MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------ GRADUATION THESIS A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES AND STRATEGIES IN LISTENING SKILLS OF THE THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY STUDENT: TRAN THI NGOC TUYEN ID NUMBER: 17018161 CLASS: DHAV13A COURSE: 2017 - 2021 SUPERVISOR: LE MINH HIEN, B. HCMC, 06/2021 MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------ GRADUATION THESIS A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES AND STRATEGIES IN LISTENING SKILLS OF THE THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY STUDENT: TRAN THI NGOC TUYEN ID NUMBER: 17018161 CLASS: DHAV13A COURSE: 2017 - 2021 SUPERVISOR: LE MINH HIEN, B. HCMC, 06/2021 MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------ Student’s name : Tran Thi Ngoc Tuyen Student’s ID : 17018161 Class : DHAV13A Course : 2017 - 2021 Supervisor : Le Minh Hien, B. Student’s declaration: I declare that this graduation report is entirely my own work and does not involve in plagiarism or collusion.
It also has not been accepted as part of a submission to another purpose else where. I accept heavy penalty for any cheating or plagiarism. Date submitted: 20/06/2021 Signed : ……………………… Word length : 8514 words ABSTRACT Listening is one of the important skills in learning a foreign language. However, compared to other skills (Reading, Speaking, Writing), listening is taken much more lightly by teachers and students.
Listening has long been the neglected skill in foreign language acquisition, research, teaching, and assessment. The present study attempts to investigate the listening difficulties faced by English major freshmen of Industrial University. Data for this study was gathered through questionnaires. Results of the study showed that the length of the text, pronunciation, speech rates, lack of vocabulary, unfamiliar with the accent, colloquial and slang, inferring skills, the need for repetition of the passage and poor quality of listening devices were the major problems that affected students' ability.
Understanding these difficulties may enable teachers to help students develop effective learning strategies and improve their English listening abilities. Some suggestions are provided for teachers and students to improve teaching and learning practices. KEYWORDS Difficulties, listening skills, strategies ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This graduate thesis would not be possible without the help of individuals and organizations. Thus, I hereby express my deep gratitude for their contributions.
Firstly, I would like to express thanks to the School Board of Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, and the Faculty of Foreign Languages for creating favorable conditions for me to take my graduation thesis. Secondly, I would like to convey my sincere gratitude to my Academic Supervisor who is Le Minh Hien, B. of the Faculty of Foreign Languages. Without her proper guidance, this thesis would not have been a success.
In every phase of the report, her supervision and helpful advice shaped this thesis to be completed perfectly. Then I would like to thank Dr. Phan Thi Tuyet Nga and some other teachers, who had provided me with all the necessary information and materials and had organized seminars to assist FFL students as well me before we wrote the thesis. Furthermore, I would also like to express my excessive thanks to all members of my group for their excellent support and often shared feelings, and gave me timely advice through the thesis writing process.
Last but not least, I am grateful to 100 students of class DHAV14. They spent their time answering my questionnaires enthusiastically. My thesis maybe not possible without their cooperation. It contributed in a part to help me overcome my challenging thesis.
Once again, thank for everyone who supported me from the start to the finish of my graduation thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Scope of the study. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of key term. Results of previous studies. Process of listening comprehension. Listening comprehension problems.
Factors affecting listening comprehension. 8 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH SITE. Research methodology and research methods. 15 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.
Summary of the chapter. Recommendation for teachers. Recommendation for listeners. 38 Student: Trần Thị Ngọc Tuyền ID Number: 17018161 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale It can not be denied that English is considered the common language in the world. People can communicate and contact between countries. In Vietnam, English becomes more important when many international businesses conduct meetings in this language. Universities teach courses in English.
Every people around this country use English to communicate and wishes to get a good job opportunity and increase the living standard. This is the reason why a higher number of people want to learn and use English and wish to become a master in English recently. This is explained why English has been a part of general education in Vietnam. Thus English is regarded as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of almost all colleges and universities in Vietnam.
Unfortunately, the results of teaching and studying English in universities are evaluated in grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Therefore, the education system has not really invested effectively to teach this language as focusing on important skills such as listening, speaking, and writing. Meanwhile, we all know that to learn a foreign language successfully, students should be confident in using fluently the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. These four skills are closely interrelated to one another and they all necessary.
However, listening and speaking skills are not important parts of many course books or curricula in Vietnam. According to the research result of Coakley & Wolvin, 1997, listening is central to the lives of students throughout all levels of educational development. Listening is the most frequently used language skill in the classroom (Ferris, 1998; Murphy, 1991; Vogely, 1998). In the fact that teachers teaching English seem only to give the students taking the test, so they do not invest much in these skills while designing their lessons.
