Using dictation to improve grade-10 students' listening skill at Tan Yen High school No.2 = Sử dụng đọc chính tả nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nghe cho học sinh lớp 10

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

NGUYEN VAN NAM


USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE GRADE-10 STUDENTS’
LISTENING SKILL AT TAN YEN HIGH SCHOOL N
0
2

(SỬ DỤNG ĐỌC CHÍNH TẢ NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC
SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT TÂN YÊN SỐ 2)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis




Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10






HANOI, 2010

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES




NGUYỄN VĂN NAM


USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE GRADE-10 STUDENTS’
LISTENING SKILL AT TAN YEN HIGH SCHOOL N
0
2

(SỬ DỤNG ĐỌC CHÍNH TẢ NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC
SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT TÂN YÊN SỐ 2)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis




Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: Nguyễn Minh Cường, M.A

HANOI, 2010





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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ii
ABSTRACT
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
iv
LIST OF TABLES
vii
LIST OF CHARTS
viii
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1
1. Rationale of the study
1
2. Aims of the study
2
3. Scope of the study
3
4. Methods of the study

3
5. Design of the study
4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
5
CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
5
1.1. General concepts of listening
5
1.1.1. Definition of listening
5
1.1.2. Listening as the final goal of learning a language
6
1.1.3. Listening as a mean of acquiring language
6
1.1.4. Evaluation standard of Ministry of Education and Training on
listening
skill to grade-10 students
7
1.2. General concepts of dictation
7
1.2.1. History of dictation across second/foreign language methodologies
7
1.2.2. Definition of dictation
8
1.2.3. Characteristics of dictation
9
1.2.4. Types of dictation
10
1.2.5. Advantages of dictation

11
1.2.6. Disadvantages of dictation
12
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
13



7
2.1. An overview of the research site
13
2.2. Research questions
13
2.3. The participants
14
2.4. The instruments
14
2.5. Data collection procedures
15
2.6. Data analysis
16
2.7. Summary
16
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
17
3.1. Analysis and discussion of dictations for listening skill improvement
17
3.1.1. Analysis and discussion of dictations with the T/F statement task
17
3.1.2. Analysis and discussion of dictations with gap-filling task

20
3.1.3. Analysis and discussion of dictation with short-answer question.
25
3.2. Teachers‟ application of dictation for listening skill improvement
26
3.3. Analysis and discussion of students‟ tests
32
3.3.1. Analysis and discussion of pre-test
32
3.3.2. Analysis and discussion of progress test 1
34
3.3.3. Analysis and discussion of progress test 2
35
3.3.4. Analysis and discussion of post-test
36
3.4. Pedagogical implication and recommendations
38
3.4.1. Pedagogical implication
38
3.4.2. Recommendations
40
PART C: CONCLUSIONS
42
1. Summary of the findings
42
2. Conclusions
42
3. Limitations of the study
43
4. Suggestions for further research

43
REFERENCES
44
APPENDICES
I
Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for teachers
I
Appendix 2: Pre-test
IV
Appendix 3: Progress test 1
VI



8
Appendix 4: Progress test 2
VIII
Appendix 5: Post-test
X
Appendix 6: Keys for practice tasks
XII

9
LIST OF TABLES


Table 1: Listening practice task for dictation 1
Table 2: Listening practice task for dictation 2
Table 3: Listening practice task for dictation 3
Table 4: Listening practice task for dictation 4
Table 5: Listening practice task for dictation 5

Table 6: Listening practice task for dictation 6
Table 7: Listening practice task for dictation 7
Table 8: Listening practice task for dictation 8
Table 9: Teachers‟ opinion of dictation as a useful teaching technique
Table 10: Teachers‟ frequency of the application of dictation
Table 11: Application of dictation in different stages of a listening lesson
Table 12: Teachers‟ attention to the content of dictation
Table 13: Teachers‟ opinion of speech speed of dictation
Table 14: Teachers‟ opinion of accent
Table 15: Result distribution of Pre-tests
Table 16: Result distribution of Progress tests 1
Table 17: Result distribution of Progress tests 2
Table 18: Result distribution of Post-tests













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LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: Result description of pre-test

Chart 2: Result description of progress test 1
Chart 3: Result description of progress test 2
Chart 4: Result description of post-test
Chart 5: Result description of all the tests






















