The effectiveness of "LearnEnglish Podcasts" app on listening comprehension for students at Go Vap High school

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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DUONG HO MY NGAN

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Ho Chi Minh City, 2021

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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF “LEARNENGLISH

PODCASTS” APP ON LISTENING

COMPREHENSION FOR STUDENTS

AT GO VAP HIGH SCHOOL

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AN D TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

DUONG HO MY NGAN

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Major code: 8 140 111

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Ho Chi Minh City, 2021

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY

I certify that this thesis entitled “The Effectiveness Of “Learnenglish

Podcasts” App On Listening Comprehension For Students At Go Vap

High School” is my work.

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this 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.

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in

the main text of the thesis.

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

in any other tertiary institution.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2021

DUONG HO MY NGAN

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thesis would not have been completed without the support of many people.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to them in my thesis.

First and foremost I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Nguyen Ngoc Vu, for his useful advice and continuous support of my study. He

read my numerous revisions and offered guidance and support. His comments

and instructions enriched and improved my study effectively.

Second, I am thankful to my colleagues at Go Vap high school, who supported

me enthusiastically and gave me a great deal of time to conduct my research

and complete my work.

Third, I appreciate all of my students at Go Vap high school, who took part in

my study eagerly. Thanks to the participation of my students, I could make

statistics and data collection related to my thesis topic.

Last but not least, I would also like to send my best wishes to all teachers at the

graduate faculty’s office and all the lecturers on the MA course at Ho Chi Minh

City Open University as well as my friends who helped me while I was doing

this work and endured this long process with me.

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ABSTRACT

Listening is a significant skill when studying conversational English. A large

number of students discover listening hard to learn due to their limited vocabulary,

length of the talk, inability to comprehend the speaker's intonation, and the speaker's

discourse rate. The most important thing for students is to improve their listening

comprehension. With the development of technology, each student has their own

smartphones, which helps them in learning English in general and listening in

particular. Programmers have written many applications on phones to help learners

improve their English listening skills. Apps are made for people of various ages.

Learners can practise their listening skills with games, podcasts, movies, and

quizzes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine how the effectiveness of

“LearnEnglish podcasts” app on listening comprehension for students at Go Vap

high school and their attitudes towards the use of “LearnEnglish podcasts” app in

listening comprehension skills.

The research was conducted at Go Vap high school with the participation of 80

students coming from grade 11 at the age of 16 with 41 females and 39 males

(N=40 for each class) in 11 weeks from February 22nd to May 6th, 2021. This

research would adopt a quasi-experimental design, in combination with a mixed

method. This is a combination of quantitative research (test data) and qualitative

research (questionnaire).

There were two classes chosen based on the placement test, and the students

had the same level of English, one for the control class with the traditional method

and one for the experimental class with “LearnEnglish podcasts” app on their

smartphones. The pre-test was applied to two classes before the treatment.

Afterward, students in the experimental class were conducted the post-test to

measure the learners' listening comprehension ability after the treatment through

“LearnEnglish Podcast” app. Data would be collected from a pre-test and post-test,

a questionnaire, then analyzed with version 26 of the SPSS software. In the

questionnaire, students were asked to choose options concerning attitudes and

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effectiveness of using “LearnEnglish podcasts” app in learning listening

comprehension. There were five options for them to choose from “strongly

disagree”, “disagree” to “neutral”, “agree” and “strongly agree” respectively.

The findings showed that the mean score of the experimental class was higher

than that of the control class in the post-test. This indicated that students had

positive attitudes towards the effectiveness of “LearnEnglish podcasts” app in

learning listening comprehension and “LearnEnglish podcasts” app was effective

in improving the students’ listening comprehension. They strongly agreed that using

“LearnEnglish podcasts” app regularly helped them improve their listening

comprehension. Based on the research findings, some recommendations were

suggested to English teachers, students learning to promote their English listening

comprehension, and researchers having an interest in the topic.

Keywords: effectiveness, attitudes, listening comprehension, “LearnEnglish

podcasts” app

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY ................................................................................ i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... ii

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

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................. viii

LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................... x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1

1.1 Rationale ......................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Statement of the problem ................................................................................ 3

1.3 Significances of the study ............................................................................... 5

1.4 The aim and objective of the study ................................................................. 6

1.5 Research Questions ......................................................................................... 6

1.6 Definitions of key terms ................................................................................. 6

1.6.1 Listening Comprehension ...................................................................... 6

1.6.2 Mobile app............................................................................................. 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................... 8

2.1 Listening skills ................................................................................................ 8

2.2 The importance of listening skills .................................................................. 8

2.3 Mobile learning ............................................................................................... 9

2.4 The concept of attitudes ................................................................................ 10

2.5 “LearnEnglish Podcasts” app ....................................................................... 11

2.6 Benefits and drawbacks of using mobile applications in learning and teaching

listening skill ....................................................................................................... 14

2.7 Related studies .............................................................................................. 14

2.7.1 Previous studies in the international context ....................................... 14

2.7.2 Previous studies in the Vietnamese context ........................................ 17

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2.8 Research gap ................................................................................................. 18

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................ 20

3.1 Research questions........................................................................................ 20

3.2 Study design .................................................................................................. 20

3.3 Research site ................................................................................................. 22

3.4 Sample and sampling procedures ................................................................. 22

3.5 Research instruments .................................................................................... 23

3.5.1 Placement test ...................................................................................... 23

3.5.2 Pre-test ................................................................................................. 24

3.5.3 Mini tests ............................................................................................. 24

3.5.4 Post-test ............................................................................................... 24

3.5.5 Questionnaire ...................................................................................... 25

3.5.6 Evaluation of the effect of “LearnEnglish Podcasts” app ................. 26

3.6 Data collection procedures ........................................................................... 28

3.6.1 Experiment .......................................................................................... 28

3.6.2 The process of doing the treatment: .................................................... 28

3.6.3. Questionnaire ..................................................................................... 30

3.7 Data analysis ................................................................................................. 31

3.7.1 Test result analysis .............................................................................. 31

3.7.2 Questionnaire analysis ........................................................................ 33

3.8 Reliability and validity ................................................................................. 34

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................ 36

4.1 Results of the study ....................................................................................... 36

4.1.1 The effects of “LearnEnglish Podcasts” app on the students' listening

comprehension at Go Vap high school ......................................................... 36

4.1.2 The learners' attitudes towards the use of “LearnEnglish Podcasts” app

in learning listening skills ............................................................................ 44

4.2 Discussion ..................................................................................................... 52

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 56

5.1 Summary of the main findings ..................................................................... 56

5.2 Implications .................................................................................................. 57

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies ............................................ 58

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 60

APPENDIX A: Questionnaire ................................................................................... 66

APPENDIX B: Pre-test / Post-test/ Mini test ............................................................ 71

APPENDIX C: SYLLABUS..................................................................................... 80

APPENDIX D: Item-Total Statistics ......................................................................... 86

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1. Main screen of “LearnEnglish Podcasts” app on a mobile phone 12

Figure 2.2. The sample contents of “LearnEnglish Podcasts” app 13

Figure 3. The illustration of pre-test and post-test 22

Figure 4.1. The participants’ mean scores in listening comprehension 40

Figure 4.2. Comparison of the scores of the mini tests 43

Figure 4.3. Descriptive Statistics of students’ attitudes towards “LearnEnglish

Podcasts” app 46

Figure 4.4. Descriptive Statistics of students’ attitudes towards the functions of

“LearnEnglish Podcasts” app 48

Figure 4.5. Descriptive Statistics of students’ attitudes towards the effect of

“LearnEnglish Podcasts” app on improving listening comprehension 49