The effects of activating linguistic knowledge on learners listening comprehension m a 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
*********

THE EFFECTS OF
ACTIVATING LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE
ON LEARNERS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MASTER’S DEGREE IN TESOL

By
ĐOÀN THỊ CÚC

Supervisor
NGUYỄN THÁI ÂN, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, MARCH 2012


i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

THE EFFECTS OF ACTIVATING LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE
ON LEARNERS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs
issued by the Higher Degree Committee.

Ho Chi Minh City, March 18th, 2012

ĐOÀN THỊ CÚC


ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, ĐOÀN THỊ CÚC, being the candidate for the degree of
Master of TESOL, accept the requirement 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 thesis deposited
in the 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 thesis.

Ho Chi Minh City, March 18th, 2012

ĐOÀN THỊ CÚC


iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Nguyễn
Thái Ân, who did provide me with insightful discussions, constructive criticisms,

valuable comments, and continuing support in the completion of this thesis.
Specially, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to Associate Professor
Dr. Nguyễn Thanh Tùng because of his great assistance in developing the proposal
for my thesis and in finishing my study.
I am greatly indebted to Dr. Hà Văn Sinh, my former college instructor,
because of his helpful advice and useful materials for my study as well as all
lecturers of the TESOL graduate program at the University of Social Sciences and
Humanities for their helpful instruction during the M.A. course from the year 2008
to 2011.
I would like to sincerely thank the participants who contributed to this

study. Many thanks also go to the Headmaster as well as the staff of Nguyen Trai
high school in Khanh Hoa province for their assistance in finishing my study.
Special thanks are offered to the Deputy Head of this school, Mr. Trần Đắc
Trường, who provided great help for data processing.
Last not the least, I would be grateful to my family and my friends, who
always cared, encouraged and supported me during the time of completing the
thesis.


iv

ABSTRACT
Listening comprehension is a very important skill in language learning.
However, it has not been paid much attention to in high school contexts. In spite of
recognizing its importance, most of the students are weak at this skill and have met
a lot of difficulties in learning listening because of their shortage of some linguistic
knowledge and unawareness of innovative language teaching methodology. It is
necessary for the researchers to find a solution to this problem. Therefore, this
study aims to investigate the practicability and some educational values of

activating some linguistic knowledge in the listening stages, especially the prelistening one, connected with language teaching sequences by Harmer (1998) on
improving learners’ listening comprehension.
Data were collected from eighty-three 10 th graders at Nguyen Trai high
school, Khanh Hoa province, who were divided into two groups – the Control
Group and the Experiment Group. They were invited to participate in the study
through providing their responses to the questionnaires and undergoing the
experimental teaching process in two months. Questionnaires were used to find
students’ linguistic difficulties in learning listening and their reflections on
linguistic knowledge activation. T-tests were employed to check whether there was
any statistically significant difference in the ability in listening comprehension
between the two groups.
The findings of the study indicate that the Experiment Group recognized the
importance of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation) as
well as their linguistic difficulties in learning listening comprehension and they
achieved some promising progress in the post-test results thanks to the treatment of
activating linguistic knowledge. In addition, they showed positive attitudes
towards this strategy and its effects in terms of enhancing language acquisition,
improving ways of learning listening and providing stimulation.
Such results affirm that linguistic knowledge activation is an innovative and
effective teaching approach for teachers to help the students improve their
listening comprehension. Based on the results, the study shows that it is feasible to
apply this strategy in listening lessons.


v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
CG: Control Group
EG: Experiment Group

EFL: English as a foreign language
ES: Effective size
ESA: Engage, Study, Activate
FL: Foreign language
L2: Second language
LC: Listening comprehension
LK: Linguistic knowledge
MOET: Ministry of Education and Training
PPP: Presentation, Practice, Production
SPSS: the Statistical Package for the Social Science
TPR: Total Physical Respond
USSH: University of Social Sciences and Humanities


vi

LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 2.1: Interconnected dimensions of Grammar

12

Chart 4.1: Students’ opinions on difficulty level of LC

52

Chart 4.2: Students’ opinions on roles of linguistic knowledge in LC

58

Chart 4.3: Students’ interest in the strategy of LK activation

65

Chart 4.4: Students' desire of using LK activation

66

Chart 4.5: Histogram of the Experiment Group

72

Chart 4.6: Histogram of the Control Group

73

Chart 4.7: Trends in creating changes of the mean values.

