VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ************** VŨ THỊ THANH HƯƠNG A STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT PHU LY B HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (Tìm hiểu những khó khăn của giáo viên trong việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT B Phủ Lý, Hà Nam và một số giải pháp khắc phục) MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 Hanoi – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ************** VŨ THỊ THANH HƯƠNG A STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT PHU LY B HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (Tìm hiểu những khó khăn của giáo viên trong việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT B Phủ Lý, Hà Nam và một số giải pháp khắc phục) MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 SUPERVISOR: KIM VĂN TẤT, M. Hanoi - 2012 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. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of listening. Common methods of teaching ELS.
Stages of a listening lesson. Pre-listening stage. While-listening stage. Post-listening stage.
9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Strategies of listening comprehension. Problems with listening activities. Problems from the listening materials.
Speed of speech. Problems from student factors………………………………………….1 Students’ low motivation.2 Students’ low level of proficiency.4 Students’ limited vocabulary and structures.5 Students’ lack of background knowledge.15 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Introduction of language teaching and learning conditions in PB school. Teaching and learning conditions.
The new “Tieng Anh 10” textbook. 17 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Form 10 listening objectives. Data collection instruments.
Instrument one: Questionnaires. Instrument two: Interviews. 19 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS. Questionnaires for students.
Questionnaires for teachers. Results of the interviews. 31 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 10 students. Doing pre-listening activities effectively.
Encouraging students to practice ELS outside the class. Giving support and encouragement. 36 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Upgrading teaching aids.
Adapting and re-designing the tasks. Equipping students with listening strategies. 39 PART III: CONCLUSIONS. Summary of the study.
Limitations of the study. Recommendations for further study. I Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students. I Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers.
III Appendix 3: Interview questions for teachers. V Appendix 4: Four teachers’ answering interview questions. VI Appendix 5: Topics of the listening texts in English textbook 10.VIII Appendix 6: Contents of some listening lessons.IX LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PB school Phuly B high school ELS English Listening Skills LIST OF TABLES Tables Titles Pages Table 1 Students’ attitudes towards the importance of listening skills 20 Table 2 Teachers’ techniques of encouraging students 23 Table 3 Factors affecting students in learning ELS 24 Table 4 Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS 25 Table 5 Teachers’ assessment of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 10” textbook 25 Table 6 Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons 26 Table 7 Difficulties encountered by the teachers 27 Table 8 The frequency of teachers’ using techniques in a listening lesson 28 Table 9 Teachers’ suggested solutions to improve listening teaching 29 LIST OF CHARTS Charts Titles Pages Chart 1 Students’ assessment of tasks in the “Tieng Anh 10” textbook 21 Chart 2 Students’ attitudes towards the time for learning ELS 22 Chart 3 Students' frequency of listening to English outside the class 22 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study In Vietnam, in the recent years, the teaching and learning of English have been gaining significance firstly because it is an international language; secondly it is also seen as a means to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Viet Nam and other countries.
There have been an increasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the latest modern technology in the world. English has now been taught not only at all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior high school and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary schools. At PB school, where the author studies, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination. It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science and technology.
However, there still exist many difficulties facing English language teachers at PB school, especially in teaching listening skills to students. The teachers of English at PB school find it difficult to teach listening lessons successfully. Listening has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by many second language learners. It takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill.
For listening teachers, it is a difficult task to get students involved in listening lessons. At my school, teaching listening is really a problem. In addition to the lack of well-equipped facilities, teaching listening methods are not satisfactory. Another problem is students’ low level of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth.
It is the reason why students find it difficult and tough to listen to and they are not confident enough to do listening tasks successfully. Moreover, learning habits do not help much to improve their listening in classroom. All of the above reasons have inspired the author to do the research “A Study on the Problems in Teaching English Listening Skills to the 10th form Students at Phu Ly B High School and some Suggested Solutions” with the hope to make a small contribution to the quality of teaching and learning listening skills at PB school. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Aims and objectives of the study Within the framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at: - Clarifying the practices of teaching and learning ELS in 10th form in PB school. - Finding out the difficulties teachers and students in 10th form in PB school have had to undergo. - Suggesting some feasible solutions to the teaching of ELS for 10th form students. 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. 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 PB school have been facing when teaching listening skill for 10th 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 180 students from four different groups LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 in grade 10 in PB school and the other survey is for 7 teachers. 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 grade 10 at PB school.
Significance of the study This research provides an insight into the problems that are often met by teachers teaching English for 10th form students in PB 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 PB school students in particular. The study also gives some guidelines for teachers to 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, teaching listening skill and problems with listening activities.
Chapter 2: Methodology – presents the current situation of teaching and learning listening at PB school. This chapter also deals with the introduction of the research methods which cover research questions, the participants and data collection instruments. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussions – presents the data results, analysis collected from two questionnaires as well as the interviews. Chapter 4: Findings and suggested solutions – concludes the findings the researcher has from the study and proposes some solutions to the teaching of ELS to 10th form students in PB 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 5 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definitions of listening There appear many different points of view on the definition of listening: Underwood (1989, p.1) describes listening in a simple and easily understandable way: “Listening is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something you hear”. As a matter of fact, to succeed in listening, the duty of listeners is not only to understand of the words given, but also seek the real meaning hidden in words.3) asserts listening in communicative approach: “Listening comprehension is the result of an interaction between a number of information sources, which include the acoustic input, different types of linguistic knowledge, detail of the context, and general world knowledge, and• so forth, and listeners use whatever information they have available, or what ever information seems relevant to help them interpret what the speaker is saying”.
In this definition, Buck aims to highlight the active role of the learners who act as the negotiators and integrators in the process of learning listening. In this process, learners activate both linguistic cues and nonlinguistic knowledge to achieve the meaning.