iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES vii PART : INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study II Scope, objectives, research questions, significance, method and design of the study II.1 Objectives of the study II.2 Research Questions II.3 Scope of the study .2 II.4 Significance of the study II.5 Method of the study II.6 Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .5 Overview of listening 1.1 Definitions of listening 1.2 Types of Listening .6 1.3 Listening techniques Notetaking and notetaking strategies 2.1 Definitions and importance of notetaking 2.1.1 Definition of notetaking 2.1.2 Importance of notetaking 10 2.2 Notetaking methods 12 2.2.1 The Cornell Method 12 2.2.2 The Outlining method .13 2.2.3 The Mapping Method .13 2.2.4 The Sentence Method .14 2.2.5 The Charting Method 14 2.2.6 The PARR Method 15 v 2.3 Previous studies on note-taking strategies 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 19 2.1 Research questions .19 2.2 Participants and settings of the study 19 2.2.1 Participants .19 2.2.1 Settings of the study .20 2.3 Data collection instruments 20 2.4 Data collection procedure 21 2.5 Data analysis procedure 22 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS 23 3.1 Numbers of note-takers and the reasons for not taking notes 23 3.1.1 Number of note-takers 23 3.1.2 Reasons for not taking notes 24 3.2 Students’ personal information and background knowledge of note-taking 25 3.2.1 Student’s personal information .25 3.2.2 Student’s background knowledge of note-taking 26 3.3 Note-taking strategies employed by Level students at International School 28 3.4 Differences in Listening Proficiency, note-taking experience and note-taking knowledge between note-takers and non-note-takers 30 3.4.1 Differences in Listening proficiency and note-taking experience between note-takers and non-note-takers 31 3.4.2 Differences in knowledge of note-taking between note-takers and non-note-takers .31 CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 33 4.1 Reasons for not taking notes .33 4.2 Note-taking strategies use by Level students at International School 34 4.3 Note- takers vs non note- takers 35 4.3.1 Differences in listening comprehension and previous experience of note-taking 36 4.3.2 Differences in note-taking knowledge 37 PART C: CONCLUSION 39 Summary and Implications 39 Limitations and suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES APPENDIX vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Sections in the questionnaires 21 Table 2: Number of note-taking strategies used by individual note-takers .30 Table 3: Number of notetakers and non-notetakers in terms of listening proficiency and notetaking experience 31 Table 4: Number of notetakers and non-notetakers in terms of notetaking knowledge 32 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Percentage of note-takers 23 Figure 2: Reasons for not taking notes 24 Figure 3: Percentage of students’ English Listening Score 25 Figure 4: Percentage of students being taught to take notes before 25 Figure 5: Percentage of student’s opinion on note-taking definition .26 Figure 6: Percentage of student’s opinion on the order of note-taking activities 27 Figure 7: Strategies employed by note-takers 28 PART A: INTRODUCTION This part introduces the rationale and the aims of the study The scope of the study and the significance as well as the design of the thesis will also be presented in this chapter I Rationale Listening to an English lecture has long been a difficult task to Vietnamese university students who hardly had any chances to practice listening skills at lower- level schools Notetaking has long been considered an integral part of effective listening Note-taking while listening is considered one of the most important skills which language learners should master, particularly as it helps to develop a sense of listening, allowing the reader to recognize main ideas and to understand the organization of the material Note-taking is believed to be an important part of all of our learning interactions, from the most traditional, structured experiences to highly informal, unstructured situations.‟ This is extremely significant for Vietnamese learners who have been studying English listening skills traditionally in non native environment, and have just started to learn listening in communicative way But acquiring and mastering note-taking is likely to become a big hindrance to many learners while they often find it difficult to exploit this skill in their learning experience It is especially true for General English students at International School, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, whose English level are not very high There are many reasons behind this phenomenon Students can be neither paying attention, nor write quickly enough It can be due to the fact that their spelling is not good enough or they cannot understand the teachers Sometimes, the lectures are in a too high level for their capabilities However, the most common reason may be students‟ shortage of note-taking strategies to use flexibly in listening to different lectures Therefore, the question of how to equip students with note-taking strategies so that they can use the skill to support foreign language listening in any situation has become a matter of teachers of English in general and teachers of English at International