A study on dificulties encountered by first year second year english majored students in learning listening comprehension skills at hong duc university

HONG DUC UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY FIRSTYEAR/ SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS IN LEARNING LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Du Thi Mai, M.A Student: Le Van Anh Code: 1767010043 Class: K20B- FFL- HDU Major: English Language Teacher Education Course: 2017-2021 Thanh Hoa – 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On completing this thesis, I would like to send my deepest and most sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor, M.A Du Thi Mai I have received a lot of essential help, precious ideas, and timely encouragement from her During doing this research, her constructive and timely feedback, as well as her constant and unfailing support, were decisive factors to the completion of the study to get the best results Furthermore, I am grateful to all the lecturers who have been teaching in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hong Duc University, who have taught me basic knowledge for four years to complete this study In addition, I would also like to say thanks to those first-year/second-year English majored students for their enthusiastic help and support during the challenging time of conducting the research ABSTRACT Nowadays, the English language plays an important role in every field of our daily lives In order to learn English well and fluently, learners must improve their language skills Listening, which can be regarded as the most difficult skill in learning foreign languages and English in particular, is the skill that learners face many challenges Students at Hong Duc University (HDU) also face many difficulties in English listening So, the researcher conducts a study on difficulties in English listening skills experienced by first-year/ second-year English majored students This thesis focuses on three main issues: the attitudes of first-year/ secondyear English majored students at HDU toward English listening skills; difficulties in English listening skills experienced by first-year/ second-year English majored students at HDU and suggested solutions to help freshmen and sophomores improve their listening skills The quantitative methods were used to collect data for the study To be specific, survey questionnaires were used to distribute to 100 students in classes (K22, K23) Raw data were converted to numbers and percentages From the results analyzed, there were conclusions drawn about students' attitudes and their difficulties in English listening skills Freshmen were aware of the importance of listening skills and most of them valued this as the most difficult skill among English skills First-year/ second-year students face many difficulties in listening (subjective difficulties and objective difficulties) From the research findings, the researcher offered suggestions and recommendations to help students solve difficulties in listening to English The researcher hopes this study can help first-year/ second-year students improve their listening skill and support further studies to avoid shortcomings and limitations i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS v PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study 3 Research questions Research methodology Scope of the study Organization of the study PART II: CONTENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definitions 1.1.1 Listening skills 1.1.2 The importance of listening skill in the language learning .6 1.1.3 Listening process .9 1.2 Difficulties in English listening skill 12 1.2.1 Subjective difficulties 12 1.2.2 Objective difficulties .15 1.2.3 Causes of difficulties .17 1.3 Previous studies 19 1.3.1 In the world .19 1.3.2 In Viet Nam .22 1.4 Summary 23 Chapter 2: METHODOLODY 25 2.1 General information about Hong Duc University (HDU) and Faculty of Foreign Languages (FFL) .25 2.2 Participants 25 2.3 Research instruments 27 ii 2.4 Data collection and analysis .28 2.4.1 Data collection 28 2.4.2 Data analysis 28 Chapter 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29 3.1 Findings 29 3.1.1 Frist-year/ second-year English majored students’ attitudes toward English listening skills 29 3.1.2 First/second-year English majored students’ difficulties in English listening learning 33 3.1.3 Solutions to deal with difficulties of listening comprehension of first/secondyear English majored students’ 38 3.2 Discussions 42 3.3 Summary 45 PART III: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 47 Conclusion 47 Recommendations 48 2.1 Strategies 48 2.1.1 For students .49 2.1.2 For teachers .51 2.2 Using technology .53 Limitation and suggestion for further studies .55 Summary .55 REFERENCES 56 APPENDIX iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L2 Second language FFL Faculty of Foreign Languages FLC English Language Centre HDU Hong Duc University CD Compact disc EF Education First iv LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS 1, Tables Table 3.1 Student’s evaluation on different language skills Table 3.2 Satisfaction level with listening skills Table 3.3 Difficulties in students’ listening Table 3.4 Solutions to deal with difficulties of listening comprehension 2, Charts Chart 2.1 Participants survey Chart 2.2 Period of time learning English Chart 3.1 What you think about listening skill? Chart 3.2 Chart 3.3 Chart 3.4 Chart 3.5 Students’ attitude towards the importance of English listening skill comprehension Time to practice listening skill everyday Take notes while listening to improve comprehension and retain vocabulary Listening materials v PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale In today’s globalization movement, the influence of English cannot be rejected and overlooked because they universally use it in all parts of the world English is the official language of over 53 countries and territories, and it is the official language of the European Union We can say that English has become a global language and is like a travel ticket, a bridge to help you easily get a steady career with higher wages Especially for a developing country like Vietnam, English was taught very early, from the late 1980s, in the early 1990s when the country implemented innovative policies, and the relations with The United Stated were normalized, the movement to learn English thrived Since then, English has been introduced into the national education system in Vietnam as a compulsory subject Besides, there are many young people who are aware of its importance for reasons such as finding a high-quality job, communicating with the outside world, accessing the scientific resources that they are following So, that is also the reason many universities and colleges now teach a lot of content in English and regulate foreign language output standards (English) for graduates Therefore, teaching and learning English has been a concern of many universities and colleges nationwide In fact, Vietnam is currently in the group of countries with average English ability, ranking 41/88 according to the report on English skill of the public Education First (EF) published November 2018 The reception of the new language will make learners face many obstacles related to the four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing But, most learners have many difficulties with listening skills As a final year student in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, I realized that listening is an important skill but difficult to practice So, my research will focus on difficulties encountered by first-year/ second-year English majors students in learning to listen to comprehension skills at Hong Duc University Then, to find out some solutions to help first and second year students to improve the listening skills There are many reasons for me to choose this topic for research The first reason comes from the fact that the first-year/ second-year students’ English listening skills are quite weak in listening comprehension Most first-year/ second-year students are all too familiar with the high school curriculum They only focus on learning grammar and vocabulary but are less interested in practicing language skills such as English listening practice Scores for listening tests at university are very low Most freshmen and sophomores are afraid of learning to listen or listen to tests Besides, according to Lewis (1993), listening is also the most important input means of learning a foreign language and increasing students’ verbal perception and supporting foreign language learning Indeed, listening is an important and difficult skill Listening is a technique that cannot be ignored when learning a foreign language Listening plays an important role in other remaining skills such as speaking, reading, and writing All skills are related to each other and used in combination in everyday life Most learners will find their listening skills difficult and choose to avoid listening to English However, as students of the FFL, firstyear/ second-year students need to raise awareness of the importance of listening skills and try to overcome difficulties Unlike students of other departments, FFL students need to be aware of the relationship of listening skills with others skills, learners should not focus on a certain skill that they find easy to ignore other skills One of the other reasons is the personal experience I have had a lot of difficulties in learning and practicing listening skills In fact, in my first-year, my listening test scores were the lowest compared to the other skills And that continued in the second year, I was very sad because I tried but the results still did not improve Like other students, I want to improve my listening skills so that I can use specialized English well after graduation and then have a stable job for myself Of course, to get this, learners need a lot of effort Freshmen and sophomores have a lot of time and opportunities to research and improve their skills Therefore, the researcher wants to, through this study, find out the difficulties that first-year/ second-year are facing, and offer practical solutions for themselves I hope the results of this study bring benefits not only for me but also for the first-year/ second-year students who are weak in English listening skills Moreover, there have been many types of research on the listening skills of HDU students, but very few people have studied specifically about difficulties in listening skills that first-year/ second-year English students have experienced Therefore, I have more motivation to be addicted to the research on this topic to help students in FFL These are the main rationales that prompt the researcher to carry out the study of the topic “A study on difficulties encountered by first-year/ second-year English majored students in learning listening comprehension skills at Hong Duc University” Aims of the study The research was conducted in order to find out the difficulties that the first and second year students faced when learning English listening skill at Hong Duc University (HDU) More specifically, the research further seeks to suggest solutions to help the students overcome the difficulties in order to improve their listening effectively Research questions It is true that listening is vital in language learning in that it provides input for the