A Study On Difficulties That 11Th Grade Students At Nguyen Viet Xuan High School Encounter When Learning Listening Skills.pdf

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN CÔNG HIỆU

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES THAT 11TH GRADE STUDENTS
AT NGUYEN VIET XUAN HIGH SCHOOL ENCOUNTER
WHEN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN MÀ HỌC SINH LỚP 11
TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN VIẾT XUÂN GẶP PHẢI TRONG QUÁ
TRÌNH HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HA NOI – 2016


VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN CÔNG HIỆU

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES THAT 11TH GRADE STUDENTS
AT NGUYEN VIET XUAN HIGH SCHOOL ENCOUNTER

WHEN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN MÀ HỌC SINH LỚP 11
TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN VIẾT XUÂN GẶP PHẢI TRONG QUÁ
TRÌNH HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. KIỀU THỊ THU HƯƠNG

HA NOI – 2016


DECLARATION
I hereby state that I – Nguyễn Công Hiệu, being an M.A candidate of the
Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, ULIS, VNU, certify my authorship of the study
entitled
A study on difficulties that 11th grade students at Nguyen Viet Xuan High
School encounter when learning listening skills
I certify that this thesis is entirely my own work and that all the information in this
paper was presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. As
required in the rules, I fully cited all the sources of the results that were not original
to this work.

Hanoi, November 2016

Nguyễn Công Hiệu

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my
supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kieu Thi Thu Huong for her guidance, comments,
enthusiasm, encouragement and heartfelt sympathy throughout the whole research
process. Without her assistance, this thesis could not have been completed.
Second, my big thanks go to all the lecturers and staff of the Faculty of PostGraduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies,
Vietnam National University, Hanoi, for their profound knowledge and guidance
during my two years of studying at the Faculty.
Third, I would like to thank all the librarians for their helping me with the
reference materials and their efforts to make the atmosphere of reading rooms as
pleasant as possible.
Especially, I wish to express my special thanks to the students and teachers
at Nguyen Viet Xuan High School for their full support in completing the
questionnaires and their detailed answers to the questions in the interview.
I also wish to send my grateful thanks to examiners who will spend their
time reading and making comments on this thesis.
And finally, I wish to send my thanks to my family, relatives and friends
who always cheer me up and support me at hard time.

ii


ABSTRACT

This study aims at discovering difficulties that the students of class 11D2 at Nguyen
Viet Xuan High School encounter when they study listening skills and suggesting
solutions for the teacher to improve students‟ listening competence. To collect the

data for analysis, two instruments have been used: the questionnaire and classroom
observations. The findings show that there are fourteen problems that cause
difficulties to the students of class 11D2. The problems have been classified into
four categories, namely (i) problems related to the bottom-up processing, (ii)
problems related to top-down processing, (iii) problems related to materials and
listening tasks, and (iv) other problems. Based on the findings, the researcher has
offered some solutions to the teacher, so that he will make changes in his
approaches, methods and techniques to help his students overcome the problems
and become better listeners.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ....................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
ABSTRACT ............................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................ viii
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS ..................................................................... ix

PART I: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1
1. Rationale of the study .................................................................................... 1
2. Objectives of the study ................................................................................... 2
3. Research question ......................................................................................... 2
4. Scope of the study .......................................................................................... 2
5. Methodology of the study .............................................................................. 3
6. Significance of the study ............................................................................... 3
7. Design of the study ........................................................................................ 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................. 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 5

1.1. Notions of listening ....................................................................................... 5
1.1.1.

Nature of listening .............................................................................. 5

1.1.2.

Importance of listening skills .............................................................. 6

1.1.3.

Types of listening ............................................................................... 7

1.1.4.

Listening processes ............................................................................. 8

1.2. Procedures of a listening lesson in a language classroom......................... 10
1.2.1.

Pre-listening.......................................................................................10

1.2.2.

While-listening ..................................................................................10

1.2.3.

Post-listening .....................................................................................10

1.3. Problems related to bottom-up processing ............................................... 11
1.3.1.

Problem related to hearing sounds .....................................................11

1.3.2.

Problem of understanding stress and intonation .................................13

iv


1.3.3.

Problem of understanding different accents........................................13

1.3.4.

