Khóa luận tốt nghiệp: An investigation into the causes of difficulties English listening skills encountered by first year English majors at Faculty of English, Thuongmai University

1

I
DECLERATION
I certify my authorship of the study report entitle “An investigation into the causes

of difficulties English listening skills encountered by first year English majors at
Faculty of English, Thuongmai University”.
This graduation paper is the result of my own research and the substance of this
thesis has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution and that
if this declaration is found to be false, disciplinary measures and penalties can be taken and
imposed in accordance with university policies and rules.
Signature
Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh


II

2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received many necessary
assistances, precious ideas and timely encouragements from my teachers, family and
friends. This paper could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and
support from a number of people who all deserve my sincere gratitude and appreciation.
First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor – Ms. Pham
Thuy Giang, the English teacher of Faculty of English, who has always been willing to
give me valuable advice and suggestions in order that I can complete successfully this study.
I also would like to take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all my teachers at
the Faculty of English, Thuongmai University, who have handed me basic knowledge to
complete this study.

I am so thankful to students of K53N at Faculty of English for their whole – heart
participation in the study.
I would like to acknowledge my thanks to all the authors of the books, magazines,
and other materials listed in the reference part for their ideas that have been reflected
and developed in the study.
I am equally indebted to my classmates for their suggestions and encouragements
in the process of my study.
Last but not least, my particular thanks are given to

my parents for their

encouragement and support which played an important role in my graduation paper.


III

3

ABSTRACT

Listening skill is one of the most necessary skills to communicate in the real life.
Everybody knows that in order to listen to a message is not as simple as hearing it, so the
listener has to understand the message and respond in the right manner. The thesis will
study the subjective and objective difficulties of the students in learning the listening
skill. Then, it would like to find out the reasons for those problems and the solutions for
students in learning the listening skill. Therefore, I applied the qualitative and quantitative
methods to

do the research. So the collecting data instruments like questionnaires,

interviews were used to do the study. The results of the research will point out the
difficulties that students meet when they learn the listening skill. More importantly, the
study helps me find out the causes of those difficulties so that I can work out the right solutions
to the problems. With the hope of improving students’ listening competence.


4

IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS


V

5

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
FE: Faculty of English.


6

VI
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

TABLES

CHARTS

7
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale of the study
Nowadays, listening plays a vital role in daily lives. People

listen for different

purposes such as entertainment, academic purposes or obtaining necessary information. Of
the four language skills-Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing-that all language
learners are supposed to acquire, listening is believed to be the most challenging due to
the complex and subtle nature of listening comprehension in a second or foreign language.
As a researcher, I would like to present the thesis title “An investigation into the
causes of difficulties in English listening skills encountered by first year English majors
at Faculty of English, Thuongmai University” for several reasons.
First of all, listening is the most important skill in communication in the real life.
Listening and speaking are two major parts

of

communication.

They

are

closely

interdependent. We are able to talk sensibly when we understand what is said to us. If we
fail to understand spoken language, we may miss important information and respond in a funny

way. Moreover, in learning a language, listening is a useful means of providing students with
comprehensible input, which is an essential component of the whole language learning
process. And teaching listening skill in classroom helps students make transition from
classroom English to real-life English more easily and effectively. Therefore, I would like
to do this research to help the students pay more attention to listening skill.
Secondly, learning listening skill is the most difficult in learning a foreign
language. Listening, like reading, is a receptive skill but it is often the most daunting for
students. When reading, a reader usually has more opportunities to refer back to the text to
clarify understanding, which a listener can not do in most listening contexts such as TV
programs, meetings, discussion, lectures or conversations.
Last but not least, the reason for choosing this thesis title is that many students are not
interested in learning listening skill. They find listening classes boring. On the other hand,
practicing listening skill is difficult and it takes long time. That is the reason I would like to
work out some suggestion so as to help students become more interested in learning
listening skill.
After studying at Faculty of English, Thuongmai University for nearly four years, I
realize that first year students of English major still have many difficulties in their listening
skill. In the hope of finding out the difficulties of listening that they normally get, a study
entitled: “An investigation into the causes of difficulties in English listening skills
encountered by first year English majors at Faculty of English, Thuongmai University”
has been conducted because of all above mentioned reasons.


