Insights into challenges in listening comprehension encountered by english majored seniors at banking academy

Therefore, the thesis named "Insights into challenges in listening comprehension encountered by majored seniors at Banking Academy" was conducted to investigate the difficulties that las

STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Student : NGUYEN VAN ANH Student Code : 20A7510016

Class : K20ATCA Course : 2017 - 2021 Instructor : MS NGUYEN THI THUY

Hanoi, May 2021

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Student : NGUYEN VAN ANH

Student Code : 20A7510016

By signing the declaration, you are stating that you have not plagiarized

Use the following as a checklist

 This work is entirely my own

 I have not copied another student’s work

 I have not copied or used in any way material from a text, journal, website or other published source without acknowledgement (including non – English sources)

 I have cited and referenced fully and correctly as required by ATC where applicable

 I have not reworded material from another source and presented it as my own

 I have not used this work in a previous class (self – plagiarism)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I received several helpful suggestions, valuable ideas, and timely encouragement from my teachers, family, and friends throughout writing this graduation thesis This present study would not be possible without the assistance, motivation, and kindness of various individuals, all of whom deserve my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation

Beforehand and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to express the thankfulness to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Thuy, an English teacher at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, who has always been enthusiastic about providing

me with helpful guidance and suggestions in order for me to complete this report

I am also highly grateful to K20 students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages for their enthusiastic involvement in the research

I would want to show my appreciation to all of the writers of the books, magazines, and other resources mentioned in the reference section for their ideas, which have been reflected and developed in the report

I am similarly grateful to my classmates for their advice and encouragement during

my studies

Finally, I would like to show my thankfulness to my parents for their support and encouragement, both of which contributed significantly to my graduation document

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES vi

ABSTRACT vii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Scope and limitation of the study 3

1.5 Definition of terms 3

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 5

2.1 Overview of listening 5

2.1.1 Definition of listening 5

2.1.2 Significance of listening 7

2.1.3 Classification of listening 8

2.1.4 Listening process 13

2.2 Factors affecting listening comprehension and related problems 17

2.2.1 Subjective factors and related problems 17

2.2.2 Objective factors and related problems 19

2.3 Strategies for improving listening comprehension 23

2.3.1 Cognitive strategies 23

2.3.2 Metacognitive strategies 24

2.3.3 Socio-affective strategies 25

2.4 Chapter summary 27

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 28

3.1 Research design 28

3.2 Locale of the study 28

3.3 Population and Sampling technique 28

3.3.1 Population 28

3.3.2 Sampling technique 29

3.4 Research instrument 29

3.5 Data gathering procedure 31

3.6 Statistical treatment 31

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 34

4.1 Difficulties in listening comprehension of ATC seniors 34

4.2 Causes of difficulties in listening comprehension of ATC seniors 39

4.3 ATC seniors' perspectives on listening strategies 45

4.4 Chapter summary 51

CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 52

5.1 Summary of findings 52

5.2 Conclusion 53

5.3 Implications 53

5.4 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 56

REFERENCES 57

APPENDICES 64

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Participants in the study 29

Table 2 Levels of reliability 32

Table 3 Reliability statistics of section 2 and 3 of the survey 32

Table 4 Difficulties in listening comprehension of ATC seniors 34

Table 5 Causes of difficulties in listening comprehension of ATC seniors 39

Table 6 ATC seniors' perspectives on listening strategies 45

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Five periods in listening comprehension process 13 Figure 2 Information sources in listening comprehension 14

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ABSTRACT

One of the essential abilities for communicating in everyday life is listening This ability is becoming increasingly crucial in the study of a foreign language Everyone understands that listening to a message is not as easy as hearing it; the listener must comprehend the message and react appropriately Therefore, the thesis named

"Insights into challenges in listening comprehension encountered by majored seniors at Banking Academy" was conducted to investigate the difficulties that last-year students in the Faculty of Foreign Language at Banking Academy face while learning to listen Additionally, the writer would like to explore the underlying causes of these issues and participants' perspectives on strategies in listening comprehension In terms of analysis, a data collection instrument, a questionnaire, was distributed to 95 individuals Then, these quantitative data were processed by the SPSS software The findings' results showed that most ACT seniors' problems in listening are related to phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and other factors Besides that, the strategies that they think are beneficial for their listening comprehension were determined The writer tried her hardest to complete this study in the hopes of devising appropriate solutions and strengthening students' listening skills

English-Keywords: challenges, listening comprehension, English-majored seniors

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

In everyday communication, listening is the most frequently used skill (Morley, 1999; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992) According to Mendelsohn (1994), listening accounts for 45–50% of overall communication time As a result, listening is undeniably essential for both communicating and learning a foreign language Listening ability is critical in language acquisition since it offers language input According to Krashen et al (1982, as cited in Hamouda, A., 2012), acquisition occurs only when students consume enough comprehensible input According to Rost (2002, as cited in Hamouda, A., 2012), listening is vital in learning a language

in particular and communication in general because it provides input for learners Furthermore, Krashen argues that students will not learn any language level unless they understand the linguistic input Therefore, listening is a primary language ability that deserves to be prioritized over language students' other three skill areas

As a result, listening is regarded as critical for developing receptive skills and developing spoken language proficiency

Furthermore, native and non-native English-speaking countries have commonly used English as a primary language at many educational levels worldwide Listening comprehension is becoming increasingly critical in learning a foreign language, as shown in seminars and television It is significant for the majority of English as a second language learner (ESL)

