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

VŨ THỊ THANH HƯƠNG

A STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO
THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT PHU LY B HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM
AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
(Tìm hiểu những khó khăn của giáo viên trong việc dạy kĩ năng nghe hiểu cho học sinh lớp
10 Trường THPT B Phủ Lý, Hà Nam và một số giải pháp khắc phục)

MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 601410

Hanoi – 2012


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

VŨ THỊ THANH HƯƠNG

A STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS IN TEACHING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS TO
THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT PHU LY B HIGH SCHOOL, HA NAM
AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

PART II: DEVELOPMENT .................................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 5

1.1. Definitions of listening ......................................................................................... 5
1.2. Common methods of teaching ELS ..................................................................... 5
1.3. Stages of a listening lesson ................................................................................... 6
1.3.1. Pre-listening stage .......................................................................................... 7
1.3.2. While-listening stage ..................................................................................... 8
1.3.3. Post-listening stage ......................................................................................... 9


v

1.4. Strategies of listening comprehension ................................................... ......... 10
1.5. Problems with listening activities ...................................................................... 11
1.5.1. Situational problems................................................................................... 11
1.5.2. Problems from the listening materials .......................................................... 12
1.5.2.1. Unfamiliar topics .................................................................................... 12
1.5.2.2. Different accents ..................................................................................... 12
1.5.2.3. Speed of speech...................................................................................... 12
1.5.2.4. Strange sounds ....................................................................................... 13
1.5.3. Problems from student factors…………………………………………...13
1.5.3.1 Students’ low motivation..................................................................13
1.5.3.2 Students’ low level of proficiency..........................................................14
1.5.3.3 Students’ anxiety.....................................................................................14
1.5.3.4 Students’ limited vocabulary and structures...........................................14
1.5.3.5 Students’ lack of background knowledge................................................15
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 16

2.1. Introduction of language teaching and learning conditions in PB school ........... 16

4.1.3. Students’ difficulties in learning ELS ......................................................... 32
4.1.4. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching ELS to grade 10 students ....................... 33
4.2. Suggested solutions ............................................................................................ 33
4.2.1. Doing pre-listening activities effectively .................................................... 34
4.2.2. Encouraging students to practice ELS outside the class .............................. 35
4.2.3. Giving support and encouragement ............................................................. 36


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4.2.4. Upgrading teaching aids .............................................................................. 36
4.2.5. Adapting and re-designing the tasks ............................................................ 37
4.2.6. Equipping students with listening strategies ............................................... 38
4.3. Summary ............................................................................................................. 39
PART III: CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................. 40

1. Summary of the study ............................................................................................. 40
2. Limitations of the study .......................................................................................... 40
3. Recommendations for further study ....................................................................... 40
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 42
APPENDICES .......................................................................................................................... I

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students ....................................................................... I
Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers .................................................................... III
Appendix 3: Interview questions for teachers ............................................................ V
Appendix 4: Four teachers’ answering interview questions ...................................... VI
Appendix 5: Topics of the listening texts in English textbook 10............................VIII
Appendix 6: Contents of some listening lessons.........................................................IX



Table 3

Factors affecting students in learning ELS

24

Table 4

Students’ suggested techniques to better teaching ELS

25

Table 5

Teachers’ assessment of listening tasks in “Tieng Anh 10” textbook

25

Table 6

Teachers’ opinion of students’ attitudes towards listening lessons

26

Table 7

Difficulties encountered by the teachers

27



Chart 3

Students' frequency of listening to English outside the class

22


1

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In Vietnam, in the recent years, the teaching and learning of English have been gaining
significance firstly because it is an international language; secondly it is also seen as a means
to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Viet Nam and other countries.
There have been an increasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of
keeping up with the latest modern technology in the world. English has now been taught not
only at all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior high school and it is
considered as a compulsory subject at secondary schools.
At PB school, where the author studies, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and
it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination. It is taught with the
purpose that students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to
use it as a key to science and technology. However, there still exist many difficulties facing
English language teachers at PB school, especially in teaching listening skills to students. The
teachers of English at PB school find it difficult to teach listening lessons successfully.
Listening has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by many second language
learners. It takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill. For listening teachers, it
is a difficult task to get students involved in listening lessons.
At my school, teaching listening is really a problem. In addition to the lack of well-equipped
facilities, teaching listening methods are not satisfactory. Another problem is students’ low


