VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐÀO THỊ KIM NHUNG

STUDENTS’ ENGLISH LISTENING ANXIETY:
CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS

(Lo lắng của sinh viên trong giờ học nghe:
nguyên nhân và giải pháp)

Course: Cohort 12
Supervisor: Prof. Silvia Spence

Hanoi, 2013

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ABSTRACT
Why do most students experience an overwhelming amount of anxiety
when listening to English? How can teachers address such affective feeling in
order to improve students’ listening comprehension and English proficiency?
The researcher conducted a study on a sample of 30 English major students in
their first year at Tay Bac University, Son La. The instruments of the study
were a questionnaire and an informal interview. Data was collected
quantitatively and analyzed qualitatively. The study confirmed that the
students are highly anxious in listening classes. The study identified factors
viewed as leading to listening anxiety such as listening material, speaker,
listener and listening environment factors. The study also revealed that the


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4. Significance of the Study.

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5. Scope of the Study.

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6. Structure of the Thesis

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

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CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Overview of Anxiety

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1.1. Definition and Types of Anxiety

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1.2. Foreign Language Anxiety


2.3. The Listening Comprehension Process:

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2.3.1. Two Levels View: Bottom-up and Top-down 15
Processing

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2.3.2. A Sequential Process of Listening

3. Listening Anxiety

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3.1. Related Studies of Language Anxiety in Listening Skill

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3.2. Causes of Listening Anxiety
3.2.1. Listening Anxiety associated with Listening Text
Factors

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1
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3.2.3. Listening Anxiety associated with Listener Factors

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a) Limited Vocabulary

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b) Memory

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c) Background knowledge
d) Application of Strategies
3.2.4. Listening Anxiety associated with Listening
Environment

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3.3. Instructional Approaches for Listening Anxiety Reduction.
CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

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1. Participants


b) Reasons for their feelings about listening skills

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5.3 Listening anxiety associated with each listening factors

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PART C: CONCLUSION

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1. Summary of the findings

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2. Suggestions for classroom practice

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2.1. Solutions related to Listening Text

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2.2. Solutions related to Speakers
2.3. Solutions related to Listeners

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

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2. Purpose of the Study.
The major purpose of the research is to find out why the first year
English major students at Hong Duc University feel anxious or embarrassed
while listening to English. In other words, this study seeks to identify the
factors or causes that make students stressful and nervous while listening to
English in the language classroom setting. This includes considering the

A study of the students’ listening anxiety is such a broad issue
investigated by many authors. However, in my study, I will focus on the
students’ listening anxiety – its causes and solutions: A study of the first year
English majors in the Department of Foreign Language, Tay Bac University,
Son La
6. Structure of the Thesis
The thesis is divided into three parts:
Part 1 is the introduction, which presents the research justification, the
purpose, the research questions, scope and the structure of the thesis.
Part 2 is the development which includes two chapters. Chapter one
review the literature in terms of foreign language anxiety in general and
listening anxiety in particular. Chapter two presents the study.
Part 3 is the conclusion which presents a summary of the study and
concluding comments derived from the findings of the study. It also discusses
the limitation of the study and suggestions for further research. Finally, some
solutions to reduce listening anxiety are suggested.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
The main aim of this chapter is to review the literature on second
language anxiety in general and listening anxiety in particular. The chapter
starts with a literature review on anxiety. This is followed by an overview of
listening comprehension. The end of the chapter is a discussion of listening
comprehension anxiety
1. Overview of Anxiety
1.1. Definition and Types of Anxiety
“Anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described by

Research on the affective factors in second language acquisition has
been mounting steadily for a number of decades because students are
“physical and cognitive, but primarily emotional, being” (Rogers, cited in
Brown, 2007: 97). “Among the affective factors influencing language
learning, anxiety ranks high” (Arnold, 1999: 59). The construct of anxiety has
been recognized as one of the most important predictors of foreign language
performance.
Foreign language anxiety is a universal phenomenon that has a
significant factor adversely affecting the language learning process. Gardner
& MacIntyre (1993, cited in Arnold 1999:59) refer to language anxiety as

