A study on teaching listening comprehension to the 10th form students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School - Bac Giang = Nghiên cứu về việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho h

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


Phạm Thị Yến


A sutudy on Teaching Listening Comprehension
to the 10
th
form students at Ly Thuong Kiet
high school Bac Giang.
Nghiên cứu về việc dạy kỹ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh
lớp 10 trng THPT Lý Th-ờng Kiệt Bắc Giang

M.A. MINOR THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10




HA NOI - 2010

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


Phạm Thị Yến


A sutudy on Teaching Listening Comprehension
to the 10
th
form students at Ly Thuong Kiet
high school Bac Giang.
Nghiên cứu về việc dạy kỹ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh
lớp 10 trng THPT Lý Th-ờng Kiệt Bắc Giang

M.A. MINOR THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10
SUPERVISOR: Phạm Thị hạnh, MA.



HA NOI - 2010

iii
Table of contents

Acknowledgements Page
Abstract
Table of contents

List of abbreviations
List of tables and pie charts
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1. Rationale 2
2. Aims of the Study 3
3. Methods of the Study 3
4. Scope of the Study 3
5. Design of the Study 3
chapter II - Literature review
1. Introduction 5
2.1. The definition of listening and listening comprehension 5
2.1.1. Definition of listening 5
2.1.2. Definition of listening comprehension 6
2.1.3 Listening Comprehension Process 7
2.2. Types of Listening 10
2.2.1 Listening in real-life 10
2.2.2 Listening in classroom 10
2.3. The importance of listening comprehension 11
2.3.1. Listening as the final goal of learning a language 12
2.3.2. Listening as a mean of acquiring language 12
2.4. What makes listening difficult 13

2.4.1. The linguistic factors 14
2.4.1.1. The type of language input 14

iv
2.4.1.2. Pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation 15
2.4.2. The non – linguistic factors 15
2.4.2.1. Listener’s ability to concentrate 16
2.4.2.2. Listener’s background knowledge 16
2.5. The procedure of teaching a listening lesson 17
2.5.1. Pre-listening stage 17
2.5.2. While-listening stage 18
2.5.3. Post-listening stage 18
chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1.1. Introduction 20
2.1. The participants 20
2.2. The course book 20
2.3. The 10
th
form students 20
2.4. The teachers of English 21
3.1. The data collection instrument 21
3.2. Data collection and analysis 23
4.1. Conclusion 24
chapter IV: data analysis and discussion 25
I. Questionnaire for the students 25
1. Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school 25
(Question 1) 25
2. The difficulties encountered by 10
th
form students when learning listening 26

2.1. The importance of learning listening of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet
High School 26
2.2. The students’ difficulties when learning listening at school
( Question 4, 5,6) 26
2.2.1. Listening difficulties encountered by 10
th
grade students at
Ly Thuong Kiet High School 26
2.2.2. The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill

v
(question 5) 27
3. Students’ attitude after listening lesson. (Question 6,7 and 8) 29
4. Students’ need in learning listening 29
4.1. The students’ effort (question 9) 29
4.2. Teachers and their teaching methods (Question 10) 29
4.3. The things that school can do to help students in their learning English 31
II. The teachers’ questionnaire 31
1. Teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school 31
2. Teachers’ opinion about the aspects of language taught at school 32
3. Teachers’ opinion of teaching listening comprehension (question 3,4,5 and 6) 33
3.1. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching listening. (Question 4, 5 and 6) 34
3.2. Teachers’ activities to help students overcome the difficulties
in learning listening process. ( Question 7) 35
4. Teachers’ attitude toward class-listening activities
(Question 7, 8,9,10, 11 and 12) 36
4.1. Teachers’ opinions about three-listening stages (Question 7) 36
4.2. Teaches’ comments on the pre-listening activities in the textbooks
and their suggestions (Question 8,9) 37
4.3. Listening exercises teachers often have students practice in a

listening lesson and their effectiveness (Question 10,11) 37
4.4. Students’ achievement from a listening text (Question 12) 39
5. Teachers’ suggestion in teaching listening 40

