using long-distance dictaction to teach listening by omar abdula

8/19/2019 Using Long-distance Dictaction to Teach Listening by Omar Abdula

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DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I am hereby to declare that, this research paper is a result of my personal investigation, and a

methodological orientation established at “Universidade Pedagógica”. All the consulted

sources are clearly cited throughout the paper as well as in the reference list. In the same way,

I declare that this research paper has never been presented to obtain any degree in this

university or any other institution.

Nampula, March 2016

The author

___________________________________________

(Omar Nordino Abdula)


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the first place, I thank the All-Might God to have given me courage, strength and heath to

fulfill this paper. Second, I would like to thank my parents, specially my mom Abiba, who

always told me not to give up despite the difficulties. Third, I thank my aunt Mafiel Abdula

who is my second mom. I thank her a lot for every single cent she spent during my training. I

ask God to reward her with the best of the rewards. Finally, I thank my wife, Chume Rabia,

and all the people who have given me direct or indirect support.

Furthermore, I would like to thank the following individualities: dr. Tomas Castelo, he taught

me right in my first year in this university that in life we have to set a goal to achieve; MA.

Sonia, for guidance and my dear supervisor, dr. Chifundo Angela Mtambo, for her tips, ear

pokes and time she spent listening to me. I thank you all.


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DEDICATION

I dedicate this paper to my parents, Nordino Abdula Menina & Abiba Jamal, my aunt Mafiel

Abdula, my brothers Abdul, Abdul-hamid, Altaff, Zita and Maizinha; my wife Chume Rabia

and my son Zhalkifli.


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LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS

Table 1: Target population

Table 2: Performance stream B1

Table3: Performance stream B2

Graph 1: Mistakes and Omission stream B1


Graph 3: Students’ feeling during English language classes

Graph 4: Students’ opinion about their teachers

Graph 8: What would you like to see improved in English language classes?

Graph 6: How often do you practice long-distance dictation?

Graph 7: What is the nature of your English language lessons?

Graph 5: How often do you practice listening activities?


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CONTENT PAGE

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP .................................................................................................... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................... iii

DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................................... iv

LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS ....................................................................................................... v

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................... ix

CHAPTER I .......................................................................................................................................... 10

1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 10

1.1. Background to the problem ............................................................................................................ 10

1.2. Statement of the problem ............................................................................................................... 11

1.3. Scope of the study .......................................................................................................................... 12

1.4. Merit of the study ........................................................................................................................... 12

1 5 P f th t d 12


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1.12. Limitations of the study ............................................................................................................... 15

1.13. The structure of the study ............................................................................................................ 15

CHAPTER II ......................................................................................................................................... 16

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................. 16

2.1. Defining dictation .......................................................................................................................... 16

2.1.1. Long-distance dictation ............................................................................................................... 17

2.1.1.1. How is it performed? ............................................................................................................... 18

2.1.2. Reasons for using dictations in the classroom ............................................................................ 20

2.1.3. Using dictation to develop the four language skills .................................................................... 21

2.1.4. Advantages of using dictation ..................................................................................................... 22

2.1.5. Disadvantages of using dictation ................................................................................................ 23

2.2.2. The process of listening .............................................................................................................. 24

2.2.2.1. Bottom-up listening process..................................................................................................... 25

2 2 2 2 T d 2


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3.4.1. Students’ feeling in the classroom .............................................................................................. 38

3.4.2. Teacher’s behaviour in the classroom ......................................................................................... 38

3.4.4. The practice of long-distance dictation ....................................................................................... 40

3.4.5. The nature of the class ................................................................................................................ 41

3.4.6. Classroom improvements ............................................................................................................ 42

3.5. The teachers ................................................................................................................................... 42

CHAPTER IV ....................................................................................................................................... 47

4. PROPOSAL AND IMPLEMENTATION ........................................................................................ 47

4.1. Proposal.......................................................................................................................................... 47

4.1.1. The Activity ................................................................................................................................ 47

4.2. Implementation .............................................................................................................................. 48

4.2.2. Checking the results .................................................................................................................... 50

CHAPTER V ........................................................................................................................................ 51

5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 1


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ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to show the importance of listening in the English Language

classroom in order to get a perfect acquisition of the second language.

After my experience as a trainee teacher, I have noticed that this skill is a very important part

in relation to the acquisition of English language and I have also asked my students in order

to know their thoughts in relation to my hypothesis and they assure that this skill need to be

developed because students, during all the courses, study English language but based on the

development of reading and writing skills and sometimes, the teacher suggests doing some

listening because the majority of the student’s books include the typical listening (such as

conversations) with the corresponding exercises which are very useful to check the listening

comprehension but, they think they need to know how to be a good listener because if they

travel abroad, they are going to communicate through listening and speaking, of course, and

not reading or writing.

However, if we do not understand the message, how are we going to react? Specially, for

k li i d b li d h h i i i f h


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CHAPTER I

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the problem

Teaching English language in Mozambique has become a daily challenge for teacher in our

schools, especially in secondary schools because of the various constrains that hump the

effective learning of this language. Therefore, methods of teaching English as foreign

language were developed in order to boost the learning process. However, some of them did

not remain in use till today because of focusing on a special skill rather than the four

language skills. However, techniques to help students developing the language competence

did not stop; nowadays we use literature to teach a specific language skill or else the four

language skills.

As we know, English has spread widely all over the world, first because of the influence of

the British Empire and, second due to the North American influence in the world. In Africa,

especially in Mozambique, English has advanced as an international language because of

t d ll t h l d l t t iti id d b i t ti l


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going to focus on listening, because we believe that by developing this skill we will

communicate with fewer problems and we will be able to grasp the message and respond it

accurately.

According to the National System of Education in Mozambique, teaching of English

Language in upper secondary level from grade 11 to 12 is regarded as teacher’s responsibility

to find out good strategies to design activities in order to help students learning language. It is

from this point that the research was based upon. The need of developing language

proficiency in the students strikes teachers of English language to hardly think about different

ways to improve the four language skills proficiency in their students. However, in this

research we selected one: listening.

So, in this research we will be portraying on promoting listening skills through Long

Distance – Dictation. We will be describing on how dictation is useful to develop listening

ability, because it involves paying attention to what is being said and later reproduce it the

way we have heard it.


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1.3. Scope of the study

This study will take place at Napipine Secondary School; it will cover day shift students of

grade 11 streams B1 and B2, and two teachers of English language. The school is located at

Napipine neighbourhood in front of Pedagogical University in Nampula city.

1.4. Merit of the study

During the teaching practice, the researcher observed that there is a lack of response by the

students. Unlike passive learners these students are active; however, they mismatch teacher’s

expectations; i.e., students fail to understand teacher’s instructions and consequently they will

give wrong responses. This situation motivated the researcher to carry out with a study in

order to find out the reason why the students cannot catch up with the teacher’s commands.

1.5. Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study is to find out the reasons behind student’s lack of understanding

teachers instructions in order to keep classroom momentum in English language classrooms,

in this specific case grade 11 classrooms. One aspect that we have to take into account is the

fact that English language is taught from grade 6 till grade 12. So, it is inadmissible to still


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How much time do teachers give the students to practice listening?

Do teachers use Long Distance-dictation in the classroom to promote listening skills?

1.8. Hypotheses

Generally, the students seem to understand the teacher’s commands but they seem to fail in

responding the commands effectively because they have some difficult in listening. So, I

believe that if long distance-dictation technique becomes more practiced in English Language

classroom the students will be able to increase their ability of listening. Regarding the critical

questions above, the researcher states the following hypotheses:

Maybe the activities used by the teachers in the classroom for listening skills are not

adequate to enable students to catch up with teacher’s commands;

Probably the teachers do not give enough time to students to practice listening in

English language classroom;

It may also be the fact that teachers do not use long distance – dictation in their

teaching to promote listening skills.

1.9. Research Methodology


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1.9.3. Sample

The sample of this study was extracted from the target population; the researcher selected

50% of 236 students, in this case 118 students made part of the sample and two grade 11

teachers. This criterion of selecting the sample is suggested by Nkapa (1997), where he

defends that selecting 50% of the target population allows the researcher to generalize the

findings of the study. The selection of the sample was done randomly. In other words, the

researcher numbered 118 papers and other 118 unnumbered, and then he placed them in a

box, after that he asked students to choose any paper; so the students who happened to choose

the numbered papers made part of the sample.

1.10. Research Instruments

Questionnaires and observation forms were the instruments used in this research. The

questionnaire was administered to both students and teachers, while the observation forms

were administered in the classroom during lessons. Also a dictation activity will be

administrated, in this case long-distance dictation.

1.10.1. Observation Form


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1.12. Limitations of the study

This research was carried out at Napipine Secondary School in the 2nd cycle, 4 days of the

first term. As we can notice the period dated for data collection was extremely very short

because the researcher had to do all his best in order to meet the plans in 4 days. On the first

day, the researcher had to present himself to the representatives of the school and soon be

directed to the teachers of English grade 11. From there he had to present his plan to them

and fix how they were going to handle the work. The following day, he worked just with the

teachers and the remaining 2 days worked with the students. So, the only constraint he found

was the exiguity of time for data collection.

1.13. The structure of the study

This research is organized in 5 chapters, whereby each chapter is composed by some

subtopics meticulously portraying its sense. So, the Chapter I , is composed with Introduction

whereby we find preliminary information of this research such as: Statement of the problem,

Scope of the study, Merit of the study, Purpose of the study, Objectives, Critical questions,

Hypotheses, Research Methodology, Research Design, Sample, Procedures, Limitations of

h d d h f h d


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CHAPTER II

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Defining dictation

Davis and Rinvolucri (1988:1) suggest asking ourselves some questions before trying to

define dictation:

“Who gives the dictation, and to whom? Who controls the pace of the dictation? Who

chooses or creates the text? Who corrects it? How long should the texts be? How should the

voice dictating sound? Must the listener write down everything?”

These set of questions show how challenging dictation can because it is sometimes seen like

a boring activity because of its nature. For example, it takes a lot of time during dictation and

after dictation when the teacher correction was being dictated. It becomes more challenging

when we come to Mozambican secondary schools were the number of students by class can

go up to 150 students.

However, dictation is a special activity when it comes to gathering students into groups to

it d h t i b i id b th t h It i f h f d i b t


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It means that dictation is the process of writing down what someone else has just said either

to test or the teach language in the classroom which can be monitored by the teacher or by a

student to another student.

In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995:190), dictation means “being dictated to:

passage that is dictated”. In addition, 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”.

If we have a closer look at the definition above, we may come to a conclusion that dictation

is a kind of activity that not only challenge students’ short term memory and understanding in

spelling vocabulary but also to understand the meaning of what is said. The students are

hoped to perceive the contents of the passage and recognized all the words and sentences

being read so that they are able to put these aural codes into written symbols.

Dictation is used to evaluate most of the aspects of language simultaneously. Its main


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So, among the reasons for adding long-distance dictation to our teaching we have:2

It can easily be transferred from the ESL (English as Second Language) to the

literacy classroom where its student centered nature, and appeal to students with a

variety of learning styles means it is often very successful;

It is a time-tested activity with proven value;

It is a multi-skill activity which integrates speaking, listening, reading, and writing;

It can be a very low preparation activity. Once you are comfortable with the basic

concept, the dictations become very quick and easy to prepare;

It is cheap. You don’t need a lot of expensive resources. A pen and some pieces of

paper are enough to perform it;

It can easily be made engaging, meaningful, and relevant to the students;

Numerous variations allow the teacher to focus on different skills within the

activity;

It’s inclusive; in mixed ability classes, students can take part in the same activity at

the same time if the teacher prepares easier and harder versions of the same text.


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cycle continues until the dictation is complete. The roles can be shifted during the dictation,

so that each and every student plays both roles.

ii. The Correction Phase

Correction can be handled in a variety of ways; however, we prefer to have the students

checking the text together and trying to identify any errors or mistakes. The teacher will then

read the whole text to them at a natural speed while they check and correct. Finally, they are

given a copy of the complete text to check again.

It this activity all the four language skills are involved, however, our focus is on listening

skill. If you have noticed, listening plays one importance role in language productivity

because if the writer fails to understand the message brought by the runner , automatically,

the message gets distorted. Engaging students on developing this skill, we believe that it will

be easier for them to speak because they have already grasped the message. Again, this is the

first language skill that we should develop.

Nation & Newton (2009) provide quite an extensive list of ways of using different techniques


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2.1.2. Reasons for using dictations in the classroom

Anything we believe to be useful should have reasons for its usefulness. So, in dictation we

have those reasons why we should include this activity in our teaching process. Davis and

Rinvolucri (1988:20), mention ten good reasons to use dictation:

1. The students are active during the exercise: when using dictation students can be

the “subject” of the lesson because they can be actively engaged in decoding the

dictation, and all the students are involved at the same time;

2. The students are active after the exercise: students can correct their own work and

also help on peer correction. This practice of self and peer correction can lead

students to reflect on their writing production;

3. Dictation leads to oral communicative activities: students can comment their

opinions about what has been dictated. While the sentence or text is being dictated the

inside self-thinking that has taken place during the dictation phase leads naturally into

comparing experiences with other members of the group;


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7. Dictation will often calm groups: everyone in the class will have their attention

focus on one point – the activity proposed;

8. Dictation is safe to non-native teachers: teachers have time to prepare the language

in advance;

9. For English it is a technically useful exercise: in English sounds and letters are

sometimes different. “Decoding the sounds of this particular language and recording

them in writing is a major learning task”;

10. Dictation gives access to interesting texts: it can be either the students or the

teacher’s choice.

