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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI UNIVERSITYENGLISH DEPARTMENT
GRADUATION THESIS
ONLINE LISTENING: AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO IMPROVE
LISTENING COMPREHENSION AMONG SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH
MAJORS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY
Student: Nguyen Thi Phuong Thu
Class: 6A-10
Supervisor: Tran Thi Trinh
Hue, M.A
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my sincere gratefulness to my
supervisor, Ms. Tran Thi Trinh Hue, lecturer of the
English Department, Hanoi University, for her thorough
guidance and support.
My deepest gratitude also goes to all the teachers of the
English Department, Hanoi University for their precious
remarks on choosing topic and orientation of the thesis.
My special thank to my beloved family, whose love, care
and support have substantially encouraged me to fulfill
this study.
I also want to express my tremendous appreciation to my
classmates in 6A10 for their wholehearted participation
in the pilot survey and constructive feedback.
Finally, I would like to extend my special thanks to all
English majors at Hanoi University, especially those in
the second year, for their enthusiastic cooperation in
taking part in the survey.
ABSTRACT
This study investigates the effectiveness of online
listening on improving listening comprehension for the
second- year English majors at Hanoi University.
Specifically, the study attempts to figure out the
students’ perception and attitude towards online
listening, some advantages brought by online listening,
the methods used by the students to practice online
listening as well as problems facing them when using the
Internet for their practice. The results show a positive
attitude and perception of the second year English majors
towards the effectiveness of online listening on their
listening comprehension competence. Further investigation
also reveals three different methods that the second-year
students of the English Department have employed on their
listening practice. In addition to certain benefits, the
Internet nevertheless causes some difficulties disturbing
the users.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT........................................ii
ABSTRACT..............................................iii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.................................1
1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY...........................1
1.2. AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS..........2
1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY................................2
1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY.........................3
1.5. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.........................3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW............................5
2.1. INTRODUCTION......................................5
2.2. LISTENING COMPREHENSION...........................5
2.2.1. The importance of listening...................5
2.2.2. What makes listening difficult................6
2.2.2.1. Sounds, intonation, stress and accents in
English..............................................6
2.2.2.2. Colloquial vocabulary....................8
2.2.2.3. Speed....................................8
2.2.2.4. Redundancy...............................9
2.2.2.5. Noise....................................9
2.2.2.6. Fatigue.................................10
2.2.2.7. Background knowledge....................10
2.2.3. Listening strategies.........................10
2.2.3.1. Making use of clues strategies..........11
2.2.3.2. Cognitive strategies....................11
2.2.3.3. Metacognitive strategies................12
2.2.3.4. Socio-affective strategies..............12
2.3. ONLINE LISTENING.................................13
2.3.1. Advantages of online listening...............13
2.3.2. Disadvantages of online listening............14
2.4. SUMMARY..........................................15
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY.................................16
3.1. INTRODUCTION.....................................16
3.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS RESTATED......................16
3.3. SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY............................16
3.4. INSTRUMENTATION..................................17
3.5. PROCEDURES.......................................18
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS....................19
4.1. INTRODUCTION.....................................19
4.2. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.........................19
4.2.1. Comparison of self-assessed listening
proficiency between students who use online listening
and who do not......................................19
4.2.2. Students’ perception and attitude towards online
listening...........................................20
4.2.3. The advantages of online listening from the
students’ perspective...............................23
4.2.4. Online listening strategies practiced by the
students............................................25
4.2.5. Problems facing students when practicing online
listening...........................................27
CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION..................29
5.1. SUGGESTIONS......................................29
5.2. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY.........................30
5.3. CONCLUSION.......................................30
REFERENCES.............................................32
APPENDIX 1..............................................35
APPENDIX 2.............................................41
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Language is a tool of communication for people all over
the world. As a matter of fact, English is now considered
the most common language as well as the official one in
almost every area in the world. In their co-authored
book, Broughton, Brumfit, Flavell, Hill and Pincas (n.d)
all agreed that none of the race, complexion and creed
could halt the ongoing spread of English usage. This
explains why English has become a compulsory subject in
the educational systems in many countries and a need of
almost everyone. Musumeci (1997) affirmed that: “Because
language is fundamentally a means of communication rather
than an academic discipline, it follows that there is no
reason to learn any language in which one does not need
to communicate”. In order to master a foreign language or
at least to acquire communicative competence, learners
are supposed to focus on the four main skills, namely
listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these
four skills, listening is often regarded as the
foundation in learning a language since “listening
comprehension plays a key role in facilitating in
language learning" (Vandergrift, 1999, p.168). Also, it
is the most frequently used skill as according to Gilman
and Moody (1984), as cited in Vandergrift (1999),
listening accounts for about 40-50% of our daily
communication while speaking, reading and writing
represent only 25-30%, 11-16% and 9% respectively. Yet,
the actual situation is beyond satisfaction. Students,
who are from non-English speaking countries, have very
few opportunities to hear real English, and therefore,
are frustrated and struggling against English listening.
Over the past several decades, listening comprehension
has attracted a great deal of attention from many
linguistic researchers and teachers. However, they
focused mostly on the theoretical methods which are
largely task-oriented and supposedly conducted only
within the classrooms; rather than exploring new sources
for students to make use of.
It can be easily seen that the impressive and ongoing
development computer science and technology has changed
our life dramatically. Indeed, almost all areas of our
life, say, economy, politics, culture, health and
especially education, have benefited from the internet.
Given that the internet is highly accessible to almost
everybody, particularly the youth; it can become the
future of teaching and learning. In terms of language
learning, the internet is exceptionally useful since
there are many activities for students to practice
English on the internet such as listening to news on
bbc.co.uk or cnn.com, watching movies, reading e-books or
chatting with foreigners on the internet. For the time
being, it seems that most English majors at Hanoi
University are spending a significant amount of time on
the internet for practicing their language skills. Thus,
a study on whether online listening is a way to improve
English listening comprehension among the students would
be of value.
1.2. AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study aims at:
Providing a literature review on listening
comprehension and online listening.
Investigating students’ views about the advantages of
the use of internet sources to practice English
listening.
Identifying their problems when using websites for
practicing listening.
Exploring their strategies of listening through
online sources.
The investigations attempt to answer these questions:
What are the students’ points of views about the
effectiveness of online listening to their listening
comprehension?
What are some advantages brought by the Internet in
terms of listening?
How particularly do they practice listening through
the internet sources?
What are the problems they have with online
listening?
1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
It should be clearly stated that this study aims at
neither a discovery of the whole process of teaching
listening skill nor developing thorough strategies for
effective listening. It focuses on the potential
effectiveness of online listening for listening
comprehension among the second year English majors.
The targeted subjects of the study are second year
students of English Department at Hanoi University who
are in the 4th semester of the language skills training.
Hopefully, this thesis will be a helpful reference for
them to look at so that they can make use of online
listening to improve their listening comprehension.
1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study is expected to benefit:
1. English Department: It is supposed to suggest the
department to apply online sources to teaching
English listening in particular and other skills
in general. Further programs and activities can be
developed as well.
2. Teachers: It helps teachers establish pedagogical
beliefs related to the effectiveness of employing
the internet in the teaching materials through
which teaching will be an intrusive linguistic
part of the students’ study.
3. Students: It exerts a pull on the students to join
a new way of learning. Their motivation and
readiness will be increased by making use of
online sources.
1.5. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
The study is composed of 4 main chapters, each of which
focuses on one particular issue:
Chapter 1 is the introduction to the study.
Chapter 2 deals with theoretical background
concerning the importance of listening, listening
comprehension difficulties, listening strategies and
the pros and cons of online listening.
Chapter 3 describes methods and procedures consisting
of research questions restated subjects,
instrumentation and process data collection and
analysis.
Chapter 4 addresses readers interested in findings of
the survey as well as discussions around these
findings. The four discussed sections include:
Comparison of self-assessed listening proficiency
between students who use online listening and who do
not; positive attitude of the students towards the
effectiveness of online listening; benefits of online
listening; their ways of listening through online
sources and their problems when using websites for
practicing listening.
Chapter 5 points out the limitation of the thesis and
provides suggestions along with conclusion.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter will review the literature on general
listening and online listening theories. The first
section provides basic theories about listening
comprehension in which the first part gives the
definition and the importance of listening in foreign
language acquisition and in real life. The second part
discusses some causes that make listening difficult.
