Using shadowing to improve listening skills for grade 10 mixed ability students at a high school in hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ***************** TRỊNH THU HƯƠNG USING SHADOWING TO IMPROVE LISTEN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

TRỊNH THU HƯƠNG

USING SHADOWING TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS

FOR GRADE 10 MIXED-ABILITY STUDENTS

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI

(Sử dụng kỹ thuật bắt chước để cải thiện kỹ năng nghe

cho học sinh lớp 10 có trình độ khác nhau tại một trường cấp ba ở Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI - 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

TRỊNH THU HƯƠNG

USING SHADOWING TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS

FOR GRADE 10 MIXED-ABILITY STUDENTS

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI

(Sử dụng kỹ thuật bắt chước để cải thiện kỹ năng nghe

cho học sinh lớp 10 có trình độ khác nhau tại một trường cấp ba ở Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

HANOI - 2020

i

DECLARATION

I declare that this minor thesis named “Using shadowing to improve listening skills for grade 10 mixed-ability students at a high school in Hanoi” is the study of my own research and the substance of the thesis has

not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi, 2020

Trịnh Thu Hương

Secondly, my special thanks are also sent to all lecturers, my classmates, as well as my colleagues for their precious comments and for their continuous encouragements

Thirdly, I appreciate the cooperation given to me by students at Hoang Mai High School Without their sincere participation and valuation opinions, the study would not have been accomplished

Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my family for their continuous support during my time of fulfilling this thesis

make their listening lessons more interesting

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as the Second Language

L2: Second language

MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Paired Samples Statistics

Table 2: Paired Samples Correlations

Table 3: Paired Samples Test

Table 4: Students’ evaluation of shadowing technique

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Comparison of students’ performance in the pre-test and post-test

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TABLES OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 3

4 The scope of the study 3

5 Research methods 3

6 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Theoretical background 5

2.1.1 Definitions of listening 5

2.1.2 The significance of listening 7

2.1.3 The processes of listening 10

2.1.4 Listening skills 12

2.1.5 Difficulties in learning listening skills 13

2.2 Shadowing 15

2.2.1 Definition of shadowing 15

2.2.2 Advantages of shadowing 17

2.2.3 Teaching procedures by using shadowing 20

2.3 Mixed-ability classes 20

2.3.1 Definition of mixed-ability classes 20

2.3.2 Challenges of mixed-ability classes 22

2.3.3 Strategies for teaching mixed-ability classes 24

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2.4 Previous studies on the use of shadowing 26

2.5 Summary 28

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 29

3.1 Setting of the study 29

3.2 Materials 30

3.3 Participants 30

3.4 Data collection instruments 31

3.4.1 Pre-test and post-test 31

3.4.2 Questionnaire 31

3.5 Data collection procedure 32

3.6 Summary 32

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33

4.1 Findings 33

4.1.1 Research question 1 33

4.1.2 Research question 2 37

4.2 Discussion 42

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 44

5.1 Recapitulation 44

5.2 Limitations of the study 45

5.3 Suggestions for further studies 46

REFERENCES 47 APPENDICES I

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

It cannot be denied that English is the dominant language because of its contributions in many fields such as technology, science, education, entertainment, economy, culture and so on Because of this reason, more and more people especially young learners who wish to master English; and the number is rapidly increasing day by day English not only broadens students’ knowledge but also helps them have many good chances to develop themselves Moreover, the use of English among young Vietnamese students

is becoming more and more popular

In recent years, English has been a mandatory subject in curriculums in the educational system of Vietnam English is regarded as a challenging subject as well as practical demand for learners to achieve their better study or their success in the near future However, obtaining a good language competence is not simple for all learners; it requires a huge effort from them Although each one of the four language skills – listening, speaking, reading, and writing, has their own characteristics, listening is said to be the most challenging skill to learners The factors that affect the learners’ listening ability are various such as pronunciation, stress, intonation or misunderstanding the information of speakers, etc In order to improve such difficulties, it is suggested that learners should find some suitable methods as well as practise listening more and more at any time

As a high school English teacher, I always wish to find ways that can help my students overcome difficulties in learning English in general and listening skills in particular One of the ways I want to use is shadowing in my teaching process Despite the fact that shadowing was originally designed to train simultaneous interpreters, it has attracted much attention in the field of

