(SKKN mới NHẤT) some experience for grade 6 students at dien bien secondary school on how to learn listening well

I. Introduction
1. Rationales
Nowadays, following the trend of national integration English contributes a
significant part in many areas, including Education. English is not only a
communication tool but also a key to the cultural treasure of mankind. On the
other hand, with the rapid development of information technology, learning
English becomes more urgent and easy for all ages, especially for secondary
school students. English has long been one of the main subjects in their
curriculums.
However, learning and using English requires both a diligent and creative
training process for both students and teachers, not day by day, especially for the
first-graders Like grade 1, grade 6. Most of them are still surprised, with both
teachers and friends. Therefore, learning English becomes more difficult,
especially Listening skills. As an English teacher at Dien Bien Secondary
School for nearly 10 years, I am very concerned about this issue. In the 2018 2019 school year, I was assigned to teach 2 classes 6. When I first received the
class ( September, 2018 ), I conducted a small survey of their English Listening
skill and received the following results
Class

Exellent

Good

Average

Below

Weak

average
6C

7

(48 students)

10

15

(14.58% ) ( 20.83 %) ( 31.25% )

14

2

(29.16%)

(4.18%)

6H

10

15

14

12

3

(54 students)

(18.51%)

(26.31%)

(25.92%)

(22.22%)

(7.04%)

Looking at the survey results, we can realize that only the number of students
who meet the required number of students in the class is very low (35.41% in
grade 6C and 46.29% in grade 6H
2. Objectives and tasks of the topic
In this situation, being an English teacher of grade 6 students, who have been
learning English for many years, I personally want my students to hear better,
1

download by :


can successfully master the information they have heard in daily
communication. To do so, find the key to cause of the problem: "Why do you
listen badly?" In the process of teaching and learning to observe students, I find
that most of them do not know how to learn. It is often difficult for students to
listen. In the class, students often say that although there are many words in the
lesson, they can’t hear. Therefore, based on the knowledge gained at the

University and the experience accumulated for nearly 10 years, I created this
experience initiative to answer the question that was asked, and help my
students to learn Listening skill better.
3. Object and scope of the study
With the scope of this small initiative, I boldly dive into the issue "Some
experiences for students in grade 6 to learn good listening." I was assigned to
teach classes 6C and 6H in the school year 2018 – 2019 at Dien Bien secondary
school, so I applied this research method in my own classroom.
4.Research Methods
Based on the practical experience of nearly 10 years working at Dien Bien
Secondary School, I realized that most of the students’parents have invested for
their chidren to learn in some English centers but not fully know the information
about the center, the course as well as the level of children, but just follow the
general trend. Moreover, teachers at these centers are not entirely British.
Therefore, learning efficiency is not high, or in other words is not effective. In
addition, some families hire tutors for their children at home. These students are
only allowed to complete homework for all the subjects according to the
timetable, hardly learning new knowledge. This is very dangerous, will
gradually create a reliance on students, lazy thinking, reduced ability to
remember. With this research topic, I hope that I will solve a part of that
problem that I have mentioned above, creating the best conditions for them to
take the exam effectively, contributing to small secondary development of the
education sector. Students will be categorized before listening, each of the
students will be new listeners with increasing difficulty levels.
2

download by :