As we can see dictation has enormous advantages to what concerns language production and

specially the development of the for language skills. Listening, however, plays a media role

during the process of dictation because is the good grasping of the transmitted message that

the students will successfully fulfill the task.


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The reading process occurs simultaneously with the reading process; while writing students

are reading. They read to dictate and to correct their work. It means that it is an automatic

process.

3. Speaking skills

While the students are correcting their work in pairs or groups, they are using the language

proposed during the dictation activity. Students can also dictate parts of the texts and in some

activities be free to ask questions to solve doubts. Harmer (1991:119) asserts that “teachers

frequently complain that their students have nothing to say”. However, the teacher can start a

speaking activity with a sentence dictated in which students have to complete something, and

then he or she has something to work with, because “little dictations can get the process

moving...” (Harmer, 1991:119). Students think consciously about what is being dictated.

4. Writing skills

Students need to pay attention to spelling and accuracy while they are writing what is being

dictated. In a jigsaw activity for example, while reconstructing a text, they have to pay closer

i h d h i Th i h h i i i b l d


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If the students do well, dictation is motivating;

Dictation involves the whole class, no matter how large it is;

During and after the dictation, all the students are active and also correction can be

done by the students themselves;

Dictation can be prepared for mixed ability groups;

Dictation can be prepared for any level;

The students, as well as the teacher, can get instant feedback (if the exercise is

corrected immediately);

The dictation passage can (and should) be completely prepared in advance (it also can

be taped);

Dictation can be administered quite effectively by an inexperienced teacher;

While dictating, the teacher can move about, giving individual attention;

Dictation exercises can pull the class together, for example, during those valuable first

minutes.

2.1.5. Disadvantages of using dictation


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It takes up a lot of time especially if the dictation is afterwards corrected word by

word;

It does not develop writing skills – students do not have to express ideas in a written

form, or find ways of constructing sentences (according to Doff’s view). The main

skill practiced is spelling.

It is considered a teacher-centred activity.

2.2 Listening

2.2.1. Defining listening

Based on Hornby (1995: 687) listening comes from a verb to listen which means to make an

effort to hear somebody or something. According to Howatt and Dakin as quoted by

Saricoban (2006), “listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying.

This involves understanding a speaker’s accentor pronunciation, his grammar and his

vocabulary, and grasping his meaning”.

The definitions above clearly imply that listening ability is the skill which is required to listen

ll b d hi i i bili i h bili l h d


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students to learn how to listen. There are two main views of listening bottom-up process

and top-down listening process.

2.2.2.1. Bottom-up listening process

This type of process is linear as the meaning is gained at the end of the process. Hedge (2000:

230) points out that we use our knowledge of the language and our ability to process acoustic

signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents to us. In other words we create themessage from the individual parts e.g. from sounds to words to grammatical units to lexical

meaning. And at the same time with this process we use any clues that can help us with the

meaning.

Hedge claims that there are several clues such as the stress implied on certainmeaningful units, relationship between stressed and unstressed syllables; we also use

our lexical and syntactic knowledge to get the meaning of the words.

2.2.2. 2. Top down process

Previous background knowledge of the topic of the conversation help the listener to

l i d i h h k i lki b d hi i k l d bl hi


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2.3. Importance and difficulties of Listening in language learning

It has taken many years to give the listening skill the importance it deserves in second

language learning. According to Rivers (1966:196), “Speaking does not of itself constitute

communication unless what is said is comprehended by another person. Teaching the

comprehension of spoken speech is therefore a primary importance of the communication

aim is to be reached”.

However, Morley (1972:7) notes that “perhaps an assumption that listening is a reflex, a little

like breathing - listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in one´s native language –

has marked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a non-native

language”.

Contrary to what everybody thinks about second language learning, listening competence is

wider than speaking competence. This is the reason why, recently, the language teaching

profession has brought into focus on listening comprehension. According to Nunan

(2001:23), Listening is a six-staged process, consisting of Hearing, Attending,


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After following with the next stage, it is necessary to make a remark: as it has mentioned

previously, the background knowledge is important and people have to take into account

several points: general factual information, local factual information, socio-cultural

knowledge and knowledge of context. With these factors, the information will be correctly

received.

The next step, Remembering , is an important Listening process because it means that an

individual, in addition to receiving and interpreting the message, has also added it to the

mind’s storage bank, which means that the information will be remembered in our mind. But

just as our attention is selective, so too is our memory, what is remembered may be quite

different from what was originally heard or seen.

