applying note-taking strategies to develop high school students’ listening skill – a quasi-experimental research at van xuan – hoai duc high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHÍ THỊ BÍCH

APPLYING NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL – A
QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH AT VAN XUAN –
HOAI DUC HIGH SCHOOL
ÁP DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC GHI CHÉP ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN
KĨ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC SINH TRUNG HỌC PHỔ
THÔNG – NGHIÊN CỨU BÁN THỰC NGHIỆM TẠI
TRƯỜNG THPT VẠN XUÂN – HOÀI ĐỨC

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Methodology
Code: 60.140.111



HANOI – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHÍ THỊ BÍCH

APPLYING NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL – A
QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH AT VAN XUAN –
HOAI DUC HIGH SCHOOL
ÁP DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC GHI CHÉP ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN
KĨ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC SINH TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG
– NGHIÊN CỨU BÁN THỰC NGHIỆM TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT
VẠN XUÂN – HOÀI ĐỨC

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Methodology
Code: 60.140.111
Supervisor: Trần Xuân Điệp, Assoc. Prof. Dr.


HANOI – 2013
i


DECLARATION


I, Phí Thị Bích, declare that the thesis entitled “Applying note-taking strategies to
develop high school students‟ listening skill: A quasi-experimental research at Van
Xuan – Hoai Duc high school” reports the result of the study conducted by myself.
The minor thesis is submitted to Department of Post-graduate studies, ULIS, Hanoi
for Degree of Master in TESOL. It has not been published anywhere.

Phí Thị Bích
ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to send my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Trần Xuân Điệp, for his valuable guidance, helpful advice,
recommendation, and encouragement during the time I tried to complete this minor
thesis. Without his supervision, this work would never have been possible.
My deepest thanks also go to Ms Trịnh Thị Nhung – an English teacher at Van
Xuan high school and her 40 students in class 12 D1 (2012 - 2013) who were so
generous and willing to help me during six weeks of conducting my research.
I would like to thank all the teachers of Post-Graduate Department for their valuable
lectures, whose knowledge is the foundation for my thesis.
Finally, I would like to express my biggest love and thanks to my family for their
unconditional contributions during the time I conducted my research. It was my
parents and my husband who gave me the will to complete this challenging work.


Phí Thị Bích
iii

ABSTRACT

The effectiveness of note-taking in listening comprehension was investigated in
many previous studies. This quasi-experimental study conducted upon forty
students of class 12D1 at Van Xuan high school aimed at finding out the note-
taking strategies used by high-school students, the difference in students‟ listening

performance after using note-taking strategies as well as the students‟ opinion of
applying note-taking strategies in listening lessons. The results of pre-test, post-test
and students questionnaire revealed that the use of note-taking strategies had
facilitative effect on students‟ listening comprehension and high-school students
appreciated the application of note-taking strategies in their listening lessons. These
findings could be used as relevant reference for further studies.
iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Factors influencing Listening Comprehension
Table 2: Background about participants
Table 3: The pre-test and post-test results of the two groups
Table 4: Descriptive statistics for the pre-test and post-test of control group and
experimental group
Table 5: The relationship between experimental and control group‟s test scores
Figure 1: The difference in gain values obtained by both groups after experiment
Figure 2: Students‟ opinion of the importance of listening skill
Figure 3: Student‟s difficulties in studying listening skill
Figure 4: Students‟ frequency of noting down information while listening
Figure 5: Students‟ ways of note-taking while listening
Figure 6: The benefits of note-taking to students‟ listening
Figure 7: Students‟ opinion of the note-taking facilitative effect on listening
comprehension
Figure 8: Factors affect students from taking good notes
Figure 9: Students‟ opinion of the application of note-taking in listening lessons
Figure 10: Students‟ opinion to the teacher‟s help to get the best effect of note-
taking in listening lessons
Figure 11: Students‟ activities to improve their note-taking in listening lessons

v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as Foreign Language
ESL English as Second Language
SD Standard Deviation
SLA Second Language Acquisition
TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language
ULIS University of Language and International Studies
VNU Vietnam National University
vi

TABLE OF CONTENT PAGE
Declaration i
Acknowledgement ii
Abstract iii
List of tables and figures iv
List of abbreviations v
Table of content vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale for the Research 1
2. Objectives of the Research 2
3. Research Questions 2
4. Scope of the Research 2
5. Significance of the Research 2
6. Design of the Research 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 3
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 3
1.1 Listening comprehension 4

