Some strategies to improve listening skills for the first year students at faculty of english hanoi open university

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DECLARATION
Title: SOME STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING

SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY
OF ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

I certify no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced from any
person‟s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally
written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Hanoi, 2nd May 2015

Student

Supervisor

Kieu Bich Ngoc

Pham Thi Bich Diep

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude and
indebtedness to my supervisor – Mrs Pham Thi Bich Diep, M.A, the lecturer
of English at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for her careful

instructions, valuable advice, and supervision during the course of writing.

I also would to express my special thanks to all teachers at the Faculty
of English, who have provided me with not only knowledge but also the study
condition during my student life, as well as their useful advice in completing
this graduation paper.

I would also like to extend my thanks to 100 students of first-year
students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for their support in
implementing the survey.

Finally yet importantly, I am indebted to my family and friends who
have encouraged and supported me so much in the completion of this paper. If
there had not been great help from the above people, the study could not been
fulfilled.
Hanoi, 2nd May 2015
Student

Kieu Bich Ngoc

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDEGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART A: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................... 1

1. Rationale ................................................................................................... 1
2. Aims of the Study ..................................................................................... 2
3. Scope of the Study .................................................................................... 2
4. Subject of the Study ................................................................................. 2
5. Research Questions .................................................................................. 2
6. Methods of the Study ............................................................................... 3
7. Design of the Study .................................................................................. 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT........................................................................... 5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................... 5
1.1.The Definition of Listening ................................................................ 5
1.2.The Importance of Listening ............................................................. 7
1.3.What Makes Listening Difficult? ...................................................... 9
1.4. The Listening Skills ......................................................................... 11
1.4.1. The definitions of listening sub-skills ............................................. 11
1.4.2. The Classification of Listening Sub-skills ...................................... 13
1.4.2.1. Skimming ...................................................................................... 13
1.4.2.2. Guessing Meaning of Words or Context...................................... 14
1.4.2.3. Listening and Note-taking............................................................ 14
1.4.2.4. Scanning ....................................................................................... 15
1.4.2.5. Inference ...................................................................................... 16
1.4.2.6. Listening for Total Comprehension ............................................. 17
1.4.2.7. Predicting..................................................................................... 17
1.4.2.8. Summarizing ................................................................................ 18

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1.5. Summary ........................................................................................... 18

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY ................................................................. 20
2.1. Data Collection Method................................................................... 20
2.2. Data Analysis .................................................................................... 21
2.3. Summary ........................................................................................... 31
CHAPTER III: SOME EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES AND TEACHING
METHODS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE FIRSTYEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI
OPEN UNIVERSITY ................................................................................ 32
3.1.

Strategies for Achieving Good Results in Listening ..................... 32

3.1.1. Pre-listening ................................................................................... 32
3.1.2. While-listening ............................................................................... 34
3.1.3. Post-listening .................................................................................. 35
3.2. Applying Listening Sub-skills ........................................................... 37
3.2.1. Improving Skimming Sub-skills .................................................... 37
3.2.2. Listening and Note-taking ............................................................. 38
3.2.3. Scanning ......................................................................................... 41
3.2.4. Guessing Meaning of Words or Context....................................... 43
3.2.5. Inference......................................................................................... 44
3.2.6. Listening for Total Comprehension .............................................. 45
3.3. Summary ............................................................................................ 48
PART C: CONCLUSION............................................................................. 49
REFERENCES
APENDIX

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Communication plays an important role in human life, and language
which is one of the most useful tools for communication. Nowadays, the
development of global economy demands people to have more than one
foreign language in communication. English has become one of the main
foreign languages which are used all over the world. It is also known as an
international language in communication and business.
When we think of learning a new language, normally we think about
four learning skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is the fact that
listening is listed first because it is used most. Listening is not only hearing
but also understanding what is being said. Listeners must receive and encode
the information that they hear and react. They also need to check any
prediction they have made and understand the speaker‟s meaning by their
intonation, stress or emotions.

