners can obtain significant meaning of the messages It interesting that

in real-life listening, students have chances to listen to many people with different age, gender, voice tone Added to this, they may listen to speakers’ improper grammar, incomplete sentences, repetition, and overlap

As for in-class listening, in fact, there have been no studies which clearly discuss the characteristics of in-class listening In the researcher’s viewpoint, there are three main features of in-class listening in many High Schools in Vietnam First, most students have little or no interests in what they are listening to They listen to fulfill their responsibilities, to complete tasks to avoid bad marks or teacher’s punishment In some cases, they feel very bored and tired but they must listen to complete the assignments As can be inferred from that point, students are actually listening under pressure Second, teachers do not care much about students’ needs, they just assign as much as listening exercises as possible in order to complete the course, and they just check students’ answers, if students get wrong answers, teachers assume that those students are very bad at listening, lazy in studying Thus, in fact, those teachers do not teach students to develop listening skills Last but not least, most listening materials are very old fashioned, grammar-oriented, and poor technical quality

As can be absorbed, there is a huge gap between real-world listening and in-class listening The negative characteristics of in-class listening will decrease students’ motivation In order to avoid that, teachers should adapt real life listening features in

listening periods to enhance students’ interests, motivation, and interaction to what they are listening to as well as to increase successful lessons, accordingly

2.1.4 Students’ difficulties in listening skills development

For many English learners, listening is the most challenging skill compared with

other three skills: reading, speaking, and writing The reasons for listening obstacles can be found in many researches According to Underwood (1989) cited in the journal article of Nobuko Osada named ―Listening Comprehension Research: A brief review

of the past thirty years‖ (2004), there are some difficulties in listening comprehension, i.e ―speakers’ speed, limited vocabulary, lack of contextual knowledge, lack of concentration, learning habits‖

In the research ―An Investigation of Factors Influencing English Listening Comprehension and Possible Measures for Improvement‖, Naizhao Guo and Robin Wills analyzed 3 factors that influence listening comprehension of Chinese students:

―students’ psychological obstacles, grammar knowledge, and cultural background knowledge‖

With a more general view, Fan Yagang (1993) identified four sources of listening obstacles in the classroom: ―the message, the speaker, the listener, and the physical setting‖

In this research, sources of listening obstacles revealed by Underwood (1989), Naizhao Guo and Robin Wills, Fan Yagang (1993) will be taken as bases

2.2 Overview of learning styles

2.2.1 Definitions of learning styles

As far as the researcher is concerned, there has been a myriad of definitions of learning styles For some time ago, the term ―cognitive style‖ was used rather than learning style Chastain (in Mandana Yousefi, 2011:71), stated that ―the term cognitive style refers to the predispositions individuals have for using their intellect in specific ways to learn‖; and field independence (FI) and field dependence (FD) are two

variables of cognitive style Zang (in Mandana Yousefi, 2011:71) stated FI/FD ―as a reflection of the extent to which an individual uses external or internal cues for conduct organization‖ Ellis (in Shiela kheirzadeh and Zohreh Kassaian, 2011:189) defined cognitive style as ―the manner in which people perceive, recall, and organize information‖ Tennant (1988:89) asserted cognitive style is ―an individual’s characteristic and consistent approach to organizing and processing information‖

In general, cognitive styles are more related to theoretical or academic research, while learning styles are more related to practical applications Keefe (in Reid, 1987:87), learning styles are ―cognitive, affective, and psychological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment‖ Dunn and Dunn (in Reid, 1987: 89), defined learning style is ―a term that describes the variations among learners in using one or more senses to understand,

organize, and retain experience‖ More (in Emma Violand Hainer el al., 1990), defined

learning style as ―the usual or characteristic manner in which a learner goes about the task of learning‖ Dunn (in Selma Kara, 2009), defined learning style as ―the way in which individuals begin to concentrate on, process, internalize and retain new and difficult information.‖

As can be seen, different definitions of learning styles provide different dimensions and scopes In this study, the definition of Dunn and Dunn (1979) (in Reid, 1987): ―a term that describes the variations among learners in using one or more senses to understand, organize, and retain experience‖ will be used to refer to learning style related to language learning

