VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ************** NGUYỄN THỊ LỆ THỦY TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 11TH-GRADE AT DAIMO HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (Khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy kĩ nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 11 Trường THPT Đại Mỗ, Hà Nội số giải pháp) M.A Minor Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Hanoi – 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ************** NGUYỄN THỊ LỆ THỦY TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO THE 11TH-GRADE AT DAIMO HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (Khó khăn giáo viên việc dạy kĩ nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp 11 Trường THPT Đại Mỗ, Hà Nội số giải pháp) M.A Minor Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor: CHU THỊ PHƯƠNG VÂN M.A Hanoi - 2011 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations viii List of tables and charts viii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and objectives of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definitions of listening 1.2 Communicative approaches to listening comprehension 1.3 Stages of a listening lesson 1.3.1 Pre-listening stage 1.3.2 While-listening stage 1.3.3 Post-listening stage v 1.4 The teacher’s role in the listening lesson 10 1.5 Potential problems in learning ELS 12 1.6 Strategies of listening comprehension 13 1.7 Role of motivation, interest and relevance in learning ELS 14 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 16 2.1 Introduction of language teaching and learning conditions in DM school 16 2.1.1 Subjective factors_Human 16 2.1.1.1 The learners_ Grade 11th students 16 2.1.1.2 The teachers 16 2.1.2 Objective factors_Teaching and learning conditions 17 2.1.2.1 Teaching aids 17 2.1.2.2 Duration 17 2.1.2.3 Class size 17 2.2 The new “Tieng Anh 11” textbook 17 2.2.1 Grade 11 listening objects 18 2.2.2 Listening lessons 18 2.3 Research questions 18 2.4 Data collection instruments 19 2.4.1 Instrument one: Questionnaires 19 2.4.2 Instrument two: Interviews 19 2.5 Summary 20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 21 3.1 Questionnaires 21 vi 3.1.1 Questionnaires for students 21 3.1.2 Questionnaires for teachers 28 3.2 Results of the interviews 34 3.3 Summary 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTED SOLUSIONS 38 4.1 Findings 38 4.1.1 Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching ELS 38 4.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards learning ELS 38 4.1.3 Students’ difficulties in learning ELS 39 4.1.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ELS to grade 11 students 39 4.2 Suggested solutions 40 4.2.1 Doing a pre-listening warm up activity effectively 40 4.2.2 Encouraging students to practice ELS outside the classroom 40 4.2.3 Giving support and encouragement 41 4.2.4 Upgrading teaching aids 42 4.2.5 Adapting and re-designing the tasks 42 4.2.6 Equipping students with listening strategies 42 4.3 Summary 43 PART III: CONCLUSIONS 44 Summary of the study 44 Limitations of the study 44 Recommendations for further study 45 vii REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students I Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers III Appendix 3: Interview questions for teachers V Appendix 4: Topics of the listening texts in English textbook 11 VI viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DM school Dai Mo high school ELS English Listening Skill Ss Students LIST OF TABLES Tables Titles Pages Table Teachers’ techniques of encouraging students 25 Table Students’ evaluation on other students’ participation 26 Table Factors affecting students’ difficulties in learning ELS 27 Table Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS 28 Table Teachers’ assessment and attitudes towards ELS 29 Table Teachers’ assessment of listening topics & tasks in “Tieng Anh 29 11” textbook Table Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons 30 Table Teachers’ opinions of the difficult stage(s) of a listening lesson 30 Table Difficulties encountered by the teachers 31 Table 10 The frequency of teachers’ using techniques in a listening lesson 33 Table 11 Teachers’ suggested solutions to improve listening teaching 34 Table 12 Four teachers’ answering interview questions 36 ix LIST OF CHARTS Charts Titles Pages Chart Students’ assessment of their listening abilities 21 Chart Students’ attitudes towards the importance of listening skills 22 Chart Students' frequency of listening to English outside the class 23 Chart Students’ assessment of tasks in the “Tieng Anh 11” textbook 23 Chart Students’ attitudes towards the appropriate time for learning ELS 24 Chart How students discuss their listening comprehension problems 25 -1- PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In this new era of globalization, English language becomes the international language It has become the most popular language of communication among countries and in many fields of human endeavor So it is important that we learn to use English if we not want to be old fashioned Therefore, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English in the world as well as in Vietnam In order to use English effectively, learners need to develop communicative competence Accordingly, they should be helped to develop four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency Aware of the importance of teaching listening skills, all the teachers of Dai Mo high school are trying their best to make the listening lessons effective The teachers themselves always try to find out the best approach to apply in teaching However, the quality of learning and teaching English listening skills still remains very low Therefore, this thesis takes a critical look at the real situation of teaching and learning listening skills at Dai Mo high school to explore the problems as well as to suggest some feasible solutions From the real experience in teaching, the researcher attempts to carry out a research to make the problems clear Aim and objectives of the study Within the frame work of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at: - Clarifying the practices of teaching and learning ELS in grades 11 in DM school - Finding out the difficulties teachers and students in grades 11 in DM school have had to undergo - Suggesting some feasible solutions to the teaching of ELS for grade 11 It may appear contradictory that in the first two concentrations, the study attempts to investigate both teaching and learning of ELS whereas the main topic raised in the title of the study is only about the teaching However, according to Brown (2007), it is not a contradiction “if we look at the teaching process as the facilitation of learning.” -2- Scope of the study Learning a second language as a scholar once said “is a long and complex undertaking” Therefore, teachers of a second language certainly have many problems during their teaching In the scope of this research, however, the researcher only has ambition to investigate the difficulties that teachers in DM school have been faced when teaching listening skill for 11th graders Hopefully, they will have more smooth and successful listening lessons Also, it is not expected that the study can bring solutions to the ELS teaching for students of all levels Methods of the study The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods Besides, many resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers and some sources on the Internet have been read by the researcher In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will be collected through two survey questionnaires One survey questionnaire is for 140 students from five different groups in grade 11 in DM school and the other survey is for teachers teaching English for grades 11 during the time they took part in the survey The data, then, will be processed and analyzed to yield conclusions for the study Along with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained by informal interviews with some teachers to collect further information about the real situations of teaching and learning ESL in grades 11 at DM school Significance of the study This research provides an insight into the difficulties that are often met by teachers teaching English for grades 11 in DM school In addition, this research also points out some feasible solutions which are beneficial for both teachers and students Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help to the improvement of the teaching and learning ELS of Vietnamese students in general and of DM school students in particular The study also gives some guidelines for teachers to ... are selecting and interpreting Selecting means that in the process of making sense of the input, listeners use only part of the incoming information whereas interpreting means in trying to make... effective The teachers themselves always try to find out the best approach to apply in teaching However, the quality of learning and teaching English listening skills still remains very low Therefore,... feasible solutions to the teaching of ELS for grade 11 It may appear contradictory that in the first two concentrations, the study attempts to investigate both teaching and learning of ELS whereas the