Teachers and students perceptions about the suit ability of thư listening tasks in american english file 3

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE ❧ ❧ ❖ ❧ ❧ TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS A

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

❧ ❧ ❖ ❧ ❧

TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY OF THE LISTENING TASKS

IN ‘AMERICAN ENGLISH FILE 3’

A minor thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

NGUYEN THI LAM

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, PH.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, JANUARY 2021

Thirdly, my special thanks go to my colleagues, Ms Le Thi Nguyet, Ms Huynh Thi Hoa Sen, and Ms Tran Hoa Mi at the department of foreign languages of University of People’s Security They gave me useful advice along with considerable assistance in accomplishing my thesis

Fourthly, I would like to extend my grateful thanks to the teacher and student participants who have spent valuable time completing my questionnaires as well as answering the interview questions Thanks to their active participation, I have finished my thesis

Last but not least, I am profoundly indebted to my husband and my beloved parents who always provide me with deep understanding, great encouragement and continuous support Without them, I could have never overcome the obstacles in the way of completing my thesis

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY OF THE LISTENING TASKS IN

‘AMERICAN ENGLISH FILE 3’” is the result of my own work

This minor thesis has not previously been accepted for any degree and submitted in any other institutions

Ho Chi Minh City, January 30th 2021

Nguyen Thi Lam

RETENTION OF USE

I hereby state that I, Nguyen Thi Lam, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’ Theses deposited in the Library

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

Ho Chi Minh City, January 30th 2021

Nguyen Thi Lam

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1.1 Percentage of Communication 1

Table 2.1 A framework for describing tasks 13

Table 2.2 Types of listening practice 16

Table 2.3 Framework for describing tasks 20

Table 3.1 Demographic characteristics of teacher respondents 31

Table 3.2 Demographic characteristics of student respondents 33

Table 3.3 The brief summary of questionnaire items 35

Table 3.4a Reliability statistics’ results for the factor of Goals for the first run 35

Table 3.4b Reliability statistics’ results for the factor of Goals for the second run 36

Table 3.5a Reliability statistics’ results for the factor of Input for the first run 36

Table 3.5b Reliability statistics’ results for the factor of Input for the second run 36

Table 3.6a Reliability statistics’ results for the factor of Integration for the first run 36

Table 3.6b Reliability statistics’ results for the factor of Integration for the second run 37

Table 3.7 Reliability statistics’ results of two items regarding Spearman value 37

Table 3.8 The brief summary of main research questionnaire items for student respondents 38

Table 3.9 The brief summary of main research questionnaire items for teacher respondents 38

Table 3.10a Reliability of teacher questionnaire for the first run 39

Table 3.10b Reliability of teacher questionnaire for the second run 39

Table 3.11 Reliability of student questionnaire 39

Table 4.1 The teachers’ perceptions about students’ listening ability 44

Table 4.2 Teachers’ perceptions about the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of “Goals” 45

Table 4.3 Teachers’ perceptions about the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of “Input” 46

Table 4.4 Teachers’ perceptions about the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of “Integration” 47

Table 4.5 Teachers’ overall perceptions of the listening tasks in AEF3 47

Table 4.6 Students perceived their listening ability 48

Table 4.7 Students’ perceptions about the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of “Goals” 48

Table 4.8 Students’ perceptions about the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of “Input” 49

Table 4.9 Students’ perceptions about the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of “Integration” 50

Table 4.10 Students’ overall perceptions of the listening tasks in AEF3 50

Table 4.11 Teachers’ perceptions of students’ memory ability towards knowledge of the listening tasks in AEF3 51

Table 4.12 Teachers’ perceptions of students’ development towards listening skill 52

Table 4.13 Teachers’ perceptions of students’ ability in applying listening knowledge to real life 52

Table 4.14 Teachers’ perceptions of input of the listening tasks in AEF3 53

Table 4.15 Teachers’ perceptions of giving feedback 55

Table 4.16 Teachers’ overall perceptions of the listening tasks in AEF3 56

Table 4.17 Students’ perceptions of development towards listening skill 57

Table 4.18 Students’ perceptions of ability in applying listening knowledge to real life 58

Table 4.19 Students’ perceptions of input of the listening tasks in AEF3 58

Table 4.20 Students’ perceptions of using prior knowledge 60

Table 4.21 Students’ perceptions of giving feedback 60

Table 4.22 Students’ overall perceptions of the listening tasks in AEF3 61

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 2.1 The model of task components 11

Figure 2.2 The different ways in classroom management 13

Figure 2.3 The HURIER listening model 15

Figure 2.4 Bottom-up and top-down processing 20

Figure 2.5 The conceptual framework 28

Figure 3.1 Data collection procedure at University of People’s Security 41

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ii

RETENTION OF USE iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

LIST OF FIGURES vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS viii

ABSTRACT xii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Needs for the study 2

