AN INVESTIGATION INTO CHALLENGES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION AMONG ENGLISH-MAJORED FRESHMEN AT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

AN INVESTIGATION INTO CHALLENGES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION AMONG ENGLISH-MAJORED FRESHMEN AT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Hoang Anh Phong University of Languages and International Studies, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam ABSTRACT Listening comprehension skill has become a great concern to not only learners but also language teachers recently. People used to narrow down the assessment of one’s language ability to reading and writing skills, as only the two skills have official assessment in schools and education systems. However, with the tremendous growth of communication in the technological era, people are reconsidering the necessity of speaking and listening skills for their practicality. In the context of ULIS, especially FELTE students who are majored in the English language, listening comprehension skill has become a critical issue. This study aims at identifying challenges that the students encounter the most in their learning of listening skills, specifically from four factors: the learner, the speaker, the material, and the physical setting. The participants comprised 150 mainstream first-year students majoring in English Language. The instrument of the data collection was a survey-questionnaire, which was considered the most effective and common method of collecting data on attitudes and opinions (Makey & Gass, 2005). The findings of this research would reveal the difficulties that ULIS first-year students encounter the most. Keywords: listening comprehension, difficulty, English-majored first-year students