An investigation into TOEIC listening comprehension problems of non english major students

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM HỒNG NHUNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TOEIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS ĐIỀU TRA VỀ CÁC VẤN ĐỀ NGHE HIỂU TOEIC CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi – 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM HỒNG NHUNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TOEIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS ĐIỀU TRA VỀ CÁC VẤN ĐỀ NGHE HIỂU TOEIC CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Tô Thi Thụ Hương Hanoi - 2014 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “An investigation into TOEIC listening comprehension problems of non English major students at University of Economic and Technical Industries” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Economic and Technical Industries, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution Hanoi, 2014 Phạm Hồng Nhung i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the process of doing my research paper, I have received a lot of help, encouragement and experience from teachers and friends Especially, my graduation subject now is completed successfully thanks to all teachers‟ support at University of Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI) who did their best to help me gather data from students‟ and teachers‟ questionnaires First of all, I would like to express my sincere thank to my supervisor Dr To Thi Thu Huong who has generously given me invaluable assistance and guidance Without her help, this paper will not be successfully done Besides, my sincere thank is also extended to all the students who help me fulfill the survey questions Finally, I am grateful to my family and friends who have given me much encouragement during the time I carried out this paper ii ABSTRACT Listening skills are important for face-to-face communication, meetings, conferences, telephone conversations, etc Being able to listen well is an important part of communication for everyone, especially for students A student with good listening comprehension skills will be able to participate more effectively in communicative situations Out of all the different tests offering to certify the level of English, the TOEIC is the simplest and most practical in terms of its contents, its format, and the rapidity of results receipt Therefore, to standardize the output quality of students, in most universities including University of Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI), TOEIC is considered as a common standard of measurement for evaluation of students‟ fluency in English in the professional context However, when taking the TOEIC test, especially the TOEIC listening comprehension section, many students usually complain that instead of listening carefully they usually guess and circle the answers randomly in the end They said that they lacked knowledge, skills and strategies about listening comprehension Understanding these problems, the study investigates TOEIC listening comprehension problems encountered by a group of non English major students of UNETI 120 non English major students at UNETI who were studying in the seventh term and ten teachers of English were selected and voluntarily joined the study Data was gathered by means of questionnaires The results of the study showed that test-taking strategies, general background knowledge, linguistic ability and teaching methods were the major TOEIC listening comprehension problems encountered by non English major students at UNETI Some suggestions are made for addressing problems regarding how teachers can help their students overcome TOEIC listening comprehension problems The results of this study may also be useful for those who are interested in this field iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION UNETI: University of Economic and Technical Industries TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication ETS: Educational Testing Service ESL: English as a Second Language EFL: English as a Foreign Language L2 learners: Second Language learners iv Table 1: S Table 2: S li Table 3: S l Table 4: S co Table 5: S re Table 6: S to Table 7: S Table 8: T T Table 9: T Table 10: T v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of abbreviations iv List of tables v Table of contents vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1- LITERATURE REVIEW Theoretical background to listening comprehension 1.1 Definitions of listening and listening comprehension 1.1.1 Definitions of listening 1.1.2 Definitions of listening comprehension 1.2 Models of listening process 1.3 Potential problems and strategies in listening comprehension 1.3.1 Potential Problems in listening comprehension 1.3.2 Listening Comprehension Strategies Overview of the TOEIC test 10 2.1 The TOEIC test 10 2.2 TOEIC Test Area 10 2.3 Test structure 11 vi 2.4 Test Scoring 12 2.5 Who takes the test? 14 2.6 TOEIC Listening Comprehension Section 15 Related studies on TOEIC test–taking and listening comprehension 16 CHAPTER 2- METHODOLOGY 2.1 The setting of the study 19 2.2 Participants 19 2.2.1 Teachers 19 2.2 Students 20 2.3 Data Collection Instruments 20 2.4 Data collection procedures 21 2.5 Data analysis 21 CHAPTER THREE – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Students‟ attitude towards TOEIC listening test at UNETI 22 3.2 TOEIC listening comprehension problems experienced by students at UNETI 23 3.2.1 Students’ opinions of strategies of TOEIC listening comprehension 23 3.2.2 Students’ opinions of TOEIC listening problems related to background knowledge and linguistic ability 27 3.2.3 Students’ opinions of listening problems related to listeners 30 3.2.4 Students’ opinions of teacher’s teaching methods 32 3.3 The expectations of the students towards teachers of TOEIC listening skill 33 3.4 Listening comprehension problems reflected by teachers 34 3.4.1 Teachers’ opinions of teaching methods 35 3.4.2 Teachers’ opinions of students’ strategy uses 36 3.5 Recommendations for improvement of the efficiency of teaching and learning of non English major students at UNETI .38 3.5.1 Recommendations for teachers of English 38 vii 3.5.1.1 Adapting and improving listening materials 38 3.5.1.2 Improving teachers’ classroom techniques 38 3.5.2 Recommendations for students 40 3.5.2.1 Improving English proficiency 40 3.5.2.2 Improving listening strategies 40 3.6 Summary 41 PART C – CONCLUSION Conclusion .42 Limitations and suggestions for further study 43 REFERENCES 44 