A STUDY ON LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS OF TOEFL AT THE STATE ISLAMIC COLLEGE OF JURAI SIWO METRO. Nevertheless, most students have difficulty answering the questions of TOEFL, especially in the listening comprehension section. The type of question that has the greatest number of problems in the listening comprehension section of TOEFL was inferences and implied question.
The research paper is titled "A Study of Listening Comprehension Difficulties of TOEFL at State Islamic College (Stain) in Jurai Siwo Metro."
Background of the Study
Based on pre-survey data, the total subject search is 20 seventh semester students. Of the TOEFL test sections, namely Listening Comprehension, Structure & Written Expression and Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension, the frequency of the mean score and correct answer in Listening Comprehension was Structure & Written Expression was and Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension was. Amber Bloomfield asserts that some factors affecting listening comprehension are characteristic of the listener, characteristic of the passing and testing condition1.
Referring to the benefits of the study on listening comprehension problems of TOEFL, the present study focuses on the problems of listening comprehension of TOEFL at the eight semester of the State Islamic College of Jurai Siwo Metro.
Focus of The Study
Problem Limitation
Problem Formulation
The sentences "the president is interested in eliminating the emBARgo," with four stressed syllables, theoretically take about the same amount of time to express as "dead men wear plaid." Intonation patterns are also very important, not only to interpret elements such as questions, pronunciation and emphasis, but to understand more subtle messages such as sarcasm, affection, insult, invitation, praise, etc. Accent, pronunciation and colloquial expressions were the biggest obstacles in development of listening skills among students. The second primary period of TOEFL development shifted attention to the expansion of the TOEFL construct belonging to speaking and writing in the 1970s.
In the 1990s, the TOEFL program considered how to create a new TOEFL to better reflect communicative competence. There are three parts in the Listening Comprehension section, each contains a specific type of comprehension task. The examinee must choose the best answer to the interview question from the four options printed in the test book.
Students must choose the best answer from the choices in the test booklet. Questions are asked about the factual information presented in the passages, and examiners may also be asked to make inferences or identify analogies. The questions can be answered by reading and understanding the passages in all cases. The student must choose one of the four sentences that is closest in meaning to the one he heard in the textbook.
Most students of a foreign language are interested in the culture of the countries where the language they study is spoken. Inference and implied questions make information that is not directly stated in the text. It is about the students' TOEFL score of the listening comprehension section as a result of documentation and observation.
The test items in the listening comprehension section of the TOEFL are 50 and the number of main idea questions is 7 items. From the second instrument, the author found several pieces of information about the difficulties in the listening comprehension section of the TOEFL. The conclusion of this research is that inference and implicit questions are the most difficult questions in the listening comprehension section of the TOEFL.
Objectives and Benefits of the Study
Prior Research
THE LITERATURE REVIEW
The Problem of Listening Comprehension
Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)
- History of TOEFL
- Types of TOEFL
- Section of TOEFL
Listening Comprehension
- Concept of TOEFL listening comprehension
- Strategies for listening comprehension
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Type and Characteristics of the Research
- Data Resource
- Data Collecting Technique
- Data Analysis Technique
- Approach
Qualitative research is employed to analyze the students' error in TOEFL result, especially in listening comprehension section. The researcher chooses the students' . formal document it is the students' listening comprehension result of TOEFL from Language Center of State Islamic College of Jurai Siwo Metro. The interview will be conducted to collect the data about the students' . problems with listening comprehension.
The listening comprehension section of the TOEFL is a test to measure students' ability to understand spoken English. In the listening comprehension section of the TOEFL there are five types of questions that are included in 50 questions. Regarding the object of this research, the writer specified his main object about the students' TOEFL score of the listening comprehension section.
The total frequency of errors from the 7 items in the main idea question was 91 or 20% of all items in the TOEFL listening comprehension section. In total, the writer found 239 error frequencies from 20 students in detailed questions or 22% of all items in the listening comprehension section of the TOEFL. Students' errors in inferring an implied question account for 24% of all items in the TOEFL listening comprehension section.
The total errors of both questions are 28 or 22% of 50 TOEFL listening comprehension questions. From TOEFL listening skills question, namely main idea and comprehension core question, detail questions, inference and implicit questions, behavior and organization questions.
RESULT OF THE RESEARCH
Description of research setting
- STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro
- English Education Study Program
Keberadaan STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro tidak terlepas dari sejarah IAIN Raden Intan Bandar Lampung. Merujuk pada catatan yang dapat ditelusuri, keberadaan IAIN Raden Intan Bandar Lampung ternyata berawal dari upaya para elite dan tokoh agama yang tergabung dalam Yayasan Kesejahteraan Islam Lampung (YKIL) yang berdiri pada tahun 1961 di Tanjung Karang yang didirikan dan diketuai oleh Raden Mohammed Sayid. . Selain itu, atas persetujuan Dekan Fakultas Tarbiyah IAIN Raden Fatah Palembang di Tanjung Karang, Fakultas Tarbiyah di Metro diubah menjadi Kelas Jarak Jauh Fakultas Tarbiyah IAIN Raden Fatah Palembang di Tanjung Karang.
