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ELT Voices- International Journal for Teachers of English Volume (7), Issue (1), 18-31 (2017)
ISSN Number: 2230-9136
(http://www.eltvoices.in)
An Exploration of Sources of Foreign Language Listening
Comprehension Problems from University Student's Perspectives
1 Mansooreh Mallah, 2 Khadijeh Jafari,
3 Seyyed Hassan Seyyed Rezaee
1 Department of Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Amol, Iran
2Department of English Language Teaching, Gorgan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Gorgan, Iran
3Department of English Language Teaching, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran
Email Addresses:
Abstract: In spite of the importance of listening as the most challenging skill for students, there is less research about lis-
tening problems of EFL learners as compared with other language skills. The aim of this study, therefore, was to examine
Iranian EFL students' listening comprehension problems from students' point of views. Fifty male and female students
studying English at Islamic Azad University of Gorgan, Golestan Province, Iran voluntarily took part in this study. A teach-
er-made questionnaire with 26 items on students' listening problem was developed. The results of questionnaire indicated
that listener-related factor (e.g., lack of concentration, long texts and existence of noise) was the main source of listening
comprehension problem among these students. The second source of problems related to speaker included bad accent and
existence of hesitation in spoken text. The third groups of problems related to the content of listening text included unfa-
miliarity with topic, feeling fatigue while listening to long texts, and difficulty in understanding the idioms; and the last
source of problem was related to linguistic features such as not distinguishing the word boundaries and the signals of
changing from one point to another point. The findings of the present research may raise both students’ and teachers’
awareness regarding university EFL students’ listening comprehension problems. Index Terms: listening comprehension problems, EFL students
1. INTRODUCTION
Foreign language (FL) learning includes mastering of four language skills including listening, speaking, reading, and
writing. Among these skills, listening is the major skill of social interactions, and people receive new messages mainly via
listening than reading (Luo, 2008).According to Van Duzer (1997), listening is an active process of understanding messag-
es.Many studies have concentrated on the role of reading in EFL learners’ language proficiency (e.g., Batty, 2007; Lee,
2003; Mehrpour & Rahimi, 2010; Ozuro, Dempsey & McNamara, 2009).
The decline of Grammar-Translation method in the 1960s provided evidence for the inadequacy of methods focusing
on reading and writing or ''literacy'' as the only elements of language worth learning. However, even in the modern methods
of language teaching and learning, listening skill did not receive the attention it deserved as Nunan (1997) named listening
as the "Cinderella Skill" which was overlooked by its elder sister "speaking". Since mastering the productive skills like
ELT Voices-Volume (7), Issue (1), (2017) 19
speaking and writing became the standard of the knowledge of L2, listening and reading turned to be the secondary ones.
Although listening had a prominent role in the 1960s (Direct Method) and in the 1980s (Krashen's input hypothesis,
1981; Asher's Total Physical Response, 1988), it was overlooked in other methods.
For many EFL learners, knowing a FL means being able to speak and write in that particular language. Thus listening
and reading can be considered as thesecondary skills and are an end rather than ends in themselves (Kaplan, 2002). When
the language is argued from the perspective of comprehension and production which include the four language skills,
skillsrelated to comprehension are reading and listening; and skills related to production are speaking and writing (Sever, as
cited in Bilican,Kutlu & Yildrim, 2012).
Listening is a complex process of understanding the spoken language (Rost, 1990). It is important to understand the
position that listening occupies in language learning (Plass & Jones, 2005); but listening has gained less attention in the
literature (Nunan, 1997). In the past, listening has been considered as a passive or receptive skill (Saha, 2008), L2 teachers
believed that listening is a skill that students can develop it on their own. However, many present researchers recognized
that listening is not a passive skill but a complicated active process of building meaning from a stream of sounds. Accord-
ing to Wolvin and Coakley (1996, p. 69), listening is "the process of receiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to aural
and visual stimuli, evaluating, and responding”. Similarly, Vandergrift (1999, p.168) states that listening comprehension is
“a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammati-
cal structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the imme-
diate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance”.
