iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Significance of the study 2
5. Scope of the study 3
6. Design of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1 The role of Listening in language Learning and Teaching 4
1.2 Previous studies in listening problems faced by language learners 6
1.2.1 In general 6
1.2.2 In Vietnamese context 7
1.3 Common potential problems in EFL listening comprehension 8
1.4 Summary 9
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 10
2.1 The context of Hanoi University of Industry 10
2.1.1. Teachers 10
2.1.2. Students 10

3.2.6 The listening factor that poses the most difficulty for the learners 30
3.3 Analysis of Interview Data 31
3.4 Analysis of the data obtained from observation of the classroom listening
environment 34
3.5 Summary of the Results 34
PART III: CONCLUSIONS 36
1. Conclusions 36
2. Recommendations 37
3. Limitations and suggestions for further study 40
References 42
APPENDIXES
Appendix A: Questionnaire I
Appendix B: Instructor Interview III
Appendix C: Observation check list IV

vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL – English as a Foreign Language

ELT – English Language Teaching

HaUI – Hanoi University of Industry

L
1
listening – Listening in a Native Language


Pag
e

Table-1: Factors related to listening te
x
t
s 19Table-1a: Learners‟ responses that refer to listening problems related to
unf
a
m
ilia
r words and
difficult grammatical structures 19
Table-1b: Learners‟ responses that refer to listening problems related to
long spoken text 20
Table-1c: Learners‟ responses that refer to listening problems related to
unfamiliar topics 21
Table 2: Factors related to li
s
te
n
e
rs 22Table-2a: Learners‟ responses that refer to listening problems related to


difficulty for them 30 Table-7: Factors that influenced the learners' listening comprehension 35 viii LIST OF
FIGURES
Pag
e

Chart 1: Learners‟ responses referring to listening problems related to native
speakers‟ Pronunciations 24
Chart 2: Learners‟ responses referring to listening problems related to speech of
the native speakers 26
people want to learn English, and more and more teachers of English are needed to meet
the social requirements.
In learning and teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam, the
macro skill of listening is of great importance and it draws the attention of both teachers
and learners as Brett (1997) states that “listening is a key language skill, it has a vital role
in the language acquisition process”(p.39). Compared to the other language skills, research
on listening suggests that on average people can expect to listen “twice as much as we
speak, four times more than what we read and five times more than we usually write”
(Morley, 2001, p.70).
As listening being a vital skill for oral interaction, it is, therefore; the most
important medium for input in learning a foreign language (Lewis, 1993) and by increasing
our students‟ ability to perceive speech, the amount of input they receive will increase and
thus aiding students‟ language acquisition; which is true to the students of Hanoi
University of Industry (HaUI). Hence, it is essential for them to acquire the ability to listen
to spoken English effectively. However, despite the teachers‟ and students‟ efforts, the
students, especially the first year non – English majors often have a lot of difficulties in
learning listening comprehension. Many students fail to take the listening input so they can
hardly understand the spoken messages. That is the reason why lots of them find it
challenging to learn listening well or they become stressful in listening lessons. Therefore,
as a teacher teaching English listening, it is necessary and motivating for the writer to carry
out a study on factors causing challenges to the first year non – English major students at

2
HaUI in learning English listening comprehension. Furthermore, this thesis is expected to
provide insights for teachers and students in learning and teaching English listening so that
even more successful ELT in Vietnam or elsewhere could be achieved.
2. Aims of the study
The general aim of this study is to seek useful information that can help to solve the
problems of non – English major students in learning English listening comprehension and
to suggest possible measures that could contribute to planning a lesson taking the learners‟

