Using videos to improve elementary students' listening comprehension in foreign languages and informatics center of People's Police College II

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH OPEN UNIVERSITY

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DUONG THUC PHUONG

USING VIDEOS TO IMPROVE ELEMENTARY STUDENTS’

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INFORMATICS CENTER OF

PEOPLE’S POLICE COLLEGE II

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Major code: 60140111

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor: Dr. NGUYEN THI THANH HA

Ho Chi Minh City, 2018

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certificate that this MA thesis submitted today entitled “Using videos to improve

elementary students’ listening comprehension in Foreign Languages and Informatics

Center of People’s police college II” is my own work.

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

materials 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 any degree or diploma in any tertiary

institution.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2018

Duong Thuc Phuong

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude towards Dr. Nguyen Thi

Thanh Ha for her enthusiasm, patience, extensive and profound knowledge and

motivation. She was always available to read and comment my work, give quick

response to my questions as well as support me with a lot of useful materials to the

completion of my work.

My gratitude also goes to the director of Foreign Languages and Informatics Center

of People’s Police College II, who gave me opportunity to choose participants and

conduct the experimental course for the thesis.

Additionally, I would like to thank all my friends in Ho Chi Minh City Open

University and my colleagues at People’s Police College II who were willing to give

useful suggestions and share precious experience. And I am deeply thankful to 71

students in my college who kindly accepted to participate in my study.

Finally, I am grateful to my family members, especially my mother, who were always

a source of encouragement and inspiration.

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ABSTRACT

Later than audio materials, videos have been used widely in teaching and

learning listening in a lot of schools and universities all over the world, and this brings

students several benefits regarding their listening comprehension and learning

attitudes. However, videos are not popular in Vietnam teaching context including

Foreign Languages and Informatics Center of People’s Police College II where

English listening skill is a real challenge for the students, and many of them have

failed listening exams for years. Besides, previous studies revealed that there are

differences in content, vocabulary, and length of listening materials for the control

groups (CG) and experimental groups (EG). In addition, some studies are conducted

with only one group of participants, so the readers do not know whether videos are

better than traditional audio materials or not. Therefore, the current study was

conducted with 71 participants in Foreign Languages and Informatics Center of

People’s Police College II to examine the effects of using videos on their listening

learning and their attitudes. The CG with 35 students received 10 listening lessons

using 10 audio recordings, while the EG with 36 students worked with 10 videos in

a 10-week treatment. The listening materials for both groups have the same scripts.

Although there was no statistically significant difference in the mean scores of the

pre-test on listening skills between the two groups, the statistics of the post-test after

the treatment shows that the EG outperformed the CG in listening comprehension.

Besides, the data from the questionnaire administered to the experimental group

points out that the participants had positive attitudes towards using videos in listening

learning. The findings were then discussed before proposing some implications and

recommendations for further research.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ..................................................................ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...............................................................................iii

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................iv

LIST OF TABLES .........................................................................................viii

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

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION........................................................................... 1

1.1. Research problem....................................................................................... 1

1.2. Purpose statement ...................................................................................... 3

1.3. Research questions..................................................................................... 3

1.4. Research hypothesis................................................................................... 3

1.5. Delimitation................................................................................................ 3

1.6. Definitions of terms ................................................................................... 4

1.7. Significance of the study............................................................................ 4

1.8. Thesis structure .......................................................................................... 4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................ 6

2.1. Theoretical background.............................................................................. 6

2.1.1. Nature of listening and stages of a listening lesson ........................ 6

2.1.2. Videos............................................................................................ 10

2.1.3. Learners’ attitudes......................................................................... 13

2.2. Previous studies of using videos on students’ listening learning ............ 16

2.2.1. Previous studies of the impact of using videos on students’

listening comprehension.......................................................................... 16

2.2.2. Previous studies of students’ attitudes towards using videos in

listening learning..................................................................................... 18

2.2.3. Previous studies of both the impact of using videos on students’

listening comprehension and their attitudes towards using videos in

listening learning..................................................................................... 19

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Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY........................................................................ 22

