Investigating ELE Students’ Learning Challenges and Strategies in Academic Listening Class

Abstract

This study presents the investigation on English Language Education (ELE) students’ learning challenges and strategies in Academic Listening Class. This study is carried out to answer the challenges that they met and the strategies that the students used to beat in Academic Listening. There were 50 participants from batch 2017 and 2016 of Faculty Language and Arts, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. More specifically, the 50 students filled the questionnaire and 10 of them who passed the class with grade A-AB were asked to respond to the interview questions. This study revealed there were three most challenges encountered by the participants: students lose their concentration if the recording is in poor quality, students difficult to concentrate with noises around, and students feel that unclear sounds resulting from poor-quality equipment (audio-player, headset, loudspeaker) can interfere their listening comprehension. Furthermore, the results confirmed the strategies used by the success participants included in Cognitive Strategies. There are listening to English language study videos/audios/podcasts, listing vocabulary exercises from the lecturer, and listening to English video/audios/podcasts in general. Hopefully, this study might be beneficial for EFL students to learn effectively and prepare themselves in the Academic Listening class. Moreover, the Academic Listening lecturers could find the proper strategies to be approached for their students.