1.3 Aims of the study 4

1.4 Research questions 4

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Scope of the study 4

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Definition of key terms 6

2.2 Listening skill in English language teaching and learning 7

2.2.1 Definition of listening 8

2.2.2 Significance of listening in English language teaching and learning 8

2.3 Tasks in English language teaching and learning 10

2.3.1 Definition of tasks 10

2.3.2 Importance of tasks 10

2.3.3 Task components 11

2.4 Listening tasks 14

2.4.1 Purposes of listening tasks 14

2.4.2 Types of listening tasks 15

2.4.3 Processing of listening tasks 19

2.5 Perceptions about the suitability of listening tasks 20

2.6 Review of previous studies 22

2.7 The conceptual framework 27

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 29

3.1 Research design 29

3.2 Research site 30

3.3 The coursebook ‘American English File 3 (AEF3)’ 30

3.4 Participants 31

3.4.1 Teacher participants 31

3.4.2 Student participants 32

3.5 Research instruments 33

3.5.1 Questionnaires 33

3.5.1.1 Pilot questionnaires 34

3.5.1.2 Research questionnaires 37

3.5.2 Interviews 39

3.6 Data collection procedure 40

3.7 Data collection analysis procedure 41

3.7.1 Analyzing data from the questionnaires 41

3.7.2 Analyzing data from the interviews 42

3.8 Summary 43

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 44

4.1 Data analysis 44

4.1.1 Data analysis from the questionnaire 44

4.1.1.1 Data analysis from the questionnaire to teacher respondents 44

4.1.1.2 Data analysis from the questionnaire to student respondents 48

4.1.2 Data analysis from the interviews 51

4.1.2.1 Data analysis from the interview with teacher respondents 52

4.1.2.2 Data analysis from the interview with student respondents 57

4.2 Discussion of results 61

4.2.1 Perceptions about “Goals” of the listening tasks in AEF3 61

4.2.2 Perceptions about “Input” of the listening tasks in AEF3 62

4.2.3 Perceptions about “Integration” of the listening tasks in AEF3 63

4.2.4 Overall perceptions of the listening tasks in AEF3 64

4.3 Major findings 64

4.4 Summary 65

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 66

5.1 Conclusion 66

5.1.1 Research question 1 66

5.1.2 Research question 2 67

5.2 Implications 68

5.2.1 For the teachers 68

5.2.2 For the students 68

5.3 Limitations of the study 69

5.4 Recommendations for further study 69

5.5 Summary 70

REFERENCES 71

APPENDICES 77

APPENDIX 1 Listening scores of four recent school years 77

APPENDIX 2 Item-total statistics’ results of student pilot questionnaire 78

APPENDIX 3 Item-total statistics’ results of research questionnaires 80

APPENDIX 4 Reliability analysis of student research questionnaire 82

APPENDIX 5 Questionnaire for teachers (English version) 84

APPENDIX 6 Questionnaire for teachers (Vietnamese version) 86

APPENDIX 7 Questionnaire for students (English version) 89

APPENDIX 8 Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version) 91

APPENDIX 9 Interview for teachers (English version) 93

APPENDIX 10 Interview for teachers (Vietnamese version) 94

APPENDIX 11 Interview for students (English version) 95

APPENDIX 12 Interview for students (Vietnamese version) 96 APPENDIX 13 Teacher interview transcripts 97 APPENDIX 14 Student interview transcripts 100

ABSTRACT

Listening skill plays an indispensable role in daily communication as well as in education these days Listening tasks are one of the vital listening parts providing students with necessary activities in order to help them practice and improve their listening skill The suitability of listening tasks is very important for students while learning listening and helping them enhance their listening proficiency That is the reason why the current study attempted to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions about the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 Besides that, similarities and differences in perceptions between the two groups were explored So as to achieve the purposes, three components including

“Goals”, “Input”, and “Integration” adapted from theories of Ellis (2003) and Nunan (2004) were given to construct a theoretical guideline in the conceptual framework of the thesis Moreover, the study exploited a mixed methods research with quantitative and qualitative analysis Specifically, 170 students and 15 teachers at University of People’s Security were invited to do the research questionnaires The follow-up interviews elicited responses from ten students and eight teachers to gain insightful information about these listening tasks The results from collected data indicated that teachers and students perceive quite positively the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 in terms of three mentioned components Given the research findings, teachers also showed many similar perceptions with students’; however, there were some differences between the two groups Specifically, students emphasized on culture integration which should be involved

in the listening lessons whereas teachers expressed more concern about redesigning the listening tasks’ types in AEF3 Last but not least, the listening tasks should be adapted and adjusted to suit students’ ability and motivate them in learning according to both teachers’ and students’ perceptions

Key words: listening tasks, perceptions, suitability, goals, input, integration

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

There is no denying that English is currently spoken by many people around the world Using English is indeed becoming more important to many parts of the world in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era in general and in this age of Vietnamese industrialization and modernization in particular As Islami (2010) stated that the importance of English cannot be neglected in the interconnected and globalized society English has seen as an obligatory subject in a diverse educational environment so far Teaching English is currently being concerned much more with a strong desire for enhancing skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) along with coordinating language areas (pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar) Listening is regarded as one

of the most important skills in the realm of educational and communicative field In traditional opinions, listening was considered as a passive process and the listeners were receivers of information (as cited in Schmitt, 2002) By contrast, this viewpoint on listening is not completely true anymore because Schmitt (2002) argued that listening has become active and interpretive Moreover, Celce-Murcia (2001) gave a statistical table (Table 1.1) about the percentage communication with using four skills in social life As the numbers shown in the table, we can see that the listening skill becomes predominant with the percentage of 45 The speaking skill is at the second position with 30% Next, people spend 16% reading activities and finally the lowest rate of writing which occupied only 9% in communication It concluded that the listening skill plays an indispensable role in both communication and education as well

Table 1.1 Percentage of Communication (Celce-Murcia, 2001)

Mode of communication Formal Years of Training Percentage of Time Used

Morley (2001) and Rost (2001) also added the considerable significance of listening skill in learning a foreign language They supposed that the listening skill facilitates the other skills to develop faster and helps learners achieve proficiency more quickly

In addition, Rost (2009) stated that listening becomes one of the most significant

their listening capacity to widen fundamental knowledge of the world around Furthermore, the listening skill is considered as a good method for learners to acquire comprehensible input effectively because the learning process cannot take place unless the input is established (Hamouda, 2013) In the same way, Jafari and Hashim (2015) paid attention to the significance of listening skill towards comprehensible input for learners in daily communication They demonstrated a significantly high number of more than 50 percent of those who spend time on this skill

Nevertheless, the listening skill is not easy for many learners, especially most Vietnamese students Similarly, students at University of People’s Security has been encountering a lot of listening obstacles and consequently gained low scores in this skill According to the department records of listening tests which were permitted by the board of Department of Foreign Languages to show in this research through four recent school years, a large percentage of listening scores belonged to low and average scores while students gained high scores occupied the small percentages (see Appendix 1) Generally speaking, students receive low scores deriving from many factors One of those factors is from their perceptions It is, therefore, necessary to increase the perceptions of students about the importance of the listening skill, namely, the listening tasks which would be mentioned in the following section so as to help them have an exact look to enhance their listening ability and complete the listening tasks better

1.2 Needs for the study

Although listening is an important skill in communication as well as in education, it

is the difficult skill for learners to achieve its proficiency easily Actually, listening was seen as “one of the least understood processes” (Osada, 2004) Carter and Nunan (2001) gave more information about listening as “a complex process that allows us to understand spoken language” (p 7) It proved that the listening skill is a complicated one and it requires learners to devote hard effort to learn Vandergrift (2007) shared a similar opinion on the listening skill, that is, the listening skill is considered as “the least researched of all four language skills” (p 291) In other words, the listening skill has appealed less interests owing to its difficulties Additionally, Morley (2001) shared an opinion of neglecting the listening skill in many schools and universities’ curriculum Teachers and students tend to achieve ultimate goals such as communication ability instead of paying attention to listening which is the easiest way to develop speaking

