HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY N
o
2
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY
- - -    - - -

NGUYEN THI GIANG
TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS OF
11
TH
FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL

(GRADUATION PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH) ii
ABSTRACT

Techniques for improving English listening skill is the topic that has got much
concern of experts. Many books about this issue have been published. Different
authors dealt with different aspects of the topic. However, the difficulties that learners
often have in learning listening and solutions for the problems mentioned in some
books have not been clearly dealt with in full and sometimes caused confusion to
learners of English.
As a result, students of English often find listening difficult because they do not
have appropriate methods to get over the difficulties. Therefore, this research is aimed
at studying factors relevant to listening comprehension, structure of a listening lesson
and conducting a survey for collecting data about the students‟ difficulties in learning
listening.
Based on the results of the survey, the difficulties have been found. Solutions to
the problems have been suggested.


Table of contents. IV

Part I
INTRODUCTION
I.1: Rationale 1
I.2: Research objectives 1
I.3: Research scope 2
I.4: Research tasks 2
I.5: Research methods 2
I.6: Research significance 2
I.7: Research design 3
Part II
DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

II.1.1: Literature review 4
II.1.2: Introduction 5
II.1.3: Listening comprehension 5
II.1.4: Classification of listening 7
II.1.4.1: Informative listening 7
II.1.4.2: Appreciative listening 9
II.1.4.3: Critical listening 10
II.1.4.4: Discriminative listening 12
II.1.4.5: Empathic listening 13
II.1.5: Steps of a listening lesson 15

v
II.1.5.1: Pre-listening 15
II.1.5.1.1: Definition and purposes of pre-listening stage 15
II.1.5.1.2: Types of pre-listening activities 15

II.2.1.5.2: Try-out 23

vi
II.2.1.6: Method of data analysis 23
II.2.1.7: Results of the survey 23

CHAPTER THREE
SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS TO
THE 11TTH FORM STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL
II.3.1: What should students do to improve listening skills?. 32
II.3.1.1: The necessity of clearly identifying their purposes of listening 32
II.3.1.2: The necessity of learning listening actively .33
II.3.1.3: The necessity of frequent listening practicing 34
II.3.2: Requirements for teachers 34
III.3.2.1: Pre-listening 34
II.3.2.1.1: Introducing the topic 34
II.3.2.1.2: Pre-learning vocabulary 34
II.3.2.1.3: Asking students to look at picture(s) 35
II.3.2.1.4: Listening with visuals 35
II.3.2.2: While-listening 35
II.3.2.2.1: Listening for the gist 35
II.3.2.2.2: Listening and filling 36
II.3.2.2.3: Listening for specific information 36
II.3.2.3: Post-listening 37
II.3.2.3.1: Jigsaw listening 37
II.3.2.3.2: Role-play/stimulation 38
Part III
CONCLUSION
Conclusion 39
References 42

I.2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The purposes of this study is to examine the areas of difficulties in learning
English listening encountered by students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school and what
they desire to do in listening lesson.

2
Therefore the study will aims at finding the answers for the questions as follow:
- What difficulties do students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school have in
learning English listening?
- What do students want to do in each step of listening lesson?
- What can teachers and students do to improve students‟ listening skill?
I.3. RESEARCH SCOPE
The difficulties which students may have in learning English listening is
various, so it is impossible to discover all the aspects of this issue. Within the scope of
this graduate paper, the researcher can only conduct a survey on the students of 11
th

form to identify common listening problems experienced by the students, after that
suggest some techniques to help them improve their listening ability.
I.4. RESEARCH TASKS
The study involves fulfilling the tasks of studying the definitions and process of
listening comprehension; researching into the classification of listening; discussing
steps of a listening lesson; studying potential difficulties students may have in learning
listening and conducting a survey to find out the difficulties students form 11
th
at Me

