MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY Nº. 2
=====***=====

NGUYEN THI THANH MUOI

AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING VIDEO FOR
OUT-OF-CLASS LISTENING PRACTICE AMONG THE
3RD-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI PEDAGOGICAL
UNIVERSITY N0. 2

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

SUPERVISOR: TA THI THANH HOA, M.A.

Hanoi, May 2013
i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this chance to express my greatest gratitude to my
supervisor, Ms. Ta Thi Thanh Hoa, M. A., for her patience in providing
continuous and careful guidance as well as encouragement, indispensable
suggestions and advice.
I am greatly indebted to the teachers of English at Hanoi Pedagogical
University N0.2 for their help and guidance while I was carrying out the survey.
I wish to thank all lecturers at Hanoi Pedagogical University N˚. 2, especially
the lecturers in the Foreign Language Faculty for their instruction during my years

University N0.2
(Graduation paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the Degree of
Bachelor of Arts in English)

I certify that no part of this report has been copied or reproduced from any
other person’s work without acknowledgements and that the report is originally
written by me under strict guidance from my supervisor.

Date submitted: May 2013

Student

Supervisor

Nguyen Thi Thanh Muoi

Ta Thi Thanh Hoa, M.A.

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LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Tables:
Table 1: The effectiveness of using video in listening practice
Table 2: Some negative attitudes towards using video in listening practice
Table 3: Students’ favorite while-listening activities

Charts:
Chart 1: Students’ difficulties in listening

I.2.2. Listening comprehension process .................................................................. 8
I.2.2.1. Bottom- up process .................................................................................... 8
I.2.2.2. Top- down process ..................................................................................... 9
I.2.2.3. Interactive process...................................................................................... 9
I.2.3. Stages of listening comprehension .............................................................. 10
I.2.3.1. Pre-listening ............................................................................................. 10
I.2.3.2. While-listening ......................................................................................... 10
I.2.3.3. Post-listening............................................................................................ 10
I.3. The roles of listening in foreign language teaching and learning .............. 11
I.3.1. Language acquisition .................................................................................. 11
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I.3.2. Speaking skill development......................................................................... 12
I.3.3. One of ultimate goals of learning a language............................................... 12
I.4. General concepts of video ............................................................................ 13
I.5. Uses of video in learning language ............................................................. 14
I.5.1. For its own sake .......................................................................................... 14
I.5.2. For comprehension of spoken language ...................................................... 14
I.5.3. As a language model ................................................................................... 14
I.5.4. Cultural values ............................................................................................ 15
I.5.5. As a stimulus for input ............................................................................... 15
I.5.6. As a moving picture book ........................................................................... 15
I.6. The effectiveness of using video in listening comprehension enhancement ... 16
I.6.1. Generating interest, motivation and concentration in listening .................... 16
I.6.2. Lowering anxiety in listening ...................................................................... 17
I.6.3. Helping learners study on-verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication .... 18
I.6.4. Providing the background of communication .............................................. 19
CHAPTER TWO
METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH FINDINGS

II.2.3.2. Problems ................................................................................................. 37
II.2.3.2.1. The mixed ability among the students .................................................. 37
II.2.3.2.2. The choice of unsuitable video in listening .......................................... 38
II.2.3.2.3. Inappropriate listening tasks designed from video................................ 38
CHAPTER THREE: SUGGESTED SOLLUTIONS
III.1. Selecting video materials .......................................................................... 39
III.2. Some techniques of using video ................................................................ 40
III.2.1. Sound off/vision on (silent viewing) ......................................................... 40
III.2.2. Sound on/vision off (sound only).............................................................. 40
III.2.3. Sound on and vision on (normal viewing) ................................................ 41
III.2.4. Split viewing ............................................................................................ 41
III.2.5. Jumbled sequence ..................................................................................... 41
III.3. Varying tasks designed from video .......................................................... 42
III.3.1. Diagram labeling ...................................................................................... 42
III.3.2. Matching .................................................................................................. 42
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III.3.3. Dictation ................................................................................................... 42
III.3.4. Gist listening ............................................................................................ 43
III.3.5. Note- taking .............................................................................................. 43
III.3.6. Predicting language .................................................................................. 43
III.3.7. Spotting activities ..................................................................................... 43
PART THREE: CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION................................................................................................... 44
REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 46
APPENDICES .................................................................................................... 48
LISTENING PRE-TEST ................................................................................... 48
LISTENING POST-TEST ................................................................................. 49
SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE .............................................................................. 51

