EFL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON TOEIC PRACTICE CLASS AT TWELFTH

Learning English language is much demanded and crucial for EFL students. Students are supposed to be able to prove their language skills through language proficiency test. TOEIC is one of the language proficiency tests that mostly EFL students especially vocational high school students need to learn and master it. However, the students often encounter some difficulties in conducting the TOEIC test. Improving students’ comprehension about practicing the TOEIC test highly requires a good strategy. TOEIC practice class is considered to be one of appropriate approaches to be applied to encourage the students’ comprehension. The purpose of the research is to investigate comprehensively whether there is any significant improvement of practicing TOEIC strategy on the students’ listening comprehension of the twelfth grade students. This research applied descriptive qualitative approach that engages one group participated by 30 students of twelfth grade of SMK Kesehatan Husada Pratama. It can be seen that there was such significant improvements of practicing TOEIC strategy on the students’ listening comprehension of the twelfth grade at SMK Kesehatan Husada Pratama academic year 2019/2020.

ISSN: 2301-9913, E-ISSN: 2597-9132 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31000/globish.v7i2 2 EFL Students' Perception on TOIEC Practice Class at Twelfth Graders SMK KESEHATAN HUSADA PRATAMA Imam Fauzi measure is the starting point for test construction. The thing we are trying to measure is called a construct, and the test will be useful and valid only if it measured the right construct. Thus, the first task of the test developer is to understand the construct (Gary, 2001).
Furthermore, Lucy pollard as quoted from (Nurpahmi, 2015) Listening is one of the receptive skills and as such it involves students in capturing and understanding the input of English. Reading, the other receptive skill, involves students in understanding and interpreting the written word. Listening is probably more difficult than reading because students often recognise the written word more easily than they recognise the spoken word. Furthermore when reading, students can go back and reread a phrase whereas with listening they only get one chance. With reading, it's the reader who sets the pace whereas with listening it's the speaker or recording that sets the pace.
Students often encounter a problem in listening comprehension. It can be proven when they are given some English listening tasks. They still have trouble catching the actual sounds of the native language. They have to understand the meaning of every key word. They can understand if the native speakers speak slowly, they can't understand fast natural nativesounding speech. They need to hear things more than once in order to understand. If the listening goes on a long time, they get tired and find it more difficult to concentrate. Therefore, they need some effective strategies in order to be better at listening comprehension. According to ETS (2008:2) the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) test is an Englishlanguage proficiency test for people whose native language is not English. It measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment which is also given to the students of vocational high school (SMK) to know their proficiency and how well they can communicate in English. Based on the research formulated problems, the researcher would like to find out whether there would be any significant improvement of practicing TOEIC strategy on the students' listening comprehension of twelfth grade at SMK Kesehatan Husada Pratama in academic year 2019/2020. Relating to the language learning problems faced by the students, TOEIC practice class is expected to be applied appropriately to improve the students' listening comprehension and TOEIC scores. This research also is intended to investigate descriptively the EFL learners perceptions on the TOEIC practice class. Furthermore, this TOEIC practice class will effectively help the students to prepare them to face national examination, the TOEIC Test, and any other listening tasks. From the condition above, the researcher conducts a study towards the twelfth grade students of SMK Kesehatan Husada Pratama to identify the improvement of listening comprehension of the EFL students through TOEIC practice class.

II. RESEARCH METHOD
The research design in this study was descriptive qualitative approach. According to (Nassaji, 2015) Qualitative research, however, is more holistic and often involves a rich collection of data from various sources to gain a deeper understanding of individual

III. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
In order to figure out whether the objectives of the research could be achieved or not, of EFL students agreed that TOEIC practice class enriches their language competencies especially listening skill and 20% of them were still having big problems how to understand effectively the listening strategy of TOEIC test. Seventh one, 90% of students argued that after following the TOEIC practice class, they were able to overcome the problems how to answer listening sections of TOEIC test namely; Photograph, question and resposes and short conversation but 10% of them were still having some difficulties to comprehend the listening trics because only few of them had not participated fully the 5 days TOEIC practice class. The eighth point revealed that 100% of students highly agreed that following the TOEIC practice class positively encourages themselves to practice listening skill through TOEIC simulation test.
Ninth point has already proven that 90% of them agreed that TOEIC practice class allows them to enrich their self-confidence at doing TOEIC test but 10% of students disagree because of some reasons; firstly some students are still getting confused to master the TOEIC trics, secondly some of them had some weaknesses at listening skill because they do not get used to practice English listening tasks even some students and thirdly they can not catch the actual listening sounds spoken by native speakers. The last point declared 100% of them agreed that TOEIC practice class siginificantly helps them to prepare their own school graduation.
Questionnaire of students responses about TOEIC practice class has obviously clarified that TOEIC practice class has siginificantly assisted the EFL students four major purposes; fisrt the EFL students would be able to construct their new knowledge about the useful trics of TOEIC test, second they feel highly interested in improving their major language competencies integratedly, third many students were enthusiastically engaged in the more active learning activities through TOEIC practice class, and lastly many of them expected to be able to participate the sessions up next so that they can practice much more listening skill, structure understanding and reading skill and easily accomplish the TOEIC test. To investigate much deeper investigation of students' improvement on their lisntening skill, it can be interprated as in the second research question;

How does the TOEIC practice class can improve the students listening skill?
To respond comprehensively the second research question, the researcher conducted Pre-test, learning treatments and Post-TOEIC test. This three phases have already revealed the research findings as described with the following;

Mean Score of Pre-and Post-Test
After the researcher conducted pre-and post test given in the TOEIC format, the findings has captured that most of students had made the significant improvement of TOEIC test results.
It can be proven that there were 27% of 30 EFL students were getting much better because some logical reasons; fisrtly many students were getting more interested in learning TOEIC strategy in TOEIC practice class that facilitate them to learn intensively in 5 day sessions along.

CONCLUSION
A review from the research findings revealed that there was an increase of the students' scores in each section after being given the treatment. Listening comprehension has been achieved about 93 average increasement after the twelfth grade nurse vocational high school sctudents participated the TOEIC practice class. There were 65 average increasements reached by the EFL students because TOEIC practice class is able to encourage their interests in learning and understanding TOEIC useful strategy delivered in the 5 days learning treatments given by the researcher as EFT (English Foreign Teaching) practitioner, most of them were motivated to learn English language through learning and practicing TOEIC helpful tricks, the treatments enrich them some more knowledges of preparing the TOEIC test, and most of EFL students appreciated the program and expected to follow the TOEIC practice class again in the next term.
Further findings proven that 27% of 30 EFL students were getting much better because some logical reasons; fisrtly many students were getting more interested in learning TOEIC strategy in TOEIC practice class that facilitate them to learn intensively in 5 day sessions along. From the result of post-test, it can be descriptively elaborated that 50% of 30 vocational high school students of SMK Kesehatan Husada Pratama mostly achieved the higher score of TOEIC test rather than pre-test. It can be concluded that the implementation of TOEIC practice class can significantly improve the students' listening comprehension. According to the result of this research, it states that there is significant improvement of practicing TOEIC practice class on the students' listening comprehension. That is why the use of TOEIC practice class in academic purpose especially in listening should not be neglected. To create a comfortable environment in teaching, the researcher suggests that the teacher be selective in applying appropriate techniques in listening as the students need to be ready in doing listening test and the readiness can be obtained when they feel comfortable. The students also should not be busy with their own business during the learning process when they are not familiar or do not like with the material or the technique used. In contrary, they should be able to adapt with the new techniques and materials used as fast as possible to reach better learning achievement and EFL learning and teaching purposes.