Next, several factors affecting listening comprehension
is revised. The final part of the beginning section is
about strategies for successful listening comprehension.
After that, in another section, some basic ideas in terms
of online listening will be mentioned. Finally, the
closing section will summarize all points discussed in
the Literature review.
2.2. LISTENING COMPREHENSION
2.2.1. The importance of listening
Listening comprehension was defined as “a complex, active
process in which the listener must discriminate between
sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures,
interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered
in all of the above, and interpret it within the
immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of
the utterance” (Vandergrift, 1999, p.168). Simply
speaking, listening is more than just hearing or
realizing speech sounds. The importance of listening
skill in foreign language acquisition has been verified
in a number of studies and researches. First of all,
according to Anderson and Lynch (1988), people usually
underestimate listening and do not realize what amazing
accomplishment of listening we obtain until they are in
an unfamiliar listening environment like listening to a
new, different language. Second, naturally listening is
the initially developed language skill because it comes
before speaking, reading and writing (Coakley, 1988 as
cited in Hatab, 2010). As a matter of fact, a kid starts
speaking the very first words by listening to the adults
and imitating the sounds they heard. Similarly, as
Broughton et al, a student cannot be able to utter a
foreign sound or a natural sentence without letting him
hear it in the first place. Third, listening
comprehension is believed to be a crucial pre-reading
skill since to be an effective reader, a student needs to
be able to understand and recall information which was
orally delivered (Hatab, 2010). Likewise, Neville (1985),
as cited in Hatab (2010), conducted a survey and revealed
a strong correlation between listening and reading that
good listeners were usually good readers. Furthermore, as
claimed by Hatab (2010), good listeners are more likely
to become good speakers in general. A good listener is
more informed about the subject for he had listened to
many different people and learned accordingly, so he
would be in a much better position to speak and could
communicate effectively. In the same way, Maley (1998)
agreed that listening plays a key role in keeping
conversations going as good listeners know how to show
interest, attention and consideration encouraging
speakers to continue. Additionally, Hatab (2010) also
asserted that good listening comprehension can help
enhancing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
He stated: “When listening to a story, the students begin
to develop their own thoughts and ideas about the
situations presented in the story” (Helmen, 1997, as
cited in Hatab, 2010, p.2). Moreover, listening is deemed
to be a supplementary to accelerate grammar learning. In
short, listening comprehension is a “highly integrative
skill which plays an important role in the process of
language acquisition, facilitating the emergence of other
language skills” (Vandergrift, 1999).
2.2.2. What makes listening difficult
It is the fact that many students are afraid of listening
and having trouble improving listening skills. In
listening, there are a variety of factors that highly
affect the process of speech and that can obstruct
comprehension. The followings are the overview of some
main factors which are what makes listening difficult and
challenging.
2.2.2.1. Sounds, intonation, stress and accents in
English
It cannot be denied that in language learning, there are
various differences between the mother tongue and the
targeted language. Firstly, as pointed out by Penny Ur
(1984), students fail to perceive certain English sounds
because these do not exist in their own language. For
instance, the sound /dʒ/ as in ‘major’ does not exist in
Vietnamese, therefore, a native Vietnamese may not notice
the sound at first and just assimilate it to the
familiarly sounded one to him like /d/ of Vietnamese.
Moreover, English sound system contains long vowels and
short vowels, namely /ɪ/ versus /i:/, /ʊ/ versus /u/ or
/ə/ versus /ə:/ Consequently, it would take a significant
amount of practice before students can distinguish
between ‘sit’ and ‘seat’ or ‘foot’ and ‘food’ (Ur, 1984).
In addition, Chen (n.d) through his study found that
linking in English also causes trouble to the students;
they have difficulty making out individual sound in a
stream of sounds. Sometimes, students have problem with
the juxtapositions of sounds of English. As far as Ur
(1984) concerned, many foreign language learners have to
struggle against English consonant-clusters. “They may
get the consonants in the wrong order (hearing ‘parts’
for ‘past’), or omit one of the sounds (‘crips’ for
‘crisps’), or hear a vowel that is not in fact pronounced
(‘littel’ for ‘little’)” (Ur, 1984, p.12).
Another factor upsetting leaners is stress and intonation
since according to Rubin (1994), the English systems of
stress, intonation and rhythm can exert impacts on the
level of difficulty of listening comprehension. In
English, as in many other European languages, the
intonation may function as the only means of
distinguishing various types of sentences. However,
Vietnamese intonation is rarely used as a way to form
questions. As to stress, a specific word is often
stressed by being pronounced higher and stronger; “and
such things as certainty, doubt, irony, inquiry,
seriousness, humor, are implied by characteristic
intonation patterns as much as by choice of words” (Ur,
1984, p. 13). Thus it is apparently challenging for
foreign learners to grasp the meaning of utterances after
listening.
Last but not least, different accents are also a big
hindrance to the students’ listening comprehension. Ur
(1984) affirmed that the English which many learners will
have to hear and understand is likely to not be spoken
with a native accent at all. Obviously, given the fact
that English is now the official language in the world,
we will definitely need to work, interact and communicate
with many non-native English people whose accents vary a
great deal. Hence, it is believed that language learners
who have been listening to and understanding a variety of
different accents have more chances to be able to
successfully deal with further ones than those who are
less experienced.
2.2.2.2. Colloquial vocabulary
Vocabulary is evidently one of the most important parts
in language acquisition and therefore becomes a
distressing problem for the learners. In her book, Ur
(1984) argued that “much of the vocabulary used in
colloquial speech may already be known to the foreign
listeners; but this does not mean that he is familiar
with it” (p.17). She found that a learner may not be able
to recognize words he has learnt but is not yet
adequately accustomed to differentiating them in a fast
stream of speech. When students learn a new word, they
tend to focus on what it looks like and how it sounds
like when clearly pronounced and ignore the way it sounds
when said quickly, in a long sentence or combined with
other words. As a result, when the newly learnt word is
pronounced differently in different context, the listener
may fail to realize it (Ur, 1984). Additionally,
colloquial collocations are another disturbance facing
foreign language learners. Colloquial collocations are
“certain pairs or groups of words which tend to occur
together and become so merged that both speaker and
(native) listener relate to them as a single item” (Ur,
1984, p.19). For example, we often see such combinations
as ‘can’t’, ‘we’re’, ‘gonna’, ‘they’re’…Such phenomena
may cause bothers to and takes listeners quite a long
time to get used to.
2.2.2.3. Speed
As a matter of fact, language leaners initially suppose
that native people speak too fast and often feel burdened
with incoming information. The inability, as opposed to
reading comprehension, to control how quickly a speaker
speaks seems to be one of the main problems of the
listener. By reviewing some experiments of previous
researchers, Rubin (1994) indicated that speech rate
considerably affects listening comprehension among
listeners. Chen (n.d) also drew conclusion from his study
that students’ failure of listening comprehension is due
to the speed of the input. It can be emphasized that
speed poses a barrier to foreign language learners,
particularly in listening process.
2.2.2.4. Redundancy
When practice listening, it is easy for listeners to get
distractions from redundancy. Redundancy here refers to a
psychological problem of foreign language learners who
have “a kind of compulsion to understand everything, even
things that are totally unimportant, and are disturbed,
discouraged and even completely thrown off balance if
they come across an incomprehensive word” (Ur, 1984,
p.14). It is impossible for a listener to profit from
such redundancy. They are not aware that not every
sentence, phrase or expression contains important
information and that there is extra time available for
comprehending. As mentioned by Ur (1984), a listener who
tries to grasp every single word will be adversely
affected because he is disappointed and daunted by his
comprehension failure when the fact is he actually has or
could have taken in quite sufficient information; or even
if he does figure out every single word he has heard, he
may find it counterproductive. Ur (1984) emphasized the
harmful consequence of redundancy by showing that the
student who concentrates too much on understanding such
unnecessary words and phrases is “not taking advantage of
a natural rest or break in the stream of significant
information in order to ready himself for what is coming
next, nor is he sorting out significant form
insignificant content as he goes along” (Ur, 1984, p.15).
A capable listener needs to get over this psychological
problem to make use of such redundancy to absorb truly
important and essential information required.
