VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE THE EFFECTS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ON LISTENING SKILLS PERFORMANCE OF NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HO CHI MINH CITY A research study submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master's degree in TESOL By NGUYEN ANH THI Supervised by PHAN THANH HUNG, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY APRIL 2023 THE EFFECTS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ON LISTENING SKILLS PERFORMANCE OF NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HO CHI MINH CITY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Phan Thanh Hung, who is my thesis supervisor, for his enthusiastic guidance, valuable comments and support in the preparation and completion of this thesis. I am greatly indebted to all the lecturers in the TESOL graduate program at the University of Social Science and Humanities for their dedication and helpful instruction during the course from the year 2019 to 2021.
My special thanks go to my fellows who are Mr. Pham Huynh Phu Quy, Ms. Ky Tran Minh Uyen, Mr. Nguyen Huu Ngoc, Ms.
Nguyen Thi Hoai Anh, Ms. Ngo Thi Ngoc Tram, Ms. Pham To Quyen, M. Bui Thi Truc Linh, and Mr.
Tieu Tieu Long, who have given me useful advice and support on my thesis proposal. I am also thankful to the students in the class Foundation 2 Group 2020, Group 2027, Group 2016, Group 115 and Group 107 for their great cooperation in the study. Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for their love and support. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify that this thesis entitled "THE EFFECTS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ON LISTENING SKILLS PERFORMANCE OF NON- ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HO CHI MINH CITY" is my own work.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution. Ho Chi Minh City, April 2023 NGUYEN ANH THI ii RETENTION OF USE Being a candidate for the MA degree, I agree to the University's standards for the preservation and use of theses deposited in the Library. I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be available for study and research purposes, subject to the Librarian's standard rules for the preservation, lending, or replication of theses. I agree to follow any general terms imposed by the University for the preservation, lending, or replication of theses, as well as any specific usage conditions in regard to this thesis titled By signing this form, I agree that a copy of my thesis will be preserved in the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, and allow it to be published online in full text.
I confirm that the necessary copyright licenses for any original materials included in my thesis have been secured. Date: ____________ Candidate’s signature NGUYEN ANH THI iii CONTENTS CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES.
vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Background to the study. Aim of the study.
Significance of the study. Organization of thesis chapters. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Characteristics of formative assessment.
Comparison between formative assessment and summative assessment. Formative assessment and motivation in EFL classroom. Formative assessment and teaching English listening. Previous research studies.
33 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Pretest and posttest. Unit progress tests. Data analysis scheme.
44 iv CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Results of the pretest and the posttest. Comparison of the pretest results between two groups. Control group: Comparison of the pretest and posttest.
Experimental group: comparison of the pretest and posttest. Comparison of the posttest results between two groups. Results of the questionnaire. Reliability of the questionnaire.
Students’ respondents to the questionnaire. Summary of findings. 106 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Comparison between formative assessment and summative assessment Table 2.
The aspects of micro-listening skills that are assessed in Key English Test Table 3. Research design in the study Table 4. Aspects of language that are assessed in each unit progress test Table 5. Implementation of the experimental group and control group during the experiment Table 6.
Data analysis scheme Table 7. Comparison between pretest and posttest of the experimental and control group in terms of mean values Table 8. Comparison of the results of the pretest between the experimental group and the controlled group Table 9. Comparison of the results between the pretest and the posttest in the control group Table 10.
Comparison of the results between the pretest and the posttest in the experimental group Table 11. Comparison of the results of the posttest between the experimental group and the control group Table 12. Measurement indicators and Cronbach’s alpha Table 13. The ranges of means scores and their meaning Table 14.
Students’ attitude toward the six unit progress tests in their learning Table 15. Students’ attitude toward teacher's feedback of the six unit progress tests Table 16. Students’ attitude toward the motivation they have when doing formative assessment in their learning vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Aspects of Formative Assessment Figure 2.
Formative assessment cycle Figure 3. Conceptual framework of formative assessment Figure 4. Conceptual framework of the study vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching viii ABSTRACT Listening seems to be one of the most difficult skills that many freshmen who are not majoring in English at Ton Duc Thang University have to face in their EFL courses. This is because they lack adequate training since they were at secondary or high schools.
