Improving listening comprehension of grade 11 students at Dong Anh High School through reading-based listening skill development = Nâng cao khả năng nghe hiểu c

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
oo0oo



ĐỖ THỊ HỒNG DUNG



IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 11
STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH
READING-BASED LISTENING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
(Nâng cao khả năng nghe hiểu của học sinh khối 11 trường THPT
Đông Anh thông qua việc kết hợp dạy kỹ năng nghe và đọc)
M.A. Minor Thesis




Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410



Hanoi, 2010


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
oo0oo


ĐỖ THỊ HỒNG DUNG


IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 11
STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH
READING-BASED LISTENING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
(Nâng cao khả năng nghe hiểu của học sinh khối 11 trường THPT
Đông Anh thông qua việc kết hợp dạy kỹ năng nghe và đọc)
M.A. Minor Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410



SUPERVISOR: ĐỖ BÁ QUÝ, MEd



Hanoi, 2010


1
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Declaration iii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract v
List of figures vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rational for the study 1
2. Objectives and significance of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methods of the study 2
5. Organization of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension 4
1.1.1. Definition of listening 4
1.1.2. Definition of listening comprehension 4
1.2. Significance of listening 5
1.3. Nature of listening 6
1.4. Strategies of listening comprehension 7
1.5. Factors affecting listening comprehension 8
1.6. Approaches to teaching listening comprehension 10
1.7. Stages in teaching listening 11
1.7.1. Pre-listening stage 11
1.7.2. While listening stage 12
1.7.3. Post-listening stage 12
1.8. Relationship between teaching listening comprehension and reading
Comprehension 13
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15
2.1 Background of the study 15

2
2.1.1. The syllabus 15
2.1.2. Participants 17
2.1.3. The teaching and learning conditions 17
2.2. Data collecting instruments 18
2.2.1. Pre and post-tests 18
2.2.2. Pre and post-questionnaire 18
2.2.3. Class observation 19
2.2.4. Interviewing 19
2.3. Procedure 20
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DICSUSSION 21
3.1. Analysis of the pre, post-test and interview 21
3.2. Analysis of the pre, post-questionnaire and interviews 22
3.3. Analysis of the class observations 33
PART C: CONCLUSION 35
1. Conclusions 35
2. Teaching implications 36
2.1. Combining listening with reading and other skills 36
2.2. Providing background knowledge particularly the cultural
knowledge in language teaching 36
2.3. Developing students’ micro skills 36
2.4. Textbook-based learning and other listening contexts 37
2.5. Combining “intensive listening" with “extensive listening” 37
3. Limitations and suggestions for further study 38
3.1. Limitations of the study 38
3.2. Suggestions for further study 38
REFERENCES 40
APPENDICES I

6
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Comparison of mean scores between the pre and post-test 21
Figure 2: Comparison of results in English before and after the intervention 23
Figure 3: Students’ assessment towards learning the listening skills in compared 24
with other skills before and after the intervention
Figure 4: Student’s assessment of the importance of learning the listening 25
comprehension before and after the intervention
Figure 5: Students’ evaluation of learning the listening comprehension before 26
and after the intervention
Figure 6: Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension 26
Figure 7: Students’ attitudes towards the necessity of using reading-based 27
listening strategies to improve listening comprehension before and
after the intervention
Figure 8: Students’ understanding in the listening lessons before and after 28
the intervention
Figure 9: Students’ feelings in the listening lessons before and after the 29
Intervention
Figure 10: Students’ confidence in the listening lessons before and after the 30
Intervention
Figure 11: Students’ behavior to improve their listening comprehension before 31
and after the intervention
Figure 12: Students’ involvement in the listening lessons before and after the 33
intervention

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
This part is comprised of five sections including the rationale for the study, the
objectives of the study, the scope of the study, the methods used in the study and the
organization of the thesis.
1. Rationale for the study
It is widely accepted that English has become an international language. Until
now “it is listed as the official or co-official language of over 45 countries and it is
spoken extensively in other countries where it has no official status.” (Krysstal.com).
Therefore, mastering English will help people enrich their knowledge about the world.
For its great importance, English has now a mandatory subject in all schools in
Vietnam in general and at High schools in particular. In recent years, with the
development of the communicative approach, students’ communicative competence has
been stressed. In other words, English must be taught as a tool for communication. In this
communicative process, listening comprehension plays an important role. Obviously,
communication does not take place when listeners do not understand what is said. Wilt
(1950) argues that listening takes up about 45% of time spent in communicating in real
life. Therefore, it can be said that teaching listening comprehension 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.
Unfortunately, among the four language skills, listening comprehension seems to
be the most challenging for many students. This is also a big problem that most students
in the researcher’s school are encountering. As a teacher of English for over five years,
the researcher has found out that many students in the researcher’s school suppose the

listening skill to be the most difficult one. This leads to the fact that listening lessons are
often said to be boring and tedious.
As a matter of fact, there have been many studies on how to teach listening
comprehension effectively. However, with a glance into the existing literature, it is felt
that there is a shortage of studies with respect to integrating reading comprehension into
teaching listening comprehension in EFL contexts. It seems that the EFL field is in need

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of further studies investigating the issue of teaching listening comprehension in
integration with teaching reading comprehension.
For all the things mentioned above, the researcher finds it necessary to carry out
the study on “Strategies to improve listening comprehension of grade 11 students at Dong
Anh high school through reading-based listening skill development.” It is hoped that the
results of this study will cast some light on this issue and pave the way for a better
teaching of listening.
2. Objectives of the study
The first and foremost aim of the study is to find out the difficulties facing grade
11 students in Dong Anh High school in leaning listening comprehension. The second
one is to discover the factors that cause trouble for students in listening comprehension.
The next purpose is to study the development of the students’ listening skills after the
intervention including students’ readiness, interests and confidence in learning listening
skill in particular and learning English in general. Last but not least important, some
effective ways for teaching listening comprehension are recommended with a view to
improve students’ listening comprehension.
The study is done in a hope that it will help better the situation of teaching and
learning English listening comprehension at Dong Anh high school. Thus, it will help
enhance students’ English competence.
3. Scope of the study
With regard to the scale of this undertaking, this study only focuses on the mater
within the group of grade 11 students at Dong Anh High school. Furthermore, for the

purpose of going deeply into the subjects’ matter, the researcher only concentrates on
teaching English listening comprehension.
4. Methods of the study

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To realize the objectives of the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods
were used. The data for the study were obtained through the following instruments:
 Pre and post-tests were designed by the researcher to find out the students’ ability
in listening comprehension.
 A pre and post-questionnaire was designed by the researcher to find out the
students’ readiness, interests, confidence and behavior in learning listening
comprehension and learning English in general.
 Classroom observation was conducted four times to investigate students’
readiness, interests and confidence in learning listening comprehension and
learning English in general.
 Informal interviews were carried out to discover students’ attitudes towards
learning listening comprehension.

5. Organization of the study
The thesis consists of three main parts:
 Part A is the introduction, which gives the rationale, the objectives of the study,
methods used in this study and the organization of the thesis.
 Part B is the development, which includes three chapters as follows:
 Chapter 1 is the Literature review. This chapter presents all the related
theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the information of
the research.
 Chapter 2 presents the methods of the study.
 Chapter 3 is the data analysis and discussion. In this chapter, the data
collected are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Afterwards,
some teaching implications are drawn to improve the situation of teaching

and learning listening comprehension at the researcher’s school.
 Part C is the conclusion which presents the study conclusions and teaching
implications. Besides, it also offers the limitations and suggestions for further
study.



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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, all the related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates
the information of the research is presented. They are: definition of listening and listening
comprehension, significance of teaching listening, nature of listening, listening strategies
factors affecting listening comprehension, approaches to teaching listening
comprehension, stages in teaching listening and relationship between teaching listening
comprehension and teaching reading comprehension

1.1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension
Since the early 70's, listening has been paid attention as a tool for understanding
and as a key factor in facilitating language learning. Thus, listening has emerged as an
important component in the process of second language acquisition.
1.1.1. Definition of listening
There have been various ways to define listening.
In Field’s viewpoints, “listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult
to describe. Listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and
grammar structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within the
immediate as well as the large socio-cultural context of the utterance. (Field, 1989:38)