Despite the importance of listening skills in learning English, teaching and learning listening skills have long been neglected and given little attention Furthermore, the Vietnamese education system emphasizes coaching tests with a heavy emphasis on grammar, reading, and vocabulary As a result, listening is included in course books

at many educational levels; however, teachers ignore it during lessons As a result, many Vietnamese students, including those who do well on grammatical exams, cannot interact effectively with foreigners in everyday situations According to Nguyen (2007), the most profound reason is the inability to understand what native speakers say due to a lack of listening comprehension

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Furthermore, outside of what they learn in the classroom, rural students in Vietnam have little exposure to the English language The teacher's voice is the primary means by which students learn English Besides, the low quality of cassettes has a discernible impact on the process of practicing and testing listening, especially in rural areas where cassette players are either of poor quality or run off batteries Due

to the low-quality sound, the students are having difficulty listening As a result of these factors, most students from rural and mountainous areas are taken aback when learning to listen in university Despite the diversity of literature in this area, little attention is paid to realistic solutions and practical purposes

Having studied in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Banking Academy of Vietnam for almost four years, the writer discovered that numerous English students still have difficulties with listening skills After finishing the three-stage training program for ATC students encompassing Listening I, Listening II, and Listening III, some seniors still complained about their lack of confidence with listening activities, causing them to struggle to understand the spoken messages Furthermore, few studies in Banking Academy include a comprehensive overview

of students' problems learning to listen Therefore, a study titled "Insights into challenges in listening comprehension encountered by English-majored seniors at Banking Academy" is being conducted to increase students' perceptions of the value

of listening in learning English and their listening difficulties This work also offers essential observations and pedagogical consequences for ATC students

1.2 Objectives of the study

The thesis aims to determine the most common difficulties in learning listening encountered by ATC seniors Secondly, the underlying causes of their listening comprehension issues will also be examined Last but not least, the project is designed to identify students' perspectives on strategies in listening

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1.3 Significance of the study

Once completed, the objects that this thesis will support are manifold

The study's conclusions and recommendations are thought to improve Vietnamese college students' listening processes in general and ATC students from a pedagogical standpoint The findings of this analysis will provide the students themselves and other persons involved in this area with positive support

Furthermore, the study's results give suggestions for those who create listening materials

More specifically, the study results will increase teachers' awareness of their students' difficulties, directing them to reconstruct their teaching curriculum to meet their students' needs

1.4 Scope and limitation of the study

Within this report, the researcher only focuses on ATC seniors to explore the listening problems they commonly face and then make recommendations to address discovered difficulties and enhance students' listening capacity The study's population consists of 95 last-year students in the Faculty of Foreign Language in Banking Academy

1.5 Definition of terms

* ATC seniors: are final year students majoring in English for Banking and Finance

at Banking Academy

* Listening: "is the process of receiving, constructing meaning and responding to

spoken and/ or nonverbal messages" (Mariela, 2015)

* Hearing: "is a physical and natural process, is passive, only a simple reception of

sounds." (Mariela, 2015)

* EFL (English as a Foreign Language): "refers to the teaching of English to

students whose first language is not English" (dictionary.cambridge.org)

* Listening strategies: "refer to decision-making operations which a learner

employs in processing a listening task." (Mariela, 2015)

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* Bottom-up strategies: "are text-based; the listener relies on the language in the

message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning." (Mariela, 2015)

* Top-down strategies: "are listener based; the listener taps into background

knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language." (Mariela, 2015)

* Cognitive strategies: "are mental strategies that the students use to create a sense

of learning Cognitive strategies “operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning.” (Mariela, 2015)

* Metacognitive strategies: "are actions we perform consciously to increase or

facilitate our learning process and are good strategies when we want to improve our listening skill The intended use of metacognitive strategies helps learners get back their focus when they lose it." (Mariela, 2015)

* Social strategies: "involve the students’ social relationships with their classmates;

the communication takes place in or out of the classroom The use of these strategies helps to work with other students and at the same time to help them to learn better." (Mariela, 2015)

* Affective strategies: "refer to emotional and psychological situations on students;

it means to make both emotional and psychological changes that will help students learn better In other words, when students worry too much, their affective system does not function normally and interferes with listening comprehension." (Mariela, 2015)

* SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences): "is software for editing and

analyzing all sorts of data These data may come from basically any source: scientific research, a customer database, Google Analytics, or even the server log files of a website SPSS can open all file formats that are commonly used for structured data such as spreadsheets from MS Excel or OpenOffice; plain text files; relational databases; Stata and SAS." (definition on the website of spss-tutorials)

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter will review relevant studies in this area, following the background and research questions discussed in the previous section This section will focus on the overview of listening skills, the difficulties, causes, and strategies for listening comprehension, which serve as the theoretical foundation for the study

2.1 Overview of listening

2.1.1 Definition of listening

Some conventional viewpoints hold that listening, like reading, is passive language ability It means that students are almost entirely passive in their application of listening skills in the classroom The learners must primarily hear the message; they may only attempt to elicit the meaning from the utterance's individual syntactic and semantic components and how it is spoken The method of measuring the learners' comprehension is based on their ability to recall the utterance they have just heard This approach is ineffective since recalling the utterance does not imply that the listener comprehends the message In reality, the learners are not given enough details about what they can hear until the tape begins to play, and they deal with a broad range of problems when listening, as a result of which they are unable to gain any listening experience from the instructor

However, in recent years, several current research on listening comprehension has come to a different conclusion in which listeners are thought to play an active role Gary Buck's concept of listening comprehension (2001) is one of the most well-known He emphasizes that "listening comprehension is an active process of constructing." For many years, many contexts are achieved by adding information

to the incoming in which “numbers of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic sound and non-linguistic knowledge.”

