DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN THE COURSE BOOK

thạc sỹ, luận văn, ngoại ngữ, tiếng anh, khóa luận, chuyên đề

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study:

English has now become the most popular language in the world In Vietnam, it has been moreappreciated especially after the country joined WTO Children learn the language even fromkindergarten school Recently, the government has decided English to be the only foreignlanguage for post graduation study In accordance with the trend, at Hanoi Open University,Economics Department, English has been taught as a compulsory subject for more than tenyears The course books were carefully chosen out of many commercials available on themarket They are “Business Basics” for first year students; “Head for Business” for secondyear ones and ESP course books for the third year However, both teachers and students havefound various difficulties with different parts of the course book “Head for Business”, such asReading, Listening, Speaking… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

in listening and reading comprehensions are too difficult for students to understand, etc… for example, some topics are too strange, language structuresBeing a listening teacher, I really find it necessary and motivating to carry out the research on

“Difficulties in Teaching Listening Comprehension in course book “Head for Business” to 2ndyear students at Economic Department, Hanoi Open University and some solutions” With aninsight into the given matter, this thesis is expected to help me work out the most appropriatemethods to improve the quality of my teaching when working with students in the listeningskill

2 Aims and significance of the study:

This study aims at:

(1) Investigating difficulties that Listening teachers face with when teaching the ListeningComprehension part of the course book ‘Head for Business’

(2) Suggesting some solutions to improve the efficiency of the Listening comprehension.The study is carried out with the hope that it will be theoretically and practically helpful toboth teachers and students at Hanoi Open University, Economics Department

3 Research questions:

In order to achieve the above aims, the study seeks answers to the two following researchquestions:

(1) What are difficulties that teachers face when they are working with the ListeningComprehension part of the course book ‘Head for Business’ applied to the second yearstudents at Hanoi Open University, Economics Department?

(2) What are some suggested solutions to improve the efficiency of the Listeningcomprehension?

4 Scope of the study:

The course book ‘Head for Business’ consists of Vocabulary, Listening, Reading, Languagestudy, Speaking, Language in Use, Writing and Case study/activity Each part has its ownadvantages and disadvantages for teaching and learning Due to the restraints of time andability, this thesis only covers the difficulties facing teachers and second year students atHanoi Open University who are working with the Listening Comprehension section of thecourse book ‘Head for Business’

5 Methods of the study

The study is carried out in terms of both theory and practice The theoretical background of thestudy mainly comes from published books and Internet Websites on Listening Comprehensionand related matters

Besides, the combination of both qualitative and quantitative research method is adopted inthis study That is all comments, findings and suggestions given in the thesis are based on:

i Analyzing the results of questionnaire obtained from second year students,

Economics Department, Open University;

ii Analyzing the information gathered from formal interviews with teachers from the

teaching staff, Economics Department, Open University

6 Design of the study

The study is organized into three parts: introduction, development and conclusion

Part I presents the rationale, aims and significance, research questions, scope, methodology

and design of the study

Part II: consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical background of Listening Comprehension It also provides abrief overview of the Listening section of the course book ‘Head for Business’ and the currentteaching and learning situation at HOU, Economics Department

Chapter 2 describes the methodologies employed in the study, research design, researchmethod, research procedure and information about participants involved in the researchprocess

Chapter 3 analyses data and discusses the findings of the study Major solutions andrecommendations are also presented in this chapter

Part III: offers conclusions and limitation of the study Moreover, it states suggestions for

further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

This part consists of three chapters The first chapter presents the basic theories related toListening Comprehension and brief information about the course book “Head for Business” aswell as the current teaching and learning situation at HOU, Economics Department The nextchapter is about methodology which the author applies to conduct the research In chapterthree, data analysis and discussion of the major findings are presented

Chapter 1: LITURATURE REVIEW 1.1 The nature of Listening Comprehension (LC):

Listening Comprehension plays a very important role in learning English During a lesson,learners spend most of the time listening to teachers, classmates and tape However, moststudents complain that they do not understand or understand the text very little Therefore, thisskill receives special attention of Listening teachers who want to improve the effectiveness oftheir lessons In order to do this, teachers must understand the nature of listeningcomprehension

There are different controversies on the nature of LC According to Anderson and Lynch(1988), there are two influential views: traditional view and alternative view Traditional viewregarded the listeners as a tape – recorder and the listener took in and stored aural message inmuch the same way as a tape – recorder Anderson and Lynch criticized this view asinappropriate and inadequate This notion is not a tenable one Alternative view considered thelearner as an active model builder This kind of listener could combine the new informationwith their own knowledge to reach full comprehension of what had been heard Bothresearchers agreed with this view It emphasized the active interpretation and integration onincoming information with Anderson and Lynch Many scholars supported this view.O’Malley and Chamot made a conclusion by doing a research on LC in 1989:

Listening Comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning by using cues from contextual information and existing knowledge, which relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement”

(O Malley, J M & Chamot, A U., 1989, p 420)’

Clark and Clark (1977, pp.43-44) defines LC as follows:

Comprehension has two common senses In its narrow sense it denotes the mental processes

by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker intended to convey … comprehension in its comprehension in its broader sense, however, rarely ends here, for listeners normally put the interpretations they have built to work.

From these definitions, we can conclude that the nature of LC means that the learners should

be encouraged to concentrate on an active process of listening for meaning, using not onlylinguistic cues but also his nonlinguistic knowledge

1.2 Characteristics of spoken English.

There are many difficulties facing English teachers when they teach listening The difficultiescome from different sources such as students’ abilities, teachers’ methodology, teachingfacilities… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures Among them, the most troubling factor is the characteristics of spoken English Inthe book “Teaching by principle”, Brown summarized eight characteristics of spoken language

as suggested by several authors as follows:

 Clustering: in teaching listening comprehension, teachers must help students to pickout manageable clusters of words These clusters will play important roles in helping students

to get the idea of the whole utterance

 Redundancy: spoken language has a great deal of redundancy such as the rephrasing,repetitions, elaborations and little insertions of “I mean” and “you know” Such redundancyhelps the hearer to process meaning by offering more time and extra information It isteachers’ task to help listening learners aware that not every new sentence or phrase willnecessary contain new information by looking for the signals of redundancy

 Reduced forms: beside redundancy, reduced forms like phonological reduction(“Djeetyet? – did you eat yet?); morphological contractions (I’ll – I will); syntactic(elliptical forms like “when will you be back?” – “tomorrow, maybe”); or pragmatics (a childsays, “Mum, phone!) These reductions pose significant difficulties, especially for classroomlearners who may have initially been exposed to the full forms of the English language

 Performance variables: Hesitations, false starts, pauses and correction are variables thatprevent learners from getting the correct idea Learners have to train themselves to listen formeaning in the midst of those distractions

 Colloquial language: learners who have been exposed to standard written Englishand/or “textbook” language sometimes find it surprising and difficult to deal with colloquiallanguage such as idioms, slang, reduced forms… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

 Rate of delivery: virtually every language learner initially thinks that native speakersspeak too fast In facts, there are many factors help slow down the speed such as pauses,hesitation… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

 Stress, rhythm and intonation: the prosodic features of the English language are veryimportant for comprehension Because English is a stress-timed language, English speech can

be a terror for some learners as mouthfuls of syllables come spilling out between stressedpoints Also, intonation patterns are very significant not just for interpreting straightforwardelements such as questions, statements, and emphasis but for understanding more subtlemessages like sarcasm, endearment, insult, solicitation, praise, etc

 Interaction: interaction plays a large role in listening comprehension Conversation isespecially subject to all the rules of interaction: negotiation, clarification, attending signals,turn taking, and topic nomination, maintenance, and termination So, to learn to listen is also tolearn to respond and to continue a chain of listening and responding

(Dunkel 1991; Richards 1983; Ur 1984; as cited in Brown, 2000, pp 252-254)

Obviously, recognizing these factors during listening and taking advantages of them tounderstand what are spoken are very significant for any listening learners to improve theirlistening skills

Beside characteristics of spoken language, teachers should also help students to aware of thebody language the speakers use, such as gestures, eye contact … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures Those variables are veryimportant in comprehending

1.3 Strategies to teach listening comprehension:

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehensionand recall of listening input Basing on how the listeners process the input, researchers haveclassified them into two types of strategies: bottom – up processing and top – downprocessing

Bottom up processing is text based The listeners rely on the language in the message such asthe combination of sounds, words and grammar to create meaning In other words (Rubin,

1994, p.210), the listeners make use of “his knowledge of words, syntax, and grammar to work

on form” This process is closely associated with the listeners’ linguistic knowledge If weapply this processing, we can ask students to:

 Listen for specific details

 Recognize cognates

 Recognize word order patterns

However, bottom up processing has its own weak points Understanding a text is an interactiveprocess between the listeners’ previous knowledge and the text Efficient comprehension thatassociates the textual material with listeners’ brain does not only depend on one’s linguisticknowledge

Top – down processing is listener based It is evoked “from a bank of prior knowledge andglobal expectations” (Morley, 1991, p 87) and other information that the listeners bring to thetext These strategies are more concerned with the activation of schemata, with derivingmeaning, with global understanding and with the interpretation of a text According to Buck(2001), LC is a top down processing in the sense that the various types of knowledge involved

in understanding language are not applied in any fixed – order They can be used in any orderand they are all capable of interacting and influencing each other It is possible to understandthe meaning of a word before decoding its sound, because we have many kind of knowledge,including knowledge of the world around us If we apply this processing, we can ask studentsto:

 listen for the main idea

 predict what is happening

In order to overcome the disadvantages of both processes, a combination of both strategies has

been accepted since the early 1980s named the interactive processing The process means,

listeners use both of his background knowledge information, contextual information andlinguistic information to make comprehension and interpretation When the content of thematerial is familiar to the listeners, they will employ the background knowledge to make

predictions In contrast, if the listeners are unfamiliar with the content of the listening text anddeficient in language proficiency, they can only depend on their linguistic knowledge,especially the lexical and syntactical knowledge to make sense of information Moreover,students can interact with each other before or after listening to get knowledge from eachother.

1.4 An overview of the course book Head for Business“ ”

“Head for Business” is written by Jon Nauton, a freelance teacher and materials writer It ispublished by Oxford University Press in 2000 At Hanoi Open University, EconomicsDepartment, the course book “Head for Business” is introduced to second year students of twomajors: Accounting and Business Management The book contains 15 units but only 12 unitsare taught to students Each unit consists of Vocabulary, Listening, Reading, Language Study,Speaking, Language in Use, Writing and Case Study/ Activity The total time for this material

is 150 periods (= 10 credits) divided equally into two terms of the academic year which coverthe first 12 units Each week, students have 6 periods and each one lasts 45 minutes Each unitlasts from 8 to 12 periods, depending on the length and difficulty of its content

As listening is one of the four skills which receives much emphasis in the book, teaching thelistening comprehension part accounts for one-fourth of the total time provided Other skillsare taught in an integrative way during class contact hours

1.4.1 Objective of the course book:

“Head for Business” is a tightly – structured comprehensive course for students of BusinessEnglish It is particularly useful for students with little or no work experience who areintending to work in a business environment on completion of their studies, but it is alsosuitable for in-work professionals “Head for Business” provides students with the relevantspecialist language and professional skills they will need in the work place It does not makeassumptions about students’ business knowledge and presents the language relating to businessand theory in lively, interesting and accessible contexts

1.4.2 Objective of the listening skill

At Hanoi Open University, Economics Department, teaching and learning English havereceived special attention from the Department managers It is a compulsory subject lastingfrom Year 1 to Year 3 of the university course The department managers and teachers oftensit together to decide the objective of each skill for each year For the second year, the

objective of the listening skill is to develop students’ ability in listening for main ideas which

is expected to enable them to communicate well in similar situations

1.4.3 A brief description of the listening comprehension section

The Listening Comprehension section comes the second in each unit The situations are largelydrawn from or based on authentic sources such as real situations in companies, in markets orgood examples of successful businessmen The chosen topics are interesting and motivatingfor those students with little or no exposure to the business world and easy for them to access.The content of Listening comprehension section is often presented in the form of interviews,phone dialogues, conversation, lectures, meeting or mono - talk In my opinion, the LCsections are quite long with a lot of new words, phrases and structures This perhaps preventsstudents from comprehending the text correctly Besides, the speaking speed is quite fast andwith a lot of hesitation, pauses, and redundancies… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures This troubles students in thecomprehension process The next feature is about types of exercises Each listeningcomprehension lesson often begins with some topic – related questions for students tobrainstorm and discuss After that students will have to complete some exercises given in thebook such as questions answering, True/ False, gaps filling, matching, … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures In the end, studentswill have follow-up exercise which is normally pair / group discussion about the topic orrelated topics

1.5 Current teaching and learning situation at HOU, Economics Department

1.5.1 Teaching staff and teaching methods.

The English teaching staff in the Department consists of 8 teachers whose age ranges from 26

to 31 and two 44 year-old co-teachers All of the teachers are female and hold B.A degreesfrom different universities in Vietnam At present, 4 out of 10 teachers have MA degree, andthe rest are doing an MA course at College of Foreign Language, Hanoi National University,and Hanoi University of Foreign Studies

The academic background of teachers shows that all of them have been exposure to differentteaching methods such as Total Physical Response, communicative method or learner-centeredapproach… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures However, most teachers usually employ the traditional method of teachinglistening Classes are usually conducted in the form of lectures, with most of the time theteachers playing the key role in the classroom, being the main speakers working through thetext The teachers explain new words, terms or structure and then guide students to answer

warm up questions Then, they play the tape and check answers from students or correct them.Discussions are rarely held due to limitation of time.

1.5.2 Students and their background:

The second year students, aged between 18-22, mostly come from cities/ provinces in theNorth of Vietnam Most of them are female (79%) The class size is about 30 – 35 studentseach Most of students had learnt English for at least 3 years at high school before theyentered university Some have studies for nine years and only few of them one year However,they are often doing better at Writing and doing Grammar exercises than other skills Even so,they are well aware of their purpose of learning, they become hard working and patient

In terms of learning needs, each student sets up his/ her own need Most of them learn English

to enhance their specialized knowledge which is required in their future jobs Some havestrong pressure to pass exams with high marks However, a problem on the part of students isthat, many students do not have the habit of learning independently and tend to depend largely

on the given course book and the teachers They become passive in English class This urgesteachers to consult students with suitable learning methods at tertiary level

1.5.3 Teaching and learning facilities:

As presented in the previous part, the class size for an English lesson is about 30 to 35 each butthe class rooms, though being well equipped with a projector, a computer, a cassette player andtwo loud speakers at the corner of the room, are designed for 100 student classes which areactually too big for an English class of a much smaller size This causes certain problems such

as the sounds and the tape quality It is often very noisy and the sounds are unclear, too.Another problem is that all students and four of the six teachers who are teaching the coursebook “head for business” have to use unclear, black and white photocopied books This factprevents them from exploiting color, photographs and pictures for learning and teaching.Because of these matters, teachers sometime have to resort to another Listen task from anotherbook or format the type of exercises

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research design:

The purpose of this study is to find out difficulties facing teachers and learners who areworking with Listening Comprehension of the course book “Head for Business” Thedifficulties are identified in terms of the characteristics of the listening text, teachers’methodology and types of test questions Once difficulties are clarified, skill development,practice and classroom activities will be taken into consideration The research also givesstudents the chance to show their preference toward their learning, which proves much help torecommendations for a more effective teaching and learning Listening comprehension atDepartment of Economics, Hanoi Open University

2.2 Research methods:

To ensure the reliability of the information gathered for the study, qualitative methods ofresearch were employed with the following instruments:

- Survey questionnaires for students

- Informal interviews with teachers

The questionnaire for students is designed in Vietnamese It consists of 21 questions, divided

into six parts covering matters related to the listening comprehension section of the coursebook ‘Head for Business’ The first part aims at getting students’ personal information such asage, hometown, and language ability Results getting from this part will be presented rightbelow The second part is about students’ opinion on the objective of teaching ListeningComprehension From now on, the rest four parts cover matter related to students’ opinion onthe Listening Comprehension of the course book “Head for Business”, on the exercises in the

LC and requirements for learning listening, on extra practice listening, and on the Listeningtest perceptively

Students are asked to complete it at home so they have time to consider the answers carefully

Informal interviews with 6 teachers take place during the break time about the same matters as

shown in the questionnaire Besides, the content of the interview also includes techniques toovercome the existing difficulties as well as activities to make the listening comprehensivelessons more effective Particularly, three questions are used during these informal interviews

Question 1 is aimed at investigating teachers’ perception on the LC of the course book “Head for Business” Questions 2 aims at investigating difficulties the teachers are coping with in teaching Listening Comprehension Questions 3 aims at investigating solutions the teachers are

using and their desires from Dean of Department as well as English teaching staff

2.3 Participants:

There are two groups of participants: students and teachers

Group 1: 112 second year students majoring in both Accounting (60) and Administration (52)took part in the research They are mainly from cities or provinces in the North of Vietnam.Most of them have spent from three to nine years studying English at Secondary and/or HighSchool 95% of them learn English as a foreign language while only 5% learn a little Chinese,Japanese and French

Group 2: 6 English teachers aging from 25 to 33, who are working with the ListeningComprehension of “Head for Business”, took part in the interview Three of them have justfinished M.A degree and the other three are completing the same course They all have beenteaching at the University since 2005

Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter deals with the results from the questionnaire to the students and from interviewswith teachers The findings from those results will lead to the suggested solutions to makeimprovement for teaching Listening Comprehension

3.1 Discussion of the results:

3.1.1 Discussion of the results collected by means of questionnaire

3.1.1.1 Students opinion on the objective ’ of teaching Listening Comprehension:

answers (%)

1 For second year students, the objective of teaching

Listening comprehension is to develop students’

ability of listening for main ideas which enable them

to communicate in similar situation The objective

is… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures for your need and desire

suitable

11

Table 1: Students opinion on the objective of teaching Listening Comprehension’

As shown in the table above, most students (89%) confirmed the suitability of the objective set

by the Department This proves that the Department has taken up the right orientation ofteaching Listening Therefore, the objective satisfies the students’ demand for learninglistening

3.1.1.2 Students opinion on the ’ Listening Comprehension of the course book Head for“

Business”

answers (%)

Generally, the content of the LC

section in the material is … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

C Difficult to understand 44

3 In your opinion, topics of the LC in

the material … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures to

your own knowledge

4 In your opinion, the length of the LC

in the material is … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

5 In your opinion, the speaking speed of

the LC in the material is … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

6 In your opinion There are … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

in the LC in the material

a many familiar and easy

to understand words andphrases

21

B many new and difficult

to understand words andphrases

79

7 In your opinion, the pronunciations in

the LC in the material are … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

A easy to listen andrecognize words

8 In your opinion, quality of the tape

used in the class is … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

9 You … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures the content of the

LC TEXT during the listening in the

class

A don’t understandanything of

In term of the topics, a minority of students (12%) finds all of them totally strange, 21% totallyfamiliar and the biggest percentage (67%) belongs to those who find some topics are familiar

to them

In terms of length of the listening texts, no students think that the texts are short 78%students think the listening texts are long, 22% belongs to those who thought most of the textshave medium length These facts mean that students are not very good at listening and theyperhaps cannot concentrate on the texts which are too long

The next question shows students’ opinion on the speed It is not surprising that no studentsconsidered that the speed is slow The contradictory opinions make up 81% Some difficultiesmay occur with the students because 79% of them find there are too many new and difficult -

to – understand words/structures The rest finds that the language is suitable for their level ofEnglish to comprehend the text

Another problem discovered is the quality of the tape No students agree that the quality isgood In particular, 89% remark that the quality is very poor Only 11% confess that it is goodenough The percentage of those who understand very little amounts to 83% and the restbelongs to those who can understand most of the texts

3.1.1.3 Students opinion on the exercises in the LC and requirements for learning /’

teaching listening.

answers (%)

10 How far do you find types of exercise

in the LC meet the objective?

