VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES DƯƠNG THỊ LAN DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH
LISTENING SKILLS EXPERIENCED BY TEACHERS AND 10
th

GRADE STUDENTS AT DƯƠNG TỰ MINH HIGH SCHOOL IN THAI
NGUYEN, AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG
NGHE TIẾNG ANH CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT
DƯƠNG TỰ MINH THÁI NGUYÊN, VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP GỢI Ý M.A. MINOR THESIS Field: English teaching methodology
Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Phạm Thị Thanh Thủy, MA.
Ha Noi - 2012

3.2.1. Teachers 13
3.2.2. Students 13
3.3. Data collection instruments 14
3.4. Data collection procedures 15
3.5. Data analysis procedures 15
Summary 15

v
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 16
4.1. Questionnaires 16
4.1.1. Teachers and students’ attitudes to teaching and learning listening 16
4.1.2. Listening difficulties experienced by students 18
4.1.3. Listening difficulties experienced by teachers 23
4.2. Class observation 32
4.3. Discussions of the findings 33
4.4. Implications 37
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.1. Summary of the findings 39
5.2. Limitations of the study 40
5.3. Suggestions for further research 40
REFERENCES 42 vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching
DTM HS : Dương Tự Minh High School
ESL : English as Second Language
L2 : Second Language

Table 20: Teachers’ effort to have effective listening lessons 30
Table 21: Teachers’ need in having effective listening lesson 31 1
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
English has been remarked with many changes, notably changes in the movement
towards the teaching of English since it has become an international medium of
communication in such fields as commerce, industry, science, and technology. Thus teaching
and learning English in Vietnam is not excluded from the international trend due to the fact
that Vietnam has recently adopted an open- door policy, which encourages broadening and
improving relationship and cooperation with other countries in many aspects of life such as
diplomatic, economic, cultural, scientific and technological areas. Consequently, English is
taught not only as a major at many big universities in Vietnam such as Vietnam National
University, Ho Chi Minh University, Vinh University, but also as a compulsory subject at
various schools.
It is widely assumed that listening plays a very important role in everyday
conversation as well as learning a foreign language. First, in real life, people wish to join in
communication to exchange their information, experience, feelings and so forth. However,
communication is not considered to be successful unless what is said or referred to is

when teaching and learning listening skill in the new textbook “ Tieng Anh 10 ” ?
2. What are some factors affecting the success of the listening process as perceived
by DTM HS teachers and students DTM HS?
3. What are some effective ways to improve DTM HS students’ learning and
teachers’ teaching methods of listening skills?
1.3. Scope of the study
This study points out difficulties in listening that teachers and 10
th
form students at
Duong Tu Minh High School face. The study focuses on describing the problems the teachers
and students meet, and the factors causing such challenges, for instance, facilities, students’
English listening proficiency, and teachers’ methods. Due to the limited time, the investigator
could not implement the research for a longer time and study on a larger population. The
sample population is only 6 teachers out of 15 and 120 freshmen from three classes of the
same English proficiency level.
1.4. Design of the study
The study is divided into five chapters which are summarized as follows:
The first chapter is the introduction of the rationale for the study, the aims, and the
methods, scope of the study as well as the design of the study. The second chapter is the
literature review discussing the theoretical background, which is relevant to the purposes of
the study. The third chapter shows the procedure of carrying out the research such as the
participants, data collection instruments and methods of data analysis. The fourth chapter
reports and discusses the finding obtained from the data. Some suggested solutions are also
provided to help students overcome their difficulties in learning listening skill. The fifth
chapter summaries the whole study, followed by references and appendices.
1.5. Methods of the study
The research is done by both quantitative and qualitative methods; it is carried out on
the basis of situation analysis, material collection, survey questionnaires, class observations.

3

that impinges on the human processing which meditates between sound and the construction
of meaning”.
b. Definition of listening comprehension
There have been a large number of definitions for listening comprehension made by
methodologists.
Gary Buck (2001:31) points out that “ Listening comprehension is an active
process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming
sound” in which “number of different types of knowledge are involved: both linguistic
knowledge and non - linguistic knowledge”. To put it in another way, Gary Buck
(2001:31) concludes “comprehension is affected by a wide range of variables, and that