To put it another way, Gary Buck concludes that “comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables and that potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect the comprehension of the message.” In other words, comprehension of a spoken message may be isolated word recognition

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within the sound stream, phrase or formula recognition, clause or sentence comprehension, or extended speech comprehension (Scarcella and Oxford, 1992) Littlewood (1981) shared the same perspective on listening comprehension with Gary Buck He stated that active participation from the hearer is required while listening The listener must consciously contribute information from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources to build the message that the speaker intends Because of the essence of listening comprehension, the hearer should be encouraged to participate in an active phase of listening for meanings, using linguistic cues and nonlinguistic information

Anderson and Lynch (1988) hold opposing views They regard the listener as an involved model maker They believe that to listen successfully, people must establish their own "coherent understanding" of any spoken message Both sections

of this word are essential First, both the meaning and the word as a whole must be consistent Second, it is an interpretation because it interprets what the speaker said,

as far as people can determine the context The conceptual model they build to reflect a spoken message integrates the new information they learned with prior knowledge and experience

According to Rost (1991), “comprehension is often considered to be the first-order goal of listening, the highest priority of the listener, and sometimes the sole purpose

of listening.” Particularly for L2 learners learning a new language, the term

“listening comprehension” usually applies to all aspects of listening because comprehension by listening is regarded as a fundamental ability (Long & Macian, 1994) However, Rost asserted that the word "comprehension" must be used more precisely in listening experiments Furthermore, research has shown that learners act differently when listening to incoming texts depending on the intent of their listening (for example, Wolvin and Coakley, 1991) Listening comprehension, according to Rost, is a method of inference Linguistic awareness and world knowledge connect as listeners shape mental images of what they hear To arrive at this conceptual representation and achieve understanding, listeners often use bottom-up and top-down methods

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Listening is a language skill that must be learned in language teaching According

to Richards (2008), listening is a responsive language that demonstrates mastery of specific skills such as recognizing reduced types of terms, recognizing coherent devices in documents, and finding keywords in a text Furthermore, Sevik (2012) believed that listening ability is the first language acquisition stage and foreign language learning According to the researcher, these items provide a language ability that should focus on listening exercises in the classroom

To summarize, in order to be good at listening, people must note that: "Listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all and then ignored while other skills are developed There must be regular practice with increasingly difficult material.” (Rivers Wilga, M (1986))

2.1.2 Significance of listening

Listening is one of the required life skills, described as skills that can provide people with a better perspective on life, skills that can help them maintain a higher understanding of both themself and the world around them It is one of the most basic ways that humans experience and live their lives In real life, everyone often listens more than they talk, read, or compose Everywhere and at all times, people are listening They listen to anything and everyone At home, for example, they can listen to the news, watch a movie, or converse with others Students at school pay attention to what their teachers say The team listens to the director's new strategy at

a conference, for example Man becomes backward in every minute of his life if he does not listen Therefore, listening is essential in daily life

Hearing is one of five senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and looking), while listening is a way to hear and understand what is being said As an integrative ability, listening is essential in language learning or acquisition, enabling other language skills Listening is the method of learning a language, according to Nord (1980) “It gives the learner information from which to build up the knowledge necessary for using the language When this knowledge is built up, the learner can begin to speak The listening-only period is a time of observation and learning, which provides the basis for the other language skills.” (Nation, 1990) The majority

of students would spend more time listening to the foreign language than producing

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it People who are unable to understand spoken language can miss important information or react inappropriately

Ziane (2011) also has the same view: listening comprehension is critical because it

is a mechanism from which people receive feedback, and learning does not occur without it Ziane claims that listening has a significant impact on speaking growth That is, they cannot improve their speaking ability without first improving their listening ability If a learner has strong listening skills in English, he would listen to the radio, read, watch movies, and communicate with foreigners very easily In order to improve this skill, learners should get a lot of practice and exposure to English

As a result, listening skills training is crucial It enables students to more quickly and efficiently move from classroom English to real-life English

2.1.3 Classification of listening

Almost all English learners can, at some point, find themselves in a situation where they need or want to hear English being used in real-life situations for several reasons They will, however, face several challenges because there is a significant gap between classroom listening practices and real-life circumstances The students listened to very grammatical traditional dialogues, discussions, or presentations in class Speakers often speak at a precisely regulated pace, with perfect voice tone, accent, and grammar The students had already done their homework and were well-versed in the subject matter they were about to hear

That is why the students can listen so well In contrast, in real-life conversations, learners meet various people who talk with varying accents, speeds, and voice tones without grammar Speakers may also use challenging phrases, idioms, proverbs, or even slang words, among other things As a consequence, students cannot listen ideally

Different scenarios require different listening styles in real life, and as one's listening abilities improve, so will his ability to understand what someone is saying There are various kinds of listening However, according to Adian (1995), there are two ways people often listen in real life There are two types of listening: "casual" listening and "focused" listening "Casual listening” (also known as “Appreciative

in their minds “Focused” listening is straightforward listening The speaker wants

to convey a meaning, and the listener's intention should be to comprehend the message as fully as possible To understand the entire message, the listener will need to ask questions or seek clarification In this situation, they often listen with intense focus for a specific reason, but they do not pay equal attention to anything they hear For example, if they want to know the answer to a question, they will ask and expect to hear an appropriate response As a result, they begin to "listen" to specific key phrases or sentences Even when they listen to entertainment such as plays, jokes, or songs, they have a specific goal in mind (enjoyment), they want to know what will happen next, and they want it to be consistent with what has come before There is a connection between the listener's expectation and intent and their level of comprehension When a listener's expectations and desires are deliberate, listening is more likely to be interpreted and understood correctly than when he hears something unpredictable, trivial, or helpful

There are two types of listening in the classroom: intensive listening and extensive listening, according to Rixon (1986) and Hublard, R, and others (1984)

