How to improve english listening skill of k52 english faculty students at TMU

ABSTRACT
It has been acknowledged that English has been used all over the world.
It means that English is a means of communication that is used internationally by
people to communicate with others to transfer ideas, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or
messages. Nowadays, people need to be able to use English due to globalization. In
English, There are four skills in learning language: listening, speaking, reading and
writing. Naturally, the process of learning is started from listening speaking-reading
and the last is writing. Human cannot speak before listen. Wallace (2004:13) wrote
that listening skill is very important skill because this skill may human acquire
perception, knowledge, information and success in communicating with others.
However, listening is not simple process. One is able to listen means she/he
can differentiate between sounds, comprehend and understand vocabulary and
grammar, interpret intonation and meaning, consider everything in the same time,
and also adjust to the social cultural context from utterances that are listened
(Vandergrift, 2012).Therefore, the present study attempts to investigate the English
listening problems encountered by a group of third year English major students at
Thuong Mai University and suggests solutions so as to improve their English
language listening skill. Survey questionnaires and interview questions are used to
collect data. I administered a questionnaire to 200 third- year English major students
at Thuong Mai University.
This study included 4 chapters. Firstly, chapter 1 showed the overview of the
study. This chapter provided general information about rationale, previous, scope,
aims, research methodology and organization of the study. Secondly chapter 2 was
literature review related to research topic. Thirdly, reseach methodology was
chapter 3 which included participants and instruments. Next, chapter 4 was most
essential chapter of this study, named Research Findings. Data is analyzed
quantitatively using descriptive statistics and qualitatively using content analysis.
Chapter 5 is recommendations and suggestions. The results of this study may also
be useful for those who are interested in this field.

1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen
Khac Nghia, for his professional guidance, intelligent advice, caring, patience, and
continuous support in all stages of this thesis. I have been extremely lucky to have a
supervisor who cared so much about my work, and who responded to my questions
and queries so promptly. Without his invaluable supervision and words of
encouragement, this thesis would not have been possible.
I am also thankful to 200 participants in this study for their patience and
cooperation. This study would not have been successful without their assistance.
Finally, I am also grateful to my family and English major students who have
enthusiastically helped and encouraged me during the time I conducted this work.
Thank you so much!
Hanoi, 23, March, 2019
Phuong
Nguyen Thi Phuong

2


TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................iii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.......................................................................v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................vi
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY......................................................1
1.1. Reason of the study...........................................................................................1
1.2. Research questions...........................................................................................1

1.3. Research scope..................................................................................................2
1.4. Method............................................................................................................... 2
1.5. Aims of the study..............................................................................................2
1.6. Organization of the study.................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................................4
2.1. Overview of listening........................................................................................4
2.1.1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension...................................4
2.1.2. The importance of listening skill..................................................................6
2.1.3. Types of listening............................................................................................7
2.1.4. Stages of listening..........................................................................................9
2.2. Difficulties in learning the English listening skill.........................................10
2.2.1. Problems students face when listening.......................................................10
2.2.2. Characteristics of spoken language making listening so difficult............13
2.2.3. Factors affecting to the English listening...................................................14
CHAPTER 3: RESEACH METHODOLOGY...................................................16
3.1. Participants.....................................................................................................16
3.2. Instruments.....................................................................................................16
3.3. Data collections...............................................................................................17
3.4. Data analysis...................................................................................................17
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS..............................................................19
4.1. Result and discussion......................................................................................19

3


4.1.1. Current situation of practising listening English to third - year English
major students at TMU.........................................................................................19
4.1.2. The attitude of students at TMU towards the position of listening skill.........19
4.1.3. Students Self-assessment in English listening skills..................................21
4.1.4. The emphasized skill in the previous..........................................................22

