Learners' Perceptions of Listening Comprehension Problems

Many EFL learners find that they are unable to comprehend natural spoken English delivered at normal speed. The paper reports a study of listening problems encountered in the EFL classroom in the ESP Centre at Damascus University, as reported by the learners themselves. It looks in particular at learner strategies, features of the listening text, characteristics of the speaker, attitudes of the listener, the task to be completed as a result of understanding the text, and the degree of visual or written support for the aural input. The results of the study show that EFL learners experience a range of listening problems. To overcome them, various techniques which help learners to utilise effective strategies to confront problems of listening comprehension are discussed and the pedagogic implications are stated.