Some suggested strategies to encourage high school students to learn listening skill

TABLE OF CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………..........................1
1.1. Rationale.....................................................................................................1
1.2. Aims of the study........................................................................................1
1.3. Subjects of the study...................................................................................2
1.4. Research methodology................................................................................2
2. CONTENT
2.1. Theoretical background..............................................................................3
2.1.1. The process of listening...........................................................................3
2.1.2. The priciples for teaching listening.........................................................4
2.2. Practical background..................................................................................6
2.3. Solutions to the problems..........................................................................7
2.3.1.Suggested strategies..................................................................................7
2.3.1.1.What Should Teachers Do ?..................................................................8
2.3.1.2. Helping Students Focus on Meanings,Not Just Words.........................9
2.3.1.3. Selecting Materials ............................................................................10
2.3.1.4. Using Texts and Tapes or CDs ..........................................................11
2.3.1.5. Arranging Engaging Activities...........................................................11
2.3.2. Applying the study in teaching..............................................................12
2.4. Effectiveness of the teaching experience..................................................17
3. CONCLUSION………………………………………….............................18
REFERENCES………………………………………………………..............19


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1. INTRODUCTION:
1.1. Rationale:
The application of the new English textbooks at high school level in the
year 2006 has made Vietnamese teachers and students more familiar with
listening skill. However, there come two trends when teachers respond to the

task of teaching listening to their students. Some may think, "Wow, this is an
easy class to teach!" or some may feel, "Boy, this is going to be boring!" Both of
these responses are common ones, but actually they do not reveal how difficult it
is for students to listen and comprehend a foreign language, nor how challenging
it can be for a teacher to help them.
If you have taught listening, you may have noticed that your class is
divided between those that seem to manage to "get" a fair amount, and those that
struggle to understand recorded materials. I have observed that a class often
contains three types of students: those who have grasped the process of
listening, those who understand certain aspects of the process, and those who
really have no idea about how to listen in a foreign language. Those in the first
group will continue to progress in their listening ability as they build their
knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Once they know how to listen, they can
continually apply those principles. Those in the second group may slowly
improve their listening. However, those in the third group may flounder with
little progress, no matter how many listening exercises they do.
What is the problem? What makes one student a successful listener while
another does not seem to progress at all? Certainly, knowledge of grammar and
vocabulary are essential to good listening, but they are not enough; some
students who have memorized many words, and can do well in grammar
exercises, still have a difficult time understanding spoken English. A student
must have a good technique for listening. While all of us have learned to listen
in our native language with little training or conscious effort, only a small
number of students intuitively know how to listen in a second language. Many
students not only come to listening activities with little knowledge of how the
listening process works, but also with serious misconceptions about what will
make them successful in listening.
Our role as teachers includes planning and managing the activities of the
classroom, but we also have another role, which is to coach students as they
learn. The coach' s job is to watch what the player/student is doing, see where he

is going wrong, and help him find more effective ways of completing the task.
Many students like to be told explicitly how to study, which means pointing out
not only the ineffective techniques they are using, but also the incorrect ideas on
which those techniques are based. In this study, I would like to focus especially
on what is needed to help those listeners who are not progressing in their
listening skills.
1.2. Aims of the study:
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The study aims to:
+ Analyze the major cause to the students’ reluctance to get more involved in
learning and practicing listening
+ Suggest some strategies so as to change students’ attitude toward listening
skill and some ways to select appropriate materials to attract students’ attention
in listening lessons.
1.3. Subjects of the study:
+ The students in 10th grade at Ha Van Mao high school
1.4. Research methodology:
+ Reading reference books
+ Discussing with other teachers
+ Applying in teaching
+ Observing and drawing out experiences.

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2. CONTENT:
2.1. Theoretical background:
2.1.1. The Process of listening.
A variety of new insights into the listening process have been developed in
the past 15 years, and yet there are two points on which most researchers and
teachers continue to agree: First, listening is an active rather than a passive
process, and second, listening is both a top-down and a bottom-up process.
We can see that listening is active because there is often a great difference
between what is said and what the listener hears. It is obvious that the listener is
constructing his or her own meaning, which sometimes corresponds to the
speaker' s meaning, and sometimes does not. This happens both in our native
language and in a second language. This is sometimes described as an
"interactive" process, where both the input and the activity of the listener' s
mind interact to form an understanding.
Researchers also tend to agree that the listening process contains both
bottom-up and top-down elements. Bottom-up processing refers to the
listening processes that start with discriminating sounds, identifying words, and
comprehending grammatical structures, and build eventually to the
comprehension of meaning. This is a somewhat mechanistic or "data-driven"
(Brown. 1994: p67) view of processing, and has been the focus in some
styles of teaching. Top-down processes may be described as holistic or
"conceptually driven" (Brown. 1994: p68) in that they focus on the overall
meaning of a passage, and the application of schemata. Schemata are mental
frameworks based on past experiences which can be applied to and help us
interpret the current situation. Inferring ideas, guessing words' meanings, and

