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Tài liệu Improving listening skills among non major english students through listening to conversations with subtitles an action research project at a university in hai duong province

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This study focuses on improving students’ listening skills through listening to conversations with subtitles. Besides, it investigated the students’ attitudes towards this technique. The study adopted action research approach and was conducted by survey questionnaires, interviews and test among the participation of 32 non- major English students at a university in Hai Duong. Based on the data collection and analysis, the findings revealed the improvement of the students’ listening comprehension and their overall positive attitudes towards the technique.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---oOo--- NGUYỄN THỊ NHUNG IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS AMONG NON - MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS THROUGH LISTENING TO CONVERSATIONS WITH SUBTITLES: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT A UNIVERSITY IN HAI DUONG PROVINCE (Cải thiện kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ thông qua nghe đàm thoại có phụ đề: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường đại học ở tỉnh Hải Dương) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi - 2020 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---oOo--- NGUYỄN THỊ NHUNG IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS AMONG NON - MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS THROUGH LISTENING TO CONVERSATIONS WITH SUBTITLES: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT A UNIVERSITY IN HAI DUONG PROVINCE (Cải thiện kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ thông qua nghe đàm thoại có phụ đề: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trường đại học ở tỉnh Hải Dương) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph. D Hanoi - 2020 DECLARATION I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Improving listening skills among non - major English students through listening to conversations with subtitles: An action research project at a university in Hai Duong province” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution. Hanoi, 2020 Student’s signature Nguyễn Thị Nhung i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan, my supervisor, for his assistance, encouragement as well as the guidance he gave while I was doing this research. Second, I would like to express my special thanks to all lectures of the Post Graduate Faculty of University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge that helped to enhance my interest for English Methodology and my teaching career. I also wish to show my appreciation to my non - major students of the class K10 for their whole - hearted participation in the study. Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my parents, my young sister and my colleagues, my friends who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study. ii ABSTRACT This study focuses on improving students’ listening skills through listening to conversations with subtitles. Besides, it investigated the students’ attitudes towards this technique. The study adopted action research approach and was conducted by survey questionnaires, interviews and test among the participation of 32 non - major English students at a university in Hai Duong. Based on the data collection and analysis, the findings revealed the improvement of the students’ listening comprehension and their overall positive attitudes towards the technique. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .............................................................................................. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................ ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii LISTS OF FIGURES & TABLES ................................................................ vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION.................................................................... 1 1.1. Rationale..................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Aims and objectives of the study ............................................................... 3 1.3. Research questions ..................................................................................... 3 1.4. Scope of the study ...................................................................................... 3 1.5. Method of the study ................................................................................... 3 1.6. Significance of the study ............................................................................ 4 1.7. Structure of the thesis ................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................... 6 2.1. Overview of listening skill ......................................................................... 6 2.1.1. Definition of listening skill ..................................................................... 6 2.1.2. The importance of listening skill ............................................................ 7 2.2. Overview of listening to conversations with subtitles .............................. 9 2.2.1. Definition of subtitles .............................................................................. 9 2.2.2.Types of subtitles .................................................................................. 10 2.2.3. Advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles............................................................................................................ 11 2.2.4. The effects of listening to conversations with subtitles ........................ 13 2.2.5. Previous studies ..................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ............................................................. 16 3.1. Research approach: Action research ........................................................ 16 3.2. Research setting ....................................................................................... 18 iv 3.3. Participants ............................................................................................... 18 3.4. Data collection instruments ...................................................................... 18 3.4.1. Comprehension Test.............................................................................. 19 3.4.2. Questionnaires and Interviews .............................................................. 19 3.5. Data collection procedures ....................................................................... 20 3.6. Data analytical framework ....................................................................... 24 CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................ 25 4.1. Findings .................................................................................................... 25 4.1.1. The improvement of the students’ listening skills after the intervention .... 25 4.1.2. The students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles ... 28 4.2. Discussion ................................................................................................ 33 4.3. Summary .................................................................................................. 35 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 36 5.1. Summary of the study .............................................................................. 36 5.2. Recommendations for listening to conversations with subtitles effectively .. 36 5.2.1. Some recommendations for teachers in teaching listening skills ......... 37 5.2.2. Some recommendations for students in learning listening skills .......... 38 5.3. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study ..................... 41 REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 43 APPENDICES .................................................................................................. I APPENDIX 1 PRE - TEST ................................................................................ I APPENDIX 2 POST - TEST .......................................................................... IV APPENDIX 3 POST - INTERVENTION QUESTIONNAIRES.................. VII APPENDIX 4 CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT SAU KHI CAN THIỆP ...................... X APPENDIX 5 POST - INTERVENTION INTERVIEWS........................... XIII APPENDIX 6 SAMPLE LESSON PLAN..................................................... XV v LISTS OF FIGURES & TABLES Figures Figure 1. Steps of action research process ...................................................... 17 Figure 2. Data analytical framework............................................................... 24 Figure 3. The comparison result between the pre - test and the post - test ..... 27 Tables Table 1. The procedure of the syllabus ........................................................... 21 Table 2. The score of pre - test and post - test of 32 students......................... 25 Table 3. Descriptive paired samples statistics for 32 non - major English students on the Pre - Test & Post - Test .......................................................... 26 Table 4. Paired Samples Correlations ............................................................. 26 Table 5. The result of paired sample test ........................................................ 26 Table 6. The students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles after the intervention ......................................................................... 29 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a general overview on the rationale; aims and objectives; research questions; scope and method, significance of the study; the structure of the thesis are also provided. 1.1. Rationale Communication is always important in every day life. People got to communicate by using language to interact with people and to express their feelings or share ideas and thoughts. Everybody acquires our native language through our social environment since we were children. However, we are demanded to be able to communicate well not only in our language but also by using an international language like English. English is used internationally in business, political, cultural relations, and education as well. Thanks to the widespread use of English, different countries compared to every other to figure out problems and strive for a prosperous community. Vietnamese learners find the significance of English, they have made efforts to be good at English. The study of English becomes easier because of communication with foreigners and using modern equipment. Besides, people still get difficulties in learning English. Out of all four language skills mentioned, listening is the basic skills needed for communication. Listening is the ability to spot and understand what others are saying. It is said that listening is the most difficult skill for students learning English in practice, especially the non - major English students because they do not have a chance to practice frequently in upper schools. Listening is a child’s first 1 communication activity, it is essential for learning about and participating in life. According to Wilt M.E (1950), it was found that 45 % of communication was listening, 30 % speaking, 16 % reading, and 9% writing. Listening may be a skill that has got to be at the forefront of English learning skills. Listening is not only crucial for the learners to understand how to study the language but also it is an important life skill. Without listening skills, there can be no language learning, and hence no communication, listening skill is the most important interaction human beings are involved in. However, the listening competence of non - major English students are, as a matter of fact, not qualified enough. At high schools they did not have chances to practice English listening frequently, they mainly concentrate on grammar - related skills. They are trained to do grammar and reading exercises. But, at universities and colleges, all language skills are focused, especially speaking and listening. It is a common problem that most of the students are unable to communicate confidently. Because of awareness of the importance of listening skills, students are always trying to find ways to improve learning skills. One of the most useful methods is listening to English conversations with subtitles. This method offers a lot of advantages to the development of students’ abilities. To help students have a better understanding of this technique, the researcher conducted a study: “Improving listening skills among non - major English students through listening to conversations with subtitles: An action research project at a university in Hai Duong province”. It is hoped that this study will encourage students to learn English, especially listening skills. 2 1.2. Aims and objectives of the study The ultimate aims of the study is to see how listening to conversations with subtitles improve. Especially, this study has two objectives: 1. To find out the extent to which listening to English conversations with subtitles improved the non - major English students’ listening skills. 2. To investigate the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles. 1.3. Research questions The researcher plans to answer the following questions: 1. To what extent does listening to conversations with subtitles improve the students’ listening skills? 2. What are the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles? 1.4. Scope of the study This study was conducted to improve the students’ listening skills such as hearing and getting main information, catching key words, remembering key words in short - term memory and understanding phrases or sentences to communicate clearly and slowly, discriminating among the sound of English, recognizing stress and intonation patterns through listening to conversations with subtitles. The linguistic and technic subtitles were used in listening process. 