An investigation into efl listening problems of intermedia learners at ho chi minh city university of education foreign language center causes and solutions

Although the majority of intermediate learners atForeign Language Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education -Branch 10 have learnt English for rather a long time, they still fac

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HOcmMINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

HOANG THJ BIeH THAO

AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL LISTENING PROBLEMS OF INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS AT

FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER:

CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

A THESIS SUBMITIED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT

OF THE REQumEMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS (TESOL)

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Til HV IEN• ,f- II IKHI Xil ;~IV

Ti' H0 C H I M INI " I

• t-J , - , ::1 :" : LA - L , J . CODE NUMBER: 5.07.02

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SUPERVISOR: LE THJ THANH, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY - 2006

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL LISTENING PROBLEMS

OF INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS AT HO CHI MINH CITYUNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER:

CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

interms of the statement of Requirements for Theses

inMaster's Programmesissued by the High Degree Committee

Ho Chi Minh City, September 2006

HOANG TI-Q: BICH TRAO

1

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, HOANG THl BICH THAO, being the candidatefor the degree of Master of TESOL,accept the requirements of the Universityrelating to the retention and use of Master's Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesisdeposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study andresearch, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Libraryfor care,loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City,September 2006

HOANG TIll BICH THAO

First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis

supervisor, Dr Le Thi Thanh, for her valuable assistance, guidance,

encouragement and comments during the time of implementing the thesis

Withouther help,I could not have finished this thesis

I am greatly indebted to the organizers of the Master course, Dr LeHiiu Phudc, Head of the Department of Post Graduate Studies of Ho Chi MinhCity University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Mr Nguyen HuynhDat, M.A., Dean of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, HoChi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, their staffmembers, and all my teachers for their dedication and helpful instructionduring the course

My sincere thanks to all teachers and learners who were willing torespond to my questionnaires, especially to the teachers who have offeredfavourable conditions for my thesis data collection

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for theirlove, encouragement, understanding and moral support

iii

Listening plays a critical role not only in communication but also mlanguage acquisition Although the majority of intermediate learners atForeign Language Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education -Branch 10 have learnt English for rather a long time, they still face difficulties

in listening comprehension

This thesis aims at: (1) investigating intermediate learners' problems oflearning EFL listening at HCMC UE - Branch 10; (2) fmding out the reasonsfor those problems; and (3) suggesting solutions to help learners overcometheir difficulties and improve their listening ability In order to achieve theseobjectives,a survey was carried out and based on the questionnaires delivered

to 109 intermediate learners and 22 English teachers at this center

The results of the study show that the learners encounter various kinds oflistening problems related to the listening text, the speaker factors, the listenerfactors, the listening tasks and the teaching and learning facilities The dataanalysis reveals that the causes of the difficulties are: (1) the learnersseriously lack listening practice and training in class as well as at home; (2)some of the learners' listening learning ways are improper and ineffective; (3)the teaching material is out of date, not authentic and lacking in listening tasksfor helping improve listening ability; (4) limitations of learning and teachingfacilities obstructs learners' listening learning; and (5) a proportion of teachers

do not have effective ways of teaching listening

Based on the fmdings of the study, the thesis recommends that (1) theteachers need to master modem teaching methods, techniques and then applythem suitably, effectively, flexibly and creatively to their listening teaching;

they should pay sufficient attention to their listening teaching; (2) the learnersmust have a positive attitude towards learning listening; they should learn

actively, hard and practise listening regularly; (3) the Streamline English Destinations should be changed for another course book which is up-to-date,

relevant and appropriate to the learners' needs and level; and (4) teaching andlearning facilities should be well equipped to help learners learn listeningmore effectively

