Factors affecting learning english listening skills of english majors at vietnam national university of agriculture

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS OF ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NGÔN NGỮ ANH TẠI HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : NGUYEN THI HONG NHUNG Student code : 621223 Major : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Supervisor : TRAN THANH PHUONG, M.A Hanoi – 2021 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS OF ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NGÔN NGỮ ANH TẠI HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : NGUYEN THI HONG NHUNG Student code : 621223 Major : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Supervisor : TRAN THANH PHUONG, M.A Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify that the project titled “FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS OF ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE” has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as fully acknowledged within the text I also certify that the thesis has been written by me Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis Hanoi, 2021 Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:……………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is impossible to finish a research project without assistance During my study, I received a lot of assistance from my teachers and friends First and foremost, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Tran Thanh Phuong Her constant advice and kind support helped me get through the process of finishing my thesis Her suggestions have made a huge difference in the quality of my work The thesis would have been difficult to complete without her motivation and instructions Next, I am grateful for Ms Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy's supportive suggestions and advice, as well as all of the Foreign Language Department teachers who assisted me in the study I'd like to express my gratitude to all of the students who participated in the survey and interview This is also a key element in completing my study Finally, I'd like to give thanks to all of my friends who helped me as I worked on my thesis Their kind help, concern, and encouragement gave me courage and helped me overcome all of my difficulties Thank you very much Sincerely ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii ABSTRACT v LIST OF TABLES vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY AIMS AND OBJIECTIVES OF THE STUDY 2.1 Aims of the study 2.2 Objectives of the study RESEARCH QUESTIONS SCOPE OF THE STUDY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY DESIGN OF THE STUDY PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS STUDIES (AT HOME & ABROAD) 1.1.1 Review of the previous study: At home 1.1.2 Review of the previous study: Abroad 1.2 REVIEW OF THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.2.1 Definitions of listening 1.2.2 Types of listening 1.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING SKILLS 1.4 TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS 1.4.1 Pre-listening activities 10 1.4.2 while-listening activities 10 1.4.3 Post-listening activities 11 iii 1.5 LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13 2.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 13 2.2 RESEARCH SETTING 13 2.3 DATA COLLECTION 13 2.3.1 Data collecting instruments 13 2.3.2 Data collecting procedures 14 2.4 DATA ANALYSIS 14 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 16 3.1 SOME VIEWPOINTS ON LEARNING THE LISTENING SKILLS OF STUDENTS 16 3.2 OBJECTIVE FACTORS 17 3.3 SUBJECTIVE FACTORS 19 3.4 METHODS OF STUDENTS‟ LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS 20 3.5 RESULTS FROM INTERVIEWS 22 3.6 SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS 23 3.7 SUMMARY 24 PART III: CONCLUSION 25 RECAPITULATION 25 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 28 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 29 REFERENCE 30 APPENDICES 33 Appendix 33 Appendix 36 iv ABSTRACT One of the most important qualities for communicating in everyday life is the ability to listen It is becoming increasingly important to learn this skill while studying a foreign language We all know that listening to a message entails more than just hearing it, so students must comprehend the information and correctly respond to it The thesis would look at factors affecting learning English listening skills of English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture As a result, I conducted the study using both qualitative and quantitative approaches As a consequence, questionnaires and interviews were used to gather data for the analysis The findings of the study will support English majors in improving their listening skills More specifically, the research aids me in finding factors that affect learning English listening skills so that I can suggest effective solutions to the issues in the hopes of strengthening students' listening skills v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Students‟ viewpoints 16 Table 3.2: Objective factors 18 Table 3.3: Subjective factors 19 Table 3.4 : Listening learning methods 21 vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY Currently, English is a commonly used language all over the world, such Vietnam, China, India, Australia, etc Nevertheless, listening skills have been underemphasized in the English learning process at most Vietnamese schools (Duong & Chau, 2019; Nguyen & Thai, 2018) Because English is a foreign language in Vietnam, English students did not have the opportunity to practice outside of the classroom Due to lack of time, teachers did not have enough time in the classroom to allow students to practice their skills (Nguyen, 2013) As a result, after years of learning English, university graduates are unable to communicate (Le, 2013) 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, 2530%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9% (Mendelsohn, 1994) Listening involves an active process of deciphering and constructing meaning from both verbal and non-verbal messages (Nunan, 1998) People who want to communicate well need flexible use of language skills when learning a foreign language, people usually want to be engaged in real