difficulties EFL learners of HaUI encounter in listening classes. These particular learners,
as the researcher observed them in the past, had listening problems when they engaged in
EFL listening activities. Understanding their listening difficulties will permit the
instructors to modify their teaching practices.
The study would also help learners to identify their difficulties of learning
English listening skill to ascertain what further learning strategies are necessary.
Learners need to be aware of the factors which contribute to their difficulties in listening;
when listeners know something about their own problems, they will be able to improve
their listening practices and become better listeners.
The finding would also encourage material designers (instructors) to conduct needs
analysis, and to revise modules or course contents in order to adjust the materials in such
a way that they address the learners‟ listening deficiencies, which are indicated as an
implication of the study. Hopefully, this information can probably be used as additional
evidence for sources of difficulties that Vietnamese college students have in learning
English listening.
5. Scope of the study
Dealing with all factors causing challenges in all aspects of learning English
listening of EFL learners is too broad for a study of this size. Therefore, this study focuses
on investigating the factors causing challenges in learning English listening
comprehension, especially with the course book series “New Headway”. Also, due to the
constraints of time, this study just involves a sample of non-English major freshmen at
HaUI.
6. Design of the study
The study is divided into 3 parts:
The first part, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims, research questions,
significance, scope and design of the study.

4
The second part, Development, is the main part of study, consisting of three
chapters.

language input is the most essential condition of language acquisition. As an input
skill (says Krashen) listening plays a crucial role in learners‟ language development
(1985).
Beginning in the early 70's, work by Duker, Carroll and others, and later by
Krashen, brought attention to the role of listening as a tool for understanding and
emphasized it as a key factor in facilitating language learning. As the studies on listening
increased, it became a centre of attention not only in the process of first language
acquisition but also in second language acquisition. As a result, it is recognized as an
important language skill for EFL learners especially for those students who learn English
for academic purposes.
Feyten (1991) points out that listening plays a very important role in a student's
academic success and it is a key component to successful learning. This is true according
to Dunkel (1986) in the sense that students spend most of their time listening to their
teachers‟ lecture. Duker (1971) is also among the writers who early noticed the
importance of listening. Duker reported data on how people spend their communicative
time: of the total time devoted to communication, 45% is spent on listening, 30% on
speaking, 16% on reading and 9% on writing. From the data given above, one can
understand that listening is the most frequently used language skill which plays a great
role in the process of communication.
Similarly, an article which appeared on the web page of International
Listening Association (Beard, 2005) indicated that listening is the fundamental language
skill, and it is the medium through which people gain a large portion of their education,
their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals,
sense of values, and their appreciation. In this day of mass communication, much of it
oral, listening is of vital importance and students should be taught to listen effectively and
critically.
Although listening has such significant roles in communication and second
language acquisition, it has long been the neglected skill in research, teaching, and
classroom assessment (Rubin, 1994; Richards and Renandaya, 2002). In recent years,
however, there has been an increased focus on developing foreign language

activating/building schema, guessing/inferencing/predicting, listening selectively, and
negotiating meaning. Effective listeniners use background knowledge and relate this pior
knowledge or schemata to the new information contained in the spoken text and this will
help them to comprehend the text as they process it. As Faerch and Kasper (1986, p.264)

7
put it, “comprehension takes place when input and knowledge are matched against each
other.”
The difficulties encountered by EFL learners in listening comprehension have also
been pointed out (Hasan, 1993). Yagang (1994) attributes the difficulty of listening
comprehension to four sources: the massage, the speaker, the listener and the physical
setting. Higgins (1995) studied Omani students‟ problems in listening comprehension and
found that the factors which facilitate or hinder listening are speech rate, vocabulary, and
pronunciation. Flowerdew and Miller (1996) studied learners‟ strategies and difficulties in
listening to academic lectures. They found that students‟ problems were speed of delivery,
new terminology and concepts, difficulties in concentrating, and problems related to
physical environment. Rubin (1994) identified five factors which affect listening
comprehension: text characteristics, interlocutor characteristics, task characteristics,
listener characteristics and process characteristics. Further researches investigated the role
of temporal factors facilitating or inhibiting successful listening (Boyle, 1984; Higgins,
1997).
Theoretical explanations of listening comprehension provide us with clues about
the problems which learners face when they listen to a spoken text. These insights cannot,
however, accounts for exhaustive explanation of these problems. As Nunan (1991, p.38)
states “theories, ideas, and research are as good as teachers and textbook writers make
them. Interesting and unexpected things happen in the classroom, and in the final analysis,
principles and ideas need to be tested in practice.” Although much information has been
provided about listening comprehension, there is still a gap between research theory and
classroom practice. As Vogely (1995, p.41) states “we still need research that documents
empirically the relationship between what theory says and what learners actually know and

