Improving listening skills for first year students at the faculty of english hanoi open university

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF ENGLISH
……

GRADUATION THESIS
B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT
THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH - HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

Supervisor

: Nguyen Van Quang, ph.D

Student

: Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa

Date of birth

: 27/09/1994

Course

: K19 (2012-2016)

HA NOI, 2016


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DECLARATION

Title: IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS
AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH-HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by
me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is
originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.
Hanoi, 15th April 2016

Student

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa – K19A06 (2012- 2016)

Supervisor

Nguyễn Văn Quang


Graduation paper

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am, first of all, greatly indebted to my supervisor, Nguyen Van Quang,
for his valuable suggestions, instructions and correction without which I can
hardly fulfill this study.
I would like to thank all lecturers and friends at Hanoi Open University
who have supported and guided my thinking by permanent observation, critical
comments and those who have helped me by their approval.

My deep appreciation also goes to the first-year students at Hanoi Open
University who have helped me to collect data for this study.
Ultimately, my gratitude and appreciation are also extended to my family,
for their assistance, support and encouragement during the development of this
study. All have enabled me to accomplish my study.
Hanoi, 15th April 2016
Student
Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hoa

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
PART A: INTRODUCTION............................................................................... 1
1. Rationale of the study .................................................................................... 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study .................................................................. 1
3. Scopes of the study ......................................................................................... 1
4. Research questions ......................................................................................... 2
5. Methods of study ............................................................................................ 2
6. Design of the study. ........................................................................................ 2
PART B: DEVELOPMENT................................................................................ 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................... 4
1.1. Listening skills ............................................................................................. 4
1.1.1. Definitions of listening skills .................................................................... 4

1.1.2. Traditional point of view on listening skills ............................................ 7
1.1.3. Current point of view on listening skills .................................................. 8
1.2. Classification of listening skills .................................................................. 9
1.2.1. Real-life listening. ..................................................................................... 9
1.2.1.1. Types of real-life listening ...................................................................... 9
1.2.1.2. Characteristics of real-life listening .................................................... 10
1.2.3. Classroom listening ................................................................................ 11
1.2.3.1. Intensive listening ................................................................................. 11
1.2.3.2. Extensive listening ................................................................................ 12

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1.3. Sub-skills involved in listening skills....................................................... 12
1.4. Listening phases ........................................................................................ 13
1.4.1. Pre-listening .............................................................................................. 13
1.4.2. While-listening .......................................................................................... 14
1.4.3. Post-listening ............................................................................................. 16
1.5. Major factors influencing the listening skills ......................................... 18
1.5.1. Vocabulary .............................................................................................. 18
1.5.2. Background knowledge .......................................................................... 19
1.5.3. Speed speech ........................................................................................... 20
1.5.4. Phonological aspects .............................................................................. 21
1.5.5. Physical conditions ................................................................................. 22
1.5.6. Summary ................................................................................................. 22
CHAPTER 2: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS .............................. 24
2.1. Research procedures ................................................................................ 24
2.1.1. Participants ............................................................................................. 24

2.1.2. Instrumentations ..................................................................................... 24
2.1.3. Survey questionnaires............................................................................. 25
2.2. Findings and discussion............................................................................ 25
2.2.1. First-year student’s attitude towards listening skills............................. 26
2.2.2. First-year student’s obstacles when learning listening skills ............... 28
2.2.3. First-year student’s attitude towards their teachers creating listening
activities and motivation...................................................................................... 35
2.2.4. First year students’ self-study methods to enhance listening skills ........ 36
2.5. Summary ...................................................................................................... 38

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CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS
AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH – HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY TO
IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS.................................................................... 39
3.1. Stages of listening ........................................................................................ 39
3.1.1. Pre-listening .............................................................................................. 39
3.1.2. While-listening .......................................................................................... 41
3.1.3. Post-listening ............................................................................................. 42
3.2. Applying listening sub-skills ...................................................................... 43
3.3. Self-studying ................................................................................................ 46
3.4. Background knowledge .............................................................................. 47
3.5. Vocabulary and Grammar ......................................................................... 47
3.6. Becoming active listeners............................................................................ 49
3.7. Summary ...................................................................................................... 53
PART C: CONCLUSION.................................................................................. 54
REFERENCES

APPENDIX

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Table 1: Students’ attitude towards listening …………………………………..28
Table 2: Students’ opinion on the importance of listening skills…………….....29
Table 3: Listening sub-skills applied by first-year students …………………...29
Table 4: Obstacles of students when listening………………………………….30
Table 5: First-year students’ attitude toward their teachers creating listening
interest and motivation………………………………………………………….35
Table 6: First-year students’ listening self-study……………………………….36
Table 7: Students’ methods to enhance listening skills………………………...37

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In Vietnam these days there is an increasing number of people wish to
know and master of English since English has become an international language
spoken all over the world in various aspects of life, such as communication,
trade, business, health care, education. Therefore, teaching and learning English
have been paid much attention to nowadays.
However, compared with other skills language skills, listening is

considered the most difficult one for most English learners. Indeed, many firstyear students at the Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University find it really
challenging to learn listening skills effectively. Thus, the present study is done to
further listening skills for first-year students at the Faculty of English – Hanoi
Open University with hope that this study will offer some benefits for students
learning English skills.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
The purpose of this study is to help the freshmen at Faculty of English –
Hanoi Open University to understand the reasons why they find it challenging to
boost listening skills. Accordingly, some feasible solutions are given with hope
that first -year students can find out suitable approaches in learning English
listening skills.
3. Scopes of the study
Teaching and learning English, especially listening skills, are quite
complex and varied among these levels. However, within the study, the author
will only focus on some main difficulties of the first-year students at Faculty of

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English - Hanoi Open University. Additionally, the study also gives some
suggestions to help them to improve listening comprehension.
4. Research questions
The study mainly focuses on answering these following questions:
- What are the difficulties of the first-year students in learning listening
skills?
- What factors have an impact on the listening skills of freshmen at

Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University.
- What are feasible suggestions to assist first-year students at Faculty of
English- Hanoi Open University to reinforce listening skills?
5. Methods of study
In the research, the theoretical foundation is based on the knowledge
which I have collected through materials and my supervisor’s support. To
achieve the aforementioned aims, a great number of research methods are
implemented and a questionnaire is designed as a means for research and to
collect data. The questionnaire is handed to the first-year students at Faculty of
English - Hanoi Open University in order to figure out their difficulties when
they learn listening skills.
Based on the final result of the survey, data analysis was done to indicate
some problems of the first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open
University and solutions to boost English listening skills.
6. Design of the study.
The study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and
conclusion.

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Part A, “INTRODUCTION” presents the fundamental information such as
the rationale, the aims and objectives, the research question, the scope, the
methods and also the design of the study.
Part B, “DEVELOPMENT” consists of three chapters:
- Chapter one, literature review, presents contrastive views of listening skills,

the important of listening, the classification of listening, sub-skills involved in
listening skills, listening stages, as well as difficulties in learning listening
skills.
- Chapter two, data collection, deals with analysis on general learning
situation of first-year students at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University.
Also, in this chapter, there is a focus on data analysis, finding and discussion.
- Chapter three suggests some feasible solutions to help the first-year students
at Faculty of English - Hanoi Open University to enhance listening skills.
Part C, “CONCLUSION” summarizes the key issues in the study, point
out some limitations and recommendations for further study.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.

Listening skills

1.1.1. Definitions of listening skills
Listening is considered one of the most important parts of the oral
communication. The term is used in order to make oral communication effective.
There was an idea that “Students spend 20 percent of all school related hours just
listening. If television watching and one-half of conversation are included,
students spend approximately 50 percent of their walking hour just listening. For

those hours spent in the classroom, the amount of listening can be almost 100
percent. “Obviously, it is believed that listening is a significant and essential are
of development in a native language and in a second language; therefore, there
have been numerous definition of listening and listening skill. According to
Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is ability to identify and understand what
others are saying. This process involves understanding a speaker’s accent and
pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary and comprehension of
meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously.
In addition, Lesley Barker (2001) states that: “ Listening, however, is more than
just being able to hear and understand what someone else say, listening skills
involve etiquette, asking for clarification, showing empathy and providing an
appropriate response.” According to Bulletin (1952), listening is one of the
fundamental language skills. It’s a medium through which children, young
people and adult gain a large portion of their education-their information, their
understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values,
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and their appreciation. Rubin (1991) defined listening as “the active and dynamic
process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering and responding to
the 5 expressed verbal and non-verbal needs, concerns and information offered
by the human beings”. Carol (1993) described listening as a set of activities that
involve “the individual’s capacity to apprehend, recognize, discriminate or even
ignore.” Wolvin and Coakley (1985) pointed out that listening is “the process of
receiving, attending to and assigning to aural stimuli”. This definition suggests
that listening is a complex, problem-solving skill. The task of listening is more

