PART ONE : INTRODUCTION

1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

It can not be denied that English is the international medium in the fields of

science, technology, culture ,education , economy and so on . It is also considered a means

to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries . It

is widely seen as the key language toll in the integrating process in the world . With the

rapid development and expansion of informational technologies , there needs to be a

common language for people of all countries to exchange information with each other and

it is English that is used as a means of international communication. Therefore, there has

been an explosion in the need of teaching and learning English all over the world.

In Vietnam in recent years the number of people who wish to know and master

English has become more and more increasing, especially since Vietnam adopted an open-

door policy , teaching and learning English have been paid much attention to. English has

been part of the general education . It becomes a compulsory subject at high schools in

most towns and cities through out the country. Moreover , each city or province there is a

specializing school for gifted students at several subjects such as maths , literature ,

physics, chemistry and foreign languages especially English. Among these schools is the

Foreign Language Specializing School, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National

University. However, the teaching and learning process in FLSS seems to still focus too

much on grammar, structures and vocabularies. Our students are very good at doing

exercises of written forms, these forms of exercises mostly concern grammar , reading or

writing comprehension. The consequence is that students have much difficulty in listening.

Listening skill seems to be the most difficult to our students. We all know that in

order to learn a foreign language successfully, students should be helped to develop four

skills : listening , speaking , reading and writing. These four skills are closely interrelated

to one another and they all necessary. Of the four skills, listening is regarded as a

prerequisite to understand what is being said and to pick up the general idea of what is

being discussed. In our professional and personal life there will be situations where we will

hear and have to absorb a lot of details, facts and figures and then extract some points from

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them. In our private life we may wish to listen to talks in English about subjects we are

interested in and wish to consolidate what we have learnt in order to progress to other and

more difficult areas. Thus , it is possible to give students the chance to practise what they

have learnt in the way listening to spoken English. To listen successfully to spoken English

language need be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular words in

particular ways on particular occasion and not to simply understand the words themselves.

As I am one of the teachers of English of this school. I would like to do something

with the hope of improving listening skill for our students and as a result, the thesis title

goes as :

“Techniques for improving listening skills of gifted students of Foreign Language

Specializing School, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University.”

2. AIMS OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to investigate the difficulties in listening which the

students at FLSS encounter so that some effective techniques can be given to help them

improve this skill.

These are the specific aims :

- investigating the students’ attitudes at FLSS towards listening

- finding out the difficulties encountered by the students

- suggesting techniques with the hope of helping the students improve the ability of

listening

3. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study may provide insights into the process of learning listening

comprehension skill for the students. It may play a crucial role in enhancing listening skill

to the students at FLSS, CFL, HNU.

4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Though the study focuses on techniques to improve listening skill for gifted students

at FLSS, CFL, HNU, due to the limitation of page numbers of the minor thesis, the

researcher can only conduct a survey on the students of 10 th and 11th form to identify

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listening problems experienced by the students, after that suggest some techniques to help

them better in learning listening.

5. METHOD OF THE STUDY

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, quantitative method is used and the

following tasks have to be done:

- doing a survey on the learning listening to English from 200 students of 10 th and

11th form at FLSS ( except for students of 12th form as there are no listening lessons for 12th

form students )

- collecting data for the analysis

- assessing the difficulties

- evaluating the best techniques that are most suitable

6. DESIGN OF THE SDTUDY

This minor thesis consists of three parts:

Part one, “INTRODUCTION”, presents the rationale, the aims , the method, subject and

design of the study. It expresses the reason why the author decided to choose this study and

the methods for the fulfillment of the study.

Part two, “DEVELOPMENT”, is divided into three chapters :

- Chapter one presents the concepts relevant to the research topic such as different

point of views of listening comprehension skill, the importance, classification of listening,

difficulties in learning listening and three stages of listening session .

- Chapter two deals with analyses on general learning situation at FLSS, learning

requirements, teachers and teaching methods, materials as well as material assessments.

Also in this chapter there is a focus on data collection, findings and discussion.

- Chapter three emphasizes the implication of the study in which certain techniques

for improving listening skills to the students at FLSS are suggested.

Part three, “CONCLUSION”, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the

limitations and provides some suggestions for the further study

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PART TWO : DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. INTRODUCTION

To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the

reexamination of concepts most relevant to the thesis’s topic. Firstly come the different

points of view about listening comprehension. Secondly the importance and classification

of listening comprehension are discussed. Thirdly the potential problems in learning

listening are also referred to. Finally there is a discussion of three stages of the listening

session.

1.2. LISTENING COMPREHENSION

1.2.1 Traditional point of view.

There are some traditional views that listening is considered a passive language skill

along side the reading skill. It means that learners are almost passive in practising listening

activities in the classroom. Learners just hear what they are to listen without paying

sufficient attention in the discourse such as the background knowledge of the speakers as

well as their intentions, attitude , implication and other shades of meaning etc. The learners

mainly hear the message, they only try to elicit the meaning from the individual syntactic

and semantic components of the utterance and the manner in which it is spoken. This leads

to the result that it is hard for the learners to communicate. Having this attitude, the teacher

often conducts the lesson as “tested” listening comprehension rather than teaching it. The

method of testing the comprehension of the learners is based on the ability to remember the

utterance, which they have just heard. Obviously, this method is not effective as the ability

to remember the utterance does not mean that the listener can understand the message. Just

like a child who is good at remembering songs and poems, but he does not know what they

are about. In fact the learners are not provided enough information about what they are

going to hear before the tape plays and they cope with a wide range of problems while they

are listening and the result is that they can not get any listening experience from the

teacher.

1.2.2. Present point of view.

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For the past few years some present studies on listening comprehension have to

come to another view in which the role of the listeners is thought to be active, but not

passive any more. Listening is really a receptive skill along side reading skill.

According to Littlewood (1981), listening demands active involvement from the hearer. In

order to construct the message that the speaker intends , the hearer must actively contribute

knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources. Only by applying the knowledge

of the language , can the hearer divide the continuous stream of sound into meaningful

units and only by comparing these units with the shared knowledge between himself and

the speaker , can the hearer interpret their meaning. The nature of listening comprehension

means that the hearer should be encouraged to engage in an active process of listening for

meanings, using not only the linguistic cues but also has nonlinguistic knowledge.

From the point of view of Broughton (1978). Listening is divided into intensive and

extensive listening. Extensive listening is related to the freer, more general listening to

natural English, not necessarily under the direct guidance of the teacher whereas intensive

listening is much more concerned with just one or two specific points.

Mary Underwood (1989) divides the aural process into 3 stages and Clark (1977)

divides it into 4 stages but generally they have the same idea. There are two levels

activities of the aural process. The two levels of this activity are recognition and selection.

The first level is that the structure and the relationship between syntax and phonology of

the language are recognized. At the first stage , the sounds go into a sensory store called

the “ echoic memory”. “ Echoic memory” is just the short term memory because there is

continuous arrival of new information before the listener has opportunity to deal with it.

That is why there is the following stage which is called “selection”. In this stage, the

listener selects what he finds most interesting or important or comprehensible in the

utterance. At this point, words or groups of words are checked and compared with

information already held in the long term memory and the meaning is extracted from them

(Mary Underwood, Teaching Listening, p.2). When the meaning is grasped , the actual

words of the spoken discourse are generally forgotten and only the meaning is retained.

Therefore, the listener usually remember the meaning rather than the exact words spoken

when he has to recall what have been heard. The basis of listening comprehension is the

ability to recognize and select the specific details in the discourse. It, of course, needs a

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certain time for the learners to become used to listening and process some familiar

utterances more automatically.

Aderson and Lynch ( Listening ,1995, Oxford University Press) have another point

of view. They consider the listener as active model builder. They say that in order to listen

successfully we have to construct our own “coherent interpretation” of any spoken

message. Both parts of this term are important. First , it needs to be coherent both with

what we believe has just been said and with what we already know about the speaker, the

context, and the word in general. Second, it is an interpretation, in the sense that it is our

version of what the speaker meant, as far as we are able to assess that meaning. The two

authors use the term “ mental modal” to refer to the listener’s “ coherent interpretation” .

This emphasizes the active and personal nature of successful listening. The mental model

that we build as a representation of a spoken message is the result of our combining the

new information in what we just heard with our previous knowledge and experience.

In short, in order to be successful in listening, we should remember that : “ Listening

comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and then ignored while

other skills are developed. There must be regular practice with increasingly difficult

material."(Rivers Wilga , M.(1986) Teaching Foreign Language Skill., The University of

Chicago Press, p. 157).

1.3. THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

It is now widely accepted that oral communication can not take place without

listening and listening plays a central and possibly predominant part in the whole process

of language learning. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four skills of parts of

that “indivisible range called communication”. They are interrelated and interdependent .

According to Pearson Ian. (1981), The Functional Notional Approach in Language

Teaching, p. 80 , listening is tied to the essential cognitive elements of comprehension and

understanding. In order to take part in oral communication, clearly, the first thing anyone

must have is the ability to absorb the pieces of information from the speaker by listening.

When nobody listens to a speaker or when a listener fails to understand the message,

communication is considered unsuccessful. Moreover , listening is an important way of

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acquiring the language , a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures. Teaching

listening to spoken language is ,therefore, of primary importance .

