the effectiveness of using youtube videos as supplementary materials on enhancing students listening skills a study conducted at international standard program university of languages and internat pdf

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

VI DIỆU THUẦN

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS ON ENHANCING STUDENTS’
LISTENING SKILLS – A STUDY AT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
PROGRAM, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI
TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC VIDEO TRÊN TRANG
YOUTUBE LÀM TÀI LIỆU BỔ SUNG NHẰM CẢI THIỆN CÁC KỸ NĂNG
NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN HỆ NHIỆM VỤ CHIẾN LƯỢC,
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

M.A. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2015


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

VI DIỆU THUẦN

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS ON ENHANCING STUDENTS’
LISTENING SKILLS – A STUDY AT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
PROGRAM, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI
TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC VIDEO TRÊN TRANG
YOUTUBE LÀM TÀI LIỆU BỔ SUNG NHẰM CẢI THIỆN CÁC KỸ NĂNG
NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN HỆ NHIỆM VỤ CHIẾN LƯỢC,
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

M.A. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. Do Tuan Minh

Hanoi, 2015


DECLARATION
To the best of my knowledge and belief, this minor thesis contains no material
which has previously been submitted and accepted for any other degree in any
university. The thesis is my own work and based on my own research. It involves
no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due
reference is made in the paper.
Hanoi, 2015

Vi Diệu Thuần

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The composing process of conducting this thesis is the most valuable journey
I have ever had. Without this journey, I would not have been aware of all the joy
and fortune I have been blessed with throughout my entire life.
I consider myself one of the luckiest students to have a chance to work with
a distinguished advisor that opened my eyes and gained my complete respect both
academically and personally. Dr. Do Tuan Minh, one of the most remarkable gurus
in EFL teaching in ULIS, VNU, devoted his time, effort and support to teach me
how to be a serious researcher. Dr. Minh, with his spectacular vision and insight, is
the one who provided all the help that I needed to complete such an enormous task.
I am also obliged to express my gratitude to him for spending every minute of his
precious time in proofreading this paper and giving me valuable corrections and
suggestions. I was and still am amazed at Dr. Minh’s critical thinking and efficiency
in problem solving. From the interactions with Dr. Minh, I witnessed his
overwhelming power to focus on the overall research design, and at the same time,
specific details in the study. I also would like to acknowledge the support and
assistance of Dr. Minh for provoking my interest in the topic by asking crucial
questions, assisting in the editing of the draft, and making himself available to me
throughout the final stage of completion.
Last but not least, I want to thank my family for their unconditional
understanding and love. My parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my friends –
Thao, Lloyd, and Chris, have been my enthusiastic cheerleaders through the rough
academic path I have followed. Many other people whose names are impossible to
be cited also contributed valuable help and support. Though their names do not
appear in this acknowledgement, they shall always be cherished and embraced in
my heart. The writing process, though difficult, is indeed a delightful journey,
through which I discovered that I got richer every day.

ii

ABSTRACT
Listening is one of the most pivotal skills, though; it is unjustly neglected
compared to the other language skills. It was previously considered as a passive
skill but now those ideas have been proved as myths. Therefore seeking innovative
methods for teaching and developing listening materials for EFL students should
not be taken for granted. Lack of adequate exposure and attention to listening sets
the ground for authentic listening materials to improve the context in Vietnam.
There have been controversial ideas regarding the use of authentic listening
materials. Specifically, their results ranged from total abstinence to complete
utilization. This study intends to investigate the impact of YouTube videos as
supplementary materials to enhance listening skills of students at International
Standard Program, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University Hanoi. To serve this aim, fifty students were randomly assigned
to two groups. One group was exposed to YouTube vieos as listening
supplementary materials (experimental group) and the other groups received
simplified listening materials (control group). A pre-test was used to measure the
differences among the students’ listening level at the beginning of the study. After
six weeks, a post-test was administered for both groups. Besides a students’
feedback survey was given to experimental group to evaluate their attitudes and
opinions about the materials. Analysis of quantitative study and comparing the
mean scores of two groups via t-test showed that students who were exposed to
YouTube videos as supplementary materials performed better in post-test. The
analysis of the feedback survey also denoted their satisfaction and positive attitudes
towards YouTube videos as listening materials.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ................................................................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ iv
LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS .................................... vii
CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................................ 1
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction.................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Background of the study .............................................................................. 2
1.3 Statement of the problem............................................................................. 3
1.4 Aims and research questions ....................................................................... 5
1.5 Significance of the study .............................................................................. 6
1.6 Scope of the study......................................................................................... 6
1.7 Design of the study ....................................................................................... 7
1.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER TWO............................................................................................................... 9
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................... 9
2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................. 9
2.2

Teaching listening..................................................................................... 9

2.2.1 Definitions of listening skills.................................................................. 9
2.2.2 Characteristics of listening skills ........................................................ 11
2.2.3 Significance of listening skills .............................................................. 13
2.2.4 Difficulties in learning listening skills ................................................. 17
2.3

YouTube videos ...................................................................................... 18

2.3.1

YouTube overview ........................................................................... 18

2.3.2

Types of YouTube videos ................................................................ 20

2.3.3

Advantages of YouTube videos ....................................................... 23

2.4

Supplementary materials ....................................................................... 38

iv


2.4.1

Definitions of supplementary materials .......................................... 39

2.4.2

Advantages of supplementary materials ......................................... 40

2.6

Previous studies ...................................................................................... 42

2.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 44
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY.................................................................. 45
3.1 Introduction................................................................................................ 45
3.2 Research design .......................................................................................... 45
3.3 Participants ................................................................................................ 46
3.3.1 ISP Overview ....................................................................................... 46
3.3.2 The teacher .......................................................................................... 47
3.3.3 The students ......................................................................................... 47
3.4 Materials ..................................................................................................... 48
3.5 Instruments ................................................................................................ 49
3.6 Data collection procedures......................................................................... 51
3.6.1 Verifying the instruments.................................................................... 51
3.6.2 Data collection from pre-post tests ..................................................... 52
3.7 Data analysis procedures ........................................................................... 54
3.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 54
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND FINDINGS .................................................... 56
4.1 Introduction................................................................................................ 56
4.2 Quantitative data ....................................................................................... 56
4.2.1 Results of the pre- and post-treatment tests ....................................... 57
4.2.2 Results of the questionnaire ................................................................ 60
4.3 Qualitative data .......................................................................................... 64
4.3.1 Specific aural skills practised .............................................................. 65
4.3.2 Reflections on the YouTube video treatment ..................................... 65
4.3.3 Ideas about the pre- and post- tests .................................................... 66
4.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 67
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................... 68

v

5.1 Introduction................................................................................................ 68
5.2 Discussions.................................................................................................. 68
5.3 Pedagogical implications............................................................................ 71
5.4 Limitations ................................................................................................. 73
5.5 Suggestions for further researches ............................................................ 74
5.6 Conclusions................................................................................................. 76
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 77
APPENDIX ............................................................................................................ I

vi


LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Statistical results concerning the administration of the two IELTS listening tests to
the same group ..................................................................................................................... 52
Table 2. Within-group comparison results for the experimental and control groups .......... 58
Table 3: Between-group comparison results for the experimental and control groups ....... 59
Table 4. Experimental group’s reaction to the multiple-choice questions of survey .......... 60

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Frame grab of YouTube.com’s main page () ............. 20
Figure 2. Frame grab showing using browser Cốc Cốc to download videos from
YouTube.com ...................................................................................................................... 25

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ISP: International Standard Program

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies
VNU: Vietnam National University
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
ESL: English as a Second Language
IELTS: International English Language Testing System

vii


CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
It goes without saying that English has developed into a world language. It is
considered international because of its significance in cultural aspects in not only
former Bitish colonies but also in other countries due to integration. Besides,
English is regarded as global thanks to the dominance of the language in this
information technology age. It is a common knowledge that any modern citizen of
this rapidly growing twenty-first century mastering the English language is
determined to overpower those who do not. Still, there remain some opponents of
this trend who decide to go against the flow to probably avoid the domination of the
language and its culture. Notwithstandingly, any practical and serious thinking
individual could easily tell how that conservative idea is hardly working at this
point now that English has been deeply rooted and undoubtedly here-to-stay in our
society. In other words, one, needless to say, greatly depends on English to survive
and thrive in this contemporary world.

The teaching and learning of English; therefore, has been immensely concentrated
around the globe. English language is even separated into four distinctive skills to
be easily taught to non-native speakers of English. As a child, we learn to listen
before we speak, so it is fairly clear that input should come first before output. As a

result, Reading and Listening are supposed to be taught before Writing and
Speaking. Novel movements in teaching English language also share the same
opinion on placing more attention to the communicative purpose of the language by
focusing on Listening and Speaking. Yet, reality has showed inconsiderable
improvement in learners’ listening skills accompanied by a bitter truth of listening
remaining a struggle for English learners.

