A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University

A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University

ABSTRACT We are living in a period of global integration In the context of an industrialized and modernized country approaching international cooperation, learning English language has become more and more vital to Vietnamese students Of all English skills, Listening is one of the most important skills in English language learning When students listen to English language, they face a lot of listening difficulties Students have critical difficulties in listening comprehension because universities and schools pay more attention to writing, reading, and vocabulary Listening is not an important part of many course books and most teachers not pay attention to this important skill in their classes For this reason, the aim of the study is to find out the difficulties encounter in listening comprehension skill of English students at Thuongmai University In this paper, the researchers reviewed the theoretical background which elaborates on the definition of English listening comprehension skill, the importance of listening comprehension skills for English students at Thuongmai University The research uses the questionnaire to 100 students second-year students majoring in English at Thuongmai University to collect specific data for the study From the questionnaire findings, the difficulties that students encounter in listening comprehension found There are include difficulties related to listening material (objective factors): the poor quality of the audio, complex grammatical structures, the fast speed of the speaker; and difficulties related to the individual listeners (subjective factors): the lack of vocabularies, psychological/ physical factors or lack of social and background knowledge From the results, the researcher makes recommendations for students and teachers to help improve students' listening comprehension skills ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Pham Thi To Loan, for her valuable feedback, close guidance, criticism, as well as her generous assistance in the process of completing my thesis Next, I am grateful to say thank you to all teachers at Thuongmai University for providing us with precious knowledge, useful information from their practical and helpful lectures Furthermore, I would like to thanks to 100 students in the second year of the English Faculty, Thuongmai University They have provided helpful information to help me in the course of completing my paper by completing the questionnaire Lastly, I want to thank my family and friends for supporting me unconditionally during my study at Thuongmai University Without their kind support, it would have been impossible for me to complete this research Hanoi, April rd, 2020 Student Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Tables Table 3.1 The importance of listening comprehension skill in learning English language at University Table 3.2 The level of the second-year students in listening comprehension Table 3.3 The students’ scores in listening skill Table 3.4 Different means to enhance listening comprehension skill Table 3.5 Problems related to the Listening materials Table 3.6 Listening comprehension problems from the listeners Charts Chart 3.1 The students’s assessments of learning English listening comprehension skill Chart 3.2 The students’ attitude in learning listening comprehension skill Chart 3.3 Students’ purpose to learn English speaking skill Chart 3.4 Students’ self-study frequency in a week LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS English listening comprehension ELC English foreign language EFL HaiPhong Private University HPU Thuongmai University TMU CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale Nowadays, English is playing a significant job in numerous areas including medicine, engineering, education, advanced studies, technology, banking, computing, tourism and so forth, most international transactions are being carried out in English English has become an important second language in many countries As a result, learning English is becoming more essential than ever in many countries around the world and Viet Nam is not an exception, especially with students at universities and colleges In the age of globalization, the world of technology, information, English becomes very necessary for any individual who tends to follow up on the fast change in the modern world To access information the most quickly and accurately, English listening comprehension skill plays an important role Furthermore, as for the students of the English Department, listening comprehension skill is extremely important because they expect to use it frequently for their future work Sometimes, when you watch the TV, listen to the news or communicate with a native speaker, you only hear a few keywords, and not fully understand the content of the whole dialog This causes afraid to connect with others, which is extremely detrimental to your work in the future So, the training at the university is very necessary In a communication in the real life, we are able to talk sensibly when we understand what is said to us Moreover, in learning a language, listening comprehension is a useful means of providing students with comprehensible information input, which is an essential component of the whole language learning process However, it is still a challenge for Thuongmai University students in general, and English language students in particular Many students seem to lack the skills and confidence to make effective listen May be listening comprehension skill is very difficult, students not know the helpful practice methods lead to feeling depressed On the other hand, training listening skill takes long time, which means they need to spend a lot of time self-studying in order to become better, especially in listening practice more and more Therefore, as a researcher, I would like to present the thesis title “ A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University” And the second-year students of English faculty will help me participate in this study I choose second-year English students because they had one year to adapt to the circumstances of Thuongmai university and actually, they not have much experience in listening comprehension skill Hopefully, this graduation paper will point out some difficulties in English listening comprehension skill of the second-year English student and the solutions to make that good better 1.2 Previous studies Up to now, many researchers studied about aspects of difficulties in English listening comprehension both in the world and in Vietnam These researches come from experts who are interested in language learning, they pointed out many difficulties and the reasons that make the listening comprehension become complicated for studies And of course, they also give some helpful methods to improve listening comprehension skill for everyone After selecting, I decided to choose some of the following researches: 1.2.1 Studies in the world In 2013,Wu Xiao Juan and Mohamad Jafre Zainol Abidin from school of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia conducted a study called " English Listening Comprehension Problems of Students from China Learning English in Malaysia" The thesis researched the English listening comprehension problems of university international students from China The research used a qualitative method to collect data from China’s students taking English Listening Comprehension (ELC) in University Sains Malaysian This study is a research report related to the problems encountered by China’s students in ELC learning Findings from this study indicated that the main problem faced by China’s students was the lack of prior knowledge in English vocabulary, this inhibits their understanding in the listening process Moreover, the differences in the ascent of the native speakers prohibit the proper understanding of the listening content, the short span of concentration, and the learning habit of China’s students were discussed as the problems of the ELC learning This research laid a good foundation for further research; it provided useful information concerning effective strategies to enhance students’ listening skills Hamouda, Arafat (2012), carried out a study named " Listening Comprehension Problems - Voices from the Classroom" The study attempts to investigate the listening problems encountered by a group of first-year English major students of Qassim University Data was gathered by means of questionnaires and interviews The results of the study showed that Accent, pronunciation, speed of speech, insufficient vocabulary, the different accent of speakers, lack of concentration, anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening comprehension problems encountered by English foreign language ( EFL) Saudi learners Understanding students' learning difficulties may enable EFL teachers to help students develop effective learning strategies and ultimately improve their English listening abilities Suggestions are made for addressing problems regarding how teachers can help their students overcome listening comprehension problems 1.2.2 Studies in Vietnam In 2014, a study with the title "A study on Second-year English major students’ difficulties in listening comprehension skills at Haiphong Private University (HPU)” was carried out by Bui Thi Thuy Trang This study was conducted with the aim of investigating English listening problems and listening proficiency of the student at HPU The questionnaire and interview were used in this study as tools to collect data The result of the study revealed the main reason that caused listening problem for the students is the listening text However, the factors that mostly caused listening problems were lack of practicing listening skill and lack of exposure to different kinds of listening materials In 2007, Mrs Ly Thi Chung Thuy also contributed a study with title " Kỹ nghe hiểu tiếng Anh cho người học trình độ sơ cấp (elementary) theo hướng tích cực hóa hoạt động tự học" The thesis has pointed out the errors that learners make when listening comprehension and offers ways to overcome and the methods of self-learning listening comprehension skill is not boring 1.3 Aims of the study The study is to find out English listening comprehension difficulties encountered by the second-year English Faculty students at Thuongmai University (TMU) Rather than serving only for the purpose of completing the graduate thesis, the author has found it exciting in the project implementation, which may also help the English students but anyone who is learning English identifies the reasons for lack of English proficiency and to self-practice more successfully beside following school’s curriculum Accordingly, the research needs to address the following issues: • Investigating the difficulties and the causes in learning listening skills perceived by Faculty of English Language of the second-year students of TMU • Finding out the causes of the cause of difficulties • Presenting some solutions that the students apply to improve their study of Listening comprehension Skills 1.4 Scope of the study This study mainly focuses on listening comprehension skills in English in the classroom setting Since the limitation of time and space, in this paper, the author just focuses on difficulties in English listening comprehension skills to improve these skills of second-year English Faculty students at TMU The research was carried out in the second semester of the academic school year 2019-2020, with the participation of 100 random sophomore students of English Faculty These are the students who are randomly selected, have an average to good level of English The instrument for the survey is a self- administered questionnaire The participants are asked to answer the questionnaire by themselves The questionnaire consists of both closed-ended and opened-ended questions to find out exactly students' abilities and the problems they encounter when learning English listening comprehension skills 1.5 Research methodology 1.5.1 Participants of the study The study was