MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --------------- NGUYEN THI TAM AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE REALITY OF USING PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH THIRD-YEAR CLASSES AT PHU XUAN UNIVERSITY FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: LE TAN THI, Ph.D HUE, 2012 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ --------------- NGUYỄN THỊ TÂM NGHIEÂN CÖÙU THÖÏC TRAÏNG TOÅ CHÖÙC CAÙC HOAÏT ÑOÄNG TRÖÔÙC KHI NGHE ÔÛ CAÙC LÔÙP TIEÁNG ANH NAÊM THÖÙ BA TAÏI TRÖÔØNG ÑAÏI HOÏC PHUÙ XUAÂN CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.10 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SỸ GIÁO DỤC HỌC NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. LÊ TẤN THI HUẾ, 2012 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 Nguyen Thi Tam i Firstly, I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Dr.
Le Tan Thi, for his professional guidance and support. Without his help, this research paper cannot be completed. Second, I would like to show my deep gratitude to Assoc. Dr Truong Vien who gave me early suggestions and enthusiastic support for the research.
Third, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the participating teachers of listening and students at Phu Xuan University for their help during the time I carried out this research. Last but not least, from the bottom of my heart, I am really thankful to my family who had to take more workload while I was busy with the thesis paper and my close friends for their kindness, sincere, and unconditional help. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
4 LIST OF CHARTS. 5 LIST OF TABLES. Background of the Research. Rationale of the Research.
Structure of the Study. 11 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. The Nature of Listening. Definition of Listening.
The Importance of Listening Skill in Communication. The Importance of Listening Skill in Language Teaching and Learning. The Process of Listening. The Relationship between Listening and other Language Skills.
The Procedures of Teaching Listening in the Classroom. Pre-listening Activities. While-listening Activities. Post-listening Activities.
An in depth Overview of Pre-listening Activities. Purpose of Pre-listening Activities. Factors Affecting the Choice of Pre-listening Activities. Forms of Pre-listening Activities.
Integration in Pre-listening Activities. 33 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students‟ Perception towards the role of Listening Skill. Students‟ Views towards Listening Skill.
Students‟ Purposes of Learning Listening Skill. Students‟ Responses to their Interest in Listening Lessons. Reasons for Students‟ Interest and Lack of Interest in Listening Lessons. The Reality Conducting Pre-listening Activities from Students‟ Perspective.
Real Stituation of Carrying out Pre-listening Stage. Frequency of Using of Pre-listening Activities. Students‟ preference of pre-listening activities. Teachers‟ Perception towards the Role of Listening Skill.
Teachers‟ Perception towards Listening Skill. Teachers‟ Perception of the Most Difficult Skill in Teaching English. The Reality Conducting Pre-listening Activities from Teachers‟ Perspective. Teachers‟ Perception of the Pre- stage of a Listening Lesson.
The frequency of organizing pre-listening activities. Teachers‟ Techniques of Conducting Pre-listening Activities. Frequency of Teachers‟ Organizing Different Kinds of Pre-listening Activities. Teachers‟ Comments on Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness of Pre- listening Activities.
Some Difficulties the Teachers at Phu Xuan University Have Faced in Conducting Pre-listening Activities. Teachers‟ suggested solutions to overcome identified difficulties at the pre-listening stage. 57 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. For Policy Makers.
For Further Researchers. 63 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching Etc : et cetera FL : Foreign Language N : Number SL : Second Language 4 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4. Students‟ views towards listening skill Chart 4. Students‟ purposes of learning listening skill Chart 4.
Students‟ interest in listening lessons Chart 4. Reasons for students‟ interest in listening lessons Chart 4. Reasons for students‟ lack of interest in listening lessons Chart 4. Teachers‟ perception towards listening skill Chart 4.
Teachers‟ perception towards pre-listening stage Chart 4. The frequency of organizing pre-listening activities 5 LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Real situation of carrying out pre-listening stage Table 4. Frequency of using of pre-listening activities Table 4.
The frequency of teachers‟ organizing different kinds of pre- listening activities Table 4. Teachers‟ difficulties in conducting pre-listening activities 6 ABSTRACT The thesis aims to investigate the reality of conducting of pre-listening activities at Phu Xuan University. The subjects for this study consist of 4 teachers and 60 third-year students at Phu Xuan University. The data were mainly collected through classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews with both teachers and students.
The data collected were analyzed according to statistical frequency and percentage. The findings of the study show that most of the teachers and students were aware of the significance of pre-listening activities in teaching and learning listening comprehension skill. That is the reason why most of the teachers made their great effort to organize different kinds of pre-listening activities to enhance the effectiveness of the listening lessons. Furthermore, the teachers‟ difficulties and the recommended solutions were also mentioned.
From a detailed discussion, some pedagogical implications related to listening were made by the researcher. Additionally, limitations and suggestions for further research were also included. Background of the research The past decade has witnessed an important change in the methods of teaching and learning English in Vietnam, from the traditional method, Grammar – Translation, to the modern approach, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which focuses on developing learners‟ communicative competence (Richard & Rogers, 1986, pp. Like most skills, listening plays an indispensable role of language communication.
It is helpful to transfer knowledge and information across language. Listening is a general purpose in most learning situations. To be effective listeners, however, learners need a more specific focus than just attending to what is said. Therefore, in order to communicate effectively, the listener does not just hear what the other person is saying, he has ability to try to understand what the speaker means.
For this reason, the development of listening comprehension ability is a prime matter and draws much attention of researchers, lecturers and educators. In addition, listening skill is usually recognized as one of the four practical skills. In the context of Vietnam, it is perhaps the most important skill, the one that Vietnamese learners of English will be working with the most after leaving their college or university. It greatly enhances their understanding and their overall abilities in life.
Therefore, all learners need to improve this skill during their foreign language learning process. Unlike speaking and writing, listening offers language input as reading does because it not only develop learners‟ linguistic competence, it also widens their knowledge. Along with economic development, open-door policy, international trade, integration and globalization, expanding of the mass media and technology, the need of language learning for communication is getting more important and necessary. Thus, no teachers can negate the key role of listening skill.
8 However, in order to achieve high effectiveness of this ability is not simple at all. Learners can encounter a lot of difficulties in learning process such as they are not familiar with the sounds, words or structures in which the target language has been expresses and written and social-cultural knowledge of the learners is limited. Besides, learners cannot brainstorm some ideas what they are going to hear. As a result, learners do not know the topic under conversations, discussion and news.
Hence, in order to succeed in learning listening, learners must have a long- term study of the rules of grammar, vocabulary as well as knowledge of language and knowledge of culture. Rationale of the Research As a teacher of English, I have long recognized that the listening capability of English major students at Phu Xuan University is still limited. Most of the students here cannot listen effectively. They cannot gain good understanding of listening messages.
As a result, the failure in listening can make students lose their own interest and motivation in learning English process. This problem reduces the output quality of students. During the time of teaching at the school, I have learnt that pre-listening activities seems to be neglected or conducted insufficiently rather than while and post listening activities due to a number of factors. For that reason, students do not have chance to activate their knowledge about the topic of listening text before listening.
Thus, instead of being motivated, most of the time the students suffer frustration. Listening is one of the compulsory skills of foreign language learning process at University in general and at Phu Xuan University in particular. For the third year English major students, they cannot avoid common problems related to listening. When dealing with a listening lesson, they often experience a lack of background knowledge and cultural understanding, poor ability to understand spoken language, irrelevant teaching materials, etc.
Besides, three periods (50 minutes each period) of listening every week is not enough for students to be good listeners. Clearly, 9 listening comprehension is the skill that can help learners develop communication competence, widen knowledge in language acquisition. Hence, teaching and learning effectively listening comprehension skill in the classrooms need to be paid greater and greater attention by both teachers and students. To enhance students‟ listening skill development, it‟s the teacher‟s job to create more opportunities for the students to listen to and to understand the listening messages.
It is, therefore, necessary to bring them opportunities to overcome the difficulties in learning listening comprehension skill. The common teaching model of listening comprehension consists of three basis stages. Nevertheless, in reality, the problem is that not all the teachers cover three stages of a listening class, most notably pre- listening stage which create motivation, contextualisation and preparation. Taking into consideration the importance of pre-listening activities in teaching and learning listening comprehension as well as the research gap in this field, it is necessary to do research on this matter to reflect the reality of conducting pre-listening activities in English third –year classes at Phu Xuan University.
Based on the findings of the research, some suggestions and implications will be considered to develop and improve teaching and learning listening skill. Research Aims This research aims: to investigate the perception of the teachers and students at Phu Xuan University towards the role of pre-listening activities of listening comprehension teaching. to discover the reality of conducting pre-listening activities in English majored classes at Phu Xuan University. to explore the difficulties that the teachers face in organizing pre-listening activities.
to evaluate and suggest some appropriate and effective solutions to conduct pre-listening activities at this school. Research Questions This thesis particularly seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. What are teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions towards pre-listening activities? 2. How do teachers at Phu Xuan University conduct pre-listening activities? 3.
What are the difficulties they face in conducting pre-listening activities for students? 4. What solutions are recommended by the teachers to overcome identified difficulties in conducting pre-listening activities? 1. Research Scope The study lays great stress on the reality of organizing activities used for pre- listening stage for third-year students with the aim of improving teaching and learning listening comprehension at Phu Xuan University. Therefore, while- listening and post – listening stages will not be taken serious view.
Besides, within limited time, resources, condition and the length of the study, the data of this research are collected at one university in Hue City and the findings might not be generalized to other contexts. Research Significance As a teacher of English, I find that a great number of Vietnamese students and teachers are not fully aware of the importance of pre-listening activities in teaching and learning listening comprehension skill.