Using video clips to enhance english students participation in pre listening stage at pham hong thai secondary school in ba ria vung tau (masters thesis)

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
BA RIA – VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY

TRAN THI TU NHAN

USING VIDEO CLIPS TO ENHANCE
ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN
PRE-LISTENING STAGE AT PHAM HONG
THAI SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BA RIA
VUNG TAU CITY
MASTER’S THESIS

Ba Ria - Vung Tau, March 2023


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
BA RIA – VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY

TRAN THI TU NHAN

USING VIDEO CLIPS TO ENHANCE ENGLISH
STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN PRE-LISTENING
STAGE AT PHAM HONG THAI SECONDARY
SCHOOL IN BA RIA VUNG TAU CITY
MASTER’S THESIS
Submitted to the Postgraduate Institute in partial
fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL
Course code: 8140111

Supervisor’s name: Assoc. Prof. PHAM HUU DUC, PhD
Ba Ria - Vung Tau, March 2023

i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled:
USING

VIDEO

CLIPS

TO

ENHANCE

ENGLISH

STUDENTS’

PARTICIPATION IN PRE-LISTENING STAGE AT PHAM HONG THAI
SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BA RIA VUNG TAU CITY
In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s programs issued by
Higher Degree Committee of Postgraduate Institute, Ba Ria Vung Tau University
Ba Ria - Vung Tau, March 2023

TRAN THI TU NHAN


ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Tran Thi Tu Nhan, being a candidate for the degree of TESOL
accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of
Master’s Thesis deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis
deposited in the library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care,
loan, and reproduction for thesis.

Ba Ria - Vung Tau, March 2023

Tran Thi Tu Nhan


iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank everyone who has encouraged and supported me in
completing my thesis.
First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Associate
Professor Phạm Hữu Đức, Ph.D., for his illimitable support. I learned a lot from his
serious and thorough attitude towards working, as well as his brilliant mind.
I would like to thank all the teachers at the Foreign Languages Department for their
invaluable teaching and enormous assistance in illuminating my study path.
I also send my special thanks to all faculty and staffs of Pham Hong Thai Secondary
School for their invaluable teaching and enormous assistance in illuminating my
study path. In addition, I also would like to give my special thanks to the students at
Pham Hong Thai Secondary School who have provided the indispensable with me.

I am grateful to my family, whose encouragement and support has been extremely
vital to the success of my educational aspirations; they encourage and share my
struggle. These people deserve all the praise. I am grateful for all their support and
contribution.


iv

ABSTRACT

Listening is regarded as the most difficult and crucial ability in language learning
for communicating in real life, and how to enhance this skill is a big concern for
students who are learning foreign languages.
The research entitled “Using Video Clips to Enhance English Students’
Participation in Pre-Listening Stage” was carried out with the aim of offering
teachers with a deep and understandable attitude listening skills.
The purpose of this research is to investigate and utilize language knowledge to
motivate students to learn listening. In this thesis, I discuss the background
information on students learning listening through video clips, particularly at the
pre-listening stage. Their language learning listening skills are put to use. There is
additional discussion of the definitions of listening stages, their background
information, and video clips for pre-listening.
According to the findings of the data analysis of the survey questionnaire and
interview, I discovered that using video clips in the pre-listening motivates students
to learn better listening skills. Furthermore, background information is enabled at
all stages of the listening process.
I present some ideas for improving the teaching and learning of pre-listening stage
in listening skill based on the documentary, the literature review, and the findings of
data analysis from the survey questionnaire and interviews.
Keywords: pre-listening stage, video clips, students’ participation

v

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................1
1.1. Background ........................................................................................................1
1.2. Research gap ......................................................................................................2
1.3. Aims of the Study...............................................................................................2
1.4. Key research questions .......................................................................................2
1.5. Scope of the study ..............................................................................................2
1.6. Significance of the study ....................................................................................3
1.7. Struture of the study ...........................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................5
2.1. Listening skill .....................................................................................................5
2.1.1. Definitions of listening skill ........................................................................5
2.1.2. The important of listening skill....................................................................6
2.1.3. Listening strategies ......................................................................................7
2.1.4. Principles for teaching listening ..................................................................8
2.1.5. Factors affecting listening skill ....................................................................9
2.2. Pre-listening stage ..............................................................................................9
2.2.1. Detailed pre-listening.................................................................................10
2.2.2. Definitions of pre-listening ........................................................................10
2.2.3. The importance of pre-listening stage .......................................................11
2.2.4. Aim of pre-listening stage .........................................................................18


