IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS FOR THIRD YEAR STUDENTS AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY THROUGH PORTFOLIO

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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Rationale
In English teaching, the main objective is to prepare students for
communication in the real world and it is very important for a learner to
efficiently equip himself with four skills, together with relatively
sufficient background knowledge. However, obtaining a good command
of English communication is not easy for all students; it needs a great
effort from them which emphasizes much practice, especially self-study.
Of the four language skills-Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writingthat all language learners are supposed to acquire. Listening is believed
to be the most challenging due to the complex and subtle nature of
listening comprehension in a second or foreign language. Teaching
listening is not an easy job at all when we, the English teachers, face the
fact that learners have met many difficulties in comprehending the
information due to unfamiliarity with the pronunciation of the target
language and a lack of listening skills. To overcome those difficulties, it
is necessary for students to keep on practice overtime, and one of the
ways to make students practice is by using portfolios to learn at home.
This means of study is rather effective for students to improve their
listening skills as portfolios are systematic, purposeful, and meaningful
collections of students' works in one or more subject areas and they
reflect the actual day-to-day learning activities of students.
For the third year English major students at Hong Duc University, they
can not avoid common problems related to listening. When dealing with
a listening lesson, they often experience a lack of background
knowledge and cultural understanding, poor ability to understand
spoken language, irrelevant teaching materials etc. Besides, two periods
(45 minutes each period) of listening every week is not enough for
students to be good listeners if they do not spend much more time than
that on their self-study. Clearly, portfolios which reflect what has been

done at home

are an important element in language teaching and

learning, which on one hand helps the teachers to assess what their
students have done at home and on the other hand keeps students
continuously learning. Hence, they need a lot of modifications for the


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sake of perfection. To enhance students’ listening skill development, it’s
the teacher’s job to create more opportunities for the students to learn
from their own strengths and weaknesses as well as their peers'
weaknesses and strengths. It is, therefore, necessary to bring them
opportunities to overcome those difficulties and among the suggested
solutions, listening portfolios are of great help. Good portfolios with
carefully prepared contents are a useful means to help students keep on
their self-studies effectively.
It is obvious that portfolios can improve students’ listening skills as well
as encourage them to work on their own, which is the useful factor for
their success. It is undeniable that exploiting portfolios effectively is
challenging for teachers because they have to take many things into
consideration, such as the objectives, the instructional skills, the
criteria, the students’ needs, etc when giving out the contents of a
portfolio. However, for the benefit one can gain from them, it is worth
doing so.
For the above reasons, we decided to choose the thesis entitled
“Improving listening skills for third-year students at Hong Duc
University through portfolio". The study emphasizes the importance

of portfolios to the students' self- study in general and the listening skills
in particular. Pedagogically, the findings of the study are believed to be
useful for teachers to be aware of the essential role of portfolios to the
students' self- study in the listening skills.
Moreover, we would like to investigate the effectiveness of the listening
portfolios currently used and from that finding out the strong and weak
points of them in order to establish the most relevant one in terms of
the contents. From the results obtained, the suggestions for portfolio
contents, which are based on the theoretical background and the
present use of them at the Foreign Language Department, HDU, are
thoughtfully given, with the hope that they would help students to
enhance their listening skills as well as the teachers to improve their
teaching methodologies in relation with the process of renovation for
teaching at the Foreign Language Department, HDU currently.

1.2. Aims of the study


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Our research focuses specifically on the investigation of portfolio
contents

used

by

the

teachers

at

Division

of

Language

skills

Development and give some suggestions for applying the portfolios to
enhance the students' self - learning for improvements in their listening
skills. The specific aims of the research are as follows:
-

To investigate the teachers' and students' attitudes towards the
application of listening portfolios in self-learning.

-

To find out the most common portfolio contents exploited by the
teachers at Division of Language skills Development

-

To examine the students’ preferences for the portfolios.

-

To give some suggestions for using the portfolios to enhance
students' self-listening learning.

1.3. Research questions
As a basis for my investigation, the following research questions were
formulated:
1. What are the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the
application of listening portfolios in self-learning?
2. What are the teachers’ and students’ opinions of the current
portfolio contents?
3. How can portfolio contents be improved to help students
develop their self-listening study?

1.4. Methods of the study
To seek answers to the research questions, the data are analyzed from
material collection and were collected from survey questionnaires.
First of all, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials on
listening skills and portfolios have been collected, analyzed and
synthesized carefully with the due consideration for the teachers’ and
students’ teaching and learning situations.
Secondly, the questionnaires are carried out with the teachers and the
students to collect the most reliable data for the study.

