EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE
“Some practical solutions for conducting an effective listening
lesson in teaching English for grade 10”

PART A. INTRODUCTION.
I. Rationales.
Teaching English’s objectives in high schools is to take shape and
develop basic skills of English and intellectual quality needed for students
to continue with their tertiary education or labor life. There fore, “listening”,
“speaking”, “reading”, “writing” are all dignified with thematic approaches
in series of text books for English secondary level.
In fact, “listening” is a very important direct communication skill
which requires learners with their frequent practice in many daily
situations or circumstances. However, this seems to be the most difficult
part in reaching English improments, and it brings challenges to not only
students but also teachers of English.
Working as a teacher for nearly 16 years I myself understand the
nature of the problem and usually find it necessary to look for the ways to
improve the situation. I have tried my best to do this research with a view
to getting my students and my colleagues to benefit from it by giving them
more opportunities to practise and to better their English. For all the
reasons, I would like to conduct my research on the topic: “Some practical
solutions for conducting an effective listening lesson in teaching
English for grade 10”
II. Aims of the study.
Each work has its own aims, so does this study. The aims of my study are:
. To help teachers hold a useful and attractive listening lesson
. To illustrate typical procedures of an effective listening period
. To help students master more and more English knowledge and develope
communication skills
1

abilities through 4 skills: listening, speaking, reading and writting in
which, “listening” has to be obtained by continually practising. Outsides
school environment, English should be learned through many other
ways such as communicating in English frequently, listening to English
songs, watching foreign chanels, making pen friends oversea ... in order
to understand and to apply daily English speaking situations thoroughly.
1.

2.
a.
-

Basic elements determining the effect of a listening period.
For teachers:
Using new and active teaching methods, teachers play roles as
steerers to help students create and self develope listening skills.
In order to have and effective listening periods, the teachers ought to
conduct following basic elements:
2


b.

c.
-

-

d.
II.

Follow techer’s guideness
Be active and creative
Make use of listening skills
The Reality

Strong points
Although there still are some of objective and subjective conditions that
affect the teaching procedures, we have got over the difficulties and
gradually raise the quality of listening lessons in particular and English
subject in general by having conducted the following activities:
1.

a.

For teachers:
3


-

Updating information on Internet or through workshops of English
Making use of typical techniques
Getting used to holding pairs work, groups work in active ways
Creating suitable teaching aids
Applying information technology in teaching
Having modern teaching equipment
Having the support and co-operation from the school, collaegues and
students

b.

c.
-

Teaching aids:
Low quality of recorded tapes
Having few pictures and real objects that should be used in listening
lessons

Initial investigation result:
In the school year of 2018 - 2019, I have taken on 2 classes of grade
10. One with ralatively high input points and another one with very low
points of English when taking the entrance examination for upper
secondary education taken place in June of last year.
After 2 units of 10th English text book, I had a small listening test for both
of the classes:
d.

4


Exercise 1: Listen to the student talking about her life and study in an
international university then mark True(T) or False(F) statements.
1. She has classes in Spanish at La Guardia Community College.

T/F
2. The teacher of her class is very nice and good.

T/F

3. The speaker lives in an apartment with her sisters.

Dorita
5


Exercise 2: You will hear a report of Lessons From Shanghai's Top Scores
on International Test. Listen carefully and then complete the missing
words.
ANDREAS SCHLEICHER: "Asian countries value education more than other
countries. They have given (1)……education………. a priority. Every child,
every teacher, every parent knows that education is the gateway to (2)……
success………."
Mr. Schleicher says other education (3)………systems……… can learn from
Shanghai. For example, he says education spending in the province has (4)
……increased………., including teacher pay and training. And administrators
are putting teachers into challenging classroom (5)……situations…….to
make them better at their jobs.
Tapescript
The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, is a two-hour test
that compares the performance of fifteen-year-olds. In the latest test, the
countries with the best readers were South Korea and Finland. But students in
Shanghai, China, scored the highest of all in reading, mathematics and science.
The next strongest results were in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, New
Zealand and Japan.
In all, around half a million students in more than seventy economies took the
test last year. The test has been given every three years since 2000. Last year
was the first time Shanghai took part.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development just released the
results. Andreas Schleicher is director of the Education Indicators and Analysis
Division at the OECD.
ANDREAS SCHLEICHER: "Asian countries value education more than other


27.
9

18

41.
8

9

20.
9

2

4.7

10G

38

0

0

3

7.9


teacher’s book and follow standard knowledge of skills. This duty is
very essential because it helps teachers organise and control the
lesson more easily, intentionally.

