A study of the issues of teaching listening setions in tiếng anh 11 at high schools in nghe an

Data collection instruments consisted ofquestionnaires, interviews and class observations.The findings of the study uncovered a dull reality of the listening teaching athigh schools in N

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

PHUNG NGUYEN QUYNH NGA

A STUDY OF THE ISSUES OF TEACHING LISTENING SECTIONS IN "TIENG ANH 11"

AT HIGH SCHOOLS IN NGHE AN

maSTER thesis in education

Vinh - 2011

HiÖu Photocopy - Vi tÝnh S¬n Lan

Photo - In mµu Laser - M¹ nhò vµng

Sè 18 Ph¹m Kinh Vü - BÕn Thñy - TP Vinh

Tel: 0383 5555 88 - Mobile: 090 345 9796

Email: sonlanphoto@yahoo.com.vn

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC VINH

PHÙNG NGUYỄN QUỲNH NGA

NGHI£N CøU VIÖC GI¶NG D¹Y

Kü N¡NG NGHE HIÓU TRONG S¸CH "TIÕNG ANH 11"

T¹I C¸C TR¦êNG THPT ë NGHÖ AN

CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP

DẠY HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH

MÃ SỐ: 60.14.10

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ GIÁO DỤC HỌC

Người hướng dẫn khoa học:

PGS TS LƯU QUÝ KHƯƠNG

VINH - 2011

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine The date and findingsdiscussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have notbeen published elsewhere

Author:

Phung Nguyen Quynh Nga

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I wish to express my deepest gratitude

to Assoc Prof Dr Luu Quy Khuong, my supervisor, for his excellent guidance, comments and enthusiastic encouragement during the completion

of the research.

Secondly, I would like to thank all lecturers at Department of English, Vinh University for their valuable teaching and tremendous assistance that have enlightened my study path.

I am grateful to teachers of English and students at high schools in Nghe An such as Nam Dan II, Do Luong I, Ha Huy Tap They significantly contributed their opinions and suggestions to my research.

Finally, I wish to give my special thanks to my beloved family for their warm support and encouragement during the time I conducted this thesis.

as well as interesting and suitable listening activities into the lesson In order togain the relatively objective information, a combination of both qualitative andquantitative approaches was used Data collection instruments consisted ofquestionnaires, interviews and class observations.

The findings of the study uncovered a dull reality of the listening teaching athigh schools in Nghe An, especially low interests of both teachers and students inthe listening teaching and learning, the lack of modern listening facilities, poorteaching aids, students' low proficiency in English listening, teachers' limitedlistening competence, inappropriate listening teaching methods, the differencebetween teachers' favors and students' interests towards listening activities, theomission of the post-listening stage and so on Besides, the study revealed that EFLteachers at high schools in Nghe An had been facing a lot of difficulties in teachinglistening in general and in teaching listening sections in "Tieng Anh 11" inparticular The prominent obstacles included students' low motivation and limitedvocabulary, large class-size and mixed ability, too difficult listening tasks, shortage

of teachers' experience in teaching listening Therefore, the suggestions andimplications of the research were worked out to increase the effectiveness ofteaching listening sections in "Tieng Anh 11" at high schools in Nghe An.Providing students with key words before listening to the passage, adaptinglistening tasks to suit students' levels, helping them with listening strategies andusing more interesting materials were offered by many EFL teachers in Nghe An

TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Page SUB COVER PAGE i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS 4

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES 5

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 6

1.1 Rationale 6

1.2 Aims of the Study 7

1.3 Research Questions 7

1.4 Scope of the Study 7

1.5 Organization of the Study 8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 Overview 9

2.2 Previous Studies Related to the Topic 9

2.3 Theoretical Background 12

2.3.1 Teaching English Listening Skills 12

2.3.1.1 What is the Listening Skill? 12

2.3.1.2 The Importance of Listening Skills 13

2.3.1.3 Teacher’s Role in Teaching Listening 14

2.3.1.4 The Challenge of Teaching Listening Skills 15

2.3.1.5 Strategies to Teach Listening 17

2.3.1.6 Common Methods of Teaching Listening 18

2.3.1.7 Principles of Teaching English Listening Skills 19

2.3.2.1 General Description 23

2.3.2.2 Objectives and Approaches to the Textbook Development 23

2.3.2.3 Teaching Approaches of the “Tieng Anh 11” Textbook 24

2.3.3 Introduction of Coolspeech Software 24

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 26

3.1 Overview 26

3.2 Research Design 26

3.3 Subjects of the Study 26

3.4 Data Collection Instruments 29

3.5 Data Collection Procedure 31

3.6 Data Analysis 31

3.7 Research Procedures 31

3.8 Reliability and Validity 32

3.9 Summary 32

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33

4.1 Overview 33

4.2 Findings 33

4.2.1 The Reality of Teaching Listening at High Schools in Nghe An 33

4.2.1.1 Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes towards Listening Teaching and Learning 33

