VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------- NGUYỄN THỊ HƯỜNG A STUDY ON USING MOVIES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS TO STUDENTS AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỬ DỤNG PHIM TRONG GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC LUẬT HÀ NỘI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------- NGUYỄN THỊ HƯỜNG A STUDY ON USING MOVIES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS TO STUDENTS AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỬ DỤNG PHIM TRONG GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC LUẬT HÀ NỘI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA HANOI - 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled: “A study on using movies in teaching listening skills to students at Hanoi Law University”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Language Teaching Methodology at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, is the result of my own work.
I have provided fully documented references to the work of others. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other university or institution wholly and partially. Hanoi, 2015 Nguyen Thi Huong i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research paper would not have been completed without the help of people to whom I would like to express my deep gratitude. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, my supervisor, for her wholehearted support, continuous motivation and precious guidance which were decisive factors to the completion of the thesis.
I would like to extend my special thanks to all the research participants. Without their valuable opinions and ideas in the questionnaires, the study would not have been accomplished. Last but not least, I owe my parents their continuous support. Their patience and love have helped me go beyond what sometimes looks like an insurmountable task.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The aim of this action research was to improve listening skills for students at Hanoi Law University by using movies in teaching listening skills. More specifically, the researcher tried to (1) examine the effects of using movies in teaching listening skills for the first- year students (2) find out the students’ attitudes towards using movies in listening lessons. The research was implemented with 30 first year students who major in English in Law at Hanoi Law University during five weeks. When the theoretical background for the study was finalized, the researcher began designing the data collection instruments, which included two questionnaires, a pre test and a post test.
The overall result was that the listening skills of the experimented group did greatly benefit from the intervention. The students not only got motivated in listening lessons but also made progress in their listening skills. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. III TABLE OF CONTENTS.
IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES AND FIGURES .Aims of the Study .3Objectives of the study .6 Scope of the study.7 Significance of the study .8 Structure of the study .1 Definition of listening .2 Characteristics of listening. Teaching listening skills .4 Listening difficulties for foreign language learners. Using movies in EFL teaching.1 Benefits of using movies in language teaching. Challenges of using movies in EFL teaching.
20 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Data Collection Instruments .1 Pre- test and Post- test .6 Data collection procedure. 29 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS: RESULTS, DISCUSSIONS. The students’ improvement .2 The students’ attitudes towards learning listening with movies .Implications for teachers .Limitations of the study.
I v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES AND FIGURES List of Abbreviation L2: Second language EFL: English as a foreign language HLU: Hanoi Law University List of figures Figure 1: Action research model. 21 Figure 2: The students’ evaluation of listening materials used. 30 Figure 3: Experience of using movies in studying English. 31 Figure 4: Effectiveness level of the experimental teaching course.
33 Figure 5: The students’ attitudes towards studying with movies at class. 34 Figure 6: The students’ satisfaction with the course after the intervention. 35 List of tables Table 1: Data collection procedure. 23 Table 2: The Syllabus.
27 Table 3: Student’s experience of using movies in studying English. 31 Table 4:Statistics for the group’s performance in the pre test and post test. 32 Table 5: Results of the Pair Sample T-tests. 32 Table 6: The students’ preferences in movies.
35 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Rationale Listening is considered the most frequently used skill in everyday life. According to Burley-Allen (1995), 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 (cited in Miller, 2003). In fact, listening can help students build vocabulary, develop language proficiency, and improve language usage, improve pronunciation and develop speaking skills (Bacon, 1998).
Therefore, listening is a very essential element in successful communication. Despite the acknowledged value of listening in language acquisition/learning and its complexity, the skill is still not receiving the attention it deserves in the ELT world as compared to literacy skills (Thanajaro, 2000). In Vietnam, many students have difficulty understanding spoken English when communicating with native speakers in spite of a long time studying at schools, which leads to communication breakdown. Moreover, some students often panic when they hear the English language on television, radio, or in situations in which speech is fast and nothing is repeated.
