ii

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 Pedaggica. 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)

iii

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.

iv

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.

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 2: Mistakes and Omission stream B2
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. Purpose of the study ....................................................................................................................... 12
1.6. Objectives: ..................................................................................................................................... 12
1.6.1. General Objective ....................................................................................................................... 12
1.6.2. Specific Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 12
1.7. Critical questions ........................................................................................................................... 12
1.8. Hypotheses ..................................................................................................................................... 13
1.9. Research Methodology .................................................................................................................. 13
1.9.1. Research Design.......................................................................................................................... 13
1.9.2. Target population ........................................................................................................................ 13
1.9.3. Sample......................................................................................................................................... 14
1.10. Research Instruments ................................................................................................................... 14
1.10.1. Observation Form ..................................................................................................................... 14
1.10.2. Questionnaire ............................................................................................................................ 14
1.11. Procedures .................................................................................................................................... 14

vii

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. Top down process ................................................................................................................... 25
2.3. Importance and difficulties of Listening in language learning ...................................................... 26
2.4. Teaching Listening......................................................................................................................... 27
2.5. Suggested tasks for building up students listening proficiency .................................................... 29
2.6. Teachers role during listening activities ....................................................................................... 31
CHAPTER III ....................................................................................................................................... 34
3. DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS .................................................................................. 34
3.1. Research design ............................................................................................................................. 34
3.1.1. Instruments .................................................................................................................................. 34
3.2. Population ...................................................................................................................................... 34
3.2.1. Sample......................................................................................................................................... 35
3.3. Presenting and analyzing the findings ........................................................................................... 35
3.3.1. Administration of long-distance dictation................................................................................... 35
3.4. Question and its interpretation ....................................................................................................... 38

viii

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

3.4.2. Teachers 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.............................................................................. 51
5.1. Recommendations .......................................................................................................................... 51
5.2. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 53
REFERENCE........................................................................................................................................ 54
APPENDIX AND ATACHMENT ....................................................................................................... 56

ix

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 students 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
Portuguese speakers, listening tend to be more complicated than the acquisition of other
skills, such as reading or writing, since the former is quite difficult to practice when the
student does not live in an English speaking country. For this reason, this paper deals with
Long-distance dictation as one of the activities in order to develop this skill and show why it
is important to develop and the difficulties the learners have.

KEY WORDS: Listening, importance, development, difficulties, activities, teaching and

learning

10

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
trade as well as technology and employment opportunities provided by international
enterprises.

English is now used by millions of speakers for a number of communicative functions across
the world. It has become the preferred language in a number of ambits like international
business or European Union institutions. Time and again it is also the language chosen for
academic discussion as most scholars face the need to read and publish in English for
international diffusion.

English is also directly influencing other European languages at different levels but it is
especially obvious in the field of technical terms lexical borrowings are often introduced in
many languages without the slightest adaptation. English seems to have been adopted as the
language of globalization these days as the language of global culture and international
economy (Graddol, D. 1997: 4).

Despite all these facts it is still being very crucial to develop the for language skills, so that
we put ourselves in the same level as the native speakers. However, in this paper we are

11

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 teachers 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.

1.2. Statement of the problem

During a full trimester of teaching practice at Napipine Secondary School, the researcher
found a problem which led him to conclude that it was the main reason why students failed to
catch up with his lessons because most of the times there was not effective response or
feedback after teachers hints. For example, they could speak but out of context. This
phenomenon is notable in all English classes the researcher had opportunity to administrate
lessons around the school. Moreover, teachers still do their task of teaching but the students
still not have developed competence on listening skills. So, the researcher decided to carry
out this study with the research question bellow:
Why students of Napipine Secondary School grade 11 and 12 are not able to listen
effectively in English language classes?

12

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 teachers
expectations; i.e., students fail to understand teachers 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 teachers commands.
1.5. Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study is to find out the reasons behind students 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
having students in grade 11 with problems of listening.
1.6. Objectives:
1.6.1. General Objective
The major objective of this research is to promote Listening Skills using Long Distance
dictation in English Language classes.

