Problem facing english majored freshmen at tay do university when learning english listening subject

Therefore, this survey research entitled "Problems facing English majored freshmen at Tay Do University whenlearning English listening subject" was conducted to figure out common problem

TAY DO UNIVERSITY

Supervisor:

Dang Thi Bao Dung, MA

Student's name: Thai Fham Anh Duy

Student's code: 1157010011

,rUdlto:oHtAvoo

L.003728

Class: English 6

My research could not be finished without the help of a lot of people I would like

to give my profound gratitude to all those who helped me to complete this research.

First of all, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the University of Tay Do,especially, the teachers of Faculty of Linguistics and Literature for bringing meopportunities to study and conduct the research.

Secondly, I want to express my honest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Dang Thi

Bao Dung, for her precious comments and important instructions She was alwayswilling to help me correct every mistake in my research, provide me many usefulreferences and timely give me directions to lead my research to the right path Besides, during the years leaming at University, she was a good and enthusiasticteacher who encouraged students by giving her valuable advice, understood and

wholeheartedly created the best conditions for her students to study better.

Truthfully, my research could not be completed successfully without her dedicated

assistance.

In addition, I would like to thank the students of English 9 class for spending their

time joining in the questionnaire and the interview questions Their cooperation was

a very meaningful contribution to my research.

Finally, I want to give my deep gratefulness to my family for supporting me the best

condition and encouraging me throughout the years of studying They absolutely

trust me and love me with all their heart This is the motivation that helps me

accomplish this study.

COMMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

CoMMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vi

ABSTRACT """"""' """""'vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

L.2 Research aims and research question 3

1.2.1 Aims of the study """"""' 3 1.2.2 Research question " 3 1.3 The significance of the study ."""""" 3 1.4 The organizationof the study ."""""""' 3 CILAPTER 2: LIIERATURE REVIEW .".""" 4 2.1 Definitions of listening 4

2.2 The importance of listening """ 6 2.3 Problems in learning listening subject """'7 2.3.1 Problems related to linguistics ."""""""" 8 2.3.1.1 Pronunciation, intonation and accent problems """"""' 8 2.3.1.2 Vocabulary problems "' 10 2.3.1.3 GrammarProblems ""' 11 2.3.2 Problems related to background knowledge '.""" 12 2.3.3 Elements affecting learning English listening subject 13

2.3.3.1 Psychological obstacles 13

2.3.3.2 The speech rate 14

2.3.3.3 Unfamiliar topics 15

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17

111

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS ANDRECOMMENDATIONS

v

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

LIST OT'F'IGURES

Figure 1 Students' living environment 20

Figure 2 The subjects that students learned in high school 21

Figure 3 The amount of years in learning English of students 22

Figure 4 The importance of leaming Eng1ish 23

Figure 5 The importance of listening 25

Figure 6 Students' self-evaluation on their listening ability 27

LIST OF'TABLES Table l Student's weekly practicing time 22

Table2 Students'purposes of leaming English 24

Table 3 The findings of statements about participants' opinion towards the importance of listening 26

Table 4 Students' daily practicing time 27

Table 5 The participants' difficulties in pronunciation, intonation and accent 28

Table 6 Problems in vocabulary of the respondents 30

Table 7 Students' difficulties in grammatical points in leaming listening 31

Table 8 Difficulties caused by background knowledge 32

Table 9 Respondents' psychological obstacles in listening 32

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Listening is said to be an indispensable subject which partly contributes to the

suocess of leaming English and daily communications It is also the subject thatmany students usually face diffrculties in leaming Therefore, this survey research

entitled "Problems facing English majored freshmen at Tay Do University whenlearning English listening subject" was conducted to figure out common problems

in studying listening of students majoring in English Statistical data were collected

from fifty Engiish majored freshmen course 9 at Tay Do Univers ity The two maininstruments of the study were questionnaire and interview The findings of the study

would point out the students' difficulties in linguistics (pronunciation, vocabulary,grammar) background knowledge, the rate of speech, psychological obstacles, etc.

Thanks to the results, some solutions would be suggested for the students'improvement

vll

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 presents rationale, aims oJ'the study, research question, significance of

: the study and organization.