Bress (2006) also illustrated this analogously common phenomenon happening in classroom, that is, teaching listening in language classroom is almost ignored because teachers do not recognize its vital importance That is the reason why the listening skill has been taught at the lowest rate in the practical language teaching for a long time Taking teaching listening at University of People’s Security as a particular example is not concerned much

In the listening sections, the listening tasks are designed differently to help students understand the contents of the lessons The listening tasks help guide students achieve learning outcomes Similarly, the listening tasks designed in the coursebook ‘American English File 3’ have been desired to encourage students to better in learning However, students face a lot of difficulties in completing these tasks because of various reasons such

as lacking listening background knowledge, lacking vocabulary and so forth while doing the listening tasks in this book For instance, Ito (2001) showed that students found the listening skill difficult because of the reduced forms Buck (2001) supposed that the listening skill is difficult for learners due to their limited processing process It means that students have not had effective learning strategies in learning listening What is more, Buck (2001) stated that students have lacked vocabulary and could not control the rate of speech well Consequently, they have not been good at completing the listening tasks and felt demotivated to learn this skill Osada (2004) also shared the same point of views with Buck’s (2001) about the inadequate knowledge of students Moreover, Gilmore (2007) added more listening’s drawbacks that students often encounter such as “irregular pauses, false starts and intonation patterns” The above obstacles obstruct students’ learning process towards listening tasks The more listening-task difficulties there are, the more depressed students expressed When students cannot complete listening tasks, they fail to succeed in listening skill From difficulties in lacking necessary knowledge, students feel more anxious in listening lessons, especially in completing listening tasks As Graham (2006) indicated some listening comprehension problems of learners, including restricted vocabulary, poor grammar, and misinterpretations about the listening tasks Therefore, this study should

be conducted to consider to what extend the listening tasks in American English File 3 (henceforth AEF3) are suitable for students’ ability and suggest better solutions for them to learn the listening tasks in this coursebook

1.3 Aims of the study

Because of the vital roles of the listening tasks, the current study aims to investigate the teachers’ and students’ perceptions about the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 in order to analyze and find out their insightful opinions about the listening tasks Furthermore, after investigating teachers’ and students’ perceptions, the similarities and differences between the two groups’ responses would be analyzed

1.5 Significance of the study

In terms of theoretical contributions, the current study displayed the basic theories related to listening skills in English language teaching and learning, tasks, and listening tasks in order to explore the suitability of the listening tasks based on listening tasks’ components through investigating teachers’ and students’ perceptions More importantly, the similarities and differences between their perceptions are taken into careful consideration as the results of the study Besides, the study devoted to practical teaching by suggesting pedagogical implications in order to help students learn the listening tasks more effectively

1.6 Scope of the study

The current study spotlights the exploration of the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 through perceptions of teachers and students Moreover, whether teachers’ perceptions about the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 are similar to students’ or different is also a focus of this study However, the study merely focuses

on listening tasks instead of all contents in the coursebook, which is considered as one

of the limitations of the study In this study, the researcher would like to find out the perceptions of teachers and students based on considering the components of the listening tasks, excluding the effectiveness of the listening tasks Moreover, the

findings collected and analyzed are only appropriate in the scope of surveyed participants at University of People’s Security

1.7 Organization of the study

The thesis comprises five main chapters; namely, (1) Introduction, (2) Literature Review, (3) Methodology, (4) Results and Discussion, and (5) Conclusion, Implications and Recommendations

The first chapter, Introduction, displays background to the study, which raises the

importance of listening in education and communication Besides, the reasons why the current study is conducted are illustrated in this chapter, namely, needs for the study Moreover, aims of the research, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study and organization of the study would be provided

The next chapter which is known as Literature Review provides the theoretical

background about the perceptions, the listening tasks, and perceptions about the suitability of the listening tasks Moreover, reviewing of previous studies is illustrated

in this chapter Finally, the conceptual framework is established as the guideline for the research collection and analysis process

Chapter 3, namely, Methodology, describes precisely the research design of a mixed

methods research, research site, research participants, research instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

The fourth chapter, Results and Discussion, depicts the results of the questionnaires

and interviews Discussion of the results and major findings were demonstrated in this chapter

The last chapter entitled Conclusion, Implications and Recommendations

summarizes the important points of the current study, presents some limitations and then suggests some useful recommendations for the further research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter displayed theories related to the research purposes of the study The first section presented the operational definitions of perception as well as other related terms Theories of listening skill and listening tasks were demonstrated in the next sections Moreover, the study would review previous studies with the purpose of investigating the research gap Last but not least, the conceptual framework of the study was built as the firm fabric with the purpose of guiding the researcher to implement the following chapters

2.1 Definition of key terms

In this section, some operational terms were presented to provide an overall understanding about the way of using these definitions and help the researcher identify the key terms which are used operationally in the study

Firstly, Rao and Narayan (1988) defined perception as “the process whereby people

select, organize, and interpret sensory stimulations into meaningful information about their work environment” (p 329) In a similar way, perception is referred to “constructing and understanding of the social world from the data we get through our senses” (Michener, Delamater and Myers, 2004, p 106) Compared with previous definitions, perception is defined as the way people regard, understand or interpret something (Oxford Dictionary, 2012) Whereas, Quick and Nelson (1997) discussed perception in view of understanding someone In the current study, perception is adapted from a part of Michener, Delamater and Myers’s (2004) definition Specifically, perception is understood through one’s personal past experiences and thoughts Hence, the teachers as well as students shared their perceptions about the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 based on their own experiences

Secondly, perspective is the angle or direction in which a person looks at an object In

other words, perspective is people’s viewpoints about the objective world The term

‘perspective’ is used very differently in each field In philosophy, for example, perspective is seen as the context of opinion, beliefs and experiences In literature, on the other hand, perspective represents the point of view related to this area

Next, belief is referred as “an individual’s judgment of the truth or the falsity of a

proposition” according to Pajares (1992) stated in the article entitled: “ESL/EFL

