Research Reflection Topic: Listening Difficulties of Students

1. Republic of the Philippines
Tarlac State University
College of Education
Center of Development
Villa Lucinda, Tarlac City
Research
Reflection
Topic: Listening Difficulties of Students
Submitted by:
Jeri Mayah P. Asuncion
BEED 4-3
Submitted to:
Mr. Lyndon Q. Macanas
Instructor

2. I. Summary
a. Problem and it’s background
This research attempts to explore ways employed by students while doing their won
listening. It also aims to find out difficulties as well as to provide some recommendation
for improvement.
b. Methods
The method used in this research was a questionnaire type. She used this method because
she said that questionnaires are more easy to quantification, cheap and easy to answer.
They are good ways for collecting information . And questionnaires considered more
reliable ways since they are anonymous and this encourages greater honesty.
c. Summary of research and discussion
The researcher had a Fifty English major from different classes in the faculty of foreign
language in Lac Hong University participated in this research. To find out their listening
experience as well as the time students spend on self-study, students are asked to put a tick
for their best answer.
And after the students have answered this are the results:
1. The main problem encountered by students while listening is the time
they spend on studying themselves is too little to improve the skill.
Students need more time to practice listening all by themselves for
better learning. And students should read more for them to understand
the words that they didn’t know the meaning.
2. Next is the physical setting. The learning environment must be well
ventilated and is clean. Because there are some students who cannot
focused if the learnind environment is not well ventilated.
3. And lastly is the listening material. Us teachers must speak loudly and
fluently when we are reading or discussing in front. And also when we

3. are using videos or audio on our discussion, we must make sure that
those materials has a good quality voice.
II. Implications
a. Students
By this research the students will know on what are the top things that
they should consider when they are listening. So that they can practice it
and for them to improve that certain problem. For example, the main
problem that is being encountered by students while listening is lack of
understanding the meaning of a word, and by that they can practice and
read more so that next time they can catch up quickly.
b. Teacher
This research will be a big help to teachers, because by this the teachers
will know on what certain are the students are having a difficulty while
listening. So she as a teacher, she will be the one who will do a solution
for her students to understand more on what they are listening to. For
example, the physical setting is a big factor to students while they are
listening, the classroom must be well ventilated for them to be not irritated
by the hot weather and they can focus on what they are listening to. So the
teacher may add some electric fan or aircon inside the classroom.
c. Administrators
By this the admins can conduct a seminar or call for a meeting to the
teachers to discuss this matter. And to remind the teachers the different
problems of students when listening and so that the admins can discuss the
ways on how they can improve the listening abilities of the students.

4. d. Community
By this the community will also know on what are the difficulties of
the youth or of all the people on their respective barangay or place. They
SK’s can conduct a seminar on how the people will improve their listening
skills.
III. Reflection
The author of the research Trinh Vinh Hien conducted a research about the listening
difficulties being encountered by the students. This small project is an attempt to identify
problems faced by first year-English major students at Lac Hong University. This research
concentrated on: the way student self-study on their own, the most common problems they
encounter, the strategies which help them to get over and succeed in listening.
Listening is the most important macro skill to learn. Because if you have the ability to
listen well the more knowledge you will get. So the aim of this study is to find out the
difficulties and to give the students some recommendation.
So what the researcher did is she gave a questionnaire to a set of students. And the
results are on the first question it shows that shows that 89.5% of students failed their
listening tests. This means that listening is a very hard task for students. They need more
time and effort to be a good listener. They need to practice listening at home. So that
whenever they are about to listen at school or from somewhere else they can easily
understand on what are they listening to.
On the second question, according to the data which has been collected, 84.2% of the
students said that they would go through the questions and guess what the topic about.
There are students who lacks in vocabulary that’s why whenever they encountered a new
word they are having a hard time to process on their mind on what is that sentence is all
about. The researcher says that “In listening comprehension, a good listener will not listen
to all the words of the listening task. They may skip any part of it and just focus on the
information that they need for their answer.” But 73.6% of the students says that they are

5. listening word by word and by that they can easily understand on what is the passage is all
about.
And then the students were asked to put their answer on as scale of frequency ranging
from never to always. Problems are classified into two different categories, namely
problems from the listeners and listening materials and equipment. For the problems of
listener. First, students are predicting of what the speaker is going to say with 68.3%
(often & always). The second problem is the limitation of vocabulary power. 89.4% of
the participants suffer from incomplete comprehension. The third problem is recognizing
the main points in listening comprehension. 73.6% of the students can not recognize the
main points in a listening because they concentrate too much on listening to word by
word.
Next is the Problems for listening material. The first problem being encountered here
is that the unfamiliar topic sometimes bring about a problem in listening comprehension.
63.2% (sometimes) and 36.8% (often and always) of the students have problems with
topics which are unfamiliar to them. Next is the accent of the speaker. Third is students
often try to unlock the meaning by analysis of sentence structure. Unfamiliar structure
would be confusion to them. Therefore, there are 47.4% of students who face this
problem. And next is The long listening text is supposed to be an obstacle to students in
listening claimed by 84.2% (sometimes and often). Note taking is a very important tool to
students when the text is too long.
Third problem is from the physical setting. The table shoes that shows that there are
63.1% of students have to face the problem of noises. Next is the poor tape quality and
poor equipments.
Here are some of the micro skill suggestions that needed in an able listener:
● predicting what people are going to talk about
● guessing unknown words or phrases without panicking
● using one’s won knowledge of the subject to help one understand
● identify relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information

6. ● retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)
● recognizing discourse markers, e. g, Well, Oh, Another thing is, Now, Finally, etc.
● recognizing cohesive devices e. g such as and which, including link words, pronouns,
references, etc.
● understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc, which give clues
to meaning and social setting.
● understanding inferred information, e. g, speaker’s attitude or intention
We do listening on our everyday lives, it is the most used macro skill each and
everyday. Especially inside the classroom when you are listening to the discussion of
your teacher. There are many hindrances when we are listening, sometimes we don’t
really know the meaning of a certain word. And with that we need to read and practice
more to increase our vocabulary. Sometime the environment around us is one of the
reasons on why we cannot focus, but if you really want to listen whatever are those
hindrances, you can listen well. Remember that if you are willing to that certain thing you
can do it. All you need to do is to give yourself and focus more on what you are doing.

7. DIFFICULTIES AND STRATEGIES IN
LISTENING COMPREHENSION (TRINH VINH
HIEN 03AV4)
INTRODUCTION
Listening plays a vital role in daily lives. People listen for different purposes
such as entertainment, academic purposes or obtaining necessary information.
As for foreign language learning, listening is of paramount important since it
provides the language input (Rost 1994:141-142). Without understanding
input appropriately, learning simply can not get any improvement. In addition,
without listening skill,no communication can be achieved (Cross, 1998). As for
that, language learners, especially those who learn English as a foreign
language in a non-native setting, find it difficult to acquire good listening skill.
This small project is an attempt to identify problems faced by first year-English
major students at Lac Hong University. This research would concentrate on
these matters below:
The way student self-study on their own
The most common problems they encounter
The strategies which help them to get over and succeed in listening
I hope that my research would bring students advantages and development to
their listening skill.
LITERATURE REVIEW
♦♦♦
Listening plays an important role in second language instruction for several
reasons (Rost, 1994). If you cannot hear it well you will find it hard to
communicate or perhaps you cannot pass your listening examination for
instance. In fact, students often take the wrong way when listening and this
leads them to the poor result. It should be noted that the learner’s perception