4. Methods of the study
The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods. Besides, many
resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers and some sources on the Internet
have been read by the researcher.
In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will be collected through two
survey questionnaires. One survey questionnaire is for 180 students from four different groups


3

in grade 10 in PB school and the other survey is for 7 teachers. The data, then, will be
processed and analyzed to yield conclusions for the study.
Along with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained by informal
interviews with some teachers to collect further information about the real situations of
teaching and learning ESL in grade 10 at PB school.

5. Significance of the study
This research provides an insight into the problems that are often met by teachers teaching
English for 10th form students in PB school. In addition, this research also points out some
feasible solutions which are beneficial for both teachers and students.
Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help to the
improvement of the teaching and learning ELS of Vietnamese students in general and of PB
school students in particular. The study also gives some guidelines for teachers to help their
students overcome their listening comprehension problems. The results of this study may also
be useful for those who are interested in this field.

6. Design of the study
The study is divided into three parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion.
Part I: INTRODUCTION- deals with the rationales, aims, methods, scope, significance and

(2001, p.3) asserts listening in communicative approach: “Listening comprehension is the
result of an interaction between a number of information sources, which include the
acoustic input, different types of linguistic knowledge, detail of the context, and general
world knowledge, and• so forth, and listeners use whatever information they have
available, or what ever information seems relevant to help them interpret what the speaker is
saying”. In this definition, Buck aims to highlight the active role of the learners who act as
the negotiators and integrators in the process of learning listening. In this process,
learners activate both linguistic cues and nonlinguistic knowledge to achieve the meaning.
In other words, listening is the active combination of new input gained by what the listeners
get and their prior knowledge and experience. This view is valuable and worth considering in
setting up listening syllabus in the sense that it aims to build communicative competence
to the learners in listening lessons.
To conclude, listening demands many skills. It is an active process in which learners use their
prior knowledge to infer the message of the listening text.

1.2. Common methods of teaching listening skills
In the past, common methods of teaching listening are grammar-translation method and direct
method. Currently, researchers put focus on audio-lingual method and task-based method as


6

the view provided by Larsen-Freeman (2000, p.35-145): Audio-lingual method: Following this
method, dialogues and drills (backward build up, chain, substitution, transformation, and
question-and-answer) are used to introduce new vocabulary and structures. Learners get the
dialogues by imitation and repetition. Learners receive the knowledge of grammar naturally
through examples provided by the teachers. Knowledge of culture is given in the dialogue or
by the teacher. Teacher acts as “orchestra leaders” and their role is “directing and
controlling the language behavior of her students” and “providing her students with a good
model for imitation”. In this case, the learners perform as “imitators of the teacher’s

do some extension work based on the content of the passage


7

The three stages are summarized as: Pre-listening stage, While-listening stage and Postlistening stage. Each stage has its own aims and activities.
1.3.1. Pre-listening stage
It is difficult for students to have ideas of what they are going to hear if the teacher just says
"Listen to this" and then switches on the cassette recorder or begin to read aloud. Even if the
sounds and words are familiar with students, they may still be unable to comprehend because
of the lack of necessary knowledge of the topic, setting or the relationship between speakers.
Therefore, the aim of pre-listening stage is to provide students with everything necessary for
listening and understanding the text such as the topic, related vocabulary and additional
information. This stage also helps the teacher to arouse students' interest in the listening text.
Ur (1992, p.4) points out that "It would seem a good idea when presenting a listening passage
in class to give students some information about the content, situation and speakers before
they actually start listening".
Pre-listening work can be done in various ways and consist of a wide range of activities. Thus,
Underwood (1989, p.33) stated that teachers should consider the following factors when
choosing pre-listening activities:
- The time available;
- The material available;
- The ability of the class;
- The interest of the class;
- The interest of the teacher;
- The place in which the work is being carried out;
- The nature and content of the listening text itself.
The last item on the list, "the nature and content of the listening text", is very important when
teachers choose activities. Teachers need to select some kinds of suitable activity to some
types of text.

