METHODS OF TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE 10th GRADE STUDENTS IN NHU XUAN HIGH SCHOOL

CONTENTS
Page
1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 2
1.1. The reason to choose the theme.............................................................. 2
1.2. Purpose to research ............................................................................... 3
1.3. The subjects to research ......................................................................... 3
1.4. The researching methods ....................................................................... 3
2. Contents and researching procedure ....................................................... 3
2.1. Theoretical background ......................................................................... 3
2.2. Status of the study problem ................................................................... 4
2.3. Measures for implementation ............................................................... 7
2.4. Study effects ........................................................................................... 11
3.Conclusion and propossals ....................................................................... 12
Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 12
Propossals ...................................................................................................... 13
REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 14
ASSESSED INITIATVE EXPERIENCES ................................................ 15
(DANH MỤC CÁC SKKN ĐÃ ĐƯỢC ĐÁNH GIÁ)

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1. Introduction
1.1. The reason to choose the theme
English plays an important role in our life. Nowadays. In the information
technology times and global integration, English is getting more and more
important and is gradually becoming the means of the international
communication. It is used in all the fields such as science, technique, economy,
culture, education, tourism ... It was estimated that over 4000 people speak
English as their mother-tongue and the same number use English as their second
language. Moreover, English is compulsory in the GCSE exammination, so

every student at high school must have a certain level of English to prepare for
the exam and after graduation they can communicate, read and write some
normal texts. Therefore, English is an essential means to everybody with their
practical aims. To do this, we constantly innovate teaching methods as well as
curricula to achieve substantive results of English in general and we can provide
students with some basic skills domestically and internationally. This change
facilitates the teaching and learning of English in high school to become a
teaching language instead of teaching grammar-translation many years ago.
However, to forge English skills for students, teachers have to face many
difficulties, especially for listening skills. In fact, at school, when I started to
study foreign languages, most students liked to study, but gradually the students
got tired of studying. Most of them are very weak in listening skills. It is
difficult for them to hear the content of a text or a conversation. After each
lesson, it is very difficult for the teacher to check the information they have
listened to, and checking old lessons is often not easy.
It is said that “ Teaching is an art and teacher is an artist that creates that art”,
so a teacher can only create that one when he is aware of their roles and the
teaching environment. In the class the teacher is not only an instructor but also
a leader, an enalyst who guides the students the different situations to make the
communicative activities more effective.
Facing that situation, I am a teacher who directly teach the subject English10
for the students exposed to English in the upper secondary school, I myself
worry so much how students can master, Listen to information and use
information proficiently. In the process of teaching and learning to observe
students, I discovered that teaching students' listening skills has many problems.
Most students do not know how to learn to listen, they usually think the
listening practice is the hardest. In the classroom, students often say that , there
are many words that are known in the listening tapescript but they can't hear.
How can students be able to use their vocabulary and grammatical structures to
understand effectively? So in the process of teaching, I searched for some

positive, simple, easy-to-understand, practical, scientific methods to develop
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thinking, speculative and creative ability for students. For those reasons I carry
out the researching problem: “ METHODS OF TEACHING LISTENING
SKILLS FOR THE 10th GRADE STUDENTS IN NHU XUAN HIGH
SCHOOL”
1.2. Purpose to research:
Although learning English is very important, students have not been aware of its
importance. Especially learning English in mountainous and remote areas is
much more difficult. Because English is a compulsory subject, students have to
study for their marks or for the examinations, they don’t study for their job or
their daily communication. Most students find learning English very boring. To
be honest, our teaching method is not very good, teaching materials is not
enough.... In English, vocabulary is a very important problem. How to teach
vocabulary effectively? That requires teachers to find out new methods, choose
appropriate words and teaching materials. This subject has been researched and
applied for the purpose of contributing to the common voice of English teaching
at the school. From the practical work, we want to help students develop English
listening skills to improve the quality of teaching English to the grade-10
students gradually in Nhu Xuan high school.
1.3. The subjects to research: The grade-10 students in Nhu Xuan high school
1.4. The researching methods: Study the teaching materials on Internet,
textbook, the demands and likes and mentality of students.
2. Contents and researching procedure
2.1. Theoretical background:
Using teaching methods and techniques in accordance with the content of lessons
and students in a class is very important factors to promote self-awareness,
activity in learning English so that the lessons are more effective. If teachers use

teaching methods and techniques that are inappropriate for the content of the
lesson and for the learners, so the lesson becomes boring and students have
difficulty in finding knowledge, students do not want to learn, are not active in
learning. Therefore, the results are not high, and we do not achieve our goals. In
order to effectively use teaching methods and techniques, especially active
teaching methods and techniques in a lesson that requires the teacher to be
flexible, The content of the lesson, consistent with the teaching equipment of that
section has to be suitable for students of each class.
As we know, in the curriculum, in response to the demands of the education
and the demands of the society, many new teaching methods and techniques have
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been required, so the teachers have to be up-to-date in effective use in specific
lectures, which are:
- Cooperative Teaching: Cooperative Teaching is the method that the teacher
leads students to work in small groups so that students work on a certain
assignment in a certain period of time. In the group, under the guidance of the
group leader, students combine personal work and pair work, share experience and
collaborative work to solve assigned tasks. [1]
- Project-Based Learning: Project-based learning is a learning activity that is
designed to provide students with the opportunities to synthesize knowledge from a
variety of areas of study and apply creativeness to life. The project is a situation
that learners have to solve with knowledge according to the content of the lesson.
Project-based learning puts learners in a problematic situation, but solving
problems requires high self-reliance. [1]
- Technique for Questioning: In teaching, the teacher's question system plays an
important role, is one of the factors determining in the quality of the student's
knowledge. This technique is often used in conversation questions with students,
instead of presentations, reading, writing and the teacher preparares questionaires

for students to think about, developing the lesson content as well as encouraging
the students' brainstorming, is centered around the ideas and content of the lesson
in logical order. [1]
- For foreign language teaching in general and teaching English in particular, the
innovation of teaching methods is very important. It is hard for students to master
the language, be good at all the skills, specially for students at Nhu Xuan which is
one of 11 mountainous districts of Thanh Hoa province. Listening is one of the
basic content, a subtle combination of teaching skills and a difficult skill to
achieve. From the above point, the use of appropriate songs really helps the
students interested in the subject, better at listening skill. In my opinion, every
teacher needs to find an optimal method, in accordance with the actual situation
and the individual pupils.
As a teacher of English, I hope to bring my knowledge to impart easily to the
students, and find out teaching methods for myself. So I boldly launched research
projects: “ METHODS OF TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS FOR THE 10 th
GRADE STUDENTS IN NHU XUAN HIGH SCHOOL”. I hope the use of
appropriate songs for listening skill will help the students extremely interested in
the subject, better at listening skill.
2.2. Status of the study problem:
The definition of listening is understood by scientists in different ways.
- According to Field (1998: 38), “Listening is an invisible intellectual process, so it
is difficult to describe. Listeners must distinguish sounds, understand vocabulary
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and grammatical structures, grasp the tone and intent of the speakers to be able to
recall and understand it in the socio-cultural context of the speech.” [2]
-Nderson & Lynch (1988: 21) provide the definition of listening comprehension as
follows: “Listening comprehension means to understand what the speaker has said.
The listener plays a particularly important role in the listening process by using his

diverse knowledge to analyze what he hears in order to understand the speech of
the speaker.” [2]
- The definition of listening comprehension, according to Van Tan and Nguyen Van
Dam (1997) in 'Vietnamese Dictionary', is as follows: “Listening is a process in
which auditory receives external sounds and transitions. It reaches the central
nervous system. Here, these sounds are analyzed, transformed into signals, and
transmitted to the senses that help shape human reflections for those sounds. " [3]
In teaching English, for teachers, combining the four skills: Listening Speaking - Reading - Writing is indispensable in order to comply with the reform
programs by the Ministry of Education and Training. Teachers need to teach tricks
for students to be distinctive, easily recognizable and well in actual use, as well as
the associated test concerned so that they can listen properly. However, over the
years, we have become familiar with such ideas as: "We do not have listening
competition for students at all levels."; "We need to help students understand and
use the phrases, grammar proficiency points as much as possible, so that they can
achieve high scores in these tests ". In fact, according to the reforms enacted by the
Ministry of Education, students learn Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing
Skills equally, but they almost only use Writting skill in their final exam. That may
be the reason that we do not pay attention to teaching Listening skills perfectly for
students. This leads to the fact that pupils have good grammar and are weak at
listening and speaking ability. Like students in other countries in Asia, they have
been trained through a system focusing on English grammar, very little on the
listening and speaking ability to communicate. Therefore, many students
understand the rules of grammar well but cannot express their opinions and have
difficulties in listening and pronunciation. Listening English seems to be the most
difficult task of the Vietnamese in general and students in particular. They
frequently have some errors in English as:
+ Do not recognize the English tones:
When asked about the cause of difficulty with the sounds in English, 31% of
students said that this difficulty was because they could not distinguish
homophones, Similar pronunciations. 28% of students said that the confusion

between assertion and negative form is the main reason. In particular, 40% of the
students surveyed said that they did not recognize the key information they
needed to hear because of some of the features of connected speech in English
such as elision Weak form of sound, assimilation, contraction, linking, etc. Thus,
5


learners do not recognize the sounds in English mainly because they do not
distinguish between homophones and words with similar pronunciations,
confusion between assertions and forms Negative, especially due to some of the
effects of phonetic speech in English. [4]
+ Lack of concentration when listening:
The data from the survey shows that 30% of students think that the reason for
lack of concentration is due to poor health while the number of students is higher
(37%). Listening is the reason that makes them more and more difficult to focus
on listening. While 32% of the students surveyed think that their ability to
concentrate on listening is due to both. From these data it can be concluded that
listeners often lose the ability to listen while their health is poor and lack of
experience in listening comprehension.[4]
+ Can not capture the main idea of the listening:
According to data obtained, this is the most common cause of difficulty in
listening to learners (71%). When asked about the cause of this difficulty, 36% of
participants said they could hardly grasp the main idea of the article because they
did not know what the important information was. 37% of students said that they
could not deduce the main content of the list from key words that left them
unaware of the main idea. The number of people choosing both causes is 25%.
These data indicate that the cause of the difficulty in capturing the main content
of the listening post is (1) not distinguishing the information to be heard with the
remaining information and (2) Of hearing from important words.[4]
+ Have to understand every word.

Students tend to hear every word from the tapescript and think they are all equally
important. Actually, it is not true. If students do not have the ability to select
important words from the speech of others, they fail to understand others, which
will lead to utter frustration.
+ Cannot understand fast, natural native speech
This is because students have few opportunities to hear native speakers say.
Students only hear the words of the teachers who speak English slowly.
+ Find it difficult to keep up
Because students are familiar with the sayings of the teachers, when the hear the
words quickly in tapes, or direct native dialogue , they can’t understand.
+ Need to hear things more than once.
Few Vietnamese students can understand English words when hearing for the first
time. They have to listen to it so many times to be able to understand.
Because of these difficulties, a teaching method which is effective and makes
the students excited is needed.
2.3. Measures for implementation:

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In fact, with the reforms enacted by the Ministry of Education, students learn
Listening and Speaking Skills in paralell to Reading and Writing Skills, but in
their final exams Listening skill isn’t refered to. That may be the reason why we
do not pay attention to teach the listening skill for students perfectly. However,
this skill is very important on the way to reach the target language of ours. And
we will not develop speaking skill if we do not develop listening skill. To have
a successful conversation, students need to understand what partners are talking
to them. Listening also helps students permeable vocabulary, sentence
structures ... So, when teaching listening, teachers should teach students to listen
in different ways. Capturing small following skills will help students' listening

skill improve rapidly:
Step 1: Before - Listening:
At this stage, teachers need to apply some teaching tips to help students
think, discuss, explore the topic they are about to listen, how to attract the
interest of students, create their demands.
Set up the context: Ask students to look at pictures, hints by asking questions
related to the content of the listening lesson so that students can guess the topic
they are about to listen.
Teach or explain the vocabulary (Pre-teach): Just teach the active words
( about 3 – 5) from each lesson or from the part “ Listen and repeat section”.
Aks the children guess the new words left on their own in the process of
listening or ignored. Teachers should also solve pronunciation difficulties,
necessary cultural knowledge for students to grasp.
Lastly, the teacher needs to tell the students how many times they will listen
(often 2 or 3 times).
Next, one of the following three tricks may be applied before listening.
Ordering Statements / Pictures: Normally, the teacher give the listening items
that have the same content as a story or a process. Use the sub-table or projector
to present some (5 - 7) sentences or pictures of the listening content, ask them to
rearrange them in the order so that they can predict the content of the story or
That process.
True / False Statements Predictions: Use the listening items such as a
paragraph or a conversation. Also use the sub-table or the projector to make some
statements, ask students to make correct guesses based on their knowledge.
Open Predictions: It is often used for short, descriptive quotes. Students can
fill the gap with the data or characteristics, ... It can be the table with the columns
that data is missing. Ask the students to anticipate the data and information. The
teacher can use Networks / Brainstorm instead.
Besides, the teacher can use the Pre-Questions technique by giving some
hinted questions about the topic that you are about to ask students to think about

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and discuss the content or ask the students to make some questions themselves. I
hope the listening tapescript will answer.
Step 2: While - Listening:
This is an important step that requires students to understand the main
content by conducting some basic exercises.
Once the student has completed the Before-listening exercise, the teacher
asks the student to open the task to read and to check whether his / her predictions
are true or false, redundant or missing, to correct them. Therefore, learners also can
understand some of the main content of the listening (Checking).
Next, students need to do one more exercise to deepen their knowledge, for
example: Gap-Filling (Listening to words in fill in the blank); Comprehension
questions (Listening and answering system questions).
Multiple Choice (Listen and select the correct answer); Identifying specific
information; True / False questions.
Listening and numbering pictures (Listening and numbering pictures);
Completing a dialogue.Completing the exercises, the students can understand the
listening tapescript specifically, , the next step is to help them have a basis for
developing thinking and reproducing the content of listening item.
Step 3: After - Listening:
This is the final stage of the lesson, students are required to do more some
types of exercises to reinforce their knowledge and broaden their thinking
abilities:Gap - Filling: Use words to fill in the blanks.Survey: Ask questions and
repond about the problem in the listening item in the classroom or outside of
life.Trasformation Writing: Based on the information in the article on a similar
issue.Recall / Retell: Speak again, retell the story.With which type of exercise, in
which step, when giving the exercises the teacher to proceed the following rules:
Set the scene: Set the sceneof the listening item. Give time for students (1 10 minutes) to do homework.Collect information from Ss./ Get feed back from Ss:

Get feedback from students.
Check and correct: Check information and correct.
During the implementation of the exercises can be inserted into the game
such as Lucky Number, Simon Say, Guessing Game, Introductions, Right-Left,
Information ... to increase the excitement of activities and excitement for students.
When learning to listen.
Introduce the topic, content related to the listening item, explain new or
difficult concepts to students when necessary.
Introduce through pictures, by giving a content-related question to students
to anticipate the content of the listening.

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While listening the teacher should give some guiding questions;
Simultaneously divide the listening process into steps: Listen for the first time
(listen to the main idea); Second listening (more detail ...)
If the listening item is long, divide into short sections, there are specific
requirements for each section so that students are more likely to listen and they do
not damp.
One of the essential things to listen to is the ability to anticipate situations.
When they listen, the teacher tells students what is going to happen in a certain
context . This activity can be performed on the lessons that are a conversation or a
story.
To test the effectiveness of these methods, I would like to teach the test in
10B3, Unit 5, with the topic "Technology and you". [5]
UNIT 5 – TECHNOLOGY AND YOU
LESSON 3 – LISTENING
I. Objectives:
1- Educational aim: By the end of the lesson, the Ss will be able to pay

much attention to information technology as well as learn how to use the
technological devices to modernize their lives.
2-Knowledge:
- General knowledge: students will be able to listen to a monologue of
120-150 words about a company director’s story to do the tasks.
- Language: Words/ phrases related to the uses of modern inventionscomputer.
3- Skills: Listening for gist, listening for details, speaking.
II. Teaching aids: Text book, lesson plan, cassette, CD ..
III. Method: Communicative approach and leaner- centered approach.
IV. Procedures:
1. Organizations: (1m) Greeting, checking the attendances.
Class
10B3
Absentees
2. New lesson: (41ms)
Times
5 ms

Teacher's activities
I.Warm-up
*Name some modern devices you
know.

Students' activities
-Ss work individually.
-Ss answer the questions
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modern devices

from T.

* Answer the questions:
- Do you know how to use a computer.
- Do you think it is dificult for old
people to learn a computer ?
- Listen.
- T listen to the answers, corrects and
leads into the new lesson.
 Today we are going to listen a
passage talking about experiences of an
old man of learning how to use a
computer.
8 ms

10 ms

II. Pre-listening
Activity 1:
* Vocabulary:
- worried (a): lo lắng
-> Gives example
- secretary (n): thư ký
-> Translates
- memory (n): trí nhớ
-> Translates
- refuse (v) : từ chối
->Gives synonym
- excuse (n,v)

-> Gives explanation.
* Checking the vocabulary: Matching
Activity 2:
Give some pictures of parts of a
computer, and ask students to discuss
and give their names in English
III. While-listening
1. Task 1:
-T asks Ss to read the statements in the
book carefully.
- Ask Ss guess the answer.
-T plays the tape.
-T walks around and gives help if
necessary.

- Predict the words through
the explain of example of
the teacher.
- Listen how to read.
- Read chorally.
- Read invidually.

-Ss read the statements in
silence.
- Ss guess the answer
-Ss listen and discuss in
pairs to decide whether the
statements are T or F.
*Expected answer: 1.F was
10

-T plays the tape again to checks the
result.

8 ms
2. Task 2: ( in book )
-T asks Ss to read the story
- T asks Ss to guess the words to fill in
the gap.
-T plays the tape
-T plays the tape again to checks the
results
10 ms

IV. Post-listening:
Activity 1:
Fill in the blanks to complete the
summary:
teacher
secretary office
lessons
excuse
The story is about an old man who
doesn't know how to use the computer.
He became worried when his (1)….
……asked him for a computer in the
(2) …….. He decided to take some
computing lessons. His son understood
about computer and he became his (3)

………... His son was helpful but he
didn't understand at all. After a few (4)
………. he began to feel tired and he
made an (5)……….., saying that he
had a headache. Finally, he didn't learn
computer.
Activity 2: T asks the Ss to stand up
and retell the story.

->wasn’t
2.T
3.T
4.T
5. F understood -> didn’t
understand
6. F happy -> tired
- Ss present their results.
- Ss read the story with the
gaps in silence, do the task
in pairs.
*Expected answer:
1.invited
2.still
3.refused
4.excuse
5.anything
-Ss work in groups to fill the
story.
*Expected answer:
1. secretary

2. office
3. teacher
4. lessons
5. excuse

3. Consolidations: (1m).
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- Listen for gist and specific information about using a computer
4. Homework: (2ms)
- Learn by heart all the vocabulary.
- Do tasks again in book
- Prepare the next part.
2.4. Study effects:
After a year to implement innovative methods in teaching English, especially
English listening skill, I feel happy because of the better results. I have found that
students are interested in the subject , and especially when they practise speaking
and listening. Most students learn self-discipline, self-awareness and discuss the
positive implementation of activities that teachers require. After a period of
teaching, students understand the lessons better and better. The proportion of weak
and lazy students has decreased remarkably. Above all of students have made
progress in English listening skill, resulting in being better at the other skills. They
are no longer timid and afraid of making mistakes as the first time at school. They
are much more confident in communicating in English. At the beginning of the first
semester I had a listening test for the students of 10B3. The result was very low.
The result before implementing new method
Total students tested: 35
Class Total students
10B3 35

pretty good rather good average
total
0

%
0

bad

very bad

total %
total %
total %
total %
5
14,2 18
51,6 10
28,5 2
5,7

The result after implementing new method
Total students tested: 35
Class Total students
10B3 35

pretty good rather good average
total %
03

8,6

bad

very bad

total %
total % total % total %
17
48,6 14
40 1
2,8 0
0

It can be seen from the 2 above tables that the application of the method of
teaching listening skills as I have mentioned above in actual teaching has been
effective. And it is more important that students become interested in listening
skills, which can help students develop their ability to communicate in English. I

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believe I have made the right choice when using the new method to impart
knowledge to students.
3.Conclusion and propossals
3.1. Conclusion
As mentioned above, teaching vocabulary is very important and necessary
because it helps the learners understand and grasp the information easily and
quickly. Moreover, it also helps the learners feel more confident and pleasant in
communication. However, teaching vocabulary is a difficult task. It requires the

teachers many things such as cleverness, intelligence, understanding of learners.
Also, the teachers spend much time choosing carefully the words they should teach,
the techniques and teaching aids. Pracically, many teachers feel confused and
difficult when designing the way to teach vocabulary. So as a teacher of English in
the near future, I have to do a research about The Way to Teach Vocabulary Applied
at High School.
From the difficulties, I would like to give some suggestions for a better way
of teaching vocabulary:
+Combine different techniques at the same time to teach one new word.This
will help the students understand and master the word more deeply and quickly.
+Apply the techniques as much as possible in a unit so that the students will
not feel bored and dull when studying vocabulary:
+Translate the new words that are too difficult and abstract to the pupils.
+Let the pupils practise by making sentences, filling in the gaps, answering
the questions, so that they can remember the new words longer.
+Make a context clearly and easily understood by all the pupils in the class
so that the pupils can guess the meaning of the words.
+Picture must be colorful and vivid, and languguage must be familiar and
close to the pupils.
3.2. Propossals
As we all know, to organize a foreign language class is not simple. Because
each method only offers high efficiency when teachers know to choose and use the
activities in a reasonable way. Therefore it requires each teacher to choose the
practical and appropriate English songs when using music to teach English
listening skills so that students can have more fun.
The Department of Education and Training needs to organise the training
programs and workshops for the teaching methods, especially listening skills so
that the teachers in Thanh Hoa province can learn, practise and share the experience
to each other.

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CONFIRMATION OF THE HEAD
MASTER

Thanh Hoa, May 19th, 2018
I swear this is my initiative experience,
do not make the copy of the others.
Author

Đỗ Thị Phương

Nguyễn Văn Chuyên

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REFERENCES
(TÀI LIỆU THAM KHẢO)
[1] Dạy và học tích cực - Một số phương pháp và kỹ thuật dạy học - Nguyễn Lăng
Bình (Chủ biên), Đỗ Hương Trà, Nguyễn Phương Hồng, Cao Thị Thặng - Nhà xuất
bản Đại học Sư phạm, 2010.
[2] Anderson, A. & Lynch, T. (1988). Listening. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
[3] ‘Từ điển tiếng Việt’ Văn Tân và Nguyễn Văn Đạm (1997)
[4] “ Kỹ năng nghe hiểu trong tiếng Anh, những khó khăn và biện pháp khắc phục”
– Ha Noi university of culture
[5] TIẾNG ANH 10, .

15

ASSESSED INITIATVE EXPERIENCES

(DANH MỤC
CÁC ĐỀ TÀI SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG ĐÁNH
GIÁ XẾP LOẠI CẤP PHÒNG GD&ĐT, CẤP SỞ GD&ĐT VÀ CÁC CẤP
CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN)
Author (Họ và tên tác giả): Nguyễn Văn Chuyên
Position (Chức vụ và đơn vị công tác): Giáo viên, trường THPT Như Xuân

TT
1.

Tên đề tài SKKN

Cấp đánh
giá xếp loại
(Phòng, Sở,
Tỉnh...)

Kết quả
đánh giá
Năm học
xếp loại đánh giá xếp
(A, B,
loại
hoặc C)

METHODS OF TEACHING

VOCABULARY FOR THE 10th
CLASS STUDENTS IN NHU

Sở GD& ĐT
Thanh Hóa

C

2015 - 2016

XUAN HIGH SCHOOL

16