A study on difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai University

ABSTRACT
We are living in a period of global integration. In the context of an
industrialized and modernized country approaching international cooperation,
learning English language has become more and more vital to Vietnamese students.
Of all English skills, Listening is one of the most important skills in English
language learning. When students listen to English language, they face a lot of
listening difficulties. Students have critical difficulties in listening comprehension
because universities and schools pay more attention to writing, reading, and
vocabulary. Listening is not an important part of many course books and most
teachers do not pay attention to this important skill in their classes.
For this reason, the aim of the study is to find out the difficulties encounter in
listening comprehension skill of English students at Thuongmai University.
In this paper, the researchers reviewed the theoretical background which
elaborates on the definition of English listening comprehension skill, the
importance of listening comprehension skills for English students at Thuongmai
University. The research uses the questionnaire to 100 students second-year students
majoring in English at Thuongmai University to collect specific data for the study.
From the questionnaire findings, the difficulties that students encounter in listening
comprehension found. There are include difficulties related to listening material
(objective factors): the poor quality of the audio, complex grammatical structures,
the fast speed of the speaker; and difficulties related to the individual listeners
(subjective factors): the lack of vocabularies, psychological/ physical factors or lack
of social and background knowledge. From the results, the researcher makes
recommendations for students and teachers to help improve students' listening
comprehension skills.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
2

Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs.
Pham Thi To Loan, for her valuable feedback, close guidance, criticism, as well as
her generous assistance in the process of completing my thesis.
Next, I am grateful to say thank you to all teachers at Thuongmai University
for providing us with precious knowledge, useful information from their practical
and helpful lectures.
Furthermore, I would like to thanks to 100 students in the second year of the
English Faculty, Thuongmai University. They have provided helpful information to
help me in the course of completing my paper by completing the questionnaire.
Lastly, I want to thank my family and friends for supporting me
unconditionally during my study at Thuongmai University. Without their kind
support, it would have been impossible for me to complete this research.
Hanoi, April 3 rd, 2020
Student
Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Tables
Table 3.1

The importance of listening comprehension skill in learning
English language at University

Table 3.2

The level of the second-year students in listening comprehension

Table 3.3

The students’ scores in listening skill

Table 3.4

Different means to enhance listening comprehension skill.

Table 3.5

Problems related to the Listening materials

Table 3.6

Listening comprehension problems from the listeners.

Charts

Chart 3.1

The students’s assessments of learning English listening
comprehension skill

Chart 3.2

The students’ attitude in learning listening comprehension skill

Chart 3.3

Students’ purpose to learn English speaking skill

Chart 3.4

Students’ self-study frequency in a week

4


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

5

English listening comprehension

ELC

English foreign language

EFL

HaiPhong Private University

HPU

Thuongmai University

TMU

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1.

Rationale
Nowadays, English is playing a significant job in numerous areas including
medicine, engineering, education, advanced studies, technology, banking,
computing, tourism and so forth, most international transactions are being carried
out in English.

English has become an important second language in many

countries. As a result, learning English is becoming more essential than ever in
many countries around the world and Viet Nam is not an exception, especially with
students at universities and colleges.
In the age of globalization, the world of technology, information, English
becomes very necessary for any individual who tends to follow up on the fast
change in the modern world. To access information the most quickly and accurately,
English listening comprehension skill plays an important role. Furthermore, as for
the students of the English Department, listening comprehension skill is extremely
important because they expect to use it frequently for their future work. Sometimes,
when you watch the TV, listen to the news or communicate with a native speaker,
you only hear a few keywords, and do not fully understand the content of the whole
dialog. This causes afraid to connect with others, which is extremely detrimental to
your work in the future. So, the training at the university is very necessary. In a
communication in the real life, we are able to talk sensibly when we understand
what is said to us. Moreover, in learning a language, listening comprehension is a
useful means of providing students with comprehensible information input, which is
an essential component of the whole language learning process.
However, it is still a challenge for Thuongmai University students in general,

and English language students in particular. Many students seem to lack the skills
and confidence to make effective listen. May be listening comprehension skill is
very difficult, students do not know the helpful practice methods lead to feeling
depressed. On the other hand, training listening skill takes long time, which means
they need to spend a lot of time self-studying in order to become better, especially
in listening practice more and more.

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Therefore, as a researcher, I would like to present the thesis title “ A study on
difficulties in listening comprehension of English students at Thuongmai
University”. And the second-year students of English faculty will help me
participate in this study. I choose second-year English students because they had
one year to adapt to the circumstances of Thuongmai university and actually, they
do not have much experience in listening comprehension skill. Hopefully, this
graduation paper will point out some difficulties in English listening comprehension
skill of the second-year English student and the solutions to make that good better.
1.2.

Previous studies
Up to now, many researchers studied about aspects of difficulties in English
listening comprehension both in the world and in Vietnam. These researches come
from experts who are interested in language learning, they pointed out many
difficulties and the reasons that make the listening comprehension become
complicated for studies. And of course, they also give some helpful methods to
improve listening comprehension skill for everyone. After selecting, I decided to
choose some of the following researches:
1.2.1. Studies in the world
In 2013,Wu Xiao Juan and Mohamad Jafre Zainol Abidin from school of

Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia conducted a study called " English
Listening Comprehension Problems of Students from China Learning English in
Malaysia". The thesis researched the English listening comprehension problems of
university international students from China. The research used a qualitative method
to collect data from China’s students taking English Listening Comprehension
(ELC) in University Sains Malaysian. This study is a research report related to the
problems encountered by China’s students in ELC learning. Findings from this
study indicated that the main problem faced by China’s students was the lack of
prior knowledge in English vocabulary, this inhibits their understanding in the
listening process. Moreover, the differences in the ascent of the native speakers
prohibit the proper understanding of the listening content, the short span of
concentration, and the learning habit of China’s students were discussed as the
problems of the ELC learning. This research laid a good foundation for further
7


research; it provided useful information concerning effective strategies to enhance
students’ listening skills .
Hamouda, Arafat (2012), carried out a study named " Listening
Comprehension Problems - Voices from the Classroom". The study attempts to
investigate the listening problems encountered by a group of first-year English
major students of Qassim University. Data was gathered by means of questionnaires
and interviews. The results of the study showed that Accent, pronunciation, speed of
speech, insufficient vocabulary, the different accent of speakers, lack of
concentration, anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening
comprehension problems encountered by English foreign language ( EFL) Saudi
learners. Understanding students' learning difficulties may enable EFL teachers to
help students develop effective learning strategies and ultimately improve their
English listening abilities. Suggestions are made for addressing problems regarding
how teachers can help their students overcome listening comprehension problems.

1.2.2. Studies in Vietnam
In 2014, a study with the title "A study on Second-year English major
students’ difficulties in listening comprehension skills at Haiphong Private
University (HPU)” was carried out by Bui Thi Thuy Trang. This study was
conducted with the aim of investigating English listening problems and listening
proficiency of the student at HPU. The questionnaire and interview were used in
this study as tools to collect data. The result of the study revealed the main reason
that caused listening problem for the students is the listening text. However, the
factors that mostly caused listening problems were lack of practicing listening skill
and lack of exposure to different kinds of listening materials.
In 2007, Mrs. Ly Thi Chung Thuy also contributed a study with title " Kỹ năng
nghe hiểu tiếng Anh cho người học ở trình độ sơ cấp (elementary) theo hướng tích
cực hóa hoạt động tự học". The thesis has pointed out the errors that learners make
when listening comprehension and offers ways to overcome and the methods of
self-learning listening comprehension skill is not boring.
1.3. Aims of the study

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The study is to find out English listening comprehension difficulties
encountered by the second-year English Faculty students at Thuongmai University
(TMU). Rather than serving only for the purpose of completing the graduate thesis,
the author has found it exciting in the project implementation, which may also help
the English students but anyone who is learning English identifies the reasons for
lack of English proficiency and to self-practice more successfully beside following
school’s curriculum. Accordingly, the research needs to address the following
issues:
•

Investigating the difficulties and the causes in learning listening skills perceived by

