Những khó khăn của giáo viên trong việc giảng dạy và khích lệ sinh viên người dân tộc thiểu số học kỹ năng nghe hiểu tại trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Lạng Sơn và một

STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRUONG THI THANH HUYEN CHALLENGES PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS IN HOW TO TEACH AND MOTIVATE ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS TO LEARN LISTENING COMPREHENSION S

STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRUONG THI THANH HUYEN

CHALLENGES PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS IN HOW TO TEACH AND MOTIVATE ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS TO LEARN LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILL AT LANG SON

TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE AND SOLUTIONS

(NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY VÀ KHÍCH LỆ SINH VIÊN NGƯỜI DÂN TỘC THIỂU SỐ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE HIỂU TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ

PHẠM LẠNG SƠN VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP)

MA MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410

SUPERVISOR: LE THE NGHIEP, M.A

LANGSON, 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

DECLARATION ii

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and significance of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methods of the study 2

5 Organization of the thesis 3

PART II: THE DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

I.1 Theoretical background of listening comprehension 4

I.1.1.What is listening? 4

I.1.2 Nature of listening 5

I.1.3 Significance of listening 5

I.2 Teaching listening skills 5

I.2.1.The process of listening 5

I.2.2 Strategies of listening 6

I.2.3 Stages of a listening lesson 7

I.2.3.1 Pre-listening stage 7

I.2.3.2 While-listening stage 7

I.2.3.4 Post-listening stage 8

I.2.4 Potential problems in teaching and learning to listen to English 8

I.2.5 Teacher’s roles in teaching listening comprehension 9

I.3 Motivation 10

I.3.1.What is motivation? 10

I.3.2.The importance of motivation in listening classes 10

I.4 Current challenges in teaching and learning listening comprehension 11

1.4.1 Students’ psychological obstacles influence their listening capacity 11

1.4.2 Grammar knowledge affects listening comprehension 12

1.4.3 Cultural background knowledge and thinking affect listening comprehension 12

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 14

II.1 General description of the current course-book and participants’ background information 14

II.1.1 General description of the current course-book 14

II.1.2 Participants’ background information 14

II.1.2.1 English Major Students 14

II.1.2.2 The teachers 15

II.2 Methods of data collection 16

II.2.1 Questionnaires 16

II.2.2 Class observation 16

CHAPTER III: DICUSSIONS AND FINDINGS 18

III.1 Questionnaires 18

III.1.1 Questionnaire for the Teachers 18

III.1.2 Questionnaire for the Students 24

III 2 Class observations 28

III.3 Findings……….30

III.3.1 Teachers’ challenges when dealing with listening techniques and some suggested solutions to those techniques……… 30

III.3.2.Students’ preferences for listening techniques…….……….33

III.3.3 Teachers’ and students opinions about listening activities in the course-book ‘Listen in 1’ by David Nunan they are using………34

CHAPTER IV: SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO THE TEACHING PROCEDURES 35

IV.1 For the teachers 35

IV.2 Some useful activities used for students during the class -time 38

PART III: CONCLUSION 41

I Summary of the study 41

II Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 42

REFERENCES 43

APPENDIXE I I

APPENDIXE II VII APPENDIXE III X

APPENDIX IV XVI

LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS

- LSTTC: Langson Teachers’ Training College

- DFL: Department of Foreign Languages

- CFL: College of Foreign Languages

- VNU: Vietnam National University

- T: Teacher

- Ss: Students

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Page

Table 1: Teachers’ pre-listening techniques……… … 21

Table 2: Teachers’ while- listening techniques……… ………22

Table 3: Teachers’ post-listening techniques……….….24

Table 4: Teachers’ difficulties in pre-listening techniques……….…25

Table 5: Teachers’ difficulties in while- listening techniques……… 26

Table 6: Teachers’ difficulties in post-listening techniques……… 27

Table 7: Students’ preferences for pre-listening techniques……… 30

Table 8: Students’ preferences for while-listening techniques……… 31

Chart 1: Teachers’ comments on the listening activities in the coursebook……… 27

Chart 2: Causes that make students uninterested in listening……… 28

Chart 3: Students’ preferences for post-listening techniques……… 32

Chart 4: Students’ comments on the listening activities in the coursebook………33

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English is, nowadays, needed in every field of our lives and for a long time it has been not only a compulsory subject in schools in Vietnam but one of three major subjects in the entrance exam to some Universities and Colleges as well

Among the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening is always considered to be the most difficult for teachers to teach and for students to learn This leads to the fact that learners are afraid of learning listening skills There are various reasons for this: students‟ poor background knowledge, their limited reservoir of vocabulary and structures, their lack of motivation and preparations for the task, etc.(Boyle, 1984) Many students have associated listening courses with pain and boredom and usually complain that they benefit little from listening lessons This is also true to students at Lang Son Teachers‟ Training College Therefore, it is necessary for teachers of English language to realize the importance

of how to make listening classes more interesting and know how to motivate students so that they can make progress and feel interested in listening comprehension courses

In fact, in the process of teaching and learning English, listening plays an important role since it involves various kinds of the listener‟s knowledge and it is closely related to other skills, especially the speaking skill While, G (1998) pointed out that being a good listener involves collaborating with speakers and taking an active role in asking for clarification when you do not understand However, in the process of teaching listening of teachers at LSTTC, the students‟ motivation in learning this skill is sometimes low and the listening lesson is said

to be boring despite the teacher‟s much effort in their teaching time Consequently, these students‟ listening skills are poor since they are not interested in the subject, and they find it difficult to focus on listening if there are many distractions They do not know much about the tasks of the lesson Thus, creating a motivating learning environment for ethnic minority students in a listening class is a challenging task for teachers