1.5. Design of the study


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The thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter I: Introduction; Chapter
II: Literature review; Chapter III: The study; Chapter IV: Major findings

and Discussions and Chapter V: Conclusion.
Chapter I: Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of the study such as the rationale,
the scope, the aims, research questions, significance and methods of
the study.
Chapter II: Literature review
This chapter conceptualizes the nature of the listening comprehension,
the importance of listening and the importance of students' self-access
listening, definitions of the portfolio, portfolio based learning, the
content of portfolio, principles in using portfolio, portfolio assessment,
stages of portfolio implementation and the importance of portfolio in
learning listening.
Chapter III: The study
The chapter presents the methodology used in the study including the
setting, sample, instrumentation, data collection and data analysis. It
also points out the detailed results of the surveys and covers a
comprehensive analysis on the data collected from the questionnaires.
Chapter IV: Major findings and Discussions
The chapter shows some major findings, suggestions for using the
portfolios.
Chapter V: Conclusion
The chapter revisits the main points discussed in the paper and some
limitations of the study and future research will be presented.

Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1. Introduction
This chapter discusses a variety of issues in the theories of the listening
skills and portfolios. Three main features will be presented: theoretical
background of listening skills, theoretical background of portfolio and its
importance in learning the listening skills.

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2.2. Theoretical background of listening skills
2.2.1. What is Listening Comprehension?
2.2.1.1. Definitions
Listening is believed to be a key and essential area of the development
in a native language and in a second or foreign language as well; hence,
there have been varieties of definitions of listening by Bulletin (1952);
Bentley & Bacon (1996); Grey Buck (2001); Scarcella and Oxford (1992)
which hold different views towards the concept.
According to Bulletin (1952), listening is one of the fundamental
language skills. It's a medium through which children, young people and
adults gain a large portion of their education-their information, their
understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of
values, and their appreciation. In the day of mass communication (much
of it oral), "it is of vital importance that our pupils be taught to listen
effectively and critically" he says.
Bentley & Bacon (1996) state that listening, an important part of the
second language learning process has also been defined as an active
process during which the listener constructs meaning from oral input.
Grey Buck (2001: 31) shares the idea that " listening comprehension is
an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying
knowledge to the incoming sounds" in which " number of different types
of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic
knowledge". In another expression, Grey Buck (2001: 31) points out
"comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that
potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener
can affect the comprehension of the message."

Scarcely and Oxford (1992) also point out that comprehension of a
spoken message can either through isolated word recognition within the
sound stream, phrase or formulae recognition, clause or sentence, and
extended speech comprehension.


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Woven and Coakley (1985) hold the different idea. They see listening as
"the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural
stimuli". This definition indicates that listening is a complex process
which students have to deal with. The task of listening is not only
perception of sound, but it also requires comprehension of meaning.
This definition is the same with second language theory which regards
listening to spoken language as an active and complex process in which
listeners pay much attention to aspects of aural input, generate
meaning, and link what they hear to existing knowledge (O'Malley &
Chabot, 1989; Byrnes, 1984; Richards, 1985; Howard, 1983).
Scott Shelton (2008) thinks that listening effectively is a demanding
and involved process. One must be able to deal with different accents or
pronunciation,

unfamiliar

lexical

items

and

syntactic

structures,

competing background noise, and also make a conscious effort to not
'switch off' or become distracted while listening. All of this must be
achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identify
and understand the meaning in any given message.
To sum up, the issue of whether which view is the best is controversial.
However, in the final analysis, the definition of Wolvin and Coakley
(1985) which considers listening as the process of receiving, attending
to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli; that is, message transmitted
through the medium of sound is highly appreciated.

2.2.1.2. The listening Comprehension process
It can't be denied that listening is the least explicit of the four language
skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing, making it the
hardest skill for English learners. It involves physiological and cognitive
processes at different levels (Field, 2002; Lynch, 2002; Rost, 2002) along
with the attention to contextual and "socially coded acoustic clues"
(Swaffar & Bacon, 1993).
Listening comprehension is a primary process in understanding the
words of the speaker. It is a complex communication process which
requires instant thought and individual ability to construct the meaning.


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The development of listening comprehension varies depending on the
personal, social, and cultural experiences of the student. Effective

listeners are able to recognize the speaker’s main points or ideas and
identify the supporting details and examples. Comprehensive listening
is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This
involves understanding a speaker’s accent, pronunciation, grammar,
vocabulary

and

meaning

(Howatt

and

Dakin

1974).

