MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO cm MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES , , ., HOANG THJ BIeH THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL LISTENING PROBLEMS OF INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS AT HO em MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER: CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS A THESIS SUBMITIED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQumEMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (TESOL) r "" Til HVIEN f- II IKHXill:; ~IV • , .H0 CHI MINI"I • t-J , '" -, :::1:": LA -L , J .02 l t{;IL1 ,,' : ~ (I sj: SUPERVISOR: LE THJ THANH, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY - 2006 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL LISTENING PROBLEMS OF INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER: CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master's Programmes issued by the High Degree Committee. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2006 , , HOANG TI-Q: BICH TRAO. 1 RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS , ,.
I hereby state that I, HOANG THl BICH THAO, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master's Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan or reproduction of theses. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2006 , , HOANG TIll BICH THAO. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr.
Le Thi Thanh, for her valuable assistance, guidance, encouragement and comments during the time of implementing the thesis. Without her help, I could not have finished this thesis. I am greatly indebted to the organizers of the Master course, Dr. Le Hiiu Phudc, Head of the Department of Post Graduate Studies of Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Mr.
Nguyen Huynh Dat, M., Dean of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, their staff members, and all my teachers for their dedication and helpful instruction during the course. My sincere thanks to all teachers and learners who were willing to respond to my questionnaires, especially to the teachers who have offered favourable conditions for my thesis data collection. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their love, encouragement, understanding and moral support. iii ABSTRACT Listening plays a critical role not only in communication but also m language acquisition.
Although the majority of intermediate learners at Foreign Language Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education - Branch 10 have learnt English for rather a long time, they still face difficulties in listening comprehension. This thesis aims at: (1) investigating intermediate learners' problems of learning EFL listening at HCMC UE - Branch 10; (2) fmding out the reasons for those problems; and (3) suggesting solutions to help learners overcome their difficulties and improve their listening ability. In order to achieve these objectives, a survey was carried out and based on the questionnaires delivered to 109 intermediate learners and 22 English teachers at this center. The results of the study show that the learners encounter various kinds of listening problems related to the listening text, the speaker factors, the listener factors, the listening tasks and the teaching and learning facilities.
The data analysis reveals that the causes of the difficulties are: (1) the learners seriously lack listening practice and training in class as well as at home ; (2) some of the learners' listening learning ways are improper and ineffective; (3) the teaching material is out of date, not authentic and lacking in listening tasks for helping improve listening ability; (4) limitations of learning and teaching facilities obstructs learners' listening learning; and (5) a proportion of teachers do not have effective ways of teaching listening. Based on the fmdings of the study, the thesis recommends that (1) the teachers need to master modem teaching methods, techniques and then apply them suitably, effectively, flexibly and creatively to their listening teaching; IV they should pay sufficient attention to their listening teaching; (2) the learners must have a positive attitude towards learning listening; they should learn actively, hard and practise listening regularly; (3) the Streamline English Destinations should be changed for another course book which is up-to-date, relevant and appropriate to the learners' needs and level; and (4) teaching and learning facilities should be well equipped to help learners learn listening more effectively. v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language FLC Foreign Language Center L2 Foreign / Second language OUP Oxford University Press CUP Cambridge University Press HCMC Ho Chi Minh City UE University of Education VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Certificate of originality i Retention and use of the thesis ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv List of abbreviations vi Table of contents vii List of figures xi List of tables xii Chapter 1 I:NTRODUCTION 1 1.1 The rationale of the study 1 1.2 Aim of the study 3 1.3 General background to the study 3 1.4 Overview of the thesis 6 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 8 2.1 An overview of listening comprehension 8 2.2 The nature of listening comprehension 9 2.3 The importance of listening comprehension in foreign language learning 11 2.4 Different types of knowledg e used in listening 12 Vll 2.1 The pre-listening stage 15 2.2 The while-listening stage 18 2.3 The post-listening stage 20 .5 Potential problems of listening to English as a foreign language 24 2.1 The factors related to the speaker 24 2.2 The factors related to the listening text.3 The factors related to the listener 32 2.4 The factors related to the teaching and learning facilities.6 Surnrnary 36 Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 37 3.1 Subjects of the study 38 3.2 Characteristics of the subjects 39 3.1 Questionnaire for the learners 43 3.2 Questionnaire for the teachers 45 3.3 Data collection procedures 45 3.3 Surnrnary 46 viii Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 48 4.1 Learners' responses to the survey questionnaire .1 Learners' reasons for learning English, their perceptions of the four English skills in general and listening in particular 48 4.1 Learners' reasons for learning English .2 Learners' perceptions of the four English skills in general and listening in particular 51 4.2 Learners' ways of learning listening comprehension 53 4.3 Learners' difficulties in learning EFL listening 58 4.1 Learners' difficulties related to the speaker factors 58 4.2 Learners' difficulties related to the listening text and listening task 60 4.3 Learners' difficulties related to the listener factors 65 4.4 Learners' difficulties related to the teaching and learning facilities 68 4.4 Learners' listening practice at home 69 4.5 Learners' ideas about the coursebook, their self-assessment of English ability 70 4.2 Teachers' responses to the survey questionnaire 73 4.1 Teachers' perceptions of the four English skills 73 4.2 Teachers' opinions about the listening materials 74 4.3 Teachers' ways of teaching listening comprehension 77 lX 4.4 Teachers' perceptions of the difficulties often preventing learners from listening comprehension and some feasible solutions 79 4.4 Summary 87 Chapter 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS••••••••••••••••••.1 Recommendations to teachers 89 5.2 Recommendations to learners 96 5.3 Recommendations to materials 97 5.4 Recommendations to the administrators 98 5.3 Limitation of the study and recommendation for further research 100 BmLIOGRAPHY 101 APPENDIX 1 Questionnaire for learners (in Vietnamese) 107 APPENDIX 2 Questionnaire for learners (in English) 113 APPENDIX3 Questionnaire for teachers (in Vietnamese) 119 APPENDIX 4 Questionnaire for teachers (in English) 123 APPENDIX 5 A copy of unit 13 from the course book "St reamutne EnguIS h Destinations ". 127 APPENDIX 6 A copy of unit 52 from the coursebook "Streamline English Destinations" 128 x LIST OF FIGURES Chapter 4 Figure 4.1 Learners' perceptions of the difficulty among the four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.2 Learners' perceptions of the importance of listening comprehension 52 xi LIST OF TABLES Chapter 3 Table 3.1 Summary of the learner subjects' characteristics 39 Table 3.2 Summary of the teacher subjects' characteristics 40 Chapter 4 Table 4.1 Reasons for learning English 49 Table 4.2 Learners' ways of learning listening comprehension 54 Table 4.3 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to the speaker factors.4 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to the listening text and listening task ".5 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to the listener factors 65 Table 4.6 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to the teaching and learning facilities 68 Table 4.7 The ways the learners practise listening at home 70 Table 4.8 The learners' self-assessment of their English listening ability.9 The teachers' ideas about the suitability of the coursebook - Streamline English Destinations for improvement in learners' listening skills 74 Table 4.10 The teachers' perceptions of the factors often causing difficulties for learners in listening comprehension 80 Table 4.11 The teachers' ideas about feasible solutions to their learners' problems 81 xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis examines problems related to the learning of EFL listening of intermediate learners at Foreign Language Center of HCM City University of Education (FLC of HCMC UE) - Branch 10 and the reasons why they face such difficulties.
Then, the study, based on the findings, will come up with feasible solutions to help learners overcome their difficulties and to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching and learning EFL listening. This introduction presents the rationale, the aims of the study, general background to the study and the overview of the thesis.1 The rationale of the study Nowadays more and more people learn English because of their needs, especially to communicate with foreigners effectively. In order to communicate effectively, they have to listen well. Although many people tend to equate communication with speaking, it is clear that a communicative act involves both expression and interpretation of meaning.
In oral interactions, interpretation refers to listening as well as speaking, and in everyday life both native speakers and second/foreign language speakers engage in a variety of communicative situations during which they listen. Doff (1998: 98) says, "We cannot develop speaking skills unless we also develop listening skills; to have a successful conversation, learners must understand what is said to them." According to Denes and Pinson (cited in Murcia, 2001: 70), aural comprehension establishes a base for the development of oral language within the "spee ch chain" of listening and speaking. Newmark and Diller also state, 1 "The need for systematic development of listening comprehension not only as a foundation for speaking, but also as a skill in its own right. River (quoted in Murcia, 2001: 70) underscores, "Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is said is comprehended by another person.
Teaching the comprehension of spoken speech is therefore of primary importance if the communication aim is to be reached." Moreover, listening is the most frequently used language skill in everyday life. The time we spend in listening far exceeds the time spent in reading, writing, or speaking. In fact, researchers (e. Morley, 1991; Rivers, 1981; Weaver, 1972) estimate that we listen to twice as much language as we speak, four times as much as we read, and five times as much as we write (cited in Murcia and Olshtain, 2000: 102).
Listening has such a very crucial role, particularly in communication. Having been a teacher of English as a foreign language for several years, I realize that many of the learners have learnt English for rather a long time (90.8% of the learner subjects have learnt English for more than six years), they still face difficulties in listening comprehension. In fact, 104 out of 109 learners (accounting for 95.4%) at FLC of HCMC VE - Branch 10 said, "Of the four skills, listening is the most difficult.