Most teachers take it for granted and believe that it will develop naturally within the process of language learning. Even, in the university entrance test, listening is not used as a factor to decide students’ abilities. Besides, listening has not drawn much attention of both teachers and learners, they are generally less aware of its importance. Also, class sizes in Vietnam are large (often over 30 students per Supervisor: Lê Minh Hiền, B.
Page 1 Student: Trần Thị Ngọc Tuyền ID Number: 17018161 class), and there is no assistive technology, so it is difficult to teach listening skills effectively. Passive students mainly earn points for passing English subjects, not to practice listening comprehension skills. Thus, teachers do not have the motivation to improve their qualifications and teaching methods. In contrast, some students want to be good at practicing this skill but due to the exam pressure, they have to study for the exam.
That leads to EFL learners have serious problems in English listening comprehension. As a result, it remains the most neglected and the least understood aspect of language teaching. In fact, listening is a complex mental process that involves perception, attention, cognition, and memory. Also, comprehending speech in a foreign language is a quite difficult task for language learners.
When listening to a foreign language, many language learners still cope with difficulties. During four years studied in IUH, the writer saw that despite many courses and periods study about listening skills is still the most difficult skill for most students even for English-majored students. To help third years, students improve their listening ability, students have to understand listening difficulties in comprehending spoken texts, and find effective listening solutions and strategies. Hence, teachers need to give students the chance and find out possible methods to help them overcome their challenges and make them feel more comfortable and confident when practicing listen to English to improve their listening skills as well.
For all these reasons, this research is conducted with the title “A study on difficulties and strategies in listening skills of the third-year English-majored students at Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City” in the hope of improving listening skills for third years English students at IUH. Research objectives The main purse study was carried out to survey the real state of teaching and learning English listening skills of English-majored third-year students in the FFL of IUH so that to find out what was the most common difficulties that students encounter. Also, another objective was to provide reasons and explanations for their problems in this skill. Supervisor: Lê Minh Hiền, B.
Page 2 Student: Trần Thị Ngọc Tuyền ID Number: 17018161 After that, some possible recommendations and effective techniques would be proposed and hopefully help third-year students improve their listening skills and learning activities. What are the common difficulties of learning English listening skills for the third-year students in FFL at IUH? 2. What are some strategies to enhance their English listening skill? 1. Scope of the study Because of the limitation of page numbers of the minor thesis, the writer can only choose the general knowledge of listening skills to analyses in the research, the research can only survey the student of the third year to identify listening problems experienced by the students.
Supervisor: Lê Minh Hiền, B. Page 3 Student: Trần Thị Ngọc Tuyền ID Number: 17018161 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Definitions of key term What is listening? Thomlison (1984) and Hamouda (2013) defined listening as the ability to recognize and understand what others are telling. This process includes understanding a speaker's pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and understanding of meaning.
Similarly, according to Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening can be defined as the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding of speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Besides, Bowen, Madsen, and Hilferty (1985) also demonstrated that listening is understanding the oral language.
Students hear oral speech, divide sounds, classify them into lexical and syntactic units, and comprehend the message (as cited in Pourhosein Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016). On the other hand, Gilakjani and Sabouri (2016) stated that listening is a process of receiving what the speaker says, making and showing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and answering, and creating meaning by participation, creativity, and empathy. "Listening means trying to see the problem the way the speaker sees it—which means not sympathy, which is feeling for him, but empathy, which is experiencing with him. Listening requires entering actively and imaginatively into the other fellow's situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own.
This is not always an easy task." ("How to Attend a Conference" in "The Use and Misuse of Language." Fawcett Premier, 1962) According to Rost (2009), listening helps us to understand the world around us and is one of the necessary elements in creating successful communication. Thus, developing listening skills is very important. It helps the learners improve their listening comprehension that leads to an improvement in the ability to speak. It also helps them achieve good listening comprehension and good listening habits that facilitate the process of communication.
Supervisor: Lê Minh Hiền, B. Page 4 Student: Trần Thị Ngọc Tuyền ID Number: 17018161 It is easy to see that the scholars considered listening as not just unidirectional of passively receiving audible cues, but a complex active process of receiving, decoding, and comprehending the conveyed message. Results of previous studies 2. Process of listening comprehension In terms of language processing, it is now generally accepted that learners need access to both top-down as well as bottom-up processing strategies.
Bottom-up processing strategies focus on the individual components of spoken and written messages, i. phonemes, graphemes, individual words, and grammatical elements which need to be comprehended in order to understand messages.