Difficulties in english listening skill expperienced by first year english major students at thuong mai university and suggested solutions

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT ---GRADUATION PAPER DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL EXPERIENCED BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY AND SUGGEST

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

-GRADUATION PAPER

DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL EXPERIENCED BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THUONG MAI

UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

Supervisor: Ms Do Thi Bich Bao, M.A

Student: Nguyen Thi Thu Thuong

Student Code: 15D170392

Class: K51N6

HANOI, 2019

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

-GRADUATION PAPER

DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH LISTENING SKILL EXPERIENCED BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THUONG MAI

UNIVERSITY AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

Supervisor: Ms Do Thi Bich Bao, M.A

Student: Nguyen Thi Thu Thuong

First and foremost, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude towards mysupervisor Ms Do Thi Bich Dao for her constructive and timely feedbacks as well asher constant and unfailing support which were decisive factors to the completion of thestudy

Furthermore, I would love to thank all the teachers who have taught me academicwriting and research methodology I would also like to say the sincerest thanks to thosefirst-year English major students who have enthusiastically participated in the study.Their participation has been crucial to the completion of the research

On a personal note, I express my truly gratitude to my family and friends whoemotionally and spiritually comforted me through the challenging time of conductingthe research The study could not have been completed without their continualencouragement

Today, the position of English in the areas of life is increasingly important andnecessary In order to learn English well and fluently, learners must improve theirlanguage skills Listening which can be regarded is the most difficult skill in learningforeign languages in general and English in particular, is the skill that learners facemany difficulties and challenges Students at Thuong Mai University also face manydifficulties in English listening There are many domestic and foreign authors studyingthe areas of listening skill However, there has not been any specific study aimed atfirst-year English major students of TMU Therefore, the researcher conducts a study

on difficulties in English listening skill experienced by first-year English majorstudents This thesis focuses on three main issues: the attitudes of first-year Englishmajor students at TMU toward English listenning skill; difficulties in English listeningskill experienced by first-year English major students at TMU and suggested solutions

to help freshman at Thuongmai University improve their listening skill This study isconducted based on quantitative methods Survey questionnaires were used todistribute 100 students in classes (K54N1, K54N2, K54N3, K54N4) to collect data.Raw data was converted to numbers and percentages From the results obtained, therewere conclusions drawn about students' attitudes and their difficulties in Englishlistening skill In general, freshmen were aware of the importance of listening skill andmost of them valued this as the most difficult skill in English skills First-year studentsface many difficulties in listening (subjective difficulties and objective difficulties).From the research findings, the researcher offerred suggestions and recommendations

to help students solve difficulties in listening to English The researcher hopes thisstudy can help first-year students improve their listening skill and support the furtherstudies avoid shortcomings and limitations

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS vi

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Previous studies 3

1.3 Aims of the study 6

1.4 Research subjects 7

1.5 Scope of the study 7

1.6 Research methodology 8

1.7 Organization of the study 8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 English listening skill 10

2.1.1 Definition of listening 10

2.1.2 The importance of listening skill in language learning 12

2.1.3 Listening process 13

2.2 Difficulties in English listening skill 15

2.2.1 Subjective difficulties 15

2.2.2 Objective difficulties 18

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 20

3.1 Students’ participation 20

3.2 First-year English major students’ attitudes toward English listening skill 23 3.2.1 Students’ attitudes toward the level of importance of English listening skill23 3.2.2 Students’ attitudes toward the level of difficulty of English listening skill

3.2.3 Students’ attitudes toward listening self-study 24

3.2.4 The way students listen for the first time 26

3.3 First-year English major students’ difficulties in English listening learning 27

3.3.1 Subjecitve difficulties 27

3.3.2 Objective difficulties 28

CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 32

4.1 Recommendations 32

4.1.1 For students 32

4.1.2 For teachers 34

4.2 Suggestions for further studies 35 CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

TABLES

Table 3.1: Number of students participated in the survey 20

Table 3.2: The day students spent on self-studying English listening in a week 25

Table 3.3: Students’ difficulties in self-study English listening 27

Table 3.4: Objective difficulties in English listening 28

Table 3.5: Some language barriers obstructing students' English listening skill 29

Table 3.6: Students’ solutions to improve English listening skill 30

FIGURES Figure 3.1: The distribution of participants by numbers of years they have been learning English 21

Figure 3.2: The distribution of participants by the level of the listening test scores 22 Figure 3.3: Students’ attitudes toward the level of impotance of English listening skill .23 Figure 3.4: Students’ attitudes toward the level of difficulty of English listening skill 24 Figure 3.5: The time students spend on self-studying English listening in a day 25

Figure 3.6: The disparities in how students listen for the first time 26

ABBREVIATIONS

TMU: Thuong Mai University

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

The first chapter includes an overview of the research topic The first problem mentioned is the reason for studying the topic as well as previous research and the aims of the study In addition, Chapter I also points out the salient features of the research subjects and scope of the study Moreover, this is also the chapter outlining the research methodology used in the study process Finally, this chapter is also a chapter that summarizes the parts of the organization of the study.

1.1 Rationale of the study

Today, the influence of English on the world is extremely important English is

an important and necessary language in all areas of life such as: Economy, Education,Technology, Diplomacy, Defense, etc Therefore, the universalization of English forVietnamese people is extremely necessary However, the proficiency of using a foreignlanguag e is extremely difficult and time consuming Vietnamese people need anappropriate and advanced training program, and with an effort to reach the world, theycan quickly use the world's common language in the period of 4.0 Technology

When starting to learn a new language, most people will learn to listen first Likethe mother tongue learning process, humans all followed the voice of an adult whenthey were young, and then start babbling When a child hears the tone of an adult, hecan feel the emotions of adults like: angry, happy, shouting or cheering, etc After that,they hear how adults communicate with each other by saying words and learn how tofollow That is why people bring the characteristic voice of the land they were born.After going to school, children can learn to read and write Therefore, listening practice

is extremely important in learning foreign languages in general and English inparticular

Listening is an extremely important and difficult skill to practice Therefore, thereare many research papers on the factors affecting this skill or the difficulties of learnerswhen listening to English However, my study focuses on studying the listening skill of

first-year English major students at Thuong Mai University There are many reasonsfor me to do research on this topic.

The first reason comes from the reality of English listening skill of first-yearmajor students who are quite weak at this skill Most freshmens were so familiar withthe high school curriculum They only focus on learning grammar and vocabulary, butare less interested in practicing language skills like practicing listening English Thescores in the listening skill tests at the university are extremely low Most freshmensare afraid to learn to listen or listen to tests Besides, according to Lewis (1993),listening is also the most crucial medium for input in learning a foreign language and

by increasing students’ ability to perceive speech and thus aiding language learning.Indeed, listening is an important and difficult skill When learning a foreign language,listening is a skill not to be missed Listening skill plays a critical role in the remainingother skills such as speaking, reading and writing All skills are interrelated and used inconjunction with each other in everyday life Most learners will find their listening skilldifficult and choose to avoid having to listen to English However, when being astudent in English department, first-year students need to raise awareness of theimportance of listening skills and try to overcome difficulties Unlike students of otherfaculties, students in the English Faculty need to be aware of the relationship oflistening skill with others, learners should not focus on a certain skill that you find iteasy for yourself and ignore other skills Therefore, I want to thoroughly understandthe difficulties that new students are having then find the right solutions to helpfreshmens to improve their listening skill

The second reason that the researcher decided to study this topic was that whenbeing a freshman, the reseacher also had many difficulties in practicing Englishlistening It was the fact that my first year listening test scores were not as expected Iused to feel frustrated when I heard it because even though I tried, the results did notimprove Like other students, I want to improve my listening skill to use specializedEnglish fluently after graduation Ofcouse, learners need a lot of effort The first year is

a good time for learners to improve their limitations, especially in listening skill.Freshmen have a lot of time and opportunities to research and improve their skills.Therefore, the researcher wants to through this study, can find out the difficulties thatfreshmen are facing, and offer practical solutions for themselves The researcher hopesthe results of this study bring benefits not only for the researcher but also the first-yearstudents who are weak in English listening skill.

