Difficulties in Listening Skills of Englishmajored Freshmen at Thuong Mai University and some suggested solutions

ABSTRACT Nowadays, the English language plays an important role in every field of our daily lives Therefore, there is a great demand for learning English not only in Vietnam but throughout the world as well for different purposes Learning English is divided into four main skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing And, as a child, listening is the initial and the most important step which becomes the foundation, helping people to learn other skills of a language So, this study is conducted with the aim of investigating the obstacles when learning to listen to English and providing suggested solutions to improve listening skills for 1st - year English-majored students at Thuong Mai University through qualitative and quantitative methods Collecting data instruments like survey questionnaires and interview questions were used to the research With the hope of improving students’ listening competence, I have tried my best to this thesis based on my own experiences and knowledge in English learning methodology ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received a lot of essential assistance, precious ideas and timely encouragements from my teacher, family and friends First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha who has always been willing to give me valuable support, guidance, and encouragement in order that I can complete successfully this study I also would like to take this opportunity to convey my sincere thanks to all my teachers in the English faculty, Thuong Mai University, who have taught me basic knowledge for four years to complete this study My grateful appreciation goes to 52 students of K54 at the Faculty of English, TMU for their enthusiastic help and support Lastly, special thanks and love to my family and friends who were always by my side and gave me motivation in my education and every other aspect of life Student Hoang Thi Ngan TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHART .v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous Studies 1.3 Aims of the Study 1.4 Research Subjects 1.5 Scope of the Study 1.6 Research Methodology 1.7 Organization of the Study .4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of Listening 2.1.1 Definition of listening skill 2.1.2 Types of Listening 2.1.3 Significance of Listening 11 2.1.4 Processes of listening comprehension 12 2.2 Factors affecting students’ English listening .13 2.2.1 Lack of motivation 13 2.2.2 Quality of Recorded Materials 15 2.2.3 Pronunciation 15 2.2.4 Vocabulary .15 2.2.5 Accent 16 2.2.6 Basic background knowledge 16 2.2.7 The speed rate of speech 17 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 18 3.1 Participants 18 3.2 Data Collection Instruments 18 3.2.1 Survey questionnaire 18 3.2.2 Interview Questions 19 3.2.3 Data Collection Procedures .19 3.3 Data Analysis and Discussion .20 3.3.1 Findings from Survey Questionnaire 20 3.3.2 Findings from Interview Questions 28 3.4 Discussions and Recommendations 32 3.4.1 Discussions 32 3.4.2 Recommendations 32 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 37 4.1 Summary of the Study 37 4.2 Limitations of the Study 37 4.3 Suggestions for further research 38 CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES APPENDIX LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS TABLES Table 3.1 Student’s learning English background Table 3.2 Attitude of students towards English listening lessons CHARTS Chart 3.1.Students’ English listening level Chart 3.2 Students assessment about the level of difficulty of English listening Chart 3.3 Students’ assessment of their weakest English skill Chart 3.4 Students’ opinion about the importance of English listening skill Chart 3.5 Students’ frequency in practicing listening to English Chart 3.6 Some kinds of material students use to listen Chart 3.7 What students during listening Chart 3.8 What students before listening Chart 3.9 Difficulties which students face in listening LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Acronym Meaning TMU Thuong Mai University CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale In recent years, Vietnam's economy has been integrating more deeply and broadly with the global economy The demand for high - quality resources has not only deepened but also for proficiency in foreign languages and soft skills Nowadays, English has become an important part of every business It is the key to opening the door to discover and exploit new markets, and seek foreign investors and production scale English is considered the second-most widely used language throughout the world There are four skills in English communication: listening, speaking, reading, and writing Of the four language skills, listening is believed to be the most challenging for the students As a researcher, I would like to present the thesis titled “Difficulties in Listening Skills of English-majored Freshmen at Thuong Mai University and some suggested solutions” for several reasons First of all, listening is the initial and most important skill in communication In reality, in the process of learning a language, human beings have to listen correctly, which results in speaking or reading correctly Besides, people can understand each other thanks to communication Communication is simply the act of transferring information from one person to another The way they understand others is through their languages No matter what the language is, as long as they understand each other, it means they have already completed the process of communication Of the four language skills, listening and speaking are two major parts of communication They are closely interdependent If we cannot hear, of course, we cannot speak If we fail to understand spoken language, we may miss important information and cannot respond or respond in an inappropriate way Secondly, listening is viewed as the most difficult skill in learning a language Unlike reading, a reader could base on the text and could have opportunities to refer back to read the text over and over again; besides, a reader can control the speed of reading and has more time to get its meanings; whereas, a listener has to understand the messages without any text and just one time Last but not least, the ability of listening requires long and extremely