Abstrak
HALIMAH TUSSA’DIYAH, Reg. No. 2230104053, entitled: “An Analysis of Students’ Difficulties in Listening to Descriptive Texts (A Study of the First Semester Students of English Teaching Department of UIN Mahmud Yunus Batusangkar Registered in 2024/2025 Academic Year)”. English Teaching Department, Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training, Islamic State University of Mahmud Yunus Batusangkar. The problem of this research is the students’ difficulties in listening to descriptive texts, which have not yet been clearly revealed in terms of what specific challenges the students actually experience. This research aimed to describe the difficulties faced by the first-semester students of the English Teaching Department at UIN Mahmud Yunus Batusangkar in listening to descriptive texts. This research is a qualitative study using descriptive design. The technique used in selecting participants is purposive sampling. The participants were firstsemester students of the English Teaching Department who were registered in the 2024/2025 academic year and had taken the Listening to Descriptive Texts course. The researcher was the key instrument, supported by an interview guide. To ensure data validity, the researcher used member checking. The data were analyzed using the from Miles and Huberman (1994), including data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. The results of the research revealed five difficulties faced by students in listening to descriptive texts: 1) Unfamiliar Accent, 2) Unfamiliar vocabulary, 3) Ineffective learning devices, 4) Difficulty in Length and speed of the listening, 5) Lack of Focus, 6) Limited Vocabulary Mastery, 7) Difficulties in Understanding Language Features, 8) Less Understanding of Generic Structure, and 9) Difficulties in Describing in Describing or visualizing Objects. This research is expected to provide insights for students and lecturers to improve listening comprehension through better strategies and teaching practices.