Chapter 2
Literature review
Based on the rationale and the research questions raised
in the previous chapter, the relevant literature in the field
will be presented in this part. This chapter focuses on the
nature
of
listening
comprehension
process,
comprehension,
listening
the
skills
and
listening
comprehension
skills, and listening difficulties for language learners,
which are considered to be the theoretical and conceptual
framework for the present study.
2.1 The Nature of Listening Comprehension
2.1.1 What is Listening Comprehension?
It
is
believed
that
listening
is
a
significant
and
essential area of development in a native language and in a
second
language;
therefore,
there
have
been
numerous
definitions of listening (by Bentley & Bacon, 1996; Gary
Buck,
2001;
Scarcella
and
Oxford,
1992)
which
present
different views of scholars towards the concept.
Listening,
an
important
part
of
the
second
language
learning process has also been defined as an active process
during which the listener constructs meaning from oral input.
(Bentley & Bacon, 1996)
Gary
Buck
(2001:
31)
points
out
that
“listening
comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning
and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound”
in
which
involved:
“number
both
of
different
linguistic
types
knowledge
of
and
knowledge
are
non-linguistic
knowledge”. To put it in another way, Gary Buck (2001: 31)
concludes
“comprehension
is
affected
by
a
wide
range
of
variables, and that potentially any characteristic of the
speaker,
the
situation
or
the
listener
can
affect
the
comprehension of the message”.
In other words, comprehension of a spoken message can
either be through isolated word recognition within the sound
5
stream, phrase or formula recognition, clause or sentence,
and
extended
speech
comprehension
(Scarcella
and
Oxford,
1992).
On
the
other
hand,
Wolvin
and
Coakley
(1985)
state
listening as “the process of receiving, attending to and
assigning meaning to aural stimuli”. This definition suggests
that listening is a complex, problem-solving skill. The task
of
listening
is
more
than
perception
of
sound;
although
perception is the foundation, it also requires comprehension
of meaning. This view of listening is in accordance with
second-language theory which considers listening to spoken
language as an active and complex process in which listeners
focus on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning,
and relate what they hear to existing knowledge (O’Malley &
Chamot, 1989; Byrnes, 1984; Richards, 1985; Howard, 1983).
Through the years, numerous definitions of listening
have been proposed as being mentioned, nevertheless, perhaps
the most useful one of Wolvin
and Coakly (1985) defines
listening
receiving,
as
the
process
of
attending,
and
understanding auditory messages; that is, message transmitted
through the medium of sound.
2.1.2 The Listening Comprehension Process
Listening is probably the least explicit of the four
language
skills,
namely
reading,
speaking,
writing
and
listening, making it the most difficult skill to learn. It
involves physiological and cognitive processes at different
levels (Field, 2002; Lynch, 2002; Rost, 2002) as well as the
attention to contextual and “socially coded acoustic clues”
(Swaffar & Bacon, 1993).
The listening process can be diagrammed as below in the
figure 1
6
Figure 1.
The Listening Process
(Adapted from Wolvin and Coakly (1985)
The
process
receiving,
moves
attending,
through
and
the
first
understanding
three
-
in
steps
-
sequence.
Responding and remembering may or may not follow. As it might
be
desirable
for
listeners
to
respond
immediately
or
to
remember the message in order to respond at a later time.
There has been much debate about how the knowledge is applied
to the incoming sounds, but the two most important views are:
the bottom view, and the top-down view. These terms refer to
the order in which different types of knowledge are applied
during comprehension according to Gary Buck (2001).
It
is
agreed
that
the
comprehension
process
is
constructed based on the two principal sources of information
which
Widowson
(1983)
refers
to
as
(1)
systematic
or
linguistic knowledge (knowledge of phonological, syntactic,
and
semantic
schematic
summarizes
or
components
of
the
non-linguistic
the
relationship
language
information.
between
system)
and
Figure
2
these
(2)
below
information
sources. In fact, it is; however, difficult to distinguish
between these information sources in any clear or conscious
way.
