Improving students' listening comprehension through focused listening tasks = Nâng cao khả năng nghe hiểu của học sinh thông qua các bài luyện tập kỹ n20150227

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DECLARATION …………………………………………………………………….
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………
ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………….
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………………
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………

PART A. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………… ……
1. Rationale ……………………………………………………….….……………
2. Aims of the study ………………………………………………………….……
3. Research questions…………………………………………………………….
4. Significance of the study ………………………………………………………
5. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………….
6. Methods of the study…………………………………………………………….
7. Design of the study……………………………………………………………

PART B. DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………
I.1. Different views of listening comprehension……………………………… …
I.2. Importance of listening comprehension………………………………………
I.3. Classification of listening comprehension……………………………………
I.3.1. Real - life listening…………………………………………………
I.3.2. Classroom - listening ………………………………………………
I.4. Listening stages…………………………………………………………………
I.4.1. Pre-listening stage……………………………………………………
I.4.2. While - listening stage ………………………………………………

I.4.3. Post - listening stage…………………………………………………
I.5. Definition of task……………………………………………………………….
I.6. Kinds of listening tasks ………………………………………………………
I.7. Language learners’ difficulties in listening comprehension …………………
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CHAPTER II: RESEARCH ON CURRENT LISTENING TEACHING AND
LEARNING SITUATION IN BIEN HOA GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL………
II.1. Overview of current listening teaching and learning situation in Bien Hoa
Gifted High School………………………………………………………
II.2. Participants……………………………………………………………….…….
II.3. Research method …………………………………………………………….
II.4. Data analysis and discussion …………………………………………………
II.4.1. Students’ attitudes towards listening skill……………………………
II.4.2. Students’ experience in listening…………………………………….
II.4.3. Students’ comment on the listening materials used in class…………
II.4.4. Students’ comment on factors causing difficulties in their learning
listening… ………………………….……………………………….
II.4.5. Students’ difficulties in listening to English texts…………………
II.4.6. Teacher’s strategies to motivate the students………………………
II.4.7. The students’ expectation to their teacher…………………………
II.5. Major findings. ………………………………………………………………

CHAPTER III: MAJOR SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO
IMPROVE STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION ……………………
III.1. Choosing the suitable listening texts………………………………………….
III.2. Designing suitable tasks ………………………………………………………
III.3. Helping the students to prepare well for the listening through the
pre – listening stage …………………………………………………………

PART C. CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………….
1. Conclusions ……………………………………………………………………
2. Limitations of the research …………………………………………………….
3. Recommendations for further research ………………………………………

REFERENCES …………………………………….………………………………
APPENDIX ………………………………………….…………………….…………

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards listening skill
Table 2: Students’ experience in listening
Table 3: Students’ comment on the listening materials used in class
Table 4: Students’ comment on factors causing difficulties in their learning listening
Table 5 & 6: Students’ difficulties in listening to English texts
Table 7: Teacher’s strategies to motivate the students
Table 8: The students’ expectation to their teacher



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PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
It can not be denied that in the whole world English has become a more and more

important role as the international means of communication in many fields of our life such
as aviation, business, service, culture, education, economy, and so on.
Vietnam is not out of this circle; especially at this period since Vietnam joined in
World Trade Organization, teaching and learning English have been paid more attention to.
However, for many years, Vietnamese students and teachers are familiar with the process
of teaching and learning in traditional ways. As a teacher of Bien Hoa Gifted High School,
I find that the teaching and learning here still focus too much on grammar, vocabulary and
structures. Although students follow the English course book by the Ministry of Education
and Training Department, in which each unit is designed to be composed of five parts -
reading, listening, speaking, writing and language focus; assessment and testing only aim
at students’ knowledge of English grammar along with reading and partial writing.
Therefore, teaching and learning listening skill as well as speaking skill is paid less
attention to. After having taught for three years at Bien Hoa Gifted High School, I realize
that there are many students who are good at writing and reading find it rather difficult to
listen to English materials. What’s more, we all know that language is used as a means of
communication. Therefore, students should be encouraged to develop all four skills which
are closely related to one another.
For all these reasons, I would like to do something to help improve listening skill of
my students in English majored class by exploring the common problems that my students
often encounter in the process of learning listening and helping them get acquainted with
the vital use of pronunciation, stress, intonation, linking, elision in speaking as well as
different accents from authentic materials. As the result, the title of the study is “Improving
Students' Listening Comprehension through Focused Listening Tasks”