Instructors’ beliefs about Assessment and Evaluation” Belief is understood simply as

an individual opinion about something or someone

Finally, Eagly and Chaiken (1993) identified attitude as an implicit state that allows

psychologists to understand why a person reacts in a particular way to particular stimuli Attitudes are not only directly observable themselves, but can be also inferred through behavior and are recognized by a core notion of evaluation More specifically, Ajzen (2001, p 28) summarized the definition of an attitude as a “summary evaluation

of a psychological object captured in such attribute dimensions as good-bad, beneficial, pleasant-unpleasant, and likeable-dislikeable”

harmful-Four definitions were displayed precisely; however, as the current research aims to indicate the personal feelings, experiences and thoughts of teachers and students about

the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3, the operational term ‘perception’ is

highly recommended to use

Besides, the term ‘suitability’ needs to be defined in this section Suitability is

considered as “the quality of being right or appropriate for a particular person, purpose,

or situation” (Oxford Dictionary, 2012) In the current study, suitability represents to

what extent the appropriateness of the listening tasks in AEF3 for students at University

of People’s Security is in terms of the components suggested by Nunan (2004) and Ellis (2003) In other words, suitability is considered through teachers’ and students’ perceptions to what extent the listening tasks in AEF3 are difficult or easy compared with students’ ability in terms of goals, input and integration

2.2 Listening skill in English language teaching and learning

As Morley (2001) pointed out that “Listening is used for more than any other single language skill in normal daily life On average, we can expect to listen twice as much

as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than write” (p 70), listening can be seen at first with a vital role in daily communication For example, when children were born, they started their life with listening before other skills when they even were at school, they were practiced listening first, then learned speaking, reading and writing Harmer (2001) showed that listening provides a great opportunity

to hear voices from others and create students a good habit in speaking in order to help them improve their pronunciation in learning the language Furthermore, Field (2008) stated that teachers had used listening to teach new grammar through model dialogues

in teaching English before Listening becomes an essential factor for people to be successful in their daily communication in general and in learning a foreign language

in particular

2.2.1 Definition of listening

Traditionally, listening was considered as a passive skill which students just accept the input of knowledge, but not produce any new languages In contrast to traditional opinions, the modern theories indicated that listening is evaluated in a completely different way with positive viewpoints As Purdy (1997) made comments on listening

as “the active and dynamic process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the expressed (verbal and nonverbal), needs, concerns, and information offered by other human beings" (p 8) Rost (2002) shared the same opinions about listening which is the process of receiving the responses from speakers, constructing and presenting the meaning along with creating through involvement, imagination and empathy He also presented listening as “an active and important mental ability” in one of his researches in 2007 The two authors emphasized that listening has become an active skill and linked closely to the listening

of speakers In other words, listeners must have enough ability to apply a variety of strategies and interactive processes in decoding deep messages and understanding the purposes which speakers would like to mention Understanding in an insightful way, learning listening can convey aspects in lieu of thoughts, feelings, and intentions This

is demonstrated relatively clearly in Hamouda’s viewpoint (2013) He defined listening as the ability of comprehending what other people are talking about, including speakers’ pronunciation, speakers’ grammar and vocabulary, and finally speakers’ interpretation

2.2.2 Significance of listening in English language teaching and learning

Similar to Celce-Murcia (2001) mentioned the role of listening in communication and

in education above, Hedge (2000) acknowledged the statistics as well as recognized the essential role of listening in communication Therefore, the importance of listening cannot be neglected in daily life He also emphasized that listening is not only strongly influential on communication but also crucial in English language learning Rost (2001), Vandergrift (2007) and Kurita (2012) stated that listening is extremely important to promote in second language learning Specifically, Rost (2001) and

Kurita (2012) said that learners’ listening ability is seen as an instrument of learning to decide their success in learning a foreign language because learners who can receive language input well also learn a new language quickly Rost (2001) expressed the

development of listening in his book which was published in 2002 entitled “Teaching

and Researching Listening” by focusing on the importance of listening used widely in

normal daily life as well as effectively in language learning What is more, Anderson and Lynch (2003) specified that we only recognize familiar listening feats when we live in that environment Hence, the environment is very significant to boost up listening ability They stated that listening is as important as speaking skill because speaking cannot happen face-to-face unless there is the listening process taking place

at the same time As a result, listening develop simultaneously with other skills, particularly speaking skill Because students use their listening ability to receive information and attain insightful knowledge, the listening skill is a key factor in learning purposes (Wallace, Stariha & Walberg, 2004) In order to raise the importance of listening, Guo and Wills (2006) said that listening is considered as a means that learners use in their learning process and understand the outside world One more opinion comes from Hamouda (2013) about the importance of listening towards both language learning and daily communication like the previous authors In these above authors’ theories, Rost (1994) gave the most detailed list of the importance of

listening skill in his book named “Introducing Listening” as follows:

(1) 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; (2) Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Because 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;

(3) Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to understand language as native speakers actually use it;

(4) Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention

to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language

(Rost, 1994, pp 141-142)

In conclusion, besides its contributive roles in daily communication, listening supports learners in the development of language learning process

2.3 Tasks in English language teaching and learning

2.3.1 Definition of tasks

A task is defined in many different ways by several authors As Skehan (1998) gave the definition of a task as “(a) meaning is primary, (b) learners are not given other people’s meanings to regurgitate, (c) there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities, (d) task completion has a priority, and (e) the assessment of tasks are done in terms of outcome” (p 147) According to him, a task mainly focuses on meaning and task completion Moreover, tasks should be related to the practice and perform the results through outcomes of the learning process, whereas, Lee (2000) suggested that a task should have the connection among participants and become a procedure for learners to achieve the target He illustrated a task as “(1) a classroom activity or exercise that has: (a) an objective obtainable only by the interaction among participants, (b) a mechanism for structuring and sequencing interaction, and (c) a focus

on meaning exchange; (2) a language learning endeavor that requires learners to comprehend, manipulate, and/or procedure the target language as they perform some set

of work plans” (p 32) Similarly, Bygate, Skehan, and Swain (2001) stated that a task can help students use the language and focus on meaning to attain an objective In contrast, Richards and Schmidt (2010) disagreed with Skehan’s opinion with giving an opposite definition of task They stated that a task is "an activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding a language (i.e as a response)” (p 584) They affirmed that the more various the tasks are, the more communicative the language teaching achieve The task in this definition is the result of understanding the language and serving for communicative purposes

2.3.2 Importance of tasks

From the various definitions of tasks above, tasks play a significant role in English language teaching and learning Tasks are considered as a guidance for teachers to design different activities in class Students become more motivated to engage in English lessons when teachers use interesting and enjoyable tasks As a result, they participate actively to complete tasks that teachers give It was proved in David Crabbe’s (2007) opinion about perceiving a good task He stated that the good task will increase students’ motivation when they achieve task’s goals Success of tasks is usually evaluated through students’ participation and satisfaction However, in some

cases, the degree of awareness in which students achieve after learning the tasks will decide success of these tasks It means that many tasks are designed in a funny way, but students cannot learn anything after finishing the lessons Therefore, teachers should know learner’s needs when applying tasks to English teaching in order that students can feel the true value of learning tasks (Mojibur, 2010)