A they completely do notmeet the objective

0

B to some extent, theymeet the objective

84

C they meet the objective 16

11 In your opinion, exercises in the LC

are … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

12 Apart from the exercises in the

material, how often does your teacher

modify or add other exercises for the

In your opinion, is it necessary to

modify or add other exercises for

some LC sections in the material?

14 What kinds of exercises do you really

enjoy in and can help you to develop

your listening skill?

(you can circle more than one options)

15 Do you think the present time

allocation for practice LC in the class

is … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

should be used in the

should … for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures

A be related to economics,commerce and finance

38

B not be related toeconomics, commerce andfinance

materials aim at developing students’

ability to listen for main ideas?

Table 3: Students opinions on the exercises in the LC and requirements for’

As far as the exercise-types are concerned, more than a third of students (36%) choose theoption that the exercises are neutral Meanwhile, those who think they are difficult account for64% Evidently, it is a challenge for students to complete the listening tasks

As for the teachers’ adaptation for the tasks and/or exercises that are not suitable for learners’level, it is admitted by the minority of students (4%) that their teachers never modify or addother task-types for the listening tasks in the material Half of them think their teacherssometimes make adaptation, 30% say their teachers often add changes to the exercise and 16%say their teachers rarely do those jobs Teachers’ task is to make modification for theirteaching material when necessary In this case, they have partially fulfilled their task.Moreover, on looking at students’ expectation from their teachers’ methodology, 90% of themrespond they want their teachers to make adjustment for some tasks in the material or supplysome more tasks of other types

With regards to the types of exercises students enjoy doing, it can be recognized that theexercise they like to do most is multiple-choice questions Ranking secondly is gap-filling,then listen and repeat, and last on the list is listen and dictate Matching and reorderingstatements account for the same percentage (2%) Only answering question option is notconsidered interesting to all students It should be noted that all these students took a multiple-choice English test for their university entrance examination They were trained intensively to

do such a kind of task during their school years This may account for the preference ofmultiple-choice Meanwhile, some students gave ideas of introducing other task- typesdifferent from the ones in the material such as identifying true or false statements or writingsummary for the text, or naming the topic of the listening text

In terms of time allocation for listening skill, no one is for the idea “the time is redundant”.Only one-forth of students agree that the time allotment is adequate and the reverse goes to therest of the respondents.

As for the idea of introducing more supplementary listening material, the majority (97%) is infavor of it However, there is a slight difference between the ideas of students who answer theirteachers usually supply additional exercises (84%) and sometimes supply additional exercises(16%) Similarly, the percentage of students who prefer the supplementary listening textshould be related to the economics and financial field and those who think the supplementarylistening text should be authentic (relating to events which are happening in reality) is totallythe same (38%) However, what the topic of extra listening is does not affect students’objective of studying listening 100% confirm that they want the additional materials to helpthem develop the ability for listening for main ideas

Inbrief, based on the results presented above, we can affirm that students are for the idea thatthe exercise - types in the LC, to some extent, help to develop students’ ability to listen formain ideas In addition, making modifications to the tasks in the LC parts of the material andsupplying more extra exercises are what they desire from their teachers Students may thinktheir listening ability will be improved thanks to teachers’ efforts to adapt the material

3.1.1.4 Students’ opinion on home practice listening:

answers (%)

17 Does your teacher ask you to

do any Listening exercises at

17.1 Exercises for home practice

listening are almost

A from the LC in the material 72

B from other sources (radio,Internet… for example, some topics are too strange, language structures)

21