vi

TABLE OF CONTENT
Certificate of originality…………………………………… ………… ……… …… i
Acknowledgements………………………………………… …… ………………… ii
Abstract…………………………………………………… …………………………….iii
List of abbreviations………………………………………… … … …………………iv
List of tables and charts………………………………………………… ………….… v
Table of contents…………………………………………………… ………………… vi
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale …………………………………………… …… ………… …… ………1
2. Aims of the study…………………………………………… …… …… ……… 2
3. Research questions……………………………………………… ………… …… 2
4. Scope of the study…………………………………………… …………….…… 2
5. Methodology ……………………………………………….…… ….……… … 2
6. Design of the study………………………………………………… … … 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
a. The definition of listening skill ……………………………………….……… … 4
b. Listening skill in learning a foreign language teaching…………………… ……5
i. The importance of listening skill in foreign language teaching…… ……5
ii. The difficulties in learning listening skill ………………………… ….….6
iii. Teaching listening skill according to CLT…………………………… 8
c. Teaching listening skill through English songs……………………….…………… 8
i. The importance of songs in foreign language teaching ………… 8
ii. Using songs as a motivator for students to learn listening skill… ……… 10
iii. Tasks designed for listening texts……………………………………….…… 11
d. Summary ………… …………………………………………………….……….….12
Chapter 2: USING SONGS TO TEACH LISTENING FOR STUDENTS AT ITC
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
2.1. Hypothesis ……………………………………………… …… ……………….…13

2. Limitations and suggestions for further study …………………… 33
References …………………………… ………………………………….…….… 35
Appendix 1………………………………………………………… ……….……… i
Appendix 2…………………………… …………………………… …….……… xiii iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ITCFLC: ITC Foreign Language Centre
CLT: Communicative language teaching
EFL: Learning English as a foreign language

1 PART I: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
The Vietnam’s participation in World Trade Organization in 2007 has given us good
chance to integrate in the global development. We can see changes in all fields of life such
as cultural, social, economic and educational ones. Many foreign companies have recently
invested in Vietnam, which has boosted our economy to develop remarkably; it is the
reason why English has played a very important role in our society nowadays.
As we know, in 2008 the Ministry of Education and Training made a decision on
approval of the project “Teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education
system period 2008 – 2020”. Its main purpose is to reform the teaching and learning of
foreign languages in the national education system at all levels so that students will have
been able to achieve a remarkable improvement in learning foreign languages by 2015.
Also, students at colleges and universities will be able to use the foreign language
confidently in communication in an environment of integration, multi – languages, multi –
cultural variables to serve the cause of industrializating and modernizating of the country.
In the past, most textbooks paid more attention to reading and grammar, but recently
they have been reformed to develop the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading,

IV. Methodology
To fulfill the above aims, qualitative and quantitative method was chosen for the
study. All comments, remarks, assumptions and conclusion of the study were based on the
observation, data and analysis. Data collections for analysis in this study were gained
though the following resources:
- Survey questionnaires;
- Interview;
- observation;
The questionnaire was designed for both students and teachers. However, sometimes
interviews were also applied if the author found that the answer of respondents were not
clear enough.
V. Design of the study
3 The minor thesis consists of three parts:
Part I is the introduction in which the author presents the rationale, hypothesis of the
study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methodology and design of the study.
Part II is the development which is divided into 3 chapters:
o Chapter 1 set up theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study.
o Chapter 2 investigated the learning situation at ITC Foreign Language Center,
difficulties in teaching and learning listening skill and find out the students’ point of
view about using songs in classes.
o Chapter 3 emphasizes the implications of the study in which discusses about the
problems when applying in classes and suggests some criteria of choosing songs
and some suggested tasks designed from songs.
Part III is the conclusion, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the
limitations and provides some suggestions for further study.
 Recalling important words and ideas
(Rost, cited in Rosová, 2007)
From the points of view above, it is obvious that an able listener is capable of
integrating all these component skills.
Underwood (1989) also says that “listening is the ability of paying to and trying to get
meaning from something we hear”. She explains that to listen successfully to spoken
language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular
words in particular ways on particular occasions, and not simply to understand the words
themselves. But listening is different from hearing. Whilst hearing can be thought of as a
passive condition, listening is always an active process (Underwood, 1989). Actually,
hearing is possible to hear sounds without consciously engaging in the process. In contrast,
5 in listening, the brain does not automatically translate the words into message they are
conveying. It involves much more than assigning labels to sounds or words.
1.2. Listening skill in foreign language teaching
12.1. The importance of listening skill in foreign language teaching
It cannot be denied that we spend a large portion of our time listening because it is a
key element of the verbal communication. It has been estimated that adults spend almost
half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their
in – school information through listening to instructors or to one another. However, in the
past, reading and grammar skills were paid much attention to while speaking and listening
skills were taken for granted. As a result, language learners did not recognize its importance
in developing language skills.
Rost (1994) emphasizes the importance of listening for several reasons below:
 Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner.
Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.
 Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner. Since the learners
must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of the language is essential.

on different rhythms and tones” (Underwood, 1989). From that point of view, students in
Vietnam whose language is made of different tones face a great deal of difficulties in
learning listening skills.
Rost (1994) states that L2 listening is difficult for many learners because of problems
of motive, transfer, access to input and neurological development. Furthermore, the
research on learners’ listening problems (God, 2000) shows ten problems which occurred
at three stages of listening (perception, parsing and utilization). At the perception stage,
problems relate to the non-recognition of familiar words. It means that students may not
match sounds automatically to words because they have not stored the sounds of words
efficiently in long term memory. At the parsing stage, students can quickly forget what is
heard. In this case, students understand the gist or general meaning, but not the exact
meaning because they cannot remember key words and phrases. At the utilization stage,
students of foreign language can understand words but not the intended message. The
7 reason is that they cannot connect words to external sources such as background
knowledge or knowledge of discourse structure.
Ur (1996) also assumes that the students may have difficulties in learning listening
skill such as trouble with sounds, have to understand every word, cannot understand fast
and natural native speech, need to hear things more than once, find it difficult to keep up,
and get tired.
Another problem is that the students have to listen without any kinds of the supported
materials in front of them such as “texts, pictures, diagrams or other visual aids” (Lynch,
2005). Hence, they have to try to imagine and understand everything the speakers speak.
However, not all native English speakers have the same accent and intonation because of
their own dialects and regional accents, which really confuses the listeners
To solve these problems, teachers should make the lessons more interesting to
motivate the students to listen by some interesting activities in class. One of the activities
is to listen to English songs. In relation to the students at ITCFLC who still feel it very

No one can deny that music has played a very important part in our life. Every one
likes music. It accompanies with us very time we feel happy or sad. Music is at
everywhere, every time we need it: “when we exercise, when we work, when we play,
when we worship and even when we die, music is there to reinforce or alter every mood
and emotion” (Lynch, 2005). Studies have shown that music can improve concentration,
improve memory, bring a sense of community to a group, motivate learning, relax people
who are overwhelmed or stressed, make learning fun, help people absorb material.
Due to its great value, music and songs have been taken into consideration as a method
to teach language as Medina (1993) says “it is currently a common practice to use songs in
the classroom to support second language acquisition” because music can stimulate and
motivate students to learn a new language. It is really a language package that bundles
culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar and a host of other language skills in just a few
rhymes (Inggris, 2008).
9 In the words of Lynch (2005), “songs are useful in the language learning classroom”.
Therefore, he points out 9 reasons why foreign language teachers should use songs to
teach EFL:
o Songs almost always contain authentic, natural language.
o A variety of new vocabulary can be introduced to students through songs.
o Songs are usually very easily obtainable.
o Songs can be selected to suit the needs and interests of the students.
o Grammar and cultural aspects can be introduced through songs.
o Time length is easy controlled.
o Students can be experience a wide range of accents.
o Song lyrics can be used in relating to situations of the world around us.
o Students think songs are natural and fun.
(Lynch, 2005)
To share the same view, Davanellos (1999) says that “songs are not only fun, they

