An investigation into listening comprehension problems of the second year English students at Nghe An junior Teachers Training College = Nghiên cứu những khó kh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ THANH HOA AN INVESTIGATION INTO

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ THANH HOA

AN INVESTIGATION INTO LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT NGHE

AN JUNIOR TEACHERS TRAINING COLLEGE

(Nghiên cứu những khó khăn trong việc học kỹ năng nghe hiểu của sinh viên

chuyên Anh năm thứ hai ở trường CĐSP Nghệ An.)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ THANH HOA

AN INVESTIGATION INTO LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT NGHE

AN JUNIOR TEACHERS TRAINING COLLEGE

(Nghiên cứu những khó khăn trong việc học kỹ năng nghe hiểu của sinh viên

chuyên Anh năm thứ hai ở trường CĐSP Nghệ An.)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Field: Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Đinh Hải Yến, M.Ed

Hanoi, 2010

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Learners‟ perceptions of strategies of listening comprehension

Table 2 learners‟ perception of listening problems related to the listening

text

Table 3 Learners‟ perception of listening problems related to tasks and

activities

Table 4 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to the listener

Table 5 Learners‟ perceptions of teacher‟s teaching methods

Table 6 Teachers‟ perceptions of teaching methods

Table 7 Teachers‟ perceptions of learners‟ strategy uses

Table 8 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

JTTC: Junior teachers training college

TABLE OF CONTENT

Declaration

Acknowledgements

Abstract

List of tables

List of abbreviations

PART A: INTRODUCTION ………

1 Rationale ………

2 Aims of the study ………

3 Scope of the study ………

4 Significance of the study ………

5 Method of the study ………

6 Design of the study ………

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ………

Chapter one: Literature review ………

1.1 The nature of listening comprehension ………

1.1.1 The concept of listening comprehension ………

1.1.2 The listening comprehension process ………

1.2 Potential problems in learning listening comprehension ………

1.3 Strategies of listening comprehension ………

1.4 Three stages of the listening session ………

1.4.1 Pre-listening stage ………

1.4.2 While-listening stage ………

1.4.3 Post-listening stage ………

1.5 Related studies of listening comprehension problems ………

1.6 Summary ………

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Chapter two: Methodology ………

2.1 Participants ………

2.1.1 Students ………

2.1.2 Teachers ………

2.2 Setting of the study ………

2.3 Research methods ………

2.3.1 Research questions ………

2.3.2 Data collection instrument ………

2.3.3 Data analysis method ………

2.4 Summary ………

Chapter three: Data results, discussions of major findings and recommendations ………

3.1 Sources of listening comprehension problems experienced by students at N.A JTTC ………

3.1.1 Learners‟ perceptions of strategies of listening comprehension …………

3.1.2 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to the listening text … 3.1.3 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to task and activities… 3.1.4 Learners‟ perceptions of listening problems related to listener ………

3.1.5 Learners‟ perceptions of teacher‟s teaching methods ………

3.2 Sources of listening comprehension problems reflected by teachers ………

3.2.1 Teachers‟ perceptions of teaching methods ………

3.2.2 Teachers‟ perceptions of learners‟ strategy uses ………

3.3 The expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill ………

3.4 Recommendations for improvement of the efficiency of teaching and learning of 2nd year English students at Nghe An JTTC ………

3.4.1 Recommendations for teachers of English ………

3.4.1.1 Adapting and improving listening materials ………

3.4.1.2 Improving teachers‟ classroom techniques ………

3.4.2 Recommendations for students ………

3.4.2.1 Improving English proficiency ………

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3.4.2.2 Improving listening strategies ………