1.3.2. While-listening stage
While-listening activities are what students are asked to do during the time that they are
listening to the text. The purpose of while-listening activities is to help learners understand the
text and develop the skill of eliciting message from spoken language. Teachers should not
expect students to try to understand every word. For example, teachers may ask students to
listen for three pieces of information the first time they hear the recording, and tell teachers
about the attitude of the speakers after the second time they have heard it. In general, teachers
should help their students understand rather than testing their understanding the whole time.
Underwood (1989, p.49) pointed out that when choosing while-listening activities, teachers
should consider the following factors:
a) The possibilities for varying the level of difficulty if required;
b) The inconvenience of carrying out activities which require individuals to give their
responses orally in the classroom. This kind of work is best done in a language
laboratory. Classroom while-listening activities generally have to be limited to those
which can be done without the need for each student to respond by speaking;
c) Whether the work is to be done by the students with the teacher present or whether it is
to be done as private study, either in the classroom or at home, this will influence the
teacher's choice of activity as he/she may want to give students different work
according to their level of ability, to provide additional instructions, or to select
activities which generate little or no marking;


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d) Whether or not the while-listening activities generate material or ideas which might be
used for post-listening work, and if so, whether the teacher wishes to make use of
these.
Furthermore, Davis (2000, p.78) suggests the following while-listening activities:
-


message;

-

Giving the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speakers
of the listening text;

-

Expanding on the topic or language of the message and transferring learned things to
another context;

-

Making introduction for the planned work.

Again, according to Underwood (1989, p.80), when the teachers select post-activities, the
attention should be given to the following factors:
-

The amount of language work which the teacher wishes to do in relation to the
particular listening text;

-

The time which is allowed to do post-listening work;


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-

Write a brief report

-

Write a similar text

-

Debate the topic

In conclusion, by raising students' awareness of listening as a skill that requires active
engagement, teachers should help their students develop both the ability and the confidence to
handle communication situations they may encounter beyond the classroom. In this way
teachers will give their students the foundation for communicative competence in the new
language.

1.4. Strategies of listening comprehension
Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension
and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener
processes the input.
Top-down strategies are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the
topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge
activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate
what will come next. Top-down strategies include:
-

listening for the main idea


Listening comprehension tends to be an interactive, interpretive process in which listeners use
prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages. Listeners use metacognitive, cognitive and socio-affective strategies to facilitate comprehension and to make
their learning more effective. Meta-cognitive strategies are important because they regulate
and direct the language learning process. Research shows that skilled listeners use more
metacognitive strategies than their less-skilled counterparts (O'Malley & Chamot, 1989,
Vandergrift, 1997a). The use of cognitive 5 strategies helps students to manipulate learning
materials and apply specific techniques to a listening task. Socio-affective strategies describe
the techniques listeners use to collaborate with others, to verify understanding or to lower
anxiety.

1.5. Problems with listening activities
Teaching listening as well as learning listening is not simple, complex and difficult processes.
Teachers and students meet many challenges in this skill.
1.5.1. Situational problems
As matter of fact, currently, many classes have over thirty students with inequality in the level
of proficiency which poses a lot of obstacles to the teachers to control their students. To this
problem, Hess (2001, p.137) states: “In large class, it is important to create activities that will
keep the more advanced students interested and at the same time allow the less advanced
students to make progress at their own pace”. According to Hess (2001, p.138), to help
multilevel students not lose motivation, teachers can individualize the listening task. For
example, with the same listening text, for the more competent students, it is advisable for the