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2. Aims of the study
This study aims at taking a closer look at the current situation of teaching and

learning English for the English majored students at grade 11, Bien Hoa Gifted High
School in listening lessons to find out the problems that these students usually encounter,
and after all to improve their listening skill through listening tasks which focus on
pronunciation, stress, intonation, linking, elision as well as different accents from authentic
materials.
3. Research questions
To meet the research aims, the study is carried out on the basis of using qualitative
research method including survey questionnaire for students. In brief, the ultimate goal of
the study is to answer the following research questions:
1. What difficulties do English majored students at grade 11, Bien Hoa Gifted High
School face in their listening lessons?
2. What are the possible causes of these students’ difficulties in acquiring listening
skill in English?
3. Which focused listening tasks can help these students overcome their difficulties?
4. Significance of the study
To learn a foreign language well, learners need to develop all the four skills.
Listening to spoken language is an important way of acquiring language, of picking up
structures and vocabulary. We can not develop speaking skill unless we also develop
listening skill.
To have successful conversation, students must understand what is said to them.
Then the ability to understand spoken language may become very important for listening to
radio, understanding foreigners, etc. Listening comprehension is a very complex process
that students often find most difficult in learning English. This thesis, therefore, is carried
out so as to help students to improve their listening skill


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5. Scope of the study
Since Bien Hoa Gifted High School is a school for gifted students in many subjects

including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, information technology, literature,
history, geography, English and Russian. There are different sorts of students at different
levels of English. Teaching and learning English, especially listening skill, are so
sophisticated and varied among these classes. Within this study, the researcher will only
focus on the students of English majored class of grade 11 to investigate the troubles that
students at this class usually encounter, and then give some proposals to overcome
discovered difficulties to help improve students’ listening ability
6. Methods of the study
The study is carried out on the basis of qualitative research method. The
questionnaire is designed as a means for researcher to collection data. The questionnaire is
given to students of English majored class of grade 11 with the hope to find out their
attitudes towards their learning listening and their difficulties in listening lesson as well as
their expectation from focused listening tasks
Based on the results of the survey, data analysis was done so as to put forwards
some applications and suggestions in order to improve teaching and learning listening in
English majored classes in Bien Hoa Gifted High School
7. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion.
Part A, “INTRODUCTION”, presents the basis information such as the rationale,
the aim, the research question, the significance, the scope, the method, as well as the
design of the study
Part B, “DEVELOPMENT”, consists of three chapters.
- Chapter one, literature review, looks at different views of listening
comprehension, importance of listening comprehension, classification of


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listening comprehension, listening stages, definition of task and kinds of
listening tasks as well as language learners’ difficulties in listening

comprehension.
- Chapter two deals with the current listening teaching and learning situation in
Bien Hoa Gifted High School analysis on general teaching and learning
situations at Bien Hoa Gifted High School. Also in this chapter, there is a
focus on data analysis and discussion as well as major findings.
- Chapter three presents major solutions and recommendations to improve
students' listening comprehension.
Part C, “CONCLUSION”, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out some
limitations and provides suggestions for further study.













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PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW
I.1. Different views of listening comprehension
The language learning is constituted from four main skills including reading,
speaking, listening and writing. These skills are closely related to one another. What’s
more, communication is the process of exchanging information and attitudes. Therefore,

language as a means of communication can not take place without listening. Listening is a
key second language skill, it has a vital role in the language acquisition process, and its
development is of primary concern to language teachers. It is also believed that listening is
a significant and essential area of development in a native language as well as in a foreign
language. So, there are numerous ways of defining listening.
According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), there are two influential views:
traditional view and alternative view.
Traditional view regarded listening as receptive skills, like reading skill. Learners
play a passive role in the listening learning process. They just listen to the messages or
recording and try to understand the meaning of the speakers’ utterances without taking any
notice of such factors as attitude and shades of meaning. This leads to a problem: teachers
merely test students’ capacity of hearing and remembering utterance they hear in the
recording, not students’ understanding of the conversation or talk. For this perception,
teaching listening, in the traditional way, is thought as teaching listening for sounds not for
meaning. Anderson and Lynch criticized this view as inappropriate and inadequate. This
notion is not a tenable one.
Alternative view, on the other hand, considers the learner as an active model
builder. Listeners of this kind can combine the new information with their own background
knowledge to reach full comprehension of what has been heard. Both researchers agree
with this view, which emphasizes the active interpretation and integration of listeners on
incoming information. Other scholars supported this view as well.