4.1.5. Students’ emotion in learning English listening........................................22
4.2. Causes make students feel difficult in listening to English..........................23
4.2.1. Problems students meet in listening to English.........................................23
4.2.2 Factors affecting to students in listening to English...................................28
4.3. Suggestions for student to improve English listening skill...........................29
4.3.1. Solution1: Consolidating language foundation..........................................30
4.3.2. Solution 2: Listen and repeat stories or anything you like in English and
practice................................................................................................................... 31
4.3.3. Solution 3: Always creating an talk environment by English anytime
anywhere................................................................................................................31
CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS........................32
5.1. Summary of the study....................................................................................32
5.2. Research implications.....................................................................................32
5.3. Recommendation............................................................................................33
5.4. Limitations of the study..................................................................................33
5.5. Suggestions for future research.....................................................................33
CONCLUSIONS....................................................................................................34
REFERENCES......................................................................................................vii
APPENDIX.............................................................................................................ix

4


LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
No.
4.1.

List of tables and charts
List of tables
Students’ feeling about the English listening lesson

1

5

4.1.

List of charts
Profiles of students

1
4.1.

Attitude of students towards the position of listening skill

2
4.1.

Students Self-assessment in English listening skills

3
4.1.

The highlighted skill in the previous

4
4.2.

Problems related the listeners

1
4.2.

Problems related to the listening materials

2
4.2.

Listening problems related to Linguistic feature

3
4.2.

Others factors affecting to the listening process

4
4.3.

Solutions for overcoming to improve English listening skill for 3rd

1

year students

Page
19

20
21
22

22
23
25
27
28
29


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
No.
1
2
3
4
5

6

Abbreviations
TMU
Etc
CDs
EL
EFL

English meaning
Thuongmai University
et cetera
Compact discs
English language

English as a Foreign Language


CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1. Reason of the study
Nowadays, explosive science and technology and globalization, proficient
English is extremely necessary. No one denies the importance of English language
in the present time as global language. It is clear that English has become more and
more dominant around the world. Actually, in some countries it is used as the
mother tongue and others countries learn it as second language in their school.
There is no doubt that English is language of communication between the people
from different cultures. Therefore, learning English plays an important role in
education and the development of the country.
The four language skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing that all
language learners are supposed to acquire. If learning English is like building a
house, English listening is building a foundation for the house. Listening is believed
to be the most challenging due to the complex and subtle nature of listening
comprehension in a second or foreign language. In fact, there are a variety of
learners who cannot communicate English fluently after many years of foreign
language studying. To speak English fluently, you must listen to English well. We
just can exchange information each other when understanding what are partner
saying. Consequently, bad listening will affect to the conversation.
All these reason, offered the researchers a chance to conduct a study on “How
to improve English listening skill of K52 English faculty students at TMU”. The
researcher hopes that the research will provide learners a relatively view about how
to improve listening skill.
1.2. Research questions
The goal of the study is to find out actual situation of English listening for
K52 students in English faculty, detect factors affecting the listening and give some
possible in order to help student improve listening skill.

To reach the target, the researcher set up the following questions:
1. What difficulties do K52 students face when listening to English?
2. What are some possible solutions to improve their English listening skill?

1


1.3. Research scope
The study is about learning listening skill for K52 students of English
department at TMU. The research shows the current situation of English Listening
skill of K52 students and dealt with the problems that students usually met in
Listening. Besides, the study also suggested some possible solutions to improve
their listening skill. Because of the limitation of time and knowledge; the shortage
of reference materials, this study cannot cover the whole issues of listening skill.
Moreover, the study cannot touch upon all students at English Department, it is
confused to the K52 students in the faculty at TMU.
1.4. Method
Nowadays, both quantitative and qualitative methods are commonly used for
the researchers to report the study. Consequently, this study was implemented in
both quantitative and qualitative. Documents and scientific research of scholars and
domestic and foreign researchers help the researcher build theoretical framework
for the study. The data was collected by means of questionnaires and interviews at
TMU.
The main method is quantitative survey questionnaire. In addition, so as to
fulfill the set goals, some information is collected by the researcher based on her
informal interviews qualitative method to assume the value and accuracy of the
study.
1.5. Aims of the study
This study attempts to explore of how students overcome listening difficulties
English. This study aims the following.

