VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ QUỲNH TRANG DIFFICULTES IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS: THE CASE OF 10-GRADE STUDENTS AT THANG LONG HIGH SCHOOL (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT THĂNG LONG) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 HÀ NỘI- 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ QUỲNH TRANG DIFFICULTES IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS: THE CASE OF 10-GRADE STUDENTS AT THANG LONG HIGH SCHOOL (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT THĂNG LONG) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor : Kiều Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D HÀ NỘI- 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. III TABLE OF CONTENTS.
IV LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS. VIII PART I: INTRODUCTION. Statement of the problem. Objectives of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Design of the study. 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT.
5 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 The nature of listening .1 Definition of listening .2 Classification of listening. Process of listening.3 Factors affecting EFL listening. Length and density of the text .2 Quality of the text.3 Conceptual difficulty of the text .4 Syntactic complexity of the text.5 Complexity of tasks. 13 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.2 Language proficiency level .3 Application of strategies .4 Knowledge of vocabulary .4 Overview of listening section in the English 10 textbook “Tieng Anh 10” 17 1.1 Pre-listening stage .2 While-listening stage .3 Post-listening stage .5 Previous works review.
19 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY. Data gathering instruments .4 Findings and discussion .1 Students‟ background information .2 Students‟ opinion concerning difficulties they encounter in studying listening skills .1 Difficulties related to Text factors .2 Difficulties related to Listener factors .3 Difficulties related to Speaker factors .4 Difficulties related to Listening environment. 37 PART III: CONCLUSION .1 Students’ listening performance and how they perceive the importance of listening skills.2 Difficulties 10-grade students at TLHS encounter when studying listening skills. 41 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.1 Solutions to Listener factors .2 Solutions to Text factors .3 Solutions to Speaker factors.
Solutions to Listening environment. Limitations and suggestions for further studies. V vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1: Difficulties related to Listening factors. 26 Table 2: Difficulties related to Listener factors .1: Learners‟ responses related to the difference between written and spoken language.2: Students‟ responses related to long questions .3: Students‟ responses related to their anxiety when they fail to understand the text immediately .4: Students‟ responses related to their inability to spell words.
33 Table 3: Difficulties related to Speaker factors. 34 Table 4: Difficulties related to Listening environment. 35 Table 5: Other difficulties reported by students. 37 Table 6: A summary of listening difficulties faced by students .1: Students‟ time experience in learning English.2: Students‟ average scores in listening skills last semester .3: Students‟ responses related the importance of listening skills .4: Students‟ responses related to the difficulty level of listening skills in comparison with other skills .1: Students‟ responses related to unfamiliar words, difficult grammatical structures, and complex sentences.2: Students‟ responses related to long spoken text .3: Students‟ responses related to uninteresting information and unfamiliar topics .4: Students‟ responses related to the skills of predicting and getting a general idea of a text.5: Students‟ responses related to speakers‟ pronunciation .6: Students‟ responses related to the speaker‟ fast speech and unfamiliar accent .7: Students‟ responses related to the visibility of the speaker, time allowed for listening tasks .8: Students‟ responses related to disturbing noise and poor-quality tape-recorders/ cassette-players.
36 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABBREVIATIONS No Number & and EFL English as a foreign language TLHS Thang Long High School GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART I INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the Problem Recently, listening has gained more and more attention in foreign language learning. In learning English as a foreign language (EFL), it is suggested that the most important step should begin with an effort to listen. Rubin & Thompson state: Listening, quite possibly, is the most important of the language skills, since people spend approximately 60% of their time listening….
In addition, listening will give you an opportunity to get a “feel” for the language and will have you improve your overall ability in it. If you don‟t learn to listen effectively, you will not be able to participate in conservations in the foreign language. Rubin & Thompson (1994: 85) Rost (1994:141) emphasizes that listening can be regarded as a necessary skill in the preparation of foreign language students and can even be considered as a good predictor of language achievement. Consequently, listening plays a vital role in foreign language learning.
Quite recently, listening is incorporated in any English syllabuses used in primary, secondary and high schools of the Vietnamese education system. There are more and more students who set themselves ambitious goals like studying abroad, taking college entrance exams or at least getting good marks at school. Therefore, they hope to develop their language abilities. To enter Thang Long High School (TLHS from now on), students must get at least 53,5/ 60 points in the General Certificate of Secondary Education examination (GCSE), thus they are expected to have good performance in all subjects including English.
