FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...
FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...
FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...
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As indicated in chapter one, before this study was started, there was an<br />
assumption that (1) Ethiopian students learn <strong>EFL</strong> listening at the lower classes and<br />
(2) college students are experienced with <strong>EFL</strong> listening activities. From the data<br />
obtained through the questionnaire, however, many of the subjects reported their<br />
experiences which seem to sharply contradict with the above assumptions. Thus,<br />
cross-checking questions were asked to cross-examine the reliability of the data<br />
obtained from the questionnaire.<br />
Q1: Before you joined the university, what experiences did you have in gaining<br />
listening skills?<br />
• Did you get opportunities to practice listening skills? If that was so, in what<br />
way?<br />
- What kind of listening activities did you practice?<br />
- Were you exposed to the native speaker English?<br />
Most of the interviewees reported that they have deep-rooted difficulties of <strong>EFL</strong><br />
listening for the reason that they didn’t practice it at lower classes. Different<br />
students gave different reasons for this case. One learner (S1) reported that she<br />
didn’t practice <strong>EFL</strong> listening while she was in high school. This was because her<br />
English teacher always skipped over the listening lessons of the textbook “My<br />
English teacher used to skip over the listening lesson whenever he got to the<br />
lesson.” The other learner’s (S2) blame his poor listening performance on his rural<br />
background and on lack of access to resources of the <strong>EFL</strong> listening, “I came from<br />
rural area where there was no DS-TV or video that can help me to practice the <strong>EFL</strong><br />
listening.”<br />
The researcher got some students who went through <strong>EFL</strong> listening practices<br />
while they were at high schools. The <strong>EFL</strong> listening experiences of these students<br />
was, however, based on the teachers’ ‘reading aloud’. Therefore, they have not<br />
been exposed to the native speaker English. The reason they presented for this<br />
case is that they did not get opportunity to be acquainted with the speech of the<br />
native speakers. This can be one factor which makes the students unfamiliar with<br />
the natural feature of spoken English.<br />
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