identifying topics are all examples of top-down processing. Figure 1
lists various examples of bottom-up and top-down exercises.
Figure 1. Examples of bottom-up and top-down exercises (adapted from
Brown. 1994).
Exercises for bottom-up processing
Exercises for top-down processing
- discriminating sounds
- listening for emotions
- listening for word ending
- getting the gist
- discriminating intonation patterns
- recognizing the topic
- word recognition
- finding main ideas
- recognizing reduced forms ( for - making inferences
example, "didya"?) and linked words
- making and checking predictions
- using stress to understand words and - using background knowledge to fill in
find key ideas
gaps
- using organizational cue words
- identifying discourse structures and
speaker's purpose
It is useful for students to recognize the importance of both of these
types of processing, and for teachers to arrange opportunities to work on both
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aspects. Generally, bottom-up exercises will be more useful for beginners,
and top-down exercises will be more necessary for intermediate and advanced
students, but both types should be used for all levels. Recently, teachers have put
much stress on activating students' schemata, that is, helping them anticipate a
situation and what they may hear based on their previous knowledge. In
some circumstances this could also involve the teacher introducing cultural
background, and thus beginning to help students build a new schema.
The ability to anticipate and guess may be less developed in
students from a traditional learning system; thus, teachers may need to show
students how to make use of schemata properly to increase their
comprehension. Similarly, teachers may need to help students see how to take
information from within a passage and make inferences from it. While
students may need much help in these areas, teachers need to make sure
not to ignore bottom-up exercises that are also critical for improving listening.
2.1.2. The principles for teaching listening.
a. Expose students to different types of processing information: bottom up vs.
top down.
The bottom up vs. top down processing of information has been proposed
by Rumelhart and Ortony (1977) and expanded upon by Chaudron and Richards
(1986), Richards (1990) and others. The distinction is based on the way learners
attempt to understand what they read or hear. With bottom up processing,
students start with the component parts: words, grammar and the like. Top down
processing is the opposite. Learners start from their background knowledge,
either content schema (general information based on previous learning and life
experience) or texual schema (awareness of the kinds of information used in a
given situation).There is also interactive processing. The use of the combination
of top down and bottom up data processing is called interactive processing.
b. Expose students to different types of listening:

Any discussion of listening tasks has to include a consideration of types of
listening. Here tasks as well as text should be considered. When discussing
listening text refers to whatever the students are listening to, often a recording.
The most common type of listening exercise in many textbooks is listening for
specific information. This usually involves catching concrete information
including names, time and so on.
At other times students try to understand in a more general way. This is
global or gist listening. In the classroom this often involves tasks such as
identifying main ideas, noting a sequence of events and so on. But these two
types of listening do not exist in isolation. Inference is another critical type of
listening. This is “listening between the lines”- that is, listening for meaning that
is implied not stated directly. It is a higher level skill.
c. Teach a variety of tasks.
Learners of listening need to work with a variety of tasks. Since learners
do the task as they listen, it is important that the task itself does not demand too
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much production of the learner. If for example a beginning level learner hears a
story and is asked to write a summary in English, it could well be that that the
learner understood the story but is not yet at the level to be able to write the
summary. It may also be the case that they fail to respond even though they do
understand. It may so happen that they understood at the time but forgot by the
time they got to the exercise. In this example of a summary task based on a
story, it may be better to have a task such as choosing the correct summary from
two or three choices.