learner Without understanding inputs, students can’t learn anything Listening skill is by both the teachers and the students considered the most difficult to achieve among the four skills This, therefore, drove me to conduct this study With the hope of contributing some suggestive techniques for learning listening and it is carried out with the purpose of finding the answers to the three research questions below: What are the students’ attitudes towards listening learning? What are the difficulties students often encounter in learning listening skills? What are techniques used to improve the listening skills for the first-year/ second-year students in Foreign Language Department at Hong Duc University? Research methodology The research methodology used is the quantitative method The researcher designed a questionnaire consisting of smaller and more specific questions These questions include closed questions (questions are available with answers) The questionnaires were delivered to 100 students who were selected in the scope of the study, then the questionnaires were retrieved for results Results are transferred to specific number data and the data are clearly analyzed Scope of the study First, the scope of the study is the difficulties in learning English listening skills experienced by first-year/ second-year English majored students at HDU The has been discussed and analyzed in chapter two show that the students at FFL can more or less know something about listening skill and that they utilize it in dealing with the listening tasks However, the number of the students being effective listeners is modest while the rest of the students seem to be ineffective ones Base on the findings in the preceding chapter about the listening skills of the students as well as their difficulties To deal with the difficulties, different strategies are applied by the students 46 PART III: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion Based on the findings and discussion of the students’ difficulties in listening skills and strategies improve for first year/ second-year students in FFL at HDU Findings of the study show that listening is vital not only in language learning but also in daily communication However, the students seem to have many difficult problems with listening comprehension skills Here are the most common problems collected from the learners: the time they spend on studying themselves is too little to improve the skill; not recognizing words, unfamiliarity of topics, noises and quality of equipment, fast rate of speech are the top factors that impair listening comprehension Another important point is students' feeling towards listening Students enjoy listening exercises though they feel afraid sometimes As a matter of fact, when students enjoy what they listen to, they will concentrate, which will increase their listening comprehension The opposite is true, too When students are anxious because they are about to listen to English conversation or native speakers, they stop listening and concentrating The feeling of failure and the idea of trying something new and succeed in it stop them Additionally, schools of boys and girls, and private and public ones, are the same in the policies they follow in teaching English language with very slight differences Listening skills are ignored, which affect negatively on the whole mastering of English language Even the number of school years studying English does not have any good effect on listening comprehension The reason behind this is that teaching English at high schools skip listening skills and does not teach the language in authentic situations, so that students can make use of it in their daily life Students get stunned when listening to daily-life conversation and to native speakers since they are not used to them Furthermore, students are not only bad at listening comprehension, but also they lack lots of vocabulary, and they have very little idea about using and understanding vocabulary in context They just memorize what is written in books without getting the chance to use Besides, the first-year/ second-year students of the FFL at Hong Duc University were well aware of the difficulty of listening skills, so they used some 47 solutions to improve From the results of the finding section, most students actively use and learn about different learning methods However, it is not really effective and these methods have not really helped them have a clear change in improving listening comprehension skills Most students will choose simple methods such as listening to copying, listening passively, And, the students themselves should have much more exposure to a variety of listening, in other words, the student's listening material should be rich Especially beginners (first-year students), may focus on listening practice first, and gradually incorporate speaking practice based on their learning progress themselves More efficiently, students can have a habit of checking new words in the English dictionary from the beginning of their learning process Then, guessing new words, underlining keywords beforehand, and taking note of the main ideas could help them keep up with the speed of the speakers and understand the content of the text Simultaneously, they should learn the tips or strategies through each of their learning themselves Recommendations 2.1 Strategies Based on the study results, listening is one of the difficult skills for students as foreign language learners even though they are students in FFL Although students encountered various kinds of problems in listening comprehension, they need to study hard to become better listeners Because listening is one of the important skills that provides