1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN VAN NAM USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE GRADE-10 STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL AT TAN YEN HIGH SCHOOL N02 (SỬ DỤNG ĐỌC CHÍNH TẢ NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT TÂN YÊN SỐ 2) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HANOI, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN VĂN NAM USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE GRADE-10 STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL AT TAN YEN HIGH SCHOOL N02 (SỬ DỤNG ĐỌC CHÍNH TẢ NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT TÂN YÊN SỐ 2) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Minh Cường, M.A HANOI, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF CHARTS viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale of the study 1 2.
Aims of the study 2 3. Scope of the study 3 4. Methods of the study 3 5. Design of the study 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 5 1.
General concepts of listening 5 1. Definition of listening 5 1. Listening as the final goal of learning a language 6 1. Listening as a mean of acquiring language 6 1.
Evaluation standard of Ministry of Education and Training on 7 listening skill to grade-10 students 1. General concepts of dictation 7 1. History of dictation across second/foreign language methodologies 7 1. Definition of dictation 8 1.
Characteristics of dictation 9 1. Types of dictation 10 1. Advantages of dictation 11 1. Disadvantages of dictation 12 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
An overview of the research site 13 2. Data collection procedures 15 2. Summary 16 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 17 3. Analysis and discussion of dictations for listening skill improvement 17 3.
Analysis and discussion of dictations with the T/F statement task 17 3. Analysis and discussion of dictations with gap-filling task 20 3. Analysis and discussion of dictation with short-answer question. Teachers‟ application of dictation for listening skill improvement 26 3.
Analysis and discussion of students‟ tests 32 3. Analysis and discussion of pre-test 32 3. Analysis and discussion of progress test 1 34 3. Analysis and discussion of progress test 2 35 3.
Analysis and discussion of post-test 36 3. Pedagogical implication and recommendations 38 3. Recommendations 40 PART C: CONCLUSIONS 42 1. Summary of the findings 42 2.
Limitations of the study 43 4. Suggestions for further research 43 REFERENCES 44 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for teachers I Appendix 2: Pre-test IV Appendix 3: Progress test 1 VI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 Appendix 4: Progress test 2 VIII Appendix 5: Post-test X Appendix 6: Keys for practice tasks XII LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Listening practice task for dictation 1 Table 2: Listening practice task for dictation 2 Table 3: Listening practice task for dictation 3 Table 4: Listening practice task for dictation 4 Table 5: Listening practice task for dictation 5 Table 6: Listening practice task for dictation 6 Table 7: Listening practice task for dictation 7 Table 8: Listening practice task for dictation 8 Table 9: Teachers‟ opinion of dictation as a useful teaching technique Table 10: Teachers‟ frequency of the application of dictation Table 11: Application of dictation in different stages of a listening lesson Table 12: Teachers‟ attention to the content of dictation Table 13: Teachers‟ opinion of speech speed of dictation Table 14: Teachers‟ opinion of accent Table 15: Result distribution of Pre-tests Table 16: Result distribution of Progress tests 1 Table 17: Result distribution of Progress tests 2 Table 18: Result distribution of Post-tests LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Result description of pre-test Chart 2: Result description of progress test 1 Chart 3: Result description of progress test 2 Chart 4: Result description of post-test Chart 5: Result description of all the tests LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Language is the most important thing for people as a means of communication. It is basically a means of both spoken and written communication.
People use language to express their ideas and wishes to other people such as when they need others help so that close relation among members of the group can be carried out (Ramelan, 1993:8). Ramelan further states that “the use of language enables the members of a social group to cooperate with one another for their own benefit.” It is important to learn English because it is an international language which is used in many countries over the world and widely used in many sectors such as information, trade, aviation, science, education, etc. In Vietnam, the importance of English has been realized because English is considered to play a crucial role on the path of industrialization and modernization of the country as well as on the way of regional and international integration. Therefore, English is now taught in all levels of schools all over the country in order that the students are familiar with English and can use and communicate in English well.