d. Consider text, difficulty, and authenticity.
Spoken languages are very different from written language. It is more
redundant, full of false starts, rephrasing and elaborations. Incomplete sentences,
pauses, and overlaps are common. Learners need exposure to and practice with
natural sounding language.
When learners talk about text difficulty, the first thing many mention is
speed, indeed which can be a problem. But the solution is not to give them
unnaturally slow, clear recordings. Those can actually distort the way the
language sounds. Speed, however, is not the only variable. Brown (1995) talks
about “cognitive load” and describes six factors that increase or decrease the
ease of understanding.
- The number of individuals or objects in a text.
- How clearly the individuals or objects are distinct from one another.
- Simple relationships are easier to understand than complex ones.
- The order of events.
- The number of inferences needed.
- The information is consistent with what the listener already knows.
Any discussion of listening text probably needs to deal with the issue of
authentic texts. Virtually no one should disagree that texts students work with
should be realistic. However, some suggest that everything students work with
should be authentic. However the issue of authenticity is not so simple as it
sounds. Most of the recordings that accompany textbooks are made in recording
studios. And recordings not made in the studio are often not of a usable quality.
Brown and Menasche (1993) suggest looking at two aspects of authenticity.
They suggest this breakdown:
- Task authenticity
- Input authenticity
e. Teach listening strategies.
In considering listening, it is useful to note the items Rost (2002, p. 155)
identifies as strategies that are used by successful listeners.

*Predicting: Effective listeners think about what they will hear.
* Inferring: It is useful for the listeners to listen between the lines.
* Monitoring: Good listeners notice what they do and do not understand.
* Clarifying:Efficient learners ask questions and give feedback to the speaker.
* Responding: Learners react to what they hear.
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* Evaluating: They check on how well they have understood.
2.2. Practical background:
After conducting observation, unstructured interview with several of
my own students, I found that problems are clearer than ever before. The
following part mentions what problems I have found listening skill at Ha Van
Mao High school.
Why Do Students Have Trouble in Listening?
In some cases, students may lack specific bottom-up and top-down
listening skills. In other cases, they do not have a vocabulary large enough
nor a sufficient grasp of the structures of English for the materials they are
listening to. There are two other things that may specifically interfere with
students' listening: their misconceptions about how to listen and their fears of
failure.
Since we all learned to listen in our mother language without much effort,
we may not be aware of how we learned to listen. Therefore, it is easy to
make incorrect assumptions about what will lead to successful listening. One
misconception students may have is that when they listen in their native
language, they pay attention to and remember every word; they thus assume

that this is what they should do in a foreign language. Actually, native
speakers can listen to and comprehend 30 phonemes per second
(Chastain), but we obviously do not pay conscious attention to each of them—
they seem to be instantly processed and are not stored in memory.
Much research shows that for listeners, most storage in memory is the
storage of meanings rather than the exact forms that the speaker used. Whether
in our native language or a foreign language, only on rare occasions do we pay
attention to the exact words that were used. We regularly have evidence of this
when we discuss with a friend what a third person said. Going back and
reconstructing the exact wording is often a challenge because in most cases
(except those we regard as critical) we almost immediately dispose of the
exact words, and only retain the meanings.
In a foreign language, listeners need to learn to process sounds quickly,
and while they must initially pay conscious attention to this processing, the
process needs to become automatic in order to improve their listening ability.
Naturally, when listening to a complex passage, an unusual accent, or an entirely
new idea, anyone has to pay more attention to individual sounds and words,
but students should be taught that they do not need to concentrate so much
attention on consciously processing each sound or word in ordinary situations.
Another common misconception students may hold is that they
understand everything they hear in their mother language. They forget that there
are times when they mishear or misunderstand another' s words. There are other
times when native listeners do not understand, and simply choose to let
something pass because they do not perceive it to be important. In addition,
students may not consider that they often make inferences, because the
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speaker' s message was somewhat ambiguous or because the speaker only gave
the minimal information needed if they believe a listener has the necessary
background knowledge. Because everyone does this so easily in their
mother tongue, they are not always aware of it, and it is not always easy
to apply these same strategies to foreign language listening. Thus it may
be useful for teachers to make students aware of these misconceptions by
helping them realize that listening in their native language requires less attention
to specific words and more guessing than they may have thought.
Fear also interferes with students' ability to listen. One of the most
common fears students have is that not understanding a word will keep
them from understanding the meaning of a sentence. Actually, this may
often be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because when students cannot understand
a word, they stop listening and, while puzzling over that one word, may miss
several phrases. If instead they listened to the rest of the sentence,
rather than worry over that one word, they might well guess the word from the
context, or at least not miss so much of the material that follows. Because this
behavior belongs to the affective or emotional region of learning, it is not
easy for teachers to change this fear response. However, making students
aware of the fact that they can understand a sentence without hearing or
understanding one of the words should increase their confidence.
Listening causes anxiety for students for another reason: Unlike in
reading, listeners cannot control the rate at which information comes to
them. In the case of conversation, they may be able to ask the speaker to
repeat information or slow down, but in many other listening situations (such as
listening to a lecture or radio program), they will hear the information only
once and cannot adjust the rate. Students are aware of these problems, and
are often quite anxious about them. To address this problem, teachers can help
students see how much redundancy exists in speaking, and how much they can

infer from the immediate context and more generally from the schemata. In
addition, as students see that their goal is to get main ideas and important
details, they realize that there is not such a great need to understand and
remember every word.
Exercises in the listening classroom may also increase students'
performance anxiety. They may feel a pressure, whether internal or external,
to get the right answer immediately. In addition, lack of success can cause
them to anticipate that they will not understand and lead to a spiral of
expecting failure and then actually failing. It is vital for teachers to give
appropriate tasks and training so students can frequently experience success
in their listening. It is especially important for teachers to have realistic
expectations for what their students will be able to hear and remember, so that
they will not feel they are always struggling with listening activities.
2.3. Solutions to the problems:
2.3.1. Suggested strategies:
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2.3.1.1. What Should Teachers Do?
One of the first things a teacher may want to do is discover what
students understand about the listening process and help to correct
misunderstandings (Figure 2 lists various strategies to discuss). This could be
done by giving a survey, collecting written paragraphs, questioning a small
group, or having a class discussion which would help in finding out what
students expect or believe about successful listening. If they have
misconceptions about the importance of listening to every word, or have

not considered the importance of applying background information, then a
teacher can plan lessons to emphasize these points. Having students
analyze miscommunications in their native language might also be useful
in helping them consider how they listen in their own language. Similarly,
if students have not grasped the importance of bottom-up skills, then a teacher
would certainly want to pay attention to these skills.
Figure 2. Listening strategies to share and discuss with students.
- When listening to a taped text only once, practice making a quick estimation of
the topic from hearing just the first one or two sentences.
- Listen for repeated words, related words, and concepts to find key ideas.
- Be prepared to change gusses-to evaluate if you anticipation or guesses are
actually correct in light of information you hear later in the passage.
- Try to guess how various details may fit together into one main idea.
- Think carefully about what you already know on the subject, and balance this
with being prepared to hear new ideas about the topic ( Richard-Amato)
- Focus attention as completely as possible on what being said.
- Relax and let the ideas flow into your mind.
- Do not be upset if you do not understand everything.
- Relate what you hear to what you already know.
- Listen for key words and ideas.
- look for overall meaning.
- Do not be afraid to ask relevant questions about meaning when it is
appropriate.
- Make guesses about what is being said.
- In conversation, check out your guesses by using confirmation checks, for
example, " Is this what you are saying?"
- Whenever possible, pay attention to the forms fluent speakers of target
language are using and check if they match your own.
- Keep a notebook to write down what you have learned: new words, meanings,
concepts, structures, idioms, etc.

Before the class listens to a text, a teacher will usually want to help
students think about a schema for what they will be listening to. This includes
telling them if they will hear a story, dialogue, excerpt from the radio, or
lecture. Knowing this information can help them be more mentally prepared
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for what they will hear. Introducing new, difficult, or important vocabulary can
also help them begin to anticipate what they will hear. In
addition, a teacher may first want to ask students to predict from the title or a
picture what they will hear. Asking this question and giving students a few
minutes to think it over, and perhaps briefly letting them tell their ideas to a
partner, will help them set up schemata so that they can fit what they hear into
some sort of framework. Students need to be warned that sometimes they will
anticipate incorrectly and that it is important for them to check their
guesses and at times correct them.
One of the maxims in listening classes today is that it is the teacher' s job
not only to prepare students for what they will hear, but also to set up a purpose
for them. In real life, we "tune out" when we lose a sense of purpose for
listening, which explains students falling asleep in class and friends'
complaints of "Are you listening?" Thus each time students listen to a
passage, teachers should give them a purpose. The purpose could be broad,
such as, "Listen for the general idea." However, the more specific the better
- for example, "What does the speaker want to persuade us to do?". With an
easy text, or one that students have heard several times, the purpose could be to
listen in order to retell the story. In other cases, it could be to listen for specific

