CAN THO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS IN TRAN DAI NGHIA HIGH SCHOOL B.A thesis Supervisor: Trịnh Quốc Lập, Ph.D Researcher: Trần Họa Mi Student’s code: 7062907 Class: English Language Teaching 01 Course: 32 Can Tho, April 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been completed without the help and support of many people During my process of carrying out the study paper, I have met lots of difficulties but I have received the great support, guidance and encouragement from my supervisor, teachers, my family and my friends Firstly, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Mr Trinh Quoc Lap for his valuable guidance, enthusiastic support, and helpful advice He had to spend much of his precious time with me Secondly, I would like to send my sincere thanks to Mr Nguyen Thanh Tung and Mrs Pham Thi Mai Duyen for their useful feedback Thirdly, I would like to send my gratitude to all teachers of English Department for their dedication teaching me much vital knowledge during my student time and to executive staff who gave me valued opportunity to conduct the study Fourthly, I am grateful to 100 grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school for helping me fill the questionnaires Finally, I wish to express my thanks to my family and my friends, who offered me supports and advice Thus, once again, I would like to express my great gratitude to all of you i TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v ABSTRACT vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 General statement of the problem 1.2 Statement of the hypotheses, objectives, and research question 1.2.1 Hypotheses 1.2.2 Objectives 1.2.3 Research question 1.3 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Listening comprehension 2.2 The importance of comprehension 2.3 Potential factors causing listening comprehension difficulties in second language learning 2.3.1 The text 2.3.2 The listener 2.3.3 The speaker 13 2.3.4 The environment 14 2.4 Justification of the present study 14 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD 16 3.1 Research design 16 3.2 Subjects 16 3.3 Data collection instrument 16 3.4 Research procedure 17 ii CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 18 4.1 The reliability of the questionnaire 18 4.2 Factors causing difficulties in listening comprehension 18 4.2.1 The speaker 19 4.2.2 The listener 20 4.2.3 The text and the environment 21 CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY AND DISCUSSIONS 23 5.1 Discussions 23 5.2 Implications 25 5.3 Limitations 26 5.4 Recommendations 27 5.5 Conclusions 27 REFERENCES 29 APPENDICES 31 Appendix 1: questionnaire (English) 31 Appendix 2: questionnaire (Vietnamese) 35 iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language ESL: English as a Second Language IELTS: International English Language Testing System L1: Native Language L2: Foreign Language M: Mean MOET: Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam SD: Standard Deviation SLA: Second Language Acquisition TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Descriptive statistics of factors causing listening comprehension difficulties Table 2: Descriptive statistics of each factor causing listening comprehension difficulties Table 3: The frequency of factors related to the speaker causing difficulties in listening comprehension Table 4: The frequency of factors related to the listener causing difficulties in listening comprehension Table 5: The frequency of factors related to the text causing difficulties in listening comprehension Table 6: The frequency of factors related to the environment causing difficulties in listening comprehension v ABSTRACT In this study, an attempt was made to explore the factors which cause listening comprehension difficulties for language learners The subjects of the study were 100 grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school They all come from basic classes; no one studies in social classes which focus much more on teaching and learning English The required data for the study were collected by using one questionnaire Then, descriptive analysis was employed to analyze the responses given to each item in the questionnaires Finally, the study confirmed that 10th graders in Tran Dai Nghia high school encountered lots of problems with their listening comprehension The study at last identified four major factors which cause difficulties in students’ listening comprehension These factors consisted of the text, the listener, the speaker and the environment vi FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The chapter firstly introduces the general statement of the problem Besides, the hypotheses, the objectives, and the research question are also included At last, it provides the organization of the present study 1.1 General statement of the problem Vietnam has recently joined in World Trade Organization (WTO) with many opportunities as well as many challenges The country as one of the most fascinating destinations to tourists from all over the world has triggered an explosive interest in English language learning and a severe demand for English studying Being able to communicate in English – the international language - in order to integrate Vietnam into the world becomes more important to Vietnamese people, especially to Vietnamese students - who play the influential role in how much the country will develop Grasping the problem, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has promulgated the renovation policy The new English textbook, which focuses on developing listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, but not just on vocabulary and grammar as in the past, has been introduced into all schools’ curricula Due to this textbook, students are hoped to acquire English proficiency However, after many years of implementing the new curriculum, the curriculum seems to be not effective as expected In reality, many Vietnamese students particularly encounter difficulties in using English to communicate because among the four skills, the aural and oral are the most neglected skills Evidence which supports this claim is the dissatisfactory listening scores of Vietnamese students in standardized tests such as TOEFL and IELTS For instance, after at least years of studying English, many grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school, where I had my apprenticeship, cannot understand even plain sentences that their English teachers talk to them Therefore, in English classes, the mother tongue is used more than the target language; which demonstrates the weakness in listening ability of students Nevertheless, listening plays an important role in people’s life A study by Wilt (1950), found that 45 % of communication time was spent for listening, 30 % for speaking, 16 % for reading, and % for writing According to Bulletin (1952), FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi listening, the fundamental language skill, is the medium through which people get a large part of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation Moreover, listening ability plays a significant role in the development of other skills By being able to understand people accurately, students are much more likely to be able to reproduce accurately, refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own vocabulary (Huang, 2009) Anderson and Lynch (1988) pointed out the effect of listening skill on speaking skill as well They asserted that for L2 learners, effective speaking relies on successful listening These two researchers also figured out the influence of listening skill on reading skill and, at last, advised both native and foreign learners that “explicit practice to improve listening skills would be advisable and beneficial, both for its own sake and also as a support to reading skill development” (p.18) The globalization of the world economy and the crucial role of the listening comprehension in communication require students to be good listeners since many of them may need to use English for their further study or work It is a big challenge for language teachers to help their students so First of all, in my opinion, English teachers need to ascertain the factors that cause difficulties in listening comprehension for their students Being aware of these factors, teachers can help their students overcome and get success in listening comprehension in particular and in communication in general However, the real thing is, in Vietnam, very little attention is paid to teaching listening lessons as well as finding students’ difficulties in listening comprehension Some teachers think that listening is the easiest skill to teach, whereas most students think it is the most difficult skill to tackle The world context together with my individual desire to help high school students improve their listening and contribute to enrich the listening research which has been done so far, I am interested in doing a research on “factors causing listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia High School” FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi 1.2 Statement of the hypotheses, objectives, and research question 1.2.1 Hypotheses I hypothesize that four factors: the text, the listener, the speaker, and the environment are major causes to listening comprehension difficulties for 10th graders in Tran Dai Nghia High School 1.2.2 Objectives The objective of the study is to identify the factors which cause listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia High School to help students avoid encountering these difficulties so that they can get successful listening comprehension 1.2.3 Research question The study is conducted to answer the question: Which factors cause listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia High School? 1.3 Organization of the thesis This thesis consists of five chapters Chapter is an introduction to general statement of the problem, the research question, the objectives of the thesis, and some hypotheses of the researcher about the factors causing listening comprehension difficulties for grade – 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia High School At last, it introduces the organization of the present study Chapter is the theoretical research, literature review It presents some key terms related to the research question like listening comprehension Besides, some findings of previous researches related to the problem have also been presented Chapter presents a description of research methodology which consists of the research design, the procedure, the description of subjects, the instrument, and the description of measures employed Chapter shows the results of the study In this chapter, data collected from the instrument will be analyzed critically through charts and tables Consequently, the FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Following the factor of speaker, the listener ranks second with the mean of 3.45 A great majority of the students, 87 students, found it the most difficult to deal with different words which are similar in sounds This clarifies Ur’s (1984) assertion that different words with similar sounds