APPLYING DICTATION ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION AT DONG HY HIGH SCHOOL, THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUYEN TRANG

APPLYING DICTATION ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS’
LISTENING COMPREHENSION AT DONG HY HIGH
SCHOOL, THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE
(Áp dụng chép chính tả trong kỹ năng nghe hiểu của học sinh lớp 11
trường THPT Đông Hỷ)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201


THAI NGUYEN - 2020


THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUYEN TRANG

APPLYING DICTATION ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS’
LISTENING COMPREHENSION AT DONG HY HIGH
SCHOOL, THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE
(Áp dụng chép chính tả trong kỹ năng nghe hiểu của học sinh lớp 11
trường THPT Đông Hỷ)

M.A. THESIS
(APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201
Supervisor: Dr. Ngo Thi Bich Ngoc

THAI NGUYEN - 2020


DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the research titled “Applying Dictation on Grade 11
Students’ Listening Comprehension at Dong Hy High School, Thai Nguyen
province” is my own unaided work. I further certify that it has not been submitted
before for any degree or any examination to any other university. Any reference to
work written by any person and institution obtained from other sources have been
cited and referenced.

Xác nhận của cán bộ hướng dẫn

Học viên

TS. Ngô Thị Bích Ngọc

Nguyễn Huyền Trang


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Ngo Thi
Bich Ngoc, who gave me a lot of significant suggestions, consideration and

encouragements throughout my research.
I wish to convey my thanks to teachers and all my students at grade 11 at Dong
Hy high school, who contributed to the data of my research.
My sincere thanks go to my all members of my beloved family, who have
constantly supported me in my study.


ABSTRACT
Effective listening comprehension has been acknowledged as a key factor to
an excellent academic performance among students. In fact, it is always a hindrance
to students. Therefore, many students feel streessed to understand the information.
For these reasons, the aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of dictation
on the development of grade 11th students’ listening ability at Dong Hy high school.
The instruments for the collection of the data were pre-test, post-test and
questionnaires. The participants were 90 grade 11th students at Dong Hy high school
and they are divided into two groups, experimental and control group with the same
students. The data was collected by questionnaire, pre-test and post-test. From the
calculation of t-test, the result of the data analysis revealed that t-value of 6.648 was
higher than critical value of 1.987 at 0.05 level of significance. It meant that the
students who were taught with dictation performed better than those taught without
this technique.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... - 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... - 7 1.1 Rationale ....................................................................................................... - 7 1.2. Research questions....................................................................................... - 8 1.3. Scope of the study ........................................................................................ - 9 1.4. Method of the study ..................................................................................... - 9 1.5. Thesis structure ............................................................................................ - 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................. - 10 2.1. General concepts of listening..................................................................... - 11 2.1.1. Definitions of listening ........................................................................ - 11 2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension ................................................. - 12 2.2. Model and theories of listening comprehension ........................................ - 12 2.2.1 The intake model .................................................................................. - 12 2.2.2. The monitor model .............................................................................. - 13 2.2.3. The pragmatics model ......................................................................... - 13 2.3. Affective motivation on listening ........................................................... - 13 2.4. Kinds of listening ....................................................................................... - 14 2.4.1. Initial listening ..................................................................................... - 14 2.4.2. False listening ...................................................................................... - 14 2.4.3. Selective listening................................................................................ - 14 2.4.4. Partial listening .................................................................................... - 14 2.4.5. Full listening ........................................................................................ - 14 2.4.6. Deep listening ...................................................................................... - 15 2.4.7. Discriminative listening ...................................................................... - 15 2.4.8. Biased listening ................................................................................... - 15 2.4.9. Evaluative listening ............................................................................. - 15 2.4.10. Sympathetic listening ........................................................................ - 16 2.4.11. Therapeutic listening ......................................................................... - 16 -