Problem of mismatch between learners‟ vocabulary and vocabulary

used in listening texts ......................................................................................14
1.3.5.

Problem of mismatch between learners‟ syntactic knowledge and

syntax used in listening texts ...........................................................................15
1.4. Problems related to top-down processing ................................................. 16
1.4.1.

Problem of cultural differences ..........................................................16

1.4.2.

Problem of unfamiliar topics ..............................................................16

1.5. Problems related to materials and listening tasks .................................... 17
1.5.1.

Problem related to length and density of the text ................................17

1.5.2.

Problem related to delivery speed ......................................................17

1.5.3.

Problem related to the complexity of the task .....................................18

1.6. Other problems .......................................................................................... 18
1.6.1.

Problem of failing to apply effective learning styles and strategies .....18

1.6.2. Problems of fatigue and lack of concentration .......................................19
1.6.3.

Problem related to physical settings ...................................................19

1.6.4.

Problem related to lack of visibility of the speaker .............................20

1.7. Review of previous works .......................................................................... 20
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY ............................................................................ 22
2.1. Research context, learning materials, research subjects .......................... 22
2.1.1.

Research context ................................................................................22

2.1.2.

Learning materials .............................................................................23

2.1.3.

Research subjects ...............................................................................23

2.2. Data collection instruments ....................................................................... 24
2.2.1.

Reasons for using the questionnaire ...................................................24

2.2.2.

Format of the questionnaire ...............................................................24

2.3. Data collection procedure .......................................................................... 25
2.4. Students’ background information ........................................................... 25
2.4.1.

Students‟ time experience in learning English ....................................25

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2.4.2.

Students‟ average scores in listening skills last semester ....................25

2.4.3.

Students‟ perception of the importance of listening skills...................26

2.4.4.

Students‟ perception of the difficulty of listening skills in comparison

with other skills ..............................................................................................26
2.5. Students’ responses to the questions about problems related to bottom-up
process .............................................................................................................. 28
2.5.1.

Students‟ responses related to problem of hearing sounds ..................28

2.5.2.

Students‟ responses related to problem of understanding stress and

intonation ........................................................................................................29
2.5.3.

Students‟ responses related to problem of understanding different

accents 30
2.5.4.

Students‟ responses related to problem of mismatch between learners‟

vocabulary and vocabulary used in listening texts ...........................................30
2.5.5.

Students‟ responses related to problem of mismatch between learners‟

syntactic knowledge and syntax used in listening texts ...................................31
2.6. Students’ responses to questions about the factors related to top-down
processing ......................................................................................................... 31
2.6.1.

Problem of cultural differences ..........................................................31

2.6.2.

Problem of unfamiliar topic ...............................................................32

2.7. Questions about problems caused by materials and tasks ....................... 32
2.7.1.

Students‟ responses related to problem concerning length and density

of the text, and delivery speed .........................................................................32

2.7.2.

Students‟ responses related to problem of the complexity of the task .34

2.8. Students’ responses to questions about other factors ............................... 34
2.8.1.

Students‟ responses related to problem of failing to apply effective

learning styles and strategies ...........................................................................34
2.8.2.

Students‟ responses related to problems of fatigue and lack of

concentration ..................................................................................................36
2.8.3.

Students‟ responses related to problems of physical settings ..............37

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2.8.4.

Students‟ responses related to problems related to lack of invisibility of

the speaker ......................................................................................................37
2.9. Summary .................................................................................................... 38
PART III. CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 41
3.1. Recapitulations .......................................................................................... 41

3.1.1.

Students‟ listening performance and their assessment of listening skills
41

3.1.2.

Difficulties 11D2 students at NVXHS encounter when studying

listening skills .................................................................................................41
3.2. Suggestive recommendations ..................................................................... 42
3.2.1.

Problems related to bottom-up processing ..........................................42

3.2.2.

Problems related to bottom-up processing ..........................................43

3.2.3.

Problems related to listening materials and tasks................................43

3.2.4.

Other problems ..................................................................................43

3.3. Limitations and suggestions for further studies ....................................... 44
REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 45
APPENDICES ....................................................................................................... I

vii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

NVXHS: Nguyen Viet Xuan High School
L2: Second Language
ESL: English as a second language
EFL: English as a foreign language

viii


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Students‟ responses related to problem of hearing sounds ……………...31
Table 2. Students‟ responses related to problem of understanding
stress and intonation ……………………………………………………….32
Table 3. Students‟ responses related to problem of understanding
different accents…………………………………………………………….32
Table 4. Questions about problem of mismatch between learners‟
vocabulary range and vocabulary used in listening texts ………………….33
Table 5. Students‟ responses related to mismatch between learners‟
syntax and that used in listening texts ……………………………………...33
Table 6. Students‟ responses related to problems of cultural
differences and unfamiliar topics ………………………………………….34
Table 7. Students‟ responses related to complexity of the task …………………..36
Table 8. Students‟ responses related to problem of failing to
apply effective learning styles and strategies ……………………………...36
Table 9. Students‟ responses related to problems of fatigue and

lack of concentration …………………………………………………….....37
Table 10. Students‟ responses related to problem related to physical settings …..38
Table 11. Students‟ responses related to problem related to lack of
invisibility of the speaker …………………………………………………..38
Table 12. Summary of students‟ responses to questions about problems
related to bottom- up processing …………………………………………...40
Table 13. Summary of students‟ responses to questions about problems
related to top- down processing ……………………………………………40
Table 14. Summary of students‟ responses to questions about problems
caused by materials and tasks ……………………………………………...40
Table 15. Summary of students‟ responses to questions about other problems …41

ix


LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: Students‟ time experience in learning English ………………………30
Chart 2: Students‟ average scores in listening skills last semester……………30
Chart 3: Students‟ perception of the importance of listening skills……….…. 30
Chart 4: Students‟ perception of the difficulty level of listening
skills in comparison with other skills ……….……………………….30
Chart 5. Students‟ responses to problem of the mismatch between
learners‟ vocabulary range and that used in listening texts ………….30
Chart 6. Students‟ responses related to length and density of the text
and delivery speed ……………………………………………………35

x


PART I: INTRODUCTION

1.

Rationale of the study

There was a time when most English textbooks in Vietnam paid most attention to
grammar, translation and reading materials. It was almost impossible to find
anything related to teaching listening skills, so listening comprehension skill
teaching and learning were hardly practiced by teachers and students. Things have
changed since 2008 when The Ministry of Education and Training made a decision
on approval of the project “Teaching and learning foreign languages in the national
education system period 2008-2020”. Since then listening lessons has been
integrated in official syllabuses at all levels.
However, little achievement has been gained even though many efforts have been
made for the last six years. The majority of school students, especially those in rural
areas, still show very little improvement in listening ability during their school
years. As a result, when attending universities in big cities or even after graduating
from universities, they have to rush to language centers with a hope to find a quick
way to improve their listening capacity.
With a view to discovering reasons for the problem, we have decided to conduct
research into factors that lead to students‟ difficulties in listening. The research is
carried out at Nguyen Viet Xuan High School (NVXHS from now on), a school in a
rural area of Vinh Phuc Province. In recent years, English has been a compulsory
requirement in the school entrance examinations here. Throughout the school year,
students have to do different English tests, each of which consists of four parts,
namely listening, grammar and structure, reading comprehension and writing. The
listening section is often in the form of multiple choice questions or gap fillings.
In the final test last year, many students in this school performed poorly in the
listening test though their reading and grammar results were quite good. A large
number of students said that they could not understand what the speakers in the tape
were saying. The situation has not changed in the first few weeks this school year.

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This was observable when students took the pre-test at the beginning of the school
year to be placed in suitable classes. Students‟ low ability to understand spoken
English was also visible when there was a native teacher working at NVXHS.
Most students failed to communicate with him; therefore, they were unable to fulfil
the tasks given by this native teacher of English. It always took him plenty of time
and efforts to make himself understood by illustrating his ideas with visual aid,
writing them down or even asking for help from Vietnamese teachers. All of the
above-mentioned problems have led to a great necessity for the researcher to
conduct an action research into difficulties that 11th grade students at NVXHS
encounter in leaning listening and suggestive solutions for improving their listening
comprehension skills.
2.

Objectives of the study

The present study takes as its main focus the following objective:
-

Identifying difficulties that class 11D2 students at Nguyen Viet Xuan
High School, Vinh Phuc Province experience in studying listening
comprehension skills.

3.

