VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***  ***

NGÔ THỊ XUYÊN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CORRELATION BETWEEN
LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEARNING LISTENING
AND THEIR LISTENING PERFORMANCE AT HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

(Điều tra về mối tương quan giữa thái độ học tập và khả năng nghe
hiểu của sinh viên trường Đại học Kinh Doanh và Công Nghệ) M.A MINOR THESIS Major : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60 14 10

Hanoi, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

requirements of University of Languages and International Studies relating to the
retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis would not be fulfilled without the help of some people, and in iii
ABSTRACT

This paper reports the result of the study that aimed at identifying first-year
and second-year students‟ attitudes towards learning listening and the relation
between these attitudes and learners‟ listening performance at a university in Hanoi.
Three issues, hence, are investigated: (1) the attitudes towards learning English in
general and learning listening in particular; (2) the differences between two groups
of students in terms of their attitudes; and (3) the correlation between the attitudes
to learning listening and their listening performance.
The findings based on a survey with 130 students reveal that there was an
interest in learning English, but listening lessons and tasks, and course objectives
beyond their level was a barrier to learning English. A lot of the assistance from the
teacher with explanation on test format and scoring was appreciated. However, that
they listened to no materials but listening sections in the course books is a hindrance
to their listening performance. Though admitting that their listening results can
influence their future performance, students‟ gradual improvement in listening
result was not ensured.
Secondly, there was a distinction between first-year and second-year students
regarding the acknowledgement of difficulties with listening comprehension, test
relevance to the course objectives, teachers‟ explanation to the test scoring criteria,
and the agreement on the stimulation of good listening results over their later
performance.
Thirdly, no strong correlation between attitudes and listening performance
was found. There are many other factors that contribute to listening performance
like the reliability of the test, teachers‟ teaching style, and so on.

Question v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Page
Figure 1:
Range of student attitudes towards target language
9
Figure 2:
Range of attitudes to learning L2 expressed as learning outcomes
9
Figure 3:

Results of Mann Whitney U Tests on the Differences between Year 1
Students and Year 2 Students in the Attitudes toward Learning Listening
33
Table 2:
Results of Spearman Rho Tests on the Correlation between Students'
Listening Learning Attitudes and Listening Performance
35 vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration i
Acknowledgement ii
Abstract iii
List of abbreviation terms iv
List of tables and figures v
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1

3.1. Students‟ attitudes to learning listening (research question 1) 26
3.1.1. Attitudes to learning English and learning listening 26
3.1.1.1. Attitudes towards learning English and learning listening 26
3.1.1.2. Attitudes towards listening lessons 27
3.1.1.3. Attitudes to tests 29
3.1.1.4. Attitudes to teachers and materials 30
3.1.1.5. Attitudes to listening performance 32
3.2. The differences in attitudes of the two groups towards learning listening
(research question 2) 33
3.3. The correlation between listening attitudes and listening performance (research
question 3) 34
PART C: CONCLUSION 40
1. Conclusion 40
2. Recommendations 40
3. Limitations 41
REFERENCES 43
Appendix 1 I 1
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Listening skill is a critical dimension in language learning in general and in
learning English as a foreign language in particular (Kurita, 2012). This input skill
plays a vital role when communicators exchange information. It is clear that once
mastering this skill, students can carry out the conversation with other people, state

expectations and to the course‟s objectives. The reasons for these symptoms,
therefore, need more explanation.
Recently in Vietnam, although motivation and attitudes has been the subject
of many studies (Đỗ, 2011; Nguyễn, 2011, et al), the correlation between learners‟
attitudes towards learning listening and their listening performance has not been
investigated. Also, at the Department of English- Hanoi University of Business and
Technology, there have been no attempts in investigating this issue. Regarding the
critical relation between attitude and language learning, it is greatly important to
research the matter intensively.
The aforementioned reasons have encouraged the writer as a teacher of
English at English Department at HUBT to explore this matter so as to find out how
learners‟ attitudes towards listening and their listening performance correlate.
Hopefully, the results of this research could contribute to completing the insightful
understanding about learners‟ attitudes, to enhance teaching and learning English at
the institution, and to lay a foundation for subsequent research.
2. Aims of the study
The study is to investigate the relation between learners‟ attitudes towards
learning listening and their listening performance. Surveying the first-year and
second-year students, the author firstly aimed at identifying their general attitudes
towards learning English, and towards learning listening as the main focus of the
study. Besides, the study examines how two groups of students differ in their
attitudes. Finally, the question whether their attitudes correlate with their
performance will be answered.

3
3. Research questions
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the following research
questions are raised in the study:
1. What are students‟ attitudes in/ towards listening?
2. How do different groups of students differ in their attitudes?

Part B: Development is organized in three chapters as follows.
Chapter 1- Literature review, conceptualizes the framework of the study
through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of learners‟ attitudes towards
listening and listening performance.
Chapter 2 - Methodology, presents the context, the methodology used in this
study including the context, the subject, the data collection instruments, data
collection procedure, and data analysis.
Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussions consists of a comprehensive analysis
of the data and a discussion on the findings of this study.
Part C: Conclusion offers a summary of the findings, recommendations,
limitations, and future directions for further study.
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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: Literature Review
In this chapter, the researcher will present some theoretical backgrounds that
necessitate the realization of this research and helps provide the related literature for
the study. First, it reviews some learner factors that researchers have investigated
and found out to be related to learning. Then the most suitable definitions of
learning attitudes are presented among many definitions. This chapter also
differentiates motivation and attitudes towards learning before showing most
attention to learners‟ attitude towards learning. Second, some theories related to the
main aim of the study are presented to persuade readers and people who are
interested in this matter with some studies done by scholars in the world. Then the
relation between learners‟ attitudes towards learning listening and listening
performance would be determined.
1.1. Learner factor/ (Affective factors which affect English learning performance)
Learning language is a challenging task for learners, especially the ones who

relation to two factors- the needs of the learners, and their attitudes towards the
second language and the second language community. Learners are motivated if
they need to learn the language in order to achieve a goal, or if they want to
communicate with the speakers of the target language and learn about the country
where the language is spoken (Nakanishi, 2002). In addition, it is grouped together
with various aspects of personality and emotion.
Though both motivation and attitudes have been taken into consideration,
this study focuses on learning attitudes. Learning attitudes will be discussed in more
details in the section that follows.
1.2. Learning attitudes
1.2.1. Definition of learning attitudes
Savignon (1976:295) claims that “attitude is the single most important factor
in second language learning”. This learning attitude is defined from different angles
ranging from the psychological to educational ones.

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From psychological stand-point, attitudes refer to evaluative, emotional
reactions (i.e. the degree of like and dislike associated with the attitudinal object)
encompassing three categories, affect, cognition, and behavior. Also, Allport (1954:
45) states that “an attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized
though experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual‟s
response to all objects and situations with which is related”. It is said that attitudes
have cognitive, affective, and behavioral components (cf. Harding et al. 1954) in
which the cognitive component refers to the individual‟s belief structure, the
affective to emotional reactions, and the behavioral to the tendency to behave
toward the attitudinal object, respectively.
From an operational viewpoint, as cited in Gardner‟s book (1985), an
individual‟s attitude is an „evaluative reaction to some referent or attitude object,
inferred on the basis of the individual’s beliefs or opinions about the referent’.
All these views claim that attitudes are responses to an attitudinal object. For

students‟ linguistic proficiency, and the learning language.
Later, Stern (1992:88) represents different levels of students‟ attitudes
towards target language in Figure 1. He scales attitudes from the very positive to
very negative rankings of which three sub-levels follow the same direction.

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Very positive
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Very negative
Be enthusiastic
about L2.

Enjoy 4 skills.
Praise L2
Enter into
spirit of L2.

Feel at home
in L2.

Feel good and
confident
about L2
Recognize,
tolerate, and
accept L2.


Positive
Neutral
Negative
Very
negative

Be
enthusiastic
about L2
Tackle L2 with
confidence and
enjoyment.

Be willing and
co-operative.
Handle
difficulties in a
positive spirit.
Accept L2
without
enthusiasm
Treat L2 as an
unpleasant
task.

Avoid L2.
Be irritated by
L2.
Want to drop
out.

To sum up, this section has discussed different aspects of learners‟ attitudes
in learning English. Learners differ in their attitudes towards learning English in
general, and towards materials and teachers in particular.
1.3. Differences between motivation and attitude
In a lot of research, many authors have shown an interest in the relationship
between motivation and attitudes, and learners‟ performance in some learning skills
like reading and speaking. In other words, motivation and attitudes have been two
inseparable common terms though there is still no final agreement on the
relationship between motivation and attitudes. Therefore, this part mainly deals with
the comparison between motivation and attitude.

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It has been indicated in some research that a number of measures of attitudes
and motivation are related to each other, and to measures of achievement in a
second language. Gardner (1979) suggests that attitudes are related to motivation
since they function as supports of learners‟ overall orientation. Later, Gardner and
his partner, Smythe (1981) in their research, Attitude/ Motivation Test Battery
(AMTB) show a number of variables of motivation which also include attitudes as a
component. Among four categories, the first is motivation, which encompasses
desire to learn a language, intensity of effort to achieve this, and attitudes towards
learning the language. The second is integrativeness which involves attitudes
towards the target language group, and which touches on the affective factor of
ethnocentricity. The third refers to attitudes towards language teachers and the
language course. That is, these two factors are co-related in a sense of extension and
intension.
Also, Lifrieri (2005:14) asserts the importance of attitudes, but still considers
them insufficient indirect conditions for linguistic attainment. He says that “only
when paired up with motivation do attitudinal tendencies relate to the levels of
student engagement in language learning, and to attainment”. From these
standpoints, attitude and motivation are two inseparable factors involved in learner

1.4.1. Learning performance in English Language Teaching
Learning performance is always discussed together with learning
competence. Hence, the research went over both learning competence and learning
performance. Ellis (1997) presents 2 norms, competence and performance in his
book entitled Understanding Second Language Acquisition. The former norm
consists of mental representation of linguistic rules which constitute the speaker-
hearer‟s internalized grammar (Chomsky 1965) while the later consists of
comprehension and production of language. Brown (1980) also defines competence
and performance in a different way. Competence is considered as an individual‟s
underlying knowledge of a system, event or the ability to perform something, which
cannot be observed. Performance, on the other hand, can be observed overtly, and it
is the realization of competence. That is, competence can be measured and

13
evaluated by means of the observation of performance through “tests” and
“examinations”. He also notes that performance is “actual production” which
encompasses speaking and writing, and comprehension which involves listening
and reading.
The more specific view on learning performance in listening will be
discussed more in the next part.

1.4.2. Learning performance in listening
Listening performance, as Brown defines, refers to listening comprehension.
Therefore, the discussion about learning performance in listening involves listening
comprehension. Listening comprehension is a complex process of decoding since it
starts with the data reception accompanied with analysis until learners perceive the
meaning. In order to comprehend, listeners use both bottom-up processes (linguistic
knowledge) and top-down processes (prior knowledge). In other words, according
to Richards, bottom-up processes refer to the use of incoming input as the basis for
understanding the message whereas the latter stands for using background

text (score based on correct completions of blanks), and dictation, complete or
partial (score based on supplying the correct missing words). The third type is
communicative tests or written communicative tasks involving listening (scored on
the basis of successful completion of a task, such as writing a complaint letter after
hearing a description of a problem). Finally, interview tests refer to direct
performances with the teacher or another student (score are based on a checklist of
such items as appropriate response to questions, appropriate use of clarification
questions) or extended oral interview (scoring relies on a scale of native-like
behaviors, such as the Foreign Service Institute scale).
At universities in Vietnam the application of the above methods in
performance-based testing is common. This kind of testing is to evaluate what
learners have learnt and achieved over a period of time. Though four types of tests
outlined by Rost are employed, the two first ones are common in HUBT to the first
and second year students. Their listening results or performance are assessed based

15
upon these tests. At HUBT, students sit placement tests which are designed to
assess their learning progress over one-credit time.
The subsequent discussion is about some theories and studies into the
relation between attitudes and performance.
2. Theories and studies on the relation between attitudes and performance
2.1. Theories on the relation between attitudes and performance
Gardner (1985) hypothesized that L2 learners with positive attitudes toward
the target culture and people will learn the target language more effectively than
those who do not have such positive attitudes. In their earlier studies, Gardner and
Lambert (1959) found that aptitude and motivation were the two factors most
strongly associated with learners' L2 achievement. Gardner and MacIntyre (1993)
drew together the findings from many studies over several decades and developed
Gardner's “socioeducational model of second language acquisition” (see Figure 3).


There has been a great deal of research done on the roles of attitudes and
motivation, or attitudes concerning some variables in second/ foreign language
learning. Lambert (1955) began to investigate attitude by speculating that an interest
in learning a foreign language develops because of emotional involvement with the
target language‟s community or because the learner has a direct interest in the
language. Among many variables, he only discusses two including the interest in