difficulties while doing the TOEIC listening test that the thirdyear English major students

This research is aimed at how to improve listeningskills of third-year English major students in TOEIC listening test to meet programoutcome standards at Thuongmai University.. The main

Currently, the TOEIC certificate is considered as the standard to evaluate theEnglish proficiency level of workers According to ETS website, nearly 14,000companies and organizations in 150 countries around the world, including Vietnam,have recognized the TOEIC certificate Stemming from that fact, in Vietnam, thecertificate has been used by almost all universities and colleges as English outcomestandard for graduates In particular, listening skills in the TOEIC test is considered thehardest part Therefore, it is extremely necessary to practice listening comprehensionskills Mastering the listening skills is not straightforward since it consumes time andeffort

Recognizing the importance of listening comprehension skills in the TOEIC test,the researcher conducted this study This research is aimed at how to improve listeningskills of third-year English major students in TOEIC listening test to meet programoutcome standards at Thuongmai University The study was carried out among 60randomly selected third-year English majors at Thuongmai University The data wascollected by both quantitative and qualitative methods from 2 sources: surveyquestionnaires and interview questions The main findings of the study are difficultieswhile doing the TOEIC listening test that the third-year English major students mayencounter and feasible solutions to improve their listening skills in the TOEIC test.The researcher hopes that, with this study, English-major students will be aware

of the vital skills for the TOEIC listening test and find new ways to overcome all thedifficulties in order to be confident to enter the TOEIC exam and meet programoutcome standards at Thuongmai University

During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received muchnecessary assistance as well as precious ideas from my teachers, family, and friends.Their kindly help and encouragement gave me strength and lift me to complete thisgraduate paper

First of all, I would like to send my sincere thanks to all teachers at the EnglishFaculty of Thuongmai University for creating a convenient and efficient learningenvironment for all students, providing us favorable conditions to fulfill thisgraduation paper Especially, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to mysupervisor Mrs Luong Thi Minh Phuong, M.A for her whole-hearted assistance,thoughtful advice and comments Her insightful guidance was very precious for me toimprove my understanding of this subject Without her support and instructions, thestudy would have never been done effectively

Besides, this research could not be completed without the enthusiasticcooperation of third-year English major students at Thuongmai University Therefore, Iwould like to present my deepest gratefulness to all of them for enthusiasticcooperation and support in finishing the survey questionnaires and interviewquestions

Finally, I would love to express my special thanks to my family and friends fortheir endless love and motivation I am grateful to all of them who encouraged andgave me much useful advice as well as enthusiastic support during the time I carriedout this graduation paper

Hanoi, April 2 nd 2021.

Student

Do Huyen Trang

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.2.1 International studies 2

1.2.2 Domestic studies 3

1.3 Aims of the study 4

1.4 Research subjects 5

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Research methodology 5

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 7

2.1 Listening skills 7

2.1.1 Definition of listening 7

2.1.2 Nature of listening comprehension 7

2.1.3 Types of listening 8

2.2 The TOEIC test 9

2.2.1 Overview of the TOEIC test 9

2.2.2 Listening comprehension in the TOEIC test 10

2.3 Some problems of listening comprehension 11

2.3.1 Quickly forgetting what is heard 11

2.3.2 Not recognizing the words they know 11

2.3.3 Not understanding the intended message 12

2.3.4 Missing information of next parts while thinking about the current part 12

2.4 Factors affecting English majors’ listening comprehension skills 12

2.4.1 Quality of recorded materials 12

2.4.2 Length and speed of recorded materials 13

2.4.3 Accent 13

2.4.4 Cultural difference 13

2.4.5 Limited background knowledge: Grammar, Pronunciation, Vocabulary 14

2.4.6 Concentration 14

2.5 Program outcome standards 15

2.5.1 Definition of program outcome standards 15

2.5.2 Program outcome standards of English-major students at Thuongmai University 15

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH FINDINGS & DISCUSSION 16

3.1 Research methodologies 16

3.1.1 Participants 16

3.1.2 Data collection instruments 16

3.1.3 Data collection process 17

3.2 Research findings 17

3.2.1 Results from survey questionnaires 18

3.2.2 Results from interview questions 29

3.2.3 Discussion 30

CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 34

4.1 Recommendations and suggestions to improve the third-year English majors’ listening skills in the TOEIC listening test 34

CONCLUSION 38 REFERENCES VII APPENDIX IX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

No

.

