Difficulties in teaching and learning English listening skills in English experienced by teachers and 10th grade students at Duong Tu Minh High School in Thai Nguyen, and some suggested solutions

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

DƯƠNG THỊ LAN

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH
LISTENING SKILLS EXPERIENCED BY TEACHERS AND 10 th
GRADE STUDENTS AT DƯƠNG TỰ MINH HIGH SCHOOL IN THAI
NGUYEN, AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG
NGHE TIẾNG ANH CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT
DƯƠNG TỰ MINH THÁI NGUYÊN, VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP GỢI Ý

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English teaching methodology
Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Phạm Thị Thanh Thủy, MA.

Ha Noi - 2012


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION .................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FINGURES AND TABLES .................................................................................. vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1
1.1. Background ................................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study ................................................................................ 2
1.3. Scope of the study ....................................................................................................... 2
1.5. Methods of the study .....................................................................................................
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 4
2.1. The definition of listening and the nature of listening comprehension .......................... 4
2.1.1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension .............................................. 4
2.1.2. The nature of listening comprehension .................................................................. 5
2.2. Process of teaching listening ........................................................................................ 7
2.2.1. Process of listening ............................................................................................... 7
2.2.2.Stages of teaching listening skills
2.3. The importance of listening in teaching and learning a foreign language...................... 9
2.4. Listening difficulties for foreign language learners .................................................... 10
2.4.1. Listening problems ............................................................................................. 10
2.4.2. Language Problems ............................................................................................ 11
Summary.......................................................................................................................... 12
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY..................................................................................... 13
3.1. Research setting ........................................................................................................ 13
3.2. Participants of the research ........................................................................................ 13
3.2.1. Teachers ............................................................................................................. 13
3.2.2. Students .............................................................................................................. 13
3.3. Data collection instruments ....................................................................................... 14
3.4. Data collection procedures......................................................................................... 15
3.5. Data analysis procedures ........................................................................................... 15
Summary.......................................................................................................................... 15

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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................. 16
4.1. Questionnaires ........................................................................................................... 16
4.1.1. Teachers and students’ attitudes to teaching and learning listening...................... 16
4.1.2. Listening difficulties experienced by students ..................................................... 18
4.1.3. Listening difficulties experienced by teachers ..................................................... 23
4.2. Class observation ....................................................................................................... 32
4.3. Discussions of the findings ......................................................................................... 33
4.4. Implications ............................................................................................................... 37
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.1. Summary of the findings ........................................................................................... 39
5.2. Limitations of the study ............................................................................................. 40
5.3. Suggestions for further research................................................................................. 40
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 42


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT
DTM HS
ESL
L2
ULIS

:
:
:
:

:

Communicative Language Teaching
Dương Tự Minh High School
English as Second Language
Second Language
University Languages and International Studies

Ts
Ss

:
:

Teachers
Students


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LIST OF FIGURES ANDTABLES
Figure 1 The listening process ............................................................................................... 7
Table 1: Teachers’ opinion about the importance of listening ............................................... 16
Table 2: Teachers’ opinions about students’ interest (and motivation) in learning
listening skill and lesson ......................................................................................... 16
Table 3: Students motivation of learning listening ................................................................ 17
Table 4: Students’ difficulties in general .............................................................................. 18
Table 5 Factors affecting students’ participation and interests in listening lessons ................ 19
Table 6 Classroom conditions .............................................................................................. 19
Table 7: The use of teaching aids ......................................................................................... 20

Table 8: Teacher’s roles ....................................................................................................... 20
Table 9: Listening activities in the classroom ....................................................................... 21
Table 10: Students’ opinion about the textbook .................................................................... 22
Table 11: Expectations of the students towards teachers of listening skill ............................. 23
Table 12: The number of the teachers who participated in the listening course ..................... 24
Table 13: Factors have influence in students’ participation and interests in the
listening lesson ....................................................................................................... 24
Table 14: Teachers’ employment of teaching aids ................................................................ 25
Table 15: Activities in listening lessons................................................................................ 26
Table 16: Activities in Pre-listening stage ............................................................................ 27
Table 17: Techniques used in While-listening stage ............................................................. 28
Table 18 Activities in Post-listening stage ............................................................................ 29
Table 19: Adaptation of the new textbook ............................................................................ 30
Table 20: Teachers’ effort to have effective listening lessons ............................................... 30
Table 21: Teachers’ need in having effective listening lesson ............................................... 31


