iarjelIARJELIARJEL2708-5120https://doi.org/10.47310/iajel.2021.v02i02.001The Importance of Vocabulary Preparation in Part 4 of IELTS Listening TestsThanh-TuDuongIn ELF learning and teaching, students’ hindrances in listening skills have been investigated and reported as a key factor to hinder students from listening comprehension. This study, therefore, uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches aimed to determine the relationship between vocabulary size and listening comprehension as well as their confidence when learning vocabulary before completing the part 4 of IELTS listening tests. In particular, the research was conducted with the participation of eighty-nine third-year students who were asked to complete a 10-question vocabulary test along with a 10-question listening test based on the IELTS Listening Test (part 4) before finishing a questionnaire to point out their hindrances during the listening test. At the end of the process, nine students were invited to participate in an interview in order to figure out their confidence in learning vocabulary prior to the listening test. The results suggest that the participants failed to recognize many of the sounds in the listening test while the fast speech rate caused them to miss the latter parts of the test. Meanwhile, although students also feel more confident when being taught vocabulary before listening, students should have long enough preparation time to show the significant difference. Finally, although some discrepancies can be seen in the results of the vocabulary test, there was no difference in the listening result.