v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

2.1 An overview of listening comprehension 8

2.1.2 The nature of listening comprehension 9

2.1.3 The importance of listening comprehensionin foreign

2.1.4 Differenttypes ofknowledge used inlistening 1

Vll

2.1.5 Listening processes 13

2.5 Potential problems of listening to English as a foreign language 24

2.5.4 The factors related to the teaching and learning facilities 34

4.1.5

4.1.2

4.1.3

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 48

4.1.1 Learners' reasons for learning English, their perceptions

of the four English skills in general and listening

4.1.1.2 Learners' perceptions of the four English skills

4.1.3.1 Learners' difficulties related to the speaker

4.1.3.2 Learners' difficulties related to the listening text

4.1.3.3 Learners' difficulties related to the listener

4.1.3.4 Learners' difficulties related to the teaching

Learners' ideas about the coursebook, their

lX

4.2.4 Teachers' perceptions of the difficulties often preventing

learners from listening comprehension and some feasible

5.3 Limitation of the study and recommendation for further

A copy of unit 13 from the course book

A copy of unit 52 from the coursebook

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1 Learners' perceptions ofthe difficulty among the four skills:

Figure 4.2 Learners' perceptions of the importance of listening

xi

Learners' ways of learning listening comprehension 54Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to

the speaker factors 58Table 4.4 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to

the listening text and listening task " 61Table 4.5 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to

Table 4.6 Learners' frequency of encountering difficulties related to

the teaching and learning facilities 68The ways the learners practise listening at home 70The learners' self-assessment of their English listening ability 71The teachers' ideas about the suitability of the coursebook -

Streamline English Destinations for improvement in learners'

Table 4.10 The teachers' perceptions of the factors often causing

difficulties for learners in listening comprehension 80Table 4.11 The teachers' ideas about feasible solutions to their

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This thesis examines problems related to the learning of EFL listening ofintermediate learners at Foreign Language Center of HCM City University ofEducation (FLC of HCMC UE) - Branch 10 and the reasons why they facesuch difficulties Then, the study, based on the findings, will come up withfeasible solutions to help learners overcome their difficulties and to enhancethe effectiveness of the teaching and learning EFL listening This introductionpresents the rationale, the aims of the study, general background to the studyand the overview of the thesis

1.1 The rationale of the study

Nowadays more and more people learn English because of their needs,especially to communicate with foreigners effectively In order tocommunicate effectively,they have to listen well Although many people tend

to equate communication with speaking, it is clear that a communicative actinvolves both expression and interpretation of meaning In oral interactions,interpretation refers to listening as well as speaking, and in everyday life bothnative speakers and second/foreign language speakers engage in a variety ofcommunicative situations during which they listen Doff (1998: 98) says, "Wecannot develop speaking skills unless we also develop listening skills; to have

a successful conversation, learners must understand what is said to them."According to Denes and Pinson (cited in Murcia, 2001: 70), auralcomprehension establishes a base for the development of oral language withinthe "spee ch chain" of listening and speaking Newmark and Diller also state,

1

"The need for systematic development of listening comprehension not only as

a foundation for speaking, but also as a skill in its own right " (1964: 20, cited

in Murcia 2001: 70) River (quoted in Murcia, 2001: 70) underscores,

"Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is said iscomprehended by another person Teaching the comprehension of spokenspeech is therefore of primary importance if the communication aim is to bereached." Moreover, listening is the most frequently used language skill ineveryday life The time we spend in listening far exceeds the time spent inreading, writing, or speaking In fact, researchers (e.g Morley, 1991; Rivers,

1981;Weaver, 1972) estimate that we listen to twice as much language as wespeak, four times as much as we read, and five times as much as we write(cited in Murcia and Olshtain, 2000:102)

Listening has such a very crucial role, particularly in communication.Having been a teacher of English as a foreign language for several years, Irealize that many of the learners have learnt English for rather a long time(90.8% of the learner subjects have learnt English for more than six years),they still face difficulties in listening comprehension In fact, 104 out of 109learners (accounting for 95.4%) at FLC of HCMC VE - Branch 10 said, "Ofthe four skills, listening is the most difficult." How we - English languageteachers can help our learners overcome their difficulties and improve thelistening skills they need for further study, work, communication or leisure,etc so that they will not be among many people who, having studied Englishfor some years, find that they are unable to understand the utterances ofEnglish native speakers

1.2Aimofthe study

The objectives of this thesis are: (1) to investigate the intermediatelearners' problems of learning EFL listening comprehension at FLC of HCMC