1


The apparently undesirable situation of teaching and learning listening skills has
triggered a passionate need in every teacher or instructor of English language to
invent new ideas to combat the problem. As one myself, I have been concerned
enough to conduct a study on the effectiveness of using YouTube videos as
supplementary materials in enhancing students’ listening skills at the International
Standard Program (ISP), University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS),
Vietnam National University (VNU).

ISP provides a one-year English course during the very first school year of VNU
students. The ultimate aim is that after the end of the course, students achieve band
5.5 - 6.0 IELTS so that afterwards, ISP students can part ways to return to their own
universities and easily study their majors in English. A more detailed description of
the program is specifically elaborated in the Methodology chapter.

1.2 Background of the study
According to Mehisto (2012) learning materials could be regarded as information or
knowledge contained in various different media and formats to support the purpose
of learning and they should strictly follow the objectives or requirements of
educational curricula. Materials can also be informally and briefly defined as things
needed in order to do a peculiar activity. In every syllabus of any subject learned at

school, a set of fixed materials called textbooks or coursebooks is compulsory since
it plays the key role in focusing on the primary goals of the course. Teachers need
to refer to the textbooks to ensure that the important knowledge is properly covered.
Similarly, coursebooks are necessary for students to be aware and keep track of
their own intake of information.

Ideally, learning materials are supposed to support, not to restrict students and
teachers. Thus, when teachers discover that the provided materials are only partially
helpful, they are allowed to determine how and to what extent a book or other

2


learning materials should be used in the classroom. It is little wonder that
supplementary materials can be considered as equally important as textbooks.
Supplementary materials are defined as any materials used addition to textbook
(Spratt, Pulverness, and Williams, 2005: 114). They act as extra materials to
supplement the fixed coursebooks when there is a lack of suitability and variety. In
order to boost the motivation in listening classroom, supplemenatry materials
should be audio-visual. Moreover, to achieve the practical purpose of listening
class, supplementary materials had better have a strong relation with the real world.

Possessing the two aforementioned characteristics of being audio-visual and
authentic, YouTube videos are obviously the leading candidate for the ideal
supplementary materials for listening classes. It is also noteworthy that YouTube
videos should be maintained as supplementary materials since they help illustrate as
well as improve the natural or real use of English. However, they should not replace
pedagogically simplified materials as these guarantee the accuracy of language use.
Moreover, teachers should pay attention to the level of difficulty while selecting
supplementary materials as both super-easy and over-challenging materials may

either discourage or demotivate learners. Consequently, students might not work as
diligently and fail to adequately meet the learning goals. In short, appropriate level
of difficulty in supplementary materials helps enable students to do wonders in their
English classes.

1.3 Statement of the problem
Supplementary materials are no doubt essential in English language learning
process. Specifically, they add a variety and avoid repetition of the coursebooks
used in the classroom. Plus, supplementary materials are flexible so teachers can
freely select and design some unique and original materials to make the lessons
more theirs, which motivates teachers themselves more to teach the lessons.

3


In reality, suggestions for supplementary materials are always listed in the syllabi.
However, these are usually other similar simplified coursebooks with almost
nothing especially different from the currently used textbooks of the course.
Admittedly, all they seem to do is providing some more extra practice to the skills
previously learned in the textbooks. Such recommendations are honestly
unnecessary and impractical to effectively supplement the existing textbooks in the
course.

In this blooming era of information technology, Internet access has becoming
omnipresent in educational contexts. It is also more common that university
classrooms are better-equipped with computers, speakers, and projectors to serve
the language teaching and learning. Practically speaking, teaching, and learning
English language at this age without exploiting the technological advantages seems
to be a waste or even devolution. Audio-visual invention or video has been proven
to be effective in language learning and teaching, so it is advised to incorporate

such materials more in the classroom.

Students of EFL contexts also encounter another difficulty in learning the language
as they do not have as many opportunities to practice English outside the classroom
due to a lack of authentic environment. Vietnam could be taken as a salient example
of this situation. Being a former colony of China and France, Vietnam is not an
English speaking country. The number of English speaking tourists and expatriots
living and working in Vietnam has hardly been enough for the country to speak the
language as an official language. Thereby, there exists an immediate need to add
real English to the classrom as often as possible for Vietnamese learners to be more
exposed to it.

