Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University

Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University Factors affecting the English listening skill of firstyear Business Englishmajored students at Thuong Mai University

Nowadays, English is used as the language of international communication,the Internet, and the media in every corner of the world With the development ofinternational relations among countries, English skills have an important role toplay for all citizens on the planet Having a good command of English increasesyour chances of getting a good job in a multinational company within your homecountry or seeking jobs abroad Therefore, learning English is necessary for yourfuture to be better

Out of four main English skills, listening skills need to be paid specialattention because it can affect other skills, especially communication skills.However, it is not easy for learners to be good at English listening skill Therefore, Ichoose this skill as a topic for my study called factors affecting the English listeningskill of first-year Business English-majored students at Thuong Mai University Inorder to get as objective results as possible, I applied one tool which is thequestionnaire survey with 80 participants

After determining which factor influents students’ English listening skill themost, I will suggest students some solutions based on the results of the survey Thestudy is expected to all readers from solutions, teachers, university, and furtherresearches

i

In the process of researching, I consider myself a lucky individual whenreceiving the valuable assistance of my teachers, friends, and family I could notovercome difficulties and complete the graduation paper without their help,guideline, and encouragement

Foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Mrs

Ha Thi Vu Ha, one of the lecturers in the Department of English Skills, Faculty ofEnglish, Thuong Mai University From the beginning days, she gave me not onlymaterials but also thorough instructions, and psychological stimulation Thanks toher valuable assistance, I can overcome several obstacles of idea development anddata analysis

Secondly, I would like to give my deep sense of gratitude to all of the lecturers

of the English Faculty at Thuong Mai University for enthusiastically teachingduring my four-year study and facilitating me to complete the Graduation Paper.Furthermore, my sincere thanks are delivered to my family and friends for caring,sharing and encouraging me during the time of researching, which regularly moves

me to finish this study In addition, I am grateful to the first-year English students at Thuong Mai University for their dedicated help in expressing theiropinions about my topic so that I can collect exact data For all readers, I would like

majored-to spend my last thank for being interested in this majored-topic I hope that it will be usefulfor you

Although there have been many attempts to implement the study, mistakes areunavoidable because of the limitations of time, knowledge, and practicalexperience Therefore, all comments and recommendations from teachers andfriends are warmly welcome to make my Graduation Paper more perfect

April 10th, 2021Student

Lai Thi Quynh

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.2.1 Studies Abroad 2

1.2.2 Studies in Viet Nam 3

1.3 Aims of the study 4

1.4 Research Subjects 5

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Definition of listening 6

2.2 Classification of listening 7

2.3 The significance of English listening skill 8

2.4 The process of listening comprehension 9

2.5 Factors affecting English listening skill of first-year Business English-majored students at Thuong Mai University 10

2.5.1 Factors related to listening texts 10

2.5.2 Factors related to linguistic features 11

2.5.3 Factors related to the speaker 12

2.5.4 Factor related to listener 13

2.5.5 Factors related to physical setting 13

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 14

3.1 Methodology 14

3.1.1 Research methodology 14

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3.1.3 Participants 14

3.1.4 Data collection instrument 15

3.1.5 Data collection procedures 16

3.2 Data Analysis 16

3.2.1 General information 16

3.2.2 The perception of significance of English listening skill 17

3.2.3 How students practice English listening skill 22

3.2.4 Factors affecting English listening skill of first-year Business English-majored students at Thuong Mai University 25

3.3 Conclusion 34

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 36

4.1 Recommendations for students 36

4.1.1 Practicing with the right strategies 36

4.1.2 Investing more time in practice 37

4.1.3 Expanding vocabulary 37

4.2 Recommendations for teachers 38

4.2.1 Raising students’ awareness of the importance of English listening skill 38

4.2.2 Giving more materials and advice 38

4.2.3 Recommendation for university 39

4.3 Conclusion 39

CONCLUSION 40 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a foreign language

HUFI Ho Chi Minh City University of Food IndustryEPU Electric Power University

v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURE

Chart 3.1: The period of time the students have been studying English 17

Chart 3.2: Overall ranking of the importance of four English skills 18

Chart 3.3: Overall ranking of the difficulty of four English skills 19

Chart 3.4: Students’ evaluation about their English listening skill 20

Chart 3.5: The time that students spend in practicing listening 22

Chart 3.6: How many times students listen to the listening record 24

Chart 3.7: Overall influence of listening texts 26

Chart 3.8: Overall influence of linguistic features 28

Chart 3.9: Overall influence of the speaker 29

Chart 3.10: Overall influence of the listener 31

Chart 3.11: Overall influence of physical settings 33

Y Table 3.1: The importance of four English skills evaluated by the first-year Business English-majored students at TMU 18