11
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study

Language is the most important thing for people as a means of communication. It is
basically a means of both spoken and written communication. People use language to
express their ideas and wishes to other people such as when they need others help so that
close relation among members of the group can be carried out (Ramelan, 1993:8). Ramelan
further states that “the use of language enables the members of a social group to cooperate
with one another for their own benefit.” It is important to learn English because it is an
international language which is used in many countries over the world and widely used in
many sectors such as information, trade, aviation, science, education, etc. In Vietnam, the
importance of English has been realized because English is considered to play a crucial
role on the path of industrialization and modernization of the country as well as on the way
of regional and international integration. Therefore, English is now taught in all levels of
schools all over the country in order that the students are familiar with English and can use
and communicate in English well.

Of all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, listening is always
considered to be the most difficult for teachers to teach and for students to improve
themselves, which leads to the fact that most learners have low level of proficiency in their
listening skill. In fact, in the process of teaching and learning English, listening plays an
important role since it involves various kinds of learners‟ knowledge and it is closely
related to other skills, especially speaking skill. While, G (1998) pointed out that “being a
good listener involves collaborating with speakers and taking an active role in asking for
clarification when you do not understand”. Later on, the ability to understand the native
speakers in face-to-face communication, on the radio or tape may be important for learners
to further study the language and communicate in it.

At Tan Yen High School N
0
2 where I have been working, like at many other high
schools in Vietnam, English has been a compulsory subject for many years. However, the

12
teachers of English here are facing the problem of their grade-10 students‟ low level of
listening in their classrooms. While there has been a variety of techniques used to improve
listening skill for these students, most of them have not been really effective. One idea of
using dictation to improve listening skill for the students has exercised my mind since I
had a chance of studying the subject “English language teaching methodology” by Mr.
Canh. During the short course, a lot of time has been spent discussing how to use dictation
to improve listening skill for students. Moreover, according to researchers‟ opinion,
dictation has a number of advantages. For instance, Lightfoot (2004) says that dictation can
be done with any level, depending on the text carefully designed and applied and it can be
graded for a multi-level class. And Montalvan (2006) points out that dictation involves the
whole class, no matter how large it is. During and after the dictation, all students prove
very active. The dictation passage can be completely prepared in advance and administered
quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher. Likewise, Pappas (1977) considers dictation
as a good means of developing learners‟ listening skill.

For grade-10 students‟ problems of low listening competence and as one of the
teachers of English of this school, I would like to improve my students‟ listening skill, and
hope to be able to apply in the high schools where most of the students have low listening
competence. All considered, I chose to conduct a study on “Using dictation to improve
grade-10 students’ listening skill at Tan Yen High School N
0
2.”

2. Aims of the study

The purposes of this study are to find out an effective teaching technique to

improve listening skill for grade-10 students at Tan Yen High School N
0
2. Therefore, the
study is conducted to aim at finding the answers to the following questions:
1. How is dictation designed to improve listening skill for the students?
2. How is dictation used to improve listening skill for the students?
3. How much are the students‟ listening skills improved after the application of
dictation?





13
3. Scope of the study

Due to the limited time and financial constraint, I am unable to carry the
investigation on a large scale. Therefore, within an M.A. minor thesis, my intention is only
to investigate the effectiveness of dictation to enhance listening skill for grade-10 students
(about 80 students in total) at Tan Yen High School N
0
2. For the aims of convenience, I
have chosen 2 classes of grade-10 students who I have been teaching to be my research
site. Also, it is my intention to conduct a survey on three teachers of English of the school
who have been teaching grade-10 students.

4. Methods of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, I am going to use both quantitative and qualitative
methods including survey questionnaires for teachers and listening tests for students.

+ Survey questionnaires are designed for teachers with the hope to find out their
attitudes towards dictation as well as their comments and suggestions for using dictation in
the English lessons.

+ Four listening tests are designed for students with an aim to measure the effect of
using dictation on students‟ listening skill improvement. The first listening test (pre-test) is
given to students with an aim to measure their overall listening competence before
dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The result of this test helps the researcher to
design appropriate activities of dictation in the listening lessons on the purpose of bettering
the students‟ listening skill. The next two tests (progress tests) are given to students to
check their progress when dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The last test (post-
test) is given to find out how much the students‟ listening skill has improved after the
experiment has been terminated.