1.6.2. Specific Objectives

Based on the general objective, the researcher formulated the following specific objectives:
To enable students listening in English Language classroom through long distancedictation activity;
To identify the reasons of listening ineffectiveness in the English Language classroom;
To find out whether or not teachers are familiar with this type of activity.

1.7. Critical questions

The Critical questions of this research are the following:
Why students fail to catch up with the teachers commands?

13

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 teachers 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 teachers 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
1.9.1. Research Design
In this study the researcher will use mixed methods: Qualitative and Quantitative methods. It
will be Qualitative study because it is concerned with qualitative phenomenon, that is,
phenomena relating to the students listening failure in the classroom. The researcher will
also use Quantitative research because it will be based on the measurement of quantity or
amount of activities that teachers use to promote speaking skills in the classroom.
1.9.2. Target population
The target population of this study will be 2 teachers of English Language and 236 students
of grade 11 day shift morning from streams B1 and B2.It is illustrated below:
Table 1: Target population

Stream
Students

B1

B2

Teachers

Total per gender

Female

73

69

___

142

Male

41

53

94

Total
114
Source: Summary books.

122

236

14

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
Observation is the gathering of primary data by investigators own direct observation of
relevant people, actions and situations without asking from the respondent (Neville, 2007:43).
Moreover, in this study was used the observation form because it allows the researcher to
collect more accurate data.

1.10.2. Questionnaire
According to Nunan (1992:83), questionnaires consist of a set of questions presented to a
respondent for answers. The respondents read the questions, interpret what is expected and
then write down the answers. Questionnaire was used in this study because it allows the
researcher to collect a lot of information in a short period of time.
1.11. Procedures
To what concerns the procedures, on one hand, the researcher delivered the questionnaire to
the students and teachers and collected them in the same day to ensure that 100 per cent of
the delivered questionnaire would return. On the other hand, the observation form was
conducted in the classrooms in order to collect witnessed and live information rather than
reported.

15

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
the study, and the structure of the study.
In Chapter II, the Literature Review will take stage, supporting the topic with literature
discussion among different authors, as well as my personal point of view about the topic
taking into account our real-life situation.
In Chapter III, we will be dealing with Data presentation and Analysis. It deals with
Presentation of Data, Percentage of teachers as target group, Observation, Questionnaire for
teachers and students, Data analysis and Interpretation of the findings.

Then we have

Chapter IV, and it deals with Proposal and Implementation which in turn, proposes some
possible strategies in order to improve students listening skill. Finally we have Chapter V,
which normally represents the last chapter of this study; it talks about Recommendations and
Conclusion of this research; still in this chapter we have the Reference and Appendix.

16

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
write down what is being said by the teacher. It is fun when performed in groups because at
the end they gather the information they heard and come up with a strong result.

Dictation is when a teacher asks students to write down as faithfully as possibly a text they
have listened to. The goal of the dictation is for students to render as accurately and with
great precision the text exactly. The main goals of a dictation exercise are to try to get
students to focus on forms and to develop skills for more effective bottom - up processing1.
(Nation & Newton, 2009)
This means that the student needs to be able to accurately reconstruct every single word with
all the necessary derivational and inflectional morphemes and with the correct grammatical
structure and punctuation.
Thompson (2001:96), defines Dictation as a controlled writing activity in which a short
passage is read normally by the teacher, phrase by phrase to pupils, and they must write
down each phrase as it is been read.
1

Is the act of encouraging students to use their background knowledge about the topic to help them understand
the content. Read more details on page

17

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 Learners 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
purpose is to check the proficiency of the students about the language being learned through
their listening ability. It means that when students do dictation, they do not only pay attention
to the sound of the words read by the teacher but also understand about the meaning and be
able to transfer the dictated passages to their graphical representations. They are forced to pay
a comprehensive attention to the passage dictated and write down what they perceive by
sound, sight and feeling in the second language at the same time span allowed for a response
in the first language. Once they fail to concentrate on their listening, they will not able to
make quick guess what they actually have to write. It is clear implies that dictation is used to
assess the students ability, in this case listening skill. Teacher hopes that this method of
evaluation can motivate students in learning English and check whether the teaching aims
have been satisfactorily fulfilled or not.
2.1.1. Long-distance dictation
Long-distance dictation or Running dictation is a well established EFL (English as Foreign
Language) activity which is somewhat different from the teacher-fronted model that we may
have in mind, and far more engaging. Before going on lets briefly look at some reasons for
adding it to our teaching repertoire.

18

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 dont 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;
Its 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.

2.1.1.1. How is it performed?

This type of dictation has two phases: the first consists of engaging the student into the
activity and the second is the correction phase.

i. The dictation phase

In a running dictation, a text is placed on a suitable surface; most often a convenient nearby
wall inside the class or outside it or even on the board. The students are normally grouped in
pairs; however, for large classes like in Mozambique the number of students in each group
may go up five or six student by group. One of them is the writer or scribe and the other
one is the runner. The runner goes to the dictation, reads and remembers as much as
possible, and then returns to the writer who listens and writes down what is said. This

Chris Milne, Promoting literacy for life, retrieved from Queensland council for adult literacy at the website

http://www.qcal.org.au/ on February 20, 2016.

19

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
to make dictation more useful, namely: Running dictation; One chance dictation; Dictation
of long phrases; Guided dictation; varied speed dictation; Peer dictation; Completion
dictation-cloze exercise; Perfect dictation; Sentence dictation and Unexploded dictation.
As we can see dictation can be branched into several types, and among them we have longdistance dictation which is the tool through which students will improve their listening ability
according to our study.

Furthermore, researchers on second language acquisition (SLA) suggest that more learning
takes place when students are engaged in relevant tasks within a dynamic learning
environment rather than in traditional teacher-led classes (Moss & Ross-Feldman, 2003).

So, long-distance dictation, apart from being fun, challenging and competitive it is a different
as well unique in its performance; students have fun and learn and the same time. And we
believe that the competitiveness of this activity makes it be more special. Each student does
his best to finish the task in the first place.

20

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;
4. Dictation fosters unconscious thinking: as it was said before, while listening to
what is being dictated, students are making images in their minds, it is what Davis and
Rinvolucri call incubation phase for the story making. Their minds are
unconsciously working around the implication of the words in the set; building up a
powerful base for the story creation (...) dictation is ideal for occupying the conscious
mind while stimulating the unconscious into action;
5. Dictation copes with mixed ability groups: teachers can vary the activity making it
more challenging for better students and can help weaker students by explaining any
new words as well as text comprehension. Advanced students can dictate and help
beginners as well;
6. Dictation deals with large groups: ...dictation is one of the few approaches to
teaching and learning in the large group context that has a reasonable chance of
engaging the students in active language use;

21

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
teachers 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.

2.1.3. Using dictation to develop the four language skills

What many people may not believe is the fact that we can use dictation to develop the four
language skills. Heaton (1990:39) asserts that some teachers think of dictation chiefly as a
task of spelling. Although dictation may include an assessment of spelling it tests a wide
range of skills. A dictation can also provide a useful means of measuring general language
performance. When dealing with dictation activities we are unconsciously developing the
four language skills.

Lets see it with more details starting with Listening skills as it makes part of our study.
1. Listening skills
Teacher can develop listening strategies, for instance, ask students to listen for specific
information or listen for details and write only what is necessary for the moment. Teachers
can guide students to be more aware of the different kinds of listening strategies to reach their
aim in any dictation activity which involves listening comprehension.
2. Reading skills

22

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
attention to coherence and cohesion. That is why these activities on accuracy can be related to
dictation.
2.1.4. Advantages of using dictation
According to Montalvan (2006), mentions a series of advantages of using dictation in the
classroom as follows:

Dictation can help develop all four language skills in an integrative way;

As students develop their aural comprehension of meaning also of the relationship

among segments of language, they are learning grammar;

Dictation helps to develop short-term memory. Students practice retaining meaningful

phrases or whole sentences before writing them down;

Practice in careful listening to dictation will be useful later on in note taking

exercises;

Correcting dictation can lead to oral communication;

Dictation can serve as an excellent review exercise;

Dictation is psychologically powerful and challenging;

Dictation fosters unconscious thinking in the new language;

23

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

To what concerns the disadvantages Doff (1990:149) believes that:
the activity is completely mechanical. Students can copy the sentence even if they do not
know what it means. Their attention is not focussed on the meaning of the sentence at all.
Because it is so mechanical, it is very uninteresting. The students are not required to think or
use their imagination in any way.