Moreover, there have been many researches on listening skill of TMU students,but very few people have studied specifically about difficulties in listening skill thatfirst-year English students have experienced Therefore, I have more motivation to beaddicted to the research on this topic to help students in English Department

These are the main rationales that promt the researcher to carry out the study oftopic “Difficulties in English listening skill expperienced by first-year English majorstudents at Thuong Mai University and suggested solutions”

1.2 Previous studies

Before carrying out this topic, the researcher consulted and explored manydocuments related to the topic of difficulties in English listening skill There is a lot ofinformation and materials related to this issue on the internet, books, newspapers,magazines, scientific papers, etc In the references, the researcher found that theresearch results and information in the following three authors’ language studies arerelevant and useful for the research, they are: The Role of Listening in LanguageAcquisition; the Challenges & Strategies in Teaching Listening (D Renukadevi, 2014);Factors Affecting Listening Comprehension and Strategies for Improvement (NaciYildiz and Mustafa Albay, 2015) and Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties

in English Language Learning (Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani and Narjes Banou Sabour,2016)

The first previous study that the researcher refers to is “The Role of Listening inLanguage Acquisition; the Challenges & Strategies in Teaching Listening” (D.Renukadevi, 2014) D Renukadevi was an Assistant Professor of Department of

English in Erode Sengunthar Engineering College His study deals with the primeimportance of listening in language acquisition and the challenges in attaining listeningcompetence and suggests some strategies to overcome it D Renukadevi declared that

“without listening skills, language learning is impossible” The reason was “there is nocommunication where there is no human interaction” According to him, listening wascrucial not only in language learning but also for learning other subjects Today,learners have problems with listening with all the technological advancements in thefield of education The study showed main reasons such as: learners spend too littletime to improve their listening skills; the inappropriate strategies tested on them in alearning setting may be an important reason for their poor listening comprehension.Other causes may from the listening material and physical settings D Renukadevi alsosuggested some solutions to help langguage learners acquire high level listening skill,such as:

Reduce the burden of comprehension by knowing the context of a listening textand the purpose for listening greatly

Both bottom-up processers (linguistic knowledge) and top-down processes(prior knowledge) can be used by listeners to comprehend

Teachers should play an important role in teaching learners strategies and how

to apply them into the listening task

Students should be helped to develop sound strategies for comprehensionthrough a process approach to teach listening

The second study that was referrd by the researcher is “Factors AffectingListening Comprehension and Strategies for Improvement” (Naci Yildiz and MustafaAlbay, 2015) Their study showed three main factors from: listeners, speakers, materialand medium The first factor was the intelligence of the learners which decided on howmuch language input they receive Background knowledge about the topic, anotherfactor, enables the learners to comprehend the listening text better; in other words priorknowledge facilitates comprehension and allows learners to make predictions The

second factor was speaker factors They showed clearly factors from the speakers:

 Speakers’ ability plays an important role in comprehension Learners mayprefer listening activities of native speakers because it can help learners understandbetter

 The pronunciation and accent of the speaker influences comprehension

 Delivery speed of the speaker is a major factor in listening comprehension

 Listening to well-known and prestigious speakers can motivate learners.The other fators came from material and medium, such as:

 The choice of listening materials holds a big role in comprehension Ifmessage is not conveyed, the materials will not be useful Vocabulary, grammar leveland phonological of the material influences comprehension largely

 Stress and intonation in the material

 The content of the material

 The listening environment

In the study, they suggested many solutions to help learners improve listeningskill They affirmed that all grammatical structures and vocabulary in listening textsmust be ensured to be taught beforehand The difficulty of listening texts must be atlearners’ level of understanding and listening texts must absorb attention of learners.Interesting listening topics motivated learners which finally lead to achievement Speed

of delivery must be slightly slower than normal speech The accent of speakers inlistening texts influence comprehension so native accents should be preferred Andfinally a silent and motivating listening environment should be created

The third study that the researcher would like to review is “Learners’ ListeningComprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning” (Abbas PourhoseinGilakjani and Narjes Banou Sabour, 2016) In this study, the researchers reviewed theterms of listening, listening comprehension, listening comprehension strategies, andlistening difficulties The researchers showed 3 listening comprehension strategies.They are cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective They also showed main

problems that learners faced with listening comprehension: The quality of listeningmaterial, cultural differences, accents, unfamiliar vocabulary, length and listeningspeed The highlight of this study is that the author pointed out a lot of measures tohelp students improve their listening skill However, most of measures were applied toteachers, such as: design listening tasks that arouse students’ interest and help themlearn listening skills and strategies; provide students with different types of input likelectures, radio news, films, announcements, everyday conversation, and interviews;familiarize students with the rules of pronunciation in order to help them hear thedifferent forms of rapid natural speech and ask them to imitate native speakers’pronunciation; provide background knowledge and linguistic knowledge to studentswhile listening to different listening materials, etc.

From these two studies together with the graduation thesis on listening skill ofstudents at the Thuong Mai University’s library, I found that previous studies have alsoclearly and specifically shown the reallity and limited points in students' listening skill.But few studies focus on freshmen in English Faculty Also study of English listeningskill, I would like to consult previous studies to clarify my topic more and gain theexperience from the previous researchers I want to clarify the problem of listeningskill that students have to face In this study, the object the researcher aimed at is thefreshman of English Faculty

1.3 Aims of the study

This study focuses on understanding the difficulties faced by first-year Englishmajor students at TMU and thereby proposing suggested solutions More specifically,this study is considered a process to explore the answers to the following questionares:

 What are the attitudes of first-year English major students at ThuongmaiUniversity toward English listenning skills?

 What are difficulties in English listening skill experienced by first-yearEnglish major students at Thuong Mai University?

 What are some suggested solutions to help freshman at ThuongmaiUniversity improve their listening skill?

1.4 Research subjects

Research subjects are freshmen, currently studying at the Faculty of English ofTMU Most freshmen are students with the lowest English listening test scores in theFaculty They are almost familiar with the way they studied in high school Beforegoing to college, high school students only focus on learning grammar and vocabularywithout taking time to practice language skills, especially listening practice inparticular The goal of high school students is to achieve a high score on the universityexam However, when they are in college, they must use the language they learn,namely speaking and listening to English Due to unfamiliarity with the environmentand the method of studying at the university, freshman students may face manydifficulties when listening to English

Currently, according to the innovation program, freshmen have learned 4 skills:listening, speacking, reading and writing as a separate subject They have specificsubject to learn to listen to English Compared to previous courses, freshmen havebetter listening conditions, more time to listen with teachers and friends Besides, theyalso have the opportunity to learn how to listen to foreign teachers However, this isalso a difficulty for most freshmen English listening scores are considered a subject of

a subject, so low results will affect the overall outcome of the study Especially, thestudents from rural areas students from rural areas may face with much moredifficulties than other urban students because of diffcult economic conditions as well asdiferent education programs in which rural students have less opportunity to expose tothe target language and native teachers

Therefore, listening to English and achieving high scores in university subjects isreally a big challenge for them

1.5 Scope of the study

Firstly, the scope of the study is the difficulties in English listening skillexperienced by first-year English major students at TMU The study focuses onunderstanding and investigating the difficulties students face The study does not

intend to explore other aspects of learning English, such as: factors affecting Englishlistening or students' English learning habits, etc In addition, this research focuses onstudying a unique skill of learning English that is listening skill The researcher did notstudy about other skills such as speaking, reading and writing.

Secondly, due to time and ability limitations, the researcher only concentrated onthe first-year student of TMU's English Department First-year students must bestudents of the English Department, not other departments such as Marketing orAccounting, etc The research objects are limited and zoned The scope of the study is

100 students randomly selected in 4 classes K54N1, K54N2, K54N3 and K54N4 Theresearcher will invite participants to fill up the survey questionnaire from each of thesementioned classes The thesis did not study or interview other subjects such as teachers

or parents

1.6 Research methodology

The research methodology used is quantitative method The researcher designed aquestionnaire consisting of smaller and more specific questions These questionsinclude closed questions (questions are available with answers) These closed questionswill be divided into 3 major parts (from part II to part IV) Part II contains 05questions, understanding the attitude of students with learning to listen; Part IIIincludes 03 questions, find out about difficulties encountered by students, Part IVincludes 06 questions about the method of application to improve listening skill Theresearcher included questionnaires for 100 students who were selected in the scope ofthe study, then retrieved the questionnaires for results Results are transferred tospecific number data and the data are clearly analyzed

1.7 Organization of the study

The rest of this paper has four more chapters:

In chapter two (Literature review): the researcher discusses the literature andtheory related to the research topic

In chapter three (Research findings): the researcher has justified and described the

research method in full detail From the results obtained after the actual survey, theresearcher has drawn new findings and made comments and evaluations on the surveyresults.

In chapter four (Recommendations and suggestion): From the actual resultsobtained, the researcher offers practical and specific solutions to the topic

Final part is the conclusion for the whole study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The second chapter presents relevant theories ralated to listening and difficulties

in English listening skill The definition or explaination of key terms in the topic is presented along with the same previous research topics.

2.1 English listening skill

2.1.1 Definition of listening

Listening is one of the most difficult skills when beginning to learn a language, itwas claimed as “the most difficult of the four skills the beginner of a foreign languagehas to develop” (Eastman, 1991) Listening is an extremely difficult and necessaryskill, but in Vietnam, since the beginning of English training, listening skill has notbeen focused in training programs at primary and secondary schools Until recentyears, the importance of listening skill has been pushed higher In order to use a secondlanguage fluently and smoothly, listening skill need to be combined with other skills.There have been many authors and experts when studying the listening learningthat have taken different definitions of listening In general, the concepts given byexperts have similarities, and help readers differentiate between “listening” and

“hearing” It is remarkable that there is a clear distinction between hearing somethingand listening to it Hearing is simply a sound or word recognition while listeningimplies some conscious attention to the message conveying the meaning of what issaid According to Emmert (1994), “listening is more than merely hearing words.Listening is an active process by which students receive, construct meaning from, andrespond to spoken and or nonverbal message” As mentioned in Nunan (2003, p.24)

“Listening is an active, purposeful process of making sense of what we hear.” It meansthat, people should interpret the meaning from what they hear, therefore listening is anactive skill Chastain (1971) defined listening as the ability to understand native speech

at normal speed Morley (1972) said that “listening involves auditory discrimination,aural grammar, selecting necessary information, remembering it, and connecting it to

the process between sound and form of meaning” According to Postovsky (1975),listening differs in meaning from sound discrimination to aural comprehension Goss(1982) defined listening as a process of understanding what is heard and organizing itinto lexical elements to which meaning can be allocated Bowen, Madsen, and Hilferty(1985) demonstrated that “Listening is understanding the oral language Students hearoral speech, divide sounds, classify them into lexical and syntactic units, andcomprehend the message Listening is a process of receiving what the speaker says,making and showing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and answering,and creating meaning by participation, creativity, and empathy” According to Purdy(1997), listening is the process of receiving, making meaning from, and answering tospoken and/or nonverbal messages Rost (2002) defined listening as a complex process

of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know.Jafari and Hashim (2015) emphasized that listening is a channel for comprehensibleinput and more than 50 percent of the time learners spend in learning a foreignlanguage is devoted to listening

Listening is not a separated skill compared to other skills, because in the process

of listening, people use knowledge from other skills flexibly to comprehend thecontext According to Rivers in Hasyuni (2006, p.8), “Listening is a creative skill Itmeans we comprehend the sound falling on our ears, and take the raw material ofwords, arrangements of words, and the rise and fall the voice, and from this material

we creative a significance Listeners must cope with the sender’s choice of vocabulary,structure, and rate of delivery” According to Oxford (1993, p.206) “Listening is acomplex problem solving skill and it is more than just perception of the sounds.Listening includes comprehension of fundamental language skills It is a mediumthrough which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of theirinformation, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense

of values, and their appreciation”

Vandergrift (1999, p.168), in his study, approved that “Listening is a complex and

active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understandvocabulary and grammatical structure, interpret stress and intonation, retain the datacollected in the above processes and interpret it within the immediate as well as thelarger sociocultural context of the utterance”.