Nowadays, Vietnam is in the process of integrating with other countries around the

world, so this brings people many opportunities to cooperate and work with foreignpartners both inside and outside the country Therefore, being able to use a foreignlanguage proficiently is quite essential because it can help people work more

effectively Actually, the language which has been considered as an internationallanguage is English It is used widely in every life aspect and becomes a decisive

factor of employers in recruiting staff In other words, it is compulsory for peoplewho want to get a good job with high salary to speak English well For that reason,

many people nowadays, especially students, want English to become their second or

foreign language so that they can be successful in work

Nevertheless, learning English seems to be a difficult process of many students To

study English effectively, students must improve four basic skills including reading,

writing, speaking and listening These four skills have a mutual relation If listeningand reading are the language input, then writing and speaking are said to be the language output Among these skills, listening is a prominent skill which is hard to

be mastered and plays a significant role in communication According to Epictetus,

"nafure has given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice

as much as we speak" Listening directly affects daily conversation because "themost basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen Just listen.

Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention" (Rachel

Naomi Remen) In fact, if there is no listening, people find it hard to share their

thoughts, feelings or ideas with others Gradually, there will be an existence of an

invisible distance between person and person In contrast, if people do notunderstand clearly what was said, no reply to the speakers will be sent and the conversation will be intem.rpted That is why listening is a subject which cannot be

neglected for English learning students Nunan (1988, p.l) asserts that "Listening is

the basic skill in language learning Without listening skill, learners will never learn

to communicate effectively In fact, over 50% of time that students spend

functioning in a foreign language will be devoted to listening" However, it appears

as a challenge in the process of learning English "Listening is far more difficultthan many people can image" (Mee, 1990) because it "involves a:r active process of

deciphering and constructing meaning from both verbal and non-verbal messages"

(Nunan, 1998) Listening is a complex and long-term process It is not as easy as we

eat an apple or learn by heart a song in a short period of time To improve listeningskill, students should spend much time practicing Many of them may think that

listening is less important than grammar or other skills, so they do not frequentlypractice their listening It results in the failure in English learning process.

Similarly, students at Tay Do University especially the English majored freshmen,

usually encounter many problems when studying listening subject It is

hypothesized that students have a passive way in learning They commonly wait for

the information from the iecturers instead of actively finding their own materials for

learning Yet, it is not easy for them to recognize their weak points when accessing

to English listening subject Their drawback leads to a series of problems relatecl to

linguistic knowledge, including vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, accent and

grammar, background knowledge and some other elements as well

Consequently, this research was conducted to figure out the problems facing

English majored freshmen at Tay Do University when learning listening subject Since then, students can realize their difficulties Moreover, basing on the problerns stated in this study, students can overcome their problems in listening and improvetheir listening skill

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1.2 Research aims and research question

1.2.7 Aims of the study

The research aimed at investigating the problems facing English majored freshmen

at Tay Do University when learning English listening subject to help themrecognize their own problems Besides, this study was expected that students couldrestrict their difficulties and improve their listening skill positively

1.3 The significance of the study

This study was expected to help learners realize their difficulties in learning English

listening subject, grarticularly the English majored freshmen at Tay Do University

In addition, basing on the problems mentioned in this study, sorte useful solutionswould be recommended to solve the problems to help learners study listeningsubject well

1.4 The organaation of the study

Chapter 1 : Introduction

Chapter 2 : Liter atrtre revi ew

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

Chapter 4: Results and Discussion

Chapter 5: Conclusion, Implications, Limitations and Recommendations

CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2 presents the definitions of listening and its importance; dfficulties in

learning listening subject (inguistics elements: pronunciation, intonation, accent,

vocabulary, grammar; background knowledge) and elements affecting learning

English listening subject (psychological obstacles, the rate of speech and unfamiliar

topics).

2.1 Definitions of listening

In daily conversation, there is an interaction between the speakers and the listeners.

