Students' Perceived Difficulties in Studying Listening Comprehension at Pham Ngu Lao High School.
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Transcript of Students' Perceived Difficulties in Studying Listening Comprehension at Pham Ngu Lao High School.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION
NGUYỄN THỊ MAI TRANG
STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED DIFFICULITES IN
STUDYING ENGLISH LISTENING
COMPREHENSION AT PHAM NGU LAO
HIGH SCHOOL
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)
Hanoi, May - 2011
i
I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Mai Trang from group 071E1- Fast
track program, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts
(TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the
retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the
library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper
deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of
study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions
established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the
paper.
Signature
Date: 4th May 2011
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to
my supervisor Ms. Nguyen Thu Hien for her great help and guidance
throughout the study and beyond, without whom I could not have
finished this graduation paper.
I am grateful to tenth form students of Pham Ngu Lao high
school for their enthusiastic participation. Their thoughtful sharing
and complementation immeasurably contributed to the main data of
the study.
I am also obliged to Vice-headmaster Mr. Nguyen Van
Hoang, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hau and other teachers of Pham Ngu Lao
high school for their valuable assistance on the process of data
collection.
Finally, I would like to show appreciation for my family and
my friends for their encouragement to help me overcome difficulties
to finish this study.
iii
ABSTRACT
The study is an investigation of what difficulties tenth form
students at Pham Ngu Lao high school (PNL high school) face
through listening learning process at high school with a review of
theory on listening comprehension based on existing research. To
address the research problem, the paper used survey method using
questionnaires and focus-group interview as the main research
instruments to collect data. Brief description on participants’
studying background and their perceived importance of listening
skill at high school were provided as well. It is revealed from the
study that tenth form students at PNL high school have difficulties
related to linguistic, psychology, materials and learning strategies
when they study listening skill. Based on the findings and the
students’ suggestions, the researcher proposes some
recommendations for teachers and students to solve the problems.
iv
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Pages
Chart 1. The most difficult English skill in students' perception 25
Chart 2. The grade point average of English listening skill of tenth
form students
26
Table 1. Students’ perceived importance of the English listening
skill
31
Table 2. Basic language difficulties perceived by tenth form students 33
Table 3. Learning strategy difficulties perceived by tenth form
students
37
Table 4. Physical setting difficulties perceived by tenth form
students
41
Table 5. Materials difficulties perceived by tenth form students 41
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
PNL: Pham Ngu Lao (high school)
EFL: English Foreign Language
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
List of figures and tables iv
List of abbreviations iv
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1 1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study ...................... 1 2. Aims and Research questions ......................................................... 3 3. Significance of the study................................................................. 4 4. Scope of the study .......................................................................... 5 5. Organization ................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................... 7 2. Listening comprehension in communication process ....................... 7 2.1. Communication process ................................................................... 7 2.2. Listening comprehension in communication process ....................... 8 2.2.1. Definitions of Listening comprehension .......................................... 8 2.2.2. Features of listening comprehension in communication process ..... 9 2.2.3. Common EFL learners’ perceived difficulties in studying listening ... comprehension.....……………………………………............10 2.2.3a. Basic language problems................................................................. 11 2.2.3b. Physical Setting .............................................................................. 13 2.2.3c. Materials ......................................................................................... 13 2.2.3d. Learning strategies .......................................................................... 15 2.3. Previous studies ............................................................................ 17 2.4. An overview of Listening comprehension section in English 10 ..... 19 2.4.1. Objectives ....................................................................................... 19 2.4.2. Materials ......................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY ............................................................. 23
vi
3.1. Selection of subjects ..................................................................... 23 3.1.1. Setting of study ............................................................................. 23 3.1.2. Participants ................................................................................... 23 3.2. Research Instrument ..................................................................... 27 3.3. Procedure of data collection.......................................................... 29 3.4. Procedure of data analysis ............................................................ 30 CHAPTER 4- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 31 4.1. FINDINGS ................................................................................... 31 4.2. IMPLICATIONS .......................................................................... 45 4.2.1. Implications to teachers of English ............................................... 45 4.2.2. Implications to tenth form students ............................................... 46 4.2.3. Implications to Pham Ngu Lao high school .................................. 47 CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION ................................................................. 49 5.1. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ............................................................... 49 5.2. LIMITATIONS ................................................................................... 50 5.3. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ................................... 50 REFERENCES ........................................................................................... 50 APPENDICES............................................................................................IV
1
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
As the result of globalization and social development, international
communication plays key role in every aspect of life. English, in
accordance with that trend, becomes one of the most popular international
languages besides Chinese, French or Espanol. Among four skills
facilitating language learning to achieve successful communication,
listening skill is the “key role” (Vandergrift, 1999, p.168) but has been
neglected for long time. That many people who still consider
communication just talking and speaking urges English foreign learners
to acknowledge this skill’ importance.
According to Xu (2011), listening was traditionally viewed as as “a
passive process, in which our ears were receivers into which information
was poured, and all the listeners had to do was passively register the
message” (p.161). He also states that today we recognize listening as an
‘active’ process in which listeners are active to listen what speakers are
speaking. However, many EFL learners keep under-evaluating the role of
listening comprehension. In practical terms, “listening comprehension is
of paramount significance” (Xu, 2011, p163). Xu explains that when
speaking a language, a learner is active to use his own language; hence,
he can manipulate a relatively narrow range of vocabulary to express an
idea. Contradictory, when listening to the reply he or she no longer
controls the choice of vocabulary. Therefore, the learner must be prepared
to comprehend those words that are a part of the speaker’s active
vocabulary. As the result, in order to handle a simple conversation, an
individual must have “a much broader competency in listening
comprehension than in speaking” (Xu, 2011, p.164).
2
Since the role of listening comprehension in language learning was
taken for granted (Oxford, 1993), it has been paid more attention and
assumed “greater and greater importance in foreign language classrooms”
(Nunan, 1997). As Vandergrift (1999) suggested, listening should be
received considerable concern as “the hard work which deserves more
analysis and support” (p.168). Recently, teachers and students tend to
change their teaching and learning method from grammar-translation to
audio-lingual method, which has better environment for enhancing
communication skills. Hence, listening skill has emerged as an important
component in the process of second language acquisition (Dunkel, 1991;
Feyten, 1991) with communicative purposes. The theoretical framework
of this thesis will base on and support for the pre-eminence of listening
comprehension in communicative language approach, especially in the
early stages of language learning.
In Vietnam, listening skill has been included in the curricula, along
with the change of English 10 textbook for five years. Nevertheless, in
many high schools in Vietnam, teaching and learning listening skill have
not received adequate attention yet. Consequently, many Vietnamese
students still cannot communicate successfully to foreigners even in the
simple daily conversation, though they are good students with high marks
in the English tests. Among reasons leading to this upsetting fact, the
failure to comprehend native speakers’ ideas because of listening
comprehension breakdown is said to be the most serious reason
(Nguyen, 2008).
The thesis paper “Students’ perceived difficulties in studying
listening comprehension with English 10 textbook at Pham Ngu Lao
high school” attempts to investigate problems that tenth form students in
3
a rural area have to deal with when they study listening skill. From the
findings, pedagogical recommendations are provided.
The study involves the participation of tenth form students from
PNL high school. The researcher chose this group of population to do
research on because of two reasons. First, at grade 10, students should be
raised the awareness in the importance of listening skill, and recognize
their difficulties in studying this skill to have timely solutions to their
obstacles. Another reason is that there is that PLN high school has a good
quality of teaching and learning. However, teachers and students of
school focus much more on the scientific subjects such as Maths,
Chemistry or Physics and seem to neglect the role of English subject. The
opportunities to take part in international contests, to have good jobs in
future of students, therefore, are limited because of their limitation in
English.
2. Aims and Research questions
First and foremost, the study attempts to examine how tenth form
students perceive about the importance of listening skill in comparison
with other three skills including speaking, writing and reading. The main
purpose of the study is to investigate the difficulties during the process of
learning listening comprehension with English 10 textbook in students’
perception. Lastly, the study is hope to raise students’ expectation of
teachers and educators who have ability to improve the quality of
teaching and learning listening skill at high school in Vietnam. With these
initial targets, the result, if positive, is expected to raise helpful
implications to teachers of English, students and educators as well.
4
To clarify these aims, the paper answers the following research
questions:
1) What is students’ perceived importance of studying listening
comprehension?
2) What are the difficulties perceived by tenth form students at Pham
Ngu Lao high school in studying listening comprehension English 10
textbook?
3) What are suggestions of tenth form students to overcome their
possible difficulties in studying listening skill?
3. Significance of the study
In completion, the study could be of considerable assistance for
teachers, course administrators as well as researchers working on related
fields.
First of all, the result of the study is expected to raise the awareness
among teachers of English at PNL high school of the students’ perceived
difficulties in studying listening skill. Several implications drawn from
the research findings, together with students’ expectation may prove
helpful to teachers; so that they can take initiatives to exploit suitable
methods and to better engage their students in class activities during
listening periods.
Besides, findings of the research can reveal much insight into the
current teaching and learning listening skill at PNL high school. The
research findings are expected to play a part in the process of redefining
the significance of listening skill taught at high school in Vietnam.
5
Lastly, this research could offer useful references for further
studies on the related topic area. Some students’ suggestions to the
textbook could be a valuable source for educators to make some needed
change with the text book, then to enhance the efficiency of listening
comprehension at the early stage of high school.
