A MINOR STUDY ON MAIN DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS PERCEIVED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION ULIS, VNU

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
University of Languages and international
Studies
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER
EDUCATION

Graduation paper

A MINOR STUDY ON MAIN DIFFICULTIES
IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS PERCEIVED
BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION, ULIS, VNU

supervisor: Mrs.Pham Thi Thanh
Thuy student: Nguyen Thi Thu Thao
year of enrolment: qh2009.e5

Ha Noi, May 2013


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

NHẬN THỨC CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM NHẤT
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG
ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA
HÀ NỘI VỀ NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN
TRONG VIỆC HỌC KĨ NĂNG NGHE

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: PHẠM THỊ THANH THỦY
Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo
Khoá: Qh2009.E5

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2013


ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Thi Thu Thao from qh2009.F1.E5, being a
candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL), accept the requirements of
the college retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation paper deposited in the
library.
In terms of the conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care,
loan or reproduction of the paper.

Signature

Hanoi, April 24th 2013

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing this dissertation is the final step in a long journey. I would not have
begun this journey if it had not had the help of many people. First and foremost, I

would like to show my special thanks to my supervisor, Mrs. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy,
for her great help and guidance as well as encouragement, without which my scientific
research would not have been accomplished.
I am grateful to first-year students of Faculty of English Language Teacher
Education,

ULIS

for

their

enthusiastic

participation.

Their

sharing

and

complementation immeasurably contributed to the majority data of the study.
Finally, my sincere thanks go to all of my parents, my friends who have given
me much advice and encouragement which helps me to overcome the difficulties
during doing this research.

ii

ABSTRACT

Listening comprehension plays a significant role in daily communication and in
educational process. In spite of its importance, the state of teaching and learning
listening has long been ignored, especially in rural areas in Vietnam. A large number
of students, who come from countryside, suffer a serious disturbance in learning
listening when entering university. The present study attempts to investigate the
listening problems perceived by first-year students of FELTE, ULIS, VNU. To address
the research problems, the paper used questionnaire and semi-structured interview as
the main research instruments to collect data. Brief descriptions of participants as well
as the data collection methods also were provided. The results of the study reveal that
the majority of listening comprehension difficulties pertaining to four main categories:
the speakers, the listeners, the materials, and the physical setting. In accordance with
exploring the hindrances, some learning strategies employed by freshmen are
introduced as well. Based on the findings of the study, some pedagogical implications
are proposed for teachers and students in their teaching and learning listening skill.

iii


CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Acceptance ………………………………………………………..…

i

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………

ii

Abstract…………………………………………………………..………

iii

List of tables, figures and abbreviations………………..………………

vii

Part I: Introduction
1. Rationale of the study………………………………………………….

1

2. Aims of the study………………………………………………………

2

3. Objectives of the study and research questions………………………

3

4. Significance of the study…………………………………………….....

3

5. Scope of the study……………………………………………………...

4

6. Methods of the study…………………………………………………...

4

7. Overview of the rest of the study………………………………………

5

Part II. Development
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

6

1.1

Definition of listening and listening comprehension……………….

6

1.2

The importance of listening skills in learning……………………….

7

1.3

Difficulties in learning English listening as discussed in previous

studies…………………………………………………………………………

8

1.3.1

Difficulties from the speakers ……………………………….

9

1.3.2

Difficulties from the content…………………………………

10

1.3.3

Difficulties from learners…………………………………….

12

iv


1.3.4
1.4

Difficulties from physical setting…………………………….

14

Chapter summary……………………………………………………

14

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1

15

Population and participant’s selection methods…………………...

15

2.1.1

Population……………………………………………………

15

2.1.2

Sampling methods……………………………………………

16

2.2

Data collection methods…………………………………………..

17

Survey questionnaires ……………………………………….

17

2.2.1.1

Justification of using questionnaires …………………

17

2.2.1.2

Description of survey questionnaires ……………….