2.2.2.5. Noise
In foreign language listening, there are a number of
speeches and talks that turn into inaudible and
inapprehensible to the listeners. As concerns, they are
putting up with meaningless noise. As theorized by Ur
(1984), the learners would find these interferences and
meddling much tougher and more challenging to catch on
the conveyed messages since their degree of understanding
is slower than that of the natives and press for more
effort and attempt. You are extremely focused and trying
to take in as much as you could what the speaker is
saying, but a sudden shrilling ringtone or even a
slightly creaky door could make you frustrated and lose
the track of the talk. Accordingly, “with these
incomprehensible noise bits, the learner listeners often
feel they are failing and get worried and stressed”
(Hatab, 2010).
2.2.2.6. Fatigue
It is a common knowledge that learning a foreign language
is so tiring and arduous and trying to perceive, identify
and differentiating unfamiliar sounds, syntactical and
lexical meanings is understandably nerve-racking. In
listening, the learners are dependent on the time of
talks or the speakers. They simply cannot take a short
break even when tired or worn-out until the speech ends.
The influence of fatigue on listening capacity cannot be
taken lightly. Ur (1984) asserted that in an extended
listening task, listeners’ ability to absorb information
is much better and more efficient at the beginning and
gets increasingly poorer as they go on. Likewise, in his
study, Chen (n.d) disclosed that “some learners mentioned
fatigue as one of the causes in the malfunction of spoken
word processing” (p.13). Even though fatigue is an
objective and unavoidable factor, it still decreases the
learners’ listening comprehension productivity to some
extents.
2.2.2.7. Background knowledge
Anyone who has learnt a foreign language gets to agree
that background problems are certainly barriers
dispiriting leaners. In two different languages there are
undeniably big gaps in terms of cultures, beliefs, rules,
norms and so on. According to Anderson & Lynch (1988),
background knowledge is vital to the way learners
understand a language. The two researchers noted that:
“It is often the absence or incompleteness of such
information that results in the sort of non-comprehension
that the foreign listener experiences: where it is the
lack of shared schematic or contextual information that
makes comprehension difficult or impossible” (p.37).
This, therefore, waives an urge for all foreign language
learners to gain as much as background knowledge as
possible so as to facilitate their studying.
2.2.3. Listening strategies
As mentioned above, listening comprehension is proved to
be vitally important in foreign language acquisition.
Nevertheless, listening activities are often
underestimated in general training and this is a shame,
for in our mother tongue listening takes the biggest
amount of our time compared to any others (Cunningsworth,
1984). Hence, it is crucial for every learner to employ
specific strategies to improve their listening skills
because, as stated by Vandergrift (1999), “listening
comprehension is anything but a passive activity”
(p.168).
2.2.3.1. Making use of clues strategies
While listening, if the listeners can make a guess of
what is going to be said next, they will be much more
likely to perceive it and understand it because Hatab
(2010) acknowledged that this kind of strategy can help
listeners tackle problems when they missed out on
something or they cannot capture all the words. It is
advisable to use linguistic clues like word order or word
stress which can be of much help when listeners get to
hear confused pronunciation (Hatab, 2010). Besides,
utilizing other clues is encouraging too. Being aware of
the topic is said to help listeners to guess the meaning
of new words and phrases. Also, keeping track of
background noise is a good idea because from which
listeners can predict the general circumstance and work
out what is going on (Hatab, 2010). Moreover, relating to
background knowledge associated with the culture, the
topic and the world is considered helpful to listeners
(Brown, 1990 as cited in Hatab, 2010).
2.2.3.2. Cognitive strategies
Based on the results of two studies, Bacon (1992) and
O’Malley (1989), cognitive strategies are the most widely
used by language learners (as cited in Hatab, 2010).
Cognitive strategies include two categories called top-
down and bottom-up strategies. With regard to bottom-up
strategy, which is a text-based method, listener relies
on the language in the message, that is, the combination
of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning
(Maley, 1998). Bartoš (2008) listed some bottom-up
skills including: discriminating between intonation
contours in sentence, discriminating between phonemes,
listening for word endings, recognizing syllable
patterns, recognizing words, discriminating between word
boundaries, differentiating between content and function
words by stress pattern, etc. Pertaining to top-down
strategy, which is listener-based with more abstract
clues, listeners involve background knowledge of the
topic, the context, the setting and the language they are
working with. This background knowledge initiates a set
of expectations that help the listeners interpret what is
heard and foresee what will come next (Maley, 1998). A
set of top-down skills itemized by Bartoš (2008) are:
getting the gist, identifying the speakers, evaluating
themes, finding the main ideas and supporting details,
making inferences, discriminating between emotions, etc.
According to Bacon (1992) as cited in (Hatab, 2010),
those who prefer bottom-up method usually attempt to
understand a difficult speech, whereas people use top-
down strategy for a less complicated one.
2.2.3.3. Metacognitive strategies
Vandergrift (1999) specified that “metacognitive
strategies are important because they oversee, regulate
or direct the learning process” (p.170). Metacognitive
strategies include planning, monitoring and evaluating
(Vandergrift, 1999). Planning means setting a purpose for
listening, which helps listeners to be well-prepared
before the task. In terms of monitoring, it is essential
for listeners to be self-conscious about any errors or
inaccuracy while listening so that they can be able to
monitor their comprehension (Hatab, 2010). Having
finished the listening process, many listeners evaluate
their whole comprehension progress. It seems that
successful listeners are more rational in assessing their
own comprehension capacity, while less successful ones
have a tendency to demonstrate a false level of
confidence (Hatab, 2010).
2.2.3.4. Socio-affective strategies
Socio-affective strategies were explained by Vandergrift
(1999) as a kind of “learning that happens when language
learners co-operate with classmates, question teachers
for clarification, or apply specific techniques to lower
their anxiety level” (p.170). Indeed, socio-affective
strategies strongly consider the student's relation to
society as a whole. (Hatab, 2010) claimed that the socio-
affective strategies can help listeners handle their
feelings, emotions, attitudes and beliefs. Some socio-
affective strategies like asking open questions are
automatically integrated in activities such as
discussions relevant to role plays. These social
strategies result in increased interaction between
learners, partners and instructors. Thus, socio-affective
strategies are an important tool for language acquisition
process since a positive affective environment helps
learning a great deal in general.
2.3. ONLINE LISTENING
We are living in the era of digital media. Young people
are permanently connected by technologies. Students
nowadays are constantly involved in online chatting,
blogging, computer gaming, MP3 players, text messaging,
mobile phones, and Internet surfing for many of their
information and social needs. With its enormous diversity
of information and its comprehensive coverage of almost
every imaginable subject, the Internet is the ideal tool
for education and training in general. When studying and
learning a foreign language, it is important not only to
speak the language but also to understand the authentic
spoken form of the language. However, there is not always
a chance to meet and communicate with native speakers in
order to practice speaking and listening. What might help
in such a situation is the employment of online sources.
There are literally thousands of educational materials
available on the Internet for students who may download
and listen to them or incorporate them into their lessons
and lesson plans
2.3.1. Advantages of online listening
The advantages of the World Wide Web to the language
learners are unquestionably enormous. First of all, it is
extremely convenient thanks to its high accessibility
from any internet-connected device. Thereby, students can
listen to audio files, podcast, e-news, etc. wherever and
whenever they want (Barr, 2004). Ellis (1982) also
confirmed that language acquisition methods need to make
sure that learners have freedom to explore their own
learning route. The second benefit offered by the
internet is the huge amount of up-to-date information,
sources and materials (Barr, 2004). Unlike traditional
textbook-based learning, language materials on the
internet can be updated periodically. Thirdly, by
adopting this approach, learners become more active and
dynamic in the knowledge and skill building process
(Barr, 2004). Online sources can encourage listening for
pleasure because they are likely to contain topics of
interests to learners. In addition, the internet provides
leaners with real, genuine English. According to Rixon
(1986), “authentic listening materials consist of speech
recorded in real situations, often without the speakers’
knowledge at the time, so that the students are
encountering a totally natural ‘slice of life’” (p. 13).
Real, authentic and natural English is exactly what
foreign language learners are lacking of and craving for.
They want to listen to native voices with correct
pronunciation, intonation and accents because it is the
best way to learn a language. With the massive explosion
of the World Wide Web, it is apparently easy to have
access to a number of websites which offer genuine native
English materials, namely www.bbc.co.uk, www.cnn.com,
www.effortlessenglishclub.com, etc. Last but not least,
internet usage is considered comparatively cheap.
