Effect of Listening Discourse Exercises on Level of Listening Comprehension Skills of Ced Third Year Students of Usep
Chapter 1
THE PROBLEM AND RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
Students are observed having difficulty in comprehending a text through listening. For instance in literature class, usually, the story is presented through retelling the text in front of the class when there is no luxury of time. As noted by one of the professors in literature in this college, “Students have hard time focusing if the only thing they do is to listen”. In most cases, the students can comprehend the text only after they have read it. Listening is the most important skill, but it becomes the most neglected skill nowadays, due to the fact that most of the universities pay more attention to the English grammar, reading and vocabulary (Hamouda, 2013). In some cases, most teachers also assume that listening is synonymous to breathing which seems to be abrupt where in fact it is supposed to be practiced (Thomas; Dyer, 2007). According to Sun’s study (2002), the most difficulty in listening for Taiwan’s students was “forget the meaning of the word (perception).” Moreover, Chinese students often encountered problems in listening such as the lack of vocabulary, lack of different accent, lack of background knowledge, problem of understanding method, problem of learning habits, problem of lack in patience and perseverance (Juan; Abidin, 2013). In Philippine context, listening comprehension skill is evidently a problem even to the college students (Tendero, 2000). Basically, college students still lack background knowledge about foreign countries and cultures. As a result, sometimes they cannot understand the material or the meaning of it in which students’ poor performance is observed. Similarly in the local scene, students were observed to have a passive listening skill. Primarily, our students begin to learn English by the way of reading, instead of listening. In some schools, specifically in University of Southeastern Philippines, College of Education, there are no language laboratories to train
THE PROBLEM AND RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
Students are observed having difficulty in comprehending a text through listening. For instance in literature class, usually, the story is presented through retelling the text in front of the class when there is no luxury of time. As noted by one of the professors in literature in this college, “Students have hard time focusing if the only thing they do is to listen”. In most cases, the students can comprehend the text only after they have read it. Listening is the most important skill, but it becomes the most neglected skill nowadays, due to the fact that most of the universities pay more attention to the English grammar, reading and vocabulary (Hamouda, 2013). In some cases, most teachers also assume that listening is synonymous to breathing which seems to be abrupt where in fact it is supposed to be practiced (Thomas; Dyer, 2007). According to Sun’s study (2002), the most difficulty in listening for Taiwan’s students was “forget the meaning of the word (perception).” Moreover, Chinese students often encountered problems in listening such as the lack of vocabulary, lack of different accent, lack of background knowledge, problem of understanding method, problem of learning habits, problem of lack in patience and perseverance (Juan; Abidin, 2013). In Philippine context, listening comprehension skill is evidently a problem even to the college students (Tendero, 2000). Basically, college students still lack background knowledge about foreign countries and cultures. As a result, sometimes they cannot understand the material or the meaning of it in which students’ poor performance is observed. Similarly in the local scene, students were observed to have a passive listening skill. Primarily, our students begin to learn English by the way of reading, instead of listening. In some schools, specifically in University of Southeastern Philippines, College of Education, there are no language laboratories to train