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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN VAN NAM

USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE GRADE-10 STUDENTS’
LISTENING SKILL AT TAN YEN HIGH SCHOOL N02
(SỬ DỤNG ĐỌC CHÍNH TẢ NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO HỌC
SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT TÂN YÊN SỐ 2)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

HANOI, 2010


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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN VĂN NAM

USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE GRADE-10 STUDENTS’
LISTENING SKILL AT TAN YEN HIGH SCHOOL N02


LIST OF TABLES

vii

LIST OF CHARTS

viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1

1. Rationale of the study

1

2. Aims of the study

2

3. Scope of the study

3

4. Methods of the study

3

5. Design of the study


listening
skill to grade-10 students
1.2. General concepts of dictation

7

1.2.1. History of dictation across second/foreign language methodologies

7

1.2.2. Definition of dictation

8

1.2.3. Characteristics of dictation

9

1.2.4. Types of dictation

10

1.2.5. Advantages of dictation

11

1.2.6. Disadvantages of dictation

12

16

2.7. Summary

16

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Analysis and discussion of dictations for listening skill improvement

17
17

3.1.1. Analysis and discussion of dictations with the T/F statement task

17

3.1.2. Analysis and discussion of dictations with gap-filling task

20

3.1.3. Analysis and discussion of dictation with short-answer question.

25

3.2. Teachers‟ application of dictation for listening skill improvement

26

3.3. Analysis and discussion of students‟ tests


PART C: CONCLUSIONS

42

1. Summary of the findings

42

2. Conclusions

42

3. Limitations of the study

43

4. Suggestions for further research

43

REFERENCES

44

APPENDICES

I

Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for teachers


Table 5: Listening practice task for dictation 5
Table 6: Listening practice task for dictation 6
Table 7: Listening practice task for dictation 7
Table 8: Listening practice task for dictation 8
Table 9: Teachers‟ opinion of dictation as a useful teaching technique
Table 10: Teachers‟ frequency of the application of dictation
Table 11: Application of dictation in different stages of a listening lesson
Table 12: Teachers‟ attention to the content of dictation
Table 13: Teachers‟ opinion of speech speed of dictation
Table 14: Teachers‟ opinion of accent
Table 15: Result distribution of Pre-tests
Table 16: Result distribution of Progress tests 1
Table 17: Result distribution of Progress tests 2
Table 18: Result distribution of Post-tests


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LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: Result description of pre-test
Chart 2: Result description of progress test 1
Chart 3: Result description of progress test 2
Chart 4: Result description of post-test
Chart 5: Result description of all the tests


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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study


teachers of English here are facing the problem of their grade-10 students‟ low level of
listening in their classrooms. While there has been a variety of techniques used to improve
listening skill for these students, most of them have not been really effective. One idea of
using dictation to improve listening skill for the students has exercised my mind since I
had a chance of studying the subject “English language teaching methodology” by Mr.
Canh. During the short course, a lot of time has been spent discussing how to use dictation
to improve listening skill for students. Moreover, according to researchers‟ opinion,
dictation has a number of advantages. For instance, Lightfoot (2004) says that dictation can
be done with any level, depending on the text carefully designed and applied and it can be
graded for a multi-level class. And Montalvan (2006) points out that dictation involves the
whole class, no matter how large it is. During and after the dictation, all students prove
very active. The dictation passage can be completely prepared in advance and administered
quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher. Likewise, Pappas (1977) considers dictation
as a good means of developing learners‟ listening skill.
For grade-10 students‟ problems of low listening competence and as one of the
teachers of English of this school, I would like to improve my students‟ listening skill, and
hope to be able to apply in the high schools where most of the students have low listening
competence. All considered, I chose to conduct a study on “Using dictation to improve
grade-10 students’ listening skill at Tan Yen High School N02.”

2. Aims of the study

The purposes of this study are to find out an effective teaching technique to
improve listening skill for grade-10 students at Tan Yen High School N02. Therefore, the
study is conducted to aim at finding the answers to the following questions:
1. How is dictation designed to improve listening skill for the students?
2. How is dictation used to improve listening skill for the students?
3. How much are the students‟ listening skills improved after the application of
dictation?

experiment has been terminated.


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5. Design of the study

This minor thesis is divided into five chapters:
Chapter I is an introduction to the whole minor thesis. It includes the rationale of
the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study and design of the
study.

Chapter II, Review of Literature, presents various concepts most relevant to the
research topic such as definition of listening, listening as the final goal of learning a
language, listening as a means of acquiring language, and evaluation standard on listening
skill. Furthermore, the followings are also included in this chapter: history of dictation,
definition of dictation, characteristics of dictation, types of dictation, and so on.

Chapter III describes the method of investigation which consists of research site,
research questions, participants, instruments, methods of data collection and analysis.

Chapter IV, Data analysis and Discussion, gives a detailed presentation of data and
a detailed description of data analysis. Some explanations and interpretations of the
findings of the study are also presented.

Chapter V presents conclusions of the research, limitations and suggestions for
further researches.