UE - Branch 10; (2) to fmd out the causes for those difficulties; and (3) to giverecommendations to help learners overcome their difficulties and improve the

perceptions of the four English skills in general and listening in particular,their ways of learning EFL listening, their problems of studying EFL listening;and (2) a questionnaire mainly asking the teachers about their perceptions ofthe four English skills, their opinions about the materials, their ways ofteaching listening, their perceptions of the factors often preventing learnersfrom listening comprehension and some helpful solutions

1.3 General background to the study

This section is a brief description of FLC of HCMC UE - Branch 10,English courses, the main coursebooks and syllabus at this center Its purpose

is to provide the background information essential for an understanding of the

regarded as one of the popular foreign language centers in Ho Chi Minh Cityand authorized to issue certificates for foreign language proficiency for threelevels: elementary, intermediate and advanced (A, B, C levels respectively).These certificates can be used throughout the country This foreign language

general English courses for all the three levels This study was carried out at

3

FLC of HCMC DE - Branch 10 because of the convenience (the researcher

• Streamline English Departures (1978) and Streamline English

Connections (1979) (by Bernard Hartley and Peter Viney, OUP) used

for level A

• Streamline English Destinations (by Bernard Hartley and Peter Viney,

• Streamline English Directions (by Peter Viney, Graham Cawood and

grammar, TOFEL are also added

The following is about teaching materials and the English course for

this study are intermediate learners

Streamline English Destinations consists of: (1) a student's book, divided

into 80 units; (2) a teacher's book providing lesson plans for each unit; (3)three cassettes containing recordings of the text and all the dialogues from thestudent's book; and (4) workbooks: workbook A covering units 1-40 in the

Streamline English Connections However, learners having elementary

register directly for the intermediate course There are many classes for the

Destinations is an integrated course in English Consequently, the teachers in

charge of the class are expected to teach all the four skills and, wheresuitable, grammar for each unit Hartley and Viney (the authors of this book)state, "Streamline English Destinations is an integrated, intensive course inEnglish at an intermediate level It revises and consolidates basic structuresand vocabulary and extends students' linguistic and communicativecompetence by means of imaginatively presented written and spoken textsand language tasks." However, the practice activities, especially listeningactivities in this coursebook are very poor In other words, there are only afew available task-based activities which provide listening practice In fact,apart from units 1, 13, 15, 44, 52, 65, 72, 75, 78 containing listening activitieswhich are only completing grids/chart or answering a series of wh-questions(see Appendix 5, Appendix 6); the rest do not have any listening activities.Therefore, the teachers themselves have to be very creative and flexible inplanning, designing and conducting the lesson so that the learners can developtheir listening skills.

The whole of the mam intermediate course is divided into six courses In other words, learners have to take 6 sub-courses for this level.These sub-courses are as follows:

sub-Sub-course 1 consists of 13 units (from units 1-13)

Sub-course 2 consists of 12 units (from units 14-26)

Sub-course 3 consists of 12 units (from units 27-39)

Sub-course 4 consists of 12 units (from units 40-52)

Sub-course 5 consists of 12 units (from units 53- 65)

Sub-course 6 consists of 14 units (from units 66-80)

Each sub-course lasts 8 weeks, including 3 sessions a week, 2 periods for

5

each session (45 minutes for a period) The whole sub-course consists of 48periods.

At the end of each sub-course, there is a session for review and test sothat learners can consolidate the knowledge they have learnt beforeproceeding to the next course

After finishing the main intermediate course including 288 periods,learners can register for an examination training course ifthey want to take anexamination in order to get a certificate for level B After that, they can

proceed to Streamline English Directions for advanced level.

Inthis study, intermediate learners taking sub-course 4 and sub-course 5were chosen because they have been doing lower sub-courses at this center.Therefore, they could provide useful, reliable information and ideas abouttheir English learning, particularly about their difficulties in EFL listeningcomprehension

1.4 Overview of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters Apart from chapter one - theintroduction of the thesis, other chapters are organized as follows:

Chapter two presents a review of the literature relevant to this study.Chapter three describes the methodology employed in the study: thesurvey research This chapter includes a presentation of the researchquestions, the research design, a description of the subjects, instruments, anddata collection procedures

Chapter four analyzes and discusses the fmdings of the questionnaires intwo sections:students' responses and teachers' responses

Chapter five draws conclusion about the fmdings and presentssuggestions for improvement in the teaching and learning of EFL listeningcomprehension at this center.