In comparison with other skills, listening skills is one of the most
difficult tasks because it is a complicated process for learners. It demands
many other skills, so that is the reason why many students learning a new
language often get into trouble dealing with them.
In the learning process, the author of this paper and other students at
the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University have to cope with difficulties
in listening comprehension. Therefore, the author decided to choose the topic
“Some strategies to improve listening skills for the first-year students at the
Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University” as the subject for the graduation
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paper. Through this study, the author would like to present some listening
comprehension knowledge and suggest some effective strategies to improve
the listening skills for the first-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi
Open University.
2. Aims of the Study
This study aims at finding meaning, problems and understanding all of
the current situations related to teaching and learning listening skills for the
first-year students at HOU as well as recommending some suggestions that
they could use in learning to improve their listening-skills and extend their
abilities to listen effectively in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes.
3. Scope of the Study
Listening comprehension is a wide field for research. Through the
graduation paper, the study mainly focuses on some issues the first-year
students at the Faculty of English, HOU often face. They have been taught
English listening skills for a considerable time and must have had knowledge
of some typical skills to some extent.
4. Subject of the Study
In this study, the author focuses on the students who are the first-year
students in Hanoi Open University. In the process of learning English at the
Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University, they have to face many problems
in listening skills. Especially, the policy requiring that students who graduate
from 2013 onwards need to satisfy a language standard (a minimum band
score of 6.5 on the IELTS scale for the English language proficiency) to be
awarded a university degree also makes English increasingly important.
5. Research Questions
There is no doubt that listening plays an important role in our life and
students of HOU, they always have trouble with it. The objective of the study

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is to find out some strategies which help students improve their listening
comprehension skills. This study focused on the following main points:
 What difficulties in listening do the first-year students face?
 What are some suggestions for students to improve their listening skills?

6. Methods of the Study
The author implemented a survey with subjects who are the first-year
students at the Faculty of English and then find out the current situation of
teaching and learning listening skills and then introduce some effective
strategies for the first-year students of HOU. Besides, the author has acquired
all the literature from many sources of data such as the Internet, newspapers
and linguistics book in the Library of the Faculty of English, HOU. Personal
observation consulted and discussed by the supervisor in the process of
researching also contributed much to the completion of this study.
7. Design of the Study
The study is divided into three main parts:
Part A: Introduction
It is like a touch on the chosen subject such as reason for the study, aims
and objectives, methods performed in the study.
Part B: Development
It is the most important part of my paper, including three chapters:
Chapter I: Literature Review: The chapter provides and introduces some
definitions and theories related to listening.

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Chapter II: The Study: It is the main part of study, which discloses the
current situation of teaching and learning listening skills for first-year students
at HOU and identifies their problems in listening.
Chapter III: Some effective strategies to improve listening skills for the firstyear students at the Faculty of English, HOU
In this chapter, the author wants to give out some suggestions and solutions
to deal with difficulties in learning listening skills.
Part C: Conclusion
This chapter is the concluding part where the author gives the conclusion and
sum up the main ideas of the graduation paper.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
The importance of listening in communication is enormous. When you
are not listening, you are not learning. When you are not listening, you are
preventing opportunity. The fact that you do not listen reveals the reality that

your mind is closed. When you are not listening, you are preventing
intelligence. When you are not listening, there is nothing new. There are only
your reactions. If you wish to live life to its fullest, and then listening is vital.
For almost all learners of foreign languages, listening is considered
the most difficult skill. It brings many problems through our student life. In
order to deal with the problems, this study would provide an overview of
listening issues to help students be aware of the listening skills more clearly.
1.1.

The Definition of Listening

People can easily find many definitions of listening skills on the
Internet or books. Although there are many definitions of listening in different
ways, they have the same point of view about listening. In general, listening is
an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. Listening is the
process of making sense out of what we hear. Listening is an active process of
receiving, processing, and interpreting aural stimuli. Apart from that, listening
involves taking in meaningful sounds and noise and in some ways, retaining
and using them. Just as we speak for different purposes, we also listen for
different purposes. We listen for enjoyment, information, and evaluation.
According to Dunkel (1986) “Listening is receiving language
through the ears. Listening involves identifying the sounds of speech and
processing them into words and sentences. When we listen, we use our ears to
receive individual sounds (letter, stress, rhythm and pauses) and we use our
brain to convert these into messages that mean something to us.”
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From the point of view of Rost (1990), the person who defined
listening in the most comprehension way, “Listening is one of fundamental
language abilities that allow users of language to get not only information but
also instruction.” In addition, Brown (1994) defined that “Listening is the
ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves
understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his
vocabulary and grasping his meaning.”
Meanwhile, Peter Sense (2002) added: “To listen fully means to pay
close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to
the “music”, but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for
what someone knows, but you listen what he or she is, Ears operate at the
speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in.
Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silence in yourself, so you
can slow our mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath
the words to the meaning.” So listening means you are paying attention to
what you are hearing. Listening means you paid attention and understood
what was said, even being motivated by what you hear.
In contrast, one of the most complete and detailed definitions of
listening is the one provided by Brownell (1996) “…it is not a skill, but a set
of skills all marked by the fact that they involve the aural perception of oral
signals … [it] is not necessary for almost any other work with language,
especially for speaking and even for writing.”
In short, no matter how listening is defined, it is obviously that
listening is the skill that we use the most when learning a second language.
And in our own language, listening is usually the first skill that we learn.

