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Listening comprehension, or speech perception, refers to
active and very complicated mental processes (interactive
and interpretive). It is the activity in which listeners need to
concentrate on utterances spoken in a particular language,
to recognize a certain amount of vocabulary and grammar
structures, to separate each utterance into small meaningful
units, to translate it with the help of stress and intonation
and keep all of the components in short-term memory
before retrieving background knowledge or schema
recorded in long-term memory to help understand the
whole text in a particular context (Brown, 1994; Guo &
Wills, 2009; Underwood, 1989; Vandergrift, 2006).
ABSTRACT
This research investigated, identified, and analyzed
listening comprehension problems of EIC students in
RMUTL, Phitsanulok Campus. It also answered the
following questions: 1) What are the listening
comprehension problems encountered by EIC students
related to the listening text, the speaker, and the listener? 2)
What strategies do EIC students use to resolve their
listening comprehension problems? While schools and
universities are trying to put efforts in developing English
education in Thailand, a number of studies have shown that
the achievement of Thai learners was unsatisfactory. As
English is being used as an international medium of
communication, numerous factors hamper the success of
English language learning. Emphasis is given more to
reading, writing, and grammar than to listening and
speaking. Students had very minimal opportunities to
exercise spoken English resulting to having a poor listening
and speaking skills. The findings indicated that most
participants encountered English listening problems related
to the listening text, the speaker, and the listener at a high
level. Other factors contributing to listening difficulties of
EIC learners were the lack of opportunity to practice and
use their English skills.
Keywords
Listening comprehension
communication problems
problems,
listening
skills,
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
1.
2.
3. Methodology
This study was conducted at Rajamangala University of
Technology Lanna (RMUTL), Phitsanulok Campus, in
May 2014.
The respondents were Thai students taking Bachelor of
Arts in English for International Communication (EIC)
under the Faculty of Business Administration and Liberal
Arts (BALA), RMUTL, Phitsanulok, Campus. At the time
of study, 30 students were randomly selected from second
to fourth year to participate in the study. There were 7
males and 23 females, from ages 19 to 23.
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
Agree
N
Disagree
N %
1. Unfamiliar
vocabulary
21
90
10
30
100
2. Slang and
idiomatic expressions
23
77
23
30
100
3. Difficult grammar
structure
27
90
10
30
100
4.Unfamiliar
situations
26
87
13
30
100
25
83
17
30
100
Statements
Total
N
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
Disagree
N %
24
80
20
30
100
2. Difficult to understand
native speakers speaking
at a normal speed.
28
93
30
100
25
83
17
30
100
Statements
3. Difficult to understand
speakers using reduced
form such as gonna
(going to), wanna (want
to) etc.
4. Difficult to understand
speakers with full of
pauses and hesitations.
26
87
13
Total
N
30
100
5. Difficult to understand
different accents from
different speakers.
27
90
10
30
100
6. Difficult to understand
without
seeing
the
speakers body language.
24
80
20
30
100
Thai word
Romanized word
Pronunciation
Suvarnabhumi
su-wan-na-phum
Srinagarindra
si-nakha-rin
Thai Pronunciation
Liverpool
boxes
schedule
lotus
punch
- Ri-we- Poo
- buck
- sa-ked-yun
- lo-tat
- punn
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
Disagree
N %
1. Difficult to get a
general understanding
from the first listening.
27
90
10
30
100
2. Lack of background
knowledge on difficult
topics.
25
83
17
30
100
3. Poor grammar
knowledge.
27
90
10
30
100
4. Lack of listening
strategies and listening
skill training
24
80
20
30
100
5. Concentrating on every
detail to get the main idea
23
6. It is more difficult to
listen to a recording than
listening to my teacher.
26
23
77
87
23
13
Total
N
30
30
100
100
23
30
100
Strategies
N (30)
% (100)
20
12
40
23
17
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
Total
Statements
N (30)
% (100)
28
93
25
83
Total
Statements
N (30)
%(100)
19
63
15
50
27
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
Total
Statements
N (30)
% (100)
23
5. CONCLUSION
Although English language teaching in Thailand offers the
four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing),
listening is relatively neglected. Most of the respondents
are having difficulties in developing their listening skills.
29
97
Listening comprehension in both reciprocal and nonreciprocal is very complicated for language learners. When
listening, they need to be familiar with what they hear and
produce their own language to be able to reply. It is not
possible to control the input delivered to them. Different
accents, speech rates, and the requirement of different
background knowledge, can cause problems in listening. In
addition, there are still many factors causing listening
problems: listening difficulties from the learner themselves
(e.g. linguistic features: phonetic, phonological,
morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and language
variations),
inappropriate
learning
environments
(monolingual contexts, unauthentic teaching materials or
tasks, lack of interaction in English, a large number of
learners per class, etc.), Thai students unfavorable learning
habits (e.g. being passive, being shy to use language, not
enough responsibility to learn), and insufficient strategy
training, to name a few (Watthajarukiat, Chatupote,
Sukseemuang 2012).
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
7. REFERENCES
[1] Anderson, A., & Lynch, T. 1998. Listening. University
Press, London
[2] Brown, D. 2001. Teaching by principles: An interactive
approach to language pedagogy, Prentice Hall, USA
[3] Feyten, C.M. 1991. The Power of Listening Ability: An
Overlooked Dimension in Language Acquisition. The
Modern Language Journal, 75, 173-80
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the results of the study, the
recommendation is for EFL teachers to raise
awareness about different listening skills in their
classes. Teachers may also enhance
comprehension strategies and techniques in
listening courses.
authors
learners
listening
listening
teaching
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
Suzanne.
1999.
A Research paper presented and submitted to the University of the Cordilleras, Baguio City, Philippines 2014
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