the difficulties of non-major of english at haiphong foreign language center–haiphong university in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions = những khó khăn của sinh viên không chuyên anh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ PHƯỢNG THE DIFFICULTIES OF NON - MAJOR STUDENTS OF ENGL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ PHƯỢNG

THE DIFFICULTIES OF NON - MAJOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HAIPHONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER - HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY

IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ - ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÕNG TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG

NGHE VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP ĐỀ XUẤT

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ PHƯỢNG

THE DIFFICULTIES OF NON - MAJOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HAIPHONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER - HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY

IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILL AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ - ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÕNG TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG

NGHE VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP ĐỀ XUẤT

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

HANOI - 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof

Dr Hoàng Văn Vân, who guided me throughout the accomplishment of this research

If it had not been for his kind guidance, insightful comments and valuable support, my thesis would not have been completed

I also owe my gratitude to my family, who has always been very supportive with my study

In addition, I am grateful to all my colleagues and students at Haiphong Foreign Language Center, who have encouraged me and shared me useful information Their cooperation helped me a lot to finish the thesis

Personally, I highly appreciate all the assistance I am greatly interested in this study as it is of great help for me However, I am responsible for any remaining mistakes and short comings that are found in this work

ABSTRACT

Listening skill is one of the most neccessary skills to communicate in the real life In learning a foreign language, it is more and more important to learn this skill In fact, students often take the wrong way when listening and this leads them to the poor result Realizing the problems from teaching experiences, the author would like to do a

research titled “The difficulties of non-major students of English at Haiphong

Foreign Language Center-Haiphong University in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions

This study is an investigation into the problems experienced by non-major students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center-Haiphong University in learning listening skill The subjects of the study were 75 non-English major students and 5 teachers at Haiphong Foreign Language Center (HFLC)-Haiphong University The data were collected through the questionnaires from students, and the interviews

from the teachers

The results of the research will point out the difficulties that learners meet when they learn the listening skill at HFLC More importantly, it helps the author find out the causes of those difficulties so that she can work out the right solutions to the problems With the hope of improving learners‟ listening competence, the author has tried her best to do this thesis by her own experiences and knowledge in English teaching methodology

The findings of the research will reveal the difficulties that learners experience when they learn the listening skill at the center Some conclusions were drawn; recommendations were made, some limitations were pointed out and suggestions were offered

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1: Purposes of learning English at HFLC

Figure 3.2: Learners' time distribution in practicing four language skills Figure 3.3: Students‟ attitude toward listening skill

Figure 3.4: Students‟ time allocation for self-study

Figure 3.5: What the learners do before and while listening

Figure 3.6: Learners‟ assessment on the listening tasks in the textbook

Figure 3.7: Learners‟ interest in different listening activities

Figure 3.8: Learners‟ interest in extra listening activities

Figure 3.9: The objective factors affecting learners' learning the listening skill Table 1: Problems from the listeners

Table 2: Problems from the listening material

Table 3: Problems from environment factors

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

Table of Contents i

Declaration iv

Acknowledgements v

Abstract vi

List of Figures and Tables vii

PART I:INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale .1

2 Aim of the study and research questions .1

3 The Scope of the study .2

4 The method of the study .2

5 The organization of the study .3

PART II:DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .4

1.1 What are listening and listening skill .4

1.1.1 Definitions .4

1.1.2 The importance of the listening skill .5

1.1.3 Potential difficulties in listening skill .6

1.1.3.1 Listening problems .6

1.1.3.2 Language problems .9

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 11

2.1 An overview of the current situations of teaching and learning the English listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center 11

