i

LISTENING CHALLENGES FACED BY EFL STUDENTS IN

ACADEMIC LISTENING CLASSES

THESIS

Submitted in partial fulfillment

of the Requirements for the degree of

Sarjana Pendidikan

Putri Nur Ani

112014067

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS

UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA

SALATIGA

2018

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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in

any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any

university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this contains no material

previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is

made in the text.

Copyright @2018: Putri Nur Ani and Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali, M.Hum.

All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means

without the prior written permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the

English Language Education Program of Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana

Salatiga.

Putri Nur Ani

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE ......................................................................................................... i

APPROVAL PAGE ................................................................................................ ii

PERNYATAAN TIDAK PLAGIAT ..................................................................... iii

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ................................................................................ iv

PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN AKSES ......................................................... iv

PUBLICATION AGREEMENT ........................................................................... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... vii

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. ix

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................ 1

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1

REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................................................. 3

Definition of Academic Listening ....................................................................... 3

Challenges in Academic Listening ..................................................................... 4

THE STUDY ....................................................................................................... 8

Method ................................................................................................................ 8

The Context of the Study .................................................................................... 9

The Research Participants ................................................................................... 9

Data Collection Instruments .............................................................................. 10

Data Collection Procedures ............................................................................... 11

Data Analysis Procedures ................................................................................. 12

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................................... 12

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Listening Challenges Faced by the Participants ............................................... 13

Speed of Speech ................................................................................................ 14

Unfamiliar Words.............................................................................................. 15

Unclear Sounds Resulting from Poor Equipment. ............................................ 16

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 18

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. 21

REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 22

APPENDIX ....................................................................................................... 25

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. A Sample of Statements on the Questionnaire……………………10

Table 2. Analyzed Challenges Faced by Students in Academic Listening

Classes…………………………………………………………………......13

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LISTENING CHALLENGES FACED BY EFL STUDENTS IN

ACADEMIC LISTENING CLASSES

Abstract

The aims of this study were to find out the listening challenges in

Academic Listening Classes. The participants of the study were 50 students in

Academic Listening Classes, at English Language Education Program,

Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (ED-UKSW) academic year 2016/2017. The

data were collected through students' questionnaire and interview. More

specifically, the students responded to a statement asking their perspectives

towards the listening challenges. In the interview process, the researcher asked 10

participants to provide further clarification of the questionnaire responses. The

findings provided some evidence that the speed of speech, unfamiliar words, and

unclear sounds resulting from poor equipment were the primary listening

challenges perceived by the students. Besides, the overall results of the study

would like to suggest the solutions related to the listening challenges encountered

by students. The findings suggest that taking notes, vocabularies collection and a

lot of practice are the solutions to overcome the challenges in Academic Listening

Classes. Eventually, it is hoped that this study helps ED-UKSW students and EFL

students in related contexts to develop their learning strategies during listening

processes, so they can overcome their listening challenges in other similar

listening classes. Finally, the study proposed practical recommendations for EFL

teachers and researchers to deal with the challenges in Academic Listening

classes.

Keywords: academic listening class, challenges in academic listening, listening

ability.

INTRODUCTION

Listening is a language skill which plays an essential role in second

language teaching (Nunan, 1993, as cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011). When

people speak means they will also listen, thus the process transmissions of

information will occur in this step. However, it does not mean that listening is

easy to be mastered. The most important thing to keep in mind though is that

listening is, indeed, a process, and one that requires effort.

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Dealing with those issues, Ulum (2015) stated that listening is the weakest

skill of English as foreign language (EFL) students who encounter different kinds

of listening challenges. EFL listening skill is regarded as a problematic language

skill especially in a foreign language context where real practice chances are

narrow (Nowrouzi, Tam, Zareian, & Nimehchisalem, 2014). As a result, listening

comprehension has been regarded as one of the most challenging skills for most

students to learn (Chen, 2013).

Students at English Language Education Program, Universitas Kristen

Satya Wacana (ED-UKSW) also experience some challenges in their listening.

Therefore, they could not pass their Academic Listening classes successfully.

Considering the importance of mastering the listening skill and difficulties that

students have, this study aims to find out challenges specifically in the Academic

Listening classes at ED-UKSW and to answer the research question:

- What are listening challenges encountered by students in Academic

Listening classes?

This study was expected to find listening challenges that influence

students’ ability in listening processes. Therefore, to enhance students’ listening

ability they need to consider sufficient listening ability for their second language

(English) communication skills to advance. It is hoped that this study helps them

to be able to develop their learning strategies during listening processes so that

they can overcome their listening challenges in Academic Listening Classes. In

addition, the findings of the study will be a guide for EFL teachers to find

solutions to help students solve the challenges in listening.

