A study about difficult in communication with native people of freshmen in non english major of thuongmai university

Therefore, this paper concentrates on thepractical problems of English communication of non English major freshmen atThuongmai University.. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURESTable 3.1:The barrie

First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to mysupervisor, Mrs Phạm Thị Phượng who has given me the supervisor, valuableguidance, correction, critical feedback and encouragements during the process ofcompleting this study

I also would like to express my thankfulness to the teachers and students fortheir help in completing my survey questionnaires As they support and share a lot

of information, ideas about aspects of my research They are ready to show medocument as introduce me to find the authentic information

In addition, I am grateful to our group with 10 members who help me findauthentic document, recommend me source materials

Especially, I am indebted to all the member in my family, my friends whogave me assistance, and encouragement to complete this study

Finally, I wish to thank all those who have kindly given their advice to help tocomplete this paper

Hanoi, AprilHaNguyen Thi Ngoc Ha

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English is a language which is used globally and you can find Englishspeaking people in mostly all continents and countries According to Wikipedia, thetotal of country's populations who can speak English in the word are nearly 999billions of people If you can speak English well, you will have a lot of benefitswhen you know English especially: English communication If you are travelinglover, you will be confident to visit many countries in around the world tocommunicate If you are student, you can read a lot of books, magazines,documents from foreign country by English or you will be higher education Some

of the best universities and educational institutes worldwide located in GreatBritain, Unites States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore where themain language of providing instructions is English English is also the importancefactor for job seekers in almost any field be it technology, marketing, operations oreven Human resources In the context now, it will be so big damages for notknowing English, especially students who are young generations, will dominate trytheir best for the country development Therefore, this paper concentrates on thepractical problems of English communication of non English major freshmen atThuongmai University It was conducted by researcher with the hope of finding therelationship between obstacles faced by students and solutions for improvingEnglish communication skills for them All data used for analysis in this studymainly collected through survey questionnaires during the time of experiments theproposed methods By several means of both quantitative and qualitative collecteddata, it reveals existing difficulties and problems encountered by non English majorfirst year students in this university From all the findings, the researcher could drawthe lessons, work out useful recommendations and effective solutions to tackle allthe challenges

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1:The barriers causes difficult in English communication (students)

Table 3.2:The barriers causes difficult in English communication (teachers)

Figure 2.1: The communication process

Fgure 3.2: The problems in English communication encountered by Thuongmai University freshmen with non English major

Figure 3.3: The stragedies for English communication encountered non English major students at Thuongmai University

Figure 3.1: The most difficult skill of English communication

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION

ASIAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION iv

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.3 Aim of the study 4

1.4 Research subject 4

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Methodology 4

1.6.1 Participants 4

1.6.2 Instruments 5

1.6.3 Data Analysis 6

1.7 Organization of the study 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Definition of communication 8

2.2 Communication Process 9

2.3 Difficulties in English communication 10

2.3.1 Difficult in listening English 11

2.3.2 Difficult in speaking English 12

2.3.3 Difficulties in writing English 13

2.4 English communication barriers 13

2.4.1 Communication barriers from students 14

2.4.2 Communication barriers from teachers 15

2.4.3 Other barriers 16

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 20

3.1 The reality of English communication in Thuongmai University and the reasons 20

3.2 Survey questionnaires 21

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3.3 The questionnaire for students 22

3.4 The questionnaire for the teacher 28

3.5 Findings 31

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 32

4.1 Recommendations 32

4.2 Limitations 33

CONCLUSIONS 34 REFERENCES

APPENDIXES

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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, English has become the most widely used language all over theworld It is considered as the medium of communication in many different fieldssuch as: science, technology, aviation, international sport, diplomacy, and soon Globalization and integration in the Vietnamese trend of English educationhave continued to grow stronger and stronger, from public policies to specificactions, from teachers to students, from schools to the society, at every level,especially higher education oversea

English is used as the working language of the Asian Trade group ASEANand the second language which is taught as native language and consideredimportant as English In fact, with the spread of globalization and the rapidexpansion of information and technology as result of explosion in the demand forEnglish is in the worldwide

