VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE A SURVEY OF TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL TO THE TENTH GRADERS AT TAN KE HIGH SCHOOL – BEN TRE PROVINCE Submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL By NGUYỄN THÀNH NGHĨA Supervised by LÊ HOÀNG DŨNG, Ph.D. HO CHI MINH CITY, FEBRUARY 2012 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: A SURVEY OF TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL TO THE TENTH GRADERS AT TAN KE HIGH SCHOOL – BEN TRE PROVINCE in terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the High Degree Committee Ho Chi Minh City, February 2012 NGUYỄN THÀNH NGHĨA ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, NGUYỄN THÀNH NGHĨA, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, accept the requirements of the school for the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for care, loan or reproduction of theses. Ho Chi Minh City, February 2012 NGUYỄN THÀNH NGHĨA iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Lê Hoàng Dũng, who read my manuscript with great care and devotion, gave me thoughtful comments, and provided me with valuable support in the preparation and completion of this thesis. Without his encouragement and constant guidance, I could not have finished this thesis. My thanks also go to the authors for the ideas quoted in the thesis. Their books are a great source for me to produce my M.A. thesis. I am also grateful to Mr. Huỳnh Phong Nhuận, my dear classmate and also my helpful monitor, who gave me useful ideas without which it would be hard for me to find out the right way to develop my thesis. I owe my thanks to all teachers and learners who were willing to respond to my questionnaires, especially to the teachers who offered favorable conditions for my data collection. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Lê Thị Mỹ Lệ, for her love, support, and encouragement during the time I attended the course and did the thesis. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ..........................................................................II RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ............................................................. III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................... IX LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... X LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. XI ABSTRACT............................................................................................................ XII CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1 1.1 Rationale of the study ................................................................................... 1 1.2 Purpose of the study ..................................................................................... 4 1.3 Research questions ....................................................................................... 5 1.4 Significance of the study .............................................................................. 5 1.5 Limitation of the study ................................................................................. 5 1.6 Overview of the thesis .................................................................................. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................... 7 2.1 Understanding spoken English ..................................................................... 7 2.1.1 Listening skills in English learning ...................................................... 7 2.1.2 Importance of listening skill ................................................................. 8 2.1.3 Process models of listening .................................................................. 9 2.1.3.1 Bottom-up processing .................................................................. 9 2.1.3.2 Top-down processing ................................................................... 9 2.1.3.3 Interactive processing ................................................................ 10 2.1.4 A skills-based model of listening-centered communication ................ 10 2.2 Teachers’ role in developing listening tasks................................................ 12 2.3 Effective teaching of listening .................................................................... 13 2.4 Stages in teaching listening comprehension ................................................ 15 2.4.1 Pre-listening stage .............................................................................. 15 2.4.2 While-listening stage.......................................................................... 16 v 2.4.3 Post-listening stage ............................................................................ 18 2.5 Some hypothetical problems in EFL listening............................................. 20 2.5.1 Listening problems that emerge from the pre-listening stage .............. 20 2.5.1.1 Background knowledge of culture and context........................... 20 2.5.1.2 Listeners’ limited word stock ..................................................... 21 2.5.1.3 Lack of visual support................................................................ 21 2.5.2 Listening problems that emerge from the while-listening stage .......... 22 2.5.2.1 Pronunciation ............................................................................. 22 2.5.2.2 Speech rate ................................................................................ 23 2.5.2.3 Accent ....................................................................................... 24 2.5.2.4 Listening in the passive position ................................................ 24 2.5.2.5 Failure to concentrate................................................................. 25 2.5.3 Listening problems that emerge from the post-listening stage ............ 25 2.5.3.1 Memory ..................................................................................... 25 2.5.3.2 Shyness to present the listening ideas in front of the class .......... 26 2.5.3.3 Receiving feedback.................................................................... 26 2.5.3.4 Combining listening with other skills......................................... 27 2.5.3.5 Fatigue ....................................................................................... 