hard effort to progress That is the reason why a lot of people feel bored and easily give up learning to listen Like many other universities, many students at Thuong Mai University, especially 1st - year students of English Faculty, are faced with many difficulties when they listen Listening skills not only help many students widen their knowledge but also advance them to improve other language skills such as speaking and writing That motivates them to find effective listening methods that help them to improve their listening skill That is why the writer decided to choose the study 1.2 Previous Studies When researching this topic, the researcher explored some previous studies of other researchers In “A study of English listening problems and listening proficiency of business students at Bangkok university” by Asst Prof Watjana Suriyatham, Questionnaires, IELTS Tests and Interviews were used to investigate the main reason that caused listening problems for students is the listening text Besides, the lack of practicing the listening skill and lack of exposure to different kinds of listening materials are also considerable causes More importantly, the findings of this study helped the teachers to recognize students’ listening problems In this study, the author mainly brings out some solutions for teaching effectively My study presents solutions for learning English listening skills instead Another study titled “The Difficulties encountered by EFL Learners in Listening Comprehension as perceived by ELC Students at the Arab American University-Jenin” by Ahkam Hasan Assaf The study aimed to investigate the difficulties EFL students encounter in listening comprehension as perceived by ELC students at the AAUJ through two different data collection instruments: a survey questionnaire and two interview questions The results of the study showed that there were no significant differences in the difficulties students encountered in listening comprehension due to academic level, academic year, gender, type of school and number of school years studying English In this study, the author paid attention to difficulties more, he did not present effective methods helping students to learn listening fruitfully The last study which I found is “The difficulties in Learning Listening Skill of Non-English Major Learners at the University of Industry and how to deal with these difficulties” by an anonymous Industry student The author discovered some obstacles and solutions to improve listening skill but they are somewhat meagre and generalized Therefore, I would like to present a few more factors which affect listening and more concrete recommendations and suggestions 1.3 Aims of the Study This study was conducted in order to explore the current situation of English listening skill of 1st - year students of the English Faculty at Thuong Mai University More specifically, this study attempts to investigate the difficulties that the students faced when learning listening English and the factors bringing about difficulties for the 1st year students of English major Based on the findings, the research further seeks to suggested solutions to help the students overcome the difficulties in order to improve their listening effectively 1.4 Research Subjects The subjects of this study are difficulties in Listening Skills of the English-majored Freshmen at Thuong Mai University and some suggested solutions The participants are 52 K54 students in English faculty at Thuong Mai University The participants consisted of 48 female and male students who are learning English in business They came from different provinces and they were divided into different classes to study every subject together This practice formed multi-level classes In English classes, while some students were good at English, others had lower English proficiency 1.5 Scope of the Study The research has been completed to find out the reality of learning the listening skill in the first-year students of the English Department and provide some techniques to help them improve their English listening skill It was carried out over one month in the second semester of the 2018-2019 academic year However, the study could not include all K54 students at Thuong Mai University, its scope are only 52 students of K54 at English Faculty Thus, the results of the study are limited to the students enrolled in this study and the findings can affect the generalization of the larger population of all students It can also be a reference for anyone who wants to practice listening to English 1.6 Research Methodology In consideration of the research’s purposes, this study was completed in both quantitative and qualitative The data was collected by means of survey questionnaires and interview questions at Thuong Mai University The main method of the study was a quantitative survey questionnaire Furthermore, in order to achieve the set goals, the researcher collected some information based on her interviews qualitative method to make sure that the data would be more accurate and reliable A combination of two different methods above will provide reliable data, based on which the conclusions and suggestions will be made in the following parts The quantitative data were presented in the form of tables while the qualitative data collected from open-ended questionnaires and interviews were presented by quoting relevant responses Then the data were analyzed both descriptively and interpretively The purpose of using questionnaires and interviews as research materials to collect data in this study is to triangulate the data and to overcome the limitations or drawbacks of other methods because one can well support another which helps strengthen the research findings Both survey questionnaire and interview questions were used to serve the focal questions that guide the study These focal questions are: 1) What are the difficulties which in learning English listening skill of English-majored freshmen at Thuong Mai university? 2) What are strategies which help them to improve their English listening skill? 