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 Writing-that 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 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 skillsImproving 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


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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
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.

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


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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.
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).

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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. 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
- social
Procedural knowledge
- how language is used in discourse
Knowledge of situation
- physical setting, participants, etc
Knowledge of co-text
- what has been/ will be said (written)
Knowledge of the language system

- semantic
- syntactic
- phonological

Systematic
knowledge

C
O
M
P

context

R
E
H

systematic
knowledge

E
N

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


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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 bottom-up and top-down processes in
comprehension. Listeners use top-down process when they use context and prior
knowledge (topic, genre, background knowledge, and other schema knowledge in longterm 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

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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."
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 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


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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) identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant
information, (5) 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.
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 teachercentered 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

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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
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 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.


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- 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.
- 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.


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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.
* 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 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,

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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 stages of
portfolio implementation are introduced and analyzed. Last but not least, the importance of
portfolios in learning the listening skills is dealt with.

2.3.2. Definitions of Portfolio
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 appropriatelysized 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.


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2.3.3. The contents of Portfolios
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 teacherstudent 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.
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.


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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
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.


15

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).
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 problemsolving 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, 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


16

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
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 students'

17

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
There are two parts in this chapter: The first part is the analysis of the situation of the study
with the description of the subjects, the materials the teachers use, the listening syllabus
and the instruments used to gather data. Later on is the comprehensive analysis of the data
gathered from the survey and the findings.

3.2. Situation analysis
3.2.1. The setting of the study

The study was conducted at the Foreign Language Department, Hong Duc University. The
university is a new provincial one; everything is still in the process of innovation and
development. We are on the way to look for better things. The Department offers a fouryear B.A, English program for English major students. EFL is taught and learnt officially


18

as a university major in an academic setting. Like many other subjects, English is taught in
a formal setting of the classroom. The four-year training program is divided into two
phases. In the first phase, which lasts for the first two years, the students study the four
language skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. In the second one, when the
students are at the third and four years, besides the four language skills, they will deal with
the theoretical subjects such as methodology, literature, lexicology, grammar, etc. Each
academic year is divided into two terms, each lasting 15 weeks and finishing with end-ofsemester examinations.

3.2.2. The subjects
The participants for my study came from my University in Thanh Hoa province with two
third-year B.A. English classes and 10 teachers in the Language Skills Division I, to which
I had convenient access.


The students

The third- year students of FLD are studying in their fifth term, aged from 20 to 22, most
of them are female. They entered the university from different places of Thanh Hoa
province. Some of them had learnt English for 3 years, and not many of them had learnt
English for 7 years before entering the university.


The teachers of the Language Skills Division

There are 10 teachers of English in Division of Language Skills Development, four males
and six females. They have had at least two years of experience working as English
teachers. They graduated from different universities, some of them have completed MA
courses from Department of Post-graduate Studies, University of Language and
International Studies, HN National University, the rest have BA degrees, however, they are
all experienced and dedicated teachers. All of the 10 respondents have had opportunities to
teach different subjects in English and specialized in specific language skills. They are
good at and interested in such skills as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Therefore,
they have experience in teaching language skills, especially listening. The table below
summarizes the characteristics of the subjects of the study:
Qualifications/training/teaching

No. of respondents

Had tertiary training inside Vietnam

10/10

Had tertiary training outside Vietnam

0/10

Holding M.A in English teaching or language fields

2/10

Having been to an English speaking country

3/10

Having attended a workshop in English teaching

7/10

Having worked as language teachers for over five years

5/10

Having taught listening for over 3 years

4/10

Table 1: Summary of information about the staff’s background


19

3.2.3. Listening course books
Actually, all the materials used for teaching and learning listening for the third-year
students are chosen and prepared under the tendency of task-based approaches. The
curriculum for each academic year consists of two terms, 15 weeks for each. During each
term, a number of selected topics together with a wide range of different tasks are covered
with a view to helping the students to enhance their listening skills. These selections are
based on the students’ level of English, their interests and the objectives of the term.
The third – year students under investigation have just finished their first two years.
Students have 2 periods of listening skills per week, equal to 90 minutes every week. Inclass activities are those which focus on listening skills. Students have lessons on listening
skills with P-W-P frame (Pre-listening, While-listening and Post-listening). Teachers play
roles like instructors, monitors, facilitators to help students acquire the knowledge of each
lesson learned.

3.2.4. Teaching and learning listening skills
It stands to reason that listening teachers are in charge of improving students’ skills to
listen to English. In other words, the teachers need to have knowledge of the skills
available to listeners for use while listening. Generally speaking, students are supposed to
be familiarized with basic listening skills, different kinds of listening exercises, and most
widely recognized English accents. The students are also expected to have been able to
understand clearly and slowly articulated English speech related to areas of most
immediate priority (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local
geography, employment, etc.)
In terms of language, to further develop the students’ listening skills, the teachers address
all the three developmental levels of listening (literal, interpretive and critical), provides
more listening practice with input of higher difficulty and trains a wider range of listening
strategies so that at the completion of the course, students can achieve the objectives.
In terms of methodology, the students are expected to be active in self-studying, peer and
group cooperating. They understand the tasks in class and at home as well as in their groupwork every week. Thus, they can improve their listening skills.

3.3. Selecting the population
The subject is carried out from two sources: from 62 third - year students and from 10
teachers teaching in the Division of Language Skills Development, Foreign Language
Department, Hong Duc University.
Sixty-two students (100% of the third - year students) were selected to participate in the
survey questionnaire. These students were randomly selected to go in for the research. In
this case, 'Cluster random sampling', which means that instead of randomly selecting the
individuals, the researcher randomly selects groups for investigation. One advantage of this
method is that it is convenient for the investigator to observe the participants who
completed the questionnaires in their classes. In this way, hopefully, the participants
chosen in the study could be representatives for the rest of the population.

20

Ten teachers (100% of the population) who have been teaching the listening skill at least
one year were invited to take part in the study.

3.4. Instrumentation
The main instruments developed for the data collection are two questionnaires (see
appendices 1& 2): one for teachers and one for students, both of which are attached in the
Appendix. The major attraction of questionnaires is their unprecedented efficiency in terms
of (a) researcher time, (b) researcher effort, and (c) financial resources (Gillham, 2000, as
cited in Xuan Hoa Hoang and Thi Thuy Minh Nguyen, 2006, p.11). By administering a
questionnaire to a group of people, one could collect a huge amount of information in a
little amount of time. Then the author could process the data fast and relatively straight
forwards. Last but not least, it could be used successfully with a variety of people in variety
of situations.
Two sets of survey questionnaires were completed with the participation of 62 second-year
students and 10 teachers in the Language Skills Division. This method allows the author to
collect the data needed in “Improving listening skillsquantitative form”.. Furthermore, it is rather easy to summarize,
analyze and report the collected data as all informants submit the answers to the same
questions. Finally, the questionnaires offer all informants an opportunity to denote their
attitudes towards teaching and learning the listening skills freely because their personal
information is ensured in the strictest confidence. According to Gillham (2000) and
Nachmias (1996), the respondents are not put under pressure of time i.e. they answer the
questions in their own time and at their own pace, and in an anonymous style of
responding, they undoubtedly feel free and comfortable to answer questions and give
reliable responses. Therefore, questionnaires were chosen as a data collection instrument in
this study because the information collected was objective and reliable.

3.4.1. The questionnaire for the students
The questionnaire was designed with three parts. Part one comprises the first three closed

questions that the author desires to explore the students' attitudes towards the portfolios.
Questions 4, 5, 6 and 7 are aimed at getting data on the response of students' preferences
for portfolio contents. They are multiple choice questions to which the participants can
choose more than one option and if necessary can supply other choices.
The final part of the questionnaire was made to find out the students' suggestions for the
application of portfolios.

3.4.2. The questionnaire for the teachers
The questionnaire (with 8 questions) completed by the teachers consisted of three main
points. To begin with, their attitudes towards the role of portfolio will be gathered through
answers to the first four questions. Next, the present use of portfolio for the students' self learning will be surveyed with a view to seeing whether all teachers do the same thing in
the portfolios, which portfolio contents are often employed and what are their difficulties