-

Study carefully the objectives of the lesson. In a listening period or in
the any others, students are helped to practise and trained all of the 4
skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing ( in which Listening is the
centred skill). Generally, after the lesson, students can make out the
main ideas of listening passages or dialouges then fulfil all the tasks
from teachers.
7


-

Use listening devices in active ways. This can vary and depend on the
topics of the lessons, the abilities of students and conditional features
of the classrooms. To be more specific, for class 10A, with alot of fair
students and having a projector, I often use powerpoint in teaching
and search online update information related to the topics. On the
other hand, for class 10G, with most of weak students and having no
devices supported, I have to use a cassette player with low speed
speaking disks for each lesson, besides, I also bring real objects or
pictures related to the topics.

-

Choose and co-ordinate listening techniques based on approach to

all the lessons but we can take following hint:
+ Warm up: about 4 minutes
+ Pre-listening: about 7 minutes

8


+ While-listening: about 20 minutes
+ Post-listening: about 10 minutes
+ Consolidation and giving homework: about 4 minutes
2. Implementing the process of teaching a listening period

A typical procedure consists of 3 stages: Pre - listening, While listening and Post - listening. This process not only helps students
comprehend enough materials to finish the tasks but also assist them
in lively comunications. That means the teacher must be profesional
enough in the role of a “ferry man”.
a. Pre - listening

In this period, teachers should
-

Prepare psychosphere for students before listening by leading
directly; asking open questions about the topics; showing pictures,
words, phrases or sentences related so as to be predicted about the
topics of the lesson.

-

Elicit the excitement from students through small games involving
with the topics.

+ The 2nd time is for students to catch the information to fulfil the tasks.
+ The 3rd time is to check the answers and to correct the wrong ones.
There are also numerous ways of conducting this part as long as after
listening students meet the requirements of understanding the content
and getting over all the tasks given. In this part, I and my colleges often
use exercises such as: Selecting; Delibrate Mistakes; Grids; Listen and
Draw; True/ False Statements; Multiple Choice or Comprehension
Questions.
c. Post - Listening

This part is a good chance for students to have further practices or we
can call it “free pracice”. This is really important because students can
combine information in the “while-listening” part with their background
knowledge and language skills in real communicational situations
among classmates in pairs or groups under the guideness of the teacher.
This part should be applied in varied activities: Role play; Recall the
story; Write-it-up; Further practice...
3. Task redesigning

10


As mentioned above, my school is situated in a rural and poor area, It is
very hard for students to get a good result in learning English, especially
in listening skill development beacause of many reasons.
Having concerned about this fact, I intended to make it easier the tasks
in while-listening. I myself preciate this work because it has been the key
of success in my listening periods.
Most of the tasks in the text book are suitable for my students,
however, there are some of them seemed to be beyond their levels. If I


B. to pay a visit

D. to visited

3. We met __________ on time.
A. at the school gate

C. a school gate
11


B. at a gate

D. the school mates

4. We made ____________ roud the garden.
A. short tours

C. a big cake

B. mistakes

D. a short tour

5. In the afternoon, we went on _____________ games.
A. to playing more

C.


D. 450 km

3. What do many people come to Cuc Phuong for?
A. to see the work being done to protect endanged species
B. to see friends and ralatives
C. to take photographs of buterflies and 1000-year-old-tree
D. to have a nice time
4. When did Nguyen Hue defeat the Qing invaders?
A. 1960

B. 2000

C. 1785

D. 1789

5. What do the Muong ethnic minoriry in Cuc Phuong live mainly on?
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A. keeping cars and washing

C. bee keeping and farming

B. cutting trees and raising

D. guiding tours and farming

- True/False Statements
Another kind of exercises that I suppose better for my students is T/F


13


2. Hoi An was known as an important trading centre in Southeast Asia

between the 16th and the 17th centuries
T/F
3. It is now famous for its old temples, pagodas, small thatch-roofed

houses and narrow streets.
T/F → small tile-roofed houses
4. The old houses in Hoi An were made of brick and their pillars were

carved with ornamental designs.
T/F → wood
5. The Assembly Hall of Cantonese Chinese Congragation is 164 years

old.
T/F (it was built in 1855)
6. Tan Ky House was built 200 years ago.

