The use of note taking strategies for listening comprehension among english majored senior students at can tho university

CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

The Use of Note-taking Strategies for
Listening Comprehension among
English-majored Senior Students at CTU
B.A thesis
Field of study: English Language Teaching

Supervisor: M.A. Do Xuan Hai

Student: Nguyen Thi Truc Linh
Code: 7062904
Class: NN0652A1

Can Tho, 2010


Contents
Contents .................................................................................................................. i
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. iii
Abstract
Vietnamese ................................................................................................... iv
English ......................................................................................................... v
List of Tables and Figures ....................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Problem and Rationale..................................................................................... 1
1.2 Research Questions ......................................................................................... 2
1.3 Hypotheses ...................................................................................................... 2
1.4 Thesis Organization......................................................................................... 2

Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Listening Comprehension ................................................................................ 4
2.1.1 Definition of listening comprehension ................................................ 4
2.1.2 Strategies of listening comprehension ................................................. 5
2.1.3 Role of listening comprehension ......................................................... 6
2.2 Note-taking...................................................................................................... 6
2.2.1 Definition of note-taking..................................................................... 6
2.2.2 Analysis of the main notes used by students........................................ 7
2.2.3 Principal functions of note-taking ....................................................... 8
2.3 Related researches ........................................................................................... 9
Chapter 3 Research Methodology
3.1 Design ............................................................................................................. 12
3.2 Participants...................................................................................................... 12
3.3 Instrument ....................................................................................................... 13
3.4 Procedure ........................................................................................................ 14
Chapter 4 Data Analysis
4.1. Result of research question 1 ............................................................................ 17
4.1. Result of research question 2 ............................................................................ 17
4.1. Result of research question 3 ............................................................................ 19
Chapter 5 Discussions and Conclusions
5.1 Discussions...................................................................................................... 22
5.1.1. Research question 1 ............................................................................ 22
5.1.2. Research question 2 ............................................................................ 22
5.1.2. Research question 3 ............................................................................ 22
5.2 Implications..................................................................................................... 24
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5.3 Limitations and recommendation..................................................................... 24
5.3.1. Limitations.......................................................................................... 24

5.3.2 Recommendations................................................................................ 25
5.4 Conclusions..................................................................................................... 26
References............................................................................................................... 27
Appendix A............................................................................................................. 30

ii


Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to express my respectful gratitude to Mr. Đỗ Xuân Hải, my
supervisor, for his invaluable advice on all aspects of the research design, choice of
instruments and interpretations of the results.
Next, I greatly appreciate Ms. Ngô Thị Trang Thảo for her guidance of using
and analyzing collected data by using SPSS software.
Besides, I wish to thank Ms. Lê Xuân Mai and Ms. Chung Thị Thanh Hằng for
their perceptive and constructive comments in refining the thesis.
At the same time, my thanks go to my adviser, Ms. Bùi Minh Châu who helped
me cross initial hurdles at the beginning of this research.
I must also express my gratitude to all of my friends for their cooperation and
enthusiasm when completing the questionnaires.
Finally, I would like to express my special thanks to my family for their timely
support and unconditional love which helped me give my best shot for the research.
Nguyễn Thị Trúc Linh

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Tóm tắt
Bài nghiên cứu này được thực hiện nhắm đến việc khảo sát và tìm hiểu quan điểm của
sinh viên năm cuối, chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Cần Thơ về “những

chiến thuật ghi chú”, mức độ thường xuyên và mức độ hữu ích của những chiến thuật
này phục vụ cho mục đích nghe hiểu ở các khóa Nghe-Nói (từ khóa 1 đến khóa 5).
Bảng câu hỏi là được dùng để thu được những số liệu cần thiết cho việc khảo sát.
Bảng câu hỏi gồm 21 ý kiến, tập trung nhận xét về 5 chiến thuật ghi chú (không
chuyên sâu, nội dung, hiệu quả, tổ chức và xem lại).70 sinh viên của hai nhóm Cử
nhân tiếng Anh và Sư phạm tiếng Anh tại trường đã thực hiện bảng câu hỏi này. Đồng
thời, phần mềm phân tích dữ liệu SPSS đã được sử dụng cho việc phân tích số liệu và
nhận dạng những chiến thuật nổi bật. Kết quả của nghiên cứu đã cho thấy chiến thuật
ghi chú “nội dung” (gồm có ghi lại những ý chính, sự kiện quan trọng, tránh ghi tất cả
những gì được phát ra từ người nói) và chiến thuật “xem lại” được sử dụng nhiều nhất
và được xem là có ích nhất cho việc nghe hiểu. Trái lại, chiến thuật “không chuyên
sâu” (gồm có viết chữ rõ ràng, viết những từ không liên quan) được xem là ít sử dụng
nhất và đem lại lợi ích thấp nhất. Ngoài ra, để tạo thuận lợi cho việc nghe hiểu của
sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh, chiến thuật ghi chú “hiệu quả” (sử dụng chữ viết
tắt, ký hiệu, diễn đật lại, sử dụng từ chỉ nội dung và loại bỏ những từ chỉ chức năng)
và chiến thuật ghi chú “tổ chức” (sử dụng bảng biểu, hình ảnh, đề cương, danh sách,
mũi tên, đường tròn, gạch dưới, đánh số…) được đề xuất cần đầu tư thời gian cho việc
giảng dạy và thực hành.