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5. Design of the study

This minor thesis is divided into five chapters:
Chapter I is an introduction to the whole minor thesis. It includes the rationale of
the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study and design of the
study.

Chapter II, Review of Literature, presents various concepts most relevant to the

research topic such as definition of listening, listening as the final goal of learning a
language, listening as a means of acquiring language, and evaluation standard on listening
skill. Furthermore, the followings are also included in this chapter: history of dictation,
definition of dictation, characteristics of dictation, types of dictation, and so on.

Chapter III describes the method of investigation which consists of research site,
research questions, participants, instruments, methods of data collection and analysis.

Chapter IV, Data analysis and Discussion, gives a detailed presentation of data and
a detailed description of data analysis. Some explanations and interpretations of the
findings of the study are also presented.

Chapter V presents conclusions of the research, limitations and suggestions for
further researches.

In the last part of the study, to assure that the study is really valid, the researcher
gives references and appendices.








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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Any study should have theories as its background. In this minor thesis, the

researcher bases the study on the theories which are the views by the famous linguists and
methodologists on concepts concerning language and methodology.

1.1. General concepts of listening
1.1.1. Definition of listening

There are different points of views on the definition of listening. Listening is an
essential element of communication and it is also essential for interaction. A learner can
express himself orally he/she is never able to communicate with speakers of English if
he/she is unable to understand what is said to him. As Rivers (1981) observes speaking
does not in itself constitute communication unless what is said is comprehended by another
person.
Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. Learners must
discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress
and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the large social-cultural
context of utterance (Field, 1989:38).

While listening is also defined by Rost as follows:
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, 1990:141)

Grant (1987:19) states that the listening skill includes everything from learning
particular sound to comprehending complicated message. Without this skill,
communication can break down. Therefore, successful communication really depends on
listeners or receivers of messages. Steil & Watson (1982:22) also suggested that listening
is a major communication activity.

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1.1.2. Listening as the final goal of learning a language

According to Donoghue (1975:76), listening occupies the basic portion in the
context of the language arts and progress in reading, speaking and writing is directly
governed by listening ability. It is the most important of the four arts since nearly half of
the adult working day and more than half of the child‟s classroom activity time is spent on
listening. Moreover, the students can gain a lot of experiences of listening to a wide variety
of samples of spoken English, like watching films and plays or listening to the radio or
songs. It also helps the students know different varieties of language such as standard or
regional, formal or informal language and different text types like conversation, narrative
or informative types. Furthermore, students, day by day, can practice and sharpen their
listening skill and they can flexibly listen to everything. Therefore, listening is regarded to
be among the most important educational goals. It provides students with a stimulus for
other activities such as discussion, reading and writing, which are the main language skills.

1.1.3. Listening as a mean of acquiring language

“Listening to spoken language is an important way of acquiring the language of
picking up structures and vocabularies”, Adrian Doff (1995:199). It is obvious that
developing the ability to understand the spoken foreign language is along continuous
process and listening is a skill that must be taught and that does not happen automatically.
If the students learn to listen effectively, they are able to understand, to interpret, to
evaluate and to respond to what they hear. Thus, it is important for students to develop the
ability to understand spoken language. In daily life, they can watch English programs on
T.V, listen to the radio or have face-to-face conversations with native speakers. Thus the
more frequent learners are exposed to the language, the faster and more easily they can
acquire it.

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1.1.4. Evaluation standard of Ministry of Education and Training on listening
skill to grade-10 students

English curriculum at secondary school is designed based on communicative
approach driving at developing and consolidating communicative skills like speaking,
listening, reading and writing. Of which, phonetics, vocabulary and grammatical structures
are the essential instruments. Also, the combination of textbook, reference books and
teaching facility (tapes and recorders, CDs computer, projector, and so on) play an
important and oriented role in language teaching and learning.
The objectives of the new “Tieng Anh 10” are specified as follows:
General objectives to all skills:
 Using English as a communicative tool to speak, listen, write and read in target
contexts at basic level.
 Acquiring fundamental and systematic target English knowledge.
 Getting an overview of English-speaking countries, people and cultures,
conserving and developing our national traditions and cultural identity.
Specific objectives to listening skill: At the end of grade 10, students will be able to use
English knowledge in the scope of the curriculum to:
 Listen to a monologue or a dialogue of 120-150 words for general or specific
information.
 Understand the English texts at relatively slow speed.
 Identify and distinguish sounds, words and intonation.