Of all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, listening is always considered to be the most difficult for teachers to teach and for students to improve themselves, which leads to the fact that most learners have low level of proficiency in their listening skill. In fact, in the process of teaching and learning English, listening plays an important role since it involves various kinds of learners‟ knowledge and it is closely related to other skills, especially 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”. Later on, the ability to understand the native speakers in face-to-face communication, on the radio or tape may be important for learners to further study the language and communicate in it.
At Tan Yen High School N02 where I have been working, like at many other high schools in Vietnam, English has been a compulsory subject for many years. However, the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 teachers of English here are facing the problem of their grade-10 students‟ low level of listening in their classrooms. While there has been a variety of techniques used to improve listening skill for these students, most of them have not been really effective. One idea of using dictation to improve listening skill for the students has exercised my mind since I had a chance of studying the subject “English language teaching methodology” by Mr.
During the short course, a lot of time has been spent discussing how to use dictation to improve listening skill for students. Moreover, according to researchers‟ opinion, dictation has a number of advantages. For instance, Lightfoot (2004) says that dictation can be done with any level, depending on the text carefully designed and applied and it can be graded for a multi-level class. And Montalvan (2006) points out that dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is.
During and after the dictation, all students prove very active. The dictation passage can be completely prepared in advance and administered quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher. Likewise, Pappas (1977) considers dictation as a good means of developing learners‟ listening skill. For grade-10 students‟ problems of low listening competence and as one of the teachers of English of this school, I would like to improve my students‟ listening skill, and hope to be able to apply in the high schools where most of the students have low listening competence.
All considered, I chose to conduct a study on “Using dictation to improve grade-10 students’ listening skill at Tan Yen High School N02. Aims of the study The purposes of this study are to find out an effective teaching technique to improve listening skill for grade-10 students at Tan Yen High School N02. Therefore, the study is conducted to aim at finding the answers to the following questions: 1. How is dictation designed to improve listening skill for the students? 2.
How is dictation used to improve listening skill for the students? 3. How much are the students‟ listening skills improved after the application of dictation? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study Due to the limited time and financial constraint, I am unable to carry the investigation on a large scale. Therefore, within an M.
minor thesis, my intention is only to investigate the effectiveness of dictation to enhance listening skill for grade-10 students (about 80 students in total) at Tan Yen High School N02. For the aims of convenience, I have chosen 2 classes of grade-10 students who I have been teaching to be my research site. Also, it is my intention to conduct a survey on three teachers of English of the school who have been teaching grade-10 students. Methods of the study To achieve the aims of the study, I am going to use both quantitative and qualitative methods including survey questionnaires for teachers and listening tests for students.
+ Survey questionnaires are designed for teachers with the hope to find out their attitudes towards dictation as well as their comments and suggestions for using dictation in the English lessons. + Four listening tests are designed for students with an aim to measure the effect of using dictation on students‟ listening skill improvement. The first listening test (pre-test) is given to students with an aim to measure their overall listening competence before dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The result of this test helps the researcher to design appropriate activities of dictation in the listening lessons on the purpose of bettering the students‟ listening skill.
The next two tests (progress tests) are given to students to check their progress when dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The last test (post- test) is given to find out how much the students‟ listening skill has improved after the experiment has been terminated. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Design of the study This minor thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter I is an introduction to the whole minor thesis.
It includes the rationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study and design of the study. Chapter II, Review of Literature, presents various concepts most relevant to the research topic such as definition of listening, listening as the final goal of learning a language, listening as a means of acquiring language, and evaluation standard on listening skill. Furthermore, the followings are also included in this chapter: history of dictation, definition of dictation, characteristics of dictation, types of dictation, and so on. Chapter III describes the method of investigation which consists of research site, research questions, participants, instruments, methods of data collection and analysis.
Chapter IV, Data analysis and Discussion, gives a detailed presentation of data and a detailed description of data analysis. Some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study are also presented. Chapter V presents conclusions of the research, limitations and suggestions for further researches. In the last part of the study, to assure that the study is really valid, the researcher gives references and appendices.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 15 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE Any study should have theories as its background.