4. Scope of the study
Firstly, the topic of the study is “listening comprehension” which
call for a wide variety of approaches and understandings. However,
within the framework of this study, the focus is put on investigating
“listening comprehension” which defined profoundly by Clark and Clark
(1977, cited in Xu (2011), p.161). They give both a narrow and broad
definition:
“Comprehension has two common senses. In its narrow sense it denotes the mental processes by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker intended to convey... Comprehension in its broader sense, however, rarely ends here, for listeners normally put the interpretations they have built to work”. (p.161).
Secondly, in the study, the two terms “listening comprehension”
and “listening skill” are used as alternative terms. It does not mean that
the researcher will cover sub-skills in studying listening such as listening
for main ideas, listening for details, etc.
5. Organization
This study includes five chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction - describes the research’s rationale, aims, scope,
significance and organization.
6
Chapter 2: Literature review - lays the theoretical foundation for the
research which includes definition of key terms and related studies.
Chapter 3: Methodology - describes the methods that have been used to
collect data and the procedures of collecting and analyzing data that have
been followed by the researchers.
Chapter 4: Result analysis and discussion - analyzes collected data and
gives the implication and recommendation of the study.
Chapter 5: Conclusion – ends the study by summarizing its main points
as well as presents the limitations of the study and suggestions for further
studies.
7
CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW
2. Listening comprehension in communication process
2.1. Communication process
It is vital to put the process of studying listening skill under the
light of communication process because the aim of teaching and learning
listening skill is to communicate more successfully, especially with the
EFL learners.
The communication process is generally recognized as the process
of sharing ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc among people. When
communicating, we mostly combine numbers of skills such as speaking,
listening and observing.
With regard to the constructing factors of communication process,
Geddes & Strurtridge (1982, cited in Nguyen, 2007) suggests the model
of three factors: the encoder, the text and the reader. In different context,
the encoder can be the speaker or the writer who presents his message in
languages, which they call “the text”. The text then will be decoded by
the hearer or reader and communication process finishes. Scholar
Schanez (1999) also addresses such model but in different names. He
defines the first factor as the sender and the last factor as the receiver. In
general, both “the encoder” and “the sender” indicate the person who is
sending messages to others. “The text” can be interpreted as the message,
which “the sender” wants “the receiver” to understand. “The reader” or
“the receiver”, therefore, implies the one who is receiving messages. The
communication process is successful when “the receiver” can understand
“messages” of “the sender”.
8
The communication success is contributed by several factors. To
the “senders”, they should know how to express and perform their ideas
clearly and comprehensibly. To the “receivers”, they must know how to
catch these delivered messages. Therefore, among many needed skills
such as observing, touching, listening skill can be considered to play the
most important role in communication process.
2.2. Listening comprehension in communication process
2.2.1. Definitions of Listening comprehension
As previously mentioned in the paper, to understand the
transformed message of the sender, the receiver has variety of techniques
such as observing, touching, and listening. However, the most common
way is through listening.
The listening process is often described as an information
processing perspective and “an active process in which listeners select
and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in
order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to
express” (Thompson and Rubin, 1996, p. 331). In other words, unlike
hearing, listening is an active process because listeners actively select
what they want to know and interpret the information they get. Most
importantly, listeners listen with attention, focusing on the stress,
pronunciation as well as intonation of speakers.
The acknowledgement on the definition of listening comprehension
is important in teaching and studying listening skill in high school,
especially at grade tenth, when students are forming their learning
strategies. They should be prepared and start listening with clear
9
attention, i.e. know what they are going to listen to, as well as what clues
or details they should pay attention to.
In addition, it is essential for language teachers to help their
students be aware of the importance of listening skill. Firstly, listening
skill provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive
development, and it plays a life-long role in the processes of
communication. A study by Wilt (1950, cited in Wills, 2008), found that
people listen 45 % of the time they spend communicating. This study is
still cited by Strother, 1987. That finding confirmed what Rankin
discovered in 1928, that people spent 70 % of their waking time
communicating and that three-fourths of this time was spent listening and
speaking. Secondly, listening provides input for the receivers. Bulletin
(1952, cited in Wills, 2008) states that, listening is the fundamental
language skill. It is the medium through which people gain a large portion
of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and
of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. In
this day of mass communication, “the importance of listening cannot be
underestimated; it is imperative that it not be treated trivially in second
and foreign language curricula” (Morley, 1991, p. 82).
2.2.2. Features of listening comprehension in communication process
Listening comprehension is a complex process that involves
different factors. This process has been defined by many researchers.
Coakley & Wolin (1986) proposes a theory of five stages of
listening comprehension, in which they points out how listeners
processed the message that they received. In each stage, there are some
factors having great influence on listeners namely vocal message, short-
10
term memory system, background knowledge, physical and mental states,
and linguistic proficiency.
Faerch and Kasper (1986) also shared the idea with Coak and
Wolin (1986). They identified three internal factors in L2 listeners’
comprehension, including learner’s knowledge of the L2 linguistic code,
the degree of sociocultural competence and strategic competence, such as
learners’ ability to guess what speakers meant from the context.
Thompson and Rubin (1996) synthesized 130 studies and he made a
conclusion of five major factors that researchers believed to be the most
influential in listening comprehension:
i. text characteristics such as speech rate, pause, stress and rhythm, L1/L2 difference, etc ii. interlocutor characteristics such as gender and language proficiency;
iii. task characteristics such as task type; iv. listener characteristics such as language proficiency level, memory, attention, affect, age, gender, learning disability in L1, and background knowledge; and v. process characteristics such as top-down, bottom-up, and parallel processing,
listening strategies, and negotiation of comprehensible input. (p.302)
2.2.3. Common EFL learners’ perceived difficulties in studying
listening comprehension
In general, there are many factors leading to difficulties of EFL
learners when they study listening skill. This present paper focuses on the
five following factors in order to explore tenth form students’ perceived
difficulties. The names of these factors were adapted from Yagang (1993)
and Rubin (1994).
Five investigated problems presented as follow:
Basic language problems
11
Phonetic barrier
Vocabulary obstacle
Speech rate barrier
Psychology factors and Settings
Materials
Learning strategies
2.2.3 a. Basic language problems
Phonetic barriers
At the beginning of English studying process, some students have
not mastered the correct pronunciation, especially to distinguish
homonyms such as “bad-beg-bag”. Therefore, when they listen to English
recordings, it may cause many troubles. In his research, Chen (2005)
discovered that some learners face some difficulties in recognizing
spoken-word or liking sounds. It is difficult for learners at low-level to
identify or differentiate individual sounds in a stream of sounds. Goh
(1994, cited in Yousif, 2006) states that students faced problems on
recognition of familiar words. Although they are familiar with some
words, they are unable to remember their meaning immediately. Hence,
phonetic barriers attribute breakdown in listening comprehension.
Considerable effort should be put on the teaching and learning
pronunciation at high school.
Vocabulary obstacle
The shortcoming of English vocabulary is another barrier that
prevents students from listening comprehensively. In listening lessons,
students mostly practice listening with audio recordings. Hence, they
12
cannot see speakers’ body language to predict the meaning of speech.
With too few English words recognition, students cannot understand what
speakers are talking about. Thus, “a limited vocabulary was considered
responsible for comprehension breakdown” (Chen, 2005).
Speech rate barrier
From the perspective of speech rate barrier, Griffith (1992) stated
that “Speech rate” includes “normal rate” (i.e. the rate at which people
can usually easily comprehend a text) and “threshold rate” (i.e. the rate at
which comprehension begins to decrease rapidly). According to his
study, native speakers of English can understand what others are
speaking at a normal speech rate of 165 to 180 words per minute
(w.p.m.). It is potential evidence found by Griffith (1992) that “speech
faster than 200 w.p.m. is hard for lower-intermediate learners to
understand” and the ideal speech rate for students of this level to perform
best is at 127 w.p.m. (p.201). Hence, the actual speech rate does have
influence on the success or failure of listening comprehension.
High school students often use audio tapes produced by
Vietnamese speakers that accompany their textbooks. The speech rate of
listening recordings used for tenth form students is often at “a normal
rate”. Therefore, students are given opportunity to practice listening
comprehension but not to challenge themselves. However, that normal
speech rate cannot be true in the situation of high school students in
Vietnam. It questions the researcher whether or not that normal speech
rate causes difficulties for tenth students. This issue needs to be
investigated.
13
2.2.3 b. Psychological factors and Settings
According to Yagang (1993), the listening comprehension process
is also a relatively complex psychological process. In psychology, it is
stated that when a person feels nervous or anxious he or she may not be
concentrated. When one felt uncomfortable, his or her ability to listen is
greatly reduced. In addition, the external surroundings can also interfere
to listening process. Students cannot focus on listening and “take their
mind off” the content of the listening passage because of noises which
may derive from both the background of the recording and the
environmental surrounding. Normally, in a class, the surrounding
environment is really important in encouraging students. A student will
not concentrate or cannot pay attention to listen the recordings if other
ones are talking or playing.
The poor-quality of equipment is another factor which may causes
difficulties to listeners.
2.2.3 c. Materials
Materials used for learning listening skill are many types such
books, handouts, pictures, supplementary books. Two aspects related to
materials the researcher attempts to focus on are the topics of the books
and the difficult level of tasks.
From the task perspective, Ferris and Tagg (1996) raised the idea
that “Academic listening tasks pose formidable challenges for L2
students, even those highly proficient in English (p.133). Xu (2011)
agrees that idea and gives further suggestion that listening materials
which are either too easy or too difficult can have counterproductive
14
effect EFL on learners. For the too easy ones, learners cannot make
progress in listening practice. however, dealing with difficult tasks can
lead to the interest reluctance in listening acquisition of students.
According to Chen (2005), the length of sentences or texts may lead to
the difficulties of students’ listening comprehension. In his point of view,
a long text with too much information can cause students forget the
beginning part of the text, which cause the comprehension breakdown.
Flowerdew (1995, cited in Ferris and Tagg, 1996) claimed that long texts
require students the ability to concentrate on and understand “long
stretches of talk” (p.12). This aspect has been studied for a long time.
Brindley (1982, p.1, cited in Richards, 1983, p.231) indicated that EFL
learners found longer utterance, especially those containing subordinate
clauses, “very hard to understand, owing to limitations on short-term
memory load”. Besides long texts, he had a further conclusion that
students might face the failure to understand questions which required
more than a short and concrete answer (i.e. “why” or “how” questions).
Obviously, these factors may pose serious obstacles on students at low
level of English when studying listening comprehension.
The cultural background of textbooks (i.e. themes and topics) can
present an obstacle to comprehension because “language is used to
express its culture” (Anderson and Lynch, 1988, p.301). Students must
have certain background knowledge about the topics involved in their
textbook. It is vital to design listening comprehension tasks for 10th form
students with suitable and interesting topics. “Suitable” can be understood
as “not too difficult” to students’ level; and “Interesting” means that these
topics should be concerned by most of the students.
15
2.2.3. d. Learning strategies
In regards to the types of learning strategies, O’Malley and Chamot
(1990, cited in Vandergrift, 1999, p.170) classified these strategies based
on the cognitive theory and categorized cognitive activity in language
learning into two types: metacognitive and cognitive strategies.
Metacognitive strategies include “planning, monitoring and evaluating”
as their functions are to “oversee, regulate and direct language learning
process”. Cognitive strategies are defined as the ways of controlling the
material to be learnt or applying a specific technique to the learning task.
The third category, socio-affective strategies, aims to describe the
learning process in which learners “co-operate” with their classmates or
“question” their teachers for explanation.
Though there mentioned strategies have enormous impact on
enhancing success in second language listening (O’Malley and Chamot et
al.), students do not have “innate understanding” of those; hence, it is the
responsibility of language teachers to share that knowledge with them,
through strategy instructions. Thompson and Rubin (1996, cited in
Vandergrift, 1999, p.170) indicated that instruction has great influence on
listening performance of university students learning foreign language.
They demonstrated that students who received strategy instruction in
listening had higher scores than those who received no instruction.
Vandergrift (1999) also mentioned the result of O’Malley and Chamot
(1990) to support this idea. They stated that strategy instruction could be
“effective in enhancing initial learning”, and that “teachers could do more
than simply provide comprehension input by pairing strategy instruction
in listening tasks”.(p.170).
16
The involvement of teachers at “pre-listening” and “ post-
listening” is really important. Teachers should be aiming in the course,
and hence help determine the choice of appropriate methodology and
classroom procedures. The basic framework to construct a listening
lesson is divided into three stages (cited in ELT methodology 2nd version,
p.141)
Pre-listening: In pre-listening stage, teachers help their students
prepare to listen to achieve three goals including motivation,
contextualization and preparation. Firstly, students should be motivated to
listen through interesting activities and tasks prepared by teachers.
Secondly, teachers should help students to contextualize and understand
the text, topics and the themes as well. Lastly, students are provided with
specific vocabulary or expression which may be useful for understanding
the recordings.
While listening: during which teachers help to focus their attention
on the listening text and guide the development of their understanding of
it.
Post-listening: during which teachers help students integrate what
they have learnt from the text into their existing knowledge. There are
two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. The first one is
“reaction to the text”. Discussion as a “response to what they have heard”
might be applied to. Another form is “analysis of language”, which
involves “focusing students on linguistic features of the text”. Students
might have opportunities to develop their knowledge of language such as
vocabulary and grammatical structures.
17
2.3. Previous studies
Because listening skill is one of the most important skills to make a
good communicator, which people spend approximately 60% of their
time listening (Rubin & Thompson, 1994), few studies were carried out
to investigate the difficulties in studying listening skill of EFL learners.
Yagang (1993) presented the general definition of listening simply
that “listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are
saying” (p.5). In the listening process, according to him, four main factors
which may lead to difficulties for EFL learners the speaker include the
message, the listener and the physical setting. He pointed out that many
learners find it difficult to deal with the message which its content is not
well-organized. When listening, they fail to predict what speakers are
going to say in taped message because they are not familiar with
“ungrammatical sentences”, “spontaneous topics” or because of taped
message. Likewise, they would be challenged when communicating with
speakers who may produce redundant utterance or have strange accents.
The bigger obtacles might appear if listeners themselves are not master in
predicting the information, not familiar with colocation, clichés or
different kinds of listening materials.
Ferris & Tagg (1996) focused more in academic listening and
speaking tasks for ESL students. Through survey conducted with full-
time professors of different colleges and university, Ferris and Tagg
analyzed the difficulties of students in studying academic listening.
Though students can aware the importance of listening skill, they are
quite hesitant and unwilling to participate in class discussions, interact
with peers (except for those who speak their native language), or ask
18
or respond to questions. The implications drawn from this study
suggested that teachers should be the ones who help develop the
communication strategies and listening strategies of students. Their study
is a useful reference for ESL students. However, it would be better if the
survey investigated both teachers and students’ opinions. It would be
better if students who are in trouble could tell what their difficulties are.
Chen (2005) also studied barriers to acquiring listening strategies
for EFL learners and suggested some pedagogical implications. The study
was conducted based on the report of students of Takming College in
Taiwan. His study analyzed seven major categories of learning obstacles
including 22 minor groups. They are affective barriers, habitudinal
obstacles, learning difficulties related to individual learner’s information
processing, English proficiency, and beliefs about listening; problems
centering the nature and procedures of strategy use; and the listening
materials that learners practiced with. This thorough research can be a
useful material in teaching and learning listening comprehension.
In Vietnam, teaching and studying listening skill for tenth form
students are no longer new or strange because the new English textbook
has been used for ten years. It is the fact that listening skill has not
received adequate attention and investment. In the article “Sach giao khoa
cua thap nien 80” (the textbook of 1980s) which published on website
tuoitre.vn, reporter made the judgment on the content of textbook used for
high school students. He cited a teacher’ opinion that listening skill was
ignored or was not taught in his high school because both teachers and
students wanted to focus on examinations which did not include the
listening skill test. With not much investment, listening skill still causes
many difficulties for students at low-intermediate level.
19
The present study’s purpose is to obtain information about the
listening difficulties experienced by 10th form students of Pham Ngu Lao
high school. The study is guided by the following research question:
What are the difficulties in studying listening skill perceived tenth form
students of Pham Ngu Lao high school?
2.4. An overview of Listening comprehension section in English 10
2.4.1. Objectives
The listening comprehension section of “Tieng Anh 10” textbook
(English 10) is designed with several passages or conversations, which
are related to the topic of each unit according to the objectives, stated at
the beginning of the book. The main objective of this section is to help
students get familiar with listening skill, correct their pronunciation and
grammatical structure mistakes. Moreover, 10th form students will be
provided with inputs including vocabulary, grammatical structures and
pronunciation for speaking skill via learning listening.
The objective of listening section is suitable with the features of
listening comprehension in communication process. And if listening skill
is successfully taught in high school, starting with 10th form students, it
will establish the foundation for students with perfect input to develop
their proficiency in English later.
2.4.2. Materials
The listening section of English 10 focuses on general interests of
life including people, education, technology, travelling, mass media,
nature, social life and history. Each unit has a specific topic designed in
correlation with the theme of each week. In a forty-five minute period,
20
students will listen to a recording and do two or three tasks following to
check the comprehension. This study’s concern is whether the topics and
the tasks are come up with students’ expectation or not. With the data
collected from students’ opinions, pedagogical implication for educators
and teachers will be suggested.
To provide a profound view on “Tieng Anh 10” textbook, the study
exploits the book based on the evaluation checklist designed by Peacock
(1997). The original checklist was divided into 8 sections and contained
60 items (see appendix II). In consideration of Vietnam context as well as
the emphasis on listening section of the book, the researcher decides to
leave out a number of items and adjust some others to suit the situation of
Vietnam.
Section I. General Impression
When flick through the book briefly, the book overall appearance is
quite attractive and will be appealing to learners with colorful pictures.
However, with a more considerate look, the illustration of listening
section probably fails to attract tenth form students and motivate them.
The pictures designed to illustrate the context of the recordings are not
beautiful and mostly depict the picture of countryside schools. The boring
decoration may not motivate students in studying.
Section IV. Appropriacy
In general, the materials, language focus and activities are
appropriate for your learners and the textbook also meets the short term
goal specific to tenth form students. However, in the long term,
listening comprehension section of “Tieng Anh 10” may fail to
21
stimulate students in applying their knowledge interactively with other
skills such as speaking.
Section V. Motivation and the Learner
Materials used for listening section in the book are not authentic
and up-to-date to an acceptable degree. The topics of the textbook use
context of village, countryside and sport event that happened long
time ago. Therefore, materials used do not arouse intrinsic interest
and will not appear interesting to learners.
