Effects of appropriate pre-listening activities on 10th form students' English listening comprehension a case study at Buon Ma Thuot High school in Dac Lac Hiệ

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



MAI THỊ HỒNG HÀ



EFFECTS OF APPROPRIATE PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES
ON 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS' ENGLISH LISTENING
COMPREHENSION: A CASE STUDY AT BUON MA THUOT
HIGH SCHOOL IN DAC LAC

(Hiệu quả của hoạt động trước khi nghe phù hợp đối với việc nghe
hiểu của học sinh lớp 10. Điển cứu tại trường THPT Buôn Ma Thuột
tỉnh Đắc Lắc)


M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410

Hanoi - 2010


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



MAI THỊ HỒNG HÀ



EFFECTS OF APPROPRIATE PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES
ON 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS' ENGLISH LISTENING
COMPREHENSION: A CASE STUDY AT BUON MA THUOT
HIGH SCHOOL IN DAC LAC

(Hiệu quả của hoạt động trước khi nghe phù hợp đối với việc nghe
hiểu của học sinh lớp 10. Điển cứu tại trường THPT Buôn Ma Thuột
tỉnh Đắc Lắc)

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor: ĐỖ BÁ QUÝ, Med.

Hanoi - 2010


4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration
Acknowledgements
Abstract
Part A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
1
2. Aims of the study
2
3. Scope of the study
2
4. Methods of the study
2
5. Design of the study
2
Part B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature Review
1.1 Theory of listening

1.1.1What is listening comprehension?
4
1.1.2. Types of listening

1.1.2.1 Real-life listening
6
1.1.2.2 Classroom listening
6
1.1.3. Approaches to teaching listening
7
1.1.4. Factors in teaching and learning listening

1.1.4.1 The listening texts
8
1.1.4.2 Teacher's role
8
1.1.4.3 Students' role
9
1.1.5 Stages of a listening lesson

1.1.5.1 Pre-listening
10
1.1.5.2 While-listening
10
1.1.5.3 Post-listening
11
1.2 What are pre-listening activities?

1.2.1 Definitions of pre-listening activities
12

1.2.2 Types of pre-listening activities
13
1.2.3 Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities
14


5
1.3 Summary
14
Chapter 2: Methods of the Study

2.1. The setting of the study

2.1.1. English teaching and learning situation at Buon Ma Thuot High Shool
15
2.1.2. The materials
15
2.2. Research methods

2.2.1. Research questions
16
2.2.2. The subjects
16
2.3. Data collection instruments
17
Chapter 3: Data analysis and major findings

3.1 Results of the questionnaires

3.1.1 Questionnaire for the teachers

3.1.1.1 Teachers' opinions about the necessity of pre-listening activities
18
3.1.1.2 Teachers' purposes in using pre-listening activities
19
3.1.1.3 Teachers' activities to motivate students to listen and the frequency of using
them
20
3.1.1.4 Pre-listening activities which help increase students' motivation from the
teachers' points of view
21
3.1.1.5 Teachers' difficulties when applying pre-listening activities
22
3.1.1.6 Teachers' comments on the pre-listening activities available in Tieng Anh 10
23
3.1.2 Questionnaire for the students

3.1.2.1 Students' opinion about listening skill in learning a foreign language
23
3.12.2 Factors making students unwilling to learn listening English
24
3.1.2.3 Teachers' pre- listening activities that help to make listening easier for the
students
25
3.1.2.4 Students' preferences for pre-listening activities
25
3.1.2.5 Benefits that students get when teachers employ the above pre-listening
activities
28
3.1.2.6 Students' comments on the pre-listening activities available in TiengAnh 10

28
3.1.2.7 Students' suggestions with the changes in pre-listening activities in Tieng
Anh 10
29


6
3.1.2.8 Students' self-evaluation of their ability of listening
30
3.3 Findings
32
3.4 Summary
35
Chapter 4: Recommendations for implementing pre-listening activities

4.1. Paying attention to students' personal factors and their proficiency
36
4.2. Using pre-listening activities in a flexible and appropriate way
36
4.3. Improving the pre-listening activities in the textbook
37
PART C: CONCLUSION

