DIFFICULTIES IN IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS EXPERIENCED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY - - GRADUATION PAPER Topic: DIFFICULTIES IN IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS EXPERIENCED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Student:Le Thi Phuong MaiNguyễn NhungClass: K53N2Student Code: 17D170089 Hanoi - 2021 Thị Hồng ABSTRACT Nowadays, the English language plays an important role in every field of our daily lives Therefore, there is a great demand for improving English not only in Vietnam but throughout the world as well for different purposes English is devided 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 Moreover, listening comprehension plays a significant role in daily communication and in educational process In spite of its importance, the state of teaching and learning listening has long been ignored, especially in rural areas in Vietnam A large number of students, who come from countryside, suffer a serious disturbance in learning listening when entering university At Thuong Mai university, most students, especially freshmen, are aware of the significance of English listening After four years of learning at the university, the researcher decided to choose research topic: "Difficulties in improving listening skills experienced by first year student at Thuong Mai university" with the purpose of researching on problems and causes that linked to students’s listening ability Besides, the researcher proposes practical suggestions in the hope of helping students improve their English listening skills With the hope of improving student’s listening competence, I have tried my best to this thesis based on my own experiences and knowledge in English methodalogy i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this dissertation is the final step in a long journey I would not have begun this journey if it had not had the help of many people First and foremost, I would like to show my special thanks to my supervisor, Mrs Le Thi Phuong Mai, for her great help and guidance as well as encouragement, without which my scientific research would not have been accomplished For all the lectures I have been teaching at TMU, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the effort of teachers who taught me valuable knowledge I am grateful to first-year students for the cooperation from 150 participants from K56N Their sharing and complementation immeasurably contributed to the majority data of the study Without their help, my graduation paper could not be successfully completed Finally, my sincere thanks go to all of my parents, my friends who have given me much advice and encouragement which helps me to overcome the difficulties during doing this research ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .25 iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TMU ESL L2 S1 S2 EFL Thuong Mai University English as a Second Language Second Language Student Student English as a foreign language iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3.1: Participants in the study .18 Table 3.2: Participants’ hometowns 19 Table 3.3: Students’ general perception of listening skill .25 Figure 3.1 : Student’s self-rating to listening proficiency .26 .26 Table 3.4 : Listening problems from the speakers 27 Figure 3.2 : The fast speed 28 Figure 3.3 : The reduced forms 28 Table 3.5 : Listening problems from the listeners 30 Table 3.6 : Problems from the materials 32 Table 3.7 : Listening problems from the physical setting 34 Table 3.8 : Listening strategies 35 Figure 3.1 : Student’s self-rating to listening proficiency .Error: Reference source not found Figure 3.2 : The fast speed Error: Reference source not found Figure 3.3 : The reduced forms Error: Reference source not found v CHAPTER : INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Nowadays, English is developing all over the world In addition to communicating English, it is also important to improve your English listening Addtionally, it cannot be denied that English has now become the most popular language in the world In the past, learning a foreign language mainly means learning the vocabulary and practicing the system of grammar However, in recent years, more attention has been paid to listening and speaking skills since they play important roles in communication Each nation, by and large, has its own language to convey information to their community As the intergration of the world gradually became more and more expansive, people from around the world with the urge to explore and interact with other culture have felt the need for a shared language to bring countries into contact English is the universal language chosen which is also known as the global language In this day and age, the influence of English can not be dismissed since it is being popularized in every aspects of today's globalization movement such as economics, education, culture, and society, to mention but a few Furthermore, English has been widely used as a major language in daily life and in many education levels all over the world, both native and non-native English speaking countries Listening comprehension is becoming more and more important in acquiring a new language as well as knowledge displayed in lectures and in media Especially, it is the vital skill for most of the English as second language learners (ESL) In spite of its importance in learning English listening, the state of teaching and learning listening skill has long been ignored and gives little consideration What is more, the Vietnamese education system focuses more on coaching exams with much attention to grammar, reading and vocabulary Therefore, listening is included in course books in many educational levels; however, it somehow is neglected by the teachers during the lessons As a result, many Vietnamese students, even those who get high marks in grammatical tests, cannot communicate successfully with the foreigners in daily conversations According to Nguyen (2008), the inability to comprehend what the native speakers say because of the