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Little wood (1981) shares this view when saying that listening requires active
involvement from listeners. The nature of listening comprehension is that the listeners
should be encouraged to be engaged in an active process of listening for meaning, using
not only the linguistic cues but non linguistic knowledge as well.
Listening comprehension can be facilitated when the listeners can understand what

the native speakers say at a normal speed in natural situations. Chastain (1976) suggests
that to understand what native speakers say, the listeners do not need to pay attention to
every word and all of the details in the text but they should focus on the content of the
message in a natural situation. They should try to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words
from the context of the spoken text. To do so, they should make the best use of their
background knowledge and relate their prior knowledge to the new information in the
spoken text.
In other words, listening is viewed as an active process in which individuals focus
on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning from passages, and then relate what
they hear to existing knowledge (Bentley & Bacon, 1996). Or listening is an active process
of constructing meaning and this is done by applying listeners’ knowledge to the incoming
sounds in which numerous types of knowledge are involved including linguistic
knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge (Gary Buck, 2001:31) because "comprehension
takes place when input and knowledge are matched against each other" (Faerch & Kasper,
1986, p. 264).
Therefore, from the teacher's point of view, the purpose of listening comprehension
activities in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom is to help listeners extract
meaning from the verbal and non- verbal information to assist listeners in recognizing
cultural differences between the first language and the foreign language and in removing
the cultural misunderstandings that may be distracted from the delivered non verbal
information.
Wolvin and Coakley (1985) also point out that listening as “the process of
receiving, attending to and assigning to aural stimuli”. To put it in another way, listening is
a complex problem-solving skill. The task of listening is more than perception of sound


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although perception is the foundation; it also requires comprehension of meaning. This
view of listening is in accordance with the second language theory which considers

listening to spoken language as an active and complex process in which the listeners focus
on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning and relate what they hear to existing
knowledge (O’Malley & Chamot, 1989)
In view of Yagang (1993), listening is the ability to identify and understand what
others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his
grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning. An able listener is cable of doing
these four things simultaneously.
In short, through many years, although there are numerous definitions of listening
proposed as above, there is one common thing which can not be deniable: listening is not a
passive but active process of constructing a message from a stream of sound with what the
listener knows of the phonological, semantic and syntactic potentialities of the language, of
receiving, attending and understanding auditory messages; that is message transmitted
through the media of sounds
I.2. Importance of listening comprehension
Listening is an activity in which the learners pay attention and try to comprehend
what they heard. Due to the influence of the Grammar Translation method or Structural
method in the early seventies, written language was paid more attention than spoken
language. Nowadays, due to the need for communication, the importance of speaking and
listening is widely acknowledged all over the world. Therefore, communication is not
considered successful unless what is said or referred to is comprehended by the
interlocutor.
According to Adrian Doff (1995:198), "to have a successful conversation, students
must understand what is said to them". Therefore, in learning a foreign language, the
learners need develop listening skills independently from and together with other language
skills.


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To be a successful listener, we need to work out what the speakers mean when they

use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, not simply to understand
the words themselves. What the speakers mean lies only in words spoken and the listeners
must attend to what they heard, to process, to realize and to interpret the message they
heard.
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four skills of what is called
"indivisible range called communication'. They are closely related to each other, but they
are independent as well. Oral communication can not take place without listening and
therefore listening plays a central and possibly predominant part in the whole process of
language learning. In order to take part in oral communication, clearly, one person must,
first and foremost, absorb and understand the information (in the listening process) before
they can show their own view points (in the speaking process). When nobody listens to the
speaker or when he or she fails to understand the spoken message, communication is
broken down.
Adrian Doff (1995) points out that listening is an important way of acquiring the
language, a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures. "Teaching the
comprehension of spoken language is therefore of primary importance if the
communication aim is to be achieved." (Rivers Wilga, M.(1986) Teaching Foreign
Language Skill., The University of Chicago Press, p. 135). Learners living in a country
where English is the first language do not need much time to be able to communicate in
English fluently because they have chances to hear it all the time and have plenty of
exposure to the language. The greatest difficulty for a language learner in listening is not
only primarily that he cannot make himself understood but that he fails to understand what
is being said to him and around him. It is obvious that developing the ability to understand
the spoken foreign language is a long continuous process and listening is a skill that does
not happen automatically, but that must be taught. If students are taught how to listen
effectively, they are able to understand, to interpret, to evaluate and to response to what
they hear. The more frequent they are exposed to the language, the faster and easier they
can acquire it.

