Efl Learners' Difficulties in the Structure and Written Expression Section of Toefl Test in an Indonesian University

Abstract

<jats:p>This study examined the English for Foreign Language (EFL) learners' difficult topics in the structure and written expression section of the TOEFL Prediction Test, and reasons why they consider that these topics were difficult. The mixed-method research design was used in this study. Fifteen participants were selected through purposive sampling mechanism from the seventh-semester students of Department of English Language Education, Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry who have participated in the TOEFL Prediction Test to identify the difficult topics they encountered. Then, the semi-structured interviews were conducted to six underachieving student's participants with the most recorded errors made in the test to know the reasons behind their difficulties. Findings indicated that students encountered difficulties mostly when dealing with determiners, conjunctions, adjective clauses, apposition phrases, and reduced clauses in the structure section. Meanwhile, adverb connectors, subject-verb agreement, and clause of concession, relative clause, and quantifier are the difficulties they encountered in the written expression section of the test. Thus, the findings also revealed several factors identified as the reasons behind those difficulties, namely lack of practice, grammar incompetence, vocabulary shortage, time management, and low self-confidence. Given the significant impact of this study, we suggested that the lectures and English departments should address these difficulties. It is crucial that the focus of the courses related to grammar and EFL proficiency tests be incorporated into the syllabus.</jats:p>

Vocabulary Mastery in University Students: a Study on EFL Context

“…There are a variety of issues and reasons that contribute to kids' difficulty with language, including the following: Understanding tough-level language is becoming difficult. The birth of a feeling of maleness in one's own self, as well as the ability to remember and comprehend terminology In ordinary life, vocabulary (while speaking in English) is seldom used (Akmal et al, 2020). Based on some of the problem ideas and factors mentioned above, it can be explained that there are four ways to understand vocabulary: (1) Form is studying, listening and repeating, listening for specific phonological information (consonants, vowel sounds, syllable sources, Copyright © 2021, Journal of Asian Multicultural Research for Educational Study, Under the license CC BY-SA 4.0 stress patterns), looking at or observing the written for shape, first and last letters, letters clusters, spelling, noticing grammatical information, and copying and organizing; (2) Content is studying, listening and repeating, listening for specific phonological (2) Pronunciation is also known as pronunciation in English or pronunciation in the English language.…”

The Initial Lexicogrammatical Competence of the English Education Freshmen

“…Handayani (2019) also carried out similar research to firstgrade nursing students and found 8 lexicogrammatical topics (word order, parallel structure, singular and plural nouns, missing and extra words, articles, comparative and superlative, word choice, and word form) that were considered the most difficult based on students' test performance according to the students. Akmal et. al.…”

Structure and Written Expressions of the TOEFL: Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Constraints

“…If there are any studies carried out focusing on the Structure and Written Expressions section, they were limited to investigating the problems that the students faced in terms of linguistic factors (Akmal et al, 2020;Nasution, 2019;Putra, 2020;Syahrin, 2020;Tangkelangi, 2020). These previous studies tried to identify the grammatical items that posed the most challenging problems for the participants.…”