input for the learners not only in language learning but also in daily communication Besides, not all the problems described above can be overcome Certain features of the message and the speaker, for instance, are inevitable But this does not mean that the teacher can nothing about them They can at least provide the students with suitable listening materials, background, and linguistic knowledge, enabling skills, pleasant classroom conditions, and useful exercises to help them discover effective listening strategies Accordingly, the researcher offers the following some suggestions that could be employed for teachers and students to encounter listening comprehension problems: 48 2.1.1 For students To get a positive result in listening skills, the students should have a high degree of autonomy in this skill The students as the listeners need to practice by themselves to train their listening intensively in order to help them overcome their problems about the topic in listening This means that students should set a plan for practicing listening for themselves Vocabulary is always a problem that hinders and causes difficulties for students Therefore, widening vocabulary is extremely important as the limited poses difficulties to most students Hence, reading English newspapers, magazines and watching English teaching programs on television by also various accents are some of the learning strategies of some students More efficiently, many students can have a habit of checking new words in the English dictionary from the beginning of their learning process It is suggesting that guessing new words, underlining keywords before, and taking note of the main ideas could help students keep up with the speed of the speakers And, when you have found a listening song with suitable content, you should not just listen to it once, you should listen to it again and again The solution to follow up to improve listening skills is to choose review materials that are suitable for your level, or slightly higher These documents I usually refer to as "input" Everyone's level is different, so there's no one-size-fitsall formula If you listen to things you don't understand at all, you'll be easily frustrated and confused On the contrary, if you can listen to understand the whole thing, you will develop a feeling of subjectivity, pride As you listen, you will have to try to decipher a few words in this passage or that passage, but will be motivated to find the complete main idea In addition, your ears will constantly hone what you already know and absorb new things Start listening with material you understand the basics of, then gradually move on to more difficult material as your level increases Next, focus on the big picture, ignoring the small details Of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and that the listening, it requires the most concentration If you don't focus on what you need to hear, you may miss the core 49 message being communicated So when listening you have to focus on the "big picture", the main message of the document For example, when someone asks you "What kind of movies you like?" (What's your favorite film genre?) You can capture the word "what", "movies", "like" (what, movie, like) or just two words "movies" and "like", then you can guess the content of the question without having to know the meaning of the remaining words This means that you need to capture the main idea and anticipate it As you know, native speakers speak very fast and maybe a lot of your listening material is too slow compared to the actual speed of communication They speak so fast and fluently that it is difficult for learners to distinguish each short, long, or content being mentioned In order to be able to speak with native speakers, you not need to practice listening at a fast pace in the first place because at your level it will be difficult to learn this material Instead, listen to the material at first at a pace that's appropriate for your level, then work your way up to the native speaker's threshold Listen to it a few times at a slower speed and then speed it up step by step until you reach native speed The fact is that second language learners often view listening practice as a passive activity, meaning that you just need to let the sound move into your ears, thereby gradually improving your ability However, learning will be even more effective if you master it, turning passive learning into active learning And ideally, combine these two methods of learning together Regarding active listening, you should learn through taking notes Have a pen and paper ready When listening, write down the topic of the listening material, writing down the main idea of their speech When you don't understand, write these words down to look up later If you come across a word or sentence that you find interesting, write it down so you can practice using it in your own conversations Or while listening, focus on new words, phrases, and sentence patterns that the listener has just discovered This will help leave an impression in the brain and help improve listening comprehension skills As a student majoring in English, I believe that in order to pursue a long-term language, learners need to experience many learning activities that make them motivated and want to learn day by day Listening habits are an important part, you should change them regularly to inspire learning As soon as you can concentrate on 50 listening while sitting at your desk, don't it forever, change the environment to make learning more interesting You can listen to English while doing housework, on the bus, on the train, etc Once you've found some listening activity that interests you, rotate it into your weekly