Rundu campus

AN INVESTIGATION ON LISTENING SKILLS

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN ENGLISH
LESSON BY GRADE 6D LEARNERS AT
NKORORO PRIMARY SCHOOL.

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE HONOURS DEGREE OF EDUCATION OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF NAMIBIA

By MIQUEL MARTHA DELAIDE

September, 2016

SUPERVISOR: MR. HAINGURA RUDOLF

Table of Content pages

1
Table of content……………………………………………………………………………2 &3

Dedication…………………………………………………………….........................................4

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………........................................5

List of Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………………..6

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background of the study…………………………………………………………….…..7 & 8

1.2 Problem statement…………………………………………………………………………….8

1.3 Research questions…………………………………………………………………………....9

1.4 Significance of the study……………………………………………………………………..9

1.5 Limitation of the study………………. ………………………………………………..……10

1.6 Delimitation of the study……………………………………………………………………10

1.7 Definition of terms…………………………………………………………………………..10

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………..…………….....11

2.2 Problems that learners in encountered in listening skills………………………….……11 &13

2.3 How doer poor listening affect learners performance………………………………….13 &14

2.4 How teachers help learners to improve…………………………………………………14 &16

Chapter.3 Research Methodology

3.1 Research design…………………………………………………………………...............…17

3.2 Research Instruments………………………………………………………………………..17
3.3 Research population……………………………………………………………………17 & 18
3.4 Sampling procedures…………………………………………………………………….…..18
3.5 Data analysis procedure……………………………………………………………….……..18

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 Chapter four
4.1 Discussion of result…………………………………………………………………….18 &20

Chapter five
5.1 conclusions......................................................................................................................20 & 21

5.2 Recommendation……………………………………………………………………………21

5.3 Implications…………………………………………………………………………............22

Reference list………………………………………………………………………….….……..23

Appendix (i) Focus group interview ...................................................................................24 & 26

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

3
I thank GOD for helping me to achievement and complete my research. I owe my deepest thanks

to my Supervisor Mr. HAINGIRA RUDOLF for being patient, helpful, and most of all

encouraging. I am especially grateful to the school leadership and teachers, who generously

allowed me into their classrooms to collect data and gain deeper understanding of the teaching

and learning process within specific school contexts. My deepest gratitude goes to Miss.

NAJOMA H for helping me a lot completed this research. I owe a lot of thanks to the library

staff for allowing me go and research. Finally, I must also thank all the learners who have taken

part in this study without their contribution; this project would not see the light.

Dedication

4
 To my lovely mother, sisters and brother

To each member of my family

To my fiancee Hamutenya J Mukuve

To my closest friend Hamutenya E R and Katoima R K

To all my classmates

To all who cares about me

List of Abbreviations

5
EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

FL: Foreign Language

L1: First language

L2: Second Language

CHAPTER ONE

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1.1 Background of the study

This research investigated, identified, and analyzed listening skills problems encountered by

learners at Nkororo primary school. Likewise, it answered the following questions: How can

Nkororo primary school take in the importance of studying listening comprehension, what are

listening difficulties that learners at Nkororo primary school encountered during listening

comprehension and how does poor listening skill affect learners’ performance in English

classroom? While the ministry of education is trying to put efforts in developing English

education at Nkororo primary school, a number of studies have shown that the achievement of

Nkororo primary school learners was unsatisfactory. English is being used as an international

medium of communication; numerous factors hamper the success of English language learning.

Emphasis is given more on reading, writing, and grammar than to listening and speaking. This

shown that learners had very minimal opportunities to exercise spoken English, causing learners

to faced problems in listening skills. The findings indicated that most participants encountered

English Language, listening problems related to the listening text, the speaker, and the listener

at a high level.

Listening has emerged as an important component in the process of second language acquisition.

It is the first language type that learners need to acquire. Language learning depends on listening

since it provides the aural input that serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables

learners to interact in spoken communication. It provides the foundation for all aspects of

language and cognitive development and it plays a life-long role in the process of

communication (Feyton, 1991; Malkawi, 2010). The view of listening would involve the learner

in listening to the message without paying attention to its component elements. Anderson and

Lynch (1998) stated that, oral communication directly involves both listening and speaking
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learners need to listen to what their teachers say and respond to it. If they are unable to listen

effectively, their communication will break down. On a daily basis we work with people who

have different opinions, values, beliefs, and needs than our own. Our ability to exchange ideas

with others, understand others' perspective, solve problems and successfully utilize the steps and

processes presented in this training will depend significantly on how effectively we are

able to communicate with others (Windle and Warren, 1999).