8
1.2. Aims of the study
The study is done with the following aims:
Firstly, the study was carried out in order to survey the real state of learning English
listening skill in Thuongmai University so that I could work out the reasons for those
difficulties.
Secondly, most students find it difficult to learn listening skill so I would like to

find the common

difficulties

that

the

students face when they learn English

listening skill at Thuongmai University.
Finally, because of the difficulties, many students are not interested in learning and
practicing this skill at the class, therefore the study would like to suggest some possible
solutions to those difficulties. These suggestions also wish to help the students catch up
with the speed of a normal conversation in the real life so that they can improve their
communication competence.
1.3. Research questions
1. What is the real situation of learning English listening skill for the first- year students in
Faculty of English at Thuongmai University ?
2. What are the difficulties of the first-year students in Faculty of English at Thuongmai
University ?
3. What are some solutions to improve in learning English listening ?
1.4. Scope of the study
The study is about learning listening skill for first-year students

in

English

faculty at Thuongmai University. Because of the limitations of time and knowledge, the

shortage of reference materials, this study cannot cover the whole issue of listening skill.
It only focus on exploring common difficulties students get in listening skill. Moreover,
the study could not touch upon all the students at Thuongmai University. It is confined to
first-years tudents in English faculty at Thuongmai University only.
1.5. Methods of the study
The study will be conducted using quantitative, qualitative methods. The study
includes survey questionnaires for both teachers and students, interview questions for
students only of K53 at the FE.
After getting the results, the researcher will use the tables and charts for presenting
the collect data.
1.6. The organization of the study
The study includes four main chapters, organized as follows:


9
Chapter 1: introduction
-

Rationale of the study.

-

Aims of the study.

-

Research of the study.

-

Scope of the study.

-

Methods of the study.

-

Organization of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review
Theories difficulties to be resolved in the study

-

Theoretical background related to English listening skill.

-

Difficulties in English listening skill.

-

Strategies of English listening skill.
Chapter 3: The study

-

Results of the study.

-

Discussions about the result of the

-

Suggestions for learning.
Chapter 4: Conclusion

-

Summaries the study.

-

Limitations of the study.

-

Suggestions for further studies.

study.


10
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overview of listening
2.1.1. Definition of listening
Listening is considered as one of the most important skills in acquiring both a
native language and a second or 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 Dakin (1974); Pearson (1983); Hirsch (1986); Scarcella and Oxford
(1992); Bentley and Bacon (1996), Brown (2001), Gary Buck (2001), Scott Shelton
(2008).
Howatt and Dakin (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 and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning.
Wolvin and Coakley (1982) regarded listening as: “the process of receiving,
attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli”.
Pearson (1983) stated “Listening involves the simultaneous organization and
combination of skills in Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, and knowledge of the

text

structure, all of which seem to be controlled by the cognitive process. Thus it can be said
that though not fully realized, the listening skill is essential in acquiring

language

proficiency”.
Hirsch (1986) gave another definition: “Listening as an aspect of skills: involves
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 also has been defined as an active process during which the listener
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 of listening comprehension
which is “the psychomotor process of receiving sound waves through the ear and
transmitting nerve impulses to the brain”. Hence, listening comprises of three elements: the
sender, the message and the listener.
Gary Buck (2001), for example, pointed out that “listening comprehension is an
active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the


11
incoming sound” in which “a number of different types of knowledge are involved: both
linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge”.

Scott Shelton (2008) thought 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.
To sum up, all of the definitions are given with a view to clarify the nature of the
listening skill which is necessary in the process of acquiring a native language or a
foreign one.
2.1.2. The importance of listening skill
Listening is one of the necessary life skills which are defined as “skills 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. We listen everywhere and every time. We listen to
everything and everybody. For instance, at home, we listen to the news, watch films or
talk with others. At school, students listen to the lecturers teaching. At a meeting, the staff
listens to the new plan from the director, etc. Without listening, the man becomes
backward in each minute of their lives. It is obvious that listening is really important
in the real life.
As it is mentioned in the differences between hearing and listening, hearing is a
part of five senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and looking) but listening is a choice
to hear and understand it. 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, p.17), listening is the way of learning the language. “It gives
the learner information from which to build up the knowledge necessary for using the
language. When this knowledge is built up, the learner can begin to speak. The listeningonly period is a time of observation and learning, which provides the basis for the other
language skills” (Nation, 1990, p.12). 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. So

training in listening is really necessary. It helps students make the transition from classroom
English to the real-life English more easily and effectively.