Samuels, 1994).
Listening comprehension is a process in which the listener constructs meaning out
of the information provided by the speaker (Samuels, 1984). This involves understanding
a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his
meaning (Howatt & Dakin, 1974). Morely (1972) provides a broader definition of
listening comprehension which includes the process of reauditorizing, extracting vital
information, remembering it, and relating it to construct meaning, besides the basic
auditory discrimination and aural grammar. Considering various aspects of listening
comprehension, Underwood (1989) organizes the major listening problems as
follows: (1) lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak, (2) not being able to

9
get things repeated, (3) the listener's limited vocabulary, (4) failure to recognize the
"signals," (5) problems of interpretation, (6) inability to concentrate, and (7) established
learning habits. Underwood sees these problems as being related to learners' different
backgrounds, such as their culture and education.
Further research by Samuels (1984) points out that the differences between the
spoken features of the learners‟ mother-tongue and the target language can be another
factor that hinders the students listening performance. He further points out that
sometimes the target language differs enough from the listener's language in
pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, and the existence of such differences places
additional demands on the listener's processing which can severely interfere with
comprehension.
In addition, there are other scholars who forwarded factors that are thought to affect
foreign language listening comprehension. Rubin (1994) identified five factors which
affect listening comprehension: text characteristics, interlocutor characteristics, task
characteristics, listener characteristics, and process characteristics. Yagang (1994)
attributes the difficulty of listening comprehension to four sources: the message, the
speaker, the listener and the physical setting.
1.4. Summary

The English teaching staff in the Department of Foreign Languages consists of 58
teachers whose ages range from 23 to 45 years old. Most of the teachers are female, except
seven of them. All of the teachers hold B.A degrees from different universities in Vietnam.
At present, 72% have M.A degree or are doing an M.A course.
The academic background of the teachers shows that all of them have been
exposure to different teaching methods such as communicative method or learner-centred
approach, etc. However, most teachers usually employ the traditional method of teaching
listening. Classes are usually conducted in the form of lectures, with most of the time the
teachers play the key role in the classroom, being the main speakers working through the
text. The teachers explain new words, terms or structures and then guide students to answer
warm-up questions. Then, they play the tape and check answers from students or correct
them. Discussions are rarely held due to the limitation of time.
2.1.2. Students
In general, the students here are at the age of 18 -22. They are mostly male
students, coming from different provinces all over the country. The class size is about 50

11
students each. Most of students have studied English at high school; however, the problem
is that most of them do not consider English as their major, so they did not pay much
attention to study English at that time. This gives us-the teachers a number of work.
Besides, English is not their favourite subjects. Most of students are not really
interested in leaning English due to the fact that they find it difficult to learn and use
English skills, especially Listening and Speaking, Writing. For illustration, they are
familiar with the common teaching methods at secondary and high school with the focus is
on Grammar.
2.1.3. Teaching and learning facilities
As presented above, the class size for an English lesson is about 50 students each,
but the classrooms, though being well equipped with a projector, a computer, a cassette
player and two loudspeakers at the corner of the room, are designed for about 80 to 100
students classes which are actually too big for an English class of a much smaller size.