8. of their listening problem and strategies can affect their comprehension both
positively and negatively (Wenden, 1986). Thus, in order to help students get
improved with their listening skill, it is needed finding out their listening
problems which cause difficulties to them. According to Yagang (1994), the
problems in listening were accompanied with the four following factors: the
message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting. Furthermore, a
numbers of research have been carried out to pick out the problem in listening.
The problems were believed to cause by the speech rate, vocabulary and
pronunciation (Higgins, 1995). As Flowerdew & Miller (1996) assumed that
the problems of the students were for the speed of delivery, new terminology
and concept, difficulty in focusing and the physical environment. As Nguyen
Ngoan stated in his article “listening to VOA: advantages, problems and
solutions” the students have to face these three problems. First of all, the
students find it hard to understand proper names as they have never heard
about it before. In other words, they have no background knowledge about
what they are listening. The second problem is believed to rise from the
unfamiliar, uninteresting and too long listening which makes the students feel
strange, discouraged and bored of what they are hearing. The last one is
assumed to be about the sound connections and intonation spoken by native
speakers with different accents.
The research available on second-language listening comprehension is
insufficient. Comparing with other skills, Goh (1997:161) said that “there are
fewer insights about the process of listening and the way it is learnt”. Similarly,
Richards (1985:189) stated that:” there is little direct research on second
language listening comprehension”. As for that, I am doing this research not
only to help students in our university with better listening but also to
contribute a small part to enrich the listening research which has been done so
far.
BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH
I. Aims of the study
This research attempts to explore ways employed by students while doing
their own listening. It also aims to find out difficulties as well as to provide
some recommendation for improvement.
II. Justification
Listening is almost ignored in both secondary and high school, where students
spent seven years in English language learning. This results in poor listening
skill when they become English major. As compared with other language skill,

9. listening is considered the most challenging subject. Therefore low scores in
listening are unavoidable.
III. Sources of study
Article
Books
Questionnaire
IV. Methodology
In terms of the method, questionnaire was employed for this study.
Questionnaires, in Nunan’s words, are more amenable to quantification, cheap
and easy to answer. They are good ways for collecting information (Cohen &
Manion 1989, Weir & Roberts 1994). Moreover, questionnaires considered
more reliable ways since they are anonymous and this encourages greater
honesty (Cohen 2000:269).
Questionnaire included closed and open-ended questions. The purpose for
mixing of both closed and open-ended responses is that the former is easier to
collate and analyze and the responses to the later will provide more flexibility
so that the respondent can give more accurate answer
The participants consist of 50 freshmen of English department at Lac Hong
University. As they are in the first year of academic, they experience such
problems. It is this stage that students should be equipped with variety of
techniques right from their early listening. With appropriate strategies, they
will have built up their listening skill by the time.
V. Defining Listening
Listening, as Howatt and Dakin (1974) define, is the ability to identify and
understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker’s
accent and pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his
meaning

10. FINDING AND DISCUSSION
I. Students’ learning style
FiftyEnglishmajor from different classes in the faculty of foreign language inLac
Hong University participated in this research. To find out their listening
experience aswellas the time studentsspend onself-study,studentsareasked
to put a tick for their best answer.
Here is the result from questionnaires.
Table 1: Students’ learning style
Q: questions from questionnaire
a, b, c, d, e: options for each question
The table above shows that 89.5% of students failed their listening tests. This
means that the listening is actually an obstacle to students. In fact, to possess a
good listening skill, it takes times and effort. However, students seem to spend
very little time on practicing at home 73.6% (sometimes), 5.2% (never), 10.5%
(rarely). Without much self practicing, the students can not approach to any
improvement or good result in listening comprehension. Self-study is such a
way to succeed in listening. For their improvement, students listen to songs
(63.2%), tapes and disks of the syllabus in University (43.4%), news in English
(57.9%). However, much practicing would result nothing if the students can
not infer the strategies from each listening task. The good outcome would
result if students realize and adopt strategies through their practice.
Table 2: Students’ strategies in listening
Q: question
a, b, c, d, e: options for each question
What students do before listening partially has impacts on their
comprehension of the listening text. According to the data which has been
collected, 84.2% of the students said that they would go through the questions
and guess what the topic about. It is reasonable enough for this first stage of
listening. However, the task instruction should be prior to read under any
circumstances. As they read them, they know what they are supposed to do and
how to deal with that. There are just 42.1% of students taking this first step.

