MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----- ----- QUACH THI HA AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF THE INTERNET OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM FOR THE PRACTICE OF THE LISTENING SKILL BY FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT THUA THIEN HUE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: LE PHAM HOAI HUONG, ASSOC. DR HUE, 2013 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ----- ----- QUÁCH THỊ HÀ ĐIỀU TRA VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG INTERNET NGOÀI LỚP HỌC ĐỂ LUYỆN KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM THỪA THIÊN HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. LÊ PHẠM HOÀI HƯƠNG HUẾ, 2013 ii 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 Quach Thi Ha iii ABSTRACT The Internet plays an important role in teaching and learning English, especially in supporting students‟ learning. What is more, the Internet is regarded as one of the best tools to help students for self-study. Using the Internet to practice the listening skill is one of the most interesting ways of learning English. This study investigated the use of the Internet outside the classroom for the practice of the listening skill by first year English majors at Thua Thien Hue College of Education (HCE).
The data were collected through the use of questionnaires, interviews and diaries. The questionnaire includes the basic information and 30 statements about students‟ ideas about using the Internet outside the classroom for the practice of the listening skill. The two-week diary is the information in students‟ day-to-day experiences of students‟ using the Internet outside the classroom for the practice of the listening skill. The results of the study reveal that most of the students had positive attitudes towards the use the Internet for English listening practice.
The research also investigated the benefits of the practice the listening skill on the Internet as well as discovered the difficulties students faced when using the Internet in learning listening process. Based on the above findings, some implications were recommended for the use of the Internet outside the classroom for the practice of the listening skill. iv Acknowledgement First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Le Pham Hoai Huong for her excellent insights and her considerate, experienced guidance she has given to me throughout the entire development of the study.
Without her experienced instructions and valuable comments, my research would be far from being finished. I would specially acknowledge the support of Thua Thien Hue College Education for offering me conditions and conveniences to fulfill my study. I would also like to send my deep gratitude to Le Thi Kim Phuong, M. who gave me many precious comments.
I am very thankful to her for this. Special words of thanks also go to all the informants who spent time responding to the questionnaires, interviews, and diaries which contributed an essential part to the success of the research. Without their contribution, I would not have been able to complete my paper. v Finally, my deepest gratitude and appreciation go to my family, my colleagues, my friends and my classmates for their support and encouragement they gave me to accomplish this research.
v vi TABLE OF CONTENTS SUB COVER PAGE. i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
ix LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of the study.
What is the Internet?. Definitions of the Internet. Advantages and disadvantages of the Internet in Education. Advantages of the Internet in Education.
Disadvantages of the Internet in Education. The Internet as a Learning Tool. How to find information on the Internet. The Listening skill.
Definition of Listening. The Importance of Listening. The Benefits of Practicing Listening on the Internet out of Classroom. What is Self - Study?.
Self - Study and the Practice of the Listening skill. Data collection instruments. The Pilot Study. The Main Study.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. The reliability statistics data collected from questionnaires. The first year English major‟s perception of English listening practice. Listening is the most difficult skill to improve.
The importance of the listening skill in learning English. The first year English major‟s perceptions of using the Internet for the practice of the listening skill. The habit of using the Internet for English listening practice. Benefits listening practice on the Internet reported by students.
Disadvantages of English listening practice on the Internet reported by students. CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH. Summary of the findings. The perceptions of first year English majors at TTHCE of using the Internet outside the classroom for the practice of the listening skill.
How students use the Internet to practise the listening skill. What students learn when practicing the listening skill on the Internet. Implications on using the Internet to improve the listening skill. For the Educational Authorities.
Contribution of the study. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for future research.59 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CAA : Council on Academic Accreditation EFL : English as a Foreign Language ESP : English for Specific Purposes FNC : Federal Networking Council HCE : Thua Thien Hue College of Education IP : Internet Protocol IRC : Internet Relay Chat PC : Personal Computer PDF : Portable Document Format TCP : Transmission Control Protocol TV : Television α : Alpha x LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3.1: Distribution of Questionnaire Items .1: Students‟ thinking about the importance of the listening skill in learning English .2: Students‟ thinking about using the Internet for practicing the listening skill .3: Time to practice the listening skill each time.4: Students‟ interest when practicing the listening on the Internet .5: Topics students like to practice the listening skill on the Internet .6: Websites which students often access to practise the listening skill.7: The Internet as a learning tool .8: What the student learn when practicing the listening skill on the Internet .9: Improvement in listening skills thanks to the Internet .10: Distraction from the Internet .11: Factors affecting students‟ results of learning the listening skill .1: Students‟ consideration about the listening to be the most difficult skill .2: Students practice listening outside the classroom.3: Students‟ thinking about the necessity of using the Internet to practise the listening .4: Students‟ thinking about using the Internet for practicing the listening skill.5: The Internet is helpful and useful for self - study .6: Frequency of using the Internet to practice listening skill per week .7: The habit to listen again the content studied in class .8: The habit to take notes when listening on the Internet .9: The students practice of listening on the Internet .10: The students collaboration with other students during practicing the listening skill on the Internet outside of class .11: The cheapest and still efficient way to practice the listening skill on the Internet .12: Students difficulties to practice the listening skill on the Internet without have their own PC/Laptop .13: Using time consumption on the Internet .14: Difficulties with the lack of teachers' instructions .47 xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background In today‟s global world, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored since English is the most common language spoken everywhere.
With the help of developing technology, English has been playing a major role in many sectors including medicine, science, technology, education and so on. It is also the major language used on the Internet, which has become a major and vital tool in the way we access information, conduct business transactions and communicate in general. In the context of political renovation and open-door policy in the past decades in Vietnam, the demand for English has soared than ever and the number of learners of English has therefore increased remarkably. “English in Vietnam is extremely important in Vietnam‟s promotion of international development programs and its participation in international organizations” (McKay, 1999, p.
Understanding the importance of learning English, people find many different ways to learn English effectively. In the era of information explosion today, using the Internet to learn English is one of the best ways. In Vietnam, the Internet officially appeared in 1996. Since then, the rate of Internet subscribers and users has changed rapidly.
In June 2006, according to the Internet World Stats (Internet Use and Population Statistics), the Internet Penetration Rate in Vietnam reached 16%, higher than the average global usage rate (15,7%). In addition, by September 2009, such rate reached 25, 7%, in corresponding with about 1, 6 times as much as in 2006. In June 2012, the Internet Penetration Rate reached 34, 40%. Such statistics show that the Internet has become now one of the necessities of Vietnamese modern lifestyle because information technology is almost essential and simple to use.
For example, anyone can just touch the button and click to search for any kinds of information. The Internet allows one to spread credible messages or knowledge, look for a job, chat with new friends, read the news, listen to international radio broadcasting, or even travel around the world. What is more, the Internet is 1 regarded as one of the best tools to help students for self-study. The learners widen their knowledge and enrich their skills from the Internet.
For example, you want to find out the history of American, you will get a lot of information or you want to practice English the listening skill, the Internet is one of the best tools. In general, people and students all over the world get an Internet connection easily. Thus, as concluded by Sharma and Barrett (2007), the use of Information Communication Technology in learning can make students more autonomous. For most learners, among the four skills, it seems that listening is believed to be the most challenging because of the complex and subtle nature of listening comprehension in a second or foreign language.
The learners have met many difficulties in comprehending the information due to unfamiliarity with the pronunciation of the target language and a lack of the listening skills which requires learners to spend much time practicing. Listening has been recognized as an important facilitator of language learning. Most foreign languages the learners face lots of problems in learning Listening Comprehension. According to Rost (2002) listening comprehension is regarded as a complex, interactive process in which listeners are involved in a dynamic construction of meaning.
Listeners understand the oral input from sound discrimination, prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, as well as other use linguistic, paralinguistic, or even non-linguistic clues in contextual utterance. Besides, listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides a considerable amount of quality input for the learner. Without taking in input successfully at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Doff (1988) emphasizes that we cannot develop speaking skills unless we also develop the listening skills.
However, it is indeed interesting that listening has not received wider attention in the past given that it is the language skill most often used in everyday life. More than forty percent of our daily communication time is spent on listening, thirty-five percent on speaking, sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing (Burely- Allen, 1995). 2 It is clear that the Internet can help students a lot in listening comprehension. Listening to international radio broadcasting and music or watching films on the Internet are interesting ways to practice the listening skill.