TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS OF GRADE 9

TABLE OF CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
1.2. Aims of the study
1.3. Research subjects
1.4. Method
1.5. Innovation
2. DEVELOPMENT
2.1. Literature review
2.2 Basic of theory
2.3. Research data and data analysis
2.4. Experimental Results
3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1.Conclude
3.2. Request
REFERENCE

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INTRODUCTION
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. RATIONALE
Nowadays English has played an important part in our life and
nobody can deny that English is the international medium in the fields of
science, technology, culture, education, economy and so on. It has been
considered as an international language all over the world, it has become a
compulsory subject in all secondary schools as well. It is the key for anyone
who wants to get success in life. It is also considered a means to promote mutual
understanding and cooperation between Viet Nam and other countries. It is
widely seen as the key language toll in the integrating process in the world. With
rapid development and expansion of the informational technologies, there needs
to be a common language for people of all countries to exchange information
with each other and it is English that is used as a means of international
communication.
Listening is ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the
communication process. Listening is a key to all effective communication.
Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood. As a
result, communication breacks down and the sender of the message can easily
become frustrated or irriated. But techniques for improving English listening
skill is the topic that has got mucilage concern of expects. Many books about
this issue have been published. Different authors dealt with different aspects of
the topic. However, the difficulties that leaeners often have in learning listening
and solutions for the problems mentioned in some books have not been clearly
dealt with in full and somtimes caused confusion to learner of English. As a
result, students of English often find listening difficult because they do not have
appropriate methods to get over the difficulties. Therefore ; This research is
armed at studying factors relevants to listening comprehension. Structure of a

listening lesson and conducting a survey for collecting data about the students ‘
difficulties in learning listening. Base on the result of the survey, the difficulties
have been found. Solution to the problems have been suggested. One of the
urgent requirements for all English teachers is to be able to help students
improve four skills well.
Among Secondary schools in Thanh Hoa Province, Cam Phong Secondary
School has invested for teaching and learning English for many recent years.
However, the teaching and learning process seems to still focus too much on
grammar, structures and vocabularies. Our students are very good at doing
exercises of written forms; These forms of exercises mostly concern grammar,
reading or writing comprehension. Meanwhile listening is considered the one of
the fundamental language skills, the status of listening in language teaching and
learning has undergone substantial changes in recent years.
From my teaching context, I find that my students seem to fail in doing
listening tasks in textbook because of many reasons. The two important reasons
are that the content of the tasks is really complicated while students' listening
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ability is not good and especially students have few strategies to deal with their
listening problems. So what difficulties do students in Cam Phong Secondary
School face with learning listening, whether the innovation effect on student'
listening improvement and their attitude towards the new way of teaching
listening if the author changes are the burning questions in the researcher's mind
that inspire the author to change the way to teach listening skill in order to help
students. With the hope of improving listening skill for our students and as a
result, the experience initiative goes as:“Techniques for improving listening
skills of grade 9 students at Cam Phong Secondary School.”
1.2. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to investigate the difficulties in listening which

the students Cam Phong Secondary School encounter so that some effective
techniques can be given to help them improve this skill.
These are the specific aims:
- finding out the difficulties encountered by the students
- investigating the students’ attitudes at FLSS towards listening
- suggesting techniques with the hope of helping the students improve
the ability of listening
1.3. RESEARCH SUBJECTS
This study addressed the following research questions:
1. What difficulties do nineth grade students face with learning listening to
English materials?
2. Does the new way of teaching listening effect on students' listening
improvement or not?
3. What are students' attitudes to the new way of teaching listening?
1.4. METHODS
The methods used in the study consisted of classroom observation, small
group interviews and teaching dairy. The first method was classroom
observation. Students were observed while they were doing the listening tasks to
examine whether students listened to the CD attentively and how they did the
tasks. The second one was informal small group interviews to define the
difficulties and the students' attitude towards listening after carrying out
listening innovation. Finally, in order to investigate whether this listening
innovation was useful for students and whether it could encourage students to
listen, what the teacher observed and interviewed were noted down on weekly
teaching dairy.
Listening challenges for English language learners
There are many difficulties an individual may face in understanding a talk,
lecture or conversation in a second language (and sometimes even in their first
language). The speaker, the situation and the listener can all be the cause of
these difficulties. Contributing factors include the speaker talking quickly,

background noise, a lack of visual clues (such as on the telephone), the listener’s
limited vocabulary, a lack of knowledge of the topic, and an inability to
distinguish individual sounds. While the challenges posed by the speaker or the