information.
2.3.1.2. Helping Students Focus on Meanings, Not Just Words
There are several ways to help students worry less about paying attention
to each word. Exercises that require them to make a response concerning
meaning rather than to recall specific words or phrases will help with this. An
example would be giving several pictures and asking students which one is
described in the listening material. Another type of exercise is asking students to
find the topic of a passage. Similarly, two or three general comprehension
questions that focus on summary ideas rather than details may help them to
focus on meanings rather than individual words.
As mentioned above, teachers can help students see that important ideas
often come up in a text in different ways. Some texts may be suitable for
introducing students to the fact that informal language often includes
redundant features. Stories and authentic dialogues are especially useful for
this type of activity. If students listen to a text and look at a transcript, they can
see instances where ideas are repeated or elaborated and words that are used
merely as fillers. This can help them see that not all words or even all ideas
are essential to understand a message. In addition, teachers can present texts
from which they have removed words, sentences, or clauses, and show students
that they can understand the ideas even though there are gaps.
Though listeners do not need to catch every word to comprehend meaning,
they do need to guess information given in some of the gaps. Many students
need help in learning how to use context to guess words or phrases they have
not heard clearly. A teacher can sometimes help by identifying a word or idea
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that students have missed, and asking them to find related ideas which they
may have heard and understood. When doing exercises related to guessing
words from context, it is useful to ask students to identify the clues that helped
them guess (when possible). Guessing the right answer is only part of the
solution; being able to identify useful clues shows they have acquired a valuable
long-term skill.
Students may be more willing to make guesses as they listen and
anticipate in advance, if they do not need to put their ideas before the entire
class, or if they do not feel they will be judged by the teacher on their success
or failure. Thus it may be wise to ask them to write down ideas they anticipate
before they listen or answers that they may not be sure of when they are
checking answers. An alternative is to have them verbalize these ideas with
a partner, which can help them gain ideas from one another and think
more broadly. They can also have a sense of competition—to see whose idea is
correct if their guesses are different and gain confidence if their guesses are
similar. Working in pairs or jotting down guesses gives students a "safe place"
to test their ideas with less pressure.
2.3.1.3. Selecting Materials
One important issue is choosing which materials students will listen to.
Often a listening class is associated with a CD player. There are several
advantages to listening to tapes: They can be listened to repeatedly, they
offer chances to hear different voices and accents, and there may be exercises
published with them. There are also several disadvantages: They may require
the teacher to set a context, students may come to depend on hearing passages
multiple times, and there is typically little to no visual support.
Two alternatives to cassettes are to have students listen to each other
and to the teacher. One of the greatest advantages in both of these is the
opportunity for students to ask questions for clarification. Listening to other
students is also useful because a student' s classmates tend to use familiar

vocabulary or at least to work from the same level of vocabulary. The
greatest problem may be pronunciation, and grammar is also likely to be less
than model. Nonetheless, communicating in small groups is a kind of listening
practice that should be comprehensible and helpful.
A teacher can also tailor what she says to suit the students' level
and particular needs, especially by controlling vocabulary and grammar.
This gives her an excellent chance to review words, phrases, or new
structures. When she gives a mini-lecture or tells a story, this is a kind of
authentic communication, putting students into a more immediate and life-like
listening situation. She should also come up with responses that students are
expected to make to this kind of listening, whether discussing in a small
group, writing a summary or outline, or asking questions.
Since many listening exams do consist of listening to a tape, students
need to be confident in their ability to comprehend the disembodied,
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context-less speaking which tapes usually present. However, in class, students
may also appreciate less tense and more realistic types of listening. Teachers
should make the most of different activities to help students develop their
skills (see Figure 3 for a sample lesson outline).
Figure 3. Sample listening lesson outline.
(1) Begin with a warm-up, perhaps an interesting story of what the teacher did
on the weekend, or students speaking and listening in pairs about their weekend
activities.
(2) Listen to a taped text with associated sttivities.

