Listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills

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<b>DECLARATION </b>

I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university, other institution or tertiary education. Information derived from the published or unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and a list of references is given.

<b>Supervisor </b>

<i>(Signature, full name) </i>

<b>Trinh Thi Thu Ha </b>

<b>Student </b>

<i><b> (Signature, full name) </b></i>

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<b>ACKNOWLEDGEMENT </b>

Many people have contributed to making this thesis what it is. They have given me a lot of help, guidance and encouragement. That motivated me to accomplish the study as perfectly as possible.

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Trinh Thi Thu Ha, M.A, a lecturer at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hong Duc University. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank for her hearted guidance and valuable recommendations. Without her, I might not have accomplish my thesis. Besides, I highly appreciate the teachers at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hong Duc University for their precious and profound lessons which provided me solid knowledge backgrounds for my thesis.

Many sincere thanks are also needed to give to the English Linguistics freshman at Hong Duc University who patiently completed the survey questionnaires and answered my interviewing questions.

Last but not least, I give my warm heart to my family and classmates. They encouraged and supported me to go the end.

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5. Scope of the study ... 4

6. Methods of the study ... 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT ... 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ... 5

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1.1.2. Definition of listening skills ... 9

1.1.3. Definition of listening comprehension ... 9

1.2. The importance of listening in learning language ... 11

1.2.1. Significance of listening ... 12

1.3. Factors affect listening comprehension ... 14

1.4. Difficulties in studying listening skill ... 15

1.4.1. Difficulties related to the Speaker ... 15

1.4.2. Difficulties related to the Listener... 16

1.4.3. Difficulties related to the Physical setting ... 22

1.4.4. Difficulties from the Listening text ... 23

1.5. The reality of learning listening skills at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hong Duc University ... 25

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ... 27

2.1. Subjects of the study ... 27

2.2. Research instruments... 27

2.2.1. Details of the Questionnaire ... 27

2.2.2. Procedure of the questionnaire ... 28

2.2.3. Semi- structured interviews... 29

2.2.3.1. Justification for conducting an interview ... 29

2.2.2.2 Interview Description ... 30

2.2.2.3 Interviewing procedure ... 30

2.3. Data ... 30

2.4. Summary ... 31

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 32

3.1. General background information ... 32

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3.2. Respondents’ difficulties in Listening comprehension ... 35

3.3. Respondents’ reasons on listening comprehension problems ... 42

3.4.Results of the interview ... 44

3.5. Discussion ... 47

3.5.1. Opinions on Listening Comprehension Problems ... 47

PART 3. CONCLUSION ... 49

1. Summary of the findings ... 49

1.1. General Information of the Respondents ... 49

1.2. Listening problems related to listening text ... 49

1.3. Listening Problems related to the Speaker ... 49

1.4. Listening Problems related to Physical Setting ... 50

2. Conclusion ... 50

3. Recommendations or suggestions ... 51

3.1. Suggestion for students ... 51

3.2. Suggestion for teachers ... 52

REFERENCES ... 54APPENDIX A ... IQuestionnaire... IAppendix B... V

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<b>LIST OF TABLES </b>

<i>Table 3.1.1. General Background of the Respondents ... 33 </i>

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vii

<b>LIST OF CHARTS </b>

<i>Chart 1.3.1. The average score of the students who participated in the survey25 </i>

<i>Chart 3.2.1. Frequency of Listening problems related to Listening Text ... 35 </i>

<i>Chart 3.2.2. Frequency of Listening problems related to Speaker ... 37 </i>

<i>Chart 3.2.4. Frequency of Listening problems related to Listener ... 41 </i>

<i>Chart 3.3.1. Reasons for Listening problems related to Listener ... 42 </i>

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<b>PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Background </b>

Vietnam's utilization of the English language, though not yet as advanced as in more developed nations, is gradually increasing in importance and prevalence. The rate of interaction between European countries and the Philippines, despite initial differences, is experiencing a rise. The impact of the media and the internet is significantly greater than in previous times. France, which is the closest neighboring country to the United Kingdom, holds a notable position in geographical proximity to the British Isles.

The Vietnamese government has comprehended the significance of the English language for an extended period. Language is widely regarded as a fundamental academic subject within schools, and as such, its inclusion in the curriculum is often obligatory. The subject matter has been systematically studied across multiple levels for numerous decades. During the instructional session, numerous concepts were presented to the students. The global educational landscape comprises a variety of English-language based international curricula.

Listening skill pertains to the capacity to recollect and comprehend information that is communicated. Delivered verbally in an oral presentation. There are various compelling justifications for the significance of the matter at hand. In the preliminary stage, listening is considered to be one of the fundamental avenues through which individuals acquire information. Academic version: to gain knowledge and understanding about a particular subject matter, it is imperative to engage in a systematic process of education. In the realm of global affairs, individuals often seek information through the mediums of radio or television programming. People, too, are an integral component of this phenomenon.

One can acquire novel proficiencies by attentively listening to supervisors or instructors. Active listening has been shown to have a positive impact on various interactions, leading to increased understanding and better outcomes. Individuals are stimulated to construct concepts and discern resolutions effectively. Consequently, through attentive listening, an individual can better understand the sentiments and

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intentions of others, leading to improved communication and enhanced interpersonal relationships.

It is necessary to precisely rephrase this text into an academic style of writing. In the context of human emotions, divergent affective states can be observed, notably including affable and hostile moods, as well as attentive and apprehensive sentiments.

Lastly, listening carefully helps people interpret people's responses more accurately. Contrasting emotions such as friendliness and anger or concern and sarcasm are all revealed by tone of voice and rate of speaking. Slow speech often indicates confidence, whereas raising the voice and talking loudly or rapidly may show defensiveness.