Research question

To fulfill the above mentioned objectives, this study aims at finding out answers to
the following question:
-

What difficulties do the students from class 11D2, Nguyen Viet Xuan High
School, face in studying listening skills in class?

4.

Scope of the study

Although many students in NVXHS encounter difficulties in acquiring listening
comprehension skills, this research is only carried out on a small scale due to the
limitation of time and the narrow scope of an M.A thesis. The subjects of the
study are 40 students from class 11D2, where the researcher himself is teaching.
Accordingly, the researcher will make out major difficulties these students run
into in their listening lessons. Based on the findings, some suggestions for the

2


teacher will be offered to deal with the students‟ problems and to help them
become better listeners.
5.

Methodology of the study

Conducting the study, the researcher makes use of both quantitative and qualitative
methods with a wish to explore the matter thoroughly. The data have been collected
from two sources: the questionnaire for students and class observations.

The questionnaire was designed into two parts: part one consists of questions about
students‟ background and part two consists of questions about difficulties that
students encountered when they studied listening comprehension at school. The
second part of the questionnaire was adapted from that of Hamouda (2013). The
questionnaire was responded by students within 30 minutes. The classroom
observation was carried during listening lessons and its aim is to confirm and
supplement the result of the questionnaire.
6.

Significance of the study

The study helps the researcher himself recognize the problems coming up in his
listening lessons, so that he will bring about radical changes in his approaches,
methods and techniques of teaching listening skills.
The result of this study is supposedly beneficial not only to the teacher and
students of the surveyed class but to other teachers and students working in the
same conditions as well. By making teachers and students aware of some
problematic areas in learning listening skills, the researcher hopes to provide them
with necessary understanding of as well as the right attitude toward listening skills
to find suitable ways to teach and learn listening comprehension skills.
7.

Design of the study

The study is organized into three main parts and several subdivisions as follows:
Part 1 (Introduction) deals with the rationale, objectives, research question, scope,
methodology, significance and design of the study.
Part 2 (Development) is subdivided into two chapters.

3

Chapter 1 (Literature Review) provides the theoretical framework, presenting the
terms and theories related to the nature and importance of listening, as well as types,
processes and procedure of listening. In addition, factors affecting listening are
discussed and a short review of previous works is given.
Chapter 2 (The Study) presents the context of the study, the learning material, the
subjects of the study and data collection instruments. Together with those parts are
the data collection procedure and the analysis of the results.
Part 3 (Conclusion) recapitulates the study, sums up major findings, points out the
limitations, and proposes some suggestions for further studies.

4


PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.

Notions of listening

1.1.1. Nature of listening
The term listening is used in language teaching to refer to a complex process that
allows people to understand spoken language.
In the early days of English Language Teaching (ELT), listening chiefly served as a
means of introducing new grammar through model dialogues. Commentators have
sometimes implied that it was not until the late 1970s and the advent of
communicative approaches that the skill was first taught in its own right (Field,
2009). It was once widely seen as a „passive‟ skill that takes place in the hidden
reaches of the learners‟ mind. It was not tangible in the way that speaking and

writing were, and a listening text was not easily manipulated like a reading one.
However, listening has heatedly been argued by recent linguists as an active skill.
According to Saricoban (1999), listening is the ability to identify and understand
what others are saying. He cited Bulletin (1952) that listening is a medium through
which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of their education –
their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideas,
sense of values, and their appreciation.
Rost (1991), as cited in Nunan (2011), suggests that listening is not only a skill area
in language performance, but is also a means of acquiring a second language.
Listening is the channel in which we process language in real time – employing
pacing, units of encoding and pausing that are unique to spoken language.
Steinberg (2007), cited in Bingol (2014), mentions listening process as “the ability
of one individual perceiving another via sense, aural organs, assigning a meaning to
the message and comprehending it”.
From another aspect, Lucas (2007) differentiates listening and hearing in the way
that hearing is a physiological process, and listening is a psychological process in