Therefore, the researcher can conclude that listening is the ability to identify andunderstand what others are saying This is also a complex activity that helps studentsunderstand what they hear by activating previous knowledge Listening is a positiveprocess because listening is not just about hearing Listening includes complexprocesses to determine the meaning and message of the sound

2.1.2 The importance of listening skill in language learning

Listening skill is an indispensable skill when learning any language The use ofthe second language will become impossible if the learner does not have the skill oflistening comprehension According to Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi (2016), “theability to understand the spoken language has an important role in second languagelearning and use It is a necessary skill for classroom real communication activities It

is a skill for oral communication between native and nonnative speakers” According toRost (2009), listening helps us to understand the world around us and is one of thenecessary elements in creating successful communication

The importance of listening skill has been enhanced over time In 1970s,listening, with more importance it has gained as a skill, started to take place inlanguage teaching programs besides speaking, reading and writing With the rise ofCommunicative Language Teaching in the late 1970s, teaching English forcommunication began to play a significant role all over the world, and the importance

of teaching listening increased In the 1990s, with the increased attention to listening,aural comprehension had a significant place in second and foreign language learning(Morley, 2001; Rivers, 1981; Richards & Rodgers, 2001) Recognizing the importance

of listening skill, many researchers have studied about this skill such as: Field (1998),Rost (2002), Vandergrift (1999), Vandergrift (2007), etc

In D Renukadevi’s study (2014, p.60), he affirmed that “listening is the mostsignificant part of communication as it is pivotal in providing a substantial andmeaningful response” He also pointed that, listening played a vital role in learning alanguage for communicative purpose, as it helped the language learner to acquirepronunciation, word stress, vocabulary, and syntax and the comprehension of messagesconveyed could be based solely on tone of voice, pitch and accent; and it was onlypossible when we listened D Renukadevi also cited that “without understanding inputappropriately, learning simply cannot get any improvement In addition, withoutlistening skill, no communication can be achieved”.

2.1.3 Listening process

There has also existed a large body of research studies on models of informationprocessing in listening based on the way listeners process and comprehend what isheard One such was the study of Helgesen & Brown (1994) in which listening is said

to be composed of two opposite processes, namely top-down and bottom-up processes

2.1.3.1 Top-down process

Top- down process has been proved to have a certain role in assisting listening.According to Flowerdew & Miller (2005), this model was employed when researchersdiscovered that “experimental subjects are unable to identify truncated sounds inisolation from the words they form a part of, whereas they are quite able to identifytruncated sounds so long as that they are presented with the surrounding context”.According to Rubin (1994) “top-down processing is when listeners use theirknowledge of the world, real situations, and roles of human interaction to interpret orpredict the information” Simply put, in the top- down process, listeners understand themeaning of a message basing on their use of background knowledge to anticipate whatwill come next instead of relying upon individual sounds and words Therefore, therole of listener in this process is indispensible

As background knowledge is dominant feature of top-down process, “it is crucial

to provide listeners with abundant contextual cues, such as familiar topic or situations,

predictable content or cultural background” (Richards, 1990) If the listeners failed tomake use of top-down processing or use of his/her background knowledge, anutterance would be incomprehensible.

In a word, top-down information processing in listening with the use ofbackground knowledge is likely to prepare the listeners a minimum amount ofinformation to enable them to understand what is conveyed

Top-down process includes:

 listening for the main idea

 predicting

 drawing inferences

 summarizing

2.1.3.2 Bottom-up listening process

Along with top-down processing, bottom-up one has also gained much concern ofresearchers absorbed in the area of information processing in listening In Rubin’s(1994) words, “bottom-up processing is when listeners use their knowledge of words,syntax and grammar to analyze the information” Unlike top-down one, listeners, inbottom-up information processing, focused on the meaning of individual words orsyllables, instead of the content of the listening passage According to Field (1999),bottom-up processing which was considered a step-by-step assembly process combinedgroups of features: phonemes into syllables, syllables into words, words into clauses,and clauses into sentences That meant listeners would comprehend the message fromthe smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts In bottom- up listeningprocess, listener “rely on the language in the message, that is, the combination ofsounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning” (Richards, 1990) Therefore, thismodel of information processing in listening was no longer depends much on the role

of listener but text-based

Bottom-up process includes:

 listening for specific details

 recognizing cognates

 recognizing word-order pattern

According to Richards (1990, p.10), in real world listening, both top-down andbottom-up information processing generally occur together, the extent to which one orthe other dominates depending on “the listener’s familiarity with topic and content of atext, the density of information in a text, the text type, and the listener’s purpose inlistening”

