HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH …… GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH - HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY Supervisor : Nguyen Van Quang, ph.D Student : Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa Date of birth : 27/09/1994 Course : K19 (2012-2016) HA NOI, 2016 Graduation paper DECLARATION Title: IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH-HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Hanoi, 15th April 2016 Student Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016) Supervisor Nguyễn Văn Quang Graduation paper ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am, first of all, greatly indebted to my supervisor, Nguyen Van Quang, for his valuable suggestions, instructions and correction without which I can hardly fulfill this study I would like to thank all lecturers and friends at Hanoi Open University who have supported and guided my thinking by permanent observation, critical comments and those who have helped me by their approval My deep appreciation also goes to the first-year students at Hanoi Open University who have helped me to collect data for this study Ultimately, my gratitude and appreciation are also extended to my family, for their assistance, support and encouragement during the development of this study All have enabled me to accomplish my study Hanoi, 15th April 2016 Student Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016) Graduation paper TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and objectives of the study Scopes of the study Research questions Methods of study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Listening skills 1.1.1 Definitions of listening skills 1.1.2 Traditional point of view on listening skills 1.1.3 Current point of view on listening skills 1.2 Classification of listening skills 1.2.1 Real-life listening 1.2.1.1 Types of real-life listening 1.2.1.2 Characteristics of real-life listening 10 1.2.3 Classroom listening 11 1.2.3.1 Intensive listening 11 1.2.3.2 Extensive listening 12 Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016) Graduation paper 1.3 Sub-skills involved in listening skills 12 1.4 Listening phases 13 1.4.1 Pre-listening 13 1.4.2 While-listening 14 1.4.3 Post-listening 16 1.5 Major factors influencing the listening skills 18 1.5.1 Vocabulary 18 1.5.2 Background knowledge 19 1.5.3 Speed speech 20 1.5.4 Phonological aspects 21 1.5.5 Physical conditions 22 1.5.6 Summary 22 CHAPTER 2: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 24 2.1 Research procedures 24 2.1.1 Participants 24 2.1.2 Instrumentations 24 2.1.3 Survey questionnaires 25 2.2 Findings and discussion 25 2.2.1 First-year student’s attitude towards listening skills 26 2.2.2 First-year student’s obstacles when learning listening skills 28 2.2.3 First-year student’s attitude towards their teachers creating listening activities and motivation 35 2.2.4 First year students’ self-study methods to enhance listening skills 36 2.5 Summary 38 Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016) Graduation paper CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH – HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS 39 3.1 Stages of listening 39 3.1.1 Pre-listening 39 3.1.2 While-listening 41 3.1.3 Post-listening 42 3.2 Applying listening sub-skills 43 3.3 Self-studying 46 3.4 Background knowledge 47 3.5 Vocabulary and Grammar 47 3.6 Becoming active listeners 49 3.7 Summary 53 PART C: CONCLUSION 54 REFERENCES APPENDIX Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016) Graduation paper LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Table 1: Students’ attitude towards listening ………………………………… 28 Table 2: Students’ opinion on the importance of listening skills…………… 29 Table 3: Listening sub-skills applied by first-year students ………………… 29 Table 4: Obstacles of students when listening………………………………….30 Table 5: First-year students’ attitude toward their teachers creating listening interest and motivation………………………………………………………….35 Table 6: First-year students’ listening self-study……………………………….36 Table 7: Students’ methods to enhance listening skills……………………… 37 Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016) Graduation paper PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In Vietnam these days there is an increasing number of people wish to know and master of English since English has become an international language spoken all over the world in various aspects of life, such as communication, trade, business, health care, education Therefore, teaching and learning English have been paid much attention to nowadays However, compared with other skills language skills, listening is considered the most difficult one for most English learners Indeed, many firstyear students at the Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University find it really challenging to learn listening skills effectively Thus, the present study is done to further listening skills for first-year students at the Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University with hope that this study will offer some benefits for students learning English skills Aims and objectives of the study The purpose of this study is to help the freshmen at Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University to understand the reasons why they find it challenging to boost listening skills Accordingly, some feasible solutions are given with hope that first -year students can find out suitable approaches in learning English listening skills Scopes of the study Teaching and learning English, especially listening