Doff shows in his statement that dictation does not allow or enable students to use their
creativity and imagination, because they just write what they hear even if they do not know
the meaning. However, simply because the students managed to write successfully what they
have heard, it represents a very big achievement because it proves that they are skilled in
listening. And again we believe that Doof has got his reasons to believe that dictation is not
useful, however, we cannot ignore the fact that this activity has got its benefits as we
mentioned before.

In the early stages of writing, the teacher must control their pupils writing closely. This will
help them to produce correct sentences and give them confidence in their writing ability.
However:

24

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 Doffs 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 speakers 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
well to somebody or something. Listening ability is the ability or power to relate the sound to
meaning. When a student listens to a passage means that he uses his listening ability to
communicate with the passage by understanding the vocabulary spelling, grammar, and the
meaning of the passage. Listening is one of the four basic skills in which student of English
language should be trained. Since training this skill is often neglected and the students have
few opportunities to listen to English spoken in the non English speaking country, the
improvement of the students listening comprehension will depend largely on effective
teaching in the classroom.

Rost (1991: 3) states that progress in listening will provide a basis for development of other
language skills. The statement implies that listening skill can support the students to master
the other language skills. Listening in a language teaching-learning process possesses
important contributions to other major language skills and of course it must be taught in
language teaching.
2.2.2. The process of listening
When listening to somebody or something we use different strategies in order to
understand the message and that is why it is so important for teachers to help their

25

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 the
message 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 certain
meaningful 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
explain and interpret what the speaker is talking about and this prior knowledge enables him
or her to predict what may come next. The prior knowledge was also termed as
schematic knowledge. The top down process also allows the listener to avoid some
aspects of the bottom-up process (Celce-Murcia, 2001).

Underwood (1988) states that the listener must put the language in a context of situation
to get the meaning. Native speakers usually use their background and cultural knowledge;
and their previous knowledge for listening situations as they expect that certain
situations are connected with typical features and language. These above mentioned
facts make the listening comprehension easier as they help them to interpret what is being
spoken about and what will probably follow.

It is teachers responsibility to teach their students to pay attention to what they hear, to get
the main idea and interpret it and subsequently respond to the information.

26

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 ones 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,
Understanding, Remembering, Evaluating and Responding. These stages occur in sequence
and rapid succession.

The first one is Hearing and has to do with the response caused by sound waves stimulating
the sensory receptors of the ear; hearing is the perception of sound, not necessarily paying
attention, you must hear to listen, but you need not listen to hear. For this, we have Attention.
It refers to a selection that our brain focuses on. The brain screens stimuli and permits only a
select few to come into focus.

The third stage is Understanding, which consists of analyzing the meaning of what we have
heard and understanding symbols we have seen and heard. We must analyze the stimuli we
have perceived. Symbolic stimuli are not only words, they can be sounds like applause or
even sights, like a blue uniform that have symbolic meanings as well. To do this, we have to
stay in the right context and understand the intended meaning. The meaning attached to these
symbols is a function of our past associations and of the context in which the symbols occur
for successful interpersonal communication: the listener must understand the intended
meaning and the context assumed by the sender.

27

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
minds 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
he or she does not begin this activity too soon, as beginning this stage of the process before a
message is completed results in no longer hearing and attending to the incoming message
and, as a result, the Listening process ceases.

Finally, we have Responding, a stage in which, according to the response, the speaker checks
if the message has been received correctly. This stage requires that the receiver complete the
process through verbal or non verbal feedback, because the speaker has no other way to
determine if a message has been received. Therefore, it is sometimes complicated as we do
not have the opportunity to go back and check comprehension (Nunan: 2001, 23).
(See attachment 1, it shows the basic stages of the Listening process and their functions
proposed by Nunan.)
2.4. Teaching Listening
When teachers are teaching listening, apart from the purpose, it is very important to follow a pattern.

