BUILDING STUDENTS’ COOPERATION AND LISTENING
technique, but as an alternative one. This technique receives positive feedback from the students. Also, an article by Renandya (2011) advocates the value of extensive listening inspires this study. Therefore, the researcher is intrigued to further examine how this technique engages students in learning and improves their listening comprehension from the students’ perspectives. This present study is worth doing since there have not been any studies related to jigsaw technique with repeated listening which portray students’ engagement and comprehension on listening.
This paper aims to reveal how sophomore pre-service training students perceive the implementation of Jigsaw technique with repeated listening particularly related totheir learning engagement and listening comprehension on a listening class
METHOD
The students attended regular listening classes; once in a week for about 100 minutes. At the end of the class, the students had to write refelections, which include; opinions and feelings about what they experienced with the technique, they were asked about their perceptions of jigsaw technique with repeated listening. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews involving some subjects. The interviews focused on some aspects, including the benefits that the students obtain. Further, the interviews explored the aspects of whether this technique could improve the students’ listening competency and whether this technique is perceived as an interesting activity.
The materials for this research are in the form of monologue and dialogue; lectures and conversation on various topics. The jigsaw technique with repeated listening was implemented through some steps. The first step was on pre-listening activity; the teacher activated students’ schemata and helped the students get connected to the materials by posing several related questions about the topic.
Next, the teacher assigned numbers to the students and asked them to remember their numbers and presented the given tasks to them. Then, the teacher played the recording and the students on each number listened and did their tasks individually. After that, the teacher gave the students an opportunity to go with their expert group; the students with the same number, and shared their opinions. The teacher could play the recording one more time so that the students could discuss what they have listened.
Finally, each student on the expert group went back to their initial group; they structured and composed a written text based on what they listened to before they presented the summary before the class. If there were any different arguments, the teacher would play the recording and present the script to the students.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The data were obtained from a listening class of pre-service training in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The sophomore of 2015 and 2016 were involved. They studied listening materials using Jigsaw technique with repeated listening for three times.The results of this research reveal students’
engagement in learning and how jigsaw technique with repeated listening help to improve students’
listening comprehension. The study aims to depict students’ perceptions of the technique, whether it is interesting or not, how this technique can help them engage with the text and interact with their groupmates, and how this technique can improve their listening comprehension.
Jigsaw Technique with Repeated Listening is Interesting
All the students in the listening class believe that jigsaw technique with repeated listening is interesting because this technique can help them with regard to their focus, interaction, and listening skill.This is reflected by the following excerpts from the participants’ responses.
“This technique is interesting because every member of the group has his own job and he needs to share with and listen to his group mates to complete the tasks (AT)”
“Our listening skill is improved because we need to listen to the texts more than once and we can have a better understanding to the text by doing it (LT)”
“This technique helps me focus and concentrate on the text and on my task (RS).
Individual accountability and positive independence help the students develop a sense of belonging since they are empowered to achieve the shared goals. Besides that, it aids them to be efficient listeners since they are aware what they need to complete and focus on and they have a better undertsanding when they listen to the text more than once.
Students’ Engagement
Students’ engagement can obviously be seen when they have to collaborate in the learning process. Jigsaw technique with repeated listening requires the students to cooperate each other in groups to find the missing jigsaw. As a result, they have to be responsible learners so that they can help their friends and contribute in the groups. In this present study, the subjects agreed that jigsaw technique with repeated listening make them be empowered on learning, as shown by the following excerpt (PT):
“Everyone has been empowered to be responsible to their own tasks and by this clear job description, I do not need to listen to the whole text but by listening to my friends’ sharings I can get the whole picture about what I listened to “.
More specifically, each member has their own responsibility to help other group mates understand the text from his segment so that they are able to construct and make meanings of the whole text. This indicates that listening is not seen as a solitude activity and testing, but it is a way to assist the students to understand the materials by the inquiry process about the what, how, and the way of learning on facts, arguments, and ideas since each of them is responsible to teach their friends. To put this into practice as it is realized in Jigsaw technique with repeated listening, the students need to be active listeners by being able to digest what is stated implicitly and explicitly and infer between the line messages by employing interactive listening approach: bottom up and topdown approaches. For instance, when the first recording was played, they had to listen to understand about the context of the text; setting, participants, relationships, topic, and purpose. In the second and third playing, they needed to listen to the details of the text and understood those and finally cooperate with their friends. In addition, in this teamwork effort, each member had to be able to discuss, argue, and defend their ideas.
Students’ engagement is reflected by the project-based learning which they have undergone. In Jigsaw technique with repeated listening, students’ have to find the other elements in order to understand the whole message by collaborating in a project on particular tasks. This is well-mentioned by one of the subjects:
“What I like best from this technique is that we are differently assigned to answer different questions in order to be able to complete the summary to be presented before the teacher and my classmates. I need to listen carefully in my individual listening and I have to be able to share with my groupmates about what I have got in both expert and initial groups and listen to my fellow friends in both groups so that we can complete the given project; making summary.
It can be inferred that Jigsaw technique with repeated listening requires students to undergo an authentic task corresponding to the tasks at home or in the workplace, being a good listener. In real life, being a good listener is an important skill to help individuals to build good rapports at work and in other social situations. This is important because students can develop and reshape their ideas based on what they listen from others.
These findings of this research confirm Kearsley and Shneiderman’s (1998) theory of engagement learning. They viewed that student engagement in a learning process is essential and can be realized in three main principles: relate, create, and donate (Kearsley & Shneiderman,1998). In the relate principle, students learn through collaboration. Activities emphasizes team efforts by employing communication, management, social skills, and planning. Students are expected to discuss and defend their ideas. In the create principle, a project-based learning is put into practice. Activities should have particular purposes. Students are given opportunities to define, organize and complete their own projects, develop a sense of ownership of the project and of their own learning. In the last principle, donation, students are engaged in realistic projects so that they can get better preparation to enter real life and workplace.
Listening Comprehension
Students reported that repeated listening has helped them get engaged with the texts by helping them understand better because they could link and make meanings from what they have listened to each time the recording was played and work with friends. One of the subject, RS, mentioned:
“I can understand the text better when I listen to the played recording more than once with different task on each playing and my friends and I can share each other what we have listened to (YW)”
This finding is in line with Renandya (2012), suggesting that repeated listening provides ample opportunities for students to understand texts better because, as proved by Dupuy (1999) in Renandya (2012), that the students can understand better after third or fourth listening. Moreover, repeated listening or multiple listening helps students focus and concentrate and listen carefully. Jigsaw technique with repeated listening improves their comprehension because they have to listen to the text over and over and they can finally be accustomed to the normal speech speed.
The students believed that this technique can assist them with their word recognition skill, vocabulary, and pronunciation. They can identify particular words and their correct pronunciation and they can also acquire new vocabularies. A subject, Y, pointed that out:
“I can gain new vocabularies that I have not yet listened to and I can recognize the words that I only sometimes know when they are written out. This technique can make me know how to pronounce particular words correctly” (Y)
Vocabulary is essential in students’ language development and having sufficient vocabulary stock helps students understand the language and communicate with that language. Listening serves as one of language inputs besides reading, enabling students to acquire vocabularies. Students can either develop script speech relationship from what they read and listen
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This paper has presented how sophomore students in a pre-service training perceive the implementation of Jigsaw technique with repeated listening in a listening course. It particularly focuses on the students’ learning engagement and their listening comprehension. The results of the study suggest that the students perceived its implementation positively. It can be obviously seen from their collaboration that they were engaged in their learning. Not only that, they were involved in a real project, requiring the students to find the missing jigsaw by discovering, questioning, sharing and learning from each other.
Despite the results, the study only explores how students’ perceive the implementation of jigsaw technique with repeated listening; students’ learning engagement, and their listening comprehension.
Therefore,quantitative research can be conducted to examine its effectiveness.
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