Background knowledge
schematic
knowledge C
- factual

- social

O
M
7

Procedural knowledge

P
- how language is used in discourse
R
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E
knowledge of situation
H
- physical setting, participants, etc
context
E
knowledge of co-text


N
- what has been/will be said (written)
S
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I
knowledge of the language system
O
- semantic


N
- syntactic
systematic
knowledge
- phonological
Figure 2. Information sources in comprehension
(Anne Anderson & Tony Lynch, 1988, p.13)
Earlier
reviews
of
research
in
L2
listening
instruction
(Lynch, 1988, 2002; Mendelsohn, 1988; Oxford, 1993; Rost,
2002; Rubin, 1994) call attention to the critical role of
both
bottom-up
and
top-down
processes
in
comprehension.
Listeners use top-down processes when they use context and
prior
knowledge
knowledge
framework
in
for
(topic,
long-term
genre,
culture,
memory)
comprehension.
to
and
build
Listeners
other
schema
a
conceptual
use
bottom-up
processes when they construct meaning by accretion, gradually
combining
increasingly
larger
units
of
meaning
from
the
phoneme-level up to discourse-level features.
While these processes interact in some form of parallel
distributed processing, the degree to which listeners may use
one process more than the other will depend on the purpose of
listening. Research on these cognitive processes suggests
8
that L2 listeners need to learn how to use both processes to
their advantage, depending their purpose of listening (Lynch,
1988, 2002; Rost, 2002). The speed and effectiveness at which
listeners carry out these processes, however, depends on the
degree to which listeners can effectively process what is
heard.
Specifically,
native
language
listeners
do
this
automatically with little conscious attention to individual
words. Beginning-level L2 listeners, however, have limited
language knowledge, thus, little of what they hear can be
automatically processed. They need to consciously focus on
details of what they hear, and
working
memory
and
the
speed
given the limitations of
of
speech,
which
affects
comprehension. In that case, either comprehension breaks down
or
listeners
may
use
compensatory
strategies,
contextual
factors, and any other relevant information available to them
to guess at what was not understood. In short, an awareness
of each of these processes and their relative contribution to
comprehension in different contexts and at different levels
of language proficiency is fundamental to a theoretically
grounded pedagogy of L2 listening comprehension.
2.2 Listening skills and comprehension skills
From the arguments presented above it is agreed that
listening
consists
is
not
of
many
simple,
nor
different
is
it
components
a
single
and
is
skill.
a
It
complex
process involving an interaction between the listeners, the
speakers and the spoken text. Listeners use mental activities
to
construct
meaning
from
text.
These
activities
are
generally referred to as listening strategies or listening
skills. To be an effective listener, one needs to develop a
number of listening skills or strategies that should relate
to both the bottom-up and the top-down processing.
Michael
Rost
(1994)
breaks
down
listening
into
two
elements: the component skills and what a listener does. What
a
listener
does,
is
taking
some
conscious
action
that
involves cognitive processes to understand a message. The
9
listener must take decisions of things such as the kind of
situation, his/her plan for listening, important words and
units of meaning
Making these kinds of decisions involves thinking about
meaning at the same time as listening, in other words, this
is listening strategies. (Rost 1994, 4).
Rost (1991) emphasizes the skills exploited in listening
comprehension (in terms of perception skills, analysis skills
and
synthesis
skills)
necessary
for
understanding
as:
discriminating between sounds (perception), recognizing words
(perception),
identifying
grammatical
grouping
of
words
(analysis). He also highlights the importance of identifying
‘pragmatic units’ expressions and sets of utterances which
function
as
whole
units
to
create
meaning
(analysis),
connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation
and stress) and to non-linguistic cues (gestures and relevant
objects
in
the
situation)
in
order
to
construct
meaning
(synthesis). Additionally, he accounts for using background
knowledge (what we already know about the content and the
form) and context (what has already been said) to predict and
then to confirm meaning, recalling important words and ideas.
( Rost 1991: 3-4). These above skills make up a person’s
listening ability. Thus, according to Rost (1991) by helping
learners
improve
encouraging
them
their
to
skills
(listening
successfully
use
ability)
strategies
we
and
as
teachers can train them better listeners.
In
general,
as
the
focus
of
language
teaching
and
learning has moved from teacher-centered approaches to more
learner-centered approaches, the focus of listening has also
changed. In the late 70s this skill was labeled as a “passive
skill” in which no major recognition to the internal and
cognitive
processes
was
given.
Nowadays,
listening
is
recognized as an active receptive skill (Anderson and Lynch,
1988) in which the hearer activates previous knowledge to
integrate new knowledge.