18

2.2.1.3

Procedure of delivering the questionnaires …………..

18

Semi- structured interviews …………………………………

19

2.2.1

2.2.2

2.2.2.1

Justification of using interview……………………….

19

2.2.2.2

Description of the interview …………………………

21

2.2.2.3

Procedure of interviewing…………………………….

21

2.3

Data analysis …………………………………………………….

22

2.4

Chapter summary ………………………………………………...

23

Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

24

Research question 1………………………………………………

24

3.1.1 Difficulties from the speakers……………………………

25

3.1.2 Difficulties from the learners…………………………….

27

3.1.3 Difficulties from the materials …………………………..

29

3.1.4 Difficulties from the physical setting……………………

31

3.2

Research question 2 ………………………………………………

32

3.3

Chapter summary …………………………………………………

38

3.1

Part III. Conclusion

iv
i


1. Summary of major findings .................................................................... 39
1.1 The difficulties perceived by students .............................................. 39
1.2 The strategies applied by students..................................................... 39
2. Pedagogical implications from the findings............................................ 40
2.1 Implications for the teachers.............................................................. 40
2.2 Implication for the students .............................................................. 41
3. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies................... 41
4. Chapter summary .................................................................................... 41

References
Appendices

vii


LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS
Table

Page

Table 1: Participants in the study………………………………………………..

16

Table 2: Participants’ hometowns ………………………………………………

17

Table 3: Students’ general perception of listening skill ………………………

24

Table 4: Student’s self-rating to listening proficiency ………………………….

25

Table 5: Listening problems from the speakers …………………………………

25

Table 6: The fast speed and reduced forms ……………………………………..

27

Table 7: Listening problems from the listeners …………………………………

28

Table 8: Problems from the materials....................................................................

30

Table 9: Listening problems from the physical setting………………………….

31

Table 10: Listening strategies……………………………………………………

33

Abbreviations
ESL: English as a Second Language
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education
L2: Second Language
S1: Student 1
S2: Student 2
ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies
VNU: Vietnam National University

viii

PART I. INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale of the study

Listening is the most frequently used skill in daily life communication (Morley,
1999; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). Mendelsohn (1994) sees that listening takes up
forty-five to fifty percent of the total time in communication. Therefore, it is
undeniable that listening is essential both to communicate and to learn a foreign
language.
Obviously, listening skill is extremely important in acquiring a language
because it provides language input. According to Krashen et al (1984, as cited in
Hamouda, A., 2012), only when students absorb enough the comprehensible input,
does the acquisition happen. Rost (1994, as cited in Hamouda, A., 2012) also claims
that listening plays a vital role in learning language in particular and in communication
in general because it provides input for learners. In addition, Krashen believes that
without understanding the linguistic input, the students cannot acquire any level of
language. Thus, listening is a fundamental language skill, and as such, it merits the top
priority among the four skill areas for language students. Listening, therefore, is
regarded crucial to not only a receptive skill but also the development of spoken
language proficiency.
Furthermore, English has been widely used as a major language in daily life and
in many education levels all over the world, both native and non-native English
speaking countries. Listening comprehension is becoming more and more important in
acquiring a new language as well as knowledge displayed in lectures and in media.
Especially, it is the vital skill for most of the English as second language learners
(ESL).
In spite of its importance in learning English listening, the state of teaching and

learning listening skill has long been ignored and gives little consideration. What is
1