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2.4.12. Appreciated listening ......................................................................... - 16 2.5. The process of listening ............................................................................. - 16 2.5.1. The process of receiving the information ............................................ - 16 2.5.2. Attending ............................................................................................. - 17 2.5.3. Comprehending ................................................................................... - 17 2.5.4. Responding .......................................................................................... - 17 2.5.5 Remembering ....................................................................................... - 17 2.6. The nature of listening ............................................................................... - 18 2.7. The importance of listening ....................................................................... - 19 2.8. Stages in listening ...................................................................................... - 20 2.9. General concepts of dictation .................................................................... - 20 2.9.1. Definitions of dictation ........................................................................ - 20 2.9.2 Characteristics of dictation ................................................................... - 23 2.9.3. Kinds of dictation ................................................................................ - 23 2.10. Advantages of dictation ........................................................................... - 26 2.11. Principles of dictation .............................................................................. - 28 2.12. Connection between dictation and listening ............................................ - 29 2.13. Potential problems while using dictation ................................................. - 30 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................. - 30 3.1 Research Design ......................................................................................... - 31 3.2 Participants.................................................................................................. - 31 3.3 Data collection instruments ........................................................................ - 31 3.3.1 Questionnaire ........................................................................................ - 31 3.3.2. Tests ..................................................................................................... - 32 3.4. Research procedure ................................................................................... - 32 3.5. Data analysis .............................................................................................. - 32 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ............................................... - 33 4.1. Result of questionnaire .............................................................................. - 33 4.1.1. The students’ background information ............................................... - 33 4.1.2. Evaluation about listening skills in the process of studying English .. - 35 -

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4.1.3. Types of exercises usually used in listening English lessons ............. - 35 4.1.4 The students’ listening level ................................................................. - 36 4.1.5. The students’ attitude about listening skills ........................................ - 36 4.2. Result of tests ............................................................................................. - 38 4.2.1. Distribution of pretest scores of the two groups ................................. - 38 4.2.2. Distribution of post-test scores of the two groups............................... - 40 4.2.3. Level of effectiveness of dictation technique ...................................... - 41 4.2.4. Level of the students’ listening comprehension reflected by pretest .. - 43 4.2.5. Significant difference between the listening comprehension of students
taught with dictation and group without this technique ............................... - 43 4.3. Discussion .................................................................................................. - 44 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................... - 47 5.1. Findings ..................................................................................................... - 47 5.2. Conclusion ................................................................................................. - 47 5.3. Recommendations ...................................................................................... - 48 5.4. Limitation of the study............................................................................... - 50 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................... - 51 APPENDICES...................................................................................................... - 54 -

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Students’ personal information……………………………………..…….34
Table 2: Evaluation of listening skill…………………………………..…………..35
Table 3: Types of lessons used in the process of learning listening
skills…………………………………………………………………………….….35
Table 4: Dificulties students have to face in listening……………….…………….37
Table 5: Students’ assesment of dictation…………………….................................38
Table 6: The number of correct answers in the pretest of control group and
experimental group……………………………………………………………..….39
Table 7: The number of correct answers in the posttest of control group and
experimental group…………………………………………………………….…..40
Table 8: Mean gain score of the two groups………………………………….…....42
Table 9: Test of difference in the mean pretest correct answers between group using
dictation technique and group without
dictation………………………………………………………………….…………43
Table 10: Test of difference in the mean posttest scores between experimental class
and control class in terms of listening
comprehension……………………………………………...………….…………..44

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LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: Students’ listening level…………………………………………………..36
Chart 2: The students’ attitude about listening skills…………………………..….37

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the rationale, objectives, research questions, research
methodology, scope and thesis structure.
1.1 Rationale
Language is the most important thing for people as a means of communication.
It is basically a means of both spoken and written communication. People use
language to express their ideas and wishes to other people such as when they need
others help so that close relation among members of the group can be carried out
(Ramelan, 1993: 8). Ramelan (1993) further states that “the use of language enables
the members of a social group to cooperate with one another for their own benefit.”
It is important to learn English because it is an international language which is used
in many countries over the world and widely used in many sectors such as
information, trade, aviation, science, education, etc.
In Vietnam, the importance of English has been realized because English is
considered to play a crucial role on the path of industrialization and modernization of
the country as well as on the way of regional and international integration. Therefore,
English is now taught in all levels of schools all over the country in order that the
students are familiar with English and can use and communicate in English well. Of
all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, listening is always considered

to be the most difficult for teachers to teach and for students to improve themselves,
which leads to the fact that most learners have low level of proficiency in their
listening skills. In fact, in the process of teaching and learning English, listening plays
an important role since it involves various kinds of learners‟ knowledge and it is
closely related to other skills, especially speaking skills. White (1998) pointed out
that being a good listener involves collaborating with speakers and taking an active
role in asking for clarification when you do not understand. Later on, the ability to
understand the native speakers on the radio or tape may be important for learners to
further study the language and communicate in it.
At Dong Hy High School where the researcher has been working, like at other
high schools in Vietnam, English has been a compulsory subject for many years.

