Overcoming Listening Challenges: A University Student's Guide

This essay explores the essential challenges faced by university students in listening, including accents, remembering information, lecture duration, grasping power, vocabulary, tiredness, speaker speed, semantic barriers, intra-culture, workload, and noise. It further discusses methods for developing active listening abilities within students, such as providing listening materials, visualizing learning, shortening lecture durations, training and monitoring students, addressing absence of mind, engaging in other activities, minimizing distractions, reducing noise, and encouraging questions. The report concludes that educators should possess the skills to understand students' perspectives to facilitate effective communication and learning, emphasizing that while students face numerous listening challenges, these can be overcome through conscious effort and the implementation of the discussed strategies.

Assessment 2
Individual essay

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Essential challenges faced by students in listening at university.................................................1
Methods of developing active listening abilities within students................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Listening refers to a soft skill which allows masses to understand the conveyed message
from others. Listening is key aspect to all effective communication which is mainly comprised of
receiving languages through the ears. Listening mainly involves identifying and determining to
sounds of speech and processing and learning form them the words used into sentences. This
skill mainly refers to hearing to others are conveying to and understanding what it means. This
report mainly comprises of challenges faced by students while they were listening to their
educators. There are various factors why students loses their focus, interest and absence of mind
in between their lectures. Thus, to overcome these differences and other challenges, various
measures are also discussed in given report. By this students can evolve and improve quality of
learning skills (BÜYÜKAHISKA and Uyar, 2019).
MAIN BODY
Essential challenges faced by students in listening at university
 Accent: Accent is a distinctive way of speaking or pronouncing a language, which is
specially associated with a particular country, area or any social class. Accent also
varies from country to country. Most of the nations uses and speaks English language for
communication but they have a total different accent. So most of the people who are not
English will lack behind in speaking English as their accent differs from the main ones.
Accent carries a whole of a nation in their language and culture, likewise American's
accent is different and difficult for a foreign individual to understand and communicate. It
would be difficult for American to speak to Indians. The listener here learns by listening
to words spoken by speaker. Thus, words and languages used by educators play s a vital
role in learning process for students. Students tend to hear to words used by their
educator and this aids in easy learning. So educators should used easy and effective
communicative language to educate their students. The students of other nations faces
different challenges while leaving their own country.
 Remembering vital information: The students in class sometimes feel bored and their
lack of interest leads to absence of mind in lectures leading to low quality of learning
(Chaipuapae, 2019). This breaks flow of communication and learnings and messages
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delivered through educators. This results in not recalling lectures and information being
taught in class.
 Time period of lectures: The duration of lecture is a major factor in learning of students.
Students looses motivation and energy when duration is longer of lectures. In beginning
students are energised and have an effective energy inside where they enjoys lectures, but
after sometimes, when lecture tends to go for a longer duration of time period, then these
students gets bored and loses interest. This leads to not remembering of content taught in
their learning.
 Grasping power of listener: Every student has different capacities of grasping power
and understanding things in their day to day lives (Gillespie, 2020). Some students
learns quickly and some takes longer duration of time to learn and acquire things. This
basically depends on their understanding and grasping capacities. The lectures given to
students by their educators is same for all students, but some lack behind as they have
less grasping and understanding power as compared to other students. This is basically a
challenging situation faced by below or average students in class. This demotivate below
average students and they loses confidence in their learning as they are unable in
answering questions asked by their educators in class room as compared to other good
students.
 Vocabulary: Students learn easy words easily while they are listening and speaking to
others. This communication brings forth interest in learning and builds strong
communication between peers and masses. On the contrary, students who are not able to
understand and grasp things and language they tend to discover issuances related to
understanding as they loses interest in their learnings. They start to feel boring and
brings difficulties in lessons that are taught to them. Thus, selection of words used in
lectures should be easy and convenient to students that would aid in fostering of their
learning interests with improvement in focussing to their lessons.
 Tired: Students tend to lose their focus on studies and work effectively as they are tired.
This brings diverted focus and reduced listening abilities (Herrmann and Johnsrude,
2020). Inactive mind and laziness brings tiredness to student's learnings, which may be
difficult to grasp their lessons and paying attention effectively to what they are being
taught by their educators.
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 Speed of speaker: In case, speed of speaker is very fast, then it is difficult for students to
understand things easily and this brings many issuances related to their lessons. Low
speaking makes lecture boring and high speed will bring difficulties in understand of
language. Thus, educators must use very low speed and also should keep mind to not to
speak fast, to bring productive learning of lesson concepts for their students.
 Semantic barrier: Similar words comprises of varied meanings in different nations.
When students are from different nations, they faces difficulties in understanding lessons
and related words provided by educators. This brings confusion and misinterpretation
with misconceptions in learning words while educator is giving lecture. Even when
students are listening to educator with full attention, it would be difficult for students in
understanding correct meanings of words spoken by educator. This is a big challenge and
difficulty faced by students which brings wrong message delivery to students (Kang and
et. al., 2019).
 Intra-culture: Students belonging to different nations have varied cultures. So it gets
harder for students who leave their native nation to understand others cultures where they
are currently living, students finds issuances in teachings that are provided by their
educators and this leads to misunderstanding and misconceptions in learnings. Thus,
educators should prepare and frame contents with thorough presentation preparations in
advance regarding it.
 Work load: When students have loads of work and they feel pressured, they are unable
to work efficiently. Their mind gets diverted all the time and are not able to focus which
brings anxiety within them. They are also unable to listen to homework and assignments
assigned to them. Students feel good enough to work and this affects and greatly impacts
their listening and communication skills.
 Noise barriers: Barriers arises in learning while educator is proving lessons and wants to
deliver important lesson contents. External factors are strongest barriers in ineffective
learnings as this hinders lectures and brings issuances in lectures (Kapur, 2018).
Unnecessary noises coming in class room disturbs both speaker and listener that can be
roadside noises from vehicles or other construction sites.
Methods of developing active listening abilities within students
There are various ways in which students can develop their listening skills and they include:
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 Listening material: The educators should provide various listening material to students
that would foster habit of listening and learning. Educators can provide these listening
materials as assignments or homework that would help in their effective learning and
improve communication within their peers. This would bring mandatory completion of
their assignments at any costs. Initially this measure will bring difficulty but overtime this
will foster their skills of listening and understanding concepts of lessons. This will
improve learning abilities and their grasping power of students. They will start to pay
more of attention towards their educator and will perform well in class.
 Visualise learning: Students are good at visualising things as compared to any other
listening skills (Kluger and Itzchakov, 2022). Visualisation aids in easy learning as this
impacts on brain for a longer period of duration. And this visualisation fosters the
development of grasping capacities. Students pay more attention when they are taught
through media players, projectors. For instance, when they are watching any move or
web series, they tend to gather information which stays for longer period and this in
further aids in learning faster. Understanding and picturing things are easier with this
step. So, educators should start teaching their students with effective picture format and
story telling by help of media players to improve learning skills of students.
 Short duration lectures: It becomes more boring when students are lectured repeatedly
with same lessons for a longer period of time. So they get bored easily and to avoid this
issue duration of lectures and lessons taught should be short. This will foster activeness
and lack of absence of mind in students. Students concentrates more and listens to their
educators which aids in their efficient learnings.
 Training and monitoring of students: Students belonging to different nations faces a
loads of issuances in understanding things and communication between them and
educators (Krishnasamy and et. al., 2020). In advance, students should be provided with
trainings by their educators. This will aid in improving their understanding. Training
should be provided before getting admissions into schools or universities to students.
This will aid in not facing any difficulties in understanding of lectures. This aids in
motivating students to understand accent of other nations too. After providing training,
educators should keep close check on every student's learning by monitoring their growth
and performance.
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 Absence of mind: Students generally are physically present in class but they lack
presence of mind. There is a reason behind it can be personal factors such as family
related issues or related personal issues. Students usually are just present in class but are
not mentally present as they are inactive while lectures provided to them. They don't even
realise what their educator is teaching to and this brings improper learning processes
(Krivosheyeva and et. al., 2020).
 Other activities: Students should go thoroughly through their lectures, news, informative
documentations, television shows and other listening forms. Activities should be able to
perform their listening skills effectively through digital techniques. This will improve
listening and communication skills of students. The more they develop a habit of
listening to media and learning, the more they tend to listen to their educators.
 Minimise distraction: When students have personal issuances they feel diverted towards
and this brings hindrances in listening skills. Students should avoid all types of
distractions to execute work effectively. And this will foster on things that will be taught
by their educators.
 Cut down noises: Unnecessary noise occurring while students are taking lectures. They
should be provided with places where they are not disturbed by any eternal noises that
would bring forth hindrances in learnings (Maulina and et. al., 2022). This will foster
their focus and concentration in lessons and they tend to listen to their educators more
effectively. So place is foremost aspect that will foster student's effective learnings.
 Asking questions: Asking questions is a vital step in learning processes. This brings
effective learning and student tend to learn faster. So, educators must include asking
questions while they are teaching to their students to hold their student's attention towards
their learnings. This fosters in improving student's learning and determining student's
knowledge. Also student's presence of mind aids in their effective learning and enhancing
their listening skills can be evaluated by executing these kinds of activities in class
(Wagner, 2021).
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CONCLUSION
From the above given report, it can be conferred that for having an effective learning with
smooth, effective communication among students, educators should have accomplished abilities
and skills to understand each other point of views. Students faces a loads of challenges at the
time of listening to educators. Reasons could be accents of educators, speed of educator who is
teaching, speaking speed, duration of lecture, difficulty in understanding hard language,
vocabulary and words used while teaching and so on. But these difficulties and issuances can be
overcome easily through discussing and making a habit of listening to their educators. Educators
can give various listening tasks to their students which will aid them in enhancing their focus and
determination towards their works. Time period of lectures must be cut down to reduce stress
and anxiety within students so that they feel enthusiast in their workings. Numerous activities
can be executed by students to improve their listening skills.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
BÜYÜKAHISKA, D. and Uyar, A.C., 2019. The Effects of Different Accents on Listening
Comprehension in EFL Classes. OPUS International Journal of Society
Researches, 14(20), pp.1369-1394.
Chaipuapae, P., 2019. Insights into the effects of accents on English listening
comprehension. Asian EFL J, 23, p.30.
Gillespie, A., 2020. Semantic contact and semantic barriers: Reactionary responses to disruptive
ideas. Current opinion in psychology, 35, pp.21-25.
Herrmann, B. and Johnsrude, I.S., 2020. A model of listening engagement (MoLE). Hearing
Research, 397, p.108016.
Kang, O., Thomson, R. and Moran, M., 2019. The effects of international accents and shared first
language on listening comprehension tests. Tesol Quarterly, 53(1), pp.56-81.
Kapur, R., 2018. Barriers to effective communication. Delhi University.
Kluger, A.N. and Itzchakov, G., 2022. The power of listening at work. Annual Review of
Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9(1), pp.121-146.
Krishnasamy, S., Ling, L. and Kim, T., 2020. Improving learning experience of probability and
statistics using multimedia system. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in
Learning (iJET), 15(1), pp.77-87.
Krivosheyeva, G., Zuparova, S. and Shodiyeva, N., 2020. Interactive way to further improve
teaching listening skills. Academic Research in Educational Sciences, (3), pp.520-525.
Maulina, M., Ladjagang, R., Nasrullah, R., Esteban Jr, A.M., Hastianah, H. and Herianah, H.,
2022. Research Methods in Teaching Listening Skills Utilizing Technology
Media. Journal of Education and Teaching (JET), 3(1), pp.69-83.
Wagner, E., 2021. Assessing listening. In The Routledge Handbook of Language Testing (pp.
223-235). Routledge.
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