HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH

B.A Thesis Proposal

                                      

IMPROVING THE LISTENING SKILLS OF

2nd - YEAR STUDENTS AT FOE, HOU

LÊ THỊ THU TRANG

Date of birth: 01/12/2003

Field: English Language
Supervisor:  Dr. Lê Phương Thảo

Hanoi - 2022

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Page number

1. Introduction 3

1. Rationale  3

2. Aim and objectives 3

3. Scope of the study 3

4. Research questions 4

5. Structure of the study …

2. Literature Review  …

1. Review of previous studies …

2. Theoretical background/framework …

3. Proposed Research Methodology …

3.1.    Research type   …

3.2.    Population and sample …

3.3.    Research methods

4. Research results

5. Proposed Chapter Outline …

References  …

Appendices (optional)

Research schedule …

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 1. Introduction:
1.1 Rational of the study
Language is the most common and powerful technique for bringing people
together. In every corner of the world, both non-English speakers and native
speakers utilize English as an essential medium of international communication.
The importance of knowing and using English is growing as it has become a vital
aspect in enhancing trade and travel in many nations. Furthermore, English is
widely used in communication through modern technology and media
communication equipment such as mobile phones, electronic mail, and the Internet.
Without a doubt, people all across the world rely on English as their primary means
of communication. As a result, listening is essential in both language acquisition
and real-life communication.
It is apparent that many language scholars and instructors have given close
attention to listening abilities, and many studies have been conducted on how to
successfully teach and acquire listening skills. All inputs are really beneficial for
improving listening skills. However, teaching and mastering listening is a difficult
task at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University (FOE. HOU). Aside from a
lack of well-equipped facilities, teachers are unfamiliar with teaching listening
approaches. Another issue is pupils' lack of expertise in vocabulary, grammar,
pronunciation, abilities, and so on. It is the reason why students find listening
difficult and challenging, and they lack the confidence to complete listening
assignments correctly.

1.2.Aim and objectives.

Aim: The study aims at improving the listening skills of the second-year
students at FOE, HOU
The study’s objectives are:
 To access the situation of listening skills of 2 -year students at FOE-HOU.
nd

 To identify the causes of difficulties of 2 -year students when learning

nd

listening skills.
 To recommend some possible solutions to help students to overcome those
difficulties.

1.3.Research questions
 What is the status of 2nd -year students’ listening skills at FOE, HOU?
 What are the factors causing difficulties for the second-year students at FOE,
HOU in studying listening skills?
 What are the solutions to help second-year students overcome difficulties
and study listening skills effectively?

1.4.Scope of the study

Listening comprehension is a wide field for research. The research was
conducted with 75 second-year students who were studying at the English faculty of
HOU. The research mainly focused on finding out the difficulties that students cope

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with when studying English listening skills. Moreover, their attitude about listening
to English and their choosing channels in this skill was also conducted. Especially,
the policy requiring that students who graduate from 2013 onwards need to satisfy a
language standard (a minimum band score of 6.5 on the IELTS scale for English
language proficiency) to be awarded a university degree also makes English
increasingly important.

1.5. Design/Structure of the study

This study is divided into five chapters:
 Chapter 1, Acknowledgement
 Chapter 2, Introduction
 Chapter 3, Literature review, provides definitions, types of listening
skills, methods of teaching listening and authentic materials.
 Chapter 4,Methodology, includes subjects, questionnaire, procedures
and data analysis.
 Chapter 5, Findings and discussion
 Chapter 6, Conclusion

2. Literature review
2.1 Overview of previous studies:
Researchers have studied listening skills and problems that occur in the
process of developing English listening skills for English learners. Many recent
studies have focused on the difficulties that English learners face when learning to
listen to English. However, no researchers have considered the difficulties faced by
second-year students of FOE, HOU when learning to listen to English.
Hamouda (2013) examined listening difficulties that Saudi students
encountered in their listening learning process. The study was a mixed-methods
approach utilizing a questionnaire and an interview. The participants were 60 first-
year English majors at Qassim University. The findings revealed problems relating
to speech delivery (i.e., the speed of speech, the bad quality of recordings, and the
different accents of the speakers) and to listeners (i.e., a lack of concentration,
anxiety, and insufficient vocabulary). Duong and Chau (2018) conducted a study in
Vietnam in which listening comprehension problems were addressed. The data
collected from a questionnaire and a semi structured interview were analyzed
statistically and qualitatively. The results showed that the 115 English majors found
listening texts (i.e., unfamiliar words, slang, idioms, colloquial words, and complex
sentence structures) the most dominant cause of their low listening comprehension.
Furthermore, speedy delivery, unclear pronunciation, different accents, anxiety, the
invisibility of speakers’ facial expressions, and noise affected their listening
comprehension.
In light of this, the researcher has been interested in carrying out the study
with the title “A study aiming to improve the listening skills of second-year students
at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University”

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 2.2 Theoretical framework
2.2.1. The Definition of Listening
Listening is the ability to fully understand a message that a speaking or a
loudly reading person desire to give Listening is an important part of the
communication and education process. Listening is the whole of mental activities
realized in order to understand what is heard. That is to say, listening means making
choices from among what is heard, organizing them, integrating what is transferred
by the speaker with background knowledge, and structuring them mentally.
Listening in educational communication includes carefully following and
perceiving messages sent by the speaker to the listener and making sense of them by
retrieving relevant experiences from the memory, Gulec & Durmus (2015).

2.2.2. Listening comprehension

Many researchers and scholars provided various definitions of listening
comprehension. According to Brown and Yule (1983), listening comprehension
means that a person understands what he/she has heard. If he/she learns the text
through hearing it, he/she will understand it. Steinberg (2007) stated that
comprehension is the ability of one individual perceiving another via sense,
(specifically aural) organs, assigning a meaning to the message and comprehending
it. Thus, successful listeners have a crucial part to play in the process by activating
various types of knowledge, and by applying what they know to what they hear, and
trying to understand what the speaker means (Anderson and Lynch, 1988).

2.2.3. The Importance of Listening

Listening is the most frequently used language skill (Morley, 1999; Scarcella
& Oxford, 1992). Wolvin and Coakley (1988) concluded that, both in and out of the
classroom, listening consumes more of daily communication time than other forms
of verbal communication. Listening is central to the lives of students throughout all
levels of educational development (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997; Feyten, 1991; Wing,
1986). Nevertheless, it is evident that listening plays a significant role in the lives of
people. Listening is even more important for the lives of students since listening is
used as a primary medium of learning at all stages of education.

3. Proposed Research Methodology

3.1. Research type  
The present research made an investigation on students’ anxiety in English
listening skills. A modified foreign language listening questionnaire has been
administered to research the subjects’ listening skills level.
3.2. Population and sample
The subjects chosen for the study were 50 sophomore of English major at
Hanoi Open University. Among the subjects there were 42 females and 8 males,
whose age ranged from 19 to 20.
3.3 Research methods

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 The survey questionnaire consisted of 8 multiple-choice questions and 2
extended questions. The aim was to identify the typical errors made by the 2 nd-year
students of FOE, HOU when learning English listening skills.The students were
given 10 minutes to complete the survey anonymously and 48 students responded.
Because not all survey were fully completed, 34 survey results were included for
analysis.

4. Research result
The figure 1 showed the survey questionnaire results on opinion of 2nd-year
students about listening skills. The numbers of the respondents choosing Difficult
was the highest with 38.2 percent (13 people) respondents while the numbers of the
respondents selecting Extremely difficult ranked the second with 32.4% (11
respondents). There were 23.5% of respondents who chose A bit difficult (8 people).
The lowest number of respondents who chose Normal was 5.9% (2 respondents).
There was no respondents chose Easy.

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5. Proposed chapter outline
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Rationale
1.2. Aim and objectives of the study
1.3. Scope of the study
1.4. Research questions
1.5. Structure of the study
Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1. Review of previous studies
2.2. Theoretical background/frameworks
2.2.1. The Definition of Listening
2.2.2. Listening comprehension
2.2.3. The Importance of Listening
Chapter 3: Methodology
1. Research type  

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 2. Population and sample
3. Research methods
Chapter 4: Results/Findings and discussion
4.1. Results/Findings
4.2. Discussion
4.2.1. Suggestion of 2nd -year students
4.2.2. Solution to improve listening skills
Chapter 5: Conclusion
References 
Appendices 
Research Schedule

0. References 
1 Anderson, A. & Lynch, T., 1988. Listening. New York: Oxford University
Press, p. 301.
2 Bloomfield, A., Wayland, S. C., Rhoades, E., Blodgett, A., Linck, J., & Ross,
S. (2010). What makes listening difficult? Factors affecting second language
listening comprehension.
3 Brown, G., & Yule, G., 1983. Teaching the spoken language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
4 Coakley, C., & Wolvin, A. (1997). Listening in the educational environment.
In M. Purdy & D. Borisoff (Eds.), Listening in everyday life: A personal and
professional approach (2nd ed.)
5 Feyten, C. M. (1991). The Power of Listening Ability: An Overlooked
Dimension in Language Acquisition. The Modern Language Journal
6 Gilakjani, A. P., & Ahmadi, M. R. (2011). A study of factors affecting EFL
learners' English listening comprehension and the strategies for
improvement.
7 Gulec, S., & Durmus, N. (2015). A study aiming to develop listening skills of
elementary second-grade students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences
8 Kieu, B. N. (2015) Some strategies to improve listening skills for the first-
year students at faculty of English Hanoi Open University
9 Morley, J. (1999). Current perspectives on improving aural comprehension.
10 Nguyen, K. T. (2015). How to improve listening skills for the 2nd year
students at faculty of English, HOU
11 Nguyen, Q. N., & Thai, D. C. (2018). Listening comprehension: First-year
English-major students’ perceptions and problems. Can Tho University
Journal of Science
12 Scarcella, R. C., & Oxford, R. L. (1992). The tapestry of language learning:
the individual in the communicative classroom. Boston, MA: Heinle &
Heinle
13 Steinberg, S., 2007. An introduction to communication studies. Cape Town,
South Africa
14 Tran, T. Q., & Duong, T. M. (2020). Insights into Listening Comprehension

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 Problems: A Case Study in Vietnam. PASAA: Journal of Language Teaching
and Learning in Thailand
15 Wing, B. H. (Ed.). (1986). Listening, reading, writing: Analysis and
application. Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of
Foreign Language.
16 Wolvin, A. D., & Coakley, C. G. (1988). Listening (3rd ed.)

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