ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF CAPTIONED VIDEOS IN ENGLISH CLASS OF NONENGLISH MAJORS

THESIS PROPOSAL
Master of Arts in English Language

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF
CAPTIONED VIDEOS IN ENGLISH CLASS OF NONENGLISH MAJORS AT HO CHI MINH CITY
INDUSTRY AND TRADE COLLEGE

NGUYEN DINH NHU HA


HO CHI MINH CITY, January 2020

SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS
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HCMC, January 2020
Supervisor’s Signature

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................page 5
1.1. Background to the study ..................................................................................page 5
1.2. Statement of the problem ................................................................................page 6
1.3. Aims and objectives of the study .....................................................................page 7
1.4. Research questions ..........................................................................................page 7
1.5. Scope of the study ...........................................................................................page 7
1.6. Significance of the study .................................................................................page 8
1.7. Definitions of the key terms ............................................................................page 8
1.7.1. Definition of listening ..................................................................................page 8
1.7.2. Definition of captions ...................................................................................page 9
1.7.3. Definition of attitude ....................................................................................page 9
II. LITERATURE REVIEW ...............................................................................page 9
2.1. Introduction .....................................................................................................page 9
2.2. Listening skills.................................................................................................page 9
2.2.1. Definitions of listening..................................................................................page 9
2.2.2. The importance of listening skills...............................................................page 10
2.2.3. Problems in listening skills..........................................................................page 10
2.2.4. Factors affect listening skills.......................................................................page 12
2.3. Movies with captions and English listening skills..........................................page 13
2.3.1. Definitions of captions................................................................................page 13
2.3.2. The relationship between captioned movies and listening skills.................page 14
2.4. Attitude...........................................................................................................page 14
2.4.1. Definitions of attitudes................................................................................page 14
2.4.2. The components of attitudes........................................................................page 15
2.4.3. Attitude models...........................................................................................page 16
2.5. Attitudes towards listening comprehension....................................................page 19
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2.6. Previous research ..........................................................................................page 20
2.7. Conceptual framework...................................................................................page 21
III. METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................page 22
3.1. Research design .............................................................................................page 22
3.2. Research site .................................................................................................page 22
3.3. Sample and sampling procedure ....................................................................page 23
3.4. Research instruments .....................................................................................page 24
3.5. Data collection procedures ............................................................................page 24
3.6. Data analysis procedures ...............................................................................page 24
IV. WORK PLAN ...............................................................................................page 25
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................page 26

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Tripartite Model .....................................................................................page 17
Figure 2: ABC Model ...........................................................................................page 18
Figure 3: CAC Model ...........................................................................................page 18
Figure 4: Conceptual framework of the relationship between students’ attitudes towards
captioned movies and listening skills ....................................................................page 21
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
HITC: Ho Chi Minh City Industry and Trade college

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ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF
CAPTIONED VIDEOS IN ENGLISH CLASS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT HO
CHI MINH CITY INDUSTRY AND TRADE COLLEGE

I. Introduction
1.1. Background to the study
Listening is considered one of the most important skills for foreign language
learners. It results from the fact that listening plays a major role in everyday
communication. According to Morley (1991), “Listening is the most common
communicative activity in daily life: we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak,
four times more than we read, and five times more than we write” (p.81). Moreover, it
will be against the naturalistic approach of acquiring a language and cause “cognitive
overload” if learners are forced to produce the forms that they have not acquired yet
(Vandergrift, 1999). In other words, learners should receive input before switching to any
other stage of language learning. Listening, then, provides them with input. However,
listening is seen as one of the most difficult tasks to do since the content and speed of the
input do not depend upon the listeners but on the speakers. That is why English teachers
must seek for some way to facilitate their learners’ listening process.
Traditionally, listening activities were believed to consist of only some typical
tasks such as listening to a recording and do some following tasks, listening to teachers
and repeat, listening to songs, or dictation. These kinds of activities somehow cause
boredom in a language classroom. Nowadays, with the support of technology, teachers
are enabled and encouraged to apply innovative multimedia tools to their teaching,
especially in teaching listening skills. According to Baltova (1994), movies are effective
and powerful tools to attract viewers’ attention and emotion and encourage them to
improve listening skills for understanding the contents.
Videos, as a result, become an extremely useful source of listening materials since
it provides learners with both audio and visual input. Further than that, not only is the
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image added to the sound, but the captions can also be included to facilitate listening
process. The controversy arises around this is whether the use of captions in a video can
enhance learners’ listening skills. Although many studies have been conducted over this

