Eleventh graders’ actual use of english listening learning strategies at Duong Van Duong high school

ELEVENTH GRADERS’ ACTUAL USE 
OF ENGLISH LISTENING LEARNING STRATEGIES 
AT DUONG VAN DUONG HIGH SCHOOL
Duong My Tham1,*, Tran Thi Hoang Trang2, Tran Quoc Thao3
1. Nong Lam University - Ho Chi Minh City, 
Linh Trung, Thu Duc, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2. Duong Van Duong High School, 
39 street no. 6, Phu Xuan, Nha Be, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
3. Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, 
475A Dien Bien Phu, Ward 25, Binh Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Received 7 November 2018 
Revised 24 January 2019; Accepted 31 January 2019
Abstract: It is undeniable that listening comprehension is a fundamental skill in the process of 
acquiring a language and plays a crucial part in communication although it is not an easy task which 
requires both background knowledge and linguistic understanding. Therefore, language learners are 
supposed to employ listening learning strategies to facilitate the process of decoding oral input. This study 
aimed at examining if the eleventh graders at Duong Van Duong high school used English listening learning 
strategies and then exploring the frequency of the students’ use of these strategies. The present study is a 
mixed-methods research project in which both qualitative and quantitative data were collected through 
closed-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview with the participation of 425 respondents and 20 
interviewees. The results of the study indicated that a vast number of the participants employed listening 
learning strategies at different levels of frequency which were classified into three main groups, namely 
high use (e.g. cognitive and affective strategies), moderate use (e.g. metacognitive and social strategies) and 
low use (e.g. compensation and memory strategies). 
Keywords: EFL listening comprehension, eleventh graders, listening learning strategies, Vietnamese 
EFL context
1. Introduction1
It is universally acknowledged that 
listening is one of the four basic skills of 
language acquisition (Ellis, 1997; Harmer, 
2007). However, it may cause confusion 
and misunderstanding to EFL/ESL learners 
if they cannot comprehend what people say 
in terms of sound, intonation and stress, 
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 84-979814242
 Email: tham.duongmy@hcmuaf.edu.vn
colloquial vocabulary, and each may use 
a different accent, etc. (Ur, 1984, Wilson, 
2008). In reality, listening skill has not been 
considerably emphasized in English language 
education at most Vietnamese high schools; 
as a consequence, teaching and learning this 
receptive skill is not as effective as expected 
(Nguyen, 2013). 
Moreover, Vietnamese students in high 
school are not equipped with appropriate 
strategies to develop their listening 
115VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.1 (2019) 114-130
comprehension independently (Do, 2007; 
Nguyen & Tran, 2015). That is why there is 
a need to provide the students with tactics 
facilitating their listening skill as Brown 
(2006, p.6) pinpoints, “strategies are clearly a 
way to ease the burden of listening and should 
be taught.”
According to Vandergrift (2007), listening 
learning strategies refer to “strategies that 
listeners consciously or unconsciously use 
in order to understand, analyze, and interpret 
a text” (p.101). It has been further stated 
that effective use of appropriate listening 
strategies facilitates understanding listening 
texts especially in the early stages of learning 
a language. Evidently, good language 
learners typically employ their cognitive 
and metacognitive strategies, whereas less 
proficient listeners tend to work at a word-
level and try to translate what they hear into 
their first language without relating it to their 
personal knowledge (Berne, 2004). 
Meanwhile, Wenden and Rubin (1987) 
describe language learning strategies as “any 
sets of operations, steps, plans, routines used 
by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, 
storage, retrieval, and use of information” 
(p.19). In the same line, learning strategies 
are defined as “special thoughts or behaviors 
that individuals use to help them comprehend, 
learn, or retain new information” (O’Malley 
& Chamot, 1990, p.1). This means that when 
language learners encounter language learning 
tasks such as reading or listening, they can use 
different strategies to complete the tasks. 
In terms of categories, listening skill 
consists of an array of strategies which 
are divided into distinguished categories. 
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) affirm that in 
the process of listening comprehension, there 
are three different types of strategies, that is, 
(1) metacognitive strategies, (2) cognitive 
strategies, and (3) socio-affective strategies. 
In particular, metacognitive strategies 
involve planning, monitoring and evaluating 
comprehension, whilst cognitive strategies 
are used to manipulate information, and socio-
affective strategies are related to the ways that 
learners decide to interact with others. 
More specifically, Oxford (1990) 
classifies listening learning strategies into two 
main groups: direct and indirect strategies, 
based upon the extent to which they relate to 
language. Remarkably, these two strategies 
are not separate or contradictory, but closely 
interdependent. Direct strategies, as the name 
implies, are directly related to the intellectual 
processing of language such as memorization 
of vocabulary, or form recognition. They are 
used to deal with new information and work 
with language in different tasks and situations. 
