Enhancing the quality of teaching learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and contents of the new textbook tieng anh 8 in phu yen province

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

HO THI VIET LUAN
M.A. THESIS in TESOL

ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING-LEARNING
LISTENING SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRICULUM
AND CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 8
IN PHU YEN PROVINCE

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN VAN MUOI, Ph. D

HO CHI MINH CITY – 2005


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:
“ENHANCING

THE

QUALITY

OF

TEACHING-LEARNING

LISTENING SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRICULUM AND
CONTENTS OF THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 8 IN PHU YEN
PROVINCE”.
In terms of the statements of requirements for the Thesis in Master’s
Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee

HCM city, December, 2005.

Hồ Thị Việt Luaän

i


RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
I hereby state that I, Ho Thi Viet Luan being the candidate for the
Degree of Master of TESOL accept the requirements of the university
relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the
University Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis
deposited in the University Library should be accessible for purposes of
study and research in accordance with the normal conditions established by
the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses.

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Nguyen Van Muoi, for his valuable assistance, instructions and
encouragement during the time of implementing the thesis.

I am also greatly indebted to the Phu Yen DOET for creating
favourable conditions for me to collect the essential data from the English
teaching staff in the secondary schools in Tuy Hoa town.
My sincere thanks are also to the principals of two secondary
schools: Nguyen Du and Tran Quoc Toan for their warm supports for me to
carry out my study in their schools.

iii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
1. DOET: The Department of Education and Training
2. MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training
3. GTM: Grammar-Translation Method
4. ALM: Audio-Lingual Method
5. CLTM: Communicative Language Teaching Method

iv


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4.1 The frequency of implementing the three-stage procedure
Figure 4.2 Degree of difficulty of the pre-listening stage
Figure 4.3 Difficulties of the pre-listening stage
Figure 4.4 Degree of difficulty of the while-listening stage
Figure 4.5 Difficulties of the while-listening stage
Figure 4.6 Degree of difficulty of the post-listening stage
Figure 4.7 Difficulties of the post-listening stage
Figure 4.8 The students’ attitude to learning listening
Figure 4.9 Degree of confidence before listening

v


ABSTRACT
Together with the movement which the total Education-Training
Branch making best efforts in innovating the teaching-learning method at
middle school level – in the tendency of stimulating the learners’
dynamism, active creativity in all the learning activities, the demands of
enhancing the quality of teaching-learning language skills for the above
trend have been being raised for not only those who are directly carrying
out the process of teaching language skills but also education managers
and researchers who are very interested in improving effectiveness of
teaching-learning language skills in the system of secondary school
education. Under the current situation, the thesis is developed and focused
mainly on listening skills in the pursuit of enhancing the quality of
teaching-learning listening skills appropriate to the curriculum and the
contents of the new text book Tieng Anh 8 of MOET. The data is handled
and collected during the process of the study according to the descriptive
and qualitative analysis. The questionnaires, observations and interviews
are implemented as the surveys with a hope of finding out the potential
obstacles that teachers and learners have encountered in teaching-learning
listening

and

presenting

some

vi

implications,

suggestions

and


recommendations in order to improve teaching-learning listening skills in
the secondary schools more effectively.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality..............................................................................i
Retention and use of the thesis.................................................................. ii
Acknowledgements .................................................................................. iii
List of abbreviations..................................................................................iv
List of figures .............................................................................................v
Abstract .....................................................................................................vi
Table of contents .....................................................................................vii
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................... 1
...... 1.1 Background ..................................................................................1
...... 1.2 The aim of the study.................................................................... 2
...... 1.3 The structure of the thesis ...........................................................3
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW......................................................... 5
...... 2.1 Listening and listening process.................................................... 5
............ 2.1.1 The importance of listening................................................ 5
............ 2.1.2 Listening process ................................................................ 6
...... 2.2 Stages of teaching-learning listening comprehension ..................9
............ 2.2.1 Pre-listening ......................................................................10