In Vietnam, in recent years, the study of English has been gaining momentumfirstly because it is an international language and secondly because it is also seen as

a mean to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam andother foreign country English is most widely taught at schools and universities Inlearning English, learners have a lot of difficulties in vocabulary, pronunciation and

so on especially grammar Like all other languages, English grammar has a number

of parts of speech including personal pronouns Personal pronouns are known to beone of the first and easiest parts of speech taught in English lesson However, thefact shows that while learning English, especially Vietnamese, Vietnamese studentshave great difficulties in communicating with native people

The things metioned above are the reasons why “Study about difficult inEnglish communication with native people.” When Viet Nam joined the regionaland international organizations, it is lacking of English communication skillsmaking barriers in communication and misunderstanding in working process Thus,requirement of English communication the training programs according to the most

popular language in the world – English becomes essential Moreover, our societydevelops day by day, more and more raise foreign working environment with multinational people, the needs of communication is more than

For these reasons, I chose “A Study about difficult in communication withnative people of freshmen in non English major of Thuongmai University” for mygraduation

1.2 Previous study

Turner & Upshur (1995) relates the significance of grammatical accuracy withcommunicative effectiveness in interactive tasks The appropriate use of grammar inextended discourse is vital for meaningful communication (Yi’an Wu, 2001)

Besides developing linguistic skills, the focus on developing interactionalskills for discussion is vital in the present context of education (Lee, 2009).Interactional communication is widely inclined through the pedagogical challenges

of adopting critical discourse in the classroom (Kumaravadivelu, 1994, 2006) Thestudents need to practice English communication as oral presentations, discussions,debate for developing rhetoric skills, writing skill: with English major students canwrite mail in business or writing thesis, however in this thesis, researcher only focus

on non English students who can develop English writing by short story or diary Richard & Suksawat (1985) have shed light on cross cultural issues that alsoappear to be crucial in foreign language speaking Lighrbown and Spada (1999)mention second language learning theories and some psychological factors affectingoral production in foreign language On the other hand, Harmer (1998) discussesthis issue with more practical orientation of teaching spoken English Horak (1999)studied the issues assessment and outlines the findings relating to the prevalentfactors students come across in foreign language speaking situations RecentlyChowdhury (2000) has outlined how grammaticality of English language influencesEnglish language production and pleads for training of leaners, revision of thelanguage syllabus and meaning focused teaching which might be indirectlybeneficial students' spoken English provided right measures are taken in teaching inthe country

Through that communication is always big theme which attracted mostly

people’s concerning and studying from many years ago They recognized Englishwill be soon to become popular language in the world therefor if you are good atEnglish communicating which will bring good chances, big promotion in learning

as well as life When you know English as well as have good communication meansthat you will have a lot of chances to exchange knowledge with different foreignpeople as result of your variety knowledge More foreign people you talk makingyou gain more knowledge about the life and people with diversity in feeling

Springer & Collins (2008) showed the use of classroom learning and realworld interactional use of language for developing communication in both academicand social contexts So that a student can be more confident with Englishcommunication in social, the basic requirement is fostering and practicing Englishfrom school as much as possible Jarvis & Stakounis (2010) stress on analyzing theneeds of the students and urges to improve speaking skills in their social context.The students need to interact for developing social and pragmatic communicationskills (Yi’an Wu, 2001)

According to Dornyei and Scott (1995), communication breakdowns areusually caused by four problems which they classified as resource deficit,processing time pressure, own performance problems and other performanceproblems These difficulties are showed to as problem orientedness in which theyare valid in defining problems that get during communication Resource deficit is aproblem faced by learners due to insufficient knowledge of the target language(Jamshidnejad 2011) The processing time pressure concerns with the difficulty ofhaving too much time in constructing sentences in the target language (Dornyei &Scott 1995) According to Jamshidnejad (2011), this problem happens whenlearners are having spontaneous communication with the native speaker of thetarget language Learners will usually apply fillers as their hesitation device andrepeat the target language words for several times (Dornyei & Scott 1997) The ownperformance problems are detected when learners realise mistakes in their owntarget language productions (Dornyei & Scott 1995, Dorneyi & Scott 1997).Usually, this difficulty is covered by paraphrasing, self repairing and editing Theother performing problems include the difficulties of perceiving what is said by the

interlocutors (Dornyei & Scott 1997, Jamshidnejad 2011)