5
potentially any characteristic of the speaker, the situation or the listener can affect the
comprehension of the message”.
While Brown and Yule (1983) list the four degrees of comprehension on which
listening exercises can be constructed: (1) The listener can repeat the text; (2) The students
should have heard and understood the meaning of particular vocabulary items as that are used
in that text; (3) The student should be able to resolve anaphoric reference and to determine
which was referred to; and (4) The student should be able to work out not only what is
directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied.
On the other hand, Wolvin and Coakley (1985) state listening “the process of
receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli”. This definition suggests that
listening is a complex, problem- solving skill. The task of listening is more than perception of
sound; although perception is the foundation, it also requires comprehension of meaning. This
view of listening is in accordance with second-language theory which considers listening to
spoken language as an active and complex process in which listeners focus on selected
aspects of aural input, construct meaning, and relate what they hear to existing knowledge
(O’Malley & Chamot, 1989; Byrnes, 1984; Richards, 1985; Howard, 1983).
Therefore, the concept of listening and listening comprehension can be broadly
defined as everything that improves on the human processing which mediates between

“Top-down” processing, on the other hand, refers to the use of background
knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message. More simply, at this process, even if
the listener can not hear whatever the other person says, he still has a good ideal of the sort of
thing that will be said, which is constructed partly from the phonetic cues that he has heard,
and partly from his own experience. First, he knows that different types of people are likely to
say different things and speak in different ways. Second, he expects different kinds of
language to occur in different situations (formal or informal language; specialised or everyday
language). Third, he also knows that the choice of words is also much influenced by the
relationship between two partners (close or distant relationship, equal or superior one). From
lifelong experience, advanced learners can put what they hear in context to guess what is
likely to be said by the speaker. This ability allows them to reduce the input in their mind,
thus leaving time for decoding difficult chunks or information and remembering main ideals
of the listening text.
In fact, fluent listening depends on the combination of both “bottom-up” and “top-
down”, processing. The lack of either process will certainly lead to failure in comprehending
the text. Both processes have important role in decoding the meaning of the discourse.
Therefore, the listener should know how to combine the two processes effectively by actively
contributing knowledge from both linguistic factors and non-linguistic factors to understand
the course comprehensively.

7
In conclusion, listening requires active participation from the listener. In order to
become a good listener, he must use knowledge from both linguistic and non-linguistic
sources. That is active nature of listening comprehension.
2.2. Process of teaching listening
2.2.1. Process of listening
Listening is a complex process- an integral part of the total communication process.
(John A Kline, 1996). This neglect results largely from two factors. The sending parts of the
communication process: speaking and writing which are highly visible, and then receiving
parts: listening and speaking. The process of listening is the process of receiving, attending

communication depends on understanding.
Let’s return to the email analogy. Suppose the receiver got the email message, opened
it and read it. The receiver may not have understood what the sender meant even though the
receiver read every word of the message. There are several possible reasons for the
misunderstanding. Perhaps the information from the massage was not explicit. Or maybe, the
real point of the message was obscured by other tidbits information and the receiver missed
the point. In listening, the key point is sometimes missed.
Step 4: Responding
The listening process may ends with understanding but a response may be needed or at
least helpful. There are different types of response:
 Direct verbal response
 Response that seeks clarification
 Response that paraphrases
 Nonverbal response (John A Kline, 1996, p23)
Responding lets the sender know that the message was received, attended to and understood.
Step 5: Remembering

9
Memory is often a necessary and integral part of the listening process. If you can not
remember, you were not listening. To help students learn to listen effectively, teachers need
understand both the process of teaching and three stages of teaching will be presented in the
next section.
2.2.2. Stages of teaching listening skills
Underwood (1989) describes listening activities in terms of three phrases: pre, while and
post listening activities. This three-stage listening lesson model is usually used by many
teachers as it is very useful in teaching listening. Procedure of a listening lesson consists of
three stages: Pre-listening, While- listening and Post- listening. Each part is really a
constituent part on a continuum. Pre-listening is a preparatory stage. While- listening stage is to
complete the main listening task. Post-listening stage serves as the further development part.
Pre- listening stage prepares students by getting them to think about the topic or

