Graduation paper DECLARATION Title: HOW TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND – YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Hanoi, 3rd May 2015 Student Supervisor Nguyễn Kim Thanh Assoc. Dr, Hoàng Tuyết Minh Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my sincere appreciation to many people who wholeheartedly helped me to accomplish this paper. Without their guidance and advice, this paper might not have been completed. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.
Hoàng Tuyết Minh for her enthusiastic guidance and valuable advice. Without her help, this graduation paper would not have been completed. Secondly, I would like to express my special thanks to all the teachers at English Faculty of HOU for their valuable lectures and instructions which has helped me much in completing the final task. Thirdly, I also wish to send my thanks to HOU 2nd year English major students for their enthusiastic cooperation in completing my survey questionnaires.
Finally yet importantly, I would like to give my great thanks to my beloved friends and family members who encouraged and supported me throughout my research paper. Hopefully, this paper will be useful for learners of English in generals and the second-year English majors at Hanoi Open University in particular. Hanoi, 3rd May, 2015 Student Nguyen Kim Thanh Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper TABLES OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Listening skills in the process of language learning. The definition of listening. The significance of listening. The differences between listening and others skills.
Characteristics of listening. Types of listening. Choosing authentic materials. 16 Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper 1.
Definition of authentic materials. Classification of authentic materials. Teaching methods for listening skills. Learner – Centered Teaching methods.
The balance of power……………………………………………………. The function of content…………………………………………………. The role of teacher……………………………………………………. The responsibility for learning……………………………………….
The purpose and process of evaluation………………………………. 36 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Difficulties faced by second year students caused by objective reasons. Different accents of speakers.
40 Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper 3. Difficulties faced by second year students caused by subjective reasons. Inability to understand natural native speech. Suggestions for overcoming the difficulties .1: Strategies for listening comprehension.
Teaching listening activities .4 Listening and dictating news broadcast of VOA and BBC. Checking out movies and songs. Catching the news. Cultivating student’s ability of guessing.
Overcoming internal factors. 60 Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Subjects in use. 25 Table 2: Types of materials students provided for listening skills. 27 Table 3: Listening technique used by students.
29 Table 4: Students’ learning methods. 31 Table 5: Students’ desire. 33 Table 6: Difficulties caused by objective reasons. 34 Table 7: Difficulties caused by subjective reasons.
34 Pie chart 1: Students’ learning frequency. 31 Pie chart 2: Students’ need for having modern equipment in class. 36 Graph 1: Kinds of listening equipments in class provided. 28 Graph 2: The most difficult activity in listening process.
30 Graph 3: Types of supplementary listening materials students provided for improving listening skills. 32 Graph 4: Students’ attitude towards improving English through techniques. 35 Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language FL: Foreign language HOU: Hanoi Open University FOE: Faculty of English Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Graduation paper PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale A great number of non – English speakers as well as native English speakers use English as an important medium of international communication in every part of the world.
English is no longer the language used solely in English speaking countries; rather it is internationally used. As the English language has become an essential factor in strengthening trade and travel in many countries, the necessity of knowing and using this communication medium is increasing. Besides, English is widely used in communication through modern technology and media communication devices such as mobile phones, electronic mail and the Internet. Undoubtedly, people around the world need English as the main medium of their communication via such devices.
For this reason, listening plays an important role in both languages learning process and real-life communication. Being good at listening in learning English process particularly and in foreign language learning process generally is the immense desire of most foreign language learners. Evidently, in order to obtain the purpose of mastering a foreign language, learners are supposed to focus on the four significant skills named listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these four skills, listening is often regarded to be the most crucial and challenging task for students to deal with.
It is obvious that listening skills have been paid much attention to by numerous language researchers and teachers. Many researchers have been conducted on how to teach and learn listening skills effectively. All contributions are very useful for enhancing listening skills. At Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University (FOE, HOU), however, teaching and learning listening is a really challenging job.
In Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Page 1 Graduation paper addition to the lack of well-equipped facilities, teaching listening methods is unfamiliar to teacher. Another problem is students’ low level of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth. It is the reason why students find it difficult and tough to listen to and they are not confident enough to do listening task successfully. Moreover, learning habits do not help much to improve their listening in classroom.
The students often get bored, tired and indifferent in listening lesson because of uncreative task and activities, topics, and so on. All the above - mentioned reasons have inspired the writer to do a research on listening skills and the research title goes as “How to improve listening skills for the second – year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University”. It is prospected that the study would bring some useful benefits to learners of English in the process of language learning. Aims of the study There are a number of problems facing to students at English major in Hanoi Open University.
The main purpose of study is to probe difficulties in learning listening of learners. The study is intended to address the following issues · The study provides the definition, types of listening skills and methods of teaching this skill. · It conducts a survey questionnaire on how English students learn listening skills and what the difficulties they are facing. · It finds out the difficulties and gives suggestions for listening skills’ problems.
Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Page 2 Graduation paper 3. Scope of the study The research was conducted with 96 second - year students who were studying at English faculty of Hanoi Open University. The research mainly focuses on finding out the difficulties that students cope with listening English. Moreover, their attitude about listening English and their choosing channels in this skill were also conducted.
Methods of the study The following methods are employed to collect data for the study: · Qualitative: Collecting related information from previous researches. · Quantitative: Collecting data from questionnaires, tasks and students’ paper. · Descriptive: Describing theoretical background and the figure from questionnaire result. · Analysis: Analyzing data from the result of survey and listening problems from the gathered data.
The major source of data for the study was students’ survey questionnaire respondents while direct observation applied with an aim to get more supplement information for any confirmation of the findings. Design of the study The study is composed of three main parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion. Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Page 3 Graduation paper PART A, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study and design of the study. PART B, Development, is divided into three chapters: Chapter 1, Literature review, provides definitions, types of listening skills, methods of teaching listening and authentic materials.
Chapter 2, Methodology, includes subjects, questionnaire, procedures and data analysis. Chapter 3, Findings and discussion, plays an important role to find out solutions to help students resolve the problems in English listening skills. Moreover, it also suggests some effective listening sources for students. PART C, Conclusion, presents an overview of the study which is discussed in the graduate paper.
REFERENCES APPENDIX Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Page 4 Graduation paper PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter focuses on the general background and concept of listening skills and authentic materials. It provides a lot of definitions of listening, types of listening, methods of listening and how significant the listening skills can be in learning English. Listening skills in the process of language learning 1. The definition of listening There is no doubt that listening plays a significant role in daily life.
It is also one of four major aspects of communication skills and language development which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is clear that children learn to listen and react to language before they learn to talk. A child cannot communicate well without understanding the information. On the whole, listening is a complicated skill that requires a deep research on to help learner to become master.
This chapter will share learners with a brief overview and definitions of listening skills by well- known linguistics presents in sections below. Listening is an important skill that students need to pay much attention in helping not only students but people in general as well to have a good communication in everyday reaction. Listening is a skill in a sense that it's a related but distinct process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while listening occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds. This correlation is like that between seeing and reading.
Seeing is a very ordinary and passive state while reading is a focused process requiring reader's instrumental approach. Listening has a "volitional component". (2007) view is, while listening; the desire to listen, as well as the capability to listen Nguyễn Kim Thanh – K18A1 (2011 – 2015) Page 5 Graduation paper (comprehension) must be present with the listener for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound. (2001, 189) states “Listening is more than just being able to hear and understand what someone else says, listening skills involve etiquette, asking for clarification, showing empathy and providing an appreciate response.
In the point view of Howatt, L. (1974, 162), listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This process involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. It is also said by Bulletin, K.
(1952) that listening is one of the fundamental language skills. It's a medium through which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of their education--their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. In this day of mass communication (much of it oral), it is of vital importance that our pupils be taught to listen effectively and critically, he says. In conclusion, there are various different ways to define what listening is.