1. Conclusions
38
2. Limitations and suggestions for the study
39
References

Appendices

7
Part A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
It is obvious that English is the international medium of communication in the fields of
science, medicine, culture, education, economy and so on. And it also plays an important role
in promoting mutual understanding, developing the relationship between Vietnam and other
countries.
In Vietnam, the desire of using English is increasing everyday. People learn English wherever
they can so teaching and learning English have been paid more attention to. As we see, years
ago, Ministry of Education and Training has made effort to improve the quality of teaching

and learning. New textbooks have been issued with new methods of teaching including
English. Before, we focused too much on grammar, reading, vocabulary but now, with some
changes, writing speaking, listening, pronunciation have been added. Students' four skills can
be improved but in learning English listening still seems to be the most difficult skill for
students of high schools. We all know, listening comprehension is one of the four skills
needed for effective communication in everyday conversation and it is also a source for
obtaining the necessary input for language development. In spite of teachers and students'
efforts, there are still difficulties in listening acquisition. Almost students who fail to take
listening input hardly receive spoken messages as the result they get bored and ignorant in
listening classes although they are aware of the importance of this skill. Therefore, with the
new English textbook for high school, the editors have paid attention to how to stimulate
students to be keen on a listening class. So, the application of pre-listening activities is
considered the best way to motivate students' interests.
As a teacher teaching English of Buon Ma Thuot High School for years, I find that although
the text book has provided pre-listening activities for motivating students but the students do
not achieve much from listening, they feel listening is boring because of the following reasons
:
First, the teachers apply these pre-listening activities mechanically, uncreatively. Next, some
teachers even ignore pre-listening stage, they just begin the lesson with while-listening stage.
Last, some employ inappropriate activities, which might be not suitable for students' interests
and proficiency. Therefore, it is essential for teachers to find out some ways to help students
feel like studying listening and make them motivated in participating in all the activities in a
listening lesson to improve their listening skills.


8
All in all, the above has encouraged the writer of the thesis to carry out the study titled:
"Effects of appropriate pre-listening activities on 10
th
form students' English listening

comprehension. A case study at Buon Ma Thuot High School in Dac Lac"
2. The aims of the study
This study is intended to:
1. find out teachers' and students' opinions about pre-listening activities;
2. find out which pre-listening activities are used frequently by teachers;
3. explore the students' preferences for pre-listening activities and identify the effects of
appropriate pre-listening activities on students' listening comprehension;
3. Scope of the study
This study is carried out at Buon Ma Thuot high school in order to find out the effects of
appropriate pre-listening activities on students' listening comprehension.
4. Methods of the study
The study uses qualitative method. This involves the following tasks:
- interview and discussion
- survey questionnaire
- class observation
5. The design of the study
This study includes 3 parts.
- Part A: Introduction. This chapter consists of:
+ The rationale for the research
+ The aim of the study
+ The scope of the study
+ The method of the study
+ The design of the study.
- Part B: Development. In this part, there are 3 chapters


9
+ Chapter 1: Literature review which deals with theories on listening comprehension, pre-
listening activities.
+ Chapter 2: Methods of the study. The researcher investigated the setting of the study. This

chapter also includes the research methods which cover research questions, the subjects, data
collection instruments.
+ Chapter 3: Data analysis and major findings. This chapter presents the data results, some
major findings
+ Chapter 4: some recommendations for implementing the pre-listening activities are
discussed in this chapter.
- Part C: Conclusion. This part summarizes what are addressed in the study and some
limitations and suggestions for further study.