<b>2. Rationale </b>

Nobody can deny the importance of listening abilities in foreign language acquisition, because acquiring verbal information is an essential component of language learning. Krashen, Terrell, Ehrman, & Herzog (1984) claim that acquisition takes place only when students absorb enough comprehensible input.

The same assertion was backed up by Rost (1994) who confirmed that listening is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for learners. As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role in students’ language development. Krashen (1985), argues that people acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they hear. Therefore, language learning is mostly performed through the reception of understandable input, and listening ability is a key factor in getting comprehending language input.

The communicating process will break down when the listeners fail to understand what the speakers say (Underwood, 1989). In addition, students who can listen to English well have a higher chance of attaining broad knowledge in the outside world.

Futhermore, listening is a vital language talent that ought to be prioritized among the four skill areas for language students.

As Hasan (2000), pointed out “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills”.

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Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency.

In addition, non-native English speaking nations have widely adopted English as a key language in daily life and at various educational levels across the world. Hearing and understanding is becoming more essential in learning a new language, as is knowledge exhibited in lectures and on television. It is especially important for the majority of English as a second language students.

Despite the important role of listening skills in learning English, the situation of teaching and developing listening skills has long been overlooked and given little concern. Furthermore, the Vietnamese school system concentrates on coaching tests with a strong emphasis on grammar, reading, and vocabulary.

As a result, many Vietnamese students, even those who perform well on grammar examinations, are unable to interact effectively with foreigners in everyday situations. According to Nguyen (2008), the most serious factor is the inability to understand what native speakers say due to a lack of listening comprehension. Also, outside of what they learn in class, rural pupils in Vietnam have little exposure to the English language. The teacher's voice is the primary mechanism through which students listen to English. Additionally, the low quality of cassettes has a discernible influence on the process of practicing and evaluating listening, particularly in remote areas.

<b>3. Aims and objectives of the study </b>

Finding out the problems in listening comprehension encountered by English major freshmen's at HDU.

<b>4. Research question </b>

The objective of this study is to find out student problems in studying listening with the following specific research question:

What are the listening problems in listening comprehension of fresh-men English Linguistics from the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hong Duc University?

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<b>5. Scope of the study </b>

The participants are 100 fresh-men of the Faculty of Foreign Languages. They consist of 80 females and 20 males, of K25B, K25C, K25D - English Linguistics at Hong Duc University.

After that, 15 students would be randomly chosen to take part in direct interview for a deeper analysis.

<b>6. Methods of the study </b>

The study will investigate of what the problems in listening comprehension encountered by first year English Linguistics at Hong Duc University. To find answers to the above research questions, the researcher use the research method:

- Quantitative method was used as the research requires quite many participants to collect data and the result had been analyzed using descriptive quantitative method. Data collected from questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively via Excel software for calculating averages and sums.

Questionnaire included closed and open-ended questions. The purpose for mixing of both closed and open-ended responses is that the former is easier to collate and analyze and the responses to the later will provide more flexibility so that the respondent can give more accurate answer.

- Qualitative method: Interview

The data is surveyed online through face-to-face interviews, which will be asked in English. If the respondent does not understand clearly, ask in Vietnamese to ensure that the information provider understands the entire content of the question. Data from interviews were qualitatively analyzed to complement the information gained by means of the questionnaires.

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<b>PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW </b>

This chapter introduces a review of the interconnected studies following the rationale and research questions presented in the previous part. This part focuses on how to define listening skills, the significance of this particular skill in becoming proficient in a foreign language, and the struggles in obtaining said skills, which can be perceived as the research’s theoretical background.

Theoretical background for the research is taken from the works of Howatt and Dakin (1974), Ronald and Roskelly (1985), Underwood (1989), Yagang (1994), Vandergriff (1997), Lucas (1998), Hasan (2000), Goh (2000) etc.

<b>1. Listening </b>

<b>1.1. Definition of listening </b>

Listening is the first and basic skill for learning a new language that a beginner must learn. It means to give attention to someone or something in order to listen. Your ability to receive affects your ability to produce. If they are good listeners. As a result, they will understand and even have sufficient proficiency in the productive skills of speaking and writing. There are some definitions given by linguists and the following:

According to Brown (2004), listening is a spoken or written response from the student that indicates correct (or incorrect) auditory processing. In order to become better listeners, the learners must think actively when they are listening. Listening is involved in many language-learning activities, both inside and outside the language classroom. Improving listening comprehension forms the basis for developing other language skills.

According to Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the speaker's grammar and vocabulary and comprehension of meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Ronald and Roskelly (1985), define listening as an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand.

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Nation and Jonathan (2009), “Listening is the natural precursor to speaking; the early stages of language development in a person’s first language (and in naturalistic acquisition of other languages) are dependent on listening.”

Brown (2006), defines listening is a complex activity, and we can help students comprehend what they hear by activating their prior knowledge.

Rost (2002), defined listening as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding, and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy. To listen well, listeners must have the ability to decode the message, the ability to apply a variety of strategies and interactive processes to make meaning, and the ability to respond to what is said in a variety of ways, depending on the purpose of the communication. Listening involves listening for thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

<b>1.1.1. Types of listening </b>

Eatough (2013), built a particular framework for classifying various forms of auditory perception has been established and referred to as the categorization of listening.

