A Comparison of Teachers’ and Students’ Perceived Difficult Words in a Reading Text

Abstract

There are always difficult words in a reading text perceived as difficult by teachers and students. This study is a descriptive research which set out to analyze teachers’ and students’ choices of perceived difficult words in a reading text. 25 students of ninth-grade and three teachers were selected as participants. The data were words and considered as difficult by both teachers and students. The teachers were interviewed to find out their reasons why they considered the words were difficult for the students. This study showed various reasons why students and teachers underlined words that were perceived as difficult. The findings show that the difficulties are caused by unfamiliarity, multi word-construction, or multiple word meaning.