CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
F. Theoretical Bases
4. Listening Impediments
The researcher aims to find out the potential difficulties in listening and minimize the problems in order to increase listening comprehension rate by creating positive atmosphere. There are several problems which may appear during or before listening.23
23 Ahkam Hasan Assaf, “The Difficulties Encounter by EFL Learner in listening Comprehension as Perceived by ELC Students at Arab American University-Jenin” (Master Degree Thesis. An-Najah Nasional University, Nablus, Palestine, 2015), p.19.
a. The impediment related to students’ Belief of the Importance of Listening
An opinion or something that person holds to be true is called as belief. In term of studying listening skill, students may have many perspectives of belief of listening skill itself. Some can say listening skill do not need to be learn, other state it is really important to be learn. This belief might affect students’
attitude toward learning, motivation and their persistence. For instance, when a student believes that listening skill is not important to be learn, their motivation and persistence will be low and it will affect their score in the end their study. By having high motivation in studying, one can get high opportunity to master the subject of what they want to master.
b. The Impediment Related to Content of the Spoken Text
One’ background of knowledge plays a big role in students’
capability in comprehending the listening. Students that have familiar with lifestyle, culture belief, fact, ideas, in language community would have a big chance to succeed in comprehending the listening resource as they can catch the context being heard, while those students who did not familiar
with will have no idea to catch the point of what they heard.24 The more one has familiar with the life style, culture, fact, and ideas of the language that being learn, the better the result can be gotten. People are easier to understand what the other said in their own language is because they have been familiar with it and easy to predict what the other said to them even the sound is not really clear to be heard by the listener.
Regarding to the content of the spoken text, the spoken text may provide the unfamiliar word moreover if the text is in high level test of English proficiency. It also can contain the slang expression, jargon and even the idiom where not everyone usually uses those kind word.
c. The Impediment Related to Linguistic Feature of the Spoken Text
As stated by Ahkam, word recognition is an important factor that one should master as it is related to how the way the sound come to the one’s mind in listening process. Lack in recognition of the word can cause trouble in comprehending the listening source such as meaning mismatch. It can cause misunderstanding in real communication. In short, the main point that can problem in comprehending related to linguistic
24 Ahkam Hasan Assaf, “The Difficulties Encounter by EFL Learner in listening Comprehension as Perceived by ELC Students at Arab American University-Jenin” (Master Degree Thesis. An-Najah Nasional University, Nablus, Palestine, 2015), p.20.
factor are unfamiliar word, complex sentences and difficult of grammatical structure led to listening miscomprehension.25 All those matters can cause the impediments in inferring the meaning of spoken text.
d. The Impediment Related to Failure in Keeping Focus
Students’ motivation is one of the crucial factors that affect listening comprehension. It can be difficult for students maintaining the concentration in a foreign language learning classroom. In listening comprehension, even the smallest pause in attention may considerably spoil comprehension. When students find the topic of the listening text is interesting, comprehension would be easier.
Therefore, students find listening is very boring even if they are interested in the topic because it needs a huge amount of effort in order to not miss the meaning. Yagang claimed that the listening comprehension process is also a relatively complex psychological process.26 In psychology, it is stated that when a person feels nervous or anxious, he or she may not be concentrated.
25 Ibid.p.6.
26 Fan Yagang, “Listening: Problems and solutions”. English Community Journal, vol. 31,
no. 2, 1994, p.16-19.
e. The Impediment Related to the Listener
The learners as listener had their own problem that makes them fail in comprehending the listening resource. Foreign language learners have a big opportunity to miss the meaning of what they had heard compared to second language learners. It is happened because the foreign language learners lack of environment support. For instance, Malaysian students are easy to speak English because most of people in Malaysia speak in English, while Indonesian learners do not.
Akham stated that, students is not used to the English prosody and also does not realize the changes speakers make in their speaking rate and pitch to indicate important information.27 Therefore, students also do not realize the fact that it is not necessary to understand every single word to comprehend the listening sources.28 The fear of unable to get the point of listening sources makes students more focus on listening each word of the audio/listening source rather that understand the whole sentence. In addition, the feeling of physical body also takes effect on listener as it can cause uncomfortable feeling
27 Ahkam Hasan Assaf, “The Difficulties Encounter by EFL Learner in listening comprehension as perceived by ELC students at Arab American University-Jenin” (Master degree thesis. An-Najah Nasional University, Nablus, Palestine, 2015), p.26.
28 Hedge T, Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, no. 34, 2006, p.103-126.
such as feeling tired so that the process of listening comprehension may be dispersed.
f. The Impediment Related to Speaker
The impediments might return due to the speakers’
natural way of speaking. The best listening source for teaching listening or listening test should be from the native speakers itself as it is their own language. In listening, the students need to repeat the audio to understand what the speaker said or try to make it slow. It is similar with the statement of Miller, he stated that one of the top impediments found in his research is speed of delivery. It is happened because the foreign language learners need to process what is being said during listening, so if the rate of speaker is as fast as their normal speed, it is difficult to understand in first listening without repetition.
Besides, foreign language students find that hard to understand what the speaker is being said, moreover if the audio does not provide the visual appearance as they cannot see the speaker’ movement and also the facial expression. Brown said that the speaker’ body movement and stressed syllable are linked.29 Sometimes, one can predict what the speaker said by
29 Brown G, Dimensions of Difficulty in Listening Comprehension: A Guide for Teaching
of Second Language Listening, San Diego, CA: Dominiques Press, 1994.
seeing the speaker movement and little hint from word that is recognized by the listener.
g. The Impediment Related to Physical Setting
Based on the study conducted by Hamouda, stated that the majority of the students think the difficulties they encountered in listening comprehension were due to the bad recording quality/poor-quality tapes or disks.30 For example, the CD might be recorded while there were noises around or the cassette is used for such a long time so the quality was worn out.
Unclear sounds resulting from poor-quality equipment could also interfere with the listener’s comprehension.
Noise or distortion in the audio signal interferes with listening comprehension for listeners.31 Sometimes inconvenience of physical setting where one listen to listening sources affects students in listening comprehension. In the large classrooms students whom are sitting on the back rows may not hear the recording as students sit in front.
Students who prefer to stay next to the windows also affected by the noise that come from outside. As a teacher we
30 Arafat Hamouda, “An investigation of listening comprehension problems encountered by Saudi students in the EL listening classroom”, International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, vol.2, no.3, 2013, p.113-155.
31 Amber Bloomfield, Sarah C. Wayland, Elizabeth Rhoades, Allison Blodgett, Jared Linck
and Steven Ross, “What makes listening difficult: Factors affecting second language listening comprehension”. Maryland: University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, April 2010, p.54.
have to take into account all this conditions in a body. The temperature of class can be counted as a factor that makes listening comprehension difficult.