VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------oo0oo------ ĐỖ THỊ HỒNG DUNG IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 11 STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH READING-BASED LISTENING SKILL DEVELOPMENT (Nâng cao khả năng nghe hiểu của học sinh khối 11 trường THPT Đông Anh thông qua việc kết hợp dạy kỹ năng nghe và đọc) M. Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------oo0oo------ ĐỖ THỊ HỒNG DUNG IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 11 STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH READING-BASED LISTENING SKILL DEVELOPMENT (Nâng cao khả năng nghe hiểu của học sinh khối 11 trường THPT Đông Anh thông qua việc kết hợp dạy kỹ năng nghe và đọc) M. Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 SUPERVISOR: ĐỖ BÁ QUÝ, MEd Hanoi, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration .v List of figures .vi PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rational for the study.
Objectives and significance of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Organization of the study.4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definition of listening and listening comprehension. Definition of listening. Definition of listening comprehension. Significance of listening.
Nature of listening. Strategies of listening comprehension. Factors affecting listening comprehension. Approaches to teaching listening comprehension.
Stages in teaching listening. Pre-listening stage. While listening stage. Post-listening stage.
Relationship between teaching listening comprehension and reading Comprehension.1 Background of the study .15 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The teaching and learning conditions. Data collecting instruments. Pre and post-tests.
Pre and post-questionnaire .20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DICSUSSION. Analysis of the pre, post-test and interview. Analysis of the pre, post-questionnaire and interviews. Analysis of the class observations.
Combining listening with reading and other skills. Providing background knowledge particularly the cultural knowledge in language teaching. Developing students’ micro skills. Textbook-based learning and other listening contexts.
Combining “intensive listening" with “extensive listening”. Limitations and suggestions for further study. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study .I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Comparison of mean scores between the pre and post-test 21 Figure 2: Comparison of results in English before and after the intervention 23 Figure 3: Students’ assessment towards learning the listening skills in compared 24 with other skills before and after the intervention Figure 4: Student’s assessment of the importance of learning the listening 25 comprehension before and after the intervention Figure 5: Students’ evaluation of learning the listening comprehension before 26 and after the intervention Figure 6: Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension 26 Figure 7: Students’ attitudes towards the necessity of using reading-based 27 listening strategies to improve listening comprehension before and after the intervention Figure 8: Students’ understanding in the listening lessons before and after 28 the intervention Figure 9: Students’ feelings in the listening lessons before and after the 29 Intervention Figure 10: Students’ confidence in the listening lessons before and after the 30 Intervention Figure 11: Students’ behavior to improve their listening comprehension before 31 and after the intervention Figure 12: Students’ involvement in the listening lessons before and after the 33 intervention LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 PART A: INTRODUCTION This part is comprised of five sections including the rationale for the study, the objectives of the study, the scope of the study, the methods used in the study and the organization of the thesis.
Rationale for the study It is widely accepted that English has become an international language. Until now “it is listed as the official or co-official language of over 45 countries and it is spoken extensively in other countries where it has no official status. Therefore, mastering English will help people enrich their knowledge about the world. For its great importance, English has now a mandatory subject in all schools in Vietnam in general and at High schools in particular.
In recent years, with the development of the communicative approach, students’ communicative competence has been stressed. In other words, English must be taught as a tool for communication. In this communicative process, listening comprehension plays an important role. Obviously, communication does not take place when listeners do not understand what is said.
Wilt (1950) argues that listening takes up about 45% of time spent in communicating in real life. Therefore, it can be said that teaching listening comprehension must be at the core of teaching practice, and it is the area in which teachers need to concentrate their own efforts to improve their teaching. Unfortunately, among the four language skills, listening comprehension seems to be the most challenging for many students. This is also a big problem that most students in the researcher’s school are encountering.
As a teacher of English for over five years, the researcher has found out that many students in the researcher’s school suppose the listening skill to be the most difficult one. This leads to the fact that listening lessons are often said to be boring and tedious. As a matter of fact, there have been many studies on how to teach listening comprehension effectively. However, with a glance into the existing literature, it is felt that there is a shortage of studies with respect to integrating reading comprehension into teaching listening comprehension in EFL contexts.