Educators around the world; of course, have noticed the situation and made certain
individual attempts to design supplementary materials. A number of researchers

4


have studied the use of authentic audio-visual materials in language teaching and
learning environment. Nevertheless, there have been quite few papers on the use of
specifically YouTube videos in improving listening skills. This research; thus, aims
at examining the effectiveness of using YouTube videos to enhance students’
listening skills at ISP, ULIS, VNU.

After finishing the course at ISP, students still often complain about their poor or
inconsiderably improved listening skills, especially outside the classroom. This
might result from a lack of motivation and real-life English to listen to during the
course. Although the current textbooks seem to have certain effects on student’s
ability to communicate in English, both teachers and students are well aware that
the materials could still be more effective to result in more satisfying listening

skills.

The present study is a pilot study for an innovative approach in listening classes. It
is expected to enhance student’s listening skills not only inside but also outside the
classroom. Additionally, the syllabi of the English course at ISP are edited every
year to make necessary changes to more satisfactorily meet the objectives.
Hopefully, the suggested use of YouTube videos could make it to the official list of
supplementary materials used in the course.

1.4 Aims and research questions
The researchs primarily aims at investigating the effectiveness of the employment
of YouTube videos in listening classes at ISP, suggested ways to apply them to the
lessons are consequently presented afterwards.

In order to reach the aforementioned aim, the study focuses on finding the answers
to the two primary questions:
1. How effective are YouTube videos in listening classes at ISP, ULIS, VNU?

5


2. What are the students’ perceptions towards YouTube videos in listening
classes at ISP?

1.5 Significance of the study
The paper hopes to make a humble contribution to the resource of studies on the
employment of YouTube videos in EFL classrooms. Although several researchers
have managed to investigate the relation between YouTube and language learning
and teaching, few have targeted specifically listening classes at university level.

At a more local scale, this study might contribute ideas to the editing and reform of
the existing syllabi, especially the list of suggested supplementary materials of the
English course at ISP. Furthermore, the researcher believes that the results of the
study can somehow encourage other teachers to start using YouTube videos in their
lessons and provide pedagogical suggestions for their classroom practice. Besides,
teachers can understand more about students’ attitudes and preferences so that they
can choose appropriate materials in teaching listening. In addition, other reserachers
might as well base on the results to conduct papers on the use of YouTube videos in
improving other language skills.

Finally, the study is a personal important experience in my teaching practice and
doing research. The results partly reflect the effectiveness of my own lessons and
teaching methods. Consequently, my students who have been struggling with
listening skills are the ones to ultimately benefit from the experiment and the
reliable evidence for further implementation of the treatment to my other groups of
students in the future.

1.6 Scope of the study
The research focuses on the use of YouTube videos in listening sessions in two
classes that the researcher was in charge of last semester– both are of intermediate
6


level of English. The classes are typical for any English class belonging to
International Standard Program at ULIS, with both male and female students of
diverse majors. Although ISP is not such a large group, the nature of teaching and
learning English here as well as the characteristics of the students could be
considered similar to that of other groups at ULIS. The videos used throughout the
study are taken from YouTube only. Any other video sharing websites are out of the
scope and therefore, the results and findings at the end should not be applied to

random situations. The listening skills mentioned in the paper include the most
common listening skills taught in EFL environment such as listening for gist,
listening for specific information, etc. Thus, not only other professional teachers,
instructors and researchers but any individual who is concerned about a related
topic can benefit from this paper.
1.7 Design of the study
This study is divided into five main chapters in order to provide insights into
different aspects of the problem. Pages of References and Appendices are also
included.
Chapter 1 presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, significance, and the
design of the study.
Chapter 2 deals with theories related to the study including YouTube, listening
skills and the previous related studies.
Chapter 3 shows the procedure of conducting the research including participants,
materials, data collection instruments, and methods of data analysis.
Chapter 4 reports and discusses the findings obtained from the data. Some
suggested solutions are also provided to help students overcome their difficulties in
learning listening skill.
Chapter 5 summarizes the whole study.
1.8 Conclusion

7


This chapter has provided a brief summary of the issues concerning the background
of the study, the statement of the problem, the research questions, the significance
of the study, the scope of the study and the design of the thesis paper.
In the next chapter, there will be a thorough review of relevant literature related to
listening pedagogy, YouTube videos and supplementary materials.
The third chapter gives information about the methodology used in the research.