vi
5.1. The teachers’ effort (Question 13) 40
5.2. Teachers’ need in having effective listening lessons (Question 14)
5.3 Teachers’ suggestion to the administrators in order to have 41
effective listening lessons.(Question 15) 43
chapter v: recommendations and conclusion 44
I. Findings and suggestions 44
II.Limitation and suggestions for the further study 46

vii
list of abbreviations


 CLT :Communicative Language Teaching
 LCT :Listening Comprehension Teaching
 LTK HS :Ly Thuong Kiet High School
 N :Number
 ESL :English as a Second language
 Ss :Students
 Ts :Teachers

viii
list of tables and pie charts
A. list of tables
Table 1: Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (N = 380)
Table 2: Why is listening skill difficult?
Table 3: The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill
Table 4: Teaching techniques help students listen better and more effectively
Table 5: Teachers’ views on the aims of teaching English at school (N=7)
Table 6: Overall ranking of the aspects of the language taught at school
Table 7: Teachers’ activities to help students overcome the difficulties in learning listening
process.
Table 8: Teachers’ opinions about three- stage process
Table 9: Listening exercises used
Table 10: What those students can get after listening lessons
Table 11: Teachers’ effort to have effective listening lessons
Table 12: Teachers’ need in having effective listening lessons


B. list of pie charts
Pie chart 1: Students’ attitude towards listening skill
Pie chart 2: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill







1

Chapter 1: Introduction

1. Rationale

In the recent years, English language is described as an international language and the
need for communication between groups of people. It is not only the main language spoken by
native speakers but also the official language in many countries as well as an important
language in a lot of nations throughout the world. In Vietnam, where people are carrying out
the modernization and industrialization, English has become more popular and important.
Thus, Ministry of Education in Vietnam has considered English as a compulsory subject at
most upper secondary schools. However, how to teach and learn English effectively and how
to popularize it are not simple matters.

For most of students, English is always considered a difficult subject which has four skills:
Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing. In these skills, listening skill seems to be the most
difficult and weakest skills among students’ four language skills. The difficulties which hinder
students from developing their listening skills are various. Moreover, most high school
students have had listening practice in their classroom, but they may find themselves bored
with the listening tasks

For listening teachers, correspondingly, it is a difficult task to get students involved in
listening lessons. Nonetheless, just as other teachers do, listening teachers should create an
interesting and motivating learning environment on one hand; and on the other hand, they
must become aware of difficulties and problems facing their students, then, select the best
techniques to help them.

My school is Ly Thuong Kiet High School (LTK HS) in Bac Giang, which is a
mountainous province in the Northeast of Ha Noi. Teaching and learning listening there is
really a challenging job. In addition to the lack of well-equipped facilities, teaching listening
methods are quite new and unfamiliar to teachers. Another problem is students’ low levels of

proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth. It is the reason

2
why students find it difficult and tough to listen and they are not confident enough to do
listening tasks successfully. Moreover, learning habits do not help much to improve their
listening in classroom. The students often get bored, tired and indifferent in listening lessons
because of the quality of teachers’ voice and pronunciation, uncreative tasks and activities,
topics, and so on.

Being a teacher of English, I am aware of the teachers’ important task in increasing
students’ knowledge of English, and improving their listening skills. Therefore, I would like to
study to know more the ways to help my students to improve their listening skills. So that is
the reason why I chose the theme: “A study on Teaching Listening Comprehension to the 10th
form students at Ly Thuong Kiet high school – Bac Giang.”

2. Aims of the Study

The new “ TiÕng Anh 10”, which has four language skills: reading, writing, speaking and
listening, is first introduced in Vietnam. Thus, there are a number of problems facing both the
teachers and the students. The main purposes of this study are to find out the real situation of
teaching and learning listening skill at LTK HS, the areas of difficulties in listening
encountered by 10th grade students and their needs in learning listening to English. Therefore,
the teachers could find out the way to teach listening English effectively. The study aims to
find the answer to the following questions:
1. How is listening comprehension taught and learnt in Ly Thuong Kiet high school?
2. What difficulties do the teachers and 10th form students face in teaching and learning
listening comprehension?
3. What do teachers and students need in teaching and learning listening comprehension?
4. What techniques can teachers and students use in order to teach and learn listening skill
more effectively?

