MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES HO THI VIET LUAN M. THESIS in TESOL ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING-LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRICULUM AND CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 8 IN PHU YEN PROVINCE SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN VAN MUOI, Ph. D HO CHI MINH CITY – 2005 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: “ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING-LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRICULUM AND CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 8 IN PHU YEN PROVINCE”. In terms of the statements of requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee HCM city, December, 2005.
Hoà Thò Vieät Luaän i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Ho Thi Viet Luan being the candidate for the Degree of Master of TESOL accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the University Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Van Muoi, for his valuable assistance, instructions and encouragement during the time of implementing the thesis.
I am also greatly indebted to the Phu Yen DOET for creating favourable conditions for me to collect the essential data from the English teaching staff in the secondary schools in Tuy Hoa town. My sincere thanks are also to the principals of two secondary schools: Nguyen Du and Tran Quoc Toan for their warm supports for me to carry out my study in their schools. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. DOET: The Department of Education and Training 2.
MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training 3. GTM: Grammar-Translation Method 4. ALM: Audio-Lingual Method 5. CLTM: Communicative Language Teaching Method iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 The frequency of implementing the three-stage procedure Figure 4.2 Degree of difficulty of the pre-listening stage Figure 4.3 Difficulties of the pre-listening stage Figure 4.4 Degree of difficulty of the while-listening stage Figure 4.5 Difficulties of the while-listening stage Figure 4.6 Degree of difficulty of the post-listening stage Figure 4.7 Difficulties of the post-listening stage Figure 4.8 The students’ attitude to learning listening Figure 4.9 Degree of confidence before listening v ABSTRACT Together with the movement which the total Education-Training Branch making best efforts in innovating the teaching-learning method at middle school level – in the tendency of stimulating the learners’ dynamism, active creativity in all the learning activities, the demands of enhancing the quality of teaching-learning language skills for the above trend have been being raised for not only those who are directly carrying out the process of teaching language skills but also education managers and researchers who are very interested in improving effectiveness of teaching-learning language skills in the system of secondary school education.
Under the current situation, the thesis is developed and focused mainly on listening skills in the pursuit of enhancing the quality of teaching-learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and the contents of the new text book Tieng Anh 8 of MOET. The data is handled and collected during the process of the study according to the descriptive and qualitative analysis. The questionnaires, observations and interviews are implemented as the surveys with a hope of finding out the potential obstacles that teachers and learners have encountered in teaching-learning listening and presenting some implications, suggestions and vi recommendations in order to improve teaching-learning listening skills in the secondary schools more effectively. TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality.i Retention and use of the thesis.
iii List of abbreviations.iv List of figures .vi Table of contents .vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION .2 The aim of the study.3 The structure of the thesis .3 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.1 Listening and listening process.1 The importance of listening.2 Stages of teaching-learning listening comprehension .3 Uncertainty of learners.1 Uncertainty of confidence .2 Uncertainty of spoken language .3 Uncertainty of vocabulary and grammatical structures .4 Uncertainty of listening strategies .1 Grammar-Translation Method .2 Audio-Lingual Method .3 Communicative Language Teaching Method.1 Background to the study .2 The design and content of the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 .3 The objects of the study.4 Methods for the study .1 Questionnaire for teachers.2 Questionnaire for students .43 Chapter 4: FINDING AND ANALYSIS.1 The background of the English teachers.2 The potential obstacles in teaching-learning listening .1 The content of the listening lessons in the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 .2 The issues concerning teaching listening .1 The issues concerning performing the three-stage teaching procedure .2 Pre-listening stage .3 While-listening stage .4 Post-listening stage .3 The issues concerning learning listening.3 Teaching methods of listening via the classroom observations and the small interviews with three observed teachers .1 The first class observation .2 The second class observation .3 The third class observation .72 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION-IMPLICATIONS-SUGGESTIONS .1 Implications for teaching .1 How to use the new textbook Tieng Anh 8.2 How to implement the three-stage procedure of teaching-learning listening .4 The other essential teaching techniques .3 Suggestions to students.4 Suggestions to the education managers in Phu Yen DOET .5 Limitation of the study and recommendation for further research .98 Appendix A: Questionnaire for English language teachers in secondary schools in Phu Yen province.101 Appendix C: Questionnaire for the grade-eight students .106 Appendix E: Interview questions with the observed teachers in the secondary schools and interview questions with the DOET’s teachers and Phu Yen College’s English teachers .107 Appendix F: Classroom observation sheet (1) .108 Appendix G: Classroom observation sheet (2).113 x Appendix H: Classroom observation sheet (3).116 xi Chapter 1: Introduction CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background English in the curriculum of the general education at middle school level is being re-orientated in the Communicative Language Teaching Method to carry out the objectives of MOET “The process of teaching and learning English must serve the needs of communication, establish learners both the basic knowledge and language skills in English in order to develop their thoughts, which have a great impact on developing their competence in the mother language and providing them a more thorough language competence.” (The Resolution 40/2000 -The Tenth National Assembly) The set of the new textbooks Tieng Anh 6, 7 has come into use officially in the whole country for the past school years 2002-2003, 2003- 2004, in the pursuit of achieving the MOET’s objectives. More importantly, the textbook Tieng Anh 8 employed in the school year 2004-2005 has a developing structure of the lessons quite different from the one of Tieng Anh 6, 7. The big change in the process of developing lessons in the textbook Tieng Anh 8 means that the four language skills are taught and developed separately and concentrated on the specific periods, whereas according to the developing structure of the lesson of the text books Tieng Anh 6, 7, the language skills are taught in integration and only expressed in combination with the various drills. -1- Chapter 1: Introduction However, after three school years carrying out the new curriculum of the new text books with the Communicative Language Teaching Method, almost the secondary school teachers in Phu Yen province are still in a state of confusion and in-confidence in teaching listening skills, which partially causes any influence on the quality of teaching-learning foreign language in the province.