Abbreviated

1 TOEIC Test of English for International

Trường Đại học Kinh tế

và Quản trị Kinh Doanh – Đại học Thái Nguyên

Hải Phòng

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

1 Chart 3.1 Time to know about the TOEIC test of English majors 18

2 Chart 3.2 English majors’ perception of the importance of listening

3 Chart 3.3 Practicing time the TOEIC listening test of English majors 20

4 Chart 3.4 English majors’ assessment on the difficulty of listening

5 Chart 3.5 The English majors’ evaluation of the hardest part of the

6 Chart 3.6

The effect of the knowledge and skills that English majorshave learned on the results of the TOEIC listening tests 23

7 Table 3.1 The problems that English majors encounter while doing

8 Table 3.2 Students’ personal causes leading to difficulties while

9 Table 3.3 Strategies applied by students while doing the TOEIC

10 Table 3.4 Effective ways to improve students’ listening skills in the

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

English is a global language used by millions of people all over the world It isconsidered a bridge to connect countries around the world and has a positive impact onexchanging and cooperating among countries In the current international integrationsituation, mastering English is the best way for us to have a great deal of opportunities

to strongly develop

Facts have shown that English proficiency tests such as the Test of English forInternational Communication (TOEIC), the Test of English as a Foreign Language(TOEFL) and the International English Language Test System (IELTS) are currentlyvery common in both universities and companies as well as corporations, especiallythe TOEIC test The TOEIC certificate has been used by almost all universities as theEnglish outcome standard Furthermore, the TOEIC certificate is a mandatoryadmission requirement for many companies and used to periodically assess the Englishproficiency of their employees It is also a condition to consider salary increases fortheir employees

At Thuongmai University, program outcome standards for English-majorstudents are TOEIC 800 or IELTS 6.5 Students must achieve one of these twostandards to be eligible to graduate Reality, the majority of English majors choose theTOEIC certificate since it is similar to Business English major Nevertheless, in fact,many students are not good at TOEIC listening part They encounter a lot ofdifficulties while doing the TOEIC listening test and find it hard to conquer the TOEIClistening test

There have been plenty of researches in the field of improving the TOEIClistening skills but there are still gaps in these researches For all reasons, I decided to

conduct the topic: “A study on how to improve listening skills of third-year English

major students in TOEIC listening test to meet program outcome standards at Thuongmai University” I hope that this research would be useful for many students

and can partly help them improve their listening skills while doing the TOEIClistening test to meet program outcome standards

1.2 Previous studies

There have been many researches on how to improve listening skills in theTOEIC listening tests I quote some of the following researches and have mycomments:

1.2.1 International studies

Related to listening skills, Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani & Narjes Banou Sabouri

(2016) implemented the study: “Learners’ listening comprehension difficulties in English language learning” The study analyzed aspects of listening and listening comprehension, presented listening comprehension strategies including: cognitive

strategies, metacognitive strategies, socio-affective strategies The research showedmajor problems that learners faced with listening comprehension and offered someuseful suggestions for students to overcome difficulties The above issues werepresented in great detail and complete by the researcher However, in my opinion, with

a wide scope of research as learners, for each part of research, to make the studyclearer, the researcher should classify subjects by age such as high school students oruniversity students, etc In addition, the researcher did not use research methods such

as interviews, questionnaires and express findings in percentages This may preventthe reader from fully understanding the problem when only gathering informationfrom previous studies to analyze this research

Abbas Pourhossein Gilakjani & Mohammad Reza Ahmadi (2011) conducted the

study: “A study of factors affecting EFL Learners’ English listening comprehension and the strategies for improvement” The study explained the factors influencing

English listening comprehension and the strategies that might help students improvetheir listening comprehension Teaching methods, teaching activities and generalprinciples in teaching listening comprehension were fully discussed Nevertheless, thefindings based on the review of the literature along with analysis of the data;percentages were not performed The researcher did not use quantitative andqualitative methods to conduct the study As a result, the research might lackobjectivity

Another study titled “A study of English listening problems and listening proficiency of business students at Bangkok University” (2011) by Asst Prof Watjana

proficiency of business students at Bangkok University The researcher usedquestionnaire, IELTS Test and interview as tools to collect data The result of the studyrevealed that listening text was the main reason that caused some listening problemsfor business students In addition, lack of practicing listening skills and lack ofexposure to different kinds of listening materials were the factors that mostly causedlistening problems However, this study focused mainly on solutions for teachers torecognize listening problems of business students rather than providing solutions tohelp business students improve their listening skills According to me, the researchershould recommend some practical solutions for business students to improve theirlistening proficiency Furthermore, the participants of this study were 30 fourth-yearstudents from the Business English program at Bangkok University In my opinion, theresearcher should increase the number of participants to ensure the accuracy andobjectivity of the study.