2.3.3 Task components

Task components were illustrated differently by several authors According to Wright (1987a, as cited in Nunan, 2004), tasks minimally consist of two elements that are ‘input data’ and ‘initiating questions’ In his theory, input can be provided by materials, by teachers or learners because the purpose of initiating questions is to help students know what to do with the input He neglected to mention other aspects such as objectives, outcomes, and so on In contrast, Nunan (2004) emphasized the key component of tasks

is ‘goal’ which orientates students to follow the right way during learning tasks He summarized and gave a simple model of task components as follows:

Figure 2.1 The model of task components (Nunan, 2004, p.41)

From the above diagram, each component is illustrated precisely Firstly, goals are

defined as “the vague general intentions behind any learning task” (Nunan, 2004, p 41) Goals express the link directly to the learning outcomes or what the students can be able

to achieve when they complete the learning task One task can lead students to several different goals such as communicative ability, learning-how-to-learn, or etc Besides, Nunan recommended that the language used in the communicative goals is to:

(1) Establish and maintain interpersonal relationships and, through this, the exchange of information, ideas, opinions, attitudes and feelings, and to get things done

(2) Acquire information from more or less ‘public’ sources in the target language (e.g books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, documents, signs, notices, films, television, slides, tapes, radio, public announcements, lectures or written reports, etc.) and use this information in some way

(3) Listen to, read, enjoy and respond to creative and imaginative uses of the target language (e.g stories, poems, songs, rhymes, drama) and, for certain learners, creating themselves

Secondly, Nunan (1989) stated that input is referred to “the data that form the point of

departure for the task” (p 53) He argued this viewpoint in the book that was published in

2004 Input consists of more comprehensive materials such as the spoken, written and visual data in order that students can interact, work with and complete the task Sources

of data are provided by both teachers or created by students such as articles from newspapers, radio, documentaries, and so on When evaluating inputs of the task, we need to consider whether input is authentic or uses real-world materials or not From the authenticity, students feel at ease to perceive the learning contents compared with common texts in the course book

Thirdly, activities and procedures are understood completely similarly Nunan (1989) used the term “activities” to express what he would like to talk about the authenticity,

skills development and fluency/accuracy while Nunan (2004) preferred the term

“procedures” to illustrate the same things Procedures are seen as steps that learners

use input established earlier and manipulate these different activities There is a variety

of rich kinds of tasks so as to give students more chances to approach these tasks easily

In this aspect, the author also introduced useful techniques for students to help their learning better

Next, Nunan (2004) also discussed the teacher role and learner role in the same part Role was referred to the part that learners and teachers develop the relationships in

terms of social and interpersonal aspects to conduct the learning tasks The teachers and learners absolutely have their own roles in the learning environment Teacher roles and learner roles are two sides of a coin (Nunan, 2004) Teachers need to have different roles so as to create a creative environment for learners in the classroom Therefore, the interaction between learners and teachers plays a very important role

Finally, settings was understood as the classroom arrangements for students to be able

to interact with the teacher effectively The arrangement depends on the class size and the number of students Wright (1987, as cited in Nunan, 2004) gave a diagram the different positions in class below

Figure 2.2 The different ways in classroom management (Wright, 1987)

Furthermore, Ellis (2003) suggested a framework with five more complicated task components in the following table

Table 2.1 A framework for describing tasks (Ellis, 2003, p 21)

Designing

feature

Description

1 Goal The general purpose of the task, e.g to practice the ability to

describe objects concisely; to provide an opportunity for the use

of relative clause

2 Input The verbal or non-verbal information supplied by the task, e.g

pictures; a map; written text

3 Conditions The way in which the information is presented, e.g split vs

shared information, or the way in which it is to be used, e.g converging vs diverging

4 Procedures The methodological procedures to be followed in performing the

task, e.g group vs pair work; planning time vs no planning time

5 Predicted

outcomes:

Product The ‘product’ that results from completing the task, e.g a

completed table; a route drawn in on a map; a list of differences between two pictures The predicted product can be ‘open’, i.e

2.4 Listening tasks

2.4.1 Purposes of listening tasks

Ellis (2003) implied that listening tasks aim to (1) measure whether learners have acquired a special feature targeted to be learned or facilitate learning a special feature through modifying the input for effective processing the feature, (2) provide a non-threatening way to engage learners in a meaning-centered activity, and (3) provide learners with the enriched input Vandergrift (2007) gave more information about the listening tasks; namely, listening tasks help students develop their cognitive skills and make them become active listeners in learning

According to Brownell (2001), there are six components of listening tasks, including hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating and responding to receive information at each stage easily These six constituents are illustrated in the following diagram which is known as the HURIER listening model

Figure 2.3 The HURIER listening model (Brownell, 2010, p 145)

The factors such as cultural orientation, past experiences, interests, attitudes, beliefs, and many other elements affect the phases of the listening model After the process of receiving information, listeners move on the understanding, evaluation and interpretation process to decode speakers’ messages The final stages, remembering and responding, are very important to indicate whether listeners understand the communication or not and show how they response what they heard This is a complete process beginning from grasp to response information To sum up, the HURIER listening model facilitates teachers in improving students’ listening ability in daily life as well as supporting the listening teaching and learning to a foreign language Moreover, the model helps students recognize their background knowledge assist them to upgrade their listening comprehension

2.4.2 Types of listening tasks

Rost (2011) represented an overview of six types of listening practice with listening tasks in each type In each listening type, teachers and students’ attention are demonstrated in the following table

Table 2.2 Types of listening practice (Rost, 2011, p 183)

LISTENING

TYPE

Intensive Focus on phonology,

syntax, lexis

Learner pays close attention to what is actually said Teacher feedback on accuracy

Selective Focus on main ideas,

pre-set tasks

Learner attempts to exact key information and construct or utilize information in a meaningful way Teacher intervention during task and feedback on task completion

Interactive Focus on becoming

active as a listener;

attempt to clarify meaning or form

Learner interacts verbally with others,

in collaborative tasks, to discover information or negotiate solutions Teacher feedback on form and outcome

of interaction

Extensive Focus on listening

continuously, managing large amounts of listening input

Learner listens to longer extracts and performs meaning oriented tasks Teacher direct instruction on comprehension strategies; global feedback from teacher

response to input

Learner seeks opportunities to respond and convey her own opinions and ideas Teacher ‘pushes output’ from learner