Warschauer, Shetzer and Meloni (2000) confirmed in their
book that “the internet is a low-cost method of making
language learning meaningful” (p.7). As a matter of fact,
most of the materials available on the Internet, for
example podcasts are for free and the cost for an
internet package is affordable to almost all families and
users. To sum up, the resources that the internet
provides and the access to reach language materials are
of big support and value to the foreign language
acquisition (Barr, 2004).
2.3.2. Disadvantages of online listening
In spite of many advantages, the World Wide Web
undeniably has certain limitations and shortcomings. The
first disadvantage that should be mentioned is the
information store is so incredibly immense that users
have to spend considerable time searching for desired
materials, which causes deterrence among learners (Barr,
2004). Also, the quality of materials is hard to be
examined and evaluated as the Web is not yet controlled
by a regulatory authority, so users may feel confused and
it takes time for them to sort out what works (Barr,
2004). Furthermore, there are also some technical
problems with the internet. According to Barr (2004), low
data transmission speed or server outage is really
troublesome because it means downloading audio files,
video clips or podcasts can be slow and time-consuming,
challenging learners’ patience. Another problem facing
students who want to get genuine materials on the
internet is that “authentic speech is often too difficult
for students at lower levels to understand except in a
very superficial way” (Rixon, 1986, p.14). Besides, many
authentic talks are too lengthy, long-winded and
incoherent due to the fact that speakers in the real
world would like saying what they want and might deviate
from their main points (Rixon, 1986). Finally, it cannot
be denied that online listening does not enable
interaction (Bartoš, 2008). As Bartoš (2008) concerned,
listening to online sources is rather an asynchronous
practice which makes it unfeasible for learners to ask
questions, require clarification, call for help and
interact with others.
2.4. SUMMARY
In conclusion, listening comprehension has great
importance in foreign language learning in that it
provides aural inputs which serve as the basis for
language acquisition and empowers leaners to interact in
spoken communication. Online listening is one of the most
effective ways nowadays for learners to practice and
improve their listening skills. Although many problems
and errors may arise while using the internet, the
benefits brought by the World Wide Web are valuable. As a
result, it is worth utilizing this kind of technology
advancement to efficiently and effectively enhance your
language capacity.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents a quantitative method of assessment
applied to figure out whether or not second-year students
of English Department, Hanoi University are effectively
employing online listening in English learning. The
instrumentation of survey is applied. The aim of the
quantitative survey is to explore students’ attitude and
perception of online listening’s effectiveness as well as
to match their listening proficiency with their habits of
listening online. An analysis of interviews helps bring
insights into students’ ways of practicing listening by
using the internet.
3.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS RESTATED
The aim of this thesis is to find out if online listening
is a good way for students of the English Department at
Hanoi University to practice and improve their listening
comprehension. The study was conducted to give the
answers to four research questions:
1. What are the students’ points of views about the
effectiveness of online listening to their listening
comprehension?
2. What are some advantages brought by the Internet in
terms of listening?
3. How particularly do they practice listening through
the internet sources?
4. What are the difficulties they have with online
listening?
3.3. SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY
The participants of this study were 50 English major
second year students selected on a random basis from 12
classes in English Department, Hanoi University. The
students have acquired a certain amount of experience in
applying different listening techniques after three terms
of English listening training and practice. From these
facts, it can be inferred that second-year students in
English Department have obtained considerable knowledge
as well as language listening skills. However, they are
still facing problems and struggling against listening
comprehension. Since the Internet is highly popular among
students and it can be seen that many of them have
adopted online listening as a way of practicing, these
students are the most suitable subjects for the survey.
3.4. INSTRUMENTATION
In order to collect necessary data, the survey method was
adopted in which a survey questionnaire was the
instrument. A survey design presents a quantitative or
numeric portrayal of trends, attitudes or opinions of a
population by studying a sample of that population
(Creswell, 2003). Questionnaire was chosen to elicit
information from the subjects because it is a good way to
gather many different kinds of information, which is
quick and low cost compared to observation and
experimental method (Research Methodology, n.d). Before
the main questionnaire was delivered to the students, a
pilot survey on a small sample of 10 students was carried
out with the aim to detect any flaws in the questions
that need amendments to maximize the response rate and
minimize the error rate on answer as well as to improve
the format and scale of the questionnaire (Creswell,
2003). The questionnaire begins with an introductory
remark in which the author’s name, the nature and purpose
of the survey and the confidentiality of the data are
clearly informed. There are four parts in the
questionnaire. Part one consists of six individual
questions aiming to examine students’ point of view
towards online listening and its effectiveness in their
listening comprehension practice and improvement.
Information about students’ time spent on using online
listening on a weekly basis as well as how long they have
been employing online listening is required (question 2-
3). Next, students are asked to rate their perception of
how motivated they are by online listening and how
effective they find it to their listening comprehension
(question 4-5). Particularly, they are required to state
some advantages of online listening by selecting multiple
choices. In part 2, there is one question designed to
identify some of the difficulties encountered by the
students when practicing online listening. Part 3 with
question numbered 8 focuses on discovering students’
methods and strategies for online listening. There are
three options involved in this question which are the 3
common strategies for foreign language listening.
Finally, part 4 contains a self-assessment of foreign
listening proficiency with the intention of comparing
listening comprehension competence of students who use
online listening and who do not. The nature of this self-
evaluation inventory will be specified further in the
findings and discussions section.
3.5. PROCEDURES
In order for the result to be objective, able to minimize
bias and fully represent the population, random sampling
is guaranteed in the study so that all second-year
students of English Department have an equal chance of
being selected (Creswell, 2003). 55 copies of the
questionnaire were handed out randomly and the number of
returns is 50. The respondents were given 30 minutes to
consider and answer all the questions. On each copy of
the questionnaire, there is a clear introduction to the
purpose and a simple instruction about how to respond to
questions, therefore, no other verbal explanation was
given out. The answers collected from the questionnaires
are coded and demonstrated in charts by Excel for better
analysis. The sample questionnaire is available in the
Appendix 1 at the end of the thesis.
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter delivers the descriptive analysis of the
qualitative data obtained from the questionnaire with
reference to some relevant published work, which zooms in
on second year students at English Department, Hanoi
University. It presents the degree to which the students
perceive and evaluate the effectiveness of online
listening for their listening comprehension. In addition,
it sheds light on some specific advantages brought by the
Internet to the listening process of the students. Next,
it aims to provide a closer look into how the students
practice listening with online tools. Finally, some
problems confronting the students when using online
listening are also discovered and presented. From this
analysis of findings, suggestions will be put forward in
the final chapter.
4.2. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.2.1. Comparison of self-assessed listening proficiency
between students who use online listening and who do not
The number of
respondents who do
not use online
listening
The number of students
who use online listening
L1L1+ 2L2 3 11L3 17L4 17L5
Table 1: Distribution of students’ self-assessment listening proficiency
This comparison is successfully conducted thanks to the
self-evaluation inventory archived from Self-assessment
of Foreign language Listening Proficiency (n.d). There
are five levels ranging from the lowest L1 (the ability
to understand everyday conversation with clearness and
slow speed) to the highest L5 (the comprehension is fully
equivalent to that of a well-educated native listener).
Participants are required to start at the lowest level
and respond to each statement with “yes” or “no”. If a
statement describes one’s ability only some of the time,
or only in some contexts, the answer should be “no”. By
contrast, if he or she answers “yes” to every description
in the level, his or her ability is probably at least at
that level. Moving on to the next level, if the
participant responds “no” to one or more statements, then
he or she is likely not at that level. If he or she has
“yes” to all the descriptions at one level and gets
majority of “yes” at the next higher level, he or she may
be at a “plus” level. For example, if one answers “yes”
to all the statements at level 1 but has a mixture of
responses at level 2, his or her self-assessed ability
may be at level 1+.
The survey reveals that there are 45 out of 50
respondents have been applying online listening on their
study. First of all, let’s have a look at the five
participants who do not adopt online listening. Their
results shows that two of them are at L1+ and the others
are at L2 which describes the ability to understand
speeches with standard dialect at a normal rate such as
stories, announcements, or descriptions of different
places. On the contrary, among 45 online listening users,
11 of them are at L2, 17 are at L3 and the rest are at
L4. L3 refers to the capacity to follow all conversations
of native speakers at a normal rate and infer the
meanings that are not directly stated like concepts,
discussions and proposals as well as detect the feelings
and attitudes of a speaker. L4 denotes the ability to
understand almost all professional speeches that involve
extensive vocabulary, non-standard dialects and unclear
meanings and implications like in meetings, seminars or
conferences.
It can be concluded that the self-assessed listening
proficiency of online listening users is generally higher
than that of those who do not employ the Internet
materials. Hence, it is possible to infer that online
listening has certain effects on listening comprehension
competence of the second year English major at Hanoi
University, though these self-assessments are truly
subjective and there are definitely many other factors
affecting students’ real listening proficiency.
4.2.2. Students’ perception and attitude towards online
listening
motivated62%
slightly motivated
24%
highly motivate
d7%
not motivated7%
Levels of motivation (%)
Figure1
effective slightly effective
very effective
not effective
01020304050607080
66.7
28.9
4.4 0
Levels of effectiveness (%)
Figure 2
The pie chart represents information on how motivated
second year English majors feel by online listening. It
should be pointed out that among 50 respondents of the
survey, 45 students, which accounts for 90%, use online
listening to practice English listening comprehension. As
can be seen from the chart, 62% of these 45 respondents
claim that they are motivated by online listening.
Noticeably, 7% of them even feel highly motivated by the
Internet sources.
The bar chart shows the effectiveness of online listening
on listening comprehension improvement assessed by the
sampled English majors. It can be easily seen from figure
2 that the majority of the students find online listening
effective and helpful to their listening comprehension
progress. It is noteworthy none of the respondents oppose
online listening by choosing ‘not effective’.
The results conveyed by these two figures show a
consistency in a way that students who are motivated or
highly motivated by online listening are more likely to
find Internet sources effective or very effective to
their listening skills. This finding seems to go in line
with McDonough’s point of view (1981): motivation is the
basic and critical ingredient of successful foreign
language acquisition. Motivation is defined as a push
for: “why people decide to do something, how hard they
are going to pursue it and how long they are willing to
sustain activity” (Dornyei, as cited in Oxbrow & Juarez,
n.d). The motivational levels of the respondents can be
proved by the result from the questionnaire that there
are 42% of them practice online listening 4-5 days per
week and 29% follow the practice on a daily basis. In
addition, the survey reveals that 20% of the subjects
have been using online listening for more than two years
and 37% of them have employed the Internet for listening
practice for more than one year. Thus, it can be inferred
that the second year English majors have been adopting
online listening for the reason that they feel motivated
because as the higher the level of motivation, the harder
the learners will work and the longer they will persist
(McDonough, 1981). More importantly, according to Oxbrow
& Juarez (n.d), internally driven motivation plays a key
role in increasing and reinforcing learners’ autonomy.
Autonomy is described as “the capacity to take control of
one’s own learning” (Benson, 2001, p.47, as cited in
Okazaki, 2011), and learner’s autonomy is supposedly
associated with “greater student interest, sense of
competence, self-esteem, creativity, conceptual learning
and preference for challenge” (Woolfolk, 1998, p.414).
Understandably, when learners’ autonomy is developed
thanks to their high level of motivation, they will find
the learning process much more efficient and improved. In
conclusion, the second year English majors display a
positive perception and attitude towards the use of the
World Wide Web for practicing listening skill.
4.2.3. The advantages of online listening from the
students’ perspective
04080 93 87 64 38
Advantages of online listening (%)
Figure 3
Figure 3 illustrates some advantages of online listening
viewed by the second year English students at Hanoi
University. As shown by the chart, almost all students
(93%) find online listening highly convenient. Students
can download a wide variety of audio files from the
internet and store them in their mobile phones so that
they can listen to these files anytime, anywhere they
want, which is apparently much more time-saving in
comparison with sticking to radio cassette in some
listening classes or in libraries. For example, podcast
is a new technology for delivering audio files to
listeners over the Internet which has become more and
more popular among foreign language learners. Bartoš
(2008) advocated that podcast is very portable and always
available with 24-hour-access to materials since owing to
mobile phones and MP3 players, students can listen to the
podcast wherever and whenever they want.
The second biggest proportion belongs to the benefit of
authenticity. 87% of respondents choose online listening
because they have opportunities to listen to real English
from native speakers. When studying and learning second
or foreign language, it is important not only to speak
the language but also to understand the authentic spoken
form of the language. However, there is not always a
chance to meet and communicate with native speakers in
order to practice speaking and listening. By utilizing
the World Wide Web, students get exposure to native
accents, tones, voices and actual expression and feel
more confident and assured that they are using good
linguistic materials. As asserted by Rixon (1986),
listening to real, authentic English makes students more
interested, satisfied and inspired if they are capable of
understanding what these genuine speakers are talking
about. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Byrne (1986) insisted
that: “authentic materials are best used where the
learners themselves are likely to appreciate them and
accept them in spite of difficulties” (p.20).
Subsequent to authenticity is the advantage of diverse
and up-to-date topics, which makes up 64%. As perceived
by the respondents, the Internet offers a huge amount of
information and resources which cover every area and
aspect in life; therefore they can be able to gain more
knowledge and enrich their vocabulary a great deal.
According to Warschauer, Shetzer and Meloni (2000), there
are now tens of millions of pages on the Web, bringing
together news, reports, advertisements, audio files, and
every other kind of information known to humankind. In
terms of online listening sources, there are thousands of
podcasts available on the Internet that are of various
styles, topic and levels waiting to be exploited (Bartoš,
2008).
Along with the three above benefits, empowerment exists
with a relatively considerable percentage. It is reported
from the survey that many students have become more
active and willing to practice listening since they
started using the Internet materials. This finding is in
agreement with several studies. Sharma & Barrett (2007)
affirmed that employing the Internet materials can form
good practices of learner’s autonomy. Likewise,
Warschauer, Shetzer and Meloni (2000) agreed that the
Internet facilitates students to become autonomous
learners who can obtain what they need and cooperate with
others to build new knowledge. Regarding the benefit of
podcast-the currently widespread listening tool, Foster,
Larmore and Havemann (2008) stated that: “podcasting is
an exciting and novel means for students to take a more
active role in their own learning experience” (p.3)
4.2.4. Online listening strategies practiced by the
students
55.628.9
15.5
Methods (%)
extensive listeningrepeated listeningnote-taking
Figure 4
Figure 4 demonstrates three different online listening
strategies that the second year English majors are
pursuing. From the chart, it is clear that extensive
listening is ranked the top strategy with 55.6% of
respondents’ choices. It is possible to infer that
virtually most of the students believe that extensive
listening is very helpful for their listening
comprehension skills. Extensive listening is listening to
several different recordings on the same topic for a
stretch of time (Aarongmyers, 2012). As cited in Ucán
(2010), a research on extensive listening in 6 university
classes was conducted by Yonezawa and Ware (2008). The
results showed that students who exposed to extensive
listening scored higher in the listening tests and
reported their English improved. Furthermore, according
to Renandya (2012), extensive listening produces plenty
of benefits to foreign language learners namely:
improving learners’ ability to handle ordinary speech
rate, developing their word recognition skill, increasing
their bottom-up listening skills and offering students
many opportunities to involve in a deeper degree of
language comprehension.
28.9% of the students take advantage of repeated
listening while practicing online listening. Krashen
(1996) defined repeated listening as the method of
listening to one audio for a certain time (as cited in
Extensive or Repeated listening? A comparison of their
effects on the use of listening strategies, n.d). Brown
(n.d) carried out a study on repeated listening in which
98 college students of English viewed 5 videos and
evaluated their comprehension of each video after the
first and second viewing. The finding disclosed that the
participants regarded the second viewing as useful since
their self-assessed comprehension was better after the
second exposure. Krashen (1996) argued that repeated
listening will be exceptionally beneficial to second
language foreign language learners who find normal
conversation and speech too difficult to understand (as
cited in Extensive or Repeated listening? A comparison of
their effects on the use of listening strategies, n.d).
The third online listening strategy called note-taking is
reported to be adopted by a relative proportion of the
respondents. Even though note-taking seems not as popular
among the second year English majors as the two methods
techniques above, it has been proved to be quite
effective for listening comprehension. Hayati and
Jalilifar (2009) conducted a study on the relationship
between note-taking and students’ listening comprehension
with the subjects of 60 undergraduates majoring in
English. The results revealed that note-taking strategy
has positive effects on listening comprehension
performance of the participants. Besides, Lin (2005)
proved that note-taking is an effective way for students
to enhance their concentration on the content of the
targeted speech, therefore their listening comprehension
is facilitated (as cited in Shang and Ko, 2007). In
addition, Carrier (2003) investigated that note-taking
helps students recall the content of the listening
easier, which evidently boosts their comprehension
ability (as cited in Shang and Ko, 2007).
4.2.5. Problems facing students when practicing online
listening
03060
48.9 71.1 8033.3
Problems (%)
Figure 5
The bar chart shows some difficulties facing the second
year English major at Hanoi University when practicing
online listening. As can be noted from the chart, the
students do have to cope with some problems using online
listening. Personal limitations such as having a lot of
plans to do or not having a computer or laptop are
recorded to be the top hurdle preventing the students
from frequent practice. This finding corresponds to the
study result of Lin, Winaitham and Saitakham (n.d) which
indicates that the students lose many chances to practice
listening online due to their own constraints.
Standing right after personal limitations is distraction
which constitutes 71.1% of respondents. The questionnaire
figures out that it is easy for the students to get
distracted by other web pages like facebook,
advertisements, etc. Schwartz (2013) accepted that
digital learning tools like provides favorable
opportunities to learners but also can be distracting to
them. Also, Stenger (2014) noted that: “students often
use the digital tools at their disposal to waste time or
procrastinate, rather than get things done more
efficiently” (p.2). With the booming of social networks
and entertainments, it is understandably hard for the
youngsters to stay focused while using the Internet.
Another obstacle that the students have to deal with is
technical problems. They complain that sometimes the
Internet connection speed is slow and procedures to
download audio files are very complicated, which dampens
the students’ spirits to practice listening. The same
problem was found out in Lin, Winaitham and Saitakham’s
research (n.d) that students find using websites quite
complicated and time-consuming and feel like giving up.
The final difficulty challenging the second year English
students is their own knowledge and ability. Through the
questionnaire, they confessed that they find native
voices are difficult to understand, the audio speed is
too fast for them to catch up with, there are many new
words, phrases and idioms they do not know. This is in
accordance with Lin, Winaitham and Saitakham’s discovery
(n.d) in which they found that the some students did not
think online listening can help improve their listening
comprehension because they have little background
knowledge, poor vocabulary and limited ability. As
explained by Woolfolk (1998), ability is one of the most
powerful factors influencing students’ motivation to
learn and performance. Besides, in order to be active and
determined in learning, students need knowledge about the
subject, the task and the contexts of their learning
Woolfolk (1998). As proved by numerous studies and
research, background knowledge, vocabulary and ability
are foundations in foreign language acquisition;
therefore, students having disadvantages in these three
determinants are unsurprisingly encountering troubles
listening to authentic materials on the Internet. This
result is really worrying since it is directly related to
students’ knowledge and ability and they are feeling
discouraged by their own shortcomings. The point is they
should be patient and start practicing with easy, low
level materials and gradually move on so that they will
be progressively improved since “listening is essentially
an active process” (Byrne, 1986, p.13).
CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION
5.1. SUGGESTIONS
In a view of second-year English majors’ desire to
conquer listening apprehension and develop listening
skills as well as to make use of online listening in
practice, there are some suggestions that should be taken
into consideration in order to improve students’
performance.
Since the important point is not how students are graded
in the exams but how skillful and competent they are when
it comes to practical reality, students are advised to
study not for the sake of gaining high marks but for
reinforcing their listening skills particularly. The
following recommendations may guide students for good:
1. Believe in the importance of enhancing listening
comprehension skill.
2. Have trust in the significance of training and
practicing rather than be traditional students who
are always fixed in the class.
3. Activate English usage inside and outside the class.
4. Seek opportunities to be in contact with native
people.
5. Explore internet websites where authentic materials
can be easily found.
In terms of practicing online listening, there are also
some suggestions that can work effectively on the
students. For those who are frustrated with their limited
knowledge and ability, they had better try practice in
small group where they can support or consult each other
when having problems because “co-operative groups are
usually faster than individuals at solving problems”
(McDonough, 1981, p.92). Besides, since authentic
recordings from native speakers comprise of various
factors (dialects, intonation, accents, tones…) making it
more challenging to listeners, it is sensible for
students to start with something basic and easy first to
get them familiar with real spoken English. This method
helps them gain confidence and encouragement because they
can feel their own progress by gradually leveling up the
complicatedness of listening inputs. Moreover, given the
fact that the World Wide Web is a huge store of
information, students should make use of it by trying
different topics in order to gain more background
knowledge and vocabulary. The use of current events is
very effective in increasing students’ interest and
curiosity. In addition, it should be noted that
practicing listening comprehension does not always mean
listening to all formal speeches and talks. In fact,
students should watch their favorite movies or videos as
synchronous process of learning and entertaining which is
purportedly productive. Finally, as a matter of fact,
podcast is very popular and fashionable nowadays because
of its high convenience and diversity; therefore, it is
highly recommended for students who want to practice
online listening to use this tool.
Also, there are a range of useful websites I would like
to recommend to the students. They are attached in the
appendixes of this paper for easy reference making.
5.2. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Despite the attempts to optimize the objectivity and the
meaningfulness of this study, several drawbacks still
exist due to limited time, resources as well as knowledge
and experience. With regard to the questionnaire, for
instance, the number of questions exploring students’
perception and attitude towards the usefulness of online
listening to their listening skill improvement are rather
small; therefore, related inferences might be
compromised. Additionally, choosing only one
instrumentation of questionnaire is not enough for this
study. Instead, a set of pre-tests and post-tests on the
respondents’ listening comprehension before and after
they are given exposure to online listening for a certain
period of time should have been designed so that the
effectiveness of online listening on their listening
comprehension development could be more exactly measured.
Furthermore, it should be noted that this study examined
only 50 second year students of English Department at
Hanoi University; hence, the results might not be
appropriate in some extents.
It is hoped that readers could understand and tolerate
the shortcomings of this paper, and further studies will
be conducted in the future to investigate the subject
matter more thoroughly.
5.3. CONCLUSION
This study is conducted to examine whether online
listening is an effective way to help improve listening
comprehension among the second year students of English
Department, Hanoi University. In attempt to attain
relevant information, a survey with a qualitative
questionnaire was carried out.
On the whole, this graduation thesis has provided three
findings concerning the use of online listening among
second year students majoring in English at Hanoi
University. First, this study acknowledges positive
attitude and perception of the second year English majors
towards the effectiveness and efficiency of online
listening on their listening comprehension competence.
Specifically, some benefits of online listening perceived
by the students are listed and analyzed in detail. Next,
it is reported that three online listening strategies
including extensive listening, repeated listening and
note-taking are being practiced by the students in which
the majority of students choose extensive listening for
their self-training. Last but not least, in the light of
this paper, there are four main difficulties confronting
the students when listening to the online materials,
namely: technical problems, personal limitations,
distraction and students’ knowledge and ability among
which personal limitations are the most common hindrance.
I do hope that, with my graduation paper, English major
students at Hanoi University will realize the usefulness
of the Internet materials and pay more attention to
online listening and use it as an effective tool to
enhance their listening comprehension in particular as
well as other language skills in general. Also, it is
expected that this study will be a helpful reference for
the following generation at Hanoi University in their
search for documents related to this issue.
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APPENDIX 1
QUESTIONNAIRE
Online listening: a way to improve listening
comprehension among second year English majors at Hanoi
University
Dear students,
I am Nguyen Thi Phuong Thu from class 6a-10, English Department at Hanoi
University. I am doing the graduation thesis on online listening in order to
discover whether online listening is an effective way to improve listening
comprehension among the second year English majors at Hanoi University.
This questionnaire consists of questions about the attitude of students
towards online listening, their ways to apply online listening to practice, some
problems related to online listening facing the students and a self-assessment
of listening proficiency. Please, take some time to answer these questions. All
information related to this questionnaire is used only for my thesis and will be
kept confidentially without any other purposes.
Thank you for your cooperation!
1. Do you use online listening to practice listening?
a. Yes b. No
If “yes”, please continue the questionnaire
If “no”, please take question 9 only
2. How many days per week do you listen online?
a. Everyday c. 2-3 days
b. 4-5 days d. <2 days
3. How long have you been using online listening?
a. <3 months b. 3-6 months
c. 6-12 months d. 1-2 years
e. >2 years
4. Do you feel motivated to practice listening by
online sources?
a. highly motivated c. slightly motivated
b. motivated d. not motivated
5. How do you find the effectiveness of online
listening on your listening comprehension?
a. Not effective at all
b. Slightly effective
c. Effective
d. Very effective
6. What are the advantages of online listening?
a. It is very convenient and time-saving because I
can put the audio files into my mobile phones and
listen every time, everywhere I want.
b. I can listen to real English from native speakers.
c. My knowledge and vocabulary are enriched thanks to
the large number of different and up-to-date topics.
d. I have become more active and willing to practice
listening since I used the Internet sources.
7. What are some problems you usually face with online
listening?
a. Internet connection is slow.
b. Procedures and instructions of the websites are
complicated (eg. It’s complex to download audio
files)
c. I do not have my own computers.
d. I have a lot of schedules to do.
e. It is easy to get distracted by other web pages
(facebook, news, music, games…)
f. Native voices (intonation, pronunciation, accents,
dialects) are difficult to understand.
g. The speed of the audios is too fast.
h. I have difficulty in vocabulary, phrases and
idioms.
Others:…………………………………………………………………
8. How do you practice listening through the internet
sources?
a. I listen to several different audios on the same
topic for a certain time.
b. I listen to the same audio repeatedly for a
certain time.
c. I take note while listening and try to retell the
story or the main points.
9. Please spend a few minutes completing this self-
assessment on your listening proficiency.
SELF-ASSESSMENT OF LISTENING PROFICIENCY
Archived from
http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/listeningassessment.pdf
To estimate your level of proficiency, start at the
lowest level and respond to each statement. For each
statement, respond “yes” or “no.” If a statement
describes your ability only some of the time, or only in
some contexts, you should answer “no.” If you answer
“yes” to every statement in the level, your ability is
probably at least at that level. Move on to the
descriptions at the next level. If you answer “no” to
one or more statements, then you are likely not at that
level.
If you answer “yes” to all the statements at one level,
and have a majority of “yes” answers at the next higher
level, then you may be at a “plus” level. For example,
if you answer “yes” to all the statements at Level 1, but
have a mixture of responses at Level 2 (almost all “yes”
answers), your self-assessed ability may be at Level 1+.
Leve
l
Yes No
L1 In everyday conversation with people
speaking the standard dialect, I can
understand speech that is slow and
clear.I can understand basic directions and
instructions, such as how to get to a
local store.I can understand questions and answers
about basic survival needs, such as
meals, lodging, transportation and
time.I can understand questions and answers
about basic survival needs, such as
meals, lodging, transportation and
time.I can understand questions and answers
about basic survival needs, such as
meals, lodging, transportation and
time.I can understand simple
statements about a person’s background
and occupation.If I cannot understand what a speaker
tells me, I can understand the
statement after it has been repeated
or rephrased slowly and clearly.L2 When people are speaking the standard
dialect at a normal rate, I can
understand their speech when it is
spoken with some repetition and
rephrasing, can understand speech
about everyday topics, for example
common personal and family news, well-
known current events, and routine
situations at work.I can understand spoken descriptions
of different places, for instance the
geography of a country or location
that is familiar.I can understand uncomplicated stories
about current, past and future events.I can understand at least some details
from announcements made over a
loudspeaker.I can usually understand the main idea
and basic facts from a short news
report on the radio or television.L3 I can accurately follow all
conversations among native speakers
who are speaking at a normal rate of
speech.I rarely, if ever, have to ask
speakers to paraphrase or explain what
they have said.I can correctly infer meanings that
are not directly stated.
I can understand discussions of ideas
and concepts, including proposals and
speculation.I can understand someone’s opinion and
the points used to support the
opinion.I can often, if not always, detect the
attitudes and feelings of a speaker.I can understand speech in a
professional setting concerning my
field of expertise or some technical
subjects, such as a lecture or a panel
discussion.L4 I can understand almost all forms and
styles of speech pertinent to
professional needs.I can fully understand all speech that
involves the use of extensive and
precise vocabulary, including subtle
distinctions between word choices.I can follow arguments with
unpredictable presentation, for
example, in informal and formal
speeches covering editorial and
literary material.I can understand language adjusted for
different audiences and for different
purposes.I can readily and accurately infer
meanings and implications.I am able to understand the main ideas
of speech in some non-standard
dialects.I can fully understand spoken
interactions among native speakers at
public gatherings, such as meetings,
seminars, task groups or conferences.I can fully understand a speech, oral
report or briefing given to a group of
native speakers concerning any topic
directed to a general audience.L5 My comprehension is fully equivalent
to that of a well-educated native
listener.I can fully understand all forms and
styles of speech. This includes
slang, jokes and puns.I can understand speech even when it
is distorted by other noise.I can fully understand regional
dialects, highly colloquial and
idiomatic language.
APPENDIX 2
RECOMMENDATORY WEBSITES FOR ENGLISH ONLINE LISTENING
1. BBC English learning
This website encompasses a range of listening-based
language learning activities designed for
intermediate level learners. Most of the content is
derived from BBC news, educational programs and other
areas of interest covered including sports, music and
current affairs. BBC radio reports online and
transcripts of the audio are provided on screen. In
addition, the site contains a section designed as a
resource for language teachers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.s
html
2. BBC iPlayer Radio
Entering this website, you can listen to live BBC
Radio or catch up on the latest BBC programs from
across the UK and World Service. The listening
categories are very diverse ranging from news,
documentaries to drama, comedies and entertainment.
Students can have fun using this website for
practicing English listening.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
3. VOA learning English
This web page offers users a considerable space for
English study, especially listening skills with a
wide variety of audios and videos which include
different themes namely: education, health,
economics, technology, agriculture, culture, etc.
Moreover, text is provided for each audio or video
which helps listeners fully understand the content
conveyed. Particularly, there are two levels
available in the page concerning the increase in
difficulty of the listening so listeners can choose
the one that fit their ability the best to practice.
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/
4. VOA Special English
This is a page for practicing English everyday with
video lessons produced by VOA, which are spoken more
slowly and with a smaller vocabulary than regular
programming, so it is easier for elementary and
intermediate learners to understand. Each video takes
about 3 minutes which conveys an appropriate amount
of content so that listeners will not find it too
overwhelming or boring to catch up with.
http://voaspecialenglish.blogspot.com/
5. CNN Radio
CNN Radio's Soundwaves blog is the online home for
original audio content produced by the staff of CNN
Radio. This page offers a rich source of listening material covering a
large number of areas from all over the world. If you like to listen to
news and stories, this is a right place for you to explore.
http://cnnradio.cnn.com/
6. CNN podcasting
CNN Podcasting is a way to receive audio and video
files over the Internet. These feeds deliver audio
and video broadcasts to your desktop. You can listen
to plenty of speeches, talks or conversations
concerning various issues in which you are
interested.
http://www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/
7. Discovery
This is the Discovery Channel's official website,
which primarily provides videos on the channel's
programming and additional content tied to those
shows; it also features several exclusive browser-
based games, with various science-based or
sociological challenges. If you are interested in
science, technology or history, come to Discovery and
its videos take you inside the wildest, most amazing
and craziest phenomena and facts from all over the
world.
http://www.discovery.com/videos
8. Effortless English
This is a very interesting and helpful page for
English listening practice. Many videos are uploaded
in this website for users to reach to. Besides, by
registering with your email address, you will get
free audio and video lessons and newsletters on
weekly and monthly basis. The special thing about
Effortless English is that it is all about real
conversational English rather than academic and
formal speeches. You can learn English in a relaxing
way by listening to real English articles about
interesting topics. By listening to these materials,
your English will become closer to the English used
by the natives in daily life, which helps your
speaking become more natural as well.
http://effortlessenglishclub.com/
9. Randals’ ESL Cyber listening lab
This comprehensive website contains a large number of
audio-based and video-based listening comprehension
exercises. All the listening activities are graded
and are thus suitable for language learners of all
levels. The listening tasks focus on everyday
activities, while the video-based content focuses on
the topics for students at the higher level.
http://www.esl-lab.com
10. Eviews library
This website offers more than 40 interviews with a
wide range of accents and subject matters. It has
been designed for sts of English as Second Language
at intermediate to advanced level to hear authentic
English speakers in normal conversations. The audio
material is in MP3 format and the printed material is
in Word. The audios can be downloaded and transferred
to a cassette or played directly from the website.
http://eviews.net/
11. The English listening Lounge
This website contains over 30 graded listening
quizzes on authentic native speaker dialogues. The
topics covered include family, travel, foreign
customs and sports. Learners may gain access to a
transcript of all dialogues and answers to all the
questions that are also available. Online help page
and search engines are also provided.
http://www.englishlistening.com/
12. Youtube
This is a very popular website which displays a wide
variety of user-generated and corporate media video
content, including video clips, TV clips, and music
videos, and amateur content such as video blogging,
short original videos, and educational and
professional videos.
https://www.youtube.com/
13. The Bob and Rob show
These are podcasts that cover a wide range of content
types, such as traditional listening comprehension
activities, interviews, and vocabulary. This is a
well-known “comprehensive” podcast, created by Bob
and Rob, teachers of English at Japanese
universities. It is said to help improve your English
with entertaining and effective lessons.
http://www.thebobandrobshow.com/website/
index.php
14. The Breaking News English
These are whole lessons based on a podcast. The
podcasts makes use of a news story in each episode.