7

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the literature relevant to the study including: (1) anoverview of listening comprehension; (2) listening stages; (3) listeningstrategies; (4) materials; (5) potential problems of listening to English as aforeign language

2.1 An overview of listening comprehension

2.1.1 Def"mitions

According to Underwood (1989: I), listening is the activity of payingattention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear To listen

occasions

foreign language."

get meaning from that which is heard "

2.1.2The nature of listening comprehension

In order to develop appropriate approaches to the teaching and learning

of listening skills, it is first necessary to understand the nature of listening

In order to develop appropriate approaches to the teaching and learning

of listening skills, it is first necessary to understand the nature of listening.For many years, listening skills did not receive priority in languageteaching Teaching methods emphasized productive skills, and the relationshipbetween receptive and productive skills was poorly understood.The nature oflistening in a second language was ignored by applied linguists, and it wasoften assumed that listening skills could be acquired through exposure but notreally taught (Richards and Renandya, 2002: 235) In fact, discussions prior to

1970 rarely consider listening comprehension as a skill to be taught in its ownright, separate from pronunciation and grammar, and textbooks typicallyignored the subject (paulston and Bruder, 1976: 128) Listening, along withreading, was regarded as a "passive" skill and was simply taken for granted(Celce-Murcia, 2001: 72) Nothing could be further from the truth Andersonand Lynch (1998) reject a conceptualization of listening as a passive act,calling it a "listener-as-tape recorder" explanation They argue that such aperspective fails to account for the interpretations listeners make as they hearthe spoken text according to their own purposes for listening and their ownstore of background knowledge Anderson and Lynch (1998: 6) state:

The role of the successful listener has to be thought of as an active one.

Understanding is not something that happens because of what a speaker says: the listener has a crucial part to play in the process, by activating various types of knowledge, and by applying what he knows to what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker means Effective listening involves a large number

of component skills Effective listeners actively engage in the process of

comprehension: they apply the relevant internal information available to them in order to construct their own interpretation of what has been said They do not passively receive and record.

9

There have been several other authors having viewpoints about thisfield.

Krahnke (1994: 24) points out, "The most important fact aboutcomprehension of language, spoken or written, is that it is an active process,

that is,that italways involves a major contribution from the listener "

Also, according to Underwood (1989: 2), although we may appear to beinactive while listening, we must actually engage in the activity ofconstructing a message in order to be described as a listener Whilst hearing

can be thought of as apassive condition, listening is always an active process.

Lee and VanPatten (1995: 60) also put it in this way, "Listeners are

active participants during the communicative act and that listening is a dynamic process drawing on a variety of mental processes and knowledge

contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources "

The above-mentioned viewpoints have been shared by Celce-Murcia(2001:72);River and Temperley (1978: 63); Paulston and Bruder (1976: 128),who have stated that listening isactive, not passive.

To sum up, according to many linguists, listening isactive, not passive. It

is one of our most important communication skills Effective listening is anactive process that demands conscientious effort on the part of the listener

Therefore, the learners should be brought to an understanding that listening isnot a passive skill, but an active skill which needs special attention in

process of listening for meanings, using not only the linguistic cues but alsotheir nonlinguistic knowledge

2.1.3 The importance of listening comprehension in foreign languagelearning

Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in foreign language

acquisition of language Rost (2002, quoted in Nunan, 1999: 200) provides theimportant reasons for emphasizing listening, and these demonstrate theimportance of listening to the development of spoken language proficiency:

• Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides inputfor the learner Without understanding input at the right level, learningcannot begin

• Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner

Because learners must interact to achieve understanding, access

to speakers of the language is essential

• Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learners toattempt to understand language as native speakers actually use it

• Listening exercises provide teachers with the means for drawing

learners' attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new

interaction patterns) in the language

Harmer (1998: 98) also points out that listening helps students to acquirelanguage Exposure to language is a fundamental requirement for anyonewanting to learn it "Listening comprehension lessons are vehicle for teaching

11

elements of grammatical structure and allow new vocabulary items to becontextualised within a body of communicative discourse" (Celce-Murcia,2(01).