1.1.1 The nature of listening comprehension 4
1.1.2 Listening comprehension process 6
1.1.3 Types of listening 7
1.1.4 Factors affects listening comprehension 8
1.1.5 Definition of note-takin 10
1.1.6 Note-taking methods 11
vii

1.2 Review of related works 14
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14
2.1. Settings 14
2.2. Participants 14
2.3. Data collection methods 15
2.3.1. Pre-test 15
2.3.2. Post-test 16
2.3.3. Questionnaire for students 16
2.4. Data collection procedure 17
2.5. Data analysis methods
17
CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 18
3.1. Research question 1: Do students of class 12D1 improve
21
their listening performance in doing
listening comprehension tasks
as measured by their test scores
after using note-taking strategies?
3.2. Research question 2: What are students‟ opinions 27
and attitudes towards note-taking
and the application of note-taking
strategies in listening lessons?

viii

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 36
1. Recapitulation of main ideas 36
2. Limitations of the study 37
3. Recommendations for further studies 38
REFERENCES 39
APPENDICES I


1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the Research
Listening clearly plays an important role in communication. There has been a
number of researchers who investigated the ways to improve listening skill for EFL
learners. Among those, the impact of note-taking was also investigated for a long
time. Crawford (1925) began his study in the 1920s, centering on whether note-
taking could improve students‟ performance. Over the years, researchers have tried
to verify that note-taking help students “encode” the information involved.
Nowadays, it is very common for teachers to implement the note-taking strategies in
the EFL listening class because they think that taking notes can help students catch
the main points easily, so they can effectively promote their listening
comprehension. However, this situation causes some researchers‟ great concerns
about whether taking notes is effective for students to enhance their listening
comprehension or not. Some researchers disagree with note-taking strategy because
of lack of vocabulary capacity (Lin 2004; Hsu, 2005); in addition, students cannot
concentrate on the text because they have to spend much time on taking notes

(Zheng, 1996; Lin, 2004); on the other hand, there are still some scholars who agree
that note-taking can effectively promote students‟ listening comprehension because
they think that students can pay more attention by the process of taking notes (Yeh,
2004), and students can recall the content of listening passages easily from their
notes (Hale & Courtney, 1994).
Since the effects of note-taking strategies on students‟ listening comprehension is
still a controversial issue, this study was conducted to apply note-taking strategies in
listening lessons in class. It aimed at finding out the effectiveness of note-taking on
high school students‟ listening skill as well as the students‟ opinion of applying
note-taking strategies at Van Xuan High school, Hanoi, Vietnam.
2. Objectives of the research
This study was intended to investigate the followings:
2

- the improvement in students‟ listening performance in doing listening
comprehension tasks as designed in the textbook after practicing taking notes while
listening; and
- students‟ opinion of note-taking strategies as well as the application of note-taking
strategies in listening lessons.
3. Research questions
The following questions were made to achieve the aims above:
1. Do students of class 12D1 improve their listening performance in doing
listening comprehension tasks as measured by their test scores after using
note-taking strategies?
2. What are students‟ opinions and attitudes towards note-taking and the
application of note-taking strategies in listening lessons?
4. Scope of the research
The study cannot cover the whole issue of applying all note-taking strategies for
high school students within the framework of a minor thesis. Therefore it only puts
emphasis on some note-taking strategies which are instructed to use while doing

listening tasks designed in the textbook. Furthermore, this study only focuses on
listening comprehension, not all aspects of listening skill.
The number of participants of the research is only 40. They are students of class 12
D1 (2012 – 2013) who are at the same age and have the same total years of learning
English – 9 years with the same curriculum.
5. Significance of the research
This study will look at a number of issues. These include the use of note-taking
strategies in listening lessons, the students‟ attitudes towards and their perceptions
of note-taking strategies in the light of developing their listening skill, and the effect
of note-taking strategies on high school students‟ listening performance. Therefore,
the author hopes this research will be able to find out the strong points of note-
3