issue, the answer is still far from conclusive.
In reality, listening skills is a compulsory subject in most of universities in
Vietnam. It is one of components designed in each lesson. In fact, the role of listening
skills is considered as a vital skill in communication. In addition, to enhance the study of
English and the quality of English teaching, the Vietnamese Prime Minister issued the
Decision No. 1400/QT-TTg on approving the plan “Teaching and Learning Foreign
Languages in the National Formal Educational System in the period of 2008-2020.
Despite its importance in learning English, the teaching of listening skills has been
ignored and given little attention. In most of general classes, students focus on grammar,
reading and vocabulary. Listening skills is somehow neglected by the teachers. Moreover,
the lack of facilities in classrooms is an obvious obstacle for teachers conducting
listening activities. It is no doubt that there are many problems for teaching and learning
listening skills.
The study will be conducted at Ho Chi Minh Industry and Trade College (HITC).
Since 2005, the Faculty of Foreign Languages at HITC has been responsible for teaching
English programs. The teachers at the faculty are expected to face a lot of difficulties in
finding the effective ways and methods to teach the listening skills. They are also at their
beginning to seek for and establish effective syllabus and assessment system for the
English courses. Beside learning the experience from studies in this field, it is also
important to carry out some investigation in the specific context of HITC. That is why the
researcher who is also one of the teachers in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at HITC
and is in charge of teaching listening skills, wants to carry out this study.
1.2. Statement of the problem

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With the requirements of achieving B1 level after the course and fluent capacity of
using English for subjects as well as the future job, students at HITC have to use English
language effectively in communicative situations. However, it is a fact that most of

speakers are from different areas and with different accents. Therefore, they will have
obstacles with listening skills if they do not have chances to experiences different
accents.
Besides that, most students at HITC find it difficult to be familiar with English
teaching methods at the college. It is because that students come from different rural
areas in Vietnam and have different views to learning English. They have little attention
to listening skills that was always ignored during the years of secondary and high school.
It is the reason why they are facing obstacles to listening periods at the college.
In addition, learners are more excited to learn with authentic materials such as
music and movies in the classroom. Using these kinds of materials helps students become
active in learning as well as enhance students’ listening skills. Thus, the researcher
decides to conduct this research to explore learners’ attitudes towards English movies
with captions among non-English majors.
1.3. Aims and objectives of the study
From the theoretical and practical reason which are discussed above, this study
therefore aims at:
- Finding out students’ attitudes towards using English captioned movies in English
classes at HITC
1.4. Research questions
In order to investigate the students’ attitude towards using captions in listening
comprehension at HITC, the following research questions were formulated:
- What are the students’ attitudes towards using English movies with captions in listening
classes at HITC?
1.5. Scope of the study
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The scope of this study will be conducted at Ho Chi Minh Industry and Trade
College. The study focuses on the investigation of attitude towards using captions in
English listening comprehension of 250 students. The participant of the study will be

students who are learning in general English classes at HITC.
1.6. Significance of the study
This study when finished will hopefully be a useful source of information for
English teachers at HITC. It will provide the teachers with the new perspectives and
insights regarding teaching listening skills in most general English classes. It will also
give teachers an opportunity to consider students’ expectations in listening periods.
In addition, the study is expected to be a helpful guide for those who are
responsible for developing the syllabus and facilities at the college. In fact, it will help
principals as well as leaders of English faculty to have better solutions in designing the
syllabus and install necessary equipment for teaching listening.
Another contribution of the study is to help students recognize their problems in
listening skills. It also helps to formulate students’ interest in watching captioned movies
to improve their listening skills. Furthermore, students will be more interested in listening
periods at school.
Moreover, since there are not many studies focusing on this issue, this study is
hoped to be a useful reference for later studies conducted in the same field. Last but not
least, the study is believed to enlarge the researcher’s knowledge and experience for
doing research.
1.7. Definitions of the key terms
For the purpose of this study, the following key terms are defined to provide a
specific perspective on the issues discussed.
1.7.1. Definition of listening

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Listening is the ability to identify and understand what the speakers are saying. It
involves identifying the sounds and processing them into meaningful words or sentences.

1.7.2. Definition of captions

Captions are similar to the subtitles and give people access with the contents of
spoken languages. They are the words underneath a movie which helps viewers recognize
the sounds and meanings of spoken sentences.
1.7.3. Definition of attitude
Attitude is an important factor that affects students’ learning process and
perception. It greatly impacts on students’ learning process and motivate them to acquire
a new language.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
In this chapter, some reviews of related literature are going to be discussed in
order that the researcher can give related evidences to support the topic of research. The
three keys terms mentioned in this study, including listening skills, movies with captions
and English listening skills, and learners’ attitudes towards using captioned videos in
listening skills.
2.2. Listening skills
2.2.1. Definitions of listening
Listening is one of the most important skill in acquiring a language. Up to this
point, there have been a lot of definitions of listening. Howatt and Dakin (1974) defined
that listening is the ability to identify and understand what the speakers are saying. In
another definition, listening is the process of receiving, attending to and assigning
meaning to aural stimuli (Wolvin & Coakley, 1982).
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Listening is an activity of receiving spoken language through the auditory organ. It
involves identifying the sounds and interpreting the meanings of sounds. According to
Nunan (1995), listening is an important skill in most EFL classes. Gilakjani and Ahmadi
(2011) concluded that listening is a difficult job and requires students to spend much time
and energy on interpreting the meanings of spoken sentences. Sariconban (1999) quoted
in Khalad (2010) mentioned that the listening skills reflects the learners’ ability of

receiving and choosing what the speakers are saying.
2.2.2. The importance of listening skills
Listening plays an important part in most of the daily conversations. The listening
activity occupies 40-50% in communication (Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011). Devine (1982)
expressed that listening is the most important means through which the information is
received and processed. Guo and Wills (2006) states “Listening is the medium through
which people gain a large proportion of their education, their information, their
understanding of the world and human affairs, their ideals, sense of values” (p. 3).
Of all four language skills, listening is considered as the most significant in
learning a second language (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, Morley, 2001; Rivers, 1981).
Listening is the most frequently used in classrooms throughout all levels of education.
Thanks to listening, learners can understand input at the right level. Moreover, learners
can get more attention to vocabulary, grammar and patterns in language through listening
exercises.
2.2.3. Problems in listening skills
Different researchers state some difficulties that learners may encounter in listening
skills. There are six collected evidences that the researcher will discuss in this part.
Quality of recorded materials
It is obvious that few teachers have difficulties finding recorded materials with
high quality. They lack necessary experiences and skills for creating files that are used in
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listening periods. As a result, recorded files cannot meet learners’ expectations.
According to Bingol et al. (2014), the quality of sound system has a great impact on
learners’ listening. However, few teachers can meet the requirements of technology as
well as necessary skills for making recorded materials.
Background knowledge
It is one of the most important problems which has a significant impact on
learners’ approaching a new language. Learners coming from different regions with

different background always face difficulties in acquiring a new language, especially
listening skills. However, learners are supposed to have the same background in language
classes. Consequently, the teachers focus on giving lectures without paying much
attention on learners’ understanding. It is the reason why Bingol et al. (2014) suggests
that the teachers should be responsible for giving background knowledge about the
listening activities in advance.
Accent
Acquiring a new language seems to be difficult to some learners in mastering
different accents. Munro and Derwing (1999) expressed that too many kinds of accent in
listening activities can lead to boredom and reduction in listening. Although Goh (1999)
said that the accent plays an important factor in listening skills, different and unfamiliar
accents can cause serious problems and have a negative impact on learners’ listening
skills.
Unfamiliar vocabulary
Listening to known words becomes easier for learners to understand in cases. In
addition, Temur (2006) states that it is possible and necessary to increase the vocabulary
through listening tasks in class. Listening tasks, therefore, are not only exercises but also
a tool to foster learners’ vocabulary.

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However, the unfamiliar words often appear when learners acquire a new
language. It causes problems for learners. They will become bored and tired to
understand and realize these unfamiliar vocabularies. Darti (2017) concluded that
vocabulary is a big obstacle to most learners. Learners have limited practice to listening,
so they often have difficulties understanding unfamiliar words.

Length and speed of listening
The length of a recording plays a great role on motivating learners to keep

information and listening to the last sentences. For a short recording, learners find it easy
to keep in mind what they just hear. In case of long recordings, learners cannot keep in
mind what they hear and become exhausted to listen to the whole recording. According
Atkins (1995), short recordings facilitate listening and terminate boredom, tiredness and
keep learners listening to the end of recordings.
In addition, the slower speed of recordings will also motivate learners to
frequently practise listening skills. Blau (1990) demonstrated that the slow speed of
recording is an effective way to help learners for acquiring a second language.
2.2.4. Factors affect listening skills
Many researchers point out factors that affect listening skills. They are some common
factors such as learner, speaker and material. These factors have both positive and
negative impacts on learners’ attitudes in acquiring a language.
Learner factor
It is the most important factor which is going to be discussed in this part. Learner
factor includes education level, age, attitude and so on toward acquiring a second
language. In these factors, attitude is one of the most significant factors of acquiring a
new language. Learners’ attitude is considered as a vital guide to succeed in learning a
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language. Positive or negative attitudes always have impacts on their perception. In
listening skills, attitude helps to formulate learners’ interests and motivations. According
to Aỗkgửz (1992), the most important variable affects the success in education is
learners’ attitudes.
Speaker factor
The speaker factor plays an important role in listeners’ understanding spoken
languages. The speakers’ pronunciation, accent and body languages always have impacts
on listeners. Underwood (1998) mentioned that the fast delivery of speakers can cause
great difficulties in listening and as a result, the listeners cannot focus on what a speaker
says.

Munro and Derwing (1999) expressed that the speech with many accents can reduce
listeners’ attention. Buck (2001) showed that listeners will encounter difficulties in
listening if they hear un unfamiliar accent in spoken languages.
Material factors
Selecting a suitable listening material holds an important role. Material is a guide
for learners to master a second language. The usage of vocabulary and tasks in materials
encourage learners to discover and widen their knowledge. Language factors in materials
are also important. They help students to understand and become more familiar with
tasks.
Goh (2000) expressed that learners face problems when doing listening texts.
Therefore, the contents of materials should be easy and suitable for learners’ levels.
Complex listening tasks are not appropriate for beginners and they might fail to
understand. In case of easy listening exercises cannot be used in intermediate classes,
because it might not help students get more knowledge.
2.3. Movies with captions and English listening skills

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2.3.1. Definitions of captions
Captions are considered as subtitles and help people easily understand the contents
of spoken languages. Danan (2004) refers captions to “teletext subtitles” as how they are
understood in Europe. Additionally, according to Abdollapour (2014), captions are
transcriptions of audio portions of television programs, appearing on the screen at the
same time as the program”.
Captions are “the onscreen text in the original language combined with a
soundtrack in the same language” (Markham, Peter & McCarthy, 2001). They are
supposed to provide viewers an enjoyable experience of the programs.
2.3.2. The relationship between captioned movies and listening skills
Many researchers paid attention to taking advantages of videos as a learning

resource. Researchers strongly agree that multimedia learning materials are more
interesting and useful in term of images and sounds (Mackey & Ho, 2008; Rose, 2003).
When learners watch videos in a foreign language, they can improve their listening skills
effectively.
It is a fact that English movies have several benefits for teaching listening skills in
term of understanding and interpreting the speakers’ messages. Lonergan (1984) gives an
evidence that learners are able to distinguish speakers’ daily conversations and enhance
necessary linguistic structures. Markham (1989) conducted the research on the effects of
movies on listening skills. He concluded that the learners could improve their listening by
watching movies.
In addition, Gildea, Miller and Wurtenberg (1990) shows that learners who do not
usually watch English movies face difficulty in producing complex sentences in the
second language. It can be said that learners can make up their sentences by imitating and
reusing the spoken sentences from the movies.

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Mclornan and Guichon (2008) supported that the use of captions helps to improve
listening comprehension skill. Listeners obtained higher scores in listening tests thanks to
the access to captioned movies. Wang & Liu (2011) conducted a search on Chinese
students’ attitude toward using English movies with captions. It indicated that movies
with captions help them improve pronunciation, vocabulary and cross-cultural
communication ability.
2.4. Attitude
2.4.1. Definitions of attitudes
The term attitude is a French term that combined from the Italian word attitudine
and the Late Latin aptitüdø and aptitüdin- (American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, 2000). It is a psychological construct that characterizes a person in term
thought and action. Attitude influences the action of one person and responses to different

stimulus.
According to Jung (1971), attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or react in a
certain way. Hewstone and Stroebe (2004) demonstrated that the more positive attitude a
person has about his level of intelligence, the more he thinks that he could solve the
problem.
2.4.2. The components of attitudes
In the context of attitudes, three main components, including cognitive, affective and
behavioral ones are mentioned.
Affective component
It includes how individuals think and feel about listening, how encouraged they
are to focus on listening and how much they are interested in listening. Eagly and
Chaiken (1998) define affective factor as the “feelings, moods, emotions, and
sympathetic nervous system activity that people have experienced in relation to an
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attitude object and subsequently associate with it” (p.272). These authors claim that
affective component is mainly based on the emotional experiences and preferences. A
person can show their like or dislike to an activity. The affective factor should not be
judged in terms of only the beliefs because emotion works simultaneously with cognitive
factor. The combination of affect, including feelings and emotions and attitude, including
the evaluative judgement on beliefs are proposed as an integrated model of attitude and
choice (Agarwal & Malhotra, 2005). In term of listening, affective component involves
the mental process of selecting messages to focus and then trying to understand them.
Watching a captioned movie will be effective if learners know what information
they are interested in and are important to content of movies. In addition, affective
component will govern learners’ like or dislike to listening activity. As a result, it will
help learners become more interested in listening periods.

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Cognitive component
Cognitive component of attitudes is the beliefs, thoughts and attributes that
individuals pay attention to. It refers that general knowledge of a person relates to part of
attitudes. In term of listening, whether sleeping or awake, humans constantly process
sounds (Antony, Gobel, O’Hare, Reber & Paller, 2012). Some of these sounds are
attended to consciously and unconsciously. Cognitive process in listening includes
receptive, constructive and interpretive spoken language (Rost, 2005). Some people have
the belief of what they hear must be on screen or seen by eyes. The information appeared
on the screen helps them to receive easily and understandably.
Watching a video with captions, as a result is really valuable to learners who are
not good at listening skills. They need to read subtitles in order that they can easily
receive and interpret important information.
Behavioral component
Behavioral component refers to the listeners’ responses or feedbacks during the
listening process. According to Defleur and Westie (1963), it involves person’s response
or reaction to do something. To listeners, behavioral approach helps them clearly locate
the main ideas and then convert into meanings for understanding.
In case of listening, behavioral component of attitude reflects listeners’ interests on
favorite topics. Listeners often express their beliefs and positive attitudes towards wellselected and designed listening tasks. Selecting a good movie with captions will help
learners become interested in doing listening tasks.
2.4.3 Attitude models
Many researchers describe attitude models in various ways. Three of relevant and wellorganized attitude models are chosen and demonstrated as follows:

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Tripartite model
As shown graphically below (Figure 1), Tripartite Model introduced by Spooncer

(1992) is composed of three major components of attitudes. The affective component
refers to feelings with the activity. The second element “beliefs” represents cognitive
response with regard to verbal statements of belief while the last element “behavior”
introduces overt actions with verbal statements about intended behavior. “Feelings” and
“belief” components affected by stimuli lead to “behavior” of individuals.

Figure 1: Tripartite Model
ABC Model
Accoring to Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, and Hogg (2010), one of the most
common attitudinal modeling is ABC Model as in Figure 2, which includes affect,
behaviour and cognition. These authors give short explanations to each components as
follows:
 Affect refers to the way a learner feels an activity or an object. This component
is otherwise directly concerned with the feelings, sentiments, moods or emotions
about an activity.
 Behavior involves the person’s intentions to do something.
 Cognition refers to the beliefs a consumer has about an attitude object.
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Figure 2: ABC Model
CAC Model
In terms of CAC Model as can be seen in Figure 3, Schiffman and Kanuk (2004)
indicate

that attitudes are made up of three main factors: Cognitive component,

Afffective component and Conative component. In some ways, the components of CAC
Model is relevant with those of ABC Model as Cognitive refers to beliefs, Affective
refers to feelings and conative refers to behaviours.

Figure 3: CAC Model
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All in all, the three models focus on supply the close relationship of the three
components, which are composed of cognitive, affective and behavioral attitudes.
2.5. Attitudes towards listening comprehension
Attitudes can help learners be more confident and successful in their subjects. In
term of listening skills, attitude is considered as a vital and important guide which help
students become better in doing listening tasks. Attitude is known as an essential factor in
academic success. According to Gardner (1985), the learners’ success in learning a
foreign language depends on their attitude. It is known that attitude has three levels of
positive, negative and moderate attitude. Among these levels, positive attitude is a critical
ingredient to help listening skills be more effective. Hammerly (1982) and Mian (1998)
asserted that positive attitude towards language learning plays an important role on the
learners’ success. As a result, learners’ attitude influences their learning styles and
behaviors such as watching English movies, reading English documents or speaking with
foreign teachers.
Goh and Taib (2006) concluded that being passive during the listening periods can
make students become tired and bored. Therefore, positive attitude towards listening is
very necessary and vital for the development of listening comprehension skill. It is clear
that listening comprehension is the multiple process involved recognizing and making
sense of spoken words. Thus, learners not only sharpen their listening skills but also
formulate positive attitude in order that they can have suitable and effective strategies to
understand the meanings of spoken language. Harmer (2006) believed that giving
students chances to hear different accents and activities is the main motivation of
teaching listening.
It is clear that the learners always have clear attitude towards listening
comprehension. In addition, some previous studies point out the learners’ positive attitude

towards their listening skills. However, these theorical studies need to assert in practical

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situation. Therefore, there is a need to have a practical study to identify the correlation
between the attitude and listening skills.

2.6. Previous research
In order to explore students’ attitudes towards using captioned movies in listening
periods, many researchers have recently conducted this kind of research. Many
researchers have shown that English movies with captions are effective for learning a
second language. Many universities have been implementing captioned movies for their
foreign language learning course (Blake, 2005; Chenoweth, Ushida & Murday, 2006;
Sanders, 2005; Scida & Saury, 2006). The captioned movies are widely used to teach
second languages. According to Garza (1991), captioned movies can assist learners to
connect auditory and visual input. It is a fact that the advantages of captioned videos are
clearly identified.
Mansory (2015) conducted a research on attitude towards using subtitles while
watching movies at Eastern Mediterranean University. The data was collected through
questionnaires to find out 118 masters’ degree students. The results revealed that the most
of participants (60%) believed having captions or subtitles in movies helps them focus on
the movies and be more confident in listening skills. Most of the participants agreed that
second language captions are useful for them in terms of listening comprehension.
Another research conducted by Safranj (2005) aimed to explore 38 students at a
private school in Novi Sad about attitude towards using movies with or without subtitles
in learning listening comprehension. The results showed that more than a half of the like
watching English movies with subtitles. They reported through short interviews that they
found it easy to understanding the movie and expand their vocabulary and structures.
Pimsamarn (2011) studied 80 senior students’ attitudes on developing listening skills by

using English movie. The results showed that these participants could understand the
dialogue better when watching movies with subtitles and have correct pronunciation of
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unfamiliar words. They also agreed that these kinds of movies can develop their listening
skills.
To confirm the effects of movies with captions, Mclornan & Guichon (2008)
supported that the use of captions helps to improve listening comprehension skill.
Listeners obtained higher scores in listening tests thanks to the access to captioned
movies. Wang & Liu (2011) conducted a search on Chinese students’ attitude toward
using English movies with captions. It indicated that movies with captions help them
improve pronunciation, vocabulary and cross-cultural communication ability.
In a word, various studies have detected the learners’ attitude towards using
captions in English listening comprehension. However, most of these few investigations
were pursued recently, indicating that this topic is still new to researchers. Besides few of
them had the focus on the English-majored students although it is clear that listening
skills is a requisite subject in general English classes. That is one of the reasons why the
researcher of this study decided to carry out his own investigation focusing on attitude
towards using captions in English listening comprehension.
2.7. Conceptual Framework
It should be noticed in this research, students’ attitudes including affective,
cognitive and behavioral elements may affect watching captioned movies. By watching
captioned movies, it is supposed to help students to improve their listening skills.
Through all of the literature presented and discussed in the previous sections, the
researcher finally comes to the conceptual framework of the study which is described in
the following diagram.
STUDENTS

affective

ATTITUDES

cognitive

CAPTIONED
MOVIES

LISTENING
SKILLS

behavioral
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Figure 4: Conceptual framework of the relationship between students’ attitudes towards
captioned movies and listening skills
III. METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research design
In this study, the quantitative approach will be used for the reason of gathering a
collection of data to find the solution to the research questions. Among various
quantitative designs, the survey research will be chosen and carefully constructed in this
study so that the variables under investigation can be controlled and manipulated. This
type of research, by nature, is concerned with the use of questionnaire to investigate the
characteristics and views of the respondents about the nature of language or language.
For this kind of study, the research is independent of the researcher. As a result, the
data is used to objectively measure the students’ attitudes towards captioned movies in
improving listening skills. According to Creswell (2003), the quantitative research
“employ strategies of inquiry such as experimental and surveys, and collect data in
predetermined instruments that yield statistical data” (p.18). As a fact, the findings from

this kind of research can be used to predict, explain and confirm the given conceptual
framework.
3.2. Research site
This research will be carried out at Ho Chi Minh City Industry and Trade College
(HITC) which is located at 20 Tang Nhon Phu Street, Phuoc Long A Ward, District 9, Ho
Chi Minh City. HITC has a total area of 20 hectares including its buildings with about
320 classrooms which are clean, well-lit and equipped with modern facilities such as
projectors or audio equipment. In such a good condition, students would expect to study
in modern studying practice. In addition, the school has 60 workshops and laboratories, a
library with many up-to-date books, newspapers and magazines written both in English
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and Vietnamese. There is also a dormitory which can accommodate for 2000 students
with the football court, sports and recreation area.
The study will be conducted in the college in the second semester of the school year
2019 - 2020. The teaching staff at HITC consists of 347 teachers, among which are 16
teachers of English with B.A and M.A degrees. The teachers teach English according to
their own lesson plans made to suit the English Curriculum, the school year teaching plan
and the school year schedule of the school.
In the school year 2019 - 2020, the school consist of 12 departments, with the total
of over 4000 students. The students of HITC come from every part of the country. Most
of them learnt English according the instruction of the seven-year English Curriculum of
Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training through formal classes in secondary and
high schools. Indeed, they learnt English with the textbooks of Vietnam Ministry of
Education and Training, and the supplementary materials on vocabulary, grammar,
reading and sentence writing that were often compiled for the common use in the whole
grade. However, at college, the students currently learn in the class of around 40-50
students. Each course is divided into 3 credits including 45 periods.
Besides that, students have to learn listening skills in around 30 to 45 minutes for

3 periods. The listening tasks are originally adapted from the course book. They have the
chances of listening and completing each task under the instruction and design of each
lesson. However, to improve students’ listening skills, teachers may design and choose
their lessons and activities.
3.3. Sample and sampling procedures
This study will be carried out to investigate HITC first-year students because the
researcher personally think that students of this stage especially are unfamiliar with
listening periods in term of teaching styles and methods. At the time of conducting this
study, the participants are going to take their English 2 course.

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