10
2.3 Listening difficulties for foreign language learners
Listening
knowledge
of
a
foreign
language
is
often
important to academics studies, professional success, and
personal development. Listening in a language that is not the
learner’s
first
considerable
language,
nevertheless,
difficulties
(Underwood,
1989;
for
Thompson
and
L2
is
a
learners.
Rubin,
source
Some
1996;
of
authors
Goh,
2000)
indicate that problems with foreign language listening may be
either listening problems or language problems, depending on
the listeners’ learning abilities and skills.
2.3.1 Listening problems
It can be seen that beginning L2 learners have to deal
with a great deal of difficulties in listening comprehension
as listening in somehow is a receptive skill. However, the
listening
process
processing
is
often
perspective
as
described
“an
from
active
an
information
process
in
which
listeners select and interpret information that comes from
auditory
and
visual
clues
in
order
to
define
what
the
speakers are trying to express” (Thompson & Rubin, 1996,
p.331).
Considering
various
aspects
of
listening
comprehension, Underwood (1989) organizes the major listening
problems as follows: (1) lack of control over the speed at
which
speakers
speak;
(2)
not
being
able
to
get
things
repeated; (3) the listener’s limited vocabulary; (4) failure to
recognize
the “signals”;
inability
to
(5)
problems
concentrate;
(7)
of
and
interpretation;
established
(6)
learning
habits.
Underwood (1989) sees these problems as being related to
learners’ different backgrounds, such as their culture and
education, She points out that students whose culture and
education
includes
a
strong
storytelling
and
oral
communication tradition are generally “better” at listening
comprehension
than
those
from
a
reading
and
book-based
cultural and educational background. Moreover, learners whose
native language possesses the stress and intonation features
11
similar to those of English are likely to have less trouble
than the learners whose L1 is based on different rhythms and
tones. Under these assumptions, the learners in the present
study, of Vietnamese background that is characterized by the
language of different tones, appear to operate under the
least-optimal English language learning circumstances, and
therefore face lots of difficulty in listening comprehension.
Goh (2000) investigated listening comprehension problems
in students in college EFL studies. The data were collected
from learner diaries, small group interviews, and immediate
retrospective verbalization. Findings include ten listening
comprehension
problems
in
relation
to
three
cognitive
processing phases - perceptions, parsing, and utilization,
proposed by Anderson (1983, 1985). First, in the perception
stage,
learners
recognize
words
reported
they
most
know,"
difficulties
"neglect
the
as:
next
"do
part
not
when
thinking about meaning," "cannot chunk streams of speech,"
"miss the beginning of texts," and "concentrate too hard or
unable to concentrate." (Goh, 2000).
Second, in the parsing
stage, Goh (2000) found that listeners complained of problems
such as "quickly forget what is heard," "unable to form a
mental
representation
understand
subsequent
from
parts
words
of
heard,"
input
and
because
of
"do
not
earlier
problems." Third, in the utilization stage, "understand the
words but not the intended message" and "confused about the
key
ideas
in
the
message"
were
often
mentioned.
These
reported difficulties partially reflect Underwood's (1989)
views
on
L2/FL
listening
problems.
However,
as
learners
attempt to incorporate certain strategies into the listening
process, they are likely to face different challenges or
problems.
Investigations of Hasan (1993), Yagang (1994) attribute
the difficulties of listening comprehension to four souces:
the messages, the speaker, the listener and the physical
setting. Higgin (1995) studied Omani students’ problems in
listening
comprehension
and
found
that
the
factors
which
12
facilitate or hinder listening are speech rate, vocabulary,
and pronunciation. Flowerdew and Miller (1996) investigated
learners’
strategies
and
difficulties
in
listening
to
academic lectures. They found that students’ problems were
speed of delivery, new terminology and concepts, difficulties
in
concentrating,
and
problems
related
to
physical
environment. Rubin (1994) identified five factors that affect
listening comprehension: text characteristics, interlocutor
characteristics,
task
characteristics,
research
and
characteristics,
process
investigated
the
listener
characteristics.
role
of
Further
temporal
factors
facilitating or inhibiting successful listening (Boyle, 1984;
Higgins,
1997).
Theoretical
explanations
of
listening
comprehension provide us with clues about the problems which
learners face when they listen to a spoken text.
2.3.2 Language problems
Mastering a foreign language is not an easy task, and
L2
listening
learners
acquisition
compared
with
is
much
other
more
language
challenging
skills,
to
L2
especially
freshmen. Anne Anderson and Tony Lynch (1988, p.37) argues
that the L2 learners will still face problems in listening
comprehension
created
by
primarily
linguistic
knowledge
though language system may not always be the principal cause
of comprehension difficulty. They explain that one seemingly
obvious way in which input can be more or less complex is in
terms of its syntactic structure for ESL learners.
understandable
as
learners
adopt
a
target
It is
language
that
possesses certain characteristics far different from their
native
one
vocabulary
in
and
terms
its
of
grammatical
mechanism
structures,
meanwhile
listening
lexicon,
is
most
closely related to mechanics which refer to basic sounds of
letters and syllables, pronunciation of words, intonation and
stress. Thus, if a beginning student cannot understand how
words are segmented into various sounds, and how sentences
13
are stressed in particular ways to convey meaning, then he
will find it hard to understand the meaning of the message.
According
comprehend
to
Scarcella
spoken
recognition
messages
within
recognition,
the
clause
and
either
sound
or
Oxford
(1992)
through
stream,
sentence,
isolated
phrase
and
listeners
or
word
formula
extended
speech
comprehension. That means ESL students operate simultaneously
in one or two of these areas depending on many factors, one
of
which
is
students
proficiency
operate
on
level.
the
Usually
first
and
the
first
second
year
levels
of
comprehension. They catch, if hardly at all, particularly the
low beginners, isolated words and can hardly put together the
meaning
of
words
put
together.
On
the
second
level
of
comprehension, the student can recognize whole phrases and
simple routine expressions. They can hardly operate on the
third level, understanding clause or sentences, much more so
on the fourth, understanding discourse.
Moreover,
listening
earlier
as
a
discussions
discrete
component
and
examinations
of
language
of
learning
focused mainly on classifying and grading listening tasks in
terms of difficulty (Fish, 1981; Nunan, 1989; Richards, 1983;
Ur, 1984). The perception of difficulty usually lies in the
difficulty
of
the
material
used
as
the
content
for
the
comprehension activities, and was often borrowed from the
readability measures for written texts. Other measures of
difficulty
in
listening
comprehension
relied
on
some
undefined and unspecified inherent qualities of the tasks.
The
listening
passages;
thus,
should
be
modified,
or
simplified for teaching purposes, and the determination of
levels
of
difficulties
was
often
arbitrary
or
subjective
(Lynch, 1988: 178).
In conclusion, the reviewed literature serves as a base
in understanding the listening comprehension process, and the
problems
that
influential
Scarcella,
EFL
learners
researchers
Oxford,
Goh,
encounter.
(Wolvin,
Gary
The
Coakley,
Buck)
have
previous
and
Underwood,
investigated
14
different
categories
of
ESL
learners
in
terms
of
the
difficulties they may encounter in listening acquisition and
comprehension.
However,
the
researchers
have
not
yet
thoroughly studied how Vietnamese students, specifically HPU
first-year English majors, acquire listening skill in English
to
investigate
acquisition.
listening
culture
what
factors
relating
with
spoken
essential
they
face
in
listening
Further more, their studies do not focus on the
together
teaching
problems
for
Vietnamese
specific
English
the
to
in
present
context
Vietnam.
writer
to
background
and
learning
and
of
It
fill
is,
in
therefore,
the
gap
by
investigating what difficulties the first-year students of
English in HPU encounter in listening acquisition so that
proper
teaching
overcome
these
treatments
can
be
adopted
so
as
to
difficulties
to
become
help
better
them
and
effective listeners in English.
2.4 Summary
In this chapter, the relevant literature which is needed
to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the
present study is presented.
Firstly,
prominent
definitions
of
listening
comprehension are given according to some leading scholars,
and then the listening process is presented in order to
investigate the nature of listening comprehension. It has
been concluded that listening is a complex process that goes
through
several
steps
such
as
receiving,
understanding,
remembering and responding.
Secondly, the currently dominant groups of models of the
listening
important
process
have
contributions
been
to
discussed
the
as
nature
they
of
all
have
listening
comprehension and the listening process.
Thirdly,
some
sets
of
listening
skills
have
been
presented and taken into consideration.
15
Lastly, research in the field of second/foreign language
learning
has
proved
that
listeners
often
encounter
difficulties when listening in the target language.
Having
looked
at
the
related
literature
review
of
listening, it is an urge to investigate the HPU first-year
students’ listening difficulties and some possible causes of
these difficulties.
16