Rost had another way to define listening by emphasizing the vital role of listening
in second language learning. In his opinion, “listening is vital in the classroom because it
provides the input for students. Without understanding the input at the right level, any
learning simply can’t begin.” (Rost, 1991:141)
1.1.2. Definition of listening comprehension
Researchers have different views on the definition of listening comprehension:
“Listening comprehension is defined as the process of understanding speech in a
second or foreign language. When comprehending something, we can understand what is

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said. It is assumed that speaking and writing are the process of encoding messages while
listening and reading decode them. Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perceptive
skill involving identifying and retaining information orally perceived.” (Boyle, 1981:13)
For Buck, “ 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 and
nonlinguistic knowledge.” (Buck, 1984:31)
Anderson and Lynch also share the shame ideas with Buck. They believe that
listening comprehension requires not only the linguistic knowledge but also the non-
linguistic knowledge in order to reach the final message of the speaker in communication.
“Listening comprehension means to understand what a speaker says: the listener has a
crucial part to play in the process by activating various types of knowledge, by applying
what he knows to what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker means”
(Anderson & Lynch, 1988:21)
Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. However,
it is recognized by Wipf (1984) that listeners must discriminate between sounds,
understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation,
understand intention and retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the
larger socio-cultural context of the utterance. Rost (2002) defines listening, in its broadest
sense, as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation);

constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); negotiating meaning
with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation); and creating meaning
through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation).
In short, listening comprehension involves multiple skills. It is a complex and
active process of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they
already know.
1.2 Significance of listening
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 provides the foundation for all aspects of language and
cognitive development, and it plays a life-long role in the process of communication. A

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study by Wilt (1950), found that people listen 45 % of the time they spend
communicating. Listening 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.
In this day of mass oral communication, it is of vital importance that students are
taught to listen effectively and critically. According to second language acquisition
theory, language input is the most essential condition of language acquisition. As an input
skill, listening plays a crucial role in students’ language development. Krashen (1985)
argues that people acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they
hear. Thus language acquisition is achieved mainly through receiving understandable
input and listening ability is the critical component in achieving understandable language
input. Given the importance of listening in language teaching and learning, it is essential
for language teachers to help students become effective listeners.
1.3. Nature of listening comprehension
According to Wang Shouyuan (2003), listening is the most important component
in the five aspects of overall English competence. He suggests among the five aspects
(listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation), listening deserves particular

attention. Educators must actively explore the nature and process of listening
comprehension and study the theory and methodology of listening comprehension in
order to improve listening and make students recognize that listening comprehension is
the crucial aspect of English learning.
From the point of view of constructivist linguistics, foreign language teaching
should focus on language form and structure, thus, teaching listening is undertaken in
each of the four aspects of language form. When students are taught to understand a
passage of text, teachers first let them discriminate between the pronunciation of vowels
and consonants, then understand vocabulary, sentences and discourses. The goals of this
listening teaching model from the “bottom-up” is to help students understand the
meaning of vocabulary by discriminating sounds, to understand sentence meaning, and to
monitor and control the meaning of discourses by understanding sentence meaning.
Since the 1970s, with the development of functional language theory, there has
been an emphasis on the research of language function in society. Functional linguistic

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experts recognize language as a communicative tool, but not an isolated structure system.
Consequently the teaching of listening is not simply intended to make students hear a
sound, a word or a sentence, rather, the goal is to cultivate students’ abilities to
understand speakers’ intentions accurately and communicate with each other effectively.
1.4. Strategies of listening comprehension
Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the
comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how
the listener processes the input.
Two views of listening have dominated language pedagogy over the last twenty
years. They are the “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing. They are simultaneous and
complementary.
In the view of Nunan, D (1999:200), “bottom-up processing is a process of
decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful
units or phonemes) to complete texts. According to this view, phonemic units are decoded

and linked together to form utterances and utterances are linked together to form
complete meaningful texts.”
Hedge, T (2000:230) argues that “In the bottom part of the listening process, we
use our knowledge of language and our ability to process acoustic signals to make sense
of the sounds that speech presents to us. In other words, we use information in the speech
itself to try to comprehend the meaning. We segment speech into identifiable sounds and
impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases, clauses, sentences and intonation
patterns. At the same time, we use whatever clues are available to infer meaning from the
developing speech”
Bottom-up strategies are text-based in which the listener relies on the language in
the message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates
meaning. Bottom-up strategies include:
 listening for specific details
 recognizing cognates
 recognizing word-order patterns
Alternatively, top-down process infers meaning from contextual clues and from
making links between the spoken message and various types of prior knowledge which

