Students’ Perceptions of Note-taking as a Listening Comprehension Strategy: A Mixed-methods Study of Vietnamese EFL Majors

Note-taking is widely regarded as a critical strategy for supporting second-language listening comprehension, yet little is known about how Vietnamese English-major students themselves perceive its value and difficulty. This article investigated the perceptions of 150 third-year English majors at the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City (IUH) regarding the benefits and challenges of note-taking during English listening tasks. A mixed-methods design that combined a structured questionnaire with semi-structured interviews with 5 students was used thoroughly. Descriptive statistics showed that note-taking is a near-universal habit (83% of students reported taking notes “always” or “often”), predominantly practised with pen and paper (62%) rather than digital devices. Students overwhelmingly perceived note-taking as beneficial for comprehension, memory retention, information organisation, inferencing, test performance and sustained attention with agreement rates ranging from 84% to 93% across the measured benefits. At the same time, a substantial minority reported difficulties related to fast speech rate, unfamiliar vocabulary, divided attention and messy handwriting, particularly regarding missing subsequent information (29% agreement) and message overload at high speech rates (31% agreement). Interview data illuminated the cognitive and strategic mechanisms behind these patterns including code-switching, selective attention to discourse markers and compensatory strategies such as momentarily abandoning notes to preserve comprehension. The findings are interpreted through established learning theories, and practical implications for explicit note-taking instruction in EFL listening classrooms are discussed.