“Your English Is Too Cheem!”: Singaporean Student Listening Difficulties and Tackling Strategies

Abstract

This article reports on a small-scale study of Singaporean school students’ listening problems in oral English communication situations and their strategies for tackling the problems. Data were elicited from 10 students’ diaries. Analysis of the data located six problems, which included fast speech rate, poor communication ability of the interlocutor, accent and pronunciation, communication anxiety, vocabulary, and topic familiarity/background knowledge. The students reported strategies for tackling five of the six problems. The results gave some evidence in support of the observation that, although English is taught and learned as the first language in Singaporean schools, some students still have difficulties in understanding English. The article ends with some pedagogical implications.