the difficulties of english listening skill encountered by employees in the cennos company in viet nam

ABSTRACT This study of “An investigation into the difficulties in English listening skills encountered by employees in the Cennos Company” was conducted to analyze specific listening English skills required by the employees, to investigate the needs of the employees on English communication in their careers And it is special on English listening skills and their difficulties of English listening, then to determining the English training needs to improve listening skills The research instrument used in the survey is a questionnaire consisting of five parts: background information of the respondent, English background of the respondent, the necessity of using English listening skills in their career, the needs of listening skills for English communication skills improvement, the difficulties when learning the listening skills and the respondent’s opinions and suggestions The sample group used in this research consisted of 50 Vietnamese employees working in Competitive Intelligence English team at the Phuong Chi software limited company (PCSC), which is the agency of Cennos company in Viet Nam The questionnaire was distributed to the employees of the team that were the most relevant to this study during February 2018, and the data were collected and analyzed by using SPSS The results of the study indicated that English listening skills and the difficulties of the listening skills were problems faced by Vietnamese employees at the Cennos, individually the listening skills in English communications situation at workplace Therefore, the respondents need to improve all communication skills, particularly in the listening skills The organization should give the employees the training courses focusing on all communication skills, especially the listening skills and the content of the subject that makes them more efficient, productive, and incentive to improving listening skills of the employees by themselves ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study could not have been accomplished without the encouragement and assistance of many help of many people I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to all who have made great contributions to this study I would like to express my deep gratitude to my teacher MA Pham Thi To Loan for her guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work I would also like to thank my roommate for her advice and assistance in keeping my progress on schedule I wish to thank various people for their contribution to this study Special thanks should be given to member of Competitive Intelligence English (CIE) team who help in collecting the data all the technicians who helped in handing the instruments I would also like to thank them who were the respondents in my study, for their kind cooperation in answering the questionnaires To my Quality Assurance - M.s Hue and my leader- M.s My, thanks for all of their whole-hearted support, and encouragement TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Research methodology .5 1.6 Organization of the study .6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .7 2.1 Overview of listening skill 2.1.1 Definition of listening skill 2.1.2 The relationship between listening and other language skills in International English Language 2.1.3 The importance of listening skill 2.1.4 The importance of English and listening in English at workplace 12 2.1.5 Types of listening skills 13 2.2 The difficulties of English listening skill .15 2.2.1 The difficulties of using English listening strategies .15 2.2.2 Factors that affect learning English listening skills 18 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 21 3.1 Data collection instruments 21 3.1.2 Data collection procedures 21 3.2 Data analysis and discussion 22 3.2.1 Employees’ real situations of learning English listening skill in working environment 22 CHAPTER SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 30 CONCLUSION 33 REFERENCE QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CIE Competitive Intelligence English QAS Quality Assurance Specialist SPSS the Statistical Package for Social Sciences ESL English as a Second language EFL English as a Foreign Language LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES CHARTS Table Gender .22 Chart Age 23 Chart Level of education 23 Chart Working position 24 Chart Period of working in the company 24 Chart English proficiency 25 Chart Point for what necessity of listening English Skills 27 Chart The frequency of some common problems 28 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale Language is a communication tool that is important and necessary, especially English Nowadays, English is the most popular language tool in the world As a global language, English is used in many countries like their mother tongue and their second or foreign language Communication by English is very important to all organizations or business as well as Cennos Company in Viet Nam A business cannot offer a good service if it does not communicate efficiently in English And absolutely, everything is meaningless when they could not understand what their customer are saying, and not understand their needs When learning English, most people learn reading and writing first Then learning listening and speaking skills are so difficult, especially employees who have big used communicate skills necessary but without time to learns In Cennos, it is a limited software company which situated in Dublin, California, USA and the agency in 22- Thanh Cong- Ba Dinh -Ha Noi Cennos provides a complete solution for customer’s e- commerce business, including management and analytics of their pay-per-click advertising campaigns Co-operate with the foreign customer, example is some shopping online web in USA, the EU, or in the world, like Wayfair.com, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, etc It is the most important thing for employees to fluently use English, especially listening skills to communicate with them Having three-month internship in Competitive Intelligence English (CIE) team, the author realized that the biggest problem of practicing English in the workplace is listening skills Because employees cannot understand the customers, they cannot speak anything to introduce about the products for them understand Employees have good email writing skills but the face- to- face communication is not able to They show their confusion, shyness This is the reason why the company misses many opportunities in business And the author chose the topic: “the difficulties of English listening skill encountered by employees in the Cennos company in Viet Nam” Up to this point, the author hopes that this study can help deal with problems that