3. Methods of the Study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the reseacher chose the survey reseach, qualitative

3
approach, which involves two survey questionnaires, is employed to collect the data for the
study. The first survey questionnaires are for students, which dealt with students’ needs and
difficulties in learning listening. The second survey questionnaires are for teachers, which
aims to find out the real situation and the difficulties that teachers face in teaching listening
skill at LTK HS.

4. Scope of the Study

This minor study is conducted at LTK HS in order to perceive the real teaching and
learning listening skills of both teachers and 10th form students. The study focuses on
describing the problems and factors causing such challenges, for instance, facilities, students’
English listening proficiency and teachers’ methodology. The thesis also offers some
appropriate suggestions to better the current context. It was my intention to examine all the
seven teachers of the school and 8 classes with 380 students.

5. Design of the Study
The study is divided into five chapters which are summarized as follows:
The first chapter is introduction including a rationale for study, the aims, and the methods,
scope of the study as well as the design of the study.The second chapter is literature review
discussing the theoretical background, which is relevant to the purposes of the study.The third
chapter is on the study which gives a detailed description of how the study was implemented.
The fourth chapter is to report the data analysis. Discussion about the results is also made
in this chapter.
The final chapter gives the conclusion as well as some recommendations for the teaching

and learning activities at LTK HS.



1
Chapter II - Literature review

1. Introduction

In this chapter, I would like to provide a theoretical background to the study to know
more and deeply about Listening Comprehension Teaching. It is composed of four sections.
The first section is to examine different views on the definition of listening. The second
section is the importance of listening comprehension. The thirdth section is designed to look
at the factors that make listening difficult. The finally section is the procedure of teaching a
listening lesson

2.1. The definition of listening and listening comprehension

2.1.1. Definition of listening :

It is believed that listening is a significant and an essential area of development in a native
language and in a second language; therefore, there are different point of views on the
definition of listening, which present different views of scholars towards the concept.
As Celce-Murcia (1991:88) puts it, “Listening can be defined broadly as everything that
impinges on the human processing which meditates between sound and the construction of
meaning”. Listening, as Mary Underwood simply put it, “is the activity of paying attention to
and trying to get meaning from something we hear” (Underwood, 1989:1). The author also
emphasized: “To listen successfully to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what
speakers mean when they use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, not
simple to understand the words themselves” (Underwood, 1989:1).

2.1.2. Definition of listening comprehension

There have been a large number of definitions for listening comprehension made by
methodologists. According to Anderson and Lynch (1988) listening is really a receptive skill

2
along side reading skills and the role of the listener 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 objectives of listening comprehension. Therefore, "The role of the successful
listeners has to be thought as an active one" Anderson and Lynch (1988: 6). There has also
been the idea that listening comprehension is pointed out that listening comprehension is an
active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the
incoming sound.
Another definition of listening and listening comprehension is pointed out that “Listening
comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying
knowledge to the incoming sound” in which “number of different types of knowledge are
involved: both linguistic knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non linguistic
knowledge”. (Buck, 1984:31)
While Brown and Yule (1983) list the four degrees of comprehension on which listening
exercises can be constructed:(1) The listener can repeat the text.(2) The student should have
heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used in that
text.(3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric reference and to determine which was
referred to.(4) The student should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the
text, but also what is implied.

Therefore, the concept of listening and listening comprehension can be broadly defined as
everything that improves on the human processing which mediates between sounds and the
construction of meaning. When listeners are expected to attend to what they hear to process it,
to comprehend, to interpret, to evaluate and to respond to the incoming data. In order to do all

these things, they have to get involved in the process and become active listeners.

From the concept of listening comprehension above, in this study the students’ listening
comprehension is their performance on the listening tests.

