Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Some measures to improve English listening skills for primary students

Nội dung text: Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Some measures to improve English listening skills for primary students

1. Bac Ninh Department of Education and Training Song Lieu Primary School MINOR RESEARCH SOME MEASURES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS Author : Nguyen Thi Chuyen Position : Teacher School : Song Lieu Primary School Bac Ninh, January 8th 2023 Bac Ninh, date 08 month 01 year 2023
2. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I: STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 1 PART II: THE PROBLEM SOLUTIONS 2 1. The real situation and the reason to choose this research 2 a. Advantages 2 b. Disadvantages 2 c. Reasons 3 2. Some measures to improve English listening skills for primary students 3 a. Measure 1: 3 b. Measure 2: 5 c. Measure 3: 6 d. Measure 4: 7 e. Measure 5: 8 3. The results achieved: 9 4. Conclusion: 10 5. Recommendations, proposals 11 PART III: REFERENCE 12 PART IV: APPENDIXES 13
3. PART I: STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Learning English for primary school students today is not new and too difficult. Learning English means studying a new language, the purpose is to communicate. Currently, the goal of foreign language teaching, according to the 2018 General Education program, focuses on developing all four skills Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing. Especially, listening - speaking skills are particularly concerning for primary students. In fact, training all four skills for children is a difficult job for both teachers and students. Among them, listening is always the most difficult skill. Listening is an actively working process of the mind. Therefore, it is the teacher's duty to ensure that the learning materials used are within the cognitive range of the students so that they can be comprehended. Especially for some students, it is very difficult for them to fully concentrate on listening activities for a certain period of time. Starting from the object of the teaching process is primary students in rural areas, the English communication environment is not frequent and their consciousness is not high. During the teaching process, I noticed that the students still had many difficulties in listening. Many teaching and learning methods have been introduced in education to overcome the limitations of foreign language teaching. However, the issues are not specific and concentrated mostly at the higher school level. There is still not much interest in listening methods in primary schools. In order to help them overcome this obstacle to be able to study English better, I chose the topic "Some measures to improve English listening skills for primary students". 1
4. PART II: THE PROBLEM SOLUTIONS OF ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS 1. The real situation and the reason to choose this research Primary students' awareness is still low, and their learning quality is uneven. Furthermore, these are the first years of getting acquainted with a foreign language, and there are a large number of students who have not yet learned their mother tongue well. Moreover, English in primary school has not been paid much attention to by the majority of students and even their parents. So the question is: what are the advantages and disadvantages of teaching foreign languages in general and listening skills in particular? a. Advantages: Received the attention of leaders, school administrators, and students' parents. 100% of students in grades 3, 4 and 5 study 4 periods/week, students in grades 1 and 2 have also been approached in the English language elective program (2 lessons/week). Students have sufficient textbooks and notebooks. Facilities: The school invests in enough types of equipment to support teachers and students in teaching and listening lessons (computers, projectors, amplifiers, and speakers with good quality). Many families have been interested in learning foreign languages, allowing students to be exposed to English at an early age. The team of English teachers is enthusiastic, dynamic, experienced in teaching. They are trained according to European standards (B2). b. Disadvantages: There are some differences between listening to the teacher and listening to the tape in terms of intonation, stress, and speed. That's why students have difficulty with listening-comprehension format. The content of the listening lesson will inevitably appear with many new words that students do not know or already know but the pronunciation is not correct, so during the listening process, they cannot detect it. Or sometimes they do not know how to guess the meaning of the word or guess the situation in the tape. 2
5. Students who do not have listening skills: few students can listen to the tape and complete the requirements of the exercise and control the speed of the listening at the same time. Students do not have the habit of practicing listening skills on a regular basis. c. Reasons: Through the practice of teaching English at the primary level over the years, I saw a number of reasons leading to the limitation of learning listening skills as follows: At the primary level, there is no proper skill lesson, so teachers hardly spend much time researching methods of teaching listening skills as well as applying all the steps in one lesson. There is often a combination of two skills in the same lesson. Time to practice listening skills for students is not much. Students' writing speed is still slow, so the listening-comprehension format is difficult for students to complete. They do not know how to combine listening and writing skills to control the speed of the listening lesson. Students' poor pronunciation has a great influence on the effectiveness of listening skills. Sometimes, because of incorrect pronunciation, they do not recognize them in the listening process. Moreover, primary students do not know how to practice listening skills every day on their own. 2. Some measures to improve the English listening skills: a. Measure 1: Categorize listening types * The aim: In order to give specific and clear requirements, tasks and exercises on listening content, this is one of the first requirements that any English teacher needs to do well. The instruction of specific requirements helps students to shape the format of the listening lesson easily whether it is the type of listening- recognition or listening - comprehension. If it is listening - recognition, students only need to listen to the keywords; in listening - comprehension, they have to listen to details. The difficulty level will increase with each class. 3
6. *The ways to carry out: Teachers guide how to conduct listening lessons at three levels in elementary school. Example: Listen and tick/ Listen and circle This is a type of recognition exercise in listening skills, which does not require students to listen to all the information, they just need to listen and choose the correct answer. It is considered a type of listening level one. ( Source: Unit 1: Lesson 2- English 2) *Listen and number/ match: In this type of exercise, students have to start thinking because there are similar choices of information, requiring them to hear relatively enough information in the listening text. It is considered listening level two. ( Source: Unit 1: Lesson 2- English 4) * Listen and complete: 4
7. Students not only listen to get information, but also make sure to write it correctly in this type of exercise. Therefore, it requires even students to think of new words while the listening speed is fast. Teachers should instruct students how to best perform this type of listening task by combining listening, writing, and controlling the information that follows. It is considered listening level three. ( Source: Unit 1: Lesson 1- Part 4- English 5) b. Measure 2: Use visual aids, pictures, illustrations: *The aim: With the aim of assisting in clarifying the context, and suggesting what to listen to. For difficult listening lessons such as stories, teachers can use pictures to help students predict the content and order of events in the listening text. *The ways to carry out: Teachers use pictures, illustrations to introduce the topic, and exploit content to help students know about the topic such as new words or sentence structure. Take for example the listening below. Teachers can ask students about the name of the story, the names of the characters, the necessary new words and the order that will occur in the story. When everything is ready, the teachers play the tape. Example: Listen and number 5
8. ( Source: Unit 14: Lesson 1- Part 4- English 5) c. Measure 3: Apply correct processes of teaching listening skills * The aim: In order to help students practice listening skills easily and effectively, through listening skills, they can practice words, sentence structures as well as practice speaking by topics. Furthermore, it is necessary to reduce the pressure on students during listening lessons. *The ways to carry out: Divide the listening process into three specific steps: Pre–listening: Allow students to predict what they are about to listen to in a given context. This engages students and makes the lesson interesting. Teachers can introduce topics, contexts, content related to the listening lesson, explore what students already know, create curiosity and enjoyment about the content that they are about to be listened to (just apply to difficult contents). 6
9. Explain some essential words and structures that will appear in the listening context. However, it is not necessary to introduce all new words, teachers can let students guess the meaning of words in context. If students do not understand the meaning, the teachers will explain it in Vietnamese after listening. White - listening: - Listen to the main idea, complete the exercise, ask to listen 2-3 times. - Listen, check answers at normal speed without pausing (one time).* If students do not hear clearly, teachers will pause the tape and let them listen again at each important word and structure. Post - listening: Teachers will use The discussion after-listening method: Students can practise talking about content related to the listening topic that they have just learned to help them remember words and sentence patterns. d. Measure 4: Use some activities to influence the children’s psychological of playing. ( It’s the most effective method to improve the English listening skill for children) * The aim: Create a natural and effective atmosphere in English lessons and avoid unnecessary pressure for elementary school students who are always “study to play – play to learn”. It helps students practice pronunciation, intonation, linking sound as well as control the speed of listening task. * The ways to carry out: Teachers use songs and chants to support students' listening practice. Introduce the song title, song melody or chant. Introduce new words and sentence patterns that appear or need to be practiced in the lesson. Guide students to sing chants, songs and practice intonation. Teaching children to listen and sing English songs is very effective and practical. Thereby helping them not only practice words and structures but also control the speed of listening, different intonation and word morphology. For example, the song: “Can you swim?”. 7
10. Students practise the vocabulary of activities, and the sentence “Can you ?”. ( Source: Unit 5: Lesson 2- Part 6- English 4) e. Measure 5: Apply information technology for practising English listening skills: * The aim: In order to help children learn English anywhere, anytime, help them practice intonation and control the speed of listening. Especially, parents can effectively participate in supporting their children in learning. *The ways to carry out: Teachers guide students and their parents to join some websites that support English learning for all four skills of listening - speaking - reading - writing. Moreover, these websites are very suitable for their psychology, such as: - British Council - Fun with English - Go’s go - ABC English for children - English 4kids and Duolingo - Cartoon movies, animated games in English Example: A small clip from “ Go’s go” 8
11. In summary, both teachers and students must make effort and collaborate to set up more interesting and comfortable lessons, especially the acquisition of knowledge and the gradual improvement of listening skills for students. In addition, it is necessary to cooperate with their families to encourage and create conditions for the children to be exposed to listening and speaking activities naturally and regularly. 3. The results achieved: After a period of time I applied these methods, in addition to guiding students to develop listening skills, shaping students' diligence when practicing English listening skills, their learning results increased significantly. The classes were more lively, students were involved in many different activities. They were trained in all four skills, especially listening and speaking skills. In the past, listening skills always made them bored and lacked concentration, so the results were not good. But now they are excited, confident and the results are markedly improved. The results of the listening skill survey before and after applying the measures are as follows: Participants: students in grade 5. 9
12. Class had been applied the Class hadn’t been applied the measures( 5B) measures( 5C) Beginning of Beginning of End of school End of school- Mark school-year school-year year 2021-2022 year 2021-2022 2021-2022 2021-2022 Percent Percent Percent Percent Total Total Total Total (%) (%) (%) (%) <5 6 21.43 0 0.00 6 20.69 4 13.79 5 - 6 7 25.00 6 21.43 8 27.58 9 31.03 7 - 8 7 25.00 9 32.14 7 24.14 8 27.59 9 - 10 8 28.57 13 46.43 8 27.59 8 27.59 Total 28 100 28 100 29 100 29 100 4. Conclusion: Each person has a mindset, each teacher has a style of teaching. However, I think that any method has a common purpose, which is to impart to students the knowledge, to help them understand the lesson and deepen the knowledge quickly and effectively. In order to improve the quality of teaching, teachers should be enthusiastic, responsible for their profession, pay attention to students and teaching quality, then they can choose flexible methods in the direction of suitable change for students. After a period of time I applied these methods strictly, I saw that students fell in love with English, and made more progress in learning English. In particular, they were no longer too stressed with the listening skill class. In my point of view, this was a success in training students to learn foreign languages in a communicative way: listening and speaking- priority skills. Above are some experiences that I myself have drawn in the process of teaching English in Primary school for many years. There may be many limitations, but I 10
13. look forward to being received comments from all levels of management and colleagues so that my measures can be widely and effectively applied. 5. Recommendations, proposals: a. For English groups: Continue to maintain monthly specialty group activities to help each other exchange experiences and solve questions through each lecture. b. For School Leaders: Support suitable teaching facilities for English subject such as: regularly checking and repairing the English room so that the quality of audio-visual equipment can be highly effective. c. For Department of Education and Training. Continue to open annual training courses and seminars for teachers to learn and exchange experiences as well as teaching methods with colleagues. Song Lieu, January 8th 2023 School confirmation Teacher Nguyen Van Thu Nguyen Thi Chuyen 11
14. REFERENCES 1. English Textbook 1- Macmillan Education- Vietnam Education Publisher. 2. English Textbook 4- Macmillan Education- Vietnam Education Publisher. 3. English Textbook 5- Macmillan Education- Vietnam Education Publisher. 4.Techniques of teaching English to elementary students- Author: Nguyen Quoc Hung, M.A- Vietnam Education Publisher. 5. Studying English with Go’s go: www.youtube.com. 12
15. APPENDIXES Beginning of school year (5B) Beginning of school year (5C) 28.57 27.59 27.58 25 25 24.14 21.43 20.67 9-10 7-8 5-6 <5 Graph 1: The results at the beginning of school year. End of school year (5B) End of school year (5C) 46.43 32.14 31.03 27.59 27.59 21.43 13.79 0 9-10 7-8 5-6 <5 Graph 2: The results at the end of school year. 13
16. 2. A sample listening test: Full name: ENGLISH LISTENING TEST Class: Time: 20 minutes I. LISTENING Task 1. Listen and match. There is one example (0). A. D. B. E. C. F. Task 2. Listen and tick A, B or C. There is one example. Example:A. I’d like a pilot. B. I’d like to be a pilot. C. I like pilots. 14
17. 1. A. I’d like to be a doctor. B. I like teachers. C. I don’t like teachers. 2. A. Because I want to be a pilot. B. Because I’m scared of height. C. Because I like flying. 3. A. Yes, I do. B. Sure, I am a scientist. C. Of course, I would. 4. A. It’s very kind of you. Thanks. B. You’re really a great doctor. C. My doctor is very kind. 5. A. I think you can be an engineer. B. I think you and I are good friends. C. I think you love animals. Task 3. Listen and tick the correct pictures. There is one example. Example: What will the weather be like tomorrow? A. B. C. 1. What’s winter like in his country? 15
18. A. B. C. 2. Why will Tony and Anne stay at home next Sunday? A. B. C. 3. What’s his favourite season? A. > B. C. 4. What’s autumn like in England? A. B. C. 5. What’s the weather in Da Nang in October? 16
19. A. B. C. Task 4. Listen and write R for Right or W for Wrong. There is one example (0). 0. Jack lives in Leeds, a big city in England. ___R___ 1. There are many old buildings with gardens in the city. ___ 2. The city is always noisy and busy. ___ 3. Meanwood is very far from Leeds. ___ 4. The town has many shops and things are cheaper there. ___ 5. Jack likes living in Meanwood because life there is quieter than life in ___ Leeds. 17