According to Rost (2002: 142) there are three stages of listening process. Those are prelistening, while listening and post-listening. The brief explanation of those activities as
follows:

28

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.

2.4.3. Post listening

In post - listening activities, the teacher and students discuss the text by re-reading it. All of
the activities above will serve to improve the students knowledge and they will need to listen
as accurate as possible. This statement is in line with Rosts opinion that the students will
motivated to listen and will activate what they know as they listen (2002: 142).

According to Lindsay and Knight, people have four different purposes when they listen:
We listen for a purpose, but this purpose can be very different depending on the situation:
listening for specific details, listening for general meaning, listening for the general idea or
gist. There is also a difference between listening: for information; for enjoyment or social
reasons; to learn new language (2006: 46).

However, from the point of view of Anderson & Lynch, the purpose when we are listening
can be either: transactional, where the main purpose is to achieve a successful transfer or
exchange of information, or it can be interactional, the use of language for establishing and
maintaining social contact (1988:15).

29

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; someone
elses conversation (eavesdropping); a lecture; professional advice, for example, at the
doctors, 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
peoples 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).

The aim of teaching listening is (or should be) to help learner of English language cope with
listening in real life, but there is a large variety of different types of listening in real life:
1. Listening to announcements in stations, airports, etc
2. Listening to the radio;
3. Participating in a conversation face-to-face;
4. Watch TV;
5. Participating in a meeting, seminar or discussion;
6. Taking part in a lesson;
7. Participating in a telephone conversation, etc.

2.5. Suggested tasks for building up students listening proficiency

A. Pre-listening activities
They help to set the context, generate students interest, and activate students current
background knowledge on the topic. Brown (2006) suggests that a pre-listening task should
consist of two parts.

Students should be provided with an opportunity to learn new

vocabulary or sentence structures used in the listening material and a chance to activate their
prior knowledge. Some suggested pre-listening activities are listed as follows.

30

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
messages from spoken language. Here are some suggested while-listening activities.
1. Cloze exercises.
2. Dictation.
3. Taking notes.
4. Filling gaps with missing words.
5. Map activities.
6. Choosing the correct pictures from a description.
7. Sequencing pictures.
8. Identifying numbers or letters.
9. Carrying out actions.
10. Following a route.
11. Arranging items in patterns.
12. Completing grids, forms and charts.
13. True-false or multiple choice questions.

C. Post-listening Activities

31

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. Teachers 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 teachers responsibility to create friendly and
supportive atmosphere.

According to the division suggested by Harmer there are eight main roles:
A teacher as an organiser - one of the most important roles of the teacher since the
whole success depends on the teachers organization skills. They have to explain
what their students are going to do, give clear instructions and at the end of the
lesson they must give a constructive feedback. Teachers as organisers prepare the
listening lesson covering all three stages and give clear instructions.
A teacher as a controller - is a teacher who conducts the whole lesson. It is their
responsibility to organize what students do, when they should speak and what
language they use. Teachers whose roles are to control the lessons specify what
students should do throughout the listening stages.
A teacher as an assessor - another important part of teachers job is to assess their
students, to give the students a feedback on their performance. They should evaluate
how good students were.
A teacher as a resource - such teacher can facilitate their students by giving
advice and is available when the learners need to consult some problems. They
usually help with unknown vocabulary or grammatical patterns.

32

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.

Underwood suggests that teachers aims of supporting the students to become better at
listening should contain:
Introducing learners to a variety of listening experiences. Teachers can use a great
number of listening texts that contains range of the usage of the target
language. This will prepare their students for different situations in their lives.
Helping listeners to gain the insight what listening represents. Teachers ought to
make their students change their attitude towards listening and explain the process of
it to them.
Making listening meaningful for the learners. Teachers should try to bring
recordings that are as realistic as possible, contain normal speech, so that the listeners
are in touch with the outside classroom listening.
Raise learners confidence. Teachers must encourage their students during the
listening texts to help them to continue with listening. They should also try to bring
such listening texts in which the learners can be successful but on the other hand are
not too easy.

33

It is teachers 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 teachers responsibility to always find
ways to deal with such situations.

