Method to teach English listening skill effectively for students in grade 4 in Dinh Hai Primary School

CONTENTS
page
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for research 
1
2. Research purpose
2
3. Subjects of research
2
4. Research methodology
2
B. PROBLEM SOLVING
2
1. Theoretical basis.
2
2. Really state of affairs.
2
3. Solution and implementation.
5
3.1. Flexible use good techniques in listening skill.
5
3.2. Combining practice listening to other technical groups.
9
C. CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL.
13
 APPENDIX
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for research 	
Nowadays the trend of international integration in many areas including the field of education has brought English up a very important position. English as a means of communication is the key to the treasure of humanity. On the other hand, the wide application of information technology has made learning English become urgent and indispensable. So learning English of Elementary School students is particularly concerned by students, parents, all the teachers of education in our country. English has become one of the main subjects in the curriculum of students.
Learning and use of English require a diligent process of creative practice of both learners and teachers. Especially in the situation of education reform as currently, teaching English in view of communication methods is widely supported. According to this method, students have many opportunities to communicate, to practise language and to participate in practical situations: Learning coupled with practising.
Primary level English program has been implemented in all regions across the country. Innovation prominent feature of the content of this program is to provide maximum opportunities for students to practise four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing on the topics and situations, communication content related to environment living at home and abroad. The change in facilitating the teaching and learning of English in secondary schools becomes teaching living language instead of teaching words as many years ago. However, in practical English skills forged for students, teachers confronted with many difficulties, especially listening skill forged. Through my school in the rural areas, when students started to learn foreign languages, ​​most of them were very interested in English, but eventually they fell tired of it. Most of them are very bad at listening skill. It's difficult for them to understand the content of an essay or dialogue they hear. After each listening lesson, the teacher meets difficulty checking information that students had heard and checking old lesson often not easy.
Facing with that situation as a direct teacher to teach English for students in grade 4, who was exposed to the English language through grade 3, I myself always think of how to help students master, listen comprehension and maturely manipulate information. During both teaching and observing the students, I found the discipline and listening skill of the students having a lot of problems. Most students do not know how to learn listening skill effectively, students often find most difficult while they pracise listening or doing listening tests. In the classroom, students often say that although there are many words in the test they know but they can not hear out. I always ask myself "How to help students to use vocabularies and grammatical structures itself to effective listening". Therefore, in the teaching process, I find a number of methods for positive, simple, easy to understand practical ensure science to develop thinking ability, speculation and creativity of students. With my little experience I boldly go into a topic "Method to teach English listening skill effectively for students in grade 4 in Dinh Hai Primary School".
2. Research purpose.
Learning English requires learners to practice the 4 skills: listening-speaking-reading-writing. The ultimate goal of learning a language is to communicate fluently with everyone. I wrote this topic based on the status of the study English at my school now. The aim of this research is to help students learn English more excitedly in order to remove the difficulties that they have encountered for a long time. I hope my initiative will help my school eager to learn English subject more and become successful learners.
3. Subjects of research.
Students of class 4A, 4B at Dinh Hai Primary School.
4. Research methodology.
With this topic I have applied the following methodology:
+Studying the textbook program, instruction manuals.
+Observe students.
+Interview students.
+Check and compare learning outcomes of students.
+Discussing with experienced colleagues in professional meetings.
B. PROBLEM SOLVING
1. Theoretical basis.
English, one of the foreign languages, ​​has been being learned by many Vietnamese people for communicating, learning and research. Currently, because of new method in learning and teaching, students have more favorable exposure to the English language. Students have the opportunity to communicate with people in English and easy to apply in life. Prominent feature of the innovation agenda for new textbooks is maximum opportunity for students to practice 4 skills. In that, listening skill is one of the focused skills development in the new methods of teaching foreign languages. Listening is important because students can not communicate with words without understanding what is heard.
2. Really state of affairs.
a. Current status of the school.
           Dinh Hai Primary School is located near the central of Yen Dinh district. The school has a teaching staff who are young, fit, enthusiastic, capable of teaching and always love their job. Qualifications and standards are on 100 %. In the field of education, my school is always interested, focused on teaching and learning, always enabling teachers and students to fulfill the duties and assigned targets. And the school has always received the active support of the local government so many years, the school was rewarded as the advanced school in the district. But beside that the school has faced many difficulties in education. The total number of classes and students are overcrowded, but narrow campus, not enough playing and learning space for students, infrastructure is poor. Visual media, pictures, furniture for teaching and learning English are lacking.
b. About students and parents.
 Due to a commune in the rural areas, people live mainly on planting rice but because of over population, their living standard is low and strenuous. The majority of parents work far from their houses so their sons and daughters, who live with their grandparents, are lack of their parents’ attention. Adding to that, learning self-discipline of students is poor. Everyday communication skills of maritime students compared with students in urban areas is limited. Therefore, learning and communication in English, a second language of the children are more difficult. Pronunciation of their native language also leads to more errors in listening, teaching English and make English more difficult. Most of them are very timid, shy, yet bold communication, language delay thinking leads to low self-esteem, inferiority.
 c. For teacher 
Being a teacher for many years teaching English in primary schools by the method of innovation, I myself noticed one thing: Most students in Dinh Hai primary school, grade 4 in particular and our elementary students generally can not determine approach language learning (foreign language). The use of English is limited in their lives, they do not dare to speak, communicate with friends in English. Moreover, in the learning process, students are weak at listening skill, it is difficult to hear. To listen effectively, students must be trained and practised listening more to get used to the syllables, intonation of language, understand the meaning of information reflected in the pronunciation, word stress and sentence intonation.
The innovation of teaching methods pay much attention to thoughtful, proactive practices of students in English. But most of the children here do not have good conditions to learn English listening skill, time for learning is limited, the reference document depends on the family economy, from which the investment for learning listening skill is limited, too.
In addition, English is a difficult subject, the knowledge is difficult but less study time, and in the listening process they do not control what they will be listened. Words in tape are too fast, not familiar. A lot of new words, word stress, sentence stress, intonation are very different and difficult for students to understand the content. On the other hand because they are in the rural area, English communication environment is limited. So they have little chance to practise listening.
The question is how we overcome these weaknesses in order to contribute to improve the learning quality of listening skill, help students communicate more confident in using English as a second language, proficient in words, sentences, especially for students in as grade 4 students in Dinh Hai Primary School.
By the time of the new school year, to understand the situation, learning ability, listening skill of students grade 4, who were experimentally study English in Grade 3, I design a test to check my students’ listening skill. 
Question 1: Listen and tick 
c
b
a
1.
c
a
b
2. 
a
b
c
3.
b
c
a
4. 
c
a
b
5. 
Question 2. Listen and number 
D
C
B
A
* The content of the conversation in the tape script (question 1)
1. Nam: Good afternoon Miss Hien
 Miss Hien: Hi, Nam. How are your?
 Nam: I’m fine, thanks.
2.Akiko: Where are you from, Linda? 
 Linda: I’m from England.
3. Boy: how old are you?
 Girl: I am ten years old.
 Boy: What can you do?
 Girl: I can skate.
4.Girl: When’s your birthday? 
 Boy: It’s on the first of September.
5. Boy: Who’s that? 
 Girl: It’s my brother. 
 Boy: What can he do? 
 Girl: He can ride a bike.
Key: 1-b 2-a 3-c 4-a 5-b
* The content of the conversation in the tape script (question 2)
1. Tom: Good morning, Miss Hien.
 Miss Hien: Good morning. What’s your name? 
 Tom: My name’s Tom. T-O-M, Tom White. I’m from America.
2. Tony: Hi. I’m Tony. 
 Hakim: Hello, Tony. I’m Hakim. 
 Tony: Nice to meet you, Hakim. Where are you from? 
 Hakim: I’m from Malaysia.
3. Mai: Hi, Tom. When’s your birthday? 
 Tom: It’s on the fifteenth of January. 
 Mai: Sorry? 
 Tom: My birthday is on the fifteenth of January. Mai: I see.
4. Mai: Do you like music? 
 Phong: Yes, I do. 
 Mai: Can you dance? 
 Phong: No, I can’t. I can’t dance, but I can sing.
Key: 1-B 2-C 3-D 4. A
 Results:
N0
class
total
Good
Pretty
Average
Bad
worst
No
%
No
%
No
%
No
%
No
%
1
4A
31
3
10%
3
10%
14
46%
7
22%
4
13%
2
4B
31
1
3%
1
3%
13
42%
9
29%
7
23%
sum
62
4
6%
4
6%
27
44%
16
26%
11
18%
Indeed, the above results, I found out listening skill of students in grade 4 is limited. They did not understand the lesson, did not manipulate the knowledge they have learned. This listening test is not difficult because students have learned the information and the vocabularies are simple. I am very concerned, not knowing how to help students practise English listening well, make them eager to learn. With my personal experience of direct teaching, initial skills training for students, the skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing, I give some experience in the teaching process of listening skill to my students whom I directly teach.
3. Solution and implementation.
3.1. Flexible use good techniques in listening skill.
The practice listening skill in a class or part of listening is done through 3 stages.
a.Pre – listening
- The purpose of the activities in this phase is to help students focus their attention on the subject, especially anticipate the information of the topic they are going to hear. To overcome the difficulties of listening in class, teachers should introduce the topic, context, situation - related to the content of listening, especially taking pictures, intuitive furniture to introduce for students in order to know what students knew and did not know about the content that they will listen, intrigued, create excitement for all activities .
- Ask students to think, guess what they are going to hear in a certain context.
- Teach vocabulary; however not introduce all new words. Students should guess the meaning of words in context, teacher should offer the purpose of listening, requests and task assignments for the content heard.
- When carrying out the pre - listening activity, the use of visual maps accompanying illustrations will give very good support to clarify the context suggests the content that they are going to hear. Pictures is also a means to check the level of students listening 
comprehension.
- Show the pictures or questions of exercise to students in order to figure out all 
information needed to hear.
* . Some tricks taught in this phase.
- True / False statements prediction.
- Open - prediction.
- Ordering.
- Pre - question.
The choice to perform activities in this period will depend on a number of factors such as time of listening exercises, documentation provided available or not available, the level and interests of students. Conditions of classroom teaching is also one of the factors leading to decide what technique. Besides teaching purposes and objectives of the test are also the basic elements for teachers to make their selection.
b. While - listening
- The purpose of the activities in this phase is to help students practise listening skill that is to say verbal drawn convey information.
- Have students listen and do exercise. If the students previously guessed the content of the listening exercise in this section, ask them to compare what they had guessed with what they have just listened.
- For all hard to hear, the teacher can divide the process into a listening exercise hear from easy to difficult.
- For long listening exercises, we can make it easier by giving all kinds of exercises that are suitable for the level of students.
- Some expressions in this phase.
+ Defining True - False.
+ Check the correct answer.
+ Matching.
+ Filling in the grip/ chart/ gap.
+ Answering comprehension questions.
+ Selecting.
+ Deliberate mistakes.
+ Listen and draw.
c. Post – listening.
The purposes of the activities after listening are to:
- Check to see that if students can understand the information requested or not and complete the operation in stage "While - listening" or not.
- Find out the reasons why students do not hear or not understand some of the listening exercises.
- Help students with the opportunity to assess the attitudes of people who express the intonation of communication conversations.
- Use extension exercise themed listening skills used to supplement more ear training.
+ Some tricks during this period:
- Give the answers and feedback.
- Ask students to repeat or say some words or sentences heard. Feed back (While listening).
