International Journal of Research in Linguistics, Language Teaching and Testing

Available online at http://ijrlltt.com.Vol. 1, Issue 6, 2016, pp.310-316

Listening Comprehension Difficulties: The Related Literature Review

Nazanin Alizadeh
Department of ELT, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Mazandaran, Iran
Email: nazaninalizadeh@ymail.com

Abstract

Listening skill plays a prominent role in the individual's life and especially in
education. When learners first learn a language, they generally have to listen to the Keywords:
words several times before they are able to recognize and pronounce those words. The
present study attempted to examine the conceptual framework of the difficulties and Listening Skill,
problems in listening comprehension in the foreign language context. Different issues Listening
about listening skill have been considered like as definitions, significance, models, the Comprehension,
comprehension processes, listening comprehension difficulties and problems. Problems

Introduction
Learning another language as a second/foreign language needs to be proficient in four main skills. Thus,
in other words, learning four skills is vital for language learners. Among these skills, listening skill is
thought more important than the others (Krashen, 1981). In a language context, listening ability/skill
plays a great role in the development of other language arts skills. When learners first learn a language,
they generally have to listen to the words several times before they are able to recognize and pronounce
those words. Besides, listening can assist learners build vocabulary, improve language proficiency, and
enhance language usage (Barker, 1971). Cayer, Green, and Baker (1971) found that learners' ability to
understand written material through reading as well as to express themselves through speaking and
written communication are directly related to learners' maturity in the listening stage of language
development. As Dunkel (1986) emphasizes that improving proficiency in listening comprehension is the
key element to achieving proficiency in speaking.
In Iran, English is commonly learned as a foreign language. Before they enter university, students
learn English for six years during guidance school and high school. The primary focus of the English
courses that these students experience is on language structure, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and
translation skills. Listening is neglected in the syllabus. Learning listening is a necessary section in the
process of language teaching and learning. As a result, most of language learners and even English
teachers have problems in this skill. Due to the importance and the gap of the study, the present study
attempted to examine the theoretical framework of listening comprehension difficulties. It means that it is
necessary to consider what the listening and its natures are.

Listening Skill Definitions

Listening is seen as a communicative process. It means that the relationship between listener and speaker
in order to transmit and comprehend the message (Lund, 1991). According to Vandergrift (2007),
listening skill is as an active activity that listeners have to differentiate between sounds, comprehend
vocabulary and grammatical structure, interpret stress and intonation. According to this definition,
listening is not a static skill for differentiating different items like sounds, stress, intonation, vocabulary
and grammar. Based on Rost's view (1994), “Listening is considered to be a part of oracy, a capacity to
formulate thought verbally and to communicate with others, so it is the skill that underlines all verbal
communication” (p. 7). This definition simply indicates the understanding meaning in order to
communicate. Shen, Guizhou, Wichura and Kiattichai (2007) also state that listening is an ability for

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International Journal of Research in Linguistics, Language Teaching and Testing
Available online at http://ijrlltt.com.Vol. 1, Issue 6, 2016, pp.310-316

thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Doing so requires active involvement, effort and practice.After defining
listening skill, it is needful to mentions some important points about the significance of the listening skill.

The Significance of Listening Skill

Undoubtedly, listening skill is viewed as the most common communicative action in routine life. Morley
(1991) points out "We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and
five times more than we write (p.82)." This reveals the importance of reading skill.
Therefore, listening, as a skill, is assuming more and more weight in SL or FL classrooms than ever
before. Rost (1994, p. 141-142), points out, "listening is vital in the language classroom because it
provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot
begin. Listening is thus fundamental to speaking." As Krashen and Terrell (1983) mentions that listening
is the most primary skill in language teaching and learning and this skill should be taught as the first and
foremost skill. Moreover, listening has a crucial effect in the processes of cognition that form output and
produce enhancement in oral proficiency. According to Rubin (1995), “For second language/foreign
language learners, listening is the skill that makes the heaviest processing demands because learners must
store information in short term memory at the same time as they are working to understand the
information” (p. 8).
In another place, Rost (1994) summarized the significance of listening skill in second or foreign
language learning as follows:
1. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without
understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.
2. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to understand language as native
speakers actually use it.
3. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners‟ attention to new forms
(vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language (pp. 141-142).
After mentioning the importance of listening skill, it is necessary to consider the role of listening as a
passive or active process of language learning.

Listening Skill: Active or Passive

The listener's roles in the process of communication have been debated a lot in the long time. According
to Nation and Newton (2009), based on the traditional assumptions, the listener had a passive role. It
means that he/she receive information passively, but based on the new models, there is a creativity of the
listener in creating meanings in the process of listening.
According to Nation and Newton (2009), listening can be observed as a passive and receptive process
when the listener receives information from a speaker. As Lynch and Mendelsohn (2010) state similarly
that listening was traditionally considered as a passive process, but 'today we recognize that listening is an
active process, and that good listeners are just as active when listening as speakers are when speaking' (p.
180). It means that investigators have shifted their views from the traditional, stable, and objective role of
listening to the new, active, and subjective one. Nation and Newton (2009) believe that, in the listening
process, a message is no longer „fixed,‟ but „created in the interactional space‟ between listeners and
speakers (p. 37). Accordingly, the meaning is produced, absorbed and comprehended with appropriate
collaboration among listeners and speakers. As Underwood (1989) emphasized that hearing is occurred in
the passive circumstances and listening is taken place in the active.
Different investigators support the idea that the listening process is an active, interactive and dynamic
activity. As an example, according to the Tomlinson's (1984) definition listening is viewed as an active
listening. That is listening is viewed beyond comprehension as a comprehending of the message content,
to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker. According to Nunan (1998),
listening is “a constructive process in which the learner is an active participant” (p. 5) As a result, during
the process of understanding, the listeners increases their emotions and feelings and pay attention to
speakers.

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International Journal of Research in Linguistics, Language Teaching and Testing
Available online at http://ijrlltt.com.Vol. 1, Issue 6, 2016, pp.310-316

Listening Skill: Active or Passive

The listener's roles in the process of communication have been debated a lot in the long time. According
to Nation and Newton (2009), based on the traditional assumptions, the listener had a passive role. It
means that he/she receive information passively, but based on the new models, there is a creativity of the
listener in creating meanings in the process of listening.
According to Nation and Newton (2009), listening can be observed as a passive and receptive process
when the listener receives information from a speaker. As Lynch and Mendelsohn (2010) state similarly
that listening was traditionally considered as a passive process, but 'today we recognize that listening is an
active process, and that good listeners are just as active when listening as speakers are when speaking' (p.
180). It means that investigators have shifted their views from the traditional, stable, and objective role of
listening to the new, active, and subjective one. Nation and Newton (2009) believe that, in the listening
process, a message is no longer „fixed,‟ but „created in the interactional space‟ between listeners and
speakers (p. 37). Accordingly, the meaning is produced, absorbed and comprehended with appropriate
collaboration among listeners and speakers. As Underwood (1989) emphasized that hearing is occurred in
the passive circumstances and listening is taken place in the active.
Different investigators support the idea that the listening process is an active, interactive and dynamic
activity. As an example, according to the Tomlinson's (1984) definition listening is viewed as an active
listening. That is listening is viewed beyond comprehension as a comprehending of the message content,
to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker. According to Nunan (1998),
listening is “a constructive process in which the learner is an active participant” (p. 5) As a result, during
the process of understanding, the listeners increase their emotions and feelings and pay attention to
speakers.

Listening Comprehension
As Chastain (1979) declares that the most important intention of listening skill is to comprehend the
message. Accordingly, he mentions that the listener is responsible to comprehend the message as it is
presented by others, efficient listening necessitates the ability to organize and remember what is
presented. Also, listening includes giving conscious attention to the sounds for the goal of gaining
meaning. As Buck (1997) defined listening comprehension as "an inferential process in which the listener
constructs meaning through this interaction; and the interpretation of the text is guided and influenced by
the context or situation and the listener‟s purpose for listening" (Buck, 1997, p. 36).
According to Faerch and Kasper (1983), this is not necessary that the listener must not realize the
message word for word, since not every clue is equally important to the message. The listener has to seek
the general meaning to compensate his misunderstanding by continuing being involved in the
communication. So, it is perceived that the comprehension involves different phases.
Thus, there are three types of comprehension as main-idea comprehension, detail comprehension, and
full comprehension (Lund, 1990). He defined Main-idea comprehension as involving actual
comprehension of the messages and depends primarily on recognition of vocabulary. The second type of
comprehension is detail comprehension that involves getting specific information; it may be performed
independently of main-idea comprehension when listeners know in advance what information they are
listening for. Full comprehension, which is the goal of listening instruction, involves understanding the
whole message the main ideas and the details.

The Listening Processing Models

In the last decades, comprehension studies have been based on different models that have been attempted
to elaborate the process of listening comprehension. Memory has a significant role in processing
information, an examination of a three-store model of human memory, especially the role of working
memory within it, will assist to explore learners' listening comprehension problems. Three types of
listening comprehension processes are as bottom-up, top-down (Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977, cited in Rost,
1994), and interactive model. In the following section, these processes will be explained in details.

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Bottom-up Processing
Based on the bottom-up model, the listening comprehension process includes the ability to recognize
phonemes, which are then combined into words, which, in turn, "together make up phrases, clauses, and
sentences" (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005, p. 24). According to Buck (1997), bottom-up model is a model
which involves the second language knowledge, which is vocabulary, syntactic structures, grammar, in
the processing of texts and summarizes four phases of bottom-up oral input processing. Accordingly, the
first stage is that listeners decode phonemes; in the second phase, the listeners recognize words; in the
third phase, the syntactic level and analysis of the semantic content take place and listeners achieve a
literal comprehending of the primary linguistic meaning (Buck, 1997); and in the fourth and last phase,
listeners interpret the literal meaning embedded in the input in relation to the communicative situation
that assists them to comprehend the message of the speaker.
According to Brown (2001), for enhancing bottom-up processing, learners could be asked to:
a) Differentiate different sounds, word boundaries, and stressed syllables of individuals;
b) Determine thought groups;
c) Listen for intonation patterns in utterances;
d) Determine grammatical forms and functions;
e) Recognize contractions and connected speech; and
f) Recognize linking words.

Top-Down Processing
According to Richards and Renandya (2002), the top-down view recommends that the listening actively
constructs the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues. In this reconstruction
process, the listener uses previous knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes
place to make sense of what he or she hears. Context and situation includes such things as knowledge of
the topic at hand, the speaker or speakers and the relationship to the situation, as well as to each other and
prior events. (p. 239).Long (1989) also defined top-down as starting from the learners' background
knowledge either content schema(general information based on previous learning and life experience) or
textual schema (awareness of the kinds of information used in a given situation).
According to Brown (2001), Top-down listening skills involve as follows:
a) The first skill is to listening for gist, main ideas, topic, and setting of the text;
b) Listening for particular information;
c) Sequencing the information;
d) Prediction;
e) Guessing the meaning; and
f) Inferencing.

Interactive Model
Vandergrift (2002) has paid attention to the interactional listening. In simple words, interactive model is a
model that involves both bottom-up and top-down processes. According to Vandergrift (2002),
interactional listening is defined as a highly contextualized and two-way, involving interaction with a
speaker. Rost (2002) has an agreement with Vandergrift and considers interactional listening as “two-way
communication” or “involving interaction with a speaker”.

The Difficulties In Listening Comprehension

Different variables are led to difficulties in listening comprehension. According to Seferoglu and
Uzakgore (2004), some factors have been identified EFL that students perceive make listening difficult.
Some of these factors are: reduced forms, stress, rhythm and intonation, rate of delivery and lack of
concentration. They will be explained in the following section.

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Reduced forms
In English, listening to reduced forms is a difficult section for EFL learners. According to Brown (2001),
reduced forms are used in a normal English conversation and they are evident. It means that students
require acquiring how to listen to reduced forms because they are broadly utilized in English oral speech.
Reduced forms involve different parts as phonological, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic.
Some examples of Brown (2001) are presented here, as: phonological (“djeetyet? For di you eat
yet?”), morphological (“I‟ll”), syntactic (when will you be back? Tomorrow, maybe.) And pragmatic (a
phone rings in a house, then child answer and says, mom! Phone.). However, reduced forms are
significant for EFL learners‟ process; they represent a problem when students are initiating the process of
learning a foreign language.

Stress, Rhythm, and Intonation

Another difficulty of language learners in listening skill is stress, rhythm and intonation. They are called
as prosodic characteristics. These characteristics of the English language are so primary for students
because they carry meaning. As Brown (2001) state that student should be attentive to stress, rhythm, and
intonation at the moment of listening so as to getting comprehending. Prosodic features help the listener
interpret when the speaker is asking a question, making a statement, or making emphasis on a particular
section of the sentence. In addition, by recognizing stress, rhythm, and intonation the listener
comprehends when the speaker attempts to convey the messages like sarcasm, insults, solicitations, or
praises.

Rate of Delivery
The third problem that students encounter when they listen to second/foreign language speech is the rate
of delivery or speed of a speaker‟s utterances. With increasing speed, the student cannot follow what the
speaker is saying and thus he/she miss the message. Underwood (1989) found that students believe that
not having control over the speed of language is the biggest problem that they encountered when
listening. Moreover, when listening second/foreign language utterances too fast, learners feel that the
words disappear before being able to reach understanding on what is being said. It makes that they cannot
keep up the speech. Students can focus on their attention attempting to get and understand the meaning of
every word; so, they fail in listening because they miss the principle ideas of the message (Brown, 2001).

Lack of Vocabulary
Another important difficulty of language learners is lacking sufficient number of words. Accordingly,
they cannot comprehend very well the sentences when they listen to them. Therefore, they have to
analyze every single word of the spoken language to comprehend the speakers' utterances. As Underwood
(1989) states that traditional teachers have taught students to focus on every single cue of the oral
language (individual words). This fact could create the frustration sense in the students, because it is
possibly complex for them to be able to identify all the patterns that are involved in the spoken discourse.
Lack of vocabulary can make students to miss messages expressed orally. However, we should mention
that it is not always true. Underwood (1989) mentions that even native speakers do not require to
comprehend all the utterances of a speech. They can follow and respond a conversation only by
understanding some sections of what the speaker says. Also, she continues that learners miss the next part
of the speech when they start thinking about the meaning of the unknown words. She states that an
unknown word can become a barrier for learners at the moment of listening. As we have seen, the lack of
vocabulary can show a problem for comprehending the spoken language, mostly for EFL low beginners,
since they should initiate their process of learning with individual words.

Lack of Concentration
The last difficulty of foreign language learners is lack of concentration. When the students cannot
concentrate on the expressed language, they cannot comprehend the produced language. Rost (1994)
mentions that some factors are involved that students cannot concentrate. One of those reasons is that

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students lose attention when the topic is not interesting, when they are not able to follow the conversation
or when they are worried so much about answering the questions that they do not have time to listen.
Underwood (1989) stated that if learners find the topic interesting they will concentrate more easily.

Problems in Comprehending Listening

Underwood (1989) states seven causes of problems to efficient listening comprehension. First, listeners
cannot control the speed of delivery. He says,'' Many English language learners believe that the greatest
difficulty with listening comprehension is that the listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks''
(Underwood, 1989 as cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011, p. 981). Second, listeners cannot always have
words repeated. This is a serious problem in learning situations. In the classroom, the decision to repeat
the recording is in the teacher/ lecturer; however, it is hard for the teacher to judge whether or not the
students have understood any particular section of what they have heard, but students still can repeat what
they want to repeat (Underwood, 1989, as cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011, p. 982). Third, listeners
have a limited vocabulary. When listener listen to the recording, sometimes they encounter an unknown
word, and it is become a reason of the listener to stop listen and think about the meaning of that word and
thus cause them to miss next part of speech. As we know the speaker in recording may choose words that
listener does not know. Fourth, listeners may fail to recognize the signals which indicate that the speaker
is moving from one point to another, giving an example, or repeating a point. Discourse markers used in
formal situations or lectures such as ''secondly,'' or ''then'' are comparatively evident to listeners. In
informal situations or spontaneous conversations, signals are more vogues as in pauses, gestures,
increased loudness, a clear change of pitch, or different intonation patterns.
These signals can be missed especially by less proficient listeners. Then, listeners may lack
contextual knowledge. Sharing mutual knowledge and common content makes communication easier.
Even if listeners can understand the surface meaning of the text, they may have considerable difficulties
in comprehending the whole meaning of the passage unless they are familiar with the context. Nonverbal
clues such as facial expressions, nods, gestures, or tone of voice can also be easily misinterpreted by
listeners from different cultures. Next, it can be difficult for listeners to concentrate in a foreign language.
In listening comprehension, even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension.
Conversation is easier when students find the topic of the listening passage interesting; however, students
sometimes feel listening is very tiring even if they are interested because it requires an enormous amount
of effort to follow the meaning. The last, students may have established certain learning habits such as a
wish to understand every word. Teachers want students to understand every word they hear by repeating
and pronouncing words carefully, by grading the language to suit their level, by speaking slowly and so
on. For conclusion, the listener becomes worried if they cannot understand a word or phrase. It is
necessary for students to tolerate vagueness and incompleteness of understanding” (Underwood, 1989, as
cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011, p. 982).

Conclusion
In this study, listening skill was examined as a principal skill in the process of language learning and
teaching. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the theoretical framework of difficulties
and problems in listening comprehension. It was asserted listening skill plays a significant role in the
individual's life. As Rost (1994), states listening have a great place in the language classroom because it
provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot
begin. Listening is thus fundamental to speaking. According to Vandergrift (2007), listening can be
viewed as an active activity that listeners have to differentiate between sounds, comprehend vocabulary
and grammatical structure, and interpret stress and intonation. Based on the different scholar's views,
listening skill should be considered as an active and interactive process (Nation, 2009; Nunan, 1998;
Rost, 2002). The biggest achievement of listening skill is listening comprehension. Also, the different
models in listening comprehension like as bottom-up, top-down and interactive model have been
elaborated. At last, the difficulties and problems of listening comprehension were elaborated.

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Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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