2.1.

3 Problems in Listening Comprehension

Underwood (1989) states seven causes of problems to efficient listening

comprehension. First, listeners cannot control the speed of delivery. He says,'' Many English

language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension is that the

listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks'' (Underwood, 1989 as cited in Gilakjani

& Ahmadi, 2011, p. 981). Second, listeners cannot always have words repeated. This is a

serious problem in learning situations. In the classroom, the decision to repeat the recording

is in the teacher/ lecturer; however, it is hard for the teacher to judge whether or not the

students have understood any particular section of what they have heard, but students still can

repeated what they want to repeat (Underwood, 1989 as cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi 2011 p.

982).

Third, listeners have a limited vocabulary. When listener listen to the recording,

sometimes they encounter an unknown word, and it is become a reason of the listener to stop

listen and think about the meaning of that word and thus cause them to miss next part of

speech. As we know the speaker in recording may choose words that listener does not know.

Fourth, listeners may fail to recognize the signals which indicate that the speaker is moving

from one point to another, giving an example, or repeating a point. Discourse markers used in

formal situations or lectures such as ''secondly,'' or ''then'' are comparatively evident to

listeners. In informal situations or spontaneous conversations, signals are more vogues as in

pauses, gestures, increased loudness, a clear change of pitch, or different intonation patterns.

These signals can be missed especially by less proficient listeners.

Then, listeners may lack contextual knowledge. Sharing mutual knowledge and

common content makes communication easier. Even if listeners can understand the surface

meaning of the text, they may have considerable difficulties in comprehending the whole

meaning of the passage unless they are familiar with the context. Nonverbal clues such as
facial expressions, nods, gestures, or tone of voice can also be easily misinterpreted by

listeners from different cultures. Next, it can be difficult for listeners to concentrate in a

foreign language. In listening comprehension, even the shortest break in attention can

seriously impair comprehension. Conversation is easier when students find the topic of the

listening passage interesting; however, students sometimes feel listening is very tiring even if

they are interested because it requires an enormous amount of effort to follow the meaning.

The last, students may have established certain learning habits such as a wish to

understand every word. Teachers want students to understand every word they hear by

repeating and pronouncing words carefully, by grading the language to suit their level, by

speaking slowly and so on. For conclusion, the listener becomes worried if they cannot

understand a word or phrase. It is necessary for students to tolerate vagueness and

incompleteness of understanding”(Underwood, 1989 as cited in Gilakjani & Ahmadi 2011, p.

982).

2.2 Previous Studies

One of previous studies related to this topic is “an Investigation of Listening

Comprehension Problems Encountered by Saudi Students in the El Listening Classroom”. It

was done by Hamouda (2013), he tried to investigate some listening problems on the first

stages at Qasim university in Saudi Arabia. To get the data, the researcher used questionnaire

and interview for 60 students who take listening course. While the data obtain from the

questionnaire are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, data obtain from interview is

analyzed qualitatively, and the result of the instruments identified the listening problems that

affected the EFL learners of Qassim University. The result of this study shows that accent,

pronunciation, speed of speech, insufficient vocabulary, different accent of speakers, lack of

concentration, anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening comprehension

problems encountered by EFL Saudi learners.

Another related previous study was done by Hoc (2008) who observed the difficulties in

listening comprehension.”Difficulties and Strategies in Listening Comprehension”. In

collecting the data, the researcher use questionnaires. Questionnaire included closed and

open-ended questions. The purpose for mixing of both closed and open-ended responses is

that the former is easier to collate and analyze and the responses to the later will provide

more flexibility so that the respondent can give more accurate answer. The participants

consist of 50 freshmen of English department at Lac Hong University. As they are in the first

year of academic, they experience such problems.

The finding of this study is there are some listening comprehension problems like

problems from listener, problems from listening material, and problem from physical setting.

The listening problem from the listener are making prediction what the speaker talk about,

guessing unknown words or phrases, and recognizing main points. For the listening

comprehension problem from material there are some aspects like unfamiliar topics, different

accents, authentic materials, colloquial words, speed of speech, linking words, ungrammatical

sentences, hesitation, and long listening. The last problem that can make listening difficult is

the problems that come from physical setting like noise, poor tape quality, and poor

equipments.

Goh (1999) discussed about “ a Cognitive Perspective on Language Learners’ Listening

Comprehension Problems”. The researcher identify real- time listening difficulties within

three phase model of language comprehension conducted by Anderson (1995, Cognitive

Psychology and its Implications, 4th Edition. Freeman, New York). Data were elicited from

learners' self-reports through the procedures of learner diaries, small group interviews and

immediate retrospective verbalizations. There were 40 students from People’s Republic of

China at the time of this study, they were learning English in preparation for undergraduate

studies as participants of this study. That 17 students from these 40 participated in small

group interviews. These were semi-structured interviews aimed at finding out what the

students knew about the task of learning to listen to English.Twenty-three students also

participated in an immediate retrospective verbalisation. This study shows 10 problems which

occurred during the cognitive processing phases of perception, parsing and utilization. Five

problems were linked to word recognition and attention failure during perceptual processing.

There were also problems related to inefficient parsing and failure to utilize the mental

representations of parsed input. These problems are a) do not recognize words they know, b)

neglect the next part when thinking about meaning, c) cannot chunk streams of speech, d)

miss the beginning of texts. In addition, concentrate too hard or unable to concentrate. Next,

quickly forget what is heard. Then, unable to form a mental representation from words heard.

Furthermore, do not understand subsequent parts of input because of earlier problems. Next,

understand words but not the intended message. Last, confused about the key ideas in the

message.

A comparison of two groups of learners with different listening abilities showed some

similarities in the difficulties experienced, but low ability listeners had more problems with

low-level processing. In the last part of this article the researcher highlight the benefits of

researching real-time cognitive constraints during listening and obtaining data through

learners' introspection, and offer some practical suggestions for helping learners become

better listeners.