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This section provides a review of the literature relevant to the research

objectives. This includes a brief overview of the definition of Academic Listening

and listening challenges faced by EFL students.

Definition of Academic Listening

Academic Listening is a situation when students have to listen and talk in

various academic cases. For example, students need to be able to understand the

content of a lecture at the speed it is delivered (British Council, 2017).

Presentations also require good listening skills where students are expected to

understand and build on the contributions of others. Other events include tutorials,

discussions, seminars, meetings with tutors and supervisors, group projects, and

informal social interactions.

Academic Listening is also an indispensable necessity for English for

Academic Purposes (EAP) students in English-medium universities (Rahimirat &

Moini, 2015). Therefore, the students need to apply the highest level of listening

skills they have. Rather than only listening to the professors expounding abstract

and sophisticated concepts in the classroom, they have also be effective in taking

notes. It will help them in learning the topics covered in the lecture (British

Council, 2017).

In this research, Academic Listening refers to a course that guides students

to be able to master listening skills for academic purposes. The course enables

learners to recognize the speech signals that a competent listener uses to

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understand the speaker’s meaning (Brown, 2012). The course aims to give

extensive practice in listening to talks and lectures in English. Also, it is used to

develop the ability to recognize and understand specific language features that

commonly occur in spoken academic English as well as focus on the main points

in a talk (Carrell, 2004).

Challenges in Academic Listening

Listening, in general, is a challenging language skill for many learners in

which they usually face frustration (Arnold & Goh, 2000, as cited in Alshaikhi, &

Madini, 2016). Moreover, learning Academic Listening at university can be a

challenge for many students. Students may find it hard to cope with the speed of

lecturers, dealing with technical vocabulary, or being able to concentrate on the

lecture for long periods of time (Rahimirad & Moini, 2015). Also, Academic

lectures have become the most widely used method of instruction at many

universities, workshops, and conferences (Huang & Finn, 2009).

In essence, Flower Dew and Miller (1996) classified the challenges in

listening into external and internal factors. One of the external factors is quality of

recorded materials. In some cases, recorded materials are not in high quality

(Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, & Tugrul Mart, 2014). The second challenges are

length and speed of listening. They stated that the level of students could have a

significant role when they listen to long recording parts. After they listen to the

recording, students will keep all information in their mind. Therefore, short

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listening passages are recommended for learners for it reduces their tiredness

(Underwood, 1989, as cited in Gilakjani, 2016).

According to Habte-Gabr (2006), internal factors are divided into learners’

anxiety, background knowledge, language proficiency or their ways of processing

listening. Moreover, unfamiliar vocabulary also influenced students’ listening

ability especially in Academic context. In Academic context of listening, such in a

TOEFL and IELTS test learners have to be aware in facing a long spoken text,

unfamiliar vocabularies, the speed of speech, and accents (Rahimirad & Moini,

2015). The vocabularies used in Academic Listening will be different with some

other general listening clasess. In Academic Listening the topics and contents are

more in academic way.

Previous studies have explored challenges that students have when dealing

with Academic Listening classes. Azmi Bingol, Celik, Yidliz, and Tugrul Mart

(2014) in their study at Kasdi Merbah University in Ouargla found that there were

a lot of difficulties that learners encountered in the listening processes. Their

findings found that the challenges were quality of recorded materials, length and

speed of listening, learners’ cultural differences, accent, and unfamiliar

vocabulary. To deal with the challenges, the researchers suggested the students to

use metacognitive strategies more often. Metacognitive strategies are applied

when the listener plans, monitors and evaluates the listening process (Goh, 2000).

Regarding listening, this means a student is aware of their problems in listening

and the ability to manage and act on these challenges using specific and targeted

strategies (Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari, 2006). For example, if a

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student does not know much about a topic, they might do some reading before the

lecture which aids the listening and learning process. The findings showed that

metacognitive awareness had a positive relationship with the learners’ listening

performance.

In Iran, challenges in listening faced by EFL students were also of concern

for many researchers. A study was done by Mohseny and Raeisi’s (2009, as cited

in Kaseem, 2015) about the relationship between language proficiency of Iranian

EFL learners and their listening strategy used to face the listening challenges. The

findings showed that results indicated that the learners experienced moderate to

high levels of difficulty in all three categories of listening challenges, namely

perception, parsing, and utilization. The findings are expected to have useful

implications for syllabus designers and teachers who intend to address the

listening challenges of EFL learners.

