VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THU TRANG AN EXPLORATOTY STUDY ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF TOEIC LISTENING SKILL AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI (NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TOEIC TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC Ở HÀ NỘI) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English 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 NGUYỄN THU TRANG AN EXPLORATOTY STUDY ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF TOEIC LISTENING SKILL AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI (NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TOEIC TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC Ở HÀ NỘI) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English 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 A: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………. Objectives of the study ……………………………………………………. Significance of the study ………………………………………………………….
Scope of the study …………………………………………………………. 4 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ……………………….1 Notions of listening …………………………………………………….2 Process of listening…………………………………………………………….3 Classification of listening ………………………………………….4 Affective factors in listening ………………………………………………….1 Experien ce and practice in listening ………………………….3 Knowledge of the target language ………………………….…………… 12 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.2 Speed of delivery ……………………………………………….3 Material and medium ……………………………………………….1 The language used …………………………………………….2 Content and concepts ………………………………………….4 The support provided ………………………………………………… 13 1.5 Stages of a listening lesson ………………………………………………………13 1.1 Overview of a TOEIC test ………………………………………………….7 Review of previous studies ………………………………………………………20 1.8 Situation of teaching and learning TOEIC listening skill at HLU ….………22 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY………………………………………………….4 Results and discussion ……………………………………….1 The teaching of TOEIC listening …………………………………………… .1 Teachers’ genera information………………………………….2 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching TOEIC listening …………………….2 The learning of TOEIC listening ……………………………………….1 Students’ general information ……………………………………………… .2 Students’ general difficulties in learning TOEIC listening ………………… .3 Students’ specific difficulties in TOEIC listening parts ……………….39 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.1 To the teachers ………………………………………………………………….2 To the students ……………………………………………………………. Summary of the study………………………………………………………. Limitations of the study………………………………………………………….
Suggestions for further study …………………………………………………….IV vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES Figure 1: A classification of aural texts 7 Table 1: Affective factors in listening 9 Table 2: TOEIC test structure 16 Table 3.1: Teachers’ difficulties at pre-listening stage 27 Table 3.2: Teachers’ difficulties at while-listening stage 28 Table 3.3: Teachers’ difficulties at post-listening stage 29 Table 3.4: Teachers’ other difficulties 29 Table 4: Students’ feelings in learning TOEIC listening 33 Table 5.1 Students’ difficulties related to Listener factor 35 Table 5.2 Students’ difficulties related to Speaker’s factor 36 Table 5.3 Students’ difficulties related to Material/medium factor 36 Table 5.4 Students’ difficulties in Part 1 37 Table 5.5 Students’ difficulties in Part 2 38 Table 5.6 Students’ difficulties in Part 3 38 Table 5.7 Students’ difficulties in Part 4 39 Chart 1.1: Teachers’ age ranges 25 Chart 1.2: Teachers’ teaching qualifications 25 Chart 1.3: Teachers’ extra responsibilities 26 Chart 1.4: Teachers’ length of time teaching TOEIC listening 26 Chart 2.1 Students’ gender ratio 30 Chart 2.2 Students’ reasons for studying TOEIC 31 Chart 2.3 Students’ length of time studying TOEIC 31 Chart 2.4 Students’ listening practice 32 Chart 2.5 Students’ evaluation of the level of difficulties of TOEIC listening 33 Chart 2.6 Students’ evaluation of the most difficult part of TOEIC listening 34 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com test ABBREVIATIONS HLU Hanoi Law University TOEIC Test of English for International Communication IELTS International English Language Testing System TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale As English nowadays has become a prerequisite for job seekers, there is a growing number of English learners who wish to sit for worldwide standardized English tests such as IELTS, TOEFL or TOEIC. Among these, TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) has been increasingly applied in both workplace and educational institutions. Many universities offer English courses basing on the students’ TOEIC test scores.
Enterprises and organizations also use TOEIC scores as one criterion for employing new recruits and promoting employees. At Hanoi Law University (HLU), the TOEIC test has been used since 2010 as a standardized test to classify students’ English proficiency, place them into the right classes and evaluate their learning progress. Students have to get at least TOEIC 450 scores to meet the requirements for graduation. Traditionally, a TOEIC test consists of two sections, which are designed to test candidates’ two skills: listening and reading.
Generally, listening skill is always considered the most essential as well as the most difficult skill for both teachers to teach and for learners to learn. Listening in TOEIC is not an exception because it comprises different task types with various topics. “An exploratory study on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at a university in Hanoi” has been conducted to gain insights into the difficulties encountered by teachers and students in TOEIC listening with the hope to contribute to the improvement of English teaching and learning at HLU. Objectives of the study The purpose of this study is to explore the real situation of teaching and learning TOEIC listening skill at HLU.
