A study on difficulties in english listening skill for the second year students in english faculty, thuongmai university and some suggested solutions

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THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH FACULTY
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GRADUATION PAPER
Topic:
COMMON ERRORS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS OF ENGLISH –
MAJOR FRESHMEN AT THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

Supervisor:

Pham Thi Xuan Ha (M.A)

Student:

Trinh Thi Thuong

Class:

K52N3

Student Code: 16D170186

HANOI, 2020

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ABSTRACT
Today, the position of English in the areas of life is increasingly important and
necessary. To learn English well and fluently, learners must improve their language
skills. Listening is considered to be the most difficult skill when learning a foreign
language in general and English in particular, a skill that learners face many
difficulties and challenges. Students at Thuongmai University also have difficulty
hearing English. There are many domestic and foreign authors studying the areas of
listening skills. However, there are no major studies targeting second-year English
students. Therefore, we conducted a study on the difficulties in English listening skills
of second-year English language students. This thesis focuses on three main issues: the
attitude of second-year students in English Faculty, Thuongmai University on English
listening skills, difficulties in listening skills of English second-year students in
English Faculty, Thuongmai University and proposing solutions to help the students
improve their listening skills. This study is based on quantitative, qualitative methods.
The survey questionnaire was used to distribute 100 students in K54N classes to
collect data. Raw data is converted into numbers and percentages. From the results,
there are conclusions drawn about students' attitudes and difficulties in English
listening skills. In general, second-year students are aware of the importance of
listening skills and most of them consider that this is the most difficult skill in English
skills. Second-year students have many difficulties in listening (subjective and
objective difficulties). From the research findings, the researcher has made suggestions
and recommendations to help students solve difficulties when listening to English. The
researcher hopes this research can help second-year students in English Faculty,
Thuongmai University improve their listening skills and support follow-up research to
avoid shortcomings and limitations.


ACKNOWLEDGMENT
On completing this graduation paper, I would like to send my deepest and most
sincere gratitude to many people for their invaluable help during the conduct of the

research.
First and foremost, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude towards my
supervisor Ms. Pham Minh Hong for her constructive and timely feedbacks as well as
her constant and unfailing support which were decisive factors to the completion of the
study.
Furthermore, I would love to thank all the teachers who have taught me academic
writing and research methodology. I would also like to say the sincerest thanks to
second-year students in English Faculty, Thuongmai University who have
enthusiastically participated in the study. Their participation has been crucial to the
completion of the research.
Last but not least, I express my truly gratitude to my family and friends who
emotionally and spiritually comforted me through the challenging time of conducting
the research. The study could not have been completed without their continual
encouragement.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT.............................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS......................................................................................v
LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURES.............................................................................vi
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY..........................................................1
1.1 Rationale................................................................................................................1
1.2 Previous studies.....................................................................................................2
1.3 Research subjects...................................................................................................5
1.4 Scope of the study..................................................................................................6
1.5 Research methodology..........................................................................................6
1.6 The organization of the study...............................................................................7
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................8

2.1 An overview of listening skills...............................................................................8
2.1.1 Definition of listening..........................................................................................8
2.1.2 The features of listening skills..........................................................................10
2.1.3 The significance of listening skills....................................................................10
2.1.4. Types of listening..............................................................................................11
2.2.2. Elements make English listening difficult........................................................15
2.3. Factors affecting English listening.....................................................................16
2.3.1. The class atmosphere........................................................................................16
2.3.2. Students’ motivation..........................................................................................16
2.3.3 Quality of recorded material..............................................................................17
2.4. Summary.............................................................................................................18
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS.........................19
3.1 Methodology.........................................................................................................19
3.1.1 Research methodology.......................................................................................19
3.1.2 Research questions.............................................................................................19
3.1.3 Participants.......................................................................................................20


3.1.4 Data collection instruments..............................................................................20
3.2 Data analysis and discussions..............................................................................21
3.2.1 The difficulties, like and dislike.........................................................................21
3.2.2 The importance of learning English listening skills and frequency of students
having problems in learning English listening skills.................................................23
3.2.4 Causes affecting English listening skills...........................................................25
3.2.5 The activities students should do before and while listening............................29
3.2.6 Results of the interview......................................................................................30
CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS............................32
4.1 Summary of the study..........................................................................................32
4.2 Possible solutions to improve listening skills......................................................32
4.2.1 Solutions for students........................................................................................32

4.3 Recommendations................................................................................................34
4.3.1 For school or university....................................................................................34
4.3.2 For lecturers......................................................................................................35
4.3.3 For students.......................................................................................................35
4.4 Limitation of the study........................................................................................37
4.5 Suggestions for the study.....................................................................................37
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................38
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................39
APPENDIX................................................................................................................. 40


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
TMU: Thuongmai University


LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURES

Chart 3.2: The student’s interest in learning listening skills.........................................22
Chart 3.3: The importance of English listening skills..................................................23
Chart 3.4: The frequency of students having problems in learning English skills........24
Chart 3.5: Students’ interest in extra listening activities..............................................24
Chart 3.7: Difficulties in English listening related to the listener.................................26
Chart 3.8: Other problems in listening English skills...................................................28
Chart 3.10: Students should do during English listening.............................................29


CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
The first chapter includes an overview of the research topic. The first problem
mentioned is the reason for studying the topic as well as previous research and the
aims of the study. In addition, Chapter I also points out the salient features of the

research subjects and scope of the study. Moreover, this is also the chapter outlining
the research methodology used in the study process. Finally, this chapter is also a
chapter that summarizes the parts of the organization of the study.
1.1 Rationale
In the age of explosion of science, technology and information, the most
common use of foreign languages: English to communicate with other countries in the
world is a very necessary thing. Therefore, English is becoming the number one
foreign language taught in our country. Previously, the main objective of teaching and
learning foreign languages was reading comprehension for literary and scientific
research. Currently, in order to serve the open policy of, innovate and integrate into the
region and the world, the goal of foreign language teaching is communication. In order
for students to communicate well, teachers have to change the way of teaching using
verbal communication method (listening and speaking).
Listening plays a vital role in daily lives. People often 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 “A study on difficulties in
English listening skills for the second-year students in English Faculty, Thuongmai
University and some suggested solutions” for several reasons.
First of all, listening is the most important skill in communication in our real life.
Listening is key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen
effectively, messages are easily misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks
down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.

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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 the classroom helps students make the
transition from classroom English to real-life English more easily and effectively.
Therefore, I would like to do this research to help the students and teachers 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 cannot do in most listening contexts such
as TV programs, meetings, discussions, lectures or conversations.
Last but not least, 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 a long time. That is the
reason I would like to work out some suggestions to help teachers motivate their
students to study listening skill more excited and better.
After studying in English Faculty, Thuongmai University, for nearly four years, I
realize that the second-year students of English major still have to cope with many
difficulties in their listening skill. In the hope of finding out some difficulties of
listening that they normally get, a study entitle: “A study on difficulties in English
listening skill for the second-year students in English Faculty, Thuongmai University
and some suggested solutions” has been conducted because of all above mentioned
reason.
1.2 Previous studies
According to some previous research from Hamouda (2013), who completed the
related study, he concluded that in order to help students to improve their listening
ability, language lecturer had to understand students’ listening difficulties in
comprehending listening text, and instruct effective listening strategies to help the
students to solve their listening difficulties. As well as the lecturer knows their
students’ difficulties, students as subjects have an important role in developing their

listening. Students successful in listening depend on how they can know and solve

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their difficulties. If the students know the problems influence their listening, it would
be easy to find the solution. They will study hard in order to improve their listening.
Hamouda (2013) found in his research entitled An Investigation of Listening
Comprehension Problems Encountered by Saudi Students in the EL Listening
Classroom. This research used quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection.
This study was carried out with the participation of 60 first-year students majoring in
English language and translation at Qassim University. Their ages range from 20 to 22
years old. Listening comprehension seems to be the weakest skill and students
encounter various kinds of listening problems. Data was gathered through
questionnaires and interviews. The research found that accent, pronunciation,
insufficient vocabulary, different accents of the speakers, lack of concentration,
anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening comprehension
problems encountered by EFL Saudi learners.
Andi Asmawati (2017) found in his research entitled Analyzing students’
difficulties toward listening comprehension. This research also use quantitative and
qualitative methods of data collection. There were 37 students as the subject in this
study. Data were gathered by questionnaires and interviews while observation during
listening was used to confirm students’ answers and have many main reasons related to
difficulties in English listening skill for students.
a. Listening problems related to the content of the listening text
1) Problems pertinent to unfamiliar word
2) Problem pertinent to poor grammar
3) Problem pertinent to understand every single word in the text
4) Problem pertinent length of spoken text
5) Problem pertinent fatigue when listen long spoken text

