Adapting listening tasks in the new english texbook tieng anh 10 for effective use at tan hung high school, tan chau district, tay ninh province

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE ADAPTING LISTENING TASKS IN THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK ‘TIENG ANH 10’ FOR EFFECTIVE USE AT TAN H

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

ADAPTING LISTENING TASKS IN THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK ‘TIENG ANH 10’ FOR EFFECTIVE USE AT TAN HUNG HIGH SCHOOL, TAN CHAU DISTRICT, TAY NINH PROVINCE

Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By NGUYỄN ANH THƯ

Supervised by

TÔ MINH THANH, PHD

HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2011

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

ADAPTING LISTENING TASKS IN THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK

‘TIENG ANH 10’ FOR EFFECTIVE USE AT TAN HUNG HIGH SCHOOL,

TAN CHAU DISTRICT, TAY NINH PROVINCE

in terms of the statement of the Requirements for

Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee

Ho Chi Minh City, 2011

Nguyễn Anh Thư

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, NGUYỄN ANH THƯ, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or

reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh, 2011

Nguyễn Anh Thư

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I am extremely grateful to my thesis supervisor, Doctor Tô Minh Thanh, for her constant enthusiastic guidance, enormously helpful advice, careful proof-reading on my writing and valuable criticism without which this thesis could not have been completed

I would also like to thank all of my professors and lecturers for their dedication and helpful instruction during the course

Special thanks are due to the teaching staff of Tan Hung High School in Tan Chau District, Tay Ninh Province for providing me with valuable help and support during the time my research is carried out I also owe sincere thanks to my students, who are an inspiration to me, for their enquiries into listening learning problems and participation in the study; without which my thesis would never have been accomplished

Finally, I am greatly indebted to my beloved family and close friends for their encouragement and unending support

ABSTRACT

The study done for this M.A thesis examines the reactions of tenth grade students

at Tan Hung High School on the adapted listening tasks which replace those in the tenth grade English textbook that are too difficult for them It then investigates whether such adaptation can help the student subjects improve their listening proficiency

In order to achieve the study’s investigation purposes, approximately 16 observations were done in two different tenth classes In addition, two sets of questionnaires were delivered to 135 tenth graders at Tan Hung High School to elicit data on students’ background information and their evaluation of the adapted listening tasks respectively The final set of instruments employed in the experimentation was pre-test and post-test to determine whether there was a difference in student performance as a result of listening task adaptation versus traditional modes of teaching

The outcomes of the study indicate that the student subjects expressed their positive attitudes towards the listening task adaptation and showed their high appreciation for its effects in terms of motivation, stimulation and facilitation of listening learning In addition, the experimental group gained the significant improvement in the post-test results due to the treatment of such adaptation, but not due to chance

In regard to the research questions in light of the findings, this thesis suggests that the utility of task adaptation is vital to be employed at Tan Hung High School

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF FIGURES x

ABBREVIATIONS xi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1

1.1.1 Teaching and learning listening at Tan Hung High School in Tay Ninh Province 1

1.1.2 Description of the syllabus of listening at Tan Hung High School in Tay Ninh Province 1

1.2 RATIONALE FOR ADAPTING LISTENING TASKS IN THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK ‘TIENG ANH 10’ 4

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 6

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 7

1.5 LIMITATION AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY 7

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 SYLLABUS DESIGN AND TYPES OF SYLLABUSES 9

2.2 NEEDS ANALYSIS IN TEXTBOOK DESIGN 11

2.3 COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) 12

2.4 THEME-BASED INSTRUCTION 14

2.5 TASK-BASED TEACHING 15

2.6 TEXTBOOK EVALUATION 16

2.6.1 Definition of evaluation 16

2.6.2 Purposes of material evaluation 17

2.6.3 Process of evaluation 18

2.7 TEXTBOOK ADAPTATION 20

2.8 LISTENING AND LISTENING TASKS 21

2.8.1 Importance of listening 21

2.8.2 Listening skills 21

2.8.3 Listening process 24

2.8.4 Listening tasks 25

2.8.4.1 Definitions of listening tasks 25

2.8.4.2 Task validity 25

2.8.4.3 Kinds of listening tasks 26

2.8.4.4 Task simplifying 31

2.9 SUMMARY 33

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 34

3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 34

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN 34

3.2.1 Subjects 35

3.2.1.1 Teacher subjects 35

3.2.1.2 Student subjects 35

3.2.2 Treatment 41

3.2.3 Instruments 42

3.2.3.1 Tests 42

3.2.3.2 Questionnaires 43

3.2.3.3 Class observations 45

3.2.3.4 Interviews 46

3.2.4 Data analysis procedures 47

3.3 SUMMARY 48

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS OF FINDINGS 49

4.1 DATA ANALYSIS 49

4.1.1 Data collected from the post-questionnaire 49

4.1.1.1 Responses to the open-ended questions 49

4.1.1.2 Responses to the closed questions 53 4.1.1.2.1 Students’ evaluation of the adapted listening tasks used

in the first semester 53

4.1.1.2.2 Students’ self-evaluation of their own listening study 58

4.1.2 Data collected from post-test listening scores 62

4.1.2.1 Post-test listening scores 62

4.1.2.2 Classification of the pre-test and post-tests listening scores 63

4.1.3 Data collected from class observations 65

4.1.3.1 Weaknesses of the adapted listening tasks 66

4.1.3.2 Strengths of the adapted listening tasks 67

4.1.4 Data collected from semi-structured interviews on teachers 69

4.2 DISCUSSIONS OF THE FINDINGS 72

4.3 SUMMARY 74

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 75

5.1 RECOMMENDATIONS 75

5.1.1 Recommendations for teachers 75

5.1.2 Recommendations for ten graders 76

5.1.3 Recommendations for the adaptation mode of teaching 77

5.1.3.1 Students’ needs analysis 77

5.1.3.2 The standards the adapting process needs to be based on 78

5.1.3.3 Some recommendations on using the listening additional materials 80

5.2 CONCLUSION 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY 83

Appendix 1 Pre-questionnaire (English version) 87

Appendix 2 Pre-questionnaire (Vietnamese version) 89

Appendix 3 Post-questionnaire (English version) 91

Appendix 4 Post-questionnaire (Vietnamese version) 95

Appendix 5 Pre-test 99

Appendix 6 Post-test 101

Appendix 7 Semi-structured interview to the teachers (English version) 103

Appendix 8 Semi-structured interview to the teachers (Vietnamese version) 104

Appendix 9 Classroom observation checklist 105

Appendix 10 Adapted listening tasks 123

Appendix 11 The second term syllabus of the English course for tenth graders 135

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: The first term syllabus of the English course for tenth graders