“ Teaching the comprehension of spoken language is therefore of primary importance if

the communication aim is to be achieved.” ( Wilga.M.Rivers, Teaching Foreign Language

Skills, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1968, p. 135.)

1.3.1. Mother – tongue listening

It is assumed that people can listen in their mother-tongue with little or no effort.

From very young, we can understand at least the gist of what is heard. This is resulted by a

number of factors including our exposure to the large amount of language and to the great

number of different speakers over the years and our acquired knowledge of the context, the

speakers, the topic and so on. However , there are a lot of problems that sometimes we

meet when listening in our mother tongue. Particular accents can cause problems. For

instance, in Vietnam the accents of the three zones (the North, the Middle and the South)

are quite different. Someone from the North may find it difficult to understand a speaker

from the Middle or the North. Further more , sometimes bad conditions created by bad

situations also hinder our comprehension. For example, it may be hard for listener to

follow and understand what a quiet speaker is conveying when everything around him is

noisy. In spite of these minor problems, we can not deny that we generally listen and

comprehend the speech in our native language with ease.

1.3.2. Listening as the final goal of learning a language

According to Donoghue (1975), listening occupies the basic portion in the context

of the language arts and progress in reading, speaking and writing is directly governed by

listening ability. It is the most important of the four arts since nearly half of the adult

working day and more than half of the child’s classroom activity time is spent in listening.

Apart from communication interaction, much of the enjoyment in second or foreign

language use comes from listening activities like watching films and plays or watching T.V

or listening to the radio, songs or talks by the speakers. In class the students learn a lot

from their teacher, to tape or records or to each other. Moreover , the students can gain a

lot of experiences of listening to a wide variety of samples of spoken English. It also helps

the students know different varieties of language such as standard or regional, formal or

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informal language, and different text types like conversation, narrative or informative

types. The result is that there is an increase in the amount of language contact through

communication. Further more , students ,day by day ,can train their listening skill and they

can flexibly listen to everything. Students are trained to listen for the main ideas , for

specific information or to react to instruction. Therefore , listening is regarded to be among

the most important educational goals. It has a great influence on value formation and it

increases an individual’s level of vocational skills and it results in great emotional response

changes in attitude and it provides students a stimulus for other activities such as

discussion, reading and writing, which are the main language skills.

1.3.3. Listening as a means of acquiring a language

“ Listening to spoken English is an important way of acquiring the language of “

picking up” structures and vocabularies” (Adrian Doff, 1995. P :199 ). It is obvious that

developing the ability to understand the spoken foreign language is a long continuous

process and listening is a skill that must be taught and that does not happen automatically.

If students learn to listen effectively, they are able to understand, to interpret, to evaluate

and to response to what they hear. So it is very important for students to develop the ability

to understand spoken English. In daily life they can watch English programs on T.V, listen

to the radio or have direct conversations with native speakers. Thus the more frequent we

are exposed to the language, the faster and easier we can acquire it.

1.4. CLASSIFICATION OF LISTENING

1.4.1. Real - life listening

1.4.1.1. Kinds of real - life listening

Many learners of English will ,sooner or later, find themselves in a variety of

situation where they need or want to listen to English being used in real – life for a range

of purposes. However, they feel a big gap between listening activities in the classroom and

actual situations. This is because in listening materials learners listen to dialogues ,

conversations which are very grammatical and controlled in many ways. The speakers

often speak at perfectly controlled speed, with perfect voice tone , accent and correct

grammar. Whereas, in real – life conversations learners encounter various people speaking

with different accent, speed and voice tone without paying attention to grammar.

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According to Adrian (1995), there are two ways which people often listen in real – life.

They are “ casual” listening and “ focused” listening

- “ Casual” listening : In daily life we sometimes listen with no particular purpose and

often without much concentration . This kind of listening is called ‘casual” listening. For

example, a lot of students have the habit of listening to the radio while studying or the

television set is on while we are doing something else. The typical feature is that we do not

listen closely and intentionally, therefore we may not remember much of what we hear or

there may be nothing in our mind.

- “Focused” listening : When we listen for a particular purpose to get the information we

need, it is called “focus” listening. In this case we often listen with much attention, but we

do not listen to everything we hear with equal concentration. For instance, we want to

know the answer to a question, we will ask and expect to hear a relevant response. This

leads to our “listening out” for certain key phrases or words. When we ask a question like:

“ Where are you going to be?”, we then listen out for the expectation of the place. If the

answer is, for example; “I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet, it depends on what job I get,

but I expect I shall end up in Boston.” – then we shall wait for and note the last two words.

If, however, the same answer is the response to the question: “Are you definitely going to

Boston?” – then the last two words of the answer are virtually redundant, and will pay

more attention to the first part. If we listen to the news, it is from a desire to know what is

happening in the world, and we shall expect to hear about certain subjects of current

interest in a certain kind of language. Even when listening to entertainment such as plays,

jokes or songs ,we have a definite purpose (enjoyment), we want to know what is coming

next, and we expect it to cohere with what went before. There is an association between

listener expectation and purpose and his comprehension. If the listener expects and needs

are intentional ,his listening is likely accurately perceived and understood than that which

is unexpected, irrelevant or helpful.

1.4.1.2. Characteristics of real - life listening

According to Penny Ur , there is a distinct difference between the auditory effect of

a piece of spoken prose and that of informal conversation. The former is characterized by a

fairly even pace, volume and pitch. Spontaneous conversation, on the other hand, is jerky,

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has frequent pauses and overlaps, goes intermittently faster and slower, louder and softer,

higher and lower. Hesitation, interruptions, exclamations, emotional reactions of surprise,

irritation or amusement, which are all liable to occur in natural dialogue, are bound to

cause an uneven and constantly changing rhythm of speech. Even if only one person is

speaking for a relatively long period, the fact that he has not thought out carefully what he

has to say beforehand, and has not necessarily chosen the best words, means that he has to

rely heavily on vocal emphasis to make his meaning clear. And vocal emphasis does not

just mean saying a particular word or phrase louder. It means also gabbling quickly

through what is less important and slowing down over the main point, or pausing for effect

before or after a vital phrase, or raising the pitch of voice to stress one thing and then

lowering it to play something else. The overall effect of all this is perhaps more dramatic

and interesting than that of formal speech, but this does not mean that it is ,all in all, more

comprehensible or easier to listen to.

To summarize, we may say that most of our real-life listening activity is characterized by

the following features:

- We listen for a purpose and with certain expectations.

- We made an immediate response to what we hear.

- We see the person we are listening to.

- There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of what is heard.

- Stretches of heard discourse come in short chunks.

- Most heard discourse is spontaneous and therefore differs from formal spoken prose in

the amount of redundancy, noise and colloquialisms, and in its auditory character.

Sometimes particular situations may lack one or more of these characteristics. for example,

when watching television we are not normally expected to respond, when listening to a

lecture we may have to hear uninterrupted speech for a very long time indeed- but it is very

rare that none of them is present at all. We seldom listen to stretches of “ disembodied”

discourse of any length.

1.4.2. Class-room listening

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According to Rixon (1986) and Hubbard, R and others (1984), there are three

kinds of listening in classroom, they are: intensive listening and extensive listening.

1.4.2.1.Intensive listening

Intensive listening is the careful, focused listening to a short passage for detailed

information or for full comprehension. For example, listening to the announcement ,

listening to the instructions or listening to the weather forecast. There may be much

concrete information for this kind of listening and learners often find it difficult to get full

comprehension in the first listening. This helps learners develop their listening skill or

knowledge of the language in their effort to do exercises or other activities. The passage

should be short so that learners have chances to get to grip with the content, , have several

tries at difficult parts and to be fitted within the time allowed of a lesson. Learners also feel

it easy, interesting and encouraging when they listen to a short passage . Therefore, they

often listen with a great concentration and stretching effort.

1.4.2.2. Extensive listening

Extensive listening is free and general listening to natural language for general

ideas, not for particular details. The listening passages for extensive listening can be long

(stories) or short ( jokes, poems). The language that is used in this type of listening is often

within the students’ current ability so that students find it pleasing and interesting when

they are listening. Students feel satisfied as they can understand the passage well. They are

not asked to do any language work and they can do their listening freely without any

pressure. Moreover the topics are various and entertaining, it ,therefore, motivates students

to develop their listening skill as well as exposes them to valuable extra contact with

spoken language.

1.5. POTENTIAL PROBLEMS IN LEARNING LISTENING

It is undeniable that listening is considered to be the most difficult among the four

skills. Numerous learners have difficulties with different aspects of listening

comprehension. Some have trouble with factual or literal comprehension. Others have

trouble with interpretation. Others have trouble with critical listening. Still others have

problems with evaluational listening. The followings are some potential problems that

should be paid attention to in order to help listeners feel self-confident to overcome them.

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1.5.1. Inability to control over the speed of the speaker

In learning English, the greatest difficulty in listening comprehension is that

learners are not able to control the speed of the speaker. Learners often feel that the

utterances disappear before they can sort them out or they can get the message.