1.3 Aim of the study

This thesis will provide learner with definitions of English communication.The skills are required to be good at English communication

Finding and discussing some difficulties in English communication withnative people of Thuongmai University with non English major freshmen

To investigate factors affecting English communication process of freshmen.Giving some suggestions for the above obstacles and recommend somesuggestion for learning English to be better in English communication

1.4 Research subject.

Reality of English communication of non English major freshmen at TMUand difficult they are facing

1.5 Scope of the study.

This research is restricted to study about the difficulty in Englishcommunications It is focused on making more clearly reason and factors affectedlearning process and English communication Syntactically, my study willinvestigate into English communication of the first year student of non Englishmajor at Thuongmai University To successfully complete this topic, I am patientand enthusiastic: To consult my supervisor, my friends To search documents andthe sources of information such as on internet, TV, reference books, newspapers,universities and base on my experiences on education

1.6 Methodology

1.6.1 Participants

Selection of Thuongmai University

There reasons why Thuongmai university was selected Firstly, TMU’sdepartments usually focus on business environment, English major in TMU alsorelates economic as there have many universities’s English major: Ha noiUniversity, University of Languages and International Studies…which do notspecialize economic only academic In addition, the good communication is so vital

in society, with business environment this is more and more important

Communication is so crucial for working that play role in connecting people to

be more understanding between each other Moreover, the researcher had beenstudying in Thuongmai university for over 3 years; therefore, it was convenient tocollect data and worthwhile to study the difficulty of English communication

Selection of the participants

The participants in this study were 70 freshmen in non English majorThuongmai university and 10 teachers who are teaching English of TMU Theparticipants which were willing to participate in this study were 70 first year nonEnglish major students and 10 teachers responsible They were asked about howEnglish was taught, the ways they learn and practice English, the difficult they get

in English communication process In addition, freshmen can compare the methodthey were taught grammar at the secondary stage and at university and can expresstheir preference for which way is beneficial to developing their learning ofgrammar, hence, their oral and written fluency

The reason behind the choice of teacher in Thuongmai university, the teachercan compare their point of view to those of Thuongmai English major and draw acertain conclusion

1.6.2 Instruments

The research instruments used by the study include questionnaires, interviews,documentary studies, and observation notes derived from a personal learningexperience The key instrument in this research study was a survey questionnairedesigned by the researcher It is included both close ended and open endedquestions, which were self administered by the participants The participants wereasked about their problems with English communication use and the strategies theyused when they encountered problems during conversations or did not understandconversation with native people

The questionnaire was revised according to expert advice to ensure thevalidity and appropriateness of the content, based on the suggestions of the thesisadvisor and co advisor in English department at Thuongmai University Thecomments and suggestions from the experts and the implications of the pilot studycontributed to the development of the final draft of the questionnaire of the actualstudy Therefore, this could be considered that the questionnaire of the study was

appropriate In addition, to check the reliability of the questionnaire of the study,Cronbach’s alpha the most common measure of internal consistency of multipleLikert question in a survey/questionnaire, was also used to determine if the scale ofthe questionnaire is reliable prior to the actual study (Wikipedia, 2012).

Questionnaire consisted of three parts Part I aimed to gather backgroundinformation on the participants such as the participant’s gender, school year, major.Part II was concerned with their English ability while communicating with nativepeople Part III, asked about difficulties, barriers they get in English communicationand strategies which they used to overcome the problems they experienced duringconversation with native English speaking people The participants were asked torate their problems and the strategies they used to overcome these problems bychoosing one of five items on a Likert scale strongly agree, agree, moderately agree,disagree, and strongly disagree

An open ended questionnaire was added to Part II, III to gather more in depthinformation on English communication problems encountered by freshmen and thestrategies they used during communication with native people In this part, theparticipants had the opportunity to provide more ideas and opinions that were notmentioned in the closed ended questions

1.6.3 Data Analysis

The researcher analyzed the data gained from the questionnaire to answer thefive research questions The results were also calculated into statistical values asfollows:

 The data concerning the general background was presented as apercentage

 A five – point Likert scale was used to score the participant’s level ofagreement in terms of their English communication problems and strategies used tocommunicate with native speaker It is a scale used in questionnaires to specify thelevel of agreement of disagreement based on the criteria of Rensis Likert (1932) asfollows:

To study successfully and effectively, methods used in this study are:

Material collection from good books and reliable sources

Questionnaires: give questionnaire was created before for 70 students(freshmen of non English major at Thuongmai University)+ 10 lectures in Englishmajor at Thuongmai University.