3.5 Summary ………

PART C: CONCLUSIONS ………

1 Summary of the study ………

2 Conclusions ………

3 Limitations and suggestions for further study ………

REFERENCES ……… APPENDICES

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE

English language teaching profession has changed tremendously over the last few decades in the light of Communicative Language Teaching approach Training learners to be able to use English for communicative purposes has become the goal In order to use English effectively, learners need to develop communicative competence Accordingly, they should be helped to develop four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing However, among the four given skills, it is now generally recognized that listening plays a key role in facilitating language learning Rost (1994, as cited in Nunan & Miller, 1995) confirmed that listening is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for learners Without understanding inputs at the right level, any kind of learning simply cannot occur Listening, therefore, is essential not only as

a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency

In many colleges and universities in Vietnam, listening has played a very important part in learning a foreign language and it is recognized as the principal objective of language courses However, the teaching of listening skills is still the weak link in the language teaching process

At Nghe An Junior Teachers‟ Training College, listening is treated equally as other skills in terms of time allocation In fact, it has not drawn much attention of both teachers and learners, they are generally less aware of its importance In classrooms, teachers seem to test, not to teach listening Meanwhile, students seem to learn listening, not listening comprehension Thus, students cannot listen effectively If they are asked to rank the four macro language skills: Speaking, reading, writing and listening in order of difficulty, listening skill will probably be one of those which are put at the top of the list

From her observation and experience in working as an English teacher for nearly 10 years, the researcher has noticed that her students have lots of difficulties in listening comprehension This becomes a strong inspiration for her to have an investigation into their listening comprehension problems through which she can identify kinds of listening problem and factors causing their difficulties This would help the researcher

to work out possible solutions to help improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning listening comprehension at her college

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the study is to investigate the listening comprehension problems of the

2nd year English students at Nghe An JTTC Therefore, the specific aims are:

1 To find out kinds of listening comprehension problems encountered by 2nd English students at Nghe An JTTC

2 To find out factors causing their difficulties in listening comprehension

3 To provide some suggestions on strategies to help students overcome

3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The minor thesis is conducted at Nghe An JTTC in order to perceive difficulties in learning listening comprehension of the 2nd year English students The study focuses

on describing the problems and factors causing the given difficulties related to strategies of listening comprehension, the listening text, tasks and activities, listener, and teachers‟ methodology

4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STYDY

This study points out the listening comprehension problems encountered by 2ndEnglish students at Nghe An JTTC More importantly, it is a further contribution to the investigation of foreign language listening comprehension problems in actual language classroom practice

Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help to the improvement of the teaching and learning listening comprehension of English of Vietnamese students in general and of Nghe An college students in particular The study also gives some guidelines for teachers to help their students overcome their

listening comprehension problems The results of this study may also be useful for those who are interested in this field

5 METHOD OF THE STUDY

To fulfill the above aims, the study was carried out with quantitative method of data collection:

1 A questionnaire designed for students consists of two parts

 Part one aims at obtaining demographic data about the participants such as name, age, gender and the number of years they have been studying English and listening skill as well

 Part two with focus on listening comprehension problems formulated from learners‟ perceptions of listening comprehension problems is based on the model advocated by Ali S Hasan (Hasan, 2000) to find out kinds of their listening comprehension problems and factors affecting their difficulties

2 Another questionnaire was delivered to the teachers It is aimed at obtaining information concerning their perceptions of listening comprehension problems for their 2nd year students

6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

This study is divided into three parts

Part A, INTRODUTION, presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, significance, methods as well as the design of the study

Part B, DEVELOPMENT, has three following chapters:

Chapter one is the Literature Review which deals with theories on factors involving listening comprehension and listening comprehension problems

In chapter two, Methodology, the current situation of teaching and learning listening

at N.A JTTC is investigated The research methods which cover research questions, the participants, data collection instruments are presented in this chapter

Chapter three presents the data results, analysis and discussion of major findings of listening comprehension problems, factors contributing to their difficulties and provides some suggestions on strategies to help students overcome their difficulties

Part C, CONCLUSION, summarizes what are addressed in the study, particularly the major findings and recommendations The limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study are also included in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter one: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 The Nature of Listening Comprehension