can cause confusion or misunderstanding When the foreign listeners come across such words, they may fail to distinguish one word from the other, which affects their listening comprehension negatively Furthermore, 86% students conceded that they sometimes, often or always encountered difficulties in listening comprehension when their background knowledge was insufficient This is fixed to the findings in a study of 2006 on the effect of background knowledge on listening comprehension of Sadighi and Zare, which indicates that students’ existing knowledge contributes significantly to their comprehension Consequently, any lack of this kind of knowledge, it will be more difficult to understand listening texts, or could cause listeners considerable confusion (Buck, 2001) Ranking last, quite more than a half of the students (56 %), 56 students found it difficult to understand continuing speeches although they knew most of the words It can be figured out that only 44% of the students can understand such speeches when their lexical knowledge is sufficient This seems contrasts markedly with the findings of Stæhr’s (2009) research, which provides empirical evidence that vocabulary knowledge is an important factor for successful listening comprehension in EFL Therefore, when students know most words in speeches, they are more likely to comprehend the speeches Of the four factors, the text (M = 3.36) and the environment (M = 3.34) are the weak factors affecting students’ listening comprehension negatively Among many factors related to the text, long spoken texts seem to be the most common difficulty interfering with students’ listening comprehension (87% sometimes, often and always) This confirms Ur’s (1984) declaration which indicates that the difficulty in listening comprehension is partly due to the length of the listening text itself that bore listeners and distract their concentration Therefore, it seems reasonable to infer that long spoken texts interfere with the learners’ listening comprehension This is also fixed to Call’s (1985) research which points out that the memory span for target language input is shorter than for native language input Besides, the length of listening time for long texts may place an additional burden on memory, and may cause lapses in concentration and even fatigue, leading to the loss of information and comprehension breakdown (Call, 1985) Secondly, many students 24 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi (83% sometimes, often and always) met listening comprehension difficulties when there were unfamiliar words The same view is also found in Kelly’s (1991) study She claims that lexical ignorance is the main obstacle to L2 auditory comprehension beyond the intermediate stage This is also consistent with Underwood ’s (1989) statement, which states “an unknown word can be like a suddenly drop barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech” (p.17) Accordingly, comprehension breakdown occurs Lastly, the environment is the least common factor causing listening comprehension difficulties for participants Accounting for 84%, 84 students sometimes, often or always came upon listening comprehension difficulties when there were noises Noises, including both background noises on the recording and environmental noises, can get the content of the listening passage out of the listeners’ mind (Samuels, 1984) Accordingly, comprehension suffers Secondly, the great majority of the students, 82 students, have responded that unclear sounds resulting from poor quality tape-recorders or cassettes (sometimes, often or always) interfered with their listening comprehension This is in line with Samuels’s (1984) statement which shows that the difficulty in listening comprehension is partly due to unclear sounds resulting from poor-quality equipment Of all, the unfavorable climate ranks last Only 41% of the students affirmed that the unfavorable climate affected their listening comprehension negatively It can be explained that because each classroom in Tran Dai Nghia high school is equipped with at least ceiling fans, the listening environment inside classrooms is cool and favorable to students 5.2 Implications The study is carried out to find out the factors causing listening comprehension difficulties that grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school encounter when listening Based on the findings of this research, the following pedagogical implications are proposed for tackling students’ listening comprehension problems: Teachers can choose listening texts with different speech rates, from slow to fast and with various accents for students to practice As a result, they are used to listening to fast speech rate and varied accents 25 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Listening topics should be chosen carefully Teachers should choose interesting, engaging topics, and if possible, relevant to students' academic knowledge or life experience Before listening, teachers should prepare students with new words, difficult grammatical structures, some background knowledge and, if possible, some relevant information about the speaker, the context of what they are to listen to The more work teachers and students together before students are exposed to the listening material, the more students comprehend the material Teachers should explain to students that they are not expected to understand all of whatever they listen to In particular, students should be trained to pay attention to the overall message rather than listen to every detail because when students cannot understand