1.2.2 Domestic studies

Duong Thanh Hao (2016) conducted the study entitled “Difficulties encountered

in TOEIC listening test by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration – Thai Nguyen University” The study investigated

difficulties in TOEIC listening comprehension encountered by a group of 50sophomore students of TUEBA The data was gathered by 3 methods including:listening test papers, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews The resultsshowed that the major TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties faced by thesecond-year students at TUEBA were general linguistic ability, background knowledgeand facilities While doing the TOEIC test, the participants normally applied somestrategies such as: guessing or predicting, identifying types of questions in part 2, andlistening for details In this study, findings provided data analysis in detail and athorough discussion was presented In general, this is a complete and practicalresearch

Nguyen Thi Trang (2010) implemented the study: “How to improve listening skills in TOEIC test in the case of: Questions and Responses, Short conversations”.

The main goal of this research paper was to provide students suggested glossaryconference to improve listening skills, particularly for 2 parts: Questions-Responsesand Short conversations in TOEIC test level 2 for non-English major students The

study provided the theory of listening comprehension, focusing on listening part 2 and

3 in the TOEIC test, structure of each part and some tips to do it The study alsopresented the reality of listening in the TOEIC test of non-English major students atHaiphong Private University (HPU) with specific facts and figures Moreover, theresearcher provided specific communicative situations to enhance communicativeskills as well as listening skills in the TOEIC test The researcher used some researchmethods such as: quantitative method, collected reference, books, websites anddocuments but did not use qualitative method in this study

Nhu Ha Phuong (2012) conducted the research entitled: “Common errors made

by pre-intermediate students in the TOEIC listening test and some suggested solutions” The study was implemented to explore the students’ perception of the

TOEIC listening test, research the errors that pre-intermediate students at HaiphongForeign Language Centre often make while taking the TOEIC listening test In thisstudy, both quantitative and qualitative methods, including a survey questionnaire,students’ TOEIC listening test papers and semi-structured interviews, were used tocollect data The main method used in this study was the quantitative one In general,the organization and content of this research paper are quite clear, useful and easy tounderstand

1.3 Aims of the study

The research is carried out with the expectation of exploring the typical problems

as well as difficulties faced by the third-year English majors at Thuongmai Universitywhile doing the TOEIC listening test Furthermore, this study is implemented to findout the reasons or factors for these difficulties Some practical suggestions areexpressed to provide solutions for the third-year English majors to improve listeningskills In general, this study is conducted to deal with three main questions:

- What is the attitude of the third-year English majors toward TOEIC listeningcomprehension skills?

- What are the real-life difficulties faced by the third-year English majors whiledoing the TOEIC listening test and reasons?

- What are some feasible solutions to improve the TOEIC listeningcomprehension skills of the third-year English Faculty students?

1.4 Research subjects

The research subjects of the study are listening skills of the third-year Englishmajor students in TOEIC listening test to meet program outcome standards atThuongmai University Research shows the common problems, difficulties that thethird-year English majors may encounter when taking TOEIC listening tests, indicatesfactors leading to the TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties and suggestssolutions to improve their listening skills

1.5 Scope of the study

The study focuses on the TOEIC listening comprehension skills Due to thelimitation of time, the study was carried out among 60 randomly selected third-yearEnglish majors at Thuongmai University The research focuses on difficulties whiledoing the TOEIC listening test that the third-year English majors may encounter andsuggests feasible solutions to improve their listening skills in the TOEIC test Theground for investigation in this study is the need to meet program outcome standards

of the third-year English Faculty students

1.6 Research methodology

- Data collection instruments: The data was collected by both quantitative and

qualitative methods from 2 sources: survey questionnaires and interview questionswith the participation of 60 third-year English majors at TMU The main method inthis study is quantitative one A combination of these two methods will provideaccurate data In addition, to complete this study, collected references, websites,documents related to the TOEIC test were analyzed in detail

- Data analysis: The collected data from the questionnaires was analyzed by

using calculation and synthesis tools to convert results into percentages and then theresearcher displayed the analysis results in the form of tables, charts Relating theinterview questions, the responses were analyzed qualitatively

1.7 Organization of the study

The study consists of four chapters as below:

- Chapter 1: Overview of the study: This chapter provides a general overview of

the study and is divided into 7 sections that consist of: rationale, previous studies, aims

of the study, research subject, scope of the study, research methodology, andorganization of the study

- Chapter 2: Theoretical background: In this second chapter, all the relevant

background of the research is presented The chapter provides the most completeknowledge base of listening skills in the TOEIC listening test, related problems anddifficulties, factors leading to the difficulties while doing the TOEIC listening test and

an overview of English Faculty program outcome standards

- Chapter 3: Research findings & Discussion: This chapter focuses on analyzing

research results and it is also the major part of the study Besides, chapter 3 will give ageneral evaluation of research findings The figures which were collected from thestudy would be shown and analyzed in this chapter This is the crucial part of all thestudies

- Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions: There are several suggestions

and recommendations for improving the listening skills of the third-year Englishmajors that would be given

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identifyand understand the meaning in any given message.”