4.2.1.2 Evaluation and Assessment on Listening Sections in “Tieng Anh 11” .40

4.2.1.3 Teachers’ Methodology and Strategies of Listening Teaching in the Classroom 45

4.2.1.4 Activities in Listening Lessons 49

4.2.1.5 Teaching Procedures of a Listening Lesson Applied by Teachers 54

4.2.1.6 Adaptation of the Textbook 55

4.2.1.7 Listening Difficulties Perceived by Teachers 58

4.2.2 Informants' Suggestions for Better Listening Lessons 59

4.2.2.1 Student Informants' Suggestions 59

4.2.2.2 Teacher Informants' Suggestions 61

4.3 Discussion 63

4.4 Pilot Teaching 79

4.4.1 Designed Activities and Its Procedures 79

4.4.2 Students’ Feedbacks on the Lesson 85

4.4.3 Teachers’ Comments on the Pilot Teaching 86

4.4.4 The Researcher’s Reflection 87

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 88

5.1 Conclusion 88

5.2 Implications 92

5.2.1 For Teachers 92

5.2.2 For Textbook Designers 95

5.2.3 For Educational Administrators 95

5.3 Limitations of the Study 96

5.4 Suggested Further Research 96

REFERENCES 97 APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for Teachers

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for Students

Appendix 3: Questions for Teachers' Interview

Appendix 4: Questions for Students' Interview

Appendix 5: Class Observation Sheet

Appendix 6: Lesson Feedback Sheet (For Students)

Appendix 7: Lesson Feedback Sheet (For Teachers)

Appendix 8: Suggested Listening Activities of "Tieng Anh 11"

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL : English as a Foreign Languagee.g : Exempli gratia (for example)etc : et cetera

No : Number

Ss : Students

T : Teacher

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Page Table 3.1: Teachers’ Background Information 27

Table 3.2: Students’ Background Information 28

Table 4.1: Reasons for Teachers’ Low Interests in Teaching Listening Skills 37

Table 4.2: Listening Strategies Employed by Teachers 45

Table 4.3: Frequency of Teachers’ Use of Teaching Aids in Listening Lessons 47

Table 4.4: Frequency of Organizing Pre-listening Activities 49

Table 4.5: Techniques Used at While-listening Stage 51

Table 4.6: Activities Teachers usually Conduct to Motivate Students’ Participation at Post-listening Stage 53

Table 4.7: Stages Often Omitted in Listening Classes 55

Table 4.8: Reasons for Teachers' Omission 55

Table 4.9: Teachers’ Adaptation of Listening Sections in “Tieng Anh 11” 57

Table 4.10: Difficulties in Teaching Listening Perceived by Teachers 58

Table 4.11: Students' Suggestions for Better Listening Teaching and Learning 60

Table 4.12: Teachers' Suggestions for Better Listening Lessons 61

Table 4.13: Teachers' Evaluation on the Effectiveness of Activities in the Pilot Listening Lesson 86

Figure 4.1: Evaluation of the Listening Skill 33

Figure 4.2: The Importance of Listening Skills 34

Figure 4.3: The Importance of Listening Teaching Skill 35

Figure 4.4: Teachers’ Interests in Teaching Listening Skills 36

Figure 4.5: Students' Interests in Listening Lessons 38

Figure 4.6: Reasons for Students' Low Interests 39

Figure 4.7: Students' Assessment towards Listening Sections in "Tieng Anh 11" 40

Figure 4.8: Level of Difficulty of Listening Tasks in "Tieng Anh 11" 41

Figure 4.9: Students' Most Difficult Listening Activity 42

Figure 4.10: Students' Favourite Activities in Listening Classes 43

Figure 4.11: Activities Teachers Often Use at While-listening Stage 50

Of these four language skills, listening has long been considered the mostchallenging and difficult one by both foreign language teachers and students Inreality, in many high schools in Vietnam in general and in Nghe An in particular,teaching English listening skills has not been paid much attention to As a result, thequalities and effectiveness of teaching and learning this skill are not really as goodand high as expected From the fact that most EFL teachers at high schools in Nghe

An have faced a lot of problems in teaching listening, the researcher found thatalthough teaching and learning English listening skills was significant, it was nottaken careful considerations by higher administrators, educators, teachers andstudents In addition, lack of well-equipped facilities, teachers’ unsuitable teachinglistening methods, poor listening methodology and approaches and students’ lowlevel of proficiency, boredom, indifference as well as de-motivation are obstacles inmost high schools in Nghe An

Within this background, the author would like to conduct a study dealing

Nghe An in order to work out current and potential problems, examine teachers’solutions to these difficulties, then propose appropriate teaching methods andstrategies that can facilitate the English listening teaching

Hopefully, the study will benefit teachers who want to be successful in theEnglish listening teaching

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The aims of the study are as follows:

- To find out the real situation of teaching listening sections in “Tieng Anh11” at high schools in Nghe An

- To investigate EFL teachers' problems in teaching listening sections in

"Tieng Anh 11"

- To suggest some solutions and implications for improving teachinglistening sections in “Tieng Anh 11” at high schools in Nghe An

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

For the above aims, the following three research questions are posed:

1 What is the reality of teaching listening sections in “Tieng Anh 11” at high schools in Nghe An?

2 What difficulties do EFL teachers encounter in teaching listening sections

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research is conducted with 11th form students and EFL teachers whohave been teaching listening skills in “Tieng Anh 11” at high schools in Nghe An.The study mainly has a look at existing problems in teaching English listening andpoints out teachers’ solutions to these problems