There are 6 kinds of listening, let's examine of these listening styles, their importance, and potential manifestations:

Discriminative listening Pica and Doughty (1987), referred as the most basic type of listening, whereby the difference between different sounds is identified. If you cannot hear differences, then you cannot make sense of the meaning that is expressed by such differences. We learn to discriminate between sounds within our own language early, and later are unable to discriminate between the phonemes of other languages. This is one reason why a person from one country finds it difficult to speak

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another language perfectly, as they are unable to distinguish the subtle sounds that are required in that language. Likewise, a person who cannot hear the subtleties of emotional variation in another person's voice will be less likely to be able to discern the emotions the other person is experiencing. Listening is a visual as well as auditory act, as we communicate much through body language.

<i><b>1.1.1.2. Critical or evaluative listening </b></i>

Lucas (1998), says that this type of listening is used to evaluate a message for purposes of accepting or rejecting it, as when we listen to the sales pitch of a used –car dealer, the campaign speech of a political candidate, or the closing arguments of an attorney in a jury trial. As we know, in evaluative listening, or critical listening, we make judgments about what the other person is saying. We seek to assess the truth of what is being said. We also judge what they say against our values, assessing them as good or bad, worthy or unworthy. Evaluative listening is particularly pertinent when the other person is trying to persuade us, perhaps to change our behavior and maybe even to change our beliefs. Within this, we also discriminate between subtleties of language and comprehend the inner meaning of what is said. Typically, also we weigh up the pros and cons of an argument, determining whether it makes sense logically as well as whether it is helpful to us. Evaluative listening is also called critical, judgmental or interpretive listening.

<i><b>1.1.1.3. Appreciative listening </b></i>

According to Lucas (1998), appreciative listening is when we listen for pleasure or enjoyment, as when we listen to music, to a comedy, or to an entertaining speech or when we listen to a radio or watch TV. Appreciative listening drives us to seek certain information which will enjoy us with things which help meet our needs and goals. It is in here where the listener gains pleasure, satisfaction from listening to a certain type of music for example. Appreciative sources might also include particular charismatic speakers or entertainers. These are personal preferences and may have been shaped through our experiences and expectations. We use appreciative listening when we are listening to good music, poetry or maybe even the stirring words of a great leader.

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<i><b>1.1.1.4. Empathic listening </b></i>

According to Lucas (1998), empathic listening provides emotional support for the speaker, as when a psychiatrist listens to a patient or when we lend a sympathetic ear to a friend in distress. In fact, when we listen empathetically, we go beyond sympathy to seek a truer understand how others are feeling. This requires excellent discrimination and close attention to the nuances of emotional signals. When we are being truly empathetic, we actually feel what they are feeling. In this sort of listening, the listener tends to listen rather than talk. Their non-verbal behavior indicates that the listener is attending to what is being said. The emphasis is on understanding the speaker’s feelings and being supportive and patient; we also need to demonstrate our empathy in our demeanor towards them, asking sensitively and in a way that encourages self-disclosure.

<i><b>1.1.1.5. False listening </b></i>

Rost (1990), argues that false listening occurs where a person is pretending to listen but is not hearing anything that is being said. They may nod, smile and grunt in all the right places, but do not actually take in anything that is said. This is a skill that may be finely honed by people who do a lot of inconsequential listening, such as politicians and royalty. Although, their goal with their audience is to make a good impression in very short space of time before they move on, but they never wish to talk to that person again. It is also something practiced by couples, particularly where one side does most of the talking.

<i><b>1.1.1.6. Selective listening </b></i>

Lynch (1995), encapsulates that selective or partial listening involves listening for particular things and ignoring others. Partial listening is what most of us do most of the time, we listen to the other person with the best of intent and then become distracted, either by stray thoughts or by something that the other person has said. We consequently dip inside our own heads for a short while as we figure out what they really mean or formulate a question for them, before coming back into the room and starting to listen again. This can be problematic when the other person has moved on and we are unable to pick up the threads of what is being said. We thus easily can fall into false listening, at least for a short while. This can be embarrassing, of course, if

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they suddenly ask our opinion. In a situation like that, we should admit that we had lost the thread of the conversation and asking them to repeat what was said

<b>1.1.2. Definition of listening skills </b>

Listening skill is the key to effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively, the message is easily misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message is likely to become frustrated and annoyed.

There are some definitions given by linguists and the following:

Bite (2013), defines listening skill is key to receiving messages effectively. It is a combination of hearing what another person says and psychological involvement with the person who is talking. Listening skill is the communication process, according to Johnson (1951) and Hampleman (1958), while it is to distinguish words from recognizing other words.

According to Walberg (2004), listening skills are essential for learning since they enable students to acquire insights and information, and to achieve success in communicating with others.

Based on several definitions above, listening is one of the abilities that every direct observer of a human being possesses; however, not everyone in the world can listen to English unless it is their first language or they have engaged in numerous language-learning activities both inside and outside of a language classroom. Listening skills are the capacity to actively comprehend the information provided by the speaker. Assuring the speaker that their message is being understood might also involve giving them feedback, such as by asking crucial questions.

<b>1.1.3. Definition of listening comprehension </b>

There have been different definitions of the term “listening comprehension”. Rost (2002), and Hamouda (2013), defined listening comprehension as an interactive process in which listeners are involved in constructing meaning. Listeners comprehend the oral input through sound discrimination, previous knowledge, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, and the other linguistic or non-linguistic clues (as cited in Pourhosein Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016).

Fang (2008), said that listening comprehension as an active process that needs the learners/listeners to focus on meaning from the aural information and associate it

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with their background knowledge. In other words, listening comprehension requires learners to be able to discover meaning which should be supported by several factors, such as linguistic factors, listening strategy factors, and affective factors, (Bang and Hiver, 2016).

Based on the definition of listening comprehension above, we can conclude that: The listening process focuses on the importance of information and audience. It is also involved in the construction of meaning. Learners should be able to: Discover meanings, understand the meaning of individual words, understand syntax. There are several factors that the listener should consider such as understanding linguistic, strategic and emotional factors.

