Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)
ABSTRACT This study of “An investigation into the difficulties in English listening skills encountered by employees in the Cennos Company” was conducted to analyze specific listening English skills re[.]
ABSTRACT This study of “An investigation into the difficulties in English listening skills encountered by employees in the Cennos Company” was conducted to analyze specific listening English skills required by the employees, to investigate the needs of the employees on English communication in their careers And it is special on English listening skills and their difficulties of English listening, then to determining the English training needs to improve listening skills The research instrument used in the survey is a questionnaire consisting of five parts: background information of the respondent, English background of the respondent, the necessity of using English listening skills in their career, the needs of listening skills for English communication skills improvement, the difficulties when learning the listening skills and the respondent’s opinions and suggestions The sample group used in this research consisted of 50 Vietnamese employees working in Competitive Intelligence English team at the Phuong Chi software limited company (PCSC), which is the agency of Cennos company in Viet Nam The questionnaire was distributed to the employees of the team that were the most relevant to this study during February 2018, and the data were collected and analyzed by using SPSS The results of the study indicated that English listening skills and the difficulties of the listening skills were problems faced by Vietnamese employees at the Cennos, individually the listening skills in English communications situation at workplace Therefore, the respondents need to improve all communication skills, particularly in the listening skills The organization should give the employees the training courses focusing on all communication skills, especially the listening skills and the content of the subject that makes them more efficient, productive, and incentive to improving listening skills of the employees by themselves i Luan van ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study could not have been accomplished without the encouragement and assistance of many help of many people I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to all who have made great contributions to this study I would like to express my deep gratitude to my teacher MA Pham Thi To Loan for her guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work I would also like to thank my roommate for her advice and assistance in keeping my progress on schedule I wish to thank various people for their contribution to this study Special thanks should be given to member of Competitive Intelligence English (CIE) team who help in collecting the data all the technicians who helped in handing the instruments I would also like to thank them who were the respondents in my study, for their kind cooperation in answering the questionnaires To my Quality Assurance - M.s Hue and my leader- M.s My, thanks for all of their whole-hearted support, and encouragement ii Luan van TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Research methodology .5 1.6 Organization of the study .6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .7 2.1 Overview of listening skill 2.1.1 Definition of listening skill 2.1.2 The relationship between listening and other language skills in International English Language 2.1.3 The importance of listening skill 2.1.4 The importance of English and listening in English at workplace 12 2.1.5 Types of listening skills 13 2.2 The difficulties of English listening skill .15 2.2.1 The difficulties of using English listening strategies .15 2.2.2 Factors that affect learning English listening skills 18 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 21 3.1 Data collection instruments 21 3.1.2 Data collection procedures 21 3.2 Data analysis and discussion 22 3.2.1 Employees’ real situations of learning English listening skill in working environment 22 CHAPTER SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .30 iii Luan van CONCLUSION 33 REFERENCE QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH iv Luan van LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CIE Competitive Intelligence English QAS Quality Assurance Specialist SPSS the Statistical Package for Social Sciences ESL English as a Second language EFL English as a Foreign Language v Luan van LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES CHARTS Table Gender .22 Chart Age 23 Chart Level of education 23 Chart Working position .24 Chart Period of working in the company 24 Chart English proficiency 25 Chart Point for what necessity of listening English Skills 27 Chart The frequency of some common problems 28 vi Luan van CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale Language is a communication tool that is important and necessary, especially English Nowadays, English is the most popular language tool in the world As a global language, English is used in many countries like their mother tongue and their second or foreign language Communication by English is very important to all organizations or business as well as Cennos Company in Viet Nam A business cannot offer a good service if it does not communicate efficiently in English And absolutely, everything is meaningless when they could not understand what their customer are saying, and not understand their needs When learning English, most people learn reading and writing first Then learning listening and speaking skills are so difficult, especially employees who have big used communicate skills necessary but without time to learns In Cennos, it is a limited software company which situated in Dublin, California, USA and the agency in 22- Thanh Cong- Ba Dinh -Ha Noi. Cennos provides a complete solution for customer’s e- commerce business, including management and analytics of their pay-per-click advertising campaigns Co-operate with the foreign customer, example is some shopping online web in USA, the EU, or in the world, like Wayfair.com, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, etc It is the most important thing for employees to fluently use English, especially listening skills to communicate with them Having three-month internship in Competitive Intelligence English (CIE) team, the author realized that the biggest problem of practicing English in the workplace is listening skills Because employees cannot understand the customers, they cannot speak anything to introduce about the products for them understand Employees have good email writing skills but the face- to- face communication is not able to They show their confusion, shyness This is the reason why the company misses many opportunities in business And the author chose the topic: “the difficulties of English listening skill encountered by employees in the Cennos company in Viet Nam” Up to this point, the author hopes that this study can help Luan van deal with problems that employees have with listening and improve their listening skill as well as communication skill in English 1.2 Previous studies “A study of needs of staff’s English communication skills: a case study of an electronic company” by Chiyanasit from Srinakharinwirot University Thailand Following this study, those in the roles of Buyer, Planner, and Program Administration Management frequently use English communication skills in their workplace, when interacting with both staff in other departments and Englishspeaking customers The most common deficits they had noticed in terms of English communication skill were listening problems, especially understanding foreign accents; speaking problems, particularly the use of broken English and word-forword translations, etc The staff in production office agreed that the most difficulties skill to learning was listening Listening skill is listened what customers’ needs In addition, they also revealed their lacks of English communication skills that the most lack English communication was listening skills For lack of listening skills, they encountered with listening English conversation via phone They could not understand so speaking is difficult This study showed that the similarities between staffs’ and managers’ perception for English communication lack understanding English conversation via phone, negotiating for mutual understanding, understanding customer forecasts, and writing business letters in appropriate formats in English In term the differences between staff’s and managers’ perception among necessities, lacks, and learning needs, staffs proposed that the English course should be emphasized on conversation, while mangers believed that the English course should be the equally emphasized on four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing With study: “Many Malaysians difficulty communicating in English in the workplace, especially when it comes to business-related matters” (Aniza-2016) He pointed out that perception on oral communication skills play a crucial role at the workplace in Malaysia And the perception of the workers clearly reported that they often face problems speaking fluently and speaking in front of an audience Moreover, he said that the ability to listen was the most important of all Luan van communication skills in any organization and states It is problems involving the listening skill at workplaces All of that because of tendency at times for same executives, supervisors and workers to talk more and fail to listen and not comprehend the notions of listening and hearing is That’s all right in Viet Nam We are ESL worker together And he suggested that when it came to business-related matter, as a worker we had to face and overcome a few obstacles within ourselves which is called insecurity in believing one’s ability, it improve the difficulty communicating in English in the workplace “Needs analysis for English communication skills of employees at HSBC in Thailand” by Sirikanya Luankanokrat of Thammasat University Bangkok, Thailand (March 2011) The results of the study indicated that every language skill: listening, speaking, reading, and writing were problems faced by Thai employees at HSBC, especially the listening skills The most necessary skill that the respondents used in their career was reading and the least essential skill was listening and speaking Therefore, the respondents need to improve all communication skills Over a billion people speak English at least a basic level In Thailand, English has been accepted as an international or foreign language And Viet Nam is too The success in careers depends more or less on the capacity of English Differences in background may be one of the most difficult communication barriers to overcome Age, gender, education, social status, economic position, temperament, religion, popularity and political belief can separate one person from another and make understanding difficult According to the study, most of the respondents thought their listening skill is the most serious problem (40%), followed by speaking (30%), writing (26,7%) and reading (3,3) And the causes of their listening problems were the most serious problem in listening in their career (61,3%), followed by the inability to understand technical terms (45,3%), the inability to remember the entire information (46,6%), the inability to understand slang, idiomatic expressions, or colloquialisms (44%) and the incapability of translating words or sentences (20%) And the authors showed that the level of listening skills necessary is 89 %, very necessary level, talking with customers and meeting in English is moderately Luan van necessary About 50.7% of the respondents would like to improve their listening skill in pronunciation, followed by 47.3% in comprehension The rest of respondents would like to improve in vocabulary (45.3%) and grammar (30%) respectively From the finding, the author showed that unfamiliarity with foreign accents and pronunciation was the major difficulty that caused their English listening problems The second problem was that were unable to understand technical terms and unable to remember the entire information The respondents thought that they were incapable of translating words and sentences A competitive employment market requires good communication skills in workplaces Workplaces need good communication skills especially in English language as it plays an essential role in all over the world Competence in the English language often becomes as a decisive factor in securing a wellpaid job (Casale & Posel, 2011) Carliner (2000) and Leslie and Lindley (2001) reveal that weak grasp in the language may lead to loss in an organization Thus, it is apparent that good proficiency is needed for one to secure a job, especially in the management team Needs Analysis on the Importance of English Language Skills for Workplace: Trainee Architects (P Thivilojana, 2015) Proficiency in English therefore, is vital for future employees in order to move forward in both local and international companies and to develop their technical knowledge and skills It offers a foundation for problem-solving and critical thinking skills that are essential to cope with the swiftly changing environment of the global workplace, one where English plays a vital role as highlighted by Ornstein & Hunkins (1993) One interesting finding of this study is that it highlights the discrepancy between students’ perception of their language competency and of their instructor However, the students also mentioned the importance of English language, particularly speaking and listening, in their daily communication and workplace tasks These skills can specifically assist them in writing reports, giving presentations confidently, avoiding miscommunication, making them more eligible for jobs, socializing with others and getting more friends Thus, language courses should put more emphasis on oral and aural skills in order for the university to be able to make these trainees Luan van ... opportunities in business And the author chose the topic: ? ?the difficulties of English listening skill encountered by employees in the Cennos company in Viet Nam? ?? Up to this point, the author hopes... knowledge about listening skills and difficulty of English listening skills: - Chapter III: Research findings: Finding out the difficulties of listening skills encountered by employees in working and... importance of listening skill 2.1.4 The importance of English and listening in English at workplace 12 2.1.5 Types of listening skills 13 2.2 The difficulties of English listening skill