Techniques for improving listening skills of 11th form students at me linh hing school

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY N
o
2
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY
- - -    - - -




NGUYEN THI GIANG



TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS OF
11
TH
FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL

(GRADUATION PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH)

Hanoi, 2014


i


ACKNOWLEGEMENT

It is my pleasure to thank those who make this thesis possible.
First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms. Nguyễn
Thị Phương Lan, M.A, Lecturer of Foreign Language Faculty, HPU2. This thesis
could have probably not completed without her patient, enthusiastic and instructive
supervision and encouragement.
I also would like to express my sincere thanks to all the lecturers in the Foreign
language Faculty for devoting time and efforts to enrich, broaden and deepen my
knowledge. My special thanks go as well to the Foreign Language Faculty for giving
me the opportunity and permission to implement this thesis.
Besides, I am heartily thankful to my classmates, who have enthusiastically
supported and provided me with valuable suggestions.
I am also deeply indebted to my family for their constant encouragement which
motivated me to perform best during the thesis.
Lastly, I would like to offer my regards and blessings to all the readers of this
paper. I appreciate all the constructive comments on it and hope that my study will be
useful for those who also take interest in this subject.

ii
ABSTRACT

Techniques for improving English listening skill is the topic that has got much
concern of experts. Many books about this issue have been published. Different
authors dealt with different aspects of the topic. However, the difficulties that learners
often have in learning listening and solutions for the problems mentioned in some
books have not been clearly dealt with in full and sometimes caused confusion to
learners of English.
As a result, students of English often find listening difficult because they do not
have appropriate methods to get over the difficulties. Therefore, this research is aimed
at studying factors relevant to listening comprehension, structure of a listening lesson
and conducting a survey for collecting data about the students‟ difficulties in learning
listening.
Based on the results of the survey, the difficulties have been found. Solutions to
the problems have been suggested.

iii
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
Title: Techniques for Improving Listening Skills of 11
th
form students
at Me Linh High School.
(Graduation paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Bachelor
of Arts in English)

I certify that no part of this report has been copied or reproduced by me from
any other person‟s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally
written by me under strict guidance from my supervisor.

Date submitted:




Student
Nguyen Thi Giang
Supervisor
Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan, M.A.


iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement I
Abstract II
Statement of authorship III

Table of contents. IV

Part I
INTRODUCTION
I.1: Rationale 1
I.2: Research objectives 1
I.3: Research scope 2
I.4: Research tasks 2
I.5: Research methods 2
I.6: Research significance 2
I.7: Research design 3
Part II
DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

II.1.1: Literature review 4
II.1.2: Introduction 5
II.1.3: Listening comprehension 5
II.1.4: Classification of listening 7
II.1.4.1: Informative listening 7
II.1.4.2: Appreciative listening 9
II.1.4.3: Critical listening 10
II.1.4.4: Discriminative listening 12
II.1.4.5: Empathic listening 13
II.1.5: Steps of a listening lesson 15

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II.1.5.1: Pre-listening 15
II.1.5.1.1: Definition and purposes of pre-listening stage 15
II.1.5.1.2: Types of pre-listening activities 15

II.1.5.1.3: Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities 16
II.1.5.2: While-listening 16
II.1.5.2.1: Definition and purposes of while-listening stage 16
II.1.5.2.2: Factors affecting the choice of while-listening activities 16
II.1.5.2.3: Types of activities for while-listening 17
II.1.5.3: Post-listening 18
II.1.5.3.1: Definition of post-listening stage 18
II.1.5.3.2: Factors affecting the choice of post-listening activities 18
II.1.5.3.3: Types of post-listening activities 18
II.1.6: Potential difficulties that students may have in learning listening 18
II.1.6.1: Inability to control over the speed at which the speaker speaks 19
II.1.6.2: Inability to concentrate 19
II.1.6.3: Problems in hearing sounds 19
II.1.6.4: Problems in understanding different accents 20
II.1.6.5: Problems in limited vocabulary 20
CHAPTER TWO
AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CURRENT SITUATION OF
LEARNING LISTENING OF 11
TH
FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH
SCHOOL
II.2.1: Method of study 21
II.2.1.1: Purposes of the survey 21
II.2.1.2: Population of the survey 21
II.2.1.3: Type of the survey……… 21
II.2.1.4: Preparation of the survey 22
II.2.1.4.1: Test items 22
II.2.1.4.2: Arrangement of the test items 22
II.2.1.5: Administration of the try-out 23
II.2.1.5.1: Preparation of the try-out 23

II.2.1.5.2: Try-out 23

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II.2.1.6: Method of data analysis 23
II.2.1.7: Results of the survey 23

CHAPTER THREE
SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS TO
THE 11TTH FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL
II.3.1: What should students do to improve listening skills?. 32
II.3.1.1: The necessity of clearly identifying their purposes of listening 32
II.3.1.2: The necessity of learning listening actively .33
II.3.1.3: The necessity of frequent listening practicing 34
II.3.2: Requirements for teachers 34
III.3.2.1: Pre-listening 34
II.3.2.1.1: Introducing the topic 34
II.3.2.1.2: Pre-learning vocabulary 34
II.3.2.1.3: Asking students to look at picture(s) 35
II.3.2.1.4: Listening with visuals 35
II.3.2.2: While-listening 35
II.3.2.2.1: Listening for the gist 35
II.3.2.2.2: Listening and filling 36
II.3.2.2.3: Listening for specific information 36
II.3.2.3: Post-listening 37
II.3.2.3.1: Jigsaw listening 37
II.3.2.3.2: Role-play/stimulation 38
Part III
CONCLUSION
Conclusion 39
References 42

Appendix 43

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PART ONE
INTRODUCTION

I.1. RATIONALE
It can not be denied that English is not only the most popular language in the
world, but it is also the international medium in the fields of science, technology,
culture, education, economy and so on. It is considered the key language to promote
the mutual understanding and cooperation among countries.
In Vietnam, English has become more and more popular and important. Thus,
the Vietnam Education Ministry has considered English as a compulsory subject at
most secondary and high school. Among these schools is the Me Linh High school.
However, teaching and learning process in Me Linh High school seems to focus too
much on grammar, structures and vocabularies. Students are very good at doing
exercises of written forms which mostly concern grammar, reading or writing. As a
result, students have many difficulties in listening.
This situation can be caused by a lot of things. Most students have had listening
practice at school, but they have rarely been taught or given instructions about how to
listen to English effectively. Moreover not all listening lessons interest students,
sometimes because teacher does not have appropriate methods to motivate students,
sometimes the listening topic is too difficult for them. Another thing leading to the
students‟ difficulties in learning English listening is that students do not appreciate
listening skill, they only pay attention to grammars, vocabularies, structures with the
aim of coping with exams.
For all those reasons, my study is conducted with the hope of improving
listening skill for students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school.

I.2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The purposes of this study is to examine the areas of difficulties in learning
English listening encountered by students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school and what
they desire to do in listening lesson.

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Therefore the study will aims at finding the answers for the questions as follow:
- What difficulties do students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school have in
learning English listening?
- What do students want to do in each step of listening lesson?
- What can teachers and students do to improve students‟ listening skill?
I.3. RESEARCH SCOPE
The difficulties which students may have in learning English listening is
various, so it is impossible to discover all the aspects of this issue. Within the scope of
this graduate paper, the researcher can only conduct a survey on the students of 11
th

form to identify common listening problems experienced by the students, after that
suggest some techniques to help them improve their listening ability.
I.4. RESEARCH TASKS
The study involves fulfilling the tasks of studying the definitions and process of
listening comprehension; researching into the classification of listening; discussing
steps of a listening lesson; studying potential difficulties students may have in learning
listening and conducting a survey to find out the difficulties students form 11
th
at Me

Linh high school have in learning listening and which activities they desire to do in
each steps of a listening lesson. On the basic of the findings, possible solutions to the
problems are suggested to help students overcome the difficulties and improve their
listening ability
I.5. RESEARCH METHODS
To achieve the objectives of the study, researcher have applied six methods
which are collecting documents from books listed in the references; consulting the
supervisor, experienced teachers and friends; doing a survey on the learning listening
to English from 100 students of 11
th
form at Me Linh High school; collecting data for
the analysis; assessing the difficulties and evaluating the best techniques that are most
suitable.
I.6. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

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This study may provide insights into the process of learning comprehension
skill for students in general and students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school in
particular.
It is hoped to make a small contribution to the effectiveness as well as the
improvement in teaching and learning listening skill for student form 11
th
at Me Linh
High school.
I.7. RESEARCH DESIGN
The study includes 3 parts:
Part one, “Introduction” presents the rationale, the objectives, the scope, the
tasks, the methods, the significance and the design of the study.

Part two, “Development” has three chapters:
Chapter one mentions different points of views about teaching English in
general and how to improve listening skill in particular. The concepts relevant to the
research topic such as the definitions of listening comprehension, classification of
listening, three steps of a listening lesson, and potential difficulties students may have
in learning English listening are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter two is named “An investigation into current situation of learning
listening of students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school”. It has two sections. Section
one is devoted to the survey. The second deals with the common difficulties that
students have in learning listening.
Chapter three is entitled “suggested techniques to improve listening skill for
students form11th at Me Linh High school” which provides some techniques to help
better the students‟ listening skill.
Part three – Conclusion: Summarize discussed points, limitation of the study as
well as suggestions for further researches





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PART TWO
DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
II.1.1. LITERATURE REVIEW
How to improve listening skill is not a new topic today. It has been studied by

many experts like Luisa Fernanda, Russell N.Campbell, William E.Rutherford, Yo
Hamada, Christine C.M Goh and so on. Each of them has his own way of discussing
about how to improve listening skill.
Luisa Fernanda (1980) deals with the basic principles common to all good
language teaching, set up by using ideas from sociology, psychology and pedagogy.
She also mentions the requirements for teachers to have an effective English lessons,
the process of teaching English, the ways to use material properly and to teach well.
In the book Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Russell
N.Campbell and William E.Rutherford introduce a variety of techniques and many
different teaching methods to help learners improve their English in general and their
listening skill in particular.
In the book Assessing Listening,(2002), Gary Buck gives a quite understandable
picture of listening process and suggests how language is used to convey meaning and
what is unique to listening comprehension.
Yo Hamada (2012) develops a new effective teaching technique for listening in
An effective way to improve listening skill through shadowing in which she gives the
definition of shadowing, the effectiveness of shadowing, and the variety of shadowing
usage.
The article Active Listening (2010 ) of the University of Adelaide introduces the
benefits of active listening. Besides, three key elements of active listening which are
paying attention, showing that you are listening, providing feedback, responding
appropriately and deferring judgment are also discussed in the article.

5
Christine C.M. Goh (1939) in the book A Cognitive Perspective on Language
Learners’ Listening Comprehension Problems offers a cognitive perspective on the
comprehension problems of second language listeners by identifying real-time listening
difficulties faced by a group of English as a second language learners such as quickly
forget what is heard, do not recognize words they know, understand words but not the
intended message, neglect the next part when thinking about meaning and so on.

In short, much research has been done on how to improve listening skills. Each
research discusses different aspects of this topic, some mention effective ways to teach
English, some study the whole process of listening comprehension, some other discuss
how to learn listening well. However, only Christine C.M Goh, (1939), gives the
difficulties that learners have in English listening and solutions. In fact, there are far
more listening problems that learners may meet, and solutions that can solve the
problems. Therefore, it is essential to have a comprehensive study of the common
English listening difficulties and techniques to get over them.
II.1.2. Introduction
To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the
reexamination of concepts most relevant to the thesis‟s topic. Firstly, come the different
points of view about listening comprehension. Secondly, the classification of listening
comprehension is discussed. Thirdly, there is a discussion of the steps of the listening
lesson. Finally, the potential problems in learning listening are also referred to.
II.1.3. Listening comprehension
Like reading, speaking, and writing, listening plays a significant role in daily
communication and education process. It is one of the factors which contribute
successful conversations. Without listening, we are not able to understand what people
are saying, respond to the speaker, as a result, we can not build a rapport with the
people around us and be able to resolve problems we have in our life and our study as
well. In spite of the fact that listening is very important, it has long been the neglected
skill in many areas especially in teaching. In school, teachers tended to concentrate
much more on improving reading, speaking and writing skill for students than on
bettering students‟ listening skill. That was one of the reasons why students were not
motivated to learn listening. It was not until recently when people have recognized and

6
understood the importance of having good listening skill, they have paid more
attention to how to make their listening ability better, and listening skill has also got
more concern from educators and students.

Listening comprehension is a complex process which encompasses the
multiple steps involved in understanding and making sense of spoken language. These
include recognizing speech sounds, understanding the meaning of individual words,
and understanding the syntax of sentences in which they are presented. Listening
comprehension can also involve the prosody with which utterances are spoken (which
can, e.g., change intended meaning from a statement to a question), and making
relevant inferences based on context, real-world knowledge, and speaker-specific
attributes (e.g., to what information the speaker has access and about what he/she is
likely to be talking). There have been a number of ideas about what listening
comprehension is. According to Littlewood (1981), listening demands active
involvement from hearer. In order to construct the message that the speaker intends,
the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic
sources. Only by applying the knowledge of language, can the hearer divide the
continuous stream of sound into meaningful units and only by comparing these units
with the shared knowledge between himself and the speaker, can the hearer interpret
their meaning. The nature of listening comprehension means that the hearer should be
encouraged in an active process of listening for meanings, using not only the linguistic
cues but also has nonlinguistic knowledge.
From the point of view of Broughton (1978), listening is divided into intensive
and extensive listening. Extensive listening is related to the freer, more general
listening to natural English, not necessarily under the guidance of the teacher whereas
intensive listening is much more concerned just one or two specific points.
Aderson and Lynch (Listening, (1995), Oxford University Press) have another
point of view. They consider the listener as active model builder. They say that in
order to listen successfully we have to construct our own “coherent interpretation” of
any spoken massage. Both parts of this term are important. First, it needs to be
coherent both with what we believe has just been said and with what we already know
about the speaker, the context, and the word in general. Second, it is an interpretation,

7

in the sense that it is our version of what the speaker meant, as far as we are able to
assess that meaning.
In short, in order to be successful in listening, we should remember that:
“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”.(River, Wilga M.(1986) Teaching Foreign Language
Skill,p.157)
There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension. Listeners
use 'top-down' processes when they use prior knowledge to understand the meaning of
a message. Prior knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the
text-type, the culture or other information stored in long-term memory as schemata
(typical sequences or common situations around which world knowledge is
organized). Listeners use content words and contextual clues to form hypotheses in an
exploratory fashion. On the other hand, listeners also use 'bottom-up' processes when
they use linguistic knowledge to understand the meaning of a message. They build
meaning from lower level sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical
meanings in order to arrive at the final message. Listening comprehension is not either
top-down or bottom-up processing, but an interactive, interpretive process where
listeners use both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding
messages. The degree to which listeners use the one process or the other will depend
on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose for
listening. For example, listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing,
whereas listening for specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves
primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all the desired details.
II.1.4. Classification of listening
II.1.4.1. Informative listening
Informative listening (listening for information) is a process, by which an
individual listens with attention and focus to what somebody is saying, so as to grasp
some knowledge. Informative listening is very important if one want to learn
something new. Proper informative listening will lead to increased wisdom and

knowledge.

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Informative listening is a type of listening that we use all the time when our
primary concern is to understand a message from someone. This may be in the form
of instructions, a presentation, speeches, a lecture … How much you learn from
informative listening depends on how well you listen and concentrate on the central
message.
There are however three variables that impact on informative listening skills.
They are vocabulary, concentration and memory. Knowing these variables can help
people begin to improve their informative listening skills; that is, they will become
increasingly successful in understanding what the speaker means.
Vocabulary: Increasing vocabulary will support the understanding of messages
from the speaker.
Concentration: There are lots of reasons why people‟s concentration might slip
when they are supposed to be listening to someone including: being distracted by
outside stimuli, trying to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, lack of interest
in subject or person, lack of motivation. Therefore in order to have a successful
conversation, people should be sure that they focus on what the speakers are saying
Memory. Memory is an especially crucial variable to informative listening;
people cannot process information without memory. More specifically, memory helps
the informative listening in three ways.
a. It allows people to recall experiences and information necessary to function
in the world around them. In other words, without memory people would have no
knowledge bank.
b. It establishes expectations concerning what people will encounter. They
would be unable to drive in heavy traffic, react to new situations, or make common
decisions in life without memory of their past experiences.
c. It allows people to understand what others say. Without simple memory of
the meaning of words, people could not communicate with anyone else. Without

memory of concepts and ideas, they could not understand the meaning of messages.
In summary, informative listening is an important skill in the range of different
listening skills we need in our every day lives. Using informative listening well allows

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us to acquire information or instructions and understand messages that a speaker is
trying to get across.
II.1.4.2. Appreciative listening
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, appreciative listening is a type
of listening behavior where the listener seeks certain information which will
appreciate, for example that which helps meet his/her needs and goals. One uses
appreciative listening when listening to good music, poetry or maybe even the stirring
words of a great leader. It involves listening to music that one enjoys, people who the
listener likes to listen to because of their style and the choices the listener make in the
films and television he/she watches, radio programmes and plays and musicals in the
theatre. Unlike informative listening, appreciative listening does not rely on the
message from the speaker it is how one responds as a listener.
Our appreciation of what we hear will vary depending on our individual tastes.
However the quality of appreciative listening depends in large part on three factors:
presentation, perception, and previous experience.
a. Presentation
There are many different factors that encompass presentation including the
medium, the setting and the style and personality of a presenter. Normally, in a
conversation the listeners often stop listening to the speakers because there‟s
something in the way they present themselves that the listeners don‟t like or find
irritating. Of course this works both ways and equally the listeners will have been
entranced by others because of the force of their personality and their delivery style.
The setting can also impact on the listeners‟ appreciation of the presentation.
Seating, temperature, clarity and volume of sound will all impact on whether it‟s a
good or poor experience.

b. Perception
Perception is an important factor in appreciative listening. As people are
exposed to different experiences their perceptions can change.
The expectations also affects people perception. I remember going to listen to a
famous politician give a speech and telling the friend who was accompanying me that

10
it would be awful. It was something that I didn‟t want to do, so I had already decided
what it would be like. If I‟d been more open to enjoying it, then it may well have
turned into a good experience.
The perception and expectations are driven by attitudes which determine how
people react to and interact to the world in which they live. The perceptions affect all
areas of o life and are crucial in determining whether people listen at all or how much
they do or don‟t enjoy or appreciate things they listen to.
c. Previous experience
Some of people‟s perceptions are clearly influenced by their previous
experience and impact on whether or not they enjoy listening to something, or whether
they are even willing to listen. I always listen to music on a low volume. This is
because I grew up with my brother‟s music thumping through the bedroom walls and it
really stressed me out. I associate any loud music with those memories. Whether the
memories evoke pleasant or unpleasant, reminders will affect people‟s appreciation.
However, it‟s important to remain open to new experiences.
In short, presentation, perception and previous experience are all key factors in
determining how well people use their appreciative listening skills. The most
successful appreciative listeners are those who prepared to put aside any unpleasant
experiences and be open to learning something new.
II.1.4.3. Critical listening
Critical listening is listening in order to evaluate and judge, forming opinion
about what is being said. Judgment includes assessing strengths and weaknesses,
agreement and approval.

This form of listening requires significant real-time cognitive effort as the
listener analyzes what is being said, relating it to existing knowledge and rules, whilst
simultaneously listening to the ongoing words from the speaker.
Critical listening means using careful, systematic thinking and reasoning to see
whether a message makes sense in light of factual evidence. Critical listening can be
learned with practice but is not necessarily easy to do. Some people never learn this
skill; instead, they take every message at face value even when those messages are in

11
conflict with their knowledge. Problems occur when messages are repeated to others
who have not yet developed the skills to discern the difference between a valid
message and a mistaken one. Critical listening can be particularly difficult when the
message is complex. Unfortunately, some speakers may make their messages
intentionally complex to avoid critical scrutiny. For example, a city treasurer giving a
budget presentation might use very large words and technical jargon, which make it
difficult for listeners to understand the proposed budget and ask probing questions.
Critical listening is first and foremost a skill that can be learned and improved.
There are some techniques that people can use to become a more critical listener.
a, Uncovering assumptions
If something is factual, supporting evidence exists. However, we still need to be
careful about what evidence does and does not mean. Assumptions are gaps in a
logical sequence that listeners passively fill with their own ideas and opinions and may
or may not be accurate. When listening to a public speech, you may find yourself
being asked to assume something is a fact when in reality many people question that
fact. For example, suppose you‟re listening to a speech on weight loss. The speaker
talks about how people who are overweight are simply not motivated or lack the self-
discipline to lose weight. The speaker has built the speech on the assumption that
motivation and self-discipline are the only reasons why people can‟t lose weight. You
may think to yourself, what about genetics? By listening critically, you will be more
likely to notice unwarranted assumptions in a speech, which may prompt you to

question the speaker if questions are taken or to do further research to examine the
validity of the speaker‟s assumptions. If, however, you sit passively by and let the
speaker‟s assumptions go unchallenged, you may find yourself persuaded by
information that is not factual.
b, Rely on reason and common sense
If you are listening to a speech and your common sense tells you that the
message is illogical, you might be right. You should be thinking about whether the
speech seems credible and coherent. In this way, your use of common sense can act as
a warning system for you.

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If the message is inconsistent with things you already know, if the argument is
illogical, or if the language is exaggerated, you should investigate the issues before
accepting or rejecting the message. Often, you will not be able to take this step during
the presentation of the message; it may take longer to collect enough knowledge to
make that decision for yourself.
c, Relate new ideas to old ones
As both a speaker and a listener, one of the most important things you can do to
understand a message is to relate new ideas to previously held ideas. Imagine you‟re
giving a speech about biological systems and you need to use the term “homeostasis,”
which refers to the ability of an organism to maintain stability by making constant
adjustments. To help your audience understand homeostasis, you could show how
homeostasis is similar to adjustments made by the thermostats that keep our homes at a
more or less even temperature. If you set your thermostat for seventy degrees and it
gets hotter, the central cooling will kick in and cool your house down. If your house
gets below seventy degrees, your heater will kick in and heat your house up. Notice
that in both cases your thermostat is making constant adjustments to stay at seventy
degrees. Explaining that the body‟s homeostasis works in a similar way will make it
more relevant to your listeners and will likely help them both understand and
remember the idea because it links to something they have already experienced.

If you can make effective comparisons while you are listening, it can deepen
your understanding of the message. If you can provide those comparisons for your
listeners, you make it easier for them to give consideration to your ideas.
II.1.4.4. Discriminative listening
The next type of listening is discriminative listening. By being sensitive to
changes in the speaker‟s rate, volume, force, pitch, and emphasis, the informative
listener can detect even nuances of difference in meaning. By sensing the impact of
certain responses, such as “uh huh,” or “I see,” relationship listening can be
strengthened. Detection of differences between sounds made by certain instruments in
the orchestra, or parts sung by the a cappella vocal group, enhances appreciative
listening. Finally, sensitivity to pauses, and other vocal and nonverbal cues, allows