5


which we pay close attention to what we hear in order to make sense out of the
information.
Meanwhile, Saricoban (1999) notices the difference between listening and speaking.
He argues that listening is as active as speaking, and in some ways, is even more
difficult. It well requires attention, thought, interpretation, and imagination.
Listening also differs from other skills in the way that listeners cannot control the
text as can speakers, readers and writers. They cannot make a break or slow down
the speed of spoken speech when they are dealing with listening text as others can.
In short, listening is a cognitive process in which listeners hear sounds, analyze
them and make use of other linguistic factors to grasp information or ideas that

speakers would like to mean.
1.1.2. Importance of listening skills
In our communication oriented age, listening is more important than ever. This is
why in most companies, effective listeners hold higher positions and are promoted
more often than ineffective listeners (Lucas, 2008).
In terms of language learning, listening is an integral part in the process of
mastering a language. It does not stand alone, but is used together with other skills.
Saricoban (1999) argues that listening is one of the fundamental language skills, and
it is the first step in the process of acquiring a language in the way that it supplies a
necessary input for language learners.
Talking about the fact that listening is closely related to speaking, Field (2009)
foregrounds the relationship between them. According to him, communication
requires a two-way traffic, and unless the non-native speaker has a listening
competence as developed as his/her command of speech, it will be impossible for
him/her to sustain a conversation. This may seem a blindingly obvious point. But
the briefest review of listening proficiency in a language class will identify more
than a few learners whose ability to interpret what is said to them lags well behind
the level of language that they are capable of producing.

6


Through their communication experiments in which a speaker had to instruct a
listener in drawing a diagram or in arranging a set of objects, Anderson and
Linch (1998) suggest that effective speaking depends on successful listening.
They find that the most effective spoken performance comes from speakers
who have previously been listeners on a similar task.
Listening also has its influence on process of learning reading and writing as Nunan
mentions in his book The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other
languages (2011, p. 7) “listening, the most widely used language skill, is often used

in conjunction with other skills of speaking, reading and writing.”
1.1.3. Types of listening
Based on the patterns of interaction between the listener and the speaker, Anderson
and Lynch (1988) classify listening into two types, namely reciprocal listening –
listening where there is at least an opportunity for speakers and listeners to
exchange roles and non-reciprocal listening or one way listening – which happens
when the listener is engaged in listening passively to a monologue, or speech, or
even conversation.
According to Rubin and Thomson (1994), reciprocal listening situations include
face-to-face conversations and telephone calls in which the listener has a chance to
ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from his/her conversation partner.
In the meantime, in non-interactive listening situations, the listener does not usually
have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech, or repetition. Some
examples of non-interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, CDs, TV,
films, lectures, etc.
On the other hand, Field (2009) bases on listener’s goals to suggest four types of
listening (1) shallow attention focus – skimming and unfocused scanning skills; (2)
medium attention focus – listening for plots, listening to commentaries,
conversational listening, information exchanges; (3) deep attention focus – close
listening to establish the speaker‟s main points and to trace connections between
them; (4) very deep attention focus – listening to check critical facts.

7


1.1.4. Listening processes
So far, there have been many linguists studying about listening such as Anderson
and Lynch (1988), Underwood (1989); Brown (1990) or Saricoban (1999). All of
them agreed that listening process is not a simple process of a single activity but a
complex one consisting of various activities. After hearing process with various

stages involving physical processing of the auditory system with the outer ear, the
middle ear, the inner ear, the nerve impulses and so on. the listening process occurs
inside the brain with a lot of sub-processes.
In terms of the nature of those sub-processes, Duzer (1997) suggests nine successive
activities in listening process. (1) determining a reason for listening; (2) taking the
raw speech and deposits an image of it in short-term memory; (3) attempting to
organize the information by identifying the type of speech event (a conversation, a
lecture, a radio advertisement) and the function of the message (to persuade/ inform/
request); (4) predicting information expected to be included in the message; (5)
recalling background information (schemata) to help interpret the message; (6)
assigning a meaning to the message; (7) checking that the message has been
understood; (8) determining the information to be held in long-term memory; and
(9) deleting the original form of the message that has been received into short term
memory.
Looking at the issue from another angle, other scientists assign listening process to
a parallel processing model with bottom-up processing and top-down processing.
Helgesen and Brown, cited in Nunan (2007), suggest that the bottom-up processing
is the process that hearers try to make sense of what they hear by focusing on
different parts: the vocabulary, the grammar or functional phrases, sounds, etc. The
top-down processing, on the other hand, starts with background knowledge called
schema. This can be content schema (general knowledge based on life experience
and previous learning) or textual schema (knowledge of language and content used
in a particular situation; for example, the language you need at a bank is different
than the language you need when socializing with friends).

