1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ THANH HOA AN INVESTIGATION INTO LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT NGHE AN JUNIOR TEACHERS TRAINING COLLEGE (Nghiên cứu những khó khăn trong việc học kỹ năng nghe hiểu của sinh viên chuyên Anh năm thứ hai ở trường CĐSP Nghệ An.A Minor Program Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi, 2010 z 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ THANH HOA AN INVESTIGATION INTO LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT NGHE AN JUNIOR TEACHERS TRAINING COLLEGE (Nghiên cứu những khó khăn trong việc học kỹ năng nghe hiểu của sinh viên chuyên Anh năm thứ hai ở trường CĐSP Nghệ An.A Minor Program Thesis Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Đinh Hải Yến, M.Ed Hanoi, 2010 z 6 LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1 Learners‟ perceptions of strategies of listening comprehension 21 Table 2 learners‟ perception of listening problems related to the listening 23 text Table 3 Learners‟ perception of listening problems related to tasks and 25 activities Table 4 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to the listener 27 Table 5 Learners‟ perceptions of teacher‟s teaching methods 28 Table 6 Teachers‟ perceptions of teaching methods 30 Table 7 Teachers‟ perceptions of learners‟ strategy uses 32 Table 8 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill 34 z 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS JTTC: Junior teachers training college z 8 TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract List of tables List of abbreviations PART A: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………… 1 1. Aims of the study …………………………………………………………………. Scope of the study ………………………………………………………………… 2 4. Significance of the study ………………………………………………………….
Method of the study ………………………………………………………………. Design of the study ………………………………………………………………. 5 Chapter one: Literature review …………………………………………………….1 The nature of listening comprehension ………………………………………….1 The concept of listening comprehension ………………………………….2 The listening comprehension process …………………………………….2 Potential problems in learning listening comprehension ……………………….3 Strategies of listening comprehension ………………………………………….4 Three stages of the listening session …………………………………………….1 Pre-listening stage ……………………………………………………….2 While-listening stage …………………………………………………….3 Post-listening stage ……………………………………………………….5 Related studies of listening comprehension problems …………………………. 15 z 9 Chapter two: Methodology ………………………………………………………… 16 2.2 Setting of the study ……………………………………………………………… 17 2.2 Data collection instrument ………………………………………………… 18 2.3 Data analysis method ……………………………………………………… 20 2.4 Summary ………………………………………………………………………… 20 Chapter three: Data results, discussions of major findings and recommendations …………………………………………………………………… 21 3.1 Sources of listening comprehension problems experienced by students at N.1 Learners‟ perceptions of strategies of listening comprehension ………….2 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to the listening text ….3 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to task and activities… 25 3.4 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to listener …………… 27 3.5 Learners‟ perceptions of teacher‟s teaching methods …………………….2 Sources of listening comprehension problems reflected by teachers …………… 29 3.1 Teachers‟ perceptions of teaching methods ……………………………….2 Teachers‟ perceptions of learners‟ strategy uses ………………………….3 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill …………….4 Recommendations for improvement of the efficiency of teaching and learning of 2nd year English students at Nghe An JTTC ………………………………………….1 Recommendations for teachers of English ………………………………… 34 3.1 Adapting and improving listening materials ………………………… 34 3.2 Improving teachers‟ classroom techniques ………………………….2 Recommendations for students …………………………………………….1 Improving English proficiency ……………………………………… 37 z 10 3.2 Improving listening strategies ……………………………………….5 Summary ………………………………………………………………………… 38 PART C: CONCLUSIONS ………………………………………………….
Summary of the study ……………………………………………………………. Limitations and suggestions for further study …………………………………… 41 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………. 43 APPENDICES z 11 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE English language teaching profession has changed tremendously over the last few decades in the light of Communicative Language Teaching approach.
Training learners to be able to use English for communicative purposes has become the goal. In order to use English effectively, learners need to develop communicative competence. Accordingly, they should be helped to develop four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, among the four given skills, it is now generally recognized that listening plays a key role in facilitating language learning.
Rost (1994, as cited in Nunan & Miller, 1995) confirmed that listening is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for learners. Without understanding inputs at the right level, any kind of learning simply cannot occur. Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency. In many colleges and universities in Vietnam, listening has played a very important part in learning a foreign language and it is recognized as the principal objective of language courses.
However, the teaching of listening skills is still the weak link in the language teaching process. At Nghe An Junior Teachers‟ Training College, listening is treated equally as other skills in terms of time allocation. In fact, it has not drawn much attention of both teachers and learners, they are generally less aware of its importance. In classrooms, teachers seem to test, not to teach listening.