interviews with the EFL listening instructor of the subjects, (3) observation of the listening
environment, and (4) document analysis. These instruments are described in detail below.
2.4.1. Student questionnaire
The first instrument which was employed in this study was questionnaire. The
questionnaire was used to get information about the difficulties the students faced in EFL
listening while taking the English listening course at HaUI. The questionnaire was
designed after a review of the literature (Carroll, 1977; Watson & Smeltzer, 1984;
Samuels, 1994; Ur, 1984; Underwood, 1989; Rubin, 1994; Yagang, 1994; Long, 1989;
Dunkel, 1991; see also references of this research) about factors that influence
listening comprehension Items of the questionnaire were 16 questions (i.e., 12 close-
ended and 4 open-ended questions). For the close-ended items in the questionnaire, the
researcher used a five-point scale where 1-represents the lowest and 5-represents the
highest experience of listening difficulties. Here, the numbers 1 to 5 were designated by
the adverbs of frequency: „Never‟, „Seldom‟, „Sometimes‟, „Often‟, and „Always‟
respectively. The open-ended questions, on the other hand, were designed in a way that
the students are able to express their feelings and to add supplementary listening
difficulties on the course if there were any that were different from those presented
in the close-ended questions.

13
2.4.2. Teacher interview
The second data gathering instrument which was employed in this study was
interview. The purpose of the interview was to confirm the information that was
obtained through the questionnaire; to obtain data on how the listening difficulties which
had been identified through the questionnaire affected the learners‟ listening skill; to
obtain information about the reasons behind the learners‟ difficulties of learning
English listening; and to find out if there are any other listening difficulties that
affect the learners‟ listening skill. On the other hand the instructor interview aimed to
provide information about her approach in the teaching of the listening course, about
the quality of the listening materials, about the support she provided while the learners

instructional activity or approach… Although, it may have some limitations such as:
 Documents or materials may be incomplete or missing
 Data is restricted to what already exists
 Does not evaluate current student opinion, needs, or satisfaction
This tool was used with the current course syllabus, assignments, lecture notes, and
course evaluation results “to gain insight into” the factors that cause challenges for the first
year non-English major students of HaUI in learning English listening comprehension
from the perspective of teaching documents.
2.5. Data Analysis
The data obtained through the questionnaire, the interview, the observation and
the document analysis were organized and analyzed. While the data obtained from the
questionnaire and the document analyses were analyzed quantitatively (using percentage
and numbers) and qualitatively (using the three themes as posed in the three research
questions), the data obtained from the interview, the observation were analyzed
qualitatively with the help of a checklist cross tabulating cases and themes to identify the
listening problems that affected the EFL learners of Hanoi University of Industry, thus,
answering the three research questions.

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS
This chapter presents and discusses the results of the study. The first section
discusses the results of the document analysis. The second section presents the analysis
and the findings from questionnaire data. The third section discusses analysis of data
from the instructor interview. The forth section reports the data of the observation of the
listening environment. Finally, a brief summary of the results will be given.

15
3.1 Results of the document analysis
3.1.1 The English program for non-English major students at HaUI
At HaUI, English is taught as a compulsory subject and has been considered as a
pre-requisite for graduation of non-English major students because it is considered to be

3.1.2 The website http://haui.vietnamlearning.vn/.
This is a modern, easily-used English learning website designed for only non-
English major students at HaUI. It is not only designed in a friendly way to the user but it
also has a variety of available learning-assisted tools such as: dictionary of vocabulary,
word-family, grammar revision, pronunciation, speaking lab, etc. At this website, students
have to do exercises in seven units which are respectively designed to seven first units in
New Headway Pre-intermediate. To some extents, those exercises are kinds of
supplementary tasks for the text book of New Headway Pre-intermediate. In fact, each unit
in English online program contains two compulsory exercises and two optional ones. It
should also be noted that those exercises involve four English skills: reading, speaking,
writing and listening. This means that the non-English major freshmen are able to practise
their listening comprehension as many times as they want and at several places where there
is an internet access. They can make full use of the learning-assisted tools available at that
website to improve their English and take the advantage of other linked websites for their
further study. However, the listening and speaking tasks are quite limited; most of the
exercises focus on reading and writing skill. Another problem is how to check and control
students‟ online learning. The answers to this question are being studied in another
research in English Department at HaUI. In the scope of this paper, the writer aims at
studying the challenges in listening comprehension faced by non-English major freshmen
in the textbook of New headway series.
3.1.3 The textbook of “New headway Elementary and Pre-intermediate”
The textbook of New Headway Elementary and Pre-intermediate by John & Liz
Soars were published by Oxford University Press in 2000. Each textbook comprises 1
students‟ book, 1 students‟ workbook, 1 teacher‟s book with extra photocopiable material,
1 photocopiable teacher‟s resource book, 2 cassettes/ CDs, 1 optional students‟ workbook
cassette/ CD.
At HaUI, the text book “New Headway Elementary and Pre-intermediate” are
introduced to the first-year non-English major students. Each text book contains 14 units

