A study on the use of listening test-taking
strategies and their relationship with students'
performance at Que Vo I Upper Secondary
School in Bacninh

Lê Thị Thúy Hà
Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Prof.Dr. Nguyễn Văn Độ
Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Abstract: This study examines 165 (in 4 groups) Que Vo I upper-secondary school students’
test-taking strategies and their relationship with listening performance. It further looks into
how students adjust their strategies under different task conditions. The participants will
complete a three-phase (before/during/after) test-taking questionnaire and will be given a
listening test comprising tasks. After each subtest, students will report the strategies used
based on a strategy list, and further “wrote in” their own strategies. The results show that all
students favor some strategies, regardless of their listening proficiency. The difference
between high- and low-level students is not in the number of strategies used but in the
preferential order and frequency of use. Students’ listening performance had a strong
correlation with the strategy used before the test-taking phase. Based on students’ reported
strategies it was found that students were able to adjust their strategy use according to the
change in task conditions, the same strategy may be used in different ways and for different
purposes by different levels of students, some strategies are interrelated and are used
concurrently, and test-taking strategy involves multiple dimensions, making it difficult to
tease out one factor from another.

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Thủ thuật nghe; Bài kiểm tra; Kỹ năng nghe. iv

II.1.1.2.2. Listening skills, tasks and activities………………………
II.1.2.The context of teaching and learning listening skill at upper-secondary school
II.1.2.1.In Vietnam
II.1.2.2.At Que Vo I upper-secondary school………………………………
II.2. Research methodology
II.2.1. Research questions
II.2.2. Subject of the study
II.2.3.The data collection Instruments
II.2.4.Procedure
II.2.5.Data Analysis
Chapter three: Results and Discussions………………………………………………
III.1.Questionnaire Results
III.2.The Listening Test Results and researcher’s observations
III.2.1.The Listening Test Results
III.2.2.Researcher’s observation
III.3.Students’ Strategy Use Under Different Test Tasks
Part three: Conclusions, Recommendations and implications on listening teaching…
I. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………
II. Recommendations…………………………………………………………………….
III. Limitations and suggestions for further studies……………………………………
Reference……………………………………………………………………
Appendix 1…………………………………………………………………
Appendix 2…………………………………………………………………
Appendix 3…………………………………………………………………

vi
Appendix 4………………………………………………………………… LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS

Table 2: Statistics for Participants Responding to Listening Test-taking Strategy
Questionnaire
Table 3: Student Performance for Four Forms of Listening Support
Table 4: Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Repeated Input

Table 5: Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Vocabulary Support
Table 6. Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Previewing Test Questions
Table 7. Students’ Reported Strategy Use with Topical Knowledge Stimulus 1
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Second language listening comprehension is a complex process and crucial in the development
of second language competence; yet, the importance of listening in language learning has only
been recognized relatively recently (Nunan,1998;Celce-Murcia, 2001). Since the role of
listening comprehension in language learning was either overlooked or undervalued, it merited
little research and pedagogical attention in the past. But at present, some researchers have
devoted some time to listening and believe it to be an important skill in teaching and learning.
For instance, Nunan (1998) believes that: “… listening is the basic skill in language learning.
Without listening skill, learners will never learn to communicate effectively. In fact over 50%
of the time that students spend functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to
listening….” (p. 1)
As listening is assuming greater importance in foreign language classrooms and in
language acquisition (see, e.g., Nord , 1978; Byrnes, 1984; Long, 1989; Feyten, 1991; Dunkel,
1991),the new textbook which is designed based on communicative approach driving at

-Students always get bad marks and they are always lack of confidence
for the listening tests
Besides, at the present pedagogical context ,out of the three grades: grade 10,grade 11, grade
12, grade 12 is the most reliable to classify into different language proficiency and they are
experienced and armed with most listening strategies .Therefore, students of grade 12 were
chosen .
4. Research questions
In order to achieve the aims mentioned in the section two, the present study focused on
answering the following question:
1. How does the use of test-taking strategies correlate with learners’listening
performance?
Beside that answer the two sub-questions to help the teachers to find out good way to
improve students’ listening competence and performance

3
1. What strategies are the most and the least frequently used by the learners when taking a
test? How are students of varying listening proficiencies similar or different in their
strategy use at the three different phases?
2 .Do students of different levels of listening proficiency use different strategies for
different test tasks? If so, what are the strategies?
5. Research methodology
The research is done by both qualitative and quantitative methods: It is carried out on the
basic of the situation analysis, material collection, survey questionnaires , class observations ,
and students’ written reports.
In the first place, situation analysis, has a low at the background to the study including the
description of the current context at Que Vo I upper-secondary school and listening skill in the
new textbook“ Tiếng Anh 12”.Secondly, for the theoretical basis ,a lot of reference materials
on listening methodology and problems have been gathered, analyzed and synthetized
thoroughly with the due consideration for teachers’ teaching and students’ learning situations.
Eventually, for the practical basis, questionnaires, class observations, reports were carried
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