The impacts of rhetorical schema on English majors’ listening comprehension in academic situations at ho chi minh city university of technology and education

34 Le T. K. Thu & Nguyen T. Tung. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 34-46 
THE IMPACTS OF RHETORICAL SCHEMA ON ENGLISH 
MAJORS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN ACADEMIC 
SITUATIONS AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF 
TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION 
LE THI KIM THU 
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, Vietnam - thultk@hcmute.edu.vn 
NGUYEN THANH TUNG 
 Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy, Vietnam - tungnth@hcmup.edu.vn 
 (Received: September 02, 2017; Revised: September 25, 2017; Accepted: November 29, 2017) 
ABSTRACT 
Listening is a basic language skill which involves the interaction of diverse factors affecting learners’ 
listening comprehension. Learners often encounter various difficulties in listening to an oral text with a little 
knowledge of the reasons why it occurs. Moreover, teachers mainly pay more attention to it as a product rather 
than as a process. Also, the factors about listening strategies have been under-researched although they play a 
significant role in guiding learners through what to listen to and how to listen to it effectively. This study 
sought to investigate the effects of rhetorical schema including note-taking and four listening strategies, and 
the extent to which students change as regards strategy use and listening achievement in academic settings. 
Forty second-year EFL students from the two listening classes, one treated as the experimental group (EG) and 
the other as the control group (CG), at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Ho Chi Minh City University 
of Technology and Education (HCM UTE) were invited to participate in the study. Data were collected in the 
form of a questionnaire administered to EG and listening tests of IELTS part 4 taken by both groups. The 
findings indicate that EG students are more open to use the strategies introduced, so rhetorical schema 
positively enhance their listening comprehension. Notably, the scores of the rank high - distinction - appeared 
for the first time albeit its small percentage in EG. Students also express significant changes in their attitudes 
towards rhetorical strategies in terms of their awareness of its importance, frequent use, and confidence in 
listening to lectures in the future. 
Keywords: Listening comprehension; Listening strategies; Note-taking strategies; Rhetorical schema. 
1. Introduction 
No one can deny the fact that language 
teaching and learning has become one of the 
most common research topics for ages. Of the 
four, listening, the ability to identify and 
understand what others are saying, involves 
an understanding of a speaker’s accent or 
pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and a 
grasp of his/her meaning (Howatt & Dakin, 
1974) This ability has emerged as the core 
factor in the process of second language 
acquisition and demands a much greater 
prominence in language teaching (Nguyen, 
2012; Oxford, 1993). 
Notwithstanding its crucial role, within 
the context of language teaching and learning 
in Vietnam, the process of teaching and 
learning listening still suffers from a myriad 
of drawbacks. First, L2 learners are often 
fearful of listening tasks whose purpose and 
context they do not know or whose topics 
they are not familiar with. Second, they lack 
essential strategies to successfully approach a 
task. L2 learners are not taught and provided 
with appropriate strategies to apply in 
different listening tasks. In other words, they 
do not often approach the listening task in the 
most efficient way compared to what they 
 Le T. K. Thu & Nguyen T. Tung. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 34-46 35 
may do in their first language. Third, 
instructions for teaching listening mainly 
target its product instead of its process. 
Teachers still tend to test listening rather than 
teach it. The issue of information retention is 
also another reason making listening difficult. 
Learners say that they can catch the speed and 
understand what the speakers are saying, but 
they find themselves unable to retain contents 
for post-listening questions. Moreover, 
according to Ur (1985), it is apparent that 
learners can govern the speed of what they 
hear but they cannot go back or “rewind” to 
listen to the lost content. Finally, knowledge 
of language, culture and other kinds of 
background knowledge also bring obstacles to 
Vietnamese learners. Ton (2009, p.3) points 
out that 70% of Vietnamese students lack 
necessary function languages. Statistically, 
Nguyen (2012, p.34) has found that 82% of 
Vietnamese learners experience challenges in 
lectures or seminars in which barriers with 
note-taking account for 44%. 
Schemas are very essential not only for 
interpreting information but also for decoding 
how that information is organized. The first 
outline of schema theory was developed in 
1932 by Barlett, who pays much attention to 
the role of memory. He argues that memory is 
an active process, not reproductive, but 
constructive in its operation. Myhill, Jones 
and Hopper (2006) say that schema is a set of 
mental connections we had in our head about 
a particular idea of thing” (p.21). According 
to Edwards and McDonald (1993), the 
development of schema theory is concerned 
with the organization of information in 
memory and how existing knowledge 
influences the encoding of new information 
and its retrieval from memory (p.75). Dunkel 
and Davy (1989) state that applying suitable 
listening as well as note-taking strategies in a 
lecture can consequently be an effective and 
useful tool to increase attention to the 
listening process and enhance retention of the 
content. 