vii


............ 2.2.2 While-listening ..................................................................12
............ 2.2.3 Post-listening .....................................................................14
...... 2.3 Uncertainty of learners...............................................................16
............ 2.3.1 Uncertainty of confidence .................................................16
............ 2.3.2 Uncertainty of spoken language ........................................17
..................... 2.3.2.1 Redundancy ...........................................................19
..................... 2.3.2.2 Noise......................................................................19
............ 2.3.3 Uncertainty of vocabulary and grammatical structures .....20
............ 2.3.4 Uncertainty of listening strategies .....................................22
..................... 2.3.4.1 Predicting...............................................................22
..................... 2.3.4.2 Selective listening..................................................23
..................... 2.3.4.3 Inferencing.............................................................23
..................... 2.3.4.4 Personalizing .........................................................24
...... 2.4 Teaching methods ......................................................................24
............ 2.4.1 Grammar-Translation Method ...........................................25
............ 2.4.2 Audio-Lingual Method ......................................................27
............ 2.4.3 Communicative Language Teaching Method....................28
...... 2.5 Summary ....................................................................................30
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY..................................................................31
...... 3.1 Research setting .........................................................................31
...... 3.2 Research questions .....................................................................31
...... 3.3 The study ....................................................................................32
............ 3.3.1 Background to the study ....................................................32
............ 3.3.2 The design and content of the new textbook Tieng Anh 8 .32

viii

............ 3.3.3 The objects of the study.....................................................34
...... 3.4 Methods for the study .................................................................35
............ 3.4.1 Questionnaire ....................................................................35
............ 3.4.2 Questionnaire design .........................................................36
..................... 3.4.2.1 Questionnaire for teachers.....................................36
..................... 3.4.2.2 Questionnaire for students .....................................38
............ 3.4.3 Observation .......................................................................39
............ 3.4.4 Interview ...........................................................................41
...... 3.5 Summary ....................................................................................43
Chapter 4: FINDING AND ANALYSIS...................................................44
...... 4.1 The background of the English teachers.....................................45
...... 4.2 The potential obstacles in teaching-learning listening ...............46
............ 4.2.1 The content of the listening lessons in the new textbook
Tieng Anh 8 ........................................................................46
............ 4.2.2 The issues concerning teaching listening ..........................51
..................... 4.2.2.1 The issues concerning performing the three-stage
teaching procedure .................................................51
..................... 4.2.2.2 Pre-listening stage .................................................54
..................... 4.2.2.3 While-listening stage .............................................56
..................... 4.2.2.4 Post-listening stage ................................................59
............ 4.2.3 The issues concerning learning listening...........................62
...... 4.3 Teaching methods of listening via the classroom observations
and the small interviews with three observed teachers .............69
............ 4.3.1 The first class observation .................................................69
............ 4.3.2 The second class observation ............................................71

ix

............ 4.3.3 The third class observation ................................................72
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION-IMPLICATIONS-SUGGESTIONS ..............75
...... 5.1 Conclusion ..................................................................................75
...... 5.2 Pedagogical implications............................................................79
............ 5.2.1 Implications for teaching ...................................................79
........ 5.2.1.1 How to use the new textbook Tieng Anh 8..........................79
..................... 5.2.1.2 How to implement the three-stage procedure of
teaching-learning listening ...........................................80
..................... 5.2.1.3 Teaching methods..................................................83
..................... 5.2.1.4 The other essential teaching techniques ................84
...... 5.3 Suggestions to students...............................................................88
...... 5.4 Suggestions to the education managers in Phu Yen DOET ........90
...... 5.5 Limitation of the study and recommendation for further research ..91
BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................93
APPENDICES ..........................................................................................98
Appendix A: Questionnaire for English language teachers in secondary
schools in Phu Yen province................................................98
Appendix B: Finding ..............................................................................101
Appendix C: Questionnaire for the grade-eight students .......................104
Appendix D: Findings ............................................................................106
Appendix E: Interview questions with the observed teachers in the
secondary schools and interview questions with the DOET’s
teachers and Phu Yen College’s English teachers .............107
Appendix F: Classroom observation sheet (1) .......................................108
Appendix G: Classroom observation sheet (2).......................................113

x

Appendix H: Classroom observation sheet (3).......................................116

xi


Chapter 1: Introduction

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
English in the curriculum of the general education at middle school
level is being re-orientated in the Communicative Language Teaching
Method to carry out the objectives of MOET “The process of teaching and
learning English must serve the needs of communication, establish learners
both the basic knowledge and language skills in English in order to develop
their thoughts, which have a great impact on developing their competence
in the mother language and providing them a more thorough language
competence.” (The Resolution 40/2000 -The Tenth National Assembly)
The set of the new textbooks Tieng Anh 6, 7 has come into use
officially in the whole country for the past school years 2002-2003, 20032004, in the pursuit of achieving the MOET’s objectives. More importantly,
the textbook Tieng Anh 8 employed in the school year 2004-2005 has a
developing structure of the lessons quite different from the one of Tieng
Anh 6, 7. The big change in the process of developing lessons in the
textbook Tieng Anh 8 means that the four language skills are taught and
developed separately and concentrated on the specific periods, whereas
according to the developing structure of the lesson of the text books Tieng
Anh 6, 7, the language skills are taught in integration and only expressed in
combination with the various drills.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

However, after three school years carrying out the new curriculum of
the new text books with the Communicative Language Teaching Method,
almost the secondary school teachers in Phu Yen province are still in a
state of confusion and in-confidence in teaching listening skills, which
partially causes any influence on the quality of teaching-learning foreign
language in the province.
Apparently, teaching-learning a foreign language is to develop at full
capacity for four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing.
Moreover, for learners, listening is often regarded as the most difficult one
in the four language skills; and for secondary school teachers who have not
been familiar to developing the language skills separately, helping learners
improve listening skills effectively is still a great challenge.
As a language teacher working at Phu Yen Teachers’ Training
College where is completely in charge of organizing the seminars and
workshops of the innovation of teaching methods for the secondary school
teachers of the province, the author focuses a special interest on enhancing
the quality of teaching-learning listening skills appropriate to the
curriculum and contents of the new textbook Tieng Anh 8. The research
will be a scientific and practical contribution towards achieving the main
objectives in innovation of teaching-learning methods for the cause of
Education and Training in Phu Yen Province.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.2 The aim of the study
Checking and evaluating teaching-learning listening skills in all the
secondary schools in the province, organized annually by DOET, shows
that the effectiveness of teaching-learning listening skills is the lowest.
Therefore, it is quite worthwhile to consider this issue carefully in order to
decrease the negative results as much as possible.
The purpose of this study is focused on investigating and seeking
empirical evidence in order to have a thorough understanding of the
current situations of teaching and learning English listening skills at the
middle schools in Phu yen province so that the researcher can find out the
potential strengths and weakness that teachers and learners express in the
process of teaching and learning listening skills.
It is also necessary to find out potential problems generating in
teaching-learning listening in the secondary schools. At the same time the
researcher also explores the most urgent and necessary demands from the
teachers who are directly responsible for teaching listening skills in a way
appropriate with the new textbook Tieng Anh 8.
On the base of discovering the above-mentioned issues, in a limited
scale, the thesis will try to present some appropriately-improved
pedagogical implications and suggestions to help the secondary school
teachers improving teaching-learning listening skills more effectively.
1.3 The structure of the thesis
The organization of the study consists of five chapters.
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Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter One presents an introduction including the following details:
1. Background of the problem
2. Aim of study
3. Structure of the thesis
Chapter Two presents the review of the literature and research
relevant to the study including the following details:
1. The importance of listening
2. The theories of listening
3. The teaching methods
Chapter Three gives a detailed description of the methodology
employed in the study.
Chapter Four analyses and discusses the results of the investigations
of the issues mentioned in Chapter Three in order to orientate the
pedagogical implications, the suggestions towards the next chapter.
Chapter Five includes the conclusions together with the pedagogical
implications for teaching, the suggestions to learning and managing
teaching-learning

English

at

secondary

recommendation for further research.

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school

level

and

the


Chapter 2: Literature Review

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW
The purpose of the chapter is to review the relevant literature for the
study and also regarded as a theoretical evidence to support the
researcher’s hypothesis.
2.1 Listening and listening process
2.1.1 The importance of listening
According to Mary Underwood [39], listening is an activity of paying
attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear. Therefore,
listening keeps a vital role in every day communication. To listen to
spoken language, listeners need to be able to work out to what speakers
mean, and this a skill which requires considerable efforts for foreign
language learners.
The point has frequently been made by Rivers [35] that of the time
an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9 per cent is
devoted in writing, 16 per cent to reading, 30 per cent to speaking and 45
per cent to listening. Apparently listening is used in the highest frequency
in comparison with the other skills. Learners spend the very high
proportion of time attempting to listen-comprehension in classrooms.
Moreover, there emerges in the recent years an increasing trend of

learning foreign language with interest oracy. The ability to understand and
participate in spoken communication is considered as the first-ranked
concern of the education in Vietnam and this is the most basic and practical

