See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/320347837

FACTORS AFFECTING LISTENING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF

STUDENTS (A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY AT THE THIRD SEMESTER STUDENTS OF
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY MAKASSAR)

Conference Paper · October 2017

CITATIONS READS

0 11,377

4 authors, including:

Sitti Asriati
Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar
12 PUBLICATIONS   0 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

The Use of Social Interactive Writing for English Language Learners (SWELL) Method to Develop the Students’ Ability to Write Narrative Text View project

Understanding the Role of Motivation on Reading Comprehension View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Sitti Asriati on 12 October 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 FACTORS AFFECTING LISTENING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDENTS
(A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY AT THE THIRD SEMESTER STUDENTS OF MUHAMMADIYAH
UNIVERSITY MAKASSAR)

St. Asriati. AM
asrie006@yahoo.com
English Education Department
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
Muhammadiyah University of Makassar, South Sulawesi

Jl. Sultan Alauddin No. 259 Makassar-Indonesia

Abstract

This research aimed to identify the factors affecting the students' listening comprehension achievement and
to identify which factor that was dominant, conducted at the Muhammadiyah University of Makassar. This
research was restricted into listener and speaker factors that caused difficulties. The method of this
research was descriptive research. The population of this research was the third-semester students of
English department at the Muhammadiyah University of Makassar. This research used a simple random
sampling, in this case, was a lottery way to decide the sample. Then, one from the 10 classes which consisted
of 35 students was chosen to be the sample. The instrument used in this research in order to collect the data
was a questionnaire which then distributed to the sample to be filled. The data showed that there were 25
aspects from listener and speaker affected the students' listening comprehension achievement. Moreover,
among those 25 aspects, there were 11 aspects considered to be the dominant factors based on the data
percentages and there were 5 aspects classified to be the most dominant ones. They were; Inability to
acknowledge the colloquial words and slang, inability to understand the reduced word, inability to answer
the question which required the long answer, focus loss resulted from looking for the answer to the question
and the speed of the speech delivery.

Keywords: factors affecting, listening comprehension achievement

1
 2

INTRODUCTION
Listening is a skill that is quite influenced in the mastery of the English language, because
listening is a receptive language skill that makes users understand the language in depth, making
it easy and precise in producing language. Gebhard (2000: 143) states that listening is not a
passive skill but an active one because we need to be receptive to others, which include paying
attention to explanations, questions, and opinions. Brown (2001:249) also defines that listening
is an interactive process involving a number of different cognitive, psychomotor, and effective
mechanisms. Thus, listening is considered to be a skill that is a very essential to be learned and
mastered.
However, the status quo of the students’ experience in listening comprehension shows
that Listening is the most difficult skill to be mastered (Graham, 2005). The various difficulties that
commonly occur in the listening comprehension such as; making prediction, guessing unknown
words, recognizing the main point and many other such difficulties are still encountered by the
students in the listening comprehension subject (Hamouda, 2013) Thus, this condition should be
handled seriously in order to reduce the problems in listening classes and make the students
easy to comprehend what they listen to.
Furthermore, There are many factors that cause these conditions, related to the factors
that affect a listening subject. (Boyle, 1984) classifies the factors that impact EFL listening
comprehension in three ways based on a survey of China teachers and students: the first is
speaker factors such as; the linguistic ability of the speaker, the quality of the speech signal, the
personality of the speaker, etc; the second is factors in the oral text such; the complexity of the
lexis and syntax, the degree of cohesion, etc; and the third one is listener factors, such as
intelligence, memory, gender, motivation and background knowledge. The factors that mentioned
above potentially cause difficulties in listening subject and can give contributions to the low
listening achievement of the students. The role of listening in language development is very
important, it can be seen from the child's language development through language acquisition,
which in this case listening is the activity which gives the largest contribution. Children initially do
not know a single word, but because they used to hear adults speak, their language began to
develop. As an input skill listening plays a crucial role in learners’ language development ( Rost
in Hamouda; 2013).
The importance of listening skills in foreign language learning is also inevitable because
language input is the key to acquire language. Rost in Hamouda (2013) confirmed that listening
is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for learners. As an input skill, listening
plays a crucial role for the learner. Krashen in Hamouda (2013) further argued that people acquire
language by understanding the linguistic information they hear. Thus, from the statements above
we can conclude that in language development, in this case, the foreign language development,
listening activities influence the students' understanding and linguistic aspect development. It can
be stated that the more students do listening the better their linguistic skill they have. Gilakjani
and Ahmadi (2011) further point out that listening plays a very important role in a student's
academic success and it is a key component to successful learning. Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011)
are also among the writers who early noticed the importance of listening. Gilakjani and Ahmadi
(2011) reported data on how people spend their communicative time: of the total time devoted to
communication, 40-50% is spent on listening, 20-30% on speaking, 11-16% of reading, and 9%
on writing.
From the data given above, we can understand that listening is the most frequently used
language skill which plays a great role in the process of communication. Similarly, an article which
appeared on the web page of Growing Greatness (Lawson, 2007) indicated that listening is the
fundamental language skill, and it is the medium through which people gain a large portion of
their education, their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their
ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. In this day of mass communication, much of it
oral, listening is vital importance and students should be taught to listen effectively and critically.
Although listening has such significant roles in communication and second language acquisition,
it has long been the neglected skill in research, teaching, and classroom assessment (Osada,
2004).
 3