School in particular In Vietnam, there has so far been some research on note-taking strategies However, research on note-taking strategies employed by students at International School, VNU has not been done yet As a teacher of English, I have dealt with many questions relating to note-taking which are raised by my students or among my colleagues For example, what are the effective ways of taking notes? How to note down important information? Personally I found it necessary to provide to them successful note-taking strategies to listen to the lecture This is the major reason why this topic interests me II Scope, objectives, research questions, significance, method and design of the study II.1 Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are as follows: - To indicate whether all the participants take notes while listening to the book „Lecture Ready 2‟, and if not what the reasons are - To explore the strategies of note-taking used by Level students at International School - To find out whether there are differences in listening proficiency, experience and knowledge of note-taking between note-takers and non-note-takers or not II.2 Research Questions The study set out to seek answers to the following research questions: ♦ Do Level students at International school take notes while listening to the book „Lecture Ready 2‟? If not, what are the reasons? ♦ What are note-taking strategies employed by Level students at International School? ♦ Are there any differences in listening proficiency, experience and knowledge of note-taking between note-takers and non-note-takers II.3 The scope of the study The study is concerned with finding the students‟ note-taking strategies in listening to the book “Lecture Ready 2” As note-taking strategies pointed out by individuals, institutions, and scholars are of a variety, the present study only focuses on those which are considered to be popular and the most easily-used by International School students II.4 Significance of the study This study plays an important role in the identification of note-taking comprehension strategies employed by Level students at International School Also, non-note-takers‟ reasons for not taking notes are identified Based on the findings, the study will have many important implications for training Level students of English at International School in taking notes II.5 Methods of the study In order to achieve the aims of the study mentioned above, the descriptive method is the main tool for analyzing the data, which is collected from the questionnaire After the data is analyzed and discussed, the findings will be showed and some conclusions will be drawn and some suggestions will be raised in the thesis II.6 Design of the study This thesis consists of three parts: Part A: is the Introduction, which presents the rationale, the objectives, the research questions, the scope, the significance, the methods and the design of the study Part B: consists of four chapters Chapter 1: deals with a theoretical background It starts with listening in general including definitions, types and techniques The next is note-taking and its importance in language teaching, then an overview of some note-taking methods - their advantages and disadvantages in applying in the classroom Last, the previous studies on note-taking strategies are briefly summarized Chapter 2: presents the survey questionnaires Firstly, there is a description about the present situation of English listening teaching and learning at International School Secondly, the methodology is performed in the study It provides participants, instruments and data analysis Chapter 3: presents the findings Chapter 4: analyzes and discusses the findings of the study are Part C: is about the conclusion and suggestions for a further study This part has presented an overview of the study which includes the rational for the study, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the significance as well as the design of the study The next chapter will review the relevant literature which provides a theoretical framework for the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides a brief review of the theory and research into listening in general and note-taking strategies in particular It includes the researchers‟ findings relating to definition, types and techniques of listening; definitions and importance of note taking, note- taking methods, note-taking strategies and previous studies on note-taking and note-taking strategies A justification on the basis of the literature review for the note-taking strategies definitions and framework adopted by the researcher of the present study are also presented Overview of listening 1.1 Definitions of listening It is believed that listening is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and in a second language Therefore, there have been numerous definitions of listening (by O‟Malley, Chamost and Kupper (1989); Buck (2001)) which present different views of scholars towards the concept Listening comprehension is viewed theoretically as a process in which individuals focus on selected aspect of aural input, construct meaning from passages, and relate what they hear to existing knowledge (O‟Malley, Chamost and Kupper (1989)) According to Rost (1994), listening is referred to a complex process that enables us to understand spoken language Harmer (2001, p197) categorizes