LangLit

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A STUDY ON THE STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL IN ENGLISH IN
BENGALI MEDIUM UPPER PRYMARY RURAL SCHOOLS OF
NORTH TRIPURA DISTRICT
DIPASREE NATH AND DR. PARAMITA PURKAIT
Department of Linguistics
Assam University,
Silchar, Assam

ABSTRACT
Tripura is a hilly state in the northeastern part of India. North Tripura
District is one amongst the eight Districts of Tripura . There are total
517number of schools in this district. Along with the Bengali community, there
are different tribal communities are living in this district. The students of the
upper primary level are not getting proper facilities of English learning due to
the lack of trained teacher as well as non-availability of proper audiovisual
and multimedia devices. Sometimes, socioeconomic factors also create hurdle
to achieve their English language acquisition. Listening is one of the most
important skills of English language teaching. Such schools’ students face
problems in high and higher secondary level due to the absence of proper
listening skill .Three schools viz, Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School,
Padmabil H.S. (+2 Stage) School and Krishnapur H.S. (+2 Stage) School
have been chosen to study the performance of listening skill of the students of
upper primary level from class VI to VIII. The overall performance amongst
all the schools showed that the active listeners were recorded as maximum
from class VII (76.66%) followed by class VII (70%) and lowest in case of
class VI (56.66%). Regarding Passive listeners Class VI showed highest
(40%) followed by class VII (26.66%) and the lowest in case of class VIII
(13.33%). The performance on school basis showed that Active listeners were
highest in Padmabil H.S. (+2 Stage) School (86.66%) followed by Protyekroy
H.S. (+2 Stage) School (76.66%) and the least in Krishnapur H.S. (+2 Stage)
School. The personal view of researcher on good listeners, have found that
their interest as well as attention is high. Moreover, their English Teacher is
using TLM and group discussion method and sometimes use direct method of
English teaching for better understanding of the subject.

Key words: Dharmanagar, English Teaching, Listening Skill, Upper Primary, Students

Tripura is one of the seven sisters of the North East India.Out of the total eight districts in the
state, the North Tripura District is one which is mostly dominated by the Bengali community
along with the indigenous people. The North Tripura District has a total geographical area of
1,4,22.19 sq km (https://indikosh.com › India › Tripura). The district is divided into three
sub-divisions viz., Dharmanagar, Kanchanpur and Panisagar (www.msmedi-agartala.nic.in).
The various tribal communities of the state can be categorized into three types - the Tripuri,
Riang, Jamatia, Noatia, Koloi and Murasing are indigenous; the Lushai, Kuri, Halam, Mog,
Chakma, Garo, Khasi, Lepcha and Bhutia are the second category and the third category

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comes from mainland of India, these are Munda, Santhal, Oraon and Bhil. There are total
517number of schools in North Tripura District (according to Annual Work Plan & Budget
2017-18). Among them some are Bengali medium and some are English medium. The most
commonly used dialect of North Tripura District are Bengali, Kokborok, Chakma, Mog and
various dialects of the Tripuri language. The education system of Tripura is really shambling
one. Moreover, poverty and illiteracy are creating hindrance in education of the students
especially in rural areas. The illiterate and uneducated poor parents and their family members
are struggling always for their survivals and they have not got opportunity to understand the
importance of education. In this way, the upper primary level students have very poor
knowledge in English which affects in high and higher secondary level. Thus, the students of
rural areas of North Tripura District find difficulty with four language skills as listening,
speaking, reading, writing and also very lack of knowledge in grammar and pronunciation.
Listening is one of the most important skills of English language teaching. According to
Tyagi (2013), Listening is one of the four skills of a language. It involves a sender, a message
and a receiver. It is the psychological process of receiving, attending to constructing meaning
from and responding to spoken and/or non verbal messages. He also opined that, the process
of listening occur in five stages viz., hearing, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and
responding.

If anyone wants to learn English language, his/her listening skill must be developed. In rural
areas of this district, students are facing the problems to get connected with the multi-media
equipments in maximum cases. The multimedia equipments such as TV, radio, audio, visual
etc. are not properly available in school as well as their homes. The teachers are also mostly
using translation method of teaching English. So, they never able to listen any English word
from their surrounding localities. Moreover, in Bengali medium schools, lack of trained
teachers as well as impact of local dialect in pronunciation are also influencing the listening
skill which causes an adverse affect on the learning process of English. Consequently, the
effective teaching learning process is not implemented in rural Bengali medium schools
especially the North Tripura district Moreover, it has been observed that the listeners are also
can be considered as Active, Passive and Competitive based on their listening abilities.
Without the appropriate listening skill, the language acquisition is not properly possible and
students are unable to reach their goal .Keeping the above statement in view, the present
study has been envisaged in three rural Bengali Medium Schools of North Tripura District to
find out the present status of Listening Skill in ELT at upper primary level.

