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

NGUYỄN MỸ LINH

THE EFFECTS OF USING AUTHENTIC VIDEOS
ON IELTS STUDENTS’ LISTENING PERFORMANCE
AT AN ENGLISH CENTER IN HANOI
(ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO ĐẾN KHẢ NĂNG NGHE
HIỂU CỦA HỌC SINH THEO HỌC KHÓA IELTS TẠI MỘT TRUNG
TÂM TIẾNG ANH Ở HÀ NỘI)

M.A MINOR THESIS
Field

: English Teaching Methodology

Code

: 8140231.01

Hanoi - 2018


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


me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Hanoi, 2018
Student‟s signature

Nguyễn Mỹ Linh

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Hoàng Văn
Vân, for his support, guidance, advice, valuable comments, suggestions, and
provisions which benifited me greatly in completing this study.
Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to all of my students at AMA
English center who took part in my study because of their valuable feedback and
contributions in the process of conducting this research.
My appreciation also goes out to all professors and lecturers at the Faculty of PostGraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University for their valuable lectures.
Last but not least, I would like to send my gratitude to my parents, my brother and
my special friend, Logan for supporting me and giving me useful advice when
writing this thesis.

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ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effects of using authentic videos on IELTS students‟

2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 5
2.2. IELTS listening .................................................................................................... 5
2.2.1. The IELTS listening test: an overview ............................................................. 5
2.1.2. IELTS listening performance ............................................................................ 6
2.1.2.1 Listening performance .................................................................................... 6
2.1.2.2. IELTS listening performance ......................................................................... 7
2.3. Authentic videos in improving students‟ listening performance. ........................ 8
2.3.1. Authentic materials ........................................................................................... 8
2.3.2 Characteristics of Authentic materials ............................................................. 10
2.3.3 Authentic videos............................................................................................... 11
2.3.4 Advantages and disadvantages of using authentic videos in the classroom. ... 11
2.3.5 Reviews of related studies ................................................................................ 14
2.3.6 Criteria for selecting authentic videos ............................................................. 18
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .......................................................................... 21
3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 21
3.2. Research questions ............................................................................................. 21
3.3. Research approach ............................................................................................. 21
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3.4. The validity and reliability of the action research.............................................. 23
3.5. Strengths and weaknesses of action research ..................................................... 24
3.6 Research design ................................................................................................... 24
3.6.1. Participants of the study .................................................................................. 24
3.6.2. The researcher ................................................................................................. 25
3.6.3. Data collection methods .................................................................................. 25
3.6.3.1. Pre-test and post-test .................................................................................... 25
3.6.3.2. The Survey on students‟ attitudes toward using authentic videos in the
IELTS foundation listening course. .......................................................................... 26
3.6.3.3. Observations ................................................................................................. 28

APPENDIX 6: SYLLABUS

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IELTS

International English Language Testing System

L2

Second language

EFL

English as a Foreign Language

ESL

English as a Second Language

M

Mean

N

Number of Cases or Subjects of the study

Table 1.1

IELTS listening performance checklist

Table 2.1

Survey questions about students‟ attitudes toward the use of
authentic videos in the IELTS foundation listening course

Table 4.1

Result of pre-test and post-test

Table 4.2

The recommended table for analyzing the effect size level
by Cohen (1988)

Table 4.3

The effect size of using authentic videos on students‟
listening performance in the IELTS foundation listening
course

Table 4.4

Results of survey questions about students‟ attitudes towards
the use of authentic videos in the IELTS foundation listening
course


learners. The purpose of all listening lessons should be to make learners more
independent when facing listening to the foreign language in a real world context.
As Castro (2009) states “The listening skill refers not only to the ability to
comprehend sounds and different accents, but also the context and the language
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employed to perform the speech act.” In other words, to learn any language, it is
important to have access to good input in terms of listening, since listening helps
learners of the language obtain most of the aspects of the language. In addition,
Higuchi (1998) also asserts that “Learning a foreign language through videos
facilitates to develop performance skills in the target language, such as body
language and facial expressions.” With the implementation of authentic videos in an
English class, the students will be exposed not only to listening itself, but also to
some other features of the language of the language as paralinguistic factors like
body language, and facial expressions used by native speakers of English. This may
promote EFL Learner‟s understanding of the language in a real context with natural
use of English.
Another important issue is to consider the level of proficiency of the language in
which the authentic materials could be used. Guariento & Morley (2001) claim only
intermediate and advanced students should be exposed to authentic materials. These
researchers believe that the use of authentic materials at lower levels make learners
discontented and discouraged because students at these levels lack many lexical
items and structures used in the target language. In other words, a lot of cultural
factors in authentic materials lead to difficulties in understanding the target
language since beginner learner‟s lack of proficiency to tackle aspects involved in
the cultural issues.
Some researchers argue that motivation plays a key point in improving learners‟
listening proficiency. Oura (2001) suggests that the use of authentic materials in
ESL or EFL classrooms have a positive impact on learners‟ motivation to learn the

By conducting this research, it is hoped that the findings may encourage teachers to
use authentic material in their lessons. Also, students can be motivated to do more
extensive listening outside classroom to improve their listening performance. Last
but not least, for researchers who share the same interest in this topic, they can refer
to this paper as a source of updated and reliable information.
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1.3 Scope of the study
In this study, the researchers seek to find out the attitudes of students towards using
authentic videos in IELTS foundation listening course. Students who are studying
TOEIC or Communication English are beyond this study.

