Master minor programme thesis English linguistics: Difficulties encountered in the toeic listening test by the second year students at university of economics and business administration Thai Nguyen university

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The purpose of the study is to investigate the TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties encountered by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University, identify the factors that lead to such difficulties and suggest solutions to help students overcome these problems.

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Nội dung Text: Master minor programme thesis English linguistics: Difficulties encountered in the toeic listening test by the second year students at university of economics and business administration Thai Nguyen university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** DƯƠNG THANH HẢO DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN THE TOEIC LISTENING TEST BY THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION - THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN KHI LÀM BÀI THI NGHE TOEIC CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ VÀ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Hanoi – 2016
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** DƯƠNG THANH HẢO DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN THE TOEIC LISTENING TEST BY THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION - THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN KHI LÀM BÀI THI NGHE TOEIC CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ VÀ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH THÁI NGUYÊN M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Supervisor : Assoc.Prof. Dr. Lâm Quang Đông Hanoi – 2016
DECLARATION I declare that this minor thesis entitled “Difficulties encountered in the TOEIC listening test by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts is the results of my own work and that is thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any university, nor does it contain material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2016 Duong Thanh Hao i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the process of doing my research paper, I have received a lot of help and encouragement from teachers and colleagues. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Assoc.Prof. Dr. Lâm Quang Đông who has generously given me invaluable assistance and guidance. Without his help, this paper would not have been successfully completed. Secondly, my graduation subject now is completed successfully thanks to all teachers‟ support at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University (TUEBA) who did their best to help me gather data from students‟ questionnaires. Besides, my sincere thanks are also extended to all the students who helped me fulfill the survey questions and interviews. Finally, I am grateful to my family and friends who have given me much encouragement throughout. ii
ABSTRACT The study investigates difficulties in TOEIC listening comprehension encountered by a group of sophomore students of TUEBA. 50 sophomores at TUEBA were selected for the study. The data were gathered by means of students‟ listening test papers, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results of the study showed that general linguistic ability, background knowledge and facilities were the major TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties encountered by second-year students at TUEBA. While doing the TOEIC test, the study‟s participants normally applied such strategies as guessing or predicting, identifying types of question in part 2, and listening for gist and details. On that basis, suggestions and recommendations were provided so as to deal with the problems. This work hopes to be useful for those who are interested in this subject and to pave the way for future studies in this field. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. II ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENTS .....................................................................................IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................ VII PART A: INTRODUCTION............................................................................... 1 1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY ................................................................................. 1 2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY ................................................................................ 1 3. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................. 2 4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY.......................................................................................... 2 5. METHODS OF THE STUDY .................................................................................... 2 6. ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS........................................................................... 2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 1- LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 4 1.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND TO LISTENING COMPREHENSION ...................... 4 1.1.1. Listening strategies ...................................................................................... 4 1.1.2. Processes of listening comprehension ......................................................... 6 1.1.3. Potential problems in listening comprehension ........................................... 7 1.2. TOEIC TEST ..................................................................................................... 7 1.2.1. Overview of the TOEIC test. ........................................................................ 7 1.2.2. TOEIC listening ........................................................................................... 9 1.2.3. TOEIC listening strategies ......................................................................... 13 1.3. RELATED STUDIES OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND TOEIC LISTENING14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY.................................................................... 16 2.1 SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS ......................................................................... 16 2.2 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS ............................................................................... 16 2.2.1 Students’ listening test papers..................................................................... 16 2.2.2 Questionnaires ............................................................................................ 17 2.2.3 Semi-structured interviews. ......................................................................... 18 iv
2.3. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES .................................................................. 18 2.4. DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE ........................................................................ 19 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................. 21 3.1 WHAT DIFFICULTIES DO THE SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT TUEBA FACE IN THE TOEIC LISTENING TEST?............................................................................... 21 3.1.1 Students’ opinions of TOEIC listening test ................................................. 21 3.1.2 Students’ opinions of TOEIC listening difficulties related to background knowledge and linguistic ability........................................................................... 22 3.1.3 Students’ opinions of listening difficulties related to listener or non- linguistic factors ................................................................................................... 25 3.1.4 Types of difficulties of each part in TOEIC listening test through analyzing TOEIC listening test papers ................................................................................. 27 3.2 WHAT CAUSES SUCH DIFFICULTIES? .............................................................. 31 3.3 WHAT STRATEGIES DO THESE STUDENTS OFTEN APPLY WHEN TAKING TOEIC LISTENING TEST? .................................................................................................. 34 3.5 SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 36 PART C: CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 37 1. SUMMARY OF THE STUDY ................................................................................. 37 2. PEDAGOGICAL RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS‟ TOEIC LISTENING RESULTS .............................................................................................. 38 2.1 To the students................................................................................................ 38 2.2 To the teachers ............................................................................................... 38 3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ............................................................................. 39 4. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES .............................................................. 39 REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 41 APPENDIX 1 ........................................................................................................ I APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEWS ......................................................................... IX v
LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: students‟ opinions about the difficult level of toeic listening test ......... 21 Chart 2: students‟ opinions of the most difficult part of toeic listening test. ...... 22 Chart 3: students‟ opinions of toeic listening difficulties related to background knowledge. ........................................................................................................... 23 Chart 4: types of difficulties in toeic listening test and their percentage ............. 28 Chart 5: tueba second-year students‟ suggestions for handling such difficulties .............................................................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. Table 1: students‟ opinions of toeic listening difficulties related to linguistic ability .................................................................................................................... 24 Table 2: students‟ opinions of listening difficulties related to listener (non- linguistic factors) .................................................................................................. 26 Table 3: causes of toeic listening difficulties ....................................................... 31 Table 4: strategies applied by students when taking toeic listening test ............. 34 vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TUEBA: University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication ETS: Educational Testing Service ESL English as a Second Language L2 learners: Second Language learners vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study As an international language, English obviously plays a crucial role in the age of global economic integration. The scores of worldwide standardized English tests such as the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) are widely used as recognized evidence of one‟s English proficiency, especially the TOEIC test. Most companies require TOEIC certificates as one of their employees‟ qualifications. Many colleges and universities like TUEBA have used the TOEIC test to classify students‟ English proficiency, place them into the right classes and use their test‟s results at the end of each course to calculate credits. Moreover, the minimum TOEIC score of 450 is a compelling requisite for students to meet the requirement of graduation. Among all the skills tested, listening is always the hardest to second, or foreign, language learners, and my students at TUEBA are no exception. Being an English teacher at TUEBA, through my teaching experience, I notice that comparing to other skills, students find listening most difficult and stressful and their TOEIC listening scores tend to be lower than those of other skills. For all of the above mentioned reasons, I would like to carry out a small study entitled “Difficulties encountered in the TOEIC listening test by the second-year students at university of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University “in order to help solve out the problems. 2. Objectives of the study The purpose of the study is to investigate the TOEIC listening comprehension difficulties encountered by the second-year students at University of Economics and Business Administration, Thai Nguyen University, identify the factors that lead to such difficulties and suggest solutions to help students overcome these 1
problems. To that end, the study seeks answers to the following research questions: 1. What difficulties do the second-year students at TUEBA face in the TOEIC listening test? 2. What causes such difficulties? 3. What strategies do these students often apply when taking TOEIC listening test? 3. Significance of the study This study explores the real difficulties encountered by sophomores as well as their strategies to improve their scores in TOEIC listening test. Also, the study hopes to offer some help to TUEBA teachers in their choice of appropriate techniques to teach TOEIC listening effectively. 4. Scope of the study The study focuses mainly on the analysis of the data collected from the students‟ TOEIC listening test papers and the survey questionnaire distributed to TOEIC students at the University of Economics and Business Administration- Thai Nguyen University. 5. Methods of the study Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed but the major method used is the quantitative method. The analysis of students‟ TOEIC listening test papers was done to identify the current situation as well as difficult aspects of the TOEIC listening test. Then, additional data were also collected through survey questionnaires, informal interviews and discussions with TOEIC learners at TUEBA. 6. Organization of the thesis This thesis consists of three parts: Part A: Introduction. This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the structure of the thesis. Part B: Development. In this part, four chapters are presented. Chapter 1 – Literature Review establishes the theoretical background of the 2
research. It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research, i.e. listening comprehension and an overview of TOEIC listening comprehension tests. Chapter 2 – Methodology presents the background information of the participants in the study, the instrument used to collect the data, and the procedure of data collection. Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussion provides the data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of the findings of the study. Explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter. Part C: Conclusion. In this part, the limitations and some recommendations for further research are provided. The Appendices lie on the last part of the study, following the References. 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1- LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1. Theoretical background to listening comprehension 1.1.1. Listening strategies 1.1.1.1. Definition of listening comprehension strategy Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input (Rubin, 1981). Listening strategies can be classified on the basis of how the listener processes the input. For learners, one of the methods learners can become actively involved in controlling their own learning is by using strategies. Vandergrift (1999) showed “Strategy development is important for listening training because strategies are conscious means by which learners can guide and evaluate their own comprehension and responses.” In O'Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Kupper, and Russo‟s (1985) study, high school ESL students were randomly assigned to receive learning strategy training on vocabulary, listening, and speaking tasks and the result indicated strategy training can be effective for integrative language tasks. Nakata (1999) studied the influence of listening strategy training on Japanese EFL learners‟ listening competence, and it showed that the effect of listening strategy training was more discernible on perception than on comprehension. Among all the strategies for listening, O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) claimed three main types of strategies: metacognitive, cognitive and social strategies. The metacognitive strategy was a kind of self-regulated learning. It included the attempt to plan, check, monitor, select, revise, and evaluate, etc. For example, for metacognitive planning strategies, learners would clarify the objectives of an anticipated listening task, and attend to specific aspects of language input or situational details that assisted in understanding the task (Vandergrift, 1999). 4
The cognitive strategies are related to comprehending and storing input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval. They are investigated from the aspects of bottom-up strategies, top-down strategies. For bottom-up processing, it refers to using the incoming input as the basis for understanding the message. Comprehension begins with the received data that are analyzed as successive levels of organization-sounds, words, as a process of decoding. For bottom-up strategies, Henner-Stanchina (1987) engaged in a similar study and pointed out that effective listeners were good at using their previous knowledge and experience to raise hypotheses about a text, integrating new information into their ongoing interpretations, making influences to bridge gaps, assessing their interpretations, and modifying their hypotheses, if necessary. On the other hand, top-down processing goes from meaning to language (Richards, 2008). Learners can try to predict what will be uttered by the signal. However, Chiu (2006) claimed that listening comprehension was neither only top-down nor bottom-up processing. Simultaneously, Lu (2008) summed up that the scholars believed the listeners not only utilized bottom-up but also top-down processing models. In sum, Thompson & Rubin (1996) indicated the effects of metacognitive and cognitive strategy instruction on the listening comprehension performance of American university students learning Russian. They found that the subjects who received strategy instruction in listening to video-recorded texts improved significantly over those who had received no instruction. For social/ affective strategies, Vandergrift (2003) defined the strategies as the techniques listeners used to collaborate with others, to verify understanding or to lower anxiety. Habte-Gabr (2006) stated that socio-affective strategies were those which were non-academic in nature and involve stimulating learning through establishing a level of empathy between the instructor and student. They included considering factors such as emotions and attitudes (Oxford, 1990). It was essential for listeners to know how to reduce the anxiety, feel confident in 5
doing listening tasks, and promote personal motivation in improving listening competence (Vandergrift, 1997). According to O‟Malley &Chamot (2001), among the four strategies of management strategies, social strategies, cognitive strategies, affective strategies in listening comprehension, both social and affective strategies influenced the learning situation immediately. 1.1.1.2. Classification of listening strategies As stated by Hedge, 2000; listening strategies include top-down and bottom-up strategies. First, top-down strategies are listener based, which means that the listener uses background knowledge of the topic, the context, the type of text, and the language with a set of expectations to make sense of what is hear and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies consist of listening for the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences, summarizing. Second, bottom-up strategies are text-based– that is, the listener relies on his/her knowledge of the language in the message, for example, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar to construct meaning. Bottom-up strategies include listening for specific details, recognizing cognates, recognizing word-order patterns. 1.1.2. Processes of listening comprehension As reported by Rost (2002), the processes of listening comprehension have often been viewed in a two-level view: bottom-up and top-down processing. In bottom-up processing, listeners first pay attention to individual phonological units, then decode a large unit of input in hierarchical order, from vocabulary to structures, for the meaning of the discourse. In top-down processing, listeners draw upon the background information, contextual information and expectation for comprehension. Listening comprehension is considered as an interactive process of bottom-up processing and top-down processing by using linguistic and real world information (Rost, 1994, p. 32; Nunan, 1999, p.221) 6
1.1.3. Potential problems in listening comprehension Underwood (1989) suggests seven potential problems that could hinder listening comprehension. First, “many language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension, as opposed to remind comprehension, is that listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks” (Underwood, 1989, p.16). Second, it is not always possible for learners to have words repeated. It is “hard for the teacher to judge whether or not the students have understood any particular section of what they have heard” (Underwood, 1989, p.17). Third, the small size of the learner vocabulary often impacts on listening comprehension. When listeners encounter a new word, they pause to find out the meaning of that word so they miss the next part of the speech. Fourth, listeners may not recognize the signals that the speaker is using to move from one point to another, give an example, or repeat a point. Fifth, it can be very challenging for listeners to focus on a foreign language. When the topic of the listening passage is interesting, listeners easily concentrate on the passage; however, if listeners have to make real efforts to figure out the meaning intended by the speaker, they also feel that listening is very challenging. Sixth, learning habits emphasized in the classroom include a desire to understand the meaning of every word. Students tend to feel worried when they fail to recognize what a particular word means and may further be discouraged by the failure. Last, comprehension problems arise when students lack contextual knowledge. Listeners from different cultural backgrounds can also misinterpret nonverbal cues like tone of voice. 1.2. TOEIC test 1.2.1. Overview of the TOEIC test. The TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) test is an English language proficiency test for people whose native language is not English. It 7
measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment. TOEIC test scores indicate how well people can communicate in English with others in the global workplace. The test does not require specialized knowledge or vocabulary; it measures only the kind of English used in everyday work activities. The TOEIC test is the world‟s leading test of English-language proficiency in a workplace context. Thousands of corporations throughout the world use the TOEIC test and more than 5 million people take the test every year. Traditionally, TOEIC is a two-hour paper-and-pencil test. It consists of 200 multiple choice questions which are divided into two sections: Listening and Reading. Separate scaled scores are provided for each section, the part score scales ranging from 5 to 495 and the total score scales ranging from 10 to 990. The Listening section tests how well the test taker understands spoken English and the Reading section written English. The overall structure of the test is summarized below. TOEIC TEST NEW TOEIC TEST Listening Comprehension: 100 items Listening Comprehension: 100 items Photographs: 20 questions Photographs: 10 questions Question-Response: 30 questions Question-Response: 30 questions Short Conversations: 30 questions; 30 Conversations: 30 questions; 10 conversations with 1 question each conversations with 3 questions each Talks: 20 questions Talks: 30 questions; 10 talks with 3 questions each TOEIC TEST NEW TOEIC TEST Reading Comprehension: 100 items Reading Comprehension: 100 items Incomplete sentences: 40 questions Incomplete sentences: 40 questions Error Recognition: 20 questions Text Completion: 12 questions Single Passages: 28 questions; 7-10 reading texts with 2-5 questions each. Reading Comprehension: 40 questions Double passages: 20 questions; 4 pairs of reading texts with 5 questions per pair. 8
The primary purpose of the test is to determine the proficiency levels of employees for human resource planning and development in the contexts of business, industry, and commerce. In addition, the test designers focus neither on “American English” nor “British English,” but rather on “International English”, i.e. the language used by non-native speakers of English communicating in English both with native speakers and with other nonnative speakers of English. 1.2.2. TOEIC listening The entire listening test, which lasts approximately 45 minutes, is broken up into four main parts with various lengths and structures. Part 1: Photographs (approximately 5 minutes) In part 1, for each of the ten questions, the candidate will see a photograph either about people or things and hear four descriptive statements related to the photograph. Examinees are asked to select the one statement that best describes the picture. The difficulty in this part may come from (1) words that sound like the correct answer; (2) words related to the correct answer; (3) incorrect inferences ; (4) out of text words ; (5) incorrect details. For example: A. There is a telephone on the woman‟s desk. B. The woman is sitting behind the computer. C. The woman is inside a store. D. There are a lot of papers on the desk. (Example taken from Ann Taylor, TOEIC Analysis, P.9) Part 2: Question- Response (approximately 15 minutes) 9
In part 2, the candidate will hear 30 questions or statements that may ask about time, people, an opinion, a choice, a suggestion, a reason, or a location. For each of the questions or statements there are three possible responses. The candidate‟s job is to select the best response to the question or statement. Generally, the questions in part 2 are informative questions belonging to one of the following types: (1) Interrogative questions (using Who, Whom, Which, Where, When, Why, How); (2) Non-interrogative questions (using Be/ Do, auxiliary verbs); and (3) other question types like tag questions, Alternative questions or Suggestions. The choice in this part may be difficult and confusing due to (1) incorrect verb tense, (2) inappropriate response to the type of questions, (3) similar-sounding words but different in meaning, (4) repeated words, (5) words used in a different context, (6) homophones. For example: Where‟s the best place to take a client for lunch? A. I usually go to the café on the corner. (Correct answer) B. I never eat lunch. (Words used in different context, repeated words) C. Yes, but I have no clients this week. (Inappropriate response to the type of question, words used in different context, repeated words) (Example taken from Ann Taylor, TOEIC Analysis, P.35) Part 3: Conversation (approximately 10 minutes) Part 3 of the TOEIC tests the ability to understand and interpret spoken English well enough to recognize both general and specific information in short conversations. Examinees will hear 10 conversations between two people at the office. After each conversation, they are asked to answer three questions about what the speakers say. The questions often ask about the general idea of the conversation and students will be asked to identify an activity, a relationship, a location or an opinion of the speakers. Similar to part 2, some signals should be considered, including: 10
● Similar-sounding words ● Implicit answers ● Idioms and phrasal verbs ● Incorrect details provided ● Words in a different context or a different meaning ● Unrelated time ● Paraphrases of time For example: Man: Has the copier at the reception desk been fixed yet? Woman: No. I called the technician, but he can‟t make it out here until next Monday at the earliest. Man: We have a meeting on Friday, though. We can‟t do our presentation unless everyone has copies of our work. Woman: We‟ll have to get them done by a professional. I‟ll run to the copy shop tomorrow. It‟ll cost a little extra money, but we won‟t have to delay our presentation. 1. What problem are 2. When is the 3. What will the the speakers speakers‟ meeting? speakers probably do discussing? (A) This afternoon next? (A) A missing (B) Tomorrow (A) Call a different document (C) This Friday technician (B) Some (D) Next Monday (B) Delay the presentation errors presentation (C) A broken copier (C) Pay for a new (D) Rising printing printer costs (D) Go to a professional printer 11