Difficulties Faced by Tertiary Level EFL Learners in Listening (Published)
Listening comprehension is a prime channel of learning a new language. This study attempts to find out the difficulties faced by the EFL learners correspond to listening skill at the tertiary level education of Bangladesh. The study entitled Difficulties Faced by Tertiary Level EFL Learners in Listening discussed difficulties faced by tertiary level learners in listening comprehension. The aim of the study was to explore the difficulties encountered by the students, resulting from several factors such as listening text, listeners’ factor, speakers’ factor, linguistic feature, failure to concentration and physical setting. To analyze and to find the solution to the problems, the researcher made use of quantitative method. The research was conducted in public and private universities of Bangladesh. The population of this study was BA and MA level students’ in the academic year 2019-2020. The number of population was 60 students from two classes and data were collected through questionnaire. The result of the study shows that listening is very difficult skill for learners who is keen on learning foreign language. Understanding students’ difficulties can motivate and help the teachers to improve effective learning strategies for the students to develop their listening abilities. It also provided potential solutions to the problems. Firstly, the teacher should adapt and improve listening materials. Secondly, students’ need to enrich their vocabulary with correct pronunciation, which will enable them to understand the variety of accents, while practising listening. Thirdly, the authority concerned should establish language laboratory for practising listening. Besides, students should gather background knowledge about the topic. The solutions were made as a suggestion for the teachers, learners, academicians and for the curriculum designer and material developer. The results of the study may also be useful for those who are interested in this study.
Keywords: CLT, Content, EFL listening, difficulties, listeners, physical setting