Our country one of the countries whereby English is learned as a foreign language, EFL learners

are less exposed to listening materials. Listening lags behind other skills though listening skills

are also of crucial importance in language acquisition. Low level learners of the EFL have

problems in listening skills and listening seems the most demanding skills. Most educators test

listening and consider it as a product without regarding the processes and skills through which

listening takes place.

1.2 Problem statement

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves

understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping

his meaning (Howatt and Dakin). The reason why I carefully chosen this topic, I found out that

learners at Nkororo primary are having problems in listening skills which result them in poor

understanding of the information in English language that contribute to high failure of learners at

this school.

1.3 Research question

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 1. What are listening skills problems that learners at Nkororo primary school encountered in

listening comprehension?

2. How does poor listening skill affect learners’ performance in English classroom?

3. How can the teachers help learners to overcome listening comprehension problems?

1.4 Significance of the study

This study points out the listening comprehension problems encountered in English by Grade 6D

learners at Nkororo primary school. Awareness of the factors that contribute to the problems

English Foreign Language learners encounter in listening skill would benefit the following

groups:

1. English as Foreign Language teachers to have a better understanding of their learners’

listening difficulties by so doing it will help teachers to examine their own teaching

methods to improve learners’ listening comprehension. Knowing why some of the

problems occur will naturally place teachers in a better position to guide their learners in

order to overcoming listening difficulties. It is also hoped that the findings about learners’

listening difficulties can provide English teachers with some guidelines for material

evaluation and selection of materials which will be suitable for listening skills.

2. Learners to identify their difficulties of listening comprehension will help learners to

discover the best learning strategies that are crucial for them. Learners need to be aware

of the factors which contribute to their difficulties in listening; when listeners know

something about their own problems, they will be able to improve their listening practices

and become better listeners.

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1.5 Limitation of the study

In Namibia there are few studies were done on listening skills and this is a big limitation to get

secondary data for literature review. In addition, learners might not admit that there are having

problems listening comprehension.

1.1 Delimitation of the study

Participants to this study will only be restricted to upper primary learners who are doing English

in grade 6 D at Nkororo primary school.

1.7 DIFINITION OF TERMS

Listening according to Thomlison's (1984) listening is the ability to identify and understand

what others are saying. This process involves understanding a speaker’s accent or

pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. An able

listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously.

Listening comprehension is regarded as a complex, interactive process in which listeners are

involved in a dynamic construction of meaning. Listeners understand the oral input from sound

discrimination, prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, as

well as other use linguistic, paralinguistic, or even non-linguistic clues in contextual utterance

(Rost, 2002).

Listening difficulties are defined as the internal and external characteristics that might interrupt

text understanding and real-life processing problems directly related to cognitive procedures that

take place at various stages of listening comprehension (Goh, 2000).

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CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

In the eyes of many researchers and learners of English, listening is a complex and active mental

process that involves perception, attention, cognition, and memory. During the process of

listening comprehension, various factors may affect learner listening skill. Lists of general

factors have been identified (Hayati, 2010; Flowerdew and Miller, 1992) while the role of

specific factors has also been examined. Some factors that have been the focus of research

include speech rate (Conrad, 1989; Blau, 1990; Griffths, 1992, Zhao, 1997), phonological

features and background knowledge (Long, 1990; Chiang and Dunkel, 1992). Other issues have

also been related to listener difficulties. These range from text structure and syntax to personal

factors such as insufficient exposure to the target language, and a lack of interest and

motivation. Brown (1995) acknowledged the relevance of all these issues, and further argued that

listener difficulties are also related to the levels of cognitive demands made by the content of the

texts. Buck (2001) identifies numerous difficulties which can be confronted in listening tasks

such as unknown vocabularies, unfamiliar topics, fast speech rate, and unfamiliar

2.2 Problems learners encountered in listening skills

Factors affecting learners to encounter problems in listening comprehension categorized into

different sources which are problems related to the listening text, listening problems related to

tasks and activities, listening problems related to the listener and teacher’s methodology

which will be discussed in detail below.