Conclusion

This chapter has accounted for a number of research tools we have applied on

to back up the different hypotheses and arguments related to the topic of the presentstudy, The chapter has equally reported and explained the rationales behind theirselection, and also the purposes of the questionnaires administered to them and theinterviews conducted with them

1.7 Organization of the study.

This study is divided into four main chapters in order to get better insights intodifferent aspects of topic:

Chapter 1: Introduction reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scopes,methodology and overview of the thesis design Theoretical background providesgeneral knowledge about communication and

English communication

Chapter 2: Literature review

Chapter 3: Research finding

 Reasons making difficult in communicating of freshman non Englishmajor at TMU Factors influence English communication

 How to make effective English communication with native people andpresent some example, some tips for effective communication

 Recommendation some effective ways to make English communication Chapter 4: Conclusion and suggestions

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition of communication

Effective English communication in a major problem for students who is notnative English speaker, such as students in TMU, as English is not their mothertongue Moreover, effective English com can be a serious problem for those whohave insufficient, limited exposure to English interaction Hence English speaking

or oral communication in English is considered difficult for non native Englishspeaker as English is not their mother tongue (Khamkhien, 2010; Myers, Penrase, &Rasberry, 2000) Schramm defines communication as “a tool that makes societiespossible and distinguish human from other societies” Berelson and Steiner definecommunication as “the transmission of information, ideas, emotions, skills” throughthe use of symbols, words, pictures, graph (Berelson; 1952);Nguyen Quang (1998b, 38) “Communication is the process of sharing meaningthrough verbal and nonverbal behavior” Communication can be understood asinformation transmitting process between one person and other people (Keyton,Joann; 2011), as a vital factor of human interaction Communication is also process

of knowledge, thoughts and perception between human beings (Tutarand Yilmaz,2003) Communication ability includes listening, venture, and oral communication(Sahin 1997 cited Berryman 1982) In addition, Omololu in patient physiciancommunication: It can further be defined as comprehension, self expression,establishing eye contact, oral praise and the use of non verbal behavior (Omololu,1984) When people can communicate with another people, not only usinglanguage: words, letters… but also we use many types of communication whichimprove more quality of communication The word of communication is sourcefrom the Latin word, communis, which means common It means that if we have noany common understanding in communication process, there is no communication

“Awareness” is one of the most important activity of communication and it isreflected by the values, behaviors, social status, education levels, experiences,knowledge, and the cultures of both the speaker and the listener (Price, 1991) Is is

so hard to become a good person in communication as you will not think about right

circumstance which you will get in life However, learner will guest and hand insome principal which show how to communicative Principals spend 70% to 80% oftheir time in interpersonal communication with different stakeholders (Green, 2010;Lunenburg & Irby, 2006, Matthews & Crow, 2010; Sergiovanni, 2009; Tareilo,2011; Ubben, Hughes, & Norris, 2011) They know the necessary of ongoingcommunication, both formal and informal, both individual conversation with friend,teacher, students or parents as “Conversation is one of the commonest phenomena

we encounter, yet it is one which raises very great scientific problems, many stillresolved It is so often our commonest experiences, which we take for granted, thatare the most elusive of explanation and description” (Colin Cherry 1966)

2.2 Communication Process

Sender

Medium Receiver

Figure 2.1 : The communication process

Look as the communication process, two common elements in everycommunication exchange are the sender and the receiver (McShare & Von Glinow,2003) Senders and receivers are of course vital in communication In face to face