any single word, they certainly get stressful, anxious or nervous It is very necessary for teachers to teach students to pronounce words correctly so that they can recognize the words that they have already learnt or known in continuing speeches easily and immediately When teaching vocabulary, teachers should provide students with as many meanings of a word as possible Therefore, when encountering the word in the less common context, they are not confused Teachers can create a relaxed classroom atmosphere, in which students can concentrate best on the listening material Using high quality tape-recorders or cassettes in listening classes is also an effective way to reduce the listening comprehension difficulties Teachers should provide visual aids whenever possible as the guidelines for students when they listen 10 The language classroom should not accommodate the large number of students in order to limit the unintentional background noises 5.3 Limitations This study explored four main factors causing difficulties in listening comprehension for 10th graders in a high school in Mekong Delta However, the study would be more comprehensible if there were not the limit of time If the researcher had more time, she would carry out more deep actions on this survey like including samples from many high schools in Mekong Delta, designing more data collection 26 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi instruments like classroom observations and interviews, designing the study as experimental research to get more trustworthy and objective data, and setting more pedagogical implications for tackling students’ listening comprehension difficulties like more potential ways to limit the difficulties in listening comprehension caused by the four factors: the text, the listener, the speaker and the environment Besides, the limit of time also restricted her to find out the factors causing listening comprehension difficulties in different kinds of participants like rural versus urban, male versus female 5.4 Recommendations As it is mentioned earlier, the paper still remained some limitations There were some related issues worthy of further investigations Therefore, according to the researcher of the present study, further researches are needed to be carried out Firstly, further research needs to be set out with samples from more high schools in Mekong Delta in order to get a more complete picture of the problem Furthermore, further research should investigate the problem in experimental groups to get more reliable and objective data Moreover, further research can be conducted to find out the factors causing difficulties in listening comprehension in different kinds of participants like rural versus urban, male versus female 5.5 Conclusions Although listening ability plays a significant role in people’s life and in the development of other language skills, it has attracted "the least attention of the four skills" (Call, 1985, p.765) Besides, in reality, the number of Vietnamese high school students that can communicate in English is very limited because of their weakness in aural ability It is believed that they encounter many difficulties in listening comprehension Therefore, I am interested in doing a research to find out factors that cause listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in a high school in the Mekong Delta in order to help them become better listeners The study has been conducted to identify the factors that cause listening comprehension difficulties for 10th graders in Tran Dai Nghia high school Certainly, the subjects of the study were 100 grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school 27 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Data were collected by using one five – scale questionnaire to get the factors that cause listening comprehension difficulties for the participants After the statistical analyses of the collected data, the main findings can be drawn In Tran Dai Nghia high school, the four main factors causing listening comprehension difficulties for 10th graders include the text, the listener, the speaker and the environment Among them, the speaker (M = 3.70) is the most frequent factor and the least is the environment (M = 3.34) Especially, the results of the analysis of the questionnaire indicated: - Speaker’s fast rate of delivery, unfamiliar accent, soft and unclear voice, and monotone interfered with the listeners’ listening comprehension - Lack of speaker’ nonverbal signal, bad mood, inability to grasp pronunciation, inability to concentrate for a long time, poor grammatical knowledge, inability to retain what is heard, having no clear purpose for listening, inability to distinguish different words with similar sounds, lack of background knowledge about the mentioned topic, inability to apply appropriate listening strategies, inability to recognize words in different context, inability to get general understanding in the first listening, inability to understand despite of knowing most words posed listening comprehension difficulties for listeners - Unfamiliar words, complex grammatical structures, long spoken texts, long and complex sentences, unfamiliar topics, specific text types, hesitation phenomena, inexplicit information, reduced and ungrammatical forms, anaphoric terms, nonsignaled texts and uninteresting information affected listeners’ listening comprehension negatively - Unclear sounds resulting from poor quality equipment, unfavorable climate, pressure of time and unintentional noises caused difficulties in listening comprehension for listeners In