listening study A major shortcoming of most students of English pedagogy is being too hasty They quickly dived into the huge amount of documents and were far above their level So no matter how hard they try, they don't get much results The last key I give everyone is patience The Eastern people have a saying that "Haste Makes Waste", that is, you should build your ability from the first bricks, corresponding to your temporary level Practice patiently, cultivate from easy to difficult, you will achieve what you want Listening skills, like all other activities, take time to develop They depend on so many factors (including learning time, listening volume and depth of vocabulary), none of which can be done via shortcuts The only way to improve hearing is to be consistent Practice every day, upgrade the material, change your learning and form a habit, and keep it that way for months and years, and you'll soon find that your listening comprehension has increased exponentially multiply If you are impatient and unable to so, your hearing will develop at a much slower rate Furthermore don't forget to apply listening strategies which become the main point if you want to succeed in a listening comprehension test Keep positive thinking of your listening comprehension test 2.1.2 For teachers However, the skill of students will not be improved the best without teachers Teachers play such a significant in building up their skills English lecturer should prepare their students to know the importance of communication skills and put a good strategy to teach them such as role-play, it will train them to ask and answer The lecturers also need to be aware of students‟ psychological Both anxieties, boredom will interrupt their learning and it indicates a barrier in their listening comprehension test The lecturer also should become more aware of the problems encountered by their students in academics to find a good strategy to teach in order 51 to make the students become better listeners Accordingly, the researcher offers the following suggestions: It is obvious that students differ in their learning styles and ability, therefore, teachers should adopt and adapt listening materials that match their students’ interest and background since the listening materials only become stimulating and motivating them when they are slightly challenging to what they have already known and suit their interest From the investigation, one of the great causes for the students in listening comprehension is their lack of vocabulary The majority of all the students report not having sufficient vocabulary in listening comprehension and a small number complains that their vocabulary is too poor to understand It is, therefore necessary for teachers to equip students with certain keywords needed for listening comprehension since lack of vocabulary becomes a great obstacle to them in listening comprehension However, it is better to activate students’ vocabulary by asking them to guess the meaning of words used in the listening context before explaining the meaning to them, since whenever students are able to relate what they have already known to what they are supposed to listen for, they are likely to listen better or more effectively Make students aware of different native-speaker accents Of course, strong regional accents are not suitable for training in listening, but in spontaneous conversation native speakers have certain accents Moreover, the American accent is quite different from the British and Australian Therefore, it is necessary to let students deal with different accents, especially in extensive listening The findings in the study show that incorrect pronunciation hinders at least many students from listening comprehension, so teachers need to help students expose themselves and get familiar with the precise pronunciation of native speakers By doing that the students’ pronunciation capacity is much more improved, which will help students find listening to native speakers effective and efficient Many teachers suppose that students’ accurate pronunciation is of great help for them in listening acquisition They also believe that one of the ultimate results of listening acquisition is to train students to produce accurate pronunciation 52 Students are asked to predict what the text is about or what the speaker is going to say next In order to encourage students to imagine and predict what they are going to hear, the teacher may tell something about the topic of the listening text or something about the speaker(s) Besides, students can be asked to predict the grammar structures that are likely to be used in the listening text or make a list of words, phrases that relate to the topic and may appear in the listening text In this way, they can familiarize students with key concepts and vocabulary before listening to spoken text When students have a certain vocabulary in mind, they will be more self-confident and thus ready to listen effectively The teachers need to arouse interest and Motivating Students to Attend to the Spoken Message Students will be more willing to listen actively to what the speaker says if they are able to relate the listening experience to their own lives Besides, teachers can create an environment conducive to listening and encourage effective listening behaviors that are necessary lifelong skills 2.2 Using technology Teaching foreign languages integrated with skill development, learning foreign languages on the basis of technology is an educational trend that is being applied in the world and in Vietnam This advanced training method is effective, helping learners approach the language and learn more practical and applied ways It emphasizes the creativity and initiative of the learners Currently, the lecturers are still dominant used audio listening material in the laboratories with tapes and tape recorders as the main media The use of visual aids in teaching listening is only a variation Furthermore, the use of multimedia-based materials is almost non-existent This is one of the causes of the students’ low ability to listen is the lack of a variety of teaching materials used in listening In fact, activities listening with videos are more attractive to students and they can understand because they are supported by visualization A visual aid is something the students can see and helps them to get the speaker's message Visual aids help students to shape a clear picture of the concept in our mind which is being spoken They also help them to eliminate misunderstandings that might otherwise occur So, teachers need to exploit visual aids or draw pictures and diagrams related to the 53 listening topics to aid students to guess and imagine actively Visual aids draw learners’ attention, increase their motivation on the topic and help them relate to the content of the spoken text, thus the listener overcomes difficulties such as unknown words, minimal pairs of words First of all, songs, pictures, videos, or other sorts of visualization in listening skills will probably help widely in the conception of learning a foreign language Use illustration in listening skills, and leads us to realize this tool assists students in translation definition and description of particular topics and vocabulary involved The different types of visual aids are useful because they provide students with a pre-listening knowledge of the topic or activity they are going to face This kind of material could include diagrams, films, pictures, magazines or books, etc Diagrams of a sequence of events could help students to get details from the listening If students are going to fill in gaps Films are a great way to understand what someone is talking about because they can be heard not only in the speech itself but also in the movements and facial gestures Films could be about a place in a city or countryside, about an animal and its habitat, or a domesticated animal living in a certain place either in the city or in the countryside Pictures about famous people like singers, actors and so on Magazines and books with a variety of topics like food, sports, natural life, and so on The presence of this material in the classroom is of huge value in contextualizing and bringing to life the listening situation as well in aiding comprehension of the language The management of visual aids differs from one to another type For example, pictures and sketches are simple for being gasped at a glance and they could be attached on the board for being watched for students On the other hand, films, or videos could be presented to the whole class with a television set or a DVD system, which could show not only the sound or listening itself but also the movements of the actors These will have great attractive power on students and it will make them be engaged in the activity Alternatively, magazines, books, and photocopies could be distributed among students to be watched and to be deducted in order to grasp the topic`s main idea 54 Limitation and suggestion for further studies In spite of the researcher’s effort and enthusiastic support of supervisor, this paper still has got some shortcomings Firstly, because of the limited time, some other books, documents, research, which related to this study, could not be covered Secondly, the number of participants in the is small, which somehow does not generalize to the whole population Therefore, for further studies, the researcher suggests more students with different background and achievement in order to get more listening techniques In the future, studies may consider the following directions: i The present study needs to be carried out with a large sample because the sample size was too small to generalize an overall conclusion applying to all HDU learners ii A standardized inventory of listening difficulties could be created to provide instructors and learners with an efficient way to diagnose strategy difficulties iii The present study needs to be studied in different English learning contexts in Viet Nam iv A study on the use of listening text-taking strategies and their relationship with students student's performance at Hong Duc University v Further research needs to be conducted with more comprehensive samples including the primary, secondary, and preparatory levels in order to get a complete picture of the problem It is hoped that the results of this study will contribute to improving the teaching and learning in the field of listening comprehension at Hong Duc University in particular and in Viet Nam in general Summary This chapter has once again summarized the findings of the research and related them to previous studies The questions of the study are discussed fully It drew conclusions based on the findings In particular, providing solutions to improve listening skills for first-year and second-year students of the FFL at Hong Duc University Moreover, the researcher wrote some suggestions for teachers, researchers and curriculum designers As well as figured out the limitation of the paper and suggestions for further studies 55 REFERENCES 1, Buck, G (2001) Assessing Listening Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 2, Chastain, K (1971) The Development of Modern Language Skills: Theory to Practice Philadelphia: Center for Curriculum Development 3, D Renukadevi (2014) The Role of Listening in Language Acquisition; the Challenges & Strategies in Teaching Listening P60 4, Gilakjani, A.P., and Ahmadi, M.R (2011) A Study of Factors Affecting EFL Learners' English Listening Comprehension and the Strategies for Improvement Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol 2, No 5, pp.977-988 5, Goh, C (1999) Teaching Listening In the Language Classroom Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre 6, Hansan, A (2000) Learners’ perceptions of listening comprehension problems Language, Culture and Curriculum, 13, 137-152 7, Krashen, S D (1985) The Input Hypothesis London: Longman 8, Le Thi Hong Loan (2012) Difficulties in learning listening skill experienced by the first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University in Hai Phong city 9, Naci Yildiz and Mustafa Albay (2015) Listening comprehension difficulties encountered by students in second language learning class 10, O’Malley, J.M., Chamot, A.U & Kupper, L (1989) Listening comprehension strategies in second language acquisition Applied Linguistics 11, Oxford, R (1990) Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle 12, Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi (2016) The Importance of Listening Comprehension in Language Learning University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran 13, Tilahun (2008) Factors that cintribute to the problems EFL learners face in the listening skills classroom Addis Ababa University 14, Trinh Vinh Hien (2013) Difficulties encountered by the first-year English major students at Lac Hong University 15, Underwood, M (1989) Teaching Listening New York: Longman 56 16, Vandergrift, L (2004) Listening to Learn or Learning to Listen? In Cambridge University Press (Ed.), Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2004) (pp 3-25) Cambridge University Press, USA 17, Vandergrift, L (2007) Recent Development in Second Language Listening Comprehension Research In Graeme Porte (Ed.), Language Teaching: Surveys and Studies (pp 291-210) Cambridge University Press, Canada 18, Vandergrift, L (2011) Listening: Theory and Practices in Modern Foreign Language Competence Retrieved on September 19th 2012 19, Yagang, F (1994) Listening: Problems And Solutions In T.kral(ed) Teacher Development: Making The Right Moves Washington, DC: English language program divisions, USIA 57 APPENDIX SURVEY FORM (This survey questionnaire is designed to collect data for the study “Difficulties encountered by first/second-year English majored in English listening skills at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hong Duc University”) This survey is being conducted as part of our research for the listening class This research paper aims to investigate some academic listening problems encountered by first-year/second-year English majored It just takes a few minutes to answer the following questions Taking part in this survey is completely voluntary and you can back out any time as well We promise we will keep the privacy, and that is only for the study Thank you so much for your grateful cooperation! Put a tick (✓) in the appropriate column Part 1: General information You are a ………… First-year student Second-year student How long have you been learning English? 1-3 years 4-7 years More than years Which skill you find the most difficult when learning English? Reading Writing Listening What you think about llistening skills? Listening is difficult Listening is boring and uninteresting Listening is exciting Do you think that listening comprehension is important? Very important Important Normal Not important Are you satisfied with your listening skills? Yes No How much time you spend listening to English at home every day? More than hours 1-2 hours Less than hour other, please specify ……… Speaking Part 2: Difficulties you experience with listening comprehension ( Symbols, that: Always: (1); Usually: (2); Seldom: (3); Never: (4)) Listening to texts in which there are too many unfamiliar words The spoken text contains jargon or idioms, or complex grammatical structures, or slang 10 Unfamiliar accents or spoken texts that have unfamiliar stress and intonation patterns or when speakers speak too fast 11 Difficult to understand the meaning of the spoken text without seeing the speaker's body language 12 Have a habit of having to understand all the words in a sentence to understand the content of the article 13 Lose concentration or tiredness when the text is too long 14 Difficult to follow the sequence of the spoken text when the sentences are too long and complex 15 Difficult to capture all the information and not predict the next information 16 Unable to concentrate because look for the answers and listen to the dialogue at the same time 17 Not paying attention when listening 18 It takes many times to understand 19 Difficult to concentrate with noises around 20 There are unclear sounds resulting from a poor-quality CD player 21 Poor acoustic and poor equipment conditions of the classroom Part 3: Solutions to deal with difficulties of listening comprehension ( Symbols, that: Always: (1); Usually: (2); Seldom: (3); Never: (4) ) 22 Take notes while listening to improve comprehension and retain vocabulary 23 Listen to spoken English from multiple sources as much as possible 24 Listen to the key points in the audio listened to without getting distracted by what didn’t understand and guess the new word meaning 25 Stop the audio the moment can’t hear a word clearly and automatically 26 Repeat this process until can understand without the text 27 Practice listening at both: slow, moderate, and fast speeds 28 Find listening material that was slightly above level 29 Find out environment to practice listening skills such as practicing in a place that has many foreign visitors who help practice listening skills with natives Thank you!