Assuming its great importance in foreign language classrooms and in language

acquisition, researchers have started giving greater attention to second/foreign language
listening comprehension. Some of the ideas that have been the focus in the insights are the
factors that affect listening comprehension. In this context, therefore, this study aims to
explore the EFL learner's listening comprehension at listening classes at Muhammadiyah
Makassar University.

According to Thomlison's in Hamouda (2013) listening is the ability to identify and

understand what people are saying. This process is also about understanding a speaker's
accent or pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of
meaning. A good listener is classified if they are capable to do these four things
simultaneously.
The different definition given by Anderson and Lynch in Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011),
They argue that the understanding of listening is not something that happens because of
what a speaker says but has a crucial process. Such activating various types of knowledge,
and by applying what he knows to what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker
means. Underwood in Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) gives a simple definition of listening, he
defined listening as the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from
something we hear.
From the definitions above we can conclude that listening takes place when the
person get attention to what other say through a complex of the cognitive process.

1. Listening Comprehension
Rost, (2002) gave three definitions of listening comprehension which can reflect the
situation.
a. Listening comprehension is a complex, interactive process which has a dynamic
construction of meaning.
It is explained as the process when the listeners understand the oral input from
sound discrimination, prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stress,
and intonation, as well as other use linguistic, paralinguistic, or even non-linguistic clues
in the contextual utterance.
b. Listening comprehension is an inferential process.
It involves a linguistic knowledge and world knowledge which interact to create a
mental representation of what they hear. Bottom-up and top-down processes are
applied to get to this mental representation and achieve comprehension.
c. Listening as a process of receiving what the speaker actually says, constructing and
representing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding, and
creating meaning through involvement, imagination, and empathy.
We can conclude that to listen well, listeners must have the ability to decode the
message, the ability to apply a variety of strategies and interactive processes to make
meaning, and the ability to respond to what is said in a variety of ways, depending on
the purpose of the communication. Listening involves listening for thoughts, feelings,
and intentions.
d. Listening Difficulty
Goh in Hamouda (2013) defined listening difficulties are all the internal and
external characteristics that interrupt the understanding process directly related to
cognitive procedures at various stages of listening comprehension. It can be stated that
listening difficulties are the characteristic that disturbing the listener in comprehending
the information.
There are many types of research have been conducted in many countries related to
the factors affecting listening comprehension and the difficulty or problem encountered in
listening subject.
Research result which was conducted by Hamouda (2013) at Qassim University
shows various kinds of listening problem in listening comprehension subjects such as
unfamiliar words, the length of the spoken text, speed rate, a variety of accent, lack of
concentration and pronunciation. Another similar research was also conducted in Japan by
 4

