VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES


PHẠM TUYẾT LINH
DESIGNING A LISTENING SYLLABUS FOR GRADE 10
ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN SPECIALIZING
UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH NGHE CHO HỌC SINH CHUYÊN ANH
10 TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN THÁI NGUYÊN M.A. MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10
SUPERVISOR: MAI THỊ LOAN, M. A HA NOI - 2010iii

1.3.2. Listening strategies 9
1.3.3. Listening process 10
CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND DATA ANALYSIS 12
2.1. Questionnaire 12
2.1.1. Aims of the questionnaire 12
2.1.2. Participants 12
2.1.3. Findings and data analysis 12
2.1.3.1. Learning situation 12
2.1.3.2. Student’s needs 15
2.2. Listening test 18
2.2.1. Aims of the listening test 18
2.2.2. Participants 18
2.2.3. Findings and data analysis 18
2.3. Interview 19 iv

2.3.1. Aims of the interview 19
2.3.2. Participants 19
2.3.3. Findings and data analysis 19
2.3.3.1. Teaching situation 19
2.3.3.2. Teachers’ needs 20
2.3.3.3. Currently used materials 22
2.4. Summary 25
CHAPTER 3: A PROPOSED SYLLABUS 26
3.1. Introduction 26
3.2. The proposed syllabus 26
3.2.1. The descriptions of the syllabus 26
3.2.2. Goals and objectives of the syllabus 26

v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TNSUSS: Thai Nguyen Specializing Upper Secondary School
IELTS: The International English Language Testing System
MOET: Ministry of Education and Training
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
1

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
TNSUSS was founded in 1988 with the mission to select and train gifted students for Thai
Nguyen province. Every year, the English gifted students in grade 11 and 12 of the school
have to take the national exam for gifted students. To help the students gain the best
results, the teachers of English specializing classes have to work very hard to prepare the
materials for their teaching. This work takes them a lot of time and money, and they
always feel tired of preparing the materials as they have to select the materials themselves
from different sources such as: internet, different textbooks, magazines etc. As a result, the
selected topics are monotonous, and the content is illogical and unsystematic. The teachers
cannot only use the current textbook for their teaching because it is designed for only
normal students, not for gifted students. Up to now, MOET has not edited a standard
syllabus to meet the current requirements and difficulty level of the national exams for
gifted students at specializing upper secondary schools. Thus, if the English gifted only
learn this type of the documents, they will not get high scores in national exam, especially
in listening part. According to Anh (2006:14) the objectives of the new textbook for
listening part are: “After the course, students can understand and identify main ideas,
specific details of the conversations, monologue or spoken texts with 150 words to 200
words at low speed”. Whereas, the format of the listening test in national exam is based on
the format of IELTS tests. It means that students have to listen to the spoken text with from
250 to 350 words at rather high speed. Thus, it is necessary to design a listening
supplementary for teachers and gifted students at TNSUSS to reduce the teachers’
workload in finding and selecting materials. Moreover, as mentioned above, the students
find it challenging in listening skill, not only because of the materials but also due to their

designing supplementary syllabi for grade 11 and 12 English gifted students, especially for
gifted students of national team.
5. Methods of the study
To find the answers for the research questions above, the researcher used both
quantitative research method and qualitative method. Data were collected through three data
collection instruments. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 37 grade 10 English gifted
students to find out learning situation and students’ need. Besides, a listening test was designed
to evaluate students’ listening proficiency level. And an informal interview was conducted
among 5 teachers of English specializing classes to investigate teaching situation and teachers’
needs. To analyze data, the researcher followed statistical procedure, from reporting, counting
data to coding questionnaire data and data of listening test, classifying, and summarizing data.
Besides, the recorded interviews and stimulated recalls were transcribed, analyzed and
synthesized in order to provide a deeper insight into the matter of concern. 3

6. Scope of the study
The focus of the study is on designing a listening syllabus for grade 10 English gifted
students at TNSUSS. Since, to design a series of supplementary syllabi for English gifted
students in grade 10, 11 and 12 would require a lot of time and effort from the designers.
Therefore, the researcher concentrated on designing a listening syllabus for only gifted
students in grade 10.
7. Design of the study
The study was organized in three parts:
Part I- Introduction- provided the rationale, aims, research questions, significance,
methods and design of the study.
Part II- Development- included three chapters:
Chapter 1 presented an overview of related literature on syllabus design, need
analysis and listening comprehension.

comprehension, and listening processes. These discussions would lay the foundation for
the design of the listening syllabus presented in the next chapter.
1.1. Syllabus design
1.1.1. Definition of syllabus
The term “syllabus” is not new in language teaching, but it is rather difficult in defining
what a syllabus is, according to Nunan (1988:5): “there is some different disagreement
about the nature of “the syllabus”. And he points out the roof of the problem is that the
syllabus design is defined based on two views: the broad and the narrow approach.
Some language specialists, who back up the narrow view, such as Widdowson (1984 cited
in Nunan 1988:5), and Nunan (1988:5) indicate that syllabus and methodology should be
kept separate. In narrow view, Nunan (1988: 5) states “ syllabus design is seen as being
concerned essentially with the selection and grading content, while methodology is
concerned with the selection of learning tasks and activities”. Allen (1984: 61 cited in
Nunan 1988:5) advocates by defining: “Syllabus is concerned with a specification of what
units will be taught as distinct from how they will be taught, which a matter for
methodology is”. According to Widdowson (1984: 26 cited in Nunan 1988:5): “the
syllabus is simply a framework within which activities can be carried out: a teaching
device to facilitate learning”. Hutchinson & Waters (1987:80) point out: “A syllabus is a
document which says what will (or at least what should) be learnt”.
In contrast to the narrow view, some other scholars adopt a “broader view”, which argues
that with the advent of communicative language teaching, the distinction between content
and task is difficult to sustain. One of the authors who advocate broad view, Dave (1990:1)
defines: “The syllabus specifies what is to be learned and the methodology tells us how to
be learned”. He also states that “there need be no conflict between the two. We can specify
a syllabus in whatever way seems sensible; and can then use whatever methodology we 5

want in order to transmit our syllabus content”. More specifically, Yalden (1984:14, cited


6

Nunan (1988: 26-40) summarizes two main types of syllabus: the product – oriented
syllabuses and the process – oriented syllabuses.
The former contains the following types: Grammatical syllabuses, functional – notional
syllabuses, analytic syllabuses, which focus on the knowledge and skills learners should
gain as a result of instructions.
The latter includes such types as: procedural syllabuses, task – based syllabuses, content
syllabuses, which focus on the learning experience themselves.
There have been many different classifications, each has its own advantages and
disadvantages. Choosing or employing which syllabus type will depend on a consideration
of the learners’ needs and the objectives of the course.
In the study, the researcher chose skills-based syllabus for the study.
* Skill - based syllabus
The second type of the syllabus I chose for my study was skill- based syllabus. I used it in
this study on account of its primary purpose was to learn the specific language skill. Skill-
based syllabus traditionally gathers linguistic abilities (pronunciation, vocabulary,
grammar and discourse) together into generalized types of behavior, such as writing
business letters, listening to spoken language for the main idea, oral skills for business
people, giving effective oral presentations, and so on. Moreover, Robinson (1991:37)
defines skill- based syllabus as “something of a half way house between content or product
syllabuses on the one side and method or process syllabuses on the other”. The content of
the language teaching is a selection of competences that may play a part in using language.
1.1.3. Steps in designing a syllabus
According to Munby (1983: 58), designing a syllabus involves a logical sequence of three
stages: The first step is need analysis, the second one is content specification, and the last
is syllabus organization
Nunan (1988) has a different idea. He believes that there are four steps in syllabus
designing: The first stage is need analysis, the second one is setting goals, the third one is

and on the positive side: what potential can be exploited”.
In needs analysis, we should consider two components: target needs and learning needs.
1.2.3. Components of need analysis
1.2.3.1. Target needs
Target needs can be defined in terms of necessities, lacks and wants as follows:
The first component of target need is necessity. Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 55) claim
that “necessities is type of need determined by the demands of the target situation, that is,
what the learner has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation”. The
researcher agreed with their view, I found that investigating the necessity would bring
benefit to my study. Because by determining the demand of the target situation the
researcher would know what linguistic features should be involved in the syllabus. 8

The second component of target need is lacks. According to Hutchinson & Water
(1987:54) “Lacks refer to the starting points, that is, you need to know what the learner
knows already, so that you can then decide which of the necessities the learner lacks”. In
this study, it was very necessary for the researcher to know what the learner had already
known and what the learner wished to achieve at the end of the course. Furthermore, the
researcher wanted to know the gap between the target proficiency and the existing
proficiency of her learners.
The last component of target need is wants. Hutchinson & Water (1987:54) state that wants
concern to what that destination should be. Wants are learners’ awareness of needs, which
is a matter of perception. Wants are subjective needs. Thus, the researcher would like to
find out the students’ wants in order to know what they were interested in listening
comprehension, what topics, and tasks they preferred.
1.2.3.2. Learning needs
Besides the target needs, I thought that learning needs is also important in designing a
syllabus. Because, it indicated what were necessary for students to study. The definition of

purposeful. Listeners always have a reason for listening, i.e. listening for what is relevant,
necessary, or meaningful. Listening is active because listeners are involved in a
complicated mental process to interpret accurately what the speaker means to say.
To sump up, although listening has been defined in various ways, all the above-cited
definitions share common things about the listening, which can be seen as a mental activity
deliberately undertaken by listener to interpret the meaning of spoken messages and to
store information that he or she is interested in. For the purpose of the study, I used
Rubin’s definition of listening in designing the supplementary listening syllabus because of
its clarity and simplicity.
1.3.2. Listening strategies
In order to listen successfully, the students (the hearers) need to learn the strategies that are
suitable to their levels. The mastery of these skills enables students to listen with more
understanding. In the study, the students whom I was designing going to design a
supplementary syllabus for are at intermediate level, thus in order to understand the
message, students may need to be able to do the following: The first strategy is predicting,
the second one is inferring, the third one is monitoring, the fourth is clarifying, the fifth
one is responding the last one is evaluating. (Helgensen and Brown (2007:70)). Moreover,
Rixon (1986:88) points out that in order to understand the message students may need to
be able to do the following strategies: the first stage is following instructions correctly, the
second one is matching or recognizing information in the text, the third one is picking out
the relevant information, the fourth one is “turning into” a passage, the fifth one is
inference and listening ahead, and the last one is recognizing the speakers’ mood, attitude
and relationship. 10

Among of many listening strategies the designer must consider which are the most suitable
for her students. The researcher of the study chose the Helgensen’s view because it was
easy to use.

11

Each process has its weak points and strong points, I thought that it was better to adapt an
interactive, interpretive process of bottom-up and top-down where my students used both
prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages. This could help my
students to succeed in learning listening.

1.4. Summary
Although there was extensive literature on syllabus design, needs analysis and listening,
the researcher drew on the followings in this chapter:
In the first part, the researcher adapted the mixture of three types of syllabus: content-
based syllabus, skills-based syllabus and tasked- based syllabus to the syllabus because of
its suitability and its advantages.
In the second part, the need analysis approach the researcher chose was one that combined
both the learning needs and target needs. Hence, the syllabus would satisfy the demands of
the learners.
In the third part, the research reviewed definitions of listening comprehension and she
would like to emphasize that listening was a two-way process: understand what we hear
and respond to the message we receive. And she also supported the idea that
comprehension was always only selective and partial.
12

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND DATA ANALYSIS

13

province in general and of TNSUSS in particular is to train students to become talented so
that they can pass the national examination for gifted students through which we can pick
out distinguished ones.
To make the things worse, although the students have passed the entrance exam, their
listening ability is limited because they only learn what they have to take in the entrance
examination. Moreover, the format of the paper is only composed of grammar,
pronunciation, writing and reading skill parts; there is not any listening part in the paper.
As a result, listening and speaking skills were neglected and the students’ abilities of
listening are rather low (see the result of listening test in part 2.2.3.1). In addition, the
materials and equipments for students to learn English, especially to practice listening skill
also affect students’ learning. Although TNSUSS is the only specializing upper secondary
school in Thai Nguyen province, but the facilities for language study is insufficient. There
is no language laboratory, internet, videos, English magazines or multi- media room. There
exists only some cassette players, and tapes in poor condition, which are always shared
among teachers. The materials are not enough and available, especially there are no
supplementary materials for listening skill in the school’s library. Therefore, the students
do not know what kind of the books, tapes they should buy from the bookstores to practice
listening skill.
2.1.3.1.1. The students’ profile (question 1, 2, 3)
The results in table 1 and 2 (see appendix 7) show that the students’ age ranges from
fifteen to seventeen years old. Besides, almost (86, 4%) the students in English class come
from Thai Nguyen city, only some (13, 5%) of them come from different districts of the
province, and nobody is from remote areas. This means that they have rather good
conditions to learn English, especially to practice listening skill with tapes, cassettes, or
computers at home. Moreover, the majority of the students (83, 7%) said they have learned
English for 5 years and 27, 3% of all had learned English for 7 years.

