FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEMS EFL ...

Item No.
Table-2b shows that the majority of the students, i.e., 129 (87%) students out
of 149 have responded that they often or always found it difficult to recognize the
words they knew because of the way they were pronounced. And the majority of
the students, i.e., 60% of the students under the study have also responded that
they “always” encountered such problem. On the other hand, the same number of
students (87%) have also responded almost the same in the cross-checking
question which appeared on item number 16.
From this result it is possible to generalize that most students find it difficult
to recognize the words they knew because of the way they are pronounced. This
result is also consistent with Ur’s declaration (1984), which states that if a word is
pronounced differently from the way it was said when it was learnt, the listener may
not recognize it as the same word, or may even miss its existence completely. At
this point, this problem interferes with the learners listening comprehension.
Table-2c: Learners’ responses that refer to listening problems related to facial expressions and
gesture of a speaker
Students’ No.
Never
Students’ %
Students’ No.
Seldom Total
positive
Students’ %
Students’ No.
Students’ %
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY
Table-2c shows that almost half (49%) of the students often or always found
it difficult to understand the meaning of a spoken text without seeing the speaker’s
facial expressions and gesture (non-verbal clues).
Sometimes Often Always Total
negative
From this result, we can understand that lack of non-verbal clues for what a
speaker is saying can interfere with learners’ listening comprehension although
the problem may not be as serious as those listening problems presented earlier.
However, this problem can pose serious difficulty particularly for those language
learners whose cognitive style of language learning is visual (Kolb, 1984 cited in
Spinney & Jordan, 2004). This is also consistent with Oxford’s study (1988) which
shows that students’ cognitive style has a significant influence on students' choice
of learning strategies so that it affects their learning outcomes.
44
Students’ No.
Students’ %
9 14 9.39 21 14.09 35 23.48 41 27.51 32 21.47 41 27.51 114 76.49
Students’ No.
Students’ %
Students’ No.
Students’ %
Students’ No.
Students’ %