communication with those who speak the target language; thus, they have the need to understand what others say and to be understood Listening skill, which plays an important role not only in communication but also in interpersonal relationships Listening skill can only be improved by hard work and repetition as it is the case in reading skill (Bostrom, 1990, Brody, 2004; Kutlu and Aslanoglu, 2008) Listening skills can be considered as the most important of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing We can communicate fluently only when we hear and understand what others are saying, which is also the most important thing when learning a language In addition, if we cannot hear or only hear a certain part, communication becomes more difficult and sometimes we will miss important information to hear Besides, to listen effectively, it takes a lot of concentration and practice for a long time This can make students feel bored Learning listening skills has become difficult for English majors When equipment, such as radios, isn't improved, or the speaker's voice isn't clear Students get disinterested in listening skills as a result of this In conclusion, I would like to present the thesis title : “ Factors affecting learning English listening skills of English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture” and to suggest some possible solutions to improve the current situation for several reasons Furthermore, this is also quite a difficult skill for students Most students feel it boring to learn listening skills, so I chose this topic to study AIMS AND OBJIECTIVES OF THE STUDY 2.1 Aims of the study This research aims to investigate the factors affecting learning English listening skills of English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture 2.2 Objectives of the study The objective of this study is to identify the factors affecting learning English listening skills of English-majored students at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture, then give some solutions to help students learn English listening skills better RESEARCH QUESTIONS The focus of this research was to understand more about the factor that affect listening skills The project's research questions were as follows: 1.What are the factors affecting English majors‟ learning English listening skills at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture? vocabulary is important which help me comprehend the lesson and complete the exersice correctlly", according to a first-year student To sum up, it can be shown from the interview that the factors affecting students' learning of listening skills come from subjective factors inside themselves As a result, increasing one's vocabulary and practicing listening everyday are necessary 3.6 SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS Analyzing the factors that affect English majors' listening skills shows that listening is a difficult skill that requires a lot of practice Then, I've given some suggestions to help students in improving their listening and other skills, as follows: To improve vocabulary and practice listening to different accents, students can watch movies or News in English on websites such as BBC News, BBC learning English, TED talk, Twitter, etc On these channels, students can listen to articles, short news stories, or talks on a variety of topics, including science, life, social, etc In addition, students can also learn English by watching vlogs about foreigners' daily lives, etc Next, students can learn English through songs This is a method that not only makes people feel relaxed but also helps to learn English more effectively Learning English through movies might be boring at times, but learning English through songs is more interesting, and you will know more good songs while learning English Additionally, have many applications, such as Skype, may be used to communicate with foreigners In European countries, this application is used quite popular So, students may make friends with people from all over the world and talk with them, which will help improve their communication as well as their listening skills 23 Finally, you can use your phone to learn English There are many free apps that might help you learn English as well as other languages, such as Dualingo, Memrise, English listening, and so on The common feature of these apps is that they are free, so users not have to pay any fees to learn and students can study anywhere if they want 3.7 SUMMARY Many factors affecting learning English listening skills English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture, according to the survey and data analysis There are many factors, but they are mainly related to objective (speaker) and subjective (learner) factors Some objective factors affect students' English listening skills, such as atmosphere of the class, regional accent, speed of voice, pronunciation, sound of radio, and outside sounds Because these factors are unchangeable, students must focus on improving their knowledge as much as possible And some subjective factors affect students' English listening skills, such as vocabulary, lacking of basic social knowledges, lack of concentrate, easily being bored, inappropriate learning methods These factors are affected by the learners themselves From the findings of the study, some objective and subjective factors affecting learning English listening skills of English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture are listed above All of the above factors affect not only students in English majors but also other majors Therefore, students need to have effective study strategies to improve their listening skill 24 PART III: CONCLUSION RECAPITULATION In order to achieve the author's purpose of identifying the factors affecting learning English listening skills of English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture, the study is divided into three parts, each with its own purposes The first part will discuss the study's theories The second part gives an overview of the situation of learning English listening skills at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture, the study methodology, and the author's conclusions on the factors affecting leaning English listening skills of