LISTENING DIFFICULTIES PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN USING THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK FOR

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale

Listening has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by many second

language learners. It takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill. For

listening teachers, correspondingly, it is a difficult task to get students involved in listening

lessons. Nonetheless, just as other teachers do, listening teachers should create an

interesting and motivating learning environment on one hand; and on the other hand, they

must become aware of difficulties and problems facing their students, then, select the best

techniques to help them.

At my upper secondary school, teaching and learning listening is a really new

challenging job. In addition to the lack of well-equipped facilities, teaching listening

methods are quite new and unfamiliar to teachers. Since the new English textbook was in

use, they have been inexperienced in teaching listening methodology and approaches.

Another problem is students’ low levels of proficiency in term of vocabulary, grammar,

pronunciation, skills and so forth. It is the reason why students find it difficult and tough to

listen to and they are not confident enough to do listening tasks successfully. Moreover,

learning habits do not help much to improve their listening in classroom. The students

often get bored, tired and indifferent in listening lessons because of the quality of teacher’s

voice and pronunciation, uncreative tasks and activities, topics, and so on. In my opinion,

there is a must to work out current and potential problems, then, create better suitable

teaching methods and strategies that can facilitate the effectiveness of listening lessons.

In literature so far, there have been so few studies on the difficulties in teaching and

learning listening in a foreign language. Moreover, most of researchers have come to an

agreement to a list of common problems facing both students and teacher in general. On

one hand, students’ factors which may influence in their listening are their background

knowledge, language items such as vocabulary and pronunciation, and their listening

strategies. On the other hand, the teacher’s employment of different techniques and

methodology has impacts on successful listening lessons. Moreover, not many researchers

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study listening difficulties perceived by upper-secondary school teachers and students in

using the new “Tieng Anh 10” textbook. Hence, it is in urgent need of taking a serious

look at such issue.

1.2. Aims of the study

The new “Ti
ng Anh 10” , which deals with the four language skills: reading,

writing, speaking and listening, is first introduced. Thus, there are a number of problems

facing both the teachers and the students. The main purpose of the study was to probe

difficulties in teaching and learning listening among the teaching staff and the 10th form

students at Que Vo II upper-secondary school, in Bac Ninh province. Within this purpose

the three central objectives were:

(i) To describe the difficulties perceived by the teachers and the 10th -form students

when teaching and learning listening skill in the new text book “Ti
ng Anh 10” .

(ii) To investigate factors affecting the success of this process in listening lessons

(iii) To suggest some solutions to stimulate students and give recommendation to

improve listening methodology for the teachers at Que Vo II upper-secondary school.

1.3. Scope of the study

This minor thesis is conducted at Que Vo II upper-secondary school in order to

perceive difficulties in teaching and learning listening skills of both teachers and 10th form

students. The study focuses on describing the problems and factors causing such

challenges, for instance, facilities, students’ English listening proficiency, and teachers’

methodology. To go ahead, the thesis also offers some appropriate suggestions to better the

current context.

1.4. Methodology

The research is done by both quantitative and qualitative methods; it is carried out

on the basic of situation analysis, material collection, survey questionnaires, class

observations and follow-up interviews.

In the first place, situation analysis has a look at the background to the study

including the description of the current context at Que Vo II upper-secondary school and

listening skill in the new textbook “Ti
ng Anh 10”. Secondly, for the theoretical basis, a lot

of reference materials on listening teaching methodology and problems have been

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gathered, analyzed and synthesized thoroughly with the due consideration for teacher’s

teaching and students’ learning situations.

Eventually, for the practical basis, questionnaires, class observations, follow-up

interviews were carried out with the teachers and students to gather the most reliable data

for analysis to find answers to the research questions mentioned above.

1.5. Design of the study

This study is divided into four main chapters in order to get better insights into

different aspects of the problems.

Chapter 1 presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scopes, methodology and

overview of the thesis design.

Chapter 2 consists of three sub-parts of which the current upper-secondary school

context in general and in particular is first presented. Two other parts deal with

introduction of the new “Ti
ng Anh 10” textbook and literature review of listening skills

and teaching listening approaches.