Message

ReceiveDecode

Feedback

Receive

Decode

communication the roles of the sender and receiver are not distinct as both partiescommunicate with each other, even if in very subtle ways such as through eyecontact and general body language The sender encode the message orcommunication to receiver or to many different receivers then decodes the message

to understand its meaning and significance The sender encodes the information bychoosing the words, , symbols to take message The message is the outcome of theencoding, which takes the form of verbal, nonverbal or written language Thereceiver is person who get message, the receiver decodes the received message intouseful information It is so critical as the message of receiver is so accurate.However, communication process misunderstanding can occur at any stage because

of environmental and personal barriers: language barriers, interruptions, emotions,attitudes barriers…

Feedback is the destination’s reaction to a message (Certo, 1992) Feedback is

an idea sourced from engineering communication theory It means a return flowfrom the message Other way, feedback is the receiver’s response to the source’smessage There are two kind of feedback: Positive Feedback and NegativeFeedback Positive feedback occurs when the receiver receives the desired responsebased on a clear understanding of the symbols used in the message Negativefeedback occurs when there is an undesired response because of miscommunication

A problem in any one of these elements can reduce communication effectiveness(Keyton, 2011)

Communication medium is used to convey an information signal, for example

a digital bit stream, from one or several senders (or transmitters) to one or severalreceivers (Wikipedia) There are variety of communication channels: face to faceconversations, telephone calls, text messages, email, the radio and TV, writtenletters, brochures…Choosing appropriate communication channel is important foreffective communication and easier to communicate with native English speaking.People decode information selectively (Keyton, 2010)

2.3 Difficulties in English communication

Communication will include skills: listening, speaking, writing,pronunciation…A student is considered good at English communication means that

they are confident to use all skills The usually difficulties of communication areinhibition, lack of knowledge and vocabulary, low or uneven participation and

mother tongue use

2.3.1 Difficult in listening English

Anderson and Lynch (1988) have identified the following stages in the process

Rixon (1986: 36) argues that the sound of English is a major problem for theL2 learner making listening the most difficult skill She lists four sources ofdifficulties arising from pronunciation:

 The weak relationship between English sounds and the way they are spelt inthe written language

 Changes in sounds when they occur in rapid, connected speech

 The rhythm pattern of English speech

 Different ways of pronouncing the ‘same’ sound

In oder to hear clearly the sound spoken from native people, is so hard Whennative English speaking said isolation word that is so easy to recognize such as:

“you” / ‘ju:/ however when they say long sentence with the accent and stress It willbecome a big challenge with non English major student Another problem is that ofelision, the loss of sounds for example of the word “probably” which becomes

“probly” and the word “discussed “ transforms into /disk Λt/ Thus “ten bikes”t/ Thus “ten bikes”becomes “tem bikes”, / tem baiks/ (Rixon, 40) Listening difficulties were caused by

a failure to understand a complex text, no fluency in the interaction and a lack ofawareness of the country and the cultural background of their friends (Forey &Lockwood, 2007)

2.3.2 Difficult in speaking English

As inhibition, student is seemed to be inhibited to speak English Althoughstudent is in English lesson, they still use mother tongue because they worry aboutmaking mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face in front of someone who theyare talking Especially native English speaking people, students even feel shy asthey talk so quickly, shy students will feel confuse each talking, therefor theychoose silent way or pretend to understand, do not dare to talk and meet nativepeople although actually students really desire In English course, students cannotexpress his/her ideas, thinking with teacher, replacing as clear expression, theychoose silent way: no opinion, no thinking at all

Besides, another difficulty in English communication: they cannot think ofanything to say during communication and they have no motivation to expressthemselves Jdetawy (2011) found that the lack of learners’ personal motivation andweakness of English language will causes of communication breakdowns Rivers(1968) believes that they do not have enough knowledge, vocabulary or they knowvery little to understand or respond to native speaking people It is so difficult forstudents to respond when being asked because they might have little ideas aboutwhat to say, which vocabulary to use, or think a lot of grammar, sentence structure.While communicating with native people, they also wonder: how to use thegrammar correctly (Baker & Westrup, 2003) In addition, low or uneven participant

of communication process is big difficulty It is usually to see the tendency of somelearners to dominate while others speak very little, they only hear and say nothing,even they do not understand but still pretending to understand at all And they prefer

to use mother tongue as easily express ideas, thinking Mother tongue is a naturalthing to do Another, listening comprehension relies on Penny Ur (1984), ShelaghRixon (1986), Mary Underwood (1989), Michael Rost (1991), and H Douglas