English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture through questionnaires and interviews This chapter also supports the author in establishing the answers to the two research questions presented in the introduction The last chapter contains some recommendations and suggestions for first and second-year students at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture to improve their English listening skills This research identified a number of objective and subjective factors that have a direct affect on learning English listening skills of English majors Below are some objective factors discovered as a result of the study's findings: The atmosphere of the classroom is the first factor to consider This is the factor that determines whether or not students are interested in learning in class Students will be more enthusiastic in class if the atmosphere is cheerful; on the other hand, if the atmosphere is calm, students will be bored and not want to study that class Therefore, the atmosphere of the classroom has a major impact on students' motivation to learn The regional accents is the next factor to consider, which makes it difficult for students to learn listening and communication skills Too many 25 different accents can reduce listening comprehension When teachers use standard English or American English, students may find it difficult to understand In fact, we don't even know what is the standard English Some people believe that British English is the standard accent, but English is spoken in countries all over the world, including Australia, China, and India So, English is spoken in many countries around the world, and each country has its own distinct accent, therefore, students should study as many accents as possible when learning English The next factor is speed of the voice; the fact that foreigners speak too fast makes it difficult for students to learn listening skills When a speaker speaks too fast, students will fail to keep up and not hear key phrases, resulting in important information being missed Of course, if the teacher speaks more slowly, the students will be able to follow together with the lesson In a nutshell, because it is difficult to control the speed of speakers, therefore, students must improve their listening skills to keep up with the speaker's speed Pronunciation, like the regional accents, is another factor that makes it difficult for students to learn listening skills because each country pronounces English differently Furthermore, many words in English are swallowed words or linked between words, making it difficult for learners hear the word clearly and resulting to listening lesson incomprehension To sum up, students must spend a lot of time listening to know the English pronunciation of other countries The radio sound factor comes next Most universities also have modern English learning equipments, including as radios, computers, multimedia systems, and so on The Vietnam National University of Agriculture is no exception However, the quality of the sound system affects the students' listening comprehension because some radios are outdated and have bad sound In other words, bad radio quality makes it difficult for students to hear clearly, which leads to ineffective learning 26 The outside noise is the final factor Outside noise, according to students, made it difficult for them to identify key information needed to answer some of the questions in the listening exercise They also said that the noise had caused them to get disinterested in the exercise Ultimately, this is also a factor affecting students' learning of listening skills Some objective factors affecting learning listening skills of English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture are listed above And, below are some subjective factors discovered as a result of the study's findings: The first item to cover is vocabulary In fact, even if students not know the lesson's topic, if they learn a large number of new vocabulary, understanding the listening becomes easier Furthermore, having a large vocabulary helps increase students' interest in learning to listen and improve their listening skills Another problem with vocabulary is that words can have many meanings, which can be difficult for students with a limited vocabulary As a reason, students should spend more time learning vocabulary The second problem is the lack of basic social knowledge, such as when students are listening to a Christmas Day text and if they know about Christmas Day in other countries, understanding the text becomes easier Therefore, knowing a lot about the culture and people of the countries would significantly help students in learning their listening skills The third issue is a lack of concentration when listening Lack of concentration has a significant effect on students' listening abilities; there are many reasons that cause students to become distracted and not completely concentrate on the lesson, it might be because of background noise or boring lesson topics that students are not focus on their studies Next, when learning listening skills, students are easily bored It may be said that listening is a difficult skill, and students must spend a lot of time learning new vocabulary and grammar in order to listen comprehendsions, and 27 communicate with foreigners Furthermore, listening comprehension causes students to be bored, resulting in ineffective listening lessons Last but not least, students choose inappropriate learning strategies This is the factor that causes students to get confused and develop poor listening skills There are methods that are suitable for one person but not for another Therefore, students must find the best learning approach for themselves in order to effectively learn listening skills In this study, the researcher only pointed out some objective and subjective factors affecting listening skills, but in fact, there are many factors, such as vocabulary, grammar, learning methods, etc The lack of vocabulary and grammar makes it difficult for students to understand new words in the text when learning listening skills At the end of the day, after the research, the researcher has pointed out a number of factors affecting the English listening skills of the first and secondyear students of English majors, these are probably the factors that affect not only the students‟ English language majors but also students of other majors Hopefully, students will be aware of the difficulties they face when learning English listening skills as a result of the findings of this study After that, students can use suitable learning techniques to enhance their skills LIMITATION OF THE STUDY Although the study has many positive elements, such as data collection techniques such as interviews and student survey questionnaires, it is clear that the study has a lot of flaws due to time limitations, a lack of sources, the researcher's skills, and other unforeseen factors First and foremost, due to a lack of time and experience, the researcher was unable to use alternative approaches, such as classroom observation and interviewing teachers, to increase the data's reliability Second, due to the study's scope limitations, the researcher focused mainly on first and second-year students in English majors, which account for a 28 small percentage of the Vietnam National University of Agriculture students As a result, the study's findings can not be generalized Furthermore, the researcher was unable to cover all parts of the solutions Another limitation was time, as it was difficult to agree on a schedule for the interviews with the participants As a result, I was unable to a second interview with participants, as I had intended at the start of the data collection process Furthermore, the strategies presented in this study are collect from a variety of reliable but limited sources Despite the constraints indicated, I hope that this exploratory research can help Vietnam National University of Agriculture students improve their English listening skills RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Due to these limitations, this study was unable to cover all aspects of the research Moreover, the study focuses only on difficulties and solutions for first and second-year students in English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture to aid them in improving their listening skills Furthermore, to achieve better findings in future studies, the researcher should contact more participants and change the data collection process In addition to survey questionnaires and interviews, observation is needed to achieve more persuasive conclusions After this study, if I have the opportunity, I will a research on teaching English listening skills at Ba Vi high school Because this is a school located in the countryside, and it is quite difficult to teach and learn listening skills for students here Overall, despite the study's limitations, the research was performed under the guidance of the supervisor and through self-effort Any comments and criticism will be very much valued to improve future research 29 REFERENCE Anderson, A & Lynch, T 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In M Purdy & D Borisoff (Eds.), Listening in everyday life: A personal and professional approach (2nd ed.) (pp 1-20) Lanham, MD: University Press of America 19 Rost, M (2002) Teaching and researching listening London: Longman 20 Thompson, I., & Rubin, J (1996) Can strategy instruction improve listening comprehension? Foreign Language Annals, 29, 331-342 21 Truesdale, S P (1990) Whole-body listening: Developing active auditory skills Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 21, 183-184 22 Underwood, M (1989) Teaching listening New York: Longman 31 23 Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching: Practice and theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 24 Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 25 Yan, F (2006) Listening to the voices of pupils: An alternative route to a balanced curriculum for junior middle schools in China Proceedings of the Asia Pacific Educational Research Association Conference, Hong Kong Nov 30th – Dec2nd 32 APPENDICES Appendix SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify the factors affecting the learning of English listening skills by English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture It was designed for my research on "Factors affecting learning English listening skills of English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture" I would be very grateful if you took a few minutes to complete this survey Your profile will not be exposed in any discussion of the data since all of your information will be utilized for research purposes Thank you for your cooperation Please tick (x) for each response that you choose Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongl Items Disagree y Agree Among the four skills, I Students‟ like to learn listening attitude most Listening is my best skill of the four skills Students' Listening assessment opinion, is, in the my most difficult of the four skills I need a lot of time to learn listening skills 33 In my opinion, the most Students‟ important opinions listening skill is Learning listening skills is very boring The atmosphere of the class has an effect on Objective listening learning factors I can't hear well because of the regional accent I can't hear well when foreigners talk too quickly It's difficult to understand due to the unclear pronunciation The sound quality from radio is not good My ability to listen is affected by outside sounds My vocabulary is poor I was lacked of basic social knowledge I couldn't concentrate while listening I'm easily bored 34 The listening method Subjective does not seem to be factors suitable to me Use applications websites to or learn English I've joined the English Club to learn English listening skill The teacher provided me Listening with basic techniques to learning help me develop my methods listening skills At home, I self-study listening skills I listen to music, watch movies or news in order to improve my listening skills Others: Thanks for your help.! 35 Appendix INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Q1: Do you think listening is a difficult skill? Q2: What factors you feel are affecting your listening skills? 36 Approved by supervisor(s) , date …month…year…… Supervisor (Signature and full name) , date… month…year…… Student (Signature and full name) Nhung Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung Certified by Department of Professional English 37