Impacts of video - Assisted teaching on Truong Dinh high school students perceptions towards the practice of listening

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

IMPACTS OF VIDEO- ASSISTED TEACHING

ON TRUONG DINH HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS

THE PRACTICE OF LISTENING

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL

Submitted by: LE THI KHUYEN

Supervisor: LE THI THANH THU, Ed. D.

HO CHI MINH City, October 2016

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis entitled “Impacts of using video-assisted teaching on

Truong Dinh high school students’ learning listening” is my own work.

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, the thesis does not contain

material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I

have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma.

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in other

institutions as well as no other person’s work has been used without the acknowledge in

the main text.

Ho Chi Minh City, October 2016

Le Thi Khuyen

ii

RENTENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, LE THI KHUYEN, being the candidate for the degree of Master of

TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of

Master's Theses deposited in the Library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original copy of my thesis deposited in

the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research in accordance with

the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction of

theses.

Ho Chi Minh City, October 2016

Le Thi Khuyen

iii

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Le Thi

Thanh Thu, for her treasured and invaluable support over the course of this study. With

the insightful guidance and encouraging spirit, my supervisor helped me a lot to finish the

thesis. She was always available for reading and commenting on my work. Thanks to her

constant guidance and valuable comments, the thesis has become a complete piece of

work.

I would also like to thank all the English teachers in the Open University for their

valuable instructions during the course, as well as other staff at this university for their

necessary support during my studies.

My gratitude also goes to all administrators of Truong Dinh high school, who created

opportunities and good conditions for me to complete the course at Ho Chi Minh Open

University.

I was thankful to my students at Truong Dinh high school, Tien Giang province for

their cooperation. Finally yet importantly, I am deeply thankful to my family, especially

my husband whose encouragement helped me overcome difficulties during my

conducting my thesis.

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

1. DOET : Department of Education and Training

2. MOET : Ministry of Education and Training

3. GTM : Grammar-Translation Method

4. CLT : Communicative language teaching

5. CG : The control group

6. EG : The experimental group

7. Ss : Students

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to explore students’ attitudes towards the use of video and

the impacts of videos on students’ listening skill at Truong Dinh high school. To achieve

these purposes, an experimental research was employed. This study lasted in three

months with two- group design of 80 tenth grade students. One set of questionnaire and

two tests were used to as instruments for data collection. The pre-test extracted from the

listening part of the first term examination was used to divide 80 students into two

groups. After video materials were applied in four weeks of the treatment, Test 1 was

held to evaluate the ability of listening comprehension of two groups. Next, Test 2 was

administrated to the students of the two groups at the end of the treatment. Right after the

Test 2, a set of questionnaire was delivered to only 41 students of the experimental group

to find out their attitudes towards the learning listening through video. The results proved

that students learning with videos had significantly better results than students learning

with cassette players. Those students turned out to be active and engaged in their learning

listening and had positive attitudes towards learning listening. This led to the suggestion

that videos should be implemented into the language learning in the classroom to help

students develop their listening ability.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page No

Statement of the authorship .................................................................................... i

Retention and use of the thesis.............................................................................. ii

Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................iii

List of abbreviations............................................................................................. iv

Abstract.................................................................................................................. v

Table of contents .................................................................................................. vi

List of tables .......................................................................................................... x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rational for the thesis..................................................................................... 1

1.2. The objectives of the study……………………............................................. 4

1.3. Research questions ......................................................................................... 4

1.4. Scope of the study…………………… .......................................................... 4

1.5. Background to the study................................................................................. 5

1.5.1. Grade 10 teachers and students at Truong Dinh high school..................... 5

1.5.1.1. Grade 10 teachers ..................................................................................... 5

1.5.1.2. Grade 10 students ..................................................................................... 6

1.5.2. Teaching and learning listening at Truong Dinh high school ..................... 7

1.5.3. Materials……………………...................................................................... 7

1.6. Significance of the study ................................................................................ 9

1.7. Organization of the study ............................................................................... 9

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. The basic concept of listening ...................................................................... 11

2.1.1. Definition of listening................................................................................ 11

2.1.2. Procedure of learning listening.................................................................. 12

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2.1.3. Listening process....................................................................................... 13

2.1.4. Factors affecting learning listening ........................................................... 14

2.1.4.1. Learners’ attitudes .................................................................................. 14

2.1.4.1.1. Definition............................................................................................. 14

2.1.4.1.2. The effects of learners’ attitudes on the language learning................. 15

2.1.4.2. Attention in the learning listening process............................................. 17

2.1.4.3. Relevant of listening inputs.................................................................... 17

2.1.4.4. Fundamental knowledge used in students’ listening.............................. 19

2.2. Videos........................................................................................................... 19

2.2.1. Types of videos.......................................................................................... 20

2.2.2. Advantages of using videos....................................................................... 21

2.2.3. Disadvantages of using videos .................................................................. 23

2.2.4. Selecting videos......................................................................................... 24

2.2.5. Implementing videos in the classroom...................................................... 25

2.3. Previous studies............................................................................................ 27

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research design ............................................................................................ 31

3.2. Research site ................................................................................................. 31

3.3. Participants ................................................................................................... 32

3.4. Application of videos .................................................................................. 34

3.4.1. Research procedure.................................................................................... 34

3.4.2. Teaching/ Learning materials.................................................................... 36

3.4.2.1. Teaching/ Learning materials of the control group ................................ 36

3.4.2.2. Teaching/ Learning materials of the experimental group ...................... 38

3.5. Data collection instruments.......................................................................... 39

3.5.1. Questionnaire............................................................................................. 39

3.5.2. Tests........................................................................................................... 41

3.6. Data collection procedures ........................................................................... 41

3.7. Data analysis................................................................................................. 42

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CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

4.1. Data analysis methodology........................................................................... 43

4.2. Questionnaire analysis and discussion ......................................................... 44

4.2.1. Students’ general perceptions on learning listening.................................. 44

4.2.2. Students’ perceptions on the benefits of the use of videos and their

feelings towards it .............................................................................................. 46

4.2.3. Students’ desire to learn listening through videos..................................... 53

4.3. Test analysis and discussion......................................................................... 54

4.3.1. Pre-test between CG and EG..................................................................... 55

4.3.2. Pre-test and Test 1 ..................................................................................... 56

4.3.2.1. Comparison of CG Pre-test and Test 1 .................................................. 57

4.3.2.2. Comparison of EG Pre-test and Test 1 ................................................. 58

4.3.3. Test 1 and Test 2........................................................................................ 59

4.3.3.1. Comparison of CG Test 1 and Test 2 ..................................................... 59

4.3.3.2. Comparison of EG Test 1 and Test 2 ..................................................... 60

4.3.4. Comparison of Tests between CG and EG ............................................... 62

4.3.4.1. Comparison of Test 1 between CG and EG .......................................... 62

4.3.4.2. Comparison of Test 2 between CG and EG .......................................... 63

4.4. Chapter summary.......................................................................................... 66

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1. Summary of the study................................................................................... 67

5.2. Implication.................................................................................................... 70

5.3. Suggestions for the further studies............................................................... 71

REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 73

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for experimental students (English version) ...... 81

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for experimental students (Translated version) . 85

APPENDIX 3: Test 1 ......................................................................................... 89

APPENDIX 4: Test 2 ......................................................................................... 93

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APPENDIX 5: Training procedure for CG and EG .......................................... 96

APPENDIX 6: Lesson plans for the experimental teaching practice .............. 100

APPENDIX 7: Scores of the control group...................................................... 122

APPENDIX 8: Scores of the experimental group............................................ 124

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LIST OF THE TABLES

Page No

Table 3. 1. Results of the first term examination of class 10 1, 10, 13

.................... 31

Table 3. 2. The experiment time plan ................................................................. 32

Table 4. 1. Students’ general perceptions on learning English teaching ........... 43

Table 4. 2. Students’ general perceptions on the benefits of videos in learning

listening .............................................................................................................. 45

Table 4. 3. Students’ feelings towards the application........................................ 50

Table 4. 4. Students’ desire to learn listening through videos ........................... 51

Table 4. 5. Comparison of Pre-test between CG and EG.................................... 53

Table 4. 6. Comparison of CG Pre-test and Test 1.............................................. 55

Table 4. 7. Comparison of EG Pre-test and Test 1.............................................. 56

Table 4. 8. Comparison of CG Test 1 and Test 2................................................ 58

Table 4. 9. Comparison of EG Test 1 and Test 2 ............................................... 59

Table 4. 10. Comparison of Test 1 between CG and EG .................................. 60

Table 4. 11. Comparison of Test 2 between CG and EG .................................. 60

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale for the thesis

In the world today, in trend of the global integration of education, science,

technology, business, and diplomacy, English is considered as a bridge to promote the

relationship and mutual understanding among the countries. In Vietnam context, there is

an increase the demand of English competence among officers, workers and especially

students who need to interact with foreigners at work, business, and educational training.

Therefore, English has become an important part in Vietnam‟s policy of economics and

education development. At the moment, the goal of teaching and learning English in

Vietnam is to develop students‟ communicative competence of English. Students are

expected to be able to interact with their counterpart well when learning English. If they

cannot listen well, there is likely that they will have no good communication too.

Therefore, students will not build good relationship with their classmates in the

classroom and their colleagues at work afterward. As for that reason, an ability to listen

necessary for students from high schools to colleges and universities.

Although listening is a challenging skill for student to master, it is considered as

the language skill used most frequently in daily communication as well as in the language

learning. According to Holden (2004), listening comprehension plays a vital role in

helping learners to acquire a language. It helps learners to get other language skills.

Vandergrift (2007) considers listening as the heart of both first and second language

learning because it influences directly on the development of all other language skills.

Guo and Wills (2006) say that listening takes the role of the foundation for all facets of

language acquisition as well as makes it possible for learners to interact orally. However,

despite its benefits, listening is really a difficult skill to develop because various factors

make the language more complicated at the moment of listening and understanding it.

2

These factors are known as stress, pronunciation, accents, and the cultural component

which consists of expressions, jargons and idioms…. This leads to the fact that students

often cope with failure in listening in their learning foreign language.

Up to now, attempts have been made by the Ministry of Education and Training

(MOET) to develop curricula to help Vietnamese students to develop their competence in

using the four language skills. Among them is the National Project (Project 2020) for

teaching and learning foreign language which was initiated by MOET. This National

Project aims to develop Vietnamese students‟ communicative skills including speaking

and listening skills (Nguyen, 2008). For high school level, in line with this initiation was

the introduction of two sets of the new textbooks known as the advanced textbooks “Sách

nâng cao” and the standard textbooks “Sách chuẩn”. At the moment, the standard

textbooks are being used as the materials for teaching and learning at Truong Dinh high

school.

However, despite some positive results from students‟ learning through this kind

of material in developing the four language skills, their listening skills are still limited.

There might be two reasons explaining for this. The first is that listening is the skill

requiring learners a lot of effort and concentration. The second is that listening is the skill

that is rarely taught at schools. Teachers rushed for other fields of language learning

(such as grammar, writing…) which mainly constitute the students‟ exams and did not

pay much attention to listening teaching because of its limited volume from all the

exams. As a result, in the interaction with other people, students usually deal with the

failure in their listening.

More seriously, this led to the strong possibility of communication breakdown if

students could not listen properly. Besides, students were not motivated in developing

listening skills while it is very necessary for them to form communication skill to meet

the requirements of globalization and needs for future jobs. From the reasons mentioned

above, improving the student‟ listening ability of English is necessary and teachers‟