DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE TENTH GRADERS IN LEARNING ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BIEN HOA CITY

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Nguyễn Minh Trí

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE
TENTH GRADERS IN LEARNING ENGLISH
LISTENING SKILLS AT AN UPPER
SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BIEN HOA CITY

MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

HO CHI MINH, 2021

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VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Nguyễn Minh Trí

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE
TENTH GRADERS IN LEARNING ENGLISH
LISTENING SKILLS AT AN UPPER
SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BIEN HOA CITY

Field: English Language
Code: 8220201
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phạm Hữu Đức

HO CHI MINH, 2021

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DECLARATION BY AUTHOR
I hereby claim that the thesis entitled “Difficulties Encountered by the
Tenth Graders in Learning English Listening Skills at an Upper
Secondary School in Bien Hoa City” was written solely by myself and was
not submitted for admission to a degree, diploma or other qualification to this
university or any other institution.
This master thesis has not been published before. And if it is eventually
proved that I am cheating, I am ready to take responsibility, including the
revocation of my academic degree.
Author’s signature

Nguyễn Minh Trí
Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phạm Hữu Đức
Date:………………………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing this dissertation is the final step of a long journey. I would have not
begun this journey had it not been helped by a lot of people. First and foremost,

I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my supervisor Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Phạm Hữu Đức, my supervisor for his tremendous knowledge,
guidance, and recommendations which constantly motivated me throughout the
research.
I would like to send my thanks for the useful materials, advice, and
enthusiasm for this study to all lectures and staff of the Graduate Academy of
Social Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Social Science, in Ho Chi Minh City.
In addition, my sincere gratitude goes to the teachers and students of the
Nguyen Huu Canh Upper Secondary School who have willingly spent their
precious time in the interview process.
Last but not least, I would like to show appreciation for my beloved family
and my friends for their encouragement to help me overcome difficulties to
finish this study.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DECLARATION BY AUTHOR ..................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................... viii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................ ix
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................. 1
1.1 Rationale ................................................................................................ 1
1.2 Aims of the Study................................................................................... 2
1.3 Research questions ................................................................................. 3

1.4 Scope of the Study ................................................................................. 3
1.5 Significance of the study ........................................................................ 3
1.6 Research methods................................................................................... 4
1.7 Structure of the study ............................................................................. 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................... 6
2.1 Overview of Listening ........................................................................... 6
2.1.1 Definition of Listening and Listening skills ....................................... 6
2.1.2 The importance of listening skills ...................................................... 7
2.1.3 Listening process................................................................................ 8
2.1.4 Elements of Listening ......................................................................... 9
2.1.5 Types of Listening ............................................................................ 10
2.2 Difficulties in Learning Listening skills .............................................. 13
2.3 Factors affecting listening learning in class ......................................... 15
2.3.1 Content ............................................................................................. 15

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2.3.2 Learners ........................................................................................... 19
2.3.3 Speakers ........................................................................................... 20
2.3.4 Stages of listening ............................................................................ 10
2.3.5 Physical setting ................................................................................ 23
2.4 Previous related study .......................................................................... 25
2.4.1 Previous study overseas ................................................................... 25
2.4.2 In Vietnam ........................................................................................ 26
2.5 Summary .............................................................................................. 27
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.................................... 28
3.1 Research questions ............................................................................... 28
3.3 Participants ........................................................................................... 29
3.4 Data collection instrument ................................................................... 29

3.4.1 Survey Questionnaires .................................................................... 29
3.4.2 Interviews ........................................................................................ 30
3.5 Data collection procedures ................................................................... 30
3.6 Data analysis ........................................................................................ 31
3.7 Summary .............................................................................................. 31
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ................................... 32
4.1 Data analysis of survey questionnaire.................................................. 32
4.1.1 Data analysis of students’ survey questionnaire ............................. 32
4.1.2 Data analysis of teachers’ survey questionnaire............................. 54
4.2 Data analysis of survey interview ........................................................ 64
4.3 Discussions of the findings .................................................................. 66
4.4 Summary .............................................................................................. 69
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ................................................................... 71
5.1 Recapitulation ...................................................................................... 71
5.2 Concluding remarks ............................................................................. 72

