An exploratory study on 10th form students’ listening anxiety at thuong cat high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGESAND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUTAE STUDIES
********************

NGUYỄN MINH NGUYỆT

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON 10TH FORM STUDENTS’
LISTENING ANXIETY AT THUONG CAT HIGH SCHOOL
(MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ SỰ LO LẮNG TRONG VIỆC HỌC
KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT THƯỢNG CÁT)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2017


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGESAND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUTAE STUDIES
********************

NGUYỄN MINH NGUYỆT

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON 10TH FORM STUDENTS’
LISTENING ANXIETY AT THUONG CAT HIGH SCHOOL
(MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ SỰ LO LẮNG TRONG VIỆC HỌC
KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT THƯỢNG CÁT)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã

HANOI – 2017


DECLARATION

I hereby certify the thesis entitled “An exploratory study on 10th form students’
listening anxiety at Thuong Cat high school” as my own study in the fulfillment of
the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages
and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyễn Minh Nguyệt

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and
support of a number of people who deserve my sincere gratitude.
Firstly, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Vu Thi
Thanh Nha. Without her careful guidance and her encouragement, I could not have

been able to finish this study.
Secondly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my respectful professors
of the Faculty of Post-Graduated Department at University of Languages and
International Studies for their devotion and their interesting lectures.
I also want to give my big thanks to students from three classes 10D1, 10D2,
10D6 who participate in this research.
Last but not least, special thanks go to my family who are always by my side
and support me during the time I carry out this study.

ii


ABSTRACT

Anxiety is a common feeling that learners have to face when learning a foreign
language, especially with a difficult skill like listening. This study aims at exploring
the listening anxiety of grade 10 students at Thuong Cat High school. There are 130
students from three classes participated in this survey. The researcher used both
quantitative and qualitative. The survey questionnaire was used to examine the
existence of listening anxiety and factors causing students’ anxiety. The informal
interview further looked at the sources of students listening anxiety and found out
some suggested solutions. The findings showed that the majority of participants
experienced high listening anxiety. Factors causing listening anxiety were divided
into three categories: factors related to listening process, factors related to listening
text and factors related to students’ learning habits. From the students’ suggestions
in the interview, some solutions were proposed for both teachers and students.On
the part of teachers, they should pay more attention to choose appropriate listening
materials, help students raise their language proficiency and teach them listening
strategies. Students also need to build their self-confidence and have more practice
to reduce listening anxiety and improve their listening comprehension.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ....................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ iv
LIST OF ABBRIVIATION .................................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS ...................................................................... vii
LIST OF APPENDICES ....................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1
1.1. Rationales of the study. ..................................................................................1
1. 2. Purpose of the study ......................................................................................2
1. 3. Research questions.........................................................................................2
1. 4. Significance of the study ................................................................................2
1. 5. Scope of the study ..........................................................................................3
1. 6. Structure of the study ....................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................4
2.1. Overview of listening comprehension ...........................................................4
2.1.1. Definition of listening comprehension ....................................................4
2.1.2. The listening comprehension process .....................................................5
2.2. Overview of anxiety ........................................................................................6
2.2.1. Definition and types of anxiety ................................................................6
2.2.2. Foreign language anxiety .........................................................................7
2.2. 3. Listening anxiety......................................................................................9
2.2.4. The previous studies of listening anxiety ..............................................10
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .........................................................................13
3.1. Overview of current teaching and learning listening at Thuong Cat High

