Listening Difficulties Reported by Intermediate EFL Students at Greenwich University Vietnam

Tran Thi Huyen

English Department – FPT University, Greenwich Vietnam, Hanoi Campus

Abstract

Listening is often one of the most demanding skills for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners because comprehension must be built in real time from a fast and often unpredictable speech stream. This exploratory study investigates the listening difficulties reported by intermediate-level students at Greenwich University Vietnam. Data were collected from 38 students in English Level 2 and Level 3 classes through an online questionnaire that combined 10 Likert-scale items with 4 open-ended questions. Descriptive results showed that limited vocabulary (M = 3.29), unfamiliar accents (M = 3.24), lack of background knowledge (M = 3.21), fast speech rate (M = 3.18), and connected speech (M = 3.16) were the most frequently reported barriers. Anxiety was rated lower (M = 2.97), but students’ comments showed that worry and loss of concentration still became more visible in test-like situations. The findings suggest that learners experience difficulty in both bottom-up decoding and top-down meaning construction. The study therefore recommends listening-oriented vocabulary support, explicit work on connected speech, gradual exposure to accent variation, staged listening tasks, and metacognitive guidance. Because the sample was small, drawn from one institution, and based on self-report data, the findings should be interpreted as exploratory rather than broadly generalizable.

Keywords: listening difficulties; intermediate EFL learners; listening comprehension; Vietnamese university context; metacognitive support

1. Introduction

Listening plays a central role in second language development because it provides the input through which learners build vocabulary, grammatical awareness, pronunciation knowledge, and communicative competence (Buck, 2001; Rost, 2024). In university settings, listening is also closely linked to academic participation: students need to follow instructions, understand lectures, interpret audio-visual materials, and respond appropriately in classroom interaction. Yet listening is widely recognized as one of the most difficult language skills because it happens under strong time pressure. Unlike reading, listening does not usually allow learners to slow down the message, pause at will, or re-check unfamiliar input in the moment (Field, 2008; Goh, 2000).

For intermediate learners, this challenge is often especially visible. Many students can understand short, controlled listening passages, but they struggle when speech becomes faster, more authentic, or less predictable. Natural spoken English includes reductions, linking, assimilation, fillers, and accent variation that are rarely shown clearly in textbook-style input. As a result, learners may know a word on paper but still fail to recognize it in connected speech. They may also lose track of meaning after encountering only one unfamiliar word or phrase. Such breakdowns affect not only comprehension, but also learner confidence.

At Greenwich University Vietnam, intermediate learners in English Level 2 and Level 3 have already studied English for several years and usually possess basic communicative ability. Even so, many still report that listening is their weakest skill. This matters because listening competence influences classroom performance, test outcomes, and students’ willingness to use English in real situations, including internships, workplace communication, and interaction with international peers.

Previous studies have already shown that listening problems often emerge from a combination of linguistic, cognitive, and affective factors rather than from a single source (Bekleyen, 2009; Field, 2008; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). However, difficulty profiles vary across settings because they are shaped by curriculum, assessment practices, exposure to authentic input, and local learning habits. While broad findings from international EFL research are useful, teachers still need context-specific evidence to decide which problems deserve the most immediate instructional attention. To date, no published study has focused specifically on the listening difficulties of intermediate students at Greenwich University Vietnam.

This study therefore examines the listening difficulties reported by intermediate-level students at Greenwich University Vietnam through a mixed-format questionnaire. Rather than making broad claims about all Vietnamese EFL learners, the study aims to provide a focused description of one learner group in one institutional context.

Research question

What listening difficulties are reported by intermediate-level students at Greenwich University Vietnam?

Significance of the study

This study is significant in three ways. First, it provides a local profile of the listening problems most commonly reported by intermediate learners in one university context. Second, it brings together linguistic and affective dimensions of listening difficulty in a single analysis. Third, it offers practical implications for teachers who need to design more responsive listening instruction.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Listening as bottom-up and top-down processing

Listening comprehension involves the rapid coordination of multiple processes. Learners must identify sounds, segment the speech stream, recognize words, interpret grammar, build meaning, and connect what they hear with background knowledge (Buck, 2001; Rost, 2024). For this reason, listening is commonly described through the complementary notions of bottom-up and top-down processing.

Bottom-up processing refers to decoding the incoming speech signal from smaller units to larger meaning units. Learners need to recognize phonological features, locate word boundaries, and identify lexical items accurately. When bottom-up decoding is weak, comprehension may fail before interpretation can begin (Field, 2008). Top-down processing, by contrast, involves using prior knowledge, context, expectations, and discourse clues to predict and interpret meaning. When learners lack topic familiarity or cannot activate relevant schema, they may understand only fragments of the message even if they recognize some words (Goh, 2000; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012).