listening into receptive skill, the way in which people extract meaning form the discourse they hear or see Buck (2001, p 31) indicates that listening is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge” In another word, he concluded “comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect the comprehension of the message” Anderson and Lynch (1988) pointed out that listening is really a receptive skill along side with reading skills and the role of the listeners is no longer passive but active After a period of listening the learners are exposed to be able to talk or write about what they have heard, that is the objectives of listening comprehension Moreover, he uses the term “active model builder” to refer to the listeners‟ language; listeners have to build their own “coherent interpretation” of the spoken message Both parts of this term are important First, it needs to be coherent both in what we believe has just been said and with what we already know about the speaker, the context and the word in general Second, it is an interpretation, in the sense that it is our version of what the speaker meant, as far as we are able to assess that meaning The two authors use the term “mental model” to refer the listener‟s “coherent interpretation” This emphasizes the active and personal nature of successful listening The mental model that we build as a representation of a spoken of a message is the result of our combining the new information in what we just heard with our previous knowledge and experience In short, in order to be successful in listening, it is advisable that “listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and than ignored while other skills are developed There must be regular practice with increasingly difficult materials” (Wilga, 1986, p.157) 1.2 Types of listening There are many different types of listening We can classify these according to a number of variables, including listening purposes, the role of the listener and the types of text being listened to Real-life listening Many students feel a big gap between listening activities in the classroom and actual situation This is because most listening materials including dialogues in text books are very grammar-oriented and controlled in many ways The speakers often speak with perfectly controlled speech, voice, tone, accent and correct grammar Whereas, in real-life conversations learners encounter various people with different gender, age, accent, speed, voice, tone There may be improper grammar usage, incomplete sentences, redundancy, contractions, overlap and so forth Characteristics of real-life listening In real-life listening, we depend largely on visual information, including speaker‟s facial expression, posture, movement and appearance When a listener engages in listening, vocal massage filters through the short-term memory system first, and at this time the listener focuses on auditory or visual stimulus and concentration on the message received Therefore, visual stimuli play a very important role in listening As for Ur (1984), it would seem reasonable to say that classroom practice should usually incorporate such characteristics of real-life listening as:  We listen for a purpose and with certain expectations,  We make an immediate response to what we hear,  We see the person we are listening to,  There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of what is heard  Stretch of heard discourse come in short chunks  Most heard discourse is spontaneous and therefore differs from formal spoken prose in the amount of redundancy, “noise” and colloquialisms, and in its auditory characters Sometimes particular situations may lack one or more of these characteristics For example, when watching television we are not normally expected to respond, when listen to a lecture we may have to hear uninterrupted speech a very long time indeed, but it is very rare that none of them is present at all Classroom listening Class-room listening may be divided into intensive listening and extensive listening Intensive listening Intensive listening is the careful, focused listening to a short passage for detailed information or full comprehension, for example, listening to a dialogue on the tape to study its structures, intonation patterns in an English class Extensive listening Extensive listening is freer and more general listening to natural language for general ideas, not for a particular detail and not necessary under the teacher‟s direct guidance The listening passage for extensive listening can be long or short The language that is used in the type of listening is often within the students‟ current ability so that they find it pleasing and interesting when they are listening With this type of listening, students are not reinforcing a structure or practicing a grammar point linked to the rest of the course To sum up, it is obvious that mastering the nature of real-life classroom can help teachers as well as learners gain success in teaching and learning listening skill 1.3 Listening techniques Southern Nazarene University (1999) introduced effective listening techniques, which are regarded as top five ways to listen to a lecture They clarified their points by making comparison between poor listeners and effective listeners 28 The last question shows us the strategies used by 23 (equivalent to 46%) note-takers among 50 the participants From the table, all the suggested strategies in the questionnaire are used by these note takers, but the frequency in the use of each strategy varies Three most commonly used note taking strategies are „decide what is important‟, „try to predict what you will hear‟ and „listen for key words‟ with 19, 17, 16 participants relatively The second common strategy group includes six items The same number of students chose „avoid noting everything‟ and „make your notes like an outline‟ (11 students); „use common abbreviations, symbols and arrows‟ and „listen for signposts‟ (10 Students); „highlight/underline key words‟ and „listen for logical connectors‟ (9 students) The least commonly-used strategy group consists of sub-groups There are equal numbers of students choosing „listen carefully to the introduction‟ and „listen carefully to the conclusion‟ as their note-taking strategies (5 each); „write every new thought/fact/topic on separate line‟ and „use your own abbreviation‟ (3 each); „leave wide margin when taking notes‟ and „use ink not pencil‟ (2 each) In general, figure indicates that participants used all the suggested strategies in the questionnaires, but the frequency in the use of each strategy differs Although all suggested strategies in the questionnaires are used, each participants employs different number of strategies The following table summaries this: Total number of note-takers Numbers of students Number of strategies used ( from highest to lowest) 10 23 13 5 4 29 Table 2: Number of note-taking strategies used by individual note-taker From the table, the note-takers can be divided into two groups: one group including those who employ less than strategies (half of the given strategies) and the other group including those who employ more than half of the recommended strategies The first group has got people, and the second group doubled the number The highest number of strategies obtained in the first group is 13 and the lowest is 9, while these in the second group are and respectively Obviously, the number of students who know how to combine different notetaking strategies to use flexibly in lecture listening only takes a small part among the participants 3.4 Differences in Listening Proficiency, note-taking experience and note-taking knowledge between note-takers and non-note-takers The answers to the questions show that there are also the participants who not take notes while listening to the book „Lecture Ready 2‟ They are called non-note-takers in this research Because the number of non note-takers is more than that of note-takers, there is a need to answer the following question: „Are there any differences between these two groups?‟ 3.4.1 Differences in Listening proficiency and note-taking experience between note-takers and non-note-takers Number of note- Number of non- takers note-takers Listening 1-4 3 Proficiency (Score) 5-7 20 24 8-10 0 Note-taking Yes 16 14 experience (take No 13 notes before) Table 3: Number of note-takers and non-note-takers in terms of listening proficiency and notetaking experience As can be seen from the table, no students in both of the groups got high English listening score Each group has got three students at low-listening levels and the same number 30 of students who got mark 5-7 So, there is no difference in listening proficiency between the two groups In terms of note-taking experience, the number of students who took notes before more than doubles that of the students who did not in note-taker group, whereas the number of students have and haven‟t got the experience of note-taking previously are nearly the same between two groups Therefore, the note-taker group seems to have more previous experience of note-taking than the non-notetaker one 3.4.2 Differences in knowledge of note-taking between note-takers and non-note-takers Note-taking knowledge Number of note- Number takers A summary of a of non- note-takers lecture A copy of what was Definition of note- said taking A short record 18 A summary + a 20 short record Effective order of a note-taking b 16 activities c Table 4: Number of note-takers and non note-takers in terms of note-taking knowledge a listen, look, think, understand, paraphrase and write b look, listen, think, understand, paraphrase and write c listen, look, paraphrase, think, understand and write Regarding the definition of note-taking, the striking difference in the two groups is in the answer for items b There are students in non-note-takers group think that note-taking is the „Copy of what was said‟ but no note-takers think so For this aspect, note-takers seem to have better knowledge about note-taking concept than non-notetakers 31 The prominent difference in the two groups concerns effective orders of activities when taking notes in the answers for item b and a There are two people in the group of note-takers agreeing with item a more than in the rest group Nonetheless, the numbers of students who chose item b in non-note-takers group roughly doubles that in the note-taker group As a represents the best effective order, there are more correct answer in note-taker group than the non-notetaker one Overall, in terms of note-taking knowledge, students who took notes are better than the students who did not perform this activity To summarize, in this chapter, all the findings of the study were presented in tables and figures The analysis and discussion of the findings