An Analyisis Of Students’ Difficulties In Listening Comprehension

One of the key skills in the educational process of learning English is listening comprehension skill. Despite its significance in English learning, most students find it difficult to master when practicing listening comprehension. This research aims to analyze the difficulties that students most frequently encounter with listening comprehension particularly at class XI MIPA 2 SMA Swasta Pembda 1 Gunungsitoli in 2023/2024 academic year. The research approach used in this research was descriptive qualitative. 36 students of class XI MIPA 2 were chosen as samples using the cluster sampling technique. Questionnaires were used to gather the data. All students in the class received the questionnaire from the researcher. The research findings demonstrated that the listening material, the listener, and the physical setting were all related to the difficulties the students faced in comprehending what they were listening.


INTRODUCTION
Having a good listening is essential for comprehension input, claims Hamouda (2013).According to Pourhosein Gilakjani and Mohammadreza Ahmadi (2011) in Teo et al (2022), effective communication requires active listening.According to Tugrul Mart (2014), the ability to recognize another person using one's senses and auditory organs, as well as the capability to give the communication a meaning in order to understand it, are both components of listening comprehension.Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011) states that listening comprehension is the act of comprehending speech and focuses on the function of linguistic components including phonemes, words, and grammatical structures as well as the function of the listener's expectations, the situation and context, prior knowledge, and the subject.Meanwhile, Osada (2004) mentions that listening is not sufficiently valued on its own and is instead viewed as a passive talent that may be learned on one's own.Listening, which can be utilized in most aspects of daily life and grows more quickly than other language abilities, is the most crucial skill for language learning, according to Morley (2001) and Rost (2001).This suggests that it facilitates the development of other language skills.
In reality, many students still face difficulties in English listening comprehension.Let alone understanding English idioms or sentences, they frequently struggle to comprehend words.They still have weak listening skills in English, as evidenced by this research.
Students struggle to master listening comprehension in English for a variety of reasons, including: the listening material, the listener, and the physical environment.Additionally, dependencies on others, a sense of embarrassment when asking questions to the teacher, emotional disturbances, the teacher explaining the subject too fast, a lack of rewards and reinforcement, and lack of focus were other factors that contributed to students' difficulty in listening comprehension, among other factors.
These problems made it difficult for them to learn listening comprehension.Hence, students who were in listening comprehension class became reluctant to learn.Every student especially at class 11 MIPA 2 SMA Swasta Pembda 1 Gunungsitoli in 2023/2024 academic year in which the researcher did the research, needs to have a fundamental grasp of listening comprehension.
Based on the observed facts, the researcher felt accountable to analyze the difficulties the students have when acquiring listening comprehension.This circumstance led the researcher to carry out research under the title "AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS' DIFFICULTIES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSTION AT CLASS XI MIPA 2 OF SMA SWASTA PEMBDA 1 GUNUNGSITOLI IN 2023/2024 ACADEMIC YEAR" in order to learn more about the actual state of learning listening comprehension, which has been one of the main challenges for students in mastering English skills, particularly in English listening comprehension skill.

METHOD
The qualitative descriptive method was deployed in this research.According to Cresswell (2012), qualitative research is a technique for learning about and appreciating the significance that individuals or groups attach to a social or human issue.Additionally, qualitative inquirer, according to Ary (2010: 424), works with information that is offered through words or visuals as opposed to numbers and statistics.As a result, it is possible to define qualitative research as an inquiry into and comprehension of the relevant topics, with the presentation of the findings analysis in written or visual form.36 students of class XI MIPA 2 served as the respondents.Whereas the respondents provided information and assisted the researcher in providing a solution to the research issue, particularly the questions in this research about students' difficulties in imparting listening skills.This research methodology involves questionnaires as its instrument.

Analyzing data from questionnaires source
The students were provided with questionnaires.Ten questions were asked about the listening material in the first segment, another ten questions were asked regarding the listener in the second segment, and ten questions regarding the speaker and the physical settingnin the third segment.These three segments were utilized to respond to research question.

A. Students' Difficulties in Line with Listening Material
The researcher used the table of students' respond on questions regarding listening material From the table above, it can be inferred that the majority of students encountered a number of difficulties with the listening material during listening comprehension.Structure complexity is the first difficulty.The majority of students struggled with the structure since they believed it to be hard to be mastered.They had difficulty in understanding it because of the complex structures.
They also had difficulty in understanding every word of the speech that came to them.The majority of students had difficulty in listening since it was difficult for them to comprehend every single word of coming discourse.It implies that they are not proficient in vocabulary.As a result, they were unable to understand what was being said as they listened to the speaker.They could not pause to consider a new word because doing so would cause them to miss the words that followed.In addition, the audio was only played twice.
The third difficulty is figuring out what long spoken texts signify.The majority of the students had difficulty deciphering lengthy spoken texts.They could not have been able to infer the meaning because of their restricted vocabulary.When they listen to lengthy spoken text that they do not comprehend, they tend to be less excited and occasionally fall asleep.
The fourth difficulty is unfamiliar words.Many students had difficulty in understanding what the speaker was saying because the topic is new to them.Because the words are unrecognized to them, they found it difficult.Therefore, it is crucial for students to read a lot in order to gain extensive knowledge.
From the research finding above, there were a number of difficulties that students had with the listening material.It includes the difficulty in understanding grammatical structures, new vocabulary, and topics that were unknown.The students dealt with difficulties in understanding listening material because of unfamiliar words, complex structures, idioms, and unfamiliar topics.Additionally, Hasan (2000) noted that unfamiliar words long complex texts and difficult grammatical structures were the difficulties that students face in listening comprehension related to the listening material.

B. Student's Difficulties in Line with Listener
In the second segment, the students were given questionnaire about the difficulty they had when trying to listen to the speaker.It is shown as the table below: From the above table, the students encountered a number of listening comprehension difficulties that were directly tied to them as listeners.Fear or anxiety is the first difficulty.Before listening to the recording, the majority of students experience nervousness.They will become distracted and unable to fully listen the audio when they experience anxiety.Because of this, the teacher must make the classroom interesting and encourage students to unwind and feel at ease.The second difficulty is figuring out the meaning of words that the students had no clue about.Because they simply keep listening when they encounter unfamiliar words, most students are unable to deduce the meaning of the words.Given that the audio was played only twice, it is crucial for the students to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar terms.The teacher should give regular listening drills so they are trained in listening new words.
Inability to focus is the third difficulty.The majority of students responded that they had difficulty focusing on listening comprehension.There may have been noises nearby that caused this issue.The noises might originate from the classroom's interior or exterior.The students will not be able to respond to the questions if they did not pay close attention while listening.The school must have particular room or English lab to accommodate the need of students to be able to focus well.
The pronunciation issue ranks as the fourth difficulty.The majority of speakers pronounce words differently.They might pronounce it differently due of their accents or dialects.The students must therefore practice listening to a variety of accents and dialects.
Recalling the words is the fifth difficulty.Many students struggle with listening comprehension because they have difficulty in remembering words.Therefore, it indicates that they immediately forgot what they had just heard.Meanwhile, recalling is crucial in listening comprehension.The reason for this is that the audio only played twice, therefore the students must be able to recall what the speaker just stated.The students should go through listening drills by themselves or the teacher should give more listening materials in the class.
From the research finding above, associated with the listening material, the students had difficulties with themselves as listeners.It suggests that the difficulties were also caused by their own listening comprehension issues.According to Asmawati (2017), a listener's limited proficiency in the English contributes to their difficulty understanding what is being said.The listener factor revealed that there were a number of listening difficulties that students experienced.They struggled from anxiety, to infer the meaning and to recall words, unclear pronunciation, unable to focus, and sleepiness

C. Students' difficulties in line with the speaker and physical setting
The students were questioned about their issues with listening comprehension in relation to the speaker and physical environment in the final segment.The following table shows the outcome From the table above, the students encountered some difficulties with listening comprehension due to the speaker and physical setting.The first difficulty is that the students have a tough time listening to the audio because of the poor quality of the tapes or disks.It was due to the fact that low-quality recordings or disks would produce muddled noises, which would prevent the students from understanding because they could not hear it clearly.Therefore, the teacher must give careful consideration to the tapes' or disks' quality.
The second difficulty is poor equipment.The teacher must be aware of the tools utilized throughout the listening learning process in addition to the quality of tapes and disks.Some equipment like sound system, headphones, a microphone, and others are needed to be well-functioned.If any of those tools were to malfunction, the students would find it difficult to comprehend what the speaker had to say.
The lack of pauses is the third difficulty.Due to the speaker's lack of pauses, the majority of students are unable to discern the meaning of the words.The speaker does not pause at all, therefore the students are unable to understand what is being said.Students must pay close attention to the speaker as a result.
The audio cannot be repeated other than two times and this became the fourth difficulty.The students still needed more audio plays in order to grasp meaning better from the spoken text.More listening drills will assist them before comprehending what is being said with just one or two times listening.
Noise is the fifth difficulty.Students who were learning to listen were seriously bothered by noises.It was due to how intensely focused listening is.However, if there were noises, the students would not be able to focus and would not be able to pay close attention.To prevent outside disturbances from disturbing the students in listening, the classroom for listening must be soundproof.
Various English accents is the sixth difficulty.Because they could not understand the speaker's accent, the majority of students had difficulty in listening comprehension.The students used to listen to speakers with American accents, therefore when they spoke with a British accents, they found it difficult to understand.
The final difficulty is speed of delivery.It refers to the speaker who speaks too quickly.There were no breaks between the speaker's sentences.It made difficult for the students to understand what was being said.Additionally, the audio only played twice, making it harder for the students.
From the findings above, the physical setting is the final difficulty that the students faced in listening comprehension."The physical setting is an external factor which influences the students on hearing the tape recorder in the class," according to Tersta and Novianti (2016: 35).Based on the findings, there were issues with the physical setting which are sounds, various dialects, lack of pauses, low quality of equipment, poor tape and disk quality, and speed of delivery.This is engaged with Rosa's (2012) statement that student's difficulties with listening comprehension are mostly caused by poor pronunciation.

CONCLUSION
The data and discussion above led to the classification of the students' listening comprehension difficulties into three categories.They are listening material, the listener, and the physical setting.The difficulties vary for each category.Complex grammatical structures, the difficulty of grasping every word of incoming speech, the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of long spoken texts, unfamiliar topics, and new vocabularies were the listening comprehension difficulties that students encountered with the listening material.Students' difficulty with the listener included anxiety, difficulty of deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words, unclear pronunciation, difficulty in recalling words, inability to focus, and sleepiness.The students also encountered issues with the physical setting, such as low quality of tapes or disks,

5.
If it is not possible for repeated audio play it, do you find it difficult?89 11 6.
If Do you find it difficult to understand someone who speaks too quickly?90 10 inadequate equipment, and lack of pauses, noises, variety of accents, and speed of delivery.
The researcher suggests that students should regularly practice and enrich their vocabulary.Students can learn by watching western (English-based) movies or listening to English songs, among other things.They could also select other accents by doing that.To improve students' interest in studying listening, the teacher should, secondly, develop a successful technique for teaching listening comprehension.Additionally, the teacher needs to be able to set a relaxed and enjoyable environment in the classroom.Finally, given that this research has already discussed the students' difficulties in listening comprehension, the researcher advises the following researchers to do research on other alternative issues.

Table 1 :
Students' Difficulties in Line with Listening Material

Table 2 :
Student's Difficulties in Line with Listener When you look for answer and listen to the dialogue at the same time, do you unable to pay attention?87 13

Table 3 :
Students' difficulties in line with the speaker and physical setting unreliable audio equipment produces ambiguous sounds, does it impede your ability to understand what you are listening?