Listening

comprehension is influenced by the listener’s world knowledge,
linguistic knowledge, text structure knowledge, and met cognitive
knowledge.
The following figure shows that the listening comprehension process is
established through the relationship between the two main sources of
information which Widowson (1983) refers to as (1) systematic or
linguistic

knowledge

(knowledge

of

phonological,

syntactic,

and

semantic components of the language system) and (2) schematic or
non-linguistic information. In fact, it is hard to differentiate between
what was actually said and what we have constructed by integrating the
spoken words with students' own knowledge and experience.
Background knowledge
- factual

Systematic
knowledge

- social
Procedural knowledge
- how language is used in

P
R

Knowledge of situation
- physical setting, participants,

E
H
context

(written)

E
N
S
I

Knowledge of the language
system
- semantic
- syntactic
- phonological

O
M

discourse

etc
Knowledge of co-text
- what has been/ will be said

C

O
N

systematic


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knowledge
Figure 1. Information sources in comprehension
(Adapted from Anne Anderson & Tony Lynch, 1988, p.13)
According to Mendelson (1994: 94, cited by Vandergrift, 1999: 176), the
performance checklist for listening comprehension process is to be
used during learner's listening process:
Name: ___________________________ Date: ____________________
Question:

After first listening
Guess?

Reason(s)

V

Before second
listening
Other
possibilities?

Where? (setting?)
When? (time? time of
day? season?)
Who? (speakers?

their relationship?)
How? (tone? mood?)
What? (what is it
about?)
Why? (goal?
particular
circumstances?)
Figure 2. Performance Checklist for Listening Comprehension
(Adapted from Mendelson (1994: 94, cited by Vandergrift, 1999: 176)
V= Verification (check in this column when your guess has been
verified)
What I found easy: .....................................................................................
What I found difficult: ................................................................................
What I will do the next time: .....................................................................
A number of researches in L2 listening instruction have been done by
different authors such as Rost (2002); Lynch (1988, 2002); Rubin (1994);
Mendelsohn (1988); Richards (1990). All focus on the critical role of both


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bottom-up and top-down processes in comprehension. Listeners use topdown process when they use context and prior knowledge (topic, genre,
background knowledge, and other schema knowledge in long-term
memory) to construct framework for comprehension. Listeners use
bottom-up process when they build meaning by accretion, gradually
combining increasingly larger units of meaning from the phoneme-level
up to discourse-level features.
Richards

(1990:50)

breaks

down

the

process

used

in

listening

comprehension into two distinct types, referring to them as 'bottom-up'
and 'top-down' processing. The former is described in Cook's Discourse
(1989) as: 'Interpreting the lowest-level units first, and then proceeding
to an interpretation of the rank above, and so on upwards.' In other
words, we sometimes need to rely on our knowledge of grammar,
syntax, and lexis, and apply that knowledge when confronted with an
incoming message in order to achieve comprehension. On the other
hand, we might apply a top-down approach to aid comprehension. This
is defined as:
'Interpreting discourse by hypothesizing about the most general units
first, then moving downwards through the ranks below.' This means
applying our background knowledge to aid in understanding the
meaning of a message.
Richards (1990:51) explains that:" This may be previous knowledge
about the topic of discourse, it may be situational or contextual

knowledge, or it may be knowledge stored in long-term memory in the
form of 'schemata' and 'scripts' - plans about the overall structure of
events and the relationships between them."
Anderson and Lynch (1988:22) argue that research has shown that the
assumptions in the 'bottom-up' model are incorrect. They state that:
"Listeners would not be able to perceive speech as successfully as they
do if they were in fact engaged in a process of building up the
recognition of words solely by attempting to identify their constituent
phonemes."


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In teaching listening skills, we need to be aware of how these processes
work and guide our students, through the use of different tasks if we are
to aid them in improving their listening comprehension. I believe we can
help advanced learners by drawing attention to these strategies and
overtly practicing these listening skills in the classroom.