Details about the participants, materials, intruments, data collection procedure, and
data analysis procedure will be specifically presented.
The fourth chapter reveals the process of data analysis of the study. The summary
of the collected data, an analysis, and the summarized findings will be illustrated.
Lastly, the fifth chapter displays the overall conclusion of the paper. It will cover
the findings, pedagogical implications, limitations, and suggestions for further
researches.

8


CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Introduction
The present research aims at investigating the effectiveness of YouTube videos on
the improvement of learners’ listening skills. An experimental research was
conducted to find whether the implementation of YouTube videos in listening class
es at ISP, ULIS, VNU in the academic year of 2014-2015 has improved the
students’ listening competence or not.
This chapter provides background information of the teaching of listening then
followed by detailed discussions of YouTube videos and supplementary materials.
2.2 Teaching listening
2.2.1 Definitions of listening skills
Listening is one of the primary language skills and is critical in the progress of
language learning. Consequently many scholars have presented their views in
regards to the concept. Listening is most generally understood as the ability to
understand what others are saying. Nunan believed listening is a process of
decoding the sounds from step to step, specifically from each meaningful unit to
complex texts (2009, p. 197). In addition, he added that listening is an active course
of building or rebuilding the original meaning of the speaker baing on incoming

sounds. Thanjaro (2000, p. 11-12) contended that listening is an active process
involving four related activities i.e. receiving aural stimuli, attending spoken words,
understanding the aural signals, and responding to the received information. Purdy
and Borisoft (1997, p.6, 2012, p. 515) explained that listening is the method of
receiving, building meaning from, and responding to both verbal and non-verbal
messages. Brownell called listening a complex activity defined in various ways

9


(2013, p. 56). Listening is theoretically believed to be a process in which listeners
focus on the aural input to draw meaning from and relate what they hear to their
existing knowledge (O’Malley, Chamot and Kupper, 1989). Anderson and Lynch
stated that through the heard material listening is the inevitable path to speaking
(1988). Listeners need to make certain efforts to process the message to understand
the meaning of a spoken text. The purpose of listening comprehension is that the
learners can talk and write about what they have heard after listening. Buck (2001,
p.31) argued that listening is an active process of constructing meaning by utilizing
information of the incoming sound and that this involves both linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge. He indicated that understanding a spoken passage is affected
by a series of factors in the surrounding environment, speakers or listeners;
therefore, can unconsciously change the understood meaning (2001, p. 59). Buck
(2001, p. 59) claimed that listening is a multi-aspect process whose sub-components
can be understood from different viewpoints. In short, it can be said that listening is
a language ability involving a wide range of “sub-skills”. It is more than merely
hearing; it is “decoding” sounds and comprehending the connotation as well as
denotation behind those sounds (Forseth, 1996). Helgesen (2003, p. 24) explained
that listening is an active and purposeful process of making sense of what we hear.
According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), listening is actually a receptive skill just
like reading since they both need active participants. Listening is active because
there is often a big difference between what is said and what is heard. Clearly, the

listener is constructing their own meaning, which may or may not be the same as
the speaker’s planned message. This state is described as an “interactive” process,
during which the listener's mind interacts with the input to form a meaning. Rost
(1994) stated that listening is the complex process that allows us to understand
spoken language. Due to its invisible and intangible nature, it is tough to describe
listening process. Nonetheless, it is clear that in order to interpret correctly the
original meaning of a message, beside grammar and vocabulary, one also needs to
understand the speaker’s intonation or pronunciation (Howatt and Dakin, 1974).

10


Bulletin (1952) as cited in Saricoban stated that listening is one of the “fundamental
language skills” and that it is of essential importance to teach students listening as a
crucial skill in order for them to listen efficiently and decisively.

2.2.2 Characteristics of listening skills
Most linguists and educators share a comparable opinion about the distinctiveness
of listening. According to Winkinson, Stratta, Dudley (1974), Brubridge (1986) and
Ur (1996) listening shares the following common characteristics.

Firstly, listening shares similar traits with spoken language. Both are usually
unplanned and unprompted. The speaker talks spontaneously without much
preparation beforehand. Therefore, the speech contains unfinished sentences,
paraphrases, hesitation, repetition, and interruptions. As a result, the students who
are good at constructed basic listening tasks are not necessarily good at real - life
listening situations.