iv


Abstract
The present study was conducted to investigate the views that English-majored senior
students at Can Tho University (CTU) hold about the frequency of use and degree of
helpfulness of note-taking strategies which they used for listening comprehension in
their Listening-Speaking classes from course 1 to course 5. A questionnaire
concluding 21 statements focused on note-taking strategies (general, content,
efficiency, organization and review), was administered to 70 English-majored senior
students from Bachelor of English and English of Education groups to collect the

targeted data. The SPSS software was used for data analysis and identification of
merging patterns. The findings revealed that content note-taking strategy (writing
down the main ideas and important facts, as opposed to trying to write down
everything the speaker said) and review of notes are the most frequently utilized and
helpful while general one (using neat handwriting and writing down unconnected
words) is the least frequently utilized and helpful. Moreover, the results suggested that
efficiency (using abbreviations, symbols, paraphrases, using content words and
omitting function words) and organization note-taking strategies (using diagrams,
pictures, outlining, numbering, lists, arrows, boxes, circles, underlining) should be
more focused in term of instruction and practice in Listening-Speaking courses at
CTU for promote English-majored students’ listening comprehension.

v


List of Tables and Figures
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Table 4
Table 5
Table 6
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3

Relevant participant characteristics ........................................................ 13
The 21 items questionnaires and their composite categories ................... 14
Reliability statistics of frequency ........................................................... 16
Reliability statistics of helpfulness ......................................................... 16

Frequency of use of each note-taking strategy........................................ 18
Degree of helpfulness of each note-taking strategy................................. 19
Frequency of use of each note-taking strategy ........................................ 19
Degree of helpfulness of each note-taking strategy ................................. 20
Degree of helpfulness of review note-taking strategy.............................. 21

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Problems and Rationale
English-majored students at CTU have been studying Listening-Speaking
courses (XH155, XH156, XH157, XH158, and XH159) with a wide variety of
listening and speaking practice in both natural conversations and academic English
through popular topics. To listening strategies in specific, according to the course
descriptions and the aims of these courses, at the end of these courses, students are
expected to be able to “develop brainstorming and guessing new vocabulary in
contexts and ideas, note-taking and outline-making skills for a wide range of academic
subjects, and getting the main ideas and necessary details from authentic listening
exercises”.
However, language learners, who learn English as a foreign language in a nonnative setting, often find it difficult to capture the main ideas and necessary details
from authentic exercises. Particular, this presents a problem that while many Englishmajored students listen to listening tasks, they feel at a loss when listening to some
new texts or cannot understand the speakers (Luo, 2008). Therefore, it is necessary for
these students to find appropriate and effective strategies to promote their listening
comprehension.
In a non-native English setting, as is the case at CTU, the role of listening
comprehension skill is more significant than in the context where a native language is
used. This is because the Listening-Speaking classroom culture dictates the teachinglearning tasks to be achieved largely through talking and listening. As a result,
effective listening becomes one of the determinants of the students’ success or failure

(Taron & Yule, 1989). Particularly, at the English-majored senior level of learning,
the ability to listen effectively is a necessity. At this level, students are expected to
understand different types of lectures, discussions, presentations, seminars and other
academic spoken discourses. In addition, the authentic tasks demand that students
should be able to take important notes to produce summaries, inferences, reports, ect.
A large body of research has been done to help these learners to acquire the
strategic skills that are in desperate need. Different solutions have been proposed, i.e.,
listening to the same content several times or ignoring function words. It should be
noted that using note-taking strategies is one of the principal methods have been
investigated. In fact, studies in using note-taking strategies for listening
comprehension of lectures in both L1 and L2 have greatly multiplied. Previous
research has clearly demonstrated the potential benefits of note-taking during listening
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comprehension to lectures (Piolat, Barbier & Roussey, 2008; Carrell, Dunkel &
Mollaun, 2002; Boch & Piolat, 2004; Carrell, 2007; Hayati & Jalilifar, 2009;
Kiliçkaya & Çokal-Karadaş, 2009).
However, there has been relatively little analysis of using note-taking strategies
for listening comprehension among students studying English in a non-native setting.
Especially, to English-majored students at CTU, note-taking skills are instructed
explicitly in their materials including taking notes for main ideas or specific
information as well as for making the outlines of lectures spoken by native speakers.
Therefore, the intents of this study are to investigate the note-taking strategies that
may be used by English-majored seniors at CTU who studying English in a non-native
setting and their’ views about the helpfulness of note-taking strategies that they used
for listening comprehension as well as to give implications for instructions of notetaking in appropriate degree.
1.2. Research questions
The following three questions dictate the focus, design, and shape of this
research.