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listeners hold inside their head. Contextual clues to meaning come from knowledge of the
particular situation, i.e. the speaker, the setting, the topic and the purpose of the spoken
text, and from knowledge of what has been said earlier. Prior knowledge has been termed
schematic knowledge.
Top-down strategies are listener-based; the listener taps into background
knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This
background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret
what is heard and anticipate what will come next.
Top-down strategies include:
 listening for the main idea
 predicting

 drawing inferences
 summarizing
In summary, in the bottom-up process, learners rely on their linguistic knowledge
to comprehend the message whereas in top-down process, they must use their prior
knowledge in order to arrive at the final message. Nevertheless, “it would be a mistake to
see top-down and bottom-up strategies as somehow in opposition. It is generally
accepted that both function simultaneously and are mutually dependent.”(Hedge.T, 2000:
18)
1.5. Factors affecting listening comprehension
It can be said that listening skill often causes much trouble for language learners.
With five-year-teaching experience, the researcher has discovered that many of her
students are often afraid of listening comprehension skill. Her students often complain
that they are in short of vocabulary, they lack the background knowledge or they are not
familiar with the speed of the speaker or the different accent, etc. So, what makes
listening difficult?
There have been different views about factors that affect listening comprehension:
According to Brown and Yule (1983:74), there are four main groups of factors
that cause difficulty in listening comprehension. They are in turns the speaker, the
listener, the content and support. “ there are four main groups of factors that cause
difficulty in listening comprehension. These are the speaker (that includes the numbers of

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speakers, the speaker’s speed, and the speaker’s accents); the listeners (this consists of
the roles of the listeners, the level of response required and the listener’s interest in the
subject): the content (vocabulary, grammar, information structure and background
knowledge); and support (whether there are pictures, diagrams and visual aids….).
Sharing the shame ideas, Boyle suggests three major factors that affect the
listening process. They include the listener factors; the speaker factors; factors in the
material and medium.
A. Listener factors

General
1. Experience/ practice in listening to the target language: use of media (cinema, TV,
radio, etc)
2. General intelligence
3. General background knowledge of the world
More specific
4. Physical and educational
4.1. Age/sex
4.2. Home background, size of family.
4.3. Educational background and type of school
4.4. Physical health and alertness
5. Intellectual
5.1. Knowledge of the target language in its various aspects: phonology, lexis, syntax,
and cohesion
5.2. Powers of analysis and selection: ability to distinguish between main and supporting
points
5.3. Knowledge of the specific topic or subject
5.4. Memory (short term and long term)
6. Psychological
6.1. Motivation and sense of purpose while listening
6.2. Attitude of the listener to the speaker
6.3 Attitude of the listener to the message: level of interest
6.4. Listener’s powers of attention and concentration

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B. Speaker factors
1. Language ability of the speaker; native speaker- beginner-level, non-native speaker
2. Speaker production: pronunciation, accent, variation, voice etc.
3. Speed of delivery
4. Prestige and personality of the speaker

C. Factors in the material and medium
1. Language used to convey the message: phonological features, including stress,
intonation, weak forms (especially in conversation), lexis, syntax, cohesion, etc.
2. Difficulty of content and concepts, especially if the material is abstract, abstruse,
highly specialized or technical, esoteric, or poorly organized.
3. Acoustic environment: noise and interference
4. Amount of support provided by gestures, visuals, etc.
(Boyle, 1984:35)
In short, the teacher should take into considerations the factors mentioned above
in order to assist the students to overcome the difficulties in listening comprehension and
gain success in their listening.
1.6. Approaches to teaching listening comprehension
Underwood (1989, 90-109) presents some approaches to teaching listening such
as grammar-translation method, grammar method, audio-lingual method and task-based
method
 Grammar translation method: learners listen to a description of 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: in this method, the teacher requires students to look at a
written text while they listen to a recording. They are forced to do several things:
identify words by their position in the sentences, work out the relationship
between words and phrases, use forward and backward cues, and make intelligent
guesses based on textual cues.
 Audio-lingual method: this method was started by American linguist. This
method emphasizes first listening to pronunciation and grammatical forms then