To sum up, listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages inthe communication process Listening is key to all effective communication, withoutthe ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood Listening is the part

in communication, through listening, we can share our ideas with other people.Listening is the most frequently used language skill in everyday life

2.1.2 Nature of listening comprehension

Various authors have described the word “listening comprehension” Rost (2002)and Hamouda (2013) believed that: “Listening comprehension is an interactive process

in which listeners are involved in constructing meaning Listeners comprehend the oralinput through sound discrimination, previous knowledge, grammatical structures,stress and intonation, and the other linguistic or non-linguistic clues” According toNadig (2013), listening comprehension is the various processes of understanding andmaking sense of spoken language These involve knowing speech sounds,

comprehending the meaning of individual words, and understanding the syntax ofsentences In short, listening comprehension is a cognitive, or rather an interactiveprocess of constructing meanings that the speaker intends, through the completeinvolvement of the hearer.

2.1.3 Types of listening

According to Stephen, Lucas (1998), we can identify four types of listening:

- Empathetic listening: As stated by Stephen, Lucas (1998), listening

empathetically means that the listeners is trying to comprehend the beliefs andemotions of others to convince them share their deeply personal aspects to us So, weneed to demonstrate our empathy in our demeanor towards them, by asking themsensitively to encourage self- disclosure “Empathic listening provides emotionalsupport for the speaker, as when a psychiatrist listens to a patient or when we lend a

sympathetic ear to a friend in distress.” (Stephen, Lucas, 1998, 58)

- Comprehensive listening: As claimed by Stephen, Lucas (1998), after the stage

of discriminating between the different sounds of a message, come this type oflistening which is the comprehensive one; seeking to make sense of these sounds Tocomprehend, the meaning requires first having a lexicon of words, all rules ofgrammar and syntax in addition to the visual components of communication Stephenand Lucas (1998) mentioned: “Comprehensive listening is devoted for understandingthe message of a speaker, as when we attend a classroom lecture.”

- Appreciative listening: In the view of Stephen, Lucas (1998), appreciative

listening includes listening to music for enjoyment to speakers because you like theirstyles, to your choices in theatre, television, radio, or films It is the response of thelistener not the source of the message that defines appreciative listening Generallyspeaking, we use appreciative listening when we seek information which we willappreciate for example that which helps meet our needs and goals Stephen and Lucas(1998) defined appreciative listening: “Listening for pleasure or enjoyment, as when

we listen to music, to a comedy, or to an entertaining speech.”

- Critical listening: According to Stephen and Lucas (1998), the ability to listen

critically is essential everywhere, we use in different contexts: family, community, etc.There is practically no place you can go where critical listening is unimportant This

type of listening deserves much more attention; it is listening to evaluate a message forpurposes of accepting or rejecting it.

2.2 The TOEIC test

2.2.1 Overview of the TOEIC test

2.2.1.1 General definition about the TOEIC test

The TOEIC test (The Test of English for International Communication) is aninternational standardized test of English language proficiency for non-nativespeakers It is intentionally designed to measure the everyday English skills of peopleworking in an international environment There are different forms of the exam:

Traditionally, the TOEIC test is a two-hour paper-and-pencil test It consists of

200 multiple choice questions which are divided into two sections: Listening andReading Separate scaled scores are provided for each section, the part score scalesranging from 5 to 495 and the total score scales ranging from 10 to 990 The Listeningsection tests how well the test taker understands spoken English and the Readingsection written English

There are also the TOEIC Speaking and Writing Tests The TOEIC speaking test

is composed of tasks that assess pronunciation, intonation and stress, vocabulary,grammar, cohesion, the relevance of content, and completeness of the content TheTOEIC Writing test is composed of tasks that assess grammar, the relevance ofsentences to the pictures, quality and variety of sentences, vocabulary, organization,and whether the opinion is supported with reason and/or examples Both assessmentsuse a score scale of 0 - 200

2.2.1.2 The importance of the TOEIC test

The purpose of the TOEIC test is to measure the ability to speak, read andunderstand basic business English For this reason, the TOEIC is the preferred examfor corporations, companies, governmental agencies and many educational institutions.The TOEIC test evaluates the ability to function in international business and real-world settings rather than in an academic setting The TOEIC certificate is considered

as the standard to evaluate the English proficiency level of workers and used by almostall universities and colleges in Vietnam as English outcome standard for graduates.According to ETS website, nearly 14,000 companies and organizations in 150countries around the world, including Vietnam, have recognized the TOEIC certificate

2.2.1.3 Typical TOEIC topics

Here are the sorts of the typical topics that you may find in a TOEIC test: health,housing, transportation, banking, offices, jobs, industry, entertainment, restaurants,travel, etc