Firstly, this research is to identify the students’ perception to the significance
of the English listening.
Secondly, finding out kinds of listening problems encountered by English
major students at TMU is one of the aims. These challenges make students feel
uninterested in learning English in class as well as at home.
Finally, we provide the potential suggestions, to help students overcome
difficulties. Meanwhile, these solutions will help student be excited in English
listening lesson. Listening level is better and better.

2


1.6. Organization of the study
The research is divided into 5 following chapter:
Chapter 1 (Overview): some main information about the research.
Chapter 2 (Literature review): comprising relevant definitions, difficulties and
methods to improve that skill.
Chapter 3(Research method): give reasons for choosing and describing
research methods.
Chapter 4 (Research findings): collecting, analyzing, processing the data and
presenting the results.
Chapter 5(Recommendations and suggestions): summarizing the study,
making suggestions, presenting the limitations and research future.
“References” of the study which listed all the materials and sources of the
information used in the study and the “Appendix” in which the questionnaires and
interview questions designed for students were mentioned.

3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overview of listening
2.1.1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension
Listening is considered as one of the most important skill and in acquiring
both a native language and a second on foreign language. It is being paid more and
more attention to. So far, there have been a number of definitions of listening by
different linguists such as Howatt and Dalkin (1974), Wolvin and Coakley (1982),
Pearson (1983), Hirsch (1986), Scarcella and Oxford (1992), Bentley and Bacon
(1996), Brown (2001), Gary Buck (2001), Scott Shelton (2008) and among other.
Howatt and Dalkin (1974) defined listening as the ability to identify and
understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker’s accent
or pronunciation, his grammar, his vocabulary, his grasping and his meaning.
Wolvin and Coakley (1982) regarded listening “the process of receiving,
attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli.
Pearson (1983) stated that “listening involves the simultaneous organization
and combination of skills in phonology, syntax, semantics and knowledge of the
textual structure, all of which seem to be controlled by cognitive process. Thus, it
can be said that thought not fully realized the listening skill is essential in acquiring
language proficiency”.
Hirsch (1986) gave another definition: “listening as an aspect of skill
involving neurological response and interpretations of sounds to understand and to
give meaning by reacting, selecting meaning, remembering, attending, analyzing
and including previous experience”.
Bentley and Bacon (1996) stated that listening , an important part of the
second language learning process, has also been defined as an active process during
which the listeners constructs meaning from oral input.
According to Brown (2001), listening is “not merely the process of
unidirectional receiving of audible symbols. He supposed that one aspect s of
listening comprehension transmitting nerve impulses to the brain”. Hence, listening
comprises of three elements: the sender, the message, and the listener.

4


Gary Buck (2001), for example, points out that “listening comprehension is an
active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to
the incomings sound” in which a number of different types of knowledge are
involved both linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge.”
Scott Shelton (2008) thinks that listening effectively is a demanding and
involving process. One must be able to deal with different accents or pronunciation,
unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise and
also make a conscious effort to not switch off or become distracted while listening.
All of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to
identify and understand the meaning in any given message.
According to Hasan, “listening” is one process that listeners receive
information. This process takes place one way which completely doesn’t require
any explanation or interaction with text listening.
According to Richard (1983), O’Malley and Chamot (1990), listening is an
activity and a complex process in which listeners focus on aspects selected for
listening. From the listened sound, they find the meaning of information and
combine what they hear with their knowledge.
In conclusion, listening is a process of identifying and understanding what the
speakers say, which includes understanding a speaker’s pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary. All of definitions are given with a view to clarifying the nature of the
listening skill which is necessary in the process of acquire a native language or a
foreign one.
Listening comprehension
There are different definitions of the term “listening comprehension.”
Listening comprehension is the different processes of understanding the spoken
language. These include knowing speech sounds, comprehending the meaning of

individual words, and understanding the syntax of sentences (Nadig, 2013 as cited
in Pourhosein Gilakjani &Sabouri, 2016). According to Hamouda (2013), listening
comprehension refers to the understanding of what the listener has heard and it is
his/her ability to repeat the text despite the fact that the listener may repeat the
sounds without real comprehension.

