VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DIFFICULTIES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT VNUA NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC NGHE HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH - HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student: HOANG THE KY Student code: 621267 Major: ENGLISH Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ KIM QUẾ, M.Ed Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “An investigation into the difficulties in listening comprehension of first-year English majors at VNUA” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2021 Hoang The Ky Approved by SUPERVISOR Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the process of fulfilling this graduation paper, I have received enormous assistance, precious ideas, and timely encouragement from my teachers, family, and friends I would like to acknowledge and extend my great thanks to many people, without whom this study couldn’t have been completed First and foremost, I would like to show my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, M.Ed Nguyen Thị Kim Que, who has supported me throughout my thesis with her knowledge and enthusiasm I would also like to express my gratitude to M.A Le Thi Hong Lam for her enthusiastic guidance These two lecturers’ detailed comments and useful advice have helped me shape my ideas and achieve my aims They have also provided me with many useful materials as well as encouraged and created favorable conditions for me to fulfill this research Therefore, it is an undeniable fact that this paper would have not been completed without their invaluable support Secondly, I am extremely grateful to all the lecturers of Faculty of Education and Foreign Languages in Vietnam National University of Agriculture for their awesome lectures that have helped me to stimulate my interest in the English language and enriched my academic knowledge of English during the past four years In addition, I warmly thank all my friends for their encouragement and precious assistance throughout the process of writing the thesis Their material and spiritual support is a great driving force for me Especially, I am deeply grateful to the 80 first-year English-majored students for their enthusiastic and effective cooperation in the process of completing the survey questionnaire Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my parents, who have always encouraged and supported me to fulfill this graduation thesis HaNoi, 2021 ii ABSTRACT Many students fail to seize them because of some learning difficulties in listening classes Teachers should be aware of students’ learning difficulties This study is aimed to investigate the difficulties in listening comprehension of first-year English-majored at VNUA A survey questionnaire is used to collect information about the subjective and objective causes leading to the students’ unsatisfactory results in their listening tests Results show listening skill is a difficult skill and there are many factors that make listening comprehension difficult In the last section, some suggestions for improvement are put forward iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES vii Part 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY Part 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES (AT HOME & ABROAD) 1.1.1 Review of previous studies at home 1.1.2 Review of previous studies abroad 1.2 REVIEW OF THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.2.1 Definition of Listening and Listening Comprehension 1.2.2 Factors affecting English listening skills 1.2.3 Difficulties in English listening comprehension - causes and solutions 12 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 18 2.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 2.2 RESEARCH SETTING/CONTEXT: 18 2.3 DATA COLLECTION: 18 2.3.1 Data collecting instruments 18 2.3.2 Data collecting procedures 18 2.4 DATA ANALYSIS 19 iv Chapter 3: FINDING AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 THE CURRENT STATUS OF LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS 20 3.1.1 Students' opinions on the difficulty of listening skills 20 3.1.2 Student's listening comprehension level 21 3.1.3 The problem of learning listening skills in the high school curriculum 22 3.1.4 Students' listening motivation 23 3.1.5 Time and frequency of learning listening skills 24 3.1.5.1 Time to learn listening per day 24 3.1.5.2 Frequency of learning listening skills 25 3.1.6 Methods and means of learning English listening 26 3.1.6.1 Listening method 26 3.1.6.2 Listening media 27 3.1.7 Listening strategies 27 3.1.7.1 Note-taking skills 27 3.2 DIFFICULTIES LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS 28 3.2.2 Difficulties in vocabulary 30 3.2.3 Difficulties in grammatical structure 32 3.2.4 Difficulties in concentration 33 3.3 SOLUTIONS 36 Part 3: CONCLUSION 39 RECAPITULATION 39 CONCLUDING REMARKS 39 2.1 Solutions for phonetics 40 2.2 Solutions for vocabulary 40 2.3 Solution for concentration 41 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 41 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 42 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX 45 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VNUA EFL L2 UTEHY Vietnam