2.2.1.4 TOEIC format

* The TOEIC Listening and Reading Test:

- Listening Section (45 minutes, 100 questions)

+ Part 1: Pictures description: 6 questions

+ Part 2: Questions and responses: 25 questions

+ Part 3: Short conversations: 39 questions

+ Part 4: Short talks: 30 questions

- Reading Section (75 minutes, 100 questions)

+ Part 5: Incomplete Sentences: 30 questions

+ Part 6: Text Completion: 16 questions

+ Part 7: Single Passages: 29 questions, Multiple Passages: 25 questions

2.2.2 Listening comprehension in the TOEIC test

2.2.2.1 Part one: Pictures description

In this part, you will listen to the description of six pictures Four shortstatements describing a photograph will be spoken only one time The statements willnot be printed You must select the one that best describes the photograph and thenmark your answer on the answer sheet The pictures may include people, objects,actions, and locations both general and specific You will make assumptions as well,you may not be able to determine whether something is actually happening, but fromthe clues in the photo, you can assume that it is

2.2.2.2 Part two: Questions and responses

This part consists of 25 questions In this part, each question will have threepossible responses Three responses to one question or statement will be spoken onlyone time They will not be printed The question may ask about people, location, time,

an activity, an event, emotions, reasons or opinions, etc You must choose the bestresponse for the question and mark your answer on the answer sheet

2.2.2.3 Part three: Short conversations

This part includes 39 questions There are three questions for each conversation.Conversations between two or three people will be spoken only one time They willnot be printed You must listen to each conversation and read the questions printed inthe test book (the questions will also be spoken), then select the best response for thequestion, and mark your answer on the answer sheet Some questions may requireresponses related to information found in diagrams, tables, etc printed on the test book

as well as what you heard in the conversations

2.2.2.4 Part four: Short talks

This part consists of 30 questions Short talks such as announcements ornarrations will be spoken only one time They will not be printed Listen to each talkand read the questions printed in the test book (the questions will also be spoken), thenselect the best response for the question and mark your answer on the answer sheet.Some questions may require responses related to information found in diagrams,tables, etc printed on the test book as well as what you heard in the talks There are 3questions for each talk

2.3 Some problems of listening comprehension

2.3.1 Quickly forgetting what is heard

Goh (2000) stated that the most common problem is “quickly forget what isheard” Some students are unable to remember the content they just heard, despite thefact that it is a very familiar word that they are perfectly capable of recognizing Infact, even some students with quite a high level can lose concentration if the questionsare too easy Therefore, it is very crucial to spend time on developing your short termmemory of language as well as short term memory in general

2.3.2 Not recognizing the words they know

This is probably a more typical problem than not knowing the vocabulary at all.First, apart from just being too busy thinking about other things and missing a word,common reasons why students might not recognize a word include not distinguishingbetween different sounds in English (e.g /l/ and /r/ in “led” and “red”), or converselytrying to listen for differences that do not exist, e.g not knowing words like “there”,

“their” and “they're” are homophones (Alex Case, 2008) On the other hand, spokenlanguage also has many reduced forms such as: “you’re” instead of “you are”, “won’t”instead of “will not”, or “can’t” instead of “cannot” These reductions are reallysignificant difficulties to the learners (Brown, 2001, p252) Moreover, poor audio

equipment, a strange voice, or simply being too subjective and not focusing may be thecause of this problem According to Alex Case (2008), other reasons are problems withword stress, sentence stress, and sound changes when words are spoken together innatural speech such as weak forms.

2.3.3 Not understanding the intended message

When students miss out some key elements that are really important to fullyunderstand the message, they often have a habit of guessing the word and content ofwhat they are listening to and the message they are receiving The prediction can becorrect or incorrect Students with a volatile mentality will lose morale, suspense, fear,and affect the quality of the sequel if the content does not go as planned The reasonmay be due to lack of concentration or due to the speed and voice of the listening.Therefore, they only hear a few words or sentences that are not the main idea of themessage and then use what they have just heard to guess the intended message

2.3.4 Missing information of next parts while thinking about the current part

This is a typical mistake that many students encounter Although they have time

to consider the answers to previous questions at times, such as when the audio isexplaining the next part’s instructions, many students continue to focus on the currentquestions when they are unsure of the correct answers because they are unable to graspthe intended message or information about the chart, table, etc As a result, they maymiss the intended message when the next listening text begins There is no way to goback and listen to the message again Please make sure you mark all of your answers

on your answer sheet before moving on to the next listening text by turning the pageand placing your pencil on the question you will be listening to, then listening to theaudio and marking your answers afterward to avoid missing the next listening text