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However, the teachers of English here are facing the problem of their grade-11
students’ low level of listening in their classrooms. While there has been a variety of
techniques used to improve listening skills for these students, most of them have not
been really effective. One idea of using dictation to improve listening skill for the
students has exercised my mind. Moreover, according to researchers’ opinion,
dictation has a number of advantages. For instance, Brown (2000) states that dictation
can be done with any level, depending on the text carefully designed and applied and
it can be graded for a multi-level class. Besides, Montalvan (2006) points out that
dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is. During and after the
dictation, all students prove very active. The dictation passage can be completely
prepared in advance and administered quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher.
Likewise, Pappas (1977) considers dictation as a good means of developing learners’
listening skills.
For grade-11 students’ problems of low listening competence and as one of
the teachers of English of this school, the researcher would like to improve grade-11

students’ listening skills, and hope to be able to apply in the high schools where most
of the students have low listening competence. All considered, the researcher chose
to conduct a study on “Applying dictation on grade 11 students’ listening
comprehension at Dong Hy High School, Thai Nguyen province”.
1.2. Research questions
This reasearch aims at investigating the use of dictation technique in teaching
English and finding out whether the use of this technique is useful in improving
listening skills for grade-11 students at Dong Hy high school, Thai Nguyen province.
Particularly, this research tried to find the answers for the following questions:
 Is there a significant difference between the listening comprehension ability
of learners who are given dictation technique and the listening comprehension
ability of those who are not applied the dictation practice?
 To what extent does the practice of dictation improve grade 11th students’
English listening comprehension at Dong Hy high school?

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1.3. Scope of the study
The study focused on using dictation technique in listening comprehension for
the students at grade 11th at Dong Hy high school. Due to the students’ result of
English subject at grade 10, the researcher chose 90 students who have low level of
English to be participants of the study. Because of the limit of time, the researcher
divided 90 students into two different groups. The intended outcome of the result was
to draw conclusions on the use of dictation as a learning tool.
1.4. Method of the study
To achieve the aims of the study, the researcher uses both quantitative and
qualitative methods including questionnaires for teachers and listening tests for
students.
1.5. Thesis structure

The thesis contains five main chapters. Each chapter discusses the content as
follows:
Chapter 1: The Introduction reveals the rationale of the study, the objectives
of the research, the research questions and the scope of the study. The chapter ends
with the structure of the thesis.
Chapter 2: The Literature Review explores the relevant literature and an
attempt to develop the theoretical framework for the study.
Chapter 3: The thesis methodology presents the method of the research. It also
declares the information of the research participants, instruments, methods of
collecting data and method of analyzing data.
Chapter 4: Findings and discussion provide the details of the analysis which
consists of general description, data analysis and findings and discussion.
Chapter 5 presents conclusions of the research, limitations and suggestions for
further researches.
In the last part of the study, to assure that the study is really valid, the
researcher gives references and appendices.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, a brief review of the literature related to listening
comprehension and diction technique will be presented. The review will cover a brief
discussion of definition, listening strategies, motivation, and several previous studies.

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2.1. General concepts of listening
2.1.1. Definitions of listening

There are different points of views on the definition of listening. Listening is
an essential element of communication and it is also essential for interaction. A
learner can express himself orally he/she is never able to communicate with speakers
of English if he/she is unable to understand what is said to him. As Rivers (1981)
observes speaking does not in itself constitute communication unless what is said is
comprehended by another person. According ton Field (1989:38),
“Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. Learners
must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical
structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate
as well as the large social-cultural context of utterance” .

While listening is also defined by Rost (1990: 41) as follows “Listening is vital
in the classroom because it provides the input for students. Without understanding
the input at the right level, any learning simply can’t begin”.
Grant (1987:19) states that the listening skill includes everything from
learning particular sound to comprehending complicated message. Without this skill,
communication can break down. Therefore, successful communication really
depends on listeners or receivers of messages. Steil & Watson (1982: 22) also
suggested that listening is a major communication activity.
Listening is supposed to be one of the most frequent language skill was used.
It plays a vital role in communication and the education process. According to Brown
(2000), this receptive skill is spent more than 40% in our everyday communication.
It means that nearly half of the adult working day and more than half of the students’
classroom activity time is spent on listening.

Richards (2008) defines listening is a receptive skill which helps students to
comprehend the conversation.
Cohen (1990) showed that listening consists of giving attention to the sounds
in order to gain meaning. The message must be given adequate attention that it can

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supersede all other competing sounds and be understood. Moreover, Buck (2001)
indicated that listening comprehension is a “complex and multidimensional process”.
This process requires listeners to use the phonological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic
knowledge to comprehend an aural input. Many factors are involved which determine
how successfully a listener comprehends a message she/he listens. Furthermore,
Hoven (1999) states that listening comprehension is also influenced by listeners’
interaction with the text, the process and the interlocutor.
2.1.2 Definition of listening comprehension
The term “listening comprehension” has been defined by different authors.
According to Brown and Yule (1983), listening comprehension means that a person
understands what he/she has heard. If he/she learns the text through hearing it, he/she
will understand it. Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor (1984) defined listening
comprehension as the product of teaching methodology and is matched by terms such
as speech understanding, spoken language understanding, speech recognition, and
speech perception. Beside, Rost (2002) and Hamouda (2013) defined listening
comprehension as an interactive process in which listeners are involved in
constructing meaning. Listeners comprehend the oral input through sound
discrimination, previous knowledge, grammatical structures, stress and intonation,
and the other linguistic or non-linguistic clues.
According to Nadig (2013), listening comprehension is the various processes
of understanding and making sense of spoken language. These involve knowing
speech sounds, comprehending the meaning of individual words, and understanding
the syntax of sentences.

2.2. Model and theories of listening comprehension
2.2.1 The intake model
According to Richards (1986), our brain receives the information and stores,

arranges and organizes this information. Therefore, our brain further affects to
decisions and produces responses to the speaker. Sometimes listener receives the
information, but our mind may be not process it.

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2.2.2. The monitor model
In this model, the students can understand input language when they are just a
bit beyond their current level. The students may comprehend the messages if
discourse markers showed the internal connection of the lessons because the speaker
conveyed the information and support the students’ schemata to build.
2.2.3. The pragmatics model
According to Sperber and Wilson (1986), the goal of pragmatic model is
comprehension which is used to explain how comunication happens in social
contexts. Learners stimulate their previous knowledge in order to interpret the
meaning of the announcement. They selectively join in the utterances, they explain
their propositional meaning via phonological-syntactic analysis. Moreover, the make
the interpreted propositions and order it into a hierarchical representation. The
listeners also clarify a possible pragmatic meaning of expression which is a plausible
intention in a special contexts. The main theory of this model is that the stages are
interdependent.
Van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) stated that listeners have tendency to use two
major techniques in comprehension which are global and local coherence. Global
techniques are considered as top-down technique which discover macro-structure of
the discourse topic, recognize the main ideas and the relationship between major
ideas. While local techniques are believed as bottom-up that connect clauses to make
sense of discourse.
2.3. Affective motivation on listening
Affective motivation has been revealed by many researchers that it plays an

important role in the performance of the learners. According to Buck (2001), listening
comprehension tasks include different topics, new vocabulary, or unfamiliar accents.
Another affective thing is motivation with the reason that listening is an active
process. Motivation and cognitive strategies are part of clusters of variables which
contribute to the learners’ listening, and learner’s language development through
keeping a listening log is improved by enhancing schemata, motivation, cognitive
and comprehension.

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2.4. Kinds of listening
2.4.1. Initial listening
Sometimes when we listen we hear the first few words and then start to think
about what we want to say in return. We then look for a point at which we can
interrupt. We are also not listening then as we are spending more time rehearsing
what we are going to say about their initial point.
2.4.2. False listening
False listening is considered when a person pretends to listen but actually
she/he does not hear clearly what is being said. The listeners may smile and show that
they are understanding in almost the right positions, but do not take in anything is
said. This is a skill that may be honed by people who do a lot of inconsequential
listening. Their aim is to create a good impression in short space of time.
2.4.3. Selective listening
Listening for particular part and ingoring other one is selective listening.
Listener have tendency to hear what they want to hear and pay less attetion to
unneccessary detail.
2.4.4. Partial listening
Partial listening is what most of us do most of the time. We listen to the other
person with the best of intent and then become distracted, either by stray thoughts or

by something that the other person has said. We consequently dip inside our own
heads for a short while as we figure out what they really mean or formulate a question
for them, before coming back into the room and starting to listen again. This can be
problematic when the other person has moved on and we are unable to pick up the
threads of what is being said. We thus easily can fall into false listening, at least for
a short while. This can be embarrassing, of course, if they suddenly ask your opinion.
A tip here: own up, admitting that you had lost the thread of the conversation and
asking them to repeat what was said.
2.4.5. Full listening
Full listening happens where the listener pays close and careful attention to
what is being said, seeking carefully to understand the full content that the speaker

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is seeking to put across. This may be very active form of listening, with pauses for
summaries and testing that understanding is complete. By the end of the
conversation, the listener and the speaker will probably agree that the listener has
fully understood what was said. Full listening takes much more effort than partial
listening, as it requires close concentration, possibly for a protracted period. It also
requires skills of understanding and summary.
2.4.6. Deep listening
You listen between the lines of what is being said, feeling the emotion,
observing the body language, perceiving values. It is called deep listening. The
listener need a deep understanding of psychology and pay attention not only to the
words by the whole person in order to listen deeply.
2.4.7. Discriminative listening
This is the most basic kind of listening which the difference between sounds
is identified. The listener study to discriminate sounds within our own language early,
and is unable to discriminate the different phonemes of other languages. This is why

a person from one country feels that it is not easy to use another language to
communicate perfectly. The main reason is that they can not distinguish the sounds
clearly. Listening is not only a visual as well as auditory act because people use body
language to express. Thus, people need to have ability to discriminate muscle and
skeletal movements.
2.4.8. Biased listening
The person who only listens to what she/he wants to listen is considered as
biased listening. Biased listening is listening through filter of personal bias when the
person only hear what they want, especially misinterpreting what others says.
2.4.9. Evaluative listening
Evaluative listening means judgments about what the listener hear from other
person with the purpose of evaluating the truth of what is said. Evaluative listening
is relevant when the speaker is trying to persuade the listener. People also distinguish
subtleties of language and understand the inner meaning. In addition, evaluative
listening is also called judgmental, critical or interpretive listening.

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2.4.10. Sympathetic listening
Sympathetic listening means the listener discover other people’s feeling.
When listening excellent discrimination and attetion to emotional signals, the listener
can feel the speaker’s feeling. In this kind of listening, the listener care about the other
person and express emotion for their feelings.
2.4.11. Therapeutic listening
In therapeutic listening, the aim of the listener is both using the deep
connection and empathizing with the speaker to make speaker comprehend or change
in some way.
2.4.12. Appreciated listening
This listening means the listener finds ways to appreciate others by hearing

what people say. They have tendency to discover certain information they need to
appreciate others and gain their purposes. People use this type of listening when they
listen to music, poetry or attractive presentation
2.5. The process of listening
There are 5 steps in the process of listening: The first one is the process of
perceiving sounds from the listener. Then, the sounds which the listener has perceived
will be decoded and recognized as certain linguistic part which means attending the
process . Thirdly, the listeners continue to decode the form in order to comprehend
the meaning of the form. Fourthly, after understanding the message, the listeners
respond to the speakers and try remember as the fifth step to finish the process of
listening. Kline (1996) showed that the three former steps are important and it is
almost obliged in the listening process when the two latter may happen or not which
depends on the listeners’ purposes.
2.5.1. The process of receiving the information
According to Kline (1997), receiving the message happens when the receivers
hear the sounds and try to perceive the information. In other words, receiving is the
process the message by hearing and distinguish the sounds. Moreover, when listening
the listeners should concentrate on what the speakers is saying to take the information.

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If they do not pay attention to the sounds and what being said, they will miss the
messages.
2.5.2. Attending
Klein (1997) also indiciated that this step takes place when the listeners pay
attention to the message. In other words, attending means concentrating on what the
speaker is saying. This process will not happen if the listeners are absent-minded or
lose concentration.
2.5.3. Comprehending

There are two main reasons causing misunderstanding the message. The first
reason is that there are numerous different words with the same meaning, so
understanding the message correctly is necessary for communication. The second one
is that the wrong predictions what will be said by the speakers which the listeners can
not use language to communicate smoothly untill they comprehend the message. In
conclusion, understanding the message helps the listeners be successful
communicator.
2.5.4. Responding
Responding is an action which the listeners reply to the speakers’ message
such as answering the questions, asking for clarification or paraphrasing. Therefore,
reponding is considered as a kind of feedback. The listener have to understand the
message to respond the speakers by giving spoken or written answers.
2.5.5 Remembering
It is believed that this is the final part in the listening process. It is not obliqued
to respond to the message. Our memories relates to long-term and short-term
memory. Long-term memory is the process of remembering the information in their
minds which had been received for a long time, while the latter keeps less amount of
information in a short time then the listeners forget quickly.
According to Kline (1997), remembering is ability of keeping the information
in the listeners’ mind and after that the listeners can use the message to discuss it even
though it is not too important.

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In short, receiving, attending, comprehending, responding and remembering
are lists of stages to get a succesful listening.
2.6. The nature of listening
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are four main skills that students have
to acquire in learning language process. They are divided into two groups of skill: the

productive skills (speaking and writing) and receptive skills (listening and reading).
According to Rost (2002), Listening is classified as one of the receptive skills because
this involves receiving and building language instead of producing. Listening thus is
considered a receptive process which the listeners build sense of language. According
to Vandergrift (1999), listening comprehension is:
“A complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds,
understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation,
retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as
well as the larger socia-cultural context of the utterance”.

This means that listening skill is active which the listeners are provoking the
schemata, so there is a connection between their schemata and the information the
listeners actually hear. Although listening comprehension is an active process, it is
also a complex skill. It is complicated because the listeners need to distinguish
different sounds and comprehend grammar and vocabulary. Moreover, they also need
to concentrate on stress and intonation of the speakers’ voice. The listeners also need
to have a background of English culture and society. All these factors help the
listeners to comprehend the meaning of the verbal message. In short, to listen and
understand what is being said acquire the complex thinking process.
Brown (2006) also supported that listening is a complicated process to be
mastered by students. Listening in a foreign language is a difficult activity since it
take lots of attention to remember the information and interpret it. Listening requires
the previous knowledge to facilitate the understanding. The listeners also need to
follow a list of steps to understand the information: perceiving, attending,
interpreting, remembering and responding to what is being said.

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In addition, listening is dynamic because the listeners have to pass through

many steps. Firstly, giving awareness and concentrating on the message the listeners
hearing. After that, trying to understanding the meaning of message by using former
knowledge, short-term as well as long-term memory. Finally, applying information
to react and reply to the speakers.
Hook (1950) indicated that when listening the listeners can use mental process
to understand the message. There are numerous purposes of listening: listening to get
information, listening for evaluating, so on.
In conclusion, listening is a process which is dynamic, interpretive, and active.
Therefore, understanding listening’s nature is extremely vital for teachers and
students.
2.7. The importance of listening
Studying a foreign language in general and studying English in particular,
students can improve their ability to comprehend the speech of the speakers through
listening. In addition, this skill also enhance learner’ pronunciation. The more the
learners listen and understand the language, the more they increase their
pronunciation to be excellent speakers. According to Hasan (2000), “listening
comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and
development of other language skills”. Thus, this skill can help the learners to receive
the information and it is a tool to stimulate speaking and writing skills.
Rost (1994) indicated that there are many reasons which can be roofs for
interesting listening skill. Firstly, learning starts when the learners receive input and
listening supplies input for them. Secondly, students have to pass the challenge to
comprehend the English as a native speaker. Finally, activities of this receptive skill
considered as strategies help teachers draw the learners’ concentration on grammar
and vocabulary. For deep explanation, listening is important for lots of aims. It
provides ideas and knowledge to the learners. Therefore, students have to
comprehend the message to acquire knowledge.

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2.8. Stages in listening
According to Flowerdew and Miller (2005), there are three stages in the
process of listening: pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening.
Pre-listening is the step of preparing for listening. At this stage, teacher wants
students to prepare and have motivation for listening exercises. To do this, teachers
follows these suggestions:
- Show images which are related to the topics;
- Give students background knowledge before listening;
- Make a discussion with the students through questions or funny activities
related to the topic.
It means that pre-listening is considered as a wam-up activity before starting
lessons. Thus, teachers present pictures or some suggestions to help students have a
view of what they are going to listen.
After that, during while-listening stage, students will try to comprehend the
main idea of the message when teacher reads it twice. Teacher provides students some
questions to make students focus on the certain information. During this time, the
students take notes and check their notes after the second time of listening. Students
need to pay attention to listen carefully with the aim of writing down the messages
and have general ideas. Students then check their writing after the second listening.
Finally, the students respond their answers by comparing their notes with their
partners or check it by themselves.
The last stage is post-listening activity. In this step, students use their previous
knowledge to improve other skills, such as writing and speaking. Students are
expected to practice dictation, paraphrase and express their understanding. In
conclusion, these three stages both give students motivation in listening and enhance
their knowledge as well as improve other skills.
2.9. General concepts of dictation
2.9.1. Definitions of dictation

Dictation is a widely researched device of language teaching. It is useful when
well integrated with the teaching activities. It is a teaching technique which has

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