at Tan Hung High School 3

Table 3.1: Year of birth 36

Table 3.2: Gender distribution 37

Table 3.3: Ethnic group distribution 37

Table 3.4: Students’ time to start learning English 38

Table 3.5: Students’ time to start learning English listening 38

Table 3.6: Students’ perception of their listening proficiency 39

Table 3.7: Students’ opinions of the importance of listening skills 39

Table 3.8: Students’ levels of interest in studying listening 40

Table 3.9: Descriptive statistics for the pre-test listening scores 40

Table 3.10: Schedule for the in-class application of adapted listening tasks 41

Table 4.1: What the students liked about the way of teaching and learning 50

Table 4.2: Students’ assessment of the interestingness of the adapted listening tasks 53

Table 4.3: Students’ opinions of their involvement in the adapted listening tasks 55

Table 4.4: Students’ evaluation of their contribution to the listening classes 59

Table 4.5: Students’ assessment of their increased interest in listening learning 61

Table 4.6: Descriptive statistics for the post-test listening scores 62

Table 4.7: Comparison of the two groups’ post-test listening scores 63

Table 4.8: Classification of the two groups’ pre-test and post-test scores 64

Table 4.9: Weaknesses and suggestions for the eight observations 67

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Designing task-based course 16

Figure 2.2: Littlejohn’s framework for materials analysis, evaluation and action 18

Figure 2.3: Hutchinson and Waters’ materials evaluation process 19

Figure 4.1: Students’ assessment of the interestingness of the adapted listening tasks 53

Figure 4.2: Students’ assessment of the usefulness of the adapted listening tasks 54

Figure 4.3: Students’ assessment of the difficulty level of the adapted listening tasks 55

Figure 4.4: Students’ opinions of their involvement in the adapted listening tasks 56

Figure 4.5: Students’ general evaluation of the adapted listening tasks 57

Figure 4.6: Students’ favorite tasks 57

Figure 4.7: Students’ perception of what they learned in the first term 59

Figure 4.8: Students’ evaluation of their increased self-confidence 60

Figure 4.9: Students’ overall assessment of listening teaching and learning in the first term 61

Figure 4.10: Classification of the two groups’ pre-test and post-test scores 65

The MOET The Ministry of Education and Training

SPSS Statistical Products for the Social Services

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.1.1 Teaching and learning listening at Tan Hung High School

in Tay Ninh Province

Offering students “a rich array of new and potentially interesting facts, and open the door to a world of fantastic experience” (Chambliss and Calfee, 1998: 7), textbooks have played a significant role in teaching English for students in many developing countries including Vietnam At the heart of the educational enterprise, textbooks provide the basis for the content of the lessons, the balance of skills taught and the kinds of language practice students participate in The new English textbook for the 10th grade students has been officially used in all senior high schools in Vietnam since 2006 to meet the requirement for the innovation of secondary education program Unfortunately, the new textbook is officially applied in all senior high schools with students of mixed levels of both background knowledge and language competence and irrespective of the difficulties facing these teaching institutions, especially those in remote areas That is the reason why learning how to adapt the new textbook for effective use at Tan Hung High School

in Tay Ninh Province is of great significance in improving the quality of teaching and learning English to its 10th grade students, part of whom are from the minority peoples of Vietnam

1.1.2 Description of the syllabus of listening at Tan Hung High School

in Tay Ninh Province

Stated right in the front page of the English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” is the introduction of listening teaching that each listening lesson contains a passage, a dialogue or a monologue connected to the theme of its unit in which its main objective is to train comprehension listening skills for tenth graders Besides, listening lessons are taught with the hopes of consolidating and correcting students’ wrong pronunciation and grammar use

The listening courses for tenth graders at Tan Hung High School approximately last four months during each of the two semesters in an academic year Within such a nearly four month term, eight lessons of listening of eight units from the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” designed by the MOET should be covered The following is the first term syllabus of English course including listening lessons for tenth graders extracted from this English textbook

Unit Reading Speaking Listening Writing Language Focus

 Asking for and giving information from a timetable

 Talking about daily activities

 Monologue:

- Listening and numbering pictures

- Deciding on True

or False statements

 Writing a narrative

- Narrative and the past simple

- Stages of a narrative

 Pronunciation: / ɪ / - / i: /

 Grammar and vocabulary:

- The present simple

- Adverbs of frequency

- The past simple Unit 2

 Dialogue:

- Listening to small talks and numbering pictures

- Completing a dialogue

 Filling in a form  Pronunciation:

 Passage

comprehension

 Asking and answering questions about people’s background

 Role-playing

 Dialogue:

- Deciding on True or False statements

- Gap-filling

 Writing about people’s background

 Pronunciation:

/ e / - / æ /

 Grammar:

- The past perfect

- The past perfect

vs the past simple Unit 4

multiple- Intensive reading:

gap-filling

 Making an interview:

matching

 Making an interview and reporting on results

 Monologue:

- Deciding on True or False statements

of modern inventions

 Talking about the uses of modern technology

 Monologue:

- Deciding on True or False statements

- Gap-filling

 Writing a set of instructions

- Sequence connectors

- Imperative verb form

 Pronunciation:

/ u: / - / ʊ /

 Grammar and vocabulary:

- The present perfect

- The present perfect passive

- Who, which, that

Unit 6

AN EXCURSION

Page 62

 Extensive reading: multiple- choice questions

 Passage comprehension

 Intensive reading:

gap-filling

 Expressing agreements and disagreements

 Giving opinions

 Monologue:

- Listening and numbering pictures

- Gap-filling

- Comprehension questions

 Writing a confirmation letter

 Pronunciation:

/ ə / - / ɜ: /

 Grammar:

- The present progressive (with

matching

 Deciding on True

or False statements

 Passage comprehension

 Asking and answering questions about the uses

of media

 Talking about different types

of media

 Monologue:

- Listening to radio news

- Gap-filling

 Writing about advantages and disadvantages

of the mass media

 Pronunciation:

/ eɪ / - / aɪ / - / ɔɪ /

 Grammar:

- The present perfect

matching

 Scanning for specific information

 Passage comprehension

 Talking about plans and their possible results (in the village)

 Monologue:

- Deciding on True or False statements

- Gap-filling

 Writing an informal letter:

giving directions

 Pronunciation:

/ aʊ / - / əʊ /

 Grammar:

- Reported speech: statements

- Conditional sentence type 1

Table 1.1: The first term syllabus of the English course for tenth graders at Tan Hung High School

As shown in Table 1.1, each unit of the course contains four lessons of skill

teaching and one for language focus which lasts forty five minutes per period Always taught after reading and speaking, listening is acquired with the hope that students are well-prepared for themselves enough background knowledge as well

as language knowledge related to the topic of each unit Besides, as clearly stated

in Table 1.1, the content for listening periods in the first term covers around some basic listening skills such as predicting content, selecting key points, recognizing grammatical word classes, tenses, pluralization, or patterns, distinguishing word

boundaries, etc., all of which are implied in listening tasks like Listening and

numbering pictures, Deciding on True or False statements, Completing a dialogue, filling, and Comprehension questions with only two or three listening skills focused in each lesson For instance, in Unit 1, two listening skills are employed including (a)

Gap-predicting content demonstrated in the task of Listening and numbering pictures and

(b) selecting key points in Deciding on True or False statements

1.2 RATIONALE FOR ADAPTING LISTENING TASKS

IN THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK ‘TIENG ANH 10’

Since Vietnam officially became a member of WTO, English training has apparently played a crucial role in secondary education Though considered as one

of the four basic language skills in English acquisition, listening has rarely been included in any important exams such as entrance or graduation exams As a result, the 10th grade students at Tan Hung High School, the student subjects of this M.A thesis, hardly pay adequate attention to practise listening, which undoubtedly entails the poor quality of this skill mastering

As Tan Hung High School belongs to a small village in Tan Chau District, Tay Ninh Province, the input quality of the students here is considered one of the lowest in the area Before the school year 2005-2006, though in the 10th grade, the students studied English, following a series of three-year textbooks simplified for the students in the countryside, especially for those who did not ever have a chance

to study English before This series is quite different from the more complicated and difficult one employed by other high schools the students of which have studied English for seven years, including the three year at a senior high school

By 2006, the new 10th grade English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” was compiled and commonly used in all senior high schools in Vietnam; this brings many difficulties

in English teaching and learning at Tan Hung High School due to the very textbook’s heavy content “Tieng Anh 10” has been used at Tan Hung high school for 3 years now and the researcher has been teaching this course book for 2 years After this period of time, during small friendly talks observed by the researcher, many teachers of Tan Hung High School claimed that although “Tieng Anh 10” was very diversified, up-to-date and actually considered to be a great progress in compiling language textbooks that could help develop all four major language skills — listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to enhance students’ communicative competence, it appeared to be rather difficult for them to use the book at this school The problems are apparently seen at the bad results of English

at the end of each school year using “Tieng Anh 10” Only approximately 30% of

students of English had the above-average marks, much poorer than the scores that the students at this school had gained in the previous academic years using the old textbook (from 70% to 80% of students had positive results in those days) In addition, too many students quitted every school year (nearly 10 students of each class) for the persuasive reason that they could not follow the heavy programme of the new textbook

The difficult content of the listening tasks in the new textbook contributes to the increase of the students’ neglect of listening learning and thus poor quality of practicing listening To make the matter worse, the students coming from such a remote area do not have a lot of chance of practicing English In a small survey conducted by the researcher on the student subjects at the beginning of this school year, 90% of them did not prepare for their self-studies a listening tape or disk and

a cassette player, which meant most of the students neglected listening, as a basic language skill, which contains a set of listening skills

Under such a circumstance there arises a great need to compile some change in the new textbook’s listening tasks to make them not only easier for the 10th grade students at Tan Hung High School to master but also more interesting to arouse their motivation of improving listening skills and the quality of listening teaching

at this school as well The researcher just focuses on the listening ability tasks in which top-down processing level is centered, however One obvious reason for bottom-up level not to be the researcher’s interest of study is all segmental aspects including linguistic elements such as vowels, consonants, words, sentences, etc and suprasegmental aspects related to stress, intonation, etc were not taught officially and systematically in lower secondary school when the tenth graders learnt individual words by merely imitating It is, therefore, proposed that tasks centering on meaning and sense of the listening should be the key unit in the adaptation mode and teachers should provide appropriate tasks that facilitate students’ understanding of the oral language and generate memorable language to enrich their knowledge in the subject involved Besides, pre-listening step is designed to activate the students’ knowledge related to the listening passage in

order to help them guess what will be in the tape script and, therefore, to support the while-listening process In addition, post-listening occurs to consolidate what is processed in the previous sections of the listening class and, simultaneously, allows the students to develop their memory Given the important roles of pre- and post-listening processes, the researcher found it justified to adapt each listening skill lesson consisting of all these three stages

Finally, the study was restricted to the adaptation of the first term with the researcher’s hope of providing the tenth graders with lightly approaching to listening which is quite new to them and, simultaneously, forming basic listening skills to get the students well-prepared for listening of the second semester as well

as of the next school years requiring more difficult listening skills with more complicated oral language

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The study done for this M.A thesis, thus, aims to carry out an experimental teaching in order to (1) investigate the students’ reactions on the adapted listening tasks which replace those in “Tieng Anh 10” that are too difficult for the thesis’ student subjects and (2) prove that such adaptation certainly improves the students’ set of listening skills

To achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study done for this M.A thesis tries to give satisfactory answers to the following questions:

- What are the 10th grade students’ reactions towards the adapted listening tasks?

