VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** DƯƠNG THANH HẢO DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN THE TOEIC LISTENING TEST BY THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION - THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN KHI LÀM BÀI THI NGHE TOEIC CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ VÀ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Hanoi – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** DƯƠNG THANH HẢO DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN THE TOEIC LISTENING TEST BY THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION - THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN KHI LÀM BÀI THI NGHE TOEIC CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ VÀ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Supervisor : Assoc. Lâm Quang Đông Hanoi – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I declare that this minor thesis entitled “Difficulties encountered in the TOEIC listening test by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts is the results of my own work and that is thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any university, nor does it contain material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2016 Duong Thanh Hao i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the process of doing my research paper, I have received a lot of help and encouragement from teachers and colleagues. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Assoc. Lâm Quang Đông who has generously given me invaluable assistance and guidance. Without his help, this paper would not have been successfully completed.
Secondly, my graduation subject now is completed successfully thanks to all teachers‟ support at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University (TUEBA) who did their best to help me gather data from students‟ questionnaires. Besides, my sincere thanks are also extended to all the students who helped me fulfill the survey questions and interviews. Finally, I am grateful to my family and friends who have given me much encouragement throughout. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The study investigates difficulties in TOEIC listening comprehension encountered by a group of sophomore students of TUEBA.
50 sophomores at TUEBA were selected for the study. The data were gathered by means of students‟ listening test papers, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results of the study showed that general linguistic ability, background knowledge and facilities were the major TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties encountered by second-year students at TUEBA. While doing the TOEIC test, the study‟s participants normally applied such strategies as guessing or predicting, identifying types of question in part 2, and listening for gist and details.
On that basis, suggestions and recommendations were provided so as to deal with the problems. This work hopes to be useful for those who are interested in this subject and to pave the way for future studies in this field. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. III TABLE OF CONTENTS .IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
VII PART A: INTRODUCTION. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY. METHODS OF THE STUDY. ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS. 4 CHAPTER 1- LITERATURE REVIEW.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND TO LISTENING COMPREHENSION. Processes of listening comprehension. Potential problems in listening comprehension. Overview of the TOEIC test.
TOEIC listening strategies. RELATED STUDIES OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND TOEIC LISTENING14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY.1 SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS .1 Students’ listening test papers.3 Semi-structured interviews. 18 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES.
DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE. 19 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 WHAT DIFFICULTIES DO THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT TUEBA FACE IN THE TOEIC LISTENING TEST?.1 Students’ opinions of TOEIC listening test .2 Students’ opinions of TOEIC listening difficulties related to background knowledge and linguistic ability.3 Students’ opinions of listening difficulties related to listener or non- linguistic factors .4 Types of difficulties of each part in TOEIC listening test through analyzing TOEIC listening test papers .2 WHAT CAUSES SUCH DIFFICULTIES? .3 WHAT STRATEGIES DO THESE STUDENTS OFTEN APPLY WHEN TAKING TOEIC LISTENING TEST?. SUMMARY OF THE STUDY. PEDAGOGICAL RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS‟ TOEIC LISTENING RESULTS .1 To the students.2 To the teachers.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES. IX v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: students‟ opinions about the difficult level of toeic listening test. 21 Chart 2: students‟ opinions of the most difficult part of toeic listening test.
22 Chart 3: students‟ opinions of toeic listening difficulties related to background knowledge. 23 Chart 4: types of difficulties in toeic listening test and their percentage. 28 Chart 5: tueba second-year students‟ suggestions for handling such difficulties. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
Table 1: students‟ opinions of toeic listening difficulties related to linguistic ability. 24 Table 2: students‟ opinions of listening difficulties related to listener (non- linguistic factors). 26 Table 3: causes of toeic listening difficulties. 31 Table 4: strategies applied by students when taking toeic listening test.
34 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TUEBA: University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication ETS: Educational Testing Service ESL English as a Second Language L2 learners: Second Language learners vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study As an international language, English obviously plays a crucial role in the age of global economic integration. The scores of worldwide standardized English tests such as the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) are widely used as recognized evidence of one‟s English proficiency, especially the TOEIC test. Most companies require TOEIC certificates as one of their employees‟ qualifications.
Many colleges and universities like TUEBA have used the TOEIC test to classify students‟ English proficiency, place them into the right classes and use their test‟s results at the end of each course to calculate credits. Moreover, the minimum TOEIC score of 450 is a compelling requisite for students to meet the requirement of graduation. Among all the skills tested, listening is always the hardest to second, or foreign, language learners, and my students at TUEBA are no exception. Being an English teacher at TUEBA, through my teaching experience, I notice that comparing to other skills, students find listening most difficult and stressful and their TOEIC listening scores tend to be lower than those of other skills.
For all of the above mentioned reasons, I would like to carry out a small study entitled “Difficulties encountered in the TOEIC listening test by the second-year students at university of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University “in order to help solve out the problems. Objectives of the study The purpose of the study is to investigate the TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties encountered by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University, identify the factors that lead to such difficulties and suggest solutions to help students overcome these 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. To that end, the study seeks answers to the following research questions: 1. What difficulties do the second-year students at TUEBA face in the TOEIC listening test? 2.
What causes such difficulties? 3. What strategies do these students often apply when taking TOEIC listening test? 3. Significance of the study This study explores the real difficulties encountered by sophomores as well as their strategies to improve their scores in TOEIC listening test. Also, the study hopes to offer some help to TUEBA teachers in their choice of appropriate techniques to teach TOEIC listening effectively.
Scope of the study The study focuses mainly on the analysis of the data collected from the students‟ TOEIC listening test papers and the survey questionnaire distributed to TOEIC students at the University of Economics and Business Administration- Thai Nguyen University. Methods of the study Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed but the major method used is the quantitative method. The analysis of students‟ TOEIC listening test papers was done to identify the current situation as well as difficult aspects of the TOEIC listening test. Then, additional data were also collected through survey questionnaires, informal interviews and discussions with TOEIC learners at TUEBA.
Organization of the thesis This thesis consists of three parts: Part A: Introduction. This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the structure of the thesis. In this part, four chapters are presented. Chapter 1 – Literature Review establishes the theoretical background of the 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research, i. listening comprehension and an overview of TOEIC listening comprehension tests. Chapter 2 – Methodology presents the background information of the participants in the study, the instrument used to collect the data, and the procedure of data collection. Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussion provides the data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of the findings of the study.
Explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter. In this part, the limitations and some recommendations for further research are provided. The Appendices lie on the last part of the study, following the References. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1- LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Theoretical background to listening comprehension 1. Definition of listening comprehension strategy Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input (Rubin, 1981). Listening strategies can be classified on the basis of how the listener processes the input. For learners, one of the methods learners can become actively involved in controlling their own learning is by using strategies.
Vandergrift (1999) showed “Strategy development is important for listening training because strategies are conscious means by which learners can guide and evaluate their own comprehension and responses.” In O'Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Kupper, and Russo‟s (1985) study, high school ESL students were randomly assigned to receive learning strategy training on vocabulary, listening, and speaking tasks and the result indicated strategy training can be effective for integrative language tasks. Nakata (1999) studied the influence of listening strategy training on Japanese EFL learners‟ listening competence, and it showed that the effect of listening strategy training was more discernible on perception than on comprehension. Among all the strategies for listening, O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) claimed three main types of strategies: metacognitive, cognitive and social strategies. The metacognitive strategy was a kind of self-regulated learning.
It included the attempt to plan, check, monitor, select, revise, and evaluate, etc. For example, for metacognitive planning strategies, learners would clarify the objectives of an anticipated listening task, and attend to specific aspects of language input or situational details that assisted in understanding the task (Vandergrift, 1999). 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The cognitive strategies are related to comprehending and storing input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval. They are investigated from the aspects of bottom-up strategies, top-down strategies.