Nadig (2013), defined listening comprehension as the various processes of understanding and making sense of spoken language. These involve knowing speech sounds, comprehending the meaning of individual words, and understanding the syntax of sentences (as cited in Pourhosein Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016). According to Brown and Yule (1983) and Hamouda (2013), listening comprehension is an individual understanding of what he has heard and it is the listener’s ability to repeat the text despite the fact that the listener may repeat the sound without real comprehension.

As Hasan (2000), pointed out, “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills". Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency. Rost (2002), also indicates that developing proficiency in listening is the key to achieving proficiency in speaking.

The main objective of listening comprehension practice at the university level is the students should learn to function successfully in real-life situations. More specifically, the purpose of listening activities is to enable the student to carry out lessons and extract information from various types of listening to texts and genres. (For instance, dialogues include debates, discussions, movies, etc., whereas monologues include speeches, reports, directions, poetry, and songs). In addition, you can complete information and answer questions. To achieve their goals, teachers should consider several things, such as: student’s motivations, interests, and learning styles.

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Based on the definitions above, we can conclude that the key to listening comprehension are understanding vocabulary and grammar. The students must be able to carry out instructions and receive information from teachers, from different types of spoken texts or genres, such as monologue speech.

<b>1.2. The importance of listening in learning language </b>

Listening is one of the four key abilities in language acquisition, hence it plays a significant role in learning. Although other abilities such as reading, speaking, and writing are necessary for developing language fluency, listening is the most important. Listening raises linguistic awareness since it is a receptive ability that develops earliest in humans.

Listening to the target language enhances linguistic ability: Cross (1998), significant and meaningful reaction. Listening is especially important when learning a language for communicative purposes because it helps the language learner acquire pronunciation, word stress, vocabulary, and syntax, and comprehension of messages conveyed can be based solely on tone of voice, pitch, and accent; and it is only possible if we listen. Learning cannot increase unless proper understanding input is provided. Furthermore, communication is impossible without the ability to listen.

According to Higgins (1995), every study on the acquisition of language abilities has proven that when we converse, we gain 45% of language competence from listening, 30% from speaking, 15% from reading and 10% from writing. With the highest percentage of involvement in the exchange of information in effective communication, listening has to be considered a language forerunner.

Listening, unlike the other language skills, is felt comparatively much difficult by the learners, as it has all its interrelated sub-skills such as receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding. But with the advent of communicative language-teaching and the focus on proficiency, the learning and teaching of listening started to receive more attention. However, listening is not yet fully integrated into the curriculum and needs to be given more attention in a language learning setting.

To conclude, Yagang (1994), it can be said, without listening skills, language learning is impossible.This is because there is no communication where there is no human interaction. Also, listening is crucial not only in language learning but also for

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learning other subjects. But even today, with all the technological advancements in the field of education, learners have problems with listening. The main reasons are: they spend too little time to improve their listening skills; the inappropriate strategies tested on them in a learning setting may be an important reason for their poor listening comprehension.

<b>1.2.1. Significance of listening </b>

Listening plays an important role in second-language instruction foe several reasons (Rost, 2002). Listening is the first language mode that children acquire. It provides the foundation of all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays a life-long role in the processes of communication. A study by Wilt (1950), found that people listen 45% of the time they spend communicating, speak 30% of communication time, read 16% and 9% is writing.

People have never been taught to listen properly. They are taught speaking, reading, and writing abilities at school, but there are few courses devoted to listening. Furthermore, most individuals are so preoccupied with talking or planning their next words that they miss out on many amazing opportunities to learn about new things, ideas, and people.

Listening provides comprehensible input for the learner which is essential for any learning to occur. Second, learners need to interact with speakers to achieve understanding. Third, listening exercises help learners draw their attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language. Thus listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills (Krashen, 1989).

Theoretical explanations of listening comprehension provide us with clues about the problems which learners face when they listen to a spoken text. These insights cannot, however, account for exhaustive explanation of these problems. As Vogely (1995), We still need research that documents empirically the relationship between what theory says and what learners actually know and more importantly do. To locate the sources of listening comprehension, we need to consider the discourse itself in the context of the classroom. Although a number of studies have been conducted concerning students' listening comprehension, few studies explore whether first year

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college students have encountered different listening comprehension problems. So there still remains necessity of investigating university students' listening difficulties they confronted. And little research has focused on the difficulties encountered by students. As a result, the present paper attempted to investigate the listening comprehension problems encountered by Hong Duc University.

Listening is the most frequently used language skill (Morley, 1999; Scarcella & Oxford. 1992). Bird (1953), found that female college students spent 42 percent of their total verbal communication time in listening while they spent 25 percent in speaking, 15 percent in reading, and 18 percent in writing. A study conducted by Barker, Edwards, Gaines, Gladney, and Holley (1980), confirmed Bird's view of the primacy of listening and showed that the portion of verbal communication time spent by college students was 52.5 percent in listening, 17.3 percent in reading, 16.3 percent in speaking, and 13.9 percent in writing. According to Devine (1982), listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas and information are taken in Gilbert (1988), on the other hand, noted that students from kindergarten through high school were expected to listen 65-90 percent of the time. Wolvin and Coakley (1988) concluded that, both in and out of the classroom, listening consumes more of daily communication time than other forms of verbal communication. Listening is central to the lives of students throughout all levels of educational development (Wing, 1986; Coakley & Wolvin, 1997; Feyten, 1991). Listening is the most frequently used language skill in the classroom (Murphy, 1991; Ferris, 1998; Vogely, 1998). Both instructors (Ferris & Tagg, 1996) and students (Ferris, 1998) acknowledge the importance of listening comprehension for success in academic settings. Numerous studies indicated that efficient listening skills were more important than reading skills as a factor contributing to academic success (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997; Truesdale, 1990). However, Dunkel's (1991b), study reported that international students' academic success in the United States and Canada relied more on reading than listening comprehension, especially for those students in engineering, psychology, chemistry, and computer science. Thus, the importance of listening in classroom instruction has been less emphasized than reading and writing.