Then we have Evaluating stage; the listener evaluates the message that has been received. It

is at this point when active listeners weigh evidence, sort fact from opinion and determine the

presence or absence of bias or prejudice in a message. The effective listener makes sure that


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2.4.1. Pre-listening

Pre-listening can be done in variety of ways and occurs naturally when listening is part of an

integrated skills course and listening task is linked to a previous content-based activity. The

pre-listening includes: 1).The teacher gives background information before the students listen

to thetext.2). The students read something relevant to the topic.3). The students look at the

pictures that prepare them for tile topic.4). There is a class discussion of the topic or situation

in the upcoming-test.5). There is a question-answer session with the class of a whole.6). The

teacher gives written exercises to preview tile content.7). The students go over tile procedures

for the upcoming listening task.

2.4.2. While listening

After the students get some experiences from the previous explanation and some vocabularies

addition about the material, the teacher can teach them through some ways, as follows: 1)

The teacher asks the students to listen to an oral text. 2). The teacher reads the listening

twice. 3) The teacher asks questions about the text. 4) The students answer questions in their

answer sheets.


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Listening, as we know, is the skill of understanding spoken language. Listening is an

essential skill, present in most of the activities we carry out throughout our lives, as Lindsay

and Knight show:

We listen to a wide variety of things, for example; what someone says during a conversation,

face to face or on the telephone; announcements giving information, for example, at an airport

or railway station; the weather forecast on the radio; a play on the radio; music; someoneelse’s conversation (eavesdropping); a lecture; professional advice, for example, at the

doctor’s, in the bank; instructions, for example, on how to use a photocopier or other

machinery; directions; a taped dialogue in class (2006: 45)

Besides, Listening is a complex process due to its double psychological and social nature:

Listening is a psychological phenomenon, which takes place on a cognitive level inside

people’s heads, and a social phenomenon, which develops interactively between people and

the environment surrounding them. It considers listening as a complex process, which needs to

be understood in order to teach it, and subsequently, evaluate it before integrating it with

phonological aspects and with the skill of speaking. (Bueno, Madrid and McLaren, 2006:282).


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Looking at a list of items before listening.

2. Reading the text before listening.

3. Reading through comprehension checks, questions or completion activities.

4. Predicting/speculating - useful with high achievers.

5. Previewing new words. (Less than 10 words)

6. Using advance organizers -pictures, charts, films or comprehension questions.

7. Give a clear and definite purpose for listening each time.

(A) Listen for main ideas.

(B) Listen for details.(C) Listen and make inferences.

8. Group/pair discussion about the topic

B. While-listening activities

While-listening activities are usually designed to help learners develop the skill of eliciting


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Post-listening activities can be used to check comprehension. The comprehension check is

either related to pre-listening activities, such as predicting, or extends the topic and helps

students remember new vocabulary. The following are some suggested activities for the

post-listening phase.

1. Group/Pair discussion

2. Paired reading.

3. Summary writing.

4. Shadowing.

5. Role play.

6. Comprehension checks.

2.6. Teacher’s role during listening activities

Teachers carry a big responsibility in their classrooms; they have a huge impact on their

learners either positive or negative and it is the teacher’s responsibility to create friendly and

supportive atmosphere.


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A teacher as a tutor - is a teacher who acts as a coach and as a resource

(Harmer 1991: 242) and is able to help their students to develop ideas. Teachers as

tutors can help their students during each stage and their help is very valuable during

the while-listening stage during which they should help their students with

prediction of the missing information.

A teacher as an investigator - a teacher, who observes the activities in their

lessons and subsequently evaluates their efficiency, belongs into this group.

They keep reflective journals and evaluate the benefits of each listening activity.

A teacher as a prompter - is a teacher who encourages their students and offers

suggestions about activities that are being done by the students. They ought to

support their students during each stage so that the students can be more

successful.

A teacher as a participant - a teacher can participate as an equal in the set

activities but they must beware of leading in these activities. Their participation can

also improve the classroom atmosphere. Teachers as participants can participate in

pre and post-listening task such as discussions role-plays and so on.


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It is teacher’s duty to put into practice all these roles to ensure a successful learning.

However, it will always be a challenge to teach English language in our Mozambican schools

duo to the large number of students in the classes. It is teacher’s responsibility to always find

ways to deal with such situations.


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CHAPTER III

3. DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

3.1. Research design

As we have mentioned before, this study was qualitative and quantitative. We decided to use these

mixed methods because it was concerned with qualitative phenomenon, that is, the

phenomenon relating to the students’ listening failure in the classroom. And it wasquantitative research because it was based on the measurement of the quantity or amount of

activities that teachers use to promote speaking skills in the classroom.

