This document summarizes a study on problems with teaching listening skills to 7th grade students in Banjarmasin, Indonesia. The main findings were that the biggest problems were ineffective teaching methodologies used by the teachers and a lack of media/resources. Through observations, interviews and questionnaires with teachers and students, the study found that teachers primarily followed textbooks and had students repeatedly listen to recordings without sufficient explanation or activities to improve comprehension. This led to students struggling to develop their English listening abilities.

1. A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON THE PROBLEMS OF TEACHING
LISTENING ON THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP
NEGERI 4 AT BANJARMASIN BARAT ACADEMIC YEAR 2012/2013
Agus Saifulah
Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
FKIP Universitas Lambung Mangkurat
Abstract: In the progress of learning, English should be taught in an integrated
way because each skill is connected. Listening is one of the English skills that
should be mastered by the students. Considering listening as a receptive skill, the
skill lets the students attempt to comprehend the material that will focus on their
ability to listen to something. The correlation with its skill also includes English
components such as pronunciation. Therefore, the teachers should be aware
about the development of the ability of the students in listening skills with the
components that support it. This research aims to describe the problems in
teaching listening at the seventh grade of SMPN 4 Banjarmasin. The subjects of
this research are the English teacher and the seventh grade of SMPN 4
Banjarmasin. This research used observation, interview, and questionnaires as
the techniques of collecting the data. Based on the result of the research, the main
problem in the teaching listening is the teacher’s methodology. The second
problem is the utility of the media in teaching. From the class observation, the
teacher accurately followed the contents, instructions and tasks given in the
textbook step by step. All the teachers presented the new words, gave the
instructions, and asked students to read the requirements, read the text or play the
tapes twice or three times for students to listen.
Key words: Problems, Teaching Listening
Background of the Study
Language is one of the
methods of communication.
Language has its components that
construct it, and there are many
languages all over the world whether
local languages, national languages
or international languages. English is
one of the international languages.
Many countries use English as their
national language, therefore most
people in the world use English to
communicate to people of other
countries which makes English one
of the International languages.
Specifically, the use of English could
be defined as English as First a
Language (EFL), English as Second
Language (ESL), and some countries
use English as Foreign Language

2. (EFL) such as Indonesia. English has
also become a subject matter of
education in many countries.
Indonesia is one of the countries that
makes English the subject matter of
education. English is learned at
school, yet the people do not speak
English in their daily life or in
society. English is used only in a
particular occasion such as speaking
to foreign people when go abroad or
meet the foreign tourist in Indonesia,
and interview for getting job. That is
why English known as Foreign
Language (EFL) in Indonesia.
Listening is one of the
receptive skills in English along with
reading, and while both of them are
receptive skills, listening is different
than reading. Commonly, people are
able to use the skill of listening since
they were born, and it is the first skill
that babies use to comprehend their
first language. A baby that is just
born is not able to read written
language, they first must learn how
to read words. Therefore, listening is
important because listening is the
greatest part of our daily
communication. As Chastain, (1976:
278) stated that we spend 40 to 60%
of our daily communication in
listening. The phonological system
of the language is acquired by
listening, and oral communication is
impossible without a listening skill
that is much more highly developed
than the speaking skill. It means
listening skill is the basis to
developing other skills, especially
speaking skills. Furthermore, in
order to achieve success of
comprehending English, the students
have to be more focused in using
their ability in listening first and then
integrating it with the three other
skills. In Indonesia, English has
differences with the national
language (Bahasa Indonesia). The
differences are pronunciation,
sounds, stress and intonation. In
Bahasa Indonesia, the speakers
pronounce the words as they were
written; in English, the speakers are
pronounce the words differently than
the words are written. Generally,
every sound and stress of words in
Bahasa Indonesia has the same
meaning, but in English every sound
and stress of words determine
different meaning. In Bahasa
Indonesia, the intonation is rarely
used as the purpose of the sentence;
in English intonation is used as the
purpose of the sentence whether it is
declarative or a question. Because of
these differences, listening has an
important part in making students
understand the languages’
differences between English and
Bahasa Indonesia.
The Nature of Listening
Generally, listening is
defined as the activity of using one
of five human senses, that is using
the ears to listen to something.
Listening is different than hearing.
Hearing is the basic activity that is
connected with sound and which
leads to the listening act. In listening,
we use the ability of hearing and
become more focused on it to find

3. out the meaning of what somebody is
saying. Therefore, hearing is the
basis of listening which is an activity
that involves knowing the sounds
whether one understands or not.
Listening is more than hearing, in
hearing we simply hear various
sounds at the time and sometimes we
do not understand the meaning of the
sound. In contrast to hearing,
listening is an act where we will
listen to certain sounds from
someone or something and perceive
the meaning while we focus on it.
Howard and Dakin (1996: 186)
explained that listening is the process
of understanding what others are
saying through the speaker’s accent,
grammar, vocabulary, and/or
phonological systems such as
pronunciation, intonation and stress.
Then identifying the meaning of
what is the speaker is saying. Taken
from the definition as stated in the
Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary, 1995 we can conclude
that hearing is to perceive sounds
with the ears whether the sound has
meaning or not, yet listening is to
make an effort to hear someone or
something and understanding the
meaning of the sounds that we hear.
Types of Listening
John. A. Kline (1996) stated
that “Different situations require
different types of listening. We may
listen to obtain information, improve
a relationship, gain appreciation for
something, make discriminations, or
engage in a critical evaluation.”
- Discriminative listening, this is
the most basic type of listening.
In this type, the listeners are
being sensitive to the changes in
a speakers’ rate, volume, force,
pitch, and emphasis.
- Informative listening, it may be
found in all areas of our lives. In
fact, our learning mostly comes
from informative listening. When
the listeners are concerned about
understanding and finding the
meaning of the message that the
speaker gives without necessarily
giving response to it, then the
activity of listening is becoming
an informative listening.
- Relationship listening has the
purpose to help with individual
matters and/or to improve the
relationship among people.
Relationship listening requires
the listeners to listen for
information first, then emphasis
it in order to understanding the
other person.
- Appreciative listening is one-way
communication type of listening.
It includes activities for
enjoyment such as listening to
music. Listeners will listen to
certain music because they like
the styles of the speakers, genres
of the music, etc. Appreciative
listening is the response of the
listeners, not the source of the
message from the speaker.
- Critical listening requires the
emotional, intellectual, physical,
and spiritual powers of the
listener. This is the process

4. where the listener hears the
message of the speaker critically
Components of Listening
According to Chastain (1976),
there are five components in
listening comprehension, and every
component is dependent on other
components. The five components
are:
a. Discrimination
b. Perception of Message
c. Auditory Memory
d. Comprehension in the First
Language
e. Comprehension in the Second
Language
Teaching Listening
1. Teaching Listening:
Extensive Listening
Harmer (2001) defines
that extensive listening is similar
with extensive reading whereas
both help the students acquire the
phonological systems -
pronunciation, sounds, stress,
intonation and linking. Extensive
listening is “where a teacher
encourages the students to
choose for themselves what they
listen to and to do so for pleasure
and general language
improvement.” Extensive
listening provides chances for
students to listen to various
sounds. The material could be
found from a number of sources,
and this activity takes place
outside the classroom meaning
the activity is not limited by a
certain time. The students can do
it at their houses, or when they
travel elsewhere. However,
teachers should take the role as
guidance which is giving some
explanation to the benefits of
extensive listening. Then, the
teacher and students come to
some kind of agreement about
how much and what kind of
listening they should do.
(Jeremy Harmer. 2001: 228-229)
2. Teaching Listening:
Intensive Listening
Intensive listening is
divided into two groups based on
the way of the listening is
applied: intensive listening using
taped material and intensive
listening ‘live’ listening.
Teaching Listening at Junior High
School
Lynch (2007) suggested that
there are some basic problems in
teaching that would be the English
language learning’s most critical
problems. Those critical problems
are lack of learner motivation;
insufficient time, resources, and
material; and over-crowded English
classes. (Lynch, 2007. “Three
Critical Problems in English
Language Teaching and Learning,”
http://www.ezinearticles.com)
In teaching listening, teachers
should master a process of teaching
that is the process that occurs during
the basic listening is occurring. The

