TOEFL is one of standardized test which have been applied by many universities especially for the graduation standard requirements for the students, including in University of Islam Malang. The aim of this study is to know students’ difficulties in doing the TOEFL listening section both from external and internal factors.
This study uses qualitative research with narrative inquiry design and collected the data by doing an interview. The study was conducted to 5 non-English Department students of UNISMA who were selected through purposive sampling technique based on a criterion of students that have taken the TOEFL test in UNISMA. To analyse the data, the researcher transcribed the finding of an interview in a form of words followed by the process of editing to examine the irrelevant data then the researcher coded and organized the data in order to provide the final result accordance with the research questions.
The result of this study reveals that the difficulty from the external factors include: the speakers’ accent, the speakers’ speed, complexity of sentences, length of sentences, idioms, unfamiliar vocabularies, noise from outside, and room temperature. While the internal factors include: lack of concentration and the difficulty in answering the restatement question, negative question, passive question, contrary meaning question, idiomatic question, long conversation and monolog part question. Overall, the researcher claimed that listening skills cannot be improved just in a short time since the listeners need to prepare and take stages both from external and internal way in order to comprehend the message delivered properly. In addition, it suggested for further researchers to explore the strategies to overcome the difficulties in passing listening TOEFL test.
Keywords: TOEFL, TOEFL Difficulties, Listening Comprehension