ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF CAPTIONED VIDEOS IN ENGLISH CLASS OF NONENGLISH MAJORS

The thesis proposal at HUTECH, it is for master thesis. It relates to students attitudes towards captioned videos and listening strategies. It has three parts in the master thesis. For this proposal, students who are learning English course can use to make a reference.

THESIS PROPOSAL Master of Arts in English Language

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF

CAPTIONED VIDEOS IN ENGLISH CLASS OF ENGLISH MAJORS AT HO CHI MINH CITY

NON-INDUSTRY AND TRADE COLLEGE

NGUYEN DINH NHU HA

HO CHI MINH CITY, January 2020

SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS

HCMC, January 2020 Supervisor’s Signature

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I INTRODUCTION page 5

1.1 Background to the study page 51.2 Statement of the problem page 61.3 Aims and objectives of the study page 71.4 Research questions page 71.5 Scope of the study page 71.6 Significance of the study page 81.7 Definitions of the key terms page 81.7.1 Definition of listening page 81.7.2 Definition of captions page 91.7.3 Definition of attitude page 9

II LITERATURE REVIEW page 9

2.1 Introduction page 92.2 Listening skills page 92.2.1 Definitions of listening page 92.2.2 The importance of listening skills page 102.2.3 Problems in listening skills page 102.2.4 Factors affect listening skills page 122.3 Movies with captions and English listening skills page 132.3.1 Definitions of captions page 132.3.2 The relationship between captioned movies and listening skills page 142.4 Attitude page 142.4.1 Definitions of attitudes page 142.4.2 The components of attitudes page 152.4.3 Attitude models page 162.5 Attitudes towards listening comprehension page 19

2.6 Previous research page 202.7 Conceptual framework page 21

III METHODOLOGY page 22

3.1 Research design page 223.2 Research site page 223.3 Sample and sampling procedure page 233.4 Research instruments page 243.5 Data collection procedures page 243.6 Data analysis procedures page 24

IV WORK PLAN page 25 REFERENCES page 26

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Tripartite Model page 17Figure 2: ABC Model page 18Figure 3: CAC Model page 18Figure 4: Conceptual framework of the relationship between students’ attitudes towards captioned movies and listening skills page 21

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HITC: Ho Chi Minh City Industry and Trade college

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF CAPTIONED VIDEOS IN ENGLISH CLASS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT HO

CHI MINH CITY INDUSTRY AND TRADE COLLEGE

I Introduction

1.1 Background to the study

Listening is considered one of the most important skills for foreign languagelearners It results from the fact that listening plays a major role in everydaycommunication According to Morley (1991), “Listening is the most commoncommunicative activity in daily life: we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak,four times more than we read, and five times more than we write” (p.81) Moreover, itwill be against the naturalistic approach of acquiring a language and cause “cognitiveoverload” if learners are forced to produce the forms that they have not acquired yet(Vandergrift, 1999) In other words, learners should receive input before switching to anyother stage of language learning Listening, then, provides them with input However,listening is seen as one of the most difficult tasks to do since the content and speed of theinput do not depend upon the listeners but on the speakers That is why English teachersmust seek for some way to facilitate their learners’ listening process

Traditionally, listening activities were believed to consist of only some typicaltasks such as listening to a recording and do some following tasks, listening to teachersand repeat, listening to songs, or dictation These kinds of activities somehow causeboredom in a language classroom Nowadays, with the support of technology, teachersare enabled and encouraged to apply innovative multimedia tools to their teaching,especially in teaching listening skills According to Baltova (1994), movies are effectiveand powerful tools to attract viewers’ attention and emotion and encourage them toimprove listening skills for understanding the contents

Videos, as a result, become an extremely useful source of listening materials since

it provides learners with both audio and visual input Further than that, not only is the

image added to the sound, but the captions can also be included to facilitate listeningprocess The controversy arises around this is whether the use of captions in a video canenhance learners’ listening skills Although many studies have been conducted over thisissue, the answer is still far from conclusive

In reality, listening skills is a compulsory subject in most of universities inVietnam It is one of components designed in each lesson In fact, the role of listeningskills is considered as a vital skill in communication In addition, to enhance the study ofEnglish and the quality of English teaching, the Vietnamese Prime Minister issued theDecision No 1400/QT-TTg on approving the plan “Teaching and Learning ForeignLanguages in the National Formal Educational System in the period of 2008-2020

Despite its importance in learning English, the teaching of listening skills has beenignored and given little attention In most of general classes, students focus on grammar,reading and vocabulary Listening skills is somehow neglected by the teachers Moreover,the lack of facilities in classrooms is an obvious obstacle for teachers conductinglistening activities It is no doubt that there are many problems for teaching and learninglistening skills

The study will be conducted at Ho Chi Minh Industry and Trade College (HITC).Since 2005, the Faculty of Foreign Languages at HITC has been responsible for teachingEnglish programs The teachers at the faculty are expected to face a lot of difficulties infinding the effective ways and methods to teach the listening skills They are also at theirbeginning to seek for and establish effective syllabus and assessment system for theEnglish courses Beside learning the experience from studies in this field, it is alsoimportant to carry out some investigation in the specific context of HITC That is why theresearcher who is also one of the teachers in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at HITCand is in charge of teaching listening skills, wants to carry out this study

1.2 Statement of the problem

With the requirements of achieving B1 level after the course and fluent capacity ofusing English for subjects as well as the future job, students at HITC have to use Englishlanguage effectively in communicative situations However, it is a fact that most ofspeakers are from different areas and with different accents Therefore, they will haveobstacles with listening skills if they do not have chances to experiences differentaccents.

