THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

NGUYEN THU THAO

LE THI KIM ANH
DUONG THI HOAI VY
PHAN THI THU UYEN

METHODS FOR EFFECTIVELY IMPROVING COLLEGE

STUDENTS LISTENING SKILL

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Đà Nẵng, 10-2018
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale .................................................................................................................... 5
1.2. Aims and objectives .................................................................................................. 6
1.2.1. Aim ......................................................................................................................... 6
1.2.2. Objectives ............................................................................................................... 6
1.3. Scope of the study ..................................................................................................... 6
1.4. Research questions .................................................................................................... 7
1.5. Definition of terms .................................................................................................... 7
1.6. Significance of the study ........................................................................................... 7
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW ................... 7
2.1. Theoretical background ............................................................................................. 7
2.1.1. Appreciation: Definition, types and semantic features .......................................... 7
2.1.2. Functional grammar ................................................................................................ 9
2.1.3 The Classification of Listening ............................................................................. 10
2.1.3.1 The Bottom- up Process .........................................................................................
2.1.3.2 The Top-up Process ................................................................................................
2.1.4 Student’s problem when practicing listening skill ................................................ 10
2.1.5 The method to improve Communicative Listening Ability .................................. 11
2.1.6 College student’s fear of talking to a foreigner ..................................................... 13
2.2. Previous studies in the field ..................................................................................... 14
3. RESEARCH DESIGN.............................................................................................. 15
3.1. Research Methods ................................................................................................... 15
3.2. Sampling .................................................................................................................. 15
3.3. Data collection ......................................................................................................... 15
3.4. Data analysis ............................................................................................................ 15
4. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY ..................................................................... 16
5. TIMELINE OF THE STUDY ................................................................................. 17
6. PROPOSED OUTLINE ........................................................................................... 18
7. REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 19
8. APPENDIX.................................................................................................................................... 20
1.INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Language is our primary source of communication.It's the method through
which we share our ideas and thoughts with others. It's the most common
foreign language. This means that two people from different countries
usually use English as a common language to communicate. Speaking it will
help you to communicate with people from countries all over the world, not
just English-speaking ones. English is also essential to the field of education.
In today's connected and globalized world, learning English has been a very
important factor . In many countries, children are taught and encouraged to
learn English as a second language. Even in countries where it is not an
official language, we will find many syllabi in science and engineering are
written in English. Knowing English will certainly pave the way to better
employment opportunities in today's competitive and changing world.

Learning and using English requires hard-working practice from both

learnerss and instructors. Especially in the current situation of educational
reforms, teaching English combines with praticing communication is
supported by many people. In this new way of teaching, students have many
opportunities to communicate with their friends and teachers in order to
improve their speaking and listening skills. They also become more active
and confident when it comes to communicating with foreigners. Learning
and practicing at the same time seems like the best alternative that we can
use under this circumstance.

This new kind of elementary English curriculum has been used widely for
over six years. The highlight of this program is that it provides maximum
opportunities for students to practice all four basic English skills (listening,
speaking, reading and writing) which are based on relevant topics with real
situations. This change enables us to learn English easier and more effective.
However, in reality, when teachers help their students pratice these four skills
in this new way, they have to face many challenges and difficulties,
especially with listening skill. There's one fact that we find it kind of
interesting: At first, most of the students love studying a new foreign
language but they get bored during the process and then they couldn't find

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any motivation to keep studying. They find themselves suck as listening to
conversations. It's really difficult for them to understand the meaning of a
random conversation or conversation. After each lesson, asking if the
students are fully aware of it or not is such a stressful job for any teacher.

1.2. Aims and objectives

1.2.1. Aims
This study aims to:
- To investigate students’ views about the advantages of the use
different methods to practice listening
- Provide a deeper understanding of the method of teaching listening
skills for students
1.2.2. Objectives
This study is intended to
- Learn the theoretical issues of listening skills of students and the
reality of these skills in practice.
- Recommend implications in English learning and teaching and how
to use English effectively in listening skill.

1.3. Scope of the study

In order to practice effectively, students must learn and practice
listening to a variety of speech patterns. The more learned the learner is, the
more likely they are to recognize the syllable, understand the meaning of the
information expressed through the pronunciation of the word and sentence
intonation.
I have researched the materials and programs in Elementary English,
combined the time with colleagues, experimented, checked the results of the
student learning, draw the best teaching method for student.

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 1.4. Research questions
This study aims to seek the answers to the following questions:
1. What are the students’ points of views about the advantages of using
different methods for practicing listening skills?
2. What are the students’ problems when practicing listening skills?
3. How can students overcome their fear of talking to foreigners and be more
confident?
1.5. Definition of terms
Listening skill can be defined as, “Listening is the act of hearing
attentively”. It is also a process similar to reading which should possess
knowledge of phonology, syntax, semantics and text understanding.
Thomlison (1984) defines listening as, “Active listening, which is very
important for effective communication”. Listening can be also defined as,
“More than just hearing and to understand and interpret the meaning of a
conversation”.
1.6. Significance of the study
We did this research to analyze how elementary students use their
English skills. This research helps inspire and create more excitement for
them rather try to avoid listening lessons. With this method, students will
have more opportunities to communicate with students, teachers and actively
participate in practicing. Besides, researchers can help English Learners use
those techniques efficiently and helps Vietnamese teachers with their
teaching methods.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE

REVIEW
2.1 Theoretical background
2.1.1 Definition and the importance of listening skill
Listening is arguably the most important skill required for obtaining
comprehensible input in one’s first and any subsequent languages. It is a
pervasive communicative event: we listen considerably more than we read,
write, or speak (Decker, 2004; Omaggio Hadley, 2001; Wilt, 1950, cited in
Hysop & Tone, 1988).
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Underwood (1989) discussed the importance of listening and how English
learners need to listen to English in different situations and for different
purposes in their real life, depending on each situation. Pierce (1998) stated
that listening as an interactive, not passive process that the students need to
reply much effort and practice. He explained that listening involves actively
perceiving and constructing from a stream of sound. In order to do well in
listening, the listeners must have sufficient knowledge of the language. The
listening is not a passive skill but an interactive process, which requires
learners to have adequate knowledge of the language to decode the message,
and the ability to apply different strategies.
Listening in language learning has undergone several important stages, from
being assumed acquisition through exposure but not really taught (Richard,
2002) to be viewed as a primary vehicle for language learning (Rost, 2001).
During the decades, developments in education, linguistics and sociology
have led to the powerful theories of the nature of language comprehension
and the active interest in the role of listening comprehension in second
language acquisition. The following discussion elaborates on the topic from
two aspects, namely, the relationship between listening and other language
skills, and the practice of comprehensible input theory in listening.
In daily communication, listening plays an important role. Research has
demonstrated that adults spend 40-50% of communication with listening, 25-
30% speaking, 11-16% reading, and about 9% writing (Vandergrift, 1999).
Listening, the most widely used language skill, is often used in conjunction
with the other skills of speaking, reading and writing. It is not only a skill
area in language performance, but also a critical means of acquiring a second
language. Listening provides opportunities to hear voices other than the
teachers’, enables students to acquire good speaking habits as a result of the
spoken English they have absorbed, and helps to improve their
pronunciation. Listening texts often provide excellent examples of functions
such as apologizing, inviting and refusing. The process of listening,
especially the bottom-up and top-down model, and schema-building
activities are also applicable to reading. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
applied linguistics recognized that listening was the primary channel by
which the learner gained access to L2 data, and that it therefore served as the
trigger for acquisition (Rost, 2001).

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According to Abrams (1986), there are two main levels of listening
involvement for native speakers: passive level and active level. About
passive level, - 6 - no reaction is required on the part of the listener. For
example, when one listens to a conversation in which one is not directly
involved or listens to music merely for pleasure. Active level requires more
involvement than the first one. The listener has to react to what is said to him
in different ways depending on the purpose.
2.1.2 The Nature of Listening Comprehension
The nature of listening comprehension means that the learner should
be encouraged to engage in an active process of listening from meanings,
using not only the linguistic cues but also his nonlinguistic knowledge. The
learner uses not only their comprehension about knowledge of linguistic
structures, but also they must has background of knowledge to understand
the content of the text.
Listening is not a one-way street and it’s not merely the process of an
undirectional receiving of audible symbols. One faced-the first step-of
listening comprehension in the psychomotor process of receiving sounds
waves through the ear and transmitting nerve impulses to the brain. Listening
not only hears about sound in the radio or tape recorder but also the listeners
hear and respond what the speaker intention widely.
Listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the
nature of listening. Indeed, in most methodology manuals listening and
listening comprehension are synonymous. This view of listening is based on
the assumption that the main function of listening in second language
learning is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse. Listening
comprehension is regarded as nature process of listening to get information.
In the classroom, teacher conducts listening activities in order to facilitate
the students in understanding of spoken texts.
From all the definitions stated above, the writer can conclude that listening
comprehension is regarded theoretically as an active process in which
individuals concentrate on selected aspects of aural input, form meaning,
from passages, and associate what they hear with existing knowledge, it also
a structural process of transferring data from the speaker through media and
acceptable in sense of hearing.

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 2.1.3 The Classification of Listening
There are several kinds of listening process and explain as below:

2.1.3.1 The Bottom-Up Process

Bottom-up processing means using the information we have about sounds,
word meanings, and discourse markers like first, then and after that to
assemble our understanding of what we read or hear one step at a time. The
learners use the some comprehension such as sounds, vocabulary, and
conjunction to understand the text easily when they read and listen in the first
time.
With bottom-up processing, students start with the component parts: words,
grammar, and the like. In listening, students use their knowledge about
vocabulary and grammar to understand the content of the text and to make
sense of the sounds that speech presents to us.

2.1.3.2 The Top-Down Process

The use of inside the head knowledge, that is, knowledge which is not
directly encoded in words, is known as the top-down view of
listening. People use their knowledge related to the text when they read or
listen in the first time.
Top-down models emphasize the use of previous knowledge in processing a
text rather than relying upon the individual sounds and words. When the
listeners hear the sound, they use general knowledge to process a text in order
to interpret it easily.
Top-down means using our prior knowledge and experiences; we know
certain things about certain topics and situations and use that information to
understand. Students use their background of knowledge and experiences to
know things from the text when the students understand the text.

2.1.4 Student’s problems when practicing listening skill

At university, many of us hate listening tests. We find it irritating
while doing these tests just because we cannot figure out the meaning of the
conversation, or we just simply don’t understand what topic that the
characters are talking about.
After a while, we get bored and bored and then try to avoid doing these tests.
When asked about the reason why they hate practice listening skill, we got
so many different reasons that, to some extent, do make sense: They get left

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behind trying to figure out what the previous word was meant, they just don’t
know the most important words, they don’t recognize the words that they
know, they have problems with different accents, etc.

2.1.5 The Method to Improve Communicative Listening

Ability
To improve communicative listening ability, there must be a strong
connection between the students and the teachers. Here we suggest a basic
methodological model for the teaching of receptive skills. The model has five
basic stages which are:
1. Lead-in
Here the students and the teacher prepare themselves for the task and
familiarize themselves with the topic of the listening tasks and
exercises. One of the major reasons for this is to create expectations
and arouse the students’ interest in the subject matter of the spoken or
written text.

2. Teacher directs comprehension task

Here the teacher makes sure that the students know what they are
going to do. Are they going to answer question, fill in a chart,
complete a message pad or try and re-tell what they heard/saw? This
is where the teacher explains and directs the students’ purpose for
listening.

3. Students listen for task

The students then read or listen to a text to perform the task the teacher
has set.

4. Teacher directs feedback

When the students have performed the task the teacher will help
students to see if they have completed the task successfully and will
find out how well they have done. This may follow a stage in which
students check their answers with each other first.

5. Teacher directs text-related task

Teacher will then probably organize some kind of follow-up task
related to the text. Thus if the students have filled a form based on a

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heard discussion, the text-related task might be to discuss in groups
the same or related topic.

From the explanation above, the writer can conclude that there are
steps to improve communicative listening ability such as firstly,
teacher gives a leading question before starting listening activities.
Then, teacher directs comprehension task. After that, students listen
the record from tape recording or radio directly. Then, teacher gives
feedback by asking them when they get difficulty in listening. Finally,
the students answer the questions and discuss together in the end of
listening activities.

With the development of communicative approaches to language

teaching, and particularly with the increasing popularity of authentic
materials, classroom activities have become more closely related to
the sorts of thing learners are likely to want or need to do outside the
classrooms. With low-level learners, the activity rather than the
listening text is modified to make the task easier. Instead of being
expected to extract the full meaning of the text, the listener might only
be required to determine the number of speakers or to identify the
number of key words. The following shows how the activity rather
than the text can be adapted.

The first time they hear the text, they might be asked to identify how
many speakers they hear. The second time, they hear the text, they can
be given a list of key words and asked to nominate how often they
hear the words. Next, they can be given phrase to identify. Lastly, they
can be asked to identify the number of questions they hear. These
activities are exemplified below.

