VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ QUỲNH ANH

USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS

OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS
AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HA NAM PROVINCE

(Sử dụng chính tả để cải thiện kỹ năng nghe hiểu cho

học sinh lớp 10 tại một trường trung học ở Tỉnh Hà Nam)

M.A MINOR THESIS (Type I)

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi - 2019
 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ QUỲNH ANH

USING DICTATION TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS

OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS
AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HA NAM PROVINCE

(Sử dụng chính tả để cải thiện kỹ năng nghe hiểu cho

học sinh lớp 10 tại một trường trung học ở Tỉnh Hà Nam)

M.A MINOR THESIS (Type I)

Field: English teaching methodology

Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi – 2019
 DECLARATION

I certify that the minor thesis entitled “Using dictation to improve listening
skills of grade 10 students in a high school in Ha Nam province” and the work
presented in it is the result of my own work, and that the minor thesis or any part of
the same has not been submitted to any university and institution. I also accept all
the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation
Thesis deposited in the library.
Hanoi, October 2019
Author‟s signature

Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Anh

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Hoàng
Văn Vân for his valuable guidance, encouragements, criticisms and correction
throughout my research. Without his help, this study would be far from finished. He
consistently allowed this paper to be my own work, but steered me in the right
direction whenever he thought I needed it.

I am greatly indebted to all my lecturers at Faculty of Post-graduate Studies

of University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National
University, Hanoi who have provided me an invaluable source of knowledge for my
completion of this thesis.

I would also like to thank fourty 10th grade students at a local school in Ha
Nam province. Without their passionate participation and input, the validation
survey could not have been successful.

I must express my very profound gratitude to my family and friends whose

unfailing support and continuous encouragement help me throughout my years of
study and the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment
would not have been possible without them.

Last but not least, I wish to thank my readers for their interest and comments
on the thesis.

Hanoi, October 2019

Author‟s signature

Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Anh

ii
 ABSTRACT

How to improve English listening skill effectively is always a topic that has
attracted much attention from language teachers. Students of English find listening
lessons difficult because they do not have appropriate methods to get over the
difficulties. As a result, this research attempts to look at one method called dictation
to improve high school students‟ listening skills. This study is conducted to find
out: (1) a clear view of dictation, (2) how the method works on the students, and (3)
how much the student‟s listening skills are improved. The data were collected
through action research with 40 grade 10 students in a local high school in Ha Nam
province. All of the groups were pre-tested at the beginning of the study.
Throughout the learning process in class for 18 weeks, the teacher gave the students
dictation practice tasks. All students in the class were post-tested at the end of the
intervention. For the detailed outcome, the data was collected and analyzed
carefully. An analysis of survey questionnaires is done on the students to find out
their attitudes towards this technique. As the findings show, the research reveals
that dictation contributes positively to improving listening skills for students.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ..............................................................................................................i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................ii

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... iii

LIST OF TABLES .........................................................................................................vii

LIST OF CHARTS ...................................................................................................... viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1

1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale of the thesis ..................................1

1.2. Aims of the thesis ............................................................................................3
1.3. Scope of the thesis ...........................................................................................3
1.4. Methods of the thesis ......................................................................................4
1.5. Significance of the thesis ................................................................................4
1.6. Design of the thesis..........................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 6

2.1. Listening ..........................................................................................................6

2.1.1. Definition of listening................................................................................6
2.1.2. The importance of listening ......................................................................7
2.1.3. Listening problems ....................................................................................8
2.2. Dictation ...........................................................................................................9
2.2.1. History of dictation ....................................................................................9
2.2.2. Definition of dictation ...............................................................................9
2.2.3. Characteristic of dictation .......................................................................10
2.2.4. Types of dictation .....................................................................................11
2.2.5. The advantages of dictation ....................................................................12
2.2.6. The disadvantages of dictation ................................................................14
2.2.7. Related studies .........................................................................................14
2.3. Summary........................................................................................................16

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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................... 17

3.1. Research site .................................................................................................17

3.2. Research design .............................................................................................20
3.2.1. Initial relection ........................................................................................21
3.2.2. Planning ...................................................................................................22
3.2.3 Action and observation ............................................................................22
3.2.4. Reflection .................................................................................................25
3.3. The participants ............................................................................................26
3.4. Research questions........................................................................................26
3.5. The data collection instruments ..................................................................27
3.5.1. Pre- and Post-tests ...................................................................................27
3.5.2. Questionnaires .........................................................................................28
3.6. Method of data analysis................................................................................29
3.6.1. Quantitative data .....................................................................................29
3.6.2. Qualitative data ........................................................................................29
3.7. Summary........................................................................................................30
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................... 30

4.1. Analysis of listening practice tasks ..............................................................30

4.1.1. Standard dictation ...................................................................................31
4.1.2. Error identification ..............................................................................31
4.1.3. Jigsaw dictation .......................................................................................31
4.1.4. Listening cloze .........................................................................................32
4.1.5. Elicited imitation .....................................................................................32
4.2. Analysis of the listening tests .......................................................................33
4.3. Analysis of the survey questionnaire ..........................................................36
4.4. Discussion of the findings .............................................................................40
4.4.1. Achievement and difficulties ...................................................................41
4.4.2. Attitudes ...................................................................................................43
4.5. Summary........................................................................................................43

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 45

5.1. Summary of the study ..................................................................................45

5.2. Pedagogical implications ..............................................................................45
5.3. Recommendations .........................................................................................46
For the other researchers ..................................................................................47
5.4. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research ................47
5.6. Conclusion .....................................................................................................48
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 49

APPENDICES.................................................................................................................. I

APPENDIX 1 : A Lesson Plan......................................................................................... I

APPENDIX 2: Pre-Test .............................................................................................. VIII

APPENDIX 3: Dictation 1: Unit 1: Family Life............................................................XI

APPENDIX 4: Dictation 2: Unit 2: Your Body And You ........................................... XII

APPENDIX 5: Dictation 3. Unit 3: Music ..................................................................XIV

APPENDIX 6: Dictation 4: Unit 4: For A Better Community .................................... XV

APPENDIX 7: Dictation 5: Unit 5: Invention ............................................................XVI

APPENDIX 8: Post-Test ........................................................................................... XVII

APPENDIX 9: Questionnaires ..................................................................................... XX

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Listening practice task for dictation 4......................................................... XV

Table 4.2: The results of pre-test and post-test .............................................................. 33

Table 4.3. Student‟s response to the questionnaires ...................................................... 37

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 LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 3.2 Action Research Model (Source: Kurt Lewin, (1934)) .................................. 21

Chart 3.2.3: Conceptual framework ............................................................................... 25

Chart 4.2: Students‟ mean score of average mark ......................................................... 36

Chart 4.3.1: Students‟ attitudes towards dictation ......................................................... 38

Chart 4.3.2. The benefits of dictation ............................................................................. 39

Chart 4.3.3. Student‟s difficulties when doing dictation................................................ 40

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the researcher will set the introduction of the study, including:
the rationale for the study, the aims, the scope, the method of the study, and the
design of the thesis.

1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale of the thesis

Language plays such an indispensable part in our life as a means of both spoken
and written communication. By using language, people can express their feelings
and thoughts to communicate with others in fulfilling their daily demands so that
close relation among members of the group can be carried out (Ramelan, 1993: 8).
Ramelan further states that “The use of language enables the members of a social
group to cooperate with one another for their own benefit.”

It can not be denied that English nowadays is not only a language to

communicate among people but also a connection among countries in many fields
such as science, education, tourism, industry, trade and so forth. In Vietnam at
present, English is a compulsory subject from lower secondary education because of
its role in industrialization and modernization of the country. On the basis of the
National Curriculum, teachers are expected to teach their students five basic aspects
which are Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, and language knowledge
(phonology, lexis, and grammar). As a matter of fact, in the process of teaching and
learning English, listening seems to play an important role. It gives the learner
information to build the knowledge which is necessary for using the language.
Listening provides the vital input for learners to acquire the language and somehow
it promotes speaking skill. However, for the students, listening skill is always
supposed to be the most difficult one because from the very first place of learning
English, Vietnamese students seem to pay more attention to learning grammar,
vocabulary. Unlike other language skills such as reading and writing, which learners

1
can observe directly, listening is an abstract, intricate “process of hearing,
identifying, understanding and interpreting spoken language” (Lewis, 2007). Many
students have significant problems with listening. The speed, the reduced forms, the
use of intonation, and unfamiliar accents, all ask learners at all levels a great deal of
practice. Therefore, the choice of the appropriate method is a great significance in
developing listening skills and student‟s overall language learning.

At a local high school where the researcher has been working, students‟ listening
skill presents a big problem that the teachers of English here have to deal with.
Several techniques have been applied to teaching and learning English, however,
most of them have not been appropriate and effective. One of the techniques to
improve listening comprehension which is recommended in many books about
teaching EFL in general and teaching listening comprehension, in particular, is
dictation (Celce-Murcia, 1995; Gilbert, 1996; Ur, 1991). According to researchers‟
opinion, dictation brings about a variety of benefits. For instance, Lightfoot (2004)
pointed out that dictation could be done with any level, depending on the text
carefully designed and applied and it could be graded for a multi-level class.
Montalvan (2006) maintained that dictation involved the whole class, no matter
how large it was. The dictation text can be completely prepared beforehand and
administered quite effectively by any inexperienced teacher. As a result, Pappas
(1977) regards dictation as a good means of improving learners‟ listening skill.

For grade-10 students‟ problems of poor listening comprehension and as one of

the teachers of English in this school, the researcher would like to improve the
students‟ listening skills and hope that this method can improve the students‟
listening skills. All considered, a study on “Using dictation to improve grade-10
students‟ listening skill at a high school in Ha Nam province” was conducted

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1.2. Aims of the thesis

In traditional listening teaching methods in general and, in particular, teaching

listening tends to treat students equally. Teachers have tendencies to present the
same in-class exercises and activities to all learners and expect the same outcome.
In present, with the development of high technology, numerous techniques to teach
listening are applied in listening lessons; however, dictation is still a good method
to be used to teach listening when it has various implications for educators in terms
of classroom instructions.

The overarching aim is to find out whether students can improve listening
skill through dictation. Therefore, the study is carried out with the aim of finding
the answers to the following question:

1. To what extent does dictation contribute to improving English listening skills

of the grade-10 students at a local high school?
2. What are students’ attitudes towards this listening technique?