than perception of sound. This view of listening is in accordance with secondlanguage theory which considers listening to spoken language as an active and
complex process in which listeners focus on selected aspects of aural input,
construct meaning, and relate what they hear to existing knowledge (O’Malley &
Chamot, 1989; by, 1984; Richards, 1985; Holand, 1983.
Also, Underwood (1989) simplifies that the definition of listening to “the
activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we
hear”. Mendelsohn (1994) defines listening comprehension as “The ability to
understand the spoken language of native speakers”.
Moreover, O’Malley, Chamot, and Kupper (1989) offer a useful and more
extensive definition that “listening comprehension is an active and conscious
process in which the listener constructs the meaning by using cues from
contextual information and fro existing knowledge, while replying upon multiple
strategies resources to fulfill the task requirements”.
Mendelsohn (1994) points out that, in listening to spoken language, the
ability to decipher the speaker’s intention is required of a competent listener, in
addition to other abilities such as processing the linguistic forms like speech
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speed and fillers, coping with listening in an interaction, understanding the
whole message contained in the discourse, comprehending the message without
understanding every word, and recognizing different genres. Listeners must also
know how to process and how to judge what the illocutionary force of an
utterances is – that is, what this string of the sounds is intended to mean in a
particular setting, under a particular set of circumstances – as an act of real
communication (Mendelsohn, 1994).

Purdy (1997) states that “ the active and dynamic process of attending,
perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the expressed (verbal
and nonverbal), needs, concerns, and information offered by other human
beings”. Listening comprehension is in inferential (Rost, 2002). Linguistic
knowledge and world knowledge interact as listeners create a mental
representation of what they hear. Bottom and top down processes are applied to
get to this mental representation and achieve comprehension. To put it briefly, it
is widely admitted that listening comprehension is not merely the process of an
undirectional receiving of audible symbols, but an interactive process (Brown,
2007).
There are several distinctions of listening, and there is little argument
about which is the best, nor should not be there. Each definition represents a
different perspective of listening, and with many approaches to listening there
are bound to be a number of definitions. Ethel Glenn (1989) in the Six journal of
the International Listening Association lists fifty different ways of describing
listening. This list is not exhaustive. It indicates; however, that listening is
conceived differently depending upon how people intend to apply the definition.
Glenn’s content analysis of the fifty definitions found that concepts most often
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included in the listening were: perception, attention, interpretation, response, and
spoken and visual cues.
Throughout the Western history, we assumed listening was automatic and
needed no attention. We did not concern ourselves with study and training in the
art of listening. Listening, however, is not automatic. To be better listeners, we

need to understand and work with the components of the listening process.
Listening is the process of making sense out of what we hear. Listening is an
active process of receiving, processing, and interpreting aural stimuli. Firstly,
listening involves taking in meaningful sounds and noises and in some ways,
retaining and using them. Just as we speak for different purposes. We listen for
enjoyment, information and evaluation.
Frank Tyger said that “Hearing is one of the body’s five senses, but
listening is an art.”
Listening is a part of transactional process of communication. The
recipients’ responses have an impact on the direction of the conversation.
Listening is a habit that requires knowledge, skills, and desires. Knowledge plays
a role similar to that of methods and theories by describing what to do and why
to do it. Skills represent how to do it.
1.1.2. Traditional point of view on listening skills
There are some conventional viewpoints that listening is regarded as a
passive language along with the reading skills, which means learners are almost
passive in practicing the listening activities in classroom.
Listeners just hear what they are to listen without paying much attention in
the discourse such as background knowledge of the speakers as well as their
intention, attitude, implication and other shades of meaning. The listeners mainly
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hear the message, and they only try to elicit the meaning from the individual
syntactic and sematic components of an utterance and the manner in which it is
spoken. This leads to the result that it is hard for listeners to communicate.

