Current situation in teaching and learning English listening at Tay Ho High School in Hanoi and solutions = Thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năng nghe ở trường THPT Tây

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************






NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG QUỲNH





CURRENT SITUATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
ENGLISH LISTENING AT TAY HO HIGH SCHOOL IN
HANOI AND SOLUTIONS

(Thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năng nghe ở trường THPT Tây Hồ - Hà Nội:
Thực trạng và giải pháp)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis






Major: English Teaching Methodology

Code : 60 14 10







Hanoi – 2010
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************







NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG QUỲNH



CURRENT SITUATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
ENGLISH LISTENING AT TAY HO HIGH SCHOOL IN
HANOI AND SOLUTIONS

(Thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năng nghe ở trường THPT Tây Hồ - Hà Nội:
Thực trạng và giải pháp)

Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ VƯỢNG, M.A.





Hanoi - 2010



TABLE OF CONTENT


PAGE
TABLE OF CONTENT
iv
LISTS OF TABLES
v
CHARPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1
1.1. Rationale of the Study
1
1.2. Aims of the Study

2
1.3. Research Questions
2
1.4. Scope of the Study
2
1.5. Methods of the Study
2
1.6. The significance of the study
3
1.7. Design of the Study
3
CHARPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
5
2.1. Theoretical Background of Listening Skills
5
2.1.1. What is Listening Comprehension
5
2.1.2. The Importance of Listening in Learning Foreign
Language
6
2.1.3. Teaching Listening Skills
7
2.1.3.1. Listening Skills
7
2.1.3.2. Potential Problems in Learning to Listen to English
8
2.1.3.2.1. Lack of control over the speech at which the
speakers speak
8
2.1.3.2.2. Limited vocabulary / grammar structures

9
2.1.3.2.3. Learners learning habit
9
2.1.3.2.4. Lack of concentration
9
2.1.3.2.5. The size of the class
9
2.2. Teacher’s roles
10
2.2.1. A tailor
10
2.2.2. A stand-up comedian or a storyteller
10
2.2.3. A sleuth
10
2.2.4. An engineer
11
2.2.5. A spy
11
2.2.6. A doctor
11
2.2.7. A firefighter
11
2.2.8. A tour guide
11
CHAPTER 3: AN OVERVIEW OF THE NEW ENGLISH
TEXTBOOK “TIENG ANH 10” AND THE CURRENT
SITUATION OF TECHING THE TEXTBOOK AT TAY HO
HIGH SCHOOL
13

3.1. An overview of the new textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛
13
3.1.1. Objectives
13


3.1.2. Content of the textbook
13
3.2. Characteristics of listening lessons and listening tasks in the
textbook
14
3.2.1. Characteristics of listening lessons
14
3.2.2. Characteristics of listening tasks
15
3.3. The current situation of teaching the textbook at Tay Ho high
school
15
3.3.1. Introduction of Tay Ho high school and its students
15
3.3.2. English teachers and teaching methods
16
3.3.3. Teaching facilities
17
3.3.4. Time allocation for a listening period
17
CHARPTER 4: THE STUDY
18
4.1. Context study
18

4.2. Research questions
18
4.3. The subjects
18
4.4. The data collection instruments
19
4.5. Data collection procedure
19
CHAPTER 5: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS
21
5.1. Discuss of the results
21
5.1.1. Discussion of the results collected by means of
questionnaire
21
5.1.1.1. Students’ opinion on the listening skill in general and
listening lesson on the new textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ in particular
(Table 1)
21
5.1.1.2. Students opinion about the quality of the cassette
player (Table 2)
22
5.1.1.3. Students opinion about the content of the listening
(Table 3)
22
5.1.1.4. Difficulties faced by students (Table 4)
24
5.1.1.5. Students’ expectation from their teachers in teaching
listening (Table 5)
26

5.1.1.6. The role of listening in final assessment at Tay Ho
high school (Table 6)
26
5.1.2. Discussion of the data collected by means of the informal
interview with teachers of English and classroom observation.
27
5.1.2.1. Teachers’ opinion on the listening part in the textbook
‚Tieng Anh 10‛ (the set of standard textbooks)
27
5.1.2.2. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching listening skill to the
10
th
form students.
28
5.1.2.3. Teachers’ solution to overcome difficulties in teaching
listening
29
5.1.2.4. Students’ attitude toward listening skill
29
CHARPTER 6: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
31
6.1. Findings: Problems and difficulties facing 10
th
grade students
31


6.2. Suggestions
32
6.2.1. Changing the method of teaching listening

33
6.2.2. Training students to become active and effective learners
34
6.2.3. Improving teachers’ classroom techniques
35
6.2.4. Making advantage of teaching facilities
37
6.2.5. Changing the assessment ways
37
CONCLUSION
39
1. Summary of the study
39
2. Limitations of the study
40
3. Suggestions for further study
40
REFERENCES
41
APPENDIXES
I
Appendix 1: Survey Questionnaire for Students (Original)
I
Appendix 2: Survey Questionnaire for Students (English
Translation)
IV
Appendix 3: Questions for informal interview with teachers
VII
Appendix 4: Classroom observation 1
VIII

Appendix 5: Classroom observation 2
XI




















LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Students’ opinion on the listening skill in general and listening lesson on
the new textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ in particular
Table 2: Students’ opinion about the quality of the cassette player
Table 3: Students’ opinion about the content of the listening
Table 4: Difficulties faced by students
Table 5: Students’ expectation from their teachers in teaching listening
Table 6: The role of listening in final assessment at Tay Ho High School

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale of the Study
With Vietnam’s entry into the WTO and opening its markets to the outside
world, the demand for English speaking proficiency among people is rising. In
recent years, the communicative approach has become more and more widely used
in teaching and learning English at tertiary education and therefore, students’
communicative competence has been stressed. The needs of communication make
listening teaching a priority all over the country. The need for competence in

listening in English learners is increasingly recognized, so listening teaching has
recently attracted considerable attention.
However, careful observation of High School teaching practice has found that
the teaching of listening skills is still the weak link in the language teaching process.
Despite students having mastered the basic elements of English grammar and
vocabulary, their listening comprehension is often weak. Through systematic study
of basic English teaching stages at High School it has been recognized that while
students’ integrated skills in reading, writing, translating have been improving,
their listening and speaking capabilities have been left behind. The key factor that
has been recognized in the preliminary studies is students’ limited listening
comprehension. Both teachers and students recognized that the listening levels of
each learner are different, particularly because English listening is affected by an
array of factors. Important among these factors is the necessity to emphasize to
teachers and students the importance of listening, to encourage the study of listening
teaching theory and to explore listening teaching methods by using the most
advanced teaching methods.
The traditional grammar-translation method of teaching English in Vietnam has
been found inadequate to the demands for producing efficient English speakers and
listeners. The old approach has been shown to be ineffectual. Research has
stimulated an entirely new conception of teaching English as a foreign language.
Central to the new approach is the understanding that there must be a rigorous


application of the communicative approach in English classrooms. English must be
taught as a tool for communication. It is now widely accepted that students’ listening
ability must be at the core of teaching practice, and it is the area in which teachers
need to concentrate their own efforts to improve their teaching. This is a significant
challenge for teachers of English in Vietnam; however it is crucial in the
development of English language competence.
Fully aware of this, new English teaching syllabus and new textbooks have

arrived at high school since 2006 in which the grammar and vocabulary focus were
changed into a skill focus: listening, writing, speaking and reading among these
listening play a very important role on language teaching and learning. However,
not many researchers study on the listening difficulties perceived by high school
teachers and students in using the new ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ textbook. Hence, it is in
urgent need of taking a serious look at this issue.

1.2. Aims of the study
The specific aims of this study are:
- To investigate the areas of difficulty that the teachers at Tay Ho High School are
coping with in their daily teaching listening comprehension to the 10
th
form students
with the textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛
- To suggest some solutions to overcome these difficulties
This study is carried out in the hope that the findings from the study will be of some
benefits to the teachers at Tay Ho High School in their teaching listening.

1.3. Research questions
In order to find out the challenges that the teachers and students of grade 10 in
teaching and learning listening, it is necessary to answer the following questions:
1. What is the reality of teaching and learning teaching in grade 10 at Tay Ho
high school?
2. What are the challenges that teachers and students in grade 10 have to face?


3. What are the solutions to improve listening skill for students of grade 10?

1.4. Scope of the study
This study is limited to:

- The 10
th
form students at Tay Ho High School
- The teachers of English at Tay Ho High School
- Listening comprehension in the new English textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛

1.5. Methods of the study
The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods.
Besides, many resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers and some
sources on the internet have been read by the researcher.
In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will be
collected through one survey questionnaires. This survey questionnaire is for 200
students from 10
th
form graders at TH high school. The data, then, will be processed
and analyzed to yield conclusions for the study.
Along with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained by
classroom observation and informal interviews with teachers of English to collect
further information about the real situations of teaching and learning listening skill
in grades 10 at TH high school.

1.6. Significance of the study
The piloted syllabus for grade 10
th
of high school level was designed with
hopes that students could have a chance to practice listening skill as English
teaching nowadays follows the communicative approach learning. However, there
has not been much investigation into the fact that whether lessons of listening are
suitable and comprehensible for students; or whether the teaching of listening for
students of grade 10 is easy- undertaken. This research provides an insight into the

problems that are often met by teachers teaching English for grades 10 at TH High


school. In addition, this research also points out some feasible solutions which are,
hopefully, beneficial for both teachers and students.

1.7. Design of the study
The study is divided into three parts
The first part ‚Introduction‛ (chapter 1) presents the rationale, the aim and
objectives, the scope, the methods, significance and the design of the study.
The second part, ‚Development‛, consists of four chapters:
Chapter 2 provides a thorough literature review relevant to the study. It presents the
theoretical background: the concepts relating to listening skill, its importance to
language learners and listening teaching as a second language. Potential Problems
in Learning to Listen to English are also mentioned in this chapter.
Chapter 3 is an overview of the new English textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ and the
current situation of teaching the textbook at TH high school.
Chapter 4 deals with the introduction of the research methods which are: research
questions, subject, questionnaire, class observation and informal interview.
Chapter 5 is for analyzing the data collected from survey questionnaires, interview
as well as classroom observation.
Chapter 6 concludes the findings the researcher has from the study and proposes
some solutions to the teaching of listening skill for grade 10 at TH high school.
The last part of the study ‚Conclusion‛ gives a brief description of the study and
states the limitations as well as recommendations for further research.

CHARPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Theoretical Background of Listening Skills
2.1.1. What is listening comprehension?
Listening is more than merely hearing words. Listening is an active process
by which students receive, construct meaning from, and respond to spoken and or
nonverbal messages (Emmert, 1994). As such, it forms an integral part of the
communication process and should not be separated from the other language arts.
Listening is the most fundamental language skill and plays an important role
in our daily communication. A survey conducted in the USA suggested that an
average person spent about 30% of time in speaking, while 42% of time in listening
(Cooper, 1988). It is the medium through which people gain a large portion of their
education, information, and understanding of the world and of human affairs, their

ideas, sense of values, and their appreciation.


There are different controversies on the nature of LC. According to Howatt
and Dakin (1974), listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are
saying. This process involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the
speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. An able
listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Thomlison's (1984)
definition of listening includes "active listening," which goes beyond comprehending
as understanding the message content, to comprehension as an act of empathetic
understanding of the speaker. Ronald and Roskelly (1985) define listening as an
active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking,
revising, and these authors present specific exercises to "inner voice" one hears when
writing.
As defined by Oxford (1993:206), ‚Listening is a complex, problem solving skill‛
and it is ‚more than just perception of the sounds. Listening includes comprehension
of meaning bearing words, phrases, clauses, sentences and connected discourses‛.
She also points out that listening is usually a hard skill to master in one’s own
language, let alone in another language.
Like reading, listening is an internal process that cannot be directly observed. It’s
rather difficult to say what happens when we listen and understand others.
Ommagio
(1986 in Persulessy 1986: 3) say that
Listening and reading are both highly complex process that draw on the
knowledge of the linguistic code (language form), cognitive processing skill (the
skill to
process in the mind). Schome-based nderstanding (background knowledge), and
contextual cues both within and outside the text.
Listening is the absorption of the meanings of words and sentences by the
brain. Listening leads to the understanding of facts and ideas. But listening takes

attention, or sticking to the task at hand in spite of distractions. It requires
concentration, which is the focusing of your thoughts upon one particular problem. A


person who incorporates listening with concentration is actively listening to details
at anytime ( />20090714034217308.html)
In short, the issue of whether view is the best is controversial. However, in
the final analysis, the definition of Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is the ability
to identify and understand what others are saying. That is, this process involves
understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and
vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning is highly appreciated.

2.1.2. The importance of listening in foreign language learning
Language learning depends on listening since it provides the aural input that
serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in
spoken communication. Listening is the first language mode that children acquire. It
provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and
it plays a life-long role in the processes of communication. A study by Wilt (1950),
found that people listen 45 % of the time they spend communicating. This study is
still widely cited (e.g., Martin, 1987; Strother, 1987). Wilt found that 30 % of
communication time was spent speaking, 16 % reading, and 9 % writing. That
finding confirmed what Rankin discovered in 1928, that people spent 70 % of their
waking time communicating and that three-fourths of this time was spent listening
and speaking.
According to Bulletin (1952), listening is the fundamental language skill. It is
the medium through which people gain a large portion of their education, their
information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals,
sense of values, and their appreciation.
The importance of listening in communication is enormous. People often
focus on their speaking ability believing that good speaking equals good

communication. The ability to speak well is a necessary component to successful
communication. The ability to listen is equally important.


The importance of listening in communication is something worthwhile to
consider. Good listeners are often some of the best speakers because they have
taken the time to find out what people are truly interested in. If you understand what
is important to people that you understand how to reach them.
Listening is an important part of foreign language learning process, and it has
also been defined as an active process during which listeners construct meaning
from oral input (Bentley & Bacon, 1996). Listening skill developed faster than the
other three skills and could affect reading and writing abilities in learning a new
language (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992; Vandergrift, 1997).
For high school students nowadays, listening skill is becoming more and more
important. If students have a good competence of listening, they also have much
confidence when communicating with other people, especially with foreigners. As a
result, it is of vital importance that students are taught to listen effectively and
critically. It is also the aim of foreign language teaching.

2.1.3. Teaching listening skills
2.1.3.1. Listening skills
Listening is one of aspects in learning a foreign language, including English.
For
many students, listening is a very difficult skill to be acquired. So, teacher has to get
the right method in improving students’ listening skill.
Rost (1994:4) says, successful listening involves an integration of these
component skills. In some case, listening is a coordination of the component skills, not
the individual skills themselves. This integration of these perception skills, analysis skills
and synthesis skills is what we will call a person’s listening ability. Rost (1991:4) has also
argued that even though a person may have a good

listening ability, he or she is not always able to understand messages, some conscious
actions are necessary to use this ability effectively in each listening situation. This action
that a listener must perform is “cognitive” or mental, so it is not possible to view it
directly, but we can see the effect of this action. The understanding action for successful


listening depends on the listener’s decision. The listener must make these kinds of
decisions:
What kind of situation is this?
What is my plan for listening?
What are the important words and units of meaning?
Does the message make sense?
Successful listening requires making effective “real time” decision about these
questions. In this sense listening is primarily a thinking process, think about meaning as they
listen. The way in which the listener makes these decisions is what we will call a listening
strategy.
2.1.3.2. Potential Problems in Learning to Listen to English
Listening is always regarded as the most difficult skills compared with
Reading, Writing and Speaking for High School students. Therefore, when students
learn to listen to English, they meet a number of problems that challenge them if
they want to master listening skill well.

2.1.3.2.1. Lack of control over the speed at which the speakers speak
First of all, the main problem with listening seems to be the fact that in real
life situations the listeners have no control over the speed of what they are hearing or
they cannot hear the pronunciation clearly and they cannot go back or ‚rewind‛ to
listen again, unlike reading. In order to understand what is being heard, listeners
need to make out the sound and put them into group to form certain words that they
can recognize. Although in class the listening materials are recorded and can be
played again for students to listen again, it is usually under the control of the teacher

who declares ‚Let’s listen again‛ - Underwood (1989:17) Also, because of the
speed at which native speakers usually speak, students feel that they cannot keep up
with the speakers’ speed and they are lost. Therefore, when the teacher asks the
students to listen to the overall message and forget about what they could not catch,
which probably mean what they did not understand, the teacher has no idea that


sometimes what they do not really understand can ‚add up to 75% of what is heard‛
Rixon (1986:37)
2.1.3.2.2. Limited vocabulary or grammar structures
Another problem concerns the learners’ limited vocabulary in the new
language. They can sometimes hear the words clearly, but the problem may occur in
the understanding the meaning of the words that they do not know. Sometimes the
listeners have to guess the meaning of a word or a phrase. Working out the meaning
with the help of its context is common in the mother tongue. However, when people
listening to a foreign language, an unknown word or structure can be like a barrier
causing them to stop and work out the meaning. As a result, it makes them miss the
next part of speech.

2.1.3.2.3. Learners learning habit
Moreover, Underwood (1989) mentions some other kinds of problems that
are directly related to the students themselves. One of the problems, she points out,
has to do with the idea that the learners have ‚established learning habits‛ in the
sense that they were encouraged to understand everything by listening carefully to
teachers who probably speak slowly and clearly. Hence, when they fail to
understand every word while listening, they stop listening and lose the ‚thread‛,
which seems to be the reason for the state of ‚panic‛ and worrying they usually
show before and during listening.

2.1.3.2.4. Lack of concentration

Listening is regarded a difficult skill in language learning. Many learners say
that they sometimes cannot concentrate on listening. If the topic of the listening is
interesting and easy to listen, it will be easier for them to concentrate. But
sometimes, even the topic is interesting, learners find listening a tiring work
because they must make a great effort to follow what they heard word by word, if


not, they may lose some parts of the listening lesson. Consequently, they may fail to
understand the listening and they cannot fulfill their listening tasks.

2.1.3.2.5. The size of the class
The size of the class in Vietnam nowadays (usually from 45 to over 50
students in a class) is becoming a hot problem not only for listening but also other
skills in learning a foreign language. The radio cannot display a good sound with
high quality if the class is too large.
In short, learners need some kinds of ‚tools‛, not only help them cope with
the difficulties and problem that they encounter when listening to the target
language, but also to promote their overall language development in that particular
skill

2.2. Teacher’s roles
Many language teachers are (sometimes painfully) aware that knowing the
target language does not make you a good teacher of it. There are numerous other
factors involved in being good at the job, many of which are related to how well we
play the roles mentioned above. In this part, we will look specifically at the roles of
the English teacher while conducting a listening lesson.
2.2.1. A tailor
The listening text must ‘fit’ the class just as a dress must fit its wearer. There
are a number of factors which make a recording appropriate. These include the
language level. If a passage is too simple, it may induce boredom; too difficult and

the students will probably ‘switch off’. Difficulties may lie in the speed at which the
speakers talk, vocabulary, grammar structures, density, or the number of voices on
the recording. Subject matter is another factor. Will the students be interested in the
topic? Will they be motivated to listen? Is the topic culturally accessible?
2.2.2. A stand-up comedian or a storyteller


The teacher is often the best source of input. Teachers know their students
better than any materials writer. They can grade their language appropriately and
react in real time to the students’ responses. A teacher’s anecdotes, stories, advice,
and even classroom instructions can all form the basis of excellent roughly-tuned
input (input that is not precisely targeted at the students’ level but can be ‘roughly’
understood by them). For the more extended genres such as anecdotes, teachers who
can ‘hold’ an audience have a valuable skill. Just remember the public speaker’s
maxim: make sure you’ve stopped speaking before the audience has stopped
listening!
2.2.3. A sleuth
Before class, teachers need to be able to analyze the language in a recording
as closely as Sherlock Holmes analyzed clues. These are the type of questions to ask:
will my students understand this idiom? Can they deal with the variety of verb tenses
here? Will they be able to decode all the contractions in this passage? Do they need
to? Will they get the joke? A further aspect of this sleuthing includes actually
listening to the passage before class. Do not rely on reading a transcript; transcripts
tell us nothing of speed, accent or clarity.
2.2.4. An engineer
When using recordings, the teacher needs a basic knowledge of the way in
which the equipment works, and more pertinently, the way in which the equipment
sometimes doesn’t work. And if your engineering skills aren’t great, and suddenly
you find that the CD jumps, the cassette erupts in an explosion of mangled ribbon, or
there’s a power cut, be prepared to stay cool and read the transcript or improvise (by

candlelight if necessary!). Low-tech solutions are sometimes the simplest.
2.2.5. A spy
While the students are listening, the teacher should be watching their hands
and faces. Are the students writing the answers? Do they look confused? Who is
nodding intelligently? Why is this student looking at the wrong page? Listening is an
internal process but, except with the most poker-faced of students, there are usually


outward manifestations. By paying attention to these, teachers can become more
sensitive to the students’ moment-by-moment needs.
2.2.6. A doctor
Teachers need to be experts at diagnosis. Where the students are having
problems in listening, the teacher needs to ask, what is going wrong? Why? Is it the
speed, the vocabulary, the accent, the topic, or the fact that it’s Friday evening and
the heating is on too high?
2.2.7. A firefighter
If everything goes wrong and the listening passage is too difficult, the teacher
needs to get everyone out of trouble, just as a firefighter might lead the way to safety.
How? Here are some options: if using a course-book, the class may be able to read
the transcript while listening. This often clears up ambiguities. Another way is to
break the passage down into smaller chunks, pausing after each sentence or two, and
checking understanding. A third option is to encourage collaboration: get the students
to share what they understood, write this on the board, and as a whole class, piece
together the content before listening again.
2.2.8. A tour guide
It sometimes pays to think of a piece of spoken language as an art-efact for
investigation. Teachers can point out what is interesting about it (a piece of spoken
grammar, a bit of slang, a metaphor that also occurs in the students’ mother tongue),
and ignore everything that isn’t. And, like good tour guides, we should make sure
everybody is with us before moving on.

In short, which of these roles have you played while teaching listening? It is
likely that, at one stage or another, language teachers will find themselves playing
most – if not all – of them. Our mastery in the roles depends on how well-prepared
we are. As the writer Denis Waitley once said, ‘Expect the best, plan for the worst
and prepare to be surprised’. And leave the big stick at home.
(adapted from an extract from Chapter 4 of How to Teach Listening, the new book in


Pearson Longman’s How to … series)

CHARPTER 3: AN OVERVIEW OF THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK
“TIENG ANH 10” AND THE CURRENT SITUATION OF TECHING THE
TEXTBOOK AT TAY HO HIGH SCHOOL
3.1. An overview of the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10”
3.1.1. Objectives
The new English textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ was written by a group of lecturers of
the University of Languages and International Studies (Vietnam National
University, Hanoi) and published in 2006. The syllabus of the textbook ‚Tieng Anh
10‛ is the continuation of that of the textbook at the secondary school. Therefore,
the objectives for the 10
th
form students to achieve would be higher. According to
the Ministry of Education and Training, with listening skill, by the end of the 10
th

form students should be able to:
- Listen for the main ideas or specific information of a monologue or a dialogue
with the length of 120-150 words of the topics they have learnt in reading lessons.
- Exchange information in English at a simple level about the situation relating
to the topics they have learnt.
- Comprehend passages of appropriately 180-240 words about the topics they

have learnt. Understand the main ideas of the text or understand the text in detail.
Develop vocabulary comprehension: gap filling, matching, true or false, etc.
- Write paragraphs (about 80 – 120 words) relating to the topics they have
learnt with some cues

3.1.2. Content of the textbook
The new English textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ is designed under theme-based
approach with 16 units. Each unit is about one theme. The units are arranged in the
following order:

- Unit 1: A day in the life of …
- Unit 2: School talks
- Unit 9: Undersea world
- Unit 10: Conservation


- Unit 3: People’s background
- Unit 4: Special education
- Unit 5: Technology and you
- Unit 6: An excursion
- Unit 7: The mass media
- Unit 8: The story of my village
- Unit 11: National parks
- Unit 12: Music
- Unit 13: Films and cinema
- Unit 14: The world cup
- Unit 15: Cities
- Unit 16: Historical places

These units cover six topics required:

- You and me (Units 1,2,3)
- Education (Units 4,5,6)
- Community (Units 7,8)
- Nature and Environment (Units 9,10,11)
- Recreation (Units 12,13,14)
- People and Places (Units 15,16)
There are five parts in each unit arranging as follows: Reading, Speaking,
Listening, Writing and Language focus. Each part is carried out in a period of 45
minutes. The aim of the arrangement is to help students to practise four macro-skills
as much as possible.
In addition, there exits a ‚Test youself‛ after every two or three units. The
objectives of the ‚Test yourself‛ is to examine how well students have achieved in
the previous units and reinforce students’ grammar.
Listening is the third part of each unit after Reading and Speaking. The aims
of this is that after Reading and Speaking lessons, students can achieve some
vocabularies and grammar structures as well as knowledge about the topic of the
unit. Now, they can use these to listen better because they already have something
in their mind about what they are going to be listening.

3.2. Characteristics of listening lessons and listening tasks in the textbook
3.2.1. Characteristics of listening lessons


Each listening lesson in the new English textbook ‚Tieng Anh 10‛ is the
revision of the topic that students had already learnt in reading and speaking ones.
According to many students and English teachers at Tay Ho high school, the
listening contents, in general are rather simple and easy for students to listen and
fulfill all the tasks. Some listening lessons also have pictures to illustrate for the
listening. This makes it easier and more interesting for students. However, the
foreigners who speak in the tape, sometimes make students confused because of

their accent. It takes time to replay the tape, or pause many times so that students
can recognize the sound they need to hear.
3.2.2. Characteristics of listening tasks
There are usually 2 tasks in each listening lesson. If any listening lesson has
3 tasks, task 1 always relates to picture matching or re-arranging. (This helps
students get familiar with the listening tasks below and also help them to become
more motivated and interested in the listening lesson.
- Task 1 helps students have general idea about the listening lesson.
Therefore, the following exercises are usually included: True or False, Matching
with Pictures, Gap-Filling
- Task 2 helps students have deep and detailed understanding about the
listening lesson, so, these kinds of exercises are included: Gap-Filling, Answering
the questions
Among these exercises, Gap-Filling exercise appears most because it is suitable and
typical for listening.

3.3. The current situation of teaching the textbook at Tay Ho high school
3.3.1. Introduction of Tay Ho high school and its students
Tay Ho high school is located at Phu Thuong precinct, Tay Ho district, Hanoi
City. It was established 8 years ago, in 2002. It is a new high school with 32 classes.
Like other high schools, its duty is to educate students from the 10
th
form to the 12
th

form. Every year the school recruits about over 600 students for the 10
th
form. We

have one gifted class which focuses on Maths, Chemistry and Physics and three
more classes in which Maths, Chemistry and Physics are three main subjects. We
also have one gifted class which focuses on English, Literature and Maths and two
more classes in which English, Literature and Maths are the main subjects.
However, Maths, Physics and Chemistry are chosen mainly by most of the students
who wish to take the exams to colleges or university. English is one of compulsory
subjects at high school in the school-leaving exam.
The students at Tay Ho high school are approximately from 16 to 18 years
old. They mostly come from Phu Thuong, Nhat Tan, Tu Lien precincts. Some
students come from some precincts surrounded such as: Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Nhat
Tao, Dong Ngac, Thuy Phuong, etc.
Most of their parents are farmers. They grow Kumquat and Peach. Some of
them do not take good care of their children. Moreover, the students are of different
learning abilities and have different attitudes towards learning English: few of them
are learning for the entrance exams to colleges and universities; some are learning
only for the school- leaving exam, and others are learning because English is a
compulsory subject at school and they have to learn it. Hence, the teachers in our
school cope with many difficulties when teaching English due to students’ different
motivations.
What is more, English is a subject that secondary school students don’t take
care about because they do not take it as a subject at entrance exam to high schools.
So, most of our students have low level of English in general and listening skills in
particular. They have learnt English for four years at the secondary school, but their
English background knowledge has remained poor. Some of our teachers are really
surprised that many students have limited vocabulary and grammar structures. Even
more, some students have nothing in their mind about English. Every thing at the
high school with them is new.
Another problem of the students is that most of them do not have a habit of learning
independently and tend to depend on the textbook or the textbooks with the

available answers (namely ‚De hoc tot Tieng Anh‛) The students become really
passive in English lessons.
This fact asks the teachers to find out suitable teaching method to help
students get out of this bad situation and become more active in their English
learning.

3.3.2. English teachers and teaching methods
At Tay Ho high school, we have 10 English teachers aged from 24 to 37. All
of us graduated from University of Languages and International Studies (Vietnam
National University, Hanoi). The oldest teacher has nearly 15 years of teaching
experience and the youngest teacher has got 2 years. All of us took part in the
advanced English course held by Hanoi Ministry of Education which last 6 months.
We also have been to some workshops in language teaching and some summer
workshops on changes in English textbooks. I myself had a chance to join in a
workshop (about teaching method renovation) which took place in Singapore with
many other teachers who came from some high schools in Hanoi.

‚Learner-centered approach‛ is a new trend in teaching nowadays. All
teachers in my school in general and English teachers in particular are trying to
apply this new teaching method in teaching at Tay Ho school – It means that we are
trying to give students more chances to present themselves, to help them become
more independent and confident. However, the 10
th
graders are so passive in
learning (Maybe it is a learning habit that formed when they were in secondary
school). As a result, our English teachers find it difficult to follow ‚Learner-
centered approach‛ and most of us still apply traditional teaching methods in
teaching. Especially, in listening skill, the teachers keep the key role in the class.
The teachers explain new and difficult words or structures to students. Then, we ask

students to listen to the tape, sometimes again and again to find out the answers.