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Nevertheless, it is evident that listening plays a significant role in the lives of people. Listening is even more important for the lives of students since listening is used as a primary medium of learning at all stages of education.

<b>1.3. Factors affect listening comprehension </b>

During the process of listening comprehension, various factors may affect learner listening ability. Lists of general factors have been identified (Flowerdew and Miller, 1992; Hayati, 2010), while the role of specific factors has also been examined. Some factors that have been the focus of research include speech rate (Conrad, 1989; Blau, 1990; Griffths, 1992; Zhao, 1997), lexis (Rost, 1992), phonological features and background knowledge (Long, 1990; Chiang and Dunkel, 1992). Other issues have also been related to listener difficulties.

This ranges from text structure and syntax to personal factors such as insufficient exposure to the target language, and a lack of interest and motivation. Brown (1995) acknowledged the relevance of all these issues, and further argued that listener difficulties are also related to the levels of cognitive demands made by the content of the texts. Buck (2001), identifies numerous difficulties which can be confronted in listening tasks such as unknown vocabularies, unfamiliar topics, fast speech rate, and unfamiliar International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development April 2013, accents. As to listener factor, lack of nterest the demand for full and complete answers to listening comprehension questions were the two main difficulties encountered by FFL students. Nguyen (2002), also stated problems that affect the listening comprehension. First of all people find it hard to understand proper names as they have never heard about it before or they have no background knowledge about what they are listening. The second problem he stressed out is believed to rise from the unfamiliar, uninteresting and too long listening. The last one is about the sound connections and intonation spoken by native speaker with different accents. Another factor determining comprehension is content, which is closely related to the aforementioned concept of background knowledge. Content that is familiar is easier to understand. The listener can grasp meaning easily if she has adequate previous knowledge on the subject of the dialogues or the texts she hears.

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Moreover, the presence of visual support-such as video, pictures, diagrams, gestures, facial expressions and body language-can improve her comprehension provided that she is able to correctly interpret it.

<b>1.4. Difficulties in studying listening skill </b>

Listening difficulties are defined as the internal and external characteristics that might interrupt text understanding and real-life processing problems directly related to cognitive procedures that take place at various stages of listening comprehension (Goh, 2000). There have been literary discussion about a plethora of difficulties in listening (Underwood, 1989; Ur, 1984). Yagang (1994), points the difficulties of listening interpretation to four sources: the listening text, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting.

Boyle (1984), also divided the aspects holding influences over listening comprehension and directly related to FFL listening into four inter-relating categories: listener, speaker, medium and environment factors.

The main reasons why the learners feel listening difficult are:

1) Lack of effort to understand each and every word while listening. Especially in L2 acquisition they are unable transfer their L1 skill easily to a second language.

2) Failure or laziness to build up their vocabulary gradually and this greatly reflects in their listening and keeps them low spirited in acquiring the language skills.

3) Listeners problem with different pronunciation, accents as they stick to one

<b>particular articulation. </b>

<b>1.4.1. Difficulties related to the Speaker </b>

As a fact, the speaker has an impact on what listeners hear. Different accents and pronunciation lead to listeners' low understanding (Underwood, 1989). Unfamiliar accents may discourage listeners to continue their listening. To some extent, familiar accents such as American or English accents are quite easy for listener to follow.

a. Accent

According to Goh (1999), one of the most important aspects affecting listener comprehension is a speaker's accent. Unfamiliar accents, both native and non-native, can cause major listening comprehension problems, whereas familiarity with an accent improves learner's comprehension.

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However, in reality, listeners sometimes find it difficult to catch the words said by non-native English-speaking countries.

b. The speed

(Brown & Yule, 1983) spoken messages also hinders the listeners to comprehend. It is obvious that most of listeners perceived that it is too fast to follow the messages of native speakers. What is more, pauses in speech also cause problems in listening comprehension. According to Hasan (2000), pauses cause problems in perceptions and comprehension for listeners. It might be said that speakers often use ungrammatical structures and change minds halfway in sentences. These things are normal for speakers; however, they are big obstacles to listeners.

c. Unfamiliar vocabulary

It would be quite straightforward for students to identify familiar terms in listening texts. When students understand the meaning of words, it may pique their interest and motivation, as well as improve their listening comprehension. Many words have several meanings, and students will become confused if they are not utilized effectively in their right situations.

Speakers may select words that listeners do not know them. Listeners may face an unfamiliar word which can stop them and think about the meaning of that word for a while and miss the next part of the speech.

<b>1.4.2. Difficulties related to the Listener </b>

Bingol et al. (2014), expressed that the level of listeners can have an impact on what they can hear. In fact, good listeners can hear long message and keep information in their mind for a long time. However, lower-level students will find it exhausted to collect the data from spoken messages. Properly speaking, elementary and pre-inter mediate levels of students can find it easy to understand short messages (Underwood, 1989). If the speaker talks too fast, listeners can have obstacles to interpret the contents. It is because listeners will find it difficult to control the speed of spoken message (Underwood, 1989).

Underwood (1989), states some reasons which cause individuals find it hard to understand the content of spoken message. These reasons are demonstrated as follows. To start with, listeners find it difficult to manage the speed of messages.

