VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
 BÙI THỊ THỦY A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHING
AND LEARNING LISTENING COMPREHENSION
AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HOA BINH

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ MỐI QUAN HỆ GIỮA VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC NGHE HIỂU
Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT TẠI HÒA BÌNH

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD : ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE : 60.14.0111 HANOI – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
 BÙI THỊ THỦY


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This minor thesis has been accomplished with the help and encouragement of
many people. Thus, I hereby would like to express my appreciation to all of them.
Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my beloved supervisor
Ph.D. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy for her invaluable guidance, critical comments, positive
supports and precious corrections on my writing and thesis completion.
Secondly, I would like to thank all lectures and staffs of faculty of
postgraduate for their valuable lessons and precious help that help me overcome
difficulties in doing this thesis.
Thirdly, I also owe my sincere thanks to English teachers and 10
th
form, 11
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form and 12
th
form students, who enthusiastically took part in this study at Yenthuy
C high school where I conducted this minor thesis. I would not have completed my
thesis without their help.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my beloved family, my husband who
gave me love, tolerance and encouragement during the study.
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ABSTRACT

This study aims at finding out students‟ needs and expectations to listening
comprehension, how students learn listening comprehension, how English teachers
teach listening comprehension and some ways to fill the gaps between students‟

1.3.3 Classroom interaction in learning listening comprehension 13
1.3.4 Difficulties in learning listening comprehension 14
1.4 Needs analysis and expectations 17
1.4.1 Need analysis 17
1.4.2 Expectations 18
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20
2.1 Introduction 20
2.2 Participants 20
2.3 The data collection instrument 21
2.3.1. Classroom Observation 21
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2.3.2. Questionnaires 21
2.3.3. Informal Interview 22
2.4 Data collection and analysis 22
2.5 Conclusion 22
CHAPTER 3: REAL SITUATION OF TEACHING LISTENING
COMPREHENSION AT YENTHUY C HIGH SCHOOL 23
3.1 Teachers’ stages in teaching listening comprehension 23
3.1.1 Results of the teachers’ stages through questionnaire 23
3.1.2 The results of teachers’ stages through classroom observation 24
3.1.3 The results of teachers’ stages through interviews 24
3.2 Teachers’ processes in teaching listening comprehension 24
3.2.1 The results of teachers’ processes through questionnaire 24
3.2.2 The results of teachers’ processes through classroom observations 26
3.2.3 The results of teachers’ processes through informal interview 26
3.3 Teachers’ techniques for teaching listening comprehension 26
3.3.1 The results of teachers’ techniques through questionnaire 26
3.3.3 The results of teachers’ techniques through interviews 28
3.4 Teachers’ applications of techniques to check students’ listening comprehension 29


Table 1: Students‟ background information 211
Table 2: The results of teachers‟ processes in teaching listening comprehension 255
Table 3: The results of teachers‟ techniques for teaching listening
comprehension.277
Table 4: The results of teachers‟ applications of techniques to check students‟
comprehension in the classroom 30
Table 5: The results of teachers‟ principles for teaching listening comprehension
322
Table 6: Results of students‟ needs in learning listening comprehension (n=166) 333
Table 7: Results of students‟ expectations in learning listening comprehension
(n=166) 334
Table 8: Results of students‟ motivation in learning listening comprehension (n=166) 366
Table 9: The results of students‟ cognitive strategies in learning listening
comprehension (n=166) 388
Table 10: The results of students‟ metacognitive strategies in learning listening
comprehension (n=166) 399
Table 11: The results of students‟ socio-affective strategies in learning listening
comprehension (n=166) 40
Table 12: The results of students‟ interactions in learning listening comprehension
(n=166) 411
Table 13: The results of students‟ difficulties in learning listening comprehension
(n=166) ………………………………….……………………………………….
444
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students I
Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers IX
Appendix 3: Informal interview for teacher 1 XII

the relationship between teaching and learning listening comprehension at a high
school in Hoa Binh‟.
2. Aims of the Study
The main purposes of this study aim to find out the relationship between
teaching and learning listening comprehension at Yenthuy C high school in general.
The researcher would like to find out students‟ needs and expectations to teaching
listening at this school. Basing on the findings, teachers found some effective and
suitable ways to teach listening comprehension. Thus, this study aims to find
answers to four research questions below:
1/ What are students‟ needs and expectations to teaching listening
comprehension?
2/ How do students learn listening comprehension in classroom?
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3/ How do English teachers teach listening comprehension at the school?
4/ What are some ways to fill the gaps between students‟ needs and expectations
with how listening comprehension is taught in Yenthuy C high school?
3. Methods of the study
Firstly, entirely naturalistic observation was created by note-taking and
observing six listening comprehension periods to find out students‟ interaction in
learning listening comprehension and English teachers‟ stages in teaching listening
comprehension in classroom.
Secondly, two survey questionnaires for teachers and students were conducted
to collect data for this study. The first set of questions for 166 students were dealt
with to find out students‟ expectations needs, motivation, strategies, interactions and
difficulties in learning listening comprehension. Another set of questions for all five
English teachers aimed at finding out their stages, processes, techniques and
principles in teaching listening comprehension at the school.
Finally, the researcher conducted an informal interview with four teachers to find
out more specific information about teachers‟ stages, processes, principles, techniques

According to Marc Helgesen and Steven Brown (2009), „Listening
comprehension is the process of understanding speech in a first or second language.
The study of listening comprehension in second language learning focuses on the
role of individual linguistic units (e.g., phonemes, words, grammatical structures) as
well as the role of the listener‟s expectations, the situation and context, background
knowledge and topic‟.
For Buck, (1984:31), „Listening comprehension is an active process of
constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming
sound‟ in which „number of different types of knowledge are involved: both
linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge‟. As for Anderson and Lynch
(1988), listening is a receptive skill alongside with reading skills and the listener‟s
role is not passive but active. The objectives of listening comprehension are that
after a period of listening, the learners are expected to be able to talk or write about
what they have heard.
Listening exercises can be constructed to four degrees of comprehension by
Brown and Yule (1983) as follow:
- The listener can repeat the text
- The students should have heard and understood the meaning of particular
vocabulary items used in the text.
- The students should be able to resolve anaphoric reference and to determine
which was referred to.
- The students should be able to work out not only what is directly asserted in the
text, but also what is implied.
Brown and Yule (1983)
O‟Malley and Chamot (1989:420) includes „Listening comprehension is an
active and conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning by using cues
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from contextual information and existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple
strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement‟.

Listening comprehension is very important in language learning process. For
Rost 1994:141), listening comprehension is vital in language classroom due to
providing inputs for the learner to understand at the right level and to begin.
To sum up, the importance of listening comprehension in language learning is
worth considering.
1.2 Teaching listening comprehension
1.2.1 The stages of teaching listening comprehension
A listening lesson often includes three parts: pre-listening, while-listening and
post-listening. For Peterson (2001), pre-listening helps learners achieve the balance
between top-down and bottom-up processing and activate their schemata – essentially
reminding themselves of content related to what they will hear, vocabulary and forms
what will carry the content, which is called interactive processing.
The post-listening may be as simple as checking the answers to comprehension
questions, in which the teacher either tells the learners what the correct answers are,
elicits answers from the students themselves, or has students compare their answers
in pairs or in groups. Although listening is a separate skill, most skills are not and
should not be taught entirely separately.
Finally, they include that though listening skill is a receptive skill, it is very
active process. Both top-down and bottom-up processes are necessary and useful.
They suggested that most listening lessons include pre-listening to activate learners‟
previous knowledge (schema), listening tasks and post-listening exercises which
often include speaking activities.
Shelagh Rixon (1986) also points out an intensive listening lesson including
pre-listening which prepares the students to achieve the most from the passage,
while-listening which challenges and guides them to handle the information and
messages in the passage, and follow-up getting reflection on the language of the
passage such as sound, grammar and vocabulary.
In short, there are three stages in teaching listening comprehension in general.
Each stage has its own aims and goals, thus the teacher should keep in mind these to
encourage students to listen actively in classroom.

function of the message. Next, the hearer brings a plausible interpretation to the
message by recalling background information (schemata) relevant to the particular
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context and subject matter. The hearer uses lifetime of experiences and knowledge
to perform cognitive association to bring a plausible interpretation to the message.
Fifthly, the hearer assigns a literal meaning to the utterance, which involves a set of
semantic interpretations of the surface strings that the earrings match. Then, the
hearer assigns an intended meaning to the utterance. A key to human
communication is the ability to match perceived meaning with intended meaning.
Next, the hearer determines whether information should be retained in short term or
long-term memory. For instance, short-term memory is appropriate in contexts that
simply call for a quick oral response from the hearer. Long-term memory is more
common when, say, the hearer is processing information in a lecture. Finally, the
hearer deletes the original form of the message received. The words, phrases and
sentences themselves are quickly forgotten in 99 percent of speech acts.
For Rost (1990), the goals and internal meaning structures of the listener are
emphasized. The listener does not receive meaning but rather constructs meaning.
The constructed message is somewhat different from the intended message and is
influenced by the context, purpose of listening, and the listener‟s own prior
knowledge. Thus, the listening is complex and both top-down and bottom-up
operations are important. Nagle and Sanders (1986) suggest a model of
comprehension incorporating the distinction between controlled and automatic
processing and the listener‟s active role in attention and monitoring. They point that
while comprehension is not exactly the same thing as learning, successful
comprehension makes material available for learning.
To sum up, listening comprehension is an interaction process, so the teacher
should keep in mind all these processes when teaching. They are all relevant to the
learner‟s purposes of listening, to performance factors that may cause difficulties in
processing speech, to overall principles of effective listening techniques, and to

- extending – the listener provides an ending to a story heard
- duplicating – listener translates the message into the native language or repeats
it verbatim
- modeling – the listener orders a meal after listening a model order
- conversing – the listener engages in a conversation that indicates appropriate
processing of information.
Lund (1990)
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Fifth, the teacher should encourage the developing of listening strategies –
teaching learners how to learn extending well beyond classroom by looking for
keywords and nonverbal cues to meaning, predicting a speaker‟s purpose by the
context of the spoken discourse. Learners should be guided to associate information
with one‟s existing cognitive structure – activating schemata, guess at meanings,
seek clarification, and listen for general gist and test of listening comprehension,
various test-taking strategies.
These strategies help students to develop their overall strategic competence, so
strategies for effective listening can become a highly significant part of their
chances for successful learning.
Last, both bottom-up and top-down listening techniques should be included.
Bottom-up techniques typically focus on sounds, words, intonation, grammatical
structures and other components of spoken language while top-down techniques are
more concerned with the activation of schemata, with deriving meaning, with global
understanding and with the interpretation of the text. Both bottom-up and top-down
techniques can offer students keys to determining the meaning of spoken discourse.
1.2.4 Principles of teaching listening comprehension
Heinle & Heinle (2001:89) suggested six principles for teaching listening
comprehension. First of all, the amount of listening time in the second language
class should be increased. Input must be interesting, comprehensible, supported by
extra-linguistic materials and keyed to the language lesson. Secondly, listening

comprehension. The way of teaching listening, listening to the recorded tape repeatedly
and then giving correct answers, still remains. As for Anderson and Lynch (1998), this
teaching approach seems to be like „testing‟ listening than „teaching‟ listening because
listeners are simply exposed to the succession of listening texts on a tape rather than
being taught how to listen and how to cope with their listening problems in the class.
Without interest and variation in teaching and learning in general and in teaching and
learning listening comprehension in particular, students will certainly feel bored with
learning listening. To increase students‟ motivation, the following solutions for
teachers suggested by Cottrell (2001) are focusing on individual motivation, making
subject matter relevant to the students own lives, increase interest in the subject and
helping students to feel about their study.
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Thus, when the content and subject are interesting and relevant to students‟ age
and level of ability; and goals are challengeable but manageable and clear; and the
atmosphere is supportive and non-threating, students will be motivated to learning.
1.3.2 Strategies of learning listening comprehension
Hedge, T. (2000:230) argues about bottom-up strategies and top-down
strategies. The bottom-up strategies are text-based in which the listeners rely on the
message language (i.e. the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates
meaning) including listening for specific details, recognizing cognates, and
recognizing word-order patterns. Top-down strategies are listener-based in which
the listeners tap into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context,
the context type and the language to activate a set of expectations helping them to
interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next and includes listening for
the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences and summarizing.
O‟Malley and Chamot (1989) categorize strategies into two groups: cognitive,
metacognitive and the third category - socio-affective was added to describe the
learning taking place when learners interact with classmates, ask the teacher for
clarification, or use specific techniques to lower their anxiety.

syntactic, semantic, and schematic knowledge is utilized is a matter of effective or
ineffective strategy use. She states that proficient listeners can constantly elaborate
and transform what they hear by using their background knowledge and predictions
to generate hypotheses on the text; integrating new information with their ongoing
predictions; making inferences to fill gaps; evaluating their predictions; and revising
their hypotheses as necessary.
She concludes that proficient listeners can recognize failure in comprehension
and activate appropriate knowledge to recover comprehension.
To sum up, although listening strategies have been categorized in different
points of view, they can be concluded metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies
and socio-affective strategies in general. The viewpoints of Hedge (2000),
O‟Malley and Chamot (1989) and Henner Stanchina (1987) should be combined
and balanced flexibly.
1.3.3 Classroom interaction in learning listening comprehension
According to Runmei Yu (2008), classroom interaction can be seen as offering
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language practice, learning opportunities and actually constructing the language
development process itself. Teacher-centered activity that the teacher controls the
group consists of lecturing, explaining a new grammar concept on the board, having
a whole-class discussion, choral drilling or asking individual students questions.
Alternatively, students can work individually, in pairs or in groups. The teacher can
even have the entire class working together on a project or game. In addition,
teacher can get a student to be in charge of running a game, and sit with the class
and be a participant. Mixing up the types of classroom interaction used in classroom
can help students stay attentive and interested.
He also pointed out that the teacher can use silence to encourage reflection in
the interaction motivated by teacher-initiated questions. The teacher should resist
the temptation to fill the silence or answer the question for them. There are also
some other techniques to simulate interaction in the classroom, for example,

phrasings, repetitions, elaborations, and little insertion of „I mean‟ and „you know‟
here and there. Such redundancy helps the hearer to process meaning by offering
more time and extra information. Learners can train themselves to profit from such
redundancy by first becoming aware that not every new sentence or phrase will
necessarily contain new information and by looking for signals of redundancy.
Therefore, learners sometimes get confused by excerpt of conversation, but
with some training they can learn to take advantage of redundancies and other
makers providing more processing time. The third factor is reduced forms because
while spoken language does indeed contain a good deal of redundancy, it also has
many reduced forms such as phonological, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic
reductions. These reductions pose significant difficulties especially to classroom
learners who may have initially been exposed to the full forms of the English
language.
Fourthly, performance variables are hesitations, false starts, pauses and
corrections which are common. Native listeners are conditioned from very young
ages to „weed out‟ such performance variables but they can easily interfere with
comprehension in second language learners.
The fifth one is colloquial language since learners exposed to standard written
English or „textbook‟ language sometimes find it surprising and difficult to deal