73


vii

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: ESA Straight Arrows sequence

18

Figure 2.2: EAS (A) Boomerang sequence

19

Figure 2.3: EAASASEA (etc) Patchwork sequence

19

Figure 2.4: Geography of a listening text

25

Figure 2.5: Bottom-up and top-down processes by Celce-Murcia

26


viii

LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Students’ background information

42

Table 4.1: Students’ responses to the importance of LC

52

Table 4.2: Students’ responses to difficulties related to LK

53

Table 4.3: Students’ problems related to methods of teaching LC

54

Table 4.4: Students’ awareness of the importance of LK

56

Table 4.5: Students’ vocabulary acquisition in learning LC

59

Table 4.6: Students’ grammar acquisition in learning LC

59

Table 4.7: Students’ pronunciation acquisition in learning LC

60

Table 4.8: Students’ awareness of the strengths of LK activation

61

Table 4.9: Students’ responses to stimulation in learning LC

62

Table 4.10: Students’ responses to other strengths of the strategy

63

Table 4.11: Students’ responses to some constraints of LK activation

64

Table 4.12: Pre-test score analysis for the two groups

67

Table 4.13: Post-test score analysis for the two groups

69


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality

i

Retention and use of the thesis

ii

Acknowledgements

iii

Abstract

iv

List of abbreviations

v

List of charts

vi

List of figures

vii

List of tables

viii

Table of contents

ix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study

1

1.2 Rationale of the study

5

1.3 Research questions

5

1.4 Delimitation

5

1.5 Significance of the study

6

1.6 Organization of the study

6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Perspectives of linguistic knowledge

7

2.1.1 Definition

7

2.1.2 Some aspects of linguistic knowledge

8

2.1.3 Roles of linguistic knowledge in listening learning

15

2.2. The element Activate in language learning

17

2.2.1 Definition

17

2.2.2 Types of ESA language teaching sequences

18

2.2.3 The place of the element Activate in teaching models

20

2.3 Listening comprehension

22

2.3.1 Viewpoints of listening comprehension teaching

22

2.3.2 Listening process

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x

2.3.3 Linguistic knowledge activation in listening comprehension

30

2.4 Implication of top-down process in teaching listening comprehension

36

2.4.1 Warm-up (Engage)

36

2.4.2 Pre-listening (Activate)

36

2.4.3 While-listening (Study)

37

2.4.4 Post-listening (Activate)

37

2.5 Review of some local studies related to the thesis

38

2.6 Summary

39

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Study setting

40

3.2 Participants

41

3.3 Procedures of data collection

43

3.3.1 Questionnaires

43

3.3.1.1 Pre-questionnaire

44

3.3.1.2 Post-questionnaire

45

3.3.2 Experiment

45

3.3.2.1 Pre-test

45

3.3.2.2 Experimental teaching process

47

3.3.2.3 Post-test

47

3.4 Methods of data analysis

48

3.4.1 Analysis of questionnaires

48

3.4.2 Analysis of pre- and post-tests

49

3.5 Summary

50

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Data analysis

51

4.1.1 Results from the questionnaires

51

4.1.1.1 Responses to pre-questionnaire

51

4.1.1.2 Responses to post-questionnaire

55

4.1.2 Results from pre- and post-tests

66

4.1.2.1 Pre-test results

66

4.1.2.2 Post-test results

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4.1.2.3 Comparison of pre- and post-tests for each group

72

4.1.3 Summary

74

4.2 Discussion

74

4.2.1 Problems resulting from the study

75

4.2.1.1 Preparation of lesson plans

75

4.2.1.2 The teaching process

78

4.2.2 Findings

80

4.2.3 Summary

84

4.3 Overall summary

85

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
5.1 Conclusion

86

5.2 Recommendations

89

5.2.1 For learners

89

5.2.2 For teachers

90

5.3 Suggestions for further research

92

5.4 Summary

92

BIBLIOGRAPHY

94

Appendix 1: Pre-questionnaire (Vietnamese version)

99

Appendix 2: Pre-questionnaire (English version)

101

Appendix 3: Post-questionnaire (Vietnamese version)

103

Appendix 4: Post-questionnaire (English version)