1.3. Scope of the thesis

Due to the limits of the time, ability and condition, it is unable to cover the
whole achievement test for all students in a local high school but focus on the
listening tests as a part of achievement test for a class of grade-10 students. It
provides the general theory of language teaching, analyzed data of the test as well as
the students‟ comments to investigate the effectiveness of dictation to enhance
English listening skill for grade 10-students (about 40 students) at a local high
school. To be more convenient, one class the researcher has been teaching as the
object of the investigation was chosen.

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1.4. Methods of the thesis

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to achieve the aims
stated. The data collected for the study is analyzed from the results of pre-test and
post-test as well as students‟ survey questionaires.

Pre-test and post-test which have been examined to have an equivalent difficulty
level, are used to test students‟ listening skills before and after the project. The pre-
test is delivered to students before the intervention and the post-test is used to
collect the scores and then compare to the scores of the pre-test.

The qualitative research method through survey questionaires are conducted to

aim at finding out the students‟ attitudes towards dictation as well as their
comments on using dictation in the English lessons.

1.5. Significance of the thesis

In fact, dictation was generally applied in English teaching and learning, and
there has been a wide range of studies about the implications of this theory.
However, there were a few studies about its effectiveness on improving listening
skills.

The findings of the thesis may serve as useful information not only for the
researcher, involved students but also for all language teachers. In particular, the
study is conducted to improve listening competence of grade-10 students at a local
high school. Therefore, the results of this study may be generalized to apply for
students at the same level in other schools. It is also hoped that the thesis will make
a contribution to the achievement in listening learning of students at different levels.
Besides, this study may also bring new insights into language teaching when
recommendations for other researches are stated with the hope of taking the most
advantages of the using dictation as a model for listening teaching.

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1.6. Design of the thesis

This thesis is divided into five chapters as follows:

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION provides the basic information such as the
nationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study
and design of the study.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW presents key concepts such as
definition of listening, listening as the final goal of learning a language, listening as
a means of acquiring language, and evaluation standard on listening skill. In
addition, the followings are also included in this chapter: the history of dictation,
definition of dictation, characteristics of dictation, type of dictations and so forth.
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY describes the method of
investigation consisting of research site, research questions, participants,
instruments, methods of data collection and analysis.
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION presents the detailed
results of the survey including Data analysis and Discussion, gives a detailed
presentation of data and a detailed description of data analysis.
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION provides the conclusion of the research, points
out limitations and makes some suggestions with future directions on the
improvement of dictation test for grade-10 students.

REFERENCES AND APPENDIX come at the end of the study

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 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Any research has theories as its background. In this minor thesis, the
researcher bases the study on the theories which are the views of the famous applied
linguists. This section contains the definitions of listening, learning to listen, types
of listening, listening problems, types of classroom listening performance, and
assessment of listening.

2.1. Listening

2.1.1. Definition of listening

There are various definitions of listening. The first definition is that listening is a
crucial element of oral communication, or the interactive process. Listening is such
an essential part of the communication process. Students spent the majority of their
time at school listening and most of what students know is acquired through
listening. They can listen and express themselves orally to communicate with
others.

Myers and Myers (1988: 143) define that listening is not just hearing. It includes
understanding, paying attention, analyzing, evaluating the spoken messages, and
possibly acting on the basis of what has been heard.

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what the speaker is saying
through understanding his accent, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and
comprehension of meaning (Howatt and Dakin, 1974 ). (Rost, 1994) draws a
particular list of components to master when dealing with this skill:

- Discriminating between sounds.

- Recognizing words.
- Identifying stressed words and grouping of words.

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- Identifying functions (such as apologizing, suggesting, advising and so on) in
conversations.
- Connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation and stress) and to
non-linguistic cues (gestures and relevant objects in the situation) in order to
construct meaning.
- Using background knowledge and context to predict and then to confirm
meaning.
- Recalling important words, topics and ideas.
- Giving appropriate feedback to the speaker.
- Reformulate what the speaker has said.

Rost (1994) insists on the fact that students must deploy all these sub-skills
to realize a successful process when he states: “Successful listening involves an
integration of these component skills. In this sense, listening is a coordination of the
component skills, not the individual skills themselves. This integration of these
skills constitutes a person's listening ability”.

Ma Lihua (2002) states that listening comprehension is a complex

psychological process of listeners‟ language understanding by hearing. Listening is
an interactive, not a passive skill, which the students need to put much effort and
practice. So as to listen effectively, the listeners must have sufficient knowledge of
the language he or she is listening to.

2.1.2. The importance of listening

Listening plays an important role in learning a foreign language, especially in

communication. We cannot communicate with others successfully unless we
understand what the speakers mean. A study conducted by Wilt (1950) states that
when communicating, 30 percent of communication was spent speaking, 16 percent
reading and 9 percent writing. The listeners sometimes misunderstand the speakers
because of their listening ability and how they response to what they have heard.

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 Listening to a second language seems to be so difficult. Besides, in class,
students have less chance to learn listening than learn speaking, reading, writing and
grammar. However, students can day by day enhance their listening skills by
practicing listening daily.

2.1.3. Listening problems

We need to identify the problems before finding the solutions to deal with them.
Following are some of the learner‟s problems and the solutions that Ur (1996: 111-
112) identifies:
a. Trouble with the sounds
Most students do not catch the words but they respond by understanding the
context.
b. Find it difficult to keep up
Some students feel worried, stressed or even tired and bored when they miss
some words of the text because much information comes so fast. Therefore, they
cannot concentrate on the lessons. The teacher should encourage and explain to the
students that there is no need listening to every word but try to get keywords.
c. Need to hear thing many times
In order to understand, students need more than once to hear the text. For
difficult texts, teachers can give students opportunities to listen more times.
Besides, Goh (2000) reports that some listeners complain that they quickly
forget what they have heard and then they easily miss the following information.

To deal with the students‟ difficulties in learning to listen, the teacher has to
identify and classify those difficulties. Then to make the lessons more effective,
teachers must select and design appropriate materials.

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2.2. Dictation

2.2.1. History of dictation

Dictation is regarded as one of the oldest techniques introduced in the Middle

Age. It is known for testing progress in the learning of a foreign language. It was
used to transmit course content from teacher to students in both translation method
and traditional direct method.

2.2.2. Definition of dictation

David and Rinvolucri (1998) defines dictation as decoding the sounds of

(English) and recording them in writing. Dictation has been proved to be extremely
effective at all levels. It helps students to distinguish sounds and requires them to
transfer sounds into written words. It can be said that “dictation” is a process of
listening to something from the teacher and the students record it by writing down
in their notes.

In the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching Applied Linguistics, Richards

(1999: 108) defines dictation as “a technique used in both language teaching and
language testing in which a passage is read aloud to student or test-takers, with
pauses during which they must try to write down what they heard as accurately as
possible”.

Many experts claim that dictation is such an effective teaching method for
teachers. Oller (1979: 39) states that:“Dictation is a task which requires the
processing of temporally constrained sequences of material in the language, divided
up the stream of speech and then refers down what is heard requires understanding
the meaning of the material.”

According to Taylor as quoted by Fachrurrazy (1989), “Dictation” means “ (1)

reading a passage aloud, (2) dividing the passage into phrases that are short

9
enough to remember and re-reading phrases with gap long enough for subjects to
record the preceding phrase in writing, (3) optionally re-reading each phrase as it
is being written, and (4) re-reading the whole passage as in (1).”

Dictation is when the teacher reads aloud the passage of around 150 words three
times. For the first time, the teacher reads the text without breaks at a normal speed,
while the students write down what they have heard. For the second time, the
teacher reads the passage in phrases and pauses long enough for students to write.
The last time the teacher once again reads the whole text at a normal speed, for
students to check what they have written.

2.2.3. Characteristic of dictation

Zhiqian (1989) states that dictation makes the lessons more and more efficient. It
has a numerous characteristics as follows:

(1) Dictation includes activities which are suitable for a wide range of levels and
ages. Dictation can be used in a class of any size. When the dictation
technique? is used, all of the students work at the same time, even in a very
large class.
(2) Students can learn in groups by creating their own text. In other word,
students can learn by their own with the teacher‟s guide or example.
(3) It gives students opportunities to get practice in note-taking that is very
necessary in any course, especially in learning languages.
(4) Dictation attracts students‟ attention in listening lessons. Dictation requires
students to focus on the exercise or they will miss words.
(5) Doing dictation is a good chance for students to practice listening, gaining
vocabulary, grammatical points and distinguishing sounds.

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2.2.4. Types of dictation

Dictation can be classified into various types. Oller (1979), for example,
identifies five types of dictation: (i) standard dictation, (ii) partial dictation, (iii)
dictation with competing noise, (iv) dicto-Comp, and (v) and elicited imitation.
Standard dictation, according to Oller (Ibid.), is probably the most renown. Students
are required to write down what has been read by the teacher or played back from a
recording at a normal conversational speed. The students are given enough time to
challenge their short term memory. Partial dictation, also called spot dictation, is a
kind of standard dictation, but the students are given either the written version of the
text or the spoken one. The students must listen to the spoken text and fill in the
missing blank in the written version. Dictation with competing noise is rather
difficult because noise is added to the material. For example, the situation of the
communication is in public spaces or in the place where the television or the radio is
turned on. Dicto-Comp is a combination of two forms, namely dictation and
composition. The teacher reads the whole passage three times and then ask them to
write what they have heard after the third time as a reproduction. And elicited
imitation means that after listening to the material, students are asked to repeat or
recount what they have heard rather than write it down.

From another perspective, Rost (2002) also identifies dictation into five
categories: (i) fast speed dictation, (ii) pause and paraphrase, listening cloze, (iv)
error identification, and (v) jigsaw dictation. According to Rost (Ibid.), in fast speed
dictation the teacher reads a text at a natural speed, and the students can ask for as
many repetitions of any part of the passage as they want, but the teacher will not
slow down her reading speed. This activity attracts students‟ attention on features of
fast speech. In pause and paraphrase, Rost maintains, the teacher reads a passage
and pauses periodically for the students to write paraphrase but not a single word.
This activity focuses students on meaning, improving their vocabulary and how to
say things in a different way. In listening cloze, the teacher provides a passage with

11
missing words that the listeners fill in as they listen or after they listen. This activity
requires students to fill in the blanks with words, which helps students to focus on
particular language features. In error identification, the teacher provides a fully
transcribed passage with a number of errors. The students have to listen and identify
the errors, which draws students‟attention to detail by grammatical or semantic.
And in jigsaw dictation, students are asked to work in pairs. Each student keeping a
different part of the full dictation reads their parts to the other so as to complete the
passage. This activity encourages the negotiation of meaning.

2.2.5. The advantages of dictation

Lado (1977: 34) says that dictation serves many teachers and students
effectively. Frodesen (1991) reports that dictation can be “an effective way to
address grammatical error in writing that may be the result of erroneous aural
perception of English... Dictation can help students to diagnose and correct these
kinds of errors as well as others.”

According to Montalvana (2006), there are 21 advantages of dictation as follows

and the first six of them are the most important.
1. Dictation can help develop all four language skills in an integrative way.
2. It can help learn grammar.
3. Discussion helps to develop short-term memory.
4. Practice in careful listening will be useful later on in note-taking exercise.
5. Correcting dictation can lead to oral communication
6. Dictation fosters unconscious thinking in the new language.
7. Dictation is psychologically powerful and challenging.
8. Dictation can serve as an excellent review exercise
9. If the students do well, dictation is motivating.
10. Dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is.
11. During and after the dictation, all the students are active.

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12. Correction can be done by the students.
13. Dictation can be prepared for mixed ability groups.
14. Dictation can be prepared for any level
15. The students, as well as the teacher, can get instant feedback (if the exercise is
corrected immediately)
16. The dictation passage can (and should) be completely prepared in advance (it
also can be taped).
17. Dictation can be administered quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher.
18. While dictating, the teacher can move about, giving individual attention.
19. Dictation exercise can pull the class together, for example, during those
valuable first minute.
20. Dictation can provide access to interesting texts, by introducing a topic, for
example, or summarizing it, as in a dicto-comp.
21. Research has shown the learning to write down what you hear can encourage
the development literacy.
Lighfoot (2004: 23) says that dictation exercises are very important,
particularly for developing the children‟s awareness of phonic sounds. Lightfoot
says that there are several reasons for which dictation activities work well in the
classroom. From the teacher‟s point of view, dictation:
1) Can be done with any level, depending on the text used
2) Can be graded for a class at multi-levels.
For students, dictation:
a) Can focus on both accuracy (form) as well as meaning
b) Can develop all four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) can be
develop if the students do the dictating rather than the teacher.
c) Give students the opportunity to notice features of pronouncing such as weak
forms, linking and elision.

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2.2.6. The disadvantages of dictation

Beside a variety of benefits, dictation also brings some drawbacks such as

reading speed, memorizing, and spelling. Regarding to reading speed, in fact, by
dictation, students cannot distinguish the difference between the oral and the written
language. Additionally, teachers read texts at a slower speed; therefore, students are
still not familiar with the language spoken by natives. Memorizing in the short term
memory is sometimes a problem when there is too much information. Finally, in
some cases, students have difficulties in spelling. They can get the sound but cannot
spell and vice versa. For example, a lot of English learning beginners may not
distinguish between the short /ɔ/ and the long /ɔ:/ Therefore, they will make spelling
mistakes, which helps less in learning spelling or even pronunciation by dictation.

In addition, there are other disadvantages as follows. Alderson (1978a)

reports that the evidence concerning dictation is inconclusive and it is useful only as
a part of the battery of listening tests rather than a single solution. If the dictation is
not recorded on tape, the test will be less reliable, as there will be differences in, for
example, the speed of the text. The exercise can be unrealistic if the texts used have
been previously created to be read rather than heard. There is a close relationship
between the sounds and the spelling system. Therefore, in some cases, students
concentrate too much on single sounds and guess the single word but not the
meaning of the whole text. After that, with the limited memory span, the students
cannot retain what they have heard.
2.2.7. Related studies

Before this research, there were a number of the studies to explore the
relationship between dictation and listening skills as follows:
Firstly, the thesis was carried out by Nguyen Thi Minh Hang (2004) “English
Dictation Tests For First Year Students Of Business Administration Faculty, Hanoi
Foreign Trade University Problems And Solutions”. The research was done on 100

14
FTU second year students of Business Administration Faculty (three classes) and 20
teachers teaching the first year students. To collect the data, the researcher used
both quantitative data (listening tests) and qualitative data (interview and
questionnaire). Based on the data analysis, it was found that the student‟s listening
comprehension was improved. It can be seen easily from the data that she showed in
her thesis.

Moreover, Ika Ratna Melawanti (2007) conducted a research entitled

“Dictation As a Testing Technique In Measuring The Student‟s Listening Skill”.
The population of this study was in one class consisting of 36 students having low
marks in listening tests of the fifth grade of SD Negeri Wonorejo 01
Karanganyar Demak in the Academic Year of 2006/2007 . To collect the data, the
researcher used the quantitative data. The teacher gave the listening tests twice and
analysed the results. It can be seen from the score of the students are in average 7 -
9. Clearly, this listening technique contributed to enhancing the students‟ listening
ability.

More recently, Intan Nurjannah Nasution (2017) investigated “The

Implementation Of Dictation Technique To Increase Students‟ Ability In Listening
Skill At Smk-1 Alfattah Medan.” with the aim of knowing the students‟ ability in
listening skill by using dictation technique and finding out whether the dictation
technique can increase the students‟ ability in listening skill. The subject of this
research was 30 tenth-grade students of SMK-1Al-Fattah Medan Academic year
2016/2017 who participated in a classroom action research. As above, it was
concluded that Dictation Technique could increase the students‟ ability in listening
skill at tenth grade in SMK-1 Al-Fattah Medan.

In general, there is a variety of the recent application of Dictation Technique.

Although each was conducted at different levels of learners and educational
background, it is time to note that using Dictation Technique can be helpful in

15
improving the learners‟ listening skills. That was the reason why the researcher
chose listening technique to enhance the students‟ listening skills.

2.3. Summary

The literature review of the present study is clearly presented. It provides

some general infomation about listening and dictation in term of the definition,
advantages & disadvantages, and the theoretical framework underlying the issue.
Next, the third chapter has briefly discussed research methodology.

16
 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To address the research question and achieve the aims, this study was
conducted with the participation of 40 students at a local high school. Details of the
research site, the participants, the instruments, the procedures of data collection and
method of data analysis will be stated in this chapter.

3.1. Research site

A local high school, the research site, located in a countryside of the north of
Kim Bang district, Hanam province, was established in 1999. Although the school
has just been founded for 19 years, it is on top 5 of 23 schools in the province and
becomes a reliable school of parents and students of the district. The reason why the
researcher chose a local is that the researcher has been teaching here for 3 years. the
students‟ listening ability is so weak that the researcher needs to find some ways to
improve it.

The school has 24 classes with approximately 365 students from grade 10 to
grade 12 and over 60 teachers of different subjects. English is a compulsory subject
at this school. It is taught by 5 female teachers aged from 25 to 40. The teaching and
learning of English here is based on the national curriculum by the Ministry of
Education and Training. Therefore, all students of the school use the same sets of
English textbook (Tiếng Anh 10, Tiếng Anh 11, and Tiếng Anh 12).

A communicative approach which helps student improve communicative skills

through speaking, listening, reading and writing is applied to English curriculum at
high school. Particularly, phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar are the key
instruments. The English textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” by Hoang Van Van et al.

17
(2012), the workbook, and other teaching facilities (tapes & recorders, computer,
speaker, projector and so on) are the essential elements in learning and teaching
English, especially English listening skill.

“Tiếng Anh 10” textbook consists of ten units for two terms. It is designed
under theme-based approach with ten topics. There are eight parts in each unit as
follows: Getting Started, Language, Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing,
Communication Culture, and Project. After three units, there is a Review to
examine how well the students have achieved in the previous units. The Review is
constructed as follows: Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Grammar, Reading, Speaking,
Listening, Writing. With this book, students can speak, listen, read and write
English at basic level. They get an overview of English-speaking, people and
cultures and then conserve and develop our national traditions and cultures.

Listening lesson is the fifth part in each unit and under the theme-based and
tasked-based approaches. In general, the textbook provides the students with a
variety of topics and listening activities with the aim of helping the students to
improve their listening skills in fifty-five weeks with one hundred and five periods.
Each period lasts forty-five minutes. At the end of grade 10, students will be able to
listen and understand short monologues or dialogues for main ideas or specific
information. Moreover, they can identify and differentiate sounds, words and
intonation.

Followings are five topics in semester I corresponding with five topics in the
listening practice tasks.

 Topic 1: Unit 1: Family life

The main idea of this listening lesson is about how the roles of men and
women family are changing. Beside widening the vocabulary related to the topic,
the students can revise the usage of the present tense and present perfect to express
the changes. Moreover, the questions of the practice task helps to better the

18
students‟ listening skill for specific information. Especially, it focuses on improving
the listening skill to do True-False tasks.

 Topic 2: Unit 2: Your body and you

The listening audio is about how to choose a healthy diet. It helps the
students not only learn more new vocabulary related to the food pyramid but also
enhance their listening competence by analyzing and comparing the given
information in True-False statements with the listening tape.

 Topic 3: Unit 3: Music

In this unit, the students have to listen to a conversation talking about music
taste to answer the questions. For this kind of exercises, the students are required to
listen for specific information to complete the task. They have to listen carefully,
analyze and take note of the information needed to the question.

 Topic 4: Unit 4: For a better community

There are various exercises for the students to practice in unit 4 about an
announcement for volunteers such as Matching, True-False statements and
Multiple-choice questions. These activities ask the students to use a number of
listening skills to complete the tasks. Undeniably, it helps a lot to improve listening
skills.

 Topic 5: Unit 5: Inventions

In the last unit of semester I, the students have a chance to access to another
type of listening exercise, namely Cloze test beside Short-answer question. The
listening audio introduces some basic information of a new mean of transportation –
flying car. The students are required to listen to some specific information about the
flying car and try to fill in the blanks with one suitable word or number. This

19
exercise helps the students both enhance their listening comprehension and widen
their knowledge about this new kind of vehicle.

