臺灣國中生英語聽力困難與英語聽力能力、英語聽力自我效能關係

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 臺灣國中生英語聽力困難與英語聽力能力、英語聽力自我效能關係 English Listening Difficulty in Relation to English Listening Proficiency and English Listening Self-Efficacy of Junior High School Students in Taiwan. 指導教授：葉錫南 Advisor: Dr. Yeh, Hsi-Nan 研究生：林珮君 Lin, Pei-Chun. 中華民國 104 年 7 月 July 2015.

(2) 摘要本論文旨在探討臺灣國中生英語聽力自我效能、英語聽力能力與英語聽力困難的關係，期能作為臺灣英語教育者教學與研究參考。本研究採問卷、測驗與訪談方式，共回收 109 份有效問卷，訪談 20 位台北市某國中 8 年級學生。受試學生須填寫英語聽力自我效能量表，進行全民英檢初級聽力測驗，於測驗後完成英語聽力困難問卷。研究者並訪談英語聽力自我效能與聽力能力均偏高或偏低之學生，探討其面對英語聽力困難之因應策略。研究結果顯示：此群國中生英語聽力自我效能高，英語聽力能力與英語聽力困難皆低。英語聽力自我效能高之學生的聽力困難顯著低於自我效能低之學生，且英語聽力能力高之學生的聽力困難亦顯著低於聽力能力低之學生。音量大小為唯一無法區分英語自我效能高低學生的聽力困難；而音量大小與 CD 品質或噪音則無法區分英語聽力能力高低學生。英語聽力能力較低者英語聽力困難顯著高於英語聽力能力較高者。無法抓到重要細節、忽略語句的關聯性、因為前面聽到的訊息無法理解或來不及處理影響後續的理解、說話者速度過快、在腦海中把英語翻成中文而來不及聽後面的內容、一字多義的單字、不認識的單字、困難文法結構、未能善用重複訊息或停頓、連音或省略音、內容主題不熟悉、聽力內容沒有興趣、沒有信心等為英語聽力能力較低學生之明顯困難。受訪學生提出重播 CD、跟著唸、查字典、聽重要概念或關鍵字、作筆記、聽上下文猜、把聽到的英文翻成中文、放輕鬆、問說話者或其他人、請對方說慢一些、請老師提高 CD 音量等策略。測驗時，學生先看題目、選聽到的單字、劃掉不會的、作筆記、對不會的試題做記號、在題目播放間隔時寫答案、小心別劃錯卡。學生也聆聽英文節目、與外國人聊天、背單字訓練聽力。盼本研究結果能提醒臺灣英語教師重視學生英語聽力困難、提升學生英語聽力能力與英語聽力自我效能，以幫助學生英語聽力學習。. 關鍵字：聽力自我效能、聽力困難、聽力、聽力策略. ii.

(3) ABSTRACT The study aims at exploring the relationship of English listening self-efficacy, English listening proficiency, and English listening difficulty. It is hoped that English language educators could probe more into students’ English listening difficulty and English listening self-efficacy. The study employs questionnaires, tests, and interviews. The subjects of the study filled out the English listening self-efficacy scale, did the elementary-level GEPT listening test, and finally answered the English listening difficulty questionnaire. The researcher gathered 109 valid questionnaires and interviewed 20 students who were either both high or both low in English listening self-efficacy and English listening proficiency for their strategies when encountering English listening difficulty. The result shows that these junior high schools students are high in English listening self-efficacy and low in English listening proficiency and English listening difficulty. High English listening self-efficacy (HS) students report significantly lower listening difficulty than low English listening self-efficacy (LS) students; students with high listening proficiency (HL) also demonstrate significantly lesser degrees of English listening difficulty than students of lower listening proficiency (LL). The volume of the input is the only difficulty that fails to distinguish HS and LS students. The volume of the input as well as the quality of CDs and existence of noise are the listening difficulty that do not differentiate the HL and LL students. The LL students encounter significantly more English listening difficulty than the HL students. Inability to catch important details, ignorance of sentence connections, incomprehension or no time to process the previous parts that lead to difficulty of latter comprehension, fast speech, words with multiple meanings, too many unknown words, difficult grammatical structures, failure to use repeated message or pauses, linking or omission, unfamiliar iii.

(4) topics, and no confidence are particular difficulty of the LL students. Students interviewed point out the replaying of CDs, repeating the heard inputs, looking up new words, listening to main ideas or key words, taking notes, guessing through contexts, translating the English inputs into Chinese, relaxing, asking the speaker or others, asking the speaker to speak slower, and asking teachers to turn up the volume as strategies. During English listening tests, they read the test items before listening, choose heard words, cross out unknown words, take notes, mark difficult items, write answers during pauses, and be careful not to draw on the wrong blank. The students also listen to English programs, talk to foreigners, and memorize vocabulary to help improve their English listening ability. It is hoped that the study could remind teachers of students’ English listening difficulty and boost students’ English listening proficiency and English self-efficacy to facilitate students’ English listening.. Key words: listening self-efficacy, listening proficiency, listening difficulty, listening strategy. iv.

(5) ACKNOWLEDGENT The completion of the thesis is an achievement that seems like magic to me. The valuable experience is accompanied with tears and stress, and the accomplishment brings joy and gratitude. My sincere appreciation first goes to Dr. Hsi-Nan Yeh, my advisor, who guided me through the uneven path of thesis construction. Though I once tried to escape from the pressure of thesis, Dr. Yeh never frowned over my irresponsibility. Instead, he cared more about my work, life, and health and made sure that the drafting of thesis would not be another straw on the camel’s back. With countless meetings, Dr. Yeh had given me precious advice on my thesis as well as tips for a balanced life. I owe much to his kindness and assistance. Great thanks also belong to Dr. Hui-Jun Teng of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and to Dr. Shu-Chen Huang of National Chenchi University. Thanks for being my committee members and providing me with timely advice that helps me shape the composition of the study. Specifically, Dr. Teng had offered guidance on the combing of the literature as well as the outlining of the thesis. Dr. Teng never reserved in suggesting insights on the test design and asking thought-provoking questions. Thanks for sparing your valuable time in reviewing my thesis. The administration of the research cannot be done without the help of my students. Even though the four classes of the students are often more like devils than angels, they did not hesitate in helping me execute the experiment. Especially for the twenty students interviewed for the study, I thank for their willingness in cooperation and their firsthand opinions of the research. It is hoped that my appreciation could be sent to my two previous roommates and bosom friends, Gracie and Liu. Thanks for always caring me and encouraging me in v.

