difficulties while doing the TOEIC listening test that the thirdyear English major students

ABSTRACT Currently, the TOEIC certificate is considered as the standard to evaluate the English proficiency level of workers According to ETS website, nearly 14,000 companies and organizations in 150 countries around the world, including Vietnam, have recognized the TOEIC certificate Stemming from that fact, in Vietnam, the certificate has been used by almost all universities and colleges as English outcome standard for graduates In particular, listening skills in the TOEIC test is considered the hardest part Therefore, it is extremely necessary to practice listening comprehension skills Mastering the listening skills is not straightforward since it consumes time and effort Recognizing the importance of listening comprehension skills in the TOEIC test, the researcher conducted this study This research is aimed at how to improve listening skills of third-year English major students in TOEIC listening test to meet program outcome standards at Thuongmai University The study was carried out among 60 randomly selected third-year English majors at Thuongmai University The data was collected by both quantitative and qualitative methods from sources: survey questionnaires and interview questions The main findings of the study are difficulties while doing the TOEIC listening test that the third-year English major students may encounter and feasible solutions to improve their listening skills in the TOEIC test The researcher hopes that, with this study, English-major students will be aware of the vital skills for the TOEIC listening test and find new ways to overcome all the difficulties in order to be confident to enter the TOEIC exam and meet program outcome standards at Thuongmai University ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received much necessary assistance as well as precious ideas from my teachers, family, and friends Their kindly help and encouragement gave me strength and lift me to complete this graduate paper First of all, I would like to send my sincere thanks to all teachers at the English Faculty of Thuongmai University for creating a convenient and efficient learning environment for all students, providing us favorable conditions to fulfill this graduation paper Especially, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Mrs Luong Thi Minh Phuong, M.A for her whole-hearted assistance, thoughtful advice and comments Her insightful guidance was very precious for me to improve my understanding of this subject Without her support and instructions, the study would have never been done effectively Besides, this research could not be completed without the enthusiastic cooperation of third-year English major students at Thuongmai University Therefore, I would like to present my deepest gratefulness to all of them for enthusiastic cooperation and support in finishing the survey questionnaires and interview questions Finally, I would love to express my special thanks to my family and friends for their endless love and motivation I am grateful to all of them who encouraged and gave me much useful advice as well as enthusiastic support during the time I carried out this graduation paper Hanoi, April 2nd 2021 Student Do Huyen Trang TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii 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 1.2.1 International studies 1.2.2 Domestic 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 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Listening skills 2.1.1 Definition of listening 2.1.2 Nature of listening comprehension .7 2.1.3 Types of listening 2.2 The TOEIC test .9 2.2.1 Overview of the TOEIC test .9 2.2.2 Listening comprehension in the TOEIC test .10 2.3 Some problems of listening comprehension 11 2.3.1 Quickly forgetting what is heard 11 2.3.2 Not recognizing the words they know .11 2.3.3 Not understanding the intended message 12 2.3.4 Missing information of next parts while thinking about the current part 12 2.4 Factors affecting English majors’ listening comprehension skills .12 2.4.1 Quality of recorded materials 12 2.4.2 Length and speed of recorded materials 13 2.4.3 Accent 13 2.4.4 Cultural difference 13 2.4.5 Limited background knowledge: Grammar, Pronunciation, Vocabulary 14 2.4.6 Concentration 14 2.5 Program outcome standards 15 2.5.1 Definition of program outcome standards 15 2.5.2 Program outcome standards of English-major students at Thuongmai University 15 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH FINDINGS & DISCUSSION 16 3.1 Research methodologies 16 3.1.1 Participants 16 3.1.2 Data collection instruments .16 3.1.3 Data collection process 17 3.2 Research findings 17 3.2.1 Results from survey questionnaires 18 3.2.2 Results from interview questions 29 3.2.3 Discussion 30 CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 34 4.1 Recommendations and suggestions to improve the third-year English majors’ listening skills in the TOEIC listening test 34 CONCLUSION 38 REFERENCES .VII APPENDIX .IX LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviated words TOEIC ETS English meanings Test of English for International Bài kiểm tra tiếng Anh Communication Educational Testing Service dục Bài kiểm tra lực Language International English Language tiếng Anh quốc tế Hệ thống kiểm tra tiếng Test System Anh quốc tế Trường Đại học Thương TOEFL IELTS TMU Thuongmai University EFL English as a Foreign Language TUEBA mại Tiếng anh ngoại University Of