students’ english listening anxiety causes and solutions

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES




ĐÀO THỊ KIM NHUNG



STUDENTS’ ENGLISH LISTENING ANXIETY:
CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

(Lo lắng của sinh viên trong giờ học nghe:
nguyên nhân và giải pháp)




Course: Cohort 12
Supervisor: Prof. Silvia Spence


Hanoi, 2013

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ABSTRACT

Why do most students experience an overwhelming amount of anxiety
when listening to English? How can teachers address such affective feeling in
order to improve students‘ listening comprehension and English proficiency?
The researcher conducted a study on a sample of 30 English major students in
their first year at Tay Bac University, Son La. The instruments of the study
were a questionnaire and an informal interview. Data was collected
quantitatively and analyzed qualitatively. The study confirmed that the
students are highly anxious in listening classes. The study identified factors
viewed as leading to listening anxiety such as listening material, speaker,
listener and listening environment factors. The study also revealed that the
students perceive native speaker pronunciation and fast speed of delivery
posed the most difficulties for them while they are engaged in EFL listening
activities. After the investigation, some solutions are proposed to help the
students alleviate their anxiety and discomfort in their listening classes, and
promote students‘ English listening comprehension.











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Abstract
Table of contents
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Research Justification
2. Purpose of the Study.
3. Research Questions
4. Significance of the Study.
5. Scope of the Study.
6. Structure of the Thesis
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Overview of Anxiety
1.1. Definition and Types of Anxiety
1.2. Foreign Language Anxiety
1.3 Components of Foreign Language Anxiety
1.3.1. Communication Apprehension:
1.3.2 Test Anxiety
1.3.3. Fear of Negative Evaluation
2. Overview of Listening Comprehension
2.1. Definition of Listening Comprehension
2.2. Significance of Listening Comprehension
2.3. The Listening Comprehension Process:
2.3.1. Two Levels View: Bottom-up and Top-down
Processing
2.3.2. A Sequential Process of Listening
3. Listening Anxiety
3.1. Related Studies of Language Anxiety in Listening Skill
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3.2. Causes of Listening Anxiety
3.2.1. Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text
Factors
a) Complexity and Difficulty of the Lexis and Syntax.
b) Uninterested or Unfamiliar Topic
c) Visual Support
3.2.2. Listening Anxiety associated with Speakers factors

a) Fast Speech Rate
b) Phonological Modifications
c) Unfamiliar Accents
d) Hesitation and Pause Phenomena (usually grouped
together)
3.2.3. Listening Anxiety associated with Listener Factors
a) Limited Vocabulary
b) Memory
c) Background knowledge
d) Application of Strategies
3.2.4. Listening Anxiety associated with Listening
Environment
3.3. Instructional Approaches for Listening Anxiety Reduction.
CHAPTER II: THE STUDY
1. Participants
2. Data Gathering Instruments
3. Procedures
4. Techniques of Data Analysis
5. Data Analysis and Findings
5.1. Students‘ Attitudes toward Listening Skills
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5.2. Students‘ General Listening Anxiety
a) Students‘ feelings about their listening skills
b) Reasons for their feelings about listening skills
5.3 Listening anxiety associated with each listening factors

PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Summary of the findings
2. Suggestions for classroom practice
2.1. Solutions related to Listening Text
2.2. Solutions related to Speakers
2.3. Solutions related to Listeners

2.4. Solutions related to Listening Environment
3. Limitations and suggestions for further research
REFERENCES
Appendix 1: Questionnaire
Appendix 2: Informal Interview



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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Research Justification
Teachers and researchers of foreign language are too familiar with
statements like the ones above, which indicate a common problem that the
majority of foreign language students are faced with. It is well recognised
that foreign language anxiety is a rather pervasive phenomenon (Aida, 1994).
Although language anxiety could be considered as facilitating anxiety that
motivates learners, many language teachers and researchers have been
concerned about the possibility that anxiety may function as an affective filter
(Krashen, 1982), preventing a learner from achieving a high level of
proficiency in a foreign language (Scovel 1991). Anxiety should be reduced
because anxious students are not able to develop their potential foreign
language skills. Reducing anxiety is a key to success in foreign or second
language learning. It ―directly influences how often students use second
language learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers,
how much input they receive in the language being learned (the target
language), how well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how
high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and
maintain second language skills after language study is over ‖ (Oxford and
Shearin, 1996, p.121-122).
2. Purpose of the Study.
The major purpose of the research is to find out why the first year
English major students at Hong Duc University feel anxious or embarrassed

while listening to English. In other words, this study seeks to identify the
factors or causes that make students stressful and nervous while listening to
English in the language classroom setting. This includes considering the