(3) Do discrimination drills on particular English sounds, words, or intonation.
(4) Introduce a listening strategy for sudents to work on ( see Figure 2).
(5) Do a second taped activity, give a mini-lecture, or tell a story, and afterwards
have students discuss in groups how the listening strategy worked.
(6) Ask students for voluntary, brief reports on any extracurricular listening they
have done.
2.3.1.4. Using Texts and Tapes or CDs
Using a textbook and a tape or a CD for some of the lesson activities can be
quite useful. Textbooks often give questions that can be used to give
students a purpose and focus their concentration on particular aspects of
meaning. However, it is useful for the teacher to examine the questions and
choose some for the first time students listen, others for a second listening,
and perhaps others for a third time. Otherwise, students may be overwhelmed
with listening for too many things at once, or they may get stuck on difficult
questions. She should also keep in mind that some books may tend to focus
on only one type of listening process (bottom-up or top-down), and it is up to
her to make sure she asks questions appropriate for her students' level and
needs.
If students listen to a taped passage several times, it may be best to
give them different purposes each time to help them concentrate and not feel
they are doing the same thing over and over. The first time or two, students
should listen for general ideas or factual information, and in succeeding
times the questions can become more specific and complex. In addition,
teachers can offer up optional questions which more advanced students can
listen for.
In general, listening to a well-chosen text three times should be sufficient.
It may occasionally be suitable to listen four times if the majority of students are
interested, and if the teacher believes they are close to comprehending points
they have missed. Though students may say they want to hear a passage again,
many are not able to concentrate on the same piece for an extended period, so it

is wiser to stop before they are thoroughly bored. It is probably more useful to
make a copy of the tape for interested students, so that they can listen later as
many times as they wish.
2.3.1.5. Arranging Engaging Activities
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Teachers can give students opportunities for success, including chances to
listen to passages that are easy or enjoyable. Sometimes a teacher may want to
choose a text that is easy so as to show students that they can comprehend some
things easily; this gives them a sense of accomplishment. If all the listening
materials are at the same fairly challenging level, students can become weary
and lower-level students might get discouraged. (Of course, listening to too
many texts that do not present enough of a challenge may cause some
higher-level students to lose interest.)
Choosing content that is interesting to students will help energize them.
Listening to music or stories usually helps students think of listening as a
pleasurable activity rather than a classroom exercise or personal struggle. When
students have a negative association with listening, they become tenser,
whereas if they are more relaxed, they are likely to comprehend more.
Some teachers regularly begin class with something easy and interesting,
such as a funny story, or have music playing in the background before class to
set a more relaxed tone for the lesson. In addition, finding listening texts
that address issues that interest students helps them become more involved
in finding meaning, and makes the learning process more enjoyable. Finally,
teachers can encourage students to find things that they enjoy listening to

outside class. Often this might be music, but it might also include listening to
books on tape or English radio broadcasts, or watching movies. In any case,
encourage students to find materials at a suitable level, so that they do
not become too frustrated.
2.3.2. Applying the study in teaching
In the new “Tiếng Anh 10”, different listening skills are utilized depending
on what to listen for. Listening for general understanding, listening for specific
or detailed information, predicting, guessing and interpreting are several typical
examples. Listening tasks are various and flexible based on linguistic difficulty
level, topics and students’ interest.
The bottom-up approach to listening is to segment the stream of speech
into its constituent sounds, then link these together to form words, clauses and
sentences and so on. Nevertheless, its inadequacy can be easily demonstrated.
Take listening part in Unit 8 (“Tiếng Anh 10”, 2006:86) as an illustration. Task 1
asks students to listen and decide true and false information given. Students had
better find out the key words in each sentence then note down or compare
familiar sounds or words because they have no idea about Popffero, a town in
English, and its changes. The teacher also suggests that if students are asked to
listen and write down as much of the text as they can recall, they generally
remember some bits of the text and forget others. By and large, they can not
fulfill the tasks if they focus on linguistic items rather than the message or the
information. Unit 9 (“Tiếng Anh 10”, 2006: 98) is also a difficulty topic with
complicated words, the tasks do not focus on specific information or linguistic
items. On the contrary, they help to develop predicting and guessing skills via
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true or false sentences. With such a difficult topic, teacher should ask students
not to concentrate on every sounds or word but general information only.
The top-down view of listening is the use of inside the head knowledge,
that is, knowledge which is not directly encoded in words. While few English
learners would have little trouble in comprehending the sounds, words and
clauses in the given messages, it is unlikely that they would able to demonstrate
comprehension by listening to the text and writing a précis or providing a verbal
account. However if they are provided with a context for making sense of the
text then the task becomes relative simple. For example, if students are told that
the text is about Van Cao’ life and works (“Tiếng Anh 10”, unit 12, 2006: 126),
then the individual constituents are much more readily interpretable, and the task
of recalling the information in it is much easier. At the pre-listening stage,
teacher can let students listen to Van Cao' s famous songs.
In effect, the title “Listening to Van Cao’s songs” enables students to bring
knowledge form outside the text to the task of interpreting and comprehending
the text itself. This illustrates an important point: that meaning does not reside
exclusively within the words on the tape recorder or on the page. It also exists in
the head of students or listeners. Successful listeners and readers are those who
can utilize both “in side the head” knowledge and “outside the head” knowledge
to interpret what they hear.
* Sample teaching plan using the top-down process.
UNIT 6: AN EXCURSION
Period 34:
LESSON 3: LISTENING
I. Objectives:
Students will be able to listen to a monologue about a weekend picnic.
II. Lexical items: words to talk about outdoor activities or activities in an
excursion.
III. Structures/ Grammar: - The present progressive ( with a future meaning)