17
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 recording of, or a teacher reading out, a dialogue, or a drill.
Basically, the more the students repeat a correct phrase or 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 communicative 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 conclusion, the four methods of teaching listening are not mutually exclusive
and in reality they may be mixed in any particular course or classroom. However, with
the development of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), teaching listening
seems to be more important as they enable to develop listening skills and other skills as
well.
1.7. Stages in teaching listening
The teaching of a listening lesson is usually divided into three main stages: pre-
listening, while-listening and post-listening. Each stage has its own purposes, activities
and time allocation.
1.7.1. Pre-listening stage:
“Starting lessons with pre-listening activities brings a host of benefits to language
learning.” (Boyle, 1984:24). Inevitably, pre-listening stage plays a vital role in the whole
process of teaching. This stage is carried out before students begin listening. A “before-
listening” activity needs to be short (five or ten minutes). However, it depends on each
lesson. Pre-listening stage is aimed at preparing students to listen and think about what
they are going to hear. The purposes of pre-listening phase are:
- to introduce and arouse interest in the topic
- to promote an active and flexible learning environment
- to help increase learners’ motivation for learning
- to motivate learners by giving a reason for listening
- to provide some language preparations for the text
(Baker & Westrup, 2000:233; Lewis & Hill, 1992; 195)

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During this phase, teachers may use some activities such as: teachers giving
background information, students read something relevant, brainstorming, questioning,
group discussing, predicting and so on. The choice of which activities to be used should
depend on the time, the material available, the interest of the class and the teacher, the
place in which the work is being carried out, the nature and the content of the listening
text itself. If one of these forgotten, the whole process of activity can be failed.
1.7.2. While-listening stage
This stage is the main part of a listening lesson aiming at facilitating learners’
listening and checking their comprehension. Time allocation for this stage is nearly two
thirds of the whole lesson. “The work at the while-listening stage needs to link in relevant
ways to the pre-listening work. While they listen, learners will need to be involved in an
authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more intensively or
more extensively, for gist or for specific information.” (Hedge, 2000:84)
Activities in while-listening stage relate directly to engagement with text, and
students do them during or immediately after the time they are listening. These points are
kept in mind when planning while-listening activities:
 Decide what is and is not important to understand
 Use predicting to encourage students to monitor their comprehension as they
listen.
 Use questions to focus students' attention on the elements of the text crucial to
comprehension of the whole.
 Organize activities to guide listeners through the text (combine global activities
such as getting the main idea, topic, etc.)
 Give an immediate feedback whenever possible (encourage students to examine
how or why their responses were incorrect.)
1.7.3. Post-listening stage
It is the final step of a listening lesson. Therefore, it is the time for students’
production. The activities at this stage are aimed at helping learners to use what they have
had from the listening text. The teacher should make up and vary the activities for

learners to do depending on their level of English competence. This stage often last for
ten or fifteen minutes. Hedge (2000:24) argues that “post listening activities can take

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students into a more intensive phase study in which aspects of bottom-up listening are
practiced.”
Post-listening work can be more effective if they are integrated with other skills
like reading, writing or speaking skills.
The followings are some activities that teacher can make use of for the post-
listening stage.
 Write questions on the board and ask students to answer them. Students are also
stimulated to talk and actively participate in the task.
 Tell students to compare their notes and discuss what they understood in pairs or
small groups.
 Encourage students to respond to what they have heard. For example, where
possible ask questions like “Do you agree?” And encourage debate.
 Tell pairs to write a summary of the main points. Then have them compare their
summaries and check if they covered all the main points.
 Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
 Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task,
modify strategies if necessary
1.8. The relationship between teaching listening comprehension and teaching
reading comprehension
Wang, Miao (2005:1) in “Teaching EFL Listening: From Theory to Practice”
suggests that one of the best way to improve the teaching of listening comprehension
is to integrate listening with other language skills such as reading, speaking and
writing skills. Within the objectives of this paper, the researcher would only focus on
teaching listening comprehension in integration with teaching reading comprehension.
There have been many studies about teaching listening integrated with other skills
such as studies of Cambourne (1981), Nagel and Sanders (1986), and Smith (1990