2.4 Factors affecting English majors’ listening comprehension skills

2.4.1 Quality of recorded materials

As Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, & Tugrul Mart (2014) confirmed that: “Thequality of the sound system can impact the comprehending of learners’ listening” Infact, the audio sources of the listening tests are not always of high technical quality.This is one of the reasons why students are quite confused and lose focus on taking thelistening test effectively and successfully because they find it difficult to recognizewords, stresses and swallowed words This affects the ability to understand theintended message of the passage as well as the psychology of the listener

2.4.2 Length and speed of recorded materials

Regarding the length of recorded materials, Hasan (2000) claimed that: “Thelength of time students listen may cause memory problems or even fatigue and thiswould distract listeners’ attention from grasping the meaning of the text, and learnersmay miss the rest of the text when there is a lapse in concentration This may beattributed to the short memory span for the target language”

Regarding the speed of recorded materials, Underwood (1989) mentioned that:

“Speed can make listening passage difficult If the speakers speak too fast, studentsmay have serious problems to understand L2 words In this situation, listeners are notable to control the speed of speakers and this can create critical problems withlistening comprehension” Berman (2003) assumed that: “Pace is the speed of speech.Unimportant points or small details are usually spoken more quickly Important points,such as main ideas, are usually spoken more slowly and clearly.” Therefore, learnersshould pay attention to the speed, intonation of the speaker and identify main ideas,information they need for the answers of the listening test

2.4.3 Accent

Bloomfield et al (2010) claimed that: “Regional accents can impact the spokenmessage that is understood by the listeners and familiar accents are easier tounderstand than unfamiliar accents” Goh (1999) mentioned that: “66% of learnersmentioned a speaker’s accent as one of the most significant factors that affect listenercomprehension Unfamiliar accents both native and non-native can cause seriousproblems in listening comprehension and familiarity with an accent helps learners’listening comprehension” Yagang (1994) also stated that: “The listeners have atendency to get familiar with the accents which they mostly listen to If listeners areexposed to standard British or American accents, they will face problems inunderstanding other accents” Therefore, it is clear that practicing listening to variousaccents is important for good test results

2.4.4 Cultural difference

Azmi, Celik, Yidliz, & Tugrul (2014) stated that: “Learners should be familiarwith the cultural knowledge of language that has a significant effect on the learners’understanding If the listening task involves completely different cultural materialsthen the learners may have critical problems in their comprehension It is theresponsibility of teachers to give background knowledge about the listening activities

in advance” Cultural difference is a major barrier to listening comprehension

Exposure to specific cultural-oriented materials such as English culture, Americanculture, British-American culture, etc., language learners can develop their listeningcomprehension abilities Background knowledge, cultural familiarity, and linguisticcomplexity are extremely important linguistic features for improving listeningcomprehension Therefore, exposure to linguistic materials, which have these threecharacteristics, is believed to promote learners’ listening comprehension.

2.4.5 Limited background knowledge: Grammar, Pronunciation, Vocabulary

Regarding vocabulary, Hansan (2000) pointed out that: “89.4% of theparticipants suffer from incomplete comprehension Some listeners thought thatmeaning resides within the unfamiliar words so they need a huge amount ofvocabulary On facing a new word, they tend to find out the meaning rather than infer

it from the context” It means that without a wide vocabulary, listeners often have toguess the meaning of the word through context or without relying on the context.Regarding pronunciation, students often have a problem with knowledge of howsounds merge or get reduced When speaking English, indigenous people sometimesmatch and swallow words to create a natural communication As a result, the tone ofwords can be changed, making it hard to recognize According to Brown (2001, p252),spoken language also has many reduced forms such as: “won’t” instead of “will not”,

or “can’t” instead of “cannot” These reductions are significant difficulties to thelearners Therefore, to improve listening ability, listeners should practicepronunciation

Regarding grammar, lack of grammar can prevent the listener from recognizingthe word or meaning of the passage According to Richards, John Platt, and Heidi Platt(2000) and Pourhosein Gilakjani and Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi (2011), listeningcomprehension is the process of understanding speech and it concentrates on role oflinguistic units such as phonemes, words, and grammatical structures and the role oflistener’s anticipations, the situation and context, previous knowledge, and the subject.Hasan, cited in (Vogely, 1994) agrees that difficulty in listening comprehension ispartly due to the structure component of the text As a result, without grammar, youwill not be able to understand or misinterpret the meaning of the person talking

2.4.6 Concentration

Stephen, Lucas (1998) stated that: “The brain is incredibly efficient As it isproved scientifically, any person talks at a rate of 120 to 150 words a minute and the

that listening should be very easy, but it is the opposite So, in the listening process, thelearners can take in all the speaker's words and still have plenty of spare That’s whythe learners or listeners interrupt their listening with thinking about other things”.Anderson and Lynch (1988) presented the role of attention that: “A well listeningperformance is affected by the degree of students’ attention towards the input” Theyexplained that when experiencing listening, students often attempt to perceive speechword by word instead of focusing their attention on the meaning.