- Organize students to say about them or their friends by relying on some information in the test.
- Have students mention some comments on the results of the listening group.
- Give students play out conversations heard.
- Use extra exercises to help students have more information about listening test.
Depending on the specific details, teacher can use one of these activities.
For example: 
Post - listening.
Write it up.
Transformation (writing)
- Ask Students to base on the following passage, write another passage about you.
Feed back
But according to the characteristics of each lesson, teacher can carry out 3 step process listening and comprehension practice for students, especially first step that can help them shape and develop the ability to focus interest, speculation using information that will listen. Thus students will actively listen and feel more confident.
Requests of the listening period are:
+ Quality Assurance hears samples.
+ Good quality of radio.
+ Teachers read with average speed, correct pronunciation.
For example: Teaching listening skill
Unit 12 : What does your father do?
Lesson 1: Sections A1,2,3
Part A3: listen and tick 
I proceed as follows:
Pre – listening
* Pre - teach vocabulary: (review the words about jobs)
a factory worker, a farmer, a teacher and a nurse 
* Check vocabulary: Slap the board
* Set the scene
Introduce the activity and ask pupils what jobs are shown in the pictures. Point to each character and ask What does he/she do? (From left to right: a factory worker, a farmer, a teacher and a nurse). Tell pupils that they are going to listen to an interview between Nam and Quan about Quan’s family and tick the correct boxes.
Open prediction
- Have Students work in pairs to point at each picture, 
Feed back students prediction
While-listening
+Play the recording three times: once for pupils to listen all the way through, then for them to do the task and finally for them to check their answers.
Audio script 
Nam: What does your mother do, Quan? 
Quan: She’s a teacher. 
Nam: How about your father? What does he do? 
Quan: He’s a factory worker. 
Nam: Do you have a brother? 
Quan: No, I don’t. But I have a sister. 
Nam: What does she do? Quan: She’s a nurse. 
Nam: OK. Thanks for your time, Quan. Quan: You’re welcome.
+Ask four students to give the answer to compare with the answer of the teacher.
+The teacher gives the key and corrects the mistakes of the students.
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Student 4
Key
Father
mother
brother
Post-listening
+Ask students to work in pairs to look at the pictures. Then ask and answer about the jobs. 
 A. What does he do? A. What does he do?
 B. He is a factory worker. B. He is a farmer.
 A. What does she do? A. What does he do?
 B. She is a factory worker. B. She is a farmer.
+If the time is enough, they can ask and answer about their parents’ jobs.
 	What does your mother do? She is a farmer.
	What does your father do? He is a driver.
3.2. Combining practice listening to other technical groups.
a. The technical team practice facility.
These are tricks premise significant in shaping students listen to English ability.
* Practice routines focus attention to hear.
Ask students to listen to your sentences and call them to repeat individually what you read. Teacher referred repeat individual students. Help students have habits and awareness to listen to the teachers. One way to help students focus on hearing is to ask students to repeat what their friends said. Teachers often ask the questions to require students to use the information from what their friends said to answer.
For example: Student A says: “I like monkeys because they can swing.”
After Student A stops talking, I can ask other students to answer the question. What animals does student A like? Why does student A like monkeys?
Once a week, have students to play a game focused on listening.
For example:
+ The first Game: The Spread information.
If the class has 10 rows of desks, teachers make 10 votes, per share recorded a statement. Then vote for one student awarded top row. The student is responsible to whisper in his or her friend’s ear what he or she read. Continue whispering one by one until the end of the sequence. The last person will speak loudly what he or she heard from their friend, and the first student will determine if the sentence is correct or not.
+The second Game: Find your friend to communicate.
Teacher prepares some questions and answers on paper, pair with answers to our questions by the numbers: for example, question one corresponds to answer 5. Students find the answer by finding their corresponding answers from the friends, the pair receiving first will win.
+The third Game: Helps friends learn better.
Each student in the class collects or self-imposed a sentence (which may have been wrong information) e