2.2.2. The importance of Listening
Listening is getting more and more important in many foreign language
contexts, which have until relatively recently focused their efforts on the
development of other language skills such as writing skills. This growing
importance is reflected in the proliferation of commercial listening
courses. The importance of listening in second and foreign language
learning is admirably summarized in a recent publication by Rost (1994):
'Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input
for the learners. Without understanding input at the right level, any
learning simply cannot begin'.
Brett (1997: 39) also states that "listening is a key language skill. It has

a vital role in the language acquisition process". In comparison with
other language skills, some researches on listening suggests that on
average people can expect to listen "twice as much as we speak, four
times more than what we read and five times more than we usually
write" (Morley, 2001). More importantly, there are more and more
studies indicating the sheer importance of listening in communication
and language learning (Anderson and Lynch, 1988; Dunkel, 1991).
What's more, Michael Lewis (1993: 32) highlights "Almost all the world's
natural language output is spoken rather written".
Being an essential skill for almost interaction, listening is therefore the
most primary medium for input in language learning process and by
speeding up the students' ability to perceive speech, the amount of
input they get will increase and thus aid students' language acquisition.
It is obvious that we listen for many different purposes in and out of the
classroom; this has an effect on the way we listen. Yule and Brown
(1983) make a useful distinction between interactional and transactional
communication. McCarthy, (1991) in Discourse, defines transactional


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talk (and listening) as communication for getting business done.
Interactional communication, on the other hand, has to do with
lubricating the social wheels. In listening (1988) Anderson and Lynch
describe them as (transactional) listening when the main purpose is to
achieve a successful transfer of information, while interactional listening
is defined as listening for social reasons, and to establish or maintain
friendly relations between interlocutors.
In short, listening is essential not only as receptive skill but also to the
development of spoken language prophecy.

2.2.3. Teaching listening skills
2.2.3.1. Listening Skills
Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are
saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation,
his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt and
Dakin). An able listener is capable of doing these four things
simultaneously. Willis (1981:134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening,
which she calls enabling skills. They are: (1) predicting what people are
going to talk about, (2) guessing at unknown words or phrases without
panic, (3) using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one
understand,

(4)

information, (5)

identifying

relevant

points;

rejecting

irrelevant

retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing),

(6) recognizing discourse markers, e. g., Well; Oh, another thing is; Now,

finally; etc, (7) recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as and which,
including linking words, pronouns, references, etc, (8) understanding
different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which give clues to
meaning and social setting, (9) understanding inferred information, e. g.
, speakers' attitude or intentions.
Edurne Scott (2008) also points out that the sub-skills that can be
emphasized in a listening lesson include: (1) listening for specific
information, (2) following topic shifts, (3) predicting, (4) recognizing
transitions and sequence markers, (5) recognizing word boundaries, (6)
identifying key words, (7) and taking notes.


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According to Austin Shrope (1970), it is listening on the fourth level that
primarily concerns us in our teaching. Such listening may add an
emotional and dramatic quality. Radio and recordings highlight the
importance of listening. Listening is as active as speaking (the other
productive skill), and in some ways even more difficult. It well requires
attention, thought, interpretation, and imagination. To improve our
learners' listening skills, they should be allowed to: (1) adopt a positive
attitude, (2) be responsive, (3) shut out distractions, (4) listen for the
speaker's purpose, (5) look for the signals of what is to come, (6) look
for summaries of what has gone before, (7) evaluate the supporting
materials, (8) and look for non-verbal clues.
Richards, J. C. (2005) also provides such skills taxonomy for developing
students' listening skills as presented in Appendix P.xix
To sum up, as the focus of language teaching and learning has moved
from teacher-centered approaches to more learner-centered ones, the
focus of listening teaching and learning has also changed a lot. That's

why listening is now recognized as an active receptive skill (Anderson
and Lynch: 1988) in which the listener activates previous or existing
knowledge to integrate new knowledge.

2.2.3.2. Running a listening lesson
It is common knowledge that using interesting passages and doing the
right sort of exercises in a coherent sequence are necessary to a
successful lesson, but they are only part of the issue. The overall
conduct and organization of the lesson are equally important.
Shelagh Rixon (1986: 74-80) suggests the following guidelines which the
listening teachers can follow when running a listening lesson:
•

Variety of exercises and passages

Shelagh Rixon warns that the teachers should not overuse any one type
of exercise. If the students know, for example, that they will always start
the lesson by having to listen to a tape played to them by the teachers,
answer multiple-choice questions and then move into pairs to compare
their answers, this will become too much of a routine, and they will


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become bored and stale. Another important point is that not every
listening passage is suitable for the same treatment, and the teachers
should vary their activities and exercises to suit the potential of the
passage.
A mixture of live and recorded listening materials is preferable on most
courses because of the different listening skills they can help to develop.

