(Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm) using dictogloss to improve listening skill

Dictogloss approach emphasizes on students’ ability to recognise English sounds and to enhance long-term memory through repeated listening to reconstruct a short text or conversation Vas

USING DICTOGLOSS TO IMPROVE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

1.1.1 Background……….……

1.1.2 Problems……….….……

1.1.3 The feasibility of using dictogloss approach to improving students' listening skills……….……

1.2 Aims of the paper

1.3 Scope of the study

1.4 Summary of the paper

CHAPTER II DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Literature review

2.1.1 Definition of listening

2.1.2 The importance of listening

2.1.3 Types of listening activities

2.1.4 Listening problems

2.1.5 General concept of dictogloss

A Definition of dictogloss

B Dictogloss procedures

C Advantages of dictogloss method

2.2.Methodology

2.2.1.Data collection

2.2.2 Administering pre-test to experimental and control groups

2.2.3 Administering pre-test to experimental and control groups

2.2.4 Administering post-test

2.2.5 Interviewing

2.2.6 Detailed lesson plans and teachers’ notes………

2.2.7 Students' notes……… ………

CHAPTER III FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 Overview of the process

3.2 The result of pretest of experimental group and control group

3.3 The result of experimental group’s posttest

3.4 The result of control group’s posttest

3.5 The results of the interview

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION

4.1 Major findings

4.2 Implications

4.3 Limitations of the study

4.4 Suggestions for further study

REFERENCES

APPENDIXES

In Lao Cai Gifted High School Development Project ( 2016-2020), the learning and teaching of English is given priority to increase opportunities for students to get overseas scholarship and better preparation for their future Many school teachers of science subjects are now encouraged to deploy English as the language of instruction in classrooms Therefore, all the teachers of English are aware of the responsibilities inspired by school, students, parents, their colleagues and society They are dynamic and enthusiastic in teaching to supply students with the best of them

1.1.2 Problems

Grade 10 students displayed diverse backgrounds of the target language through the Entrance examinations However, students in science classes illustrated better English language competence According to school policy, for the first three semesters students are expected to mainly develop English language speaking and listening skills and most of the students have been worried about their listening ability

In real teaching practices, the teachers realised that learners had difficulty

recognizing English sounds in academic listening recordings and real communications, which limits their understanding of the speech They have been familiar with standardised tests, therefore they can better understand the written language However, learners have problems recognising familiar vocabulary items in spoken forms Besides, the ability to remember the information while listening is another factor that hinders their improvement

in listening skills Some students tend to immediately forget the content of the previous sentence when they move to the next sentences, which leads to the failure of understanding the gists

1.1.3 The feasibility of dictogloss approach to improving listening skills

Dictogloss approach emphasizes on students’ ability to recognise English sounds and to enhance long-term memory through repeated listening to reconstruct a short text or conversation (Vasiljevic, 2010; Prince, 2013) Students are required to listen and take notes

of the key words, which functions as the base of later reconstruction Students can benefit from other students’ shared ideas to build up their own understanding of the recording given after three times listening The accumulated pieces of information and the repetition

of listening to the same audio track help scaffold learners’ understanding and gradually improve their listening skills

All of the above reasons urge the teachers to conduct a study on the topic: “Using Dictogloss to imrpove students’ listening skills” In this paper, the author investigates the

effectiveness of using dictogloss in improving listening skills Conducting the research seems necessary since using dictogloss offers considerable benefits to students Detailed lesson plans, teachers; notes, students’ handouts and prettest and posttest will hope to demonstrate the effect of dictogloss on the listening skills and partly contribute to the field

1.2 Aims of the paper

The aims of the study are:

- First, to assess the real difficulties in teaching and learning listening

- Second, to investigate the possibility of using dictogloss in developing 10th graders’

listening skills

1.3 Scope of the study

Within the scope of the study, emphasis is laid on the teaching and learning listening session The study also focuses on listening for general information and specific details which involve understanding the task and emphasizing on catching certain information The population of the study is limited to 10th graders of Lao Cai high school for gifted students in the academic year of 2018-2019 Students in class 10 Maths and 10 Chemistry are selected as control group and experimental group respectively based on the results of the pre-test to maximize the relibility and validity of the research

1.4 Summary of the paper

This paper is divided into five main chapters as follows:

Chapter I: Introduction

This chapter provides the basic information of the paper including the background

of the study, the aims, scope and a brief summary

Chapter II: Development

This chapter presents the theoretical background relevant to the research,

details how to collect data and analyzes the collected data to evaluate the real situation of teaching, and learning listening of 10th graders in Lao Cai high school for gifted students and their perception of using dictogloss method to improve listening skill

Chapter III: Findings and Discussion

This session analyzes the collected data to evaluate the real situation of teaching and learning listening of 10th graders in Lao Cai high school for gifted students and their perception of using dictogloss method to improve listening skill

Chapter III: Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the content of the paper, acknowledges the limitations and suggestions for further research

CHAPTER II: DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Literature review

2.1.1 Definition of listening

Listening is an essential skill that ESL learners have to develop There are several distinct definitions of listening, and each definition represents a different perspective of listening

According to Johnson (1951, p.58), listening is the ability to understand and respond effectively to oral communication Moreover, McErlain (1999) states that listening can be defined as the ability to receive and decode oral communication by processing a language sample In addition, Myers and Myers (1999, p.143) point outs that listening is not only hearing, but also including the added dimensions of understanding, paying attention, analyzing, and evaluating the spoken messages, and possibly acting on the basis

of what has been heard

Rost (1994, p2) states that listening involves both social and cognitive processes In psychological terms, attention is an excitation of nerve pathways, the brain, to organize incoming stimuli in an effective way Besides, Myers and Myers (1999, p.143) state that listening is not only hearing, but also including the added dimensions of understanding, paying attention, analyzing, and evaluating the spoken messages, and possibly acting on the basis of what has been heard

Wolvin and Coakley (1985) define listening as “the process of receiving, attending

to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli” This definition suggests that listening is a complex, problem-solving skill The task of listening is more than the perception of sound; although perception is the foundation, it also requires comprehension of meaning

On the other hand, Underwood (1997, p.1) defines listening as the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear She explains that to listen successfully to spoken language, a listener needs to be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, and not simply to understand the words themselves Therefore, it is not enough to just understand the words themselves to understand the message from spoken language The incoming sound needs to be processed involving any available cues like background noises, the speakers, and the setting to construct meaning

Listening requires an active participation of the listeners in order to achieve the message that the speaker means Buck (2001, p.31) considers listening an active process of constructing meaning by applying knowledge to the incoming sound in which a number of different types of knowledge, both linguistic and non-linguistic, are involved

Listening is also highlighted as a vital receptive mean to gather information and its importance lies on the fact that it is used more often than any other language skill Listening is one of the most important sources of input that a human brain has (Widiasmara, 2012) Besides, Rivers (1981) states that in an ordinary day, the listening skill

is exercised almost twice as much as the speaking skill, and around four to five times as the reading and writing skills

2.1.2 The importance of listening

The significance listening is undeniable as it is the precondition to acquiring the language According to Krashen (1985), language acquisition is dominantly achieved by receiving understandable input, and listening ability is the critical component in achieving the understandable the language input Listening is emphasized to make contribution to the language development of the students since it provides input for the students Rost (1994) puts great emphasis on the importance of listening He points out that if students cannot understand input at the right level, learning cannot begin This is supported by Widiasmara(2012) that listening is considered one of the most important sources of input that a human brain has According to second language acquisition theory, language input is the most essential condition of language acquisition Therefore, as an input skill, “listening

is the key language It has a vital role in language acquisition process” Brett (1997, p.39)

As a matter of fact, people use listening more than any other language skills Rivers (1981) points out that in an ordinary day, the listening skill is exercised almost twice as much as the speaking skill, and around four to five times as the reading and writing skills Mendelsohn (1994, p.9) share the same viewpoint with Rivers He states that among the time spent on communication, listening takes the top position at 40-50 %; 25-30% is spent

on speaking, followed by the 11-16% spent on reading At the bottom position is writing, which accounts for only 9%

Those factors above show the importance of listening in language acquisition and academic achievement in general, which should be taken into careful consideration when designing teaching and learning materials and classroom activities

2.1.3 Types of listening activities

There is no fixed set of conditions to classify the listening types As each classification shows dissimilar features of listening, this section is devoted to presenting some considerable ones

According to Simonds and Cooper (2011), there are five types of listening The first type is informative listening In such kind of listening, the listeners’ main goal is to understand what has been said The listeners are said to listen successful only when their interpretation of the message is as closer as possible to the speaker’ intention Another type

is relation listening, which aims either to assist a person or to intensify a relationship The next type is appreciative listening with the purpose of entertainment, for example, listening

to music Next, critical listening is to check the authenticity and the validity of what is being said such as listening to advocates and politicians Finally, discriminative listening seems to be the most crucial type since it is the base for all the mentioned types above The listeners must observe the changes happened in speakers’ utterances such as rate, volume, pitch and so on to detect the slightest differences in meaning

