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 learners perception 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 won 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, 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 Nunans 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 speakers accent and pronunciation, his grammar and his
vocabulary and grasping his meaning

FINDING AND DISCUSSION

I. Students learning style
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.
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.
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 can not 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 it and 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 is placed 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
problems from the listeners and listening materials and
equipment.
1. Problems from the listeners
Problems Never Some often always
times
Making 36.8% 36.8% 26.4%
prediction what the
speaker talk about
Guessing unknown 15.8% 36.8% 47.4%
words or phrases

Recognizing main 21.1% 10.5% 31.6% 36.8%

points
Table 3: Statistics about problems from the listeners
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 in the 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 speakers 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 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 52.6% 47.4%
sentences
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 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 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:
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 only the difficulties come 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 47.3% 36.8% 15.8%
quality
Poor 21.1% 52.6% 26.3%
equipments
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 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 students 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 ones 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. 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, speakers 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
collected from 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.

APPENDIX
***

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 contribute a small part to
help you with better listening. I would really appreciate if
you spare your valuable time to fill in this questionnaire.

1. Have you ever failed your listening test? (tick out the best
answer)
Never
Once
Twice
Three times
More than three

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
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. How often do you encounter these following problems? ( put a tick

in the appropriate column)

Problems Never Some often always

times
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
Hesitation
Long listening text
Noises
Poor tape quality
The poor equipments

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