Exposure to different types of the passage and to the possibilities of
interaction with the speaker is very important in increasing students'
experience of handling the spoken word.
•

Helping students to see the reasons behind exercises

It is obvious that if students see the point of what they are doing, this
will encourage them to see the approaches to listening that teachers are
trying to promote, even when they find themselves in real situations.
Explaining the point of exercises needs to be done with great care,
however. Teachers should try to be concrete rather than technical or
abstract.
•

Observing students' reactions

Even if teachers are careful in choosing their passages and activities to
suit the idea of students' needs, they cannot guarantee that all
students' difficulties and interests will be met by teachers' lesson as
planned. The most unexpected things can cause problems. On the other
hand, difficulties that teachers anticipate can produce no trouble at all.
Teachers must be prepared to interrupt their planned sequence to cover
points that are causing difficulty, or that students themselves bring up,
rather than working mechanically from step one to the end of their
lesson plan, with no deviations for student needs.
•

Allowing students time to reconsider

We all know that a lesson is not a test but a training session. It is
therefore not cheating to let students hear a passage several times, in
small sections, with pauses, or in any other way that is helpful to them.
They should not be expected to find the answers immediately, either.
Students often need time to think about their initial answers and


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reconsider them. It is very useful to give the students the chance to get
some of the answers, and then to listen again. The next time they listen
they will already be altered to those parts when they need to pay more
attention. This really works in a listening lesson.
•

Preventing panic

The feeling of anxiety at impending failure often totally incapacitates a
student. This can be alleviated in several ways:
- The idea of a lesson as a training session, not a test, should be
stressed at all costs.
- Recorded materials can offer their own sense of security while the
students are learning to listen better, provided that they or the teachers
are able to use the controls of the playback machine in a way that lets
them hear that parts that bother or interest them as often as necessary.
- Face to face listening offers the chance to interrupt and ask for
clarification or repetition, and students should be trained not to be shy
about this.
- It gives the students a sense of autonomy and self-reliance if teachers
teach them ways of writing down words or phrases that they do not

understand. So they can read them back later.
- The teachers should always try to use listening experiences to
illustrate 'reasons to be hopeful about making sense of spoken English.

2.2.3.3. Teacher's roles
According to Austin Shrope (1970), a teacher's roles in a listening lesson
are to create interest, reasons for listening, and the confidence to listen.
For each listening lesson the teacher must bear in mind:
- What kind of listening process is appropriate to the text?
- How the learner will "tune in" to the context, express attitudes towards
the topic, and emphasize schematic knowledge.
- Pictures that could be used to contextualize the talk.


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- And the forming of the learner's opinion on the topic (i.e. making
explicit opinions in a class discussion, and then comparing them to the
opinions of the listening material).

2.2.3.4. Importance of students' self-listening
Obviously, the purpose of effective teaching is to enable students to
develop to a point where they are independent of the teacher's
assistance. This is really true with the listening. According to Shelagh
Rison (1986), self-listening is one of the main ways in which a learner
can "tune in" by himself to a foreign society when he visits or goes to
live in it. It is also the most private and least tangible of the four
language skills. We can do research on a learner's writing or speaking
difficulties to some extent, and observe how he reads, but what goes on
inside each student's head is more of a mystery. Each student is on his

own in the final analysis, and materials and techniques which can
promote his autonomy rather than his loneliness are needed.
* Students ' self-access work
Many a teaching institution is providing learners with more freedom - a
choice of materials to work with and space and time to work in instead
of the teacher's instructions. Shelagh Rison (1986) points out that the
students should be given the chance to decide for themselves what will
be interesting or useful and to work by themselves. These are both
valuable steps towards increased autonomy and away from the
traditional dominance of the teacher in the learning process.
However, the author also shows some advantages, for instance,
providing a facility requires finance, efficient organization, and a wealth
of materials to choose from. The timetable also needs to be planned to
allow students time to use the facilities, either within or outside official
school hours.
It is clear that classroom listening activities tend to be controlled by the
teacher. Even when students listen privately for part of the time, this is
only because the teacher has planned it that way. In self-access
listening, the teacher uses no such control, but he does still have a
responsibility to enable students to finds ways of working that suit them.


