Some solutions to improve the teaching english listening skill to the 11th form students at quang xuong 1 high school

APPENDICES ...IAppendix 1: Questionnaire for students ...IAppendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers ...IIIAppendix 3: Interview questions for teachers ...VAppendix 4: Four teachers’ answeri

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: INTRODUCTION .1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study .2

1.3 Scope of the study .2

1.4 Methods of the study .2

1.5 Significance of the study 2

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT .3

2.1 Introduction of language teaching and learning conditions in QX 1 school 3

2.1.1 Students .3

2.1.2 Teachers .3

2.2 Teaching and learning conditions .3

2.2.1 Teaching aids .3

2.2.2 Teaching hours 4

2 2.3 Class size .4

2.3 The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook 4

2.3.1 Form 11 listening objectives .4

2.3.2 Listening lessons .4

2.4 Research questions 4

2.4.1 Data collection instruments 4

2.4.2 Instrument one: Questionnaires 5

2.5 Questionnaires 6

2.5.1 Questionnaires for students 6

2.5.2 Questionnaires for teachers .8

2.5.3 Results of the interviews 12

2.6 Findings and suggested solutions 13

2.6.1 Findings 13

2.6.1.1 Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching ELS 13

2.6.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning ELS 13

2.6.1.3 Students’ difficulties in learning ELS 13

2.6.1.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ELS to grade 11 students 13

2.6.2 Suggested solutions……… 14

2.6.2.1 Doing pre-listening activities effectively 14

2.6.2.2 Encouraging students to practice ELS outside the class 15

2.6.2.3 Giving support and encouragement 15

2.6.2.4 Upgrading teaching aids 16

2.6.2.5 Adapting and re-designing the tasks 16

2.6.2.6 Equipping students with listening strategies 16

PART 3: CONCLUSIONS 18

3.1 Summary of the study .18

3.2 Recommendations for further study .18

REFERENCES 19

APPENDICES I

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students IAppendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers IIIAppendix 3: Interview questions for teachers VAppendix 4: Four teachers’ answering interview questions VI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

QX 1 schoolELS

QX 1 high schoolEnglish Listening Skills

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Students’ attitudes towards the importance of listening skills 6

Table 4 Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS 8Table 5 Teachers’ assessment of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 11” textbook 9Table 6 Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons 9

Table 8 The frequency of teachers’ using techniques in a listening lesson 11

Table 9 Teachers’ suggested solutions to improve listening teaching 12

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

In Vietnam, in the recent years, the teaching and learning of English havebeen gaining significance firstly because it is an international language;secondly it is also seen as a means to promote mutual understanding andcooperation between Viet Nam and other countries There have been anincreasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping

up with the latest modern technology in the world English has now been taughtnot only at all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior highschool and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary schools

At QX1 school, where the author studies, English is a compulsory subject

in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high schoolexamination It is taught with the purpose that students have some basicknowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to scienceand technology However, there still exist many difficulties facing Englishlanguage teachers at QX1 school, especially in teaching listening skills tostudents The teachers of English at QX1 school find it difficult to teachlistening lessons successfully

Listening has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by manysecond language learners It takes much time and energy to make progress inthis skill For listening teachers, it is a difficult task to get students involved inlistening lessons

At my school, teaching listening is really a problem In addition to the lack ofwell-equipped facilities, teaching listening methods are not satisfactory Anotherproblem is students’ low level of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar,pronunciation, skills and so forth It is the reason why students find it difficultand tough to listen to and they are not confident enough to do listening taskssuccessfully Moreover, learning habits do not help much to improve theirlistening in classroom

All of the above reasons have inspired the author to do the research

“Some solutions to improve the teaching English listening skill to the 11 th

form Students at Quang Xuong 1 High School” with the hope to make a small

contribution to the quality of teaching and learning listening skill at QX 1school

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

Within the framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at:

- Clarifying the practices of teaching and learning ELS in 11th form in QX

1.3 Scope of the study

Learning a second language as a scholar once said “is a long and complexundertaking” Therefore, teachers of a second language certainly have manyproblems during their teaching In the scope of this research, however, theresearcher only has ambition to investigate the difficulties that teachers in QX 1school have been facing when teaching listening skill for 11th graders.Hopefully, they will have more smooth and successful listening lessons Also, it

is not expected that the study can bring solutions to the ELS teaching forstudents of all levels

1.4 Methods of the study

The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods.Besides, many resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers andsome sources on the Internet have been read by the researcher

In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will becollected through two survey questionnaires One survey questionnaire is for

180 students from four different groups in grade 11 in QX 1 school and the othersurvey is for 10 teachers The data, then, will be processed and analyzed to yieldconclusions for the study

Along with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained

by informal interviews with some teachers to collect further information aboutthe real situations of teaching and learning ESL in grade 11 at QX 1 school

1.5 Significance of the study

This research provides an insight into the problems that are often met byteachers teaching English for 11th form students in QX 1 school In addition, this

research also points out some feasible solutions which are beneficial for bothteachers and students.

Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help

to the improvement of the teaching and learning ELS of Vietnamese students ingeneral and of QX 1 school students in particular The study also gives someguidelines for teachers to help their students overcome their listeningcomprehension problems The results of this study may also be useful for thosewho are interested in this field

PART 2: CONTENT OF STUDY 2.1 Introduction of English teaching and learning conditions at QX 1 school

2.1.1 Students

The level of English for grade 11 students is targeted at

pre-intermediate level though a few actually reach the standard As their secondary years were spent with the grammar translation method, moststudents are good at grammar, but bad at listening and speaking the targetlanguage They can do written exercises on English grammar accurately butthey can hardly communicate in English Using English to communicate is

lower-a big chlower-allenge for most of them who think thlower-at lelower-arning lower-a foreign llower-angulower-agemeans learning grammatical rules or a list of irregular verbs

Students at QX1 school are seventeen years old and have experienced

in English, including listening skill for five years at lower-upper schools.Nevertheless, they basically are beginners of English They are likely to bemotivated or de-motivated easily This matter of fact should be taken intoaccount in using teaching methods and approaches in order to foster anddevelop their listening skills efficiently

Methodologically, the teachers at QX 1 school are familiar with traditionallanguage teaching English They lack teaching experience, particularly teachinglistening skills

2.2 Teaching and learning conditions

2.2.1 Teaching aids

Facilities in QX 1 school are brought into question The classes are notwell-equipped with tapes, cassette players, speakers, TVs, CDs or overheadprojectors except for a board, chalks, pictures or other visual aids designed byteachers themselves There are two modern classrooms for language teachingand learning equipped with teaching aids such as overhead projectors and theInternet Students only have a chance to use these devices when the teacherspresent model lessons on special occasions such as Women’s Day andVietnamese Teacher's Day Therefore, students do not have many chances to useboth visual and audio aids to practice listening skills often

The average number of students in a class in QX 1 school ranges from 40

to 50 Students are arranged to sit at desks in four rows, each of which includes

5 - 6 desks of two students

2.3 The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook.

The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook composed by Hoang Van Van (2012)has been in use since 2012 as the official textbook to obtain general English atgrade 11 The textbook consists of 10 units in terms of 10 topics There are sixparts in each unit represented through 6 lessons: Getting started, Language,Skills, Communication and Culture, Looking back and Project respectively Thebook adopts two new approaches: learner–centered and communicative aiming

at students’ better use of English as a tool of communication at basic level interms of listening, speaking, reading and writing

2.3.1 Form 11 listening objectives

The aim of the course is to equip students with English listening skills forbasic communication For 11th form students, the objectives are to developlistening comprehensive skills such as intensive listening, extensive listening,listening for specific information, listening for gist, etc

2.3.2 Research questions

In order to find out the problems that the teachers and students of form 11

in teaching and learning ELS, it is necessary to answer the following questions:

1 What is the present situation of teaching and learning ELS at QX 1 school?

2 What difficulties do the teachers and the 11th form students encounter inteaching and learning ELS?

3 What are the suggested ways to effectively improve the current situation

of teaching and learning ELS at this school?

2.4 Data collection instruments

In order to obtain in-depth, rich data and information for investigating thesituation and the problems that teachers and students encountered in teachingand learning ELS, the study used two methods of data collection: questionnairesand informal interviews

2.4.1 Instrument one: Questionnaires

The questionnaire for the students was written in Vietnamese so that theywould not misunderstand the questions The questionnaire was designed toinvestigate the students’ attitudes toward the learning of listening, thedifficulties they encounter in learning ELS, and the students’ expectations forbetter teaching and learning ELS

The questionnaire delivered to the teachers was strictly conducted inEnglish It aimed to find out the teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching oflistening, the difficulties they encounter in teaching ELS, the teachers’knowledge of teaching listening and the teachers’ expectations for betterteaching and learning ELS

Questionnaires for students and teachers both had closed questions Aftercollecting all the questionnaire responses from both teachers and students, theresearcher calculated the numbers of responses and the percentages respectively

of the questions in each questionnaire

2.4.2 Instrument two: Interviews

In order to understand better about the reality of listening teaching andlearning and difficulties that teachers had to face with listening lessons, theresearcher had unconventional talks with 4 teachers The questions in theinterview were basically based on those in the questionnaire in order to find outthe real reasons for their answers as well as to understand more about the reality

of teaching and learning ELS Hopefully, the results from the interviews wouldcontribute much to finding out the solutions to the improvement

2.5 Questionnaires

2.5.1 Questionnaires for students

Question 1: How are English listening skills important to you?

veryimportant

Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards the importance of ELS

As shown in table 1, nearly half of the students (48%) thought that listeningwas important and even 30% revealed that it was a very important skill 12% ofparticipants stated that it was of little importance and the smallest percentage(10%) underestimated the significance of this skill In general, most of thestudents highly appreciated the importance of English listening skills, especiallycommunication ability However, it seems to be contradictory to the low level of

their participation in classroom activities in fact This was also a challenge forboth students and teachers to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learningELS at QX 1 school.

Question 2: How does your teacher encourage you to listen?

by giving goodcomments

by givinghigh marks

by givingprizes

doingnothing

Table 2: Teachers’ techniques of encouraging students

Table 2 shows students’ evaluation on teacher’s ways of encouragingstudents to learn listening skills According to 40% of participants’ responses,their teachers often encouraged them to listen in the class by offering highmarks Some students stated that their teachers used good comments (36%) orprizes (7%) to motivate students’ involvement In contrast, 17% thought theirteachers did nothing to encourage them It was understandable that mostteachers gave their students high marks to stimulate them In addition, teachersshould give students good comments to build up the confidence in their ownlistening ability It is advisable that all teachers should use some ways ofencouraging students more often

Question 3: What makes it difficult for you to learn ELS?

E Lack of background knowledge in listening topics 110 61%

Table 3: Factors affecting students in learning ELS

According to the statistics from table 3, students’ low level of Englishproficiency was the most important factor of reluctance in listening accounting

to 72% 61% of the students stated that they were lack of background knowledge

in listening topics while 40% blamed for their lack of motivation And 30%

revealed that bad quality of cassette tapes and CDs caused them difficult.Besides, some other factors such as speakers’ fast speed, bad quality of cassettetapes, limited time, teachers’ inappropriate teaching methodology, large classsizes, boring topics and activities also accounted for factors affecting students’learning ELS These four biggest factors should be noticed by all the teachers ofEnglish It was high time teachers found solutions to help students overcometheir problems and to improve the quality of the teaching aids Only by doingthese problems, teachers could involve more students in their listening lessons.

Question 4: In your opinion, what should teachers do to better teaching ELS?