This is supported by Bidabadi and Yamat (2011, as cited in Ahmadian &

Hosseini, 2012) in their study about the relationship between listening strategies

used by 92 Iranian EFL students and their listening proficiency. The result from

Bidabadi and Yamat found that most learners used the metacognitive approach

more often, followed by cognitive and socio-affective strategy to solve their

problem in listening.

In Saudi Arabia, Hamouda (2015) attempted to investigate the listening

challenges encountered by a group of first-year English major students of Qassim

University. 60 students who took the listening course were selected for the study.

The data was gathered through questionnaires and interviews. The results of the

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study showed that accent, pronunciation, speed of speech, insufficient vocabulary,

different accent of speakers, lack of concentration, anxiety, and uncompromising

quality of recording were the major listening challenges encountered by EFL

Saudi learners. To deal with the challenges, the researchers suggested the students

address their problems. Then, the teachers’ role was to help their students to

overcome their listening comprehension problems.

Ulum in 2015 carried out a study of 50 EFL students from three different

classes in Hakkari, Turkey. The study aimed to find out EFL students’ listening

comprehension challenges in Hakkari, Turkey. The data was gathered by

questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study showed some problematic

issues that EFL students found it difficult to understand the listening text when

speakers speak with varied and unfamiliar accents.

Another study by Chen (2013), focused on students’ perceived listening

challenges over time as they develop their listening strategies in the context of a

Taiwanese technological college. The participants were 31 Taiwanese

college students. The data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively to

examine changes in EFL listening challenges encountered by students. It is also

used to know how students dealt with these listening challenges as they developed

their strategy use over time. The result of his study showed that the challenges

were related to the three major significant differences in students’ perceived

listening challenges after the strategy instruction: which are unfamiliar

vocabulary, rapid speech rate and linking sounds between words.

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To sum up, the following may be said about the past studies discussed in

this part. The studies were carried out to identify the challenges faced in listening

classes. They stated that the challenges came internally from the students such as

learners’ anxiety, background knowledge, language proficiency and lack of

concentration. The challenges also came externally from the listening

environment, such as pronunciation, the speed of speech, insufficient vocabulary,

different accent of speakers, and bad quality of the recording.

THE STUDY

Method

The study is aimed to points out listening comprehension challenges faced

by ED-UKSW students. To achieve the purpose of the study, I approached the

study qualitatively. There are three characteristics of the qualitative approach.

Firstly, observational research (or field research) is a correlational (i.e., non-

experimental) research in which a researcher observes ongoing behavior (Marshall

& Rossman, 2006 as cited in Harrel & Bradley, 2009). This characteristic

encouraged the researcher to go to the research site to observe behavior in its

natural setting and have face-to-face interaction over time to see the challenges

faced by Academic Listening students during the learning processes. Secondly,

the multiple sources of data characteristic were used to collect the various data.

Internet was used to gather various forms of data, such as interviews,

observations, and documents, rather than relying on a single data source

(LeCompte & Schensul, 1999, as cited in Zohrabi, 2013). In this research, the

researcher used questionnaire and interview to collect the data about challenges in

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Academic Listening classes. Thirdly, the study focused on the participants’

perspectives. In this characteristic, the researcher focused on participants’

meanings, and their subjective views (Hatch, 2002, as cited in Creswell, 2017) so

the researcher would not constrain the interviewee’s answer in the interview

section.

The Context of the Study

The setting of the study was at English Language Education Program

Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (ED-UKSW) in Salatiga, Central Java,

Indonesia. More specifically the study was carried out in Academic Listening

classes in this faculty. The reason why the researcher selected the context was the

accessibility ease to meet the participants.

The Research Participants

The participants were 50 students in ED-UKSW from batch 2016 who

have taken Academic Listening in 2017. They were chosen based on purposive

sampling. The participants were chosen by looking at the purpose, meaning and

meets of specific criteria and ideas (Zacharias, 2011). For this study, purposive

sampling was used for deciding the participants because they had taken Academic

Listening class in one semester, so they have experienced learning in those

classes. Therefore, they were expected to tell the challenges they face in

Academic Listening classes.

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Data Collection Instruments

In order to obtain the data from the students, the researcher used a close-

ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The advantages of using

close-ended questionnaires are its efficiency, it eased the researcher in analyzing

the data (Brown, 2001). The data obtained through questionnaire and interview

was used to get information about the difficulties and challenges in Academic

Listening. To design the questionnaire, a present study referred to the

questionnaire adapted from Ismail (2014) and Hamouda (2013) about challenges

that influence listening comprehension was used.