Listening intensively (Comprehensive/Informative Listening) means students must pay close attention to obtain comprehensive details, complete comprehension, or the message's content When students listen to guidance or a lecture from a teacher or hear an announcement or the weather forecast, they engage in insightful listening This listening method's key feature is whether the listener recognizes the meaning being relayed by the speaker Informative listening is affected when the listener misunderstands or fails to pay close attention

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This type of listening helps students develop their listening skills or language knowledge while working on lessons or other tasks The passage should be brief so that students can grasp the information When they hear a short passage, they also feel it is simple, engaging, and motivating Extensive listening (Appreciative listening), on the other hand, is open and general listening to natural language for general ideas rather than specific information It is the art of listening for enjoyment and information Appreciative listening occurs when people enjoy a concert, a voice, a short joke or a poem, etc They are not required to do any language work, and they are free to listen to whatever they want Furthermore, since the subjects are varied and engaging, they are encouraged to improve their listening skills

Similarly, Yang Xueping (2018) often distinguishes between "intensive listening,"

in which students attempt to listen to a relatively brief sequence of speech with complete precision, and "extensive listening," in which students listen to lengthy passages for general comprehension While intense listening may improve specific aspects of listening capacity, extensive listening is more effective at developing fluency and retaining learner motivation

Wolvin and Coakley (1991) proposed a new type of listening classification They discovered five distinct styles of listening:

* Discrimination listening

* Listening for comprehension

* Therapeutic (empathic) listening

* Critical listening

* Appreciative listening

Discriminative listening is the most fundamental method of listening, in which the distinction between different sounds is established If a listener cannot hear variations, they cannot understand the meaning conveyed by those differences As a consequence, a person from one country finds it difficult to communicate fluently in another Similarly, someone who cannot detect the subtleties of emotional variation

in another person's speech is less likely to distinguish another person's feelings Beyond distinguishing between various sounds and sights, the next step is to make sense of them To comprehend the meaning, people must have a lexicon of words

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and grammar and syntax rules to understand others The visual components of communication and an understanding of body language help them understand what the other person is saying Comprehension listening is also known as material listening, insightful listening, and unlimited listening

The listener's therapeutic listening goal is to empathize with the speaker and use this deep connection to help the speaker understand, improve, or evolve somehow Furthermore, this type of listening occurs wherever and wherever it occurs in life Critical listening entails listening to interpret and judge what is being said, forming

an opinion on what is being said Assessing strengths and weaknesses and consensus and acceptance are also part of the judgment process This type of listening necessitates a considerable amount of real-time cognitive activity as the listener analyzes what is being said and compares it to current information and rules In appreciative listening, people pursue knowledge that they can value, such

as information that will help them meet needs and goals When they listen to good music, poetry, or even the inspiring words of a great leader, they use appreciative listening

In addition to the above-mentioned well-known classifications, Rost's theory (1991) introduced four styles of listening suggested by Garvin (1985) with minor modifications:

is essential for understanding the individual component, according to Rost The listener is engaged explicitly in communicative collaboration with a speaker and focuses on developing a personal relationship with the speaker Concerning critical listening, he discussed critical listening similar to that suggested by Wolvin and Coakley (1991), suggesting the act of assessing logic and proof, while recreational

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listening allows a listener to be interested in appreciating spontaneous or incorporating aspects of a case He went on to say that listening requires cognitive, social, and linguistic skills and that the object of listening directs the listener as he

or she listens

Ur (1984), on the other hand, is another L2 researcher who graded listening based

on its purpose Listening, in her opinion, is divided into two types: listening for interpretation and listening for comprehension According to the former, listening is the act of perceiving "the different sounds, sound-combinations and stress and intonation patterns of foreign language." Although listening for comprehension is essential to material comprehension, it is divided into two sub-categories: passive listening for comprehension, which implies forming the foundation for other language skills by inventive or rational thinking, and active listening for comprehension Instead, she insisted that listening for understanding be viewed as a continuum, passive listening on the left side and active listening on the right

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2.1.4 Listening process

The listening process is depicted in the figure below (Field, 1998; Lynch, 1988; Rost, 1991)

Figure 1 Five periods in listening comprehension process

Receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding are the five stages of listening comprehension, as shown in the diagram The perception of sound is the first step Listeners only receive and listen to the sound It is also known as "hearing" in other contexts The listeners then apply their previous experience to comprehend and recall the spoken word Their minds perform the assessment, which results in an appropriate response According to Lesley Barker

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(2001), “when the listeners can understand, remember, evaluate and give the suitable responses, they are experiencing the listening comprehension process.” Listening entails more than just hearing and comprehending what is being said Listening is more than just being able to hear and comprehend what others say; it often includes etiquette, asking for clarification, demonstrating empathy, and responding appropriately

It is often agreed that the comprehension process is built on two significant sources

of information, which Widowson (1983) refers to as formal or linguistic knowledge and schematic or non-linguistic information The relationship between these information sources is depicted in Figure 2 below:

Figure 2 Information sources in listening comprehension

(Anne Anderson & Tony Lynch, 1988)

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A study of research in L2 listening instruction (Lynch, 1988; Rost, 1991; Rubin, 1994) emphasizes the importance of bottom-up and top-down processes comprehension Listeners use top-down processes to construct a conceptual structure for comprehension using context and prior knowledge (topic, genre, culture, and other schema knowledge in long-term memory) When listeners create meaning by accretion, they use bottom-up methods, increasingly combining larger meaning units from the phoneme level to discourse-level features

In summary, listening comprehension is comprised of two distinct processes (bottom-up listening and top–down listening) and five phases (receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding) with two primary sources

of knowledge (linguistic and non-linguistic) These processes communicate in the form of parallel distributed processing; the extent to which listeners use one process over the other depends on the intent of listening

