IMPROVE THE ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL BY PLAYING

Improve the English listening skill by playing with the students of “La Asociacion Eduactiva”

Julián Patiño Martínez.

Corporación Universitaria del Caribe.

Asociación Educativa

Práctica profesional dirigida

Martha Johanna Moreno

June 27, 2018

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Table of contents

Abstract 3

Problem description 4

Research question 4

General Objective 4

Background 5

Aims 6

Methodology 6

Justification 8

Data collection 9

Theoretical framework 11

References 15
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Abstract

Developing English listening skills might be the hardest part of learning the language. There are

several reasons why pupils say listening is the hardest skill to improve. Some listeners think it is

hard to hear the sounds and understanding the meaning at the same time.

This exploratory study aims to investigate how can be improved the English listening skill of the

students of “La Asociacion Educativa” who are very interested for the English Class, but have a

great difficulty for listening and comprehending the language.

By using in-depth interviews, field research surveys and a short analysis of the teacher's

experience, present study is focused on the students’ perception of the English listening skill.

It can be concluded that English Listening ability is the most difficult one, but there are many

important tools that can be useful for improving this skill.

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Problem description

The work conducted with students of “La Asociacion Educativa” has indicated that they are

very interested for the English Class; however, they have a great difficulty for listening and

comprehending the language. Here it arises some important questions. Is the English listening

skill the hardest part of learning the language? If the answer is positive, it springs other

questions. Is there any solution for that problem? If the solution would exist, what would be the

solution? How can it be implemented?

The true about this topic is that many investigations agreed with the opinion that the listening

skill is the most difficult, and the difficulty resides in many causes, namely; contractions,

assimilation, reduced forms, and dialect. All this accidents of the language affect the

comprehension, one way or another. The solution has to face those features of the language.

Research question.

What are the effects of ludic activities in the improvement of the English listening skill of a

group of young people between the ages of 18 and 24?

General objective

To investigate the causes of the difficulty for comprehending the English listening and the
possible solutions for improving it
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Background

The English listening skill is the most difficult of the four skills. That is not a simple opinion,

it is a reality and many investigations conducted by experts have concluded the same results.

“Second language listening is regarded as one of the most challenging language skills for

students to acquire and for teachers to teach.”[CITATION Ngo16 \p 1 \l 3082 ]

According to the investigation there are many reasons for thinking that the listening skill is so

difficult. There are some factors that can affect the student's ability to hear well. For example

contractions, assimilation, reduced forms, and dialect can be considered as some causes of the

difficulty for developing the listening skill.

Other important investigation comes to the same conclusion. This study delves into the

question. [ CITATION Ger08 \l 3082 ] According to that investigation, conducted by Gerencsér

Mária,

“Listening to the speech of native speakers, or listening to an authentic listening text can

be very difficult for L2 learners, and can cause comprehension problems. If the teacher

does not put enough emphasise on a proper preparing of a listening comprehension task,

children can be unable to complete it, and what is much worse, they can develop a

negative attitude toward listening and in the long run, toward language learning as well.”

(p.1)

The listening skill is so important that it is fundamental for the communication. That process

began in the childhood. Before speaking, the human being listens. And that listening is the

starting point of other processes and for that reason the listening ability has to be very well
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developed. With poor listening ability, you cannot participate or continue a conversation. You

cannot follow instructions correctly if at all.[ CITATION Cot14 \l 3082 ]

Despise of the difficulty for comprehending English there are some important advices and

tools that can be very useful for improving the English listening skill.[CITATION Kha \l 3082 ]

Listening and solving Problems: Various activities, belonging to this category, can be performed

by a teacher. These activities include: word games in which the answer is derived from verbal

clues, “twenty questions”, “animal, “Vegetable” or “Animal”, a jigsaw mystery (...) Interactive

Listening-and-Speaking (...) Listening for Enjoyment, Pleasure, and Sociability. (p.39)

Aims

To study the best strategies for improving English listening skills of the students of “La

Asociación Educativa”

To evaluate the impact of games in the improvement of the English listening ability of the pupils

of “La Asociación Eduacativa”

To obtain new knowledge through socialization with the students of “La Asosciación Educativa”

Methodology

For this study tasks have been administered to a sample of 10 students from the institution

“La asociación Educativa”. These pupils have had the opportunity of studying an English course

of 60 hours taught in the institution”. Their average age is between 20 and 24, and all of them
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are Technical Institute Students. They are studying the Elementary and Intermediate English

Course taken from the Voice of America.

The first class, the students received traditional training in listening English. They listened to

an audio and after that the teacher asked them some questions about it. In the second class,

students were involved in some ludic activities where they needed to pay attention with the aim

of comprehending the audio. The teacher asked them question again, but awarding the correct

answers; here was applied the stimulus-response theory.

The investigation was based in Non-Experimental and Experimental Research, but mainly the

second. For the data collection will be followed the next diagram.

Pre- Post Tests

The students involved in the study are at the same level. It was concluded thanks to the pre-

test which determined the base lines of the participants. They all received the same tasks. It was

expected that they had more or less the same performance. When they began to learn through the

ludic activities their learning was both more fun and effective.

Data Collection

For the data collection were used three important technics; namely, observation, interview and

questionnaire. The observation was applied over the period of the course. As an introduction to

the study, the students were interrogated about the main alternatives for improving English

listening skill.
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Short outline.

The study started from the need for finding a good alternative for improving the English

listening skill. For that purpose was chosen a group of student from “La Asosiacion Educativa”.

They were involved in a study in which were applied ludic activities, as an excellent option for

improving the listening skill. One of the purposes was to apply the stimulus-response theory. For

that reason students received an award when getting good results in the game.

Justification

This investigation is important and valuable because it recognizes a problem and finds a good

solution for that. It is not a secret that games play an important role in the learning process. In

this point is important to mention the stimulus-response theory of Pavlov and Skinner, thinkers

of the behaviorism. The mention fits in because the learning by game involves amusement.

Naturally people like the diversion. If the learning process is seen by student as a play and not as

a stressful activity, is more likely that they assimilate the topics. Games lower the students’ level

of stress and anxiety, thereby improving the acquisition of language. Indeed, it is proven that
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students remember things easier and faster when they learn in a relaxed environment. Games

help create such an atmosphere.[ CITATION Bre18 \l 3082 ]

Data collection

For the data collection it will be used some important technics like interviews. One-on-one

conversation with teachers of preschooler boys, who can help with the comprehension of the

issue. Other important technic that will be used is questionnaires and surveys; Pretest and

Posttest can be compared and analyzed. Finally the most important technic is the analysis of

documents and records.

Key Informant Interview

Question Guide

Name: -------------------------------------------- Date: ------------------------

Sector: -------------------------------------------- Phone: ---------------------

Perceptions English listening skills.

1. English listening skill:

- Do you think it is difficult?

- How good are you at it on a scale of 1-10?

- What do you think is the most difficult thing for understanding English listening?

- Are effective the traditional methods used by teachers?

- What do you suggest for improving the English listening skill?

- What do you think about practicing English listening skill by playing

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Survey format
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Theoretical framework

Developing English listening skills might be the hardest part of learning the language. There

are several reasons why students say listening is the hardest skill to improve. Between the

reasons it can be mention the contractions, assimilation, reduced forms, and dialect.

When learners face those grammar accidents they often become discouraged. Some of them

think it is hard to hear the sounds and understanding the meaning at the same time.

One of the causes of the problem is perhaps the lack of choosing the correct material and the

adequate methodology. [ CITATION Ana11 \l 3082 ] Even a study conducted by Anandapong

thus describes the problem

The result of the study revealed that students that the main reason that caused

listening problem for the students is the listening text. However, the factors that

mostly caused listening problems were lack of practicing listening skill and lack

of exposure to different kinds of listening materials. (p.ii)

Nevertheless the nowadays approaches of teaching and learning English can offer some

important solution for the problem. It is not a secret that the modern technologies can give a hand

in the developing English listening skill process. That is the case of the multimedia resources.

Multimedia, the computer based delivery of video, audio, written text, graphics and the

integration of these media may prove to be a useful tool for second language learning.

[ CITATION Bre00 \l 3082 ]

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After putting in context the reality of the development of the listening skill, is important to

speak about the results obtained in the present investigation. The investigation was conducted

with the aim of finding a better alternative for studying and developing the skill in question. The

alternative suggested has to do with ludic activities and some audio files named podcast.

But first it is necessary to speak about the results of the data collection.

The first tool used was an interview question guide applied to 10 students of Asociacion

Educativa. Everyone agreed that listening skill is the most difficult one. To the question ¿How

good are you at it on a scale of 1-10? Three students chose one; five students chose three and

two pupils chose five. None of them marked an option above five. Four students stated that the

most difficult thing for comprehending English has to do with the speaking’s speed. Two

students stated that it has to do with the use of slang, while three pupils said that the difficulty

has to do with the phonetic variations of the English language.

All students stated that traditional methods used by teachers failed. Six students think that for

improving the English listening skill it is important to use multimedia resources, while four

pupils think that it is a good idea to use some games. It is important to keep in mind that the four

students have experience with video games and practice English by this mean.

A couple of years ago the teaching of English language was not so sophisticated like in

modern times. Some important psychological and pedagogical theories have made great

contributions to the development of more effective strategies for teaching English language. For
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example, Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning became a milestone in the

history of the learning process “people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the

world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences”.

With the coming of the TICs that paradigm is empowered. Student can construct their

knowledge and they count on many good tools for that purpose. One example of those tools is

the podcast, a digital recording of music, news or other media that can be downloaded from the

internet to a portable media player[ CITATION Web18 \l 3082 ]

Learning by plying games has demonstrated to be a great strategy. One of the ideas of this

investigation is to combine podcasts with a board game. The idea is to throw the dices.

According to the number obtained the player must listen to the podcast. The player has 30

seconds for comprehend the most number of words. Every word comprehended has a value. The

player with more scores wins the game.

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Figure 1: the board game

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References

Anandapong Suradej. (2011). A study of English listening problems and listening proficiency of

business students at Bangkok University (1ed). [PDF File] Bangkok. Retrieved from:

http://digi.library.tu.ac.th/thesis/lg/0641/title-appendices.pdf

Cotter, C. (2014, July 09). Listening: What Makes It Difficult? Retrieved from

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140709212858-26665973-listening-what-makes-it-

difficult

Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/

Data Collection Techniques. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://cyfar.org/data-collection-techniques

Five Reasons to Use Games in the Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2017, from

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/reasons-to-play-games-in-the-classroom.shtml

G., & M. (2008, August 02). The Importance of Pre-listening Activities in the Development of

Effective Listening Skills. Retrieved from

https://dea.lib.unideb.hu/dea/handle/2437/171492
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Granahan, J. (2017, September 04). A 5-Step Method to Improve Your Listening Skills.

Retrieved from https://www.fluentin3months.com/improve-your-listening-skills/

Ihsan Ullah Khan. (2014). Strategies for improving English language Listening Skill (1ed).

[PDF File] Dera Ismail Khan. Retrieved from:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?

q=cache:crQXQbBkGdsJ:iiste.org/Journals/index.php/RHSS/article/download/12410/127

90+&cd=1&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=co

Multimedia for listening comprehension: The design of a multimedia-based resource for

developing listening skills. (2000, January 20). Retrieved from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0346251X9400054A?via=ihub#!

Stevens, R. G. (2014, August 01). Listening to People. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/1957/09/listening-to-people

The Importance of Word Games When Learning English. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://englishclassviaskype.com/blog-articles/the-importance-of-games-when-learning-

english/
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Thi, N. H. (1970, January 01). A Needs-Based Integrated EFL Listening Strategy Instruction: A

Mixed Methods Case Study at a Vietnamese University. Retrieved from

https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/16790

University, S. (2013, March 01). Using games as an educational tool provides opportunities for

deeper learning, panelists at Stanford event say. Retrieved December 10, 2017, from

https://news.stanford.edu/2013/03/01/games-education-tool-030113/

What is podcast? definition and meaning. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/podcast.html