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factors that originate from listening text, listeners, speakers, and listening
environment. The second most important aim of this study is to find out and
suggest some solutions in order to alleviate English listening anxiety in the
students.
3. Research Questions
The research is carried out with an attempt to address the following
research questions:
- What are the possible causes that make the first-year English major
students at Tay Bac University anxious and nervous while listening to
English?
- What are possible solutions that may reduce listening anxiety of the
students?
4. Significance of the Study.
Foreign language anxiety is a universal phenomenon that has a
significant factor adversely affecting the language learning process. This
study could be of considerable interest to teachers and students at Tay Bac
University: (1) to improve the teachers‘ theoretical understanding of foreign
language anxiety, especially causes of listening anxiety; (2) to enhance the
students‘ awareness of causes of listening anxiety they encounter in foreign
language, and from this they can manage their anxiety level in other language
skills. This study is also significant with respect to the understanding of the
students‘ anxiety and the causes of that anxiety, thereby solutions can be
suggested to help learners reduce their listening anxiety. Hopefully, all given
solutions will be more motivating for the students to learn and make progress
in listening.

5. Scope of the Study.

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A study of the students‘ listening anxiety is such a broad issue
investigated by many authors. However, in my study, I will focus on the
students‘ listening anxiety – its causes and solutions: A study of the first year
English majors in the Department of Foreign Language, Tay Bac University,
Son La
6. Structure of the Thesis
The thesis is divided into three parts:
Part 1 is the introduction, which presents the research justification, the
purpose, the research questions, scope and the structure of the thesis.
Part 2 is the development which includes two chapters. Chapter one
review the literature in terms of foreign language anxiety in general and
listening anxiety in particular. Chapter two presents the study.
Part 3 is the conclusion which presents a summary of the study and
concluding comments derived from the findings of the study. It also discusses
the limitation of the study and suggestions for further research. Finally, some
solutions to reduce listening anxiety are suggested.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

The main aim of this chapter is to review the literature on second
language anxiety in general and listening anxiety in particular. The chapter
starts with a literature review on anxiety. This is followed by an overview of
listening comprehension. The end of the chapter is a discussion of listening
comprehension anxiety
1. Overview of Anxiety
1.1. Definition and Types of Anxiety
―Anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described by
psychologists as a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly
associated with an object‖ (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971 cited in
Scovel, 1991: 18). In another definition, Scovel (1978: 134) suggests that
anxiety is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt,
apprehension, or worry. Spielberger (1983), as cited in Horwitz, E.K.,
Horwitz, M.B, and Cope, J. (1986: 125), defines anxiety as ―the subjective
feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an
arousal of the autonomic nervous system‖
According to many psychologists, anxiety can be experienced at three
perspectives.
The first one is trait anxiety, which is defined as an individual‘s likelihood
of becoming anxious in any situation (Spielberger,1983 cited in MacIntyre et al
1991, p.87). Some people are generally anxious about many things in a number
of different situations. Therefore, state anxiety is viewed as ―a steady personality
feature‖ (Brown, 2007). Its negative effects are thought to ―impair cognitive

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functioning, to disrupt memory, to lead to avoidance behaviors, and to have
several other effects‖ (Eysenck,1979, in MacIntyre et al 1991: 87).
The second perspective is state anxiety which is ―interested in the here-
and-now experience of anxiety as an emotional state‖ (MacIntyre et al 1991,
p.87). State anxiety is an apprehension experienced at a particular moment in
time, for example, prior to taking examinations (Spielberger, 1983, cited in
MacIntyre et al 1991, p.90).
Finally, situation-specific anxiety is related to apprehension unique to
specific situations and events such as public speaking, examinations, or class
participation (Ellis, 1994:480). The last one seems likely to be more closely
related to attempts to learn a foreign language and communicate in it.
1.2 Foreign Language Anxiety
Research on the affective factors in second language acquisition has been
mounting steadily for a number of decades because students are ―physical and
cognitive, but primarily emotional, being‖ (Rogers, cited in Brown, 2007: 97).
―Among the affective factors influencing language learning, anxiety ranks
high‖ (Arnold, 1999: 59). The construct of anxiety has been recognized as one
of the most important predictors of foreign language performance.
Foreign language anxiety is a universal phenomenon that has a
significant factor adversely affecting the language learning process. Gardner
& MacIntyre (1993, cited in Arnold 1999:59) refer to language anxiety as
―fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the
second or foreign language."
Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B, and Cope, J. (1986) conceptualize foreign
language anxiety as ‗a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings,
and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the
uniqueness of the language learning processes‖ (p.128).

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1.3 Components of Foreign Language Anxiety

Horwitz et al. (1986) integrated three related anxieties to their
conceptualization of foreign language anxiety: communication
apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. This
conceptualization lay the foundations for the concept of second/ foreign
language anxiety, providing an insight to comprehend the sources or causes
it can originate from.
1.3.1. Communication Apprehension:
Communication apprehension is one perspective dealing with general
concern about problems with communication avoidance and anxiety
(McCroskey, 1984) and it has been received substantial attention from
communication researcher.
According to Brown (2007) communication apprehension refers to
―learners‘ inability to adequately express mature thoughts and ideas‖ when
getting into communication with others although they have mature thoughts
and ideas, especially in the language learning context. McGroskey (1984)
defines communication apprehension as a fear or anxiety about actual or
anticipated communication with other individual, and is a behavioral trait
related to the psychological constructs of shyness and reticence. He also
points out that typical behavior patterns of communicatively apprehensive
people are communication avoidance and communication withdrawal.
Communicatively apprehensive people are more reluctant to get involved in
conversations with others and to seek social interactions than
nonapprehensive ones. According to Lucas (1984), the unique component of
communication apprehension is the metacognitive awareness that, as a
speaker and a listener, full comprehension of foreign language message is
impossible. Therefore, the potential for frustrated or aborted communication

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is always present. Such frustration may even be considered part of the
learning process.

1.3.2 Test Anxiety
Sarason(1878: 214) defines test anxiety as ―the tendency to view with
alarm the consequences of inadequate performance in an evaluation
situation‖. Aydin (2008, ….) suggests that test anxiety could be ―a fear of
failing in tests and an unpleasant experience held either consciously or
unconsciously by learners in many situations‖. Test anxiety concerns
apprehension towards academic evaluation which is based on a fear of failure
(Horwitz and Young, 1991). According to Young (1991), there are different
variables that can affect learners‘ anxiety in a test: the content of the test;
particular types of test items or formats; forms of test; students‘ learning or
study skills; and students‘ experience of test taking in the past. Test anxiety
can bring on butterflies, a stomachache, or a tension headache. Some people
might feel shaky, sweaty, or feel their heart beating quickly during the test
situation because they don‘t know how to process or organize the information.
A student with really strong test anxiety may not be able to focus on what is
going on in the classroom and he can answer incorrectly even though he
knows the correct answer.
1.3.3. Fear of Negative Evaluation
Among these components, fear of negative evaluation is more broadly
based than are the previous two. Evaluation, in this case, refers to both the
academic and personal evaluations made of students on the basis of their
performance and competence in the target language (MacIntyre and Gardner,
1991,p.105) . Horwitz et al. (1986) define fear of negative evaluation as
―apprehension about others‘ evaluation, avoidance of evaluative situations,
and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively‖ (p.128).

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They also point out that learners‘ fear of negative evaluation derives from
―the disparity between the language learner‘s ―true-self and his/her more
limited self‖ as reflected in linguistic competence in foreign language class‖(