6) Problem pertinent to unfamiliar topic
b. Listening problems related to the listener
1) Problem pertinent to inability of understanding listening
2) Problem pertinent to anxiety
3) Problem pertinent to the unclear pronunciation
4) Problem pertinent intonation of the speaker

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5) Problem pertinent to predict what would come next
6) Problem pertinent unable to concentrate when answer and listen at the same
time
c. Listening problem related to physical setting
Not only the difficulties come from the message, listener, but also come from
environment the students it called physical setting. Noise and poor quality CD player
disturb students in listening comprehension.
1) Problem pertinent lose concentration because poor quality of recording
2) Problem pertinent of hesitation and pause
3) Lack visual support
4) Problems pertinent to variety of accents
5) Problem pertinent poor equipment
6) Problem pertinent inability to get repeated
7) Problem pertinent poor quality tapes or disks
8) Problem pertinent noise around
9) Problem pertinent speed of delivery (Speaker speak too fast is factor that
interfere the students’ comprehension in listening)
10) Problem pertinent lack of pauses
Andi Asmawati (2017) concluded that all of the students are unable to
comprehend listening text. There are ten problems in students’ self-learning that were

found in analyzing students’ difficulties, they were: lack of vocabulary, poor grammar
mastery, accent, pronunciation, lack of concentration, speed of speech, anxiety, noisy,
inability to apply listening strategy, bad quality of the recording. It is correct that the
problems in listening comprehension faced by students not only from the listeners
themselves but also from content material and environment of listening
comprehension. Hence, the students have to study hard and have more practice to
improve their listening comprehension.
In Vietnam, there are also many research topics on listening skills in English. For
example, “Improving Foreign-service Officials’ Listening Comprehension Abilities in
English for International Relations” by Kieu Thi Thu Huong English Faculty,
Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dong Da, Hanoi,

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Vietnam, the research focuses on understanding foreign-service officials’ present
listening comprehension abilities in English for international relations, finding out
reasons for listening difficulties they have and suggesting some solutions. Although
foreign-service officials wish to improve their listening abilities in English for
international relations, their listening skills are still limited. The factors affecting their
learning listening abilities can be classified into two main groups. The subjective
reasons include five subgroups, namely language knowledge, listening strategies,
background knowledge and knowledge of culture, psychology and health and learners.
The objective reasons are quality of news reports, facilities, lecturers and learning
materials. Based on the analysis of the data collected, some solutions have been
suggested, namely learners’ determination, lecturers’ support improvement of
facilities, and development of new materials.
The other study is “Methods of improving listening skills for non-english major
students” by Nguyen Luong Ha Lien and Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha who are English
teachers in English Faculty, Quy Nhon University. The purpose of this paper is to rake

up the basic notions that interdepend to the place and momentousness of listening skill
in learning English as the second language, and to focus on the difficulties in listening
comprehension which non-English major students are encountered. Thenceforth, it
aims to provide some recommendation for improvement. They carried out a survey by
using a questionare to elicit data from 400 randomly selected freshmen from Quy
Nhon University. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, factor analyses, and
multiple regression analysis were used. The findings indicated that lack of vocabulary,
background knowledge, long listening texts, unfamiliar topics are the main problems
for learners to understand the listening texts. Suggested solutions may help students to
overcome those difficulties, increase vocabulary knowledge, exposure to multiple
fields in listening topics and different accents.
1.3 Research subjects
The subject of research in this study is the second-year students in English
Faculty at Thuongmai University and focuses primarily on difficulties in English
listening skills and solutions to improve their English skill.