Second language learners consider listening as the most difficult skill to learn because students need to understand the
messages immediately; also, it is not an easy task to go back over the previous input (Jafari &Hashim, 2012).Many EFL
students (e.g., Iranian EFL learners) struggle to understand when listening to naturally-spoken English, some of these
learners are great at reading and speaking, they have a rich vocabulary repertoire and translation skills. However, they often
complain about not being able to understand natural spoken English delivered at normal speed. With the advent of technol-
ogy and the internet in recent years, EFL students are more exposed to spoken English, as compared with the past so that
spoken English was often heard in EFL classes. EFL students, therefore, need to develop their listening skills, to understand
a wide range of accents.Considering listening as the most difficult skill; more research is needed to recognize learners' main
listening problems.
A considerable number of past L2/FL listening studies have investigated the effect of different factors on listening
development using experimental designs: speech rate (Griffiths, 1992; McBride,2011; Zhao, 1997), lexis (Kelly, 1991;
Chang &Read,2006), background knowledge (Chiang &Dunkel, 1992;Long, 1990), pre-listening activity (Jafari &Hashim,
2012), listening transcription (Tazikeh& Jafari, 2016) and variation of presentation style (Dunkel, 1988), awareness raising
activities (Rezaei &Hashim, 2013). However, very few studies have addressed EFL students' perceptions of listening com-
prehension problems using a qualitative design (Goh, 2000; Hasan, 2000; Jafari &Hashim, 2015).
2. REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
Receiving comprehensible input is the key to acquire a foreign/second language. As a language skill, listening plays a
critical role in students’ language development. Krashen (1985) states that people acquire language by understanding the
linguistic information they receive. So language acquisition is achieved mostly through receiving understandable input. No
learning occurs, unless by understanding inputs at the right level.
Guo and Wills (2005) declared that listening presents the foundation for language learning/acquisition, and plays a
life-time role in the processes of successful communication. Rost (1994) also acknowledged the important role of listening
in the language classroom. Thus, listening as a receptive skill acts a vital role in language development. Considering the im-
portance of listening in L2/FL development, the teaching of listening comprehension has long been ignored and listening
20 Mallah, Jafari, and Seyyed Rezaee (2017)
was the poorly taught aspect of English in many EFL curriculums (Flowerdew& Miller, 2005; Mendelsohn, 1994).
In many course books, there is more attention to English grammar, reading and vocabulary, teachers’ attention to lis-
tening and speaking in universities is limited. For this, EFL learners have serious problems in English listening compre-
hension. Besides this, Osada (2004) stated that listening has not drawn much attention of both teachers and learners, they are
generally less aware of its importance. Meanwhile, students seem to learn listening, not listening comprehension. It is a dif-
ficult task for a language learner to comprehend speech in a foreign language. A review of the literature showed that most
previous studies on listening are quantitative, it seems few L2/FL researchers tend to conduct qualitative research on listen-
ing, it may be due to its complex nature.
Goh (2000) suggested a cognitive perspective on the difficulties of L2 listening comprehension. She identified re-
al-time listening difficulties encountered by a group of ESL learners and evaluated these difficulties within the three- phase
model of language comprehension proposed by Anderson (1995). Data were elicited from learners' self- reports through the
procedures of learner diaries, small group interviews and immediate retrospective verbalizations. Her analysis showed 10
problems which occurred during the cognitive processing phases of perception, parsing and utilization. Five problems were
linked to word recognition and attention failure during perceptual processing. There were also problems related to inefficient
parsing and failure to utilize the mental representations of parsed input. A comparison of two groups of learners with differ-
ent listening abilities showed some similarities in the difficulties experienced, but low ability listeners had more problems
with low-level processing.
In his study, Osada (2004) reported that most of the students have serious difficulties in listening comprehension. Stu-
dents acts poorly in listening course. Since they do not understand the spoken content of the lessons, they are not able to
comprehend spoken naturally. Some students lose their confidence exposed to this situation. Students have different types
of problems and difficulties in comprehension.
In another study, Hamouda (2012) investigated the listening problems faced by a group of first year English major stu-
dents of Qassim University in Saudi Arabia. Sixty students were selected for the study. Data collection was in the forms of
questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study showed that accent, pronunciation, speed of speech, insufficient vo-
cabulary, different accent of speakers, lack of concentration, anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening
comprehension problems encountered by EFL Saudi learners. EFL teachers can use the effective learning strategies and help
students to develop and their English listening abilities if they know learning difficulties.
