BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE o0o GRADUATION THESIS CHALLENGES OF ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS WHEN STUDY “LISTENING 2” COURSE AT BANKING ACADEMY Student Trinh Thi Thu Tinh Class[.]
BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE -o0o - GRADUATION THESIS CHALLENGES OF ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS WHEN STUDY “LISTENING 2” COURSE AT BANKING ACADEMY Student : Trinh Thi Thu Tinh Class : K20ATCC Academic year : 2017-2021 Student ID : 20A7510180 Supervisor : Ms Tran Thi Xuan Anh Ha Noi, May 2021 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 17014125867891000000 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN I declare that this graduation thesis named “Challenges of English majored students when study “Listening 2” course at Banking Academy” is the intellectual product of my own work, under guidance of Ms Tran Thi Xuan Anh No part of this graduation thesis has been published elsewhere before All sources of information are properly citied in reference section Ha Noi, May 22, 2021 Signature (Author of thesis) Trinh Thi Thu Tinh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS After three months, my graduation thesis had completed It is time for me to express my sincere gratitude to all people who assisted me wholeheartedly First of all, I would like to thank the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Banking Academy of Vietnam for giving me a chance to this thesis I also would like to thank all teachers at Banking Academy for providing me valuable knowledge during the time I studied here Secondly, I wish I could express my appreciation to my supervisor Ms Tran Thi Xuan Anh I am extremely to her due to her detailed guidance and precious encouragement Despite of her busy schedule, she spent time giving me valuable ideas and adjustment to support me to complete the thesis better Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and my friends for their endless support and motivation when I carried out this thesis ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vi ABSTRACT vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Background Of The Study 1.3 Objectives Of The Study 1.4 Research Questions 1.5 Significance Of The Study 1.6 Scope And Limitations 1.7 Definition Of Terms CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Definitions of Listening 2.2 Differences between “Hearing” and “Listening” 2.3 Definition of Listening Comprehension 2.4 Listening Skill Problems in Learning a Foreign Language 2.4.1 Definitions of Listening Skills in Learning a Foreign Language 2.4.2 Listening Skill Problems in Learning a Foreign Language 2.5 Types of Listening Comprehension Strategies in Learning a Foreign Language 2.5.1 Cognitive Strategies 2.5.2 Metacognitive Strategies 2.5.3 Socio-affective Strategies 10 2.6 Previous Research 11 2.6.1 Vietnamese Research 11 iii 2.6.2 International Research 12 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 14 3.1 Locale of Study 14 3.2 Research Design 14 3.3 Data Gathering Procedure 14 3.4 Population and Sample description 14 3.5 Research instrument 15 3.6 Statistical Treatment 16 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 17 4.1 Findings 17 4.1.1 The rating of difficulty in Listening skill 17 4.1.2 The subjective problems of English majored students referring to Listening comprehension 21 4.1.3 The objective problems of English majored students referring to the distraction 23 4.1.4 Suggested Listening Strategies for English majored students 26 4.1.5 Some useful suggestions for language teachers 29 CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 32 5.1 Summary Of Findings 32 5.2 Conclusion 33 5.3 Recommendations 33 REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX 42 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation Meaning ESL English as the Second Language EFL English as the Foreign Language SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences ELT English Language Teaching v LIST OF TABLES Table Pages Table 4.1 The subjective problems refer to Listening comprehension 21 Table 4.2 The objective problems refer to the distraction 24 LIST OF FIGURES Figures Figure 4.1.1.1 The English majored students’ score after finishing the Pages 18 Listening courses Figure 4.1.1.2 English majored students’ opinions about the Listening skill 19 Figure 4.1.1.3 English majored students self-describing their Listening 20 abilities vi ABSTRACT Listening is one of the most fundamental skills in English language learning When students listen to English language, they face a lot of listening difficulties Students have critical difficulties in listening comprehension because universities and schools pay more attention to writing, reading, and vocabulary The purpose of this study is exploring challenges encountered by English-majored students when they study “Listening 2” course at Banking Academy of Vietnam The target population included all language students who had completed this course Data were collected by distributing a sample questionnaire of sixteen items on academic listening problems to eighty-seven English majored students The methods of this study are qualitative data collection and online data collection The analyzed data would indicate the listening difficulties which are the most influential factors to the English majored students in learning Listening courses are the accent and the speed of the speakers; lack of vocabulary and ineffective listening habits of students and, noises outside and the equipment and facilities at school To overcome these problems, the writer suggested a number of practical strategies that could help English majored students, English teachers and the university principals to improve listening ability and the students’ quality Key words: listening problems, listening difficulties, Listening 2, English majored students, strategies vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction In recent years, the increasing investment by foreign companies in Vietnam has created many job opportunities for graduates This means the one who has an English certificate will have more job opportunities and higher salary than the one who does not know about English For that reason, English – the international language, is the preferred one in which students should become experts However, there are still barriers to Vietnamese people who learn this language, because English is a Foreign Language (EFL) or the Second Language (ESL), it becomes more difficult to study than the mother tongue although both are taught in Vietnam – a non-native country In four main skills: Listening, Writing, Reading and Speaking; Listening is the most fundamental and essential thing that students should master first Before learning Reading skill, the first thing learners should have been taught is Listening skill when they were in primary school Because when the baby was born, listening was the first thing that made him aware of everything, not read, write or speak With Reading: it is a process of recognizing the face of words, combining letters into meaningful words; nevertheless, with listening, the way learners enable to understand as well as get the information from other people is much easier: not need to know how to write that word, but still know what people imply to us However, there is still a teaching method in Vietnamese education system that does not teach Listening skills first For example, the primary and secondary schools have just concentrated on learning grammar, writing and reading skills And listening is the one that learners have not paid enough attention to: when learning Listening, they only hear English vocabulary from their teacher, who does not pronounce properly; not the native speakers and this led to many problems of studying English at higher levels of education Additionally, non-native students will be put under strain while learning English at the university level, since most English-major students are required to use English in all academic activities Furthermore, the majority of the most recent materials on the subject are written in English As a result, students become more overwhelmed as they attempt to reach the required standard of English in order to keep up with the teaching curriculum and comprehend what they are learning Therefore, the aim of this study is to learn about general academic issues that English majored Students at Banking Academy are facing while studying “Listening 2” courses And, based on data analysis and findings, the writer would make several recommendations to assist English majored students overcoming their listening difficulties In addition, this study offers some helpful suggestions for the teacher's teaching method 1.2 Background Of The Study “Listening 2” is one of the very first compulsory courses for all English majored students starting at Banking Academy However, this very start subject had students struggling hard in order to pass it First of all, most of the final scores in “Listening 2” are much lower than the scores for “Listening 1” and “Listening 3” Furthermore, the number of students with A’s score is very rare, while the common C and D scores are what the students get at the end of this course Last but not least, many students have to study again in order to pass this module or improve their scores Therefore, the aim of this study is to find out what causes English majored students to have poorly academic performance in “Listening 2” In addition, the study would provide some suggestions to encourage English majored students to become more professional in Listening skills 1.3 Objectives Of The Study As noted above, to point out the reasons causing English majored students to perform poorly in the “Listening 2” module at Banking Academy is the main purpose of this study This will be finished by discovering those challenges that language students have to deal with, such as: unfamiliar vocabulary, homonyms, length and speed of listening, delaying in filling out the answer sheet Furthermore, this study is to provide some effective methods to enhance the English majored students’ general academic performance at university and to give solutions