2.1.3 Listening Comprehension Process

The process of listening may be understood as the decoding an aural message and making

3
sense of it. Brown (1994) suggests that after the psycho motor process of receiving sounds
waves through the ear and transmitting nerve impulses to the brain, the process of
comprehension immediately takes place. However, this is a complex process which can be
assumed to consist of these following processes:

· Perception

The initial process of comprehension is the perception process. The hearer processes what is
called “raw speech”. The holds an image of it 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

This decoding process consists of several stages which all occur:(1) The hearer determines the
type of speech event that is being process(2) The hearer infers the function of the message(3)
The hearer brings a plausible interpretation to the message by recalling background
information ( or schemata) relevant to the particular context and subject matter.(4) The hearer
assigns a literal meaning to the utterance(5) The hearer assigns an intended meaning to the
utterance.

· Recording for storage

Brown also suggests the following two stages of information storage after the hearer has
successfully decoded the oral input: (1) The hearer determines whether information should be
retained in short-term the hearer. Short-term memory is appropriate, for example, in contexts
that simply call for a quick oral response from the hearer. Long-term memory is more
common when, say, hearer is processing information in a lecture. (2) The hearer deletes the
original form of the message in 99 percent of speech acts.

Important information, if any, is retained conceptually.

4

Based on the ways listeners process and comprehend what is heard, listening is said to be
existed of two underlying modes of language processing which interact in a cooperative
process, namely top-down and bottom-up processes (o)
Top-down Processing: It is listener based. The listener actively constructs (or. more
accurately. reconstructs) the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues.
In this reconstruction process, the listener uses prior knowledge of the context and situation
within which the listening takes place to such of what he or she hears. Context and include
such things as knowledge of the topic at hand, the speaker and the relationship to the situation,
as well as to each other and prior events.
Bottom-up Processing: It is text based. This model assumes that listening is a process of
decoding the sound that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units
(phonemes) to complete texts. According to this view, phonemic units are decided and linked
together to form utterances, and utterances are linked together to form complete, meaningful
texts. In other words, the processes are a linear one, in which meaning itself is derived as the
last step in the process.

The two underlying modes of language processing act as the basis on which the
aforementioned stages of comprehension take place so that a complete understanding of the
oral message is achieved.

2.2. The importance of listening comprehension

One of the most difficult aspects of teaching and learning English as a foreign language is
the teaching and learning listening. The importance of listening comprehension must be taken
into consideration for anyone who wants to learn English with great success. A lack of
listening comprehension skill causes a lot of trouble in discussion and communication. The
importance roller of listening comprehension in second and foreign language learning is
summarized in a recent publication by Rost, (1994:141) as follows: “ Listening is vital in the
language classroom because it provides input for the learner without understanding input at
the right level, any learner simply can’t begin”. So listening comprehension is very necessary

5
when you study any language. “It is true that listening is of great essence not only as a
respective skill but also to the development of the language proficiency. Listening skill is
obviously a necessary preliminary to the success of the language learning process”.

Listening is tied to the essential cognitive elements of comprehension and understanding. In
order to take part in oral communication, clearly, the first thing anyone must have is the ability
to absorb the pieces on information from speakers by listening. When nobody listens to a
speaker or when a listener fails to understand the message communication is broken down,
listening is an important way of acquiring the language, a good way of picking up vocabulary
and structures. Teaching listening to spoken language is therefore of primary importance.

2.3. What makes listening difficult?

Listening has gained a strong position in a lot of experimental studies. These studies have

been conducted aiming not only at seeking the ways to teach the listening skill effectively but
also trying to answer the question of what makes listening difficult.

In the eyes of many teachers and learners of English, listening is usually regarded as a
difficult skill. If they are asked to rank the four macro language skills: speaking, reading,
writing and listening in order of difficulty, listening skill will probably be one of those which
are put at the top of the list. They often complain people speak too fast, speakers pronounce
the words differently, or speakers often swallow the words.
Brown and Yule (1983:74) suggested that: “…there are four main groups of factors,
which can cause difficulty in listening comprehension. These are the speaker (that includes the
number of speakers, the speaker’s speech, and the speaker’s accents): the listener (this consists
of the role of the listener, the level of response required and the listener’s interest in the
subject): the content (vocabulary, grammar, and information structure and background
knowledge): and support (whether there are pictures, diagrams visual aids…)”