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situation may be out of the listener’s hands, there are a few skills or 'strategies'
that English learners can use to help them along.
1.4.1. Predicting content
Imagine you've just turned on your TV. You see a man in a suit standing in front
of a large map with the symbols of a sun, clouds and thunder. What do you
imagine he is about to tell you? Most likely, this is going to be a weather
forecast. You can expect to hear words like 'sunny', 'windy' and 'overcast'. You'll
probably hear the use of the future tense: 'It'll be a cold start to the day'; 'there'll
be showers in the afternoon', etc. Depending on the context – a news report, a
lecture, an exchange in a supermarket – you can often predict the kind of words
and style of language the speaker will use. Our knowledge of the world helps us
anticipate the kind of information we are likely to hear. Moreover, when we
predict the topic of a talk or a conversation, all the related vocabulary stored in
our brains is 'activated' to help us better understand what we're listening to.
Practise predicting content:
Watch or listen to a recorded TV programme or clip from YouTube. Pause after
every few sentences. Try to predict what is going to happen or what the speaker
might say next.
Tip:
If you are taking a listening test, skim through the questions first and try to
predict what kind of information you need to listen out for. A question
beginning 'How many..?', for example, will probably require you to listen for a
specific number or quantity of something.

1.4.2. Listening for gist
Imagine you are a superhero flying in the sky. From that height, it is possible to
see what the entire area is like, how densely populated it is, the kind of houses in
each area. When listening, it is also possible to get the ‘whole picture’ but with
one crucial difference: information comes in a sequence. And in that sequence of
information, there are content words (the nouns, adjectives and verbs) that can
help you form that picture. We often call this listening for gist.
For example, the words 'food', 'friends', 'fun', 'park' and 'sunny day' have their
own meanings, but when you hear the words in sequence, they help form
the context of a picnic.
Practise listening for gist:
Find a short video with subtitles on a topic that interests you. Use the title to
help you predict the content and then listen out for the content words. Go back,
and listen again with the subtitles. How much did you understand the first time?
Return to the video a week later and try again.
Tip:
When you learn new words, try to group them with other words used in a
similar context. Mind maps are good for this.
1.4.3. Detecting signposts
Just like the traffic lights on roads, there are signposts in language that help us
follow what we're listening to. These words, which link ideas, help us to

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understand what the speaker is talking about and where they are taking us.
They're particularly important in presentations and lectures.
For example, if a university lecturer says: 'I am going to talk about three factors
affecting global warming…' then later on you might hear the phrases 'first of all',
'moving on to' and 'in summary' to indicate the next part of the talk. Other words

and phrases can function in a similar way. For instance, to clarify ('in other
words', 'to put it another way'); to give examples ('to illustrate this', 'for
example'), and so on. Take a look at this list of phrases for more examples.
Practise detecting signpost language:
Most course books for learners of English come with a CD and audio script.
Find an example of a business presentation or lecture and see how
many signpost phrases you can identify (listen more than once, if necessary).
Then check your notes with the audio script.
Tip:
In your notebook, group signpost phrases according to their functions, and
continue to add new expressions as you come across them.
1.4.4. Listening for details
Imagine you are a detective taking a closer look at those buildings you saw
earlier on as a superhero. This time, rather than taking in the big picture, you're
looking for something specific and rejecting anything that does not match what's
on your list. Similarly, when listening for details, you are interested in a
specific kind of information – perhaps a number, name or object. You can ignore
anything that does not sound relevant. In this way, you are able to narrow down
your search and get the detail you need. In a listening test, if you are asked
to write down the age of a person, listen for the words related to age ('old',
'young', 'years', 'date of birth', etc.) or a number that could represent that
person's age. If it is a conversation, you might wait to hear someone beginning a
question with 'How old…?'
Practise listening for details:
Decide on a type of detailed information you want to practise listening for and
watch programmes where you would expect to get that information.For
example, you could listen to a weather report to get details about the weather, or
you could follow the sports news to find out the latest results.
Tip:
If you are taking a test, as soon as you get the question paper, skim through the