brief, this paper is a general picture of some major factors which cause listening comprehension difficulties for 10th graders in Tran Dai Nghia high school It also discusses the frequency of the four factors – the speaker, the listener, the text and the environment - in causing problems in listening comprehension If the students had been aware of these factors and found out their own ways to overcome the listening comprehension difficulties, they would have improved their listening skill 28 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi REFERENCES Aiyun, D (2004) Listening and Speaking: To help students become involved listeners and active speakers Retrieved December 11th, 2010, from http://www.celea.org.cn/en/newsdetails.asp?icntno=30842&isite=97:292 Anderson, A., & Lynch, T (1988) Listening Oxford: Oxford University Press Brindley, G ( 1997 ) Investigating second language listening ability: listening skills and item difficulty In G Brindley, & G Wigglesworth (Eds.), Access: issues in language test design and delivery (pp 67-70) Sydney, Australia: Macquarie University Buck, G (1990) The testing of second language listening comprehension Ph.D Thesis, University of Lancaster Buck, G (2001) Assessing listening Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press Byrnes, H (1984) The role of listening comprehension: A theoretical base Foreign Language Annals, 17 (4) Call, E (1985) Auditory short-term memory, listening comprehension and the input hypothesis TESOL Quarterly, 19 (4), 765–781 Chiang, Ch S., & Dunkel, P (1992) The effect of speech modification, prior knowledge, and listening proficiency on EFL lecture learning TESOL Quarterly, 26, 345-374 Galvin, K M., & Cooper, P J (1999) The basics of speech Illinois, USA: National Textbook Company Goh, C C M (2000) A cognitive perspective on language learners’ listening comprehension System, 28, 55-75 Huang, H (2009, September) How to teach aural English more effectively Retrieved September 5th, 2009 from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/3674/3259 Joiner, E G (1986) Listening in the foreign language Listening, Reading, Writing: Analysis and Application, 43- 70 29 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Jung, E H (2003) The role of discourse signaling cues in second language listening comprehension The Modern Language Journal, 87 (iv), 562-577 Retrieved December 11th, 2009 from http://www.jstor.org/pss/1192804 Kelly, P (1991) Lexical ignorance: The main obstacle to listening comprehension with advanced foreign language learners IRAL, 29(2) McCutcheon, R., Schaffer, J., & Wycoff, J R (1994) Communication matters USA: West Publishing Company Rixon, S (1986) Developing listening skills London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd Sadighi, F., & Zare, S (2006) Is listening comprehension influenced by the background knowledge of the learners? A case study of Iranian EFL learners The Linguistics Journal, 1(3), 111-127 Samuels, S Jay (1984) Factors influencing listening: Inside and outside the head Theory into practice Modern Language Journal, 23 (3), 183-189 Stæhr, L S (2009) Vocabulary knowledge and advanced listening comprehension in English as a foreign language Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31, 577-607 doi:10.1017/S0272263109990039 Tilahun, T (2008) Factors that contribute to the problems EFL learners face in the listening skills classroom M.A thesis Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia Underwood, M (1989) Teaching listening Longman, UK: Longman Group Limited Ur, P (1984) Teaching listening comprehension Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Vandergrift, L (1999) Facilitating Second Language Listening Comprehension: Acquiring Successful Strategies ELT Journal, 53 (3), 168 - 176 Voss, B (1979) Hesitation phenomena as sources of perceptual errors for non – native speakers Language and Speech, 22, 129 -144 Yagang, F (1994) Listening: Problems and solutions In T Kral (ed.), Teacher development: Making the right moves Washington, DC: English Language Programs Divisions, USA 30 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE Dear students, I am doing a study on factors causing difficulties for your English listening comprehension Your responses are of considerable importance for the success of my study, so you are kindly requested to provide genuine responses to the questions Thank you very much in advance for your cooperation! Part 1: General information A Direction: Please fill in the blank Your class: …………… Your hometown:………… Your gender: male/ female Years of studying English:……… Your age:………… Your first language:………… B Direction: Circle the letter that fits you How often you listen in English? a every day b every week c never d others: ……………………………………………………………………… Why you listen in English? a because it’s very interesting and I like listening in English b because my teacher asks me to so c because I want to be able to communicate in English d others:………………………………………………………………………… Part 2: Factors causing difficulties for students in English listening comprehension A Direction: Read each statement carefully and check (√) in the appropriate box if you always face the problem if you often face the problem if you sometimes face the problem if you seldom face the problem if you never face the problem 31 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Item Factors Level No 1 Unfamiliar words including jargon, idioms, dialects, slang and new concepts interfere with my listening comprehension Complex grammatical structures obstruct my listening comprehension I find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a long spoken text The length and complexity of sentences interfere with my listening comprehension Unfamiliar topics in texts cause difficulties for me to comprehend Specific text types affect my comprehension (For example, I understand my teachers’ speeches better than TV/ radio news) I find it difficult to understand speeches or texts full of hesitation, pauses and repetitions Texts without signals (e.g transitions, adverbial phrases) cause difficulties for me to follow and understand I cannot understand what is heard when the information in the text is inexplicit 10 Reduced and ungrammatical forms included in texts make it hard for understand 11 What anaphoric terms (e.g he, she, it) refer to really annoy me 12 Uninteresting information did not make me continue listening 13 Without seeing the speaker’s nonverbal signals (e.g facial expressions, gestures), it is difficult for me to understand texts 14 I find it difficult to get a general understanding of the spoken text from the first listening 15 I find it difficult to comprehend when I’m in a bad mood (e.g tired, discouraged, anxious) 16 Speakers’ different pronunciation of words interferes with my listening comprehension 17 I cannot concentrate for a long time, which affects my comprehension 18 Although I know most of the words, I cannot understand them in the continuing speech 32 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi 19 My poor knowledge of grammar hinders me from understanding (e.g my inability to segment complex embedded sentences into more basic syntactic units to understand the sentences.) 20 I cannot retain what is heard, which really distracts me from understanding 21 When I don’t have a clear purpose for listening, I cannot comprehend the texts 22 It is hard for me to distinguish different words with similar in sounds 23 When I have no knowledge about the topic being talked about, I can’t understand the passage 24 I know only the most common meaning of the word; therefore, when the speaker uses them in different contexts, I get confused 25 I fail in using the particular strategy that is appropriate to a particular listening activity (e.g listening for gist, listening for details) 26 Though I put my heart into listening, I couldn’t grasp when speaker speaks quickly 27 I find it difficult to understand well when speakers speak with unfamiliar accents (e.g British English, American English and Singlish) 28 I cannot understand when listening to a soft and unclear voice 29 I distract when speaker speaks in monotone 30 Unclear sounds resulting from poor quality tape-recorder or cassettes interfere with my listening comprehension 31 The unfavorable climate (e.g too hot, too cold) is also a factor influencing my comprehension 32 The pressure of time contributes to reduce my comprehension 33 Noises surrounding impede my listening comprehension 34 Without visual aids (pictures, diagrams, charts, video, etc.), it hard for me to understand the spoken text 33 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi B Open question Read the following question and provide your responses on the space provided Did you face any other listening difficulties that were different from those that were mentioned in the table above? If there were any, please list them below ………………………………………………………………………………………… 34 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi APPENDIX 2: BẢN CÂU HỎI NGHIÊN CỨU Các em học sinh mến! Tôi thực nghiên cứu yếu tố gây khó khăn cho em việc nghe hiểu tiếng Anh Những câu trả lời em quan trọng định nghiên cứu có thành công hay không Do đó, mong em đưa câu trả lời thật xác với mình! Chân thành cảm ơn hợp tác em! Phần 1: Thông tin chung A Các em điền thông tin vào khoảng trống - Lớp: ……… - Quê quán:………………… - Giới tính (Nam/ Nữ): …… - Số năm học tiếng Anh:… - Tuổi:…… - Tiếng mẹ đẻ:…… B Khoanh tròn câu trả lời với em Bao lâu em nghe tiếng Anh lần? a ngày b tuần c không d câu trả lời khác:…………………………………………… Tại em nghe tiếng Anh? a thú vị em thích nghe tiếng Anh b thầy/ cô yêu cầu em c em muốn có khả giao tiếp tiếng Anh d Câu trả lời khác:…………………………………………… Phần 2: Những yếu tố gây khó khăn cho học sinh việc nghe hiểu tiếng Anh A Đọc câu sau cẩn thận đánh dấu () vào ô thích hợp em luôn gặp vấn đề em thường gặp vấn đề em gặp vấn đề em gặp vấn đề em chưa gặp vấn đề 35 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Mức độ STT Những yếu tố 1 Những từ lạ bao gồm từ chuyên môn, thành ngữ, tiếng lóng, từ địa phương, khái niệm gây trở ngại cho việc hiểu Những cấu trúc ngữ pháp phức tạp gây khó khăn cho việc hiểu Tôi thấy khó hiểu nghĩa nghe dài Độ dài độ phức tạp câu nghe gây khó khăn cho việc hiểu Khi nghe nghe với chủ đề lạ, thấy khó để hiểu Có loại nghe riêng có ảnh hưởng đến việc hiểu (VD: Tôi thấy hiểu nghe giảng thầy nhiều nghe tin TV hay radio) Tôi thấy khó hiểu nghe có nhiều dự, ngắt quãng lặp lại Những nghe dấu hiệu (VD: từ chuyển tiếp, cụm trạng ngữ) làm khó theo dõi khó hiểu Tôi thấy khó để hiểu nghe mà thông tin rõ ràng 10 Những hình thức rút gọn không ngữ pháp nghe làm khó hiểu 11 Tôi đại từ (VD: he, she, it) nói đến ai, Điều thật làm phiền 12 Những thông tin không thú vị nghe làm không muốn tiếp tục nghe 13 Không nhìn thấy dấu hiệu phi ngôn ngữ người nói (VD: biểu cảm gương mặt, điệu bộ), thấy khó để hiểu nghe 14 Tôi thấy khó để hiểu nghĩa tổng quát nghe lần đầu 15 Khi có tâm trạng không tốt (VD: mệt mỏi, chán nản, lo lắng) khó hiểu nghe 16 Cách phát âm từ người nói khác với cách phát âm gây khó khăn cho việc nghe hiểu 36 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi 17 