AN INVESTIGATION INTO KEY A2 LISTENING TEST PROBLEMS OF THE FIRST-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN HIGH-QUALITY CLASSES AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, VIETNAM

English language teaching

Listening skills are important for face-to-face communication, meetings, conferences, telephone conversations, etc. A person with good listening comprehension skills will be able to participate more effectively in communicative situations. In Vietnam, listening is always considered “a key language skill”, which Vietnamese learners of English will be working with before and after they finish their study at universities. The first-year non-English major students in high-quality classes at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA) share the same situation. Out of all the different tests to certify the level of English, the Key A2 test is the most practical in terms of its contents and format. Therefore, to standardize the output quality of students, in most universities including TUEBA, Key A2 is decided to be a common standard of measurement for evaluation of students’ fluency in English in the professional context. However, when taking the Key A2 test, especially the Key A2 listening comprehension section, many students usually complain that they lacked knowledge, skills and strategies about listening comprehension to complete the test well. Understanding these problems, the researchers investigate Key A2 listening comprehension problems encountered by a group of first-year non-English major students of TUEBA. 60 first-year non-English major students at TUEBA who were studying in the first term joined the study. Data was gathered by means of questionnaires. The research findings showed that test-taking strategies, general background knowledge, linguistic ability, insufficient learning facility and teaching methods were the major problems encountered by TUEBA’s students. Some measures are made for addressing problems regarding how teachers can help their students overcome Key A2 listening comprehension problems.

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