2.1.2 Resources and materials 11

2.1.3 Teachers and Teaching methods .13

2.2 Data collection .13

2.2.1 Participants .14

2.2.2 Data collection instruments .14

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 15

3.1 Intended research contents .15

3.1.1 Purposes to learn English at HFLC .15

3.1.2 Students‟ attitude toward listening skill .16

3.1.3 Students‟ strategies in listening .18

3.1.4 Learners‟ assessment on the listening task in the text book .20

3.1.5 Problems experienced by learners in learning English listening skill .23

3.1.5.1 Problems from listeners .23

3.1.5.2 Problems from the listening materials .25

3.1.5.3 Problems from environment factors .27

3.2 Summary 30

3.3 Suggested solution improving the teaching of English listening skill to learners at Haiphong Foreign Language Center 32

3.3.1 Recommendations for teaching English listening skill for non-major students at HFLC .32

3.3.1.1 Improving teacher‟s classroom techniques .33

3.3.1.2 Training students to become active listeners .34

3.3.1.3 Developing the listening materials .36

3.3.1.3.1 Adapting and improving listening materials .36

3.3.1.3.2 Choosing supplementary listening materials .37

3.3.1.4 Improving teaching facilities and resources .37

3.3.1.5 Other problematic areas .37

3.4 Summary 38

PART III: CONCLUSION .39

1 Recapitulation .39

2 Conclusions .39

3 Limitations of the study .40

4 Suggestions for further study .40

REFERENCES .41 APPENDICES I

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Listening plays a significant role in daily communication No one can deny the importance of listening skill in foreign language learning because it takes much time and energy to make progress in this skill Listening plays an important role in communication It is said that of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes

up 40-50% According to Devine (1982), listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas and information are taken in

Being good at communicators in foreign languages especially in English is always a desire of all foreign language learners However, it requires them to speak and to listen well in which listening is considered the most challenging skill for every learner In fact, there are many factors affecting the learners in listening acquisition They may come from the listeners (their background knowledge, their interest or their motivation…), from the listening material or from the environment factors Consequently, it is very difficult for them to master this skill

With thirteen-year experience of teaching English listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center and from what I observed many classes at HFLC, it can be found that many students failed in practicing listening skill Some of the students complained that they were not confident with listening tasks so they could hardly understand the spoken messages

Realizing the problem from teaching experiences, I have decided to carry out a

study namely “The difficulties of non-major students of English at Haiphong

Foreign Language Center-Haiphong University in learning listening skill and some suggested solutions”

2 Aim of the study and research questions

The aim of the study is to probe difficulties experienced by students at Haiphong Foreign Language Center (HFLC) in learning listening skill and to offer solutions to help students overcome these difficulties

To achieve this overall aim, the following research questions are raised for exploration:

1 What are the problems experienced by learners in learning English listening skill at HFLC?

2 How can the teacher help learners overcome the difficulties?

3 Scope of the study

The study is limited to finding out the difficulties that the learners at HFLC cope with in learning English listening skill

The objects of the study are the learners at HFLC aged from 15 to over 50 They are studying the second of three levels of English at HFLC In this center, the

textbook that the learners use is New English File-Pre intermediate (Clive Oxenden, Christina Latham-Koenig, Paul Seligson) This textbook is intended to develop

learners‟ four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing

4 Method of the study

To fulfill the above aim, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used Qualitative research is “a type of scientific research which consists of an investigation that seeks answers to a question, systematically uses a predefined set of procedures to answer the question, collects evidence, produces findings that were not determined in advance, produces findings that are applicable beyond the immediate boundaries of the study” (Trask, 2007, p.239)

The most common qualitative methods are participant observation, in-depth interviews, and focus groups In order to get information about learners‟ motivation when they learn English listening skill at HFLC, the author has to observe their study

in the real classes Moreover, interviews are used for the teachers of English so as to get their ideas about the teaching and learning problems at HFLC

According to Aliaga and Gunderson (2000) “Quantitative research is explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analyzed using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics)”

After collecting information, all the data will be analyzed for the findings and conclusions will be drawn from these

5 Organization of the study

The study includes three parts as follows:

Part I: The Introduction presents the background, the aim, the scope and the

method of the study

Part II: The Development consists of three chapters Chapter 1 is the literature

review which provides an overview of some theories as well as the previous researches that relate to the study Chapter 2, the methodology and findings describes the current situation of teaching and learning listening skill at HFLC Then it will introduce the participants, the data collection instruments, data analysis and research questions Finally, the author will analyze the results of the survey and the interviews in order to find out the current state of learning listening skill at HFLC Chapter 3 offers some solutions to improve learning English listening skill for learners at HFLC

Part III: The Conclusion summarizes what has been studied and makes some

recommendations for further research

PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Listening plays an important role in second language instruction for several reasons If you cannot hear it well you will find it hard to communicate or perhaps you cannot pass your listening examination (Rost, 1994) It should be noted that the learner‟s perception of their listening problem and strategies can affect their comprehension both positively and negatively (Wenden, 1986) Thus, in order to help students improve their listening skill, it is necessary to find out their listening

problems, what cause them and how to solve them

1.1 What are listening and listening skill?

1.1.1 Definitions

In this study, listening is listening comprehension It is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and in a second language

Therefore, there have been many definitions of listening

Gary Buck (2001: 31), for example, points out that “listening comprehension is

an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound” in which “a number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge”

On the other hand, Wolvin and Coakley (1985) see listening as “the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli”

According to Brown (2001), listening is “not merely the process of unidirectional receiving of audible symbols” He supposed that one aspect of listening comprehension which is “the psychomotor process of receiving sound waves through the ear and transmitting nerve impulses to the brain” Hence, listening comprises of three elements: the sender, the message and the listener

It can be concluded from the above mentioned definitions that listening skill can be understood as “the ability to identify and understand what others are saying

grammar, recognizing his vocabulary and being able to grasp the meaning of what he says.” (Howatt and Dakin,1974)

1.1.2 The importance of listening skill

Listening is a skill that is important because it helps us learn and understand different things Usually, a person who listens properly is able to react appropriately to

a particular situation or towards a particular person Everyone, in the real life, often listens more than speaks, reads or writes We listen everywhere and every time We listen to everything and everybody

There are differences between hearing and listening While hearing is a part of five senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and looking) listening is a choice to hear and understand it As an integrative skill, listening plays an important role in the process of language learning or acquisition and facilitating the emergence of other language skill According to Nord (1980: 17), listening is the way of learning the language “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 period is a time of observation and learning which provides the basis for the other language skills” (Nation, 1990: 12) Most learners will spend more time listening to the foreign language than producing it themselves Failing to understand spoken language, people may miss important information presented to them or respond in a funny way So training in listening is really necessary It helps students make the transition from classroom English to the real-life English more easily and effectively

From the point of view of psychology, listening is a necessary skill to facilitate autonomous learning and encourage learners‟ independence Listening is also an important form of communication This is the reason why “We were given two ears but only one month; this is because God knew that listening was twice as hard as talking” People need to practice and acquire skills to be good listeners

1.1.3 Potential difficulties in listening skill

1.1.3.1 Listening problems

In her book entitled Teaching Listening, Mary Underwood (1989), points out

the following listening problems:

* Lack of control over the speech at which speakers speak

This means the learners cannot control how quickly the speaker speaks They feel that the utterances disappear before they can sort them out “They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all out quickly enough” One of the reasons for this is that learners cannot keep up with the speech and they often try to understand everything they hear When they fail in sorting out the meaning

of one part, their following will be missed This can lead to the ignorance of the whole chunk of discourse Obviously, they fail to listen One method of tackling this is to show students how to identify the important words that they need to listen out for In English this is shown in an easy-to-spot way by which words in the sentence are stressed (spoken louder and longer) Another is to give them one very easy task that you know they can do even if they do not get 90% of what is being said to build up their confidence, such as identifying the name of the famous person or spotting something that is mentioned many times