On the other hand, indirect strategies have 
no direct relevance to language as direct 
strategies. It simply solves problems about 
language learning like planning and making 
schedules for learning and enhancing listeners’ 
positive emotions. 
In general, it has been suggested that in 
order to overcome listening comprehension 
problems, learners need to develop list ... earning strategy groups, so they 
can apply these strategies in their listening 
appropriately and flexibly. To this end, 
teachers should provide their students with 
various listening strategy groups consciously 
according to each stage of listening (pre-
listening, while-listening, and post-listening). 
More specifically, based on Oxford’s (1990) 
strategy classification system, the authors 
would like to make the following suggestions. 
Direct strategies which consist of (1) cognitive 
strategies (getting ideas quickly, note-taking, 
summarizing, translating, recognizing and 
using patterns, repeating, transferring, and 
analyzing contrastively), (2) compensation 
strategies (using other clues and using 
linguistics) and (3) memory strategies 
(grouping and associating/elaborating ideas) 
should be predominantly applied for while-
126 D.M. Tham, et al. / VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.1 (2019) 114-130
listening stage. Meanwhile, indirect strategies 
including (1) metacognitive strategies (setting 
goals and objectives, self-monitoring, and 
self-evaluating), (2) affective strategies (using 
progressive relaxation, listening to your body, 
and discussing your feelings with someone 
else), and (3) social strategies (asking for 
clarification and cooperating with peers) are 
likely to be appropriate for pre-listening and 
post-listening stages.
Second, teachers need to modify listening 
tasks in the textbooks so that high school 
students vary their use of listening learning 
strategies. Especially, at the end of the 
listening sections, high school teachers need 
to reinforce their students’ understanding 
and experience of the listening strategies 
during these listening tasks. As a result, 
students can self-regulate and moderate their 
listening performance in the future. In this 
case, it is suggested that teachers should use 
metacognitive strategies to promote their 
students’ autonomous learning and social 
ones to cross-check students’ listening 
comprehension. 
Third, high school teachers should 
encourage their students to practice listening 
comprehension at home and participate in 
group work or pair work activities in class to 
reduce students’ psychological issues. To deal 
with this issue, affective strategies are highly 
recommended. 
Last but not least, to support students’ 
English listening comprehension, listening 
subskills involving summarizing, note-
taking, listening for gist, listening for specific 
information, inferring, listening extensively, 
deducing meaning from context, guessing, 
dealing with connected speech, etc. should 
be taught to students prior to listening texts 
(Spratt & Williams, 2011). To this end, 
metacognitive, memory and compensation 
strategies are necessarily included.
4.3. For further research
It is undeniable that the findings of this study 
offer theoretical and practical contributions 
to language teaching and research. Due to 
time limit, nevertheless, limited research 
instruments (e.g. questionnaire and interview) 
were employed, and only the frequency of used 
listening learning strategies was investigated. 
Hence, it is recommended that further research 
should extend the time for exploiting more 
research instruments like test or classroom 
observation to assure the triangulation of the 
data collection instruments. Furthermore, 
the relationship between students’ academic 
achievement and listening learning strategies 
should be taken into account.
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TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC HỌC NGHE 
TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11 
TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT DƯƠNG VĂN DƯƠNG
Dương Mỹ Thẩm1, Trần Thị Hoàng Trang2, Trần Quốc Thao3
1. Trường Đại học Nông Lâm Tp. Hồ Chí Minh, 
Linh Trung, Thủ Đức, Tp. Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam
2. Trường THPT Dương Văn Dương, 
Số 39 đường số 6, Phú Xuân, Nhà Bè, Tp. Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam
3. Trường Đại học Công nghệ Tp. Hồ Chí Minh,
 475A Điện Biên Phủ, Phường 25, Bình Thạnh, Tp. Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam
Tóm tắt: Nghe hiểu là một trong bốn kỹ năng quan trọng nhất khi học bất kì ngôn ngữ nào. 
Nó đòi hỏi người học thông thạo cả kiến thức cơ bản và kiến thức ngôn ngữ học. Nhiều nghiên 
cứu đã chỉ ra rằng các chiến lược nghe có thể giúp người học ngôn ngữ xử lý được các thông tin 
khi giao tiếp. Vì thế, nghiên cứu này nhằm tìm hiểu xem học sinh lớp 11 tại Trường THPT Dương 
Văn Dương có sử dụng các chiến lược nghe trong quá trình học nghe tiếng Anh hay không và sau 
đó tìm hiểu sâu hơn về mức độ sử dụng các chiến lược nghe. Nghiên cứu sử dụng cả dữ liệu định 
lượng và định tính. Cụ thể, có 425 học sinh trả lời bảng câu hỏi và sau đó, 20 trong số họ được 
đề nghị tham gia phỏng vấn bán cấu trúc. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy các đối tượng nghiên cứu 
sử dụng các nhóm chiến lược nghe tiếng Anh với mức độ khác nhau và được chia thành 03 nhóm 
chính: nhóm sử dụng nhiều (gồm chiến lược nhận thức và cảm xúc), nhóm sử dụng vừa phải (gồm 
chiến lược siêu nhận thức và xã hội) và nhóm sử dụng ít (gồm chiến lược bù đắp và trí nhớ). 