to present communicative situations in context. The video is an important resource
that may be used by teachers of English. Experience also shows that activities
based on video materials encourage more communication among learners. When
they watch a video, learners are able to understand that gestures, facial expressions,
1


postures and body language are generally more important for communication than
verbal messages. Therefore, students can improve their comprehension if they pay
full attention to sounds and meaning whenever they view videos.
Unfortunately,

using

English

video

for

listening

comprehension

enhancement seems to be the most challenging to many students. This is also a big
problem that most students especially the 3rd-year students are encountering.
Moreover, as a prospective teacher, I would like to make a contribution to the
English teaching in Vietnam. In addition, the research available on secondlanguage comprehension is insufficient. Comparing with other skills, there are
fewer insights about the process of listening and the way it is learnt.
For all the things mentioned above, the researcher finds it necessary to carry

The survey was conducted on thirty 3rd-year English majors at HPU2.
The use of video lasted for the period of 8 weeks with the purpose of
practicing the listening skills through video. Video is used outside classroom as an
extra activity. The video materials were taken from the Oxford English VideoLifetime,

by

Tom

Hutchinson

(1999)

and

from

website

/>V. RESEARCH TASKS
The study involves fulfilling the following tasks:
1) To study the general concepts of listening comprehension.
2) To provide insight into significance of listening in language teaching and
learning.
3) To study the uses of video in learning language and the benefits of using video
in listening comprehension enhancement.
4) To conduct a survey to find out the effectiveness of using video for listening
practice and the common difficulties in using video in the classroom. On the
basis of the findings, some recommendations to the difficulties are sought to
overcome these difficulties and take full advantage of videos.

VIII. DESIGN OF THE RESEARCH WORK
The research has three main parts, namely: Introduction, Development and
Conclusion. The part “Development” consists of two chapters. Chapter one is
entitled “Theoretical background”. It includes two sections. Section one reviews
literature review in brief. The second one deals with things related to listening
comprehension such as definition, process and stages of listening comprehension

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as well as the uses and the benefits of using video in practicing listening
comprehension.
Chapter two is named “methodology and research findings”. It has three
sections. Section one is devoted to the survey. The second deals with data analysis
of using video for out-of class listening practice. The last one is on some suggested
solutions to the problems on using video in practicing listening comprehension.

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PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I.1. Literature review in brief
Using video to learn a language has been described by many grammarians
like Pano Michaelides (2004), Stempleski and Sand Arcanorio (1990), Arthus, P.
(1999), Sherman, J. (2003), Katsiashviki (2010), Cooper, R., Lavery, M. and
Rinvolucri, M. (1991), Barry Tomalin and Stempleski, S.(2001), and so on. They
each have their own way to describe videos. Generally, they focus their attention
on history, benefits of video and ways of using video in practicing listening
language.