Therefore, the study aims to answer the following research questions: 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. What difficulties do students encounter in learning TOEIC listening skill? 2. What difficulties do teachers encounter in teaching TOEIC listening skill? 3. What are some suggestions to improve the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at HLU? 3.
Significance of the study This study investigates the real difficulties that teachers and students at HLU face in the listening part of the TOEIC test. By doing this research, the researcher wishes to help HLU students foresee the problems and overcome them in order to improve their listening scores. Also, the study has been done to help HLU teachers beware of some teaching problems and adopt appropriate techniques to teach listening skill. Scope of the study The study focuses on the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at HLU.
The study has been conducted under the scope of an exploratory study with a small number of teachers and students who are teaching and studying TOEIC courses at the university. Methodology The major research method used in the study is quantitative. The data are collected from two survey questionnaires which intend to find out the difficulties teachers and students encounter in the teaching and learning of TOEIC listening skill at HLU. Basing on the data collected from the respondents, the researcher examines and analyzes the causes of those difficulties and suggests some solutions to improve the quality of teaching and learning TOEIC listening at HLU.
Organization Part A Introduction presents the rationale, objectives, significance, scope, methodology and organization of the study. Part B Development is divided into two chapters: 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Chapter 1 Theoretical Background lays the theoretical foundation for the research and reviews the previous studies. Chapter 2 The study deals with the subjects, research instruments, and procedure as well as results and discussions. Some recommendations based on the findings are also provided in this chapter.
Part C Conclusion summarizes the major findings of the study. Limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research are mentioned as well. The Appendices where the survey questionnaires can be found come after the References. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Notions of listening There have been numerous definitions of listening, which present different views of linguists towards the concept.
According to Underwood (1989), “listening is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear” (p. In other words, to be a good listener, one does not only need to understand the words themselves but also has to figure out the meaning implied by the speaker. Another definition is given by Brown and Yule (1983), who distinguish the literal meaning of the words and the speaker’s intended meaning. The authors conclude that listening is actually the process where the listener achieves “a reasonable interpretation” of the speaker’s intention in the communication.
In 1989, O’Malley and Chamot claim that listening is “an active and conscious process" in which the meaning is constructed from “contextual information” and “existing knowledge” (p. This view is shared by Field (1998) who states that listening is “an invisible mental process” in which the listener 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” (p. From the above definition, it can be concluded that listening is a process in which the listener constructs meaning out of the information provided by the speakers. This process involves the understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary and grasping his meaning.
Rost (1994) points out: 4 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) Listening fosters the learning of a second language because it provides input for the learning process. Thus, listening plays an important role in the acquisition of a language.2 Process of listening Listening process involves complex physiological and cognitive processes.
Listening process is proposed to consist of three different processes. They are perceptual processing, parsing and utilization. In the perceptual processing, the sounds enter the echoic memory and are organized into meaningful units basing on the listener’s linguistic knowledge. In the parsing, the meaning is constructed in the short-term memory by comparing the incoming information with the previous knowledge.
The utilization involves the transfer of short-term information to the long-term memory for other purposes (Underwood, 1989; O’Malley and Chamot, 1989). Duzer (1997) agrees, for the most part, listing the following nine stages in listening process: (1) determining a reason for listening; (2) taking the raw speech and depositing an image of it in short-term memory; (3) attempting to organize the information by identifying the type of speech event (a conversation, a lecture, a radio ad) and the function of the message (to persuade/inform/request); (4) predicting information expected to be included in the message; (5) recalling background information to help interpret the message; (6) assigning a meaning to the message; (7) checking that the message has been understood; (8) determining the information to be held in long-term memory; and (9) deleting the original form of the message that has been received into the short term memory. 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Concerning how the knowledge is applied to the incoming sounds, there are two critical views of bottom-up and top-down processes in second language listening instruction (Nunan, 1991). In the bottom-up process, the meaning is constructed by combining increasing larger units of meaning from the phoneme-level up to discourse- level features.
In other words, in this process learners attempt to understand a listening passage by decoding sounds to form words, linking words to form phrases and sentences. These sentences build a complex text, the meaning of which is then constructed by the listener. On the contrary, in the top-down process, the contextual and prior knowledge of the listener is utilized to build a conceptual framework for comprehension. This view emphasizes the prominence of background knowledge already possessed by the learners in making sense of the information they hear.
As such, a significant lack of background knowledge can trouble the attempts to comprehend a particular utterance. Anderson and Lynch (1988) compare the bottom-up view of listener as “tape recorder” with the top-down view of listener as “model builder”.