vi

2.2.5. The role of pre-listening stage ...................................................................12
2.2.6. Pre-listening activities ...............................................................................12
2.2.7. Principles of using pre-listening activities.................................................13
2.3. Visual techniques .............................................................................................13
2.3.1. Use of technology in teaching listening ....................................................13
2.3.2. Use of video as audio visual aid ................................................................15
2.3.3. The effects of video clips on listening comprehensions ............................16
2.4. Students’ participation .....................................................................................16
2.5. Previous studies about the use of video clips on teaching listening ................19
2.6. Conceptual framework .....................................................................................21
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .......................................................................22
3.1. Research design ................................................................................................22
3.2. Participants .......................................................................................................22
3.2.1. The students ...............................................................................................22
3.2.2. The teachers ...............................................................................................23
3.3. Data collection instruments ..............................................................................23
3.3.1. Questionnaires ...........................................................................................23
3.3.2. Interviews...................................................................................................24
3.3.3. Class observation .......................................................................................24
3.4. Data collection procedures ...............................................................................24
3.5. An introduction to the current Basic Tastics for Listening second edition......25
3.6. Summary ..........................................................................................................29
CHAPTER 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................30


vii

4.1. Overview of the survey ....................................................................................30
4.2. Analysis of questionnaires ...............................................................................31
4.2.1. Questionnaires for students........................................................................31

4.2.2. Questionnaires for teachers........................................................................42
4.3. Analysis of interviews .....................................................................................45
4.4. Analysis of classroom observation ..................................................................46
4.5. Discusstion........................................................................................................50
4.5.1. Factors making students unwilling to English listening in pre-listening
stage.........................................................................................................................50
4.5.2. The effectiveness of using video clips to improve students'
listening....................................................................................................................51
4.6. Results...............................................................................................................53
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION .............................................................................54
5.1. Conclusion........................................................................................................54
5.2. Implications ......................................................................................................55
5.3. Limitations of the study ..................................................................................56
5.4. Further study ....................................................................................................57
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................59


viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

NO

ABBREVIATIONS

MEANING

1

L1

First language

2

L2

Second language

3

EFL

English as a foreign language

4

ELT

English language teaching

5

GPA

Grade Point Average


x

LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: Questionaire (English version and Vietnamese version)
APPENDIX B: Interviews (English version and Vietnamese version)
APPENDIX C: Classroom observation


xi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Students questionaires return rate ........................................................... 29
Table 4.2: Summary of the results of questions 1 to 2 .............................................. 30
Table 4.3: Students’ attitudes towards learning English listening skill ................... 31
Table 4.4: Students’ feelings about listening to the tape after doing pre-listening
activities .................................................................................................................... 34
Table 4.5: Activities students enjoy in listening lesson ............................................ 36
Table 4.6: Students’ problems in listening lesson..................................................... 37
Table 4.7: The objective factors affecting to learning listening skill in pre-listening
stage .......................................................................................................................... 37
Table 4.8: Using video clips technique in the pre-listening activities in listening
process ....................................................................................................................... 39
Table 4.9: Students access video clips used in pre-listening stage ........................... 39
Table 4.10: Using visual aids to develop students’ listening skill ........................... 41
Table 4.11: Thought about using video clips in listening skill ................................. 42
Table 4.12: Result of class observations (G: Good; NG: not good) ....................... 45


xii

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1: Students’ developing listening skill ......................................................... 33
Chart 4.2: Students’ thought about the lessons using video clips in prelistening.....................................................................................................................35
Chart 4.3: Importance of video clips in the pre-listening activities in listening
process ....................................................................................................................... 41


xiii


１

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

English is known as the global language, it is presented and used in almost all fields
such as Business, Health, Cuisine and Tourism to create opportunities for students
who have studied English in learning and working. As a result, teaching English is
considered as an important career and gains more and more concerns.
Listening is the way to communicate with other people. If you do not understand
when you listen, you cannot speak. While in Viet Nam, English is learned at school
and people do not speak this language widely in the society. That is why teaching
listening must be focused in school in order for students to speak English well.
A student who masters English language uses four English skills: reading, listening,
writing and speaking fluently. However, to be able to practice the four skills
fluently is not an easy task, especially listening skills. Almost students in my local
area who graduate secondary schools are uncable to communicate with each other
in English while being good at doing grammatical exercises, which is not right for
the purpose of teaching and learning English. Hence, English is conducted three

periods per week, students are cultivated two more periods to learn listening and
speaking English.
We have easy access to English language in many mediums such as podcasts, video
online, etc., not just teach and learn language via the materials on books. The
purpose of these form developments for language teaching and learning is to attract
attention and create motivation for students. Being an English teacher, I realize that
video clips is helpful for students to concentrate on what they are going to learn in
pre-listening stage.
“Using video clips to enhance English students ‘participation in pre-listening stage”
is chosen as the research topic based on the things mentioned above.