12


13
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, means listening without

a

particular

purpose. When we listen, we do not pay much or even any attention to the information
unless there is 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 the radio or TV while doing some housework or chatting to a friend.
Another type of listening is focused listening. That is when we listen for a
particular 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.
2.2. Difficulties in learning the listening skill
First of all, in phonological aspect, the listeners always get trouble with sounds. They

cannot catch the actual sound of the foreign language since most listeners rely mostly on
context for comprehension. Thus, they are often themselves unaware of inaccurate sound
perception.
Moreover, most learners cannot understand fast, natural native speech. Normally, in
English classrooms, learners usually ask their teacher to speak clearly and slow down. So they
can listen to the words or sound in isolation. However, learners have to listen to fast, natural
native speech in the real life or in listening recording.
Vocabulary is also a big problem for listeners. In a listening text, there are not few new
and strange words which make listeners confused. It is often colloquial such as they use “guy”
for “man”, or “kid” for “child”. Since the leaners always try to listen to and understand every
word. Therefore they get more difficult to understand exactly what is said. It is an
unconscious results in ineffective comprehension as well as feeling of fatigue and failure.
Additionally, English grammar is too complicated for students to realize their meaning
when listening. Especially, beginners usually have poor knowledge of grammar. They cannot
understand all the natural talk with a lot of different structures or modality. Informal speech
also tends to be somewhat ungrammatical such as unfinished clauses or sentences are
common.


14
Finally, the learner’s background knowledge about the world is not heterogeneous,
which causes difficulty in understanding the discourse of the listening text. It is not easy for
the behiners to get it correctly.
2.3. Causes of difficulties in listening
There are eight characteristics of spoken language which makes listening difficult
(Brown, 2001, p.252).
2.3.1.In spoken language, due to memory limitations we break down speech into
smaller groups of words. They are called clustering. For examples: “a lot of”, “a number
of”, etc. Therefore when listening, learners have to learn to pick out manageable clusters of
words, avoiding trying to listen to every word of the speech. It is not necessary and makes

learners become distracted.
2.3.2.Moreover, spoken language has a great number of redundancies. They are the
result of rephrasing, repetitions, elaborations and some insertions such as “As I have
said” and so on. At first, learners may get trouble with this. They are easy to be confused.
However, with some training learners can take advantage of redundancies to have more time
and extra information.
2.3.3.On the other hand, spoken language also has many reduced forms. It may be
phonological, morphological, syntactic or pragmatic like “you’re” instead of “you are”,
“won’t” instead of “will not”, or “can’t” instead of “cannot”. These reductions are
really significant difficulties to the learners, especially beginners when they start getting
to know the full form of English language.
2.3.4.The next characteristic of spoken language is performance variables. As a
result of unplanned action, spoken language consists of a lot of hesitations (“er”, “uhm”),
false starts, pauses and corrections. They make the listeners confused.
2.3.5Colloquial language is another problem that can interfere listeners in real life
listening because they are familiar with standard written language. In monologues and
dialogues, the appearance of idioms, slang, reduced forms and shared cultural language are
common.
2.3.6.In listening, learners need to comprehend language delivered at varying rates of
speed and delivered with few pauses because they do not have opportunity to stop
speaker and listen again many times.
2.3.7.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, praise, etc.


15
2.3.8.The last but not least, interaction is also an element that plays a large role in
listening comprehension. Language learners should be taught the instruction in the two-way
nature of listening. They have to learn to continue the process of comprehending. Some rules

of interaction are negotiation, clarification, attending signals, turn-taking, topic nomination,
maintenance, and termination.
In short, it is necessary for language

learners

to

understand

all

of

these

characteristics of spoken language in order that they get more ease in interaction in general
and in listening in particular.
2.4. Extra linguistic factors
2.4.1. The class atmosphere
Sometimes

inconvenience

of

classrooms

affects

students

listening

comprehension. In the large classrooms students who are sitting on the back rows may not
hear the recording as students sit in front. Students who prefer to stay next to the windows
also effected by the noise that come from outside. The temperature of class can be
counted as a factor that makes listening comprehension difficult. The class that does
not have air conditioner or heater may be too hot in summer or too cold in winter.
2.4.2. Students’ motivation
Students’ motivation is one of the crucial factors that

