VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------- ĐÀO THỊ HỒNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE APPICATION OF TOP-DOWN TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS TO ENGLISH NON-MAJOR 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT TAM DUONG HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP “TOP-DOWN” TRONG GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC SINH KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH LỚP 10 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TAM DƯƠNG) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------- ĐÀO THỊ HỒNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE APPICATION OF TOP-DOWN TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS TO ENGLISH NON-MAJOR 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT TAM DUONG HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP “TOP-DOWN” TRONG GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC SINH KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH LỚP 10 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TAM DƯƠNG) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Ph. Ngô Hữu Hoàng Hanoi, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A study on the application of top-down techniques in teaching listening skills to English non-major 10th grade students at Tam Duong high school” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions. I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research. Hanoi, 2014 Đào Thị Hồng Yến i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest thanks to Mr. Ngô Hữu Hoàng for his assistance, encouragement as well as his guidance he gave me while I was doing my research.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my lecturers at the Department of Post-graduate Studies, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi whose support and considerations have enabled me to pursue the course. I would also like to express my thanks to the teachers of English at Tam Duong high school who helped me in providing the materials, giving me encouragement and making constructive comments. I am also thankful to my English non-major 10th grade students for their whole-heated participation in the study. Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to family who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The research was implemented to investigate the effect of top-down techniques in teaching and learning to the English non-major 10th grade students of Tam Duong high school. In this research the investigator attempted to apply top-down techniques in teaching listening to improve the 10th grade students‟ listening skills. Two tests and a questionnaire survey were used as the powerful instruments to collect data. After that the data was analyzed and contrasted to check how top-down techniques can help to enhance students‟ listening skills.
At the end of the research, the investigator proposed some suggestions to improve the learning and teaching listening skill at Tam Duong iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES AND CHARTS ABBREVIATIONS: % Percentage TABLES : Table 1.1: Some kinds of top-down exercises for beginners Table 1.2: Descriptive statistics for the pre-test Table 1.3: Procedures of the study Table 1.4: Paired Samples Statistics Table 1.5: Paired Samples Test Table 1.6: Activities motivated students in the pre-listening stage Table 1.7: Activities attracted students in while-listening stage Table 1.8: Useful and effective activities to students after listening CHARTS: Chart 1.1: The students‟ opinion about listening tasks Chart 1.2: The students‟ opinion about learning listening with top-down techniques Chart 1.3: The students‟ opinion about their listening skill after term learning with top- down techniques iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION …………………………………………………………………i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………….iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES AND CHARTS…………………….iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Design of the study.6 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Theory on listening. Definitions of listening. Teaching listening skills. Stages of a listening lesson.
Top-down process………………………. Factors that make listening difficult in learning a foreign language .16 CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.19 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.20 CHAPTER III: THE STUDY…………………………………………………. Finding out a problem …………………………………………. Forming a pilot course………………………………………….
Students‟ perceptions after taking a pilot course……. Suggestions for further study.VI vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Being the international language, not only is English a foreign language but it is also considered a means to communicate and promote mutual understanding and cooperation between people all over the world. With the rapid use in the fields of science, technology, culture, education, economy and so on, the need of teaching and learning becomes one of the most significant problems in each nation including Viet Nam.
Recently, the number of people who would like to learn and become a master in English in their fields become more and more increasing, especially when Viet Nam adopted the policies to integrate with other countries all over the world, teaching and learning English is not only a personal concern, but it also becomes one of the noticeable nation‟s problems. Moreover, English also affirms its important role by becoming a compulsory subject at high school and universities. Thus, the teaching and learning English is one of the most crucial issues for not only students and teacher but also our society. However, the teaching and learning English is seriously influenced by the traditional methods such as Grammar Translation Method, or Audio-lingual Method and so on which mainly focus on the grammar, vocabulary and structures; and listening and speaking skills „seem to be forgotten‟ in high school.
