Students english listening anxiety

Students’ General Listening Anxiety a Students’ feelings about their listening skills b Reasons for their feelings about listening skills 5.3 Listening anxiety associated with each

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ THU HUYỀN

STUDENTS’ ENGLISH LISTENING ANXIETY:

CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

(Lo lắng của sinh viên trong giờ học nghe:

nguyên nhân và giải pháp)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Course: K17

Supervisor: LÊ VĂN CANH

Hanoi, 2010

4 Significance of the Study

5 Scope of the Study

6 Structure of the Thesis

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Overview of Anxiety

1.1 Definition and Types of Anxiety

1.2 Foreign Language Anxiety

1.3 Components of Foreign Language Anxiety

1.3.1 Communication Apprehension:

1.3.2 Test Anxiety

1.3.3 Fear of Negative Evaluation

2 Overview of Listening Comprehension

2.1 Definition of Listening Comprehension

2.2 Significance of Listening Comprehension

2.3 The Listening Comprehension Process:

2.3.1 Two Levels View: Bottom-up and Top-down Processing

2.3.2 A Sequential Process of Listening

3 Listening Anxiety

3.1 Related Studies of Language Anxiety in Listening Skill

3.2 Causes of Listening Anxiety

3.2.1 Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text Factors

a) Complexity and Difficulty of the Lexis and Syntax

b) Uninterested or Unfamiliar Topic

c) Visual Support

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ii iii

vi 3.2.2 Listening Anxiety associated with Speakers factors

a) Fast Speech Rate

b) Phonological Modifications

c) Unfamiliar Accents

d) Hesitation and Pause Phenomena (usually grouped together)

3.2.3 Listening Anxiety associated with Listener Factors

a) Limited Vocabulary

b) Memory

c) Background knowledge

d) Application of Strategies

3.2.4 Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Environment

3.3 Instructional Approaches for Listening Anxiety Reduction

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

1 Participants

2 Data Gathering Instruments

3 Procedures

4 Techniques of Data Analysis

5 Data Analysis and Findings

5.1 Students’ Attitudes toward Listening Skills

5.2 Students’ General Listening Anxiety

a) Students’ feelings about their listening skills

b) Reasons for their feelings about listening skills

5.3 Listening anxiety associated with each listening factors

5.3.1 Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text factors

5.3.2 Listening Anxiety associated with Speakers factors

5.3.3 Listening Anxiety associated with Listeners factors

5.3.4 Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Environment

PART C: CONCLUSION

1 Summary of the findings

2 Suggestions for classroom practice

2.1 Solutions related to Listening Text

2.2 Solutions related to Speakers

2.3 Solutions related to Listeners

2.4 Solutions related to Listening Environment

3 Limitations and suggestions for further research

vii REFERENCES

Students’ attitudes toward listening skills

Students’ feelings about their listening skills

Reasons for their feelings about listening skills

Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text Factors

Listening Anxiety associated with Speakers Factors

Listening Anxiety associated with Listeners Factors

Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Environment

 I feel nervous in listening classes I forget what I’ve heard (S19)

 I listen very badly (S5)

 I get nervous in listening class because I cannot completely comprehend.(21)

 I am really disappointed with my English ability…(S30)

(Quoted from the interview of this study)

Teachers and researchers of foreign language are too familiar with statements like the ones above, which indicate a common problem that the majority of foreign language students are faced with It is well recognised that foreign language anxiety is a rather pervasive phenomenon (Aida, 1994) Although language anxiety could be considered as facilitating anxiety that motivates learners, many language teachers and researchers have been concerned about the possibility that anxiety may function as an affective filter (Krashen, 1982), preventing a learner from achieving a high level of proficiency in a foreign language (Scovel 1991) Anxiety should be reduced because anxious students are not able to develop their potential foreign language skills Reducing anxiety is a key to success in foreign or second language learning It ―directly influences how often students use second language learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the language being learned (the target language), how well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and maintain second language skills after language study is over ‖ (Oxford and Shearin, 1996, p.121-122)

According to a survey conducted in the author‘s classes of first-year English majors

at Hong Duc University, overwhelmingly 83% of the students thought listening was the most difficult skill of the four basic language skills; 100% of them disagreed with the statement ―I am completely satisfied with my current listening ability‖ This showed that learner anxiety in listening is a great concern Hence, it is really valuable to think about the causes of first year English major students at Hong Duc University in listening class and at the same time the ways to minimize the harmful effect, so that the teaching and

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learning can be more effective and fruitful especially for those anxious learners This is my

motivation in conducting this study

2 Purpose of the Study

The major purpose of the research is to find out why the first year English major students at Hong Duc University feel anxious or embarrassed while listening to English In other words, this study seeks to identify the factors or causes that make students stressful and nervous while listening to English in the language classroom setting This includes considering the factors that originate from listening text, listeners, speakers, and listening environment The second most important aim of this study is to find out and suggest some solutions in order to alleviate English listening anxiety in the students

 What are possible solutions that may reduce listening anxiety of the students?