In fact, many people think that the conversation will be successful if they use a lot

of words to communicate However, speaking is just one of the components leading

to achievement in communication Actually, communication will fail without theexistence of listening It helps people understand what was said so that they can

have an appropriate reply to each other The term of listeningaarr be defined by

several ways According to the ILA (International Listening Association, 1996),

listening is "the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding tospoken and/or nonverbal messages" "Listening is the ability to accurately receive

(http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-skills.html) In addition, "listening is

the conscious processing of the auditory stimuli that have been perceived throughhearing" (west, Richard; Turner, Lynn (2010), Understanding InterpersonalCommunication p 186 ISBN 9780495908753) Listening is not an easy process of

communication because "listening in any language requires focus and attention It is

a skill that some people need to work at harder than others".(https://www.englishclub.com/listening/what.htm) Furttrermore, Howatt and Dakin

(1974) define that "listening is the ability to identiff and understand what others are

saying This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, hisgrarnmar and his vocabulary, ffid grasping his meaning" Wipf (1984) also states

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that "listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe.

Listeners must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and

grammatical structures, interpret stress and intention, retain and interpret this within

the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance" (Wipi J.

Comprehension.Foreign Language AnnalslT:345-48) However, according to

Bulletin (1952: paru.6), "listening is one of the fundamental language skills It is a

medium through which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of

their education-their information, their understanding of the wcrld and of humanaffairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation."

Although listening plays an important role in learning English as well as in daily

life, people cannot distinguish listening from hearing They sometimes think that

listening is hearing Nevertheless, "there are a lot of differences between listeningand hearing." (G.K Chesterton) Semiotician Roland Barthes (1985) claimed that

"Hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is a psychological act" In hisopinion, "hearing is always occurring, most of the time subconsciously In contrast,listening is the interpretative action taken by the listener in order to understand and

potentially make meaning out of the sound waves Listening can be understood on

three levels: alerting, deciphering, and an understanding of how the sound is

produced and how the sound affects the listener" (Barthes, Roland (1935)- In the

Responsibility of Forms- New York Hill and Wang) Brownell also assumes that

"hearing, essentially a physiological process, involves three interconnected stages:

reception of sound waves, perception of sound in the brain, and auditory

association" (Brownell, 2006, 77) On the other hand, "listening comprehension means the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language It was

the perception of information and stimuli received through the ears" (Richards,

Platt & Platt, 1992) Grey Buck (2001:31) provides a definition that "listening

comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done byapplying knowledge to the incoming sounds'o in rvhich "number of different types

of knowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic

knowledge" A long with the above defrnitions, Rost (2002) considered listening as

"a process of receiving what the speaker actually says (receirtive orientation);

constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation); negotiatingmeaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation); and, creating

meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative

orientation)." (Rost, M (2002), Teaching and Researching Listening London, UK:

Longman)

In short, through years, a lot of ways to define listening has been observed Among

these definitions, Wolvin and Coakley (1985) share the idea that listening is "the

process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli; that is, message transmitted through the medium of sound" This is the one that can be considered as a highly acceptable definition

2.2 The importance of listening

We cannot deny the fact that listening is vital not only in daily life aspects but also

in language learning In fact, people spend nearly half of the time listening, at about 45%o while they spend 30Yo on speaking, 16%o on reading and 9% on writing (Wilt

1950) Similarly, according to t}re research of Adler, "adults spend an average of70%,' of their time engaging in some sort of communication, of this an average of

45% is spent on listening compared to 30%o on speaking, 16% on reading and 9%o on

writing" (Adler, R et al 2001).

In real life, listening also has a strong impact on many fields In other words, it

plays a crucial role which can determine the success or failure of every life aspect such as communication, negotiation, business, etc This skill "establishes us in our

real life situation and enables us to maintain meaningful rela:ions with family,friends and professional associates" (Michael P and Deborah B, 1997) If people

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have a good listening skill, they can avoid misunderstanding in communication It

will make the relationship among people better.

In language leaning, listening skill is an indispensable skill that learners cannotignore If they listen well, they will feel confident and get motivation when learning

speaking subject Actually, they can imitate native speakers' pronunciation,

intonation and accent It is recognized that "listening process involvesunderstanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the speaker's grammar and

vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning" (Howatt and Dakin (1974))

"Beginning in the early 70's, work by Asher, Postovsky, Winitz and, later, Krashen,brought attention to the role of listening as a tool for understanding and a key factor

in facilitating language learning" Hence, "listening has emerged as an important

component in the process of second language acquisition" (Feyten, 1991).

"Listening can also help students build vocabulary, develop language proficiency,

and improve language usage" (Barker l97l) In addition, Rost (1994) points out

that "listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learners Without understanding input at the right level, any leaming simply cannotbegin Listening is thus fundamental to speaking" Being able to listen well, learners can pass the examinations on listening subject easily and get good results as they

expected.

To sum up, listening is a key factor to the success of learning another language,especially in studying English That is the reason why students majoring in English

have to pay attention to this skill

2.3 Problems in learning listening subject

In the process of learning language, listening is not an easy subject Therefore, it

causes many obstacles for many freshmen who do not spend time studying listeningsubject Being unable to listen well leads to the lack of confidence in

communication This is also the problem that English majored fi'eshmen at Tay Do

University face when learning this subject In this study, there are three common

reasons affecting students' ability of listening

2.3.1 Problems related to linguistics

One of the most important parts assisting students to access to listening subject

efficiently is linguistic knowledge It consists of lots of elements such aspronunciation, accent, vocabulary, gralnmar, etc

2,3.L.1 Pronunciation, intonation and accent problems

Pronunciation plays an indispensable role for students who want to master in both

speaking and listening This means that if students care much about their

pronunciation, they will be proficient in listening It cannot be derried that "Learners

with good English pronunciation are likely to be understood even if they make

effors in other areas, whereas learners with bad pronunciation will not be

understood, even if their grammar is perfect" (Gilakjani, 2Al2) As a result,

pronouncing words incorrectly may cause a serious consequence- that is

misunderstanding among people Furthermore, students cannot recognize some

familiar words when listening if they have mispronunciation of those words "If the listeners learn to pronounce the sound accurately himself it will be much easier for

him to hear them correctly when being said by someone else." (Ur, 1984, p.14)

Gilbert (1984) agrees that "the skills of listening comprehension and pronunciation

are interdependent: 'If they cannot hear English well, they are cut off from the

language If they cannot be understood easily, they are cut off from theconversation with native speakers."' Indeed, pronunciation is a cofirmon problem

of English majored students in learning listening because it directly affects theirlistening ability According to Cook (1996), "learning to pronounce a second

language means building up new pronunciation habits and overcoming the bias of

the first language" When students learn how to pronounce an English word, their

mother tongue sometimes has an effect on the way they pronounce Hence, their

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pronunciation has a big difference from the native speakers' That is the reason why

they usually face difficulties in listening subject.

Besides, intonation and accent are not less important than pronunciation Intonation

is believed to be "the rises and falls in tone that make the 'tune' o I an utterance, it is

an important aspect of pronunciation of English, often making a difference to

meaning or implication" (Chen, 1983:143).Brazil, Coulthard & Johns (1980) also

argue that "Intonation in English might also convey a speaker's involvement in aconversation as well as a desire to take turn of talk or leave the conversation.

Intonation is a significant feature in English" When learning English, intonation

usually makes students confused in communication because different intonationscan make the same sentence have various meanings If there is a misunderstanding

in a conversation, "the reason lies often in differences of strt:ss and intonation

sufficiently large to spoil comprehension." (Boyle, 1984:37) It is worth noting thataccent is another vital element in linguistic knowledge which has a strong influence

on studying English listening All of us know that English language has manydialects in different countries such as British English, American English, AustralianEnglish, and etc It is not surprised that " someone from the south of England may

have problems understanding a speaker from the north; a New Zealandermay fail tofollow the speech of an American." (Underwood, 1989) Theretbre, students find ithard to distinguish which word the speakers are mentioning when hearing a newaccent for the first time In addition, another problem is that, according to Yagang (1994), "the listeners have tendency to get familiar with the accents which they

mostly listen If listeners are exposed to standard British or American accents, they

will face problems in understanding other accents" There are many differencesbetween the way a Japanese person speaks English and a native speaker from

England because Japanese tend to speak English in their native accent, for instance.