employees have with listening and improve their listening skill as well as communication skill in English 1.2 Previous studies “A study of needs of staff’s English communication skills: a case study of an electronic company” by Chiyanasit from Srinakharinwirot University Thailand Following this study, those in the roles of Buyer, Planner, and Program Administration Management frequently use English communication skills in their workplace, when interacting with both staff in other departments and Englishspeaking customers The most common deficits they had noticed in terms of English communication skill were listening problems, especially understanding foreign accents; speaking problems, particularly the use of broken English and word-forword translations, etc The staff in production office agreed that the most difficulties skill to learning was listening Listening skill is listened what customers’ needs In addition, they also revealed their lacks of English communication skills that the most lack English communication was listening skills For lack of listening skills, they encountered with listening English conversation via phone They could not understand so speaking is difficult This study showed that the similarities between staffs’ and managers’ perception for English communication lack understanding English conversation via phone, negotiating for mutual understanding, understanding customer forecasts, and writing business letters in appropriate formats in English In term the differences between staff’s and managers’ perception among necessities, lacks, and learning needs, staffs proposed that the English course should be emphasized on conversation, while mangers believed that the English course should be the equally emphasized on four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing With study: “Many Malaysians difficulty communicating in English in the workplace, especially when it comes to business-related matters” (Aniza-2016) He pointed out that perception on oral communication skills play a crucial role at the workplace in Malaysia And the perception of the workers clearly reported that they often face problems speaking fluently and speaking in front of an audience Moreover, he said that the ability to listen was the most important of all communication skills in any organization and states It is problems involving the listening skill at workplaces All of that because of tendency at times for same executives, supervisors and workers to talk more and fail to listen and not comprehend the notions of listening and hearing is That’s all right in Viet Nam We are ESL worker together And he suggested that when it came to business-related matter, as a worker we had to face and overcome a few obstacles within ourselves which is called insecurity in believing one’s ability, it improve the difficulty communicating in English in the workplace “Needs analysis for English communication skills of employees at HSBC in Thailand” by Sirikanya Luankanokrat of Thammasat University Bangkok, Thailand (March 2011) The results of the study indicated that every language skill: listening, speaking, reading, and writing were problems faced by Thai employees at HSBC, especially the listening skills The most necessary skill that the respondents used in their career was reading and the least essential skill was listening and speaking Therefore, the respondents need to improve all communication skills Over a billion people speak English at least a basic level In Thailand, English has been accepted as an international or foreign language And Viet Nam is too The success in careers depends more or less on the capacity of English Differences in background may be one of the most difficult communication barriers to overcome Age, gender, education, social status, economic position, temperament, religion, popularity and political belief can separate one person from another and make understanding difficult According to the study, most of the respondents thought their listening skill is the most serious problem (40%), followed by speaking (30%), writing (26,7%) and reading (3,3) And the causes of their listening problems were the most serious problem in listening in their career (61,3%), followed by the inability to understand technical terms (45,3%), the inability to remember the entire information (46,6%), the inability to understand slang, idiomatic expressions, or colloquialisms (44%) and the incapability of translating words or sentences (20%) And the authors showed that the level of listening skills necessary is 89 %, very necessary level, talking with customers and meeting in English is moderately necessary About 50.7% of the respondents would like to improve their listening skill in pronunciation, followed by 47.3% in comprehension The rest of respondents would like to improve in vocabulary (45.3%) and grammar (30%) respectively From the finding, the author showed that unfamiliarity with foreign accents and pronunciation was the major difficulty that caused their English listening problems The second problem was that were unable to understand technical terms and unable to remember the entire information The respondents thought that they were incapable of translating words and sentences A competitive employment market requires good communication skills in workplaces Workplaces need good communication skills especially in English language as it plays an essential role in all over the world Competence in the English language often becomes as a decisive factor in securing a wellpaid job (Casale & Posel, 2011) Carliner (2000) and Leslie and Lindley (2001) reveal that weak grasp in the language may lead to loss in an organization Thus, it is apparent that good proficiency is needed for one to secure a job, especially in the management team Needs Analysis on the Importance of English Language Skills for Workplace: Trainee Architects (P Thivilojana, 2015) Proficiency in English therefore, is vital for future employees in order to move forward in both local and international companies and to develop their technical knowledge and skills It offers a foundation for problem-solving and critical thinking skills that are essential to cope with the swiftly changing environment of the global workplace, one where English plays a vital role as highlighted by Ornstein & Hunkins (1993) One interesting finding of this study is that it highlights the discrepancy between students’ perception of their language competency and of their instructor However, the students also mentioned the importance of English language, particularly speaking and listening, in their daily communication and workplace tasks These skills can specifically assist them in writing reports, giving presentations confidently, avoiding miscommunication, making them more eligible for jobs, socializing