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1.2.

The Importance of Listening
In this paper, the importance of listening is considered in two

aspects communication, in general, and studying language in particular
(English). In term of communication, listening plays an important role.
According to Maureen Staiano (2006) the importance of listening in
communication is enormous. People often focus on their speaking ability
believing that good speaking equals good communication. The ability to
speak well is a necessary component to successful communication. The
ability to listen is equally important. The importance of listening in
communication is often well illustrated when we analyze our listening skills
with those close to us. This is actually quite common and yet we think we are
good communicators. In order to communicate effectively we have to be able
to hear what the other person is saying. Not just hearing because the acoustics
are good or because the other person is speaking in a loud enough tone. It is
important that we hear what the person saying because we have taken the time
to actively listen. Listening takes work and when it comes to improving our
communication, there is no getting around that. When we are listening to
music or watching TV. We can certainly let our minds wander. If we want our
communication but instead concentrate fully on what the other person is
saying. No doubt this can be difficult. Not every conversation we are in is
particularly interesting. The importance of listening in communication is
something worthwhile to consider. Good listeners are often some of the best

speakers because they have taken the time to find out what people are truly
interested in. If you understand what is important to people than you
understand how to teach them.

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Brett (1997) also states that “Listening is a key language skill. It has
a vital role in the language acquisition process.” In comparison with other
language skills, some researches on listening suggests that on average people
can expect to listen “twice as much as we speak, four times more than what
we read and five times more than we usually write” (Morley, 2001). More
importantly, there are more and more studies indicating the sheer importance
of listening in communication and language learning (Anderson and Lynk,
1988, Dunkel, 1991). What‟s more, Michael Lewis (1993) highlights “Almost
all the world’s natural language output is spoken rather written.”
As for Paul.T. Rankin, nearly half of an adult‟s communication
time was listening. A study by Wilt (1950), which found that people listen 45
percent of the time they spend communicating, is still widely cited (Martin,
1087 and Strother, 1987). Wilt found that 30 percent of communication time
was spent speaking, 16 percent reading and 9 percent writing. That finding
confirmed that listening did not make any contribution in communication.
To “communicate” defined by English Cambridge Dictionary is “to
share information with others by speaking, writing and moving your body or
using signal.”Obviously, listening does not directly attend sharing
information in communication activities, so that is the reason why people

often ignore this little skill. Many claimed we were born with listening and
there was no need to “learn how to listen.” Almost all of them did not realize
the secret role of listening which helps people understand one another, but
viewed it superficially.
Being an essential skill for almost all interaction, listening is the
most primary medium for input in language learning process and by speeding

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up the student‟s ability to perceive speech, the amount of input they get will
increase and thus aid student‟s language acquisition.
It is obvious that we listen for many different purposes I and out of the
classroom, this has an effect on the way we listen. Yule and Brown (1983) made
a useful distinction between interactional and transactional communication.
McCarthy, (1991) in Discourse, defines transactional talk (and listening) as
communication for getting business done. Interactional communication, on the
other hand, has to do with lubricating the social wheels. In listening (1988)
Anderson and Lynch describe them as (transactional) listening when the main
purpose is to achieve a successful transfer of information, while interactional
listening is defined as listening for social reasons, and to establish or maintain
friendly relations between interlocutors.
In brief, listening is essential not only as receptive skill but also to
the development of spoken language prophecy.
1.3.

