A survey on the Perception of students at Thanh Liem a high school of the benefits of Fre-listening activities in learning listening skills = Nghiên cứu khảo sá

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



VŨ THỊ THẢO


A SURVEY ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS AT
THANH LIEM A HIGH SCHOOL OF THE BENEFITS OF
PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS
(Nghiên cứu khảo sát về nhận thức của học sinh Trường THPT Thanh Liêm A đối với lợi ích của
các hoạt động tiền nghe hiểu đối với việc học kĩ năng nghe)


M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD : ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE : 60.14.0111


HANOI – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



VŨ THỊ THẢO

A SURVEY ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS AT
THANH LIEM A HIGH SCHOOL OF THE BENEFITS OF
PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS
(Nghiên cứu khảo sát về nhận thức của học sinh Trường THPT Thanh Liêm A đối với lợi ích của
các hoạt động tiền nghe hiểu đối với việc học kĩ năng nghe)



M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD : ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE : 60.14.0111
SUPERVISOR : Dr. TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN

HANOI – 2013

i
Statement of authorship


I certify that the minor thesis entitled “A survey on the perceptions of students at
Thanh Liem A high school of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning
listening skills” is the result of my own work. It is submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirement for the degree of Master of Education. This minor thesis or any
part of the same has not been submitted for any other universities or institutions.

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
To complete this thesis, I have benefited a great deal of useful and practical
support from a variety of people.
First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Tran Thi Thu
Hien, my respected supervisor, for her close and experienced guidance,
encouragement and invaluable detailed critical feedback in the process of
completing my thesis.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the M.A lecturers who have
been teaching K20 M.A course in Vietnam National University - University of
Languages and International Studies and the post-graduate staff for their
contributions to the success of the course.
My sincere thanks are also for all teachers of English at Thanh Liem A high
school for their help in answering the interview questions, for their constructive
suggestions to this research, and for their willingness to share their relevant
problems with me.
I wish to convey my thanks to the students of classes 10A1, 11A6 and 12A7
I have visited in order to gather information for survey questionnaire and observed.
Without their help, this study would not have been successful.

Finally, I am grateful to my family for their love, care, tolerance and
encouragement.





iii
ABSTRACT

This research focuses on the perceptions of students at Thanh Liem A High
School of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills. With a
desire to study and analyze the benefits of pre-listening activities to improve
listening skill and introduce them to the teachers at Thanh liem A high school, the
author has found out related researches as the theory background of the thesis. From
that, the researcher has enough reasoning base to support and protect the thesis. The
data are collected from survey questionnaires for 100 students, observation of three
classes and interview with six teachers. The results show students’ preferences and
comments on the pre-listening activities in three textbooks. From major findings of
the study, the author mentions recommendations for implementing pre-listening
activities, significance of the proposed research supporting for teaching in this
school, pedagogical implications from the findings, limitations of the study and
suggestions for further research.

iv



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Statement of authorship
Acknowledgement
Abstract
Table of contents
List of abbreviation
List of tables and charts
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
2. Aims of the study
3. Research questions
4. Scope of the study
5. Methodology
6. Significance of the study
7. Structure of the study
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. 1. Theory of listening
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viii

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2
3
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4
5
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1. 1. 1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension
1. 1. 1.1. Definition of listening
1. 1. 1. 2. Definition of listening comprehension
1. 1. 2. The process of teaching and learning listening lesson
1. 1. 3. Factors make listening difficult
1. 2. Pre-listening activities
1. 2. 1. Definition of pre-listening
1. 2. 2. Pre-listening activities
1. 2. 3. Benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening skills
1. 3. Summary
Chapter 2: CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND
LEARNING ENGLISH AT THANHLIEM A HIGH SCHOOL
2.1. The institution
2.2. The teachers

2.3. The students
2.4. The listening materials
2.5. The teaching and learning English at TLAHS
2.6. Summary
Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHOD
3. 1. The participants
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7
9
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10
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3. 2. Instruments of collecting data

3. 3. Data collection procedure
3.4. Summary
Chapter 4: FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
4.1. Discussion of the results collected by means of the survey
questionnaire
4.1.1. Students’ attitude towards listening skill
4.1.2. Students’ perceptions of pre-listening activities
4.1.2.1. Students’ opinion about the necessity of using pre-
listening activities
4.1.2.2. Students’ opinion about the teacher’s frequency of
using pre-listening activities
4.1.2.3. Students’ preference for teacher’s applying pre-
listening activities
4.1.2.4. Students’ benefits from pre-listening activities
4.1.2.5. Students’ point of views about pre-listening activities
in the textbooks
4.1.2.6. Students’ suggestions for the changes of pre-listening
activities in the textbooks
4.2. Discussion of the results collected by means of the classroom
observation
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30