Therefore, the application of listening 
strategies and note-taking strategies should be 
taken into full consideration. This article 
focuses on how rhetorical schema including 
listening strategies and note-taking strategies 
ef ... itive attitudes towards the five 
strategies of listening to topic and big picture 
of a lecture, listening to main and supporting 
ideas, listening to signs of transition, 
organizing key ideas by outlining, and writing 
down key words. Secondly, the strategies 
mentioned in the paragraph above were also 
used by the students more often than the 
others. Hence, based on the students’ views, it 
is clear that the teacher was successful in 
using rhetorical schema to improve their 
listening skill. 
Regarding other aspects from their views, 
the students responded that it was a good 
course because it gained the aim of improving 
their listening skill. They felt enjoyable and 
interested in the application of rhetorical 
schema since it helped them to listen 
effectively. Besides, the course was said to 
motivate the students to overcome difficulties 
to understand the lectures easily. The 
rhetorical strategies encouraged them to 
practice listening to lectures more often in 
order to enhance listening skill. Additionally, 
students also expressed a strong desire 
towards learning listening with the help of 
rhetorical schema. Thus, the students’ positive 
attitudes towards the various aspects of the 
course indicated the effectiveness of 
introducing rhetorical schema. 
Finally, students also showed their 
confidence towards the rhetorical schema. 
Most of them were convinced that they would 
apply these strategies in the future listening 
and in other listening situations. Hence, the 
rhetorical schema including listening 
strategies and note-taking strategies as a 
scaffolding assisted steps to listen effectively. 
Overall, the intervention of rhetorical 
schema fostered the students’ positive 
attitudes and improved their motivation as 
Armbruster (2000), Carrell (2007), Chaudron 
(1994), Dunkel (1988), Hayati and Jalilifar 
(2009), and Tsai (2004) said it. 
8. Discussion and conclusion 
The findings have shown that rhetorical 
schema proves its educational value in 
enhancing the learners’ listening 
comprehension and changing their attitudes 
towards its application. 
Behaviorally, the instruction of rhetorical 
schema strategies helps the students improve 
 Le T. K. Thu & Nguyen T. Tung. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 34-46 43 
their listening comprehension. By explicitly 
applying listening strategies before lecture 
listening, they can get the topic and the big 
picture of a lecture, or the main idea. While-
listening strategies assist them in dealing with 
the specific aspects of lecture content as note-
taking strategies provide them with an 
effective way to jot down the key information 
during listening. They also acknowledge what 
information should be taken down for 
answering post-listening questions by 
listening to lecture language of definition, 
explanation, and example. With the help of 
outlining technique from note-taking 
strategies, they can review notes after 
listening and, as a result, are no longer afraid 
of forgetting what they heard despite a large 
amount of information. All of this in the 
treatment attributes to their better 
performance in listening comprehension. 
Attitudinally, the students have a rather 
positive attitude towards the introduction of 
rhetorical schema in relation to all the aspects 
investigated: its importance, their frequency 
use, their degree of interest, their motivational 
intensity, and their desire towards it. 
Generally speaking, they express their good 
reactions and thoughts towards its application 
as it can help them improve their listening 
skill. 
The findings in this study once again 
confirm the effect of rhetorical schema in 
teaching and learning listening in an academic 
setting. They are in line with those findings 
by Alalili (2009), Eileen (2008), Jia (2010), 
Othman and Vanathas (2005), Strangman and 
Hall (2010), and Titsworth and Kiewra 
(2004). These researchers found out in their 
research studies with a similar experimental 
design that when applied in teaching and 
learning listening, rhetorical schema brought 
about a positive effect as the EG scored 
higher than the CG in the test after the 
treatment. Hence, the findings in these studies 
and those in this study together agreed with 
Carrel (2007) and Hayati and Jalilifar’s 
(2009) perspective that “the application of 
rhetorical schema improves the learners’ 
listening skill”. 
In conclusion, the research achieved its 
purpose of improving the students’ listening 
skill thanks to the application of rhetorical 
schema strategies. Its use had a good influence 
and received their optimistic attitudes 
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