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

objective towards which teaching-learning a foreign language has been
making the best efforts to orientate. It is the current interest in oracy that
has generated a stronger focus on listening in the classroom, and
developing good listening habits and strategies. In other words, the foreign
language acquisition cannot gain any achievement or any learning simply
cannot begin without the comprehensible input, so listening plays a key
part in language acquisition and listening is fundamental to speaking.
It is undoubted that the development of effective strategies for
listening becomes important not only for oracy but also for the process of
acquiring language. Learners need stressing the importance and role of
listening in learning foreign language. Language teachers are required to
master how to help learners build scientific methods in dealing with
authentic spoken English, aiming at gaining the best effectiveness in
teaching-learning listening.
2.1.2 Listening process
Listening is a “receptive skill”, and Trecia Hedge [17, p. 227] cites
that it has been described as the “neglected, “overlooked”, or “taken for
granted” skill. Certainly some teaching-learning methods have assumed
that listening ability develops automatically through exposure to the
language and through practice of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.
Listening is really a two-direction process of acquisition. This is a

combination of both listening and exposing the information or data with
comprehending-decoding the acoustic signals and then catching the content

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

of the data and scoring in the long-term memory. Such a process is clearly
an “active” and “constructive” one. Indeed, the psychologists Bartlert
(1932), Carrell and Eisterhold (1987) considered that the process of
perceiving and decoding the acoustic signals goes on in two directions:
bottom-up and top-down.
In the bottom-up process, listeners use their knowledge of language
competence to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that
speech presents. The listeners use information in the speech itself to try to
comprehend the meaning. The listeners segment speech into identifiable
sounds and impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases, clauses,
sentences and intonation patterns, all of which are available to infer the
meaning from developing speech. In other words, the process of bottom-up
is a linear one, in which meaning itself is derived as the last step in the
process.
Hedge [17, p 230] presents several listening strategies of the bottomup which enable the listeners facilitate in inferring the meaning from the
developing speech:
-In the English language, the placement of stress on the meaningful
words, the use of pauses which mark the edge of “sense” groups, and
the relationship of stressed to unstressed syllables, plus increased
tempo, clipped enunciation and accompanying non-verbal behavior
such as head shaking and frowning, all provide listeners with

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

information as to the meaning, function and implicating emotion of a
message.
-Listeners employ the lexical knowledge to assign the meanings
to words and use logical reasoning to infer the relationship between
them. There are logical categories and relations which derive from the
listeners’ experience of the world and which enable the listeners to
impose the meaning on what they hear.
-Listeners also use the knowledge of syntactic structure to infer
meaning. The listeners tend to expect a typical structure of sentences in
order to impose the meaning from what is heard.
All these strategies enable listeners to work out the links in
discourses to hold word sequences which the listeners make sense of what
is heard as fast as possible.
In the top-down process, the listeners actively reconstruct the
original meaning of the speakers using incoming sounds as clues. In this
reconstruction process, the listeners use prior knowledge of the context and
situation which the listening takes place to make sense of what they hear.
Context and situation include such things as knowledge of the topic, the
speakers and speakers and their relationship to the situation, as well as to
each other; or knowledge of language, socio-culture, life. The prior
knowledge which listeners bring to the process of listening has a very great
impact on what they are able to get out of it and to infer the meaning of the
content. This process is completely contrast to the one that listeners

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

become embedded in determining the meaning of the individual words and
certainly it brings more effectiveness for teaching-learning listening.
It is no doubted that listening comprehension is not a passive process
of perceiving and decoding the acoustic signals like a cassette-recorder,
but a really complicated process that requires the listeners to link both the
function of the bottom-up and top-down strategies simultaneously and
mutually. Moreover, it requires the listeners to employ a range of the
language competence in listening.
The process from listening-receipting information to comprehendingdecoding the acoustic signals, to inferring the content of the information, to
scoring in the long-term memory proves that listening is not a passive
process as thought before. This is an actively interactive process in which
linguistic information, contextual clues, and prior knowledge make some
interactions to support comprehension. In order to carry out listeningcomprehension foreign language in the best way, listeners need to be
aware of how to employ listening input and the factors from the insights
effectively. Therefore, a classroom procedure of developing listening
needs to be designed the following steps: pre-while-post-listening.
2.2 Stages of teaching-learning listening comprehension
From the late 1960s, the importance of listening in language classes
was recognized and set aside time for practicing the skill. A relatively
standard format for the listening lesson developed at this time: Prelistening, while-listening and post-listening.
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Chapter 2: Literature Review

The procedure of teaching-learning listening in three stages is a good

pattern for language teachers to modify considerably. It not only has an
effective impact on listening comprehension but also is an appropriate
opportunity for listeners to employ both the bottom-up and the top-down
strategies in the most productive way. A language teacher makes sure that
a listening lesson proceeds in an orderly and productive way so that
learners can feel secure and partially aware of what is expected from
them, all of which help learners become more proficient in listening to
English.
2.2.1 Pre-listening
This is a stage when the context of the listening is established, the
tasks explained and assistance given as necessary- Mary Underwood [39,
p. 28]. In this stage, the listeners are equipped with some ideas of what
they expect to hear. The listeners are also provided some opportunities to
activate the prior knowledge relevant to the topic, setting and speakers.
Pre-listening is extremely essential for teaching-learning listening. A
language teacher needs to be creative and flexible not only to form the
activities appropriate with the purpose of listening, but to exploit the
learners’ prior knowledge and language competence as well. The learners
feel more confident when they are aware of what they are hearing and why
they are hearing. Pressure of listening is decreasing and the listeners
become active in thinking and using their insights.
Marry Underwood [39, p. 31] supplies a whole range of activities for
pre-listening work, as the following:
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Chapter 2: Literature Review

-The teachers giving background information;
-The learners reading something relevant;

-The learners looking at pictures;
-Discussion of the topic/situation;
-A question and answer session;
-Written exercises;
-Following the instructions for the while-listening activity;
-Consideration of how the while-listening activity will be done.
The nature and extent of the pre-listening activities can be changed
in some cases or situations, but the level of difficulty of the lesson needs
ensuring, relevant to the lesson’s content and the population and ability of
learners. All the pre-listening activities are exploited to help learners
receiving some necessary acoustic signals of information, storing in the
short-term memory.
Indeed, pre-listening is the most crucial step in the process of
teaching-learning listening. It provides a background to be able to carry out
the next steps. If the comprehension input gained from pre-listening
activities occurs neither easily nor successfully, the next steps of decoding
the acoustic signals will be certainly a great challenge for listeners. A
language teacher, thus needs to prepare the activities of pre-listening step
as carefully as possible. Learners have to be equipped with a variety of
activities bringing advantages for the next steps. Especially, the activities
concerning with a certain amount of vocabulary related to the listening text
also need developing.
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Chapter 2: Literature Review

Pre-listening should not be considered as a step with the isolated
activities. Pre-listening is the “build-up” to the actual listening, not only
assisting with comprehension but also motivating the learners to get

interested in listening.
Pre-listening can consist of reading, writing, speaking or all three
skills combined. The integrated-skilled approach provides opportunities for
learners to practise and use language in a natural and genuine way.
2.2.2 While-listening
The work at the while-listening stage needs to have a logical link to
the pre-listening work. In this stage, learners become involved in an
authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more
intensively or more extensively, for gist or for specific information.
“The purpose of while- listening is to help learners develop the skill
of eliciting messages from spoken language’- Marry Underwood [39, p.45].
While-listening is to confirm learners’ expectation raised at pre-listening
stage and to help them to get the necessary content of the listening text. If
the pre-listening is a stage which teachers cause some certain impacts on
learners’

listening,

equipping

learners

with

stimulation,

inferring

orientation, preparing for acquiring information, then the while-listening is
a stage which listeners process the information in details. Teachers play a

quite important role in the stage. The teachers creatively and skillfully
select the activities relevant to the learners’ interests and levels so as to
prevent the anxiety or de-motivation arising from the learners.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

Ur [41] emphasizes, “Teaching-learning approach is identified in
diversity of form as well as content of the activities. If there is one or two
monotonous activities, it is difficult to maintain active atmosphere in
classroom as well as learners’ motivation will decrease.”
Learners need to participate in as many activities as possible so that
they will set up an active attitude in listening comprehension. Through
while-listening activities, learners are aware that listening comprehension
not only supplies necessary information but also brings them a lot of
excitement. Therefore, while-listening activities should be interesting
enough for learners to want to listen and to carry out the activities.
According to Underwood [39, p. 48] while-listening activities should
be things that most people can do. The learners easily lose interests and
lead to de-motivation when they get into too many difficulties and
challenges in finishing the tasks. So the level of difficulty of the whilelistening activities is adjusted flexibly and creatively. The while-listening
work should be simple and easy to handle. It is important to know that the
purpose of the while-listening activities is to assist concentration and to
guide listeners to go through the listening text, not to test the ability of
listening or speaking or writing correct sentences based on the content of
the listening text.
Underwood [39] designs a range of the following while-listening
activities:

-Marking/ checking items in pictures;
-Which pictures;
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