- What are the effects of the adaptation of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 10”

on use at Tan Hung High School?

The hypothesis of this study is:

- The adaptation of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 10” can be effective for listening teaching at Tan Hung High School

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study carried out and then reported in this M.A thesis focused on the adaptation of the listening tasks given by the MOET in the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” for effective use at Tan Hung High School in the hope that these adapted listening tasks meet the needs and abilities of this school’s tenth graders, and simultaneously, enhance the quality of listening teaching Besides, hopefully, this list of adapted listening tasks can serve as a reference document for teaching the same subject tenth graders as of Tan Hung High School

1.5 LIMITATION AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The study done for this M.A thesis faced two unavoidable limitations The former was that simplified listening tasks are recommended only for the 10th grade students at Tan Hung High School; no similar generalizations for those who attend the 11th and 12th grades at this school are given or implied The latter was that the study was restricted only to listening skills, i.e no integration of learners’ acquisition of the four basic language skills is covered within its scope If properly modified, the study may be of suitable use at other high schools in Vietnam where their learners face listening problems similar to those observed and reported by the researcher of this M.A thesis

The M.A thesis is divided into five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 is the introduction, dealing with the background, significance, purpose,

research questions, limitations and delimitations and organization of this thesis Chapter 2 reviews related literature that consists of the syllabus design, many types

of syllabuses, needs analysis in textbook design and the theories on which “Tieng Anh 10” is based: communicative language teaching, theme-based instruction, and task-based language teaching It then mentions the theoretical background of materials adaptation and listening tasks

Chapter 3 concerns research methodology, introducing responsive community,

research materials and instruments, methods of collecting and analyzing data

Chapter 4 presents the study’s findings and discussion It discusses the results

collected from the researcher’s class observations of experimental teaching, the students’ questionnaire, the teachers’ interview and the two tests

Chapter 5 consists of the study’s implications, recommendations and conclusion

which give a brief summary of the thesis, point out some pedagogical implication, and give some suggestions for future research

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 2 is the review of literature relevant to the study which begins with the syllabus design, many types of syllabuses, needs analysis in textbook design and the theories on which “Tieng Anh 10” is based comprising communicative language teaching, theme-based instruction and task-based teaching It then mentions the theoretical background of materials evaluation and adaptation Finally is the central task of this paper, listening, listening tasks and techniques of simplifying listening tasks

2.1 SYLLABUS DESIGN AND TYPES OF SYLLABUSES

The definition of syllabus comes first There are many different points of view in the theory of syllabus design According to Nunan (1999: 315), syllabus is “that subcomponent of a curriculum concerned with the selection, sequencing and justification of linguistic and experiential content” Hutchinson and Waters (1991: 80) started their literary work with the definition of the syllabus as “a document which says that will (or at least what should) be learned” More clearly, Yalden (1984: 14) saw the syllabus as “an instrument by which the teacher, with the help

of the syllabus designer, can achieve a degree of “fit” between the needs and aims

of the learner (as social being and as individual) and the activities which will take place in the classroom”

Based on different criteria, diverse authors categorized and named several kinds of syllabuses in dissimilar ways Hutchinson and Waters (1991: 80-83) classified different types of syllabuses including:

The evaluation syllabus (handed down by the ministries or other regulating bodies, stating what the successful learner will know by the end of the course and putting on record the basis on which success or failure will be evaluated);

The organization syllabus (listing what should be learnt as well as stating the order in which it is to be learnt);

The materials syllabus (added with assumptions about the nature of language and language use, the contexts in which the language will appear, the weightings and integration of skills, the number and types of exercises

to be spent on any aspects of language and the degree of recycling or revision);

The teacher syllabus (stating that the teacher can influence the clarity, intensity and frequency of any item, and thereby affect the image that the learners receive);

The classroom syllabus (stating that the classroom also creates conditions which will affect the nature of a planned lesson);

The learner syllabus (the network of knowledge that develops in the learner’s brain and which enables that learner to comprehend and store the later knowledge);

Richards (1990: 9) presented a list of different types of syllabuses that were commonly found in current English as a second language (ESL) courses and materials:

Structural (organized around grammar and sentence patterns);

Functional (organized around communicative functions, such as identifying, reporting, correcting, describing, etc.);

Notional (organized around conceptual categories, such as duration, quantity, location, etc.);

Topical (organized around themes or topics, such as health, food, etc.); Situational (organized around speech settings and the transactions associated with them, such as shopping at the bank, at the supermarket, etc.);

Skills (organized around skills, such as listening for gist, listening for specific information, listening for inferences, etc.);

Task or activity-based (organized around activities, such as drawing maps, following instructions, etc.)