1.2.1. Do English-majored senior students at CTU use notes-taking strategies
of general, content, efficiency, organization and review for their listening
comprehension?
1.2.2. To which degree are these note-taking strategies used by Englishmajored senior students at CTU?
1.2.3. To which degree do the above students think the note-taking strategies
they used are helpful for their listening comprehension?
1.3. Hypotheses
It is to English-majored senior students at CTU, the hypotheses are that
- English-majored senior students at CTU use notes-taking strategies of
general, content, efficiency, organization and review for their listening
comprehension.
- Content note-taking strategy (getting the main ideas and important
facts, as opposed to trying to write down everything the speaker said) is the
most frequently utilized and most helpful.
- General note-taking strategy (using neat handwriting and writing down
unconnected words) is the least frequently utilized and least helpful.
1.4. Thesis Organization

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In order to help readers follow this thesis with ease, the body of the thesis is
clearly organized into five different chapters and what was concerned in each one as
follows.
Chapter 1: Introduction
In general, the reader can find out the reason why this topic is chosen as the
confidential one and what is measured when carrying the topic the answers for these
questions in the first chapter of the thesis- Introduction.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Some works closely related to the study are clearly stated in this part of the

thesis. Basically, the literature review gave a necessary foundation to implement the
topic.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
Purposefully, this chapter outlines the way the study was proceed including the
approach of designing methods, choosing participants, the selecting of instruments
and the procedure of the research.
Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Results
In this section, basing on the data collected and analyzed from questionnaire,
the readers, themselves can withdraw their own point of view about what was
previously mentioned.
Chapter 5: Discussions and Conclusions
Discussions for the study along with conclusion would be revealed in the last
chapter-chapter 5. Note-taking strategies were used and were helpful at a definite
frequency to the fourth-year English students. Also, some unavoidable limitations in
the thesis were all mentioned as well as some recommendations for further researches
on note-taking strategies for listening comprehension were suggested. Finally, thanks
to discovering many interesting and useful issues when doing the study, some
implications and conclusions were given.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by
accredited scholars and researchers but not simply a new interpretation of old
material. Therefore, this chapter is intended both to demonstrate relevant information
on note-taking for listening comprehension and to provide informed evaluation of the
literature. This chapter explains various aspects related to the topic of note-taking for
listening comprehension. It is started with a brief description of listening

comprehension, note-taking strategies, and finally a focus on related studies.
2.1. Listening comprehension
2.1.1. Definition of listening comprehension
By analyzing listener responses and the skills or strategies used, many writers
have given various definitions to listening comprehension.
“Listening is the activity of paying attention and trying to get meaning for
something we hear” (Underwood, 1989, p. 1). Listening comprehension is also
described by Morley (1991) as “an act of information processing in which the listener
is involved in two-way communication” (interactive listening in which the reciprocal
speech chain of speaker-listener is obvious to us), or “one-way communication” (noninteractive listening in which the auditory input comes from a variety of sources (e.g.
lectures, news, public address announcements, religious services, films). In one-way
communication, the listener listens to the speaker but does not react. S/he may simply
vocalize or sub-vocalize responses, and/or self dialogue communication (the one in
which the listener takes internal roles as “speaker” and “listener/reactor” in his/her
own thought processing without being aware of it).
To rejecting the conceptualization of listening as a passive act, Vandergrift
(1999) further describes,
Listening comprehension is anything, but a passive activity. It is
a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate
between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures,
interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the
above and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance. (p.168)
This view of listening as a complex and active process is also shared by Rost
(2001) and Cook (2001). They argue that as a goal-oriented activity, listening
4


comprehension involves both bottom-up and top-down processing that are assumed to
take place at various levels of cognitive organization: phonological, grammatical,
lexical and propositional. In bottom-up processing, listeners attend to data in the