What Makes Listening Difficult?
Communication and language acquisition heavily depend on

listening skills. Just think with poor listening ability, you can‟t participate or
continue a conversation. You can‟t follow instruction correctly if at all.
Success at work, in a classroom, and elsewhere would be significantly more
difficult to achieve.
Unfortunately, it‟s easier to ask the question than to answer it. A lot of
research actually comes from native language development, as opposed to
second language acquisition. But we can still apply many of the findings to
ESL and EFL learning. For example, spoken language contains colloquialism
and reduced forms like “donchya” for don‟t you” in English. There are steps

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that a listener goes through too, such as receiving the information, breaking it
down, and identifying its purpose the listener‟s interest in the topic, the
content, and any visual support (or lack of it) similarity affects listening.
These points are universally true for any spoken language .The first reason
stems from the fact that the pace, choice of vocabulary, phrase, and grammar,
and the inflection or intonation is completely determined by the speaker. The
listener has only one chance to catch the meaning of a word or phrase. This is
quite similar to reading, as the writer similarly determines the language.
In a series of experiments Anderson and Lynch found that the
difficulty of listening tasks was particularly by the following:

1. The organization of information (text in which the order in which
the information was presented matched its chronological sequence in
real life were easier than texts in which the information was presented
out of sequence)
2. The explicitness and sufficiency of the information
3. The familiarity of the topic
4. The type of referring expressions used (for example, geometric,
figures) dynamic relationship (for example, a road accident).
The way these features were manipulated to produce texts which were
similar generically but which were graded for difficulty can be illustrated by
the task “trace the route”. In the task, students listen to a description of the
journey, route or tour and have to trace this route on a map. The task
designers systematically varied the type of map, the completeness of
information, whether the start or end is given, the number of features and the
congruence or otherwise of the information presented in the text and that
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displayed on the map. These variations changed the difficult level of the task
.It was found that maps which were laid out in a rectangular fashion with all
roads marked were easier than those in which the roads and paths were
irregular; these were in turn easier than maps consisting of natural landmarks
.In terms of completeness of information, task became increasingly difficult
according to the number of items mentioned in the text which were missing
from the map. Those in which the start and end of the route were indicated on
the map were easier than those in which they were omitted. As the number of

features (building, natural mark, etc.) increased, so too did the difficulty.
Lastly, in terms of referring expressions, it was found that reiterations were
easier than synonyms. The most difficult tasks were those in which there was
contradictory information in the text and on the map. In the text section we
look in detail at the construction of a listening task which exploits these
features.
1.4. The Listening Skills
1.4.1. The definitions of listening sub-skills
Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are
saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his
grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt and Dakin).
An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Willis
(1981:134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she calls enabling
skills. They are: (1) predicting what people are going to talk about, (2)
guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic, (3) using one's own
knowledge of the subject to help one understand, (4) identifying relevant
points; rejecting irrelevant information, (5) retaining relevant points (notetaking, summarizing), (6) recognizing discourse markers, e.g., well, oh,
another thing is, now, finally, etc., (7) recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such
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as and which, including linking words, pronouns, references, etc., (8)
understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which give
clues to meaning and social setting, (9) understanding inferred information,
e.g., speakers' attitude or intentions [18, p.134].
Edurne Scott (2008) also points that the sub-skills that can be

emphasized in a listening lesson include: (1) listening for specific
information, (2) following topic shifts, (3) predicting, (4) recognizing
transitions and sequence markers, (5) recognizing word boundaries, (6)
identifying key words, (7) and taking notes.
According to Austin Shrope (1970), it is listening on the fourth level
that primarily concerns us our teaching. Such listening may add an emotional
and dramatic quality. Radio and recordings highlight the importance of
listening. Listening is as active as speaking (the other productive skill), and in
some ways even more difficult. It well requires attention, thought,
interpretation, and imagination. To improve our learner‟s listening skills, they
should be allowed to (1) adopt a positive attitude, (2) be responsive, (3) shut
out distraction, (4) listen for the speaker‟s purpose, (5) look for the signals of
what is to come, (6) look for summaries of what has gone before, (7) evaluate
the supporting materials, (8) and look for non-verbal clues.
Richard, J.C. (2005) also provides such skills taxonomy for
developing student‟s listening skills as presented in Appendix?
To sum up, as the focus of language teaching and has moved from
teacher-centered approaches to more learner-centered ones, the focus of
listening teaching and learning has also changed a lot. That‟s why now
listening is recognized as an active receptive skill (Anderson and Lynch:

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1988) in which the listener activates and improves there listening
comprehension.