conducted with a total of 100 second-year students of the English Faculty at Thuongmai university They come from many different regions and have different learning This reflects the diversity in their experience and educational background These students have good results training at high school and they passed the university entrance exam The researcher chooses the secondyear mainstream students for the study because they have entered the university for one year and have they had time to access the university's environment; however, they have a few experiences In addition, they face various kinds of problems that higher-level students not Digging in deep to their problems is the first step to help them improve their listening skills as well as their other language skills 1.5.2 Instrumentation The research was undertaken quantitative method study According to Brown (2001, cited in Markey & Gass, 2005) “Questionnaires are any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react, either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers” Markey & Gass (2005) see using questionnaires as an instrument which allows researchers to gather information in such a short time with comparable information So, for the study, I choose a questionnaire as the main research tool to collect data A questionnaire will be given for 100 second-year students of the English Faculty at Thuongmai University The researcher would analyze the collected data and then display the survey results in forms of charts and tables The questionnaire is classified into two parts: Part I request students’ background information with question; Part II is the main part of the questionnaire including questions about second-year English major students’ perception toward the difficulties in English comprehension skill From the answer sheet received, the researcher will collect and analyze the data to address the problems that students encounter 1.5.3 Data collection procedures The research is focused on the problems of students in English listening comprehension This research uses the method to collect data on individuals’ personal experiences and perspectives There are three steps to collect data In stage one; the researcher gathered information on exposure in general, such as read materials, finds problems form conversation in normal study Based on the first step, 10 “Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” - Fitzhugh Dodson If students want to improve their listening comprehension skills in English, they must have listening of ability first It is extremely difficult to hear and clearly understand the meaning of the text, especially for students who not have much experience Setting up personal learning objectives and study plans are so significant Step by step, students need to try to hear the keywords, not yet need to fully understand the message Gradually, when students get used to the speed of speaking, pronunciation and have enough vocabulary, listening and understanding the text becomes very simple • Raise self-awareness and be autonomous in learning With the world steadily heading towards economic globalization, it is essential to give importance to learn English Learning environment for listening skill, which is a listening laboratory besides tape recorders, written listening texts is a vital key affecting the quality of learning However, the findings of this study show that the students are not satisfied with this learning environment They are more interested in online learning programs and English language media channels; consequently, the students find it hard and challenging to concentrate while listening Some of the respondents recommended that all of the students should be responsible for their learning in school, their life and their future They need to actively spend time listening to English and create their own English learning environment For example, they can practice listening comprehension every day and every chance they get by listen to music, watching English films, listen to the English channel's news, etc Moreover, making friends with foreign people is a good way for you not being tempted to speak your own language Practicing speaking English with them to improve their pronunciation, fluency, and ability of communication According to the survey results, self-practicing listening comprehension at home helps the students' listening ability improved very much Students should build learning habits to improve their background knowledge Every day, you 31 should spend 15 - 30 minutes to listen short English news or several English songs It not necessary for you to understand every word in this news or song When listening, learners can summarize the idea, take notes, and try to understand the target of the listening materials When you listen a lot, practice speaking a lot, many restrictions in listening comprehension is resolved Not only will your listening ability be improved, but also your speaking skills, vocabulary, and pronunciation will be improved Moreover, the psychology of fear of hearing and unconfidence will disappear In short, many people agreed that regularly practicing in English speaking environment is the best way to overcome this problem As Dwyer (2000: 206) concludes, “The more opportunities you have to practice, the more confidence and skill will increase So, experience and good 4.2 Recommendations for teachers Without sufficient instruction and assistance, students will not determine their way to achieve their own learning and can’t be expected to develop autonomy in an out-of-class language-learning environment To overcome this, teacher support is of great importance in order to provide learners with instructions about how to solve the problems they might encounter during their learning • Raise awareness for students for the necessity of English listening comprehension skills Thuongmai University in general and English teachers in particular need to raise consciousness for students about the position, role and importance of practicing English listening comprehension skills as well as communication