5. cognitive process is divided into two
types, and these processes are often
referred to as bottom-up and top-
down processing.
a. Bottom-up processing
In this process, listeners use their
linguistic knowledge to derive
meaning from and interpret the
message. They try to understand the
message from sounds, to words, to
grammatical relationship, to lexical
meaning. Stress and intonation have
a great part in this process because
listeners can practice recognizing
words and statements or questions by
distinguishing stress and intonation.
b. Top-down processing
In this process, listeners are using
their background knowledge to
derive meaning from and interpret
the message. The background
knowledge can be the previous
knowledge about the topic of
discourse, situational or contextual
meaning, culture-understanding or
global understanding. On the
contrary of bottom-up processing,
top-down processing goes from
meaning to language.
The Elements of Teaching and
Learning of Listening
a. Teacher
Teacher acts as the facilitator to
guide the students to understanding
the lesson. Hall (2007: 1) stated that
one of the roles of the teacher in the
classroom is as an agent of change
which is expected to be able to
transfer the component of the
curriculum such as objective,
methodology, material, and
evaluation into practical English
classroom activities.
b. Learner
A learner is a center of teaching and
learning process. (Kemp in
Khairiani, 2006: 5) Learner that is
become a listener in the way of
learning has certain characteristics
that could have an affect on the
learner.
Research Design
In this research, the writer will
use descriptive qualitative method,
this is a method of research which
involves observing and describing
the behavior of a subject without
influencing it in any way. According
to Fraenkel (2012:7) the objective of
the descriptive method is to describe
the result of observation, interview,
questionnaires, and documentation
about the research systematically,
factual, and accurately. It will
describe all of the phenomena at the
school naturally.
Subject of Research
The subjects of the research are
the English teacher and students of
seventh grade in SMPN 4
Banjarmasin. The school is on Jalan
Teluk Tiram Darat No. 01 Kel. Teluk
Tiram Darat, Kec. Banjarmasin
Barat, Kota Banjarmasin, 70113.

6. Population
According to Fraenkel (2012: 91)
Population is the group to which the
researcher would like the results of a
study to be generalizable; it includes
all individuals with certain specified
characteristic. The researcher
determines the population who will
be used in this research. From the
population, it will get a large
overview about people who become
the subject in this research. The
subjects of this research are the
English teacher and seventh grade
students. The researcher takes the
school as the population’s range
based on the previous data that had
been conducted in the mini research
at the same school.
Sampling and Sampling Technique
The researcher use purposive
sampling technique as the technique
of sampling, based on Fraenkel
(2012: 100) “purposive sampling
technique is when the researchers
assume they can use their knowledge
of the population to judge whether or
not a particular sample will be
represent”. The researcher takes two
classes as sample of the seventh
grade classes by using purposive
sampling. The classes are
representative of the whole seventh
grade students’ ability. They must
have three types of learners: those
are fast learners, average learners and
slow learners. For the teacher,
researcher only takes one teacher.
Technique of Data Collection
In this research, the researcher
will apply several methods to collect
data from subjects. First of all, the
researcher will observe several
classes each several times that divide
in a month. The samples are two
classes; VIID
and VIIE
. In the second
step, teachers will be interviewed to
find out their background knowledge
of English Teaching. The researcher
already prepared questions for the
interview (guided). By the end of the
month, the researcher will takes the
results by giving a questionnaire to
each class.
Technique of Data Analysis
Data analysis refers to
shifting, organizing, summarizing,
and synthesizing the data so as to
arrive at the results and conclusions
of the research (Seliger and Shohamy
1989: 201).
When all the data had been
collected, the researcher analyzed
them and classified the result of the
data to clarify the problems occurred
in the teaching process. The
researcher run the data collection
step by step in a month, the process
started by observed the teaching
process in the classroom. By using
the observation sheet, the researcher
observed how the teacher teaching
listening on his/her students. The
researcher also use statement
checklist as the additional to support
the observation sheet result. After
four-time of observation during a
month, the researcher continued to
the second step which is interview

7. the teacher. The researcher then
analyzed from the observation sheet
and interview guide to conclude the
results of the research, and the
researcher used a qualitative method
as the technique to analyze the data.
The last step of collecting
data the researcher distributed the
questionnaires to the students of the
two classes where the researcher had
observed before. The questionnaires
provided some information to
support the result of the data that was
gathered from the two instruments
before.
Instrumentation
In this research, the writer uses
several techniques to collect the data.
Techniques in data collection in this
research are:
1. Observation
Observation is the activity to
observe something (object)
using all of the senses (sight,
smell, hearing, touch, and
taste).
In this research, the writer uses
systematic observation and a
guided list of observation as the
instrument. In this process, the
writer needs to sign the activity
happening in the teaching-
learning process based on the
guided list of the observation.
2. Interview
In this research, the researcher
uses guided interview as the
instrument. The researcher
interviewed the English teacher
about the education
background of the English
teacher and to find out the
problems he/she finds when
he/she taught English,
especially in listening.
The Research Findings
The process of teaching
listening was found during four
observation periods. There were
many things that the researcher
learned from the observation. These
are the descriptions of each meeting
of teaching listening which were
obtained during the observation.
The Process of Teaching Listening
Based on the researcher
observation in four time of teaching
and learning process in the
classroom, the researcher conclude
the teacher used three-phase of
teaching; pre, while and post
activities. From the four meetings,
the teacher only using record in one
meeting, the other three meetings the
teacher only asked the students to
listen to the words orally from the
teacher.
Based on data that the
researcher found, the researcher
concluded that teaching and learning
activities were as follows:
a. Pre Activitities
In this step, the teacher checked the
presence list and prepared the
students readiness. After the students
were ready, the teacher explained the
objective of the lesson. The teacher