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Underwood (1989), said that numerous English language listeners accepted that the most common trouble with listening comprehension is that the listeners cannot manage how rapidly a speaker says. Second, listeners cannot generally have words repeated. This is a serious problem in some circumstances. In the classroom or a specific situation, listeners cannot replay the recording or ask speakers to repeat the sentences too many times.

Third, listeners have a shortage of vocabulary. The speaker may pick words that listeners do not have a clue. Fourth, listeners cannot perceive the signs which demonstrate that the speaker wants to move from one point to another point. In fact, signals sometimes cause difficulties for listeners to catch up with the speed of sound. Fifth, listeners lack contextual background. It is obvious that mutual conversations make communication easier. However, listeners may have considerable difficulties when they are not familiar with the context. Last but not least, it tends to be hard for listeners to have good concentration in listening to foreign language. It is a fact that short and long messages cause difficulties for listeners to focus on.

a. Students lack of background knowledge

Lack of background knowledge is an obstacle during the learning process. Buck (2001), describes background knowledge as general non-linguistic knowledge about the world we live in and how things works within it including knowledge of the target culture, knowledge of current affairs, arts, politics and literature. Therefore, students need to prepare the listening materials based on topics which are political issue, business report, daily conversation and etc.

Moreover, Anderson and Lynch (2000), state that lack of social - cultural, factual and contextual knowledge of the target language can also present an obstacle to comprehension because language is used to express culture. Even if listeners can understand the surface meaning of the text, they may have considerable difficulties in comprehending the whole meaning of the passage unless they are familiar with the context. Nonverbal clues such as facial expressions, nods, gestures, or tone of voice can also be easily misinterpreted by listeners from different culture.

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To conclude, the learner's background is an outstanding agent in listening comprehension. Having background knowledge is a key feature to the successful understanding of any kind of listening materials.

Additionally, Underwood (1989), agreed that another barrier of listening comprehension was the lack of visual support. FFL learners listen to recordings without seeing the facial expression and body language of the speaker, which causes a difficulty in listening comprehension. They stated that paralinguistic and language have a strong relationship. He asserted that seeing the speaker's gestures, reactions, facial expressions, body language, physical setting, and appearance fostered EFL learners' understanding of what is being spoken in front of them. More interestingly, Ur (2000), explained that listening comprehension was difficult for EFL learners because what they listened to in the classroom was different from real life communication situations. In the classroom, there was repetition. The teacher repeated the listening text more than one time, so that students could answer the assigned tasks. But in daily situations, when having a conversation, listening to the radio, watching a program on television etc…, a listener did not have the chance to keep repeating what the speaker said. Maybe a speaker could repeat what he or she said for one more time, but not more than that. In a capsule, since FFL learners are not exposed to authentic listening situations, their listening practice is going to be in vain, and listening comprehension will be difficult.

b. Length and speed of listening

When students listen to long parts and keep all information in their minds, their level can play a big impact. Lower-level students find it challenging to listen for more than three minutes. Learners will have an easier time understanding short listening passages and will be less tired, Azmi et al (2014).

Moreover, according to Underwood (1989), there are some barriers to effective listening comprehension process. First, listeners cannot control the speed of speech. The biggest problem with listening comprehension is that listeners are not able to control how quickly speakers talk. Second, listeners cannot have words repeated and this can cause critical difficulties for them. Students cannot replay a recording section. Teachers decide what and when to repeat listening texts and it is very difficult for

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teachers to know whether or not their learners understood what they have heard. Third, listeners do not have a wide vocabulary. Speakers may choose words that are unfamiliar to the listener. Fourth, listeners may lack contextual knowledge. Listeners may find it easier to communicate if they have mutual knowledge and are familiar with the texts. Finally, it is not very easy for listeners to concentrate on the listening text. Sometimes a shortest break in attention can prevent comprehension. If the listening passage is interesting for listeners, concentration will be easy for them.

Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, and Tugrul Mart (2014) stated that the level of students can have a significant role when they listen to long parts and keep all information in their mind. It is very difficult for lower level students to listen more than three minutes long and complete the listening tasks. Short listening passages make easy listening comprehension for learners and reduce their tiredness. According to Underwood (1989), speed can make listening passage difficult. If the speakers speak too fast students may have serious problems to understand L2 words. In this situation, listeners are not able to control the speed of speakers and this can create critical problems with listening comprehension.

According to Underwood (1989), there are some barriers to effective listening comprehension process. First, listeners cannot control the speed of speech. The biggest problem with listening comprehension is that listeners are not able to control how quickly speakers talk. Second, listeners cannot have words repeated and this can cause critical difficulties for them. Students cannot replay a recording section. Teachers decide what and when to repeat listening texts and it is very difficult for teachers to know whether or not their learners understood what they have heard. Third, listeners do not have high vocabulary knowledge. Speakers may select words that listeners do not know them. Listeners may face an unfamiliar word which can stop them and think about the meaning of that word for a while and miss the next part of the speech. Fourth, listeners may lack contextual knowledge. Mutual knowledge and familiar texts can make communication easier for listeners. Listeners can sometimes comprehend the surface meaning of a passage but they can have substantial problems in understanding the whole meaning of a passage unless they are familiar with it. Fifth, it is not very easy for listeners to concentrate on the listening text. Sometimes a shortest break in

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attention can prevent comprehension. If the listening passage is interesting for listeners, concentration will be easy for them.