Besides that, most students at HITC find it difficult to be familiar with Englishteaching methods at the college It is because that students come from different ruralareas in Vietnam and have different views to learning English They have little attention

to listening skills that was always ignored during the years of secondary and high school

It is the reason why they are facing obstacles to listening periods at the college

In addition, learners are more excited to learn with authentic materials such asmusic and movies in the classroom Using these kinds of materials helps students becomeactive in learning as well as enhance students’ listening skills Thus, the researcherdecides to conduct this research to explore learners’ attitudes towards English movieswith captions among non-English majors

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study

From the theoretical and practical reason which are discussed above, this studytherefore aims at:

- Finding out students’ attitudes towards using English captioned movies in Englishclasses at HITC

The scope of this study will be conducted at Ho Chi Minh Industry and TradeCollege The study focuses on the investigation of attitude towards using captions inEnglish listening comprehension of 250 students The participant of the study will bestudents who are learning in general English classes at HITC

1.6 Significance of the study

This study when finished will hopefully be a useful source of information forEnglish teachers at HITC It will provide the teachers with the new perspectives andinsights regarding teaching listening skills in most general English classes It will alsogive teachers an opportunity to consider students’ expectations in listening periods

In addition, the study is expected to be a helpful guide for those who areresponsible for developing the syllabus and facilities at the college In fact, it will helpprincipals as well as leaders of English faculty to have better solutions in designing thesyllabus and install necessary equipment for teaching listening

Another contribution of the study is to help students recognize their problems inlistening skills It also helps to formulate students’ interest in watching captioned movies

to improve their listening skills Furthermore, students will be more interested in listeningperiods at school

Moreover, since there are not many studies focusing on this issue, this study ishoped to be a useful reference for later studies conducted in the same field Last but notleast, the study is believed to enlarge the researcher’s knowledge and experience fordoing research

1.7 Definitions of the key terms

For the purpose of this study, the following key terms are defined to provide a specific perspective on the issues discussed

1.7.1 Definition of listening

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what the speakers are saying Itinvolves identifying the sounds and processing them into meaningful words or sentences

1.7.2 Definition of captions

Captions are similar to the subtitles and give people access with the contents ofspoken languages They are the words underneath a movie which helps viewers recognizethe sounds and meanings of spoken sentences

2.2 Listening skills

2.2.1 Definitions of listening

Listening is one of the most important skill in acquiring a language Up to thispoint, there have been a lot of definitions of listening Howatt and Dakin (1974) definedthat listening is the ability to identify and understand what the speakers are saying Inanother definition, listening is the process of receiving, attending to and assigningmeaning to aural stimuli (Wolvin & Coakley, 1982)

Listening is an activity of receiving spoken language through the auditory organ Itinvolves identifying the sounds and interpreting the meanings of sounds According toNunan (1995), listening is an important skill in most EFL classes Gilakjani and Ahmadi(2011) concluded that listening is a difficult job and requires students to spend much timeand energy on interpreting the meanings of spoken sentences Sariconban (1999) quoted

in Khalad (2010) mentioned that the listening skills reflects the learners’ ability ofreceiving and choosing what the speakers are saying

2.2.2 The importance of listening skills

Listening plays an important part in most of the daily conversations The listeningactivity occupies 40-50% in communication (Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011) Devine (1982)expressed that listening is the most important means through which the information isreceived and processed Guo and Wills (2006) states “Listening is the medium throughwhich people gain a large proportion of their education, their information, theirunderstanding of the world and human affairs, their ideals, sense of values” (p 3)

Of all four language skills, listening is considered as the most significant inlearning a second language (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, Morley, 2001; Rivers, 1981).Listening is the most frequently used in classrooms throughout all levels of education.Thanks to listening, learners can understand input at the right level Moreover, learnerscan get more attention to vocabulary, grammar and patterns in language through listeningexercises

2.2.3 Problems in listening skills

Different researchers state some difficulties that learners may encounter in listeningskills There are six collected evidences that the researcher will discuss in this part

Quality of recorded materials

It is obvious that few teachers have difficulties finding recorded materials withhigh quality They lack necessary experiences and skills for creating files that are used in

listening periods As a result, recorded files cannot meet learners’ expectations.According to Bingol et al (2014), the quality of sound system has a great impact onlearners’ listening However, few teachers can meet the requirements of technology aswell as necessary skills for making recorded materials