The skill to understand spoken language could be supported a great deal by nonverbal clues. It is said that people listen more successfully when they can see the
speaker’s facial expression, gestures, or more importantly, be directly involved in

the circumstance in which the speech is happening. In turn, speakers may rely on a
listeners' ability to productively understand these clues and respond accordingly.
These non-verbal signals can put the speaker and listener in the same “world”,
allowing the message to be more correctly communicated.

In real-life listening, listeners often know in advance some information to assist
their understanding, such as to whom they are listening, what they are going to
listen to and why they are listening. Therefore, teachers of listening should
constantly pay attention to this trait so that they can have suitable pre-listening
activities to prepare students for what they are going to listen to. Ur (1996) also

11


claimed that listening is an interactive process. Listeners do not just passively listen
to what speakers say because they have to take turns to reply. Instead, both parties
naturally and enthusiastically involve in the communication because they do it for
some practical purpose.

The nature of the listening process can also be prominently illustrated from the
viewpoint of native language research; it is a process of filtering “raw” speech into
short-term memory first. The selected information is then processed to create
rational understanding of the whole subject, and this final outcome is only what is
stored in long-term memory. Thus, listening is an activity to produce meaning from
speech instead of accepting speech in its original received form (Richard, 1983, p.
219-240). This is in agreement with Stevick (1984, p. 281-283) who stated that
listening is a process of picturing visual images that might even include sensory,
emotional, temporal and verbal characteristics stored together in memory.
According to Byrnes (1984, p. 317-329) listening plays an important role in
building a student's understanding, which is then crucial for developing other

language skills. Students widen these skills by referring to earlier retained
information. This information gained by the students is then arranged to create
better understanding (Lund, 1990, p. 105-115, and Richard, 1983, p. 219-240).
Hadley (1993, p. 127-151) on the other hand, illustrated listening as a problem
solving activity where at first the student forms a theory about what they hear and
then later several inferences are made to build the intended meaning of the speech.
After having processed all the ambiguities and doubts, students will finally extract
the intended meaning of that speech. Ghalib (1998) argued that the listening
procedure can be divided into multiple stages. First students use their background
knowledge in order to understand the delivered speech. After this the speaker's cues
will help the listener focus on the planned meaning. At the end, the exact meaning
is usually ignored and the translated message is what remains and is stored in
memory. Nanda (1989) showed a slightly dissimilar idea that there are four simple

12


steps in the normal listening process consisting of hearing, understanding,
evaluating, and responding. This course involves the hearing of sounds represented
by words and sentences at the sensory stage first, perceptive recognition of meaning
will then be generated by the physical and emotional influences, resulting in the
conclusion of the communication either for acceptance or refusal and finally
making a suitable response following the situational and contextual demands.

2.2.3 Significance of listening skills
In the past, listening actually did not use to be considered extremely vital in
language teaching and learning. Back then, learning grammatically complicated
structures, fixed sentence patterns and terminology, literary language and flowery
vocabulary used to be considered a sign of upper class in the society. However, in
the mid-nineteenth century, the significance of teaching grammar decreased as a

result of the existence of opportunities for achieving communicative skills in
learning a foreign language. The reason was Europeans were traveling more and
wanted to build business and personal associations through learning and using the
languages of Europe. On the other hand, it wasn't until the 1880s that pragmatic
linguists such as Henry Sweet in England, Wilhelm Vietor in Germany and other
reformers in the late nineteenth century shared a new approach in teaching foreign
languages. This view is now widely acknowledged as correct (Giles, 2015 p. 1).
Furthermore, toward the end of the 1950’s, the Audio Lingual Method (ALM) in
the U.S. and Situational Language Teaching (SLT) in the U.K. dominated the field
of language pedagogy. These methods both emphasized speaking and listening
skills in language teaching.

The unawareness of the importance of listening skills; however, still exists. It has
commonly been regarded to be secondary compared to speaking skills (G.H Bower
and R.K. Cirlio, 1985; G. Brown and G. Yule, 1983) in that listening tasks tend to
be viewed as supplementary to strengthen grammar learning. David Nunan, a well-

13


known linguist, in his featured speech at the 4th Pan-Asian Conference in Taiwan in
November, 2002 stated that listening is “the Cinderella skill in second language
learning”. Belasco (1965) shared Nunan's point of view that listening skill has also
been considered the “most underestimated and least understood aspect of foreign
language learning”. In spite of the fact that listening is a decisive element in the
competent language performance of language learners, this skill has not had enough
attention given to it, particularly in contrast to the other skills of language ability,
namely speaking, reading, and writing.