“They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they

miss the next part. Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all out

quickly enough.”( Mary Underwood, Teaching Listening, Longman, 1989, p.16). One of

the reasons for this is that learners can not keep up with the speed and they often try to

understand everything they hear. When they fail in sorting out the meaning of one part, the

following will be missed. This can lead to the ignorance of the whole chunk of discourse.

Obviously they fail to listen.

1.5.2. Inability to get things repeated

Another problem is that the listener is not always in the position to ask the speaker

to repeat his utterance . This is the case when learners join in conversation outside the

classroom. Repetition can not be asked for when listening to the radio or watching

television. Even in classroom, when listening to lectures, learners can not frequently order

the lecturers to repeat the utterance as many times as they wish. When doing listening work

in listening lessons, it is the teacher, not the learners, who decides to stop or to replay the

record and in many situations, the teacher does not replay the exact parts that the listeners

wish to listen again. Therefore, the teacher can not judge if the learners can fully

understand what they have heard. This problem can be solved only when learners are given

the opportunity to control their own machines and proceed in whatever way they wish.

1.5.3. Inability to concentrate

It is a major problem if learners lack concentration in listening work. This can be

caused by a number of things such as : the bad quality of machines, the poor quality of

listening materials. Other reason for loss of concentration is that the topic is not interesting

or not familiar and learners find it difficult to understand. Sometimes, listeners easily lose

their concentration, as they feel tired of making a great effort to hear word by word. The

break in attention, even very short, can seriously impair the comprehension of the whole

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process of listening. Concentration of the listener is considered vitally important in a

successful listening lesson.

1.5.4. Problems in hearing the sounds

“ As a young teacher it took me some time to realize that my students actually did not

perceive certain English sounds with any accuracy because these did not exist in their own

language.” (Penny Ur , Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge University Press,

P.11). The fact is that there are a lot of sound that do not exist in Vietnamese such as : the

sound / / as in “ think”. A native Vietnamese speaker may very often therefore not notice

as the first that it occurs in English. Even more difficulties is caused when the new sound

does not exist in the native language. For example: / I / (as in “pit” ) and / I: / (as in

“peep”) or “ship” and “sheep” or “fit” and “feet”. Thus learners have difficulty in

perceiving this difference as significant to meaning in English and it takes a considerable

amount of practice before they get used to distinguishing between them. Sometimes

learners find consonant-clusters particularly difficult to cope with. They may get the

consonants in the wrong order (hearing “part” for “past”), or omit one of the sounds

(“crips” for “crisps”) , or hear a vowel that is not in fact pronounced (“littel” for “little”).

Another reason why sounds may be misheard is that the learner is not used to the stress and

intonation patterns of English and the way these influence both the realization of certain

phonemes and the meaning of the utterance. The number of homophones and homonyms in

English is small, while the number of words which can be confused or misunderstood by

accurate perception is relatively large. It is ,therefore, essential for the learner to achieve

familiarity with the common phonemes of the target language as soon as possible if he is

an efficient listener. If he learns to pronounce the sounds accurately himself, it will be

much easier for him to hear them correctly when said by someone else.

1.5.5. Problems in understanding different accents

Many foreign-language learners who are used to the accent of their own teacher are

surprised and dismayed when they find they have difficulty understanding someone else.

Some of them try to get over this at first by claiming that the second speaker’s accent is

somehow inferior or wrong. But strictly speaking there is rarely such a thing as a “wrong”

accent, there are simply accent that are more or less difficult to understand- that is, broadly 13

speaking, ones that are more or less removed from the original variety learned. What we

can do is to try to give learners a reasonable familiarity with the two most useful English

accents - that is to say the British and American standard varieties- and then perhaps let

them have a taste of some others simply to open their eyes to the possibilities and give

them some practice in coping with them. Learners who have some experience in listening

to and understand a number of different accents are more likely to be able to cope

successfully with further than those who have only heard one or two and learners should

try their best to get used to different accent by listening to authentic material as much as

possible.

1.5.6. Problems in vocabulary limitation

When listening, there are words or phrases that are not known to the listeners. This

causes the listeners a lot in getting the message of the passage and this may interrupt the

listeners’ concentration or thinking. The listeners have to try to follow the speaker and

sometimes they have to guess the meaning of a word or phrase depending the context. The

listeners have to pay attention to the new words, as a result they miss chances of listening

to the following part of the speech. Teachers, therefore, should help the learners to know

that there is not equal importance for every word and there is no need for learners to

understand all the new words when listening. Sometimes listeners understand only a part of

what a speaker means but they are generally able to continue with the interaction and to

respond to it.

1.6. THREE STAGES OF THE LISTENING SESSION

There are often three main stages in the teaching of a listening text. They are : pre-

listening stage , while-listening stage and post-listening stage. Each stage has its own aims

and activities.

1.6.1. Pre-listening stage

1.6.1.1. The definition and purposes of pre-listening stage

It is true that learners will find it extremely difficult to do a listening lesson when

they have no idea of what they are going to hear. Even if the sounds or the words which 14

they hear are familiar, they may still be unable to understand because they lack certain

kinds of knowledge of the topic, setting or the relationship between the speakers. Thus the

listeners’expectation and purposes should be taken into account. These make listeners feel

as in real-life listening situation in their native language. Teachers can help their students

to arouse their expectations and see the purpose before a listening lesson. This kind of

work is described as “pre-listening activities”.

“ It would seem a good idea when presenting a listening passage in class to give students

some information about the content, situation and speakers before they actually start

listening.”(Penny Ur, 1992, P.4)

Another idea about pre-listening stage is said as following:

“ Pre-listening work can be done in a variety of ways and often occurs quite naturally when

listening forms part of an integrated skills course. When planning lessons, time must be

allocated for pre-listening activities and these activities should not be rushed.” ( Mary

Underwood, Teaching Listening, Longman 1989, P.31).

1.6.1.2. Types of pre-listening activities

Pre-listening work can be done in various ways and consists of several types of

activities. Therefore, teachers should select the most effective activities for each situation

and teachers need to find the most suitable way to provide considerable pre-listening

support for their students in order to help them to get the purposes that a listening lesson

requires.

- The teacher introducing the listening topic, giving background information.

- The students reading something relevant

- The students looking at pictures ,reading through the questions if asked

- The students discussing the topic situation

- The students following the instruction for the while-listening activity

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- The students considering how the while-listening activity will be done

Each of the above activities will help the students focus on the main points of the listening

passage. But it is very important to remember that the amount of pre-listening activities

may vary according to each class, the level of difficulty of the material and the students’

language ability.

1.6.1.3. Factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities

The choice of pre-listening activities depends on a number of factors :

- The time available

- The material available

- The interest of the class

- The interest of the teacher

- The place where the work is being carried out

- The nature and the content of the listening text itself

It is very necessary for the teacher to consider all the factors which are mentioned above

when choosing an activity as each factor contributes an important part to the result of a

listening lesson.. However, the last item on the list, the nature of the listening text, is very

important when choosing pre-listening activities

1.6.2.While-listening stage

1.6.2.1. the purpose of while-listening activities

The While- listening stage involves activities that students are asked to do during the

time that they are listening to the text. The purpose of while-listening activities is to help

learners develop the skill of eliciting messages from spoken language.

There are ,of course, other reasons why students need to listen to the language they are

studying. The main thing is that to learn to recognize how it sounds ( the pronunciation of

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words, the stress, the rhythm, the intonation that they can use what they hear as a model for

their own speech).

When developing the skills of listening for comprehension, while-listening activities

must be chosen carefully. They must vary at different levels and in different cases. We do

not test whether or not the listener has understood and producing “right/ wrong” answer

will soon discourage the enthusiasm of the learners. To help non-native listeners to

improve their listening, teacher must have listening activities which give practice in

prediction, matching and interpretation.

“Good while-listening activities help learners find their way through the listening text and

build upon the expectations raised by pre-listening activities.” ( Underwwood, Teaching

Listening, 1990, P. 46)

1.6.2.2. Characteristics of while-listening activities

1.6.2.2.1. Interest

While-listening activities should be interesting, so that students feel they want to

listen and carry out the activities. Part of interest can stem from the topic and the content of

what is said and the listening text should be chosen with the interest of the students in

mind.

Many learners enjoy material with a “local” flavor rather more than texts setting in some

remote context. For this reason, even quite mundane topics should be given some local

relevance when possible in order to make them more familiar and motivating.

Another kind of interest is generated by activities which are in themselves interesting and

satisfying to do. Most learners enjoy trying to complete puzzle or solve problems and this

fact can be exploited in the design of the activities. It is important, however, that this kind

of activity is not too long and laborious and does not involve doing the same kind of thing

over and over again. For example, for most learners, three small crossword puzzles on

different occasions are far more satisfying to do than one every large one which occupies a

lot of time on just one occasion.

1.6.2.2.2. Levels of difficulty

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While-listening activities should be things most people can do. Failure here very

rapidly leads to demotivation, and activities with potential “sticking point” , where students

are likely to get into difficulties, should be used very sparingly in the early stages. In time,

of course, it will be necessary to include activities which present potential “ sticking

point”, so that students learn not to be put off and persevere in spite of the problems.

According to Mary Underwood, the level of difficulty of a while-listening activity can be

adjusted by giving support. Some while-listening activities are successful with groups of

varying levels of ability and provide a challenge for the more advanced students but not

discouraging those who only gain little success.

1.6.2.2.3. Factors affecting the choice of while-listening activities

In addition to the factors which apply equally to while-listening activities, other

points need to be considered when selecting while-listening activities. They include:

- The possibilities for varying the level of difficulty if required.

- The inconvenience of carrying out activities which require individuals to give their

responses orally in the classroom. This kind of work is best done in a language

laboratory. Classroom while-listening activities generally have to be limited to those

which can be done without the need for each student to respond by speaking.

- Whether the work is to be done by the students with the teacher present or whether it is

to be done as private study, either in the classroom or at home. This will influence the

teacher’s choice of activity as he may want to give his students different work

according to their levels of ability, to provide additional instructions , or to select

activities which generate little or no marking.

1.6.3. Post-listening stage

1.6.3.1. Definition and purpose of post-listening activities

Post-listening activities are the activities which are done after the listening is

completed. Some post-listening activities are extensions of the work done at the pre-

listening and while-listening stages and some relate only loosely to the listening text itself.

The purposes of post-listening activities are :

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- to check whether the learners have understood what they need to or not.

- to see why some students have missed parts of the message or fail to understand the

message.

- to give the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speakers

of the listening text.

- to expand on the topic or language of the message and to transfer learned things to

another context.

- to make introduction for the planned work

1.6.3.2. Factors affecting the choice of post-listening activities

Mary Underwood says that the attention should be given to the following factors in

selecting post-listening activities:

- the amount of language work the teacher wish to do in relation to the particular

listening text.

- The time which is allowed to do post-listening work.

- The speaking, reading or writing skills should be included in the post-listening work.

- The students should work in pair or in groups.

- The chosen activity should be made motivating.

1.7 .SUMMARY

In short , this chapter focuses on the concepts useful for the accomplishment of the

study. First comes an overview on the different views of listening comprehension. Then

the importance and classification of listening are stated. What is more in this chapter is the

potential problems in learning listening. Last comes in the chapter is three stages of the

listening session.

CHAPTER TWO :

19

PRACTICAL SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARING LISTENING TO

ENGLISH AT THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPECIALIZING SCHOOL,

COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

2.1. INTRODUCTION

To realize the objective of this study, it first starts with an overview on F.l.S.S,

C.F.L, H.N.U, in which background, facility, trend of development of the school is mainly

presented. Then, for a better understanding about the school, some information about the

students and leaning requirements are addressed. In addition, an analysis on teachers,

teaching methods, materials and material assessments will be very important for the

realization of the study, without it, the researcher will find it impossible to sort out

reasonable techniques to improve listening skill for the students.

2.2. AN OVERVIEW ON F.L.S.S

F.L.S.S is a school for gifted students of foreign languages. Among these languages

are English, French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and German, the majority are students of

English. This school is one of the members of College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi

National University. It was established in 1968 and it has become a reliable address for the

students all over the north of the country and for those who are interested to major in

foreign languages. Currently there are 27 English classes with nearly 700 students . they

are 10th, 11th and 12th form students who are aged from 15 to 18. In order to become one of

the students of this school, the students who have finished 9 th year classes with good

results have to take part in a very hard examination of 3 subjects : maths, literature and

English. If their results are good enough ,they become 10 th form students of the school. At

this high school, the students have to try their best to study social and natural subjects, but

English is considered the main one. There are 7 periods per week, it means that the

students of our school have 4 more periods per week than those at other high schools.

Normally, there are 50 students in classes of social and natural subjects, when they have

English lessons, the class is divided into two groups with about 25 students in each one and

two teachers of English are in charge.

As far as the materials are concerned “ English 10, 11 and 12” , workbooks 10, 11, 12

written by the teachers of our school and two listening books : “Listening And Speaking”

20

by Tran Ngoc Oanh and Vu Quynh Nhung (10th form), by Kieu Hong Van and Vu Phuong

Anh (11th form). The students are equally taught the four language skills. Among them,

listening seems to be the toughest one for the students. Besides reading, listening serves as

an indispensable skill in learning English as it provides students with necessary input. In

spite of the importance of listening, the students’ and teachers’ effort, listening skill

remains the greatest obstacle in their way for success.

2.3. STUDENTS AND LEARNING REQUIREMENTS

Most of the students have been learning English since they were 6 th form students. It

means that they have had four years of English in junior secondary schools. The objective

of the junior secondary school curriculum is that after four years of English, the students

should have general knowledge of grammar and an active vocabulary which they can use

mostly in written form. They hardly say a couple of sentences intelligibly in the target

language and their listening skill is almost not paid any attention to, their listening ability is

hardly developed during that long period of time. So when they become the gifted students

of English of FLSS, they have to deal with a lot of difficulties in learning to listen to

English. However, the majority of the students have strong and clear motivation and as a

result of the awareness of the importance of learning how to listen in a foreign language in

general and English in particular, the rest of the students have positive attitude towards

learning listening. They all realized that learning listening is not just to get good results but

it is also a good way to develop their communication. Moreover, they need English for

their further study or for their future use, so they are always trying to work on listening as

much and effectively as they can to master this skill. They are , step by step, used to

listening to the teachers’ explanation in English and listening and understanding the

familiar topics which their teachers or classmates talk about. They are used to listening to

the tape-recorder and doing the listening exercises such as : filling the missing words,

choosing the correct answers or answering the questions etc. In a short time at this school,

the students can meet requirements of learning listening.

2.4. TEACHERS AND TEACHING METHODS

In FLSS, there are totally 14 teachers of English aged 25 to 51. All of the teachers

were trained in English department, CFL, HNU. Eight of them finished MA course in Post

21

Graduate Department, CFL, HNU and two of them got MA degree in Australia. The oldest

teachers have nearly 30 years of teaching experience, and the youngest just have three

years. FLSS has a good relationship with Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC) in Sydney,

so every year there is an exchanging visit between these two schools in order to exchange

experience in teaching and studying, the teachers and students, turn by turn , are allowed to

spend four or six weeks in PLC, Sydney. During the time staying there the teachers and

students have a good chance to talk to or listen to native speakers of English and they have

time to live , work and study in a native English environment. Most of the teachers of

FLSS are well aware of the important role of the ability to listen to English and the

teachers play a very important part in forming students’ ability of listening. Therefore, the

teachers have done much to improve the method of teaching listening and help the students

to overcome the difficulties. As a result, the students’ ability to listen to English is much

better in comparison with this of the students in other high schools.

The fact is that not all the teachers use the same techniques and activities to teach

listening skill. Some of the teachers choose to use “ getting the students to predict” as the

most effective techniques or “giving feed back after each time of listening “ others may

take some other techniques into consideration such as : “ using authentic and suitable

listening texts”, “ directing students’ listening activities” etc. The teachers have tried to

choose the activities that are suitable to their students. It is good for the students to get used

to as many types of activities as possible. In order to find out the effective way of

implementing the activities, the teachers have to spend a lot of time and have to work hard

to choose and design the listening activities that the students can do properly. The

following activities are often used : true or false exercises, answering the questions, filling

in the blanks, choosing the correct answer, etc

The method of teaching listening skill and the listening activities are considered to

be the effective way to test and to improve the students’ ability of listening and the quality

of teaching and learning listening of the school is improved day by day.

2.5. MATERIALS AND ASSESSMENTS

Teaching language skills is not the focus of language study for high school students .

The textbooks, thus, do not include materials for listening comprehension. For many years the

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teachers have had a lot of difficulties to find out the suitable listening materials for the students

of FLSS. In the past, it took the teachers much time to choose and design a listening lesson for

the students from any source of material available as materials for listening comprehension,

from such books as : Streamline, Listen Carefully, Interchange 1, 2, 3 etc. In fact, some of the

listening lessons met the demands of the students, but the others still did not. Frankly

speaking , The teachers of FLSS coped with a lot of difficulties in teaching listening . Recently

things have changed for both teachers and students in teaching and studying listening skill.

Due to the fact that the English textbooks have changed from time to time to catch up with the

up-to date information, which is seen as a greatest motivation for the students. A group of the

teachers consisting of four made an effort to write two listening books : “Listening and

Speaking, English 10 and 11”, the listening lessons in the two books were taken from different

sources like Active Listening, Tactics For Listening, New Headway (Intermediate ,Upper-

Intermediate) , True To Life, Landmark, Lifelines, etc from Cambridge and Oxford University

Presses. There are 15 units in book 10, and 10 units in book 11, the students have two periods

of listening per week. The topic of each listening lesson is related to the topic of the text in the

books : “English 10, English 11”, for example : the text of unit one in book “English 11” is “

Motion Pictures”, the listening lesson of unit one in “Listening And Speaking English 11” is

“Films”. There are often four parts in a listening lesson : Getting ready, Let’s listen 1, Let’s

listen 2 and Songs. In general, the listening books provide different kinds of activities as well

as interesting and useful contents. The listening lessons are well-organized, the topics are

interesting and similar , so the students can catch and understand the ideas in details. The

students feel pleasing , entertaining whenever they have listening lessons and they can improve

not only their listening skill but they can also widen their social knowledge .

2.6. DATA COLLECTION, FIDINGS AND DISCUSSION

2.6.1. Data collection

2.6.1.1. The subject

The survey was carried out with the participation of 200 students of 10 th and 11th forms

at FLSS, including 8 classes. The questionnaire was prepared in order to get information to

fulfill the aims of the study. Measurement instrument was designed for data collection:

responded questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of both multiple-choice and open-

23

questions. There are 20 questions from which I can find out the real situation of learning

listening of the students, their attitudes towards listening skill, the factors that make the

students find it difficult when learning listening and from which I can get students’ opinion

about the effectiveness of my suggested techniques for teaching and studying listening skill.

All of the students doing the survey have been learning English for 5 or 6 years, they are very

good at grammar and doing exercises in writing, but it was only when they became the

students of this school that they started to be taught listening skill. However, the survey will

surely be reliable as the students are well-aware of their mission, and have enough knowledge

of English to answer the questions given.

2.6.1.2. Instruments for data collection

To have a good understanding of the issues under discussion, it is essential to refer to an

important source of data collection associated with the literature review. All the questions in the

survey were designed with a hope that the researcher can get the students’ opinion about

listening material they are using, the teachers they are contacting with, and the methods of

teaching listening they are adapting to. These questions are close to the techniques that can be

worked out to improve the current teaching and learning listening skill at FLSS by means of

literature comparison and by cross-checking with information obtained from the responded

questionnaire.

2.6.2. Findings and discussion

2.6.2.1. Students’ attitude towards listening skill ( Question 1, 2 & 3 )

Option

Question

a b c d

1 82% 10% 2% 6%

2 70% 20% 0% 10%

3 25% 55% 12% 8%

Table 1

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As shown in the above table, most of the students of FLSS learn English in order to pass

the exams (82%), only 10% of the students learn English with an aim of communicating,

2% for entertaining and 6% for studying abroad.

As for the students attitude towards listening skill, a large number (70%) think that

listening skill is the most difficult skill, no students consider listening as difficult as

speaking , reading and writing ,a small number of them (10%) find it easy to learning

listening, maybe these students used to live in the English speaking countries with their

parents when they were little or perhaps they have already attended courses of learning

listening

Another observation from the table above is that most students see the importance and

necessity of learning listening , 25% (very important), 55% (rather). They realize that it is

necessary to learn listening for not only listening to the teachers’ explanation, for

communicating with teachers and classmates , but also for their long term purposes :

successfully communicating in English.

It can be concluded that the students of FLSS are interested in learning listening skill, they

would like to get some listening improvement and they have good attitudes to listening

skill.

2.6.2.2. Students’ attitude towards class- listening practice ( Question 4, 5 & 6)

Option

Question

a b c d e f g h

4 10% 20% 40% 12% 6% 4% 8% 0%

5 20% 8% 22% 12% 16% 20% 2%

6 85% 15% 0% 0%

Table 2

From table two we can see that the teachers of English of FLSS have been using various

types of listening texts, such as : stories (10%), conversations (20%), songs/poems(40%),

descriptions (12%), news(6%), instructions(4%) and announcements(8%). It is true that

25

apart from using the two listening books of the school, the teachers have also used listening

lessons from other books which they feel suitable to their students. In some extend , it is a

good way to create the students’ motivation and it is certain that the students will feel

excited to listen to different topics.

Table two also indicates that the students have had a lot of opportunities to cope with

different kinds of listening activities in the class-room and their types of listening activities

are various, the most popular forms are : true/ false (20%), answering questions (22%),

identifying and correcting mistakes (20%), the smaller numbers are : following interactions

(8%), gap-filling(12%), chart/form completion (16%). Clearly that the teachers at FLSS are

well-aware of the importance of choosing different types of listening activities in order to

make the listening lessons less boring and encourage the students to listen effectively.

The data in question 6 about the times per week which the students have listening lessons

at school show that most of the teachers have obeyed the school curriculum (two periods a

week or once per week). The figures in table two are once a week (85%), twice a week

(15%).

In conclusion, the teachers and students at FLSS are willing to spend their time to improve

their method of teaching and learning listening skills. They take advantages of

opportunities to practise listening in class.

2.6.2.3. Students’ attitude towards home-listening practice (Question 7, 8 & 9)

Option

Question

a b c d

7 12% 16% 18% 54%

8 42% 10% 12% 36%

9 75% 25% 0%

22% 38% 26% 14%

Table 3

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With the question about the time the students spend listening English at home, the rest rarely listen

to English at home, the biggest number (54%) and the number of students who listen to English

every-day, 2-3 times a day, once a week is nearly similar , (12%), (16%), (18%).

Being asked about the question : “At home, what do you often do if you do not clearly understand

the text you are listening?”, 42% of the students listen to the text once more, 10% listen sentence

by sentence, the students who listen again until they understand the text are 12%, it is a big surprise

that many students (36%) see the tape-script when there is something that they do not clearly

understand.

To compare the difficulty between record-listening and authentic listening, most of the students

find it more difficult to listen to the records ( 75%) than authentic language (25%). It can be

calculated from table 3 about the reason for this , the majority of the students (38%) give the reason

that they can not see the face and the lip movement of the speakers and 26 % of the students have

difficulty in concentrating on a listening session. 22% of them say that they can not ask the speaker

to repeat what they do not catch and The others (14%) try to understand every word they hear.

It can be drawn from the data above that a lot of students at FLSS are not aware of the self-study of

listening at home. Only a few of them spend some time listening to it every-day, most of them have

no habit of self-listening practice .Obviously, a lot of students do not have right methods to improve

their listening skill , they are not able to concentrate on the process of listening , many students seem

to approach listening as task primarily requiring comprehension on a word-by-word basis. The

teachers ,therefore ,should give the students some guidance of practising listening at home .

2.6.2.4. Students’ attitude towards their teachers creating listening interest and

motivation (Question 10, 11)

Option

Question

a b c d

10 10% 30% 52% 8%

11 6% 32% 52% 10%

Table 4

27

In table 4 it can be realized that most of the teachers usually create interest for

their listening lessons by providing some new words and structures (52% students

agree that). The smaller number (30%) say their teachers often present some

information by giving guiding questions to help them think about the texts before

they go ahead. Not a large number (8%) think that their teacher give them some

suggestions for doing the tasks and just a few students ( 10%) suppose their

teachers attempt to help their students understand the purpose of the listening text.

Perhaps the teachers think that new words and structures usually remain the

obstacles to their students. However, when the students are asked about their

interest in the way their teachers motivate them before, while and after listening

lessons, there are only 6% students say they are much interested and 32% rather

interested in comparison with 52% say just little and 10% not at all.

The figures show that most of the teachers try to motivate their students every

listening lesson , they realize the importance of motivation for their students, but

the figure shows that the ways the teachers motivate the students seem not to be

effective. It can be inferred that maybe the teachers apply the traditional way of

teaching listening by providing any new words and structures. This is not able to

activate the students to guess the words meaning or to predict the content of the

listening texts, as a result ,the students become very passive. Thus, there must be

certain changes in the way the teachers create listening interest for their students.

2.6.2.5. Factors that cause difficulties in learning listening (Question 12)

Option

Question

a b c d e f g h

12 0% 10% 4% 38% 20% 26% 0% 2%

Table 5

According to the figure in table 5 the most difficult thing facing most of the

students is the speaking speed of the speaker (38%). Limited vocabulary and

structures cause difficulty for 26% of the students. The following is that they have

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problem in understanding the accent. There are only a few students (10%, 4%, 2%)

saying that the factors of large classes, unfamiliar topics and the context cause them

fewer difficulties in listening learning. Finally, all of the students agree that the

listening equipment is quite good and the grammar causes them almost no problem.

It can be drawn from the above figures that there are three main problems facing the

students when they have to listen to the tapes, native speakers or their teachers.

Among these keeping up with the speaking speed of the speaker is the most difficult

for them. This is not surprising at all as the high school students in general and the

students at FLSS in particular tend to work out the meaning of every utterance they

hear in the second language, to do this they have to make sure that they can hear all

the words within an utterance. They are so busy trying to work out the meaning of

one part that they miss the following part, consequently , they fail to grasp the

overall meaning of the listening text. That is why the teachers should choose the

appropriate materials (tapes with slow speed – for example) and should speak

clearly and slowly for the students to understand. Further more, a lot of the students

think that their vocabularies and structures are not good enough to comprehend what

they are listening to. They often try to catch everything they hear, so they feel panic

when they fail to recognize a word or a structure. Therefore , the teachers should

give them opportunities to guess the meaning from the relevant clues or work out

the meaning from the context or co-context. Moreover the teachers should present

some key words and structures and sometimes explain the meaning of the words

before allowing the students to do their listening. Together with the two major

problems above, another factor which is worth mentioning in learning to listen to

English is strange voices and accents. Most of the students say they find it difficult

to listen to radio, watch English programmers on TV. In order to help the students

get used to listening to different accents, the teachers should encourage them to

keep on listening and should use recorded materials in which different accents are

presented.

In conclusion, these are the only some of the problems among various ones the

students encounter when listening. However, it is not simple to find a solution to

them, it requires the teachers’ support as well as the students’ efforts.

29

2.6.1.6. Students’ pre-listening activities (Question 13, 14 & 15)

Option

Question

a b c d e f

13 6% 10% 2% 82%

14 10% 8% 30% 10% 42% 0%

15 30% 50% 20% 0%

Table 6

For the question number 13 about the activities the students would like their

teachers to do before listening to make the listening less difficult, most of the

students (82%) agree that it is necessary and effective for the teachers to present

essential terms or to give the students some background information about the

topic or use visual aids .

When asking the students about the activities which their teachers often do

before listening, it is clear to be seen from table 6 that most of the teachers allow

the students to read the tasks (42%), the number of the teachers who present new

words or structures is 30%. Showing pictures and giving background information

are not popularly used for the teachers as there is only 10% percent for this.

The result of question number 15 about the students’ interest in the way used by

their teachers to create listening interest before listening task, the majority of the

students like it: much (30%), rather (50%), just little (20%).

From the figures shown in table 6 ,we see that most of the teachers do something

to lead to while-listening stage. The teachers realize the importance of setting up

the activities before listening, the fact is that all the activities given before

listening are looked upon as those closely linked with while-listening activities.

It is a good way to have an effective listening lesson, thus the students should be

helped to focus on what they are going to hear.

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2.6.1.7. Students’ while listening activities (Question 16 & 17)

Option

Question

a b c d

16 16% 38% 46% 0%

17 6% 60% 18% 16%

Table 7

When asked the question : “While you are listening, what do you often do when

there are unfamiliar words or structures?”, the rest of the students (46%) say that

they ask the teacher for the meaning and the number of the students who can guess

the meaning is 38%, the others (16%) often ignore the new words when they are

listening.

Question number 17 is about the activities which the students often do in while-

listening stage, 60% of the students usually take notes. The number of the students

who pay attention to pronunciation, stress and intonation and who try to grasp the

overall meaning is the same (18% & 16%), very few students (6%) try to hear and

get every word.

The work of choosing suitable activities for the students in while listening stage sounds

easy but in fact, it is very difficult as each type can be suitable in this situation but it is not

in the others. To some extent, it is good for the students to get used to as many types of

activities as possible, but the problem is that it is hard for the teachers as the teachers can

not just take out the activities from books but also have to design them in a way that every

students can do. From the data above it can be seen that the students are still not good at

finding out how to learn listening effectively. In fact it is unnecessary and impossible to

hear and understand every word, whereas the students just need to grasp the overall

meaning with some key information. Stress, rhythm and intonation are important, but there

are only few of them paying attention to these, therefore , the result they get is not

satisfactory.

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2.6.1.8. Students’ post-listening activities (Question 18,19 & 20)

Option

Question

a b c d

18 18% 22% 50% 10%

19 26% 40% 34% 0%

20 40% 60% 0% 0%

Table 8

When discussing the question : “How much can you retain after a listening lesson?”, the

result is that 60% of the students understand some of the main ideas, for all the main ideas

of the listening text there are 22% of the students, 18% say they only get the theme and

10% of them can not get any of the details.

Regarding the activities after the students finish listening , the students are often allowed to

summarize the texts (40%), the second popular activity is working in group or in pair

(34%), the following is discussing the text.

About the matter of the students’ attempt to improve their listening skill, most of them say

“ yes” to the question . It means that they all wish to get and widen their knowledge by

learning listening.

The collected data show that most of the students at FLSS have a great desire to improve

their spoken language by carrying out the activities after finishing listening. The students

express their preference for summarizing what they have just listened, this kinds of activity

not only activates their knowledge but arouse their interest as well. Another interesting

finding is that the students enjoy working in group or in pair. This is called co-operative

learning. It is believed that co-operation is very necessary for communicative activities and

it is effective in language learning as the students can benefit from working in small

groups, it provides them opportunities to express themselves, to share experience and to

exchange ideas freely and creatively.

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2.7. SUMMARY

From the above analysis of collected data, we can see the current situation of

teaching and learning listening to English at FLSS, CFL,HNU, and this school proves itself

to be a potential school in which the teachers and students are focus of the development, it

is understandable that the teachers’ techniques may be partially be accessing to up-dating

with modern teaching techniques .

However, it can be inferred from the data that there exist a lot of difficulties in

teaching and learning listening. There are some reasons for this : first, the students spend

most of their time doing written work which focuses mainly on grammar and vocabulary as

their first and important duty is to do well the written-form examinations to universities.

Second, the students seem not to have appropriate learning method and have little

experience in learning listening. The last but not least, the teachers do not spend much of

their time to design successful and effective listening lessons, thus, it seems for the

teachers that teaching listening comprehension is not more than testing.

From the survey we need to keep in mind that there are still mismatches between the

teachers and the students in the way the teachers create listening interest or motivation.

Actually the teachers need to diversify the activities to activate the students and make full

use of communicative approach in teaching listening in order to increase interest for the

students in listening section.

Also in chapter two, findings from the survey show that most of the students are active

and well-aware of what they need to do every listening lesson. However, what they have

done seem not efficient enough to improve their listening skill.

To solve and overcome all the problems and difficulties is not easy, this is a matter of time

and effort of both the teachers and students in the process of teaching and learning

listening. In the next chapter I am going to suggest some possible techniques based on my

knowledge, experience as well as what I have found in the survey with the hope that they

would be of some help to improve the quality of teaching and learning listening skill for

the teachers and the students of FLSS.

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CHAPTER THREE:

SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILL TO

STUDENTS AT FLSS

3.1. INTRODUCTION

What have been discussed and analyzed in chapter two show that the students at

FLSS more or less know something about listening skill and that they utilize it in dealing

with the listening tasks. However, the number of the students being effective listeners is

modest while the rest of the students seem to be ineffective ones. Based on the findings in

the preceding chapter about the students’ employment of listening skill as well as their

difficulties, this chapter will aim at giving some suggestions and some practical solutions

to overcome the difficulties in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning

listening. The suggestions consist of : building up listening interest and motivation for the

students, training students to become efficient listeners, improving three stages of listening

skill and developing the listening materials.

3.2. AROUSING STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND INTEREST

There is no doubt that motivation and interest play an important role in doing

anything. Obviously when we are highly motivated to do anything, the chance of touching

success is more secure. The latest research findings suggest that there is a circular cause

and effect relationship between motivation and success in second language learning, the

greater motivation the students build up, the more effort they try to reach success and this

is also true in learning listening. Only when the students themselves feel eager and anxious

to do listening comprehension, do they actively take part in the listening lessons. This can

be done by getting students to think, to discuss the topic, the content of the lesson. They

are called lead-in activities. Lead-in activities are those that help involving students in the

topic of the listening text. For example , if there is a listening text about “film”, one of the

lead-in activities is asking students to discuss : kinds of film, actors and actresses, directors

etc. If the students know something about what they are going to listen, they will definitely

pay more attention to it.

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Varying lead-in activities is certainly a remedy for forming interest and motivation.

Different activities should be given every listening lesson so that the students feel happy

and eager to involve in. Teachers should avoid making students become bored by asking

them to do the same activities every lesson.

In short, lead-in activities are really essential and useful. It is a good way to create

motivation and interest before listening, thus the students can be successful at the

following stage : while-listening.

3.3. TRAINING STUDENTS TO BECOME EFICIENT LISTENERS

3.3.1. Making students aware of the nature of listening process

It is the teachers who should help their students to realize the nature of listening.

There are two points: first, listening is an active rather than a passive process which

involves using a large number of skills and strategies at the same time, and second, there is

both a top-down and a bottom-up process in listening comprehension.

Listening is active as there is a great difference between what is said or what the listeners

hear. This is sometimes described as an interact process. Language units include

intonation, tress, words , grammar, sentences or other types which listeners use in

understanding language. These units of meaning are the propositions which an utterance or

speech expresses. Listeners make use of two kinds of knowledge to identify propositions:

knowledge of the syntax of the target language and real world knowledge, or systemic

(linguistic and schematic (non-linguistic) knowledge. Syntactic knowledge enables the

students to segment the incoming discourse into chunks or constituents. Whereas ,

knowledge of the structure of noun phrases, verb phrases and grammatical devices enable

us to segment discourse into appropriate chunks and thus identifying the propositions

underlying what is actually uttered.

Listening also contains bottom-up and top-down processes. Bottom-up processing is the

listener’s grammatical and lexical knowledge which is used to extract the meaning of the

text. Top-down process focuses on the overall meaning of a passage, and the application of

schemata . Thus, central to the top-down processing is the importance of background

knowledge. If a listener can not make use of background knowledge, the incoming

message may be incomprehensible. Therefore , teachers need to show students how to

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make use of schemata properly to increase their comprehension. In general, bottom-up

exercises are more useful for beginners, and top-down exercises are more necessary for

intermediate and advanced students, however, both types should be used for all levels, and

it is a good way to improve listening skill.

3.3.2. Promoting students to be fully aware of their purpose of listening

One approach to develop listening skill is to help students to understand their

purpose of listening. Gavin (1985) identifies four categories of listening , with typical

corresponding purposes: transactional (learning new information); interactions

(recognizing personal component of message); critical (evaluating reasoning and

evidence); recreational (appreciating an event)

Gavin proposes that in any listening situation students need to select an appropriate role

and purpose to guide them as they listen. The role helps them to understand what their

desired degree of involvement with the speaker should be. The purpose helps them select

appropriate strategies for seeking specific clarification, for noting down certain details and

for trying to understand the intent of the speaker. Effective listening instruction will define

listening activities that place the students in different roles so that they learn expected types

of responses, and do not become passive as listeners. Effective listening instructions will

also help students to focus on their purpose for listening and provide a task that will check

if they have achieved their listening purpose.

To improve the students’ listening skill, teachers must be sure that their students are

provided with a range of listening purposes such as: expressing agreement or

disagreement, taking notes, making a picture or diagram according to instructions,

answering questions. If the student knows in advance that he is going to have to make a

certain kind of response, he is immediately provided with a purpose in listening, and he

knows what sort of information to expect and how to react to it.

3.3.3. Activating students to work in different stages of listening

We know that to have a successful listening lesson, students should willingly join in

three stages of listening. When doing listening work in the current context of the teaching

and listening English at FLSS, CFL, the teachers should bear in mind the following things

to help the students develop their confidence and skills . Firstly, the teachers are required

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to make sure that the students clearly understand what they are expected to do before

starting to listen so that they can go on the journey confidently and reach the finishing line

successfully. Therefore, techniques should be varied to get the students happily involved in

the first listening stage, it means that the students are to do plenty of pre-listening work of

an appropriate type so that they will succeed in what ever listening tasks they are asked to

do. It is clear that this stage is aimed at getting their mind around the topic of the listening

passage. So to help them to be active in this stage, the teachers should:

- give the students clear instructions.

- warm them up with some related questions or relevant topics.

- allow the students to predict what they might hear and make connections with

what they already know, increasing the relevance of the information.

- provide them with key concepts and vocabulary to aid their comprehension.

Secondly, in the while-listening stage, the teacher should not do a lot of teaching as

students will do the “while” listening tasks by themselves, in pairs or in groups. It is time

for students to construct clear, accurate meaning and they interpret the speaker’s verbal

message and non-verbal cues. During this process students verify and revise their

predictions. One thing to keep in mind is that listening skill lesson is task-based, students

make interpretations and judgments based on what they know, and assess what they need

to know, thus teacher should do less up-front teaching. To activate the students in while-

listening stage , the teachers should:

- set up and vary listening tasks at different levels and different cases

- encourage the students to work independently to comprehend the speaker’s

language and ideas and the topic.

- give students help whenever it is needed, but not inflicting help on those who

do not need it.

- encourage the students to help each other, so that the emphasis is on the

successful completion of the tasks rather than on who got it “right” or “wrong”.

- not treat the activities as tests to be marked and scored.

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- encourage students to alter their answers if they wish to, perhaps after listening

for a second time.

- help students know when to request clarification of what they do not

understand.

- encourage students’ critical reactions and personal responses to the speaker’s

ideas and use of language.

The last stage is post-listening, it is important for teachers to encourage students to reflect,

and to clarify and extend their thinking about what they have heard by making concrete

responses which may be written, spoken, visual ,or dramatic. Many of the same means

used to help students extend and clarify their reading experience can be used to extend and

clarify their listening experience.

3.3.4. Encouraging students to have extensive listening habit.

Familiarizing the students with extensive listening is a way to encourage them to learn

English. Extensive listening is the general listening to natural language for greneral ideas,

not for particular details. The level of language is propriate to the students’ current ability

so that the students feel like listening to get pleasure or interest. The listening passage for

extensive listening can be long (stories) or short (songs, poems ,jokes). Students are, in

general, not asked to do any language work when they do extensive listening. However, it

helps enrich their vocabulary, strengthen their understanding of language. Nuttal (1982)

states that “ The best way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language is to go and

live among its speakers.” To motivate the students to have extensive listening habit ,

maybe the following principles should be kept in mind:

- listening materials are easy to understand, with few unfamiliar items of

vocabulary.

-listening materials are various, with a wide range of topics.

- students can choose what they actually enjoy listening.

- extensive listening can be assigned as homework and their doing must be

checked the following period.

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In short, there are various inputs which offer students with an aim of becoming proficient

at using a language. Extensive listening is one of the selected approaches as it create

pleasure, key factor to a successful lesson.

3.4. IMPROVING THREE STAGES OF LISTENING SKIL

3.4.1. Techniques for pre-listening

When students sit in classroom and the teacher says: “Listen to this!” and then

switches on the cassette recorder or begins to read aloud, the students may have no idea of

what to expect. Even if the sounds and words they hear are familiar, they may still unable

to understand because they lack certain kinds of knowledge necessary for them to

comprehend . So , before listening , students should be “turn-in” so that they know what to

expect, both in general and for particular tasks. For teachers , when planning lessons, time

must be allocated for pre-listening activities and these activities should not be rushed. The

techniques of offering support or instruction before listening are varied and depend on a

number of factors: time, material, the ability of the class, the interest of the class, the nature

and content of the listening text itself etc. The followings are some suggestive pre-listening

techniques drawn from the knowledge of theories and the reality of teaching and learning

listening at FLSS.

3.4.1.1. Introducing the topic

This is a very common form of pre-listening activity, particularly when students are

about to hear a recorded text. Teachers generally give their students some background

information, begin to talk about the topic and indicate what the students should expect to

hear. However, it does require preparation as teacher need to know in advance what must

be included in this talk, otherwise it is easy to go off at a tangent and fail to clarify or

establish significant points. The teacher’s saying about this is not too short or too long as

the shortage may cause difficulties to the students understanding and the redundancy may

lead to the students’ boredom and no longer want to listen by the time the actual listening

text is played. On the other hand, teacher can use this time to motivate the students by

making them feel that the actual listening text is real interesting , exciting or amazing.

Introducing the listening topic often comes well from the teacher, who, in any case, is able

to adjust the nature and level of the talk discussion to suit the students.

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3.4.1.2. Giving listening tasks

It is unfair to plunge students straight into the listening text, even when testing

rather than teaching listening comprehension, as this makes it extremely difficult for them

to use the natural listening skills of matching what they hear with what they expect to

hear . So before listening , students should be ‘turn in” so that they know what to expect,

both in general and for particular tasks.

3.4.1.3. Asking students to look at a list of items/thoughts

This type of activity is particularly helpful for practicing newly learned vocabulary

with early students (10th students). The teacher presents a list of words , phrases that he

thinks it causes the students’ “blockage” in listening work , or , then asks the students to

look at the list for a few minutes before listening. They can discuss or ask the teacher for

the meaning of some words/ phrases or the message of some ideas/ thoughts.

3.4.1.4. Asking students to look at pictures

The students are asked to have a look at or describe a picture (or pictures) and the

teacher checks that the students can name the items which will feature in the listening text.

This can be done by questions and answers or by general or group discussion. Actually,

pre-listening “looking and describing or talking about” is an effective way of reminding

students of lexis which may have been forgotten and of focusing attention on the topic to

be listened to

3.4.1.5. Using visual aids

Visual materials are really useful in developing listening comprehension, especially

for high school students . Using visual aids really attracts students’ concentration , and it is

believed that the more striking and stimulating visual aids are, the greater motivation and

concentration are likely to be. Teacher can ask students to look at the picture(s), graphs, or

maps and predict something relating to the content of the listening text or the students can

realize the situation due to some environment clues.

3.4.2. Techniques for while-listening

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From the findings of the survey, there are series of things that should be done to aid

students in the phase of while-listening. Teachers should select or combine different

activities to assist their students as using one preferred technique all the time can not be

advantageous for it is impossible to have “one dish that suits all taste.” In order to help

students to do well in while-listening-stage, teachers must have listening activities which

give practice in prediction, matching and interpretation. Prediction occurs at the while-

listening-stage (students decide what words or ideas will follow immediately), and

matching is related to prediction in that the students make a series or predictions, then

match them again what is actually said. The two activities seem to go on concurrently as

one part is being matched while other micro predictions are being made. At the same time,

interpretation has to be carried out, as the interpretation of one part of a message can affect

the prediction of what the next part will be. The fact is that most of the teacher’s work

related to a listening lesson has been done in pre-listening stage. During the lesson, the

teacher should exceed his role of supervising, and only give help to the students when

really necessary. The teacher’s mission is to create and maintain an encouraging

atmosphere in class. During the stage of while-listening, the teacher should:

- be willing to help students whenever necessary.

- be sure that the aim of the work is to teach rather than to test.

- encourage the students to take note of necessary things for later use.

- ask students to leave out less necessary parts of the work rather than rushing.

- pause the tape and ask students if they can follow , understand and get the necessary information of the passage.

- encourage co-operation among the students by asking them to work in pairs or in groups.

- ask students to check their work.

- ask students to give feedback when every-thing is still fresh in students’ mind.

- play back parts of the text if there is something that is not clear.

3.4.2.1. First listening

This is the continuance of the last step in pre-listening stage, and it is time for

students to listen for main ideas. The teacher will play the tape for the first time while

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students listen to the passage and try to find out the answers for guiding questions or

decide true or false for the given statements.

After the first time listening , teachers should check through all the students’ answers. If

their answer is inexact, the teacher should provide them with some suggestions relating to

the right answer. This helps all the students to grasp the overall meaning of the listening

text before continuing with the second time listening. Thereby, students will gain more

confidence and find it easier to deal with other more challenging tasks. As a result, the

tasks will be finished successfully.

In general, this step is very important and cannot be excluded from listening process.

Teachers should not ask students to go straight into listening for detailed information as it

will cause difficulties for students and lower the process of listening. The further

consequence is that students will be demotivated and discouraged from learning and

practicing listening.

3.4.2.2. Second listening

If in the first time listening, students have to grasp the overall meaning of the

listening text, in the second time, they have to deal with more complicated work – listening

for specific details.

Before allowing students to listen for the second time, one thing the teacher should bear in

mind is that students have to be given specific task, and the teacher should set the purpose

for them to listen. If there is no task for students to do, the teacher can not ensure that their

students will concentrate on listening. As a result, the listening work will become

inefficient.

Tasks for students to do in the second time are various. They can be: filling the

missing word, completing form/chart, labeling, arranging items in patterns etc. More

simulating are tasks supported by visual aids such as matching the descriptions with

pictures, putting pictures in order and so on. The students should be given the handouts, so

that all of them can know what the tasks are. Teachers should also make sure that students

really understand what they are required to do, what information they need to grasp while

listening to the tape by asking them to underline the requirement, the key words as well as

to discuss and anticipate the answers.

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One thing should be noted here is that a listening lesson is not a test, but a training

session. The teacher, therefore, should not ask the students to find out all the answers

immediately, but give them time to reconsider. The teacher should allow students to listen

again (listen for the third time), so that they can check the answers as well as finish the

parts they have not done yet. It is also very useful for the students to compare their answers

with each other without commenting on what or who is right or wrong before listening

again. By setting up doubt and discontent among students with regard to their own

answers, this can motivate more careful and closer listening in the following listening.

3.4.2.3. Third listening

Giving feedback is the next essential step in while-listening stage. Whatever

listening activities the teacher choose for students to carry out, giving feedback is very

important, it is time for the teacher to see how well his students have done the tasks. This

will help students to assess their ability, recognize their strong points and weak points and

to find out the reason why they have not perform the tasks so that they will make an effort

and get better results in the next listening lessons.

When giving feedback, there are two points that teachers should bear in mind:

- First, feedback should be given right after the students have finished their

work. It is extremely difficult to provide useful feedback at a later lesson as it is generally

necessary to replay the listening text in order to refer to the points which students have not

been very clear. The more important thing is that much of the value of discussing why

students have missed things or made errors is forgotten if the discussion is not held

immediately when relevant thoughts are still fresh and uppermost in students’ mind.

- Second, the teacher’s feedback should be positive as it is given immediately after the

students have finished their tasks, it can greatly affect them . Positive feedback,

therefore, is specially important. If students performed the tasks successfully, the

teacher should compliment them on their good work. It helps generate more

confidence, motivation and interest. It encourages them to make greater effort in

dealing with other listening tasks and overcome any difficulties. In case the

students’answer is inexact, giving them such feedback as “Good, but…” . Positive

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feedback will save the students from being hurt and encourage them to try so that they

can do better in the next time.

3.4.3. Techniques for post- listening

Apart from the techniques for pre and while listening stages, techniques for post –

listening is very necessary and important. The purpose is to see whether the students have

understood what they have just listened, or to give the students the opportunity to expand

the topic. These are the suggested techniques which I think they are suitable to the students

of FLSS:

3.4.3.1. Discussion

Although the students can identify the relationships between speakers while they are

listening to them, it is sometimes useful, at post-listening stage, to consider what features

of the listening text made the relationships clear. By discussion of these features, the

students' awareness of how language is used in social settings will be improved and they

will gradually appreciate how far, and in what ways, English differs from Vietnamese in

this respects. In order to ask the students to do a post -listening discussion , the teacher can

give the students notice by giving a question or two before listening so that they will focus

on this while they are listening.

3.4.3.2. Role-play

Role-play or simulation can be carried out after the students listen to a conversation

or some other types of listening text that involve more than one speaker. The attraction of

this activity is that it can provide the students with a selection of language appropriate to

the role and the situations . Even if the situation in the listening text is different from the

one to be used in role-play, the students can use relevant language functions and forms

when their turn comes to speak. To do this activity, the teacher asks the students to work in

pairs or groups according to the numbers of roles in the situation. After the work is

finished, if there is enough time, the teacher can tell one or two pairs or groups to perform

their play in front of the class.

3.4.3.3. Summary

After finishing while-listening stage, students have already got the main ideas and a

certain amount of the information of the listening text. So the teacher can ask students to 44

summarize the listening text by extending notes at the while-listening stage or simply

depending on memory. students can do either oral or written summary work. This activity

should be done in groups so that the students who have not been very clear about the

passage can have a chance to understand it . After that the teacher asks the group leader to

present their summary.

In short, to have an effective listening lesson, the teachers need to vary their activities to

make full use of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses.

3.5. DEVELOPING LISTENING MATERIALS

As shown in table 2, except for listening the texts in the two books (listening And

Speaking, English 10 and 11), the students of FLSS have chances to listen to the extra

listening texts which are selected by their own teachers and which are taken from different

sources. It is important to have criteria for teachers to make decisions to choose recorded

texts , when selecting supplementary materials, teachers should care for the following

criteria:

3.5.1. Language

Using listening texts of the right level will not only develop listening skills but also

contribute to students’ overall language learning. Stephen Kraskhen has identified listening

as a valuable source of what he calls “comprehensive input” and he maintains that students

need both to acquire a language and to learn a language, so it is good for students to be

faced with language which they should be capable of understanding although it is slightly

above their current level of use.

3.5.2. Length

The length of the listening text should be taken into consideration. There is no doubt

that it is difficult for high school students to listen attentively for a too long text, whereas,

teachers will not motivate students if the text is too short. If there is a text which teachers

want to use but find rather too long, teachers should plan to stop the tape from time to time,

and use it in more manageable sections and introduce pauses to give the students time to

think.

3.5.3. Content

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The content of the listening text is not less important as all students need material

which will involve them and make them want to listen. It is ,therefore necessary for

teachers to identify appropriate material which does interest their students. Ordinarily,

texts which deal with up-to-the-minute news and the very latest ideas are of consideration

interest, funny stories and amusing pictures can be exploited to great effect in language

teaching, but they should not be the sole type of material used , teachers should vary the

topics and style to avoid making boredom to the students

In conclusion, to ensure the success of the teacher in activating his students and improving

their listening skill, teachers have to note the importance of finding well-recorded material

of the right length, with interesting content, and with suitable level.

3.6. SUMMARY

In this chapter, I have presented some suggestive techniques to improve listening skill

to the students at FLSS. Listening interest and motivation are the first factors to help the

teachers to improve their students’ listening skill. The second is that the teachers, with their

active role, need to train their students to become efficient listeners. It is essential for the

teachers to help their students be aware of the nature of listening process, promote their

students to know the purpose of listening. Activating their students to work in different

stages of listening, and encouraging their students to have extensive listening habits are

also the techniques that can train efficient listeners. The following technique is to improve

activities in three stages of a listening lesson. The teachers have to adjust the time and

efforts to manage the class and make their students involve in the listening lesson.

Moreover they need to vary strategies to aid the students in three phases of a listening

lesson . Finally, supplementary listening materials should be carefully selected and

provided, in addition, the two books: “Listening And Speaking, book 10, 11” must be

made full use of.

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PART THREE: CONCLUSION

1. SUMMARY OF THE STUDY

Being one of the teachers at FLSS,CFL,HNU, I can clearly see the current situation

of teaching and learning English. Listening skill is by both the teachers and the students

considered the most difficulty to achieve among the four skills. This ,therefore, drove me

to conduct this study. This study is done in the hope of contributing some suggestive

techniques and activities for teaching and learning listening and it is carried out with the

purpose of finding the answers to the two research questions:

- What are the factors that cause the difficulties to the students?

- Which techniques should be applied by the teachers to help the students to

overcome their difficulties in listening lessons?

In order to answer these two questions, the study is based on the existing of listening skills

(the work of other writers ) and the status of teaching and learning English at FLSS in

general and teaching and learning listening to English in particular. By reading, analyzing

and summarizing materials and books relating to the thesis in combination with doing the

survey questionnaire, the solutions to the thesis questions are found.

2. LIMITATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

In any research papers, limitations are unavoidable. The study presented in this

minor thesis is of no exception.

Firstly, the study has already dealt with the difficulties of learning listening skill of the

students of 10th and 11th form, but there should be a research conducted to confirm what

difficulties the teachers at FLSS have met in teaching listening skill.

Secondly, the techniques and activities suggested though prove to be useful and effective,

they are likely to be subjective and incomplete. There should be some more techniques and

activities to help high school students in general and gifted students in particular make

good advance in listening skill.

Thirdly, listening is only one of the four basic skills in teaching and learning English, but

up till now there has been only this study on improving listening skill for the students of

FLSS. It is ,therefore, important that studies on reading, speaking and writing for better

English teaching and learning at FLSS should be carried out .

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