This results from students’ lack of exposure to such real language listening. Thus, there is an increase in the need of using authentic materials to teach listening. According to Martinez (2002), authentic materials help learners improve English communicative proficiency. Authentic materials refer to teaching resources that are not purposely produced for language teaching such as newspaper articles, movies advertisements, maps and comic books (Nunan, 1989).
Therefore, the researcher decided to use movies in listening lessons. According to Garcia (2011), using movies is the best way to learn English, improves the learners’ listening skills, and increases their vocabulary and English language expressions. Besides, watching movies helps the learners to improve pronunciation. 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com As a teacher at Hanoi Law University, the researcher finds that the first-year Law students who major in English must encounter a lot of listening problems.
They complained that they had had few chances to listen to English frequently in class at high school and their listening skills had been scarcely developed, leading to the frustration and pressure about listening examination. Exposed to real English through movies, the students are believed to learn English in a natural and effective way as they learned their mother tongue. To some extent, it makes students more interested in listening English when they acquired the language for the purpose of entertainment, not merely for completing a compulsory subject. Aims of the Study As mentioned above, using movies in lessons may assist the student’s listening comprehension.
Therefore, the study aimed to improve the students’ listening skills by using movies in listening lessons.3 Objectives of the study There were two main objectives which were set for the study. Firstly, the study was expected to investigate whether using movies in teaching listening could improve their listening ability. Secondly, the researcher expected to find out the attitudes of the students towards watching movies to improve their listening skills in class.4 Research questions This survey aims at addressing the two following questions: 1. To what extent does using movies in teaching listening improve the students’ listening skills? 2.
What are the students’ attitudes towards learning listening with movies? 1.5 Methodology Action research was chosen as the primary research method in order to meet the aim and objectives of the study. This method is also justified to offer significant benefits for the researcher, who is also an EFL teacher. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The target population of this study was from one class K39B with 30 first- year students majoring in English in Law at English Department, Hanoi Law University. To attain the aim of the study, two data collection instruments were used: tests, questionnaires.6 Scope of the study Within the frame of this study, the researcher would like to work on using movies to improve listening skills for the first year students who major in English in Law at Hanoi Law University.
The study restricted to the first-year students from class K39B to whom the researcher was in charge of teaching listening. Their level of English was intermediate. It meant that this research mainly focused on the intermediate students.7 Significance of the study The study is expected to contribute to the development of teaching and learning listening skills. It aims at helping students improve their listening skills by using movies.
The significance of this study is that it will provide teaching implications for EFL teachers in teaching listening. In other words, this is significant for educators in providing implications for developing their listening syllabus, methods of teaching and assessment. Besides, this research can be used as a reference source for those who are interested in this issue and a supplement to the previous studies on using movies to teach English.8 Structure of the study The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. Part 1 includes Chapter 1 which states the rationale, aims, objectives, research questions, scope and significance of the study as well as its methodology.
Part 2 consists of two chapters, namely theoretical background and method. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com - Chapter 1 provides the background of the study, including an overview of listening skills, and watching movies for teaching and learning and the summary of the previous researches on using movies for teaching. - Chapter 2 demonstrates the research methods applied in the study with details on how and why these methods were implemented. Besides, the data collection procedure and data analysis methods are also illustrated in this chapter.
- Chapter 3 presents data analysis, the results and discussions Part 3 summarizes the main issues covered in the paper, presents the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies in the research area. Following this chapter are the References and Appendixes for the whole research. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.1 Definition of listening Researchers and linguistics have presented different definitions on the concept of listening, ranging from the simple to the complicated ones. According to Rankin (1952, p.874), listening is “the ability to understand spoken language”.17) defines that listening is a process of “paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear”.
More expansively, listening is a process of attending to the speech sounds and trying to understand the message.38) sees that listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. The most comprehensive definition of listening is that of Purdy (1997, p.8) listening is “the active and dynamic process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the expressed (verbal and nonverbal) needs, concerns and information offered by other human beings”. This is one of the broadest definitions as it describes listening as a complicated process that involves the interrelated activities of both speakers and listeners. Listening is not the unilateral activity of listeners.
The language of speakers, verbal and nonverbal, has great impacts on the listening ability of the listener.