MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY HUE COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TRAN THI THUY AN INVESTIGATION INTO HOW TEACHERS USE SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING AT HUEIC INFORMATICS AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES CENTER IN HUE MA THESIS IN EDUCATION HUE, 2011 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY HUE COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----------- TRAN THI THUY AN INVESTIGATION INTO HOW TEACHERS USE SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING AT HUEIC INFORMATICS AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES CENTER IN HUE FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: NGO DINH PHUONG, ASSOC.DR HUE, 2011 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ HUẾ ----o0o---- TRẦN THỊ THỦY TÌM HIỂU VIỆC GIÁO VIÊN SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KĨ NĂNG NGHE CỦA HỌC VIÊN TẠI TRUNG TÂM TIN HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ HUEIC- HUẾ CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY – HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ : 60.10 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ GIÁO DỤC HỌC NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. NGÔ ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG HUẾ, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Author Tran Thi Thuy This study could not have been completed without the help of many respected and beloved people.
I would like to thank them all this time. Above all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Dr Ngo Dinh Phuong, for the generous encouragement, sympathetic patience and helpful guidance he gave to me throughout the entire development of this research. Without his help, this thesis would not be finished. I am grateful to my all instructors in MA course, who gave me much knowledge and valuable materials in the lectures during the course.
Those are the valuable resources of knowledge for me to start my thesis. I should like to thank the Administration Board of HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages center, who permitted me to carry out my data collection in classes. I also should thank the teachers and the students at the center, who carefully completed the questionnaires and sincerely provided me with valuable information for this research in the interviews to help me deal with the procedure of the thesis. I also want to show the warm gratitude to the lovely friends, the friendly colleagues at the college that faithfully gave me the valuable comments, the contributive adjustments and the useful suggestions in my thesis.
The affectionate thanks I give to my family- especially, my beloved parents and my caring sweetheart for their vital love, support and encouragement to help me overcome all difficulties during the time I conducted this study. The researcher TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents. 4 List of tables and figures. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. Aims of the study.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY. 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. PREVIOUS STUDIES RELATED TO THE TOPIC. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL.
Communicative Language Teaching. What is Communicative language teaching (CLT)?. Characteristics of CLT. Teaching English Listening and Factors affecting teaching English listening skills.
What is Listening?. Why teach listening?. Factors affecting Teaching English Listening Skills. Definition of motivation.
Types of motivation. Correlation between motivation and learning attitudes. SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING. 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
The reality of teaching english listening at hue informatics and foreign languages center. Reasons for learning English. Some planned supplementary activities in teaching to motivate students in learning English listening. The ways of implementing the supplementary activities in teaching English listening.
The results of the using of supplementary activities to motivate students in learning English listening. Some factors affect the implementing of supplementary activities in teaching English listening. Teachers‘ solutions to problems detected. Teachers‘ comments on the results of using supplementary activities in teaching English listening.
THE RESEARCHER‘ REFLECTION. 67 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS. For textbook designers.
For educational administrators. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY. 75 APPENDICES Questionnaires for teachers.
i-v Questionnaires for students. vi-ix Interview questions for teachers (version1). x Interview questions for teachers (version2). xi 3 ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as Foreign Languages E.
: Exempli gratia ESP : English as Specific (Special) Purposes Etc. : Et cetera FL : Foreign language HUEIC : Hue Industrial College L1 : Native language/ Mother tongue L2 : Second language/ Target language 4 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables Table 4. Reasons for learning English. Some common listening strategies of students.
Some supplementary activities in teaching English listening. Difficulties in participating in supplementary activities in learning English listening. The favorite activities that the students commonly attend. Correlation between motivation and learning attitudes.
The most difficult skills which students find out in learning English. Rates of students‘ confidence in learning Listening. Rates of students‘ agreement on the importance of supplementary activities in teaching English listening .4 Time of learning English before attending the courses. Teaching time of teachers at HUEIC Center.
Teachers‘ perception on the importance of supplementary activities in teaching English listening. Students‘ perception on the importance of supplementary activities in teaching English listening. Degree of students‘ attitudes in taking part in supplementary activities in learning listening. Some positive and negative factors affect the results of using supplementary activities in learning English listening.
Degree of effectiveness of using supplementary activities to motivate students in learning English listening. 66 5 ABSTRACT Basing on the new tendency of teaching English communicative skills to students, listening is considered one of the most challenging skills at any school in Vietnam. And this is the development objectives of the foreign languages centers. However, due to various obstacles, the teaching of this skill has been a challenge for EFL teachers, especially the teachers at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages center in Hue.
This thesis was investigated how teachers use supplementary activities to motivate students in learning English listening at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages center in Hue. The researcher focuses on the factors that influence the improvement of students‘ learning English listening at HUEIC center. Also, the teachers and students‘ beliefs on the importance of supplementary activities in teaching and learning English listening was shown and comes up with some solutions. In order to obtain the related objectives, a combination of both qualitative and quantitative approaches was used with the data instrumentation included questionnaires, class observation and interviews.
The findings of the research showed that there were some factors influencing on the improvement of students‘ learning English listening at HUEIC center such as the listeners, the speakers, the teaching materials and teaching methods. It also claimed that the supplementary activities supported to the effective lessons through the teachers and students‘ judgments and comments. At last, the suggested recommendations were worked out to enhance the effectiveness of using supplementary activities in teaching English listening at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages center. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The development of the Vietnamese economy requires us to know English in order to work with foreigners.
To meet the higher demands of society, many people equip themselves with a stable knowledge of English to communicate with their foreign counterparts or to read materials in English for their own business. Also, other aspects in life need the supporting of English knowledge. That is one of essential students‘ needs for learning English. To make a good preparation for the young generation, English, therefore, becomes a must in many teaching and learning courses in schools, universities, colleges.
And we easily find the Informatics and Foreign Languages centers are the samples. As a young teacher of English for specific purposes at Hue Industrial College, and HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages center, facing new chances and challenges in teaching English to non-major English students at the college and center, the researcher actually finds some problems needed to deal with students‘ attitudes in learning English. The students with different levels and many different purposes for attending these classes, leading their interests in learning English into several ways. Also, the attitudes of the students here may be influenced by some factors from the teachers‘ methods in teaching, the curriculums and so on.
The main issue the researcher focuses in the thesis is How Teachers Use Supplementary Activities to Motivate Students in Learning English Listening at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages Center in Hue. The researcher figured out this focus from the unsatisfactory results at the end of the courses. The marks for the listening exam papers are not usually good. The students are sometimes confused with the voices in the tapes for doing exercises in limited time or exam papers.
They are not often confident in doing the listening exam papers although they have been trained for six months before the final exam. 7 With the purpose to contribute a little to the process of improving and developing the center, a very young one, and to improve the students‘ positive attitudes in learning English in classes, the researcher has conducted the thesis. These issues encourage her to investigate the ways of arousing the students‘ positive attitudes in learning English listening at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages Center. On doing the research, the researcher hopes to meet students‘ needs, to enable them to be more successful in learning English listening at the center; also to come up with some implications for developing of the center.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The study meets the new requirements of teaching and learning languages in the world as well as in Vietnam. That is studying English for real life communication, like the term we have acknowledged nowadays ―ESP- English for specific or special purposes‖. Through discussing about the role of teaching methods in improving the students‘ positive attitudes at classes at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages Center, teachers can have a clearer view of students‘ motivations and their roles in teaching English listening. From that, they can know how they drive the lessons in classes effectively and use the suitable methods for what purposes in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning English in general and also English listening skill at the center.
Dealing with the aim successfully, the teachers will figure out the suitable methods for teaching English listening at the center. The methods they want to implement are proper to the participants who have different levels, learning motivations and others in learning. The CLT method was always highly appreciated in teaching for many reasons. The study also serves as a useful resource for further research in related fields.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY The research scope is limited in two respects: Participants and teachers‘ methods. One of the limitations of this method is that it involves only just a few participants in one informatics and foreign languages center, therefore may not properly be representative of the general group or population. Another thing is that the study has not focused on the investigation on students‘ suggestions on the issues yet. Maybe, in the further research, the researcher would like to recommend this issue for the center to discuss.
AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. Aims of the study The needs being addressed, and some background information being gathered, this study aims to identify the ways of teachers making the influences on the students‘ interests in learning English listening, then find out some recommendations for teachers in teaching English listening at HUEIC Informatics and Foreign Languages Center to motivate students in learning English listening.