2.2 Difficulties in English listening skill

After consulting the literature, books and research of many authors, the researcherfound that the difficulties in listening skill were divided into 2 categories: Subjectivedifficulties and Objective difficulties

2.2.1 Subjective difficulties

There are many experts and authors who pointed out the difficulties in listeningskills stemming from the learners themselves After referring to previous studies, theresearcher has drawn 4 main subjective difficulties: Restricted vocabulary, poorgrammar, lack of contextual knowledge and poor concentration

2.2.1.1 Restricted vocabulary

Listening is an important skill in communication process and vocabulary alsoplays an indispensable role in communication Therefore, vocabulary has a closerelationship with listening skill Oxford (1990) also claimed that vocabulary is “by farthe most sizeable and unmanageable component in the learning of any language,whether a foreign or one’s mother tongue, because of tens of thousands of differentmeanings” Vocabulary knowledge is often viewed as a critical tool for secondlanguage learners because a limited vocabulary in a second language impedessuccessful communication Underscoring the importance of vocabulary acquisition,Schmitt (2000, p.55) emphasizes that “lexical knowledge is central to communicativecompetence and to the acquisition of a second language”

According to Underwood (1989), listeners do not have high vocabulary

knowledge Speakers may select words that listeners do not know them Listenersmight face an unfamiliar word which could stop them and think about the meaning ofthat word for a while and miss the next part of the speech D Renukadevi showed thatlearners’ failure or laziness to build up vocabulary gradually and this greatly reflected

in their listening and kept them low spirited in acquiring the language skills According

to Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, and Tugrul Mart (2014), when listening texts containknown words it would be very easy for students to them If students know the meaning

of words this can arouse their interest and motivation and can have a positive impact onthe students’ listening comprehension ability A lot of words have more than onemeaning and if they are not used appropriately in their appropriate contexts studentswill get confused In their study, Naci Yildiz and Mustafa Albay (2015) affirmed thatvocabulary level of learners helped them recognize the words easily which playedmajor role in comprehension

2.2.1.2 Poor grammar

According to Hasan (2000), difficult grammatical structure is one of the mostimportant factors that cause problems for learners’ listening comprehension Wilkins(1972, p.97) stated that: ‘‘There is not much value in being able to producegrammatical sentences if one has not got the vocabulary that is needed to convey whatone wishes to say … While without grammar very little can be conveyed, withoutvocabulary nothing can be conveyed’’ According to Naci Yildiz and Mustafa Albay(2015), the knowledge of grammar helps learners comprehend easily The grammaticalknowledge helps listeners to easily grasp information and determine the intention ofthe speaker

Biber (1986, p.12) cited that “Many of the devices of written language have nospoken equivalent” He also showed “linguistic differences between speaking andwriting have been attributed to differing processing constraints and to differingsituational characteristics” Differences in grammar in spoken and written langguageaffect learners' ability to listen and read Therefore, poor grammar is one of the

difficulties hindering learners in the process of listening to foreign languages.

2.2.1.3 Lack of contextual knowledge

Vandergrift (2004) and Walker (2014) indicated that “oral passages exist in realtime and should be processed rapidly and when the passage is over, only a mentalrepresentation remains” Listening needs immediate processing to access the spokeninput again, making the skill more complex than reading Students’ culturalbackground knowledge can have an important role in their listening comprehension Ageneral understanding of the country’s culture and its history can facilitate listeningprocesses

