Students’ perceptions on their listening comprehension difficulties in EFL classrooms: An Ecuadorian case

Abstract

This research titled “Students’ perceptions on their listening comprehension difficulties in EFL classrooms: An Ecuadorian case”, has as its purpose to investigate the learners’ listening comprehension difficulties in the EFL classroom. This research took place in Quito- Ecuador, in two catholic private high schools. The sample population was taken from five different senior courses of second Bachillerato. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to carried out this research. To gather the data, a survey containing 18 questions regarding to students’ listening perception was applied to 125 students. From the sample, fifteen students were taken to answer an interview and five teachers were asked to complete a survey. The data collected was organized and tabulated to be represented in charts for later analysis. As a result of this research, it can be concluded that students have greater difficulty to listen to recorded audios rather than to the teacher reading aloud. This finding reveals that learners face this issue because of the lack of practice with different speaking styles which proves that being exposed to the same rate, accent and voice does not allow to fully comprehend a listening passage.