Besides, the research has just given some suggestions and implications so as

to partly improve the quality of teaching English listening skills at high schools

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The research consists of the following chapters:

- Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter deals with rationale, aims, research questions, scope and theorganization of the study

- Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will provide an in-depth review of the previous studies of theissues of teaching and learning English listening skills It then presents the nature ofteaching listening such as definitions of listening, the importance of listening skills,teachers' role in teaching listening, the challenge of teaching listening skills,strategies to teach listening, common methods of teaching listening, principles ofteaching English listening skills as well as stages of teaching listening skills.Additionally, it gives out an overview of the "Tieng Anh 11" textbook Finally, anintroduction about Coolspeech software will be presented

- Chapter 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter will present research approach, subjects, data collectioninstruments and research procedures, data analysis and reliability and validity

- Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter will summarize major findings of the study, suggest someimplications or recommendations for teachers when teaching listening skills at highschools Finally, the author provides some suggested listening activities for listeningsections in "Tieng Anh 11"

- Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

This chapter will summarize what have been done in the research and offerimplications for the study and some suggestions for further research

2.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES RELATED TO THE TOPIC

It can be said that listening is one of the most challenging skills for both EFLteachers and learners Therefore, more and more studies of the issues of teachingand learning this kill have been particularly concerned by a lot of researchers andeducators

Yagang (1993) pointed out four major factors that made listening difficult tolearners such as the message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting Healso suggested some solutions to these problems so that EFL teachers could providetheir students with suitable listening materials, background and linguisticknowledge, comfortable classroom conditions, enabling skills and useful drills toencourage them to obtain effective listening strategies

Olaofe (1994) studied teaching listening comprehension in large classes Hebelieved that students could get a lot even under these conditions In his viewpoint,

it was possible to create an interactive learning environment in large listeningclasses In this case, the only solution is to work in groups in which all the learnersshould attempt to do the task individually before getting involved in group-discussion During group reports and presentations, practice in note-taking wasemphasized and the whole class participation enhanced As a result, the usualrowdiness accompanying group presentation is considerably reduced

Jian (2005) paid much attention to teaching listening in a communicativeclassroom She showed the disadvantages of traditional listening teaching anddiscovered some communicative ways to teach listening from her experience In thetraditional classes, teachers act as “a tape-recorder player” and students are “passivelisteners” In contrast, in the communicative classes, students are given a realcommunicative environment with a variety of listening tasks, materials and listeningstrategies so that they can become more active and skillful in listening Therefore,the Communicative Language Teaching requires teachers to eradicate the traditionalimage of recording players and equip themselves with more knowledge and skills

Djiwandono (2006) indicated a technique for teaching listeningcomprehension that is a combination of cooperative and stragic learning Studentsare required to work in pairs or in small groups and then cooperate incomprehending the message of a recorded speech by using listening strategies Thistechnique helps teachers create a positive classroom atmosphere as well as promotesinteraction among students

The above foreign studies, to some extent, have significantly contributed toteaching and learning listening skill

In Vietnam, this issue has also been received much attention via variousstudies by teachers and educators It proves that teaching listening skills forVietnamese learners has become an integral part in the trend of globalization Sofar, there have been many researches related to this field Le Thi Xuan Anh (2001)

Phung Thi Hoai Thu (2008) examined listening difficulties perceived byteachers and students in using the new English textbook for grade 10 at Que Vo IIupper-secondary school in Bac Ninh Teachers encountered the obstacles such asthe lack of well-equipped facilities, unfamiliar listening teaching methods,inexperience in teaching listening methodology and approaches Furthermore,students’ low levels of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation,skills as well as learning habits were the reasons why students found it difficult andtough to listen to and they were not confident enough to do listening taskssuccessfully Hence, there was a must to create better suitable teaching methods andstrategies that could facilitate the effectiveness of listening lessons

Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan (2011) kept on studying the difficulties in teachinglistening comprehension in the course book “Head for Business” to the second-yearstudents at Economics Department, Hanoi Open University She pointed out thechallenges that listening teachers often face when teaching the listeningcomprehension part of the course book such as the lack of academic training forteachers, students’ mixed abilities and passive learning habits, poor facility ofteaching and learning, time allocation for listening comprehension as well ascharacteristics of the listening comprehension The research also suggested somesolutions to improve the efficiency of the listening comprehension

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen (2010) suggested using songs as a supplementarymaterial in teaching listening for the first-year non-major students of English at

Phuong Dong University in Hanoi in order to erase their prejudice against listeningskill, evoke their like and improve the students’ listening state

Do Van Hoa (2010) proposed that the third-year students at Hong Duc

University in Thanh Hoa province could improve listening skills through portfolio.