106

Appendix 5: Pre-test

109

Appendix 6: Post-test

111

Appendix 7: Answer keys

113

Appendix 8: Tapescripts

114

Appendix 9: The formulas of values

119

Appendix 10: Participants’ test results calculated by Microsoft Excel

121

Appendix 11: Results of score calculation by SPSS

123

Appendix 12: Lesson plans

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter begins with the background of the study concerning the
context leading to the rationale for the thesis. Additionally, the limitation, research
questions, significance and organization of the study are included in this part of the
thesis.
1.1

Background to the study
After Vietnam’s participation in the WTO together with its opening market

to the world, foreign languages, especially English, are becoming more and more
important to the education as well as the economic development. Besides, the
demand for communications in English among workers as well as officials is rising
because of the trend in integration and globalization of the country. It is apparent

that English is the main language used in international meetings, conferences,
festivals or contests. In addition, most of the applicants are required certain
knowledge and ability of communications in English if they want to work in
international or famous domestic companies. At Vietnamese schools, it is the most
popular foreign language that is taught from the 6th grade. It is also the first choice
of university students when registering for a foreign language in their educational
programmes. More and more English language centres have been set up in the big
cities and most of the provinces in the country in order to meet learners’ increasing
needs. Due to its importance, a decision on the project “Teaching and learning
foreign languages in the system of national education in the phase from 2008 to
2010” was approved on August, 30th 2008 by the Prime Minister. Some of the
main points in this project attracting people’s care are that English is a compulsory
subject for the 3rd graders and is paid more attention to in the last school grades so
that students will be able to use English communicatively after learning it for ten
years.
Among the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing),
listening is considered as one of the most difficult. It is assumed to be of greater

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and greater importance in daily life, working environment and schools. It is the
most common communicative activity in daily life as well as in entertainment
activities such as music, films, TV or sports. Being a skill that a child will use
throughout their entire life to communicate with others, listening is essential for
obtaining comprehensible input that is necessary for language development. For

example, when the children listen to a story, they begin to develop their own
thoughts and ideas about the situations presented. In working environment, it is
highly appreciated because it helps people to understand and present any problem
in their own ways in a discussion or a conference. A person who has good listening
comprehension skills will promote thinking and problem-solving skills and vice
versa. At schools, it is also learnt by students and tested in a lot of international
exams such as TOEFL, TOEIC and IETLS. Listening is vital in language
classrooms as well as international tests because it provides comprehensive input
for learners and test takers. Without understanding input in the right level, learners
and test takers hardly present their output and answers correctly as Nunan (1998)
states,
“… listening is the basic skill in language learning. Without
listening skill, learners will never learn to communicate effectively.
In fact over 50% of the time that students spend functioning in a
foreign language will be devoted to listening…” (cited in Shang,
2008, p.1)
In spite of one of the four keys skills of a language, listening is not paid
much attention to as Wilson (2008, p.17) argues that it is “probably the least
understood, the least researched and historically, the least valued”. To Vietnamese
learners, it seems to be the most difficult and neglected skill. According to Mr.
Nguyen Manh Hung, the former vice principal of Hanoi Foreign Language
University, in an interview by VTC News, most students are not able to
communicate in English after learning it for six years. Their listening and speaking
skills are not very good and are seldom practiced. Two of the main reasons for this
problem are that students are often provided with a lot of exercises focusing on

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grammar and vocabulary for tests and teachers of English do not apply effective
methods to teach these skills (Pham Thinh, 2010). An article on September 26th
2010 in Thanh Nien Newspaper shows the ideas of some teachers, students and
parents about learning and teaching English in Vietnam nowadays. Most of them
think that learners are not able to use English communicatively after learning it for
many years. Especially, listening skill is almost ignored in some English classes at
high schools (in Khanh Hoa province, for example) while other skills such as
writing and reading are mainly focused on for learners’ tests. One of the high
school teachers of English in Khanh Hoa reflects that most of high school students
are weak at communicating in English after finishing the seven-year English
program. Students cannot use English in simple communication situations. In
current high schools, according to Mr. Ta Quang Sum, the principal of Tran Hung
Dao high school, Cam Ranh town, Khanh Hoa province, because of examination
pressures, teaching and learning English follows two processes: teachers provide
students with enough knowledge for exams and students only learn anything
necessary for their tests. Other skills such as listening or speaking are not paid
much attention to. As a result of that, many students meet a lot of difficulties in
learning English when they continue their education at university, where it
becomes the main foreign language. A lot of university students feel worried about
English testing, according to Trinh Thi My Dung – a former student of the Press
and Communications Department at USSH, and they have difficulties in listening
comprehension because English courses at universities don’t focus much on this
skill but grammar and translation. Therefore, most of them are not often successful
in the listening tests (Ngoc Van, Tuyet Ngan & Dang Nguyen, 2010).
In fact, listening comprehension is far more challenging to language
practitioners because of a lot of causes coming from students, teachers and
facilities. There are a lot of factors affecting learners’ listening comprehension