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teaching and learning foreign languages and is now being widely used in classrooms On the one hand, if shadowing is often implemented in teaching English, it helps teachers make a positive listening practicing environment for their students On the other hand, shadowing keeps learners continuously learning It is clear that shadowing can not only enhance learner’s listening skills but also can help them improve other skills such as speaking or reading

At Hoang Mai High School, a private high school, English is a compulsory subject for all students from grade 10 to grade 12 Moreover, as they have learnt English since primary school, they have already been familiar with the learning of English at high school However, because of their poor listening skills and their mixed abilities in one class, they find it difficult to learn other skills That is to say, they cannot understand what is said by their English teachers It is necessary for students to improve their listening skills

so that they will be able to understand the listening materials as well as speak English better

For the reasons mentioned above, I have decided to undertake this

action research entitled “Using shadowing to improve listening skills for

grade 10 mixed-ability students at a high school in Hanoi”

2 Aims of the study

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of shadowing technique

to improve English listening skills of the students at Hoang Mai High School Two objectives are set to fulfil this aim The first objective is to examine how the use of shadowing technique helps improve the listening skills of the students at Hoang Mai High School And the second one is to identify students’ attitudes towards learning English listening skills, and towards using shadowing technique in learning skills

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3 Research questions

To fulfil the aims stated above, two questions are raised for exploration:

1 To what extent can the use of shadowing improve listening skills for grade 10 mixed-ability students at Hoang Mai High School?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards using shadowing in developing listening skills?

4 The scope of the study

Needless to say, the overview of the various aspects of English listening skills is essential The use of shadowing technique in language teaching and learning has been approved for decades because of its variety of benefits in enhancing four English skills in general, and also in terms of listening skills in particular Shadowing plays an undeniable role in improving students’ listening skills including pronunciation and understanding what speakers are saying However, within the scope of this paper, the author will attempt to target the students’ listening skills by applying the shadowing technique

The participants of the study include only 60 10th-grade students at Hoang Mai High School who are non-English majors

5 Research methods

To realize the aim and objectives of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used The data for the study were collected through the following instruments

+ Doing statistics analyses from pre-test and a post-test is to explore the effectiveness of using the shadowing technique to improve listening skills for grade 10 mixed-ability students and answer research question 1

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+ Asking students to do the questionnaire is to find out their attitude to the use of shadowing technique in learning listening skills All the questions

in the questionnaire table involved closed and open-minded questions This is

to answer research question 2

6 Design of the study

The thesis is organized around five chapters: Introduction, Literature

Review, Research Methodology, Findings and Discussions, and Conclusion

The Introduction provides a brief overview of the study with more details of the rationale, the objectives, the methods, the research questions, and the scope of the study as well as the design of the study

The Literature Review introduces the theories related to the definitions

of listening, the significance of listening, the processes of listening, the nature

of shadowing, advantages of shadowing, teaching procedures by using shadowing, the theories of mixed-ability classes, challenges of mixed-ability classes, some strategies for teaching mixed-ability classes, and some previous studies on the use of shadowing

The Research Methodology presents the methodology used in the study including the setting, participations, materials, data collection instruments, and data analysis

The Findings and Discussions presents major findings and discussions

in applying shadowing in teaching listening skills

The Conclusion summarizes the main points which have been explored; points out some limitations of the study; and makes some suggestions for further research

References and Appendices round up the research

Field (1989) defines that “listening is an invisible mental process,

making it difficult to describe Learners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large socio-culture context of utterance.”

Sharing the same view, Underwood (1989) gives a clear description of

listening that “the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning

from something we hear.”

Brown (1998) also points out that listening is a skill in which to

identify and understand what is being said, listeners must comprehend “a

speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary.”

From the point of view of Richards (2015), listening is viewed as “the

process of understanding speech in a first or second language.” The author

also emphasizes: “The study of listening comprehension in second language

learning focuses on the role of individual linguistic units (e.g phonemes, words, grammatical structures) as well as the role of listener`s expectations, the situation and context, background knowledge and topic.”

According to Saputra (2014), listening is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary

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and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance Moreover, listening is an active process by which students receive, construct meaning form, and respond to spoken or nonverbal message

Anderson and Lynch (1988) point out that listening is really a receptive skill among side with reading skills and the role of listeners is no longer passive but active After a period of listening, the learners are exposed to be able to talk or write about what they have heard, that is the objectives of

listening comprehension Moreover, he uses the term “active model builder”

to refer to the listeners’ language, listeners have to build their own “coherent

interpretation” of the spoken message Both parts of this term are important

First, it needs to be coherent both in what we believe has just been said and with what is already known about the speaker, the context and the word in general Second, it is an interpretation, in the sense that it is our version of what the speaker meant, as far as we are able to assess that meaning The two authors use the term “mental model” to refer to the listener’s coherent interpretation This emphasizes the active and personal nature of successful listening The mental model is the result of our combining the new information in what we just heard with our previous knowledge and experience

In other words, listening is the ability to identify and understand what the speaker is saying through understanding his accent, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and grasping his meaning Those subcomponents of listening are well explained by Rost (1994) as he draws a particular list of components to master when dealing with this skill:

- Discriminating between sounds

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- Recognizing words

- Identifying stressed words and grouping of words

- Identifying functions in conversations

- Connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation and stress) and

to non-linguistic cues (gestures and relevant objects in the situation) in order

to construct meaning

- Using background knowledge and context to predict and then to confirm meaning

- Recalling important words, topics and ideas

- Giving appropriate feedback to the speaker

- Reformulating what the speaker has said

It is clear that listening is not a simple activity of hearing things; but also it is a complex mental process which requires learners to have certain competence to hear, understand and remember aural symbols

2.1.2 The significance of listening

It can be sure that we spend a large portion of our time listening because it is a key element of oral communication

Nunan & Miller (1995) define the important role of listening in learning a foreign or second language as “listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency

Doff (1988) shows that listening skill is crucial in improving communicative ability because “we cannot develop speaking skill unless we develop listening skills Indeed, if we want to speak well, we firstly must listen to what others say and understand them clearly.”

Rivers (1981), an eminent foreign language teaching methodologist, claims that we listen twice as much as we speak, four times as much as we

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read, and five times as much as we write It has also been estimated recently that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their information at school through listening

to their instructors or to their friends In the past, nevertheless, speaking and listening skills were not taken notice of more than reading and grammar skills Therefore, language learners did not realize the importance of listening

in developing the second language competence

Accordingly, Devine (1982) states that listening is the primary means

by which incoming ideas and information are taken With the same idea, Rost

(2001) also summarizes: “listening is vital in the language classroom because

it provides input for the learner Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.” What’s more, “spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since the learners must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of the language is essential Moreover, learners’ failure to understand the language they hear is

an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning.” He also emphasizes

that “listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’

attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) the language.”

Hedge (2000) points out that listening has a crucial role in everyday life and when people are engaged in communication nine percent is spent to writing, sixteen percent to reading, thirty percent to speaking, and forty-five percent to listening which indicates the significance of listening in the communication process He also indicates that modern society likes to change from printed media towards the sound and its members Therefore, the significance of listening cannot be ignored He emphasizes that listening is of great importance in English language classroom

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Donoghue (1968) has another point of view He considers listening as the final goal of learning a language Listening occupies the basic portion in the context of the language arts and progress in reading, speaking and writing

is directly governed by listening ability It is the most important of the four arts since nearly half of the adult working day and more than half of the child’s classroom activity time is spent in listening Apart from communication interaction, much of the enjoyment in second or foreign language use comes from listening activities like watching films and listening

to radio, songs or talks by the speakers Moreover, the students can gain a lot

of experiences of listening to a wide variety of samples of spoken English Thus, they know different varieties of language such as standard or regional, formal or informal language Through practising day by day, they can flexibly listen to everything, or even for the main ideas, for specific information or to react to instruction Therefore, listening is regarded to be among the most essential educational goals

According to second language acquisition theory, language input is the most essential condition of language acquisition As an input skill, listening plays an important role in students’ language development People acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they hear Thus language acquisition is achieved mainly through receiving understandable language input and listening ability is the critical component in achieving understandable language input

In short, listening is regarded to be among the most important parts of learning English If students learn to listen effectively, they are able to understand, to interpret, to evaluate and to respond to what they hear Thus it

is the most communicative and practical skill that needs to be developed as much as possible

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2.1.3 The processes of listening

Listening is considered theoretically as an active process in which learners focus on selected aspects of aural input, form meaning from passages, and associate what they hear with existing knowledge

Schema is the guiding structure in the comprehension process The

schema is introduced by Anderson and Lynch (1988) as “a mental structure,

consisting of relevant individual knowledge, memory, and experience, which allow us to incorporate what we learn into what we know” The schematic

approach has the implied concepts and the strategies that are strong in applying this theory for enhancing the listening comprehension Based on schematic theories, there are two basic types of information processing: top-down processing and bottom-up processing While a top-down approach helps learners develop real-life listening skills, bottom-up helps them develop word recognition skills These two processings intersect to develop interactive processing The combination is necessary because bottom-up is not fulfill, in real-life listening we listen in different ways, depending on our purpose for listening Hence, models for the listening process fall into three types: top-down processing, bottom-up processing, and interactive processing

First of all, top-down processing refers to the use of background knowledge in comprehending the meaning of the message This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next According to Richards

(1990), “the background knowledge required for top-down processing may be

previous knowledge about the topic of the discourse, situational or contextual knowledge, or knowledge in the form of schemata or scripts – plans about the overall structure of the events and relationships between them” Thus,

listeners apply this process when using their context and prior knowledge like

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some topics, genres, cultures in long-term memory to make a conceptual framework for understanding To explain this process more, Harmer (2001) indicates that in this processing, the listener tends to get the message’s general view and absorb the overall picture of the listening passage This is helped if the listener has the ability to have appropriate expectations of what is going to come across

Secondly, bottom-up processing is activated by the new incoming data The listener relies on the language in the message (sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning) It means that forms and structures are concentrated on Thus, this process is more related to academic study English learning students use this process to enhance their listening ability Brown

(1989) states that: “Learners who have progressed to the point of being able

to use the phonological code competently have a good chance of being able to recognize what most of the words intended by the speaker were, how they were grouped into phrases, how they were structured into larger clauses (or sentences) and how these related to each other” That is to say, this process

emphasizes the use of linguistic knowledge of the learners to understand the meaning of a message They build meaning from lower-level sounds to words

to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the final message According to Harmer (2001), in the bottom-up processing, the listener focuses and gives much importance to the smallest units of speech than the individual words and after to phrases to combine them in order to achieve understanding and build a hole He also argues that “without a good understanding of a reasonable proportion of the details gained through some bottom-up processing, we will be unable to get any clear general picture of what the text is about.”

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Interactive processing, the last one, is the inclusion of bottom-up and top-down processing Complex and simultaneous processing of background knowledge information, contextual information, and linguistic information make comprehension and interpretation easier When the content of the material is familiar to the listener, he/ she employs his background knowledge

at the same time to make predictions which will be proved by the new input

By and large, it can be concluded that bottom-up processing and down processing are two well-integrated parts of the comprehension In other words, interactive processing, the inclusion of the bottom-up and top-down processing is a good method for teaching and learning listening

top-2.1.4 Listening skills

Listening is the ability to identify and comprehend what others are saying It means listeners can make sense a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and interpret his meaning (Howatt and Dakin, 1974) The person considered a good listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously

With the same concern about this issue, Willis (1981) has a series of micro-skills of listening called “enabling skills” They include: (1) predicting what people are going to talk about, (2) guessing at new words or phrases without panic, (3) using one`s own knowledge of the subject to help one understand, (4) identifying relevant views; rejecting irrelevant information, (5) maintaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing), (6) recognizing

discourse markers such as Well; Oh; Now; another thing is; etc., (7)

recognizing cohesive devices such as linking words, pronouns, references, etc, (8) grasping different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which

In conclusion, English teachers need to understand the requirement of each listening skill and design appropriate activities for each group of student

to help them improve their listening effectively

2.1.5 Difficulties in learning listening skills

It is unavoidable to have difficulties in learning listening skills because

of various factors Accordingly, Underwood (1989) shows a wide range of difficulties that students may face with in listening lessons: (1) lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak; (2) not being able to get things repeated; (3) the listener’s limited vocabulary; (4) failure to recognize the signals; (5) problems of interpretation; (6) inability to concentrate; and (7) established learning habit She also emphasizes that “culture and education include strong storytelling” and oral communication tradition are generally

“better at listening than those from a reading and book-based culture and education background” and that “student for whom the stress and intonation which occur in English are reasonably familiar have less trouble than those whose own language is based on different rhythms and tones” It reveals that students from different language systems may face with lots of issues when they learn a foreign language, especially when they listen to that language

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Sharing the same view, Ur’s (1996) points that learners may have troubles in learning listening skills such as trouble with sounds, have to understand every word, cannot make sense of fast and natural native speech, need to hear things more than once, find it hard to keep up, and get tired It seems to be a complicate activity in which students need much more than the competence of grammar and structures of the language

In Lynch’s (2005) point of view, listening is that students receive no supporting materials such as texts, pictures, diagrams or other visual aids, so their listening skills are ineffective Their listening activities are simply listening to the recording and doing given exercises or tasks

Rost (1994) discusses the problems occurring in listening lessons in different dimensions In his view, these problems may be of motive, transfer, access to input and neurological development It means that, without motivation, ability to transfer the message, ability to access the meaning of the message, and last but not least, the sufficiency of neurological development, students could not be successful in listening

Goh (2000) lists some problems that may occur in terms of three stages

of listening (perception, parsing and utilization):

- At the perception stage: non-recognition of familiar words (learners may not match the sounds automatically to words due to not having stored the sounds

of words efficiently in long term memory)

- At the parsing stage: learners can quickly forget what is heard (they may understand words for the gist or general meaning, but not exact meaning because they cannot remember keywords or phrases)

- At the utilization stage: L2 learners can understand words but not the intended message because they cannot connect words to external sources such

as background knowledge or knowledge of discuss structure

Zakeri (2014) states that shadowing is an online repeating speech which must be done immediately In this case, the listener immediately repeats what the speaker says without any pause Shadowing is also regarded

as one of the training techniques used to improve interpreting skills

It is defined as the act or task of listening in which the learner tracks heard the speech and vocalize it as clearly as possible, while listening attentively to the incoming information (Tamai, 1997)

Learners repeat what they hear after a brief time to shadow and monitor what they shadow simultaneously This process engages not only the language areas but various other large portions of listener`s brain Moreover,

by practising shadowing, the learners’ speech perception will be automatized, enabling learners to increase the amount of phonological information held in the short-term store Shadowing trains the rehearsing process, allowing them

to hold the phonological information longer in the phonological loop (Kadota,

2007, p.14)

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Sharing the same idea, Lambert (1992) defines shadowing is a paced, auditory tracking task with parrot style, using headphones and devised as a means of studying selective attention and practising for simultaneous interpretation

Hamada (2016) states that shadowing was original as a technique for training novice interpreters, but has more recently been imported as an EFL teaching technique for improving listening in particular Shadowing technique

is reproducing what one hears simultaneously and when using shadowing, EFL learners focus on the incoming sounds themselves rather than accessing the meanings of the heard sounds due to limited cognitive resource

He gives an example of shadowing as follows:

Shadowing

Audio: Hanoi is a beautiful city in Vietnam It is famous for peace

Learners: Hanoi is a beautiful city in Vietnam It is famous for peace

According to Dani (2014), with the right material, shadowing can be used at any level such as elementary, junior high school, senior high school,

or even college The material of shadowing bases on syllabus or students` level The listening material can use dialogue or monologue (reading text which has been recorded into audio CD or tape)

Tanaka (2004) points out that shadowing requires one to reproduce the heard speech within a short space of time She claims that through this exercise, the students’ listening skills (input skills), comprehension, and the reproduction skills (output skills) are highlighted If any of the skills are absent, shadowing will not be performed successfully Shadowing is a good exercise to evaluate the present learner’s skills of input, comprehension, and output By becoming aware of their English skills, learners are more likely to

on listening to the message and reproduce it in order to follow the speech By doing so, students’ memory capacity could be enhanced by shadowing, which brings about listening enhancement

Kao (2013) says that shadowing means that the trainees of interpretation or interpreters repeat verbatim what they hear immediately after listening to the aural input, often without waiting for the completion of meaning unit, or even a word in a sentence

Hence, shadowing is an activity wherein a listener repeats or products speech coming in the sound immediately Shadowing is that the subject repeats what the speaker says and repeats one of them word by word or phrase

by phrase Shadowing can use materials from coursebook which depends on the students` syllabus level in listening monologue and dialogue forms

According to Hamada (2011a), shadowing should not be regarded as a repetition of phonetics, but rather as an active and a highly cognitive activity

It is the reason why the motivation of language learner is a key for improving listening comprehension through shadowing He also shows that shadowing helps students follow fast speeches which are one of the problems faced by non-native listeners Native speakers tend to speak fast and use linking verbs

to connect the speech which makes the non-native listeners difficult to follow what they say Learners try to follow and pursue with quick speeches, which can help them to be used to listening to quick speeches In theory, students eventually become accustomed to this speed, which consequently helps them listen better than before He also says that shadowing should not be regarded

as the repetition of phonetics, but rather as an active and a highly cognitive activity Then, the initial motivation or learner’s motivation is a key for improving listening comprehension skills through shadowing

Rost (2001) says that attention is one of the necessary factors to listen successfully to a rich variety of acoustic features beyond the linguistic aspect Listening attention can be distracted by internal or external factors Therefore, listening is different from hearing In listening, students must pay attention to the speaker to catch what they say Shadowing makes learners concentrate on

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listening Shadowing task challenges the listener echoing every single word of spoken utterances and prevents for “hearing” by without paying attention to incoming information In addition, shadowing can change passive listening to become active listening

Kao (2013) proposes that shadowing technique can improve listening comprehension and speaking proficiency Even though shadowing can improve speaking skill, listening skill is enhanced better than speaking skill Shadowing is repeating what is heard at the same time, it can be able to help students develop effective learning strategies and ultimately improve their English pronunciation abilities Moreover, shadowing can be used for all level students and use all material which is based on the syllabus of the students

In short, studies have been carried out to find if shadowing was the appropriate technique to teach and learn listening skills in the classroom For listening, students listen to audio (CD or tape) and understand the meaning word or speaker After listening, they are commanded to repeat the sound (speaking) when delay in a little time without reading script In other step, students listen and repeat the sound (speaking) while read script (see script) Shadowing has been considered as one of the most useful listening teaching methods because of its convenience and effectiveness

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2.2.3 Teaching procedures by using shadowing

Shadowing training was conducted based on the instructions recommended in Kadota and Tamai (2004) The participants were helped to practise in the following stages

- Step 1: Listen to the passage while trying to understand the passage’s

overall meaning

- Step 2: Practise mumbling once or twice, in which they softly

shadowed the incoming sounds

- Step 3: Practise parallel reading, in which the learners shadow while

reading the text of passages

- Step 4: Check their understanding of the written texts silently

- Step 5: Practise shadowing three times

- Step 6: Check the written texts for sounds the learners could not hear

or shadow the meanings they could not understand

- Step 7: Practise contents shadowing, in which they concentrated on

both shadowing and interpreting the meaning of the passage

2.3 Mixed-ability classes

2.3.1 Definition of mixed-ability classes

All school classes in the world are of mixed-ability type But what they are needs to be defined Mixed-ability classes generally refer to classes where learners have a broad range of levels in their achievement and learning The students in these classes differ in strengths and weaknesses and have different approaches to learning In other words, the term “mixed-ability” class means

a class that demonstrates a mix of proficiency in the target language Such classes are more common in schools of the EFL context, where low students

Conklin (2004) claims that heterogeneous grouping combines students with varied ability levels It can be assumed that teachers will face with individuals who have different language knowledge, different intelligence, different learning speeds, and different learning styles and preferences It means that this situation will make the teacher difficult to handle the students

in the classroom process

According to Ainslie (1994), mixed-ability classes mean classes where students differ greatly in ability, motivation for learning English, needs, interests, educational background, styles of learning, anxiety, experiences and

so on

Sharing the same view, Tomlinson (2001) indicates that mixed-ability

or multilevel classes are classes of more than 30 learners in elementary, secondary, adult or tertiary settings Also, they are classes that have been roughly arranged according to ability

Ansari (2013) describes a mixed-ability class as comprising of not only learners with various capacities but also those that have a broad range of preferences and learning styles They can also be referred to as a variation of students in their abilities in grammatical knowledge, fluency and accuracy, size of vocabulary, receptive and productive skills

There are two kinds of mixed-ability classes:

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- The first one is that all learners are in the same grade, but their abilities are different For example, all students in a class, in grade 3 for instance, but some cannot read or write Hence, their level is really in grade 1

- The second one is classes in which grade levels are mixed For instance, putting grade 1 and grade 2 learners in the same class

It is easy for us to understand more clearly about multilevel classes With this kind of learning condition, there may be differences in levels of students’ ability in grammatical knowledge, fluency and accuracy, size of vocabulary, receptive and productive skills Some students seem to be good at languages, able to comprehend the content of each lesson quickly and remember them, while others are slowers, lacks study skills and general experience and have many difficulties in learning the language

2.3.2 Challenges of mixed-ability classes

Large classes are always multilevel and a real situation in many schools However, there are also numerous problems and challenges that teachers can face when teaching these mixed-ability classes

The biggest challenge for teachers is finding the appropriate teaching materials and activities They need to find the right balance of materials that are both interesting and challenging for the students It may be difficult due to the varying abilities of the students and their different backgrounds You might see that advanced students start to get lost if the tasks set in class are inappropriate for their level Weaker students may also feel pressured in the classroom as the tasks may be beyond their capability It can also take time to determine the needs of each student in the class Being aware of the problems mixed-ability classes face helps the teacher tackle any problems quickly

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Secondly, this makes it difficult for the teachers to effectively plan their lessons to ensure that all their students reap the required benefits from the lesson This is especially a challenge for language instructors who are not equipped with the required skills and teaching methods to deal with mixed-ability classes (Ansari, 2013)

The third one is that the teacher can be faced with is the shortage of training programs and strategies to prepare them for such situations at the workplace The fact is that most of the teachers lack the professional development or planning time It is important for teachers in multilevel classes to be trained continuously to better manage the challenges of their diverse students

One more challenge teachers have to face is the responsibility of controlling the students and delivering the lesson effectively While a single teacher has to be responsible for the individual needs of each student, it has become more difficult to manage their lesson plan in a multilevel class because of each students’ different level of comprehending A good situation can be seen when a teacher is explaining a theory in class The students with a high level of understanding are bored and tired as the teacher tries to make further explanations to the students with low levels of knowledge absorbing capabilities

Moreover, there is always a huge disconnection between these two types of students and thus, learning progress is not recorded This shows that the teacher should implement many different teaching methods and techniques to meet each individual student`s need This is a challenging task because it is usually practical, especially with a large number of students to handle

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In addition to these problems above, there are also other challenges that teachers also face Nevertheless, instead of seeing it as a challenge and adventure, teachers should consider this situation as an opportunity to grow, develop and learn They need to experiment, adapt and problem-solve to become a better teacher in any teaching situations

2.3.3 Strategies for teaching mixed-ability classes

Many strategies are suggested by researchers to help teachers cope with the challenges they face when teaching in mixed-ability classes

The first recommended strategy for solving teaching in the class which has many different levels is that the teachers are trained well to have enough necessary knowledge as well as time to prepare well-qualified lessons

The second one for address teaching in a diverse-classroom is differentiation developed by Tomlinson (2001) Instead of spending much time explaining the theory for students having lower levels, teachers can divide the class into various small groups, combining different student-centred methods to improve on students’ study and to motivate them to take part more in activities such as game competition, extra homework by working

in pairs, groups or individual Depending on the task, giving students the opportunity to do frequent pair or group work can help them feel less nervous

as they can be paired with those who are of the same level to allow for fluent and comfortable exchanges, or in mixed-ability groups to encourage peer teaching What’s more, this strategy allows students to take responsibility for their actions as well as develop different skills such as negotiation or collaboration

To improve the effectiveness more in these classes, teachers should become a good manager by using the teaching aids related to the content of

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the lesson such as audio-visual materials, colourful pictures in the teaching process to catch students’ attention Moreover, they also need to prepare many different activities, tasks or even materials which are suitable for each students’ ability to create an exciting learning environment that satisfies the needs of all learners