This fact has encouraged the author to investigate into the challenges perceived by teachers in how to teach and motivate ethnic minority students to learn Listening Comprehension Skill at LSTTC, to find out more reasons for those problems, and then, to give some suggestions for mostly meeting and solving those challenges Hopefully, the study will be helpful in some way for the author and other teachers to find out most suitable techniques to stimulate their students in listening lessons

2 Aims and significance of the study

The purpose of this study is to find out the most suitable teaching techniques and solutions

to the challenges perceived by the teachers, in order to teach and motivate ethnic minority students at LSTTC to learn listening comprehension skill effectively To be specific, the major aims of the study are as follows:

- to find out current challenges faced by teachers and ethnic minority students at LSTTC

in their process of teaching and learning English listening comprehension skill

- to study teaching techniques used by these teachers to teach their students listening comprehension skill

- to investigate students‟ attitudes and their feedbacks on the teaching techniques used by their teachers

- to provide some suggestions and practical recommendations to help in the process of teaching and learning listening comprehension skills of ethnic minority students and teachers

3 Scope of the study

The scope of this thesis is limited to the teachers‟ challenges in how to teach and motivate ethnic minority students to learn listening comprehension skill and the recommendations to overcome these challenges at Lang Son Teachers‟ Training College The result from this thesis could also be used to inform concerned educational administrators in Lang Son in particular and in various regions throughout the country in general

With that intention, this study is designed to cover the following issues:

- Description of the course-book used for students in listening and its teaching and learning context

- Challenges teachers often face in teaching and motivating their students to learn listening

- Recommendations on how to support teachers so that they can teach more effectively

4 Methods of the study

The study was carried out on the basis of quantities research method including questionnaire and class observation

Questionnaires are designed as a means to make the researcher‟s evaluation more objective The questionnaires are given to first-year ethnic minority students and teachers of English Department at LSTTC with the hope to find out their attitudes towards their current learning and teaching listening comprehension as well as their comments and suggestions for the problems they often face

In addition, more information needed for the findings of the study will be gathered from class observation

5 Organization of the thesis

The study consists of three parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion The introduction provides the basis information such as rationale, aims, significance, scope and methods of the study

The development consists of 4 chapters Chapter I, Literature Review, conceptualizes the nature of listening and listening comprehension skills, teaching listening skills, motivation, and current challenges in teaching and learning listening comprehension Chapter II presents the general description of the course-book, participants‟ background information, and the methodology used in the study Chapter III shows the detailed results of the surveys and covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected from the questionnaires and class observations The last chapter offers some suggested solutions to the teaching procedures that can help motivate students to learn the listening comprehension skill

The conclusion is a review of the study, future directions for further research and limitations

of the study

PART II.THE DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1.LITERATURE REVIEW I.1 Theoretical background of listening comprehension

In language teaching, the phrase „listening skills‟ is often used to mean „listening and understanding skills‟ or „listening comprehension skills‟ And this is the sense in which

„listening skill‟ is used in this thesis, where „listening‟ is taken as meaning trying to understand the oral messages people are conveying

I.1.1.What is listening?

There are different definitions of listening

“Listening is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear

To listen successfully to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when

they use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, and not simply to understand the words themselves.”

(Mary Underwood, 1989) The quotation above suggests that listening can be done in a narrow and limited way

or it can be done in a way that enriches communication

Thomlison‟s (1984) definition of listening includes “active listening,” which goes

beyond comprehending as understanding the message content, to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker According to Ronald and Roskelly (1985), listening

is an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand

“Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe Listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance. ” (Field, 1998:38)

All in all, listening involves a multiplicity of skills It is a complex, active process of interpretation, in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know

I.1.2 Nature of listening

Since listening is, according to Wang Shouyuan (2003), the most important component in the five aspects of overall English competence he suggests as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation, it deserves particular attention Educators must actively explore the nature and process of listening comprehension and study the theory and methodology of listening comprehension in order to improve listening teaching outcomes and

make students recognize that listening comprehension is the crucial part of English learning From the point of view of constructivist linguistics, foreign language teaching should focus on language form and structure, thus, listening teaching is undertaken in each of the four aspects

of language form (including sounds, words, sentences and discourses) When students are taught to understand a passage of text, teachers first let them discriminate between the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, then understand vocabulary, sentences and discourses The goals of this listening teaching model from the “bottom-up” is to help students understand the meaning of vocabulary by discriminating sounds, to understand sentence meaning, and to monitor and control the meaning of discourses by understanding sentence meaning

Since the 1970s, with the development of functional language theory, there has been

an emphasis on the research of language function in society Functional linguistic experts recognize language as a communicative tool, but not an isolated structure system Consequently the teaching of listening is not simply intended to make students hear a sound, a word or a sentence, rather, the goal is to cultivate students‟ abilities to understand speakers‟ intentions accurately and communicate with each other effectively

I.1.3 Significance of listening

According to Robin Wills (2005), language learning depends on listening since it provides the aural input that serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners

to interact in spoken communication Listening is the first language mode that children acquire It provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and

it plays a life-long role in the process of communication Thus language acquisition is achieved mainly through receiving understandable input and listening ability is the critical component in achieving understandable language input Therefore, it is of vital importance that students are taught to listen effectively and critically

Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching, it is essential for language teachers to help students become effective listeners In the communicative approach

to language teaching, this means building model listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: precisely those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside classroom

I.2 Teaching listening skills

I.2.1 The process of listening

With a greater understanding of language quality and the development of teaching theory, there has been a recognition of the process of listening comprehension as needing greater emphasis Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe However, it is recognized by Wipf (1984) that listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, understand intention and retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance

Rost (2002) defines listening, in its broadest sense, as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation); constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation); and, creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation) Listening, then, is a complex, active processes of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know