incoming speech signals, whereas, in top-down processing the listeners knowledge
and expectations to create meaning. It involves "prediction and inference on the basis
of hierarchies of facts, propositions and expectations" (Morley, 1991, p. 87).
In fact, with the above views, listening comprehension is considered a hard
task, which demands a great deal of mental analysis on the part of the listener. In order
to construct the message the speaker intends, the listener must actively contribute
skills and both linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge. These include having an
appropriate purpose for listening, social and cultural knowledge and background
knowledge (Littlewood, 1981; Richards, 1985; Anderson & Lynch, 1988; Morley,
1991)
2.1.2. Strategies of listening comprehension
Techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall
of listening input are listening strategies. Depending on how the listener processes the
input, listening strategies can be classified into bottom-up strategies and top-down
ones.
Bottom-up strategies are text based in which relies on the language in the
message, that is, proceeding from sounds to words to grammar relationships to lexical
meaning, ect., to a final “message”. It means that the listeners typically focus on
sounds, words, intonations, grammatical structures, and other components of spoken
language. Bottom-up strategies include:
• listening for specific details
• recognizing cognates
• recognizing word-order patterns
Top-down strategies are listener based which evoked from the listeners’
background knowledge of the topic, either content schema (general information based
on previous learning and life experience) or textual schema (awareness of the kinds of
information used in a given situation) (Morley, 1991, p. 87). This background
knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is
heard and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies include:
• listening for the main idea

• predicting
• drawing inferences
• summarizing
It is important for learners to operate both above strategies from instructions
since both can offer keys to determining the meaning of spoken discourse. For
example, an effective listener is able to concentrate on what is being heard, to plan
5


what to listen for, and to interact with both textual cues (bottom-up) and personal prior
experience (top-down), whereas an ineffective listener employs predominately
bottom-up processing, listening for single words, and using strategies at random (Liu,
2008).
2.1.3. Role of listening comprehension
It cannot be denied that listening comprehension plays an important role in
language learning. For example, Luo (2008) indicates that listening comprehension is
foundational in learning a foreign language because it is the most important skill of
the five and also the basic way of receiving language input Furthermore, listening
comprehension levels do influence the capacity for improvement in other language
skills such as speaking, reading, writing and translating. The evidence from Luo’s
study suggests sound reasons for emphasizing listening comprehension, which
highlights the importance of spending much more time doing it.
As Dunkel (1986) pointed out that most researchers of listening comprehension
agreed that “listening comprehension should be the focal methodology in foreign/
second language instruction, particularly at the initial stage of language study”.
Listening comprehension is therefore, an essential skill that EFL learners should
acquire as early as possible.
In a non-native English setting, as is the case at CTU, the role of listening
comprehension skill is more significant than in the context where a native language is
used. This is because the Listening-Speaking classroom culture dictates the teachinglearning tasks to be achieved largely through talking and listening. As a result,

effective listening becomes one of the determinants of the students’ success or failure
(Taron & Yule, 1989).
To develop this complex but essential skill, students indeed need much support
from their teachers. They must be exposed to a variety of input sources in the form of
listening opportunities embedded in social and academic situations. Besides, they
should be provided with varying listening activities that enable them to employ
different strategies and enhance their macro and micro listening skills (Underwood,
1989; Rost, 1990; Harmer, 2001).
2.2. Note-taking
2.2.1. Definition of note-taking
Frequently, note-taking occurs in various everyday life situations such as to
make purchases, to plan future events and activities, to study for examinations, to
prepare a technical talk, to design a model in an industry, to record the minutes of
work meetings, ect. Note taking is a complex activity in which comprehension and
selection of information and written production processes are required (Piolat, Olive
& Kellogg, 2005).
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In a condense way, Castallo (1976) has defined note-taking as a two step
process in which the students must listen for the important information and then write
it in some organized way.
Fajardo (1996) has pointed that note-taking is involvement with the
combination of different skills like listening or reading, selecting, summarizing and
writing, and it is also a requirement of selecting the relevant information from the
nonessential. Note-taking involves putting onto paper the data received through any of
our senses. These data could range from simple figures, letters, symbols, isolated
words, or brief phrases to complete sentences and whole ideas.
To sum up, note-taking is an important skill for students, especially at the
college level. Note-taking can be considered as the practice of rapid transcription of

information or selecting and writing pieces of information to store information in
long-term memory. It often requires comprehension and organizing in an informal or
unstructured manner. Many different forms are employed to structure information and
allow large amounts of information to be put on paper very quickly and to find or use
later such as shortened words and substitution symbols, abbreviating operations,
syntactical short-cuts, paraphrasing statements, and often a physical formatting of the
notes that differs from the linear text of written source material (Piolat, 2001; Boch &
Piolat, 2004; Beecher, 1988).
2.2.2. Analysis of the main notes used by students
Too often, note-taking is realized under severe time pressure. However, the
average writing speed of a student is around 0.3 to 0.4 words/second (Boch & Piolat,
2004). Therefore, note-takers have to use a number of conventional or personal
procedures and devices that are more or less fixed (i.e., abbreviations, icons, graphic
symbols, page layout, etc.) and allow them to capture as much information as
possible, even in a note-taking situation involving extreme time pressure (Barbier,
Faraco, Piolat, & Branca, 2004; Piolat, 2001).
In the literature on note-taking, formal analyses of notes are based on the
identification of at least two types of variables (Chaudron, Loschky & Cook, 1994;
Barbier, Roussey, Piolat & Olive, 2006).
The first variables are quantitative and concern the total number of words
and/or abbreviations. Quantitative analyses of notes show that abbreviating
procedures, which are considered by some scholars as performance indicators of notetaking (Fahmy & Bilton, 1991; Janda, 1985, cited in Babier et al., 2006) or even as
quality indicators (Chaudron et al., 1994), are little used in second language. For
example, when students take notes in second language they do not use the surface
abbreviating procedures that are commonly shared by native speakers. They also do
not use the note-taking tools, such as icons, they used in their first language notetaking and that allow them to quickly write down what they hear. Actually, note takers
7