1975), Murphy (1999), Dow (2006). Teaching listening comprehension in integration
with reading comprehension brings about the following benefits:
 According to Brown and Yule (1983:74), Boyle (1984:35), vocabulary and
grammar are important factors that hinder the process of listening. Consequently,
it is essential to provide vocabulary, grammar in advance in order to understand

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the listening texts. Thus, teaching reading comprehension can provide vocabulary
and grammar which are necessary for listening comprehension.
 Furthermore, it is widely accepted that listening comprehension involves not only
the linguistic knowledge but also the non-linguistic one (Buck, 1984: 31;
Anderson & lynch, 1988: 13). As Chen (2006:1) has asserted “…the lack of
cross-cultural knowledge and inadequate mastery of the target language often
resulted in incomplete listening comprehension.”
Thus, it can be said that background knowledge is an important factor that
contributes to the success of listening. As a result, reading comprehension should be
taught in advance to provide the background knowledge necessary for the listening
comprehension.











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CHAPTER 2
METHODS OF THE STUDY
In this chapter, the methods applied to gain the data for the research is described.
First of all, the researcher finds it necessary to give the context or back ground in
which the study took place. The background of the study includes the syllabus, the
participants, the teaching and learning conditions. The second part of this chapter deals
with the data collecting instruments. They are: pre and post –test, pre and post-
questionnaire, class observation and interviewing
2.1. Background of the study
The researcher is working at a High school in the suburb of Hanoi for over five
years. The following gives some descriptions of the context where she is working.
2.1.1. The syllabus
In the author’s school, the new English textbooks have been in use for four years.
Before 2002, like other schools in Vietnam, her school used the old English textbooks
which mostly laid the emphasis on language items, particularly, grammar. Therefore, the
majority of students could have a good command of English grammar but they were
incapable of communicating in the target language. Since 2002, the new English
textbooks have been introduced into the teaching curriculum. These give the main focus
on skills. Each textbook contains sixteen units. Each unit consists of five sections. They
are, in turns, reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus. It seems that the
new textbooks are more suitable for the purpose of teaching English at present. With the
focus on skills, students are required to be able to communicate in the target language.

22
However, this purpose also has caused many difficulties for teachers and students in
learning English, particularly in learning the listening skill.
In the textbook 11, there are twenty listening periods with different topics. They
are arranged as follows:

Unit 1: Friendship
Unit 2: Personal experience
Unit 3: A party
Test yourself A: Friendship
Unit 4: Volunteer work (Activities at Spring school)
Unit 5: A survey of students’ attitude in Perth
Unit 6: Boston marathon competition
Test yourself B: The history of Olympic Games
Unit 7: World population
Unit 8: Tet holiday in Japan
Unit 9: The development of telecommunication in Vietnam
Test yourself C: Ordering a conversation
Unit 10: National parks
Unit 11: Renewable & non-renewable sources of energy
Test yourself D: Water conservation
Unit 12: The Asian Games

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Uni1 13: Hobbies
Unit 14: Holidays
Test yourself E: Benefits of watching television
Unit 15: The first human moon landing
Unit 16: The Great Wall of China
Test yourself F: Man in Space
2.1.2. Participants
The subjects of the study are two hundred grade 11 students at Dong Anh High
school. They come from class 11A2, 11A5, 11A6 and 11A9. Their pre-supposed level in
English is pre-intermediate; however, the majority of them can not reach this level. In
fact, they are not very good at English. This can be proved by their results in this subject.
English results in the class and in examinations are usually the lowest in compared with

other subjects’. In short, it can be said that the majority of the subjects possess low
English competence.
This study can not be done without the help of other teachers at Dong Anh High
school. There are seven teachers in the writer’s school. All of them have at least five-
year-teaching experience. Before 2002, the majority of teachers in the author’s school
followed the traditional way of teaching (grammar translation method). However, with
the application of the new English textbook, most of them come to realize that they
should vary the way of teaching to suit the new goal of teaching. They highly appreciate
the communicative teaching approach, though they sometimes still employ traditional
way as a result of the students’ low English competence.
2.1.3. The teaching and learning conditions

