Difficulties in english listening comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth year english majored students at thuong mai university

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY GRADUATION PAPER Difficulties in English listening comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth year English majored students at Thuong Mai University Supe[.]

  THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY - - GRADUATION PAPER DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILL AT THE WORKPLACE FACED BY FOURTH-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY Supervisor : Hoang Thi Thuy Student : Pham Thi Hoa Class : K54N2 Student’s number : 18D170064 HANOI - 2022 ABSTRACT Listening is an essential part of English as a foreign language because it is the most widely used in daily life Everybody knows that in order to listen to a message is not as simple as hearing it, thus the listener has to understand the message and respond in the right manner to communicate properly, meaningful, and naturally Being aware of Vietnamese students’ poor listening comprehension skills despite the urgent demand of international communication, the researcher carries out an investigation of “Difficulties in English listening comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth-year English majored students at Thuong Mai University” The study aims at finding the problems encountered by the students in listening comprehension Descriptive method was used to analyze and to find the solution about the problems To fulfill the mentioned aims above, therefore, the researcher applied the qualitative and quantitative methods to the research The data collection instruments like questionnaires, interviews were used to conduct the study The results of the research will point out the difficulties in studying English listening comprehension skills of first year English majored students at ThuongMai University Moreover, the study helps me find out the possible solutions to deal with those problems i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to show my deep gratitude to many people who have been supporting me During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received many meticulous guiding, precious ideas and timely encouragements me to complete my research the best First of all, I wish to express my deepest indebted to my supervisor – Hoang Thi Thuy, for her serious supervision, patient guidance during my study Furthermore, I really appreciate all her valuable help and suggestions on various drafts of the thesis Without her valuable advice and support, this thesis could not have been completed on schedule I also would like to take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all my teachers of the English Faculty, ThuongMai University, who have handed me background knowledge for four years to complete this graduation paper Besides, I am so thankful to students at Thuong Mai University for their enthusiastic participation in completing my questionnaires and interviews Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge my thanks to all the authors of the books, magazines, and other materials listed in the reference part for their ideas Thank you sincerely Hanoi , April 18th, 2022 Student Hoa Pham Thi Hoa ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES .vi CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY .1 I.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research subject .5 1.5 Scope of the study .5 1.6 Research methodology .5 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of listening comprehension skills 2.1.1 Definition of listening 2.1.2 The importance of listening skills 2.1.3 Methods of listening 10 2.2 Difficulties in studying the listening comprehension skills 10 2.3 Factors affecting the English listening comprehension skills 13 2.3.1 The listener 13 2.3.2 The speaker 14 2.3.3 The content of listening 14 2.3.4 The physical environment 15 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS .16 3.1 Participants of the study 16 3.2 Data collection instruments 17 3.2.1 The survey questionnaire 17 3.2.2 The interview .17 3.3 Procedure of data collection 18 iii 3.3.1 The survey questionnaire 18 3.3.2 The interview .18 3.4 Data analysis 18 3.4.1 Results from the survey questionnaire 18 3.4.2 Results from the interview 28 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .33 4.1 Summary of the study 33 4.2 Limitation of the study 33 4.3 Recommended suggestions 34 4.3.1 For students 34 4.3.2 For teachers 37 4.4 Recommendations for further studies 39 CONCLUSION .40 REFERENCES .vii APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE .x APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS xv iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviation English meaning EU European Union Liên minh châu Âu LC Listening Comprehension Nghe Hiểu EFL TV English as a Foreign Language Vietnamese meaning Ngoại ngữ Television Vô tuyến, ti vi UEE University Entrance Exam Kỳ thi tuyển sinh đại học VOA Voice of America Đài tiếng nói Hoa Kỳ HBO Home Box Office MAX CINEMAX Kênh truyền hình HBO Mỹ Kênh truyền hình cáp thuộc sở hữu HBO v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES No Name Content Page Chart 3.1 Distribution of student participants by gender 16 Table 3.1 Personal information of the students 18 Chart 3.2 Table 3.2 The methods of practicing listening skills 20 Chart 3.3 The students’ activities before listening 21 Chart 3.4 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Chart 3.5 The frequency of students in self-studying English listening at home The students’ activities when they cannot understand words or phrases while listening The difficulties in studying English listening skills and the causes Suggested activities to overcome students’ problem in listening The teachers’ activities to help the students overcome these problems vi 19 22 23 25 28 CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY I.1 Rationale Nowadays, English is playing a significant part in numerous areas including medicine, engineering, education, advanced studies, technology, banking, computing, tourism and so forth, most international transactions are being carried out in English English has become an second important language in many countries As a result, learning English is becoming more essential than ever in many countries around the world and Viet Nam is not an exception, especially with students at colleges and universities At the age of globalization, the world of technology, information, English becomes very necessary for any individual who tends to follow up on the fast change in the modern world To access information the most quickly and accurately, English listening comprehension skill plays an important role Furthermore, as for the students of the English Department, listening comprehension skill is extremely important because they expect to use it frequently for their future work Sometimes, when you watch the TV, listen to the news or communicate with a native speaker, you only hear a few keywords, and not fully understand the content of the whole dialog This causes afraid to connect with others, which is extremely detrimental to your work in the future So, the training at the university is very necessary In a communication in the real life, we are able to talk sensibly when we understand what is said to us Moreover, in learning a language, listening comprehension is a useful means of providing students with comprehensible information input, which is an essential component of the whole language learning process However, it is still a challenge for Thuong Mai University students in general, and English language students in particular Many students seem to lack the skills and confidence to make effective listen May be listening comprehension skill is very difficult, students not know the effective practice methods lead to feeling depressed On the other hand, listening skill takes long time, which means they need to spend a lot of time self-studying in order to become better, especially in listening practice more and more Therefore, as a researcher, I would like to present the thesis title “Difficulties in English listening comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth-year English majored students at Thuong Mai University’’ Hopefully, this graduation paper will point out some difficulties in English listening comprehension skill of the fourth-year English student and the solutions to make that good better 1.2 Previous studies No one can deny the importance of listening comprehension (LC) skills in foreign language learning because the key to acquire a language is to receive language input Krashen, Terrell, Ehrman, & Herzog (1984) claim that acquisition takes place only when students absorb enough comprehensible input The same claim was supported by Rost (1994, as cited in Nunan and Miller, 1995) confirmed that listening is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for leaners As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role in students’ language development Krashen (1985) argues that people acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they hear Thus, language acquisition is achieved mainly through receiving understandable input and listening ability is the critical component in achieving understandable language input Without understanding input at the right level, any kind of learning simply cannot occur Listening is a fundamental language skill, and as such it merits a critical priority among the four skill areas for language students As Hasan (2000) pointed out, “Difficulties in English listening comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth-year English majored students at Thuongmai University” (p.138) Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency Rost (2002) also indicates that developing proficiency in listening is the key to achieving proficiency in speaking Listening plays an important role in communication as it is said that, of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%; speaking, 25-30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9% (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011) According to Devine (1982), listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas and information are taken in Gilbert (1988), on the other hand, noted that students from kindergarten through high school were expected to listen 65-90 percent of the time Wolvin and Coakley (1988) concluded that, both in and out of the classroom, listening consumes more of daily communication time than other forms of verbal communication Listening is central to the lives of students throughout all levels of educational development (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997) Listening is the most frequently used language skill in the classroom (Ferris, 1998; Murphy, 1991; Vogely, 1998) Both instructors (Ferris & Tagg, 1996) and students (Ferris, 1998) acknowledge the importance of listening comprehension for success in academic settings Numerous studies indicated that efficient listening skills were more important than reading skills as a factor contributing to academic success (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997) Nevertheless, it is evident that listening is more important for the lives of students since listening is used as a primary medium of learning at all stages of education In spite of its importance in foreign language learning, the teaching of listening comprehension has long been ―somewhat neglected and poorly taught aspect of English in many EFL programs (Mendelsohn, 1994, p 9) The neglect of the listening skill was accompanied with an ongoing debate about which of the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) is the most crucial for the learning and acquisition of a second language However, past research has thus far revealed that a large proportion of the LC research findings indicates that listening is the most important skill for language learning because it is the most widely used language skill in normal daily life (Rost 2002), and it develops faster than the three other language skills, which in turn suggests that it can facilitate the emergence of the other language skills (Oxford, 1990) EFL learners, especially university students have serious problems in English listening comprehension because of the fact that universities pay more attention to English grammar, reading and vocabulary Listening and speaking skills are not important parts of many course books or curriculum and teachers not seem to focus on these skills while designing their lessons Most teachers take it for granted and believe that it will develop naturally within the process of language learning Persulessy (1988:50) states that one of the reasons for the opinion that listening is a skill that tends to be neglected is the feeling among language teachers that this skill ... comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth- year English majored students at Thuong Mai University? ??’ Hopefully, this graduation paper will point out some difficulties in English listening comprehension. .. pointed out, ? ?Difficulties in English listening comprehension skill at the workplace faced by fourth- year English majored students at Thuongmai University? ?? (p.138) Listening, therefore, is essential... improving their listening skills as well By using quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, the study aims at:  Finding out the difficulties that the fourth- year English majored students