which include the lack of knowledge, ways of teaching and learning and a shortage
of facilities. Richards (1983), Christine & Christa (1995) suggest that listeners’
linguistic knowledge and background knowledge are the essential factors that
could influence their understanding of foreign language (cited in Shang, 2008). A
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shortage of linguistic knowledge such as vocabulary, phonology and grammar
leads them to difficulties in recognising meanings, forms, functions of words and
the content of the text. It is undeniable that the system of English sounds and
pronunciation is not the same as that of Vietnamese, so recognising English words
through listening is not easy to Vietnamese learners. Grammar in English is also
different from that in Vietnamese. A shortage of background knowledge about the
topic can also prevent listeners from understanding the content of the text. Another
factor influencing learners’ listening comprehension is the way of teaching and
learning a lesson. Regularly in a listening class, learners are provided some words
or phrases related to the topic and then asked to listen to the text carefully two or
three times before giving their answers. Some useful pre-listening activities are
seldom applied in order to help students be familiar with the topic. Learners hardly
have chances to apply some knowledge of language such as grammar and
vocabulary that they have learnt before in understanding the listening passage. It
means that teachers only focus on teaching language knowledge on the bottom-up
processing to practice listening comprehension without integrating it with the topdown model to improve this skill. Practicing this skill by playing the tape many
times and then doing the tasks may limit students’ ability to understand the content
of the text in order to find the correct answers. A failure to give correct answers
and traditional methods of teaching probably cause learners a feeling of boredom

and a negative attitude towards listening comprehension.
Hence, it is essential to find an effective solution to the problems mentioned
above. It is defined (1) whether teachers can encourage learners to activate some
knowledge of language that they have learnt in order to help them solve some
difficulties related to linguistic knowledge and to improve their listening skill, and
(2) how learners’ attitudes towards learning listening and their consciousness in
language acquisition change afterwards. The expectation for effectively applying
some linguistic knowledge in holding some pre-listening activities on the topdown processing level, as a result, created ideas for this study.

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1.2

Rationale of the study
Because of (1) the importance of listening skills in English communication, (2)

the problems mentioned above about the reality of learning listening at high
schools in Khanh Hoa in general and at the researcher’s school in particular, where
listening is not paid as much attention to and most students come from the
countryside so they do not have many opportunities to approach effective methods
of learning listening and (3) little research on listening comprehension conducted
in high school contexts besides some on games or enhancing learning motivation
in reading or speaking skills, a research into applying linguistic knowledge in the
teaching and learning of listening skills should be conducted. The aim of this study
is to investigate some educational values of activating some linguistic knowledge

in the listening stages, especially the pre-listening, on improving learners’ listening
comprehension skill and promoting their consciousness in second language
acquisition.
1.3 Research questions
To achieve the purposes mentioned above, the study will focus on
answering the following research questions:
“What are the effects of activating linguistic knowledge on learners’
listening comprehension?”
This main question entails three sub-questions:
1. What are the linguistic problems the learners often encounter when they
study EFL listening?
2. In what ways does activating some linguistic knowledge help the learners
to solve these problems?
3. What are the learners’ attitudes towards the activation of some linguistic
knowledge in the listening stages?
1.4 Limitation
The study is conducted at Nguyen Trai high school, Khanh Hoa province with
the participation of a small group called the Experiment Group in a limited time of

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2 months. Although there are a lot of activities in the pre-listening stage helping
learners to improve their listening skill, the researcher only focuses on indentifying
some

effects

of applying

linguistic

knowledge

on

learners’

listening

comprehension through activating their background knowledge related to
vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar based on the top-down processing.
1.5 The significance of the study
This study examines some effects of the application of linguistic knowledge
on learners’ listening comprehension skill. Applying language knowledge that
students have learnt in designing pre-listening activities will help them to solve
some difficulties related to linguistic knowledge and improve their listening
ability. As a result, learners’ consciousness in learning listening as well as
language acquisition will be promoted and their motivation for studying English
will be enhanced. Practically, the success of the study will provide learners and
teachers with an effective method of teaching and learning listening skill.
1.6

