Maiiya RuhiiL Ahmanniiey: TA Research Method Language teaching

Research Method

STRATEGIES IN TEACHING LISTENING

TO SMP PANCASILA

A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Listening comprehension ability is one of the basic skills in language competence. It plays a crucial role in our

daily life as well as in language learning. Listening teaching is
of great significance in the junior high school English teaching. Listening comprehension ability plays a very important part in improving students’comprehensive language competence in English learning, moreover, listening test is indispensable in key examinations such as high school entrance examination and college entrance examination. The aim of this paper is to explore how to employ listening strategies to guide English listening teaching and so as to improve junior high school students’listening comprehension.Based on the three learning strategies, namely meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/ affective strategies, the author of this thesis has conducted an empirical research with the attempt to find out students’attitude and effect of applying listening strategies and how teachers use listening strategies to guide junior high school English teaching.

The result of the empirical research shows that junior high school students do employ some listening comprehension strategies to help improve their listening comprehension ability although they themselves don't know much of listening comprehension strategies or seldom use most of the strategies. Besides, the result also indicates that different students employ different listening strategies and that the frequency of the students' use of listening strategy has significant effect on the outcome of their listening tests.Based on the empirical research above, the author makes further research on how to employ listening strategies to guide junior high school English listening teaching and presents some suggestions from three angles, namely meta-cognition, cognition and society/affection, to improve the teaching of English listening in junior high school. For example, in the daily classroom teaching, teachers should strengthen the guidance to the students’learning strategies and pay attention to applying the learning strategies to guiding classroom teaching so as to promote the students’listening comprehension ability and improve the teaching of English listening in junior high school.

In activity teaching learning of English there are many basic material. One of them is listening. Listening is one of matter important in English teaching. Teaching listening, must be begin since Junior High School. This is good for future, and development education in Indonesia.

English is foreign language so, we must introduce this language is very well. If we often listening, we can more understand about English language. With often listening English, we can understand more about writing and speaking. Such as hearing of music. We must like hearing music English, because can be exercises your listening too. If we like hearing music English we will try to sing a song. Then we begin to write them.

To improve the students listening skill, the teacher is supposed to be imaginative and creative in developing their teaching methods to create good atmosphere and make the English lesson more exiting. In this way, the listening teacher has to be able to create interesting materials for the students in the process of teaching and they have to know how to apply it. The influence of the materials and the methods of the English teacher in teaching learning process is really vital, because students will be more interested in following the study. The competence of the teacher in teaching learning process will also influence the success of students in their study. Teacher becomes a facilitator learning personal and social change by assisting the developing person at those points where help is requested. Teacher should have a set of exercises, tasks or other activities for the students in their classes. It is really beneficial and positive experience to try various classroom activities because successful materials of the subject matter depend on the use of teaching method. To teach listening there are several methods which can be used by the teacher. By using the methods, the teacher will easily teach listening.

Therefore, teaching listening must be development in order to Indonesian student more can be able knowing about foreign language, specially English language.

B. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Some people consider listening as a passive skill. This is misleading because listening skill demands active involvement from the hearer. In order to reconstruct the massage that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistics and non-linguistics sources. Listening is an active process in which the receiver assumes a responsibility. It also calls for a response on the part of the listener. Such response may be a reply, an action, a facial expression and applause, something indicating that the massage has been assimilated.

Listening skill is very important in learning English. Everyone who wants to learn English well should be able to master listening as one of the English skills. By studying listening skill, people can improve their English better than before. Listening has also a role in speaking, because people will be able to give response after they listen to speaker.

C. RESEARCH PROBLEM

The earliest research problem question the value of listening teaching, found that it was simply a waste of grammar in the sense that most student could not hearing.

1. How do they to become active listeners ?

2. What do the students do in developing their own listening skills ?

3. How does the teacher overcome the problems at SMP Pancasila ?

D. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The research is aimed at:

1. Describing do become an active listeners.

2. Finding manner to do developing listening skills for student SMP Pancasila.

3. Describing the solution which is used by teacher to overcome the problems at SMP Pancasila.

E. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The teaching of listening has attracted a greater level of interest in recent years than it did in the past. Now, university entrance exams, exit exams, and other examinations often include a listening component, acknowledging that listening skills are a core component of second-language proficiency, and also reflecting the assumption that if listening isn’t tested, teachers won’t teach it.

Earlier views of listening showed it as the mastery of discrete skills or microskills, such as recognizing reduced forms of words, recognizing cohesive devices in texts, and identifying key words in a text, and that these skills should form the focus of teaching. Later views of listening drew on the field of cognitive psychology, which introduced the notions of bottom-up and top-down processing and brought attention to the role of prior knowledge and schema in comprehension. Listening came to be seen as an interpretive process. At the same time, the fields of discourse analysis and conversational analysis revealed a great deal about the nature and organization of spoken discourse and led to a realization that reading written texts aloud could not provide a suitable basis for developing the abilities needed to process real-time authentic discourse. Hence, current views of listening emphasize the role of the listener, who is seen as an active participant in listening, employing strategies to facilitate, monitor, and evaluate his or her listening.