1.7 Organization of the Study video making a conversation with a foreigner about to 10 minutes months later, I could listen to about 80% of what my teacher said I am satisfied with that” Nguyen Ngoc Anh (K54N7) stated: “I need to practice listening English more regularly to improve my listening skill I can listen to music, listen to native speakers or watch English movies Besides that, I will read English books to enhance my vocabulary” “I am a big fan of listening to UK and US music I love the romantic lyrics of songs I always try to learn these lyrics by heart Listening to English songs not only advances my English listening skill, but it is also a wonderful way for me to relax after stressful lessons” (Nguyen Thi An – K54N1) An answer from Tran Khanh Linh (K54N1) is that: “On the weekend, I usually go to Hoan Kiem lake and try to talk to some foreigners to improve my listening skill” Communicating with native speakers is a good way to learn listening because “when they speak too fast or there are new words in their speech which I not know, I ask them to repeat, and the majority of them happily speak again This way, I have an opportunity to take notes of these words in my notebook” Another way that students choose to improve their English listening skill is taking part in English club Tran Thi Theu (K54N1) said: “I have joined the English club in our English faculty Every week, we have an off-line meeting and we share each other English documents which helps everyone to self-practice at home Besides, during the meeting, we try to speak English only with the aim at strengthening our English communication” Some students, however, choose to stay at home and study via the Internet “I listen to TED Talks on YouTube again and again The first time I listen with English subtitles, the second time with Vietnamese subtitles, the third time without subtitles, and the final time I try to repeat all speeches from the talk I usually listen to English before going to bed because at this moment everything is very quiet, there are no noises around me” (Nguyen Thi Hoi – K54N7) Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (K54N7): “To be honest, I am not good at Economics There are tons of economic terminologies that are different from their original 31 meanings Fortunately, in class, my teachers usually give us the vocabulary before letting us listen to anything, I believe this helps me able to listen more than I can in case I am not given new words in advance” In general, everyone has their own strategy to learn English listening skill Nevertheless, the common point is that all students must spend time on listening and practicing listening day by day No practice, no results The purpose of this question is to encourage students to use many different ways to develop their ability of listening English They must be creative in learning not just rely on what teachers teach them in class They need to take advantages of all the best ways to learn listening English They can study through music, video, BBC news, book, novel, poem, among others 3.4 Discussions and Recommendations 3.4.1 Discussions Generally, students at TMU have plenty of difficulties in learning listening skill Most of first-year students who did survey questionnaire said that English listening was difficult (67.9%) and extremely difficult (5.7%) There are some main reasons affecting students a lot while they learn English listening skills, such as poor-quality instruments, unfamiliar content listening text, limited practice time at class In addition, the subjective factor affecting the students’ learning English listening skill is that students try to listen every word so they cannot catch up with the speed of the speech In conclusion, in order to get the maximum benefits of offered techniques, some recommendations are proposed to the first-year students in English faculty at TMU 3.4.2 Recommendations Overcoming the above problems is not easy, and needs a long-term process Based on the findings of this study, the researcher offers some recommendations which students can put into practice for better listening skill 3.4.2.1 Expanding vocabulary and background knowledge Vocabulary is the prerequisite for learning a language in general, listening skills in particular Therefore, students need to equip adequate vocabulary and 32 certain knowledge about different topics A great number of students tend to sit down and write every single word with their meaning in the notebook With this way, they easily get bored and sleepy Besides, it is not a good way for them to remember these vocabularies for a long time Seriously, they not bring them into practice regularly, and are unable to use them in different situations This makes these words unusable A fantastic method of enriching vocabulary is to always learn phrases or a group of words, not individual words Phrases are easier to remember because they contain the whole picture of story These extra pieces of information help them remember the meaning of the phrase Moreover, standing up, speaking out and using body languages to describe new words are perfect techniques which help students learn vocabulary effectively Do not forget to put emotion in the learning process because according to the research, emotions and images facilitate people remember longer In addition, instead of keeping staring at entertainment gameshows, students should watch useful shows and read more books to enhance their knowledge because background knowledge does not just stop at the only linguistic aspects but it also includes the cultural, religious, communicational, etc differences Understanding American culture is an advantage when listening to Americans talk 3.4.2.2 Standardizing pronunciation As mentioned before, pronunciation plays a crucial role in listening and directly influences the quality of listening comprehension Mispronunciation results in mis-catching; mis-catching results in misunderstanding and the evident consequence is the failure of communication However, it is undeniable fact that many students have the habit of merely looking up the meaning of new words in dictionary, and not care about their pronunciation Thus, when looking at a word, they know what it means, but when it’s required of them to pronounce that word, they will feel confused That is the reason why they cannot listen to that word In order to address this problem, students should learn both written and spoken form when learning vocabulary Furthermore, it is useful for students to learn different forms of a word; they 33 are noun, verb, adjective, or adverb This is essential because of special cases in English For example, with the word “desert”, we pronounce /ˈdezət/ when it