Motivating student's interest in english listening lessons at thai hoa high school

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY ---o0o--- TRAN THI HOA Motivating Students' Interest in English Listening Lessons at Thai Hoa High School MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY -o0o -

TRAN THI HOA

Motivating Students' Interest in English Listening Lessons at

Thai Hoa High School

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Vinh, 2011

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY -o0o -

TRAN THI HOA

Motivating Students' Interest in English Listening

Lessons at Thai Hoa High School

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language

Teaching Code: 60.14.10 Master Thesis in Education

Supervisor: Dr Ngo Huu Hoang

Vinh, 2011

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled: “Motivating students’ interest in English

listening lessons at Thai Hoa High School” is the result of my own research for

the Degree of Master of Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching, Vinh University and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution in any other degree or qualification.

Signature

Tran Thi Hoa

First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, I would like to grateful and respectfully acknowledge my supervisor, Dr Ngo Huu Hoang for his support in doing this thesis Without his help, the thesis would have never finished Additionally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the teachers in the Foreign Languages Department for advising me a lot of reference books related to

my graduation thesis.

My gratitude also goes to my teachers at the Postgraduate Department, Vinh University It is their precious lectures and instructions as well as valuable suggestions that help me better understand issues related to my study and teaching.

I am in debt of the authors of the books and studies that are relevant to my study I have read their ideas for reference, writing Literature Review and applying them creatively.

I am also grateful to my friends and colleagues due to their constructive comments and criticisms Besides, I would like to express my thankfulness to all the students from 7 classes of Grade 10 and English teachers at Thai Hoa high school for their active participation into my study

Last but not least, I wish to express my special thanks to my husband and all the members of my family, who always give me their love, care, support and encouragement.

It is true that motivation has profound effects on students’ language learning.However, the student motivation in learning English listening is rather low at ThaiHoa high school Many students are not interested and do not invest enough timeand effort in learning it, also their perceived aptitude to learn and ability to use it inthe future are low As a result, they feel bored with listening lessons and find ithard to learn this skill With the hope that my study will be useful in finding out theway to motivate students as well as improve their listening learning quality, I havedecided to investigate this issue The study was conducted with the participation of

153 grade 10 students from Thai Hoa high school The research data were collectedmainly from the survey questionnaires and the follow-up interviews Classobservations were also exploited to supplement the above instruments Three majorfindings emerged from the analysis and discussion: (1) situation of students’listening learning at Thai Hoa high school, (2) reality of students’ motivation inlearning listening skill at Thai Hoa high school, (3) Challenges faced by teachersand students in teaching and learning English listening skill Finally yet importantly,the study gave some suggested activities and recommendations for motivatingstudents to learn English listening skill

TABLE OF CONTENT

TABLE OF CONTENT 1

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS 3

LIST OF TABLES 4

LIST OF CHARTS 5

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 6

1 Statement of the Problem 6

2 Aims of the Study 6

3 Research Questions 7

4 Scopes of the Study 7

5 Methods of the Study 7

6 Significance of the Study 8

7 Organization of the Study 8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 Motivation and De-motivation 9

2.1.1 Motivation 9

2.1.1.1 Definition of Motivation and its Importance 9

2.1.1.2 Motivating Students in Learning Second Language 10

2.1.1.3 Factors that Affect Students’ Motivation 15

2.1.2 De-motivation 18

2.1.2.1 Conceptions of De-motivation 18

2.1.2.2 De-motivating Factors that Affect Motivation in Learning Foreign Language 19

2.2 Listening Skill 19

2.2.1 Definition of Listening 19

2.2.2 Importance of Listening Skill 20

2.2.3 Types of Listening 21

2.2.3.1 Real-life Listening 22

2.2.3.2 Classroom Listening 23

2.2.4 Sub-skills Involved in Listening 23

2.2.5 Common Methods of Teaching Listening 25

2.2.6 Stages of a Listening Lesson 26

2.2.6.1 Pre-listening 26

2.2.6.2 While-listening 27

2.2.6.3 Post-listening 28

2.3 Listening Activities at Thai Hoa High School in the Author’s View 29

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS 33

3.1 Subjects 33

3.2 Data Collection Instruments 33

3.2.1 Questionnaires 33

3.2.2 Interviews 34

3.2.3 Classroom Observations 34

3.3 Data Collection Procedures 35

3.4 Data Analysis and Results 35

3.4.1 Questions for Students 36

3.4.2 Questions for Teachers 51

3.5 Discussion from the Findings 55

3.5.1 Situation of Students’ Listening Learning at Thai Hoa High School 55

3.5.2 Reality of Students’ Motivation in Learning Listening Skill at Thai Hoa High School 57

3.5.3 Challenges Faced by Teachers and Students in Teaching and Learning English Listening Skill 59

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS 64

4.1 Some Suggested Activities to Motivate Students’ Interest in Listening Lessons 64

4.1.1 Suggested Activities for Pre-listening Stage 64

4.1.2 Suggested Activities for While-listening Stage 65

4.1.3 Suggested Activities for Post-listening Stage 66

4.1.4 Suggested Extra Activities 69

4.2 Suggestions for Students to Learn English Listening Skill Effectively 69

4.3 Recommendations 71

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 79

5.1 Summary 79

5.2 Limitations of the Study 81

5.3 Suggestions for Further Study 82

REFERENCES 83 APPENDIX P 1

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

Q1: Questionnaire number one

Q2: Questionnaire number two

…

Q14: Questionnaire number fourteen

%: per cent

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Students’ Motivation of Learning English Listening Skill

Table 3.2: Students’ Difficulties in Learn English Listening Skill

Table 3.3: Times of Listening Given by Teachers in Students’ Opinions

Table 3.4: Times of Listening in Students’ Need

Table 3.5: Teachers’ Frequency of Correcting Mistakes in Listening Tasks in Students’ Opinions

Table 3.6: Teachers’ Frequency of Providing Extra Listening Activities in Students’ Opinions

Table 3.7: Students’ Opinions about the Quality of Listening Support Equipment

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 3.1: Students’ Interest in Learning English

Chart 3.2: Students’ Focuses in Learning English

Chart 3.3: Pre-listening Activities Given by Teachers in Students’ Opinions Chart 3.4: Students’ Focuses in Listening Learning

Chart 3.5: Students’ Interest in Listening Topics and Tasks in the Textbook Chart 3.6: Students’ Interest in Type of Listening Tasks in the Textbook Chart 3.7: Factors that can Motivate Students’ Interest in Learning English Listening Skill

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the Problem

Being a teacher of English, the author realizes that among the four skills,listening is regarded as the most difficult one in teaching In fact, because ofdifficulties and challenges in the listening skills, many students are very afraid oflistening lessons, and they become bored with learning it That’s the reason whyteaching and learning English listening skill for how it is the most effectively, is notthe problem only at Thai Hoa high school, Nghia Dan, Nghe An Province but also

at other schools in Vietnam

In this relation, at Thai Hoa high school, teachers have also paid attention tothe listening skill somehow, but because of many reasons which lead to the problemthat students here are always bored with listening lessons Being an English teacher,the author see that the role of motivation is extremely vital in helping studentsovercome this problem and to have progress in their improvement in listening

With all above reasons, the author would like to conduct the research

entitled: “Motivating Students’ Interest in English Listening Lessons at Thai Hoa High School”.

2 Aims of the Study

The thesis aims to:

- Investigate the reasons why the students at Thai Hoa high school are notvery interested in English listening lessons

- Make some suggestions for motivating students’ interest in Englishlistening lessons and improving in teaching and learning English listeningskills at Thai Hoa high school

4 Scopes of the Study

There are many kinds of listening, the author does not have ambition tocover all these types also all the aspects related to teaching and learning Englishlistening skill in this thesis The listening skill mentioned here is the listeningcomprehension only (see more detail in 2.2.3.2)

In order to solve the existing problem as mentioned above to some extent,the author will focus on the investigation into the real situation of teaching andlearning English listening skill of 10th grade at Thai Hoa high school, on how to findout solutions to motivate students’ interest in English listening lessons

5 Methods of the Study

In this study, the researcher used some different methods based on bothquantitative and qualitative approaches: survey questionnaires for students andteachers; follow-up interviews; classroom observations

The steps of the study are as follows:

1 To spend one month collecting baseline data through classroomobservations These were carried out by the researcher herself and some of hercolleagues Besides, get the students to answer the questionnaires to find out thereality of student motivation The researcher also carried out some classroomobservations in this period The follow-up interviews were also employed to gather

in depth information

2 To analyze the collected data and discuss the findings

3 To disseminate the outcomes

6 Significance of the Study

In accordance with the aims, the study is carried with the wish to be of some help for those who are concerned and interested in the topic The author has a hope that the research will better the teaching and learning English listening process at Thai Hoa High School in particular, and at other schools to some extent, in general

7 Organization of the Study

The study will consist of the following parts:

Chapter 1: Introduction

- Present the statement for the research, aims, scope, significance,methods, research questions and organization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review

- Present the theoretical background which is relative to the topic andsurveys of books and other resources relevant to a particular the study topic will

be presented

- Present action of the author’s overall view about situation of Englishlistening activities at Thai Hoa High School, 10th grade

Chapter 3: Methodology and Findings

- Present action of data collection and data analysis methods of theresearch

- Present data analysis and results

- Present action of the findings drawn out from the analysis of data anddiscussion

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Motivation and De-motivation

2.1.1 Motivation

2.1.1.1 Definition of Motivation and its Importance

Motivation is defined as the emotions and needs that constitute the source ofthe drive to expend effort required to learn a second or foreign language It issimply to understand that student motivation is “refer to students’ willingness, need,desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process.”(Bomia et all., 1997:1, cited in Wilder 2004) Moreover, Gardner states that aspecific second language learning motivation is “the combination of effort plusdesire to achieve the goal of learning the language” (1994:361)

Also be defined in Longman Dictionary, motivation is “the factors thatdetermine a person’s desire to do something”

According to Brown (2000:162) “Motivation is something that can, like esteem, be global, situational, or task-oriented.” Motivation is different betweensuccess and failure If they (learners) are motivated, they will learn, and if not, theywon’t

self-The Working Committee on Motivation in Foreign Language Learning at theNorth East Conference of 1970 defines motivation thus:

a force or incentive within a person, that person’s needs, ideas, organicstate and emotions the process of providing with a motive or motives, thestimulation and maintenance of an active interest in foreign languages (1970:34)

As the view of Lumsden (1994) that student motivation naturally has to dowith student’s desire to participate in the learning process But it also concerns thereasons or goals that underlie their involvement or noninvolvement in academicactivities Although students may be equally motivated to perform a task, thesources of their motivation may differ

Motivation is very important to anyone to do well anything Various studieshave found that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in languagelearning Hedge (2000:23) affirms: ‘motivation is of crucial importance in theclassroom, whether learners arrive with it or whether they acquire it throughclassroom experiences’ About this issue, Oxford and Shearin (1996:121-122) alsoargue: ‘Motivation is important because it directly influences how often studentsuse second language learning strategies, how much students interact with nativespeakers, how much input they receive in the language being learned (the targetlanguage), how well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how hightheir general proficiency level becomes, and how long they persevere and maintainsecond language skills after language study is over Therefore, motivation is crucialfor second language learning, and it is essential to understand what our students’motivations are’ As a result, motivation should be paid attention in teaching andlearning second languages.