I.2.2 Strategies of listening

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input According to Peterson (1991) and Brown (2001), listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input

(1) Top-down strategies are listener-based: The listener taps into background knowledge of

the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next Top-down strategies include: (getting the gist, recognizing the topic, using discourse structure to enhance listening strategies, identifying the speaker, finding the main ideas (listening for the main idea),finding supporting details, predicting, making inferences (drawing inferences),understanding organizing principles of extended speech, summarizing)

(2) Bottom-up strategies are text-based, in which the listener relies on the language in the

message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning Bottom-up strategies include:(discriminating between intonation contours in sentences, recognizing syllable patterns, being aware of sentence fillers in informal speech, picking out details (listening for specific details),differentiating between content and function words by stress patterns, recognizing words with weak or central vowels)

Listening comprehension tends to be an interactive, interpretive process in which listeners use prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages Moreover,

O‟Malley et al also showed that the use of these strategies types differed according to a division of the students into effective and ineffective listeners The more effective listeners used a more “top-down” approach, the less effective concentrated on a word-by-word approach, “bottom-up”

According to Noonan D (1999:218) “Key strategies that can be taught in the listening classroom include selective listening, listening for different purposes, predicting, progressive structuring, inferencing and personalizing” Noonan D (1999) also introduces a list of important strategies, along with examples

Listening for purposes Are the speakers making a reservation or

Listening for specific information How much did they say the ticket cost?

Listening for phonemic distinctions Did the speaker say first or four?

Listening for tone pitch to identify

speaker‟s attitude

Did the speaker enjoy the wedding or not?

Listening for stress What is more important, where he bought

the watch or when?

I.2.3 Stages of a listening lesson

The teaching of a listening text can be divided into three main stages: pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening Each stage has its own aims, activities and time location

I.2.3.1 Pre-listening stage

This stage is carried out before students begin listening to the listening text It plays an essential part in the whole process of a listening lesson The pre-listening activities are aimed

at preparing learners with everything necessary for listening and understanding the listening text Normally, pre-listening stage often lasts from five to twelve minutes depending on each lesson Hedge, T(2000) argues that “At the pre-listening stage, the teacher will need to decide what kind of listening purpose is appropriate to the text The learners will need to tune into the context and the topic of the text, perhaps express attitudes towards that topic, certainly bring to the front of their minds anything that they already know about the topic and most probably hear and use some of the less familiar language in the text which would otherwise distract or create anxiety during listening”

I.2.3.2 While-listening stage

This stage is the main part of a listening lesson aiming at facilitating learners‟ listening and checking their comprehension Time allocation for this stage is nearly two-thirds of the whole lesson The work at the while-listening stage needs to link in relevant ways to the pre-listening work While they listen, learners will need to be involved in an authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more intensively or extensively, for gist or for specific information (Hedge.T, 2000)

I.2.3.4 Post-listening stage

It is the last step of a listening lesson so it is the time for students‟ production The activities at this stage are aimed at helping learners to use what they have had from the listening text The teacher should make up and vary the activities for learners to do depending

on their level of English This stage often occupies ten or fifteen minutes Post-listening activities can take the students into a more intensive phase of study in which aspects of bottom-up listening are practised (Hedge, T 2000) It is important to note that post-listening work can also usefully involve integration with other skills through development of the topic into reading, speaking or writing activities

I.2.4 Potential problems in teaching and learning to listen to English

Language learners often feel worried about problems when they first attempt to listen

to a new language Although the problems are many and various, they are not all experienced

by all students from different backgrounds So that in this part, I just focus on some of the most common problems that listeners may encounter in learning to listen

- Lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak

Many English language learners believe the greatest difficulty of listening comprehension is that the listener can not control how quickly a speaker speaks They feel that the utterances disappear before they can sort them out This frequently means that students who are learning to listen can not keep up They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all out quickly enough Either way, they fail

- The listener‟s limited vocabulary

We know that choice of vocabulary is in the hands of the speaker, not the listener The listener has to do the best he/she can to follow For people listening to a foreign language, an unknown word can be likely a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech It is believed that this tendency to stop listening and concentrate on the immediate problem often results

when learners have been taught their English in a way which has given more emphasis to accuracy than fluency and which has been more concerned with mastery of the forms of language rather than with how it is used This style of teaching leads students to focus on the language word by word, to work out its structure, and then to decide on its meaning

- Failure to recognize the „signals‟

There are many ways in which a speaker can indicate that he/she is moving from one point to another, or giving an example, or repeating a point, or whatever These signals are not immediately self-evident to a person listening to a foreign language and can easily be missed And when speakers show clearly that they are about to begin a new point, they may pause or make a gesture or move slightly They may mark a change to a new point by increased loudness or a clear change of pitch In spontaneous conversation, a speaker will make use of different intonation to indicate whether he/she is introducing a new idea or saying something the listener already knows

- Problems of interpretation

Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in interpreting the words they hear even if they can understand their „surface‟ meaning Problems of interpretation can even occur when the speaker and the listener are from the same background and use the same language For example, if you have an appointment with somebody you do not know and then that person phones you and says „I‟ll be a bit late‟, you will not know what „a bit‟ means, but if an old friend with whom you have an appointment phones and says the same thing, you will probably know how long you will have to wait because the friend in question is always about half an hour late

- Inability to concentrate

Inability to concentrate can be caused a number of things, but in listening work it is a major problem, because even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension If the students find the topic interesting, they will find the concentration easier But sometimes, even when the topic is interesting, students simply find listening work very tiring, because they make enormous effort to follow what they hear word by word In addition, outside factors may well make concentration difficult, too If recorded material is being used, an inferior machine or poor recording can make it very hard for the students Some rooms are acoustically unsuitable for the use of recorded materials

I.2.5 Teacher’s roles in teaching listening comprehension

As many students feel afraid of listening, teachers should be a guide to help them, to encourage them Rost, M (1994) states that language teachers need to provide various types of support to their learners to help them to develop listening skills This includes talking to learners in the target language, raising learners‟ awareness of their listening styles and strategies and introducing a range of materials, speaking styles and listening situations Another important part of teacher‟s role is to ensure that the lesson proceeds in an orderly and productive way so that the students feel secure and relaxed and unthreatened by the listening tasks Thus, it is very essential for the teachers to plan and conduct listening sessions in a suitable way which can help their students grow in confidence and soon begin to experience the pleasure that listening successfully can bring them.