Appendixes I viii  Vandergrift, L (1999) Facilitating second language listening comprehension: acquiring successful strategies ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176  Vandergrift, L (2003) Listening: theory and practice in modern foreign language competence Retrieved January 4, 2009, from http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/67  Vandergrift, L (1997) The comprehension strategies of second language (French) listeners: A descriptive study Foreign Language Annals, 30(3), 387~409 46 APPENDICES APPENDIX Survey questionnaire on listening skill (for students) My name is Pham Hong Nhung I am doing a research entitled “An investigation into TOEIC listening comprehension problems of non English major students at University of Economic – Technical Industries ” which is aimed at exploring students‟ listening comprehension problems Therefore, your assistance in completing this questionnaire is greatly appreciated Please be sure that all the information will be kept confidential and be used for the research purpose only Thank you very much for your cooperation I Background information Your gender A male B female Your name (optional): ………………………………………………………… Your age: …………………………………………………………………… Your years of learning English: ……………………………………………… Your years of learning listening skill: ………………………………………… II Your attitude towards TOEIC listening test Circle the answer that is the most appropriate to you Question 1: How you think about TOEIC listening comprehension? A very important B important C Not important D Not very important Question 2: How difficult is TOEIC listening to you? A Very difficult B difficult C easy D very easy I Question 3: Which part is the most difficult in listening comprehension in TOEIC test? A Pictures description B Questions and responses C Short conversations D Short talks II III Your experience in listening classes Tick (√) to the column that is the most appropriate to you III Prob Before read the instruction, go through the que guess what the content is Study pictures, then predict the that pictures Identify the types of questions to choose the correct answers Paraphrase the questions and keep them in mind while listening Recognize linking sounds, stressed word … Guess the of unfamiliar words or phrases from context 10 Use my experience and background best describe IV knowledge of the topic to understand the spoken text 11 If I understand phrases listening, I igno and keep on listening 12 While listen to every detail to get the main idea the spoken text 13 Content of the message with unfamiliar vocabulary including jargon and idiomatic expressions interferes with my TOEIC listening comprehension 13 Content of message unfamiliar vocabulary including jargon and idiomatic expressions interferes TOEIC with V comprehension 14 grammar interfere with TOEIC comprehension 15 topics interfere with my TOEIC listening comprehension 16 The listening interfere with TOEIC comprehension 17 I find it difficult to understand when speak with variety of accents 18 I find it difficult to understand when speak too fast 19 I find it difficult to understand meaning VI which are pronounced clearly 20 and I feel tired don‟t understand the spoken text 21 I find it difficult when conversations short talks transcripts 22 I find it difficult to understand spoken text which is not of interest to me VII 23 What have teachers of listening skill done to help you listen better or more effectively? Circle the thing(s) that your teachers of listening skill have done A Encourage you to activate your previous knowledge into listening texts B Create comfortable environment for you to exchange information before listening C Offer you as many chances to listen again as you expect D Provide you with certain key words E Explain clearly about the listening contexts F Suggest you essential listening strategies needed for each kind of listening tasks G Exploit different kinds of listening materials suitable to your listening ability and your interest H Other things that teachers have done 24 What you expect your teachers of listening skill to to help you overcome the difficulties you encounter in TOEIC listening comprehension? A Give you TOEIC listening techniques or strategies B Give detailed explanations about your errors C Design TOEIC listening tests to evaluate your levels at the end of each academic year D Provide you with different sources of listening VIII APPENDIX Questionnaire for teachers My name is Pham Hong Nhung I am conducting a research entitled “An investigation into TOEIC listening comprehension problems of nonEnglish major students at University of Economic – Technical Industries” which is aimed at exploring students‟ comprehension listening problems In this questionnaire, I have listed some listening strategies From your own teaching experience, would you please put a tick to the column indicating the frequency your learners use them in listening comprehension Then, please answer question to indicate which method(s) you use in teaching TOEIC listening skill Thank you very much for your cooperation Item 1.Activating prior knowledge to understand the spoken messages Predicting before listening and prior knowledge Working in pairs or in groups to help them spoken text more Taking important content words clarification difficulty Continuing IX What have you done to help your students study listening skill better? (Circle as many things as you have done) A encourage your students to activate previous knowledge into listening texts B created comfortable environment for students to discuss and exchange information before listening C offered chances for students to listen for several times D provided them with certain key words to help students listen effectively E explained listening contexts clearly to your students F suggested students some strategies needed for each kind of listening tasks G exploited suitable materials to students‟ needs and interests H Other things you have done, please specify ……………………………… X ... Hương Hanoi - 2014 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled ? ?An investigation into TOEIC listening comprehension problems of non English major students at University of Economic and... and strategies about listening comprehension Understanding these problems, the study investigates TOEIC listening comprehension problems encountered by a group of non English major students of. .. HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM HỒNG NHUNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TOEIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF NON- ENGLISH