Teaching assimilations to improve listening skills for Vietnamese students

Du Thanh Tran

doi:10.52296/vje.2020.85

Abstract

Few would deny that at the very first stage of learning, language learners have to spend most of their time on practising listening skills in communication inside and outside class. They have to listen to others speaking, listen to themselves while talking and even implicitly while reading and writing. Listening is an important way of acquiring the language as well as picking up the structures and vocabulary. With a careful observation of the current situation of Vietnamese learners’ listening competencies and a thorough review of reference materials in English language teaching and learning, it is hoped that the study will help heighten students’ awareness of the problematic sounds that they encounter when listening to colloquial, casual and connected speech.

Highlights

It is generally such a formidable challenge to improve English learners’ listening competencies that virtually no students feel quite confident when taking a listening exams though they are fairly good at other skills (Austin, 1970)
As a result of the mother tongue’s sound system interference, Vietnamese students can recognize words spoken in isolation; very few can recognize them in casual, fast and natural speech
This study aims at building up students’ awareness and provide useful practice of the problematic sounds they have to deal with in listening to colloquial, casual and connected speech, outlining ways to improve listening skills for students in Vietnamese contexts

Summary

Introduction

It is generally such a formidable challenge to improve English learners’ listening competencies that virtually no students feel quite confident when taking a listening exams though they are fairly good at other skills (Austin, 1970). As a result of the mother tongue’s sound system interference, Vietnamese students can recognize words spoken in isolation; very few can recognize them in casual, fast and natural speech. They often fail to have an accurate comprehension of what are naturally spoken by English native speakers. It is a good idea to begin instructions of connected speech sounds by raising students’ awareness of the concept of assimilation and its rules. They have to be convinced that it is “correct” to use connected speech sounds as these sounds are very often noticed in spoken language. The following activities are meaningful practices for presenting and practicing these sounds/sound sequences:

Objectives

Results

Conclusion