Besides that, there is a school of thought that holds a similar view of listening stages According to Buck (2001), there are two phases of listening comprehension: (1) apprehending linguistic information (text-based: low level) and (2) relating the information to a larger community context (knowledge-based: high level), and there are two processing models for comprehension: (1) bottom-up and (2) top-down Furthermore, these studies indicated that listening is accomplished by bottom-up processing, which occurs in a series of sequential stages in a fixed order, beginning with the lowest level of processing and progressing to higher levels of processing Bottom-up processing begins with lower-level decoding of the language system elicited by an external source, such as incoming information It progresses to interpreting this decoding's representation concerning higher-level awareness of the meaning and the environment through a working memory (Morley, 1991) On the other hand, top-down processing describes how listening comprehension is accomplished by processing that includes estimation and inference based on hierarchies of data, propositions, and perceptions through the use of an internal source such as prior knowledge (Buck, 2001) This process allows listeners to bypass specific basic knowledge and leads researchers to believe that listening comprehension is not a unidirectional capacity

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Furthermore, Mary Underwood (1989) described three levels of listening comprehension They are the pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening stages “Pre-listening work can be done in a variety of ways and often occurs quite naturally when listening forms part of an integrated skills course When planning lessons, time must be allocated for pre-listening activities and these activities should not be rushed.” (Mary Underwood, 1989) Students would indeed find it incredibly challenging to conduct a listening lesson because they have no idea what they will hear Even if the sounds or words they hear are familiar, they may not understand because they lack specific knowledge of the subject, setting, or relationship between the speakers As a result, the listener's expectations and goals must be considered These help listeners feel as though they are in a real-life listening environment in their native language Teachers should assist their students in raising their standards and understanding the meaning of a listening lesson This type of work is referred to

as "pre-listening practices." “It would seem a good idea when presenting a listening passage in class to give students some information about the content, situation and speakers before they actually start listening.” (Penny Ur, 1992)

During the While-listening stage, students are asked to complete tasks while listening to the text The While-listening exercises are designed to help students cultivate the ability to elicit messages from spoken language There are additional explanations why students should listen to the language they are learning The most important thing is to learn to understand how it feels (the pronunciation of words, the stress, the rhythm, the intonation that they can use what they hear as a model for their speech) While-listening exercises must be carefully selected when improving listening skills for comprehension They must differ at various levels and in various situations “Good while-listening activities help learners find their way through the listening text and build upon then expectations raised by pre-listening activities.” (Underwood, 1989)

Post-listening tasks are those that are carried out after the listening has been finished Some post-listening practices extend the work performed during the pre-listening and while-listening periods, while others are only closely related to the listening text itself The goals of post-listening activities are to determine whether or

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not learners have understood what they need to; to determine whether sure students missed parts of the message or failed to understand the message; to provide students with the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speakers of the listening text; to expand on the topic or language of the message, and to transfer knowledge

Ahmadi (2011) and Houstan (2016) also claim that language teachers should apply those three stages in teaching listening, especially the pre-listening stage It is because this stage has a vital role in the listening section In a pre-listening period, some activities are conducted before listening occurs, called pre-listening activities (Allen, 2011)

Therefore, this stage is essential because there are pre-listening activities that help students build their prior knowledge

2.2 Factors affecting listening comprehension and related problems

2.2.1 Subjective factors and related problems

* Vocabulary ability

According to Huong (2018), the disparity between the listener's vocabulary awareness and the message's vocabulary is a prominent factor that significantly impacts comprehension For example, if the passage is discussing a completely different topic or belongs to a different particular major, and the listener has no knowledge of that subject or only knows a bit of it, the consequence is that he cannot understand what is being discussed or, at best, only partially understands it Vocabularies in a conversation between two doctors are different from those in a businessman's voice, and the listener who does not have the block of the advanced vocabulary of what he is listening to would struggle with the knowledge conveyed

* Phonology and grammar

Goh (2000) conducted a study in which 40 language students were asked to speak about their methods to respond to the English spoken and their problems She discovered that when language students do not know how to pronounce a word, they will pronounce it according to their native pronunciations due to her study The speed at which listeners evaluate and respond to the information they receive is

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determined by their ability to pronounce and use grammar With a sentence of length and complex grammar structure, a listener with low grammar capacity may struggle to analyze and produce the appropriate response Furthermore, the other will not understand what the word is saying if one does not pronounce a word correctly

* Background knowledge of the topic, content, and culture

The degree to which listeners understand what is said is greatly influenced by their prior knowledge of a passage (Huong, 2018) For example, if a person attends a conference on a specific subject and lacks basic knowledge of that topic, he would

be unable to comprehend all of the contents and definitions that the speaker wishes

to convey Another example: if one travels to another country and the people there have a habit of using local terms rather than common words, they will almost certainly struggle to understand others

Working memory plays an essential role in language comprehension In principle, this involvement makes sense because language comprehension is linked to specific processes and procedures for decoding and identifying words During processing and reviewing the material, the sentences and terms that memory believes are essential and necessary to retain the content will be saved and gathered Unlike those with low capacity, individuals with high working memory ability can maintain analysis and information until the input information is provided, although

at a higher level while analyzing complicated sentences and lack precise meanings Indeed, there are compelling theoretical reasons to support the notion that working memory is vital in listening (Engle, 2002) Working memory has been discovered to

be associated with reading comprehension and other higher-level sensible

to attend to the continuous stream of knowledge (Field, 2004; O'Malley et al., 1989; Vandergrift, 2003)

* Passage complexity

+) Syntactic complexity

The arrangement of the phrases and sentences is used to determine the complexity

of a passage Sentence structure, negatives, dependent clauses, and referential elements are examples of factors that may be associated “Should I simplify this sentence structure to make the passage easier to understand?” is a frequently asked

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question (Huong, 2018) There is a mix of research articles but no dependable answer to whether a sentence with a complicated syntax is more difficult to understand than a similar sentence with a simpler syntax According to Blau (1990), the effects of sentence structures on listening comprehension are not significant, especially with high English skill students, and simplifying the syntactic structure does not improve the efficiency of second language listening However, in some situations, Nissan et al (1996) implied that when a sentence contains two or more negative ideas, the sentence's complexity increases, and the listeners face more incredible difficulty

+) Infrequent words

The use of uncommon words in a passage adds to its richness and difficulty Since listeners are less likely to be familiar with low-frequency terms, they may need more time to infer the meaning of low-frequency words in a passage or disregard those words (Nissan et Al 1996) Students will find it much easier to understand and retain knowledge when listening to texts containing well-known phrases If students understand the meaning of words, it can increase their curiosity and motivation and improve their listening comprehension capacity Many words have several meanings, and if they are not used correctly in their proper contexts, students will become confused

+) Culturally specific vocabulary and idioms

Kostin (2004) investigated the impact of idioms and culturally relevant vocabulary

in the passage on listening comprehension The American Heritage Dictionary describes idiom as "an expression consisting of two or more words having a meaning that cannot be deduced from the meanings of its constituent parts." It rains cat and dog, for example, is a phrase that cannot be understood even though the listener understands the meanings of rain, cat, and dog

Learners should be familiar with the cultural awareness of language, which impacts the learners' comprehension If the listening activity requires entirely different cultural materials, the learners can struggle with comprehension Teachers have to provide background information about the listening practices in advance

* Passage type

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+) Passage topic

The subject matter of passages is another factor that can influence the effectiveness

of listening comprehension According to Sadighi - Zare (2006) and Tyler (1988), familiar subjects are more straightforward for listeners to understand than new ones Furthermore, whether a passage is on an academic or non-academic subject is also

an issue since discussing common problems will be easier to understand with simple and regular words In contrast, an academic topic will be more difficult for listeners, especially listeners who do not have specialized knowledge about that topic

+) Passage type

The lecture’s conversations perfectly exemplify the problematic situations in terms

of passage type When listening to a lecture, listeners must hear long periods of uninterrupted speech, they will not have the ability to turn back or pause time for contemplation, and they must be able to differentiate between important and irrelevant information in a currently short time (Flowerdew, 1994) Furthermore, lectures are typically delivered in specialized knowledge, but they do not necessitate the listener's ability to comprehend implied and indirect speech (Flowerdew, 1994) Moreover, lectures include more complex sentences that cause difficulties for listeners, such as the clauses, subordinate clauses, subordinate conditional clauses, first and second-person pronouns, contractions, and the pronoun it (Tyler, Jeffries, and Davies, 1988), and in order to avoid such problems, listeners must spend time looking for and researching specific sources

* Auditory features of the passage

+) Speaker accent

Even if listeners have outstanding listening skills, they are consistently challenged when speakers have different local accents According to research on accent on listening comprehension, when the speaker's accent is foreign, comprehension decreases, and effort for understanding increases The accent is a vital consideration when selecting listening materials for English learners because it affects comprehension Furthermore, research suggests that when speech rate or noise is

+) Speed of speaking

Words per minute are the rate at which one talks (Blau, 1990; Brindley and Slatyer, 2002; Griffiths, 1990, 1992; Jacobs et al., 1988; Zhao, 1997) Consider two speakers, one quick and one slow, both speaking the same spoken passage The quicker speaker uses less time and conveys details more quickly than the slower speaker Now, given the same amount of time, these speakers talk passages of varying lengths, with the faster speaker producing more speech and conveying more

of the passage than the slower speaker Several studies have shown that the rate at which people speak may harm their second language comprehension Faster speech

is often less clear than slower speech, even though speech rate and auditory clarity are distinct properties While Griffiths (1990, 1992) identified the listeners as lower intermediate learners, more recent evidence indicates that speech rate influences listening comprehension among relatively advanced second language users The study shows that speech rate may hurt second language listening comprehension Second language listeners move from passage to passage, encountering different speakers and material Listeners are more likely to interpret speech as quick when other aspects of the listener, passage, and environment question comprehension Therefore, speech rate must be considered following other aspects of the listener, passage, and environment

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The passage can be challenging to listen to due to the pace Students can have difficulty understanding words if the speakers talk too quickly Listeners cannot regulate speakers' speed in this case, which can lead to important listening comprehension issues

* Equipment and facilities

Faint sounds caused by low-quality equipment can impair the listener's comprehension Furthermore, in a packed classroom, students sitting at the back of the room could not hear the lessons According to Chetchumlong (1987), a lack of opportunities to listen to various spoken texts using suitable equipment and learn English with native speakers, especially in rural areas, contributes to poor listening efficiency Furthermore, a big classroom, background sounds, and a packed classroom all harm hearing

Nowadays, in listening lessons, students often practice with audio recordings As a result, without watching, they cannot guess what the speakers are going to say In addition to audio, video is a more prosperous and valuable resource, according to Cakir (2006), and it is well-liked by both students and teachers The video clarifies context by describing emotions in ways that words cannot, proving the adage that

an image is worth a thousand words This is consistent with Yagang (1994) and Harmer (2001), who argue that not seeing the speaker's gestures and facial expressions makes understanding the speaker's meaning more difficult

as successive levels of the organization—sounds, words, and decoding process Students primarily use cognitive techniques to shape, rewrite, receive, and generate messages in a foreign language Summarizing, linking new information to old

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(elaboration), translating to the first language, finding key concepts, repeating phrases, and so on are some examples of cognitive techniques

Similarly, according to Vandergrift (1997), cognitive strategies comprise:

* Inferencing: Using information from a text or conversational context to guess the

meanings of unfamiliar language objects associated with a listening task, forecast outcomes, or fill in missing information

* Elaboration: Using previous knowledge from outside the text or conversational

context and comparing it to knowledge acquired from the text or conversation to predict outcomes or fill in missing information

* Summarization: Creating a mental or written description of the language and

knowledge provided during a listening task

* Translation: The process of translating concepts from one language to another in a

relatively verbatim manner

* Transfer: Using knowledge of one language (for example, cognates) to encourage

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2.3.2 Metacognitive strategies

Metacognitive techniques are acts people take to enhance or promote the learning process, and they are effective when one wants to develop listening skills According to Oxford (1990), the deliberate use of metacognitive techniques helps learners regain concentration when they have lost it These techniques are incredibly beneficial in the classroom or during the listening learning process When students practice these techniques, they produce better results by putting what they have learned into practice; because metacognitive strategies have several steps

to achieve better learning Metacognitive methods are management approaches used

by learners to control their learning by preparing, controlling, assessing, and adjusting (Rubin, 1987)

* Planning: Gaining an understanding of what needs to be accomplished to

complete a listening activity and developing an effective action plan

* Monitoring: testing, confirming, or correcting one's comprehension or success

during a listening task

* Evaluating: comparing the results of one's listening comprehension to an internal

criterion of completeness and accuracy

* Modifying: precisely defining the focal point in a task that requires resolution or

identifying an element of the task that prevents it from being completed successfully

Metacognitive techniques include understanding intelligence and acknowledging cognitive abilities to determine what people have learned and what they also need to understand However, as they are improving learning, metacognitive methods become handy tools Through these techniques, people understand, learn, and evaluate the growth of each ability more deeply; thus, it is easier for them to enhance learning Metacognitive techniques allow them to learn new things and apply experience to solve problems in various situations

Field (2008) agrees with the classification mentioned above; however, he asks whether a clear distinction can be made between metacognitive and cognitive strategies He claims that it is difficult to understand and that the distinction is ambiguous because it depends on the purpose Field says, "if I plan to lisen for

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stressed words in an utterance, the strategy qualifies as metacognitive; but if I just

do it, it becomes cognitive."

2.3.3 Socio-affective strategies

Vandergrift (1997) classifies socio-affective strategies into the following activities:

* Questioning for clarification: Inquiring about the language/or mission and

requesting clarification, proof, rephrasing, or examples; posing questions to oneself.’

* Cooperating: Working with someone other than an interlocutor to solve a

problem, share knowledge, check a learning assignment, model a language practice,

or receive feedback on oral or written results

* Lowering anxiety: Reducing anxiety by employing mental exercises that make one

feel more capable of performing a listening task

* Self-encouraging: Providing personal encouragement by positive self-talk or

planning incentives for oneself during or after completing a listening activity

* Taking emotional temperature: Being mindful of and in contact with one's

feelings when listening in order to avoid negative ones and maximize positive ones Social methods include students' social relationships with their classmates; contact may occur in or out of the classroom These techniques assist students in working with other students while also assisting them in learning more effectively According to O'Malley and Chamot (1990), social/affective interventions generate positive emotional reactions and attitudes toward language learning Affective interventions apply to student's emotional and psychological situations; it involves making emotional and psychological improvements that can help them perform better In other words, when students are too concerned, their affective system malfunctions and interferes with listening comprehension (Oxford 1990) Students need to understand how to minimize anxiety to feel secure while performing listening tasks and foster personal motivation in enhancing listening competence Furthermore, social and affective strategies affect a student's performance or failure during a listening task Some examples of social strategies include asking others to explain the context of a listening exercise, working cooperatively with others to complete a language task, and exchanging responses and questions with others

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Similarly, concentrating on what students are hearing rather than what they are missing and tolerating/accepting that certain items are vague or cannot be understood are examples of practical techniques

In general, students studying English as a foreign language must employ techniques

to improve their listening skills Learning strategies, as described by Oxford (1990),

“are steps taken by students to enhance their own learning, and they are especially important for language learning because they are tools for active self - directive involvement; also strategies facilitate learning to become easy, enjoyable and transferable to new situations In other words, an effective communication occurs.”

It is also the teachers' responsibility to assist students in developing their English listening comprehension An outstanding teacher understands his students' needs and methods to overcome his students' challenges Mariela's (2015) research also concludes that teachers play an essential role in this listening process; they should encourage their students' listening comprehension and display availability while clarifying classroom concerns

In 2016, Manzouri conducted a study whose analysis findings revealed that cognitive strategies, among others, were the most commonly used listening strategies This finding is consistent with Mariela's (2015) finding that students use cognitive techniques the most It means that students tend to listen to English songs, watch movies or television shows, and translate words or sentences into their mother tongue, among other things

2.4 Chapter summary

This chapter discusses the prior literature on listening difficulties, causes, and strategies The researcher hopes that she has acquired enough applicable information for her research by describing a large amount of academic research However, most literature is written in the sense of foreign countries, which is in some ways inappropriate for Vietnamese students As a result, the researcher wishes

to compensate for the above limitation through her observations and extensive explanations provided in the following chapters

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research approach used to perform the study will be discussed in this chapter First, the writer will detail the collection of participants, sampling methods, reasoning, and definition of the data instrument Second, elaborating on the use of a survey questionnaire and data collection process will also be recorded Finally, the writer will explain a basic data analysis procedure to help justify the findings presented in the following chapter

3.1 Research design

Survey research is one of the most significant and valuable fields of assessment in applied social research A "survey" can range from a brief paper-and-pencil input form to an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview Based on the benefits of conducting survey research, the writer had chosen to use the questionnaire as a primary method of gathering information for the graduation document In terms of research design, this thesis employed a descriptive quantitative method The researcher used tables and charts to display the collected data after receiving the survey results

3.2 Locale of the study

The writer researched the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Banking Academy of Vietnam during the second term of the 2020-2021 academic year

3.3 Population and Sampling technique

3.3.1 Population

This research was being conducted at the Banking Academy of Vietnam's Faculty

of Foreign Languages The study's primary population consisted of seniors who had studied listening as a primary subject at university Because of the following factors, the study was restricted to the final year mainstream students at the English department First, after completing the three-stage listening program (Listening I, Listening II, and Listening III module), specific individuals have attained a certain

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English level They have, to some degree, passed the examinations for these subjects and have had eight semesters of studying English as a major In addition, unlike what they learned in high school, they are exposed to listening skills as a separate module at university More specifically, an entirely new approach to English learning is offered Students spent the bulk of their time in high school focusing on grammar while ignoring other skills As a consequence, it would present a significant challenge in the modern learning method Furthermore, they can practice their listening skills at university by completing tests and assignments

To summarize, the writer must identify and address the issues they continue to face

in listening comprehension Ninety-five last-year students from three classes at the Faculty of Foreign Languages participated in the study to address the research questions They come from various parts of Vietnam and have varying levels of listening capacity Following that, the obtained results were processed using a quantitative analysis approach to explain the survey findings

Table 1 Participants in the study

The participants represented roughly more than half of the total population, which the researchers hoped would be large enough to compensate for the limitations of the convenience sampling method used

3.4 Research instrument

As mentioned in the preceding section, questionnaires were chosen as the study's data collection tool When making such a decision, the researcher had weighed the benefits and drawbacks of such instruments The ease with which questionnaires can be constructed, their extreme flexibility, and their ability to collect a large

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amount of information rapidly account for their success in the study Aside from the

time savings, the questionnaires are often attracted by the efforts and financial

resources of the researchers In terms of time quality, Dornyei (2003) states that

questionnaires can be used to “collect a large amount of information in less than an

hour.” Furthermore, with modern computer tools, the time and cost associated with

data processing may be reduced As a result, in the researcher's opinion, this tool is

the most appropriate selection process However, questionnaires have drawbacks,

and designing an ill-constructed one will result in unreliable and invalid results The

shortcomings of this approach include its ambiguity and superficiality (Moser &

Kalton, 1971), untrustworthy and unmotivated respondents (Hopkins, Stanley, &

Hopkins, 1990), social desirability bias (Oppenheim, 1966), and the halo effect As

a result, the questionnaires were meticulously crafted to eliminate these flaws

The researcher used a questionnaire as a quantitative tool to sample the respondents

It was divided into four sections: Respondent’s background information,

Difficulties, Causes, and their perspectives on strategies in listening comprehension

Section one included three demographic items (1-2) to collect information about the

number of years spent learning English and respondent’s perception of listening

comprehension

The second section contained 12 elements (3-14) with a five-point Likert scale

(5-Always, 4-Often, 3-Sometimes, 2-Rarely, 1-Never) to collect data on the frequency

listening challenges encountered by ATC seniors

Section three, which also encompassed 12 pieces (15-26), investigated the level to

which respondents agreed with the causes of listening obstacles The responses

were scaled from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" (4-Strongly agree,

3-Agree, 2-Disagree, 1-Strongly disagree)

The final section was structured to gauge how valuable students thought the

proposed methods for dealing with listening comprehension problems were This

section provided fifteen objects (27-41) and allowed one individual to vote on as

many methods as they preferred After the data was collected, the data analysis process began

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3.5 Data gathering procedure

* Step 1: Creating a questionnaire

The questionnaire for the participants was created in this phase Considering the listening theory in related literature, the researcher concluded that three factors needed to be analyzed They were the challenges that ATC seniors faced and the reasons, along with their perception of listening comprehension strategies

* Step 2: Piloting

The questionnaire was provided to three respondents to determine which questionnaire areas were unclear and should be corrected or strengthened After they had gone through all objects, the researcher asked for feedback and suggestions The adaptation was eventually completed

* Step 3: Distributing the questionnaire

The researcher could not communicate directly with the respondents due to the effects of the covid 19 pandemic Instead, she chose to deliver the survey to 95 students online through Google Forms Before asking the participants to complete the questionnaire, the researcher briefly clarified the structure, duration and promised that their confusion in listening comprehension would be thoroughly cleared up after the thesis was completed Furthermore, the researcher provided guidance and explanations to the respondents in order to prevent misunderstandings and uncertainty

* Step 4: Getting the data ready to be processed

Following the data collection from the questionnaire results, the writer prepared to code to have the data processed through SPSS

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* Step 1: Cleaning the data

The data transcription was closely reviewed, and any inaccurate or incomplete transcriptions were removed to ensure that the collected data was accurate

* Step 2: Coding the data

The chosen data was coded in an excel file and imported into SPSS by the researcher

* Step 3: Checking the reliability

Brown (2003) defines reliability as measurement precision The results' mean and standard deviation must be good enough to calculate the test's reliability In general, reliability refers to the suitability of given tests or any parts as indicators of what they intend to measure The degree of internal consistency of Cronbach Alpha as determined by Louis Cohen (2007) is shown in the table below:

No Cronbach Alpha Internal Consistency

1 >0.90 Very highly reliable

2 0.80-0.90 Highly reliable

3 0.70-0.79 Reliable

4 0.60-0.69 Minimally reliable

5 <0.60 Unacceptably low reliability

Table 2 Levels of reliability

The SPSS version 20.0 software was applied to calculate the survey's reliability As can be described in the table below: