HO CHI MINH CITY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION FOR INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTRE OF HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of arts (TESOL) Supervisor: ĐẶNG THỊ HƯỞNG, EdD Student: LÊ VĂN HÙNG Ho Chi Minh City, February 2007 STATEMENTS OF AUTHORITY I certify that this thesis entitled “Suggestions to improve the teaching of listening comprehension for intermediate learners of English at Foreign Language Centre of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education” is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in my other institution. Ho Chi Minh City, February 2007 Le Van Hung ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Dang Thi Huong, who read my manuscript with great care, gave thoughtful and insightful comments, supplied extremely valuable advice, and provided valuable support for my thesis improvements and completion.
With the great encouragements and constant guidance, she has been really my great help to complete the thesis successfully. Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to send my special thanks to all of my colleagues who have been great help for my survey done in the busiest time of the year during the course. In addition, my special thanks go to the learners in two classes in UEFLC who gave me their useful and helpful advice and experience during my carrying out the survey. Without their help, the thesis could not have been possible.
Finally, yet importantly, I am greatly indebted to my mother and my wife for their wholehearted support during the thesis being done. ABSTRACT The thesis aims 1) to investigate the listening problems of the intermediate learners of English at one of the foreign language centre of University of Education (UEFLC); 2) to examine the factors that could affect the listening competence of intermediate learners of English at UEFLC; and 3) to suggest ways to be better in teaching listening comprehension for those learners. Both quality and quantity were employed in the survey to explore their benefit to make clear what the real obstacles of intermediate learners of English are. In order to do this, the survey questionnaires were delivered to intermediate learners of English and Vietnamese teachers of English at UEFLC.
An interview was also conducted with teachers to collect data to be able to understand the teaching and learning of listening comprehension at UEFLC. Teachers’ experiences and learners’ requirements as well as their reactions to the listening teaching and learning at UEFLC shows that (1) listening is an active process and a key point that learners should not ignore because it helps them a lot in studying other English skills; (2) school facilities are in a bad condition, causing a lot of difficulties for intermediate learners of English in learning listening comprehension; (3) listening activities need teachers’ good preparations in the lesson plan to make it more feasible; (4) intermediate learners of English at UEFLC are still weak at their listening comprehension for many reasons. The thesis suggests that (1) the development of listening techniques and strategies should be encouraged; (2) teacher should teach, not test listening comprehension, and try to avoid using activities that tend to focus on memory rather than on the process of listening comprehension; (3) teacher should be a main factor and creative in making lesson plans to meet the learners’ requirements; (4) textbooks used for listening comprehension should be authentic and relevant; and (5) school facilities should be in good conditions. Obviously, teachers, learners, materials, and school facilities are important elements for the success of teaching and learning English listening comprehension at UEFLC.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Statements of Authority i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of Contents v List of Abbreviations viii List of Tables ix List of Figures x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Background to the study 1 1. The aims of the study 6 1. The structure of the study 6 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2.
Several basic concepts of listening comprehension 7 2. Definitions of listening comprehension 9 2. The role of listening comprehension 9 2. Different views of listening comprehension 10 2.
Listening comprehension activities 13 2. The differences between teaching and testing listening 15 comprehension 2. Listening comprehension stages 18 2. Pre-listening: preparing learners for listening comprehension 18 2.
Post-listening comprehension 21 2. Some popular methods of foreign language teaching available in the 23 Vietnamese context 2. The Direct Method Approach 24 2. The Audio-Lingual Approach 25 2.
The Communicative Approach 28 2. The roles of teachers and learners 29 2. Summary 33 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 34 3. Characteristics of the subjects 36 3.
Survey questionnaires for learner subjects 39 3. Survey questionnaires for teacher subjects 41 3. Interviews for teacher subjects 42 3. Summary 44 CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 45 4.
Learners’ responses to the survey questionnaires 45 4. Teachers’ responses to the survey questionnaires 63 4. Teachers’ responses to the interviews 66 4. Summary 79 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 80 5.
Summary 85 BIBLIOGRAPHY 86 APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for intermediate 94 learners of English (in Vietnamese) APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for Vietnamese teachers of English 103 (in English) APPENDIX 3: Interview for Vietnamese teachers of English 107 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CUP Cambridge University Press EFL English as a foreign language IELTS International English Language Testing System MA Master of Art OUP Oxford University Press TEFL Teaching English as a foreign language TESOL Teaching of English to speaker of other languages TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language TOEFL IBT Test of English as a Foreign Language – Internet Based Test TOEIC Test of English for International Communication UEFLC The University of Education, Foreign Language Centre at Ho Chi Minh City LIST OF TABLES Page 3. Background information about the learner subjects 37 3. Background information about the teacher subjects 38 4. Learners’ frequency in practising listening comprehension 46 4.
