VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ************** NGUYỄN THỊ LỆ THỦY TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 11TH-GRADE AT DAIMO HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (Khó khăn của giáo viên trong việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 11 Trường THPT Đại Mỗ, Hà Nội và một số giải pháp) M. Minor Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Hanoi – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ************** NGUYỄN THỊ LỆ THỦY TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 11TH-GRADE AT DAIMO HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (Khó khăn của giáo viên trong việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 11 Trường THPT Đại Mỗ, Hà Nội và một số giải pháp) M. Minor Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor: CHU THỊ PHƯƠNG VÂN M. Hanoi - 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration.
iii Table of contents. iv List of abbreviations. viii List of tables and charts. viii PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the study. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study.
Significance of the study. Design of the study. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of listening. Communicative approaches to listening comprehension. Stages of a listening lesson. Pre-listening stage.
While-listening stage. Post-listening stage. 9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The teacher’s role in the listening lesson.
Potential problems in learning ELS. Strategies of listening comprehension. Role of motivation, interest and relevance in learning ELS. 14 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
Introduction of language teaching and learning conditions in DM school. Subjective factors_Human. The learners_ Grade 11th students. Objective factors_Teaching and learning conditions.
The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook. Grade 11 listening objects. Data collection instruments. Instrument one: Questionnaires.
Instrument two: Interviews. 20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS. 21 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Questionnaires for students.
Questionnaires for teachers. Results of the interviews. 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTED SOLUSIONS. Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching ELS.
Students’ attitudes towards learning ELS. Students’ difficulties in learning ELS. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ELS to grade 11 students. Doing a pre-listening warm up activity effectively.
Encouraging students to practice ELS outside the classroom. Giving support and encouragement. Upgrading teaching aids. Adapting and re-designing the tasks.
Equipping students with listening strategies. 43 PART III: CONCLUSIONS. Summary of the study. Limitations of the study.
Recommendations for further study. 45 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii REFERENCES. I Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students. I Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers.
III Appendix 3: Interview questions for teachers. V Appendix 4: Topics of the listening texts in English textbook 11. VI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DM school Dai Mo high school ELS English Listening Skill Ss Students LIST OF TABLES Tables Titles Pages Table 1 Teachers’ techniques of encouraging students 25 Table 2 Students’ evaluation on other students’ participation 26 Table 3 Factors affecting students’ difficulties in learning ELS 27 Table 4 Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS 28 Table 5 Teachers’ assessment and attitudes towards ELS 29 Table 6 Teachers’ assessment of listening topics & tasks in “Tieng Anh 29 11” textbook Table 7 Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons 30 Table 8 Teachers’ opinions of the difficult stage(s) of a listening lesson 30 Table 9 Difficulties encountered by the teachers 31 Table 10 The frequency of teachers’ using techniques in a listening lesson 33 Table 11 Teachers’ suggested solutions to improve listening teaching 34 Table 12 Four teachers’ answering interview questions 36 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ix LIST OF CHARTS Charts Titles Pages Chart 1 Students’ assessment of their listening abilities 21 Chart 2 Students’ attitudes towards the importance of listening skills 22 Chart 3 Students' frequency of listening to English outside the class 23 Chart 4 Students’ assessment of tasks in the “Tieng Anh 11” textbook 23 Chart 5 Students’ attitudes towards the appropriate time for learning ELS 24 Chart 6 How students discuss their listening comprehension problems 25 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -1- PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study In this new era of globalization, English language becomes the international language.
It has become the most popular language of communication among countries and in many fields of human endeavor. So it is important that we learn to use English if we do not want to be old fashioned. Therefore, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English in the world as well as in Vietnam. 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. Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency. Aware of the importance of teaching listening skills, all the teachers of Dai Mo high school are trying their best to make the listening lessons effective. The teachers themselves always try to find out the best approach to apply in teaching.