10
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the reexamination
of the concepts most relevant to the thesis topic. Firstly, an account of the theory on listening
comprehension in general is made. Then, literature specially focused on the pre-listening
activities theory will be discussed.
1.1 Theory of listening
1.1.1 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). Having the same view, Brown and Yule (1983) state that listening is a demanding
process, not only because of the complexity of the process itself, but also due to factors that
characterize the listener, the speaker, the content of the message, and any visual support that
accompanies the message.
Howatt and Dakin (1974) states that 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.
According to Buck (2001), listening comprehension involves the continuing construction
of an interpretation of the spoken input, and the ability to adjust the
interpretation in response to new information is especially crucial in the L2 listening. Native
speakers listen automatically without much conscious attention to word-by-word input; in
contrast, the second language listener need to get the input more details, the construct, the
meaning of the listening input. On the other hand, Clark and Clark (1977) proposed two
definitions of listening comprehension. They suggested listening comprehension in its
narrowest definition is the process by which listeners come to an interpretation for a stream of
speech and listening in its broader definition involves the process by which listeners use those
interpretations for their intended purposes. Wolvin and Coakley’s (1985) approach to

listening was basically cognitive. They defined listening as the process of receiving, attending


11
to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli. Rost (2002) defined listening as a process of
receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating
meaning with the speaker and responding, and creating meaning through involvement,
imagination and empathy.
Shelton (2006) believes that listening effectively is a demanding and involved process. One
must be able to deal with different accents of pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and
syntactic structure, competing background noise and also make a conscious effort to not
"switch off" or become distracted while listening. All of this must be achieved and dealt with
more or less simultaneously in order to identify and understand the meaning in any given
message.
There are two dimensions often cited in relation to listening comprehension processes-
"bottom-up" and "top-down". Anderson and Lynch (1988) describe bottom-up processing as
"listener as tape recorder (p.9) that involves decoding or text-based processes while top-down
processing relates to the "listeners as active model builder (p.11) and involves knowledge-
based processes. It means that listeners use top-down processes when they use context and
prior knowledge (topic, genre, culture ) to build a conceptual framework for comprehension.
Listeners use top-down processes when they construct meaning by accretion, gradually
combining increasingly larger units of meaning from the phoneme-level up to discourse-level
features. It is suggested that successful listening comprehension relies on the integration of
and the balance between both bottom-up and top-down facets (Flowerdew & Miler, 2005;
Vandergrift, 2004).
In the view of Brown (1994), in bottom-up processing, learners rely on their linguistic
knowledge to recognize linguistic elements - vowels, consonants, words, sentences to do the
construction of meaning. They build meaning from lower level sounds to words to grammar
relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the final message. In top-down
processing, learners use their prior knowledge to make predictions about the text. Prior

knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text-type, the culture or
other information stored in long-term memory as schemata (Lingzhu, 2003)
In summary, listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all
then ignored while other skills are developed. There must be regular practice with
increasingly difficult material. (Rivers Wilga, M. (1986) Teaching Foreign Language Skill.,
The University of Chicago Press, p.157)


12
1.1.2 Types of listening
1.1.2.1 Real-life listening
Real-life listening is listening in daily life. According to Adrian (1995), there are two ways
that people often listen in real-life, they are: "casual" listening and "focus" listening.
- "Casual" listening: people often with no specific purpose and spend not much concentration
listening, they may not remember what they have just heard. For example, students often
listen to music when they are doing homework or they turn on television set when they are
chatting with friends
- "Focus" listening: listening for a particular purpose to get information. We often pay
attention to what people are talking about to get the answer only, not pay attention to all the
words in the text.
1.1.2.2 Classroom listening
Ur (1984) states that classroom listening should be addressed accurately as real-life listening
in the classroom. All the listening activities in classroom aim at equipping students with skills
to deal with real-life listening. Some researchers agree to divide classroom listening into
intensive listening and extensive listening.
- Intensive listening: Rixon (1986) argues that in intensive listening students have to collect or
organize information in the listening passage. Intensive listening often gives students the
challenge and helps them develop listening skill.
- Extensive listening: Rixon (1986) also states that extensive listening is listening for pleasure
and interest without having pay much attention to content and language. Extensive listening

keeps the students' motivation and interest high. Story telling is an example of extensive
listening.
1.1.3 Approaches to teaching listening
When studying listening, Rost (1994) points out that foreign language has been taught for
centuries and the record of language teaching materials has been around for over 500 years.
And he also suggests some approach to teach listening such as grammar translation method,
the direct method, the oral approach, the audio-lingual method and communication language


13
teaching. While Underwood (1989, p.90-109) mentions grammar translation method,
grammar method, audio-lingual method and task-based method.
- Grammar translation method: students listen to a description of the rules of the second
language in the first language. As a result, when the second language is used, the focus of any
listening is on translation of lexical items or grammar structures.
- Grammar method: to follow this method, the teacher requires students to look at a written
text when they listen to a recording. This forces them to do several things: identify words by
their position in the sentence, work out the relationship between words and phrases, use
forward and backward inferencing cues, and make intelligent guesses based on textual cues.
- Audio-lingual method: audio-lingual method of listening emphasizes first listening to
pronunciation and grammatical forms and then imitating those forms by way of drills and
exercises. Dialogues and drills are the basic of classroom practice with this method. Students
are encouraged to listen carefully either to a tape recording or a teacher reading out, a
dialogue or a drill. Basically, the more the students repeat a correct phrase or a sentence, the
stronger of their memory of the structures will be.
- Task-based method: this method places stress on activities or tasks that learners do in class
in order to develop their community competence. A task-based syllabus should be constructed
according to the difficulty of the tasks required of the learners at different stages in a course.
In summary, the four methods of the teaching of listening are not mutually exclusive and in
reality they may be mixed in any particular course or classroom. However, nowadays, with

the appearance of Communicative Language Teaching, teaching listening seems to be more
meaningful to students due to the fact that they have chance to develop their listening skills
and other language skills as well.
1.1.4 Factors in teaching and learning listening
1.1.4.1 The listening texts
A listening text may be a short story, dialogue, a piece of news, an announcement written or
read by native speakers in authentic English. Through a listening text, what students achieve
are as follow:


14
- understanding the text correctly
- getting more new words, structures
- communicating with others with the same topic thy have just learned
Ur (1991) suggests that the effective listening texts should have such characteristics as
informal talk, speaker visibility (or direct speaker-listener interaction) and single exposure.
However, listening texts should be suitable for the listeners' ability. So Buck (2001) states that
providing suitable text is not a simple matter, it takes time, effort and some expertise".
1.1.4.2 Teacher's role
Rost (1994) argues that language teachers need to provide various types of support to their
learners to help them to develop listening skills. Including talking to learners in the target
language, raising learners' awareness of their listening styles and strategies and introducing a
range of materials, speaking styles and listening situations".
In Gardner and Lambert's opinion (1972), the way a teacher presents the content must be
dynamic and interesting to get students' attention. Moreover, foreign language teachers have
to look for activities and employ different techniques, especially at the pre-listening phrase
that promote teacher-student relationship and interaction among students in the classroom
(Dornyei, 2001).
Having the same idea, Lewis and Hill (1992) think that before introducing listening tasks to
students, teachers should organize something interesting for them in order to promote an

active and flexible learning environment that helps increase students' motivation for learning.
1.1.4.3 Students' role
Of course students themselves play an important role in improving their own listening skill.
Nunan (1999) argues that in order to comprehend, listener need to reconstruct the original
intention of the speaker by making use of the bottom-up and top-down processing strategies,
by drawing on what they already know to make use of new knowledge. The students should
be given the chance to decide for themselves what will be interesting or useful and to work by
them selves. (Rison, 1986)
1.1.5 Stages of a listening lesson


15
In order to help learners get most from a listening lesson, a lesson plan of listening is usually
divided into three stages: (1) Things learners do before listening; (2) Activities and exercises
are done by learners when the discourse is played; (3) Things learners do after listening. In
short, the first stage is called "pre-listening", the second "while-listening", the third "post-
listening".
There is an association between expectation, purpose, and comprehension, therefore a purpose
should be given to our learners. We should train students to understand what is being said in
conversations to get them to disregard redundancy, hesitation, and ungrammaticality. The
major problem is the actual way listening material is presented to the students. We should
give a clear lead in what they are going to hear; use some kinds of visual back up for them to
understand; give questions and tasks in order to clarify the things in their minds; and be sure
that these tasks help in learning, not confusing. Students should learn how use the
environmental clues; the speaker's facial expression, posture, eye direction, proximity,
gesture, tone of voice, and that general surroundings contribute information.
In listening activities, we listen for a purpose. We make an immediate response to what we
hear. There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of what is heard.
Stretches of heard discourse come in short chunks, and most heard discourse is spontaneous,
therefore differs from formal spoken prose in the amount of redundancy 'noise' and

