AN IMPLEMENTATION OF STRATEGY TRAINING IN TOEFL LISTENING CLASS: Case Study in One Language Center in Bandung.

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Yella Dezas Perdani, 2015

AN IMPLEMENTATION OF STRATEGY TRAINING IN TOEFL LISTENING CLASS

AN IMPLEMENTATION OF STRATEGY TRAINING IN

TOEFL LISTENING CLASS

(Case Study in One Language Center in Bandung)

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master’s Degree in English Education

By

YELLA DEZAS PERDANI

1201637

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE

INDONESIA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

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AN IMPLEMENTATION OF STRATEGY TRAINING IN TOEFL

LISTENING CLASS

Oleh

Yella Dezas Perdani S.Pd UNP Padang, 2011

Sebuah Tesis yang diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu syarat memperoleh gelar Magister Pendidikan (M.Pd.) pada Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni

Juli 2014

Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang.

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PAGE OF APPROVAL

This thesis entitled “THE INVESTIGATION OF STRATEGIES TAUGHT BY

THE INSTRUCTOR IN LISTENING TOEFL” has been approved by:

Supervisor

Dr. Dadang sudana M.A Nip. 196009191990031001

Head of english education study program,

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ABSTRACT

Taking TOEFL test is one of the graduation requirements for non-English learners. Nevertheless, some of the learners still face difficulties in answering the test, especially on the listening section as it is regarded as the most difficult one for non-English learners. Because of that reason, the learners need to join strategy training program in order to learn the appropriate strategy to answer TOEFL listening questions. Thus, this research was carried out to investigate the strategies trained by the instructor of the TOEFL listening section in teaching non-English University learners, the way the strategies trained and the effects of those strategies on the learners’ listening ability as an attempt to help the learners to cope with their difficulties. By employing largely a descriptive qualitative research, this study was conducted at one language center in Bandung, West Java, involving the instructor of the listening TOEFL section and 25 learners enrolling in his class. The data were collected through observation, interview, questionnaire and pre-test post test result. An eight-meeting observation was carried out in two months. The interviews were addressed to both the instructor and four of his learners. The questionnaire was distributed to all of the learners. And the result of pre-test and post-test were measured by using t-test. The results of this research show that there are 22 strategies trained by the instructor which are effective in helping learners to choose the right answers in the TOEFL listening section. Among the 22 strategies, 17 strategies were found in part A, and 5 others were found in part B and part C. There are three stages conducted by the instructor in applying strategy training; pre-teaching, whilst-teaching and post-teaching. The results further reveal that the strategies improve the learners’ listening ability and their TOEFL score, especially in the listening section; familiar with the strategies of TOEFL listening and can apply it; familiar with english text; and enjoy english more which encourages them to use English for communication.

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ABSTRAK

Mengikuti tes TOEFL adalah salah satu persyaratan bagi mahasiswa non-bahasa Inggris. Namun begitu, sebahagian mahasiswa masih menghadapi kesulitan dalam menjawab soal-soal pada tes tersebut, khususnya pada sesi menyimak yang diketahui sebagai sesi tersulit bagi mahasiswa non-bahasa Inggris. Karena alasan tersebut, mahasiswa perlu mengikuti program strategi training untuk mempelajari strategi dalam menjawab pertanyaan pada sesi menyimak. Dengan demikian, penelitian ini ini dilakukan untuk menginvestigasi strategi yang di ajarkan oleh instruktur TOEFL dalam mengajarkan mahasiswa non-bahasa Inggris, cara strategi tersebut di ajarkan, dan efek dari strategi tersebut pada kemampuan menyimak mahasiswa. Dengan melaksanakan peneliatian kualitatif, penelitian ini dilaksanakan disalah satu Balai Bahasa di Bandung, Jawa Barat, melibatkan instruktur dari TOEFL dan 25 orang mahasiswa yang mengikuti kelasnya. Data dikumpulkan melalui observasi, wawancara, angket, dan hasil pre tes dan post test. Delapan pertemuan diobservasi selama dua bulan. Wawancaea diajukan kepada instruktur dan empat orang mahasiswa. Angket diberikan kepada semua mahasiswa. Dan hasil pre test dan post tes dihitung dengan menggunakan t-tes. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan ada 22 strategi yang diajarkan yang efektif dalam membantu mahasiswa dalma menjawab pertanyaan menyimak TOEFL, ada 17 strategi untuk sesi A dan 5 strategi untuk sesi B dan C. Ada tiga tahap pengajaran yang dilakukan oleh instruktur, pre-teaching, whislt-teaching dan post-teaching. hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa strategi yang di ajarkan meningkatkan kemampuan menyimah mahasiswa, mereka menjadi familiar dengan strategi dalam menjawab pertanyaan menyimak TOEFL, dan mereka juga menyukai bahasa Inggris sehingga mendorong mereka dalam menggunakan bahasa inggris lebih sering.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.4 Significance of the study ...3

1.5 Definition of the key terms ...4

1.6 Organization of the thesis ...5

1.7 Concluding remark ...5

2.4.1 Steps in conducting the strategy training ...25

2.4.2 Listening strategies ...26

2.5 TOEFL listening strategies ...28

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2.5.2 Strategies in listening part B ...33

2.5.3 Strategies in listening part C ...35

2.6 Related previous research ...35

3.4.4 Pre-test and post-test result ...45

3.5 Data analysis...46

3.6 Concluding remark ...47

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...48

4.1 Strategies trained by the instructor ...48

4.1.1 Listening part A ...48

4.1.2 Listening part B and part C ...81

4.3 Stages of teaching ...87

4.3.1 Stages of teaching the strategy in part A...89

4.3.2 Stages of teaching the strategy part B and C ...93

4.4 Effects of the strategies on learners’ listening ability ...95

4.4.1 Improving listening ability...96

4.4.2 Knowing the strategies of TOEFL listening and can apply it...99

4.4.3 Familiar with English text...100

4.4.4 Enjoying English more ...101

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5.1 Conclusions ...102

5.2 Suggestions ...103

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...105

APPENDICES ...113

Appendix 1 Observation form ...113

Appendix 1.1 First observation ...114

Appendix 1.2 Second observation ...116

Appendix 1.3 Third observation ...118

Appendix 1.4 Fourth observation ...120

Appendix 1.5 Fifth observation ...122

Appendix 1.6 Sixth observation...124

Appendix 1.7 Seventh observation ...126

Appendix 2 Interviewees data summary ...128

Appendix 2.1 Interview’s questions for the instructor...129

Appendix 2.2 Interview questions for the learners ...138

Appendix 3 Data pre and post test 2014 ...150

Appendix 4 Questionnaire ...151

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LIST OF TABLES

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 Teaching stages conducted by the instructor in teaching strategies of Part A 92 Figure 4.2 Teaching stages conducted by the instructor in teaching

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses background of the study encompassing background of this study, research questions, purposes of the study, significance of the study, definition of key terms and organization of the thesis. It ends with a concluding remark.

1.1Background of the study

TOEFL is designed and administered by Educational Testing Service (Hinkel, 2005; p. ii; Riyanto, 2007, 2008, p. v; Johan & Anne, 2009, p. 9; Educational Testing Service, 2012). It is developed for ensuring English language proficiency for non-native speakers who want to study in American universities. It has become an admission requirement for non-native English speakers of many English-speaking colleges and universities. In addition, TOEFL certificate is also used to apply the job, continue the study abroad and graduating from the university.

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These data were taken from eight-time test conducted from December 17th to December 21st in 2012.

As matter of facts, those learners of non-English majors argued that listening section was difficult because they listened to the text only once (King and Stanley, 1989, p. 2) and it was not repeated and not be printed on the test book. They had to focus on and listened to the text, and then answered the questions in three seconds. Once they got lost, it was hard for them to get the idea of the text and answer the question.

In addition, those learners said the conversations were not clear and sometimes too fast. It is in line with the findings of this research that 58.33% of the participants thought so. It is because they are not familiar with spoken English texts and get difficulties in understanding them. Additionally, the learners also did not know the strategies yet so they could not answer the questions correctly. They did not know the appropriate strategies in answering the questions.

From the problems explained above, it is clear that TOEFL listening section is the most difficult section, especially for the learners of non-English majors. It might

be resulted from the learners’ incapability in using appropriate strategies. They need to know the proper strategies to answer TOEFL listening questions. Because of that reason, the learners necessitate to join the strategy training. Strategy training is the process of teaching the learning strategy to the learners in order to improve the

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There is no research found in examining the implementation of strategy training in answering TOEFL listening questions, especially in Indonesia. Thus, this study aims to investigate the strategy training implemented by the instructor in one language center in Bandung, the stages of conducting the strategy training and the effects of the strategy on the learners’ listening ability. This research was done in one language center in Bandung that involved one instructor and 25 non-English University learners.

1.2Purpose of the study

As indicated in the background of the study, the purposes of this study are to investigate the strategy trained by the instructor in answering TOEFL listening section, to know the stages in conducting strategy training by the instructor, and to

reveal the effects of the strategy training to the learners’ listening skill.

1.3Research questions

Regarding the background of the study above, the following are the research questions:

1. What are the strategies trained by the instructor in answering TOEFL listening section?

2. How is the strategy training implemented?

3. What are the effects of the strategy on the learner's listening skill?

1.4Significance of the study

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Theoretically, the study adds an empirical support to the existing theories of teaching TOEFL, especially the TOEFL listening section for learners of non-English majors. This can be the reference for others instructors in the future to conduct the kind of advance research related to this topic

Practically, the result of the study helps to clarify and define more precisely on what strategy trained, how the strategy training conducted and the effects on the

learners’ listening ability. Professionally, this study enriches the understanding about

the way of implementing the strategy training for TOEFL listening section.

1.5Definition of the key terms

Key terms used in this research are as follows:

TOEFL listening section : TOEFL section that tests the listening ability of the learners and contain 50 questions.

Listening skill : the ability of understanding conversation and long talk.

Strategy Training : the teaching of the learning strategies in answering TOEFL listening questions.

TOEFL Listening Strategies : the strategies trained by the instructor that started from stating the name, explaining the supporting theories, and evaluating the strategy.

Teaching steps : the steps conducted by the instructor in teaching each of the strategies.

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Part A : the first part of TOEFL listening section contained 30 short conversations and questions, and can be answered by using 17 specific strategies.

Part B : the second part in TOEFL listening section contained 8 questions, and can be answered by using 5 strategies training.

Part C : the third part in TOEFL listening section contained 12 questions, and can be answered by using 5 strategies training.

Instructor : the one who taught the strategies of TOEFL listening section for 8 meetings.

1.6Organization of the thesis

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1.7Concluding remark

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses methodology that was used in this research. The description starts with research design, research site, research participants, data collection techniques which are classroom observation, interview, and data analysis. It is ended by concluding remark.

3.1Research design

The design of this research was largely a descriptive qualitative method; however, inferential statistic was also employed to enrich the result. This design is called concurrent triangulation strategy (Creswell, 2006, p. 237). Additionally, this research was a theory-driven (Holliday 2005, p. 19; Sugiyono, 2008, p. 7). This research focused on the investigation about what strategy trained by the instructor, how the instructor trained the strategy and what the effects of the strategy to the

learners’ listening ability. After that, the strategies that were found become the theory established in TOEFL listening section.

As the nature of qualitative research, this research figured out the instructor

and learners’ experiences in teaching and learning TOEFL listening section (Dawson, 2002, p. 14; Sugiyono, 2008, p. 7). The experience included the participants’ personal opinions about the strategies used by the instructor in teaching TOEFL listening (Holliday, 2002, p. 6, Saedi 2002, p. 1, 3). This research used a qualitative approach which was provided rich descriptive data about what happen in the classroom (Day, 1990). Moreover, the findings of this research were explained deeply and related to the theories of teaching listening (Liamputtong 2009, p. 11) and cross-checked with the existing theories (Wallace 2002, p. 38).

In addition, inferential statistic was employed in order to provide more

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listening ability and the significant improvement of learners’ score (Creswell, 2006, p. 9-10).

3.2Research site

This study took place in one Language Center in Bandung. The reason for choosing this place was because it provides a TOEFL preparation class, especially for learners of non-English majors. Besides, the site was accessible.

3.3Research participants

The participants of this research were chosen by using purposive sampling. The participants were chosen by the researcher herself and guided by time and resources (Silverman, 2005, p. 136). In addition, the participants were chosen because of the specific purpose (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007, p. 214) that the instructor trained the strategy for the TOEFL and the learners learned it.

There were two kinds of participants in this research. The first participant was the TOEFL listening instructor. The instructor teaches TOEFL listening in the Language Centre in Bandung. The second participants were his learners who were from non–English majors. All of the learners were in the same class. There are 24 of them who finished the course (8 meetings). There were 8 learners from Magister program and 16 learners from an undergraduate program. To avoid the confusion, the participants would be called as instructor (I) and the learners (L).

3.4Data collection techniques

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and questionnaire. The data collection techniques and research qestions answered can be seen in the table 3.1.

Table 3. 1 Research questions and data collection techniques used

Research questions Data collection techniques used

1. What are the strategy training taught by

2. How is the strategy training conducted? - classroom observation - interview

3. What are the effects of strategy training on the learner's listening skill?

- interview process through the sense (Emilia, 2000; Tsai, 2008 Cresswell, 2012, p. 213).

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visiting the site and recording notes without involving in the activities of the participants (Creswell, 2012, p. 214-215).

Table 3.2 Observation process

Observation Date The strategies training

TOEFL

- listen for expression of agreement, - listen for expression of uncertainty

and suggestion

- listen for emphatic expression of surprise

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7th, 2014 - listen for untrue conditions sections, listening, structure and written expression and reading. Each of the section requires eight meetings. So there were eight meetings of listening that were observed by the researcher. The researcher joined the class in every meeting and did observation. There were two and half hours in every meeting, from 13.00 to 15.30. In summary, the researcher paid attention to what strategies taught by the instructor in teaching strategy TOEFL listening section.

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1. The observation format was designed based on the research questions. It was overt observation (the participant knew that they were observed) and it was also non-participant observation in which the researcher as an observer was not a participant.

2. The observations were focused on the strategies trained by the instructor in teaching listening TOEFL.

3. The data were gathered by using field note and were written up immediately following the observation. It was also saved by recording the whole activities in the class (Derry, 2007, p. 8). The components of field note were chronological log, reflection and recall, pre-analysis data (ideas and inference), impressions and personal feeling and forward planning.

4. The proses of observation was started by getting in, informed consent, becoming invisible (immersed), building raport, observing and learning, and getting out (see appendix 1)

5. The reliability of observation data was checked by reviewing the recording video done in every meeting

6. The observation format included the context of the class (setting of the class), number of participants, the place, strategies taught and steps conducted by the instructor.

3.4.2 Interview

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then the followed up questions were intended to give an opportunity to the participants to interpret the question and encourage them to give detailed responses.

The participants interviewed were chosen randomly. There were four learners asked; they were Economic education learners of Magister program, an undergraduate learner of geography education, an undergraduate learner of business management and an undergraduate of family welfare education. The interviews were conducted after the post-test.

There were some steps conducted in gaining interview data (Saedi, 2002; Gray 2004, p. 219-221), they were as follows:

1. The interview was designed based on research questions. It was semi-structured interview.

2. The validity of the interview questions was checked by one of the instructors in that language center who was not a participant, and one of the learner who has already taken preparation class and was not a participant also.

3. The interview process was done after the preparation class was over and all of the interviewees were treated with the same protocol. The questions were asked one by one orderly and they were allowed to answer freely without limited time. And it was one-by-one and face-to-face interview in different places and times.

4. The indicators of the interview quality were the consistency (researcher actions and analysis), accuracy (the data were fair presentations of what the participant actually said) and neutrality (the researcher was aware of the possible confounding effect).

5. The participants were informed about the purpose of the interview. 6. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed manually.

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3.4.3 Questionnaire

The fourth data collection was a questionnaire. The learners were given a systematic format of the questions and it was answered by the learners. Therefore, The questionnaires were given to 24 learners of TOEFL listening preparation class. There were 13 questions in the questionnaire (see appendix 4).

There were some steps conducted in collecting the data through questionnaire in this research (Gray 2004, p. 205-207); they were as follows:

1. The questionnaire was designed based on the research questions. It was an open-ended questionnaire.

2. The piloting of the questionnaire was checked by giving the draft to one of the instructors in that language center who was not a participant in this research 3. The questionnaires were administrated by self-administrated. The researcher gave

the questionnaire after the course over, and collected it right away after the learners filled the questionnaire.

3.4.4 Pre-test and post-test result

The fourth data collection technique was pre-test and post-test result. The tests were pre-test that was done by the learners before joining the class and post test was the one after joining the class. The result of pre-test and post-test result were taken from the Language Center itself. Therefore, the pre-test and post-test was consucted by the institution. The hyphotheses were:

Ho: There is no significant improvement of TOEFL listening score. H1: There is a significant improvement of TOEFL listening score.

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improvement of the learners’s score so that could enrich and support the data found. T-test was used to differenciate between two mean in order to see the significant improvement of the score.

3.5Data analysis

The data were analyzed by using grounded theory or was called inductive process (Gray 2004, p. 346). It is the “the analytic process through which data is

fractured, conceptualized and integrated to form a theory” (Corbin in Frankel,

Wallen, and Helen Hyun, 2012, p. 436).

There were five steps conducted in analyzing the data in this research. The first thing was coding. The data found were assigned based on the items and its group (Maxwell 1996, p. 78; Gray 2004, p. 346; Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 2006, p. 203; Creswell 2012, p. 236). This research focused on the strategies taught, the stages implemented and their effects on the learners’ listening ability, so that the data coded were about the strategies found and its effects to the learners from data collection instruments. It was the process of dividing and sorting the data and put them into broader themes and issues.

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The fourth step was selecting. The significant data were chosen and then discussed and emphasized in this research (Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 2006, p. 203).

It included the process of choosing the data about participants’ opinion, the answer of the questionnaire and the quotation from data interviews. After that, the data were represented and reported (Creswell, 2012, p. 236). The last step was summarizing. This was the process in which the synopsis of the whole data were produced (Mayring, 1983; Flick in Gray 2004, p. 328-329; Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 2006, p. 203), made the generalization of the data about the strategies found and their effects on the learners’ listening ability. In addition, the final summary also contained the clarification of the data and comments of the researcher (Emilia, 2009, p. 211).

Finally, the inferential statistic was employed to examine the improvement of the statistical significance. The pre-test and post-test results were measured by using SPSS 16.

3.6Concluding remark

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listening for untrue conditions. Last, the strategy of idiomatic language involves listening for two-and three part verbs and listening for idioms.

Fourth, there are 5 strategies taught by the instructor in order to improve his learner's listening ability so that they can answer the questions in part B and C. The strategies trained in part B and C are similar and taught in one meeting. They are divided into two general strategies; they are before listening strategies and while listening strategies. In before listening strategies, there are anticipating the topics and anticipating the questions. In while listening strategies, there are the strategies of determining the topic, drawing conclusion about who, what, when, where and listening for answers in order.

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varied. Then, based on the participants, the number of the learners should not be more that 15 in order to create the effective learning environment so that the instructor can focus on each of the learners.