In their study, Jafariand Hashim (2015) conducted a study to find out Iranian EFL students' perspectives on the use of
normal and moderately slow speech rates in listening comprehension classes. The analysis of interview data showed that
listening to normal speech rates is challenging for students either at higher or lower listening proficiency levels, she reported
that both higher and lower level students prefer to listen texts with moderately slow of delivery for developing their listening
comprehension.
The literature review indicated that the number of qualitative studies on listening is limited and this area needs further
research, the current researchers therefore attempt to make a contribution, although meager, to the existing literature in the
area that has not been addressed noticeably. This study tries to provide answer for the following research question:
RQ: What listening comprehension problems do Iranian senior university EFL learners face when they listen to English
texts?
3. METHOD
3.1 Participants
The participants of this study were 50 senior male and female language learners majoring in English language teach-
ing at Islamic Azad University of Gorgan, Golestan Province Iran. These students had already passed their listening and
ELT Voices-Volume (7), Issue (1), (2017) 21
speaking as well as oral translation courses. Convenience sampling method was used for the selection of the participants.
3.2 Instruments
Listening Problems Questionnaire (LPQ)
The questionnaire was developed by the researcher. In developing the questionnaire items, the researcher has adopted
some ideas from the previous studies in the literature (Boyle, 1984; Dunkel, 1991; Rubin, 1994; Underwood, 1989; Yagang,
1994). The questionnaire was used to collect data about the problems student usually encounter while listening to English.
It consists of 26 items with four constructs: 1) content of the listening text, 2) linguistic features, 3)factors related to listener,
and 4) factors related to speaker. Section one consists of 8 questions, section two consists of 3 questions, section three con-
sists of 9questions, and section four consists of 6 questions. The main aim of this questionnaire was to get in-depth infor-
mation about the problems the students encounter in EFL listening course. The questionnaire was designed based on a
4-point likert scale (never, sometimes, often, and always) and students were asked to choose just one item that best de-
scribed their own problem.
4. RESULTS
4.1. Descriptive Results
Descriptive statistics including the percentage of responses to each item in the questionnaireis reported in the follow-
ing tables.
Table 1
Percentage of Responses in Listening Problems Related to the Content of the Listening Text
No. Items Never
Sometimes
Often
Always
1 Facing with too many unfamiliar words including jargon and idioms 0.0 58.0 32.0 10.0
2 Presence of complex grammatical structures 18.0 50.0 28.0 4.0
3 Presence of long spoken texts 14.0 40.0 32.0 14.0
4 Feel fatigue and distracted when I listening to a long spoken text 14.0 46.0 28.0 12.0
5 Unfamiliar text topic 16.0 52.0 24.0 8.0
6 Incomprehension of all single words of incoming speech 20.0 30.0 32.0 18.0
7 Stopping listening while encountering unknown words and thinking about
the meaning of the word.
18.0 36.0 18.0 28.0
8 Difficulty in inferring the meaning of an unknown word while listening 4.0 46.0 34.0 16.0
Listening problems related to the Content of the Listening Text
13.0 44.8 28.5 13.8
According to the results presented in Table 1, for item 1 slightly more than half of the participants (58%) reported that
they sometimes have trouble facing with too many unfamiliar words.32.0% of students often have problems in this issue.
But 7.5% of the students always feel difficult to face with many unfamiliar words including jargon and idioms.
Regarding the second item, only for 4.0% of the students, the presence of complex grammatical structures can always
interfere with their listening comprehension, but 28.0% reported that complex grammatical structures often make listening
difficult for them and 50.0% believed that complex grammatical structures sometimes interfere with their listening com-
prehension. For 18.0% of the students it is not interfering at all.
Regarding the third item of the questionnaire, “Presence of long spoken texts”, 32% of the participants have chosen
22 Mallah, Jafari, and Seyyed Rezaee (2017)
"often" option, near half of the participants (40.0%) reported that they sometimes have difficulty to listen long spoken texts.