Moreover, teachers should be involved in the training programs and equipped with the ideal leadership skills to help them address any challenging situations that come up in their learning environments To further empower them, they should be equipped with the relevant knowledge to better their understanding of the different abilities and needs of their students (Boaler, 2008) The purpose of this method is to help them to use effective strategies

in the classrooms to create a thriving learning environment that meets the needs of all students giving them unforgettable learning experiences

Besides these above strategies, responding to students is very important During lessons, the teachers frequently have to respond to students, giving the students feedback about how they are doing, or acting as a resource

or tutor The teachers always try to tailor the response to the particular individual who is dealing with When students are working in pairs or groups, the teachers should monitor the student’s progress Then, the teachers should help students to correct some mistakes or help the students to organize information logically Moreover, the teachers should push the higher-achieving groups of students to go further by asking the students how they might say something more effectively, or suggesting an extension to what they are doing In addition, the teachers need to make sure that in spending time with particular groups, it means that the teachers do not ignore or exclude others

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The implementation of all strategies will help increase students’ interest and help the teachers to identify the individual weaknesses of each student to assist them accordingly

2.4 Previous studies on the use of shadowing

Many studies on the use of shadowing have been carried out when teaching listening around the world However, this strategy has not been studied much in the Vietnamese context

In terms of shadowing in listening, Hamada (2011b) shows that shadowing can also develop students’ listening comprehension skills, especially the skill to identify the sounds they are listening to Moreover, to develop more effective bottom-up processing, this strategy is recommended According to the author, this research provided the possibility that language teachers can teach learners even using difficult material, such as school textbooks and authentic texts For many students, they appeared to be satisfied with their improved listening skills They also gained confidence in identifying sounds and increased their motivation Hence, shadowing is considered to be a useful technique; the more students practise shadowing, the more benefits students have in identifying function words

Investigating the impact of shadowing technique, Tamai (1992) concluded that shadowing had a positive influence on the student’s achievement in listening skills In his study, the group was more outstanding than the control group Moreover, this strategy is suitable for language learners because the process of acquiring and learning the language is very systematic and contextual Thus, this technique is recommended to be applied

in listening classroom for the better outcomes or students’ success, especially

to the countries, which considered English as a foreign language

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A study conducted by Murphey stated that shadowing technique was conducted in a new class of the first-year students of Japanese university in Japan The participants were taught how to shadow in listening lessons and how to do conversational shadowing According to Murphey, there are three steps of shadowing: (1) shadowing may lengthen the auditory short-term memory to make the learner interact and engage more in collaborative dialogue; (2) it gives improvement to the type of conversational adjustment and negotiation which are considered to positively affect the language acquisition through their impact on negotiation, noticing, intake, and uptake; (3) it is different for the non-native speakers who use shadowing technique since it greatly facilitates the construction of knowledge

Although shadowing is popular with a lot of listening classrooms in other countries such as China, Japan, this technique is quite new to many English teachers in Vietnam and there are not many teachers recognizing shadowing’s effect and implementing it in their class Nguyen Thanh Van (2016) is one of the few teachers who applied shadowing in teaching listening

in her classroom in Vietnam She conducted a study on the use of shadowing

to improve the pronunciation of third-year students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology The research was conducted with the data for analysis collected from the pre-test, post-test and questionnaire finished by learners in the group The result showed that students and teachers had a good attitude when shadowing was used in learning and teaching pronunciation Furthermore, shadowing also helped students recognize the ending sounds and master them in a short time; improve their pronunciation and develop self-study and motivation in learning English Hence, the objective of the study seemed to be met

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Despite having little research related to the implementation of shadowing in the classroom, I have been aware of the importance of shadowing technique to improve the student’s listening comprehension skills, especially for high school students Therefore, I decided to carry out an action research to examine the impact of shadowing on the improvement of high school students’ listening skills in mixed-ability classes and find out effective ways to use shadowing technique in listening lessons

2.5 Summary

The chapter so far has presented the relevant literature, which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study It has discussed the different aspects related to listening skills as well as mixed-ability classes Moreover, the problems of teaching listening skills, the challenges in multilevel classes as well as useful solutions have been reviewed