After investigating the listening score in the high school entrance exam, the
teacher realized that the students had several problems with listening skills. Most of
them got low marks in the listening part. With the above setting, the researcher
expected to intervene with a new approach to see whether learners‟ listening skills
could be improved as expected.

3.2. Research design

Classroom Action Research was applied in this study. It is an action research

conducted with planning, acting, observing and reflecting with an aim of improving
the quality of listening process in the classroom. According to Mettetal (2001),
Classroom Action Research is a research designed to assist teachers in
understanding what is happening in his or her classroom, and then make changes for
the future. Moreover, action research can promote “teachers‟ growth as an
empowered professional”, “teachers‟ confidence in their teaching ability”, and their
“problem-solving skills as well” (Briscoe and Wells, 2002: 429). Action research
involved the collection and analysis of date related to aspect of professional practice
and it chould be repeated until found satisfied solution.

Action research is a suitable chosen research method for the study for some
reasons. Besides many other teaching methods, the new sight of Dictation
Technique can be a useful approach for meeting the expectation to what extent.
Second, action research is aimed at changing things as well as suggest a reference
source for other research. From the findings of the effects of using activities based
on Dictation Technique on young learners‟ listening skill, some constructive
suggestions will be given so that teachers can facilitate students‟ English listening
learning.

20
 Classroom Action Research is combination of qualitative research and
Quantitative research. The data was collected qualitatively and analyzed
quantitatively. According to the explanation above, Action Research was used to
see the improvement of the students‟ listening skillss through dictation technique.

Accroding to Kurt Lewin (1952: 462-463), there are five steps in Action
Research, namely Initial Reflection, Planning, Action, Observing and Reflection.
The below diagram illustrates the action research model.

Initial
Relfection

Reflection Planning

Observation Action

Chart 3.2 Action Research Model (Source: Kurt Lewin, (1934))

3.2.1. Initial relection

The study started when the researcher realizes that there is a need to improve
the students‟ listening ability. The new approach – using activities based on
dictation technique should be used. In other words, step 1 was implemented to
figure out the problem. The demand for a new approach in order to help students
better their listening skills was identified and then investigated.

21
3.2.2. Planning

Planning is to develop an action plan critically to improve what happened. In

this step, the researcher did a literature search before beginning the action research.
The literature review was to strengthen the validity of the research by giving the
theoretical framework, and comparing the findings in other researches with future
findings.

After having a quite clear literature review, the researcher refined the
question for the research. Participants of the study were the 10th graders in A local
high school where the researcher is working and the teaching material is “Tiếng
Anh 10”.

3.2.3 Action and observation

The action here is a conscious action and control, which is a variation

of a careful and prudent practices. Firstly, in order to measure students‟ listening
level prior to the treatment, learners took the listening pre-test within 15 minutes
(APPENDIX 2). The teacher marked the pre-test and kept the result for later use.

The intervening program lasted 18 weeks. The teacher made a suitable lesson
plan (APPENDIX 1) for teaching listening dictation in targeted units (Units 1, 2, 3,
4, 5 in Tiếng Anh 10 – students‟ book). The researcher followed the basic content of
each lesson and find or design dictation tasks based on the theory of Oller and
Roster for the students to practice. The detailed plan and activities under dictation
technique, as well as steps of the in-class lessons are mentioned below.

a. The lesson plans with different dictation practice tasks

According to Rinvolucri (1996), a lesson plan is regarded as the instructor‟s
road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during
the class time. In this action research, with the purposes to deliver the lesson by a

22
new approach – dictation technique, the lesson plans were prepared carefully and
focused on dictation activities.

It is importantly noted here is that learning activities related to different

dictation techiniques were inserted into the listening lesson plan. Specifically, a
wide range of activities was adapted, for instance:

- Standard Dictation (Unit 1: Family life, Lesson 3)

- Error Identification (Unit 2: Your body, Lesson 3)
- Jigsaw Dictation (Unit 3: Music, Lesson 3)
- Listening Cloze (Unit 4: For a better community, Lesson 3)
- Imitation Elicited (Unit 5: Invention, Lesson 3)

b. Procedures of the in-class lessons

Firstly, they were given pre-test to measure their listening skills and then,
dictation practice tasks were relatively given in listening lessons. The students were
asked to pay attention to the teacher‟s explanation and guidance and did what are
said. After the process, the students took post-test to figure out the progress of the
students‟ listening ability. Finally, the teacher gave the students questionaire to
collect their comments and attitude toward this project.

23
 The conceptual framework underlying this research is presented in the
following diagram.

Chart 3.2.3: Conceptual framework

PRE-TEST Dictation practice Dictation practice
task 1 task 2

Dictation Dictation practice Dictation practice

practice task 5 task 4 task 3

POST-TEST Questionaire

In the listening lesson of each unit, after completing all the listening tasks in
the textbook, the students were given a dictation practice task in stead of working
on the post-listening part which took about 10 to 15 minutes.

24
 The teacher tried to activate learners‟ listening ability via five types of the
dictation activities corresponding to five units in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. For
example, in Unit 1, lesson 3, the students were asked to take advantage of their
memory to write down what they have heard from a recording at a normal
conversational speed, which is considered as a traditional way of dictation. For
lesson 3 of Unit 2, the students involved in Jigsaw Dictation Activity. The students
were required to work in pairs. Each of them kept a different part of a full text then
read their parts to the other so as to complete the passage. About Unit 3, the
researcher applied Error Identification. The teacher provides a fully transcribed
passage with a number of errors. The students have to listen and identify the errors
of the listening lesson. In Unit 4, the students were given a familiar dictation
technique called Listening Cloze which requires the students to listen and fill in the
blanks with missing words. The last practice task was Imitation Elicited. In this
task, students must repeat or recount what they have heard rather than write it down
while listening.

During the researching period, the lesson plans were designed and updated
accordingly with the daily observation. Right after learners finished all five
dictation practice tasks, the researcher delivered post-test (APPENDIX 4) to
evaluate students‟ achievement after the project.

3.2.4. Reflection

In this step, the results were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to evaluate
the action plan. With the quantitative data, after the 18-week project, data were
collected and compared with the results of the pre-test. The researcher analyzed the
descriptive statistics to answer the research question “To what extent does dictation
contribute to improving English listening skills of grade-10 students at a local high
school in Ha Nam?”

25
 About the qualitative data, in the last week, questionnaires were directly given
to the students to ensure effective implementation. The introduction was written and
said in Vietnamese to lessen any misunderstanding and ambiguity. All the
participants were given twenty minutes to complete the questionnaire and explained
for any information that they needed. The researcher based on the data to answer the
question: “What are the student’s attitudes towards this listening technique?”

3.3. The participants

The participants in this study are 40 grade-10 students from class 10A2,
whom the researcher teaches English in a local high school.

It is convenient for the researcher to carry out research with the own students
in collecting data. Moreover, they have the same listening competence which was
assessed in the last academic year. 40 students who are at the age of 16 in class
10A2 account for 11% of grade-10 students in this school (There are 365 students in
total). There are 34 females and 16 males. They all come from village and have the
same family background. The time they started learning English is the same. It is
when they were in grade 6.

Every week, the students had three English lessons basing on “Tiếng Anh
10” and one extra lesson for other optional topics called “optional periods”. The
pre-test and the post-test were carried out in optional periods, five dictation
practice tasks were carried out in the post-listening part of the listening lesson.

3.4. Research questions

As mentioned in Chapter 1, in this minor thesis, the researcher would like to

improve listening skill for grade-10 students at a local high school in Ha Nam
province. Therefore, the study is conducted in an attempt to find out the answers to
the following questions:

26
 1. To what extent does dictation contribute to improving English listening skills
of grade 10 students at a local high school?
2. What are the students’ attitudes towards this listening technique?

3.5. The data collection instruments

In this research, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed.

There were two research instruments: pre- and post - tests and questionnaires. The
former instrument measured students‟ listening ability. The latter was used to see
the students‟ attitudes toward the new approach. Followings are the detailed
description of the instruments used for data collection in this study.

3.5.1. Pre- and Post-tests

According to Brown (2004: 3) a test is a method of measuring a person‟s

ability; knowledge, or performance in a given domain. The goal in giving the test
was to measure the students‟ achievement in listening comprehension. Tests were a
pre-test and a post-test. The pre-test was given to the students before being taught
using dictation technique and the post-test was given to the students after being
taught using dictation techinique. It is aimed to know whether the students‟ listening
ability improves or not, before and after taught using dictation techinique. Both pre-
test and post-test shared the same form, length, and level of difficulty. All kinds of
tasks in the tests were familiar to students, so that they would feel more confident
while doing the test.

Listening practice tests used in this minor thesis are T/F statements, listening
cloze and multiple choice.
a. T/F items
True/False tasks require students to select the correct answer out of the two
answers, which seems to be quite easy. Additionally, the teacher can use it for

27
 large classes. However, there are only 2 answers, therefore, students may just
guess the answer but not listen comprehensively.
b. Listening cloze
It is quite easy to design listening cloze. Test designers can omit any words,
proposition, adjectives, nouns, verbs or articles that they want. Moreover, scoring is
quite reliable and efficient. However, for students, gap-filling exercise is one of the
most difficult tasks in doing tests.
c. Multiple choice question
For this kind of question, it is a good chance for students to skim the ideas in the
questions and the options. But it is also problematic for the students who have
difficulty in finding key words.

The test comprised three main parts each of which has five questions:
Part 1: Multiple choice (0.5 x 5 = 2.5 points)
Part 2: True or False (0.5 x 5 = 2.5 points)
Part 3: Listening cloze (1 x 5 = 5 points)

For the first kind of test, it is conducted in Week 2 to evaluate student‟s

listening competence before applying dictation to lessons. The last test is taken to
figure out the last result after the research (Week 17)

3.5.2. Questionnaires

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions

and prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondent.
Questionnaire is easier and less time consuming to administer the interview and the
responses of various information can be gathered. Related to this statement
questionnaire will be given by the researcher before and after treatment to the
students to get information from them about their activities, opinions, expectations,
and attitudes and perceptions. The researcher asked the students to fill the
questionnaire by reading the questionnaire and put √ to one of the responses. I chose

28
questionnaires because it is one of the most popular instruments which is easily
prepared, conducted and analyzed with a huge number of subjects. Therefore, the
set of questionnaires (APPENDIX 4) was given to students in Week 18 to collect
their opinions, attitudes, and their difficulties when learning dictation in English
lessons, especially in listening lessons.

3.6. Method of data analysis

To collect the data, the researcher used pre-test, post-test and questionnaire
in order to know the students‟ initial achievement, their achievement after
intervention and their attitudes toward the new learning approach.

3.6.1. Quantitative data

The quantitative data generated according to the results obtained from the
students‟ pre-test and post-test. The quantitative data were analyzed by computing
the average scores or the mean scores of pre-test and post-test. The formula is used
to analyze the data adapted from Djiwandono (2008):

∑X
M=
N
Where: M: Mean score of the students‟ achievement of each English skill
∑X: the sum of the total score
N: The total number of the students

3.6.2. Qualitative data

In terms of the data from the questionnaires, they were analyzed statistically
by calculating the numbers of responses and the percentages respectively. These
statistics were arranged according to different categories and displayed in charts and
table for better illustrations and explanations.

29
3.7. Summary

In this chapter, the researcher has indicated the most basic background
information of the thesis which are the location and time of the thesis, participants,
research questions. The other parts of this chapter helps to clarify other aspects of
the study such as instruments, the procedures of data collection and analysis
methods. The researcher made an attempt to get a reliable and valid data for the
study.

In the next chapter, the result of tests and questionnairess would be analyzed.

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The data from the study were taken from the scores of pre-test, post-test and the
questionnaire. They were then devided into three kinds of analysis, namely:
The analysis of listening practice tasks
The analysis of the listening tests
The analysis of questionnaires
Moreover, the discussion of the findings is enclosed to show the similarities and
differences between the present study and the existing research in the field.

4.1. Analysis of listening practice tasks

To enhance listening skills for students, the researcher applied dictation to

English listening lessons for a period of 18 weeks in the first semester of a school
year. The researcher carried out one practice tasks in post-listening part for each

30
unit and then gave the students listening tests in the optional lessons as planned.
Because dictation practice tasks were designed with the same topic as each unit of
“Tiếng Anh 10”, students of beginning level find this task quite familiar to follow.
It is an effective way for students to revise the vocabulary that they learnt. In this
minor thesis, the researcher chose five kinds of different Dictation techniques
according to the theory of Oller and Roster, namely Standard Dictation, Elicited
Dictation, Listening Cloze, Error Identification and Jigsaw Dictation.

4.1.1. Standard dictation

For this kind of task, the teacher played a recording three and required the
students to write down what they heard. In the first time, the recording was played
at a normal speed. Next, it was paused by chunk and then played back at a normal
speed. Standard Dictation is considered as a traditional method of dictation. By this
way, the students can revise the vocabulary related to the topic of the Unit that they
have learned. The researcher applied this task in Unit 1: Family life.

4.1.2. Error identification

In error identification task, the students were given a fully transcribed

passage with a number of errors. The teacher played the recording twice for the
students to listen, identify and correct the errors. This exercise focuses on the
pronunciation and the meaning of the words in the text.

4.1.3. Jigsaw dictation

In jigsaw dictation, students work in pairs. Each student keeping a different

part of the full dictation reads their parts to their partners in order to complete the
passage. The teacher asks the students to read their parts for the others to write
down. The students read their passage three times. For the first time, they read their
passage without breaks at a normal speed. Next, the student read their passage in

31
phrases, and pauses long enough for students to write. Finally, the students once
again read the passage at a normal speed for their partner to check what they have
written.

This dictation has the same topic as Unit 3: Music. The reason why I chose
this text was that its level was quite suitable for the students and it helped to expand
more interesting vocabulary of the topic “Music” and revise the old vocabulary.

4.1.4. Listening cloze

For this kind of task, students are required to listen carefully and write down
the exact words that they have heard to fill in the blanks. It was carried out with an
aitask is applied for Unit 4: For a better community with dictation 4.

This dictation is about how to be a good citizen, similar to the main topic of
Unit 4: For a better community. For this task, students just need to listen carefully
and write the exact words in the blanks. It also provides some words and structures
that they have learned in Unit 4.

4.1.5. Elicited imitation

Elicited Imitation means that while listening to the material, students are
asked to repeat or recount what they have heard rather than write it down. For this
exercise, students can not widen their knowledge of the Unit but recognise the
pronunciation and the number of words. This dictation is applied for Unit 5.

This dictation is about the invention of the internet. For the students,
this practice task may be easier than the others. The listening exercise in Unit 5
about flying car is quite difficult; therefore, this practice task with familiar
vocabulary will help to make the lesson more comfortable for the students.

32
4.2. Analysis of the listening tests

The pre-test was designed and given to the students at the beginning of the
term with an aim to measuring their overall listening competence before dictation
was applied in the listening lessons. At the end of the first term, students took the
post-test to find out how much their listening skills were improved after the
experiment. The pre- and post-tests had the same format of a listening test which
took the same period of time (15 minutes) with Multiple Choice, True-False and
Listening Cloze. It is expected to check students‟ listening skills for specific
information. The results of the pre-test and the post-test were illustrated in the
below table:

Table 4.2: The results of pre-test and post-test

Subjects Pre-test Post- test
S1 5 5
S2 6 6
S3 4 4
S4 7 8
S5 4 5
S6 6 7
S7 8 7
S8 4 6
S9 6 6
S10 6 7
S11 6 5
S12 5 7
S13 3 4
S14 8 8
S15 4 5

33
 S16 7 8
S17 3 3
S18 2 4
S19 6 7
S20 6 8
S21 5 4
S22 3 5
S23 9 8
S24 7 8
S25 5 7
S26 7 8
S27 6 5
S28 2 4
S29 5 6
S30 5 7
S31 7 8
S32 4 4
S33 6 6
S34 7 8
S35 5 6
S36 6 7
S37 6 6
S38 5 8
S39 3 5
S40 7 8
TOTAL 216 249
MEAN 5.4 6.2

34
 It can be seen from the table 4.2 that there are some significant changes in the
students‟ scores of the post-test comparing to the pre-test. 23 students (57.5%) had
higher scores in the post-test than those in the pre-test. 8 students (20%) remained
the same and 9 students (22.5 %) got the lower scores. It somehow shows that the
listening ability of the students was improved. The intervention of using activities
based on Dictation Technique gets positive feedback. It contributes positively to
helping young learners improve their results in the listening test. The learners get
much higher scores in the test than they used to do.

35
Following is the students‟ results which were displayed by chart:
Chart 4.2: Students’ mean score of average mark
6.4

6.2

5.8

5.6 6.2

5.4

5.2 5.4

5
Pre-test Post-test

Mean scores

According to chart 4.2, the mean scores of the post- test (M= 6.2) was higher
than that of the pre-test (M= 5.4). The participants had significant mean scores on
post-test higher than the pre-test. The results indicated that the 10th graders
developed their listening skills after participating dictation project. In other words,
this proves that the students‟ listening competence has been enhanced.

In a nutshell, the statistics and the detailed analysis indicates that, generally,
all students made good progress in learning listening through dictation techinique
quite well.

4.3. Analysis of the survey questionnaire

The survey questionnaire for teachers was conducted with 40 students of

class 10A2 at a local high school. This data was to check the students‟ attitude
towards dictations, the benefits of this technique and difficulties that they may face
with. Followings are 4 questions in questionnaires:

36
 Table 4.3. Student’s response to the questionnaires
Question No. of Percentages
students
Question 1: Did you have any dictation lessons
before this class?
A. Yes 0 0
B. No 40 100%
Question 2: What do you think about dictation
technique when learning listening skill?
A. Very interesting 15 37.5
B. Quite interesting 19 47.5
C. Neutral 6 15
D. Uninteresting 0 0

Question 3: How can a dictation task help you in

learning English listening skill?
Put a tick (V) in any option that suits you
A. Improve my vocabulary 27 67.5
B. Improve my pronunciation 29 72.5
C. Improve my grammar 23 57.5
D. Improve my listening comprehension 21 52.5
Others; please specify_______________________ 0 0
Question 4: Which of the following difficulties did
you experience when taking a dictation task?
Put a tick (V) in any option that suits you.
A. Vocabulary 36 90
B. Accent 17 42.5
C. Grammar structure 3 7.5

37
 D. Pronunciation 31 77.5
E. Speed 32 80
F. Quality of the tape 11 27.5
Others; please specify___________

Chart 4.3.1: Students’ attitudes towards dictation

Very interesting Somewhat interesting Neutral Uniteresting

0%
15%

37%

48%

As can be seen, all forty students of class 10A2 have not experienced this
technique before. Therefore, the results of the research are somehow more
subjective. The second question asked students to find out their attitude when
experiencing the dictation technique. The result showed that 15 students (37.5 %)
thought dictation was very interesting, 19 students (47.5 %) found it somewhat
interesting, 6 students (15%) claimed that it was neutral, and none of them said that
dictation was an uninteresting method.

For the next question, students were asked about the benefits of dictation to
their listening studying. There were four choices and students could choose more
than one that they might get when learning this way. Nevertheless, the percentages
were based on the number of responses but not the number of students.

38
 Chart 4.3.2. The benefits of dictation
80
72.5
70 67.5

60 57.5
52.5
50

40

30

20

10

0
Improve vocabulary Improve pronunciation Improve grammar Improve listening
comprehension

Generally, the benefits of dictation technique are undeniable. Learning by

dictation brings about a number of advantages that help to improve listening skills.
67.5 % of the students said that they could improve vocabulary after this activity.
72.5% of the students claimed that it was a good chance for them to improve their
pronunciation. 57.5 % of the students thought that their grammar has been improved
and 52.5% confirmed that they comprehended listening tapes more.

Beside the above benefits, students also had some difficulties in learning
listening by dictation.

39
 Chart 4.3.3. Student’s difficulties when doing dictation

Tape quality 27.5

Speed 80

Pronunciation 77.5

Grammar structure 7.5

Accent 42.5

Vocabulary 90

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Vocabulary (90%), audio speed (80%) and pronunciation (77.5%) were

mentioned as some main difficulties that students have to face with when dictating.
Only 7.5% of the students complained that grammar structures got them in trouble.
The accent which accounted for 42.5% was sometimes an obstacle and audio
quality made up 27.5%.

4.4. Discussion of the findings

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of dictation on

students in listening skills and their attitudes toward this learning technique. By
analyzing the data, the researcher can reach a conclusion about the effectiveness of

dictation application in the teaching of English listening skills. Recommendation

was also made to facilitate future study on this topic. From the data, the results
showed that dictation has positive influences on students‟listening progress.
Additionally, their attitudes toward this technique are positive.

40
4.4.1. Achievement and difficulties

4.4.1.1 Achievement

The data of the research indicate that the improvement of students in English
listening skills when applying dictation technique is obvious. The study is the
answer to the question that the use of dictation can better the students‟ listening
skills or not. According to the data from the questionnaires, it can be concluded that
dictation helps the students develop not only vocabulary, improve their
pronunciation, build up grammar but also foster the listening comprehension. For
normal listening tasks, the students just listen and then complete the tasks.
However, with dictation, all of the students have to really work by themselves to
complete the various tasks that the teacher designs. While doing the dictation
practice tasks, they have to pay much attention to catch the correct words, it means
that their pronunciation must be relatively good because when he learns to
pronounce the sounds accurately himself, it will be easier for him to hear them
correctly. Accordingly, their vocabulary and grammar were enlarged.

The result of the present study has strengthened the result of Nguyen Thi Minh
Hang (2004). She conducted a program to use Dictation Technique to facilitate
listening acquisition in Hanoi Foreign Trade University. In her study, she carried
out the pre- and post-test, questionnaires and interviews to figure out the
improvement, the problems and the solutions when using Dictation Technique. Both
researches proved that using activities based on Dictation Technique helped
students to enhance listening acquisition.

Additionally, students‟ scores in the post-test were higher in comparison with

the scores in the pre-test. This confirmed the finding of the study conducted by Ika
Ratna Melawanti (2007) in that positive higher scores were reported after the
intervening program using activities based on the new approach – Dictation

41
Technique. The matter is that the participants of that study were fifth graders, while
in the present research were tenth graders.

Moreover, the result was in line with the work of Intan Nurjannah Nasution
(2017) on Dictation Technique. The subjects in this research are also tenth graders.

Dictation is a traditional way of learning listening. In the world with 4.0

technology, there are a wide range of techniques to improve listening skills such as
doing exercises as much as possible, talking to foreigners, restating, summarizing,
reflecting, listen now & report later and so forth. However, after the study, it can be
seen that all findings are in the same in with the outcomes of previous studies about
the effectiveness of activities based on Dictation techniques on learners. For some
schools in countrysides like this investigated school, it is difficult for the students to
have a chance to talk to a foreigner in person. Moreover, when talking to somebody
to practice listening, our minds constantly perceive the verbal message along with
some visual clues to guess the meaning of that particular verbal message. However,
when writing it down, the students are trained to understand every single word.
Besides, dictation exercises are easily designed and conducted for both the teachers
and the students; therefore, the students who cannot afford a cumputer connected to
the internet can dictate or redesign the listening tasks of the textbook to self-study.
Besides, it brings about a number of benefits. Proper dictation is done when the
students purposefully listen and then they transfer what they have heard into written
form thus improving not only the English listening skills but also the writing skills.
Dictation allows you to work on both your listening and writing skills
simultaneously instead of just doing exclusive English listening practice exercises.
It even promotes your speaking skills by speaking it out loud when writing.

In short, using dictation in the listening lessons is both effective to the

students‟ listening skill and easy for teacher‟s preparation and performance.

42
4.1.1.2. Difficulties

Besides, the study also reveals the difficulties of the students in dealing with
the tasks. As the students listened to the audio recorded, they had to encounter a
number of difficulties. The first one is related to the sounds. Some English sounds
do not exist in Vietnamese; therefore, it is difficult for some students to catch the
words accurately. Moreover, when listening to spoken language directly, the
students can guess the words thanks to mouth shape, the use of eyes, facial
expressions and gestures, which they cannot do if listening to recorded tapes.
Another difficulty involves understanding vocabulary. The students fail to recognise
the words that they haven‟t known and it takes time to recall the words. The next
difficulty is concerned with understanding different accents. Many students have
difficulty in understanding someone else not their teacher whose accent they are
familiar to or American accents which they get used to in the listening tasks in the
textbook. The speed is also a problem. For Vietnamese people, English speaking
people often speak fast so that when dictating, the students just focus on individual
sounds rather than on the meaning of the entire passage.

4.4.2. Attitudes

The questionnaires about the attitude of students towards applying dictation

to learn listening lessons had been strongly supported. Obviously, most of the
students showed their positive attitudes towards this technique because of what they
gained after that, even there were still some ineffectiveness of a group of students
who did not pay attention to the lesson and the project.

4.5. Summary

The results of the research help to answer two questions given in chapter 3.
The major findings can be summarized as follows:

43
 In this study, activities based on dictation technique intervened in teaching
listening process for grade-10 learners. The result of this intervention was analysed
in some details. At the end of 18 weeks, the results were compared between pre-test
and post-test and questionnaires were summarized. We can see that activities based
on Dictation Technique have positive effects on vocabulary retention for targeted
young learners. When the pre-test and post-test mean scores of students were
compared, it is clear that the mean score in post-test was higher than that in pre-test.
The purpose of the research was to define to what extent dictation technique can
improve the students‟ listening skills. In this study, it is very optimistic to see that
the pros seem to outweigh the cons because at least, the students make very much
progress in their listening skills as presented in the data table and chart. It somewhat
meets the expectations of enhancing the students‟ listening competence.

The findings of the study are relatively consistent with those in previous
studies. All of them were conducted with the purpose of improving the learning
quality and help learners develop their listening ability.
In summary, beside a number of traditional ways to learn listening the
application of Dictation Technique had a positive effect on the development of the
students‟ listening skills in particular and EFL proficiency in general. The project
work brought many benefits to 10th graders listening skills and applied the content
knowledge in the field of their study. Owing to the implementation of Dictation
Techinique, the scores of the students improved. The research indicates that using
Dictation Technique in the learning and teaching can be a helpful tool for teaching
English listening.

44
 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

In this chapter, the researcher first summarizes the study and then indicates
pedagogical implications and some recommendations for the teacher, the students
and other researchers. Then it also discusses the limitations of the study and some
suggestions for further research.

5.1. Summary of the study

The study investigates whether the dictation is useful for enhancing listening
skill for grade-10 students at a local high school or not. It was conducted during a
period of 18 weeks of the first term of the academic year in class 10A2 consisting of
40 students. The data collection instruments of the research which are dictation
practice tasks, listening tests and questionnaires are designed by the researcher. The
findings of the study showed that dictation was really effective for the students‟
listening improvement.

5.2. Pedagogical implications

Through this study, it can be concluded that the feasibility of applying

dictation in the listening lessons to develop the students‟ listening skills are
obvious. Followings are some reasons:

Firstly, dictation made the students really get involved in the lessons. They
have to listen carefully and actively to write down what they have heard and then
completed the tasks. Secondly, the teacher realized the importance of the frequency
of using this technique so that dictation practice tasks were given in every unit.
Thirdly, the results of the tests reveal that the students‟ listening skills improved
gradually. For example, at the beginning of the term, the mean score of the students
in the pre-test was 5.4, but the mean score increased to 6.2 at the end of the term.

45
Last but not least, the success of this method is thanks to experienced teachers‟
preparation.

Besides the good aspects, some difficulties go along with it. Class size is a
big problem. How to manage big classes is a challenging task for the teacher. It is
not easy to meet the needs, desires and preferences of every member in the class.
Moreover, not every student pays attention to the project, which makes the teacher
have difficulty in introducing the instruction. Next is the different level of the
students. Not every student is good at English. As a result, the impact of a mixed
level of the students in one class is to bring different results. Lastly, dictation is a
method that takes a lot of time and requires learners‟ patience. Therefore, it will not
be effective for the lazy.

5.3. Recommendations

Regarding to the condition of a local high school, the researcher recommends

some solutions to deal with the above difficulties.

For the teachers

More careful preparation should be done by the teachers before a project.

They should use some software to design dictation to have native-voice recordings
and the texts must be suitable for the lesson topics including a range of vocabulary
that students have learned. It helps students to get familiar to standard spoken
language. The teacher also should spend more time introducing in the very first
dictation to make sure that every student knows what they above to. Moreover, it is
essential that the teacher motivate and engage students in learning.

For the students

The students should be active learners and willing to do the tasks. For big
classes with mixed level students, they should be trained to help each other in

46
practice tasks.

For the other researchers

The teachers should share the dictation sources with the others so that the
materials are always available. Additionally, they can share the way they carry out
the project and design the dictations.

5.4. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

Although the study was carefully designed and based on the reliable data, it
still had a couple of the shortcomings.

Firstly, the study only carried out in class 10A2 with 40 students, so to some
extent, the findings may not be generalized to all the students of the school. The
researcher cannot have general judgements. The results would have been more
persuasive if the research had involved more participants. Secondly, discussions
would have been more detailed and as a result, the study would have yielded better
reliability and validity if the researcher had carried out the study for a longer time.
Finally, due to the limited access to further materials, this thesis has not analysed
carefully and in detail like the previous studies carried out in Vietnam.

Considering these limitations, the researcher has given some suggestions for
future study. First, students at other levels of English listening such as intermediate,
upper-intermediate and advanced can be subjects for another study. Further studies
should widen the research scale with a larger group of participants especially with
weaker students at English. Moreover, the same study with students having different
age range would be necessary to confirm the study‟s findings. Next, this study was
conducted in a high school. The same technique could be used in other settings like
colleges, universities or language institutes. Additionally, in this study, dictation
was used to enhanced listening skills for grade-10 students. In other researchs, it can

47
be used to develop other skills. Last but not least, as indicated in the findings, the
students have dealt with a variety of difficulties in doing projects. Therefore, more
studies on techniques for improving dictation technique and the effectiveness of
dictation lessons should be carried out.

5.5. Conclusion

To sum up, this study was conducted in order to investigate the extent that
activities based on Dictation Techinique can contribute positively to the retention of
English listening of grade-10 students.

Obviously, new kinds of activities could make students learn more easily and
effectively. The data was collected through both tests and questionnaires. Along
with the detailed analysis, it was clear to note that the mean scores of all three
groups in post-test were significantly higher than those before the project (pre-test).

Moreover, from the implementation of the theory into classroom activities, the
drawn lesson is that the teacher could design the teaching and learning activities
based on dictation technique quite well and effectively. Thanks to the positive
outcome of this study, the teacher could adapt the theory in future lessons, not only
in teaching listening but also other skills or English learning aspects. However, in
order to do this task successfully, teacher should be well informed more about this
theory and solved the limitation.

48
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Fachrurrazy. (1989). Dictation as a Device for Testing English as a Foreign
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Ika Ratna Melawanti (2007) Dictation As a Testing Technique In Measuring The
Student’s Listening Skill
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increase students’ ability in listening skill at Smk-1 Alfattah Medan
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Mettetal, G. (2001). The What, Why and How of Classroom Action Research.
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(2001), pp. 6-13
Montalvan, Ruth. (2006). Dictation Updated: Guidelines for Teacher-Training
Workshops.
Myers and Myers (1988) The dynamics of human communication: A laboratory
approach. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.
Nguyen Thi Minh Hang. (2004). English Dictation Tests For First Year Students Of
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Oller JW. 1979. Language Tests at School. London: Longman Group Limited
Pappas, GS. (1977). You mean you still give dictation? Language Arts, 54, 936-939
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Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and Researching Listening. Edinburg: Longman.
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Wilt, E. (1950). A study of teacher awareness of listening as a factor in elementary
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Volume II. No.1:33
Reference links:
http://www.5minuteenglish.com/apr16.htm.Unit 12. Listening. Tiếng Anh 10. P.127
Internet ( Listen A Minute.com)
https://listenaminute.com/i/internet.html
Internet. Housework (Daily English Conversation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htcsAsx71WI
Internet. Lesson 72: Health. (ucan.vn).
https://www.ucan.vn/video/playlist/detail/id/7/video-id/4229
Internet. Lesson 96: Being a Good Citizen (ucan.vn).
https://www.ucan.vn/video/playlist/detail/id/7/video-id/4273

51
 APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1 : A LESSON PLAN

Date of preparing:8/10/2016 Unit 3: Music

Period: 25 Lesson 5 : Listening

I. Aims/Objectives
1. Educational aim: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
- Listen for gist and specific information
- Say how they feel when they hear the National Anthem
- Listen to the song excerpt and say how they feel
- Listen to their friends and dictate to fullfill a text.
2. Knowledge and skills:
* General language knowledge:
* Skills
- Listen and choose the best answer
- Listen and answer the questions
- Listen and dictate
II. Preparation:
- Teacher: lesson plan, chalks, textbook, pieces of papers and cassette
- Ss: prepare the lesson
III. Anticipated problems
- Students may have difficulty understading some words and structures, so T
should prepare those words and structures to help sts
IV. Procedure
Teacher‟s / Students‟ activities Content
I. WARM UP (5ms)
* Methods/techniques of teaching and learning: communication approach
Inspirational music
Lead-in: Inform the class of the lesson Inspirational music means music that makes people

I
objectives: listening for gist and feel uplifted with hope and love.
specific information. Write
Inspirational music on the board and
check students‟ understanding of the
phrase.

II. NEW LESSON (37ms)

Task 1: Tell the names of the songs and the artists.
* Methods/techniques of teaching and learning: communication approach
Task 1: Tell the names of the songs and the artists.
- Show some photos of famous artists. Key
- Elicit names of the artists. 1. Trinh Cong Son
- Play some song excerpts by the 2. Luu Huu Phuoc
artists. 3. Micheal Jackson
- Ss listen to the songs and tell the 4. Elton John
names of the songs and the artists

Task 2: Listen to the song excerpt and tell about your thought and feeling while listtening to
it.
* Methods/techniques of teaching and learning: communication approach
- Focus on the instructions Task 2:
- Play the recording What is the name of the song?
- Ask Ss some questions Who is the composer?
How often do you listen to the song?
How did you feel when you heard the song?
What do you think about the song lyrics?

Task 3: Listen and choose the main idea of the conversation

* Methods/techniques of teaching and learning: communication approach

II
- Draw Ss‟ attention to the instructions Task 3:
- play the recording all the way Key: C
through
- Play it again for Ss to select the
correct answer.
- Checks with the class, if many Ss get
the wrong answer, play the CD again

Task 4: Listen and answer the questions

* Methods/techniques of teaching and learning: communication approach

- Draw Ss‟ attention to the instructions Task 4:

- Read out the questions Key
- Review the word affect 1. “I have a Dream” by ABBA
- play the recording all the way 2. Inspirational songs.
through 3. His favourite songs inspire him, and he can learn
- Replay the recording for Ss to lessons from them.
answer the questions 4. Rap or Hip-hop
- Check answers as a class
- Replay the recording the third time
for Ss to confirm the answers

Task 5: Listen to your friend and write down what you have heard to complete the text.
* Methods/techniques of teaching and learning: Dictation

III
Aim: To revise new vocabulary that PAPER 1:
Ss have learned and practice Tata Young was born as Amita Marie Young
listening skills by dictating. in Thailand in 1980. She is a Thai superstar and is
- Students work in pairs. Each of popular all over Asia. She became an international
them keeps a piece of paper success after she released her first English-language
including different parts of a text. album, „I Believe‟ in 2004. This followed four
- T asks Ss to read their parts for albums sung in her native Thai. She has won a string
the others to write down. of awards and regularly tops the “best this”, “sexiest
- The Ss read their passage three that” lists.
times. ......................................................................................
+ The first time: Ss read their ......................................................................................
passage without breaks at a ......................................................................................
normal speed. ........................................................................
+ The second time: Ss read their Tata‟s debut album sold more than 1 million
passage in phrases, and pauses copies and she became Thailand‟s biggest pop
long enough for students to write. sensation. Still just 15, she won Thailand‟s
+ The last time: Ss once again read Entertainer of the Year award, as well as Best
the passage at a normal speed for Recording Artist for 1995. A year later she gave a
their partner to check what they concert in Hollywood. She was signed by the music
have written. agency that also manages acts such as Bon Jovi.
......................................................................................
- T gives the answer and asks Ss ......................................................................................
to check. ......................................................................................
........................................................................

PAPER 2:
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
......................................................................................

IV
 ........................................................................
Tata has an American father and Thai mother.
Success for her began at the age of 11, when she beat
over 5,000 children in a Thai TV talent contest. She
won a contract with Yamaha Music, which set about
preparing her for stardom. In 1994, aged 14, she
caught the eye of Thailand‟s biggest record label,
which offered her a recording contract.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
........................................................................
Tata has also developed a modeling and acting
career. Her 1997 acting debut helped the movie „The
Red Bike Story‟ break all Thai box office records.
She represented Thailand at the handover of Hong
Kong to China in 1997. Her single “Zoom” was used
in the top-selling PC game The Sims 2. Tata released
her second English album in 2008.

III. WRAP UP (2ms)

* Methods/techniques of consolidation: . communication approach

- Ask Ss to consolidate the main
contents.
by designing the questions so that they
can consolidate the main contents
easily
- Sts listen, answer
- Give feedback.

V
 IV. HOMEASSIGNMENT (1ms)
- T asks Ss to do exercise at home. * Homework:
- Prepare for the next lesson. 1. Learn new words by heart :
- Ss listen and take note 2.. Prepare the next lesson carefully.unit 3 : lesson 6
Writing

VI
 APPENDIX 2: PRE-TEST

LISTENING TEST
I. Listen to an interview with Grace about her „Text a friend‟ service. Are the
sentences (1–5) true (T) or false (F)? (2.5p)
0. Grace has always had a wonderful time at school. F
1. The „Text a friend‟ service is for students who are having a hard time at school.
2. One of Grace‟s problems was her bad grades.
3. Grace dealt with her problems alone.
4. Grace started the „Text a friend‟ service because she wanted students to know
they‟re not alone.
5. The „Text a friend‟ service is only for students who are new to the school.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

II. Listen to a conversation between a couple about their wedding anniversary.

For each question, choose the best answer A, B or C. (2.5p)
6. What is the problem at the beginning of the conversation?
A. The man forgot to buy his wife's favorite flowers.
B. The man didn't remember their anniversary.
C. The man didn't take his wife out last week.
7. Where does the woman want to go on her dream vacation?
A. Chicago B. Europe C. Nigeria
8. What new item does she want in the kitchen?
A. a kettle B. a stove C. a microwave
9. Why does the woman want more clothing?
A. Because she has lost weight.
B. Because she wants more comfortable clothing for the winter.
C. Because she doesn‟t want to wear old, used clothing.
10. What does the woman suggest doing before they plan their trip?
A. having a light lunch
VIII
 B. talking with friends about the trip
C. buying some travel books
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

III. You will hear a recorded message about Finchbrooke Country Part. For
each question, fill in the missing information in the numbered space. (5p)
Finchbrooke Country Park
Opening times
Park: Every day (8 a.m. – 7 p.m.)
Visitors‟ Centre: Tuesday – Sunday (9 a.m. – 5.30 p.m.)
From the town centre, take bus number (11) ……………..
Inside the Visitors‟ Centre, you can buy books and videos and get free (12) …….
If the Visitors‟ Centre is shut, a telephone can be found at the (13) ….. to the park.
In the park, you can go cycling, (14) …………….. and camping.
Group visits include a (15) …………….. and a guided tour.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

IX
 KEYS FOR PRE-TEST
I/ (PROGRESS TEST 06) 0.1p/1s
1. T 2. T 3. F 4. T 5. F
II/ (ESL-LAB.COM) 0.1p/1s
6. B 7. B 8. B 9. C 10. A
III/ (PET EXTRA) 1p/1s
11. 109 12. MAPS 13. 14. FISHING 15. TALK
ENTRANCE (ON THE
(TO THE LAKE)
PARK)

X
 APPENDIX 3: DICTATION 1: UNIT 1: FAMILY LIFE

Housework
There is always housework to do when you live in a house. You have to
wash the windows so that you can see outside. The floors and the carpets need to be
vacuumed. The floors also need to be washed, and some of them need to be waxed.
The furniture has to be polished. The bathroom has to be kept clean. After you have
a bath, you need to clean out the bathtub. Laundry needs to be done regularly, or
you will run out of clothes to wear. The clothes go into the washing machine, and
then they have to be dried in the dryer. Sometimes, we hang the clothes out on the
line to be dried. Some of the clothes need to be ironed. You have to buy groceries
and put them away. Meals need to be made. You can‟t let the dishes pile up in the
kitchen. The dishes have to be washed. You can make the beds. The beds have to be
changed too. They need to have clean sheets put on them. There are just so many
things to do. Household chores take up a lot of time.

XI
 APPENDIX 4: DICTATION 2: UNIT 2: YOUR BODY AND YOU

 Dictation with errors

Health
Our health is very important to us. People can have good jobs, money or well
looks. However, if sick, those things don't mean a thing. It is wonderful to feel
good. Feeling good isn‟t just about our body, it is also about our my and spirit. We
need to fit well in every area of our life. One of the things we can do to be health is
to get often sleep. If we don‟t sleep well or enlarge it hurts our body. It is during
sleep that they become our body restocks itself. Everybody knows we should also
eat good foods. We need meal produces, meats fruits and vegan, and breads and
cereals. We shouldn‟t eat too much fat or sugar things either. Of course, we just
shouldn‟t eat too much at all. Other thing that is very important is water. Most
people know our bodies are fairly water and we need to keep that replaced with
good water. Often exercise is very good for both our body and mine. It is good for
our heart, legs, mussels and bones. It gets oxygen to our brain to help us think
better. It can help us be smarter. Doing things that we believe are right and good
gives us peach inside. It makes us nicer people and is good for our spirit. When we
do what we know is right it helps to reduce stress which isn‟t good for any part of
us. When we take care of our body mind and spirit we feel good all over and inside
too. What a beautiful world this could be if we could all work at doing these things
for ourself and also trying to be a help to others.

 Dictation without errors

Health
Our health is very important to us. People can have good jobs, money or
good looks. However, if they become sick, those things don‟t mean a thing. It is
wonderful to feel good. Feeling good isn‟t just about our body, it is also about our
mind and spirit. We need to feel good in every area of our life. One of the things we
can do to be healthy is to get enough sleep. If we don't sleep well or enough it hurts
XII
our body. It is during sleep that our body restores itself. Everybody knows we
should also eat good foods. We need milk products, meats fruits and vegetables, and
breads and cereals. We shouldn‟t eat too many fat or sugar things either. Of course,
we just shouldn‟t eat too much at all. Another thing that is very important is water.
Most people know our bodies are mainly water and we need to keep that replaced
with good water. Often exercise is very good for both our body and mind. It is good
for our heart, lungs, muscles and bones. It gets oxygen to our brain to help us think
better. It can help us be smarter. Doing things that we believe are right and good
gives us peace inside. It makes us nicer people and is good for our spirit. When we
do what we know is right it helps to reduce stress which isn't good for any part of
us. When we take care of our body mind and spirit we feel good all over and inside
too. What a beautiful world this would be if we could all work at doing these things
for ourselves and also trying to be a help to others.

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 APPENDIX 5: DICTATION 3. UNIT 3: MUSIC

Tata Young was born as Amita Marie Young in Thailand in 1980. She is a
Thai superstar and is popular all over Asia. She became an international success
after she released her first English-language album, „I Believe‟ in 2004. This
followed four albums sung in her native Thai. She has won a string of awards and
regularly tops the “best this”, “sexiest that” lists.
Tata has an American father and Thai mother. Success for her began at the
age of 11, when she beat over 5,000 children in a Thai TV talent contest. She won a
contract with Yamaha Music, which set about preparing her for stardom. In 1994,
aged 14, she caught the eye of Thailand‟s biggest record label, which offered her a
recording contract.

Tata‟s debut album sold more than 1 million copies and she became
Thailand‟s biggest pop sensation. Still just 15, she won Thailand‟s Entertainer of
the Year award, as well as Best Recording Artist for 1995. A year later she gave a
concert in Hollywood. She was signed by the music agency that also manages acts
such as Bon Jovi.

Tata has also developed a modeling and acting career. Her 1997 acting debut
helped the movie „The Red Bike Story‟ break all Thai box office records. She
represented Thailand at the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Her single
“Zoom” was used in the top-selling PC game The Sims 2. Tata released her second
English album in 2008.

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 APPENDIX 6: DICTATION 4: UNIT 4: FOR A BETTER COMMUNITY

Being a Good Citizen

A good citizen will also avoid doing things that interfere with others. For
example, a considerate person does not smoke cigarettes in areas, where this might
irritate others. Also, a polite person avoids playing music so loudly that other people
will be annoyed. And of course, a good citizen avoids littering or making a mess.
Other ways of being a good citizen involve greater efforts. Some people serve their
community by doing volunteer work of some kind. Other people help by donating
money to a charity. Another way to serve the community is to donate blood. Blood
donors are needed so that there will be enough blood available to help people who
are sick or injured. Being a good citizen is very helpful for the community and it
also gives a feeling of satisfaction and pride.
Listen to a man talk about how to be a good citizen. Listen carefully
and fill in the blanks with suitable words.
Should not (1)____________________
(2)____________________
(3)____________________
A good citzen
Should (4)___________________
(5)___________________
(6)___________________

Table 4.1: Listening practice task for dictation 4

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APPENDIX 7: DICTATION 5: UNIT 5: INVENTION

I think the Internet is the greatest invention ever. Think how it has changed
the world. So much information is out there. It has totally changed my life. I can
chat with friends, download music, buy books and get all the info I need for my
homework. It took days or weeks to do any of these things before the Internet. I
spend hours every day online. I think I spend a little too long. I‟m sure staring at a
computer screen all day isn‟t good for my eyes. I think it‟s also making me fat. I
need to exercise a little more. The only thing I don‟t like about the Internet is that it
can be dangerous. I don‟t really like putting my personal information online,
especially on social networking sites like Facebook.

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 APPENDIX 8: POST-TEST

LISTENING TEST
Part 1: There are five questions in this part. For each question, decide whether
the statement is TRUE or FALSE. ( 2.5p)
TRUE FALSE
1. A Vietnamese family often includes married sons and
daughters in-law, unmarried adult daughters, and grandchildren.
2. In a traditional Vietnamese family, the husband is in charge of
the issues outside the home.
3. Individualism is one of the qualities that are encouraged by
the Vietnamese family.
4. The women and the children are often the interpreters of the
Vietnamese families in the Western society.
5. When women adapt to the Western society more quickly than
men do, their authority in the Vietnamese families can increase.

Part 2: Listen to the following conversation and complete the notes with no
more than three words and numbers for each blank. (5p)
ADVICE FOR EXAMS
• Eat food that provides (0) energy like fruit and cereals
• Find a place with full of (1) ______________________.
• Stay (2) ______________________and relaxed.
• Choose important things that will help you get the most points in an exam to
learn.
• Make notes of the key points and try to remember them as (3)
__________________ help you to remember.
• Study with previous exam papers which are available in the (4) _____________
• Stay (5) _______________________ by drinking water.

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Part 3: You will hear a news reporter called Angela Bond, talking on the radio
about her job. Choose the best answer to each question. (2.5p)
1. Where is Angela working at the moment?
A. Britain B. The USA
C. Asia D. Brazil
2. Angela likes her job because
A. she loves being in dangerous situation.
B. she never knows where she‟ll go next.
C. she enjoys watching important events happen.
D. her job doesn‟t have any disadvantages.
3. What did Angela bring home from Hong Kong?
A. pictures B. carpets
C. furniture D. bits of art
4. What time does Angela‟s working day begin?
A. 8.00 a.m. B. 6.30 a.m.
C. 10.00 a.m. D. 8.30 a.m.
5. Where did Angela meet her boyfriend?
A. at her sister‟s house B. at university
C. in Hong Kong D. in London

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 KEYS OF POST -TEST
Part 1: There are five questions in this part. For each question, decide whether
the statement is TRUE or FALSE. ( 5p)
1. T 2. T 3. F 4.F 5. T
Part 2: Listen to the following conversation and complete the notes with no
more than three words and numbers for each blank. (2.5p)
1. light 2. positive 3. repetition
4. library 5. Hydrated
Part 3: You will hear a news reporter called Angela Bond, talking on the radio
about her job. For each question, put a tick (√) in the correct box. (2.5p)
1.A 2.C 3.C 4.D 5.A

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 APPENDIX 9: QUESTIONNAIRES

BẢN KHẢO SÁT

Xin chào các em!
Tên cô là Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Anh, học viên cao học lớp QH 2017.D1-K26 khoa
Sau đại học, trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ, ĐHQGHN. Hiện tại, cô đang thực hiện
luận văn tốt nghiệp với đề tài nghiên cứu: “Áp dụng phương pháp nghe chép
chính tả để cải thiện kĩ năng nghe cho học sinh lớp 10 tại một trường THPT ở
Hà Nam.”
Mục đích của nghiên cứu là tìm hiểu thái độ của học sinh đối với việc áp dụng
phương pháp nghe chép chính tả trong các tiết dạy nghe cũng như một số lợi ích và
khó khăn của học sinh khi tham gia dự án này.
Sự hợp tác tích cực của các em góp phần tạo nên sự thành công cho nghiên cứu.
Mọi thông tin cá nhân liên quan đến các em sẽ được bảo mật và chỉ được sử dụng
cho mục đích nghiên cứu.
Cảm ơn sự giúp đỡ của các em!

Câu hỏi 1: Trước đây, các em đã học nghe chép chính tả bằng tiếng Anh chưa?
A. Đã học □
B. Chưa học □
Câu hỏi 2: Em nghĩ gì về phương pháp nghe chép chính tả trong tiết học nghe?
A. Rất thú vị □
B. Khá thú vị □
C. Bình thường □
D. Không thú vị □
Câu hỏi 3: Bài tập nghe chép chính tả giúp em như thế nào trong việc học
nghe?
A. Cải thiện từ vựng □
B. Cải thiện phát âm □

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 C. Cải thiện ngữ pháp □
D. Cải thiện kĩ năng nghe hiểu □

Ý kiến khác:......................................................................................................
Câu hỏi 4: Khó khăn mà em gặp phải khi làm bài tập nghe chép chính tả là gì?
A. Từ vựng □
B. Giọng nói □
C. Cấu trúc ngữ pháp □
D. Phát âm □
E. Tốc độ □
F. Chất lượng bài nghe □

Ý kiến khác:......................................................................................................

Cảm ơn sự hợp tác của các em!

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