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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

VŨ THỊ THANH VÂN

USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS ON WEBSITES

AS SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
FOR TEACHING LISTENING
TO 2nd YEAR STUDENTS AT VNU-ULIS
SỬ DỤNG TÀI LIỆU TRÊN MẠNG LÀM TÀI LIỆU BỔ TRỢ
GIẢNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM 2 TẠI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ-ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA, HÀ
NỘI
M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS
MAJOR: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
MAJOR CODE: 601410
SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN THU LỆ HẰNG, M.ED

HANOI, 2010
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DECLARATION
I hereby state that I, Vu Thi Thanh Van from K14, being a candidate for the
degree of Master of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the University
relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the
care, loan or reproduction of the paper.
Signature:

Date: Hanoi, December 10th 2010

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ABSTRACT

This study's objective was to outline possible prospects to use authentic

materials on websites as supplementary materials to teach listening skills for
second year EFL students at ULIS-VNU. In order to analyze how listening
skills are taught for second year EFL students at ULIS-VNU; to be more
specific, what materials lecturers are using as supplementary listening
materials for their students and what they expect from using online listening
materials, I employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results
indicate that while it is a realized need for students to be supplemented with
real-life listening by using online listening materials, the development of this
kind of materials is still primitive. Therefore, teachers lack a reliable resource
to depend on if they want to use online materials. As well, it is at the early
stage so not much has been done to incorporate such materials into the
current listening syllabus for second year students, which results in a lot of
difficulties for teachers in finding time and opportunity to use them. This
study's conclusions indicate that better cooperation among the second year
teaching staff, between them and the Multi-media Center and a slight shift of
teaching methodologies should be put in practice. However, further studies
must be done to discuss in details the establishment of an online listening
material data-base for better application of online materials in language
teaching and learning.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
Acceptance i
Abstract ii
List of figures v
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Statement of the problems and the rationale for the study 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 3
4. Methods of the study 4
5. An overview of the rest of the paper 4
PART B
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6
1.1 Communicative view on teaching listening 6
1.1.1 The importance of listening 6
1.1.2 Characteristics of listening 7
1.1.3 Types of Listening and Listening Tasks 9
1.1.3.1 Types of Listening 10
1.1.3.2 Types of Listening Tasks 13
1.2 Authentic materials used for teaching listening 15
1.2.1 Traditional sources 15
1.2.2 New sources 16
1.3 The needs to vary the sources 17
1.4 Suitability of the present study in the research field 18
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 20
2.1. A qualitative and quantitative study 20
2.2. Selection of participants 21
2.3. Methods of data collection 22
2.4. Data analysis 25
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2.5. Limitation of the study 25

CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION & ANALYSIS 26
3.1 Description of the survey (questionnaire & interview) 26
3.2 Findings analysis 26
3.2.1 Findings 26
3.2.1.1 Findings from questionnaires 26
3.2.1.2 Findings from interviews 41
3.2.2 Interpretations of the findings 46
3.2.2.1 Situation 46
3.2.2.2 Benefits of using online materials 47
3.2.2.3 Ways of using online materials 48
3.2.2.4 Problems 49
CHAPTER 4: USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS ON WEBSITES AS 51
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS
TO 2nd YEAR STUDENTS.
4.1 Ways to exploit online materials for teaching listening skills 51
4.1.1 Working Group Establishment 51
4.1.2 Students‟ Support 53
4.1.3 Multi-media Center‟s Support 54
4.1.4 Time management 54
4.2 Sample designed listening tasks using online material 55
4.3 Some recommendatory websites 55
4.4 Incorporating online materials into the listening syllabus of the second year 64
PART C: CONCLUSION 71
REFERENCES 73
APPENDICES I
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Top-down vs. Bottom-up Listening Process…………………… 10
Figure 2: Seniority in teaching listening………………………………….. 27
Figure 3: Popular materials in use………………………………………… 28
Figure 4: The use of online materials……………………………………... 28
Figure 5: Reasons for not using online sources…………………………… 29
Figure 6: Reasons for using online sources……………………………….. 30
Figure 7: Ways of using online materials…………………………………. 31
Figure 8: Prospects of utilizing online materials………………………….. 32
Figure 9: Types of speech normally used with online materials………….. 33
Figure 10: Problems when using online materials………………………... 33
Figure 11: Frequency of online materials using in class………………….. 34
Figure 12: Evaluation of students‟ progress after using online materials… 35
Figure 13: Supplementary materials in use……………………………….. 36
Figure 14: The use of online materials……………………………………. 36
Figure 15: Frequency of online materials using…………………………... 37
Figure 16: Types of speech normally used with online materials………… 37
Figure 17: Ways of using online materials………………………………... 38
Figure 18: Students‟ attitude towards the application of online materials... 39
Figure 19: Students‟ expectation of ways online materials should be used. 40
Figure 20: Students‟ self-evaluation of progress after using online 41
materials…………………………………………………………………
Figure 21: http://www.esl-lab.com................................................................... 57
Figure 22: http://www.englishlistening.com..................................................... 58
Figure 23: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml... 59
Figure 24: http://www.voanews.com................................................................ 60
Figure 25: http://www.discovery.com.............................................................. 60
Figure 26: http://abcasiapacific.com/studyenglish.......................................... 61
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Figure 27: http://www.otan.dni.us/cdlp/education/education.html 62

Figure 28: http://www.eviews.net 63
Figure 29: http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/sall.htm 64
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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of the problems and the rationale for the study
In the light of the communicative approach for language teaching and
learning, “communicative competence” is a stressed element or in other
words, it is the “goal” of the teaching and learning process (Richards &
Rodgers, 1995: 67). In order to master the communicative competence,
second language learners are supposed to study the four skills, namely
listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these four skills, listening is
often claimed to be the most important skill to be acquired as “in the foreign
environment, the ability to make sense of these messages is often crucial for
survival” (Hood: 65). As a result, listening has taken much attention and
efforts of language researchers and teachers. Much research has been
conducted on how to teach and learn listening skills effectively. For instance,
on the web site www.abax.co.jp/listen, an article named “Teaching Listening
Better: Is listening being taught as well as it could be?” provides readers with
a thorough overview of how listening should be taught; Penny Ur (1992)
dedicated a nearly-two-hundred-page book on “Teaching Listening
Comprehension” and Gillian Brown (1984) also wrote “Listening to spoken
English”. All these contributions are very useful for enhancing the listening
skills. However, as far as I have investigated, most of the research focuses
largely on methods of teaching and learning rather than exploring new
sources of authentic materials for teachers to make use of.
Meanwhile, nowadays, together with the already diversified published
materials for teaching listening, there co-exists a new abundant source of
listening materials on the World Wide Web. The Internet was given birth not
long ago, in the 1960s, but its presence has changed the world dramatically.
The Internet is said to be the information highway, which host almost every
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data available. Therefore online resource for teaching listening is no

exception. If we just put into consideration the television and radio programs,
it is a greatly rich source available for every listening teacher to utilize. Let us
count how many English-speaking countries there are in the world, how
many media stations there are in each of those countries and how many
media stations in the non-English speaking countries that offer English
version for their programs there are. Then most of them have their own
websites, on which they upload their broadcast programs with various topics.
These programs are available in many forms convenient for different
categories of Internet users. People can listen to them online or download
them to their computers for later listening. Exploiting this new electronic
source has been a hot topic among the education circle worldwide. Yet in
Vietnam, where Internet was not known until more than 20 years after its
birth, it is still fresh and teachers are hesitant to use it.
Bearing in mind the two aforementioned reasons, I decided to choose “Using
authentic materials on websites as supplementary materials for teaching
listening skills to second year EFL students at VNU-ULIS” the topic of my
thesis with a view to filling in the pointed gap in the research field and
bringing about some benefits for EFL teachers who teach listening skills.

2. Aims and objectives of the study

Conducting this study, my aim is to address two main issues:

(1) How listening skills are taught to second year EFL students at ULIS-
VNU; to be more specific, what materials lecturers are using as
supplementary listening materials for their students.
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(2) Outline possible prospects to use authentic materials on websites as

supplementary materials to teach listening skills to second year EFL students
at ULIS-VNU.

I do hope that this study will be beneficial not only to lecturers who teach
listening skills for second year EFL students; to the students in their self-
study but also to the students who are becoming teachers in the near future
since it would, hopefully, serve as a useful resource they can refer to.
Conducting this thesis, I also wish that in applying these materials in teaching
listening to the second year EFL students, teachers could familiarize their
students with the current language in use and at the same time help them
enhance their social background knowledge, which is said to be poor among
today students.