METHODOLOGY
The methodology for the study of Listening skill has been done as follows:
1. Randomly ten students of each class from class VI to VIII of each school have been
selected.
2. For class-VI, the researcher will ask 5 questions and instruct them to draw
accordingly. They do not need to draw like an artist. The researcher only wants to
judge their listning skill.
3. For class-VII and VIII, the researcher will read out a comprehension and give 5
questions based on this.
4. The performances have been taken by matrix ranking (i.e., score from 1- 10).
5. The performance of the marks were graded as A (from scoring 8-10), B (from scoring
5- 7) and C (from scoring 1-4).

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6. Per cent performance according to grade have been calculated as School wise, class
wise and overall performance also analyzed and put in tabular form.

OVERALL LISTENING SKILLS FROM THE STUDIED SCHOOLS:

The study of listening skill of the students from the three studied schools showed that the
highest respondents of A grade were observed from the class VII of Protyekroy H.S. (+2
Stage) School and Class VII and VIII from Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage) School. They showed
100% Listening skills (Table 2). The second A grade securer students were observed from
class VI of Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage) School (90%) whereas the students of Krishnapur H. S.
(+2 Stage) School were lowest (30- 50%). The study indicated that the Active listener were
found to be higher in two schools viz., Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage) School and Protyekroy H.S.
(+2 Stage) School than the Krishnapur H. S. (+2 Stage) School. Regarding the passive learner
or B grade holders the students of Class VI from Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School occupied
highest (60%) whereas the second position occupied by the students of Class VI from
Krishnapur H. S. (+2 Stage) School and no passive listeners were recorded from the class VII
of Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School and class VIII of Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage). In case of
Competitive listener, the highest position was occupied by the students of class VIII from
Krishnapur H. S. (+2 Stage) School and the second (10%) by the students of class VI from
Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School whereas no Competitive listener were recorded from other
cases.

The overall performance amongst all the schools showed that the active listeners were
recorded as maximum from class VII (76.66%) followed by class VII (70%) and lowest in
case of class VI (56.66%). Regarding Passive listeners Class VI showed highest (40%)
followed by class VII (26.66%) and the lowest in case of class VIII (13.33%).

Table. 2. The Percentage of the performance of Listening Skill by the students from
different schoolsin North Tripura District

Class VI (%) Class VII (%) Class VIII (%)

Grade A B C A B C A B C

K.H.S. 50.00 50.00 0.00 40.00 50.00 10.00 30.00 40.00 30.00

P.H.S. 90.00 10.00 0.00 70.00 30.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00

P.R.H.S. 30.00 60.00 10.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00

Overall 56.66 40.00 3.33 70.00 26.66 3.33 76.66 13.33 10.00

Note: K.H.S.: Krishnapur H. S. (+2 Stage) School; P.H.S.: Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage)
Scholl; P.R.H.S.: Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School; A: Active listener (secured 8-10); B:
Passive listener (secured 5-7); C: Competetive listener (secured 1-4).

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SCHOOL WISE PERFORMANCE

The performance on school basis showed that Active listeners were highest in Padmabil H.S.
(+2 Stage) School (86.66%) followed by Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School (76.66%) and
the least in Krishnapur H.S. (+2 Stage) School (Fig. 5). The passive listeners occupied
highest position from Krishnapur H.S. (+2 Stage) School (46.66%) followed by Protyekroy
H.S. (+2 Stage) School (20%) and the lowest from Padmabil H.S. (+2 Stage) School (13%).
The competitive listeners were recorded as highest from Krishnapur H.S. (+2 Stage) School
(13.33%) followed by Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School (3.33%) whereas no records from
Padmabil H.S. (+2 Stage) School (03%). Overall performance showed that the highest
position occupied by active listener (67.73%) followed by the passive listener (26.66%) and
the lowest in case of competitive listener (5.53%).

Fig.5. Graph showing the Listening skill of the students in studied schools of North
Tripura District.

Note: K.H.S.: Krishnapur H. S. (+2 Stage) School; P.H.S.: Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage)
Scholl; P.R.H.S.: Protyekroy H.S. (+2 Stage) School; A: Active listener (secured 8-10); B:
Passive listener (secured 5-7); C: Competetive listener (secured 1-4).