187/68, bernama "Ilmu Negeri Al Jami'ah Al Islamiah Al Humiah Raden Intan Lampung", serta menjadikan Fakultas Syari'ah dan Ushuludin milik negara di Tanjung Karang dan Fakultas Tarbiyah di Metro. Ketika setelah IAIN Raden Intan Lampung resmi dibuka, diputuskan untuk menjadikan Kelas Jarak Jauh Fakultas Tarbiyah Metro Lampung Tengah menjadi Fakultas Tarbiyah mandiri sebagai Fakultas Tarbiyah IAIN Raden Intan Lampung Metro dengan keputusan Menteri Bisnis Keagamaan No. . Tidak jauh dari perubahan nama dari IAIN Raden Intan Tanjung Karang menjadi IAIN Raden Intan Bandar Lampung terdapat surat edaran Dirjen Bimas Islam No.
Now STAIN (State Islamic College) of Jurai Siwo Metro became one of the higher education in metro. English Education Program (PBI) is one of the Strata 1 (S1) majors at Tarbiyah Faculty in State Islamic College (STAIN) Jurai Siwo Metro. Historically, S1 PBI STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro came from Diploma 3 (D3) English Education, which opened in 2002.
In the context of IPO (input, process, and output), the PBI main part of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro can be briefly described as follows. Thirdly, according to the output dimension (Graduate), every student studying in the English department of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro is expected to be professional in English.
General description of research data
The assessment for PBI students should always be holistic, so it includes three educational aspects namely: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Meanwhile, in order to increase academic quality, the English Department regularly develops a conducive academic atmosphere, so that there is a dynamic, open and polite relationship between the academy units. The number of main idea questions is 7 items, detail questions are 17 items, inference and implicit questions are 23 items, behavior questions are 2 items and 1 item for organization questions.
Description of data analysis
The total frequency of student errors in reasoning and implicit questions of 20 students is 354 out of 23 questions. Questions related to organizational questions are item number (40) How do male birds use songs?, 8 out of 20 students got this question type wrong, or 12% of the total TOEFL Listening Comprehension question. As a second instrument, open-ended questions were designed to identify the difficulties and obstacles students encounter while listening in the TOEFL listening section.
Generally, all respondents say that TOEFL is a test to measure students' English ability which consists of three sections which are listening comprehension section, structure and written expression and reading comprehension. Mostly, students assume that TOEFL is important because the score of TOEFL is necessary as a requirement to enter the college, get the job and scholarship and the requirement of graduation from STAIN Metro. The data presented elicited that most of the respondents believed that Speed of speech, unfamiliar topics, unfamiliar words and poor tape quality were the biggest problems that the participants always encountered during the listening process in the TOEFL listening comprehension section.
While colloquial language and notes were never considered a problem by the respondents during listening section of TOEFL. Most of the respondents try to solve the problems in the listening comprehension of TOEFL by enriching their vocabulary, making a good preparation, practicing continuously, listening to English songs, watching English movies and doing more exercises. The result of this analysis describes that there are actually some listening comprehension mistakes commonly made by students in the listening comprehension section of TOEFL.
Because as previously stated that the purpose of this research is to positively avoid the same difficulties and use the good strategy to answer the questions by analyzing the difficulties of listening comprehension in TOEFL. The frequency of listening comprehension difficulties in the main idea question is 20%, detail question is 22%, conclusion and implicit question is 24%, questioning behavior is 22% and organization question is 12%.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Conclusion
The discussion concluded that based on the TOEFL scores of 20 students of the eighth semester of the English Education Study Program of Jurai Siwo Metro State Islamic College, there are many problems. Meanwhile, there are four main obstacles in terms of material and test conditions. these are speed of speech, unfamiliar topics, unfamiliar words, and poor tape quality. Meanwhile, speech speed, unfamiliar topics, unfamiliar words, and poor tape quality clearly appear as problems arising from material characteristics and testing conditions.
Suggestion
The researcher should greatly improve his knowledge of TOEFL and errors to support his research. Douglas, H.Brown, Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (2nd Ed), 2001, Addison Wesley, New York. Jou yi-jiun.listening strategies used by students.2009.Cheng Shiu University Mathiesen J.Steven, Barron's Educational Series.Essential Words for TOEFL.
