Some useful teaching methods to improve listening skill for high school students

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND
TRAINING
LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL

INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

SOME USEFUL TEACHING METHODS TO
IMPROVE LISTENING SKILL FOR HIGH
SCHOOL STUDENTS

Author : Le Thi Hoa
Position : Teacher
The school: Le Hoan High School


THANH HOA – YEAR : 2016

INDEX
Contents
INDEX
A. The beginning
I. The reasons of choosing this subject.
II. Aims of the research
III. Scope and researching methods
B. Content
I.Argumative basic
II. The common problems
III. Some useful ways for improving listening skills
IV. The activities in a listening lesson
V. Applying the research in teaching
C. The result after applying the research in teaching

D. Conclusion and proposal
Reference books.

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A. THE BEGINNING
I. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH
- In the recent years,there have been great changes in many fields of our
social life.English is not only the aim of spoken by native speakers but also the
official language in many countries as well as an important language in a lot of
nations throughout the world.However,how to teach and learn English are not
simple matters.Especially,students’language skills are still limited,listening skill
seem to be the most difficult and weakest skills among students’ four language
skills.
- Listening skill is very important for anyone who wants to learn a foreign

language. As a language learner and teacher as well as a learner and teacher of
other languages,think of the reasons why listening is important .If we do not
have good listening skill,we can not respond to our teachers, friends, and others,
we can not understand the lesson and ,unfortunately,we are by accident
becoming inactive to English speaking situations.Having good listening skill
help you communicate with your partners , foreigners,help you in your job,
promote you in the future.Listening provides input that can be very significant
for second language acquisition general and for the development of the speaking
skill in particular. Listening also promotes non-linear processing of language
and encourages learners to devolop “holistic” strategies to the texts. More
necessary in the open policy time-The time of WTO.We can not have an
earningful job without English.
- To help students to improve their listening skill is very difficult.Most
teachers in Thanh Hoa find it challenging to carry on the listening lesson so it is
considered every teacher tries to find the best method to ease this.
- After graduating from Hong Duc University,I have been teaching in Le
Hoan high School,I always try my best to find out the best method for my
classes.But, sometimes I find it difficult to teach well.I asked for more advices
from my friends and my teachers.They all said that I need to help student to
understand the neccessity of learning English then I should take the best
techniques for my lessons that must be suitable for my student and the contents.
- After seven years teaching English my friends and I have difficulties in
teaching the listening lessons.We have together found the best ways and done
lots of experiments to have good techniques for listening lesson.Now, I would
like to share my little experience of teaching the listening lesson with you.I hope
that it can help us a bit teaching the listeing lesson well.
As I am one of the teachers of English of Le Hoan High School. I would
like to do some thing with the hope of improving listening skill for our students
and as a result, the thesis title goes as:

Some Useful Teaching Methods To Improve Listening Skill For
High School Students.
II. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH.
- To help and encourage our upper secondary school students to improve
their listening ability.
- To examine the areas of difficulties in listening encountered by 10 th grade
students at Le Hoan high school.
- To investigate the needs of 10th grade students to complete the listening
tasks effectively.
- To suggest some techniques for the teachers and students to perform in
order to improve the learning listening of grade 10th students.
III. SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD
*Subject and Object
- The difficult prolems in learning listening skill of sudents in high school.
-The ideas for improving listening for high school students .
- Students in Le Hoan High School and I focus mainly on students of class
10A3 and 10A6.
* Scope
- Listening skill
- Techniques to teach the listening lesson.
* Researching methods.
- Reading reference books
- Dicussing with other teachers
- Applying in teaching ,observing and drawing out experiences.
B. CONTENT
I. ARGUMENT BASIC
1.Purpose of teaching
Purpose of teaching a foreign language not to provide students the knowledge of
that language,but the last purpose of teaching a foreign language in general and

in English in separation is to teach the students the ability to comunicate in
English in four skills: listening, speaking,reading and writing.Listening skill of
students is formed in a period of learning and training in foreign
invironment.Apart from learning at school,students have to learn how to listen
through different ways by their own.
2.Some direct factors influence the effect of a listening period.
2.1 The Teacher.
- With a new and active method,the teacher plays a direct role,introduce
students how to learn.