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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
English has been remarked with many changes, notably changes in the movement
towards the teaching of English since it has become an international medium of
communication in such fields as commerce, industry, science, and technology. Thus teaching
and learning English in Vietnam is not excluded from the international trend due to the fact
that Vietnam has recently adopted an open- door policy, which encourages broadening and
improving relationship and cooperation with other countries in many aspects of life such as
diplomatic, economic, cultural, scientific and technological areas. Consequently, English is
taught not only as a major at many big universities in Vietnam such as Vietnam National
University, Ho Chi Minh University, Vinh University, but also as a compulsory subject at

various schools.
It is widely assumed that listening plays a very important role in everyday
conversation as well as learning a foreign language. First, in real life, people wish to join in
communication to exchange their information, experience, feelings and so forth. However,
communication is not considered to be successful unless what is said or referred to is
comprehended by another person. And there will be “communication breakdown” if the
listener cannot understand the information given by the speaker. It means that communication
not only requires our abilities to produce the language but also a thorough understanding of
what is directed to us. Second, in learning a foreign language, listening is in close relationship
with other skills. Therefore, having a good command of listening skill helps to achieve good
performance of the others.
At my high school, teaching and learning listening is a really new challenging job. In
addition to the lack of well- equipped facilities, teaching listening methods are quite new and
unfamiliar to teachers. Since the new English textbook was in use, they have been
inexperienced in teaching listening methods and approaches. Another problem is students’
low levels of proficiency in term of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, skills and so forth. It
is the reason why students find it difficult and tough to listen to and they are not confident
enough to do listening tasks successfully.
In literature so far, there have been not many studies on the difficulties in teaching and
learning a foreign language in general, listening in particular, at a high school in Vietnam.
Moreover, not many researchers study listening difficulties experienced by high school teachers
and students in using the new “ Tieng Anh 10 ” textbook. Therefore, the author of this research
found an urgent need of taking a serious look at such issue.


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1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study
The main purpose of the study was to probe difficulties in teaching and learning
listening among the teaching staff and the 10 th form students at Duong Tu Minh uppersecondary school, in Thai Nguyen Province. With this purpose the three following central

questions were investigated:
1. What are the difficulties experienced by the teachers and the 10 th form students
when teaching and learning listening skill in the new textbook “ Tieng Anh 10 ” ?
2. What are some factors affecting the success of the listening process as perceived
by DTM HS teachers and students DTM HS?
3. What are some effective ways to improve DTM HS students’ learning and
teachers’ teaching methods of listening skills?
1.3. Scope of the study
This study points out difficulties in listening that teachers and 10 th form students at
Duong Tu Minh High School face. The study focuses on describing the problems the teachers
and students meet, and the factors causing such challenges, for instance, facilities, students’
English listening proficiency, and teachers’ methods. Due to the limited time, the investigator
could not implement the research for a longer time and study on a larger population. The
sample population is only 6 teachers out of 15 and 120 freshmen from three classes of the
same English proficiency level.
1.4. Design of the study
The study is divided into five chapters which are summarized as follows:
The first chapter is the introduction of the rationale for the study, the aims, and the
methods, scope of the study as well as the design of the study. The second chapter is the
literature review discussing the theoretical background, which is relevant to the purposes of
the study. The third chapter shows the procedure of carrying out the research such as the
participants, data collection instruments and methods of data analysis. The fourth chapter
reports and discusses the finding obtained from the data. Some suggested solutions are also
provided to help students overcome their difficulties in learning listening skill. The fifth
chapter summaries the whole study, followed by references and appendices.
1.5. Methods of the study
The research is done by both quantitative and qualitative methods; it is carried out on
the basis of situation analysis, material collection, survey questionnaires, class observations.

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In the first place, situation analysis has a look at the background to the study including
the description of the current context at Duong Tu Minh High School and listening skill in the
new textbook “Tieng Anh 10”. Secondly, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials
on listening teaching methods and problems have been gathered, analyzed and synthesized
thoroughly with the due consideration for teacher’s teaching and students’ learning situations.
Eventually, for the practical basis, questionnaires, class observations were carried out
with the teachers and students to gather the most reliable data for analysis to find answers to
the research questions mentioned above.