In this study, we decided to do two activities: library activity and field activity. Library

activity has been discussed in chapter II. While in this chapter, we will discuss about field

activity. Arikunto says that a field research can be carried out at the hospital, school, factory,

family, society, etc. (1993: 10). Along with this statement, this was study was conducted at

Napipine Secondary School with grade 11 students of two different streams. To get the

empirical data for our study, we administered a long-distance dictation activity. They were

supposed to do the activity to show the advancement in listening. In analyzing the data, we


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3.2.1. Sample

Having determined the population, we selected a sample, which is a very important step in

conducting a research. A good sample is one that is representative of the population from

which it was selected. Therefore, the representativeness of a sample determines the validity

of the generalization of the result. In this study we selected 50% of the total population, i.e.

118 students. This method of selecting the sample is suggested by Nkapa (1997), where he

defends that selecting 50% of the target population allows the researcher to generalize the

findings of the study.

3.3. Presenting and analyzing the findings

3.3.1. Administration of long-distance dictation

We started collecting our data by administrating a long-distance dictation activity.

Afterwards, we distributed the questionnaire to the students and the teachers.

As we said before a number of 181 students were involved in the activity, and the results

produced from the observation are shown in the tables 2&3. However, it is importance to

highlight here that, the students did not change the paper they were writing on, because the

mistakes and the omissions committed make part of the study.


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Acceptable: 12 – 15 min

Good: 11-12 min

Excellent: 1-10 min

Yet, to what concerns the criteria of attributing the performance, apart from the time, it was

taken into account the number of mistakes as well as the number of omitted words. (See

graphs 1&2)

Table3: Performance stream B2

Group Performance Time

Acceptable Good Excellent

1 x 11.45

2 x 17.54

3 x 9.23

4 x 13.4

5 x 18.5

6 x 11.12


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conversation, we need first to listen and understand to what is being said by the other

interlocutor, so that, we can give the right response.


Source: The author


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3.4. Question and its interpretation

3.4.1. Students’ feeling in the classroom

The classroom is the only place where students meet and show off their abilities in language.

So, if the classroom environment is not favourable or the rapport between teacher and student

is not good, consequently, something may go out of the axis. We asked the students: how do

feel during your English language classes?

About 55% of the students said that they enjoy English language classes as shown in the

graph below. It is a good sign because we do not enjoy what we do not like. Therefore, 33%

of the students said that they feel happy during the class, however, for us, joyfulness is more

powerful that happiness. Because, joy is the state of welcoming something, meaning that,

students think they could have English classes even in a day off. Happiness is a short-period

sensation that can come and go in a matter of minutes. Anyway, in general, the students like

to be in class.

Graph 3: Students’ feeling during English language classes


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appreciated by the students. Furthermore, it is known that it is not possible to be loved or

liked by everyone; we come from different social classes and we have different opinions and

views. However, even knowing these all facts, we asked the students the following question:

What is your opinion about your English language teacher?

The students of grade 11, streams B1 and B2, believe that their teacher is a nice guy with a

percentage of 84% (as illustrated in graph 4). By nice guy, we meant someone who is open to

every student and also talks to everyone, no matter if the student is weak or not.

3.4.3. The practice of listening activities

As we mentioned in chapter II during literature discussion, listening is the first language skill

that we have to develop right before any other skill. Because for us to have a conversation we

need to hear then respond and not other way round. We believe that a good listener is a good

speaker. It takes long time to develop this skill. We have to train our ears in other to get used

to different accents and voice speed. So, if the student do not practice it in the classroom it is

obvious that they will not do themselves without a hint or a little push.


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About 71% of them said that, they never have listening activities (see graph 5). This result matches

with the hypothesis no 2: Probably the teachers do not give enough time to students to practice

listening in English language classroom. We will not have good speakers if we do not have

good listeners. So, teachers must sit down and reflect about their responsibilities; apart from

rights they also have duties.

Graph 5: How often do you practice listening activities?


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Moreover, students like a live environment whereby they can use and abuse their learning

abilities. So, using long-distance dictation to teach listening skill is one of the various

strategies we have to do so; the students may not realize that they are being training to be

excellent listeners, but after some time they will find themselves listening with no difficulties.

Furthermore, we asked the students about how often do they practice long-distance dictation,

and 50% answered seldom (as shown in graph 6). However, they justified their answers in the

following terms:

“… we do practice the normal dictation whereby teacher reads and we write down (…) but

dictation the way we have practiced today we have never practiced before”

“We remember that we have practiced this activity only once, and we didn’t finish it because

of time.”

This result shows that there is an extra work that should be done by the teachers in order to

find out ways easy and cheap ways to teach listening; and long-distance dictation is one of

those ways.