taking strategies as well as the feasibility to apply them to teaching listening skill at
high school in the future. It could also be the suggestions and implications for other
English teachers in Vietnam who are searching for the better ways to improve their
students‟ listening skill.
6. Design of the research
There are three main parts in this study, namely Introduction, Development, and
Conclusions. The Introduction begins with the rationale, objectives, research
questions, scopes, signification, and the design of the study. The second part
includes three chapters namely Theoretical Background, Methodology, Findings
and Discussions. In the first chapter, Theoretical Background, presents definition of
major terms used in this study, including overview of listening comprehension,
types of listening comprehension, factors affect listening comprehension, overview
of note-taking strategies, note-taking methods; as well as the review of related
works concerning advantages and disadvantages of note-taking, and the relationship
between note-taking and listening comprehension. The second chapter provides the
methodology including settings, participants, data collection methods, data
collection procedure, data analysis methods. The findings and discussions are

clearly presented in the next chapter which deals with three research questions. The
last part - Conclusions - includes the summary of the findings, implications,
limitations and recommendations for further studies.
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the re-
examination of concepts most relevant to the thesis‟s topic. Firstly, the listening
comprehension are presented with the definition, process, types of listening, and the
factors affect listening comprehension. Secondly, the writers review the theory of
note-taking in terms of its definition and types. Finally, some related studies are
presented as the background for this study.
4

1.1. Listening comprehension
1.1.1. The nature of listening comprehension
Research has shown that listening is not a passive process, and it requires full
participation and undivided attention of the learners. Vandergrift (1999, p. 168)
rejected the treatment of listening comprehension as a passive skill and states:
“Listening comprehension is anything but a passive activity. It is a complex,
active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds,
understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and
intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it
within the immediate as well as the large sociocultural content of the
utterance. Coordinating all of this involves a great deal of mental activity on
the part of the listener. Listening is hard work, and deserves more analysis
and support”.
According to Nation and Newton (2009, p.40), listening comprehension is an
interactive process which requires the listeners to use top-down and bottom-up
processing simultaneously. While he/she is listening to a passage, the listener needs
to apply knowledge of sound, grammar, conversational mechanisms, cohesion,

discourse structure, discourse type, and social relationships, all at the same time.
Previous researches have identified a number of factors as determinants of
proficiency in a second or foreign language. According to Richards and Schmidt
(2002, p. 313), listeners have to construct meaning by both linguistic and non-
linguistic knowledge. They are required to employ knowledge of words or lexical
items, grammatical rules, and cognitive and social skills in order to negotiate an
understanding of a passage or text. Moreover, Morley (2001, p.74) proposes that
listening comprehension involves both top-down and bottom-up process. In top-
down processing, learners are required to activate schematic knowledge and
contextual knowledge while they are listening to the texts. Schematic knowledge
includes an activation of the content schemata, which is the background information
on the topic, and formal schemata, which is knowledge of how discourse is
5

organized. Contextual knowledge refers to an understanding of the specific listening
at hand like the knowledge about the participant, setting, and topic. In a bottom-up
process, prior knowledge of the language system such as phonology, grammar and
vocabulary comes in to play a role. Learners have to activate all kinds of knowledge
required in order to be successful in listening process.
Furthermore, Lian (1985, p. 168) points out that listening comprehension is a
dynamic process involving the interaction between itself and the text during which
meanings are negotiated. This means that listeners do not just extract or draw the
meaning directly from the words or texts. Rather, they have to create the meaning
by filtering the new information through their own accumulated experimental
history, or socio-historical background. The meaning created or constructed,
therefore, will depend upon, and vary between each individual person. Nunan
(1991, p. 9) also proposes that listening comprehension involves utilizing both
bottom-up and top-down knowledge: “In comprehending aural language, listeners
do a great deal of constructive and interpretative work in which they integrate what
they hear with what they know about the world.”

