STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES AT LEARNING ENGLISH IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF PEKALONGAN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Learning English has never been as simple as learning our mother tongue. This is due to the differences of structure, spelling, and pronunciation between those two languages. Besides, there is not much exposure of English outside of the classroom which contributes to the limited chances of English learners to listen and use English in their daily lives. Difficulties and challenges are of course anticipated to be found in the students’ learning of English processes. So far, there have been a very limited number of studies of difficulties in learning English faced by university students in Indonesian higher education contexts. Indonesian university students majoring in English language are of course having greater opportunities to use this target language in their classroom environment but their real problems of learning are still unknown. This article reports the research findings of the students’ difficulties in learning English at the English Language Education Department, Pekalongan University, the Republic of Indonesia. This study employed the tool of self-report questionnaire to collect data provided by 42 respondents. The findings show that the students had difficulties in learning speaking skill, mastering vocabulary, comprehending texts, and in mastering grammar. Astonishingly, English-major students from this university also faced their difficulties in mastering the target language even after spending years of learning English. From such findings, the writers recommended some teaching strategies for the lecturers of English from the studied Department to help students to overcome their difficulties in learning English.