- Be going to
IV. Teaching aids: - posters and pictures, CD player.
V. Procedures:
Teacher’s activities
Students’ activities
1. Presentation:(10 mins)
a. Teacher asks students to look at the - Work in pairs to answer the
pictures and answer the question:
questions
" What are the pictures about?"

-Some sts stand up and give their
answer.
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- Answer question individually.

b. Teacher asks students to answer
questions.
- Do you often go for a picnic?
- Who do you go with?
- When is the best time for a picnic?
- Why do people go for a picnic?
- Asks some sts to give their answer.
c. Teacher asks students to read after

the tape the words in the textbook
without looking at them.
- Teacher introduces some new words
+desti’nation (n): e.g.: the train to
Hanoi: Hanoi is the ~
+ ‘glo:rious (adj): famous /wonderful /
beautiful.
+ ‘spacious (adj) adj of space
+ ‘left-overs (n): foods left after a meal
+ de’licious (adj): good. tasty
- Teacher reads the words again and
asks sts to repeat.
- Teacher asks students to read the
words in pairs.
- Teacher asks some students to read
the words again.
Teacher:

- Read after the tape.
- Copy the words and phrases.

- Listen and repeat.
- Read the words in pairs and correct
each other’s mistakes.
- Some individuals read the words
aloud.
- Look at the pictures and listen to the
T.
- Describe the pictures in pairs.
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2. Practice:( 24 mins)
+ Task 1:
- Teacher asks students to work in
pairs, look at the pictures in the
textbook and describe each picture.

- Listen to the tape for the first time.
- Teacher gives one example:
"In the first picture is a peaceful place
with green trees, a big lake and white
clouds in the sky."
- Teacher introduces the situation
about a student talking about a picnic
to the Botanical garden and asks
students to listen to the tape and
number the picture in the correct order.
- Teacher plays the tape twice.

- Listen to the tape again and do the
task.
- Compare their answer.

- Give their answer.
Key: 1a – 2e –3b– 4c – 5f – 6d
- Check their answer and then correct
their work if they have the wrong

- Teacher asks students to compare answer.
their answer in pairs.
- Work in pairs to read the passage
- Teacher checks students' answers .
and try to fill in the gaps.
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- Teacher plays the tape once again,
stops where necessary and conducts the
correction.
+ Task 2:
- Teacher asks students to have a look
at the given sentences and read them in
pairs and makes sure they understand
them. Teacher encourages students to
guess the words/ phrases to fill in the
gaps.
- Teacher asks students to listen to tape
once or twice again , fill in the gaps
with the missing words/phrases.
- Teacher asks students to compare
their answer in pairs.
- Teacher checks students’ answers .
- Teacher plays the tape once again,
stops where necessary and conducts

the correction.
+ Task 3:
-Teacher asks students to read the
questions in pairs and make sure they
understand the questions and know
what information they need to answer
the questions.
- Teacher asks students to listen to tape
once/ twice and take short notes to
answer the questions.
- Teacher asks students to compare
their answer in pairs.
- Teacher plays the tape once again,
stops where necessary and conducts
the correction.

- Listen and do the task.
- Give their answer.
1. was just a few
2. to pay a visit
3. at the school gate 4. a short tour
5. playing some more
- Check their answer, and then
correct their work if they have the
wrong answer.
- Work in pairs to read the questions.

- Listen and do the task.
- Compare their notes.
- Check their answer, and then

correct their work if they have the
wrong answer.
1. It was very nice.
2. Yes, it was.
3. It was beautiful.
4. Because it was so peaceful and
quiet in the garden.
5. They took pictures, played games,
talked, sang and danced.
- Work in groups.