12

teacher to give more difficult tasks, but for the less competent ones, the less difficult tasks
should be introduced. Also considering this problem, Hess (2001, p.182) suggests
“establishing routines and procedures” because “well-established routines give students a
sense of stability and security”. The exploitation of pair-work and group-work is also

important. The solutions include asking the learners to pick up the important words that they
need to listen to; having them expose as much as possible the spontaneous informal talk as
they can.
1.5.2.4. Strange sounds
Many students have problems in hearing and catching the strange sounds in listening text
because “most listeners rely mostly on context for comprehension; they are often themselves
unaware of inaccurate sound perception” (Ur, 1991, p.111). This is not the only reason.
Another reason comes from the features of native speaker’s pronunciation of English which is
shown by Rixon (1986, p.38): The weak relationship between English sounds and the way
they are spelt in the written language, changes in sounds when they occur in rapid, connected
speech, the rhythm pattern of English speech, different ways of pronouncing the “same”
sound. In this case, practicing pronunciation is a need, but usually at home. In class, it is
essential for the teacher to introduce some strange sounds to students. During the listening
process, if students have difficulty with sounds, they should omit them and try to guess the
meaning of words.
1.5.3. Problems from student factors
1.5.3.1 Students’ low motivation
Students’ low motivation is really a problem in listening lessons. As the matter of fact, if
the students get tired and feel not interested in the lesson, it will be difficult for them to seek
the success in the process of listening. This fact is also confirmed by White (1998, p.13) as
“listening well involves motivation and concentration”. Many researchers provide the
solutions for this kind of problem. Hedge (2000, p.247) gives the suggestion which
highlights that: “creating purpose for listening can motivate students”. This viewpoint is
reasonable because if the students make out the point of what they are performing, they will
feel encouraged to join the listening tasks. Teachers can gain this by “providing tasks which
are as realistic as possible, so that the students can relate what they are doing in the lesson to
things that happen in real life, outside classroom” (Underwood, 1989, p.21). Along with
these, the students will get disappointed when they always fail in doing tasks. Therefore, to



dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus


15

making them miss the next part of the speech”. There are many solutions for teachers in this
case which suggest instructing them how to identify the important words that they need to
listen to, giving students chances to guess the meaning from the relevant clues and presenting
some important words and structures before allowing the students to do their listening.
1.5.3.5 Students’ lack of background knowledge
Lack of background knowledge will cause the wrong interpretation to the listening text given
because “when we listen we use our background knowledge of the world to set up
expectations, and then we use those expectations to help us comprehend what we hear” (Buck,
2001, p.8). Get the importance of this, Lingzhu (2003) states that it is advisable for teachers to
introduce the listening topic and after that, students write down as many words and phrases
related to the topic as they can. The problem also can be solved by giving students some
questions related to the text and having them answer to get prior knowledge. In addition,
looking at some pictures is considered a very exciting way for students to gain background
knowledge.


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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.1. Introduction of English teaching and learning conditions at PB school
2.1.1. Students
The level of English for grade 10 students is targeted at pre-intermediate level though a
few actually reach the standard. As their lower-secondary years were spent with the
grammar translation method, most students are good at grammar, but bad at listening and
speaking the target language. They can do written exercises on English grammar accurately

Students in high schools, in general, have three periods of English a week; each period is
supposed to deal with one lesson in a unit lasting 45 minutes. In PB school all the classes have
3 periods of English per week.
2.1.3.3. Class size
The average number of students in a class in PB school ranges from 40 to 50. Students are
arranged to sit at desks in four rows, each of which includes 5 - 6 desks of two students.

2.2. The new “Tieng Anh 10” textbook.
The new “Tieng Anh 10” textbook composed by Hoang Van Van (2006) has been in use since
2006 as the official textbook to obtain general English at grade 10. The textbook consists of 16
units in terms of 16 topics. There are five parts in each unit represented through 5 lessons:
Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus respectively. The book adopts
two new approaches: learner–centered and communicative aiming at students’ better use of
English as a tool of communication at basic level in terms of listening, speaking, reading and
writing.
2.2.1. Form 10 listening objectives


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The aim of the course is to equip students with English listening skills for basic
communication. For 10th form students, the objectives are to develop listening comprehensive
skills such as intensive listening, extensive listening, listening for specific information,
listening for gist, etc.
2.2.2. Listening lessons
In the “Tieng Anh 10” textbook, reading, speaking and listening lessons are divided into three
parts: Before you listen, While you listen and After you listen. In Before you listen, learners
listen to the subject matters related to the unit topic; new vocabulary is presented in listening
sessions. While you listen includes 2 - 3 tasks (matching, multiple choice questions, true/false,
comprehension questions, gap-filling, taking notes, etc.) aiming at developing students’