Improving listening skill for que phong high school students by applying IT to simplify listening tasks in english 11

Therefore, I have tried to exploit the techniques of teaching listening skill,adapt listening tasks by making use of various kinds of information technologysoftwares to easing listening

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Reasons for the study

In English teaching, the main objective is to prepare students forcommunication in the real world and it is very important for learners toefficiently equip themselves with four skills, together with relatively sufficientbackground knowledge Of the four language skills: Listening, Speaking,Reading, and Writing, listening is vital not only in language learning but also indaily communication

Most teachers and students find that listening is a difficult skill to master Ialso think that teaching listening is not an easy job at all when we face the factthat learners have met many difficulties in comprehending the information due tounfamiliarity with the pronunciation of the target language and a lack of listeningskills This contradiction tells us that there are some things about teachinglistening that need to be explored Perhaps those who say it is “the easiest toteach” mean that it does not require much painstaking lesson preparation and allthey need to do is play the tapes and test the students’ comprehension But isthere nothing more to teaching listening than testing? We must find out all wecan about how listening can be improved and what activities are useful to thisend and then use this knowledge and these activities in our own classrooms

To enhance students’ listening skill development, it’s the teacher’s duty tocreate more opportunities for the students to learn from their own strengths andweaknesses as well as their peers' weaknesses and strengths

Therefore, I have tried to exploit the techniques of teaching listening skill,adapt listening tasks by making use of various kinds of information technologysoftwares to easing listening tasks and design games to gain effective listeningactivities Having applied to English 10 for one term successfully, I decided tochoose the topic: “ Improving listening skill for Que Phong high school

students by applying IT to simplify listening tasks in English 11 ” for my

experienced innovation

In this study, there is a CD contains the listening lectures from unit 1 to unit

16 of English 11 whose listening tasks are adapted thanks to informationtechnology

Nevertheless, this study can’t be perfect in limited time Therefore, I hopethat the colleagues’ contribution will make it more perfectly

II Aims of the study

My research focuses specifically on the investigation of the techniques toteach listening skill and give some suggestions for applying the adapting tasks

to enhance the students' self - learning for improvements in their listening skills The specific aims of the research are as follows:

To give out a brief overview on Techniques of teaching listening skill

To discuss the best way to teach listening skill in English 11

To give some lecture samples (with CD) applied IT to simplify listeningtasks to teach listening skill in English 11

III Methods of the study

I applied different methods to carry out the study as follows:

Analytic method

Collecting method

Experimental method

Statistical method

IV Scope of the study

Within this study, my purpose is to carry the research on adapting tasks to teachlistening skill to the 11th form students though there are many other techniquesthat can be used to teach listening skill

I also designed the powerpoint lectures from unit 1 to unit 16 of English 11which help to students to develop the ability of listening better and usinglanguage naturally

2 The importance of listening skill ?

The Studies in “The importance of listening” by Karen Lawson, PhD, CSP,show that we spent 80% of our waking hours communicating, and according toresearch, at least 45% of that time is spent listening

Listening plays a vital role in daily lives People listen for different purposes such

as entertainment, academic purposes or obtaining necessary information As forforeign language learning, listening is of paramount important since it providesthe language input Without understanding input appropriately, learning simplycan not get any improvement In addition, without listening skill, no

communication can be achieved As for that, language learners, especially thosewho learn English as a foreign language in a non-native setting, find it difficult toacquire good listening skill.

In a word, the better at listening you are, the more productive you will be inyour career and more opportunities will come to you

3 Problems and solutions in listening skill.

3.1 What are some listening problems ?

The evidence that shows why listening is difficult comes mainly from foursources: the message to be listened to, the speaker, the listener, and the physicalsetting

3.1.a The Message

Many learners find it more difficult to listen to a taped message than to readthe same message on a piece of paper, since the listening passage comes into theear in the twinkling of an eye, whereas reading material can be read as long asthe reader likes

In many cases listeners cannot predict what speakers are going to say andmessages on the radio or recorded on tape cannot be listened to at a slower speed.Moreover, it’s dificult for learners to listen to everyday conversation which maycontain a lot of colloquial words and expressions, such as stuff for material, guyfor man, as well as slang In spontaneous conversations people sometimes useungrammatical sentences because of nervousness or hesitation They may omitelements of sentences or add something redundant