* The listener’s vocabulary

This is the main problem of the learners in listening comprehension It is very difficult to understand the spoken text if we do not know the new words According to Underwood (Ibid.), “unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the text part of the speech” There are four situations relating to the vocabulary that the learners usually committed These situations are presented below:

(1) Trying to understand every word In spite of the fact that they can hope with missing whole chunks of speech having conversation on a noisy street in our own language, many people do not seem to be able to transfer that skill easily to a second language

(2) Getting left behind trying to work out what a previous word meant All people speaking a foreign language have experienced this problem at one or more than one time This often happens when you hear a word half However, it also can happen with words you are trying to work out that sound similar to something in your language In individual listening you can cut down on this problem with vocabulary pre-teach and by getting students to talk about the same topic first to bring the relevant vocabulary for that topic area nearer the front of their brain One training method is to use a listening or to get them to concentrate just on guessing words from context Another is to load up the task even more by adding a logic puzzle or listening and writing task, so that just listening and try to remember words seems like an easier option Finally, spending time revising vocabulary and doing skills work where they come into contact with it and use it

(3) Not knowing the most important words Doing the vocabulary pre-teaching before each listening is an effective solution Nevertheless, these words must actually

be guessed from the context The other solution is simply to build up their vocabulary and teach them how they can do the same in their own time with vocabulary lists, graded readers, monolingual dictionary use, etc

(4) Not recognizing the words that have been known The common reasons why students might not recognize the words include not distinguish between different sounds in English, or conversely trying to listen for differences that do not exist Other reasons are problems with word stress, sentence stress, and sound changes when words are spoken together in natural speech such as weak forms What all this boils down to

is that sometimes pronunciation work is the most important part of listening comprehension skills building

* Inability to concentrate

This can be caused by a number of things but in listening work it is a major problem because even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair the comprehension of the whole process of listening Whether the topic is interesting or not, students sometimes find tired and unable to concentrate The outside factors may

well make concentration difficult, too For instance the bad quality machines, poor recording, unfavorable rooms for the use of recorded materials, street or next-door class noise…all of these facts prevent strongly to the concentration of the result, they cannot get full of the message intended

* Not being able to catch information repeated

This type of difficulty connects with what the speakers say or “input” while the listeners are not always in the positions to get the repetition This is the case when learners join in conversation outside the classroom Repetition cannot be asked for when listening to the radio or watching television Even in the classroom, when listening to the lectures, learners cannot frequently order the lecturers to repeat the utterance as many times as they wish Therefore, the teacher can be solved only when learners are given the opportunity to control their own machines and proceed in

whatever way they wish

* Problems of interpretation

These can occur when the speaker and the listener are from the different background and the listener is unfamiliar with the context of speaker‟s talk Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in interpreting the words they hear even if they can understand the “surface” meaning In addition, the meaning of non-verbal clues, facial expression, nods, gestures, tone of voice can easily

be misinterpreted by listeners from other cultures This problem can even occur when

the speaker and the hearer are from the same background and use the same language

* Established learning habits

Learning habit is an important factor leading to the success of language learning If students establish wrong habits, they may fail in their learning, etc In different point of view, Goh,C (2000) states that problems in listening comprehension depend on three stages which will be presented as follows:

reviewed literature including the definition, the process of listening comprehension and its potential difficulties, the researchers hope that these serve as a base in understanding to continue with other chapters related to them

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 An overview of the current situations of teaching and learning English listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center

Currently, HFLC has over 250 classes with nearly 6000 students Students who come here desire to have a good faculty of English with four fluent skills Generally, at the center, students at level A classes account for the largest proportion Next come students at level B, and the smallest is students at level C These figures show that teachers at this center work with students of various levels, different competence, and variable requirements, thereby can develop their teaching methods as much as they can

2.1.2 Resources and materials

The learners of English at HFLC are varied in age, sex, and learning purposes According to a statistics conducted by the center, learners‟ age ranges from 8 to over

50 This means that in some classes students are still very young, and they learn English because their parents want them to In such cases, their motivation is not strong and clear enough There are also many school children attending English classes to get a good ability of English grammar to do well in their examination So apart from grammar, other skills are not paid much attention to

To adult learners, all of the four skills are essential both in communication and working management However, it is hard for them to acquire a foreign language as their development often “fossilizes” into permanent error patterns that no teaching or

correction can undo, though they are well aware of their learning purposes Of course, there are great individual differences, which depend on effort, attitudes, amount of exposure, quality of teaching, and plain talent, but there seems to be a gap for the best adults in the best circumstances

Despite some clear distinctions in learners‟ age as shown above, most of the learners here are from 15 to 35 They are either students of upper secondary schools or universities, who need English for their study or future jobs, or employees at offices which require English for the accomplishment of their jobs, or workers at foreign invested companies, in which English is the key factor for successful communication The learners are, therefore, strongly activated

With learners of various ages, language competence, learning purposes, etc., it

is hard for teachers at the center to find the best way to teach them, especially when four skills of English are interwoven and required to be taught simultaneously by only one teacher

An HFLC, English is taught mainly at three levels: elementary (level A),

pre-intermediate (level B), and pre-intermediate (level C) The main textbook is New English File by Clive Oxenden, Christina Latham-Koenig, Paul Seligson The purpose of this English textbook is to develop all four language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing and to improve language knowledge like phonetics, grammar and vocabulary for learners

Each classroom is equipped with a board, a CD player, four fans and fourteen tables There are some high-quality classrooms which have a projector and an air- conditioner Each class consists of more than twenty students Listening lesson is usually taught in normal conditions Each lesson lasts an hour and a half It is often taught in combination with the other skills such as reading, speaking or writing skill It seems that listening is always the most difficult and frustrating for learners As a consequence, practicing this skill always takes much time and requires more concentration both from the teacher and the learners At first, listening to English seems to be impossible for the learners Because, here, they get started with English systematically for the first time or their knowledge of the English language is still

2.1.3 Teachers and teaching methods

At HFLC, there are 90 teachers of English aged 22 to 58 Most of them were educated in the English language department either at the Universities of Language and International Studies or at Hanoi University, and the rest graduated with English major from other universities One of them is now a PhD student; 13 out of them have obtained M.A Degrees and one will get an M.A Degree at the end of this year The oldest teachers have more than 30 years of teaching experience, and the youngest just more than a year Three of them have ever had times attending intensive English courses abroad, mainly in England, America and Singapore etc

The teachers in HFLC are assigned to teach at different levels, and different classes Class time is often 1 hour and a half (equivalent to 2 periods), and the teachers have to go to class at least once a day In classes of level A, B, or C, each teacher is responsible for one class separately This means he/she has to perform his/her task with four skills simultaneously Hence it is not easy at all for the teacher to do well all the time with four different skills If he goes further for speaking, there will be less time for the other But if listening is placed an important part in the teaching syllabus, the other skills may receive less attention

The second group under study consists of the teachers at HFLC These teachers have been teaching here for more than two years Their ages range from 26 to 34 Four

of them have obtained M.A degrees in English; another teacher has obtained a B.A degree from Haiphong Private University They are active, creative and enthusiastic teachers

2.2.2 Data collection instruments

To arrive at the reliable data, a survey was conducted and questionnaires were administered to 75 learners of 3 level B classes The questionnaire used as instrument for data collection was designed to get information about:

1 The students‟ purposes to learn English at HFLC (Q 1)

2 The students‟ attitude toward listening skill (Q 2 - 3)

3 The students‟ strategies in listening (Q 4 - 5)

4 The students‟ assessment on the listening tasks in the text book New English File Pre-intermediate (Q 6 - 9)

5 The problems experienced by the students in learning English listening skill (Q.10 - 11)

All the questions in the survey were designed with a hope that the researcher can get students‟ opinions about their English listening skills and their attitudes, motivation and other information about the textbook, listening tasks or teachers‟ teaching methods These questions were close to the techniques that the researcher expects to be appropriate for the improvement of students‟ listening ability

Additionally, interviews were used for the teachers Five teachers who have been teaching the level B of this program were interviewed directly about their own ways of teaching listening to the learners, and their comments on their students in learning that skill Also, the interviewer would like them to suggest some recommendations that are helpful to improve and to motivate students‟ learning listening skill

In conclusion, this chapter describes the method using questionnaires to investigate students and teachers so as to answer the research questions raised in the first chapter Based on the subjects mentioned, prominent findings for the research questions will be realized and presented in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 3.1 Intended research contents

3.1.1 Purposes to learn English at HFLC

Firstly, the author would like to show the chart of the learners‟ purposes to take part in English course at HFLC As can be seen in the following pie chart, the purpose that urged most learners 34.7% to take part in English course at HFLC is improving their English for their work requirement From this figure we can see that English becomes more and more important for the work need They all need to get the ability

of communicating in English to promote or to change a better job in the future 33.7%

of the learners join the English class in order to apply for a job They learn English so that they can get a necessary certificate of English and get a better job These learners are the students who have just graduated from the universities or colleges; or some of them learn English to be interviewed to go to work in other countries A small group

of learners (20%) would like to improve their English at the vocational school, the university or the college The least number of learners (12%) here studied English because they had free time or they liked English so they wanted to join and learned it

as an interest Therefore, the learners‟ background is very complicated

33%

35%

20%

12%

Figure 3.1 Purposes to learn English at HFLC

The chart on the purposes to learn English at HFLC gives a positive sign that all of the learners here have their own motivation to learn this foreign language It is one of the most basic elements that encourage the learners to work hard and get success in learning English

3.1.2 Students’ attitude toward listening skill

How do the students learn the listening skill in English? And how do they distribute their time in practicing the four skills of language learning: listening, speaking, reading and writing? The following chart shows the differences in time distribution among them

Figure 3.2 Learners' time distribution in practice four language skills

As can be seen from the chart, most students spend their time practicing listening skill (51%) It means that students have awareness of learning communicative language so that they can apply it when they need while speaking (16%), reading skill (13%) and the writing skill (20%) are comparatively similar Of the four skills, listening skill accounts for the most time In other words, students seem to have enough patience and interest to practice listening skill as much as possible

Figure 3.3: Students’ attitude toward listening skill

The pie chart shows most of students (74%) consider listening as the most difficult skill among reading, writing and speaking Only 19% of them do not have any ideas about this question A small number of students (7%) think that listening is not very difficult for them

In fact, as what can be seen from the chart, the learners who confirmed that it

is easy to learn listening skill are the best students It is a pity that this number is small (5/75) In short, the survey proves well the assumption about the difficulty of listening to English and learning it

Whether these difficulties can make the learners uninterested in it or not? This question is clarified by the next chart which shows the learners‟ self-study in learning listening skill at Haiphong Foreign Language Center

Without much self-practicing, the students cannot make any improvement or have good results in listening comprehension Self-study is such a way to succeed in listening

1% 13%

60%

26%

never rarely sometimes often

Figure 3.4: Students’ time allocation for self-study

As can be seen from the chart, up to 60% of the students sometimes practice

listening skill at home, 26% of them often do it as their habit, 13% rarely do and only 10% never do it Students‟ time allocation for self-study at home is also a problem and

it affects them very much in mastering the listening skill It seems to be a disadvantage

of learners at HFLC

3.1.3 Students’ strategies in listening

How do the students learn listening skill in their classes? The following charts

will show the ways they did it

Figure 3.5 What the learners do before and while listening

What students do before listening partially has impacts on their comprehension

of the listening text According to the data which has been collected, 29.3 % of the students said that they would go through the questions and guess what the topic is about It is reasonable enough for this first stage of listening However, the task instruction should be prior to read under any circumstances As they read them, they know what they are supposed to do and how to deal with that There are just 29.3 % of students taking this first step

