VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI TRANG

STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED DIFFICULITES IN

STUDYING ENGLISH LISTENING

COMPREHENSION AT PHAM NGU LAO

HIGH SCHOOL

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

Hanoi, May - 2011

i

I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Mai Trang from group 071E1- Fast

track program, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts

(TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the

retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the

library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper

deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of

study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions

established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the

paper.

Signature

Date: 4th May 2011

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to

my supervisor Ms. Nguyen Thu Hien for her great help and guidance

throughout the study and beyond, without whom I could not have

finished this graduation paper.

I am grateful to tenth form students of Pham Ngu Lao high

school for their enthusiastic participation. Their thoughtful sharing

and complementation immeasurably contributed to the main data of

the study.

I am also obliged to Vice-headmaster Mr. Nguyen Van

Hoang, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hau and other teachers of Pham Ngu Lao

high school for their valuable assistance on the process of data

collection.

Finally, I would like to show appreciation for my family and

my friends for their encouragement to help me overcome difficulties

to finish this study.

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ABSTRACT

The study is an investigation of what difficulties tenth form

students at Pham Ngu Lao high school (PNL high school) face

through listening learning process at high school with a review of

theory on listening comprehension based on existing research. To

address the research problem, the paper used survey method using

questionnaires and focus-group interview as the main research

instruments to collect data. Brief description on participants’

studying background and their perceived importance of listening

skill at high school were provided as well. It is revealed from the

study that tenth form students at PNL high school have difficulties

related to linguistic, psychology, materials and learning strategies

when they study listening skill. Based on the findings and the

students’ suggestions, the researcher proposes some

recommendations for teachers and students to solve the problems.

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Pages

Chart 1. The most difficult English skill in students' perception 25

Chart 2. The grade point average of English listening skill of tenth

form students

26

Table 1. Students’ perceived importance of the English listening

skill

31

Table 2. Basic language difficulties perceived by tenth form students 33

Table 3. Learning strategy difficulties perceived by tenth form

students

37

Table 4. Physical setting difficulties perceived by tenth form

students

41

Table 5. Materials difficulties perceived by tenth form students 41

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PNL: Pham Ngu Lao (high school)

EFL: English Foreign Language

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of figures and tables iv

List of abbreviations iv

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1 1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study ...................... 1 2. Aims and Research questions ......................................................... 3 3. Significance of the study................................................................. 4 4. Scope of the study .......................................................................... 5 5. Organization ................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................... 7 2. Listening comprehension in communication process ....................... 7 2.1. Communication process ................................................................... 7 2.2. Listening comprehension in communication process ....................... 8 2.2.1. Definitions of Listening comprehension .......................................... 8 2.2.2. Features of listening comprehension in communication process ..... 9 2.2.3. Common EFL learners’ perceived difficulties in studying listening ... comprehension.....……………………………………............10 2.2.3a. Basic language problems................................................................. 11 2.2.3b. Physical Setting .............................................................................. 13 2.2.3c. Materials ......................................................................................... 13 2.2.3d. Learning strategies .......................................................................... 15 2.3. Previous studies ............................................................................ 17 2.4. An overview of Listening comprehension section in English 10 ..... 19 2.4.1. Objectives ....................................................................................... 19 2.4.2. Materials ......................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY ............................................................. 23

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3.1. Selection of subjects ..................................................................... 23 3.1.1. Setting of study ............................................................................. 23 3.1.2. Participants ................................................................................... 23 3.2. Research Instrument ..................................................................... 27 3.3. Procedure of data collection.......................................................... 29 3.4. Procedure of data analysis ............................................................ 30 CHAPTER 4- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 31 4.1. FINDINGS ................................................................................... 31 4.2. IMPLICATIONS .......................................................................... 45 4.2.1. Implications to teachers of English ............................................... 45 4.2.2. Implications to tenth form students ............................................... 46 4.2.3. Implications to Pham Ngu Lao high school .................................. 47 CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION ................................................................. 49 5.1. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ............................................................... 49 5.2. LIMITATIONS ................................................................................... 50 5.3. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ................................... 50 REFERENCES ........................................................................................... 50 APPENDICES............................................................................................IV

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CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

As the result of globalization and social development, international

communication plays key role in every aspect of life. English, in

accordance with that trend, becomes one of the most popular international

languages besides Chinese, French or Espanol. Among four skills

facilitating language learning to achieve successful communication,

listening skill is the “key role” (Vandergrift, 1999, p.168) but has been

neglected for long time. That many people who still consider

communication just talking and speaking urges English foreign learners

to acknowledge this skill’ importance.

According to Xu (2011), listening was traditionally viewed as as “a

passive process, in which our ears were receivers into which information

was poured, and all the listeners had to do was passively register the

message” (p.161). He also states that today we recognize listening as an

‘active’ process in which listeners are active to listen what speakers are

speaking. However, many EFL learners keep under-evaluating the role of

listening comprehension. In practical terms, “listening comprehension is

of paramount significance” (Xu, 2011, p163). Xu explains that when

speaking a language, a learner is active to use his own language; hence,

he can manipulate a relatively narrow range of vocabulary to express an

idea. Contradictory, when listening to the reply he or she no longer

controls the choice of vocabulary. Therefore, the learner must be prepared

to comprehend those words that are a part of the speaker’s active

vocabulary. As the result, in order to handle a simple conversation, an

individual must have “a much broader competency in listening

comprehension than in speaking” (Xu, 2011, p.164).

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Since the role of listening comprehension in language learning was

taken for granted (Oxford, 1993), it has been paid more attention and

assumed “greater and greater importance in foreign language classrooms”

(Nunan, 1997). As Vandergrift (1999) suggested, listening should be

received considerable concern as “the hard work which deserves more

analysis and support” (p.168). Recently, teachers and students tend to

change their teaching and learning method from grammar-translation to

audio-lingual method, which has better environment for enhancing

communication skills. Hence, listening skill has emerged as an important

component in the process of second language acquisition (Dunkel, 1991;

Feyten, 1991) with communicative purposes. The theoretical framework

of this thesis will base on and support for the pre-eminence of listening

comprehension in communicative language approach, especially in the

early stages of language learning.

In Vietnam, listening skill has been included in the curricula, along

with the change of English 10 textbook for five years. Nevertheless, in

many high schools in Vietnam, teaching and learning listening skill have

not received adequate attention yet. Consequently, many Vietnamese

students still cannot communicate successfully to foreigners even in the

simple daily conversation, though they are good students with high marks

in the English tests. Among reasons leading to this upsetting fact, the

failure to comprehend native speakers’ ideas because of listening

comprehension breakdown is said to be the most serious reason

(Nguyen, 2008).

The thesis paper “Students’ perceived difficulties in studying

listening comprehension with English 10 textbook at Pham Ngu Lao

high school” attempts to investigate problems that tenth form students in

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a rural area have to deal with when they study listening skill. From the

findings, pedagogical recommendations are provided.

The study involves the participation of tenth form students from

PNL high school. The researcher chose this group of population to do

research on because of two reasons. First, at grade 10, students should be

raised the awareness in the importance of listening skill, and recognize

their difficulties in studying this skill to have timely solutions to their

obstacles. Another reason is that there is that PLN high school has a good

quality of teaching and learning. However, teachers and students of

school focus much more on the scientific subjects such as Maths,

Chemistry or Physics and seem to neglect the role of English subject. The

opportunities to take part in international contests, to have good jobs in

future of students, therefore, are limited because of their limitation in

English.

2. Aims and Research questions

First and foremost, the study attempts to examine how tenth form

students perceive about the importance of listening skill in comparison

with other three skills including speaking, writing and reading. The main

purpose of the study is to investigate the difficulties during the process of

learning listening comprehension with English 10 textbook in students’

perception. Lastly, the study is hope to raise students’ expectation of

teachers and educators who have ability to improve the quality of

teaching and learning listening skill at high school in Vietnam. With these

initial targets, the result, if positive, is expected to raise helpful

implications to teachers of English, students and educators as well.

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To clarify these aims, the paper answers the following research

questions:

1) What is students’ perceived importance of studying listening

comprehension?

2) What are the difficulties perceived by tenth form students at Pham

Ngu Lao high school in studying listening comprehension English 10

textbook?

3) What are suggestions of tenth form students to overcome their

possible difficulties in studying listening skill?

3. Significance of the study

In completion, the study could be of considerable assistance for

teachers, course administrators as well as researchers working on related

fields.

First of all, the result of the study is expected to raise the awareness

among teachers of English at PNL high school of the students’ perceived

difficulties in studying listening skill. Several implications drawn from

the research findings, together with students’ expectation may prove

helpful to teachers; so that they can take initiatives to exploit suitable

methods and to better engage their students in class activities during

listening periods.

Besides, findings of the research can reveal much insight into the

current teaching and learning listening skill at PNL high school. The

research findings are expected to play a part in the process of redefining

the significance of listening skill taught at high school in Vietnam.

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Lastly, this research could offer useful references for further

studies on the related topic area. Some students’ suggestions to the

textbook could be a valuable source for educators to make some needed

change with the text book, then to enhance the efficiency of listening

comprehension at the early stage of high school.