1.2. General concepts of dictation
1.2.1. History of dictation across second/foreign language methodologies

Dictation is a type of exercise that was introduced in the Middle Age, at a time
when pedagogical resources were limited to the teacher‟s voice and writing. In fact, it did
not much matter how well students wrote as long as they grasped the meaning. It was used
to teach the structure (morphology and syntax) of the language in the Grammar/translation
method and for teaching sounds and spellings in the traditional direct method. It



18
disappeared with audio-lingual and audio-visual methods but recently when
methodologists have been advocating more integrative methods, there‟s been an attempt at
reviving the exercise and introducing different types of dictations. Moreover, dictation has
also been getting much support from methodologists and linguistics when it is used as
language teaching device.

1.2.2. Definition of dictation

Dictation is a widely researched device of language teaching. It is useful when well
integrated with the teaching activities. It is a teaching technique which has proved
extremely effective at all levels of instruction. It ensures attentive listening, trains students
to distinguish sounds, enables students to learn to transfer oral sounds to written symbols,
helps to develop aural comprehension and assists in self-evaluation.

Several experts gave their statements about dictation that are very useful for
teachers. For example, Oller (1979: 39) states that: “Dictation is a task which requires the
processing of temporally constrained sequences of material in the language, divided up the
stream of speech and then refers down what is heard requires understanding the meaning

of the material”.

According to Richards, Platt and Weber as quoted by Fachrurrazy (1989),
“Dictation is a technique used in both language teaching and language testing in which a
passage is read aloud to students, with pauses during which they must try to write down
what they heard as accurately as possible.”

Another definition of dictation which is given by Taylor as quoted by Fachrurrazy
(1989) says that dictation means “(1) reading a passage aloud, (2) dividing the passage
into phrases suitable for committal to short-term memory and re-reading phrase with
phrase with gaps long enough for subjects to record the preceding phrase in writing, (3)
optionally re-reading each phrase as it is being written, and (4) re-reading the whole
passage as in (1).”



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According to Hornby (1995: 190), dictation means “being dictated to; passage that
is dictated”. And Paul David and Mario Rinvolucri (1998) state that “In many cases, the
teacher probably read you the text, dictated it, and then read it a third time so you could
check through. To many people this, and nothing else, is dictation.”

From the definitions above, it can be said that dictation is an activity where a
student transcribes a word, phrase, sentence or passage he hears.

1.2.3. Characteristics of dictation

According to Zhiqian (1989) dictation serves the teacher and the students
efficiently. It has several characteristics as follows:
(1) Dictation can be used with a class of any size. When the dictation is given, all

of the students are working, even in a very large class.
(2) Dictation ensures attentive listening. When the students are doing a dictation,
their attention will totally be focused on the exercises.
(3) Dictation gives the students a chance to get practice in the sort of note taking
that many courses require. This is a very important part of the students‟ needs in using
language.
(4) Dictation requires the students to make the transfer from the spoken to written
language. The written record proves their ability to reproduce spoken language in a correct
visual form.
(5) Dictation, if properly varied, can provide practice in listening comprehension,
vocabulary building, increasing reading speed and comprehension, as well as elementary
aspects of hand-writing, punctuation, spelling, and composition formation. Certain types of
dictation also lend themselves to the grammar class, and train the students to distinguish
sounds and grammatical elements.








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1.2.4. Types of dictation

As a language teaching and learning technique, dictation may be given in various
types. There are several types of dictation. According to Sawyer and Silver (1961), they
are as follows:

The first, the phonemic item dictation, consists of the teacher presenting the

individual sounds of a language (i.e., their IPA coordinates) to students for transcription.
The phonemic item dictation is useful in that it increases the students' ability to recognize
the sounds of a language and their contrasts, thereby facilitating their accurate production.
This dictation is an excellent way to teach beginners to stop imposing the sound system of
their native language upon the sound system of English.