are presented in the next chapter CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION In the previous chapter, the researcher presented all the results from the survey questionnaire In this chapter those findings are discussed and analyzed Particular emphasis is given to the discussion of the overall note-taking strategies used by students The differences in listening proficiency as well as note-taking experience and knowledge between note-takers and non note-takers are also analyzed and discussed The reasons for not taking notes are given discussion and analysis as well 4.1 Reasons for not taking notes Before finding the results, one assumption is held by the researcher that there may be non-note-takers However, it is a really big surprise to her when it turns out to have more non note-takers than note-takers Among the participants, 23 take notes and 27 does not note down while listening to the book “Lecture Ready 2” It appears that students are not very familiar to note-taking strategies in listening class at International School There are some reasons for this The most common reason “don‟t have the habit of taking notes‟ implies that students are not given enough note-taking practice in class to use them as often as a habit This is the effect of two possible causes: either teachers not encourage students to take notes in listening class, or students are not interested in taking notes despite teachers‟ encouragement However, as the result found out in the previous chapter, the least common reason is „don‟t like taking 32 notes‟ (which made up for 4% only) Teachers‟ lack of encouragement, therefore, must be the undirected yet important reason for students to take no notes The second common reason “can‟t listen to main ideas‟ is easy to understand As the findings of Question indicate, most students (approximately 90%) got mark 5-7 in their last listening test Because their English Listening Level is not very high, there must be difficulties for them in catching the main ideas of the lecture And when they can‟t listen to main ideas or important information, they will not know “what should be noted down‟- which is the third common reason Nearly half of the non-note-takers „Don‟t know how to take notes‟ and the underlying meaning for this is that teachers need to instruct and guide them more There is only one other reason given by a participant explaining for not taking notes “too long lecture‟ This may be because the student‟s level is too low to keep up with the speed of the lecture, or because the teacher‟s ability to adapt the textbook is not good enough to make the lecture suitable to her student‟s capacity As a whole, from all the results of the reasons given in the questionnaire, the best way to have more note-takers in listening class is that teachers should know this and think of ways to encourage, even request their students to employ this strategy 4.2 Note-taking strategies use by Level students at International School The answers of 27 note-takers show that all of the strategies given in the questionnaire are used by students However, the frequency in the use of different strategies varies significantly The strategies which most students used in taking notes were „Decide what is important‟, „Try to predict what you will hear‟ and „Listen for key words‟( more than half of the note-takers choose these strategies) Not less than third of the participants used the following strategies: „Use the common abbreviation‟, „Listen for the main ideas‟, „Listen for signals‟, „Avoid noting everything‟, „Highlight the main topic‟, Listen for logical connectors‟, and „Make notes like an outline‟ Among all these nine above- mentioned strategies, five are designed basing on the strategies in the book “Lecture Ready 2‟, the sources of the rest four strategies scatter in Outline Method, Sentence Method and PARR Method It means that note- 33 takers who are studying the text book “Lecture Ready 2‟ are aware of and can apply more than half of the strategies they learn into real note-taking situations Listening carefully to the introduction and the conclusion of the lecture is very important as they can help student realize the „big picture‟ of the lecture, according to the authors of the book “lecture Ready‟ However, only students use this strategy to take notes This implies that it is very difficult for them to understand the organization of the lecture and get an overview of it when they take notes From the findings of the questionnaires, it can be concluded that students not seem to pay much attention to Sentence Method and Cornell Method In spite of the Cornell Method‟s benefits, only students use it when they chose “leave a wide margin‟ Three students use sentence Method in note-taking although this method is believed to be easy to be used The fact that so few students use the most popular methods may result from their ignorance or unawareness of these two methods There are 17 note-takers choosing „Use common abbreviations/symbols/arrows‟ (taken from „Lecture Ready 2‟) but only students chose „Use your own abbreviation.