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5.3 Implications .......................................................................................... 72
5.3.1 Implication for the students ............................................................. 72
5.3.2 Implication for the teachers ............................................................. 73
5.3.3 Implication for the school ................................................................ 77
5.4 Recommendations for the problems in learning listening skills .. Error!
Bookmark not defined.
5.4.1 Pre-teaching and activating vocabulary.......... Error! Bookmark not
defined.
5.4.2 Building up learner vocabulary ......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.4.3 Encouraging learner’s prediction...... Error! Bookmark not defined.
5.4.4 Using visual aids ................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

5.5 Limitations of the study ....................................................................... 78
5.6 Suggestions for further studies............................................................. 79
REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 80
APPENDIX 1.................................................................................................... I
APPENDIX 2................................................................................................. IV
APPENDIX 3................................................................................................VII
APPENDIX 4.................................................................................................. X

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ABSTRACT

Listening skills play an important role in everyday communication and the
educational process. Despite its importance, the teaching and learning state of
listening has long been neglected. This study attempts to investigate learning
and teaching problems in listening skills at NHCUSS. To solve the research
problem, the paper used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as the
main research tool for data collection. A brief description of the participants, as
well as data collection methods, was provided. The results of the study show
that most hearing difficulties are found in five main groups: content, learners,
speakers, physical setting, and stages of listening. After exploring the obstacles,
several proposed solutions are also introduced by the researcher to contribute
to teachers and students in teaching and learning their listening skills.

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 4. 1 Information about students participating in the survey ................. 32

Table 4. 2 Students’ years of learning English ............................................... 33
Table 4. 3 Students’ perceived importance of English listening skill ............ 34
Table 4. 4 Learning strategy difficulties perceived by tenth students ............ 50
Table 4. 5 Information about the teachers participated in the survey ............. 54
Table 4. 6 Teachers’ year of teaching English ................................................ 54
Table 4. 7 Teachers’ opinions in pre-listening stage ...................................... 60
Table 4. 8 Teachers’ opinions in while-listening stage................................... 62
Table 4. 9 Teachers’ opinions in post-listening stage ..................................... 63

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4. 1 Students’ attitude before every listening lesson ........................... 35
Figure 4. 2 Listening problems related to the content .................................... 36
Figure 4. 3 The difficulties of students with unfamiliar words ...................... 37
Figure 4. 4 The difficulties of students about the length of the text ............... 38
Figure 4. 5 The listening texts are too difficult for the students ..................... 40
Figure 4. 6 Connected speech ......................................................................... 41
Figure 4. 7 My background knowledge of listening topics is limited ............ 42
Figure 4. 8 I do not have any social knowledge about the topics ................... 43
Figure 4. 9 Concentration of the students in the class .................................... 44
Figure 4. 10 Concentration of the students on recording ................................ 45
Figure 4. 11 Strange accent and pronunciation ............................................... 46
Figure 4. 12 Speed of the speaker ................................................................... 47
Figure 4. 13 Facilities of the class are in good conditions .............................. 52
Figure 4. 14 Classroom atmosphere ................................................................ 53
Figure 4. 15 Time allowance ........................................................................... 55
Figure 4. 16 Lesson plan preparation .............................................................. 56
Figure 4. 17 Lack of facilities in the classroom .............................................. 57

Figure 4. 18 Teaching methods affect students in learning listening skills .... 58

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
NHCUSS: Nguyen Huu Canh Upper Secondary School
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
%: Percentage

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter introduces the rationale of the study, the aims, the research
questions, the scope, the methods, the significance, and the structure of the
study.

1.1 Rationale
As a foreign language, listening is a basic component of English. It may also
be regarded as a primary source of language learning. For various purposes,
such as entertainment, educational purpose, or collecting data. Among the four
language skills that all language learners should learn: listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. Due to the complex and subtle nature of listening
comprehension in a second or foreign language, listening is believed to be the
most difficult. If they want to communicate properly, meaningfully, and
naturally, people need to hear different kinds of English repeatedly and
continually. It means that people cannot acquire language without hearing,
because listening provides language input.
Meanwhile, in their listening comprehension of the test at school, students

faced several difficulties. By studying the listening comprehension challenges
of students, they would be able to overcome barriers such as loss of vocabulary,
misunderstanding structure, failing to comprehend natural expression, losing
confidence, retaining focus, poor recording, ... As Hamouda (2013) said, causes
that cause listening comprehension difficulties for students are classified into
multiple outlets, including listening text related issues, listening difficulties
related to tasks and exercises, listener related issues, and instructor technique.
Thus, from three key fields, it was the way to find out the problems of the
students: listener causes, listening content, and physical environment.

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Moreover, to improve the language of students, teaching listening requires
more attention. Listening requires more time and focus in some situations in
the language classroom to understand the content that involves learning
dialogue and monologue text. It could be said that listening is a complicated
process in which several things happen within the mind simultaneously.
Nevertheless, in the learning process, the teacher has a very important
requirement. When the students experience issues with their listening, it was
clearly because they were learning. The teacher was able to deal with the
students and the situations of the class, and it became the teachers' duty to solve
the students' problems. Most teachers, however, paid little attention to it and
thought that it was not necessary to do so.
As a researcher, for the above reasons, I would like to present the thesis title
“Difficulties Encountered by the Tenth Graders in Learning English
Listening Skills at an Upper Secondary School in Bien Hoa City”. It will
make helpful contributions to the growth of the method of teaching and
learning.
1.2 Aims of the Study

This study aims at:
 Exploring the current situation of teaching and learning English listening
skills in grade 10 at NHCUSS.
 Investigating the difficulties in learning listening skills perceived by
students at upper secondary schools.
 Presenting some solutions that the students apply to improve their listening
skills at schools and giving out some suggested solutions for common
teaching listening problems for teachers.

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1.3 Research questions
1. What is the current situation of teaching and learning English listening skills
in grade 10 at NHCUSS?
2. What difficulties do the students encounter in learning English listening
skills in grade 10 at NHCUSS?
3. What are the possible solutions to improve the quality of teaching and
learning listening skills at upper secondary schools?
1.4 Scope of the Study
The study is concerned with student's difficulties in learning listening
comprehension. It is conducted on 63 10th graders in 2 classes (10A1, 10A2)
and 7 English teachers at Nguyen Huu Canh upper secondary school
(NHCUSS) in Bien Hoa city. Because of the limitations of time and knowledge
of the shortage of reference material, this study can not cover the whole issue
of Listening skills.
1.5 Significance of the study
The study mainly aims at pointing out the causes of difficulties in learning
listening to students at upper secondary school. 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 students and teachers
at upper secondary schools in Bien Hoa city.
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.

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1.6 Research methods
Some steps in the study were carried out as follows:
 First, for students and teachers, the survey questionnaire was to find out
their challenges in studying and teaching listening skills. Also, the
questionnaire showed the views of the students on the strategies they and
their teachers should do to solve the listening difficulties.
 Second, personal interviews were conducted with the teachers to help the
researcher gain a deep understanding of the challenges of listening and
know the rationale behind them.
 After that, the information was quantitatively and qualitatively obtained,
sorted, and analyzed to obtain realistic results.
 To conclude, suggestions were proposed based on the results found from
all instrument data for the solutions to the listening problems of the
students.
1.7 Structure of the study
The study consists of five chapters: Introduction, Literature Review,
Methodology, Findings & Discussions, and Conclusions.

 Chapter 1: Introduction presents the rationale, aims, research questions,
scope of the study, the significance of the study, and research.
 Chapter 2: Literature Review gives an overview of listening skills with the
investigation of prior literature to clarify some major terms.
 Chapter 3: Methodology includes the participants, data collection
instrument, data collection & data analysis procedure context of the study.
In this part, the researcher summarizes all the findings revealed, draws
conclusions, and suggests some contributions to the study.

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 Chapter 4: Findings & Discussions describes the data of the questionnaires
and interviews, then gives some findings through the data analysis; and
suggests some solutions perceived by teachers to the current problems.
 Chapter 5: Conclusion focuses on recommendations for further study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter discusses relevant research papers. The researcher also noted the
document gap and explained why it is advisable to conduct current research to
close the gap.

2.1 Overview of Listening
2.1.1 Definition of Listening and Listening skills
Definition of Listening
Thomlison (1984) states that listening is capable of identifying and knowing
what other people say. This method includes the comprehension of the spoken

dialect, the grammar, the vocabulary, and the comprehension of the context of
the speaker. These four tasks can be done at the same time by an able listener.
Listening Skills
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 wide variety of listening definitions suggested by various
individuals. Listening is the practice of paying attention to and seeking to gain
meaning from what we hear, according to Underwood (1989). Meanwhile,
Mendelsohn (1994) describes hearing as the ability of native speakers to
comprehend the spoken language.
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Listening seems to be a passive skill superficially, but in fact, it is still a process
that is involved. Listening is not just the way of acquiring the input from the
speakers, it is not only listened to by the students, but also able to process it,
perceive it, comprehend it, analyze it, and finally respond effectively to it
(Underwood, 1989). It means that students must be able to process it in their
brains after perceiving the oral results. They will evaluate the utterances'
illocutionary force and then render the reaction. Besides, Buck (2001) notes
that “listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and
this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound”. Rost (2002) sees
listening as a process of receiving the speakers' knowledge, building and
representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speakers and reacting, and
generating meaning through engagement, creativity, and empathy, sharing the
same ideas with Buck.
In conclusion, we perceive from all the above meanings that listening is not just
listening, but it is an “active and dynamic process” involving multiple forms of

activities, such as understanding, remembering, and drawing inferences based
on the speakers’ messages.
2.1.2 The importance of listening skills
One of the most difficult aspects of teaching and learning English as a foreign
language is teaching and learning listening. The importance of listening
comprehension must be taken into consideration for anyone who wants to learn
English with great success. In discussion and communication, a lack of
listening comprehension skills creates a lot of difficulties.
The important role of listening comprehension in second and foreign language
learning is summarized in a recent publication by Rost, (1994:141) as follows:
“Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the

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learner. Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply
cannot begin.” Therefore, listening comprehension is very necessary when you
study any language. If students do not learn to listen effectively, they will not
be able to take part in oral communication because according to Mary
Underwood (1989:4), “Merely to hear what a speaker says is insufficient for
communication to occur”. It implies that communication has broken down
when nobody listens to a speaker or when a listener fails to understand the
message. By listening, we do not mean that students only learn to hear it, but
as Mary Underwood (1989:4) says, “We mean our students to attend to what
they hear, to process it, to interpret it, to evaluate it and to respond to it”.
Therefore, to succeed in communication, participants need to be active in
listening. Listening is an important way of acquiring the language, a good way
of picking up vocabulary and structures. Teaching listening to spoken language
is therefore of primary importance.
2.1.3 Listening process

The method of listening is often defined as the perspective of information
processing and “an active process in which listeners select and interpret
information that comes from auditory and visual clues to define what is going
on and what the speakers are trying to express” (Thompson and Rubin, 1996,
p. 331). In other words, listening is an active process, as opposed to hearing,
because listeners actively choose what they want to know and perceive the
information they get. Above everything, the listener can listen closely and
concentrate on stress, grammar, and speech intonation.
Understanding of the concept of listening awareness is necessary when
teaching and studying high school listening skills, especially in tenth grade,
when students develop their learning strategies. They should be prepared and
listen closely, i.e. they should know what they are supposed to listen to, as well
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as to which hints or information. In addition, language teachers must encourage
their students to understand why listening skills are necessary. First of all,
listening skills are the key component for all language and cognitive learning
factors and play a lifelong role in communication processes. A Wilt research
(1950 quoted in Wills, 2008) has determined that 45% of the time people spent
on the conversation is listened to. Strother, 1987, also quoted this report. This
result confirmed Rankin's observation in 1928 that 70 % of people spent waking
time talking and 34% spent listening and speaking, as well. Second, listening
provides the recipients with input. In a newsletter (1952, quoted in Wills, 2008)
listening is the main language. It is a means through which people read, learn,
appreciate the environment and human life, have a lot of their thoughts, interest,
and appreciation. On this mass communication day, “the importance of
listening cannot be underestimated; it is imperative that it not be treated trivially
in second and foreign language curricula” (Morley, 1991, p. 82).
2.1.4 Elements of Listening

The two aspects of listening, the macro, and the micro-skill cannot be
differentiated. Macro skills are easier to comprehend because it simply means
understanding what is said. However, micro-skills are a little more difficult to
understand, since it's not only about understanding as a whole, so we have to
notice things like word choice, intonation, mood, deeper definitions, and a lot
further. Below is a summary of the macro and micro-skills used in general
communication and academic discourse (Richards, 1983, quoted in Jansen,
1998).
Brown (2004) also proposes the micro-skills involved in interpreting what we
are told by others. The listener should: maintain short-term memory chunks of
expression, distinguish between distinctive sounds in the new language,
recognize patterns of stress and rhythm, tone patterns, intonational contours,
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recognize reduced types of terms, recognize word boundaries, recognize
standard patterns of word order, recognize vocabulary, identify keywords, such
as those that identify themes and concepts. In addition, Brown (2007) states
that the following are the macro-skills for conversational discourse: identify
coherent instruments in spoken discourse, recognize the communicative roles
of utterances, according to circumstances, participants and goals, infer
circumstance, participants, goals using real-world knowledge, distinguish
between literal and inferred interpretations, construct and use a battery of
listening strategies. In total, in practicing listening comprehension, the macro
and micro-skills in listening are very important. In defining the targets for
learning, these aspects of listening are valuable. These aspects of listening are
effective in identifying the priorities for the learning process.

2.1.5 Stages of listening
Pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening processes are typically

subcategorized as listening activities (Wilson, 2009). It is very important to
involve teachers in "pre-listening" and "post-listening." In the course, teachers
should aim to help determine the selection of appropriate methodology and
classroom procedures. The basic framework for designing a listening lesson is
separated into three steps (cited in the 2nd edition of the ELT technique, p.141).
• Pre-listening:
In the pre-listening stage, teachers help their students train for three objectives,
including inspiration, contextualization, and readiness, to listen to them. Firstly,
through interesting activities and tasks planned by teachers, students should be
encouraged to listen. Secondly, teachers can also assist students in
contextualizing and interpreting the text, subjects, and themes. Finally,

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particular language or phrase is offered to students that can help interpret the
recordings. Pre-listening activities that precede the listening passage should
prepare students for the task of understanding by enabling the vocabulary and
context awareness of students or supplying students with the appropriate details
to interpret the substance of the listening text (Thanajaro, 2000). In this process,
by enabling their schemes, the students are supported in planning what they
will hear (Wilson, 2009). Brainstorming words, reviewing grammar areas, or
discussing the topic of the listening text are part of the tasks. For the prelistening period, two simple goals are to provide appropriate context to match
what would be available in real life and to create earners' motivation for what
they would hear (Field cited in Richard and Renandya, 2002).

• While listening:
Teachers help concentrate the attention of students on the listening text and
encourage the development of their comprehension of it. While-listening can
help students improve the ability to extract meaning from the stream of speech.

Students interpret the messages of the speakers, check, and revise their
predictions. To work out the main idea of the text, teachers can ask students to
note keywords (Karakas, as cited in Gilakjani, 2011). Students will listen for a
second time, either to check or to answer more detailed questions. In this
situation, several opportunities for receiving feedback will reduce the anxiety
of students for teaching purposes. This ensures that they will listen to the
passage considered difficult. There is a range of other aspects that come into
play concerning the passage: difficulty, duration, concentration on pedagogy,
and the potential for boredom. It may be repeated several times if the objective

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is on close language study, while if the focus is on listening to the gist, it won't
be (Wilson, 2009).

• Post-listening:
Teachers help students integrate into their current knowledge what they have
learned from the text. There are two different forms that can be taken by postlistening activities. "A reaction to the text" is the first one. Discussion can be
introduced as an "answer to what they have learned." Another type is "language
analysis," which includes "focusing students on the text's linguistic
characteristics." Students may have the chance to improve their language skills,
such as vocabulary and grammatical structures. Post-listening tasks consist of
extensions and developments of the listening assignment, following the
listening passage. Cultural themes and other things connected to the materials
can be emphasized. In addition, Wilson (2009 ) mentions that, at this point,
problems such as unknown vocabulary and reaction to the content of the
passage are discussed, usually orally.

2.1.6 Types of Listening

There are two ways of listening in real life, according to some authors, namely
Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2006). Depending on the
listening purpose, they are casual listening and focused listening. Casual
listening, one form of listening, involves listening without a specific purpose.
When we listen, unless there is anything that interests us, we do not pay much
or even any attention to the information. We hardly remember the content of
what we hear, thus. Normally, when we listen to music or listen to the news on
the radio or TV when doing some housework or talking with a friend, we do
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this kind of listening. Listening focuses on another type of listening. It is when,
for a specific reason, we listen and find out the details we need to hear. It occurs
quite commonly in everyday life. Here, with much more focus, we listen and
aim to get as many details as possible. We do not listen to every word; however,
We know what we are supposed to listen to beforehand, but we just obtain the
most important points from the speech or the lecture. Learners also use this
form of listening in the classroom.

2.2 Difficulties in Learning Listening skills
Willis (1981, p.134) has extended another point of view, listing a range of
abilities to listen to issues she terms 'enabling abilities' for coping with. To
quote a few of them are:
 Predict what people will communicate about.
 Guessing without panicking over unfamiliar words or phrases.
 Using one's own subject information to help one understand.
 Inferred knowledge comprehension
From my own experience in my teaching class and the experiences of many
writers, I have read about the subject that seems to indicate that listening
problems come from four sources: the speaker, the content, the learner, and the

physical setting. It is difficult for most students to listen to a message rather
than to read the same message in or elsewhere in their textbook. Since the
listening speed is not controllable, it becomes an issue, but you may take your
time to read and pause and go through the message at will. If you like, you can
also check a dictionary. I notice there are particular areas of vocabulary that
have specific problems if you offer dictations or if students dictate. My students
have trouble hearing regular verb sounds like 'job, wish or watch' from the past.
When I make the dictation the final /t/ sound of 'ed' is generally omitted so the
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expression "Tim worked hard yesterday". Comes out as “Tim work hard
yesterday.” The students fail to hear the voiceless 't' final. Liaison (the linking
of words in rapid speech) is another problem. “What is she going to do tonight?
Sounds like/Whaisigunnadotanight?/ This causes an interesting problem for the
untrained ear liaison.
I have been struggling with issues students have with listening up to this point.
It is now time to recommend strategies to help them improve more effective
listening skills. In general, foreign-language learners devote more time to
reading than to listening, and therefore lack exposure to various forms of
listening. For students, spending much of their listening time interpreting
foreign words and phrases for long periods is tiring. There are eight spoken
language features that make it difficult to listen to (Brown, 2001, p.252). In
spoken language, we break down speech into smaller groups of words because
of memory limitations. They are referred to as clustering. E.g: "a lot of", "a
number of" and so on. Therefore, learners have to learn to pick out manageable
word clusters while listening, avoiding attempting to listen to every word of the
speech. It is not important and makes it possible to distract learners. In addition,
there is a great deal of redundancies in the spoken language. They are the
product of rephrasing, repetitions, elaborations, and some insertions, such as

"as I said" and so on. Learners may have difficulty with this at first. It is easy
to confuse them. However, learners can take advantage of redundancies with
some training to have more time and additional knowledge. Spoken language,
on the other hand, has several reduced forms as well. This could be
phonological, morphological, syntactic, or pragmatic, such as "you're" instead
of “you are" "won't" instead of “will not" or "can't" instead of “cannot”. These
reductions are major problems for learners, especially beginners, as they begin
to learn the full form of the English language. Sufficient quality is the next

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