FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...

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listeners’ success at understanding the content of what they hear depends to a large extent in their expertise on the micro skills. O'Malley & Chamot (1990) add that listeners use these strategies to facilitate comprehension and to make their learning more effective. The strategies are important because they regulate and direct the learning process of EFL listening. These scholars add that the use of such strategies helps students to manipulate learning materials and apply specific techniques to a listening task. Moreover the strategies describe the techniques listeners use to collaborate with others, to verify understanding and to lower anxiety. One factor for the existence of the students listening problems may be the failure of the students in using the particular strategy of listening that is appropriate to a particular listening activity, such as , listening for gist, listening for specific information, listening for implied meaning, and so forth. Regarding to this, Dunkel (1986) says that learners who are not aware of such strategies are unsuccessful in listening comprehension. Wenden (1986) cites research findings stating that unsuccessful learners are generally less aware of effective ways of approaching the learning tasks. Learners may use ineffective strategies falsely assuming that their strategies help them in listening comprehension. For example, learners may wrongly think that they have to listen to every word and detail to get the main idea of the text. They may be unwilling to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context of the spoken text. Awareness of effective strategies would benefit both learners and teachers. In fact the recent English listening tasks in Ethiopian text books are designed in a way that the students practice the various listening skills and strategies. However, the problems may partly be due to the fact that learners are more inclined to resort to their old ineffective listening habits than trying to practice the listening strategies introduced in the EFL listening lessons. 2.3.3.4 Knowledge of Vocabulary Another area that is claimed to affect EFL listening comprehension is the student's limited lexical knowledge. Underwood (1989:17) says “For people listening to a foreign language, an unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making then miss the next 27
part of the speech.” This tells that one requirement for good listening comprehension is knowledge of the vocabulary used in the listening text. A problem many EFL learners have, has to do with the multiple meanings of words and the fact that many students know only the most common meaning of a word. When the word is encountered in one of its less common uses, students are confused. This can be illustrated with a sentence in which a word appears several times, each time with a different meaning. Or, when the listening text is crowded with several unfamiliar words which demand deep knowledge of vocabulary, then it leaves the learner groping for the meaning of such unfamiliar words. The other problem of EFL listening in relation to vocabulary is getting words which seem similar in sound. In English there are different words which seem similar in sounds but different in meanings (as ship/sheep, meat/meet, fit/feet, write/right, sight/site, light/light, etc) (Underwood 1989:9). When the foreign listeners come across such words, they may fail to distinguish one word from the other with similar sound. Those foreign listeners who often depend on context are easily able to distinguish between such words. This happens because the context nearly always makes it obvious which of the two words is being spoken. Words with similar sound confuse the learners when occur within a stream of speech. Therefore, a student should be exposed for such words and needs to learn their differences in meaning. In addition, the learner needs to learn the expressions that are common in spoken English. Underwood (1989:13) asserts that foreign listeners are required to recognize the most commonly used interactive expressions (such as well/uhuh/mhm); their role in speech is valuable. 2.3.4 Listening Environment Listening factors that are related to the physical setting where the teachinglearning process of EFL listening is taking place can affect the learners listening comprehension. Some of these factors that are claimed to affect the students EFL listening comprehension are those concerned with environmental distractions or associated visual support. As far as the environmental distractions are concerned, environmental noises may originate from the surrounding sounds at the time of listening. If these noises come while the students engaged in listening, they can be a potential source of 28
Page 1 and 2: ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF
Page 3 and 4: ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF
Page 5 and 6: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to exp
Page 7 and 8: 3. Methods of the Study------------
Page 9 and 10: LIST OF TABLES Table-1: Factors rel
Page 11 and 12: ABSTRACT This study explores the fa
Page 13 and 14: laboratories of the university. The
Page 15 and 16: same course to different groups. Fu
Page 17 and 18: speakers speak, not being able to g
Page 19 and 20: Chapter Two: Review of Related Lite
Page 21 and 22: descriptions concerning the influen
Page 23 and 24: years (Penny Ur, Mary Underwood, Fa
Page 25 and 26: From the above points it seems reas
Page 27 and 28: of main clause and subordinate clau
Page 29 and 30: problem. She says that perception o
Page 31 and 32: given, rate, and pacing of informat
Page 33 and 34: It is obvious that students will fi
Page 35 and 36: sounds that are unusual to the L2 l
Page 37: epetitions and other elaborations a
Page 41 and 42: These factors are important not onl
Page 43 and 44: Samuels, 1994; Ur, 1984; Underwood,
Page 45 and 46: statements arranged, on the basis o
Page 47 and 48: is the cognitive complexity of the
Page 49 and 50: However, to make the analysis easil
Page 51 and 52: Item No. partly due to the structur
Page 53 and 54: particular, unfamiliar words, compl
Page 55 and 56: Item No. Table-2b shows that the ma
Page 57 and 58: Item No. Students’ No. Never Stud
Page 59 and 60: Item No. students. In the Ethiopian
Page 61 and 62: grammar, its vocabulary, all the pi
Page 63 and 64: organized into four categories acco
Page 65 and 66: The target students were asked to i
Page 67 and 68: Q2: After you joined a university,
Page 69 and 70: also reported, “What I have learn
Page 71 and 72: input, activating related schemata,
Page 73 and 74: from his poor listening ability: "I
Page 75 and 76: of delivery of the native speakers.
Page 77 and 78: egarding his approach in the teachi
Page 79 and 80: necessary skills and knowledge of E
Page 81 and 82: headphones for each student, and th
Page 83 and 84: 4.6.1 The Listening Materials As sh
Page 85 and 86: for the teaching of listening and t
Page 87 and 88: 5. The listening material introduce
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Strength of the module 1. The modul
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the skills and the strategies again
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4.6.2.2 Achievement scores in ‘Co
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Chapter Five Summary, Conclusion an
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Speaker 21. the pronunciation of na
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which pose the most difficulty for
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context of the discourse before ask
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Bibliography Asher, J. (1969) 'The
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Oxford, Rebecca (1993) Research Upd
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APPENDIX-A Questionnaire Dear stude
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APPENDIX-B Students Interview Guide
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Item No. APPENDIX-D Observation che
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