An investigation on difficulties in learning english listening of grade 6 students at lien au my english center (lea)

THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ************* GRADUATE PAPER TITLE: AN INVESTIGATION ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING OF GRADE STUDENTS AT LIEN AU MY ENGLISH CENTER (LEA) Student name: Phan Thi Thuy Hang Student code: 1722202010086 Class: D17AVGD01 Course: 2017-2021 Major: English Language Lecturer: Mrs Nguyen Ngoc Thao Binh Duong, October 2020 0 THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ************* GRADUATE PAPER TITLE: AN INVESTIGATION ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING OF GRADE STUDENTS AT LIEN AU MY ENGLISH CENTER (LEA) Student name: Phan Thi Thuy Hang Student code: 1722202010086 Class: D17AVGD01 Course: 2017-2021 Major: English Language Lecturer: Mrs Nguyen Ngoc Thao Binh Duong, October 2020 i 0 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Student full name: Phan Thi Thuy Hang Student ID: 1722202010086 Title paper: AN INVESTIGATION ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING OF GRADE STUDENTS AT LIEN AU MY ENGLISH CENTER (LEA) I hereby confirm that I am the sole author of the paper presented Where the work of others has been consulted, this is duly acknowledged in the paper’s bibliography I have also not consulted any other unnamed online sources All verbatim or referential use of the sources named in the bibliography has been specifically indicated in the text Binh Duong, October 2020 PHAN THI THUY HANG ii 0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In order to complete this graduation paper, I have received many necessary assistances, precious and timely encouragements from my English language teachers at Thu Dau Mot University, all the people at my practice place during the whole last time, Lien Au My English Center, family and friends Therefore, here are the most sincere and profound thanks I would like to send them At the beginning, I would like to say thanks to Thu Dau Mot University where I have been attached for years for creating favorable conditions and connecting with the agency where I practice so that I have the opportunity to experience real with the major that I have been pursuing for a long time Next, I would like to send my most sincere thanks to my lecturer, Mrs Nguyen Ngoc Thao who has always been willing to give me valuable advices and suggestions in order that I can complete successfully this study In addition, it is impossible not to send deep thanks to the place I practiced during the past time, Lien Au My English Center The first person I would like to thank is Mrs Do Thi Kim Thuy who gave me the opportunity to practice teaching English to the lovely children and gave me the valuable teaching and life experiences It is followed by a thanks to the students who have cooperated with me, gave me moments to experience with a new role as an English teacher and at the same time helped me the survey so that I had complete information for this study The last thanks is that I want to send to my parents and friends They are the ones who always encourage and help me whenever I have a hard time even when I have negative thoughts Thanks to them, I have had a relatively successful study like this one One more time, I would like to express my profoundest thankfulness to all the people who have helped me in the process of my study iii 0 ABSTRACT Today, more and more people are devoting time to learning English as a second language Many countries incorporate English into their school curriculum and children start learning English at a young age, including Vietnam Since then, many English Centers have been formed and developed to meet the English learning needs of everyone In which, listening is an important skill that allows people to receive, understand and evaluate information that is communicated to them When students listen to English language, they face a lot of listening difficulties Everyone knows that in order to listen to a message is not as simple as hearing it, so the listener has to understand the message and respond in the right manner The research studies aims at exploring the English listening difficulties encountered by grade students at Lien Au My English Center (LEA) Besides, this study also wants to find out the reasons that cause difficulties in learning English listening skills of students Consequently, I applied the qualitative and quantitative methods to the research Therefore, the collecting data instruments such as questionnaires and interviews were used to conduct the research The results of the research will point out the difficulties that students meet when they learn the listening skills More importantly, the study helps me find out the causes of those difficulties so that I will have the basis to find the appropriate solutions to completely solve those difficulties for students at Lien Au My English Center (LEA) where I am practicing and will continue to teach, in the shortest time With the desire to find out problems in 6th grade students’ listening skills in particular and the students of Lien Au My English Center in general, I have tried my best to perform this research title well based on my own experiences and the knowledge in English teaching methodology I have acquired during the past time iv 0 TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1.2 THE AIMS OF THE STUDY 1.3 THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.5 THE METHOD OF THE STUDY 1.6 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 OVERVIEW OF LISTENING 2.1.1 Definition of listening 2.1.2 The importance of listening skills 2.2 DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING 2.2.1 What problems students have with listening? 