skills, are quite complex and varied among these levels However, within the study, the author will only focus on some main difficulties of the first-year students at Faculty of Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Graduation paper English - Hanoi Open University Additionally, the study also gives some suggestions to help them to improve listening comprehension Research questions The study mainly focuses on answering these following questions: - What are the difficulties of the first-year students in learning listening skills? - What factors have an impact on the listening skills of freshmen at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University - What are feasible suggestions to assist first-year students at Faculty of English- Hanoi Open University to reinforce listening skills? Methods of study In the research, the theoretical foundation is based on the knowledge which I have collected through materials and my supervisor’s support To achieve the aforementioned aims, a great number of research methods are implemented and a questionnaire is designed as a means for research and to collect data The questionnaire is handed to the first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University in order to figure out their difficulties when they learn listening skills Based on the final result of the survey, data analysis was done to indicate some problems of the first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University and solutions to boost English listening skills Design of the study The study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Graduation paper Part A, “INTRODUCTION” presents the fundamental information such as the rationale, the aims and objectives, the research question, the scope, the methods and also the design of the study Part B, “DEVELOPMENT” consists of three chapters: - Chapter one, literature review, presents contrastive views of listening skills, the important of listening, the classification of listening, sub-skills involved in listening skills, listening stages, as well as difficulties in learning listening skills - Chapter two, data collection, deals with analysis on general learning situation of first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University Also, in this chapter, there is a focus on data analysis, finding and discussion - Chapter three suggests some feasible solutions to help the first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University to enhance listening skills Part C, “CONCLUSION” summarizes the key issues in the study, point out some limitations and recommendations for further study Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Graduation paper - Key words should be concrete, meaningful and summon up the same image or idea each time they are used Strong nouns or verbs - Students think of the subtopics that will represent all the data, print these on lines connecting to the main subjects - The supporting points come after sub-topics 3.3 Self-studying Students should learn effectively since eighty percent of what they know is acquired through listening Listening is skill that requires the constant application and exposure of certain principles until they become habitual Here are some suggestions: - Be prepared to listen by keeping up to date with textbook reading Read the chapter before the lecture - Determine the main idea and all important details that were given in connection with it - Learn to recognize that the speaker is making an important point by: pausing, giving examples, repeating what has been said, repeating the textbook, increasing volume or changing the pitch of voice, taking more time on one area, using body language (Facial expressions, gestures, postures, and pace), writing on the chalkboard, using direct statements (this is very important) or signal words (examples: significant, most) Students frequently practice English by watching films or TV programs, listening to English songs, radio programs, and English lectures and interesting topics and some popular songs that attract students’ learning motivation They should follow a daily timetable, on the first day it will be a challenge, second day it will become a practice and third day it will become a habit Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 46 Graduation paper 3.4 Background knowledge Listening material usually consist of a range of topics and diverse subjects due to the cross-cultural or historical background knowledge, students often feel that they hear the word but not know the meaning of the word or when student is going to hear some topics which they are not familiar, even if there is a new word in the listening text, students must also find it hard to understand Language learning should be the learning of culture and understanding English speaking countries and cultural backgrounds, only learning these can students accurately understand and use English properly Therefore students can try the following methods to enrich their background knowledge The important method is to read extensively, especially to read English books about English speaking countries’ history Also, students should be encouraged to expose English as much as possible, such as reading some English newspaper, magazine and novels, which contain a lot of information of English speaking countries The more students read, the more knowledge they can obtain The improvement of reading ability will fortify the listening ability The other way is to make full use of the English movies or TV programs to gain some background knowledge All these aim at making students familiar with those English speaking