2.2 NEEDS ANALYSIS IN TEXTBOOK DESIGN

Designing a textbook, firstly, has to meet the needs of the learners In other words, needs analysis has been considered to play a significant role in material design Nunan (1999: 311) defined needs analysis as “sets of tools, techniques, and procedures for determining the language content and learning process for specified groups of learners” Nunan, Tyacke and Walton (1987: 79) clarified that the most important thing that should be kept in mind was that although teacher’s syllabus and the learner’s or “agenda” might be different from each other, one of the purposes of needs analysis was to involve learners and teachers in exchanging information so that these agendas might be more closely aligned

Considering another kind of needs, named learning needs, Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 60) explained that, if using our analogy of the ESP course as a journey, we should take into account not only the starting point (lacks), the destination (necessities) and what that destination should be (wants) but the route itself as well, i.e how we are going to get from our starting point to the destination

From different points of view, different aspects about needs analysis have been presented Nunan (1999: 14-19) spoke of two different types of needs analysis used by language syllabus designers The first type was learner analysis which was based on information about the learners The second type was task analysis which tried to answer the central question: “What are the subordinate skills and knowledge required by the learner in order to carry out real-world communicative tasks?” Another distinction between “felt” needs and “perceived” needs was made

by Berwick (1990: 55) The author stated that felt needs were those that learners had; meanwhile, perceived needs were judgments of certified experts about the educational gaps in other people’s experience

About the purposes of needs analysis in designing a curriculum, Richards (1990: 1) stated that in language curriculum development, needs analysis served many purposes including: (1) to provide a mechanism for obtaining a wider range of input into the content, design, and implementation of a language program through involving such people as learners, teachers, administrators and employers in the

planning process; (2) to identify general or specific language needs possibly addressed in developing goals, objectives, and content for a language program; (3)

to provide data serving as the basis for reviewing and evaluating an existing program

This confirms the significance of needs analysis in language curriculum development, in course design, in textbook design and in materials evaluation and adaptation The next parts are about the theories on which the design of “Tieng Anh 10” is based: communicative language teaching, theme-based instruction and task-based teaching

2.3 COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT)

English teaching has recently reflected the tendency to adopt and adapt modern method innovations to satisfy the needs continually deriving from social development for the last thirty years There is a move in learner’s goal “toward oral proficiency rather than reading comprehension” (Richards and Rodgers, 1992: 1) The appearance of the Communicative approach in the late 1960s was seen as

“an international effort to respond to the needs of present-day language learners in many different contexts of learning” (Savignon, 1991: 251) Therefore, “Tieng Anh 10” promulgated by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) was compiled with the communicative approach in the hope that students can use language to communicate

What is the communicative language teaching then?

According to Richards and Rodgers (1996: 66), Communicative Language Teaching is seen as an approach “that aims to (a) make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communicative” Whereas, Communicative Language Teaching was seen by Nunan (1999: 303) as a term that covered a variety of approaches that all focused helping learners to communicative meaningfully in a target language:

“Early approaches downplayed the importance of grammar, some even advocating the abandonment of any focus on form More recent approaches acknowledge the

centrality of grammar and try to teach learners the relationship between grammatical form and communicative meaning.”

Nunan (1991: 279) offered five features to characterize CLT as the followings:

1 An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language

2 The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

3 The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself

4 An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning

5 An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom

Meanwhile, Richards and Rodgers (1996: 71) stated Communicative Language Teaching has the four following distinctive features:

1 Language is a system for the expression of meaning

2 The primary function of language is for interaction and communication

3 The structures of language reflect its functional and communicative uses

4 The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse

Brown (2000: 266) offered the following four interconnected characteristics as a definition of communicative language teaching:

1 Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence

2 Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes Organizational language forms are not the central focus but rather aspects

of language that enable the learner to accomplish those purposes

3 Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying communicative techniques At times fluency may have to take on more

importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use

4 In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts

Although presented in different ways by various authors, the final goal of communicative language teaching is to develop the learner’s communicative competence Richards et al (1992: 65) found “this ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom” Additionally, “one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language” (Littlewood, 1981: 1) From these claims, communicative competence could be identified as language knowledge and the ability for language use To this concern, knowledge of forms, meanings and functions is indispensable to students Students “need to know that many different forms can

be used to perform a function and also that a single form can often serve a variety

of functions” (Larsen, 1986: 131)

“Tieng Anh 10” was designed to make communicative activities possible, taking themes as the foundation for the selection of the teaching content It centers on six broad themes selected beforehand including (1) You and Me, (2) Education, (3) Community, (4) Nature and Environment, (5) Recreation, and (6) People and Places The next section will examine into the theory of theme-based instruction

2.4 THEME-BASED INSTRUCTION

Theme-based instruction is one of the five models of integrated skills approaches: content-based teaching, theme-based teaching, experiential learning, the episode hypothesis, and task-based teaching (Brown, 1994: 220-227) He stated theme-based instruction provided an alternative to what would otherwise be traditional language classes by structuring a course around themes or topics and it could serve the multiple interests of students in a classroom and offer a focus on content while still adhering to institutional needs for offering a language course In a different

way, Snow (1991: 317) stated the theme-based model was a type of content-based instruction in which selected topics or themes provided the content for the ESL/EFL class from which the ESL/EFL teacher extracted language activities that followed naturally from the content material Moreover, Brown (1994: 222) gave four principles of theme-based instruction including the automaticity principle, the meaningful learning principle, the intrinsic motivation principle, and the communicative competence principle, all of which were successfully able to get students excited and interested in some topic, issue, idea, or problem rather than bored or weary of overanalyzing linguistic rules

2.5 TASK-BASED TEACHING

The effectiveness of tasks was recognized many years ago as a stimulus to language teaching and learning; therefore, “Tieng Anh 10” was designed with the centrality of many tasks, for task-based teaching as an overall approach Nunan (1991: 279) gave five characteristics of a task-based approach to language teaching:

(1) An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language;

(2) The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation;

(3) The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language, but also on the learning process itself;

(4) An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning;

(5) An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom

Additionally, Ellis (2003: 206) proposed a model of designing a task-based course

as follows:

Figure 2.1: Designing task-based course

In task-based instruction, according to Brown (1994: 229), “the priority is not the bits and pieces of language but rather the functional purposes for which language must be used” He stated task-based instruction focused on a whole set of real-world tasks themselves and suggested a variety of authentic sources from which the input for tasks could come such as speeches, conversations, narratives, public announcements, cartoon strips, letters, directions, invitations, interviews, media extracts, songs, menus, etc