skill at school In the period of industrialization, modernization and international integration today, English is very necessary to have a better career in the future Each student should be properly aware of the importance of learning to practice English listening comprehension skills In order to effectively implement this solution, propaganda activities need to be strengthened through mass media (University website, facebook page, etc.) Thuong Mai University should also organize consultations, extra-curricular activities, a workshop about the role and importance of practicing English listening comprehension skills to raise awareness, 32 train English listening comprehension skills of students and orient the future job for students • Buiding the reasonable teaching methods to promote students learning English listening comprehension skill According to the fact of the research, second-year English students at TAMU pay especially attention to practicing listening comprehension in class with teachers and classmates Teachers and teaching method are the most considerable factors play an important role in improving students' listening comprehension skill So, in the lessons of English listening skill, teachers should provide more interesting topics for further listening With the listening materials is the textbook, teachers can create some exciting activities or games to motivate student students to take part in Students can speak what they understand from the listening text These will be corrected by the teacher, this helps students better in understanding topics Additionally, teachers should also provide necessary background knowledge about the listening text for the learners It can be the knowledge related to the economy, social or many counties in the world • Building up students’ confidence In order to help students can listen more confidently, teachers should, first of all, give students regular checklists and model presentations, including functional language for an effective presentation At Thuongmai University, students always have English presentations every semester but it is not enough for students to practice Thus, Teachers should encourage students to communicate more For example, teachers can organize mini show classes, students can freely talk and talk about all topics they want This is to enhance students' confidence and interest in listening comprehension and communication skills 33 CONCLUSION Summary of the findings With the research topic "A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University", the researcher pointed out the difficulties faced by second-year students os English Faculty at Thuongmai University Firstly, the researcher has studied and provided the theoretical basis of the research by referring to domestic and foreign studies documents This is an important step for researchers to give direction for the study on the difficulties that second-year English students at TMU face in listening comprehension skills Secondly, with the exhaustive analysis of the data collected from the questionnaire, the researcher came up with some major findings to answer the research questions Based on instrumentation as a survey questionnaire, some findings have been discovered From the data analysis, almost all students are aware of the important role of English listening comprehension Part of the questionnaire provides background information of students participating in the study The information mentioned included the current listening comprehension level, scores in students 'listening skill, students' interest in listening comprehension skill, and the purpose they were learning listening comprehension skill The most important part, the questionnaire showed us the difficulties that second-year English students at Thuongmai University encountered in listening comprehension skills These difficulties fall into two sections The first part of the difficulties comes from the speaker, the listening device (objectively) and the remaining difficulties come from the listener (subjective) From the difficulties that objective problems cause, we can see the difficulties include many unfamiliar words, complex grammatical structures, the poor quality of the audio, the fast speed 34 of the speaker, noise and redundancy In all of them, the problem of poor quality of listening material is the biggest difficulty that students encounter when listening Besides, from subjective issues, the difficulty of the lack of social and background knowledge makes it most difficult for students to listen and understand In addition, the researcher also pointed out other difficulties that students encountered including lack of vocabulary, psychological/ physical factors (stress, worry, tiredness, etc), lack of concentration, etc.In addition, the researcher also pointed out other difficulties that students encountered including lack of vocabulary, too fast reading speed, lack of concentration, etc Finally, from the survey results, the researcher has made recommendations for students and teachers to help students learn better in English listening comprehension skill These recommendations are not only useful for students of the English Faculty at Thuongmai University but are also helpful for students studying languages in general Limitations of the study In spite of a great effort to complete this study, the researcher still could not avoid several limitations Because of time constraints, it is impossible for the author to explore all difficulties of the second-year students in English listening comprehension skills Besides, the number of participants in the study is small, only 100 students; thus, these collected results were not accurate for all students in the English Faculty at Thuongmai University The researcher has no experience in research as well as in designing questionnaires and analysis Therefore, the methodology of the study, the questionnaires, analysis and the content of the study still contain some unexpected mistakes Nevertheless, with all the efforts of the researcher, it is hopeful that the study will become a beneficial