Organization of the study
The study consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 presents the context of the

study, the aim, research question, significance, delimitation and structure of the
research. Chapter 2 reviews (1) some theories of linguistic knowledge including
definition, aspects of language related to the study, its roles in language teaching
and listening; (2) activation element in language teaching and learning, (3)
listening comprehension including viewpoints and processes of listening teaching;
(4) implication of top-down process in language teaching and (5) review of some
local studies related to listening comprehension. Chapter 3 discusses the methods
of conducting the study consisting of four parts: study setting, participants, data
collection and analytical framework. Chapter 4 presents the analysis and
interpretation for the two types of data collected through the study: experiment,
questionnaires and the discussion of the results through answering the research
questions. Chapter 5 draws some conclusions from the study and gives some
recommendations for English teachers as well as students and some suggestions
for further research.
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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Following the Introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 reviews (1) some
theories of linguistic knowledge, (2) the activation element in language learning,
(3) listening comprehension including viewpoints, processes of listening teaching,
(4) implication of top-down process in language teaching through some techniques
to activate linguistic knowledge in the pre-listening stage and (5) review of some
related local studies on English listening comprehension.
2.1

Perspectives of linguistic knowledge

2.1.1 Definition
Linguistic knowledge together with non-linguistic knowledge is one of
many different types of the language comprehension system. Linguistic knowledge
is of different types. Yule (1985) states that language includes: phonetics and
phonology (pronunciation), words and word-formation processes as well as
morphology (vocabulary),

phrases

and

sentences

(grammar);

semantics,

pragmatics and discourse structure. Among the most important are pronunciation,
vocabulary, grammar, semantics and discourse structure. When learners use
knowledge about the topic and the context, and general knowledge about the world
in comprehension, it means that they use non-linguistic knowledge (Buck, 2000).
This type of knowledge is also called background knowledge.

According to

Bachman and Palmer (1990), language knowledge is one of the two components of
communicative language ability and it includes grammatical knowledge, textual

knowledge, functional know

ledge and sociolinguistic knowledge (cited in

Douglas, 2000, p. 28). Grammatical knowledge is knowledge of vocabulary,
morphology, syntax, and phonology. Textual knowledge is knowledge of how to
structure and organize language into larger units: rhetorical organization and how
to mark such organization: cohesion. Functional knowledge is related to the
ideational manipulative, heuristic, and imaginative functions of language and
sociolinguistic knowledge refers to sensitivity to dialects, registers, naturalness,

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and cultural references and figures of speech. All of the formal aspects of language
which are required for meaning-making process create linguistic environment, also
called linguistic context (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 205). Linguistic context is
mainly connected with the grammatical and lexical levels within a sentence or
between sentences in a text. At the sentence level, contextual clues in the linguistic
context help understand the meaning of grammatical or lexical items. At the
beyond-sentence level, linguistic context contains an aspect called cohesion.
According to Halliday & Hasan (1976, p. 18) and Widdowson (1978, p. 26),
cohesion is an element existing in the language that is used to combine sentences
and parts of sentences in the text in order to make it fix together well (cited in
Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 206). From the perspectives of linguists mentioned
above, it is obviously determined that linguistic knowledge has an important part

in language teaching and learning. In the scope of this study, the researcher would
like to mention three of many aspects of linguistic knowledge: vocabulary,
pronunciation and grammar because (1) they are three important elements of
language that mustn’t be omitted in learning and teaching (Harmer, 2007, p. 6062) and (2) there is a limit of background knowledge (non-linguistic knowledge) of
upper secondary school students in Vietnam, especially those coming from the
rural areas.
2.1.2 Some aspects of linguistic knowledge
2.1.2.1 Vocabulary
Vocabulary is very necessary for learning listening. According to CelceMurcia & Olshtain (2000, p. 103), knowledge of vocabulary permits the listener to
recognise words within phrase. The aspects of a word are word form, word
meaning in use and in context, functions and pronunciation. Learners need to learn
what words mean and how they are used in the context so that they can be
remembered more easily (Harmer, 1991). Vocabulary, according to Scrivener’s
definition (2005, p. 227), “typically refers mainly to single words (e.g. dog, green,
wash) and sometimes to very tightly linked two- or three-word combinations (e.g.
stock markets, compact disc, sky blue, go off) ... These frequent combinations are
known as collocations”.