Learners’ difficulty in listening to pronunciation 52 4. Learners’ responses to vocabulary in listening comprehension 53 4. Learners’ responses to topic 55 4. Learners’ responses to a short listening task 57 4.
Learners’ responses to a long listening task 59 LIST OF FIGURES Page 4. Learners’ idea of listening materials applied in at UEFLC 47 4. Learners’ listening comprehension improvements 49 4. Learners’ opinions about how to improve listening 61 comprehension 4.
Teachers’ opinions about the learners’ difficulties in listening 64 comprehension 4. Teachers’ opinions about different activities of listening 66 comprehension 4. Teachers’ responses to the syllabus 67 4. Teachers’ preference for the direct method 70 4.
Teachers’ preference for Audio Lingual Method 71 4. Teachers’ preference for Communicative Language Teaching 73 Method 4. Teachers’ preference for the textbooks used at the Centre 76 4. Teachers’ responses to audio equipments at UEFLC 78 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION This study looks into the listening problems of intermediate learners of English at one of the foreign language centres at the University of Education (UEFLC) in Ho Chi Minh City and examines the aspects influencing their listening comprehension competence.
We do hope that the findings will help improve English learners’ listening comprehension in the target language by finding the causes of difficulty and providing the learners with the possible ways to overcome these difficulties. This chapter presents the background to the study, the aims and the structure of the thesis. Background to the study In recent decades, English has been a very important language all over the world, which many researchers have been concerned about. One of the well-known authors who did such a research is Fennell.
Talking about the number of English speakers nowadays, Fennell (2006, A History of English.com) stated that “the English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language or in a mixture with other languages,” and “English is the official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.” For the advanced development of these countries, the means to propagate technology, business, and trade is in English. Therefore, English has spread worldwide, becoming the first and key language in most of the countries around the world for employment, education, and especially for international interchange of business and culture. Thus, the requirement of English study has developed rapidly. The same situation of English development could be found in Vietnam.
English has marked its appearance in Vietnam War when American soldiers came to the south of Vietnam. Being involved in this event, the President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, Kehoe (1968:129, cited in Do Huy Thinh, 1999) made the following prediction: "What the role of English may be in Southeast Asia will depend on the outcome of the conflict there." Do Huy Thinh (1999) said that the choice of English in particular and foreign languages in general, to be taught in an educational system for the most part, bears the political, economic and social imprints of that society. After experiencing a lot of difficulties in the period of 1975-1985, Vietnam decided to carry out the ‘renovation’ or ‘Doi Moi.’ Vietnam's transition began with ‘Doi Moi' enacted in 1986, which paved the way for radical economic reforms along with the advancements of many other aspects in the society. He said that conditions for a thorough look at the role of foreign languages, especially English, in national development started to emerge after many changes throughout the country.
As a result, more English-speaking foreigners began to visit Vietnam along with products and advertisements in English. Do (1999) said that English began to become popular and was used not only between the Vietnamese and foreigners but also between the Vietnamese themselves. All this prompted the emergence of English as the main foreign language taught at almost high schools, universities, colleges as well as at foreign language centres. In consequence, Vietnamese learners of English have the chance to improve their English by studying in extra classes.
With the changes in consideration of English, the needs and requirements of Vietnamese learners when studying English have undergone a big change. Instead of focusing on grammar and vocabulary for reading, and writing, English learners need to be fluent in the four language skills. However, their competence of English, especially in listening comprehension has not been as good as expected. The difficulty in English listening comprehension prevents them much from understanding what their teachers have taught.
This is why their English competence could not meet the requirements of the society. Some learners could not catch the English sounds, understand the gist, get the details, identify the function, investigate the speaker’s stance or the organization of the listening task. These learners complained that they mainly learned grammar, reading, writing and little listening, which hinder them from good listening comprehension and communication. Therefore, we are aware that, for Vietnamese learners of English, listening and speaking should be a focus because listening comprehension is always closely related to the speaking skill.
In order to improve their English, many learners tend to study in extra classes, mostly in foreign language centres. Many foreign language centres or schools have been set up to meet these learners’ demands. According to 'Nguoi Lao Dong' (The Labourer), a Vietnamese newspaper (January 1st 2006), about 640 foreign language schools and centres have been established (up to August 25th 2005) in Ho Chi Minh City, most of which are English schools or centres. In this thesis, I would like to investigate the teaching and learning of listening comprehension for intermediate learners of English at one of the foreign language centres at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education.
Nowadays, UEFLC is regarded as one of the most popular foreign language centres in Ho Chi Minh City. At this centre, there are three languages to be taught, which are English, French, and Chinese.