13
critical listeners to more accurately judge not only the speaker‟s message, but his
intentions as well.
There are three things to consider about this type of listening.
a. Hearing ability
Obviously, people who lack the ability to hear well will have greater difficulty in
discriminating among sounds. Often this problem is more acute for some frequencies, or
pitches, than others. For example, a person may be less able to discriminate when the
sound is coming from a bass voice than from a higher pitched one.
b. Awareness of sound structure
Native speakers become quite proficient at recognizing vowel and consonant
sounds that do or do not appear at the beginning, middle, or end of words. For
example, a listener might hear “this sandal” when what the speaker said was “this
handle”; but since English words do not begin with “sb,” one would not mistake “this
bean” for “this sbean.”
Attention to the sound structure of the language will lead to more proficient
discriminatory listening. A person who pays attention to sound structure would
recognize that a rapidly spoken “Idrankitfirst” could mean either “I drank it first” or

“I‟d rank it first.” Recognition of the two meanings would cause the listener to seek
clarification.
c. Integration of nonverbal cues
We accept that action, nonaction, and vocal factors are important in
understanding messages. Nowhere is attention to these factors more important than in
effective discriminative listening. Words don‟t always communicate true feelings. The
way they are said, or the way the speaker acts, may be the key to understanding the
true or intended meaning.
II.1.4.5. Emphatic listening.
Empathic listening is defined as a way of listening and responding to another
person that improves mutual understanding and trust. It enabling the listener to receive
and accurately interpret the speaker‟s message, and then provide an appropriate
response. It is also called active listening or reflective listening.

14
The Benefits of empathic listening
Here is a list of benefits that arise through empathic listening.
1. Builds trust and respect.
2. Enables the one in need to release his/her emotions.
3. Reduces tensions.
4. Encourages the surfacing of information.
5. Creates a safe environment for sharing and problem solving.
The process of empathic listening.
a, Give the person you are connecting with your full attention
Remember that the person in front of you is your sole focus at this singular
moment in time. Multitasking is a great thing, but not appropriate when working
empathically with another person, particularly when practicing empathic listening.
Their problem is in your hands, so your understanding and your time are reversely in
theirs.
b, Do not speak when the other person is in the middle of communicating their

issue
Empathic listening means that it is your job to actually hear what is being said,
and reach to the heart of the topic to achieve full understanding of the situation. In
doing this you need to find out specifics such as who is involved, what the actual
problem is, and what are the extenuating circumstances that circle the problem. All of
this information goes to help you give the best informed resolution you can find.
Without it, perhaps through the act of not listening closely enough, you might miss an
intrinsic part of the problem.
c, Offer a summary of what you have heard to the speaker, when they are done
talking
This means you take what you have heard and reword it, offering them a
summarized version of what they have said. It need be no more than an outline going
over all of the most important key points of their problem. This affirms to them that
you were listening, and reaffirms to yourself what you heard.

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II.1.5: Steps of a listening lesson
There are three main steps of a listening lesson, they are pre-listening, while-
listening and post-listening. Each step has its own characteristics and activities.
II.1.5.1. Pre-listening
II.1.5.1.1 Definition and purposes of pre-listening step
It is true that learners will find it extremely difficult to do a listening lesson
when they have no idea of what they are going to hear. Even if the sounds and the
words which they hear are familiar, they may still be unable to understand because
they lack certain kinds of knowledge of the topic, setting and the relationship between
the speakers. Thus, the listeners‟ expectation and purposes should be taken into
account. These make listeners feel as in a real-life situation in their native language.
Teacher can help their students to arouse their expectation and see the purpose before a
listening lesson. This kind of work is described as “pre-listening activities”
II.1.5.1.2. Types of pre-listening activities

Pre-listening work can be done in various ways and consists of several types of
activities. Therefore teachers should select the most effective activities for each
situation and teacher need to find the most suitable way to provide suitable pre-
listening support for their students in order to help them get the purposes that a
listening lesson requires.
 The teacher introduces the listening topic, gives background information
 The students read something relevant
 The students look at picture, read through question if asked
 The students discuss the topic situation
 The students follow the instruction for the while-listening activity
 The students consider how while-listening activity will be done
Each of the above activities will help the students focus on the main points of
the listening passage. However it is very important to remember that the amount of
pre-listening activities may vary according to each class, the level of difficulty of
material and the students‟ language ability.