School ....................................................................................................................13
3.2. Participants....................................................................................................15
3.3. Research method ...........................................................................................15

iv


3.4. Data collection instruments .........................................................................16
3.5. Procedure .......................................................................................................17
3.6. Data analysis method ....................................................................................17
CHAPTER 4: THE FINDINGS .............................................................................19
4.1. Students’ background information. ............................................................19
4. 2. Reliability of the FLLA ...............................................................................22
4. 3. Descriptive analysis .....................................................................................22
4. 4. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) ...........................................................23
4.5. Participants’ suggested solutions for reducing listening anxiety. ............34
CHAPTER5: CONCLUSION ................................................................................38
5.1. Summary of the main findings. ...................................................................38
5.2. Implication .....................................................................................................40
5.2.1. Recommendation for teachers. ..............................................................40
5.2.2. Recommendations for learners .............................................................46
5.3. Limitations and suggestions for further study ...........................................47
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................48
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I

v


LIST OF ABBRIVIATION

ELT: English Language Teaching
FLA: Foreign language anxiety
FLLA: Foreign language listening anxiety
FLLAS: Foreign language listening anxiety scale
SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

vi


LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Chart 1: Students’ time of starting learning English……………………………….17
Chart 2: Students’ judgment about listening skill in comparison with other
skills……..18
Chart 3: Student’s level of interest in listening skill………………………………18
Chart 4: Student’s practice outside class…………………………………………..19
Table 1: Listening anxiety related to Listening process……………………………22
Table 2: Listening anxiety related to Listening text……………………………….25
Table 3: Listening anxiety related to Student’s learning habits. ………………….29

vii


LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: ROTATED COMPONENT MATRIX……………………………48
APPENDIX 2: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF FLLAS……………………….50
APPENDIX 3: THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LISTENING ANXIETY SCALE 52
APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese version)……………54
APPENDIX 5: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (English version)………………...56
APPENDIX 6: INFORMAL INTERVIEW……………………………………….58

APPENDIX 7: TABLE CONTENTS OF TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 10……….59
APPENDIX 8: UNIT 1- TIENG ANH 10…………………………………………60

viii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter provides the overview of the research. The researcher presents the
reasons for choosing the topic, research questions, the purpose, scopes, significance
and the structure of the study.
1.1. Rationales of the study.
English has become the international language and it is used in many countries.
It is undeniable that the number of people who learns English as a second language
is increasing because of its importance. In Vietnam, English is getting more and
more popular and it is one of the compulsory subjects in most high schools. In
recent years, teaching English has changed remarkably from the traditional teaching
methods to Communicative Language Teaching. Accordingly, learners’ ability to
communicate is the first priority. When learning English, learners have to master
four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening is one of the most
important skills for a student to communicate effectively. However, it seems that
many Vietnamese learners have difficulty in listening to English. One of the most
major factors that influence on students’ listening comprehension is the anxiety.
MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) asserted that “anxiety poses several problems for the
students of a foreign language because it can interfere with the acquisition,
retention, and production of the new language” (p. 86). Every learner experiences
anxiety in different degrees. Feeling anxious in the classroom makes learners show
negative reactions, emotions and behaviors and they are not able to develop their
full ability in language learning. From the reality in Thuong Cat High School,
many students perform poorly and they feel stressful when they learn listening
lessons. Some of them are very nervous when they are faced with a difficult task.

Some others have the feeling of tension when they cannot understand the words
they hear. Students seem afraid of listening to foreign language and unwilling to
listen to the records. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to be aware of the factors
that cause students’ anxiety in listening lessons and have more appropriate teaching

1


methods to help students improve their listening ability. In fact, learners’ anxiety
has been great concern of the researchers and teachers because reducing anxiety is a
key to success in foreign or second language learning. A lot of research about
listening anxiety has been conducted; however most of them are conducted with
university students. There are few studies about anxiety of high school students.
That is motivation for researcher to do the study “An exploratory study on 10th
form students’ listening anxiety at Thuong Cat High School.”
1. 2. Purpose of the study
The purpose of the research is to find out factors causing students’ anxiety in
listening English at Thuong Cat High School. These factors originate from the
listening process, listening texts and students’ learning habits. Another aim of this
study is to suggest some solutions for teachers and students to help students reduce
listening anxiety and improve their listening competence.
1. 3. Research questions
The study aims at finding out the answers to the following questions:
- What factors cause students‟ listening anxiety at Thuong Cat High School?
- What are possible solutions to reduce students‟ listening anxiety?
1. 4. Significance of the study
Awareness of the anxiety that students encounter in listening skills benefits
both students and teachers. This study will provide teachers’ knowledge of the
foreign language anxiety, especially the causes of listening anxiety and give some
guidelines for teachers to help their students overcome their anxiety.