The adaptation, firstly, involved evaluation of the textbook Therefore, the next section is about evaluation

2.6 TEXTBOOK EVALUATION

2.6.1 Definitions of evaluation

There have been many different definitions around the term evaluation Richards (1990: 17-18) quoted the definition of evaluation of Worthen and Sanders (1973) that evaluation was the determination of the worth of a thing which included obtaining information for use in judging the worth of a program, product, procedure, or object, or the potential utility of alternative approaches designed to attain specified objectives While Brown (1990: 223) defined evaluation as the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum, and assess its affectiveness and efficiency, as

Teaching materials – task workplans

well as the participants’ attitudes within the context of the particular institutions involved Therefore, textbook evaluation was a preliminary to make the most of the good points and compensate for or neutralize the bad points (Ur, 1996: 187) Ellis (1998: 222) pointed out that the literature on educational evaluation distinguished two broad approaches; the ‘objective model’ and ‘responsive evaluation’ She also stated that where timing was concerned, a common distinction was made between a ‘formative’ evaluation, which took place as the program was being developed and taught, and a ‘summative’ evaluation, which took place at the end of the program

2.6.2 Purposes of material evaluation

Evaluating materials always plays an important role in language teaching and serves several purposes Hutchinson and Waters (1991: 96) wrote that evaluation was a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose Cunningsworth (1995: 136) stated reasons for materials evaluation activities were many and varied First, the intention to adopt new course book was a major and frequent reason for evaluation Another reason was to identify particular strengths and weaknesses in course book already in use, so that optimum use could be made

of their strong points, whilst their weaker areas could be strengthened through adaptation or by substituting material from other books According to Hutchinson and Waters (1991: 96-97), the results of an evaluation would probably lead to a large investment of money in a published course or a large investment of time in home-produced or adapted materials Once such an investment was made, you would probably have to live with the consequence of it for some time, even if it later proved to have been a bad choice Therefore, a careful evaluation could save

a lot of expense and frustration Furthermore, Cunningsworth (1995: 136) emphasized that it was very useful for the course book to be analyzed and evaluated in teacher development so that it could help teachers to gain good and useful insights into the nature of the material Similarly, in teacher training, materials evaluation was a valuable component and served the dual purpose of sensitizing students and teachers to some of the most important features to look for

in course books and familiarizing them with a range of published materials Two other purposes for carrying out a material evaluation were presented by Ellis (1998: 223) including accountability and development According to her, when accountability was at stake, the purpose of the evaluation was to determine whether the stated goals of the program were met In the case of development, the purpose might be to improve the curriculum or to foster teacher-development or both

2.6.3 Process of evaluation

Littlejohn (1998: 192-204) proposed a general framework for analyzing materials,

a three-level analysis of language teaching materials, presented later in Figure 2.2

Each level was discussed thoroughly Example analyses were also given

Analysis of the target situation of use

The cultural content

The institution

The course (proposed aims, content,

methodology and means of evaluation)

The teachers

The learners

Materials analysis

From analysis:

1 What is their explicit nature?

2 What is required of users?

3 What is implied by their use?

To description Aspects of design Aspects of publication

Match and Evaluation

How appropriate are aspects of design and the aspects of publication to the target situation of use?

Action

Adopt the materials Reject the materials Adapt the materials Supplement the materials

Make the materials a critical object

Figure 2.2: Littlejohn’s framework for materials analysis, evaluation and action

Cunningsworth (1995: 14) differentiated three types of evaluation: pre-use, in-use and post-use evaluation He explained that evaluation could take place before a course book was used, during its use and after use, depending on circumstances and the purposes for which the evaluation being undertaken Meanwhile,

Hutchinson and Waters (1991: 97-98) introduced the process of evaluation with four steps illustrated with the following figure:

Defining criteria

On what bases will you judge materials?

Which criteria will be more important?

Subjective analysis

What realizations of the criteria do

you want in your course?

Objective analysis

How does the material being evaluated realize the criteria?

Matching

How far does the material match your needs?

Figure 2.3: Hutchinson and Waters’ materials evaluation process

Although the process of evaluation is presented in different ways, the final purpose

of evaluating a material is to make suitable adaptation Therefore, what adaptation

is and how to do it will be focused on in the following part

2.7 TEXTBOOK ADAPTATION

First are the reasons why a textbook needs adapting The textbook the trainees used was rather dated, but it still contained some sound ideas for teaching which were hidden beneath dull presentation or out-of-date topics (Cunningsworth, 1995: 147) Therefore, a number of researchers have emphasized the significant role of adapting a textbook for use at schools According to Tomlinson (1998: xi), materials adaptation is to make changes to materials in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learner The author also said that most teachers adapted materials every time they used a textbook in order to maximize the value of the book for their particular learners Cunningsworth (1995: 136) also said that material adaptation could be a very worthwhile activity, giving added life and impact to even very ordinary course books and that there was a good deal of satisfaction in seeing an exercise or activity really take off and involve students because it was adapted to appeal to their interests and

imagination Additionally, he emphasized that material could nearly always be improved by being adapted to suit the particular situation where it is being used Next are some presentations of ways to adapt a textbook Tomlinson (1998: xi) stated that adaptation a textbook included reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing its content In other words, the teacher should retain its good elements and delete inappropriate parts to make it more relevant and interesting

As Richards (1998: 135) argued that teachers should approach textbooks with the expectation that deletion, adaptation, and extension will be normally needed for the materials to work effectively with their class Usefully, Lee and Adamson (1993: 21) suggested four strategies for adaptation, summarized as the mnemonic LARA:

- Leave out the irrelevant or unsuitable content;

- Add materials if a topic is inadequately covered;

- Replace the content and/or method with more suitable ones;

- Adjust the content and method to the needs of students

In conclusion, textbook adaptation needs to be taken into great consideration whether this work is really necessary to be done and to what extent it can be useful for learners as Cunningsworth (1995: 136) stated that teachers needed to be aware

of what their students found difficult and what they found easy, so as to be able to adapt materials in a way that made them challenging linguistically and stimulating

in their content, without being too difficult or user-unfriendly

This study deals with the adaptation of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 10”; therefore, the next part explores the relevant literature relating to listening and listening tasks

2.8 LISTENING AND LISTENING TASKS

2.8.1 Importance of listening

Considered one of the four basic skills, listening takes a significant part in English acquisition since it is an important step in communication for those who engage in any form of communication and have to understand and react to what has been

said Listening, in fact, is the most frequently used language skill in every day As according to Celce-Murcia (1995: 363), researchers (for example, Weaver 1972, Rivers 1981, Morley 1991) estimated that we listened twice as much as we speak, four times as much as we read, and five times as much as we write Apparently, listening is used in a highest frequency in comparison with the other skills Moreover, provided as an impetus for the development of the Communicative Language Teaching movement, listening was regarded as an integral part of communicative competence Therefore, there emerges in the recent years an increasing trend of learning a foreign language in which the ability of understanding and participating in spoken communication has been considered as the first-ranked concern of English education in Vietnam It is a real current interest in oracy having generated a stronger focus on listening in the classroom and developing good listening habits and strategies In other words, learners need stressing the importance of listening in English learning and teachers are required

to master how to help their learners build scientific methods in dealing with authentic spoken language, aiming at gaining the best effectiveness in listening teaching and learning

2.8.2 Listening skills

As mentioned in the previous section, referred to as the four basic language skills are reading, listening, speaking, and writing; “but it is clear that each of these comprises a large number of sub-skills, whose value and relevance vary from one situation to another” (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2002: 198) In the same vein, Richards (1983) was one of the first to come up with the consideration of the nature of the sub-skills required in different listening situations, consisting of 33 micro-skills for conversational listening and a further 18 for academic listening to lectures Also, Brown (1994: 241) adapted from Richards (1983) and other sources to suggest a checklist of micro-skills the learners need to do as they acquire effective interactive listening strategies:

1 Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory

2 Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English

3 Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, intonational contours, and their role in signaling information

4 Recognize reduced forms of words

5 Distinguish word boundaries, recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance

6 Process speech at different rates of delivery

7 Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other performance variables

8 Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms

9 Detect sentence constituents and distinguish between major and minor constituents

10 Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms

11 Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse

12 Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations, participants, goals

13 Infer situations, participants, goals using real world knowledge

14 From events, ideas, etc., described, predict outcomes, infer links and connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification

15 Distinguish between literal and implied meanings

16 Use facial, kinetic, “body language,” and other nonverbal clues to decipher meanings

17 Develop and use a battery of listening strategies, such as detecting key word, guessing the meaning of words from context, appeal for help, and signaling comprehension or lack thereof

Likewise, Lynch & Mendelsohn (2002: 199) adapted from Rost (1990:152-153), making clear key distinction between “enabling skills” and “enacting skills” in listening:

ENABLING SKILLS

Perception

Recognizing prominence within utterances, including:

- Discriminating sounds in words, especially phonemic contrasts

- Discriminating strong and weak forms, phonetic change at word boundaries

- Identifying use of stress and pitch (information units, emphasis, etc.)

Interpretation

Formulating content sense of an utterance, including:

- Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words;

- Inferring implicit information;

- Inferring links between propositions

Formulating a conceptual framework linking utterances, including:

- Recognizing discourse markers (clarifying, contrasting)

- Constructing a theme over a stretch of discourse

- Predicting content

- Identifying elements that help you to form an overall schema

- Maintaining and updating the context

Interpreting (possible) speaker intention, including:

- Identifying an “interpersonal frame” speaker-to-hearer

- Monitoring changes in prosody and establish (in)consistencies

- Noting contradictions, inadequate information, ambiguities

- Differentiating between fact and opinion

ENACTING SKILLS

Making an appropriate response (based on the above), including:

- Selecting key points for the current task

- Transcoding information into written form (for example, notes)

- Identifying which points need clarification

- Integrating information with that from other sources

- Providing appropriate feedback to the speaker

2.8.3 Listening process

Listening is really a two-direction process of acquisition that has both top-down and bottom-up aspect (Anderson and Lynch, 1988: 22) In the top-down process, the listeners had to use their background knowledge to interpret thus understand the meaning of the message This includes the previous knowledge about the topic

of discourse, situational, contextual knowledge or knowledge stored in long-term memory in the form of “schemata” and “scripts” — plans about the overall structure of events and the relationships between them (Richards, 1990: 51) The prior knowledge has a very significant impact on what listeners are able to get out

of it and to infer the meaning of the content in the process of listening as Richards (1990: 52) confirmed that if the listener was unable to make use of top-down processing, an utterance or discourse might be incomprehensible Bottom-up process, on the other hand, “refers to the use of incoming data as a source of information about the meaning of a message” (Richards, 1990: 50) In other words, listeners have to use their language competence to make sense of the acoustic signals that the speech presents Comprehension is thus viewed as “a process of decoding” (Richards, 1990: 50) of the language system including phonology, grammar and vocabulary In other words, bottom-up is a linear process in which the meaning of the message itself is derived as the last step in the completely listening process In short, listening comprehension is not undoubtedly a passive process of perceiving and decoding the acoustic signals but a really complicated one that requires the listeners to link both the bottom-up and top-down strategies simultaneously and mutually in order to support their understanding and interpreting of a spoken language input

2.8.4 Listening tasks

2.8.4.1 Definitions of listening tasks

A variety of definitions on listening tasks can be found in the professional literature According to Ur (1984: 25), a listening task was something students were required to do in response to what they heard that would demonstrate their understanding Additionally, Ellis (2003: 37) stated that listening tasks could be

devised to facilitate the acquisition of the targeted feature and provide a means of investigating the effect of different kinds of input modification Although there are different concepts around listening tasks, these activities serve the same purposes that are, firstly, to check what students can understand a spoken language input and secondly, to facilitate students’ listening acquisition

2.8.4.2 Task validity

Good task design for listening development would likewise be first good task design: it would account in advance for variables that were likely to affect student learning (Rost, 1990: 170) Therefore, there must be some criteria for task validity According to Rost (1990: 170-172), a listening task should, where possible, consider the following:

First was the overall considerations in which the task should be based on or

have transparent applications toward real-world situations that the learners were expected to perform and be consistent with valid approaches to language learning that were acceptable to the learners It should also take into account major factors that were likely to influence complexity such as speakers (the pace, accent, number of speakers to listen to), content (the linguistic structure of utterances, the accessibility of the rhetorical structure, the amount of redundant information and signals which reinforce this rhetorical structure) and support (visual aids, print, prior reading material, prior presentation) Finally, the task should require attention to the information conveyed through speech and encourage the use of the listener’s prior knowledge and environmental cues in interpreting speaker’s utterances

The input was the second factor to which we should pay much attention in

designing a task In other words, the task should use appropriate input material in consideration of learner attention, motivation, and prior knowledge and prior context

Third, role and setting should be taken into great consideration The task

should allow learner groupings (settings) and roles (rights to control

information and task procedures) which were appropriate for the purpose of the task

Fourth, in procedure considerations, the task should include ways of

dealing with non-understandings and possibilities for negotiation

The next factor a task designer should take into consideration is the

outcome which should be appropriate to the input in terms of complexity

and a listening construct that was identifiable by learners and instructor

Finally were monitoring and feedback considerations First, the task or

instructor should provide encouragement and motivation for learners throughout the task and should reward sincere efforts at accomplishing the task Second, intervention by the instructor in the task should be timed to occur only at appropriate transition periods in the task

2.8.4.3 Kinds of listening tasks

Listening tasks are categorized into three phases within an auditory lesson, that is, pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening This procedure of listening teaching and learning in three stages has been a relatively standard format for the listening lesson developed since the late 1960s It undoubtedly not only has a great effect on listening comprehension but brings an appropriate opportunity for listeners to employ the link between the bottom-up and top-down processes in the most productive way Therefore, a language teacher should make sure that a listening lesson proceeds in an orderly and productive way to help learners become more proficient in English listening learning

Pre-listening stage

Effective and successful listening tasks often involve an explicit pre-listening step It

is significant to create some activities that learners do prior to listening to the main input in order to increase their readiness Underwood (1989: 30) stated that before listening, students should be “tuned in” so that they knew what to expect, both in general and for particular tasks This kind of preparatory work was generally described as ‘pre-listening work’ or just ‘pre-listening’ In this stage, the learners are equipped with some ideas of what they expect to hear Moreover, they are

provided some opportunities to activate their social and contextual knowledge relevant to the topic and also their language competence including phonology, grammar and vocabulary

Underwood (1989: 31-43) suggested some pre-listening tasks:

- Reading something relevant to the listening topic (concentration on the written text brings the language which is likely to be heard to mind);

- Looking at pictures and talking about the topic (to remind students of lexis which may have been forgotten and of focusing attention on the topic to be

listened to);

- Discussing the topic/situation (to prepare the students for what they should expect to hear);

- Labeling a picture (to revise already known language)

Similarly, Yagang (1994: 195) suggested a variety of tasks for pre-listening such as:

- Elicitation or discussion about the topic (perhaps based on visuals, title) (to elicit something associated with the topic and encourage students to

exchange ideas/opinions about the topic);

- Brainstorming (to help students predict the words and expressions likely to appear in the passage and express hypotheses about the content of the passage based on previous knowledge);

- Games (to help students relax or to train basic listening skills, e.g., miming words and expressions heard; minimal-pair distinctions);

- Guiding questions (to help students exploit listening passages)

According to Underwood (1989: 30), “it is helpful to focus at first on providing considerable pre-listening support so that the students can achieve a high level of success and thus become confident that they can listen effectively” In other words, students’ set of listening skills can be developed more efficiently if their interest and linguistic expectations are aroused in advance Pre-listening tasks establish the purpose of the listening activity and activate the schemata by encouraging students

to think about and discuss what they already know about the content of the

listening text All the pre-listening activities are exploited to help students get ready for a listening lesson; therefore, the difficulty level of these tasks needs ensuring, relevant to the lesson’s content, the population of the class and the ability

of the learners

While-listening stage

When learners actually begin listening to the input, there needs to be some expectation for concrete action at the time when while-listening tasks are included This kind of work needs to have a logical link to the pre-listening stage Underwood (1989) stated that while-listening activities were what students were required to do during the time they were listening to the text As far as listening comprehension was concerned, the purpose of while-listening activities, according

to Underwood (1989: 45), was to help learners develop the skill of eliciting messages from any spoken language During this stage, there are several things students can be encouraged to do

They can rehearse it in order to remember it; that is, they repeat interesting points back to themselves They can formulate questions to ask the speaker jot down key words or key phrases They can wonder if what they are listening to is true,

or what motives the speaker has in saying it, or whether the speaker is revealing personal feelings rather than objective assessments (Temple and Gillet, 1989: 55)

Below is a selection of different ideas for while-listening work, with many examples of listening tasks taken from various published sources by Underwood (1989: 49-72):

- Marking/checking items in pictures: identifying people and things, marking items mentioned by the speaker, marking errors, checking details, marking choices, etc.;

- Matching: matching conversations or descriptions with the right pictures;

- Storyline picture sets/putting pictures in order;

- Completing pictures/picture drawing;

- Making models/following a route;

- Completing grids, forms or charts;

- Deciding True or False statements/spotting mistakes;

- Multiple-choice questions;