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Problems related to the listening materials

The listening material may deal with almost any area of life. It might include street

gossip, proverbs, everyday conversation, new products, and situations unfamiliar to the student.

Also, in a spontaneous conversation speakers frequently change topics. The material itself may

be the main source of listening comprehension problems. In particular, unfamiliar words,

difficult grammatical structures, and the length of the spoken text may present students with

listening problems.

Problems pertaining lack of English vocabulary.

The first question was asked to know whether unfamiliar words, including jargon and idioms,

interfered with the learners’ listening comprehension. The great majority of learners have

responded that unfamiliar words, including jargon and idioms sometimes, interfered with their

listening comprehension. Some respondent, they have memorize a lot of vocabularies but forgets

as time pass as not using or practicing it. From the participants’ answer, it was identified that the

main problem is vocabulary. This finding coincides with Muhammad Naeem Butt, 2010; and

Hanoi, 2010 who reported that the major problem hindering listening comprehension was that

the learners’ vocabulary was too limited to understand the message. The data also proves the

theory realized by Underwood (1989) that lack of vocabulary is a big obstacle to most students in

listening comprehension.

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Problems pertaining to poor grammar

The second question was asked to know whether complex grammatical structures interfered with

the learners’ listening comprehension. The majority of the learners have responded that difficult

with grammatical structures always interfered with their listening comprehension. The wide

number of learners point out, difficult grammatical structures cause much trouble. This conforms

to Vogely’s study (1998) which shows that the difficulty in listening comprehension is partly due

to the structural component of the text.

Problems pertaining to the length of a spoken text

In addition to the insufficiency of vocabulary and the difficulty of grammatical structures, the

length of the listening text was one of the main reasons why the students can’t

understand most of the talk. Learners responded that a long spoken text often and always

interfered with their listening comprehension. This result clearly shows that the length of the text

can be one major factor that negatively affects the learners’ listening comprehension. This

confirms Ur’s assertion (1984) which justifies that the difficulty in listening comprehension is

partly due to the length of the listening text itself which bore listeners and distract their

concentration. Therefore, it is possible to infer that long spoken texts interfere with the learners’

listening comprehension.

2.3 How does poor listening skill affect learners’ performance in English classroom?

Low concentration can be the result of various psychological or physical situations such as
visual or auditory distractions, physical discomfort, inadequate volume, lack of interest in
the subject material, stress, or personal bias it will result learners to fall. When listeners give
equal weight to everything they hear, it makes it difficult to organize and retain
the information they need. Furthermore, when the audience is trying too hard to listen, they

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often cannot take in the most important information they need. Jumping ahead can be detrimental
to the listening experience; when listening to a speaker's message, the audience overlooks
aspects of the conversation or makes judgments before all of the information is presented.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to pick out aspects of a conversation that support one's own
preexisting beliefs and values.

2.4 How can teachers help learners to overcome listening comprehension problems?

Not all listening problems described can be overcome. Certain features of the message and the

speaker, for instance, are inevitable. But this does not mean that the teacher can do nothing

about them. As a teacher, you can at least provide learners with suitable listening materials,

background and linguistic knowledge, enabling skills, pleasant classroom conditions, and useful

exercises to help them discover effective listening strategies.

Adapting and Improving Listening Materials

It is obvious that learners differ in their learning styles and ability; therefore, teachers should

adopt and adapt listening materials that match learners’ interest and background since the

listening materials only become stimulating and motivating them when they are slightly

challenging to what they have already known and suit their interest.

Activating your learners’ vocabulary

From the investigation, one of the great causes that make learners faced problem in listening

skills is lack of vocabulary. The majority of all the learners report not to have sufficient

vocabulary in listening comprehension and a small number complains that their vocabulary is too

poor to understand. It is, therefore necessary for teachers to equip learners with certain keywords

needed for listening skills, since lack of vocabulary can be a big obstacle to them in listening

skills which is also realized by Underwood (1989) and Higgin (1995). However, it is better to
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activate learners’ vocabulary by asking them to guess the meaning of words used in the listening

context before explaining the meaning to them, since whenever learners are able to relate what

they have already known to what they are supposed to listen for, they are likely to listen better or

more effectively.