the definition and benefits of using video. They also focus on the reality in the use
of video as a TV- video image. Furthermore, they pay their attention to the
effectiveness of using video recording in learning a language. Besides, they
concentrate on some activities using video.
In summary, much research has been done on video but very little research
has been conducted to point out the effectiveness of using video for out-of-class
listening comprehension enhancement. Considering the importance of this issue, it
is essential to conduct a comprehensive investigation into using video for out-ofclass listening comprehension enhancement.
I.2. General concepts of listening comprehension
I.2.1. Definition of listening comprehension
Many researchers agreed that language is the tool of communication, while
listening is a great important part of language communication and it is the basic
path to understand others. Listening is more than merely hearing words and
comprehension is often consider to be the first goal of listening, and the highest
priority of the listener. During the last few decades, scholars have been trying to
find out the nature of listening comprehension and different definitions of listening
comprehension have been proposed.
According to Boyle (1981), “listening comprehension is defined as the
process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language. When
comprehending something, we can understand what is said. It is assumed that
speaking and writing are the process of encoding messages while listening and
reading decode them. Listening comprehension, therefore, is a perceptive skill
involving identifying and retaining information orally perceived.”
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In Buck’ point of view, “listening comprehension is an active process of
constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming
sound “in which” numbers of different types of knowledge are involved; both
linguistic knowledge and nonlinguistic knowledge.” (Buck, 2001)

in the speech itself to try to comprehend the meaning. We segment speech into
identifiable sounds and impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases,
clauses, sentences and intonation patterns. At the same time, we use whatever clues
are available to infer meaning from the developing speech.”
With bottom-up processing, students start with the component parts: words,
the combination of sounds, and grammar that creates the meaning.
I.2.2.2. Top-down process
Top-down processing is opposite to bottom-up processing. Learners start
from background knowledge, either content “schema” (general information based
on previous learning and life experience) or textual schema (awareness of the kinds
of information used in a given situation) (See Long, 1989).
Nunan, D. (1990) illustrates that top-down processes “focus on the overall
meaning of a passage and the application of schemata. Schemata are mental
frameworks based on past experiences which can be applied to and help us
interpret the current situation.” In top-down processing, listeners use their prior
knowledge to generate hypothesis. Prior-knowledge includes the topic, the context,
the cultural aspects and text type of the listening material. It is important for both
teachers and students to recognize the existence of these two types of processing
listening input as they both contribute to the development of listening skill.
I.2.2.3. Interactive process
Because neither bottom-up process nor top-down process alone is sufficient
for comprehension, “these two processing intersect to develop an interactive
processing” (Wu, 2008). In the interactive process, listeners use both prior
knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages. The degree to
which listeners use the process or the other will depend on their knowledge of the
language and familiarity with the topic or the purpose for listening.
Understanding how listening comprehension will provide students with a lot
of ideas to listen more successfully. It is also necessary to consider the stages of
listening comprehension in learning to listen to English.
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production. The activities at this time are aimed at helping learners to use what
they have had from the listening text. The teacher should make up and vary the
10


activities for learners to do depending on their level of English competence. This
stage often lasts for ten or fifteen minutes. According to Hedge (2000), “postlistening activities can take students into a more intensive phase study in which
aspects of bottom-up listening are practiced.”
Post-listening work can be more successful if they are integrated with other
skills through development of the topic into reading, speaking or writing activities.
I.3. The role of listening in language teaching and learning
I.3.1. Language acquisition
In the book Teach English- a Training Course for Teachers, Adrian Doff
(1996) states that listening to spoken English is an important way of picking up the
structures and vocabulary. It is no doubt that listening can help learners build their
knowledge of grammar and vocabulary that is the reason why listeners who are
living in an English spoken country acquire the language much easily than the
others because they hear it all the time.
According to second language acquisition theory, language input is the most
essential condition of language acquisition. As an input skill, listening plays a
crucial role in students’ language development. Krashen (1981) illustrates that
people acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they hear.
Thus