11. In addition, new words are such matters that prevent students from
understanding the text. When encountering a new word, just 10.5% choose to
ignore the word and keep on listening, 42.4% try to guess its meaning and 47.4
% feel depressed and cannot listen anymore. From this, we can see that lacking
of vocabulary could be a barrier to students.
As Hedge (2000:237) pointed out that, instead of listening to every word in
their first language, many language learners tend to integrate their linguistic
competence, experience and background knowledge to comprehend the text.
In listening comprehension, a good listener will not listen to all the words of
the listening task. They may skip any part of itand just focus on the information
that they need for their answer. In contrast, most participants in my research
consisting of 73.6% agreed that they listen to word by word. Listening word by
word or listening for detail, as they think, is very important to get the main
ideas. Once they try to comprehend every single word, there is little chance for
them to discover the key words which give them clues to understand the
listening text.
In our first language, we skim over parts of the message and pay attention to
relevant parts only. Thus sentences are not processed word by word and the
focus isplaced on the ideas behind these words and how these ideas are linked
together to draw conclusions. Brown (1992).
II. Problems in learning listening
To identify problems, students are asked to put their answer on as scale of
frequency ranging from never to always. Problems are classified into two
different categories,namely problemsfrom the listenersand listeningmaterials
and equipment.
1. Problems from the listeners
Problems Never Some
times
often always
Making prediction what
the speaker talk about
36.8% 36.8% 26.4%
Guessing unknown words
or phrases
15.8% 36.8% 47.4%
Recognizing main points 21.1% 10.5% 31.6% 36.8%
Table 3: Statistics about problems from the listeners

12. The first problem students have is predicting what the speaker is going to say
with 68.3% (often & always). In fact, the prediction brings about a number of
advantages to students in their listening comprehension. According to Hasan
(2000), the problem is believed to cause by the habit of listening to word by
word. They do not focus on any particular cues which help them predict what
is going to be talked about. However, in every listening task, cues are provided
indirectly that well-trained or experienced listener could recognize it
naturally. For instance, the title of the task can help learners to guess the points
coming next. In addition, prediction can be made by photos, maps, charts or
anything that provided in the listening. Besides, making questions relating to
the listening topic would keep students motivated and improve their
comprehension.
There would be no worry if these questions do not match the next points inthe
listening task. Creating predictions questions, as Berman (2003) thought,
would maintain the students’ focus on their tasks. Furthermore, the answers
to these prepared questions in the pre-listening stage could be the actual main
ideas of the listening task. In this way, prediction question is such a useful way
for comprehension improvement.
The second problem is the limitation of vocabulary power. 89.4% of the
participants suffer from incomplete comprehension. Some listeners thought
that meaning resides within the unfamiliar words so they need a huge amount
of vocabulary. On facing a new word, they tend to find out the meaning rather
than infer it from the context (Hasan, 2000). Here are some techniques for
references:
The first and most basic strategy is to use the clues which are the words or
phrases coming after the unknown words. Nevertheless, students have to make
sure that they do not spend much time on guessing the unfamiliar word or they
will miss the speaker’s next point. In addition, the speakers may use synonyms,
antonyms or appositives to explain the words.
The third problem is recognizing the main points in listening comprehension.
If students can not obtain any main points, failure will be an inevitable result.
73.6% of the students can not recognize the main points in a listening because
they concentrate too much on listening to word by word. Thus they can not
identify the key words or the content words of the listening tasks. However,
there are clues suggested by Berman (2000) to identify the main points in
listening.
Discourse marker is considered to be the bridge that leads to the points. It is
such a natural thing that the speakers often signal the main points with
discourse markers. Different markers with particular expressions keep
listeners catch up to the turning points of the task. Marker of addition (in