1.1.1 The concept of listening comprehension

There have been a large number of definitions of listening comprehension which present different views of scholars towards the concept

Traditional views considered listening as a passive language skill alongside with reading skill Listeners were regarded as a tape-recorder, took in and stored aural messages in much the same way as the tape-recorder They just hear what they are to listen without paying sufficient attention to the discourse such as background knowledge of the speakers

as well as their intentions, attitudes, implications and other shades of meaning etc

Nowadays, there exist different views about listening comprehension

Anderson and Lynch (1988, as cited in Fang, 2008, p 21), considered the listener as an active model builder This kind of listener could combine the new information with his previous knowledge and experience to reach full comprehension of what had been heard This view emphasized the active interpretation and integration of incoming information with prior knowledge and experience

According to Buck (2001), listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by “applying knowledge to the incoming sounds” (p.31) in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge” (p.31)

O‟Malley and Chamot (1989, p 420) made a conclusion that

Listening comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning by using cues from contextual information and existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement

Vandergrift (1999, p.168) emphasized that

Listening is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance

In short, listening is not a passive but active and conscious process in which learners construct and convey meaning by using not only the linguistic cues but their non-linguistic knowledge as well Linguistic knowledge is of different types, but among the most important are phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure The non-linguistic knowledge used in comprehension is knowledge about the topic, the context, and general knowledge about the world and how it works

1.1.2 The listening comprehension process

Listening comprehension is regarded theoretically as an active process in which individuals concentrate on selected aspects of aural input, form meaning from passages, and associate what they hear with existing knowledge

Rost (2002, as cited in Vandergrift, http:// www.llas.ac.uk/resourses/gpg/67) defines listening, in its broad sense, as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation), constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation), negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation) and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation)

Moreover, it is agreed that the comprehension process is constructed based on the two principal sources of information which Widdowson (1983) refers to as (1) systematic or linguistic knowledge (knowledge of phonological, syntactic, and semantic components of the language system) and (2) schematic or non-linguistic information There has been

much debate about this knowledge though, the two most important views are bottom-up view and top-down view

Bottom-up view considers listening comprehension as a process in which listeners make sense of what they hear by focusing on different parts such as vocabulary, grammar or functional phrases, sounds, etc Schemata are hierarchically formed, from the most specific at the bottom to the most general at the top It acknowledges that listening is a process of decoding the sounds, from the smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts This process is closely associated with the listener‟s linguistic knowledge However, bottom-up processing has its weak points Understanding a text is an interactive process between the listener‟s previous knowledge and the text Efficient comprehension that associates the textual material with listener‟s brain does not only depend on one‟s linguistic knowledge

Top-down view, on the other hand, starts with background knowledge in comprehending the meaning of a message This knowledge can be content schema (general knowledge based on life experience and previous learning) or textual schema (knowledge of language and content used in a particular situation) While listening, the listener actively constructs (or reconstructs) the original meaning of the speaker employing new input as clues to understand what he/ she hears However, if the incoming information the listener hears is unfamiliar to him, it cannot evoke his schemata and he can only depend heavily

on his linguistic knowledge in listening comprehension Besides, although the listener can trigger a schema, he might not have the suitable schema expected by the speaker Thus, only relying on top-down processing may result in the failure of comprehension

The two views above have certain disadvantages Bottom-up view focuses on linguistic knowledge whereas top-down bases on background knowledge While listening, accordingly, if listeners depend heavily on one of two, they will fail to understand the spoken text It is now generally accepted that both top-down and bottom-up processes should be combined to enhance listening comprehension These two processes intersect to develop an interactive process The process employing background knowledge information, textual information and linguistic information make comprehension and

interpretation become easy for listeners When the content of the material is familiar to the listener, he will employ his background knowledge at the same time to make predictions of what the speakers are going to say or to overcome barriers of unfamiliar words As opposed to this, if the listener is unfamiliar with the content of the listening text, he can only depend on his linguistic knowledge, especially the lexical and syntactical knowledge to make sense of the information