Part two, “Development” has three chapters:
Chapter one mentions different points of views about teaching English in
general and how to improve listening skill in particular. The concepts relevant to the
research topic such as the definitions of listening comprehension, classification of
listening, three steps of a listening lesson, and potential difficulties students may have
in learning English listening are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter two is named “An investigation into current situation of learning
listening of students form 11
th
at Me Linh High school”. It has two sections. Section
one is devoted to the survey. The second deals with the common difficulties that
students have in learning listening.
Chapter three is entitled “suggested techniques to improve listening skill for
students form11th at Me Linh High school” which provides some techniques to help
better the students‟ listening skill.
Part three – Conclusion: Summarize discussed points, limitation of the study as
well as suggestions for further researches 4
PART TWO
DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
II.1.1. LITERATURE REVIEW
How to improve listening skill is not a new topic today. It has been studied by

In short, much research has been done on how to improve listening skills. Each
research discusses different aspects of this topic, some mention effective ways to teach
English, some study the whole process of listening comprehension, some other discuss
how to learn listening well. However, only Christine C.M Goh, (1939), gives the
difficulties that learners have in English listening and solutions. In fact, there are far
more listening problems that learners may meet, and solutions that can solve the
problems. Therefore, it is essential to have a comprehensive study of the common
English listening difficulties and techniques to get over them.
II.1.2. Introduction
To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the
reexamination of concepts most relevant to the thesis‟s topic. Firstly, come the different
points of view about listening comprehension. Secondly, the classification of listening
comprehension is discussed. Thirdly, there is a discussion of the steps of the listening
lesson. Finally, the potential problems in learning listening are also referred to.
II.1.3. Listening comprehension
Like reading, speaking, and writing, listening plays a significant role in daily
communication and education process. It is one of the factors which contribute
successful conversations. Without listening, we are not able to understand what people
are saying, respond to the speaker, as a result, we can not build a rapport with the
people around us and be able to resolve problems we have in our life and our study as
well. In spite of the fact that listening is very important, it has long been the neglected
skill in many areas especially in teaching. In school, teachers tended to concentrate
much more on improving reading, speaking and writing skill for students than on
bettering students‟ listening skill. That was one of the reasons why students were not
motivated to learn listening. It was not until recently when people have recognized and

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understood the importance of having good listening skill, they have paid more
attention to how to make their listening ability better, and listening skill has also got
more concern from educators and students.

in the sense that it is our version of what the speaker meant, as far as we are able to
assess that meaning.
In short, in order to be successful in listening, we should remember that:
“listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and
then ignored while other skills are developed. There must be regular practice with
increasingly difficult material”.(River, Wilga M.(1986) Teaching Foreign Language
Skill,p.157)
There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension. Listeners
use 'top-down' processes when they use prior knowledge to understand the meaning of
a message. Prior knowledge can be knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the
text-type, the culture or other information stored in long-term memory as schemata
(typical sequences or common situations around which world knowledge is
organized). Listeners use content words and contextual clues to form hypotheses in an
exploratory fashion. On the other hand, listeners also use 'bottom-up' processes when
they use linguistic knowledge to understand the meaning of a message. They build
meaning from lower level sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical
meanings in order to arrive at the final message. Listening comprehension is not either
top-down or bottom-up processing, but an interactive, interpretive process where
listeners use both prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding
messages. The degree to which listeners use the one process or the other will depend
on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose for
listening. For example, listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing,
whereas listening for specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves
primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all the desired details.
II.1.4. Classification of listening
II.1.4.1. Informative listening
Informative listening (listening for information) is a process, by which an
individual listens with attention and focus to what somebody is saying, so as to grasp
some knowledge. Informative listening is very important if one want to learn
something new. Proper informative listening will lead to increased wisdom and

memory of concepts and ideas, they could not understand the meaning of messages.
In summary, informative listening is an important skill in the range of different
listening skills we need in our every day lives. Using informative listening well allows

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us to acquire information or instructions and understand messages that a speaker is
trying to get across.
II.1.4.2. Appreciative listening
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, appreciative listening is a type
of listening behavior where the listener seeks certain information which will
appreciate, for example that which helps meet his/her needs and goals. One uses
appreciative listening when listening to good music, poetry or maybe even the stirring
words of a great leader. It involves listening to music that one enjoys, people who the
listener likes to listen to because of their style and the choices the listener make in the
films and television he/she watches, radio programmes and plays and musicals in the
theatre. Unlike informative listening, appreciative listening does not rely on the
message from the speaker it is how one responds as a listener.
Our appreciation of what we hear will vary depending on our individual tastes.
However the quality of appreciative listening depends in large part on three factors:
presentation, perception, and previous experience.
a. Presentation
There are many different factors that encompass presentation including the
medium, the setting and the style and personality of a presenter. Normally, in a
conversation the listeners often stop listening to the speakers because there‟s
something in the way they present themselves that the listeners don‟t like or find
irritating. Of course this works both ways and equally the listeners will have been
entranced by others because of the force of their personality and their delivery style.
The setting can also impact on the listeners‟ appreciation of the presentation.
Seating, temperature, clarity and volume of sound will all impact on whether it‟s a
good or poor experience.

This form of listening requires significant real-time cognitive effort as the
listener analyzes what is being said, relating it to existing knowledge and rules, whilst
simultaneously listening to the ongoing words from the speaker.
Critical listening means using careful, systematic thinking and reasoning to see
whether a message makes sense in light of factual evidence. Critical listening can be
learned with practice but is not necessarily easy to do. Some people never learn this
skill; instead, they take every message at face value even when those messages are in

11
conflict with their knowledge. Problems occur when messages are repeated to others
who have not yet developed the skills to discern the difference between a valid
message and a mistaken one. Critical listening can be particularly difficult when the
message is complex. Unfortunately, some speakers may make their messages
intentionally complex to avoid critical scrutiny. For example, a city treasurer giving a
budget presentation might use very large words and technical jargon, which make it
difficult for listeners to understand the proposed budget and ask probing questions.
Critical listening is first and foremost a skill that can be learned and improved.
There are some techniques that people can use to become a more critical listener.
a, Uncovering assumptions
If something is factual, supporting evidence exists. However, we still need to be
careful about what evidence does and does not mean. Assumptions are gaps in a
logical sequence that listeners passively fill with their own ideas and opinions and may
or may not be accurate. When listening to a public speech, you may find yourself
being asked to assume something is a fact when in reality many people question that
fact. For example, suppose you‟re listening to a speech on weight loss. The speaker
talks about how people who are overweight are simply not motivated or lack the self-
discipline to lose weight. The speaker has built the speech on the assumption that
motivation and self-discipline are the only reasons why people can‟t lose weight. You
may think to yourself, what about genetics? By listening critically, you will be more
likely to notice unwarranted assumptions in a speech, which may prompt you to

If you can make effective comparisons while you are listening, it can deepen
your understanding of the message. If you can provide those comparisons for your
listeners, you make it easier for them to give consideration to your ideas.
II.1.4.4. Discriminative listening
The next type of listening is discriminative listening. By being sensitive to
changes in the speaker‟s rate, volume, force, pitch, and emphasis, the informative
listener can detect even nuances of difference in meaning. By sensing the impact of
certain responses, such as “uh huh,” or “I see,” relationship listening can be
strengthened. Detection of differences between sounds made by certain instruments in
the orchestra, or parts sung by the a cappella vocal group, enhances appreciative
listening. Finally, sensitivity to pauses, and other vocal and nonverbal cues, allows

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critical listeners to more accurately judge not only the speaker‟s message, but his
intentions as well.
There are three things to consider about this type of listening.
a. Hearing ability
Obviously, people who lack the ability to hear well will have greater difficulty in
discriminating among sounds. Often this problem is more acute for some frequencies, or
pitches, than others. For example, a person may be less able to discriminate when the
sound is coming from a bass voice than from a higher pitched one.
b. Awareness of sound structure
Native speakers become quite proficient at recognizing vowel and consonant
sounds that do or do not appear at the beginning, middle, or end of words. For
example, a listener might hear “this sandal” when what the speaker said was “this
handle”; but since English words do not begin with “sb,” one would not mistake “this
bean” for “this sbean.”
Attention to the sound structure of the language will lead to more proficient
discriminatory listening. A person who pays attention to sound structure would
recognize that a rapidly spoken “Idrankitfirst” could mean either “I drank it first” or

issue
Empathic listening means that it is your job to actually hear what is being said,
and reach to the heart of the topic to achieve full understanding of the situation. In
doing this you need to find out specifics such as who is involved, what the actual
problem is, and what are the extenuating circumstances that circle the problem. All of
this information goes to help you give the best informed resolution you can find.
Without it, perhaps through the act of not listening closely enough, you might miss an
intrinsic part of the problem.
c, Offer a summary of what you have heard to the speaker, when they are done
talking
This means you take what you have heard and reword it, offering them a
summarized version of what they have said. It need be no more than an outline going
over all of the most important key points of their problem. This affirms to them that
you were listening, and reaffirms to yourself what you heard.

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II.1.5: Steps of a listening lesson
There are three main steps of a listening lesson, they are pre-listening, while-
listening and post-listening. Each step has its own characteristics and activities.
II.1.5.1. Pre-listening
II.1.5.1.1 Definition and purposes of pre-listening step
It is true that learners will find it extremely difficult to do a listening lesson
when they have no idea of what they are going to hear. Even if the sounds and the
words which they hear are familiar, they may still be unable to understand because
they lack certain kinds of knowledge of the topic, setting and the relationship between
the speakers. Thus, the listeners‟ expectation and purposes should be taken into
account. These make listeners feel as in a real-life situation in their native language.
Teacher can help their students to arouse their expectation and see the purpose before a
listening lesson. This kind of work is described as “pre-listening activities”
II.1.5.1.2. Types of pre-listening activities

The while-listening stage involves activities that students are asked to do during
the time that they are listening to the text. The purpose of while-listening activities is
to help learner develop the skill of eliciting massages from spoken language.
There are of course other reasons why students need to listen to the language
they are studying. The main thing is that to learn to recognize how it sounds (the
pronunciation of words, the stress, the rhythm, the intonation that they can use what
they can hear as a model for their own speech).
When developing the skill of listening for comprehension, while-listening
activities must be choose carefully. They must vary at different levels and different
cases.
“Good while-listening activities help learner find their way through the
listening text and build upon the expectations raised by the pre-listening activities”
(Underwood, Teaching Listening, 1990, p.46).
II.1.5.2.2: Factors affecting the choice of while-listening activities

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In while-listening activities students can check their comprehension of what
they expected/predicted and what they actually hear. Therefore the choice of while-
listening activities may focus on the following criteria:
 The content. What are the topics and sub topics? How are topics and sub
topics related?
 The speakers‟ use of language. What words do the speakers use to introduce
a new idea? How do they change the topic? How do they express uncertainty? How
does their intonation change during the text?
 While-listening activities may also prompt students‟ reactions to the ideas in
the listening text; for example, students may ask themselves questions like „Do I agree
with what they say? Is there another side to what they say?‟ while listening.
II.1.5.2.3: Types of activities for while-listening
This stage, as it arises from the name, contains activities done by the students
during the listening passage. The aim of activities done during this stage is to help the

work; the student should work in pair or in group and the chosen activities should be
made motivating.
II.1.5.3.3: Types of post-listening activities
There are several activities that can be used in the post-listening stage, such as:
 Problem solving and decision-making tasks- where students are trying to find
out a solution for a problem from the recording
 Summarizing- students can be asked to summarize a story they heard. This
activity can be linked with problem solving
 Written work- students can be asked to write the end of the story
II.1.6. Potential difficulties that students may have in learning listening
Of four language skills, listening is considered to be such a very difficult one.
A great number of learners have difficulties with different areas of listening