(6) my valley of dejection by asking me out nearly every week. Thanks for listening to my groans and wiping away my tears. Your sweet company is the warm sun in the freezing winter for me. For innumerable people that could not be totally listed, I would like to thank you for appearing in my life. Thanks to my friends, colleagues, roommates, soccer boys and girls, church members, NTNU staff and others that are not named here. You are the ones that make my life full. Thanks to Ms Guan-Ru Tu, Ms Yen-Ling Chou, Ms Hua-Wen Jian, Ms Yi-Fen Ding and Ms Jing-Li Lin. For these past four years, you had been my emotional trash can and helped me solve life problems. Not only did you listen to my stories but also relieve my pain. You have guided me to explore myself and to learn to cope with life’s challenges. The path for thesis construction is also the road to recovery and selfachievement. My graduate study would not be possible without the support of my family members. Thanks to your patience and encouragements. To my dear parents, your daughter has again overcome herself. It is to your nurturing that she grows. To my dear brothers, sister-in-law and nephew, you are always the pillar of strength to me. Your treasurable support is the lighthouse for ships in the dark. And to Kiwi Bai, thank you for chatting with me every night and enduring my tantrum. It is hoped that you will one day be included in my family. Finally, I would like to give thanks to God, who has created me and given me life. You have listened to my prayer and testified my strength. The completion of thesis has fortified me with your kindness.. vi.

(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS 摘要................................................................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGENT ................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1 Background of the Study ....................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................ 10 Significance of the Study ..................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................ 14 Listening Comprehension .................................................................................... 14 Listening Comprehension Inputs ................................................................. 15 Listening Comprehension Process ............................................................... 16 Listening Comprehension in a Second Language ........................................ 17 Listening Difficulty .............................................................................................. 19 Categorizations of Listening Difficulty ....................................................... 21 Listening Difficulty and Listening Proficiency ........................................... 30 Listening Difficulty and Other Factors ........................................................ 33 Listening Strategies .............................................................................................. 34 Self-efficacy ......................................................................................................... 38 Social Learning Theory and Self-Regulation............................................... 38 Self-Efficacy ................................................................................................ 39 Self-Efficacy in the Academic Arena ........................................................... 40 vii.

(8) Self-Efficacy in Language Classrooms ........................................................ 44 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY ..................................................................... 50 Participants ........................................................................................................... 50 Instruments ........................................................................................................... 53 English Listening Self-Efficacy Scale ......................................................... 53 English Listening Test .................................................................................. 55 English Listening Difficulty Questionnaire ................................................. 57 Procedure ............................................................................................................. 65 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................... 68 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .................................................... 70 Results of the Instruments .................................................................................... 70 English Listening Self-Efficacy Scale ......................................................... 71 English Listening Test .................................................................................. 75 English Listening Difficulty Questionnaire ................................................. 79 Results of T-tests .................................................................................................. 81 English Listening Difficulty of High and Low English listening SelfEfficacy Students ......................................................................................... 83 English Listening Difficulty of High and Low English Listening Proficiency Students ........................................................................................................ 86 English Listening Difficulty of Low English Listening Proficiency Students ...................................................................................................................... 90 Results of the Interview ....................................................................................... 97 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION ............................................................................. 103 Summary of the Major Findings ........................................................................ 103 Implications of the Study ................................................................................... 107 Limitations of the Present Study ........................................................................ 109 viii.

(9) Suggestions for Future Research ....................................................................... 110 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 112 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... 131 Appendix A: English Listening Self-Efficacy Scale .......................................... 131 Appendix B: English Listening Difficulty Questionnaire.................................. 133. ix.

(10) LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Student Scores of the Third English Monthly Test. ....................................... 52 Table 2. Average Scores of the English Listening Self-Efficacy Scale........................ 73 Table 3. Average Scores of the Listening Difficulty Questionnaire ............................. 80 Table 4. T-test Results of English Listening Difficulty by English Listening Selfefficacy. .......................................................................................................... 84 Table 5. T-test Results of English Listening Difficulty by English Listening Proficiency ..................................................................................................... 87 Table 6. Students’ Strategies in Response to English Listening Difficulty.................. 99. x.

(11) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Determinants of human behaviors (Bandura, 1986, p.24.)............................. 8 Figure 2. A model of motivated classroom learning of cognitive skills (Schunk, 1985). ....................................................................................................................... 42 Figure 3. A cyclic model of self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, Bonner & Kovach, 1996. p.11). .................................................................................................... 44. xi.

(12) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION. The present study aims at exploring students’ English listening difficulty in relation with students’ English listening self-efficacy and English listening proficiency. In addition, the researcher is also interested in strategies that students use to cope with listening difficulty. The chapter is composed of the background of the study, purpose of the study, and the significance of the study. The researcher first talks about the teaching and learning of English listening in Taiwan and English listening difficulty encountered by Taiwanese students recorded in the previous literature, which in many cases differentiate difficulty of students with different levels of proficiency. The concept of self-efficacy and its connection with learning is then presented and discussed. The researcher finally presents the research questions of the present study and talks about possible contribution of the study.. Background of the Study Listening comprehension skills are crucial in language learning. Listening comprehension enables learners to absorb information of the target language through bidirectional social interaction (Winitz, 1981) while talking with native/nonnative speakers as well as unidirectional information transfer such as listening to radio broadcasts or lectures (Graham, 2006). Research has shown that listening comprehension contributes to nearly 50% of adult communication, followed by speaking, approximating to 30%, and reading, which is about 16 % (Rivers, 1986). 1.

(13) Not only is listening an endeavor of its own, it is also a precursor for fundamental acquisition of other skills for language learners (Kim & Phillips, 2014). Compared with speaking, listening comprehension does not enforce learners to express themselves in a cognitively-overloaded fashion, which allows for the processing of meanings in people’s short-term memory. Waiving demanding language production tasks, listening comprehension spares learners from embarrassment of false language outputs and builds confidence with early successful experiences (Vandergrift, 1999). While the distinction of receptive and productive skills designates listening comprehension as passive reception of the information, recent study has confirmed that listeners do not idly accept what is forced into their ears. Instead, while receiving listening inputs, listeners have to actively reconstruct information in their brains so as to comprehend and make appropriate responses (Rost, 2011). Auditory models suggest that listeners simultaneously engage in top-down and bottom-up processing of the input (Rumelhart, 1977), which already render it as a complicated process for native listeners. The task is even daunting for nonnative listeners, as they often lack the necessary background knowledge of the target culture and the required linguistic competence for the target language (Kelly, 1991). Krashen (1981) argues that listening, as a major source of language input, should be comprehensible for learners in order to acquire the content and language at the same time. Educators are advised to illustrate pertinent listening comprehension strategies, comprehensible listening inputs, and proper listening supports for language learners (Bacon, 1992; Chang & Read, 2006). Nonetheless, the reality of language classrooms prevents some students from being fully devoted to effective listening (Ridgway, 2000), and the aftermath of inefficient listening comprehension frustrate language learners.. 2.