In the last part of the study, to assure that the study is really valid, the researcher
gives references and appendices.


sound

to

comprehending

complicated

message.

Without

this

skill,

communication can break down. Therefore, successful communication really depends on
listeners or receivers of messages. Steil & Watson (1982:22) also suggested that listening
is a major communication activity.


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1.1.2. Listening as the final goal of learning a language

According to Donoghue (1975:76), listening occupies the basic portion in the
context of the language arts and progress in reading, speaking and writing is directly
governed by listening ability. It is the most important of the four arts since nearly half of
the adult working day and more than half of the child‟s classroom activity time is spent on

are the essential instruments. Also, the combination of textbook, reference books and
teaching facility (tapes and recorders, CDs computer, projector, and so on) play an
important and oriented role in language teaching and learning.
The objectives of the new “Tieng Anh 10” are specified as follows:
General objectives to all skills:
 Using English as a communicative tool to speak, listen, write and read in target
contexts at basic level.
 Acquiring fundamental and systematic target English knowledge.
 Getting an overview of English-speaking countries, people and cultures,
conserving and developing our national traditions and cultural identity.
Specific objectives to listening skill: At the end of grade 10, students will be able to use
English knowledge in the scope of the curriculum to:
 Listen to a monologue or a dialogue of 120-150 words for general or specific
information.
 Understand the English texts at relatively slow speed.
 Identify and distinguish sounds, words and intonation.

1.2. General concepts of dictation
1.2.1. History of dictation across second/foreign language methodologies

Dictation is a type of exercise that was introduced in the Middle Age, at a time
when pedagogical resources were limited to the teacher‟s voice and writing. In fact, it did
not much matter how well students wrote as long as they grasped the meaning. It was used
to teach the structure (morphology and syntax) of the language in the Grammar/translation
method and for teaching sounds and spellings in the traditional direct method. It


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disappeared

Several experts gave their statements about dictation that are very useful for
teachers. For example, Oller (1979: 39) states that: “Dictation is a task which requires the
processing of temporally constrained sequences of material in the language, divided up the
stream of speech and then refers down what is heard requires understanding the meaning
of the material”.

According to Richards, Platt and Weber as quoted by Fachrurrazy (1989),
“Dictation is a technique used in both language teaching and language testing in which a
passage is read aloud to students, with pauses during which they must try to write down
what they heard as accurately as possible.”

Another definition of dictation which is given by Taylor as quoted by Fachrurrazy
(1989) says that dictation means “(1) reading a passage aloud, (2) dividing the passage
into phrases suitable for committal to short-term memory and re-reading phrase with
phrase with gaps long enough for subjects to record the preceding phrase in writing, (3)
optionally re-reading each phrase as it is being written, and (4) re-reading the whole
passage as in (1).”


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According to Hornby (1995: 190), dictation means “being dictated to; passage that
is dictated”. And Paul David and Mario Rinvolucri (1998) state that “In many cases, the
teacher probably read you the text, dictated it, and then read it a third time so you could
check through. To many people this, and nothing else, is dictation.”

From the definitions above, it can be said that dictation is an activity where a
student transcribes a word, phrase, sentence or passage he hears.

1.2.3. Characteristics of dictation

The phonemic item dictation is useful in that it increases the students' ability to recognize
the sounds of a language and their contrasts, thereby facilitating their accurate production.
This dictation is an excellent way to teach beginners to stop imposing the sound system of
their native language upon the sound system of English.

The second, the phonemic text dictation, is an extension of the phonemic item
dictation. It consists of the teacher reciting a passage which students phonetically
transcribe. The phonemic item dictation is valuable as a way to understand how English
sounds change in connected speech.

The orthographic item dictation is the dictating of individual words in isolation for
transcription, similar to the traditional spelling test. It is useful for reinforcing the
correlation between the spelling system and sound system of a language. In English this
correlation is more complex than it is in other languages (e.g., Spanish and many Slavic
languages), and so it is a worthwhile ESL/EFL exercise.

The dictation with the broadest learning and teaching possibilities is
the orthographic text dictation, in which students transcribe a unified passage. This is the
classic dictation exercise all foreign language teachers are familiar with. Besides
reinforcing the spelling/sound correlation of English, the orthographic text dictation
uncovers comprehension and grammatical weaknesses in learners which the teacher can
analyze and address in future lessons.


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1.2.5. Advantages of dictation

Dictation has been used in language teaching and learning for several hundred
years, and methodologists have often made pedagogical claims for its value. Lado says that


(16) If the students do well, dictation is motivating.
(17) Dictation can be prepared for mixed ability groups.
(18) The students, as well as the teacher, can get instant feedback if the exercise is
corrected immediately.
(19) The dictation passage can (and should) be completely prepared in advance (it
also can be taped).
(20) As students develop their aural comprehension of meaning also of the
relationship among segments of language, they are learning grammar.
(21) Research has shown that the learning to write down what you hear can
encourage the development of literacy.