Having this attitude, the teachers often conducts the lessons as “tested” listening
comprehension rather than teaching it. It is the fact that the learners are not
provided enough information and methods about what they are going to hear
before the tape plays. Consequently, a certain amount of pressure is released,
which impairs listener’s attention and triggers anxiety. As a result, they cannot
get any listening experience from that exercises.
1.1.3. Current point of view on listening skills
For the past few years, some present studies on listening skills have to
come to another view in which the role of listeners is believed to be active, not
passive anymore. Listening skills is a receptive skill together reading skills.
Being active a must if listeners want to master listening skills since it
always requires listeners to have foundation knowledge. According to
Littlewood (1981), listening demands active involvement from the hearers. In
order to construct the message that the speaker intends, the hearers must actively
contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources.
From the point of view of Broughton (1978), listening was divided into
intensive and extensive listening. Extensive listening is related to the freers,
more general listening to natural listening, not necessarily under the direct
guidance of the teachers while intensive listening is much more concern with just
one or two specific points.
Until now, there are many discussions on the division of listening stages.
Some think that there are only three stages, other claim four, and even more. In
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which, the author Mary Underwood (1989) divides the aural process into three

stages and Clark (1977) divides it into four stages but in general, they have the
same idea. There are two level activities of the aural process. The level two of
this activity are recognition and selection. The first one is the structure and the
relationship between syntax and phonology of language are recognized. And the
second one, the listeners select what they find most interesting, important or
comprehensible in the utterance.
Yet, there are several contrastive opinions on listening skills. The two
authors, Anderson and Lynch (1995) considered the listener as active model
builder. They said that to listen successfully, we have to construct our own
“coherent interpretation” of any spoken message. Both part of this term are
crucial.
In short, to be successful in listening, we should remember that:
“Listening comprehension is not a skill which can be mastered once and for all
and then ignored whereas other skills developed. There must be regular practice
with increasingly difficult materials.” (Rivers Wilga, 1986, P.157).
1.2.

Classification of listening skills

1.2.1. Real-life listening.
1.2.1.1. Types of real-life listening
According to Doff (1995) notes that in real-life, there are two kinds of
listening:
- Casual listening: in daily life, we sometimes listen with no particular
purpose and often without much attention. This kind of listening is
called “casual” listening. For instance, many students have the habit of
listening to radio while studying or watching television or doing
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something else. This result is that we do not listen attentively and
carefully; thus, we may not remember much of what we hear or
nothing remains in our mind.
- “Focused” listening: when we listen to something on purpose to get the
information we need, it is named “focused” listening. In this case, we
often listen with concentration. For example, we really want to know
the answer to that question, we will ask and expect to hear a relevant
response. This leads us to our “listening out” for certain key words or
phrases. When the question such as “where are you off to?” is posed.
Then we will listen out for the expectation of the place. If the answer
is, for example, “Well, to the library because I am going to have a
History exam at the end of next week.” Thus, we only pay attention to
the first two words. If we listen to the news, it is the desire to know
what is happening in the world, and we shall anticipate to hear about
certain subjects of current interest in certain kind of languages. Even
when listening to entertainments, we also have purposes. Thus, there is
an

association

among

listener’s

expectation,

purpose,

and

comprehension.
1.2.1.2. Characteristics of real-life listening
In the book “Teaching listening comprehension” (1995, P.9), the author
Penny Ur, indicates some characteristics of real-life listening:
- We listen on purpose with certain expectation.
- We make prompt response to what we hear.
- We see the person we are listening to.

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- There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of
what is heard.
- Stretches of heard discourse come in short chunks.
- Most heard discourse is spontaneous, therefore, it differs from formal
spoken prose in the amount of redundancy, noise and colloquialism and
in its auditory character.
Some particular situation may lack one or more of these characteristics.
For example when watching television we are not normally expected to
respond or when listening to the lecture we may have to hear uninterrupted
speech for a very long time indeed – but it is very rare that none of them present
at all. We seldom listen to stretches of “disembodied” discourse of any length.

