Insights into listening comprehension problems: A case study in Vietnam

Abstract

In EFL learning and teaching, listening is believed to be the most challenging of the four macro language skills. Various obstacles have been reported as causing challenges to English listening comprehension for EFL learners. This study, therefore, aimed to determine the English listening comprehension problems of Vietnamese high school students as perceived by students and their teachers. The research was conducted at a high school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with the participation of 368 eleventh graders who answered a questionnaire and 8 EFL teachers who took part in semi-structured interviews. Then the collected quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (i.e. frequencies/ percentages) and content analysis, respectively. Both the teachers and the students pointed out English listening comprehension problems relating to perception, parsing, and utilization. In particular, the students encountered phonological and lexical problems (i.e. high speech rates and challenging vocabulary), semantic and syntactic problems (i.e. long utterances), and discoursal problems (i.e. implied meanings, unfamiliar topics, and organization of ideas). The results are discussed in relation to the Vietnamese EFL context, and some pedagogical implications are presented. © 2020, Chulalongkorn University Language Institute. All rights reserved.