Graham (2006), said that there are some other factors that increase learners’ listening comprehension problems such as restricted vocabulary, poor grammar, and misinterpretations about listening tasks. According to Seferoglu and Uzakgoren (2004), some other listening comprehension problems are related to the kind of listening materials. The researchers emphasized that listening is not of great importance and teachers do not teach listening strategies to their learners. Bloomfield et al. (2010) and Walker (2014) expressed that one of the serious problems of listening comprehension is related to the pronunciation of words that is different from the way they appear in print. Due to the fact that the spoken language varies to the form of the written language, the recognition of words that make the oral speech can create some difficulties for students. According to Vandergrift (2007) and Walker (2014), in addition to identify the words despite their unfamiliar pronunciation, students should try to decide which linguistic part belongs to which word. Prosodic features of spoken language like where the stress falls, weak forms and strong forms of words, and intonation also impact the comprehension of oral text.

Vandergrift (2004) and Walker (2014), indicated that oral passages exist in real time and should be processed rapidly and when the passage is over, only a mental representation remains. Listening needs immediate processing to access the spoken input again, making the skill more complex than reading. Students’ cultural background knowledge can have an important role in their listening comprehension. A general understanding of the country’s culture and its history can facilitate listening processes. Vandergrift (2007) and Walker (2014) declared that listeners can use pragmatic knowledge to make inferences and identify speakers’ implied meaning that these should be specifically considered by teachers when teaching listening comprehension. Bloomfield et al. (2010) told that regional accents can impact the spoken message that is understood by the listeners and familiar accents are easier to understand than unfamiliar accents. Buck (2001) mentioned a lot of problems in listening activities like unknown vocabularies, unfamiliar topics, fast speech rate, and unfamiliar accents.

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21 c. Unfamiliar vocabulary

Sometimes learners make mistakes when listening text has much specialized terminology vocabulary. Specialized terminology vocabulary is some words specialized for particular areas. If learners do not have rich and plentiful vocabulary, they will be confused when listening. In reality, the speakers may use synonyms, antonyms to explain the word. Underwood (1989) points that, for students listening to a foreign language, it is certain that they cannot know all words in the speech like mother tongue. Therefore, when they hear an unknown word which can be like a suddenly dropped barrier, they may stop and think about the meaning of word.

Also, Azmi et al (2014) say that, it is quite easy for students to recognize familiar words in listening texts. When students understand the meaning of words, it can increase their interest and motivation, as well as improve their listening comprehension. Many words have several meanings, and if they are not used correctly in their proper situations, students will become confused.

Besides, listening entails two forms of cognitive processing: This collection of phrases forms a complete text, the meaning of which may be deduced by the listener using her understanding of grammatical and syntactic rules.

These two processes are widely acknowledged to be required and to operate concurrently. As a result, it is critical to include not only bottom-up processing skills, such as the ability to discriminate between minimal pairs, recognize stress, or identify word boundary, but also top-down processing activity, i.e. using what the learners already know to comprehend what they hear.

This collection of phrases forms a complete text, the meaning of which may be deduced by the listener using her understanding of grammatical and syntactic rules.

Norris (1994), argues that the problem for foreign learners often lies at the phonetic level of bottom-up processing. Usually they fail to figure out some words they hear, probably because of the unfamiliar foreign sounds or the speaker's speed. Caldwell (1998), claims that some language teachers tend to ignore this problem. They motivate students to make predictions, guesses, and conclusions instead of listening for every word. In other words, they encourage top-down actions while ignoring bottom-up activity. There is some merit to the warning about straining for every word:

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students should not focus so much on decoding specific lexical elements that they miss understanding the entire text. However, as previously noted, top-down and bottom-up do not act independently. In reality, both impact listening comprehension, and the lack of one may impair the learners' attempts to comprehend the spoken word.

Furthermore, Caldwell (1998) suggests caution while dealing with this issue. He admits that native speakers do not pay attention to every word when listening but still get the correct sense. However, this does not imply that foreign language learners can do the same because native speakers have significant advantages over non-native speakers in regard to perceptual capacity (the ability to hear sounds) and the ability to estimate or forecast based on contextual information.

As a result, listening comprehension exercises should not ask learners to replicate native listener behavior in top-down activities without supplying them with a chance to develop native-like perceptual abilities (bottom-up).

d) Cultural differences

Learners should be aware of the cultural aspects of language that have a substantial impact on their comprehension. If the listening job includes wholly diverse cultural components, the students may have serious understanding issues. It is the responsibility of teachers to provide students with background information about the listening exercises ahead of time.

<b>1.4.3. Difficulties related to the Physical setting </b>

Watson and Smeltzer (1984), and Yagang (1994), pointed out that other listening comprehension barriers were noises, whether those noises that originated from the surrounding environment or the ones that emerged from the listening equipment. Examples of these noises are phones ringing, a knock on the door, poor-quality equipment, background noises, volume control, etc. They commented that those sounds disturbed EFL learners' comprehension and took their minds' off the content of the listening passage.

Likewise, Hasan (2000) stated that it was difficult for students to concentrate while listening if there were distractions. Of course, any break in their attention could distract them and impair their listening comprehension. He added that when listeners

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were not interested in the listening excerpt and when they were asked to give full and complete answers, listening comprehension turned to be a difficult task.

- The noise and redundancy

When listening, the listeners often have to cope with the amount of noise. Some words are may be drowned by outside interference, such as the surrounding sounds. The foreign language learners must put more effort to grasp the meaning among these noises. Sometimes, they cannot get the point because of the interruption of noise. Besides, redundant utterances may take the form of repetitions, false starts, re-phrasings, self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies, and apparently meaningless additions such as “I mean” or “you know” (Ur, 1984). This redundancy is a natural feature of speech and may be either a help or a hindrance, depending on the students’ levels. It may make it more difficult for beginners to understand what the speaker is saying; on the other hand, it may give advanced students more time to “tune in” to the speaker’s voice and speech style.