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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the researcher would like to provide a theoretical background to the
study to know more and deeply about Listening Comprehension Teaching. It consists of four
sections. The first section examines different views on the definition of listening. The second
section presents the stages of teaching listening. The third section is about the importance of
listening comprehension. The finally section is designed to look at the listening difficulties for
foreign language learners.
2.1. The definition of listening and the nature of listening comprehension
2.1.1. Definition of listening and listening comprehension
a. Definition of listening
It is believed that listening is a significant and an essential area of development in a
native language and in a second language; therefore, there are different points of view on the
definition of listening, which present different views of scholars towards the concept.
Listening, as Underwood (1989:1) defines: “is the activity of paying attention to and
trying to get meaning from something we hear.” The author also emphasizes: “To listen

successfully to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when
they use particular words in particular ways on particular occasions, not simple to understand
the words themselves” (Underwood, 1989:1)
As Celce-Murcia (1991:88) puts it, “Listening can be defined broadly as everything
that impinges on the human processing which meditates between sound and the construction
of meaning”.
b. Definition of listening comprehension
There have been a large number of definitions for listening comprehension made by
methodologists.
Gary Buck (2001:31) points out that “ Listening comprehension is an active
process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming
sound” in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic
knowledge and non - linguistic knowledge”. To put it in another way, Gary Buck
(2001:31) concludes “comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that


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potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect the
comprehension of the message”.
While Brown and Yule (1983) list the four degrees of comprehension on which
listening exercises can be constructed: (1) The listener can repeat the text; (2) The students
should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used
in that text; (3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric reference and to determine
which was referred to; and (4) The student should be able to work out not only what is
directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied.
On the other hand, Wolvin and Coakley (1985) state listening “the process of
receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli”. This definition suggests that
listening is a complex, problem- solving skill. The task of listening is more than perception of
sound; although perception is the foundation, it also requires comprehension of meaning. This

view of listening is in accordance with second-language 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; Byrnes, 1984; Richards, 1985; Howard, 1983).
Therefore, the concept of listening and listening comprehension can be broadly
defined as everything that improves on the human processing which mediates between
sounds and the construction of meaning. When listeners are expected to attend to what
they hear to process it, to comprehend, to interpret, to evaluate and to respond to the
incoming data. In order to do all these things, they have to get involved in the process and
become active listeners.
2.1.2. The nature of listening comprehension
Traditionally, listening used to be considered as a passive language skill alongside
with reading skill. Students, were expected to listen word by word, trying to draw the
meaning from the individual syntactic and semantic components of the utterances or
discourse. Therefore, other important factors such as the context, the speaker’s intention,
intonation, stress, etc. were totally ignored. This point of view also resulted in the teacher’s
methods. The teacher often conducted the lesson as a listening comprehension “test” rather
than teaching it. Students were asked to remember the total utterance they had just heard.
Recently, listening process has been thought of as an “active process”. The modern view
points out that to become a successful listener, the listener must employ a combination a
several complicated processes at the same time.


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Gillian Brown (1997:150) describes the two kinds of processes involving in listening
comprehension as “bottom up” and “top down” processing.
2.1.2.1. Bottom-up processing
“Bottom-up” processing refers to the use of incoming data a source of information
about the meaning of the message. This process focuses learners on the individual elements

and building blocks of the language. At this level, students try to discriminate between
individual sounds, particularly minimal contrasts, and identify different stress rhythm and
intonation. During this process, students simply move from sound to word to sentence to text.
This process provides learners with a good chance of being able to recognize what most of the
words intended by the speaker are, how they are grouped into phrases, how they are structured
into large clauses (or sentences) and how these relate to each other, together with any marked
attitude which the speaker reveals while speaking.
2.1.2.2. Top-down processing
“Top-down” processing, on the other hand, refers to the use of background
knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message. More simply, at this process, even if
the listener can not hear whatever the other person says, he still has a good ideal of the sort of
thing that will be said, which is constructed partly from the phonetic cues that he has heard,
and partly from his own experience. First, he knows that different types of people are likely to
say different things and speak in different ways. Second, he expects different kinds of
language to occur in different situations (formal or informal language; specialised or everyday
language). Third, he also knows that the choice of words is also much influenced by the
relationship between two partners (close or distant relationship, equal or superior one). From
lifelong experience, advanced learners can put what they hear in context to guess what is
likely to be said by the speaker. This ability allows them to reduce the input in their mind,
thus leaving time for decoding difficult chunks or information and remembering main ideals
of the listening text.
In fact, fluent listening depends on the combination of both “bottom-up” and “topdown”, processing. The lack of either process will certainly lead to failure in comprehending
the text. Both processes have important role in decoding the meaning of the discourse.
Therefore, the listener should know how to combine the two processes effectively by actively
contributing knowledge from both linguistic factors and non-linguistic factors to understand
the course comprehensively.


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In conclusion, listening requires active participation from the listener. In order to
become a good listener, he must use knowledge from both linguistic and non-linguistic
sources. That is active nature of listening comprehension.
2.2. Process of teaching listening
2.2.1. Process of listening
Listening is a complex process- an integral part of the total communication process.
(John A Kline, 1996). This neglect results largely from two factors. The sending parts of the
communication process: speaking and writing which are highly visible, and then receiving
parts: listening and speaking. The process of listening is the process of receiving, attending
and understanding auditory message. The steps of listening are diagrammed as shown in
figure 1.