Economics And ngữ Trường Đại học Kinh tế Business Administration – Thai Quản trị Kinh Doanh Nguyen University – Đại học Thái Nguyên Trường Đại học Dân Lập HPU Haiphong Private University VOA Voice of America giao tiếp quốc tế Dịch vụ khảo thí giáo Test of English as a Foreign Vietnamese meanings Hải Phịng Đài Tiếng nói Hoa Kỳ LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES No Name Chart 3.1 Chart 3.2 Chart 3.3 Chart 3.4 Chart 3.5 Content Time to know about the TOEIC test of English majors English majors’ perception of the importance of listening skills in the TOEIC test Practicing time the TOEIC listening test of English majors English majors’ assessment on the difficulty of listening skills in the TOEIC test The English majors’ evaluation of the hardest part of the TOEIC listening test Page 18 19 20 21 22 The effect of the knowledge and skills that English majors Chart 3.6 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 10 Table 3.4 have learned on the results of the TOEIC listening tests The problems that English majors encounter while doing the TOEIC listening test Students’ personal causes leading to difficulties while listening to the TOEIC tests Strategies applied by students while doing the TOEIC listening tests Effective ways to improve students’ listening skills in the TOEIC listening test 23 24 25 26 27 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale English is a global language used by millions of people all over the world It is considered a bridge to connect countries around the world and has a positive impact on exchanging and cooperating among countries In the current international integration situation, mastering English is the best way for us to have a great deal of opportunities to strongly develop Facts have shown that English proficiency tests such as the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Test System (IELTS) are currently very common in both universities and companies as well as corporations, especially the TOEIC test The TOEIC certificate has been used by almost all universities as the English outcome standard Furthermore, the TOEIC certificate is a mandatory admission requirement for many companies and used to periodically assess the English proficiency of their employees It is also a condition to consider salary increases for their employees At Thuongmai University, program outcome standards for English-major students are TOEIC 800 or IELTS 6.5 Students must achieve one of these two standards to be eligible to graduate Reality, the majority of English majors choose the TOEIC certificate since it is similar to Business English major Nevertheless, in fact, many students are not good at TOEIC listening part They encounter a lot of difficulties while doing the TOEIC listening test and find it hard to conquer the TOEIC listening test There have been plenty of researches in the field of improving the TOEIC listening skills but there are still gaps in these researches For all reasons, I decided to conduct the topic: “A study on how to improve listening skills of third-year English major students in TOEIC listening test to meet program outcome standards at Thuongmai University” I hope that this research would be useful for many students and can partly help them improve their listening skills while doing the TOEIC listening test to meet program outcome standards 1.2 Previous studies There have been many researches on how to improve listening skills in the TOEIC listening tests I quote some of the following researches and have my comments: 1.2.1 International studies Related to listening skills, Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani & Narjes Banou Sabouri (2016) implemented the study: “Learners’ listening comprehension difficulties in English language learning” The study analyzed aspects of listening and listening comprehension, presented listening comprehension strategies including: cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, socio-affective strategies The research showed major problems that learners faced with listening comprehension and offered some useful suggestions for students to overcome difficulties The above issues were presented in great detail and complete by the researcher However, in my opinion, with a wide scope of research as learners, for each part of research, to make the study clearer, the researcher should classify subjects by age such as high school students or university students, etc In addition, the researcher did not use research methods such as interviews, questionnaires and express findings in percentages This may prevent the reader from fully understanding the problem when only gathering information from previous studies to analyze this research Abbas Pourhossein Gilakjani & Mohammad Reza Ahmadi (2011) conducted the study: “A study of factors affecting EFL Learners’ English listening comprehension and the strategies for improvement” The study explained the factors influencing English listening comprehension and the strategies that might help students improve their listening comprehension Teaching methods, teaching activities and general principles in teaching listening comprehension were fully discussed Nevertheless, the findings based on the review of the literature along with analysis of the data; percentages were not performed The researcher did not use quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct the study As a result, the research might lack objectivity Another study titled “A study of English listening