Faculty of English Language of the second-year students of TMU
• Finding out the causes of the cause of difficulties.
• Presenting some solutions that the students apply to improve their study of
Listening comprehension Skills.
1.4. Scope of the study
This study mainly focuses on listening comprehension skills in English in the
classroom setting. Since the limitation of time and space, in this paper, the author
just focuses on difficulties in English listening comprehension skills to improve
these skills of second-year English Faculty students at TMU.
The research was carried out in the second semester of the academic school
year 2019-2020, with the participation of 100 random sophomore students of
English Faculty. These are the students who are randomly selected, have an average
to good level of English.
The instrument for the survey is a self- administered questionnaire. The
participants are asked to answer the questionnaire by themselves. The questionnaire
consists of both closed-ended and opened-ended questions to find out exactly
students' abilities and the problems they encounter when learning English listening
comprehension skills.
1.5. Research methodology
1.5.1 Participants of the study
The study was conducted with a total of 100 second-year students of the
English Faculty at Thuongmai university. They come from many different regions
and have different learning. This reflects the diversity in their experience and
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educational background. These students have good results training at high school
and they passed the university entrance exam. The researcher chooses the secondyear mainstream students for the study because they have entered the university for

one year and have they had time to access the university's environment; however,
they have a few 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.
1.5.2. Instrumentation
The research was undertaken quantitative method study. According to Brown
(2001, cited in Markey & Gass, 2005) “Questionnaires are any written instruments
that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to
react, either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing
answers”.
Markey & Gass (2005) see using questionnaires as an instrument which allows
researchers to gather information in such a short time with comparable information.
So, for the study, I choose a questionnaire as the main research tool to collect
data. A questionnaire will be given for 100 second-year students of the English
Faculty at Thuongmai University. The researcher would analyze the collected data
and then display the survey results in forms of charts and tables.
The questionnaire is classified into two parts: Part I request students’
background information with 4 question; Part II is the main part of the
questionnaire including 6 questions about second-year English major students’
perception toward the difficulties in English comprehension skill. From the answer
sheet received, the researcher will collect and analyze the data to address the
problems that students encounter.
1.5.3. Data collection procedures
The research is focused on the problems of students in English listening
comprehension. This research uses the method to collect data on individuals’
personal experiences and perspectives. There are three steps to collect data. In stage
one; the researcher gathered information on exposure in general, such as read
materials, finds problems form conversation in normal study. Based on the first step,
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creating a questionnaire to survey students' personal opinions. In the third step, a
much focused in-depth study has been conducted. The final is to transfer field notes
and data gathered for analysis, interpretation, and presentation. The result of this
analysis shall be reported in Chapter three.
To increase the reliability and validity of the research study, a random
sampling procedure was applied in the survey questionnaire.
The questionnaire will be set up and surveyed for 100 students after practicing
listening comprehension in English classes at university. After that, the results will
be sent back to the researcher. The questionnaire will be carefully considered before
sending it directly to the second-year students of the English Faculty. The
questionnaire will also be brief and clear for all students to understand and
implement. Students were asked to perform the survey in the most objective
manner.
Finally, the researcher will receive a completed questionnaire and check the
number of sheets again.
1.5.4.

Data analysis methods

Data analysis is a process of inspecting, transforming data with the goal of
highlighting information, helping the researcher to come up with suggestions and
solutions.
In terms of data obtained in the questionnaires, the results were collected and
analyzed by means of the Microsoft Excel software according to the percentage.
After that, the data will be illustrated through charts and tables for a clear
description of the findings, which helps to confirm the results from survey
questionnaires.
This research method will save research time and quickly collect research data
for analysis.

1.6. Organization of the study
The study on second-year students in listening comprehension of English
Faculty at TMU is divided into four chapters.
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Chapter 1: Overview of the study
The first chapter is the introduction which begins with the background of the
study, statement of the problem, the objective of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
The researcher presents a review of related theories, concepts, and literature.
Chapter 3: Research findings
This chapter will examine students based on a set questionnaire. Through the
survey, we will learn the views of students about the difficultie s in listening
comprehension skill. The results will then be analyzed for the summary of the study.
Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions
In the last chapter are discussion and some effective ways to improve the skill
of listening comprehension and conclusion.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. English skills
The use of English in Vietnam, while far from being as developed as in the
European countries, nevertheless increasing through the influence of the media and
the internet. The Vietnam government has long realized the importance of the
English language as a major core subject in schools, and it has been a compulsory
subject at varying levels for many years.
Learning English consists of 4 skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
These skills are all essential for us to complete our communication process more
effectively.

In order for us to be proficient in a language, let's fully understand all four
skills. It is a mistake if you only focus on vocabulary or grammar and ignore
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listening and speaking skills. This will make it difficult for you to communicate,
especially for English students, who are studying language, will use English a lot in
future jobs.
2.2. An overview of listening comprehension skill
Listening skill is the ability to recall and understand information that is
presented orally. As a result, it is important for many reasons. First of all, listening
is one of the primary means of obtaining information. To learn about world affairs,
we listen to news either on the radio or television. People also learn new skills by
listening to supervisors or teachers. Listening also helps people to develop ideas and
make decisions.
2.2.1. Definition of listening comprehension skill
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.
Besides, according to Brown and Yule (1983), listening comprehension means
that a person understands what he/she has heard. If he/she learns the text through
hearing it, he/she will understand it.
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 meaning form oral input.
Ma Lihua (2002), states that listening comprehension is a complex
psychological process of listeners’ understand language by sense of hearing. It is an
interactive process of language knowledge and psychological activities. However,
this process is not simply decoding the message; it also involves the combining of
the decoding or the message process with its reconstruction as meaning.
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Vandergrift (1997) has claimed listening comprehension as a complex
cognitive process in which listeners use their linguistic knowledge to deal with the
incoming stimuli, retain what they receive, and interpret it within the socio-cultural
context of message. Also, he emphasized that listening comprehension is an active
process where learners must distinguish the learners may interpret and respond
immediately when they listen to messages. This definition refers to the notion that
the learners are involved in the listening process.
To sum up, all of the definitions are given with a view to clarifying the nature
of the listening comprehension skill which is necessary in the process of acquiring a
language.
2.2.2. The purpose of listening comprehension
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 of other language 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. Precisely, without receiving the necessary language input at
the right level, the learning process.
The aim of language is to communicate a specific message. Accurate and
coherent communication of the message, confirmation that it has been understood
are essential. Some examples of language being used for a transaction purpose are:
news broadcasts, descriptions, narrations and instructions. If we can't understand
what the other person is saying, the conversation will fail.
2.2.3. The importance of listening comprehension skill

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Listening comprehension is one of the necessary life skills. this skill can
provide you with a better perspective on life, skill can allow you to connect more
with everyone around you. In the real-life, we often listen more than speaks, reads
or writes. For instance, at home, we watch film, listen to news or talk with others.
At school, students listen to lectures teaching. And in working, we must listen to the
opinion of customers or bosses. We listen to everything in everywhere and every
time. Without listening, the men become backward in their life. It is obvious that
listening plays important roles in the real life.
Vandergriff (1997) claims that listening internalizes not only the rules of
language skills but also facilitates the emergence of other skills. Besides, 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 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).

In conclusion, listening plays such an essential role in learning a language.
Training in listening comprehension is really necessary. It helps students make the
transition from classroom English to real life English more easily and effectively.
This skill is not only a tool to acquire other sources of English knowledge but also
provides language learners with the most important patterns of other languages.
2.3. Difficulties of listening comprehension skill of English learners
a. Linguistics problems
Linguistics problems are those problems that make students listening
comprehension ability become poor. There are some linguistics problems that affect
someone in speaking:
Vocabulary:
Vocabulary is an individual word or a set of words which have a specific
meaning. The problems of vocabularies occur when someone is lack of vocabulary
needed to talk and does not know how combine the vocabularies into a good
15


sentence. Not having enough vocabulary prevents students from hearing audio or
what others are saying. And of course, at the same time, they couldn't understand
the content as well.
Pronunciation:
English has become a language that connects people all over the world. A
second language learner needs to master the individual characteristic of the sound of
a new language. Furthermore, it will be good for the students to be able to speak
naturally like the native-speaker itself. If we do not pronounce words correctly then
we will not be able to recognize words even if we know them.
b. The speed of the speakers
Futhermore, 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 have 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.
c. 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
d. 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
16


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 English language learners who
have been exposed to standard written English and "textbook" language sometimes
find it surprising and difficult to deal with colloquial language.
e. The noise and redundancy
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.
2.4. Ways to improve English listening comprehension skill
•

Expand vocabulary and improve pronunciation
Vocabulary is the main tool for the students in their attempt to use English
effectively. When confronted with a native English speaker, when watching a movie
or when listening to a favorite English song, students will always need to operate
with words. Students can gain vocabulary through every source they can find, for
instance: their favorite songs, movies, TV shows or they can actively try to look for
new words in their own needs with dictionary.

•

Practicing every day with social networking sites or internet.
Nowadays, students have all been familiar with learning English through
listening music, watching movies, TV shows or any other English content. Thanks
to the advancement of technology, students can use smartphone or laptop to find
sources in English and bring them into practice. Today, there are now plenty of
English-learning apps on mobile devices that learners can easily use in their spare
time to self-study. Film and entertainment channels are available and extremely
17

convenient for students in improving listening comprehension; Studying and
playing at the same time helps students feel comfortable and free from pressure. In
addition, good listening will help students a lot in both speaking and
communication skills.
•

Practice communicating with others
Besides listening to audio, music or movies, communicating with others will
help your communication skills develop more comprehensive. Better when your
partner is a native speaker. When talking to each other, they have the correct
pronunciation and the standard way of speaking in their native language, which
helps you correct your mistakes while listening and communicating in reality.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS
After collecting the opinions of 100 students of second-year of English major
at TMU. The researcher conducts summation and data analysis. Statistical analysis
was performed to render specific statistics. These numbers were then put in charts
or graphs for better illustration and explanation, making the study more concise and
scientific.
3.1. Students’ background information
The study participants were 100 second-year students in the English
department of Thuongmai University. At the age of 19, I have only been to college
for 1 year. The study is conducted in the second semester of the academic year
2019-2020. They have had at least 7-8 years of learning and practicing English at
secondary and high school. After 3 semesters at Thuongmai University, these
students have had a really interesting environment experience, the way of teaching
and especially the ability to self-study in the university environment. Moreover,
these students have gained a lot of knowledge from many different subjects and
fields. However, as an English major student, learning English is still the main
thing. Here, these students are fully trained on 4 skills in English.

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Because of the transparency of the study, the researcher will not know in
advance about the academic performance, scores, and qualifications of each
participant.
These students come from different provinces and cities, with different
English learning environments. The only thing they have in common is that they are
all second-year students in the English department of business university.
•

Question 1 – 4 ask about Students’ background information about their ELC
level.
In order to accurately understand the views as well as the problems that
students encounter, of course, the questions of the background of the learners are
indispensable. Some questions such as the present level of English listening
comprehension, score in the class or students’ attitude about listening
comprehension will help us to have a general and transparent view of the students'
ability and view of listening comprehension skills.
Content
weak
Average
Good
Axcellent

Number of students
5
48
39
8

Percentage (%)
5%
48%
39%
8%

Table 3.1: The level of the second-year students in listening comprehension.
Looking at the table, we can see that approximately haft of students’
assumption for their level of listening comprehension is Average (48%). As showed
clearly in the questionnaire, this status means students can understand and can listen
to basic contend, but still find it hard to listening completely to all content from
simple to complex. And there are 39% in the total students participate in the
research said that they are good at listening comprehension. Having 8% of the
students feel confident with their listening skill. That means these students have
listening skill very good, they feel comfortable and can hear and understand any
content. However, still have 5% the number of students who find themselves as a
Weak listener, this specifically means they usually take too much time or find it
very difficult to form a full sentence.
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The next table shows us the scores in the listening skills of the students
participating in the study.
Content (Score)
<5
5 – 6.4
6.5 - 8
>8

Number of students
5
35
40
20

Percentage (%)
5%
35%
40%
20%

Table 3.2: The students’ scores in listening skill.
The next questions ( question 3 and 4 ) will show we about the students’
interest in learning comprehension skill. Questions' aim to get a better
understanding the perception about listening comprehension skill of second-year
English Faculty students at Thuongmai University, including: attitudes toward the
learning of English listening comprehension skill and self-practice listening,
learning purpose and the perception of self-study the skill. The results have been
collected and shown in the following charts:

Chart 3.1: The students’ attitude in learning listening comprehension skill
The column chart shows a surprising result which very contrary to the author's
subjective assumption. Normally, the difficulties bore the listeners. However, the
survey indicates the contrast. In spite of the difficulties of listening, 22% of the
learners like learning listening comprehension very much and 48% like it. Listening
comprehension is not boring as many people thought. As it can be seen, in English
class learning listening comprehension is interesting. 30% of the learners fell
normal with learning listening comprehension. For them, learning listening
comprehension might be neither interesting nor it depends on each lesson. In

conclusion, listening to English is a favorite subject of the students.
The next chart shows the purposes of learning English speaking skill which
are most common for students:

Chart 3.2. Students’ purpose to learn English speaking skill
20


In this question, students are allowed to select more than one answer. From the data
presented in this chart, we can see that the highest percentage (62%) identified the major
reason for learning English listenning comprehension was to get a job in the future. This
statistic is practical because the survey was conducted among English-majored students
who hope to find an English-related job after they graduate. In addition to these, 55% of
the 100 students choose to learn listening English for the purpose of communicating
fluently with foreigners. For many English learners, “gain more confidence” seems to be
one of the priority goals for practicing listening comprehension skill. Because being able
to listen to English is one of the strengths that helps you reach out to any aspect in life, a
statistic of 51% of the students learn English is to become more confident. Only 23 out
of 100 students (23%) claim that getting high marks in class or examination is the
objective of learning English listening comprehension skill.
As discussed before, practicing English listening comprehension skill is not an
easy task. It will take a lot of dedicated time and hard-work to be proficient in
English. English Faculty – Thuongmai University have had many strategic teaching
methods to help students practice speaking, for examples: giving more chances to
talk and listen the lessons, group discussion, etc. However, students also need to be
responsible for their own learning outside of class to reach the highest achievement.
3.1.1. Difficulties in listening comprehension of English syudents at
Thuongmai University.
•

The question number 5 and 6 are about the general view of students for English
listening comprehension skills.
The first question is about the students’ assessment of the importance of
learning English listening comprehension skills in their university. And the results
will be shown in the following table:
Table 3.3: The importance of listening comprehension skill in learning English
language at University
Content
Unimportant
Important
Very important

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Number of students
0
10
90

Percentage (%)
0%
10%
90%


In general, most of the students believed that listening comprehension skill is
important for learning English languages. They all considered this skill
indispensable as their learning at school must listen to English very much.
Moreover, being the students of English Faculty, listening comprehension play an
important role in your career in the future.

The result of the survey shows that 90 students (90%) believed that
presentation is very important, just has 10 students (10%) shared that listening
comprehension skill is important and none of them denied the importance of
presentation in learning English language. No students think that listening
comprehension skill is not important. This result showed that all the students of the
English Faculty were totally aware of the importance of listening comprehension
skills in their learning English. They that this skill could develop their confidence in
communicating skill which accordingly might bring better career prospect.
This chart (Chart 3.3) is the result of the second question: "What do you think
about the difficulty of listening comprehension skill?".
It can be seen obviously in the chart that listening comprehension skill is a
difficult skill to learn according to the point of view of second-year students in
English faculty. Having 56% of the learners suppose that listening comprehension is
difficult. Moreover, the number of learners who agree that learning the listening
comprehension is very difficult took 24%. For them, ELC is really a problem. 17%
is the number of students find learning listening comprehension normal, and 4% for
the opinion that listening comprehension is easy. In fact, as what can be seen by the
observation, the learners who confirm that this skill is easy to learn are the best
students. Unfortunately, the number of such good students is very small compared
to the overall. When you learn something that feels easy, you don't have to be afraid
to learn it. In short, the survey proves the assumption about the difficulty of
listening comprehension to English.
•

Question 7 and 8 discuss the difficulties that second-year English students at
Thuongmai University encountered in listening comprehension skill.

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As we all know, listening comprehension is considered the most difficult of
the 4 English skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing). So, learning good
listening skills makes students face many difficulties. Especially for second-year
students, you do not have much experience in listening to English because, in some
high schools, the reading and writing skills are often focused more. Furthermore, at
university, the amount of knowledge that students have to acquire is much greater,
so listening skills become more difficult and important than ever.
Factors causing students listening comprehension problems are categorized
into different sources including problems related to the listening text, listening
problems related to the individual learners, listening problems related to the listener
and the difficulties will be discussed in detail below.
a. Difficulties related to the Listening materials ( Objective factors )

The listening material may consist of almost any area of life. It might include
street gossip, proverbs, everyday conversation, new products, and situations
unfamiliar to the student. Also, in spontaneous conversation speakers frequently
change topics. The material itself may be the main source of listening
comprehension difficulty. In particular, unfamiliar words, difficult grammatical
structures, and the length of the spoken text may present students with listening
problems (Table 3.4).
Statements
I find it difficult to understand listening texts in which
there are too many unfamiliar words including jargon
and idioms.
Complex grammatical structures interfered with my
listening comprehension.
Long spoken text interfered with my listening
comprehension.
The poor quality of the audio results in me being
unable to hear words clearly.

The fast speed of the speaker makes me unable to
hear the key word of the message.
Noise and redundancy make me unable to hear the
message.

Number of
students

Percentage
(%)

56

56%

42

42%

20

20%

67

67%

31

31%

22

22%

Table 3.4. Difficulties related to the Listening materials
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The data above shows us the opinions of second-year students in English at
Thuongmai University on difficulties in listening and understanding. This question
from the survey allows students to select multiple answers in order to find out all
the problems related to listening and speaking texts that cause students cannot
listening comprehension. Linguistic challenges are those that result from the
English language itself. They are caused by students' lack of English proficiency.
Research shows that some difficulties in understanding and remembering
information from speakers may be due to the lack of English language skill itself.
According to data gathered from 100 students by questionnaire, most of the students
have problems with the jargon and idioms (56%); complex grammatical structure
(42%); and the poor quality of the listening texts (67%).
-

Difficult to understand many jargon and idioms in the listening comprehension
texts.
When faced with idioms, slang or jargon, these students often have a nervous
attitude because they do not understand what the speaker is saying. It takes too
much time trying to hear and interpret these words that they lose their focus, leading
to the inability to hear the following text, resulting in them not being able to
understand the message of the whole article. With 56% of the total choices, we can
see that the second-year students in the English department have a big problem with

listening to idioms and jargon in the listening lesson. They feel awkward and lose
confidence when encountering them. For this problem, there is no better way for
students to memorize as many idioms and jargon as possible.

-

Problem with the complex grammatical structures
42% of the students have responded that difficult grammatical structures
interfered with their listening comprehension. Grammar is a study in which
sentences are structured and formatted, so that it may be considered a bit boring to
study correct grammar since it really is worth the time and effort. If learners do not
know the rules of grammar, they will never be able to communicate using English
effectively. The percentages point out difficult grammatical structures cause much
trouble to students. This conforms to Vogely’s study (1998) which shows that the

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difficulty in listening comprehension is partly due to the structural component of the
text.
-

Problem with the poor quality of the listening texts
With the highest percentage (67%), the majority of students encountered
sound quality problems while listening. In their opinion, the poor quality of CDs
and CD players is a big problem. They think it made them difficult to listen.. In
fact, these students' worries are justified. Unclear sounds resulting from poorquality equipment can also interfere with the listener’s comprehension. For
example, while you are having a listening test, unfortunately, radio or CDs have
problems and it emits a humming sound, what is the worst happen? Poor sound
quality makes it impossible for students to hear the keyword clearly and to

understand the content of the listening text. Therefore, it is easy for students to get
bad grades.
Currently, Thuongmai University has sufficient facilities, a modern speaker
system to serve the lectures of students and lecturers. This helps minimize the
disadvantages of the sound quality of learning English listening skills of students.
In addition to the main difficulties outlined above, there are a number of other
difficulties that Thuongmai University's second-year English students encounter in
listening comprehension skills. There are the problem with the long spoken text
(20%), the fast speed of the speaker (31%) and the problem relate to the noise and
redundancy (22%).
In addition to the main difficulties pointed out above, there are a number of
other difficulties that Thuongmai University's second-year English students
encounter in listening comprehension skills. In fact, when students do not have
much experience in listening comprehension, encountering a too long text will
make them depressed and have the thought of giving up. The same thing happens
when the speaker's speed is too fast lead to students cannot hear the keywords in the
listening text. Besides, unnecessary noise and redundancy will also make it difficult
for students to listen.

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