In chapter 3, the methodology underlying the research and descriptions of data

analysis are presented. In terms of methodology, the background information of the

research questions, the subjects, the data collection instruments, and data collection

procedure are discussed. More importantly, data analysis provides specific explanations,

interpretation and the findings of the study.

Chapter 4, Conclusion and Implication, summarizes the major findings and offers

personal recommendations for such currents problems in teaching and learning listening

skill at Que Vo II upper-secondary school. Limitation and suggestions for further research

are also discussed.

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CHAPTER 2

CURRENT UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL CONTEXT AND INTRODUCTION

OF THE NEW “”TIENG ANH 10” TEXTBOOK

2.1. The current upper-secondary school context

2.1.1. The general context in Vietnam

English has become a part of upper-secondary school curriculum since 1980s when

Vietnam carried out its economic policy reformation emphasizing the open market

economy, integration, and globalization. However, a more than two-decade history of

English teaching and studying seems not to make much progress in using English to

communicate practically and efficiently. The effectiveness of English language learning is

very low with the outcome that the students are unable to use English for communicative

purposes.

For the last few years, English has been taught and studied more intensively and

extensively. The situation, reported by Ministry of Education and Training, Secondary

Division (2006: 95) is quite optimistic that the ratio of upper-secondary students learning

English counts for 98.5%. Actually, this figure only shows the increasing needs of English

in our society, not the levels of real teaching and learning qualities at schools. It is a matter

of fact to discuss herein some controversial problems of the upper-secondary school

context in Vietnam concerned with English learning and teaching conditions.

2.1.1.1. Teachers

To start with, the teachers’ qualification and proficiency are unequal. According to

the researches of Ministry of Education and Training (2006: 97, 98), the ratio of regular

teachers who officially graduated from Universities of Education, English Department is

very low. A small number of those graduated from Vietnam National University, College

of Foreign Languages, English Department. Many others received in-service training or

regular training at other local or provincial universities and colleges. This can be an excuse

for shortage of a skillful and professional staff in terms of language knowledge and

methodology.

Moreover, the researches of Ministry of Education and Training (2006: 98) also

point out that the percentage of teachers experiencing in teaching English for 15 years or

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more is rather high. In other words, the age gap is another matter of discussion.

Consequently, their proficiency of language theory and communicative skills is remarkably

low. In fact, teachers of English have few opportunities or even no to communicate in

person with foreigners or native speakers at schools. This discourages their motivation,

regardless of age and background knowledge, to practice communicative skills and to

update modern technologies in language teaching.

Noticeably, many teachers have hardly attended training programmes or

professional workshops given by the national or provincial trainers. Frankly speaking,

most of them have no opportunities to get acquainted with reformation of new language

teaching methods and approaches. Hence, they do not acknowledge the communicative

language teaching or learner-centered approaches in theory and in practice at all. In

addition, few of teachers have a chance to study abroad and enjoy various English teaching

experiences in person. These facts result in ineffective and theoretical outcome which is

backward and no longer meet the demand of the development, the integration and

globalization of our country in the modern time.

2.1.1.2. Students

In Vietnam, the upper-secondary school curriculum, textbook and reformation of

language teaching are all prescribed and administrated by the Ministry of Education and

Training. Although English has been popularized at every lower and upper-secondary

school in Vietnam, students’ English competence is very low. It can be due to the lack of

native speaking environment which discourages students’ interests. Another reason results

from their attitudes to importance of other subjects such as mathematics, physics,

chemistry, literature, and so forth. As the result, upper-secondary students are merely able

to acquire a limited basic knowledge of English in terms of vocabulary and grammar

structures, except for pronunciation, intonation or communicative skills like speaking or

listening. In short, upper-secondary students’ language background, including those

studying at normal and gifted schools, is at elementary level after graduation.

In general, Vietnamese upper-secondary students’ motivation is not highly

appreciated. There is a big gap between urban and rural students in terms of ambition to

acquire English language. Although many students are aware of the importance and

necessity of learning English, they hesitate to speak English in real-life communication or

even at school. This can be influenced by their introvert characteristics.