The reality and solutions to improve english listening skills for english majored students of thu dau mot university

This article aims to present the current situation to provide appropriate solutions in learning as well as training listening comprehension skills, to help students majoring in English a

DAU MOT UNIVERSITY

Student name: LƯƠNG NGỌC YẾN Student code: 1722202010408

Class: D17AVKD03 Course: 2017 – 2021 Major: ENGLISH LANGUAGE Lecturer: M.A, HOANG HO TRANG

Binh Duong, December/2020

ii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

IMPROVE ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS FOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS OF THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY

I hereby confirm that I am the sole author of the paper presented Where the work

of others has been consulted, this is duly acknowledged in the paper’s

bibliography I have also not consulted any other unnamed online sources All verbatim or referential use of the sources named in the bibliography has been specifically indicated in the text

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To complete this graduation report, I would like to sincerely thank:

The management board of Thu Dau Mot University has facilitated the facilities with a modern library system, diversified kinds of books and documents,

convenient for searching and researching information

Thank you to the instructors - Ms Hoang Ho Trang for her dedicated and detailed teaching so that I have enough knowledge and apply them to this report Due to the lack of experience in doing talent as well as the limitations of knowledge, the shortcomings in the report will inevitably be unavoidable We hope to receive comments, suggestions and criticisms from her to make the

report more complete

Lastly, I would like to wish you good health, success and happiness

iv

ABSTRACT

In the process of learning English, most students always have difficulty related

to four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing in which, listening and understanding skills are considered one of the most difficult skills for students There are many reasons that make it difficult for students to learn to listen, one

of which is not focusing on learning English in middle school or high school Not only other students, but also the English language students of Thu Dau Mot University face such a difficult situation Through a small survey on the comparison of scores between the four skills, listening comprehension skills usually score significantly lower than the three skills of listening, reading and writing This article aims to present the current situation to provide appropriate solutions in learning as well as training listening comprehension skills, to help students majoring in English at Thu Dau Mot University achieve the best results

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SIDE COVER i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION, MOTIVATION AND PURPOSE

Error! Bookmark not defined 1 Introduction

Error! Bookmark not defined 2 Research purposes

Error! Bookmark not defined 3 Research and discussion

Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1 Objectives Of The Study

Error! Bookmark not defined 3.2 Research Methods

Error! Bookmark not defined 3.2.1 Object 3

3.2.3 Method 3

3.2.3 Survey

Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER 2: OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK

Error! Bookmark not defined 1 Theoretical basis

Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1 Listening Concept 4

vi

1.2 Classification Listening

Error! Bookmark not defined

2 Overview and theoretical basis of functional assessment listening English of University students Error! Bookmark not defined

2.1 Overview Of Related Studies

Error! Bookmark not defined

2.1.1 Researches in our country

Error! Bookmark not defined

2.1.2 Research situation abroad 7 CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION AND DISCISSION

Error! Bookmark not defined

1 Current situation and learning difficulties - practice students' listening comprehension skills Error! Bookmark not defined

1.1 Evaluate The Difficulty Level Of English Listening Skills Of Students Majoring In English At Thu Dau Mot University

Error! Bookmark not defined

1.2 English Listening Skills Of Students Majoring In English At Thu Dau Mot University

Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3 Students' Difficulties In Learning to Listen

Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3.1 General difficulties

Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3.2 Difficulties in learning to listen at home

Error! Bookmark not defined

2 Some reasons lead to the reality of students with hearing loss skills

Er

ror! Bookmark not defined

3 Factors affecting listening skills of English majors Thu Dau Mot University

Error!

Bookmark not defined

vii

4 Solutions to develop English listening skills Error! Bookmark not defined

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION

Error! Bookmark not defined

APPENDIX AND REFERENCE

Error! Bookmark not defined

1 Appendix

Error!