The second, the phonemic text dictation, is an extension of the phonemic item
dictation. It consists of the teacher reciting a passage which students phonetically
transcribe. The phonemic item dictation is valuable as a way to understand how English
sounds change in connected speech.

The orthographic item dictation is the dictating of individual words in isolation for
transcription, similar to the traditional spelling test. It is useful for reinforcing the
correlation between the spelling system and sound system of a language. In English this
correlation is more complex than it is in other languages (e.g., Spanish and many Slavic
languages), and so it is a worthwhile ESL/EFL exercise.

The dictation with the broadest learning and teaching possibilities is
the orthographic text dictation, in which students transcribe a unified passage. This is the
classic dictation exercise all foreign language teachers are familiar with. Besides
reinforcing the spelling/sound correlation of English, the orthographic text dictation
uncovers comprehension and grammatical weaknesses in learners which the teacher can
analyze and address in future lessons.





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1.2.5. Advantages of dictation

Dictation has been used in language teaching and learning for several hundred
years, and methodologists have often made pedagogical claims for its value. Lado says that
dictation is favoured by many teachers and students both as a teaching and testing device.
Davis and Rinvolucri write that "Decoding the sounds of English and recoding them in
writing is a major learning task" (1988) and Frodesen writes that dictation can be "an
effective way to address grammatical errors in writing that may be the result of erroneous
aural perception of English Dictation can help students to diagnose and correct these
kinds of errors as well as others." (1991)

According to Montalvan‟s opinion (2006), dictation has several following
advantages:
(1) Dictation can help develop all four language skills in an integrative way.
(2) Dictation helps to develop short-term memory. Students practice retaining
meaningful phrases or whole sentences before writing them down.
(3) Dictation can serve as an excellent review exercise.
(4) Dictation is psychologically powerful and challenging.
(5) Dictation fosters unconscious thinking in the new language.
(6) Dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is.
(7) During and after the dictation, all students are active.
(8) Correction can be done by the students.
(9) Dictation can be prepared for any level.
(10) Dictation can be administered quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher.
(11) While dictating, the teacher can (in fact should) move about, giving individual
attention.
(12) Dictation exercises can pull the class together during the valuable first minutes
of class.
(13) Dictation can provide access to interesting texts
(14) Correcting dictation can lead to oral communication.
(15) Practice in careful listening to dictation will be useful later on in note taking

exercises. In other words, dictation gives students valuable practice in note-taking.



22
(16) If the students do well, dictation is motivating.
(17) Dictation can be prepared for mixed ability groups.
(18) The students, as well as the teacher, can get instant feedback if the exercise is
corrected immediately.
(19) The dictation passage can (and should) be completely prepared in advance (it
also can be taped).
(20) As students develop their aural comprehension of meaning also of the
relationship among segments of language, they are learning grammar.
(21) Research has shown that the learning to write down what you hear can
encourage the development of literacy.

1.2.6. Disadvantages of dictation

Traditional dictation is not a great oral comprehension exercise since it has little to
do with authentic communication. Dictations are in fact written passages that are read out
loud so they do not help students to understand the difference between the oral and the
written language.
Furthermore, they are read at a slower pace than people speak normally and are
therefore of little value to help students understand the language spoken by natives.
(1) Listening. A lot of beginners in English do not perceive the difference
between „u‟ and „u:‟ or the nasal sounds.
(2) Memorizing, the short term memory can be “overwhelmed” if there is
too much that the student does not understand.
(3) Writing respecting the relation between sounds and letters is next to
impossible if the student did not understand and guessing does not always work.

There is a great deal of emphasis put on spelling mistakes in a dictation yet there is
very little work done to help the students to perceive the basic sound-spelling
correspondences revealed by their dictation errors.
Generally, students do not master the time factor. If they understand they cannot go
faster in order to take more time on something that they find more difficult (even though
this can be done).



23
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1. An overview of the research site

Tan Yen High School N
0
2, the research site, situated in the west of Tan Yen
district, Bac Giang province, was established in 1975. Although the school was established
and developed in the very difficult conditions (bad infrastructure, lack of teachers, teaching
materials and equipment), it has for many years been the reliable address for students and
parents of the district.