In addition, new words are such matters that prevent students from understanding the text When encountering a new word, just 6.7 % choose to ignore the word and keep on listening, 36% try to guess its meaning and 47.4% feel depressed and cannot listen any more From this, we can see that lacking of vocabulary could be a barrier to students

As Hedge (2000: 37) points out, instead of listening to every word in their first language, many language learners tend to integrate their linguistic competence,

experience and back ground knowledge to comprehend the text

In listening comprehension, a good listener will not listen to all the words of the listening task They may skip any part of it and just focus on the information that they need for their answer In contrast, most participants in my research consisting of 73,6% agree that they listen to word by word Listening word by word or listening for detail as they think is very important to get the main ideas Once they try to comprehend every single word, there are few chances for them to discover the key words which give them clues to understand the listening text

In our first language, we skim over parts of the message and pay attention to relevant parts only Thus, sentences are not possessed word by word and the focus is placed on the ideas behind these words and how these ideas are linked together to draw conclusion

3.1.4 Learners’ assessment on the listening tasks in the textbook

The degrees of difficulty of the listening tasks in the textbook New English File-Pre intermediate by Clive Oxenden, Christina Latham-Koenig, Paul Seligson are

assessed by the learners as follows:

textbook does not prove to be a big problem for the students to learn English listening skill However, it does not mean that it is easy for all the students The matter is whether those listening tasks are interesting or not for the students to learn

In this textbook, the most popular types of listening activities are true/ false; completing the missing words; choosing the correct answer; or answering the comprehension questions, etc

Of those listening activities, students express their interest in them differently The differences are shown in the following table

Figure 3.7 Learners’ interest in different listening activities

From the table, it can be seen that the most favorite listening activities are complete the missing words (30.67%) and choosing the correct answers (24%) These types of activities are simple because the learners can do without fearing of spelling mistakes Answer comprehension questions accounts for 25.33 % and true/false, 10.67% These types of activities are more complicated for the learners It requires the learner‟s general comprehension about the listening text and general skills such as skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, etc Moreover, the learners also need good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary in order to express the ideas based

on what they heard Then, the listening activities affect the students‟ interest in learning this skill a lot

In order to motivate the students in learning listening skill, beside the listening activities given in the textbook, the teacher has to adapt them and create more interesting activities The survey collected their feedbacks about the listening activities that they would like to do

Figure 3.8 Learners’ interest in extra-listening activities

The writer has given four groups of extra-activities that are often used in order to enhance the learners‟ motivations in learning the listening skill The students are let to listen to the songs; watch the films on DVDs or listen to the stories on the radio; listen to the news like VOA special news or speeches or lectures; or listen to the short dialogues such as conversations, or interviews, etc As can be seen from the above bar chart, most of the learners like listening to the dialogues Listening to the dialogues is the most favorite activities which account for 46.67 % of the students at HFLC In contrast, listening to the news, speeches or lectures bored most students Only 9.33% of the students like this Besides, listening to songs seems to make students more interesting, 20% of the students choose this one Watching films or listening to stories was accepted because 10.67% of them say they are their favorite activities The students who care about the dialogues may be interested in the short conversations between the characters in the films or stories although they might not understand much the contents of the films or stories

Figure 3.8 Learners’ interest in extra-listening activities

The writer has given four groups of extra-activities that are often used in order to enhance the learners‟ motivations in learning the listening skill The students are let

to listen to the songs; watch the films on DVDs or listen to the stories on the radio; listen to the news like VOA special news or speeches or lectures; or listen to the short dialogues such as conversations, or interviews, etc As can be seen from the above bar chart, most of the learners like listening to the dialogues Listening to the dialogues are the most favorite activities which accounts for 46.67 % of the students

at HFLC In contrast, listening to the news, speeches or lectures bored the most

songs films or stories

News, speeches

or lectures

Dialogue:

conversations, interviews

Other