Từ khóa: nghe hiểu tiếng Anh, học sinh lớp 11, chiến lược nghe, ngữ cảnh Việt Nam
APPENDIX A
STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE 
This questionnaire belongs to a study named “Eleventh Graders’ Actual Use of Listening 
Learning Strategies at Duong Van Duong High School”. We highly appreciate it if you could 
spend your time answering following questions. Your responses will greatly contribute to the 
success of this paper. Your replies will be only used for survey purposes. Thank you very much 
for your cooperation. 
I. Personal information
Please provide your own information by putting a cross (X) in the box or write down your 
information. 
1. Gender: o Male o Female
2. How long have you learnt English? – About _________________years. 
129VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.1 (2019) 114-130
II. Actual use of listening learning strategies 
1. Did you employ listening learning strategies in the English class?
o Yes o No o I don’t know
(If yes, please continue to answer the rest of the questionnaire)
2. How often do you employ listening learning strategies?
Please put a cross (X) and rate yourself based on the given statements using the following scale:
1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = occasionally, 4 = frequently, 5 = always
1. MEMORY STRATEGIES
1 I link my background knowledge with what being heard or group the information to restore them. 1 2 3 4 5
2 I use semantic mapping to learn the word school and word order. 1 2 3 4 5
2. COGNITIVE STRATEGIES
3
While listening, I focus on grammar and structures to understand 
the text better and repeat information several times to facilitate my 
retention.
1 2 3 4 5
4 I try to grasp the main ideas before focusing on other small details. 1 2 3 4 5
5 I translate, transfer or make the contrast between English and 
Vietnamese words or expressions to understand the target language.
1 2 3 4 5
6 I write down what I hear and summarize my notes to understand listening texts better. 1 2 3 4 5
3. COMPENSATION STRATEGIES
7 To understand unfamiliar words I hear, I make guesses by using linguistic clue such as word order and word stress. 1 2 3 4 5
8 To understand unfamiliar words I hear, I make guesses by using situational context such as noise and speaker’s tone of voice. 1 2 3 4 5
4. METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES
9 I decide in advance whether I should be attentive to the whole task or particular details. 1 2 3 4 5
10 When listening, I had clear goals (listen for main ideas, listen for detail ideas or listen for identifying speakers’ attitudes) 1 2 3 4 5
11 I self – monitor the listening process to avoid making mistakes I had before and evaluate how well the task has been done. 1 2 3 4 5
5. AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES
12 I try to relax or breathe deeply to keep calm before listening English. 1 2 3 4 5
13 Before listening, I tell myself that I can finish the task. 1 2 3 4 5
14 I share my feeling with my friends and encourage myself to concentrate on listening English even when I can’t hear anything. 1 2 3 4 5
6. SOCIAL STRATEGIES
15 I ask the teacher or my friends to clarify what I am not clear. 1 2 3 4 5
16 After listening, I exchange the information with friends and cooperate to check comprehension and answer questions. 1 2 3 4 5
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION!
130 D.M. Tham, et al. / VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.1 (2019) 114-130
APPENDIX B
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW 
The frequency of employing listening learning strategies
1. How often do you use Memory Strategies for your listening learning? If yes, how are these 
strategies useful for your learning? If no, why aren’t they employed to improve your listening skill?
2. Do you frequently use Cognitive Strategies for your listening learning process? Which of 
the following techniques are often utilized for your listening? 
3. Do you often exploit Compensation Strategy (guessing intelligently based on linguistics 
and other clues) to facilitate your listening learning? If yes, can you give some examples how is 
the strategy helpful for you? If not, what are your obstacles?
4. Have you employed Metacognitive Strategies with high frequency? If yes, specify your 
situations? If no, why? 
5. How frequently do you use relaxation, deep breathing, or mediation to reduce your pressure 
before or while listening? If yes, what benefits do you get from these techniques? If no, why do 
you pay no or little attention to them?
6. Do you often ask for clarification or Cooperate with peers to accomplish listening tasks? In 
your opinion, are these techniques useful for your learning? Why or why not?