<b>1.4.4. Difficulties from the Listening text </b>

- The density of information

It should be taken into account that density information is one of the difficult for the students, especially the beginners. The dense passage is a long one (Rost, 2006) with the great amount of information included. Again, greater information density is believed to make higher cognitive demands of L2 listeners, which may increase the effort involved in listening comprehension (Gilmore, 2004).

- The complex text

In some cases, the organization of the text is rather complex. Cervantes and Gainer (1992), found that listeners hearing a syntactically simplified version of a lecture scored significantly higher on a recall test than did listeners hearing a more complex version of the lecture. Therefore, if the students do not have ability to draw a clear outline of this text, they also fail to catch the information effectively.

- The reduced form, elision and assimilation

In articulating clauses, the speakers desire to express the meanings effectively. Hence, the words that play a less crucial role in the message may be slurred or dropped, and other words may be more prominent (Brown, 1977). According to Madsen and

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Bowen (1978), spoken English is in particular characterized by three features of sandhi-variation: contraction (e.g., gonna, wanna, hasta), reduction (e.g., “could” /kʊ d/ is reduced to /kə d/ in a sentence like we could go to the park this afternoon), and assimilation (e.g., /hieɪ tʃ ə rlə ntʃ / for “He ate your lunch”).

Johana (2005) pinpoints that accommodatory phonological processes affect precisely the points at which the listener needs unambiguous information namely word beginnings and endings. To be more specific, students may have some troubles in materials such as assimilation, elision or linking word. Liaison (the linking of words in the speech when the second word begins with a vowel, e.g., an orange) and elision (leaving out a sound or sounds, e.g. suppose may be pronounced in rapid speech) are common phenomena that make it difficult for students to distinguish or recognize individual words in the stream of speech. They are used to seeing words written as discrete entities in their textbooks.

- The intonation and stress

One of the outstanding features of English is stress and intonation. The purpose of stress is to highlight content words to convey the meaning. Students somehow cannot distinguish between the content and function words. Additionally, they do not know the fact that words in spoken continuous speech are often not given the same stress as they are said in isolation (Underwood, 1989). As a result, they cannot hear the word that they already know. Also, foreign students sometimes fail to recognize the grammar points in listening because of the stress.

- Discourse markers

Apart from the above difficulties, failure to recognize signal words of the speakers is also an obstacle to the learners. The speakers use the discourse makers to indicate that they are moving the ideas, giving examples, or repeating the previous points (Underwood, 1989). Being unable to listen to these markers will prevent the learners from following the continuous stream of the speech.

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<b>1.5. The reality of learning listening skills at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hong Duc University </b>

<i><b>Chart 1.3.1. The average score of the students who participated in the survey </b></i>

According to the result of the final listening test, the listening average grades of K25B, K25C, and K25D are as below:

The pie chart shows the listening average grades of the students who participated in the survey. This data was gathered from the result of the first semester belonging to the three classes K25B, K25C, and K25D totaling one hundred students. It can be drawn from the chart that the result was rather disappointing. With as much as sixty-two percent of the students in the three classes ended the term with an average grade below five. And another thirty-six percent ended their first academic term averaging grades ranging from five to under eight. And an exceptional two percent having trades of eight or higher.

What can be taken out from this chart is that HDU’s English Linguistics students’ performance with listening is generally of a gloomy shade. It shows that listening comprehension is a weak skill. Due to the lack of data from the major’s counterpart at other schools to be utilized as a point of reference, the difference between the result compared to the general consensus is unknown. But it should be noted that the participants are expected to have both a broad and deep understanding of English the moment they graduate given their background in English linguistics. Such mastery requires the individual to first have an almost impeccable command over the four basic

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skills. However, listening could be considered the most important as it along with speaking forms the backbone of any language. This can be proven by the fact that peasants in medieval Europe tend to write down words as how they heard them or would have said them without a unified rule for spelling. Therefore, looking at the chart to see sixty-two percent of the students scoring below-average grades in listening is horrendously alarming. This raises questions about whether or not a majority of these students are capable of pursuing the English linguistics. Measures should be taken to find out the situation because if not dealt with, this could tarnish the school’s reputation.

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<b>CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1. Subjects of the study </b>

The HDU’s Faculty of foreign languages carried out this study to explore the struggles of learning listening skill. This research’s focus is freshmen that have learnt listening as a main subject at university. There’re several reasons why the research has its limit set to the first-year mainstream students at HDU. First, these students have reached a defined proficiency in English after getting out of high school. In a certain degree, they have passed the university’s entrance exam and gone through at least one school term studying the English major. Moreover, contrary to what they are used to in high school, listening was approached as a separate subject at the university. To be more exact, they are provided with a different method of learning English. Back in high school, other skills were ignored so the majority of time and resources could be funneled into learning grammar. Consequentially, it will be a tremendous difficulty in the new way of learning. Not only that, they have got to practice in ways of doing exercises and assignments. To sum up, it is immensely urgent for those students to diagnose and extinguish these problems in their first steps of acquiring English.

There were 100 first-year students from 3 classes including: K25B, K25C, and K25D- English Linguistics at HDU participating in the study to answer both of the questions in the research. They come from different areas around Thanh Hoa province with various levels of listening skills. Then, the survey findings are demonstrated by quantitively analyzing the collected data.

<b>2.2. Research instruments </b>

The tools used in this study including a questionnaire. The questionnaire is designed according 2 parts:

- The respondents' basic background information. - The difficulties of Listening skill faced by students

<b>2.2.1. Details of the Questionnaire </b>

The questionnaire consists of two parts with 27 questions designed to investigate the listening difficulties encountered by freshmen.

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