p.128). The findings of the study conducted by Aydin (2008) aiming to
investigate the sources and levels of fear of negative evaluation as well as
language anxiety among Turkish students as EFL learners demonstrated that
fear of negative evaluation itself is a strong source of language anxiety. Daly
and Haily (1983) suggest that the student is more anxious if evaluation is
occurring.
Horwitz et al. (1986) suggest that foreign language anxieties are a separate
and distinct process particular to second language acquisition. Foreign language
anxieties are related to communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation,
and test anxiety. They also believe that these factors have an adverse effect on
the students‘ language learning process.
2. Overview of Listening Comprehension
2.1. Definition of Listening Comprehension
Although listening is now well recognized as a crucial role in language
learning and communication, it has long been neglected by many FL teacher
and researchers (Ur, 1884, Krashen, 1985; Underwood, 1989; Rost, 1994;
Rubin, 1994, etc.). Before 1960s, the teaching of listening used to be thought
the most infertile and least understood aspect of foreign language. However,
over the last two decades, with a new wave of interest in the development of
communicative competence in language teaching, listening comprehension
skills have ever received much more attention in language teaching
classrooms.
Chastain (1971) defines listening comprehension as the ability to
understand native speech at normal speed in unstructured situation.

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According to Buck, G. (2002: 31), ―Listening comprehension is an
active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying
knowledge to the incoming sound‖.
Thus, while scholars‘ definitions of these two terms are often worded

differently, they typically describe the same basic concept, listening
comprehension are considered as an activity in which listeners employ a
variety of mental process in an effort to recognize and master major FL
patterns, as well as to activate all the schemata to make sense of the incoming
information.
On the other hand, alternative view considered the listener as an active
model builder. Listener needs to get involve actively in the interpretation of
what they hear, bring his own background knowledge and linguistic
competence to reach full comprehension of what had been heard. Most
scholars now agree with this view.
In a word, listening comprehension involves to an active process of
listening for meaning, using both the linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge.
According to Buck (2001:1-2), linguistic knowledge consists of different
types such as phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure.
Nonlinguistic knowledge includes the ―knowledge about the topic, about the
content, and general knowledge about the world and how it works‖.
2.2. Significance of Listening Comprehension
Listening plays a very important role in student‘s academic success.
This is true according to Krashen (1980) providing a large amount of listening
or comprehension input that is the raw material necessary for the process to
occur was the best way to learn a second language because of its contribution
to the development of the overall language proficiency (Rost, 2002). Rost
(1994) also pinpointed the importance of listening in the language classroom

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as the supplier of supplied the input for students. Without comprehension
input at the right level, learning cannot work well. Students spend most of
their time listening to the teacher‘s lecture. Nichols and Stevens (see
Elkhafaifi, 2005: 505) reported data on how students spend their
communicative time among four language skills in language learning:

listening is the most frequently used skill, 45% is devoted to listening, 30% to
speaking, only 16% to reading and a mere 9% to writing. Therefore, listening
is a fundamental and vital skill in the acquisition of languages (Nunan, 2002).
2.3. The Listening Comprehension Process:
2.3.1. Two Levels View: Bottom-up and Top-down Processing
The processing of listening comprehension has often been viewed as
interactive process taking place simultaneously between two levels: bottom-
up processing and top-down processing.
In bottom-up processing, listening processing is formed hierarchically,
from the lowest level of detail to the highest level. The new incoming data is
first decoded into phonemes (the smallest meaningful unit), and then
phonemic units are connected together to construct individual words. Next, a
group of words are connected to form phrases, which make up sentences.
These sentences build a meaningful and complete text. The meaning of the
spoken text is derived as the last step in the process. ―The listener interprets
that literal meaning in terms of the communicative situation to understand
what the speaker means.‖ (Buck, 2001: 2)
On the other hand, top-down processing refers to utilizing schemata
which was known as a learner‘s background knowledge and global
understanding to deduce the meaning from and interpret the message (Nunan,
2002).

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To become an effective listener, student should be very careful not to
go overboard with top-down at the expense of bottom-up. The reason for this
is that listening comprehension is the result of an interactive process of
bottom-up processing and top-down processing by employing both linguistic
and non-linguistic information to make sense of the incoming message.
Brown (2006:2) explained more about this, ―students must hear some sounds
(bottom-up processing), hold them in their working memory long enough (a

few seconds) to connect them to each other and then interpret what they‘ve
just heard before something new comes along. At that time, listeners are using
their background knowledge (top-down processing) to determine meaning
with respect to prior knowledge and schemata‖
2.3.2. A Sequential Process of Listening
From a cognitive view, listening comprehension is believed to follow a
natural order of acquisition, reflecting the process of first language
acquisition. For instance, it is recognized by Anderson (1983) that the
listening comprehension process is divided into three stages: the perceptual,
parsing, and utilization. During the perceptional phase, listener pays close
attention to spoken message and preserves the sound in echoic memory.
Because the echoic memory is extremely limited, listener almost immediately
starts to process the sounds for meaning.
Willis (1981:134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she
calls enabling skills. They are:
- predicting what people are going to talk about
- guessing at unknown words or phrases without panicking
- using one‘s own knowledge of the subject to help one understand
- identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information
- retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)

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- recognizing discourse markers, e.g., Well; Oh, another thing is; Now,
finally; etc.
- recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as and which, including link
words, pronouns, references, etc.
- understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc.,
which give clues to meaning and social setting
- understanding inferred information, e.g., speakers‘ attitude or intentions
3. Listening Anxiety

3.1. Related Studies of Language Anxiety in Listening Skill
Listening in a FL is a less thoroughly studied skill in general by
researchers. However, they come to a consensus that anxiety impedes
listening comprehension (Elkhafaifi, 2005, p. 209). Quite a lot of attention has
been paid to the anxiety suffered by many learners when listening to the
foreign language.
According to Horwitz et al. (1986: 127), listening was the ―primary
process in the development of a second language‖. In their study‘s (1986),
many students were anxious when listening to the L2, and had ―difficulties in
discriminating the sounds and structures of a target language message‖ (p.
126). One male student said that he heard ―only a loud buzz‖ (p.126) when his
instructor was speaking, and anxious students also told of problems with
comprehending the content of L2 messages and with understanding their
teachers in ―extended target language utterances‖ (p. 126). Over one third
(35%) of the participants expressed their fear of not being able to ―understand
what the teacher is saying in the foreign language‖ (item 4), and over a
quarter (27%) said they were nervous when they did not ―understand every
word‖ uttered by the teacher (item 29) (Horwitz et al., 1986, pp. 129-130).

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They suggested that instructors help students cope with anxiety-producing
situations and make the learning context less stressful.
3.2. Causes of Listening Anxiety
There is growing support for the view that listening comprehension is
not only an essential skill but a prerequisite for oral proficiency as well. Most
learners of English as a foreign language experience considerable difficulties
in listening comprehension, and these difficulties appear to be main causes of
anxiety which should be taken into consideration. In order to help students
facilitate their listening comprehension skills as well English proficiency, it is
crucial to identify problems which listeners face in understanding the spoken

language.
Over the last two decades, many foreign language studies have been
conducted to find out the specific factors on the relative success or failure of
learner comprehension during listening (Ur, 1984; Underwood, 1989; Rubin,
1994; …). According to Underwood (1989: 16-19), seven problems learner
may encounter when learning to listen: fast speed; unrepeated thing; the
listeners‘ limited vocabulary; failure to recognize the ―signals‖; interpretation;
concentrate; and learning habit. Underwood (1989) sees these problems as
being related to learners‘ different background such as their culture and
education.
After reviewing over 130 studies, Rubin (1994) believes there are five
factors that affect listening comprehension: (1) text characteristics such as
speech rate, pause phenomena and hesitation, level of perception, sandhi,
stress and rhythmic patterning perception, L1/L2 difference, syntactic
modifications, redundancy, morphological complexity, word order, discourse
markers, and visual support for texts, (2) interlocutor characteristics such as
gender and language proficiency, (3) task characteristics such as task type,

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(4)listener characteristics such as language proficiency level, memory,
attention, affect, age, gender, learning disability in L1, and background
knowledge; and (5) process characteristics top-down, bottom-up, and parallel
processing, listening strategies, and negotiation of comprehensible input.
3.2.1. Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text Factors
a) Complexity and Difficulty of the Lexis and Syntax.
One of the most obvious sources of difficulty for learners of English is
the complexity and difficulty of the lexis and syntax. Meeting unknown
sounds, lexis and syntax, FL learners ―seem to work much harder than
necessary aiming for accurate perception and interpretation of every word
they hear‖ (Ur, 1984, p.19). Thus, fatigue may come from ―how hard the

learner need to concentrate‖ (Ur, 1984, p.19). The listening texts which do not
match the students‘ current proficiency level may lead to failure in
understanding listeners‘ progress. For many learners, knowing the meaning
of words in the text is decisive for their comprehension; and ―an unknown
word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think
about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the
speech‖ (Underwood, 1989, p.17). ―Their perceptions of their own listening
ability are often directly affected by how well they think they can understand
content words in a text.‖ (Goh,….:24). As a result, they are probably less
successful than listeners who get the meaning from the listening text without
focusing much on the language
b) Uninterested or Unfamiliar Topic
A topic which is uninterested or unfamiliar often makes FL learners get
tired and feel discouraged from listening process, because they find it ―more
difficult to make inferences, and comprehension will be more dependent on
interpreting the linguistic information‖ (Buck, 2001, p.20). Uninterested or

