DIFFICULTIES IN LISTENING SKILL OF STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY, WHEN USING ENGLISH UNLIMITED TEXTBOOK AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

This study was conducted to find out the difficulties that challenged K50 students of University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Thai Nguyen University, during the time of practicing the listening tasks of the English Unlimited textbook, level pre-intermediate, on the factors of the quality of Recored materials, speed of the speakers, vocabulary, phonetics, idea expressions, and the types of listening tasks. During the process, some solutions were recommended in order to enhance the quality of students’ listening skill. The qualitative method and quantitative method were included in combination with the theorectical application of Jack C. Richard on the requirements of English listening task design, as well as the previous studies on the effectiveness of listening activities in different textbooks. The gathered data from 343 students of K50 revealed that most of students’ difficulties in performing listening skill using the English Unlimited textbook, level pre-intermediate, were speed of the speakers, the differences among different accents of speakers from many countries in the world, and the limitation in the design of listening tasks in the textbook.