The study emphasized the importance of portfolios to the students' self- study ingeneral and the listening skills in particular Pedagogically, the findings of the studywere believed to be useful for teachers to be aware of the essential role of portfolios

to the students' self- study in the listening skills

In summary, it can be seen from the above review that researchers focused

on studying either the general principles for teaching listening skills or the problemsfaced by learners in learning listening and suggested solutions to improve theirlistening skill Besides, their research subjects were mainly students at the tertiarylevel, not high school students On the contrary, this study emphasizes the problemsfaced by Vietnamese high school teachers in teaching listening and their solutions

2.3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.3.1 Teaching English Listening Skills

2.3.1.1 What is the Listening Skill?

It is thought that listening plays an important role in the process of acquiring

a language However, different scholars defined this concept differently

Listening is theoretically considered as a process in which individualsconcentrate on selected area of aural input, construct meaning from passages, andrelate what they hear to existing knowledge (O’Malley, Chamot and Kupper(1989))

Rost (1994) states that listening is a complex process which enables us tocomprehend spoken message

Anderson and Lynch (1988) define listening as “the means to immediate oral

production, the imitation of spoken forms” Listeners hear the input as well as

comprehension is that the learners are able to talk and write about what they haveheard after listening The term “active model builder” is used to refer to thelisteners’ language; they have to build their own “coherent interpretation” of spokenlanguage The authors emphasize that the “mental model” which is built as arepresentation of a spoken message is the result of our combining the newinformation in what we just heard with our previous knowledge and experience

Buck (2001, p.31) points out that listening is an active process ofconstructing meaning by utilizing knowledge to the incoming sound in which bothlinguistic and non-linguistic knowledge are involved He indicates that

“comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that potentially anycharacteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect thecomprehension of the message”

In short, it can be said that listening is a language skill involving a widerange of “sub-skills” It is more than simply hearing; it is “decoding” sounds andunderstanding the meaning behind those sounds

2.3.1.2 The Importance of Listening Skills

In daily life, people spend much time listening: students listen to theirteachers, children listen to their parents, and adults listen to the news on TV andradio Therefore, listening is said to be the most common communicative activity indaily life: “we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than

we read, and five times more than we write” (Morley, 1991: 82)

In language use, the listening skill plays an integral part It consists ofvarious types of listener’s knowledge: knowledge of phonology, vocabulary, andsemantics of the language in use, culture of its people, his life experience in thetopic, his ability to predict and respond It decides his understanding, content andattitudes towards the speaker’s saying or utterance as well As a result, we will fail

to communicate with others if we are bad at listening as Mathews, Spratt andDangerfield concludes “communication cannot successfully take place unless what

is spoken is also understood” (1991: 61)

What is more, we cannot develop speaking skills unless we also developlistening skills; to have a successful conversation, students must understand what issaid to them Later, the ability to understand spoken English may become veryimportant for listening to the radio, understanding foreign visitors, studying and so

on In order to develop this ability, students need a lot of practice in listening toEnglish spoken at a normal speed That is because students can acquire the language

of “picking up” structures and vocabulary through listening to spoken English Weshould give students as much opportunity to listen to spoken English as possiblebecause they do not have the language environment outside the classroom

Harmer (2000) argues that apart from their teacher’s accents and varieties,the learners should be prepared to hear different ones for the real world listeningsuch as telephone conversations, speeches, broadcast news, announcement,advertisement, etc

In reality, students’ poor listening ability can cause communicationbreakdown Listening skill, thus, is an indispensable part in EFL learningenvironment in Vietnam today In the current high school curriculum, listening is anessential language skill that takes up 20% of the lesson’s content in Englishtextbooks

In summary, listening provides the aural input that serves as the basis forsecond language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spokencommunication

2.3.1.3 Teacher’s Role in Teaching Listening

Since a lot of students feel afraid of listening, teachers had better be a guide

to encourage and motivate them

Gardner and Lambert (1972) propose that the way teacher presents thecontents must be dynamic and interesting to get students involved In addition,teachers should find out activities and employ different techniques Brown (1994)

Teachers are responsible for proceeding the lesson in a productive way inorder to make the students feel relaxed and unthreatened by the listening tasks.

2.3.1.4 The Challenge of Teaching Listening Skills

Teaching listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any ESLteacher This is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and withmuch practice It is frustrating for students because there are no rules as in grammarteaching Speaking and writing also have very specific exercises that can lead toimproved skills This is not to say that there are not ways of improving listeningskill; however they are difficult to quantify

It can be seen that listening equipments such as listening tapes, cassetteplayers play an important role in teaching English listening skill Thus, good andmodern listening equipments are vital for teaching listening However, there are notmany high schools in Vietnam which can meet this requirement In addition,cassette players are sometimes not the best way of teaching listening because thevolume of the cassette players may be not loud or good enough or the noise outsidethe classroom may affect or distract their listening As a result, teaching listeningbecomes more difficult But in fact, most of Vietnamese high schools use cassetteplayers as the main tool

Many teachers state that the new textbooks cover a large amount ofknowledge which hinders students’ listening learning whereas many students aretoo weak to catch the listening text That is because they lack vocabulary, grammar,

pronunciation and background knowledge Therefore, it is very difficult for teachers

to organize the listening lessons and use all of activities they designed in their class

Moreover, many students do not really pay attention to the listening skill.They only focus on learning grammar, vocabulary and ignore this skill They do notlike learning listening because they find it very difficult and finally they spend littletime practicing it Hence, this negatively affects the process of teaching listeningskills of teachers

Last but not least, the characteristics of spoken language are considered asthe most challenging factor facing teachers of English Brown (2001, p.252- 254)summarizes eight characteristics of spoken language by some authors as follows:

 Clustering: teachers must help students to pick out manageable clusters ofwords which facilitate students in getting the idea of the whole utterance

 Redundancy: teachers need to help students realize that every new sentence

or phrase will contain new information by looking for the signals ofredundancy such as rephrasing, repetitions, elaborations and little insertions

 Reduced forms: phonological reduction, morphological contractions,syntactic or pragmatics cause big difficulties for listening learners

 Performance variables: hesitations, false starts, pauses and correction arevariables that prevent learners from catching the correct idea They have tolisten for the meaning in the midst of those distractions

 Colloquial language: learners sometimes find it difficult to deal with idioms,slang, reduced forms, etc

 Rate of delivery: fast and natural native speech gets learners in trouble whenthey listen to the passage

 Stress, rhythm and intonation: questions, statements and emphasis as well assarcasm, endearment, insult, solicitation, praise and so on, can becomprehended via prosodic features of the English language and intonationpatterns

 Interaction: students should learn how to respond and to continue a chain oflistening and responding based on the rules of negotiation, clarification,attending signals, turn taking, topic nomination, maintenance andtermination

2.3.1.5 Strategies to Teach Listening

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that support the listening comprehension by providing how the listening input is processed by the listeners.

Researchers have categorized them into two types of strategies such as bottom-upprocessing and top-down processing

Bottom-up technique is text based The listeners catch the meaning based on

the language in the message such as the combination of sounds, words andgrammar According to Rubin (1994: 210), the listeners make use of “hisknowledge of words, syntax, and grammar to work on form” This process is in theclose relation with the listeners’ linguistic knowledge Therefore, we can askstudents to listen for specific details, recognize cognates or recognize word orderpatterns Listening for exact phrases or words, individual grammatical structures orsentence structures would be considered a bottom-up listening

However, bottom-up technique has its own weakness To understand the text,

the listeners must have an interactive process between their previous knowledge andthe text

Top-down processing is listener based The listeners use the knowledge

inside the head which is not directly encoded in words While few English learnerswould have little trouble in comprehending the sounds, words and clauses in thegiven messages, it is unlikely that they can demonstrate comprehension by listening

to the text and writing a précis or providing a verbal account If we apply thistechnique, we can ask students to listen for the main idea, predict what ishappening, draw inferences and summarize

Top-down processing requires listeners’ background knowledge about the

text However, the listeners may fail to understand unfamiliar information unlessthey only depend on their background knowledge They need the linguistic

knowledge in listening comprehension Top-down processing refers to how we use

our world knowledge to attribute meaning to language input; how our knowledge ofsocial convention helps us understand meaning

To deal with the disadvantages of both processes, the interactive processing

that is a combination of both techniques has been given out since the early 1980s Inthis process, listeners use both their background knowledge information, contextualinformation and linguistic information to create comprehension and interpretation.The listeners will employ the background knowledge to make predictions when thecontent of the material is familiar to them Otherwise, if they are unfamiliar with thecontent of the listening text and lack of language proficiency, they are able to makesense of information based on their linguistic knowledge especially the lexical andsyntactical knowledge Besides, students can have a chance to interact with eachother before and after listening to share the knowledge

2.3.1.6 Common Methods of Teaching Listening

Underwood (1989, p90-109) indicates four common methods of teachingsecond or foreign language listening which are grammar- translation method,grammar method, audio-lingual method and task-based method

Grammar- translation method: Students listen to a description of the rules ofthe second language in the first language That means when the second language isused, the emphasis of any listening is on translation of lexical items or grammarstructures

Grammar method: the teacher asks students to look at a written text whilelistening to the recording They are forced to do some things: identify words bytheir position in the sentence, work out the relationship between words and phrases,

Audio-lingual method: This method focuses on first listening topronunciation and grammar forms and then imitating those forms by using drillsand exercises which are the basis of classroom practice Students are encouraged tolisten carefully either to the tape recording or the teacher reading out, a drill or adialogue They record their own version or repeat parts of the dialogue or drillthrough cues from the teacher Basically, the more correct phrases or sentences arerepeated, the longer the students remember the structures

Task-based method: This method places an emphasis on activities or tasksthat listeners do in class in order to develop their communicative competence

To sum up, the four methods of teaching listening are not mutually exclusiveand in reality, they may be combined in any particular course or class However,along with Communicative Language Teaching, teaching listening seems to bemore meaningful to students because they have a chance to practise and developtheir listening skills and other language skills

2.3.1.7 Principles of Teaching English Listening Skills

In order to teach any language skill, it is very important for teachers tofollow the principles for teaching that skill successfully and methodically Forseth

et al (1996: 72) suggests seven principles for teaching listening skills

First, teachers should use authentic texts and present them naturally andrealistically with background noise or interruptions and different voice types andaccents

Second, teachers had better include various types of texts such asconversations/ dialogues, jokes, lectures, news broadcasts, songs or narratives tomake students get used to listening to different pieces of speech and avoid boredom

Third, teachers need to use primarily meaning based tasks for students to do.For students at the lower levels, some tasks may not be meaning-based but thelonger-term goal is to use language for communication

Fourth, teachers should state a specific purpose for listening task The taskshould be designed to practice on or more sub-skills (skimming totalcomprehension…)