4 Significance of the Study

Foreign language anxiety is a universal phenomenon that has a significant factor adversely affecting the language learning process This study could be of considerable interest to teachers and students at Hong Duc University: (1) to improve the teachers‘ theoretical understanding of foreign language anxiety, especially causes of listening anxiety; (2) to enhance the students‘ awareness of causes of listening anxiety they encounter in foreign language, and from this they can manage their anxiety level in other language skills This study is also significant with respect to the understanding of the students‘ anxiety and the causes of that anxiety, thereby solutions can be suggested to help learners reduce their listening anxiety Hopefully, all given solutions will be more motivating for the students to learn and make progress in listening

1.5 Scope of the Study

A study of the students‘ listening anxiety is such a broad issue investigated by many authors However, in my study, I will focus on the students‘ listening anxiety – its causes and solutions: A study of the first year English majors in the Department of Foreign Language, Hong Duc University, Thanh Hoa

1.6 Structure of the Thesis

The thesis is divided into three parts:

Part 3 is the conclusion which presents a summary of the study and concluding comments derived from the findings of the study It also discusses the limitation of the study and suggestions for further research Finally, some solutions to reduce listening anxiety are suggested

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

The main aim of this chapter is to review the literature on second language anxiety

in general and listening anxiety in particular The chapter starts with a literature review on anxiety This is followed by an overview of listening comprehension The end of the chapter is a discussion of listening comprehension anxiety

1 Overview of Anxiety

1.1 Definition and Types of Anxiety

―Anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described by psychologists as a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object‖ (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971 cited in Scovel, 1991: 18) In another definition, Scovel (1978: 134) suggests that anxiety is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or worry Spielberger (1983), as cited in Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B, and Cope, J (1986: 125), defines anxiety as ―the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system‖

According to many psychologists, anxiety can be experienced at three perspectives

The first one is trait anxiety, which is defined as an individual‘s likelihood of

becoming anxious in any situation (Spielberger,1983 cited in MacIntyre et al 1991, p.87) Some people are generally anxious about many things in a number of different situations Therefore, state anxiety is viewed as ―a steady personality feature‖ (Brown, 2007) Its negative effects are thought to ―impair cognitive functioning, to disrupt memory, to lead to avoidance behaviors, and to have several other effects‖ (Eysenck,1979, in MacIntyre et al 1991: 87)

The second perspective is state anxiety which is ―interested in the here-and-now experience of anxiety as an emotional state‖ (MacIntyre et al 1991, p.87) State anxiety is

an apprehension experienced at a particular moment in time, for example, prior to taking examinations (Spielberger, 1983, cited in MacIntyre et al 1991, p.90)

Finally, situation-specific anxiety is related to apprehension unique to specific

situations and events such as public speaking, examinations, or class participation (Ellis, 1994:480) The last one seems likely to be more closely related to attempts to learn a foreign language and communicate in it

1.2 Foreign Language Anxiety

Research on the affective factors in second language acquisition has been mounting steadily for a number of decades because students are ―physical and cognitive, but

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primarily emotional, being‖ (Rogers, cited in Brown, 2007: 97) ―Among the affective factors influencing language learning, anxiety ranks high‖ (Arnold, 1999: 59) The construct of anxiety has been recognized as one of the most important predictors of foreign language performance

Foreign language anxiety is a universal phenomenon that has a significant factor adversely affecting the language learning process Gardner & MacIntyre (1993, cited in Arnold 1999:59) refer to language anxiety as ―fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language."

Scholars have studied anxiety and its effect on foreign language learning for many years However, ―for all the work conducted in this area, many fundamental questions remain unanswered‖ (Speilmann & Radnofsky, 2001) ―Teachers have long been aware of the fact that many of their students experience discomfort in the course of language learning [yet] researchers have been unable to establish a clear picture of how anxiety affects language learning and performance (Horwitz and Young, 1991, p xiii) Alpert and Haber (1966) determined that anxiety could have a beneficial or facilitative effect on student performance (as cited in Elkhafaifi, 2005, p.208) In 1977, , Kleinmmann‘s (cited

in Aida, 1994) study of Spanish-speaking and Arabic-speaking ESL students found that facilitating anxiety was correlated with students‘ oral production of linguistically difficult (thus challenging) English structures (e.g., infinitive complements and passive sentences) However, there was no evidence that debilitating anxiety negatively influenced oral performance Spielmann and Radnofsky (2001) concluded that anxiety has a detrimental effect on language acquisition Horwitz (2001) reiterated that the issue of understanding the relationship between anxiety and achievement is unresolved

Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B, and Cope, J (1986) conceptualize foreign language anxiety as ‗a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning processes‖ (p.128)

1.3 Components of Foreign Language Anxiety

Horwitz et al (1986) integrated three related anxieties to their conceptualization of foreign language anxiety: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation This conceptualization lay the foundations for the concept of second/ foreign language anxiety, providing an insight to comprehend the sources or causes it can originate from

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1.3.1 Communication Apprehension:

Communication apprehension is one perspective dealing with general concern about problems with communication avoidance and anxiety (McCroskey, 1984) and it has been received substantial attention from communication researcher

According to Brown (2007) communication apprehension refers to ―learners‘ inability to adequately express mature thoughts and ideas‖ when getting into communication with others although they have mature thoughts and ideas, especially in the language learning context McGroskey (1984) defines communication apprehension as a fear or anxiety about actual or anticipated communication with other individual, and is a behavioral trait related to the psychological constructs of shyness and reticence He also points out that typical behavior patterns of communicatively apprehensive people are communication avoidance and communication withdrawal Communicatively apprehensive people are more reluctant to get involved in conversations with others and to seek social interactions than nonapprehensive ones According to Lucas (1984), the unique component of communication apprehension is the metacognitive awareness that, as a speaker and a listener, full comprehension of foreign language message is impossible Therefore, the potential for frustrated or aborted communication is always present Such frustration may even be considered part of the learning process

1.3.2 Test Anxiety

Sarason(1878: 214) defines test anxiety as ―the tendency to view with alarm the consequences of inadequate performance in an evaluation situation‖ Aydin (2008, ….) suggests that test anxiety could be ―a fear of failing in tests and an unpleasant experience held either consciously or unconsciously by learners in many situations‖ Test anxiety concerns apprehension towards academic evaluation which is based on a fear of failure (Horwitz and Young, 1991) According to Young (1991), there are different variables that can affect learners‘ anxiety in a test: the content of the test; particular types of test items or formats; forms of test; students‘ learning or study skills; and students‘ experience of test taking in the past Test anxiety can bring on butterflies, a stomachache, or a tension headache Some people might feel shaky, sweaty, or feel their heart beating quickly during the test situation because they don‘t know how to process or organize the information A student with really strong test anxiety may not be able to focus on what is going on in the

classroom and he can answer incorrectly even though he knows the correct answer

1.3.3 Fear of Negative Evaluation

Among these components, fear of negative evaluation is more broadly based than are the previous two Evaluation, in this case, refers to both the academic and personal

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evaluations made of students on the basis of their performance and competence in the target language (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1991,p.105) Horwitz et al (1986) define fear of negative evaluation as ―apprehension about others‘ evaluation, avoidance of evaluative situations, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively‖ (p.128) They also point out that learners‘ fear of negative evaluation derives from ―the disparity between the language learner‘s ―true-self and his/her more limited self‖ as reflected in linguistic competence in foreign language class‖( p.128) The findings of the study conducted by Aydin (2008) aiming to investigate the sources and levels of fear of negative evaluation as well as language anxiety among Turkish students as EFL learners demonstrated that fear of negative evaluation itself is a strong source of language anxiety Daly and Haily (1983) suggest that the student is more anxious if evaluation is occurring

Horwitz et al (1986) suggest that foreign language anxieties are a separate and distinct process particular to second language acquisition Foreign language anxieties are related to communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety They also believe that these factors have an adverse effect on the students‘ language learning process

2 Overview of Listening Comprehension

2.1 Definition of Listening Comprehension

Although listening is now well recognized as a crucial role in language learning and communication, it has long been neglected by many FL teacher and researchers (Ur,

1884, Krashen, 1985; Underwood, 1989; Rost, 1994; Rubin, 1994, etc.) Before 1960s, the teaching of listening used to be thought the most infertile and least understood aspect of foreign language However, over the last two decades, with a new wave of interest in the development of communicative competence in language teaching, listening comprehension skills have ever received much more attention in language teaching classrooms

Chastain (1971) defines listening comprehension as the ability to understand native speech at normal speed in unstructured situation

According to Buck, G (2002: 31), ―Listening comprehension is an active process

of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound‖ Buck (2001: 247) provide a broader definition of listening comprehension:

―Listening is a complex process in which the listeners takes the incoming data, an acoustic signals, and interprets it based on a wide variety of linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge The linguistic knowledge includes knowledge of phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, discourse structure, pragmatics and sociolinguistics The non-linguistic