2.5 Program outcome standards

2.5.1 Definition of program outcome standards

Program outcome standards are statements that describe significant and essentialrequirements that learners have to achieve at the end of a program Program outcomestandards clearly indicate the level and type of competence that is required forgraduates of a program

The English outcome standards of universities across our country have beenstrictly applied Most universities require the outcome of TOEIC or IELTS Over 127universities across our country are now using the TOEIC certificate as a graduationrequirement Some program outcome standards of universities in our country are asfollows: Hanoi Polytechnic University – TOEIC 500, Thang Long University – TOEIC

450, Academy Of Journalism And Communication – TOEIC 450, Foreign TradeUniversity – TOEIC 650, Thuongmai University – TOEIC 450, etc

2.5.2 Program outcome standards of English-major students at Thuongmai University

At Thuongmai University, program outcome standards for English-majorstudents are TOEIC 800 or IELTS 6.5 Students must achieve one of these twostandards to be eligible to graduate Reality, the majority of students at the EnglishFaculty of Thuongmai University choose the TOEIC certificate since it is similar to theBusiness English major

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH FINDINGS & DISCUSSION

3.1 Research methodologies

3.1.1 Participants

The study was carried out among 60 randomly selected third-year English majors

at Thuongmai University Most of them are review for the TOEIC test Of these, 54students are female and 6 students are male Although all of them have learned Englishfor many years, they have encountered some difficulties in listening comprehension.Each person has difficulties because of different impact factors and personal causes.They enthusiastically took part in the survey to share their difficulties and find feasiblesolutions to improve their English listening skills, especially the listening skills in theTOEIC listening test All students totally agree to provide information in a voluntary,comfortable, and accurate manner

3.1.2 Data collection instruments

The data was collected by both quantitative and qualitative methods from 2sources: survey questionnaires and interview questions with the participation of 60third-year English majors at TMU

The main method in this study is quantitative one The time to conduct thisresearch is limited The questionnaire is one of the most effective ways to collectquantitative data because it can be surveyed on a large scale geographically with alarge number of people, especially students Furthermore, using this method makes iteasy for the researcher to generalize the problem and be proactive Besides, you canchoose different types of questions and formats Collecting data quickly and accurately

is another advantage of the questionnaire

Moreover, to reach the set goals, the researcher collected information based onqualitative method to make sure that the research would be more accurate and reliable

A combination of these two data collection instruments will provide accurate andobjective data

- The survey questionnaire: The questionnaire was carefully designed with 10

questions It was separated into three parts as follows:

Part 1: This part consists of the third-year English major students’ background

Part 2: This part points out the real-life difficulties faced by the third-yearEnglish majors while doing the TOEIC listening test and personal causes leading tothese difficulties.

Part 3: This part suggests some feasible solutions to improve the TOEIC listeningcomprehension skills of the third-year English Faculty students

- The interview questions: Face-to-face interviews were conducted in the form of

informal conversation among the researcher and the students It took place at EnglishFaculty of Thuongmai University at break time

There are 3 questions used to explore more personal ideas that cannot showclearly in the questionnaire and get deeper point of view The first question is toidentify the third-year English major students’ purpose of studying TOEIC The secondquestion is to explore the students’ ideas about the hardest part in the TOEIC listeningtest The third question is to find out the impact of language practice subjects atEnglish Faculty toward the students’ TOEIC listening test results

3.1.3 Data collection process

After collecting the data and information from the questionnaires and interviewquestions, the researcher analyzed the collected data from the questionnaires by usingcalculation and synthesis tools to convert results into percentages and then displayedthe analysis results in the form of tables and charts Relating the interview questions,the responses were analyzed qualitatively

3.2 Research findings

The language proficiency of the students at English Faculty of ThuongmaiUniversity is undeniable, as shown by their high university entrance exam scores.However, since university exams do not include a listening comprehension test,students’ listening comprehension abilities remain a big question mark In fact,students in urban areas have a quite excellent ability to hear and understand English,whereas students in rural provinces find the English listening test very hard Becausethe students in the provinces are often exposed to the listening tests at a very lowerlevel, so their English listening skills are usually a major limitation

During the training process, Thuongmai University always pays attention toimproving the quality of training, constantly improving the training program to ensurethat students always have favorable learning conditions and good results At English

Faculty, Thuongmai University always gives priority to training language practicesubjects, especially subjects related to listening comprehension such as listening skills,interpretation, advanced interpretation, etc Therefore, the students at English Faculty

of Thuongmai University often have quite good TOEIC test results, especially theTOEIC listening part The following analysis results in the next sections will showfully results from survey questionnaires and interview questions related to the TOEIClistening comprehension skills of Thuongmai University’s third-year English majorstudents