is a noun, /dɪˈzɜːt/ when it is a verb In different forms, the stress of words is different, therefore the pronunciation of words is different Taking this thing into consideration reduces confusion during listening To pronounce correctly, attending pronunciation course taught by foreigners at English center or on YouTube before learning other skills is a smart decision Communicating with native speakers in person or via applications on the Internet is viewed as the fastest way to standardize pronunciation 3.4.2.3 Preparing well before listening “Success comes only to those who have good preparation” These words are shared by Nguyen Anh Tuan - My Gym's Business Development Manager and an outstanding alumnus of BUV International University It is also true in learning English listening Preparation is what learners before a listening practice happens Preparation is vital because this step mainly prescribes the results of listening process Firstly, students should carefully prepare all equipment serving for listening, such as a quiet room, a good quality tape with big enough volume, or a comfortable seat Secondly, learners need to have a positive attitude which is ready for learning Listening while being tired or uncomfortable causes distraction After that, preparing vocabulary and background knowledge for the topic is indispensable Before listening, students can scan the transcript to make sure that they know the vocabularies in the text because people cannot comprehend what they not know before 3.4.2.4 Using appropriate strategy while listening Listening strategy is the main problem most of students have in common The majority of English-majored freshmen not have an appropriate listening strategy for themselves When listening, listeners try to understand every single word, this is not necessary If one does that, listeners just translate every single word into mother tongue another than catching general meaning This hinders them in understanding the implications of speakers Therefore, not focus on minor details but catching 34 main ideas because after all, the purpose of languages is communication, which means understanding and being understood Additionally, listening and repeating or listening and transcribing are good ways to improve English listening skill They help students to remember vocabularies, cultivate intonation and not forget important information 3.4.2.5 Choosing suitable materials Nowadays, there are a variety of useful resources for practicing listening skills on the Internet as well as in books Nonetheless, the chief thing is which kind of materials are suitable for themselves A beginner cannot practice by listening to IELTS tests just as a master does not need to practice materials for beginners Hence, students should know which level they are in and ask teachers’ help to choose appropriate materials Do not listen to overly difficult text which easily causes giving up Besides, finding materials which have interesting and curious content is essential, avoiding bored Some appealing TV shows prevalent today are TED Talks, Master Chef, IELTS Face-off, BBC news, CNN news, etc Wise people are those who know how to take advantage of free resources to develop themselves 3.4.2.6 Doing some extra activities after listening Before listening, listeners should prepare some exercises to after listening such as answering questions, summarizing the story, or playing the role of the characters to replay the story These activities offer students opportunities to deeply understand the topic and train their memory as well 3.4.2.7 Practicing English listening skill every single day As mentioned above, learning English listening skill is a long-term process, taking a long time After equipping the necessary techniques, the most important thing which decides other things is human; specifically diligence and persistence It is a fact that TMU English-majored first-year students spend extremely little time on practicing listening skill Although all of them admit the significance of English listening skill, some of them are busy with relationships, some of them are focusing on hands-on experiences by part-time jobs, and some of them feel bored of practicing The researcher suggests that students should study in groups Every 35 group consists of to people and makes commitments for themselves They can offer presents and punishments in order that they will become their motivation When a teammate intends to give up, other people raise him up This is conveyed in the idiom “Together we can change the world” Therefore, practicing with friends from to hours every day is a perfect strategy helping students to improve English listening skill as fast as possible Sometimes, students can create fully-English environment by listening to English talks passively while doing housework 36 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Summary of the Study First-year students at the Faculty of English, TMU had positive attitudes towards the importance of English listening skill In their opinion, listening to English is important or extremely important in the future It may be a mandatory requirement for a good job or simply for travelling – an inevitable hobby The study also revealed the reality of learning English listening skill for firstyear students at TMU They sometimes or rarely practice listening English outside the classroom and that is one of the reasons why they feel unconfident when communicating with foreign people The findings of the study indicated some difficulties that the students face in learning listening to English Such difficulties are mispronunciation, lack of vocabulary, lack of grammar, lack of motivation, lack of background knowledge, poor attention, different accents, fast speaking speed, and so on With every problem, the researcher tried to find out some solutions to resolve 4.2 Limitations of the Study Although the study achieved certain results which show the common difficulties in learning English listening skill of K54 students in English faculty at TMU University, it is obvious that the study has got a number of shortcomings First of all, due to the limited time, the study was carried out in over one month, the researcher could not conduct other methods such as classroom observation or teacher interviews which could make the obtained results more reliable Secondly, due to the limitation of the scope of the