According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), there are two influential views related to listening comprehension: traditional view and alternative view In the traditional view, the teaching of listening comprehension centers on what teacher does, and ―student is a mere

by stander or recipient of input during the communication process‖ (Elkhafaifi, 2005: 505) Students just need to receive passively the information provided in the listening materials and it seems they are seldom required to use the language by themselves in listening classes Most listening lessons take the form of simply having the students listen and then answer comprehension questions This view is criticized as inappropriate and inadequate (Anderson and Lynch, 1988; Elkhafaifi, 2005,… ) On the other hand, alternative view considered the listener as an active model builder Listener needs to get involve actively in the interpretation of what they hear, bring his own background knowledge and linguistic competence to reach full comprehension of what had been heard Most scholars now agree with this view

In a word, listening comprehension involves to an active process of listening for meaning, using both the linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge According to Buck (2001:1-2), linguistic knowledge consists of different types such as phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure Nonlinguistic knowledge includes the

―knowledge about the topic, about the content, and general knowledge about the world and how it works‖

2.2 Significance of Listening Comprehension

Listening plays a very important role in student‘s academic success This is true according to Krashen (1980) providing a large amount of listening or comprehension input that is the raw material necessary for the process to occur was the best way to learn a second language because of its contribution to the development of the overall language proficiency (Rost, 2002) Rost (1994) also pinpointed the importance of listening in the language classroom as the supplier of supplied the input for students Without comprehension input at the right level, learning cannot work well Students spend most of their time listening to the teacher‘s lecture Nichols and Stevens (see Elkhafaifi, 2005: 505)

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reported data on how students spend their communicative time among four language skills

in language learning: listening is the most frequently used skill, 45% is devoted to listening, 30% to speaking, only 16% to reading and a mere 9% to writing Therefore, listening is a fundamental and vital skill in the acquisition of languages (Nunan, 2002) Furthermore, listening skills help listeners develop their communicative competence ―Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is being said is comprehended by another person‖ (Rivers 1966: 196) As a result, listening in EFL learning becomes a vital prerequisite of good speaking ability A large amount of listening practice before speaking and reading may help learner acquire a second language with a greater efficiency Through listening exercises, learners draw their attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction pattern), this provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of their language skills The lack of listening comprehension skill may lead to difficulties in discussion and communication Therefore, listening has been shown to play a key role in language learning

2.3 The Listening Comprehension Process:

2.3.1 Two Levels View: Bottom-up and Top-down Processing

The processing of listening comprehension has often been viewed as interactive process taking place simultaneously between two levels: bottom-up processing and top-down processing

In bottom-up processing, listening processing is formed hierarchically, from the lowest level of detail to the highest level The new incoming data is first decoded into phonemes (the smallest meaningful unit), and then phonemic units are connected together

to construct individual words Next, a group of words are connected to form phrases, which make up sentences These sentences build a meaningful and complete text The meaning of the spoken text is derived as the last step in the process ―The listener interprets that literal meaning in terms of the communicative situation to understand what the speaker

means.‖ (Buck, 2001: 2)

On the other hand, top-down processing refers to utilizing schemata which was known as a learner‘s background knowledge and global understanding to deduce the meaning from and interpret the message (Nunan, 2002)

To become an effective listener, student should be very careful not to go overboard with top-down at the expense of bottom-up The reason for this is that listening comprehension is the result of an interactive process of bottom-up processing and top-down processing by employing both linguistic and non-linguistic information to make sense of the incoming message Brown (2006:2) explained more about this, ―students must

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hear some sounds (bottom-up processing), hold them in their working memory long enough (a few seconds) to connect them to each other and then interpret what they‘ve just heard before something new comes along At that time, listeners are using their background knowledge (top-down processing) to determine meaning with respect to prior knowledge and schemata‖

2.3.2 A Sequential Process of Listening

From a cognitive view, listening comprehension is believed to follow a natural order of acquisition, reflecting the process of first language acquisition For instance, it is recognized by Anderson (1983) that the listening comprehension process is divided into three stages: the perceptual, parsing, and utilization During the perceptional phase, listener pays close attention to spoken message and preserves the sound in echoic memory Because the echoic memory is extremely limited, listener almost immediately starts to process the sounds for meaning In the next stage, the parsing phase, listener uses words and phrases to construct meaningful mental representations Listener decomposes the information into a meaningful unit that could be stored in short-term memory In the utilization phase, the final stage, listener utilizes long-term memory in order to connect the incoming message to their existing knowledge If the new input and existing knowledge matched, comprehension occurred

Willis (1981:134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she calls enabling skills They are:

- predicting what people are going to talk about

- guessing at unknown words or phrases without panicking

- using one‘s own knowledge of the subject to help one understand

- identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information

- retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)

- recognizing discourse markers, e.g., Well; Oh, another thing is; Now, finally; etc

- recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as and which, including link words, pronouns, references, etc

- understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which give clues

to meaning and social setting

- understanding inferred information, e.g., speakers‘ attitude or intentions

3 Listening Anxiety

3.1 Related Studies of Language Anxiety in Listening Skill

Listening in a FL is a less thoroughly studied skill in general by researchers However, they come to a consensus that anxiety impedes listening comprehension

of a target language message‖ (p 126) One male student said that he heard ―only a loud buzz‖ (p.126) when his instructor was speaking, and anxious students also told of problems with comprehending the content of L2 messages and with understanding their teachers in

―extended target language utterances‖ (p 126) Over one third (35%) of the participants expressed their fear of not being able to ―understand what the teacher is saying in the foreign language‖ (item 4), and over a quarter (27%) said they were nervous when they did not ―understand every word‖ uttered by the teacher (item 29) (Horwitz et al., 1986, pp 129-130) They suggested that instructors help students cope with anxiety-producing situations and make the learning context less stressful

Vogely (1998) looked at sources of listening anxiety among learners of Spanish at

an American university, as reported by the students themselves With regard to student responses about sources of anxiety, listening anxiety was associated with four principal categories: characteristics of FL input (nature of the speech, level of difficulty, lack of clarity, lack of visual support, and lack of repetition); process of foreign language learning; instructional factors; and attributes of the teacher or learner‖ When asked to suggest how their listening anxiety could be reduced, about a third of the students' responses focused on input-related factors, such as making the input more informal and ungraded, selecting familiar and meaningful topics, and using known vocabulary Some students claimed that they needed the help of some visual aid to help with the listening task Students reported feeling anxious if they could only listen to texts twice before having to respond

Elkhafaifi (2005) made an investigation about listening anxiety involving 233 North American university learners of Arabic The result showed that ―students with higher levels of FL anxiety tended to have higher levels of listening anxiety and vice versa‖ (p 211) There was a ―reasonable amount of overlap‖ (p 214) between the two anxiety measures, as they shared about 44% of the variance, but about 56% of the variance was not shared This led him to assert that listening anxiety was a distinct phenomenon from general foreign language anxiety He also suggested that listening anxiety could be reduced by providing learners comprehensible input, more listening practice and listening strategies as well as a less stressful classroom environment

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3.2 Causes of Listening Anxiety

There is growing support for the view that listening comprehension is not only an essential skill but a prerequisite for oral proficiency as well Most learners of English as a foreign language experience considerable difficulties in listening comprehension, and these difficulties appear to be main causes of anxiety which should be taken into consideration

In order to help students facilitate their listening comprehension skills as well English proficiency, it is crucial to identify problems which listeners face in understanding the spoken language

Over the last two decades, many foreign language studies have been conducted to find out the specific factors on the relative success or failure of learner comprehension during listening (Ur, 1984; Underwood, 1989; Rubin, 1994; …) According to Underwood (1989: 16-19), seven problems learner may encounter when learning to listen: fast speed; unrepeated thing; the listeners‘ limited vocabulary; failure to recognize the ―signals‖; interpretation; concentrate; and learning habit Underwood (1989) sees these problems as being related to learners‘ different background such as their culture and education After reviewing over 130 studies, Rubin (1994) believes there are five factors that affect listening comprehension: (1) text characteristics such as speech rate, pause phenomena and hesitation, level of perception, sandhi, stress and rhythmic patterning perception, L1/L2 difference, syntactic modifications, redundancy, morphological complexity, word order, discourse markers, and visual support for texts, (2) interlocutor characteristics such as gender and language proficiency, (3) task characteristics such as task type, (4)listener characteristics such as language proficiency level, memory, attention, affect, age, gender, learning disability in L1, and background knowledge; and (5) process characteristics top-down, bottom-up, and parallel processing, listening strategies, and negotiation of comprehensible input

Brown and Yule (1983:74) propose four main groups of factors including the speaker (speech rate, varied accent), the listener, the content (vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge), and support (whether there are pictures, diagrams visual aids ) can cause difficulty in listening comprehension Yagang (1994) attributes the difficulty of listening comprehension to four sources: the message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting (or listening environment) The author of this study also believe that these four sources could make the first year English major students at Hong Duc University more nervous and anxious while listening to the target language They will be discussed as followed