4. Scope of the study

Firstly, the topic of the study is “listening comprehension” which

call for a wide variety of approaches and understandings. However,

within the framework of this study, the focus is put on investigating

“listening comprehension” which defined profoundly by Clark and Clark

(1977, cited in Xu (2011), p.161). They give both a narrow and broad

definition:

“Comprehension has two common senses. In its narrow sense it denotes the mental processes by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker intended to convey... Comprehension in its broader sense, however, rarely ends here, for listeners normally put the interpretations they have built to work”. (p.161).

Secondly, in the study, the two terms “listening comprehension”

and “listening skill” are used as alternative terms. It does not mean that

the researcher will cover sub-skills in studying listening such as listening

for main ideas, listening for details, etc.

5. Organization

This study includes five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction - describes the research’s rationale, aims, scope,

significance and organization.

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Chapter 2: Literature review - lays the theoretical foundation for the

research which includes definition of key terms and related studies.

Chapter 3: Methodology - describes the methods that have been used to

collect data and the procedures of collecting and analyzing data that have

been followed by the researchers.

Chapter 4: Result analysis and discussion - analyzes collected data and

gives the implication and recommendation of the study.

Chapter 5: Conclusion – ends the study by summarizing its main points

as well as presents the limitations of the study and suggestions for further

studies.

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CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

2. Listening comprehension in communication process

2.1. Communication process

It is vital to put the process of studying listening skill under the

light of communication process because the aim of teaching and learning

listening skill is to communicate more successfully, especially with the

EFL learners.

The communication process is generally recognized as the process

of sharing ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc among people. When

communicating, we mostly combine numbers of skills such as speaking,

listening and observing.

With regard to the constructing factors of communication process,

Geddes & Strurtridge (1982, cited in Nguyen, 2007) suggests the model

of three factors: the encoder, the text and the reader. In different context,

the encoder can be the speaker or the writer who presents his message in

languages, which they call “the text”. The text then will be decoded by

the hearer or reader and communication process finishes. Scholar

Schanez (1999) also addresses such model but in different names. He

defines the first factor as the sender and the last factor as the receiver. In

general, both “the encoder” and “the sender” indicate the person who is

sending messages to others. “The text” can be interpreted as the message,

which “the sender” wants “the receiver” to understand. “The reader” or

“the receiver”, therefore, implies the one who is receiving messages. The

communication process is successful when “the receiver” can understand

“messages” of “the sender”.

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The communication success is contributed by several factors. To

the “senders”, they should know how to express and perform their ideas

clearly and comprehensibly. To the “receivers”, they must know how to

catch these delivered messages. Therefore, among many needed skills

such as observing, touching, listening skill can be considered to play the

most important role in communication process.

2.2. Listening comprehension in communication process

2.2.1. Definitions of Listening comprehension

As previously mentioned in the paper, to understand the

transformed message of the sender, the receiver has variety of techniques

such as observing, touching, and listening. However, the most common

way is through listening.

The listening process is often described as an information

processing perspective and “an active process in which listeners select

and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in

order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to

express” (Thompson and Rubin, 1996, p. 331). In other words, unlike

hearing, listening is an active process because listeners actively select

what they want to know and interpret the information they get. Most

importantly, listeners listen with attention, focusing on the stress,

pronunciation as well as intonation of speakers.

The acknowledgement on the definition of listening comprehension

is important in teaching and studying listening skill in high school,

especially at grade tenth, when students are forming their learning

strategies. They should be prepared and start listening with clear

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attention, i.e. know what they are going to listen to, as well as what clues

or details they should pay attention to.

In addition, it is essential for language teachers to help their

students be aware of the importance of listening skill. Firstly, listening

skill provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive

development, and it plays a life-long role in the processes of

communication. A study by Wilt (1950, cited in Wills, 2008), found that

people listen 45 % of the time they spend communicating. This study is

still cited by Strother, 1987. That finding confirmed what Rankin

discovered in 1928, that people spent 70 % of their waking time

communicating and that three-fourths of this time was spent listening and

speaking. Secondly, listening provides input for the receivers. Bulletin

(1952, cited in Wills, 2008) states that, listening is the fundamental

language skill. It is the medium through which people gain a large portion

of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and

of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. In

this day of mass communication, “the importance of listening cannot be

underestimated; it is imperative that it not be treated trivially in second

and foreign language curricula” (Morley, 1991, p. 82).

2.2.2. Features of listening comprehension in communication process

Listening comprehension is a complex process that involves

different factors. This process has been defined by many researchers.

Coakley & Wolin (1986) proposes a theory of five stages of

listening comprehension, in which they points out how listeners

processed the message that they received. In each stage, there are some

factors having great influence on listeners namely vocal message, short-

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term memory system, background knowledge, physical and mental states,

and linguistic proficiency.

Faerch and Kasper (1986) also shared the idea with Coak and

Wolin (1986). They identified three internal factors in L2 listeners’

comprehension, including learner’s knowledge of the L2 linguistic code,

the degree of sociocultural competence and strategic competence, such as

learners’ ability to guess what speakers meant from the context.

Thompson and Rubin (1996) synthesized 130 studies and he made a

conclusion of five major factors that researchers believed to be the most

influential in listening comprehension:

i. text characteristics such as speech rate, pause, stress and rhythm, L1/L2 difference, etc ii. interlocutor characteristics such as gender and language proficiency;

iii. task characteristics such as task type; iv. listener characteristics such as language proficiency level, memory, attention, affect, age, gender, learning disability in L1, and background knowledge; and v. process characteristics such as top-down, bottom-up, and parallel processing,

listening strategies, and negotiation of comprehensible input. (p.302)

2.2.3. Common EFL learners’ perceived difficulties in studying

listening comprehension

In general, there are many factors leading to difficulties of EFL

learners when they study listening skill. This present paper focuses on the

five following factors in order to explore tenth form students’ perceived

difficulties. The names of these factors were adapted from Yagang (1993)

and Rubin (1994).

Five investigated problems presented as follow:

Basic language problems

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Phonetic barrier

Vocabulary obstacle

Speech rate barrier

Psychology factors and Settings

Materials

Learning strategies

2.2.3 a. Basic language problems

Phonetic barriers

At the beginning of English studying process, some students have

not mastered the correct pronunciation, especially to distinguish

homonyms such as “bad-beg-bag”. Therefore, when they listen to English

recordings, it may cause many troubles. In his research, Chen (2005)

discovered that some learners face some difficulties in recognizing

spoken-word or liking sounds. It is difficult for learners at low-level to

identify or differentiate individual sounds in a stream of sounds. Goh

(1994, cited in Yousif, 2006) states that students faced problems on

recognition of familiar words. Although they are familiar with some

words, they are unable to remember their meaning immediately. Hence,

phonetic barriers attribute breakdown in listening comprehension.

Considerable effort should be put on the teaching and learning

pronunciation at high school.

Vocabulary obstacle

The shortcoming of English vocabulary is another barrier that

prevents students from listening comprehensively. In listening lessons,

students mostly practice listening with audio recordings. Hence, they

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cannot see speakers’ body language to predict the meaning of speech.

With too few English words recognition, students cannot understand what

speakers are talking about. Thus, “a limited vocabulary was considered

responsible for comprehension breakdown” (Chen, 2005).

Speech rate barrier

From the perspective of speech rate barrier, Griffith (1992) stated

that “Speech rate” includes “normal rate” (i.e. the rate at which people

can usually easily comprehend a text) and “threshold rate” (i.e. the rate at

which comprehension begins to decrease rapidly). According to his

study, native speakers of English can understand what others are

speaking at a normal speech rate of 165 to 180 words per minute

(w.p.m.). It is potential evidence found by Griffith (1992) that “speech

faster than 200 w.p.m. is hard for lower-intermediate learners to

understand” and the ideal speech rate for students of this level to perform

best is at 127 w.p.m. (p.201). Hence, the actual speech rate does have

influence on the success or failure of listening comprehension.

High school students often use audio tapes produced by

Vietnamese speakers that accompany their textbooks. The speech rate of

listening recordings used for tenth form students is often at “a normal

rate”. Therefore, students are given opportunity to practice listening

comprehension but not to challenge themselves. However, that normal

speech rate cannot be true in the situation of high school students in

Vietnam. It questions the researcher whether or not that normal speech

rate causes difficulties for tenth students. This issue needs to be

investigated.

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2.2.3 b. Psychological factors and Settings

According to Yagang (1993), the listening comprehension process

is also a relatively complex psychological process. In psychology, it is

stated that when a person feels nervous or anxious he or she may not be

concentrated. When one felt uncomfortable, his or her ability to listen is

greatly reduced. In addition, the external surroundings can also interfere

to listening process. Students cannot focus on listening and “take their

mind off” the content of the listening passage because of noises which

may derive from both the background of the recording and the

environmental surrounding. Normally, in a class, the surrounding

environment is really important in encouraging students. A student will

not concentrate or cannot pay attention to listen the recordings if other

ones are talking or playing.

The poor-quality of equipment is another factor which may causes

difficulties to listeners.

2.2.3 c. Materials

Materials used for learning listening skill are many types such

books, handouts, pictures, supplementary books. Two aspects related to

materials the researcher attempts to focus on are the topics of the books

and the difficult level of tasks.

From the task perspective, Ferris and Tagg (1996) raised the idea

that “Academic listening tasks pose formidable challenges for L2

students, even those highly proficient in English (p.133). Xu (2011)

agrees that idea and gives further suggestion that listening materials

which are either too easy or too difficult can have counterproductive

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effect EFL on learners. For the too easy ones, learners cannot make

progress in listening practice. however, dealing with difficult tasks can

lead to the interest reluctance in listening acquisition of students.

According to Chen (2005), the length of sentences or texts may lead to

the difficulties of students’ listening comprehension. In his point of view,

a long text with too much information can cause students forget the

beginning part of the text, which cause the comprehension breakdown.

Flowerdew (1995, cited in Ferris and Tagg, 1996) claimed that long texts

require students the ability to concentrate on and understand “long

stretches of talk” (p.12). This aspect has been studied for a long time.

Brindley (1982, p.1, cited in Richards, 1983, p.231) indicated that EFL

learners found longer utterance, especially those containing subordinate

clauses, “very hard to understand, owing to limitations on short-term

memory load”. Besides long texts, he had a further conclusion that

students might face the failure to understand questions which required

more than a short and concrete answer (i.e. “why” or “how” questions).

Obviously, these factors may pose serious obstacles on students at low

level of English when studying listening comprehension.

The cultural background of textbooks (i.e. themes and topics) can

present an obstacle to comprehension because “language is used to

express its culture” (Anderson and Lynch, 1988, p.301). Students must

have certain background knowledge about the topics involved in their

textbook. It is vital to design listening comprehension tasks for 10th form

students with suitable and interesting topics. “Suitable” can be understood

as “not too difficult” to students’ level; and “Interesting” means that these

topics should be concerned by most of the students.

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2.2.3. d. Learning strategies

In regards to the types of learning strategies, O’Malley and Chamot

(1990, cited in Vandergrift, 1999, p.170) classified these strategies based

on the cognitive theory and categorized cognitive activity in language

learning into two types: metacognitive and cognitive strategies.

Metacognitive strategies include “planning, monitoring and evaluating”

as their functions are to “oversee, regulate and direct language learning

process”. Cognitive strategies are defined as the ways of controlling the

material to be learnt or applying a specific technique to the learning task.

The third category, socio-affective strategies, aims to describe the

learning process in which learners “co-operate” with their classmates or

“question” their teachers for explanation.

Though there mentioned strategies have enormous impact on

enhancing success in second language listening (O’Malley and Chamot et

al.), students do not have “innate understanding” of those; hence, it is the

responsibility of language teachers to share that knowledge with them,

through strategy instructions. Thompson and Rubin (1996, cited in

Vandergrift, 1999, p.170) indicated that instruction has great influence on

listening performance of university students learning foreign language.

They demonstrated that students who received strategy instruction in

listening had higher scores than those who received no instruction.

Vandergrift (1999) also mentioned the result of O’Malley and Chamot

(1990) to support this idea. They stated that strategy instruction could be

“effective in enhancing initial learning”, and that “teachers could do more

than simply provide comprehension input by pairing strategy instruction

in listening tasks”.(p.170).

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The involvement of teachers at “pre-listening” and “ post-

listening” is really important. Teachers should be aiming in the course,

and hence help determine the choice of appropriate methodology and

classroom procedures. The basic framework to construct a listening

lesson is divided into three stages (cited in ELT methodology 2nd version,

p.141)

Pre-listening: In pre-listening stage, teachers help their students

prepare to listen to achieve three goals including motivation,

contextualization and preparation. Firstly, students should be motivated to

listen through interesting activities and tasks prepared by teachers.

Secondly, teachers should help students to contextualize and understand

the text, topics and the themes as well. Lastly, students are provided with

specific vocabulary or expression which may be useful for understanding

the recordings.

While listening: during which teachers help to focus their attention

on the listening text and guide the development of their understanding of

it.

Post-listening: during which teachers help students integrate what

they have learnt from the text into their existing knowledge. There are

two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. The first one is

“reaction to the text”. Discussion as a “response to what they have heard”

might be applied to. Another form is “analysis of language”, which

involves “focusing students on linguistic features of the text”. Students

might have opportunities to develop their knowledge of language such as

vocabulary and grammatical structures.

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2.3. Previous studies

Because listening skill is one of the most important skills to make a

good communicator, which people spend approximately 60% of their

time listening (Rubin & Thompson, 1994), few studies were carried out

to investigate the difficulties in studying listening skill of EFL learners.

Yagang (1993) presented the general definition of listening simply

that “listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are

saying” (p.5). In the listening process, according to him, four main factors

which may lead to difficulties for EFL learners the speaker include the

message, the listener and the physical setting. He pointed out that many

learners find it difficult to deal with the message which its content is not

well-organized. When listening, they fail to predict what speakers are

going to say in taped message because they are not familiar with

“ungrammatical sentences”, “spontaneous topics” or because of taped

message. Likewise, they would be challenged when communicating with

speakers who may produce redundant utterance or have strange accents.

The bigger obtacles might appear if listeners themselves are not master in

predicting the information, not familiar with colocation, clichés or

different kinds of listening materials.

Ferris & Tagg (1996) focused more in academic listening and

speaking tasks for ESL students. Through survey conducted with full-

time professors of different colleges and university, Ferris and Tagg

analyzed the difficulties of students in studying academic listening.

Though students can aware the importance of listening skill, they are

quite hesitant and unwilling to participate in class discussions, interact

with peers (except for those who speak their native language), or ask

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or respond to questions. The implications drawn from this study

suggested that teachers should be the ones who help develop the

communication strategies and listening strategies of students. Their study

is a useful reference for ESL students. However, it would be better if the

survey investigated both teachers and students’ opinions. It would be

better if students who are in trouble could tell what their difficulties are.

Chen (2005) also studied barriers to acquiring listening strategies

for EFL learners and suggested some pedagogical implications. The study

was conducted based on the report of students of Takming College in

Taiwan. His study analyzed seven major categories of learning obstacles

including 22 minor groups. They are affective barriers, habitudinal

obstacles, learning difficulties related to individual learner’s information

processing, English proficiency, and beliefs about listening; problems

centering the nature and procedures of strategy use; and the listening

materials that learners practiced with. This thorough research can be a

useful material in teaching and learning listening comprehension.

In Vietnam, teaching and studying listening skill for tenth form

students are no longer new or strange because the new English textbook

has been used for ten years. It is the fact that listening skill has not

received adequate attention and investment. In the article “Sach giao khoa

cua thap nien 80” (the textbook of 1980s) which published on website

tuoitre.vn, reporter made the judgment on the content of textbook used for

high school students. He cited a teacher’ opinion that listening skill was

ignored or was not taught in his high school because both teachers and

students wanted to focus on examinations which did not include the

listening skill test. With not much investment, listening skill still causes

many difficulties for students at low-intermediate level.

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The present study’s purpose is to obtain information about the

listening difficulties experienced by 10th form students of Pham Ngu Lao

high school. The study is guided by the following research question:

What are the difficulties in studying listening skill perceived tenth form

students of Pham Ngu Lao high school?

2.4. An overview of Listening comprehension section in English 10

2.4.1. Objectives

The listening comprehension section of “Tieng Anh 10” textbook

(English 10) is designed with several passages or conversations, which

are related to the topic of each unit according to the objectives, stated at

the beginning of the book. The main objective of this section is to help

students get familiar with listening skill, correct their pronunciation and

grammatical structure mistakes. Moreover, 10th form students will be

provided with inputs including vocabulary, grammatical structures and

pronunciation for speaking skill via learning listening.

The objective of listening section is suitable with the features of

listening comprehension in communication process. And if listening skill

is successfully taught in high school, starting with 10th form students, it

will establish the foundation for students with perfect input to develop

their proficiency in English later.

2.4.2. Materials

The listening section of English 10 focuses on general interests of

life including people, education, technology, travelling, mass media,

nature, social life and history. Each unit has a specific topic designed in

correlation with the theme of each week. In a forty-five minute period,

20

students will listen to a recording and do two or three tasks following to

check the comprehension. This study’s concern is whether the topics and

the tasks are come up with students’ expectation or not. With the data

collected from students’ opinions, pedagogical implication for educators

and teachers will be suggested.

To provide a profound view on “Tieng Anh 10” textbook, the study

exploits the book based on the evaluation checklist designed by Peacock

(1997). The original checklist was divided into 8 sections and contained

60 items (see appendix II). In consideration of Vietnam context as well as

the emphasis on listening section of the book, the researcher decides to

leave out a number of items and adjust some others to suit the situation of

Vietnam.

Section I. General Impression

When flick through the book briefly, the book overall appearance is

quite attractive and will be appealing to learners with colorful pictures.

However, with a more considerate look, the illustration of listening

section probably fails to attract tenth form students and motivate them.

The pictures designed to illustrate the context of the recordings are not

beautiful and mostly depict the picture of countryside schools. The boring

decoration may not motivate students in studying.

Section IV. Appropriacy

In general, the materials, language focus and activities are

appropriate for your learners and the textbook also meets the short term

goal specific to tenth form students. However, in the long term,

listening comprehension section of “Tieng Anh 10” may fail to

21

stimulate students in applying their knowledge interactively with other

skills such as speaking.

Section V. Motivation and the Learner

Materials used for listening section in the book are not authentic

and up-to-date to an acceptable degree. The topics of the textbook use

context of village, countryside and sport event that happened long

time ago. Therefore, materials used do not arouse intrinsic interest

and will not appear interesting to learners.