Figure 1 The listening Process
(Adapted from John A Kline, 1996)
As can be seen from the figure, the process moves through such as steps - receiving,
attending, and understanding - in sequence. Responding and remembering may or may not
follow. These steps will be described thoroughly in the following analysis which compares
the Listening process with the electronic mail system in which the listener is the person
receiving the message.
Step1: Receiving
In this step, the sender wants to send an e-mail to somebody. She/he has used effective
ways to organize and support his message which must be well composed and clear. In short,
the sender has done a good job. However, this message will not get to the receiver if he/she


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does not turn on the computer. Similarly, in Listening process when the listener misses the
chance to listen to the message, he will fail to catch it. In both cases, receivers simply are not
connected or “turned in” to the senders.

Step 2: Attending
Let’s continue with the email analogy. Suppose the receiver turns on the computer,
which shows the message that the sender sent, but he is too busy to read the email. As the
result, then receiver can not receive the message. Similarly, human listening is often
ineffective - or does not occur - for the same reasons, receiving occurs, but attending does not.
(John A.Kline, 1996)
Step 3: Understanding
Communication is believed to begin with understanding (Wolvin and Coakly, 1985).
In communication, a message may have been sent and received and the receiver may
have attended to the message, yet the communication is not effective because there is no
understanding between the sender and the receiver of the message. Actually, effective
communication depends on understanding.
Let’s return to the email analogy. Suppose the receiver got the email message, opened
it and read it. The receiver may not have understood what the sender meant even though the
receiver read every word of the message. There are several possible reasons for the
misunderstanding. Perhaps the information from the massage was not explicit. Or maybe, the
real point of the message was obscured by other tidbits information and the receiver missed
the point. In listening, the key point is sometimes missed.
Step 4: Responding
The listening process may ends with understanding but a response may be needed or at
least helpful. There are different types of response:
 Direct verbal response
 Response that seeks clarification
 Response that paraphrases
 Nonverbal response (John A Kline, 1996, p23)
Responding lets the sender know that the message was received, attended to and understood.
Step 5: Remembering


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Memory is often a necessary and integral part of the listening process. If you can not
remember, you were not listening. To help students learn to listen effectively, teachers need
understand both the process of teaching and three stages of teaching will be presented in the
next section.
2.2.2. Stages of teaching listening skills
Underwood (1989) describes listening activities in terms of three phrases: pre, while and
post listening activities. This three-stage listening lesson model is usually used by many
teachers as it is very useful in teaching listening. Procedure of a listening lesson consists of
three stages: Pre-listening, While- listening and Post- listening. Each part is really a
constituent part on a continuum. Pre-listening is a preparatory stage. While- listening stage is to
complete the main listening task. Post-listening stage serves as the further development part.
Pre- listening stage prepares students by getting them to think about the topic or
situation before they listen to the texts. In other words, it gives students a purpose to listen. It
also gets students to relate to what they already know about the topic and arouse their interests
in listening as well.
The importance of pre - listening is shown in Penny’s idea (Penny Ur, 1992, p4): “It
would seem a good idea when presetting a listening passage in class to give the students some
information about the content, situation, and speakers before they actually start listening”.
While- listening stage gives students a guide or framework to practice listening. In
other words, it helps students to listen better, more accurately, thoroughly through carefully
designed comprehension tasks. When we listen to something in our everyday life, we do so
for a reason. Students, too, need a reason to listen that will focus their attention. Ideally, the
listening tasks that are designed should guide them through the text. It is a must that teachers
provide useful techniques to facilitate students’ comprehension.
Post- listening stage is like the follow- up stage. After students have practiced the target
skill in the while-listening stage, they do an extension. This helps them take the information or
whatever they have produced in the previous stage, and do other meaningful activities.
2.3. The importance of listening in teaching and learning a foreign language
One of the most difficult aspects of teaching and learning English as a foreign language is

the teaching and learning listening. The importance of listening comprehension must be taken into
consideration for anyone who wants to learn English with great success. A lack of listening
comprehension skill causes a lot of trouble in discussion and communication.


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The importance role of listening comprehension in second and foreign language learning
is summarized in a recent publication by Rost, (1994:141) as follows: “Listening is vital in the
language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understandable input at
the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.” So listening comprehension is very necessary
when you study any language. If students do not learn to listen effectively, they will not be able
to take part in oral communication because according to Mary Underwood (1989:4), “Merely to
hear what a speaker says is insufficient for communication to occur”. In fact, when nobody
listens to a speaker or when a listener fails to understand the message, it means that
communication has broken down. By listening, we do not mean that students only learn to hear
it, but as Mary Underwood (1989:4) says, “We mean our students to attend to what they hear, to
process it, to interpret it, to evaluate it and to respond to it.” Therefore, to succeed in
communication, participants need to be active in listening. Listening is an important way of
acquiring the language, a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures. Teaching listening
to spoken language is therefore of primary importance.
2.4. Listening difficulties for foreign language learners
Listening knowledge of a foreign language is often important to academics studies,
professional success, and personal development. Listening in a language that is not the
learner’s first language, nevertheless, is a source of considerable difficulties for L2 learners.
Some authors (Underwood, 1989; Thompson and Rubin, 1996; Goh, 2000) indicate that
problems or language problems, depending on the listeners’ learning abilities and skills.
2.4.1. Listening problems
It can be seen that L2 learners at the elementary level have to deal with a great deal of
difficulties in listening comprehension as listening in somehow is a receptive skill. However,

the listening process is often described from an information processing perspective as “ an
active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and
visual clues in order to define what the speakers are trying to express” (Thomson& Rubin
,1996,p.331). Considering various aspects of listening comprehension, Underwood (1989)
organizes the major listening problems as follows: (1) lack of control over the speed at which
speakers speak; (2) not being able to get things repeat; (3) the listener’s limited vocabulary; (4)
failure to recognize the “signals”; (5) problems of interpretation; (6) inability to concentrate;
(7) and established learning habits.
Underwood (1989) sees these problems as being related to learners’ different
backgrounds, such as their culture and education. She points out that students whose culture


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and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally
“better” at listening comprehension than those from a reading and book-based cultural and
educational background. Moreover, learners whose native language possesses the stress and
intonation features similar to those of English are likely to have less trouble than the learners
whose L1 is based on different rhythms and tones. Under these assumptions, the learners in
the present study, of Vietnamese background that is characterized by the language of different
tones, appear to operate under the least-optimal English language learning circumstances, and
therefore face a great deal of difficulty in listening comprehension.
Goh (2000) investigated listening comprehension problems in students in college EFL
studies. First, in the perception stage, learners reported most difficulties as: “do not recognize
words they know,” “neglect the next part when thinking about meaning,” “cannot chunk
streams of speech,” “miss the beginning of texts,” and “concentrate too hard or unable to
concentrate.” (Goh, 2000). Second, in the parsing stage, Goh (2000) finds that listeners
complained of problems such as “quickly forget what is heard,” “unable to form a mental
representation from words heard,” and “do not understand subsequent parts of input because
of earlier problems.” Third, in the utilization stage, “understand the words but not the

intended message” and “confused about the key ideas in the message” are often mentioned.
These reported difficulties partially reflect Underwood’s (1989) views on L2/FL listening
problems. However, as learners attempt to incorporate certain strategies into the listening
process, they are likely to face different challenges or problems. Investigation of Hasan
(1993), Yagang (1994) attribute the difficulties of listening comprehension to four sources:
the messages, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting. Higgin (1995) studied Omani
students’ problems in listening comprehension and found that the factors which facilitate or
hinder listening are speech rate, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Flowerdew and Miller (1996)
investigated learners’ strategies and difficulties in listening to academic lectures.
2.4.2. Language Problems
Mastering a foreign language is not an easy task, and L2 listening acquisition is much
more challenging to L2 learners compared with other language skills, especially freshmen.
Anne Anderson and Tony Lynch (1988,p.37) argue that the L2 learners will still face
problems in listening comprehension created by primarily linguistic knowledge though
language system may not always be the principal cause of comprehension difficulty. They
explain that one seemingly obvious way in which input can be more or less complex is in
terms of its syntactic structure for ESL learners. It is understandable as learners adopt a target


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language that possesses certain characteristics far different from their native one in terms of
grammatical structures, lexicon, vocabulary and its mechanism meanwhile listening is most
closely related to mechanics which refer to basic sounds of letters and syllables, pronunciation
of words, intonation and stress. Thus, if a beginner student cannot understand how words are
segmented into various sounds, and how sentences are stressed in particular ways to convey
meaning, then he will find it hard to understand the meaning of the message. According to
Scarcella and Oxford (1992) listeners comprehend spoken messages either through isolated
word recognition within the sound stream, phrase or formula recognition, clause or sentence,
and extended speech comprehension. That means ESL students operate simultaneously in one

or two of these areas depending on many factors, one of which is proficiency levels of
comprehension. They catch, if hardly at all, particularly the low beginners, isolated words and
can hardly put together the meaning of words put together. On the second level of
comprehension, the student can recognize whole phrases and simple routine expressions.
They can hardly operate on the third level, understanding clause or sentences, much more so
on the fourth, understanding discourse.
Summary
Chapter two has, in general, provided an overview of the relevant literature in the field
of the study. This chapter has discussed different views of listening and listening
comprehension, on which the author based to work out the definition of listening. The chapter
has again made it clear that listening is vital, and more importantly, it has listed different
linguistic and non- linguistic factors that make listening a challenge.