Brown (1994), listening difficulties divide two categories The first includeslistening problems resulting from the characteristics of the English language and thenative speakers culture

In communication, students can use non verbal language: eyes contact, bodylanguage…However in Vietnam, mostly people use mother tongue to contact, talk to

be easy understand without using body language or other transportation tocommunicate As a habitat of Vietnamese child, from little until adult that will be keeporiginal therefor when they become adult that will be difficult to access a new one

2.3.3 Difficulties in writing English

Writing is complex skill with combining of many other elements, is the use oflanguage aspect or ability in written likes punctuation, spelling, grammatical,vocabulary and so on As Jordan (1997) states that writing is often confusing withthe process of selection words then putting words down on paper in the samestructure as an outline prepared with appropriate style and vocabulary the majorideas arranged in some often on the correction of grammatical errors

2.4 English communication barriers

Communication is complete and perfect when the receiver understands themessage in the same sense and spirit as the communicator intends to convey Incommunication, ideas and information reached to and responded by receiver remainunaltered and undistorted (Thacker, p.68, 2004) However, communication processincludes many factors to attribute truth of communication message and appear a lot

of barriers to effect of English communication As Bloch and Starks (1999) foundthat the four main problems of non native English speakers with Englishcommunication were listening comprehension, poor or insufficient vocabulary anduse of idioms, distortion or misunderstanding of the message, and inappropriateformulation of the message According George Bernard Shaw wrote “the greatestproblem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished” (Shaw,2011) As illustrated Rakich and Darr (2000) classify these barriers: personal andenvironmental There have some consequences of difficulties in Englishcommunication in studying, working: freshmen student feel hard to gain Englishknowledge and even would not like to find, read as result of learner’s view isreduce, especially, do not update information from consecutively from foreign

people as job opportunity of foreign company will be limited comparing with betterEnglish speaking learner Hence, when students are good at communication, theywill get a more friend from many country in the world, be easier to formation ofrelationship, creates a friendly environment university

And there are some barriers to English communication

2.4.1 Communication barriers from students

One of the reasons behind the communication difficulties among manyThuongmai University freshmen EFL learners is lack of exposure to English asspoken by its native speakers In this frame of reference, Rababah (ibid.) affirmsthat in order for language learners to use the language more effectively, they should

be involved in practicing it in real life situations Without such practice, English orany other language cannot be obtained Students in University are little opportunity

to learn English through natural interaction in the target language Almost teachers

in University are native country (Vietnam), students have no interactioncontinuously; moreover, opportunity of foreign people is reduce Teaching time ofEnglish lesson spend for non English major is about 2 lessons per week whilestudents are seldom to spend 1 2 hours per day to language even they do not have.Students still recognize the important of English communication or very little Theyonly focus on English only when passing exam therefor the ability to use the dailywords is not popular and have no interaction between each other

Lack of practice due to large classes: According to Jianing (2007), largeclasses present another inhibition to the learners’s oral proficiency In the context ofChina, where there are usually over fifty students in each class, students have littleopportunity for practicing speaking in the classroom This causes the speaking skills

of most students to be comparatively lower than the other skills as result of weakcommunication skill Green, Christopher, and Lam (1997: 135), in turn, attribute thedifficulties with communication to some factors, among which are large classes:

“Discussion skills are often undeveloped in the English classroom A combination

of potent inhibitors are responsible for this situation: large class size, students‘ level

of proficiency, and time constraints As a result, many teachers never attempt

discussions or, as a result of negative experiences, simply stop holding them”