In short, it is generally agreed that interactive process is the one that listeners should employ to enhance listening comprehension In this process, the listeners constantly shuttle between bottom-up and top-down processes Successful listening requires skill in both top-down and bottom-up processing

1.2 Potential problems in learning listening comprehension

In the eyes of many learners of English, listening is usually regarded as the most difficult skill However, they have difficulties with different aspects

According to Underwood (1989), there are seven problems which learners often encounter in learning listening Firstly, they cannot control the speed at which speakers speak Secondly, the listeners are not able to get things repeated Another difficulty is learners‟ limited vocabulary The next, they are not able to recognize the „signals‟ by which a speaker can indicate that he/she is moving from one point to another, or giving

an example, or repeating a point, or whatever Underwood also indicates that listener may have problems of interpretation Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in interpreting the words even if they can understand their

„surface‟ meaning Especially, this can even occur when the speaker and listener are from the same background and use the same language Besides, inability to concentrate is a major problem to the listeners, because even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension The last problem is learners‟ established learning habits due to the fact that their teachers aims to teach them to understand everything in the English lesson Consequently, students are worried if they fail to understand a particular word or phrase

when they are listening Underwood sees these problems as being related to learners‟ different background such as their culture and education

Flowerdew and Miller (1996, as cited in Hasan, 2000, p 139) found that students‟ problems in listening to academic lectures were speed of delivery, new terminology and concepts, difficulties in concentrating, and problems related to physical environment

Lee Chang Ngee (1985) identifies some problems which listeners often face including the speed of the speaker and the language he uses; students‟ unfamiliarity with the sounds, stress, intonation and rhythm of natural spoken English; different varieties or accents; false starts, hesitation, repetitions and incomplete sentences Besides, he also points out that boredom, fatigue or distraction outside the classroom may affect the concentration of the listeners

Goh (2000) attributes ten listening comprehension problems in relation to three cognitive processing phases – perceptions, parsing, and utilization First, in the perception stage, learner reported most difficult ones are: „do not recognize words they know‟, „neglect the next part when thinking about meaning‟, „cannot chunk streams of speech‟, „miss the beginning of texts‟, and „concentrate too hard or unable to concentrate‟ Second, in the parsing stage, listeners complained of problems such as „quickly forget what is heard‟,

„unable to form a mental representation from words heard‟, and „do not understand subsequent parts of input because of earlier problems‟ Third, in the utilization stage,

„understand the words but not the intended message‟ and „confused about the key ideas in the message‟ were often mentioned (Goh, 2000) These reported difficulties partially reflect Underwood‟s (1989) views on second language listening problems

Yagang (1994) attributes the difficulty of listening comprehension to four sources: The message, the speakers, the listeners and the physical setting

As a whole, there are four main factors that contribute to the difficulty of listening comprehension: speaker factors, the listener factors, the content of the listening, and the physical environment Theoretical explanations of listening comprehension presented

above provide clues about the problems which learners face when they listen to spoken text These insights can not, however, account for exhaustive explanation of these problems As Nunan (1991, p.38) states “theories, ideas, and research are as good as teachers and textbook writers make them Interesting and unexpected things happen in the classroom, and in the final analysis, principles and ideas need to be tested in practice”

1.3 Strategies of listening comprehension

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input

Top-down strategies are listener based ones in which the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of the text, and the language This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next

Top-down strategies include:

- Listening for main ideas

Bottom-up strategies include:

- Listening for specific details

- Recognizing cognates

- Recognizing word-order patterns

Listening comprehension tends to be an interactive, interpretive process in which listeners use prior knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages Listeners use

meta-cognitive, cognitive and socio-affective strategies to facilitate comprehension and to make their learning more effective