This research will also help students identify their anxiety in learning listening
and from this they can find some ways to manage their anxiety level not only in
listening skill but also in other skills when learning a foreign language. Hopefully,
the findings of this study will be of some help to the improvement of the teaching
and learning listening skills of teachers and students in high schools in general and
at Thuong Cat High School in particular.

2


1. 5. Scope of the study
In this study, the researcher only focuses on the causes of listening anxiety of
10thform students at Thuong Cat High School and gives some solutions for teachers
and students to help students reduce anxiety.
1. 6. Structure of the study
The study is divided into five chapters.
- Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter presents the rationale, the purpose, scope,
significance and the structure of the study.
- Chapter 2: Literature review. This chapter provides the literature review of foreign
language anxiety in general and listening anxiety in particular. It also gives the
theories of listening comprehension.
- Chapter 3: Methodology. This chapter discusses the participants, method of the
study, data collection instruments and data analysis.
- Chapter 4: The findings. This chapter presents the information about participants,
the findings from questionnaires and interview.
- Chapter 5: Conclusion. This chapter makes a brief summary of the major findings,
the implications, limitations and suggestions for further research.

3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the literature on anxiety, listening anxiety and listening
comprehension. The factors causing listening anxiety in previous studies are also
mentioned. This knowledge, therefore, serves as a basis for further work in the latter
chapters.
2.1. Overview of listening comprehension
2.1.1. Definition of listening comprehension
Listening has been defined in different ways by many researchers and from
different perspectives.
In the past years, listening has not received much attention compared with
other skills. Buck (2001, p. 32) notes that “listening is an important skill but due to
the practical complexities of providing spoken texts, it is neglected in many
language learning situations”. (p.32). Field (cited in Richard, 2012) points out that
“In the early days of English language teaching, listening was a way of presenting
new grammar through model dialogues” (p.13). According to Richard (2008),
listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature of
listening and the main function of listening in second language learning is to
facilitate understanding of spoken discourse. It means that the first appearance of
listening was just to interpret and facilitate the message in order to speak. However,
the view of teaching listening has already changed. Listening has changed its role
from a passive activity which deserved less class time to an active process through
which language acquisition takes place. Listeners actively involve themselves in the
interpretation of what they hear, bringing their own background knowledge and
linguistic knowledge to bear on the information contained in the aural text.
According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), successful listening is not only
understanding something that happens because of what a speaker says but the
listener also has a crucial part to play in the process, by activating various types of

4

knowledge, and by applying what he knows to what he hears and trying to
understand what the speaker means.
Buck (2001) in his definition says that “listening comprehension is an active
process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the
incoming sound” (p.31). This means that listening is the ability to recognize and
realize the meaning of what the speaker is saying, by grasping the meaning and
understanding the way of pronouncing the words and language that shows, accent,
pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
Richards and Schmidt (2002) describe listening comprehension as “the process
of understanding speech in a first or second language. The study of listening
comprehension processes in second language learning focuses on the role of
individual linguistic units (e.g. phonemes, words, grammatical structures) as well as
the role of the listener’s expectations, the situation and context, background
knowledge and the topic”(p.313). In other words, listening is a process of
understanding a text by activating various kinds of phonology, grammar,
background knowledge and experience.
In short, listening comprehension is not a passive but an active process in
which the listeners construct meaning from what they hear with intended meaning.
Listeners need to get involve actively in the interpretation of what they hear, bring
their own background knowledge and linguistic competence to reach full
comprehension of what they hear.
2.1.2. The listening comprehension process
The processing of listening is viewed as interactive process including two
levels: bottom-up processing and top-down processing.
The bottom-up processing involves constructing meaning from the smallest unit
of the spoken language to the largest one in a linear mode (Nunan, 1998). It is

5

absolutely “text based” process where learners rely on the sounds, words and
grammar in the message in order to create meaning (Richard, 2008).
Top- down processing, on the other hand, refers to the use of background
knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message. This background knowledge
activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and
anticipate what will come next (Richards, 2008). In other words, listener employs
prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening occurs to
make sense of the information understand he/she hears.
2.2. Overview of anxiety
2.2.1. Definition and types of anxiety
Anxiety has been considered one of the most important effective factors that
influence second language acquisition. It is defined differently by different
researchers. Hansen (1977) called anxiety as an experience of general uneasiness, a
sense of foreboding, a feeling of tension. Scovel (1978) defined that anxiety was
associated with the feelings of uneasiness, frustration, sefl-doubt, apprehension or
worry. Spieberger (1983) gave another definition of anxiety as “the subjective
feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness and worry associated with an arousal
of the automatic nervous systems” (p.482).
Anxiety is usually classified into three types: trait anxiety, state anxiety and
situation-specific anxiety.
-

Trait anxiety is defined as an individual’s likelihood of becoming anxious in
any situation (Spielberger, 1983). It is usally viewed as an aspect of
personality and “a more permanent predisposition to be anxious” (Scovel,
1978, p.137)

-

State anxiety occurs within specific, temporary situations and fades when the
threat (or situation) disappears (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991). It is the type of
anxiety that that a person experiences at a particular moment in time as a
response to a definite situation.

6


-

The situation-specific anxiety is the specific forms of anxiety that occur
consistently over time within a given situation (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991).
It is related to a particular type of situation or event such as public speaking,
examinations or class participation.
In short, anxiety is a psychological concept which is associated with negative

feelings such as uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension and tension.
Anxiety can be experienced at three perspectives: trait anxiety, state anxiety and
situation-specific anxiety.
2.2.2. Foreign language anxiety
Foreign language anxiety is a situation specific anxiety that is related to
foreign language learning. Many researchers have considered anxiety as one of the
most important factors that influence second language learning.
Foreign language anxiety is defined as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions,
beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from
the uniqueness of the language learning process” ( Horwitz and Cope ,1986, p.128)
According to Gardner and MacIntyre (1993), language anxiety is “the
apprehension experienced when a situation requires the use of a second language
with which the individual is not fully proficient. It is, therefore, seen as a stable

personality trait referring to the propensity for an individual to react in a nervous
manner when speaking, listening, reading, or writing in the second language”.
(Gardner & Maclntyre, 1993.p.5). Another definition proposed by MacIntyre (1999)
confirmed that language anxiety “as the worry and negative emotional reaction
aroused when learning or using a second language” (p. 27).
Oh (1990) defined that foreign language anxiety is a situation –specific anxiety
which students experience in the classroom which is characterized by self-centered
thought, feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure, and emotional reactions in the
language classroom.

7


Furthermore, Spielberger and his colleagues (2005) state that foreign language
anxiety is the panic that a learner feels when he has to routine a second or a foreign
language in which he is not totally skillful.
Horwitz et al. (1986) found that foreign language anxiety included three
components: communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative
evaluation.
-

Firstly, Communication apprehension is a type of shyness characterized by
fear of anxiety about communicating with people. It means that
communicatively apprehensive people tend to avoid communicating and
interacting with other people or they are reluctant to get involved in
conversations.

-

Secondly, Test anxiety refers to performance anxiety which stems from a

fear of failure in an academic setting. It is the fear of exams, quizzes, and
other assignments used to evaluate students’ performance. Many students
experience a high level of anxiety when taking tests. The unfamiliar test
items, the format of the test, different materials and questions types with
which leaners are not familiar are generally believed to create anxiety.
When test anxiety occurs, even students with a great deal of knowledge in a
foreign language may perform at a considerably lower level than their true
ability.

-

Finally, the last component of foreign language anxiety is fear of negative
evaluation. Fear of negative evaluation is defined as “apprehension about
other’s evaluations, distress over their negative evaluations, and the
expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively” (Horwitz, 1986,
p.128). Fear of negative negation is broader in scope than the test anxiety
because it may occur in any social, evaluative situation such as
interviewing for a job or speaking in foreign language classes. People who
fear negative evaluation rarely initiate conversation and interact with other

8


people. Students who experience this anxiety tend to sit passively in the
classes and do not participate in learning activities actively.
In short, anxiety is a kind of troubled feeling in mind that may cause negative
effects for language learners. It is a feeling of tension, apprehension and
nervousness associated with the situation of learning a foreign language. Anxiety
has an important role in determining the success or failure of the learners. Horwitz
(2001) found a significant association between anxiety and poor performance in

language learning. Learners who have language anxiety may underrate their own
abilities, avoid taking part in learning activities and have worse performance than
non-anxious studentsand this may lead to poor performance. Knowing about
language anxiety helps educators understand how students learn language and help
students manage the stress that accompanies language anxiety.
2.2. 3. Listening anxiety
A particular aspect of language anxiety is listening anxiety which refers to the
feeling of anxiety of language learners when they are required to listen to English.
Bekleyen (2009) defined that “foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA) is
the type of anxiety experienced by language learners in situations that require
listening” (p.665).In another definition, Scarcella and Oxford (1992) pointed out
that listening anxiety occurs when students feel they are faced with a task that is too
difficult or unfamiliar to them. It means that anxiety appears when students have to
listen to the tasks which do not match their levels of proficiency. Moreover, foreign
language listening anxiety can be defined as “the fear of misinterpreting,
inadequately processing or not being able to adjust psychologically to message sent
by others” (Wheel, 1975, p.263). In other words, students become anxious while
listening English because they are afraid that they cannot understand the message
and interpret it correctly.
Listening anxiety is caused by many factors. According to MacIntyre (1995),
the cause of anxiety is that learners often worry about misunderstanding what they

9


listen to and the fear of being embarrassed by interpreting the message wrongly.
Young (1992) explained that listening anxiety is caused by many factors, such as
insufficient emphasis on listening, immature teaching methodologies, ineffective
listening strategies, and students’ lack of vocabulary. Vogely (1998) also found that
characteristics of input such as the speed or unfamiliarity with the listening input

and instructional and personal factors easily produced listening anxiety. Moreover,
Kim (2000) in her study indicated that characteristics of the text, personal
characteristics and process-related characteristics were main factors causing
anxiety. Hang (2006) divided listening anxiety sources into characteristics of
listening comprehension, listening materials and listening tasks, social and
instructional factors, foreign language proficiency and listening level. In addition,
Chang and Read (2008) concluded that low confidence in comprehending spoken
English, taking English listening courses as a requirement, and worrying about test
difficulty were the three major factors which contributed to listening anxiety.
Beside, factors such as authenticity of the listening text, incomprehensibility of the
listening material and other external environmental factors such as noise and
inaudibility can create anxiety among language learners.
2.2.4. The previous studies of listening anxiety
Anxiety in listening comprehension is a problem that has received a lot of
concerns from many researchers. There have been a number of studies about
listening anxiety. Vogely (1998) carried out a descriptive study with 140 university
students of Spanish to investigate the foreign language listening comprehension
anxiety in students and offer solutions that might alleviate students’ listening
anxiety. She found four main sources of listening comprehension (LC) anxiety: (a)
LC anxiety associated with characteristics of foreign language input; (b) LC anxiety
associated with processing-related aspects of foreign language: (c) LC anxiety
associated with instructional factors; and (d) LC anxiety associated with attributes
of the teacher or learner. As to level of input, the speed of delivery was the most
frequently reported cause of LC anxiety, followed by bad diction, variety of accents,

10


and teachers who spoke too quietly. As to level of difficulty, exercises that were too
complex, unknown vocabulary, difficult syntax and unfamiliar topics were other

sources of LC anxiety. Students were anxious if they did not know what was
required of them in the listening activity or why. Some students claimed that they
needed the help of some visual aid to help with listening task. Students reported
feeling anxious if they could only listen to texts twice before having to respond.
Kim (2000) conducted a study to explore the relationship between listening
comprehension and anxiety in 238 Korean university students of English. She
designed an instrument for measuring foreign language listening anxiety, the
Foreign Language Listening Axiety Scale (FLLAS), consisting of 33 items, each
with five Likert-type responses (from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”).
She found that a majority of Korean learners experienced foreign language listening
anxiety and listening anxiety contained two factors: Tension and Worry over
English Listening and Lack of Self-Confidence in Listening. Responses to openended questions and in interviews in the same study revealed that learners were
nervous about the following: (a) the listening text (speed, pronunciation, intonation,
length of a listening text, level of vocabulary), (b) the interlocutors (gender or
number of speakers, previous knowledge, learning style of the listener), and (c) the
process of listening (the effectiveness or choice of listening strategies).
Elkhafaifi (2005) in an investigation about listening anxiety involving 233
North American university learners of Arabic used a 20-item listening anxiety scale
which based on Saito et al.’s Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale to ascertain
whether listening anxiety was distinct from general anxiety, whether learning
anxiety and listening anxiety were related to general language performance, and to
listening achievement in the foreign language. He found that foreign language
listening anxiety and general foreign language anxiety were separated but related
phenomenon, and that both anxiety measures were significantly correlated with
achievement, with the listening anxiety scale more strongly related to listening
grade than the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale.

11

In the study by Chang (2008), she found from the self-created Listening
Anxiety Questionnaire that the college business major students had high levels of
listening test anxiety compared to their general listening anxiety, which implied that
the learners were more anxious when their language proficiency was being
evaluated. Three sources of listening anxiety were reported: low confidence in
comprehending spoken English, taking a listening course and feeling worried about
the difficult of the test.
From what has been discussed in this chapter, it is concluded that anxiety is the
feeling of uneasiness, apprehension, tension and frustration. Anxiety is divided into
three types: trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. Trait anxiety is
relatively stable personality characteristic while state anxiety is a social type of
anxiety that occurs under certain conditions. Situation-specific anxiety is caused by
specific situation or event such as public speaking, examinations, or class
participation. Foreign language anxiety is a situation specific anxiety that is related
to foreign language learning. It means the learner feels anxious whenever he learns
a foreign language. Three components of language anxiety are identified:
communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation.
Communication

apprehension

is

characterized

by

fear

and

anxiety

in

communicating with people. Test anxiety is a type of performance anxiety which is
caused by fear of failing a test. Fear of negative evaluation is the apprehension
about other people’s evaluations. Foreign language anxiety has different aspects like
reading, writing, speaking, and listening anxiety. This study only focuses on
listening anxiety. Listening anxiety refers to the feeling of nervousness when
learners are required to listen to English. Some previous studies mentioned factors
that caused listening anxiety such as poor listening ability, students’ lack of
language competence, lack of vocabulary or ineffective listening strategies. Besides,
characteristics of listening texts, listening tasks and personal characteristics also
increase students’ listening anxiety.

12


CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents information about the overview of current teaching and
learning listening at Thuong Cat High school, the participant, research method, data
collection instrument, the procedure and the data analysis.
3.1. Overview of current teaching and learning listening at Thuong Cat High
School
The study was conducted at Thuong Cat High School, Bac Tu Liem District,
Ha Noi. The participants for the study consist of 130 students from three classes
10D1, 10D2 and 10D6. Most of the students have been learning English since they
were at grade 3. However, with the personal teaching experiences, the researcher

realized that at the secondary school, students often learned in a passive way. They
learnt English structure rules, did grammar exercises and translated reading text.
Speaking and Listening skills was not paid much attention. Moreover, in the last
year at secondary school, students mainly focused on preparing for Entrance Exam
to High school, they did not spend much time on studying English. Therefore, when
they entered High school, they had some difficulties with English at first and many
students even did not have basic knowledge about English. They have limited
vocabulary and poor background knowledge. Another problem is that students do
not have the habit of learning by themselves, they only learn in class do not spend
time studying at home. Moreover, like most other students in suburban schools they
rarely have opportunities to communicate with English speaking people in both
classroom and outside classroom. Consequently, their speaking and listening skills
are not really good.
At the moment, the 10th form students are using the new textbooks “Tieng
Anh 10” published in 2006 by Hoang Van Van, Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan
Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong and Nguyen Quoc Tuan. “Tieng Anh 10” is developed
based on the new national curriculum. The book is claimed to adopt a theme-based
syllabus. Lessons are arranged according to topics which are true to life, and

13


familiar with upper-secondary students. The book consists of sixteen units; each
unit presents a theme which is updated and relevant to many aspects of the daily
life: school talks, people’s background, technology, mass media, community,
national parks, music, films and cinema, the world cup …. This is an important
advantage of the textbook as it is relevant to the students’ needs, interests and
experience of life; therefore, it motivates students. The methodology used in the
book is the learner-centered approach and the communicative approach with taskbased teaching being the central teaching method .Each unit is structured in 5
sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus with the

purpose of developing students’ communicative language skills. After every three
units, there is a Test Yourself, which provides some exercises for the students to do
in order to test how good they are at English. Each section is supposed to be taught
in one period of 45 minutes. In this textbook, listening lessons make up 20% of the
syllabus. Listening section is divided into three stages: Before you listen, While you
listen and After you listen. Before you listen aims to motivate students, activate
their background knowledge and provide vocabulary. While you listen activities
develop micro-skills such as listening for general understanding, listening for
specific or detailed information. In this part, students do listening tasks including
matching exercise, T-F statements, multiple choice questions and open-ended
questions. After you listen often includes activities such as text summary,
reproduction in oral or written forms and further discussion of the topic.
According to the syllabus, students have four English classes a week, so the
time for listening skill is one period (45 minutes) about every two weeks. As a
result, students do not have much time for further practice with other listening
materials. In addition, students do not have good condition to learn listening
because there are no language labs in the school. These factors can affect learning
listening comprehension and cause anxiety for students at Thuong Cat High School.

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3.2. Participants
The participants in this study are 130 students chosen from three classes
10D1, 10D2, and 10D6. They were chosen by cluster sampling form ten classes at
Thuong Cat High school. This means that instead of randomly selecting the
individuals, the investigator randomly selected the groups or classes for
investigation. Although students studied English at secondary school, many of them
had low level of English in general and listening skills in particular. Through
observation and with the experience of teaching 10th form students, I saw that many

studentsperformed poorly and some of them seemed uninterested in listening
lessons and felt tired or anxious when they had to listen to the recordings. When I
talked with 10th form students, many of them shared that they had never learned
Listening skill before so their listening anxiety level seemed higher than grade 11
and grade 12 students.
3.3. Research method
In this study, the researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods to
collect data for the research work.
According to Paton(2002), the advantage of a quantitative approach is that it’s
possible to measure the reactions of a great many people to a limited set of
questions, thus facilitating comparison and statistical aggregation of data. This gives
a broad, generalizable set of findings presented succinctly and parsimoniously.
However, as O’Malley and Chamot (1995) state, quantitative methods like
questionnaires “fail to provide the depth of information yielded in interviews”
(p.94). On the other hand, qualitative methods produce a wealth of detailed
information about a much smaller number of people and cases. This increase the
depth of understanding of the cases and situations studied but reduces
generalizability (Paton, 2002).
Therefore, in this research study, both quantitative and qualitative methods
were used to help researcher get some insights into the issue of students’ listening

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