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4.3. Discussion of the results collected by means of the interview
4.3.1. Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill
4.3.2. Teachers’ opinion on pre-listening activities in the textbooks
they are teaching
4.3.3. Teachers’ frequency of teaching pre-listening
4.3.4. Teachers’ opinion on benefits of pre-listening activities in
teaching and learning listening skill
4.4. Recommendations
4.4.1. Encouraging students to learn listening skill from the
beginning stage of listening

4.4.2. Improving teachers’ teaching method in pre-listening stage
4.4.3. Improving the pre-listening activities in the text books
4.5. Summary
PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Summary of the study

2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

References
Appendices


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Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4


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X
XI

List of abbreviation
IT: Information Technology
NCLRC: the National Capital Language Resource Center
SLA: Second Language Acquisition
TLAHS: Thanh Liem A High School
VNU: Vietnam National University
ix

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Tables
Page
Table 1: Students’ opinion about the necessity of using pre- listening
activities
Table 2: Teacher’s frequency of using - listening activities
Table 3: Students’ preference for teacher’s brainstorming activities
Table 4: Students’ preference for pre-teaching new vocabulary
Table 5: Students’ preference for introducing the content of the

listening passage
Table 6: Students’ preference for types of questions
Table 7: Benefits of pre-listening activities
Table 8: Students’ point of views about pre-listening activities in the
textbooks
Table 9: Students’ suggestions for the changes of pre-listening
activities in the textbooks

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Charts

Chart 1: Students’ perception on the importance of listening skill
Chart 2: Students’ attitude toward learning listening skill
Chart 3: Students’ preference for discussing technique
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1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
One of the most important elements necessary to acquire a language is
listening skill. Not only in terms of the first language, but also of the second
language, listening skill is of primary importance for listeners to receive the
messages. "We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than
we read, and five times more than we write." (Morley, J. 1991: 82). Like learners
elsewhere in Viet Nam, learners at Thanh Liem A high school encounter great
difficulties in learning listening skills. They can hardly receive spoken messages if
they fail to take listening input. Therefore, pre-listening activities play a crucial part
in easing learners’ anxiety before learning listening lessons and help motivate
students’ interests in learning listening skills.
Many researchers have shed light on the effectiveness of pre-listening
activities. A research by Hong, L. T. T (2006), investigated on pre-listening
techniques to motivate students at Lomonosov upper-secondary school to improve
the listening skills. According to the study, sometimes the students were not highly
motivated by the pre-listening techniques that the teachers applied. The differences
between teachers’ and students’ preferences for pre-listening activities still existed.
Another research related to pre-listening stage was done by Huyen, N. D (2010).
She investigated the effects of pre-listening activities on the listening performance
of 10
th
grade students at Nguyen Gia Thieu High school, Hanoi. The findings of the
study showed some pre-listening activities used by the teachers had good effects on
the students’ listening comprehension. In addition, Ha, M. T. H. (2010), also
studied on effectiveness of appropriate pre-listening activities on 10
th
-form

students’ English listening comprehension. Both teachers and students really
appreciated pre-listening activities in motivating students learning listening skills.
These studies concerned benefits of pre-listening activities on learning listening
2


skills of students at different schools. However, the 11
th
and 12
th
-form students have
not had opportunity to show their perceptions on this stage of listening skills yet.
From the observation and personal experience as a high school teacher of
English, the researcher has realized that each learner has his own attitude and
approach to learning listening skills. Although the design of new English text books
is task-based and four practice skills, many students focus on learning reading and
grammar. They do not pay much attention to learning listening skill because they
think this skill is not necessary for them in national examinations and because
listening in one-way situations is difficult for them to comprehend when they do not
have any opportunity to interact with the speakers. The researcher is always haunted
by the question that what method deals with listening skill more effectively and
how pre-listening activities play a role in learning listening of learners at Thanh
Liem A high school.
For all the above reasons, the researcher would like to conduct a survey on the
students’ perceptions of the benefits of pre-listening activities in learning listening
skills. It is also hoped that the study will make some suggestions for the teachers
and learners to improve the teaching and learning English especially listening skills
at school.
2. Aims of the study
The study aims at investigating students’ attitude towards the benefits of pre-

