IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF GRADE XII STUDENTS IN SMK NEGERI 2 DEPOK SLEMAN
THROUGH THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Agatha Dyah Ayu Tyasari
Student Number: 061214087
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF GRADE XII STUDENTS IN SMK NEGERI 2 DEPOK SLEMAN
THROUGH THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Agatha Dyah Ayu Tyasari
Student Number: 061214087
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
“It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as
long as you
do not stop.”
(Confucius)
“You don’t need to win every medal to
be successful.”
(Jason Fried)
This thesis is dedicated to:
ABSTRACT
Tyasari, Agatha Dyah Ayu. 2011. Improving Listening Comprehension Skills of XII Kimia Industri Students in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman through the Use of Authentic Materials.Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
Listening comprehension skills play an important role in English teaching learning process. By achieving sufficient listening comprehension skills, it is not argued that the students will be able to understand the topic accurately enough and give immediate relevant responses. However, for most of the students in Indonesia, who mostly are EFL students, listening comprehension is often considered as the most difficult skill to achieve. This problem occurs because of three reasons. Firstly, the students are not accustomed to listening to English passage especially spoken by native speakers. Secondly, the students have not enough time to have English listening comprehension practice. The third reason is the continuous use of textbook materials in the teaching learning process that can be demotivating the students to learn. These facts were also happened in English teaching learning process in XII Kimia Industri in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman that cause the lack of listening comprehension skills. Concerning these situations, the use of authentic materials was implemented to improve students’ listening comprehension skills. The researcher thus attempts to answer the research question, namely: How does the use of authentic materials improve listening comprehension skills of the students of grade XII Kimia Industri in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman?
This research employed Classroom Action Research (CAR), focusing on the implementation of authentic materials in XII SMKN 2 Depok Sleman. The research was conducted on March 28th, 2011 and April 6th, 2011.The instruments used to gather the data were observation checklist, field notes, questionnaire,
interview guide, and students’ journal. Triangulation technique was employed to
analyze the gathered data.
The researcher used authentic materials through five listening comprehension phases as proposed by Goh (2002). From the research conducted, it was found that the class average score increased from 23.87 to 26.20. The researcher concluded that the use of authentic materials was able to improve the
ABSTRAK
Tyasari, Agatha Dyah Ayu. 2011. Improving Listening Comprehension Skills of XII Kimia Industri Students in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman through the Use of Authentic Materials.Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Kemampuan menyimak berperan penting dalam proses belajar mengajar Bahasa Inggris. Dengan pencapaian kemampuan menyimak yang memadai, tidak diragukan lagi bahwa para siswa akan mampu memahami topik dengan tepat dan langsung memberikan respon yang sesuai. Namun demikian, bagi sebagian besar siswa di Indonesia, dimana Bahasa Inggris dipelajari sebagai bahasa asing, kemampuan menyimak seringkali dianggap paling sulit untuk dikuasai. Masalah ini disebabkan oleh tiga hal. Pertama, siswa tidak terbiasa mendengarkan dalam Bahasa Inggris, khususnya oleh penutur asli. Kedua, siswa tidak punya cukup waktu latihan menyimak dalam Bahasa Inggris. Ketiga, penggunaan materi dari buku pelajaran secara terus menerus dalam kegiatan belajar mengajar yang dapat mengurangi motivasi siswa untuk belajar. Fakta- fakta tersebut juga terjadi pada proses belajar mengajar Bahasa Inggris di kelas XII Kimia Industri di SMKN 2 Depok Sleman yang berdampak pada lemahnya kemampuan menyimak materi Bahasa Inggris. Sehubungan dengan keadaan tersebut, penggunaan authentic materials diterapkan untuk meningkatkan kemampuan menyimak para siswa. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menjawab rumusan masalah, yaitu : Bagaimana penggunaan authentic materials meningkatkan kemampuan menyimak siswa kelas XII Kimia Industri di SMKN 2 Depok Sleman?
Penelitian ini merupakan Penelitian Tindakan Kelas (PTK), yang difokuskan pada penggunaan authentic materials di kelas XII Kimia Industri di SMKN 2 Depok Sleman. Penelitian dilaksanakan pada tanggal 28 Maret 2011 dan 6 April 2011. Alat penelitian untuk mengumpulkan data berupa daftar observasi, catatan lapangan, kuesioner, panduan wawancara, dan jurnal siswa. Teknik triangulasi digunakan untuk menganalisa data terkumpul.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a blessing so that I can finish my thesis and my deepest gratitude is
for Jesus Christ for giving me everything I need in every moment in the right time, sometimes even more than I expect.
I would never be able to finish this thesis without guidance from my major
sponsor Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd. I thank her for her being patient to guide me in long time. I would also like to thank my proof reader Laurentia Sumarni, S.Pd., who helped me to read my thesis and give me useful feedback. Then I would never be able to obtain the data for this thesis without
permission from SMKN 2 Depok Sleman, and a very big thank goes to Bapak Drs. Aragani Mizan Zakaria, the headmaster of SMKN 2 Depok Sleman, for the hospitality. I would also like to address my thanks to Ibu Dra. Yohana Umiyati,
the advisory teacher for grade XII Kimia Industri students for allowing me to
conduct the research in her class and for giving me suggestion during the
implementation. Also, I would like to thank all students of XII Kimia Industri of SMKN 2 Depok Sleman for their willingness to be the respondents of this
research, and be cooperative during the research and create conducive yet friendly
atmosphere.
I am really grateful for having the best mother ever, B.M. Prih Hermiyati, and I thank her for her never ending love through everything she has given. I also
thank my best friend ever Anggela Ratna Sari for always encouraging me during the hard times and reminding me that I am not alone. To Maria Susana W. and
Valentina Puput A.M, I thank them for relieving my stress with jokes and laughter and for the support whenever I am down. I would also like to thank my
‘FIREFLIES’ friends: Nonok, Adven, Esti, Aldi, Satrio, and Nita, for learning moments through discussions about education.