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter includes a review of the literature of listening performance,
introducing theoretical background, conceptual framework, and theoretical
framework of the study and the theory of IELTS listening pedagogy. Last but not
least, critical synthesis and summary of related research on using authentic videos in
improving students‟ listening performance and IELTS listening pedagogy will be
mentioned briefly.
2.2. IELTS listening
2.2.1. The IELTS listening test: an overview
IELTS listening test consists of 40 questions (10 per section) and lasts around 30
minutes. The listening test consists of four separate sections, the level of difficulty
increases from the first part to the last part. In other words, the easiest part is part
one and part four is the most difficult. Each part has a different topic or focus.

Listening is considered to be “the means to immediate oral production” from the
opinion of Anderson and Lynch (1988). Rubin (1995) pointed out that listening is
“an active process in which a listener selects and interprets information which
comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what
the speakers are trying to express”. Buck (2001) asserts that listening process
requires both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge. Linguistic knowledge
involves in knowledge of phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, discourse structure,
pragmatics and sociolinguistics, meanwhile non-linguistic indicates background
knowledge related to information about the world and how it works. Brown (1990)
emphasized three aspects from which one can interpret an utterance. First, before
listening, background knowledge (top-down) was used to guess the utterance. While
listening, listeners utilized the phonological system and other distinct features of the
utterance (bottom-up) to confirm/reject their predictions and also gain
information/details that they did not expect. After the utterance, inference skill was
applied to explain what the speaker meant. In daily conversations, people usually
apply nearly all of these three aspects all the time. While listening, during the
process of confirmation or predictions rejection, people have new predictions and
infer at the same time, as they continue listening and deciphering the phonological
code. Moreover, Willis (1981) makes a list of micro-skills of listening performance,
which are called enabling skills. These are:
1. Making a prediction of what speakers are going to say.
2. Making a guess of unfamiliar vocabulary without getting too worried.
3. Utilizing background knowledge to understand the topic.
4. Finding out relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information.
5. Maintaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing).
6. Identifying discourse marker, e.g., well; oh, another thing is; now, finally; etc.

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10. I use the questions to help me predict and
understand the recording.
11. I can actively concentrate for five minutes or more.
12. I am familiar with numbers and their spellings.
( From: />7


2.3. Authentic videos in improving students’ listening performance
2.3.1. Authentic materials
The root of the word “authentic” is from late Latin authenticus and Greek
authentikos with the meaning of “principal, genuine”. Researchers give different
definition about authentic materials. Generally, authentic materials refer to “print,
video, and audio materials students encounter in their daily lives, such as change-ofaddress forms, job applications, menus, voice mail messages, radio programs, and
videos”. Even though they are not created to be used in the classroom, they are
considered to be great learning tools for learners because they are simply authentic.
Peacock (1997) indicates that the purpose of authentic materials is “to fulfill some
social purpose in the language community”. According to Harmer ( 2001), authentic
texts are defined “materials which are designed for native speakers; they are real
texts; designed not for language students, but for the speakers of the language”.
Jordan (1997) shows that authentic texts are written not for language teaching
purposes. Widdoson (1990) emphasizes that “exposure to real language and its use
in its own community” is an important aspect of authentic materials.
From Sanderson‟s viewpoint (1999), authentic materials are kept originally without
any changes even though they are used for ESL students. Take an example of a
newspaper article written for a native-English-speaking audience but it is used as
teaching material for ESL students.
According to Nunan (1999), authentic materials are spoken or written language
created in real-life communication but they are not necessary designed for aims of
language teaching. Furthermore, he proposes to make the classroom be samples of
authentic language data from real-world contexts outside of the classroom. His


and

novels,

radio

commercials,

songs,

documentaries, and sales pitches.
2. Authentic Visual Materials, for instance: slides, photographs, paintings,
children‟s artwork, stick-figure drawings, wordless street signs, silhouettes,
pictures from magazines, ink blots, postcard pictures, wordless picture
books, stamps, and X-rays.
3. Authentic Printed Materials composing of newspaper articles, movie
advertisements, astrology columns, sports reports, obituary columns, advice
columns, lyrics to songs, restaurant menus, street signs, cereal boxes, candy
wrappers, tourist information brochures, university catalogues, telephone
books, maps, TV guides, comic books, greeting cards, grocery coupons, pins
with messages, and bus schedules.
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4. Realia (Real world objects) refers to coins and currency, folded paper, wall
clocks, phones, Halloween masks, dolls, and puppets. They are often used to
illustrate points visually or for role-play situations.
2.3.2 Characteristics of Authentic materials
The issue with authentic texts is that they have long been perceived as being too