2.3.1.8 Stages of Teaching Listening Skills

Teaching listening text can be divided into three main stages: pre-listening,while-listening and post-listening Each stage has its own aims and activities

a) Pre-listening

Pre-listening stage aims at preparing students with everything necessary forlistening and understanding the listening text This stage is of great importancesince it leads students to the listening passage that they are going to listen, arousestheir interests and provides students with the purposes of listening

Some activities at this stage are:

 Warming up the class: The teacher may motivate the class, gradually set

up a context for listening text to be presented by asking questions to elicitstudents’ experience, or ideas concerning the coming text or by using somesort of visual aids or their imagination

 Introducing the topic of listening text: The teacher briefly introduces thetopic of listening text so that the students may get their mind already for it

 Presenting key words: The teacher only presents any word that isnecessary for students to understand the text

 Giving guiding questions: These guiding questions will help focus thestudents’ attention on the main points of the text They will guide thestudents to the better understanding of the text Students should be allowed tomake guesses at the answer to the questions before listening

These activities may give students a chance to get some knowledge which

material is available or not, the interests of the class and the teacher, the place wherethe work is being carried out, the nature and the content of the listening text itself Ifone of these factors is ignored, the whole process of the activity can be failed

b) While-listening

The aim of this stage is to facilitate students’ listening and check theircomprehension While the students are listening to the text for the first time, theycan check their guess and give the correct answer to the guiding questions Then theteacher gives the students some tasks to do while they are listening for the secondtime They can do some of the activities such as: gap-filling, true or falsestatements, answering comprehension questions, matching, multiple choice,reordering, etc The students may need to listen to the text more than once so thatthey can finish their while-listening activities After checking the students’ answers,the teacher should emphasize the key points of the text and explain the difficulties

in vocabulary or structures that the students encounter while listening Teachersmust make sure that students are not allowed to look at the tapescript of thelistening text

While-listening stage gives students a guide to practice listening becausethey need a reason to listen which helps them to focus their attention As Rixon(1986) mentions, the purpose of while-listening stage is to challenge and guidestudents to master the information and the message from the passage To facilitatestudents’ comprehension, the teacher should provide useful techniques such as clearinstructions, playing tapes on purposes, classifying levels of difficulty of task fromeasier to more difficult, and so on

The topic of the listening text and the students’ interests also decides thesuccess of the while-listening tasks Students may feel bored if the same activitiesare repeated over and over again Thus a variety of activities should be done ondifferent occasions It is advisable that while-listening activities should suitstudents’ different levels and needs so that they are encouraged to listen better

c) Post-listening

At this stage, students can have opportunities to practice using what theyhave got from the listening text Post-listening activities are performed after thelistening is finished According to Underwood (1989), the first purpose of thoseactivities is to check how well the students understood and whether they havefinished the listening task The second one is to reflect on why some students havefailed to understand or miss parts of the passage Moreover, post-listening activitiesaims at expanding the topic or the language of the listening text Students are alsogiven an opportunity to consider the attitude of the speaker in the listening textbecause they can realize the purpose of the speaker based on his/her attitude

Students can do some following activities:

 Summarizing the text orally or in written form

 Re-telling the content of the listening text

 Role-play: Students play the roles of the characters in the text

 Discussion: Students can discuss the main points in the listening text orgiving their comments about the information in the text

The teacher should make up and vary the activities for students to do at thisstage depending on their level of English

In addition, the teacher should pay more attention to the following factors inselecting post-listening activities:

 The amount of language work the teacher desires to do related to thelistening text

 The time limitation

 Speaking, reading and writing skills should be integrated in post-listeningactivities

 Pair work and group work should be encouraged

 The designed activity should be motivating to students

The “Tieng Anh 11” textbook comprises sixteen units; each unit presents a

theme that is updated to many fields of daily life such as friendship, personal

experiences, a party, volunteer work, illiteracy, competitions, world population, celebrations, the post office, nature in danger, sources of energy, the Asian Games, hobbies, recreation, space conquest, the wonders of the world With the aim of

improving students’ communicative skills and systematizing important linguisticcomponents, those themes are introduced through five sections: reading, speaking,listening, writing and language focus

Reading is chosen as the first section in every unit on purpose Reading textand tasks that focus on developing different reading skills motivate and familiarizestudents with the theme and useful information and language items Each section isdivided into three stages to obtain different language skills and knowledge

2.3.2.2 Objectives and Approaches to the Textbook Development

The “Tieng Anh 11” textbook has the following specific objectives:

 Listening: comprehending main and specific information of the text ordialogue; improving basic listening skills

 Speaking: asking-answering, presenting the given topics; using dailycommunication such as asking and giving opinions, asking for and givinginformation, making requests, expressing agreements and disagreementsand so on

A theme-based approach is used throughout the textbook instead of astructural approach of the old textbooks in which structures were selected, presentedand graded, and students practiced various meaningless and uncommunicative drills.

