Need Analysis of Listening Skills in the EFL Repeaters’ Class

Dita Surwanti

coraldita@gmail.com

University of Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa

Abstract

This research studied about students‟ needs analysis of listening skills in English as

Foreign Language repeaters‟ class. This need analysis was done to figure out students‟

listening obstacles, to identify their needs and to compare it with the course objectives to

figure out if there is a gap that need to be bridged. The research is done to answer the

following research questions: (1) What are the obstacles of students‟ listening skill

progression? And (2) What are the students‟ needs of listening skills? The research method

used in this research was mixed methods using qualitative and quantitative data. Several

reasons for hindering students‟ listening comprehension are: speaking fast, speaking quietly,

different accents and pronunciation, and a group of people talking at the same time, and the

using of new and complex terminologies. Students‟ needs in listening skills are: students need

to recognize their English lecturers, students need to learn how to take effective notes and

how to ask for repetition or clarification, students need to recognize lengthy description in

English and instructions, they need to identify the subject matter of a talk, they also need to

identify different accents and pronunciation, and students need to expand their vocabulary

size.

Keywords: need analysis, EFL, listening skills

A. Introduction

Based on Indonesian law No.12 year 2012 about Higher Education and Minister

Regulation No.44 year 2015 about the National Standard of Higher Education (SN Dikti),

learning process must be centered on the students, not the lecturers anymore. In learner-

centered learning, students play a major role and lecturers must be able to guide or assist

students to reach their goals. In order to reach the learning goals, lecturers have to be aware

about what the students really need. Richard adds that need analysis has a crucial effect on

the success of any program because it is the backbone which underlies program goals and

objectives (2001). Thus, it is obvious that need analysis has to be done in designing English

as a foreign or second language programs. It is necessary to conduct need analysis to design

the suitable materials for the students to reach their learning goals and objectives.

Richard, Platt and Weber have the conviction that needs analysis is to know and

detect the language students‟ needs and the process of prioritizing those needs. The purpose

of needs analysis is to learn why the students study language. In addition, what aspects of

language they need to study and to what degree they need to study. It identifies students‟

needs which are utilized into objectives and goals that underlie the curriculum (1985).

Richards (1990) says that in language curriculum planning, need analysis can be

utilized as a means to a number of things, i.e.: it can serve as a device for gathering an

extensive range of input into the content, design, and implementation of language program

through involving all the stakeholders; it can help in setting goals, objectives and content for

a language program by determining general and specific language needs; need analysis can

be instrumental in providing data which can be used for reviewing and evaluating an existing

program; it can help lecturers in understanding the local needs of the students and making

decisions in pedagogy and assessment for further improvement.

All these uses of need analysis refer to the fact that it can be used for a range of

purposes. It can be helpful in determining whether a program should be implemented by

finding out if it matches the goals and objectives of the students for learning a language and

at the same time used as part of a program can help in improving various components of the

program and making these more oriented to the needs of the students. Need analysis can also

help in evaluating an existing program and if found deficient can help in establishing the need

for introducing a change and what kind of change may appropriately match the needs of the

students and simultaneously be acceptable to lecturers.

In the acquisition of English as a foreign or second language, the four skills (listening,

speaking, reading, and writing) are interrelated. In acquiring a skill, students will directly or

indirectly acquire other skills. As an input skill, listening plays a vital part in language

students‟ development. Krashen states that people acquire language by making sense of the

linguistic information they hear. Therefore, language acquisition is achieved mainly through

receiving understandable input and listening proficiency is the important component in

achieving understandable language input (1985).

Listening is one of the primary means of interacting with other people. Listening is

the most frequently used method for gaining information Listening skills are significant in

foreign and second language acquisition because in the era of globalization, the use of media

as the forum of English communication; such as television, radio, and internet are massive

(Satterwhite and Oslen, 2007). Listening is not only hearing words. It is an active process by

which students receive, construct meaning from, and respond to spoken and or nonverbal

messages. Lecturers can help students to be effective listeners by making them aware of the

different kinds of listening, different purposes of listening, and the qualities of good listeners

(Emmert, 1994).

Despite its significant role in language acquisition, listening often becomes a burden for

students. Duzer describes that the L2 students listen to the target language twice in the

language classroom than they speak the language and four or five times as much as reading

and writing (1997). Ghaderpanahi also adds that teaching listening can be hard for both

lecturers and students. Students who are fine with speaking at their own pace may have

trouble at listening to a recording that is a regular-speed conversation (2012).