For 14.0% of the students long spoken text can always interfere with their listening comprehension and again for 14.0% of
the students, length of the listening passages is never interfering.
Concerning item 4, listening to a long spoken text can always cause fatigue and distracting for 12.0% of the students;
while for 28.0% often and for 46.0% sometimes it causes fatigue and distracting. 14.0% of the students never feel fatigue
and distracted when listening to a long spoken text.
Analysis of students’ responses to item 5 showed that 8.0% of the students always, 24.0% often and 52.0% sometimes
have problems in listening comprehension while listening to an unfamiliar topic; but 16.0% never have problems in under-
standing listening text when the topic is unfamiliar.
The result of analysis in item 6 shows, 18.0% of the students always, 32.0% often, and 30.0% sometimes have diffi-
culty in comprehension of all single words of incoming speech; but 20.0% never have problems in understanding every
single word of incoming speech.
In item 7, 28.0% of the students always, 18.0% often, and 36.0% sometimes stop listening and think about meaning of
the word, when encountering an unknown word; while 18.0% never stop listening while encountering unknown words.
Regarding item eight, “difficulty in inferring the meaning of an unknown word while listening” only a small percent-
age of the students (4%)reported that theyneverhave difficulty in inferring the meaning of an unknown word while listening.
Almost half of the students (46.0%) sometimes, 34.0% often and 16% always have problems in inferencing the meaning
while listening.
In conclusion, among the participants 13.8% of students always, 28.5% often, and 44.8% sometimes suffer from the
listening comprehension problems related to the content of listening text; while only 13.0% of participants never have
problem related to the content of the listening text.
Table 2
Percentage of Responses in Listening Problems Related to Linguistic Features
No.
Items Never
Sometimes
Often
Always
9 Lack of word recognition even with familiar pronunciation. 10.0 56.0 24.0 10.0
10 Failure in recognizing the signals related to movement of speaker from one
point to another.
12.0 46.0 32.0 10.0
11 Lack of recognizing word boundary in streams of speech.
12.0 42.0 32.0 14.0
Listening problems related to linguistic features. 11.3 48.0 29.3 11.3
As the results presented in Table 2, slightly more than half of the students (56%) declared that they sometimes have
problems in word recognition even with familiar pronunciation.20% of the students either never or always have problems
in word recognition even with familiar pronunciation. The last 24% of the participants “often "have problems in word
recognition even with familiar pronunciation.
Regarding item 10 of the questionnaire, “Failure in recognizing the signals related to movement of speaker from one
point to another”, almost half of the students (46.0%) sometime have difficulty in understanding every single word of in-
coming speech. 32.0% often have problems to recognize signals which indicated that the speaker is moving from one point
to another; while 12.0% never and 10.0% of the students always have problems in recognizing the signals.
In item 11, “Lack of recognizing word boundary in streams of speech”,14.0% of the students have chosen always op-
tion, 32.0% often option, 42.0% sometimes option and 12.0%never option.
ELT Voices-Volume (7), Issue (1), (2017) 23
Finally; in studying the listening comprehension problems related to linguistic features it was found that 11.3% of
students always, 29.3% of students often and 48.0% of students sometimes have listening comprehension problems related
to linguistic features; while 11.3% of the students reported that they never have problems related to linguistic features of
the listening input.
Table 3
Percentage of Responses in Listening Problems Related to Listener
No. Items Never
Sometimes
Often
Always
12 Lack of concentration because of searching for answers while listening. 26.0 36.0 18.0 20.0
13 Lack of concentration due to noises around 8.0 48.0 30.0 14.0
14 Lose of concentration when the text is too long 20.0 44.0 24.0 12.0
15 Lose of concentration due to poor quality of recording 4.0 40.0 28.0 28.0
16 Lack of general understanding of the spoken text from the first listening 24.0 48.0 20.0 8.0
17 Lack of predicting what would come next during listening 16.0 44.0 32.0 8.0
18 Lack of word recognition because the way they are pronounced 18.0 44.0 34.0 4.0
19 Lack of comprehension without transcripts 14.0 52.0 20.0 14.0
20 Lack of understanding every single word of incoming speech 16.0 40.0 30.0 14.0
Listening problems related to listener
15.2 44.0 26.4 14.4
Results of students’ responses in listening problems related to listener are presented in Table 3. 12.0% of the students
reported that they are always unable to concentrate on listening text because they look for answers while listening. Also,
18.0% often and 36.0% sometimes are unable to concentrate on listening because they try to answer comprehension ques-
tions at the same time; however, 26.0% of the students never have this problem.
Regarding item thirteen of the questionnaire, “Lack of concentration due to noises around”, only8.0% of the students
have chosen "never" option, almost half of the students (48.0%) selected "sometimes” option. A small percentage of the
students (14.0%) always cannot concentrate in a noisy place. The last 30.0% often have this difficulty.
For 12.0% of students concentrating on too long text is always difficult; while for 24.0% often and for 44.0% some-
times it is difficult. 20.0% of the students never lose their concentration while listening to a long text.
In item 15, “Lose of concentration due to poor qualityrecording”,almost half of the students (40.0%) reported that
they sometimes lose their concentration if the recording is in a poor quality, 28.0% of them always and often have this dif-
ficulty; while only 4.0% never have problem in concentrating on poor quality recorded.
Among the participants, for 8.0% of the students always, 20.0% often, and 48.0% sometimes getting a general under-
standing of the spoken text for the first listening is difficult; but 24.0% never have this difficulty.
Between the students, 8.0% always, 32.0% often, and 44.0% sometimes have problems to predict what would come
next; while 16.0% never have difficulty to predict.
Item 18 of the questionnaire asked students how frequently it is difficult for them to recognize the words they know
because of the way they are pronounced. The result of the analysis showed that lack of word recognition due to its particu-
lar pronunciations sometimes difficult for almost half of the students (44.0%). 34.0% of the students often have difficulty to
recognize the words they know because of the way they are pronounced. The result also showed that 18.0% of the students
never and 4.0% always have this problem.
Among the participants, for 14.0 % of the students listening to English without transcripts is always difficult, for
24 Mallah, Jafari, and Seyyed Rezaee (2017)
20.0 % of them often and for 52% sometimes it is difficult to understand listening without transcripts. For 14.0 % of the
students it is not hard to listen without transcripts.
Regarding item 20 of the questionnaire, 40.0% of the students reported that they sometimes and 30% often have
problems to understand every single words of incoming speech. 14.0% of the studentsalways and 16.0% neverhave such
difficulties;
In conclusion, among the participants 14.4% of students always, 26.4% often, and 44.0% sometimes have listening
problems related to listener; while only 15.2% of participants never have listening problems related to listener.
Table 4
Percentage of Responses in Listening Problems Related to Speaker
No. Items Never
Sometimes
Often
Always
21 Presence of hesitation and pauses 16.0 44.0 20.0 20.0
22 The speaker’s unclear pronunciation 6.0 42.0 32.0 20.0
23 Unable to understand the meaning without seeing the speaker’s body lan-
guage
26.0 48.0 12.0 14.0
24 Unable to understand when the speakers speak with a variety of accents 8.0 34.0 44.0 14.0
25 Unable to understand the text when the speaker speaks too fast 8.0 28.0 40.0 24.0
26 Lack of comprehension if repetition is not possible. 10.0 50.0 24.0 16.0
Listening problems related to speaker 12.3 41.0 28.7 18.0
Results of students’ responses in listening problems related to speaker are presented in Table 4, slightly less than half
of the students (44%) reported that they sometimes have difficulty to understand the natural speech which is full of hesita-
tion and pauses. It was found that 22.0% of the students always have this problem. And 20.0% and 16.0% of them respec-
tively chose often and never option.
Regarding item 22 of the questionnaire, “The speaker’s unclear pronunciation”, only6.0% of the students has chosen
"never" option, almost half of the students (42.0%) reported that they sometimes have problems in enabling to understand
the meaning of words which are not pronounced clearly. Among the respondent, 20.0% of the students always, and 32.0%
often have problems in enabling to understand the meaning of words due to speaker’s unclear pronunciation.
The result of analysis in item 23 shows that for almost half of students (48.0%) sometimes is difficult to understand
the meaning of the spoken text without seeing the speaker’s body language. The difficulty of enabling to understand the
meaning of the spoken text without seeing the speaker’s body language is always difficult for only 14.0 % of the students;
while for 12.0% often, and for 26.0% is never hard.
Regarding item 24, “Unable tounderstand when the speakers speak with a variety of accents” only 8.0% of the stu-
dents reported that never have problem to understand well when speakers speak with a variety of accents. 34.0 % of them
sometimes have this problem. Almost half of the students (44.0%) often have this problem; as 14.0% chose always option.
A majority of the students (40.0%) reported that they often have difficulty to understand well when the speaker speaks
too fast. Only 8.0% never have this problem. 24.0% and 28.0% of the students respectively chose always and sometime
option (Item 26).
In item 26, “Lack of comprehension if repetition is not possible”, half of the students (50.0%) reported that they be-
lieved understanding the recorded materials sometimes difficult if they are unable to get text repeated, inability in the repe-
tition of listening text often make comprehension difficult for 24.0% of the students. 16% and 10% of the students re-
spectively always or never have listening problems if repetition is not possible.
To sum up, the listening comprehension problems related to speaker it was found that 18.0% of the students always,
ELT Voices-Volume (7), Issue (1), (2017) 25
28.7% of students often and 41.0% of students sometimes have listening comprehension problems related to speaker; while
12.3% of them never have this kind of problem.
Table 5
Mean and Std. Deviation of Listening Problems
Item
no.
Sources of
Problems
Problems Mean Std. Devia-
tion
1
Content
Facing with too many unfamiliar words including jargon and idioms 2.52 .677
2 Presence of complex grammatical structures 2.18 .774
3 Presence of long spoken texts 2.46 .908
4 feel fatigue and distracted when I listening to a long spoken text 2.38 .878
5 Unfamiliar text topic 2.24 .822
6 Incomprehension of all single words of incoming speech 2.48 1.015
7 Stop listening while encountering an unknown words and think about
the meaning of the word.
2.56 1.091
8 Difficulty in inferring the meaning of an unknown word while listen-
ing
2.62 .805
9
Linguistic Fea-
tures
Lack of word recognition even with familiar pronunciation. 2.34 .798
10 Failure in recognizing the signals related to movement of speaker
from one point to another.
2.40 .833
11 Lack of recognizing wordboundary in streams of speech. 2.48 .886
12
Listener
Lack of concentration because of searching for answers while listen-
ing
2.32 1.077
13 Lack of concentration with noises around 2.50 .839
14
Lose of concentration when the text is too long 2.28 .927
15 Lose of concentration due to poor quality of recording 2.80 .904
16 Lack of general understanding of the spoken text from the first lis-
tening
2.12 .872
17 Lack of predicting what would come next during listening 2.32 .844
18 Lack of word recognition because the way they are pronounced 2.24 .797
19 Lack of comprehension without transcripts 2.34 .895
20 Lack of understanding every single word of incoming speech 2.42 .928
21
Speaker
Presence of hesitation and pauses 2.44 .993
22 The speaker’s unclear pronunciation 2.66 .872
23 Unable to understand the meaning without seeing the speaker’s body
language
2.14 .969
24 Unable to understand when the speaker speaks with a variety of ac-
cents
2.64 .827
25 Understanding the text when the speaker speaks too fast 2.80 .904
26 Lack of comprehension if repetition is not possible 2.46 .885
26 Mallah, Jafari, and Seyyed Rezaee (2017)
In Table 5, the mean for each item is presented; the range of score is between 1 and 4. We can see that all means are
more than 2; according to this descriptive perspective, the majority of the students encounter with listening comprehension
problems. One-sample t-test thereforewas used to see if the mentioned problems are identified as listening problems from
the side of the participants of the study or not. The results of one-sample t-test are presented in Table 6.
Table 6
Results of One-Sample t- Test
Problems
Test Value = 2
t df p-value
Listening problems related to the Content of the Listening Text 5.923 49 .000
Listening problems related to Linguistic Features 4.285 49 .000
Listening problems related to Listener 5.207 49 .000
Listening problems related to Speaker 5.616 49 .000
As shown in Table 6, at the significance level of 0.05, the obtained probability values are less than 0.05; this result
indicates that listening comprehension problems in the questionnaire are identified as listening problems by participants of
the present study. In other words, the participants of this study encounter with listening comprehension problems related to
the content of listening text, linguistic features, listener, and speaker.
4. 2. Prioritizing Listening Comprehension Problems
Factor loading was used in order to assess the rank between and among the elements of listening problems. To calcu-
late the factor loadings, the inferential statistics including exploratory factor analysis was used. In Table 7 listening com-
prehension problems are listed according to their priority identified by participants of the study.
Table 7
Priority of the Listening Comprehension Problems
Sources of Listening Problems Factor Loading Priority
Listening problems related to Listener .930 1
Listening problems related to Speaker .888 2
Listening problems related to the Content .828 3
Listening problems related to Linguistic Features .715 4
According to the obtained factor loadings from the factor analysis, it can be observed that the listening comprehension
problems related to listener is the first priority, the listening comprehension problems related to speaker is the second prior-
ity, the listening comprehension problems related to the content of the linguistic text is the third priority, and the listening
comprehension problems related to linguistic features is the last priority.
Table 8
Priority of the Items in Listening Comprehension Problems Related to Listener
Problems Factor Loading Priority
Lack of comprehension without transcripts .733 1
Lack of understanding every single word of incoming speech .673 3
Lack of concentration because of searching for answers while listening .631 4
Lose of concentration due to poor quality ofrecording .618 5
ELT Voices-Volume (7), Issue (1), (2017) 27
Lose of concentration when the text is too long .616 6
Lack of predicting what would come next during listening .571 7
Lack of concentration with noises around .565 8
Lack of word recognition because the way they are pronounced .491 9
Lack of general understanding of the spoken text from the first listening .445 10
As shown in Table 8, listening comprehension problems of the participants related to listener are listed according to
their priority. Lack of comprehension without transcripts is the first problem which the students encounter during listening,
lack of understanding every single word of incoming speech is the second, then lack of concentration because of searching
for answers while listening is the third difficulty, fourth problem is loss of concentration due to poor quality of recording.
Lose of concentration due to length of the listening text is the fifth priority; lack of predicting what would come next during
listening is the sixth. While lack of concentration with noises around is the seventh problem, lack of word recognition be-
cause the way they are pronounced is the eighth, and at last lack of general understanding of the spoken text from the first
listening is the ninth priority.
Table 9
Priority of the Items in Listening Comprehension Problems Related to Speaker
Problems Factor Loading Priority
The speaker’s unclear pronunciation .778 1
Presence of hesitation and pauses .747 2
Unable to understand when the speakers speak with a variety of accents .746 3
Lack of comprehension if repetition is not possible .745 4
Enabling to understand the meaning without seeing the speaker’s body language .690 5
Understanding the text when the speaker speak too fast .647 6
In Table 9, the items related to listening comprehension problems related to speakers are arranged in order of their
priority. The speaker’s unclear pronunciation is the first problem related to speaker which the students encountered, pres-
ence of hesitation and pauses is the second, the third problem is lack of comprehension when the speakers speak with a
variety of accents, lack of comprehension if repetition is not possible the fourth. As the fifth problem is lack of enabling to
understand the meaning without seeing the speaker’s body language; the last and sixth difficulty is lack of understanding
the text when the speaker speaks too fast.
Table 10
Priority of the Items in Listening Comprehension Problems Related to the Content of the Listening Text
Problems Factor Loading Priority
Unfamiliar text topic .749 1
Incomprehension of all single words of incoming speech .727 2
Feel fatigue and distracted when I listening to a long spoken text .684 3
Facing with too many unfamiliar words including jargon and idioms .656 4
Presence of long spoken texts .629 5
Presence of complex grammatical structures .520 6
Difficulty in inferring the meaning of an unknown word while listening .347 7
Stop listening while encountering an unknown words and think about the meaning of the word .326 8
The items related to listening comprehension problems related to content of the listening text are arranged in order of
28 Mallah, Jafari, and Seyyed Rezaee (2017)
their priority in Table 10. Unfamiliar text topic is the first comprehension problem related to content of listening, incom-
prehension of all single words of incoming speech is the second problem, while the third difficulty is feeling fatigue and
distracted while listening to a long spoken text. Facing with too many unfamiliar words including jargon and idioms is the
fourth problem. As the fifth problem is presence of long spoken texts; presence of complex grammatical structures is the
sixth problem. Difficulty in inferring the meaning of an unknown word while listening is the seventh, and the last problem
is stopping listening while encountering an unknown words and thinking about the meaning of the word.
Table 11
Priority of the Items in Listening Comprehension Problems Related to Linguistic Features
Problems Factor Loading Priority
Lack of recognizing word boundary in streams of speech .831 1
Lack of word recognition even with familiar pronunciation .820 2
Failure in recognizing the signals related to movement of speaker from one point to another .746 3
In Table 11, the items of listening comprehension problems related to linguistic features are arranged in order of their
priority. Lack of recognizing word boundary in streams of speech is the first difficulty which is related to linguistic features,
the second problem is lack of word recognition even with familiar pronunciation, and the last problem related to linguistic
features is failure in recognizing the signals related to movement of speaker from one point to another.
5. DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS
The results of the present research indicated that listener-related factor was the main source of listening comprehen-
sion problem, while linguistic features such as not distinguishing the word boundaries and the signals of changing from one
point to another point was identifies as the last source of problem among these students. In the following section, the find-
ings are discussed by referring to sources of listening comprehension problems among students of other EFL/ESL contexts.
Goh (2000),in the context of China, identified five common listening comprehension problems. The most common
problem in her study was that students quickly forget what is heard, the next one was related to students’ inability in recog-
nizing familiar words. The third problem was related to students’ understanding the words but not getting the intended
message. Next, students neglect the next part when thinking about meaning and finally students were unable to form a
mental representation from words heard. The findings of the present research are somehow in line with what has been
found by Goh (2000). Similarly, in both studies, students' main listening problem was related to listener factor; in Goh's
research, students' limited working memory was the main problem while in the present research, it seems students be-
came accustomed to transcript, and this made listening difficult for them. There are many situations that the students are not
allowed to see the transcripts (e.g., exam) or transcripts are not available.
In Hamouda’sstudy (2012), accent, pronunciation, speed of speech, insufficient vocabulary, different accent of speak-
ers, lack of concentration, anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening comprehension problems encoun-
tered by SaudiEFL learners. The same problems existed among Iranian EFL students. However, in the present research, the
problems were divided into different categories, for example, speed of speech or accent are related to speaker factor which
was identified as the second source of listening comprehension problem in the present research and insufficient vocabulary,
lack of concentration and anxiety are related to listener factor.
The findings of this study are also confirmed by the Juan and Abidin’s (2013) finding. They identified the main prob-
lemsfaced by the Chinese students includelack of prior knowledge in English vocabulary, this inhibits their understanding in
the listening process, similarly, lack of prior knowledge is related to listener factor which was identifies as the main source
of listening comprehension problems.
It seems factors related to the listeners are the main source of listening comprehension problems among EFL students in
ELT Voices-Volume (7), Issue (1), (2017) 29
different settings. This finding suggests that EFL students should first start from themselves, as concentration has a key role
in listening comprehension; students are suggested to improve their listening concentration using different strategies. They
should also use their bottom up and top down processing while listening, depending on their reasons for listening.
6. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Based on the findings of the study, the major listening difficulties of the Iranian EFL students are related to listener as
the main problem(e.g., lack of concentration encountered with long spoken texts); related to speaker as the second source of
problem (e.g., speed of speech, different accent); related to the content of text as the third source of problem (e.g., unfa-
miliar vocabulary, idioms); and related to linguistic features of listening text as the third problem(e.g., complex grammati-
cal structures). The findings of this study have obvious implications for both teachers and students.Teachers need to be
aware of the importance of listening comprehension and sources of listening comprehension problems; they need to first
identify the problem and then find solutions forthe problems. Considering listener-related factor as the main source of prob-
lem among senior EFL students, students are recommended to used strategies used by successful listeners, for example, im-
proving concentration and memory, using both bottom up and top down processing, using schemata and scripts stored in
their background knowledge and leaving bad listening habits.
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