O‟Malley and Chamot (cited in Vandergrift, 1999, p 170) stated that meta-cognitive strategies are important because they oversee, regulate, or direct the language process These strategies involve knowing about learning and controlling learning through planning, monitoring and evaluating activity However, without the deployment of appropriate cognitive strategies, the potential of these meta-cognitive strategies is curtailed

Accordingly to Vandergrift (1997,as cited in Vandergrift, 1999, p.170), cognitive strategies manipulate the material to be learnt or apply a specific technique to the learning task These strategies include:

- Rehearsal, repeating the names of objects or items that have been heard, or practicing

a longer language sequence

- Organization, or grouping information to be retained in ways that will enhance comprehension and retention

- Elaboration, or relating new information to the information that has previously been stored in memory, or interconnecting portions of the new text

A third category, socio-affective strategies, was added to describe learning that happens when language learners co-operate with classmates, question the teacher for clarification,

or apply specific techniques to lower their anxiety level (Vandergrift, 1997, as cited in Vandergrift, 1999, p.170)

1.4 Three stages of listening sessions

There are often three main stages in a listening session They are: pre-listening stage, while-listening stage, and post-listening stage Each stage has its own aims and activities

1.4.1 Pre-listening stage

Pre-listening stage prepares student by getting them to think about the topic or situation before they listen to the texts In other words, it gives students a purpose to listen It also

gets students to relate to what they already know about the topic and arouses their interest

in listening During this stage, teachers may use some activities such as: teacher giving background information, the students reading something relevant, the student looking at pictures, discussion of the topic/ situation, a question and answer session, written exercises, following instructions for the while-listening activities and consideration of how the while-listening will be done These activities may provide an opportunity for students to gain some knowledge which help them to follow the listening text Moreover, each of these activities helps students focus their mind on the topic by narrowing down the things that they expect to hear The choice of which activities to use should depend on the time, the material available, the place in which the work is being carried out, the nature and the content of the listening text itself If one of these forgotten, the whole process of activity can be failed (Underwood, 1989)

1.4.2 While-listening stage

The while-listening stage involves activities that students are asked to do during the time that they are listening to the text This stage gives students a guide of framework to practice listening It helps students to listen better, more accurately through carefully designed comprehension tasks Good while-listening activities help learners find the way through the listening text and build upon the expectation raised by pre-listening activities

1.4.3 Post-listening stage

Post-listening stage involves activities related to a particular listening text (whether recorded or spoken by the teacher) which are done after the listening is completed

The purposes of post-listening activities are:

- To check whether the learners have understood what they need to or not

- To see why some students have missed parts of message

- To give the students the opportunity to consider the attitude and manner of the speaker of the listening text

- To expand on the topic or language of the message and to transfer learned things to another context

- To make introduction for the planned work

Post-listening activities can take students into a more intensive phrase of the study in which aspects of the bottom-up listening are practiced It is important to note that post-listening work can also usefully involve integration with other skills through development

of the topic into reading, speaking or writing activities

1.5 Related studies of listening comprehension problems

Language learners often feel inundated with problems when they first attempt to listen to

a new language Although the problems are various, they are not experienced by all students, nor are they experienced to the same degree by students from different backgrounds (Underwood, 1989) However, according to Hasan (2000), learners‟ perceptions of their listening problems and strategies can affect their comprehension either positively or negatively Wenden (1986) cites research findings stating that unsuccessful learners are generally less aware of effective ways of approaching the learning tasks

There has been relatively extensive research on difficulties encountered by many learners when listening to the foreign or second language Yagang (1994) attribute the difficulty

of listening comprehension to four sources: message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting Higgins (1995, as cited in Hasan, 2000) studies Omani students‟ problems in listening comprehension and found that the factors which facilitate or hinder listening are speech rate, vocabulary, and pronunciation Flowerdew and Miller (1996) studied learners‟ strategies and difficulties in listening to academic lectures They found that students‟ problems were speed of delivery, new terminology and concepts, difficulties in concentrating, and problems related to physical environment Rubin (1994) identified five factors which affect listening comprehension: text characteristics, interlocutor characteristics, task characteristics, listener characteristics, and process characteristics Another study was conducted by Hasan (2000) with focus on the investigation into the difficulties encountered by Arab EFL learners in listening comprehension The evidence points out that Arab EFL learners encountered listening problems related to tasks and activities, the message, the speaker and the listener

In the context of Vietnam, there has been a recent unpublished M.A thesis entitled

“Listening difficulties perceived by teachers and students in using the new English textbook for grade 10 at Que Vo II upper-secondary school in Bac Ninh” by Phung, (2008) In her study, Phung investigated three main problems that students cope up with: learners‟ low level of language background, lack of strategies, and lack of teachers‟ assistance This study is a further contribution to the investigation of foreign language listening comprehension problems However, the study only focuses on exploiting the difficulties related to level of students, learner strategies and teachers‟ assistance when teaching and learning the new textbook It does not cover major factors causing listening challenges such as the message they listen to, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting Besides, subjects of the study were high school students, who are totally different from students at college in terms of classroom setting, linguistic competence, as well as the material and methodology exploited by teachers This fact leaves a gap for the researcher to conduct an investigation into listening comprehension problems of the 2ndyear students at Nghe An junior teachers training college

1.6 Summary

So far the relevant literature which is needed to form the theoretical framework for the present study has been presented in this chapter The major issues being reviewed include the nature of listening comprehension and potential problems in learning listening, the strategies of listening comprehension and three stages of a listening session Also, a number of related studies on listening comprehension were briefly introduced

Chapter two: Methodology

The previous chapter has presented a literature review on the theory of listening comprehension, potential listening problems and listening strategies, and provided a necessary theoretical background for the present study This chapter presents the research methods used for data collection and analysis in the study It starts with a description of the participants It then describes the setting of the study and research methods

2.1 Participants

2.1.1 Students

Aiming at second year English students at Nghe An Junior Teachers Training College, the researcher chose all three English classes, namely K5A, K5B and K11 to carry out the research Their age ranged from 19-22 There were 73 females and 5 males, three forth of whom came from the countryside All of them were being trained to be teachers in the future Their English proficiency levels were reported to be at pre-intermediate level However, the time they started learning English at school was different Most of them have learnt English since the 6th grade and the rest have learnt English at high schools All of them started learning listening skill at college

There are two reasons for choosing the second-year English students as the participants of the study Firstly, the training quality of English students is of great concern to both the college authority and teachers at the faculty of Foreign Languages Secondly, although they have had one year training in English, their listening skill still seems to be the weakest among all the four skills learnt at college

2.1.2 Teachers

Five English teachers who were teaching at the college were invited to take part in the study Their ages range from 25 to 34 years old All of them were female 2 teachers

out of 5 had Master degrees, the other 2 were doing Master course in linguistics for

the time being and one had the University Bachelor‟s Degree The time length of teaching English is different, from 3 years to 10 years They are suitable participants

for the study as they have had some experience in teaching listening skill, minimum level of one year and maximum of 7 years Besides, they had ever attended some English conferences in methodology Especially, one of them had been trained at VAT project (Vietnam Australia Training) Without doubt, all the teachers at Faculty

of foreign language at N.A JTTC were experienced, enthusiastic and willing to help their students to overcome their listening comprehension problems