study, the study was carried out with the participation of only 52 first-year students in English faculty at TMU which account for a small number of K54 English-majored students Therefore, the result of this study might only reflect a part of the current situation of English listening skill of students at TMU There are many things that need considering and investigating thoroughly Mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable, so any comments or extra contributions are welcome 37 Last but not least, this is the first time the researcher has done the research, therefore she did not have enough experience to deploy some further factors such as psychological elements affecting English listening skill Despite the mentioned limitations, the researcher hopes that this study will contribute to the better situation of learning English listening at the English faculty in particular, TMU in general 4.3 Suggestions for further research Because of the limitations, the researcher offers some recommendations for further research Further research needs expanding the scope of the study for a longer time and researching more deeply about psychological factors affecting firstyear students at TMU Besides, it is also necessary to use more helpful research methods like collecting ideas from teachers to get more persuasive conclusions 38 CONCLUSION English listening skill is one of the most necessary skills to communicate in the real life We can only respond in the right manner when we understand the message delivered However, most of the students only pay attention to grammar or vocabulary and ignore listening skill This situation leads to the state of skills is not developed equally Some of them even not know how to improve this skill effectively or where to start Actually, all skills in a language have a mutual impact If you have a great listening skill, your pronunciation, vocabulary and intonation can become better and better It helps your communication more fluently In light of above findings and discussions, there are some main factors affecting to learning English listening such as motivation, material, pronunciation, vocabulary, knowledge, etc From that, students can follow some suggestions to improve their ability of listening like expanding vocabulary and background knowledge, standardizing pronunciation, preparing materials, using the appropriate strategy in listening and practising more frequently In my opinion, besides the above solutions, the most important factor is the learner themselves If you have passion and patience, conquering English listening skill or any languages is no longer difficult 39 REFERENCES Abdalhamid, F (2012) Listening Comprehension Strategies of ArabicSpeaking ESL Learners Master’s Dissertation, Colorado State University, Department of English, Colorado Anderson, A & Lynch, T 1988 Listening Oxford University Press Bacon, S.M (1992) The relationship between Gender, Comprehension, Processing Strategies, and Cognitive The Modern Language Journal Barker, L., Edwards, R., Gaines, C., Gladney, K., & Holley, F (1980) An investigation of proportional time spent in various communication activities by college students, Journal of Applied Communication Research 5.Bloomfield, A Et al (2010) What Makes Listening difficult? 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Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the 5th International Listening Association, 1984 30pp [ED 257 165] 24 Wolvin, A.D., & Coakley, C.G (1996 Listening (5th edited), Brown and Benchmark publisher APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNARE FOR STUDENTS Dear first-year students English Department at Thuong Mai University, the following questionnaire is designed for my research on “Difficulties in Listening Skills of English-majored Freshmen at Thuong Mai University and some suggested solutions” All the information you provided is only used in this study and not to be used for any personal purposes Thank you so much for fulfilling this questionnaire and for helping me complete my research Please circle the options you agree: Q1 How long have you learnt English? A Less than years B From to years C More than years Q2 How interesting you feel about English lessons at school? A Very interesting B Interesting C Normal D Quite boring E Boring Q3 In your opinion, how important are listening skills? A Extremely important B Very important C Fair important D A little important E Not important Q4 How is your current English listening? A Excellent B Good C Pretty good D Average E Bad Q5 Which skill are you weak at most? A Listening B Speaking C Reading D Writing Q6 How difficult you feel about listening exercises in the English lessons at school? A Extremely difficult B Difficult C Normal D Easy E Very easy Q7 How often you practice listening to English after school? A Always B Usually C Sometimes D Rarely F Never Q8 What are the difficulties which you face in learning English listening? A Mispronunciation B Lack of vocabulary C Lack of grammar D Different accents E Linking and Elision F Poor attention G Fast speaking speed H Quality of instruments Q9 What kinds of materials you like to listen to? A Films and stories B Songs C News and magazines D Conversations Q10 What methods you usually use to practice listening? A Listening and taking note B Listening and repeating C Listening and answering question D Listen only Q11 Before listening, what you usually do? A Finding out new words about the topic B Trying to predict the content of the listening text C Both A & B D Doing nothing Thank you so much for your helping! APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS In your opinion, which factors make English listening difficult? Why? What are the strategies that you use to improve your English listening skill? ... types of listening 2.1.2.1 General Listening Types The two main types of listening – the foundations of all listening subtypes are: - Discriminative Listening - Comprehensive Listening  Discriminative... titled Difficulties in Listening Skills of English-majored Freshmen at Thuong Mai University and some suggested solutions for several reasons First of all, listening is the initial and most... listening The three main types of listening most common in interpersonal communication are: - Informational Listening (Listening to learn) - Critical Listening (Listening to Evaluate and Analyze) -