failure at listening comprehension is the most severe reason In addition, in Vietnam, countryside students have no exposure to English language apart from that they receive in the classroom Students’ fundamental means of listening English come from the teacher’s voice Furthermore, the low quality of cassettes has a detectable effect on the process of practicing and testing listening, and especially in the countryside, where the cassette players are either poor quality or run off batteries The students have the difficulties in listening because of the low-standard sound For those reasons, most of the students in rural and mountainous areas, suffer a terrible shock when learning to listen in the university In spite of the diversity ofliterature in this field, little attention to the feasible solutions and practical purposes ispaid Moreover, in Thuong Mai University few research provide detailed description of first-year students issues in improving listening With the purpose of helping students toenhance their listening skills, this study is conducted to raise the perception of the importance of listening in learning English as well as their listening difficulties Additionally, this thesis provides the valuable insights and pedagogical implications for both teachers and students 1.2 Previous studies Listening is the most frequently used skill in daily life communication (Morley, 1999; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992) Mendelsohn (1994) sees that listening takes up forty-five to fifty percent of the total time in communication Therefore, it is undeniable that listening is essential both to communicate and to learn a foreign language Obviously, listening skill is extremely important in acquiring a language because it provides language input According to Krashen et al (1984, as cited in Hamouda, A., 2012), only when students absorb enough the comprehensible input, does the acquisition happen Rost (1994, as cited in Hamouda, A., 2012) also claims that listening plays a vital role in learning language in particular and in communication in general because it provides input for learners In addition, Krashen believes that without understanding the linguistic input, the students cannot acquire any level of language Thus, listening is a fundamental language skill, and as such, it merits the top priority among the four skill areas for language students Listening, therefore, is regarded crucial to not only a receptive skill but also the development of spoken language proficiency Besides, according to Le Thi Hong Loan (2012) in ‘Difficulties in learning listening skills experienced by first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University and some suggested solutions’ She has come up with a lot of solutions to improve listening skills for current freshmen at Vietnam Maritime University For example helping students with vocabulary, Dealing with sounds, stress and intonation, Helping students get familiar with different accents, Creating expectations, Overcoming psychological problems, Using visuals, Giving clear instruction, Utilizing the internet, Using music, Providing task variety and text variety, Encouraging self-study Therefore, students can improve their listening skills better in the future, especially freshman university students In researching the answer to the survey question, the researcher pays special heed to the difficulties and factors that most English-listening learners encounter Studying about the challenges students encounter as Bui Thi Thu Huong (2018) points out in ‘Difficulties of learning listening comprehension faced by first-year students of foreign languages department at Hai Phong university’ She gave a lot of fators which make listening difficult Firstly, factors relate to the listener such as memory of listeners, vocabulary ability, phonology and grammar Secondly, factors relate to passage and listening materials such as passage length, passage complexity, passage type, auditory features of the passage From the above difficulties, she proposed specific solutions to improve listening skills for freshman students of Hai Phong university With the development of time, the study of English listening skills is more and more and more popular, especially listening skills Nearly research has shown us the causes that affect listening skills and how to improve that skill However, in order to develop each person's listening skills, they need to understand the difficulties they face at first Therefore, this thesis will help improve listening skills experienced by first-year English students of Thuongmai uiversity 1.3 Aim of the study The study aims at: - Investigating the difficulties and the causes in learning listening skills perceived by first-year English students of Thuong Mai university - Presenting some solutions that the students apply to improve their (self-) study of Listening Skills 1.4 Research subjects As far as the researcher knows, listening is the most difficult skill for first year students, especially for those who come from the countryside and remote areas Listening comprehension is somewhat a terrible nightmare for them This study is undertaken with the hope of improving the listening ability and providing some insights into how the students perceived about the usefulness of listening strategies The research seeks the answers for the following questions: What are some main listening difficulties perceived by first-year English students of Thuong Mai university? ... What are some main listening difficulties perceived by first- year English students of Thuong Mai university? What are the listening strategies applied by the students? The study mainly aims at. .. improve listening skills experienced by first- year English students of Thuongmai uiversity 1.3 Aim of the study The study aims at: - Investigating the difficulties and the causes in learning listening. .. English listening After four years of learning at the university, the researcher decided to choose research topic: "Difficulties in improving listening skills experienced by first year student at Thuong