Some useful teaching methods to improve listening skill for high school students

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL
INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE
SOME USEFUL TEACHING METHODS TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILL FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
 Author : Le Thi Hoa
Position : Teacher
The school: Le Hoan High School
THANH HOA – YEAR : 2016
INDEX
Contents
page
 INDEX
1
A. The beginning
2
I. The reasons of choosing this subject. 
2
II. Aims of the research
3
III. Scope and researching methods
3
B. Content
3
I.Argumative basic
3
II. The common problems
4
III. Some useful ways for improving listening skills
5
IV. The activities in a listening lesson
6
V. Applying the research in teaching
9
C. The result after applying the research in teaching
13
D. Conclusion and proposal
13
Reference books.
15
 A. THE BEGINNING
I. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH
- In the recent years,there have been great changes in many fields of our social life.English is not only the aim of spoken by native speakers but also the official language in many countries as well as an important language in a lot of nations throughout the world.However,how to teach and learn English are not simple matters.Especially,students’language skills are still limited,listening skill seem to be the most difficult and weakest skills among students’ four language skills.
- Listening skill is very important for anyone who wants to learn a foreign language. As a language learner and teacher as well as a learner and teacher of other languages,think of the reasons why listening is important .If we do not have good listening skill,we can not respond to our teachers, friends, and others, we can not understand the lesson and ,unfortunately,we are by accident becoming inactive to English speaking situations.Having good listening skill help you communicate with your partners , foreigners,help you in your job, promote you in the future.Listening provides input that can be very significant for second language acquisition general and for the development of the speaking skill in particular. Listening also promotes non-linear processing of language and encourages learners to devolop “holistic” strategies to the texts. More necessary in the open policy time-The time of WTO.We can not have an earningful job without English.
- To help students to improve their listening skill is very difficult.Most teachers in Thanh Hoa find it challenging to carry on the listening lesson so it is considered every teacher tries to find the best method to ease this.
- After graduating from Hong Duc University,I have been teaching in Le Hoan high School,I always try my best to find out the best method for my classes.But, sometimes I find it difficult to teach well.I asked for more advices from my friends and my teachers.They all said that I need to help student to understand the neccessity of learning English then I should take the best techniques for my lessons that must be suitable for my student and the contents.
- After seven years teaching English my friends and I have difficulties in teaching the listening lessons.We have together found the best ways and done lots of experiments to have good techniques for listening lesson.Now, I would like to share my little experience of teaching the listening lesson with you.I hope that it can help us a bit teaching the listeing lesson well.
As I am one of the teachers of English of Le Hoan High School. I would like to do some thing with the hope of improving listening skill for our students and as a result, the thesis title goes as:
Some Useful Teaching Methods To Improve Listening Skill For High School Students.
II. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH.
- To help and encourage our upper secondary school students to improve their listening ability.
- To examine the areas of difficulties in listening encountered by 10th grade students at Le Hoan high school.
- To investigate the needs of 10th grade students to complete the listening tasks effectively.
- To suggest some techniques for the teachers and students to perform in order to improve the learning listening of grade 10th students.
III. SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD
*Subject and Object
 - The difficult prolems in learning listening skill of sudents in high school.
-The ideas for improving listening for high school students .
- Students in Le Hoan High School and I focus mainly on students of class 10A3 and 10A6.
* Scope
- Listening skill
- Techniques to teach the listening lesson.
* Researching methods.
- Reading reference books
- Dicussing with other teachers
- Applying in teaching ,observing and drawing out experiences.
 B. CONTENT
I. ARGUMENT BASIC
1.Purpose of teaching
Purpose of teaching a foreign language not to provide students the knowledge of that language,but the last purpose of teaching a foreign language in general and in English in separation is to teach the students the ability to comunicate in English in four skills: listening, speaking,reading and writing.Listening skill of students is formed in a period of learning and training in foreign invironment.Apart from learning at school,students have to learn how to listen through different ways by their own.
2.Some direct factors influence the effect of a listening period.
2.1 The Teacher.
 - With a new and active method,the teacher plays a direct role,introduce students how to learn.
 - To have a good listening period , the teacher needs to carry out some following factors.
+Choosing and usingthe suitable techniques in teaching listening skill.
+ Organising and controlling the class and setting logical time.
+Creating the suitable teaching aids for a teaching period
+ Emotivating ,attracting and fascinating the students.
2.2.Listening techniques.
Listening techniques are defined by the listening content. By other way,the listening content controls the choice,the applying the listening technicques.
2.3.Teaching equipments and aids for teaching listening skill.
Using picture equipments in teaching listening skill is a main content in English book.So having good equipments and teaching aids are very necessary to motivate students'interest.
2.4. The students.
To have a good listening period, students need to have necessary skills in listening and understanding in English
II.THE COMMON PROBLEMS
For long, English has been considered to be a compulsory subject at any schools.There are four important skills in English: Listening,speaking,reading and writing .And Listening is known as the most important and difficult skill for all students.That is why so many sts have prolems with it and I’d like to narrow down some main problems that most all students have:
 + They just don’t know the most important words.
+ They are trying tounderstand every words because they tend to focus thee meanings of every words instead of the key words
+ They are distracted by background noise.
+ They don’t regconise the words that they know, ther are some words that are very difficult to distinguish, such as “there” , “their”, “they’re” these words are called homephones and they might be difficult for sts to distinguish.
+ They lack listening stamina/ they get tired.
+ They can’t cope with not having emages
+ Finally they have hearing prolems and they can’t tell the difference between the different voice.
- Therefore, to univeralize it at school is becoming extremely in need. But, its requirement is not as low as we used to think about it:
* To have a perfect class, we need to improve our knowledges and teaching method. Especially, we ought to be perfect at conducting a propaganda campaign.It means that every student can understand grammatically the importance of learning English.They need to answer correctly the question from the bottom of their heart “Why do we need to learn English?”.They should come to learn English with all their heart and by their love to it.We may be satisfied when we see and “ hear” that our students are keen on learning English and they ask us always about difficulties in learning English.
 * New English textbook has been changed all about their appearances and contents.They aim to help both teacher and student have good classes as they hope.Especially, new textbook clearly helps student easily improve their four skills ( Listening;Speaking;Reading;Writing). But, how do we teach these four skills perfectly? .Especially,listening skill.
* Listening skill seem to be the most difficult to our students. we all know that in order to learn a foreign language successfully,students should be helped to develope four skills : listening,speaking,reading and writing. These four skills are closely interrelated to one another and they are all necessary. Of the four skills,listening is regarded as the foundation to acquire the language.
III.SOME USEFUL WAYS FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL
1. Some examples.	
- To have an effective listening lesson, the teacher plays an important role in giving methods of teaching. The teacher can use any of the following examples to develop his/her own methods for teching students how to listen well.
* Interpersonal activities.
 EX: Teacher may have one student interview another for a job with a company or for an article in a newspaper. Even a storytelling activity,such as one that answer the question “ what was your favourite movie from last year? can give the sts the opportunity to ask one another questions and then to practice active listening skills.
* Group activities.
 Larger group activities also serve as a helful method for teaching listening skills to students. Divide sts into groups of five or larger and instruct them to learn one hobby or interest of at least two another group members.Encourage them to ask classifying questions during the activity..........
* Audio segments.
 Teacher can also teach listening skills through audio segments of radio programs,online postcasts,instructional lectures and ather audio messages.
*Video segmets
* Instructional tips.
 When students listen to a cassette or to a person speaking, they can find it a challenge.This is because they have no visual clues and may think that they will not understand.Also,we usually only have one chance to hear something
.This is why,as we see in our teaching job.Before a listening exercise, we need to start by doing activities to prepare students.Then we need to do activities in which the students need to use the informations from the item they have listened to.
2.The main sub-skills of listening are:
- Predicting
- Listening for the main ideas
- Listening for specific information.
3.To help improve listening,we plan the lesson in these phrases:
3.1 Pre-listening
3.2. While-listening
3.3 Post-listening
 The purposes of these activities is to focus students, attention on the item they will listen to.You can tell them that they probadly will not understand everything but that this does not matter.
