Factors nd Problems Affecting English Listening Comprehension Skills of Eic Undergraduate Students at Rmutl Tak, Thailand

Abstract

Purpose: This quantitative research is to investigate the significant factors and to discover the existing problems affecting English listening comprehension skills of EIC undergraduate students at RMUTL Tak, Thailand.   Method: This is survey research. The participants were 46 students who were the 3rd and 4th year students selected by purposive method. The research instrument was an online questionnaire which was gathered and analyzed by descriptive statistics.   Results and Conclusion: The findings reveal that factors affecting English listening comprehension skills compose of (1) Factors relating to text, (2) Factors relating to linguistic features, (3) Factors relating to speakers, and (4) Factors relating to listeners. The problems affecting English listening comprehension skills compose of (1) Speaker accent, (2) Speaker speed of speaking, (3) New vocabulary and (4) English knowledge of the listeners respectively, and overall, it was found that students had listening comprehension problems at high level (x ̅ = 3.80, S.D. = 0.763). Furthermore, both the factors and the problems highlighted were crucial information required to remedy and improve the students' English listening comprehension skills.   Research Implications: Therefore, those who want to improve their English listening comprehension should be aware of these factors and problems; however, others factors and problems must be considered when developing English listening comprehension as well. Furthermore, listeners should be aware of all factors and problems that affect their intelligibility and should develop their own listening more or practice listening more for solving the factors and problems exploring in this study, practicing listening to a variety of listening media, such as the news, music, movies, talk shows, speeches or talks: Ted Talks as one of the listening strategy applied, to become accustomed to and learn more about the various accents and speaker speeds and listener can practice their own listening skills further outside the classroom.   Originality/Value: Teachers can use these to solve problems for students to practice listening skills in the classroom, and those who want to practice listening skills can apply these methods or practice themselves to improve their listening skills. Nevertheless, this research still has some weaknesses.