communication has broken down. By listening, we do not mean that students only learn to hear
it, but as Mary Underwood (1989:4) says, “We mean our students to attend to what they hear, to
process it, to interpret it, to evaluate it and to respond to it.” Therefore, to succeed in
communication, participants need to be active in listening. Listening is an important way of
acquiring the language, a good way of picking up vocabulary and structures. Teaching listening
to spoken language is therefore of primary importance.
2.4. Listening difficulties for foreign language learners
Listening knowledge of a foreign language is often important to academics studies,
professional success, and personal development. Listening in a language that is not the
learner’s first language, nevertheless, is a source of considerable difficulties for L2 learners.
Some authors (Underwood, 1989; Thompson and Rubin, 1996; Goh, 2000) indicate that
problems or language problems, depending on the listeners’ learning abilities and skills.
2.4.1. Listening problems
It can be seen that L2 learners at the elementary level have to deal with a great deal of
difficulties in listening comprehension as listening in somehow is a receptive skill. However,
the listening process is often described from an information processing perspective as “ an
active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and
visual clues in order to define what the speakers are trying to express” (Thomson& Rubin
,1996,p.331). 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 get things repeat; (3) the listener’s limited vocabulary; (4)
failure to recognize the “signals”; (5) problems of interpretation; (6) inability to concentrate;
(7) and established learning habits.
Underwood (1989) sees these problems as being related to learners’ different
backgrounds, such as their culture and education. She points out that students whose culture

11
and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally
“better” at listening comprehension than those from a reading and book-based cultural and
educational background. Moreover, learners whose native language possesses the stress and


12
language that possesses certain characteristics far different from their native one in terms of
grammatical structures, lexicon, vocabulary and its mechanism meanwhile listening is most
closely related to mechanics which refer to basic sounds of letters and syllables, pronunciation
of words, intonation and stress. Thus, if a beginner student cannot understand how words are
segmented into various sounds, and how sentences are stressed in particular ways to convey
meaning, then he will find it hard to understand the meaning of the message. According to
Scarcella and Oxford (1992) listeners comprehend spoken messages either through isolated
word recognition within the sound stream, phrase or formula recognition, clause or sentence,
and extended speech comprehension. That means ESL students operate simultaneously in one
or two of these areas depending on many factors, one of which is proficiency levels of
comprehension. They catch, if hardly at all, particularly the low beginners, isolated words and
can hardly put together the meaning of words put together. On the second level of
comprehension, the student can recognize whole phrases and simple routine expressions.
They can hardly operate on the third level, understanding clause or sentences, much more so
on the fourth, understanding discourse.
Summary
Chapter two has, in general, provided an overview of the relevant literature in the field
of the study. This chapter has discussed different views of listening and listening
comprehension, on which the author based to work out the definition of listening. The chapter
has again made it clear that listening is vital, and more importantly, it has listed different
linguistic and non- linguistic factors that make listening a challenge.

13
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
This chapter aims to define the methodology of the study including research setting,
research participants, research instruments, data collection and data analysis procedure.
3.1. Research setting
This study attempts to investigate the difficulties encountered by the 10

in general and English in particular as they simply know that they do not have to do the
listening tests.

14
There were 120 male and female students in different classes: 10A3, 10A4, 10A7They
were randomly selected to participate in both observations and questionnaires.
3.3. Data collection instrument
This study employed both the quantitative and qualitative methods which helped to
provide qualified background data for discovering non-English majors’ motivation to learn
English. In order to obtain in-depth and rich data, the study used a variety of research
instruments and sources of data: questionnaires observation.
To again data for the study, two survey questionnaires were administered to the
subjects. One was designed for students and the other for the teachers. Some open-ended
questions were provided so that the respondents had opportunities to share their opinions
about items raised in the questionnaires.
The first questionnaire, consisting of 12 questions (see Appendix 2), was delivered to
120 selected students. It aimed to elicit the students’ opinion about difficulties in learning
listening skills with the focus of their background knowledge, experience, attitudes, interests,
and expectations in learning English and teachers’ teaching methods. Questions 1, 2, and 3
aim at exploring the students’ attitudes to listening learning. The next 8 questions (from
question 4 to question 11) were designed to find out the students’ listening difficulties
experienced by students. The final question (question 12) is designed for the students’ need in
learning listening.
The second questionnaire of 17 questions (see Appendix 1) was delivered to the
teachers. It aimed to draw their perspectives on unsolved problems in teaching listening skills
in the new textbook. Question 3, 4, 5 are about the main problems in listening lesson. By
answering the question 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13, teachers can express their methods and strategies
of listening teaching in the classroom. Question 14 is about the adaptation of the new
textbook. Question 15, 16, 17 were designed for the suggestions in teaching listening.
In addition to survey questionnaires and class observation was also applied to clarify

teachers and students in teaching and learning listening skill. It also analyses the causes of
difficulties in learning this skill and shows the results of the researcher’s class observation. At
last, the chapter gives implication in order to enhance the quality and effectiveness in learning
listening skill for students.
4.1. Questionnaires
4.1.1. Teachers and students’ attitudes to teaching and learning listening
The very beginning part of the questionnaire focused on finding all the information
about DTM HS teachers and students’ viewpoints in listening skill and its importance
compared to other skills.
Question 1: How important is listening skill in the new Tieng Anh 10 textbook in
comparison with other skills?
More important
Equally important
Less important
Not necessary
Don’t know