It seems that the EFL field is in need LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 of further studies investigating the issue of teaching listening comprehension in integration with teaching reading comprehension. For all the things mentioned above, the researcher finds it necessary to carry out the study on “Strategies to improve listening comprehension of grade 11 students at Dong Anh high school through reading-based listening skill development.” It is hoped that the results of this study will cast some light on this issue and pave the way for a better teaching of listening. Objectives of the study The first and foremost aim of the study is to find out the difficulties facing grade 11 students in Dong Anh High school in leaning listening comprehension. The second one is to discover the factors that cause trouble for students in listening comprehension.
The next purpose is to study the development of the students’ listening skills after the intervention including students’ readiness, interests and confidence in learning listening skill in particular and learning English in general. Last but not least important, some effective ways for teaching listening comprehension are recommended with a view to improve students’ listening comprehension. The study is done in a hope that it will help better the situation of teaching and learning English listening comprehension at Dong Anh high school. Thus, it will help enhance students’ English competence.
Scope of the study With regard to the scale of this undertaking, this study only focuses on the mater within the group of grade 11 students at Dong Anh High school. Furthermore, for the purpose of going deeply into the subjects’ matter, the researcher only concentrates on teaching English listening comprehension. Methods of the study LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 To realize the objectives of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The data for the study were obtained through the following instruments: Pre and post-tests were designed by the researcher to find out the students’ ability in listening comprehension.
A pre and post-questionnaire was designed by the researcher to find out the students’ readiness, interests, confidence and behavior in learning listening comprehension and learning English in general. Classroom observation was conducted four times to investigate students’ readiness, interests and confidence in learning listening comprehension and learning English in general. Informal interviews were carried out to discover students’ attitudes towards learning listening comprehension. Organization of the study The thesis consists of three main parts: Part A is the introduction, which gives the rationale, the objectives of the study, methods used in this study and the organization of the thesis.
Part B is the development, which includes three chapters as follows: Chapter 1 is the Literature review. This chapter presents all the related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the information of the research. Chapter 2 presents the methods of the study. Chapter 3 is the data analysis and discussion.
In this chapter, the data collected are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Afterwards, some teaching implications are drawn to improve the situation of teaching and learning listening comprehension at the researcher’s school. Part C is the conclusion which presents the study conclusions and teaching implications. Besides, it also offers the limitations and suggestions for further study.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, all the related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the information of the research is presented. They are: definition of listening and listening comprehension, significance of teaching listening, nature of listening, listening strategies factors affecting listening comprehension, approaches to teaching listening comprehension, stages in teaching listening and relationship between teaching listening comprehension and teaching reading comprehension 1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension Since the early 70's, listening has been paid attention as a tool for understanding and as a key factor in facilitating language learning. Thus, listening has emerged as an important component in the process of second language acquisition.
Definition of listening There have been various ways to define listening. In Field’s viewpoints, “listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. Listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large socio-cultural context of the utterance. (Field, 1989:38) Rost had another way to define listening by emphasizing the vital role of listening in second language learning.
In his opinion, “listening is vital in the classroom because it provides the input for students. Without understanding the input at the right level, any learning simply can’t begin. Definition of listening comprehension Researchers have different views on the definition of listening comprehension: “Listening comprehension is defined as the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language. When comprehending something, we can understand what is LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
It is assumed that speaking and writing are the process of encoding messages while listening and reading decode them. Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perceptive skill involving identifying and retaining information orally perceived.” (Boyle, 1981:13) For Buck, “ Listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound “in which” number of different types of knowledge are involved; both linguistic knowledge and nonlinguistic knowledge.” (Buck, 1984:31) Anderson and Lynch also share the shame ideas with Buck. They believe that listening comprehension requires not only the linguistic knowledge but also the non- linguistic knowledge in order to reach the final message of the speaker in communication. “Listening comprehension means to understand what a speaker says: the listener has a crucial part to play in the process by activating various types of knowledge, by applying what he knows to what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker means” (Anderson & Lynch, 1988:21) Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe.
However, it is recognized by Wipf (1984) that listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, understand intention and retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance. In short, listening comprehension involves multiple skills.