I.3 Motivation

I.3.1.What is motivation?

However simple and easy the word "motivation" might appear, it is in fact very difficult to define It seems to have been impossible for theorists to reach consensus on a single definition but I personally pay most attention to the followings

Motivation is a desire to achieve a goal, combined with the energy to work towards

that goal Sometimes a distinction is made between positive and negative motivation: Positive

motivation is a response which includes enjoyment and optimism about the tasks that you are

involved in Negative motivation involves undertaking tasks for fear that there should be

undesirable outcomes, eg, failing a subject, if tasks are not completed (Ngeow, Karen Hwa, 1998) Motivation is also defined as the impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal-seeking acts (Ames & Ames, 1989) It is important because it determines the extent of the learner's active involvement and attitude toward learning

Yeok-I.3.2.The importance of motivation in listening classes

Many researchers consider motivation as one of the main elements that determine success in developing a second or foreign language; it determines the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning (Oxford & Shearin, 1994) Listening to English is regarded to be hard for students who are either English majors or not From the researcher‟s observation and discussion with students, she has realized that many students have associated listening courses with pain and boredom and often complain that they become tired of listening to the tape from the beginning to the end and benefit little from listening lessons Therefore, it is necessary for English teachers to realize the importance of how to make listening classes more interesting and to know how to motivate students so that they can

develop their listening comprehension It can be seen that the traditional way of teaching, such as listening to the tape again and again and then giving correct answers, still remains Such an approach to „teaching‟ listening is more like „testing‟ listening as listeners are simply exposed to a succession of listening texts on a tape, and then are tested how much they have understood in terms of a lot of comprehension exercises rather than being taught how to listen and how to cope with their listening problems in the class (Brown, 1990; Anderson and Lynch, 1988) So, how to keep students interest in learning must be focused Without interest, motivation and variation in teaching and learning, students certainly feel bored with listening

To sum up, it is known that motivation is difficult to be measured, but teachers can notice when their students are motivated by their facial expressions, attitudes and also by their participation in class Motivation is an important factor that contribute to the success in teaching and learning foreign languages in general and in teaching and learning listening skills in particular

I.4 Current challenges in teaching and learning listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is a complex psychological process of listeners‟ understanding language by sense of hearing (Robin Wills:2004) It is an interactive process of language knowledge and psychological activities However, this process is not simply decoding the message; it also involves the combining of the decoding of the message process with its reconstruction as meaning (Ma Lihua, 2002) Although teachers of English at Lang Son Teachers‟ Training College have attempted to teach listening and listening comprehensive competence, all too often, the teaching outcomes have proved less than adequate The results have shown that even when teachers have doubled their efforts the results have been consistently disappointing And the reasons for these outcomes are explored

as follows

1.4.1 Students’ psychological obstacles influence their listening capacity

Psychological factors refer to those non-mental factors not directly involving cognitive process, such as students‟ interests, attention, learning emotion, attitudes, and willpower These non-mental factors are directly influential in the students‟ learning process, they, therefore, play a part in promoting and controlling learning effectiveness For example, two students‟ listening levels might be similar, and, while their test results may be quite different, the explanation for their difference is seen to lie in their different psychological states

The cultural attitude of students is particularly influential in the way that students address their studies There is, in Vietnam, a long history of reverence for written text, and

this attitude has influenced the official assessment processes Thus students generally pay less attention to developing listening comprehension because they recognize it gains a lower percentage of marks in examinations, while reading and writing are highly rewarded Students understand they will gain high scores only if they master the prescribed knowledge of grammar and writing

As a direct consequence of the factors mentioned above, many students in this college lack confidence in their oral English language capability and they frequently have a self-defeating and defensive attitude to their engagement in it In the listening classroom, teachers expect students‟ active participation but, having so many students who lack confidence and who feel nervous and anxious, makes the task of generating discussion and conversation particularly difficult Thus, it is unsurprising that college students, who are under pressure for

a considerable period of time, are often stressed and depressed in their efforts to improve their English proficiency

1.4.2 Grammar knowledge affects listening comprehension

Language knowledge is the foundation of learning English If students‟ knowledge of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary is insufficient, it is probable that their English listening comprehension will be negatively affected by lack of language knowledge However, the most basic outward shell of language is pronunciation Therefore, the first step

of listening comprehension is learning how to identify and select sound signals according to pronunciation, and pronunciation knowledge must be developed When students‟ pronunciation knowledge is inadequate, their capacity to discriminate will be weak and will affect listening comprehension

For the students of English in this college, the challenge of listening poses particular demands because there are many sentence types that are complex and very different from the native language For example, if the student is unable to distinguish the main clause from a subordinate clause and is unable to understand their relationships, despite understanding the meaning of every word in the sentences, he/she becomes confused about relationships in a sentence and connections between sentences and this student is often unsure of relationship within sentences To conclude, lack of grammatical knowledge can reduce English listening levels