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The subject of the study is a sophomore, currently studying in English Faculty,
Thuongmai University. Most sophomores are students with relatively low scores on
English listening in the Faculty. They are still almost familiar with the way they study
in high school.
Currently, under the innovation program, second year students have learned 4
skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing as a separate subject. They have
specific topics to learn to listen to English. Compared to previous courses, second year
students have better listening conditions, have more time to listen with teachers and
friends. Besides, they also have the opportunity to learn how to listen to foreign
teachers. However, this is also a difficulty for most sophomores. English listening
scores are considered a subject of a subject, so low results will affect the overall

outcome of the study. In particular, students from rural areas, students from rural areas
may face more difficulties than other urban students because of different economic
conditions as well as different educational programs in which agricultural students, the
village has few opportunities to interact with the target language and native teachers.
Therefore, listening to English and getting good grades in university subjects is really
a big challenge for them.
1.4 Scope of the study
This study focuses on difficulties in listening skill for the second-year students in
English Faculty, TMU. 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
focuses on exploring common difficulties students get in listening skill. Moreover, the
study could not touch upon all students at Thuongmai University. It is confined to the
second-year students in English Faculty, TMU only.
1.5 Research methodology
The study was conducted using quantitative, qualitative methods. The study
includes survey questionnaires for and students, interview questions for students for
K54N in English Faculty, Thuongmai University. The interview process was held to
know deeply about the students’ difficulties.
Then, all of the result questionnaires and interviews were analyzed. The
researcher will use the tables and charts for presenting the collected data.

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1.6 The organization of the study
My graduation paper includes four main chapters, organize as follows:
Chapter 1: Overview of the study
The chapter indicates the rationale, previous studies, research subject, scope of
the study, research methodology and organization of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review

The chapter gives the general theoretical basis of listening, listening skill and
difficulties in learning it as well as the factor affecting English listening.
Chapter 3: Data analysis and research findings
This is the most important part of the research, focusing on data analysis,
analyzing and synthesizing survey results.
Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions
The last chapter is some recommendations and suggestions to improve English
listening skill for the second-year students in English Faculty, Thuongmai University.
In addition, it gives summary of the study, limitation of the study and suggestion for
further study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 An overview of listening skills
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 more and more attention.
In my opinion, Listening is the ability to receive information from friends,
colleagues, relatives, who give us information or from multimedia such as newspapers,
radio, television in order to capture the information we want. Moreover, listening is
focusing on the content of the speaker, understanding what they say and giving advice
and answers to the other person. Language scientists also have different definitions of
listening skills as follows:
According 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: “the process of receiving,
attending to and meaning to aural stimuli”.

Person (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 a cognitive process. Thus it can be said
that though not fully realized, the listening skills is essential in acquiring language
proficiency”.
Hirsh (1986) gave another definition: “Listening as an aspect of skills: involves
neurological response and interpretation 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
listener constructs from oral input.
According to Brown (2001), listening is “hot 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 impulse to the brain”. Hence, listening comprises three
elements: the sender, the message and the listener.
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
incoming sound” in which “several 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 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.
Recently, Renukadevi (2014) argued that listening is the most important part of

communication because it is important in providing a meaningful response. Especially
in learning a language for the purpose of communication, listening plays an important
role, because it helps language learners to gain pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and
understanding of messages can be voice-based, and only possible when we listen.
Without proper input understanding, learning is simply that the development does not
get any improvement. In addition, without listening skills, unable to communicate.
Through the judgment of scholars, as well as the reality of communication
activities, this skill plays an important role in everyday life including language
learning. Learning language, through listening, students can get used to the sounds in
English, so that pronunciation will become easier. Most linguistic researchers also
think that when learning any language, the learner must be exposed to that language,
but the best way is through listening comprehension, on which basis, learners are
exposed to language and culture of language.
To sum up, the definitions mentioned above are all very reasonable and
convincing. All of definitions are given with a view to clarify the nature of the
listening skills is necessary in the process of acquiring a native language or a native


language or a foreign one and listening skills plays a significant role in learning
process of learner.
2.1.2