5


According to Richard and Schmidt (2002), described listening comprehension
as the speech understanding process in the first language or second, listening in the
second language includes both up and down process( top-down and bottom-up).
Brown also shared that the “top-down” process occurs when the learners availably
use background knowledge and vocabulary to understand to the content. The
“bottom-up” process is to use the context of the listening to predict the meaning of
new words.
According to Helgesen, listening is a practive and purposeful skill. In the
listening process, listeners not only understand the content they are listening but
also can communicate the content with the information they previously have known
to understand. Besides, listeners both listening the words and understand the
implications.
2.1.2. The importance of listening skill
Listening is one of the necessary skills on life which are defined as “skill
which can provide you with a better perspective on life, skills which can allow you
to maintain a higher awareness of both yourself and the world around you”. It is one
of the most vital ways that human beings feel the life and live. Everyone in the real
life, often listens more than speaks, reads or writes. For instance, at home, we listen
to the news, watch films, or talk each other. At school, students listen to the lectures
teaching. At meeting, the staffs listen to the new plan from the directors, etc. Of
this, research show that an average of 45% is spent listening compared to 30%

speaking, 16% reading and 9% writing (Adler, R. etal. 2001). That is, by any
towards, a lot of time listening. It is worthwhile, therefore, taking a bit of extra time
to ensure that you listen effectively.
Without listening, the man becomes backward in each minute of their lives. It
is quoted by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen that “the most basis and powerful connect to
another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps, the most important thing we ever
give each other is our attention.
It is mentioned in the different ways between “hearing” and “listening”.
Hearing is a part of five senses (hearing, smelling, touching and looking). But
listening is a choice to hear and understand. Listening is not a passive process. In

6


fact, the listeners can be at least as engaged in the process as the speaker. The
phrase “active listening” is used to describe this process of being fully involved. As
an integrative skill, listening plays an important role in the process of language
learning or acquisition and facilitating the emergence of other language skill.
According to Nord (1980), listening is the way of learning the language. “It gives
the learners information from which to build up the necessary knowledge for using
the language. When this knowledge is built, the learners can begin to speak. The
listening-only period is a time of observation and learning, which provides the basis
for the other language skills (Natcon 1990).
Most learners will spend more time listening to the foreign language than
producing it themselves. Failing to understand spoken language, people may miss
important information presented to them or respond in a funny way. Hence, training
in listening is really necessary. It helps students make the transition from classroom
English to the real-life English more easily and effectively.
2.1.3. Types of listening
According to some authors, namely Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh

Phuong (2006), there are two ways of listening in the real life. They are casual
listening and focused listening depending on the purpose of listening.
One type of listening, casual listening, mean listening without a particular
purpose. When we listen, we do not pay much or even any attention to the
information unless there is no something that interests us. Therefore, we hardly
remember the content of what we hear. Normally, we do this kind of listening when
we listen to music, or listen to news on radio or TV while doing some works of
chatting to a friend.
Another type of listening is focused listening. That is when listen for a specific
purpose to find out information we need to know. It happens quite popularly in the
real life. In here, we listen with much more concentration and try to get as much
information as possible. However, we do not listen to every word. We know
beforehand what we are going to listen so we only catch the most important
information from the speech or the lecture. In classroom, learners also use this type
of listening.

7


There are two main types of listening (the foundations of all listening subtypes) which draws on the work of Wolvin and Coakley (1996) and other to
examine the various types of listening. They are discriminative listening and
comprehensive listening.
Firstly, discriminative listening is first developed at a very early age- perhaps
even before birth, in the womb. This is the most basic form of listening and doesn’t
involve the understanding of the meaning of words or phrases but merely the
different sounds that are produced. In early childhood for example, a distinction is
made between the sounds of the voices of the parents- the voice of the father sounds
different to that of the mother.
Discriminative listening develops through childhood and into adulthood. As
we grow older and develop and gain more life experience, our ability to distinguish