3.1.b The Speaker

Learners tend to be used to their teacher’s accent or to the standard variety ofBritish or American English They find it hard to understand speakers with otheraccents So speaker’s voice and speech style is one of the factors which maymake it more difficult for learners to understand

3.1.c The Listener

Foreign-language students are not familiar enough to predict a missing words orphrases This is a major problem for students Besides, Lack of sociocultural,factual, and contextual knowledge of the target language can present an obstacle

to comprehension On the other hand, It is tiring for students to concentrate oninterpreting unfamiliar sounds, words, and sentences for long periods And noise,including both background noises on the recording and environmental noises, cantake the listener’s mind off the content of the listening passage Listeningmaterial on tape or radio lacks visual and aural environmental clues Not seeingthe speaker’s body language and facial expressions makes it more difficult for thelistener to understand the speaker’s meaning Unclear sounds resulting frompoor-quality equipment can interfere with the listener’s comprehension

3.1 What are some solutions ?

What can teachers do to help students master the difficulties? Not all theproblems described above can be overcome Certain features of the message andthe speaker, for instance, are inevitable But this does not mean that the teachercan do nothing about them S/he can at least provide the students with suitablelistening materials, background and linguistic knowledge, enabling skills,pleasant classroom conditions, and useful exercises to help them discovereffective listening strategies

3.2.a The Message

Grade listening materials according to the students’ level, and provideauthentic materials rather than idealized, filtered samples.We should design task-oriented exercises to engage the students’ interest and help them learn listeningskills subconsciously.Many people say that listening exercises are most effective

if they are constructed round a task That is to say, the students are required to dosomething in response to what they hear that will demonstrate theirunderstanding Here are some such tasks: expressing agreement or disagreement,taking notes, marking a picture or diagram according to instructions, andanswering questions Compared with traditional multiple-choice questions, task-based exercises have an obvious advantage: they not only test the students’listening comprehension but also encourage them to use different kinds oflistening skills and strategies to reach their destination in an active way It is alsonecessary that the teacher try to find visual aids or draw pictures and diagramsassociated with the listening topics to help students guess or imagine actively.Besides, the teacher should provide students with different kinds of input, such aslectures, radio news, films, TV plays, announcements, everyday conversation,interviews, storytelling, English songs, and so on

3.2.b The Speaker

Make students aware of different native-speaker accents and let them deal withdifferent accents, especially in extensive listening The teacher should givepractice in liaisons and elisions in order to help students get used to the acousticforms of rapid natural speech It is useful to find rapidly uttered colloquialcollocations and ask students to imitate native speakers’ pronunciation

3.2.c The Listener

Listeners should be provided background knowledge and linguisticknowledge, such as complex sentence structures and colloquial words andexpressions, as needed The teacher should bridge the gap between input andstudents’ response and between the teacher’s feedback and students’ reaction inorder to keep activities purposeful It is important for the listening-class teacher

to give students immediate feedback on their performance This not onlypromotes error correction but also provides encouragement The teacher alsohelps students develop the skills of listening with anticipation, listening for

specific information, listening for gist, interpretation and inference, listening forintended meaning, listening for attitude, etc., by providing varied tasks andexercises at different levels with different focuses.

4 Stages of a listening lesson

4.1 Before you listen

• Introducing general content of the listening passage

• Practising designed warming-up activities in the textbook

• Making use of pictures (if any) to present new vocabulary

• Presenting more words/phrases from tapescripts

• Getting students to pronounce words/phrases carefully

• Reviewing already-presented grammatical patterns

• Presenting new grammatical patterns (if any)

• Asking students to predict content of the listening

4.2 While you listen

• Giving clear instructions for the listening task (rephrasing textbook

instructions if necessary)

• Playing the tape once (non-stop) for students to get general content of the listening

• Providing other activities from textbook for slower classes

• Moving from simpler tasks (listening for getting key words/phrases,

listening for main ideas, matching, deciding on true/false information, numbering pictures, sequencing events…) to more complicated ones

(answering MCQs, gap-filling, table/graph completing, answering

information questions…)

• Playing the tape several times (non-stop or with pauses if students need help)

• Breaking long tape scripts into sections to facilitate the listening

4.3 After you listen

• Practising designed post-listening activities in textbook

• Summarizing listening passages in spoken or written form

• Relating to students’ own experience

• Extending the topic to oral or written presentations

5 Techniques of teaching listening skill.

5.1 Pre-Listening techniques

1 Open – prediction:

The teacher doesn’t give the students any statements, only sets the scene andgets students to predect some of the things they think they will hear the text.Students write down their predictions In this ways students have made their ownlistening guides The teacher play the tape and students tick their correctpredictions.