more, the Vietnamese education system focuses more on coaching exams with much
attention to grammar, reading and vocabulary. Therefore, listening is included in
course books in many educational levels; however, it somehow is neglected by the
teachers during the lessons. As a result, many Vietnamese students, even those who
get high marks in grammatical tests, cannot communicate successfully with the
foreigners in daily conversations. According to Nguyen (2008), the inability to
comprehend what the native speakers say because of the failure at listening
comprehension is the most severe reason.
In addition, in Vietnam, countryside students have no exposure to English
language apart from that they receive in the classroom. Students’ fundamental means
of listening English come from the teacher’s voice. Furthermore, the low quality of
cassettes has a detectable effect on the process of practicing and testing listening, and
especially in the countryside, where the cassette players are either poor quality or run
off batteries. The students have the difficulties in listening because of the low-standard
sound. For those reasons, most of the students in rural and mountainous areas, suffer a
terrible shock when learning to listen in the university. In spite of the diversity of
literature in this field, little attention to the feasible solutions and practical purposes is
paid. Moreover, in University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS),
Vietnam National University (VNU), few research provide detailed description of
first-year students issues in learning listening. With the purpose of helping students to
enhance their listening skills, this study is conducted to raise the perception of the
importance of listening in learning English as well as their listening difficulties.
Additionally, this thesis provides the valuable insights and pedagogical implications
for both teachers and students.
2.

Aims of the study
The study aims at:

2




Investigating the difficulties and the causes in learning listening skills

perceived by Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) first
year mainstream students at University of Languages and International Studies
(ULIS).


Presenting some solutions that the students apply to improve their (self-)

study of Listening Skills.

3.

Objectives of the study and research questions

As far as the researcher knows, listening is the most difficult skill for first year
students, especially for those who come from the countryside and remote areas.
Listening comprehension is somewhat a terrible nightmare for them. This study is
undertaken with the hope of improving the listening ability and providing some
insights into how the students perceived about the usefulness of listening strategies.
The research seeks the answers for the following questions:
1. What are some main listening difficulties perceived by FELTE first year

mainstream students?
2. What are the listening strategies applied by the students?

4.

Significance of the study

The study mainly aims at pointing out the causes of difficulties in learning
listening of by FELTE freshmen. Additionally, the researcher also investigates the
learning strategies applied by first-year students in learning listening. As a result, once
having been completed, the study is expected to bring considerable benefits to both
teachers and students. Pedagogically, the findings and suggestions of this study are
believed to enhance the teaching and listening process of listening to beginning-level
Vietnamese college students in general and ULIS first -year students in particular.

3


The results of this study may be a good help for the students themselves and
other people who are interested in this field. Furthermore, the findings of this study
also provide comments for listening material developers as well.
More importantly, the research findings would raise the teachers’ awareness of
the students' difficulty, thereby guiding them in reconstructing their program of
teaching to suit their students’ needs.
5.

Scope of the study

Within the framework of this study, the researcher primarily puts the emphasis
on two things. Firstly, this study focuses on finding the possible causes perceived by

first year students in the FELTE at ULIS. Secondly, the participants of this study are
the freshmen in the FELTE at ULIS who have just experienced a semester of learning
listening at the university.
In terms of participants, this research primarily puts the emphasis on
investigating first-year students in EFL because they have just passed the entrance
exam to university; they have not learnt some strategies to improve their listening
skills.
Apart from clarification of the problems, the researcher desires to suggest some
feasible solutions for the students to achieve better result in learning listening.
Therefore, proper teaching methods can be adopted to help them overcome the
difficulties.
6.

Methods of the study

The research was undertaken as a combined study of both qualitative and
quantitative methods, that is, to take advantages of semi-structured interviews and
survey questionnaire as main research tools to collect data.

4


The researcher chooses the first year main stream students for the study because
they have just entered the university; so that they lack many experiences. In addition,
they face various kinds of problems that higher-level students do not. Digging in deep
to their problems is the first step to help them improve their listening skills as well as
their other language skills. The researcher chooses participants randomly from firstyear main stream students (QH2012) to avoid biased results.
Beyond the two surveys, further information has been collected from formal
and informal conversations with first-year students and teachers in FELTE at ULIS.
7.

Overview of the rest of the study

The research consists of three parts. Apart from part I ( Introduction) introduced
above, it includes two other parts as follows:
Part II: Development: this part comprises of three chapters. Chapter one is
literature review with the investigation of prior literature to clarify some major terms
in the study. In chapter two (Methodology), the methods and the process to collect data
are presented in this chapter. The last chapter is Findings and discussion, the collected
data in the previous part is processed to answer the research questions.
Part III: In this part, the researcher summarizes all the findings revealed, draws
to conclusions, and suggests some contributions of the study.