culture and traditions besides what have been explained in the classroom 3.5 Vocabulary and Grammar Vocabulary is the foundation of a language If the students listen to only one sentence but there are too many new words they feel unfamiliar, they will feel pretty much challenging to understand They will become nervous, anxious as their concentration focus too much on this sentence, thus they fall behind with Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 47 Graduation paper the next one In this case, vocabulary becomes a huge obstacle in listening This is a reason why student should have quite a lot of vocabulary for their improvement in listening Learning new words: learners try reading nonfiction and technical books, these will rapidly teach learners not only new ways to speak, but also a new way to think They should read about a variety of subjects, lie philosophy, religion, and science; read online magazines, essays, and blogs on a variety of subjects Besides, reading the dictionary is a good way to look up words which are not yet familiar with - Using new words: students set a goal for themselves, try and learn three new words and week and work them into learner’s speech and writing - Building vocabulary: they should download audio books and speech radio, puzzles and play word games, use internet,… Apart from vocabulary, grammar is crucial for listening skill Students can apply some tips: - Speak in English, assuming English is the language whose grammar students wish to improve upon Improve your grammar by continuous practice - Make a plan: students try to get an overview of English grammar from a text book or online resource, note the necessary grammar points and plan to work on each for at least a few days - Identify common mistakes: they should find out what grammar points are often difficult for speakers of the native speakers and ay extra attention to learning those grammar points Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 48 Graduation paper - Find some grammar exercises: to learn English grammar well, students will need to practice each grammar point until they can use it easily They can look for a book of grammar exercises that also has answers Online activities and quizzes in English also help 3.6 Becoming active listeners The second-year students at HOU often get accustomed to traditional methods They feel boring when teachers use the typescripts as a main material method To improve listening skills, students should listen to some authentic channels such as BBC, CNN or some TV programs original from English speaking countries They should also get into the habit of watching and listening to these materials, thus it will become much easier to listen Moreover, students can practice English with multi-media with updating news every day They have a good knowledge background when listen many topics they will understand and have a good choice to exercise - Listening news broadcast of VOA and BBC It is really crucial to listen to broadcasts like VOA and BBC since listening to the news daily will make students get into the habit of using foreign language, and encourage them to understand what they hear They can even choose to listen to news programs only if they prefer (the advantage is that news programs are repeated at regular intervals throughout the day) If students wish they can download and listen in their own time and at their own pace It is important for students to listening news items on a regular basis so that they can profit from the opportunities to practice listening and to examine the language as it is commonly used on the news Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 49 Graduation paper - Improving your concentration The ability to concentrate while performing academic work is critical for academic success Try the following suggestions for improving your focus: - Environment: students try to find a comfortable, well lit and ventilated study environment, free of distractions - Ignore distractions: controlling the impulse to attend to distractions will increasingly make them less distracting - Increase motivation: the more motivated students are to learn, the easier it will be to concentrate - Set smart study goals: students will be inclined to concentrate when their study goals are specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic, and time limited - Use active study methods: students ask themselves questions, dialogue with their material, quiz themselves, summarize, and take sides of an argument, critique - Overcoming anxiety Many students are really fearful of listening and can be disheartened when they listen to something but feel they understand very little Some students can not listen to they not recognize this word because they pronounce incorrectly They thus feel anxious in testing then in general situations To this problem, they should keep their confidence, try to read the requirements carefully, and effectively listening sub-skills Also, they should practice to read more and more in order to be sensitive to these phonetic phenomena Besides, students should more phonetic practice such as sound discrimination, elision so they can master these features of spoken English They also should understand the stress, rhythm Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 50 Graduation paper and intonation of the word and sentence in the speech to get rid of the listening barriers in phonetics Students should take chances to speak to foreigners, especially the tourists since they become from different countries so students can learn how to speak well, this it leads to listen well - Authentic materials