In English Education Department of Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University, listening

class becomes a difficulty especially for beginners in semester 1. The students are in the

transition time from Senior High School to University level. They have to adapt new place,

circumstance, friends, and different teaching methods from the lecturers. They may also have

troubles at listening to native speakers‟ recordings that have different pace and accents of

speaking. It is not surprising that there are many students get low grades at the 1st semester

but it gradually increases after it.

Coincidentally, the researcher teaches listening class for General Communication in

semester 1 for repeaters. All the students are from semester 3,5, and 7 and they repeat this

class because they got low grades on the 1st semester. This repeaters‟ class is chosen because

the students have problems in listening proficiency. These students are the ones who

experience the obstacles in listening and represent the failure in meeting the learning goals

and objectives.

Therefore it is necessary to do a research on need analysis of listening skills in this

repeaters class to figure out their obstacles, to identify their needs and to compare it with their

goals and objectives to figure out if there is a gap that need to be bridged. This research is

done to be able to make the students more aware about their needs and make the lecturers

understand about the suitable curriculum that match between the students‟ need and their

learning goals and objectives. At the end it is hoped that the students will improve their

listening proficiency and it will affect to the other skills‟ proficiency.

Therefore this research is done to answer the following research questions:

1. What are the obstacles of students‟ listening skill progression?

2.What are the students‟ needs of listening skills?

B. Research Method

1. Research Design

The research method used in this research was mixed methods using qualitative and

quantitative data. It used a survey to gather information about the needs of listening skills and

analyzed students‟ listening test results and the goal or objectives of the listening course.

Cohen, et al, says that survey gather data at a particular point in time with the intention of

describing its nature of real condition, or identifying the standard and compare it with the real

condition, or determining the relationships that exist between specific events (2000).

It is a descriptive research because it looks at individuals, groups, institutions, methods

and materials in order to describe, compare, contrast, classify, analyze and interpret the

entities and the events that constitute the various field of inquiry Cohen, et al, 2000). This

idea is supported by Best that descriptive research concerned with:

conditions or relationships that exist; practices that prevail; beliefs, point of

views, or attitude that held; processes that are going on; effects that are being

felt; or trends that are developing. At times, descriptive research is concerned

with how what is or what exists is related to some preceding event that has

influenced or affected a present condition or event (1970)

To ensure credibility, the research has triangulation of tools that refers to using one more

than instruments. “It refers to the use of more than one approach to the study of a research

question in order to enhance confidence in the ensuing findings” (Fred and Perry, 2005).

Triangulation attempts to map out, or explain fully, the richness and complexity of human

behavior by studying it from more than one standpoint, in so doing it, by making use of both

quantitative and qualitative data (Cohen, et al, 2000). This is because this research depends

on two tools which are questionnaire and documents analyses which encompass a copy of

students‟ test results and listening objectives of the course.

2. Data Collection Procedures

The questionnaire survey of need analysis for nonnative speakers has been adopted from

Richard„s (2001) study. This study aimed to identify what the language needs of students

whose mother tongue is not English attending the university and whether these needs are met.

The questionnaire aims to identify students' believes, opinions and attitudes toward listening

skills. The questionnaire addresses primary problems that students may face in English

classes with respect to listening comprehension. It revolves around two major themes:

troubles that students often encounter and the reasons behind difficult understanding of

lectures and students. Moreover, a document analysis has been done which comprises an

analysis of a copy of students‟ listening results of mid-term test and analysis of the listening

objectives. These analyses of the objectives and students‟ exam results have been conducted

to compare its results to the results of the questionnaire to pinpoint that if they match each

other. These results belong to the first quarter. The analysis of the result along with the

objectives has been compared to the results of questionnaire.

Table 1. Listening Skills Questionnaire (Richard, 2001)

3. Participants and Setting

The participants were repeaters‟ students at Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University who

took Listening for General Communication class in semester 1. These repeaters‟ students

were chosen because they represent students who face obstacles and fail at acquiring listening

skills. There were 19 students from semester 3,5, and 7. This research was done from August

until October 2016.

C. Result and Discussion

Information is organized in figures or bar charts in order to see them visually and clearly.

Analysis of the data is divided based on the questionnaire, the mid-term test results and

listening course objectives.

1. Questionnaire

The questions division in the questionnaire: the problems that the students encounter and

also the reasons why the students encounter the problems.

a. The problems that the students encounter

Looking at the results of the questionnaire, it can be seen that the students still have big

problems in understanding lectures. There are 79% of the students who are sometimes

encounter trouble in understanding lectures. There are only 5% who are always and 11% who

are often encounter trouble in understanding lectures. There are only 5% who are never

encounter any trouble in understanding lectures.

