VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ĐẶNG THỊ HỒNG NHUNG AN EXPLORATION INTO DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE TEACHERS IN TEACHING LISTENING TO NON –ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy nghe cho hệ không chuyên trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Course: 16 Hanoi - 2010 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ĐẶNG THỊ HỒNG NHUNG AN EXPLORATION INTO DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE TEACHERS IN TEACHING LISTENING TO NON –ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy nghe cho hệ không chuyên trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Course: 16 Supervior: Phạm Minh Tâm, M.Ed Hanoi - 2010 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Certificate i Acknowledgements ii Table of contents iii List of tables, charts and pie charts v CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study and research problem statement 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Methodology 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study CHATER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of Listening 2.2 Nature of Listening Comprehension 2.2.1 Listening Comprehension 2.2.2 Listening Process 2.2.3 The Features of Spoken English 2.3 Procedure of Listening Lessons 11 2.3.1 Pre – listening stage 11 2.3.2 While – listening stage 12 2.3.3 Post – listening stage 13 2.4 Roles of Teachers in Listening Lessons 13 2.5 An Overview of Common Difficulties in Teaching Listening 14 2.6 Previous Studies 14 2.7 Conclusive Remarks 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 Research Context 16 3.2 Research Questions 16 iv 3.3 Research Approach 16 3.4 Participants 17 3.5 Data Collection Instrument 17 3.6 Data Collection Procedure 17 3.7 Data Analysis Procedure 18 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 4.1 Data Analysis and Results 19 4.1.1 The teachers’ opinions towards teaching listening comprehension 19 4.1.2 The teachers’ perception of factors making their teaching of listening difficult 19 4.1.3 The teachers’ perception towards the importance of the features of spoken English in learning listening comprehension 20 4.1.4 The teachers’ exploitation of the features of spoken English into teaching listening 21 4.1.5 The teachers’ activities in pre – listening stage 23 4.1.6 The teachers’ activities in while– listening stage 24 4.1.7 The teachers’ activities in post – listening stage 25 4.1.8 The teachers’ exploitation of teaching aids 26 4.1.9 The teachers’ exploitation of the listening materials 27 4.2 Findings and Discussion 28 4.2.1 The teachers’ lack of experience in teaching 28 4.2.2 The inefficiency in the teaching methodology 28 4.2.3 The teachers’ limitations in exploiting teaching materials and teaching aids 30 CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMENDATIONS 31 5.1 Developing the listening materials 31 5.2 Encouraging the students’ internal factors 32 5.3 Combining intensive listening with extensive listening 32 5.4 Applying three stages in teaching listening effectively 33 5.5 Teaching listening strategies for students 34 5.6 Combining teaching listening comprehension with teaching other aspects of English 36 v CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 36 6.1 Summary of the findings 36 6.2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 37 REFERENCES APPENDIX vi LIST OF TABLES AND PIE CHARTS List of pie charts Pie chart 1: The teachers’ view of the importance of teaching listening comprehension Page 14 compared with other skills List of tables Table 1: The teachers’ perception of factors making their teaching difficult 14 Table 2: The teachers’ perception towards the importance of the features of spoken 15 English in learning listening comprehension Table 3: The teachers’ exploitation of the features of spoken English into teaching 16 listening Table 4: The teachers’ activities in Pre – listening stage 16 Table 5: The teachers’ activities in while listening stage 19 Table 6: The teachers’ activities in post – listening stage 20 Table 7: The teachers’ use of teaching aids in teaching listening comprehension 21 Table 8: The teachers’ exploitation of the course books 22 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study and research problem statement As an international language, English has been remarked with many changes, notably the changes in the movement towards the teaching of English Teaching and learning English in Vietnam is not excluded from the international trend as Vietnam is broadening and improving the relationship and co – operation with other countries in many fields of life As a result, English has become a compulsory subject at various schools and universities Teaching a foreign language refers to teaching different aspects including: grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and four skills which are: writing, reading, speaking and listening These different aspects are equally significant in mastering a language and they should be developed thoroughly Along with other skills, listening has been of great importance as Brett (1997, p.39) stated that “listening is a key language skill, it has a vital role in the language acquisition process” The research by Morley (2001) concluded that average people can expect to listen “twice as much as we speak, four times more than what we read and five times more than we usually write” In addition, Michael Lewis (1993, p.32) emphasized that “Almost all the world‟s natural language output is spoken rather written” Therefore, there has also been an increase in the number of studies on the role of listening in communication and in language learning (Dunkel, 1991; Anderson and Lynch, 1988) Listening provides input, consequently, improving listening ability helps to widen students‟ input Thus, teaching listening effectively is very necessary and important in order to support students‟ input and improve students‟ language acquisition However, listening seems to get less attention by a number of learners as they suppose that listening is the most difficult skill among four skills At Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI), listening is a big challenge for many first year students who rarely have chance to practice listening at high schools The students have the habit of ignoring listening which makes the teaching of listening become a challenge for the teachers Moreover, the ineffectiveness in teaching listening is the key reason that creates troubles for the teachers in their work 1.2 Aims of the Study The study is intended to examine the teachers‟ difficulties in teaching listening comprehension to the first students The study will find the answers to the following questions: What are the difficulties as perceived by the teachers in teaching listening at Hanoi University of Industry? What are the possible suggestions and recommendations to overcome the difficulties perceived by the teachers in teaching listening comprehension? 1.3 Methodology The study was conducted in accordance with the survey approach That is because the study focused on the teachers‟ attitude at HaUI towards the teaching of listening comprehension to find out their difficulties The data was collected from the survey questionnaire done on 30 full time teachers of English at HaUI 1.4 Scope of the study This minor thesis was conducted in Hanoi University of Industry in order to investigate the difficulties as perceived by the teachers in teaching listening comprehension The study focused on surveying the methods that the teachers at HaUI use to teaching listening comprehension which has created troubles for themselves The thesis also offered some suggestions and recommendations to overcome the problems 1.5 Significance of the study This study contributed to list out the difficulties faced by the teachers at Hanoi University of Industry in teaching listening comprehension More importantly, the results of the research are believed to serve the purpose of improving the teaching of listening to the first year students at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) 1.6 Design of the study The study contains of six chapters Chapter 1: presents the background, the significance, the aims and scope of the study Chapter 2: presents the theoretical background relevant to the study Chapter 3: describes the setting of the study which is the current situation of teaching and learning listening comprehension at Hanoi, University of Industry Chapter 4: deals with analyzing the data collected Chapter 5: provides the findings of the study and recommends suggestions for improving the teaching of listening comprehension at HaUI Chapter 6: gives the summary of the thesis and suggestions for further study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of listening Listening is one of the four important skills in learning a foreign language which are: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing For years, listening and reading were thought of as passive skills while speaking and writing were active skills Indeed, until the late 1970s, listening received not much attention as other skills Present studies on listening have different views from the former one According to Helgesen (2003, p.24) “listening is an active, purposeful of making sense of what we hear” Similarly, Rubin (1995, p.7) defined listening as “an active process of understanding speech in which listeners select and interpret information which comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express” Following Anderson and Lynch„s definition (1988), “listening is really a receptive skill along side reading skills and the role of the listeners is no – longer passive but active” Listening is quite different from hearing In Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary, listening is defined as “to give attention to someone or something in order to hear them” while hearing is defined as “the ability to hear” In other words, “listening requires the active attention – and an active intention – on the part of the hearer” (Helgesen, 2003, p 4) In teaching listening, it is necessary to mention about listening skills and listening strategies Rost (1991) emphasized the skills necessary for listening comprehension which are perception skill (for example: discriminating between sounds or recognizing words…), analysis skill (such as identifying grammatical grouping of words) and synthesis skill (for instance: connecting linguistic cues like intonation and stress and non – linguistic cues like gestures and relevant objects to construct the meaning of spoken texts In addition, Rost (1991) mentioned about using background knowledge and context to predict and understand spoken texts These above factors make up a person‟s listening ability Thus, in order to improve learners‟ listening skill, teachers should encourage their students to use listening strategies which help them become better listeners “Strategies are effort to compensate for uncertainties in understanding, and could include inferences, realizing where misunderstandings have occurred, and asking for clarification.” (Mary Underwood, ... MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy nghe cho hệ không chuyên trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 601410... countries in many fields of life As a result, English has become a compulsory subject at various schools and universities Teaching a foreign language refers to teaching different aspects including:... big challenge for many first year students who rarely have chance to practice listening at high schools The students have the habit of ignoring listening which makes the teaching of listening become