8. explained that they were going to
learn about listening. The objective
was for the students to identify the
words by listening to the teacher. It
took about 10 minutes to deliver the
lesson objective.
b. While Activities
Then, the teacher began the lesson by
explaining listening. Before that, the
teacher had to motivate the students
to learn listening. To motivate the
students in learning listening, the
teacher prepared some pictures
related to the listening. The teacher
showed the pictures of items relating
to a house and asked the students
what the pictures were. The media of
picture quite effective to motivated
students to began the learning
process. After that, students were
prepared to do a listening test. Before
the listening test, the teacher
prepared the students by asking them
to mention the items of the house and
to spell them correctly. Then, the
teacher started the listening test.
When the teacher applied the test
using record, the students had more
difficulties in comprehending the
sound compare when the teacher
applied the listening test directly
spoken.
c. Post Activities
After the listening test was finished,
the teacher asked the students to
collect their answer sheet and then
discussed the test together. For the
discussion, the teacher again
mentioned the words in the listening
test and asked the students to write
the words on the whiteboard
randomly. As the end of the activity,
the teacher gave homework. The
homework was memorizing five
words and the meanings in the
listening test. The teacher closed the
lesson by reminding the students to
study and to do their homework.
In addition, the researcher
found some problems faced by the
students in learning listening. Based
on the observation and the results of
the exercise, the students
encountered some problems that
affected their listening skills. There
were some problems related to
components of listening. The
problems are described below.
a. Content
Students are supposed to grasp
the contents of what they heard.
Some students in the classroom were
not be able to comprehend
information related to the text that
they heard. Some of the students
could not answer the questions
related to the text and did not even
comprehend what the text was about.
b. Vocabulary
The other problem in their
listening activities was vocabulary.
The students could not comprehend
the meaning of some words.
Resultantly, their activities in in
learning listening ran ineffectively.
In theory, to a certain extent, the size
of vocabulary determines listening
comprehension. Vocabulary is the
major component of language.
People frequently compare
vocabulary to building materials. For
every English learner, studying

9. English without a certain amount of
vocabulary is just like builders
building houses without bricks.
Vocabulary plays a vital role in
English learning. It is the foundation
of all training and the hearing is no
exception. In listening, a dialogue,
language, the discourse is formed by
sentences, and the sentence is formed
by vocabulary. Many people believe
that the more you listen, the better
one’s abilities of listening
comprehension. However, the level
of the hearing is not determined by
the amount how much one listens or
the length of the content.
New words appearing in the
listening passage seem to be boring
for students. Students usually assume
that if they do not know all the
words, they cannot understand the
passage. So when they hear
unfamiliar words, they become
nervous and ponder the word. As as
a result, they fail to comprehend the
following sentences. Actually none
of us listens to every word spoken to
us, yet we can understand what is
said.
c. Differentiate the sounds
Sound is the direct medium of
listening and speaking. Only by
using correct sound, can students
express their views and ideas
accurately. English pronunciation is
the first obstacle that students must
overcome. The purpose in learning
English is to communicate with
others. Moreover, communication is
a mutual activity. This requires us to
express ourselves as clearly as
possible when we communicate with
others. On the other hand, we should
understand others’ expression.
Unfortunately, we found that many
students lack basic phonetic
knowledge of distinguishing sounds,
liaison, incomplete plosive, words
stress and intonation. These
linguistic features adversely affect
listening comprehension. For
example, students can hardly
distinguish the words like “chip”
from “cheap”, “bad” from “bed” and
“sing” from “thing”. In a sentence
like “She stands to the right of the
door and assists the boss.”, when
some students hear the words “right”
and “boss”, they will incorrectly
recognize them as “light” and “bus”.
Also, there are some students,
affected by their dialect language,
who can’t discriminate the phonemes
“n”, “l”, “s” or “z”, causing them to
pronounce them incorrectly. This
adds to the difficulties of English
listening training.
Some words, especially in
form of minimal pairs have similar
sounds. These words were confusing
for the students. If they could not
differentiate the words by the
sounds, they would refer to the
unrelated words
Based on the problems related
to components of listening above, the
researcher concluded that there were
several reasons for the problems
which occured in components of
listening.
a. Vocabulary Mastery
The students possessed a
limited amount of English
vocabulary. Resultantly, most of the

10. students became confused in
listening. They did not understand a
single word and thus were unable to
grasp the meaning of the text which
they heard.
b. Uninterested in Learning
English
Most of the students stated that
English was one of the most difficult
subjects in the curriculum. They
believed English to be a complicated
language. They frequently had
difficulty in both understanding and
writing English words. Since
English was a new subject for them,
they did not possess a basic
foundation of the language.
c. Boredom in Learning English
Occasionally, the students
became bored in learning English.
One of the contributing factors was
the students’ limited English
vocabulary. They did not understand
the meaning of the text and they
considered English as one of the
most difficult subjects. The other
factor was the teaching technique of
the teacher. The teacher rarely
changed the technique.
Consequently, the students did not
have any variation when the teacher
delivered the material.
d. Students’ Own Personality
The students’ own personality
also had a large influence in listening
text. The students should realize that
when learning a new language, they
should also learn the culture behind
the language itself. They should be
self-motivated to learn English
because as an international language,
learning English will have a positive
influence on their success.
The Interview Results
According to the result of
observation and the interview of the
teacher, the researcher identified
some problems encountered by the
teacher in teaching listening.
1. Techniques in teaching
listening
The first problems which
occured in teaching listening
entailed the teacher’s
technique. Primarily, the
teacher only used one kind of
activitiy to teach listening
skills. During the class
observation, the teacher closely
followed the contents,
instructions and tasks, step-by-
step, from the textbook. The
teacher simply present the new
words, gave instructions, ask
the students to read the
requirements, and read the text
or play the tapes two or three
times for the students to listen.
In the process of teaching
listening, the techniques used
by the teacher were almost the
same for every meeting. The
teacher often used the natural
approach as the technique in
teaching listening. This
technique was emphasized on
teacher monologue (teacher’s
explanation) and direct
repetition. Based on the
researcher’s observation, this
technique was not effective
because most of teaching

11. learning listening activity
focused on the teacher and it
did not involve the students in
class activity. The students also
did not understand the
teacher’s explanation clearly
which caused the teacher to
have to repeat the explanation.
There was no difference or
significance between a
listening lesson and the other
skills.
2. The media in teaching
The use of media is not
optimal, based on information
that obtain in observation and
interview the researcher found
out that the school provides
some media of teaching. They
are language laboratory,
television, record as in cassette,
CD and/or DVD. The teacher
used pictures as media in
teaching listening text. The
pictures could trigger the
students’ prior knowledge
about listening and they could
help the students in learning
listening, yet it would be better
if the teacher often use another
provided media such as
television as audio-visual
media or using language
laboratory as the place of
learning English to avoid the
boredom atmosphere in
learning in the classroom then
make the facility more useful
by use the record tools in the
laboratory as the media of
teaching.
Conclusions
From the findings of the
research, the researcher can conclude
several points about teaching
listening comprehension in the
classroom. According to the result of
observation, interview to the teacher,
and questionnaire to the students,
then the researcher conclude the
problems in the teaching listening for
the seventh grade students in SMPN
4 Banjarmasin are following,
1. The teacher just used one
kind of activities in teaching
listening. The teacher
teaching followed the
contents, instructions and
tasks given in the textbook
step by step. The teacher
present the new words, give
instructions, and ask students
to read the requirements, read
the text or play the tapes
twice or three times for
students to listen.
2. The process of teaching and
learning seemed too serious,
the teacher never used games
or songs as variant of
teaching and learning
activities. It is almost full of
verbal explanations, question
and answer, and doing
written exercises.
3. The use of media as teaching
aid was not optimal. The
teacher is lack of capability in
operating the language
laboratory so the teacher did
not exploit the available
facility well-used.

12. 4. The media in teaching
listening is not used to the
way it should be use. The
students will be interested in
learning English if the
teacher can deliver the lesson
not only verbally and focus
on the text book, but also by
using media that can attract
their attention such as
recording and audio-visual.
Suggestions
From the findings of the
research, the researcher has some
suggestions to the teacher and the
students. The suggestions are:
1. It is suggested that the
teacher should be more
creative in teaching such as
using cooperative teaching
technique, attractive media
and also make listening
outline in order to help and
attract students’ interest to
the lesson.
2. It is suggested that the
teacher could creating
pleasant atmosphere in the
classroom to make students
experience fun English
learning activities.
3. The teacher should concern
about media in teaching
listening, especially the
language laboratory which is
demanding teacher to learn
how to operate the language
laboratory.
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Chastain, Kenneth. 1976. Developing Second Language Skills:Theory to Practice.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co.
Harmer, Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London:
Longman.
Persulessy, George Herman. 1998. Listening Improvement Exercises for Students
of English as a Foreign Language. Jakarta: Depdikbud.
Richards, Jack C. 2008. Teaching Listening and Speaking: From Theory to
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