Using different kinds of Input

The teacher should also provide learners with different kinds of input, such as lectures, radio

news, films, TV plays, announcements, everyday conversation, interviews, storytelling, English

songs, and after they have done with, the listening ask them oral question based on what they just

listen to or ask them retell what they just listen loudly one by one.

Using Visual Aids

Teacher exploit visual aids or draw pictures and diagrams related to the listening topics to help

learners to guess and imagine actively. Visual aids draw learners’ attentions, increase their

motivation on the topic and help them relate to content of the spoken text, thus listener overcome

difficulties such as unknown words, minimal pairs of words.

Pronunciation

The findings in the study show that incorrect pronunciation hinders many learners from listening

comprehension, so teachers need to help learners expose themselves and get familiar with precise

pronunciation of native speakers. By doing that learners’ pronunciation capacity is much more

improved, which will help learners find listening to native speakers effective and efficient. Many

teachers suppose that learners’ accurate pronunciation is of great help for them in listening

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acquisition. They also believe that one of the ultimate results of listening acquisition is to train

students to produce accurate pronunciation.

Providing and trying to gain as much feedback as possible

During the course, the teacher should fill the gap between inputs and students’ reply and between

the teacher’s feedback and students’ reaction so as to make listening purposeful. This not only

promotes error correction but gives encouragements as well. It can aid students to

heighten their confidence in their ability to tackle listening problems. Students’ feedback can

assist the teacher to judge where the class is going and how it should be instructed.

Encouraging Prediction

This technique can be employed in the pre-listening or while-listening stages. Learners are

asked to predict what the text is about or what the speaker is going to say

next. In order encourage students to imagine and predict what they are going to

hear, teacher may tell something about the topic of the listening text or something

about the speaker(s). Besides, students can be asked to predict the grammar structures

that are likely to be used in the listening text or make a list of words, phrases that relate to

the topic and may appear in the listening text. By this way, they can familiarize students with

key concepts and vocabulary before listening to spoken text. When students have certain

vocabulary in mind, they will be more self-confident and thus ready to listen effectively.

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 CHAPTER THREE

3.1 Research Design

A research design I was intended to use is a qualitative case study, which I was use to collect

data in order to answer the research questions that guided this research. Qualitative research is

primarily investigative research.  I used this to gain an understanding of underlying reasons,

opinions, and motivations. It provides understandings into the problem or helps me to develop

ideas (Boyle, 1984). I selected this is due to the nature of the problem under investigation in the

present study which attempts to investigate the problems that grade 6D at Nkororo primary

school encounter when listening to English.

3.2 Instrument for Data collection

In terms of the method, interview and classroom observation was employed for this study.

According to, (Cohen 2000:269) interviews are fairly quick to conduct which means that many

interviews can take place within a short amount of time and large sample can be obtained

resulting in the findings being representative and having the ability to be generalized to a large

population. Interview included closed questions. The purpose for mixing of both close question

is that the former is easier to collate and analyze and the responses to the later will provide more

flexibility so that the respondent can give more accurate answer.

3.3 Population of the study

To achieve the aim set for the present study, a sample of ten learners was selected out of fifty

was in grade 6D class is used to serve as respondent in this research. The sample was learners

who are doing English in grade 6D; during the study I used purposive sampling according to

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Conrad, L. (1985) is the judgement as to who can provide the best information to achieve the

objective of your study. The reason why I selected this sampling is for the participants to provide

me with the information and opinions to achieve the objective of my study. It helps me to reach a

targeted sample quickly and it was easy for me to sample the subjects with specific

characteristics.

3.4 Sampling Technique

Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the sample for this study. This is because it

permitted the researcher to have representation from both the teachers and the students.

3.5 Data Analysis Procedure

The data collected was analyzed using simple percentage. This section focuses on presentation

and analysis of the data collected from the respondents as well as the discussion of results.

CHAPTER FOUR

4.1 Discussion of the interview results

This chapter deals with the discussion of results in the present research which aims to investigate

the problems faced by grade 6D learners who are doing English as second language at Nkororo

primary school depending on the analysis of the learner’s and teacher interview. The discussion

consist of listening skills problems that learners at Nkororo primary school encountered in

listening comprehension, how does poor listening skill affect learners’ performance in English

classroom and how can the teachers help learners to overcome listening comprehension problems

Most of the interviewees reported that they have deep-rooted difficulties of EFL listening for the

reason that they didn’t practice it at lower classes. Shows that unfamiliar topic sometimes bring

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about a problem in listening comprehension. 63.2% (sometimes) and 36.8% (often and always)

of the learners have problems with topics which are unfamiliar to them. The listening material

may contain a variety of fields in life or society. For instance, it is likely a business report, a

daily conversation or a political issue which confuse the listener. These conversations may

include words, phrases or terms unfamiliar to listeners. They are totally strange to them so it is

such a hard job to listen when the message is full of terminology. The solution is to ask the

students to practice as much as they can on these various materials. Therefore, they can get used

to listening to the variety of topics without any difficulties.

According to my find It shows that 89.5% of learners failed their listening tests. This means that

the listening is actually an obstacle to learners. In fact, to possess a good listening skill, it takes

times and efforts said by miss Nujoma. However, learners seem to spend very little time on

practicing at home 73.6% (sometimes), 5.2% (never), 10.5% (rarely). Without much self-

practicing, the learners cannot approach to any improvement or good result in listening

comprehension. Self-study is such a way to succeed in listening. She says that, for learners’ to

improve, they should listen to songs, tapes, disks and news in English. However, much

practicing would result nothing if the learners cannot infer the strategies from each listening task.

The good outcome would result if learners realize and adopt strategies through their practice.

What learners do before listening partially has impacts on their comprehension of the listening

text. According to the data which I have been collected, 84.2% of the learners said that they

would go through the questions and guess what the topic about. It is reasonable enough for this

first stage of listening. However, the task instruction should be prior to read under any

circumstances. As they read them, they know what they are supposed to do and how to deal with

that. There are just 42.1% of learners taking this first step.

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In addition, new words are such matters that prevent learners from understanding the text. When

encountering a new word, just 10.5% choose to ignore the word and keep on listening, 42.4% try

to guess its meaning and 47.4 % feel depressed and cannot listen anymore. From this, we can see

that lacking of vocabulary could be barrier to learners. As Hedge (2000:237) pointed out that,

instead of listening to every word in their first language, many language learners tend to integrate

their linguistic competence, experience and background knowledge to comprehend the text.

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 Conclusion

The main aim of current research was to identify problem encountered by learners at Nkororo

primary school in listening skills, how does poor listening skill affect learners’ performance in

English classroom and how can the teachers help learners to overcome listening skills problems.

Thus, this research arrived at a point that listening is the weakest skill and grade 6 D learners

encounter different problems while listening to EFL that is why some researchers call listening

“Cinderella skill” in second language learning (Nunan , 1997, p. 46). However it is true that

listening is vital in language learning in that it provides input for the learner. Without

understanding inputs, students can’t learn anything.

To conclude, listening is vital not only in language learning but also in daily communication.

However, one English teacher at Nkororo primary school clearly stated that, the situation of

teaching and learning English. Listening comprehension seems to be the weakest skill were

learners encounter various kinds of listening problems. This study is done in the hope of finding

out the factors causing their listening skills problems and how poor listening contribute to

learner’s performance and how teachers help learners improving their listening skill. Learners at

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Nkororo primary school encounter various kinds of listening problems in learning skill

such as unfamiliar words, the length of the spoken text, speed rate, a variety of accents, lack of

concentration and pronunciation. Some suggestions that could be employed for teachers and

learners to encounter listening comprehension problems include adapting and improving

listening materials, and improving teachers’ classroom techniques on the part of the teachers.

5.2 Recommendations for further Research

This research of mine has finding the common problems which the grade 6D learners who are

doing English as second language at Nkororo primary school faced in listening skills. Based on

the fact and figure, a number of strategies are also suggested to help them with better listening.

To confirm what have been written above and my ideas about the solution to improve the

listening skill of the learners, I conclude with these ideas: firstly to the learners, they should

spend much more time on practicing. They should listen to a variety of topics in order to get

familiar with them. Hence, the background knowledge will be enriched as well as the skill. In

addition, the learners should know to apply suitable strategies to each kind of listening text in

order to get the best result.

However, the skill of learners will not be improved best without teachers. Therefore, teachers

play such a significant in building up their skill. In each lesson, teachers should show learners the

stage of listening comprehension. Generally, there are three stages: pre-listening, while-listening

and post-listening

I hoped that the results of this study will help grade 6D learners at Nkororo primary school to

improve on problems their encountered in English in the field of listening skill.

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5.3 Implications of the study

Implications of the study the results of the present study show that grade 6 D learners at Nkororo

primary school encountered many problems in listening to EFL so that; these problems need

to be taken into consideration and to have solutions. Thus, it is confirmed in this research that the

listening skill is the weakest skill in the comprehension among the four skills, and it should be

given an importance as much as the one given to the reading skill mentioned previously in this

study.

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References list

Berman, M. (2003). Listening strategy guide. Dyed international Inc

Brown, G. (1992). Listening to Spoken English. London: Longman Press.

Cohen, L & Manim, L. (1998). Research methods in Education. Croom Helm

Cross, D (1998). Teach English. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L. (1996). Student perceptions, problems and strategies in second
language lecture comprehension RELC Journal 23 (2), 60–80.

Goh,C. (1997). Metacognitive awareness and second language listeners.ELT Journal 51 (4),361–
9.

Hasan, A. (2000). Learners’ perceptions of listening comprehension problems. Language,

Culture and Curriculum, 13, 137-153.

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the language classroom. Oxford University Press

Herron, C. and Seay, I. (1991) The effect of authentic aural texts on student listening
comprehension in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals 24, 487–95.

Higgins, J.M.D. (1995) Facilitating listening in second language classrooms through the
manipulation of temporal variables. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Kent at
Canterbury.

Rost, M. (1994) Listening. London: Longman.

Weir, C & Robert, J. (1994). Evaluation in ELT. Oxford: Blackwell

Wenden, A. (1986). What do second language learners know about their language learning? A
second look at retrospective account. Applied Linguistics 7 (2), 186–205.

Willis, J. (1981). Teaching English through English. London: Longman

Yagang, F. (1994) Listening: Problems and solutions. In T. Kral (ed.) Teacher Development:

Making the Right Moves. Washington, DC: English Language Programs Divisions, USIA

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APPENDIX

NKORORO PRIMARY SCHOOL GRADE 6D

 I am doing a small project entitled “difficulties grade 6D learners at Nkororo primary

school encountered in listening skills”. This aims to find out the problems that most
learners face when listening. Hopefully, the findings I get from this project contribute a
small part to help you with better listening. I would really appreciate if you spare your
valuable time to fill in this interview.

 1.  Have you ever failed your listening test? (Tick out the best answer)

□ Never

□ Once

□ Twice

□ Three times

□ More than three

2. How often do you self-study listening at home? (Tick out the best answer)

□ Never

□ Rarely

□ Sometimes

□ Often

3.  How do you self-study at home? (You can tick more than one)

□ Listen to English songs

□ Listen to tapes or disks of the syllabus in university

□ Listen to news in English

□ Other

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4.  What do you do before listening? (You can tick more than one)

□ Go through the questions and guess what the topic is about

□ Nothing to do just ready to listen

□ Guess the content of the listening

□ Ask about the new words

□ Read the task instruction

5.   What do you do while you are listening for the first time? (Tick out the best answer)

□ Listen to word by word

□ Listen for the detail information

□ Focus on the new words

Other: ____________________________________________

 6. What do you do if you cannot understand words or phrases while listening? (tick out the best
answer)

□ Ignore it and keep on listening

□ Try to guess its meaning

□ Feel depressed and cannot listen anymore

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 7. How often do you encounter these following problems? (Put a tick in the appropriate
column)

Problems Never Some often always

times

Making prediction what the

speaker talks about

Guessing unknown words while

listening

 Unfamiliar topics

Lacking of background
knowledge

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