Section VI. Pedagogic Analysis
Methodologically the book is in line with current worldwide theories
and practices of language learning with three stages: pre-listening, while-
listening and post-listening. Nevertheless, the activities designed for
these stages are not varied. Students are normally asked to repeat some
words, and answer simple questions related to topics.
The balance between listening, speaking, reading, and writing
skills development in the book is appropriate to tenth form students and
learning situation.
The book contains adequate formal learner achievement tests.
The textbook has a few activities for communicative interaction and
the development of communicative strategies. Students usually do
individual work, but not many pair work, group work, and whole-class
work.
Section VIII. Supplementary Materials
22
Cassette tapes/CDs are available and of good quality construction.
Sound quality of tapes/CDs is good with no hissing, distortion,
background noise, or other problems. However, Tapes/CDs do not have a
variety of voices and they are native speakers talking at normal speed.
23
CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY
3.1. Selection of subjects
3.1.1. Setting of study
The study was taken at Pham Ngu Lao high school (PNL) Thuy
Nguyen district, Hai Phong city. According to the statistics in recent five
years of Hai Phong Local education and Training department, the
English scores of PNL high school’s students are at the bottom 10,
despite their high scores in other subjects such as Math or Literature.
Students of this school is also said to be weak at communicating in
English. It inspired the researcher to take an interview with students here
to investigate the current issue in studying English at PNL high school.
The interview’s result, as predicted, reveals that English training is not
strength of this high school because it has just been included in
curriculum of school for five years. That a few numbers of students
taking the university entrance examination with English tests reveals
English subject does not receive adequate recognition, not to mention
listening skill which is mostly neglected by EFL learners.
3.1.2. Participants
The target population of the study is tenth form students of PNL
high school, who are attending school year 2010-2013. The pilot study
and the real study were conducted when they were at the end of the
second semester in 2011. As freshmen, students were supposed to get
familiar with listening skill and face considerable difficulties in studying
this skill.
24
215 tenth form students were chosen as the participants of the
study. They were selected because of their average scores in English
subject ranking from 5 to 10 in the 10-point grading system. Students
whose scores of English are above average are expected to provide
adequate and sufficient information about their difficulties in studying
listening skill so that the greater precision in term of data collected can be
achieved.
For a thorough understanding about the participants, the first two
questions in questionnaire were designed to determine which language
skill is considered the most difficult one among four skills taught at PNL
high school, and to estimate student’s English level based on their
average scores in English subject .
Lastly, most of the students of PNL high school are living in
villages of Thuy Nguyen district. At secondary school, they did not have
much chance to practice listening skill because of the insufficiency of
facilities for practicing listening and qualified teachers of English.
25
Chart 1. The most difficult English skill in students' perception
Chart 1 illustrates that among four English skills taught at Pham
Ngu Lao high school, Listening skill was evaluated as the most difficult
one which accounted for 54% in total. Other skills such as reading,
speaking and writing only made up for 11%, 16% and 19% respectively.
Though the pilot interview taken with only one fifth of tenth form
students at Pham Ngu Lao high school in total but the statistic could
clearly reflect the fact that more than a half of participants recognize that
they have difficulties in studying listening comprehension after the
semester.
The scores of students conveyed their English levels more
precisely. The survey was conducted with 215 students whose the grade
point average of English subject in the first semester are ranged from 5.0
to over 9.0. It should be noted that this school uses the 10.0 grade system.
The proposition of participants’ scores was illustrated in Chart 2.
Reading11%
Speaking16%
Writing19%
Listening54%
26
41%
22%
16%
14%
7%
5.0 - 6.0
6.1 - 7.0
7.1 - 8.0
8.1 - 9.0
> 9.0
Chart 2. The grade point average of English listening skill
of tenth form students
As can be seen from the chart that the number of students who had
grades of English listening skill rank from 5.0 to 6.0 makes up for the
highest percentage with 41%. In addition, about 22% of participants’
scores are from 6.1 to 7.0. Proportionally more than 60% of respondents
had low scores in English ranking from 5 to 7. And proportionally fewer
students achieved higher scores rank from 7.1 to over 9.0, which only
account for 37% in total. To some extent, the grade point average of the
first semester can reflect the respondents’ level in English listening skill.
Although they are considered at the pre-intermediate, the average scores
of listening skill shows that they may have some troubles in studying
listening comprehension. Among 215 students, 178 respondents (82.79%)
have studied English for five years, 19 participants wrote that they have
learnt English for four years. The number of students who have studied
English for more than 6 six years are only 18 students (8.3%). None of
respondents has learnt English for less than 4 years. These statistics
27
showed that most of tenth form students at Pham Ngu Lao high school
have become familiar with four skills in English at least for four years.
Therefore, it is assumed that their English level can be rated at pre-
intermediate level. In other words, students at grade ten can listen to
simple conversational dialogues; understand short-talks or photo
description recordings. Based on the experience as well the scores of
students, researcher can come to a general conclusion about students’
English level
3.2. Research Instrument
The study employed survey method using questionnaires and focus-
group interview. Firstly, questionnaires were used as the main research
instrument because the study aimed to exploit a large number of
participants. Therefore, the researcher could collect “a huge amount of
information” from students (Dornyei, 2003, p.9). Secondly, according to
Rabiee (2004) focus-group interview was able to provide information
about a range of ideas and feelings that individuals have about certain
issues. Therefore, the two research instruments were made advantage of
to collect wide, rich and detailed information of particitpants.
a. Questionnaires
The questionnaire is constructed based on the theoretical framework
of literature review and piloted interview taken with 97 tenth form
students at Pham Ngu Lao high school, which aims to investigate the
most difficult skill in students’ perception. After receiving contributive
comments and suggestion of supervisor, questionnaire was revised and
came up with the final version. It was then translated into Vietnamese and
piloted with 45 tenth form students of PNL high school. Forty-five
28
students were asked to freely give comments and feedback on the
difficulty, ambiguity level as well as wording of questionnaires. The
researcher revised the questionnaire again and finally used it to conduct
the survey at Pham Ngu Lao high school with 215 participants.
The questionnaire uses the Likert-type scale from 1 to 5. Likert-
type, as defined by Arnold, W. E., McCroskey, J. C., & Prichard, S. V. O.
(1967), consists of a series of declarative statements. Likert (1932)
proposed a summated scale for the assessment of survey respondent’s
attitudes. Individual items in Likert’s sample scale had five response
alternatives: Strongly approve, Approve, Undecided, Disapprove, and
Strongly disapprove. The subject is asked to indicate whether he agrees or
disagrees with each statement. In this paper, 1 means Strongly disagree
and 5 means Strongly agree. Participants were asked to give their
opinions by choosing from 1 to 5.
The questionnaire consists of two main parts.
In part 1, the researcher aims to discover brief information about
participants’ background information, including their scores of English
subject and the years they have learnt English. The importance of
listening comprehension perceived by students is investigated as well.
Part 2 consists of three sections, which are based on the procedure of
a listening lesson. The three sections are “Pre-listening”, “While-
listening” and “Post-listening”. The second part was designed to collect
the students’ perceived problems in learning listening comprehension.
The content of the questionnaire was concerned with the mentioned
theories about common difficulties faced by EFL learners in studying
listening comprehension in Literature Review.
29
The questionnaire was written in English and then translated into
Vietnamese when being distributed to students.
b. Follow-up Interview
The focus-group interviews were conducted following the
questionnaire phase with the same number of students. Participants
formed into the groups of forty-three students. They were asked to
provide in-depth information about their difficulties. Their suggestions to
overcome their possible difficulties and their expectations towards
teachers and PNL high school were exploited in the interview part as
well. Information collected from this stage was made advantage of
supporting the analysis of the first two research questions as well as to
answer the third one.
3.3. Procedure of data collection
The procedure of data collection followed these steps.
Firstly, the researcher asked for the permission of PNL high
school’s head master, teachers of English and tenth form students to
conduct the survey at school. 215 students were chosen thanks to the
assistance of PNL high school’s teachers.
The questionnaire was then carried out within two weeks. In the
first week, there were 100 students answering the questionnaires. 115
other participants took part in the survey in the second week.
The questionnaire took place when students had free periods to
avoid the interference with their studying process and provide enough
time for participants to answer questionnaires carefully. Before students
30
answered, they were instructed and checked for the understanding about
the questionnaire carefully. The researcher was waiting while students
were answering the questionnaire to ensure that participants could receive
on-time assistance if needed.
The follow-up interview was processed after students finished their
questionnaires. They are free to raise their opinions about their
difficulties.
3.4. Procedure of data analysis
After collected, the data will be compiled, coded and analyzed. In
this study, descriptive statistics analyses were carried out to understand
the variables of data, including frequencies and percentages, graphical
display of data, statistic of central tendency (the mean, mode and median)
and dispersion.
The results of the statistic analysis were presented in this section to
investigate the problems in studying listening skill. The questionnaires
were computed for means, modes, medians and standard deviation (SD)
in order to reveal the English problems perceived by tenth form students
at Pham Ngu Lao high school.
31
CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. FINDINGS
This chapter reports the survey findings addressing the three
research questions in three parts. The first part reports students’
perceptions of English listening skill (attitude, scores on English
subject, etc.) The second part explores their problems (language
proficiency, materials, psychology setting factors, etc.). The analysis
emphasized on students’ perceptions of English listening skill (attitude,
scores on English subject, etc.), their problems (language proficiency,
materials, psychology setting factors, etc.) and the suggested solutions
they use to try to overcome these problems.
4.1.1. Students’ perceived importance of the English listening skill
As illustrated in Table 1, descriptive statistics are presented for the
students’ perceived importance of English listening skill.
Mean Mode Median SD
Students’ perceived importance
of English listening skill 3.34 4 4 1.19
Table 1. Students’ perceived importance of English listening skill
Mean of the importance is 3.34 which is higher than average of
Likert-type rating from 1- Not at all importance to 5 – Extremely
important. Moreover, mode and median are equal (=4) and standard
deviation is 1.19. These numbers show that most of the students had
awareness of the importance of listening comprehension. However, there
were still a number of students who did not highly evaluate the role of
32
listening skill. Besides choosing the most appropriate scale, they were
asked to clarify their answers. Most of them did not give extra
explanation for their choices, researcher decided to adapt this question in
the interview part.
When being interviewed, the group of students who highly
appreciated the role of this skill reported that listening skill helps them
improve their communication skill through complementing their
pronunciation and widening their vocabulary. Some of students expected
to be more proficiently in listening to English so that they would have
chance to talk with foreigners as well as look for a good job in future.
Share the quite similar ideas, some students thought listening skill was
fairly important to their English study. They did aware the importance of
listening skill but assumed that this is the most difficult one among four
skills as well. As not being included in the final examinations, listening
skill has not paid much consideration by both teachers and students at
Pham Ngu Lao high school. Contradictorily, there were seventeen
students considered listening skill an unimportant skill. From their points
of view, it was too difficult for this group of students to study this skill
or to understand what speakers talked in the recordings. Hence, it was no
point of studying without understanding anything. These statistics,
generally, revealed the truth that some of the students were still unaware
of the vital role of listening skill in their English study at high school.
4.1.2. Students’ perceived difficulties in studying listening skill
In part II, this paper analyzes the results of the survey in order to
discover the difficulties perceived by tenth form students in studying
English listening skill. These difficulties are presented as follow.
33
Basic Language Problems
As mentioned in Literature Review, linguistic can be considered
the biggest obstacle of most of EFL learners, especially students at low-
level of English. The following table (Table 2) presents the difficulties in
term of language proficiency perceived by students in studying listening
skill. By grouping eight related questions in the questionnaires,
researcher calculated the mean, mode and median difficulty as well as
standard deviation (SD). In this way, we could compare all items
individually and in group under the linguistic view.
Items Mean Mode Median SD
Q13. Hard to understand speakers’
strange accents and pronunciations 3.85 5 4 1.1
Q14. Unable to catch information
because of high speed rate 3.56 5 4 1.4
Q10. Unable to catch important and
key words to do exercises 3.55 3 4 1.19
Q19. Unable to distinguish important
words in a connected speech 3.45 3 3 1.18
Q20. Find the pronunciation familiar
but cannot recognize the words 3.44 3 4 1.21
Q12. Do not often pay attention to
intonation of speakers 3.39 4 4 1.33
Q11. Unable to recognize transitional
words 3.19 2 3 1.31
Table 2. Basic language difficulties perceived by tenth form students
34
As is shown in Table 2, means of the items in groups are higher
than the average, which range from 3.19 (Q11) to 3.87 (Q13). These
means reveal that participants perceived all mentioned aspect of
linguistic as their difficulties. Modes and Medians are mostly in range of
3 to 5 (except for Q11). From which a fact can be drawn that most of
students who took part in the survey have difficulties when they study
listening comprehension. Furthermore, standard deviation, which shows
the dispersion of data, are not too high, rating from 1.1 to 1.4. Hence, the
opinions of difference students about the difficulties are quite
concentrated and homogenous (not scattered much).
Among these difficulties related to linguistic, strange accents and
pronunciation of speakers in listening recordings are perceived by the
most number of students, whose mean is remarkably high (i.e.
mean=3.85). The mode and median are 5 and 4 respectively. With the
largest group of students evaluate this difficulty at level 5 and at least
half of students choose 4 and 5 for their answers, together with the small
standard deviation, it can be confirmed that the majority of students face
this obstacles and there is not much significant difference among
students’ opinions. The causes of this difficulty are different among
students. Some of students firstly said that they were familiar with
neither the accents nor the pronunciation of speakers in the recordings
because they were different from their teachers’ pronunciations. In class,
their teachers of English did not use intonation or stress on words or
sentences much. Teachers tried to pronoun words separately and clearly
and their intonation seemed to be flat. Secondly, a great number of
students shared that their pronunciations were different from the
standard pronunciation, just because they lived in a rural area. It is
difficult for them to listen to Vietnamese speakers of English not to
35
mention the native speakers of English. A few participants raised one
opinion that some teachers’ pronunciations were not correct.
Consequently, if students imitated their teachers’ pronunciation, they
made these pronunciation mistakes as well. Though this idea must be
evaluated through observing teachers’ lessons because students
themselves might not be qualified to evaluate their teachers, the issue
about unqualified teachers still should be taken under consideration.
From opinions raised by those students, it can be concluded that
sometimes, speakers’ pronunciation are not the main cause of
difficulties, but the hindrances come from the listeners themselves
whose pronunciations are not good enough to understand the varied
types of accents.
Other obstacles similarly perceived by many students are “Unable
to catch the important key words to do exercises” (Q10) and “Unable to
catch information because of high speed rate of recordings” (Q14),
which the mean ratings of 3.55 for Q10 and 3.56 for Q14. However, SD
of Q10 is slightly smaller than of Q14, thus the dispersion of students’
opinions in Q10 is closer to Mean. It means that a large number of
students are able to aware their difficulties. On the other hand, for Q14,
because SD is 1.42, the scattered level of students’ opinions about this
obstacle is wider. Moreover, the mode of Q10 is just 1.19, smaller than
the mode of Q14, which is 5. The two difficulties are related to the
amount of information or key words that students were able to catch to
do their exercises or at least for comprehension. The first obstacle is the
high rate of speed. As previously mentioned, students were familiar with
their teachers’ speed which were often slower than the recordings in
order to help students have better comprehension. Nevertheless, that
36
teaching method might lead to students’ difficulties when students had to
deal with the high speech rate of speakers in the recordings and in daily
conversation. Other reasons for the failure to catch key words in the
recordings explained by interviewees were that they did not understand
the concept “key words”. In other words, they did not know what types
of words in the recording could be recognized as “key words”. Some
even could not be able to differentiate words’ types and functions. Those
opinions revealed that students’ basic grammatical linguistics were not
profound. It would significantly affect on the amount of information
they could comprehend.
Linguistic factors seemed to have great impact on the amount of
listening comprehension. Question 19 and 20 convey that many students
could not distinguish words in connected speech and even they found
those words’ pronunciation familiar. Means of the two questions are
similarly high, which are 3.45 and 3.44. It is understandable because
students at low-level may not have much experience in linking sounds.
Furthermore, their pronunciation has not mastered and they do not have
abundant of vocabulary. Particularly, when asked about whether they
could identify the consonants and vowels or not, most of students
claimed that they had heard about consonants and vowels but could not
differentiate them clearly.
As seen in question 11 and question 12, there were many students
who claimed that they were unable to recognize additional words,
contrast words or transitional devices. Moreover, they do not pay
attention much to speakers’ intonations in the recordings. Though mean
ratings for Q11 and Q12 are 3.19 and 3.39, respectively, SDs of two
items are quite high in comparison with other items’ (SD (Q11) =1.31 &
37
SD (Q12) = 1.33). It means that there are a slightly difference in
students’ opinions and levels.
To conclude, the great number of participants had difficulties in
studying listening skill because of linguistic factors including
pronunciation, accent, speed or connected speech.
Learning strategy difficulties
The following table (Table 3) illustrates the difficulties related by
tenth form student at PNL high school.
Items Mean Mode Median SD
PRE
-LIS
TE
NIN
G
Q2. Teachers do not often organize
interesting pre-activities related to
topics before listening.
3.12 3 3 1.27
Q3. I don’t receive clear
instructions about recordings and
exercises from teachers.
3.24 3 3 1.33
Q7. Teachers do not ask Ss to find
and analyze key words and
important words in the exercises
before listening.
3.42 4 4 1.27
Q1. I am not helped to get familiar
with topics before listening. 3.54 3 4 1.13
Q8. I cannot understand new words
in exercises if teachers don’t elicit or
explain them to me.
3.66 5 4 1.14
Q6. I am not well-prepared before
listening. 3.73 5 4 1.25
38
Items Mean Mode Median SD PO
ST- L
IST
EN
ING
Q26. I have chance to give my opinions
and my ideas about what I have learnt in
the listening lesson.
3.14 3 3 1.25
Q24. Teachers don’t consolidate new
language and structures in the recordings
after listening.
3.43 4 4 1.07
Q22. I cannot answer teachers’ questions
to check the understanding about
contents of the recordings after listening.
3.67 4 4 1.12
Q25. Teachers don’t organize activities
to encourage students to use language
and structures after listening such as
discussion, debates or role-plays.
3.75 5 4 1.21
Q23. Teachers don’t check exercises
carefully after listening such as playing
the recordings again, stopping at the
answers which students are confused and
check the understanding of all students
in class.