The school has 39 classes with approximately 1695 students ranging from grade 10
to grade 12 and over 80 teachers of different subjects. English has been taught here as a
compulsory subject by eight teachers aged from 22 to 40. The teaching and learning of
English at school is based on the national curriculum set by the Ministry of Education and
Training. Therefore, all the students in the whole school use the same sets of nationwide
standardized textbooks of English (Tieng Anh 10, Tieng Anh 11, Tieng Anh 12). None of
the classes are taught with sets of advanced textbooks of English.

2.2. Research questions

As stated in chapter I, within this minor thesis, I would like to enhance listening
skill for grade-10 students at Tan Yen High School N
0
2 in Bac Giang province. Therefore,
the study is conducted in an attempt to seek the answers to the following questions:
1. How is dictation designed to improve listening skill for the students?
2. How is dictation used to improve listening skill for the students?
3. How much are the students‟ listening skills improved after the application of
dictation?







24
2.3. The participants

The participants in this study are drawn from two sources: from 560 grade-10
students and eight teachers of English.
560 grade-10 students are divided into 14 classes. Therefore, it is difficult for me to
select a random sample of individuals. The solution to this case is that instead of randomly
selecting the individuals, I randomly select classes for investigation. This method has two
advantages: First, it is convenient for me to collect the data done by the students in their
class. Second, these classes have students with the same level of listening competence as
determined by their results of the previous academic year. Two classes chosen for the
study are 10A2 and 10A4, which include 80 students (about 14.2% of grade-10 students).

Of these eighty students, there are only 24 males and the rest are females. They all come
from villages in the district and most of them are at the age of 16, so they belong to the
same family background and psychological age group. Their time length of learning
English is also the same. That is, they all have been learning English since grade 6.

The three teachers (about 37.5% of the teachers of English) who were invited to
join the study are all full-time teachers of the school. One of them has been at work for
fifteen years, another for eight years, and the third for two years. One has taught grade 10
for two years, and the two others for four years. Two of them are female, and they all
graduated from English Department of Colleges of Foreign Languages. The researcher has
been teaching English for five years, and he is the only person who is doing an MA course
on methodology. Without doubt, all the teachers at Tan Yen High School N
0
2 are
experienced and enthusiastic about teaching. They are willing to help students their
students overcome the difficulties in leaning English.

2.4. The instruments

There is a variety of methods that can be employed to collect data such as
questionnaires, interviews, meeting, tests, observation and so on. Each method has its own
advantages and disadvantages. I chose questionnaires because it is one of the most popular
instruments. It is quite easy to prepare and it can be used with a large number of subjects.



25
What is more, the information collected is not very difficult to tabulate and to analyze
(Brown, 1995). Hence, survey questionnaire was chosen to collect teachers‟ opinions and
attitudes towards dictation as well as their comments and suggestions for using dictation in

the English lessons. This set of questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended
questions are written in English and only used for teachers.

In addition to the survey questionnaire, I collected data by using four listening tests
which are designed for students with an aim to measure the effect of using dictation on
students‟ listening skill improvement. The first listening test (pre-test) is given to students
with an aim to measure their overall listening competence before dictation is applied in the
listening lessons. The next two tests (progress tests) are given to students to check their
progress when dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The last test (post-test) is given
to find out how much the students‟ listening skill has improved after the experiment has
been terminated.

2.5. Data collection procedures

I conducted my study in a period of 18 weeks of the first term of the school year in
the class 10A2 and 10A4 at Tan Yen High School N
0
2 where I have been teaching for
more than four years. Firstly, I designed survey questionnaires and collected all ideas from
three teachers of English who have been teaching grade-10 students. Secondly, I gave the
listening tests to the students and collected them after students had finished. The first test
(pre-test) was administered to the students at the beginning of the academic year. In other
words, it was given to the students at the first session of English class. This test is aimed at
measuring students‟ overall listening competence before dictation is applied in the
listening lessons. The second test (progress test 1) was administered to the students after
they had finished three units (unit 1, unit 2 and unit 3) of English textbook 10. The third
test (progress test 2) was given to the students after they had finished three next units (unit
4, unit 5 and unit 6) of English textbook 10. These two tests are aimed at checking their
progress when dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The last test (post-test) was
given to the students at the end of the first term. It is used to find out how much the

students‟ listening skill has improved after the experiment has been terminated.