T/F ( 2 centuries ago)
7. The house was for Vietnamese merchants and now is not well-

preserved.
T/F → looks almost exactly as it did in the early 19 th
century
8. Hoi An was recognised by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site


naturally.

-

Listening and speaking activities should be integrated through games
with rewards or compliments for the winners.

IV. Testing and Acquirement.
After the session of 16 units, I handed out a small listening test to check the
students’ acquirement of class 10A and 10G:
Exercise 1: True / Fasle Statements
You will hear a report on VOA (Voice of America) about the new testing
ways to recognize what makes a good teacher.
Listen and do the task below. Yould should listen three times.
1. According to the report, Bill Gates supports this project. T/F
2. The project began last month.

T/F

→ (last year)

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3.The goal of this project is to help the educators and policy makers raise
money for education .
T/F
→ help the educators and policy makers identify and support good
teaching.
4.There are 11 American cities taking part in the project.

The teachers with the highest value-added scores on state tests also help
students understand math or show reading ability.
Exercise 2: Multiple choice
You will hear a speaker who talk about London. Listen and do the task
below. Yould should listen three times.
1. London is in the ………………of England.
A. north-east

B. north-west

C.south-east

D. south-west

2. London has a population of about …………million people.
A. 11

B. 12

C. 13

D. 20

3. Most people travel into the city to work by …………..
A. bus

B. bus and car

C. tube


different countries and cultures. I really love it here and I can't imagine living
anywhere else really.

The test result:
Clas
s

Total

Points:
9 & 10

Points:
7& 8

Points:
5&6

Points:
3&4

Points:
0, 1 & 2

N0

%

N0


32.
6

0

0

0

0

10G

38

2

5.3

13

34.
2

15

39.
5

6

and not boring, monotonous for students. During this period, teachers act
only as guideliness and don’t give correct answers but they stimulate
students’ participation, arouse interest, curiosity of the children about the
lesson content.
To continuously improve the quality of student learning, teachers have to
prepare lessons, and creative exploration as lesson plans. And especially
they have to know how to select the appropriate option to boot form with
each different lesson. This work will create a difference between method
teaching and teaching without method. That is the key to create a
successful lesson. Specifically, in Listening lesson of English book 10, after
lessons, students can hear better, more confident, be able to relate to reality
when they have oppotunities to speak to natives, they can listen boldly and
communicate well. To practice listening skill well, teachers need to spend
much time preparing pictures, teaching aids, creating real situations for
students to raise language skills, use modern devices fluently and the most
important thing is that they have to understand the posibility of students to
give them suitable tasks.
This is my personsal study in teaching listening skill of English book 10,
so some mistakes are unavoidable. I am looking forwards to receiving
faithful comments from colleagues to help my reseach will become better
and more successful.
II.

Recommendations

Starting from the basis of theory and practice as well as the
successes and limitations, this subject contributes to arouse interest in
learning listening skill and improve the quality of students in English. I
would venture to suggest some comments as follows:
* To Thanh Hoa Department of Education and Training:

copied or reproduced by me from
any

other’s

work

acknowledgement.
Writer

MA. NGUYEN VAN TINH

20

without


TRAN TO UYEN

REFERENCES

1. Teacher English Books 10, Department of Education and Training
2. English 10, by Hoang Van Van, the publisher of Vietnam Education
3. Regularly Fostering Documents for teachers in Upper Secondary
Education
- Stage III - Ministry of Education and Training, ( 2004- 2007 )

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page 02

PART B: CONTENT
I. Theoretical basis ………………………………...…..…

page 02

II. The Reality ……………………………………….…...

page 03

III. Solutions ...............................………………………....

page 07

IV. Testing and Acquirement. ............................................ page 14
PART C: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
I. Conclusion ...................…………………………....…...

page 17

II. Recommendations ..........................................................

page 18

REFERENCES: ………………........….........................................

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page 20