1.2.3. Classroom listening
1.2.3.1. Intensive listening
Michael Rost states that “Intensive listening refers to listening closely –
for precise sounds, words, phrases, grammatical units and pragmatic units”
(2002, p.182).
Intensive listening is the careful, focused listening a short passage for
detailed information or for full comprehension such as listening to the
announcement, the instruction and weather forecast. There may be much
concrete information for this kind of listening and the leaners often find it
learners to develop their listening skills or knowledge of the language in their
effort to do exercises or other activities. The passage should be short so that the
learners can have chances to get to grips with the content, have several tries at
difficult parts and to be fitted with the time allowed of a lesson. Therefore, they
often listen with a great concentration and stretching effort.
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1.2.3.2. Extensive listening
Extensive listening is free and general listening to natural language for
general idea, not for particular details. The listening passage for extensive
listening can be long (stories) or shots (jokes, poems). The language that is used
in this kind of listening exercise, is often within student’s current ability so that
the learners find it pleasing and interesting. The learners feel satisfied as they can
understand the passage well. They are not asked to do any language and they can
do their listening freely without any pressure. Moreover, the topics are various
and entertaining. It; therefore, motivates the learners develop their listening skills

as well as expose them to the valuable extra contract with spoken language.
Furthermore, Rob Waring, one of the original proponents of extensive
listening, believes that an extensive listening program can be effective from
immediate level. He provides background and resources for guiding students into
an extensive listening program, with helpful troubleshooting tips for keeping
students focused. It means that the people, who are not good at English, also
have extensive listening.
1.3.

Sub-skills involved in listening skills
According to Martin Parrott (1993), depending on the different range of

“sub-skills” may be involved. The following lists some of the sub-skills which
may be involved in efficient listening. The ability to:
- Recognize the communicative function of the text (stretch of speech or
writing) or part of the text. Examples of communicative function are
invitation, commiseration, persuasion, etc (note that a text or part of a
text may express more than one function, and the function(s) may be
more easily identifiable in certain texts than in others).
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- Obtain the gist (main ideas) from the text.
- Identify the specific details.
- Distinguish main ideas from supporting details.
- Recognize the speaker’s (writer’s) attitude towards the topic and

toward the listeners or readers.
- Infer ideas and information not explicitly stated.
- Anticipate or predict the “content” of the text or the development of the
discourse.
- Recognize the familiar words.
- Infer the context of the discourse.
- Use the context to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words.
1.4.

Listening phases
1.4.1. Pre-listening

*Purposes of pre-listening stages
It is undeniable that learners will find it extremely difficult to do the
listening lesson when they have no idea of what they are going to hear. Even if
the sounds of the words they hear familiar, they may still unable to interpret as
they lack certain kinds of knowledge of the subjects, setting or the relationship
between speakers. Hence, the listeners’ expectation and purpose should be taken
into account. These will make listeners feel as in real-life listening situation in
their native language. Teachers can help their students to arouse their expectation
and see the purposes before the listening lesson.
“It would be seen as a good idea when presenting a listening passage in
class to give students some information the content, situation, speakers before
they start listening.” (Penny Ur, 1992, P.4)
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Also Marry Underwood said: “Pre-listening can be done in a variety of
ways and often occur quite naturally when listening forms part an integrated
skilled course. When planning lessons, time must be allocated for pre-listening
activities and these activities should not be rushed.” (1989, P.31)
*Types of pre-listening activities.
1. The teachers introduce the listening’s topic, give background information
2. The students read something relevant.
3. The students look at pictures, read through the questions if asked.
4. The students discuss the topic situation.
5. The students consider how the while-listening activities will be done.
Each of the above types will help students focus on the main point of the
listening passage. But it is very important to remember that the amount of the
types of pre-listening activities may vary according to each class, the level of
difficulties of material, and the students’ language ability. Therefore, the teachers
should select the most efficient activities to help their students get the purpose of
listening required.
*Factors affecting the choices of pre-listening activities
1. The availability of time
2. The availability of materials
3. The interest of the class
4. The interest of the teacher
5. The place where the work is carried out
6. The nurture and content of the listening itself.
1.4.2. While-listening
*Purpose of the while-listening stage
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The while-listening stages involved activities those students are asked to
do during the time they are listening to the text. The purpose of while-listening
stage is to help learners to develop the skills of eliciting message from spoken
language.
There are certainly other reasons why students need to listen to the
language they are studying. The main thing is to recognize how it sounds (the
pronunciation, stress, rhythm, intonation).
When developing the listening skills, while-listening stage must be chosen
carefully. They must vary at different level and in different cases. To help nonnative listeners to improve their listening skills, the teachers need to have whilelistening stage which gives prediction, matching and interpretation.
“Good while-listening activities help learners find their ways through the
listening text and build upon the expectations raised by the pre-listening
activities.” (Under Wood, 1990, P.46)
*Characteristics of while-listening stages
- Interest
While-listening activities should be interesting, so that students feel that
they want to listen and carry out these activities. Part of interest stem from the
topic and the content of what is said and listening text should be chosen with the
interest of the students in mind.
Most learners enjoy trying to complete puzzle or solve the problem and
this impact can be exploited in the design of the activities. However, it is
important that this kind of activities is not too long, laborious and does not
involve doing the same thing over and over again.
- Level of difficulty
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While listening activities should be thought that most people can do.
Failure may lead to the demotivation, activities with potential “sticking point”,
where the students are likely to get into the difficulties, should be used sparingly
in the early stage. In time, of course, it will be necessary to include activities
which present potential “sticking point” so that students learn not to be put off
and preserve in spite of the problem.
According to Marry Underwood, the level of difficulties of while-listening
stage can be adjusted by giving support. Some while-listening activities are
successful with groups of varying level of ability and provide a challenge for the
more advanced students but not discouraging those who only gain a little.
*Factors affecting the choice of while-listening stage.
1. The possibilities of varying the level of difficulties if required.
2. The inconvenience of carrying out the activities which require individual to
give their response orally in the classroom. This kind of work is best done in a
language laboratory. While -listening activities in classroom generally have to be
limited to those which can be done without the need for each student to respond
by speaking.
3. Whether the work is to be done by the students with the teacher’s presence or
whether it is to be done as private study, either in classroom or at home. This
will influence to the teacher’s choice of activities as she may want to give the
students different work according to their level of ability, to provide additional
instructions, or to select activities which generates little or no marking.
1.4.3. Post-listening
*Definition of the post-listening stage