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2.6. Data analysis

The data collected from the two sources were first read through to obtain a sense of
the overall data. They were then analyzed both descriptively and interpretatively. The
information from the survey questionnaires and listening tests was then displayed in the
forms of tables and charts while qualitative data from the open-ended questionnaire items
were used as reflective notes and quotations.

2.7. Summary

The third chapter has presented the research site whose notable contextual feature is
that learning English is compulsory but most grade-10 students have low listening
competence. Besides, the research questions, participants, instruments, and procedures of
data collection and analysis have also been discussed in this chapter. In a best attempt to
build a scientific methodology, the researcher hopes to achieve a reliable and valid data for
the study. The next chapter, chapter IV, is the presentation of the data analysis and
discussion.

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Analysis and discussion of dictations for listening skill improvement

To improve listening skills for grade-10 students, I applied dictation as a teaching
technique in English sessions of listening for a period of 18 weeks of the first term of the
academic year. Dictations have the same topics as the ones of each unit and were applied
in the stage “Post-listening” which took place in about 10 minutes. It means that they were
applied after all the tasks of the textbook had been finished. Dictations aim at consolidating
the knowledge as well as enhancing listening skills for students, so they are relatively
simply designed for the English learners of beginning level and have nearly the same
practice tasks as the ones of the textbook. In my design of dictations, I chose such listening
practice tasks as T/F statement, gap-filling and short answer question. For that choice,
analysis and discussion of dictations are following the types of practice tasks, not the order
of units of the textbook.

3.1.1. Analysis and discussion of dictations with the T/F statement task
With the T/F practice task students have to listen to the dictation carefully, analyze
it and compare the given information (T/F statements) with the one presented in the
dictation. This task helps students not only hear the general information of the whole
dictation but also select the specific information to complete the sentences. This task is
designed to practise listening skill for general and specific information. It is used in the
practice task of dictation 1, dictation 2 and dictation 3. It aims at consolidating the
knowledge and enhancing students‟ listening skill in unit 1, unit 4 and unit 8 of English-10
textbook. Here are dictations and practice tasks for T/F statements.

Dictation 1 for unit 1
“I‟m Peter. Every day I get up at 6 o‟clock. I brush my teeth, wash my face and
have breakfast at 6.30. After breakfast, I get dressed and go to school at 6.45. My classes
start at 7 o‟clock and finish at 11 o‟clock. After school, I go home and have lunch at half
past eleven. In the afternoon I do my homework from 2 o‟clock to 5 o‟clock. After that I



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help my mother cook dinner. In the evening, I watch TV from 7 o‟clock to 8 o‟clock. I
read books at 9 o‟clock and go to bed at 10 o‟clock.”

The topic of dictation 1 is similar to the one of unit 1. It is about “a day in the life
of …” or someone‟s daily life. In particular, this dictation describes the activities which
Peter does from the early morning to the late evening. Thus, students can widen their
knowledge of vocabulary related to daily activities. Besides, they revise the usage of the
present simple tense used to express day-by-day repeated activities with its adverbs of
frequency. Moreover, the questions of practice task focuses on bettering students‟ listening
skill for specific information. In other words, it helps to improve the listening skill for
deciding on True or False statements. This is the listening practice task for dictation 1.

You will hear Peter talk about his daily activities. Listen to his talk and
decide whether the statements are true (T) of false (F). One example has
been done for you. T F
0. Peter gets up at 6 o’clock every day.
1. He has breakfast at half past six.
2. He gets dressed before breakfast.
3. His classes finish at a quarter to eleven.
4. He has lunch at home at 11.30.
5. He helps his mother do the gardening from 2 to 5 o‟clock.
6. He watches TV from 7 o‟clock to 8 o‟clock.

Table 1: Listening practice task for dictation 1

Dictation 2 for unit 4
“Louis Braille was born in 1809 in Coupvray. He was a French teacher of the blind.
He himself was blind from the age of three, and in 1818 he went to the National Institute
for the Young Blind in Paris. Soon showing marked ability in both science and music, he
became famous in Paris as an organist. In 1826 Braille began teaching the blind in the
institute. Braille is known for his idea of modifying the Barbier “pointing writing” system,
used for coded army messages, to enable the blind to read.”
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