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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
This chapter aims to define the methodology of the study including research setting,
research participants, research instruments, data collection and data analysis procedure.
3.1. Research setting
This study attempts to investigate the difficulties encountered by the 10 th form
students and the teachers as well as their needs in learning and teaching listening. It first starts
with an understanding about the school, then some information about the students and their
learning requirements are addressed. To achieve the aims mentioned above, two survey
questionnaires are conducted to collect data for the study. The first one is survey
questionnaire for students at DTM HS which was designed to collect information on students’
needs and difficulties in learning listening. The second one is designed for the teachers at
DTM HS in which they need, the difficulties of the teachers are presented. Then, some
suggestions to make listening lessons in the textbook less difficult are discussed.
3.2. Participants of the research

3.2.1. Teachers
Six teachers who are teaching at the school were invited to join the study. Their
ages range from 28 to 39 years old. They also are highly appreciated by other teachers of
the high school and undertake important positions at this school: one is the vice-principle
and the other is the head of English Group. All the teachers at Duong Tu Minh High
School are experienced and enthusiastic in teaching. They are willing to help their
students overcome the difficulties in learning English. The six teachers agreed to let the
researcher observe their classes. They also took part in the survey for teachers to find out
their problems and solutions in teaching listening.
3.2.2. Students
Having taught English at DTM HS for 9 years, the writer of this study recognizes that
the majority of 10th form students are aged fifteen to sixteen from Thai Nguyen. Most of them
have learned English at junior high schools for four years. But this is usually the general
knowledge of grammar and an active vocabulary which the students can use mostly in written
form. But they have to deal with a lot of difficulties in learning how to listen to English.
Because of these difficulties the majority of the students feel bored with listening lessons.
Moreover they are not aware of the importance of learning how to listen in a foreign language
in general and English in particular as they simply know that they do not have to do the
listening tests.


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There were 120 male and female students in different classes: 10A3, 10A4, 10A7They
were randomly selected to participate in both observations and questionnaires.
3.3. Data collection instrument
This study employed both the quantitative and qualitative methods which helped to
provide qualified background data for discovering non-English majors’ motivation to learn
English. In order to obtain in-depth and rich data, the study used a variety of research
instruments and sources of data: questionnaires observation.

To again data for the study, two survey questionnaires were administered to the
subjects. One was designed for students and the other for the teachers. Some open-ended
questions were provided so that the respondents had opportunities to share their opinions
about items raised in the questionnaires.
The first questionnaire, consisting of 12 questions (see Appendix 2), was delivered to
120 selected students. It aimed to elicit the students’ opinion about difficulties in learning
listening skills with the focus of their background knowledge, experience, attitudes, interests,
and expectations in learning English and teachers’ teaching methods. Questions 1, 2, and 3
aim at exploring the students’ attitudes to listening learning. The next 8 questions (from
question 4 to question 11) were designed to find out the students’ listening difficulties
experienced by students. The final question (question 12) is designed for the students’ need in
learning listening.
The second questionnaire of 17 questions (see Appendix 1) was delivered to the
teachers. It aimed to draw their perspectives on unsolved problems in teaching listening skills
in the new textbook. Question 3, 4, 5 are about the main problems in listening lesson. By
answering the question 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13, teachers can express their methods and strategies
of listening teaching in the classroom. Question 14 is about the adaptation of the new
textbook. Question 15, 16, 17 were designed for the suggestions in teaching listening.
In addition to survey questionnaires and class observation was also applied to clarify
and test the validity of information about actual teaching and learning listening context; the
challenges in presenting and acquiring English knowledge and skills and communicative
activities in listening lessons. The observations were carried out in four listening lessons in
different classes: 10A3, 10A4, 10A7 at Duong Tu Minh High School.
3.4. Data collection procedures
I conducted my study within 8 weeks at the end of the second term in the class 10A3,
10A4, and 10A7 at Duong Tu Minh High School, Thai Nguyen province where I have been
teaching for more than nine years. Firstly, I designed the survey questionnaires and collected


15

all ideas from 128 selected students and 6 teachers in my teaching staff. In fact, only 120
students and 6 teachers supported their feedback when I collected the data. Finally, class
observations were employed to reflex the current context at Duong Tu Minh High School.
The data were tape- recorded and transcribed.
3.5. Data analysis procedures
The data of questionnaires which were used to assess students’ behaviors or reactions
towards each method and the notes from the observation sheet.
The result of the questionnaire was transcribed into charts and tables, and then there
were a detailed explanation of the data.
The data from observation, then, together with the results from the questionnaire and
the interview helped to detect the effectiveness CTL in teaching and learning listening skills
at “Tieng Anh 10” at Duong Tu Minh High School.
Summary
In short, this chapter has identified the characteristics of the research settings, the
participants as well as the research methods, data collection procedure and data analysis
procedure.


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CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter discusses the difficulties in listening learning, the attitudes of DTM HS
teachers and students in teaching and learning listening skill. It also analyses the causes of
difficulties in learning this skill and shows the results of the researcher’s class observation. At
last, the chapter gives implication in order to enhance the quality and effectiveness in learning
listening skill for students.
4.1. Questionnaires
4.1.1. Teachers and students’ attitudes to teaching and learning listening
The very beginning part of the questionnaire focused on finding all the information

about DTM HS teachers and students’ viewpoints in listening skill and its importance
compared to other skills.
Question 1: How important is listening skill in the new Tieng Anh 10 textbook in
comparison with other skills?
More important Equally important
76%

Less important
24%

Don’t know

Not necessary

Table 1: Teachers’ opinion about the importance of listening
76% of the respondents thought that listening and other communicative language skills
were equally important, whereas the other 24% agreed that listening is less important in
school curriculum. They explained in their interview that there is no official evaluation or
examination on listening, so most of them did not take so much effort to facilitate their
listening lessons as reading, writing or grammar ones.
Question 2: How do your students like listening lessons and learning listening
skills?
1. Strongly agree

2. Agree

3.Disagree

5. I don’t know

4. Strongly disagree

Teacher’ opinions

1

They like listening and doing the tasks in textbook
They like listening to songs, play games or free
activities without doing tasks
They are afraid of listening because they don’t know
how and what to do with listening tasks
They hate listening because it is too difficult
They are interested in listening lessons/ skills because
they want to listen to news, songs, etc. on their own.

2

3

4

78%

11%

11%

33%

56%

22%

67%

11%

22%

22%

56%

67%

22%

5

11%

11%

Table 2: Teachers’ opinions about students’ interest (and motivation) in learning listening
skill and lesson


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As seen from the table, the teachers had good understanding about their students.

Throughout all the listed items, from 67% to 78% teachers agreed that the students were
interested in doing tasks in the textbook and listening for entertainment. 89 % of the teachers
also claimed that students were afraid of listening because they didn’t know how and what to
do with listening tasks. However, fewer teachers (44 %) agreed that their students hated
listening because it is too difficult compared to 56% of them who had the opposite idea that
the students like listening due to its easy tasks.
Some researches were conducted from educational system to show that the students
were found to possess the kinds of motivation which are instrumental and integrative.
Motivation strengthens the ambition, increases initiative and gives direction, courage, energy
and the persistence to follow one's goals. A motivated person takes action and does whatever
it needs to achieve his/her goals. In theory, integrative motivation is considered a key
component in assisting language students to develop proficiency in a second language when
they become residents in a community where the target language is used in social interactions.
In contrast, with instrumental motivation, the reasons motivated study a language because it
opens up educational and economic opportunities for them.
Purposes

%

Getting good marks

49

A compulsory subject

30

Job opportunities

100

Table 3: Students’ motivation of learning listening
Obviously, the table above shows that the highest percentage refers to the most
important reason which is to get good job in the future (100%). However, the number of the
students who possess instrumental motivation was smaller than the number of those who have
integrative one in total. In details, the number of students who had purpose of getting good
marks in examination accounts for 49%, a compulsory subject 30% and job opportunities in
the future 100%. From the Table 2 improving listening ability to understand and communicate
in real situations and listening for entertainment account for 62%, 76%, and 65% respectively.
This part gives us some information about the attitudes of both teachers and students
with the listening task. In the next part, readers can get much more insight into the difficulties
of listening perceived by teachers and students at DTM HS.
4.1.2. Listening difficulties experienced by students


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a. Difficulties in general and affecting factors
Question 4: What are the difficult items that you often get when studying
listening skill in your class?
Items

Agree

Disagree

Don’t know

89%

0%

11%

42%

19%

39%

60%

0%

40%

92%

0%

8%

78%

18%

4%

58%

29%

13%

Cannot understand the listening text and tasks
due to the lack of English background
knowledge and ability
Get the main ideas but cannot do the tasks or
cannot get the required information
Only find listening tasks boring
Cannot listen to the text because the sound is
too soft or noisy
Have no habits and/or techniques to practice
and improve listening skills
Lack of listening materials(tapes or CDs)