Vandergrift (2007) and Walker (2014) also declared that “listeners can usepragmatic knowledge to make inferences and identify speakers’ implied meaning thatthese should be specifically considered by teachers when teaching listeningcomprehension” According to Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi (2016), having contextualknowledge “is to activate related background knowledge and use it to predict the ideasthe message may have” This knowledge used to “anticipate the general content of themessage” Skilled listening requires that listener look ahead in anticipation of what iscoming Rivers (1981) said that “the understanding of spoken messages depend oncomprehension of semantic meaning, moving from what one comprehends in the soundsequence with respect to the knowledge of syntax only when the meaning is notunderstandable”

2.2.1.4 Poor concentration

Learning attitudes always affect learners' results In particular, listening skills isone of the skills that require high concentration Naci Yildiz and Mustafa Albay (2015)declared that “Motivation allows learners to concentrate on the topic, and enables them

to listen to attentively Motivated learners stand a better chance of developing listeningcomprehension” According to D Renukadevi (2014, p.61), “Listener’s concentrationpower or listening stamina greatly influences their listening skills, which is not so inthe case of acquiring the other language skills (reading, speaking and writing) even

when they are carried for a longer period of time” Everyone's ability to concentrate onlistening is different Therefore, learners with poor concentration and easily affected byexternal influences will find it more difficult to listen.

2.2.2 Objective difficulties

2.2.2.1 Listening material

According to Naci Yildiz and Mustafa Albay (2015), “The choice of listeningmaterials holds an important place because if message is not conveyed then thematerials will not be useful” They also declared that “vocabulary and grammar level

of the material influences comprehension largely” Teachers ensure that the level ofmaterial is compatible with the level of the students The phonological characteristics

of listening material are even more important Learners should easily master thetension and intonation in the material The content of the document should attract thelearner's attention The concepts in the document should be easy to understand Longlistening activities can make learners bored and they may not understand At the sametime poorly organized documents may not be useful for learners to develop theirlistening comprehension Listening to documents with many technical words will notbring any benefit to learners According to Seferoglu and Uzakgoren (2004), somelistening comprehension problems included the kind of listening materials

2.2.2.2 Speed of delivery

Vandergrift (2004) and Walker (2014) indicated that “oral passages exist in realtime and should be processed rapidly and when the passage is over, only a mentalrepresentation remains” Hasan (2000) indicated that “unfamiliar words, difficultgrammatical structures, and the length of the spoken passages are the most importantfactors that cause problems for learners’ listening comprehension”

Fast delivery of language may lead to not understanding because learners may notreceive all messages Underwood (1989, p.16) stressed “the negative role of fastdelivery and concludes that many English language learners believe that the greatestdifficulty with listening comprehension is that the listener cannot control how quickly a

speaker speaks” According to Underwood (1989), there were some barriers toeffective listening comprehension process He cited that “listeners cannot control thespeed of speech” The biggest problem with listening comprehension is that listenersare not able to control how quickly speakers talk.

2.2.2.3 Listening environment

D Renukadevi (2014, p.61) declared “distraction by the physical setting or theenvironment in which listening is to be carried out This becomes an added challengefor an average learner and a main confront even for good listeners” The environmentwhere listening activities are carried out facilitates comprehension In a quiet learningenvironment, learners focus better This will affect their understanding Languagelearners in better-equipped schools will develop better understanding skills In a schoolwhere listening skills are ignored, learners will fall behind

2.2.2.4 Accents of speakers

Bloomfield (2010) told that “regional accents can impact the spoken message that

is understood by the listeners and familiar accents are easier to understand thanunfamiliar accents” Buck (2001) mentioned a lot of problems in listening activitiesincluded unfamiliar accents According to Naci Yildiz and Mustafa Albay (2015, p.21),the pronunciation and accent of the speaker influenced comprehension D Renukadevi(2014, p.60) declared that “listeners problem with different pronunciation, accents asthey stick to one particular articulation”

Goh (1999) showed that “66% of learners mentioned a speaker’s accent as one ofthe most significant factors that affect listener comprehension” Unfamiliar accentsboth native and non-native can cause serious problems in listening comprehension andfamiliarity with an accent helps learners’ listening comprehension Buck (2001)indicated that “when listeners hear an unfamiliar accent such as Indian English for thefirst time after studying only American English will encounter critical difficulties inlistening” This will definitely interrupt the entire listening process and at the sametime a strange voice makes the listener unable to understand messages