II. The content of the initiative

1. The situation of teaching and learning listening at Dien Bien secondary
school
At Dien Bien secondary school, there are 5 teachers of English, all 5 teachers
have approached and used relatively the techniques of listening well, proactively
teaching with a method of organizing a lesson to listen and coordinate quite
well, active teaching techniques. In addition, the classrooms are well equipped
with multi-purpose projectors, loud - speakers and radios . It’s good for the
listening process, helping teachers to use these devices more. Therefore, the
lessons taught become lively, charismatic and highly effective. Students have
been accustomed to each lesson. Most of students can listen and recognize the
voice of native speakers, listen to the songs with simple, moderate content,
understand the teachers' requirements and assignments. In addition, Dien Bien
secondary school is one of the schools in Thanh Hoa city, so it is very
convenient for students to attend English listening classes in some English
centers to develop their listening skill. However, there are still some students
who have don’t want to study, lazy to write, limited listening ability. Moreover,
there are relatively difficult parts to listen to, a lot of knowledge, a little time to
listen, difficult words that students can hardly understand. Students are also
unfamiliar with the speed of reading and speaking in English tapes, especially
for students in grade 6. So how to overcome these weaknesses, contribute to
improving the quality of listening skills, helping students be more confident in
communicating and using English as a second language?
2. Some measures to teach and teach English listening skills to students
2.1. What is listening teaching
Listening is a complex language activity, which is one of the main purposes of
teaching and learning foreign languages. When speaking, the ideas are often not
arranged in a strict sequence like when writing, there are many redundant words,
from buffering, or not grammatical. It can be said, spoken off, hesitant ... When
reading can read and reread many times, while listening to others, we can only
3

download by :


listen once. So, when teaching listening, in addition to general tricks that can be
applied to listening skills, teachers also need specific tricks for listening
activities of students.
Listening consists of two levels:
* Level 1: (Identify or distinguish)
 The recognition of sounds, words, and words is related to each other. When this
ability becomes automatic, the listener can reproduce, behave and respond to
what they hear.
* Level 2: (Option)
 The listener understands the words that are useful to understand the speaker. At
first, I understood the sentences, the words were short, simple, and later
understood the longer sentences.
2.2. Study listening activity
* Listening in daily life

There are two main ways to listen

- Entertaining listening: through listening to radio, watching television ... but can
still conduct another job simultaneously.
- Listen with focus: is the intentional listening activities, want to capture some
information . For example, listening to news on the radio or television, listening
to instructions, explanations, listening to lectures.... In this case, the listener
mainly focuses on the important points because they know what they want to
listen. This helps listeners only pay attention to the right content, which make
listening more effectively.
* Listening in language learning environment

Mainly focused on listening and developing listening skills. There are some
following main types of listening in learning a foreign language
- Listen to the main idea.
- Listen to find the necessary information.
- Listen to confirm the previous guess.
- Listening to perform communication tasks are in place.
- Listen to details (both content and language structure).
4

download by :


2.3. Conduct listening techniques
- Confidence building

- Sentence stress reception

- Topic interpretation

- Listening to the main idea

- Recognising details

- Dictations

- Listening to capture necessary information

- Sequence diagram

- Spelling grammar

- Listening-recording

2.4. Organize different listening activities
* Helping students listening effectively
In fact, in the two classes I teach, listening is still a difficult skill for the majority
of students. To overcome these difficulties, teachers can use the measures that I
have tried to apply in 2 classes as follows:
- Introduce the topic, the content related to the listening , explain concepts if
necessary.
- Raising questions to help students predict what content to listen to.
- Introducing new words (if necessary ).
- Giving guidance questions when listening.
- Divide the listening process into steps. For example:
+ The first time: listen to the main idea, answer the general questions.
+ The second time: listen to more details ...
- If the lesson is long, divide the lesson into short paragraphs for students to
listen to, have different specific listening requirements.
* Predict what is coming (prediction)
It is really necessary to predict the content related to the listening part. Through
these predictions, they can visualize a number of vocabulary related to the
listening in a certain context. This activity can be carried out with storylines or a
conversation. For example, when listening to a conversation about asking for
directions, the teacher can stop after a character's question line in the
conversation and ask students how the other character will respond. What words
will be used ....When listening to a story, the teacher can stop at the appropriate
5

download by :