in second language do not possess a large variety of techniques and so they sometimes

switch in a first language transcription of information or even sometimes produce
neologisms (Faraco, Barbier, & Piolat, 2002; Dunkel & Davis, 1994).
The second ones are qualitative and relate to the content of the notes (new
words, words in first and second language), to the organization of ideas and to the
structuring of the spatial layout (in particular use of marks related to lists effects:
classification, separation in sections, underlining, columns, etc. (Barbier et al., 2004).
Qualitative analyses of notes in L2 indicate the use of a limited syntax, a
“disorganized” note-taking or confusion in the procedures that highlight information
provided between titles, definitions and examples (Fahmy & Bilton, 1990).
Cushing (1993, cited in Carrell, 2007) shows that note-taking is apparently
related to individual differences among L2 learners. According to Carrell’s following
literature on note-taking strategies relevant to second language listening
comprehension test performance, she came up with the 5 strategies consisted of both
qualitative and quantitative variables as following:
1. General note-taking strategies such as using neat handwriting and writing
down unconnected words.
2. Note-taking strategies that involved content (i.e., writing down the main
ideas and important facts, as opposed to trying to write down everything the
speaker said) reflect a focus on content of the materials.
3. Note-taking strategies involving efficiency (abbreviations, symbols,
paraphrases, using content words and omitting function words) represent an
encoding or transformation of verbatim information into the listener’s own
comprehension system.
4. Note-taking strategies involving the organization of the notes (e.g., using
diagrams, outlining, indentation, numbers, lists, arrows; using circles, boxes
and highlighting) reflect how information in the notes was overtly
organized or emphasized by the note-takers.
5. Review strategy.
In brief, the above five note-taking strategies are in term of relevant to the
context of using note-taking strategies for listening comprehension in a non-native

setting of studying English. Therefore, the current research mainly focuses on these
strategies to look into the frequently utilized and helpful extend of each one for
listening comprehension.
2.2.3. Principal functions of note-taking
Otto (1979) stated that note-taking is useful because when people listen to
some kind of discourse, they try to extract information, either factual or effective. The
information is then applied to some further need which may be casual conversation,
technical writing or answering test questions. The ability to listen for a certain kind of
8


information and apply it to one of these needs is a note-taking skill which can be
learned and practised.
Note-taking is important because it improves the listening ability by increasing
the listener's attentiveness and prevents sidetracking. In other words, it helps to keep
note-taker focused on their subject area and to the task at hand and prevent wandering
off. Note-taking also increases the listener's chances of reviewing what he has heard,
therefore remedying weaknesses in listening. In addition, note-taking improves the
learner's ability to learn from the spoken word as well as improves memory of what is
heard (Hartley, 2002, Slotte & Lonka, 2003).
According to Craik and Lockhart, 1972; Craik and Tulving, 1975 (cited in
Smith and Tompkins, 1988), the benefits of note-taking result from the heightened
activation of several cognitive processes. First, the students have to actively attend to
the message and select important ideas to retain in the notes. Second, students who
paraphrase and add their own comments are relating their own prior knowledge to the
new information. Third, as students elaborate on content by paraphrasing, indicating
relationships among ideas, and developing their own examples, they are processing
the content more deeply. This increased depth of processing multiple encoding
increases the likelihood of comprehension and retention. Finally, in creating their own
notes, students generate a transportable and permanent storage of important

information that is available for review.
To sum up, note-taking has the following five functions: (1) to avoid
distraction, (2) to make the content meaningful to the learners, (3) to combine new and
old information, (4) to review the main ideas quickly before a test, and (5) to make the
message more impressive. These functions warrant that note-taking is considered a
crucial skill. Therefore, according to Hayati and Jalilifar (2009), many educators
believe that it should be explicitly taught in school and university. At the same time,
teachers have responsibility to polish up students’ note-taking skill and should spend
some time letting students review their notes before a test (Kiewra, 1985). It could be
said that note-taking should be part of the curriculum (Ornstein, 1994).
2.3. Studies on note-taking strategies for listening comprehension
Kiewra and Benton (1988) concluded that the "amount of note-taking is related
to academic achievement" and the "ability to hold and manipulate propositional
knowledge in working memory is related to the number of words, complex
propositions, and main ideas recorded in notes." (p. 33)
Chaudron, Cook, and Loschky (1994) investigated a number of quantitative
and qualitative measures of the notes and their relationships to successful short-term
recall. Utilizing multiple choice and cloze comprehension tests, Chaudron et al. (1994)
concluded that three measures (symbols, abbreviations, and total words) were
9


significantly correlated with multiple-choice test scores on one lecture, but not with
multiple-choice test scores on two other lectures.
In a study of the content of notes, Cushing (1991) employed a qualitative
analysis of sets of the notes taken by the high and low proficiency L2 listeners when
students were provided an outline of the lecture to guide their note-taking. The results
indicated the following: (1) high proficiency students tended to take more complete
notes than low proficiency students; (2) high proficiency students made somewhat
better use of the note-taking guide than did low proficiency students; (3) overall, there

was not a great deal of incorrect information in the notes, although 40% of the low
proficiency students had written wrong or incomplete information in blanks in the
note-taking guide; (4) lower proficiency students did not distinguish between relevant
and irrelevant information as well as higher proficiency students; (5) graduate students
tended to fill in the blanks on the note-taking guide more completely (although not
always more accurately) than did either undergraduate or noncredit students,
suggesting perhaps that they approached the task more seriously.
In a more recent study of the functions of note-taking and the content of L2
listeners’ notes in the context of a group of Chinese EFL learners, Liu (2001, cited in
Carrell, 2007) found that taking and having one’s notes available during question
answering had a significant effect on the recognition of specific information (but not
general information) in both immediate and delayed multiple-choice test performance.
A follow-up study reported in the same thesis investigated the relationship between
three qualitative features of the Chinese students’ notes and test performance: number
of content words, number of words spelled out fully, and number of notations. Liu
found significant positive correlations between number of content words and lecturespecific information (as opposed to general information), as well as significant
negative correlations between number of words in full spelling and lecture-specific
information (again as opposed to general information). Liu concluded that learners
should be encouraged to “take down more content words when required to recall
specific information,” and as it might be a lost cause to spell out words fully, to
establish a “personalized shorthand system” (2001, abstract).
Ferit and Derya’s (2009) study also focused on the effect of note-taking on
students’ listening comprehension. In detailed, 44 Turkish EFL students in the first
year of their undergraduate level in the Department of Foreign Language Education in
Middle East Technical University and were aged between 18 and 20 were divided into
two classes of 22 students. The first class (experimental group) practised listening
comprehension questions taking notes while the other class (control group) practised
the same questions without taking notes. As results, participants’ responses suggest
that they felt at ease if allowed to take notes while listening to lectures (100% agreed)
and also 86.4 %believed that taking notes helped to understand the lectures. However,

10


about half of the students (% 45.5 agreements) stated that taking notes helped them to
listen carefully to the lectures. However, 36% stated that they used their notes when
answering the test questions and also 95% wanted more time to review their notes.
Carrell (2007) examined the relationship between the content of notes taken by
examinees during mini-lectures and their performance on a listening comprehension
measure and integrated listening/speaking and listening/writing tasks. Among four
objectives of his study, examinees’ perceptions of their note-taking strategies as well
as their perceptions of the helpfulness of those note-taking strategies in their
performance on the listening comprehension measure and speaking and writing tasks
based on the lectures were investigated by administering the questionnaires. He found
that note-taking strategies that involved content were the strategies they used most
frequently and found to be most helpful. Note-taking strategies were those involving
efficiency were the next most frequently utilized and helpful. Note-taking strategies
involving the organization of the notes were reported as being used less frequently and
as being less helpful. General note-taking strategies such as using neat handwriting
and writing down unconnected words were reported as being used least frequently and
as being least helpful.

11


CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The chapter in the previous section of the thesis provides an overview of notetaking for listening comprehension, drawing on pertinent theories, examples and
illustrations from linguistics research literature, which have been conjoined with
personal analyses, assessments, suggestions and deductions. In the forthcoming
section, an empirical report is presented based on the findings from a survey. The

section starts with a brief description of the survey design, participant, method and
procedures.
3.1. Design
The research was a descriptive one based on descriptive data that did not use of
statistical procedure. Questionnaire including 21 statements derived from Carrel
(2007) was designed in the hope of investigating which note-taking strategies the
English-majored senior students used for their listening comprehension in their
Listening-Speaking courses, to find out their views about the frequency of various
note-taking strategies and the helpfulness of those note-taking strategies that they
used.
3.2. Participants
Like other skills, note-taking also requires real experiences which achieved
from the participants’ attendances at courses including courses from ListeningSpeaking 1 to Listening-Speaking 5. In other words, the participants had finished all
classes of these courses. That is the reason why the fourth-year students were chosen,
not the others to be the participants in this project. In specific, the participants of this
research were 70 senior students majoring in Bachelor of English and Education of
English at CTU. In condition of time constraints, 70 were the possible participants that
could be found. They obviously represented for the rest to reach the reliability of
students’ views and of the research.
Altogether the 70 English-majored senior students participating, of whom 11
were male students (15.7 %) and 59 (84.3 %) were female students with their ages
ranking from 21 to 24 (M= 22.08). Reasonably, the number of female students is
always more than male students in English major. There may be a concern here that
“Does it have any differences between Bachelor of English groups and Education of
English groups?” The answer is there is no significant difference between these two
groups because of the same curriculum of listening-speaking courses with the same

12

aim courses as well as the same materials. Relevant participant characteristics are
detailed in Table 1.
Table 1. Relevant participant characteristics
Characteristics
Gender
Male
Female
Age
Mean
Range
Major
Bachelor of English
Education of English
Native
Vietnamese
language

N

Year

11
59

%
15, 7
84, 3

22.08
21-24

47
23

67, 1
32, 9

3.3. Instruments
Depending on the research questions being addressed in the study,
questionnaires were selected as the principal instrument of this research to elicit
targeted data. The questionnaire was adapted and redesigned from the questionnaire of
Carrell (2007) and have been judged by two experienced lecturers at CTU. At the
same time, the analyzing program SPSS was used to describe for the reliability scale if
item deleted. In another words, if the items affected the reliability coefficient (alpha),
it must be redesigned or deleted. It is reasonable for this choice because questionnaires
are considered more reliable ways since they are anonymous and this encourages
greater honesty. In Cohen and Manim’s (1998) words, they are more amenable to
quantification and easy to answer. (See Appendix A for a copy of the questionnaire.)
In specific, 70 questionnaires were used. Each questionnaire comprised 21
items of statements which were organized into the same categories based on the
analysis of notes adapted from Carrell (2007). These categories are classified into the
good things -“do write down” and the opposite ones - “don’t write down” following
Instructional Intervention—Good Practices in Note-taking (Carrell, 2007). The two
items (13 and 15) in the first category focused on general note-taking strategy
including using neat handwriting and writing down the words. The second category
consisting of 4 items (16, 17, 18 and 20) dealed with content strategy (main points,
facts, important ideas). Six items (1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 19) concerned with efficiency one
(e.g. abbreviations, symbols, content words, etc.) made the third category. The fourth
category contained 8 items (5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14) devised to elicit information of
organization strategy (organizing notes, using diagrams, pictures, outlining,
numbering, lists, using arrows, ect.). Finally, the last one was review strategy to make

13


sure the understanding of materials. It should be noted that among these 21 items,
there were 3 items (4, 15 and 20) in converse form which were revered scale in
analyzing the data.
Moreover, utilizing a 1-6 scale (6 = very frequently, almost all of the time; 5 =
frequently, a lot of the time; 4 = sometimes, about half the time; 3 = not frequently,
only occasionally; 2 = very infrequently or rarely; 1 = never), the questionnaire probed
participants’ views about the frequency of use of 5 note-taking strategies they may use
while taking notes for listening comprehension, as well as utilizing a 1-5 scale (5 =
very helpful; 4 = helpful; 3 = neither helpful nor unhelpful; 2 = not helpful; 1 = very
unhelpful) for their views about the helpfulness of those note-taking strategies they
used.
The 21 items from the questionnaires and the composite categories into which
they were grouped are shown in Table 4.
Table 2. The 21 Questionnaires items and their composite categories
Composite categories
Item number
Do write down
Don’t write down*
General
13
15
Content (main points, facts,
16, 17, 18
20
important details)
Efficiency (abbreviations,
1, 2, 3, 8, 19

4
symbols, content words, etc.)
Organization
5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14
Review of notes
21
*Reverse scale on all items
3.4. Procedures
After designing the questionnaire to elicit data for this study with reference to
that developed by Carrell (2007), and the principles on which items in a good
questionnaire should be constructed, two instructors in the English department were
asked to comment on the items presented in the questionnaire in terms of clarity and
content of the items. To serve the purpose of piloting for the reliability levels of two
categories: frequency of use and degree of helpfulness of 5 note-taking strategies, the
questionnaire was given to 18 selected students in the fourth year of Bachelor of
English-class 1. According to the results from the collected data analyzed by the SPSS
software, respectively, the reliability levels of two above categories were .78, and .73.
Next, 70 questionnaires were delivered to 70 last year students of Bachelor of
English and Education of English to measure the views toward frequency and
helpfulness of using note-taking strategies for listening comprehension in their
14


Listening-Speaking courses. Individually, after getting the aim of the research, the
issue of confidentiality, and how to do the questionnaires, the participants spent
around 15 minutes to complete the questionnaires.
Finally, the collected data were analyzed by using the analyzing program SPSS.
The findings were written descriptively as well as were used to give the related
implications for instructions of note-taking strategies among English-majored
students.

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CHAPTER 4
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
This chapter deals with the presentation and interpretation of the data and
detailed consideration of survey result obtained through: descriptive analysis of the
contents of notes and questionnaires. The aim of all following in-depth analyses is no
more than to provide a closer look at 3 major sections: note-taking strategies which
were used, the frequency of use and degree of helpfulness of the previous mentioned
note-taking strategies by English-majored senior students at CTU taking part in the
survey.
Composite scores for each of these subscales were computed separately for the
frequency and helpfulness measures for each participant from their responses to the
individual questionnaire items. The score for each measure was the mean of the
participants’ responses to the items on that subscale. When a participant did not
respond to all of the items comprising a subscale, rather than have SPSS treat the
subscale score as missing and have the N-size lowered accordingly, the participant’s
mean score on the other items in the subscale was calculated and used as the subscale
score. However, if a participant did not respond to any of the items in a subscale, the
subscale score was treated as missing. Fortunately, there were no such missing cases
in the collected questionnaires.
The following tables are given to demonstrate the reliability of using the
questionnaires. “.79” and “.78” are really acceptable numbers comparing to the
standard condition of reliability (>= .7) (Table 3 and Table 4). The results indicated
that the questionnaires were quite reliable to carry out.
Table 3. Reliability statistics of frequency of use
Cronbach’s
N of Item

Alpha
.79
21
Table 4. Reliability statistics of degree of helpfulness
Cronbach’s
N of Item
Alpha
.78
21
After administering the questionnaires, collected data were analyzed by using
the analyzing program SPSS for analyzing the reliability scale and describing 5
previous mentioned note-taking strategies as well as the points of views of the 70

16


participants based on the mean scores of both frequency of use and degree of
helpfulness of each note-taking strategy.
4.1. Research question 1: Notes-taking strategies that English-majored
senior students at CTU use for their listening comprehension
In Lewis and Reinders’ (2003) words, not every note-taking strategy fits every
learner. The fact is that note-taking strategy is quite diverse in term of classifying
(Chaudron et al., 1994; Babier et al.; 2006; Faraco et al., 2002; Dunkel & Davis,
1994 ; Fahmy & Bilton, 1990). However, based on the initially designed questionnaire
for targeted data, there were only five strategies derived from Carrell’s (2007)
findings were investigated. Interestingly, all of these five were reported to use for
English-majored senior students’ listening comprehension as presented below.
Strategies
1. General
2. Content

3. Efficiency
4. Organization
5. Review
1. General strategy dealing with using neat handwriting and writing down
unconnected.
2. Content strategy including writing down the main ideas and important facts,
as opposed to trying to write down everything the speaker said.
3. Efficiency strategy including using abbreviations, symbols, paraphrases,
using content words and omitting function words.
4. Organization strategy including using diagrams, outlining, indentation,
numbers, lists, arrows; using circles, boxes and highlighting, ect.
5. Review strategy for understanding the materials.
4.2. Research question 2: Frequency of use of note-taking strategies by
English-majored senior students at CTU
Research Question 2 was addressed descriptively, utilizing means for the five
composite note-taking strategies. Following was the table 5 presenting for the result of
concerning question.

17


Table 5. Frequency of use of note-taking strategies
Strategies
N Minimum Maximum
General
70
1
6
Content
70

3
6
Efficiency
70
3
6
Organization
70
2
6
Review
70
2
6

Mean
3.81
4.82
4.36
4.18
4.81

S.D
.96
.71
.74
.76
1.01

As can be seen from the Table 5, it shows that the content note-taking and the

review strategies of making sure the understanding of materials are the most used by
the English-majored senior students (M= 4.82 and M= 4.81, respectively). This fact
indicates that these students frequently (80%) write down main points and important
details of these main points as well as important facts, numbers which are difficult to
remember. At the same time, they often reviewed their notes for understanding
authentic materials.
The participants reported that efficiency strategy which concludes using
abbreviations, symbols and paraphrases is the next most frequently utilized with
evidence more than half (50%) of the time. Surprisingly, by analyzing individually the
use of paraphrases among the English-majored senior students for listening
comprehension, the frequency is quite high, till 80% comparing to the mean of the
efficiency note-taking strategy (M= 4.91 comparing with 4.36).
The organization (organization and highlighting) strategy seems nearly similar
to the efficiency strategy in term of frequency of use. In detail, the use of diagrams or
pictures, outlining, numbering, arrows, lists, highlighting as well as organization
different ideas is showed its occasional utilization ranged from 2-level to 6-level on
the 6-level scale.
Finally, M= 3.81, neat handwriting and writing down unconnected words in
general strategy were the least ones used by English-majored senior students at CTU.
Figure 1 below is used to illustrate the answer of question 2.

18