questions, underline the important words and decide what kind of detail you
need to identify in the listening text.
1.4.5. Inferring meaning
Imagine you are a tourist in a country whose language you do not speak. In a
restaurant, you hand over a credit card to pay for the bill, but the server seems to
say something apologetic in response. Even though you don't understand his
words, you can probably conclude that the restaurant doesn't take credit cards,
and you need to pay with cash instead. This is the technique of inferring
meaning: using clues and prior knowledge about a situation to work out the
meaning of what we hear. Similarly, we can infer the relationship between
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people from the words they use, without having to find out directly. Take the
following conversation:
A: Tom, did you do your homework?
B: I did, sir, but the dog ate it.
A: That's a terrible excuse. You'll never pass your exams if you don't
work harder.
We can infer from the use of the words 'homework' and 'exams' that this is a
conversation between a student and his teacher. By using contextual clues and
our knowledge of the world, we can work out what's being said, who is speaking
and what's taking place.
Practise inferring meaning:
Find a YouTube clip from a popular television show, for example Friends. Now,
rather than watch it, just listen to the dialogue. How much can you infer about
what is taking place, who is talking and what their relationship is? Now listen to
the clip a second time but watch it too. Were your conclusions correct?
Tip:
The next time you hear a word you don't understand, try to guess its meaning

using the context or situation to help you. But don't worry if you don't get it the
first time. As with everything in life, the more you practise, the better you will
get.
Summing up
These strategies are not stand-alone. While prediction is mostly a pre-listening
skill, others need to be used simultaneously to get the best result when listening.
Learners of English, improve your listening skills with our free podcasts
for grade 9 at Cam Phong secondary school
1.5. INNOVATION
In this section, I would like to introduce my innovation in my listening
periods carried out from October 10 to November 30 at Cam Phong Secondary
School. There are thirty nine students who are in grade 9 in my class with mixed
abilities. Each week we had one listening period which lasted during 45 minutes.
The main material was English 9 book which designed with different topics as
well as different tasks for students to practice listening. However, most of
students in my class are low competence and they seem to have no strategies to
listen, therefore the tasks are too difficult for them. This is the reason why I
decided to innovate and this innovation divided into 2 steps: adapting the
listening materials and the tasks, providing students with appropriate listening
strategies.
a. What is innovation?
The word "innovation" has been much mentioned in many language
researchers in recent years. Miles (1964, p13) found that innovation as
organizational behaviors while Nicholls (1983, p4) illustrated innovation as “an
idea, object or practice perceived as new by an individual or individuals, which
is intended to bring about improvement in relation to desired objectives, which
is fundamental in nature and which is planned and deliberate. White (1998)

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realized innovation in differences with change; innovation is defined as
involving deliberate alteration-intention is a crucial element.
b. Context of the previous listening teaching
Before I carried out my innovation, I usually warmed up my students by
some activities such as, guessing games, picture description, in order to lead to
the topic of the new lesson. After that I dealt with each listening task in the
textbook by playing the tape three times for each task, then asked them to give
their answers. Most of them gave the correct answers because they had the
teachers' books which contained the answers to the tasks in our textbook that
was the reason why they could answer quickly and correctly. In spite of the fact
that all tasks were completed that meant my duty also completed, my students
did not really pay attention the lesson, they did not understand the content of the
lesson because the tasks in the textbook were difficult for them to do and they
chose the simply way to complete this compulsory part of English subject
instead of learning how to listen effectively.
c. Adapting the listening materials and the tasks.
With the clear purpose to encourage our students in listening, my school
headmaster completely supported my innovation providing that the materials
had to refer to the topic of the curriculum designed.
I redesigned the tasks in the textbook for the familiar topics and find other
materials for difficult topic in order to make the listening materials easier and
more interesting. There were many sources to find the listening materials,
however I really found it difficult to choose because the materials had to meet
require that it related to the topic in the textbook and the content of it was easier
and more interesting than the materials in the textbook. After ten days, I
believed that I chose appropriate materials, I started designing the exercises. I
divided the listening tapes into small parts and designed different kind of tasks
for each listening part such as, number the pictures, listen and tick the words
you hear, filling in the gaps, multiple choice questions, true or false statements,

arrange the words they hear to make a complete sentences and so on. All
materials were printed and given to students in the listening classes.
d. Providing listening strategies to guide them to listen.
At first, I also warmed up them by some interesting activities such as,
crossword, action games, and describing pictures,...ect to lead to the topic they
were going to listen to. Before listening for the first time, I supplied my students
with new words and new structures, and then I gave each student a handout
which contained the listening exercises for the listening lesson. For each
exercise, my students were asked to read the instruction and the content of the
exercise carefully to make sure that they understood what they had to do. If they
did not understand what the task meant, I would explain. If the topics were
familiar with daily life, my students were asked to predict the answers before
listening. After that I provided them some suitable listening strategies for each
task and guide them how to do. I played the CD player for the first listening,
stopped at the key sentences, and then only played the key sentences contained

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the answers for the second and third time. My students were allowed to discuss
the answers in one minute before I called some students to give the answers.
e. Problems happened when introducing innovation
When I introduced my innovation in my class, my students were really
surprised by what I was doing because they had to use the tasks given by the
teacher instead of using the tasks in textbook as usual. Some of them may be
confused because they could not see the answer keys in teacher's book to answer
the questions.
When innovation was carried out, many colleagues in my school believed
that my innovation would help my students improve their listening skill and
made them be more interested in listening. Some of them thought that it was not

practical and I was wasting my time and my effort because it did not help
students to pass the General Certificate of Secondary Education.
2. DEVELOPMENT
2.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Today the use of English in communication is essential and important.
English not only helps us to develop economic, society, but also helps us
integrate with our friends throughout the world. English is useful for many
different reasons: We may use English when traveling or working abroad. If we
know English, we can find a good job easily, we can trade with other countries
in English around the world to do business, economic development. Knowing
English helps us understand the songs, read books, watch movies, watch TV
programs in English. But in fact, secondary students in particular and people
learning English in general have not learned English boldly and confidently to
communicate in practice. In order to help the students use English to
communicate in everyday life, the teachers need to innovate teaching methods,
pay attention to promoting language environment at school. However this is not
an easy matter for both the teachers and the students. It is important for the
teachers to know how to select the specific language games in the appropriate
classes of objects, the ability of the students to meet the efficiency. The teachers
should always encourage the students to participate in learning activities and
practice communicating to make the lessons exciting, lively, and attractive. They
can form the habit of communicating in English .
2.2. BASIS OF THEORY
When introducing my own innovation, the author found some similarities
with the study of God (2000). In the study of God, he also wanted to find the
learner's listening problems and provide them some strategies with the hope to
help them deal with their listening problems. The result in God proved that
listening strategies provided were really useful to students.
Sharing the same idea with God (2000), Teng (2003) also helped students
to listen more effectively by instructing them some listening strategies. The

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results of the study showed that students' perception toward the task of learning
listening was changed. Most strategies taught were positive effect to students.
Although some strategies had little effectiveness, the study brought students
some useful strategies to improve their listening comprehension.
In Wang's study (2007), the researcher also used observation, interview
and dairy to collect data; especially the author's changes helped students who
were the participants of the study take part in the listening activities more
actively and more conscientiously. And more importantly both the researcher
and students were contented with the author's changes.
Sharing the similarities with Cross (2009) about the methods to collect
data, the author also collected data by using interview, observation. Both the
researcher and Cross have attempted to help students to improve their listening
skill.
2.3. RESEARCH DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS
In this section, I would like to introduce the research data when I carried
out my innovation and the results of the study from observations, small group
interview and teacher's dairy.
The first part of this section was the data analysis of the first observation
and interview which were carried out before adapting materials and providing
strategies. The second part was the results from the observations and interview
which were conducted after applying the innovation in the listening lesson.
Part 1: Before innovation
* Observation result.
The first observation was done during the first listening lesson with no
change. The researcher invited two other English teachers in the English
department at Cam Phong Secondary School to observe. Then, the researcher
collected their observation schemes to synthesize and analyze. Following were

some main points of observation results.
* The materials that teacher used were only textbook (English 9) and the
cassette. The teacher only explained the aim of tasks and then asked students to
do by listening two or three times without providing them strategies to do the
tasks.
* Students seemed to be quiet; they looked at the teacher's books while
listening instead of looking the tasks and listening to the tape attentively and did
the tasks in silence. Students participated in the lesson without volunteer; the
teacher had to call them to give their answers and their opinions about the other
answers. The class atmosphere was boring.
* Interview results
Two questions in Vietnamese were asked two small groups students as
soon as the lesson had finished and the information was noted down on the
teacher's diary. From the data collected, the researcher synthesized, analyzed and
found that students had many difficulties when learning listening and they
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thought that listening was the most difficult skill of four skills. Here are two
comments transcript from interviewing two small groups:
We find that listening is very difficult, learning listening is a long constant
process. But we only focused on grammar for a long time ago, therefore when
we realize that listening is really necessary for us, we want to learn it well, we
had many difficulties. We see that the tasks in the textbook are not interesting
and too complicated to us. Especially we do not have techniques to do the tasks.
It is listening that take much time to learn, but we do not study it well because
we lack of many things. The content of some tasks in our textbook is boring and
difficult for us, in addition to the difficulty that we are not guided how to learn
listening well. Therefore there are many difficulties that we cope with when we
have to find our own ways to learn listening.

Part 2: After innovation
* Observation results
The second observation was carried out during the following weeks. The
researcher observed together with five teachers who were in English
Department. After that, the researcher collected the observation schemes, noted
down the information and analyzed the data. The following were some findings
from observation:
* The listening class started with some interesting activates that led to the
topic of the lesson. The teacher provided some new words that appeared in the
listening passage before listening and taught students how to pronounce.
Students are not nervous, they seemed to be motivated.
* The tasks in the handouts which the teacher gave students were adapted.
When received the handout, some of students were confused because it was
quite different from their textbook, but when the teacher explained why she had
to do that they nod their head.
* Students were asked to read the instruction of each task carefully, the
teacher explained the instruction to some students who did not understand what
the task meant and then the teacher provided them some strategies to do each
task. Most students participated in the lesson; sometimes few students seemly
ignored their duty. However, the class atmosphere was warmed up. Students
listened attentively and did the task actively. They gave the answers voluntarily
and gave their comments when there was mistake.
* Students' interview results
The second interview was conducted after each listening lesson in the
break time. The students were asked to answer three main questions. The
findings from each question were synthesized and analyzed below:
For question 1 of students' feeling about listening after applying the new
way to teach, most students realized that listening was necessary for their future
life. Although it was difficult, it was really interesting. If they had good listening
materials and appropriate listening strategies, they would study it better. This

proved that innovation had a good influence on students. However, some
students admitted that learning listening was not easy and it was difficult for
them to overcome their problems in learning listening.
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For question 2 "What do you think about the teacher's innovation in
listening lesson?" Most students believed that the teacher made the listening
materials easier and more interesting. The materials were appropriate with their
ability. Especially, they felt confident when they had listening strategies given
by teacher. Most of them thought that the changes were helpful and necessary.
The class atmosphere became more exciting. This illustrated that the teacher's
change was effective; students really were aroused after leaving listening behind
for a long time ago. They were not stressful; they released themselves from the
teacher's book when they listened and did the tasks confidently and actively.
Seeing these findings, the author herself felt quite happy because her efforts
were not in vain. However, few students still found it difficult in catching up
with the lesson because of the speech rate in the tape. Here is some information
transcript:
We think that the teacher's change is necessary. It helps us to interest in the
listening lesson. We find it easier to listen and not stressful. We believe that our
listening skill is improved better.
We do not have to depend on the teacher's book when listening and with the help
of our teacher we understand our problems faced with and we know how to
control them to finish the tasks.
For question 3, which asked students about their satisfaction after the
change in their listening lesson, the author learned that majority of students were
satisfied with the innovative listening lessons. Four groups interviewed
expressed their great satisfaction of listening materials adapted. This meant one
of the difficulties of students was deal with. Two groups showed their interest in

listening strategies. They really were confident when they knew how to do the
tasks with the strategies provided. The second difficulty was also tackled.
However, one group admitted that although the lesson was more interesting that
it was, they wanted the teacher to slow down the process of doing some tasks.
Some comments from group interviews transcript below:
We do like the new ways of teaching listening. We feel that the materials adapted
are suitable for our ability. We think that it is a good way to help us to improve
our listening skill.
We want to thank you because you provide us many useful strategies to be able
to learn listening better. After your effort to help us improve listening skill, we
can see our problems and learn how to overcome in order to develop our
listening skill. We think it is an effective way; you should apply to all listening
lessons.
* Teacher's interview results
After six weeks of the innovation, five English teachers who were invited
to observe class 9C were interview about their opinions about teaching listening
and their attitudes to the innovation. The following were some main finding
from this interview:
* Two teachers complained that listening was one of the most difficult
skills to teach. Teaching listening really was not easy for them because of many
reasons such as the low level of students, the limited time for listening period
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(only 45 minutes), the inappropriate materials, and act. Especially, they were
disappointed when students did not take part in the lesson enthusiastically; they
depended on the answer keys on the teacher's book. Therefore the aim of
teaching was not successful.
* Most teachers expressed their agreement about the idea of the effects of
innovation on students' listening. They found that this innovation helped the

listening lesson easier and more interesting and students became more actively
and students' listening skill was really improved. However, teachers said that it
was not easy to choose appropriate materials that related to the topic in the
textbook and it was difficult to cut the tape into key sentences which contained
the answers.
* One of two teachers thought that it was not necessary to make change
because it took much time to prepare meanwhile listening was not used for
GCSE.
* Practice listening through the lessons:
Appendix 1: Observation diary before change
The first listening lesson Period 23 Unit 3 Skills 2- (Listening)
Events:
1. The teacher warm-up and checked up old lesson.
2. The teacher started to introduce new lesson Unit 3: Skills 2- part 4: Listening
3. Students had to listen and choose the best answer then answer the questions.
4. The teacher asked the students to open their textbooks and asked them read
the task carefully. Then, the teacher played the tape for students to listen at the
first time.
5. Teacher asked Ss to give their answer if they can. Most students did not have
the answer. They kept silent.
6. Teacher played the tape for the second and third time and asked Ss to give
the final answer in their notebook. Then, two students were called on to write
the answers on the board. They looked at the answers on their paper notes to
write on board.
7. Teacher played the tape for the last time to check the answers.
* Notes
- The atmosphere was not comfortable.
- Students participated in the lesson without enthusiast. Most students did the
task in silence.
- They copied the answers from the teacher's book without listening

Interview questions before innovation
The first listening lesson
1. How are you today?
2. What do you think about listening skill?
3. What difficulties do you usually face with listening lesson?

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Appendix 2: Classroom observation diary after innovation
Period 17: Unit 3 TEEN STRESS AND PRESURE - GETTING
STRARTED (Listening)
Events
1. Students were warmed up by some interesting pictures and then led to the
new lesson.
2. The teacher provided some new words that appears in listening passage,
taught them how to pronounce them.
3. The teacher gave students the listening handout and asked Sts to read the
instructions of task 1 carefully to make sure that all of them understood what
they had to do.
4. The teacher gave them some strategies to do task 2 (Multiple choice
questions): first read all questions and their options carefully, tried to choose the
best answer before listening
5. The teacher played the tape for the first time. The second and the third time
she only played the key sentences for each question. Students listened to the tape
attentively.
6. Most students raised their hands to answer the questions when the tape
stopped.
7. The teacher played the taped again to check their answers.
* Notes

- The class atmosphere was interesting.
- Students took part in the lesson actively and enthusiastically, answered the
questions confidently. They could explained why they chose
- The tape was cut into small key sentences.
Appendix 3: Classroom observation diary after innovation
Period 43 Unit 6 SKILLS 2- (Listening).
Events
1. Students were warmed up by "crosswords" and then led to the new lesson.
2. The teacher provided some new words that appears in listening passage,
taught them how to pronounce it.
3. The teacher gave students the listening handout and asked Sts to read the
instructions of task 1 carefully to make sure that all of them understood what
they had to do.
4. The teacher gave them some strategies to do task 1 (True or False
statements?): first read all the statements, then underlined the key words of each
statement, tried to predict whether they were true or false before listening.
5. The teacher played the tape for the first time. The second and the third time
she only played the key sentences for each statement. Students listened to the
tape attentively.
6. Most students were eager to answer the questions when the tape stopped.
7. The teacher played the taped again to check their answers.
* Notes

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- Some students were confused when got the handout because it was quite
different with the tasks in their textbook, but when the teacher explained why
they understood.
- The class atmosphere was interesting.

- Surprisingly, students took part in the lesson actively and enthusiastically.
- The tape was cut into small key sentences.
- Listening seemed to be easier than it was
Appendix 4: Classroom observation diary after innovation
Period 63 Unit 7 RECIPES AND EATING HABITS - SKILLS 2
Events
1. The teacher motivated students by showing some funny activities.
2. The teacher provided some new words that appears in listening passage,
taught them how to pronounce them, and explained the meaning of these words
through pictures
3. The teacher gave students the listening handout and asked Sts to read the
instructions of task 1carefully to make sure that all of them understood what
they had to do.
4. The teacher gave them some strategies to do task 3 (Gap filling): first read the
paragraph from the beginning to the end, tried to define the part of speech of
each gap and guessed the words basing on the content of the paragraph before
listening.
5. The teacher played the tape for the first time. The second and the third time
she only played the key words for each gap. Students listened to the tape
attentively.
6. Most students were eager to answer the questions when the tape stopped.
7. The teacher played the taped again to check their answers.
* Notes
- Students seemed to listen easier.
- Sts guessed some right words before listening. Therefore they felt happy.
- Some student shouted aloud "yes" when they listened correctly.
Appendix 5: Interview questions after innovation
Interview questions for students.
1. How are you today?
2. What do you think about listening skill?

3. What do you think about the teacher's innovation in this listening lesson?
4. Do you feel satisfied or not? Why?
Interview questions for teachers
1. How are you?
2. How long have you been teaching English?
3. How much time do you spend teaching English at school?
4. Which skill do you think is the most difficult to teach?
5. What are the difficulties for you when teaching four skills of English?
6. What do you think about your listening comprehension lessons?
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7. Do you think teaching listening in our school need to be changed? Why?
8. How do you feel about my innovation in listening lessons?
9. Does it help our students improve their listening skill? Why?
2.4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
After I conducted the teaching experiments about this topic in class 9C, I
find out their positive feedback which improves their listening more.
Result before and after applying the suggested adaptation of listening
activities in textbook ‘English 9’
Listening skill
Class/
After applying
Before applying
Number
Grade
of
Số lượng
Phần trăm
Số lượng

Phần trăm
students
9C/
36

xcellent
Good
Average
Weak
Bad

1 HS
5 HS
15 HS
9 HS
6 HS

2.8%
13,9%
41,6%
25%
16,7%

5 HS
8 HS
17 HS
4 HS
2 HS

13,9%

22,2%
47,2%
11,1 %
5,6%

3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1. CONCLUDE
This study was conducted with the cooperation of the researcher and five
English teachers in English Department as well as grade 9 students at Cam
Phong Secondary School. The aim of the innovation was to investigate what
difficulties grade 9 students faced with, the effect of innovation on student's
listening skill and the students' attitude toward listening after change. From the
results of the classroom observation, students' and teacher's interview and
teacher's dairy, the researcher could see the significant change in listening
lessons with the teacher's intervention. Both teachers and students realized the
necessity of the innovation in learning and teaching listening and felt satisfied
with this innovation. Students participated in the lesson eagerly and actively.
This led to the class atmosphere became more interesting. From this result, it
could be sure that the intervention had good impacts on students' participation,
the active learning environment and students could listened better than they used
to.
Although there were obvious significant changes in students' listening
improvement, with limited time the limitation of this study was unavoidable.
The author realized that there are still few areas that should be improved in the
future.
First, the findings cannot be generalized to all students in Cam Phong Secondary
School. Therefore further studies should explore the effectiveness of the
innovation with higher number of students and allocate a longer period of time
than only six weeks.
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Second, the author needs to improve the collection methods. In this study,
the teacher observed her students in listening class and noted down the
information on the teaching dairy by remembering what happened in the class
when the lesson finished. This could not be enough information so that the
author should record what was happening in the class and watched again to have
exact information. The researcher also did not record the interviews with
students and teachers, but based on the teacher's memory and the notes on the
dairy. This might miss some useful information. And the interview questions in
the research were still few. Thus, in order to have more and deep information,
the author should ask more questions and record the interviews in the further
studies.
On the whole, although there were some limitations for the first time in
doing an innovation, the researcher felt that it was worth efforts and this
research was a good experience for the author and her staffs. This study also
played an important role when it blew a new wind in teaching listening in Cam
Phong Secondary. Some teachers in the author's school began to implement
other studies with the hope to improve learning English situation in this school.
In the future, the author will continue to try her best to understand her students
and to make her teaching more interesting and effective to her students.
3.2. REQUEST:
To help my teaching and listening skills reach higher level, I strongly
recommend:
- School: To invest in additional facilities for study in fuctional rooms,
tapes, computers, headsets for students and microphone for the teacher. Beside,
establish English club at school so that students can practice more and
improving their English
- Education Department: Regularly organize seminars and seminars for
teachers to meet, exchange experienes and methods, and also have opportunity

to communicate with each other in English.
Confirmation of the Head Master of
Cam Phong Secondary School

Cam Phong March 3rd, 2018
I declare that the work contained in
this initiative is result of my own
research.
Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang

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