Pre-service EFLTeachers’ Perceptions on Listening Comprehension Problems

Abstract

This study reports on pre-service EFL teachers’ perceptions on their listening comprehension problems in English and how they view the reasons behind their lack of success in this skill. It aims to contribute to teachers' better understanding of the reasons and factors that lie in the difficulties that freshmen in ELT department experience in listening, and this in turn may also enable teachers to set more learner-centered and reasonable goals in testing and language teaching-learning program. Using a mixed method research design, the data was gathered through a questionnaire consisting of open-ended and Likert-scale questions. The the results of the content analysis and descriptive statistics reveal that the main source of problems highlighted by the students are varied/unfamiliar accents, fast-paced speech, lack of concentration/attention and distraction, speakers' slurring the words/unclear pronunciation, unknown words, overloaded terminology used in the academic/scientific speeches, lack of interest in the topic of the speech, and lack of background knowledge about the topic of the speech. Moreover, the majority of the learners attribute their problems in listening comprehension to their lack of practice in listening and their inadequate vocabulary knowledge.