colloquialisms, and its auditory character.
1.1.5.1 Pre-listening
This stage is carried out before students listen to a listening text. Teachers can effectively help
students to arouse the expectations and see what they are going to do before a listening lesson.
As Underwood (1989, p.30) argues "Before listening, students should be "turn in" so what
they know what to expect both in general and particular tasks. This kind of preparatory work
is generally described as "Pre-listening" work or just "Pre-listening"".
Also according to Underwood (1989), pre-listening work can consist of a whole range of
activities, including: the teacher giving background information, the students reading
something relevant, students looking at pictures, discussion of a topic/situation, a question
and answer session, written exercises, following the instructions for the while-listening
activity and consideration of how the while-listening will be done.


16
These activities may provide an opportunity for students to gain some knowledge and help
them follow the listening text. Moreover, each of the activities help students focus their mind
on the topic by narrowing down the things that students expect to hear.
There are many kinds of pre-listening activities so teachers should be flexibly choose the most
suitable activities for each situation
1.1.5.2 While-listening
This is the main part of a listening lesson. The purpose of while-listening activity is to help
students develop their skills of listening to spoken language.
At the early stage, students need to learn how the language sounds, how distinguish or be
aware of the relationship between written words and their spoken forms. As students listen,
they usually apply the skills, the same uses in listening in their mother tongue, predict what
they will hear and try to match them with the things they actually hear. Therefore, in teaching
listening, teachers should try to give practice in interpreting, matching and predicting to help
students fulfill their listening tasks less complicatedly.
The topic and the content of the listening text plus the students' interest deicide the success of

the while-listening activities. Students may get bored if they have to do the same kind of work
over and over again. Thus, for each purpose and on different occasions, various activities are
needed. Moreover, it is advisable to have activities which are locally relevant, of the common
interest and not too long or laborious.
Activities of this stage should be suitable with students' ability. This means that while-
listening activities can be done by most students, from low students to the best one.
Stating about this view, Underwood (1989) says that "teachers should consider some other
points when selecting while-listening activities such as: the possibilities for varying the level
of difficulty if required, the inconvenience of carrying out the activities which required
individuals to give their responses orally in the classroom, whether the work is to be done by
the students with the teacher's presentation or whether it is to be done as private study either
in a listening center or at home and whether or not the while-listening activities generate
material or ideas which might be used for others.
1.1.5.3 Post-listening


17
This stage is carried out when the listening is completed. Some post-listening activities are
extensions of the work done at the pre-listening and while-listening stage. According to
Underwood (1989) the first purpose of post-listening activities is to check how well the
students understood and whether they have completed the listening task. The teacher may
give an answer orally, showing the answer on the board or on the over-head projector or ask
students to check again the answer in the book. Students can work in pair to check each other
answer or work in group to discuss any problem relate to the listening text. The second
purpose of post-listening work is to reflect on what some students have failed to understand or
miss parts of the passage.
Another purpose of post-listening activities is to expand the topic or the language of the
listening text. Students are asked to deal with activities with are more or less general language
learning activities. Sometimes, this does not mean that they should not be done but it should
be recognized they do not give practice in listening skill although the additional language

learning can well enable students to listen more successfully in the future.
The forth purpose is to give students opportunity to consider the manner and attitude of the
speaker in the listening text. This is also important because the listeners can see the aims of
the speakers based on his/her attitude.
It is important to note that post-listening work can also usefully involve integration with other
skills through development of the topic into reading, speaking or writing activities.
1.2 What are pre-listening activities?
1.2.1 Definitions of pre-listening activities
"Starting lessons with pre-listening activities brings a host of benefits to a language learning"
(Boyle, 1984, p.24)
Pre-listening activity is carried out before students start to listen to the listening text. This
activity should establish the purpose of the listening activity and activate the schemata by
encouraging the learners to think about a discuss what they already know about the content of
the listening text. This activity can also provide the background needed for them to
understand the text and can focus attention on what o listen for. To regard students'
motivation, teachers should choose a text and tasks suitable with students' interests and
curiosity. If teachers don’t carry out any pre-listening activities before listening, students will