listening activities in learning listening skills. To be more specific, the objectives of
this study are:
- carrying out an investigation on students’ perceptions of applying those
benefits to teaching and learning listening skills in grade 10, 11 and 12 at Thanh
Liem A High school, Ha Nam province
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- studying and evaluating benefits of pre-listening activities in listening
lessons
- giving some suggestions to increase the effectiveness of applying pre-
listening activities in promoting students’ learning English
It is hoped that the findings from this study will have some benefits to
teachers and students at TLAHS.
3. Research questions
To reach the aims mentioned above, the general research questions below
will be addressed:
1. What are TLAHS students’ attitudes towards pre-listening activities in their
learning listening skills?
2. What do the students perceive of the benefits of pre-listening activities to their
learning listening skills?
3. What are the effective pre-listening activities to students?
4. Scope of the study
Despite the fact that four skills of language learning are very important
factors, the author confines the thesis to listening skill and focuses on the benefits of
pre-listening activities to students at TLAHS where she has been teaching for more
than ten years. Other activities such as while-listening activities and post-listening
activities are out of the scope of the study.
5. Methodology
With the aims of investigating students’ attitude towards the benefits of pre-

listening activities in learning listening skills, this study adopts a survey research.
To achieve this aim, the survey questionnaire is used as the main instrument to
collect the needed data from the learners. Besides, other instruments are also made
4


used of such as the researcher’s observation for three classes of three grades, and
interview questions with six other teachers at the school.
6. Significance of the study
This study is designed to investigate the students’ perception towards pre-
listening activities at TLAHS and then some recommendations would be given to
help teachers in using communicative teaching methods to improve students’
learning listening skills. Therefore, this study will be an interesting reference
material which helps teachers in teaching listening especially pre-listening at
school, as there are solutions on how to help students learn listening in
communicative teaching. It also helps students become well aware of their listening
problems which they might not have paid any attention before, especially for those
who are in favor of improving their listening.
7. Structure of the study
This study is designed in three main parts: Introduction, Development and
Conclusion.
The first part includes the rationale for choosing the topic of the study, the
aims, the research questions, the scope,the methodology, the significance and the
structure of the study.
The second part comprises four chapters. Chapter one deals with the
theoretical background which is relevant to the research topic including listening,
listening comprehension and pre-listening activities. Chapter two discusses the
current situation of teaching and learning English at TLAHS. Chapter three presents
the research method, which focuses on the participants, the data collection methods,
the data collection procedure. Chapter four presents findings from data analysis,

discussion and suggests implications of the study in teaching and learning listening
skill at school.
5


The last part summarizes the mains findings of the study, presents some
suggestions for further research and points out the limitations.











6


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. 1. Theory of listening
In this chapter, the researcher mentions some theories related to the topic to
have a background academic knowledge for the research from professional authors
and previous researches.
1. 1. 1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension
1. 1. 1.1. Definition of listening
Listening is an activity of identifying and understanding what others are

saying. Listening is considered one of two receptive skills (listening and reading), it
is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for learners, and there
are several definitions of listening.
According to Mary Underwood (1989: 1), “listening is the activity of paying
attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear”, the author also
states that to listen to spoken language successfully, the listeners not only merely
understand the words themselves but also comprehend what speakers mean basing
on the words they use in particular ways on particular occasions.
Another definition identifies listening is "an active process in which listeners
select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order
to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express" (Thompson,
I., & Rubin, J. 1996: 331)
Purdy, M. (1997:8) defines listening as "the active and dynamic process
of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the
expressed (verbal and nonverbal), needs, concerns, and information offered
by other human beings"
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Rost, M. (2011: 2-4) has the same view on listening when the author points
out listening as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing
and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding,
creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy.
1. 1. 1. 2. Definition of listening comprehension
Buck, G. (1984:31) considers “Listening comprehension is an active process
of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming
sound” and the listeners are required to have both linguistic knowledge and non
linguistic knowledge.
The definition of listening comprehension by Anderson, A. and Lynch, T.
(1988:6) is stated as follows: listening is really a receptive skill alongside reading