Fig.1 the number of students who have trouble understanding lectures

The trouble in taking effective notes is also quite a serious problem for the students.

There are 58% who are sometimes having trouble in taking effective notes. While there are

31% are often and 11% are always having trouble in taking effective notes.

Fig.2 the number of students who have trouble taking effective notes

The trouble that students need to ask staff or lecturer questions to clarify materials

that have been taught is also need to be concerned because there are 74% of students are

sometimes need to ask again to clarify the materials. There are 11% who are always and 15%

who are often ask to clarify the materials.

Fig.3 the number of students who have to ask staff questions to clarify materials that have

been taught

1

2

15

1

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

2

6

11

0

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

2

3

14

0

The next trouble is still quite serious. There are 58% of students who sometimes have

trouble in understanding lengthy description in English. More, there are still 31% who are

often have trouble in understanding lengthy description and 11% who always have trouble in

understanding lengthy description.

Fig.4 the number of students who have trouble understanding lengthy descriptions in English

The trouble in understanding spoken instructions and understanding formal language

are still major problems too. There are only 47% who sometimes have trouble in

understanding spoken instructions and understanding formal language, but there are 21% of

them who often have difficulty in understanding spoken instructions and understanding

formal language. There are 21% of students who always encounter with trouble in

understanding spoken instructions and 11% who always trouble in understanding informal

language.

Fig.5 the number of students who have trouble understanding spoken instruction

Fig.6 the number of students who have trouble understanding informal language

There are 63% of students who sometimes have trouble in understanding subject

matter of a talk. 26% of them often have trouble and 11% always have trouble in

understanding subject matter.

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

2

6

11

0

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

4

4

9

2

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

2

4

9

4

Fig.7 the number of students who have trouble understanding the subject matter of a talk

b. The Reasons of having problems understanding lecturers or other students

Based on the questionnaire, the reasons why students have problems in understanding

lecturers or other students are 74% of them sometimes talk too fast, 21% often talk too fast.

While 5% believe that they do not talk too fast.

Fig.8 reasons of understanding problem because of too fast talking

63% of the students believe that the lecturers and other students sometimes talk too

quiet. 11% say that they often talk too quiet. While 26% believe they never talk too quiet.

Fig.9 reasons of understanding problem because the talk is too quiet

Different accents and pronunciation are considered as the cause of the problem by

79% of the students who said that the lecturer and others sometimes speak different accent

and pronunciation. There are only 5% who believe that the lecturer and others often speak

different accent and pronunciation. While 15% did not say that the lecturer and others speak

different accent and pronunciation.

always (1)

often (2)

sometimes (3)

never (4)

2

5

12

0

often (1)

sometimes (2)

never (3)

4

14

1

often (1)

sometimes (2)

never (3)

2

12

5

Fig.10 reasons of understanding problem because of different accent or pronunciation

There are 74% of the students who said that they are sometimes disturbed because

there are more than one person is speaking. 21% said that they are often disturbed because

there are more than one person is speaking. While 5% said that they are never disturbed

because there are more than one person is speaking.

Fig.11 reasons of understanding problem because there are more than one person is speaking

The other troubles that the students mentioned in the questionnaire are troubles because

of unfamiliar vocabulary. There are 4 students or 21% who said that new words become

problem in understanding materials or instructions.

2. The mid-term test results and listening for General Communication course

objective

Based on the mid-term test results, it can be seen the detail scores are:

Table 2. Mid-term Test Results

No. Initial Score No. Initial Score

1. AR 67 11. NK 74

2. SS 11 12. AD 68

3. MS 76 13. PI 78

4. ND 31 14. AP 74

5. DA 70 15. MM 31

6. AA 67 16. RA 66

7. MG 68 17. ME 60

8. NR 38 18. TN 74

9. MA 20 19. SW 56

10. EL 73

often (1)

sometimes (2)

never (3)

4

14

1

often (1)

sometimes (2)

never (3)

1

15

3

From the results, there are only 7 students or 37% who have score ≥ 70; there are 7

students or 37% who have score ≥50 and ˂70; and there are still 5 students or 26% who have

score ˂50. It means there is more than half of the class or 63% still struggle in listening and

have not reached the minimum score or requirements of the listening class.

The learning objective of listening for General Communication course is students are able

to comprehend the messages and restate the expressions in various transactional dialogues

that students listen to in general communication. The analysis of the test results signifies that

the questionnaire results and students‟ results are correlated. The comparison implies that our

students struggle badly with listening skills. Their marks do not indicate effective high level

of proficiency at this skill. After examining the listening course objective, it is found that the

objectives seem to be related to the activities in the class, but the objectives do not underlie

activities that help to locate the subject matter of a talk or to understand the learning

strategies needed by the students. This signifies the existence of a gap between students‟

needs and the actual listening objectives.

3. The obstacles of students’ listening skill progression

Drawing upon the data above, several reasons have been identified responsible for

hindering students‟ listening comprehension. These reasons include: Speaking fast, speaking

quietly, different accents and pronunciation, and a group of people talking at the same time.

In addition, using new and complex terminologies hinder students‟ comprehension. Then,

students cannot constantly have words repeated. This is a critical problem in learning

situations. In the classroom, students do not have the decision whether or not to replay a

recording or a section of a recording. After that, listeners have a limited vocabulary.

Vocabulary is a key element in having listening comprehension. The teachers may use words

the students do not know. Students sometimes encounter an unfamiliar word which may

cause them to stop and think about the meaning of that word and thus cause them to miss the

next part of the speech. Students may fail to identify the signals which denote that the teacher

is moving from one point to another, giving an example, or repeating a point. Students may

have no contextual knowledge. Sharing mutual knowledge and interesting content makes

communication easier. It is also difficult for listeners to focus on a foreign language.

Conversation and listening classes become easier when students find the topic of the listening

passage interesting. Nevertheless, students sometimes feel listening is very exhausting even if

they are interested because it necessitates a gigantic amount of energy to follow the meaning.

Students may develop certain learning habits such as insisting on to understanding every

word. Teachers help students to develop such habits by triggering them to understand every

word they hear by repeating and pronouncing words carefully, and by speaking slowly and so

on. As a result, they incline to become anxious if they fail to comprehend a particular word or

phrase and they will be hindered by the failure.

4. The students’ needs of listening skills

In terms of the results of the questionnaire, students‟ needs have been identified. First,

students need to recognize their English lectures. If students could not grasp the gist of

lectures, learning language would be hindered and consequently stopped and failed. In

addition, they need to learn how to take effective notes and how to ask for repetition or

clarification. Listening is not a passive skill, conversely it is interactive. The listener needs to

stop and ask for clarification or repetition of a specific part to grasp the meaning. Otherwise,

learning would not continue. Moreover, they need to recognize lengthy description in English

and instructions as well. Furthermore, they need to identify the subject matter of a talk. A

foremost need is to identify different accents and pronunciation due to the variety of students‟

teachers‟ background. It has demonstrated that listening to nonnative speakers is effective if

listeners share with the speakers the mother tongue while it becomes difficult if not. Learning

new vocabulary is necessary to overcome the listening comprehension difficulty of not

understanding teachers or other students. The findings also draw the attention to the need for

unequivocal focus on expanding students‟ vocabulary size to enable them achieves a lexical

understanding of the input. Learning a new language will not be successful without learning

its vocabulary since its indispensable part of any language.

D. Conclusion and Suggestions

From the analysis above, need analysis is a crucial and indispensable step in designing

curriculum and evolving them due to the fact that it is a keystone in tailoring objectives that

match students„ credible needs. More than half of the participants express their urgent need

to learn how to take effective notes and how to ask for repetition or clarification in English.

Moreover, they need to identify lengthy description in English and instructions as well. In

addition, they need to recognize the subject matter of a talk. Furthermore, a crucial need is to

identify different accents and pronunciation due to the variety of students‟ teachers‟

background. In addition, a paramount need is learning and using new and different

vocabularies and terminologies that are related to different areas. Learning new vocabulary is

crucial to overcome somewhat the difficulty of not understanding teachers or other students.

On the other hand, by scrutinizing the listening objectives, it is found that they do not serve to

accomplish such needs. In addition, this research points out some common problems that

students face and impede their listening comprehension such as weird pronunciation, new

vocabulary, and fast speaking. Such problems are serious and should be handled to improve

students‟ listening proficiency level.

The suggestions that the researcher can propose are:

1. Need analysis should be done to reform and evolve curriculum, and teaching methods in

terms of listening skills and other skills.

2. Listening comprehension lessons must have explicit goals. These goals should cater for

students‟ needs.

3. Teachers should help students identify their listening strategy, strengthen them and

create new ones.

4. Teachers should help the students to get the necessary knowledge of pronunciation.

5. Listening comprehension lessons should entail teaching rather than testing.

6. Teachers‟ books should have a part that supply some information about theories on

listening training, the nature of listening, information processing, listening strategies,

problems students may face, and how to solve them.

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Law No.12 year 2012 about Higher Education.

Minister Regulation No.44 year 2015 about the National Standard of Higher Education (SN

Dikti).