Table 3.2: The difficulty of four English skills evaluated by the first-year Business English-majored students at TMU 19

Table 3.3: Students’ purpose of practicing English listening skill 21

Table 3.4: Students’ method of practicing English listening skill 23

Table 3.5: Techniques used by students to improve their English listening level 24

Table 3.6: Factors related to listening texts 26

Table 3.7: Factors related to linguistic features 27

Table 3.8: Factors related to the speaker 29

Table 3.9: Factors related to the listener 31

Table 3.10: Factors related to physical settings 33

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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

In the context that globalization is spreading its influence, the importance ofEnglish is undeniable and neglected because it is widely used in all corners of theworld, not only in English-speaking countries In fact, English became a globallanguage for most countries to communicate and trade in every industry and sector,which leads English fluency to be required for employees In that context, theemphasis on teaching and learning English is focused in all education systems,which allows students to obtain knowledge from a number of foreign materials andmeet the fundamental requirement of the global labor market as well

For the Vietnamese education system, an English certificate nowadays isregarded as a compulsory standard for most Vietnamese students’ graduation toensure a quality workforce for the country to integrate with international trade Forthat reason, learning English is of extreme necessity for Vietnamese learners tocontribute, renovate and develop the country and improve the image of the countryworldwide as well

Out of the most important skills when learning foreign languages, includingEnglish language, listening skill is the most important one Listening helps peoplereceive information to enhance people’s understanding In communication, listeningaccount for a majority of communication time, which allows listeners to understandothers’ thinking to solve problems, and to have appropriate behavior As a result, itcan be advised that improvement of listening skills will boost learners’ Englishproficiency

Although the importance of English listening skills is undeniable, manystudents (and even teachers) often fail to devote enough attention to listening, whichleads English learners to find listening hard to grasp They then have to take plenty

of time to improve their English listening skills When practicing listening toEnglish with videos, for example, many people only listen once without spendingtheir time listening to them many times and studying the videos Not having astrategy to practice listening to English causes people to give up listening when they

find themselves not improving Therefore, many English learners express theirdesire to access an effective method to improve their English listening skills.

In Vietnam in particular, instead of teaching students four English skills,middle and high schools often put emphasis on vocabulary, grammar, and sentencestructures Because of that, a part of English-majored freshman at Thuong MaiUniversity are still confused with learning to listen to English in the class and find itdifficult to grasp This study will indicate factors affecting the English listening skill

of first-year Business English- majored students at TMU The method of practicinglistening English then will be suggested with the aim of helping TMU’s studentshave a clear strategy to practice English listening skills right from the time theywere freshmen to make progress after a four-year course Having an excellentEnglish listening skill will have a gorgeous impact on other English skills, whichhelps first-year students of the English Faculty at TMU be a confident generation ofemployees in the future These are the reasons why I would like to carry out thisstudy to help the first-year English students find the recommendation for the issues

1.2 Previous studies

Listening skill is a vital skill for language learners to gain mastery oflanguage Therefore, it is understandable when there have been a number ofVietnamese and foreign researchers choosing English listening skills as a research

topic Before getting up to study “Factors affecting the English listening skill of first-year Business English-majored students at Thuong Mai University”, I will

review some of the previous studies related to this topic

when speakers move from one point to another Fifthly, listeners lack contextualknowledge Next, listeners find it difficult to concentrate on listening Finally,listeners may have certain learning habits The study then suggests severalapproaches to English listening comprehension teaching for EFL learners.

The second study abroad about English listening skills that I refer to is “A study on listening skills and perspective to first-year students at English Department of the Academic year 2015- 2016” by Sitti Hadijah, Kata Kunci,

Kemampuan Menyimak, Dan Perspektif in 2016 This study aims to gatherinformation about the students’ challenges in English listening activities, theirperspectives on English listening subjects and positive factors on the students’success in listening The findings of this study revealed that the students facedproblems in English listening skills in the test Furthermore, most of themconsidered that the listening classes are challenging for them due to some problemsand difficulties during the teaching and learning activities Moreover, the studysummed up five main factors influenced the students’ listening skill In addition, thestudents realized the importance of listening activities, but assistance from theteachers and some other students were still needed during teaching and learningactivities It concluded that having an excellent English listening skill still appeared

as a challenge for the first-year students of the English Department

1.2.2 Studies in Viet Nam

The first study in Viet Nam that I am interested in is “Improving service Officials’ Listening Comprehension Abilities in English for International Relations” by Kieu Thi Thu Huong in 2014 The aim of this study is to find out the

Foreign-status of English listening level specialized international relations of foreign-serviceofficials, to discover influencing factors to learning to listen, and offer somepotential solutions for this issue The findings of this study show that very fewforeign-service officials practice English listening with a regular degree althoughthey realized that this skill directly affects the quality of their work The internal andexternal challenges that they encountered are then listed in this study

The second study “Enhancing EPU first-year students’ listening skills by using Podcasts in the classroom” by Nguyen Thi Nguyet Minh, Electric Power

University in 2019 illustrates that the method of teaching listening comprehensionwith Podcasts is much more effective than traditional teaching methods with boardand chalk The study reaffirms the effectiveness of the application of informationtechnology in foreign language teaching and learning and shows that the use ofPodcasts in the classroom improves learning outcomes, increases motivation forstudents to learn English Teaching English listening with Podcasts improvesstudents’ listening comprehension skills because this technology provides Englishlearners with a diverse resource of material, stimulates the students’ interest inlearning English The author then highlights few strong points that need to noticewhen using Podcasts to have a great result.

Another study which provides me more insight about factors affecting English

listening skill is “Factors affecting English listening comprehension: Perceptions

of English- major students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry” by

Nguyen Thi Xuyen, 2018 From the beginning of the thesis, the author clearlyshows the significance of listening skills in learning a language as well as in a real-life through affirmations of prestigious researchers From pointing out problemsrelated to listening comprehension skills, the author indicates the factors that affectEnglish-major students of HUFI through her observations and experiences Theauthor has read and researched more than ten different studies to show that thefactors affecting English listening skills are classified in different ways Eachclassification method covers most of the factors that need concerned Finally, theauthor chooses to classify the factors based on five aspects: listening text, linguisticfeatures, speaker, listener, and physical settings Collected data are analyzed veryclearly, which makes a noticeable contribution to the implication of the study

1.3 Aims of the study

The study is carried out with the following aims:

First of all, the factors influencing the English listening skill of BusinessEnglish-majored freshmen at TMU would be figured out and in this study

Secondly, the study would like to recommend several strategies of practicingEnglish listening for first-year Business English-majored students at TMU from themost influential factors

Finally, this study would be valuable for first-year Business English-majoredstudents at TMU University to improve their English skills.

1.4 Research subjects

Based on the rationale and the aims of the study, the subject of this study is

“Factors affecting the English listening skill of first-year Business majored students at Thuong Mai University”.

English-1.5 Scope of the study

A large proportion of second and foreign language research findings indicatedthat listening is the most important skill for language learning because it is the mostwidely used language skill in normal daily life (Morley, 2001; Rost, 2001) This is

the reason why I choose “Factors affecting the English listening skill of first-year Business English-majored students at Thuong Mai University” as my topic for

this study There are many students encountering listening challenges while myresearching time is limited Therefore, this study was completed with theparticipation of first-year Business English-majored students at TMU With the aim

of proposing several solutions to improve the English listening skill for first-yearBusiness English-majored students, the study is expected to be useful for freshmen

of English Faculty at TMU in particular, and all English learner in general

1.6 Organization of the study

This study includes four parts as follows:

 Chapter 1: The overview of the study shows the rationale, the aim of thestudy, the research subjects, the scope of the study, the research methodology, andthe structure of the study

 Chapter 2: The literature review gives the background knowledge relevant

to the topic of the study

 Chapter 3: Research findings include data analysis from the surveyquestionnaire, data evaluation, and the result of the study

 Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions for improving Englishlistening skill of Business English majored- freshmen at TMU

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition of listening

Listening is defined in different ways by many resources and researchers

According to Wikipedia: “To listen is to give attention to sound or action When listening, one is hearing what others are saying, and trying to understand what it means.” Underwood (1989) defines listening in a similar way: “the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning spoken language of native speakers.” According to the website skillsyouneed.com: “listening is not the same as hearing Hearing refers to the sounds that enter your ears It is a physical process that, provided you do not have any hearing problems, happens automatically Listening, however, requires more than that: it requires focus and concentrated effort, both mental and sometimes physical as well.”

O’Malley Chamot, and Kupper (1989) offer a useful definition of listening:

“listening comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener construct meaning by using cues from contextual information and from existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement.”

Mendelsohn (1994) also underlines the listener’s ability to catch the speakers’

idea: “In listening to spoken language, the ability to decipher speaker’s intention is required of a competent listener, in addition to other abilities such as processing the linguistics forms like speech speed and fillers, coping with listening in an interaction, understanding the whole message contained in the discourse, comprehending the message without understanding every word, and recognizing different genres.”