In class, students will imitate the pronunciation as well as the accent of their

teachers who are non-native English speakers and gradually they are accustomed to

that accent This becomes a big trouble in learning listening subject.

2.3.1.2 Vocabulary problems

When learning a new language as a foreign or a second language, people must start

to learn the vocabulary of that language Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) point out tliat

"vocabulary knowledge has been identified as the most important indicator or orallanguage proficiency, which is particularly important for the comprehension of both spoken and written language" It is one of the most important parts in the process of

learning language in common and English in particular because "without grammar

very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed"

(Thornbury, 2002, p.33) Richard and Renandya (2002, p.252) assurne that'Vocabulary is a core component of language proficiency and prc,vides much of the basic for how well language learners speak, listen, read and write"

In learning listening subject, lack of vocabulary knowledge is a huge obstacle for

students A word does not merely have a meaning, but it probably has manydifferent meanings in a particular context Therefore, students usually have

problems in identifuing the suitable words when they listen "Knowledge of thevocabulary used by the speaker is another quality for good listening comprehension; some words have many meaning when they are used in different contexts Most

students can only identiff the most common meaning of a word In order to become

an effective learner, one must understand a broader range of vocabulary" (Samuels, 1984) Underwood (1989:17) says that "for people listening to a'foreign language,

an unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barier causing them to stop and

think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss rhe next part of the speech" In addition, students do not use the words they learn regularly, so they are

easy to forget those words This causes a problem that they cannot recogni ze the

words they learned before when facing a text of listening 'Iherefore, studentsshould learn vocabularies as much as they can by putting new words to the

particular context and combining it with others in its context "students should be

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active in creating semantic connections between familiar words and new vocabulary

in contextual situations".(Nagy & Anderson, 1984)

Grammar is "the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in

as consisting

of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also

phonology and semantics" (Oxford Dictionary) In other words, grammar is rules of

words and how words combine together in a language For that reason, grammar are

said to be the skeleton of a language It is the essential part of studying English

because "English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure

of expressions in the English language" (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).Therefore, when approaching to a new language like English, learners must start to

study grammar If learners have good knowledge of grammar, they will study

English well by using different and appropriate structures in forming sentences It

also helps them recognize sentence structures and understand easily what speakers are saying during the process of listening

In addition, the grammatical rules of English language are not the same as

Vietnamese grarnmar, so it is difficult for students to use English grarnmirproficiently Students frequently make mistakes when speaking or writing Englishsentences because of the fact that their mother tongue's grarnmar has a strong

influence on learning another new language This leads to the ir.tervention of their

mother tongue's grammar to foreign language's strucfures Nguyen (2013) assulnes

that "the grammar of their mother tongue seems to be deeply rooted in their rnind so

students tend to inference their mother tongue structure to the structure of the

foreign language" As a result, they will fail in learning listening subject Sometimes, the words in some sentences are the same; however the arrangement of

those words is obviously dissimilar The differences of sentence structures will

result in the variety of meanings and implications Hence, misinterpretation of the

meaning that the speakers actually convey due to the lack of gramrnar knowledge is

also a common problem occurring very often when students learn English listening

In short, grammar is the element that cannot be neglected if students want to be

master in listening skill However, will students be good at listening subject if they

oniy have good apprehension of linguistic fietd? Will they get success in this skillwithout background knowledge?

2.3.2 Problems related to background knowledge

In reality, language and culture have a mufual relation In fact, "Language cannot exist without culture Culture can be explained as what the society thinks and does,

and language is the expression of the ideas of the society" (the American linguist