2.2.2 What makes listening so difficult? CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 10 3.1 RESEARCH METHOD 10 3.2 PARTICIPANTS 10 3.3 DATA COLLECT INSTRUMENTS 10 3.3.1 The survey questionnaire 10 v 0 3.3.2 The interview 11 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS 11 3.4.1 Identification 11 3.4.2 Classification 12 3.4.3 Description 12 3.4.4 Explanation 12 CHAPTER 4: RESULT AND DISCUSSION 13 4.1 STUDENTS’ OPINIONS ON LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING 13 4.1.1 The assessment of English listening skills 13 4.1.2 The interest in learning English listening 14 4.1.3 The importance of English listening 15 4.1.4 The problem in listening skills 17 4.2 THE DIFFICULTIES THAT STUDENTS OFTEN HAVE WHEN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING 18 4.3 THE REASONS CAUSE DIFFICULTIES FOR STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING 23 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 29 5.1 SUMMARY OF THE STUDY 29 5.2 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 29 5.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FURTHER STUDY 29 REFERENCES 30 APPENDIX x APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR STUDENTS x APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS xiv vi 0 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LEA: Link between Europe and America (Lien Au My) L2: Lateral type (Second language) ESL: English as Second Language vii 0 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: The students’ interest in learning English listening 15 Table 4.2: The interview result of difficulties that students often have when learning English listening 22 Table 4.3: The reasons cause difficulties for students in learning English listening 24 viii 0 LIST OF FIGURES Chart 4.1: The students’ assessment of English listening skills 13 Chart 4.2: The interview result of students’ assessment of English listening skills 14 Chart 4.3: The students’ attitudes toward the importance of English listening 16 Chart 4.4: The frequency of students having problems in learning English listening 17 Chart 4.5: The difficulties that students often have when learning English listening 18 Chart 4.6: The interview result of reasons cause difficulties for students in learning English listening 27 ix 0 some students with a special ability when they not need to listen too many times, the result shows that 17% of students disagree and 10% of them disagree completely, but these figures are insignificant compared to the number of students facing this difficulty In short, listening to the same content over and over again and still not understanding is a big obstacle for students, students gradually feel headache, depressed and want to give up Cannot predict the next information In the process of listening to English, not only listening to the content the speaker is referring to, but also the listeners need to guess the upcoming information In fact, the prediction brings about a number of advantages to students in their listening comprehension, they will limit the subject and content, and then their listening will be more effective However, this is the limit for 6th graders, up to 37% of students agree completely, 23% of students agree and 13% of them choose to be neutral with their failure to predict information the speaker is about to say Besides, only a handful of students, about 27% of them think they can guess the next information According to Hasan (2000), the problem is believed to cause by the habit of listening to word by word Listeners not focus on any particular cues which help them predict what is going to be talked about Conversely, in every listening task, cues are provided indirectly that well-trained or experienced listener could recognize it naturally Do not have enough vocabulary and grammar More or less vocabulary and grammar also affect the students’ ability to listen English Most students find it difficult to listen to English because they not have enough vocabulary and grammar, it is clear that about 47% of students agree that their vocabulary and grammar are limited In addition, 23% of the students choose to be neutral, 20% disagree and 10% disagree completely In general, this problem is not about the amount of vocabulary and structure that students have, but on how many words they can remember and use it in real communication situations The way of learning traditional vocabulary and structures by repeatedly recording the words or structures they want to learn with the Vietnamese meaning has limited their ability to memorize for a long time and easily make them