between different sounds is improved. Not only can we recognize different voices,
but we also develop the ability to recognize subtle differences in the way that
sounds are made- this is fundamental to ultimately understanding what these sounds
mean. Differences include many subtleties, recognizing foreign language,
distinguish between regional and dues to the emotions and feelings of the speaker.
For instance, imagine yourself surrounded by people who are speaking a language
that you cannot understand. Perhaps, passing through an airport in another country,
you can probably distinguish between different voices, male and female, young and
old and also gain dome understanding about what is going on around you based on
the tone of voice mannerism and body language of the other people. You aren’t
understanding what is being said but using discriminative listening to gain some
level of comprehension of your surroundings. ( Lindsay Bell, 2013) and (Goh.
2000).
Secondly, it is comprehensive listening. This one involves understanding the
message or messages that one being communicated. Like discriminative listening,
comprehensive listening is fundamental to all sub-types. In order to use this type,
the listeners needs appropriate vocabulary and language skill. Using overly
complicated language or technical jargon, therefore, can be barrier to
comprehensive listening. Comprehensive listening is further complicated by the fact

8


that two different people listening to the same thing may understand the message in
two different ways. This problem can be multiplied in group settings, like a
classroom or business meeting where different meanings can be derived from what
has been said. (Goh. 2000) and (Travis Bennett, 2104)
It is complimented by sub-messages from non-verbal communication such as
the tone of the voice, gestures and other body languages. These non-verbal signals
can greatly aid communication and comprehension but can also confuse and

potentially lead to misunderstanding. In many listening situations, it is vital to seek
clarification and use skills such as reflection aid comprehension.
2.1.4. Stages of listening
Author Joselph Devito has devided into five stages: receiving, understanding,
remembering, evaluating and responding. (Devito, J.A 2000). The elements of
public speaking (7thed. Newyork, NY:Longman).
STAGE 1: Receiving
It refer to the response cause by sound waves stimulating the sensory receptors
of the ear, it is physical response. Receiving are the international focus on hearing a
speaker’s message which happens when we filter out other sources so that we can
isolate the message and avoid the confusing mixture of incoming stimuli. At this
stage, we are focus on hearing the message.
STAGE 2: Understanding
It is the stage at which you learn what the speaker means- the thought and
emotional tone. We attempt to learn the meaning of the message, which is not
always easy. At the stage, we should be on the lookout for places where our
perceptions might differ from those of the speaker.
STAGE 3: Remembering
Beginning with listening; if you can’t remember something that was said, you
might not have been listening effectively. If understanding has been in accurate,
recollection of the message will be in accurate too.
STAGE 4: Evaluating
This stage can be called by judging the value of the message. We might be
thinking. “This make sense” or “conversely”. “This is very odd”. Because everyone

9


biases and perspectives learned from widely diverse sets of life experiences,
evaluations of the same message can vary widely from one listener to another.

People are more speakers speak clearly, present ideas logically and give reasons to
support the points made.
STAGE 5: Responding
Responding sometimes referred to as feedback. Almost anything you do at
this stage can be interpreted as feedback.
 Formative feedback
Not response occurs at the end of the message. As the speaker delivers the
message, a listener signals his or her involvement with focused attention, notetaking, nodding and other behaviors that indicate understanding or failure to
understand the message.
 Summative feedback
This feedback is given at the end of the communication, when you attend a
political rally, a presentation given by a speaker you admire, there are verbal and
non-verbal ways of indicating your appreciations for or your disagreement with the
message.
2.2. Difficulties in learning the English listening skill
2.2.1. Problems students face when listening
According to Underwood, English learners often face the following potential
difficulties:
 Uncontrollable speed of the speaker
 Limited vocabulary of the listener
 Don’t recognize suggestive signals
 Don’t understand the information
 Cannot concentrate
 Do not have a habit of studying
According to Hasan, learners aren’t sometimes aware of their mistakes in
identifying the causes of problems they encounter. They usually use inefficient
listening strategies and try to listen and understand every word. That activity is