learners

achieve

language


the listener for clear and explicit instructions. Many of the speakers failed to
produce “listener-friendly” messages without prior listening practice.” In a word,
listening and speaking are interdependent with each other.
I.3.3. One of the ultimate goals of learning a language
As Wang Shouyuan (2003), listening is the most important component in
five aspects of overall English competence. He suggests among five aspects
(listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation), listening deserves particular
attention. Therefore, it is necessary to actively explore the methodology of
listening in order to improve listening and make students recognize that listening is
one of the ultimate goals of learning a language. Moreover, according to Donoghue
(1985), listening occupies the basic portion in the context of the language arts and
the process in reading, speaking and writing is directly governed by the ability of
listening. It is the most important of the four arts since nearly half of the adult’s
working day and more than half of the child’s classroom activity is spent in
listening. Apart from communication interaction, much of the enjoyment in second
or foreign language comes from listening activities like watching films and plays
or watching TV or listening to songs. In class there are many things that students
can learn from their students. They also learn from the tape or from each other
through the act of listening.
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In addition, learning listening is not simply intended to make students hear a
sound, a word or a sentence, rather, the goal is to cultivate students’ abilities to
understand speakers’ intentions accurately and communicate with each other
effectively. Thus, many experiences of listening can be gained to a wide variety of
samples of spoken English. Students also know many varieties of language such as
standard or regional, formal or informal language.
Therefore, listening is regarded to be one of the most important educational
objectives. It increases an individual’s level of vocational skills. Students are also

Video is a very effective technological tool for English language learning.
Most often a video film is used to present and practice communicative situations.
The video is an important resource that may be used by students of English.
I.5.1. For its own sake
According to Eka Katsiashvili (2010), people want access to the world of
English language media: they want to be able to view the news, get information
from advertisements, and see a film, in general, to use this language. This may well
be one of your students' major goals in learning English and in all fairness they
ought to be able to get a glimpse of their goals. He emphasizes that if we are
prepared to teach 'reading newspapers' or 'conversation' we should also teach these
major audiovisual genres.
I.5.2. For comprehension of spoken language
According to Hemei (1997), in many English learning situations, videos are
used as a key role in order to create a successful learning environment for learners.
It is necessary to prepare adequately to promote active viewing and facilitate
successful language acquisition.
As Sherman, J. (2003) puts it, video brings learners all kinds of voices in all
kinds of situations, with full contextual backup. One obvious advantage for
comprehension is the visual dimension, particularly for pragmatic understanding in
dialogue. The most important advantage is the access to a variety of recognizable
genres and the long-term contextual understanding built up as the program
develops.
I.5.3. As a language model
Sherman, J. (2003) illustrates that authentic video provides a vast up-to-date
linguistic resource of accents, vocabulary, grammar and syntax, and all kinds of
discourse, which shows learners language in most of its uses and contexts14


something neither course book nor classroom can do. For him, authentic video can
be a model for specific language items or a general pool for students to pick and

As Heron (1995), “video can be used to help learners improve
comprehension and aid in the retention of information. Heron, Hanley, and Cole
(1995) also hypothesize that the more meaningful educational video is, the more
impact it can have on comprehension and retention. The findings from their studies
show that video offer contextual support and help learners to visualize words as
well as meaning. It can be argued that language found in videos could help nonnative speakers understand stress patterns and allow learners to see body rhythm
and speech rhythm in second language discourse through the use of authentic
language and speed of speech in various situations.
It is very important to motivate students to learn. If students want to be
motivated to learn, they need not only ample opportunities, steady encouragement
but also support their learning efforts. According to Good and Brophy (1994),
“because such motivation is unlikely to develop in a chaotic classroom, it is very
important that teacher organize and manage the classroom as an effective learning
environment.” They also emphasize that “because anxious or alienated students are
unlikely to develop motivation to learning, it is very important that learning occurs
within a relaxed and support atmosphere.”
I.6.1. Generating interest, motivation and concentration in listening
According to Sherman, J. (2003), the compelling power of video in the
classroom is enhanced by concentration on short sequences. The eye is caught, and
this excites interest in the meaning of the words.
Video can help maintain the interest and concentration in listening. Balatova
(1994) suggests that like a student, who listened in sound only conditions, the use
of video and sound conditions were more consistent in their perception of the story.
She noted that scenes where an action and body language back up utterances were
considered easier for students to understand. Whereas, less lively scenes, which
involves relatively long stretches of conservation, were labeled as more difficult. In
conclusion, visual cues are often intrinsically interesting and attractive as many
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