with others and getting more friends Thus, language courses should put more emphasis on oral and aural skills in order for the university to be able to make these trainees more 3.2.1.3 What problems employees have with listening? According to the results, it seems that there are many difficulties which staffs encountered in the workplace Almost employees encountered problems which related to vocabulary Maybe it is difficulties words, long sound words, unfamiliar words When communicating in English in the office, we usually face those problems, but how to deal with it is a big problem We often avoid or feign understanding This is out of fear that people with interpreting their request for clarification as a lack of competence Unfortunately, faking understanding only leads to more misunderstandings which can hold them back The results are demonstrated in the charts below In the below charts, the percent of each problem is stated by staffs in the questionnaire Chart The frequency of some common problems 25 20 15 23 23 22 22 10 18 19 18 19 16 14 15 16 12 10 9 2 Never Sometimes Often Same or similar sounds, unclear pronunciations Stress, rhythm, Long spoken text Speed of speech 28 Always Difficult grammar, Ending sounds Guessing unknow words while listening Phrases verb, Linking words According to chart 7, we can see that the problems which part IV in the questionnaire is very popular The most common problem is same or similar sounds, unclear pronunciations After that it is followed by phrases verb, linking wording problem and stress, rhythm, long spoken text For speed of speech problem, we have 36% of respondents for “sometimes” answer, 39 % for “often” answer, and 16% for “always” answer Most of the people said, “I know the words, but I cannot remember immediately when I hear.” That’s why guessing the meaning of words which they don’t know while listening is not easy problems There is 18% of respondents who choose “always”, 32% choosing “often”, 46 % for “sometime” and % for “never” in this problem It is a problem of lacking practice in listening so difficult grammar, ending sound problem is very easy to meet There is 30% of respondents said that they always meet this problem And 36% said “often”, 16% was “sometimes”, and the last is 18% for “never” As seen from the results obtained from the study done in CIE team, it’s been understood that the biggest deficiency in listening as a problem is learning and practicing English Sounds which are similar to each other or similar pairs should be examined with special attention Apart from that, staffs should be well equipped with authentic language as much as possible Here are the most common problems collected from the staffs: the time they spend on studying themselves is too little to improve the skill, the inappropriate strategies of learner would be a hindrance for their listening comprehension The problems are also caused by the listening material and physical settings They should learn the tips or strategies through each of their learning themselves 29 CHAPTER SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Listening in English is too hard! When we come to speak English, these are good listening skills which make it easier Their improvement starts with their mindset They should start by believing in themselves and their ability to speak and understand fluent English In the next paragraph, the author has some tips and advices for employees who can it in their workplace Firstly, they need to practice more If they what people to improve their listening: watching a few movies in English every week, listening to some in English 3-5 times a week, listening to English for 15 minutes per day; this is not enough For their success to be fully guaranteed, they need to these two things: listen to a lot of English every day, it for a long period of time But as an employee, staffs have not a lot of times The author gives them some tips which will be helpful for them To start, add a lot of English listening material to their smartphone Podcasts are good ideas After that, turning, boring time into listening time is important steps They listen to English during driving, riding a bus or train, doing house chores, working out and waiting for something instead of “in their free time” If they use this method long enough, their English listening will definitely improve When it comes to English listening material, there are many different options: moves, TV series, podcasts, TV shows, youtube videos, audio videos… Next, improving the vocabulary is best important things If they feel like almost everything they listen to is too difficult to understand, their vocabulary is probably very limited That’s why they have trouble understanding most English conversation But in the case that they are not good at recognizing words spoken quickly, they should simply focus on listening to a lot of English Next, improving the vocabulary is best important things If they feel like almost everything they listen to is too difficult to understand, their vocabulary is probably very small That’s why they have trouble understanding most English conversation While listening, they also read in English to quickly learn words and 30 phrases commonly used in conversation But in some cases, they are not good at recognizing words spoken quickly And the majority of staffs learns with independent study way Working in the environment where English is spoken, they should take every afternoon to hunt for an English conversation Listen for any new words, they may not know, and also try to see if they can catch what the conversation is about A tip is joining a conversation group Find a group of English learners who host a conversion table in their company The meeting is a great place to look for English conversation groups, maybe with their supervisor who is English This will be a great way to listen to a variety of English accents and voices If they are nervous about speaking English, remind that they are going to listen and this is totally okay They should simply focus on listening to a lot of English During listening, remember that it’s alright if some words or phrases are unclear, especially the first time they listen to something Maybe something they not understand, please not confuse That’s partly because they want to understand the big picture first or main meanings In other words, focus on the main ideas In real solution, if they not understand some phrases, they can communicate And focus on what give them hints about the big meanings In the workplace, employers should be grappled to understand what level of English proficiency their teams and individual roles need for their company to be more competitive, more productive and to be truly successful Working in an international company, employees global see English as a