2.2.2 Distinctions among learning styles, learning strategies, and learning skills Learning styles, learning strategies, and learning skills are different in scope and

depth According to Oxford (2003:2), ―Learning styles are the general approaches‖ that learners adapt or adopt in learning, and those styles influence students’ achievement in the learning process In the researcher’s point of view, learning styles

are related to personalities, behaviors of individuals in learning Dunn and Griggs (in Oxford, 2003) pointed out that ―Learning style is the biologically and developmentally imposed set of characteristics that make the same teaching method wonderful for some and terrible for others‖ Therefore, different students have different characteristics, and these should be considered thoroughly in the teaching process to fulfill students’ needs Meanwhile, in language learning, ―Strategies are the mental and communicative procedures learners use in order to learn and use language‖ (Tsinghong Ma, 2010:466) An appropriate strategy would help learners develop greater self-confidence and motivation Scarcella and Oxford (in Oxford, 2003) asserted learning strategies are ―specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques – such as seeking out conversation patterns, or giving oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language task – used by students to enhance their own learning‖ In fact, every learning task has strategies, the matter lies on learners whether or not they realize and apply effective strategies to complete the tasks A proper strategy would facilitate language learning Since strategies can be taught, it is vital that several strategies should be taught for students to complete the tasks successfully, and that strategies should be incorporated

in every lesson In the researcher’s viewpoint, particular learners’ styles would lead to particular learning styles that fill learners’ needs and affect their performance in school In addition, learning styles would be changed when students are more

experienced; however, the core style would remain unchanged

As for learning skills, Kolb and Boyatzis (1995:4) claimed that ―A skill is a combination of ability, knowledge, and experience that enables a person to do something well‖ They discussed three aspects of learning skills, i.e ―skills are domain-specific and knowledge-rich, a skill describes an integrated transaction between the person and the environment, skills are developed by practice‖ In the researcher’s mind, learning skills are developed significantly through the process of practice Only when a student learns from experiences, his/her skills would develop exponentially The following diagram shows the relationship among them:

In general, learning styles, learning strategies, and learning kills are in one process of learning in spite of the fact that they are different to some extent Good skills are vital

to solve a specific task well, good strategies are important to set a proper direction to compete a task, an appropriate style would direct the whole process of learning

2.2.3 The formation of learners’ styles

As a matter of fact, different learning styles are created by different learners’ styles These individual differences have been examined by researchers for a long time Kolb and Boyatzis (1999) discussed five factors that shape learners’ styles:

―personality types, early educational specialization, professional career, current job role, and adaptive competencies‖ Specifically, as for personality types, Kolb and Boyatzis (1999:7) asserted that ―learning styles result from individuals’ preferred ways for adapting in the world‖ Sharing the same viewpoint, Jacob Woods (2010) stated

―this generally regards introversion or extroversion or whether a person wants to be personable or slightly shy‖ In the researcher’s mind, personality plays an essential or

Figure 2 : Relationship among learning styles, learning

strategies, and learning skills

even decisive role in determining learners’ differences Early educational specialization can result in different learning styles as well Kolb and Boyatzis (1999:8) judged ―This specialization in the realms of social knowledge influences individuals’ orientations toward learning, resulting to particular relations between learning styles and early training in an educational specialty or discipline‖ In other words, students with different majors, or fields in their study would have different learning styles Regarding the third factor, professional career choice, Kolb and Boyatzis (1999:9) made known that the different choice in professional career can form learning style via the process of professional training That means, people with different professions would have different styles, and certain professions would result

in one common style The fourth factor: current job role can influence learning styles significantly Kolb and Boyatzis (1999:10) stated that job requirements force a person

to adapt suitable styles to meet those requirements Adaptive competencies also influence learners’ styles Kolb and Boyatzis (1999:10) agreed that ―the specific task

or problem the person is currently working on shapes learning styles‖, and that ―each task we face requires a corresponding set of skills for effective performance‖; thus,

―the effective matching of task demands and personal skills results in an adaptive competence‖

2.2.4 Types of learning styles

Every student has his/her own learning style in educational context These differences affect learners’ motivation, attitudes towards the lessons As related to individual differences, learning styles, which result in different learning outcomes, reflect the students’ different interaction, reaction, and experience in the learning environment Thus, there is a need to balance these individual differences to raise students’ learning results In order to do that, individual learning styles are identified There have been a great number of works and studies which determined different types

of learning styles David Kolb (1984)’s book named ―Experiential learning:

Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development‖ is a brilliant book that clarifies learning styles He set an appropriate learning style model The following diagram shows this model:

Fleming (2001) provided another model of learning style: VARK, which stands for Visual (V), Aural (A), Read/Write (R), and Kinesthetic (K) According to Fleming (2001), visual learners prefer visual aids such as pictures, charts, graphs, colors Aural learners prefer to listen to a tape recorder, discuss in groups, explain ideas to others

Read/Write learners prefer to read textbooks and handouts, take notes, write essays

Kinesthetic learners like involving in action, and experiment

Felder and Silverman (1988) discussed eight types of learning styles They are shown

in the following figure:

Figure 4 : Learning styles classified by Felder and Silverman (1988)

Another learning style model introduced by Duff (2004) is the Revised Approaches to

Studying Inventory model named RASI This model includes three approaches to

studying: deep, surface, and strategic Duff (2004) pointed that students with a deep

approach to studying enjoy the learning activity, make connections to previous

learning, and use logic and evidence well They are often critical learners In contrast,

students with a surface approach to studying merely learn by heart, they use

memorization to learn, make fewer connections to previous learning, and they are not

good at critical thinking With a strategic approach to studying, students set their own

strategies to learning: organizing learning routines, managing time to study, achieving

highest grades

As it can be seen, the types provided above vary in terms of scope and depth In this

study, the type provided by Felder and Silverman (1988) and Fleming (2001) will be

taken as bases

2.3 Learning styles adopted in developing listening skills

2.3.1 Ways to change a learning style

As a matter of fact, what makes each person’s style of learning unique is that people are found to have preferences for certain elements or options involved in the process of learning over other elements or options In order to make the most of a learning style, it is necessary to think about a learning style, and then adapt a suitable way in study to make the learning style more effective and efficient This view is also shared by Andrea Buckner Schoenherr (n.d.) in the article named ―How to change a student’s learning style‖ In this article, Andrea points out four steps to adapt a learning style

Step 1: ―identifying the student’s learning style‖ Basing on suitable survey

questionnaires, this identification can be made to see the results

Step 2: After discovering an outstanding learning style, the teachers should ―discuss

ways the students can use his dominant learning styles to help him succeed in the class‖ Importantly, secondary learning styles should also be planned to develop

Step 3: The teachers create a list of activities for students to practice in order to

―increase a targeted learning style‖

Step 4: The teachers monitor a progress to see whether a student is succeeded in

modifying new learning styles

In the researcher’s view, the changes in learning styles require continuous efforts on the part of students and teachers, especially students to adapt suitable styles

to enhance the learning outcomes

2.3.2 Ways to adapt a learning style in developing listening skills

In fact, there have been no studies which clearly discussed the adaptation of learning styles in developing listening skills In the researcher’s view point, students should identify their learning style before adapting it in developing listening skills

Due to the fact that different people have different ways to learn things, it is important

to adapt certain style in studying

In terms of visual style, Jessica Hart (n.d.) suggested that students should ―use pens in various colors and create figures, symbols, graphs, and pictures‖ to facilitate learning In the researcher’s viewpoint, it is important for students to underline or highlight key words, and ideas, and practice doing listening exercises having pictures

or charts attached in learning listening In addition, studying with flash cards and writing down a set of questions and then writing out the responses (Jessica Hart, n.d) is wise ways in the learning listening process

In terms of aural style, from the researcher’s point of view, since aural learners prefer

to listen to tape recorder, and work in groups, it is important to choose a suitable location in the classroom where a student can best hear the recording and focus attention Added to this, students should form a listening club to discuss any listening problems with friends as learning from others is a excellent way to acquire knowledge

As for Read/Write style, as the name suggested, Read/Write learners prefer to read books, or write essays In doing listening exercises, students should read the instructions thoroughly and take notes while listening to a lecture

With regard to kinesthetic style, Jessica Hart (n.d) recommended that students should

―study using the whole body, making hand gestures and moving around the room‖ in learning In the researcher’s viewpoint, to strengthen kinesthetic learning, it is useful

to sit at the front of the class to help students focus on the lessons Also, taking notes while listening to a lecture is a good way to develop listening skills

In the researcher’s point of view, learning is a continuous process, students should adapt their learning styles in this process to match the learning environment It

is useful for students to develop various types of learning styles to become flexible learners, and to achieve the best results, accordingly

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter has been made to discuss all the detailed information about

methodology concerning employing the two data collection instruments

3.1 Research design

The researcher utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methods comprising

survey questionnaire and interview to collect data to the research for three main reasons First, survey questionnaire is familiar to nearly everyone, especially students, they must have experienced completing some kinds of questionnaires, and therefore, they do not make students embarrassed Second, to quickly collect data from a large number of student participants, survey questionnaire is the most suitable way to employ Also, survey questionnaire helps the researcher save time and effort to collect information about students’ self-report on their own difficulties and styles in listening comprehension development Third, interview is implemented among student participants to receive more reliable and intensive data about the research’s issue

In the analysis stage, the data collected from both quantitative and qualitative method would be calculated and transferred into numerical form After that, these data would be presented in charts, tables, and graphs for better visualization, better understanding, accordingly

3.2 Participants and the selection of participants

This research’s participants are 11th-form students in the Foreign Language Specializing School (FLSS), ULIS, VNU Concretely, four classes named 11B (English major), 11D (Japanese major), 11E (Chinese major) and 11G (German major) which consist of 195 students in total are going to be selected to complete the survey questionnaires The researcher chooses these classes no matter what language they major in with a hope of investigating the relationship between language major and learners’ learning styles In other words, discovering whether language major affects learners’ styles is of the researcher’s interest In addition, due to having a relative who

is 11th-form student in this school, it will be much easier and convenient to contact and get information from these participants Furthermore, the number of participants, which accounts for 39% of the 11th-form students in this school, could be considered reasonable enough for the real condition and scope of the study

The following table shows in detail the number of students in each class allotted with the survey questionnaires

Table 1 Classes allocated with survey questionnaires

11B (English) 11D (Japanese) 11E (Chinese) 11G (German)

3.3 Data collection instruments

The researcher employs both quantitative and qualitative method including survey questionnaire and interview to collect data

 Survey questionnaire

This method is utilized for three main reasons First, this instrument is the least time and effort consuming method Specifically, the researcher is able to quickly collect data from a large number of participants thanks to its typical short close-ended question types that are fast and easy to complete Thus, the data collected will possess the high representativeness Second, many students are familiar with questionnaires, so survey questionnaires do not make them apprehensive Third, this instrument is quite fair compared to face-to-face interview because ―When completing a questionnaire,

there are no verbal or visual clues from an interviewer that may influence the person surveyed‖ (Catherine Jones, (n.d.))

Importantly, to avoid the respondents’ mistakes which result in a large number of valueless data, the researcher decided to use simple words, and expressions to make sure that the respondents could understand thoroughly what they had to do In addition, the researcher was prepared willing to give explanation and answer all the questions asked by the respondents

The researcher employed both close-ended and open-ended questions in the survey questionnaire Among those questions, close-ended questions outnumber open-ended ones While the questionnaire for students in class 11B (English major) was written in English, that for students in class 11D, 11E, and 11G was translated into Vietnamese

to avoid students’ misunderstanding and confusion; accordingly, to guarantee the accuracy of the outcomes The following table presents the details about the structure

of the survey questionnaire:

Table 2 Structure of students’ survey questionnaire

Students’ questionnaire (Appendix 1A and

1B)

1 Students’ difficulties in listening

comprehension

Question 1 to question 5

2 Students’ perceptions of real-life

listening and in-class listening

Question 6 to question 8

3 Students’ learning styles adopted in

developing listening skills

Question 9 to question 12

 Interview

Face-to-face interview is used in the data collection process for a number of

the participants, they may have a chance to ask any questions they are not sure about and the researcher will clarify the ambiguities for them Second, personal feelings, perceptions and shares are directly obtained; therefore, the issue is investigated in an in-depth way Third, for each particular situation, interview allows the researcher to ask more detail questions if suitable, and enhance the data’s precise and validity, accordingly

In terms of the structure, the interview consisted of both close-ended and open-ended questions, and open-ended questions were bigger in number Further details are shown

in the following table:

Table 3 Structure of students’ interview

Students’ interview (Appendix 2)

1 Students’ difficulties in listening

comprehension

Question 1 to question 2

2 Students’ perceptions of real-life

listening and in-class listening

Question 3

3 Students’ learning styles adopted in

developing listening skills

Question 4 to question 10

3.4 Data collection method and procedure

Stage 1: Contacting the participants

In this stage, the researcher will contact the participants and arrange suitable time for them to do the survey

Stage 2: Introducing

The researcher and the survey questionnaires will be introduced and so does the purpose of the study

Stage 3: Doing the survey

After asking the participants to do the survey, the researcher will be willing to give them instructions if they raise any questions

Stage 4: Collecting data

After collecting the data, the researcher will saying thanks to the participants, evaluate the data to ensure the degree of accuracy and completeness

3.5 Data analysis method and procedure

3.5.1 Data analysis method

The researcher employs two methods to analyze the data:

- Quantitative method: survey questionnaire

- Qualitative method: interview

For quantitative data, the researcher will synthesize and interpret the statistics Specifically, the data will be calculated and transferred into numerical form

For qualitative data, the researcher will summarize or quote in the analysis stage

3.5.2 Data analysis procedure

Data from instrument 1 – the Questionnaire

Step 1: Before collecting the data, the researcher checks the accuracy and conciseness

of the questionnaires’ questions and answers to guarantee the data’s validity

Step 2: The statistics will be analyzed in percentage and grouped into different categories

Step 3: Presenting the data in the form of charts, tables, and graphs for better visualization

Data from instrument 2 – the Interview

Step 1: Transcribing

The interview contents will be transcribed in written text for later reference

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter shows the readers the results of analysis process after following six

phases in the data analysis procedure

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 Students’ difficulties in listening comprehension

4.1.1.1 Students’ perceptions of the difficulty of listening periods

In order to investigate the difficulties experienced by 11-form students in the FLSS in listening comprehension, the researcher found out their general judgments about listening periods The data are shown in the following chart

Figure 5 The difficulty of listening period (Question 1, Appendix 1A)

As can be seen from the chart, there is a variety in the students’ perceptions of the difficulty of listening periods The vast majority of students consider listening as difficult to very difficult Recognizably, class 11G has the largest number of students judging listening difficult, while the students in class 11D are almost unanimous about the extreme level of listening difficulty In contrast, there is a number of students assess listening very easy or easy However, those students are small in number,

4.1.1.2 Students’ outstanding difficulties in listening comprehension

As discussed, that almost all target students value listening difficult to very difficult Indeed, their outstanding difficulties are revealed in question number 2 shown in the following chart:

Figure 6 Outstanding difficulties in listening comprehension

Table 4 Outstanding difficulties in listening comprehension

a Speaker’s speech

b Limited vocabulary

c Lack of contextual knowledge

d Lack of grammar knowledge

e Your psychology: nervous, bored, tired, worried, etc

f Long listening text

g Listening texts which have difficult grammatical structures

h Others

As seen in the chart, speaker’s speech and limited vocabulary is considered to

be the outstanding difficulties with the largest percentages compared to other choices, 28.5%, and 28.3% respectively Following, the difficulties related to psychological

factors, long listening texts, and difficult grammatical structures in listening texts are chosen by 21.7%, 25.1%, and 19.4% corresponsively One of those students shared that psychological factors were so important that they could influence successful listening; uncomfortable feelings such as nervousness, or boredom made him unable to listen any longer (S2, Appendix 3B) When being asked about the causes of uncomfortable feelings, that interviewed students blamed on the fact that his teacher was so strict and that he had few interesting activities to motivate students Another student shared that a long listening text caused tiredness and monotonousness, and a student could not continuously grasp much information for a long time (S3, Appendix 3C)

In brief, the chart shows the various perceptions concerning listening obstacles among the respondents There are five most outstanding factors unveiled: psychological factors, limited vocabulary, speaker’s speech, long listening texts, and difficult grammatical structures in listening texts

4.1.1.3 Frequency of students’ problems with regard to the speaker’s speech

The answers to the questions related to the frequency of students’ problems concerning the speaker’s speech are illustrated in the chart below There are four charts corresponding to each class’s answers

Figure 7 Frequency of students’ problems in class 11G with regard to the speaker’s

speech (Question 2, Appendix 1A)

Table 5 Factors related to the speaker’s speech