Goh (2005, p. 64) mentions that listening comprehension is a very complex process
which involves both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge. Linguistic
knowledge includes phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure
while non-linguistic knowledge as applied to listening comprehension involves
knowledge about the topic, context, and general knowledge about the world and
how it works. She also states that these different types of knowledge do not occur in
a fixed sequence but are supposed to work simultaneously or in any convenient
order while listeners receive and try to interpret the aural message coming into their
ears. Hedge (2000, p. 235) says of listening comprehension:
“It would be mistaken to see top-down and bottom-up strategies as
somehow in opposition. It is now generally accepted that both
function simultaneously and are mutually dependent. The current
model of listening is therefore an interactive one in which linguistic
6

information, contextual clues, and prior knowledge interact to enable
comprehension”.
From the review, it can be seen that listening comprehension is actually dynamic
and a complex process. It requires an active role of learners in applying their
background history together with linguistic knowledge at the same time when they
construct the meaning of listening texts that they receive, which is along the same
line as Constructivist theory. It puts more emphasis on the active side of learners. In
fact, learners are the ones who actively construct the meaning of texts and each
learner would interpret the listening texts differently depending on their own
background. In order to promote listening comprehension, teaching and learning
practice should, therefore, place more emphasis on learners by providing them with
environments or opportunities to confront with texts in their own ways and
construct their own meanings. They should be empowered to have control over their
own leaning process in order to be successful in listening.

1.1.2. Listening comprehension process
According to Brown (1994), the process of listening may be understood as the
decoding an aural message and making sense of it. He suggested that after the
process of receiving sounds waves through the ears and transmitting nerve impulses
to the brain, the process of comprehension immediately takes place. However, this
is a complex process which consists of three following stages:
Perception: Perception is the initial stage of comprehension in which the
hearer processes what is called “raw speech”, and holds its image in short-
term memory. This image consists of the constituents (phrases, clauses,
cohesive markers, and intonation or stress patterns) of a stream of speech.
Decoding: the second stage is decoding in which the hearer step by step:
 determines the type of speech event that is being processed.
 infers the function of the message.
7

 brings a plausible interpretation to the message by recalling
background information relevant to the particular context and
subject matter.
 assigns a literal meaning to the utterance
 assigns an intended meaning to the utterance
Recording for storage: After the hearer has successfully decoded the oral
input, the information is stored through the two following steps:
 the hearer determines whether information should be retained
in short-term or long-term memory. Short-term memory is
appropriate in contexts that simply call for a quick oral
response from the hearer. Long-term one is more common
when the hearer is processing information in a lecture.
 The hearer deletes the original form of the message in 99
percent of speech acts. Important information, if any, is
retained conceptually.

To sum up, with the help of listening strategies, listeners construct meaning from
the oral input by drawing upon their prior knowledge of the world and of the target
language (Young, 1997). They also generate information on their long-term
memory and make their own interpretation of the spoken texts (Mendelson, 1994)
and fill in the gaps with logical guesses (Schmidt-Rinehart, 1994). Therefore,
Brown (1994) claimed that both “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing play a
crucial part in listening comprehension. Listener may predict what is to be heard or
anticipate what will occur next based on their existing knowledge.

1.1.3. Types of listening
Real-life listening
Real-life listening is listening in daily life. According to Anderson (1995), there are
two ways in which people listen in real-life. They are casual and focused listening.
8

Casual listening refers to the listening with no purpose and often without much
concentration. Focused listening, on the other hand, refers to listening with
particular purpose to get information the hearer needs. In this case, he/she often
listens attentively, but not to everything with equal concentration.
Class-room listening
Ur (1984) argues that classroom listening should be addressed accurately as real-life
listening in classroom. All the listening activities in the classroom aim at equipping
students with skills to deal with real-life listening. Some other researchers have
categorized listening into intensive and extensive listening.
Intensive listening is the careful, focused listening to a short passage for detailed
information or for full comprehension. They may be much concrete information for
this kind of listening and learners often find it difficult to get full comprehension in
the first listening. Therefore, intensive listening often gives students the challenge
and helps them to develop listening skills or knowledge of the language in their
effort to do exercises or other activities.