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If pressure for early oral production is eliminated or reduced, students can feel
comfortable or confident and concentrate on developing their listening comprehension
skills (Vandergrift, 1999). This is because when learners are not provided enough
information about what they are going to hear before the tape plays, they just hear what
they are to listen, trying to elicit the meaning from the individual syntactic and semantic
components of the utterance and the manner in which it is spoken, without paying
sufficient attention to the discourse such as the background knowledge of the speakers as
well as their intentions, attitude, implication and other shades of meaning etc. As a result,
they cope with a wide range of problems while they are listening and, as a matter of fact,
they can not get any listening experience from the teacher.
In short, listening is of great and primary importance and "Listening comprehension
is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and 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)
I.3. Classification of listening comprehension.
I.3.1. Real - life listening.
Many learners of English find themselves in a variety of situations where they need
or want to listen to English being used in real - life for different purposes. There is,
however, a big gap between listening activities in the classroom and actual listening
situations in real life. This is because listening materials which learners usually listen to
(dialogues or conversations for example) are very grammatical and controlled in so many
ways as the speakers often speak at perfectly controlled speed, with perfect voice tone,
accent and correct grammar. Whereas, in real - life conversations, different people speak
with different accents, speed and voice tones without or less paying attention to grammar.
According to Penny Ur (1984) “There is a distinct difference between the auditory
effect of a piece of spoken prose and that of informal conversation. The former is
characterized by a fairly even pace, volume and pitch. Spontaneous conversation, on the

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other hand, is jerky, has frequent pauses and overlaps, goes intermittently faster and
slower, louder and softer, higher and lower. Hesitation, interruptions, exclamations,
emotional reactions of surprise, irritation or amusement, which are all liable to occur in
natural dialogues, are bound to cause an uneven and constantly changing rhythm of speech.
Even if only one person is speaking for a relatively long period, the fact that he has not
thought out carefully what he has to say beforehand, and has not necessarily chosen the
best words, means that he has to rely heavily on vocal emphasis to make his meaning clear.
And vocal emphasis does not just mean saying a particular word or phrase louder. It means
also gabbling quickly through what is less important and slowing down over the main
point, or pausing for effectiveness before or after a vital phrase, or raising the pitch of
voice to stress one thing and then lowering it to play something else. The overall effect of
all this is perhaps more dramatic and interesting than that of formal speech, but this does
not mean that it is, all in all, more comprehensible or easier to listen to. To summarize, we
may say that most of our real-life listening activity is characterized by the following
features:
- We listen for a purpose and with certain expectations.
- We make an immediate response to what we hear.
- We see the person we are listening to.
- There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of what is heard.
- Stretches of heard discourse come in short chunks.
- Most heard discourse is spontaneous and therefore differs from formal spoken
prose in the amount of redundancy, noise and colloquialisms, and in its auditory
character.
Sometimes particular situations may lack one or more of these characteristics, for
example, when watching television we are not normally expected to respond, when
listening to a lecture we may have to hear uninterrupted speech for a very long time

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indeed- but it is very rare that none of them is present at all. We seldom listen to stretches
of "disembodied" discourse of any length”
As suggested by Adrian Doff (1995), there are two ways which people often listen in
real - life. They are "casual" listening and " focused" listening. In daily life we sometimes
listen with no particular purpose in mind and often without much concentration. This kind
of listening is called “casual” listening. Lots of students, for instance, have the habit of
listening to music while studying. We do not listen intentionally; therefore, we may not
remember much of what we hear or there may be nothing in our mind. On the contrary,
when we listen for a particular purpose to get the information we need to know, this kind
of listening is called “focus” listening. In this case we often listen with much attention, but
we do not listen to everything we hear with equal concentration – we listen for the most
important points or for particular information. This leads to our "listening out" for certain
key phrases or words. Usually we know before hand what we are listening for (the things
we want to know) and this helps us to listen effectively. For example, when we are
required to answer such a question as “When does the Paris flight leave please?”; we tend
to focus on listening to the time. There is an association between listener expectation and
purpose and his comprehension. If the listener expects and needs are intentional, his
listening is likely accurately perceived and understood than that which is unexpected,
irrelevant or helpful.
I.3.2. Classroom - listening
In the view of Rixon (1986) and Hubbard, R and others (1984), there are two kinds of
listening in classroom: intensive listening and extensive listening.
Intensive listening is the careful, focused listening to a short passage for detailed
information or for full comprehension, for example listening to the announcement, the
instructions or the weather forecast, etc. There may be much concrete information for this
kind of listening and learners often find it difficult to get full comprehension in the first