In order to stimulate students, the textbook authors select a great deal of topicswhich suit students’ interests and needs in life The themes are split into a variety oftopics to both attract students and guarantee the systematicity of the content

2.3.2.3 Teaching Approaches of the “Tieng Anh 11” Textbook

With a great emphasis on students’ communicative ability, the textbookauthors utilized communicative and learner-centered approaches where oral andaural skills and language for practical use are focused Nunan (1994: 194) points outthat in communicative language teaching, language is a system for the expression ofmeaning The learners are negotiators and integrators whereas the teacher’s role isjust a facilitator of the communicative process The students are responsible fortheir own learning and the teachers pay more attention to their plan and assessment

on the students’ needs and abilities

The students are not only memorizing information but also working withand use the information individually or with partners They are given more choicesand opportunities to express their own ideas or opinions about the topics assigned.McCombs and Whistler (1997) states that “learners are treated as co-creators in thelearning process, as individuals with ideas and issues that deserve attention and

While the teacher-centeredness where the teacher taught, used the textbook,and promoted discussion, the learner-centered approach allows students to workindependently, in pairs or in groups on specific assignments The teachers function

as monitors and advisers who control the class and help their students whennecessary

In short, in order to better the teaching process, the “Tieng Anh 11” textbookrequires teachers to develop new skills and techniques related to the newmethodology Teachers should learn new teaching skills and improve theirproficiency and ability to meet the pedagogical requirements

2.3.3 Introduction of Coolspeech Software

CoolSpeech is a useful software that serves as a text to speech converter andplayer, which works on the Windows platform, developed by ByteCool Software Itcontrols text-to-speech engines compliant with Microsoft Speech API to fetch andread aloud text from a variety of sources, including websites, email accounts, localtext documents (.txt, rtf, htm/html), the Windows Clipboard, keyboard input fromanywhere in Windows, and the current date and time It has the following features:

 Listen to online news from any URL specified by the user

 Read local text files, rich-text files and HTML files aloud

 Convert a given piece of text into a spoken wave file (.wav)

 Listen to new messages from POP3 email accounts specified by the user

 Listen to every word or sentence the user has just typed anywhere in Windows

 Listen to text copied to the Windows Clipboard immediately

 Schedule files, URLs and emails to be read aloud

 Tell the current time and the date in different styles

(Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoolSpeech)

of the participants and the instruments for gathering data.

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN

Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were chosen to deal with thedata in this research However, the researcher used the quantitative approach tocollect the data for this study The questionnaires are used in order to getinformation from the participants On the other hand, the qualitative method wasused to support the research That is because qualitative research is considered asgenerally examining people’s words, actions in narrative or descriptive ways moreclosely representing the situation as experienced by the participants (Maykut andMorehouse, 1994) The purpose of qualitative research is to discover theparticipants’ perspectives through their feelings, thoughts, beliefs, ideas and actions

in natural situations The qualitative research in which interviews and classobservations are employed allows the author to report the data results in wordsrather than numbers

3.3 SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY

The data of the research were drawn from two groups: EFL teachers and 11th

form students at high schools in Nghe An including Nam Dan II, Do Luong I, HaHuy Tap

Currently Teaching English at a

As seen from the table above, the first group involves 18 female teachers and

2 male ones who have been teaching listening skills in “Tieng Anh 11” to 11th formstudents in Nghe An high schools They are from 25 to 35 years old Most of theteachers have BA degree, a few have MA one The majority of the teachers (55%)have been teaching for 5 to 10 years 20% of the teachers have been teaching forover ten years and 5 teachers (25%) have been teaching for less than 5 years.Among the surveyed teachers, 5 teachers (25%) are currently teaching at a highschool in a city, 40% of the teachers are presently teaching at a high school in atown-let The rest (35%) are currently teaching at a high school in a rural area

All of them have opportunities to approach the new teaching methods inEnglish Language Teacher Training Project methodology course All of them were

questioned and interviewed for the aim of the study Some of their classes wereobserved to provide the author with the real situation of teaching and learningEnglish listening skills in “Tieng Anh 11”

Years of Learning English

Less than 3 years 24 24From 3 to 5 years 66 66More than 5 years 10 10

Currently Learning English at a

“Tieng Anh 11” as their official English textbook at present

Among them, 10 students have been studying English for more than 5 years.66% of the students have been learning English from 3 to 5 years The rest (24%)have been learning English for less than 3 years The number is different due to thedifference of learning conditions among city, town, township and rural area To getthe findings, the author randomly chose 30 students learning in the city, 30 studentslearning in the town-let and 40 students learning in the rural area in Nghe An Theywere asked to fill in the questionnaire

3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS

Questionnaires and class observations would help the researcher collect themain data for the study Besides, informal interviews with the teachers wereconducted so as to obtain more information

- Questionnaire: The two survey questionnaires were administrated to the

subjects Some of the questions in the questionnaires are open-ended so that therespondents had opportunities to give their own ideas about items raised

Questionnaire A (see Appendix 1) consisting of 18 questions was delivered

to 20 EFL teachers It aimed to get teachers’ perspectives of teaching listening, theirexisting problems in teaching listening sections in “Tieng Anh 11” and how theysolve these problems All questions were written in English

Questionnaire B (see Appendix 2) including 10 questions was designed for

100 students of grade 11 with the aim of eliciting the students’ attitudes towardslistening sections in “Tieng Anh 11” and how they evaluate the currently-usedlistening material All the questions were translated into Vietnamese to enable thestudents to understand and give the exact information

