Challenges and Solutions for Student Listening at University

This individual essay addresses the critical role of listening in a university setting, focusing on the challenges students encounter and strategies for improvement. The essay begins by identifying various obstacles to effective listening, including difficulties with information retention, speaker accents, vocabulary limitations, lack of interaction with native speakers, complex grammar, and diverse communication styles in training sessions. The main body then delves into how students can develop active listening skills. It emphasizes maintaining eye contact, being attentive and relaxed, fostering an open mind, utilizing visualization techniques, focusing on key points, avoiding interruptions, minimizing unnecessary talking, interpreting non-verbal cues, providing timely feedback, prioritizing physical well-being, and cultivating topic-specific interest. The conclusion reiterates the importance of active listening for academic success and overall comprehension within the university environment, highlighting the need for students to actively develop and apply these skills to overcome challenges and enhance their learning experience.

ASSESSMENT 2
INDIVIDUAL ESSAY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Listening challenges student may face at University...............................................................3
2. How students can develop their active listening skills............................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
This report of individual essay will cover the problems and challenges related to listening
students face in the university, as students have to do a lot of listening in lectures, tutorials and
classes it is important to have effective listening skills. And active listening is very important for
a student's better understanding and development in class. Further report will also cover essay on
how students can develop and improve their active listening skills. There are various ways to
improve active listening in order to comprehend effectively. Different significant methods to
develop active listening will also be mentioned (Eggenberger, 2021).
MAIN BODY.
1. Listening challenges student may face at University
Listening is one of the skill that provided for reading, speaking and writing to student in
order to focus on reducing anxiety and depression while reading. It can also help students in
order focusing on engaging themselves in conversation, their peers are more likely to them as
open and interested (Anatolievna and Nickolaevna, 2019). For student, it helps to enhance their
ability in order to understand better communicator that makes experience of speaking to student
more enjoyable to other people. Lack of focus is one of the major problem which is faced by
student while professor teaching in class and student not listen properly it impacts on getting low
marks in examination because listening is one of the characteristic which help student to build
their personality. There are lost of reason student face challenges while listening at University
such as follows:
Remembering the information- There are many students who are struggling with listening
comprehension assessment because they do not remember the information that they have
listened. When student have lack of focus they may face trouble in understanding the topic when
topic is too long and professor used tracking for auditory information. Professor use long track
whiles teaching in class so that student not able to understand what information in track is
necessary also at the end of the track student not able to remember about what topics they have
covered because professor not providing any explanation in between.
Speaker accent and rate of speed- Student and teachers are come from any country in the world
that is why they use different accent whiles teaching and that is why student not able to get it the
point while teacher explaining (Gonulal, 2020). This is the common challenges which is faced by
student that is why they have faced problem due to different accent. In this student are trying to

understand every word, but they are not able to understand because of accent such as if the
professor is from France and teaching at UK it might create problem for student because at that
time English used by teacher might be very different. In context to accent it might create
difficulty for student.
Poor English vocabulary- Vocabulary is one of the integral part of the learning any
language including English. Any language that including Arabic and English has a hundred and a
thousand of words. This is impossible to know all of them but it is necessary to understand the
basic English vocabulary so that it help to create the ability of effective listening. Student face
challenges regarding poor vocabulary and that is why they did not able to focus on active
listening (Kamaşak, Sahan and Rose, 2021). Even native speakers do not know all the words of
their mother tongue. There are different meaning of single word in English and student find
difficulty in understanding because it is difficult to list and identifying what kind of word are
context to students learning. Another ones problem is learning English which people face is
forgetting the words soon after learning them.
Less interaction, or lack thereof, with native speaker- It is necessary to regularly interact
wit native speaker English speakers if student want to be fluent in English. This is difficult to
work on speaking skills without as partner that can cause problem in English learning.
Sometimes students are afraid of communicates with professor that become challenge for student
at University. Student are not confident about their speaking skills that is why they face
challenges for less interaction in skills. Another one problem is learning English which people
face is forgetting the words soon after learning them (Namaziandost, Sabzevari and
Hashemifardnia, 2018).
Difficult grammar- Grammar is tricky and intricate because student at University find
different patterns difficult specially in speaking that can lead wrong message being delivered.
When student face problem in understanding grammar they might face challenges in listening
skill when professor use difficult grammar. At that time it is necessary to work on improving
grammar which is important for student also that kind of skill are using clear cut rules in order to
improve on language. In this situation student face problem regarding lack of listening skill in
which they did not able to understand the context of teacher. Also, student understand wrong
meaning while they have not much command on grammar.

Different characteristics- In spoken language, due to memory limitation student face
problem regarding chunking or clustering in people down speech into smaller group of work. In
this situation student face challenges in order to focus on listening comprehension which is
necessary for student in managing clusters of words. In context to redundancy due to rephrasing,
elaborations and repetitions etc. In these characteristics' student get confused while
understanding that kind of words which is related to phrases and that is why student not able to
work on listening skills which is necessary for them.
Training session- In the training session at University there are from different place
trainer come from for student (Fatonia, Julyantoj and Azizik, 2020). At that time trainer much
focus on teaching through presentation in which it is necessary to work on long auditory video
that is not understandable for student. In this situation student not able to listen properly because
of long track also at the end of track student not able to ask question which is related to long
track.
2. How students can develop their active listening skills
Active listening is very important for a student as it directly impacts their comprehension
skills. There are factors which are required to be focused upon by the students in order to
develop active listening skills. It holds very crucial place in students' life as it impacts their
overall performance (Novick and et.al., 2021). For developing active listening skills, very first
thing is student should maintain the eye contact and face the speaker. Eye contact is the
important aspect of effective communication skills. When a professor in the university is
addressing a group of students, to get students undivided attention they try to maintain eye
contact and at the same time it is also expected of students to pay attention by maintaining eye
contact. Many students feel shy or have different inhibitions which becomes a hindrance in
maintaining eye contact. Such inhibitions should be avoided in order to maintain eye contact.
Another important way to improve active listening is being attentive and relaxed.
Students should be attentive in the classroom, they should avoid any distractions such as
personal thoughts, background noises etc (McCormack, O’Flaherty and Liddy, 2021). To
achieve all learning tasks and process, retrieve, store information, undivided attention is needed.
A teacher or professor will be putting more interest and efforts in a student who is paying more
attention towards them. Learners should try to focus on what a teacher is saying, what is the
objective of attending a class. A relaxed state of mind is needed of a student to have better focus

in the class or sessions. If a student's mind is preoccupied with other things it will be difficult for
them to stay attentive in the class. Hence, a relaxed and attentive mind set is a prerequisite.
Further, a state of open mind is necessary to improve listening skills. While listening to
a speaker it is expected of a student to have no pre conceived notions or judgements in mind,
basically a speaker is trying to put forward their thoughts and knowledge in the best way possible
to deliver a good content for students but sometimes it happens that because of students' state of
mind, they do not perceive it in a good way. Therefore, a clear and open state of mind is
expected of students. Good visualization or imagination power is important as this helps
students comprehend things for longer time. In order to improve listening skills, student should
develop good visualization power as it has been said that people tend to remember things better
if they can imagine or visualize those things. e.g. a kids 1st learnings are always through photos
and pictures as this helps remember things better. Learners should listen to the teachers and try to
visualize what the speaker is saying to develop active listening skills (Saputra and et.al., 2022).
Focusing on KPIs (key point indicators), prime focus should be on the abstract of
speaker's saying, try to remember what is the objective of entire learning and then focus on
specific phrase, terms, words. This way a person can develop active listening. We may not
remember the entire speech or lecture but it is important to remember at least the abstract of the
entire lecture. Also, when your turn to speak comes, try not to focus on preparing what to speak
in head but rather focus on what the speaker is saying. This way mind can spontaneously
remember things and one can speak it later.
Do not interrupt or impose solutions, one should know that it is rude to interrupt. First
let other person finish and then speak your opinion or ask questions. Interrupting send various
negative messages like disrespect, superiority, carelessness etc. a student should not interrupt the
professors, tutors, teachers, first listen, understand and then if given space to question or talk,
then only put forward your opinion. Avoid unnecessary talking in class, universities have
unsaid set of basic manners and while attending a class avoid talking unnecessary things, pay
focus on speaker, professors. It is a part of active listening to avoid unnecessary talking. A
person can either talk or listen at a time, and if an individual is busy talking then they can not
understand or listen their speakers. Take non-verbal clues, paying attention to what is not being
said but is supposed to be understood by the students, is important. Majority of communication
happens through non-verbal clues like gestures, body movements, actions, etc. while attending a

class try focus on speaker's non-verbal clues and understand the same, this way you can
understand the topic ever better. Provide feedbacks time to time by being participative in the
class. But always know the timing of feedbacks, it should not be irrupting the ongoing class. A
well rested and well-fed individual can listen more actively then others. A good sleeping cycle
and balanced diet can also make you feel more active and presentable. If people are feeling
healthy they can more actively indulge or contribute in active listening then those who are not
physically healthy.
Having interest towards the topic, interest plays a vital role in providing active
listening approach to the students, therefore one should develop enough interest in a topic in
order to have utmost level of attention towards the speaker and their sayings. And having good
amount of interest leads to active listening for students. Combining all these important factors
and aspects together active listening can be achieved by students (Ferrer and et.al., 2020).
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded that listening is one of the important skill for student in order to
focus mores on learning at University. There are different types of problem faced by student due
to listening skill. In this report there are different type of problem are faced related to not
remembering the words, different accent used by teacher, grammar problem etc. That is common
challenges which are faced by student in order to focus on listening skill. Then report discussed
how student can develop listening skill at University.

REFERENCES
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