In addition, Hellenes and Brown (1994, p xii) state that there are three types of listening activities, as follows: The first type is listening skill for understanding the general meaning It is listening skill for purpose of understanding the general meaning The listeners in this type expect to catch the general meaning of what they hear The second one

is listening for the specific information or listening for detail It involves understanding the task and more importantly, focusing to catch certain information Listening between the lines or understanding inferences is the third type Understanding inferences is not only related to imagining meanings, but also thinking about meaning that is given In this listening activity, the listeners are expected to draw the inference of the story

2.1.4 Listening problems

In order to develop listening skills for students, it is necessary to identify the learning problems that students are experiencing Ur (1996, p 111-112) identifies the students’ problems and the solution as follows:

a Sound problems:

Most students depend mostly on the context to comprehend Besides, they are often themselves unaware sound perception

b Having to understand every word:

Some students are worried and stressed when they miss some words of the text Therefore, the students need practice in selective ignoring of heard information as they

do naturally in their mother tongue The teacher should explain this point to the students, and more importantly, set them occasional tasks that ask them to scan a relatively long task for one or two limited items of information

c Difficulty in understanding fast, naturally native speaker:

The students can only understand when the teacher talks slowly and clearly The students cannot understand fast, natural native-sounding speech The solution for this problem is that the teacher has to expose the students to as much spontaneous-informal talk as possible; as a result, they can understand the native speech In additionally, the teacher should choose the sorts of discourse at the right level for the students

d Necessity to hear the text more than once:

The students need to hear the text more than once to understand it To overcome this problem, the teacher can try to use texts that include “redundant” passage and within which the essential information is presented more than once and not too intensively They can also give the students the opportunity to request clarification or repetition while listening

e Finding it difficult to keep up:

The students feel overloaded with incoming information In this case, the students should be encouraged to relax, stop trying to understand everything, and learn to pick out what is essential

f Getting tired:

If the discourse is too long, the students can become tired and bored to listen Furthermore, it is difficult for them to attention The solution of this problem is similar with the third problem

According to Rost (1994, p.119), there are four the listeners’ problems, including acuity of hearing, discrimination and auditory perception, attention and concentration, comprehension

a Acuity of hearing:

Some students face physical problems which prevent them from participating full in listening They can be affected by the environmental problem such as noise; therefore, they do not focus on what is said

b Discrimination and auditory perception:

Some students may have trouble with auditory memory (recalling what they have just heard) and sequential memory (recalling in correct sequence of words or utterance they have just heard)

c Attention and concentration:

A majority of students have difficulties following instructions since they lack attention and concentration Such students are easy to be distracted in a classroom

d Comprehension:

It is difficult for many student to comprehend different aspects of listening, including four aspects, namely: factual or literal comprehension (identifying what was said or what facts were stated), interpretation (such as categorizing new information or seeing cause-effect relationship between facts), critical listening (applying what they have heard and problem-solving), and evolution listening (appreciating or commenting critically on what they have heard)

2.1.5 General concept of dictogloss

A Definition of dictogloss

Dictogloss is a classroom dictation activity where the students listen to a short text that is read by the teacher, note down key words and then work in groups to reconstruct the text by their own words (Wajnryb, 1990) Dictogloss borrows a little from traditional dictation; however, it is quite distinct from dictation in both procedure and objectives

Wajnryb (1990) states that dictogloss is a relatively resent procedure in language teaching, and different from dictation He explains that in dictogloss students are asked to listen to a short text read to them at normal speed, and reconstruct it, first individually, then

in small groups, until the text has the same meaning as the original one By contrast, in dictation students only write down what is read by the teacher or an audio source verbatim

In line with this, Newman in Smith (2012, p.70) points out that dictogloss is the combination of dictation, paraphrase, and interpretation Dictogloss is contrast with traditional dictation in which the students are not permitted to take note or paraphrase They must copy exactly what they listen

Dictogloss is considered as a multiple skills and systems activity It involves students’ attention to all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and encourages students’ autonomy, cooperation, curricular integration, diversity, thinking skills, and alternative assessment techniques (Jacobs, 2003)

Jacobs and Small (2003) point outs that dictogloss does not always have to involve writing sentences and paragraphs Students can do other activities based on what the teacher reads to them For example, they can complete a graphic organizer in which the facilitator finds or writes a description of a drawing that includes relevant details about vocabulary and concepts of the topic Students then listen to the task twice In the first time, they listen to the description and do a drawing based on what they heard In the second time, they compare their productions with a partner and make a composite drawing per pair to finally compare their drawing with the original According to Mackenzie (2011), students usually work in groups of three or four, transmit and learn new information while engaging in a task Besides, Bruner (1978) lists significant components

of dictogloss that includes peer support, instruction, and scaffolding

B Dictogloss procedures

Wajnryb (1990) regards dictogloss as a multiple skill and system activity with a focus on communicating meaning and correct use of grammar Dictogloss has several procedures in its doing Wajnryb (1990) divides dictogloss procedure into the four following stages:

1 Warm-up: Students are introduced to the topic of the text In addition, the teacher provides the students with some vocabulary related to the topic

2 Dictation: Students listen to the text read at a normal speed by the teacher typically twice In the first time, the students are asked to just listen but do not write They are expected to get the general idea of the text In the second time, the students are allowed to take notes, write down the key word or the main idea of the text while listening

3 Reconstruction: In this stage, the teacher asks students to reconstruct the text that has been read based on their notes They do it in group that has been previously assigned by the teacher

4 Analysis and correction: The last stage of dictogloss is analysis and correction In this stage, the students analyze and compare their reconstruction text with their friends’ and the original text and make necessary corrections

In addition, according to Shak (2006), there are five basic stages of dictogloss, including listening, noticing, activity, checking, andwriting that can be implemented in the

teaching or learning process The first stage is listening: In this stage, the students are

prepared for the new topic through a text via storytelling, flashcards, or in a whole class

discussion After that, they enter the noticing stage: The students are required to take notes after listening to a text for a second time at normal speed Activity stage is the third one: In

the stage, the students work together in small groups to recreate the text prepared for the lesson Another stage is checking: The teacher asks the students to analyze and contrast the

students’ writings to their partners’ versions Finally, they reach writing Stage: The

students are asked to produce a similar text individually, and demonstrate what they have understood about the reading

C Advantages of dictogloss method

Dictogloss brings several advantages rather than other techniques of teaching

listening

First of all, it is a combination of individual and group activities because students listen and take notes individually and then work together to reconstruct the texts Students have an opportunity to practice cooperative learning through reconstruction task Dictogloss also requires students to actively involve the learning process Moreover, peer learning and peer teaching are used to enhance learning

Secondly, the procedures involved in the use of dictogloss facilitate the development of the students’ communicative competence The students’ speaking time in dictogloss method is longer than in a traditional teacher-centered classroom Besides, the students’ interaction is usually much more natural according to what they understand from the text Furthermore, students work on timing because of the limited time in reconstruction task Students are offered more opportunities to practice and use all modes of language and

to become engaged in authentic communication Wills & Wills (1996) points out that a wide range of interactions is found to be more productive in terms of language development than the actual linguistic forms used

Another advantage of dictogloss is that the reconstruction stage of dictogloss helps students try out their hypotheses and subsequently identify their strengths and weaknesses Moreover, students are encouraged to examine the input carefully by reconstructing the text Students are enabled to compare their own reconstructed text to the original one and to

identify the mistakes This improves students’ language competence, promote the acquisition of L2 vocabulary, and raise students’ awareness of rhetorical pattern in the target language

Dictogloss promotes students’ autonomy Students are expected to help each other recreate the text by working in group In the analysis and correction stage, students have an opportunity to self-assess their outcome; as a result, they are aware of their linguistic shortcomings and develop strategies to study effectively

Dictogloss also offers a unique blending of teaching listening comprehension and the assessment of students’ listening ability Traditional tests formats such as true-false, multiple choice, or open-ended questions usually allow only a relatively small number of selected items to be tested while the rest of the text remains uncovered However, while doing the dictogloss task, the students need to use a variety of linguistic competence, for instance, phonemic identification, lexical recognition, syntactic analysis and semantic interpretation Besides, the reconstruction task offers an insight into the students’ performance at all stages of the speech perception process

Last but not least, working in a small group releases students’ tension since they only perform in front of few other students This method may be particularly suitable for introverted cultures like Vietnam where a majority of students feel uneasy about their English level; therefore, they rarely volunteer to show their answers Students seem to be more relaxed and confident when they share ideas in a group