5


PART II. DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
Following the rationale and the research questions presented in the previous
part, a review of the related studies in this field is introduced in this chapter. The
focuses of this part are on the definition of listening skills, the importance of listening
in acquiring of a foreign language, and the difficulties when learning listening, which
are considered as the theoretical background for the research.
Theoretical background for the research is taken from the works of Underwood
(1989), Mendelsohn (1994), Buck (2001), Rost (1994), Vandergriff (1997), Yagang
(1993), Ur (1984), Anderson and Lynch (1988), Brown & Yule (1983), Butt(2010) etc.
1.1

Definition of listening and listening comprehension

In language teaching, ―listening skills‖ means listening and understanding skills
or listening comprehension skills. This is also the sense of listening used in this thesis,
where listening is meant trying to understand the oral messages people are conveying.
There are a large number of definitions of listening proposed by different
scholars. According to Underwood (1989), listening is the activity of paying attention
to and trying to get meaning from something we hear. Meanwhile, Mendelsohn (1994)
defines listening as the ability to understand the spoken language of native speakers.
Superficially, listening appears to be a passive skill, but in fact, it is always an
active process. Listening is not just the process of receiving the information from the
speakers, the students do not only listen to it but they are also able to process it,
interpret it, understand it, evaluate it and eventually respond to it effectively
(Underwood, 1989). It means that the after perceiving the oral information, the
students must be able to process it in their brains. They can analyze the illocutionary
force of the utterances and after that make the response. Moreover, Buck (2001) states

6


that ―listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is
done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound‖. Sharing the same ideas with
Buck, Rost (2002) sees listening as a process of receiving the information from the
speakers, constructing and representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the
speakers and responding, and creating meaning through involvement, imagination and
empathy.
In conclusion, from all above definitions, we perceive that listening is not just
hearing, but it is an ―active and dynamic process‖ which contains various kinds of
activities such as recognizing the messages from the speakers, remembering and
making inference based on them.
1.2

The importance of listening skills in learning

Listening is important in social communication, academic success and language
acquisition. Needless to say, listening effectively is the sufficient condition for the
students to take part in oral communication. The communicating process will break
down when the listeners fail to understand what the speakers say (Underwood, 1989).
Furthermore, being able to listen to English well, the students have a good chance to
approach the broad knowledge in the outside world. Noticeably, listening is the basic
step to get the input in learning a language.
In any language classroom, listening skill plays a significant role in the
development of other language skills. Vandergriff (1997) claims that listening
internalizes not only the rules of language skills but also facilitates the emergence of
other skills. To be more specific, listening helps the students to pronounce exactly and
recognize the spoken form of words. When learning a new word, students have to
listen to it several times before identifying it. It is said that listening provides the
comprehensive supplier for understanding and acquiring a new language. Precisely,
without receiving the necessary language input at the right level, the learning process

7


cannot take place. Several studies prove that the aural input plays such a vital role in
founding all aspects of language and cognitive development. Krashen (1985) believes
that understanding linguistic information is the key to acquire language. What is more,
the more the students listen, the more vocabulary, proficiency and the better language
usage they have (Barker, 1971). These claims are supported by Stevenson (2010). He
emphasizes the significance of listening for L2 learners, especially ESL learners. In his
study, he pinpoints that:
For learners of English listening is vital because it is through
this sense that they receive information on vocabulary, grammar,

pronunciation, spoken word order, as well as the stress patterns of
words, phrases and sentences. In addition, added to these is the effect
that different accents, voice tone and pitch can have on their
comprehension of the message. (para. 5)
In conclusion, listening plays such an essential role in L2 acquisition. this skill is not
only a tool to acquire other sources of knowledge but also provides L2 learners with
the most important patterns of language.

1.3

Difficulties in learning English listening as discussed in previous

studies
It is taken for granted that people can listen in the mother tongue with little or
no effort. However, learning to listen in the second language is more difficult because
it does not only require the ability of the listeners, but also is affected by the speakers,
the physical factors, the content of the listening text and the physical setting in the
classroom.
Many English students will sooner or later find themselves in real life situations
where they need to listen to English for a range of purposes. In these cases, many
problems arise.
8


1.3.1

Difficulties from the speakers

- The accents
Firstly, many foreign language learners are surprised and dismayed when

listening to someone else but not their teachers because they are used to their teacher’s
accents. Moreover, understanding the spoken form of language requires the adaptation
of the idiosyncrasies of a particular speaker (Underwood, 1989). Ikeno and Hansen
(cited in Bloomfield et al., 2010) find that unfamiliar accents lead to lower accuracy.
Accented speech has been found to affect both the extent to which listeners
successfully realize a speaker’s message and the effort involved as listeners identify
particular words in the message (Floccia et al., 2009). To some extent, in academic
courses, the students are quite familiar with the native speakers like American or
English; however, in reality, they can listen to the speakers from non-native English
speaking countries as well. Consequently, they cannot catch the words or convey the
messages of the conversations and the broken down communication is the outcome.
-

The speed of the speakers

Secondly, the speed of the speakers also hinders the learners in their effort of
learning English. Because the students cannot sort them out when listening before they
disappear. It is not the same as remaining reading text on the page for them to retrieve
whenever they want. Sometimes, while they are working with this part, they miss the
next part. Most of the foreign language students perceive that native speakers speak
too fast and that makes it difficult for them to follow (Brown & Yule, 1983). Similarly,
Butt (2010) has the same ideas in negative impacts of the native speakers to listening
comprehension. This coincides with the results of the studies done by Flowerdew and
Miller (1992) who has reported that their subject unanimously rated speed of delivery
as one of the greatest obstacles to understanding. The students can play recorded
materials again and again until getting the information.

9

-

Using slang and colloquial words

Colloquial language is a special challenge. If listening materials are made up of
everyday conversation, they may contain a lot of colloquial words and expressions,
such as stuff for material, guy for man, etc., as well as slang. Students who have been
exposed mainly to formal or bookish English may not be familiar with these
expressions. Brown (1992) points out that ESL learners who have been exposed to
standard written English and "textbook" language sometimes find it surprising and
difficult to deal with colloquial language.
-

Hesitations and pauses:

Hesitations and pauses in spontaneous speech cause perceptual problems and
comprehension errors for non-native speakers, according to Hasan (2000). When
people speak, they often hesitate, repeat themselves, say things that are ungrammatical
and change their minds halfway through a sentence. These things are a natural feature
of speech and may be either a help or a hindrance, depending on the students’ level.
1.3.2
-

Difficulties from the content

The density of information

It should be taken into account that density information is one of the difficult
for the students, especially the beginners. The dense passage is a long one (Rost, 2006)
with the great amount of information included. Again, greater information density is

believed to make higher cognitive demands of L2 listeners, which may increase the
effort involved in listening comprehension (Gilmore, 2004).
-

The complex text

In some cases, the organization of the text is rather complex. Cervantes and Gainer
(1992) found that listeners hearing a syntactically simplified version of a lecture
scored significantly higher on a recall test than did listeners hearing a more complex
version of the lecture. Therefore, if the students do not have ability to draw a clear
outline of this text, they also fail to catch the information effectively.
10


-

The reduced form, elision and assimilation

In articulating clauses, the speakers desire to express the meanings effectively.
Hence, the words that play a less crucial role in the message may be slurred or
dropped, and other words may be more prominent (Brown, 1977). According to
Madsen and Bowen (1978), spoken English is in particular characterized by three
features of sandhi-variation: contraction (e.g., gonna, wanna, hasta), reduction (e.g.,
―could‖ /kʊd/ is reduced to /kəd/ in a sentence like we could go to the park this
afternoon), and assimilation (e.g., /hieɪtʃərləntʃ/ for ―He ate your lunch‖).
Johana (2005) pinpoints that accommodatory phonological processes affect
precisely the points at which the listener needs unambiguous information—namely
word beginnings and endings. To be more specific, students may have some troubles
in materials such as assimilation, elision or linking word. Liaison (the linking of words
in the speech when the second word begins with a vowel, e.g., an orange) and elision

(leaving out a sound or sounds, e.g., suppose may be pronounced in rapid speech) are
common phenomena that make it difficult for students to distinguish or recognize
individual words in the stream of speech. They are used to seeing words written as
discrete entities in their textbooks.
-

The intonation and stress

One of the outstanding features of English is stress and intonation. The purpose
of stress is to highlight content words to convey the meaning. Students somehow
cannot distinguish between the content and function words. Additionally, they do not
know the fact that words in spoken continuous speech are often not given the same
stress as they are said in isolation (Underwood, 1989). As a result, they cannot hear the
word that they already know. Also, foreign students sometimes fail to recognize the
grammar points in listening because of the stress.
-

The noise and redundancy

11


When listening, the listeners often have to cope with the amount of noise. Some
words are may be drowned by outside interference, such as the surrounding sounds.
The foreign language learners must put more effort to grasp the meaning among these
noises. Sometimes, they cannot get the point because of the interruption of noise.
Besides, redundant utterances may take the form of repetitions, false starts, rephrasings, self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies, and apparently meaningless
additions such as ―I mean‖ or ―you know‖ (Ur, 1984). This redundancy is a natural
feature of speech and may be either a help or a hindrance, depending on the students’
levels. It may make it more difficult for beginners to understand what the speaker is

saying; on the other hand, it may give advanced students more time to ―tune in‖ to the
speaker’s voice and speech style.
-

Discourse markers

Apart from the above difficulties, failure to recognize signal words of the
speakers is also an obstacle to the learners. The speakers use the discourse makers to
indicate that they are moving the ideas, giving examples, or repeating the previous
points (Underwood, 1989). Being unable to listen to these markers will prevent the
learners from following the continuous stream of the speech.
1.3.3
-

Difficulties from learners

Lack of vocabulary and background knowledge

Lack of socio-cultural, factual, and contextual knowledge of the target
language can pose an obstacle to comprehension because language is used to express
its culture (Anderson & Lynch, 1988).Knowledge of the world help is used to help
understand the messages basing on some key words. To put it in another way, the
more broadened knowledge you have, the easier you can catch the point. If the
students listen to an unfamiliar topic, they will be panic and confused; consequently,
they may fail to listen.

12


Other than the shortage of background knowledge, the limitation of vocabulary

also prevents students from listening comprehensively. Yagang (1993) suggests that
the limited vocabulary of collocations and slangs prevents the students from guessing
and predicting the content in general and the missing words and phrases in particular.
-

Incorrect pronunciation:

It is obvious that good pronunciation contributes significantly in listening skill.
It could help students to recognize and write down the correct form of words. Forming
a habit of checking the vocabulary is one of the ways to improve pronunciation.
Gilakjani (2012) provides empirical evidence that learners with good English
pronunciation are likely understood even if they make errors in other areas; whereas
learners with bad pronunciation will not even if their grammar is perfect.
-

Physical factors

It is believed that in a long comprehension exercise, a learner’s grasp of the
content is much better at the beginning and gets progressively worse as he/she goes on.
Due to the psychological phenomenon, at the end of the lesson the students often run
out of energy and enthusiasm for studying. Yagang (1993) states that listening is not a
simple process; in contrast, it is a complex psychological one. It means that when a
student feels anxious or nervous, he or she cannot concentrate. More importantly, the
classroom atmosphere and surrounding environment also can distract them from their
listening. For instance, the listeners cannot pay attention to the listening if the others
are talking or there are noises in the tape recording.
1.3.4
-