(14) Listening comprehension tests have been a staple in entrance exams in many English as a foreign language (EFL) countries. In the context of Taiwan, English listening comprehension tests are introduced into the Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students (CAP) (Research Center for Psychological and Educational Testing, 2015). Under the guidelines of basic language competences mandated by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the English test of the CAP employs multiple topics which are aimed to be casual, practical and interesting. Daily communication, social interaction and classroom English are carefully designed into the test, and the English listening comprehension part attempts to test students’ language competence in the above situations. While the first CAP in 2014 allocated English listening comprehension section at the beginning of the test, a modification of the new CAP in 2015 separates the reading part and the listening part into different time slots. After finishing the English reading section of the English test in CAP, students are given a thirty-minute break, followed by the delayed and isolated twenty-five-minute English listening comprehension section. For the English listening section, test-takers are given twenty to thirty test items. There are 3-10 test items for recognition of sentence meanings, 7-10 test items for basic questions and answers, and 10-15 test items for discourse comprehension. For recognition of sentence meanings, students choose among pictures or graphs based on the short sentences they hear. Then, on the basic questions and answers part, dialogues are broadcasted to the students, which require them to choose the most applicable responses. Discourse comprehension, the last part of the listening comprehension test, has students listen to short dialogues plus the target questions. They then select the most plausible answers according to the dialogues and questions.. 3.

(15) Though the score on the listening part of the English test in CAP was not counted in 2014, starting from 2015, it is to be a component of the total score for the English test, signaling its stake in students’ future. According to the MOE, the introduction of English listening comprehension section into the CAP is to conform to the curriculum guidelines and elevate the validity of English test by incorporating both English reading and listening assessment (Research Center for Psychological and Educational Testing, 2015). And it is hoped that positive washback effect can be brought by the CAP into English teaching classrooms in Taiwan (Bailey, 1996). In addition to the emphasis of English listening in the high-stake CAP, a growing number of test-takers for General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) also shows the transformation of English language learning in the junior high school stage. With the integration of listening, speaking, reading and writing, GEPT seems to call for a more communicative orientation of language learning (Wu, 2014). Approximately 49,000 people had signed up on the fall test of the elementary level GEPT in 2014. And some of the students were challenged for longer listening materials, possibly due to students’ incapacity to grasp minute details. Most of the elementary GEPT test-takers, amounting to 72% of the total number, are junior high school students, with the average age of 15.1 (The Language Training and Testing Center, 2014). If GEPT is a test of junior high school students’ endeavor, listening comprehension, as part of its components, should by all means be a focus of students’ language learning. As listening comprehension is one of the fundamental language skills in second language acquisition, information transfer and authentic communication, researchers have delved into listening comprehension research. A growing literature on listening comprehension research has been focused on barriers which hinder successful listening comprehension. Rubin (1994) reviews factors associated with listening comprehension 4.

(16) and summarizes variations of these characteristics, calling for more comprehensive understanding of bottom-up/top-down processing, strategy use and comprehensible input in the instruction of listening comprehension. In an English as a second language (EFL) environment, students in Taiwan face challenges trying to catch the transient flow of listening inputs due to lacks of authentic inputs (Kouraogo, 1993; Yang, 2011). Frustration on listening has been confirmed to correlate with students’ early give-ups (Chen, 2005; You, 2008). And general listening comprehension, as opposed to lecture comprehension, is suggested as difficult for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners (Ferris & Tagg, 1996). Preemptive prevention is demanded based on theories and research-grounded understandings of students’ English listening difficulty. Several scholars in Taiwan have been devoted to the study of students’ listening difficulty with various results. Focusing on junior high school students in Taiwan, Ku (2012) and Chuang (2009) find that students’ listening difficulty are mostly from the text factor, followed by the listener factor. But Chuang’s (2011) students point out the listener factor as the foremost and the text factor as the secondary one. And when it comes to students of different proficiency, effective listeners in Chuang’s (2011) study regard unrepeated material as the biggest challenge and ineffective learners blame on their own weak grammar. However, high-achieving listeners in Chuang’s (2009) research report speakers’ fast rate of speaking as the main obstacle, mid-achieving listeners add unknown words in texts as problems, and low-achieving listeners express poor grammar and small vocabulary size as challenges. Hsiung (2002), after assessing junior high school students’ listening comprehension with a test including Bloom’s (1984) six cognitive levels, suggests that different cognitive domains pose different. 5.

(17) levels of difficulties, and they require different competence. Maybe the instruments used by different authors might affect their conclusions. Senior high school students in Taiwan seem to exhibit other results. Cheng’s (2004) students indicate limited vocabulary, unknown words, tasks that demand oral summary, perception problems and speech rate as main obstacles in listening comprehension. Yuan (2009), on the contrary, reports that students have pinpointed EFL proficiency, speed of delivery, memory, text length and ability of concentration as hampering their listening comprehension. Study done on the college level is centered on English majors. Chien’s (2007) highproficiency learners have difficulty on unknown words, while mid- and low-proficiency learners mention unrepeated material. On the other hand, Wu (2007) record texts in specialized fields, unattractive content, distraction, male speakers, and connecting the learned and heard material as difficulties for high-proficiency listeners. And unable to recognize linking sounds, little practice in listening, inability to catch up with the speed or to remember the content, nervous, think about previous part and unable to concentrate, quickly forget what is heard, dictation, and categorize contents are problems of low-proficiency students. Lin (2011) specially investigates on student interpreters and finds that these students face unfamiliar contents, lack of practice, insufficient background knowledge, way of delivery, and perception problems. Some of the study in Taiwan explores the use of listening strategy. Lin (2009) and Ho (2012) find that junior high school students utilize metacognitive strategies the most frequently. Specific strategies such as monitoring, selective attention, advance organizers, self-management, bottom-up, top-down, and inferencing are particularly used by these students. While Ho (2012) finds no difference between the strategy use of high and low achievers, Lin’s (2009) effective students employ more self6.

(18) management, directed attention, advance organizers, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, bottom-up, top-down, inferencing, translation and elaboration. A similar but not exactly same result is found in Chang (2008), in which more skillful listeners suggest more effective use of top-down and bottom-up strategies while direct translation is relied by less skillful listeners. Taken question types into consideration, students employ summarization when encountering long listening text and bottom-up strategy to tackle with more difficult listening materials (Ho, 2012). And it is emphasized that learners need assistance by adult surrogates and significant others to gain guidance, assurance, sense of security, and emotional control for self-regulated learning (Chang, 2008). While every version of study on listening difficulty is undergirded by countless hours of research, an overgeneralization of the study result and complete imitation of categorization models is dangerous. Inspection of listening comprehension difficulties on any particular student groups should be conducted with cautious modification of previous sorting patterns. It is acknowledged that study of listening comprehension requires incorporation of different fields of study. Language learning research should contain intellectual, social and affective aspects since students are not only cognitive or metacognitive machines but whole persons (Wong, 2005). Not only is knowledge of languages necessary for the investigation, researchers also borrow theories from other domains in hope of seeing broader pictures. Among them, insights from psychology are often consulted. For instance, Anderson’s (1980) cognitive psychology is taken for a model of language comprehension (Goh, 2000), and Bandura’s (1993) self-efficacy theory is used to explain students’ demotivation in learning listening (Graham, 2011). Albert Bandura (1977), after scrutinizing previous psychological theories on human behaviors, proposes social learning theory as an explanation for the complex conducts 7.