sections and ask questions such as: What just happened? Where did it happen?
What will happen next? .... before listening to the whole story.
Example : English 6 – Unit 4 ( My neighbourhood – page 45 )
Listen to the conversation between a stranger and Duy’s dad. Fill in the Blanks
with the word you hear.
A : Excuse me. Where is the supermarket?
B : Go to (1) ________ the end of the street. It’s on your (2) _______
A : And where is the (3) ________ ?
B : It’s in ( 4) _______ . Take the ( 5) ______, and it’s on your left.
Tape script:
A : Excuse me. Where is the supermarket?
B : Go to the end of this street. It’s on your right.
A : And where is the lower secondary school?
B : It’s in Le Duan street. Take the second right and it’s on your left.
A : Great ?Where can I have some coffee ?
B : Quynh Cafe in Tran Quang Dieu street is a good one.
A : How can I get there?
B : Firt turn left, then turn right. Go straight. It’s on your left.
A : How about an art gallery?
B : First take the third left. Then go to the end of Le Loi Street, and it’s on your
right.
* Listen to assert your guesses about the listening’s content: Before listening,
the mining teacher suggests what students already know about the content of the
problem to listen, what is not clear, what is not know. Then, listen to and relate
your knowledge to the content you need to listen to.
Example: English 6 - Review 1 ( units 1, 2, 3 - page 37 )
An and Mi are talking on the phone. Listen and circle the part of the house you
hear.
Kitchen

Bathroom

garden
bedroom

garage
living room
6

download by :


In this part, after listening to the request, the students can know that they will
hear about the house, but do not know what it is. Would that be the names of the
rooms or the names of the appliances in the room? But when they read the
suggestions given, they would be limited to listening only about the rooms.
Tape script :
An : Are you at home alone?
Mi : No, every one is at home.
An : Where is your mum? Is she cooking in the kitchen?
Mi : No, she is watering the flowers in the garden.
An : And where is your dad ?
Mi : He’s in the living room.
An : What is he doing ?
Mi : He’s listening to the radio.
An : What about your younger brother? Is he with your mum?
Mi : No, he’s sleeping in my bedroom. My cousin, Vi is here, too.
An : What is she doing?
Mi : She’s watching TV.
* Listen for the necessary information

When listening, the teacher has to create the listening requirements, focusing on
the important contents so that listening has a specific purpose. The forms

of

requirements are very diverse, which can be a form of answering questions or
filling out forms.
Example : English 6 – Unit 3 (My friends – page 31 )
What do you see in the photos? Choose the word in the box to fill in the table. Then, listen and
check.

riding a bike

hiking

skiing

taking part in a cooking competition

playing beach volleyball

taking part in an art workshop

visiting a milk farm

playing traditional game

taking a public speaking class

7

download by :


A

F

B

G

C

H

D

I

E

8

download by :


* Listen to grasp the main idea (Listen for gist / for main ideas)
In many cases, students need to be trained to understand the main ideas and
generalizations of the lesson without caring about the details.

Example : English 6 – Unit 7 ( Television – page 22 )
PROGRAMME

CHANNEL 1 CHANNEL 2 CHANNEL 3

Music: Green Green summer
Cartoon : The Red Spotted
Squirell
Film : The Lonly Giraffe
Home and Garden: How to
make a Dog house
Our World : The Old Town of
Inca
* Listen to perform the next communication activities
There are listening activities, often in the form of filling out tables, to serve as a
follow-up activity.
Example: English 6 – Unit 3: My friends ( page 31)
9

download by :


Listen to Mr. Lee, the camp leader, talking on the phone with Nick’s parents.
What are they doing on Day Two and Day Three at the camp?
Day Two

Morning

Afternoon

Doing a treasure hunt

Visiting

a

milk

farm

and ..........................................
Day Three

..............................................

..................................................

2.5. Understand some basic principles when conducting listening activities
Normally, the process of a listening lesson goes through three stages: Pre Listening, While - Listening, and Post - Listening. This teaching process not
only helps students understand the lesson but also helps them use listening skills
in real communication. This way, teachers need to clearly define the purpose of
each specific lesson, so that they can guide students to perform well in the next
stages.
* Pre - Listening
This step will help students navigate, think about the topic or situation before
listening. The teacher asks by asking about the topic of the listening, asking the
students to observe the picture, etc. Maybe they say incorrectly to what they are
listening, but the problem is that they are interested before listening. After that,
the teacher instructs the task request when listening (choose right, wrong,
answer questions ...) and tell the students how many times they will listen.

