The Improvement in English Listening Comprehension Competence of the Tenth-Grade Students Through using Podcasts: A Case Study

The growing development of the internet brings many opportunities to both English teachers and learners since they can access diverse resources, among which podcasts are considered one of the valuable tools for those who want to master English language skills, especially listening. This study aims to investigate the use of podcasts as a medium to enhance the tenth graders’ listening comprehension competence. Involving 80 tenth graders at an upper secondary school in Dak Lak province, Vietnam, who were divided into a control group and an experimental group, the study mainly employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to measure the improvement in students’ listening competence. The tools used for collecting the data were questionnaires, interviews, the pre-test, and the post-test. With the help of the statistical software SPSS version 20.0, a paired sample t-test was conducted to assess the statistical significance of the findings, and the descriptive statistics, including sum, mean, and percentage of each variable, were also found and analyzed. The results indicated that students were eager to use podcasts as a listening tool, thanks to their familiarity and accessibility. Despite some challenges during practice, podcasts effectively helped improve the learners’ listening skills. Specifically, the students overcame the common difficulties that hinder their English listening comprehension, such as limited vocabulary, unfamiliar grammar, poor comprehensive listening ability, and pronunciation challenges. To conclude, it is recommended that students be consistent with podcast practice, and teachers should give enough instructions so that the best results can be achieved.