meaning of the language is from understanding cultural context, through perceiving
cultural situations and views.
In general, some aspects of authentic texts, such as redundancy, can make it easier
to comprehension process meanwhile other aspects, such as reduced forms, may
obstruct comprehension of the material. However, authentic materials provide a
productive means for both expressing real language and integrating culture.
2.3.3 Authentic videos
Video plays an essential part in education in general and language teaching in
particular. It is an extraordinary tool which facilitates learners with a chance to learn
and acquire information in fascinating, intriguing, and motivational way. According
to Sherman (2003) authentic video refers to any sort of programs that audiences can
watch directly on cinema, television or DVD, films, documentary, advertisement,
and game show. Videos can be used as resources to learn English with excitement
and bring both teacher and language learners a lot of benefits. Idavoy (n.d) lists
examples of authentic video such as TV commercials, public service
announcements, short movies, full-length feature films, television dramas, sitcoms,
documentaries, YouTube clips, music videos, news programming, even video
games, and home movies. Some claim that scripted programs, i.e., soap operas, are
not authentic because they are produced with subtitle Nevertheless, Idavoy (n.d)
asserts that if scripted videos are written by native speakers and for native speakers,
they are qualified to be authentic in the context of this discussion.
2.3.4 Advantages and disadvantages of using authentic videos in the classroom
From the viewpoint of Thanajaro (2000), the use of authentic videos in ESL or EFL
classrooms has a positive influence on learners‟ motivation to learn the language.
For example, Guariento & Morely (2001) mention that authentic videos strengthen
learners‟ motivation because it evokes the feeling that they are learning the real
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language and they are in association with the target language used by the native


that supported them to self-analyse their own performance; thus, students became
autonomous learners and critical thinkers. One interesting kind of authentic videos
to work with is films which offer the language that is commonly used by native
speakers. Furthermore, “the most useful point of a film is that learners naturally
acquire the sense of „language in action‟ in the target language” (Gilmore, 2007).
However, a problem with films is that sometimes it is not clearly spoken (e.g.use of
verbal contractions, the speech is too fast ,use of jargon, collocations and
expressions); as a result learners might get confused and should need to review the
previous scene of the movie to understand it better (McCarthy & Carter, 1995).
It is an a benefit to learn a foreign language with films because learners can identify
these concepts afresh in order to aid developing performance skills in the target
language, such as body language and facial expressions (Higuchi, 1998). From
previously being said, the use of films for listening is a helpful tool as learners can
be in the use of authentic videos for listening comprehension contact with the
gestures and body language, thus the communication could be clearer and better.
The use of authentic videos can also have a variety of disadvantages which are
mentioned bellow. To begin with, Ciccone (1995), Rogers & Medley (1998) et al
maintain that “beginner language learners may experience extreme frustration when
confronted by an authentic material”; the authors refer to the idea that the use of
authentic videos should be implemented in higher levels, since beginner learners
might have problems because of lack of proficiency in the language. Nevertheless,
the difficulties of using authentic videos do not concern on the level of proficiency,
but on the tasks the teacher uses in the classroom, Cook (1996). In addition,
(Martinez, 2002) states: “one of the biggest disadvantages of using videos for
listening comprehension is that it requires special preparation which can be time
consuming for the teacher.” The problem here is that authentic videos have a lot of
cultural content, which can require the teacher to look for relevant information
useful for the students before introducing this kind of material. Also for the teacher
it is a challenge, since he/she has to find relevant and appropriate authentic videos,

activities applied in class to obtain information.
3. Interviews: to answer the research questions.
4. Tests: to find out the impact of videos on listening skills.
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5. Instructional designs: to carry out the study.
Subsequently, the data obtained from each instrument were analyzed, codified and
grouped into categories to gain relevant information. Arteaga, Guarín & López
(2009) emphasized essential aspects in their project based on the students‟
perceptions about using videos in class. First, the activities used to attract students‟
attention were enjoyable and successfully completed. Second, it was clear that
students had positive attitudes towards the effectiveness of introducing important
new words and key words prior to showing the video, in as much as they feel
contextualized. Besides, it was presented that when the learners continuously
watched videos, they gradually tended to be familiar with the real language and it
not only accelerated students‟ listening performance, but also their pronunciation
and words recognition. These two researchers concluded that the use of video
materials as teaching strategies in a TEFL class made a positive influence on
English listening comprehension for ESL students. Another evidence which also
shows the effective of using videos in this project is the better results of post-test
compared to pre-test at the end of the sessions. In addition, students had higher
motivation in learning English because they were exposed to real language that used
by native speakers. Although this project brought evidences about the good points
of using authentic in improving learner‟s comprehension as well as showed positive
perceptions of the students, it was a big question about the reliability of this project
to beginner students. The speed of most videos in which native speakers
communicated with each other is rather fast so I do not think that beginner learners
with basic level of English can understand the content and information in the
videos.