Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Enhancing listening skill by using online listening homework

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ENHANCING LISTENING SKILL BY USING ONLINE LISTENING 
 HOMEWORK
 Người thực hiện: Thái Thị Quỳnh Trang 
 Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu:
 - Quản lý giáo dục
 - Phương pháp giáo dục
 - Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn.................................
 - Lĩnh vực khác:..........................................................
 Có đính kèm: Các sản phẩm không thể hiện trong bản in sáng kiến
  Mô hình Đĩa CD (DVD) Phim ảnh Hiện vật khác
 (các phim, ảnh, sản phẩm phần mềm)
 Năm học: 2019 - 2020 CONTENT
 Content Page
1 Introduction 1
2 Literature Review 3
3 Methodology 12
4 Results 16
5 Assessment 25
6 Conclusion 29
7 References 30
8 Appendix 34 1
 ENHANCING LISTENING SKILL BY USING ONLINE LISTENING 
 HOMEWORK
I. Introduction
1. Background information
 It cannot deny that English is the lingua franca that is popularly used most in the 
world. It has become a primary communication tool among countries and a crucial 
means to approach to the world’s knowledge. As a result, being exposed to this 
language not only creates a new horizon for foreign language learners but also gives 
them the opportunity to have a broader perspective of the world. Realizing the 
importance of English, Vietnamese’s MOET has introduced and made this language 
become a compulsory subject at every high school around the country.
 To meet this demand, a lot of EFL instructors have designed listening online 
homework for their students to practice outside of class since they realize that this 
useful way supports them to give feedback immediately, send the authentic materials 
to the learners, give students their own space to practice and help them find the most 
suitable way to learn language which can enhance their language acquisition (Sagarra 
& Zapata, 2008).
 Sharing the same idea with the EFL teachers, the researcher also wanted to create 
her own online listening system as homework for their high school students to help 
them get more time to listen to authentic materials through podcasts or videos. Hence 
it was expected that learners’ listening skill would be improved and they would have 
positive attitudes when accessing the online listening system.
2. Problem statements
 There has been various research carried out to examine the effectiveness of online 
homework and students’ perception toward this method and the interpretation is still 3
to decide to continue and apply this system to other classes to help students get better 
listening performance and encourage them to learn language.
4. Research questions:
 To reach the aim of the study, there are two questions need answering:
 • What are students’ perceptions towards online listening homework?
 • Do they want to continue this method to improve their listening skill?
 • Is the listening online homework effective?
II. Literature review
 1. Homework
 For a long time, homework has been considered as a feature in most schools all 
over the world and it is an assigned task given to students to complete at home by the 
instructor (Gu, 2015; Albelbisi, 2008; Leong & Alexander, 2014). It is also viewed as 
a necessary part of the teaching-learning process and this activity will help students 
learn better, improve the language learning’s quality, therefore, they will reach the 
educational aims faster (Xu & Wu, 2013; Hong, Wan & Peng, 2011; Amiryousefi, 
2016).
 It is believed that homework can bring to instructors and learners numerous 
advantages. According to Amiryousefi (2016), homework expands the time that 
students engage in learning, strengthens their learning, helps learners have better 
scores, become more self-regulated and have a better study habit. Increasing learners’ 
creativity is another benefit that Ilgar and Ilgar (2012) found out when they conducted 
their research. According to Cox (2011), when the homework is graded, it enhances 
and motivates students to get higher grades as well (as cited in Nour, 2018). Cooper, 
Robinson and Patall (2006) said that the more homework students did, the more 
successful they would get. Palocsay and Stevens (2008) also claimed that problem 5
designed to help the teacher give grade and feedback automatically and immediately. 
This definition is consonant with the meaning that Lunford and Pendergrass (2015) 
share in their article. Jacobson (2006) and Kinney (2001) add that online homework 
also may create plentiful diagnostic instructional hints or tutorial assistance when 
defining this term.
 3. Advantages of Online homework
 There are numerous merits that make the teacher choose online homework instead 
of paper-based homework. The first benefit people can obviously see that online 
assignment can reduce the tree used to make paper. It also cuts down the cost and 
energy producing this material. Hence, the nature of environment can be maintained 
and preserved. They are not afraid of losing the paper work when transiting from 
classroom to home as well (Dodson, 2014).
 Another benefit that Dodson (2014) also found out when conducting his research 
is online homework helps the teacher save time because they do not need to collect 
homework and grading for them is more quickly and easily. Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, 
Childs and Coker (2008) say that as instant feedback and assistance of online 
homework help the teacher has more time for other classroom activities and duties 
instead of meeting each student to give small details about homework.
 Giving immediate feedback seem to be the utmost beneficial thing for both 
teachers and learners. Students and instructors always report that the thing they are 
interested in online homework than conventional homework is the availability of 
direct feedback (Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs, & Coker, 2008; Zerr, 2007; Sagarra 
& Zapata, 2008; Tian & Suppasetseree, 2013; Paker & Loudon, 2013; Doorn, 
Janssen, & O’Brien, 2010; Leong & Alexander, 2014). Learners can receive feedback 
at any time which is suitable for their schedules. From then, they can understand and 
comprehend immediately the knowledge and know their mistakes to fix it for the next 7
their communicative skill thanks to some useful internet services (as cited in Alshehri, 
2017). Research and analysis skills are also enhanced when doing online homework 
(Alshehri, 2017).
 4. Disadvantages of online homework
 On the other side, online homework also creates some demerits that the instructor 
needs to consider carefully before applying this system.
 Students’ health is the first thing that can be affected by online system. The long 
time that students use and access to the internet could influence their eyesight and 
backbone posture (Alshehri, 2017). Moreover, their mental health is also affected by 
cyberbullying activities on the internet. If the instructor does not choose the materials 
carefully, some videos, text or pictures will not appropriate for children, which may 
result in some violent actions or sexual behaviors.
 According to Johnson and Gotestam (2004), there are also some problems related 
to technic that students may cope with when doing online homework such as they are 
not familiar with the system or cannot connect to the website or lose their information 
if it has not saved correctly (as cited in Alshehri, 2017).
 Academic dishonesty is another disadvantage since students can still plagiarize 
others’ work or share their passwords to their classmates (Gu & Kristoffersson, 2015). 
Both paper-based homework and online homework are done outside the classroom so 
they are out of teachers’ observation, which can lead to the cheating of the students.
 Online homework also increases the gap between learners because of their 
backgrounds and their levels of motivation (Gu & Kristoffersson, 2015). The student 
who studies in a large room with sufficient equipment, internet and support from 
family will be better than the one who learns in a small room without essential 
equipment. 9
(2013) are in line with these above researches when they conclude that their online 
task-based interactive listening encourages EFL students to enhance their listening 
skills and learn more effectively.
 53 percent of students from the research of Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs and 
Coker (2008) said that the quality of the time they spent studying was increased. 
Students from the calculus class at the University of North Dakota also were in 
accordance with this viewpoint when they said that their time spent outside of the 
class was productive (Zerr, 2007).
 As a result, a lot of students want to continue or have the same online homework 
system for the other subjects and they will recommend it to their friends (Zerr, 2007; 
Richards-Babb, Drelick, Henry, & Robertson-Honecker, 2011).
 6. Applying online homework in improving listening skills.
 Thanks to the improvement and development of technology and internet, there 
have been some researchers attempting to use online system to design homework with 
the aim to extend practice time and enhance their students’ listening ability.
 Alshaikhi and Madini are two researchers conducting the research “Attitude 
toward enhancing extensive listening through podcasts supplementary pack” (2016), 
which aims to examine the perception of 120 Saudi elementary level students and 
their teachers towards the content and criteria of podcasts using for extensive 
supplementary listening pack. The findings of this research show that all students 
participating in this research had positive perspectives about using short authentic 
podcasts as listening supplementary packs. Nearly 60 percent of teachers and 40% of 
students said that they liked the mobility feature of podcasts which encourages them 
to listen anytime and anywhere. They also prefer the transcription which helps them 
follow the speed rate of the native speakers. Nearly half of teachers and students 
joining in the research have the same idea that the curriculum should contain various 11
created online academic lectures to improve their students’ vocabulary and listening 
comprehension incidentally. The participants of this research include 24 ESL adult 
students taking part in a listening comprehension class at Midwestern university. The 
results of this research indicate that the instructors may use multiple media to design 
online lectures “such as transparencies and other visual aids” to improve listening 
comprehension, especially for intermediate adult students (p. 541). In addition, they 
suggest that the teachers should have suitable strategies to teach and guide their 
learners to use online media and resources.
 Tian and Suppasetseree (2013) are two authors of the research “Development of an 
instructional model for online task-based interactive listening for EFL learners”. Their 
participants are quite difficult with other researches. They are three experts who have 
got Ph.D. degree from two universities in Thailand and they work both in 
“instructional system design and the English language teaching field”. The research 
infers that three experts strongly agree that this new model is suitable for English 
listening teaching for EFL students and it can improve “learner instructor, learner-
learner and learner-content interaction with a task-based approach”. Furthermore, it 
also provides immediate feedback and it has “sufficient flexibility to be effective in 
teaching and learning in current instructional context”. Two classes are required to 
take part in the experiment to examine the effectiveness of online task-based 
interactive listening in the second semester as well. The results indicate that the model 
helps EFL students “learn more effectively and develop their listening skills and 
ability as expected”.
 It can be concluded that almost the researches that the research has accessed until 
indicate positive attitudes toward online listening exercises. However, they just apply 
these exercises as voluntary work so that the result of effectiveness might belong to 
the learners’ autonomy and strategies to work at home. Therefore, the attitudes about