２

A huge previous studies about the use of video clips in teaching listening benefits
students by providing background knowledge, maintaining students’ interest and
concentration on listening. Through a lot of research studies, a great advantage of
digital video technology is the opportunity for teachers to produce videos
themselves or to find videos that best match the needs and interests of students to
attract students’ participation. The best way to use video in class is to integrate
video into the lesson.

The study aims at investigating the effectiveness of using video clips in motivating
English students in pre-listening stage at Pham Hong Thai Secondary School with
the main goal is to explore whether students studying English via a class period in
which video clips are used as the primary teaching tool in pre-listening stage will
experience beneficial gains in participation. Moreover, this sheds light on teachers’
recognizability towards how effective this method is to apply in their classes in
improving students’ listening comprehension.

The research question for this study can be summarized as following:
Question 1: What factors make students unwilling to English listening in prelistening stage?
Question 2: Does using video clips help to improve students’ listening
comprehension effectively?

This study only focuses on applying video clips in pre-listening stage to enhance
listening skills for students at Pham Hong Thai Secondary School despite the fact
that there are several techniques for improving students’ listening skill, but it is
impossible to cover all in this study. Because of time restriction, the study will not


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be able to cover all the topics that will help students develop their listening ability in
classroom. As a result, it primarily concentrates on daily topics of Basic Tactics for
Listening second edition such as movies and shopping, which may be interesting
and familiar with students. Questionnaires, interviews, and class observations are
used to collect data for the study.

This research is expected to help teachers and students in teaching and learning to
improve students’ listening skills. Besides, this method can help students be more
interested in learning listening lessons. Moreover, this study also gives a small
contribution to the study of effective tools used in pre-listening stage in general and
the application of video clips to enhance students’ listening ability at Pham Hong
Thai Secondary School in particular.

The thesis consists of 5 chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction
The rationale, the aim, the scope, the methods, the significance, the research
questions, and the organization are presented in this chapter.

Chapter 2: Literature review
This chapter presents theoretical background of the study including theory related to
language listening learning, especially, a review of the theory related to prelistening.
Chapter 3: Methodology
This part presents the method employed to collect data and provides the description
of the subjects of the study, the research instrument, and data collection procedures.
Chapter 4: Finding and Discussions


４

It presents the author’s finding based on results of the survey questionnaires,
interviews, data analysis and provides some suggestions for teachers and students in
using video clips in learning pre-listening stage.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
This chapter holds responsible for providing an overview of the whole, including
benefits and limitations of the study as well. By analyzing this information, some
recommendations for further research are also suggested.


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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Listening skill
2.1.1. Definitions of listening skill
Since many researchers and experts in the field of listening suggested numerous
various definitions from different perspectives, there is no exact definition for the
term ‘listening’.
Listening is an essential skill in learning a language and in communication. It is a

basic language skill that must be mastered before moving on to the other language
ones. Listening comprehension is the most significant factor as having the ability to
understand what others are saying is very important to all interaction (Gass, 2001)
also stated that the ‘‘crucial to the success of any conversation is the ability to
understand and to be understood’’.
Listening skill begins with an awareness of sounds and images, as well as a focus
on sounds and visuals (Latifi, Mobalegh et al. 2011). Listening skill is also defined
as “the recognition of sounds” by (Bacon, 1989).
Listening is different from hearing. Battell (2006) expressed that despite the relation
between listening and hearing; in contrast to hearing that only perceives sounds in a
passive way, listening involves an active process, which requires an analysis of
sounds. Similarly, Harmer (2001) stated that listening is a "receptive skill" in which
people get the main idea from what they hear.
Moreover, Rubin (1995) has defined listening comprehension as “listening consists
of processing information which listeners get from visual and auditory clues in
order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express” as
cited in (Thompson and Rubin 1996). In other words, listening is a channel that can
assist the listener in comprehending the messages he or she is receiving through
visual material or the speaker's sounds, words, gestures, and some others.