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“fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the
second or foreign language."
Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B, and Cope, J. (1986) conceptualize foreign
language anxiety as ‘a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings,
and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the
uniqueness of the language learning processes” (p.128).
1.3 Components of Foreign Language Anxiety
Horwitz et al. (1986) integrated three related anxieties to their
conceptualization

of

foreign

language



others

and

to

seek

social

interactions

than

nonapprehensive ones. According to Lucas (1984), the unique component of
communication apprehension is the metacognitive awareness that, as a
speaker and a listener, full comprehension of foreign language message is
impossible. Therefore, the potential for frustrated or aborted communication
is always present. Such frustration may even be considered part of the
learning process.
1.3.2 Test Anxiety
Sarason(1878: 214) defines test anxiety as “the tendency to view with
alarm the consequences of inadequate performance in an evaluation
situation”. Aydin (2008, ….) suggests that test anxiety could be “a fear of
failing in tests and an unpleasant experience held either consciously or
unconsciously by learners in many situations”. Test anxiety concerns
apprehension towards academic evaluation which is based on a fear of failure
(Horwitz and Young, 1991). According to Young (1991), there are different
variables that can affect learners’ anxiety in a test: the content of the test;

and distinct process particular to second language acquisition. Foreign language
anxieties are related to communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation,
and test anxiety. They also believe that these factors have an adverse effect on
the students’ language learning process.
2. Overview of Listening Comprehension
2.1. Definition of Listening Comprehension
Although listening is now well recognized as a crucial role in language
learning and communication, it has long been neglected by many FL teacher
and researchers (Ur, 1884, Krashen, 1985; Underwood, 1989; Rost, 1994;
Rubin, 1994, etc.). Before 1960s, the teaching of listening used to be thought

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the most infertile and least understood aspect of foreign language. However,
over the last two decades, with a new wave of interest in the development of
communicative competence in language teaching, listening comprehension
skills have ever received much more attention in language teaching
classrooms.
Chastain (1971) defines listening comprehension as the ability to
understand native speech at normal speed in unstructured situation.
According to Buck, G. (2002: 31), “Listening comprehension is an
active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying
knowledge to the incoming sound”.
Thus, while scholars’ definitions of these two terms are often worded
differently, they typically describe the same basic concept, listening
comprehension are considered as an activity in which listeners employ a
variety of mental process in an effort to recognize and master major FL
patterns, as well as to activate all the schemata to make sense of the incoming
information.

2.3. The Listening Comprehension Process:
2.3.1. Two Levels View: Bottom-up and Top-down Processing
The processing of listening comprehension has often been viewed as
interactive process taking place simultaneously between two levels: bottomup processing and top-down processing.
In bottom-up processing, listening processing is formed hierarchically,
from the lowest level of detail to the highest level. The new incoming data is
first decoded into phonemes (the smallest meaningful unit), and then
phonemic units are connected together to construct individual words. Next, a
group of words are connected to form phrases, which make up sentences.
These sentences build a meaningful and complete text. The meaning of the
spoken text is derived as the last step in the process. “The listener interprets

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that literal meaning in terms of the communicative situation to understand
what the speaker means.” (Buck, 2001: 2)
On the other hand, top-down processing refers to utilizing schemata
which was known as a learner’s background knowledge and global
understanding to deduce the meaning from and interpret the message (Nunan,
2002).
To become an effective listener, student should be very careful not to
go overboard with top-down at the expense of bottom-up. The reason for this
is that listening comprehension is the result of an interactive process of
bottom-up processing and top-down processing by employing both linguistic
and non-linguistic information to make sense of the incoming message.
Brown (2006:2) explained more about this, “students must hear some sounds
(bottom-up processing), hold them in their working memory long enough (a
few seconds) to connect them to each other and then interpret what they’ve
just heard before something new comes along. At that time, listeners are using

3.1. Related Studies of Language Anxiety in Listening Skill
Listening in a FL is a less thoroughly studied skill in general by
researchers. However, they come to a consensus that anxiety impedes
listening comprehension (Elkhafaifi, 2005, p. 209). Quite a lot of attention has
been paid to the anxiety suffered by many learners when listening to the
foreign language.
According to Horwitz et al. (1986: 127), listening was the “primary
process in the development of a second language”. In their study’s (1986),
many students were anxious when listening to the L2, and had “difficulties in
discriminating the sounds and structures of a target language message” (p.
126). One male student said that he heard “only a loud buzz” (p.126) when his
instructor was speaking, and anxious students also told of problems with

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comprehending the content of L2 messages and with understanding their
teachers in “extended target language utterances” (p. 126). Over one third
(35%) of the participants expressed their fear of not being able to “understand
what the teacher is saying in the foreign language” (item 4), and over a
quarter (27%) said they were nervous when they did not “understand every
word” uttered by the teacher (item 29) (Horwitz et al., 1986, pp. 129-130).
They suggested that instructors help students cope with anxiety-producing
situations and make the learning context less stressful.
3.2. Causes of Listening Anxiety
There is growing support for the view that listening comprehension is
not only an essential skill but a prerequisite for oral proficiency as well. Most
learners of English as a foreign language experience considerable difficulties
in listening comprehension, and these difficulties appear to be main causes of
anxiety which should be taken into consideration. In order to help students

the complexity and difficulty of the lexis and syntax. Meeting unknown
sounds, lexis and syntax, FL learners “seem to work much harder than
necessary aiming for accurate perception and interpretation of every word
they hear” (Ur, 1984, p.19). Thus, fatigue may come from “how hard the
learner need to concentrate” (Ur, 1984, p.19). The listening texts which do not
match the students’ current proficiency level may lead to failure in
understanding listeners’ progress. For many learners, knowing the meaning
of words in the text is decisive for their comprehension; and “an unknown
word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think
about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the
speech” (Underwood, 1989, p.17). “Their perceptions of their own listening
ability are often directly affected by how well they think they can understand
content words in a text.” (Goh,….:24). As a result, they are probably less