The researcher has worked as an English teacher in Tam Duong high school since 2011. With her experience in teaching English at high school, she realized some reasons which made her have a strong motivation to do this study. Although in class, students are taught and follow the English course book offered by the Ministry of Education and Training Department, in which each unit is designed to be composed of five parts - reading, listening, speaking, writing and language focus; assessment and testing only aim at students‟ knowledge of English grammar along with reading or writing. Therefore, they have encountered many difficulties in learning listening and speaking English.
1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com In addition, when students studied at primary school or secondary school, teaching listening seems to be ignored. They even don‟t have enough essential equipment for their listening lessons as qualitative records or cassettes, stereos. Instead of using stereo, their teacher often read tape script for them in listening lesson so that when attending class in high school, they feel really difficult to listen to the native speaker‟s voice and listening tape script. Most of the time, the teacher used her native language to develop the class and the listening input in the second language was only evident when reading aloud sentences or phrases written on the board.
It showed that learners had few opportunities to listen to the target language. One more reason is that the limited time in learning and teaching English in class. According to estimating, students are learnt one listening period (45 minutes) per week, and most of them don‟t spend their time to practice English at home. Because of these above reasons, students have little or even no motivation and interest in learning English, especially listening.
According to Nunan (1998), he believes that listening is the basic skill in language learning. Without listening skill, learners will never learn to communicate effectively; in fact, over 50% of the time that students spends functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to listening. For all the reasons above, the researcher decided to do a study on the application of top-down techniques to help improve listening skills of her students in English non major 10th grade students. Aim of the study The study aims at finding the most suitable ways to improve the students‟ listening competence at Tam Duong high school.
To reach this aim, the students‟ difficulties when they listen and do English tasks will be explored first, and then top-down techniques will be applied to teach listening skills for students by teacher to find out that if it is the most suitable way for enhancing students‟ ability in learning listening. Teacher will investigate the effects of using top-down techniques in teaching listening when she applies them in her listening lessons. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Simultaneously, the study also aims at studying the learner‟s perception regarding listening activities using top-down listening techniques. The final aims is formulating pedagogical implications and making suggestions for improving the teaching and learning of the listening skill at Tam Duong high school.
The focus of the paper was directed toward high school students because the problems in listening have their origins in high school where few students have been the recipients of listening teaching. Thus, these high school students have difficulties in learning English not only at present, but also in the future if they can‟t find the solutions for it. In order to find out the answer for the study, two research questions was conducted as following: Research questions 1. What is the effect in terms of English language learning with the application of applying top-down techniques in teaching listening for English non-major 10th grade class? 2.
What are the learner´s perceptions regarding listening activities using top- down techniques in an English non-major 10th grade class? 3. Scope of the study In this study, the researcher intends to use top-down techniques to help English non-major students who are at grade ten in Tam Duong high school, can overcome their difficulties in learning listening skills, not using the other kind of techniques. These techniques were conducted over a period of time with 8 weeks and were applied in the three stages of a listening lesson: pre-listening; while- listening and post-listening. The sample populations are 35 students from class: 10A10.
Significance of the study First of all, this study brings benefits for the researcher‟s professional development. The findings will indicate that whether top-down techniques is useful to be applied to raise her students up in learning listening as well as raising their 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com interest and attitude in learning English. As can be known, to learn a foreign language well, learners need to develop all the four skills. Listening comprehension is a very complex process that students often find most difficult in learning English.
This thesis, therefore, is carried out so as to help students to improve their listening skills. In addition, this study also contributes to develop the learning English movement between the investigator‟s colleagues in her school or even from the other schools. Most of her colleagues often claim that teaching listening often causes stresses and demotivation because of students‟ attitude and their abilities in learning listening. Therefore, this study can promote a movement or a competition in finding the best ways to teach not only listening but other skills to improve students‟ competence in learning English.
The other teachers are able to express their ability and creativity in teaching listening and contribute to enhance the quality of teaching and learning English. Moreover, the findings will help the researcher to realize her weaknesses in teaching listening and from them she will improve to make them become more suitable and better to her students‟ learning. This study also is considered as a report for what the researcher did to deal with listening English problems in her high school as well as finding a better way to improve her students‟ ability in learning listening.