Table 3: Perceived English skills important to study
Question

Subject
areas&
skills
First
priority
Second
priority
Third
priority
Fourth
priority
Fifth
priority
Sixth
priority
Listening 14/ 37,8% 9/ 24,3% 2/ 5,4% 2/ 5,4% 0/ 0% 2/ 5,4%
Speaking 8/ 21,6% 6/ 16,2% 5/ 13,5% 1/ 2,7% 5/ 13,5% 2/ 5,4%
Reading 0/ 0% 3/ 8,1% 3/ 8,1% 4/ 10,8% 8/ 21,6% 7/ 18,9%
Grammar 1/ 2,7% 0/ 0% 6/ 16,2% 6/ 16,2% 4/ 10,8% 8/ 21,6%
Writing 2/ 5,4% 2/ 5,4% 6/ 16,2% 6/ 16,2% 6/ 16,2% 4/ 10,8%
5
Vocabulary

2/ 5,4% 3/ 8,1% 6/ 16,2% 2/ 5,4% 9/ 24,3% 3/ 8,1%
The result reveals that the English language skill that the students wanted to improve was
listening. They gave the first priority to the listening skill with the highest percentage
(37,8%). The second priority belonged to speaking skill (21,6%). Writing and vocabulary

50
60
70
80
Very important Important Fairly important Not important Don't know
1 2 3 4 5
Frequency (n=37)
Percentage (%)

As the result shows, the majority of the students viewed listening as the very important
skill in their use of English (75,7%). Only 13,5 % stated that it was important and the rest
of the students (10,8%) considered listening to be fairly important. Nobody stated that it
was not important and that they did not know the importance of listening skill.
2.1.3.2.2. Students’ difficulties in listening (question 8)
It was interesting to note the results revealed from the chart 3 (see appendix 4). It showed
that students encountered almost the items given. 64,9,8% of the students thought that
listening to speaker’s stress, pronunciation, and speed was the biggest obstacle. 56,8% of
the students thought that they lacked vocabulary to listen effectively. The students also
encountered difficulties in identifying main ideas and identifying details with the
percentage was 43,2%, followed by quality of tapes (27%), and identifying the general
meaning of the conversation or monologue and recognizing individual words (21,6%).
They had fewer difficulties in remembering the content or information (18,9%), lacking
background knowledge about the topics (16,2%) and following instructions and directions
(13,5%). And the students did not find it hard to concentrate.
2.1.3.2.3. Students’ perception of listening comprehension (question 9) 16

According to the data shown in the chart 4 (see appendix 4), students had rather good

5.4
27.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
To teach you
listening
strategies
To teach you
all new
words in
advance
To give clear
explanations
for the tasks
in advance
To translate
everything
into
Vietnamese
To play the
tape as
many times
as possible
To pause the
tape after

all sentences was 10,8%. Very few (8,1%) students expected the teachers to do all the tasks
in order and 5,4% of the students would like the teachers to get mark to their work. 17

Especially, all the students did not expect the teachers to translate everything into
Vietnamese.
2.1.3.2.5. Students’ expectations of the topics in listening class (question 11)
The data presented in the table 4 (see appendix 5) showed that the topics the students
expected most were looking into future and hobbies (78%), famous people (75%),
followed by travelling, cities, and at the university (72%). They were also interested in
topics such as education and environment with 70,2%. Besides, students took interest in
love and marriage (56%), words and feelings (54%) and sports and games (45%).
However, there were some topics which did not receive much of the students’ interest such
as the interview (32, 4%), science and technology (35, 1%). The topics which received the
least interest of the students were at the hotel (21%) and diseases (16,2%).
2.1.3.2.6. Students’ expectations of the tasks in the listening class (question 12)
Chart 6: Distribution of students’ responses referring to listening tasks they expect to
improve
18
23
11
8 8
12
0
6 6
48.6
62.2
29.7

60.0
70.0
Frequency (n=37)
Percentage (%)

Another interesting finding was that the students did not like diagram completion and
labelling task, followed by form and table completion (16,2%). 62,2% of the students
preferred doing multiple choice task and short answer task came in second in the students’
responses (48,6%). 32% wished to learn notes, summary, sentence or gap completion,
whereas 29,7% expected to do matching task and 21,6% was for classification.
18

2.3.1.2.7. Students’ perceptions of listening skills needed (question 13)
As the result shown in the chart 7 below, listening for the main idea was the skill the
students considered as the most necessary and extremely important for their studying
(75,7%). Understanding all new words received 54,1%. Besides, 45,9% of the students
wanted to learn identifying speaker’s attitude from tone and voice and identifying the
major topic skills were students’ needs. 40,5% would like to improve skill of listening for
specific information and 29,7 % for skill of listening for general meaning. Ignoring
irrelevant vocabulary received the least interest of the students with 21,6%.
Chart 7: Distribution of students’ responses referring to listening skill they expect to
learn
28
11
15
17 17
20

Understanding
all new words.
Ignoring
irrelevant
vocabulary
Frequency (n=37)
Percentage (%)

2.2. Listening test
2.2.1. Aims of the listening test
The aim of the listening test at pre-intermediate level was to identify the students' listening
proficiency level. The researcher used listening test to gather wealth information about specific
problems that the students may be having with the language. That was the foundation for the
researcher to ascertain what further teaching is necessary. (See appendix 2)
2.2.2. Participants
37 grade 10 English gifted students at TNSUSS took part in the listening test.
2.2.3. Findings and data analysis
Results of listening test
The table 5 ( see appendix 6 ) shows that only 8% of the students got marks 9-10, 18,9% of
them got marks 7-8, while 51,3% got marks 5-6. Some (21%) got marks under 5. From the 19

results, the researcher found that some students did not reach the pre-intermediate level
with high scores as expected. Therefore, it was necessary for them to practice more.
2.3. Interview
2.3.1. Aims of the interview
The purpose of the interview was to select the detailed information about teaching
situation, teachers’ needs and currently used materials. (See appendix 3)

authorities of Thai Nguyen province and TNSUSS decided to project designing syllabi for
gifted students of all subjects in order to not only reduce teachers’ workload in selecting
materials, help gifted students have logical and systematic syllabi but also enhance students’
level and raise the number of medals.
2.3.3.2. Teachers’ needs
2.3.3.2.1. The teachers’ assessment of students’ ability (question 1)
Regarding the English language skills that the teachers considered to be the weak points of
the students in their studying, speaking and listening skills (as indicated by 5 out of 5
respondents) were ranked the highest in the priorities, followed by writing and vocabulary
(3/5). Reading skill came third in teachers’ responses (2/5). The strongest point of students
was grammar (1/5).
2.3.3.2.2. The difficulties teachers thought their students met in listening (question 2)
Table 6: Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ difficulties in listening
Frequency Percentage
Identifying main ideas 3 60%
Identifying details 4 80%
Recognizing individual words 4 80%
Lacking vocabulary 3 60%
Having trouble in remembering content 2 40%
Bad quality of the tapes 3 60%
Lacking background knowledge 2 40%
Concentrating 1 20%
The data in the table 6 showed that the students had special difficulties in identifying
details, recognizing individual words (4 out of 5 teachers), and identifying main ideals,
lacking vocabulary, bad quality of tapes (3 teachers), having trouble in remembering the
content and lacking background knowledge (2 teachers).The teachers also blamed that their
students sometimes cannot concentrate during the process of listening (1 teacher).
2.3.3.2.3. Tasks relevant to English grade 10 gifted students (question 3)
As the table 7 shown below, all teachers were interested in filling the form, choosing the
best answer (5 out of 5), 4 of them expected their students to give short answer and tick