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 Single words
Single words are classified into two types: content words and function words.
Content words are those which carry information while function ones are those
that signify grammatical relationships (Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 1996,
p. 153). Content words provide the meanings of sentences or texts and can be

added or discarded with prefixes or affixes to create new words while function
words are taught as part of grammar. Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000, p.76)
point out most vocabulary items are content words and belong to the large, open
word classes such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and some adverbs while function
words are vocabulary items that belong to closed word classes such as pronouns,
auxiliaries or articles.
 Collocation
Another part of vocabulary is collocation. Collocations consist of two or more
words that happen together in predictable combinations (Hill, 1999, 2000).
Collocation is a feature of all languages and it is, therefore, a necessary element of
learners’ use of language. It plays an important role from a pedagogical viewpoint.
Harmer (2007, p.75) points out that knowledge of collocation is one important part
of knowing a word and therefore, knowing a word includes understanding its
collocation. Hill (2000, p.53-56) states that the way words combine in collocations
is fundamental to all language users and is closely related to grammar structures so
vocabulary choice is predictable. Predictability is a very important element in
listening comprehension. When mentioning the topic drinking, for example, the
speaker often uses the verb “have”, and with this verb, the listener’s expectations
predict various possibilities: have tea, have coffee, have milk, have mineral water,
have orange juice, etc. Those predictions may help listeners recognize the correct
answer precisely and effectively after hearing the speaker’s utterances. Another
reason for its importance is that collocation permits language users to “think more
quickly and communicate efficiently” (Hill, 2000, p.54). Some of reasons that
learners think that listening is difficult is because of “the density of unrecognized
collocations” (Hill, 2000, p.54) and the speed of the native speakers. Knowing
collocation helps listeners avoid hearing and processing everything word by word.

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One of Hill’s suggestions is that learners create much of what they say from
isolated words and therefore, their pronunciation, stress and intonation can be
difficult for listeners and barriers to their listening comprehension ability and
knowing a great number of collocations enable learners to improve their stress and
intonation –important elements in a spoken text – if they learn the stress pattern of
a phrase as a whole.
 Other classifications of vocabulary
Besides being arranged as words and collocation, vocabulary is differently
classified according to the situation in which it is used. Vocabulary occurs in both
spoken and written messages that language users want to convey to other people.
When put in speech or writing, vocabulary, including content words, function
words and collocations, is classified into two ranges: receptive vocabulary and
productive vocabulary. Receptive vocabulary is considered as language input that
learners achieve from other people in order to understand their messages and
productive vocabulary refers to vocabulary that learners use to produce language
forms with the purpose of conveying messages to other people. In that way,
learners make use of receptive vocabulary when listening and reading, and
productive vocabulary through speaking and writing (Hatch and Brown, 1995,
p.370; Murcia and Olshtain, 2000, p.76; Nation, 2001, p.25). It is obvious that
learners first need understanding of receptive vocabulary in order to be able to
achieve productive vocabulary use effectively. Lacking receptive vocabulary may
decrease learners’ ability to comprehend listening or reading texts, which
influences on their productive skills in writing and speaking, often used in poststages of listening or reading lessons. To enrich receptive vocabulary efficiently,
learners had better associate words with meanings out of contexts. When the
association of words is mentioned, we deal with another way of classifying
vocabulary: active and passive vocabulary. Nation (2001, p.25) defines active

vocabulary as words that “can be activated by other words, because it has many
incoming and outgoing links with other words” while passive vocabulary as items
which can only be activated by “hearing or seeing their forms not through
associational links to other words”. A word, therefore, can play a role of activation

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to other words. The word body is an example of activation role of vocabulary
because it makes language users think of other words such as “head”, finger”,
“hand”, etc. This role is related to a term called “word schemas” by Nagy and
Scott (1990), involved in “linguistic knowledge that contributes to inferring word
meaning from context” (cited in Schmitt & McCarthy 1997, p. 78). This type of
linguistic knowledge frequently occurs in a teaching approach referring to the topdown process in vocabulary learning.
2.1.2.2 Grammar
Another important aspect of linguistic knowledge is grammar. Grammar is
defined by Brown (1994) as “a system of rules governing the conventional
arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence”. It is concerned with the
form of language including forms of verbs (tenses), the patterns or structures,
regularities, and connectives which the language users connect together in
different ways. Grammar, on account of Scrivener (2005), refers to the generalized
patterns of language and to our ability to create the new phrases and sentences out
of word combinations and grammar features (e.g. verb ending) to express a clear
and accurate meaning.
 Tenses
Tenses are considered as any of the forms of a verb that may be used to show