3. Production:(10 mins)
- Teacher asks students to work in
group and plan for their picnic this
weekend.
-Two sts present.
- Teacher asks sts to pay attention to
the time, means of transport, picnic
sites, food, equipment...
- Teacher moves round to check the - Do homework and prepare the next
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activities and to make sure that sts are lesson.
working effectively.
- Teacher asks two sts to report in front

of the whole class.
- Teacher checks and gives remarks.
4. Homework:(1 min)
Write a short paragraph( about 50
words) about your plan for the next
weekeend picnic.
2.4. Effectiveness of the teaching experience:
These suggested activities have been applied in my teaching listening to
th
10 grade students at Ha Van Mao high school and they seem to be useful to
students. Most of the students find it easier and more comfortable with listening
lessons. This is shown through their high motivation and interest in learning
listening, their active participation in activities and many students at low levels
can carry out listening tasks by themselves. As a result, students’ listening skill,
to some extent, has been improved during the school years. Below is the result
achieved from students of class 10A1 and 10A4 in the year 2016- 2017 when
they are learning listening skill in comparision with the students of class 10A6
and 10A7 of the year 2013- 2014 who were taught without applying this study
Chart 1: Teaching listening skill before applying the study.
Class
Number of Good
Moderately Average
students
good
10A6
39
0 ( 0%)
5 (12.8%)
24 (61.5%)
10A7

40
1 (2.5%)
6 ( 15%)
22 ( 55%)
Chart 2: Teaching listening skill after applying the study.
Class
Number of Good
Moderately Average
students
good
10A1
35
3 ( 8.6%)
7 (20%)
20 (57.1%)
10A4
40
2 (5%)
6 (15%)
24 ( 60%)

Weak
10( 25.7%)
11( 27.5%)

Weak
5 ( 14.3%)
8 ( 20%)

It is necessary that the teacher should not always pay atttention to the

students’ mistakes. Instead, the teacher should encourage them to use English as
much as possible during the lesson and create a friendly learning environmment
so that the students will be more confident and be ready to receive the new
knowledge.
3. CONCLUSION
Teaching listening is not a simple task, but it can be quite rewarding
if we find ways to help our students improve, and help them see for
themselves what their progress has been. In some ways, we are helping them
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cope with vocabulary and grammar, as we do in other subjects, but there are
also many unique aspects of the listening process that we can help them grasp.
When our students understand how to listen and what to listen for, the
foundation for continued improvement in listening will be set. Our own
ability to teach listening will also improve as we work to better grasp the
strategies and skills our students need.
During the experimenting process, I have noticed four points to pay
attention to. First, it’s better for the teacher to pre-teach important new
vocabulary, but no more than ten words. If the teacher teaches all of the new
words, the students usually get distracted by the vocabulary instead of focusing
on listening. Secondly, it’s good to give students questions to follow, but don’t
give them irrelevant comprehension questions. Since listening is unlike reading,
students don’t get the reading material to follow and if the teacher asks about too
many details, they may become frustrated. Thirdly, unlike teaching reading, the
teacher should not spend too much time on grammar. One grammatical point per

time is enough for the listeners to pay attention to as they listen. Last but not
least, the teacher doesn’t need to spend too much time on teaching listening per
class. Instead, fifteen minutes is enough for one listening activity. What is more
important is that listening is taught at least once per lesson. As long as the
teacher becomes familiar with the relevant teaching activities, she/ he can use
one activity a day. I hope that the teachers will have a better map of how to teach
listening in class after reading and demonstrating these strategies and the
students can become more effective listeners in their future.

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REFERENCES
1. Brown, H.D. 1994. Teaching By Principles: An Interactive Approach to
Language Pedagogy. Prentice Hall Regents.
2.Chastain, K.1988. Developing Second Language Skills: Theory and Practice.
3rd edition. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
3. Chaudron, C and J. Richards 1986. The Effect of Discourse Markers on the
Comprehension of Lectures. Applied Linguistics. 7(2): 113-127.
3. Nunan, D. 1991. Language teaching methodology – A textbook for
teachers. Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd.
4. Nunan, D. 2003. Practical English Language teaching. McGraw-Hill.
5. Richard-Amato, P. 1996. Making It Happen: Interaction in the Second
Language Classroom: From Theory to Practice. 2nd edition. Longman.
6. Richards, J. 1990. The Language Teaching Matrix. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

7. Rost, M 2001. Teaching and researching Listening, Harlow: Pearson
Education/ Longman.

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XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG Thanh Hóa, ngày 09 tháng 05 năm 2017
ĐƠN VỊ
Tôi xin cam đoan đây là SKKN của
mình viết, không sao chép nội dung của
người khác.

Nguyễn Thị Ngọc

Teacher:

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