FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...

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Weakness 1. As indicated in the description of the target material, the exercises include identifying combinations of sounds and words that are frequently difficult for nonnative speakers. This nature of the exercises traps the learners to easily commit errors. This makes the exercises of the book difficult for our learners. This can be one reason which made the learners perceive the speech of the native speakers as difficult to understand. 2. As the name of the material implies (TOEFL - Test of English as a Foreign Language), it is a proficiency test that is purposely designed to measure nonnative people’s ability in English to decide whether an individual is capable to study in the Colleges of USA. Thus, the material focuses on the elements of testing rather than letting the students practice the various listening skills and strategies. For example, the material lacks pre-listening tasks; as a result, it doesn’t encourage practicing the predictive skills of EFL listening. 3. Comprehension of some of the topics of the text requires the background knowledge of the history and the culture of the Americans. Thus, some of the topics might be difficult for those students who do not have background knowledge about the history and the culture of the Americans. There are also topics with difficult theoretical concept such as “why butterflies surround light” which require the learners’ knowledge of theory related to a particular subject matter. Such topics may be difficult for the learners to understand the listening message, and the tasks related to these topics might be beyond the learners’ cognitive capacity and experience. This can make the learners to be frustrated rather than being motivated to listen. 4. The material was purposely designed to evaluate the learners EFL listening ability so that the listening tasks were intended to demand the skills of listening. However, most of the tasks in the material demand a range of linguistic abilities (such as vocabulary, grammar, reading skills, etc). These made the students’ success of listening to be depend on their knowledge of reading skills, vocabulary and grammar other than their skills of listening. This can be one factor which affected the students’ listening performance. 75
5. The listening material introduces students only to one particular accent, i.e., to the accent of US English particularly of the mid west accent of the US (http://www.toefl.org/research/rrpts.html). As a result, the learners were deprived of receiving the various accents of English (such as, the British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealander, Nigerian, Jamaican, Indian, etc) which exist in the real world English. The result of the analysis of the textbook (Test Kit 2) indicates that the target listening material itself can be a source of listening comprehension problems. In particular, the difficulty of the tasks, unfamiliar topics, lack of activities that let the students practice various strategies, and the demand of a range of linguistic abilities other than listening, all these factors might influence the students EFL listening performance in the listening course. 4.6.1.2 Analysis of the Module As indicated in the data of the interview, the module of the listening course is prepared by the instructor of the target course. The module is designed in line with the course objectives and the course description of the institution. According to the objectives, at the end of the course the trainees are expected to be able to: have a clear understanding of the theoretical bases of listening, apply various specific skills and strategies that are used for effective listening, and develop a good attitude towards learning to listen in English independently. The module is assumed to provide the learners with means and opportunities to achieve the objectives of the course. There are six units in the module. Unit 1 contains theoretical perspectives of listening. The theoretical discussion includes approaches to learning to listen, characteristics of effective listening, and some problems in learning to listen in English and their teaching implications. Unit 2 contains elements of predicting and inferring skills of EFL listening. This part includes the devices that let the students practice the skills of predicting what a speaker is going to say, the skills of inferring meaning of words that might be new to the learners and inferring meaning of words a learner can not hear. Unit 3 introduces the skills of recognizing the sections of a talk. This part 76
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ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF
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ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to exp
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3. Methods of the Study------------
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LIST OF TABLES Table-1: Factors rel
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ABSTRACT This study explores the fa
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laboratories of the university. The
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same course to different groups. Fu
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speakers speak, not being able to g
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Chapter Two: Review of Related Lite
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descriptions concerning the influen
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years (Penny Ur, Mary Underwood, Fa
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From the above points it seems reas
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of main clause and subordinate clau
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problem. She says that perception o
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given, rate, and pacing of informat
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It is obvious that students will fi
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Page 43 and 44: Samuels, 1994; Ur, 1984; Underwood,
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Page 57 and 58: Item No. Students’ No. Never Stud
Page 59 and 60: Item No. students. In the Ethiopian
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Page 63 and 64: organized into four categories acco
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Page 67 and 68: Q2: After you joined a university,
Page 69 and 70: also reported, “What I have learn
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Page 97 and 98: Speaker 21. the pronunciation of na
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Page 103 and 104: Bibliography Asher, J. (1969) 'The
Page 105 and 106: Oxford, Rebecca (1993) Research Upd
Page 107 and 108: APPENDIX-A Questionnaire Dear stude
Page 109 and 110: APPENDIX-B Students Interview Guide
Page 111 and 112: Item No. APPENDIX-D Observation che
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FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...

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