1.2.6. Disadvantages of dictation

Traditional dictation is not a great oral comprehension exercise since it has little to
do with authentic communication. Dictations are in fact written passages that are read out
loud so they do not help students to understand the difference between the oral and the
written language.
Furthermore, they are read at a slower pace than people speak normally and are
therefore of little value to help students understand the language spoken by natives.
(1) Listening. A lot of beginners in English do not perceive the difference
between „u‟ and „u:‟ or the nasal sounds.
(2) Memorizing, the short term memory can be “overwhelmed” if there is
too much that the student does not understand.
(3) Writing respecting the relation between sounds and letters is next to
impossible if the student did not understand and guessing does not always work.
There is a great deal of emphasis put on spelling mistakes in a dictation yet there is
very little work done to help the students to perceive the basic sound-spelling
correspondences revealed by their dictation errors.
Generally, students do not master the time factor. If they understand they cannot go

dictation?


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2.3. The participants

The participants in this study are drawn from two sources: from 560 grade-10
students and eight teachers of English.
560 grade-10 students are divided into 14 classes. Therefore, it is difficult for me to
select a random sample of individuals. The solution to this case is that instead of randomly
selecting the individuals, I randomly select classes for investigation. This method has two
advantages: First, it is convenient for me to collect the data done by the students in their
class. Second, these classes have students with the same level of listening competence as
determined by their results of the previous academic year. Two classes chosen for the
study are 10A2 and 10A4, which include 80 students (about 14.2% of grade-10 students).
Of these eighty students, there are only 24 males and the rest are females. They all come
from villages in the district and most of them are at the age of 16, so they belong to the
same family background and psychological age group. Their time length of learning
English is also the same. That is, they all have been learning English since grade 6.

The three teachers (about 37.5% of the teachers of English) who were invited to
join the study are all full-time teachers of the school. One of them has been at work for
fifteen years, another for eight years, and the third for two years. One has taught grade 10
for two years, and the two others for four years. Two of them are female, and they all
graduated from English Department of Colleges of Foreign Languages. The researcher has
been teaching English for five years, and he is the only person who is doing an MA course
on methodology. Without doubt, all the teachers at Tan Yen High School N 02 are
experienced and enthusiastic about teaching. They are willing to help students their
students overcome the difficulties in leaning English.

more than four years. Firstly, I designed survey questionnaires and collected all ideas from
three teachers of English who have been teaching grade-10 students. Secondly, I gave the
listening tests to the students and collected them after students had finished. The first test
(pre-test) was administered to the students at the beginning of the academic year. In other
words, it was given to the students at the first session of English class. This test is aimed at
measuring students‟ overall listening competence before dictation is applied in the
listening lessons. The second test (progress test 1) was administered to the students after
they had finished three units (unit 1, unit 2 and unit 3) of English textbook 10. The third
test (progress test 2) was given to the students after they had finished three next units (unit
4, unit 5 and unit 6) of English textbook 10. These two tests are aimed at checking their
progress when dictation is applied in the listening lessons. The last test (post-test) was
given to the students at the end of the first term. It is used to find out how much the
students‟ listening skill has improved after the experiment has been terminated.


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2.6. Data analysis

The data collected from the two sources were first read through to obtain a sense of
the overall data. They were then analyzed both descriptively and interpretatively. The
information from the survey questionnaires and listening tests was then displayed in the
forms of tables and charts while qualitative data from the open-ended questionnaire items
were used as reflective notes and quotations.

2.7. Summary

The third chapter has presented the research site whose notable contextual feature is
that learning English is compulsory but most grade-10 students have low listening
competence. Besides, the research questions, participants, instruments, and procedures of

knowledge and enhancing students‟ listening skill in unit 1, unit 4 and unit 8 of English-10
textbook. Here are dictations and practice tasks for T/F statements.

Dictation 1 for unit 1
“I‟m Peter. Every day I get up at 6 o‟clock. I brush my teeth, wash my face and
have breakfast at 6.30. After breakfast, I get dressed and go to school at 6.45. My classes
start at 7 o‟clock and finish at 11 o‟clock. After school, I go home and have lunch at half
past eleven. In the afternoon I do my homework from 2 o‟clock to 5 o‟clock. After that I


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help my mother cook dinner. In the evening, I watch TV from 7 o‟clock to 8 o‟clock. I
read books at 9 o‟clock and go to bed at 10 o‟clock.”
The topic of dictation 1 is similar to the one of unit 1. It is about “a day in the life
of …” or someone‟s daily life. In particular, this dictation describes the activities which
Peter does from the early morning to the late evening. Thus, students can widen their
knowledge of vocabulary related to daily activities. Besides, they revise the usage of the
present simple tense used to express day-by-day repeated activities with its adverbs of
frequency. Moreover, the questions of practice task focuses on bettering students‟ listening
skill for specific information. In other words, it helps to improve the listening skill for
deciding on True or False statements. This is the listening practice task for dictation 1.

You will hear Peter talk about his daily activities. Listen to his talk and
decide whether the statements are true (T) of false (F). One example has
been done for you.
0. Peter gets up at 6 o’clock every day.

T