8


Nunan (2001), cited in Mc Clelland (1987) and Cowan (1995), proposes that as a
goal-oriented activity, listening involves “bottom-up” processing (in which listeners

attend to use data in the incoming speech signals) and “top-down” processing (in
which listeners utilize prior knowledge and expectations to create meaning). Both
bottom-up processing and top-down processing are assumed to take place at various
levels of cognitive organization: phonological,

grammatical, lexical and

propositional. This complex process is often described as a „parallel processing
model‟ of language understanding: representation at these levels creates activation
at other levels.
According to Brown (1990), bottom-up processing was developed during 1940s and
1950s and dominated teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) for decades. He
explains this processing as follows:
You start off with recognizing phonetic sounds, you identify these as phonemes, you
sort out the morphological structure – identify plural endings and so on – and so you
arrive at a word. Then you undertake the same procedure for the next word and
eventually you identify a phrase, say a noun phrase, and so you continue, building up
structures until you have a sentence. You then interpret the sentence and come up
with a semantic reading which will yield „a thin meaning‟, and then you look at this
in terms of pragmatic context which will yield „a thick meaning‟, which will include,
for instance, what you think the speaker meant by what he or she said.
(P. 10)

Brown thinks that bottom-up processing is important but insufficient on its own.
For the listener to fully understands what the speaker means, a crucial part of the
comprehension process is needed. This is the top-down processing. As soon as
someone begins to speak, the co-operative human listener is actively trying to work
out what he is saying, what he is likely to say next and what he is likely to mean by
what he says. The active listener will use all relevant background knowledge –
knowledge of physical context of the utterance (the immediate surroundings, the

place, the time of the day, etc.), knowledge of the speaker (gender, age, known
opinions), knowledge of the topic (and what the speaker is likely to know about it,
or feel about it) and so on. Armed with all this activated knowledge, the listener
9


monitors the incoming acoustic signal, which will simultaneously shape and
confirm his expectations.
Speaking of the close relationship between the bottom-up processing and top-down
processing, Brown argues that even if listeners do manage to develop a rich set of
predictions (top-down), they still need to be able to monitor incoming acoustic
signals (bottom-up) so that they know which of their predictions is being confirmed
and which is not.
Therefore, the bottom-up processing and top-down processing are two wellintegrated parts of the comprehension.
1.2.

Procedures of a listening lesson in a language classroom

1.2.1. Pre-listening
Pre-listening is the very first stage, where the context is established. The teacher
creates motivation and students do some activities with the purpose of preparing
themselves for what they will hear.
1.2.2. While-listening
The following stage is listening, where learners do different kinds of tasks given by
the textbook or the teacher to find out answers. The aim of activities done during
this phase is to help the students to catch the main meaning of the text so that they
have enough information to interpret the text. One of the most important functions
of while-listening activities is to present the sound of the target language. This
presentation enables students to develop their listening comprehension skills and it
also serves as a model of their speech.

1.2.3. Post-listening
The last stage is post-listening, which is the part where students have an opportunity
to check their answers concerning what they have been listening to, to give
feedback and consolidate what they have learnt. This stage is useful for teachers as
well, because it helps them see and analyze particular difficulties students already
have with the listening activity.

10


In previous parts, notions of listening and listening procedures have been
mentioned, in the next part, the researcher will address different factors that affect
learners‟ listening comprehension. As mentioned above, when listening, students
experience hearing process with different hearing organs and cognitive processes
with what linguists called bottom-up processing and top-down processing.
Consequently, anything hindering those processes can cause challenge for the
students‟ listening. Considering that in mind, the researcher focuses on impeding
factors related to bottom-up processing, those related to top-down processing, and
those affect the hearing process.
1.3.