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* Autonomy for the students
Is it possible for all students to work well by themselves from the very
beginning? The answer is 'No' because autonomy is often developed
from having the right amount of support at the right time, with the
support being gradually lessened as students become more confident.
According

to

Shelagh

Rison

(1986),

a

good

catalogue,

usable

worksheets and your guidance will all contribute as follows:
•

The teacher's role changes in self-access work. He becomes more

of a manager and a counselor than an informant. All the students need
the teacher to be available as a source of advice, or just as someone to
boast to about an achievement.
•

Having the right equipment also counts. Cassettes are much more

convenient and tangle-free than reel-to-reel tape for use in a self-access

library.
•

It's necessary that when a listening task involves searching for

certain information, there is an answer sheet that the students can find
easily for themselves. Another loose-leaf binder, with all the answer
keys in it, can be kept next to the main catalogue. Students will then
need to consult the teacher only in cases where they don't understand
why a certain answer is wrong or right, and will be independent as far as
checking routine answers are concerned.
*

Listening outside the classroom

Most of the English teachers hope that students will be able to use
English learnt at schools, universities or other institutions in real life at
some point. It's because that not everyone will have the chance to go
abroad, or even to use the language often within his own country, but
opportunities do exist to listen to English in a pleasurable or useful way.
For teachers working with students within the United Kingdom, or other
English speaking countries, the opportunities to use English outside
school are huge, but those working abroad need not despair either.
There are two ways in which you can encourage students to listen to
outside the school. The first is to get students to exercise their listening


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outside school and the second is about finding opportunities for listening

for pleasure. Two kinds of listening outside the school have been
suggested as follows:
•

Listening assignments outside the classroom

Self-access listening has been discussed as a stepping stone between
listening guided by the teacher and greater independence. Students
who have met certain types of listening experiences in the listening
library may feel prepared to try them in their own time. Radio programs
are an obvious example.
•

Listening for pleasure outside the classroom

According to the author, opportunities for making contact with the
language outside the school will vary, as will the amount of enthusiasm
shown by students about non-obligatory, extra-mural listening. Students
have a perfect right not to be keen, but they should be equipped with
good information on what is available should they relent.

2.2.4. Summary
In conclusion, the section has so far conceptualized the discussion of
relevant issues relating to the topic of the study. The concepts and ideas
concerning the definitions of listening comprehension, the models of
listening process, importance of listening and teaching listening skills
have been analyzed and discussed.

2.3. Theoretical background of Portfolio
2.3.1. Introduction

When thinking about best practices, authentic assessment ranks very
highly. This is the case with listening portfolio. First of all, the definitions
of portfolio are presented. Then the contents of portfolios, principles in
using

portfolios,

portfolio

assessment,

and

implementation are introduced and analyzed.

stages

of

portfolio

Last but not least, the

importance of portfolios in learning the listening skills is dealt with.

2.3.2. Definitions of Portfolio


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There is a variety of definitions of portfolio which have been presented
by various scholars with different points of view. Some definitions limit
and see the portfolio as a summary of a student's accomplishments;
others talk about their purposes and characteristics, including the
merits of the strategy (Wiener and Cohen, 1997; Richter, 1997; Karoly,
1996; Snider Lima and Devito, 1994); their contents and their
implementation. For instance, Patricia L. Rieman and Jeanne Okrasinski
(2000) state that " a portfolio is an assessment tool that allows creator
to put his or her best foot forward and document the knowledge and
skills mastered through the learning process". Other authors share the
same idea that the portfolio is a part of an alternative assessment
program. Arter and Spandell (1996: 210) consider portfolio as "a
purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student's
efforts, progress or achievement". Also Freeman and Lewis (1998: 271)
state portfolio as "a collection of materials assembled by students to
demonstrate achievement".
The portfolio definition given by Murray (1995) is that the teacher
should decide how the portfolio is to be used before deciding on the
content. If the portfolio is to be used for summary evaluation, such as
tenure decisions, then it should probably only contain the best of a
student's work.
Our working definition for our students' listening portfolio is a collection
of materials related to our class interactions and readings. You may put
them in any appropriately-sized binder or folder'. In other words, the
students' self-listening portfolio is 'an organized collection of their work
in listening skills that indicates the products of their own learning
process'. The collection is made up of listening portfolio cover sheet,
declaration and statement of authorship, index of listening files,
listening portfolio - File identification, text outline, team work collaboration peer assessment, portfolio assessment checklist. This
working definition is regarded as a good foundation for the researcher to

deal with the portfolio contents as mentioned in the following section.

2.3.3. The contents of Portfolios


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Each kind of portfolio contents serves its own purpose. For instance,
showcase portfolios are made up of the best work that illustrates
outcomes; evaluation portfolios include formal and best work samples
while most of the portfolio types focus on student self-assessment.
The contents of portfolios are also constructed from class assignments.
It is the teacher who knows his students best initiates the portfolio
contents. The development of portfolios may focus on a single area such
as reading, writing, literature and science or other portfolio programs
that cover two or more fields such as reading and writing.
Subject area and ownership are the main factors to determine the
content of portfolios. Vizyak (1995), for example, evaluates two kinds of
portfolios, a student-managed and a teacher-student portfolio, and lets
students choose a meaningful piece from the teacher-student portfolio,
twice a month, attaching a statement specifying students reasons for
their choice. The choice may include a test, work sample, project or
even parent input from a survey.
Freeman and Lewis (1998) discuss a generic portfolio that includes
completed assignments, copies of learning contracts, notes, drawings,
diaries, charts, certificates and student self - assessment in their list of
assembled materials. However, Bailey and Guskey (2001) state that the
contents of portfolios should be in relation to involving students in the
selection of its contents and student self - reflection. Also, Arter and
Spandell (1992) provide students with questions designed to facilitate

the self-reflection process. Their aim is to help students find out the
strengths and weaknesses of their own work, to discover the process
they experienced, recognize the feedback they received, identify the
distinctive qualities of their work.
As mentioned before, contents of portfolios depend on its intended use
because of the extent of student engagement, like the nature of the
contents of portfolios informed by the perception of portfolio purpose.
There are many sources which offer a variety of suggestions and
categories for building the portfolio.


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Crockett (1998) in Nunes (2004) divides portfolio contents into five
categories as follows:
•

Found samples, which refer to pieces done to fulfill the class
assignment;

•

Processed samples, or the students' analyses and self-samples of
students' work of a works already graded by the teacher;

•

Revisions or samples of student work that have been graded and
then revised, edited and rewritten;

•

Reflections, which are related to the processed samples but are
applied to the portfolio as a whole, providing a chance for
students to think about who they are, what their strengths and
weaknesses are;

•

And portfolio projects, which cover work designed for the sole
purpose of inclusion in the student portfolios, and that can be
arise from a review of portfolios that show a particular interest or
challenge to overcome.

For each item, a brief rationale for choosing the item should be covered.
This may relate to students' performance, to their feelings considering
their progress and themselves as learners.
According to Nguyen Thi Huong et al (2007: 11-13), Listening portfolio
entails teamwork, exposure to a variety of listening resources, and
listening practice. Thus, apart from listening skill building, the task also
aims at students’ development of information literacy and collaboration
skills. The contents of portfolios are presented as follows:
A. Cover Sheet (See Appendix 3, p.viii)
B. Declaration and Statement of Authorship (See Appendix 4, p. ix)
C. Index of Listening Files (See Appendix 5, p. x)
D. Listening Files
1. File identification (See Appendix 6, p. xi)
2. Full script

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E. Reflection checklist
Students are to write only one reflection for the whole portfolio, and this
should not exceed 600 words (two pages). The reflection should contain
the following components:
1. Reflection on strategies used.
- The steps students went through when doing the portfolio.
-

The strategies students used while transcribing the files, especially

how they coped with words that are hard to identify.
2. Reflection on the contents of the files.
- What (background) knowledge students have gained through flowing
the issues.
- What contents students like and dislike most or any information that
makes a deep impression on them.
F. Glossary (See Appendix 7, p. xii)
G. Work distribution (See Appendix 8, p. xiii)
H. Collaboration peer assessment sheets (See Appendix 9, p. xiv)
I. Portfolio assessment sheet (See Appendix 10, p. xvi)
Do not fill in this page.
J. Final grades report form (See Appendix 11, p. xviii)
Fill in the team members' names. Leave others blank.
K. Attached disc or/ and tape.
To sum up, the portfolio contents play a very important role in very
study. However, a certain design of the portfolio contents should be
based on the purpose of the course in the real context and condition.

2.3.4. Principles in Using Portfolios
It is obvious that portfolios are very important in every study, especially
in learning foreign languages. This is really true in cases of Kemp and
Toperoff (1998) and Nuns (2004).


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Kemp and Toperoff (1998) conclude that when applying portfolios to
foreign language learning and teaching, the teacher should take the
following principles into consideration:
•

Principle 1: a portfolio is a form of assessment that students do
together with their teachers.

•

Principle 2: a portfolio is not just a collection of students' work, but
a selection - the student must be involved in choosing and
justifying the pieces to be included.

•

Principle 3: a portfolio provides samples of students' work that
shows grow over time. By self-assessing, students start identifying
the strengths and weaknesses from their work. As a result, these
weaknesses become improvement goals.

•

Principle 4: the criteria for choosing and evaluating the portfolio
contents must be clear to the teacher and the students at the
beginning of the process. The entries in an English as a foreign
language classroom can demonstrate learning and improvement
in all language skills, or can focus on a specific skill such as
listening.

Nunes's study (2004) indicates that portfolios in English as a foreign
language classroom can be a useful tool for speeding up students'
active participation. Nevertheless, the two following principles should be
carefully considered so as to apply its full advantages to practice.
Principle 1: a portfolio should be dialogic, and facilitate ongoing
interactions between the teacher and the students. To put it in another
way, it must be developed interaction in order to facilitate focused
intervention, decision-making or joint problem-solving in due time.
Principle 2: a portfolio should document the reflective thought of
the learner.

2.3.5. Stages of Portfolio implementation
There are various authors whose recommendations for portfolio
implementation emerge in the literature (Wiener and Cohen, 1977; Hill,


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Kamber and Norwich, 1994; Valencia and Place, 1994) and include
criteria to be observed for effective implementation and procedures to
be done. For instance, Hill et al. (1994) recommend a range of steps
including defining the

portfolio purpose,

teaching students

self-

reflection, structuring portfolio reviews, making time for peer evaluation,
and sharing portfolios with parents. Also, Wiener and Cohen (1979)
support a process relating to a succession of self-reflection and dialogue
among students, teachers and parents.
According to Mattew and Shimo (2002), there are five basic stages that
must exist in the implementation of portfolios. They are: collection,
selection, reflection, evaluation and celebration. These steps make
portfolio implementation better and more thoughtful learning.
Stage 1: Collection
In this stage, teachers and students work together to save artifacts that
represent successes and opportunities for growth.
Stage 2: Selection
In this stage, teachers and students review and assess the saved
artifacts and jointly decide which of those artifacts best demonstrate the
achievement of learning goals.
Stage 3: Reflection
In this stage, students express their thinking about each piece in the
portfolios. They assess their own growth overt time as well as identify
and gaps in their development. It can't be denied that this stage is the
most important and it is what enables portfolios to become lifelong
tools.
Stage 4: Evaluation
In this stage, students compare their reflections to the pre-set goals and

other achievement standards and indicators and set learning goals for
the future.
Stage 5: Celebration


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The celebration or presentation means that students share their
portfolios with their peers. This is the stage where appropriate public
commitments can be made to encourage collaboration and commitment
to professional developments and lifelong learning (Barrett, 2001).
In short, each author applies different stages in carrying portfolios. Thus,
the researcher should take his or her own context and learning and
teaching situation into account before deciding the stages of portfolio
implementation.

2.3.6. The importance of Portfolios in learning the
Listening skill
It can’t be denied that portfolio plays a very important role in teaching
and learning the L2 as it may affect the students’ success in learning.
Consequently, it is essential to find out how important it is to learn the
listening skills. It can not only help the teachers diagnose the students'
skills and competences, but also make them more aware of the
students' preferences, styles and learning strategies. As the benefits of
this, more teachers have lately started applying in their teaching
because portfolios are regarded as a useful support to the new
instructional approaches that highlight the students' role in building
understanding

and

the

teacher's

role

in

speeding

up

mutual

understanding.
More importantly, portfolios are seen as the ideal exemplification of the
trends.

They

demonstrate

students'

achievements

through

work

samples with attached outcomes thereby supplying tangible proofs for
the teachers and students. They also concentrate on real work and
actual performance in classrooms.
Brookfield (1995) lists some benefits of learner reflection in portfolios as
follows:
There are many other authors who suggest using portfolios in teaching
and learning foreign languages in general and English in particular. For
instance, Abrami and Sclater (2005); Nunes (2004); Banfi (2003);
Matthew and Shimo (2002); Rea (2001); Fenwick and Parsons (1999)
and et al point out that portfolios can be a useful tool for evaluating


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students' outcomes; and that using portfolios in listening courses
improves students' autonomy, reflection, teamwork, and self-learning.

2.4. Summary
In this chapter, the relevant literature which is needed to form the
theoretical and conceptual framework for the current study is presented.
To begin with, prominent definitions of listening comprehension are
introduced according to some outstanding scholars, and then the
listening process is presented so as to investigate the nature of listening
comprehension.
What's more, the presently prominent groups of models of the listening
process have been discussed as they all have important contributions to
the nature of listening comprehension and the listening process. Also,
the importance of listening is mentioned including some small points
relating to the issue.

Last but not least, the concepts and ideas relating to the portfolios such
as definitions of portfolio, stages of portfolios, portfolio contents and
importance of portfolios in learning listening are conceptualized,
discussed and analyzed as a base for the study.

Chapter 3: The study
3.1. Introduction