Thomlison (1984)’s definition of listening includes “active listening”, whichgoes beyond comprehending as understanding the message content, tocomprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker In addition,Gordon (1985) argues that empathy is vital to listening and contends that it ismore than a polite attempt to identify a speaker’s perspectives More thanimportantly, empathetic understanding expands to “egocentric prosocial behavior”

To sum up, “listening is a key to all effective communication Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood As a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated”, the website skillsyouneed.com.

2.2 Classification of listening

According to Wikipedia, there are six different types of listening skills used inhuman communication: active listening, appreciative listening, dialogic listening,informative listening, reflective listening, and workplace listening

Active listening is a technique used in counseling, training, and solvingdisputes or conflicts It requires the listener to fully concentrate, understand,respond and then remember what is being said Dialogic listening is an alternative

to active listening, in which two parties exchange ideas while listening, then create arelation

Appreciative listening is a type of listening behavior where the listener seekscertain information which they will appreciate, and meet his/her needs and goals.People use this type of listening when listening to music, poetry, radios, or a speech.Appreciate listening does not reply to the message from the speaker it is how oneresponds as a listener

Unlike appreciate listening, informational listening focuses on the ability of anindividual to understand a speaker’s message Failing to understand the concept ofinformational listening can be very detrimental to one’s quality of life and to theircontribution to society

Oppose to active listening, reflective listening is where the listener repeatsback to the speaker what they have just heard to confirm understanding of bothparties

Workplace listening is a type of active listening that is generally employed in

a professional environment Workplace listening includes understanding andlistening process and its barriers that hamper the flow of that process

In addition to six main types of listening, some researchers also pointed outother types of listening such as empathic listening, critical listening, biasedlistening, evaluative listening, and relationship listening, so on

2.3 The significance of English listening skill

Listening skill has a critical role to play in learning languages It is consideredthe most important skill that learners need to acquire when learning languages since

it provides the aural input that serves as the basis for language acquisition andenables learners to interact in oral communication

According to Mendelson (1994) “of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%, speaking 25-30%, reading 11-16% and writing about 9%.” This means that listening account for half of communicating time In fact,

listening is the first language mode that children acquire Children often go through

a “silent period” where they don’t say anything when they learn a second language.During this period, the children’s brain is absorbing information, namelypronunciation, intonation, word stress In other words, they are listening to imitatethe voice of the speaker This theory is proved by Gilbert (1988) while he noted thatstudents from kindergarten through high school were expected to listen 65-90% ofthe time

Anderson and Lynch (2003) affirm that “we only become aware of that remarkable feat of listening we achieve when we are in an unfamiliar listening environment, such as listening to a language in which we have limited proficiency.”

Many people regarded speaking as the first skill need to achieve in languageacquisition However, to get an excellent speaking skill, the first thing that theyneed to learn is to listen Rost (1994) affirms the importance of listening skills to

other skills: “Listening is considered to be a part of oracy, a capacity to formulate thought verbally and to communicate with others.”

There are numerous studies indicating the role of listening activity in theclassroom:

 “Listening consumes more of daily communication time than other forms

of verbal communication.” Wolvin and Coakey (1988)

 “Listening is central to the lives of students throughout all levels of educational development.” Wolvin and Coakey (1997); Feyten (1991); Wing

(1986)

 “Listening is the most frequently used language skill in the classroom.”

Ferris, 1998; Murphy, 1991; Vogely, 1998)

 Both instructors (Ferris & Tagg, 1996) and students (Ferris, 1998)acknowledge the importance of listening comprehension for success in academicsettings

2.4 The process of listening comprehension

There are two fundamental modes of the listening process: bottom-upprocessing and topping-down processing

Bottom-up processing was introduced by psychologist E.J Gibson Bottom-upprocessing is activated by the new coming data, which pass from the most specific

at the bottom to the most general at the top This processing requires listeners todecode from the smallest meaningful units such as phonemes, sound, vocabularies,grammatical structures to complete texts Thus, phonemic units are decoded andconnected together to construct words, words are connected together to constructphrases, phrases are connected together to construct utterances, and utterances areconnected together to construct complete, meaningful text The listener has to make

use of “his knowledge of words, syntax, and grammar to work on form” in the

bottom-up processing (Rubin, 1994, p 210) The bottom-up processing is suitablefor those who are beginning to learn to listen Because of their limited vocabulary,they cannot automatically process what they are listening to and understand themessage of the listening record

In contrast to bottom-up processing, top-down processing requires listeners touse their background knowledge about a topic to comprehend the meaning of themessage Background knowledge includes context (context or the topic of thelistening record), or co-text (words that appear before or after a specific word in thelistening record, help learners determine the exact meaning of the word) Carrelland Eisterhold (1983) state that in top-down processing, the general prediction of

listeners is based on “a higher level, general schemata, and then searches the input for information to fit into these practically satisfied, higher order schemata” If the

listener finds the incoming information unfamiliar to him, it cannot arouse hisschemata and he can only heavily depend on his linguistic knowledge In some

cases, the listener can trigger schemata, however, it is not what the speakerexpected Hence, the listening process may result in failure This processing issuitable for English learners the intermediate level or higher Because they a certainamount of vocabulary, they can hear and understand the message of the listeningrecord In contrast, if the learners’ ability is limited to a few basic words, only theirbackground knowledge cannot help them to understand the listening record.