The features of listening skills

Practicing listening skills looks like an art. It is not merely heard. It requires the
listener to be proactive in the conversation as well as know how to combine certain life
skills and techniques. Listening is a receptive language skills which learners usually
find the most difficult because it has some features as follows:
Firstly, listening skills are formed by experience, not merely by downloading
knowledge. Therefore, the formation of listening needs real experiences from many

aspects of the listener's life, so that the listeners have more selective and useful
information as much as possible.
Secondly, the listener has to get oriented to the listening portion and be all ears.
The listener is also required to be attentive. Listening skills are a skill that requires a
lot of attention because if we hear the wrong information, not enough information can
lead to solving the wrong job. For example, in the business, hearing the wrong
information will lead to unfavorable negotiations, the result may be that the company
loses gold opportunities for businesses, or more seriously leads to bankruptcy.
Finally, unlike writing and reading skills, listening skills have less time to
process data. The listener needs to master the knowledge of grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation, and be able to understand accents from different regions. Therefore, the
listening skills requires the listener to be quick, intelligent and skillful to process
quickly and effectively.
2.1.3 The significance of listening skills
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 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. In the work, whatever career from
lawyers, consultants, sales, office workers, etc. The listening skills are always
important. Listening not only helps us learn from experience, understand the
personality, habits, interests, and feelings of colleagues, customers, partners but also
help us come up with ideas to solve problems quickly. Especially for leaders, listening


skills will help them understand their employees, create cohesion and increase work
efficiency. In life, listening skills help us build and develop relationships. Because in
communication, everyone wants to be listened to by others and wants a place to vent
their troubles. Therefore, if you know how to listen, encourage and support properly,
the communication will be more successful. From there, your relationship will become
closer and more confident.

We listen to everything and everybody. For instance, at home, we listen to the
news, watch films or talk to others. At school, students listen to the lectures 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 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 skills. According to Nord (1980), 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 language is built up, the learner can begin
to speak. The listening-only period is a time of observation and learning, which
provides the basis for the other language skills” (Nation, 1990). Most learners will
spend more time listening to the foreign language than producing it themselves. Fail 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 real-life English more easily
and effectively.
2.1.4. Types of listening
The three main types of listening most common in interpersonal communication
are:
 Informational Listening (Listening to Learn)
 Critical Listening (Listening to Evaluate and Analyse)


 Therapeutic or Empathetic Listening (Listening to Understand Feeling and
Emotion)
In reality, you may have more than one goal for listening at any given time – for
example, you may be listening to learn whilst also attempting to be empathetic.

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Informational Listening

Whenever you listen to learn something, you are engaged in informational
listening. This is true in many day-to-day situations, in education, and at work, when
you listen to the news, watch a documentary, when a friend tells you a recipe or when
you are talked-through a technical problem with a computer. Although all types of
listening are ‘active’ – they require concentration and a conscious effort to understand.
Informational listening is less active than many of the other types of listening. When
we’re listening to learn or be instructed we are taking in new information and facts, we
are not criticizing or analyzing.
- Critical Listening
We can be said to be engaged in critical listening when the goal is to evaluate or
scrutinize what is being said. Critical listening is a much more active behavior than
informational listening and usually involves some sorts of problem solving - decision
making. Critical listening is akin to critical reading; both involve analysis of the
information being received and alignment with what we already know or believe.
Whereas informational listening may be mostly concerned with receiving facts or new
information - critical listening is about analyzing opinion and making a judgement.
- Therapeutic or Empathetic Listening
Empathic listening involves attempting to understand the feelings and emotions
of the speaker - to put yourself into the speaker’s shoes and share their thoughts.
Counsellors, therapists, and some other professionals use therapeutic or empathic
listening to understand and ultimately help their clients. This type of listening does not
involve making judgements or offering advice but gently encouraging the speaker to
explain and elaborate on their feelings and emotions.
2.1.5. Stages of listening
Many factors can interfere with listening, so you need to be able to manage a
number of mental tasks at the same time in order to be a successful listener:

- Receiving
Receiving is the intentional 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 still only hearing the
message.
- Understanding
In the understanding stage, we attempt to learn the meaning of the message,
which is not always easy. For one thing, if a speaker does not enunciate clearly, it may
be difficult to tell what the message was. Even when we have understood the words in
a message, because of the differences in our backgrounds and experience, we
sometimes make the mistake of attaching our meanings to the words of others.
So much of the way we understand others is influenced by our own perceptions
and experiences. Therefore, at the understanding stage of listening, we should be on
the lookout for places where our perceptions might differ from those of the speaker.
- Remembering
It is an important listening process because it means that an individual has not
only received and interpreted a message but has also added it to the mind’s storage
bank, but just as our attention is selective, so too is our memory what is remembered
may be quite different from what was originally seen or heard.
- Evaluating
It is a stage in which active listeners participate, it is at these points that the
active listener weighs evidence, sorts fact from opinion, and determines the presence
or absence of bias or prejudice in a message, the effective listener makes sure that he
or she doesn’t begin this activity too soon, beginning this stage of the process before a
message is completed requires that we no longer hear and attend to the incoming
message, as a result, the listening process ceases.
- Responding
This stage requires that the receiver completes the process through verbal or