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unfamiliar topic can interfere with the learner‘s concentration which is a
major problem in listening activity because even the shortest break in
attention can seriously affect listening comprehension process. According to
Underwood (1989), ―If students find the topic interesting, they will find
concentration easier.‖ Interesting topic makes listening activities enjoyable;
students become engaged in classroom activities, therefore it is a good way to
minimize the harmful effect. In the study of Schmidt-Rinehard (1994) on
correlation between listener‘s comprehension and topic familiarity, he
suggested that all subjects score higher on familiar passage while the
unfamiliar topics, such as cultural or linguistic oral output, make
comprehension difficult.
c) Visual Support

Another barrier associated with listening text is the lack of visual
support. Visual support can be not only a picture or video, diagrams,
charts, but also gestures and facial expressions,… ―A picture is a relatively
primitive way of conveying information and readily understood‖ (Ur, 1984,
p.59). Through a video, learners ―will see whether the speakers are young
or old, happy or angry, requesting or complaining‖ (Underwood, 1989,
p.96). They also see the physical context, the speaker‘s reaction, facial
expressions and gestures.
3.2.2. Listening Anxiety associated with Speakers factors
a) Fast Speech Rate
Studies on listening comprehension agree that speech rate can affect
listening comprehension. ―Most research quotes a normal speech rate of 165
to 180 words per minute for the native speakers of English‖ (Rubin, 1994:
200) and ―the speech faster than two-hundred w.p.m is hard for lower-

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intermediate learners to understand… and students performed best at 127
w.p.m.‖ (Griffiths, 1990 as cited in Rubin, 1994, p.200)
Most English language learners consider the rapid speech of native
speaker to be a major cause of their listening difficulties. This happens to the
fact that many learners always expect ―to hear every word, including words
the speakers had deliberately not emphasize‖ (Goh, ….:27). ―They are so
busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the
next part. Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all
out quickly enough. Either way, they fail.‖ They could ―have further
compounded the students‘ difficulties‖.
b) Phonological Modifications
―In rapid speech, adjacent sounds influence each other‖ (Buck, 2001,
p.32). Phonological modification, one language phenomenon which is
observed in the informal speech of native speakers, is believed to influence

ESL learners‘ comprehension of input. According to Buck (2001:33), the
more informal situations is, the more modification the speakers will tend to
have. Buck points out that the most important modifications include the
following:
Assimilation: when sounds influence the pronunciation of adjacent
sounds. For example, the reader may read the phrase, "gave her," but the
listener may hear "gaver"; ―What are you going to do?‖ will be
―wadjagonnado?‖
Elision: when sounds are dropped in fast speech. For example, For
example, the reader may read the phrase "kept talking," but the listener will
hear "keptalking.", ―tomato‖ will be ―tmato‖
c) Unfamiliar Accents

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The speaker‘s accent is unfamiliar to the learner when words are
pronounced in non-standard manner. It is clear that Vietnamese pronounce
English differently from Indians, and is different again British or Americans
because of different places‘ different accents. However, the problem arises
popularly when FL learners are too accustomed to their teacher‘ accent, come
across the pronunciation of the native speakers characterized by fast rate of
delivery, unstructured language with incomplete sentences, and false starts,
and hesitations (Underwood, 1989). ―When listeners hear an unfamiliar
accent This can cause problems and may disrupt the whole comprehension
process. An unfamiliar accent can make comprehension almost impossible for
the listener‖ (Buck, 2001, p. 35)
d) Hesitation and Pause Phenomena (usually grouped together)
According to Buck (2001, 41) ―hesitation phenomena can present a
major comprehension difficulty to non-native speakers who are listening to
spontaneous speech‖. He also further states that:
Listening message with pause and hesitation phenomena reduces the

speaker‘s speed slower. The listener, therefore, may decode the message more
smoothly and be easier to comprehend.
3.2.3. Listening Anxiety associated with Listener Factors
―Listener characteristics appear to have considerable impact on an
individual‘s listening comprehension‖ (Rubin, 1994, p.206)
a) Limited Vocabulary
Restriction of vocabulary is the common problem for the students. The
words they listened to perhaps are the new words that are unfamiliar. Just as
Underwood (1989:17) said, ―For people listening to a foreign language, an
unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop

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and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next
part of the speech‖.
b) Memory
There is ample theoretical evidence that memory is important in listening
comprehension. According to scholars, for example Buck (2001:26); Nagle
and Sanders (1986); Anderson (1985) memory has been characterized in three
ways: Acoustic input is held briefly in echoic memory, where it is retained
and stored for further processing in short-term memory. After simple
processing, information is finally stored in long-term memory as schema for
future decoding and comprehending new information. Call (1985) pointed out
that short-term memory appears to be the most important in listening
comprehension. Call‘s (1985: 769) study on the relationship between short-
term memory and listening comprehension avers that:
Rivers (1981) also had the same idea with Call, he stated that linguistic
elements are not sufficient for comprehending the spoken message. Listeners
must retain these elements in short-term memory long enough to interpret the
utterance to which they are attending.
c) Background knowledge

The lack of background knowledge, which is also called prior knowledge
or schemata, may impede student performance. It explained up to 81% of the
variance in posttest scores (Dochy, Segers & Buehl, 1999). ―To make sense of
the rapid-fire noise that comes from oral speech, learners often try to find an
overall schema. Even at the word, phrase, or sentence level students attempt
to associate prior knowledge of the language with the incoming noise‖
(Rubin, 1994, p.209). As suggested by Underwood (1989: 19), students who
are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in
interpreting the words they hear even when they can understand their

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‗surface‘ meaning… The meaning of non-verbal clues –facial expression,
nods, gestures, tone of voice – can easily be misinterpreted by listeners from
other cultures. On the other hand, if the incoming information is unfamiliar, it
cannot evoke the listener‘s schemata and thus, he must depend heavily on his
linguistic ability in listening comprehension to interpret and analyze the
information.
d) Application of Strategies
Learning strategies can be defined as conscious ―steps taken by students
to enhance their own learning‖ (Oxford, 1990: 1). More particularly, they are
―specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more
enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new
situations‖ (Oxford, 1990: 8).
Goh (1998) investigated the cognitive and metacognitive strategies and
tactics used by Chinese ESL learners in a university in Singapore and she
compared the use of these strategies and tactics by high- and low- ability
listeners. The result revealed that high-ability listeners used more strategies
and tactics than low ability ones
3.2.4. Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Environment
There are some certain factors related to listening environment that can

take the listeners‘ mind off the content of the listening passage, and thus lead
to frustration for students and teachers alike. The barriers are listed as follow.
- Large classroom,
- Recordings played on poor quality machine,
- Background noises such as other classmates, walking, talking,
coughing, shuffling books, entering and leaving the room, some neon lights
having a low buzz, dogs barking and traffic from public places, and so on.
- Extreme temperatures, an uncomfortable sitting position,

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3.3. Instructional Approaches for Listening Anxiety Reduction.
Some instructors who already recognize that many students experience
anxiety in their classes have proposed ways of reducing listening anxiety. For
example, according to Elkhafaifi (2005), providing comprehensible input,
teaching listening strategies and letting students have more practice; paying
attention to the selection of listening passage, especially when using authentic
materials, etc can reduce the level of tension and anxiety in the classroom.
Besides, providing various forms of support for learners as preparatory
activities, question preview and repeated input (Chang & Read, 2008);
making learning context less stressful (Horwitz et al.,1986) also make the
situation better. Horwitz (2010) averred that some practices perceived as
comfortable by one group of learners may prove stressful for a group from a
different background.
In short, the chapter reviews the literature on many issues related to
anxiety and listening anxiety. These include a definition of foreign language
anxiety and its components, definition of listening comprehension and its
process, factors related to listening comprehension and empirical evidence of
listening comprehension anxiety that has been reported by other researchers.
This knowledge, therefore, serves as a basic for further work in the later
chapters.