1.4.3 Cultural background knowledge and thinking affect listening comprehension

According to Trudgill (1983), language is rather like a mirror that reflects the national culture of its speakers The American linguist Sapir (1921: 60-90) maintains that language

cannot exist without culture…Culture can be explained as what the society thinks and does, and the language is the expression of the ideas of the society Thus, the marriage between language and culture is inseparable: language is the carrier of culture and the capsule that holds a way of thinking

Language carries knowledge and cultural information and it reflects the substantial and particular ways of thinking of that person And, culture is embedded in even the simplest act of language (Liddicoat, 2000), it is an inseparable part of the way in which we live our lives and the way we use language As found by O‟Malley and Chamot (1989), the effective listener was the one who was able to draw on a knowledge of the world, on personal experiences and by asking questions of themselves

Therefore, the student with no background knowledge of culture in English speaking countries, he/she is unlikely to understand Anglophone modes of thinking as expressed in English language Kramsch (1993) maintains that every time we speak we perform a cultural act An important requirement, then, for learning spoken English, is the acquisition of cultural knowledge And, if students‟ pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and cultural knowledge are

to prosper, they must be grounded in a sound knowledge of the society in which the language

is based

CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY II.1 General description of the current course-book and participants’ background information

II.1.1 General description of the current course-book

The course-book mainly used for first-year students of English-major to practice their

listening comprehension skill at LSTTC is the one named Listen in 1 This book is the first volume of the three books Listen in 1,2,3 by David Nunan, which are used for developing

listening skill ranging from basic to advanced level Each book covers 20 topics, which are arranged from very easier to more complex ones There is a Review Unit which is designed after every five units with the aim of revising vocabularies and skills of the previous ones Objectively, this book is a good one for students to practice and improve their listening skill

in general, but some parts of the book‟s contents in each unit are rather long and difficult for most of the first year students in LSTTC The reasons for this problem are the students‟ poor background knowledge, their limited reservoir of vocabulary and structures, their lack of motivation and preparations for the task, etc Beside the main course-book, teachers at DFL,

LSTTC sometimes use the book Tactics for Listening by Jack C Richards in their teaching

process The teachers often apply some parts of this book in every Review Unit of the main

course-book Listen in 1 They regard the exercises in this book as extra activities aiming at

improving the students‟ listening skill In short, this book is also a good reference source for students to make new progress in their listening skill, but it is not used regularly in their lessons

II.1.2 Participants’ background information

The study was carried out with the participation of 9 teachers and 90 students whose

major is English from the Department of Foreign Languages (DFL), LSTTC

II.1.2.1 English - Major Students

As the author mentioned earlier, there were ninety English-major students who took part in the research All of them are first year students and come from three different classes (K13D1, K13D2, and K13D3) at DFL Among them, the ethnic minority students account for 95% These ethnic minority students mostly come from remote areas whose current difficulties are low incomes, poor economic conditions, badly-built- roads, etc These difficulties may be the factors which can make these students have some limitations in their background knowledge and competence for foreign languages acquisition All of the selected students in the study are aged from 18-25, and the rate of female students is 90%, while that

of male ones is only 10%.Of ninety students, seventy spent only three years at their secondary schools learning English with the old text books Ten students had learned English for 5 years with the old text-books and 2 years with the new ones These students were also focused on grammar translation method before they started this course of English The last students are chosen from some of the most difficult areas of Langson, where there is a big shortage of Junior High School teachers Besides, their secondary years were mostly spent with the old text books and the grammar translation method This may be the reason why only some students are good at grammar, and most of them are bad at listening and speaking the target language due to some of their difficulties introduced earlier Even some can do written exercises on English grammar they can hardly listen and communicate in English

As the researcher has just introduced earlier, most of the students at DFL, LSTTC were mainly affected by the grammar translation method when they were at secondary school This best explains why they always try to listen to every word or sentence of the utterances when they are asked to listen to any listening text In addition to that, they are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part As a result, they usually find it very difficult to catch up with the speed of recorded speech or listening text, and they often fail to finish the listening task Like any foreign language learners, most of the first year students of English at DFL, LSTTC often feel worried about problems when they first attempt to listen to a new language Although the problems are various, they are not all experienced by all students from different backgrounds Thus, during their process of practicing listening, most of these students often find the followings the most difficult:(Lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak, Limited vocabulary and grammar structure, Inability to concentrate, Failure to recognize the „signals‟.)

II.1.2.2.The teachers

There are twelve teachers of English at LSTTC but only nine teachers participated in the study The reason is that three of them are doing their post-graduate at present Among these three teachers, one is doing her PhD degree in Australia and two others are doing their M.A in the CFL, VNU Of nine teachers, four of them graduated from CFL,VNU; three from Thai Nguyen Teachers‟ Training College, and two from in-serviced courses in some other universities Three teachers are in their late forties with more than 15 years of teaching experience, two others in their late thirties with 10 years of teaching experience, two others in their early thirties with 6 years of teaching experience, the last two aged 24 and 27 with only 3 years of teaching experience

The researcher selected all these teachers as the subjects of the first questionnaire with the hope of finding out what listening techniques are currently applied, their problems of using listening techniques in teaching listening skill, and their suggested solutions to their existing problems

II.2 Methods of data collection

This research is conducted by using survey questionnaires and classroom observation The procedure of collecting data is the survey method employing self-administered questionnaire for both teachers and students In addition to the questionnaire, class observations are also carried out to support the findings

II.2.1 Questionnaire

There are two types of questionnaire: closed and opened-ended questions for both teachers and students Questionnaire for teacher is written in English while the one for students is in Vietnamese so that students understand the questions without extra explanation The survey method allows the researcher to collect the data needed in “quantitative form” Questionnaire designed for the teachers aimed at finding out the challenges perceived by these teachers when they use listening techniques to teach and motivate their students to listening skills, and their suggestions to improve the listening activities in the course-book they are using Whereas, questionnaire designed for the students tends to explore students‟ unwillingness to take part in listening activities, their preferences for listening techniques, and their comments on the listening techniques in the course-book they are using with the hope that the researcher can suggest some ways to improve the material to increase students motivation for listening comprehension

