LEARNING DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE STUDENTS IN LISTENING PRACTICE AT SMP NEGERI 03 BATU

Listening as a receptive skill is importance for foreign language learner because it is the key to achieve a language. Reducing the problems in listening practice and make the learner easy to comprehend about what they listen is should be handled seriously. This study is conducted to identify the students’ problem and figure out the teacher’s ways to cope with the student problems in listening practice. The design of this research is descriptive quantitative and the students in SMP Negeri 03 Batu as the sample. In order to collect the data, semi structured interview is used as primary instrument and the questionnaire is used to validate the data. Based on the data analysis, this research has revealed seven difficulties that faced by the students in learning listening. The biggest problem relate with the different written and spoken words in English. In addition, lack of vocabulary give impact on the students’ listening skills. In contrast, the least problem is about the difficulty of the materials. The difficulties include on linguistic such as difficult pronunciation, lack of vocabulary, and non-linguistic aspects is low of motivation, the difficult materials, speed of speakers, teaching technique, and facilities. Those result of difficulties existed because of the learners’ factor, language factor, the teacher’s factor, and the language environment factor. In other words, the teacher need to pay more attention on the learners’ problems in teaching and learning process