3.2.1 Results from survey questionnaires

There were 60 questionnaires randomly distributed to 60 third-year students fromEnglish Faculty - Thuongmai University However, there are only 50 valid responses.Thus, the researcher will show research results based on 50 valid responses as follows:

Part 1: Third-year English major students’ background and attitude toward TOEIC listening comprehension skills

 Time to know about the TOEIC test of English majors

Chart 3.1 Time to know about the TOEIC test of English majors

It can be seen that the TOEIC test is very popular today In particular, one of theprogram outcome standards at English Faculty of Thuongmai University is 800 TOEICpoints Therefore, students learn about the TOEIC test very early The above chartshows that up to 35 students, equivalent to 70% students, have known about the

of these 50 students who have known about the TOEIC test for 1-3 years Especially, itincludes 0% of students who have known about the TOEIC test for less than 1 year.

English majors’ perception of the importance of listening skills in the TOEIC test

The students’ perception towards listening skills in the TOEIC test plays animportant role in conquering the TOEIC test If students appreciate the role of listeningskills, they will definitely get motivation and positive attitudes These will encouragethem to figure out where the difficulties are and find out some useful ways in order toimprove their listening skills in the TOEIC test effectively The following chart showsthe English majors’ perception of the importance of listening skills in the TOEIC test

60.00%

36.00%

4.00%

Chart 3.2 English majors’ perception of the importance of listening skills in the

TOEIC test

As presented at the chart 3.2, the most popular perceived perception towards theimportance of listening skills in the TOEIC test are extremely important and important,accounting for 60% and 36%, respectively There are only 4% of participants thoughtthat listening skills in the TOEIC test are less important The percentage of Englishmajors who denied the importance of listening skills in the TOEIC test is 0% Throughthe above statistics, we can see that most of the third-year English major students inThuongmai University are aware of the importance of listening skills in the TOEICtest

 Practicing time the TOEIC listening test of English majors

12.00%

20.00%

56.00%

12.00%

Chart 3.3 Practicing time the TOEIC listening test of English majors

According to the chart above, most of the Business English major students focus

on studying the TOEIC listening test 2-3 hours per day, accounting for 56% The chartalso indicates that 20% of the surveyed students spend 1 hour per day practicing theTOEIC listening test Especially, 12% of students spend more than 3 hours per daylearning the TOEIC listening test Besides, there are also 6 students who spend lessthan 1 hour listening to the TOEIC test, accounting for 12% Overall, all of thestudents in the surveyed group spend time learning the TOEIC listening test every day.This shows the determination to conquer the TOEIC test as well as the efforts to meetprogram outcome standards of the third-year English majors of Thuongmai University

 English majors’ assessment on the difficulty of listening skills in the TOEIC test

In fact, each third-year English major student rates the TOEIC test difficultydifferently as shown in the following chart

46.00%

12.00%

6.00%

Chart 3.4 English majors’ assessment on the difficulty of listening skills in the

TOEIC test

The above chart shows the English-major students’ assessment on the difficulty

of listening skills in the TOEIC test According to statistics, 18 students, equivalent to36% of the total 50 students, indicated that listening skills in the TOEIC test are verydifficult In addition, 23/50 students, equivalent to 46% of these English-majorstudents, rated the TOEIC listening skills as difficult Meanwhile, 6 students (12%)rated listening skills in the TOEIC test at the normal level In particular, 3 students(6%) assessed that the listening skills in the TOEIC test are easy It is clear from theabove chart that the majority of students encounter difficulties while doing the TOEIClistening test

 The English majors’ evaluation of the hardest part of the TOEIC listening test

Each student assesses the difficulty level of the listening parts in the TOEIClistening test differently The following chart indicates the English-major students’evaluation of the hardest part of the TOEIC listening test

40.00%

24.00%

20.00%

Chart 3.5 The English majors’ evaluation of the hardest part of the TOEIC

listening test

It is clear from the above figure that the majority of students claimed that part 2

is the hardest part of the TOEIC listening test, accounting for 40% It includes 12students, equivalent to 24% of the students who indicated that part 3 is the mostdifficult part of the TOEIC listening test There are 10 students, equivalent to 20% ofthe students who evaluated that part 4 is the hardest part of the TOEIC listening test.The number of students who indicated that part 1 is the hardest part of the TOEIClistening test accounts for the smallest proportion, only 16%

 The effect of the knowledge and skills that English majors have learned on the results of the TOEIC listening tests

The following chart shows the effect of the knowledge and skills that the year English majors have learned at school on the results of the TOEIC listening tests