Apparently, teaching-learning a foreign language is to develop at full capacity for four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing. Moreover, for learners, listening is often regarded as the most difficult one in the four language skills; and for secondary school teachers who have not been familiar to developing the language skills separately, helping learners improve listening skills effectively is still a great challenge. As a language teacher working at Phu Yen Teachers’ Training College where is completely in charge of organizing the seminars and workshops of the innovation of teaching methods for the secondary school teachers of the province, the author focuses a special interest on enhancing the quality of teaching-learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and contents of the new textbook Tieng Anh 8. The research will be a scientific and practical contribution towards achieving the main objectives in innovation of teaching-learning methods for the cause of Education and Training in Phu Yen Province.2 The aim of the study Checking and evaluating teaching-learning listening skills in all the secondary schools in the province, organized annually by DOET, shows that the effectiveness of teaching-learning listening skills is the lowest.
Therefore, it is quite worthwhile to consider this issue carefully in order to decrease the negative results as much as possible. The purpose of this study is focused on investigating and seeking empirical evidence in order to have a thorough understanding of the current situations of teaching and learning English listening skills at the middle schools in Phu yen province so that the researcher can find out the potential strengths and weakness that teachers and learners express in the process of teaching and learning listening skills. It is also necessary to find out potential problems generating in teaching-learning listening in the secondary schools. At the same time the researcher also explores the most urgent and necessary demands from the teachers who are directly responsible for teaching listening skills in a way appropriate with the new textbook Tieng Anh 8.
On the base of discovering the above-mentioned issues, in a limited scale, the thesis will try to present some appropriately-improved pedagogical implications and suggestions to help the secondary school teachers improving teaching-learning listening skills more effectively.3 The structure of the thesis The organization of the study consists of five chapters. -3- Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter One presents an introduction including the following details: 1. Background of the problem 2. Aim of study 3.
Structure of the thesis Chapter Two presents the review of the literature and research relevant to the study including the following details: 1. The importance of listening 2. The theories of listening 3. The teaching methods Chapter Three gives a detailed description of the methodology employed in the study.
Chapter Four analyses and discusses the results of the investigations of the issues mentioned in Chapter Three in order to orientate the pedagogical implications, the suggestions towards the next chapter. Chapter Five includes the conclusions together with the pedagogical implications for teaching, the suggestions to learning and managing teaching-learning English at secondary school level and the recommendation for further research. -4- Chapter 2: Literature Review CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW The purpose of the chapter is to review the relevant literature for the study and also regarded as a theoretical evidence to support the researcher’s hypothesis.1 Listening and listening process 2.1 The importance of listening According to Mary Underwood [39], listening is an activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear. Therefore, listening keeps a vital role in every day communication.
To listen to spoken language, listeners need to be able to work out to what speakers mean, and this a skill which requires considerable efforts for foreign language learners. The point has frequently been made by Rivers [35] that of the time an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9 per cent is devoted in writing, 16 per cent to reading, 30 per cent to speaking and 45 per cent to listening. Apparently listening is used in the highest frequency in comparison with the other skills. Learners spend the very high proportion of time attempting to listen-comprehension in classrooms.
Moreover, there emerges in the recent years an increasing trend of learning foreign language with interest oracy.