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In recent years, computer has been used in her school. A multi-functional room
equipped with a computer and a projector was built in 2004. This has made the
application of information technology into language teaching feasible. Teachers can
design electronic lesson plans and use them to teach their students. The lessons become
more interesting and easier to understand with visual illustrations and audio aids.
Students appear to be more enthusiastic with these kinds of electronic lessons. Moreover
in each listening lesson, students no longer have to listen to the teacher’ voice. They have
chance to listen to tape recorder. This helps them to get familiar with the native accent.
2.2. Data collecting instruments
The study employed four instruments to obtain the data. They are pre and post-
tests, pre and post-questionnaire, interviewing and class observation. The combination of
different instruments will increase the preciseness and reliability of the data collected
because the data obtained from one method will help to inform and refine the other.
2.2.1. Pre and post-tests
First of all, pre and post listening tests were designed by the researcher to find out
the student’s ability in listening comprehension. The pre and post tests were carefully
designed in terms of the following quality:

 The tests were designed for students of pre-intermediate level.
 The tasks in both pre and post test must be equal in terms of the
difficulty.
 The task types in the pre and post test are similar. Each listening test has
three tasks including gap-filling, true or false and question-answering.
 The topic for each listening task in both pre and both test is similar. Task
1 is about people introducing themselves. Task 2 is about people talking
about their countries. Task 3 is about people talking about their neighbor.
These similarities between the two tests help ensure the reliability and validity of
the research. The test had been piloted with two hundred students in four different
classes. Then, the results obtained were analyzed by mean. The mean scores from the pre

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test and post test was compared to see the changes in their ability in listening
comprehension.

2.2.2. Pre and post -questionnaire
Secondly, a pre and post questionnaire was designed by the researcher to find out
the students’ attitudes, interests, confidence and behavior in learning listening
comprehension. Questionnaires were provided “to learn about the characteristics,
attitudes, or beliefs” (Marshall & Rossman, 1999:1995) of the participants.
The questionnaire also required students to give their previous background of
language learning such as their grades they had got in English in the first semester. The
main questions in the questionnaire were grouped into four main parts.
 The first part aimed at finding how students could see the importance, necessity of
learning listening skill.
 The second part discovered the factors affecting listening comprehension.
 The third one involved the affective and cognitive elements in learning listening
comprehension such as how they understood and felt about learning listening skill
and learning English.

 The last part asked about how they behaved in learning listening comprehension.
In other words, it aimed at finding how students think, do about learning listening
skill.
The questionnaire was piloted with the same students who had taken part in the pre
and post tests.

2.2.3. Class observation
“Observation is an effective research technique to directly elicit the data in the
context being investigated” (Merriam, 1998:88). In this study, the researcher was able to
directly observe listening task interaction. Selinker (1974:35) claims that “[from] the
only observable data in meaningful performance situations can we establish legitimate
judgment’’. In this study, the purpose of class observation is to check the reliability of the
data collected from the questionnaire and hopefully clarify what has not been done
through questionnaire. For each class, she observed in forty five minutes. Class

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observation was conducted four times in four different classes. The checklist for listening
class observation includes the teacher’s activities; students’ activities.

2.2.4. Interviewing
Interviews enabled the researcher to gain more in-depth understanding of the
participants’ perspectives, which other methods could not identify. “The purpose of
interviewing, then, is to allow us to enter into the other person’s perspective” (Patton,
1990:196). In this study, informal interviews were carried out to discover students’
attitudes towards learning English listening comprehension.

2.3. Procedure
The intervention was carried out in ten listening lessons during the second term.
Before each listening lesson, students were given the reading texts which were relevant to
the topics of the listening lessons. This aimed at equipping students with necessary

vocabulary, grammar structures and background knowledge before listening. Therefore, it
can facilitate students to listen better in the listening lessons. Due to the lack of time in
class, they were required to do the reading texts at home.