National University of Agriculture English as a Foreign Language Second Language Hung Yen University of Technology and Education FE Faculty of Education vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Listening learning method 26 Table 2: Listening media 27 Table 3: Difficulties in phonetic 28 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 20 Figure 3.2 21 Figure 3.3 22 Figure 3.4 23 Figure 3.5 24 Figure 3.6 25 Figure 3.7 26 Figure 3.8 27 Figure 3.9 31 Figure 3.10 33 Figure 3.11 34 vii Part 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY No one can deny the importance of listening skills in foreign language learning because the key to acquire a language is to receive language input (Mohammed, 2016) Listening plays an important role in communication as it is said that, of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%; speaking, 25- 30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9% (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011) Listening is an active process that involves deciphering and constructing meaning from verbal and non-verbal messages (Nunan, 1998) Effective communication therefore necessitates that learners develop the listening skills deemed essential for understanding input for any learning to begin (Nunan, 1998; Rost, 1994) EFL learners have serious problems in English listening comprehension due to the fact that universities pay more attention to English grammar, reading and vocabulary (Dwi Rara Saraswaty, 2018) This is considered the common situation of many EFL students Furthermore, Hamdona (2007) indicates that English language plays an important role in everyday situations all over the world It's a universal language which deals with all aspects of life Genc (2007:p.6) states that when we learn a language, there are four skills that we need for complete communication When we learn our native language, we usually learn to listen first, then to speak, then to read and finally to write Abu Hatab (2010:p.2) indicates that listening skill plays a significant role in daily communication and educational process In spite of this importance, listening ability has received only slight care in the language teaching Moreover, Assaf (2015:p5) states that listening can be major skill helping in acquiring English language Gilakjani (2016) also says that listening skill is very important in foreign language learning because the key to learn a language is to receive language input Phung Thi Tho (2017) pointed out learning listening skills is the most difficult in learning a foreign language Especially for freshman of English linguistic major, learning L2 (English) listening comprehension still faces many difficulties and limitations It is likely that students have not optimized their listening skills, most of them have not yet reached the set target Therefore, to learn English listening comprehension skill effectively, the ability to practice should be developed and trained more actively, especially in the freshman stage Realizing this is a rather essential problem and want to find some useful solutions to help students, I decided to choose the topic “An investigation into the difficulties in listening comprehension of first-year English majors at VNUA” to research the cause and the solution 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY Aim: The purpose of the study is to find out the difficulties in listening comprehension of first-year English majors at VNUA and suggest some solutions to help them overcome the difficulties Objectives: - To figure out the difficulties that first-year English-majored students face in English listening comprehension - To find out the causes of the difficulties and to suggest some solutions 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS - What difficulties first-year English majors have in English listening comprehension? - What solutions can help the students to overcome the difficulties? of words, and linking sound Should also be enhanced in the design of listening comprehension activities in class On the part of learners, it is necessary to properly understand the nature and requirements of listening comprehension in order to have a plan to adjust and practice effective listening comprehension methods Students need to practice listening every day in combination with vocabulary practice as well as to improve listening skills Students need to absolutely avoid the habit of being passive, not brainstorming before listening, as well as need to overcome the phenomenon of artificial attention, or the habit of previewing tape script, wanting to capture 100% of the information Learners also need to take advantage of every opportunity to practice listening, both inside and outside the classroom, to improve their sense of self-study at home, including practicing correct pronunciation of the words they have learned Because there is a connection between listening comprehension and a number of other skills, the listening training process should be done on the basis of a combination of improving speaking and reading comprehension skills In addition, learners also need to read more documents and books related to many different topics to expand their background knowledge and vocabulary Last but not least, students need to equip themselves with good listening equipment and find a quiet, clean place to focus on practicing listening skills From the questionnaire, many students also gave additional suggestions to overcome difficulties in the listening comprehension part Some typical ideas such as the need for a quiet, fresh environment and good quality equipment for listening skills, the need for a tape recording to be less timid and normal, a need for foreign teachers to be able to support students' listening skills Some other comments added that we need to talk more with native speakers and if given the opportunity, we should study abroad During the listening process, you must focus on listening and understanding, not too dependent on hearing the main ideas To improve listening skills, a method is required Sometimes listening too much can't improve listening skills The method you should use to improve your 37 listening skills is to listen and copy the words you don't know Practice listening more, starting from the most basic ones, listening to the level that is right for you You need to listen to the listening passage several times and write down the places you haven't heard yet Watch helpful lectures on YouTube or watch BBC news In conclusion, having difficulty in listening skills is inevitable for freshmen The difficulties can come from many different factors and as freshmen, they not have much experience to face these challenges But learners can completely overcome these difficulties and will achieve success if they work hard and persevere It will also be a stepping stone to the next semesters 38 Part 3: CONCLUSION RECAPITULATION The study was carried out to investigate the difficulties in listening comprehension skills of first-year English majors at Vietnam National University of Agriculture First, the study looks at some previous studies on the same topic at home and abroad, then uses semi-structured questionnaires to survey 80 first-year English majors at VNUA to collect information and process data Collect and find out the difficulties that students are facing From there, the causes of students' poor English listening comprehension skills and solutions to improve learning are stated At the end of the study are limitations that this study lacks and suggestions for related topics for future research CONCLUDING REMARKS The study is conducted to find out the causes of difficulties for students in learning listening comprehension skills and find solutions to those difficulties The semi-structured questionnaires were distributed online to 80 first-year English-majored students at VNUA, then used quantitative methods to analyze the obtained results The first part of finding and discussion explores the current state of listening skills including: Students' opinions on the difficulty of listening skills, student's listening comprehension level, the problem of learning listening skills in the high school curriculum, students' listening motivation, time and frequency of learning listening skills, methods and means of learning English listening, listening strategies Part explores difficulties in learning listening comprehension including: Difficulties in phonetic, difficulties in vocabulary, difficulties in grammatical structure, difficulties in concentration, and difficulties in background knowledge The final section helps to find solutions to difficulties in learning listening skills 39 Based on the research results and discussion, it can be concluded that most of the first-year foreign language students at VNUA are facing many difficulties in learning English listening comprehension skills The difficulties that students are facing focus on main issues, which are difficulties in phonetic, difficulties in vocabulary and difficulties in concentration In the phonetics section, the difficulties students face include: the weak form in pronunciation, homonyms or words with similar pronunciation, elision, linking sound, the contraction of the word, Speed of speech Here are the solutions to the above problems: 2.1 Solutions for phonetics Difficulties in phonetic that make students unable to recognize English sounds can be mentioned as: can't recognize the weak form in pronunciation, cannot distinguish between homonyms or words with similar pronunciation, cannot distinguish the phenomenon of elision in English, cannot distinguish the phenomenon of sound connection, and cannot distinguish the contraction of the word Based on the discussion, some suggestions have been proposed As a consequence, students' ability to accurately pronounce words improves significantly, making listening to native speakers more effective and efficient for them Many teachers feel that accurate pronunciation helps students understand what they are hearing They also believe that teaching students how to pronounce words correctly is one of the most significant consequences of listening acquisition 2.2 Solutions for vocabulary Lack of language is one of the primary problems keeping students from comprehending what they are hearing The majority of students say they don't have enough language to comprehend what they're hearing, while a small number say they don't have enough vocabulary to understand what they're hearing Because a lack of vocabulary is a substantial obstacle to comprehension, teachers must educate students with particular fundamental 40 terminology necessary for listening comprehension However, rather than teaching students the meaning of terms used in the listening context, it is preferable to engage their vocabulary by asking them to determine the meaning of terms used in the listening context 2.3 Solution for concentration The learning environment, which includes a listening laboratory as well as cassette recordings, tape recorders, and listening texts, has a major influence on the quality of both learning and teaching listening skills However, the findings of this study show that students are unsatisfied with the current learning environment Students claim that there is still a lack of well-equipped listening laboratories, making it difficult for them to focus when listening As a consequence, it's important to upgrade the present laboratory so that all students have an equitable and sufficient opportunity to acquire listening skills in such an engaging environment LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY Although the researcher has made a considerable effort to complete the study, there are still some unavoidable limitations beyond expectation First of all, due to the impact of the Covid epidemic, it was not possible to conduct student interviews Second, due to the limitation of the research scope, the researcher only focused on the first year students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, accounting for a small number of students at VNUA Therefore, the results of the study cannot be generalized Besides, the researcher cannot cover all the difficult aspects In addition, the techniques proposed in this study were selected from various reliable but limited sources Despite the stated limitations, I hope that this exploratory study will contribute to improving the situation of teaching and learning English listening skills at VNUA 41 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH It is hoped that there will be more research studies done to solve the students’ problems in learning and practicing English listening For example, an investigation into factors relating to English learning, particularly listening skills will be updated in the future because the demand of communication is increasing and the world’s communicating forms is continuously changing Further studies can also be carried out in other universities or with non-major students since the different objects can give different results Future studies can collect more data through interviews Moreover, future researchers can consider studying more on effective methods for learning listening English In particular, technology application is now a prominent trend, which can be put into research 42 REFERENCES [1] Anderson, A & Lynch, T (1998) Listening Oxford University Press [2] Phung T Tho’ study (2017) “A study on difficulties and solutions in English listening skill of the second-year students in Faculty of Foreign Language at UTEHY” Hung Yen University of Technology and Education [3] Mohammed Mousa El- Nahhal (2016) The Difficulties of Learning Listening Skill for Young Learners through Teachers' Perspectives University of Palestine [4] Pham T Trang, Nguyen T A Tuyet & Nguyen U Q Tram (2016) Difficulties students have in speaking English HCMC University of Education [5] Sarah C Wayland, PhD’s study (2010) What makes listening difficult? University of Maryland [6] Ahmed Al-Alwan, Sahail Asassfeh & Yousef Al-Shboul (2013) EFL Learners' Listening Comprehension and Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies: How Are They Related? Canadian Center of Science and Education http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v6n9p31 [7] Hooshang K & Ziba, S T (2013) The Impact of Task Types on Listening Comprehension of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners Australian International Academic Centre, Australia http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.3n.3p.97 [8] Dwi Rara Saraswaty (2018) English Community Journal Universitas Muhammadiyah Palembang (1): 139–152 http://jurnal.um- palembang.ac.id/englishcommunity/index 43 [9] Dang T T Thuy (2019) Factors affecting Listening Comprehension of The 8th-grade Students at a Junior High School in Thai Nguyen Thai Nguyen University [10] Gilakjani, A P (2016).The Significance of Listening Comprehension in English Language Teaching, Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol No 8, pp 1670-1677, August 2016 [11] Hamdona, Y (2007) Life Skills Latent in the Content of English for Palestine – Grade Six Textbook, M.A thesis, The Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza [12] Hamouda,A.(2013).An Investigation of Listening Comprehension Problems Encountered by Saudi Students in the EL Listening Classroom, International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, April 2013, Vol 2, No ISSN: 2226-6348 [13] Hayrapetyan,N.(2016).Teaching Listening: Problems and Solutions [14] Lundsteen, S (1979).Listening: It's Impact on Reading and Other Language Arts Urbana, I11: NCTE [15] Macháčková, E (2009).Teaching Listening, Masaryk University Brno [16] Nunan, D (1991).Language Teaching Methodology, A text book for teachers, prentice hall inter (UK) [17] Rost, M (2002).Teaching and Researching Listening London: Longman [18] Rost, M (1994).Introducing Listening, Penguin Group, England [19] Sharma, N (2011).Strategies for Developing Listening Skills, Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology Ghaziabad (UP), India [20] Ur, P (1996).A course in Language Teaching, Practice and Theory Cambridge University Yerevan StateUniversity 44 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRES (for students) Mình thực số nghiên cứu khó khăn sinh viên năm ngành Ngôn ngữ Anh việc nghe hiểu Tiếng Anh Học viện Nông nghiệp Việt Nam Dưới bảng câu hỏi hoàn toàn với tính thu thập thơng tin cách khách quan Rất mong bạn trả lời câu hỏi theo quan điểm cá nhân bạn Khảo sát khoảng 3-5 phút để hoàn thiện Cảm ơn bạn dành thời gian (Tất thông tin mà bạn cung cấp sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên cứu bảo mật tuyệt đối) Theo bạn, kỹ nghe có khó với sinh viên khơng? Rất khó Khó Bình thường Khơng khó Khơng khó Bạn tự xét thấy khả nghe hiểu nằm mức độ nào? Rất tốt Tốt Bình thường Hơi Kém Bạn có thường học kĩ nghe cịn học trung học khơng? Thường xun Thỉnh thoảng Đơi 45 Rất Khơng Bạn tự học nghe bị giáo viên kiểm tra? Đúng Không Bạn tự học nghe trước ngày lớp có mơn nghe? Đúng Không Bạn thường nghe tiếng anh tiếng ngày? Dưới 30 phút Ít tiếng - tiếng 30 phút tiếng 30 phút - tiếng Trên tiếng Tần suất bạn nghe tiếng Anh tuần là? Hàng ngày – ngày – ngày – ngày – Bạn học nghe cách gì? (có thể chọn nhiều đáp án) Nghe nhạc tiếng Anh Xem phim nói tiếng Anh Nghe tin tức tiếng Anh 46 Nghe chủ đề nghe youtube Nghe băng giáo trình Nghe người nước ngồi nói chuyện Phương tiện bạn thường dùng để học nghe tiếng anh gì? (có thể chọn nhiều đáp án) Điện thoại thông minh Máy tính Đài Khác 10 Bạn có ghi chép lại từ khóa cấu trúc ngữ pháp nghe khơng? Thường xun Thỉnh thoảng Ít Khơng 11 Bạn có học từ nghe trước nghe không? Thường xun Thỉnh thoảng Ít Khơng 12 Bạn có học trước cấu trúc ngữ pháp nghe trước nghe khơng? Thường xun Thỉnh thoảng Ít Khơng 13 Bạn có tâm lí căng thẳng trước nghe lớp không? 47 Thường xuyên Thỉnh thoảng Ít Khơng 14 Bạn gặp tượng nghe Tiếng Anh? (có thể chọn nhiều đáp án) Không thể nhận dạng yếu phát âm Tốc độ nói băng nhanh Không phân biệt tượng nối âm Không phân biệt tượng nuốt âm Không nắm cấu trúc ngữ pháp nghe Không hiểu nghĩa từ vựng nghe Không hiểu kiến thức văn hóa xã hội đề cập nghe Thiếu tập trung nghe Môi trường xung quanh ồn Chất lượng băng kém, trang thiết bị 15 Tôi không nhận âm tiếng Anh nghe vì: (có thể chọn nhiều đáp án) Không phân biệt tượng đồng âm vị hóa Khơng hiểu hết từ Khơng phân biệt từ đồng âm từ có cách phát âm gần giống Không phân biệt tượng rút gọn từ 16 Bạn có đề xuất để giúp cải thiện kỹ nghe không? 48 In your opinion, is listening skill difficult for students? o Very difficult o Difficult o Normal o Not difficult o Easy What level you think your listening comprehension is currently at? o Very good o Good o Normal o Weak o Bad How often did you learn listening skills in high school? o Regularly o Sometimes o Occasionally o Rarely o Never Do you only learn to listen by yourself when being tested by a teacher? o It's correct o Incorrect Do you just self-study listening before the class has a listening subject? o It's correct o Incorrect How many hours a day you usually listen to English? o Under 30 minutes o Less than hour o - hour 30 minutes o hour 30 minutes - hours o Over hours 49 How often you listen to English in each week? o Daily o 5-6 days o 4-5 days o 3-4 days o 2-3 days o day How did you learn to listen? (can choose more than answer)  Listen to English music  Watch English-speaking movies  Listen to English news  Listen to listening topics on YouTube  Listen to the tape in the textbook  Listen to foreigners talking What means you usually use to learn to listen to English? (can choose more than answer)  Smartphone  Computer  Radio  Other 10 Do you take notes of keywords and grammatical structures as you listen? o Regularly o Sometimes o Rarely o Never 11 Did you learn new words from the listening before listening? o Regularly o Sometimes o Rarely o Never 50 12 Do you study the grammar structure in the listening before listening? o Regularly o Sometimes o Rarely o Never 13 Are you mentally stressed before and during every hour of listening in class? o Regularly o Sometimes o Rarely o Are not 14 Which of the following phenomena you encounter when listening to English? (can choose more than answer)  Can't recognize the weak form in pronunciation  The speed of speaking in the tape is too fast  Can't distinguish the phenomenon of linking sound  Can't distinguish the phenomenon of elision in English  Can't understand the grammatical structure in the listening passage  Can’t understand the meaning of words in the listening passage  Can't understand the meaning of words in the listening passage  Lack of concentration when listening  Distracted by noisy surroundings  Poor tape quality, poor equipment 15 I don't recognize the English sounds in the listening test because: (can choose more than answer)  Can't distinguish assimilation  Can't understand all the words in the listening passage  Can't distinguish between homonyms or words with similar pronunciation  Can't distinguish the contraction of the word 16 Do you have any suggestions to help improve listening skills? 51