Takeno and Takatsuka (2007) show the result that point out several factors that affecting
listening comprehension. Vocabulary/grammar, reading comprehension, and repeatability
are among the factors that give impact in listening.
Further explanation was brought by Xie (2013) through his survey on factors influence
low-level l2 listeners in China. The result is elaborated as follows;
1. Learner Factor
Five items are included in this category which gives effect to the listening
comprehension to the students, they are subjects' interest and confidence in learning
English, their ability in listening comprehension, their personality and its influence on
their language learning.
2. Language Factor
The data shows the students' awareness of the importance of English takes an
important role in the language developments. Moreover, the difficulties such;
grammar, vocabulary and the difference between their mother tongue are the factors
that cause difficulty.
3. Teacher Factor
The researcher found that most of the teacher try to use a suitable language
usage with the students they taught, they tend to use the easy words and speak very
clear when they were teaching the low-level students. Moreover, the data shows that
the students enjoyed the way of the teacher teach.
4. Language Environment
This part explains about how the students access the listening activity and the
data show that more than half of the students prefer to practice their listening ability
through songs or watching the movie.
Thus the researcher interests to conduct a similar research in order to know the factors
that give impact to the listening comprehension, so this problem can be solved easily.

Potential Problem in Listening Comprehension

Underwood in Osada (2004) states seven causes of obstacles to efficient listening
comprehension.
1. Listeners cannot control the speed of delivery.
Underwood (1989), further states that the learner's problem in listening
comprehension is that the learners cannot control the speed of delivery which is the
contrast with reading as the input skill.
2. Listeners cannot always have words repeated.
This problem is considered as the serious problem because in learning listening
comprehension in the classroom the decision whether the records will be replied or not
is in the teacher's hands. However, it is quite hard for the teacher to measure the
understanding of the students in particular part of the recording.
3. Listeners have a limited vocabulary.
Another problem is about the vocabulary that used by the speaker is sometimes
unfamiliar to the speaker. Thus, the speaker gets difficult to understand what the
speaker says and get the topic of the listening text.
4. 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.
In the formal situation, it can be easy for the students to recognize the mark of
the changing topic or moving points because they used transitional words such; next,
before, after etc. However, the discourse markers are difficult to recognize by the
students when the recording is an informal situation.
5. Listeners may lack contextual knowledge.
The various culture of the speakers is the other problem in comprehending the
meaning of the listening text. Because in guessing the meaning the listeners tend to
relate what they hear to what they know, however, the distinction context in gestures,
loudness, intonation is cannot be deniable.
6. Listeners can be difficult for listeners to concentrate in a foreign language because it is
difficult to get the point.
 5

The learners' unfamiliarity of the foreign language become another problem in

understanding the listening text. It is quite difficult for them to concentrate on the
language.
7. Students may have established certain learning habits such as a wish to understand
every word.
In teaching learning activity, the teacher tends to have the learners to understand
every single word that appears in conversation in order to understand the topic.
However, this situation sometimes makes the students worry and cannot enjoy listening
because they put their self to not miss a single word in the text.

Factors of EFL (English as Foreign Language ) Listening

Boyle (1984) in his journal has elaborated the factors that affecting listening
comprehension into two characteristics. They are explained as follows:
1. Speaker Characteristic
Comprehending spoken language is a complex process in which the listener constructs
the meaning of the information provided by the speaker. Constructing meaning of the
speaker's message depends partly on speaker's factors which are external to the
listener.

Boyle (1984) pointed out the speakers characteristic into 4 items, they are;

a. Language ability of the speaker.

Language ability of the speakers whether they are a native speaker or non-native
speaker also give impact to the learner's comprehension. The learners who learn
English as a foreign language prefer to listen to the non-native speaker who is nearly
the same with their tongue.
b. Speaker production; pronunciation, accent, variation, voice, etc.
As far as the spoken feature is concerned, a perception of sounds can be made
difficult to various characteristics such in accent, pronunciation etc, of the spoken
features of the language, particularly of the speech characteristics of the native
speakers.
c. Speed of delivery
The other aspect which gives much impact to the listening comprehension is the
speed of delivery. It is quite hard for the low level to get the point if the speaker speaks
too fast.
d. Prestige and personality of the speaker.
If the speaker fails to address the above important points that are keys for
comprehension of the listener, it can be difficult for the listeners to understand what the
speaker is saying.
2. Listener Characteristic
Listener characteristic is considered as a crucial impact on an individual's
listening comprehension. Some researchers have conducted the study about this in
order to identify the listener factors that influence the listening comprehension ability of
the students.
The listener ability in several cognitive aspects can help them in understanding
the text. For example, the listener who has a greater working memory capacity can
comprehend more about what they hear in the listening audio.
Boyle, (1945) classified the listener factors into two, they are general and specific
which are explained as follows:
a. General
These are the general factors regarding the listener's aspect;
1) Experience/ Practice in listening to the target language; use of media (cinema,
TV, radio, etc)
The opportunity of the listener inexperience or practice the listening
activity wheter in cinema, TV, radio etc, give an influence in their listening
comprehension achievement.
 6

