A study on the use of listening test-taking strategies and their relationship with students' performance at Que Vo I Upper Secondary School in Bacninh Lê Thị Thúy Hà Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Prof.Dr. Nguyễn Văn Độ Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Abstract: This study examines 165 (in 4 groups) Que Vo I upper-secondary school students’ test-taking strategies and their relationship with listening performance. It further looks into how students adjust their strategies under different task conditions. The participants will complete a three-phase (before/during/after) test-taking questionnaire and will be given a listening test comprising tasks. After each subtest, students will report the strategies used based on a strategy list, and further “wrote in” their own strategies. The results show that all students favor some strategies, regardless of their listening proficiency. The difference between high- and low-level students is not in the number of strategies used but in the preferential order and frequency of use. Students’ listening performance had a strong correlation with the strategy used before the test-taking phase. Based on students’ reported strategies it was found that students were able to adjust their strategy use according to the change in task conditions, the same strategy may be used in different ways and for different purposes by different levels of students, some strategies are interrelated and are used concurrently, and test-taking strategy involves multiple dimensions, making it difficult to tease out one factor from another. Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Thủ thuật nghe; Bài kiểm tra; Kỹ năng nghe. iv Content: TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract Table of contents List of charts and tables Part one: Introduction……………………………………………………… 1. Rationale…………………………………………………………………… 2. The aims of the study…………………………………………………… 3. Scope of the study…………………………………………………………. 4. Research questions………………………………………………………… 5. Research methodology…………………………………………………… 6. The design of the study…………………………………………………… Part two: Development…………………………………………………… Chapter one: Literature review…………………………………………… 1.Introduction……………………………………………………………… 1.1. Listening strategies…………………………………………………… 1.2. Listening test/task………………………………………………………. 2. Listening Strategies in Second Language Learning 3. Listening Task in Relation to Task Performance and Strategy Use Chapter two: Methodology…………………………………………………. II.1.The setting of the study………………………………………………… II.1.1.Overview of the new “Tiếng Anh 12” textbook………………………… II.1.1.1.General description……………………………………………… II.1.1.2.Listening skill in the textbook………………………………….… II.1.1.2.1. Stages of teaching listening ……………………… v II.1.1.2.2. Listening skills, tasks and activities……………………… II.1.2.The context of teaching and learning listening skill at upper-secondary school II.1.2.1.In Vietnam II.1.2.2.At Que Vo I upper-secondary school……………………………… II.2. Research methodology II.2.1. Research questions II.2.2. Subject of the study II.2.3.The data collection Instruments II.2.4.Procedure II.2.5.Data Analysis Chapter three: Results and Discussions……………………………………………… III.1.Questionnaire Results III.2.The Listening Test Results and researcher’s observations III.2.1.The Listening Test Results III.2.2.Researcher’s observation III.3.Students’ Strategy Use Under Different Test Tasks Part three: Conclusions, Recommendations and implications on listening teaching… I. Conclusions………………………………………………………………………… II. Recommendations……………………………………………………………………. III. Limitations and suggestions for further studies…………………………………… Reference…………………………………………………………………… Appendix 1………………………………………………………………… Appendix 2………………………………………………………………… Appendix 3………………………………………………………………… vi Appendix 4………………………………………………………………… LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS LP: language proficiency HLP: High language proficiency MLP: Medium language proficiency LLP: Low language proficiency * Strategy likely stimulated by the treatment. ◊ Strategies reported by students. vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary of the Test Procedure Table 2: Statistics for Participants Responding to Listening Test-taking Strategy Questionnaire Table 3: Student Performance for Four Forms of Listening Support Table 4: Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Repeated Input Table 5: Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Vocabulary Support Table 6. Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Previewing Test Questions Table 7. Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Topical Knowledge Stimulus 1 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Second language listening comprehension is a complex process and crucial in the development of second language competence; yet, the importance of listening in language learning has only been recognized relatively recently (Nunan,1998;Celce-Murcia, 2001). Since the role of listening comprehension in language learning was either overlooked or undervalued, it merited little research and pedagogical attention in the past. But at present, some researchers have devoted some time to listening and believe it to be an important skill in teaching and learning. For instance, Nunan (1998) believes that: “… listening is the basic skill in language learning. Without listening skill, learners will never learn to communicate effectively. In fact over 50% of the time that students spend functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to listening….” (p. 1) As listening is assuming greater importance in foreign language classrooms and in language acquisition (see, e.g., Nord , 1978; Byrnes, 1984; Long, 1989; Feyten, 1991; Dunkel, 1991),the new textbook which is designed based on communicative approach driving at developing and consolidating communicative skills like speaking ,reading , writing and listening was introduced to schools over our country for several years. For several years of the application of the new textbook at my upper-secondary school, there are many listening problems emerge .One of the most serious problem is that students find listening difficult and touch to listen to and they are anxious, not confident enough to do listening tasks or listening tests successfully. For more than ten- year- teaching English experience and through the observation and talking with students, I find that what make them anxious and fail in listening tasks or listening tests is the strategies they use. Therefore, my minor thesis here studies the use of listening test-taking strategies and their relationship with Students’ performance. 2.The aims of the study The study aims to reach the following targets: 2 -Studying the listening strategies used by students when taking a listening test: the frequency and vary in listening proficiency in using strategies at three diffirent phases through survey questionaire and students’written report -Investigating their use of test-taking strategies correlate with their listening performance -Suggesting recommendations to improve listening teaching and learning at Que Vo I upper- secondary school. 3.Scope of the study This minor thesis conducted at Que Vo I upper-secondary school used a listening test-taking strategy questionnaire to explore listeners’ general picture of test-taking strategies at three different stages—before, during, and after a test, then further investigated any correlation with listening test performances, and finally a student report was used to examine how HLP and LLP students adjusted their strategy use under different test task conditions. There are a number of reasons for this choice: - Listening is still a rather new skill to the students and teachers at Que Vo I upper-secondary school -It is difficult and a nightmare to the students -Students always get bad marks and they are always lack of confidence for the listening tests Besides, at the present pedagogical context ,out of the three grades: grade 10,grade 11, grade 12, grade 12 is the most reliable to classify into different language proficiency and they are experienced and armed with most listening strategies .Therefore, students of grade 12 were chosen . 4. Research questions In order to achieve the aims mentioned in the section two, the present study focused on answering the following question: 1. How does the use of test-taking strategies correlate with learners’listening performance? Beside that answer the two sub-questions to help the teachers to find out good way to improve students’ listening competence and performance 3 1. What strategies are the most and the least frequently used by the learners when taking a test? How are students of varying listening proficiencies similar or different in their strategy use at the three different phases? 2 .Do students of different levels of listening proficiency use different strategies for different test tasks? If so, what are the strategies? 5. Research methodology The research is done by both qualitative and quantitative methods: It is carried out on the basic of the situation analysis, material collection, survey questionnaires , class observations , and students’ written reports. In the first place, situation analysis, has a low at the background to the study including the description of the current context at Que Vo I upper-secondary school and listening skill in the new textbook“ Tiếng Anh 12”.Secondly, for the theoretical basis ,a lot of reference materials on listening methodology and problems have been gathered, analyzed and synthetized thoroughly with the due consideration for teachers’ teaching and students’ learning situations. Eventually, for the practical basis, questionnaires, class observations, reports were carried out with the students to gather the most reliable data for analysis to find the answers to the research questions as mentioned above. 6. Design of the study The study consists of three parts: Introduction, development and conclusion The first part is the introduction, which provides information about rationale, purposes, scope and significance of the topic as well as research questions, method and design of the study The development part consists of four chapters: literature review, research methodology, results and discussion, and recommendations. Chapter one, literature review of listening comprehension problems, listening comprehension strategies and Listening Task in Relation to Task Performance and Strategy Use. Chapter two, methodology, presents in details the setting, and procedures as well. Chapter three, results and discussion concerns the findings, discussions and implications of the study. Chapter four, recommendations, concerns the 4 researcher’s recommendations and suggestions for enhancing the effectiveness of teaching and learning listening skill. 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