The questionnaire consisted of one section by looking at the challenges

that appeared in the literature review part. The section deals with listening

challenges which students encounter in Academic Listening Classes. The

questionnaire consisted of five perceptions; listening material (3 items), linguistic

aspects (2 items), lack of concentration (2 items), problems related to the speaker

(4 items), problems related to the listener and physical setting (4 items).

Table 1 A Sample of Statements on the Questionnaire

Item Statements SA D A SD

1. I find it difficult to understand the spoken texts in

which there are too many unfamiliar words.

2. I find it difficult to understand the spoken texts

because of their complex grammatical structures.

3. I find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a long

spoken text.

4. I find the pronunciation familiar but I cannot

recognize the words.

5. I find it difficult to guess the meaning of an

unknown word while listening.

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To support the questionnaire data, the researcher conducted a semi-

structured interview to clarify the interviewee’s answers and asked how the

students deal with their listening challenges. In this research, the semi-structured

interview was used because it gave flexibility for the researcher to add follow-up

questions which come immediately during the interview. This form of interview

was neither too rigid nor too open. It was a moderate form in which a great

amount of data can be elicited from the interviewee (Patton & Burns 1999, as

cited in Zohrabi, 2013).

Data Collection Procedures

The researcher had done these steps to collect the research data. Before

distributing the questionnaires, the researcher firstly met the students and asked

for their time to fill in the questionnaire. Secondly, the researcher explained the

purpose of the study and gave the questionnaire to the students. Thirdly, the

students were given time to fill in the questionnaire. Fourthly, the students were

asked to return the questionnaires. After that, all of the data were analyzed by the

researcher.

For the interviews, first, the interviewees were briefed on the aims and

procedures of the interview sessions. To reduce their fear of exposing their honest

views and to ensure better and valid results, the interviewees were informed that

their answers were treated with complete confidentiality (Al-Tamimi, 2009). To

record the interviewees, an MP4 and a notebook were used to record all of the

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information. While listening to the interviewees, the researcher also did note

taking to collect important points of the interview's result.

Data Analysis Procedures

These are the steps of questionnaires’ data analysis done by the researcher.

First, the researcher read all the answers. Then, the total score from the

questionnaire was presented in the table. After that, for answers which were not

fully described, the researcher asked the participants to give further clarifications.

For the interviews, the researcher initially listened to the recorded

interviews, transcribed them, and then coded them based on similar answers. The

similar answers were collected into separate groups and named based on the

existing theories of students’ challenges in Academic Listening classes. The last

step, the researcher analyzed the data, linked them to the results of the previous

studies and wrote them into paragraphs.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This section presents the findings of the study to answer this research

question What are listening challenges encountered by students in Academic

Listening classes? To provide a reliable discussion, I supported the research

results from the questionnaire data with excerpts of students’ responses in the

interview. For the purpose of the study, I translated all the excerpts into English.

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Listening Challenges Faced by the Participants

From the results of the analysis, the present study reveals fifty cited

responses about the challenges faced by students in Academic Listening Classes.

The main themes concerning the challenges in Academic Listening were: listening

material, linguistic aspects, lack of concentration, problems related to the speaker,

and problems related to the listener. Table 2 depicts the categories.

Table 2 Analyzed Challenges Faced by Students in Academic Listening

Classes

No Statements SD D A SA Listening

Problems

1 Unfamiliar words 6% 12% 58% 4%

Listening

problems

related to the

content of the

listening skill

2 Complex grammatical

structures

12% 48% 38% 2%

3 A long spoken text 2% 62% 28% 8%

4 Guess the meaning of an

unknown word

2% 34% 56% 8%

Listening

problems

related to the

linguistic

features

5 Find the pronunciation familiar

but cannot recognize the words

8% 40% 46% 6%

6 The recording is of a poor

quality

10% 10% 30% 50%

Listening

problems

caused by

failure to

concentrate

7 Think about the meaning of

new words

8% 46% 34% 12%

8 Predict words that would come

next

0% 46% 42% 6%

Problems

related to

the listener

9 Difficult to recognize the words

because of the way they are

pronounced

8% 38% 48% 6%

10 Quickly remember words or

phrases have just heard

4% 48% 42% 6%

11 Listening without transcripts 4% 60% 26% 10%

12 The speakers speak too fast 2% 12% 64% 22%

Problems

related to the

speaker

13 The unclear sounds resulting

from poor equipment

4% 10% 54% 32%

14 Noisy classroom 6% 18% 38% 38%

15 The speakers speak with a

variety of accents

4% 28% 60% 8%

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The following discussion presents primary challenges that students usually

face in Academic Listening classes. The data in Table 2 indicate that students had

three primary Academic Listening challenges. They were speed of speech,

unfamiliar words, and unclear sounds resulting from poor equipment.