However, the quality of learning and teaching English listening skills still remains very low. Therefore, this thesis takes a critical look at the real situation of teaching and learning listening skills at Dai Mo high school to explore the problems as well as to suggest some feasible solutions. From the real experience in teaching, the researcher attempts to carry out a research to make the problems clear. Aim and objectives of the study Within the frame work of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at: - Clarifying the practices of teaching and learning ELS in grades 11 in DM school.
- Finding out the difficulties teachers and students in grades 11 in DM school have had to undergo. - Suggesting some feasible solutions to the teaching of ELS for grade 11. It may appear contradictory that in the first two concentrations, the study attempts to investigate both teaching and learning of ELS whereas the main topic raised in the title of the study is only about the teaching. However, according to Brown (2007), it is not a contradiction “if we look at the teaching process as the facilitation of learning.” LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Scope of the study Learning a second language as a scholar once said “is a long and complex undertaking”. Therefore, teachers of a second language certainly have many problems during their teaching. In the scope of this research, however, the researcher only has ambition to investigate the difficulties that teachers in DM school have been faced when teaching listening skill for 11th graders. Hopefully, they will have more smooth and successful listening lessons.
Also, it is not expected that the study can bring solutions to the ELS teaching for students of all levels. Methods of the study The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods. Besides, many resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers and some sources on the Internet have been read by the researcher. In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will be collected through two survey questionnaires.
One survey questionnaire is for 140 students from five different groups in grade 11 in DM school and the other survey is for 7 teachers teaching English for grades 11 during the time they took part in the survey. The data, then, will be processed and analyzed to yield conclusions for the study. Along with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained by informal interviews with some teachers to collect further information about the real situations of teaching and learning ESL in grades 11 at DM school. Significance of the study This research provides an insight into the difficulties that are often met by teachers teaching English for grades 11 in DM school.
In addition, this research also points out some feasible solutions which are beneficial for both teachers and students. Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help to the improvement of the teaching and learning ELS of Vietnamese students in general and of DM school students in particular. The study also gives some guidelines for teachers to LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -3- help their students overcome their listening comprehension problems. The results of this study may also be useful for those who are interested in this field.
Design of the study The study is divided into three parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion. Part I: INTRODUCTION- deals with the rationales, aims, methods, scope, significance and design of the study. Part II: DEVELOPMENT – consists of three chapters Chapter 1: Literature review – provides some theoretical background about listening comprehension and teaching listening skill. Chapter 2: Methodology – presents the current situation of teaching and learning listening at DM school.
This chapter also deals with the introduction of the research methods which cover research questions, the participants and data collection instruments. Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussions – presents the data results, analysis collected from two questionnaires as well as the interviews. Chapter 4: Findings and feasible solutions – concludes the findings the researcher has from the study and proposes some solutions to the teaching of ELS for grade 11 in Dai Mo high school. Part III: CONCLUSION- gives a brief description of the study and states the limitations as well as recommendations for further research.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -4- PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definitions of listening People have two ears and one mouth so they can listen twice as much as they speak. This important fact points out that listening happens between people. A vast majority of the time that we are speaking, we are listening as well.
Over the last two decades, with a new wave of interest in the development of communicative competence in language teaching, listening comprehension skills have ever received much more attention in language teaching classrooms. There have been a large number of definitions of listening comprehension which present different views of language scholars towards the concept. Helgesen (2003: 24) stated that “Listening is an active, purposeful processing of making sense of what we hear.” It is clear that the listener is doing more than simply decoding what is heard. This view emphasized the active interpretation and integration of incoming information with prior knowledge and experience.
In Rubin‟s point of view (1995:7), “listening is conceived of as an active process in which listeners select and interpret information which comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express”. She emphasizes the activeness of listeners in the listening process and also identifies two distinctive features of listening comprehension which are selecting and interpreting. Selecting means that in the process of making sense of the input, listeners use only part of the incoming information whereas interpreting means in trying to make sense of the input, they use their background knowledge as well as the new information to decipher what is going on and to figure out what speakers intend. Another way to approach the definition comes from O‟Malley and Chamot (1989: 420).