Listening Problems in The TOEIC Test for English Majors: An Exploratory Case Study in a Thai University
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Abstract
The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) is a globally recognized standardized test that mainly assesses listening and reading skills necessary for communication in workplace contexts. However, the listening section, which accounts for half of the total score of 990, has been regarded as problematic for some Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. This study, therefore, investigates the listening difficulties of six Thai EFL learners who struggled with the TOEIC test. The participants (fourth-year English majors from a university in Thailand) were asked to complete selected TOEIC listening test items and were interviewed about their listening problems immediately afterwards. The findings provide insights into listening problems in the testing context as task-based and individual-based. We categorized the top three problems as “I answer the choice that has the same or similar words as in the listening text.”, “I cannot catch the text immediately while listening.”, and “I make wrong inferences due to partial understandings.” Based on our findings, we make several pedagogical suggestions for TOEIC teachers and test takers, including an explicit focus on phonological knowledge, paraphrasing skills, automaticity, established vocabulary lists, and extensive listening practice.
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