listening. This helps learners develop their listening skill or knowledge of the language in
their effort to do exercises or other activities. The passage should be short so that learners
have chances to get to grip with the content, have several tries at difficult parts and to be


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fitted within the time allowed of a lesson. Learners also feel it easy, interesting and
encouraging when they listen to a short passage. Therefore, they often listen with a great
concentration and effort.
Extensive listening is free and general listening to natural language for general ideas,
not for particular information. The listening passages for extensive listening can be long
(stories) or short (jokes, poems). The language that is used in this type of listening is often
within the students' current ability so that students find it interesting when listening.
Students feel satisfied as they can understand the passage well. They are not asked to do
any language work and they can do their listening freely without any pressure. Moreover
the topics are various and entertaining; therefore it motivates students to develop their
listening skill as well as exposes them to valuable extra contact with spoken language.
I.4. Listening stages.
There are often three main stages in the teaching of a listening text. They are pre-
listening stage, while-listening stage and post-listening stage. Each stage has its own
purposes as well as activities.
I.4.1. Pre-listening stage.
Pre-listening stage involves activities that are provided to help listeners, step by step,
get certain knowledge related to listening text. It can’t be denied that learners will
encounter certain difficulty to do a listening lesson without being provided with the idea of
what they are going to hear. Even if the sounds or the words they hear are familiar, they
may still be unable to understand because they lack certain kinds of knowledge of the
topic, discourse or the relationship between the speakers. It is, therefore, of great
importance to let students know what to expect for the tasks before listening. This kind of

work is generally called pre-listening stage. Penny Ur (Teaching Listening
Comprehension, Cambridge, 1984) states that “I t would seem a good idea when
presenting a listening passage in class to give students some information about the content,
situation and speakers before they actually start listening”. Sharing this view, Mary
Underwood (Teaching Listening, Longman, 1990) suggests that "Before listening, students


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should be "turned in" so that 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". In general, pre-listening stage is to help listeners feel as in real-life
listening situation in their native language.
The pre-listening stage is set up before the students hear the passage to help them get
the most of what they are going to hear. The main purposes of this stage, therefore, are:
+ To motivate students to pay more attention to the listening text. When students are
able to relate the listening experience to their own lives, they are more willing to
listen actively to the speaker.
+ To activate or build students' prior topical and linguistic knowledge. It is important
for students to be able to relate what they already know to the speaker's content.
+ To help the students match what they hear with their stored knowledge. When the
students' prior knowledge about the speaker's topic is activated or built by the
teacher, students can predict what they might hear and make connections with what
they already know, increasing the relevance of the information.
+ To set purposes for listening: When students set purposes for listening, they become
active listeners who listen for something, not to it. This enhances their
comprehension and retention. Teacher guidance may be required at first to help
students set purposes for listening. Students who have identified a purpose for
listening are more willing participants, secure in knowing what is expected of them
+ To focus the students' attention on the topic by narrowing down the things they

expect to hear and by activating relevant prior knowledge. Thereby, students have
certain things to expect and purpose to listen.
+ To provide an opportunity to gain some knowledge, which helps the students follow
the text.


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+ To increase students’ confidence so that they stand a better chance of being
successful.
These purposes can be achieved by one of the following activities: the teacher
introduces the listening topic, gives background information, gives clear instructions for
the while-listening activity; or the students are given guidance on the structure of what they
are going to hear, discuss the topic situation, look at pictures, read through the questions if
asked. Each of the above activities will help the students focus on the main points of
listening passage by narrowing down the things that the students expect to hear and
activating their previous knowledge. Selecting which activity to use depends on a lot of
such factors as: the time available, the material available, the ability of the class, the
students and the teacher's interests, the nature and content of the listening text. Among
these factors, the last one is considered very important when choosing activities.
I.4.2. While - listening stage
The while-listening stage involves activities that students are asked to complete
during the time they are listening to the text. It guides students as they try to elicit the
necessary information from spoken language
This stage is to help students learn to recognize how the language sounds in terms of
pronunciation, stress, rhythm, and intonation, so that they can use what they hear as a
model for them to imitate. It also helps students appreciate the differences between the
pronunciation of words in utterance and in isolation as well as the relationship between
written and spoken form. What’s more, it helps non-native listeners learn to apply the skills
of prediction, matching what they hear with what they expect to hear, interpret the overall