Meanwhile, students seem to learn listening, not listening comprehension. Thus, students cannot listen effectively. If they are asked to rank the four macro language skills: Speaking, reading, writing and listening in order of difficulty, listening skill will probably be one of those which are put at the top of the list. z 12 From her observation and experience in working as an English teacher for nearly 10 years, the researcher has noticed that her students have lots of difficulties in listening comprehension.
This becomes a strong inspiration for her to have an investigation into their listening comprehension problems through which she can identify kinds of listening problem and factors causing their difficulties. This would help the researcher to work out possible solutions to help improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning listening comprehension at her college. AIMS OF THE STUDY The purpose of the study is to investigate the listening comprehension problems of the 2nd year English students at Nghe An JTTC. Therefore, the specific aims are: 1.
To find out kinds of listening comprehension problems encountered by 2 nd English students at Nghe An JTTC 2. To find out factors causing their difficulties in listening comprehension 3. To provide some suggestions on strategies to help students overcome 3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The minor thesis is conducted at Nghe An JTTC in order to perceive difficulties in learning listening comprehension of the 2nd year English students.
The study focuses on describing the problems and factors causing the given difficulties related to strategies of listening comprehension, the listening text, tasks and activities, listener, and teachers‟ methodology. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STYDY This study points out the listening comprehension problems encountered by 2 nd English students at Nghe An JTTC. More importantly, it is a further contribution to the investigation of foreign language listening comprehension problems in actual language classroom practice. Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help to the improvement of the teaching and learning listening comprehension of English of Vietnamese students in general and of Nghe An college students in particular.
The study also gives some guidelines for teachers to help their students overcome their z 13 listening comprehension problems. The results of this study may also be useful for those who are interested in this field. METHOD OF THE STUDY To fulfill the above aims, the study was carried out with quantitative method of data collection: 1. A questionnaire designed for students consists of two parts.
Part one aims at obtaining demographic data about the participants such as name, age, gender and the number of years they have been studying English and listening skill as well. Part two with focus on listening comprehension problems formulated from learners‟ perceptions of listening comprehension problems is based on the model advocated by Ali S. Hasan (Hasan, 2000) to find out kinds of their listening comprehension problems and factors affecting their difficulties. Another questionnaire was delivered to the teachers.
It is aimed at obtaining information concerning their perceptions of listening comprehension problems for their 2nd year students. DESIGN OF THE STUDY This study is divided into three parts. Part A, INTRODUTION, presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, significance, methods as well as the design of the study. Part B, DEVELOPMENT, has three following chapters: Chapter one is the Literature Review which deals with theories on factors involving listening comprehension and listening comprehension problems.
In chapter two, Methodology, the current situation of teaching and learning listening at N.A JTTC is investigated. The research methods which cover research questions, the participants, data collection instruments are presented in this chapter. z 14 Chapter three presents the data results, analysis and discussion of major findings of listening comprehension problems, factors contributing to their difficulties and provides some suggestions on strategies to help students overcome their difficulties. Part C, CONCLUSION, summarizes what are addressed in the study, particularly the major findings and recommendations.
The limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study are also included in this part. z 15 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter one: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The Nature of Listening Comprehension 1.1 The concept of listening comprehension There have been a large number of definitions of listening comprehension which present different views of scholars towards the concept. Traditional views considered listening as a passive language skill alongside with reading skill. Listeners were regarded as a tape-recorder, took in and stored aural messages in much the same way as the tape-recorder.
They just hear what they are to listen without paying sufficient attention to the discourse such as background knowledge of the speakers as well as their intentions, attitudes, implications and other shades of meaning etc. Nowadays, there exist different views about listening comprehension. Anderson and Lynch (1988, as cited in Fang, 2008, p. 21), considered the listener as an active model builder.
This kind of listener could combine the new information with his previous knowledge and experience to reach full comprehension of what had been heard. This view emphasized the active interpretation and integration of incoming information with prior knowledge and experience. According to Buck (2001), listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by “applying knowledge to the incoming sounds” (p.31) in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge” (p. O‟Malley and Chamot (1989, p.
420) made a conclusion that Listening comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning by using cues from contextual information and existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement.168) emphasized that Listening is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance. In short, listening is not a passive but active and conscious process in which learners construct and convey meaning by using not only the linguistic cues but their non- linguistic knowledge as well. Linguistic knowledge is of different types, but among the most important are phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure. The non- linguistic knowledge used in comprehension is knowledge about the topic, the context, and general knowledge about the world and how it works.2 The listening comprehension process Listening comprehension is regarded theoretically as an active process in which individuals concentrate on selected aspects of aural input, form meaning from passages, and associate what they hear with existing knowledge.
Rost (2002, as cited in Vandergrift, http:// www.uk/resourses/gpg/67) defines listening, in its broad sense, as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation), constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation), negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation) and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation).