VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* VŨ THỊ THÀNH DINH IMPROVING 11TH FORM STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION THROUGH MODIFIED LISTENING TASKS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 11 AT KINH MON HIGH SCHOOL, HAI DUONG (NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG NGHE HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT KINH MÔN, HẢI DƯƠNG THÔNG QUA VIỆC THIẾT CHỈNH LẠI MỘT SỐ BÀI TẬP NGHE TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 11) M.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE : 601410 HANOI – 2011 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* VŨ THỊ THÀNH DINH IMPROVING 11TH FORM STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION THROUGH MODIFIED LISTENING TASKS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 11 AT KINH MON HIGH SCHOOL, HAI DUONG (NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG NGHE HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT KINH MÔN, HẢI DƯƠNG THÔNG QUA VIỆC THIẾT CHỈNH LẠI MỘT SỐ BÀI TẬP NGHE TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 11) M.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE : 601410 SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN THỤY PHƯƠNG LAN, M. HANOI - 2011 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Candidate’s statement i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of tables and charts viii List of abbreviations ix page PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Aims of the study…………………………………………………………. Scope of the study………………………………………………………… 2 5.
Design of the study………………………………………………………. 2 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 3 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 3 1. Theoretical background of listening skill…………………………………………… 3 1. Definitions of listening……………………………………………………… 3 1.
Definitions of listening comprehension……………………………………. The significance of listening comprehension………………………………. Factors affect students’ listening comprehension…………………………… 5 1. Definitions of task ………………………………………………………….
Criteria of a good listening task……………………………………………. Types of listening tasks……………………………………………………. 9 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Definition of material adaptation………………………………………….
Reasons for adapting materials…………………………………………… 10 1. Principles for adapting materials…………………………………………. Techniques for adapting materials………………………………………. Levels of material adaptation…………………………………………….
Adaptation of specific activities………………………………………. 13 CHAPTER TWO: THE METHODOLOGY 14 2. Research method of the study………………………………………………………… 14 2. An overview of action research…………………………………………….
Action research models……………………………………………………… 14 2. Action research cycle and procedure for this research……………………… 15 2. Data collection instruments…………………………………………………………. Pre and post tests…………………………………………………………….
The teacher/ researcher………………………………………………………. The non- participate observer……………………………………………… 20 2. 21 CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 22 3. Results from pre-listening test……………………………………………….
Results from pre-action stage observations…………………………………. Results from students’ questionnaire 1……………………………………… 24 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Students’ evaluation about listening skill and their own listening 24 competence………………………………………………………………………… 3. Students’ opinions about listening tasks in English 11…………………….
Students’ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11 ……………… 25 3. Students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks to their 25 listening competence………………………………………………………………. Students’ preferences for listening tasks…………………………………. Students’ opinions about the way their teachers treat listening tasks……… 26 3.
Results from document analysis……………………………………………. Listening tasks in listening sections of English 11………………………. Planning action steps…………………………………………………………. Data collected in the action stage………………………………………………….
Results from action stage observations……………………………. Results from Questionnaire 2 ………………………………………………. Results from teaching diaries………………………………………………… 33 3. Results from post-test……………………………………………………… 34 3.
Action research evaluation…………………………………………………………… 35 3.1 Students’ involvement in tasks before and after action plan………………… 35 3. Students’ progress reflected through tests…………………………………. Summary of major findings and discussions………………………………… 36 3. The unsuitability of listening tasks in the textbook affects students’ listening comprehension…………………………………………………………….Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Students’ preferences for listening tasks…………………………………. Modified listening tasks could help improve students’ listening comprehension……………………………………………………………………… 37 PART III: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………. Limitations of the study…………………………………………………………. Suggestions for further study…………………………………………………….
40 41 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………… APPENDICES (LUAN.Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Haiduong viii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Page List of tables Table 1: Results from pre-listening test…………………………………. 22 Table 2: Students’ involvement in the tasks………………………………. 23 Table 3: Frequency of listening tasks in listening lessons……………. 24 Table 4: Students’ feelings when doing listening tasks in English 11…….
25 Table 5: Students’ evaluation about the effectiveness of listening tasks …. 25 Table 6: Students’ preferences for listening tasks…………………………. 26 Table 7: Students’ opinions about the ways their teachers treat listening tasks. 26 Table 8: Topic in English 11…………………………………………….
27 Table 9: Types of listening tasks in English 11…………………………. 28 Table 10: Students’ involvement in the tasks……………………………. 32 Table 11: Students’ evaluation about modified listening tasks …………. 33 Table 12: Results of post-test…………………………………………….
34 List of charts………………………………………………………………. Chart 1: Students’ involvement in tasks before and after action plan……. 35 Chart 2: Students’ progress reflected through tests ……………………….Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Haiduong ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS - MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training - EFL: English as a foreign language - AR: Action research - TESOL : Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (LUAN.Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Haiduong 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study The years 2006, 2007 and 2008 marked a milestone in the ways of teaching and learning English when the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) introduced the new sets of English textbook English 10, English 11 and English 12 to school curriculum.
The aim of MOET is to develop students‟ communicative competence so as to meet the demand of integration and globalization. That is the reason why in the new textbooks, four skills including reading, speaking, listening and writing are put in priority and integrated. Of the four skills mentioned above, listening is considered to be the most challenging one. Most students find it hard to master this skill and soon feel bored with listening periods.
The reasons for this are various, such as uninteresting topics, fast speed, students' poor pronunciation or lack of background knowledge and cultural understanding. Eleven graders at Kinh Mon High School have encountered such a lot of difficulties when dealing with listening lessons. However, after five years of teaching English 11, I also discover that the listening tasks themselves are also a factor affecting students‟ listening comprehension. It is obvious that suitable tasks make students more interested in the listening passages and then help them develop their listening skills.
Inappropriate tasks, on the contrary, can demotivate students. In listening sections of English11, some tasks are too difficult or too long and some are boring. In this case, it is necessary for teachers to modify listening tasks to make the tasks more suitable and interesting for learners, even though it is not an easy job for the teacher as modifying tasks means having to take many things into accounts such as the objectives, the criteria or the student‟s needs. However, for the benefit of students, it is worth doing so.
For the above reasons, especially for the researcher‟s desire to help her students better at listening, the choice of the study entitled “Improving 11th form students’ listening comprehension through modified listening tasks of the new textbook English 11 at Kinh Mon High School, Hai Duong” is not accidental.Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Aims of the study The main purpose of this research is to study the effects of modified listening tasks of English 11 on improving 11th form students‟ listening comprehension at Kinh Mon Upper-Secondary School. The specific objectives of the study are: To investigate students‟ attitudes towards listening tasks in English 11 and the difficulties they face. To study whether the modified listening tasks could help students improve their listening comprehension 3.
Research questions As a basis for my investigation, the following research questions were formulated: 1. What makes students uninterested in listening lessons? 2. How can the modified listening tasks help improve students‟ listening comprehension? 4. Scope of the study Due to the limited knowledge, energy and time, the researcher was unable to carry out the investigation on a large scale.
This action research was only conducted for only 8 weeks with the four listening lessons and in the context of 50 eleventh-grade students at Kinh Mon High School in the academic year 2011-2012 only. Hence, the results of the study is only limited to the above teaching context and participants. Design of the study This study consists of three parts: Part I: The introduction: provides the basis information such as rationale for the study, aims of the study, research questions, methods of the study, scope of the study and the design of the study. Part II: The development: consists of three chapters.
The first chapter is literature review which discussed theoretical background relevant to the purposes of the study. The next one is the methodology which gives a detailed description of how the study was conducted. The last chapter is to report the data analysis as well as the results of the study. Part III: The conclusion: summarizes the action research.
Then some recommendations are proposed, some limitations of the study are pointed out as well as some suggestions for further research are given out.Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Haiduong 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter involves different issues in the theories of the listening in a foreign language, listening tasks and material adaptation. Theoretical background of listening skill. Definitions of listening. In our daily life, outside the classroom, listening is used twice as often as speaking, which in turn is used twice as much as reading and writing (River, 1981).
Inside classroom, the two often used skills are listening and speaking (Brown, 1994). Therefore, listening plays an important role in the processes of learning and communication essential to productive participation in life. What is listening? Through years, various definitions of listening have been proposed. Listening is more than merely hearing words.
It is considered to be an active process by which students receive, construct meaning from, and respond to spoken and or nonverbal messages (Emmert, 1994). Brown (1994) argues that listening is a skill in which to identify and understand what is being said, listeners must comprehend “a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary”. Sharing similar ideas, Barker (1971) defines listening as “the selective process of attending to, hearing, understanding and remembering aural symbols” In short, no matter how variously listening is defined, it is obvious that listening is the most important skill for learning to speak a language. It provides a foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development.
Definitions of listening comprehension. Regarding listening comprehension, Boyle (1981) suggests that listening comprehension refers to the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language. It is a perceptive skill through which listeners can identify and retain information they get from the speech. Woven and Coakley (1985) define listening comprehension as "the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli".
This definition shows that listening (LUAN.Haiduong TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Haiduong 4 comprehension is not only a process of perception of sound but it also requires comprehension of meaning. Rixon (1986) divides listening comprehension into two types: extensive and intensive listening. Extensive listening involves listening to a recording to get a general understanding, for example, watching a film, understanding and enjoying the story; or listening and carrying out instructions. Intensive listening, on the other hand, involves more detailed analysis of the language used or listening for specific information.
Listening for specific information involves finding the answers to specific questions. “What is the speaker‟s favorite kind of music?” would involve listening for specific information because the students listen for that particular response. To sum up, listening comprehension is a demanding and involved process. One must be able to deal with different accents or pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise and also make a conscious effort to not 'switch off' or become distracted while listening.
All of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identify and understand the meaning in any given message. The significance of listening comprehension Listening comprehension is very important in the process of learning a language. According to Rost (1994: 141), listening comprehension is “vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner.