Sử dụng hiệu quả tranh ảnh trong dạy nghe tiếng anh lớp 10

THE TOPIC:
“THE USE OF PICTURES TO IMPROVE MY GRADE 10 STUDENTS’
LISTENING COMPREHENSION”

I. THE PROBLEM
1. Background
Located in the centre of Bac Giang City, Bac Giang province – about 70 km from Hanoi,
Ngo Si Lien High School is the school where I have been teaching for 6 years.
The school was founded in 1946 when the Vietnam War was at the highest point.
Experiencing a lot of difficulties, it has always achieved significant success because the school has
a staff of 92 teachers and servicemen who are very well-qualified and committed in the job. The
school is equipped with very good facilities such as 2 23-computer rooms for teaching IT, a multifunction gym and a large library with a great variety of books, and it has 36 classes with about
1600 students some of whom are specialized in major classes.
The school is a good reputation and a reliable address for parents and children in the area
because of the achievement it obtains every year. 100% of the students pass the annual national
final exam and around 60-70% of them go to universities or colleges with very high scores.
Moreover, the school is always in the top-3 schools in the province for its good results in
provincial contests for excellent students.
Nowadays, English undoubtedly plays an important role in Vietnamese society, and
everyone seems to be eager to master English. However, the truth is so surprising. Most of the
students are reluctant to study English because it is a compulsory subject in school. Therefore,
they are afraid of learning English. Only few of the students who are in the major classes find it
necessary and interesting to master English, but the thing they are interested in is grammar only.
As a result, they are rather weak at the 4 skills, especially listening.

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2. Rationale
I have been teaching at high school in for 12 years and of course I always try my best to
teach English effectively. However, I have encountered a lot of difficulties due to the level of the

students, and we haven’t found any effective solution yet, which makes me think a lot.
I’m now in charge of teaching English in grade 10. During my teaching time, I have found
that my students have many difficulties in listening as I have mentioned above. No matter how
effective listening activities themselves can be, teachers and students are still facing obstacles in
the lesson. Because:


Compared to Reading comprehension, Listening comprehension is considered
more difficult for learners in foreign language setting (Gramham 2006) because
there are more factors such as the rate of speech, speaker’s accent or the cultural
content of the talk that listeners can’t control.



According to the syllabus of English subject, there are only three English periods
per week for each grade; students don’t have enough time to practice listening.
There are 16 Units in the textbook of each grade and each Unit is divided into 5
periods but there is only one Listening period for every Unit.



The condition for learning English and communicating with native speakers is not
good enough and we have to make teaching aids for listening lesson ourselves.
That’s also a big problem because not all teaching aids we made are effective tools.



Besides above objective reasons, students themselves are not interested in listening.
In other words, I can say that most of my students are afraid of listening because
there is no doubt that the speed of getting information is faster through listening

than reading. Also, the biggest problem facing my students is that their
vocabularies are too poor, and their pronunciation is not standardized. Therefore,
my students are not able to listen to the tapes well. As a result, they are gradually
bored with listening lessons. The problem to be solved now is crucial to improve
students’ listening.

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Therefore, I’m much concerned about visual aids that can help improve my grade 10
students’ listening comprehension, especially pictures may be the most effective aid and available
everywhere .
3. Research Questions
A. To what extent does the use of pictures help improve my grade 10 students’ listening
comprehension?
B. How do the students feel about the use of pictures in improving students’ listening
comprehension?
4. Definition of the terms
4.1. Pictures
Picture - A visual representation or image painted, drawn, photographed, or
otherwise rendered on a flat surface. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language)
4.2. Comprehension

As defined in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
comprehension is the act or fact of grasping the meaning, nature, or importance of;
understanding.

In my opinion, comprehension is the understanding of what is being
communicated.

4.3. Listening comprehension (LC)

About the definition of LC, there are some different ideals, for example, “Listening
comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning
by using cues from contextual information and existing knowledge, while relying upon
multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement” (O’Malley, J. M. & Chamot, A.
U., 1989, p. 420).

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So, I think the use of pictures to improve my grade 10 students’ listening
comprehension is to improve the students’ ability to follow, process, and understand
spoken language with the help of pictures.
5. Literature review
It is said that pictures play an important role in language teaching. Listening skill can be
taught with the help of pictures because they are an effective resource. There have been a lot of
research and studies done by scholars and researchers on the use of pictures to help improve
students’ listening comprehension.
According to Mueller, (1980), who studied the effect of visuals on the listening process, the
use of visuals providing contextual cues to a listening passage is effective in enhancing learner
comprehension of it. The descriptions can simply be series of different pictures; students have to
identify which picture is being talked about, or rearrange some disorder pictures in a correct order
as they listen. Similar exercises can be done with odd pictures cut out of color magazines. A
number of such pictures are stuck upon the board and the teacher improvises a story that somehow
brings some of them in. The teacher can help students by indicating which picture he/she is
referring to as he/she can leave them to work out the sequence for themselves.
In his article, Alex Case, (2009), stated that students' listening comprehension can
be developed with the help of pictures in various ways. He introduced 100 activities that can be

designed to improve the students' listening comprehension in a listening class. Before listening to
the tape, the teacher provides his/her students with a picture and ask them write as many sentences
as they can to describe the things in the picture and then listen to tape to see how many of the
sentences they hear are similar to one of the sentences they wrote, for example.
In a journal on using pictures in listening class, Zhang, (2000), said that the advantage of
using pictures is that it is easy to prepare, easy to organize, interesting, meaningful and authentic.
Images of reality in the unnatural world of the language classroom can be brought by pictures.
Moreover, the help of pictures is very useful in developing students' listening comprehension,
particularly “directed listening”. They both provide a general background and context and help to

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guide the students' listening. This idea can be described as selecting the correct pictures from the
provided ones after listening to the tapes, or listen to the description of maps or diagrams and
students have to draw the pictures they hear.
It can be seen that the role of the use of pictures in improving students’ listening skill is
quite effective. Therefore, I would like to implement the strategies in my classroom.

II. METHODOLOGY
1. Research design
This table below illustrates the research design adapted in this study.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS

RESEARCH

SUBJECTS

INSTRUMENTS
1. To what extent does the use of

TOOLS OF
ANALYSIS

- Teacher’s lesson - Grade 10 (class - Frequency count

pictures help improve students’

plans

10 A1)

- Percentage

listening comprehension?

- 1 pre-test

- Age 16

- Description in field

- 2 post- tests

-English

- Student

Intermediate

the use of pictures in improving

questionnaire

-Ngo

listening comprehension?

- Teacher’s diary

High School

2. How do the students feel about

ability: notes

Si

Lien

- Sample size: 41

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2. Independent and Dependent Variables.

The use of pictures

Students’ listening

comprehension

Independent definition

Independent definition

Teacher
uses
pictures
(drawings,
paintings, photos, cartoons...) to improve
listening comprehension to students

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Students’ improvement in listening
comprehension. This is measured
by a pre-test and 2 post-tests.


Constant Variables
3. Data collection procedures

The same

This flow chart describes my data collection procedures
Students
Teacher
Topics

Pre-Intermediate grade 10 students

Tests
Test duration
Amount of time

Pre-test

Use of pictures

Post-test 1

Use of pictures

Post-test 2

Compare the results of the Pre-test and 2 Post-tests

Students’ questionnaire

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3.1. Selection of the subjects:
The study is carried out to see whether the use of pictures helps to improve my grade 10
students’ listening comprehension by comparing the students' progress before and after using
pictures in listening classes. I want my data to be accurate and reliable, so the subjects I decide to
select are my own grade 10 students in class 10A1 with the total number of 41 at Ngo Si Lien high
school. They are students in grade 10 – the beginning of the 3-year vital education for them
before going to universities or colleges and their level is pre-intermediate, so their listening ability

is quite limited. Therefore, I would like to help them improve their listening ability by the use of
pictures so that they will be able to listen to English really well in the upper level of education.
3.2. Lesson plans:
Because my selected subjects are my own grade 10 students, I will select some listening
lessons to design the lesson plans so that the use of pictures can be easily applied basing on the
“TIENG ANH 10” published by MOET. I want to illustrate this idea by some following examples.
 For re-arranging activity: I take this activity from:
-

Unit 1 - TA 10

-

Unit 6 – TA 10

 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF......
 AN EXCURSION
- First, I ask my students to work in groups to study the 6 given pictures (drawings) carefully
and then try to guess the correct order that they think it can be (Note: It’s not important
whether their predictions are correct or not).
- Then, I call some groups to give out their ideas, but I have not corrected them yet. Just to see
if there is any difference among them.
- Now, I provide the students with the listening tape and ask them to number the pictures in
the order they are described in the listening text as they listen to the tape.
- Finally, I will give out the correct order.

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

For picking out items: There are two units in the course book for me to apply this
activity.



Unit 5 – TA 10:
TECHNOLOGY

- First, I will provide my students with a picture (photos) of a full set of computer.
- Second, I give them a situation and ask them to work in groups to get familiar with the
parts of the computer set.
Situation: - An old man is talking about his experience of learning how to use a computer.
Now, listen to him about using his new computer and try to pick out the parts of the computer
set that have just been mentioned in the listening text.
- After listening to the man, discuss in groups and listen to the tape again to give out the final
answer.


Unit 13 – TA 10

FILMS AND CINEMA
 Reason: Because in this unit, the listening tape is in the form of a dialogue, it will be rather
difficult for students to distinguish who is saying at times. As a result, it seems to be impossible
that students can complete Task 1. Therefore, I decide to design 8 pictures describing 8 different
activities, only 6 of which are mentioned in Task 1. I do think that with the help of the 8 pictures,
students can follow the listening and focus on the needed information more easily and effectively.
 Procedure:
- First, I show the 8 pictures on the board and ask the students to study the carefully to insure that
they understand the content of the 8.

- Second, I play the tape once and try to pick out the picture containing the example in Task 1 so
that students will know how and what to do.
- Now is the time for me to ask my students to listen and find out what Huong and Lan are going
to do together.
- After listening to the tape, I ask the students to work in groups, discuss and listen to the tape
again to give out the final answer.

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 For spotting the differences in pictures (opposite spotting the similarity):
The activity is chosen from Unit 8 – TA 10
THE STORY OF MY VILLAGE
- First, I ask my students to look at the 2 provided pictures (paintings) about the differences
between the past and present of a village and then discuss the differences described in the 2
pictures in groups.
- Then, List down as many differences as possible.
- Next, listen to the tape twice and spot out the differences in the two pictures that are just
listed in the listening text.
I personally think that these procedures will help me observe the students’ progress.
3.3. The tests:
Three tests will be designed for the students: one pre-test (without the use of pictures) and
two post ones (with the use of pictures). The 3 tests remain the same before and after the use of
pictures. The 3 tests are designed basing on the 5 listening sub-skill: Identify the main facts and
details, relate cause and effect, identify sequence of events, predicting outcomes, and inferring
meaning from the contextual clues.
First of all, the pre-test is given to the students without the help of pictures as a placement
test. After the test, the result is recorded in the teacher’s diary.
After a month of teaching with the use of pictures (4 lessons), I will deliver the first post
test – Achievement test 1 - to the students. Then, the first comparison is made basing on the result

of the first post test.
Again, after another month, the students’ listening ability will be tested by the second post
test – Achievement test 2. When I have finished marking the second post test, the final
comparison must be created to show if the use of pictures helps improve my students’ listening
comprehension.

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3.4. Student questionnaires:
I think this method, typically provide the access to a reality to investigate my research
questions because using questionnaires with selected questions given to students is the best way to
have their answers about their feeling about the use of pictures, about the tasks that I often give
them or ask them to do.
I will collect data through this method for 1 week. The number of 5 closed questions and
opened-ended questions written in handouts will be given to my 41 selected grade 10 students.
The questions should be focus on their feeling about the use of pictures.
3.5. Teacher's diaries:
The purpose of teacher’s diary is to summarize the situation and any changes of the
class during the time of doing action research in order that after finishing the action
research I can find out what achievement can be made and what needs to be done more
about the situation by comparing the result of the three tests. Finally, I can have more
effective strategies to make my teaching of listening better and better.
Data analysis:
As I have mentioned in Research design, I decide to use students’ questionnaires
which is useful because it can be used to present information in a way that allow me to
understand the information in a table form and teacher’s diary as research instruments to
collect data for my action research. Hence, I will start analyzing the obtained raw data by
the use of frequency, percentage and critical discourse analysis of teacher’s diary after
collecting the data. When the data have already been analyzed, I can conclude about the

use of pictures in helping my grade 10 students improve their listening comprehension.

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REFERENCES
1) Action Research Materials – Dr. Hannah Pillay and Dr. Tan Su Hwi – Language specialists
at SEAMEO Relc. Singapore
2) Listening Materials – Dr. Jennifer Tan - Language specialist at SEAMEO Relc. Singapore
3) Language Testing Materials – Dr. Chan Yue Weng - Language specialist at SEAMEO Relc.
Singapore
4) The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright
©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009.

5) Gramham, S . 2006 “Listening Comprehension : The learner’s Perspective.” System 34:
165-82

6) O’Malley, J. M. & Chamot, A. U., 1989. Listening Comprehension Strategies in Second
Language Acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 10 (4): 418-437

7) Alex Case, (2009) “100 Ways to Improve your TOEIC Listening”- Articles UsingEnglish_com.mht
8) GA Mueller (1980) “Visual contextual cuea and Listening comprehension: An experiment
”, The Modern Language Journal 64. 335- 40.
9) Zhang, J (2000) “Warm-up Exercises in Listening Classes”. The Internet TESL Journal

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Appendixes

Questionnaire

1. Do you like listening comprehension with the use of pictures? Why? Why not?
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
2. To what extent does the use of pictures help you improve your listening
comprehension? Explain.
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
3. Do you think that when listening with the use of pictures, you become more active
and confident? Give your example.
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
4. Does the use of pictures help you and your friends become more co-operative?
Why? Why not?
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
5. How do you feel about the use of pictures in helping you improve your listening
comprehension?
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
---The end---

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