key tool to advance their careers If they concentrate on listening to English skill at work, they will see benefits such as increased productivity, faster progress toward goals and more relationships between employees To practice, using authentic listening material is the best Too difficult or easy material makes them give up early It’s a waste of time to listen to something they not understand or understand almost every single word/sentence So, this is the two kinds of English material that they should avoid Challenging English material which they cannot understand or clearly hear every 31 single word or sentence, but they still understand the main idea, is what they should use For examples of challenging material, we have some conversation that people speak a bit fast or contain some words and phrases they not know, but they can guess the meaning, and where they can hear and understand 80% of the sentences These are the most important things they have learned from this article They must listen to a lot of English every day The best way to that without spending extra time is to listen to English during activities that not require concentration or deep thinking And podcasts are the best choice for listening material For free time, they should read in English to quickly learn the most common vocabulary Make English part of their life at home, at work, during their free time Moreover, they pay a lot attention for some notes which it is listening to speakers who not speak clearly, listening to conversations on various topics and listening to both American and British English If they are already good at listening to one of these accents, they practice listening to the other accent as well 32 CONCLUSION In conclusion, all of us know the importance of English for the modern life, especially in the workplace More important in our company, a global business, English is essential if they want to get ahead in today’s fast-paced global economy In today’s global society business in increasingly being conducted across borders with English often being used as an international language of communication It helps their company to succeed, build trust with colleagues and clients, build and improve international relationships, enhance their skills and command a higher salary and enhance international relationships through cultural understanding The ability to communicate in English is a huge asset for their careers Listening skills are the basic skill to use in the workplace Good listening skill helps totally improve speaking skill Then we have good communication skill If they can speak English with confidence, there is a good chance that they have either studied or experienced English culture to some extent This cultural understanding can be valuable for employers who want to work with or sell to English speaking countries Assisting learners in the development of listening comprehension are a challenge It is a challenge that demands the learner’s attention because of the critical role that listening plays, not only in communication, but also in the acquisition of language Knowledge of the listening process and factors that affect listening enable teachers to select or create listening texts and activities that meet the needs of their adult ESL learners as we are Listening activities must create a balance that mirrors the realworld integration of listening with speaking, reading, and writing 33 REFERENCE Aniza(2016), Many Malaysians difficulty communicating in English in the workplace, especially when it comes to business-related matters Aniza, (2016) Many Malaysians difficulty communicating in English in the workplace, especially when it comes to business-related matters Barker, L L (1971) Listening behavior Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Bodie, G D., Worthington, D L., Imhof, M., & Cooper, L (2008) International Journal of Listening Brod, S (1996) Teaching listening in the workplace English language training program at the Spring Institute Unpublished manuscript Casale & Posel, (2011); English language proficiency and earnings in a developing country: The case of South Africa, formerly The Journal of SocioEconomics Chiyanasit from Srinakharinwirot(2006), A study of needs of staff’s English communication skills: a case study of an 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(More than one answers is allowed.) o Unfamiliar with the foreigners’ accents and pronunciation o Incapable of translating words or sentences o Unable of catch the words or conversations o Unable to understand slang, idiomatic expressions, or colloquialisms o Unable to understand technical terms o Unable to remember the entire information o Others (please specify ……………………………………………………………………………… …)Part III: Difficulties of listening English skills Instructions: Please mark √ in the of the answer that you think is most suitable to you Necessity listening of Most English necessar Skills 13 Grammar y 14 Vocabulary 15 Comprehensio n 16 Pronunciation 17 Using Very Moderatel Slightly Least necessar y necessar necessar y necessary y y slang, idiomatic expressions colloquialisms 18 and Please mark √ in the  of the answer that how often you encounter these following problems? Difficulties of listening English skill Same or similar sounds, unclear pronunciations Never Sometimes Often Always Ending sounds, Difficult grammar Stress, rhythm, spoken text Guessing new long words while listening Speed of speech Phrases verb, Linking words Please mark √ in the O of the answer that you think is most suitable of fill in the space provided 19 In your opinion, which part of listening skill would you like to improve? (More than one answers are allowed.) o Grammar o Pronunciation o Vocabulary o Others o Comprehension (Please specify……………………………… …………………….) 20 In your opinion, how can the company help you improve your English communication? (More than one answers are allowed.) o Using English in work o In-house training o Taking free English courses at a language institute o Training abroad o Testing the employees’ level English every year to up their salary o Others (Please specify……………………………………………… ) Part V: Opinions and suggestions of the respondents Thank you for your kind assistance ... opportunities in business And the author chose the topic: the difficulties of English listening skill encountered by employees in the Cennos company in Viet Nam Up to this point, the author hopes... knowledge about listening skills and difficulty of English listening skills: - Chapter III: Research findings: Finding out the difficulties of listening skills encountered by employees in working and... importance of listening skill 2.1.4 The importance of English and listening in English at workplace 12 2.1.5 Types of listening skills 13 2.2 The difficulties of English listening skill