problems and listening proficiency of business students at Bangkok University” (2011) by Asst Prof Watjana Suriyatham The study was conducted to investigate listening problems and listening proficiency of business students at Bangkok University The researcher used questionnaire, IELTS Test and interview as tools to collect data The result of the study revealed that listening text was the main reason that caused some listening problems for business students In addition, lack of practicing listening skills and lack of exposure to different kinds of listening materials were the factors that mostly caused listening problems However, this study focused mainly on solutions for teachers to recognize listening problems of business students rather than providing solutions to help business students improve their listening skills According to me, the researcher should recommend some practical solutions for business students to improve their listening proficiency Furthermore, the participants of this study were 30 fourth-year students from the Business English program at Bangkok University In my opinion, the researcher should increase the number of participants to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of the study 1.2.2 Domestic studies Duong Thanh Hao (2016) conducted the study entitled “Difficulties encountered in TOEIC listening test by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration – Thai Nguyen University” The study investigated difficulties in TOEIC listening comprehension encountered by a group of 50 sophomore students of TUEBA The data was gathered by methods including: listening test papers, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews The results showed that the major TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties faced by the second-year students at TUEBA were general linguistic ability, background knowledge and facilities While doing the TOEIC test, the participants normally applied some strategies such as: guessing or predicting, identifying types of questions in part 2, and listening for details In this study, findings provided data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion was presented In general, this is a complete and practical research Nguyen Thi Trang (2010) implemented the study: “How to improve listening skills in TOEIC test in the case of: Questions and Responses, Short conversations” The main goal of this research paper was to provide students suggested glossary conference to improve listening skills, particularly for parts: Questions-Responses and Short conversations in TOEIC test level for non-English major students The study provided the theory of listening comprehension, focusing on listening part and in the TOEIC test, structure of each part and some tips to it The study also presented the reality of listening in the TOEIC test of non-English major students at Haiphong Private University (HPU) with specific facts and figures Moreover, the researcher provided specific communicative situations to enhance communicative skills as well as listening skills in the TOEIC test The researcher used some research methods such as: quantitative method, collected reference, books, websites and documents but did not use qualitative method in this study Nhu Ha Phuong (2012) conducted the research entitled: “Common errors made by pre-intermediate students in the TOEIC listening test and some suggested solutions” The study was implemented to explore the students’ perception of the TOEIC listening test, research the errors that pre-intermediate students at Haiphong Foreign Language Centre often make while taking the TOEIC listening test In this study, both quantitative and qualitative methods, including a survey questionnaire, students’ TOEIC listening test papers and semi-structured interviews, were used to collect data The main method used in this study was the quantitative one In general, the organization and content of this research paper are quite clear, useful and easy to understand 1.3 Aims of the study The research is carried out with the expectation of exploring the typical problems as well as difficulties faced by the third-year English majors at Thuongmai University while doing the TOEIC listening test Furthermore, this study is implemented to find out the reasons or factors for these difficulties Some practical suggestions are expressed to provide solutions for the third-year English majors to improve listening skills In general, this study is conducted to deal with three main questions: - What is the attitude of the third-year English majors toward TOEIC listening comprehension skills? - What are the real-life difficulties faced by the third-year English majors while doing the TOEIC listening test and reasons? - What are some feasible solutions to improve the TOEIC listening comprehension skills of the third-year English Faculty students? ... about the TOEIC test of English majors English majors’ perception of the importance of listening skills in the TOEIC test Practicing time the TOEIC listening test of English majors English majors’... skills that English majors Chart 3.6 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 10 Table 3.4 have learned on the results of the TOEIC listening tests The problems that English majors encounter while doing the TOEIC. .. doing the TOEIC listening test Students? ?? personal causes leading to difficulties while listening to the TOEIC tests Strategies applied by students while doing the TOEIC listening tests Effective