Table 4: Students’ difficulties in general
As seeing from Table 4, most of the subjects coped up with such above difficulties.
The most important problem involving 92% of the respondents was the difficulty in listening
to the text due to the low sound or noisy sound in the tapes. This fact resulted from too big
class size of 45 to 50 students and poor-equipped condition. According to the interviewed
students, their teachers’ voice was not loud and attractive enough to listen to from a distance.
They did not hear anything clearly; Therefore they understood nothing.
The next is 89% of the subjects who could not understand the listening text and tasks
due to the lack of English background knowledge and ability. Another 78% are aware of
importance of listening habits and techniques which help to learn more effectively. This
figure is optimistic to improve Students’ motivation. Moreover, 58% of the students found
challenging to work with listening tasks and available materials. In addition, only 42% could
get the main ideas after listening but have no idea about listening focuses and requirements.
Apart from that, it is surprising that 40% of the students did not know if the listening

tasks are boring or interesting to them.
Question 6: What are your opinions about several factors that influence the
students’ participation and interests in the listening lessons?
Item

Agree

Disagree

Don’t know


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Classroom condition and facilities

100%

0%

0%

97%

0%

3%

46%

23%

33%

Students’ awareness, interests

18%

44%

38%

Basic background knowledge of English

90%

10%

0%

78%

22%

14%

30%

56%

Activities for entertainment

27%

23%

50%

Requirements of examinations

77%

15%

8%

Teacher’s

teaching

methods:

interesting,

attractive, easy to understand
Listening topic and level of difficulties of
listening tasks

Self-study at home
The design of the listening lessons, tasks and

the clarity of tasks instructions

Table 5: Factors affecting students’ participation and interests in listening lessons
Table 5 reveals a fact that there are many factors that can affect students’ participation
and interests. In their opinion, listening was very difficult, therefore making progress in this
skill demands many aspects of teaching and learning process. The most important factor was
classroom condition and facilities (100%). The second was teachers’ methods which provide
them instructions or guidance to listen. It is the fact that students mostly relied on teachers’
performance in classroom. Moreover, students were not good enough in knowledge of
English which directly affected their confidence and activeness in listening lesson. Another
high percentage of students gave the reason of requirement of examinations. It is universal
and true to any subjects. They find less interested in the design of the textbook because they
have no experience in evaluating it.
b. Facilities and classroom conditions
Question 7: Do you have enough facilibilities for listening lessons?
Items
The class is well-equipped with modern technology
or facilities
The class size is too large, the students cannot
listen well
The class is large enough, the students can listen
well from every place

Agree

Disagree

30%

70%

78%

22%

45%

55%

Table 6: Classroom conditions
Question 9: How often do your teachers use these teaching aids?
1. Always

2. Often

3. Sometimes

4. Rarely

5. Never


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Items
Visual aids: pictures, chalk, chart, board

1

2

3

4

0%

0%

56%

44%

55%

11%

56%

23%

Textbook and supplementary books

100%

Handouts

34%

Computers, speakers

5

Television

21%
100%

Tapes, recorders

58%

42%

CD/VCD

55%

45%

Projectors

60%

40%

Table 7: The use of teaching aids
According to table 7, in addition to poor-equipped conditions, using technology
into language teaching and learning was a time-saving and helpful ways to make progress.
However, the results from table 8 show a dull situation at Duong Tu Minh High School.

Textbooks and supplementary materials constitute 100%. It means that teachers
completely relied on this source of materials. To some extent, lack of financial support from
the school and the government in terms of facility could be the excuse. Sometimes, visual aids
(pictures, board, diagram) (56%), handouts (55%), computers and speakers (56%), tapes,
recorders (58%), CD/VCD (55%) and projectors (60%) were employed.
c. Teacher’s role and activities in listening lessons
Question 8: What is result of student’s opinions about teacher’s roles in listening
lessons?
Teachers’ role
Guiding and giving instructions of the purposes and how and what to
listen to

Students’ choice
100%

Designing tasks and organizing activities in classroom

100%

Observing the class activities

96%

Listening and translating the texts

58%

Correcting listening tasks and discussing with the students

100%

Managing and controlling all students tasks and activities in classroom

100%

Reading the listening text

71%
Table 8: Teacher’s roles

The data shown in the table reveal an amazing fact of current teaching methods in
which teachers play an essential roles. 100% respondents agreed that teachers had to be in
charge of guiding, giving instruction, designing tasks, and correcting mistakes (or giving