DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF FOURTH SEMESTER STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS IN ACADEMIC YEARS 2020/2021

Abstract

Listening comprehension is essential in the learning process, especially for EFL students. However, the students still tend to have problems in listening comprehension that hinder their learning performance. Additionally, the students in the recent semester are studying from home with different situations and equipment than in the listening class. Furthermore, this research pointed to identify the fourth-semester students' listening comprehension problems and the factor causing them in the academic year 2020/2021. This research used the descriptive qualitative method. The participant selected using purposive sampling. The participants are fourth-semester students consist of six students. The researcher collected data from questionnaires and interviews. The data were about the students' problem in listening comprehension and the factor causing it. Based on the result of this study, the students had four major problems in learning listening. The primary problem is unfamiliar words that the students encountered which slowed the students to think about the meaning of those words and missed the next part of the speech. They are also troubled with their memory because they may easily forget about the word that they just listened mainly in long- spoken text. The other problem is related to the rate of delivery, where the students are hard to keep up with the speaker if it is too fast. A variety of accents also troubled the students to understand the spoken text because they are not used to another accent than American. The main reason why the students have these problems are because of their lack of practice outside the listening class that makes them lack vocabulary, anxiety, and nervousness while doing the listening task that makes that hard to think and lose focus. Lastly poor-quality recording and noisy surrounding that disturb their listening concentration.