Section VI. Pedagogic Analysis

Methodologically the book is in line with current worldwide theories

and practices of language learning with three stages: pre-listening, while-

listening and post-listening. Nevertheless, the activities designed for

these stages are not varied. Students are normally asked to repeat some

words, and answer simple questions related to topics.

The balance between listening, speaking, reading, and writing

skills development in the book is appropriate to tenth form students and

learning situation.

The book contains adequate formal learner achievement tests.

The textbook has a few activities for communicative interaction and

the development of communicative strategies. Students usually do

individual work, but not many pair work, group work, and whole-class

work.

Section VIII. Supplementary Materials

22

Cassette tapes/CDs are available and of good quality construction.

Sound quality of tapes/CDs is good with no hissing, distortion,

background noise, or other problems. However, Tapes/CDs do not have a

variety of voices and they are native speakers talking at normal speed.

23

CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY

3.1. Selection of subjects

3.1.1. Setting of study

The study was taken at Pham Ngu Lao high school (PNL) Thuy

Nguyen district, Hai Phong city. According to the statistics in recent five

years of Hai Phong Local education and Training department, the

English scores of PNL high school’s students are at the bottom 10,

despite their high scores in other subjects such as Math or Literature.

Students of this school is also said to be weak at communicating in

English. It inspired the researcher to take an interview with students here

to investigate the current issue in studying English at PNL high school.

The interview’s result, as predicted, reveals that English training is not

strength of this high school because it has just been included in

curriculum of school for five years. That a few numbers of students

taking the university entrance examination with English tests reveals

English subject does not receive adequate recognition, not to mention

listening skill which is mostly neglected by EFL learners.

3.1.2. Participants

The target population of the study is tenth form students of PNL

high school, who are attending school year 2010-2013. The pilot study

and the real study were conducted when they were at the end of the

second semester in 2011. As freshmen, students were supposed to get

familiar with listening skill and face considerable difficulties in studying

this skill.

24

215 tenth form students were chosen as the participants of the

study. They were selected because of their average scores in English

subject ranking from 5 to 10 in the 10-point grading system. Students

whose scores of English are above average are expected to provide

adequate and sufficient information about their difficulties in studying

listening skill so that the greater precision in term of data collected can be

achieved.

For a thorough understanding about the participants, the first two

questions in questionnaire were designed to determine which language

skill is considered the most difficult one among four skills taught at PNL

high school, and to estimate student’s English level based on their

average scores in English subject .

Lastly, most of the students of PNL high school are living in

villages of Thuy Nguyen district. At secondary school, they did not have

much chance to practice listening skill because of the insufficiency of

facilities for practicing listening and qualified teachers of English.

25

Chart 1. The most difficult English skill in students' perception

Chart 1 illustrates that among four English skills taught at Pham

Ngu Lao high school, Listening skill was evaluated as the most difficult

one which accounted for 54% in total. Other skills such as reading,

speaking and writing only made up for 11%, 16% and 19% respectively.

Though the pilot interview taken with only one fifth of tenth form

students at Pham Ngu Lao high school in total but the statistic could

clearly reflect the fact that more than a half of participants recognize that

they have difficulties in studying listening comprehension after the

semester.

The scores of students conveyed their English levels more

precisely. The survey was conducted with 215 students whose the grade

point average of English subject in the first semester are ranged from 5.0

to over 9.0. It should be noted that this school uses the 10.0 grade system.

The proposition of participants’ scores was illustrated in Chart 2.

Reading11%

Speaking16%

Writing19%

Listening54%

26

41%

22%

16%

14%

7%

5.0 - 6.0

6.1 - 7.0

7.1 - 8.0

8.1 - 9.0

> 9.0

Chart 2. The grade point average of English listening skill

of tenth form students

As can be seen from the chart that the number of students who had

grades of English listening skill rank from 5.0 to 6.0 makes up for the

highest percentage with 41%. In addition, about 22% of participants’

scores are from 6.1 to 7.0. Proportionally more than 60% of respondents

had low scores in English ranking from 5 to 7. And proportionally fewer

students achieved higher scores rank from 7.1 to over 9.0, which only

account for 37% in total. To some extent, the grade point average of the

first semester can reflect the respondents’ level in English listening skill.

Although they are considered at the pre-intermediate, the average scores

of listening skill shows that they may have some troubles in studying

listening comprehension. Among 215 students, 178 respondents (82.79%)

have studied English for five years, 19 participants wrote that they have

learnt English for four years. The number of students who have studied

English for more than 6 six years are only 18 students (8.3%). None of

respondents has learnt English for less than 4 years. These statistics

27

showed that most of tenth form students at Pham Ngu Lao high school

have become familiar with four skills in English at least for four years.

Therefore, it is assumed that their English level can be rated at pre-

intermediate level. In other words, students at grade ten can listen to

simple conversational dialogues; understand short-talks or photo

description recordings. Based on the experience as well the scores of

students, researcher can come to a general conclusion about students’

English level

3.2. Research Instrument

The study employed survey method using questionnaires and focus-

group interview. Firstly, questionnaires were used as the main research

instrument because the study aimed to exploit a large number of

participants. Therefore, the researcher could collect “a huge amount of

information” from students (Dornyei, 2003, p.9). Secondly, according to

Rabiee (2004) focus-group interview was able to provide information

about a range of ideas and feelings that individuals have about certain

issues. Therefore, the two research instruments were made advantage of

to collect wide, rich and detailed information of particitpants.

a. Questionnaires

The questionnaire is constructed based on the theoretical framework

of literature review and piloted interview taken with 97 tenth form

students at Pham Ngu Lao high school, which aims to investigate the

most difficult skill in students’ perception. After receiving contributive

comments and suggestion of supervisor, questionnaire was revised and

came up with the final version. It was then translated into Vietnamese and

piloted with 45 tenth form students of PNL high school. Forty-five

28

students were asked to freely give comments and feedback on the

difficulty, ambiguity level as well as wording of questionnaires. The

researcher revised the questionnaire again and finally used it to conduct

the survey at Pham Ngu Lao high school with 215 participants.

The questionnaire uses the Likert-type scale from 1 to 5. Likert-

type, as defined by Arnold, W. E., McCroskey, J. C., & Prichard, S. V. O.

(1967), consists of a series of declarative statements. Likert (1932)

proposed a summated scale for the assessment of survey respondent’s

attitudes. Individual items in Likert’s sample scale had five response

alternatives: Strongly approve, Approve, Undecided, Disapprove, and

Strongly disapprove. The subject is asked to indicate whether he agrees or

disagrees with each statement. In this paper, 1 means Strongly disagree

and 5 means Strongly agree. Participants were asked to give their

opinions by choosing from 1 to 5.

The questionnaire consists of two main parts.

In part 1, the researcher aims to discover brief information about

participants’ background information, including their scores of English

subject and the years they have learnt English. The importance of

listening comprehension perceived by students is investigated as well.

Part 2 consists of three sections, which are based on the procedure of

a listening lesson. The three sections are “Pre-listening”, “While-

listening” and “Post-listening”. The second part was designed to collect

the students’ perceived problems in learning listening comprehension.

The content of the questionnaire was concerned with the mentioned

theories about common difficulties faced by EFL learners in studying

listening comprehension in Literature Review.

29

The questionnaire was written in English and then translated into

Vietnamese when being distributed to students.

b. Follow-up Interview

The focus-group interviews were conducted following the

questionnaire phase with the same number of students. Participants

formed into the groups of forty-three students. They were asked to

provide in-depth information about their difficulties. Their suggestions to

overcome their possible difficulties and their expectations towards

teachers and PNL high school were exploited in the interview part as

well. Information collected from this stage was made advantage of

supporting the analysis of the first two research questions as well as to

answer the third one.

3.3. Procedure of data collection

The procedure of data collection followed these steps.

Firstly, the researcher asked for the permission of PNL high

school’s head master, teachers of English and tenth form students to

conduct the survey at school. 215 students were chosen thanks to the

assistance of PNL high school’s teachers.

The questionnaire was then carried out within two weeks. In the

first week, there were 100 students answering the questionnaires. 115

other participants took part in the survey in the second week.

The questionnaire took place when students had free periods to

avoid the interference with their studying process and provide enough

time for participants to answer questionnaires carefully. Before students

30

answered, they were instructed and checked for the understanding about

the questionnaire carefully. The researcher was waiting while students

were answering the questionnaire to ensure that participants could receive

on-time assistance if needed.

The follow-up interview was processed after students finished their

questionnaires. They are free to raise their opinions about their

difficulties.

3.4. Procedure of data analysis

After collected, the data will be compiled, coded and analyzed. In

this study, descriptive statistics analyses were carried out to understand

the variables of data, including frequencies and percentages, graphical

display of data, statistic of central tendency (the mean, mode and median)

and dispersion.

The results of the statistic analysis were presented in this section to

investigate the problems in studying listening skill. The questionnaires

were computed for means, modes, medians and standard deviation (SD)

in order to reveal the English problems perceived by tenth form students

at Pham Ngu Lao high school.

31

CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. FINDINGS

This chapter reports the survey findings addressing the three

research questions in three parts. The first part reports students’

perceptions of English listening skill (attitude, scores on English

subject, etc.) The second part explores their problems (language

proficiency, materials, psychology setting factors, etc.). The analysis

emphasized on students’ perceptions of English listening skill (attitude,

scores on English subject, etc.), their problems (language proficiency,

materials, psychology setting factors, etc.) and the suggested solutions

they use to try to overcome these problems.

4.1.1. Students’ perceived importance of the English listening skill

As illustrated in Table 1, descriptive statistics are presented for the

students’ perceived importance of English listening skill.

Mean Mode Median SD

Students’ perceived importance

of English listening skill 3.34 4 4 1.19

Table 1. Students’ perceived importance of English listening skill

Mean of the importance is 3.34 which is higher than average of

Likert-type rating from 1- Not at all importance to 5 – Extremely

important. Moreover, mode and median are equal (=4) and standard

deviation is 1.19. These numbers show that most of the students had

awareness of the importance of listening comprehension. However, there

were still a number of students who did not highly evaluate the role of

32

listening skill. Besides choosing the most appropriate scale, they were

asked to clarify their answers. Most of them did not give extra

explanation for their choices, researcher decided to adapt this question in

the interview part.

When being interviewed, the group of students who highly

appreciated the role of this skill reported that listening skill helps them

improve their communication skill through complementing their

pronunciation and widening their vocabulary. Some of students expected

to be more proficiently in listening to English so that they would have

chance to talk with foreigners as well as look for a good job in future.

Share the quite similar ideas, some students thought listening skill was

fairly important to their English study. They did aware the importance of

listening skill but assumed that this is the most difficult one among four

skills as well. As not being included in the final examinations, listening

skill has not paid much consideration by both teachers and students at

Pham Ngu Lao high school. Contradictorily, there were seventeen

students considered listening skill an unimportant skill. From their points

of view, it was too difficult for this group of students to study this skill

or to understand what speakers talked in the recordings. Hence, it was no

point of studying without understanding anything. These statistics,

generally, revealed the truth that some of the students were still unaware

of the vital role of listening skill in their English study at high school.

4.1.2. Students’ perceived difficulties in studying listening skill

In part II, this paper analyzes the results of the survey in order to

discover the difficulties perceived by tenth form students in studying

English listening skill. These difficulties are presented as follow.

33

Basic Language Problems

As mentioned in Literature Review, linguistic can be considered

the biggest obstacle of most of EFL learners, especially students at low-

level of English. The following table (Table 2) presents the difficulties in

term of language proficiency perceived by students in studying listening

skill. By grouping eight related questions in the questionnaires,

researcher calculated the mean, mode and median difficulty as well as

standard deviation (SD). In this way, we could compare all items

individually and in group under the linguistic view.

Items Mean Mode Median SD

Q13. Hard to understand speakers’

strange accents and pronunciations 3.85 5 4 1.1

Q14. Unable to catch information

because of high speed rate 3.56 5 4 1.4

Q10. Unable to catch important and

key words to do exercises 3.55 3 4 1.19

Q19. Unable to distinguish important

words in a connected speech 3.45 3 3 1.18

Q20. Find the pronunciation familiar

but cannot recognize the words 3.44 3 4 1.21

Q12. Do not often pay attention to

intonation of speakers 3.39 4 4 1.33

Q11. Unable to recognize transitional

words 3.19 2 3 1.31

Table 2. Basic language difficulties perceived by tenth form students

34

As is shown in Table 2, means of the items in groups are higher

than the average, which range from 3.19 (Q11) to 3.87 (Q13). These

means reveal that participants perceived all mentioned aspect of

linguistic as their difficulties. Modes and Medians are mostly in range of

3 to 5 (except for Q11). From which a fact can be drawn that most of

students who took part in the survey have difficulties when they study

listening comprehension. Furthermore, standard deviation, which shows

the dispersion of data, are not too high, rating from 1.1 to 1.4. Hence, the

opinions of difference students about the difficulties are quite

concentrated and homogenous (not scattered much).

Among these difficulties related to linguistic, strange accents and

pronunciation of speakers in listening recordings are perceived by the

most number of students, whose mean is remarkably high (i.e.

mean=3.85). The mode and median are 5 and 4 respectively. With the

largest group of students evaluate this difficulty at level 5 and at least

half of students choose 4 and 5 for their answers, together with the small

standard deviation, it can be confirmed that the majority of students face

this obstacles and there is not much significant difference among

students’ opinions. The causes of this difficulty are different among

students. Some of students firstly said that they were familiar with

neither the accents nor the pronunciation of speakers in the recordings

because they were different from their teachers’ pronunciations. In class,

their teachers of English did not use intonation or stress on words or

sentences much. Teachers tried to pronoun words separately and clearly

and their intonation seemed to be flat. Secondly, a great number of

students shared that their pronunciations were different from the

standard pronunciation, just because they lived in a rural area. It is

difficult for them to listen to Vietnamese speakers of English not to

35

mention the native speakers of English. A few participants raised one

opinion that some teachers’ pronunciations were not correct.

Consequently, if students imitated their teachers’ pronunciation, they

made these pronunciation mistakes as well. Though this idea must be

evaluated through observing teachers’ lessons because students

themselves might not be qualified to evaluate their teachers, the issue

about unqualified teachers still should be taken under consideration.

From opinions raised by those students, it can be concluded that

sometimes, speakers’ pronunciation are not the main cause of

difficulties, but the hindrances come from the listeners themselves

whose pronunciations are not good enough to understand the varied

types of accents.

Other obstacles similarly perceived by many students are “Unable

to catch the important key words to do exercises” (Q10) and “Unable to

catch information because of high speed rate of recordings” (Q14),

which the mean ratings of 3.55 for Q10 and 3.56 for Q14. However, SD

of Q10 is slightly smaller than of Q14, thus the dispersion of students’

opinions in Q10 is closer to Mean. It means that a large number of

students are able to aware their difficulties. On the other hand, for Q14,

because SD is 1.42, the scattered level of students’ opinions about this

obstacle is wider. Moreover, the mode of Q10 is just 1.19, smaller than

the mode of Q14, which is 5. The two difficulties are related to the

amount of information or key words that students were able to catch to

do their exercises or at least for comprehension. The first obstacle is the

high rate of speed. As previously mentioned, students were familiar with

their teachers’ speed which were often slower than the recordings in

order to help students have better comprehension. Nevertheless, that

36

teaching method might lead to students’ difficulties when students had to

deal with the high speech rate of speakers in the recordings and in daily

conversation. Other reasons for the failure to catch key words in the

recordings explained by interviewees were that they did not understand

the concept “key words”. In other words, they did not know what types

of words in the recording could be recognized as “key words”. Some

even could not be able to differentiate words’ types and functions. Those

opinions revealed that students’ basic grammatical linguistics were not

profound. It would significantly affect on the amount of information

they could comprehend.

Linguistic factors seemed to have great impact on the amount of

listening comprehension. Question 19 and 20 convey that many students

could not distinguish words in connected speech and even they found

those words’ pronunciation familiar. Means of the two questions are

similarly high, which are 3.45 and 3.44. It is understandable because

students at low-level may not have much experience in linking sounds.

Furthermore, their pronunciation has not mastered and they do not have

abundant of vocabulary. Particularly, when asked about whether they

could identify the consonants and vowels or not, most of students

claimed that they had heard about consonants and vowels but could not

differentiate them clearly.

As seen in question 11 and question 12, there were many students

who claimed that they were unable to recognize additional words,

contrast words or transitional devices. Moreover, they do not pay

attention much to speakers’ intonations in the recordings. Though mean

ratings for Q11 and Q12 are 3.19 and 3.39, respectively, SDs of two

items are quite high in comparison with other items’ (SD (Q11) =1.31 &

37

SD (Q12) = 1.33). It means that there are a slightly difference in

students’ opinions and levels.

To conclude, the great number of participants had difficulties in

studying listening skill because of linguistic factors including

pronunciation, accent, speed or connected speech.

Learning strategy difficulties

The following table (Table 3) illustrates the difficulties related by

tenth form student at PNL high school.

Items Mean Mode Median SD

PRE

-LIS

TE

NIN

G

Q2. Teachers do not often organize

interesting pre-activities related to

topics before listening.

3.12 3 3 1.27

Q3. I don’t receive clear

instructions about recordings and

exercises from teachers.

3.24 3 3 1.33

Q7. Teachers do not ask Ss to find

and analyze key words and

important words in the exercises

before listening.

3.42 4 4 1.27

Q1. I am not helped to get familiar

with topics before listening. 3.54 3 4 1.13

Q8. I cannot understand new words

in exercises if teachers don’t elicit or

explain them to me.

3.66 5 4 1.14

Q6. I am not well-prepared before

listening. 3.73 5 4 1.25

38

Items Mean Mode Median SD PO

ST- L

IST

EN

ING

Q26. I have chance to give my opinions

and my ideas about what I have learnt in

the listening lesson.

3.14 3 3 1.25

Q24. Teachers don’t consolidate new

language and structures in the recordings

after listening.

3.43 4 4 1.07

Q22. I cannot answer teachers’ questions

to check the understanding about

contents of the recordings after listening.

3.67 4 4 1.12

Q25. Teachers don’t organize activities

to encourage students to use language

and structures after listening such as

discussion, debates or role-plays.

3.75 5 4 1.21

Q23. Teachers don’t check exercises

carefully after listening such as playing

the recordings again, stopping at the

answers which students are confused and

check the understanding of all students

in class.

3.78 4 5 1.0

Table 3. Learning strategy difficulties perceived by tenth form students

As described in Table 3, the means of learning strategy difficulties

range from 3.12 to 3.78. The modes and Medians are close to the Means

and most of means are equal or higher than Means. The top five means

belong to Questions 22, 8, 6, 25 and 23, which are 3.67, 3.66, 3.73, 3.75

39

and 3.78, respectively. With the rage from 4 to 5, modes and medians of

these items are considered very high. The standard deviations of the

difficulties related to learning strategy are quite small and their difference

is slightly, which rank from 1.0 to 1.33. The results show that most of

students shared the difficulties in learning strategies. Among themselves,

there were not much different opinions. Difficulties derived in the post-

listening stage were highly perceived by most of students.

A closer look of pre-listening stage shows that, students were not

motivated by their teachers before listening to the tapes. A great number

of students agreed that their teachers did not often organize interesting

pre-activities (i.e. warm-up activities) (Q2). Moreover, some teachers did

not give clear instructions to their students; help analyze key words as

well as get familiar with topics of the recordings. As a result, students

claimed that they could not understand new words in the exercises

because teachers did not explain to them. Besides, most of them said that

they were not well prepared before listening periods. Pre-listening, a vital

stage, does not receive sufficient attention and preparation of language

teachers at PNL high school.

Consequently, at post-listening stage, students complained that they

could not answer their teachers questions which aim to check the

understanding about the content of recordings (Q22). Mean of Q22 is

3.67, mode and median are equal (=4) and SD is 1.12.

Question 24, 25 and question 23 show that teachers of English at

Pham Ngu Lao high school did not prepare for post-listening stage

carefully. Question 23 has the highest mean (3.78) and the smallest SD

(1.0). Most of students shared the same difficulties at the high level. In

40

fact, if teachers do not have much time left, the activities to enhance

students understanding and practice what they have learnt such as debates

or discussions can be omitted. However, they also neglect basic steps of a

listening lesson that checking exercises thoroughly. The high means,

modes and median together with small standard deviations of three

questions prove that teachers of English at PNL high school frequently

neglected the last stage of the lesson.

In conclusion, learning strategies before and after listening are

frequently ignored by teachers of PNL high school though at low-level of

English, students should be formed the learning strategies in studying

listening skill by their teachers of English. The poor investment of

teachers might lead to many obstacles for students.

Psychological factors and Settings

Psychology of students before listening is another concern of the

study. As is shown in table 5, many students admitted that they often

keep silent and pay attention to T’s instruction. Mean ratings of Q4 and

Q5 are similarly equal with 3.46 and 3.44. But the quite high SDs of Q4

and Q5 show that not all of students kept silent and concentrate to their

teachers’ instructions. The difference in students’ opinions reflects that

silence and attention in listening periods were not ensured. They can

affect greatly on the quality of lessons, not only an individual student but

also the whole class.

Table 5 also reveals another problem that the mean of students who

often feel comfortable and eager to study before every listening lesson is

41

lower than average (mean=2.62) and the median (2) is smaller than the

mean. This shows that most of students fail to find motivation in learning

this skill.

Mean Mode Median SD

Q17. I cannot be concentrated on

listening to recordings from

beginning to the end.

3.19 3 3 1.25

Q5.I often pay attention to T’s

instructions. 3.44 3 4 1.25

Q4. I often keep silent to listen to

T’s instructions. 3.46 5 4 1.33

Q21. Listening facilities are in good

quality. 3.46 3 4 1.3

Q9. I often feel comfortable before

every listening lesson. 2.62 3 2 1.25

Q16. I have not practiced listening

skill before. 3.19 3 3 1.32

Table 4. Physical setting difficulties perceived by tenth form students

From these points, we can see that most of students kept silent in

class and paid attention to their teachers’ instructions, but many of them

do not feel comfortable before every listening lesson. To explain this

complicated psychology, many students shared that they were not

interested in studying listening comprehension. They kept silent in class

simply because they did not want to be addressed by their teachers.

42

Because of the noise in classroom and the poorly preparation of

psychology, a great number of students claim that they cannot be

concentrated on listening to the recording from beginning to the end

(mean= 3.19, SD=1.25). Obviously, the amount of listening

comprehension is influenced by this obstacle.

About listening facilities, students mostly give optimistic opinions

on the quality of facilities with mean rating of 3.46.

Materials difficulties

Mean Mode Median SD

Q15.The exercises are difficult to

me because of tricky and long

questions.

3.3 3 3 1.34

Q18. I don’t have any background

knowledge about the topics in the

text book.

3.23 3 4 1.22

Table 5. Materials difficulties perceived by tenth form students

The feedback of students for material difficulties, again, is not

optimistic. Means of Q15 and Q18 are still higher than average 3, which

are 3.19 and 3.46. Modes and medians of two questions are from 3 to 4

which reflects that students frequently find the exercise difficult to do and

they are not confident with their background knowledge correlated to

topics in the text book. About the exercises, interviewees reported that the

information for answers is not in the same order as information in the

43

recording. Additionally, the types of exercises repeatedly keep the same

format in which True-False exercise plays the major proportion.

Therefore, if teachers do not instruct some techniques before listening,

they cannot do exercises. Moreover, some questions require long

responded answers but students cannot remember every detail to fulfill

these answers. When asked to give some examples, students refused and

said that they don’t remember.

Topic of listening lesson is another obstacle in listening

comprehension. Many students found that they have little or no

background knowledge related to topics in textbook. The topics

considered the most difficult and unattractive ones are Unit 3-People’s

background, Unit 4- Special education, Unit 10-Conversation and Unit

16-Historical Places. It is suggested by students that these above topics

should be replaced or improved to be more interesting.

44

4.2. SUGGESTIONS OF STUDENTS

Focus-group interview collected some suggestions of students to

overcome their possible difficulties as follow.

Firstly, to deal with unusual pronunciation as well as the strange

accents of native speakers in the recordings, students seem to be confused

to find their own solution. A great number of students prefer to consult

their teachers for assistance. It may be considered the good way if

teachers of English are qualified and have correct pronunciation.

However, they also complain that their teachers are not always free to

assist students’ problems. Hence, they would ask their friends who had

high scores in English subjects for help. They further explained that they

neither know how to check pronunciation in dictionary nor watch movies

or films to improve their pronunciation.

Asking friends seemed to be the most common way to solve

students’ difficulties. In other aspects such as the shortcomings of

vocabulary, background knowledge or exercises, students still preferred

their friends’ assistance. Some students said that they were not

comfortable to consult their teachers.

Lastly, students raised their expectation towards their teachers of

English and their school. Participants hoped that their teachers would

organize some more interesting activities in class, which might arouse

students’ interests and motivation. Students also suggested that teachers

could consider adapting more updated recordings and texts and expanding

the topics of recordings at the end of lessons. Some ideas were raised that

teachers could hold out-door activities for students to complete their

English together. For PNL high school, students expected that they would

45

have one or two English native teachers. Students wanted to communicate

with native speakers more.

4.3. IMPLICATIONS

Based on the findings, Literature and participants’ interviewed

answers, the researcher proposes some suggestion for teachers, students,

and Pham Ngu Lao high school for the difficulties in studying listening

skill.

4.3.1. Implications to teachers of English

Students’ awareness of the importance of the English listening skill

and their motivation in studying this skill should be raised by teachers.

Teachers are the ones who decide the activities in classroom;

meanwhile, choosing appropriate tasks for students influences

significantly on the amount of listening comprehension. The deployment

of three steps including pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening is

very important.

In pre-listening, students’ vocabulary and knowledge on the themes

or topics should be enhanced thanks to the teachers’ careful preparation.

Moreover, students need to be given clear instruction about the length,

genre, requirement of recordings and exercises. Understanding what they

are going to listen to, what type of information they should pay attention

to is definitely important in the success of listening comprehension.

Finally yet importantly, teachers should minimize students’ distraction

such as noise control, class management.

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After listening, teachers can use post-listening activities to check

the comprehension, evaluate listening skills and extend the knowledge

gained from the recordings. For instance, teachers play the recordings

again and stop at confused answers to help students understand clearly.

They also ask students to give clues to support their answers. The post-

listening can provide opportunities for students to expand the topics or

linguistic items of the recordings such as freely raising their opinions on

the topics or practicing with new words and grammatical structures. Extra

activities outside the class held by teachers to stimulate students’ interest

like discussion, debates or role-play are highly appreciated. Students will

be more confident and active in using English outside classroom.

The teacher could also collect more information and authentic

materials such as English videos and films for students. Furthermore, they

should consider the difference in English level of students when adapting

materials.

4.3.2. Implications to tenth form students

At pre-intermediate level, listening skill benefits students in

improving their pronunciation, vocabulary and communication; therefore,

students should have a high degree of autonomy in approaching this skill.

Widening vocabulary is very important as the limited vocabulary

poses difficulties to most of students. Hence, reading English books,

articles, magazines and watching English teaching programs on television

are learning strategies of some students. It will be more efficient if

students can have a habit of checking new words in English dictionary

from the beginning of their learning process. According to Vandergift

(1999) when students first begin to learn a language, they have

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difficulties listening for accurate meaning and learning to produce correct

sounds at the same time. Therefore, it will be better if they can get

familiar with using English dictionary to look into both meanings and

pronunciation of words (p.169).

With respect to the difficulty related to pronunciation, it is

advisable that students practice listening to native speakers’ voices

through English songs, English news or stories which are suitable for

their level.

4.3.3. Implications to Pham Ngu Lao high school

The first shortcomings of facilities for listening study should be

improved in both quality and quantity. It will be better if the school has a

multimedia room which is equipped with modern facilities such as

computers, loud speakers, objectors. This room can prevent the outside

noise as well as provide the best condition for students to practice

listening.

In school, it can establish the broadcasting station and broadcast

some information in English such as some life stories, news from outside

world, good personalities and the familiar things with students, etc. In

addition, the school can found the English club and hold various outside

class activities, which encourage students to use English and interact with

each other in English such as group work or pair work. They can arouse

interests, widen students’ outlook and intelligence, and cultivate listening

and speaking ability. According to investigation, the most popular outside

class activity is enjoying English program. If possible, school can adapt

some TV programs such as “Who wants to be a millionaire”, “Rings the

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golden bell” or “Way to Olympia”. Some English contests such as “Hot

singers” is also a good way to increase students’ learning interest.

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CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION

5.1. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

The paper has explored students’ perceived importance and

difficulties of studying English listening comprehension. Linguistic

aspects emerged as the biggest difficulties of tenth form students at PNL

high school. Among those language factors, phonetic barrier is the one

faced by a majority of students. Teaching strategies which have great

influence on students’ learning strategies are not received adequate

investment of teachers. Consequently, being not well-prepared to listen,

psychology of students significantly affect the amount of listening

comprehension. Furthermore, some topics and speech rate of recordings

challenge students as well. The results of the study also indicate that

listening comprehension are put little consideration by both students and

teachers of English though it is fundamental to other skills in learning a

foreign language. From the outcome of the study, the researcher has

provided some suggestions to teaching, learning listening skill at

Vietnamese high schools in general, and PLN high school in particular.

Listening competence is a complex skill that needs conscious

development. Guiding students through the process of listening provides

them with the knowledge from which they can successfully complete a

listening task; it also motivates them and puts them in control of their

learning (Vandergrift, 1999). That students’ perceived importance of

English listening skill brings a suggestion for emphasizing listening

comprehension, which highlights the importance of spending much more

time doing it.

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5.2. LIMITATIONS

The paper unavoidably has some limitations as followed. Firstly,

though much effort was put on looking for a well-designed and widely

accepted questionnaire, the questionnaire used in the study was designed

by the researcher herself mostly based on Literature review and students’

reflection. However, this questionnaire is still not satisfactory enough in

term of covering all issues related to listening comprehension. It would be

ideal if the researcher could have more time to have deeper look on the

matter and provide with more sufficient ideas from students at Pham Ngu

Lao high school.

With regard to the limitation of time and scale, the participants of

study counted to 215 students, which take up for more than a half of tenth

form students at PNL high school. Furthermore, the study was just

conducted at a high school of Hai phong city. Hence, the findings of the

study cannot be overgeneralized to other schools in Hai phong or widely

used over the country.

5.3. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

After this study, it is hoped that there would be more studies which

have larger scales and are processed in longer time in order to discover

students’ difficulties in studying listening skill at high schools in Vietnam.

Hence, educators in Vietnam may have an overall look on the issues of

teaching and learning English of high school students can come up with

practical plans to improve the issue. Moreover, the further study can

construct a better questionnaire

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REFERENCE

Anderson, A., & Lynch. (1988). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.301.

Arnold, W. E., McCroskey, J. C., & Prichard, S. V. O. (1967). The Likert-type scale. Today’s Speech, 15, 31-35

Retrieved from the World Wide Web at http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/25.htm

Brindley, G., P. (1982). Listening proficiency descriptions. Sydney: Adult Migrant Education Service.

Chen, Y. (2005). Barriers to acquiring listening strategies for EFL learners and their pedagogical implications. Retrieved from the World Wide Web at http://www.teslej.org/wordpress/issues/volume8/ej32/ej32a2/

Clark, Herbert H. & Clark, Eve V. (1977). Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.

Coakley, C., & Wolin, A. (1986). Listening in the native language. In B. H. Wing (Ed.), Listening, reading, and writing: Analysis and application (pp. 11-42). Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Dunkel, P. (1988). Academic Listening and Lecture Note-taking for L1/SL Students: The Need to Investigate the Utility of the Aximos of Good Note- taking. TESL Canada Journal, 6 (1988), 11-26.

Feyten, C. M. (1991). The Power of Listening Ability: An Overlooked Dimension in Language Acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 75:173-80.

“How to teach listening”. ELT methodology 2nd version. Hanoi: Falculty of English Language Teacher Education, Hanoi University of Languages and International studies-Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Faerch, C. and Kasper, G. (1986). The Role of Comprehension in SLL. Applied Linguistics, 7 (1986), 257-74.

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Ferris, D. and Tagg, T. (1996). Academic Listening/Speaking Tasks for ESL students: Problems, Suggestions, and Implications. TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer 1996

Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L. "Student Perception, Problems and Strategies in SL Comprehension." Journal of Language Learning and Research in South Asia, 23, No. 2 (1992), 60-80.

Griffiths, R. (1992). Speech rate and listening comprehension: Further evidence of the relationship. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 385-91.

Geddes, M. & Sturtridge, G. (Eds.). (1982). Individualisation. London: Modern English Publications.

Goh, C. (1997). Metacognitive awareness and second language listeners. ELT Journal, 51, 361–369.

Likert, R. (1932). A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes, Archives of Psychology, No.140. Paris: The University of Western Ontario.

Morley, J. (1991). Listening comprehension in second/foreign language

instruction. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or

foreign language (2nd ed., pp. 81-106). New York: Newbury House.

Nguyen, T., T., T. (2007). Some hindrances encountered by tenth form students in Hanoi in studying reading comprehension with the new English textbook 10-edition II. Hanoi: Falculty of English Language Teacher Education, Hanoi University of Languages and International studies-Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Nunan, D. (1997). Listening in Language learning.

Retrieved on http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/files/97/sep/nunan.html

O’Malley, J. M., & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language acquisition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Oxford, R. (1993). Research Update on L2 Listening. System 21:205-11.

Peacock (1997). Retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/pgr/egspll/volumel/PDFs/PEACOCKl. Pdf

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Rabiee, F. (2004). Focus-group interview and data analysis. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (2004), 63, 655–660

Richards, J. C. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure. TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 17, No, 2, June 1983

Sanchez, N. (1999). Communication process.

Retrieved on http://web.njit.edu/~lipuma/352comproc/comproc.htm

Strother, D. B. (1987). Practical applications of research: on listening. Phi Delta Kappan, 68 (8), April 1987, pp. 625-628.

Thompson, I. and J. Rubin (1996): “Can strategy instruction improve listening comprehension?” Foreign Language Annals 29-3, pp. 331-342

Vandergrift, L. (1999). Facilitating second language listening comprehension: acquiring successful strategies. ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176.

Wills, R. (2008). An Investigation of Factors Influencing English Listening

Comprehension and Possible Measures for Improvement. Australia: University of Tasmania.

Wilt, M., E. (1950). A study of teacher awareness of listening as a factor in elementary education. Journal of Educational Research, 43 (8), pp. 626-636.

Xu, F. (2011). Retrieved February 2011 from www.ccsenet.org/ies

International Education Studies Vol. 4, No. 1

Yagang, F. (1993). Listening: Problems and Solutions. English Teaching

Forum, January 31

Yousif, A. (2006 ). Listening Comprehension Difficulties. Saudi Arabia:

Department of English Language, College of Education, Almajmah.

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX I – QUESTIONNAIRES AND INTERVIEW

Follow-up interview

1. Does T help you to get familiar with topics before listening?

2. Does T often organize interesting warm-up activities before listening?

3. Do you receive clear instructions about recordings and exercise from your teachers? Do you need to be instructed carefully?

4. Do you often keep silent to listen to T’s instructions? Do you often pay attention to T’s instructions?

5. Do you think you are prepared well before listening?

6. Do you know what key words are? What types of words we should pay attention to when listening?

7. Does T ask you to find and analyze key words and important words in the exercises before listening?

8. Which aspects of new words (meaning, pronunciation, stress, the way to use that word) that you need your T’s explanation?

9. Do you feel comfortable before every listening lesson? Why and Why not?

10. Which factors of linguistic do you find difficult the most (pronunciation, vocabulary, speech rate)?

11. If you have any difficulty in studying listening skill, please specify your solutions to overcome these obstacles:

a. Vocabulary limitation:

b. Unfamiliar speakers’ accents and intonations:

c. Pronunciations

d. Lack of background knowledge:

e. Difficult questions in listening exercises

12. What are your expectations towards your teachers in improving listening competence for students?

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13. What are your expectations towards your teachers in improving listening competence for students?

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Questionnaire

I am Nguyen Thi Mai Trang from E1K41, ULIS,VNU. This survey intends to find out the difficulties in studying listening skill of 10th form students at Pham Ngu Lao high school. I would like to ask you to answer these following questions. Your cooperation is highly appreciated. The information you provide will be guaranteed and kept in secret.

The survey contains three parts:

Part 1_General information & Students’ perceived importance of listening skill

Part 2_ Students perceived difficulties

PART I_GENERAL INFORMATION & STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING SKILL

#1. How long have you been studying English? ……………years

#2. What is your average score of English subjects at secondary school?

#3. How do you evaluate the importance of listening skill? Please choose an appropriate number on the following scale:

Not at all important 1. 2 3 4 5. Extremely important

Please specify your choice

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

PART 2_STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED DIFFICULTIES

Please answer the following questions by using a tick on the appropriate number:

1. Strongly disagree 5. Strongly agree

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Section 1: Pre-listening 1 2 3 4 5

1. I am not helped to get familiar with topics before listening.

2. Teachers do not often organize interesting pre-activities related to topics before listening.

3. I do not receive clear instructions about recordings and exercises from teachers.

4. I often keep silent to listen to T’s instructions.

5. I often pay attention to T’s instructions.

6. I am not well-prepared before listening.

7. Teachers do not ask Ss to find and analyze key words and important words in the exercises before listening.

8. I cannot understand new words in exercises if teachers don’t elicit or explain them to me.

9. I often feel comfortable before every listening lesson

Section 2- While listening 1 2 3 4 5

10. I am unable to catch important and key words to do exercises

11. I am unable to recognize transitional words

12. I do not often pay attention to intonation of speakers to understand their emotion or attitudes.

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13. I hardly understand speakers’ strange accents and pronunciations

14. I am unable to catch information because of high speed rate.

15. The exercises are difficult to me because of tricky and long questions.

16. I have not practiced listening skill before.

17. I cannot be concentrated on listening to recordings from beginning to the end.

18. I do not have any background knowledge about the topics in the textbook.

19. I am unable to distinguish important words in a connected speech.

20. I find the pronunciation familiar but cannot recognize the words.

21. Listening facilities are in good quality.

Section 3- Post listening 1 2 3 4 5

22. I cannot answer teachers’ questions which check the understanding about contents of the recordings after listening.

23. Teachers do not check and correct exercises carefully after listening such as playing the recordings again, stopping at

the answers which students are confused and check the understanding of all students in class.

24. Teachers do not consolidate new language and structures in the recordings after listening.

25. Teachers do not organize activities to encourage students using language and structures after listening such as

discussion, debates or role-plays.

26. I have chance to give my opinions and my ideas about what I have learnt in the listening lesson.

Thanks for your cooperation!

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APPENDIX II

The original coursebook evaluation checklist

The following is the coursebook evaluation checklist designed by Peacock, retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/pgr/egspll/volumel/PDFs/PEACOCKl.pdf

The items that our group has changed or adjusted are highlighted.

COURSBOOK EVALUATION CHECKLIST

This checklist is designed for evaluating coursebooks used for teaching English as a Foreign Language to beginning to upper intermediate level adult learners.

Name of evaluator ........................................................................

Title of coursebook ......................................................................

Publisher ................................................................................

Date of publication.......................................................................

Stated level of learners ................................................................

Cost of student’s book .................................................................

Cost of teacher’s book .................................................................

Cost of cassette tapes ...................................................................

Is book now available (Yes/No) ........................................................ If No, when will it be available? ..................................................

This checklist is designed to produce a score for any coursebook evaluated. Scores are not explained in absolute terms but can be used for comparison if more than one coursebook is evaluated.

Rate the criteria below numerically on a scale from 0 to 2 in the blank space before each one, as follows:

2 = Good

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1 = Satisfactory

0 = Poor.

The scoring table is given at the end of the checklist.

Section I. General Impression

( ) 1. Flick through the book briefly. The overall appearance is attractive and will be appealing to learners.

( ) 2. Overall, the book appears to be up-to-date.

( ) 3. The book’s description of itself appears to match the contents.

Section II. Technical Quality

( ) 4. The book is durable, with a strong cover, and is printed on good quality paper.

( ) 5. The printing and illustrations are of high quality and the book has an attractive layout, without densely cluttered pages. It has been well edited.

( ) 6. Colour is used but not to a distracting extent.

Section III. Cultural Differences

( ) 7. Any cultural bias in the book is restricted to a degree acceptable to your learners.

( ) 8. (Teaching in a non-Western culture) Cultures other than Western or American are also portrayed in the book.

( ) 9. The cultural tone overall is appropriate for use in your setting.

Section IV. Appropriacy

( ) 10. The materials, language focus and activities are in general appropriate for your

learners.

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( ) 11. The coursebook will meet the long and short term goals specific to your

learners.

( ) 12. Learners are not asked to perform roles or activities unacceptable in your

setting.

( ) 13. The activities are adaptable to personal learning and teaching styles.

Section V. Motivation and the Learner

( ) 14. Materials used in the book are authentic and up-to-date to an acceptable degree.

( ) 15. Materials used have intrinsic interest and will appear relevant and interesting to learners.

( ) 16. Materials with variety and pace are used.

( ) 17. Personal involvement of learners in encouraged.

( ) 18. The book encourages learners to assume responsibility for their own learning.

( ) 19. There is a problem-solving and competitive element.

( ) 20. The book exploits the social nature of classrooms.

Section VI. Pedagogic Analysis

( ) 21. Methodologically the book is in line with your school’s approach to language learning.

( ) 22. Methodologically the book is in line with current worldwide theories and practices of language learning.

( ) 23. Pronunciation: there is sufficient work on recognition and production of individual sounds.

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( ) 24. Pronunciation: there is sufficient work on recognition and production of stress patterns and intonation.

( ) 25. The balance between listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills development in the book is appropriate to your particular learners and learning situation.

( ) 26. Skills integration is given sufficient attention.

( ) 27. The development of discourse and fluency skills is given sufficient attention.

( ) 28. The book contains adequate formal learner achievement tests.

( ) 29. There are activities for communicative interaction and the development of communicative strategies.

( ) 30. The balance between individual work, pairwork, groupwork, and whole-class

work in the book is appropriate for your particular learning situation.

( ) 31. One goal of the book is enabling learners to use English outside the classroom

situation.

( ) 32. New structures are presented systematically and in a meaningful context.

( ) 33. New items receive sufficient and varied practice.

( ) 34. The meaning of new vocabulary is presented in context.

( ) 35. The grading of new items is not too steep or to gentle for your learners.

( ) 36. In general the activities in the book are neither too difficult nor too easy for your learners.

( ) 37. The book is sufficiently challenging to learners.

( ) 38. There are mechanisms for giving regular feedback to learners.

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( ) 39. Units are not based around a storyline which may force the teacher to use every unit in sequence.

( ) 40. There is variety in the makeup of individual units.

( ) 41. Useful guidance is given to learners on correct use of the book.

( ) 42. The style of speech and texts used is appropriate for our learners.

( ) 43. There is provision for the book to be used for self-study by lone learners.

( ) 44. New items are reviewed and recycled throughout the book.

( ) 45. The book matches the syllabus of your school to a sufficient extent.

Section VII. Finding Your Way Through the Student’s Book

( ) 46. There is an adequate contents page.

( ) 47. There is a comprehensive index.

( ) 48. There is a complete summary of functions.

( ) 49. There is a summary of new and reviewed grammar.

( ) 50. There is a list of topics used in the book.

( ) 51. There is a list of new vocabulary.

( ) 52. If tapes are used, there is a transcript in the student’s and/ or teacher’s book.

( ) 53. Sufficient guidance is given for the needs of both experienced and inexperienced teachers.

Section VIII. Supplementary Materials

( ) 54. A teacher’s book is available and it gives useful and complete guidance, along with alternative activities.

( ) 55. A workbook is available and it contains appropriate supplementary activities.

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( ) 56. Cassette tapes are of good quality construction.

( ) 57. Sound quality of tapes is good with no hissing, distortion, background noise, or other problems.

( ) 58. Tapes have a variety of voices and they are native speakers talking at normal speed.

( ) 59. If the book is part of a series, other books in the series are also suitable for use in your school.

( ) 60. The coursebook, teacher’s book, tapes and workbook are not prohibitively expensive for your students/school.

What materials or activities are missing from the book which should be included?

.....................................................................................................................

What helpful ways of learning are missing from the book which should be included?

.....................................................................................................................

Other comments: ..................................................................................

Summation:- ......................................................................................

Evaluator’s Signature ...................................................... Date: ……/……/……..

SCORING TABLE

There are 60 items on the checklist, with 2 points possible for each item. Items should be weighted before using the checklist to reflect their relative importance in your teaching situation.

Scoring procedure:

(a) Enter the desired weightings in the ‘weight’ column. (b) Enter the score you gave for each item. (c) Multiply each score by its weighting factor. (d) Add up the totals to get the final score.

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ITEM

SCORE

WEIGH

TOTAL

ITEM

SCORE WEIGHT

TOTAL 1. X = 31. X = 2. X = 32. X = 3. X = 33. X = 4. X = 34. X = 5. X = 35. X = 6. X = 36. X = 7. X = 37. X = 8. X = 38. X = 9. X = 39. X = 10. X = 40. X = 11. X = 41. X = 12. X = 42. X = 13. X = 43. X = 14. X = 44. X = 15. X = 45. X = 16. X = 46. X = 17. X = 47. X = 18. X = 48. X = 19. X = 49. X = 20. X = 50. X = 21. X = 51. X = 22. X = 52. X = 23. X = 53. X = 24. X = 54. X = 25. X = 55. X = 26. X = 56. X = 27. X = 57. X = 28. X = 58. X = 29. X = 59. X = 30. X = 60. X =

Subtotal:…….. Subtotal:……..

TOTAL SCORE FOR THE COURSEBOOK ......................................

Note: The coursebook should be reassessed periodically in the light of the results of learner achievement tests and learner and teacher judgments.