songs can develop the four language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking).
There are two processes involved in listening: bottom-up process and top-down
process. Cullen (1999) says that the first is bottom-up processing where the listener builds
up the sounds into words, sentences and meaning. The second is top-down processing
where the listener uses background knowledge to understand the meaning of a message.
Practicing both of these processes is essential for developing comprehension. Songs can be
used to utilize these two processes. Also, researchers have shown that music can change
the brain waves and make the brain more receptive to learning. Music connects the
functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain so that they work together and
makes learning quick and easy.
Krashen (1982) explains that optimal learning will occur if the affective filter must be
weak. According to his Affective Filter Hypothesis, a weak filter means that a positive
attitude towards learning is present. If the affective filter is strong, the learner will not seek
language input, and in turn will not be open to language acquisition. The practical
application of this hypothesis is that teachers must provide a positive atmosphere
11 conducive to language learning. Songs are one method for achieving a weak affective filter
and promoting language learning.
In conclusion, songs are one of the best methods to teach and motivate students to
learn listening skill. So teachers should take advantages of songs to stimulate and help
students improve their listening skill.
1.3.3. Tasks designed for listening texts
There are various kinds of listening tasks. According to Ur (1984), possible and
applicable listening tasks should be:
- Dictation exercise: This is common listening exercise which is usually practices in the
earlier years of school education. It requires students an integrative knowledge of the
phonological, syntactic and semantic systems of a language. To do this task, teacher gives
students handout, omitting some sentences of the text, then plays the tape and asks students

As mentioned above, the hypothesis of the study is that:
Songs can be used to motivate students to learn and improve listening skill.
2.2. The setting of the study
2.2.1. Students’ background information
ITC Foreign Language Centre (ITCFLC), part of Thinh Phat Company, was
established 3 years ago. From the beginning of its establishment, there have been 82 classes
of English opened of level A, 70 classes of level C and 33 classes of level C. Most of the
students at the centre are students and workers at all age ranging from 18-35. They come
from all parts of the country, so their learning background varies a lot, most of them were
learning at universities and colleges in Hai Duong, but the workers did not learn English for
a long time. This caused a lot of difficulties for both teachers and students in teaching and
learning English.
In the past, most of these students paid more attention to written texts including
reading and grammar. Besides, they learnt English in an isolated environment from English
13 speaking people and had little chance to communicate with foreigners so their ability to
speak and listen can not improved. Of the four language skills, listening seems to be the
most difficult for them. From the writer’s observation, many of them complained that
listening was really hard for them to learn and they benefited very little from this skill. As a
result, at monthly extra-curriculum activity with native teachers, they hardly understand all
what those teachers have said. In fact, they did not seem to have any motivation for
learning listening at all.

2.2.2. The teachers and teaching methods
Up to now, there are seven teachers of English at ITCFLC. Four of them graduated
from University of Languages and International Studies, two from Hanoi University, and
one from Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2. None of them had ever been trained in an
English speaking country. The oldest had over ten years experience in teaching English, the

observations were done during the experimental listening lesson by the researcher. After
an experimental lesson, some students were asked to attend in the discussion. All of
which were for further information needed for the study. In addition, formal and informal
discussions and small talks with teachers and students to collect more data for this study
were also carried out.
2.5. Procedures and methods of data analysis
The aim of the two questionnaires was to collect data relating to teachers’ and
students’ attitudes towards listening skill, the reasons that caused students’ difficulties in
learning listening skill, teachers and students’ attitudes towards English songs and using
songs in teaching and learning listening skill, and the situation of using songs to teach
listening skill at ITCFLC. Basing on categories established, data was then analyzed by
using descriptive statistics (percentage) and qualitative statistics (informal discussions,
interview). Pie chart, graphs and tables were mainly employed to analyze and compare
figures. The information was gathered from two questionnaires were presented and
analyzed as follows:
2.6. Data analysis and discussion
2.6.1. Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill
15
Pie-chart 1: Teachers’ attitude towards listening skill
As can be seen from the pie-chart, the numbers of teachers who considered listening
skill as a very important skill make up a large portion (80%). The remaining 20% of the
surveyed teachers says that listening skill is important. None of them thought that
listening skill was not important at all in language teaching and leaning. When asked,
most of them admitted that although listening skill was quite difficult to be mastered by
students but no one could deny its importance because people needed to live, work and
communicate with other people in the age of the globalization over the world.
2.6.2. Students’ attitude towards listening skill

their attitudes about English songs, whether they liked or disliked. All of them said that
they (100%) liked listening to English songs. However, not all of them used songs as an
extra activity in class. In fact, 80% of the teachers agrees while 20% of them still has
negative attitude and shows their suspect of using songs in class as the table below:
Songs as a useful tool to teach
listening skill
Number of teachers
Agree
80%
Disagree
20%

Table 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards using songs to teach listening skill
From the result of the table 1 above, most teachers have a positive attitude of using
English songs to improve listening skill for students as they said in the interview that songs
brought a non-threatening atmosphere and motivation for students. Besides, songs can help
students reduce stress and boredom during the lessons. It is really a good idea to make use
of English songs to teach listening skill. However, some of them state that it is not still an
effective way to teach listening skill because songs contain sounds, noise and theme music
which cause students a lot of difficulties in listening and recognizing the sounds.
2.6.5. Students’ attitude toward using songs to learn listening skill
18
Pie-chart 4: Student's attitude towards English songs
From the pie-chart 4 of students’ attitude towards English songs, it can be clearly
seen that most of the students show their interest in English songs, accounting for 86%.
However, there is about 8% of them says that they have no concerning about English
songs even 6% still shows their dislike to English songs. The reason is that they prefer

85%

Table 2: Reasons that students listen to English songs
When mentioning the amount of time students spend listening to English songs, most
of them said that they often listened to English songs in the evenings and only spent about
1 hour listening to them (95%). Some others said that they listened to English songs
whenever they had free time. A large amount of the informants (85%) share the same
opinion about their aim of listening to songs is to relax and for pleasure. Listening to
songs really make them feel comfortable and relaxed after hours of working or studying
hard. Meanwhile, there is 55% of students saying that their main purpose is to improve
listening skill. None of them listens to English songs to stay awake or for professional
reasons.
20 2.6.8. Teachers’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of using songs to
teach listening skill
The table below shows teachers’ opinion about advantages of songs used to teach
listening skill.
Options
Results (%)
Reduce boredom in class
100%
Pay attention to the pronunciation of the
words
21%
Help students relax during the lesson
79%
Help students listen better
73%

Table 4: Teachers’ opinion about disadvantages of using songs in class
The most popular problem that teachers agree with is that they find it really difficult to
find appropriate songs for their students (85%) because it often takes them a lot of time to
find suitable songs. It is the reason why they rarely use songs in class. At the second rank is
the problem with students distracted by music, which accounts for 69%. Next is the class
becomes noisy, out of control, or limited time in class making up 54%. 24% of them thinks
that songs are not clear enough for student to hear because singer often link sounds
together. In addition, teachers worry about their ability to sing (11%) since they say that
they could not sing and they feel ashamed if their students ask them to sing in front of class.
2.6.8. Students’ opinion about advantages and disadvantages of using songs to learn
English
After a period of time learning listening skill, many of students became interested in
listening English songs as the chart below:
80%
65.70%
51%
76.50%
35.70%
27.60%
Make the
listening
lesson more
enjoyable
Help me
listen to
English
better
Develop my
guessing skill
Create a