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We asked our interlocutors about the nature of their classes and their answered teacher-

centred, with a percentage of 72% (see graph 7). This nature of class where the student is a

passive subject do not explore students’ potential; so, there is a need change the nature of our

class into student-centered learning class.

Graph 7: What is the nature of your English language lessons?


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methodologies their leant during their training process. And also to find out if is there any

relationship between students’ failure in listening and the teaching methodologies used by the

teachers.

Graph 8: What would you like to see improved in English language classes?

Source: the author


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We asked this question because we believe that the experience on doing something

contributes in the way we perform our tasks. People with less experience will always have a

“gap” to be filled; however, experienced people will successfully perform the tasks in time.

The same applies to teachers with less experience who find teaching large classes as a “seven

head monster”. However, experienced teachers know how to deal with large classes.

3.5.3. Teaching a specific skill

Teaching English as foreign language is not an easy task taking into account Mozambican

reality, where the schools are not equipped with labs and other important instruments that

facilitate the learning process. However, teachers cannot cross the arms and just wait for the

government; they have to be creative. So, we asked the following question: What is/are the

skill(s) that you emphasize most in your lessons? Why? We asked this question because we

know that Communicative Language Learning (CLT) is the teaching method that emphasizes

classroom interaction. So, our respondents answer in the following terms:

“Speaking is the skill I emphasize most; because speaking is more complex than any other skill.


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focuses more on speaking skill. With this answer it is clear that listening is not given much

importance. Consequently, there is a match between the answers given by the students and

the ones given by the teachers; whereby 71% of them said that they never practice listening

skill in the class (refer to graph 5).

3.5.4. No use of long-distance dictation

To what concerns the use of long-distance dictation, we asked the following question: Do you use

long-distance dictation to improve students’ listening ability? They answered in the

following terms:

“No, I don’t. But I use dictation not to teach listening but writing.”

“I don’t use this method because it is hard when it comes for large classes... I tried once and Ifound it difficult. The school doesn’t have resources to teach listening.”

As we can see from the answers given by our interlocutors, the no use of long-distance

dictation to teach listening skill is a fact in Napipine Secondary school. Long-distance

dictation is a cheap way to teach listening. It does not require much money. The lack of


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The results that we brought here clearly show that teachers have to review their teaching

methodologies and goals they have set, and the students also have to change their minds and

give importance to English language. Speaking English fluently constitutes a huge advantage

when we come to job requirements. Apart from that it is necessary to have a plan B, because

if we fail in A we still having B to try again.


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CHAPTER IV

4. PROPOSAL AND IMPLEMENTATION

4.1. Proposal

We have mentioned in chapter I that, the major objective of this research is to promote

Listening Skills through Long distance – dictation in English Language classes. We came up

with this research because during a full trimester of teaching practice at Napipine Secondary

School, we came across with a problem that led us to realize that there was a lack of listening

skills practice in the classroom. Because most of the times there was not effective response

after teacher’s input. For example, they could speak but out of context. This phenomenon was

notable in all English classes that we had opportunity to administrate lessons. However,

teachers are still doing their task of teaching but the students still not have developed the

competence of listening.

So, we decided to carry out this study with the following research question: Why students of

Napipine Secondary School, grade 11, are not able to listen effectively in English language

classes?


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4.2. Implementation

4.2.1. Running the activity

This activity has got four main steps and they are described below. We believe that if

teachers perform it the way will just describe, we believe that he will get the results that he

expects. However, it is important to say that this is not a standard structure; it is just a

proposal on how this activity should be carried out.

Step one

The first thing to do is to find a suitable text, in this case we propose the short story titled

“The three little pigs”; it has three paragraphs and about 269 words. The second thing to do

is to find a suitable surface to place the text. We recommend placing the texts on the wall

corridor, i.e., outside the classroom, if the class is large; but we can also place on the black

board if we think that the classroom will accommodate all the students during the task.

Proposed text:

he hree Little Pigs


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The big bad wolf tried to huff and puff and blow the house down, but he

could not. He kept trying for hours but the house was very strong and the

little pigs were safe inside. He tried to enter through the chimney but the

third little pig boiled a big pot of water and kept it below the chimney.

The wolf fell into it and died. The two little pigs now felt sorry for

having been so lazy. They too built their houses with bricks and lived

happily ever after.

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (1989)

Step two

Here the teacher first writes the title on the board and pre-teaches some vocabularies. After

that he demands the students to sit in groups; two students by group is the recommended


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4.2.2. Checking the results

Now, how can the teacher check if the students have problem or not in speaking?