A well-known research conducted by Rankin (1930) suggested that adults spend

42.1% of their communication time listening in contrast with 39.1% speaking, 15%
reading and 11% writing. In addition, real communication in the classroom should
be based on efficient input through listening or reading. According to Lewis,
“almost all the world’s natural language output is spoken rather than written.”
(1993). Smith found over 90% of his interaction time involves listening, cementing
the ability as a major factor while communicating. Listening is, in fact, the most
vital skill for learning a foreign language and enhancing students’ skill to perceive
speech and thus aid language acquisition. Indeed, listening provides a “foundation”
for all aspects of “language and cognitive development” (Lewis, 1993). It plays an
enduring role in the process of learning and communication to productively
participate in life.

Naturally, the majority of people are now becoming more aware of the fact that
listening must absolutely come first in communication. Even as a baby, we humans
do a whole lot of listening before we begin to speak. Listening is the precondition in
language learning and learners listen before they are able to speak, read, or write a
language (Bulletin 1952 as cited in Saricoban, 1991). Listening to a particular
language serves as scaffolding for any learners in mastering a language. It is
indisputable that to obtain a language, listening is a critical skill that a learner has to

14


possess in order to successfully learn a language. Rivers & Temmperley (1978)
believed that listening is nearly twice as evident as speaking and four to five times
that of reading or writing. According to Rost (1994), listening serves as the
foundation for the improvement of other language abilities in a language classroom.
Through listening, the learners will be able to successfully speak, read, and write in
the language that they are learning in the classroom.

Krashen (1982) in his theory of “comprehensible input” identified that listening
skills are more important than they seem at face value. The theory claimed that as a
language practitioner, one needs to "realize" the importance of listening skills.
Realizing that listening skills are vital in learning a language is imperative because
it equips practitioners of languages the “awareness” that listening has a main role in
the teaching of language. From here, language practitioners will be able to plan and
select what actually constitutes “real-life listening” in their arrangement of
delivering language lesson to the learners to achieve positive results in teaching
language. Nesamalar et al. (1995, p. 41) stated that learners should be aware of the
words and structures from the real world before encountering the written form of a
language. Revealing the target language to learners allows them to converse
effectively, as listening helps learners to advance their vocabulary range and
smoothen the path of using the target language properly in the later skills of
speaking, reading, and writing. Adrian Doff (1996) stated that listening is an
important part of learning grammar and vocabulary. To prove this point, he showed
a situation in which learners were living in a country where English was the first
language. He assured that these learners had such plenty of exposure to the
language as they heard it all the time that they acquired it much more easily than the
others.

According to Paul Bress (2001), listening is also as significantly important as a
guide to an easier way when feeling mentally lost due to the complicated

15


elaboration of a new language. In other words, the more learners understand, the
more dominating they feel and the more confidence they have in their ability to
converse. This feeling of confidence is crucial as it helps foster the learners’
motivation and maintain their interest in the lesson, putting the students on a smooth

path for gradual progress. In short, the importance of listening in language learning
is unquestionable. It is the most used and accomplished skill and needs to be
developed and valued as much as possible.

The importance of listening skills in foreign language teaching and learning has
been reflected in a 30-year change towards interaction-based acquisition (Krashen,
1981; Pica et al.., 1987; Swain, 1985), rather than learning through the translation of
written texts and through formal grammar learning. Though regarded as a receptive
skill, listening actually requires an active process in which listeners have to activate
all their knowledge of different fields such as phonology, vocabulary, culture and
their life experience in selecting and interpreting information (Richards, 1983;
Rubin, 1995).

Rost (1994) emphasized the significance of listening for several reasons. First off,
listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner.
Without comprehensible input at the beginning, any learning simply cannot begin.
Second, spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner. Since the
learners must work together to achieve comprehension, access to speakers of the
language is critical. Furthermore, learners’ failure to understand the language they
hear is stimulation, not a hinderance, to interaction and learning. Third, authentic
spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to endeavor to understand
language as it is actually used by native speakers. Fourth, listening exercises
provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms of
vocabulary, grammar, and structures in the language. Plus, listening is also a
requirement for developing speaking skill. Still, Adrian Doff (1996) emphasized

16