3. Scope of the study

Due to time constraint, my thesis would only be narrowed to a small scale.
Firstly, its subject is specifically second year EFL students at ULIS-VNU.
Studying at university for two years would equip students with more self-
study skills, which is a factor that can facilitate the use of online listening
materials. Moreover, it is time their English reach proper level of
intermediate and upper-intermediate, which is suitable to use these materials
to supplement their listening.
Secondly, the paper would focus mostly on ways to develop the use of online
supplementary listening materials for second year students.
I am aware that this study could cover only a small part of the teaching
process if teachers want to use these online materials as supplementary ones
for their students. Therefore, I believe further research is necessary to fulfill
this gap.
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4. Methods of the study

In order to address the two aforementioned issues, first of all, intensive and
extensive reading helps equip myself with sufficient background knowledge
and also helps obtain data for the literature review.
For the main part of the thesis, both qualitative and quantitative methods are
employed. Questionnaires will be delivered among teachers of the second
year students to investigate the situation of how listening skills are taught and
what materials lecturers are using as supplementary listening materials for
their second year EFL students. The questionnaire is as well used to see
teachers‟ attitude towards using online materials as supplementary listening
materials.
To obtain “rich” data (Burnes, 1999: 23), in-dept interviews will also be
carried out among those teachers who have already used online materials.
The aim is to examine which ways they are dealing with these materials.
In applying triangulation, it is hoped to overcome any shortcomings in either
the quantitative or qualitative methods. Hence, the findings are qualified with
reliability and validity.

5. An overview of the rest of the paper

The paper has three parts. Part A is the introduction to the study. In part B,
chapter 1 reviews the literature on the communicative approach on teaching
listening and the current authentic materials used for teaching listening.
Chapter 2 justifies the use of the qualitative and quantitative methodology for
this research. Chapter 3 presents and discusses the findings of the survey
investigating into how the teachers are exploiting listening materials to teach
their second year students and what their attitude towards using online
sources for listening materials is. Chapter 4 gives some recommendations on
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how to use authentic materials on websites as supplementary materials for

teaching listening skills to second year students. Part C is the conclusion to
the study.
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PART B
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 Communicative view on teaching listening
1.1.1 The importance of listening
The importance of listening to foreign language teaching and learning has
been reflected in a 30-year shift towards interaction-based acquisition
(Krashen 1981, 1985; Pica et al., 1987; Swain, 1985), rather than learning
through the translation of written text and through formal grammar learning.
Though once regarded as a passive skill, listening is actually an active
process which requires the listeners to activate all their knowledge of
different fields such as phonology, vocabulary, culture and their life
experience and so on in selecting and interpreting information (1983,
Richards; 1995, Rubin, quoted from Duzer, http://www.cal.org).
Listening skills are obviously important as first of all, a good speaker needs
to be a good listener. Although listening is described as the most difficult of
the four skills the beginner of a foreign language has to develop (1987,
Eastman quoted in http://www.melta.org.my), it has traditionally been
considered secondary to speaking comprehension (Bower and Cirlio 1985;
Brown and Yule 1983, quoted in http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu) in that listening
tasks tend to be viewed as supplementary to reinforce grammar learning.
Nunan, a famous linguist, in his featured speech at the 4th Pan-Asian
Conference in Taiwan in November, 2002 remarked that listening is “the
Cinderella skill in second language learning” (http://www.nunan.info). What
is meant in Nunan‟s comment is shared by Belasco (1965) that listening
comprehension has also been called the "most underestimated and least
understood aspect of foreign language learning" (quoted in
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http://www.melta.org.my). Despite the fact that listening is a critical element

in the competent language performance of second language learners, this skill
has not been taken enough attention of in comparison with other skills such
as speaking, reading and writing. A classic study of listening conducted by
Rankin (1930) suggests that adults spend 42.1% of their communication time
listening, in contrast with 39.1% speaking, 15% reading and 11% for writing.
Moreover, real communication in the classroom should be based on effective
input through listening or reading. According to Lewis, “almost all the
world's natural language output is spoken rather than written” (1993: 32,
quoted in http://www.developingteachers.com) therefore listening takes up a
major proportion in communication time as Sam Smith noticed, that is at
least 90% of his interaction time (http://www.developingteachers.com).
Listening is, in fact, the most crucial medium for input in learning a foreign
language and by increasing students‟ ability to perceive speech and thus
aiding language acquisition (1993, Lewis, quoted in
http://www.developingteachers.com).
In fact, listening provides a “foundation” for all aspects of “language and
cognitive development” (http://www.ericdigests.org). It plays a life-long role
in the processes of learning and communication essential to productive
participation in life.
Bearing in mind the importance of listening and the fact that it has been an
underestimated skill, I now move on to review its characteristics.

1.1.2 Characteristics of listening

Most linguists and educators share the same opinion of listening‟s
characteristics. According to Wilkinson, Stratta, Dudley (1974) and
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