Students use the authentic texts to practice their listening skills, and build their confidence in real conversations with foreigners in the future Nevertheless, the authentic materials such as the real dialogues in the videos, are different from reading textbooks used in the classroom They usually talk in faster speed, conversations contain redundancy, linking sounds, different accents and full of words with uncommon meanings Instead of doing listening tests, students can suggest creating an authentic and friendly listening environment for promoting their learning motivation What is more, the internet offers a wide range of differently formatted material that can be selectively used as part of a listening comprehension programs: discussions, news, speeches, films and lectures Computer networks can make the teaching of listening comprehension a more interactive, illustrative and dynamic experience than was previously possible This cutting edge technology can be incorporated with listening homework assignments for the enhancement of listening skills As many internationally known broadcasts such as CNN, BBC and NPR, providing recorded news, along with transcripts, on the Internet, news broadcasts are valuable resources in teaching situations in which there is limited access to native speaker discourse They are also useful for selfaccess study outside class time Listening to broadcasts accustoms students to the fact that when listening authentic native speaker discourse, they will not be able Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 51 Graduation paper to understand every word they hear Students will find that real-world listening tasks can reduce some of the anxiety felt when they are inevitably exposed to texts and speakers beyond their linguistic training Using authentic material gives listeners the opportunities to develop language skills relevant to their real world needs, to provide learners the chances to listen to and analyze ways in which native speakers use the target language to convey their message; to provide learners explicitly instruction and guided practice Through the use of the internet, students can find hundreds of recorded English passages which can be used as listening assignments, including news, traditional and contemporary songs, proverbs, poetries and prose extracts, dialogues s and speeches For instance, students can listen and play the song multiple times, and guess meaning of the words and information in what they hear Singing songs also help students to improve their intonation and pronunciation Helping students develop listening skills is one of the most challenging tasks that teachers are assigned The difficulty arises from the fact that as an assignment, it requires active participation by, and the full attention of both teachers and students These are several suggestions for teachers: - Choose the materials Appropriate authentic materials for the promotion of listening skills might include popular television programs, radio shows, public announcements, famous speeches and recorded phone calls, made to customer service centers - Set up the listening task The teacher decide what students listen to, and then determine if further explanation or background material will be needed for successful completion Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 52 Graduation paper - Perform any necessary pre-listening exercises, in which the teacher identifies the purpose of the exercise and explain what the students should be listening for and why The teacher uses the time to define any new words or slangs, terms they are likely to encounter - Set up the exercise by explaining the context of the listening material The teacher uses this information, has the students predict what they are about to listen to 3.7 Summary Improving listening skills should be a top priority for anyone who wants to become really good at speaking a second language Successful listeners tend to apply self-monitoring, elaboration, and inferring strategies in the process of listening text Besides, making up the list of language learning strategies, the first-year students of Faculty of English – HOU should focus on their learning focus on their learning such as summarizing and linking the word to previous knowledge, and paying attention to the listening text In addition, to making progressing in basic skills such as vocabulary, grammar and sentence structures, it is more essential to promote students’ learning motivation, build up their learning autonomy, and have them focus on developing their background knowledge, grammar, listening strategies and listening sub-skills Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 53 Graduation paper PART C: CONCLUSION Listening plays such a vital role in our modern life, especially in communication in all aspects of life Therefore, teaching and learning listening in English is considered as the most difficult skill to achieve among the four skills Furthermore, in the trend of regional and international economic integration, learning of English has been prevalent at universities in Vietnam The author has introduced some basic knowledge of listening including its overview as well as its relationship with other skill Besides, some typical kinds of listening sub-skills and some factors affecting this subject are also given out This paper was done in the hope of contributing some suggestive techniques and activities to the listening skills and it was also carried out with the purpose of developing listening skill Based on data, some problems in listening were figured out with analysis Then many measures have been pointed out to help students develop listening skills To become a more active listener, the firs-year students at Faculty of English, HOU should practice the active listening technique and make it one of their communication skills Hopefully, the first-year students at the Faculty of English, HOU can use the paper for their strategies in developing listening skills Take your time and be patient with yourself while you are learning them To turn habits of a life time around in a few sessions is a challenge If you never experience being consciously listened to, really listening to others will feel quite strange for a while The reactions you used to have while listening without consideration will pop up in your mind and perhaps out of your mouth However, the fact that you are aware of what effective listening skills are will gradually change them You will succeed if you sincerely want to Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 54 Graduation paper This thesis has been accomplished with the greatest effort Yet, during the making of the study, shortcomings and mistakes are inevitably avoidable Therefore, sympathetic comments and suggestions are highly appreciated Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) 55 Graduation paper REFERENCES Alan Cruttenden (1997) Intonation Cambridge University Press Anderson and Lynch (1988) Listening Oxford University Press Broughton, G., Brumfit, C., Flavell, R., Hill, P., & Pincas, A (1978) Teaching English as a Foreign Language London: Routledge & Kegen Paul Brown H.D (2001) Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to Language Pedogogy New York: Longman Bulletin (1952) The teaching of listening In Arif Saricoban Hacettepe University Clark & Clark (1997) Psychology and language: An introduction to psycholinguistics New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Doff, A (1995) Teaching English: A training course of teachers Cambridge University Express Gillham, B (200) Developing a questionnaire A&C Black Howatt, A and J Darkin (1974) Language laboratory materials 10.Jo Mc Donough, Christopher Shaw, and Hitomi Masuhara (2013) Materials and methods in ELT John Willey & Sons 11 Linsay, C and Knight, P (2006) Learning and Teaching English Oxford University Express 12.Larry Barker (1985) Effective listening Mcgrawn-Hill College 13.Mandelsohn (1994) Learning to Listen: A strategy-based approach for the second-language learner Dominie Press 14.Martin, P (1993) Task for language teachers: A resource book for training and development Cambridge University Express Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Graduation paper 15 Micheal, B (2003) Advance listening DynEd International, Inc 16 O’ Malley, J.M & Chamot, A.U (1989) Listening comprehension strategies in second language acquisition Applied Linguistics, 10 (4), 418437 17 Purdy (1997) Listening in everyday life University Press of America 18 Rivers Wilga, M (1986) Teaching foreign language skill The University of Chicago Press P 157 19 Rost, M (1994) Listening London: Longman 20 Rost, M (2002) Teaching and researching and teaching English London, UK: Longman 21.Samuels, S (1984) Factors influencing listening: Inside and Outside the head Modern language 22.Underwood (1989) Teaching listening London: Longman 23 Ur, P (1992) Teaching listening comprehension Cambridge University Express P4 24 William, L (1981) Communicative language teaching: An Introduction Cambridge University Press Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Graduation paper APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE Name:…………………………… Gender: Male/Female The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify current situation of learning listening skills for first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University Please answer the following questions Question 1: What you think about the listening skills? A It is the most difficult skill B It is a little difficult to learn C It is as difficult as other skill D It is easy to learn Question 2: How you rate the importance of listening skills? A Very important B Important C A little important D Not important Question 3: Which sub-skills you often use while learning listening? (can choose more than one) A Skimming B Summarizing C Scanning D Predicting E Inference F Note-taking Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Graduation paper G Guessing H Listening for total comprehension I Catching key words J Others …………………………… (please verify) Question 4: How often you encounter these following problems (put a tick in an appropriate column) Frequency Problems Never Making predictions what speaker talk about Guessing unknown words or phrases Recognizing the main point Unfamiliar topics Different accents Authentic materials Speed of speech Linking sounds Ungrammatical sentences Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016) Sometimes Often Always Graduation paper Long listening Noise Poor tape quality Poor equipment Question 5: What are your teachers’ activities to create interest in the listening lesson? A Helping the learners to understand the purpose of listening text B Giving some guiding questions C Providing new words and structures D Giving suggestions Question 6: How often you self-practice listening skills? A Often B.Sometimes C.Rarely D Never Question 7: What you to improve your listening skills? A Watch movies B Listen to news (eg: BBC, CNN, ABC Networks…etc) C Listen to music D Talk with native speakers E Learn from the Internet F Others…………………………………( please verify) Thank you very much for your cooperation! Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012 – 2016)