18
certainly feel bored. As the result, the passive attitude will prevent students from making
progress in listening comprehension. With the knowledge which pre-listening activities have
offered and the comfortable atmosphere they bring about, students' confuse will be lowered
and they will be confident to do all the tasks in the textbook.
During the pre-listening phase, teachers should know that each student has their own
backgrounds such as beliefs, attitudes and biases to the listening experience and how the
backgrounds affect the messages they received. Before listening, just knowing the topic seems
to be not enough, students need help to activate what they already know about the ideas they
are going to hear.
According to Medley (1977), pre-listening activities can be subdivided into "readiness

activities" and "guidance activities". "Readiness activities" aim at activating students' prior
knowledge by reading the title, new words of the text, sometimes looking at the picture given
before the exercises in the textbook and also by asking provocative questions or introducing
background knowledge. "Guidance activities" are intended to specific aspects of language
input by letting them bear certain purposes in mind in advance, in other words, letting
students know what task or tasks they are going to do with the text, or letting the students
themselves decide what they want to do with the text.
Broughter (1978) argues that pre-listening technique keeps students' interest in learning and
therefore, improve their language competence.
Mary (1989) reminds "pre-listening work can be done in a variety of ways and often occurs
quite naturally when listening forms part of an integrated skills course. When planning lesson,
time must be allocated for pre-listening activities and the activities should not be rushed."
1.2.2 Types of pre-listening activities
There are many kinds of pre-listening activities so teachers should be flexibly choose the most
suitable activities for each situation in order to help them to catch the purpose a listening
lesson requires.
- Vocabulary introduction: is the basic step before listening to a text with a strange topic.
Teachers must be aware of the fact that if the students are taught all the vocabulary, it is not
sure that they can understand the whole text. Therefore, teachers can list some important


19
words for students to look up while they have spare time and remember the meaning of the
words in the context.
- Brainstorming: to a familiar topic, this kind of activities is very helpful. Before listening to a
text, teachers can let students work alone or divide them into groups to discuss the problems
they are encountering. This step helps students to activate students' poor knowledge and
enable them to make inferences and form expectation about common situation. The students
can benefit a lot from such preparatory activities. Before listening to a text, students think of
the possible answers and they will perform the answers when needed. With this kind of pre-

listening activities, students can make efficient predictions for their coming listening text.
- Asking questions: to avoid listening aimlessly, teachers can ask students some questions
beforehand to help them focus their attention on some particular aspects. This approach is
suitable to some long and difficult text.
- Using visual support: such as pictures, maps, diagrams, graphs, visual support can helps
students predict incoming materials easily by necessary information. Moreover, "Striking and
simulate visual aids are likely to heighten students' motivation and concentration" (Penny Ur,
1984). Visual support is very helpful because students can easily guess the meaning and make
the language in class more real and alive. A picture is worth than thousand words.
1.2.3 Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities
Before selecting a pre-listening activities to teach in class teachers should be aware of some
elements below:
- The time availability
- The material availability
- The interest of the class
- The place where work is being carried out
- The nature and the content of the listening text itself.
1.3 Summary
The chapter has presented relevant literature, which has helped to from the theoretical and
conceptual framework for the study.


20
A number of concepts about listening comprehension, pre-listening activities are given
according to some leading scholars and then the types of listening, the approaches to teaching
listening, the factors in teaching and learning listening, the stages of a listening lesson are
presented.

21
Chapter 2: METHODS OF THE STUDY
The study attempts to investigate the effects of pre-listening activities on the 10
th
form
students at Buon Ma Thuot High School. In order to achieve the mentioned aims, two kinds of
questionnaire for both teachers and students were conducted to collect data for the study. In
addition, 3 class observations, interviews and discussion with teachers and students were also
carried out.
2.1 The setting of the study
2.1.1 English teaching and learning situation at Buon Ma Thuot school
This study was conducted at Buon Ma Thuot High School which was established 55 years
ago. Since then this school has increasingly developed and become one of the largest and

most prestigious schools in Dac Lac. The students of this school mainly come from Buon Ma
Thuot city and they must take the entrance exam with high points in Math, Literature, and
English so their ability of learning English as well as other subjects is quite good. These
students have been learning English since they were in the 6
th
form, which means that they
have 4 years of learning English at junior secondary school and when they start learning in
high school, their ability of using English is good enough to talk to one another. However,
chances for students to communicate with foreigners both in classroom and outside are
limited. Consequently, their habit of speaking and listening English cannot be improved. In
addition, most students are quite passive in class, they like to take reading, writing or
grammar lesson rather than listening and speaking. Moreover, they do not have to take
English listening test in the graduation exam or entrance exam to university so they do not
pay any attention to listening at all. So, when being asked, students told me that studying
listening with no purpose is boring and they get little benefit from listening class and it seems
that there was no motivation for learning listening.
1.2 The materials
Students are learning with the newly revised textbook "Tieng Anh 10" by Hoang Van Van,
Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong and Nguyen Quoc Tuan. This
textbook is theme-based one including 16 units and 6 Test Yourself sections. Each unit has a
specific topic and consists of 5 lessons: Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing, and Language


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Focus. Generally, this book aims to develop the 4 skills of learning English of students. The
topic of each unit is familiar with students' daily life.
According to the syllabus, students have 3 periods a week for their English class and each
period lasts 45 minutes. As a result, students have few chances to further practice with other
listening materials prepared by the teachers. Besides, students meet problems with some
listening texts which contain many new words or sometimes speakers speak too fast for

students to follow. So when teaching listening as well as the rest 4 lessons, teachers should be
flexible when dealing with the problems.
2.2 Research methods
2.2.1 Research questions
The purpose of this study is to find out the effects of appropriate pre-listening activities on
students' listening comprehension at Buon Ma Thuot high school. To achieve this aim, the
following questions were proposed:
1. What are the teachers' and students' opinions about pre-listening activities?
2. Which pre-listening activities are frequently used by the teachers and which students like
most?
3. What are the effects of applying appropriate pre-listening activities on students' listening
comprehension?
2.2.2 The subjects
The subjects for the study are 13 teachers teaching English at Buon Ma Thuot high school.
Two of them are doing the post-graduate studies in the CFL, 6 teachers are over 40 with more
than 20 years of teaching experience, 2 are nearly 40 and the rest are from 31 to 35 years old.
Generally, all of them have experience in teaching English.
The participants for the study consist of 135 tenth form students (age 16-17) from 3 classes
10A1, 10A4, and 10A5. 60% of them come from Buon Ma Thuot city and the rest come from
some communes such as Eakao, Hoa Thang or some districts like Cư M'gar, Ea H'leo, Ea
Kar All of them have learnt English at least for four years (from grade 6 to grade 9).
However, their ability of using English is not the same.


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2.3 Data collection instruments
The questionnaires (see appendix 1) were delivered to both teachers and students, in which
there are 06 questions in English for teachers to answer. The questionnaire designed for
students consists of 07 questions aimed of finding out appropriate pre-listening activities that
motivate students in the listening class and the effects of them on students' listening

comprehension. All the questions for students were translated into Vietnamese in order to
help the students understand the questions deeply. Total 13 copies for the teachers and 135
copies for the students were delivered and collected. Data gathered from the responses of the
students were sorted and analyzed statistically to gat the aim of the research.
The observation (see appendix 2) was carried out three times for 3 different units in these
class (10A1, 10A4, 10A5). Each lesson lasted 45 minutes. The observer wrote down what she
heard and saw in the class carefully including teachers and students' activities, students'
attitudes towards the lesson, the interaction between teacher and students while they were
doing the tasks The observer especially paid attention to students' reactions to pre-listening
techniques used in the lesson as well as their preferences for the techniques and their ability in
listening and understanding the listening text.
The interview (see appendix 3) helps to get better insights into research questions. The
interview questions, including 10 items about the same matter as shown in questionnaire, with
the participating of 1/3 of the students during break time (about a week).
The survey questionnaires, observational protocols and the informal interview are in the
appendices.








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Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND MAJOR FINDINGS
This chapter deals with the results from the questionnaire to the teachers and the students and
the class observation as well as interview with teachers and students. The findings from those
results will lead to the suggested solutions to make improvement for applying pre-listening
activities in a listening lesson.

3.1 Results of the questionnaire
3.1.1 Questionnaire for the teachers
3.1.1.1 Teachers' opinions about the necessity of pre-listening activities
Item
Number of the teachers
Percentages (%)
Very necessary
11
84,6
Necessary
2
15,4
Not necessary
0
0

Table 1: Teachers' opinions about the necessity of pre-listening activities
When being asked about this question, all teachers agreed that doing some lead-in activities
before asking students to listen is quite necessary. They said that it is important if teachers
begin the lessons with some games or some questions related to the topic of the lesson.
Through lead-in activities, students can guess what the listening text is about and an active
and relaxing environment is created.

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3.1.1.2 Teachers' purposes in using pre-listening activities

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
A B C D E
A. To help students predict the content of the
listening text
B. To increase students' motivation
C. To teach new or difficult words
D. To provide background knowlegde
E. To get students involved in the text

Chart 1: Teachers' purposes in using pre-listening activities
According to the chart, teachers were favor of getting students involved in the text and this is
the main purpose when they use pre-listening techniques, while 77% considered helping the
students predict the content of the listening text is what they want to do. Increasing students'
motivation in listening to the text is the purpose of 69% of the teachers. 7 teachers (54%)
thought it is necessary to teach new or difficult words in the listening text because according
to them students' vocabulary is limited, if they are taught new words, they are able to
understand the content of the listening text and do all the tasks easily. Only 3 teachers use
lead-in activities in order to provide background knowledge about the topic of the text. In

short, whatever purposes of teachers are, what they want to do is to help students to be able to
hear and do all the tasks in the book.








26
3.1.1.3 Teachers' activities to motivate students to listen and the frequency of using them

Always
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
1. Using games to introduce the topic of the text.
15%
62%
15%
8%
2. Using visual aids to introduce the topic of the text.
15%
23%
47%
15%
3. Giving a brief introduction of the text.
69%
15%

8%
8%
4. Explaining the instructions of the text
47%
30%
8%
15%
5. Pre-teaching new words in the listening text.
77%
15%
8%
0%
6. Making students brainstorm words, structures or
ideas related to the topic of the text.
30%
47%
23%
0%
7. Using pre-listening questions
69%
31%
0%
0%
8. Making students predict the content of the text.
31%
31%
23%
15%
9. Using group discussion about the topic of the text.
23%

31%
31%
15%
10. Giving listening tasks to students.
15%
70%
15%
0%
Table 2: Teachers' activities to motivate students to listen and the frequency of
using them
Looking at the table above we can see that nearly all teachers always begin the lesson by
giving a brief introduction of the text (69%) or pre-teaching new words in the listening text
(77%) or using pre-listening questions (69%), while some sometimes employ games, give
listening tasks to motivate students. Although visual aids are preferred by almost students but
there are only 2 teachers (15%) always use it, 15% never uses it 33% sometimes uses it and
47% rarely uses it. Perhaps, because of time-consuming on preparing the lesson with some
objects, or teach students by using computers and projectors, teachers don't take care much on
this activity. Through this question, we can see traditional methods of teaching still affect
teachers a lot.
Discussing in group is rather easy to carry out because teachers can just prepare some
questions or some topics or even they can adapt the questions in the pre-listening stage for
students to discuss. But the problem here is how to control the class? Because of the big size
of a class, teachers can hardly observe whether all students work or not. So teachers apply
these activities whenever they feel it is suitable.