1.4.2. The Classification of Listening Sub-skills
Listening is a language skill which is involved in a large range of
micro-skills. It is much more complicated than hearing. When we listen to a
foreign language, we should listen in a variety of ways. Some of the skills
involved in listening can help students overcome difficulties and improve
their listening comprehension.
1.4.2.1. Skimming
When listening, a person rarely needs to understand every word they
hear. But, it is important that they understand the main idea. This skill is
called skimming. We skim when we are listening to a news broadcast and we
only want to know the main events of the day. When skimming, a listener
asks, “What is the main idea of what I am hearing?”
When you listen to the English language, you probably do not realize
the processing that is taking place in your brain, because your listening skills
are so advanced that they allow you to operate on “automatic pilot”. When
you begin to learn a foreign language, however your listening skills are not
developed enough for subconscious processing. You need to pay attention to a
lot of information at one time. Under these circumstances, it probably will not
be possible for you to understand everything, so you must “go with the flow”
and not let yourself get hung up on a single word or phrase. One way of
speeding up your comprehension processes is to skim the passages to
determine the main idea of the selection. First, listen for a statement about a
general topic; this usually occurs at the beginning of a monologue or
conversation. In the case of an oral presentation, you can use the titles of the
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talk as a clue, or any accompanying visuals such as charts, diagrams, or
graphs. When viewing a video, the visual cues are much more useful because
they will help establish not only the setting but also the attitude of the speaker
of speakers. Now, formulate one or two hypotheses about what type of
information you think will be provided based upon background knowledge.
For example, if the topic is financial aid , you would expect to hear about
specific ways of obtaining grants and loans and eligibility; in a computer
advertisement, you would expect hear the name, component parts, price, and a
few of the qualities of the cognates and other familiar words and phrase that
you have learned. Do these words and phrases support your theory? Did you
successfully predict some of the information? Remember, successful listeners
are able to report the gist of the message even if they do not recognize or
understand all of the information.
1.4.2.2. Guessing Meaning of Words or Context
Context refers to the part of a spoken (or written) message that round a
given word or phrase. Context can provide clues to the meaning of unknown
words and phrases. Guessing from context helps the listeners (or readers)
understand in situations when it would be either impossible or extremely time
consuming to refer to a dictionary. When you hear a spoken message,
guessing from by unknown words or phrases and that pay attention to the
surrounding information or “context” in which the conversation is taking
place.
1.4.2.3. Listening and Note-taking
Information presented in class often contains the central concepts of the
course and the material most likely to be included on exams. Yet, students
frequently do not realize the importance of note-taking and listening.

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Learning to take notes is an important skill to master. When taking
note, make sure the main idea and important details are written down. Notes
do not need to have small words like a, an, the, and, it. The notes should be
short, succinct and easily understood days and weeks later. To keep more
organized the Cornell method is an excellent and can help make studying the
notes later on much.
Taking notes is an important part of the life of every student. There are
two main reasons why note-taking is important: (1) when you are reading or
listening, taking notes helps you concentrate. In order to take notes to write
something sensible – you must understand the text. As listening and reading
are interactive tasks, taking notes help you make sense of the text. Taking
notes does not mean writing down every word you hear; you need to actively
decide what is important and how is related to what you have already written.
(2) Notes help you to maintain a permanent record of what you have read or
listened to. This is useful when revising in the future for examinations or
other reasons. Good notes should be accurate, clear and concise. They should
show the organization of the text, and this should show the relationship
between the ideas.
1.4.2.4. Scanning
Sometimes in listening, the main idea is not even important. The
listeners may only need to look for specific information. This skill is called
scanning. In a news broadcast, the weather man may discuss the temperatures
for all of Asia. But the Vietnamese listener would only scan for the
temperatures of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. Or, if a teacher is calling of a list
names, a listener will only listen for his or her own name. It is not necessary

to always comprehend every word of sentences when scanning.

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In general, you should scan for information, so that you success in
answering the questions. Some questions depend on your general
understanding of the text, and those are the ones you have probably answered
in the first listening.
1.4.2.5. Inference
Inference is an important skill, but one that‟s often left out of
elementary level textbooks since it is considered a higher level of
comprehension. This is unfortunate because learners really do need to be able
to “listen between the lines” from the very beginning. Indeed, beginners who
lack intensive vocabularies and knowledge of language functions and
grammar often need to infer a lot, just to compensate for what they do not
understand.
Inference is neither magic nor pure imagination. It is hearing meaning
that is there, even when the words aren‟t. How do we let students know about
the different listening types?
Exercises like the one at the beginning of this article (which is based on
one from Active Listening from Cambridge University Press) are useful to
create awareness. By regularly pointing out the task types, teachers encourage
learners to notice of their own listening goals. As useful as these three types
of listening are both for leaners‟ awareness and as a checklist for teachers
planning classes, it is important to remember that the skills are rarely used in

isolation at times; a specific word can helps to infer meaning. The important
thing is that students have experience with a variety of listening types and
tasks.