2.5 Factors affecting English listening skill of first-year Business majored students at Thuong Mai University

English-There have been a significant number of factors affecting English listeningskills In this thesis, I classify the factors affecting the English listening skill of first-year Business English-majored students at Thuong Mai University in fivecategories: factors related to listening texts, factors related to linguistic features,factors related to the speaker, factors related to the listener, factors related tophysical settings

2.5.1 Factors related to listening texts

Factors related to listening texts consist of four main factors: vocabulary,grammar structure, the topic of the text, and the length of the text

According to Grabe (1991), vocabulary development is an important factorcontributing to language acquisition The lack of vocabulary is a major obstacle forstudents in learning English in general and listening skills in particular In fact, thelistening texts often contain a series of specialized vocabulary related to their topic,contributing to increasing the depth of the content Let’s try to read an article in amagazine, readers will see many units of words connected together to create themain content of the article If the listening text contains a large number of newwords that you have never seen or heard, you will feel confused in understandingthe passage You would not even want to continue listening if the next paragraphcontains relevant words

Similar to vocabulary, the grammatical structure also plays a critical role increating a meaningful sentence Language knowledge is the foundation of learningEnglish It would be probable that their English listening comprehension would beimproved if students are very clear about vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation The

English grammatical structure is completely different from that in the nativelanguage of Vietnamese It’s necessary for learners to distinguish main clauses fromsubordinate clauses in a complex sentence as well as understand the relationships ofthem Reduced sentences in English sometimes make it difficult for learners tounderstand even though they totally understand the meaning of single words Itwould be much more difficult to understand the listening text if the listener does notknow how different words come together.

The topic of the listening text also has a noticeable role to play in the learner’s

understanding Yagan, F (1993) states that “The listening material may deal with almost any area of life It might include street gossip, proverbs, and situation unfamiliar to the students, also in a spontaneous conversation speakers change topics.” Students can predict the meaning of new words if the topic is familiar to

them while there are no clues for prediction if it is a strange subject The familiarity

of the content would reduce the level of difficulty

Too long listening texts sometimes try listeners’ patience In some cases,listeners will feel that they have to struggle to listen, not enjoy listening

2.5.2 Factors related to linguistic features

Linguistics features are claimed to contribute noticeably to the learners’ level

of English listening skill

The most basic outward shell of language is pronunciation and intonation.Like a child learning to speak, to understand the meaning of a word, your brain willapproach the pronunciation of that word first Therefore, the knowledge ofpronunciation must be developed It takes plenty of time for your ears to becomefamiliar with the pronunciation of a foreign language, therefore, sometimes you stillhave trouble listening to familiar words Learners may find the pronunciation of aword familiar but they cannot recognize the word because the pronunciation isplayed differently by people in different regions

In almost any language, there is a tendency for different sounds to be reduced

or to be merged As found by Bloomfield (2010), “the pronunciation of words may also differ greatly from the way they appear in print” If listeners are not used to

hearing connected speech, linking sounds, or swallowing sounds, they would takemuch longer time to decipher the ongoing stream of speech.

In addition, slangs and idiomatic expressions are another type of new wordswhich interfere with English learners’ listening comprehension

2.5.3 Factors related to the speaker

How the speaker speaks has a direct influence on the quality of listeners’listening comprehension This group of factors includes four main items namely thespeaker’s pronunciation, the speed of delivery, the speaker’s accent and pauses.The first thing that needs to consider is the speaker’s pronunciation.Pronunciation and forms of connected speech are used in distinctive ways bydifferent people Elements consisting of accommodation, intonation, juncture,elision, liaison, and others affect pronunciation and speech pattern on an individualbasis As a result, if the speaker pronounces unclearly, listeners’ listeningcomprehension can be noticeably impacted In another case, while the listener findstheir pronunciation different from the speaker’s, they cannot understand what thespeaker says

Furthermore, people coming from different regions have different accentsbecause English nowadays is used as the primary language in the world As stated

by Goh (1999), 66% of English learners mentioned speakers’ accent as one of themost significant factors that affect listeners’ listening comprehension Scottish andIndian speakers have a tendency to possess a strong accent and speak quickly, whileBritish and American people often talk very slowly and much more monotonously.Among which, American English is considered the most popular and easiest accentfor listeners to practice listening In contrast, it would be difficult for the listener tounderstand the text if the speaker uses various accents

Especially, for most English beginners, high-speed speaking is always anobsession for them when listening to English They find it hard to catch up withwhat is playing When moving from one point to another, it would be better forlisteners to follow if the speaker has some signals

2.5.4 Factor related to listener

In order to improve listening comprehension, the listeners need to spendplenty of time listening to people or recordings Listeners often find it difficult tocatch keywords, predict the meaning of new words, or take notes when theyencounter a long sentence The more they practice listening, the faster you can boosttheir listening skills

Before English learners start listening practice, they need to have a listeningstrategy suitable for them, which will guide them on the right way A good listeningstrategy will help learners save time and achieve their target more quickly

Moreover, the topic in the context is the socio-cultural, factual, or contextualknowledge of the target language This background knowledge can be an obstacle to

listening comprehension According to Anderson, Lynch (1988, 35) “Gaps in our knowledge of the culture, of the associations and references available to native users, can present obstacles to comprehension.”

During listening, learners may encounter many things in their mind whichinterfere with their listening comprehension They may lose concentration whenthey think about the meaning of new words, think of another question, or the text istoo long Anderson and Lynch (1988) present the role of attention in the listening

performance: “a well-listening performance is affected by the degree of students’ attention towards the input.” Especially, if the topic of the text does not appeal to

them, English learners would not pay attention to listening

2.5.5 Factors related to physical setting

Factors related to physical setting can be quality of equipment, noise aroundwhere the learner practices listening, or lack of visual clues such as image, slide,video, etc The quality of listening comprehension must be immensely impacted ifthe loudspeaker or the radio is poor-quality In addition, noise from anotherconversation, the smartphone, or TV will make listeners distracted, then they willmiss the main points of the listening text While some people are used to listeningwithout visual clues, other’s listening comprehension is heavily affected by visualsupport

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS

3.1 Methodology

3.1.1 Research methodology

To achieve the most objective results, the researcher decided to use bothresearch methods in this study: Quantitative and Qualitative The study is completedwith the following steps:

 Searching some necessary documents related to listening skill on theInternets (included magazines, e-books, blogs, and the websites of English teachingorganizations)

 Reviewing some previous study abroad and in Viet Nam on Englishlistening skills to find my own approaches

 Conducting a questionnaire for a survey for the first-year students ofEnglish Faculty at TMU The survey is completed with the participation of 80English- majored freshmen at TMU

 After getting data from the questionnaire, the researcher analyzed andevaluated the data based on bars and charts

3.1.2 Research question

The research aims to answer these three questions:

 The first question: Which factors affect the English listening skill of year English-majored students at TMU?

first- The second question: Which is the most influential factor?

 The third question: How to improve the English listening skill of first-yearEnglish-majored students at TMU?

3.1.3 Participants

This study is carried out with the participation of 80 first-year students of theEnglish Faculty at TMU The study was conducted at the end of the secondsemester 2020- 2021 after all participants finished the subject called “ListeningSkill” All participants completed the questionnaire survey via the Internet,therefore the findings are trustworthy and reliable

3.1.4 Data collection instrument

According to Saul McLeod (2018): “A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions for the purpose of gathering information respondents Questionnaires can be thought of as a kind of written interview They can be carried out face to face, by telephone, computer or post.” He extends his opinion: “Questionnaires can be an effective means of measuring the behavior, attitudes, preferences, opinions and intentions of relatively large numbers of subjects more cheaply and quickly than other methods Often a questionnaire uses both open and closed questions to collect data This is beneficial as it means both quantitative and qualitative da can be obtained.”

Because of its advantages, the researcher decided to apply a questionnaire toaccess information about student’s perception of the significance of the Englishlistening skill, the status of learning this skill of freshmen at the English Faculty ofTMU, as well as the factors affecting their English listening skill

The questionnaire includes three main sections Section one consists of 5questions which are about how students perceive the role of English listening skilland what they learn this skill for Section two contains 7 questions with 2checkboxes questions and 3 yes/ no questions, which is used to collect data abouthow students practice their English listening skills Section 3 includes 27 questionsgrouped into 6 categories: Factors related to the listening text (4 items), factorsrelated to linguistic features (4 items), factors related to the speaker (5 items),factors related to the listener (6 items), factors related to physical settings (3 items),and the most influential factor (5 items) The questionnaire uses multiple-choicegrid with the answers ranged from not influential, minor influential, partlyinfluential, mostly influential to totally influential Each participant is asked tochoose one in this range to illustrate how the factors influence their Englishlistening skill

Both opened and closed questions are designed to collect the most objectiveanswer The implementation of the questionnaire over the Internet helps to obtaindata accurately, quickly, and easily

3.1.5 Data collection procedures

Data needs to be collected from the right subjects: the first-year students of theEnglish Faculty at TMU Also, data need to be ensured accuracy, objectivity, andsufficient quantity To meet these requirements, the researcher decided to apply arandom sampling procedure in the survey questionnaire The collection proceduresinclude the following steps:

 Designing the questionnaire: The questionnaire is designed based on thecommon problems that students often encounter when learning a language ingeneral and in English in particular There are four sections in this questionnaire:Students’ perception of the significance of the English listening skill, how studentspractice their English listening skills, factors affecting students’ English listeningskills, and private information A total of 28 questions are designed with manydifferent formats so that the participants have many ways to answer withoutboredom

 Elaborating questionnaire: This questionnaire is inherently based on theresearcher’s experience and knowledge about the common listening problems whenlearning English Therefore, the researcher is most appreciative of the suggestionsand advice from the lecturer, my friends, and students who are freshmen of theEnglish Faculty at TMU

 Collecting data: The questionnaire will be set up on Google form- anapplication that allows users to design their own questions based on the availablequestion formats After finishing design this questionnaire survey, the researchergets a link to this survey, then sends it to those who are first-year students of theEnglish Faculty at TMU To obtain the most objective result, the researcher will askthe participants to pay attention and give honest answers to each question Thecollected data would be automatically summarized in the form of bars, charts

3.2 Data Analysis

3.2.1 General information

The study is conducted with the participation of 80 first-year students of theEnglish Faculty at TMU All of them are the 56th generation student of theuniversity, taking classes from N1 to N6 They all have different levels of English

and time of learning English, which leads to the research result collected from thembeing diverse, objective, and trusty.

3.2.2 The perception of significance of English listening skill

This part is analyzed based on the answers to questions 1 to 6 in part one Itshows the information about how the first-year students of English faculty at TMUperceive the role of the English listening skill

Chart 3.1: The period of time the students have been studying English.

This pie chart shows the difference in the period that Business majored freshmen at TMU have been studying English A half of the students spentmore than 10 years to learn and practice English skills 23.8% of students have beenstudying English 7- years, 20% for from 3-7 years and 5% for less than 3 years.Studying at English Faculty requires students a background knowledge aboutEnglish and the nature of language learning, which causes such a large number ofstudents who have been studying for a long time

English-In the 2 next questions, students were asked to rank the importance of Englishlistening skill and its difficulty compared to other English skills in order form themost and least The number of votes for each skill would be converted to apercentage to get an overall ranking based on the number of points that the skill has.The number of votes at the 1st place would be given 4 points while the number ofvotes at the 4th place would be worth 1 point

Listening Reading Speaking Writing

Table 3.1: The importance of four English skills evaluated by the first-year

Business English-majored students at TMU.

Chart 3.2: Overall ranking of the importance of four English skills.

The data shows the importance of four English skills ranked by first-yearBusiness English-majored students at TMU 74% of students believed that listening

is the most vital skill among the four English skills, which equaled the figure forspeaking skill In contrast, only 10% of students evaluated reading and writing asthe two most important skills in English acquisition Reading skill is placed in thethird place when 42% of students believing it to be necessary but not as important

as speaking skills and listening skills Writing skill, in particular, seems to be themost neglected skill when 46% which is nearly half of the participating studentsevaluating it to be the least important skill As a result, both speaking and listeningskills are placed in the first position in the overall ranking, at 33% each, meanwhile,both reading and writing skills are so far behind the two other skills, at 17% each

Thanks to the statistical data, we can conclude that most first-year students of theEnglish Faculty at TMU are aware of the importance of improving their Englishlistening skills.

Table 3.2: The difficulty of four English skills evaluated by the first-year

Business English-majored students at TMU.

Chart 3.3: Overall ranking of the difficulty of four English skills.

According to the data from table 3.2, most first-year Business English-majoredstudents at TMU have trouble with the speaking skill while learning English withonly 74% of them believed it to be the most difficult skill Meanwhile, almost noone thought that reading is the most difficult skill to learn with only 1% of voters Itcan be explained by the fact that there are many mental obstacles encountered bystudents when practicing speaking a foreign language in general and the Englishlanguage in particular Also, English learners have to have a good command of theEnglish language in order to make a meaningful conversation Meanwhile, to begood at reading English texts, English learners nowadays are equipped with many

tips and methods of practice from several material resources Listening skill andwriting skill is the second skill that students felt hard to grasp with one-third ofvoters Some students may have problems with listening while some find it easierthan other skills Anyway, with 28% in the overall ranking, listening is regarded asthe second difficult skill to improve only after speaking Overall, each student hasdifferent problems they have to deal with in learning English Maybe this skill iseasy for one person, but difficult for another, which leads to no eneral consensus to

be which skill is the most difficult

Chart 3.4: Students’ evaluation about their English listening skill.

According to this survey, the listening level of the first-year Business majored at TMU is not good 61% of participating students self-rated their Englishlistening skills as average, which is much higher than the previous prediction of theresearcher This trend can be explained by the fact that the freshmen of the EnglishFaculty at TMU come from many different provinces in the country, where thephysical conditions of the schools may not be served enough for teaching Anotherreason can be that high schools in underdeveloped provinces just put emphasis onteaching vocabulary, grammar structure instead of listening and speaking skills.However, it is still a positive development when one-third of participating studentsare good at listening in English

To serve entertainment needs 33 41.3%

To get English certificates (TOEIC, IELTS) 51 63.7%

Table 3.3: Students’ purpose of practicing English listening skill.

This table indicates what the first-year students of the English Faculty at TMUlearn listening in English for Most students learn this skill to achieve Englishcertificates such as TOEIC, IELTS with 63.7% of voters, although having thestandards of English ability to be recognized as graduating is not required forstudents of English Faculty at TMU since 2020 Half of participating studentspractice listening in English in order to understand what foreigners say whencommunicating Because an excellent listening skill, in fact, is regarded as a key for

an effective conversation The number of those who desire to be master listening inEnglish to study abroad is not too many In Viet Nam, there are two maintendencies that students often choose after graduating from their high schools inrecent years, which are to attend a university in Viet Nam or to study abroad.Therefore, students who have decided to study at a Vietnamese university wouldrarely consider the other option The percentage for three remaining purposes(listening is a compulsory subject, to serve entertainment needs, and to get a job in

an international company) ranges from 39% to 44%

3.2.3 How students practice English listening skill

Chart 3.5: The time that students spend in practicing listening

This pie chart demonstrates how many days in a week that students spend inpractice the English listening skill It just takes 1-3 days for 48.8% of BusinessEnglish-majored freshmen at TMU to practice listening in English, while it is saidthat it would be best for English learners to listen in English at least 1 hour per dayfor 3-6 months This data shows that the freshmen of the English Faculty at TMUhave not put emphasis on the improvement of their English listening skills despitetheir listening level is not good Practice every day in a week accounts for 8%,which is more than one-third of the figure for 3-5 days and no practice at all Thefigures reveal that self-studying at home has not been focused much, although theyare aware of the importance of improving their English ability

The training program of the English Faculty at TMU mainly focuses onspecialized economics and trade courses teaching entirely in English Consequently,the amount of time studying in English for Business English-majored students ismuch more than that of non-professionals, which required an excellent Englishlistening ability for students to understand lessons Each week, the first-yearstudents of the English Faculty learn 2 listening periods lasting 45 minutes for each.The time of studying in class is limited, therefore, self-studying at home has a vitalrole to play in the improvement of students’ listening skills If they only learn inclass without practicing at home, they cannot enhance their English level

Mastering English listening skill requires more than listening activities in theclass such as learning theory and doing English exercises The following table liststhe methods that students apply to upgrade their English listening level.

Watch movies, reality TV shows, talk shows,…

in English

Talk to native English speakers or foreigners 33 37.5 %

Table 3.4: Students’ method of practicing English listening skill.

Table 3.4 presents students’ method of practicing the English listening skill.The highest percentage of voters is for listening to music, news in English, and towatch movies, reality shows, and talk shows in English, at 72.5% and 71.3%respectively This is because entertainment channels nowadays are more accessiblethan in the past thanks to the Internet on smartphones, which leads to most studentsspending their time listening in English through music, news, film, and talk shows.Another reason can be that this kind of activity brings joy to listeners

Of all the way students practice English listening skills, to do online listeningtest makes up 41.3%, to talk to native English speakers or foreigners constitutes37.5%, and to do some listening tasks in class is 36% This trend is understandablebecause students at TMU have to do exercises of not only the subject Englishlistening skills, but also Business English from 1.1 to 2.4 Also, students often try toseek a part-time job related to their major which allows them to communicate withnative English speakers and foreigners Only 6.3% of students surveyed do not havespecific methods to practice