Difficulties from physical setting

Poor quality of the equipment and facilities

Unclear sounds resulting from poor-quality equipment can interfere with the
listener’s comprehension. In addition, in a crowded classroom, the students who sit at
the end of the classroom may not listen to the lessons clearly. According to
Chetchumlong (1987), the scarcity of opportunities to listen to variety of spoken texts
13


with the aid of good equipments and learn English with native speakers, especially in
rural areas, contributes to listening performance. Moreover, large classroom, noises
surrounding and crowded class also have negative impact on listening.
-

Using audio

Moreover, in listening lessons, the students often practice with audio recording.
Therefore, they cannot guess what the speakers are saying without watching. On the
other hand, according to Hemei (1997, cited in Çakir, 2006), video is a rich and
valuable resource; and it it well-liked by both students and teachers. Obviously, video
makes meaning clearer by illustrating relationships in a way that is not possible with
words, which proves a well-known saying that a picture is worth thousand words. This
is in the line with Yagang (1994) and Harmer (2001) that not seeing the speaker’s
gesture and facial expressions makes it more difficult for the listener to understand the
speaker’s meaning.
1.4

Chapter summary:
This chapter examines the prior literature related to listening difficulties. With

a description of a huge amount of academic study, the researcher hopes that she has
gained enough relevant knowledge for her own study. However, it can be seen that
most literature is written in the context of foreign countries that somehow is not
appropriate for Vietnamese students. Therefore, with the own observation and detailed
explanation presented in the following chapters, the researcher hopes to compensate
for the above limitation.

14


Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1

Population and participant’s selection methods
2.1.1

Population

This study is carried out in the English department at ULIS, VNU to explore the
difficulties in learning listening skill. The main population of this research is first year
students who have learnt listening as a main subject at university. The research is
limited to the first year mainstream students at FELTE, ULIS because of the following
reasons. First, such freshmen have reached a certain level of English after graduating
from the high school. To some extent, they have passed the entrance exam to
university and experienced at least one semester of learning English as a major.
Besides, they get accustomed to listening skill as a separate subject at university,
unlike what they have learnt in the high school. More precisely, a totally different way
of learning English is provided. In the high school, the students focused the majority of
their time on grammar but ignored other skills. As a result, in the new learning

approach, it will be a significant obstacle. Moreover, they have got opportunity to
practice listening skill through doing exercises and assignments.

In conclusion,

figuring out and dealing with these problems in their first steps of acquiring English
are extremely urgent.
In addition, the first year students are categorized into three groups according to their
majors and their forms of training. In terms of their majors, they are classified into
three groups: teacher training students, translation group, and double-majors.
Regarding their forms of training, they are also divided into three groups: fast-track,
mainstream and ethnic minority group. Base on the researcher’s information, the
syllabuses are different from teacher training students, translation group to double
degree group. Therefore, within the scope of the study, the translation group, doublemajors, fast-track and ethnic minority group are excluded. The researcher just hopes to

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investigate the mainstream teacher training freshmen from QH.12. F.1.E3 to
QH.12.F.1.E9.
The study was conducted with the participation of 150 first-year students from
six classes at FELTE, ULIS, VNU to answer both of the research questions. They
come from different areas around Vietnam with various levels in listening skills.
Afterwards, the collected results are processed by quantitative analysis method to
illustrate the survey findings.
2.1.2 Sampling methods
As mentioned above, the study involved the participation of 150 students from
five classes. The researchers would like to apply convenience sampling strategy. The
researcher selected randomly 25 students from six classes in FELTE, ULIS, VNU. The
more details are presented in the table below:

Table 1: Participants in the study
Class

Number of participants

12E3

25

12E4

25

12E5

25

12E6

25

12E7

25

12E8

25

Moreover, some background information of the participants is provided in the

following table to support for the data analysis:
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