2.4.2 Communication barriers from teachers

Teaching methodology cause difficulties in English communication ofVietnamese learners relates to teaching methodology Rababah stresses the fact thatone aspect of deficiency in teaching English is the use of the learners mothertongue Indeed, teachers use mother tongue to explain English literature and toteach difficult lexical items It clear that vocabulary items are taught in isolation,though the Communicative Language Teaching approach insists on the importance

of teaching vocabulary in context may not be enough to help the graduatescommunicate effectively in the target language In this respect, he quotes Halliday

et al (1984: 18) discussing ways of learning a foreign language: In Nigeria, English

is used in almost all the teaching in high schools This has two important results Inthe first place, the quantity of classroom experience that each pupil receives is muchgreater outside the English lesson than within it The second place, the children areinfluenced by class teachers other than those who are trained in English If thoseteacher’s English is not very good, the pupils will suffer Teaching in a language is

an excellent way of teaching a language, but all those who teach subjects in aforeign language need to be able to perform well in it themselves Additionally,Rababah states that authentic listening materials are not made use of by the majority

of schoolteachers, most probably because of the limited number of cassetterecorders and the large number of teachers at the same school Therefore, teachersfind themselves obliged to read out dialogues to their students, which does notprovide them with the necessary native speaker model The author explains thatdialogues are designed to be role played by at least two partners, not by the teacheralone, who would enact all the partner roles with the same voice and intonation,which may demotivate the learners and make them bored He thinks that this may

be due to the effect of the audio lingual method, which had been in use in thecountry until the early eighties, and through which teachers were taught Rababahconcludes that the teacher training program have not been successful in changingthe teacher methodology In fact, the adopted teaching methodology is claimed to

be eclectic and focus on communicative approaches to language teaching, butbecause of the teacher practices in the classroom, it is more likely a grammartranslation method

In reality, teacher always find a lot of teaching method to meet the need ofstudents however, it seems that there have been a number of challengers for EFLteacher and a lot of problems inhibiting EFL teaching and learning According toWilliams and Burden (1997), “teachers deep rooted beliefs about how languages arelearned will pervade their classroom actions more than a particular methodologythey are told to adopt or course book they follow”(p.57).

Teacher and students tend to spend class time on practicing tasks for formbased exams instead of focusing on improving students’ communicative skills (Gao,2012; Ming & Jaya, 2011; Pan & Block, 2011) The lack of speaking tests inexaminations as one of the barriers hindering teacher can train students withspeaking ability In addition, time for English lesson is not enough for teacher cantransmit all knowledge for students, makes it difficult for teachers to achieve theirteaching targets, especially in improving students’ speaking and listening skills(Chen & Goh, 2011; Ming & Jaya, 2011) Besides, English language teachingteachers also get difficulties such as: large class sizes(Aduwa Ogiegbaen & Iyamu,2006; Byun et al., 2010; Chen & Goh, 2011; Ming & Jaya, 2011); students’ unequalEnglish levels (Chen & Goh, 2011; Ming & Jaya, 2011); inadequate facilities andequipment (Aduwa Ogiegbaen & Iyamu, 2006; Chen & Goh, 2011); and a lack of

an English speaking environment (Chen & Goh, 2011; Ming & Jaya, 2011)

2.4.3 Other barriers

The use of jargon

The native English speaking use of jargon, as Christopher Hutton said thejargon used for “special languages associated with a trade, profession or welldefined social sub group; secondly, it is applied in a critical or negative way tolanguage that seems unnecessarily obscure, pretentious, or over complex, inparticular where the suspicion is raised that the ultimate purpose is to hide thetruth” Jargon is a type of language that is used in a particular context and may not

be well understood outside that context (Wikipedia) Each different context, jargonhave special meaning not like meaning of context therefore the talker if not beingexplained before or have knowledge of that jargon, it is easy to misunderstand themessage of communication

Listening comprehension barriers: misunderstanding in communication

Relying on Penny Ur (1984), Shelagh Rixon (1986), Mary Underwood (1989),Michael Rost (1991), and H Douglas Brown (1994), listening difficulties fall intotwo categories The first category includes listening problems resulting from thecharacteristics of the English language and the native speakers culture These arethe following: Effect of elements on the perception of sounds; redundancy;Inappropriate listening style; lack of background knowledge or unfamiliarity withthe culture The term “culture” is defined; “Culture is the shared knowledge andschemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, andresponding to the social realities around them (Lederach, J.P (1995); p.9) In fact,people who communicate with other people of a different culture will realize that aknowledge of the sounds, the vocabulary and the grammar of their foreign language

is indispensable The important factor in understanding has to do with culturalenvironment and misunderstanding in communication between the different andcultures is unavoidable And learners usually gain knowledge or experiences todevelop personal skills and overcome communication barriers