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3.2.1 Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text Factors

a) Complexity and Difficulty of the Lexis and Syntax

One of the most obvious sources of difficulty for learners of English is the complexity and difficulty of the lexis and syntax Meeting unknown sounds, lexis and syntax, FL learners ―seem to work much harder than necessary aiming for accurate perception and interpretation of every word they hear‖ (Ur, 1984, p.19) Thus, fatigue may come from ―how hard the learner need to concentrate‖ (Ur, 1984, p.19) The listening texts which do not match the students‘ current proficiency level may lead to failure in understanding listeners‘ progress For many learners, knowing the meaning of words in the text is decisive for their comprehension; and ―an unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech‖ (Underwood, 1989, p.17) ―Their perceptions of their own listening ability are often directly affected by how well they think they can understand content words in a text.‖ (Goh,….:24) As a result, they are probably less successful than listeners who get the meaning from the listening text without focusing much on the language

b) Uninterested or Unfamiliar Topic

A topic which is uninterested or unfamiliar often makes FL learners get tired and feel discouraged from listening process, because they find it ―more difficult to make inferences, and comprehension will be more dependent on interpreting the linguistic information‖ (Buck, 2001, p.20) Uninterested or unfamiliar topic can interfere with the learner‘s concentration which is a major problem in listening activity because even the shortest break in attention can seriously affect listening comprehension process According

to Underwood (1989), ―If students find the topic interesting, they will find concentration easier.‖ Interesting topic makes listening activities enjoyable; students become engaged in classroom activities, therefore it is a good way to minimize the harmful effect In the study

of Schmidt-Rinehard (1994) on correlation between listener‘s comprehension and topic familiarity, he suggested that all subjects score higher on familiar passage while the unfamiliar topics, such as cultural or linguistic oral output, make comprehension difficult

c) Visual Support

Another barrier associated with listening text is the lack of visual support Visual support can be not only a picture or video, diagrams, charts, but also gestures and facial expressions,… ―A picture is a relatively primitive way of conveying information and readily understood‖ (Ur, 1984, p.59) Through a video, learners ―will see whether the speakers are young or old, happy or angry, requesting or complaining‖ (Underwood, 1989,

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p.96) They also see the physical context, the speaker‘s reaction, facial expressions and

gestures

Studies have suggested that visual support can enhance listening comprehension

and increase motivation and attention levels Students get more involved in the listening

process, because they can predict what the speaker is going to talk about; they are given

some useful hints about the messages ―Visual support can aid language learners,

especially less proficient learners, and it is particularly helpful with more difficult texts‖

(Rubin, 1995, cited in Buck, 2001, p.47)

3.2.2 Listening Anxiety associated with Speakers factors

a) Fast Speech Rate

Studies on listening comprehension agree that speech rate can affect listening

comprehension ―Most research quotes a normal speech rate of 165 to 180 words per

minute for the native speakers of English‖ (Rubin, 1994: 200) and ―the speech faster than

two-hundred w.p.m is hard for lower-intermediate learners to understand… and students

performed best at 127 w.p.m.‖ (Griffiths, 1990 as cited in Rubin, 1994, p.200)

Most English language learners consider the rapid speech of native speaker to be a

major cause of their listening difficulties This happens to the fact that many learners

always expect ―to hear every word, including words the speakers had deliberately not

emphasize‖ (Goh, ….:27) ―They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what

they hear that they miss the next part Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they

fail to sort it all out quickly enough Either way, they fail.‖ They could ―have further

compounded the students‘ difficulties‖

Kelch (1985) examined speech rate under controlled conditions in an L2 situation

He proposed that slower speech, with its features of clearer articulation, fewer vowel

reductions, and more easily identifiable word boundaries, may offer greater facility of

comprehension for L2 listeners Hatch (1983) also suggested that the advantages of slower

speech to L2 listeners include more processing time and clearer segmentation of the

structures in the input In a word, one of the factors affecting listening comprehension is

speech rate

b) Phonological Modifications

―In rapid speech, adjacent sounds influence each other‖ (Buck, 2001, p.32)

Phonological modification, one language phenomenon which is observed in the informal

speech of native speakers, is believed to influence ESL learners‘ comprehension of input

According to Buck (2001:33), the more informal situations is, the more modification the

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speakers will tend to have Buck points out that the most important modifications include the following:

Assimilation: when sounds influence the pronunciation of adjacent sounds For

example, the reader may read the phrase, "gave her," but the listener may hear "gaver";

―What are you going to do?‖ will be ―wadjagonnado?‖

Elision: when sounds are dropped in fast speech For example, For example, the

reader may read the phrase "kept talking," but the listener will hear "keptalking.", ―tomato‖ will be ―tmato‖