B help students improve their knowledge of the

C guide students to listen outside the classroom 45 25%

E exchange experiences and methodology among the

F encourage students to listen by giving evaluation

Table 4: Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS

Table 4 shows the suggestions that students expected their teachers to do

to increase the involvement 61% of participants highly appreciated teachers’instructions Next, 56% of students expected that teachers should help themimprove their knowledge of the language and of the world 47% desired thatteachers would offer them more English songs and games in listening lessons.Then teachers are always expected to encourage students to listen by givingevaluation (comments, feedback and marks) according to 77 students (43%).And 30% thought that teachers should exchange experiences and methodologyamong the staffs Besides, the same number of students (25%) hoped that theirteachers re-designed the listening tasks and guided them how to listeneffectively outside the classroom Although students really wanted to learnlistening skills and they knew its importance, there were only 15-minutelistening tests at the school

2.5.2 Questionnaires for teachers

The questionnaire was conducted among 10 teachers in QX 1 school All

of the participants have been teaching English for more than four years and

share the same views towards listening teaching Their ideas are shown clearly

in the answers to questions below

Question 1: What do you think about listening tasks in the textbook?

Table 5: Teachers’ assessment of listening tasks in the textbook

Regarding the textbook “Tieng Anh 11”, nearly half of the teachers (43%)confirmed that the tasks in the textbook were difficult to students The Englishtextbook 11 consisted of 10 topics (see Appendix 5) relating to Gloabalwarming, further education, our world heritage sites, etc and the tasks were true

or false statements, gap-filling, summarizing main ideas, comprehension questions,multiple-choice questions, filling in the table, listening and numbering pictures Thesame number (four teachers) thought that the tasks were suitable for students Andonly two teachers found the tasks boring in terms of authentic materials.Surprisingly, none of the teachers stated that listening tasks were interesting.The researcher found that listening skills were not only difficult to the studentsbut also to the teachers at the school

Question 2: What is your students’ attitude towards listening lessons?

Table 6: Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons

Table 6 shows that 43% of the teachers thought that their students were notinterested during listening lessons 29% stated that students were sometimesinterested to learn this skill and the same number (29%) complained that theirstudents were totally ignorant to listen to English The result showed thatstudents had no interests in studying ELS although 78% of the students wereaware of the importance of learning this skill This result also matched withstudents’ opinions of their classmates’ participation during listening lessons Inthis reality, one could conclude right now that listening teaching at the schoolneeds improvement in order to involve more students in this difficult skill

Question 3: What are your current problems with teaching ELS?

A Students’ low motivation

B Students’ low background knowledge relating listening topics

C Students’ low level of English proficiency

D Large class problems

E Lack of necessary facilities (cassette tapes, VCD, CD, Projector…) F Time limitation

Table 7: Difficulties encountered by the teachers

According to the data collected, the teachers’ most problematic point istheir students’ low level of English proficiency In the reality of teaching English

at QX 1 school the researcher found that many students lacked vocabulary andgrammatical structures concerning to the listening lessons Teachers ranked theirstudents’ low background knowledge in the second position From theresearcher’s own experience, students knew little information of the followingtopics such as undersea world, historical places, the mass media and technologyand you Thus, it was difficult for teachers to exploit their knowledge of thesetopics before listening The students’ low motivation ranked third The researcherfound unexciting atmosphere from many English classes at this school Somestudents slept, some made noise or did other things Very few students listened tothe tape or CDs carefully to fulfill the tasks in the textbook In addition, teachersput large class problems, time limitation, lacking of necessary facilities, in thefourth, fifth and sixth place respectively In my interviews, the teachers said largeclass was also a barrier to teaching ELS Some of them admitted it was difficult tomake sure who was on-task and who was off-task in a large class They alsoadded that in the same class, some students who were good at English were activewhile others were de-motivated during the lessons Besides, they found it hard tofacilitate listening tasks to students of different levels Lack of necessary facilities

is also a problem Only 2 overhead projectors are equipped for thirty classes; thus,they are not frequently used for teaching English except for special occasions.Other types of teaching aids such as pictures, sub-boards are not equipped Theteachers used only textbook, chalk and board in their lessons They said, to maketheir lessons more interesting, they had to create do-it-yourself aids