Problems related to bottom-up processing

1.3.1. Problem related to hearing sounds
One of the biggest problems facing the learners when listening to foreign language
is the matter of identifying sounds. This problem is commonly encountered by
learners of English as a foreign language. As stated in Rixon (1986, p. 38), one of
the most common problems encountered by students is the way English words are
pronounced, but unfortunately this aspect of English cannot be overlooked as
pronunciation of English can cause students problems in recognition, and therefore

in comprehension.
Rixon proposes four explanations for the difficulty caused by English sounds. The
first difficulty is caused by different ways to pronounce the same sound:
… there are two ways how to pronounce sound /t/. In so called BBC English one of
the ways engages aspiration, hissing sounds, this happens if the /t/ is placed at the
beginning of the syllables. Students who have no experience with aspiration in their
mother tongue can hear /st/.
Rixon (1986,p. 38)

The second difficulty appears as a result of differences between English sounds and
their spellings, “As there is a difference between the spoken and written form of
words in English students can fail to identify the pronounced form of words they
know in written form” (Rixon, 1986,p. 38).

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Rixon asserts the necessity of students‟ awareness of English connected speech,
which makes it difficult for learners to recognize individual words. He goes on
talking about this phenomenon in relation to stressed/ unstressed vowel sounds:
In natural speech listeners can encounter three main types of a change in sound
involving weak form of vowels. This means that words that are in unstressed
positions have different pronunciation in comparison with stressed vowels e.g. when
to is said in isolation it is pronounced as /tu:/, but on the other hand, in connected
speech the pronunciation changes into /tə/. (Ibid.)

Elision and assimilation, in Rixon‟s view, are reasons for this difficulty:
Another factor of connected speech is called elision. This means a loss of sounds
appearing in natural speech e.g. the word probably is pronounced /probli/. The third
factor of connected speech is called assimilation. Assimilation means that a

pronunciation of a letter can be influenced by the letter before or after it so that it
changes its sound e.g. ten bikes can be pronounced /tem baiks/. (Ibid.)

Another aspect of sounds is that there are sounds that do not exist in students‟ first
language or there are pairs of sounds that seem to be indistinguishable to learners.
The following example given by Ur (1996, p. 11) is about a problem his French
student faces:
The sound /θ/ as in ‘think’, for example, does not exist in French; a native French
speaker may very often therefore not notice at first that it occurs in English – he may
simply assimilate it to the nearest sound familiar to him and say /s/ or /f/.

Ur points out the fact that it may take a Hebrew learner quite a long time to practise
distinguishing differences between „ship‟ and „sheep‟ or „fit‟ and „feet‟ as Hebrew
does not have similar sounds.
At the same time, Ur (1996) is concerned about the sequences and juxtapositions of
sounds. For example, a chain of successive consonants (or consonant cluster) also
brings a source of problems to listeners. They can get the consonants in the wrong
order (hearing „parts‟ for „past‟), or omit one of the sounds („crips‟ for „crisps‟)
Also concerning this problem, Brown (1990) adds students are not able to use the
phonological code well enough to identify which words are being used by the
speaker and how these are organized into sentences. He assigns the reason for this

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to the fact that students are relatively more successful at interpreting the written
form of the language.
1.3.2. Problem of understanding stress and intonation
When second language listener has limitation in other decoding skills,
understanding the stress and intonation of the speech can be a means of support to

them. Though the pressures of the group may lead to some words becoming reduced
in form and thus more difficult to identify, there is a compensating benefit in that
focal stress serves to foreground the most important piece of information. For the
L2 listener, it provides a basis for forming hypotheses about what a speaker said
when very little else may have been understood.
It has been argued that apart from instruction in pronunciation for isolated words
and sentences, more attention needs to be paid to intonation training because
learners who have better understanding about prosodic features are shown to be
more proficient in English. According to Fan (1993), instead of intonation and
rhythm, English learners pay more attention to the sounds (word pronunciation),
vocabulary, and grammar when they are listening to English. This is the reason why
many English learners complain about the speed of the listening texts being too fast
from time to time. In their study, Hsieh, Dong and Wang (2013) cited Gilbert
(1994) that intonation allows people to follow the flow of information in spoken
English. They also stated Pickering (2004) and Wennerstorm (2004) that if the
speaker can use appropriate intonation structure at the discourse level, recipients
will perceive the speaker‟s English to be more intelligible. They also indicate that
with the use of intonation structure at the discourse level, not only is intelligibility
increased, but learners‟ fossilized pronunciation is also found to be improved.
Therefore, inability to interpret intonation and stress pattern correctly will hinder
listening process.
1.3.3. Problem of understanding different accents
Various accents can cause students another problem in acquiring listening skills. If
students are frequently exposed to just one or two accents and get familiar with

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