meaning of each utterance as they do in their own language.
To meet these purposes, as suggested by Penny Ur (1984), teachers can facilitate
such while-listening activities as listening for perception (at word level and at sentence
level) and listening for comprehension (including listening and making no response,
listening and making short responses, listening and making longer responses, listening as a
basis for study and discussion)


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To be effective activities, these while-listening ones should possess the two following
characteristics. Firstly, they should be interesting enough to make the students want to
listen and complete the activities. The topic, the content and the length of the listening text
as well as the students’ interest decide the success of the while-listening activities. If
students have to do the same kind of work again and again, they may get bored and lose
their interest. Secondly, they should be things that are within the capacity of most students.
It is because failure can easily and rapidly lead to de-motivation. The level of difficulty can
be adjusted by giving support (which can be done at the pre-listening stage). It is advisable
to provide while-listening activities which are a challenge for the more advanced students,
but not discouraging those who only gain little success.
Like choosing pre-listening activities, as suggested by Underwood (1990:49), the
teachers must consider a number of factors when choosing while-listening activities as
follow: the possibilities for varying the level of difficulty if needed, the convenience of
carrying out activities which need individuals to give oral responses in the classroom, the
possibility for the work to be done with the teacher present or as self-study and either in a
listening center or at home, material or ideas which might be used for post-listening work,
immediate feedback on the extend to which the students have succeeded in the task
To conclude, "Good while-listening activities help learners find their way through the
listening text and build up the expectation raised by the pre-listening activities". (Mary
Underwood, 1990:46).

I.4.3. Post - listening stage
Post-listening stage relates to the activities which are done after the listening is
completed. Some post-listening activities are extensions of the work done at the pre-
listening and while-listening stages and some relate only loosely to the listening text itself.
This stage is also very importance, with certain purposes as well as activities
The main purposes of post-listening activities are to check, after completing the
while-listening tasks, whether the students understand what they have listened to or not; to
see why some students have missed parts of the message or fail to understand the message;


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to give the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speakers of
the listening text; to expand on the topic or language of the message and to transfer learned
things to another context and to make introduction for the planned work
To achieve these mentioned purposes, the following are possible activities:
 The teacher give the answers orally, or show the answer on the black board
 The teacher draw the students' attention to specific parts of the listening text and
focus on the forms and function, lexis, stress and intonation which have caused
problems for the students
 The students work in pairs to check each other's answer or in groups to discuss
any problems related to the listening text.
Mary Underwood points out that selecting post-listening activities should pay take
these factors into consideration: the amount of time, the amount of language work the
teacher wish to do in relation to the particular listening text; the use of related skills (the
speaking, reading or writing skill); pair work and group work.
I.5. Definition of task
First of all, we need to clarify the term “task”. Several definitions of “task” have
been offered by different authors. Tasks are divided into two types: target task and
pedagogical task.

According to Nunan (1989), target tasks, as the name implies, refer to the use of
language in the world outside the classroom while pedagogical tasks are those that occur in
the classroom. Target tasks have features of non-linguistics and even non-technical
outcome but the real mental-oriented outcome that people intend to do everyday. Those
may describe the sorts of things that the person in the street would say if asked what they
were doing. When these tasks are transformed from the real world to the classroom, they
become pedagogical in nature. Nunan (1989) states that: "a communicative task is a piece
of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or


