UNIVERSITY OF PHAN THIET FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DISSERTATION TOPIC: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CAUSES OF DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS ENCOUNTERED BY SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT UNIVERSITY OF PHAN THIET AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS STUDENT’S NAME: LE THI THANH THUY YEAR: 2016 MAJOR: ENGLISH MAJOR ACADEMIC YEAR: 2016-2020 SUPERVISOR: MA. TU THI TUYET VY BINH THUAN 2019 UNIVERSITY OF PHAN THIET FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DISSERTATION TOPIC: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CAUSES OF DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH LISTENING SKILLS ENCOUNTERED BY SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT UNIVERSITY OF PHAN THIET AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS STUDENT’S NAME: LE THI THANH THUY YEAR: 2016 MAJOR: ENGLISH MAJOR ACADEMIC YEAR: 2016-2020 SUPERVISOR: MA. TU THI TUYET VY BINH THUAN 2019 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the mentor for my graduate thesis, MA. Tu Thi Tuyet Vy.
She has supported and helped me a lot during the research process. In addition, she not only taught me wholeheartedly but also spent her valuable time to help me overcome obstacles when I did this dissertation. Secondly, I am truly grateful to Ms. Tu Thi Tuyet Vy, Mr.
David Perkins and Ms. Tran Thi Quynh Le, for their valuable time to answer the interview questions for my research paper. They have made the most frank and useful view, contributing to the success of this research. Their views about listening skills not only make my research more realistic, but also more credible for my dissertation.
Thirdly, I appreciate the enthusiastic participation in the survey as well as the frank answers of the students of K10NNA1, K10NNA2 and K10NNA3 class at the University of Phan Thiet. Your answers not only play a very important role in the success of this thesis, but also offer great suggestions for English learners. Thanks a lot the help and cooperation from you. Finally, thank you to the lecturers and staff of the foreign language department who gave me good conditions to run the survey smoothly.
Thank you to my parents, siblings, friends and colleagues for always watching, caring, and supporting me. Once again, I would like to thank everyone with all the most sincere. ii DECLARATION My full name is Le Thi Thanh Thuy. I am twenty-four years old.
I am the fourth- year student at University of Phan Thiet. My major is English language. I have completed my own graduation thesis. My research topic is the causes of difficulties in English learning listening encountered by second year English major at University of Phan Thiet and possible solutions.
I pledge that this thesis is my own brainchild. It is not only all my efforts for the graduate thesis at the university but also all the enthusiasm that I have spent time researching to make this topic clearly. By that, I wish to help a small part of the learners' journey to learn English when they have difficulty in listening skills. Therefore, there is no copying or plagiarism of anyone in this thesis.
This is the original. I created additional electronic copies in case the original was lost or damaged with any reasons. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii LIST OF CHARTS.v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the study. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. The research questions.3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Listening skills overview.1 Definition of listening skills .2 The importance of listening comprehension.3 The purposes of listening skills.4 Processes of listening.5 Stages for developing listening lesson. The pre-listening stage. The while-listening stage. The post-listening stage.
The three most common difficulties and their corresponding causes of poor English listening .1 Learners do not understand the content of the listening lesson.2 Learners do not keep up with the speed of the listening lesson.3 Learners cannot concentrate on listening.1 Some solutions for not understand the content of the listening text.2 Some solutions for not keep up with the speed of the listening lesson .3 Some solutions for lack of concentrate on listening. The quantitative method. The qualitative method. The survey questionnaire.
The procedure of data collection. Data collection from the questionnaire. Data collection form the interview. The data analysis procedure.
Analyzing quantitative data. Analyzing quantitative data.26 CHAPTER 4: SURVEY RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Results of questionnaires .1 To what extent do the second year English majors at the University of Phan Thiet feel about the importance of listening skills?.2 What are the principal causes for the difficulties of the second year English majors at the University of Phan Thiet?.3 What are some possible solutions to improve their English listening skills?. Results of interviews.1 Result of English-majored students’ interviews 42 4.2 Result of lecturers’ interviews 45 iv CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION.
Limitation of research. Recommendations for further research .50 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: The second year English majors at the University of Phan Thiet think about the importance of learning English nowadays.28 Chart 2: The important of listening skills.30 Chart 3: The order of the stages during the listening process.31 Chart 4: The three stages for developing a listening lesson.33 Chart 5: : Students often do before listening.34 Chart 6: Students often do while listening.35 Chart 7: Students often do while listening for the first time.36 Chart 8: Students will do if they cannot understand words or phrases while listening .37 Chart 9: The reasons for poor listening in English learners.39 Chart 10: The solutions are helpful for improving listening skills in English.54 v ABSTRACT The essential purpose of this paper is to find out the causes of difficulties in English listening skills of second year English major students at University of Phan Thiet. In addition, it also shows the most practical solutions to improve English listening skills not only for students at University of Phan Thiet but also for all English learners. In addition to the introduction to the importance of English, this research paper outlines the importance and purpose of English listening skills.
This is one of the important skills that it is indispensable to start learning a new language, not just the English language. In addition, the researcher briefly introduces the correct sequence of a listening process as well as activities to develop a listening lesson. Through a survey at University of Phan Thiet, the researcher clarified the problems that caused those difficulties through the figures on the chart. These data are actual survey from three classes who are the second students English-majored at University.
In addition, the researcher also conducted interviews to synthesize individual perspectives about this topic. Everything has the basis to prove the authenticity for this thesis. Finally, the article summarizes the content of the whole article with recommendations for the research. Rationale of the study “By the most common estimates, 400 million people use English as a first language, another 300 million to 500 million as a fluent second language, and approximate 750 million as a foreign language.
The United States is the country which has English native speakers, but this country has only about 20% of the world's English speakers in the world. In Asia alone, an estimated 350 million people use English, about the same as the combined English-using populations of Britain, the United States and Canada. The English language no longer "belongs" to its native speakers but to the world” (Seth Mydans, 2007, p. Therefore, English has become the official language that whole world is always heading.
There are a lot of benefits which bring to English learners such as having a good job, meeting many new foreign friends, approaching to multiple cultures in the world, etc. It makes the path of integration into the learning environment with other countries easier. Alfitri (2012) proved that in internet, more than 80% of the sites use English as the medium language while 20% of the rest use the other languages such as Indonesian, Chinese, and the other. It indicates that if people do not learn English as their second language they will only acquire less than 20% of the new knowledge, for nowadays new knowledge is mostly shared through the internet.
Obviously, English plays an extremely significant role in breaking the language barrier between countries around the world. English communication helps us connect the world as well as provide opportunities for participation in the largest knowledge community. In addition, effortless English is always the top desire of everyone to have more opportunities to master their future. English has four skills that are listening, speaking, reading and writing.
All of them are the essential language skills to develop the second language learning. These skills are always supplementary as well as accompanying to promote the English 2 learning process. The order of skills is usually listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening skills are placed first due to its importance in this second language.
In particular, it is the most difficult language skills to learn and spend the most time. Although some language learners find it easy to comprehend listening, there are still more learners who obtain a lot of difficulties in listening. The difficulties can be due to learners' abilities, external influences or incorrect listening methods. The certain difficulties that learners have to confront when approaching English listening.
Listing these difficulties, they can be similar or different. One thing for sure is that solving these difficulties is a long process. If they do not know what difficulties they are facing, then the solution to that difficulty is far more distant. Aims of the study This research aimed at examining the challenges that students face in listening to various authentic English individually.
It will detail the common difficulties in listening to English of the second-year students at the University of Phan Thiet. Besides, the research will focus on the causes of those difficulties. The ultimate goal is to give some possible solutions for learners to overcome the difficulties and listen English more effectively as well as for good practice in perfecting listening skills. Scope of the study This study was conducted at the University of Phan Thiet where is the capital of Binh Thuan province in the coast of Vietnam.
The subject of this study is the second students English-majored at Phan Thiet University. The population of this study is composed of the students of K10NNA1, K10NNA2 and K10NNA3 classes at the University of Phan Thiet. The study took place during the second semester of the 2019-2020 school years. The research was carried out with the second students majoring in English because they have spent one year approaching intensive English as well as perception the listening skills' significance.
Furthermore, they had one year rubbing against listening as well as clearly understanding the difficulties that they have faced. Consequently, this thing will help to make the results of this study more realistic. The research questions With the purpose of focusing on identifying the causes of difficulties in listening skills when learning English, this research clarified the following questions: 1. To what extent do the second year English majors at the University of Phan Thiet feel about the importance of listening skills? 2.
What are some common difficulties of these students in studying? 3. What are the principal causes for the difficulties? 4. What are some possible solutions to improve their English listening skills? 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Overview of English listening skills 2.
Definition of listening skills It is undeniable that English language is the most prevalent language in the world. Consequently, studying English listening skills is the first priority for English learners if they want to speak this global language fluently. Especially, listening is the top skills to lead three remaining skills if learners want to conquer English swiftly. It is important to understand what the listening skill is.
Some experts in the world have come up with a series of definitions of English listening skills. Krashen (1985) argues that listening is a fundamental language skill, and it merits a critical priority among the four skill areas for language learners.