He further point out that infusion as well as a strong form and wea

k form also make phonology change The modifications to pronunciation that take place during fast speech, especially informal speech, are quite extensive A missing word always affects the learner‘s listening process and anxiety

c) Unfamiliar Accents

The speaker‘s accent is unfamiliar to the learner when words are pronounced in non-standard manner It is clear that Vietnamese pronounce English differently from Indians, and is different again British or Americans because of different places‘ different accents However, the problem arises popularly when FL learners are too accustomed to their teacher‘ accent, come across the pronunciation of the native speakers characterized by fast rate of delivery, unstructured language with incomplete sentences, and false starts, and hesitations (Underwood, 1989) ―When listeners hear an unfamiliar accent This can cause problems and may disrupt the whole comprehension process An unfamiliar accent can make comprehension almost impossible for the listener‖ (Buck, 2001, p 35)

d) Hesitation and Pause Phenomena (usually grouped together)

According to Buck (2001, 41) ―hesitation phenomena can present a major comprehension difficulty to non-native speakers who are listening to spontaneous speech‖

He also further states that:

certain types of hesitation phenomena can aid comprehension When one-second pauses were introduced into a text at the juncture between clauses, comprehension improved, while pauses inserted randomly into the text resulted in lower levels of comprehension (Friedman and Johnson, 1971; Johnson and Friedman, 1971) Listening message with pause and hesitation phenomena reduces the speaker‘s speed slower The listener, therefore, may decode the message more smoothly and be easier to comprehend

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3.2.3 Listening Anxiety associated with Listener Factors

―Listener characteristics appear to have considerable impact on an individual‘s listening comprehension‖ (Rubin, 1994, p.206)

a) Limited Vocabulary

Restriction of vocabulary is the common problem for the students The words they

listened to perhaps are the new words that are unfamiliar Just as Underwood (1989:17) said, ―For people listening to a foreign language, an unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech‖

b) Memory

There is ample theoretical evidence that memory is important in listening comprehension According to scholars, for example Buck (2001:26); Nagle and Sanders (1986); Anderson (1985) memory has been characterized in three ways: Acoustic input is held briefly in echoic memory, where it is retained and stored for further processing in short-term memory After simple processing, information is finally stored in long-term memory as schema for future decoding and comprehending new information Call (1985) pointed out that short-term memory appears to be the most important in listening comprehension Call‘s (1985: 769) study on the relationship between short-term memory and listening comprehension avers that:

memory span for target language input is shorter than for native language input, the amount of target language input that can be successfully processed seems to increase as proficiency in the language increases A corollary of this finding is that length of memory span for linguistic input is a good indicator of overall language proficiency Knowledge of target language syntax seems to be an important factor

in increasing the amount of linguistic material that can be retained in short-term memory

Rivers (1981) also had the same idea with Call, he stated that linguistic elements are not sufficient for comprehending the spoken message Listeners must retain these elements in short-term memory long enough to interpret the utterance to which they are attending

c) Background knowledge

The lack of background knowledge, which is also called prior knowledge or schemata, may impede student performance It explained up to 81% of the variance in

posttest scores (Dochy, Segers & Buehl, 1999) ―To make sense of the rapid-fire noise that

comes from oral speech, learners often try to find an overall schema Even at the word,

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phrase, or sentence level students attempt to associate prior knowledge of the language

with the incoming noise‖ (Rubin, 1994, p.209) As suggested by Underwood (1989: 19),

students who are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in interpreting the words they hear even when they can understand their ‗surface‘ meaning… The meaning of non-verbal clues –facial expression, nods, gestures, tone of voice – can easily be misinterpreted by listeners from other cultures On the other hand, if the incoming information is unfamiliar, it cannot evoke the listener‘s schemata and thus, he must depend heavily on his linguistic ability in listening comprehension to interpret and analyze the information

Goh (1998) investigated the cognitive and metacognitive strategies and tactics used

by Chinese ESL learners in a university in Singapore and she compared the use of these strategies and tactics by high- and low- ability listeners The result revealed that high-ability listeners used more strategies and tactics than low ability ones

3.2.4 Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Environment

There are some certain factors related to listening environment that can take the listeners‘ mind off the content of the listening passage, and thus lead to frustration for students and teachers alike The barriers are listed as follow

- large classroom,

- recordings played on poor quality machine,

- background noises such as other classmates, walking, talking, coughing, shuffling books, entering and leaving the room, some neon lights having a low buzz, dogs barking and traffic from public places, and so on

- extreme temperatures, an uncomfortable sitting position,

According to Buck (2001, p.180), if the sound quality is poor, listeners ―will have difficulty hearing and understanding In such case their performance may not present their actual ability.‖ It is no use making good recordings and then playing them on inadequate equipment.(Buck, 2001, p.190)