However, most of the students who enroll in TLHS this year seem to have low levels in listening skills. This is especially observable when they take listening classes with the textbook “Tieng Anh10”. Many students 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com perform poorly and some of them seem uninterested in listening lessons and unwilling to listen to the recordings. The question arises here is what difficulties the students face while they study listening skills.
The purpose of this study is, therefore, to find out the specific listening difficulties 10-grade students at TLHS encounter in listening skills in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” and suggest some pedagogical implications. Objectives of the Study The objectives of the study are: - To identify common difficulties 10-grade students of TLHS encounter when studying listening skills in “Tieng Anh 10”. - To suggest some solutions to help students overcome their difficulties and recommendations for teachers at TLHS to have possible measures that could contribute to planning a lesson taking the learners‟ problems into consideration. Research questions The study aims at finding out answers to the following questions: 1.
What difficulties do 10-grade students at TLHS encounter in studying listening skills? 2. What solutions are suggested to overcome these difficulties? 4. Significance of the Study Awareness of the difficulties that students encounter in listening skills would benefit both students and teachers. Hopefully, the findings of this study will 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com provide teachers knowledge of the problematic areas of listening skills, so that they can take necessary treatment measures, which are suggested as an implication of the study.
Understanding their students‟ listening difficulties will permit teachers to modify their teaching approaches, methods and techniques. The study will also help students to identify their difficulties of listening skills and find suitable and effective learning strategies. When listeners know about their own problems, they will be able to improve their listening practices and become better listeners. Scope of the study There are two kinds of English textbooks suggested to10-grade students in Vietnam.
The first one entitled “English 10” is for students specializing in English and the second one - “Tieng Anh 10” is for students of common classes. In spite of the similarities in the organization of topics and skills in both textbooks, “English 10” involves more advanced knowledge and language practices. Both textbooks are officially used in almost all schools in Hanoi. However, due to limited time and the scope of a minor thesis, the research has focused her study on 10-grade students‟ difficulties in learning listening skills in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”, which is used in common classes nationwide.
The researcher looks for a better understanding of listening difficulties 10-grade students in TLHS encounter. Although it is not suggested that students of other high schools in Hanoi face exactly the same listening difficulties, the research believe that they may share some common difficulties. It is hoped that future extensive investigations into listening problems can be conducted in different contexts in further studies will provide more exact and reliable answers. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Design of the study The study includes three parts: Part one is the Introduction of the study which states the problem, the research questions, objectives, scope, significance and the design of the whole paper. Part two is the Development which consists of two chapters. Chapter one presents the theoretical background related to the topic. Chapter two includes subjects of the study, data collection instruments, procedure, analysis of data and the results.
Part three is the Conclusion which summarizes major findings of the investigation, provides implications and suggestions, limitations and suggestions for further studies. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The nature of listening 1.1 Definition of listening To define listening, theoreticians distinguish listening and hearing. Listening involves an active process, which requires an analysis of sounds, in contrast to hearing that only perceives sounds in a passive way. In the same way, Harmer (1989: 16) expresses that listening is a “receptive skill” where people obtain the main idea according to what they hear.
Besides, listening helps learners to be flexible listeners, to know how to listen in order to get the general idea or the specific information needed to understand the message. Listening is a process in which the listener constructs meaning out of the information provided by the speaker. This involves understanding a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning. Morley (1972) as cited in Tesfaye (2008) provides a broader definition of listening states that it includes the process of reauditorizing, extracting vital information, remembering it, and relating it to construct meaning, besides the basic auditory discrimination and aural grammar.
Therefore, although listening is a passive skill it is very much an active process of selecting and interpreting information from auditory and visual clues. Listening is the process that allows the listener to understand a message and gets them involved in the conversation and be able to achieve successful communication. Without listening, the communicator would fail to receive the message and therefore, unable to respond quickly and effectively. Listening plays an important role in the process of acquiring a language.
Rost (1994) points out: 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Rost (1994: 141) Thus, listening is fundamental to speaking and other skills. In conclusion, listening fosters the learning of a second language because it provides input which is a main factor in the learning process.
In this way, listening is a significant skill during the process of acquiring a language.2 Classification of listening According to Rubin and Thomson (1994: 85) listening is divided into two types basing on the types of situation where the understanding takes place. Firstly, reciprocal or interactive listening happens when the listener is required to take part in the interaction and alternately listens and speaks. Interactive listening situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls in which the listener has a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from his/her conversation partner.