17

with 10 multiple choice questions and 10 True-False sentences which are much more
different from listening tasks in the textbook of New headway series. This is such a big

18
problem for not only the learners but also the teachers at HaUI. As a result, it is doubtful
whether the objectives of the listening course to help the students to improve listening
skills, use listening strategies effectively, build confidence in listening, and get high score
in the listening section at the final exams can be achieved or not.
3.2 Analysis of the
Quest
i
onna
i
re Data

As mentioned in chapter one, the purpose of this study was to identify the listening
difficulties that affected the EFL learners of Hanoi University of Industry. To this end, a
questionnaire was administered to the first year non-English major students. The close-
ended and the open-ended items in the questionnaire required students to identify the
listening difficulties they faced in the English listening lessons. Furthermore the students
were asked to identify the listening barrier that poses the most difficulty for them. The
responses to the questionnaire were gathered. Then, the data obtained from the
questionnaire was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.
The study identified factors that the students believed had influenced their EFL
learners‟ listening comprehension. These have been further organized into four categories
according to their common characteristics: text, speaker, listener, and environment. In
fact, it is difficult to clearly distinguish between speaker, listener, and text factors
because they are interrelated, and one factor can be associated with the other one; for
example, „pronunciation‟ is a speaker factor if the way the speaker pronounces interferes
with the listener‟s comprehension, at the same time it can be a listener factor if it


3

I felt tired and couldn‟t focus on listening to long spoken texts.

4
I had difficulty in understanding the listening text with unfamiliar topics
Table-1 shows factors related to listening texts. Let us see them in detail in the
following four tables: Table-1a, Table-1b and Table-1c
To make the analysis easier, item number 1, 2 are presented and analyzed together
on Table-1a because all of them are factors directly related to bottom-up processing
strategy in which learners make use of the analysis of words and sentence structure to
enhance their understanding of the spoken text.
Table-1a: Learners‟ responses that refer to listening problems related to unfamiliar
words, difficult grammatical structures Item No.
LEVEL OF
DIFFICULTY

Never
Seldom
Tota
l
pos
i

Students‟ %

Students‟ No.

Students‟ %

Students‟ No.

Students‟ %

Students‟ No.

Students‟ %
1
3

2.63
5
4.46
8
7.01
14
12.28
58
50.87
34
29.82
106
92.98
2

the difficulty in listening comprehension is partly due to the structural component of the
text. This is possible that students relied on the bottom-up processing strategy in which
they make use of the analysis of words and sentence structure to enhance their
understanding of the spoken text, and this might be due to the inadequacy of the top-down
processing strategy in which learners make use of their previous knowledge for
understanding the text.

Table-1b: Learners‟ responses that refer to listening problems related to long spoken text Item No.
LEVEL OF
DIFFICULTY

Never
Seldom
Total
positive
Sometimes
Often
Always
Tota
l
negative

Students‟ No.

Students‟ %

Students‟ No.

22.80
42
36.84
23
20.18
91
79.82

Table-1b reveals that the majority of the students 91 (79.82%) out of 114 students
have responded that a long spoken text (sometimes, often, always) interfered with their
listening comprehension. This result clearly shows that the length of the text can be one
major factor that negatively affects the learners‟ listening comprehension. This confirms
Ur‟s assertion (1984) which justifies that the difficulty in listening comprehension is
partly due to the length of the listening text itself which bore listeners and distract their
concentration. Therefore, it is possible to infer that long spoken texts interfere with the
learners‟ listening comprehension.