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successful than listeners who get the meaning from the listening text without
focusing much on the language
b) Uninterested or Unfamiliar Topic
A topic which is uninterested or unfamiliar often makes FL learners get
tired and feel discouraged from listening process, because they find it “more
difficult to make inferences, and comprehension will be more dependent on
interpreting the linguistic information” (Buck, 2001, p.20). Uninterested or
unfamiliar topic can interfere with the learner’s concentration which is a
major problem in listening activity because even the shortest break in
attention can seriously affect listening comprehension process. According to
Underwood (1989), “If students find the topic interesting, they will find
concentration easier.” Interesting topic makes listening activities enjoyable;
students become engaged in classroom activities, therefore it is a good way to

next part. Or they simply ignore a whole chunk because they fail to sort it all
out quickly enough. Either way, they fail.” They could “have further
compounded the students’ difficulties”.
b) Phonological Modifications
“In rapid speech, adjacent sounds influence each other” (Buck, 2001,
p.32). Phonological modification, one language phenomenon which is
observed in the informal speech of native speakers, is believed to influence
ESL learners’ comprehension of input. According to Buck (2001:33), the
more informal situations is, the more modification the speakers will tend to
have. Buck points out that the most important modifications include the
following:
Assimilation: when sounds influence the pronunciation of adjacent
sounds. For example, the reader may read the phrase, "gave her," but the

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listener may hear "gaver"; “What are you going to do?” will be
“wadjagonnado?”
Elision: when sounds are dropped in fast speech. For example, For
example, the reader may read the phrase "kept talking," but the listener will
hear "keptalking.", “tomato” will be “tmato”
c) Unfamiliar Accents
The speaker’s accent is unfamiliar to the learner when words are
pronounced in non-standard manner. It is clear that Vietnamese pronounce
English differently from Indians, and is different again British or Americans
because of different places’ different accents. However, the problem arises
popularly when FL learners are too accustomed to their teacher’ accent, come
across the pronunciation of the native speakers characterized by fast rate of
delivery, unstructured language with incomplete sentences, and false starts,

and stored for further processing in short-term memory. After simple
processing, information is finally stored in long-term memory as schema for
future decoding and comprehending new information. Call (1985) pointed out
that short-term memory appears to be the most important in listening
comprehension. Call’s (1985: 769) study on the relationship between shortterm memory and listening comprehension avers that:
Rivers (1981) also had the same idea with Call, he stated that linguistic
elements are not sufficient for comprehending the spoken message. Listeners
must retain these elements in short-term memory long enough to interpret the
utterance to which they are attending.
c) Background knowledge
The lack of background knowledge, which is also called prior knowledge
or schemata, may impede student performance. It explained up to 81% of the
variance in posttest scores (Dochy, Segers & Buehl, 1999). “To make sense of
the rapid-fire noise that comes from oral speech, learners often try to find an

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overall schema. Even at the word, phrase, or sentence level students attempt
to associate prior knowledge of the language with the incoming noise”
(Rubin, 1994, p.209). As suggested by Underwood (1989: 19), students who
are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in
interpreting the words they hear even when they can understand their
‘surface’ meaning…..The meaning of non-verbal clues –facial expression,
nods, gestures, tone of voice – can easily be misinterpreted by listeners from
other cultures. On the other hand, if the incoming information is unfamiliar, it
cannot evoke the listener’s schemata and thus, he must depend heavily on his
linguistic ability in listening comprehension to interpret and analyze the
information.
d) Application of Strategies

materials, etc can reduce the level of tension and anxiety in the classroom.
Besides, providing various forms of support for learners as preparatory
activities, question preview and repeated input (Chang & Read, 2008);
making learning context less stressful (Horwitz et al.,1986) also make the
situation better. Horwitz (2010) averred that some practices perceived as
comfortable by one group of learners may prove stressful for a group from a
different background.
In short, the chapter reviews the literature on many issues related to
anxiety and listening anxiety. These include a definition of foreign language
anxiety and its components, definition of listening comprehension and its
process, factors related to listening comprehension and empirical evidence of
listening comprehension anxiety that has been reported by other researchers.
This knowledge, therefore, serves as a basic for further work in the later
chapters.

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