Effective listening depends on the interaction between these two processes. Learners who depend too heavily on word-by-word decoding may become overwhelmed when speech is rapid, while learners who cannot use background knowledge effectively may fail to build meaning from incomplete input (Field, 2008; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012).

2.2. Linguistic sources of listening difficulty

A large body of listening research identifies several recurring linguistic barriers.

Fast speech rate is one of the most frequently reported obstacles. When speech is delivered at a natural pace, learners have little time to process sounds, retrieve vocabulary, and integrate meaning. Once they miss one part of the message, they often fall behind and cannot recover easily (Field, 2008; Goh, 2000).

Limited vocabulary also strongly constrains listening comprehension. Vocabulary gaps interrupt understanding, but the problem is not only lexical knowledge in the abstract. Learners may know a word in written form yet fail to recognize it in spoken form because of stress, reduced pronunciation, or unfamiliar phonological context (Buck, 2001; Rost, 2024).

Connected speech and reduced forms further complicate decoding. In authentic speech, sounds are linked, weakened, assimilated, or deleted. These features make spoken English very different from the careful word-by-word pronunciation many learners expect. Research on listening instruction suggests that explicit attention to reduced forms and connected speech can improve learners’ perception of natural spoken input (Ahmadian & Matour, 2014; Yang & Chang, 2014).

Accent variation is another common source of difficulty. Learners who are exposed mainly to one familiar variety of English may struggle when they hear different pronunciation patterns, rhythms, and intonation contours. Accent difficulty is therefore not simply a matter of preference; it is closely connected to word recognition and segmentation in real time (Field, 2008; Rost, 2024).

2.3. Affective and metacognitive dimensions

Listening difficulty is not only linguistic. Affective factors, especially anxiety and low confidence, can reduce concentration and make listeners more vulnerable to comprehension breakdown. Studies on foreign language listening anxiety show that learners often experience worry, anticipatory fear, and frustration when they believe they may miss important information (Bekleyen, 2009; Kimura, 2008). This anxiety can intensify in test-like situations, where students feel that every missed detail matters.

Metacognitive awareness is also important. Wenden (1998) argues that learners’ knowledge about tasks, strategies, and their own cognitive processes influences how effectively they learn. In listening, metacognitive awareness helps learners plan, monitor, and evaluate comprehension rather than listening passively. Vandergrift et al. (2006) developed the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) to measure this dimension, and later work continued to explore its psychometric properties and classroom relevance (Ehrich & Henderson, 2019). Instructional studies have also shown that metacognitive strategy training can improve listening performance and learner confidence (Movahed, 2014; Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010).

2.4. Empirical background and research gap

Prior studies have established that EFL learners often struggle with speech rate, vocabulary, decoding of reduced forms, limited background knowledge, and anxiety. However, these factors do not appear in exactly the same way across all educational settings. Their relative importance may vary according to proficiency level, the kinds of listening materials used in class, the amount of exposure learners receive outside class, and the extent to which listening strategies are explicitly taught.

Validated instruments such as the MALQ are useful when the focus is on metacognitive awareness, but teachers may also need shorter diagnostic tools that directly target locally salient barriers such as accent variation, connected speech, and lack of exposure to authentic listening materials (Ehrich & Henderson, 2019; Vandergrift et al., 2006). In the case of Greenwich University Vietnam, there is still little context-specific evidence about what intermediate students themselves identify as their main listening problems. This study addresses that local gap.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research design

This study used an exploratory descriptive survey design. The main instrument was a mixed-format questionnaire containing both Likert-scale items and open-ended questions. This design was chosen because the study aimed to identify which listening problems students reported most strongly and to gather brief explanations in students’ own words. The study therefore combines a quantitative description of perceived difficulty levels with a small qualitative component that helps interpret those patterns.

3.2. Participants and context

A total of 38 students participated in the study. All were enrolled in English Level 2 or English Level 3 classes at Greenwich University Vietnam. Their ages ranged from 18 to 21, and all reported having studied English for at least six years. As a group, they represented intermediate-level learners with basic communicative ability but persistent difficulty in receptive skills, especially listening.

The sample was a convenience sample from one institution. For that reason, the findings should be read as a description of this specific learner group rather than as a general profile of all Vietnamese university students.

3.3. Instrument

The questionnaire contained 14 items.

• Items 1–10 were 5-point Likert-scale statements (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree).
• Items 11–14 were open-ended questions asking students to describe their biggest listening difficulty, explain why it was difficult, report what they usually did when they did not understand, and suggest what would help them improve.

The questionnaire was designed around difficulty domains repeatedly identified in the literature, including speech rate, vocabulary, connected speech, accent variation, anxiety, background knowledge, concentration, repeated listening, note-taking, and exposure to authentic input (Buck, 2001; Field, 2008; Goh, 2000; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). The decision to use a short, context-specific questionnaire rather than a longer established scale such as the MALQ was deliberate: the study aimed to map practical listening barriers reported by students in this program, not to measure a full metacognitive construct.

Because the instrument was researcher-developed and the analysis focused mainly on item-level descriptions, a formal reliability coefficient is not reported here. This should be treated as a methodological limitation, and the results should therefore be interpreted as exploratory rather than psychometrically definitive.

3.4. Data collection procedure

The questionnaire was administered online through Google Forms. Participation was voluntary, and students were informed that the survey was conducted for research and instructional improvement purposes. No identifying personal data were required beyond general background information. Students completed the questionnaire individually.

3.5. Data analysis

Quantitative data were analyzed descriptively through mean scores for the focal Likert-scale items. Given the small sample size and the exploratory purpose of the study, inferential statistics were not used. The mean scores were treated as indicators of the relative strength of students’ agreement with each reported difficulty.

Qualitative responses were analyzed through a simple thematic procedure. First, all responses were read several times to gain an overall sense of the data. Second, recurring ideas were assigned initial codes. Third, related codes were grouped into broader themes. Finally, the themes were reviewed against the original responses and compared with the quantitative patterns to identify areas of convergence.

3.6. Ethical considerations

Participation was voluntary, anonymous, and unrelated to students’ course grades. The study aimed to understand learning difficulties rather than evaluate individual students.

4. Findings

4.1. Quantitative findings

The overall pattern suggests a moderate level of agreement across the reported difficulties. The mean scores fall within a relatively narrow range, which indicates that students did not identify one single overwhelming obstacle; instead, they experienced a cluster of related listening problems.

Table 1 reports the six focal difficulty domains most directly related to the research question, while the remaining items were used for contextual interpretation.

Table 1 Reported Listening Difficulties Among Participants (N = 38)

Limited vocabulary received the highest mean score, suggesting that lexical difficulty was the most strongly perceived barrier in this group. Accent variation and lack of background knowledge followed closely. Fast speech and connected speech were also clearly reported as problems. Anxiety had the lowest mean score, but its value was still close to the midpoint of the scale, which suggests that affective difficulty should not be dismissed.

4.2. Qualitative themes

The open-ended responses help explain why these difficulties matter in practice.

Theme 1: Students lose track when speech is fast

Many students reported that when speakers talk quickly, they can catch the beginning of a message but lose the next part because processing does not keep pace with the audio. This pattern suggests that speed is experienced not as an isolated issue, but as a trigger for broader comprehension breakdown.

Theme 2: Unknown words interrupt the whole listening process

Students often described becoming “stuck” on unfamiliar words. Instead of continuing to listen for the general idea, they focused on the unknown item and then missed what followed. This pattern shows that vocabulary gaps can create both a knowledge problem and an attention problem.

Theme 3: Accent and connected speech make familiar words sound unfamiliar

Several responses indicated that students recognized words more easily in written form than in spoken input. Different accents, linking, and reduced forms made known vocabulary difficult to identify in real time. Students therefore experienced accent variation and connected speech as decoding problems rather than as minor annoyances.

Theme 4: Weak background knowledge reduces prediction and concentration

Some students said that unfamiliar topics were hard to follow even when the speech was not very fast. When they lacked background knowledge, they could not anticipate content or use context effectively. A number of responses also linked topic unfamiliarity to loss of concentration and listening fatigue.

Theme 5: Anxiety becomes more visible in tests and after breakdowns

Although anxiety was not the highest-rated difficulty in the Likert items, the comments showed that nervousness increased when students feared missing key answers. This suggests that anxiety may be more situational than constant. In many responses, worry appeared after comprehension had already started to break down, which points to an interactive relationship between decoding difficulty and emotional response.

5. Discussion

5.1. A difficulty profile dominated by bottom-up strain

The strongest reported barriers in this study—limited vocabulary, accent variation, fast speech, and connected speech—point primarily to bottom-up decoding difficulty. This pattern is consistent with the view that intermediate learners often struggle to transform the speech stream into recognizable words quickly enough for comprehension to continue smoothly (Buck, 2001; Field, 2008). The findings also support Goh’s (2000) argument that listening problems often appear in real time when learners cannot process input fast enough to keep up with the message.

The qualitative responses reinforce this interpretation. Students frequently described losing the thread of the text after encountering an unfamiliar word or a fast segment. This suggests that many learners still listen in a highly local, word-dependent way. In other words, they may not yet have enough automaticity in spoken word recognition to cope well with natural speech.

5.2. Top-down support is also limited

At the same time, the relatively high mean for lack of background knowledge shows that listening problems cannot be explained only by decoding. Students also struggle when they do not know enough about the topic to predict likely meanings, anticipate vocabulary, or infer missing information. This finding fits the top-down dimension of listening discussed by Vandergrift and Goh (2012). When schema activation is weak, learners are more likely to rely on word-by-word listening, which in turn increases cognitive load.

This point matters pedagogically. If teachers focus only on playing an audio and checking answers, learners may not receive the support needed to build topic familiarity, listening purpose, and global understanding before detail-focused work begins.

5.3. Anxiety appears secondary, but not negligible

Anxiety was the lowest-rated difficulty in the quantitative results, yet it still appeared clearly in the comments. This pattern suggests that listening anxiety may not be a stable trait for all students, but rather a situational response that intensifies under pressure. This interpretation is compatible with research showing that foreign language listening anxiety often emerges through worry, fear of missing information, and reduced confidence in listening situations (Bekleyen, 2009; Kimura, 2008).

In this study, anxiety seems to interact with linguistic difficulty rather than replace it. Students did not primarily say that they were anxious first and confused later; instead, they often implied that confusion triggered anxiety, which then reduced concentration further. This makes listening anxiety an important secondary barrier that teachers should address through task design and classroom support.

5.4. Pedagogical implications

The findings suggest several practical implications for listening instruction at the intermediate level.

First, teachers should provide listening-oriented vocabulary support, not only pre-teaching definitions. Students need help recognizing how common words sound in fast and reduced speech. Activities that combine audio recognition, word stress, and transcript comparison may therefore be more useful than isolated vocabulary lists.

Second, teachers should teach connected speech explicitly. Research has shown that instruction on reduced forms can support listening development (Ahmadian & Matour, 2014; Yang & Chang, 2014). Short micro-listening tasks, shadowing, and transcript-based noticing activities can help students hear where word boundaries actually occur.

Third, students need gradual exposure to accent variation. Rather than introducing many unfamiliar accents at once, teachers can sequence input from more familiar to less familiar varieties and provide guided tasks that focus on adaptation rather than imitation.

Fourth, teachers should strengthen top-down processing through pre-listening preparation. Brief topic activation, prediction questions, and clear listening purposes can reduce cognitive load and help students process the text more efficiently.

Fifth, classrooms should include metacognitive guidance and low-stakes practice. Learners benefit when teachers model how to listen for gist, how to recover after missing a phrase, and how to continue listening without panicking over every unknown word. Previous work suggests that explicit metacognitive instruction can improve both listening performance and confidence (Movahed, 2014; Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010).

6. Conclusion

This study examined the listening difficulties reported by intermediate-level students at Greenwich University Vietnam. The results show that students experience a cluster of related problems rather than one single obstacle. Limited vocabulary, unfamiliar accents, lack of background knowledge, fast speech, and connected speech were the most strongly reported barriers. Anxiety appeared less prominent in the quantitative results, but students’ comments showed that it still affects listening, especially in pressured situations.

Taken together, the findings suggest that these learners struggle with both bottom-up decoding and top-down meaning construction. They often have difficulty recognizing spoken words quickly and accurately, while also lacking enough strategic support to predict meaning, tolerate uncertainty, and recover from comprehension breakdown. For this reason, listening instruction should address decoding, strategy use, and confidence at the same time.

7. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

This study has several limitations. First, the sample size was small and drawn from one institutional context, so the findings cannot be generalized broadly. Second, the data were based on self-report rather than direct measures of listening performance. Third, the questionnaire was a short researcher-developed instrument, and no formal reliability coefficient was reported. These limitations do not make the findings unhelpful, but they do mean the results should be read as exploratory.

Future studies could strengthen the evidence base by using larger samples, comparing multiple classes or institutions, and combining self-report data with listening test scores, classroom observation, or think-aloud protocols. Future research could also examine the effects of specific interventions, such as connected speech training, metacognitive listening instruction, or systematic accent exposure.

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