1.5. Method of the study To achieve the aims of the study, action research was applied. There were eight lesson plans, which were designed and taught at a class with 32 non - major English students at a university in Hai Duong province so that the 3 researcher find out how to improve listening skills through listening to conversations with subtitles by a quantitative method. The students did the pre - test and post - test. Besides, the researcher investigated the students’ attitudes towards listening to conversations with subtitles. The teacher designed a survey to collect data and interviewed students, related to listening to conversations with subtitles. Other research instruments were also designed and applied. A pre-test and a post - test were given to evaluate improving listening skills for students after the intervention. The students’ scores in the post - test were compared with the students’ score in the pre-test to the effect of listening to English conversations with subtitles on improving learning listening skills. Finally, the data were collected and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain the results. 1.6. Significance of the study As mentioned above, the study is carried out to help students to know how to learn listening skills better and deeply understand the effect of listening to English conversations with subtitles on improving learning listening skills. 1.7. Structure of the thesis The thesis consists of mainly five chapters: - Chapter I is introduction, presents the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, the methods, the significance and the structure of the thesis; - Chapter II is the literature review with the main key theories “the definition of listening, the importance of listening, definition of subtitles, 4 types of subtitles, advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles and the effects, previous studies. - Chapter III is the methodology. This chapter introduces research approach - action research, research setting, participants, data collection instrument and data collection procedures; - Chapter IV is the study, findings and discussion; - Chapter V is the conclusion that provides summary of the study, recommendations for listening to conversations with subtitles effectively and limitation of the study. 5 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the researcher presents the relevant literature on listening skill and conversations with subtitles. The first part deals with listening skill, which is followed by the definitions and the importance. The last section of this chapter discusses conversations with subtitles including definitions of subtitles, types of subtitles, advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles, effects of listening to conversations with subtitles on improving learning listening skills and previous studies. 2.1. Overview of listening skill 2.1.1. Definition of listening skill Listening is the skill that students will be judged most in real life situations. It is an important part of everyday interaction. Listening, as Howatt and Dakin (1974) define, is the ability to spot and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker’s accent and pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his meaning. The listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Thomlison’s (1984) definition of listening includes “active listening” which matches beyond comprehending as understanding the message content, to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker. In the view of Ronald and Roskelly (1985), listening as a lively process. It requires an equivalent skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand; and 6 these authors present specific exercises to make student active listeners who are aware of the “inner voice” one hears when writing. As defined by Oxford (1993: 206), “Listening is a complex, problem solving skill” and it is “more than just perception of the sounds. Listening includes comprehension of meaning bearing words, phrases, clauses, sentences and connected discourse”. A noticeable definition given by Rost (1990) is that “Listening is one of the fundamental language abilities that allow users of language getting not only information but also instruction”. According to Rivers and Temperley (1978: 63), listening comprehension is “not a passive but an active process of constructing a message from a stream of sounds with what one knows of the phonological semantic and syntactic potentialities of the language”. Another definition of listening was offered by Saricoban (1999): “Listening is more than merely hearing words. It is a process in which students receive, construct meaning from and respond to spoken or nonverbal messages”. In general, listening is a dynamic and conscious mental activity in which learners construct understanding by using clues from the contextual information or the previous cognition. 2.1.2. The importance of listening skill Listening plays an important role in communication in people’s daily lives. As Guo and Wills (2006: 3) state “it is the medium through which people gain a large proportion of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and human affairs, their ideals, sense of values”. 7 According to Mendelson (1994: 9) “of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40 - 50 %; speaking 25 - 30 %; reading 1116 %; and writing about 9 %”. Emphasizing the importance of listening in language learning, Peterson (2001: 87) states that “no other type of language input is easy to process as spoken language, received through listening … through listening, learners can build an awareness of the interworkings of language systems at various levels and thus establish a base for more fluent productive skills”. Listening has a crucial role not only in lifestyle but also in classroom settings. Anderson and Lynch (2003: 3) state that “we only become conscious of what remarkable feats of listening we achieve once we are in an unfamiliar listening environment, like taking notes of a language in which we have limited proficiency”. Most people think that having the ability to write down and speak during a second language means they know the language; however, if they do not have the efficient listening skills, it is not possible to communicate effectively. That is, listening is the basic skill in language learning and over 50% of the time that students spend functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to listening (Nunan, 1998). Rost (1994) explains the importance of listening in language classroom as follows: 1. Listening is significant within the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the proper level, any learning simply cannot begin. 2. Speech provides a way of interaction for the learner. Because learners must interact to achieve understanding. Access to speakers of the language is essential. Moreover, learners’ failure to know the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning. 8 3. Authentic speech presents a challenge for the learner to know language as native speakers actually use it. 4. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language (p. 141-142). To summarize, listening has a crucial role both in lifestyle and in academic contexts because it is crucial for people to sustain effective communication. Emphasizing the importance of listening, Anderson and Lynch (2003) state that listening skills also are important as speaking skills because people cannot communicate face-to-face unless both types of skills are developed together. Listening skills are also important for learning purposes since through listening students receive information and gain insights (Wallace, Stariha & Walberg, 2004). 2.2. Overview of listening to conversations with subtitles 2.2.1. Definition of subtitles According to Sydorenko (2010), on- screen text can be shown in various forms: subtitles (L1 text, L2 sound), reversed subtitles (L1 sound, L2 text), or captions (sound is in the same language as the text). Jacob B. Scheffer (2014) states that the terms “captions” and “subtitles” are used somewhat interchangeably. “Captioning”, initially invented as a way to help the impaired hearing for television, is the use of an equivalent language text on a video screen concurrent with the audio of the spoken text (Price, 1983). “Subtitles”, as defined by Livingstone (2013), are usually within the viewer’s L1 or other language text on screen concurrent with the L2 spoken audio, and therefore the text could also be paraphrased so that the text on the screen matches the scene. However, according to Danna (2004), captions are “called 9 teletext subtitles in Europe, with subtitles in the same language as the sound track” (p.68). Therefore, in this study, I just focus on subtitles as captions with L2 sound and L2 text (both in English). In other words, the term “subtitles” and “captions” are used alternatively indicating the verbatim transcription of the original language (English) of the videos. 2.2.2. Types of subtitles Subtitles can be classified into various types, the majority of subtitling studies focus on two characteristics: linguistic and technical. Therefore, according to Gottlieb (1997: 71-72), subtitles are categorized into linguistic and technical perspective. Linguistically, there are two different types of subtitles. First, that is intralingual subtitling, within a similar language. Both the subtitling of local programmes, subtitles within the same language for the deaf and hard of hearing and subtitles for people learning languages fall in this group. Second, interlingual subtitling, between two languages. Technically, there are open and closed subtitles. Open subtitles are associated with the initial film or the television version. As to Gottlieb, all film subtitling belongs within this category, as “Even today, electronic subtitling is proscribed to television and video” (Op. cit.: 72). Closed subtitles, which can be voluntarily added; both to teletext and satellite channels, offer various subtitled versions to different frequencies. Ivarsson (1992: 35), distinguishes multilingual and teletext subtitling. The multilingual subtitling is for cinema and television, in which the translation appears in more than one language, as is often done in bilingual states. The teletext subtitling is shown on television for the hard of hearing. It 10 is reduced subtitling and similar to teletext in the subtitling of news or live events such as sports broadcasts; the translation of opera, theatrical works, conferences. Ivarsson said that “the titles displayed on a special screen” (Op. cit.: 35). It seems that Ivarsson has focused more on the technical than the linguistic aspects. Luyken (1991: 40), too, distinguishes between traditional subtitling and simultaneous subtitling. The traditional subtitling has three subgroups of subtitling in complete, reduced or bilingual sentences. Linde (1999: 2) basically distinguishes between interlingual subtitling and intralingual subtitling for the hard of hearing and television, given that intralingual subtitling is, according to the author, non-existent in cinema. Díaz Cintas (2001: 24) also offers a classification of subtitles, distinguishing basically between traditional subtitling and simultaneous subtitling, bilingual subtitles, intralinguistic subtitles (for the hard of hearing, language students and karaoke) and interlinguistic subtitles, open and closed subtitles. To sum up, there are many types of subtitles, which do not follow any parameters. We can combine to category into them. As to Gottlieb’s proposal, we divide the two parameters into two large groups: technical and linguistic. There are, however, parameters that belong to the two groups and, evidently, we add to each group all the parameters that we have considered. 2.2.3. Advantages and disadvantages of listening to conversations with subtitles In the 1980s, captioning or subtitles are utilized in foreign language classroom, they were believed to be an honest thanks to improve learners’ attention, reduce anxiety, enhance students’ understanding of what was heard 11 and increase motivation (Burger, 1989; Froehlich, 1988; Grimmer, 1992; Vanderplank, 1988). Recently, numerous researchers studied benefits of captions or subtitles on improving listening skills (Baltova, 1999; Danna, 1992, 2004; Garza, 1991; Markham 1993, 1999; Neuman & Koskimen, 1992). As refered to as listening to English conversations with subtitles is extremely useful for college students nowadays. There are several advantages of listening to English conversations with subtitles. Firstly, listening to conversations with subtitles can keep students’ interests and motivations in learning listening skills. The students enjoy attending altogether activities within the classroom. They are more motivated to examine and listen to the closet topics in real world situation. Secondly, subtitles can improve students’ vocabulary. They’re going to see new vocabulary and the way of the words are written and spoken. Thirdly, subtitles can be improved students’ listening skills. The students can easily understand about conversations when the speakers may speak fast in order that it is difficult for them to know what the speakers are talking. Besides, subtitles help students to enhance speaking skills. During this case, when students listen to the conversations with subtitles, they will note new vocabularies or new sentences on their notebooks. These sounds are more memorable and applied for the important situations to develop successful conversations. Finally, subtitles can be improved students’ pronunciation. It is easy for students to mention the words after listening to conversations with subtitles. They will imitate to pronounce within the models correctly. However, there are still some disadvantages to the process of listening to English conversations with subtitles. Firstly, the listeners are at a low level, they need just started learning English and listening skills are not 12
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