2.2 Setting of the study

This study was carried out at Nghe An Junior Teachers Training College with 78 second year English students This study was carried out from early March to mid May 2010, when they were learning their second term of the second year with 2 listening periods per week Up to the time of the study, they had been studying English at the college for nearly 2 years with more than 100 periods for listening

hours They had worked on Listen carefully written by Jack C Richards as the major listening textbooks in their first year at the college In the second year Listen for it written by Jack C Richards, Deborah Gordon and Andrew Harper, (1995) was chosen

as the main textbook to improve their listening skills Listen for it was supposed to be

a good book to develop the students‟ listening skills However, in practice the students seemed to be unable to listen effectively Observing my students I realized that three forth of them came from the countryside, accordingly, their background knowledge is limited Besides, compared with university students, these students usually have much lower entrance marks (total of 12-15 marks for three subjects) It is clear that their English proficiency is not high In addition, they learn spoken English in almost isolated environment from English-speaking people Thus, their abilities to speak and listen in English can hardly be improved The other factor that may affect their listening comprehension is their lack of effective learning strategies Consequently, English students at Nghe An JTTC face a variety of problems in learning listening comprehension

2.3 Research methods

2.3.1 Research questions

This study attempts to investigate listening comprehension problems encountered by English students at Nghe An JTTC as well as factors which help and hinder their listening comprehension in English To achieve this aim, the following research questions are proposed:

1 What problems do 2nd year English students at Nghe An JTTC face in listening comprehension?

2 What are the factors causing their listening comprehension problems?

3 What strategies should teachers and students employ in improving the effectiveness

of teaching and learning listening comprehension?

2.3.2 Data collection instruments

This study employed mainly quantitative methods in form of survey questionnaires

to find out listening comprehension problems encountered by 2nd year English students at Nghe An JTTC and factors causing their listening comprehension problems

It is obvious that questionnaires, as common tool to collect data in research on applied linguistics, offer certain advantages As Seilinger and Shohany (1989) pointed out, questionnaires do not take much time to administer as other procedures Also, since the same questionnaire is given to all the subjects at the same time, the data are more uniform, standard and accurate Lastly, questionnaires can be easily quantified because multiple-choice questions are used Due to these advantages questionnaires were used as a main data collection method in this study

This instrument was applied for both students and teachers

The questionnaire for students served two purposes: to ascertain listening comprehension problems experienced by students, to find out factors causing listening comprehension

The questionnaire for students consists of two parts Part one aims at obtaining demographic data about the participants such as name, age, gender, the number of years they have been studying English, and the number of years they have been studying listening skill In part two, 2 open-ended questions and 16 items were formulated from learners‟ perceptions of listening comprehension problems based on

the model advocated by Ali S Hasan (Hasan, 2000) to find out kinds of their listening comprehension problems and factors affecting their difficulties More specifically, items 4, 5 and 15 were modified to make them easier to understand and questions 17,

18 were added The students were asked to identify precisely their listening problems

by responding to statements arranged according to a five- point scale (never, seldom, sometimes, often, always) and by providing responses to 2 open-ended questions at the end of the questionnaire to point out the factors which help and hinder their listening comprehension in English Oral instructions and explanations in Vietnamese were given by the researcher herself to avoid any misunderstanding

Another questionnaire of 8 items and 1 question was delivered to the teachers It aimed to get information concerning the teachers‟ perceptions of the methodology and learners‟ strategy uses that can affect learners‟ comprehension either positively or negatively

The two questionnaires were given to 2 teachers who have expertise in the area for judgments and comments, and then they were piloted on a sample of 2 other listening teachers and a class (23 students) who were chosen randomly After analyzing the data obtained in the pilot study, following discussions with the teachers and the students involved, the final and formal questionnaires were given to the rest of teachers and students to find out the perceived listening comprehension problems The researcher believed that from information obtained, some useful suggestions could be made to minimize the difficulties encountered and thus improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning of listening comprehension at the faculty of foreign language at Nghe An JTTC

2.3.3 Data analysis method

Data gathered from responses of the teachers and students in the two given questionnaires were sorted and analyzed statistically to get the answers for the given research questions

2.4 Summary

In this chapter, the descriptions of the participants and the setting of the study have been given In addition, the research methods including research questions, data collection instrument, and data analysis method were also presented