Hue College of Foreign Languages

Subject: Research in Language Education

Instructor: Dr. Ton Nu Nhu Huong

Student: Nguyen Thi Thanh Thanh.

Article Review

Review of Listening Strategies of EFL Students within the High School

Setting by Le Huynh Thanh Huy, Dong Thap University.

The article which was on Vol. 3, No. 4, 2015 of the Asian Journal of Educational

Research was written by Le Huynh Thanh Huy from Dong Thap University. It was about

listening strategies of EFL students within the high school setting. In the Vietnamese context, a

number of studies (Do, 2007; Vu & Shah, 2016) found that for EFL students, listening is the

most difficult skill. These students might lack directions on how to listen. They are not equipped

with appropriate strategies to independently develop their listening comprehension. Thus, there

is a need to provide the students with tools that will facilitate the development of their listening

skills. For this reason, I think of listening strategies to improve English listening comprehension,

so I choose this article to review. According to Vandergrift (1999), listening strategies are mental
processes that language learners are involved in order to understand the oral texts. Over the past

decade, research on second language learners’ listening strategies in a variety inform language

teaching with a better understanding of what listening strategies have been used during listening

tasks. However, in this paper, the author addressed three main aspect of listening strategies: the

listening strategy groups and the individual listening strategies used by EFL learners, the

correlation between the extent of using listening strategies and English listening ability, and the

differences in the ways the listening strategies were used by effective and ineffective listeners.

Moreover, six types of listening strategies(LSs) also have been discussed, they are: Memory

Strategies, Cognitive Strategies, Compensation Strategies, Metacognitive Strategies, Affective

Strategies and Social Strategies. Based on its content and language use, this article was written

for an audience of TESOL teachers who are teaching English as a second language at education

enterprises, is well-organized. Moreover, the author chooses familiar words and expressions

make the article easy to understand. Besides, especially interesting was that the format of the

research is clearly designed. At the beginning of it, the author draws the readers by theoretical

consideration, practical consideration and six types of strategies which have an influence on new

developments in teaching process. This format benefits readers to keep track core ideas of

following parts. Furthermore, the author has a tendency to give brief summary then analyses her

viewpoint of each part. However, it would have been clearer if an explanation about correlation

between the effective and ineffective learners of using strategies.

In terms of method, a descriptive quantitative was carried out to describe the data and

characteristic about what is being studied. Listening comprehension test, a brief report about the

participants’ background as well as questionnaire were utilized. Data collection of this method

has both strong and weak points. Data used in this research are mainly collected from many other
famous researchers and experts (Vandergrift, Underwood, Oxford, Nunan, Murphy, etc.) who

have wide and deep knowledge and experience of TESOL issues worldwide. As a result, these

data have contribution to the success and diversity of the research since they are accurate and

valuable for teachers. On the other hand, what I like about this method is the instruments of

collecting data – questionnaires and listening comprehension tests. Using questionnaires are easy

to carry out with cheap price. Besides, taking the test, students are getting feedback on how well

they perform on it, so it’s more reliable and objective. However, pre-tests and post-tests should

be included to see the differences before and after using these strategies. Despite its many above

strengths, there are also a number of small, but important weaknesses. One of which is the fact

that some collection data may be old and unfeasible. These data were declared in 1990’s so they

can not be effectively applied for L2 teaching and learning at present. As is well-known, modern

English has many changes in term of method and function depending on the purpose of learners.

It would have been more persuasive if more up-to-date data had been used for these reasons. In

an age of information technology, teachers and learners can get access variety of reference

resources especially Internet resource that are always new and dynamic so old data may not be

feasible and out-up-date for improving teaching methods. Additionally, except for data

collection, other methods such as interview could have been added, therefore, the research result

would have been highly evaluated. In other words, the author could have interviewed teachers

who are directly relating to teaching these strategies. It is obvious that their responses will surely

reveal advantages and disadvantages which they encounter when applying listening strategies.

Furthermore, the author just pointed that the study was implemented at a rural school, he did not

show what and where the school was so it is quite ambiguous to the readers. In terms of

participants, I think the subjects are not suitable for the study. Firstly, they are in rural area which
do not receive good education in English and then feel frustrated with these strategies. Secondly,

as the author has mentioned in the practical consideration, listening skill teaching is a

challenging job for many Vietnamese English teachers because it requires not only high

language competence from teachers, but also careful preparation at home, especially for teachers

in rural area. In references, one problem is that the article contains a lot of data from other

researchers which do not include on the lists, so that information is not much reliable.

In the results, the author presents well-analyzed and well-organized research findings in

which some parts bring interesting discussions to the readers such as memory strategies were

used frequently. It was shown that the students tried to memorized information as much as

possible but they easily to forgot what mentioned before. Meanwhile, Noguchi (1991) and Kao

(2006) also had the same result that social strategies were used least frequently. One reason was

that Asian students generally resisted using participating in social interaction as a mean to learn

their second and foreign language (Lee, p.25, 2003). Yet students are not always aware of the

power of consciously using L2 learning strategies for making learning quicker and more

effective (Nyikos & Oxford, 1993). Therefore, skilled teachers should help their students

develop an awareness of learning strategies and enable them to use a wider range of appropriate

strategies. Another point of interest in the study was the differences between effective and

ineffective learners are reflected in the range of strategies used and the way in which individual

strategies are used. Wenden (1991) states that more effective students use a far greater variety of

strategies and they use them in ways that help students to complete the language tasks

successfully, whereas less effective students not only have fewer strategy types in their

repertoires but also frequently use strategies that are inappropriate to the task or do not lead to

successful task completion. In discussion, however, what is implausible is that the article still
remains unclear about the correlation between listening strategies and English listening ability.

In my opinion, the author should focus more what he mentioned for the main ideas in the

abstract. The readers, thus, may deeply comprehend the correlation between the problems and

the results. On the other hand, the author figured out some problems but the solutions have not

given. For example, the finding demonstrated that the students in the researcher’s school were

probably not familiar with taking notes and had a habit of translating the words.in this situation,

the author should give solution like punishment to the students who do not take note when

listening or good marks to the students who have more good note-taking. Another problem is that

the author should point out how to help students overcome feeling shy or making mistakes to use

social strategies effectively instead of just using memory strategies. One more thing, the

comparison between before and after using listening strategies should be made to know the

improvement of students. However, in the implication, the author has showed some interesting

listening strategies activities that are easy to apply in classroom.

In conclusion, the author offers a good research on an interesting topic of listening

strategies. They are useful tools for students because the open up more reliable and less

frustrating routes to language learning success (Vandergrift, 1999). Moreover, listening

strategies can make the context more authentic so the students feel more interested in learning

listening. For example, videos, films, news and songs to use their listening strategies in multiple

contexts. Regarding the teaching curriculum, the present study suggests integrating listening

strategies into normal listening courses so that students can make a choice to use a variety of

strategies in stead of “sticking to their traditional way of learning” (Rao, 2006, p. 505).

According to Thompson & Rubin (1996) and Vandergrift (1999), listening strategies training

should be implemented in a language classroom to help students become more autonomous both
inside and outside the classrooms. As a result, learners’ awareness of using listening strategies

would be raised day by day because many types of listening strategies are introduced to learners

in many different kinds of listening tests. This is so meaningful to me as a teacher of the second

language.
 REFERENCES

1. Do, T. M. C. (2007). Teaching listening comprehension at Food Industry College of Ho

Chi Minh City (Unpublished master’s thesis), University of Social Sciences &

Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

2. Noguchi, T. (1991). Questionnaire for learners. Tottori University, Tottori, Japan.

Mohamed Amin Embi, Juriah Long, Mohd Isa Hamzah. (2001). Language learning

strategies employed by secondary school students in Malaysia. Journal Pendidikan, 26,

3-20.

3. Nyikos, M., & Oxford, R.L., 1993: A factor-analytic study of language learning strategy

use: Interpretations from information processing theory and social psychology. Modern

Language Journal,77 (1), 11-23.

4. Rao, Z. (2006). Understanding Chinese students’ use of language learning strategies from

cultural and educational perspectives. Journal of multilingual and multicultural

development, 27(6), 491–508.

5. Thompson, I., & Rubin, J. (1996). Can strategy instruction improve listening

comprehension? Foreign Language Annals, 29(3), 331–342.

6. Vandergrift, L. (1999). Facilitating second language listening comprehension: Acquiring

successful strategies. ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176.

 7. Vu, H. Y., & Shah, M. (2016). Vietnamese students’ self-direction in learning English

listening skills. Asian Englishes, 18(1), 53–66. doi: 10.1080/13488678.2015.1136104

8. Wenden, A., (1991). Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Prentice-Hall

International Ltd, Hemel Hempstead

Chị đọc bài article mà e review ở link đây nhé: http://www.multidisciplinaryjournals.com/wp-

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STUDENTS-WITHIN-THE-HIGH-SCHOOL-SETTING-.pdf