Firstly, the intensive listening refers to “listening to a text closely, with the intention to decode the input for purposes of analysis” In this type, both teachers and students focus on accuracy Secondly, selective listening in language teaching is defined as

“listening with a planned purpose in mind, often to gather specific information to perform a task” In other words, in this type, learners have to listen to gain specific ideas

of the task with its intended purposes and then perform the task through written words

In this type, lesson contents are various in different topics so as to appeal students in the listening lesson’s context Note-taking is a decisive listening task of selective listening Note-taking listening tasks help students both practice listening and take notes of important ideas Students can enhance their listening ability much more if they practice these listening tasks regularly In order to take notes effectively, pre-listening becomes

an extremely important stage for students to prepare for listening Pre-listening consists

of short and simple activities such as discussing a picture, watching a video clip and answering the follow-up questions This phase provides students with some necessary vocabulary items related to the lesson or supports students in initial contents of the lesson and helps them engage with the listening extract The next type is interactive listening which is implied as “a type of conversational interaction in which the listener takes a leading role in understanding, through providing feedback, asking questions and supporting the speaker” It means that this type creates room for learners to interact with each other via several different ways such as giving feedback, asking and answering questions, and so on In the language learning environment, two-way collaborative listening tasks are normally used to promote the collaboration among learners and improve students’ positive attitudes in learning listening Moreover, students can improve their negotiation through conversations about real problems happening in life Learners can see their responsibility for achieving learning outcomes in their learning environment

The fourth type is extensive listening that focuses mainly on meaning Rost (2011) gave a definition of extensive listening as “listening for several minutes at a time, staying in the target language, usually with a long-term goal of appreciating and learning the content”

In a specific way, learners access to listening input through interesting forms such as songs, films, shows, dramas, news and radio programs at the first stage The information from real forms provide learners with understandable input on the first listening and make them interested in listening as well In this case, learners seem to listen for pleasure The

nomenclature of “sheltered instruction” also used in academic listening, which protects

learners from being overwhelmed by listening too much In general, extensive listening is not only effective in an autonomous learning context but also useful for developing automaticity in oral language processing According to Brown et al (2008), extensive listening supports actively in building confidence and enjoying listening in the target

phase, and in experiencing ‘knock-on effects’ as well as providing rich contents for projects and presentations Furthermore, Waring (2010) emphasized that extensive listening is suitable for all learners at different levels, even beginners In this type, learners primarily listen to main ideas or listen to specific information through watching videos or completing tasks such as listening and answering the questions Such tasks are often designed in the listening books in order that learners can develop their listening ability and improve their note-taking skill However, in order to be good at listening tasks of this type, learners need to have listening strategies such as predicting, monitoring, imaging, looking back, and so on What is more, brainstorming is vital for learners to access to the success in such academic listening in this case

Responsive listening is the following type which provides learners with good opportunities to express their viewpoints rather than information and give back facts based on what they heard Responsive listening links closely to the practice and focuses

on listeners’ responses as the goal of each activity Most of the listening tasks in this type are designed with the time limit within one to two minutes to provide learners with more attention during listening process When teachers elicit the responses from students, they have to use the method of a paused task The paused task is a useful way for learners to understand what they are hearing and check the answers effectively Nevertheless, teachers have to pause at specific points by stopping at the right place to ensure the complete intentions of speaker It requires teachers to prepare the lesson carefully so as to give students the correct answers Listening to the text to give responses for different listening tasks are common in this type

The final one is autonomous listening that is considered as an independent listening Autonomous listening can be a synthesis of above listening types In this type, learners are free to listen what they like, self-comprehend, and response in their own way or control their own listening process Learners can choose a variety of listening resources, for example, face-to-face learning or online learning Learners must look for learning strategies to improve their listening ability Rost (2011) suggested five commonly successful listening strategies, including (1) predicting information or ideas prior to listening (2) making inferences from incomplete information based on prior knowledge (3) monitoring one’s own listening processes and relative success while listening (4) clarifying areas of confusion and (5) responding to what one has

understood The listening tasks in this case are mainly to listen for gist or listen for specific information

To sum up, the six types along with listening tasks in each type are arranged in the order of the most controlled to the most open These listening tasks are considered suitable for all levels of students, but it is necessary to have a reasonable choice in the practice

2.4.3 Processing of listening tasks

In order to develop listening ability, learners need to have a suitable listening processing To mention this matter, each author uses one separate term to describe listening processing For example, Buck (2001) came up with the term of “view” to indicate the listening processing He indicated that there are two most important views

in listening, including the bottom-up view and the top-down view Meanwhile, Nunan (2003) used a different understanding about listening processing models In his theory,

he suggested two processing models of listening which include bottom-up processing and top-down processing He stated that “the bottom-up processing model assumes that listening is a process of decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts” From this view, the establishment about complete meaning texts goes from the smallest units to larger ones

of using the language Moreover, there is a close link inside each phonemic units, words, phrases and utterances The important thing in the bottom-up processing is meaning, which is the last step in the process Top-down processing, by contrast, is stated that

“the listener actively constructs (or, more accurately, reconstructs) the original meaning

of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues” In this model, listeners use knowledge learned in the past to support the listening process This process is easier for higher-level students because they are capable of taking advantages of schemata to predict what they are going to hear or listen to Conversely, students at lower levels need to focus much on words, sound recognition and the connections between sounds and spelling, so the bottom-up processing is suitable for them The bottom-up and top-down processing are demonstrated clearly in the below figure

Figure 2.4 Bottom-up and top-down processing by Nunan, D (2003)

The big question raised in this case is that which processing is more effective and should be used in the second language learning Wilson (2008) stated that one of the failures of bottom-up processing is errors of mishearing individual words Additionally, some recent researches also indicated that top-down processing has made certain mistakes in listening tasks Students tend to give weird guesses about the contents of the listening tasks because they merely hear some familiar vocabulary Therefore, it is essential to utilize both processing simultaneously to build ‘inside the head’ knowledge and ‘outside the head’ knowledge at the same time with the aim to reconstruct messages According to Nunan (2002), it is generally emphasized that

“both top-down and bottom-up strategies are necessary Fluent listening thus depends

on the use of both top-down and bottom-up processing” (p 239) In general, learners should know how to apply the suitable processing as well as combine these processing models to improve their listening ability as much as possible

2.5 Perceptions about the suitability of listening tasks

As mentioned in the previous section ‘task components’, Ellis (2003) and Nunan (2004) gave a framework for describing tasks as follows:

Table 2.3 Framework for describing tasks (Ellis, 2003 and Nunan, 2004)

Goal Input Condition Procedures Predicted outcomes

Goals Input Procedures Teacher role Learner role Settings

The components were primarily adapted by Nunan’s (2004) theory, including (1) goals, (2) procedures, (3) teacher role, (4) learner role, and (5) settings while input was given as the combination of two authors’ theory However, the current study emphasizes to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions about the suitability of the listening tasks, therefore, the components of procedures, teacher role, learner role and settings were removed The reason is that procedures focus mainly on teaching techniques that teachers use to apply in class Teacher role and learner role exploit the functions of teachers and students as well as their responsibility in teaching and learning Finally, settings illustrate the classroom management instead of mentioning contents related to listening tasks Besides that, Nunan (2004) mentioned grading

inputs and integration of tasks, which were illustrated precisely as follows:

Grading input is the arrangement of the task contents in a helpful way Grading is

expressed not only in the complexity of the input but also affected by the length of the text, propositional density, the amount of frequency vocabulary, the speed of texts, etc In the current study, input would comprise all traits mentioned above to estimate input of listening tasks One more thing should be pointed out in this constituent, namely, the contents of the listening tasks and language use as well The ultimate purpose of grading input is to explore whether the tasks are more difficult than students’ ability or not

Integration includes task continuity and task sequencing Task continuity is seen as

the interdependence of tasks or the sequence of tasks, task components and supporting enabling skills within an instructional sequence (Nunan, 2004) He also mentioned the ten-step sequence that demonstrated the continuity of the task The former step is a basis of the later step’s success Hence, each step plays a vital role in establishing the task continuity Sequencing is an arrangement of smaller stages in the same task Nunan (2004) listed three phases including a pre-task phase, a task-proper phase and a follow-up phase Each phase undertakes its own functions For instance, the first stage which is known as schema-building is given in the task with the aim to help students elicit prior knowledge that they had learnt or known This phase orientates learners what they are going to learn in the lesson, increases their interests and rehearses necessary background knowledge as well In the next phase, students perform to complete the task before moving on the follow-up phase which helps students report

what they have been taught or create their own new language through using inputs This is a good chance for students to receive feedback from teachers Students can acknowledge their mistakes by themselves and avoid them during their learning process

From the description of two more factors, ‘grading input’ can be integrated with the element ‘input’ to be one general component, namely, ‘input’ while the element

‘integration’ was kept as one separate component In conclusion, there are three

components in total to estimate the suitability of listening tasks and explore teachers’

and students’ perceptions towards the listening tasks in AEF3, including (1) Goals, (2) Input, and (3) Integration These components were given in the conceptual framework

at the end of this chapter

2.6 Review of previous studies

Undoubtedly, listening skill is very important in both communicating with others and learning a foreign language Many researches which have been conducted overseas and

in Vietnam contexts indicated different results and gave useful recommendations to help learners improve their listening capacity Many researchers have evaluated various aspects of AEF series in order to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of this coursebook series Most of them noted that AEF series are suitable to use in learning English as a foreign language and make learners satisfied with this series during the learning process Researches and theses would be reviewed in the following section The first research ‘American English File Book Evaluation’ was carried out by Toofal and Nasrollahi in 2018 Their purposes are to explore the importance of AEF book’s contents and consider whether contents in AEF book meet their teaching and learning practice in their country or not through using questionnaires to survey a variety of 120 participants, involving EFL teachers, learners, practitioners, language psychologists, theorists, and stakeholders to elicit their ideas for the research aims In the result section, each kind of participants expressed their own viewpoints on AEF contents and relationship between AEF contents and cultures Specifically, politicians thought that the contents in the foreign textbooks in general and in AEF book in particular help students and teachers achieve the desired goals better Such foreign publications, however, can damage national cultures where the book has been used Surprisingly, the results indicated that most specialists, teachers, and learners in this research approved to

use books published by foreign countries in their learning context They stated that AEF book series can be satisfied with learners at all levels as well as meet students’ desired academic and social needs They did not have any negative opinions on AEF book series They also indicated that national books cannot demonstrate interesting contents and lack good contents with enjoyable subjects Finally, the researcher concluded some suggestions to ensure that learners can learn interesting contents and maintain their culture in each lesson

Similarly, one more research was conducted to give an investigation into ‘American English File’ series by Hashemi and Borhani (2015) This study aimed to explore the appropriateness of AEF series towards language features, students’ needs, and language institutes Thanks to collecting data from teachers’ viewpoints, the two researchers received detailed statistical data and analyzed them The 40-item questionnaires based on Litz’s checklist (2000) were distributed to teachers to elicit responses about the aspects, including (1) practical considerations, (2) layout and design, (3) activities, (4) skills, (5) language type, (6) subject and content, and (7) conclusions In the descriptive and inferential statistics of the finding section, the researchers noted that teachers were quite satisfied with evaluation criteria of AEF series, except the criterion of layout and design Moreover, teachers considered AEF series to be an appropriate material in teaching and learning at their context They also emphasized that activities in AEF series develop students’ collaboration in groups or

in pairs What is more, such activities encourage students to promote their sufficient communication in meaningful practice All skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and language areas (vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation) in AEF series were integrated reasonably and made students enhance their learning ability in the same lesson The contents in AEF series were commented quite authentically and suitably for students’ ability Furthermore, from the percentage-of-satisfaction table, the categories of the results showed that teachers felt the happiest with the activities and practical considerations of AEF series while they expressed their least satisfaction with the layout and design of the series Generally speaking, AEF series is an effective material for language teachers and suitable for students in different classes There is one suggestion for this series, which should combine the culture of the research site into the contents of the lesson

If the two previous researches solely evaluate AEF series via teachers’ viewpoints, the next research raised both teachers and students’ attitudes towards this series and found out the differences between teachers and students’ attitudes Karimi et al (2015) had a conscientious look at American English File Series They conducted this study to answer two research questions with the purposes of investigating the teachers and students’ attitudes towards the textbook and considering whether there were any differences between their attitudes or not In order to elicit the responses, the researchers designed questionnaires for students and for teachers based on the old model of textbook evaluation The researchers absolutely conducted the pilot questionnaire to examine the reliability of the questionnaire After that, they did a survey of collecting data from 20 Iranian teachers and 50 out of 300 students selected randomly The questionnaires consist of 25 items and contain five sub-categories, including (1) Subject matter, (2) Vocabulary & Structures, (3) Exercises, (4) Illustrations, and (5) Physical make-up In the result section, the descriptive statistics were illustrated precisely in all five categories Most of the statistics showed the results of mean ranks of teachers’ attitudes are higher than those of students’ Moreover, the null hypothesis which was “there is no significant difference between Iranian EFL teachers and students with respect to their attitudes towards the textbook” was given before looking for the answer of the second research question By contrast, the results indicated that the null hypothesis was rejected because the p-value (p=0.010) is smaller than 0.05 It means that the null hypothesis was not accepted Consequently, there were significant differences between teachers and students’ attitudes towards the textbook according to statistical descriptive statistics from the two groups In general, AEF series was considered as an effective material in teaching and learning in this context