skill and the role of the listeners is no longer passive but active. After a period of
listening, the learners are expected to be able to talk or write about what they have
heard, that is the aims of listening comprehension. Hence, “the role of the successful
listeners has to be thought as an active one”.
In short, from these opinions above, it is clear that no one can give all the
ideas and features of what listening is. Each definition reflects what listening means
as seen from the scholar’s own view. However, all definitions reveal their common
features, the nature of listening – “receiving and understanding”, in which they
emphasize on listening process, listening message and listeners.
1. 1. 2. The process of teaching and learning listening lesson
“In a typical lesson, there are “pre” activities, “while” activities and “post”
activities” (Brown, S. 2006:3). According to Underwood, M. (1989), listening
activities are described in term of three phrases: pre, while and post listening
activities. The teachers of English follow these three parts of teaching listening.
Each part is relative to two other parts in the process that is (i) pre-listening is a
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preparatory stage, (ii) while-listening completes the main listening task and (iii)
post-listening serves as the further development part.
Techniques and activities in listening comprehension process are usually
executed in two dimensions, namely “top-down” and “bottom-up” processes.
Top-down process is listener based, which means “using our prior
knowledge and experiences; we know certain things about certain topic and
situations and use that information to understand” (Brown, S. 2006: 2). Flowerdew,
J. and Miller, L. (2005: 25) have the same view on this process. Top-down process
“emphasizes the use of previous knowledge in processing a text rather than relying
upon the individual sounds and words”. This approach is useful for “predicting
information, brainstorming ideas, drawing inferences or summarizing” (http://
www.nclrc.org/ essentials/ index.htm).

Bottom-up process, on the other hand, is text based. We use “the information
we have about sounds, word meanings and discourse markers to assemble our
understanding of what we read or hear one step at a time” (Brown, S. 2006: 2). In
the same view, Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L. (2005: 24) claim that listeners start
understanding from the smallest units of the acoustic message: individual sounds or
phonemes, continuing with larger ones such as words, phrases, clauses and
sentences. This approach includes listening for “specific details, recognizing
cognates or word order patterns” (http:// www.nclrc.org/ essentials/ index.htm).
In Kurita’s view (2012: 32), both top-down process and bottom-up process
have been paid attention to by many researchers in SLA in listening comprehension.
Top-down process refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the
meaning of a message. Bottom-up process, on the other hand, focuses on using the
incoming input as the basis for understanding the message. Combinations of top-
down process and bottom-up process in teaching listening skill should be
considered.
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1. 1. 3. Factors make listening difficult
To many learners of English especially those in rural areas, listening is
considered a difficult skill. They often complain people speak too fast, speakers
pronounce the words differently and speakers swallow sounds constantly. Brown,
G. and Yule, G. (1983: 74) claim four main groups of factors causing difficulty in
listening comprehension.

 The speakers: includes the number of speakers, the speakers’ speech and the
speakers’ accents.
 The listeners: consists of the role of the listener, the level of response
required and the listener’s interest in the subject.
 The context: involves vocabulary, grammar, and information structure and

background knowledge.
 The support: comprises pictures, diagrams and visual aids.
Boyle, J. P. (1984: 35) points out three factors influencing listening, namely,
listener factors, speaker factors and factors in the material and medium.
Anderson, A. and Lynch, T. (1988: 202) indicate five causes of obstacles to
efficient listening comprehension: (i) the organization of information, (ii) the
familiarity of the topic, (iii) the explicitness and sufficiency of the information, (iv)
the type of referring expressions used, and (v) whether the text describes a “static”
or “dynamic” relationship.
Underwood, M (1989: 16-19) reveals seven factors making listening difficult
as follows:
 Listeners cannot control the speed of delivery.
 Listeners cannot always have words repeated so they have to guess the
meaning of words from the context.
 Listeners have a limited vocabulary. They sometimes encounter an unknown
word which may cause them to stop and think about the meaning of that word
and thus cause them to miss the next part of the speech.
 Listeners may fail to recognize the signals which indicate that the speaker is
moving from one point to another, giving an example, or repeating a
point.
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 Listeners may encounter problems of interpretation because of lack
contextual knowledge.
 It can be listeners’ inability to concentrate in a foreign language.
 Students may have established certain learning habits such as a wish to
understand every word.
From these opinions above, it is clear that two factors affecting students’
listening ability are the subjective factors and the objective factors. The subjective

factors relate to lack of vocabulary of the topic, background knowledge of the topic
and confidence. The objective factors consist of the material, speakers’ speech and
accents, the medium and the surroundings. In order to help students improve their
listening ability, pre-listening activities that the author discusses in the next step
play a crucial role in listening process.
1. 2. Pre-listening activities
1. 2. 1. Definition of pre-listening
Pre-listening work is carried out before learners learn listening skill.
According to Rixon, S. (1986: 63), pre-listening is “things to do before the students
hear the passage, to help them get the out most of what they are going to hear”.
Underwood, M. (1989: 30) states pre-listening is a stage in which students should
be “turned in” or provided some relevant information so that they know what to
expect both in general and in particular tasks. Sharing the same opinion, Larry
Vandergrift (1999: 172) defines it is a phase in which “teachers prepare students
for what they will hear and what they are expected to do”.
These above opinions are not exactly the same, but they all show that pre-
listening establishes the purpose of the listening activity and provides the
background need for students to understand the listening text. Therefore, it is
important for anyone to understand what pre-listening is. For the teachers who teach
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listening, knowing that each student has his own background such as beliefs,
attitudes, bias to the listening experience and how the background affects the
message they receive is necessary. Before listening, besides knowing the topic,
students need to be helped to apply what they have known to the ideas they are
going to hear.
1. 2. 2. Pre-listening activities
There are many activities that have been applied in preparing for while-
listening stage. These activities relate to the outline for listening to the text and