‟ This reflects the fact that students may rely too much on the text book in the choice abbreviations/symbols/arrows they use Otherwise, they not know that each person can have their own way of using abbreviations/symbols/arrows and they can create theirs It can be either the mistakes of the students or the errors of the teachers if they not emphasize this for the students Although all the strategies given in the questionnaires are used by students, the numbers of strategies used by note-takers are far from the same More than two third of the note-takers use less than strategies among sixteen strategies suggested This means that although all the suggested strategies used by 50 participants the numbers of strategies used by individual note takers is not of significance The sixteen strategies listed in the questionnaires are the most easily-used and the most frequently-used strategies for students The result of them is based on the results of the participants‟ note-taking quick test Normally, in a lecture note-taking from “Lecture Ready”, students have to use a combination of all or most of the suggested strategies Students use not many strategies like that can make them have less effective note taking 34 4.3 Note- takers vs non note- takers Since the numbers of non-note-takers exceed the numbers of note-takers, it is of great importance to find out any differences in listening comprehension and experience and understanding of note-taking between the two groups 4.3.1 Differences in listening comprehension and previous experience of note-taking Of 50 participants, although there are no high- level students, only six students belong to low level group (1-4 scores in the last listening test) These six students, however, are divided equally to the non note-taker and note-taker group, three students each In the procedure of analyzing the data, the researcher expected that the note-taker group would have better students than the non-notetaker one Nevertheless, the answer is not up to her expectations This finding raises two questions: whether or not note-taking enhances listening comprehension; is the final examination at International School design to test notetaking skill? The first question supports the results of Peck and Hannafin‟s study The second question can be easily understood if the formats and requirements of the examinations at International School are taken into consideration The End-of-term examinations for level students at Intentional School are IELTS oriented with the three first sections the same as those of IELTS and the omission of section in a real IELTS In the first sections of an IELTS listening test, although note-taking is encouraged to be used, normally students still „survive‟ without it Because the last section - a lecture talk- which is designed to test students‟ ability to take notes is omitted, students basically can pass the exam without using note-taking strategies This explains why there is no difference between note- takers and nonnote takers However, there is an implication for this real situation at International School As it is the same listening score for non note-takers and note-takers, how can students at level achieve the target 5.0 IELTS when there are still lots of them taking no notes? And can notetakers take good notes to improve their listening scores? The result for the first question can give significant suggestions to the test designers and the Level program writer as well As a teacher at International School, the researcher with her experience teaching here knows that 35 “Lecture Ready 2” is often used as material for homework It is partly because students often complain that this book is difficult and partly because the listening in the book is often long and need adaptation from the teachers The other reason may be the teachers‟ inadequate appreciation of note-taking at this level In order to improve student‟s note-taking strategies, the syllabus writer for level ought to make „Lecture Ready 2‟ Book compulsory in every or at least some listening lessons For the test designers, they should design the final test that can check students‟ note-taking skill in preparation for the real lecture note-taking at level According to the figures in Table 4, the number of note takers who were taught to take notes before more than doubled that of note takers who were not Meanwhile, the numbers of non- participants who were and were not taught to take notes are nearly equal It means that if students are taught to take notes before, it is more likely for them to apply note-taking in the future listening lessons than students with no experience of note-taking Therefore, in order to form the habit of taking notes in preparation for IELTS examination, teachers should teach them how to take notes right from this level 4.3.2 Differences in note-taking knowledge Regarding note-taking definition, most of the participants have the correct answers (c or a) In this question, c and a are the most commonly-held assumption of note-taking and b is the mis - conception of it This proves that students in general have quite a good knowledge of note-taking; they know basically what note-taking is There are only students who chose item b and these students belong to non-note-taker group It is understandable as more notetakers were taught about taking note than non note-takers The order of effective activities when taking notes is suggested by Southern Nazarene University and this is the recommendation to design Question In contrast to Question 2, the majority of the participants got the incorrect answer (item b) Only 24% of them chose the correct answer – item a The researcher was surprised to the result as she