13. addition, moreover, furthermore, etc) announces a modification or an addition
to an idea while marker of cause and sequence (because, due to the fact that,
as a result, consequently) informs us the reason and the result of a fact or an
action.
Repetition is supposed to be the signal of main points. When a word or phrase
is repeated for several times, possibly it covers the important points.
The speed of the speech also supplies cues for catching the main points. As a
matter of fact, the natural talk is very fast to second language learners so it
makes up some trouble to the non-native speaker. Nevertheless, in the
streaming of listening students would notice that sometimes the speaker
speaks a bit slower and clearer than he did before. This is mostly the points of
the listening. It is the chance for students to capture the necessary information
in a listening text. Emphasis is a natural factor in speaking so speaker also
emphasizes to signal the most significant ideas. What students should do is to
pay attention to the speed and the intonation of the speaker and identify the
points. As in his books “advance listening strategies” (Berman, 2003) assumed
that:
Pace is the speed of speech. Unimportant points or small details are usually
spoken more quickly. Important points, such as main ideas, are usually spoken
more slowly and clearly.
2. Problems from the listening material
Problems Never Sometimes Often Always
Unfamiliar topics 63.2% 31.6% 5.2%
Different accents 21.1% 47.4% 31.5%
Authentic material 10.5% 68.4% 21.1%
Colloquial words 10.5% 36.8% 36.8% 15.9%
Speed of speech 31.6% 52.6% 15.8%
Linking words 10.5% 15.8% 73.7%
Ungrammatical sentences 52.6% 47.4%
Hesitation 21.1% 47.4% 31.5%
Long listening 15.8% 52.6% 31.6%
Table 4: Statistics about problems from listening material
Table 4 shows that unfamiliar topic sometimes bring about a problem in
listening comprehension. 63.2% (sometimes) and 36.8% (often and always) of
the students have problems with topics which are unfamiliar to them. The

14. listening material may contain a variety of fields in life or society. For instance,
it is likely a business report, a daily conversation or a political issue which
confuse the listener. These conversations may include words, phrases or terms
unfamiliar to listeners. They are totally strange to them so it is such a hard job
to listen when the message is full of terminology. The solution is to ask the
students to practice as much as they can on these various materials. Therefore,
they can get used to listening to the variety of topics without any difficulties.
According to table 2, variety of accents causes difficulties to students in
listening comprehension since they do not have much exposure to different
accents. The result from table 2 demonstrates that 47.4% and 31.5% of the
students experience this kind of problem. For instance, if learners listen to
French people speaking English, they will feel hard to understand him or her
as they speak English in a native French intonation. For this linguistic feature,
students need much more exposing to different kinds of accents. Yagang
(1994) assert that the listeners have tendency to get familiar with the accents
which they mostly listen. If listeners are exposed to standard British or
American accents, they will face problems in understanding other accents.
Besides, it is the real language or authentic material that causes a great
difficulty to students. Students have been exposed themselves to materials
which are designed for teaching and listening purposes. Therefore, the
language in these materials, to some extent, have been simplified and
contained less colloquial English. In addition, students in our university mostly
learn English with non-native teachers. As for that, if students listen to an
informal conversation, it is for sure that it is much harder than listening to a
formal conversation used mostly in English classroom. Unlike the recordings
in the ESL classroom, the informal conversation consists of a number of words
that sounds weird to students. Consequently, they do not know what they are
listening to . The real language includes colloquial words, expressions and even
slang which absolutely hardly bring the students any concepts about them.
McCarthy (1990:15) points out that it takes native speakers years to acquire
an acceptable knowledge of collocation. On the other hand, Heron and Seavy
(1991) highlight the importance of authentic material for their great
improvement in listening comprehension since authentic material related
closely to the lives and language variety.
Also, the linguistic features are language barrier to learners. The liaison, the
linking of the first word and the word coming right after which begins with a
vowel, is claimed by 73.7% of the students to be the most common obstruction
in listening since the students are used to hearing each separate word by unit
in a sentence and slow stream of listening. Hence, they misunderstand the
linking words or they have no idea of the meaning delivered. Another problem
in listening is the elision of a sound or exactly a syllable in a word. These kinds