Totally 9 copies of the questionnaire are delivered to the teachers and 90 to the students

II.2.2 Class observation

The researcher attended 3 different classes, to which the researcher distributed the questionnaire, in order to observe some important points such as the teachers‟ use of teaching techniques, the problems in teaching and learning listening, and their students‟ attitudes towards the teaching techniques currently used by the teachers, etc The observation also aims

at checking the reliability of the data collected from the questionnaire and clarifies what has not been done through the questionnaire The reason for choosing these classes is also the same as for the subjects of the study Three observation sessions were carried out 3 times in

these three classes with 3 different units of “Listen in 1” course-book For each class, the

researcher observed a 90-minute period The checklist for listening class observation made by the researcher includes the teachers‟ pre, while and post-listening activities, the students‟ participation in the teachers‟ activities The three teachers under observation are different in terms of their ages and teaching experience One is 49 years old, the second 42 and the last

32

The following chapter of the thesis is the treatment of all the data collected from the survey questionnaire conducted on 9 teachers and 90 students of the English Department at LSTTC and from the author‟s observation in 3 classes The collected data will be presented in tables and charts The scheme and coding tables and charts emerged from an examination of the data rather than being determined beforehand and imposed on the data

The questionnaires and class observations are represented in Appendix I and II, respectively at the end of the study

CHAPTER III DICUSSIONS AND FINDINGS III.1 Questionnaires

III.1.1 Questionnaire for the Teachers

III.1.1.1 Teacher’s opinions about the necessity of motivating students to listen before a listening lesson

According to the survey, 100% of the teachers report that they never go straight to a listening lesson without preparing something interesting for their students to do All of them highly appreciate the necessity of doing lead-in activities to motivate their students to actively take part in each listening lesson

As Lewis and Hill (1992) suggested, when teachers organize some lead-in activities before listening, they themselves create an active and relaxing teaching and learning environment That should be one of the first and foremost things foreign language teachers need to remember Actually, several listening techniques, which include brainstorming, prediction, gap-filling, summarizing, etc, have been used for some activities which the teachers do in the listening lessons That explains why the next questions of the survey are raised to find out which techniques the nine teachers use to motivate and teach their students listening comprehension skill at the Department of Foreign Languages (DFL)- LSTTC

III.1.1.2 The situation of employing listening techniques at DFL

a Teacher‟s pre-listening techniques

of users

a Brainstorming words, structures or ideas 9

b Making students discuss in pairs or group the topic, the title or the

pictures about the item they are going to listen

6

c Asking students some questions about the topic before they listen 9

d Pre-teaching new words or difficult key words 7

e Making students predict the content of the text 3

f Give students time to read and understand the listening tasks 3

Table 1: Teacher’s pre -listening techniques

It can be seen from Table 1 that nine teachers apply the techniques of brainstorming words, structures or ideas; and asking students some questions about the topic before they listen These techniques are clearly their most popular ones Seven out of nine teachers respond that before listening, they pre-teach new words or difficult key words so that students would better understand the topic of the listening text and find it easier to listen 6 out of 9 teachers confirm that they make their students discuss in pairs or groups the topic they are

going to listen After doing this task, their students would be able to both know more about what they will listen and improve their speaking skill Making students predict the content of the text and studying the listening task appears to be used by only 3 teachers

According to Boyle (1984), Baker and Westrupt (2000), each pre-listening techniques has its own advantages and benefits‟ to students motivation, which can lead to the success of listening comprehension If the students lack motivation right from the beginning of the lesson, their listening process may be negatively affected For example, if the students feel bored with the listening text, they will probably take no participation in it, or the teacher can not make them pay attention to the lesson and so on However, different teachers apply different pre-listening techniques to motivate their students

b Teacher‟s while -listening techniques

of users

a Marking/ checking items in pictures 2

l Seeking specific items of information 2

Table 2: Teacher’s while -listening techniques

Table 2 shows the author a very surprising fact of the teachers‟ uses of while-listening techniques Most respondents (8,7,7 out of 9 teachers) choose to use true/false activities, multiple-choice questions and ordering pictures exercises respectively during the while-listening stage time The reason is very simple, the listening tasks are available in the course book so that they do not need to prepare It, therefore, does not take time for the teachers to design the tasks for the students Text completion (gap-filling) exercises are used by 5 out of 9 teachers in this stage They explain it very confidently This type of exercise would not be very difficult for their students as they have been provided with important or key words related before listening Only 1 or 2 out of 9 teachers apply the rest activities, including marking/ checking items in pictures, storyline picture sets, completing pictures and others They think these activities are very difficult because they are unfamiliar with their students

They also require the students to have a great deal of background knowledge about the topic, whereas these students do not satisfy that requirement The researcher agrees with the ideas

made by Mary Underwood (1989) in “Teaching Listening”, there are a number of things

which can make while-listening work frustrating and demotivating, and these should certainly

be avoided More importantly, it is extremely difficult to listen and write at the same time, particularly in a foreign language It is impossible to expect students with limited listening experience or knowledge of English to write anything more than a two- or three-word response during a while listening activity For this reason, we clearly understand why most teachers at DFL focus on true/false, multiple-choice and ordering pictures exercises in this stage

c Teacher‟s post -listening techniques

Table 3 illustrates clearly the teachers‟ uses of techniques in the post-listening stage Summarizing and answering multiple-choice questions after listening to the text are mostly used by 6 out of 9 teachers 5 out of all teachers answer that they often ask their students to complete charts/forms, match words or phrases from the listening text, and use information from the listening text for problem-solving, decision-making activities or role-play They explain that these activities would encourage the students to try out some newly heard language rather than simply using language they have already mastered in other contexts There are only 2 teachers who apply extending notes into written responses, and dictation is often used by only 1 of 9 teachers

users

b Extending notes into written responses 2

e Using information from the listening text for problem-solving and

f Identify relationships between speakers 0

g Establishing the attitude/ behavior of the speaker 0

j Answer the multiple- choice questions 6

Table 3: Teacher’s post -listening techniques

As some researchers comment that the most important purpose of post-listening activities is to check whether the students have understood what they need to understand This can be done by the teacher giving the answers orally, by pairs checking each other‟s answers,

by the teacher showing the answer on the overhead projector/ blackboard, by group discussion, by asking the students to check against answers given in a book, and so on Importantly, every teacher of English should bear in mind that success at the post-listening stage is greatly enhanced if the activity has some purpose of its own

III.1.1.3 Challenges that teachers have to confront with when using listening techniques

The problem, which the teachers in the study always have to cope with, is the application of some listening techniques in teaching and motivating their students to learn listening skill So, the researcher only focuses on their difficulties in using these techniques in

the three stages of a listening lesson

a Difficulties in pre-listening techniques

From the description of Table 4, 7 out of 9 teachers answer that brainstorming words, structures or ideas is always the most difficult for them to make a successful lead-in before asking students to listen to the text The main reasons for this difficulty are their students‟ poor background knowledge of English words and phrases and limited experience of learning

a foreign language Since, when they apply this technique, most students just sit in silence As

a result, it often takes time for the teacher to finish this part

a Brainstorming words, structures or ideas 7

b Making students discuss in pairs or groups the topic, the title or

the pictures about the item they are going to listen

5

c Asking students some questions about the topic before they

listen

0

d Pre-teaching new words or difficult key words 0

e Making students predict the content of the text 4

f Give students time to read and understand the listening tasks 0

Table 4: Teacher’s difficulties in pre -listening techniques

Similarly, 5 teachers consider making students discuss in pairs or groups the topic rather difficult since controlling a class of 40 students is sometimes not easy Making students predict the content of the text seems to be less mentioned than brainstorming and discussion

as only 3 teachers comment on its difficulty

b Difficulties in while-listening techniques

Table 5 indicates that 5 out of 9 teachers find the technique of spotting mistakes very difficult for their students to follow successfully Since this technique requires good vocabulary and grammar structures, but most of their students have a big shortage of them Next, the situation of completing pictures is the same as the early one To explain for this, 4 teachers state that their students‟ concentration on the listening text is not good enough , so

that they can not listen to the text and draw at the same time, if they focus on one, they will lose another Besides, seeking specific items of information and checking items in pictures seem to be applied more conveniently because only 3 teachers comment on the difficulty of these techniques Text completion seems to be the least one which causes them obstacle to teach in this stage of listening

a Marking/ checking items in pictures 3

l Seeking specific items of information 3

Table 5: Teacher’s difficulties in while -listening techniques

c Difficulties in post-listening techniques

According to some researchers, summarizing can be done by extending notes made at the while-listening stage or by simply depending on memory This is also a big problem for the teachers at DFL to apply it This fact is best described in Table 6 Clearly, 6 out of 9 teachers respond that their students usually fail to get enough information from the listening text in the while-listening stage, so that they can not succeed in summarizing what has been heard

In addition, extending notes into written responses, identifying relationships between speakers, and establishing the attitude/ behavior of the speaker also cause the teachers many obstacles to finish their listening lesson in time That is the reason why 5 out of all teachers at DFL comment on the difficulties of these activities They agree with some the ideas that brief notes made at the while-listening stage can be extended into written texts This activity is a difficult one It can only be done by students at a fairly advanced level Besides, identifying the relationship between speakers and establishing the attitude of the speaker require students

to be aware of how language is used in particular social settings and in what ways In fact, their students can not satisfy the criteria of these three techniques Therefore, the researcher also shares the same idea of these teachers about the difficulty of applying these post-listening techniques

Activities Number of

ideas

b Extending notes into written responses 5

e Using information from the listening text for problem-solving and

f Identify relationships between speakers 5

g Establishing the attitude/ behavior of the speaker 5

j Answer the multiple- choice questions 0

Table 6: Teacher’s difficulties in post -listening techniques

Beside what has been mentioned above, these teachers also have to confront some other problems when they apply listening techniques It is always time-consuming to design these techniques for their students, and sometimes the techniques they use in class time are not of students‟ interests Therefore, the quality of their teaching is not good as they often expect

III.1.1.4 Teachers’ comments and suggestions on the listening activities in the course book

‘Listen in 1’ by David Nunan they are teaching

It is possible to say that no course-book is completely perfect and no course-book can satisfy every learner‟s need and interest When being asked about the listening activities available in the course-book, 89% of the respondents confirm that they are useful to stimulate the students‟ motivation and interest, and suitable for their background knowledge and level of English Actually, most of the units provide different kinds of activities through the whole listening lesson such as answering pre-questions, group discussions, true/false information, multiple-choice questions, role play, summarizing, and so on Nevertheless, some of the listening activities in several units are not interesting and motivating enough (agreed by 11%

a useful to stimulate students and interest

b suitable for students‟ background and levels

Although most of the teachers agree that the listening activities in the book are useful to stimulate students‟ motivation and suitable for students‟ level of English, all of them suggest that there should be more activities that need to be added in each unit These activities must be relevant to students‟ interest and background knowledge If this is done well, the teachers do not have to spend much time finding more materials to design listening activities for the whole listening text to suit their students‟ needs In addition, when students have opportunities to join in a diversity of activities, their motivation for listening will be surely increased

