SKKN “Designing Listening Mock test to support 10 graders to get familiar with listening questions in the final exams”.

PART I. INTRODUCTION

• Rationale for the study

The first reason is the important role of listening skill in learning English. We all know that today, learning English is extremely necesssary for students. English is the language which is capable of connecting the whole world together. The fact that many students are good at grammartical points but their English communication ability is still weak, so they have to give up their dream because of their lack of English skill. It can be said that English is the first and foremost important standard for an employee who wants to study and work in international environment, not only foreign companies but many domestic companies also appreciate this requirement of staff. Therefore, it is important for students – the future residents of a country to master in English to study and work in an English speaking and listening environment.

Listening is one of the most vital skills in learning a language, one of the four main language learning skills. Learning through listening will help students improve their listening skill by practising listening a lot day by day. Students of all levels gain a lot of benefit immensely from listening as without it, students can never be fluent in the language. Listening is considered as a crucial building block in early language acquisition process and can greatly improve your success in sounding like a native. It is important to say that listening has an important role to play in English subject at high school. It is a part of listening test which account for 25 percent in the real exam. By merely immersing in the language by listening, students will not gain an independent use of the language but also get better result in listening tests at school.

Another reason for choosing the topic is because of the necessary of helping students improve listening skill before real tests by doing the Mock test. Due to the requirement in high school program, English is one of the compulsory subjects and a graduation exam subject in high school. Also, English, in the general education program, is built as a subject with the direction of communication. So it is necessary for students to learn English at school to get knowledge and skills by doing Mock test. Mock exams are so important to help students prepare well before the real exams. Not only do they allow students to practice key questions and test learnt knowledge, the Mock tests also allow students to complete the exam under the same time conditions as the real thing if do them properly. Forming listening skills is the ultimate goal of the teaching process and improving listening skills through Mock tests is an important reason for the study. Being learned and practiced in a positive and favorable language environment will help students have good attitide to practice listening and apply the knowledge they have learned to do the listening test better.

From my educational experience in teaching English at high school, I have noticed that most high school students are very afraid of learning English, often feel very

tired during the lessons and they have no interest in learning skills, especially in listening skill. The students often find it difficult to listen the dialogue in their textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. The difficulty of 10 graders at Dienchau 4 high school when learning listening skill can be easily seen in the listening lessons. How to make students keen on learning English and listening skill? How to make English lessons become more exciting to attract students focus on the lesson? What should be done to complete the goal of the foreign language teaching process as helping students grade 10 to enhance their listening skills in English as a compulsory subject at school is one of my concern. The first and foremost vital role is support 10 graders with their listening test at school to help them do the middle and final test with good result is a necesssary goal for an English teacher. Those are some of my concerns in teaching English as a second language at high school, so I always wonder how to find an effective method to support my students in learning English listening skill. It is the reason why I decided to design Listening Mock test to help students grade 10 practise listening in the direction of real test format as much as possible.

For the above reasons, I decided to choose the topic: “Designing Listening Mock test to support 10 graders to get familiar with listening questions in the final exams”.

• Research purpose

The purpose of the study is to designing a variety of listening practice tests bases on the listening skill in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” (Global Success) to help learners have more opportunities to practise listening during their learning English at school. Also, the Mock tests will support 10 graders get used to listening questions in the real tests as middle and final term test to get better results.

• Subjects and objects of research

• Research subjects

• Listening Mock test for 10 graders
• The process of designing Listening Mock test to help student develop listening skill

• Research object

Listening Mock test in accordance with listening part in the real tests to help students develop listening skill.

• Scientific hypothesis

English listening environment has an important meaning in forming and training students’ listening skills. If students are practised listening in an environment of positive language practice, they will be more confident and better at listening skill.

• Scope of research

The topic only focus on designing Listening exericises in accordance with the

listening part in the real tests of middle and final term exam to help students get familiar with listening skill in English grade 10.

• Research methods

To do the experience idea, I used a combination of research methods including:

• Theoretical research

Researching scientific works, articles, publications related to teaching listening topics; related to listening skill for high school students.

Study materials related to enhancing listening skill for high school students

• Investigation method

• Make a questionnaire about the attitde of students to using methods and techniques in listening skill in English for high school students through designing Listening Mock tests.
• Make a survey of pedagogical experiment results after teaching listening for students between the experimental group and the control class about changing in students’ listening skill

• Experimental method of pedagogy

After having the content and methods, teaching listening in “Tiếng Anh 10” based on the form of the test, we conducted experiments in Dienchau 4 high schools to test the objectivity and practicality of the topic. Experimental results were assessed through the results of the questionnaire.

• Research and experimental time

The topic was studied and conducted extensive pedagogical experiments at schools from the 2022-2023 school year.

The process of completing data and the project is in the school year 2022-2023.

• Contributions of the study

Listening is an input acquisition that the more practice students get, the better they will improve their skill. The practice tests will help students improve listening skill day by day in the format of the real test. Therefore, the 10 graders will get familiar with the real test to be ready to get better result in listening.

The topic builds up Listening Mock tests that are suitable for students to practice at home by selecting an effective source from the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. The Mock test will help students grade 10 improve their listening skill in learning English.

PART II. CONTENT

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter will provide readers information about different aspects of theoretical background of Listening skill, Mock test and the importance of adapting listening skill in the process of teaching and learning English reading skill.

• Theoretical background of the topic

• Denifition of Listening Mock test

Mock test is very important for students who are preparing for the exam. Mock tests make students familiar with the style and scope of the question paper. Managing to finish the exam on time is really challenging. Mock tests help them with time management which, in itself, is half the work done. The candidate is given the chance to work on this problem and turn it into one of their strengths. After taking several mock tests, the student is in a position to work on his weaknesses and to chalk out a plan to overcome them. “Mock Tests are model tests for practice for future exams . Teachers try to make Mock Test almost same as any competitive exam. This helps student to self asses himself and finally provide him chance to improve before actual exam” [9] Mock tests are similar trial exams taken before final exam. Mock tests are nothing but trial exams that people take before appearing for the final exam so that they can assess their level of preparation. It is said that “practice makes perfect”. So it is one of the ways which leads a student to perfection.

Mock tests are arranged to give students a feel of the real exam. For most of the

students about to take a major exam for the first time in their lives, mock tests provide a trial run. Being placed in the same situation and feeling the same amount of pressure before the actual competative exam will inculcate some self-analytical capacity and confidence in the student.

Mock Test brings benefits for both teachers and students in EFL teaching and learning.

* For students

Students who do the Mock Test as a frequent practice will gain huge benefits:

• Mock Test can be attempted multiple times to makes student more perfect in particular subject.
• Shows how well they are prepared for the exam and let them know their strength as well their weakness.
• Mock test guides them on which topics they have to focus more and gives students a idea of time management.
• For students who are not hard-working, Mock test can be a useful wake-up call to practise more before the exams.
• For all students, Mock test may highlight areas that really need more work and regular practice to improve their learning result.