15. of features may be encountered when the message is spoken at such a rapid
speed mood that the sentences uttered can not be spoken word by word. Thus,
students cannot recognize the words that they hear. Liaison and elision, as
Yagang (1994) think, are difficulties which listener often face while listening.
Normally, they get used to the written words that organized orderly in a
textbook. Thus, in the stream of speech, students find it hard to recognize
separate words.
In fact, students often try to unlock the meaning by analysis of sentence
structure. Unfamiliar structure would be confusion to them. Therefore, there
are 47.4% of students who face this problem. Hasan, cited in (Vogely, 1994)
agrees that difficulty in listening comprehension is partly due to the structure
component of the text. In informal talk, difficulties stern from the
ungrammatical sentences or the message is spoken with much hesitation.
78.9% of students think they suffer from this problem. Furthermore, whether
it is a habit or not, the adding something or reducing something to a sentence
seems to confuse the students. Yagang (1994) also find out that in
conversation, ungrammatical structure is used due to the nervousness and
hesitation of the speakers. Therefore, speakers may omit parts of a sentence or
add something redundant. Consequently, this limits the understanding of the
listeners.
The long listening text is supposed to be an obstacle to students in listening
claimed by 84.2% (sometimes and often). Actually, if the students do the
listening for a long time, they will be under pressure. This will not bring out
good result. Furthermore, if the listening text is too long, the listener is
required the skill of note-taking. However, the note-taking is not easy for
students. Most students find it hard to take note while listening for they are not
trained with this skill.
The length of time students listen may cause memory problems or even fatigue
and this would distract listeners’ attention from grasping the meaning of the
text, and learners may miss the rest of the text when there is a lapse in
concentration. This may be attributed to the short memory span for the target
language. (Hasan, 2000: 143)
The skill of note-taking seems to be the most useful way when students have
to face a long task in listening. This will help students to remember the main
points or the precise information. The question here is that how students can
write down what they hear as quickly as they could so that they will not miss
the other ideas. It is supposed that students should write down the main point.
Besides, they should develop their own characters or symbols. This is believed
to be the most efficient way when students face with a long listening task. As
Berman (2003) says:

16. Effective note-taking requires that you records information quickly. To do this,
good note taker do not write down every word or try to take note in neat
sentences; instead they write only key words and phrases. In addition, good
note taker use shorthand when they take note. In other words, they use
symbols to represent words or ideas. Here are some of the symbols:
> is more than w/ with
< is less than w/o without
= is equal to b/c because
# is different K thousand
Increase / per/ out of
Reduce @ each or at
♀ Female ♂ male
3. Problems result from physical settings
Not onlythe difficultiescome from the message, the listener or the speaker but
also come from the environment surrounding the students.
Problems Never Sometimes Often always
Noise 5.3% 31.6% 63.1%
Poor tape quality 47.3% 36.8% 15.8%
Poor equipments 21.1% 52.6% 26.3%
Table 5: Statistics about problems from physical setting
Table 5 shows that there are 63.1% of students have to face the problem of
noises. If the listening task is carried out with noises around, it is for sure they
will not have a good result in listening. First, they are distracted by the noise
no matter how hard they try to focus on the task. Otherwise, the noise makes a
complex of sounds instead of the solo recording being played. This interrupts
the students from hearing and focusing on the task.
The problem also comes from the poor quality of the tapes or disks. For
example, the cassette may be recorded while there are noises around or the
cassette is used for such a long time so the quality is worn out.
The poor equipment is somehow an obstacle to students in listening. For an
example, in listening comprehension, it is the best place for students to do the