The second category of listening problems involves features of listeningsituations causing difficulties for listeners

Cultural barriers

Communication with people of different cultures and backgrounds meansbecoming aware of the differences in values, beliefs and attitudes that peoplehold (Dr K Usha Rani, Communication barriers; p.77) According to the Putsch, R

W (1985), language barrier prevent a communicant's capacity to judge meanings ofthe intentions, reactions, and emotions and manage to create a condition ofdependency on the person who rely the keys to the whole course of action theinterpreter As Rampur, S (2011) stated that cultural differences are always behind

a reason why there is an existence of miscommunication between two people A gap

is already manifested between individuals with their respective different views andbackgrounds as an effect of which the message to be perceived is not understood or

misinterpreted (Rampur, S (2011)

Emotional barriers

The affective factors are emotions, self esteem, empathy, anxiety, andmotivation Shumin (2002: 206) Oxford (1990: 140) puts it concisely and clearlystating The affective side of the learner is probably one of the most importantinfluences on language learning success or failure Emotional influences involvemainly fearing of errors and lack of motivation Apprehension of erring Shumin(ibid.) argues that speaking a foreign language in public, especially in the presence

of native speakers often provokes anxiety Unlike children, adult learners are verycareful about not making errors in their speech, in that erring would be a publicmanifestation of ignorance This would present a situation in which a speaker losesface in certain cultures Learner sensitivity to making mistakes or loosing face hasobviously been one reason for their inability to communicate English fluently.Jianing (2007) explains: “the less they speak, the less they improve their speakingskills, and the more they are afraid of speaking”

Situations barriers

Situations causing difficulties for listeners Shelagh Rixon (1986) considersseveral listening problems and difficulties that are likely to cause comprehensiondifficulties for listeners as their listening ability One of these problems is what sheterms type of delivery (ibid 58) The way a listening material is deliveredcomprises two factors: the speed of the speaker and his or her accent This iscertainly true, especially of nonnative learners who do not have a good mastery ofthe target language, because fast delivery may make the listener lose concentrationdue to the tension imposed on him or her, and he or she may consequently notunderstand or may misunderstand the listening passage Incomprehension ormisunderstanding is more likely to occur when fast speech is delivered in anunfamiliar accent

Language barriers

Increased globalization is forcing a growing number of business managers andemployees to interact across linguistic boundaries According to Henderson (2005),since language affects almost all aspects of everyday life, there needs more of afocus on communication barriers by researchers and practitioners engaged in

international business Barriers of language are a very intricate thing, andcommunication among people talking diverse languages is hard as stated by Penn,

S Often a time that when you always misunderstood by someone talking with yourlanguage, it is very hard to express the full meaning from a person with a diversecultural background

Psychosocial barriers

Psychosocial barriers are often due to the nature of the environment Whiledistractions like noise, poor lighting or an environment that is too hot or cold can allaffect people’s spirits and concentration, which in turn interfere with effectivecommunication (Michael K.Swan, Washington State University; p.1) Threeimportant concepts are associated with psychological and social barriers: fields of

experience, filtering, and psychological distance (Antos, 2011) “Fields of experience include people's backgrounds, perceptions, values, biases, needs, and

expectations Senders can encode and receivers decode messages only in the context

of their fields of experience When the sender's field of experience overlaps very

little with the receiver's, communication becomes difficult Filtering means that

more often than not we see and hear what we are emotionally tuned in to see andhear Filtering is caused by our own needs and interests, which guide our

listening.Psychosocial barriers often involve a psychological distance between

people that is similar to actual physical distance” (Luneburg, Fred C; p.5)

Environment barriers

Not all barriers to communication are caused by people There are manyenvironmental factors affecting the effective communication process Messagescan be blocked by environmental factors, such as the physical setting or thesituation where communication takes place (Dr K Usha Rani, Communicationbarriers; p.75)

As for example of environment barriers is wrote to be clear by (Akua AhyiaAdu Oppong; ISSN: 2319 7285) Communication is about sharing meaning With nosharing, there is no communication To communicate successfully in a team or withothers, at work or in the community, you need to understand the communicationenvironment and the barriers which prevent messages being sent and receivedsuccessfully