3.78 4 5 1.0
Table 3. Learning strategy difficulties perceived by tenth form students
As described in Table 3, the means of learning strategy difficulties
range from 3.12 to 3.78. The modes and Medians are close to the Means
and most of means are equal or higher than Means. The top five means
belong to Questions 22, 8, 6, 25 and 23, which are 3.67, 3.66, 3.73, 3.75
39
and 3.78, respectively. With the rage from 4 to 5, modes and medians of
these items are considered very high. The standard deviations of the
difficulties related to learning strategy are quite small and their difference
is slightly, which rank from 1.0 to 1.33. The results show that most of
students shared the difficulties in learning strategies. Among themselves,
there were not much different opinions. Difficulties derived in the post-
listening stage were highly perceived by most of students.
A closer look of pre-listening stage shows that, students were not
motivated by their teachers before listening to the tapes. A great number
of students agreed that their teachers did not often organize interesting
pre-activities (i.e. warm-up activities) (Q2). Moreover, some teachers did
not give clear instructions to their students; help analyze key words as
well as get familiar with topics of the recordings. As a result, students
claimed that they could not understand new words in the exercises
because teachers did not explain to them. Besides, most of them said that
they were not well prepared before listening periods. Pre-listening, a vital
stage, does not receive sufficient attention and preparation of language
teachers at PNL high school.
Consequently, at post-listening stage, students complained that they
could not answer their teachers questions which aim to check the
understanding about the content of recordings (Q22). Mean of Q22 is
3.67, mode and median are equal (=4) and SD is 1.12.
Question 24, 25 and question 23 show that teachers of English at
Pham Ngu Lao high school did not prepare for post-listening stage
carefully. Question 23 has the highest mean (3.78) and the smallest SD
(1.0). Most of students shared the same difficulties at the high level. In
40
fact, if teachers do not have much time left, the activities to enhance
students understanding and practice what they have learnt such as debates
or discussions can be omitted. However, they also neglect basic steps of a
listening lesson that checking exercises thoroughly. The high means,
modes and median together with small standard deviations of three
questions prove that teachers of English at PNL high school frequently
neglected the last stage of the lesson.
In conclusion, learning strategies before and after listening are
frequently ignored by teachers of PNL high school though at low-level of
English, students should be formed the learning strategies in studying
listening skill by their teachers of English. The poor investment of
teachers might lead to many obstacles for students.
Psychological factors and Settings
Psychology of students before listening is another concern of the
study. As is shown in table 5, many students admitted that they often
keep silent and pay attention to T’s instruction. Mean ratings of Q4 and
Q5 are similarly equal with 3.46 and 3.44. But the quite high SDs of Q4
and Q5 show that not all of students kept silent and concentrate to their
teachers’ instructions. The difference in students’ opinions reflects that
silence and attention in listening periods were not ensured. They can
affect greatly on the quality of lessons, not only an individual student but
also the whole class.
Table 5 also reveals another problem that the mean of students who
often feel comfortable and eager to study before every listening lesson is
41
lower than average (mean=2.62) and the median (2) is smaller than the
mean. This shows that most of students fail to find motivation in learning
this skill.
Mean Mode Median SD
Q17. I cannot be concentrated on
listening to recordings from
beginning to the end.
3.19 3 3 1.25
Q5.I often pay attention to T’s
instructions. 3.44 3 4 1.25
Q4. I often keep silent to listen to
T’s instructions. 3.46 5 4 1.33
Q21. Listening facilities are in good
quality. 3.46 3 4 1.3
Q9. I often feel comfortable before
every listening lesson. 2.62 3 2 1.25
Q16. I have not practiced listening
skill before. 3.19 3 3 1.32
Table 4. Physical setting difficulties perceived by tenth form students
From these points, we can see that most of students kept silent in
class and paid attention to their teachers’ instructions, but many of them
do not feel comfortable before every listening lesson. To explain this
complicated psychology, many students shared that they were not
interested in studying listening comprehension. They kept silent in class
simply because they did not want to be addressed by their teachers.
42
Because of the noise in classroom and the poorly preparation of
psychology, a great number of students claim that they cannot be
concentrated on listening to the recording from beginning to the end
(mean= 3.19, SD=1.25). Obviously, the amount of listening
comprehension is influenced by this obstacle.
About listening facilities, students mostly give optimistic opinions
on the quality of facilities with mean rating of 3.46.
Materials difficulties
Mean Mode Median SD
Q15.The exercises are difficult to
me because of tricky and long
questions.
3.3 3 3 1.34
Q18. I don’t have any background
knowledge about the topics in the
text book.
3.23 3 4 1.22
Table 5. Materials difficulties perceived by tenth form students
The feedback of students for material difficulties, again, is not
optimistic. Means of Q15 and Q18 are still higher than average 3, which
are 3.19 and 3.46. Modes and medians of two questions are from 3 to 4
which reflects that students frequently find the exercise difficult to do and
they are not confident with their background knowledge correlated to
topics in the text book. About the exercises, interviewees reported that the
information for answers is not in the same order as information in the
43
recording. Additionally, the types of exercises repeatedly keep the same
format in which True-False exercise plays the major proportion.
Therefore, if teachers do not instruct some techniques before listening,
they cannot do exercises. Moreover, some questions require long
responded answers but students cannot remember every detail to fulfill
these answers. When asked to give some examples, students refused and
said that they don’t remember.
Topic of listening lesson is another obstacle in listening
comprehension. Many students found that they have little or no
background knowledge related to topics in textbook. The topics
considered the most difficult and unattractive ones are Unit 3-People’s
background, Unit 4- Special education, Unit 10-Conversation and Unit
16-Historical Places. It is suggested by students that these above topics
should be replaced or improved to be more interesting.
44
4.2. SUGGESTIONS OF STUDENTS
Focus-group interview collected some suggestions of students to
overcome their possible difficulties as follow.
Firstly, to deal with unusual pronunciation as well as the strange
accents of native speakers in the recordings, students seem to be confused
to find their own solution. A great number of students prefer to consult
their teachers for assistance. It may be considered the good way if
teachers of English are qualified and have correct pronunciation.
However, they also complain that their teachers are not always free to
assist students’ problems. Hence, they would ask their friends who had
high scores in English subjects for help. They further explained that they
neither know how to check pronunciation in dictionary nor watch movies
or films to improve their pronunciation.
Asking friends seemed to be the most common way to solve
students’ difficulties. In other aspects such as the shortcomings of
vocabulary, background knowledge or exercises, students still preferred
their friends’ assistance. Some students said that they were not
comfortable to consult their teachers.
Lastly, students raised their expectation towards their teachers of
English and their school. Participants hoped that their teachers would
organize some more interesting activities in class, which might arouse
students’ interests and motivation. Students also suggested that teachers
could consider adapting more updated recordings and texts and expanding
the topics of recordings at the end of lessons. Some ideas were raised that
teachers could hold out-door activities for students to complete their
English together. For PNL high school, students expected that they would
45
have one or two English native teachers. Students wanted to communicate
with native speakers more.
4.3. IMPLICATIONS
Based on the findings, Literature and participants’ interviewed
answers, the researcher proposes some suggestion for teachers, students,
and Pham Ngu Lao high school for the difficulties in studying listening
skill.
4.3.1. Implications to teachers of English
Students’ awareness of the importance of the English listening skill
and their motivation in studying this skill should be raised by teachers.
Teachers are the ones who decide the activities in classroom;
meanwhile, choosing appropriate tasks for students influences
significantly on the amount of listening comprehension. The deployment
of three steps including pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening is
very important.
In pre-listening, students’ vocabulary and knowledge on the themes
or topics should be enhanced thanks to the teachers’ careful preparation.
Moreover, students need to be given clear instruction about the length,
genre, requirement of recordings and exercises. Understanding what they
are going to listen to, what type of information they should pay attention
to is definitely important in the success of listening comprehension.
Finally yet importantly, teachers should minimize students’ distraction
such as noise control, class management.
46
After listening, teachers can use post-listening activities to check
the comprehension, evaluate listening skills and extend the knowledge
gained from the recordings. For instance, teachers play the recordings
again and stop at confused answers to help students understand clearly.
They also ask students to give clues to support their answers. The post-
listening can provide opportunities for students to expand the topics or
linguistic items of the recordings such as freely raising their opinions on
the topics or practicing with new words and grammatical structures. Extra
activities outside the class held by teachers to stimulate students’ interest
like discussion, debates or role-play are highly appreciated. Students will
be more confident and active in using English outside classroom.
The teacher could also collect more information and authentic
materials such as English videos and films for students. Furthermore, they
should consider the difference in English level of students when adapting
materials.
4.3.2. Implications to tenth form students
At pre-intermediate level, listening skill benefits students in
improving their pronunciation, vocabulary and communication; therefore,
students should have a high degree of autonomy in approaching this skill.
Widening vocabulary is very important as the limited vocabulary
poses difficulties to most of students. Hence, reading English books,
articles, magazines and watching English teaching programs on television
are learning strategies of some students. It will be more efficient if
students can have a habit of checking new words in English dictionary
from the beginning of their learning process. According to Vandergift
(1999) when students first begin to learn a language, they have
47
difficulties listening for accurate meaning and learning to produce correct
sounds at the same time. Therefore, it will be better if they can get
familiar with using English dictionary to look into both meanings and
pronunciation of words (p.169).
With respect to the difficulty related to pronunciation, it is
advisable that students practice listening to native speakers’ voices
through English songs, English news or stories which are suitable for
their level.
4.3.3. Implications to Pham Ngu Lao high school
The first shortcomings of facilities for listening study should be
improved in both quality and quantity. It will be better if the school has a
multimedia room which is equipped with modern facilities such as
computers, loud speakers, objectors. This room can prevent the outside
noise as well as provide the best condition for students to practice
listening.
In school, it can establish the broadcasting station and broadcast
some information in English such as some life stories, news from outside
world, good personalities and the familiar things with students, etc. In
addition, the school can found the English club and hold various outside
class activities, which encourage students to use English and interact with
each other in English such as group work or pair work. They can arouse
interests, widen students’ outlook and intelligence, and cultivate listening
and speaking ability. According to investigation, the most popular outside
class activity is enjoying English program. If possible, school can adapt
some TV programs such as “Who wants to be a millionaire”, “Rings the
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golden bell” or “Way to Olympia”. Some English contests such as “Hot
singers” is also a good way to increase students’ learning interest.
49
CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION
5.1. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The paper has explored students’ perceived importance and
difficulties of studying English listening comprehension. Linguistic
aspects emerged as the biggest difficulties of tenth form students at PNL
high school. Among those language factors, phonetic barrier is the one
faced by a majority of students. Teaching strategies which have great
influence on students’ learning strategies are not received adequate
investment of teachers. Consequently, being not well-prepared to listen,
psychology of students significantly affect the amount of listening
comprehension. Furthermore, some topics and speech rate of recordings
challenge students as well. The results of the study also indicate that
listening comprehension are put little consideration by both students and
teachers of English though it is fundamental to other skills in learning a
foreign language. From the outcome of the study, the researcher has
provided some suggestions to teaching, learning listening skill at
Vietnamese high schools in general, and PLN high school in particular.
Listening competence is a complex skill that needs conscious
development. Guiding students through the process of listening provides
them with the knowledge from which they can successfully complete a
listening task; it also motivates them and puts them in control of their
learning (Vandergrift, 1999). That students’ perceived importance of
English listening skill brings a suggestion for emphasizing listening
comprehension, which highlights the importance of spending much more
time doing it.
50
5.2. LIMITATIONS
The paper unavoidably has some limitations as followed. Firstly,
though much effort was put on looking for a well-designed and widely
accepted questionnaire, the questionnaire used in the study was designed
by the researcher herself mostly based on Literature review and students’
reflection. However, this questionnaire is still not satisfactory enough in
term of covering all issues related to listening comprehension. It would be
ideal if the researcher could have more time to have deeper look on the
matter and provide with more sufficient ideas from students at Pham Ngu
Lao high school.
With regard to the limitation of time and scale, the participants of
study counted to 215 students, which take up for more than a half of tenth
form students at PNL high school. Furthermore, the study was just
conducted at a high school of Hai phong city. Hence, the findings of the
study cannot be overgeneralized to other schools in Hai phong or widely
used over the country.
5.3. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
After this study, it is hoped that there would be more studies which
have larger scales and are processed in longer time in order to discover
students’ difficulties in studying listening skill at high schools in Vietnam.
Hence, educators in Vietnam may have an overall look on the issues of
teaching and learning English of high school students can come up with
practical plans to improve the issue. Moreover, the further study can
construct a better questionnaire
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REFERENCE
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Arnold, W. E., McCroskey, J. C., & Prichard, S. V. O. (1967). The Likert-type scale. Today’s Speech, 15, 31-35
Retrieved from the World Wide Web at http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/25.htm
Brindley, G., P. (1982). Listening proficiency descriptions. Sydney: Adult Migrant Education Service.
Chen, Y. (2005). Barriers to acquiring listening strategies for EFL learners and their pedagogical implications. Retrieved from the World Wide Web at http://www.teslej.org/wordpress/issues/volume8/ej32/ej32a2/
Clark, Herbert H. & Clark, Eve V. (1977). Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.
Coakley, C., & Wolin, A. (1986). Listening in the native language. In B. H. Wing (Ed.), Listening, reading, and writing: Analysis and application (pp. 11-42). Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Dunkel, P. (1988). Academic Listening and Lecture Note-taking for L1/SL Students: The Need to Investigate the Utility of the Aximos of Good Note- taking. TESL Canada Journal, 6 (1988), 11-26.
Feyten, C. M. (1991). The Power of Listening Ability: An Overlooked Dimension in Language Acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 75:173-80.
“How to teach listening”. ELT methodology 2nd version. Hanoi: Falculty of English Language Teacher Education, Hanoi University of Languages and International studies-Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Faerch, C. and Kasper, G. (1986). The Role of Comprehension in SLL. Applied Linguistics, 7 (1986), 257-74.
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Ferris, D. and Tagg, T. (1996). Academic Listening/Speaking Tasks for ESL students: Problems, Suggestions, and Implications. TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer 1996
Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L. "Student Perception, Problems and Strategies in SL Comprehension." Journal of Language Learning and Research in South Asia, 23, No. 2 (1992), 60-80.
Griffiths, R. (1992). Speech rate and listening comprehension: Further evidence of the relationship. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 385-91.
Geddes, M. & Sturtridge, G. (Eds.). (1982). Individualisation. London: Modern English Publications.
Goh, C. (1997). Metacognitive awareness and second language listeners. ELT Journal, 51, 361–369.
Likert, R. (1932). A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes, Archives of Psychology, No.140. Paris: The University of Western Ontario.
Morley, J. (1991). Listening comprehension in second/foreign language
instruction. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or
foreign language (2nd ed., pp. 81-106). New York: Newbury House.
Nguyen, T., T., T. (2007). Some hindrances encountered by tenth form students in Hanoi in studying reading comprehension with the new English textbook 10-edition II. Hanoi: Falculty of English Language Teacher Education, Hanoi University of Languages and International studies-Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Nunan, D. (1997). Listening in Language learning.
Retrieved on http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/files/97/sep/nunan.html
O’Malley, J. M., & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language acquisition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Oxford, R. (1993). Research Update on L2 Listening. System 21:205-11.
Peacock (1997). Retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/pgr/egspll/volumel/PDFs/PEACOCKl. Pdf
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Rabiee, F. (2004). Focus-group interview and data analysis. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (2004), 63, 655–660
Richards, J. C. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure. TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 17, No, 2, June 1983
Sanchez, N. (1999). Communication process.
Retrieved on http://web.njit.edu/~lipuma/352comproc/comproc.htm
Strother, D. B. (1987). Practical applications of research: on listening. Phi Delta Kappan, 68 (8), April 1987, pp. 625-628.
Thompson, I. and J. Rubin (1996): “Can strategy instruction improve listening comprehension?” Foreign Language Annals 29-3, pp. 331-342
Vandergrift, L. (1999). Facilitating second language listening comprehension: acquiring successful strategies. ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176.
Wills, R. (2008). An Investigation of Factors Influencing English Listening
Comprehension and Possible Measures for Improvement. Australia: University of Tasmania.
Wilt, M., E. (1950). A study of teacher awareness of listening as a factor in elementary education. Journal of Educational Research, 43 (8), pp. 626-636.
Xu, F. (2011). Retrieved February 2011 from www.ccsenet.org/ies
International Education Studies Vol. 4, No. 1
Yagang, F. (1993). Listening: Problems and Solutions. English Teaching
Forum, January 31
Yousif, A. (2006 ). Listening Comprehension Difficulties. Saudi Arabia:
Department of English Language, College of Education, Almajmah.
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX I – QUESTIONNAIRES AND INTERVIEW
Follow-up interview
1. Does T help you to get familiar with topics before listening?
2. Does T often organize interesting warm-up activities before listening?
3. Do you receive clear instructions about recordings and exercise from your teachers? Do you need to be instructed carefully?
4. Do you often keep silent to listen to T’s instructions? Do you often pay attention to T’s instructions?
5. Do you think you are prepared well before listening?
6. Do you know what key words are? What types of words we should pay attention to when listening?
7. Does T ask you to find and analyze key words and important words in the exercises before listening?
8. Which aspects of new words (meaning, pronunciation, stress, the way to use that word) that you need your T’s explanation?
9. Do you feel comfortable before every listening lesson? Why and Why not?
10. Which factors of linguistic do you find difficult the most (pronunciation, vocabulary, speech rate)?
11. If you have any difficulty in studying listening skill, please specify your solutions to overcome these obstacles:
a. Vocabulary limitation:
b. Unfamiliar speakers’ accents and intonations:
c. Pronunciations
d. Lack of background knowledge:
e. Difficult questions in listening exercises
12. What are your expectations towards your teachers in improving listening competence for students?
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13. What are your expectations towards your teachers in improving listening competence for students?
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Questionnaire
I am Nguyen Thi Mai Trang from E1K41, ULIS,VNU. This survey intends to find out the difficulties in studying listening skill of 10th form students at Pham Ngu Lao high school. I would like to ask you to answer these following questions. Your cooperation is highly appreciated. The information you provide will be guaranteed and kept in secret.
The survey contains three parts:
Part 1_General information & Students’ perceived importance of listening skill
Part 2_ Students perceived difficulties
PART I_GENERAL INFORMATION & STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING SKILL
#1. How long have you been studying English? ……………years
#2. What is your average score of English subjects at secondary school?