17. listening in the laboratory room. This somehow will bring out the better result
for the noises outside can not get through the lab room. A good cassette
recorder or a CD player may give them the better rather than that of the old
one.
RECOMMENDATION
This research of mine has finished finding the common problems which the
students in the faculty of foreign language have to experience in listening
comprehension. Based on the fact and figure, a number of strategies are also
suggested to help them with better listening. To confirm what have been
written above and my ideas about the solution to improve the listening skill of
the students, I conclude with these ideas:
Firstly to the students, they should spend much more time on practicing. They
should listen to a variety of topics in order to get familiar with them. Hence, the
background knowledge will be enriched as well as the skill. In addition, the
students should know to apply suitable strategies to each kind of listening text
in order to get the best result.
However, the skill of students will not be improved the best without teachers.
Teachers play such a significant in building up their skill. By each lesson, the
teachers show his students the ways in each stage of listening comprehension.
Generally, there are three stages: pre-listening, while-listening and post-
listening. Furthermore, he or she will advise their students with the syllabus
they can self-study at home. In short, this research of mine does not focus on
how teachers carry out their lesson but it is a chance to understand more about
the student’s problems. As (Willis, 1981) suggested that here are the micro
skills that needed in an enable listener:
● predicting what people are going to talk about
● guessing unknown words or phrases without panicking
● using one’s won knowledge of the subject to help one understand
● identify relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information
● retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)
● recognizing discourse markers, e. g, Well, Oh, Another thing is, Now,
Finally, etc.
● recognizing cohesive devices e. gsuch as and which, including link words,
pronouns, references, etc.

18. ● understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc,which
give clues to meaning and social setting.
● understanding inferred information, e. g, speaker’s attitude or intention
CONCLUSION
To conclude, listening is vital not only in language learning but also in daily
communication. However, the students seem to have problems with listening.
Here are the most common problems collectedfrom the learners: the time they
spend on studying themselves is too little to improve the skill, the
inappropriate strategies of learner would be a hindrance for their listening
comprehension. The problems are also caused from the listening material and
physical settings. To acquire an acceptable listening skill, students themselves
should have much more exposure to variety of listening. Simultaneously, they
should learn the tips or strategies through each of their learning themselves.
Teachers play an important role in teaching learners strategies and how to
apply them into the listening task. These are suggestion to solve the problems
as well as to upgrade the listening skill for students in Lac Hong University.
I am doing a small project entitled “difficulties and strategies
inlistening”. This aims to find out the problems that most students
face when listening. Hopefully, the findings I get from this project
contributea smallpart to helpyouwithbetterlistening.I wouldreally
appreciate ifyouspare yourvaluable timeto fillinthis questionnaire.
1. Have you ever failed your listening test? (tick out the best
answer)
□ Never
□ Once
□ Twice
□ Three times
□ More than three

19. 2. How often do you self-study listening at home? (tick out the
best answer)
□ Never
□ Rarely
□ Sometimes
□ Often
3. How do you self-study at home? (you can tick more than one)
□ Listen to English songs
□ Listen to tapes or disks of the syllabus in university
□ Listen to news in English
□ Other
4. What do you do before listening? (you can tick more than one)
□ Go through the questions and guess what the topic is about
□ Nothing to do just ready to listen
□ Guess the content of the listening
□ Ask about the new words
□ Read the task instruction
5. What do you do while you are listening for the first time? (tick
out the best answer)
□ Listen to word by word
□ Listen for the detail information
□ Focus on the new words

20. Other: ____________________________________________
6. What do you do if you can not understand words or phrases
while listening?( tick out the best answer)
□ Ignore it and keep on listening
□ Try to guess its meaning
□ Feel depressed and can not listen anymore
7. Howoftendo youencounterthesefollowing problems?( put a tick
in the appropriate column)
Problems Never Some
times
often always
Making prediction what the speaker
talks about
Guessing unknown words while
listening
Unfamiliar topics
Lacking of background knowledge
Speed of speech
Recognizing main points
Linking words
Authentic material
Ungrammatical sentences
Different accents
Colloquial words

21. Hesitation
Long listening text
Noises
Poor tape quality
The poor equipments
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Goh,C. (1997). Metacognitive awareness and second language
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22. Higgins, J.M.D. (1995) Facilitating listening in second language
classrooms through the manipulation of temporal variables.
Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Kent at Canterbury.
Rost, M. (1994) Listening. London: Longman.
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their language learning? A second look at retrospective
account. Applied Linguistics 7 (2), 186–205.
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