There are two ways to do it: the first is walking around the class during the activity in order

to check what they are writing; the second one is to collect their paper and compare what they

have written with the text.

However, in our research we used both ways, because we needed to have enough evidences

to prove that it is possible to teach listening through long-distance dictation.


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CHAPTER V

5. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

5.1. Recommendations

The teaching of English language in Mozambique must be seen by the teachers as a long term

challenge, because we know that it is hard to show the society that English is very important

tool that everyone should possess; we do not know what will happen in the next years. So, we

ask our teachers to always find alternative ways to teach and not only wait for the

government.

A. Recommendations for the teachers

So, according to what we have seen in the field during this research, we recommend the

following:

1. Teachers have to change their mindset to what concerns the teaching of the four

language skills;

2. Teachers should not cross their arms and wait for the government to come up with

solutions to the lack of teaching and learning resources;


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Here is a tip: If you like listening to music, find one English song and try to write down its

letter. Afterwards, you compare what you have written with the original song letter. You can

find any song letter you want on the searching platform www.google.com.

C. To the Ministry of Education and Human Development

To the Ministry of Education, we recommend and advice them to rethink about what were the

objectives behind the introduction of English language in the national system of education. If

the objective was to have proficient people in English, so, you have to create conditions for

that to happen.

http://www.google.com/http://www.google.com/http://www.google.com/


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5.2. CONCLUSION

After the discussion that we brought throughout this study, as well as the investigation’s

results, we have come up with the conclusion that without listening skills, language learning

is impossible. This because there is no communication where there is no human interaction.

To interact, first, we need to listen and then respond to what we have just listened to.

Nowadays, however, despite all technological advancements in the field of education, like the

invention of language labs and some other software containing audio material, learners still

problems in listening. We believe that, the main reasons are: they spend too little time to

improve their listening skills; also the inappropriate strategies used by teachers in a

learning setting may be an important reason for their poor listening comprehension;

again we can add here the fact that teachers do not give importance to listening skill. To

acquire a high level of listening competence, students need to be exposed to a variety of

listening comprehension contexts. We believe that by knowing the context of a listening text

or conversation, the students will have access to different accents and the number of their

lexicon will increase. Listeners can use both bottom-up processers (linguistic knowledge)


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REFERENCE

1. Anderson, A. & T. Lynch (1988) Listening . Oxford: OUP.

2. Arikunto, Suharsimi. (2002) Research procedure; An approach to practice. Jakarta: Rineka

Cipta

3. Brown, S. (2006). Teaching Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4. Bueno, A, D. Madrid and N. McLaren, (eds). (2006) TEFL in Secondary Education.

Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada.

5. Celce-Murcia, Marianne (2001). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language.

Thomson learning.

6. Davis, P; Rinvolucri, M. (1988) Dictation, new methods, new possibilities. CUP

7. Doff, A. (1990). “Teach English. A Training Course for Teachers.” Cambridge: CUP.


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15. Morley, J. (1972) Improving aural comprehension. Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press.

16. Moss & Ross-Feldman, L (2003), Second Language Acquisition in Adults: From

Research to Practice. Washington, DC

17. Nation, I.S.P, & Newton, Jonathan (2009), Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and

Speaking , New York: Routledge

18. Neville, C. (2007), “Introduction to Research and Research Methods”: USA

19. Nkapa, N. (1997), “Educational Research”: Nigeria

20. Nunan, D. (2001) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge:

CUP.

21. Oller, J.W. (1979). Language Test at School. London: Longman.


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QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS

Grade 11 Stream B1/B2

Dear student. Please, answer all the questions below according to the instructions.

Read carefully before giving your answer or comment.

1. What is your feeling about English Language lessons?

a. Good b. Happy c. Enjoyable d. Boring

2. What is your opinion about your English Language teacher?

a. Nice guy b. Good teacher c. Bad teacher

3. How often do you practice listening activities?

a. Never b. Sometimes c. Very few times

4. How often do you practice long-distance dictation?

a. Never b. Sometimes c. Seldom


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QUESTIONNARE FOR TEACHERS

This questionnaire is to be answered and given back to the researcher. It is merely

for study purpose.

Please, answer all the questions by choosing one option, where necessary, and give your

comment (s) where requested to.

1. Do you love your profession?

a. Yes b. No

2. How long have you being teaching English Language?

a. 3years b. 2 years c. 1 year d. More than 3years

3. What is/are the skill(s) that you emphasize most in your lessons? Why?

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OBSERVATION FORM – LISTENING – GRADE 11 - STREAM B1/B2

Teacher’s notes Group Performance Time

Acceptable Good Excellent

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

using long-distance dictaction to teach listening by omar abdula

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