Exploring EFL Learners’ Perceptions and Problems in Academic Listening

Listening is considered as a very important skill in language learning in academic environments (Al-Yami, 2008; Shabani Malekdar, 2016; Talebinejad Akhgar, 2015) as more than 45 percent of the students time in a language class is devoted to listening (Nunan, 1998). The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions and problems of first year undergraduate students of Engineering after taking the academic listening course offered to them at the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). The participants (N=199) were male and female Iranian undergraduate students of Engineering at the IUST. The instrument was a questionnaire with 28 items, which was developed by the researchers. The first section containing eight items explored learners’ attitudes towards academic listening, and the second section with 20 items examined their problems in academic listening. An interview was also conducted exploring learners’ views about their perceptions and problems with the academic listening course. Considering learners’ attitudes, both male and female learners reported that (a) they were aware of the perceived importance of academic listening, (b) they found it difficult to understand the spoken text not interesting to them, and (c) they found that listening comprehension was exciting. With regard to problems in academic listening, both male and female learners reported that insufficient vocabulary, speed of speech, poor quality of recordings, long texts, and unfamiliar topics, respectively were their major listening problems. The findings suggest listening instructors to provide learners with authentic and interesting listening tasks and to use various scaffolding strategies to solve learners problems with academic listening.