I really thank Tiwi, Anneis, Sari, and Rita, for giving me ‘shelter’, kindly sharing their rooms during the collecting data period and for their support. Finally,
thesis, whose name cannot be mentioned one by one. I wish the best come to us
all.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE……… i
APPROVAL PAGES……… ii
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY………. iv
DEDICATION PAGE……….. v
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI………. vi
ABSTRACT……….. vii
ABSTRAK………. viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………. ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS………. xi
LIST OF TABLES……… xv
LIST OF FIGURES……….. xvi
LIST OF APPENDICES………... xvii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……….. 1 A. Research Background………...
B. Problem Formulation……… C. Problem Limitation………... D. Research Objective………... E. Research Benefits………. F. Definition of Terms………..
1
3
3
4
4
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE………… 8 a. Definitions of Listening Comprehension…... b. Listening Comprehension Skills………. c. The Importance of Listening Comprehension
for EFL Students……… 3. Authentic Materials……….
a. Definitions of Authentic Materials…………. b. Types of Authentic Materials………. c. Advantages and Disadvantages of Authentic
Materials………. d. Materials Selection Criteria for Teaching….. B. Theoretical Framework……….
1. Observation Checklist………
CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS….. 47 A. The Description of the Implementation of
Authentic Materials to Improve Listening
Comprehension Skills……….. 1. The First Cycle of CAR……… a. Planning for the First Cycle……… b. Acting and Observing the First Cycle……… c. Reflection of the First Cycle……….. 2. The Second Cycle of CAR……… a. Planning for the Second Cycle……….. b. Acting and Observing the Second Cycle…… c. Reflection of the Second Cycle……….
B. Authentic Materials Improved Listening
Comprehension Skills of Grade XII Kimia
Industri Students in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman….. 1. Listening for Details……….. 2. Listening for Gist……….. 3. Drawing Inferences……… 4. Listening Selectively………. 5. Making Prediction……….
73
73
75
78
80
81
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS………… 85
A. Conclusions………
B. Suggestions……….
85
88
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
Table 4.1 Teaching Schedule………. 48
Table 4.2 The Summary of Learning Activities in the First Cycle…… 61
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
Figure 2.1 Learner’s Problems at Different Phases of Listening……… 17
LIST OF APPENDICES
D. The Blueprint of Observation Checklist………...
E. The Blueprint of Questionnaire………
F. The Blueprint of Interview Guide………
G. The Observation Checklist Form……….
H. The Field Notes Form………...
I. The Questionnaire………
J. The Interview Guide………
K. The Students’ Journal………
L. Raw Data of Observations………
L.1 Raw Data of the First Cycle Observation……….
L.2 Raw Data of the Second Cycle Observation…………
M. Raw Data of Field Notes……….
M.1 Raw Data of the First Cycle Field Notes….…...……..
M.2 Raw Data of the Second Cycle Field Notes...………..
N. Raw Data of Questionnaire………...
O. Students’ Journal Recaps………..
O.1 Students’ Journal Recap of the FirstCycle…….……..
O.2 Students’ Journal Recap of the Second Cycle……….
P. The Interview Transcript………..
Q. The Result of Worksheet 1………
R. The Result of Worksheet 2………
S. The Result of Listening Comprehension Assessment in the
Preliminary Research………..
T. The Result of Listening Quiz from the Research…………
U. Lesson Plans………
U.1 Lesson Plan of the First Cycle………..
U.2 Lesson Plan of the Second Cycle………..
V. Worksheet 1………
Z.1 The Audio Transcript Transcript of Audio Material for
Listening Assessment in Preliminary Research (Test
Penjajagan UN Kabupaten Sleman 2008/2009)…………...
Z.2 Transcript of Audio Material for the First Cycle……..
Z.3 Transcript of Audio Material for the Second Cycle…..
Z.4 Transcript of Audio Material for Listening Quiz……..
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter describes briefly the research conducted by the researcher.
This chapter is divided into six major parts, namely (1) research background, (2)
problem formulation, (3) problem limitation, (4) research objectives, (5) research
benefits, and (6) definition of terms.
A. Research Background
Language is used by community as a means to express facts, ideas, belief,
and so on. English is one of the widely-spoken languages in the world used to
express facts, ideas, belief, and so on to one another. For most of the students in
Indonesia, English is learned as a foreign language. As foreign language learners,
students are expected to master four English skills, namely listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. Among these four English skills, as Nunan cited from Rost
(1994: 141-142), listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides
input for the learners. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning
simply cannot begin. Listening is thus fundamental to speaking.
Listening to English passages or conversations is more difficult for
students who are not in English major, especially in terms of understanding what
is heard and then responding to it. Hatch’s (1978) explanation, as concluded by
Anderson (1988: 40), revealed that one of the principal skills which listeners must
identify the topic of conversation, so that they can give relevant responses. In the
early stages of language learning, it is a difficult task for learners to identify the
topic accurately enough and to give immediate relevant responses. The difficulties
may hinder communication. Sometimes students find that listening is easy or
difficult. Factors involved in this assumption fell into three principal categories
(Anderson, 1988: 46) namely, (1) the type of language we are listening to, (2) our
task or purpose in listening, and (3) the context in which listening occurs.
During the practice teaching period, the researcher was interested in the
teaching learning problem that was encountered in one of the classes in SMKN 2
Depok Sleman, especially in the class the researcher handled. Based on the
preliminary observation, the researcher found that most of the students of grade
XII Kimia Industri SMKN 2 Depok Sleman considered listening as the most
difficult area to be mastered in learning English. The problem encountered in
listening activities was listening comprehension.
It was found that most of the students failed to listen successfully due to
their unfamiliarity with vocabulary items and speaker’s pronunciation. When they
were asked to listen to audio recordings, they claimed that the pronunciation of
the speaker was not clear and the vocabularies were difficult to understand. As the
researcher examined in the preliminary observation, these difficulties emerged
because they were not accustomed to listening to native speakers and/ or having
no particular time for listening section. The teaching learning process was often
focused on other skills, such as reading and writing. Furthermore, it was rather
nuisance from outside the class. It was difficult for the students to concentrate and
listen to the recording carefully. Actually, the school provided a language
laboratory for the students to help them practice their listening skill. Booking
schedule was also arranged for the room usage, but in fact, the schedule was not
obeyed. The use of textbook and old-version materials also demotivated the
students to engage in listening activities. The problems that occurred were the
reasons why the researcher attempted to apply the use of authentic materials and
clearer listening procedures to help them improve their listening comprehension
skill.
B. Problem Formulation
After the problems were identified, the researcher formulated the problem
into the following question:
How does the use of authentic materials improve listening comprehension skill of
the students of grade XII Kimia Industri in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman?
C. Problem Limitation
To make this study more specific, some limitations were made. First, since
this was a Classroom Action Research, the scope of this study was limited to one
class only, namely grade XII Kimia Industri SMKN 2 Depok Sleman.
Secondly, this study was focused on students’ progress of listening
comprehension skill during the use of authentic materials in teaching learning
consideration because it played an important role in L2 learning. Krashen (1981)
claimed, as cited in Anderson’s book entitled Listening (1988), comprehension
played a central- and possibly predominant part- in the whole process language
learning. What was meant by listening comprehension skill here was the skill to
listen to native speakers especially in one way tasks and understand what was
heard, and this research was concerned with the progress of it.
D. Research Objective
This research was intended to examine the process of how the use of
authentic materials improved listening comprehension skill of the students of
grade XII of Kimia Industri SMKN 2 Depok Sleman.
E. Research Benefits
This study was supposed to be beneficial to English teachers in general,
English teachers in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman, and other researchers. First, this study
was expected to give benefits to English teachers in general, to help them in
viewing the problems which encountered in English learning in classroom and
developing strategies to improve English learning. Second, this study was
expected to be used as input for English teachers in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman, to
develop strategies in helping the students to improve their listening
comprehension so that the students can obtain better learning in English.
Last but not least, this study was expected to give benefits to other
Action Research and English learning in classroom, especially about listening
comprehension skill.
F. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misinterpretation, there were some terms in this research
that need to be clarified. The terms were:
1. Listening Comprehension Skill
Listening comprehension was the result of an interaction between a
number of information sources, which included the acoustic input, different types
of linguistic knowledge, details of the context, and general world knowledge, and
so forth, and listeners use whatever information they already had in their mind, or
whatever relevant information to help them interpret what the speaker was saying
(Buck, 2001: 3). Rost (2002) referred complete comprehension to the listeners
having a clear concept in memory for every referent used by the speaker.
Goh (2002) pointed out the key of listening comprehension skills are
listening for details, listening for gist, drawing inferences, listening selectively
and making predictions. Listening for details involved listening for specific
information. While listening for gist meant to listen for main ideas or global
listening. Drawing inferences was the ability to fill in gaps in the input. In
listening selectively, listeners are to listen only to the specific parts of the input.
Making predictions was the ability to anticipate before and during listening what
In this research, what was meant by listening comprehension skills were the
skills to listen to the native speaker especially in one way tasks and understand
what was heard, in accordance with the aspects of comprehensive listening. The
researcher examined the progress of listening comprehension skills using those
five detailed aspects, after implementing a learning process using authentic
materials in listening session.
2. Authentic Materials
Authentic materials were materials that have not been specifically
produced for the purpose of language teaching (Nunan, 1989: 54). Nunan (1989)
added that most everyday objects in the target language qualify as authentic
materials. The authentic materials could be in form of audio materials, visual
materials, printed materials, or multimedia materials.
In this research, the authentic materials used were materials that have not
been specifically produced for the purpose of language teaching, and were
everyday objects that can easily be found in daily life. The authentic materials
used were authentic audio materials, such as songs and interview. The use of
authentic audio materials was aimed at helping students to be more focused on the
sound, and not on other things.
3. XII Kimia Industri students in SMK Negeri 2 Depok Sleman
Vocational schools are schools that focus on the development of students’
skills to do specific work (Government Regulation Chapter 1, Article 1).
Therefore, education in vocational schools is aimed at preparing the students to be
SMK Negeri 2 Depok Sleman was one of the state vocational schools in
Sleman which provides several majors for the students to study. Kimia Industri
was one of the major studies in SMK Negeri 2 Depok Sleman which prepare the
students to work on operating and controlling chemical process in industry. Based
on the preliminary research data, the students of grade XII Kimia Industri in SMK
Negeri 2 Depok Sleman had difficulties in listening comprehension, especially in
terms of question and response. From the observations, it was found that the
students were not accustomed to listening to native speakers and/or had no
particular time for listening session. Besides, the XII Kimia Industri students in
SMK Negeri 2 Depok were also unfamiliar with vocabulary items used and the
speaker’s pronunciation. As a result, the listening sessions took longer time and
the students failed to give relevant responses. When the students failed to give
relevant responses, the communication between the teacher and students did not
go smoothly.
In accordance with that condition, the researcher tried to use authentic audio
materials in particular time for listening session. The use of authentic audio
materials in particular time for listening session was intended to give the students
opportunity to practice listening comprehension skills in clearer procedure, so that
they were able to focus and hence could acquire better listening comprehension
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In this chapter, the researcher reveals some theories which are related to
and support the research. This chapter is divided into two major sections, namely
theoretical description and theoretical framework. Theoretical description reveals
the theories and principles which are related to the implementation of using
authentic materials and listening comprehension. Theoretical framework covers
the synthesis of relevant theories that can help the research to answer the research
question.
A. Theoretical Description
This theoretical description consists of related theories and principles in
this research.
1. Listening
The researcher divides this section into three sub-sections, namely
definition of listening, listening as skills, and listening as processes.
a. Definitions of Listening
Traditionally, listening has often been regarded as a passive language skill.
However, listening involves a number of different ways in which the listeners can
or fail to process incoming speech. There are four major reasons why the listeners
can or fail to process the incoming speech according to Anderson (1988), namely:
unfamiliarity with the speaker‟s accent or competing background noise. As a
result, the speech may have been „heard‟ in a strictly limited sense. The listeners
are unable to capture the idea contained in the speech they have heard.
Second, the speech may contain words or phrases that the listeners can
hear adequately but is unable to understand, because of serious problems with the
syntax or semantics of the foreign language. The third reason, there are times
when the listeners are perfectly able to hear and understand the speaker, but may
have „switched off‟ consciously or unconsciously. The last reason, there are those
messages which the listener attends to fully and from which he tried to construct
coherent interpretation.
According to Rost (2002: 7), listening is a process involving a continuum
of active processes, which are under the control of listener, and passive processes,
which are not. Howat and Dakin (1974) as cited by Guo (2005), stated that
listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. What
involved in this process is, understanding a speaker‟s accent or pronunciation, the
speaker‟s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. As stated by
Guo (2005), if the students‟ knowledge of pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary is insufficient, it is probable that their English listening
comprehension will be negatively affected by the lack of language knowledge.
Emmert (1994), as cited by Pekin (2010) stated that listening is more than
merely hearing words. It is an active process by which students receive, construct
meaning from and respond to spoken and or nonverbal messages. Meanwhile
including “active listening”, which goes beyond comprehending literally to
empathetic understanding of the speaker.
b. Listening as Skills
According to Anderson (1988), listening, under many circumstances is a
reciprocal skill. Also, listening skills are as important as speaking skills. It means
that people could not communicate face-to-face unless the two types of skill are
developed in tandem. Moreover, people cannot practise listening in the same way
as they can rehearse speaking, or at least the part of speaking that had to do with
pronunciation, because people cannot usually predict what they will have to listen
to.
In addition, Anderson (1988) stated that all types of listening skills are
valuable and necessary if a learner‟s aim is to acquire an all-round ability to listen
effectively in a range of situations, to various types of input, and for a variety of
listening purposes. In this research, listening skills are related to the type of
purposeful listening, namely comprehensive listening. This type of purposeful
listening is to understand the message, and formed the foundation for listening
therapeutically, critically, and appreciatively (Wolvin & Coakely, 1996). Briefly,
Wolvin & Coakely (1996) defined comprehensive listening as informational
listening, in which students listen for the content of the message.
c. Listening Processes
There are two distinct views of listening process, namely bottom-up
processing and top-down processing. Buck (2001: 2) explained that the bottom-up
or levels, and the output of each stage becomes the input for the next higher stage.
Bottom-up processing tends to rely on the text, in which the listeners rely on the
combination of sounds, words, and grammar that created meaning. Another view
of listening process is top-down processing. Top-down processing emphasizes
more the background knowledge of the listeners. Prior knowledge of a topic
enables listeners to interpret what they have heard and predict what will come
next. Listening comprehension is mainly a top-down process in the sense that the
various types of knowledge involved in understanding language were applied in
any order, or even simultaneously, and they are all capable of interacting and
influencing each other (Buck, 2001: 3).
Buck (2001) added, there are many reasons why the listening process may
go wrong. This could be due to the background noise, or distracted attention, or be
thinking of something else. Moreover, for second-language listeners, they could
have other difficulties, such as unknown vocabulary, complex syntax, or the text
could be just too fast.
2. Listening Comprehension
The researcher divides this section into three sub-sections, namely
definitions of listening comprehension, listening comprehension skills, and the
importance of listening comprehension skills for EFL students.
a. Definitions of Listening Comprehension
Buck (2001: 3) simply pointed out that listening comprehension is the
result of an interaction between a number of information sources, which include
and general world knowledge, and so forth, and listeners use whatever
information they already have in their mind, or whatever relevant information to
help them interpret what the speaker is saying.
Caroll (1972), as cited by Buck (2001: 52), described listening
comprehension as a two-stage process, namely the apprehension of the linguistic
information contained in the message, and the application of that linguistic
information to the wider communicative context.
According to Anderson (1988), there are four relevant features of listening
input which make comprehending materials difficult or easy for listeners. These
are information organization, familiarity of topic, explicitness of information, and
type of input. First is the information organization. The information organization
deals with the information structure given to the listeners. This feature might be
an ease or difficulty for the listeners so that the teacher should consider the way
information is ordered in factual text when producing or selecting material for the
students.
Secondly is the familiarity of topic. This feature deals with the power of
prior knowledge to interpret what the listeners heard and the failure of awareness
of the extent to which they were drawing on such knowledge. Anderson (1988:
49) cited what Hare and Devine (1983) found, that the amount of prior knowledge
of the topic of a story was a significant predictor of how much content the listener
would recall. As Buck (2001) cited from Spilich et al.(1979) and Pearson and
knowledge, then it will be much easier to understand than a text with a topic that
the listener knows about.
The third feature is explicitness of information. There are three types of
explicitness found influencing the ease of comprehension according to Anderson
(1988), namely: redundancy, sufficiency of information, and referring expressions.
Redundancy refers to the cues that the listeners have to select, which can be
contrastive –or only single feature mentioned, or redundant, in which there are
two distinguished features mentioned. Sufficiency of information means the texts
contains all the relevant information and no more. Referring information is about
the way a speaker chooses to refer to the people or objects he mentions, and the
effect of these choices on the listener‟s ease of comprehension.
The last feature is the type of input. The type of input affects the degree of
comprehension difficulty. From an experimental research on teenagers, Brown
and Yule (1983a) have categorized spoken texts into three broad types; these are
static, dynamic, and abstract. The terms refer to the differences in the potential
complexity of relationships between the things, people, events, and ideas referred
to by a speaker. In a static text, the focus is on describing an object or giving
someone instructions on how to assemble a model, in which the relationship
between items is likely to be fixed. Dynamic use of language is needed in telling a
story or recounting an incident. It is called dynamic because it will probably
involve shifts of scene and time, and even the characters and the relationship.
Abstract texts focus on someone‟s ideas and beliefs rather than concrete objects,
b. Listening Comprehension Skills
There are five keys of listening comprehension skills which the students to
acquire, which was summarized by Goh (2002), namely: listening for details,
listening for gist, drawing inferences, listening selectively, and making prediction.
1) Listening for Details
Listening for details involved listening for specific information, such as
key words and numbers. Sometimes students have to listen to many details, which
may cause fatigue yet can also become a very intensive activity.
2) Listening for Gist
Listening for gist is meant to listen to the main ideas or the „big picture‟ of
a passage. Students focused on the general ideas and not on supporting details.
Experts assumed that this is the skill that effective listeners employ most
frequently.
3) Drawing Inferences
Drawing inferences or filling the gaps in the input is the ability that
required listeners to „listen between the lines‟. Speakers sometimes leave
information out because they assume the listeners already know it or they are
being deliberately ambiguous. Listeners may also miss some parts of speech
because of fatigue, noisy surroundings, distractions and the speaker‟s poor
explanation. Buck (2001) stated that inferences vary depending on how much
background knowledge is needed to make the inferences. Inferences are also not
only made about situations described in the text, but can also about the motives of
(1974) claimed, as cited by Buck (2001) that the inferences necessary to
understanding the meaning of a text.
4) Listening Selectively
Listening selectively refers to listening only to specific parts of the input.
Listeners are to listen to specific parts of the input, depending on the purpose for
listening. It helps listeners to listen in a more relaxed manner, as they do not need
to concentrate on the whole passage. Nevertheless, it may lead the listeners to
ineffective understanding because they may have their own prejudices or bias.
5) Making Prediction
Making prediction is the ability to anticipate before and during listening
what is going to be heard. Contexts, co-texts and visual input are the clues
included in making predictions. Listeners tend to listen more purposefully and
attentively when they make predictions because they want to find out if they have
predicted correctly.
c. The Importance of Listening Comprehension for EFL Students
Krashen (1981) claimed, as stated in Anderson and Lynch‟s book
Listening (1988), that comprehension plays a central-and possibly predominant
part in the whole process of learning. There are three main skills which are
important for foreign listeners, emerged from the discourse analysis studies:
(1) The ability to recognize the topic of conversation from the native
speaker‟s initial remarks.
(2) The ability to make predictions about likely developments of the topic
(3) The ability to recognize and signal when he has not understood enough
of the input to make a prediction or a response. These explicit signals
are crucial, as they usually elicit a repetition or reformulation by the
native speaker, and so give the listener another chance to make a
relevant response.
In developing learners‟ listening comprehension skill, teachers are
supposed to also concern about the factors that influence learner listening. Goh
(2002), previously in a study cited Rubin‟s (1994) explanation, that factors which
enhanced or depressed listening comprehension can be summarized into five
categories: text type, task, interlocutor, process, and listener.
1) Text
There are three types of text feature can affect listening. First are the
acoustic features, including phonological modification and speech rate. Second,
the discourse features, such as macro- and micro – markers, linear and non-linear
organization of information, difficult vocabulary, colloquialism, sentence length
and complexity, visual support, and explicitness of information. The last, is the
clear influence of text types. For example the influence of news broadcasts,
lectures and conversation, abstract versus non-abstract topics, and static versus
dynamic relationship.
2) Task
Types of question, the amount of time available for processing information,
and whether or not the listener can capture the information repeated, are the
3) Interlocutor (speaker)
The degree and quality of comparison might be affected by the speaker‟s
characteristics, including the accent, fluency, standard or non-standard usage, and
gender.
4) Listener
Listeners also have the characteristics that can influence comprehension,
including language proficiency, gender, memory, interest, purpose, prior
knowledge, attention concentration, accuracy of pronunciation, physical and
psychological states, knowledge of context, topic familiarity, and established
learning habits.
5) Process
The process here refers to the types of processing that listeners engaged in
directly which affect listening comprehension.
Goh (2002) added the factors above with the specific problems in each
phase of comprehension faced by the learners as adopted by the researcher as
follows.
PERCEPTION PARSING UTILISATION
Do not recognize words they know
Neglect the next part when thinking about meaning Cannot chunk streams of speech
Miss the beginning of texts Concentrate too hard or unable to concentrate
Quickly forget what is heard
Unable to form a mental representation from words heard
3. Authentic Materials
This section is divided into four sub-sections, namely definitions of
authentic materials, types of authentic materials, advantages and disadvantages of
authentic materials, and material selection criteria for teaching.
a. Definitions of Authentic Materials
Authentic materials are defined by Morrow (1977: 13) as a stretch of real
language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to
convey a real message of some sort. Rueckert (2006) in a previous study revealed
authentic materials as materials that teachers can use in classroom that have not
been changed in any way for ESL students. Nunan (1989:54) added authentic
materials as any materials which have not been specifically produced for the
purposes of language teaching. In accordance with these, the authentic materials
are also not changed for the students.
Peacock (1997) in Martinez‟s study (2002) defined authentic materials as
materials that have been produced to fulfill some social purpose in the language
community. By this definition, the use of authentic materials in this research is
expected to help students to communicating in the language community, using
interesting topics yet still in accordance with school target materials.
b. Types of Authentic Material
There are five types of authentic material highlighted in Goh‟s journal
(2002), namely videos, radio broadcasts, songs, literary texts, interactive CD
1) Videos
Goh (2002) revealed that videos are now becoming an integral part of
language teaching. Students can take the advantages of using videos with visual
clues that are an important source of information in real-life communication.
Videos support students to practice top-down strategies by contextualising what is
heard and making inferences about things that they did not hear clearly. Videos
also enabled students to combine both auditory and visual clues in parallel
processing, something which they frequently do in their first language.
However, there are some considerations in selecting videos for teaching,
such as sources of the materials, students‟ background knowledge, appropriate
segments, length of sequences and viewing time between listening activities. The
types of video that are appropriate included TV drama or sitcom, feature film,
news programme, documentary, game show, advertisement, film trailer, music
video, cartoon, weather forecast, interview and talk show. Feature film is also
good to use in classroom. However, there are four criteria in selecting the feature
film. Firstly, the film is supposed to be an enjoy watching film. Secondly, the film
is supposed to have an uncomplicated plot which provided and easy context for
understanding the language. Thirdly, the film should give an honest view of the
world and society. Fourthly, the dialogues in the film are supposed to be simple
and realistic, and are able to provide a good model for the students.
2) Radio Broadcasts
According to Goh (2002), radio broadcasts provided an endless source of
radio to keep things new and relevant for the students. Some examples of the
activities related to radio broadcasts are listening to topical issues programmes,
popular culture, and contemporary celebrities, which can be very motivating for
students as they put the classroom in touch with the world outside. Radio
broadcasts also bring the students to a wide variety of text types to choose from.
Transactional and interactional talks to suit different learning objectives can also
be found in this type of materials.
There are six suggestions for using radio broadcasts as proposed by Goh
(2002). Firstly, students are supposed to get familiarised with the programmes on
local and overseas radio stations. Secondly, programmes should suit the interest
and level of students. Thirdly, themes and topics in the syllabus are supposed to
give supplement by radio programmes. Fourthly, it is better for teachers to make a
checklist of the types of text that are appropriate for the lessons. Fifthly,
transcribing in post-listening activities should be done in relevant segments after
the teachers have made the recording. Sixthly, recording should be labelled clearly
with the name of the programme, the date of broadcasts, the radio station and the
target group of students.
3) Songs
Goh (2002) found that songs provided a wide range of comprehension
tasks because they are normally short and in general use simple language and
contains repetitions. Longer songs often contain stories that will capture students‟
narrative texts. In some cases, pop songs may also deal with social issues, which
allow students to apply their background knowledge and make personal responses.
Nevertheless, there are eight suggestions for using songs in classroom as
proposed by Goh (2002). Firstly, singers should have clear diction. Secondly,
familiar songs for tasks that involve higher order listening are recommended.
Thirdly, for text-based tasks, such as listening for details and/ or gist, it is good for
teachers to choose unfamiliar songs. Fourthly, inappropriate language and
unsuitable content should be avoided. Fifthly, teachers may invite students to
suggest the types of song they would like to work with. Sixthly, students can get
more involved by contributing lyrics of their favourite songs. Seventhly, songs
should support or complement the topics or themes of the syllabus. Eighthly,
setting up a song bank is recommended for teachers.
4) Literary Texts
Literary texts, such as poems and short stories, are suitable for listening
class after some modifications. Most poems and short stories are usually short and
self-contained and can be used the entirety in a listening lesson, whereas novels
and plays will have to be sampled and adapted. Literary works are essentially
created to move heart and mind, so they have great potential for creative and
critical thinking development through listening tasks. They also represent many
text types and are useful for developing different types of listening. For instance, a
novel or a play may contain narratives, recounts, expositions, or even procedural
texts. A range of responses can be elicited from the use of literary texts, from
empathy and considering different viewpoints. There are three considerations in
selecting texts. Firstly, texts should be targeted at students‟ age group as these will
have themes which they can identify with. Secondly, texts should be stylistically
simple and are aiming to use the texts for listening tasks, not for reading
comprehension or language analysis. Thirdly, cultural factors should be
considered whether it is suit students‟ background knowledge or not.
5) Interactive CD ROMs
CD-ROMs provided a multi-media experience by combining video,
images, sound, animation and text. Moreover, CD-ROMS gave a special
advantage: precise replay of textual-audio-visual sequences of information. It can
be a powerful tool for controlling language input of the students. On the other
hand, not all aspects of listening can be practised and developed with CD-ROMs.
Most of CD-ROMs contain transactional texts, which are good for listening for
gist and details.
Here are four considerations when using CD-ROMs. Firstly, titles should
be chosen according to the themes or topics in the syllabus, or that provide a rich
source of edutainment and useful information. Secondly, text types and relevant
tasks should be identified and be considered. Thirdly, listening skills and/ or
strategies for students to practise should be determined. Fourthly, teachers should
check the amount of recording time on the packaging to ensure a reasonably
6) The World Wide Web
The latest source of authentic materials that can be used for helping
students develop their listening comprehension is the internet or the World Wide
Web. Websites now provide both audio and video clips which contain current and
interesting listening materials. BBC World Service is an example of websites
which contains wide variety of programmes transmitted in both written text and
real audio. To provide these audio clips into classroom, teacher should ensure that
computers and modems have the required speeds and that you have the right kind
of software, which is free and easily downloaded.
c. Advantages and Disadvantages of Authentic Materials
There are advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials for
students in classroom. As a teacher, optimizing the use of authentic materials is
supposed to be done because it has significant advantages, as it is cited from
Martinez‟s (2002) study.
The first advantage is students are exposed to real discourse. Through
authentic materials, students are able to learn from the real discourse to improve
their listening comprehension. For instance, watching video interviews between a
reporter and a famous person can help the students in listening for gist.
The second advantage is according to Sanderson (1999) as cited by
Martinez (2002), the students are able to always be informed about what is
happening in the world, so they have intrinsic educational value. It is also
important for teachers to take the responsibility as educators to concern with
compared to textbook, that authentic materials offer the students to learn more
skill – such as analyzing skill- because sometimes in authentic materials, there are
incidental or improper English, which can be a tool for students to apply their
knowledge in practice. The fourth advantage is the same piece of material can be
used under different circumstances if the task is different. It means that authentic
materials offer the teacher and students the efficient function of materials to be
used in language classroom.
Next advantage is according to Brinton (1991), authentic materials can
reinforce for students the direct relationship between the language classroom and
outside the world. Melvin and Stout (1987) found an overall increased motivation
to learn in students, as well as a renewed interest in the subject matter, when
students use authentic materials for the study of culture in language classroom.
Authentic materials also enabled the students to recognize a wide variety of text
types from books, articles, newspapers, and so on, in which the language styles
are not easily found in conventional teaching materials.
The last but not the least advantage of authentic materials is they can
encourage the activities in class for pleasure because they are likely to contain
topics to interest to learners. Moreover, the students will find more excitement and
are supposed to be more involved in classroom activities if they are given the
chance to talk about the topics or kinds of authentic materials to be used in class.
On the other hand, there are also the disadvantages of authentic materials
which are important for the teachers and students to minimize and/ or to be aware
accent of the speaker. In authentic listening materials, the students may found it is
difficult to listen to different accents, even in one listening passage.
Furthermore, the disadvantages dealt with the structure. In authentic
materials, sometimes too many structures are mixed so lower levels have a hard
time decoding the texts. This disadvantage can be minimized by selecting
language contained in the authentic materials. The process of selecting the
materials or special preparation may bring teachers to another disadvantage
namely time consuming.
Culture biased also becomes one of the disadvantages of authentic
materials. Some authentic materials can be too culturally biased, in which
sometimes make the students outside the language community difficult to
understand.
d. Materials Selection Criteria for Teaching
There are criteria in selecting the authentic materials for teaching listening.
Goh (2002) summarized six criteria of general materials selection; there are
language, purpose, speaker, intended audience, length, and visual support.
1) Language
The language should be of a level that students are capable of
understanding but the same time present some challenge for using listening skills
and strategies. It is better not to use difficult language for students no matter how
interesting or relevant the topic is. Goh (2002) added, on the other hand, it is
better for the teacher not to overlook materials that may contain many new words.
students, so that the teacher can develop less demanding tasks such as those that
require students to listen for gist or to infer contents using top-down strategies.
2) Purpose
In this criterion, teacher should consider the aim and objectives of the
lesson. The teacher should also decide what types of task and talk are appropriate
before selecting the material and the original communicative purpose of the
materials. It is also important to match the lesson objectives and tasks accordingly.
3) Speaker
This criterion is related to the characteristics of speakers, which can have
an important influence on the comprehension of the listeners. Some of the
characteristics included accent, speech rate, pronunciation, clarity if thought and
even gender. Teacher should also consider the number of speakers involved and
limit them if necessary to increase the students‟ progress. In selecting the
materials, teachers are supposed to avoid materials in which the speakers have
strong accents that the students will probably never encounter. At the same time, it
is better to choose materials with normal speed and avoid speakers who speak too
fast, even by first language users‟ standards.
4) Intended Audience
Teachers are supposed to match the intended audience of the materials to
the type of students. In addition, the content of the material should be comparable
to the intellectual and maturity level of the learners, and cultural and religious
5) Length
The length of listening texts varies according to several factors, not only to
the types of listening skill that are practised and the proficiency level of the
students.
B. Theoretical Framework
Listening is a passive language skill which involves a number of different
ways in which the listeners can or fail to process incoming speech. There are four
major reasons why the listeners can or fail to process the incoming speech,
according to Anderson (1988), namely: first, the listener may not hear adequately
what has been said due to unfamiliarity with the speaker‟s accent and or
competing background noise. Second, the speech may contain words or phrases
that the listeners can hear adequately but is unable to understand due to serious
problem with the syntax or semantic of the foreign language. Third, there are
times when the listeners are perfectly able to hear and understand the speaker, but
may have „switched off‟ consciously or unconsciously. Fourth, there are messages
which the listener attends to fully and from which he tried to construct coherence
interpretation. In this research, the listening comprehension problems occurred
mainly due to unfamiliarity with the speaker‟s accent, problem with syntax and
semantics of the foreign language. The unfamiliarity with the speaker‟s accent
was due to no sufficient time to have listening comprehension practice in class.
Meanwhile, the problem with syntax or semantic of the foreign language deals
previous study that students‟ listening comprehension are possible to be
negatively affected if they had insufficient knowledge of pronunciation, grammar
and vocabulary.
Comprehensive listening itself is one type of purposeful listening in which
the main aim is to understand the content of the message (Wolvin & Coakely,
1996). The lack of listening comprehension skill usually becomes the obstacle to
have successful comprehensive listening. The students are unable to understand
the content of the message and then the listening section took longer time than
was expected. As a result, the teaching learning process is ineffective due to time
consuming only on listening session.
Based on this learning problem, the researcher conducted classroom action
research (CAR) in order to improve the students‟ listening comprehension skill by
using authentic materials in listening section in classroom. In this CAR, there
were four stages conducted according to Kemmis and McTaggart (1988), namely
planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. In addition, due to acting and
observing can be done in tandem, the researcher combine them into one stage.
Based on the preliminary observations‟ data, the researcher chose to use
authentic materials to improve listening comprehension skill of the students of XII
Kimia Industri in SMKN 2 Depok Sleman. The reason is because authentic
materials enable students to learn from the real discourse to improve their
listening comprehension (Martinez, 2002). Besides, using authentic materials
The researcher uses authentic materials by applying top-down strategy, in
which the focus is understanding the text emphasized on the background
knowledge of the students to interpret what they have heard and predict what will
come next. By applying such strategy, it was expected that the students are able to
understand the message conveyed by the speaker; the main ideas and supporting
details, and to develop their creative and critical thinking. Moreover, authentic
materials can be found almost everywhere. So, the students can improve their
listening comprehension skill both inside and outside the class.
In this research, the listening comprehension skills are observed and
divided into five phases as proposed by Goh (2002) namely (1) listening for
details, (2) listening for gist, (3) drawing inferences, (4) listening selectively, and
(5) making prediction.
After implementing top-down strategy using authentic materials in
listening section in classroom, the researcher examined whether the students‟
listening comprehension skill is developed or not. The researcher analyzes the
data gained from observation checklist, field notes, students‟ journal, and the
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter revealed information about the methodology that was used to
accomplish the study. This methodology was used in order to answer the problem
formulation stated in Chapter One. There are six sections discussed in this chapter,
namely research method, research participants, research instruments, data
gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.
A. Research Method
This research was a classroom action research. Action research, according
to Carr and Kemmis (1986: 162) as cited by Burns (1999: 30) is “simply a form of
self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to
improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of
these practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out.” Ferrance
(2000) stated that the idea of action research is that teachers will begin a cycle of
posing questions, gathering data, reflection, and deciding on a course of action. In
this research, the action research was conducted in classroom scope. The
researcher employed Classroom Action Research (CAR) in order to solve the
problem in class XII Kimia Industri of SMKN 2 Depok, namely the lack of
listening comprehension skill.
There are four major steps in Classroom Action Research (CAR)
observation and reflection. The cycle was started with planning steps, in which the
researcher decided the focus of the inquiry and created a plan to observe and
record the classroom activities. The plans were then implemented in action and
relevant observations were recorded. The researcher then individually and/or
collaboratively made reflection to revising the classroom activities based on what
has been learned. Those major steps are illustrated in Figure 3.1 as follows.
Figure 3.1 Kemmis and McTaggart’s Cycle Model (Burns, 1999)
In this research, the researcher planned to use authentic materials in
listening activities to improve students‟ comprehension skill. The researcher then
implemented the use of authentic materials in classroom activities and observed it
materials in the classroom activities. Then, the researcher reflected whether the
given action improved students‟ listening comprehension skill or not. Revised
plans were made to obtain significant progress in the next cycle.
B. Research Participants
The research was conducted in SMK Negeri 2 Depok Sleman. The
participants of this research were grade XII students in SMK Negeri 2 Depok
Sleman in academic year 2010/2011, with Kimia Industri as the major study.
There were 32 students in that class. The participants were taken under the
consideration that they still performed inadequate listening comprehension skill in
teaching learning process in classroom. Based on the preliminary research, the
lack of listening comprehension skill was shown by the students that they could
not give relevant responses towards teacher‟s questions about the recording which
had been played previously. Besides, the students needed to listen more than three
times to comprehend the content of the recording and to give relevant responses.
C. Research Instruments
The instruments in this research were used to gather the data needed. The
researcher used observation checklist, fieldnotes, questionnaire, interview and
student journal to obtain the data.
1. Observation Checklist
According to Burns (1999), observation refers to the procedures that
research questions and supporting the interpretations that are reached. In this
research, the researcher conducted participant observation using observation
checklist to obtain the data. Burns (1999) added that observation enables the
researcher to document and reflect systematically upon classroom interactions and
events, as it was really occurred in the classroom. In this research, observation
checklist was used to enable the researcher to observe the interactions and events
in listening activities in the class namely pre-listening activities, whilst listening
activities, and post listening activities. The aspects to be observed were based on
the phases of listening comprehension skills as proposed by Goh (2002), namely
listening for details, listening for gist, drawing inferences, listening selectively
and making prediction.
The researcher conducted participant observation, in which the researcher
became the member of the context and participated in the activities planned, in
order to obtain more information through involvement in class activities. The
observation checklist was used in two cycles conducted.
2. Field Notes
According to Bogdan and Biklen (1982: 110), “field notes are the written
account of what the researcher hears, sees, experiences, and thinks in the course of
collecting and reflecting on the data in the qualitative research.” Field notes
consist of two kinds of materials, namely descriptive and reflective. The
descriptive part in field notes represents the researcher‟s best effort to record
objectively the details of what has occurred in the field. This part is concerned
Biklen (2003: 112-113) stated that there are six aspects in descriptive part of field
notes, namely: a.) Portraits of the subjects, b.) Reconstruction of dialogue, c.)
Description of physical setting, d.) Accounts of particular events, e.) Depiction of
activities, and f.) The observer‟s behaviour.
The second part of field notes is reflective part. Bogdan and Biklen (2003)
stated that the reflective part of field notes contains sentences and paragraphs that
reflect the observer‟s more personal account of the course of the inquiry. It is the
subjective side of the research, emphasizing the speculation, feelings, problems,
ideas, hunches, impressions, and prejudices. It contains: a.) Reflection on analysis,
b.) Reflection on method, c.) Reflection on ethical dilemmas and conflicts, d.)
Reflection on the observer‟s frame of mind, and e.) Points of clarification. In this
research, the researcher used the Kemmis and McTaggart‟s CAR cycle model,
where both the descriptive and reflective parts of field notes were used to obtain
the data. The researcher wrote field notes from the beginning until the end of the
implementation.
3. Questionnaire
Burns (1999) stated that questionnaire involves predetermined questions
presented in written form and is easy because it is less time-consuming to
administer. In addition to that, questionnaire enables the respondents to respond
more rapidly to the questions, as the responses are supplied in written form
(Burns, 1999: 129). However, there was a consideration that the questions in the
questionnaire can be interpreted independently as well as easily and