2.2 Methodology

2.2.1 Data collection

The whole experiment was conducted from October to December in 2018 The experimental lasted for about nine weeks First and foremost, the pretest was given in both groups in October and after then only students in the experimental group received intervention There was no treatment for the control group except for the regular English lessons, and the post-test for both groups was carried out December The procedure for the dictations was the same for each week, but topics changed on a regular basis According to the syllabus, teacher gave students texts related to the topic in the textbook or the teacher use authentic materials The following topics were covered: Music, For A Better Community, and Inventions These topics were used to in order to design and implement dictogloss activity

Besides, the texts used are collected from the internet or in the textbooks as mentioned above on condition that these texts were suitable to students’ listening competences At the first week of dictation, teacher instructed students to conduct dictogloss Dictogloss practices were given four times for about four weeks The total time on dictogloss was 20 minutes Students from 10 Chemistry had only three English lessons per week Because of the limited time for one typical lesson, the researchers could not carry out dictogloss task in all English lessons Therefore, this method is applied mainly in the further practice lessons focusing on listening skill with materials from authentic sources, and partly integrated with getting started, reading, listening, and grammar lessons in the textbook To increase the validity and reliability, lesson were conducted under the same instructions and the researchers tried to select the sample of the same level of English based on the pre-test results

The teaching procedures in experimental groups were designed according to Wajnryb (1990) and presented below:

Dictogloss Procedure in Experimental Group

Stage Teacher Students

1 Preparation -Gives students clear instruction about the

task that they have to do

-Organizes students into groups

-Prepares vocabulary for students -Discusses the topic

-Move into groups

-Prepare the vocabulary for the text

- Discuss the topic

2 Dictation -Play the recording or reads the text at

- Listen again and take notes, write down the key word

-Listen again and confirm their notes

3 Reconstruction - Asks the students to reconstruct the text -Work in groups to

reconstruct the text based

-Facilitates discussion and make necessary corrections

-Play the recording or read the text for the last time

-Analysis and compare their reconstruction text with their friends and the original text

-Focus on the point of usage emerged from the discussion

-Listen for the last time and make sure they can hear and understand every single word

From the table, it can be seen that there were four stages: preparation, dictation, reconstruction, analysis and correction Each stage will now be described in more detail The first stage is preparation The purpose of the preparation stage is to make students more receptive to the listening text Teacher needs to give students clear instruction and divides students into small groups of 3 or 4 members In the preparation stage, the teacher facilitates this process by helping students with new vocabulary and providing background information

In this stage, teacher presents and explains some key vocabularies and unfamiliar vocabularies to the students The teacher activates the students existing knowledge about the topic by conducting a classroom discussion One way to introduce the topic is to give students some questions for discussion This stage not only gives the students a warm-up but also help them with vocabulary that will appear in the text The second stage is dictation In this stage, the teacher reads the text three times In the first time, the students are not permitted to take notes or write anything They are asked to listen to get a general idea about the text The second time they can take notes by writing the phrases and key words of the text while listening Students tend to try to write down everything, so the teacher should emphasize that they should focus on key words only that will help them with the reconstruction of the text In the third listening, students have a chance to confirm their notes The next stage is reconstruction In this stage, students are asked to work in groups to reconstruct a text based on their notes The text should be close in content and organization

to the original one even though there might be different expression During reconstruction, the teacher’s role is to monitor the activity The teacher has to observe the group interaction

to ensure that all students participate and adjust the timing if necessary The last stage of the dictogloss procedure is the analysis and correction of the students’ texts The main purpose

of the analysis and correction stage is to identify the students’ mistakes The original text is provided to the students, and they are required to identify similarities and differences in terms of meaning and form between their reconstructed text and the original one The teacher's job in this stage is to make sure that peer feedback is correct and to provide additional linguistic guidance if necessary In addition, the teacher could facilitate discussion with the students about the mistakes they have made

2.2.2 Administering pre-test to experimental and control groups

The pretest was administered to the experimental and control groups at the beginning

of the research before using the intervention The pre-test was carried out to measure students’ prior listening abilities All tenth graders took sat for the test on October 15, 2018 Then, 10 Maths and 10 Chemistry were chosen as the control group and the experimental group respectively based on the similar results of the pre-test

2.2.3 Administering the pretest

The experimental group was treated using dictogloss as explained previously By contrast, the control group was not given the treatment for the regular English lessons The treatment was conducted 15 times to the experimental group from 15th October to 17thDecember 2018 The experimental group received treatment five times for each topic The schedule of the treatment can be seen in Appendix