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II.1.5.1.3. Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities
The choice of pre-listening activities depends on a number of factors, such as:
 The time available
 The material available
 The interest of the class
 The interest of the teacher
 The place where the work is taking place
 The nature and the content of the listening text itself
It is very necessary for teacher to consider all the factors that are mentioned
above when choosing an activities as each factor contributes an important part to the
result of an listening lesson.
II.1.5.2: While-listening
II.1.5.2.1: The purposes of while-listening stage

The while-listening stage involves activities that students are asked to do during
the time that they are listening to the text. The purpose of while-listening activities is
to help learner develop the skill of eliciting massages from spoken language.
There are of course other reasons why students need to listen to the language
they are studying. The main thing is that to learn to recognize how it sounds (the
pronunciation of words, the stress, the rhythm, the intonation that they can use what
they can hear as a model for their own speech).
When developing the skill of listening for comprehension, while-listening
activities must be choose carefully. They must vary at different levels and different
cases.
“Good while-listening activities help learner find their way through the
listening text and build upon the expectations raised by the pre-listening activities”
(Underwood, Teaching Listening, 1990, p.46).
II.1.5.2.2: Factors affecting the choice of while-listening activities

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In while-listening activities students can check their comprehension of what
they expected/predicted and what they actually hear. Therefore the choice of while-
listening activities may focus on the following criteria:
 The content. What are the topics and sub topics? How are topics and sub
topics related?
 The speakers‟ use of language. What words do the speakers use to introduce
a new idea? How do they change the topic? How do they express uncertainty? How
does their intonation change during the text?
 While-listening activities may also prompt students‟ reactions to the ideas in
the listening text; for example, students may ask themselves questions like „Do I agree
with what they say? Is there another side to what they say?‟ while listening.
II.1.5.2.3: Types of activities for while-listening
This stage, as it arises from the name, contains activities done by the students
during the listening passage. The aim of activities done during this stage is to help the

students to catch the main meaning of the text so that they have enough information to
interpret the text.
In this stage, teachers can apply some activities like following instructions-
learners are given a set of instructions and are supposed to show whether they
understood them by a physical response; filling in exercise-students listen to a
dialogue and are asked to fill in the missing information; information search- during
the listening learners focus on specific items; matching- students are asked to match
items according to the recording; sequencing- students are given a set of pictures and
they have to put them into the correct order and spotting the difference- learners make
responses only when they hear something different to what they already know about
the topic or the speakers.

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II.1.5.3: Post-listening
II.1.5.3.1: Definition and purposes of post-listening activities
Post-listening activities are 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 stage and some are related only loosely to the listening
text itself.
The purposes of post-listening are to check whether the learners have
understood what they need to or not; to see why some students have missed part of the
message or failed to understand the message; to give the students the opportunity to
consider the attitude and the 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 too make introduction for the planned work.
II.1.5.3.2: Factors affecting the choice of of post-listening activities
According to Underwood, the attention should be given to some factors in
selecting post-listening activities as the amount of language work the teacher wish to
do in relation to the particular listening text; the time which is allowed to do post-
listening; the speaking, reading, writing skills should be included in the post-listening

work; the student should work in pair or in group and the chosen activities should be
made motivating.
II.1.5.3.3: Types of post-listening activities
There are several activities that can be used in the post-listening stage, such as:
 Problem solving and decision-making tasks- where students are trying to find
out a solution for a problem from the recording
 Summarizing- students can be asked to summarize a story they heard. This
activity can be linked with problem solving
 Written work- students can be asked to write the end of the story
II.1.6. Potential difficulties that students may have in learning listening
Of four language skills, listening is considered to be such a very difficult one.
A great number of learners have difficulties with different areas of listening