teaching cultural key concepts. The teacher may choose key words, important
grammatical structures and proverbs to introduce through the discussion about the
topic or request their learners to guess the situation they are going to hear, based on
the knowledge they have already had. (Gilakjani, A.P. & Ahmadi, M. R. 2011: 982)
Underwood, M. (1989: 31) lists the activities to help focus the students’
minds on the topic as follows: (i) the teacher giving background information, (ii) the
students reading something relevant, (iii) the students looking at pictures, (iv)
discussion on the topic/ situation, (v) a question and answer session, (vi) written
exercises, (vii) following the instructions for the while-listening activity and (viii)
consideration of how the while-listening activity will be done.
Another list of pre-listening activities is proposed by NCLRC including:
 looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs
 reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures
 reading something relevant
 constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words
showing how they are related)
 predicting the content of the listening text
 going over the directions or instructions for the activity
 doing guided practice
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(http:// www.nclrc.org/ essentials/ index.htm)
Nguyen Hai Chau et al. (2007: 91), introduce some activities applied in pre-
listening stage including: the first activity is open prediction. The teacher introduces
the topic of the lesson, the students make some guesses about that topic; True/false
statements prediction is the second type of pre-listening activity. In this activity, the
teacher gives out some statements about the main content of the listening, the
students discuss in pairs or in groups to guess if those are true or false; Ordering is
the third activity to be applied in teaching and learning listening. The teacher lets

students look at some pictures or read some statements then asks them to arrange
pictures (statements) in a correct order; the fourth activity is pre-questions. Students
answer teacher’s questions relating the topic based on their own background
knowledge; lastly, there should be word-storm activity in preparing stage of
listening. This activity aims to help listeners recall their vocabulary and build up the
net of words relating to the listening lesson. Some strategies can be used in this
activity as Word Square or Noughts and Crosses.
The choice of suitable activities depends on the following factors: the time
available, the material available, the ability of the class, the interests of the class,
the interests of the teacher, the place in which the work is being carried out, and the
nature and content of the listening text itself, (Underwood, M. 1989: 33).
In this study, the researcher just focuses on some typical activities in pre-
listening stage that are capable and suitable to TLAHS.
- Vocabulary and new structure introduction: Key words and structures
relating to the listening content may help students much in understanding the
text and do the tasks better. Vocabulary knowledge providing background on
the topic is a critical predictor of listening comprehension. The listener’s
vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in bottom-up process. The
teachers should choose the important words and structures to introduce
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before students listen because listing too many words is a waste of time and
students may lose interest in listening new things. The teachers can use
games, visual aids, synonyms, antonyms or translation to provide lexis and
new structures.
- Discussion: This activity aims at eliciting information about the topic.
Through discussing in pairs or groups, students have opportunity to share
ideas and knowledge and take part in the task as well as speaking English.
- Asking and answering questions: Teachers ask students, or students ask

students questions relating to the listening topic. “We can use the student-
generated questions by giving them a topic, letting them ask questions about
what kind of information they would like to know, and then asking their
classmates to give answers to the questions”, (Lingzhu, J. 2003). Flowerdew,
J. and Miller, L. (2005: 189) point out the teacher helps get students ready by
using focused questions and open questions which focus on “eliciting
background knowledge that may help in contextualizing the listening,
checking whether pictures or diagrams are understood, checking whether
students understand how the while-listening activity should be done”. This
activity enhances students’ point of view on relating content.
- Brainstorming, making list of relating words, phrases / ideas / suggestions:
on making the list, students can use the words and phrases they have already
known, or they can ask their partners for help. Students can participate in this
activity in a relaxed atmosphere because there is no right or wrong answer on
the list. This activity is very good for pair work, group work or whole class.
- Using visual aids: teachers use pictures, maps, film clips, etc to help
students predict the incoming information in listening. Teacher may ask
students to look at the picture(s) or watch a film clip and name the items and
phenomena relating to the listening text. Pre-listening activity "looking and