Electronic Theses and Dissertation

Abstract name : fauza aulia rahmi student no : 1609200080036 department/program : english education/graduate title : the difficulties faced by medical students in taking listening section of the toefl test keywords: toefl, listening, and listening difficulties. this research investigates the students’ responses on toefl listening difficulties and their efforts made to overcome the difficulties. this study is a descriptive qualitative research. this study used online questionnaire attached in the google forms and was distributed to 100 medical students of up3bi (unit pengembangan program pendamping mata kuliah bahasa inggris) class of syiah kuala university language center. the questionnaire has two parts. in the first part, it is asked about the students’ personal information of listening skill. and, it is found that watching english tv programs or movies (65.10%) and listening to english songs (60%) as the highest rank of students’ efforts made to overcome listening difficulties of the toefl test. the next part consists of listening difficulties questionnaire. it is found that it is difficult for mostly respondents to understand the native speaker’s pronunciation (64%). in addition, it is suggested that for english lecturers, other reseachers, institution, and testing organizers to contribute a standardized knowledge of toefl test and also to provide a conditioned testing place for a better improvement of listening toefl in particular. besides, the test takers or students should practice and learn more about listening toefl as often as possible. therefore, they will get used to listening and can minimize the difficulties during taking the toefl test.