76%
24% Table 1: Teachers’ opinion about the importance of listening
76% of the respondents thought that listening and other communicative language skills
were equally important, whereas the other 24% agreed that listening is less important in
school curriculum. They explained in their interview that there is no official evaluation or
examination on listening, so most of them did not take so much effort to facilitate their
listening lessons as reading, writing or grammar ones.
Question 2: How do your students like listening lessons and learning listening
skills?
1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3.Disagree 4. Strongly disagree 5. I don’t know
They are interested in listening lessons/ skills because
they want to listen to news, songs, etc. on their own.

67%
22%
11%

Table 2: Teachers’ opinions about students’ interest (and motivation) in learning listening
skill and lesson

17
As seen from the table, the teachers had good understanding about their students.
Throughout all the listed items, from 67% to 78% teachers agreed that the students were
interested in doing tasks in the textbook and listening for entertainment. 89 % of the teachers
also claimed that students were afraid of listening because they didn’t know how and what to
do with listening tasks. However, fewer teachers (44 %) agreed that their students hated
listening because it is too difficult compared to 56% of them who had the opposite idea that
the students like listening due to its easy tasks.
Some researches were conducted from educational system to show that the students
were found to possess the kinds of motivation which are instrumental and integrative.
Motivation strengthens the ambition, increases initiative and gives direction, courage, energy
and the persistence to follow one's goals. A motivated person takes action and does whatever
it needs to achieve his/her goals. In theory, integrative motivation is considered a key
component in assisting language students to develop proficiency in a second language when
they become residents in a community where the target language is used in social interactions.
In contrast, with instrumental motivation, the reasons motivated study a language because it
opens up educational and economic opportunities for them.
Purposes

knowledge and ability
89%
0%
11%
Get the main ideas but cannot do the tasks or
cannot get the required information
42%
19%
39%
Only find listening tasks boring
60%
0%
40%
Cannot listen to the text because the sound is
too soft or noisy
92%
0%
8%
Have no habits and/or techniques to practice
and improve listening skills
78%
18%
4%
Lack of listening materials(tapes or CDs)
58%
29%
13%
Table 4: Students’ difficulties in general
As seeing from Table 4, most of the subjects coped up with such above difficulties.
The most important problem involving 92% of the respondents was the difficulty in listening

listening tasks
46%
23%
33%
Students’ awareness, interests
18%
44%
38%
Basic background knowledge of English
90%
10%
0%
Self-study at home

78%
22%
The design of the listening lessons, tasks and
the clarity of tasks instructions
14%
30%
56%
Activities for entertainment
27%
23%
50%
Requirements of examinations
77%
15%
8%
Table 5: Factors affecting students’ participation and interests in listening lessons


20
Items
1
2
3
4
5
Visual aids: pictures, chalk, chart, board
0%
0%
56%
44%

Textbook and supplementary books

100%
Handouts

34%
55%
11%

Computers, speakers 56%

Textbooks and supplementary materials constitute 100%. It means that teachers
completely relied on this source of materials. To some extent, lack of financial support from
the school and the government in terms of facility could be the excuse. Sometimes, visual aids
(pictures, board, diagram) (56%), handouts (55%), computers and speakers (56%), tapes,
recorders (58%), CD/VCD (55%) and projectors (60%) were employed.
c. Teacher’s role and activities in listening lessons
Question 8: What is result of student’s opinions about teacher’s roles in listening
lessons?
Teachers’ role
Students’ choice
Guiding and giving instructions of the purposes and how and what to
listen to
100%
Designing tasks and organizing activities in classroom
100%
Observing the class activities
96%
Listening and translating the texts
58%
Correcting listening tasks and discussing with the students
100%
Managing and controlling all students tasks and activities in classroom
100%
Reading the listening text
71%
Table 8: Teacher’s roles
The data shown in the table reveal an amazing fact of current teaching methods in
which teachers play an essential roles. 100% respondents agreed that teachers had to be in
charge of guiding, giving instruction, designing tasks, and correcting mistakes (or giving