Similarly, Doff (1988: 198) states, "Listening to spoken English is animportant way of acquiring the language - of 'picking up' structures andvocabulary "

Thus, according to Krashen (1995), listening comprehension provides theright conditions for language acquisition and development of other languageskills

2.1.4 Different types of knowledge used in listening

Rubin and Thompson (1994: 63-69) say that all of us possess a wealth ofknowledge such as linguistic knowledge, cultural knowledge, contextualknowledge, and world knowledge that can be brought to bear in learning a

unknown," if learners wisely use what they know, they can make the process

of learning a foreign language more efficient and rewarding They will feel ingreater control because they can relate the new information about thelanguage to knowledge they already have

comprehension system works, it is obvious that a number of different types ofknowledge are involved: both linguistic knowledge and non-linguisticknowledge Linguistic knowledge is of different types, but among the mostimportant are phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure Thenon-linguistic knowledge used in comprehension is knowledge about the topic,knowledge about the context, about the situation within which the speech istaking place, and general knowledge about the world and how it works

Gebhard (1996: 144-145) points out that we use our background knowledge tohelp us to understand the meaning of a message.

Anderson and Lynch (1988: 11-12) explain that the role of the previousknowledge - sometimes called "background knowledge" or "knowledge of theworld" - is central to the way we understand language, whether throughlistening or reading The term covers a range of types of knowledge, any ofwhich we may need to draw on in order to reach an adequate comprehension

of what someone has said or written

According to Anderson and Lynch (1988: 13), experimental evidencesuggests that we may not distinguish between these information sources in anyclear or conscious way In fact, it is often difficult for us to discriminatebetween what was actually said and what we have constructed by integratingthe spoken words with our own knowledge and experience The following part

is about listening processes

2.1.5Listening processes

There have been several views about listening processes, but the twomost important views are the bottom-up and top-down processing Theseterms refer to the order in which the different types of knowledge are appliedduring comprehension (Buck, 2001: 2) According to Richards (1990: 50-51),these two distinct, but complementary kinds of processes are involved inlistening comprehension The views of these two listening processes havedominated language pedagogy since the early 1980s (Richards and Renandya,2002: 239) In fact, there have been several scholars and linguists havingviewpoints about this field (e.g Long and Richards, 1987: 159; Richards,1990: 50; Nunan, 1992: 26; Gebhard, 1996: 144; Buck, 2001: 3; Celce-Murcia,2001: 114-115; Nunan, 1999: 200-201; Richards and Renandya, 2002: 239;

13

Anderson and Lynch, 1988: 22; Celce-Murcia and Olshtain, 2000: 105; Brown,

Bottom-up processing involves decoding the incoming utterance ormessage and making use of the linguistic signals actually transmitted Bottom-

up processing involves such things as identifying and distinguishing sounds,

incoming data as a source of information about the meaning of a message Inthis processing, listeners rely on their linguistic knowledge to recognizelinguistic elements - sounds, words, sentences, etc to do the construction of

transmitted in the message to arrive at comprehension This knowledge allowslisteners to predict or anticipate much of what is said Understanding worksfrom the "top" (the listener's expectations) down to the message

According to Nunan (cited in Richards and Rennandya, 2002: 239), thesedays, it is generally recognised that both bottom-up and top-down processesare necessary in listening Bottom-up processing alone often provides aninsufficient basis for comprehension Fluent listening thus depends on the use

reconstructing messages (Nunan, 1998: 25) Therefore, in developing courses,materials and lessons, it is important not only to teach bottom-up processingskills, such as the ability to discriminate between minimal pairs, but also to

teachers suspect that there are gaps in their learners' knowledge, the listeningitself can be preceded by pre-listening activities to prepare learners for thelistening task to come.