- To have a good listening period , the teacher needs to carry out some
following factors.
+Choosing and usingthe suitable techniques in teaching listening skill.
+ Organising and controlling the class and setting logical time.
+Creating the suitable teaching aids for a teaching period
+ Emotivating ,attracting and fascinating the students.
2.2.Listening techniques.
Listening techniques are defined by the listening content. By other way,the
listening content controls the choice,the applying the listening technicques.
2.3.Teaching equipments and aids for teaching listening skill.
Using picture equipments in teaching listening skill is a main content in English
book.So having good equipments and teaching aids are very necessary to
motivate students'interest.
2.4. The students.
To have a good listening period, students need to have necessary skills in
listening and understanding in English
II.THE COMMON PROBLEMS
For long, English has been considered to be a compulsory subject at any
schools.There are four important skills in English: Listening,speaking,reading

and writing .And Listening is known as the most important and difficult skill for
all students.That is why so many sts have prolems with it and I’d like to narrow
down some main problems that most all students have:
+ They just don’t know the most important words.
+ They are trying tounderstand every words because they tend to focus thee
meanings of every words instead of the key words
+ They are distracted by background noise.
+ They don’t regconise the words that they know, ther are some words that
are very difficult to distinguish, such as “there” , “their”, “they’re” these words
are called homephones and they might be difficult for sts to distinguish.
+ They lack listening stamina/ they get tired.
+ They can’t cope with not having emages
+ Finally they have hearing prolems and they can’t tell the difference
between the different voice.
- Therefore, to univeralize it at school is becoming extremely in need. But,
its requirement is not as low as we used to think about it:
* To have a perfect class, we need to improve our knowledges and teaching
method. Especially, we ought to be perfect at conducting a propaganda
campaign.It means that every student can understand grammatically the
importance of learning English.They need to answer correctly the question from
the bottom of their heart “Why do we need to learn English?”.They should come
to learn English with all their heart and by their love to it.We may be satisfied


when we see and “ hear” that our students are keen on learning English and they
ask us always about difficulties in learning English.
* New English textbook has been changed all about their appearances and
contents.They aim to help both teacher and student have good classes as they
hope.Especially, new textbook clearly helps student easily improve their four
skills ( Listening;Speaking;Reading;Writing). But, how do we teach these four

skills perfectly? .Especially,listening skill.
* Listening skill seem to be the most difficult to our students. we all know that
in order to learn a foreign language successfully,students should be helped to
develope four skills : listening,speaking,reading and writing. These four skills
are closely interrelated to one another and they are all necessary. Of the four
skills,listening is regarded as the foundation to acquire the language.
III.SOME USEFUL WAYS FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL
1. Some examples.
- To have an effective listening lesson, the teacher plays an important role in
giving methods of teaching. The teacher can use any of the following examples
to develop his/her own methods for teching students how to listen well.
* Interpersonal activities.
EX: Teacher may have one student interview another for a job with a company
or for an article in a newspaper. Even a storytelling activity,such as one that
answer the question “ what was your favourite movie from last year? can give
the sts the opportunity to ask one another questions and then to practice active
listening skills.
* Group activities.
Larger group activities also serve as a helful method for teaching listening skills
to students. Divide sts into groups of five or larger and instruct them to learn one
hobby or interest of at least two another group members.Encourage them to ask
classifying questions during the activity..........
* Audio segments.
Teacher can also teach listening skills through audio segments of radio
programs,online postcasts,instructional lectures and ather audio messages.
*Video segmets
* Instructional tips.
When students listen to a cassette or to a person speaking, they can find it a
challenge.This is because they have no visual clues and may think that they will
not understand.Also,we usually only have one chance to hear something

.This is why,as we see in our teaching job.Before a listening exercise, we need to
start by doing activities to prepare students.Then we need to do activities in
which the students need to use the informations from the item they have listened
to.
2.The main sub-skills of listening are:
- Predicting


- Listening for the main ideas
- Listening for specific information.
3.To help improve listening,we plan the lesson in these phrases:
3.1 Pre-listening
3.2. While-listening
3.3 Post-listening
The purposes of these activities is to focus students , attention on the item they
will listen to.You can tell them that they probadly will not understand everything
but that this does not matter.
IV. THE ACTIVITIES IN A LISTENING LESSON.
1 .A pre -listening activities
A pre- listening activity need to be short- five minutes at most.It can include
any of the following ideas, but make sure you choose a different lessons for
variety and to keep students motivated and wake up their interests.
1.1 Brainstorming.
Discuss the tile or the topic of the item they will be listening to with the class.
You or a student can write any important vocabulary on the blackboard, for
future checking and reference.
For example:
- Teacher give a verb and asks sts to find words that can combine with it.
at
home work

look
up
do
the house work
after
a favor
exercises

have

breakfast/ lunch/ dinner
a cat/ a car
a headache/ an earche
a shower
coffee/ some cake, medicine
etc..........

1.2.Discussion.
Ask students to discuss among themselves a picture or something else about the
item they will be listening to,or the tile.They can talk about what they think the
topic will include:
who could be in it, and what might happen. Encourage everyone to say
something by asking them to work in pairs or in small groups.
For example: Unit 12 – Music ( class 10)
Look at the picture of Van Cao .Tell each other what you know about him.


