LISTENING DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS AT BASIC LISTENING CLASS

(2020), 3 (1): 57–61 LISTENING DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS AT BASIC LISTENING CLASS Yahmun1), Endang Sumarti2), Debby Setyowati3), 1)2)3) IKIP Budi Utomo Malang Abstract This study aimed at describing difficulties faced by students in learning Listening. This study involved seventeen female students and eight male students taking Basic Listening course in one of private university in Malang, East Java. To gain the data, the researcher interviewed the subjects one by one. The findings, then, classified into several classes by referring to previous studies discussing listening difficulties in English as Foreign Language (EFL) classes. The findings showed that there were four difficulties faced by the students. They were the speed and length of the spoken text, vocabulary, pronunciation, and accents. Based on the findings, then, the researchers made several suggestions for further researchers and other language teachers to consider this study in their practice. Keyword: EFL, listening skills, difficulties ©Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris FPISH IKIP BU Malang Introduction In the process of teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), listening becomes one of important skill that the students need to master. This is so because listening, as a receptive skill, provide students input of the language. By listening, students are expected to get language input before they produce the language in forms of spoken and written. Djiwandono (2008) says Listening is mainly related to the ability to understand the meaning of a form of language use that is expressed orally. In addition, listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt and Dakin, 1974). While according to Rost (1991) “Listening is an active process requiring participation on the part of the listener”. For example, when someone listens to a speaker, he/she processes the information mentally in order to construct an answer. During the listening process the listener is actively engaged. In learning a foreign language, it is important to listen to what is transmitted with a great deal of attention because this helps the listener to reproduce exactly, or almost exactly, what he/she hears. Therefore, listening is not an isolated skill; we listen in order to understand what has been heard. Listening is a complex problemsolving skill and it is more than just perception of the sounds. Listening includes comprehension of meaning words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and connected discourse oxford (1993: 206). Furthermore, Rivers (2006: 8) says that listening is a creative skill. It means we comprehend the sound falling on our ears, and take the raw material of words, arrangements of words, and the rise and fall the voice, and from this material we creative a significance. Russel in Hasyuni (2006:8) also say that listening skill is listening with comprehension, attention and appreciation. Then, listening activity. needs integrating skill of language, such as pronunciation, 57 Available online at: http://ejurnal.budiutomomalang.ac.id/index.php/journey (2020), 3 (1): 57–61 vocabulary. mastery, writing, speaking, and reading. Listening skill can be meant as ability to pay attention or to hear something. But, listening is not same as hearing. Hearing is essentially an automatic, passive activity. It is possible to hear sounds without consciously engaging in the process. While, in listening the brain doesn’t automatically translate the words into the message they are conveying. That is essentially what listening is determining the meaning and the message of the sounds or words. It is active process that involves much more than assigning labels to sounds or words. As mentioned in Mee (1990), listening is a complex process in which many things happen simultaneously inside the mind. Besides being complex, listening is far more difficult than many people can imagine. Moreover Nunan (2003:24) “Listening is an active, purposeful process of making sense of what we hear.” It means that, we should interpret the meaning from what we hear, therefore listening is an active skill. So, we can say that listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. It is also a complex activity, and we can help students comprehend what they hear by activating their prior knowledge. Listening is the active process because listening is not just matter of hearing, listening include many process. Listening is determining the meaning and the message of the sound. Listening is a great process of getting to know and interpret oral symbols (Russell & Russell in Tarigan, 2008: 30). Listening also means listening with understanding and attention and appreciation (Russell & Russel; Anderson in Tarigan, 2008: 30). In line with this understanding, listening also means something the process of listening to verbal symbols attentively, understanding, appreciation, and interpretation to obtain information, capture content or message, and understand the meaning of communication that has been conveyed by the speaker through spoken or spoken language (Tarigan, 2008: 31). Meanwhile Rost (1991) says that “Listening is an active process requiring participation on the part of the listener”. In addition Djiwandono ( 2008), says Listening is mainly related to the ability to understand the meaning of a form of language use that is expressed orally. From the definition above, we can say that listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. It is also a complex activity, and we can help students comprehend what they hear by activating their prior knowledge. Regarding the complexity process which take place during listening process, it is quite understandable that listening often viewed as difficult skill to be learned. This fact has been revealed by some studies; one of which was conducted by Darti and Asmawati (2017). The investigated the second semester of English Department students who took Listening class at one of state universities in Indonesia. Darti and Asmawati (2017) found out that there were three factor which make Listening difficult for the students. Those factors included listening materials which covered accents, pronunciation, length of speech, bad quality of the recorder. The next two factors were listener factors and physical setting. Further they explained that listener factors dealt with students’ insufficient vocabulary and lack of concentration during the class; meanwhile, physical factors referred to classroom setting. Other study discussing problem in Listening class was carried out by Gilakjani and Sobouri (2016). These two scholars discussed listening problems as it was stated by Binglol et.el (2014). Gilakjani and Sobouri (2016:127) summarized that there are five common problems faced by learners in the 58 Available onlin (...truncated)