Anderson and Lynch (1988: 202) group the factors that confront listeners into three main
categories: the type of language; the purpose in listening; the context in which the listening

6
takes place. They did a lot of experiments and found that listening is difficult because of the
following factors: (1) The organization of information. (2) The familiarity of the topic. (3) The
explicitness and sufficiency of the information. (4)The type of referring expressions used. (5)
Whether the text described ‘static’ relationships (for instance, geometric figures) or dynamic
relationship (e.g. a car accident)

In summary, there are a number of factors that make listening difficult. The list ranges from
linguistic factors to non- linguistic factors such as the listeners and support. However, teaching
experience has told that students really panic when coping with the following factors:

2.3.1. The linguistic factors

2.3.1.1. The type of language input

The type of language input the author refers hereafter to the colloquialism and the formal
language. The formal is usually both spontaneous and colloquial and claimed to hinder the
students’ listening comprehension. The later is characteristically neither. Broadly speaking,
the degree of colloquialism of speeches affects its pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and
syntax, and these cause difficulty in comprehending a listening text. It is quite true that a
listener listening to spoken discourse in the foreign language will probably not comprehend a
word he has not learnt yet. However, what is also true is that he will, too, fail to recognize
many words he has learnt but is not yet sufficiently familiar with to identify when they occur
within swift stream of speech (Ur, 1984).

Most learners of English often find it very difficult to deal with colloquial language, which
is said to be the language of spontaneous, produced speech. This type of language is usually
used in everyday talk, television interviews, gossip, and family quarrels etc. In fact, many
language learners have limited experience of English language used in such situations. In their
lessons, they seem to be exposed most of their time to Standard English or textbook language
as Underwood (1989) called and tend to use formal language, because this is what is expected
when teachers and students talk to learners have limited experience of English language used

7
in such situations. In their lessons, they seem to be exposed most of their time to Standard
English or textbook language as Underwood (1989) called and tend to use formal language,
because this is what is expected when teachers and students talk to each other. The students,
therefore, have difficulty in understanding the formal spoken discourse .(Anderson & Lynch,
1988)

2.3.1.2. Pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation

One of the most apparent sources of difficulty for a learner of English is the way in which it
is pronounced. There are words, which are stressed when people speak, but there are words
that bear no stress. Stress is, from an articulator perspective, an aspect of this; some words lose
their clarity. The Pronunciation of English, therefore, can cause students problems in
recognition, and in comprehension (Rixon, 1986). The difficulty in recognition of words is
also caused by the phenomenon of elision and assimilation. Elision is the loss of sounds,
which occurs in rapid speech. Assimilation is the way in which most speakers modify
pronunciation to save effort.

These prosodic features of the English language as Brown (1994) exclaims, can be a terror
for some learners as mouthfuls of syllables come spilling out because of stressed points.
Another reason why listening to English is not easy is that the listeners are not used to the
rhythm and intonation patterns of the English language. Brown (1977); Ur (1984) Rixon
(1986) agree that the English system of intonation and rhythm can interfere with foreign
listeners’ understanding of spoken English.

2.3.2. The non – linguistic factors

2.3.2.1. Listener’s ability to concentrate

Concentration is essential in doing anything. Lack of concentration is really disastrous
because even a shortest break in attention can seriously affect comprehension (Harmer; 1991).
Concentration difficulty may fall on the topic of the listening. The listener will concentrate

8
easily if the listening topic is interesting enough. It is much easier if the topics are related to
family, personality or other social subjects.

It is, too, hard for listeners to concentrate if the material or the tape recorder is not good.
Certain varieties of the language and the length of the time listeners are required to listen are

also believed to be the factors that make concentration very difficult.

2.3.2.2. Listener’s background knowledge

In order to improve listening comprehension skills listeners should pay attention to both
linguistic factors and the system of the foreign culture whose language they are studying.
Without background knowledge of the culture of a second language, which is involved in what
they are to hear listeners will have to cope with many obstacles (Anderson & Lynch, 1988:
35). Therefore, the cultural background of listeners plays a very important role in
comprehending the listening text.

To sum up, a language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of language, the two facets
are intricately interwoven in such a way that one can not separate from the other without
losing the significance of either language or culture. That is why listeners can not achieve
effective listening proficiency without good background knowledge of both linguistic and non
linguistic factors with listeners’ experience. To make the listening tasks easier for students to
deal with some suggestions in view of improving listeners’ background knowledge can be
provided by pre-listening activities.

2.4. The procedure of teaching a listening lesson.

Underwood (1989) describes listening activities in terms of three phrases: pre, while and
post listening activities. This three – stage listening lesson model is usually used by many
teachers as it is very useful in teaching listening. A listening lesson is usually divided into
three parts: the pre-listening, the while-listening, and the post-listening. Each part is really a
constituent part on a continuum. Pre-listening is a preparatory stage. While-listening stage is

9
to complete the main listening task. Post-listening stage serves as the further development
part. To help students succeed in listening, this model is the optimal solution. Following is a

further discussion on the three-staged model.

Summary

Chapter two has, in general, provided an overview of the relevant literature in the field of
the study. This chapter has discussed different views of listening and listening comprehension,
on which the author based to work out the definition of listening. The chapter has again made
it clear that listening is vital and more importantly, it has listed different linguistic and non-
linguistic factors that make listening a challenge.



1
Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1.1. Introduction

This study attempts to investigate the difficulties encountered by the 10th form students
and the teachers as well as their needs in learning and teaching listening. It first starts with an
understanding about the school, then some information about the students and their learning
requirements are addressed. To achieve the aims mentioned above, two survey questionnaires
are conducted to collect data for the study. The first one is the survey questionnaire for
students at LTK HS in which designed to collect information on students’ needs and
difficulties in learning listening. The second one is designed for the teachers at LTK HS in
which they needs, the difficulties of the teachers are presented. Then, some techniques and
some suggestions to make listening lessons in the textbook less difficult are discussed.

2.1. The participants

2.2. The course book

Ly Thuong Kiet High School which was founded in 2001 in Bac Giang, is one among the
high schools which chose to use the new "English 10” textbook which was complied
following the theme-based approaches. The texts and the tasks were chosen from different
sources of materials. This, to some extent, stimulated students’ interests. During the using
period, both teachers and students have experienced many difficulties in teaching and learning
English with the new textbooks.

2.3. The 10
th
form students.

Having taught English at LTK HS for 9 years, the writer of this study recognizes that the
majority of 10th form students are aged fifteen to sixteen from Bac Giang and they were born
in the peasant families. Most of them have learnt English at junior high schools for four years.
They should have general knowledge of grammar and an active vocabulary which they can use

2
mostly in written form. However, they can hardly say a couple of sentences intelligibly in the
target language and hardly hear anything when first learning how to listen. Therefore, when
they learn this new text book, they have to deal with a lot of difficulties in learning how to
listening English. Because of these difficulties the majority of the students feel bored with
listening lessons. Moreover they are not aware of the importance of learning how to listen in a
foreign language in general and English in particular as they simply know that they do not
have to do the listening tests. On the contrary, there are also a few students have positive
attitude towards learning listening and a strong and clear motivation. Besides, they gradually
get used to listening to the tape-recorder and doing the listening exercises such as filling the
missing words; choosing the best answers or answering the questions, etc.

2.4. The teachers of English

Seven teachers who were teaching at the school invited to join the study. Their ages range
from late-twenties to thirty years old. All of them are female teachers and have the University
Bachelor’s Degree. All the teachers at LTK HS are experienced and enthusiastic in teaching.
They are willing to help their students overcome the difficulties in learning English although
they are still lack of experiences in teaching new English textbook.

3.1. The data collection instrument

There are a variety of methods that can be employed to collect data such as: questionnaire;
interviews; meeting; tests; observation and so on. Each method has its own advantages and
disadvantages. The researcher chose questionnaire because it is one of the most popular
instruments. Hence survey questionnaire was chosen to collect teachers and students’ opinions
and attitudes toward the importance of the listening comprehension and the difficulties and the
needs they experience when teaching and learning listening. The teachers and their students
would also have opportunities to reflect on their experiences of teaching and learning
listening. The information, therefore, would be more detailed and more accurate.

Questionnaires:

3

There are two sets of questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended questions used
for both teachers and students. Questionnaires which are administered to seven teachers and
380 students in December are written in English.

* A questionnaire completed by the students

The questionnaire consists of eleven questions, which categorized four parts (see Appendix
1). Part I (question 1) aims at exploring the students’ views on the aims of learning English at

school. In part II, by answering questions 2,3,4,5 students can express their views about the
importance of listening and the difficulties they often get when learning listening. The next
part of questionnaire (question 6 to 8) is made to find out the students’ attitude toward learning
listening lessons, and the final part (question 9, 10 and 11) is designed for the student’s need
in learning listening

*A questionnaire completed by the teachers

The questionnaire designed for the teacher’s aims at finding out the teachers’ need in
teaching listening, difficulties they faced when teaching listening in order to find out the way
to teach listening skill more effectively (See appendix 2). Part I ( question 1,2,) aims at finding
the numbers of years which they has taught, the teachers’ views on the aims of teaching
English at school. Teachers’ opinion about the aspects of language taught at school is
expressed through the question 2. Questions 3,4,5,6 are about the teachers’ opinion of teaching
listening. By answering the question 7, 8 and 9; teachers can expressed their views about
class-listening activities and the final part (question 10; 11; 12; 13 ,14 and 15) is about the
suggestion in teaching listening.

The investigator believes that from the information obtained, some useful suggestions could
be made to minimize the difficulties encountered and thus improve the teaching and learning
of the listening at Ly Thuong Kiet High School.


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3.2. Data collection and analysis

The questionnaire was filled out by both of the teachers and students. The participants
were asked to complete the questionnaire seriously within fifteen minutes in their classroom.
Eight classes (with 380 students) were selected randomly. The researcher asked the teachers
for permission to have personal contacts with the study population in order to explain the

purpose, relevance and the importance of the study, as well as to clarify any questions that the
students had.

The data collected from the survey were read through to obtain a sense of the overall data.
They were then analyzed. The information was then displayed in forms of table and figures
while qualitative data from the open-ended questionnaire items were presented by quoting
relevant responses from the respondents.

4.1. Conclusion

This chapter presented the research questions, research methodology, instruments and the
data collection procedure and analysis. Given the aims and objectives of the study, the
researcher decided to use two survey questionnaires. By employing these questionnaires, the
researcher hopes to achieve triangulation and more reliable, valid data. Next chapter, chapter
four will present the data analysis and discussion.



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Chapter IV: data analysis and discussion
I. Questionnaire for the students
1. Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (Question 1)
Question 1 attempt to find out the aims of listening English identified by the students of the
school. The result of question 1 is presented in the table 1:
Option
Number of Ss
Percentage
Communicate effectively in English
98
25.7%

Pass the school graduation exam at the end of in year 12
307
80,7%
Complete a compulsory subject
286
75.2%
Entertain
50
13%
Study abroad
0
0%
Prepare for future job
134
35.2%
Table 1: Students’ views on the aims of learning English at school (N = 380)
As shown in the above table, most of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School learned
English in order to pass the school graduation exam (over 80 %), and over 75% of the
students learnt English to complete a compulsory subject. Only 25.7% learned it with the
aims of communicating. It was very surprising to discover that 0% to study abroad
It can be concluded that over 80 % students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School had a clear
aim in studying English is passing the school graduation exam at the end of the 12 form. Some
learned English for communicating with foreigners and for their future job. Nobody learned
English for studying abroad. Thus, they feel bored with listening lessons and they have passive
attitude toward learning listening skills.
2. The difficulties encountered by 10
th
form students when learning listening
2.1. The importance of learning listening of the students at Ly Thuong Kiet High School:
In this section, students are asked to express their opinions of the listening skill in English

learning (Questions 2 and 3). The collected information is presented in table below.

20% Very important 48% Important 32% A little important