(19) of the society. Social learning theory maintains that the practice of people are formed through reciprocal interaction among behavioral, personal, and environmental factors, as demonstrated in figure 1.. Person Behavior. Environment. Figure 1. Determinants of human behaviors (Bandura, 1986, p.24.). When Bandura’s (1986) social learning theory is adopted to the study of academic learning, self-regulated learning, which incorporates self-generated actions and influenced by environmental and personal events, comes into stage (Zimmerman, 1989). Study of self-regulated learning acknowledges the triadic relation among the above determinants. It comprises controlling and monitoring of one’s own learning process, and is regarded as a unique human capability (Bandura, 1986). To increase selfregulation, strategies that control personal, behavioral and environmental factors are necessary (Zimmerman, 1989). To regulate oneself, change of certain behaviors is sometimes unavoidable. A fourphase behavioral change process is hypothesized for effective behavioral change. The first phase contains initial responses to the attainment of desirable behaviors, and is followed by continued responses that might involve tension with one’s motivation and current ability. Maintenance, as the third phase of behavioral change, involves the firmness of determination to keep on. The ultimate habit formation in the last phase comes naturally when people no longer need meticulous self-monitoring and reasoning of intended behaviors (Rothman, Baldwin & Hertel, 2004).. 8.

(20) Self-efficacy, defined as one’s conviction to successfully accomplish a given task, comes in for behavioral change (Rothman, Baldwin & Hertel, 2004). It is believed that one’s self-efficacy influences and predicts one’s actual performance (Bandura, 1977), and it also leads to self-set goals and ultimate achievements (Ajzen, 2002; Philips & Gully, 1991). High self-efficacy is expected in the initiation of behavior change, and to continue the process, sustained self-efficacy should be available when people grapple with challenges (Rothman, Baldwin & Hertel, 2004). People with higher self-efficacy exert more effort and display persistence while people with lower self-efficacy cease their endeavor when facing difficulties (Bandura, 1982). As the measurement of self-efficacy is task-based (Bandura, 1977), language teaching classrooms are believed to be promising milieu for the study of self-efficacy (Schallert, 2008). The trial and error process in the journey of language learning teem with the loss of face and embarrassments from risk-taking (Horwitz, 1990), which are strong elements that might offset degrees of one’s learning self-efficacy. Study of English-related self-efficacy in Taiwan have looked on students’ selfefficacy levels. Chou (2014) finds excellent English self-efficacy among elementary students in Taipei City and New Taipei City. Wang (2011), Liao (2011) and Chang (2013) all get medium self-efficacy level from their junior high school students. Chou’s (2007) senior high school subjects have good English self-efficacy while Liao (2009) finds higher English learning self-efficacy on vocational high school students than on technological vocational high school students. Factors that have been found to influence students’ self-efficacy level include students’ family-social capital (Chou, 2014), whether students go to cram schools (Liao, 2013), and previous English learning experiences (Chou, 2007; Liao, 2013). English self-efficacy have been found to be connected with English learning anxiety (Chou, 9.

(21) 2007; Chang, 2013), strategy use (Chou, 2007; Su, 2011), achievement (Chou, 2007), and student autonomy (Chang, 2011). As for its predictive power, Liao (2011) finds that self-regulation and perseverance positively predicts self-efficacy, and self-efficacy positively predicts English learning satisfaction. Compared with English learning anxiety, English learning strategies, and years of learning English, Chou (2007) and Niu (2009) both prove that English self-efficacy is a better predictor for students’ English learning achievement. Certain teaching methods could promote students’ self-efficacy. Students in Taiwan who have undergone an English learning motivation regulating training group (Lin, 2002), cooperative learning instruction (Lee, 2007), English learning strategies teaching (Chang, 2004), natural approach method (Tseng, 2007), task-based language teaching (Chen, 2008), and goal setting (Chuang, 2004; Wang, 2004) display increasing self-efficacy.. Purpose of the Study Previous self-efficacy study in Taiwan has paved the road for the present study. When putting students’ listening comprehension into the social learning model, the progress that students have to make is a behavioral change that is dappled with difficulties. And a person’s self-efficacy in listening comprehension is decisive for the inception and sustenance of the endeavor. To regulate oneself, problem-directed action or planning to avoid problems in the future are suggested for affect regulation (Larsen & Prizmic, 2004). Planning and actual coping with difficulties are associated with improved moods (Larsen, 1993). Even the avoidance of unpleasant pain requires effortful preparation. When the unpalatable 10.

(22) situation is irreversible, avoidance of future enigma dovetails one’s energy (Larsen & Prizmic, 2004). Not only is difficulty crucial in the frame of self-regulation, it is also one of the factors for self-efficacy (Wang & Papa, 2007). Perceived difficulty of a given task, whether from past experiences, vicarious modeling, or simply physiological reactions, is the prime antecedent for self-efficacy belief and the consequential success or failure (Bandura, 1986). As specific self-efficacy, rather than generalized self-efficacy, is desired for targeted study, it is encouraged that specific self-efficacy be used for research (Schunk, 1989). A peeping of difficulties and self-efficacy, therefore, naturally necessitates better with specific self-efficacy beliefs and difficulties of the domain. If performance of listening comprehension could be changed through manipulation of personal, environmental and behavioral factors, it can be put under Bandura’s (1986) social learning model. Awareness and solution of listening difficulty could be applied to the process of self-regulated learning. Difficulties are also one of the begetters for self-efficacy, and self-efficacy is regarded as a main force in the behavioral changes for self-regulatory individuals. Review of the literature indicates the study of listening comprehension and self-efficacy (Mills, Pajares & Herron, 2006), listening comprehension and listening self-efficacy (Rahimi & Abedini, 2009), and listening difficulty per se (e.g. Zhang & Zhang, 2011). Nonetheless, the investigation between listening difficulty and listening self-efficacy calls for further research. Though researchers in Taiwan have identified listening comprehension difficulties among students of various age and English language proficiency (Chien, 2007; Lin, 2011; Wu, 2007; Yen, 1987; Yuan, 2009), they have yet not connected English listening difficulty with English listening self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is probed for the explanation of students’ learning outcomes (Chang, 2004; Wang, 2011), but study on 11.

(23) its connection with English listening is still meager in Taiwan. In addition, except for Ho (2002), who investigates the strategy choice in accordance with question types, previous study seems to be more interested in students’ general listening strategy use than coping strategies when encountering listening difficulty (Chang, 2008; Lin, 2009). The present study, based on the contribution of previous researchers, therefore aims at exploring the relationship between junior high school students’ listening difficulty and the corresponding English listening self-efficacy. Under the plethora of listening comprehension difficulties, it is surmised that degrees of listening self-efficacy would correlate with disparate types and severity of listening difficulty. The research questions of the study are: 1. Are there any relations, in types and degrees, between English listening difficulty and English listening self-efficacy for junior high school students in Taiwan? 2. Are there any relations, in types and degrees, between English listening difficulty and English listening proficiency for junior high school students in Taiwan? 3. What are coping strategies used by junior high school students in Taiwan when encountering English listening difficulty?. Significance of the Study The present study aims to examine the relationship among English listening comprehension difficulties, English listening comprehension proficiency, and English listening comprehension self-efficacy. The result of the study could offer insights regarding English listening comprehension to educators and further researchers. The author of the study has conscientiously compiled an English listening difficulty 12.

(24) questionnaire with a thorough combing of the literature and some careful modification for the use of junior high school students in Taiwan. Junior high school English teachers could utilize the questionnaire and administer it to their students. It is of value for teachers to spot students’ listening difficulty and then target those problems with certain treatments. The possible discrepancy between students’ English listening proficiency and their English listening difficulty could also serve as reminders for teachers to detect potential problems faced by students of different proficiency level. As the present study also probes into students’ listening self-efficacy, it urges teachers’ attention to students’ psychological preparedness in learning a language. The possible connection between English listening self-efficacy and English listening difficulty suggests teachers of one way to boost students’ learning by taking account to students’ self-efficacy and their corresponding learning difficulties. By building an appropriate listening difficulty questionnaire for junior high school students in Taiwan, the study could provide a useful research tool for future researchers. As previous research has yielded contrasting results regarding students’ listening difficulty, the study could contribute as another stepping stone in the pursuit of students’ listening difficulty. Though the present study does not seek to testify the prediction power of listening self-efficacy, its research on its relation with students’ listening difficulty could provide a springboard for other researchers who are interested in asserting the prediction of listening self-efficacy with other cognitive or psychological variables.. 13.

(25) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW. The study aims at exploring the interrelationship among English listening proficiency, English listening difficulty and English listening self-efficacy of junior high school students in Taiwan. Before taking students’ learning experiences and language proficiency into consideration, an overview of elements composing listening comprehension is displayed in the following chapter. The significant role played by listening. comprehension. proficiency. in. students’. acquisition. of. listening. comprehension is introduced later, and difficulties of listening comprehension is discussed in relation to learners’ diverse backgrounds. The second half of the literature review explores self-efficacy through the view of the social learning theory. Bandura’s (1977) groundbreaking social learning theory, used for explaining human behaviors, is used as the base for the efficacy discussion. Studies of self-efficacy beliefs and the diverse applications of the theory are then compared. The ultimate goal of the chapter strives to incorporate the research of listening comprehension and self-efficacy with the combing of the literature.. Listening Comprehension Listening comprehension is one of the most prominent human activities in daily lives. Instead of seeing listening comprehension as a passive receptive language skill, scholars now believe that listening comprehension involves active encoding and decoding of language inputs with one’s preexistent knowledge (Zarei & Mahmudi, 14.

(26) 2012). While native speakers engage in listening comprehension from an early age, foreign language learners strive to comprehend the spoken inputs of the target language, which is sometimes a daunting task (Hadley, 2000). When visiting a foreign country, inability to comprehend listening inputs might be more devastating than a lack of speaking ability. As listening contributes to forty to forty-five percent time of human communication (Rivers, 1984), it is also regarded as prerequisites for the learning of other language skills (Kim & Phillips, 2014). Listening Comprehension Inputs Comprehension of the language inputs requires listeners to discriminate linguistic as well as paralinguistic messages. The discernment of sound sequences, stress, intonations are just parts of the requirements for listening comprehension. Pitch, volume, pauses, breathing, and selected emphasis are all conveyed information expressed by the speakers. Foreign language learners, being unfamiliar with the sound sequence of the target language, especially need practices on listening comprehension (Rivers, 1984). Listeners, however, are not always desperate in distinguishing individual sounds. Contexts in which the words appear often eliminate the interpretation of confusing words. It is observed that speakers stress the main information-carrying syllables and have unstressed syllables rapidly pronounced. They tend to repeat important words and indicate topics with tone changes (Underwood, 1989). Listeners could benefit from the emphases of speech for better comprehension. Apart from sound features, spoken languages, compared with written forms, favor syntactically simple sentences. Fewer subordinate clauses are used and linking conjunctions are employed in spoken English. Instead of giving clues for the relationship of ideas, speakers seem to expect listeners to fill the connection themselves. 15.

(27) Incomplete sentences and less specific vocabulary like “somebody” are often uttered by speakers. In English conversation, long silences are considered awkward, and fillers are used to avoid the embarrassment. The density of the information is less packed in spoken forms than in written discourse (Underwood, 1989). The difference of syntax and vocabulary choice in spoken languages underscores the value of listening comprehension practices. Listening Comprehension Process Listening comprehension occurs in three major memory storage. Sounds are said to first enter a sensory store called “echoic memory.” The remaining of the sounds in echoic memory is pretty short, which is often confused with newly arrived information. The second place for the processing of listening comprehension is the short-term memory. Words are checked and meanings are extracted from the interaction of the short- and long-term memory. And if the chunking of the message is not fast enough, the listeners would leave no energy to process more inputs. The listening inputs finally rests in the long-term memory for later use. At this stage, listeners recode the message and store the gist but not the individual word sequence (Underwood, 1989). But listening comprehension involves more than deconstructing linguistic inputs and the storage of the incoming information. For comprehension, listeners bring their knowledge of the world to the process, and one’s linguistic knowledge and world knowledge interact to achieve successful comprehension. A bottom-up or lower level processing builds up small linguistic units for comprehension while a top-down or higher level processing congregates the context and their prior knowledge upon processing (Field, 2004). Comprehension depends on the interaction of inputs, linguistic knowledge and world knowledge (Jensen & Hansen, 1995). Contextual, 16.

(28) visual or paralinguistic information, world knowledge, culture, and common sense could all contribute to the comprehension. The choice of comprehension directions varies according to purposes for listening, language proficiency, and contexts of the listening events (Vandergrift, 2007). As abundant as listening activities are, an exhaustive listing of listening activities is not practical. Instead, generalizations of real-life listening are proposed as reference for the understanding of listening comprehension. According to Ur (1984), most listening behaviors are initiated with purpose and expectation, and listeners are required to make appropriate responses to the listening material. To comprehend the language inputs, listeners often rely on visual cues of the speakers, such as facial expression and gestures. Other environmental cues like pictures and videos facilitate the transfer of information, which often provide information about the situational context and atmosphere. Auditory characteristics such as pace, volume, pitch and stressing also differ among the forms and styles of listening materials. Features of informal and formal speech vary in degrees of redundancy, noise, and the use of colloquial wordings. And it is unsurprising that the formality of a discourse dangle between the two extremes in certain situations. Change of topics, social settings, relative ages and status between the speaker and the listener are all deciding elements for the extent of formality (Underwood, 1989). Listening Comprehension in a Second Language Byrnes (1984) looks at first language listening comprehension from both diachronic and synchronic axes. To explain the amazing ability of infants in comprehending listening inputs, instead of hypothesizing an innate language ability, it is suggested that babies develop capacity for symbolic activities through sensorimotor 17.

(29) interactions with others (Morehead & Morehead, 1977). Native speaking children receive extra-linguistic supports such as gestures to help them combine language forms and meaning in contexts. In addition, children seem to possess the nerve system that respond to segmentations of phones. They are tuned to physical aspects of the acoustic waves in words, and the intonation contours provide them with clues for the demarcation of language units (Gleitman & Wanner, 1982). As children in the world acquire languages in a similar fashion, for instance, most children learn that languages sometimes contain intended meanings, Slobin (1973) posits that prototypical events are universal for children to acquire initial conceptual frameworks. Also, there seems to be an interplay among phonological, lexical, structural and semantic knowledge (MarslenWilson & Tylor, 1980). For example, knowledge of semantic and syntactic constraints could speed listeners’ response time in word recognition as well as sentence levelprocessing. While native language speakers are exposed to the language inputs from an early age, foreign language students, on the other hand, experience developmental stages in acquiring listening comprehension. First contacts of foreign language speeches for foreign language learners are like a stream of undifferentiated noises. Gradually, the listeners grasp the voice pattern of the target language such as the rising voice and breathing. Distinction of the phonic and syntactic patterns follow as the listeners discern recurring elements that segment speech parts. With further exposure and acquisition of the target language, foreign language listeners begin recognizing familiar elements in the speech streams but fail to connect the interrelationships of the sound chunks. Foreign language learners, however, do not experience full comprehension of listening at this stage. At a more advanced learning level, foreign language listeners recognize essentials of the message but not the remembrance of the whole part. As comprehension 18.

(30) requires the retaining of information, listeners need to enhance their language proficiency in order to store the incoming speech streams to pass the short-term memory. Information is stored and processed once the learners are able to circulate it and select important information for the long-term memory. A stage when students can understand everything they hear but cannot remember it is considered an inevitable learning process. Only after overcoming the threshold can the listeners enjoy complete listening comprehension (Rivers, 1986). Strategies are introduced in the teaching of listening comprehension classrooms for foreign language learners. Oxford’s (2011) strategic self-regulation model categorizes strategies into cognitive, affective, and sociocultural-interactive dimensions. Cognitive theories point out the importance of knowledge retrieval, reasoning and conceptualization of the inputs. Affective strategies relate to the activation and maintenance of supportive emotions, beliefs and attitudes. Sociocultural-interactive strategies emphasize the interaction feature of communication and see sociocultural contexts of the communication as unique. The instruction of listening comprehension strategies facilitate foreign language learners to overcome difficulties they face in listening comprehension.. Listening Difficulty Measures investigating listening difficulty include individual/group interviews (Juan & Abidin, 2013), open-ended/fixed-form questionnaires (Yousif, 2006), selfreflection diaries (Yang, 2011), and think-aloud protocols (Mohamed & Ghoneim, 2013). As qualitative exploratory research builds the foundation for theories, quantitative study analyzes the gathered statistics of different groups (Firestone, 1987). 19.

(31) Study of listening comprehension difficulties record students’ response and present processed results for educators as reference for listening comprehension instruction. Scholars categorize listening comprehension difficulties based on different models. Some of these models are derived from listening research or cognitive psychology. Rubin’s (1994) factorial taxonomy is adopted for ramification of listening difficulty, with listener, speaker, text, task, and listening process factors identified as sources of difficulties (Wu, 2007). Anderson’s (1980) groundbreaking proposition on language comprehension divides the acceptance of inputs into three stages: perception, parsing, and utilization. The model is then applied to inquiries of listening comprehension phases as well as difficulties (Sun, 2008). When it comes to the study of listening comprehension, Anderson’s (1985) model for language comprehension is frequently used to categorize the process of language comprehension. According to Anderson (1985), comprehension can be divided into three stages: perception, parsing, and utilization. And learners might have difficulties processing language inputs at any of these stages or the combination of them. Perception of language inputs refer to the encoding of acoustic or written message from one’s sensory memory. The sensory memory for listening comprehension is called “echoic memory”, which can store the input information for a short period of time. If the comprehension process is not yet automatized, attention is needed in selecting the input information for further processing. Some people face the problem of phoneme segmentation or phoneme identification at this stage. Parsing of language inputs relies on the use of both syntactic and semantic cues. One parses the incoming messages by chunking them into phrases or constituents. Sometimes ambiguity occurs when one parses sentences with more than one interpretation. Transient ambiguity can be resolved within a sentence while permanent 20.

(32) ambiguity remains until the end of the sentence. As people tend to assign a single meaning at a time for each constituent, a backward reinterpretation is required in ambiguous sentences. People who are misled in initial interpretation are said to experience the garden-path theory of ambiguity. The third stage of comprehension, utilization, is to prepare the response to the input information. One utilizes the message by relating it with the preexisted knowledge in one’s mind. Most sentences contain both new and old information. The old information is named supposition, which is the part that the speaker supposes that the listener already knows. The new information is called assumption, which is what the speaker intends to convey to the listener based on his/her supposed knowledge. Comprehension problems appear when the listener does not know the supposition assumed by the speaker, as speakers tend to stress asserted assumption but not the supposition. Certain sense of the world knowledge as well as problem solving and reasoning abilities are required for the utilization of language inputs. One can be fluent in one language but fail to be involved in particular topics when one lacks the necessary background knowledge. As sentences are structured in contexts, the utilization of the inputs also encompasses the analysis of hierarchical text structures. It is plausible that listeners might have trouble in any of these comprehension process. Categorizations of Listening Difficulty Though Anderson (1985) does not directly relate listening comprehension difficulties to the discussion of comprehension stage, the three-phase comprehension model, namely, perception, parsing and utilization, is often borrowed by scholars for the categorization of listening comprehension difficulties. One of the pioneers who utilizes Anderson’s (1985) model in the investigation of listening comprehension 21.

(33) difficulties is Christine Goh (2000). As part of her dissertation project, she conscientiously gathers students’ weekly diaries from 40 Chinese college students who study English in Singapore. Among the 40 students, seventeen of them are invited for small group interviews and twenty-three of them participate in an immediate retrospective verbalization procedure as means to probe into students’ listening comprehension problems. The results of the problems are categorized under perception, parsing and utilization. In the same vein, Sun and Li (2008) recruit twenty-two English majors from a university in China. They first have the students learn to think aloud. Then, the students have to take an English listening comprehension test with two articles of about five minutes long. The listening test material is predesigned with proper pauses so that the students are able to orally report the difficulties they encounter while listening. The result of the students’ think-aloud protocol is then analyzed with Anderson’s (1985) three-stage comprehension model. Wang (2008) again employs Anderson’s (1985) cognitive comprehension frame for the categorization of listening comprehension difficulties. One hundred twenty-one freshman and sophomore English majors participate in his study through the English listening comprehension course. Questionnaires and interviews are utilized for the date collection. For the questionnaire part, one open-ended questionnaire is given to the students to ask them to list any comprehension difficulties they face while listening. The result of the open-ended questionnaire is then gathered and categorized according to Anderson’s (1985) three-phase comprehension model. Then, a closed questionnaire based on the question items from students’ open-ended answers are contrived and given to students. Some of the students are also invited for interviews to further probe their listening comprehension difficulties. 22.

(34) A group of researchers, also from China, follow the similar model. Chang, Lu, Chang and Ting (2012) compare three groups of students, who are English majors, clinical medicine undergraduates and master students of medicine. Students in the study have to take an English test taken from Part III of the fourth level national English listening test and then answer a questionnaire of listening difficulty. The listening difficulty questionnaire, again, is based on Anderson’s (1985) model. The diversity among the categorization of listening difficulty in the four study might be due to the difference in the methodology and subjects. The categorization of the listening difficulty in the study is not set a priori. Rather, it is gleaned and later arranged in order with various instruments such as open-ended questionnaires (Wang, 2008), listening diaries (Goh, 2000), self-reports (Goh, 2000), think-aloud protocols (Sun and Li, 2008), and interviews (Goh, 2000; Wang, 2008). Even though the student participants are all college students, they vary in majors and English proficiency. It is plausible that the resulting listening difficulty taken from different groups of students could differ in certain parts and degrees. And the different categorization of some listening difficulty might result from authors’ interpretation of Anderson’s (1985) model. Nonetheless, Anderson’s (1985) three-phase comprehension model still provides later researchers with a referential framework in the categorization of listening comprehension. Not every scholar stick to Anderson’s (1985) three-phase comprehension model as the base for categorizing listening comprehension. Chang Wu, and Pang (2013) do a thorough analysis on listening comprehension difficulties and propose a thirty-one item questionnaire with six factors. Through tedious examinations of factor analysis and fit indices, a twenty-three-item questionnaires is contrived. The six factors that categorize listening comprehension difficulties are text, input channel and surroundings, relevance, 23.

(35) listener, speaker, and task. Unknown vocabulary, hard grammatical structures, unfamiliar topics, abstract concepts and long sentences are defined under text factors. The clearance and loudness of linguistic inputs are considered in input channel and surroundings. Under the relevance factor, it is agreed that listeners find it difficult to concentrate or understand the listening material when the content is irrelevant or of no interests to them. For listener factors, the authors put nervousness, which pertains to situations when listeners forget what they know or cannot follow the aural input, as sources of problems. Sometimes, the presence of an evaluator also increases listeners’ nervousness. As for speaker factors, speakers’ speech rate, loudness, pronunciation, and accents are reported by students to be sources of listening difficulty. Task characteristics refer to types of tasks or tests that the listeners respond to while listening. Whether the test is a multiple-choice test, with or without visual aids could contribute to listening comprehension difficulties. A similar but not identical categorization is done by Yang (2011) in Taiwan. By scrutinizing students’ listening diaries, she identifies five factors, which are text, listener, listening process, speaker and task factors. Unknown words, fast delivery, difficult grammar, unrepeated material, linking sounds, lengthy sentences, incomprehensible accents, and unfamiliar topics are considered text factors in this study. Listener factors contain limited vocabulary knowledge, little practice in English listening, weak grammar, no concentration, laziness, lack of patience, nervousness, weak memory and inability to read English words. One encounters difficulties in the listening process when one misses next parts because of thinking about previous meanings or its L1 translation. One could also forget what is heard quickly, being distracted at the beginning or unable to discriminate familiar words. For speaker factors, the author puts speech rate, speaker accents and possibility of a native speaker as some sources of 24.

(36) listening comprehension difficulties. Dictation, note-taking and choosing items are thought to be task factors of listening comprehension difficulties. Yousif (2006), on the other hand, provides an index of linguistic and conceptual, discourse, acoustic, environmental, and psychological variables as categorizations of listening comprehension difficulties. By distributing questionnaires and interviewing fifty first-year English majors in Arabia, it is assumed that vocabulary, sentence length, recognition of referential systems such as pronouns are linguistic factors and organization and explanation of concepts could be part of conceptual variables. Discourse variables relate to students’ limited exposure to lengthy speech. Not being able to control the flow of dense information or stop for repetition also annoy them. Acoustic variables could be the noise from the corridor or other classmates. Environmental variables concern the climate and insulation of the classroom. Some psychological variables like boredom and frustration also might hinder students’ listening comprehension. On developing a listening comprehension problem scale, Zhang and Zhang (2011) arranged a four-factor scale, with meaning, attention and memory, words, and sounds as the four main categories of listening comprehension problems. For problems related to meanings, students sometimes cannot understand the intended message of some parts or even the whole text. Sometimes, key ideas of the whole text is also hard to comprehend. Students also cannot understand the next part if they have some earlier problems. Long sentences or words with more than one meaning are put under the meaning category as well. On the attention and memory part, it is said that students tend to forget sentences quickly. They are also inclined to neglect the next part while thinking about previous parts. And they sometimes cannot chunk streams of speech. The third factor, words, is associated with situations when students cannot recognize words they 25.

(37) have learned due to their own incorrect pronunciations. Or, they might simply cannot respond to the words quickly enough. The fourth factor, sounds, happens when one cannot discriminate sounds because of speakers’ linking, assimilation, omission, fast speech, accent or intonation. Hamouda (2012) studies 60 English in India. He divides listening difficulty into “listening materials,” “linguistic features,” “failure to concentrate,” “listener,” “speaker,” and “physical settings.” Under the “listening materials” category, it is found that students have difficulty pertaining to limited English vocabulary, poor grammar, length of a spoken text, fatigue due to listening to long passage, trying to understand every word, unfamiliar topics, background knowledge, and the difficulty of the material per se. For the “linguistic features,” students find it difficult to listen to colloquial and slang expressions, signal words, unknown words, long and complex sentences as well as engage in inferential process. Students also point out their inability to concentrate when the text is too long for “failure to concentrate.” As for “listener” factor, students are unable to get a general understanding of the spoken text, predict, recognize words they know, whether because they themselves pronounce the words differently or they know the written form but not the aural representation of the words, answer questions, or listen without transcripts. For the “speaker” factor, unclear pronunciation, accents, speed of delivery, lack of visual support and inability to get things repeated are pointed out by the subjects. The “physical setting” category chronicles students’ problems with noise and poor-quality tapes or discs. Another study of students’ listening problems is recorded in Hasan (2000). By distributing questionnaires to 81 Arabic English for Special Purposes (ESP) students, Mr. Hasan gleans listening problems with “learner strategies,” “listening text,” “speaker,” and “listener attitudes.” For “learner strategies,” listen to every detail 26.

(38) exacerbates listening. Under the “listening text,” unfamiliar words, difficult grammatical structures, and length of spoken texts are obstacles for students. Prediction, interactive listening, and summary are “listening tasks” that pose trouble on students. Problems related to natural speech, unclear pronunciation, accents, and the disappearance of the speaker are categorized under “speaker.” “Listener attitudes” involves the lack of interest, demand for answers, and the message on audio-tapes. Some of the problem categories are not clear cut. Zhang and Zhang (2011) point out that problems in their “meaning” factor could be attributed to different categories in Anderson’s (1985) model. According to Zhang and Zhang (2011), when one cannot understand the intended messages or key ideas of the inputs, he/she suffers factor one, meaning problems. This is put under the utilization phase in Anderson’s (1985) model. But when one cannot understand long sentences, words with more than one meaning or next parts because of earlier problems, he/she is said to be attacked by parsing problems in Anderson’s (1985) model, though these problems are all also categorized under the meaning factor in Zhang and Zhang (2011). To make the matter more complicated, lengthy sentences is regarded as one of the “discourse” variables in Yousif (2006) and one of the “text” factors in Yang (20011), Chang, Wu and Pang (2013), and Hasan (2000). But it is in the “meaning” factor in Zhang and Zhang (2011), and “listening materials” in Hamouda (2012). As Anderson (1985) himself has pointed out, the threephase comprehension process is interrelated and recursive, which means that the three phases of comprehension might happen concurrently, even in a single listening comprehension event. From the research of listening comprehension difficulties that do not follow Anderson’s (1985) model, it can be found that some of the difficulties or difficulty categories are not discussed in Anderson’s (1985) comprehension process model at all. 27.

(39) Problems related to “acoustic” variables in Yousif (2006) are talked under “input and surroundings” in Chang, Wu, and Pang (2013), “physical settings” by Hamouda (2012), and “listener attitudes” for Hasan (2000). Psychological variables are considered as “listener” factors in Chang, Wu and Peng (2011), Yousif (2006), Yang (2011), and as parts of “listener attitudes” in Hasan (2000). Task factors are mentioned in Yang (2011), Chang, Wu, and Peng (2011) and Hasan (2000). Chang, Wu and Peng (2011) are unique in proposing the relevance and interests of the input material and Yousif (2006) specially deals with environmental variables for some of the listening comprehension difficulties. All in all, the above categories are not associated with Anderson’s (1985) model. Though the adoption of Anderson’s (1985) situate listening comprehension difficulties in a cognitive framework, it seems to pre-exclude some of the possible listening comprehension difficulties. By following Anderson’s (1985) model, the investigation of listening comprehension is restricted to the processing of language inputs. The construction of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews limit the direction of students’ response on listening comprehension difficulties. Students’ psychological reactions toward listening comprehension is then ignored. The focus on listening comprehension process also exempts the consideration of acoustic factors. When researchers construct questionnaires of listening comprehension difficulties according to Anderson’s (1985) model, they might overlook aspects that do not directly link to comprehension processes. Another possible reason for the discrepancy of listening comprehension difficulties between those that resort to Anderson’s (1985) model and those that don’t is the scope of situations for listening comprehension. Though Goh (2000) have students record their listening comprehension problems in diaries, the listening events 28.

(40) her students encounter seem to be restricted to tests. On the contrary, Yang’s (2011) students listen to at least one learning program in English each week and write a listening journal, which broadens the possibilities of diverse listening inputs and environments. It is no surprising that task factors show up in her research. Yousif (2006) probes students’ listening comprehension difficulties when listening to English lectures and thus brings the issue of environmental variable to the discussion. Some exploratory study do not categorize listening comprehension difficulties at all, but they still contribute to the understanding of listening comprehension difficulties. The following are listening difficulty found in other study that are not discussed in previous paragraphs. Whooley’s (1991) college students report that the professors are not captivating and other students are distracting as sources of listening comprehension difficulties in class. A similar result is found in McDevitt, Sheehan and Cooney’s (1994) college subjects, who also have students having no difficulties with listening. Boyle (1983) reminds that students’ general intelligence, background knowledge and learning experience could affect their listening comprehension, and so do speakers’ personality and language proficiency as well as supports provided, such as gestures or visuals. Ghoneim’s (2013) students have difficulties identifying proper names or places, understanding numbers and seem to hear words that could not be connected to the topic. Tinkler (1987) maintains that lack of exposure to natural English and lack of prediction could result to listening comprehension difficulties. Juan and Abidin’s (2013) Chinese students tend to translate the English inputs into Chinese and confound themselves while listening. They also lack patience and perseverance in listening to English. Zhong (2011) probes the lag factors of students’ English listening comprehension in ethnic regions and finds that students have difficulties identifying the contexts of the speech, guessing words and thinking in English. Solak and Altay’s (2014) Turkish 29.

(41) students worry about not being able to check their understanding, find out the main purpose of the listening task, make a mental summary of information, relate latter parts with previous parts, make meaning personal associations with the information, evaluate overall accuracy of comprehension, use strategies, answer wh-questions or fill a grid while listening, make generalization, and reduce anxiety. Listening Difficulty and Listening Proficiency To examine students’ listening comprehension difficulties, one of the factors that could not be ignored is student proficiency. Listening comprehension proficiency as well as overall language proficiency might contribute to students’ problems in listening comprehension. Language learning ability, similar to other human ability, might vary among individuals (Hewson, 1982). In fact, a major difference among those listening difficulty study with Anderson’s (1985) model occurs in the relation of students’ listening proficiency and their listening difficulty. Wang (2008) groups students as freshman and sophomore English majors. These students encounter most of their listening comprehension difficulties in the perception stage, followed by the parsing stage. They face fewest difficulties in the utilization stage. There is no significant difference in the stages of listening difficulty between freshman and sophomore students. Similarly, even though English majors possess better listening abilities than two groups of medical students in Chang, Lu, Chang and Ting’s (2012) study, they all face most of their listening comprehension difficulties in the parsing stage, regardless of their listening comprehension proficiency. There is a slight trend that students with lower listening comprehension proficiency might have more problems in the perception stage, but the difference is not significant.. 30.

(42) On the contrary, Goh’s (2000) and Sun and Li’s (2008) study both detect the discrepancy in the stages of listening comprehension difficulties among students of different listening comprehension proficiency. The low ability students in Goh’s (2000) study report more problems in perception and parsing stages while students of higher ability show listening difficulty in all three stages of the comprehension process. The low level students in Sun and Li’s (2008) study indicate problems in perception and parsing stages more frequently than high level students. Only in the utilization stage do high level students show more difficulties than their low level counterparts. The conflicting results might be related to the subjects’ actual language proficiency. If, according to Anderson (1985), the first stage for comprehension lies in perception, it might be possible that students of lower listening comprehension proficiency are hindered at this stage, as do the subjects in Wang’s (2008) study. Seldom do these students go to the second stage of comprehension, not to mention the third phase. Therefore, these students exhibit more difficulties in the perception stages. Students in Chang, Lu, Chang and Ting’s (2012) research might be a little better than those in Wang’s (2008). They mostly face problems in the parsing stage. They are already able to discriminate sounds and perceive the listening inputs properly but are not yet able to construct the meaning of the material in the parsing stage. Higher-level students in Sun and Li’s (2008) study report using strategies such as concentration, selective attention and self-evaluation to solve listening problems of all three stages. Compared with low-level students, high-level students adjust their attention at the perception stage and use selective attention to grasp main ideas in the parsing stage. They also try to ask expanding questions to connect new and old information. Perhaps that’s why they face fewer problems in the first two stages than the low-level students.. 31.