2) General intelligence
The intelligence of the speakers is also affecting the comprehension of
the listener especially in identifying the topic or the main point of the text.
3) General background knowledge of the world
The general background knowledge is the knowledge that has been
existed in the listener memory and it helps them to connect what they hear and
what they have known.
b. Specific
1) Physical and educational
a) Age/ sex
b) Home background, size of family
c) Educational background and type of school
d) Physical health and alertness
2) Intellectual
a) Knowledge of the target language in its various aspects; phonology, lexis,
syntax, and cohesion.
b) Power of analysis and selection; the ability to distinguishing between main
and supporting points.
c) Knowledge of the specific topic or subject
d) Memory short term and long term.

From the explanations above, we can conclude that the aspects of the factors which affect
the listening comprehension might come from the listener, speaker, and many other aspects that
related to the listening activity. All those aspects give contribution for the learners' listening
comprehension in English. The process of listening comprehension is highly complex. The
knowledge and skills necessary for listening comprehension to be utilized simultaneously.

METHOD
The researcher applied a descriptive quantitative method at finding out the description
about factors affecting listening achievement of the third-semester students in University of
Makassar Muhammadiyah academic year 2014-2015. The population of this research was the
third-semester students of English Department. The total population consisted of ten classes and
each class consists of 40 students. Thus, the total population for this research was 400 students.
The researcher applied simple random sampling in deciding the sample that taken in this
research. The researcher took only one class from the ten classes of the third-semester students.
Thus, the total sample of this research was 35 students from A class. There was only one of
instrument that was used in this research. The instrument was questionnaire which was
arranged to find out the factors affecting the students’ listening comprehension. The questionnaire
consisted of two sections. Section one contained 19 questions regarding the listener factors that
affecting listening comprehension achievement of the students. Section two consisted of 6 items
dealing with the speaker factors that affecting listening comprehension achievement of the
students. The next step, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to the current sample that
had been chosen. To analyze the data from a questionnaire about factors affecting listening
achievement of the students, the researcher applied some steps: Data from questionnaires whose
response categorized into 4 scales: always, often, sometimes, never. the scale categories
(Gay,2006).

FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION

Data that collected from the questionnaire are summarized in tables in order to obtain
the total score of each respondent.

The factors affected listening comprehension achievement of the students are presented in the
data percentages as below;
 7

Percentage
No Item
Never Sometimes Often Always
Deal with colloquial language and slang: I
find it surprising and difficult to deal with
1. - (14.28%)
colloquial language and slang (31.42%) (54.14%)

2. Deal with the reduced forms in

conversation: I find it difficult to understand - 42.85% 5.71% 51.42%
the reduced forms in conversation
3. Deal with the familiar pronunciation of the
words: I find the familiar pronunciation but 14.28% 42.85% 11.42% 31.42%
cannot recognize the words
4. Deal with the signals words: I find it difficult
to recognize the signals which indicate that
8.57% 22.85% 45.71% 22.85%
the speaker is moving from one point to
another.
5. Deal with an unknown word: When
encountering an unknown word, I stop
17.14% 37.14% 28.57% 17.14%
listening and think about the meaning of the
word.
6. Deal with an unknown word: I find it difficult
to infer the meaning of an unknown word - 65.71% 22.85% 11.42%
while listening
7. Deal with the long or complex sentences: I
find it difficult to follow the sequence of the
- 37.14% 45.71% 17.14%
spoken text when the sentences are too
long or complex
8. Deal with losing focus when getting an
expected answer: I lose focus of the talk 2.85% 37.14% 51.42% 8.57%
when I got an expected answer in mind
9. Deal with losing focus caused by listening
and answer question at the same time: I am
unable to concentrate because I search for - 37.14% 42.85% 20%
the answer, and I listen to the dialog at the
same time
10. Deal with losing concentration caused by
the long text: I lose my concentration when 8.57% 40% 42.85% 8.57%
the text is too long
11. Deal with losing focus caused by new word:
I lose my concentration when I think about 11.42% 51.42% 17.14% 20%
the meaning of a new word.
12. Deal with losing focus if the recording is in a
poor quality: I lose my concentration if the - 22.85% 48.57% 28.57%
recording is in a poor quality
13. Deal with losing focus caused by another
question: I lose my concentration when I 8.57% 22.85% 31.42% 37.14%
think about another question
14. Deal with the general understanding of the
text: I find it difficult to get a general
14.28% 42.85% 20% 22.85%
understanding of the spoken text from the
first listening
15. At the time of listening, I find it difficult to
- 42.85% 40% 17.14%
predict what would come next
16. Deal with recognizing the words
pronounced: I find it difficult to recognize the
8.57% 37.14% 31.42% 22.85%
words I know because the way they are
pronounced
17. Deal with listening to English without
transcript: I find it difficult when listening to 8.57% 37.14% 28.57% 25.71%
English without transcript
18. Deal with remembering the words or phrase
which just listened: I find it difficult to
5.71% 45.71% 31.42% 20%
remember the words or phrase which I just
listened
19. Deal with the question which requires a long
answer: I find it difficult to answer the 5.71% 17.14% 25.71% 51.42%
question which requires a long answer
 8