Tôi tập trung nghe thời gian dài, điều ảnh hưởng đến việc nghe hiểu 18 Dù biết nghĩa gần hết từ, không hiểu nghe 19 Kiến thức ngữ pháp hạn hẹp cản trở việc hiểu (VD: khả chia nhỏ câu phức tạp, nhiều thành phần thành cụm từ nhỏ để hiểu câu này) 20 Tôi nhớ nghe, điều làm khó hiểu nghe 21 Khi không xác định mục đích việc nghe tôi, không hiểu 22 Tôi thấy khó phân biệt từ khác phát âm giống 23 Khi chút kiến thức chủ đề nói đến, hiểu nghe 24 Tôi biết nghĩa thông thường từ nên người nói dùng từ ngữ cảnh khác làm lúng túng khó hiểu 25 Tôi thất bại việc sử dụng cách phù hợp cho hoạt động nghe cụ thể (VD: đọc lướt lấy ý chính, đọc tỉ mỉ lấy ý chi tiết) 26 Dù ý nghe, không nắm thông tin người nói nói nhanh 27 Tôi gặp khó khăn người nói nói giọng lạ (VD: giọng Anh, giọng Mỹ) 28 Tôi hiểu nghe người nói nói nhỏ không rõ ràng 29 Tôi bị phân tán ý người nói nói với giọng đều 30 Chất lượng âm từ máy ghi âm, máy cát-xét không tốt gây trở ngại cho việc hiểu 31 Thời tiết không thuận lợi (VD: nóng, lạnh) yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến việc hiểu nghe 32 Áp lực thời gian gây cản trở việc hiểu 33 Những tiếng ồn xung quanh cản trở việc hiểu 37 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi 34 Không có phương tiện nhìn (VD: tranh ảnh, biểu đồ, đồ thị ) khó hiểu nghe B Câu hỏi mở Em đọc câu hỏi ghi câu trả lời vào khoảng trống Ngoài khó khăn đề cập bảng trên, em có gặp khó khăn khác không? Nếu có, ghi lại khó khăn vào khoảng trống ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 38 [...]... the factors that cause listening comprehension difficulties for 10th graders in Tran Dai Nghia high school Certainly, the subjects of the study were 100 grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school 27 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi Data were collected by using one five – scale questionnaire to get the factors that cause listening comprehension difficulties for the... classroom in Tran Dai Nghia high school is equipped with at least 4 ceiling fans, the listening environment inside classrooms is cool and favorable to students 5.2 Implications The study is carried out to find out the factors causing listening comprehension difficulties that grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia high school encounter when listening Based on the findings of this research, the following pedagogical... speeches, leading to inability to communicate in English, is conducted basing on these sound foundations The 14 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi findings of this study would hopefully be a preliminary study on factors causing listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in a high school in the Mekong Delta In the system of education in Vietnam, English is... number of Vietnamese high school students that can communicate in English is very limited because of their weakness in aural ability It is believed that they encounter many difficulties in listening comprehension Therefore, I am interested in doing a research to find out factors that cause listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in a high school in the Mekong Delta in order to help them... some major factors which cause listening comprehension difficulties for 10th graders in Tran Dai Nghia high school It also discusses the frequency of the four factors – the speaker, the listener, the text and the environment - in causing problems in listening comprehension If the students had been aware of these factors and found out their own ways to overcome the listening comprehension difficulties, .. .FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi factors causing listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia High School will be revealed Chapter 5 summarizes the research problem, method, results In this chapter, the researcher discussed the results critically Next, pedagogical implications, limitations and recommendations are presented Finally,... frequent factor interfering with students listening comprehension Accounting for 87%, 87 students (sometimes, often and always) had trouble with long spoken texts Ranking second, unfamiliar words (83%) were also found to cause listening 21 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi comprehension difficulties for participants Despite of ranking last, anaphoric terms in listening texts... My research question is “Which factors cause listening comprehension difficulties for grade 10 students in Tran Dai Nghia High School? ” and my research aim is to identify the factors that generate the listening comprehension difficulties for the informants 4.1 The reliability of the questionnaire The questionnaire was piloted to define its reliability before it was dispensed broadly to the participants... English is a requisite subject in the curriculum However, students in high schools encounter various problems in comprehending listening texts because this skill is emphasized by neither teachers nor materials and the aural skill is also neglected at the lower educational levels By investigating the factors causing difficulties in listening comprehension for high school students, English teachers can... unsuccessful listening habits Accordingly, their comprehension suffers 7 FACTORS CAUSING LISTENING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES Trần Họa Mi  Linguistic features in texts Yagang (1994) indicates some linguistic features of oral texts which cause difficulties for students to understand these texts First of all, liaison (the linking of words in speech when the second word begins with a vowel) and elision (leaving