Extensive listening is listening for pleasure and interest without having to pay much
attention to content and language. Extensive listening keeps the students‟
motivation and interest high. Students feel satisfied as they can understand the
passage well. Moreover, the topics are various and entertaining, which motivates
students to develop their listening skills as well as exposes them to valuable extra
contact with spoken language.
1.1.4. Factors affect listening comprehension
Since listening is a complex active process in which learners decode and construct
the meaning of the text by drawing on their previous knowledge about the world as
well as their linguistic knowledge, there are many factors that affect listening
comprehension. Teng (1993) further divided these factors into a comprehensive list
as presented in the following table.
9

A. Listener Factors
1. Language facility, including phonology, lexical, syntactic, semantic,
pragmatic knowledge
2. Knowledge of the world
3. Intelligence
4. Physical condition
5. Metacognitive strategies
6. Motivation
B. Speaker Factors
1. Language ability: native speaker vs. nonnative speaker
2. Accent/dialect
3. Speech of delivery
4. Degree of pauses and redundancies
5. Prestige and personality
C. Stimulus factors
1. Discussion topic

2. Abstractness of material
3. Vagueness of words
4. Presentation mode; audio only vs. audio and visual
10

5. Acoustic environment
D. Context factors
1. Type of interactional event
2. Distraction during listening
3. Interval between listening and testing
4. Note-taking
Table 1: Factors influencing Listening Comprehension (Teng,
1993)
1.1.5. Definition of note-taking
Note-taking in EFL listening is a process that happens simultaneously with the
process of listening. Note-takers need to take down some notes in their own ways
according to what has been heard for further reference. Suritsky and Hughes (1991)
(quoted from Yang, 2007) proposed that note-taking involves four broad skills:
listening, cognitive processing, recording passage content in written form and
reviewing noted information. Note-taking gives learners the opportunity to
recognize, further develop and incorporate personal interpretation of new material
into one‟s cognitive structure. Di Vesta and Gray (1972) first studied the functions
of note-taking in the process of listening. They proposed that there are two
functions, encoding and external storage. The encoding function refers to the
process (or act) of note-taking. According to the encoding function hypothesis,
note-taking facilitates information processing. The facilitative effect of the encoding
function is revealed by comparing the performance of students who listen to a
passage and take notes with the performance of those who listen but are not allowed
to take notes. The external storage function refers to the fact that the notes taken can
11

serve as an external repository of information that allows later revision and review.
Therefore, note-taking can be divided into two phases: encoding and reviewing.
1.1.6. Note-taking methods
In this part, five methods applied in taking notes including Cornell method, Outline
method, Mapping method, Charting method and Sentence method are presented.
Cornell method: The notes are written in the main space – the right-hand side
and label each idea and detail with a key word or “cue” in the left-hand
space. At the bottom of the page, the summary of notes is written. By using
this method, the information is well-organized and systematic for recording
or reviewing later. This method is simple, easy to use, efficient, time and
effort saving.
Outline method: The information is written in an organized pattern based on
space indention. To show the level of importance, note-takers use the
distance from the major point and space relationships indicate major or
minor point. This is a well-organized system which records the content as
well as the relationship. It is most effective when note-taking skills are good.
Mapping method: It is a graphic representation of the content. The notes
begins in the middle of the page and the ideas are added by radiating
branches from the centre idea or from previous branches. All the ideas are
expressed in key words. Topic comes first, the sub-topic and next supporting
details. To show the links between parts of the map, note-takers use arrows
and words. This format helps learners to visually track the information they
hear regardless of conditions. Little thinking is needed and relationships can
easily be seen. It is also easy to edit notes by adding numbers, marks, and
colour coding.
Charting method: Note-takers record information (words, phrases, main
ideas, etc.) into the appropriate category. This method helps track
conversation and dialogues where learners would be confused and lose out
12

on relevant content. It also helps reduce the amount of writing necessary and
provide easy review mechanism for both memorization of facts and study of
comparisons and relationships. This method can be used when the
information focus on both facts and relationships, its content is heavy and
presented fast, and when the note-takers want to reduce the amount of time
editing and reviewing.
Sentence method: Note-takers write every new thought, fact, or topic on a
separate line, numbering as they progress. The advantage of using this
method is that the note-takers get more or all of the information. However,
they cannot determine major and minor points from the numbered sequence.
It is difficult to edit the notes without having to rewrite them. Learners can
hear different points, but they do not know how they fit together.