20. Deal with the natural speech: I find it difficult

8.57% 28.57% 37.14% 22.85%
to understand the natural speech
21. Deal with the words which are not
pronounced clearly: I find it difficult to - 42.85% 25.71% 31.42%
understand the meaning of the words
22. Deal with the speaker body language: I find
it difficult to understand the meaning of the
34.28% 57.14% 8.57% -
spoken text without seeing the speaker
body language
23. Deal with the speaker variety of accents: I
find it difficult to understand well when the 5.71% 48.57% 25.71% 20%
speakers speak a variety of accents
24. Deal with the speaker speed of delivery: I
find it difficult to understand well when the 5.71% 11.42% 57.14% 25.71%
speakers speak too fast
25. Deal with the unrepeated recording
material: I find it difficult to understand the
5.71% 28.57% 42.85% 22.85%
recorded material if I am unable to get things
repeated.

What has been represented by figures above shows that all factors mentioned
previously which consisted of 25 items in fact affected the students listening
comprehension? However, among the 25 items included in both listener and speaker, there
were only 11 items of the factors that could be categorized as the dominant factors by looking
to the data percentages. Those 12 items then elaborated as follows;
1. The Linguistic Aspect of the Students
a. Related to Colloquial and Slang
The students found difficulties in comprehending the conversation which used
colloquial and slang. Colloquial and slang are two styles of language that had
uncommon meaning for students, for example, the words put on which ‘put' means
place something on the other thing while ‘on' means something in a position above
something and touch it, however in colloquial this ‘put on' means wearing something.
This confusion encountered as well as slang. Furthermore, the third-semester
students who used to learn English based on the formal book might not usual with
these language styles.
b. Related to the Reduced Form
Another similar difficulty faced by the students in listening comprehension is
the use of reduced form, for example; the taxi driver who said ‘where to go?’ when
he actually asking ‘where do you want to go’, and the students who seldom the get
involved in a real English conversation might get difficulty in comprehending it.
c. Difficulty Pertaining to the Use of Signal Words
One of the dominant items of the linguistic factor encountered by the students is the
difficulty to catch the signal words. Signal word is used in conversation to get the
listener follow the changing topic or the idea direction of the speaker. For example
the use of ‘however or but' that indicates that the speaker turned to be contrasted
with the previous statement.
d. Related to the Long and Complex Sentences
Another problem faced by the students in order to comprehend the conversation in
listening class is the use of long and complex sentence by the speaker. The long and
complex sentences are commonly constructed by a difficult grammatical structure or
syntax, thus, the complex sentence which actually brings many kinds of information
is rather difficult to be understood.
2. Lack of Concentration Factor
a. Related to the Focus Loss which resulted from finding out the answer.
There are many reasons causing the students losing their concentration while
listening. Finding out the answer while listening is the one of the factor resulted by
this research, based on the data shows that 37.24% sometimes and 51.42% often
encountered this situation.
b. Related to the focus loss when the text is too long
 9

Another reason causing the students losing their focus is when the text is too
long. The data shows that the text which is too long 37.14% sometimes and 42.85%
often causing trouble the students’ concentration.
c. Related to the focus loss when the quality of the record is too poor
Losing focus caused by the poor quality record is also found as a dominant
factor affecting listening comprehension of the students. It is reflected by the
percentage which shows that 48.57% often and 28.57% always encountered this
problem.
d. Related to the focus loss when thinking about another question
Thinking about another question also distributed a big number of percentages
that causing students lose their focus. The data shows this situation is 22.85%
sometimes, 31.42% often and 37.14% always faced by the students of the
Muhammadiyah University of Makassar.
3. Listener Factors
a. Related to the question which requires a long answer
Another difficulty faced by the students in listening comprehension is to
accomplish the question which requires a long answer. The data shows 25.71% often
and 51.42% of the students are in this situation.
4. Speaker Factors
a. Related to the conversation which full of hesitation and pauses
The hesitation and pauses usually occur in a natural conversation, and the
students find it difficult to catch the point because the conversation which full of
hesitation and pauses tend to be unclear for the students.
b. Related to the speed of the speech of delivery, the length and without pause
The data shows that the speed of the speech of delivery causing the problem
to the most of the students, the result of the percentage are; 57.24% often and
25.72% of the students encountered this situation.

Furthermore, among the 11 dominant items of factor above, the researcher

grouped 5 items which were considered as the most dominant factors. They are;

1. Inability to acknowledge the colloquial words and slang, which shown

that 54.14% of the students ‘always’ encountered this situation.
2. Inability to understand the reduced word, which shown that 51.42% of the students
‘always’ faced this situation.
3. Inability to answer the question which required the long answer, which shown that
51.42% of the students ‘always’ encountered this situation.
4. Focus loss resulted from looking for the answer to the question, which revealed that
51.42% of the students ‘often' losing focus in this situation.
5. The speed of the speech delivery, which revealed that 57.14% of the students were
‘often’ unable to comprehend the conversation when the recording was too fast.

Those are the 11 aspects included in listener and speaker factors which are considered
to be the dominant factors affected the students’ listening comprehension achievement. The
factors mentioned above gave a big contribution toward the difficulties occurred when the
students were doing the listening activity. Then, those factors caused a low comprehension and
achievement in the students’ listening class, eventually.

The five items above are considered to be the most dominant factors among the all-
dominant factors mentioned previously because the data percentages of these five factors shown
the highest number compared to others.

Furthermore, these five factors showed that more than a half of the students which were
taken as the sample always or often affected by these factors in their listening activities and
caused them difficulty which lasted with a low listening comprehension achievement.
 10

For conclusion, based on all explanation above we can then conclude that the two main factors,
speaker factor and listener factor which was elaborated into linguistic knowledge, lack of
concentration, and another listener aspect, which consisted of 25 items affected the students'
listening comprehension.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We thank all the students who participated in this study. We also express our gratitude to the
Head of Department for supporting this research.
 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Apostolou, E., & Dendrinos, B. (2009-2010).Investigating Difficulty of the Listening Test.

DIRECTIONS e-journal.htm.

Bloomfield, A., Wayland, S. C., Rhoades, E., Blodgett, A., Linck, J., & Ross, S.(2010). What makes
listening difficult? Factors affecting second language listening comprehension.

Boyle, J. P. (1984). Factors Affecting Listening Comprehension.

Gay, L. R. (2006). Educational Research.

Gilakjani, A. P & Ahmadi, M. R. (2011). A Study of Factors Affecting EFL Learners' English
Listening Comprehension and the Strategies for Improvement. Journal of Language
Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No 5.

Goh, C. (2000). A cognitive perspective on language learners’ listening comprehension problem.

Hamouda, Arafat (2013). 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 April 2013, Vol. 2, No. 2.

Osada. N. (2004). Listening Comprehension Research: A Brief Review of the Past Thirty Years.
Waseda University.

Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and Researching Listening. London: Longman.

Takeno, J & Takatsuka, S. (2007). Factors Affecting Listening Comprehension Ability of Japanese
Learners of English.

Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching Listening. New York: Longman.

Xie, J. (2013). A Survey on Factors Influencing Lower-Level L2 Listeners’ Strategies Use and
Proficiency Level. Education Journal 2013; 2(4): 163-168.

Yagang, F. (1994). Listening; Problems and Solutions.

View publication stats