The purposes, requirements of collecting data were clearly explained to bothteachers and students before they answered the questions in the questionnaires

- Class observation: This is a very important method to ensure the reliability

of the questionnaire Class observation provided supplementary data on the realsituation of teaching and learning English listening The author will observe Englishlistening classes of grade 11 It is said to clarify and test the validity of informationabout actual teaching listening context; the challenges faced by EFL teachers andtheir solutions to the problems occurred in their classes

Class observations are implemented in 6 classes of grade 11 Twelvelistening lessons were observed throughout the school year 2010-2011

The information was recorded by note-taking in the observation sheet (seeAppendix 5) designed by the author in advance

- Interview: In addition to the questionnaires and class observation, the

author will interview some teachers to get their ideas about the research issues

Therefore, the author will know more useful information beside the questionnaire

An unstructured interview is more like a natural conversation between theinterviewer and the interviewee; thus teachers would discuss more about the itemsraised in the questionnaire freely and truly This technique supported and confirmedthe data results collected from the questionnaires

+ Teachers' interviews:

The interview was carried out with 5 randomly-chosen teachers of Englishand it took each of them about 15 minutes to talk about the research issues Achecklist of interview questions was planned before making conversations withteachers of English (see Appendix 3) The teachers interviewed were asked toexpress their own ideas in Vietnamese in order that they would feel morecomfortable during their talks The interviews were conducted during the break time

at school for later analysis

+ Students' interviews:

Interviews for students were carried out with two stages First, an interviewchecklist of 6 questions was used to ask 10 randomly-chosen students about thedifficulties they encountered during learning listening sections communicativelywith Tieng Anh 11 (see Appendix 4) The informal in-depth interviews alsoconducted right after each observed listening lesson or in the break time Thepurpose of the interview was to find out the obstacles that undermined students'communication and interaction in listening lessons as well as their expectation fromtheir teachers for each listening period

At the second stage, a randomly-chosen group of students was interviewedafter the researcher had conducted the pilot teaching with adapted listening lessonsfrom Tieng Anh 11 The purpose of this interview was to explore students'expectation and attitudes towards adapting Tieng Anh 11 for teaching listeningmore communicatively This was also the expecting result that the researcher hadharbored the dream of implementing this research

3.5 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

First of all, the author designed survey questionnaires and delivered to 100students grade 11 and 20 teachers of English at high schools in Nghe An in order tocollect information for the study

Second, interviews will be done to get more ideas from teachers and studentsdirectly and clearly about listening difficulties, how teachers overcome theseobstacles and how to better English listening teaching in “Tieng Anh 11”

Finally, class observations are very important to examine the currentteaching context in each listening lesson The data was tape-recorded andtranscripted

3.6 DATA ANALYSIS

First, data collected from the survey and observations will be analyzed indetail and the results will be categorized to synthesize At the same time, interviewswith teachers who have just participated in the survey will help the author clarifyand illustrate their opinions

3.7 RESEARCH PROCEDURES

To sum up, the procedures of the research includes the following steps:

1 Collecting data through questionnaires, interviews and class observations

2 Clarifying the data into intended groups

3 Doing statistical calculation

4 Describing the collected data presented in tables and figures

5 Generalizing and giving comments and evaluations

3.8 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

The reliability of the research laid in the consistency of the data gained fromthe questionnaires, interviews and class observations The results collected from thequestionnaires are similar to the information gained from the interviews with the

3.9 SUMMARY

In brief, with the combination of both quantitative and qualitative methodsthrough 120 questionnaires, 10 pilot interviews and 15 in-depth interviews of bothEFL teachers and high school students grade 11 in Nghe An, the researcher devised

a very careful plan to collect and analyze the data elaborately so that the researchresults can be highly appreciated

4.2 FINDINGS

4.2.1 The Reality of Teaching Listening at High Schools in Nghe An

4.2.1.1 Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes towards Listening Teaching and Learning

The beginning of the questionnaires focused on finding the informationabout teachers’ and students’ opinions on the listening skill and its importancecompared to other skills

a Evaluation of the Listening Skill

 Question for students: How do you feel about the listening skill in comparison

with other skills?

Figure 4.1: Evaluation of the Listening Skill

The results collected from the questionnaire showed that more than half of thestudents (65%) thought that the listening skill was the most difficult one incomparison with the other three language skills 35% of them considered the listeningskill as difficult as others Surprisingly, none of the students felt that the listening skillwas the easiest one to study Therefore, listening was the most challenging skillamong the four language skills It was reasonable that most students were unable tocomprehend spoken English required at their beginning level

b The Importance of Listening Skills

Question for students: Do you find it important to learn listening skills?

Despite the level of difficulty of listening skills, their importance wasappreciated by many students in Nghe An The students' attitude towards listeningskills was described as follows:

Figure 4.2: The Importance of Listening Skills

A remarkable number of the informants (75% of the students including 10%

of them reported listening skills were very important and 65% of them said that theywere important) found listening really necessary and important to study However,

25 students (25%) refused the value of listening skills In the interviews, theyexplained that there was no evaluation standard or examination on such skills

10%

65%

Very importantImportantNot very importantNot important at all