10

wrong because even native speaker do not listen this way. Good listeners often
listen only to the key words to understand the main idea of the message and always
try to guess the meaning of the new word in the context of the listening. He also
indicated that unfamiliar words, difficult grammatical structures, and the length
of the spoken passages are the most important factors that cause problems for
learners’ listening comprehension. He continued that clarity, lack of interest,
and the demand for complete answers to listening comprehension questions are
the serious difficulties of students’ listening comprehension.
Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc present a number of difficulties such as
English sounds, English vocabulary and speed of speaking. Hoang Van Van,
Nguyen Thi Chi and Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa pointed out the difficultied of the
learners:
 Difficulty in listening to English sounds
 Trying to understand all the words to grasp the idea said
 Do not understand native speaker when they speak naturally quicly
 Need to listen again and again
 Difficulty in catching all the information
 Do not concentrate when listening
Teng (2002) identified four listening factors, which were similar to
Boyle’s (1984) classification; they were listener factors, speaker factors, stimulus
factors, and context factors. She indicated that “EFL proficiency” was the most
important listener factor for EFL listening problems. It implies that students’
difficulties may directly result from their deficient linguistic knowledge. However,
Goh (2000) indicated that the most common problem was “quickly forget
what is heard (parsing).” Similarly, in Sun’s study (2002), the most difficulty in
listening for Taiwan’s students was “forget the meaning of the word
(perception).” 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

ofthese problems. As Vogely (1995: 41) states, ‘We still need research that
documents empirically the relationship between what theory says and what
11


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.
Culture differences
It plays an important role, not only in the perception of learner in general, but
also in learning foreign languages in particular. It can be said that students who do
not have knowledge of the British and American culture of other countries may not
fully understand the ways of thinking of native speakers expressed through English.
Learners should be familiar with the cultural knowledge of language that has a
significant effect on the learners’ understanding. If the listening task involves
completely different cultural materials then the learners may have critical
problems in their comprehension. It is the responsibility of teachers to give
background knowledge about the listening activities in advance (Azmi, Celik,
Yidliz, & Tugrul, 2014).
Identify structure, verb when listening
What influences your listening skills is the ability to identify sentence
structures and verbs in sentences. The structure is very important in sentence, the
verb is an extremely important factor. If you recognize the sentence structure and
the verb of the sentence in just a few seconds, you can fully understand the
sentence. You should remember that when a sentence is spoken it includes one or
more sentence structures. The characteristics of learning English are sentence
structure and verbs.
If you cannot recognize the structure of the sentence or at least the verb in the
sentence, listening comprehension is almost zero. If so, you're just guessing what
the paragraph means when you've heard the whole paragraph. For example: The

sentence structure "have been doing something" means how long it has been doing
it until now.
 For example: I have been studying English for 10 years (I have been
learning English for 10 years already) (Currently I am still learning English)

12


When listening, you just need to pay attention to the verb and then the
sentence and the structure of the sentence. So you can fully understand the content
of the transmission..
Shortage of vocabulary
Word is the basic in learning a language. If students have a good command of
large numbers of vocabularies, could they achieve to break through in their
listening. Small knowledge of vocabulary directly weakens their listening ability. In
their daily learning, students pay less attention to words recitations which definitely
has a negative effect on their listening. (John and Shane, 2004, p4), (Rivers 1983,
p125) and (Nunan, 1999, p117).
Mental barrier
It refers to the negative mentality while listening. In general, while doing
listening exercise, student would keep intensive concentration. Once they cannot
catch up with the speed, they would be nervous and thus cannot concentrate as
much as they could have. Because they have been thinking about the words they
have failed to recognize. According to an empirical research, tension and anxiety
are very common in listening class. However, they are negatively correlated with
the understanding effect of listening content (Sun J, 2011).
Weak listening skill
Student quit often ignore the purpose of listening. For some materials,
intensive listening is a must while for some others extensive listening can be
accepted. According to research a percentages of 31.2% students would choose to

understand every word and every sentence while listening (Sun H, 2015). What
kind of method they should use depending on what relevant listening questions they
are required to answer. But the truth is students seldom pay attention to the
connection between sentences and their logical relationship, so it hard for them to
grasp the whole topic and content of listening materials. In addition, while listening,
some students would firstly translate what they hear to Vietnamese and then try to
understand the content. This habit would greatly waste time and badly influence
listening.
2.2.2. Characteristics of spoken language making listening so difficult

13


There are some characteristics of spoken language which makes listening
difficult (Brown 2001):
 In spoken language, due to memory limitations we break down speech
into smaller group of words. They are clustering such as “a lot of”, “a number of”
and among other. Therefore, when listening, learners have to learn to pick out
manageable clusters of words, avoiding try to listen to every word of the speech. It
is not necessary and makes learners become distracted.
 Moreover, spoken language has a great number of redundancies. They are
result of rephrasing, repetitions, elaborations, and some insertions such as “as I have
said” and so on.
 On the other hand, spoken language has many reduced forms. It may be
phonological, morphological, syntactic, or pragmatic like “you’re” instead of “you
are”, won’t-will not, etc. these reductions are really significant difficulties to the
learners.
 The next characteristic is performance variables. As a result of unplanned
action, spoken language consists of a lot of hesitions (er, uhm), false starts, pauses
and corrections. They make listeners confused.

 Colloquial language is another problem that can be interfere listeners in
real life because they are familiar with written language. In monologues and
dialogues, the appearance of idioms, slang, reduced forms and shared cultural
language are common.
 English is a stress-timed language so it is very important for learners to
understand its prosodic features. By stress, rhythm and intonation, listeners can
interpret more subtle messages like sarcasm, endearment, insult, solicitation, pause, etc.
 The last but not least, interaction is also an element that plays a large role
in listening. Language learners should be taught the instruction in the two-way
nature of listening. They have to learn to continute the process of comprehending.
Some rules of interaction are negotiations, maintenance and termination.
2.2.3. Factors affecting to the English listening
If teachers want to help learners overcome their difficulties in learning speaking
skill, they should identify some factors that influence their listening performance.
14


Learners’ speaking performance is influenced by factors like accent, the class
atmosphere, quality of recorded material, student’s motivation and among other.
The class atmosphere
Sometime the size of the classroom causes difficulty for both teachers and
students in lessons. For instance, if the class is very large, students (sitting on the
back rows) may not hear the recordings clearly and observe the board as ones sit in
front. There are challengeable for teacher to control the students or to get response
from students. In addition, it will be necessary to create a funny atmosphere in the
classroom. Because these make students feel more comfortable and the lessons is
more effective. Perhaps, we will work more effectively provided that we feel
comfortable and happy. (Phung Thi Thao, 2017)
Students’ motivation
Maybe say that motivation is important to notice in that it can affect students’

reluctance to listen in English. Motivation is a key consideration in determining the
preparedness of learners to communicate. It has been proven in many studies that
students with a strong motivation to succeed can persist in learning and gain better
scores than those who have weaker motivation of success showing that building
students’ motivation to learn is urgent for every teacher. With respect to the causes
of lack of motivation, Gardner in Nunan (1999) elaborates the causes of the students
‘lack of motivation e.g. uninspired teaching, boredom, lack of perceived relevance
of materials and lack of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program.
Noise, Awkward seating positions and temperature
Ecological factors, for example, noise, temperature and awkward seating
positions can make us concentrate our attention on other factors alongside what the
speaker is saying. Attempt to control environmental factors at whatever points
conceivable. Take a stab at finding a calm at another seat or move to a quiet place to
proceed with the discussion. It is really hard to center concentration when we are
always occupied by outside powers. (Fadojutimi Temitayo 2018).
Quality of the recorded material