Sapir, l92l:60-90) For that reason, it is necessary for students to have knowledge

of cultural background of the language they are learning Provr:rb (1990) affirmsthat "background knowledge includes knowledge of target culture, knowledge of

current affairs, arts, politics and literature" Therefore, busfuress report, daily

conversation, economic report, technology, political issues, science, etc are thetopics that can be found easily in the listening materials 'oln terrns of listening, the

listener actively constructs (or reconstructs) the original meaning of the speaker

employing new input as clues In this reconstruct process, the listener employs priorknowledge of the context and situation within which the listener occurs to

understand what he/she hears Context and situation involve such things a.s

knowledge of the text at hand, the speaker or speakers, and their correlation with the

situation, as well as with each other and previous event" (Pourhossein and Reza,20ll:979) It is required that students have variety knowledge on many fields toapply their knowledge to the listening text However, when facing the listening texts

including these topics, students seem to lack knowledge to understand what theyheard because these topics may consist of many new words and phrases that are

entirely strange to them Anderson & Lynch (2000) state that "lack of

socio-t2

cultural, factual and contextual knowledge of the target language can also present anobstacle to comprehension because language is used to express culfure"

To sum up, background knowledge plays a significant role in students' learning

English listening "Learning is effective when it is possessed with meaningfulmaterial related to knowledge that learners already possess" (Ausubel, 1968).

2.3.3 Elements affecting learning English listening subject

Besides the problems related to linguistic knowledge and background knowledge,there are some elements that have effects on students' listening learning process.

They are psychological obstacles, the rate of speech and unfamiliar topics.

2.3.3.1 Psychological obstacles

Psychological obstacle is the most complicated factor causing many difficulties in

both listening and speaking English of many students Psychological obstacles

sometimes debilitate the ability of receiving the language input It is stated by Dulay

(1982, p.4) that 'khen a student is exposed to a new language, his first internalhurdles are posed by the individual's emotional barriers" Indeed, listeners with bad

mood find it difficult to concentrate on listening text Besides, lack of attention is apsychological barrier in studying listening Brand (2010, p.ll) states that listening

is "the skill needed by a learner to focus on the lesson for a period of time withoutallowing one's thought to be distracted" If students do not focus on the listeningassignments, they will fail in getting the important information from the text and

will not deal with it well Nevertheless, "it can be diflicult for listeners to

concentrate on a foreign language In listening comprehension process, even a

shortest break in affention can seriously impair comprehension Conversation is

easier when the students find the topic of the listening passage interesting; however,students sometimes feel listening very tiring even if they are interested because it

requires an enormous amount of effort to follow the meaning" (Pourhossein, 2011,

p.982) This means that it is necessary for the activities provided by the lectures to

be interesting in order to attract the student's attention.

In addition, anxietv can be considered as an obstacle in students' psychology It is

o'the fear of misinterpreting, inadequately processing or not being able to adjustpsychologically to message sent by others" (Wheeless , 1975, p.26,3) Moreover, it is

said by Brown (1994) that "anxiety is almost impossible to define in a simplesenterice It is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt,apprehension or wolry" This kind of psychology restricts studenl.s' listening abilitysince it causes palpitation and breaks their concentration Another barrier of

students is the length of the spoken texts Actually, when they listen to the textswhich are long like lectures, they usually feel stressful and ernbarrassed Hasan

(2000, 143) claims that " the length of time students listen may cause memoryproblems or even fatigue and this would distract listeners' attention from grasping

the meaning of the text when there is a lapse in concentration" As the lecture is

usually long and it takes much time to listen, students cannot remember all the

details and take note all the information in the lecture because there is a huge

amount of information conveyed in it Taking note information will not be

successful as the speed of speaking and writing is different For this reason, students

should have some techniques when taking note information during the long lectures.

In brief, psychological obstacle is the drawback of almost students in learningEnglish listening subject Therefore, they need to overcome it in order to study well

2.3.3.2 The speech rate

In leaming English, it is hard for the students to catch the speaker's rate of speech because speech rate of a speaker is slightly different from other's Rubin (1994:24)claims that "the rlte at which a speaker produces words in conversation variesdepending on the'speaker and the particularities - such as register and subjectmatter- of the occasion for speaking" Besides, in real conversation, speakers tend to

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speak fast In fact, to make the speech smooth and sound natural, the speakers

frequently link the final consonant with the adjacent words'beginning with a vowel

This makes the speed of their speech faster; therefore, students will get obstacle in

recognizing familiar words in conversation That is why students usually encounterdifficulties in learning English listening Underwood (1989, p.16) agrees that

"Many English language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listeningcomprehension is that the listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks".

Also, Flowerdew & Miller (1996) believe that "the problems of the students were

for the speed of delivery, new terminology and concept, difficulty in focusing and

the physical environment" On the other hand, students themselves should prepare some tips to identiff which are the main points among the information given in theconversation Usually, the crucial ideas are spoken clearly with stress whereas thesupporting details are spoken rapidly with a lower voice Thus, there is no need tocatch all the information in the text except the main ideas If they lose orientation in

determining the core information when listening, they probably feel ambiguous and

discouraged in learning Being master in English listening is then, entirely out of

their reach One suggested solution for this problem is that, students should payattention to the connecting words It will help them very much in catching the gist

in communication and they gradually overcome the barrier from speech rate of

native speakers.

2.3.3.3 Unfamitiar topics

When studying listening in class, students are accustomed to the topics related to

acad.emic field Indeed, the majority of flre materials used for listening tasks belong

to this aspect, so there is no astonishment that sometimes students feel strange whenencountering some unfamiliar topics These familiar topics are sometimes brought

to listening course as challenge for students They include social issues such as

political reports, military issues or foreign affairs, etc During the text, there will be

many words, terms and terminology which are unknown to the students Hence,

understanding all the messages of these reports is a big difficulty This makes the students feel bored and discouraged However, to be acquainted with the strange

topics, students should use various materials in many fields of social life to listen.

"Familiarity with the text makes listening easier for the listener as he is able torelate to his own background knowledge" (Gebhard, 2000) This is a useful way to

enlarge knowledge of different aspects and help them get success in studyinglistening

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The survey research was conducted to answer the research question stated in

chapter l It was carried out at Tay Do University in Can Tho City The main key of

the research was participants They were fifty English majored freshmen who would

be delivered questionnaire so that tlre information about their problems in studying

English listening subject could be collected Moreover, to make the research morespecific and more objective, ten students were randomly selected in order to answer

the interview questions This study was the combination of quantitative research

and qualitative research because its instruments were questionnaire and interview

3.2 Participants

The participants of this study were 50 freshmen from the English majored class,

course IX at Tay Do university Actually, there were 56 students; however, only 50 students participated in the questionnaire because 6 students were absent Theywere 13 males and 37 females Their ages ranged from lg to 22 They speak

Vietnamese as their mother tongue and English is considered as their foreign

language They have been learning English from 4 to 12 years The main material of

English listening at university was the book of lnteraction l, silver edition (cherylPavlik; Margaret Keenan Segal; published by McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT, a business

unit of the McGraw-Hill companies) In addition, the participants practiced someextensive topics given by their teachers in class.

3.3 Instruments

Questionnaire and interview questions were the instruments of this research.

Questionnaire was used to find out the problems of students in leaming English

listening subject because of its high reliability Along with the questionnaire,

interview was another helpful tool used for collecting information By answering

the questions on the interview, the attitude of students towards English listeningsubjects could be revealed It also pointed out the students' obstacles when learningthis subject.

3.3.1 Questionnaire

The questionnaire included two parts Part I consisted of nine questions whichinvestigated the students' background They dealt with students' hometown

(urban/rural), students' years of studying English, their freque,ncy of practicing

listening to English, etc In part 2, there were twenty one statements listed in atable Statement 1,2 and 3 focused on the importance of listening In addition, theproblems of students when learning listening subject were stated from 4 to 21 Theproblems were related to many factors including pronunciation, intonation and

accent (from 4 to 7), vocabulary and grammar (from 8 to 12), backgroundknowledge and elements affecting students' listening ability (from 13 to 2l).

3.3.2 Interview

The paper interview consisted of 6 questions which mentioned the attitude,

problems of studying listening and some suggested solutions for those problems.

Students could be free to share their ideas.

3.4 Procedure

In this part, the process of implementing the research was presented It was done

within 16 weeks and the process was divided into 4 steps All the activities of

carrying out the research were listed in the following table:

18

Duration Activities

, Step I

The first four weeks

- Correct the research topic

and submit the research proposal.

Step 2

From the 5ft week to the 8ft week

- Design questionnaire and

interview

Step 3

From the 9ft week to the 12ft weeks

- Deliver questionnaire and

interview to the students to find

out their diffrculties

Step 4

From the 13ft week to 16ft week

Analyze the collected data.