27 2.6 Strategies of listening comprehension......................................................... 28 2.7 Previous researches concerning to listening and listening teaching ............. 30 2.8 Summary .................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................ 36 3.1 Research design .......................................................................................... 36 3.2 Subjects of the study................................................................................... 36 3.2.1 Students ............................................................................................. 36 3.2.2 Teachers............................................................................................. 37 3.3 Data collection instruments ........................................................................ 37 3.3.1 Questionnaires ................................................................................... 38 3.3.1.1 Questionnaire for teachers ......................................................... 38 3.3.1.2 Questionnaire for students ......................................................... 38 3.3.2 Classroom observation ....................................................................... 39 vi 3.4 Data collection procedure ........................................................................... 39 3.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 42 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ............................................... 43 4.1 Data analysis .............................................................................................. 43 4.1.1 Preparation of teaching listening comprehension ................................ 43 4.1.2 Teaching practices in a listening session ............................................ 47 4.1.2.1 Teaching practices at the pre-listening stage .............................. 47 4.1.2.2 Teaching practices at the while-listening stage........................... 51 4.1.2.3 Teaching practices at the post-listening stage ............................. 54 4.1.3 Difficulties in listening to English ...................................................... 58 4.1.3.1 Difficulties at the pre-listening stage .......................................... 58 4.1.3.2 Difficulties at the while-listening stage ...................................... 60 4.1.3.3 Difficulties at the post-listening stage ........................................ 61 4.2 Discussion of results................................................................................... 63 4.3 Summary of findings .................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS .......................................... 67 5.1 Suggestions ................................................................................................ 67 5.1.1 Suggestions to the administrators at TKHS ........................................ 67 5.1.1.1 Updates on knowledge of language teaching methodology and necessary equipment should be provided adequately........... 67 5.1.1.2 In-service training in pedagogical procedures related to the listening skills should be organized ........................................... 68 5.1.1.3 Listening should be officially made one of the assessment criteria in English tests and exams. ............................................ 68 5.1.2 Suggestions to the students at TKHS. ................................................. 69 5.1.2.1 Students should have proper attitudes towards learning listening comprehension at TKHS. ............................................ 69 5.1.2.2 Students should have right ways to learn and practice listening skill. ............................................................................ 70 5.1.3 Suggestions to the teachers at TKHS. ................................................. 70 5.1.3.1 Teachers should improve teaching method of listening skill. ..... 70 vii 5.1.3.2 Teachers should alter their attitudes towards teaching listening comprehension in a positive way. ................................ 71 5.1.3.3 Teachers should help students change their attitudes towards English listening learning at TKHS. .......................................... 71 5.1.3.4 Teachers should really teach listening skills rather than test them. ......................................................................................... 71 5.1.3.5 Teachers should spend a little time explaining the nature and processes of listening to their learners and guiding them how to listen to English. .................................................................... 72 5.1.3.6 Some listening exercises need to be adjusted to suit students’ ability. ....................................................................................... 73 5.1.3.7 Teachers should teach English listening strategies to their students ..................................................................................... 74 5.1.3.7.1 Pre-listening strategies .................................................... 74 5.1.3.7.2 Finding out main ideas .................................................... 75 5.1.3.7.3 Identifying the relationships of ideas ............................... 75 5.1.3.7.4 Determining word stress that is critical for successful communication .............................................................. 76 5.1.3.7.5 Note-taking ..................................................................... 76 5.1.4 Summary of suggestions .................................................................... 77 5.2 Conclusion and recommendation for further research ................................. 79 5.2.1 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 79 5.2.2 Recommendation for further research................................................. 80 References ....................................................................................................... 82 Appendix 1 QUESTIONNAIRE TO TEACHER RESPONDENTS ................. 89 Appendix 2 QUESTIONNAIRE TO STUDENT RESPONDENTS ................. 92 Appendix 3 PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT (Dành cho học sinh) ..................................... 95 Appendix 4 OBSERVATION CHECKLIST .................................................... 98 Appendix 5 Frequency of the observed actual teaching practices of listening . 100 Appendix 6 Summary of the observed practices in five levels of frequency ... 101 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BA Bachelor of Arts EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching MA Master of Arts TESOL Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages TKHS Tan Ke High School ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Summary of some listening teaching activities and expected output to students................................................................................................ 33 Table 2.2: Summary of some common hypothetical difficulties in teaching English listening skill ....................................................................................... 35 Table 4.1: Teachers' response to preparation of teaching listening comprehension 44 Table 4.2: Students' response to learning the listening lessons ............................... 46 Table 4.3: Teachers' and students' responses concerning the teaching practices at the pre-listening stage ................................................................................ 48 Table 4.4: Teacher's and students' responses regarding the teaching practices at the while-listening stage ............................................................................ 52 Table 4.5: Teacher's and students' responses about the teaching practices at the post-listening stage .............................................................................. 55 Table 4.6: Summary of findings from listening teaching activities ........................ 66 Table 5.1: Summary of some suggestions about listening teaching activities ......... 78 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: The HURIER listening model (Brownell, 2010: 145) .......................... 11 Figure 3.1: Summary of research procedure .......................................................... 41 Figure 4.1: Teachers' and students’ responses to difficulties at the pre-listening stage ...................................................................................................59 Figure 4.2: Teachers' and students’ responses to difficulties at the while-listening stage ...................................................................................................60 Figure 4.3: Teachers' and students’ responses to difficulties at the post-listening stage ...................................................................................................61 xi ABSTRACT Although listening comprehension is generally recognized as one of the most important skills in learning English, it has been one of the most neglected fields to senior high school students, which leads to a worrying result – learners’ failure in conversational exchanges with native speakers of English after seven years of learning English. In this study, an attempt was made to investigate the classroom listening comprehension teaching practices of Grade 10 teachers in relation to a new textbook and the students’ difficulties. The required data for the study were collected using questionnaires and classroom observations. All eight English teachers at Tan Ke High School (abbreviated to TKHS) were requested to complete the questionnaire. To cross- check the information given by the teachers, a similar questionnaire was administered to 120 students. Among the eight teacher subjects, four teachers teaching the tenth grade were observed (four times each) to see how the listening lessons were actually happening. After the data were gathered, descriptive analysis such as frequency and percentage was used to analyze the participants’ responses and classroom observation. The analysis revealed that there has been a gap between the teaching practices implemented by the teachers and the pedagogical procedures favored by the course designers for teaching the listening sections of the new textbook. Though the teachers said that they have been using the communicative approach, the students’ responses and the classroom observation results indicated a mismatch between what actually happened in the listening classes and what has been proposed in teaching the skill. Accordingly, lack of in-service training on how the new textbook should be implemented and the introduction of the new textbooks, essential equipment for presenting the listening lessons, and motivation and commitment on the part of the teachers appear to be the major causes for the teachers’ failure to execute the suggested teaching approach and procedures. xii Finally, it has been recommended that in order to develop teachers’ awareness of the communicative language teaching approach, officials at the Ministry of Education and Training, school administrators, and the teachers themselves should take responsibilities to organize practice-based in-service development programs and to assess learners’ listening competence. Besides that, the students should also pay much attention to learning listening skills and realize its importance so that they are self-aware of practicing listening every day with the proper listening strategies. Moreover, the listening materials should be adjusted for improving the students’ needs and ability. Also, school libraries and audiovisual centers should be better equipped with current reference materials on language teaching methodology and equipment that are useful for teaching listening comprehension. xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The thesis has carried out a survey of teaching and learning listening comprehension at Tan Ke High School and is intended primarily for the teachers and students here. This introduction chapter presents the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims of the thesis, the research questions, and a discussion on the significance of the study. 1.1 Rationale of the study Since the academic year 2006-2007, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has released a new textbook1 for the study of foreign languages in senior high schools. One of the primary aims of the new curriculum discussed in teaching English language with a communicative purpose in Vietnam is to require teachers to attend to speaking and listening skills in lessons (Teacher’s Book, Grade 10, 2007, 3-4) and to place greater emphasis on the communicative ability attained by the learners. As a result, effective listening becomes one of the determinants of the students’ success or failure. However, when the researcher of the study has clearly observed the problem at TKHS, he finds out that the tenth graders’ abilities to listen to and understand English seem to be inadequate. Some learners frequently feel bored and lack concentration in their listening learning, but they cannot know how to improve the difficult situation. A manifestation of the problem is that there are often students absent from class, and even for those who come to class: Some of them are frequently absent-minded, and some even doze off in class. The students, as explained by them, have found the listening class both boring and difficult to absorb knowledge. Moreover, many satisfactorily unanswered questions such as “I don’t know how to improve my listening skills. Can you help me?”; “I can get 1 Ministry of Education and Training. (2009). Tiếng Anh 10. Edudcation Publishing House. 1 better at speaking, reading, and writing but cannot enhance listening. How to learn the skill better?” and “How can I listen to the native speakers effectively?” are regularly arisen from the learners. Also, many students appear to be strange about listening to key information. The students have difficulty in improving listening skills. Some other students are not equipped enough general knowledge of the listening work. They are familiar with listening freely without thinking of a topic and without activating background knowledge. Indeed, instead of paying much attention to the helpful factors besides a language to compensate for the lack of linguistic understanding, the learners just only wait to get information hastily from listening texts, and they seem to ignore the questions which are issued in the preparation process of listening. However, it is the exercise information framework that assists them to predict effectively what they must face at the while-listening stage. Moreover, when listening to English, the students often claim that they cannot keep up with speakers’ speed and frequently miss the next part because of desperately trying to get the meaning of every word spoken. Besides that, the learners, at the post-listening stage, often try to complete the answers, but not find the reasons why they have just failed to listen to the message, and why their answers are not suitable for a certain case. They do not know that in different contexts, the same words, phrases, or sentences can produce different meanings. Therefore, it appears that the students’ listening ability does not develop to the extent they are able to productively extract relevant information from spoken lessons. The students have not also been provoked for listening motivation. The serious problem worth concerning about is why a listening text is considered like a reading one and why the listening skill is not evaluated in the final graduation exams of grade 12 to positively motivate the students to learn, while the skill is thought not easy to Vietnamese learners of English in general and to high school students in particular. Therefore, from the recognition of the above-mentioned problems, the inspiration for the study arises. 2 The students’ poor listening abilities are likely to lead to the assumption that the innovations in the syllabuses and teaching materials do not influence the necessary methodological changes into the listening teaching practices in class. To cope with the aims of the new syllabus, teachers are expected to move in the direction of adoption of the communicative language teaching approach (Teacher’s Book, Grade 10, 2007: 7). Normally, behind innovations in syllabuses and teaching materials, there is an underlying desire for change in the teaching practices (Hall & Hewings, 2001: 4). Unluckily, most of the teachers in Tan Ke High School have been accustomed to the traditional grammar-translation method that focuses on vocabulary and grammar, and they have not paid much attention to communicative skills, particularly listening comprehension. Thus, it is worth investigating the current practice of teaching English listening in class. There has also been a claim that Vietnamese English teachers focus on the structure of the language and tend to implement the traditional methods instead of adapting the new approaches and procedures for teaching English (Nguyễn Thị Nguyệt Ánh, 2009: 9), and they pay no attention to listening skills. The teachers think that teaching English is simply teaching English grammar to students, and learning English means learning grammar and vocabulary of that language. The reason for their viewpoint is that if students are not learning English grammar, they almost do not learn English at all. They cannot communicate in English without grasping knowledge of grammar. This problem results in the fact that the teachers only concentrate on teaching grammar to their students, leading to the unsuccessful results in communication, which is the ultimate goal of teaching and learning English or any foreign language. However, to enhance learners’ communicative competence, it is necessary for them to mainly focus on not only the grammar and vocabulary but also skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Nguyễn Huy Cẩn, 2008: 82), in which listening is, according to Mishra (2011: 56), “one of the most important skills that play a vital role in the process of communication.” Some teachers, though recognizing the important role of listening, still do not care about improving the skill to their students because, as explained by them, 3 there are so many other things about English that are much more essential and central to teach than listening comprehension. This means that listening is more or less ignored. Nevertheless, the skill needs to be considered a critical means of language learning to allow learners to understand the speech they hear and take part in any form of spoken communication successfully (Rost, 2001: 7). In addition, as known by the researcher, local studies were conducted in the area of listening, but up to now they have not been carried out to investigate the actual teaching practices of listening in light of the listening materials and the pedagogical procedures incorporated in the new communicatively oriented textbooks. Thus, such a study can be worthwhile to find out if the innovations bring the intended changes in the actual teaching practices for the attainment of the stated instructional objectives. In other words, a classroom research like this will be helpful to investigate whether the planned language-teaching program has been put into practice. 1.2 Purpose of the study This study, therefore, attempts to investigate the actual teaching practices of listening in Grade 10 in relation to the introduction of the new textbook. The thesis tries to explore whether Grade 10 English teachers apply the teaching materials and the procedures prescribed for teaching listening comprehension. It aims at: (1) Understanding the current practice of teaching listening comprehension to the tenth graders at Tan Ke High School; (2) Finding out difficulties the students are facing; (3) Suggesting some possible ways of teaching and learning listening skill. It is hoped that the study will increase administrators’ and teachers’ consciousness of the importance and effectiveness of teaching listening skill, leading to adjusting the listening teaching activities of the current English curriculum as planned by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training in 2015 with the objective: reforming the English teaching for effective communication. Also, presented in the thesis are some practical listening teaching 4 and learning strategies, which are relevant to Tan Ke High School teachers and students. 1.3 Research questions To achieve the overall objectives stated above, the thesis is going to answer the following questions: 1. What is the current practice of teaching English listening skill to the tenth graders at Tan Ke High School? 2. What problems prevent the students from listening to English successfully? 3. What can be some possible ways to overcome the problems? 1.4 Significance of the study The research tends to solve the current listening problems that many high schools in Vietnam have encountered. The thesis also helps the non-native English learners to reduce problems when learning listening comprehension. Moreover, a learner can only be regarded as good if they listen to natural English of native speakers successfully enough to infer the proper meaning. In other words, listening comprehension is an essential language skill as well as a prerequisite for oral proficiency so that the students can improve their communicative ability. Harmer (2007: 133) has ever said: “It is worth remembering that successful spoken communication depends not just on our ability to speak, but also on the effectiveness of the way we listen”. The survey, therefore, into the subject of how to teach and learn listening comprehension to high school learners is a matter of great urgency. Hopefully, the difficulties to be found and their solutions to be suggested may be regarded as a reference document to the teachers who target to help students enhance their listening skills for communicative purposes at Vietnamese senior high schools in general and Tan Ke High School in particular. 1.5 Limitation of the study Factors affecting the classroom teaching practices are many, but the thesis deals only with the immediate common problems occurring in classroom context that prevent high school students from listening to English successfully and 5 suggests some solutions to the problems. Due to the constraints of time and the lack of resources, the research seems to be limited to an investigation for teaching and learning English listening of the teachers and a number of tenth graders at Tan Ke High School. It cannot be seen as the best way to learn listening comprehension to everybody in anywhere and at any time, but the study may be applied in similar educational settings. It is hoped that more researches on improving learners’ listening skill will be made for better generalization and comprehensiveness. 1.6 Overview of the thesis The research consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 talks about background to the study, purpose of the thesis, research questions, importance for the research, and limitation of the study. Chapter 2 mentions the viewpoint of the literature relevant to the research. Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the study consisting of research design, research subjects, as well as data collection instruments and procedures. Chapter 4 analyzes data collected from the questionnaires and class observation as well as discusses the study findings. Chapter 5 provides some suggestions and some English listening strategies for improving teaching and learning of listening comprehension skills. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Many famous scholars have studied a variety of different methods for teaching listening successfully; each has their views and reasons for their own choice. However, a common purpose among their theories is to improve the listening comprehension. The literature review presented in this chapter will draw a brief look into the history of teaching skills and related issues, which lays a theoretical foundation for the study. 2.1 Understanding spoken English 2.1.1 Listening skills in English learning There are many definitions of listening skills in language teaching books. According to Howatt and Dakin (1974, quoted by Yagang, 1994: 189), “listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning.” Similarly, listening comprehension, as defined by Lewis (1999: 134), consists of not only recognizing words but also comprehending the meaning of sentences in a certain special context and remembering the things which is spoken long enough to work meaning out. Moreover, listening makes sense of spoken language thanks to sound signals and visual input, with the assistance of proper background knowledge and the context where listeners are listening (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2002: 193). It can be thought as the process of right decoding the message and thus, it is different from hearing since listening is done with the head, eyes, heart, and guts whereas hearing is only done with the ears. Wilkie (2001: 71) adds further support to this definition when he says that listening is a conscious activity which must be practiced actively and carefully for communicating effectively. All the views given above show that listening comprehension is a hard task, which demands a great deal of mental analysis on the part of the listener. In order to understand the message the speaker intends, the listener must actively contribute skills and knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic resources. These 7