Background knowledge

It is one of the most important problems which has a significant impact onlearners’ approaching a new language Learners coming from different regions withdifferent background always face difficulties in acquiring a new language, especiallylistening skills However, learners are supposed to have the same background in languageclasses Consequently, the teachers focus on giving lectures without paying muchattention on learners’ understanding It is the reason why Bingol et al (2014) suggeststhat the teachers should be responsible for giving background knowledge about thelistening activities in advance

Accent

Acquiring a new language seems to be difficult to some learners in masteringdifferent accents Munro and Derwing (1999) expressed that too many kinds of accent inlistening activities can lead to boredom and reduction in listening Although Goh (1999)said that the accent plays an important factor in listening skills, different and unfamiliaraccents can cause serious problems and have a negative impact on learners’ listeningskills

Unfamiliar vocabulary

Listening to known words becomes easier for learners to understand in cases Inaddition, Temur (2006) states that it is possible and necessary to increase the vocabularythrough listening tasks in class Listening tasks, therefore, are not only exercises but also

a tool to foster learners’ vocabulary

However, the unfamiliar words often appear when learners acquire a newlanguage It causes problems for learners They will become bored and tired tounderstand and realize these unfamiliar vocabularies Darti (2017) concluded thatvocabulary is a big obstacle to most learners Learners have limited practice to listening,

so they often have difficulties understanding unfamiliar words

Length and speed of listening

The length of a recording plays a great role on motivating learners to keepinformation and listening to the last sentences For a short recording, learners find it easy

to keep in mind what they just hear In case of long recordings, learners cannot keep inmind what they hear and become exhausted to listen to the whole recording AccordingAtkins (1995), short recordings facilitate listening and terminate boredom, tiredness andkeep learners listening to the end of recordings

In addition, the slower speed of recordings will also motivate learners tofrequently practise listening skills Blau (1990) demonstrated that the slow speed ofrecording is an effective way to help learners for acquiring a second language

2.2.4 Factors affect listening skills

Many researchers point out factors that affect listening skills They are some commonfactors such as learner, speaker and material These factors have both positive andnegative impacts on learners’ attitudes in acquiring a language

Learner factor

It is the most important factor which is going to be discussed in this part Learnerfactor includes education level, age, attitude and so on toward acquiring a secondlanguage In these factors, attitude is one of the most significant factors of acquiring anew language Learners’ attitude is considered as a vital guide to succeed in learning a

language Positive or negative attitudes always have impacts on their perception Inlistening skills, attitude helps to formulate learners’ interests and motivations According

to Açıkgöz (1992), the most important variable affects the success in education islearners’ attitudes

Munro and Derwing (1999) expressed that the speech with many accents can reducelisteners’ attention Buck (2001) showed that listeners will encounter difficulties inlistening if they hear un unfamiliar accent in spoken languages

Material factors

Selecting a suitable listening material holds an important role Material is a guidefor learners to master a second language The usage of vocabulary and tasks in materialsencourage learners to discover and widen their knowledge Language factors in materialsare also important They help students to understand and become more familiar withtasks

Goh (2000) expressed that learners face problems when doing listening texts.Therefore, the contents of materials should be easy and suitable for learners’ levels.Complex listening tasks are not appropriate for beginners and they might fail tounderstand In case of easy listening exercises cannot be used in intermediate classes,because it might not help students get more knowledge

2.3 Movies with captions and English listening skills

2.3.1 Definitions of captions

Captions are considered as subtitles and help people easily understand the contents

of spoken languages Danan (2004) refers captions to “teletext subtitles” as how they areunderstood in Europe Additionally, according to Abdollapour (2014), captions aretranscriptions of audio portions of television programs, appearing on the screen at thesame time as the program”

Captions are “the onscreen text in the original language combined with asoundtrack in the same language” (Markham, Peter & McCarthy, 2001) They aresupposed to provide viewers an enjoyable experience of the programs

2.3.2 The relationship between captioned movies and listening skills

Many researchers paid attention to taking advantages of videos as a learningresource Researchers strongly agree that multimedia learning materials are moreinteresting and useful in term of images and sounds (Mackey & Ho, 2008; Rose, 2003).When learners watch videos in a foreign language, they can improve their listening skillseffectively

It is a fact that English movies have several benefits for teaching listening skills interm of understanding and interpreting the speakers’ messages Lonergan (1984) gives anevidence that learners are able to distinguish speakers’ daily conversations and enhancenecessary linguistic structures Markham (1989) conducted the research on the effects ofmovies on listening skills He concluded that the learners could improve their listening bywatching movies

In addition, Gildea, Miller and Wurtenberg (1990) shows that learners who do notusually watch English movies face difficulty in producing complex sentences in thesecond language It can be said that learners can make up their sentences by imitating andreusing the spoken sentences from the movies