#3. How do you evaluate the importance of listening skill? Please choose an appropriate number on the following scale:
Not at all important 1. 2 3 4 5. Extremely important
Please specify your choice
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
PART 2_STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED DIFFICULTIES
Please answer the following questions by using a tick on the appropriate number:
1. Strongly disagree 5. Strongly agree
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Section 1: Pre-listening 1 2 3 4 5
1. I am not helped to get familiar with topics before listening.
2. Teachers do not often organize interesting pre-activities related to topics before listening.
3. I do not receive clear instructions about recordings and exercises from teachers.
4. I often keep silent to listen to T’s instructions.
5. I often pay attention to T’s instructions.
6. I am not well-prepared before listening.
7. Teachers do not ask Ss to find and analyze key words and important words in the exercises before listening.
8. I cannot understand new words in exercises if teachers don’t elicit or explain them to me.
9. I often feel comfortable before every listening lesson
Section 2- While listening 1 2 3 4 5
10. I am unable to catch important and key words to do exercises
11. I am unable to recognize transitional words
12. I do not often pay attention to intonation of speakers to understand their emotion or attitudes.
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13. I hardly understand speakers’ strange accents and pronunciations
14. I am unable to catch information because of high speed rate.
15. The exercises are difficult to me because of tricky and long questions.
16. I have not practiced listening skill before.
17. I cannot be concentrated on listening to recordings from beginning to the end.
18. I do not have any background knowledge about the topics in the textbook.
19. I am unable to distinguish important words in a connected speech.
20. I find the pronunciation familiar but cannot recognize the words.
21. Listening facilities are in good quality.
Section 3- Post listening 1 2 3 4 5
22. I cannot answer teachers’ questions which check the understanding about contents of the recordings after listening.
23. Teachers do not check and correct exercises carefully after listening such as playing the recordings again, stopping at
the answers which students are confused and check the understanding of all students in class.
24. Teachers do not consolidate new language and structures in the recordings after listening.
25. Teachers do not organize activities to encourage students using language and structures after listening such as
discussion, debates or role-plays.
26. I have chance to give my opinions and my ideas about what I have learnt in the listening lesson.
Thanks for your cooperation!
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APPENDIX II
The original coursebook evaluation checklist
The following is the coursebook evaluation checklist designed by Peacock, retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/pgr/egspll/volumel/PDFs/PEACOCKl.pdf
The items that our group has changed or adjusted are highlighted.
COURSBOOK EVALUATION CHECKLIST
This checklist is designed for evaluating coursebooks used for teaching English as a Foreign Language to beginning to upper intermediate level adult learners.
Name of evaluator ........................................................................
Title of coursebook ......................................................................
Publisher ................................................................................
Date of publication.......................................................................
Stated level of learners ................................................................
Cost of student’s book .................................................................
Cost of teacher’s book .................................................................
Cost of cassette tapes ...................................................................
Is book now available (Yes/No) ........................................................ If No, when will it be available? ..................................................
This checklist is designed to produce a score for any coursebook evaluated. Scores are not explained in absolute terms but can be used for comparison if more than one coursebook is evaluated.
Rate the criteria below numerically on a scale from 0 to 2 in the blank space before each one, as follows:
2 = Good
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1 = Satisfactory
0 = Poor.
The scoring table is given at the end of the checklist.
Section I. General Impression
( ) 1. Flick through the book briefly. The overall appearance is attractive and will be appealing to learners.
( ) 2. Overall, the book appears to be up-to-date.
( ) 3. The book’s description of itself appears to match the contents.
Section II. Technical Quality
( ) 4. The book is durable, with a strong cover, and is printed on good quality paper.
( ) 5. The printing and illustrations are of high quality and the book has an attractive layout, without densely cluttered pages. It has been well edited.
( ) 6. Colour is used but not to a distracting extent.
Section III. Cultural Differences
( ) 7. Any cultural bias in the book is restricted to a degree acceptable to your learners.
( ) 8. (Teaching in a non-Western culture) Cultures other than Western or American are also portrayed in the book.
( ) 9. The cultural tone overall is appropriate for use in your setting.
Section IV. Appropriacy
( ) 10. The materials, language focus and activities are in general appropriate for your
learners.
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( ) 11. The coursebook will meet the long and short term goals specific to your
learners.
( ) 12. Learners are not asked to perform roles or activities unacceptable in your
setting.
( ) 13. The activities are adaptable to personal learning and teaching styles.
Section V. Motivation and the Learner
( ) 14. Materials used in the book are authentic and up-to-date to an acceptable degree.
( ) 15. Materials used have intrinsic interest and will appear relevant and interesting to learners.
( ) 16. Materials with variety and pace are used.
( ) 17. Personal involvement of learners in encouraged.
( ) 18. The book encourages learners to assume responsibility for their own learning.
( ) 19. There is a problem-solving and competitive element.
( ) 20. The book exploits the social nature of classrooms.
Section VI. Pedagogic Analysis
( ) 21. Methodologically the book is in line with your school’s approach to language learning.
( ) 22. Methodologically the book is in line with current worldwide theories and practices of language learning.
( ) 23. Pronunciation: there is sufficient work on recognition and production of individual sounds.
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( ) 24. Pronunciation: there is sufficient work on recognition and production of stress patterns and intonation.
( ) 25. The balance between listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills development in the book is appropriate to your particular learners and learning situation.
( ) 26. Skills integration is given sufficient attention.
( ) 27. The development of discourse and fluency skills is given sufficient attention.
( ) 28. The book contains adequate formal learner achievement tests.
( ) 29. There are activities for communicative interaction and the development of communicative strategies.
( ) 30. The balance between individual work, pairwork, groupwork, and whole-class
work in the book is appropriate for your particular learning situation.
( ) 31. One goal of the book is enabling learners to use English outside the classroom
situation.
( ) 32. New structures are presented systematically and in a meaningful context.
( ) 33. New items receive sufficient and varied practice.
( ) 34. The meaning of new vocabulary is presented in context.
( ) 35. The grading of new items is not too steep or to gentle for your learners.
( ) 36. In general the activities in the book are neither too difficult nor too easy for your learners.
( ) 37. The book is sufficiently challenging to learners.
( ) 38. There are mechanisms for giving regular feedback to learners.
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( ) 39. Units are not based around a storyline which may force the teacher to use every unit in sequence.
( ) 40. There is variety in the makeup of individual units.
( ) 41. Useful guidance is given to learners on correct use of the book.
( ) 42. The style of speech and texts used is appropriate for our learners.
( ) 43. There is provision for the book to be used for self-study by lone learners.
( ) 44. New items are reviewed and recycled throughout the book.
( ) 45. The book matches the syllabus of your school to a sufficient extent.
Section VII. Finding Your Way Through the Student’s Book
( ) 46. There is an adequate contents page.
( ) 47. There is a comprehensive index.
( ) 48. There is a complete summary of functions.
( ) 49. There is a summary of new and reviewed grammar.
( ) 50. There is a list of topics used in the book.
( ) 51. There is a list of new vocabulary.
( ) 52. If tapes are used, there is a transcript in the student’s and/ or teacher’s book.
( ) 53. Sufficient guidance is given for the needs of both experienced and inexperienced teachers.
Section VIII. Supplementary Materials
( ) 54. A teacher’s book is available and it gives useful and complete guidance, along with alternative activities.
( ) 55. A workbook is available and it contains appropriate supplementary activities.
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( ) 56. Cassette tapes are of good quality construction.
( ) 57. Sound quality of tapes is good with no hissing, distortion, background noise, or other problems.
( ) 58. Tapes have a variety of voices and they are native speakers talking at normal speed.
( ) 59. If the book is part of a series, other books in the series are also suitable for use in your school.
( ) 60. The coursebook, teacher’s book, tapes and workbook are not prohibitively expensive for your students/school.
What materials or activities are missing from the book which should be included?
.....................................................................................................................
What helpful ways of learning are missing from the book which should be included?
.....................................................................................................................
Other comments: ..................................................................................
Summation:- ......................................................................................
Evaluator’s Signature ...................................................... Date: ……/……/……..
SCORING TABLE
There are 60 items on the checklist, with 2 points possible for each item. Items should be weighted before using the checklist to reflect their relative importance in your teaching situation.
Scoring procedure:
(a) Enter the desired weightings in the ‘weight’ column. (b) Enter the score you gave for each item. (c) Multiply each score by its weighting factor. (d) Add up the totals to get the final score.
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ITEM
SCORE
WEIGH
TOTAL
ITEM
SCORE WEIGHT
TOTAL 1. X = 31. X = 2. X = 32. X = 3. X = 33. X = 4. X = 34. X = 5. X = 35. X = 6. X = 36. X = 7. X = 37. X = 8. X = 38. X = 9. X = 39. X = 10. X = 40. X = 11. X = 41. X = 12. X = 42. X = 13. X = 43. X = 14. X = 44. X = 15. X = 45. X = 16. X = 46. X = 17. X = 47. X = 18. X = 48. X = 19. X = 49. X = 20. X = 50. X = 21. X = 51. X = 22. X = 52. X = 23. X = 53. X = 24. X = 54. X = 25. X = 55. X = 26. X = 56. X = 27. X = 57. X = 28. X = 58. X = 29. X = 59. X = 30. X = 60. X =
Subtotal:…….. Subtotal:……..
TOTAL SCORE FOR THE COURSEBOOK ......................................
Note: The coursebook should be reassessed periodically in the light of the results of learner achievement tests and learner and teacher judgments.