Therefore, they need a way that can enable them to study harder for the listening skills beside many listening strategies that they are learning in class. The study examined the effectiveness of formative assessment on students' listening performance and their attitude toward it. The researcher carried out this study with the aim to help students improve their listening skills by using formative assessment which is the method of deploying a progress test at the end of each unit. With the number of 122 freshmen at a university in Ho Chi Minh City as the participants, this study employed a quantitative quasi-experimental approach, including a pre-test, a post-test, and a questionnaire.
The study was based on two sources of data. Firstly, it was the comparison of the scores between the pretest and posttest which were taken by the students who were classified into the experimental group and the control group. This was to identify whether there were any differences between the two groups and whether the listening performances in the experimental group were improved or not. Secondly, the data from the questionnaire respondents of the experimental group were analyzed to investigate their attitude toward the use of formative assessment in their learning process.
The data analysis revealed that (1) with the use of formative assessment, students in the experimental group achieved more progress than those who were in the control group. This means that the formative assessments positively affect the EFL students’ listening performance; (2) Students in the experimental groups showed positive attitudes towards the use of formative assessment in their EFL learning in terms of the use of the six unit progress tests, teacher’s feedback, and motivation. Keywords: Formative Assessment, Teaching listening ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the background to the study, research purposes, research questions, significance of the study, and organization of the study. The purpose of this study is to thoroughly investigate the impact of formative assessment on students’ learning outcomes of listening skills and to provide answers to the two research questions.
The study is significant because it will contribute to the existing body of knowledge on the subject matter, and will provide insights that can be used to address practical issues. The organization of the study is structured in a way that allows for a clear understanding of the research process and findings. Background to the study Listening is regarded as an essential element of learning a foreign language, and thus it plays an important role in teaching and learning in language classrooms. According to Croom (1998), without listening skill, no communication can be achieved.
Although listening is one of the most crucial skills that learners need to improve, it is undoubtedly one of the most difficult skills in teaching a foreign language because it is regarded as least studied of the four skills in language (Vandergrift, 2007). Additionally, listening is also neglected in the classrooms. Field (2008) states that listening was primarily used in the early stages of ELT to introduce new grammar through model dialogues. In order to teach listening skills effectively, teachers have used many strategies which are techniques or activities that help students develop a set of listening strategies or listening skills.
Those strategies are top-down processing, bottom-up processing, and interactive processing. A considerable body of research reveals that one of the best ways to help students improve their listening skills is to use listening strategies (Nunan, 1995; Peterson, 1991; Willis, 1981). Furthermore, Celce- Murcia & Olshtain (2000) states that two listening strategies frequently applied most popularly for finding necessary 1 information are bottom- up strategies and top-down strategies. Besides, another way is by the assessment of context or speaker's intention.
Many freshmen whose majors are not English linguistics have troubles when learning English listening skills and doing listening tests. The reason is because the students might not learn English listening skills well at primary schools, secondary schools and high schools because with the characteristic of teaching and learning English just for examination at many public schools in the formal educational system, mainly grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing skills are the main focus (Vu & Shah, 2016). Therefore, they normally lack English listening skills. When entering the university, they face many troubles in doing English listening tests.
Besides, as English is not their major, some of the students may not find the motivation to pursue this subject. This makes them feel lazy and they do not make an effort in learning English as a result (Huynh et al, 2021). In order to improve listening skill, different listening strategies are applied where formative assessments are becoming more and more popular around the world (Black & Wiliam, 1998, 2000; Cauley & McMillan, 2009; Gikandi et al, 2011; Kerekovic, 2020; Lee & Coniam, 2013; Leung & Mohan, 2004), especially listening skill in English education in Vietnam (Le, 2021; Nguyen, 2018; Tran, 2015 ). Formative assessment has been conducted in classroom assessment practices and brought out huge impacts upon learning outcomes of students and used as a way to motivate students in their learning (Brookhart, 1997, 2004, 2007; Black and Wiliam 1998; McMillan 2007).
From all the above reasons, there is a need to investigate the scale of influence towards EFL learners’ listening skill caused by formative assessments and students’ attitudes toward the use of it in teaching and learning English listening skills. Aim of the study The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of formative assessment on students’ learning outcomes of listening skills at A2 level according to the CEFR scale at a university in Ho Chi Minh City to see whether there are improvements when using formative assessment in teaching listening skills and to find out students’ attitude toward the use of formative assessment in their learning process. The study is carried out in four classes which are divided into two groups at a university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It involves 122 students who share the same classroom instructors.
The research focuses on the experiment, and a survey on learning listening skills only, which is limited in context and in terms of generalization in a research.