Nowadays, there are several listening textbooks and materials reflectcurrent understanding of listening comprehension in second language learning

by incorporating the two fundamental processes of listening comprehension:

"top-down " and "bottom-up " processing

2.2 Listening stages

Linguists such as Underwood (1989), Harmer (1991, 1998), Murcia (2001), Lee and VanPatten (1995), Richards and Renandya (2002)have suggested that a good pattern for listening session should include threestages:Pre-listening, while- listening, post-listening

Celce-2.2.1 The pre-listening stage

This is a stage when the context of the listening text is established, thetask explained and assistance offered as necessary (Underwood, 1989: 28).Harmer calls this stage "lead-in" one According to Harmer (1998: 100),students need to be made ready to listen This means that they will need tolook at pictures, discuss the topic, or read the questions first, for example, to

be in a position to predict what is coming Teachers should do their best to get

students engaged with the topic and the task so that they really want to listen

Sheerin makes comments to the teachers:

With listening comprehension it is extremely important to set the scene before the students listen It is vital to give the students something approaching the contextual information that they would have in real life : who the speaker(s)

i s/ar e; who is being addressed ; what the topic is; where the communication is taking place , and what its purpose is , etc

Sheerin (1996 : 78)

15

In fact, pre-listening stage is extremely important and necessary Theactivities in this stage are those that are designed to help orient learnersbefore they actually begin listening to something According to Rixon (1987),Long and Richards (1987: 274), Richards and Renandya (2002: 243), Celce-Murcia (2001: 92), Krahnke, 1994: 32), the goal of the pre-listening activities

is to activate the learners' background knowledge, arouse their interest in the

language, information or context, which will encourage them to makepredictions about the text as well as helping them understand the listeningpassage better

provides opportunities for listening to be integrated with the other parts of thestudent's work This kind of integrated skills approach provides opportunitiesfor students to use language in the way in which it is used in real life, andenables them to associate written and spoken language with language readand heard (Underwood, 1989: 44) Underwood (1989: 31), Lee and VanPatten

- Brainstorming vocabulary

- Reviewing areas of grammar

- Discussing the topic of the listening text

- Reviewing of existing knowledge

- Giving some background information

- Reading something relevant

- Questioning and answering session

- Predicting the content of the listening text

- Speculating on what they will hear

- Writing something relevant

- Considering how the while-listening activity will be done

Indeed, these activities helps increase learners' comprehension (Lee and

knowledge which will help them to follow the listening text

Underwood (1989: 33) points out that the choice of these activitiesdepends on a number of factors such as the time available, the material

teacher, the place in which the work is being carried out, and the nature andcontent of the listening text itself Of these factors, the nature and content of

pre-listening activities, the teacher needs to be creative and flexible to selectactivities appropriate to these factors, especially to the nature and content ofthe listening text itself

Another essential part of the pre-listening stage is clear instructions It isvery important because it helps learners know exactly what is required ofthem

listening and serves not only to assist with comprehension but also to motivate

17

2.2.2 The while-listening stage

This is the stage when the students listen to the passage and attempt thewhile-listening activities While-listening activities are what students areasked to do during the time that they are listening to the text Underwood

(1989: 45) emphasizes, "The purpose of while-listening activities is to helplearners develop the skill of eliciting messages from spoken language."

Krahnke (1994: 33), Byrne (1976: 16-17), Celce-Murcia (2001: 79), Richards(1991: 204) have supplied a range of the while-listening activities as follows:

- Marking/checking items in pictures

- Identifying and selecting which picture is the "right" one

- Storyline picture set

- Identifying and putting pictures in order

- Completing pictures

- Drawing pictures

- Carrying out actions

- Making models, arranging items in patterns

- Text completion (gap-filling)

- Detecting mistakes

- Skimming (Listening for a general idea)

- Scanning (Listening for a specific piece of information)

- Predicting

- Note -taking

Good while-listening activities help learners find their way through thelistening text and build upon the expectations raised by pre-listening activities(Underwood, 1989: 46) Therefore, while-listening activities must be chosencarefully so that they are appropriate to the type of the listening text as well as

to the learners' level According to Underwood (1989: 46), while-listeningactivities should be interesting so that students feel they want to listen and

fact, the learners will lose their interest and easily become frustrated anddemotivated when while-listening work is extremely difficult, especially in

to handle It should provide opportunities for students who listen well tosucceed." It is important to remember that the purpose is to assistconcentration and to guide the listener through the text, not to test the ability

of course, it will be necessary to include activities which present potential

"sticking points ", where students are likely to get into difficulties, so that theylearn not to be put off and to persevere in spite of the problems