1.2. Review of related works
A number of previous studies looked at the advantages and disadvantages of note-
taking strategies. Lin (2005), Yeh (2004), Hall & Courtly (1994) agreed on the
advantages of note-taking in terms of helping college students concentrate more on
the content as well as recall the content of listening materials easily.
On the other hand, Lin (2004), Hsu (2005) investigated effect of note-taking on
college students and they found that note-taking could not enhance students‟
listening skill due to their lack of vocabulary capacity. Zheng (1996) and Lin (2004)
agreed on the negative effect of note-taking on college students‟ listening
comprehension performance. Taking notes distracted students from concentrating
on the content of listening passages.
A number of other studies looked at the relationship between note-taking strategies
and listening comprehension. Some studies investigated the positive effect of note-
taking strategies on listening comprehension. These studies were conducted by;
Zhou and Gou (2007); Kiewra (1989); Liu, B. and Hu, Y. (2012). They found that
13

note-taking did facilitate college and lower-intermediate level EFL learners‟
listening comprehension (Carrell, Dunkel and Mollaun, 2004; Liu, B and Hu, Y.,
2012). However, the performance level of note-taking depended on the length and
the topic of listening passages. Note-taking was more beneficial in answering
general questions rather than the detailed ones (Zhou and Gou, 2007). Kiewra
(1989) claimed that note-taking promoted listening comprehension thanks to its
external repository of information which permitted later revision and review to
stimulate recall of the information in listening passages.
In contrast, other scholars found no positive effect of note-taking strategies on
listening comprehension including Dunkel, 1985; Hale and Courtley, 1994. They
investigated effect of note-taking on EFL listening comprehension and in the
context of TOEFL test. They failed to find positive effect of note-taking.
In conclusion, by reviewing related studies, it is clear that there is still no common
theoretical background for the widely-held belief that note-taking is facilitative to
listening comprehension. The effectiveness of note-taking strategies on listening
comprehension still needed further investigation. In addition, these above previous
studies on note-taking were conducted upon college students. It was of great
concern to conduct studies upon high-school students. Therefore, this study was
conducted upon students at Van Xuan – Hoai Duc high school in Hanoi, Vietnam to
apply note-taking strategies to improve students‟ listening skills.

14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Settings
This quasi-experimental study was conducted at Van Xuan – Hoai Duc high school
in the suburb of Hanoi. It is a public school which was founded twelve years ago
with thirty-six classes of three grades 10
th

, 11
th
and 12
th
. The students of classes
from A1 to A10 of each grade have three English lessons every week. For classes
from D1 to D3 of each grade, they have one more selective English lesson every
week. The textbook used for teaching is the new Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 at basic
level.
The teachers at Van Xuan high school are at the age ranging from thirty to forty
years old who are experienced and enthusiastic in teaching. They are eager to
enhance the teaching skills and their students‟ performance. However, they find out
that the most challenging skill among four basic skills is listening skill. They always
hope to improve their students‟ listening comprehension.
The students come from villages in Hoai Duc district. They are chosen by passing
the tenth grade entrance exam with the score of over 30 points, which is ranked at
the medium in comparison with other schools in Hanoi. The students have the same
years of learning English with the same curriculum and textbook.
2.2. Participants
The study was conducted upon forty students of class 12D1 (2012 - 2013) within
three months of the second semester from January 28
th
to April 29
th
, 2013. There
were thirty-four girls and only six boys. They were at the same age of eighteen and
had the same total year of learning English with the same curriculum from primary
school to high school. Their academic performance in social science subjects was
better than ones in natural science subjects. They were interested in learning
English. Each week, they had three English lessons as other classes and one more

selective lesson. In total, they had four English lessons every week. Of all four
skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing, the most challenging for them is
15

listening skill. They really hoped to improve their listening skill. In the study, they
were divided into two groups of twenty students in each group. One group was the
control group and the other was the experimental group. The following table
presents main background information about participants including gender, age, and
their English proficiency level.

Experimental Group
Control Group
Total number of
participants
Male
3
3
6
Female
17
17
34
Total
20
20
40
Age
18
18
18

English
proficiency
Pre-intermediate
Pre-intermediate
Pre-intermediate
Table 2: Background about the participants
2.3. Data collection methods
In an attempt to achieve the aims of the research, a quasi-experimental research was
mainly used as an appropriate approach to establish the cause-effect relationship
between note-taking strategies and high-school students‟ listening comprehension.
In order to collect the data for analysis, there were three data collection instruments
employed including pre-test, post-test and students‟ questionnaires.
2.3.1. Pre-test
The pre-test was designed to identify the language proficiency level of the two
groups: control and experimental group. The purpose of the pre-test was to define
whether there was statistically significant difference between the language