3.1. Study design............................................................................................. 22

3.2. Research site and participants.................................................................. 23

3.2.1. Research site.................................................................................. 23

3.2.2. Participants.................................................................................... 23

3.3. Instruments and measurement.................................................................. 24

3.4. Materials................................................................................................... 29

3.5. Intervention .............................................................................................. 31

3.6. Data collection procedure ........................................................................ 32

3.6. Data analysis ............................................................................................ 34

3.7. Reliability................................................................................................. 36

3.8. Validity..................................................................................................... 39

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ................................................... 42

4.1. Participants’ general characteristics......................................................... 42

4.2. Effects of using videos on students’ listening comprehension................ 45

4.2.1. Performance of the CG and EG on the pre-test ............................ 45

4.2.2. Performance of the CG on the pre-test and post-test.................... 45

4.2.3. Performance of the EG on the pre-test and post-test .................... 45

4.2.4. Performance of the CG and EG on the post-test........................... 46

4.2.5. Comparison between the CG’s and EG’s Pre-test........................ 47

4.2.6. Comparison between the CG’s pre-test and post-test................... 47

4.2.7. Comparison between the EG’s pre-test and post-test ................... 48

4.2.8. Comparison between the CG’s and EG’s post-test....................... 49

4.3. Students’ attitudes to using videos in listening learning.......................... 50

4.3.1. Scale 1: Students’ feelings on using videos in listening learning. 50

4.3.2. Scale 2: Students’ beliefs about using videos in listening learning

................................................................................................................. 51

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4.3.3. Scale 3: Students’ behavior tendencies towards listening learning

with videos .............................................................................................. 53

4.4. Discussion ................................................................................................ 53

4.4.1. Summary of the major results....................................................... 54

4.4.2. Discussion on research question 1 ................................................ 55

4.4.3. Discussion on research question 2 ................................................ 58

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION ............................................................................. 61

5.1. Overview of the study .............................................................................. 61

5.2. Implications.............................................................................................. 62

5.3. Limitations of the study ........................................................................... 63

5.4. Recommendations for further research.................................................... 64

REFERENCES................................................................................................ 66

APPENDICES................................................................................................. 74

APPENDIX 1: The first questionnaire ........................................................... 74

APPENDIX 2: The second questionnaire....................................................... 75

APPENDIX 3: The pre-test............................................................................. 76

APPENDIX 4 : Answer key of the pre-test .................................................... 80

APPENDIX 5: Script of the pre-test............................................................... 81

APPENDIX 6: The post-test........................................................................... 87

APPENDIX 7 : Answer key of the post-test................................................... 91

APPENDIX 8: The script of the post-test....................................................... 92

APPENDIX 9: Experimental materials .......................................................... 99

APPENDIX 10: Scripts of experimental materials....................................... 103

APPENDIX 11: Lesson plan of topic 10 ...................................................... 106

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LIST OF TABLES

Table of contents .......................................................................................................v

Table 3.1. The pre- and post-test design .................................................................23

Table 3.2. Purposes of instruments ..........................................................................24

Table 3.3. Content of the first questionnaire ............................................................26

Table 3.4. Content of the second questionnaire .......................................................27

Table 3.5. Teaching materials ..................................................................................29

Table 3.6. Data collection procedure........................................................................32

Table 3.7. Test of normality 1 ..................................................................................37

Table 3.8. Test of normality 2 ..................................................................................37

Table 3.9. Cronbach’s Alpha values of the three scales...........................................38

Table 3.10. Scale of feelings: Inter-item correlations..............................................38

Table 3.11. Scale of beliefs: Inter-item correlations 1 .............................................38

Table 3.12. Scale of beliefs: Inter-item correlations 2 .............................................39

Table 3.13. Scale of behavior tendencies: Inter-item correlations...........................39

Table 4.1. Participants’ characteristics: gender........................................................43

Table 4.2. Participants’ characteristics: age .............................................................43

Table 4.3. Number of years of studying English......................................................44

Table 4.4. Time practicing listening English outside class in a week......................44

Table 4.5. Mann-Whitney U test for number of years of studying English.............45

Table 4.6. Mann-Whitney U test for Time of practice listening

English outside class................................................................................45

Table 4.7. Descriptives of the CG and EG’s pre-test ...............................................46

Table 4.8. Descriptives of the CG’s pre-test and post-test.......................................46

Table 4.9. Descriptives of the EG’ pre-test and post-test.........................................47

Table 4.10. Descriptives of the CG and EG’s post-test............................................47

Table 4.11. Mann-Whitney U Test for the scores of the CG and EG’s pre-test ......48

Table 4.12. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for the CG before and after the

treatment.........................................................................................................49

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Table 4.13. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for the EG before and after the

treatment.........................................................................................................49

Table 4.14. Mann-Whitney U Test for the scores of CG and EG’s post-test...........50

Table 4.15. Descriptive statistics of total score of scale 1 .......................................51

Table 4.16. Descriptives of students’ feelings on using videos in listening

learning...........................................................................................................52

Table 4.17. Descriptive statistics of total score of scale 2 .......................................52

Table 4.18. Descriptives of students’ beliefs about using videos in listening

learning...........................................................................................................52

Table 4.19. Descriptive statistics of total score of scale 3 .......................................53

Table 4.20. Descriptives of students’ behavior tendencies towards listening learning

with videos .....................................................................................................53

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CG: control group

CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning

EG: experimental group

L2: second language

PPC: People’s Police College

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces the problem statement of the study, the purpose

statement, research questions, research hypothesis, delimitation, definitions of

terms and thesis structure.

1.1. Research problem

Listening is an extremely important skill in daily communication, and it also

takes up much more time than the other skills in real communication. In recent years,

listening has gradually become a dominant skill in language instruction in colleges

and universities. Students are required to reach the language learning outcomes based

on The six level framework of language abilities in Vietnam (The Ministry of

Education And Training, 2014). Therefore, after finishing their main courses, more

and more students have to take a four-skill exam to get a certificate of language

proficiency. However, it is a hard job for non-English major students, especially when

they encounter listening tests. In the context of the Foreign Languages and

Informatics Center in PPCII, communicative English classes are required, and all

English teachers are asked to follow the textbook English Unlimited Elementary by

Tilbury, Clementson, Hendra and Rea, 2010; published by Cambridge University

Press. The textbook focuses on listening and speaking, and four macro skills are

tested in the final examination. After two school years from 2014 to 2016, a large

number of the (non-English major) students failed the listening exams. By teaching

and observing a lot of listening classes, the researcher has found out that the students

are not interested in listening lessons. Some of them say that listening to a foreign

language like English is very difficult, and they cannot understand texts well by just

listening to audio recordings several times in class, so listening classes are often

boring. However, on some occasions when teachers show videos of songs or films in

English at the end of lessons they are eager to watch them.

In order to deal with students’ lack of interests in listening, and enhance

students’ listening abilities, some studies are carried out on renewing listening

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instructional methods, some others focus on learning style, and a little due attention

is paid to listening materials, especially videos. Among the few researchers who

conduct investigations on videos, some prove that practicing listening with videos

enhances students’ listening comprehension (Sueyoshi and Hanrdison, 2005; Sarani,

Behtash and Arani, 2014); some others point out that videos promote students’

positive attitudes towardslistening learning (Chiang, 1996; Oddone, 2011). However,

those studies revealed some shortcomings. First, only a few studies (Woottipong,

2014; Nguyen, 2012; Sueyoshi and Hanrdison, 2005) focus on both the effects of

using videos on students’ listening comprehension and their attitudes towards using

videos in listening learning, making it hard to explain the relationship between using

videos and students’ improved performance, as students’ listening performance could

partly be influenced by their attitudes towards listening learning (Karahan, 2007;

Ellis, 2015; Jafari, 2009). Second, in some studies (Mesri, 2011; Nguyen, 2012), the

listening materials for CG and EG are different in terms of content, vocabulary, and

length, so the difference in the students’ listening comprehension may also be due to

factors other than video materials. Regarding research methods, some experiments

are conducted with only one group of participants, so there is not enough convincing

evidence that videos are better than traditional audio materials.

Therefore, it is necessary to undertake more studies to confirm the positive

effects of using videos found in the research literature, especially those that examine

both the impact of using videos on students’ listening learning and their attitudes

toward learning listening with such a type of materials. Furthermore, to make a more

reasonable comparison between impacts of videos and those of audio materials, it is

essential that the two types of materials have the same content, vocabulary, and

length. The current experiment aimed at overcoming shortcomings of previous

studies by using two groups of participants (CG and EG). The listening materials for

the two groups had the same content, vocabulary and length. This study is expected

to suggest a new type of listening materials to students and teachers in Foreign