VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ HỒNG LOAN DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS EXPERIENCED BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀNG HẢI VIỆT NAM VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP KHẮC PHỤC) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 HANOI - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ HỒNG LOAN DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING LISTENING SKILLS EXPERIENCED BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC HỌC KỸ NĂNG NGHE CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀNG HẢI VIỆT NAM VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP KHẮC PHỤC) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Supervisor: Phạm Thị Thanh Thủy, M.
HANOI - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration……….…………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………… ii Abstract………………………………………………………………………………. iii Table of contents…. iv List of charts….……………………………………………………… ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and rationale of the study………………………….
Aims of the study………………………………………………………………. Scope of the study…………………………………………………………… 2 1. Significance of the study………………………………………………………. Design of the study…………………………………………………………….
2 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Component skills of listening……………………………………………………. Potential problems in learning listening…………………………………………. Stress and intonation…………………………………………………….
7 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Fatigue and concentration………………………………. Number of speakers……………………………………………………. Familiarity of topic…………………………………………………….
Interest and motivation………………………………………………… 12 2. Three stages in teaching listening………………………………………………… 13 2. Previous study on listening difficulties…………………………………………. 15 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY 3.
The setting of the study…………………………………………………………. Data collection instruments……………………………………………. Data analysis methods…………………………………………………. Learners and teachers‟ perceptions of linguistic difficulties in learning listening……………………………………………………………….
Learners and teachers‟ perceptions of listening difficulties related to the listening text……………………………………………………. Learners and teachers‟ perceptions of listening difficulties related to the speakers…………………………………………………………. Learners and teachers‟ perceptions of listening difficulties related to the listener…………………………………………………………. Learners‟ expectations towards their teachers and teachers‟ opinions about how they can help their students……………………………………….
25 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. 27 CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4. Difficulties in learning listening encountered by first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University and possibles sources of these difficulties……………. Recommendations to help students overcome difficulties in learning listening……………………………………………………………………………….
Helping students with vocabulary……………………………. Dealing with sounds, stress and intonation……………………………. Helping students get familiar with different accents…………. Overcoming psychological problems…………………………………… 31 4.
Giving clear instruction………………………………………. Utilizing the internet……………………………………………………. Providing task variety and text variety………………………………… 35 4. Encouraging self-study………………………………………………… 37 4.
37 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Limitations and suggestions for further study……………………………………. I viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Learners‟ perceptions of their linguistic difficulties in learning listening Chart 2: Teachers‟ perceptions of students‟ linguistic difficulties in learning listening Chart 3: Learners‟ perceptions of their listening difficulties related to the listening text. Chart 4: Teachers‟ perceptions of their students‟ listening difficulties related to the listening text Chart 5: Learners‟ perceptions of their listening difficulties related to the speakers Chart 6: Teachers‟ perceptions of their students‟ listening difficulties related to the speakers Chart 7: Learners‟ perceptions of their listening difficulties related to the listener Chart 8: Teachers‟ perceptions of their students‟ listening difficulties related to the listener Chart 9: Students and teachers‟ opinions about solutions to overcome difficulties in listening ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.
Statement of the problem and rationale of the study It cannot be denied that English has now become the most popular language in the world. In the past, learning a foreign language mainly means learning the vocabulary and practicing the system of grammar. However, in recent years, more attention has been paid to listening and speaking skills since they play important roles in communication. At Vietnam Maritime University (VMU), as most other universities in Vietnam, English has been taught as a compulsory subject for all majors.
Among four skills of English, listening is often considered the most difficult one for students. First-year students at VMU have various difficulties with this skill because not many of them are familiar with listening at high school. Moreover, not many researchers have studied the difficulties of first-year students in learning listening skills at VMU. Therefore, it is urgent to carry out the research on “Difficulties in learning listening skills experienced by first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University and some suggested solutions”.
Aims of the study The aims of the study are: To investigate the difficulties that first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University encounter in learning listening skill To find out factors that cause the students‟ difficulties in learning listening skill To provide some suggested solutions to help students overcome these difficulties In order to achieve these aims, the study has three research questions as follows: What difficulties do first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University encounter in learning listening skills as perceived by themselves and by their teachers? What are the factors causing these difficulties to the students? What can teachers do to help students overcome these difficulties? 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study The study is conducted at Vietnam Maritime University to find out the difficulties in learning listening skill of first-year students. The study focuses on describing the linguistic factors, factors related to the listening text, factors related to the speakers and factors related to the listener. The study also offers some recommendations to improve the current situation.
Significance of the study Many students find listening difficult, so it is essential for the researcher to investigate the difficulties and give some possible solutions to help students be more confident when learning listening to English. Design of the study This study is divided into five main chapters in order to get insights into different aspects of the problem. Besides, there are parts of References and Appendices. Chapter 1 presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, significance and the design of the study.
Chapter 2 deals with theories related to the study including definitions of listening comprehension, component skills of listening, possible sources of difficulties in learning listening and three stages in teaching listening. Chapter 3 shows the procedure of carrying on the research such as the participants, data collection instruments and methods of data analysis. Chapter 4 reports and discusses the findings obtained from the data. Some suggested solutions are also provided to help students overcome their difficulties in learning listening skill.
Chapter 5 summarizes the whole study. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Listening comprehension Underwood (1989) considers listening as the activity of paying attention to get the meaning from what we hear. She also explained that only a part of what the speaker wants to convey lies on the words; in order to interpret the whole meaning of the discourse, the listener has to recognize other factors such as the speaker‟s mood, the speaker‟s choice of vocabulary, and his or her tone of voice.
From another angle, Rubin (1995) conceives listening as an active process in which listeners interpret information which comes from auditory and visual cues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express. Vandergrift (1999) has a more detailed definition of listening comprehension. According to him, listening comprehension is an active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the socio-cultural context of the utterance. To summarize, each definition reflects its author‟s own point of view.
However, all definitions share the same idea is that listening comprehension is a complex process; it requires a number of sub-skills that the listeners must have in order to acquire the overall understanding of the listening text. Moreover, the definition of Vandergrift seems to be the most notable. Component skills of listening White (1998, p. 8) indicates five sub-skills that make up the overall skill of listening as below: Perception skills - Recognizing individual sounds 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - Discriminating between sounds - Indentifying reduced forms in fast speech (for example, elision and assimilation) - Identifying stressed syllables - Identifying stressed words in utterances - Recognizing intonation patterns Language skills - Identifying individual words and groups and building up possible meanings for them - Identifying discourse markers which organize what is being said, for example, then, as I was saying, as a matter of fact, to start with Using knowledge of the world - Connecting groups of words to non-linguistic features such as expressions, gestures, or objects in order to get clues to meaning - Using knowledge of a topic to guess what the speaker might be saying about it - Using knowledge about the patterns that certain oral interactions typically take in order to predict what is being said, for example, ordering in a restaurant, making a telephone call Dealing with information - Understanding gist meaning (the overall idea of what you hear) - Understanding the main points - Understanding details, for example, train times - Inferring information which is not explicitly stated, or which has been missed Interacting with a speaker - Coping with variations among speakers, for example, differences in speed of talking and accent 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - Recognizing the speaker‟s intention - Identifying the speaker‟s mood/attitude - Recognizing the speaker‟s cues about things such as when to take a turn at speaking or when there is a change of topic - Predicting what the speaker will say next Good listeners need to be able to use a combination of sub-skills simultaneously when processing a language.
Potential problems in learning listening 2. Sounds In order to understand spoken language, the sounds must be learned. However, there are some English sounds which do not exist in Vietnamese and this fact can creates difficulties to learners. Moreover, it is not only the sounds which cause comprehension problems but also the way they vary in speech.
In English, the most important phonological changes are: assimilation (changing sounds), elision (losing sounds), and intrusion (adding or joining sounds). Listeners‟ lack of phonological knowledge might lead to reduced comprehension (Buck, 2001). According to Rixon (1986, p.37), “one of the most obvious sources of difficulty for learners of English is the way in which it is pronounced”. He pointed out that many learners can recognize English words quite well in written form, but they fail to understand them in spoken form as they are used to hearing a clear and careful pronunciation of the words; thus when there are some types of changes in sounds such as assimilation or elision, the learner find it difficult to recognize.
These above opinions all show that the sounds and changes in sounds in spoken language can cause many difficulties to second language learners. 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Stress and intonation According to Buck (2001), stress and intonation can also carry a great deal of communicative information. Stress There are two types of stress: word stress and sentence stress.
Word stress is the relative emphasis of the syllables within a word. A word can be misunderstood if its stress of the syllables is incorrect. Sentence stress is the relative emphasis of the words within an utterance. Words are stressed to indicate the point the speaker is making.
For example, if a speaker says: my SISTER returned yesterday, the stress is on the word sister, indicating that the topic of the utterance is the person, rather than what she did.