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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DECLARATION …………………………………………………………………….
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………
ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………….
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………………
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………

PART A. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………… ……
1. Rationale ……………………………………………………….….……………
2. Aims of the study ………………………………………………………….……
3. Research questions…………………………………………………………….
4. Significance of the study ………………………………………………………
5. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………….
6. Methods of the study…………………………………………………………….
7. Design of the study……………………………………………………………

PART B. DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………
I.1. Different views of listening comprehension……………………………… …
I.2. Importance of listening comprehension………………………………………
I.3. Classification of listening comprehension……………………………………
I.3.1. Real - life listening…………………………………………………
I.3.2. Classroom - listening ………………………………………………
I.4. Listening stages…………………………………………………………………
I.4.1. Pre-listening stage……………………………………………………
I.4.2. While - listening stage ………………………………………………

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CHAPTER II: RESEARCH ON CURRENT LISTENING TEACHING AND
LEARNING SITUATION IN BIEN HOA GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL………
II.1. Overview of current listening teaching and learning situation in Bien Hoa
Gifted High School………………………………………………………
II.2. Participants……………………………………………………………….…….
II.3. Research method …………………………………………………………….
II.4. Data analysis and discussion …………………………………………………
II.4.1. Students’ attitudes towards listening skill……………………………
II.4.2. Students’ experience in listening…………………………………….
II.4.3. Students’ comment on the listening materials used in class…………
II.4.4. Students’ comment on factors causing difficulties in their learning
listening… ………………………….……………………………….
II.4.5. Students’ difficulties in listening to English texts…………………
II.4.6. Teacher’s strategies to motivate the students………………………
II.4.7. The students’ expectation to their teacher…………………………
II.5. Major findings. ………………………………………………………………

CHAPTER III: MAJOR SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO
IMPROVE STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION ……………………
III.1. Choosing the suitable listening texts………………………………………….
III.2. Designing suitable tasks ………………………………………………………
III.3. Helping the students to prepare well for the listening through the
pre – listening stage …………………………………………………………

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards listening skill
Table 2: Students’ experience in listening
Table 3: Students’ comment on the listening materials used in class
Table 4: Students’ comment on factors causing difficulties in their learning listening
Table 5 & 6: Students’ difficulties in listening to English texts
Table 7: Teacher’s strategies to motivate the students
Table 8: The students’ expectation to their teacher
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PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
It can not be denied that in the whole world English has become a more and more

learning English for the English majored students at grade 11, Bien Hoa Gifted High
School in listening lessons to find out the problems that these students usually encounter,
and after all to improve their listening skill through listening tasks which focus on
pronunciation, stress, intonation, linking, elision as well as different accents from authentic
materials.
3. Research questions
To meet the research aims, the study is carried out on the basis of using qualitative
research method including survey questionnaire for students. In brief, the ultimate goal of
the study is to answer the following research questions:
1. What difficulties do English majored students at grade 11, Bien Hoa Gifted High
School face in their listening lessons?
2. What are the possible causes of these students’ difficulties in acquiring listening
skill in English?
3. Which focused listening tasks can help these students overcome their difficulties?
4. Significance of the study
To learn a foreign language well, learners need to develop all the four skills.
Listening to spoken language is an important way of acquiring language, of picking up
structures and vocabulary. We can not develop speaking skill unless we also develop
listening skill.
To have successful conversation, students must understand what is said to them.
Then the ability to understand spoken language may become very important for listening to
radio, understanding foreigners, etc. Listening comprehension is a very complex process
that students often find most difficult in learning English. This thesis, therefore, is carried
out so as to help students to improve their listening skill 3

5. Scope of the study
Since Bien Hoa Gifted High School is a school for gifted students in many subjects

comprehension.
- Chapter two deals with the current listening teaching and learning situation in
Bien Hoa Gifted High School analysis on general teaching and learning
situations at Bien Hoa Gifted High School. Also in this chapter, there is a
focus on data analysis and discussion as well as major findings.
- Chapter three presents major solutions and recommendations to improve
students' listening comprehension.
Part C, “CONCLUSION”, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out some
limitations and provides suggestions for further study.