affect

listening

comprehension. It can be difficult for students maintaining the concentration in a foreign
language learning classroom. In listening comprehension, even the smallest pause in
attention may considerably spoil comprehension. When students find the topic of the
listening text interesting, comprehending would be easier. For all that, students find
listening very boring even if they are interested in the topic because it needs a huge
amount of effort in order not to miss the meaning.
2.4.3. Quality of Recorded Material
In some classes, teachers use some recorded materials that do not have high quality.
The quality of sound system can impact the comprehension of learners’ listening.
2.4.4. Accent
Munro and Derwing (1999) expressed that too many accented speech can lead to an
important reduction in comprehension. According to Goh (1999), 66% of learners mentioned
a speaker’s accent as one of the most significant factors that affect listener comprehension.
Unfamiliar accents both native and non-native can cause serious problems in listening

comprehension and familiarity with an accent helps learners’ listening comprehension.
Buck (2001) indicated that when listeners hear an unfamiliar accent such as Indian
English for the first time after studying only American English will encounter critical


16
difficulties in listening.

This

will

certainly

interrupt

the

whole

listening

comprehension process and at the same time an unfamiliar accent makes comprehension
process and at the same time an unfamiliar accent makes comprehension impossible for the
listeners.
2.4. Summary
In conclusion, this chapter mainly summarizes the theories, ideas, opinions related to
the listening skills. It has presented the relevant literature, which has helped to form the
theoretical can conceptual framework for graduation paper. The following chapter will
display the methodology and findings of the research under the light of all above.

17
CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY

In this chapter, the researcher will give the full analysis of data collected through the
survey questionnaires for students and interview for students. It shows an attempt to answer
the three research questions posed at the beginning of the study.
3.1. The participants
3.1.1. The students
The research was undertaken with the participation of 52 first-year students in Faculty
of English. They aged from 20 to 21. They were in K53N and in the second semester of their
academic year 2017-2018 at Thuongmai University. A large number of them have learnt
English for 7 years ( 4 years at secondary school and 3 years at high school). However, their
English backgrounds were quite similar because most of them come from different rural
areas in the North and under being influence of curriculum of English for high schools
students in the past, students did not have many chances to practice English skills. Thus,
when entering Thuongmai University, their English levels were limited and they have
to face up with many difficulties in studying.
3.1.2. The textbook
The textbook for first-year students of Faculty of English is Get Ready for IELTS
Listening. This is a good book powered by Cobuild. There are 12 units with 12 interesting
topics which will help students improve their English listening comprehension.
3.2. Data collection instruments
3.2.1. The survey questionnaire
The questionnaires are designed for students because the researcher finds them easy to
summarize and analyze the collected data. Questionnaires for students consist of 14 questions
which are specified in the three research questions. Therefore, the survey questionnaires for
students is delivered to 52 major first-year students of K53N at Faculty of English,
Thuongmai University to find information for the three research questions. Among the 14

questions, the first part are designed

for

collecting general information of

students,

questions of part II aim at finding out the students’ attitudes towards rewriting English
sentences; questions from part III mainly seek for the current techniques of learning in
listening English sentences for first - year students of K53 at Faculty of English, Thuongmai
University.
To guarantee the reliability and the validity of the results, the questionnaires for
learners were directly distributed for learners of K53N during their break time in the
class and collected right away. That meant these learners could pay most attention to answer


18
the questions related to what they had just experienced. Before asking the learners to do
the survey questionnaire, the researcher briefly stated the purpose and significance of the
study and clarified any misunderstanding about the survey questions. Beside the written
instructions on the handout, the instructions and explanations in Vietnamese were
presented to avoid any ambiguity. In the end, there were 52 students participating in giving
responses to the survey questionnaires.
3.2.2. The interview
An interview was carried out with 3 students in 2 classes of K53 in Faculty of English at
Thuongmai University. All of them agree to help the researcher helpful and comfortably.
This aimed to collect students’ ideas about the factors affecting the English listening skill
and suggestions to improve them.
After the interview, the researcher based on the interview results to analyze the

data. The interview results were recorded carefully. The interview data

analysis were

presented with the collected data from the questionnaire in each part.
3.2.3. Data collection procedures
The data collection in the study is derived from students who are in the major
fisrt year at Faculty of English. To collect information about the issues of learning English
listening skill of fisrt year English major students at Thuongmai University, first of all,
52 copies of survey questionnaires were handed out to students in FE. In addition, three other
students were also invited for the interview.
When the data collection was accomplished, the data analysis was initiated.
3.3. Data analysis and discussion
3.3.1. Students’ real situations of learning English listening skill
In the part personal information, most of the students come from rural areas. It
means that many of them did not have much chance to practice English skills at high school.
In addition, students recognize that they have learnt English from 7 to over 9 years.
3.3.1.1. The difficulties

The 52 copies of the questionnaire were delivered to the learners. The data were
analyzed in this part of the study in the below tables and charts which show the responses for
the questions in the questionnaires. Besides, the first question the questionnaires brought
a result that according to students’ opinion, listening skill is very difficult.


19

2%
16%

14%

Very difficult
Difficult
Normal
Easy

68%

Chart 1: The students' assessment of learning the listening skill
It can be seen obviously in the chart that the listening skill is a difficult skill to
learn. 68% of the learners suppose

that listening is difficult.

For the students,

listening to English and learning this skill is really a problem. Moreover, the number of
learners who agree that learning the listening skill is very difficult took 16%. It is the
same as the number of the learners who find learning listening normal (14%) or easy
(2%). In fact, as what can be seen by the observation, the learners who confirm that it is
easy to learn the listening skill are the best students. In short, the survey prove the
assumption about the difficulty of listening to English and learning it.
Below is the result when the author asks three students the same question in the
interview.
Question 1: What do you think of the
difficulty of English listening skill?
Very difficult
Difficult
Normal

Numbers (%)
2Ss (67%)
1S (33%)
0S (0%)

Table.1: The interview results of students’ assessment of English listening skill


20
Whether these difficulties can make the students uninterested in it or not? This
matter was clarified by the next chart which showed the learners’ interest in learning the
listening skill at class.
60%
50%
40%
30%
48%

20%

32%
10%

20%
0%

0%
Like very much

Like

Don't mind

Don't like

Chart 2: The students’ interest in learning listening skill
The bar chart shows a surprising result which is very contrary to the author’s subjective
assumption. Normally, the difficulties bore the listeners. However, the survey indicates the
contrast. In spite of the difficulties of learning the listening skill, 20% of the learners still
like this skill very much and 48% of them like it. Listening is not as boring as many
people thought. As it can be seen, in the English class, learning listening is
interesting. No one dislikes it. Only 32% of the learners do not mind learning this skill.
For them, learning listening might be neither interesting nor boring or it depends on
each lesson. In conclusion, listening English is a favorite subject of the students and
it is difficult for students.
3.3.1.2. The importance of listening skill

To research more clearly the opinion of teachers and students at Faculty of English,
Thuongmai University, the second question in the questionnaire was designed to find out their
assessment on the importance of listening.


21

Students

16%

Very

important

4% 0%

Important
80%

Quite
important
Not
important

Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards the importance of English listening skill
It can be seen clearly from chart 2,most of the students agree that learning listening
skill is very important as well as very important is 80%. Meanwhile, there are only
4% of them reckon that it is quite important. This chart shows that most of the students at
Faculty of English, Thuongmai University claim that English listening skill has an
important role in learning English with a lot of fields in life.
According to the interview, all of the students thought that English listening skill was
very important. One student shared : “I think that English listening skill 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. We listen everywhere and every time. We listen to
everything and everybody. For instance, at home, we listen to the news, watch films or talk
with others. At school, students listen to the lecturers teaching. At a meeting, the staff listens
to the new plan from the director, etc. It is obvious that listening is really important in the real
life”.
In conclusion, listening skill is one of the most necessary skills to communicate in the real
life. With a foreign language, it is more and more important to learn this skill.
3.3.1.3. The problems in listening skill

To have more details about the students’ real situation in learning English listening
skill, the seventh question of the questionnaire is designed. The result is shown on the chart
below.


22
90%

83%

80%
70%
60%
50%
40%

49%
Students
31%

30%

Teacherss

17%

20%
10%

18%

0%

0%
Always

Often

Sometimes

2% 0%
Rarely

Chart 4: The frequency of students having problems in learning English listening skill
Statistics provide in Chart 4 shows the frequency of students’ having problem when
learning listening skill. According to the collected data, 49% students who are very
often and 31% of them always have trouble when listening; in addition, 18% sometimes
make this and just 2% rarely. While only have 31% think that they always have
problem, there are 83% teachers think that theirs students who always have problems in
listening. And, 17% of them say that students often have trouble in listening.
The problems are:
-

Not recognizing English sounds

-

Lack of focus when listening

-

Difficult to grasp the main idea of listening

-

Not keep up the speed of the speaker

-

Limit vocabulary to use in everyday life

-

Not enough vocabulary and sentence structure

3.3.1.4. The kinds of listening text which students expect to practice more

Question 8 of questionnaire for students mentioned the kinds of listening text which
students expect to practice more. The collected data has shown in the below chart:


23
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%

20%
10%
0%

14%

10%

34%

46%

6%

18%

34%
24%
30%
38%

26%
16%

14%

Songs

Films or stories

66%
20%
4%
News, speeches or Dialogues:
lectures
conversations, interviews

Most favoriteFavouriteNormal

Uninterested

Chart 5: Students’ interest in extra listening activities
As it can be seen from the above bar chart, most of the students like listening to
the dialogues. Listening to the dialogues are the most favorite activities of 66% of the
students. Only 6% of them are not interested in this kind. In contrast to the dialogues,
listening to

the news, speeches or lectures bored the

most

students (46%). As a

consequence, 4% of them find interested in these kinds of monologue. Besides, listening
to the songs seems interesting. But, it is surprising when only 16% of the learners love them.
Moreover, one third of them (34%) are not excited about the songs. Watching films or
listening to the stories is accepted because 38% of them suppose those are their favorite
activities and 14% affirm those are their most favorite activities. Additionally, 34% of
them think those activities normal. In conclusion, most of the students like listening to the
dialogues, conversations and interview.

3.3.2. Causes affecting English listening skill
3.3.2.1. Students’ difficulties in learning English listening skill

To find the techniques to

improve listening skill for first-year English major

students at Thuongmai University , the author wants to find out the reasons which make
students difficult to learn English listening. The sixth question in the questionnaires is
designed for researching this. Below is the chart of the difficulties in students’ listening.


24
Chart 6: Students’ difficulties in listening
3%
9%
28%

22%

Poor- quality CDs and CD
players
Unfamiliar content of
listening text
Limited practice time

Fast speaking speed
40%

Other factors

The chart shows that the poor quality of CDs and CD players was not a big problem.
Only 3% of the learners think it made them difficult to listen. There were 14 of 52
students (28%) chose the factor unfamiliar content of the listening text . The most number of
the students (40%) found that the main reason for the difficulties in listening was the limited
time of practicing at class. Besides, 22% of learners think that the speaking speed was very
fast. Except those factors, 9% of the learners also pointed some other factors affecting
their listening. They included teaching methods, their background knowledge, pronunciation
practice.
3.3.2.2. The factors have influence on the interested in English listening skill

To find out the factors have influence on the interested in English listening
skill, question 7 of the questionnaire is mention about it. The researcher give 4 factors
that influence in this skill, students and teachers give their opinion.

Chart 7: Factors motivating students’ learning the listening skill
It is easy to see from the above chart that the most influential factor to the students’
motivation was good teaching methods. 48% of the students affirmed that. 24% of them
think they were influential. So teaching method was the first element that all the
teachers should notice in teaching any skills, not only for the listening skill. The next
factor that many students found interested in listening activities. 30% of the learners
defined exciting activities motivate them a lot to learn better. Furthermore, 42% suppose
that they were influential. A small number (6%) of the students thought activities did


25
not affect. In the meanwhile, 10% of the students rank interesting listening topics the
most influential factor, and 26% agree they were influential. However, 32% insist that
topics had a bit influence. Also, 28% said the topics had no effects their listening. The
least influential factor of four was the equipment. Adequate and modern equipment were

assessed that it did not have any effect on the learners’ learning the listening skill by
56% of the learners.
The following question (question 11 for students) show the subjective factors that
are the deep reasons which cause the learners difficult in learning the listening skill.

45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

40%

35%
21%
4%

Listen toOnly listen toNeed to listenFeel tired and
every word so canstressed wordsmore than threeunconcentrated not catch up thetimes towhen listening
speed of theunderstandmore than three
speechtimes

Chart 8: The subjective factors affecting the students’ learning listening skill
The above bar chart has shown the ways that the listeners often do when they are
learning the listening skill. As it can be shown in the chart, the number of the learners who

usually try to listen to every word so they cannot catch up with the speed of the speech
take 40%. However, 21% of the learners know to listen to the stressed words. It is not easy
for them to realize the stressed words in the utterance. Most students need to listen to once
listening item twice or three times. 35% of them have to listen more than three times to
get the understanding. In the contrast, when listening more than three times, 4% of the
students find tired and they cannot concentrate on the listening. In conclusion, there are
many factors affecting the students’ learning listening skill and students need to find out the
method to repair.
3.3.3. Activities for improving English listening skill
3.3.3.1. The activities students like most in listening English classes