６

In sum, listening skills are very important in daily communication and in the
educational process as well. That is to say, the listening component is one of the
channels through which the learners acquire the language not only in the classroom
setting, but also in the outside world. Hence, listening materials must be visual as
well as close to daily life in order to maximize students' listening skill development.
2.1.2. The importance of listening skill
Listening is the activity of paying attention to and attempting to get meaning from

something students listen to speak properly. Not only does listening enhance ability
to understand better and make students a better communicator, it also makes the
experience of speaking to students more enjoyable to other people.
Listening happens in all aspects of social life. Actually, we listen everywhere: at
home, at work, in community, and for many purposes such as for entertainment,
obtaining necessary information or for academic purposes. A vast majority of
people in the world spend their communicating time mainly for listening.
Nothing is worse than a conversation almost nobody can understand. Listening is
the key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively,
messages are easily misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks down and
the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.
The importance of listening to the process of learning a foreign language is no less
crucial than that in everyday life. The learners cannot develop speaking skill unless
they develop listening skill. If you do not listen, you cannot speak. Without
listening skill, learners will never learn to communicate effectively. Furthermore,
having good listening skills allows students to think forward when receiving a
message, which can facilitate the speech comprehension (Smaldino, Lowther et al.
2008). Thus students will be effective in the communication process. In other
words, listening skill are important inputs for acquiring speaking skill. As a result,
teaching listening is equally important.


７

2.1.3. Listening strategies
Both Nihei (2002) and Andrade (2006) have recommended the seven following
listening strategies :
(1)

Listening for main idea : Students will almost certainly be asked about

general information from the text, such as what the talk is about, why the speakers
are talking about it, or where the conversation is taking place in this style of
listening. Instead of focusing on additional specific details from the text, students
should simply concentrate on the main ideas.
(2)

Listening for specific detail: This type of listening, in contrast to the

previous, demands students to pay close attention to detailed information within the
text. They may be asked about the time of an event or something about people.
(3)

Listening to predict: Students can still guess what is going on by analyzing

speakers' gestures and facial expressions, as well as keywords, even if they cannot
understand the whole spoken text.
(4)

Listening to make inferences: A prediction is not the same as making an

inference. Students must understand what an utterance means in the context offered
in this type of listening.
(5)

Using nonverbal cues: When visual aids are offered in a listening lesson,

students may be able to better understand the spoken text by focusing on nonverbal
cues such as the speakers' body language, gestures, facial expressions, and lip
movements, as well as the context and time of the conversations.

(6)

Listening for taking notes: Students are not expected to write down

everything they hear when listening for taking notes, but rather to note key words,
which can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or abbreviations. In a listening
activity, note-taking has two purposes: 1) storing information for later use, and 2)
creating opportunities to decipher information.


８

(7)

Listening for imitation or reproduction: Students are asked to imitate or

reproduce what they have heard. Students must have listened to it correctly in order
to imitate it accurately.
Since most students find if difficult to listen to the foreign language, therefore, they
should be taught listening strategies to make their listening a lot easier.
2.1.4. Principles for teaching listening
It is very important for teachers to follow the principles for teaching any language
skill effectively and logically. Some principles for teaching listening skill are
proposed by Forseth (1996):
“First, teachers should use authentic texts and present them naturally and
realistically.
Second, teachers should use a variety of texts such as listening to
conversations/dialogues in daily life, watching news broadcasts to help students
become accustomed to listening to diverse styles of speech and avoid boredom.
Third, teachers should pre-teach only vocabulary that is necessary for understanding

the main idea of the text.” Instead of teaching vocabulary traditionally about
pronunciation and meaning, vocabulary needs to be taught in combination with
visual aids to make students be more interested in.
“Fourth, teachers need to provide meaning-based tasks for students to do, the
longer-term goal is to use language for communication.” Students are provided a set
of questions-True/False statements, multiple choice, and ‘Wh-’ or ‘Yes-No’
questions.
After that, teachers ask students to listen and complete the tables as a grid to
understand the whole event and detail in the text as well. Thus, students are asked to
retell the text on their own based on what they have done after listening.