3.3 Instructional Approaches for Listening Anxiety Reduction

Some instructors who already recognize that many students experience anxiety in their classes have proposed ways of reducing listening anxiety For example, according to

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Elkhafaifi (2005), providing comprehensible input, teaching listening strategies and letting students have more practice; paying attention to the selection of listening passage, especially when using authentic materials, etc can reduce the level of tension and anxiety

in the classroom Besides, providing various forms of support for learners as preparatory activities, question preview and repeated input (Chang & Read, 2008); making learning context less stressful (Horwitz et al.,1986) also make the situation better Horwitz (2010) averred that some practices perceived as comfortable by one group of learners may prove stressful for a group from a different background

In short, the chapter reviews the literature on many issues related to anxiety and listening anxiety These include a definition of foreign language anxiety and its components, definition of listening comprehension and its process, factors related to listening comprehension and empirical evidence of listening comprehension anxiety that has been reported by other researchers This knowledge, therefore, serves as a basic for further work in the later chapters

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CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

This chapter presents the study It includes information about the participants, the data collection instrument, the procedure, the data analysis and the findings

1 Participants

Thirty students participated in this study These participants were freshman students of the 2009-2010 academic years They were studying English as their major at the university All of them were in one group, and this was the only group who were in their first year at the university In fact, there were 32 students in this group, but two students were absent on the day the questionnaire was administered All of them were female

2 Data Gathering Instruments

The instrument used in this study were: (1) a questionnaire, (2) informal interviews with the students

The questionnaire consists of three parts First, the students responded about their general listening anxiety Second, the subjects were asked to identify their problems that increase their anxiety in listening classes by responding to statements on the basis of the five-point scale (never, seldom, sometimes, often, and always) Third, students give their personal information about gender and attitudes toward listening skills The questionnaire was designed after a review of the literature (see references of this research) about factors viewed as causing anxiety that influence listening comprehension The data obtained from the questionnaire was tabulated, presented, and frequencies and percentages were calculated

The informal interviews with the students were conducted in the form of electronic interviews The major concerns were their opinions of why each problem of listening skills, which was shown in the second part of the questionnaire, made them nervous and stressful in listening classes The data obtained from the informal interviews was transcribed and analyzed so that the author of this study could gain a deep understanding of the problems, from those giving possible solutions to help students alleviate their anxiety

In the analysis, a numerical system was applied to identify each data entry Their answers were translated into English The code for each account indicated the learner ID which is assigned by the researcher For example, "S1‖, ―S2‖, ―S30" stand for the first, second and thirtieth student, respectively

3 Procedures

First, the questionnaire was administered in class when students were just completing the second-term of the academic year of 2010 The entire procedure took about

4 Techniques of Data Analysis

The data obtained through the questionnaire, the interview were organized and analyzed While the data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, the data obtained from the interview were analyzed qualitatively And the results of the instruments identified the listening factors viewed as causing anxiety that affected the first-year English majors at Hong Duc University

5 Data Analysis and Findings

5.1 Students’ Attitudes toward Listening Skills

2 Listening skill is…

the most difficult skill

as difficult as other skills

easier than other skills easy

3 How is listening skill important to you?

Very important Rather important Little important Not important at

all

4 How do you enjoy listening to English?

Table 1: Students’ attitudes toward listening skills

As it is indicated clearly in table 1, an overwhelming number of the students (83%) viewed listening as the most difficult skill The rest of the students (17%) reported that listening skill is as difficult as other skills (reading, speaking, writing), and none of them considered listening skill to be an easy one or easier than other language skills The main

Next, almost of the students (97%) viewed listening as a very important skill Only one student, accounting for 3%, responded that listening is rather important This result shows that all students were aware the importance of listening skills in learning a foreign language Last, the third question (Item 4) was asked to show the students‘ interest in listening to English All of the students (100%) responded that they enjoyed listening to English, however only 27% of them expressed their great love for listening to English Through the interviews, most students responded that they had some certain difficulties while listening to English, and these difficulties are believed to affect their enjoyment in listening to English

In a word, the students were interested in learning listening skill They realized the importance and necessary of learning listening skill in EFL acquisition process All of them had good attitudes to listening skill

5.2 Students’ General Listening Anxiety

a) Students’ feelings about their listening skills

Table 2: Students’ feelings about their listening skills

It can be seen from table 2, anxious students always underestimated their ability None of the students (0%) was completely satisfied with their current listening

comprehension ability (Item 8), only 13% felt comfortable in the listening classes (Item 9)

I feel nervous when I listen to English

8 I am completely satisfied with my current

listening comprehension ability

0 0 30 100

9 I feel comfortable in my listening classes 4 13 26 87