Bookmark not defined

2 References Error! Bookmark not defined

21

10

3.2 English speaking ability

of the students of Thu Dau Mot University

11

3.3 Allocating time for

English learning activities of Thu Dau Mot University students

14

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION, MOTIVATION AND PURPOSE

1 Introduction

In today's era, the booming era of science, technology and information, it

is extremely necessary to grasp the most commonly used foreign language, English, to communicate with other countries in the world Strong qualifications plus fluent English always make a good impression on employers Good English skills give candidates an edge over those with the same expertise Therefore, English is becoming the number one taught foreign language in our country In the past, the main goal of teaching and learning foreign languages was reading comprehension to serve literature, science and technology research Nowadays, to serve the innovation path, open and integrate with the region and the world, the goal of foreign language teaching

is communication The outstanding result of the implementation of the policy

is that the students' foreign language ability is increasingly improved However, the effectiveness of teaching and learning foreign languages is still limited, even in universities and colleges Many university students, colleges, even graduate students, after graduation, still speak English fluently, failing to meet the needs of employers, leading to the quality of the labor force

declining Vietnam still has many limitations

If in another subject, besides the limitations, there are still successes Learning a foreign language means understanding what foreigners want to impart and converting their native language into another foreign language so that foreigners can understand However, in general, that target of foreign language subject has not been achieved Listening is one of the four important skills of learning a foreign language We cannot communicate without understanding Only when the listener responds, the listening process is completed, the communication process can achieve the desired results

Above are the reasons for me to choose the topic "Current situation and solutions to improve English listening skills for English language students of Thu Dau Mot University" as the subject of my graduation report part improving, improving students' English listening ability

Expected results from the topic: In this topic, I intend to assess English listening ability and find out the factors affecting the development of English listening skills, thereby proposing solutions methods to improve English listening skills of students majoring in English from Thu Dau Mot University Practical significance of topic: Topic is a study to measure and evaluate students' English listening ability Knowing about the competency areas for developing English listening skills will help students adjust their learning

methods, and at the same time help teachers change teaching methods to support and facilitate students maximize your ability in English listening comprehension In the past, there have been many domestic and foreign studies on the assessment of competency (giving some specific sources), however, the assessment of English listening ability with a specific assessment tool is still It is also a subject that needs further research and analysis In particular, the application for students who are English language students at Thu Dau Mot University has a great significance The reality shows that students majoring in English at Thu Dau Mot University face many difficulties in learning English They have not found the motivation to study as well as the appropriate learning methods to improve their learning capacity

Refer to the previous studies, this topic focuses on the importance of listening and understanding English in the learning process Through the research results of the topic, students can know what their English listening ability is, need to try to change how to learn to listen more effectively In addition, the topic is expected to contribute to improving the quality of teaching English listening skills of Thu Dau Mot University faculty members

2 Research purposes

The topic is designed to study the theoretical basis to evaluate the listening ability of English majoring students at TDM University, highlight the existing difficulties and find suitable solutions for learning listening to students Information and data collected in the survey will be analyzed and thereby building listening learning methods for students The empirical research part of the topic aims to find out why students have difficulty learning English listening and propose solutions to improve students' English listening ability in the learning process in University In order to help students maximize their learning ability and apply listening skills in the learning process as well as benefit the future work

3 Research and discussion

3.1 Objectives Of The Study

The goal of this study is to understand the current situation of English language listening comprehension level of students majoring in English from TDM University, discover the factors that affect listening learning, and offer some possible solutions Exam helps students improve English listening comprehension skills To this end, I ask the following research questions:

1 What difficulties do English major students face when learning to listen?

2 What methods have they used in the process of improving listening skills?

This is also the basis for creating surveys and finding results about students' problems and solutions while learning listening skills at school and

why students' ineffective listening learning are also given in this study

- Subjects participating in the study include 30 full-time English students

at TDM University

3.2.2 Method

This study uses qualitative and quantitative methods Publications, documents and scientific studies of domestic and foreign scholars and researchers help build theoretical frameworks for research To ensure the validity and reliability of the study, we used surveys, interviews and observations to collect data

3.2.3 Survey

This research paper uses questionnaires to gather information from 30 students The survey questionnaire includes questions about the difficulty, the difficulty, and the cause of that difficulty, followed by questions related to the methods students have been using in listening and distributing learning practice eliminating the effectiveness or efficiency of those methods

CHAPTER 2: OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK

Listening is a process that allows listeners to understand a message, engage them in conversation and succeed in communication Without listening skills, people engaged in communication will not receive the message, and as a result, they cannot respond quickly and effectively Many researchers agree that in foreign language learning, Listening plays an important role in the process of acquiring a language Rubin & Thompson [1, 85] affirms: “Listening is most likely the most important language skill, because people spend about 60% of their time listening… In addition, listening gives you the opportunity to feel the language and comprehensively improve your ability to use the language ” Rost [2,141] also emphasizes that Listening can be seen as an essential skill in the training of a foreign language learner and can even be seen as a predictor of language success of learners Thus, the listening skills can be seen closed a key role in the language learning process

