DIFFICULTIES IN IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL OF SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS WHO MAJOR IN ENGLISH AT CAN THO UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Motivated by the dearth of studies investigating language learners’ listening difficulties in EFL context, this research study aims to explore the difficulties of students in listening comprehension and their solutions towards the problems. The research is conducted with quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate and compare the data to be more connected. It employs 77 second-year students majoring in English in Can Tho University who response to the questionnaire and 6 students from the participants who completed the questionnaire for a structured interview. The result of this research indicates three main groups of influential problems to students’ listening comprehension to English, such as text factors, processing factors and listener factors. The data from qualitative method also clarifies some suggestions from students to solve the problem, such as taking more listening practice, learning more vocabulary, being more confident and asking for explanation. Key words: Difficulties, difficulties in EFL listening comprehension, listening comprehension, text factors, listener factors, processing factors, second-year students in CTU.