1. Listen to the tape. How many speakers can you hear?

2. Listen to the tape a second time. How many times can you hear
these words? (Tick the column)
Clinic – Doctor – Appointment – Surgery – Name
3. Listen again and circle the words you hear
4. Hold the phone, please
5. Hold the line, please

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 6. Listen to the tape one more time. How many questions can you
hear?

2.1.6 College student’s fear of talking to a foreigner

Most college students might feel uncomfortable speaking a new
language. There are too many reasons for this problem: They’re always shy,
they’re afraid that they don’t know enough words or they’re just afraid of
making mistakes. This is totally bad when it comes to learning a foreign
language, and you may not be surprised to find out that this is one of the
biggest reasons why you are suck at listening skill. To help you overcome
your personal fear and be more active, here are some tips that you can use to
boost your confidence immediately:
The first thing you need to do is build up your enthusiasm so that you’re
feeling excited and positive about speaking. My favorite way to do this is to
use visualization.
Basically, the idea is to imagine yourself successfully using your target
language to have conversations with native speakers. The more clearly you
can picture this image in your mind, the better. The reason this technique is
useful is that it helps to build up confidence to perform the action you’ve
imagined; you’ve already seen yourself doing it successfully in your mind,
so now it’s simply a case of repeating that process in real life.
If you don’t feel confident speaking your target language, try doing the
following exercises for five minutes each day:
a. Close your eyes and imagine yourself using your target language with a
native speaker
b. Focus on the reasons why you wanted to learn the language in the first
place. Use those reasons to reconnect with your motivation.
c. Now see yourself successfully using the language with a native speaker.
d. Picture yourself receiving a smile and positive response from the person
you’re talking to
e. When you picture yourself, notice your confident posture and how
comfortably you speak the target language. This exercise maybe what you
need to build up the confidence to have your first real conversation. And as
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you get more good conversations behind you, your confidence will continue
to grow.

2.2 Previous studies in the field

This study needs some previous research as a consideration theory. The
detail explain as below:

The first previous research finding that can be used as a consideration theory
is taken from Lutfiana Kusuma Wardani (210907032) titled “Teaching
Listening Using TOEIC Oriented Program For The Twelfth Grade
Accountancy’s Students Of SMKN 1 Ponorogo In Academic Year
2010/2011”. The researcher above used qualitative research as research
methodology and the result of this study are “Teaching Listening using
TOEIC can improve their English mastery particularly in listening
comprehension, teaching listening using TOEIC oriented program is
promotes three stages of teaching and learning process including pre-activity,
while-activity, and post- activity, and the advantages of TOEIC oriented
program to the students included comprehend spoken English and helping
the students to improve their knowledge concerning with the vocabularies
and grammatical section.

The second previous that can be used as a consideration theory is taken from
Widya Dwi Astuti S.A titled “Teaching Listening Comprehension Using
Song Dictation Qualitative Research In MA Al- Mawaddah Ponorogo. The
researcher above used qualitative research as research methodology and the
result of this study are “In listening process, there are three activities: Before
listening plan for listening task such as lesson plan and material, during
listening teachers ask the students to listen to the cassette and fill the gaps
with the suitable word. Then the students study and understand the texts of
song. The advantages of song dictation in teaching listening comprehension
at MA AL- Mawaddah Coper Jetis Ponorogo for teacher are the students feel
more enjoy, interest, they have good interaction and the melody and rhythm
of songs help to maintain the natural rhythm and stress of speed which can
be easily lost by dictation sentences at a slow pace.

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3. RESEARCH DESIGN

3.1. Research Methods

Owning to the descriptive analytical nature of this research, we use

qualitative method. In this study, the practiced listening problem has been
developed before data are collected. Then, the collected data will be analyzed
which is based on questionnaire. Later, conclusions will be deduced from
data, and together with the rationale, procedure and discussion.

3.2. Sampling
The samples are collected online. We collected many articles about how to
improve listening skill (in English), which are available online on the
Internet. We also collected some valuable information from related videos
on the video-streaming website YouTube in order to make the research more
specifically. (All the links and information are in the reference part, you can
check them out if you want).
3.3. Data collection
Here are the steps that we used to collect data for the corpus. Firstly, we
found some articles related to the study and ended up having five articles
which were posted from 2011-2017. Then we collected valuable information
that we believed it could make our research proposal more informational
from each of those articles. Next, we tried to find some videos about
improving listening skill on YouTube. We came across three different videos
whose information were exactly what we had been looking for, and with the
assistance of DownSub, a free web application which allows extracting and
downloading subtitles from downloaded video files, we can fully understand
the meaning of these videos.
3.4. Data analysis

The first step for data analysis is to translate the questionnaire answers from
Vietnamese to English and transcribe the interview part, and also did
translation into Vietnamese, and then the researchers coded each answer in
order to group them into clearer categories, so that based on the research
questions. Second step, we classified the main categories into sub-categories,
and got them three in each category.

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The main categories are depended on what the research questions are, thus
the two categories were found:

1) Advantages of using different methods to practicing listening skills

2) Students’ problems when practicing listening skills

From the results, students’ information was coded and classified into each
category and there were three sub-categories found in each group.

According to the first category ‘the advantages of using methods for

practicing listening skills’, the sub-categories are:

2) Support autonomous learning

3) Enhance listening and other English skills.

The second category ‘the students’ problems when using different methods
for practicing listening skills, the sub-categories are:

1) Personal limitation

2) Background knowledge

3) Technical problems.

4. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This study consists of five main chapters as follows:

- Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter states rationale, aims and objectives, research questions,
scope of the study, significance of the study and organization of the study.
- Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Background

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 - This chapter presents the theoretical background of the study,
including a brief review of the definition and the importance of
listening skill
- Chapter 3: Research Methods
This chapter describes research methods, description of samples, data
collection, data analysis, research procedures and reliability and validity.

5. TIMELINE OF THE STUDY

18 September, 2018

21 September, 2018

25 September, 2018
10 September,2018
14 September,2018

19 September,2018

22 September,2018

28 September,2018
DATE
5 September, 2018
3 September,2018

8 September,2018
31 August,2018

1 October,2018
5 October,2018
8 October,2018
ACTIVITIES
1. Orientation
Choice of the 
research topic
Library work   
Working with    
the supervisor
Thesis topic
registration 
Preliminary
literature    
review
Writing
the research  
proposal
Research
proposal 
Presentation
2. Data
Collection

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Collecting       
data
Data        
processing
Literature      
Review
3. Data     
Analysis
4. Writing      
drafts
5. Writing  
final draft
6. Editing and
printing the  
thesis

7. Submitting
the thesis 

6. PROPOSED OUTLINE
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
1.2. Aims and Objectives
1.2.1. Aims
1.2.2. Objectives
1.3. Research Questions
1.4. Scope of the Study
1.5. Justification of the study
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
2.1. Theoretical Background
Definition and the importance of listening skill
2.2. Previous Study
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 Chapter 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCEDURE
3.1. Research design
3.2. Research methods
3.3. Data Collection
3.3.1. Sampling of the Study
3.3.2. Instruments of Data Collection
3.4. Data analysis
3.5. Reliability and Validity
Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1. Methods of improving listening skill for college students on the
Internet
4.2 Teacher’s role in helping college students develop their listening
skill.

Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

5.1. Conclusion
5.2. Pedagogical implications
5.3. Limitations
5.4. Suggestions for Further Research

7. REFERENCES
Books and articles
[1]. Abrams, K. (1980). Communication at Work, Listening, Speaking,
Writing, and Reading. London: Prentice Hall.
[2]. Hyslop, N. B., & Tone, B. (1988). Listening: Are We Teaching It, and If
So, How? ERIC Digest ED295132. Retrieved November 11, 2006, from
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-928/listening.htm.

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 [3]. Pierce, L. (1998). Teaching Strategies for Developing Oral Language
Skill English. Teaching Forum, 26, 13-18.
[4]. Rost, M. (2001). Listening:The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English
to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[5]. Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching Listening. New York: Longman.
[6]. Vandergrift. (1999). Facilitating Second Language Listening
Comprehension: Acquiring Successful Strategies. Retrieved March 20,
2005, from http://docutek. Canberra.edu.au/coursepage.asp?cid=49

8. APPENDIX

PART ONE PERSONAL INFORMATION

Please tick the suitable options

Your Age is 17 – 20 21 – 24

Your Gender Male Female

Your Major is ………………………………..

PART TWO QUESTIONS

Please give details to each question, thank you!

1. Do you often practice listening English outside classroom? How often do you
practice listening per week?

2. Do you know any methods for practicing listening skills? If yes, please list them
here.

3. When you use methods to practice your listening, have you ever experienced some
problems? If yes, what are they?

4. If there are some problems during you practice listening, how will you
deal with it?

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5. Do you like to apply methods for practicing your listening skills?

6. In your points of views, what are the advantages and disadvantages of practicing
listening?
Advantages:
Disadvantages:

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