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interacting in the target language while their attention principally focuses on meaning
rather than on form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand
alone as a communicative act in its own right.”
Richards (1986) regards a pedagogical task as an activity or an action which is
carried out as the result of processing or understanding language, for example, drawing a
map while listening to a tape, listening to an instruction and performing a command. When
using a variety of different kinds of tasks in language teaching, language teaching
gradually becomes more communicative because it provides a purpose for a classroom
activity which goes beyond the practice of language for its own sake
As Willis (1996) points out: "tasks differ from grammatical exercises in that
learners are free to use a range of language structures to achieve task outcomes - the forms
are not specified in advance" (p.23).
In the view of Bygate, Skehan, and Swain (2001:288) “A task is an activity which
requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective.”
From the mentioned above viewpoints related to the definition of the term “task”,
we can see: while these definitions vary somewhat, they all emphasize the fact that
pedagogical tasks involve communicative language use in which the user's attention is
focused on meaning rather than grammatical form. This, however, does not mean that form

is not important. A task is goal-oriented, meaning-focused first and form-focused then,
contextualized, and implemented as the basis for teaching and learning. Meaning and form
are highly interrelated, and that grammar exists to enable the language user to express
different communicative meanings.
In second language teaching and learning, in stead of a language structure, students
are presented with a task they have to perform or a problem they have to solve. Therefore,
the focus of the lesson is the task, not grammar. Task, therefore, is now often viewed as a
linguistically outcome-oriented instructional segment or as a behavioral framework for
research or classroom learning.



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I.6. Kinds of listening tasks
Authentic tasks should be ones that resemble as much as possible the original
purpose for which the text was intended. If we listen to a train announcement we do so in
order to make sure we know the time of the train we want to catch, if we listen to someone
giving directions we do so in order to be able to find a destination.
Students can easily be de-motivated when faced by tasks that are very challenging,
particularly the first few times, but if you show them that you will gradually lead them to
an understanding of the text, they will gradually start to relax more about dealing with
more difficult texts. And once you have shown them a few times that they can gradually
understand a challenging text, then, in the long run they will develop a much greater sense
of achievement and experience far less stress when dealing with challenging situations in
the real world.
Many students expect us as their teachers to make things easy for them and to help
them. This is also our instinct on seeing our students struggling, but we must try to resist
this urge to do the work for them and help students to see that by doing the work for them
we undermine their potential to achieve for themselves.

As teachers and designers of teaching material we should try to bear this in mind
when we set tasks for our students. The purpose of the text should define the task we
assign our students and in so doing we develop our students' abilities to understand and
process what they hear rather than just achieving a score.
Adrian Doff (1988) points out that “if we just ask the class to listen and we ask
questions afterwards, we are giving them a very difficult task. We can make it easier by
telling them beforehand what to expect and what to listen for - this will help them to focus
their listening.” Adrian (1988) demonstrates two ways to help students focus their
listening: giving simple task and giving guiding questions. For example, upon asking
students to listen to the trainer talking about themselves the teacher can choose either of
these two demonstrations: first, ask students to listen and write brief notes in the table,
including such information as hometown, brothers or sisters, children, interests and
holidays; second, ask students to find answers to two questions (1. where did he stay? 2.


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What does he say about the river, his bicycle, and the fruit trees?). From these two
different demonstrations, it can be seen that the table and the questions serve the same
purpose: they focus the students’ attention by giving them something specific to listen for,
they give a reason to listen and also help them to listen by leading them towards the main
points.
Adrian (1988) also suggests some types of task for teachers when designing
listening tasks for listening texts
 Listen and label a diagram
 Listen and choose a picture that fits the meaning of the listening text
 Listen and reorder the sentences according to the content of the listening text
 Listen and draw or follow a map
 Listen and note down the main information, produce a summary
 Listen and express opinions on what you have heard

Comprehension check questions are by far the most common type of listening
activities the students are given in class. Look at almost any language course book
listening activity and we will find these. Sometimes they will be multiple-choice questions,
sometimes true/false statements and sometimes open wh-questions. In many ways there is
nothing wrong with this, but how often do we really do these kinds of tasks in our
everyday lives? Do you sit down to watch TV or listen to the radio with a set of questions
in front of you? As such these types of activities aren't developing our students' abilities to
understand and process what they've heard in any meaningful kind of way. Well the
problems begin the moment the students step outside the classroom into the real world.
They are surrounded by a vast range of spontaneous and unpredictable language. They
have no control over the range of vocabulary they may encounter or the kind of things they
will hear or need to respond to. This is why even higher level students who do very well in
the classroom find it so difficult to cope when faced with a 'real' situation. We simply
haven't taught them in a way that will help them cope with this.