the time of the action or state expressed by the verb: the past / present / future
tenses (Oxford Advanced Genie Dictionary).
 Structures
Words and phrases are combined grammatically into a sentence or a text which
has a precise meaning in particular context. This combination creates grammatical
structures.
 Connectives
Lexical items which are used to connect two or more sentences or ideas in a
text together so that sentences or texts become cohesive. Some of connectives are
but, and, however, as a result.
Grammar takes an important role in texts. Its role is stated by Larsen (2003, p.
67) as “(1) work to organize a text, to make it cohesive; (2)connect ideas, thereby

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improving the coherence of a text; (3) contribute texture, making a text whole; (4)
work together to create discourse patterns; and (5) fulfill discourse functions”.
Celce-Murcia & Olshtain (2000, p.103) point out that knowledge of grammar
allows for a recognition of inflections on words as well as phrases or clauses with
their functions in the text. Grammar, therefore, is considered as a device for
mediating between words and contexts, which helps learners to purposefully
achieve the meaning as well as the use of language (Widdowson, 1990). It means
that grammar has an interconnection with semantics and pragmatics, two of three
dimensions of language (Larsen-Freeman, 1991, cited in Brown, 1999). The three
dimensions have the same importance which is illustrated in Chart 2.1 with three

parts labeled “Form”, “Meaning”, and “Use” by Larsen-Freeman, 1991 (cited in
Nguyen Thanh Tung, 2008-2009).

MORPHOSYNTAX/FORM SEMANTICS/MEANING
How is it formed?
What does it mean?

PRAGMATIGS/ USE
When/why is it used?

Chart 2.1: Interconnected dimensions of Grammar
(by Larsen-Freeman, 1991)
The chart, obviously, shows the interconnection of the three dimensions, in
which grammar provides us with the structures of language themselves, semantics
tells us about the meaning of words, pragmatics is related to the context of the
sentences and tells us when/why they are used. When put in the interconnection
along with the two dimensions mentioned, it means that grammar is viewed on the
top-down approach.
Thanks to this paradigm, the learners know the form of a point of grammar,
its meaning and its use in certain contexts. In fact, when knowing the topic of a
text (the context of the event), learners may use their knowledge to predict prior
grammatical structures related to the context in which the topic occurs. To the

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topic “Hobbies” of a listening text, for example, learners will think about the
simple tenses and some structures such as “I like/ am interested in + verb-ing/
Noun” or “My hobby (hobbies) + is/ are”, which offer them some predictions
necessary for their listening comprehension. If listeners have some knowledge of
grammatical rules of the language, they will be able to use them for improving
their language skills as well as for communication.
2.1.2.3 Pronunciation
Pronunciation, including phonetics and phonology, is one of the most
important language aspects that should not be ignored in language teaching.
Phonology is classified into 2 categories: segmental phonology and suprasegmental phonology. Segmental phonology includes phonemes (vowels,
diphthongs and consonants). Supra-segmental phonology consists of aspects of
speech, such as linking, stress, intonation, assimilation or elision. In this study, the
researcher would like to mention four elements important and necessary to uppersecondary school students’ listening comprehension. They are sounds, stress,
linking and intonation.
 Sounds
Sounds are considered as the acoustic input to the listener in the listening
comprehension process. The acoustic input represents the meaning sounds of the
language, the phonemes (Buck, 2001, p.4). These phonemes – vowels, consonants
and diphthongs – combine together to make words (including one-syllable words
and multi-syllable words) or phrases. The syllables in the multi-syllable words are
pronounced with different strong or weak levels, called stress.
 Stress
Stress is very important. Stressed syllables are defined as “those syllables
within an utterance that are longer, louder, and higher in pitch” (Celce-Murcia,
Brinton & Goodwin, 1996, p.131). Stress occurs not only in an isolated multisyllable word (called word stress) but also in a sentence (sentence stress).
Normally, stress in a sentence is put on the content words. Celce-Murcia, Brinton
& Goodwin (1996, p.142) point out that “words that fall in certain grammatical
categories, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, tend to receive stress in a

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