nonverbal feedback because the speaker has no other way to determine if a message
has been received. This stage becomes the only overt means by which the sender may
determine the degree of success in transmitting the message.


2.2. Difficulties in learning listening skills
2.2.1 Common English listening problems of students
According to Ur, P. (1996), author of many books on language teaching, students
often encounter the following difficulties while learning to listen:
1. Unable to recognize sounds spoken by the English
2. Have a habit of understanding all words in a sentence to understand the
content of the lesson
3. It is incomprehensible when the English speak naturally
4. Need to hear many times to be able to understand
5. Find it difficult to grasp all the information and not predict what the speaker is
going to say
6. If students have to listen for a long time, students will feel tired and lack of
concentration.
When referring to the difficulties of learners with listening subjects for listening
subjects, two foreign language teachers, Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc, also list
the following 6 difficulties:
1. Having difficulty with English sounds
2. Must understand all the words
3. Do not understand when the English speak naturally
4. Find it hard to keep up with English speaking speed
5. Need to listen repeatedly
6. Tired and frustrated
Besides, according to Alex Case in the articles on teaching foreign languages also
list some difficulties in learning to listen that learners often encounter, they are:
1. Lack of vocabulary

2. Indistinguishable from important
3. Always try to understand all the words in the tape
4. Affected by external noise
5. Unable to recognize different voices
6. Spoken speed


In short, according to the foregoing teachings and linguistics, foreign language
learners often encounter the following common difficulties in listening:
1. Unrecognized English sounds
2. Limited vocabulary
3. Lack of concentration while listening
4. It is difficult to grasp the main idea of the listening text
5. Need to hear many times
6. Not keep up with the speaker's speed.
2.2.2. Elements make English listening difficult
According to Brown, there are eight characteristics of spoken language which
makes listening difficult.
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 distracted.
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.
3. On the other hand, spoken language also has many reduced forms. It may be
phonological, morphological or 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.
4. The next characteristic of spoken language is the performance variable. As a
result of unplanned action, spoken language consists of a lot of hesitations (“er”,
“uhm”), false starts, pauses, and corrections. They make the listener confused.
5. Colloquial language is another problem that can interfere with 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.
6. In listening, learners need to comprehend language delivered at varying rates
of speed and delivered with few pauses because they do not have opportunities to stop
the speaker and listen again many times.
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.
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 so that they get more ease in interaction in general
and in listening in particular.
2.3. Factors affecting English listening
2.3.1. The class atmosphere
Sometimes inconvenience of classroom 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
affected by the noise that comes from outside. As a teacher, we have to take into
account all these conditions in a body. The size of the classroom also makes difficult
for the teacher to manage the all class in group activity or to get feedback from
students. The temperature of the 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 in summer or too cold in winter.
2.3.2. Students’ motivation
Students’ motivation is one of the crucial factors that affect listening
comprehension. It can be difficult for students to maintain 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 to not miss the meaning.
2.3.3 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 comprehending of learners’
listening.
Noise and poor quality CD players disturb students in listening comprehension.
We can show some problems related to equipment that does not have high quality.
11) Problem pertinent to lose concentration because of poor quality of the
recording
12) Problem pertinent of hesitation and pause
13) Lack of visual support
14) Problems pertinent to a variety of accents
15) Problem pertinent to poor equipment

16) Problem pertinent to inability to get repeated
17) Problem pertinent to poor quality tapes or disks
18) Problem pertinent noise around
19) Problem pertinent to speed of delivery (Speaker speaks too fast is the factor
that interfere the students’ comprehension in listening)
20) Problem pertinent lack of pauses (Many students found difficult to
understand the listening text when the speaker does not pause long enough).
2.3.4. 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