2 True/ False statement prediction

The teacher gives students 5 – 10 statements on the boards, poster or handoutbased on the main ideas in the listening text Only half the statements are true Inpairs students predict which of the statements are true and underline the numbers(or mark them T/F) Students call out their predictions.The teacher doesn’t say ifthey are right or wrong The teacher play the tape for checking.Students tick thepredictions that are right and any that they didn’t guess In pairs studentscompare and if there are disagreements the teacher play the tape again untileveryone agree

3 Ordering:

The teacher give students jumpled statements or pictures Students mustdiscuss in pairs/groups and predict the correct order The statements or pictureshave letters a, b, c etc Students fill in their chosen order 1,2,3 etc in a grid Inpairs they compare their answers The teacher accepts different orders to create adisagreement, so it gives students a real reason for listening and finding out who

is right Students listen and tick or correct their order

4 Pre – questions

The teachers puts a few pre – questions on board: one pre – question for eachmain point in the listening text Students read and think about the pre – questionsfocus the students’ attention but students don’t have to guess or predict theanswers if they don’t want to.After the first listening they answer the questions

5.2 While – Listening techniques:

1 Listen and draw.

The teacher give students a map, or house plan or diagram or pictures – anyvisual that students can draw on - draw a route, mark changes or label parts Thevisual can be copied off the board or given as picture dictation The studentslisten to the text and respond by drawing, filling in, labeling , numbering, etc

2 Grids:

The teacher puts a table on the board and students copy it The table getsstudents to listen for the facts or details in the text Some of the information hasalready been filled in the boxes of the table to guide their listening Studentslisten and fill in the rest, in note form Students work in pairs and compare tocheck answers, and the teacher reads the text a second time or more untileveryone agrees on the answers

3 Comprehension questions:

This is the most common while – listening technique Students are given a set

of questions – True/ False Statements, Multiple choice, Wh- or Yes – Noquestions While listening, they answer the questions Sometimes thesecomprehension questions have two parts The first part helps students focus onthe main ideas of the listening Multiple choice or True/ False are often used forthis The second part focuses on the details – facts, figures, etc Wh – typequestions are often used for this

5.3 Post – Listening techniques:

1 Roleplay:

Students dramatise the listening text, taking the roles of the characters in thestory they have just heard This is particularly good for students who haven’tstudied the past tense but have just heard a story in the past tense.The role – playtransfers a past tense story into the present tense The teacher organises the role –play by putting all the same roles together, eleciting and then letting thempractise what they will say, then cross – grouping so that each new group has one

of each of the different characters

2 Recall the story

Students re –tell the story in the listening text in their own words The teachercan help them by doing mini drill first, usually using the same pictures orsimplified statements that were used for predicting in the pre – listening task orordering or selecting in te while – listening task Students practis speaking and inpairs or in groups The re – telling with a pictures can also be done as a chainstory

3 Write it up

Student write up the information that they have in their listening instruction.They reconstruct the text in their own words using the notes in the grids ordrawings in the listen and draw exercises as cues Students practise writing ingroups, pairs or individually

6 How to adapt listening tasks:

6.1 Steps of teaching listening

- Warmers

6.2 Steps of adapting tasks:

- Read through the tape script

- Think of the aims, the knowledge and the language (knowledge standard)

- Underline the key information (decide what words/phrases to pre-teach)

- Look at the questions/tasks in the textbook and decide what to adapt (not all tasks)

- Design the easiest activities for students (but do cover the main content of the text)

6.3 Effective listening activities

- designing easier tasks for Ss (simplifying the tasks)

- providing more background information

- designing some tasks as games

- (for new words) sample reading first and giving time for Ss to practice

- putting students in pairs or groups (they can help each other)