34

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 was
quantitative 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
used a descriptive qualitative and a simple quantitative measurement to find the result. From
the result, we could describe the students mastery in listening.

3.1.1. Instruments
The instruments we used to conduct this research were questionnaire, observation form and
long-distance dictation as the core instrument. The questionnaire was given to the teachers
and students; the observation form remained with the researcher, so that, he could take notes
while observing the students doing the given activity. The text had three paragraphs and the
students had to finish within a time frame of 15 minutes.

3.2. Population
According to Arikunto (2002: 102), a population is the entire subject in a research. As we
mentioned in chapter I, the target population for our study was the 11th grade students of
Napipine Secondary School. The total numbers of grade 11 were 236 students, plus two
teachers of English language both of grade 11.

35

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.

Note: The students were divided into two rooms, 90 students in B1 and 91 students in B2, so
that, they could perform the activity separately.

Table 2: Performance stream B1

Group

Performance
Acceptable

Good

Time
Excellent

10.5

11.54

18.12

7.57

9.23

6
7

x
x

Source: the author

In the performance we used the following criteria:

11.12
16.27

36

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
Acceptable

1
2

Good

Time
Excellent

11.45

17.54

9.23

13.4

18.5

6
7

11.12
x

7.1

Source: the author

In long-distance dictation omissions can occur because memorization is not an easy task; we
can memorize of course, however, the time we move some words will fall down, and when
we recall them we have even difficult to bring out the message because ourselves, we realize
that some words have stayed behind. So, the same happened with the students who were
running to text. It this specific case, the runner is guilty, on one hand. On the other hand,
the mistakes committed by the writer is related to two possible phenomena: the firstly, is the
fact that he had to write as quick as possible in order to cope with the runner; and secondly,
by doing this he could avoid losing some words brought by the runner because he could
forget what he had just memorised. These are the two basic facts we think contributed in the
number of words omitted.
Long-distance dictation is a fun and challenging activity that engages students in competing
with others. Also, teaching listening is a very important aspect, because a failure in the
reception of the message may lead to a failure in its transmission. For us to have a

37

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.

Graph 2: Mistakes and Omission stream B1

Source: The author

If we pay attention on the number of mistakes and word omission committed by each group, we can
realize that for a text of about 269 words it is a good sign; because it shows that despite the time and
some other limitations, they succeeded to perform the task just like the researcher expected. This fact
automatically matches with our hypothesis no 3: It may also be the fact that teachers do not use

long distance dictation in their teaching practice to promote listening skills.

Graphic 3: Mistakes and Omission stream B2

Source: the author

38

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

Source: the author

3.4.2. Teachers behaviour in the classroom

The way teachers behave towards their students decides the type of classes we are going to
have. We mean that if the teacher does not behave according to the students expectation, the
lessons will become boring to the students. However, if the same teacher shows interest in
helping the students to overcome language obstacles, therefore, he will be loved and

39

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.
Graph 4: Students opinion about their teachers

Source: the author

During our data collection, we asked the students about the frequency of listening activities in their
English language classes: How often do you practice listening activities?

40

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?

Source: the author

The time given to the students in order to practice listening should be reviewed by the
teachers. The practice of listening in the classroom is very important during the development
of this skill. The percentage is not good comparing to the objectives established by the
Ministry of Education and Human Development. However, we recognize that our public
schools do not have materials and necessary equipment to practice listening and other
language skills, therefore, we have to know that teaching in Mozambique is a very big
challenge.

3.4.4. The practice of long-distance dictation

We made reference during our literary discussion that long-distance dictation is great for a
young class, because it involves all the four language skills; it also has got an additional
element competition - which is very good for young learners.

41

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 didnt 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.

3.4.5. The nature of the class

The teaching and learning methodologies that we use, also influences in the results we are
going to have after a certain period of time. It is true that everyone will harvest what he/she
has planted before.
Graph 6: How often do you practice long-distance dictation?

Source: the author

42

We asked our interlocutors about the nature of their classes and their answered teachercentred, 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?