15


The equipment is poor quality that affects to the learning process of students.
The unclear sound system causes the interruption in listening and impact to the
information reception in listening text. (Dr Araphat Hamouda, 2013).
CHAPTER 3: RESEACH METHODOLOGY
This study investigates the factors on English listening problems of students
from English department at TMU. This chapter discusses the participants of the
study, instruments, procedures of collecting data and data analysis.
3.1. Participants
The participants of this study will be 200 third-year students from English
faculty at TMU. They are 21 years old and include both male and female. All of

them are volunteers as they are asked to do all parts comprising questionnaire and
interview. Some of them had learnt English for 7 years and the others for 3 years or
fewer.
3.2. Instruments
To fulfill the above aims, the study was carried out with quantitative and
qualitative methods of data collection. According to Kyta Darhohomei (as quoted in
www.answerlog.com. 2010:1) quaitative approach means number evaluation,
information measurement. In quantitative measurement, researching or analysing
raw data such as number, value, statistic, fact, and picture. Quantitative approach is
used to analyze the value of data. Based on Creswel (as quoted in www.Penelitian
studi kasus.blogspot.com.2003:18), qualitative approach is one unity where
researcher often makes knowledge claim based on construtive view (like more than
one meaning in individual experience social and historical construction, the purpose
is to develop theory or pattern). Qualitative approach is used to describe
characteristics of data.
The instruments used in this study were: (1) a questionnaire, (2) a semistructured interview with the subjects. The first instrument was questionnaire. It was
the main instrument used to gather specific information’s for this study. The
questions were formulated based on the research questions and hypothesis of this

16


study. Besides, a questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of
questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from
respondents.
Survey questionnaire is one of the most effective instruments for collecting
data in social science. Advantages of using questionnaires that Gillham (2000)
highlights are; less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of bias, and analysis
of answers is straight forward. Like questionnaire, interviews can allow researchers
to investigate cognitive processes such as awareness or constructs such as

perceptions or attitudes that are not directly observable.
The second data gathering instrument which was employed in this study was
interview. The purpose of the interview was to triangulate the information that was
obtained through the questionnaire; to obtain data on how the listening difficulties
which had been identified through the questionnaire affected the learners’ listening
comprehension; to obtain information about the reasons behind the learners’
difficulties of listening comprehension; and to find out if there are any other
listening difficulties that affect the learners’ listening skill and look for solutions to
improve their listening skill. Moreover, by providing opportunities for learners to
report in their own words, we might gain some insights into their understanding of
and attitude towards some of these difficulties.
3.3. Data collections
There

were

two

kinds

of

instrument

used

to

collect

the

data;

questionnaire and interview . The questionnaire consisted of three. Section one
contained 3 questions to evaluate the importance of English skill. Section two
consists of 14 questions about difficulties in listening to English devided into four
categories: listening material (6items), linguistic aspects (5 items), speaker (4
items), psychological category (3 items).
3.4. Data analysis
The data obtained through the questionnaire and the interview were organized
and analyzed. While the data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed
quantitatively and qualitatively, the data obtained from the interview were analyzed

17


qualitatively. And the results of the instruments identified the listening problems
that affected the EFL learners of TMU and solutions to improve listening skill
According to Sudaryanto (1993), data analysis can be presented through
formal and informal method. In formal method, analysis is based on special
problem and theoretical framework that are presented using symbol, table, or a
graph that has a purpose to describe data easily. In informal method, vice versa
analysis is presented descriptively in a word or sentence form. This research applied
qualitative and quantitive method so data analyisis is presented informaly using
narative descriptive sentences and symbols.

18

CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS
This section aims to present the statistical results and the data analyses in
order to answer the research questions addressed in the present study respectively.
Firstly, current situation of English listening are presented and analyzed
quantitatively. The second section provides the results and analysis of listening
comprehension problems encountered by the subjects. The third section deals with
how to overcome these English listening problems. The researcher wishes this result
would help students improve listening skill better.
4.1. Result and discussion
4.1.1. Current situation of practising listening English to third - year
English major students at TMU

Years of learning English before entering TMU
4.00%

0 year
23.00%

1 year
1-3 years
3-5 years
over 5
years

73.00%

Chart 4.1.1: Profiles of students
4.1.2. The attitude of students at TMU towards the position of listening skill
There are 200 chosen students who include both male and female. All of them
are the third-year English department students and they are 21 years old.

19