Analyzing The Difficulties Encountered by Non-English Department students in Reading Sections of TEP test (Test of English Proficiency)

Abstract

Language testing in education is a needed as a tool to measure students understanding and ability about the subject that had been studied by the students. Proficiency test is one of the types of test that often used in Indonesia as a measurement the people ability in language.TEP (test of English Proficiency) is that the test that executed by P2BA (PusatPengenmabanganBahasaAsing) University of Islam Malang as a requirement before doing thesis examination. Reading comprehension is one aspect of language skill that students should be mastered by the students. Unfortunately many students are still failed to pass the test. Therefore, the researcher conduct a research to find out the difficulties faced by non-English department students’ in TEP test of reading sections and the strategies do the students do to overcome the difficulties. This research employed descriptive qualitative. The data were collected by using questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of two parts related to the students’ difficulties and strategies in TEP test. The data analyzed by using descriptive qualitative. The respondents of this study were 32 students eight semesters at Mathematic education students of University of Islam Malang in the academic year 2017/2018. The finding showed that there are some students’ difficulties in TEP (Test of English Proficiency) in reading section. The students’ difficulties in TEP test are the difficulties that related to language knowledge, difficulties related to motivation, difficulties related to background knowledge, difficulties related to reading comprehension process and the difficulties related to the lack of reading strategies. To overcome the difficulties, there are some strategies used by the students. The results of findings showed that the strategies used by the students to overcome the difficulties in TEP test on reading section are the strategies use key words to search main idea, strategy for identifying the purpose in reading, strategy skimming the text and strategy repeat reading text to increase their understanding. Based on the result of the research above, it can be concluded that there are some difficulties in TEP test (Test of English Proficiency) in reading section that faced by non English students during the test. Therefore, the student is advised to pay more attention to the test and have some preparation before doing the test. The students are also accustomed to increasing the vocabulary, understanding about grammar and read English text as often as they can so that the students can be minimize the difficulties in TEP test in Reading sections. Keywords: Students’ Difficulties and Strategies, TEP(Test of English Proficiency), Reading Comprehension Sections