Source: the author

3.4.6. Classroom improvements

If something is not going well, so, we have to find possible solutions as well as improvements
in order to change to the better. According to our interlocutors, they would like to see
improvements in two main points:

They would like to have more practice of the four language skills, and

Increase the number of interactive activities. (see graph 8)

3.5. The teachers

A teacher engaged in the education and development of his students language competence,
will always find ways to solve the students problems. It is teachers responsibility to
motivate the students and show them the right way of doing things at school.

In our study two teachers where involved, and we asked some questions related to their
profession and their teaching process as well. The idea was to compare students responses
with teachers responses. We wanted to find out if teachers put into practice the theories and

43

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

However, it is important to recall what we said previously that, teaching English language in
Mozambique is big challenge, because we have limitations in various aspects, like teaching
material, for example, so, this fact was also taking into account in this research.

3.5.1. Loving the profession

Loving what we do gives us strength, perseverance and motivation to trespass any obstacle
we are likely to find. So, the first question for the teachers was: Do you love your
profession? The answers could not be negative, obviously. By saying yes it implies giving
themselves to the profession. It also includes patience and hard work.

3.5.2. Time in the teaching field

There is one aspect that we consider to be very important: the time somebody spends doing
something; in other words, how long have somebody spent doing something.
We asked our interlocutors the same question: How long have you been teaching English
Language? Both teachers have more than one year in the teaching field.

44

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.
Students must be aware about where and what to say. If they master speaking they can travel around
the world with no communication problems...

Myself,

due to lack of material I dont emphasize a specific skill; because I try to bring activities that

incorporate two or three skills like role play...

The one who emphasizes speaking is on the right way because when we are learning a
language we are expected to speak. However, for us to speak we have to receive the
information, process it in our minds, then select the right lexicon and finally speak. This
seems to be a long process but it is very quick, just like a blink of eye. In deed Speaking is
important, however, we do not speak out of nothing; we need a context and reasons to speak.
From this point is clear that this teacher has set a goal to achieve get his students to speak
even not using any other skill to support the speaking skill.

The lack of didactic material cannot be reason why we do not teach a specific skill. It is good
to teach the four language skills together. However, the students must be aware of what is
listening, speaking, writing and reading skills. They have to know when are they practicing
one of these skills and be able to establish the difference between them. Now, role play

45

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 dont. But I use dictation not to teach listening but writing.

I dont use this method because it is hard when it comes for large classes... I tried once and I
found it difficult. The school doesnt 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
resources cannot prevent us to be creative.

3.5.5. Administrating listening activities

Providing activities to promote listening skills will help the students to develop listening.
However, we acknowledge that students will continue having small difficult in listening
because they do not listen to different English accents. It is obvious that radio tapes as well as
audio-visual material would help. For that we would need a language lab, whereby students
could go and explore the language. So, we brought long-distance dictation as way out for the
lack of resources to teach listening.

In order to find out how often teachers administrate listening activities, we got the following
answer:
It is hard to answer, but sometimes we have activities like the normal dictation.

Once again, the no practice of listening skill is evident in Napipine Secondary School.
Teachers must bear in mind that all the skills are important, however, we think that the first
skill that student should develop is listening, then speaking, writing and finally reading.

46

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 teachers 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?
In order to answer this question, we formulated some hypothesis that fortunately matched
with the results we found. Indeed there is a problem of listening; and the one of the ways of
overcoming this problem is through listening activities.
However, we know that teachers have limitations in terms of audio material to practice this
skill, but there are other alternative ways to do this, and Long-distance dictation is one of
those ways.
So, in this research, we propose a lesson based on long-distance dictation but focused on
listening.
4.1.1. The Activity
The activity that we propose is Long-distance dictation as we said above. It is a fun and
energetic activity which engages students in competing between groups. It is a useful activity
which can be used to teach the for language skills, however, we can also use the same activity
to focus on a single skill, listening, in this case.

48

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:

The Three Little Pigs

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. One pig built a house of
straw while the second pig built his house with sticks. They built their
houses very quickly and then sang and danced all day because they were
lazy. The third little pig worked hard all day and built his house with
bricks.