reflection to help both teachers and students of Thuongmai University Suggestions for further studies Because the author of this research focuses on difficulties in English listening comprehension skills only, further studies can be developed to another subject such as the strategies in listening skills 35 The study for students of other departments at Thuongmai University is also good idea for the further studies Finally, the scope of future studies should be opened It would be interesting to conduct a similar study in other universities and compare the results REFERENCES 1, Barker, L.L (1971) Listening Behavior Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prenticehall 2, Bentley, S and Bacon, S (1996) The all new, state-of-the-art ILA definition listening: Now that we have it, what we with it? Listening Post 3, Brown, H.D (2001) Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy Second Edison Essex Longman 4, Brown, G & Yule, G (1983).Teaching Spoken Language Cambrigde University Press 5, Brown, G (1992) Listening to Spoken English London: Longman Press 6, Bui Thi Thuy Trang, (2014) A study on Second-year English major students’ difficulties in listening comprehension skills at Haiphong Private University (HPU) 7, Butt, M.N (2010) Listening Comprehension Problems Among the Students.European Journal of Social Sciences Vol 5.18 8, Cervantes, R., & Gainer, G (1992) The effects of syntactic simplification and repetition on listening comprehension San Francico State University Press 9, Hamouda, Arafat (2012), Listening Comprehension Problems - Voices from the Classroom 10, Mendelsohn, D.J (1994).Learning to Listen: A Strategy-based Approach for the Second Language Learner.San Diego: Dominie Press 11, Ly Thi Chung Thuy, (2007) Kỹ nghe hiểu tiếng Anh cho người học trình độ sơ cấp (elementary) theo hướng tích cực hóa hoạt động tự học Educational magazine No.160,28 36 12, Underwood (1989) Teaching listening Harlow, England: Longman 13, Ur, P.(1984) Teaching of English as a second or foreign language Cambridge University Press 14, Vandergrift, L., 1997 The comprehension strategies of second language (French) learners: A descriptive study Foreign Language Annals 15, Wu Xiao Juan and Mohamad Jafre Zainol Abidin, (2013) English Listening Comprehension Problems of Students from China Learning English in Malaysia Elixir international Journal 37 APPENDIX Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE I am doing a small survey entitled: "A study on the difficulties in English listening comprehension of second-year English Faculty students at Thuongmai University" This survey questionnaire is designed for my research to find out difficulties and how to improve listening comprehension skills for second-year English Faculty students at Thuongmai University It is highly appreciated if you could cooperate by providing truthful information and spending your time filling this questionnaire You have learnt English for…… years Where are you from?………………… Class:………………………… Part I : students’ background information Question In listening comprehension skill, what is your current level? A Weak B Average C Good D Excellent Question What is the result of the test in listening skills? ( score) A B C D 8 Question What is your attitude toward learning English listening comprehension skill? A B C D Like very much Like Normal Bored Question What is your own purpose of learning English listening comprehension skill? A To find a good job 38 B C D E To be able to commnunicate with foreigners To get high marks in class or examination To be more confident Other: ……… Part II: The difficulties in English listening comprehension skill Question In your opinion, how important is presentation in learning a language and in your future’s job? A Unimportant B Important C Very important Question What you think about the difficulty of listening comprehension skill? A B C D Difficult Very difficult Normal Easy Question Related to listening materials, what are the problems that you encountered in listening comprehension? Statements I find it difficult to understand listening texts in which there are too many unfamiliar words including jargon and idioms Complex grammatical structures interfered with my listening comprehension Long spoken text interfered with my listening comprehension The poor quality of the audio results in me being unable to hear words clearly The fast speed of the speaker makes me unable to hear the key word of the message Noise and redundancy make me unable to hear the message Qustion Related to individual listener, what are the problems that you encountered in listening comprehension? Statements The lack of vocabularies makes it difficult for me in listening skill Psychological/ physical factors (stress, worry, tiredness, etc) losing the concentration when listening English Lack of social and background knowledge Question How many days per week you spend on practicing English listening? 39 A.Less than day B – days C – days D Everyday E Other: ……… Question 10 What kind of methods that you often use to practice listening comprehension skill? Content Never Listening to teachers and classmate inclass Listening to English language on the internet or CD’s at home Listening to the radio channels in English Using voice chat on the internet communicating with friends Watching British or American television channels Joining into English clubs of English Faculty Watching films and listening English music Thanks for your cooperation! 40 Sometimes Offens Alway s ...ABSTRACT We are living in a period of global integration In the context of an industrialized and modernized country approaching international cooperation, learning English language has become... importance of practicing English listening comprehension skills as well as communication skill at school In the period of industrialization, modernization and international integration today, English. .. all students are aware of the important role of English listening comprehension Part of the questionnaire provides background information of students participating in the study The information