The text of the news story is provided, and is
accompanied by the audio file. There is then a lesson
plan accompanied with worksheet materials. This is a
free page with interactive and printable English
lessons in 7 levels.
http://breakingnewsenglish.com/
15. English conversations
This web page provides podcasts containing
conversations between native speakers. To help less
proficient learners, each episode is accompanied by
the script, for learners to refer to while listening
to the conversation.
http://englishconversations.org/
16. Jokes in English
These are podcasts containing jokes. Because they
usually play on language, they encourage careful
listening by the learners. You will be more motivated
using this websites because they are all jokes and
funny stories. Still, you can learn a lot from those
jokes and enrich your vocabulary more easily.
http://www.manythings.org/jokes/
17. Celtic Myth Podshow
This page gives free audio of ancient tales and
legends of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany,
Cornwall and the Isle of Man. These are usually story
read aloud and may or may not be followed by
listening comprehension questions.
http://celticmythpodshow.com/
18. Classic Poetry Aloud
These are podcast containing the great poems of the past.
Over 300 poems by 80 poets are delivered. One can
listen to the declamation and read the poem. Many
non-native students of English find that listening to
poetry gives an added dimension to their
understanding and appreciation of the language.
http://classicpoetryaloud.wordpress.com/
19. Educational podcasts
This is the first and best UK directory to locate
quality podcasts from over 250 carefully selected
podcast channels for educational use - ideal for
teaching and learning activities with children, young
people and educational professionals. Through this
site, you can freely access a variety of educational
content from over 5000 podcasts from
different podcast channels, including a range of
audio, enhanced and video channels to illustrate
examples of "educational podcasting" to
support effective teaching and learning in schools,
colleges and universities.
http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/
20. Podcast directories
These are podcast finding tools which offers you
various categories of podcast to choose from. These
categories are ranging from art, through business,
comedy, education to science, TV and film. You can
download from over 10 million podcast episodes and
choose from more than 150 thousand podcast in one of
the largest podcast directories world wide. On the
web page, you can not only find neatly arranged
podcasts but also learn most of information you need:
the name of the podcast, titles of recent shows, the
RSS feed, links to the site. It also allows you to
listen to the whole podcast straight from the
directory, which is an ideal way to get to know the
content and the quality of the sound.
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/
http://podcastalley.com
http://podcastpickle.com
http://podcastcentral.com
21. Listen to English
The podcasts on this site will help you to improve
your English vocabulary and pronunciation and your
listening skills. They are quite short (5 or 6
minutes) and delivered in clearly spoken English.
Many of them are linked to grammar and vocabulary
notes, or to exercises or quizzes. You can download
the podcasts to your computer, or subscribe using
iTunes or Yahoo, or listen to them by clicking the
Flash player on the web page at the top of each
episode. The full text of each podcast is on this
site, so you can look up the meanings of words that
you do not understand in a dictionary.
http://listen-to-english.com/
22. National Public Radio
This website provides up-to-date news audios in terms
of business, science, technology, health, politics,
race and culture. You can either listen online or
download the audios you want for free.
http://www.npr.org/
23. TED
This is a website belongs to TED Conferences, LLC
where talks have been offered for free viewing
online. They address a wide range of topics within
the research and practice of science and culture,
often through storytelling. The speakers are given a
maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the
most innovative and engaging ways they can. By 2012,
TED Talks had been watched one billion times
worldwide.
http://www.ted.com/
24. Mysterious Universe
This website provides the latest news and podcasts
covering the strange, extraordinary, weird, wonderful
and everything in between. The Mysterious Universe
podcast debuted in 2006 and has since grown to a huge
following with millions of downloads from around the
world. Many learners may find it interesting and it
can help to improve listening comprehension as well.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/
25. Ello
This is an English listening lessons library online
which provides students with free listening, reading
and vocabulary practice. The audio clips are one to
two minutes in length, use natural and informal
English, and come with quizzes and dictionary
links.The lessons are classified into 5 categories
which are Beginning, Intermediate Low, Intermediate
Mid, Intermediate High and Advanced. It is very easy
for students to choose the lesson that fit them the
best to start.
http://www.elllo.org/english/home.htm
26. Cambridge English
This source provides more than 4000 audios for
students to listen to. Language is divided into 6
levels. Especially, there are 3 English types namely
American English, British English and International
English so that learners can choose their favorite
one to study. In addition to listening, there are
many other kinds of material available for English
learners to discover.
http://www.cambridge.org/us/cambridgeenglish/
resources?content=student&site_locale=en_US
27. British Council
With this website, you can listen or watch on your
computer, or download audio and video files to your
mp3 player. All of the audio and video materials are
accompanied by language practice activities that you
can do on your computer while you listen or watch, or
print out and do when you want. There are different
topics, each of which contains various series and
episodes giving deeper learning.
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/
28. EngVid
This web page brings you free English videos lessons,
quizzes and practice which are highly instructional.
The videos are organized in topics so users will find
it easy to learn.
http://www.engvid.com/
29. Rachel’s English
Over 300 free videos on American English
Pronunciation and spoken English are available in
this page. This is a very popular and helpful
listening and pronunciation site for English learners
with great tips and information. Those who want to
get the American accent will find the page worth
trying.
http://www.rachelsenglish.com/
30. PBS videos
This site offers excellent listening practice to
learn how Americans (and some British) speak for both
teachers and students. Many videos have teaching
lessons associated with them and transcripts (written
words) for the videos.
http://video.pbs.org/
31. English listening
By using this website, you can listen to speakers of
English and read transcripts at the same time. There
are hundreds of listening lessons for students to
choose regarding several topics such as family, food,
business, lifestyle, education, religion, etc. Each
passage is labeled by a certain level so that
students can test their English listening ability.
https://www.englishlistening.com/
32. Talk English
The website has a great collection of English
listening lessons categorized in 3 levels: basic,
intermediate and advanced. You have to answer
questions after listening. Transcripts are also
provided. It is fairly easy to use with many
different topics.
http://www.talkenglish.com/default.aspx
33. ESL podcast
This website contains a huge collection of podcasts
which you can listen to online or download to a
portable device. Every podcast is titled so that
learners can choose what they are interested in
easily.
http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html
34. Audio English
This is a really interesting site with dialogue,
narration, phrases, and role playing. There are over
2500 audio files given by British and American
speakers from Oxford, London, Scotland, New York,
California, Massachusetts and Canada, so learners can
get familiar with different accents and dialects,
which is good for listening comprehension.
http://www.audioenglish.org/
35. Rong-Chang
Leaners entering this page can listen to and read
conversations held by Americans. It includes audio in
Quicktime player, so you will have to keep two
windows open at the same time.
http://www.rong-chang.com/book/
36. English Online France
There is a really great collection here of videos and
listening and speaking exercises. Audio and video
exercises are based on fairy stories, TV commercials,
interviews, documentaries, film trailers…
http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/
37. China 232
Here's a great collection of podcasts put together by
a couple of North Americans. There are two sections
including VIP English lessons and Fun English
lessons. Each audio lasts 10-15 minutes provided with
text. With this website, you will certainly having
fun while studying English.
http://www.china232.com/lessons
38. Listen and Write
This is a free listening practice which helps improve
listening skills. The audio files offered are grouped
into 23 levels with diverse topics.
http://www.listen-and-write.com/
39. Podcasts in English
All of the podcasts displayed in this website are
natural conversations, real English. There are levels
for listening together with business English
podcasts. Additionally, extra vocabulary and
pronunciation worksheets are provided for learners.
http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml
40. Pulse of the planet
This site has short audio recordings which are
accompanied by the complete text with pictures on one
page. The audios include customs and traditions from
around the world.
http://www.pulseplanet.com/