expected that if students have a good knowledge of note- taking definition; it is very natural for them to get the correct order of note-taking activities This finding implies the fact that students seem to be 36 good at note-taking in theory, but in practice - when they have to perform note-taking activities, they may not make very effectively notes In short, this chapter gives analysis and discussion of the strategies used the reasons for not taking notes of students and the differences between note-taker and non note-taker group The improvement in students‟ note-taking strategies will need the contribution of test designers, syllabus writer, students and teachers as well Especially, the awareness of English learners of note-taking methods and note-taking strategies should be enhanced Teachers should suggest and guide their students how to apply appropriate and effective note-taking strategies in particular listening lecture Hence, students‟ English listening in general and notetaking in particular will be improved Test designers can re-edit the test for the seek of notetaking skills and syllabus writer should create opportunity for note-taking books to be taught officially and seriously 37 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary and Implications The study indicates that there are not only note-takers but also non-note-takers when participants listen to the book „Lecture Ready 2‟ The number of students who not take notes exceeds that of students who perform note-taking From this finding, it is concluded that note-taking skill in Listening classroom at International School is not very familiar to Level students at International School This study also generated interesting findings about learners‟ reasons for not taking notes Among the given reasons, the most common one is not having the habit of taking notes, and the least common one is „don‟t like taking notes.‟ Based on this finding, it is suggested that note-taking cannot become a habit of Level students due to their lack of practice The easiest way to make up for it is the teacher‟s encouragement for students As it is not because students don‟t like taking notes, that teachers encourage students and create opportunity for note taking to be used in class can better the current situation The findings of the study illustrate that all the strategies introduced in the questionnaire are used by the note-takers Nevertheless, there is a difference in the frequency of each strategy used and the number of strategies employed by each student The most preferred notetaking strategy is to decide what is important whereas leaving the wide margin when taking notes and using ink not pencil are the strategies in the least frequency of use Thirteen is the highest number of strategies used by a participant, but there is one student who can employ two note-taking strategies only As most of the given strategies taken from “Lecture Ready 2” and the others are highly appreciated for Intermediate level, the combination as well as the flexible application of them in different listening lecture is very important Therefore, the more strategies student can use, the better listening results they can achieve The findings of the study also supported the researcher‟s assumption that there are differences in note-takers and non note-takers previous experience and knowledge of notetaking In general, the note-taker group has better understanding of note-taking than the non note-taker one Furthermore, there are more note-takers were taught to take notes before then 38 non-note-takers., which imply that if students have been taught to note down, there is a likelihood that they will so in the future Contrary to what the researcher assumed, the listening proficiency of note-takers and that of non note-taker group are the same This is because at level 3, students are not tested to use note-taking skill in the final examination Whether or not students know how to take notes and use note-taking, their listening scores at this level, thus, have no prominent difference In spite of that, at level 4, note-taking is a vital skill for students at International School to pass the IELTS oriented final test Therefore, it is necessary for the test designer at this level to add note-taking as a skill to be checked to prepare for Level examinations It is important for curriculum writer, test designers, teachers and students alike to acknowledge that a balanced and integrated approach to note-taking is important particularly for foreign language learners at International School Pedagogically, it is important and feasible that teachers play a more active role in students‟ note-taking practicing by providing learners with systematic note taking instructions, offering contextualized learning opportunities, helping students learn specific strategies for taking notes The ultimate purpose is to encourage learner autonomy so that students can employ note-taking wisely both inside and outside of the class for more productive outcomes Limitations and suggestions for further study This was an exploratory study that only caught a glimpse of the present status of notetaking strategies employed by Level International School students A larger sample with more diverse backgrounds would be desirable in order to yield more generalizable findings Furthermore, the data for the study were based on the self reports of the