* Some tricks teaching during this period:
- True / False statements prediction

- Open - prediction

- Ordering

- Pre-question

Example 1: English 6- Unit 5: Natural wonders of the world ( page 58)
Nick’s family are in the travel agent’s. They want to go on holiday. They are
choosing a place from the brochure. Listen and answer the questions.
*Pre - listening :
- Step 1: Teaching vocabulary
+ mention ( v ) : translation

+ travel agent ( n ) : imagination

+ interesting ( a ) : translation

+ book ( v ) : translation
10

download by :


- Step 2: Open prediction
Ask students to read through the questions. Predict the information and then
compare it with their partners. Finally, listen to he key words to answer the
questions.

1.What other places does the travel agent talk about ?
2.What questions does Nick’s mum ask?
3.What advice does the travel agent give?
4.Is Nick happy about the choice?
- Feed back students' prediction
Example 2: English 6 – Unit 7 ( Television – page 22)
Listen to the text and write statements 1 – 5 with T for true and F for false
Statements
1.The first programme starts at seven-thirty.

____

2.There are two progammes starting at the same time.

____

3. The Red Spotted Squirrel lasts forty-five minutes.

____

4. The Lonely Giraffe finishes at ten o’clock.

____

5. The Old Town of Inca is in India

____

* While – Listening
This step will allow students to have many training opportunities, so they can

easily make mistakes, so teachers need to fix mistakes for students and make
correct answers.Some activities shown during this period:
+ Defining True – False

+ Checking the correct answer

+ Matching

+ Filling in the grids / charts / gaps

+ Answering comprehension questions

+ Selecting

+ Deliberating mistakes

+ Listening and drawing

Example 1: English 6 – unit 4: My neighbourhood ( page 45 )
Listen to the conversation between a stranger and Duy’s dad. Fill in the blanks
with the words you hear.
A: Excuse me. Where is the supermarket?
B: Go to (1) ________ the end of the street. It’s on your (2) _______
11

download by :


A : And where is the (3) ________ ?
B : It’s in ( 4) _______ . Take the ( 5) ______, and it’s on your left.

Example 2: English 6 – unit 8 : Sports and Game ( page 42 )
Listen to the passage. Then write T for true and F for false for each sentence.
1.Hai plays chess every Saturday.

____

2. “ Angry Bird” is Bill’s favourite game.

____

3. Alice doesn’t like doing sport very much.

____

4. Trung is very good at football.

____

5. Bill’s dream is to create a new game

____

* Post - Listening:
This is the practice stage after listening. At this stage, students use the "While listening"

knowledge

and

language

skills

in

meaningful,

practical

communication situations. After listening, students need to perform a number of
exercises such as reading the text, writing a similiar text ...... The Other students
listen and give comments.
Example : English 6- Unit 4: My neighbourhood (page 43 )
Nick is listening to an audio guide to Hoi An. Listen and fill in the gaps.
Welcome to Hoi An! Hoi An is famous for its (1)__________ buildings, shops,
pagodas and houses. They are older than in other cities in Viet Nam. The streets
are very narrow, so it is more (2) ________ to walk there.
OK. Let’s start out tour! First, go to Quan Cong Temple. To get there, walk
(3)_________ for five minutes. The Temple is on your left. (4) ________ go to
The Museum of Sa Huynh Culture. Take the second (5)________ . Turn right,
and it’s on your (6)_________. Then, have lunch at Cafe 96. Its “Cao lau” and
“banh vac” are very good. Turn left and take the (7)_________turning on your
right.Finally, go to Hoa Nhap Workshop to buy presents for your friends. Turn
left, then turn right. The Workshop is (8) ________ Tan Ki house.