1 Theoretical basis

1.1 Listening Concept:

According to Hasan [3,137], "listening" and "understanding" are two separate processes, in which "listening" is a process by which the listener receives information, and this process takes place one way, completely without claim ask for any interpretations or interactions with the audio text And listening comprehension is a process of two-way interaction between the listener and the listening text, and this interaction helps the listener have a general understanding of the listening text This process of "listening" and

"understanding" is done when the listener selects and explains the information received by the hearing organs and other visual cues (if any) in order to understand the message of the speaker

This view of listening comprehension is also consistent with the second hypothesis of language supported by Richards [4] and O'Malley & Chamot [5] This assumption assumes that listening to spoken language is a complex activity and process, in which the listener focuses on the aspects selected for listening From the sounds they hear, they find out the meaning of the message they hear, and relate what they hear to the knowledge they currently have Brette [6, 39] states that “listening comprehension is a decisive language skill It plays an important role in the process of language acquisition ” When comparing listening with other language skills, Morley [7, 70] also points out that on average each of us hears “twice as much as what we say, four times what we read and five times what we write ”

Researchers distinguish between Listening and Hearing Listening is an active process, which involves analyzing sound, as opposed to Hearing, which only passively receives sound In the same way, Harmer [8, 16] says that Listening is a "receptive skill" when students receive the main idea through what they hear Listeners receive messages from speakers through understanding the voice (accent), pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary used

by the speaker and understanding the meaning of their message

Richards & Schmidt [9] describes listening comprehension as the process

of understanding speech in the first or second language, and listening comprehension in a second language includes both Top-down and Bottom-up processes Brown [10] also shares this point of view and argues that the "top-down" process occurs when learners use the background knowledge and available vocabulary to capture the content of the listening lesson, and the

"bottom" process -up ”is using the context of the listening lesson to predict the meaning of a new word According to Helgesen [11], listening is an active and purposeful skill During the listening process, listeners not only capture what they are listening to, but also can relate the listening content with information they already know to understand the listening lesson In addition, Helgesen also said that when listening, the listener not merely hears the words but needs to understand the implications behind those words

1.2 Classification Listening:

According to Rubin & Thomson [1, 85], listening skills are divided into two categories based on the types of situations in which the listening process occurs (i) Mutual listening: This process occurs when the listener is asked to participate in the interactive process and take turns listening and speaking Situations that require interactive listening include direct conversations and telephone conversations In these situations, the listener has the opportunity to ask the other person to speak clearly, repeat or speak slowly (ii) Mutual listening: This form of listening occurs when the listener participates in a passive listening process of a monologue, a speech or a conversation

Richards [4], Anderson [12], Wolvin & Coakley [13], Underwood [14] and Buck [15] all said that listening comprehension is a complex and positive process, determining the content and level of information perceived These processes use speech as the basis for building meaning, based on the amount

of information released This information is initially identified in short term memory and stored in the long term memory of the listener

When studying listening comprehension process, psychologists and linguists rely on the interaction of two cognitive processes (cognitive processes) that distinguish between bottom up and topdown processes

According to Nunan [17, 17], during the bottom-up process, learners “split the string of words into constituent sounds, connect these sounds together to form words, connect words together to form words syntax and sentence, and so on” In the process of processing information from above the listener understands the meaning of the message exactly as the speaker intended through the use of schemas or knowledge structures ( schemata or structures

of knowledge) in the brain This view emphasizes the importance of the background knowledge that learners use to understand the information they hear receives listening information by linking familiar knowledge with new knowledge, and a lack of background knowledge can damage the listener's attempt to understand a particular statement by the speaker

2 Overview and theoretical basis of functional assessment listening English of University students

2.1 Overview Of Related Studies

2.1.1 Researches in our country

Vietnam is one of the countries where English is one of the foreign languages - the main communication tool, so the teaching of English is very focused This is reflected in the Law on Education of Vietnam, the Ministry

of Education and Training has enhanced the importance of learning English

by bringing English into teaching right from the elementary level Teaching and learning foreign languages in Vietnam has made great efforts but is not really effective and has many limitations, so what is the cause? Maybe it is due to the training program, the teaching method, or the assessment method is not correct and does not reflect the essence, the assessment results do not meet the requirements and purpose of the assessment There have been many studies aimed at renewing the curriculum of the Ministry of Education and Training such as: changing textbooks, textbooks, fostering pedagogical and professional qualifications for teachers, changing testing methods assessment

of learners' learning results However, it is necessary to have support in our teaching and learning about the student's learning outcomes assessment model

to re-influence the teaching process and learn foreign languages in general and English in particular