2.1.1.2 Motivating Students in Learning Second Language

Motivation is some kind of internal drives that encourage somebody topursue a course of action “It is easy in second language learning to claim that alearner will be successful with the proper motivation” (Brown, 2000:160)

Some students are motivated to learn English as a second language because it

is compulsory examination subject (extrinsic motivation) Some students aremotivated by wanting to pass an examination, to get high score in their subject or tointegrate into the target-language culture (integrative motivation) Some others aremotivated by needing the language for getting a job, their careers or other personaladvantages such as reading a foreign newspaper, listening a favorite English song, (instrumental motivation) And the intensity of motivation is the strength of thelearner’s interest, desire, or need that maintain patience of effort in the learningprocess However, motivating interest and need sometimes do not originate withinthe learner himself (intrinsic motivation), it may be supplied by a source extrinsic

In this case, the teacher’s role is quite important to help students achieve success inlearning second language Once their students are motivated, they will be positive at

task orientation by willing to settle tasks and challenges, and have confidence in his

or her success The learners will find it important to succeed in learning in order tomaintain and promote his or hers own (positive) self-image The necessity toachieve, to overcome difficulties and succeed in what he or she sets out to dobecomes very important to them The learners will be ambitious, go for demandingchallenges, high proficiency, top grades The awareness of the goals of learning, or

of specific learning activities will direct his or her efforts towards achieving Atleast, students will not be disappointed with temporary lack of understanding orconfusion, they can be confident of later coming understanding Motivated studentsare always patient, they consistently invests a high level of effort in learning and arenot discouraged by lack of progress

To be aware of the importance of motivation in learning second language inorder to maintain students’ interest as well as to help them obtain short-term goals,the teacher should find good techniques to improve their teaching methods Related

to this problem, Crookes and Schmidt (1991) reported some useful knowledge that

is considered to be great help for the teacher in teaching second language

a) Motivating students into lessons

Normally, in order to create motivation atmosphere in the classroom,teachers usually use some pre-lesson activities to open the stages of lessons or tomake transitions to the new lessons These activities can be up-warming,brainstorming, games, etc For example, in a listening lesson about sports, looking

at some dramatic pictures of sport players or events will raise their interest orremind them of why they like sports When they are interested in the topic, they will

be eager to listen to the text The teacher also can let students do pair-workdiscussions about the sports they play or watch This may bring them to the topic.Besides, when the students are able to relate the listening experience to their ownlives, they will be more willing to listen actively to what the speaker is going to say

b) Varying the activities, tasks and materials

One existed problem until now is that some teachers still maintain the sameold routine in their teaching methods This is the reason which can lead to students’

boredom and less attentiveness in second language learning These teachersconsider that all the students can be similar, but actually, they are not alike for all.Every student has his or her own ways to acquire knowledge That why varying theactivities, tasks and materials or instructions are very necessary to raise learners’motivation, increase interest levels

c) Using co-operative rather than competitive goals

As discussed in Ur (1996), co-operative activities are the ways of holdingactivities in which the learners have to work together to fulfill a task or to work out

a problem There are many studies supporting that effective co-operative work hasenormously potential in increasing the motivation of the language learners as well

as their learning process

Co-operative learning might be considered as a strategy to increasemotivation, to help students develop a positive image of self and others Effectiveco-operative learning promotes: positive interdependence - a feeling of connectionwith other members of the group as they accomplish a common goal Individualaccountability - every member of the group is held accountable for the group'sachievements Face to face interaction - group members engage at close range andare influenced by each other's verbal communication Social skills - studentsbecome aware of the human interaction skills involved in effective groupcooperation Group processing - groups may reflect and discuss how well they arefunctioning as a unit and how effective their working relationships are

While, competitive learning exists when one student’s goal is achieved, allother students fail to reach that goal Competitive learning can be interpersonal(between individuals), where rows are most important or intergroup (betweengroups), where a group setting is appropriate This type of learning is quitelimitative: there is only one winner, all other students must fail; it may be linked tohigh anxiety levels, self-doubt, selfishness and aggression and may promotecheating; interferes with the capacity to problem solve

According to what is discussed in Ur (1996), clearly, using co-operativeactivities will be more successful than competitive ones in learning process

d) Motivating second language learners through feedback

In the context of teaching in general, “feedback is the information that isgiven to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with theobjective of improving this performance” (Ur, 1996:242) Moreover, feedback’saim is to lead to the improvements in performance of students, then normally itmust have a motivation effect When teachers give feedback, students can knowhow much they have done in their learning, it gives them effort to maintain theirmotivation in the future Feedback is assessment that can be recognized as eithermark/grade or comment or a combination of them But assessment will be moreeffective if it comes together with correction in which “information is provided onaspects of learners’ performance through explanation, or provision of better or otheralternatives, or through elicitation of these from the learner” (Ur, 1996:242).Correction will help students know what they did right as well as wrong, and –why

so that they can understand the term of mistakes they made

Actually, many teachers just give feedback without judgments Sometimes,they simply say ‘Well done!’, ‘Very good!’, ‘Yea, right!’, etc that can makestudents happy but they may not know how well they have done (may be only 70%correct) If feedback can involve some kinds of judgment, it will be more useful.However, teachers should try to make the attitude to this more positive, that themistake is a natural and useful part of language learning The purpose is to help andpromote learning motivation

e) Increasing second language learners’ extrinsic motivation

Among many types of motivation such as internal motivation, externalmotivation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, integrative motivation,instrumental motivation, etc extrinsic motivation seems to be the most importantfeature to raise students’ interest in learning

According to Ur (1996:277), “extrinsic motivation is that derives from theinfluence of some kind of external incentive, as distinct from the wish to learn forits own sake or interest us tasks”

Extrinsic motivation can be the influence of the teacher or other figures such

as parents, their wish to succeed in an external exam, or peer-group influences.However, other sources are certainly affected by teacher action Here we can list outsome of them Firstly, success and its rewards: the teacher’s most importantfunction here is simply to make sure that learners are aware of their own success,then they can become more confident and can recognize such success on their own,they will need less explicit support from someone else Secondly, failure and itspenalties: failure is not just a matter of wrong answers; here learners should beaware of failing if they have done less than they could have Thus, teacher’s job is

to make learners less disappointed when they are failing in giving correct responses.Teachers can ignore or play down a failure; and success can be made more likely byjudicious selection of tasks, and by setting the minimum standard of success at aclearly achievable level Thirdly, authoritative demands: learners will be moreactive if they work under pressure that comes from their teachers, tests,examinations, etc But if they only obey commands, without awareness ofobjectives and results or involvement in decisions, they will be unlikely to developpersonal responsibility for their own learning or to continue long-term motivation.Thus, teachers have to use their authority with a clear demand to push their studentsbeyond what they might be willing to do on their own Tests are also considered asthe motivating power because normally when students know that they are going to

be tested, they will be more motivated to study carefully However, teachers shouldprovide for how it is not too much stressful to students Lastly, competition: in theprocess of learning, learner may not to give their best but they will in order to beattheir opponents in a competition However, teachers have to prepare one carefullyexamination because if it is take not too seriously, and scores are not as important totheir learning results, this examination will become less stressful In addition,according to Ur (1996: 279) “group contests tend on the whole to get better resultsthan individual ones They are more enjoyable, less-tense and equally motivating”

2.1.1.3 Factors that Affect Students’ Motivation

Basing on Dornyei’s study, factors affecting students’ motivation can beclassified into learner’s factors, teacher’s factors, environment factors, and teachingand learning conditions

a) Learner’s factors

- Intelligence: Through tests, teachers are able to classify successful or unsuccessfulstudents in the class performance While some studies have reported that there is alink between intelligence measured by IQ tests and second language learning, somestudents, in fact, whose academic performance is weak, are successful in secondlanguage learning

- Aptitude: The relationship between aptitude and second language learning success

is a very important one and various studies Students can have a “good aptitude forlearning” This can infer various things, such as:

 The understanding of the function of words in sentences

 The ability to understand and use grammatical rules

 Memory of key words, what they mean and how to use them

An important point regarding aptitude and second language learning is thatsuccessful learners may not be strong in all the components of aptitude and can stillsucceed at learning a second language

- Personality: Learners’ emotional states have a powerful influence on theirbehavior and performance in the classroom and other learning situations There arevarious theories that claim that personality factors are important predictors ofsuccess in second language learning Personality can conclude such asextroversion, introversion, risk-taking, independence and empathy

- Learning strategies: As in all school topics, learning strategies are a factor ofsecond language learning Different learning strategies work best for differentpeople when learning a second language For example, one student may learnvocabulary through writing and practicing the vocabulary using cue cards, whereasanother student may only read the vocabulary and learn that way

- Learners’ belief: Most learners have strong belief about how languages are learnt,how their instruction should be divided These beliefs are usually based on previouslearning experiences and the assumption (right or wrong) that a particular type ofinstruction is the best way for them to learn

- Age of acquisition: Age is another characteristic of learners which affects learners’

success in second language learning It is believed that children are better thanadults at acquiring a second language It is also often claimed that there is a criticalperiod for second language acquisition ends around puberty or even earlier

- Confidence, anxiety: Learner's motivation can vary tremendously according to

their confidence and anxiety they have toward the language they are learning andthe environment they are in

b) Teachers’ factors

- Enthusiasm: It is teachers' love; dedication and passion together will commitment

toward the subject matter that instills in students a willingness to pursue knowledge.Also, teachers should clearly identify their reasons for loving and being interested inthe subject matter or second language, and then share these reasons with theirstudents

- Commitment to the students' progress: Teachers should show commitmenttowards their students' learning and progress, at the same time they should care forwhat their students have learnt and succeeded In order to express commitmenttowards the students, teachers should:

 offer concrete assistance

 offer to meet students individually to explain things

 respond immediately when help is requested

 correct tests and papers promptly

 send learners copies of relevant interesting articles

 arrange extra-curricular instructional programs

 encourage extra- assignments and offer to assist with these

 Show concern when things are not going on

 allow students to call at home when they have a problem

 Be available for overtime

- Teachers' expectations: If teachers had high expectations about how well studentscould study, their students would probably be able to reach high level ofachievement Students tend to perform at a level which is consistent with theteacher's expectations Particularly, when the teacher sets high expectations, theyare likely to perform better at the subject matter

- Good relationship with the students

 Acceptance: three linchpins of the humanistic psychology; namely;acceptance, empathy and congruence, are of great influence in the development ofstudent-centered teaching

 Ability to listen and pay attention to students

 Following are several gestures which can convey personal

 Greet students and remember their names

 Smile at them

 Notice interesting features of their appearance

 Ask them about their lives outside school

 Show interest in their hobbies

 Move around in class

 Send notes to absent students

c) Factors related to learning environment

Learning environment involves physical conditions and classroom

atmosphere The former refers to the classroom size, chairs, desks, tables, lights,

boards and even announcement boards Such conditions had great influence onstudents’ learning as well as their attitudes toward the subject matter Theseconditions, therefore, affected students’ motivation either positively or negatively.The other factor related to learning environment is a pleasant and supportiveatmosphere in the classroom

d) Teaching and learning conditions

- Physical conditions: Physical conditions in the classroom refer to the classroom

size, chairs, desks, tables, boards and even bulletin boards Physical condition hadgreat impact on students' learning as well as their attitude towards the subject

matter These affect students' motivation either positively or negatively The second

language teachers should be reminded that the classroom is not only a psychologicalbut & physical environment The decoration: posters, flowers, funny objectsinfluence strongly the atmosphere More importantly, teachers should create theownership of the class among students

- A pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom: Language learning isconsidered one of the most face-threatening school subjects Thus, it is the teacher'stask to create a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere A number of variouscomponents contribute to make up the ideal classroom climate such as the teacher'srapport with students, the students' relationship with each other and the norm oftolerance; which helps students feel safe and comfortable taking risks It is veryimportant to make students that mistakes are a natural part of learning, and to ensurethat they will not be criticized if they make mistakes

2.1.2 De-motivation

2.1.2.1 Conceptions of De-motivation

Opposite to motivation, which positively encourages students’ interest insecond language learning, de-motivation is a factor which affects much on thelearning process of students De-motivation can reduce students’ desires and needsand it can make them become indifferent with any skill in second language

Dornyei (2005: 143) defined de-motivation as “specific external forces thatreduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoingaction”

Dornyei pointed out that de-motivation does not mean that all the positiveinfluences that originally made up the motivational basis of a behavior have beengot rid of It only means that a strong negative factor restrains the presentmotivation with some other positive motives still remain ready to be activated

2.1.2.2 De-motivating Factors that Affect Motivation in Learning Foreign Language.

According to Dornyei, factors de-motivating students’ learning are asfollows

1 The teacher (personality, commitment, competence, teaching method);

2 Inadequate school facilities (group is too big or not the right level, frequentchange of teachers);

3 Reduced self-confidence (experience of failure or lack of success);

4 Negative attitude towards the second language;

5 Compulsory nature of second language study;

6 Interference of another foreign language being studied;

7 Negative attitude towards second language community;

8 Attitudes of group members;

There are many ways to define listening skill As defined in LongmanDictionary “listening comprehension is the process of understanding speech in asecond or foreign language” Thus, when studying about this process in secondlanguage learning, it always focused on the role of individual linguistic units such

as phonemes, words, grammatical structures; the role of the listener’s expectations;the situation of the context; background knowledge and the topic

According to Forseth (1996) “Listening is a language skill, which involves awide range of sub-skills It is much more than simply hearing, it is decoding soundsand understanding the meaning behind those sound”.

Thomlison's (1984:16) definition of listening includes “active listening”,which goes beyond comprehending literally to an empathetic understanding of thespeaker

Thus, listening is an active skill that is used frequently; an activity includesspeaker and hearer In that process, speaker is the person who has the choice ofwhat he/she is going to speak, what included in the content such as vocabulary,grammar structure and the rate of speaking delivery

Comprehension listening is a complicated decoding process, involves anumber of basic processes, some depending upon linguistic competence, somedepending upon previous knowledge that is not necessarily of a purely linguisticnature and some depending upon psychological variables that affect themobilization of these come competences and knowledge in the particular tasksituation From the point of view of listeners’ linguistic competence, listening is acomplex process, in which listeners interact with a speaker to construct meaning,within the context of their experiences in the class focus on checking studentsability, instead of teaching necessary listening skills So the teaching models ofmost listening class confine to “listening and checking answers”

2.2.2 Importance of Listening Skill

The importance of listening skill in language use and in real life is enormous.Normally, students often pay more attention to develop their speaking abilitybecause they have a belief that good speaking equals good communication In fact,

we cannot develop speaking skills without developing listening skills In order tohave a successful communication, students also have to understand what is beingsaid to them Thus, the ability to listen is equally as important, it is necessary topractice plentifully

Listening plays an important role in language use because when involving inlistening process, listeners should have various kinds of knowledge: knowledge ofphonology, vocabulary, semantics of the language in use, culture of students, lifeexperience related to the topic in the conversation, ability to predict and response towhat speaker is saying It decides the result of the conversation If a person is notvery good at listening skill, he/she cannot comprehend the content and cannotrespond to the speaker’s speech as well, and then it will lead to the failure of thecommunication To have a successful conversation, students must understand what

is being said to them In fact, not every good listener is a good speaker, but tobecome a good speaker requires a good listening skill

Additionally, most students find that communicating to others all over theworld can benefit them many things When working or interacting with foreignerswho are English native speakers, students will have chances to improve theirEnglish However, only when they overcome the hindrances in listening to thenative voice, will they feel confident to communicate with foreigners

In conclusion, listening is not only the most difficult skill for secondlanguage students to develop but also one of the most important and primary skills

in studying and acquiring the language or learning new vocabulary and structures

In principle, the purpose of listening comprehension practice in the classroom is tohelp students learn to function successfully in real life listening situations Thus, theteacher’s role is to give students as much opportunity to listen to spoken language

as possible because they do not have many chances to practice listening skillsoutside classroom

2.2.3 Types of Listening

There are many different types of listening We can classify these according to

a number of variables, including listening purposes, the role of the listener and thetypes of texts being listened to

2.2.3.1 Real-life Listening

Many students feel a big gap between listening activities in the classroom andactual situation This is because most listening materials including dialogues intextbooks are very grammar-oriented and controlled in many ways The speakeroften speaks with perfectly controlled speech, voice, tone, accent and correctgrammar Whereas, in real-life conversations learners encounter various people withdifferent gender, age, accent, speed, voice, tone There may be improper grammarusage, incomplete sentences, redundancy, contractions, overlap and so forth

There are two ways that people often listen in real-life; they are “casual” and

“focus” listening Many students have a habit of listening to a radio while studying

or the television is on while we are doing something else We listen with noparticular purpose This kind of listening is called “casual” listening, the typicalfeature is that we do not listen closely and intentionally, thus we may not remembermuch of what we hear or nothing is left in our mind “Focus” listening happenswhen listening for a particular purpose to get the information we need to know or tostudy the language In this case, we often listen with much attention, but we do notlisten to everything with equal concentration There is an association betweenlistener expectation and purpose and his comprehension If the listener expects andneeds are intentional, his listening is likely accurately perceived and understoodthan that which is expected, irrelevant or helpful

In real-life listening, we depend largely on visual information, includingspeaker’s facial expression, posture, movement and appearance When a listenerengages in listening, vocal massage filters through the short-term memory systemfirst, and at this time, the listener focuses on auditory or visual stimulus andconcentration on the message received Therefore, visual stimuli play a veryimportant role in listening

As for Ur (1992), it would seem reasonable to say that classroom practiceshould usually incorporate such characteristics of real-life listening as: We listen for

a purpose and with certain expectations, we make an immediate response to what

we hear, we see the person we are listening to, there are some visual orenvironmental clues as to the meaning of what is heard, stretch of heard discoursecome in short chunks, most heard discourse is spontaneous and therefore differsfrom formal spoken prose in the amount of redundancy, “noise” and colloquialisms,and in its auditory characters Sometimes particular situations may lack one or more

of these characteristics For example, when watching television we are not normallyexpected to respond, when listen to a lecture we may have to hear uninterruptedspeech a very long time indeed, but it is very rare that none of them is present at all

To sum up, it is obvious that mastering the nature of real-life classroom canhelp teachers as well as learners gain success in teaching and learning listeningskill

2.2.4 Sub-skills Involved in Listening

Listening is a language skill involves a wide range of “sub-skills” Whenteaching listening, teachers should teach students how to listen in a variety of ways.Students should recognize differences between phonological sounds The words that

have these sounds are called minimal pairs because they have one sound differencebetween them These pairs of words are very difficult for students to distinguishbecause they always make them confused and misunderstanding Thus the teacher’srole is to help their students to distinguish these sounds correctly For example, the

minimal pair cups and cubs contain two sounds /p/ and /b/ that make these two

words different in term of meanings However, the difference in a single soundmakes a new word with a different meaning One more sub-skill of listening is thecomprehension of structures (parts of speech, sentence patterns, etc) For example,

in the sentence “Did you buy a new car?” the listener must recognize that buy is a verb and car is a noun, and this is a question In addition, students should guess the

unknown words or recognize words that are unnecessary for understanding Thatmeans, when doing listening activities, students should not have to get meanings ofall the words Students can guess the meanings of unknown words or even ignorethem This will help students concentrate on catching the key words of the listeningtext And guessing can be done by noticing the context or looking at the grammar ofthe sentence Another sub-skill is recognizing discourse markers and cohesivewords that help to hold discourse together Language is rarely spoken in isolatedwords or sentences Instead, it is spoken in a wider context called discourse thatincludes many sentences and paragraphs These discourse words include nouns(which are later referred to by pronouns), articles, determiners, connectors, etc Theability to infer information that is not directly stated is also a sub-skill of listening

To do these kinds of listening tasks, learners are required to understand the wholelistening text Furthermore, skimming is a sub-skill for which listeners do not need

to understand every word they hear but they only need to catch the main ideabecause if they try to focus on listening to all words, they will miss the importantinformation This skill is often used to do certain listening tasks such as answeringquestions or choosing the best answer (multiple choices) Another is summarizingskill; listener may repeat or reduce the main points into fewer words bysummarizing what they have heard after listening Sometimes in listening, the mainidea is not even important The listeners may only need to look for specific

information This skill is scanning Students also can show their attitude by agreeingwith what they are listening or not or they have to decide what they are listening to

is true or false This is called critical listening Critical listening is more thanunderstanding words or sentences or the main ideas of the text, the listener mustmake judgments of its Especially for more advanced listeners, critical listeningshould be practiced and developed Recognizing different styles, emotional tonesand varieties of language is a quite challenging skill It is very interesting to listen todifferent styles such as formal and informal, emotional tones such as anger,happiness and varieties of language such as British English, American English butthese are also very difficult to recognize particularly varieties of language.Predicting what a speaker will say next is also a sub-skill of listening This skillhelps students respond more quickly and makes the conversation more cohesive.The last sub-skill is listening for total comprehension: The listener has tounderstand everything the speaker says

All listening sub-skills mentioned here are important and useful in teachinglistening But the last four sub-skills are typically for more advanced Englishstudents and would not be practised at the lower levels

2.2.5 Common Methods of Teaching Listening

In the article about teaching listening, Underwood (1989: 90-109) pointedout that there are at least four common methods of teaching second or foreignlanguage listening: grammar-translation, grammar-method, audio-lingual methodand task-based method

1 Grammar- translation method

By this method, students listen to a description of the rules of the secondlanguage in the first language As a result, when the second language is used, thefocus of any listening is on translation of lexical items or grammar structures

2 Grammar method

To follow this method, the teacher requires students to look at a written textwhile they listen to a recording This forces them to do several things: identify

words by their position in the sentence, work out the relationship between wordsand phrases, use forward and backward inference cues, and make intelligent guessesbased on textual cues.

3 Audio-lingual method

Audio-lingual method of listening emphasizes first listening to pronunciationand grammar forms and then imitating those forms by way of drills and exercises.Dialogues and drill are the basis of classroom practice with this method Studentsare encouraged to listen carefully either to the taped recording, or a teacher readingout, a dialogue, or a drill They then record their own version or respond to cuesfrom the teacher to repeat parts of the dialogue or drill Basically, the more thestudents repeat a correct phrase or sentence, the stronger of their memory of thestructure will be

4 Task-based method

This method places stress on activities or tasks that learners do in class inorder to develop their communicative competence A task-based syllabus should beconstructed according to the difficulty of the tasks required of the learners atdifferent stages in a course

In short, the four methods of the teaching listening are not mutuallyexclusive and in reality, they may be mixed in any particular course or class.However, nowadays, with the appearance of Communicative Language Teaching,teaching listening seems to be more of meaningful to students due to the fact thatthey have chance to develop their listening skills and other language skills as well

2.2.6 Stages of a Listening Lesson

The teaching of a listening text can be divided in to 3 main stages: listening, while-listening, post-listening Each stage has its own aims and activities

Pre-2.2.6.1 Pre-listening

Before listening, students should do pre-listening activities in order that theycan listen more effectively It is enormously important that before listening students

are motivated to listen The teacher should provide some pre-listening activitiesmake students interested in the coming listening text.

Underwood (1989:30) defined pre-listening stage as follows: “Beforelistening, students should be "turn in" so that they know what to expect, both ingeneral and particular tasks This kind of preparatory work is generally described as

“pre-listening work” or just “pre- listening” ”

As for her, pre-listening work can consist of a whole range of activities,including: the teacher giving background information, students reading somethingrelevant, students looking at pictures, discussion of the topic/situation, a questionand answer session, written exercises, following the instructions for the whilelistening activity and consideration of how the while-listening will be done

These activities may provide an opportunity for students to gain someknowledge that helps them follow the listening text Moreover, each of theseactivities help students focus their mind on the topic by narrowing down the thingsthat students expect to hear However, when choosing an activity, the teacher shouldconsider the factors which Underwood (1989) mentions:

- The time, the material is available or not;

- The interest of the class and the teacher;

- The place in which the work is being carried out;

- The nature and the content of the listening text itself

If one of these is forgotten, the whole process of activity can be failed Sheespecially emphasizes on the importance of the nature of the listening text, becauseeach listening text itself has an especially appropriate type of activities When theteacher pays attention to this factor properly, the activity chosen for students will bemore specific and effective

2.2.6.2 While-listening

To develop listening skill, students need to do a lot of practice Thus, thewhile-listening stage involves of activities that students are asked to do during thetime they are listening to the text The purpose of while listening activities is to help

students develop their skills of eliciting messages from spoken language It can besaid that the purposes of while-listening stage is to challenge and guide students tohandle the information and the message from the listening text Activities of thisstage must be interesting and carefully chosen The teacher should make up andvary activities for learners to do at this stage depending on their level of English.

At the early stage, students need to learn how the language sounds, how todistinguish or be aware of the relationship between written words and their spokenforms

As students listen, they usually apply the skills, the same uses in listening intheir mother tongue, predict what they will hear and try to match them with thethings they actually hear Therefore, in teaching listening, the teacher should try togive practice in interpreting, matching and predicting to help students fulfill theirlistening task less complicatedly

The topic and the content of the listening text plus the students' interestdecide the success of while-listening activities Students may get bored if they have

to do the same kind of work repeatedly Thus, for each purpose and on differentoccasions, various activities are needed Moreover, it is advisable to have activitiesthat are locally relevant, of the common interest and not too long or laborious

Activities of this stage should be suitable with students' ability This meansthat most students can do while-listening activities, from the slow students to thebest ones Because failure can quickly discourage students to listen, in the earlystage, activities, which are tricky, should be used sparingly, but sometimes it isnecessary to give students some challenges

2.2.6.3 Post-listening

Post-listening activities in post-listening stage are done after the listening iscompleted Some post-listening activities are extensions of the work done at the pre-listening and while-listening stage and some relate only loosely to the listening textitself

According to Underwood (1989), the first purpose of post-listening activities

is to check how well the students understood the text and whether they havecompleted the listening tasks or not In this stage the teacher can ask learners tosummarize or reproduce the listening text orally, and then, in written form Theteacher can also ask learners to give their personal ideas or comments on somedetails of the text to see if they agree or disagree, or even believe what they havegot from the listening text The teacher should let their students discuss theproblems in the text in pairs or in groups The teacher then may give an answerorally, showing the answer on the board or on the over-head projector or askstudents to check again the answer in the book Students can work in pairs to checkeach other’s answer or work in groups to discuss any problem related to thelistening text The second purpose of the post-listening work is to reflect on whysome students have failed to understand or miss parts of the passage

Another purpose of post listening activities is to expand the topic or thelanguage of the listening text Students are asked to deal with activities that aremore or less general language learning activities Sometimes, this does not meanthat they should not be done, but it should be recognized they do not give practice inlistening skill, although the additional language learning can well enable students tolisten more successfully in the future

The fourth purpose is to give students opportunity to consider the mannerand attitude of the speaker in the listening text This is also important because thelisteners can see the aims of the speaker based on his/her attitude

2.3 Listening Activities at Thai Hoa High School in the Author’s View

Being a teacher of English at Thai Hoa for a short time of 1 year only but theauthor also had a brief view of this school

Thai Hoa high school formerly known as Nghia Dan high school, has spent

46 years building and growing so far, many students passed with the high pointsinto the largest universities in the country Thus, this becomes one of the richestachievements high schools in Nghe An province At Thai Hoa high school, the 10

grade concludes 9 classes with a total of 450 students, 2 classes learning French and

7 classes learning English The students in English classes have almost learntEnglish at secondary schools and many of them are also very good at English

Talking about the support tools for learning, it cannot be said that Thai Hoahigh school is well-equipped with good and modern equipment, but is also not verybad Actually, for English subject, there are some listening support tools such asradios and tapes that have been used for a long time but recently the school hasequipped some new ones with good quality However, the new ones still cannotshared for all the classes from three grades due to they often have lessons at thesame time Thus, few classes sometimes have to use not very good equipment intheir listening lessons These old radios affect much on the quality of listeninglessons The volume is not stable, the voice is not clear enough for students tounderstand However, this problem maybe improved soon because the management

of the school has policy to replace all the old equipment to serve English learningand teaching in the coming time One more problem is that there are too manystudents in one class, about 50 per one Large class is a major obstacle to learningthe language skills of communication methods, especially in listening, speaking

Regarding the new “English 10” textbook, it is underpinned by a based approach to the introduction of language input The lessons are arrangedaccording to topics, which are true to life, and familiar with high school students.This is an important advantage of the textbook as it is relevant to students’ needs.The purpose underlying in the textbook is to develop students’ communicativelanguage skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing, language focus(grammar) The new “English 10” consists of sixteen units; each unit presents atheme, which is relevant to many aspects of the daily life Methodologically, thenew textbook is a change from the old structural, grammar-translation methods with

theme-a gretheme-ater emphtheme-asis on students’ communictheme-ative theme-ability Frtheme-ankly spetheme-aking, theme-althoughcommunicative language teaching is not new to Vietnamese language teachers, itrequires them to have corresponding language-using and language-teaching skills

In addition, one of the distinctive features of the new textbook compared to old ones

is the employment of learner-centered activities That means, teachers’ andstudents’ roles in the language classroom change dramatically Teachers play roles

as instructors, consultants, assistants and organizers to motivate students’ activitiesmore effective and naturally Once students find themselves on their own initiative

in language classroom, they will feel more comfortable and enjoyable; then, theyare better motivated to learn However, some teachers at Thai Hoa high school stilldepend much on the textbook that cannot attract students if what are being taughtjust only as a routine Both teachers and students have paid attention too much tothe ability of reading comprehension and doing a lot of written exercises whileignoring the ability of listening and speaking This problem comes from the fact thatthe traditional teaching style which stressed the ability to deal with every kind ofexaminations As a result, most students here only pay attention to the spelling andmeaning of words, and they do not catch the exact pronunciation of words This willlead to the problem that students can be difficult in listening and speaking verymuch According to the survey information, interviews and especially classobservations, some teachers are teaching in traditional ways, they do not have verycreative teaching methods In general, many of the observed teachers followed thesimilar procedures The lessons were started with some warm-up activities (games)

or by giving guiding questions, introducing new topics The stages of listeningprocedure were clearly highlighted by noting down on the board The commonprocedures went on with presentation of new vocabulary and new structures, chorusreading, introducing instructions and tasks and correcting answers after twice orthree times playing the tapes Most of the classroom activities focused on controlledpractice The teacher sometimes manages to elicit students, but the elicitation wasvery simple Some students even were eager to give response to teachers’ questions.They are seemed to be so ashamed and timid to interact with teachers or theirfriends in doing pairs work or groups work However, in some observed lessons, theauthor saw that the majority of students were interested in and positivelyparticipated in class interesting activities such as games or extra listening forentertainments

Teachers and students pay much attention to teaching and learning grammar,reading comprehension, or practicing lots of written exercise for tests andexaminations, therefore, students will lack necessary listening skills The Englishteachers here also did not give their students listening tests or take it as a part in thefinal exam of English Because of the ignorance of the importance of listening,students have less listening practice Without spending time practicing, their ability

of listening cannot be improved Moreover, the listening skill is always the mostdifficult skill with many problems that students can meet such as native voice,linking sounds, fast speech of speakers and background noises Facing to theseproblems, students have to listen to the text many times for catching the main ideas,but sometimes they still cannot understand even a short passage As a result, thelearner become bored with listening lessons and this can affect their interest inlistening next time While many students still do not have good way of listeninglearning, they always focus on listen to every word in the text instead of key words.They do not know how to catch the main ideas or meaning of sentences They justtry to write everything they hear, they are not acquainted with or are very bad attaking note skill.Bad methods by teaching listening of some teachers are anotherproblem They did not spend much time teaching this skill to students Theirpurpose of teaching listening in class is to focus on checking the students’ ability,instead of teaching necessary listening skills The model of listening classes seems

as listening and checking answers

Repeatedly used listening activities are also problem at Thai Hoa highschool This makes students bored with what they are learning Actually, thetextbooks of English in high school contain some main kinds of listening exercisessuch as T/F statements, comprehension questions, gap filling and multiple choices.These kinds of exercises are useful but if teachers only use them in every listeninglesson, it also cannot check students’ understanding exactly because they can guessanswers without understanding the listening text On the other hand, the repeatedlyuse of these kinds may reduce students’ interest and cause the boredom of doing thesame exercises many times

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS

3.1 Subjects

The study includes two groups of participants: seven Vietnamese teachers ofEnglish at Thai Hoa high school and the other group consisting of 153 selectedstudents

The group of the teachers involves those who have been teaching here for atleast 5 years

The group of the students involves those who are selected from 10th grade ofseven English classes

3.2 Data Collection Instruments

To give the aim of the study, the researcher used two main kinds of researchinstruments: questionnaires for students, for teachers and follow-up interviews

Besides, class observations were also employed to supplement the aboveinstruments

3.2.1 Questionnaires

According to Gillham (2000:6), using questionnaires has some advantages:low cost in time and money; easy to get information from a lot of people veryquickly; respondents can complete the questionnaire when it suits them; analysis ofanswers to closed questions is straightforward; less pressure for an immediateresponse; respondents’ anonymity; lack of interviewer bias; standardization ofquestions (but true of structured interview); can provide suggestive data for testing

an hypothesis

The questions for students and teachers were designed in both close andopen-ended forms Among them, some questions have more than one answer whichcan be accepted so that respondents can have more freedom to express their ownideas The questions for students were written in Vietnamese to assure that

respondents did not have any language problems in understanding the questionnaireitems The questions for teachers were prepared in both Vietnamese and English.

The detailed questionnaires which were used in the survey for teachers andstudents are shown in the Appendix part

3.2.2 Interviews

Despite the above mentioned advantages, questionnaire method also hassome unavoidable disadvantages Its reliability and data quality may be low.Sometimes, it is impossible to check seriousness or honesty of the answers This isespecially true of studies of motivation, which is an abstract, attitudinal concept.Therefore, it is advisable to incorporate more than one method in a study That isthe reason why the follow-up interviews were also adopted in this study This wassemi-structured interview, which aimed to provide an insight into the responsesmade in the questionnaires

In other words, this interview was intended to gather in-depth informationand make the data obtained from the questionnaires more reliable and convincing.The participants were invited to answer the questions with the researcher explainingthe questions and clarifying unclear answers

All the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese, noted-down, and lastedaround one hour The data collected from the interview were used for the purpose ofanalysis

3.3 Data Collection Procedures

The questionnaires were delivered to 153 students and 7 English teachers atthe beginning of April to measure ‘input motivation’ and to gather informationabout the reality situation of learning and teaching English listening lessons

There are 14 questions for students and 10 for teachers: 8 multiple choicequestions and 2 opened questions (used to get teachers’ opinions about difficultiesthat students encounter in listening lessons and their suggestions to help toovercome those problems, all that collected information will be used for author’sreference in this study) The participants had one day to think carefully and to givetheir answers After collecting questionnaires, the researcher summarized the data

Apart from questionnaires, some class observations were carried out Theauthor observed some forty-five minute listening lessons taught by some differentEnglish teachers in some classes While observing the lessons, necessaryinformation was jotted down

Lastly, a follow-up interview of participants was conducted in the followingweek in classes to get qualitative data explaining for choices

The information from the survey questionnaires and interviews wereexpected to provide the researcher with students’ attitude toward their listeninglessons and help to find out solutions for the problem, to solve the difficulties thatstudents and teachers are facing, then finding the best ways to motivate students’interest in English listening lessons

3.4 Data Analysis and Results

This part of the thesis presents the findings that arise from the specific

questions in order to answer the research questions

The findings resulted from the analysis of the three sources of collected data:questionnaires (for both teachers and students), interviews and classroom

observations The results were tabulated and converted to percentages for the

convenience of analysis