CLASS WISE PERFORMANCE AMONGST THE EVERY SCHOOL

The school wise performance on listening skill has been done from different schools
individually. The performance of listening skill by the students of Krishnapur H. S. (+2
Stage) School showed that the students of class VI and VII were similar in case of active
listening i.e., 50% whereas only 40% were recorded from class VII (Fig. 6.). Passive learners
were recorded as highest from class VI (50%) followed by class VII (40%) and the least
performance was found to be in case of class VIII (30.00%). The competitive learners were
recorded as highest in case of class VIII (30%) followed by class VII and no records from
class VI. Overall performance from the school showed that the active and passive learners
occupied almost same position i.e., 46.66% and 40.00% respectively. The competitive
listeners occupied the lowest in position (13.33%). The students of class VI were ranked as
active and passive learners in same proportion (i.e., 50% each). No competitive learners were
recorded from them. The students of class VII occupied highest (50%) as active learners

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followed by passive category (40%) and least from competitive category (10%). The active
learners from class VII were recorded as lowest than the other two classes but higher than the
other two categories. The active learner from class VIII were recorded as 40% which was
superior to the passive and competitive learners. Both the passive and competitive occupied
same position i.e., 30%.

Fig.6. Graph showing the listening skill of the students from Krishnapur H. S. (+2 Stage
School).

Note: A: Active listener (secured 8-10); B: Passive listener (secured 5-7); C: Competetive
listener (secured 1-4).

The performance of listening skill by the students of Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage) School
showed that the students of class VIII showed cent percent performance in case of active
listening followed by class VI (90%) and the lowest from class VII (70%) (Fig.7). Passive
learners were recorded as less but for this particular study class VII occupied highest position
(30%) followed by class VI (10%) whereas no records from class VIII has been found. No
competitive listeners were recorded from this school. The overall study from this school
showed highest in active learning (86.66%) followed by passive learning (13.33%) whereas
no records from competitive learners.

Fig.7. Graph showing the listening skill of the students from Padmabil H. S. (+2 Stage
School).

Note: Active listener (secured 8-10); B: Passive listener (secured 5-7); C: Competetive
listener (secured 1-4).

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The study from Pratyekroy H. S. (+2 Stage) School showed that the students of class VI and
VIII showed cent percent performance in case of active listening whereas the lowest by class
VI (30%) (Fig.8). Passive learners were recorded as 60% from class VI whereas no passive
learners were found from the other two classes. Regarding competitive learners, only 10%
respondents were recorded from class VI whereas no records from the rest two classes. The
overall study from this school showed highest in active learning (76.66%) followed by
passive learning (20%) and least from competitive learners (3.33).

Fig.8. Graph showing the listening skill of the students from Pratyekroy H. S. (+2 Stage
School).

Note: Active listener (secured 8-10); B: Passive listener (secured 5-7); C: Competetive
listener (secured 1-4)

The study of listening skill indicates 100% active listener are present in class VII of
Pratyekroy H.S. (+2Stage school) and class VII and VIII of Padmabil HS (+2 Stage) School.
This might be for their good attention and concentration as compared to other schools. Their
adopting capacity can also be considered better than others. Moreover, their recalling
capability and physical setting can be considered as better than others. Whereas passive or
competitive learners are mainly observed in Krishnapur HS (+2 Stage) School due to the
lacking of such factors in appropriate manner. The study of overall performance of all these
schools is recorded as active listeners are mainly occupied by class VIII than class VII and
least in class VI. Passive listeners are observed as vice-versa. Thus, the class VI is the highest
than class VII and the least in class VIII. As per as the listening skills of the student is
considered it can be said that listening is higher in case of class VI followed by class VII least
in class VIII. The reason might be due to their immaturity of Second language acquisition and
lack of their prior knowledge and proficiency.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Several workers postulate the problems regarding English listening skills of vernacular
medium students. According to Anderson and Lynch (1988) and Rost (1994), Harmer (2001),
Tyagi (2013) developments of listening skills have encountered several problems by the
students of vernacular medium. These are, mainly lack of concentration adaptability,

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proficiency and prior knowledge, physical setting, lack of laboratory facilities, bad listening
habits etc. which might be the factors that impact on the poor listening skills in the studied
school in the case of passive and competitive listeners. Active listeners might be overcome
the situation and they might be got good environment in school as well as in home for
learning. Apart from the observation, the personal view of researcher on good listeners as
found that their English Teacher is using TLM and group discussion method and sometimes
use direct method of English teaching for better understanding of the subject. Moreover, they
have good concentration , interest as well as their guardians, private tutor and school teacher
give them extra effort for the upliftment of that subject.

REFERENCES

1. Anderson, A. and Lynch, T. (1988). Listening: Language Teaching: A Scheme for

Teacher Education, Oxford University Press. ISBN-10-0194371352/ 13- 978-
0194371353. Annual Work Plan & Budget 2017-18.
2. Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching (Fourth Edition),
Pearson Longman.https://indikosh.com › India › Tripura.
3. Rost, M. (1994). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages, In Ronald Carter and David Nuan Ed. Cambrige University Press.
4. Tyagi, B. (2013). Listening: An Important Skill and Its Various Aspects, The
Criterion An International Journal in English. Issue 12, February 2013: 1-8.
www.msmedi-agartala.nic.in.

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