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I.7. Language learners’ difficulties in listening comprehension
It can’t be denied that listening is considered to be the most difficult among the
four skills. Numerous learners have difficulties with different aspects of listening
comprehension. These difficulties are closely associated with the characteristics of spoken
language.
Underwood (1990) identifies seven potential problems learners often encounter in
their learning listening.
o Inability to control the speed of the speaker: Mary Underwood (Teaching
Listening, Longman, 1989, p. 16) sees that the greatest difficulty with listening
comprehension for a language learner is that: "They are so busy working out the
meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part. Or they simply
ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all out quickly enough." Many

students of English cannot keep up with the speed at which a speaker speaks. They
feel that the utterances disappear before they can elicit the information, while in a
written text, in reading comprehension for example, words remain on the page and
they can look back or reexamine them thoroughly. They often try to understand
everything they hear. When they fail in sorting out the meaning of one part, the
following will be missed. This can lead to the ignorance of the whole chunk of
discourse. Obviously they fail to listen.
o Inability to get things repeated: Another difficulty connected with controlling the
"input" (what the speaker says) is that the leaner is not always in a position to get
the speaker to repeat an utterance.
o Vocabulary limitation: Listeners have to try their best to follow the speakers and
sometimes to guess the meaning of a word or phrase from its content. Native
listeners can guess the meaning with the help of context clues, but for foreign
language learners, a new word can be a barrier which makes them stop and think
about the meaning of the word and thus makes them miss the next part of speech.
The problems often occurs when learners have been taught English with more


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emphasis on accuracy than on fluency, more stress on the forms of language than its
functions.
o Failure to recognize the signals: To move from one point to another, or give an
example, or repeat a point, speakers use many different signals. For foreign
listening, these signals can easily be missed. In order to be able to connect the
various utterances and ideas in the way the speakers intended them to be connected,
students need to be taught to listen to these signals. For example, in a formal
situation, when giving a new point the speakers can use expression like "Secondly
or then ", or they may pause or increase loudness, make use of a different
intonation

o Problems of interpretation: Problems of interpretation can also hinder
communication. Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have difficulty in
interpreting the words they hear. And the listeners from other cultures can easily
misinterpret the meaning of non-verbal clues-facial expressions, nods, gestures, tone
of voice
o Inability to concentrate: Even the shortest break in listening can seriously affect
comprehension. Therefore, lack of concentration is a major problem. Students will
concentrate easily if they find the topic interesting or familiar. But if they make
enormous effort to follow what they hear word by word, the listening work will be
tiring. Such factors as equipment, poor recording, unacoustically suitable rooms for
the use of recorded material can also make concentration difficult
o Establish learning habits: Teachers often teach students to understand everything in
the English lesson by repeating and pronouncing words carefully. Students can form
the habit of listening word by word from this teaching method of teachers. So when
they fail to understand a particular word or phrase, they will be worried and become
discouraged by their lack of success. This habit will cause a lot of difficulties when
the learners deal with real-life listening situations.


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Within this light, Brown (2001) points out eight following characteristics of spoken
language which make listening difficult
o Clustering: in teaching listening comprehension, teachers must help students to
pick out manageable clusters of words. These clusters will play important roles in
helping students to get the idea of the whole utterance.
o Redundancy: in ordinary conversation or even in much extempore speech making
or lecturing, we actually say good deal more than would appear to be necessary in
order to convey our message. Redundant utterances may take the form of
rephrasing, repetition, elaboration, self-correction, and apparently meaningless

additions like "I mean" or "you know". This redundancy, however, is not as
unnecessary as it would seem. Just as it enables the speaker to work out and express
what he really means as he goes along, so it helps the listener to follow him by
providing an abundance of extra information and time to think. This makes it easy
to understand the listening text. It is teachers' task to help listening learners aware
that not every new sentence or phrase will necessarily contain new information by
looking for the signals of redundancy.
o Reduced forms: beside redundancy, reduced forms like morphological contractions
(He'll - He will); syntactic (elliptical forms like "when will you be back?" -
"tomorrow, maybe"); or pragmatics (a child says, "Mum. Phone!) These reductions
cause significant difficulties, especially for classroom learners who may have
initially been exposed to the full forms of the English language.
o Performance variables: Hesitations, false starts, pauses and correction are
variables that prevent learners from getting the correct idea. Learners have to train
themselves to listen for meaning in the midst of those distractions.
o Colloquial language: learners who have been exposed to standard written English
and/or "textbook" language sometimes find it surprising and difficult to deal with
colloquial language such as idioms or slang