Speed of Speech

As displayed in Table 2, the speed of speech is the most frequent category

cited from the questionnaire result by the students as 64% agree and 22% strongly

agree. In brief, the speed of speech deals with the speaker speaking too fast in

giving the information during the listening processes. In that case, the majority of

the students admitted that the speed of speech affected their listening skill in

Academic Listening classes:

Excerpt 1 “When I listen to a recording when the speaker speaks faster than normal I felt it

difficult to recognize the words. It was because I didn’t know what they were

speaking about. Therefore, it’s hard to take notes while listening”

(S23/interview/translated by the researcher)

These findings are consistent with the results of Gilakjani and Ahmadi

(2011) in their study at Kasdi Merbah University in Ouargla. They found that

speed of speech is another reason that makes listening text difficult. Hamouda

(2013) in his study showed that the speed of speech is one of the other major

listening challenges encountered by EFL Saudi learners. Also, Azmi Bingol,

Celik, Yidliz, and Tugrul Mart (2014) in their research in Iranian students found

that when speakers speak faster than normal the listener may have difficulties to

catch the main idea of the listening task.

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To deal with the challenges, there are possible strategies to implement. As

Hamouda (2013) said in his study "Effective note-taking requires that you record

information quickly. To do this, good note taker does not write down every word

or try to take note in proper sentences; instead, they write only keywords and

phrases. Also, good note taker uses shorthand when they take note”. Moreover, in

listening comprehension, speech rate cannot be overlooked. However, the

decision to use what materials is important to the whole concept of listening

comprehension. Besides that, natural speech made improvement in listening

comprehension, it does not mean slow speech rate should be excluded (Hayati,

2010). Slow speech rate may be used as a short path practice for comprehending

natural speech rate.

Unfamiliar Words

This category would seem to indicate that most of the internal factors

come from the listeners. In this study, the unfamiliar words were related to the

sentence meaning that uses English vocabulary. Therefore, most students thought

that meaning resides within the unfamiliar words, so they need to know a huge

amount of vocabulary. According to Table 2, 58% of the students struggled with

unfamiliar words in listening. This category covers such written responses as:

Excerpt 2 “I had a problem with unfamiliar words. It bothered me if I didn’t know the

meaning of the words. Moreover, those words always appeared during the listening

process” (S34/interview/translated by the researcher)

Excerpt 3 “In Academic Listening class, my lecture asked me to listen to the recording of

journal text. I found some difficulties, especially in the vocabularies. There were

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some academic vocabularies and I did not know the meanings. So, I felt like a little

bit in trouble” (S37/interview/translated by the researcher)

Excerpt 4

“There were some academic words appeared in TOEFL test and I didn’t know the

meaning. So I just skip and continue listening to the other part”

(S18/interview/translated by the researcher)

The students did not deny that unfamiliar words might trouble their

listening ability. This finding accords with Hung’s (1998) argumentation that

listening passages with known words are easier for learners to understand, even if

the theme is unknown to them. Moreover, the result from the previous study by

Chen (2013) showed that unfamiliar vocabulary was one of the challenges faced

by Taiwanese college students. On facing a new word, students tend to find out

the meaning rather than infer it from the context (Hasan, 2000). Moreover, in

TOEFL practice there were academic words appeared during the listening process.

Therefore, some students decided to skip the difficult part and continue listen to

the other parts.

To deal with the challenges, the previous study suggested the students

address their challenges (Hamouda, 2013). Students need to evaluate the listening

process (Goh, 2008). Thus, the solution to this problem is to ask the students to

practice as much as they can on these various materials

Unclear Sounds Resulting from Poor Equipment.

Another source of listening challenges stated by the students is unclear

sounds resulting from poor equipment. The findings revealed that 54% students

found themselves having a problem with poor equipment:

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Excerpt 5 “Yes, I had a problem related to the speaker, especially, if the recording was of

poor quality. I couldn't understand what the speaker was talking about”

(S23/interview/translated by the researcher)

In addition, unclear sound resulting from poor quality equipment can also

interfere with the listener’s comprehension. Some students admitted that the

setting the speaker took of the recording influenced the quality of the recording. It

is also followed by the quality of tapes during the listening processes.

Excerpt 6 “Sometimes the sound of the recording was not clear. Also, the setting places of

the recording influenced my listening skill too. I often found some recording

recorded in a crowded area. It made me difficult to listen to the speaker clearly”

(S14/interview/translated by the researcher)

Excerpt 7 “I found that in some TOEFL test the recordings were played differently than

usual. I think there was something wrong with the tape. It made me hard to catch

the ideas. It’s also supported by the quality of the recording itself”

(S12/interview/translated by the researcher)

Hamouda (2013) in his study of a group of first year major English

students in Qassim University found that most of the students agreed that bad

quality of the recording was the major listening challenges encountered by EFL

Saudi learners. In line with his study, my results of the study on ED-UKSW

students showed that unclear sounds resulting from poor equipment takes the

biggest role in influencing students’ listening ability. Sometimes inconvenience of

classrooms affects students in the listening process (Chen, 2013).

To deal with the challenges, in listening activities, it is the best place for

students to do the listening in the laboratory room. This finding accords with

Hamouda’s (2013) argumentation that somehow it will bring out the better result

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for the noises outside cannot get through the lab room. Furthermore, a good

cassette recorder or a CD player may give better recording rather than the old one.

Therefore, the teachers do not only give the good material for the students but also

can use the best place in listening (Goh, 2000). Thus, the students can listen well

to the material in a good condition and best place so that it can support their

listening.

CONCLUSION

In light of the findings, this study attempts to explore students’ listening

challenges in Academic Listening Classes at ED-UKSW. In essence, the findings

would seem to indicate that speed of speech, unfamiliar vocabularies, and unclear

sounds resulting from poor equipment were the primary challenges affecting the

students’ listening ability in Academic Listening classes.

This study would like to offer several recommendations to overcome the

listening challenges in Academic Listening classes. The challenges were also

caused from the listening material and physical settings. From the students itself,

they found the difficulties, such as lack of vocabulary and the inability to guess

what the speaker was going to say. Dealing with those challenge students can

guess and understand the meaning of the material in listening tasks if they know

the key words of the material. Also, the students have to know the needs in

listening that can help them improve their listening skill (Mohseny & Raeisi,

2009, as cited in Kaseem, 2015). Therefore, listening activities should be arranged

from basic to more complex as the learners advance in English language.

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For teachers or lecturers, they should take care of their students when they

seem demotivated. They should encourage their students to find creative ways to

make the listening process enjoyable and fun, so the students will be more excited

about listening. The university and faculty of English Department should add

more facilities and good equipment for listening purposes too. The purpose is to

make students enjoy their listening processes and gives benefits for the

improvement of their listening skill.

Besides that, the students find difficulties on the listening material, such as

the unfamiliar vocabulary, the accent, the speed of speech, poor equipment, etc.

These problems can be overcome by using listening skills. Therefore, to acquire

acceptable listening skills, students themselves should have much more exposure

to varieties of listening. Also, they should learn the tips or strategies through

personal learning themselves. This review of literature indicated the factors that

caused some serious problems for learners’ listening comprehension. It also

offered some useful suggestions for teachers and students to improve their

listening ability. It is hoped that the findings of this study could contribute to the

improvement of teaching and learning in Academic Listening Classes.

The study is only limited for Academic Listening classes. However, the

results of the study are not really specific to Academic Listening classes. The

participants addressed challenges that similar with some other general listening

such as speed of speech, unfamiliar vocabularies and unclear sounds resulting

from poor equipment. Meanwhile, Academic Listening is more academic than

other listening classes. Also, the vocabulary and the content of the Academic

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Listening are different with other listening classes. It can be seen from TOEFL

and IELTS’s practice in Academic Listening classes. The vocabulary and the

content of the listening will be more in academic way.

Thus, for further research, future studies can follow-up the present study by

investigating some challenges that students usually faced in Academic Listening

Classes. Future studies also can find the specific challenges in Academic

Listening classes compare to different listening classes.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I want to express my gratefulness to Allah SWT for always

giving me strength and answering my prayers. I could not go this far without His

endless blessing. I could not thank my parents enough, Suisman and Daru Prapti,

also my siblings, Erni and Ficha for the unconditional love, care, and

encouragement since the beginning of my college life until now.

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Mr.

Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali, M. Hum for your support, guidance, patience, and

kindness over this time. Also, to my thesis examiner, Mrs. Anne Indrayanti

Timotius, M.Ed., thank you for your support and your time to evaluate my thesis.

To my beloved lecturer, Mr. D.Toar Yusak G.Sumakul, M.A., and Mr. Joseph

Ernest Mambu, Ph.D., thank you for the opportunity given to me in distributing

my questionnaires in your classes. Special thanks to my beloved participants that I

could not mention one by one, thank you for helping me share some experiences

together.

To my dear friends and my personal support, Vira Cahya, Novia

Australiane, Erlin, Henny, John, Marcel, Sandy Bastari, Inneke Elvira, Septin,

Defi, Afnie, Benedicta Maria and all of my friends that I could not mention one

by one. I would like to say thank you very much for sharing experiences, making

beautiful memories, also struggling together to finally reach the happy ending of

our college life.

22

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25

APPENDIX

Dear Respondents,

My name is Putri Nur Ani. Recently, I am studying for my Undergraduate

Program in Satya Wacana Christian University. As a part of my study, I am

conducting a research on “Listening Problems Faced by EFL Students in

Academic Listening Class.” Accordingly, in this opportunity, I would like to ask

your assistance by answering the questions in this questionnaire. I use those

questions in order to obtain information concerning your English-listening

problems in Academic Listening class that you took in the last semester.

It is not a test, so there are no right or wrong answers in this questionnaire.

Besides, your answers will not affect your grade in Academic Listening class.

Therefore, you are free to respond to how you really feel. If you have further

questions dealing with this research, you may contact me at this following phone

number;

085601656965 (WA) / LINE: Putriani557

I thank you very much for your help and participation in this research.

Please fill the information below, if you are willing to participate further in the

research as the interviewee.

Name :_____________________________________

NIM :_____________________________________

Phone number (WA/Line) :_____________________________________

26

Put a thick () in the appropriate box. Use the scale indicated below:

1= Strongly Disagree (SD)

2= Disagree (D)

3= Agree (A)

4= Strongly Agree (SA)

Item Statements SD D A SA

1. I find it difficult to understand the spoken texts

in which there are too many unfamiliar words.

2. I find it difficult to understand the spoken texts

because of their complex grammatical structures.

3. I find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a

long spoken text.

4. I find the pronunciation familiar but I cannot

recognize the words.

5. I find it difficult to guess the meaning of an

unknown word while listening.

6. I loose my concentration if the recording is in a

poor quality.

7. I loose my concentration when I think about the

meaning of new words.

8. I find it difficult to predict words that would

come next when listening to the spoken texts.

9. I find it difficult to quickly remember

words or phrases I have just heard.

10. I find it difficult when listening to English

without transcripts.

11. I find it difficult to recognize the words I

know because of the way they are

pronounced.

12. I find it difficult to understand the spoken texts

when the speakers speak too fast.

13. I find it difficult to understand the spoken texts

when the speakers speak with a variety of

accents.

14. It is difficult for me to concentrate in a noisy

classroom.

15. I find difficult to understand the spoken texts

because of the unclear sounds resulting from

poor equipment.

27

1. Dari semua masalah dan kesulitan yang kamu hadapi di kelas Academic

Listening, menurutmu manakah yang paling sulit?

2. Masalah dan kesulitan apa yang paling sering kamu temui?

3. Bisakah kamu memberikan contoh di setiap masalah yang kamu temui?

4. Bagaimana caramu untuk mengatasi masalah dan kesulitan mu di kelas

Academic Listening?

Participant number 14

B: “Dari semua masalah dan kesulitan yang kamu hadapi di kelas Academic

Listening, menurutmu manakah yang paling sulit?

A: “Aku piker yang susah itu adalah kosa kata yang tidak aku mengerti.

Contohnya jika dosen memutar rekamannya aku sering tidak tau apa

maksudnya. Ini karena aku tidak mengerti banyak kosakata yang aku temui

saat mendengarkan di kelas Academic Listening. Ada banyak sekali kosakata

yang tidak kumengerti jadinya aku kesusahan mendapatkan maksud dari

pembicaranya”

B: “Lalu bagaimana kamu mengatasinya?”

A: “Kalau menurutku dosen itu harus sering ngomong pake Bahasa Inggris jadi

aku bisa belajar kosakata yang benar dari beliau. Juga banyak banyak latihan

biar koleksi kosakatanya bertambah”

B: “Jadi menurutmu masalah yang tersulit itu kosakata yang kurang familier,

begitu ya?”

A: “iya kak”

B: “Lalu bagaimana jika rekamannya itu terlalu panjang?”

A: “kalau aku itu pastinya susah buatku. Aku harus membayangkan dan menebak

apa topic dari rekamannya. Dan itu bisa membuatku cepet lupa dan kesusahan

jika rekamannya terlalu panjang”

B: “kamu nebak kosakatanya gimana dek?”

A: “Aku lihat kosakata yang menurutku itu familier kalau enggak ya lihat konteks

dari rekamannya.”

B: “Oke. Selain itu ada masalah lagi ga?”

A: “ada, kadang tu aku sering kehilangan konsentrasi kalau rekamannya itu ga

jelas. Maksud aku itu adalah suara rekamannya. Mungkin itu karena tempat

dimana orang itu sedang rekaman itu juga berpengaruh untuk konsentrasiku.

Apalagi kalau pas rekaman di tempat rame misal kantin kan itu rame banget.

Belum lagi kalau suaranya kemresek gitu.”

B: “Oke, lalu apakah kamu punya masalah dengan konsentrasi jika berfikir

tentang arti kosakata baru yang kamu temui?”

A: “Iya kak, contohnya ya kalau rekamannya si pembicara lagi mbahas nomor

atau angka dari nomer telepon atau alamat atau terkadang kosakata yang sama

sekali aku baru ngerti itu membuatku bingung”

B: “lalu bagaimana cara kamu mengatasinya?”

A: "terkadang dosen akan memutarkan rekamannya dua kali. Putaran pertama aku

focus sama kosakata yang aku ketahui dulu. Lalu pada putaran yang kedua

28

aku mastiin buat mengisi bagian yang belum aku ketahui. Kalau aku belum

dapet idenya aku memutuskan buat skip aja lanjutin dengerin lagi."

B: “Apakah kamu menemukan kesulitan ketika mengingat kosakata yang barusan

kamu dengarkan?.”

A: “Ya”

B: “Apakah kamu punya solusinya?”

A: “Aku tidak harus mengingat semua kosakata yang muncul, kalau aku lebih ke

pemahaman inti poinnya dari rekamannya tersebut.”

B: “Kalau pembicarannya ngomong cepet banget gimana?”

A: “Pastinya susah. Gak semua mahasiswa mudeng apa yang sedang mereka

bicarakan, apalagi kosakatanya itu akademis.”

B: “Apa kamu solusi untuk mengatasi masalah ini?”

A: “Aku pikir taking notes.”

B: “Ada yang lain?”

A: “Aku pikir untuk mendengarkan banyak rekaman, mungkin bisa cari di

internet."

Participant number 34

B: “Apa yang menjadi kesulitanmu di kelas Academic Listening?”

A: “Accent, unfamiliar words, lecture, and bad recording."

B: “Menurutmu Accent mana yang paling sulit?”

A: “British lebih sulit daripada American accents.”

B: “Bagaimana kamu mengatasinya?”

A: "Banyak banyak latihan. Banyak mendengarkan recording sih kak”

B: "kamu punya masalah gak terhadap listening itu sendiri?"

A: “Punya kak apalagi terkait kosakata yang tidak aku mengerti, kadang tu aku ga

ngerti artinya jadinya aku malah menebak nebak itu artinya apa.”

B: “jadi kamu gak nerjemahin satu satu gitu ya?"

A: “iya kak. Ga perlu. Aku cukup pahami aja”

B: “Oke, kamu tadi kan bilang kalau punya masalah dengan Okay, you said if you

bad recording, bisa gak cerita dikit tentant itu?"

A: “Aku merasa kalau bad recording mengganggu banget pas proses listeningnya,

gabisa focus pokoknya. Apalagi pas kosakata yang aku ga ngerti banyak

muncul itu jadi kaya kesulitan tersendiri bagi aku. Lalu juga kalau speakernya

itu ngomongnya terlalu cepet jadi aku susah untuk menangkap idenya. Aku

sering juga tiba tiba lupa sampe mana aku mendengarkannya apalagi kalau

kelasnya berisik bakalan susah banget.”

B: “Kamu ada solusinya gak buat mengatasi semua masalahmu itu?”

A: “Kalau dari aku yang penting itu banyak latihan sih kak. Mencoba buat belajar

kosakata biar punya kosakata yang banyak. Mencoba juga buat menebak

kosakata dari konteks listeningnya. Terus menurutku dosen juga perlu

membantu mahasiswanya di kelas dengan banyak bicara pake Bahasa Inggri

sesering mungkin karena dikelas aku sering mendapati beliau sering memakai

Bahasa Indonesia”