A big bad wolf saw the two little pigs while they danced and played and
thought, What juicy tender meals they will make! He chased the two pigs
and they ran and hid in their houses. The big bad wolf went to the first
house and huffed and puffed and blew the house down in minutes. The
frightened little pig ran to the second pigs house that was made of
sticks. The big bad wolf now came to this house and huffed and puffed and
blew the house down in hardly any time. Now, the two little pigs were
terrified and ran to the third pigs house that was made of bricks.

49

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
number for this activity, however, we increase the number of students by group according to
the number of students we have in the class. After having sat in groups the teacher now
explains how the students will perform the activity. In each group there will be a writer and a
runner. The runner has to run to text, read it, memorize the sentences as much as he can,
and run back to the writer to dictate to him. And also during the activity they will have to
exchange the roles, so that, every student can have opportunity to be writer and runner at the
same time.

Step three
When the activity is running the teacher have to pay attention on the students performance,
and make sure that all the students played both roles writer and runner. He will have to be
controller and assessor.

Step four
After having run the activity, the teacher cannot correct the text right away; he has to give
opportunity to the students to correct themselves. Afterwards, he reads the text in a normal
voice speed, so that, the students can correct their possible mistakes.

50

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.

51

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;
3. Teachers must have the ability to find quick and effective teaching solutions;
4. Teach listening skill even with a 300,00 mt radio sold by Somalians;
5.

Teachers have to know the abilities and capacities of his students in order to make
decisions about what skill should he give primacy;

6. Teachers have to teach listening strategies, so that, the student is able to self develop
the skill.
These are some recommendations that we brought to overcome the challenges in listening as
well as to upgrade the listening skills of students.

B. Recommendations for the students

The students are the epicentre of our research, so, we recommend them the following:
1. Give yourselves time to practice listening at home; you can listen to BBC radio news
or any other radio station in English language;
2. If you have access to audio visual news services in English, a satellite TV, you can
watch and listen to channels like BBC, Aljazeera in English, France 24 also in
English, Russia today (RT), etc; it will be very helpful for you.

52

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.

53

5.2. CONCLUSION
After the discussion that we brought throughout this study, as well as the investigations
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)
and top-down processes (prior knowledge) to comprehend. Teachers should play an
important role in teaching learners strategies and how to apply them into the listening
activities . They can help students to develop sound strategies for comprehension
through a process approach to teach listening.

54

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.

8. Graddol, D. (1997). The Future of English? The British Council. Retrieved from
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-elt-future.pdf, on 10 February 2016
9. Harmer, Jeremy (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching. New ed. New
York: Longman.
10. Heaton, J.B. (1974). Writing English Language Testing. London: Longman.

11. Hedge, Tricia (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
12. Hornby, AS. (1995). Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. New York: OUP
13. Lindsay, C. and Knight, P. (2006) Learning and Teaching English. Oxford: OUP.
14. Montalvan, Ruth. 2006. Dictation Updated: Guidelines for Teacher-Training
Workshops; retrieved from
http:/exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/dictatn.htm, on February
2016

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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.
22. Rivers, W. (1966) Listening comprehension. Modern Language Journal 50(4): 196204.
23. Rost, M. (1991) Listening Action Activities for Developing Listening in Language
Teaching. London: Prentice

24. Saricoban, Arif. 2006. The Teaching of Listening. http://iteslj.org/ (Accessed on 10

Feruary 2016)

25. Thompson, H (2001) teaching primary English Malaysia: Macmillan

26. Underwood, Mary (1989). Teaching Listening. New York: Longman

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APPENDIX AND ATACHMENT

57

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

5. What is the nature of your English Language lessons?

a. Student-centered

b. Teacher centered

6. What would you like to see improved in English Language classes?

a. more practice of the four language skills
b. increase interactive activities
c. change teaching methodology
d. more listening practice

Thank you for your collaboration.

The researcher
________________________

The Supervisor
___________________________

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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?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4. Do you use long-distance dictation to improve students listening ability?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. How often do you practice listening activities?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thank you for your participation.

The researcher
____________________

The supervisor
______________________

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OBSERVATION FORM LISTENING GRADE 11 - STREAM B1/B2

Teachers notes

Group

Performance
Acceptable

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Good

Time
Excellent