GRADUATION PAPER DECLARATION Title: SOME STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY I certify no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced from any person‟s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor. Hanoi, 2nd May 2015 Student Supervisor Kieu Bich Ngoc Pham Thi Bich Diep KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) GRADUATION PAPER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude and indebtedness to my supervisor – Mrs Pham Thi Bich Diep, M.A, the lecturer of English at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for her careful instructions, valuable advice, and supervision during the course of writing. I also would to express my special thanks to all teachers at the Faculty of English, who have provided me with not only knowledge but also the study condition during my student life, as well as their useful advice in completing this graduation paper. I would also like to extend my thanks to 100 students of first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for their support in implementing the survey.
Finally yet importantly, I am indebted to my family and friends who have encouraged and supported me so much in the completion of this paper. If there had not been great help from the above people, the study could not been fulfilled. Hanoi, 2nd May 2015 Student Kieu Bich Ngoc KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) GRADUATION PAPER TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDEGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the Study.
Scope of the Study. Subject of the Study. Methods of the Study. Design of the Study.
5 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW .The Definition of Listening .The Importance of Listening .What Makes Listening Difficult?. The Listening Skills. The definitions of listening sub-skills. The Classification of Listening Sub-skills.
Guessing Meaning of Words or Context. Listening and Note-taking. Listening for Total Comprehension. 18 KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) GRADUATION PAPER 1.
18 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY. Data Collection Method. 31 CHAPTER III: SOME EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES AND TEACHING METHODS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST- YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY. Strategies for Achieving Good Results in Listening.
Applying Listening Sub-skills. Improving Skimming Sub-skills. Listening and Note-taking. Guessing Meaning of Words or Context.
Listening for Total Comprehension. 49 REFERENCES APENDIX KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) GRADUATION PAPER PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Communication plays an important role in human life, and language which is one of the most useful tools for communication. Nowadays, the development of global economy demands people to have more than one foreign language in communication.
English has become one of the main foreign languages which are used all over the world. It is also known as an international language in communication and business. When we think of learning a new language, normally we think about four learning skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is the fact that listening is listed first because it is used most.
Listening is not only hearing but also understanding what is being said. Listeners must receive and encode the information that they hear and react. They also need to check any prediction they have made and understand the speaker‟s meaning by their intonation, stress or emotions. In comparison with other skills, listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks because it is a complicated process for learners.
It demands many other skills, so that is the reason why many students learning a new language often get into trouble dealing with them. In the learning process, the author of this paper and other students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University have to cope with difficulties in listening comprehension. Therefore, the author decided to choose the topic “Some strategies to improve listening skills for the first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University” as the subject for the graduation KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) 1 GRADUATION PAPER paper. Through this study, the author would like to present some listening comprehension knowledge and suggest some effective strategies to improve the listening skills for the first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University.
Aims of the Study This study aims at finding meaning, problems and understanding all of the current situations related to teaching and learning listening skills for the first-year students at HOU as well as recommending some suggestions that they could use in learning to improve their listening-skills and extend their abilities to listen effectively in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes. Scope of the Study Listening comprehension is a wide field for research. Through the graduation paper, the study mainly focuses on some issues the first-year students at the Faculty of English, HOU often face. They have been taught English listening skills for a considerable time and must have had knowledge of some typical skills to some extent.
Subject of the Study In this study, the author focuses on the students who are the first-year students in Hanoi Open University. In the process of learning English at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University, they have to face many problems in listening skills. Especially, the policy requiring that students who graduate from 2013 onwards need to satisfy a language standard (a minimum band score of 6.5 on the IELTS scale for the English language proficiency) to be awarded a university degree also makes English increasingly important. Research Questions There is no doubt that listening plays an important role in our life and students of HOU, they always have trouble with it.
The objective of the study KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) 2 GRADUATION PAPER is to find out some strategies which help students improve their listening comprehension skills. This study focused on the following main points: What difficulties in listening do the first-year students face? What are some suggestions for students to improve their listening skills? 6. Methods of the Study The author implemented a survey with subjects who are the first-year students at the Faculty of English and then find out the current situation of teaching and learning listening skills and then introduce some effective strategies for the first-year students of HOU. Besides, the author has acquired all the literature from many sources of data such as the Internet, newspapers and linguistics book in the Library of the Faculty of English, HOU.
Personal observation consulted and discussed by the supervisor in the process of researching also contributed much to the completion of this study. Design of the Study The study is divided into three main parts: Part A: Introduction It is like a touch on the chosen subject such as reason for the study, aims and objectives, methods performed in the study. Part B: Development It is the most important part of my paper, including three chapters: Chapter I: Literature Review: The chapter provides and introduces some definitions and theories related to listening. KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) 3 GRADUATION PAPER Chapter II: The Study: It is the main part of study, which discloses the current situation of teaching and learning listening skills for first-year students at HOU and identifies their problems in listening.
Chapter III: Some effective strategies to improve listening skills for the first- year students at the Faculty of English, HOU In this chapter, the author wants to give out some suggestions and solutions to deal with difficulties in learning listening skills. Part C: Conclusion This chapter is the concluding part where the author gives the conclusion and sum up the main ideas of the graduation paper. KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) 4 GRADUATION PAPER PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW The importance of listening in communication is enormous. When you are not listening, you are not learning.
When you are not listening, you are preventing opportunity. The fact that you do not listen reveals the reality that your mind is closed. When you are not listening, you are preventing intelligence. When you are not listening, there is nothing new.
There are only your reactions. If you wish to live life to its fullest, and then listening is vital. For almost all learners of foreign languages, listening is considered the most difficult skill. It brings many problems through our student life.
In order to deal with the problems, this study would provide an overview of listening issues to help students be aware of the listening skills more clearly. The Definition of Listening People can easily find many definitions of listening skills on the Internet or books. Although there are many definitions of listening in different ways, they have the same point of view about listening. In general, listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe.
Listening is the process of making sense out of what we hear. Listening is an active process of receiving, processing, and interpreting aural stimuli. Apart from that, listening involves taking in meaningful sounds and noise and in some ways, retaining and using them. Just as we speak for different purposes, we also listen for different purposes.
We listen for enjoyment, information, and evaluation. According to Dunkel (1986) “Listening is receiving language through the ears. Listening involves identifying the sounds of speech and processing them into words and sentences. When we listen, we use our ears to receive individual sounds (letter, stress, rhythm and pauses) and we use our brain to convert these into messages that mean something to us.” KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) 5 GRADUATION PAPER From the point of view of Rost (1990), the person who defined listening in the most comprehension way, “Listening is one of fundamental language abilities that allow users of language to get not only information but also instruction.” In addition, Brown (1994) defined that “Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying.
This involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his meaning.” Meanwhile, Peter Sense (2002) added: “To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the “music”, but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but you listen what he or she is, Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silence in yourself, so you can slow our mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to the meaning.” So listening means you are paying attention to what you are hearing.
Listening means you paid attention and understood what was said, even being motivated by what you hear. In contrast, one of the most complete and detailed definitions of listening is the one provided by Brownell (1996) “…it is not a skill, but a set of skills all marked by the fact that they involve the aural perception of oral signals … [it] is not necessary for almost any other work with language, especially for speaking and even for writing.” In short, no matter how listening is defined, it is obviously that listening is the skill that we use the most when learning a second language. And in our own language, listening is usually the first skill that we learn. KIEU BICH NGOC-K18A3 (2011-2015) 6 GRADUATION PAPER 1.
The Importance of Listening In this paper, the importance of listening is considered in two aspects communication, in general, and studying language in particular (English). In term of communication, listening plays an important role. According to Maureen Staiano (2006) the importance of listening in communication is enormous. People often focus on their speaking ability believing that good speaking equals good communication.
The ability to speak well is a necessary component to successful communication. The ability to listen is equally important.