course-III.1.2 Questionnaire for the Students

III.1.2.1 Students’ personal views of causes of their unwillingness to listen

Similar to Dunkel‟s point of view (1991), not having large enough vocabulary nor sufficient grasp of English structures causes students problems in their listening Chart 2 shows the highest percentage of responses to what makes students uninterested in listening It is the lack

of vocabulary and grammatical structures 49% of the students affirm that when new vocabulary hinders their concentration and listening comprehension, they would easily feel discouraged 28% of them admit that the lack of preparation before listening discourages their listening If they are asked to listen without any preparation, they will find it not only difficult

but unwilling to listen

Chart 2: Causes that make students uninterested in listening

a Limitedvocabulary and grammatical structure

b Lack of background knowledge

III.1.2.2 Students’ preferences for listening techniques

a Students‟ reaction to their involvement in activities before listening

It is important for teachers to note that pre-listening activities are beneficial to students, especially for their motivation and interest They will be more motivated and eager

to listen if there are some interesting things, which are often done at the early minutes of a lesson such as listening to some sort of music or playing some games, etc This constitutes enjoyment and recreation It is a fact that 92% of the students, who were surveyed for their attitudes toward activities before listening, reveal their enjoyment in doing such activities However, a certain number of students (8%) do not like participating in lead-in activities due

to the fact that the activities employed by their teacher beyond their interest or unsuitable for their ability of English

Support for the above result is also found from the researcher‟s observation and students‟ real performance When attending some classes, the observer realized that many students positively participate in the lead-in activities while some others just sat still, chatted with their friends or did their own things

b The students‟ preferences for listening techniques used in the listening lessons

With the aim of finding out what listening techniques really interest and motivate students, the next parts of the survey questions tend to see the students‟ preferences for listening techniques used in three stages of a listening lesson: pre, while, and post listening

b1 Students‟ preferences for pre-listening techniques

Pre-listening techniques Number of

students prefer

a Brainstorming words, structures or ideas 10

b Making students discuss in pairs or group the topic, the title or the

pictures about the item they are going to listen 48

c Asking students some questions about the topic before they listen 45

d Pre-teaching new words or difficult key words 40

e Making students predict the content of the text 10

f Give students time to read and understand the listening tasks 0

Table 7: Students’ preferences for pre-listening techniques

All the listening techniques such as discussion(or working in pairs/groups), questioning, pre-teaching new vocabulary, etc, are believed to be effective to motivate students because these can be clearly seen from Table 7 Firstly, though working in pairs/groups is considered the most difficult technique, the majority of the students prefer it than brainstorming words, structures or ideas For students, this activity is suitable and motivational as it helps them to have far more chance to speak English about the topic with their partners before listening This may give them a chance to activate their words or

pre-structures for the text In contrast, brainstorming words seems to be less enjoyable for them, because they lack background knowledge, vocabulary, and grammar structures

Secondly, pre-questioning technique appears to be interesting to half of the students despite the fact that this technique is sometimes used in their listening lesson The students explain they have opportunities to get more information about the topic from the questions made by the teacher This eases them in the listening tasks and their comprehension will be better Thirdly, pre-teaching new words is the choice for both the teachers and students Finally, predicting the content of the text is thought to be not interesting enough (11%) though

it is the most important skill in listening comprehension It is due to the fact that students in LSTTC are often reluctant to guess and their imagination is poor, so they find prediction ineffective for their listening comprehension process

b2 Students‟ preferences for while-listening techniques

While-listening techniques Number of students prefer

e Text completion (gap-filling) 36

Table 8: Students’ preferences for while-listening techniques

Table 8 clearly describes the students‟ preferences for while-listening techniques 63 out of 90 students enjoy true/false information exercises They explain this type of exercise helps them feel more confident to decide the right answers than the others However, more students like to do the task of ordering pictures It may be due to the fact that students are more interested in working with pictures, and these pictures may help the students feel more relaxed to finish the task Whereas, form/ chart completion, multiple-choice questions, text completion, and spotting mistakes appear to be difficult They are not much paid attention to

by the students These tasks are not easy for them to do well because those tasks require students to have a good background knowledge and experience of learning English while they can not meet such requirements at present

b3 Students‟ preferences for post-listening techniques

It can be drawn from the survey that students‟ most preferred post-listening technique

is role play as role play offers them a chance to improve their interaction and other skills such

as speaking, dicussing, and arguing In addition, it also stimulates their confidence and promotes an active and relaxing environment So it is prefered by a lot of the students

Chart 3: Students' preferences for post -listening techniques

so students do not like them at all In reality, many students are not capable of summarising and dictation because of their poor background knowledge and limited English words and structures

c Students’ benefits from listening techniques used by the teachers

A significant fact to note down is that most students agree they feel eager and ready to take part in the listening lesson after doing and practising listening activities Pre-listening activities make the whole class more interested, encourage them to learn and to give them a driving force to listen While-listening tasks help them to better their listening skills, get them more involved in the tasks Post-listening activities not only give them chances of expressing their own feelings and ideas about what they have listened from the text but also help them to improve other language skills Therefore, instead of immediately introducing to students any listening tasks, the teachers should let them do some their favorite activities which may help them feel free when learning the listening text

d Students’ comments on listening activities available in the course-book

It is very interesting to get the ideas from 80 out of 90 students that they find most of the listening activities (such as working in pairs, true/false exercises, role-play, etc) in the course-

book “Listen in 1” by David Nunan useful, motivating as well as relevant to their levels of

English Only 10 think that these activities are boring Some of the units consist of the listening activities which are inappropriate to the students‟ ability