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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHAM THI HOAI DIEP

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF

PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’

SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION

(Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng các hoạt động trước khi nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú

cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn)

M.A. THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2020

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHAM THI HOAI DIEP

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF

PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES TO ACTIVATE LEARNERS’

SCHEMATA FOR BETTER COMPREHENSION

(Nghiên cứu việc áp dụng các hoạt động trước khi nghe để kích hoạt hứng thú

cho học sinh nghe tốt hơn)

M.A. THESIS

(APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D

THAI NGUYEN – 2020

i

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “An investigation into the application

of pre- listening activities to activate learners’ schemata for better comprehension”

is my own study. I further certify that it has not been submitted before for any degree

or any examination to any other university. Any reference to work written by any

person and institution obtained from other sources have been cited and referenced.

Thai Nguyen, 2020

Approved by Supervisor Student

Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.D Pham Thi Hoai Diep

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my faithful gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi

Dieu Ha, Ph.D for her patient guidance, stimulating suggestions and encouragement

throughout my research.

I wish to thank all the staff members of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies,

School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University, for providing me the best

environment to fulfill my thesis.

My sincere gratitudes also go to my college from Tran Phu, Hoang Quoc Viet

and Vo Nhai high schools. The supports that they gave me truly help with my

progress and completion of the research. Especially, I would like to express my

special gratefulness to my family who offered me their love, care, support and

encouragement so that I could accomplish my study.

Last but not least, I would like to express appreciation to my students in Tran

Phu high school who were very enthusiastic to support me and participate in the

process of collecting data for this research.

iii

ABSTRACT

Listening skill is one of the four core language competences fostered for

students in high school’s English curriculum, especially in Vo Nhai district.

Although listening skills are being applied in English lesson, student’s proficiency

still remains low. During the teaching time, the researcher realized that the main

reason for this problem is students are not interested in listening skills and are not

well-prepared from the pre-listening stage. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to

conduct a study with the aim of raising students’ interest in listening comprehension

by reinforcing pre-listening activities. In the study, questionnaires were employed

to check the students’ listening interest and students’ attitudes when teacher used

varied pre-listening activities. The findings of this study suggest that students’

listening interest was much better after being exposed to various pre-listening

activities. Results also showed that the students had improved attitudes towards

learning listening skill after the introduction of varied pre-listening activities.

Hopefully, the thesis can be considered as a contribution to a more effective

teaching practice at Tran Phu high school and the ongoing process of renovation for

teaching and learning listening skills.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION..................................................................................................... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................... ii

ABSTRACT........................................................................................................... iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................... iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.................................................................... vi

PART I: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................. 1

1. Background of the study ...................................................................................... 1

2. Aims of the study ................................................................................................. 2

4. Scope of the study ................................................................................................ 3

5. Method of the study ............................................................................................. 3

6. Significant of the study ........................................................................................ 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………..5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATIRE REVIEW.............................................................. 5

1. Theoretical background of listening skills........................................................... 5

1.1. Definition of listening ....................................................................................... 5

1.2. Listening comprehension in language learning and teaching process.............. 7

2. Factors affecting students’ listening comprehension ........................................... 9

2.1. Linguistic factors............................................................................................. 10

2.1.1. Unfamiliar topics.......................................................................................... 10

2.1.2. Pronunciation, speech and intonation .......................................................... 10

2.1.3. Reduced forms ............................................................................................. 12

2.1.4. Listeners’ vocabularies’ limitation............................................................... 12

2.2. Non-linguistic factors...................................................................................... 13

2.2.1. Listeners’ background knowledge ............................................................... 13

2.2.2. Lack of concentration................................................................................... 14

2.3. Pre-listening stage ........................................................................................... 16

2.3.1. Definition ..................................................................................................... 16

2.3.2. The role of pre-listening stage ..................................................................... 17

v

2.4. How do various pre-listening activities affect student’s listening skills?....... 19

2.5. Pre-listening activities..................................................................................... 20

2.5.1 Brainstorming................................................................................................ 20

2.5.2 Class discussion ............................................................................................ 21

2.5.3 Pictures.......................................................................................................... 21

2.5.4. Prediction of content .................................................................................... 21

2.5.5. Pre-teaching of new words and difficult key words .................................... 22

2.5.6. Pre-questions................................................................................................ 22

2.6. What is schemata?…………………………………………………………..23

2.7. Previous research studies ............................................................................... 24

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................. 28

2.1. Definition of action research........................................................................... 28

2.2. Characteristics of action research ................................................................... 29

2.3. Process of action research ............................................................................... 30

2.4. Benefits of action research…………………………………………………...32

2.5 The method(s) of collecting data...…………………………………………...33

2.6 The respondents/participants............................................................................ 34

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ................................... 36

3.1. Data collected from questionnaire for students............................................... 36

3.1.1. Data collected from questionnaire for students part 1 ................................. 36

3.1.2. Data collected from questionnaire for students part 2 ................................. 37

3.2. Data analysis on the teachers’ questionnaire .................................................. 38

PART III: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION........................................... 52

1. Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 52

2. Implication ......................................................................................................... 54

3. Limitation of the study....................................................................................... 56

REFERENCES..................................................................................................... 58

APPENDICES