- providing pictures, knowledge, vocabulary

- discussing the topic before listening

- having Ss brainstorm the words relating to the topic

- giving clear steps

- providing tape scripts sometimes (when Ss can’t hear anything at all)

7 Some solutions applied IT can help students master English listening skill 7.1 Using X-Wave MP3 cutter joiner 3.0 software to cut MP3 file into parts, sentences or words:

During my teaching period, with a view to helping students listen more easily,

I often use the software X-Wave MP3 cutter joiner 3.0 as a common device to cutthe listening tapes into short parts or even sentences and words

First, in order to use this software you have to set up this software in your owncomputer After setting up this software, we can open and choose the file thatneed tobe cut Open the file in the software system and black the part we want tocut Then press “Save as” and name the part we have just cut.

With this solfware, we can adjust the sound slower or faster if we want

7.1 Using Power point software to design effective listening lectures:

Powerpoint is available in every computer and there are various lectures in the

Internet teaching us how to use it

By using Powerpoint, not only can we design an exciting lectures withinteresting games, but sound files or videos can be inserted flexibility As aresult, students find it easier and more attractive to access to listening skill.

II Experiment

1 Material preparation:

- Lesson plan

- Textbook / Reference books

- Tape crips of listening lessons

3 Some samples (with CD) applied IT to simplify listening tasks to teach listening skill in English 11

3.1 Unit 1 – A day in the life of…

* Warmers: Guessing Game – What is it ?

Prepare a picture of a cyclo:

Ask Ss to guess what it is base on the folowing clues:

1 It is very useful mean of transport for people

2 It can help people to save money and limit poluted environment

3 It is a kind of vehicle

4 It has got 3 wheels

* Lead in: Today, we are going to listen to the daily life of a cyclo driver.

* Pre – Listening:

Present Ss some vocabularies:

- district (n): quận, huyện For example: I live in Nghia Dan district

- drop (v): leave someone at a place( chở ai đó đến)

- passengers(n) : hành khách

Example: There are a lot of passangers waiting for the flight (pic 1)

- pedal (n): bàn đạp/ (v) đạp xe (pic 2)

- purchases (n): đồ đạc mua (v) = buy (v)

- food stall (n): quầy bán thực phẩm , quán ăn (pic 3)

Pic 1 pic 2 pic 3

Checking vocabulary: making sentences with words

- Set the scene: “Mr Lam is a cyclo driver.He is working on HCM city.Let’s guess his routine.What does he do in his job?”

Encourage Ss to feel free to have guesses about Mr Lam’s routine

Example:

- He gets up at 6:30 and has breakfast with his family at 7:00.

- First, he meets 2 children then, a woman and last an old man.

- He hasn’t lunch with his family

- He comes back home at 5:00…

* While – Listening:

Task 1: - Pictures Ordering

- Study the pictures

Ask Ss to look at the pictures carefully and describe the activities in each picture

Pic a/ his passanger is a beautiful woman /lady

Pic b/ he is eating in a foodstall/ his house

Pic c/ his pasagers are 2 students

Pic d/ he is having a rest

Ask Ss to compare, peer correction and give answer

Feedback and give correct answer

a.3 b.5 c.4 d.6 e.1 f.2

Task 2: - True or False statement

- Reading Task 2: Let Ss read the statements carefully

- Prediction: Ask Ss to make a prediction whether the statements are true or false

- Listen the cassette again

Draw Ss’ attention to key words when they are listening

Play the tape again and ask Ss to listen and decide whether the statements are true or false

Ask Ss to peer correction before give the keys

Feedback and give suggested answer

* Post – Listening: Dictogloss:

Ask Ss to work in groups listen and order the following information and thenwrite a paragraph about Mr Lam’s activities by using the cues:

Name start work lunch occupation - passengers - rest

Go around the class and offer help if necessary

Example:

What is the man’s name ?

What does he do ?

What time does he start work ?

Who are his passengers?

Where and what time does he have lunch?

Call some students to talk about Mr Lam’s activities

Feedback and give suggested answer

3.2 Unit 2 – School talks

* Warmers:

KIM’S GAME

Look at the following pictures and try to remember what they talk bout

1 2 3 4

1 They are making a conversation in English

2 They are attending in a party

3 they are going for a swim

4 A comfortable room in hotel

- Alone (adj) = by oneself

- Comfortable (adj) = Pleasant

- Great (adj) = wonderful

- Checking vocabulary: Snap

- Set the scene: You are going to hear some conversations about study, party andholiday

Keep Ss in pairs and ask them to ask and answer about the pictures T may alsodirectly ask Ss

Suggested questions:

What do you see in the pictures ?

Who are they ?

What are they doing ?

Make sure Ss see all the details of the pictures clearly before playing the tape

* While – Listening:

Task 1: - Matching

Ask Ss to listen to the conversations and match them with the pictures

Play the tape more than once if necessary

Tell Ss to listen for main ideas and key words, not for specific information in thefirst time

Call on some Ss to explain their answers to class

Feed back and give correct answers

Task 2: Answering the questions

Ask students to listen the cassette again and do the task

Have Ss listen to the tape again and answer the questions

Let Ss listen to the tape several times if necessary and have a pause betweenconversation to make it easier for Ss while they are doing the task

Call on some Ss to read aloud their answers in front of the class

1 What subject is Lan taking this semester ?

2 Whose class is Lan in ?

3 Where is Nam now ?

4 How long does Son plan to stay in Nha Trang ?

5 Does Hoa travel with her friends ?

Task 3_Conversation Completion

Ask SS to work in pairs and study the conversation

Encourage then guess the missing words

Play the conversation again

Ask Ss to listen to it and complete the conversation by filling in the missinginformation

Note: This task may cause difficulty to some Ss because it requires Ss to writedown the exact words in the tape

Call on spme pairs to practice the completed conversation

Comments on Ss’ performance and give correct answers:

A: Hoa How do you like (1) it here?

B: it’s (2) very nice The hotel is (3) big and my room is (4) comfortable.

A: are you (5) travelling with your friends?

B: (6) No I’m travelling (7) alone.

A: Would you like to go smewhere (8) for a drink?

The teacher reads the paragraph 3 times At the first time, Students try to listen tosome key words in the paragraph The teacher asks students to list out somewords they have heard For example: announcement/ mising /hair / three yearsold/ blouse/ skirt/ sandals… At the second and the third time after listeningstudents order these words following the paragraph

Then, the teacher asks student to use their language to build up up anotherparagraph base on the order of these words

Ask some students read their own paragraph

The teacher give feedback

- Vocabulary pre – teach :

- gathering (n) = a meeting of people for a particular purpose

For example: a social/family gathering

- icing (n)

- prize (n) : an award that is given to a person who wins a competition

- clap (v) use action to express the word

- Checking vocabulary: matching

* While – Listening:

Task 1: Listen and decide whether the statements are True or False

1 Mai’s birthday party was held at home in the evening

2 Over twenty guests were at the party

3 The birthday cake was cut at the beginning of the party

4 The birthday party lasted about three hours

5 All the friends stayed after the party to tidy up the mess

Teacher give feedback

Task 2: Answering the questions

1 Mai was ……… …years old

A 16 B 26 C 6 D 60

2 She didn’t like having her party at a restaurant because it’s………

A noisy but cheap B far from her house

C noisy and expensive D not beautiful

3 Mai’s mother served them ……….and biscuits

A food B soft drinks C flowers D fruits

4.The birthday cake was brought out at about…………

A 3:00 p.m B 4:00 p.mC 3:30 p.mD 4:30 p.m

5.The cake was decorated with ………icing

A red and yellow B pink and white C white and red D pink and brown

6 All the guests……….their hands eagerly and sang ……… while Mai wascutting the cake

A shook/ ‘Happy birthday’ B clapping/ ‘Happy New Year’

C clapped/ ‘Happy birthday’ D raised / ‘Happy New Year’

7 The birthday party finished at………

A 7:00 p.m B 6 :00 p.m C 7:30 p.m D 6 :30 p.m

* Post – Listening:

Role- play: Work in pairs, one is student A, on is student B- Suppose that A wasbusy and didn’t come to Mai’s party Now, A ask your friend about Mai’s party.Questions:

- When and where was it held?

- Who did you go with?