12

download by :

13

download by :


Depending on the characteristics of each lesson, teachers can carry out the 3step process of listening comprehension for students, especially the first step so
that they can help them to form and develop excitement and ability, focus, know
how to use information to guess what to listen to. Thus, students will be more
proactive and confident when listening. After listening and doing the exercises,
the teacher should summarize the conversation based on the information already
in the lesson.
2.6. Conduct multi-dimensional methods
Many teachers think that teaching the listening part is the most difficult and
most students think it is the most difficult to learn. So how to teach students how
to listen well? How can students make rapid progress during their time in
secondary school? I often encourage students to practice listening with some of
the following methods:
- Watch many TV shows or movies in English / with English subtitles. Listen or
watch many times, before reading the subtitles. Then, read the subtitles again,
mainly checking the words that are heard or guessed, or words that students can
pronounce back but don't understand how to write and what they mean. Through
this, they discovered that a word which they have seen before is easy to say in
some way, but in different pronunciation. After that, do not look at the subtitles
14

download by :


again but listen again a couple of times. The attached images make students
understand more or less the content of the listening, without translating each

sentence. By the way, students will be able to capture the main part of the news
content.
- Listening to listening practice books with cassette tapes or listening to news
via English radio and television programs such as VTV News, Talk
Vietnam, ..... Listen to tapes and write down what you hear, then compare it
with the dialogue at the end of the book or the answer provided by the teacher.
This method is arguably the most effective, although it will take a long time for
students to practice. Students can compare and see the mistakes they make.
- Learn or listen to English songs, and sing along while listening. Choose some
of the songs you like, find out about it and listen. After that, memorize and sing
in parallel with the singer, and try to pronounce as well as keep the speed and
the field right, because often the language in the songs is more difficult to hear
than the usual sentences. It may be difficult to hear phrases that are read
intertwined, stuck, or listening to some important words or misinterpreting a
word that leads to content bias.
- Listening through fairy tales, poetry, fiction, proverbs and famous
works.understand a word or phrase, try to repeat as many times as you have
heard, then turn over the script to compare.
2.7. Apply questioning techniques when teaching English listening skills
During the teaching process, the question is always used as a popular tool and
almost indispensable in every lesson. In a listening lesson, I often use many
different types of questions such as: Yes-No questions; Alternative questions;
Wh-questions; Multiple choice; True-False ...The types of questions that are
answered by taking the sentences heard directly in the lesson are often easier but
with sentences that require reasoning and evaluation to answer, it is difficult to
choose the type of questions to study Listening, guessing and answering are
required for teachers to be flexible.
2.8. Combine listening practice into other technical groups
15

download by :


a. Basic training technique group
These are prerequisite tricks in forming students' ability to listen to English.
* Formation of attention focused attention when listening:
Have students listen to each sentence or phrase, and the teacher call the students
individually. Practice giving students the sense and habit of listening to
classmates. One way to help students focus on listening is that teachers often ask
questiions, students have to reuse information from what they have said to
answer.These are prerequisite tricks in forming students' ability to listen to
English.
Example: English 6- Unit 10: Our houses in the future (Page 74)
Student A says: "Outside my window, I can see beach and the water. I see
chidren playing. Where is my house”. After student A finished, I called any of
my students to answer the question: "What can A see outside his window?
Where is his house? "
* Besides, teachers can integrate teaching some English songs for more lively
lessons.
* Practice listening to the stress of the word and the stress of the sentence.
When listening to a word, we should practice listening to the stress of that word.
When listening to a sentence, pay attention to the stresses in the sentence and
then combine those accents to guess the meaning of the whole sentence.
Example : English 6 – unit 3 : My friends ( page 54 )
Listen, then practice the chant. Notice the rhythm.
We’re having a picnic.
We’re having a picnic.
Fun! Fun! Fun!
We’re bringing some biscuits.
We’re bringing some biscuits.

Yum! Yum! Yum !
We’re playing together
We’re playing together
16

download by :


Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
*Practice listening and recognizing easy sounding pairs, sounds that are difficult
to pronounce, how to connect sounds in native speakers. This is an obstacle for
students to listen to native speakers. Teachers can use "ship or sheep" training
materials to teach, this practice needs to be done in a regular and consistent
manner while training new words, introducing new grammatical structures, or
performing activities "Listen and read" or "read" in each lesson unit. In addition,
teachers can perform a number of games to help them both relax and strengthen
their sound recognition skills and how to connect specific sounds closer to
native sounds.
b. Technical training group focus
These are ways to help students practice listening comprehension skills in a
conversation or a reading textbook. There are two main measures:
* Combine "Listen and read" or "read" sections:
Teachers create more listening opportunities for students by exploiting the
language in these sections and designing a variety of listening exercises. The
"listen and read" section is a conversation to introduce the topic and new
vocabulary and grammatical structure but also includes the language that
students have learned. Therefore, it is possible to exploit certain parts of this
stage to practice listening skills. Teachers create listening situations by giving
real-world situations, actual family life, or real stories, etc. In addition, teachers
can give pictures related to the listening. This step is designed to help students

get excited and recognize the subject's direction.
Example: English 6- Unit 1: My new school ( page 7)
- Set the scence: Look at the picture and answer the questions
1. How many people are there in the picture?
2. Who are they?
3. What are they doing?
- Ask students to listen and answer the questions. Have students to listen to the
tape twice to discover new vocabulary as well as its new structure and stress.
17

download by :


* Organize students to actively listen and creatively "listening" parts in
textbooks. Depending on the characteristics of each lesson, teachers can carry
out the three-step process of listening comprehension for students, especially the
first step so that they can help them form and develop excitement and ability.
Focus on the focus to hear and know how to use information from the questions
or pictures, charts in listening exercises to make a base to speculate what is
listening. Thus, students are more active and confident when listening.
Example : Englisch 6 – unit 6 : Our Tet holiday ( page 68 ) Mai and her
mother are going shopping for Tet. Listen and tick ( V ) the things they will
buy.
1. Peach blossoms
2. Banh chung
3. New clothes
4. A tie
5. Sweets
6. Fruit
7. Chocolate biscuits

18

download by :


c. Extensive training technique group
Provide some extra exercises by selecting some language courses at the same
level from such documents as doing short weekly, monthly tests, correcting
lessons and assessing in class. The results of these papers need to be kept in
chronological order to help students easily identify their own progress, as well
as let teachers communicate with their parents about their child's learning.
3. The result
After applying the listening skill teaching methods that I presented above in 2
classes 6C and 6H of Dien Bien secondary school, I found that students learned
19

download by :


harder, interested in listeninG. They also pronounced words more accurately,
which help them to be more confident in communicating inside or outside the
classroom. I also easily find every weak and strong point so that I can have the
best teaching method that suits each student's level. Here are the results.
Class

Total

Time of survey Positive behavior

Needs work behavior

6C

48

6 months

55%

45%

6H

54

6 months

70 %

30 %

Class

Exellent

Good

Average

Below

Weak

average
6C

9

(48 students)

14

(18.75% ) ( 29.16%)

18

5

2

( 37.5% )

(10.41%)

(4.18%)

6H

14

19

15

4

2

(54 students)

(25.92%)

(35.18%)

(27.77%)

(7.4%)

(3.7%)

III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Conclusion
With the teaching methods given in this initiative , I hope to partly help teachers
reduce the boring and difficulty of a listening lesson, and stimulate the interest
in learning of the students, help them be more confident in communication and
achieve higher results in learning.
2. Recommendations
This is the experience that I have been achieved through the University and
where I am teaching English now – Dien Bien secondary school. Anyway, it
will still have problems. I am expected to be taken into encouragement with the

campaign. I always try my best to find the best way to improve my English
listening skills. I hope Education Department and Dien Bien secondary school
would equipped us an English teaching room so that we can teach and learn
effectively.
Give my sincere thank you !
20

download by :


Thanh Hoa, April 10th2019
Confirmation Thanh Hoa City Education I hereby declare this initiative is
and Training Department

written by myself, no photocopy
from any others
Written by
Nguyen Viet Phuong

REFERENCES
1. Textbook of English 6 ( pilot programme - part 1 )
2. Text book of English 6 ( pilot programme - part 2 )
3. Images from some websites in the internet ( laodong.vn, soha.vn,
sapo.vn, khoahoc.tv, thuthuattaimienphi.vn..... )

21

download by :