participants Therefore, further studies are needed using other instruments such as oral interview and so on Such multiple sources would provide more insights into what learners actually Hopefully, this will lead to more thorough investigations in the field I REFERENCES Anderson, A & Lynch, T (1988), Listening, Oxford University Press Boon, O (1989), "Notetaking for hearing and hearing impaired students", Journal of Reading, pp 523-536 Buck, G (2001), Assessing Listening, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Carrier, C & Titus, A (1981) “Effects of notetaking pretraining and test mode expectations on learning from lecture”, American Educational Research Journal, 18 (4), pp 385-397 Castallo, R (1976), "Listening Guide - A First step towards notetaking and listening stills", Journal of Reading, (19), pp.289-290 Dunkel, P (1985), "Listening and Notetaking; What Is the Effect of Pretraining in Notetaking?", TESOL Newsletter, pp 30-31 Dunkel, P and S Davy (1989), "The Heuristic of Lecture Notetaking: Perceptions of American and International Students Regarding the Value and Practice of Notetaking", English for Specific Purposes, 8, pp 33-50 Harmer, J (2001), The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman O’Malley, J.M, Chamot, A.U & Kupper, L (1989) Listening Comprehension strategies in Second Language acquisition, Applied Linguistics, 10 (4) 10 Ornstein, A.C (1994), “Homework, studying, and notetaking: Essential skills for students”, NASSP Bulletin, 78 (558), pp 58-70 11 Otto, S A (1979),"Listening for Note-taking in EST", TESOL Quarterly, pp 319-328 12 Palmatier, R.A (1971), “Comparison of four note-taking procedures”, Journal of Reading, 14 (4), pp 235-240 13 Rost, M (1990), Listening in Language Learning, Longman, London 14 Spires, H.A & Stone P D (1989), “The directed notetaking activity: A self-questioning approach”, Journal of Reading, 33 (1), pp 36-39 15 Ur, P (1984), Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 16 Southern Nazarene University (1999) “The Professor in the Classroom," The master teacher II 17 Wilga, R (1986), Teaching Foreign Language Skill, The University of Chicago Press http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/listen.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notetaking APPENDIX Questionnaire III The purpose of this questionnaire is to gather some information about your note-taking strategies when listening to the book “Lecture Ready” Please circle the answer or put a tick to respond to each statement or question Your answers are highly appreciated and used for the research purpose only What is your English Listening score in the last final examination? Circle your answer a -4 b.5-7 c.8-10 What is note-taking in your opinion? Circle your answer You can choose more than one a a summary of a lecture b a copy of what was said c a short record of important information in a lecture What you think is the most effective order of activities when taking notes? Circle your answer a listen, look, think, understand, paraphrase and write b look, listen, think, paraphrase, understand and write c listen, look, paraphrase, think, understand, and write Were you taught how to take notes in listening class? a Yes b No When you listen to the book “Lecture Ready 2”, you … a Take notes following the guides in the book b Take notes in your own way c Do not take notes If you not take notes when listening to the book “Lecture Ready”, what are the reasons? You can choose more than one a Don’t know how to take notes b Don’t like taking notes c Don’t have the habit of taking notes while listening d Don’t know what should be noted down e Can’t listen to main idea to write down f Others (Please specify) …………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………… When you listen to the book “Lecture Ready 2”, which of the following note-taking strategies you use? Put a tick in the column next to the strategies you use You can tick more than one Number Strategies Put a tick IV 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Decide what is important Use common abbreviations, symbols or arrows Try to predict what you will hear Listen for the main idea Listen for signals/signpost (e.g the second reason is/ secondly/more importantly) Leave wide margin when taking notes Avoid noting everything the lecturer says Use ink not pencil Highlight/ underline the main topic(s) Write every new thought/ fact/ topic on the separate line Use your own abbreviations Listen for the key words Listen for logical connectors to express the relationship between ideas (e.g.: in contrast to, as a result of) Listen carefully to the introduction of the lecture) Listen carefully to the conclusion of the lecture Make your note like an outline Thank for your cooperation! ... study is to investigate the note-taking strategies employed by level students at International School The study tried to answer the following questions: ♦ Do Level students at International school... take notes while listening to the book ? ?Lecture Ready 2? ??? If not, what are the reasons? ♦ What are note-taking strategies employed by Level students at International School? ♦ Are there any differences... non-note-takers II .3 The scope of the study The study is concerned with finding the students? ?? note-taking strategies in listening to the book ? ?Lecture Ready 2? ?? As note-taking strategies pointed out by individuals,