９

2.1.5. Factors affecting listening skill
The factors affecting listening skill, the challenges or issues encountered in listening
domain have been performed in numerous studies.
Because listening skill gives students understandable information, it plays a
significant role in the process of learning a foreign language. However, there are
some obstacles that students encounter in listening skill. Yildiz and Albay (2015)
states that the level of students is one of the factor that determines how much
language input they receive. Another factor that helps students comprehend the
listening text better mentioned in the study is background knowledge about the
topic; in other words, prior knowledge aids comprehension and allows students to
make

predictions.

An

additional

barrier

prevents

students

from

better

comprehension: passages about well-known or interesting topic are simpler for
students to understand than passages about unfamiliar topic. A topic that grabs
students’ attention is easier to comprehend and can also encourage students to
achieve better.
The variety of tasks worked in class seem to have a significant impact on students’
attitudes and performance while doing listening activities, the students are able to
work easily and more effectively improve their skills thanks to the use of varied
materials cited in (Ardila 2013).
Students’ anxiety can have a significant impact on listening comprehension. When
the message is too complicated, students will not be able to understand it and
students’ concentration on listening lesson lessens. When students are in a new
situation or listen to a new information that students can not grasp it, students may
experience greater anxiety.
2.2. Pre-listening stage
Teaching listening text can be divided into three main stages: pre-listening, whilelistening and post-listening. Each stage has its own aims and activities. But in this
study, only pre-listening stage is focused on.

１０

Pre-listening serves as a warm-up stage in which prepares students with everything
necessary for listening and provides key words essential for understanding the
listening text. This stage is a great importance since it leads students to the listening
passage, moreover, leads students to make a prediction about what they are going to
listen, stimulates their interests because in a classroom, listening to a recording is an
unnatural process. Therefore, when students listen to daily life topics, that is we
listen language in its natural environment, which gives students a wealth of
information about the language content students can listen, and especially, topic in
daily life is close to the students.
2.2.1. Detailed pre-listening
In real life it is unusual for people to listen to something without having some idea
of what they are going to listen to. Similarly, when students start a listening lesson,
students must have some background knowledge about the topic which students are
going to listen to, and the pre-listening stage will take over that role.
2.2.2. Definitions of pre-listening
Pre-listening stage is indispensable to activate the students’ background knowledge
of the subject, fueling their interest in the forthcoming listening. For example, a
teacher can begin the pre-listening stage with a brief discussion on the topic in order
to know about the students' views of the listening text students are going to listen to.
Students' prior knowledge of the topic will be activated in this way. Students will be
able to predict what students will listen to if they use all of the available
information, and their comprehension of the text will be facilitated. This is also
mentioned by Underwood (1989) : A pre-listening task may include a variety of
exercises that can assist the teacher in focusing the students' minds on the issue by
narrowing down the items that the students expect to listen and stimulating relevant
prior knowledge and language.
Underwood (1989) also declares that pre-listening is the stage of preparation and
warming up of the whole process of listening, which enables the learners to deal

１１

with the following listening text strategically. The pre-listening stage is the initial
stage in the listening process that students encounter before they listen to the
speech, which prepares and stimulates stud
ents to listen in order to comprehend the text (Richards and Schmidt 2013). Wilson
(2008) mentions that pre-listening prepares listeners for what they are about to
listen, as well as allowing students to succeed in any tasks. Renandya and Widodo
(2016) have demonstrated that if the teachers can use it effectively and prepare the
learners well for the listening text, the learners will get more benefits from the
listening activities.
2.2.3. The importance of pre-listening stage
Pre-listening is the preparation stage for while-listening. The most important thing
in this stage is to provide sufficient context to match what would be available in real
life and to create motivation. This can be done by helping students become aware of
the purpose of the upcoming listening input. DUNKEL (1988) states that prelistening activities are perhaps the most significant component of any listening
sequences since the success of all other activities depends on how well the teacher
provides the prior background, guidance, and direction to the students.
Underwood (1989) says that listeners expectations are very significant for
understanding what speakers say: “There are very few occasions when people listen
without having some idea of what they expect to hear. But when students sit in a
classroom and the teacher says ‘Listen to this’, and then switches on the cassette
recorder or begins to read aloud, the students may have no idea what to expect.”
Thus, how important listeners’ expectations are at the pre-listening stage, which is
something that teachers should keep in mind.
2.2.4. Aim of pre-listening stage
Richards, Richards et al. (2002) say that pre-listening stage is aimed at motivating
students by asking students to guess what information they will listen. Uso'Juan and

Martínez-Flor (2006) agree with Richards & Richards et al, by saying that pre –