IV. THE ACTIVITIES IN A LISTENING LESSON.
1 .A pre -listening activities
 A pre- listening activity need to be short- five minutes at most.It can include any of the following ideas, but make sure you choose a different lessons for variety and to keep students motivated and wake up their interests.
1.1 Brainstorming.
 Discuss the tile or the topic of the item they will be listening to with the class. You or a student can write any important vocabulary on the blackboard, for future checking and reference.
For example: 
 - Teacher give a verb and asks sts to find words that can combine with it.
 at home work 
 look up do the house work
 after a favor
 exercises
 breakfast/ lunch/ dinner
 a cat/ a car
have a headache/ an earche
 a shower
 coffee/ some cake, medicine
 etc.......... 
1.2.Discussion.
 Ask students to discuss among themselves a picture or something else about the item they will be listening to,or the tile.They can talk about what they think the topic will include:
 who could be in it, and what might happen. Encourage everyone to say something by asking them to work in pairs or in small groups.
For example: Unit 12 – Music ( class 10)
 Look at the picture of Van Cao .Tell each other what you know about him.
1.3.Pre-Questioning.
 Students look at the picture related to the item they will listen to and think of questions that they would like to be answered.This gives useful practice in question formation, as well as giving students a reason to listen ( to find out if their questions are answered).
For example: Unit 6: An excursion (class 10)
a. Do you often go for a picnic?
b.When is the best time for a picnic?
c.Why do people go for picnics?
1.4 Pre-teaching difficult key words.
 Sometimes you may want to teach students some of the difficult and important key words that they will hear:
- Do not introduce so many new words in one class
- New words should be presented following the steps below
+ Make an instruction about the word need presenting
+Teacher reads it aloud and asks students to repeat in chorus then individual
+ Teacher writes it on the blackboard and 
 -When you teach or present new vocabulary, you must teach its meaning and pronunciation.
 -The precise meaning of the new words, in specific contexts , is very important.
-The meaning of new words can be taught through pictures, mine, real objects, as well as from a situation in the context.
- Teacher need to ask questions to check that students understand the meaning.
- Students need some varied practice of new vocabulary.
2 WHILE LISTENING ACTIVITIES
_ In any processes of teaching , teacher should be sensitive and have good leading by using words ,the intonation that help students more active and interested in searching knowledges and showing motivation.
 To help students practice listening for general imformation only, ask them to listen and find out, for example:
* How many people are there in the dialogue or in the story?
* Who the story or the dialogue is about.
*Where the story or the dialogue happened.
* When the story or the dialogue happened.
 Listening for specific information means students must learn to ignore the details.To practise this, you can ask the students to listen carefully for the answers to specific questions.They can more easily record the information required by filling in a chart copied from the blackboard. 
For example: 
Students listen to the two radio news stories and tick the words you hear in the right column under News story 1 and News story 2
 News story 1
News story 2
healthy
strong
young
cloudy
highest
wonderful
_ In while – listening skill students have to do some other kinds of exercises to check listening activities such as:
 + Listen to the conversation or paragraph again and number the pictures in correct orders.
 +Listen again and decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F).
 +Listen again and fill in each blank with a suitable word.
 + Listen and answer questions
3 POST LISTENING ACTIVITIES
 In real life , we usually do something after we have listened to someone. So it is important to do some follow- up activities after listening, for example: 
 +students make up a similar dialogue.
 + Students discuss what they have heard in pairs or small groups.
 +Students can write notes on what they thought they heard ,and then 
 compare their notes with a partner. 
 +Students write a letter, giving opinions on what they heard. 
 + Or they can retell the story they have just heart with the partner then to 
 the class.
For example:
 Class 10 - unit 6- An Excurtion
Work in groups: If your class could go for a picnic this weekend, What 
 would your plan be? 
Teacher guides students to ask and answer
Plan includes:
+ Destination: Ha Long Bay,Cuc Phuong National Park.........
+ Means of transport: car , train,bus..... 
+ Times : When will you go for a picnic?
 How long will your picnic last?
+ Reason : Why ?
+ Participants : How many.............?
 Who.......................?
+ Activities : What activities will you organise ?
+ Foods and drinks : What kinds of foods and drinks will you bring ? 
 V. APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING
 Period: 69 class 10
 Unit 11: National Parks 
 Part C : LISTENING
I. Objectives:
 1. General knowledge:
	- Sts get more information about Cuc Phuong National Park.
 2. Language:	- Some set expressions
	- Vocabulary on nature 
 3. Skills: 	- Listening: fill in the gaps, answer questions	
	- Speaking: - Discuss the special features of Cuc Phuong National Park.
II. Anticipated problems:
	- Sts may do not know some new words.
	- The quality of the tape is not very good. 
III. Teaching aids: Tape, cassette, textbook, chalk, board
. 
IV. Procedures:
Teacher’s activities
Students’ activities
1. Homework checking:(5 mins)
- Ask one st to tell the whole class about his/her class excursion to Huong Pagoda and express his/her regrets about what he/she did or did not do during the excursion. 
- Listen and give remarks
- Listen to their friend and give remarks
2. Before you listen:(10 mins)
Aims:to focus sts on the topic and review/ introduce the words and phrases used in the listening text.
a. Divide sts into small groups and ask them to discuss the following questions:
 a. Where is Cuc Phuong National Park?
 b. What is the area of the rainforest in Cuc Phuong National Park?
 c. When is the best time to visit Cuc Phuong National Park? 
 d. What can be seen in Cuc Phuong National Park?
- Ask some sts to give their answer.
b. Introduce the topic of the listening text.
- Introduce some new words/ expressions
 - o'fficially (adv): formally
 - span (v): connect.
 - 'fauna (n): all the animals of an area.
 - f'lora (v): all the plants of a particular area
 - a'ttack(n): a violent attempt to hurt sb
 - de'feat(v): win sb
 - in'vader: (n) The French and Americans were invaders.
 - 'ethnic mi'nority (n): The Tay, Nung, Dao .....
- Read the words again and asks sts to repeat.
- Ask sts to read the words in pairs.
- Ask some sts to read the words again.
3. While you listen:(20 mins)
+ Task 1: 
Aims: Practise listening and filling in the gaps.
- Introduce sts that they are going to listen to the tape about Cuc Phuong National Park and they have to fill in the gaps in each sentence given
1.Cuc Phuong NP was officially opened in.....
2.Cuc Phuong is located ............Hanoi.
3.In 2002,nearly............visited Cuc Phuong
4.There are.......different species of flora and......species of fauna.
5.Nguyen Hue’s army was stationed in Quyen Voi before it made its........on Thang Long.
- Ask sts to read the sentences in pairs and make sure that they understand them. Sts try to guess the missing information.
- Play the tape twice and ask sts to fill in the gaps. 
- Ask sts to compare their answer in pairs.
- Checks sts’ answer.
- Play the tape once again, stop the tape where necessary and conduct the correction.
+ Task 2 
Aims: Practise listening and Answering questions.
- Ask sts to listen to the tape again and answer the given questions. 
- Ask sts to read the questions to see if they understand them. 
- Play the tape once and ask sts note down the neccessary information.
- Ask sts to compare their answer in pairs.
- Check sts’ answer.
- Play the tape once again, stop the tape where necessary and conduct the correction.
4. After you listen:(8 mins)
- Ask sts to work in groups and use the information in Task 1 and 2 and the reading text to disscus the following problems:
 - Time founded
 - Area, location
 - Numbers of visitors
 - Historical event
 - Local people. 
-Move round to check the activities and to make sure that sts are working effectively.
- Ask one or two sts to present in front of the whole class.
- Check and give remarks.
5. Homework:(1 min)
Write a short paragraph about Cuc Phuong National Park
- Work in groups and discuss the questions.
- sts may answer these questions easily from information in reading lesson.
160 kms South West of Ha Noi
200 square kms