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PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW
I.1. Different views of listening comprehension
The language learning is constituted from four main skills including reading,
speaking, listening and writing. These skills are closely related to one another. What’s
more, communication is the process of exchanging information and attitudes. Therefore,

the native speakers say at a normal speed in natural situations. Chastain (1976) suggests
that to understand what native speakers say, the listeners do not need to pay attention to
every word and all of the details in the text but they should focus on the content of the
message in a natural situation. They should try to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words
from the context of the spoken text. To do so, they should make the best use of their
background knowledge and relate their prior knowledge to the new information in the
spoken text.
In other words, listening is viewed as an active process in which individuals focus
on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning from passages, and then relate what
they hear to existing knowledge (Bentley & Bacon, 1996). Or listening is an active process
of constructing meaning and this is done by applying listeners’ knowledge to the incoming
sounds in which numerous types of knowledge are involved including linguistic
knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge (Gary Buck, 2001:31) because "comprehension
takes place when input and knowledge are matched against each other" (Faerch & Kasper,
1986, p. 264).
Therefore, from the teacher's point of view, the purpose of listening comprehension
activities in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom is to help listeners extract
meaning from the verbal and non- verbal information to assist listeners in recognizing
cultural differences between the first language and the foreign language and in removing
the cultural misunderstandings that may be distracted from the delivered non verbal
information.
Wolvin and Coakley (1985) also point out that listening as “the process of
receiving, attending to and assigning to aural stimuli”. To put it in another way, listening is
a complex problem-solving skill. The task of listening is more than perception of sound 7

although perception is the foundation; it also requires comprehension of meaning. This
view of listening is in accordance with the second language theory which considers

use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, not simply to understand
the words themselves. What the speakers mean lies only in words spoken and the listeners
must attend to what they heard, to process, to realize and to interpret the message they
heard.
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four skills of what is called
"indivisible range called communication'. They are closely related to each other, but they
are independent as well. Oral communication can not take place without listening and
therefore listening plays a central and possibly predominant part in the whole process of
language learning. In order to take part in oral communication, clearly, one person must,
first and foremost, absorb and understand the information (in the listening process) before
they can show their own view points (in the speaking process). When nobody listens to the
speaker or when he or she fails to understand the spoken message, communication is
broken down.
Adrian Doff (1995) points out that listening is an important way of acquiring the
language, a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures. "Teaching the
comprehension of spoken language is therefore of primary importance if the
communication aim is to be achieved." (Rivers Wilga, M.(1986) Teaching Foreign
Language Skill., The University of Chicago Press, p. 135). Learners living in a country
where English is the first language do not need much time to be able to communicate in
English fluently because they have chances to hear it all the time and have plenty of
exposure to the language. The greatest difficulty for a language learner in listening is not
only primarily that he cannot make himself understood but that he fails to understand what
is being said to him and around him. It is obvious that developing the ability to understand
the spoken foreign language is a long continuous process and listening is a skill that does
not happen automatically, but that must be taught. If students are taught how to listen
effectively, they are able to understand, to interpret, to evaluate and to response to what
they hear. The more frequent they are exposed to the language, the faster and easier they
can acquire it. 10

other hand, is jerky, has frequent pauses and overlaps, goes intermittently faster and
slower, louder and softer, higher and lower. Hesitation, interruptions, exclamations,
emotional reactions of surprise, irritation or amusement, which are all liable to occur in
natural dialogues, are bound to cause an uneven and constantly changing rhythm of speech.
Even if only one person is speaking for a relatively long period, the fact that he has not
thought out carefully what he has to say beforehand, and has not necessarily chosen the
best words, means that he has to rely heavily on vocal emphasis to make his meaning clear.
And vocal emphasis does not just mean saying a particular word or phrase louder. It means
also gabbling quickly through what is less important and slowing down over the main
point, or pausing for effectiveness before or after a vital phrase, or raising the pitch of
voice to stress one thing and then lowering it to play something else. The overall effect of
all this is perhaps more dramatic and interesting than that of formal speech, but this does
not mean that it is, all in all, more comprehensible or easier to listen to. To summarize, we
may say that most of our real-life listening activity is characterized by the following
features:
- We listen for a purpose and with certain expectations.
- We make an immediate response to what we hear.
- We see the person we are listening to.
- There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of what is heard.
- Stretches of heard discourse come in short chunks.
- Most heard discourse is spontaneous and therefore differs from formal spoken
prose in the amount of redundancy, noise and colloquialisms, and in its auditory
character.
Sometimes particular situations may lack one or more of these characteristics, for
example, when watching television we are not normally expected to respond, when
listening to a lecture we may have to hear uninterrupted speech for a very long time

listening. This helps learners develop their listening skill or knowledge of the language in
their effort to do exercises or other activities. The passage should be short so that learners
have chances to get to grip with the content, have several tries at difficult parts and to be 12

fitted within the time allowed of a lesson. Learners also feel it easy, interesting and
encouraging when they listen to a short passage. Therefore, they often listen with a great
concentration and effort.
Extensive listening is free and general listening to natural language for general ideas,
not for particular information. The listening passages for extensive listening can be long
(stories) or short (jokes, poems). The language that is used in this type of listening is often
within the students' current ability so that students find it interesting when listening.
Students feel satisfied as they can understand the passage well. They are not asked to do
any language work and they can do their listening freely without any pressure. Moreover
the topics are various and entertaining; therefore it motivates students to develop their
listening skill as well as exposes them to valuable extra contact with spoken language.
I.4. Listening stages.
There are often three main stages in the teaching of a listening text. They are pre-
listening stage, while-listening stage and post-listening stage. Each stage has its own
purposes as well as activities.
I.4.1. Pre-listening stage.
Pre-listening stage involves activities that are provided to help listeners, step by step,
get certain knowledge related to listening text. It can’t be denied that learners will
encounter certain difficulty to do a listening lesson without being provided with the idea of
what they are going to hear. Even if the sounds or the words they hear are familiar, they
may still be unable to understand because they lack certain kinds of knowledge of the
topic, discourse or the relationship between the speakers. It is, therefore, of great
importance to let students know what to expect for the tasks before listening. This kind of

expect to hear and by activating relevant prior knowledge. Thereby, students have
certain things to expect and purpose to listen.
+ To provide an opportunity to gain some knowledge, which helps the students follow
the text. 14

+ To increase students’ confidence so that they stand a better chance of being
successful.
These purposes can be achieved by one of the following activities: the teacher
introduces the listening topic, gives background information, gives clear instructions for
the while-listening activity; or the students are given guidance on the structure of what they
are going to hear, discuss the topic situation, look at pictures, read through the questions if
asked. Each of the above activities will help the students focus on the main points of
listening passage by narrowing down the things that the students expect to hear and
activating their previous knowledge. Selecting which activity to use depends on a lot of
such factors as: the time available, the material available, the ability of the class, the
students and the teacher's interests, the nature and content of the listening text. Among
these factors, the last one is considered very important when choosing activities.
I.4.2. While - listening stage
The while-listening stage involves activities that students are asked to complete
during the time they are listening to the text. It guides students as they try to elicit the
necessary information from spoken language
This stage is to help students learn to recognize how the language sounds in terms of
pronunciation, stress, rhythm, and intonation, so that they can use what they hear as a
model for them to imitate. It also helps students appreciate the differences between the
pronunciation of words in utterance and in isolation as well as the relationship between
written and spoken form. What’s more, it helps non-native listeners learn to apply the skills
of prediction, matching what they hear with what they expect to hear, interpret the overall

I.4.3. Post - listening stage
Post-listening stage relates to the activities which are done after the listening is
completed. Some post-listening activities are extensions of the work done at the pre-
listening and while-listening stages and some relate only loosely to the listening text itself.
This stage is also very importance, with certain purposes as well as activities
The main purposes of post-listening activities are to check, after completing the
while-listening tasks, whether the students understand what they have listened to or not; to
see why some students have missed parts of the message or fail to understand the message; 16

to give the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speakers of
the listening text; to expand on the topic or language of the message and to transfer learned
things to another context and to make introduction for the planned work
To achieve these mentioned purposes, the following are possible activities:
 The teacher give the answers orally, or show the answer on the black board
 The teacher draw the students' attention to specific parts of the listening text and
focus on the forms and function, lexis, stress and intonation which have caused
problems for the students
 The students work in pairs to check each other's answer or in groups to discuss
any problems related to the listening text.
Mary Underwood points out that selecting post-listening activities should pay take
these factors into consideration: the amount of time, the amount of language work the
teacher wish to do in relation to the particular listening text; the use of related skills (the
speaking, reading or writing skill); pair work and group work.
I.5. Definition of task
First of all, we need to clarify the term “task”. Several definitions of “task” have
been offered by different authors. Tasks are divided into two types: target task and
pedagogical task.

is not important. A task is goal-oriented, meaning-focused first and form-focused then,
contextualized, and implemented as the basis for teaching and learning. Meaning and form
are highly interrelated, and that grammar exists to enable the language user to express
different communicative meanings.
In second language teaching and learning, in stead of a language structure, students
are presented with a task they have to perform or a problem they have to solve. Therefore,
the focus of the lesson is the task, not grammar. Task, therefore, is now often viewed as a
linguistically outcome-oriented instructional segment or as a behavioral framework for
research or classroom learning.
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I.6. Kinds of listening tasks
Authentic tasks should be ones that resemble as much as possible the original
purpose for which the text was intended. If we listen to a train announcement we do so in
order to make sure we know the time of the train we want to catch, if we listen to someone
giving directions we do so in order to be able to find a destination.
Students can easily be de-motivated when faced by tasks that are very challenging,
particularly the first few times, but if you show them that you will gradually lead them to
an understanding of the text, they will gradually start to relax more about dealing with
more difficult texts. And once you have shown them a few times that they can gradually
understand a challenging text, then, in the long run they will develop a much greater sense
of achievement and experience far less stress when dealing with challenging situations in
the real world.
Many students expect us as their teachers to make things easy for them and to help
them. This is also our instinct on seeing our students struggling, but we must try to resist
this urge to do the work for them and help students to see that by doing the work for them
we undermine their potential to achieve for themselves.

Comprehension check questions are by far the most common type of listening
activities the students are given in class. Look at almost any language course book
listening activity and we will find these. Sometimes they will be multiple-choice questions,
sometimes true/false statements and sometimes open wh-questions. In many ways there is
nothing wrong with this, but how often do we really do these kinds of tasks in our
everyday lives? Do you sit down to watch TV or listen to the radio with a set of questions
in front of you? As such these types of activities aren't developing our students' abilities to
understand and process what they've heard in any meaningful kind of way. Well the
problems begin the moment the students step outside the classroom into the real world.
They are surrounded by a vast range of spontaneous and unpredictable language. They
have no control over the range of vocabulary they may encounter or the kind of things they
will hear or need to respond to. This is why even higher level students who do very well in
the classroom find it so difficult to cope when faced with a 'real' situation. We simply
haven't taught them in a way that will help them cope with this. 20

I.7. Language learners’ difficulties in listening comprehension
It can’t be denied that listening is considered to be the most difficult among the
four skills. Numerous learners have difficulties with different aspects of listening
comprehension. These difficulties are closely associated with the characteristics of spoken
language.
Underwood (1990) identifies seven potential problems learners often encounter in
their learning listening.
o Inability to control the speed of the speaker: Mary Underwood (Teaching
Listening, Longman, 1989, p. 16) sees that the greatest difficulty with listening
comprehension for a language learner is that: "They are so busy working out the
meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part. Or they simply
ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all out quickly enough." Many

o Problems of interpretation: Problems of interpretation can also hinder
communication. Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have difficulty in
interpreting the words they hear. And the listeners from other cultures can easily
misinterpret the meaning of non-verbal clues-facial expressions, nods, gestures, tone
of voice
o Inability to concentrate: Even the shortest break in listening can seriously affect
comprehension. Therefore, lack of concentration is a major problem. Students will
concentrate easily if they find the topic interesting or familiar. But if they make
enormous effort to follow what they hear word by word, the listening work will be
tiring. Such factors as equipment, poor recording, unacoustically suitable rooms for
the use of recorded material can also make concentration difficult
o Establish learning habits: Teachers often teach students to understand everything in
the English lesson by repeating and pronouncing words carefully. Students can form
the habit of listening word by word from this teaching method of teachers. So when
they fail to understand a particular word or phrase, they will be worried and become
discouraged by their lack of success. This habit will cause a lot of difficulties when
the learners deal with real-life listening situations. 22

Within this light, Brown (2001) points out eight following characteristics of spoken
language which make listening difficult
o Clustering: in teaching listening comprehension, teachers must help students to
pick out manageable clusters of words. These clusters will play important roles in
helping students to get the idea of the whole utterance.
o Redundancy: in ordinary conversation or even in much extempore speech making
or lecturing, we actually say good deal more than would appear to be necessary in
order to convey our message. Redundant utterances may take the form of
rephrasing, repetition, elaboration, self-correction, and apparently meaningless