1.3.Pre-Questioning.
Students look at the picture related to the item they will listen to and think of
questions that they would like to be answered.This gives useful practice in

question formation, as well as giving students a reason to listen ( to find out if
their questions are answered).
For example:
Unit 6: An excursion (class 10)
a. Do you often go for a picnic?
b.When is the best time for a picnic?
c.Why do people go for picnics?
1.4 Pre-teaching difficult key words.
Sometimes you may want to teach students some of the difficult and important
key words that they will hear:
- Do not introduce so many new words in one class
- New words should be presented following the steps below
+ Make an instruction about the word need presenting
+Teacher reads it aloud and asks students to repeat in chorus then individual
+ Teacher writes it on the blackboard and


-When you teach or present new vocabulary, you must teach its meaning and
pronunciation.
-The precise meaning of the new words, in specific contexts , is very important.
-The meaning of new words can be taught through pictures, mine, real objects,
as well as from a situation in the context.
- Teacher need to ask questions to check that students understand the meaning.
- Students need some varied practice of new vocabulary.
2 WHILE LISTENING ACTIVITIES

_ In any processes of teaching , teacher should be sensitive and have good
leading by using words ,the intonation that help students more active and
interested in searching knowledges and showing motivation.
To help students practice listening for general imformation only, ask them to

listen and find out, for example:
* How many people are there in the dialogue or in the story?
* Who the story or the dialogue is about.
*Where the story or the dialogue happened.
* When the story or the dialogue happened.
Listening for specific information means students must learn to ignore the
details.To practise this, you can ask the students to listen carefully for the
answers to specific questions.They can more easily record the information
required by filling in a chart copied from the blackboard.
For example:
Students listen to the two radio news stories and tick the words you hear in the
right column under News story 1 and News story 2
News story 1

News story 2

healthy
strong
young
cloudy
highest
wonderful
_ In while – listening skill students have to do some other kinds of exercises to
check listening activities such as:
+ Listen to the conversation or paragraph again and number the pictures in
correct orders.
+Listen again and decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F).
+Listen again and fill in each blank with a suitable word.
+ Listen and answer questions
3 POST LISTENING ACTIVITIES

In real life , we usually do something after we have listened to someone.
So it is important to do some follow- up activities after listening, for example:
+students make up a similar dialogue.
+ Students discuss what they have heard in pairs or small groups.
+Students can write notes on what they thought they heard ,and then
compare their notes with a partner.
+Students write a letter, giving opinions on what they heard.
+ Or they can retell the story they have just heart with the partner then to
the class.
For example:
Class 10 - unit 6- An Excurtion
Work in groups: If your class could go for a picnic this weekend, What
would your plan be?
- Teacher guides students to ask and answer
- Plan includes:
+ Destination: Ha Long Bay,Cuc Phuong National Park.........
+ Means of transport: car , train,bus.....
+ Times : When will you go for a picnic?
How long will your picnic last?
+ Reason : Why ?
+ Participants : How many.............?
Who.......................?
+ Activities : What activities will you organise ?
+ Foods and drinks : What kinds of foods and drinks will you bring ?
V. APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING
Period: 69
class 10
Unit 11: National Parks

Part C : LISTENING
I. Objectives:
1. General knowledge:
- Sts get more information about Cuc Phuong National Park.
2. Language: - Some set expressions
- Vocabulary on nature
3. Skills: - Listening: fill in the gaps, answer questions
- Speaking: - Discuss the special features of Cuc Phuong National
Park.
II. Anticipated problems:
- Sts may do not know some new words.
- The quality of the tape is not very good.
III. Teaching aids: Tape, cassette, textbook, chalk, board


.

IV. Procedures:
Teacher’s activities
Students’ activities
1. Homework checking:(5 mins)
- Ask one st to tell the whole class about his/her
class excursion to Huong Pagoda and express
- Listen to their friend and
his/her regrets about what he/she did or did not give remarks
do during the excursion.
- Listen and give remarks
2. Before you listen:(10 mins)
Aims:to focus sts on the topic and review/

introduce the words and phrases used in the
listening text.
a. Divide sts into small groups and ask them to
discuss the following questions:
a. Where is Cuc Phuong National Park?
b. What is the area of the rainforest in
Cuc Phuong National Park?
c. When is the best time to visit Cuc
Phuong National Park?
d. What can be seen in Cuc Phuong
National Park?
- Ask some sts to give their answer.
b. Introduce the topic of the listening text.
- Introduce some new words/ expressions
- o'fficially (adv): formally
- span (v): connect.
- 'fauna (n): all the animals of an area.
- f'lora (v): all the plants of a particular area
- a'ttack(n): a violent attempt to hurt sb
- de'feat(v): win sb
- in'vader: (n) The French and Americans
were invaders.
- 'ethnic mi'nority (n): The Tay, Nung,
Dao .....
- Read the words again and asks sts to repeat.
- Ask sts to read the words in pairs.
- Ask some sts to read the words again.
3. While you listen:(20 mins)
+ Task 1:

Aims: Practise listening and filling in the gaps.
- Introduce sts that they are going to listen to
the tape about Cuc Phuong National Park and
they have to fill in the gaps in each sentence
given
1.Cuc Phuong NP was officially opened in.....
2.Cuc Phuong is located ............Hanoi.
3.In 2002,nearly............visited Cuc Phuong
4.There are.......different species of flora
and......species of fauna.
5.Nguyen Hue’s army was stationed in Quyen

- Work in groups and discuss
the questions.
- sts may answer these
questions easily from
information in reading lesson.
a. 160 kms South West of
Ha Noi
b. 200 square kms of
rainforest.
c. From October to April.
d. Caves, hike mountains
and look at the 1,000year- old tree.
One st from each group
stands up and gives their
answer..
- Copy down the words and
phrases into their notebooks.

- Listen and repeat.
- Read the words in pairs and
correct each other’s mistakes.
- Some individuals read the
words aloud.

- Listen to the T.
- Read the statements in pairs
and try to guess the missing
information.
- Listen to the tape and do the


Voi before it made its........on Thang Long.
- Ask sts to read the sentences in pairs and
make sure that they understand them. Sts try to
guess the missing information.
- Play the tape twice and ask sts to fill in the
gaps.
- Ask sts to compare their answer in pairs.
- Checks sts’ answer.

task
- Compare their answer.
- Give their answer.
1. 1960
2. 160 km south west of
3. 100,000 visitors
4. 2,000; 450
5. Quen Voi

- Check their answer say it
aloud, and then correct their
work if they have the wrong
answer.

- Play the tape once again, stop the tape where
necessary and conduct the correction.
- Listen to the T.
+ Task 2
Aims: Practise listening and Answering
questions.
- Ask sts to listen to the tape again and answer
the given questions.
- Ask sts to read the questions to see if they
understand them.
- Play the tape once and ask sts note down the
neccessary information.
- Ask sts to compare their answer in pairs.
- Check sts’ answer.
- Play the tape once again, stop the tape where
necessary and conduct the correction.

4. After you listen:(8 mins)
- Ask sts to work in groups and use the
information in Task 1 and 2 and the reading
text to disscus the following problems:

- Read the questions in pairs
and try to do the task.
- Listen to the tape and do

the task.
- Compare their answer.
- Give their answer.
1. It covers 3 provinces: Ninh
Binh, Hoa Binh, and Thanh
Hoa.
2. It is about 160 km.
3. They come to see the work
being done to protect
endanger species.
4. Nguyen Hue defeated the
Qing invaders in the spring
of 1789
5. They live mainly on bee
keeping and farming.


- Time founded
- Area, location
- Numbers of visitors
- Historical event
- Local people.
-Move round to check the activities and to
make sure that sts are working effectively.
- Ask one or two sts to present in front of the
whole class.
- Check and give remarks.
5. Homework:(1 min)
Write a short paragraph about Cuc Phuong
National Park

- Check their answer say it
aloud, and then correct their
work if they have the wrong
answer.
-Work in groups to discuss.

- One/ two sts present.

C.THE RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH
IN TEACHING.
From my experiences and lesson plan that I presented above. After applying a
lesson at class 10A3 of Le Hoan High school I have the following result.
Number
of students
47

Result
Excellentgood
Passably
Average
Weak

Amount
10

Rate
21%

26

11
0

55%
24%
0,0 %

Less

0

0,0 %

D. CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL.
-Listening lesson is very important and difficult for every teacher. But, to have
an effective listening lesson, the teachers have to work hard to find the best ways
to apply in each lesson.Beside that, we need to have good voice leading our
lesson,good intonation to wake up our students' interests and motivation.
These above are not all for every teacher ,but , I hope that this will help you
and me some complete the listening lesson well .Especially, I can share my
experience of teaching the listening lesson with you.Please read and give me
some feedback. Thank you for reading.


Thanh Hoa ,15th May,2016
I insist that this initiative experience is
my own writing, not copy the content from others

LE THI HOA

REFERENCE BOOKS
1. Practical handbook of language teaching (David Cross)
2. A course in language teaching - Practical and Theory (Penny Ur)
Cambrige university press
3.Phương pháp dạy tiếng Anh Trung học phổ thông (Nguyễn Hạnh Dung
4. SGV, SGK Lớp 10,11,12 của Bộ GD - ĐT
5. Tài liệu tập huấn đổi mới phương pháp môn Anh THPT.
6. Giới thiệu giáo án Tiếng Anh lớp 10,11,12. ( NXB Giáo Dục )
7.Phương pháp dạy Tiếng Anh trong trường phổ thông.
( Tác giả: Nguyễn Hạnh Dung )