Vietnam has had many studies on methods to improve the quality of foreign language teaching and learning, but studies in Vietnam are incomplete, and there are no in-depth studies on foreign language learning capacity based on evaluation frameworks specific capacity English is only a tool to communicate, but how to teach and study effectively: innovating teaching methods or adjusting current testing methods; In my opinion, these are 2 closely related issues

In general, studies show the purpose of teaching and learning foreign languages, and mention the role of competencies in learning However, it is necessary to discover obstacles in learning in order to improve learning outcomes Scientific research by two authors Trinh Vinh Hien (2008) and Le Thi Anh Tuyen (2012) surveyed the opinions of first-year British professional students about listening skills, academic difficulties and non-academic studies techniques that English students encounter in listening practice, thereby proposing solutions to overcome difficulties and improve efficiency

in English listening comprehension for students In addition, the master's thesis from University of Foreign Languages - Hanoi National University by

Le Thi Thu Huyen (2010), Nguyen Van Nam (2010) mentioned issues in listening skills tell the students, the causes and the solution In which, the author raises the problems that come from: the key lessons to listen to, the speaker, the listener and the listening environment, then propose solutions to these 4 problems Using spelling methods to improve listening skills is a very new method in teaching and learning English of Vietnamese students Several studies have proven that spelling method is one of the activities in improving English listening ability for learners

2.1.2 Research situation abroad

In the world there are many researches on learning foreign languages for a long time, similar to studies in Vietnam that discuss the goal of teaching and learning foreign languages, as well as emphasize the importance of testing methods Assess learning outcomes The research paper titled “Are communicative language classes being tested communicatively?” (Ireland 2000) emphasized the importance of learning objectives and how test methods affect teaching methods Furthermore, the learned content will have to be applied right from the subject's learning method

In a series of studies on competence and assessment is Bachman's (1990); Boddy and Langham (2000) In which, the authors mentioned about the competency components of the language, including: organizational capacity

to use grammatical and language structures; and pragmatic and linguistic competence in social communication More specifically, the author has defined language proficiency as a cluster of elements used in communication through language, while at the same time reaffirming the impact of assessment on results Results and learning process, the authors have questioned whether the purpose of testing communication language is really feasible? Communication language test is intended to provide testers with information about the learner's ability to perform specific tasks in the target language Also with the topic of learning capacity, the author Ella A.Erway (1984) mentioned factors affecting the listening comprehension process, from

the most important factors to the less important factors At the same time, he also eliminates factors that do not affect listening comprehension From this research paper, many authors then only focus on important factors such as: the content of the course, the voice of the speaker, knowledge of the listening topic and especially the listening environment

CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION AND DISCISSION

1 Current situation and learning difficulties - practice students' listening comprehension skills

In recent years, the communication-oriented foreign language teaching at universities and colleges is the main method which is widely applied to all classes according to the curriculum of the Ministry of Education and Training concentration Training for students communication skills is considered a fundamental goal in the teaching and learning process of English, in which all four skills: Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing are specially focused on all lecturers in the Faculties, the Foreign Language Department Listening comprehension is no longer a passive language skill but becomes an active skill in which learners play an active role of information participants to listen

to, process information, understand the content to ultimately reflect return that information Only when the listener can respond, the listening process is completed, the communication process will achieve the desired results Communication can fail or fail due to poor hearing skills Therefore, listening and understanding skills are considered a basic factor in the communication process

However, learning as well as practicing English listening skills of students majoring in English from Thu Dau Mot University still has many difficulties:Most of the knowledge students accumulate is not commensurate with the amount of English that students have learned in high school or othermforeign language Center The students 'knowledge gap is relatively large (except for a few students with solid English knowledge), students' language skills are still very limited, especially listening skills: The majority

of students' ability to listen to information is below average; Many students

do not even understand the teachers' simple and usual commands We did a small survey to study the listening comprehension skills of English major students at Thu Dau Mot University, sending the survey to 30 students The content of the survey questions helps to clearly and accurately understand the reality of practicing English listening skills of English majoring students at Thu Dau Mot University The questions are designed in detail and easy to understand to help students give accurate answers about: the student's assessment of listening skills, time to practice in and out of the classroom, and activities Teachers are often encouraged to organize during class hours to give students the opportunity to practice; at the same time find out the causes and factors that affect the development of students' listening skills Survey results show: