An investigation into efl teachers' perceptions and practices of pre-Listening activities in english classes at Quoc Hoc Hue high school

 Tạp chí Khoa học Ngôn ngữ và Văn hóa ISSN 2525-2674 Tập 2, Số 3, 2018 
249 
AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS' 
PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF PRE-LISTENING 
ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT QUOC HOC 
HUE HIGH SCHOOL 
Ly Thi Minh Duc* 
Quoc Hoc Hue high school 
Received: 05/10/2018; Revised: 25/10/2018; Accepted: 20/12/2018 
Abstract: This paper examined EFL teachers’ perceptions and reality of an implementation 
of pre-listening activities in English classes at Quoc Hoc Hue high school. The study involved 
10 teachers of English department of Quoc Hoc high school. A mixed-methods approach was 
employed and data were collected from an online survey and semi-structured interviews. The 
result showed that most of EFL teachers were aware of the importance of pre-listening 
activities in English listening comprehension. The finding also indicated that different pre-
listening activities served different functions and exerted different effects on the improvement 
of students’ listening comprehension skill. Furthermore, the study revealed the differences in 
teachers’ implementation of pre-listening activities between English-major classes and non-
English major classes and presented two major factors - the teachers and students - directly 
determining the success of pre-listening activities in English classes at Quoc Hoc Hue high 
school. 
Key words: Pre-listening activities, perception, English-major students, non-English major 
students 
1. Introduction 
So far listening has been considered as one of the key components in the English 
textbooks for Vietnamese high school students; however, this skill is sometimes neglected by 
some EFL teachers because they assume that listening is not assessed in the national exams. The 
most popular way used by some teachers in English listening lessons is to play the cassette, 
have students listen to the recordings and ask them complete listening tasks by themselves. In 
fact, listening is more than just perceiving the sound. It is a complex problem-solving skill in 
which the meaning of words, phrases, clauses, sentences and the discourse must be 
comprehended. The traditional way of teaching listening in which listeners are simply given a 
series of pre-recorded listening texts on a tape, and then are tested how much they have 
understood by answering a lot of comprehension exercises is not quite responding. Listening is 
virtually a difficult skill to acquire even in one’s own language (Oxford, 1993) because it 
requires attention, thought, interpretation, and imagination of both students and teachers 
(Austin, 1970). Normally, in some EFL classrooms, the role of teachers is also very important in 
improving students' listening skill. Specifically, the language teachers can supply students with 
a variety of pre-listening activities in order to help students gain essential knowledge or related 
information before they begin listening. As claimed by Underwood (1989), in listening the 
content schema must be activated in order for students to access their prior knowledge. Thus, 
before listening some pre-listening activities are expected to be given to students to help them 
activate existing knowledge, build prior knowledge and define a purpose for the listening. 
* Email: duclm.quochochue@gmail.com 
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Thanks to the pre-listening stage, the students can complete listening tasks in while-listening 
stage with ease and have a chance to improve their listening skill to meet B1 level requirements 
set by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) for high school graduation. 
In order to help EFL teachers better understand the significance of pre-listening stage and 
effectively apply it to listening classes in high school context, this study aims to investigate EFL 
teachers' perception of effects of pre-listening activities on students' listening comprehension 
skill, and discover the practices of teachers’ implementation of these activities to stimulate 
students’ background knowledge in English classes at Quoc Hoc Hue high school. 
2. Literature review 
2.1. Definition of key terms 
Two key terms in this research, “perception” and “pre-listening”, are clearly defined as 
follows. Firstly, “perception” refers to one’s belief, or understanding of something. However, in 
the sense of the present study, “perception” is understood as one’s belief, opinion, and thought 
which are shaped by one’s background knowledge and life experiences (Iris Center, 2012). 
Secondly, concerning the term “pre-listening”, as stated by Rajaei (2015), “pre-listening is the 
preparation stage for while-listening” (p. 36) and is also considered as stage to prepare students to 
listen, establish the purpose of the listening activity and activate their schemata (Chastain, 1988). 
2.2. The purposes of pre-listening stage 
As asserted by Chastain (1988), the pre-listening activities are probably the most 
important aspect of any listening sequence because the success of all the other activities depends 
on the extent to which the teacher manages to give the students the necessary background, 
guidance, and direction to achieve (Chastain, 1988). Some dominant goals of pre-listening 
stage suggested by well-known linguistics include (1) to help students identify the purpose of 
listening beforehand (Rixon, 1986; Schwartz, 1998 & Underwood, 1990), (2) to contextualize 
the text, provide any information needed to help learners appreciate the text, the setting and the 
role relationship between participants, (3) to generate interests from students, activate students’ 
current knowledge and vocabulary, predict the content, check their understanding about the 
listening tasks (Rost, 1990), (4) to give students more confidence that is necessary for successful 
listening (White, 1995 as cited in Rajaei, 2015). 
2.3. Pre-liste ... ing the offered time” (p. 148). Hence, “preparation time might 
be another factor affecting listeners’ listening comprehension”. (Farrokhi, 2012, p. 148). 
Briefly, what has been found in Figure 4.13 reveals that teachers’ implementation of pre-
listening activities in English-major classes is different from non-English major classed due to 
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the differences in the teachers’ choice of students’ favorite pre-listening activities, students’ 
language proficiency level and time spent on pre-listening stage. 
5.4. Factors affecting success in conducting pre-listening activities in English classes at 
Quoc Hoc Hue high school 
Figure 5.4. Factors affecting success in conducting pre-listening activities in English classes 
at Quoc Hoc Hue high school 
Figure 5.4 shows detailed findings for the question “What makes pre-listening activities 
in English lessons at Quoc Hoc Hue high school successful?”. As shown in the figure above, 
options such as “teachers” and “students” belonged to a group holding high percentage, with 
60% for the former and 40% for the latter. Of these two factors, option “teachers” was 
considered as the greatest source of influence on the implementation of pre-listening stage in 
classes. As Ms. Tranny highlighted in her sayings in the interview, “it is teachers that take 
responsibility for setting up specific teaching goals appropriate for students’ ability, and 
designing suitable activities to draw students’ attention to the activities in pre-listening stage”. 
The opinion of Ms. Tranny matched with the finding of Rees (2003)’s study which clarified that 
if the teachers had a class who were generally struggling with listening work, then the more 
extensive pre-listening work, the better result. If, however, the teachers wished to make the 
work very demanding, they could simply do work on the context of the listening. 
Agreeing with Ms. Tranny, Mr. Phillip also affirmed that “teachers were also the ones 
who should take notice of students’ characteristics and knew how to adapt pre-listening 
activities suitable for different groups of students” (Mr. Phillip). Indeed, what Mr. Peter said in 
this view coincided with the findings of the studies of Linang (2005) and Martinez (2015). In 
the work of Linang (2005), it was concluded that most of the English language teachers took 
into consideration the students’ level, suitability and practicality, the related topic and the 
context when selecting and designing their pre-listening activities. Similarly, as Martinez (2015) 
emphasized in the research, it was necessary for teachers to bear in mind some factors to be able 
to choose appropriate and helpful pre-listening activities. Needless to say, teachers play an 
important role in making pre-listening stage successful. 
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At 40%, “students” was the second factor having impacts on the success of pre-listening 
activities in English classes at Quoc Hoc Hue high school. According to Ms. Anna, attention 
should be paid to the students’ English proficiency levels, interests, concerns, etc. In relation to 
this viewpoint, there was a concurrence between Martinez’s findings (2015) with the analyzed 
data and the responses collected in the present paper. According to Martinez (2015), the ability 
of the class and students’ interests were factors affecting an effectiveness of pre-listening stage. 
When designing pre-listening activities for multilevel class, Martinez (2015) illustrated, 
teachers needed to pay more attention to different proficiency levels of students in the same 
class and to be cognizant of each student’s strength and weaknesses so that all of students had 
equal opportunities to take part in these activities. Additionally, if teachers chose listening tasks 
which best match with students’ interests, the effectiveness of listening process would be 
improved considerably. 
In conclusion, among many factors, teachers and students are two greatest sources of 
influence on the success of teachers’ implementation of pre-listening. Moreover, though time 
and material are not the main influential components, they should be taken into consideration by 
teachers when designing and conducting activities in pre-listening stage. 
6. Conclusion 
This study examined EFL teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of pre-listening 
activities on students’ listening comprehension skill in English classes and also investigated the 
reality of the activities that EFL teachers employed to support Quoc Hoc students in the pre-
listening stage. Various practical ways of supporting the students and teachers in the 
implementation of pre-listening stage have been found, covering the development of teachers’ 
perception and the improvement of the implementation of pre-listening activities. 
Concerning some pedagogical implications for the growth of teachers’ awareness, firstly, 
teachers had better have an autonomous and serious attitude toward the implication of the pre-
listening activities in English classes. They should conduct enough three stages in every listening 
lesson and avoid dull thoughts, laziness, fatigue and irresponsible actions when doing these 
activities as that will negatively affect students’ learning attitudes and motivation in classes. 
Secondly, for each lesson, teachers should set specific goals for every pre-listening activity so that 
they could design or select the activities suitable for the objectives of lessons. Next, teachers need 
to have explanations or practical examples for students to let them know the necessity of pre-
listening stage in English lessons. For instance, teachers should tell students the purposes of pre-
activities or the goals of pre-listening stage once they conduct pre-listening activities. Besides, 
teachers could carry out some listening lessons with and without pre-listening activities and have 
students explore the differences between these two lessons. This way will enable students to 
understand better the significance of pre-listening activities in English lessons. 
Regarding some recommendations for the quality improvement of teachers’ 
implementation of pre-listening activities in English classes at Quoc Hoc Hue high school, 
teachers should know how to control and divide time appropriately between the three stages of 
listening classes. Especially, teachers had better not make pre-listening stage become a burden 
to students in their classes. An ideal time suggested for a pre-listening stage is around 5 minutes. 
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Secondly, teachers should vary pre-listening activities and avoid the repetition of these 
activities. Thirdly, teachers had better know how to appropriately adapt these activities to suit 
students’ abilities, students’ attitudes and different topics of lessons. Additionally, it is better for 
teachers to combine different language skills such as reading, speaking and writing in pre-
listening stage to make lessons more diverse and involve more students with different life styles 
in classrooms activities. Apart from integrating language skills into pre-listening stage, some 
teaching aids such as computer, smart TV, cassette, pictures, real objects, etc, should be used to 
support pre-listening activities. What’s more, if teachers have little experience or time in 
designing pre-listening activities, they could look for some sources of materials such as Total 
English, American English File and Solution and websites like www.busyteacher.com, 
www.freeworksheet.com, where pre-listening activities are available in a complete lesson plan. 
More importantly, some opportunities for students to study together should be given because 
cooperative learning can greatly enhance low language proficiency level students’ confidence, 
willingness and motivation to study and promote active processing of information. 
Although the study achieved its aims, limitations are inevitable. For one thing, this paper 
has a rather narrow scope which only focuses on investigating EFL teachers’ perception about 
the implementation of pre-listening activities in listening lessons. It is suggested that other 
researchers conduct a study related to students’ awareness and response to pre-listening 
activities in listening lessons. If this research is carried out, it will be very meaningful for EFL 
teachers. Another limitation is that only 10 Quoc Hoc English teachers participated in the 
surveys and interviews to provide the data for the study. This small number of participants 
might affect the validity and reliability of the study’s results. Hence, for further studies, the 
researcher expects to involve a number of research participants who come from different high 
schools in Thua Thien Hue province in order to collect more considerable data for further 
studies. Finally, as regards to data collecting instruments, in this research, due to the limited 
time, the researcher only used two instruments, which are questionnaire and interview. In 
relation to this point, it will be better if a classroom observation is applied to further studies to 
examine the participants’ responses and thereby improve the reliability of data and findings. 
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KHẢO SÁT VỀ NHẬN THỨC VÀ THỰC TẾ ỨNG DỤNG 
CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRƯỚC NGHE CỦA CÁC GIÁO VIÊN 
DẠY TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG 
CHUYÊN QUỐC HỌC HUẾ 
Tóm tắt: Bài nghiên cứu này khảo sát nhận thức và thực tế ứng dụng các hoạt động trước nghe 
của các giáo viên dạy tiếng Anh tại trường trung học phổ thông chuyên Quốc Học Huế. Nghiên 
cứu bao gồm 10 giáo viên thuộc tổ Tiếng Anh của trường chuyên Quốc Học Huế và sử dụng 
phương pháp nghiên cứu kết hợp định tính và định lượng để thu thập dữ liệu từ việc khảo sát 
trực tuyến và phỏng vấn bán cấu trúc. Kết quả cho thấy rằng phần lớn các giáo viên dạy tiếng 
Anh tại trường Quốc Học Huế đều nhận thức được tầm quan trọng của các hoạt động mở đầu 
của một bài dạy kỹ năng nghe. Kết quả nghiên cứu cũng chỉ ra rằng các hoạt động trước nghe 
khác nhau đều có những chức năng và hiệu quá khác nhau trong việc giúp học sinh cải thiện kỹ 
năng nghe hiểu. Thêm vào đó, nghiên cứu cũng chỉ ra rằng có sự khác biệt trong cách tiến hành 
các hoạt động trước nghe ở các lớp chuyên và không chuyên Anh và phát hiện hai nhân tố chính 
– giáo viên và học sinh – quyết định sự thành công của việc thực hiện các hoạt động trước nghe 
ở các lớp học tiếng Anh tại trường Quốc Học Huế. 
Từ khóa: Hoạt động trước nghe, nhận thức, hiệu quả, học sinh chuyên Anh, học sinh không 
chuyên Anh