Complete the research.

CHAPTER 4

This chapter shows the results of the study basing on the reliable fun collected

from lhe questionnaire and interview The results indicate problems in learning

listening of English majoredfreshmen through statistical evidence.

4.1 Results

After collecting all the necessary information and ideas from 50 English majored

freshmen by the questionnaires and the interviews, the data were analyzed The

lurdings were split into two groups: the results of the questionnaire and the resuls

of the interview

4.1.1 Results of the qucstionneire

The findinp of the questionnaire were classified into three basic items coasisting of

the students' background, students' auitude towards English and English listening

subject and students' problems in studyins listening

4.1.1.1 Thestudcnts'background

The padicipants' living environment is a crucial element which has &e direct effect

on the studying process Especially, for those who are language leamers, living

environment is even more important In fact the ability to leam a foeip languagewell or not somewhat depends on the place where learners come from This figure

below shows the percentage of the living eilviroDment of the participanb fromEnglish class course 9:

a Rrral rca

t rtar rca

Figure l Students' living environmcnt

20

This pie figure indicates thal T2o/o of the students from the Foglish majored class

course 9 at Tay Do University are from countryside whseas onty 28% of thestudents some from city Obviously, in the countrysidg learning English listening is

difficutt for many students because of the lack of equipment Furthumore, theteachers in the rural area mainly focus on teaching English grammar, reading and

,^riting subject Therefore, having rrrany problems in leaming listening is

Figure 2 The subjects thst students learned in high schml

The bars from the figure show the number of the students Referring to the figure,50/50 studetrts said that they leanrt reading in high school Writing subject wasanother su$ect that 27150 students studied in class with the teachers in the past In

conffast, it can be seen that 19/50 participants were taught the subject of speaking.

Untuckily, the number of the students who accessed to listening subject was lower

than that of other skills (only 12150) It proves that at the lower educational levels,

listening subject is not a prerequisite one, That is the reason why snrdents usually

encounter difficulties when entering the English class at university- the place where

listening and speaking skill are placed on top Of all l2l50 studena who did $fudy

English listening at high school, there were 5 students spending 3 periods a weekpraeticing listening to English (41.7%).25% of them said that &ey also practiced

listening for about 2 periods a week Besides, it is worttr noting that the,re was33.3% of students not practicing listening to English (see table I)

Table 1 Student's weekly pncticing timc

Another background factor is the amount of years of learniag English of sndene If

students spent many yesrs learning Englisll they would have larger knowledge &an

that of those who did not and probably their listening skill would be bstter Let'stake a look at figure 3 to see whether there are any differences about their years of

learning English or nol

6yers 7-9yers lGt2yers

Figure3 The amount of years in learningEnglish

ofstudents

According to the figure, the highest column represents 68% of dre participants whohave studied for 7-9 years It means that they started learning Engti$ since theywere in grade 6e They speirt at least 7 years studying this subjet before enterlng touniversity However, the percentage of the students starting leaming English since

grade l "t or grade 3d labout l 0- l 2 years) was just 260/o of the sum It was shown by

the column on the right of the figure Finally, the lowest one is the percentage of the

lemning years of studenB who have studied English for 6 years Unfocrmately, thepercentage of the students who have learned English for 10-12 years was less than

that ofthe students who have leamed for 6-9 years In addition, it caonot be deniedthat in the past, studers had to study many compulsory subjects along with leamingEnglish It caused many problems in learning English because the time that theyspent for practicing it was restricted Moreover, as mentioned abovg snrdents did

not have environment for listening skill since it was not a cente of teaching English

at many high schools As a resul! there are many difticulties that can be found in

learning listening subject

4.1.1.2 studctrts' ettitudc towerds lerrning English and Enrilish listeningsubject

4.1.1.2.1, Students' ettitude towrds learning English rnd their purposes of

indicates how studying English is important according to students' opinion.

8-lo o

J

rrot irnportanl flomral unportaru ver_f tmportarrt

Figure 4 The importruce of leening Ergtish