19

According to Nunan (1994: 204), Doff (1988: 203), Harmer (1998: 100),

in the while-listening stage, teachers should let learners listen to the text morethan once, but follow different instructions, different tasks each time

2.2.3 The post-listening stage

Post- listening activities include all the work related to a particularlistening text which are done after the listening is completed Some post-listening activities relate to the listening text itself and some are extensions ofthe work done at the pre-listening and while-listening stages (Underwood,1989: 74)

consider the attitude and manner of the speakers of the listening text Anotherpurpose of post-listening activities is to expand on the topic or language of thelistening text, and perhaps transfer things learned to another context(Underwood, 1989)

Underwood (1989: 78) points out that if the pre-listening stage has built

these expectations, it is hard to sustain interest at the post-listening stage

teachers should find activities which are interesting, motivating and suitable tolearners Ur (1984: 145-164), Ur (1996: 114), Underwood (1989: 78-91),

ideas for post-listening work as follows:

- Discussion

- Written work

- Extending lists

- Sequencing/grading

- Matching with a reading text

- Extending notes into written responses

- Summarising

decision-making activities

- Jigsaw listening

- Identifying relationships between speakers

- Establishing the moodlattitudelbehaviour of the speaker

- Role-play/simulation

Apart from planning and conducting listening sessions in a good way,teachers should supply learners with effective listening strategies so that theycan improve their listening Nunan (1999: 204) states, " It is important to teachlearners to adopt a flexible range of listening strategies so that they can listeneffectively "

2.3 Listening strategies

Celce-Murcia (2001: 90) states that learners may not immediately seethe benefits of strategy use or they may feel that strategy instructions taketime away from the practice of language skills Therefore, teachers canmotivate students by showing them how and when to use strategies Teachersmust also show students how effective strategy use can be through successfulexperiences Mendelsohn (1995, quoted in Celce-Murcia, 2001: 90) calls forstrategy instruction to be delivered gradually, over an extended period oftime, and in a manner appropriate to the learners' proficiency level Strategy

training does not replace language practice, but rather is interspersed withpractice throughout a course.

Nunan (1999: 219), Krahnke (1994), Willis (1982: 134), Ellis and Sinclair(1989: 58) have provided some of the most important listening skills andstrategies as follows:

- Selective listening (identifying relevant points;rejecting irrelevantinformation)

- Listening for key words

-Listening for main idea or information (gist)

- Listening for specific information/details

- Listening for different purposes

- Listening for inference

- Listening for phonemic distinctions

- Listening for tone/pitch/intonation to identify speaker's attitude

or intention

- Listening to identify the mood of certain speakers

- Listening for stress

- Listening for recognizing context (listening to aural and contextualclues to identify where the conversation takes place, who is speaking,etc.)

- Recognizing discourse markers, e.g "Well", "Oh, another thing is",and "Now, fmally "

According to Nunan (1999: 218), these strategies should not be separatedfrom the content teaching but woven into the ongoing fabric of the lesson sothat learners can see the applications of the strategies to the development ofeffective learning

2.4 Materials

Materials play a crucial role in teaching and learning listening In fact,learners listen more effectively if they have suitable materials If thematerials are too easy, boredom may appear Ifthe materials are too difficult,students may panic and their comprehension may fail Language researcherssuggest many factors concerning the choice of listening materials

Underwood (1989: 102) points out that using listening texts of the rightlevel (combined with appropriate activities) will not only develop listeningskills but also contribute to students' overall language learning Furthermore,Underwood also says that all students need materials which involves them,meet their needs and make them want to listen

Brown and Yule (1983: 80) also state, "The sort of material which isselected for a particular course will be selected on criteria which aredetermined by the aims of the course." For instance, listening materials forstudents learning to cope in an English speaking environment should consist ofsamples of natural language from as many different sources as possible, so thestudents will have experience with many varieties of topics, situations, andspeakers (paulston and Bruder, 1976: 53)

According to Long and Richards (1987: 172), materials should aim forrelative authenticityifthey are to prepare listeners for real listening

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Lewis and Hill (1990: 63) also put it in this way:

Most courses will benefit from the introduction of a little natural listening material at an early stage Such material helps , providing teachers bear in mind , and make very clear to their students that they do not need to understand everything , and that there will be a lot that they will not understand.

suitable and relevant to the students' needs, levels and interest

2.5 Potential problems of listening to English as a foreign language

English learners usually fmd listening the most difficult skill for them todeal with Brown and Yule (1983) suggest that there are four principal sets offactors affecting the difficulty of listening: these relate to the speaker, thelistener, the listening text and the teaching and learning facilities

2.5.1 The factors related to the speaker

"Dinner?" serving as a perfectly functional way of asking "Is dinner ready?");

repairs, where the speaker stops and then replaces the previous word or

word or part of a word (e.g "I'm absolutely sure, absolutely sure you know that she 's right "; "Well it's perfectly it's perfectly possible "), as well as

hesitations (Harmer, 1998: 99) According to Buck (2001:41), one important

unfilled pauses or filled pauses Unfilled pauses are just periods of silence

Filled pauses are fillers the speaker uses such as "uh", "um", "ah", "oh", "er",

"mm" "yes", "well", "anyway" , "possibly", "let me see", "say", "sort of ",

"just", "kind of", "I mean", "I think", "you know", "I guess", etc. which givethe speaker more thinking time or indicate that he/she is reaching for a word

(1987) point out that these phenomena are a natural part of speech, especiallyspontaneous speech and make up a large portion of what the speakers actuallysay In natural speech, between 30% and 50% of speaking time may consist ofsuch speech phenomena However, they are not common in written language

Buck (200 I: 42) points out, "There is evidence to suggest that hesitationphenomenon can present a major comprehension difficulty to non-nativespeakers who are listening to spontaneous speech However, there is alsoevidence to suggest that certain types of these phenomena can aidcomprehension." Hesitations that slow down the speech rate do aidcomprehension for L2 listeners, and this applies to both filled and unfilledpauses, as long as the listener recognises the fillers as fillers However, if thelistener does not recognise these as fillers, then comprehension can beadversely affected

Another difficulty related to the speaker is speaking speed (rate ofdelivery) According to Ur (1996: 112) and Underwood (1989: 16), manyEnglish language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listeningcomprehension, as opposed to reading comprehension, is that the listenercannot control how quickly a speaker speaks They feel that the utterancesdisappear before they can sort them out, whereas the words in a written textremain on the page where the reader can stop, glance back at them or re-

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examine them thoroughly This frequently means that students who arelearning to listen cannot keep up with the speech rate.

Moreover, the listener is not always in a position to get the speaker torepeat an utterance Instead, the stream of speech will continue to flow(Underwood, 1989: 17) Inreal life, few spoken messages are expected to berepeated more than one time exactly the same way (unless the message isrecorded and can be played back) If learners are to achieve successfullistening, they should be prepared to work with speed and great concentration.One more problem is that when listening, even in the mother language,

we sometimes experience difficulties when we cannot see the particularly facial expressions and body language - as on the telephone, forexample (Byrne, 1976: 13) Similarly, in most listening situation in theclassroom, the learners listen to tape-recorded materials According to Byrne(1976), Lewis and Hill (1990), they are, therefore, like people listeningoutside a window to a conversation going on in a room between people theycannot see Consequently, without seeing the speaker(s) cause problems forlisteners

speaker(s)-Furthermore, learners often have difficulty with the speaker's accent.According to Ur (1984: 20),many foreign language learners tend to be used tothe accent of their own teacher They fmd they have difficulty understandingspeakers with different or unfamiliar accents Buck (2001: 35) states thataccent is potentially a very important variable in listening comprehension.When listeners hear an unfamiliar accent - perhaps hearing an Australian forthe first time after studying with American teachers - this can cause problemsand may make comprehension almost impossible for them