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As important as these listening types are, they need to be considered
within the overall framework the learners are using to make sense of what
they hear.
1.4.2.6. Listening for Total Comprehension
At certain times, it is important to listen for total comprehension.
Assume you are a visitor in town and you want to find the train situation
before your train leaves in half an hour. You ask a kind man for direction and
you listen carefully to what he says. If you do not understand something, you
ask for clarification. If you do not understand everything he says. You may
go to the wrong place and miss your train. In this situation, you must listen for
total comprehension.
Listen for total comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about
the nature of listening. Indeed, in most methodology manuals listening and
listening comprehension are synonymous. This view of listening is based on
the assumption that the main function of listening in second language learning
is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse. We will examine this view
of listening in some detail before considering a complementary view of
listening: listening as acquisition. This latter view of listening considers how
listening can provide input that triggers the further development of second

language proficiency.
1.4.2.7. Predicting
Many times a listener predicts what a speaker will say next. For
instance, a listener must predict when the speaker will talk about something
important, in order to listen more carefully. As a student listens to a lecture,
he or she must predict when a new point is being introduced so that he or she

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can listen more carefully and take proper notes. Also, on the street, a listener
must be able to predict what a stranger wants to talk about. If an unknown
man walks up and says, “Will you come into this bar I want to ask you
something important”. The listener will try to predict what the man wants,
perhaps to sell something or ask a favor. The skill of predicting helps a
listener listen more carefully and respond more quickly.
1.4.2.8. Summarizing
Similar to skimming is the skill of summarizing. We summarize when
we repeat the main ideas of a text. When summarizing, the listener will try to
repeat or reduce the main points into fewer words. We might use this skill
when reporting the main points of the news to a friend.
Summarizing brings what was said together to find a main idea or key
points. This is how you show that you understand what the speaker was
talking about, and what was important in what was said. Summarizing , or restating what the questioner said , aids the listening process by making sure
there were no misunderstanding between what the questioner meant and what
the listener heard. Since all communication between people has to be

interpreted (we cannot download exact meanings to each other),
misunderstanding are common. Re-stating can help avoid misunderstanding
and allow the questioner time to clarify.
1.5. Summary
Listening is an active skill that includes the use of many sub-skills.
Listening sub-skills are effective tools used to effectively understand
opinions, suggestions and ideas. Emphasizing the listening sub-skills helps
students develop a sense of why they listen and which skill to use listen
better. Our learners‟ success at why they listen and which skill to use listen
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better. Our leaners‟ success at understanding the content of what they hear
largely depends on their expertise in their use of listening sub-skills.
In conclusion, this chapter is designed to helps learners get some
general knowledge on listening skills. And now, the writer turns to Chapter II
for analyzing survey learning listening of the first-year students at Faculty of
English, Hanoi Open University.

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CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

The chapter is to report details related to data collection and analysis. This
survey was carried out among 100 K21 students at the Faculty of English,
Hanoi Open University. They have got familiar with their listening lessons
and are all in need of upgrading their skills.
2.1. Data Collection Method
In order to get information about the problems and challenges the first
year students face when listening for essential information, a set of 10
questions are used. Question 1 aims to find out students‟ attitudes toward
listening skills. Question 2 looks for the listening techniques that students
often use to listen in class. Question 3 is to find out what activities students
feel most difficult in listening processes. Question 4 is to focus on what type
of listening exercise students are interested in. Question 5 addresses what
kinds of materials students usually use to practice listening skills. Question 6
shows what way students prefer to do with the listening task in class.
Question 7 reveals the students‟ opinion about improving English through
games. Question 8 and Question 9 aim to get the frequency of listening
practice at home. Question 10 aims to find out which strategies students
employ when practicing particular listening tasks as required in IELTS,
TOEFL, etc.

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2.2. Data Analysis

In the questionnaire survey, some questions are designed to find out the
current situation of learning listening skills of the first-year students at the
Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University. The results are described as
follows:
Question 1: How do you think about listening skills?
Choice
A. Difficult

Answer (in percentage)
55%

B. B. A little bit difficult

16%

C. C. Very difficult

25%

D. D. Not difficult

4%

TABLE 1: STUDENTS‟ OPINION ABOUT LISTENING SKILLS

60%
50%

40%

Very difficult

30%

A little bit difficult
Very difficult

20%

Not difficult

10%
0%

CHART 1: STUDENTS‟ OPINION ABOUT LISTENING SKILLS

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