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“The post-listening stage is an opportunity for many kinds of follow-up
works-thematic, lexical, grammatical, skill development and so on” (Jo Mc
Donough, Christopher Shaw and Hitomi Masuhara, 2013).
According to Underwood (1989), activities in the post-listening stage
cover all the work described to a special listening text. They are done after the
listening is finished.
Post-listening activities are the activities which are done after the
listening. Some post-listening activities are extensions of the work done at the
pre-listening and while-listening stages and some relate loosely to the listening
itself.
*Purpose of the post-listening activities
- To check whether the students have to understand what they need to or not
since Cora Lindsay and Paul Knight (2006) said that “After finishing a
listening activity by leaners, it is important to check the response.” The
teacher should give the responses orally, by pairs checking each other’s
responds, by the teacher showing the answer on the overhead blackboard,
by group discussion or by asking the learners to check against responses
given in a book.”
- To reflect on why some of learners have missed parts of the message or
failed to understand it. (Mary Underwood, 1989).
- To give opportunity to the students to consider the speaker’s attitude,
manner in the listening text. At this stage, learners can attend the attitudes
of the speakers and what it is that has conveyed those attitudes. All
listening texts do not arrange the chance for this type of activity.

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- To expand in the topic or language of the message and transfer the
learners’ thought to another context.
- To make introduction to the planned work.
*Factors affecting the post-listening stage
Marry Underwood (1989) said that the attention should be given to the
following factors in selecting post-listening activities:
- The amount of language acquisition the teacher wishes to in relation to the
particular listening text.
- The time which is allowed to do the post-listening stage.
- The speaking, reading and writing should be included in the post-listening
stage.
- The students should work in pair or in groups.
- The chosen activities should be made motivation.
1.5.

Major factors influencing the listening skills
1.5.1. Vocabulary
The English vocabulary is very large and changes every day; therefore, it

is regarded as a huge obstacle of English learners when they listen.
Samuels (1984) emphasized that “Knowledge of the vocabulary used by
the speaker is another quality for good listening comprehension. Some words
have many meanings when used in different contexts. Most people can only

identify the most common meaning of a word. In order to become an effective
listener, one must understand a broader range of vocabulary.” The listeners’
concentration and thinking are always interrupted when they meet the new words
they do not know. The listeners have to try to follow the speakers and sometimes
they have to guess the meaning of the word or phrase deepening on the context.
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