FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...

Chapter Five
Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations
This chapter contains three sections. The first section summarizes the major
findings of the study. The second section provides the conclusion. Finally, the
recommendations are presented in the last section.
5.1 Summary of the Results
In this study the main point of discussion has been to identify the factors that
contribute to the problems learners encounter in EFL listening comprehension, to
assess whether the factors are associated with text, speaker, listener, or
environment, and to identify which particular factor poses the most difficulty for the
learners. The subjects of the study were first year English major students of Bahir
Dar University. Data was collected using questionnaire, interview, observation,
material analysis and document analysis. The following are the major findings of
the study.
1. The study identified a range of factors: text, listener, speaker, and
environment factors. The discussion and interpretation sections of the study
reveal that these factors influenced EFL listening comprehension.
2. As far as the listening materials used in the course are concerned, various
limitations have been identified. This was done through the analysis of not
just the students’ response only but also through thorough investigation of
the materials themselves in the light of the principles of ELT materials
preparation and selection. The results of the analysis indicate that the
materials are not appropriate for the training of necessary skills and
strategies of listening to the target students. For example, the textbook was
purposely designed for testing, not for teaching. Similarly, the module also
contains texts which are not appropriate for teaching listening. Moreover,
the tasks are also found to be very difficult. For example, the level of
difficulty of the listening materials of the target course was also found to be
above the students’ ability.
84