2.2.4 Administering posttest

After the whole treatment had been conducted, the posttest was administered to both experimental and control groups on December 17th 2018 The purpose of the posttest was to find out whether or not and how dictogloss method influenced the experimental group by comparing the scores of the two groups Furthermore, the form of the posttest was similar to the pretest

2.2.5 Interviewing

Students in experimental group were interviewed individually There are five questions (02 open questions and 03 structured questions)

2.2.6 Detailed lesson plans and teachers’ notes

Detailed lesson plans are enlosed in the appendix 4

Teachers carried out the lessons in turns and noted down the improvement in students’

performance (appendix 5: teachers’ notes)

2.2.7 Students’ notes (appendix 6)

Students’ notes and paper tests were used to analyse the real situation and the improvement

of students’ performance through the application of three sample lessons

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Overview of the process

Students have embodied their improvement in realizing the sounds, remembering and understanding the content of the texts in each lesson and through the process In the first lesson, many students caught few function words and hardly any key words for the first time listening Repetition enabled more vocabulary items recognised and then promoted learners’ understanding the content and then developed the listening skills Learners also revealed that they were motivated and felt more confident after three lessons, which confirmed the feasibility of the dictogloss approach

3.2 The result of pretest of experimental group and control group

The data was collected from two groups, the experimental and control groups The pretest was administrated to both groups before the treatment given The data from the pretest aimed to measure the students’ listening skill before they got the treatments The researchers took 35 students of 10 Chemistry as the sample of the experimental group The sample of control group was 35 students of 10 Maths The pretest was conducted to 10 Chemistry as the experimental group and to 10 Maths as the control group on the same day The same listening test was assigned to both experimental and control groups as the pretest and the posttest The listening test included 23 questions divided into four parts Part one consisted of five questions In this part, students were required to listen to a short recording and then chose a correct picture to answer each given question The aim of this part was to test student’s listening skill for understanding the general meaning It was necessary for students to understand general meaning of the recording in order to choose the correct picture In the second part, students were asked to listen to a conversation between two people There were six names listed in this part, students’ task was to listen to this conversation and then chose the corresponding adjective for each name The purpose of this part was to examine students’ listening skill for specific details In the third part, teacher required students to listen a conversation first and then chose specific detail as an answer for each question The third part was also aimed to test students’ listening skill for specific details In the final part, after listening to a monologue, students chose the correct answer for each question The final part paid more attention on checking students’ listening skill for details The test items were taken from the Key English Test (KET) Since the same test was used in the pretest and the posttest, there were no correct answers shown after the

pretest Furthermore, all the question and answer sheets were collected after finishing the pretest

The result of the students’ pretest score in the experimental group is presented as follows:

Pre-test Score of Students in the Experimental Group

X = =

= 10.02

As a result, the average (mean score) of pre-test is 10.02

Chart of the Experimental Group’s Pretest Score

The result of the students’ pretest score in the control group is presented as follows:

Pre-test Score of Students of the Control Group

As a result, the average (mean score) of pretest of control group is 10.28

Chart of the Control Group’s Pretest Score

From the result of the pretest, it could be said that there was no significant difference between the English listening level of students in the experimental and the control groups since the mean score gap between two groups was insignificant (0.26) The pretest mean score of students in the experimental group was 10.02 while that in the control group was 10.28 According to the result of the pretest score of the experimental and control groups, the researchers found that students in both groups had difficulty in listening for understanding general meaning since only a few students in both groups gave correct answers for questions 2; 3; 4; 5 These question included in the first part of the test which aimed to test students’ listening skill for understanding the general meaning Besides, in the second part, many students did not have correct answers for questions 7; 8; 9 Students

might get trouble with listening for specific information related to personality adjectives The number of incorrect answers for questions in the third part was quite high, especially questions required students to listen for an adjective, a collation or a clause like questions 15; 16; 17 The third part seemed to be the most difficult part for students in both groups It was difficult for students to listen to details involved with numbers or letters Besides, they might get confused about information mentioned in the recording, so they could not choose the correct information

3.3 The result of experimental group’s posttest

After finishing the experimental treatments, the researchers conducted posttest to both experimental and control groups to find out whether there was an improvement of the students’ listening skill or not The posttest was administered to the experimental group on

17th December 2018 Besides, the posttest was similar to the pretest in form, level and number of questions

Post-test Score of Students in the Experimental Group