In the other aspect, AEF Book is compared with New Headway English Course in the

research entitled ‘A Comparative Study of American English File and New Headway English Course’ by Aminafashar, Mahahdizadeh, and Khoshchehreh (2019) to investigate which one makes learners more satisfied with learning In this study, the researcher merely collected teachers’ viewpoints on using the two textbooks without any students’ opinions Teachers answer the questionnaires including 36 items of six criteria (known as practical consideration, layout and design, activities, skills, language type, subject and content) based on Litz’s (2005) checklist After the data

collection, the statistics process conducted and showed detailed results about teachers’ responses The results presented the high mean for each criteria Four former criteria, including (1) practical consideration, (2) layout and design, (3) activities, (4) skills displayed no significant differences between the two textbooks Students feel happy and satisfied with them Nevertheless, there is a slight difference in the last criteria With the higher mean of AEF book than New Headway English Course, the results expressed the former is better than the later in terms of the language type as well as the subject and content In conclusion, the comparison in this study was made salient by students’ preference in AEF Book

In the Vietnamese context, Nguyen, T N (2012) spent his considerable time to conduct

a survey of teaching English listening skill to the tenth graders at Tan Ke high school – Ben Tre province This study demonstrated the difficulties students encountered in the listening teaching process A variety of teaching practices as well as listening drawbacks were collected and analyzed from teachers and students’ responses The study revealed the truth about the teaching practice at Tan Ke High School, namely, there is a big gap between teaching practice implemented by teachers and the pedagogical procedure built

by the course designers for applying the new textbook to teaching listening The questionnaires and classroom observations are two research instruments in the study The questionnaires were distributed to collect information from eight teachers and 120 students about the actual listening teaching practices and listening difficulties All the collected information was analyzed and reported systematically and clearly with the detailed sections The descriptive statistics showed that students are sometimes or rarely equipped visual aids or supportive materials in learning Meanwhile, there is only 27.5%

of the students accepted that visual aids are used in class Similarly, the same results were displayed through classroom observations by the researcher A few of the teachers used the visual aids to teach listening and make listening more easily In fact, the researcher found that the reason originated in lacking of concerns from school administration Moreover, the findings gave the practice about teachers mismatched students’ responses in being asked the same questions From teachers’ side, they asserted that they had performed the pre-teaching, introduced the new lesson, expanded the post-teaching stage at the end of the lesson quite well while students reported that their teachers sometimes or rarely did For example, when being asked the provision of

introduction to the listening text, teachers said that they always or usually provided the introduction of listening texts By contrast, 51.7% of the students reported that teachers sometimes did and 27.5% answered that their teachers rarely and never provided them with the assistance What is more, teachers shared that they were merely participated in some training courses lasted within for a week They did not have enough time to be trained necessary knowledge of teaching methodologies as well as apply innovative equipment to their teaching Through various problems related to the listening learning, the researcher recommended some solutions for the teaching practice with the aim of not only improving the teaching quality and teacher professional development but also upgrading the innovation in the teaching practice via necessary facility

One thesis conducted by Nguyen, A.T (2011) discussed whether the adaptation of listening tasks in the new English textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10’ brings effectiveness in improving their listening proficiency at high school The thesis belongs to experimental research, which includes the control group and experimental group The experimental group was experienced with adapted listening tasks while the control group was not Four research instruments (two sets of questionnaire, classroom observation, pre-test & post-test, and interview) were used in this thesis to collect teachers and students’ viewpoints of using the adapted listening tasks The majority of students in the experimental group agreed that the adapted listening tasks designed by teachers are easier, more useful and more interesting rather than the listening tasks in the textbook For instance, 86.7% of the students reported that the adapted listening tasks were quite interesting or extremely interesting while a minority of them (7.5%) supposed that they felt bored and uninterested in such tasks These tasks also helped students hear teachers’ instructions better in order to complete the adapted listening tasks One more important, the post-test showed that the mean scores of adapted listening tasks of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group That is why the null hypothesis raised

in the first chapter was rejected The application of adapted listening skills was effective and should expand the scope of using Through classroom observation, there would be existing weaknesses such as the quality of recording is not good, 50% of the students prepared the lesson at home, the recording speed is too fast, some students are not familiar with dictation tasks, and students do not have enough time for post-reading Moreover, teachers agreed with increasing effectiveness, interestingness, usefulness, and

difficulty of adapted listening tasks in learning listening Listening tasks were suitable for students’ ability and preference At the end of the thesis, the researcher presented some useful recommendations on teachers and students to minimize the weaknesses of the adapted listening tasks

In general, these above researches and theses took a critical look about the evaluation of AEF series and problems related to listening skills along with the success in applying the adapted listening tasks to learning English at the researches’ context The first four researches were conducted to elicit the teachers and students’ attitudes towards AEF series based on the checklist of famous authors However, the papers emphasized on the textbook evaluation, specifically AEF series in general The two following theses focused on the effectiveness of adapting listening tasks and investigated the problems of listening skills so

as to give solutions There is no research discussing the perception of teachers and students towards listening tasks in AEF3 based on task components That is the gap urging me to conduct the current thesis

2.7 The conceptual framework

The study aims to investigate the teachers’ and students’ perceptions at University of People’s Security about the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 and find out the similarities and differences between teachers’ and students’ perceptions Three

components, including (1) Goals, (2) Input and (3) Integration, which were

discussed in the previous sections were the elements to help teachers and students perceive the suitability of the listening tasks in AEF3 Goals and Integration are two separate components while Input is a combination of Input and Grading Input Furthermore, each element was specified with detailed points The questionnaires and interviews designed based on these components to elicit participants’ responses As a result, the conceptual framework which was built based on Ellis (2003) and Nunan’s (2004) theory with those three task components for the listening tasks as follows: