The Students’ Problems in Listening Comprehension

Introduction

Listening is one of skills in language and it is the key to all effective communication.
Moreover, it is very important for people because listening is the first way to communicated
with others. According to Morley (1991: 82), "We can expect to listen twice as much as we
speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write." In addition,
listening is not only about what is being said by the speaker but also to understand and get the
message from the speaker said. Moreover, listening plays an important role in communication
as it is said that, of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%,
speaking 25-30%, reading 11-16%, and writing about 9% (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011).
Besides that, Therefore, to become a good listener, there are some principles which needed in
listening comprehension generally, those are: stop talking, prepare self to listen, help the
speaker to feel free to speak, be focus what is being said, try to understand the other person’s
point of view, be patient, avoid personal prejudice, listen to the tone, listen for ideas – Not
Just Words, and listen with eyes not only with ears. Those are the points that are needed in
listening. In this case, the students have to know those general principles in listening
comprehension. Furthermore, many students still have problems in listening comprehension
that have to be given more attention. Thus, most of students find difficulties in listening than
the other skills of language.

Discussion

Listening is one of language skill that used in English. Listening, as Howatt and
Dakin (1974) define, is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying.
Listening word by word or listening detail as the students think is very important to get the
main idea. In listening comprehension, a good listener will not hear all the words in listening
task. They just skip any part of it and focus on the information that they need to answer the
questions. In contrast, based on the research most of students show that they listen word by
word. Therefore, most of students are still difficult to understand the listening text. Listening
difficulties are defined as the internal and external characteristic that might interrupt text
understanding and real-life processing problems directly to cognitive procedures that take
place at various stages of listening comprehension (Goh, 2000). The reasons why they find
problems in listening is also the important things to be given more attention. There are some
evidences that show why listening is difficult comes from three sources that become reasons
for the students, those are from the listeners, from the listening material, and from the
physical setting.

First source is from the listeners’ itself (the students). For this source, the students still
find problems from their self such as students cannot obtain any main points and limitation of
vocabulary. From these problems, one of problems the students always find is difficult to
obtain any main points. Most students find it difficult to listen to any main points or message
than to read the same message written in their textbook. If students cannot obtain any main
points, failure will be an inevitable result. The research shows that most of students cannot
recognize the main points in listening because they just concentrate too much on listening to
word by word. Thus, they cannot identify the key words of the listening tasks. Therefore, if
the students cannot control the speed of listening, it becomes a problem, whereas, they can
take their time with reading, stopping and going back over message at will. The next problem
is limitation of vocabulary that students always find too. In listening activities, the students
always are trouble to comprehend what the speaker is talking about. According to Hasan,
2000, on facing a new word, they tend to find out the meaning rather than infer it from the
context. It is difficult for the students to differentiate the function of English vocabulary or
words in a sentence such as subject, predicate, object, complement, etc. In addition, the
students find difficulties in the pronunciation or spelling of words. They do not know the
sentence meaning that uses English vocabulary. Therefore, most of students thought that
meaning resides within the unfamiliar words so they need to know a huge amount of
vocabulary. The other problem students have is cannot make prediction what the speaker is
going to say. The research shows that In fact, the prediction brings about a number of
advantages to students in their listening comprehension. According to Hasan (2000), the
problem is believed to cause by the habit of listening to word by word. They do not focus on
any particular cues which help them predict what is going to be talked about. However, in
every listening task, cues are provided indirectly that well-trained or experienced listener
could recognize it naturally. For instance, the title of the task can help learners to guess the
points coming next. In addition, prediction can be made by photos, maps, charts or anything
that provided in the listening.

Second source is from listening material and it contains some problems the students
always face. The first problem is unfamiliar topics. The listening material usually contains
the varieties of topic about life or society. For instance, it is likely a business report, a daily
conversation or a political issue which confuse the students. These conversations may include
words, phrases or terms unfamiliar for students. Thus, it is such a hard job to listen when the
message is full of terminology. The second problem is kinds of accents. This problem is
always experienced by the students if they do not have knowledge about the kinds of accents.
For instance, if learners listen to French people speaking English, they will feel hard to
understand him or her as they speak English in a native French intonation. Yagang (1994)
assert that the listeners have tendency to get familiar with the accents which they mostly
listen. In a modern textbook, students have to not only deal with a variety of British,
American and Australian accents, but may also have knowledge about Indian or French
thrown in. Thus, the students will be difficult to get the main point of the material if they are
used to listen to standard British or American accent. Therefore, it is important for students to
know variety of accents.

Besides that, for the third problem that is always experienced by students is the
authentic material. This problem causes a great difficulty to students because the materials
are designed for teaching and listening purposes. In addition, if students listen to an informal
conversation, it is for sure that it is much harder than listening to a formal conversation used
mostly in English classroom. Therefore, the language in these materials has been simplified
and it is also contained less colloquial English. Furthermore, the fourth problem is length and
speed of the listening. The level of students play a great role when listening long parts and
keeping all the information in the mind. It is not easy for the lower level student to listen
more than three minutes long listening then completing the desired activities. Short listening
texts facilitate listening comprehension and diminish boredom, keep learners concentration
alive (Atkins et al: 1995). If the text contains a lot of information, it is not easy to store
everything in mind, exceptional listening ability and strategy required to understand (Carroll:
1977). Actually, if the students do the listening for a long time, they will be under pressure.
This will not bring out the good result. Furthermore, if the listening text is too long, the
students is required the skill of note-taking. However, the note-taking is not easy for students.
Most of students find it hard to take note while listening for they are not trained with this
skill. Therefore, long listening becomes a problem for the students without any skill to solve
it. Another reason makes listening text difficult is the speed. If the speakers speak faster than
normal, the listener may have difficulties to catch target words and get the main idea of the
listening task. Thus, it is important for the students to get what the speaker is talking about
although the speaker is faster.
 Furthermore, the last problem is linking words. It becomes the most common
obstruction for the students in listen the material. They are used to hear each separate by unit
in a sentence. In addition, they get used to the written words that organized in a textbook.
Therefore, they misunderstand the linking words so they have no idea about the meaning
delivered.

Not only from two sources above, but also come from the environment surrounding of
the students. The environment surrounding of the students or the physical setting is the third
source. It contains some problems that are always experienced by students. The first problem
is noise and it becomes the important problem that is always faced of the students. Noise is
another environmental barrier to comprehension. Interior as well as exterior class noise is an
obstacle to comprehension. Noise, including both background noises on the recording and
environmental noises, can take the listeners’ mind off the content of the listening passage. If
the listening task is carried out with noises around of the students, it is for sure that they will
not have a good result in listening. For instance, they are distracted by the noise no matter
how hard they try to focus on the task. Otherwise, the noise makes a complex of sounds
instead of the solo recording being played. Besides that, the second problem is the poor
quality of the tapes or disks. The majority of the students think the difficulties they encounter
in listening comprehension are due to the bad recording quality or poor-quality tapes or disks.
For example, the cassette may be recorded while there are noises around them or the cassette
is used for a long time so the quality is bad. In addition, unclear sound resulting from poor-
quality equipment can also interfere with the listener’s comprehension. Furthermore, the third
problem from physical setting is the poor equipment. The equipment is needed by the
students, but it can become an obstacle to students in listening. Thus, the students face the
problems from three sources and it will not become problems anymore if the students can
solve these problems.

These problems cannot be avoided by the students, because it can be one of the ways
to improve listening. Students will always face the problems in listening if they do not try to
solve their problems. Surely, it is difficult to expect the students to learn to listen better when
they are exposed to many problems. The teacher’s responsibility is to find way to encourage
their students to tackle the listening tasks with positive anticipation. Therefore, there are
some ways to solve these problems that face by the students.
 In listening, there are some problems that have been explained before. Not all the
problems described above can be overcome. Certain features of the message and the speaker,
for instance, are inevitable. But this does not mean that the teacher can do nothing about
them. S/he can at least provide the students with suitable listening materials, background and
linguistic knowledge, enabling skills, pleasant classroom conditions, and useful exercises to
help them discover effective listening strategies. Here are a few helpful ideas to overcome
these problems.

The first problem is difficult to obtain any main points. For this problem, there is way
to solve this. For instance, there are clues suggested by Berman (2000) to identify the main
points in listening. Discourse marker is considered to be the bridge that leads to the points. It
is such a natural thing that the speakers often signal the main points with discourse markers.
Different markers with particular expressions keep listeners catch up to the turning points of
the task. Marker of addition (in addition, moreover, furthermore, etc.) announces a
modification or an addition to an idea while marker of cause and sequence (because, due to
the fact that, as a result, consequently) informs us the reason and the result of a fact or an
action. Furthermore, repetition is supposed to be the signal of main points. When a word or
phrase is repeated for several times, possibly it covers the important points. Besides that, the
students have to study hard about how to identify the main points of listening task.

The second problem is limitation of vocabulary. It is always faced by most of the

students. Therefore, students can overcome this problem by using strategy to use the clues
which are the words or phrases coming after the unknown words. Nevertheless, students have
to make sure that they do not spend much time on guessing the unfamiliar word or they will
miss the speaker’s next point. In addition, the speakers may use synonyms, antonyms or
appositives to explain the words. Besides that, the students need motivation to learn
vocabulary. Moreover, English words are different from Indonesian words. It can be seen
from their spelling and pronunciation. The students’ motivation in learning new words can be
seen from their effort, such as the willingness to bring dictionary and making the list of new
vocabulary that can help the students to memorize them. Therefore, the students can
overcome their problems if they have motivation to learn and improve their listening.

The third problem is cannot make prediction about what the speaker is going to say.
This problem can be overcome by making prediction or guess the main point from what the
speaker is going to say. The students have to focus on the cues or the key words that will help
them to predict what is going to be talked about. Besides that, making questions relating to
the listening topic would keep students motivated and improve their comprehension. There
would be no worry if these questions do not match the next points in the listening task.
Creating predictions questions, as Berman (2003) thought, would maintain the students’
focus on their tasks. Furthermore, the answers to these prepared questions in the pre-listening
stage could be the actual main ideas of the listening task. In this way, prediction question is
such a useful way for comprehension improvement. The fourth problem is unfamiliar topics
in listening material. Based on the research the students always face this problem. Thus, the
solution for this problem is to ask the students to practice as much as they can on these
various materials.

The fifth problem is kinds of accents. Most of students just know two kinds of
accents, namely British and American accents but they cannot differentiate them. Munro and
Derwing (1998) claimed that too many genres of accented speech would result in a
significant reduction in comprehension. In addition, Fan (1993) pointed out that usually
ESL/EFL listeners are used to “their teacher’s accent or to the standard variety of British or
American English”. In this case the teachers has to familiarize the students both British and
American accent. To solve this problem, make students aware of different native-speaker
accents. Of course, strong regional accents are not suitable for training in listening, but in
spontaneous conversation native speakers do have certain accents. Therefore, it is necessary
to let students deal with different accents, especially in extensive listening. The sixth problem
is authentic material. This is one of problems in listening to the material. Heron and Seavy
(1991) highlight the importance of authentic material for their great improvement in listening
comprehension since authentic material related closely to the lives and language variety.
Besides that, grade listening materials according to the students’ level, and provide authentic
materials rather than idealized, filtered samples. It is true that natural speech is hard to grade
and it is difficult for students to identify the different voices and cope with frequent overlaps.
Nevertheless, the materials should progress step by step from semi-authenticity that displays
most of the linguistic features of natural speech to total authenticity, because the final aim is
to understand natural speech in real life. In addition, the students can solve this problem by
listening exercise because it is most effective to improve their comprehension.

The seventh problem is length and speed of the listening. The students can overcome
it by using skill. One of skill is note-taking and it seems to be the most useful way when
students have to face a long task in listening. This will help students to remember the main
points or the precise information. The question here is that how students can write down what
they hear as quickly as they could so that they will not miss the other ideas. It is supposed
that students should write down the main point. Besides that, they should develop their own
characters or symbols. This is believed to be the most efficient way when students face with a
long listening task. As Berman (2003) says “Effective note-taking requires that you records
information quickly. To do this, good note taker do not write down every word or try to take
note in neat sentences; instead they write only key words and phrases. In addition, good note
taker use shorthand when they take note. In other words, they use symbols to represent words
or ideas. Here are some of the symbols: > (more than), w/ (with), < (less than), w/o
(without), = (equal to), b/c (because), # (different), K (thousand), / (per/ out of), @ (each or
at), ♀ (Female), ♂ (male).

The eighth problem is linking words. Commonly, the students are difficult to get the
main idea or main points of the material because they are lack of linking words. Thus, they
do not understand what the content of the material is about. Therefore, the students have to
recognize well the words and have to more practice in listening the linking words. Besides
that, the solution is doing vocabulary pre-teaching before each listening as a short term
solution and working on the skill of guessing vocabulary from context can help.
Nevertheless, the students can practice this with words that can actually be guessed from
context (a weakness of many textbooks) and that they work on that with reading texts for a
while to build up to the much more difficult skill of guessing the meaning of linking words
and listening at the same time. The other solution is simply to build up their vocabulary and
teach them how they can do the same in their own time with vocabulary lists, linking words,
etc.

The last problem is from the physical setting. It contains three problems that come
from students’ surrounding. Sometimes inconvenience of classrooms affects students
listening comprehension. It is the external problems that will make students are difficult to
listen to the material. For instance, in listening comprehension, it is the best place for students
to do the listening in the laboratory room. This somehow will bring out the better result for
the noises outside cannot get through the lab room. Furthermore, a good cassette recorder or a
CD player may give them the better rather than that of the old one. Therefore, the teachers
not only give the good material for the students but also can use the best place in listening.
Thus, the students can listen well to the material with the good situation and best place so that
it can support in listening.
 Therefore, in teaching listening for the students, the teacher just not give the material
and the solution to solve the students’ problem, but also give a good instruction and
explanation before listening to the material. Besides that, the teacher cannot just teach
without preparing any method, strategy, and approach that could be helping in learning
process. Learning process that has been planned will get the good result. Moreover, the
teachers have to guide the students in listening. As we know, student is just a kid that still
needs a help in doing anything. However, the teacher has to help students to improve their
listening comprehension by giving explanation about the students’ need in listening. Thus,
the students have to know what they should need in listening. Here are some points that need
in listening.

First, students need to determine what they are hearing. In listening, before the
students can make interpretation of what they are hearing, the students will need to determine
what they are hearing. It does because the reason someone is speaking affects what their
listeners will need to do with it. In other words, the type of speech determines what listening
skill they will need to engage. It can help them to guess and recognize the main points in
listening.

Second, students need to understand what they are hearing. In listening, the students
have to understand what they are hearing. In the other hand, the students know why they are
listening. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean they need to process every word from the speaker
sends their way. Trying to understand and remember every word in sequence is more than
short term memory can handle. When students understand and remember half of the ideas, it
means their comprehension increases. In the other hand, the teacher has to encourage students
to focus on phrases, patterns of speech, and ideas. The students should avoid the habit to
translate every word which they hear into their native language but they should try to
understand the ideas or the main points instead of the words. In this case, the students

Third, students need to guess what is coming next. As we know, listening

comprehension not only knows and understand what the speaker means. Nevertheless, it is
important for the students to predict what information will be coming next. The students have
determined what type of speech they are hearing and decided what its purpose is. When they
always try to make predictions, they will be better able to understand and guess the next
words or sentences. Therefore, when students have an idea of what is coming, it means that
they well understand what the speaker is talking about and they will not find the problems in
listening.

Fourth, students need to remember what they already know about the subject at hand.
Learning is about making connections. Every student will understand and retain information
better when they link it to something they already know. In addition, teacher has to help the
students what they already know before or during listening practice will make their listening
exercise better than before. Therefore, teacher can get their students thinking about today’s
subject before the listening exercise with discussion questions. Thus, as they are listening,
they should also think about what they already know. It also can make them easier to answer
the questions in listening. That means as they are listening they should also be thinking about
what they already know.

Finally, students need to decide what the speaker means. In listening, understanding
words and ideas are essential to determine meaning, but it is not only the important pieces of
the puzzle. Sometimes, meaning goes deeper than the words that are said because the
speaker’s meaning is implied. For instance, someone might say, “Is it hot in here?” the
speaker could just want an answer to his question, but if you are sitting next to the window,
he or she might mean for you to open the window. Thus, the students need to determine the
intended meaning of the speakers with whom they speak. Furthermore, sometimes the
meaning is literal, so the students can use their own words. Nevertheless, they also have to be
able to decipher an intended meaning of the words they hear and understand. Therefore, the
students have to decide what the speaker means.

Based on the students’ need above, the teacher and students will begin to see that
listening is not a passive activity. Listening is an activity that includes comprehension,
prediction, recall, and analysis. In addition, students’ needs are important for them because it
will help them to improve their ability in listening. Moreover, the students will not find any
problems if they can apply these needs. Thus, it would be better if the students capable to
overcome their problems in listening comprehension.

Therefore, the students have to know their problems then looking for the solutions to
solve them. In addition, the students also have to know the skill in listening or what is needed
in listening, such as guess what is coming next. This is one of needs that students should
know. Besides that, they can improve their skill by doing practice in their free time and apply
the important needs in listening.
Conclusion

In short, listening is vital not only in language learning but also in daily
communication. In addition, listening comprehension seems to be the weakest skill and
students encounter various kinds of listening problems. Furthermore, the students are not
same in listening class, but they have different ability and skill. Nevertheless, there are any
problems that students always find in listening. Most of them find the difficulties in listening.
Here are the most common problems collected from the learners: the time they spend on
studying themselves is too little to improve the skill, the inappropriate strategies of learner
would be a hindrance for their listening comprehension. The problems are also caused from
the listening material and physical settings. From the students itself, they always find the
difficulties, such as lack of vocabulary and they cannot guess what the speaker is going to
say. Those are the important things in listening. Both of them have the correlation to improve
listening. If the students are lack of vocabulary, so they cannot guess what the speaker is
talking about. The students can guess and understand the meaning of the material in listening
if they know the key words of the material. Besides that, the students cannot recognize the
main points in listening. Therefore, the students need motivation to learn vocabulary and
always practice listening. Moreover, the students have to provide background knowledge and
linguistic knowledge, such as complex sentence structures and colloquial words and
expressions, as needed. In addition, the teacher should bridge the gap between input and
students’ response and between the teacher’s feedback and students’ reaction. It can help
students develop confidence in their ability to deal with listening problems. Thus, the teacher
can help students to develop the skill of listening with anticipation, listening for specific
information, listening for gist, interpretation and inference, listening for intended meaning,
for attitude, etc., by providing varied tasks and exercises at different levels with different
focuses. Besides that, the students find difficulties on the material in listening, such as the
unfamiliar topic, the accent, authentic material, linking words, etc. These problems can be
overcome by using skill in listening. In addition, the students have to know the needs in
listening that can help them to improve their listening comprehension. Therefore, to acquire
an acceptable listening skill, students themselves should have much more exposure to variety
of listening. Simultaneously, they should learn the tips or strategies through each of their
learning themselves. Teachers play an important role in teaching learners strategies and how
to apply them into the listening task.
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