In recent years, listening has also been examined in relation not only to comprehension but also to language learning. Since listening can provide much of the input and data that learners receive in language learning, an important question is: How can attention to the language the listener hears facilitate second language learning? This raises the issue of the role “noticing” and conscious awareness of language form play, and how noticing can be part of the process by which learners can incorporate new word forms and structures into their developing communicative competence.

The writer hopes that this research will have some benefits in the study of English, especially in teaching listening skill. There are two kinds of benefits in this research: theoritical and practical benefits.

1. Theoretical Benefits

a. The result of the research can be a model of the implementation of teaching listening.

b. The result of this research paper can be used for the next researchers who are interested in teaching listening.

2. Practical Benefits

a. By seeing the result, the students can reflect their learning listening skill.

b. The teacher can also reflect his teaching.

c. The teaching can be adopted by other teachers in teaching listening skill.

F. UNDERLYING THEORY

a. Previous Study

To prove the originality of this study, the writer wants to present the previous researches dealing with the listening comprehension in general. There has been other researchers who studied about teaching listening. The first research has been done by Farida Ekasari (2002) in her paper “English Teaching Learning Process using Communicative Approach in SD Negeri Tegalrejo 1”. She described the strength and weakness using communicative approach that makes the students active in classroom activities. The students get direct experience to use English language as media of communication every time, because in elementary school, English is a new subject. She concludes that the technique is very suitable for beginners. Although this technique is not totally effective but it can achieve the goal of teaching listening that is to develop the students competence in English.

The next research is done by Agus Mawardani (2000) in his research, entitled “The Implementation of Teaching listening At the Third Year Student of SMU Negeri 1 Surakarta”. He described teaching learning process in the classroom especially about the implementation of teaching listening to the third year student of SMU Negeri 1 Surakarta. The result of the research is that the implementation of teaching listening at the third year student of SMU Negeri 1 Surakarta is divided in four main sections. First, the teacher’s activities consist of all preparation of the teacher in teaching listening. Second, student’s activity concerns with what the students do in pre- listening, while listening and post-listening. Meanwhile, the problem of teaching listening is that the mechanical devices can influence teaching learning process. While from the students have problems in vocabulary and the level of difficulty in listening.

The next research is conducted by Diah Novia Sari (2003) entitled “A case study of the seventh semester students of English Department FKIP UMS. She investigates the strategies of a group of the seventh semester students. The result of her study shows that most of the seventh semester students find their own ways to expose themselves on the four language skills. So, they are categorized as autonomous learners.

The last researcher is Uzik Puji Nurtanti (2004) with her research entitled “Learning Strategies Used by Miss Yusro Pohdaoh to learn English (A Case Study). According to her in acquiring the four language skills, Miss Yusro used cognitive strategies in learning English.

b. Theoretical Review

· Audiolingual Method (ALM)

ALM has scientific foundation which clearly links between theory and practice. It was in fact believe to be the first method of teaching which could be said to have developed a methodology based on scientific principles.

The application of this theory to foreign language learning is as follow: (1) the organism as the learner, (2) the behavior as verbal behavior, (3) the stimulus as what is presented of the foreign language, (4) the response as the learners action to the stimulus and (5) the reinforcement as the extrinsic approval and praise of the teacher, fellow student, and self satisfactionof target language use.

Moulton in Rivers 1964: 5 suggestthat the marriage between Behaviorism and Structualism provide five key characteristics which need to be taken into consideration in designing language programs. The characteristics are as follow:

1. Language is speech, not writing;

2. A language is a set of habits;

3. Teach the language, not about the language;

4. A language is what its native speaker say, not what someone thinks they ought to say;

5. Language are different.

Based on the theories of learning and of language the proponents of Audiolingual Method proposed a number of foreign language learning principles. These principles have become the psychological foundation of ALM and shaped its methodological practices. The basic principles of ALM are as follows:

1. Foreign language learning is basically a process of mechanical habit formation. By memorizing dialogue and performing pattern drills the chances of producing mistakes are minimized.

2. Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to be learned in the target language are presented in spoken form before they are seen in written form.

3. Analogy provides a better foundation for language learning than analysis. Analogy involves the process of generalization and discrimination.

4. The meanings the words of a language have for the native speaker can be learned only in linguisticsand cultural context and not in isolation.

Dialogues, drills, and pattern practice from the basic of audilingual classroom practice. These have become the distinctive feature of the ALM. The techniques used by the ALMare as follow:

a) Repetition

b) Inflection

c) Replacement

d) Restatement

e) Completion

f) Transposition

g) Expansion

h) Contraction

i) Transformation

j) Integration

k) Rejoinder

l) restoration

G. RESEARCH METHOD

a. Type of The Study

Successful listening can also be looked at in terms of the strategies the listener uses when listening. Does the learner focus mainly on the content of a text, or does he or she also consider how to listen? A focus on how to listen raises the issues of listening strategies. Strategies can be thought of as the ways in which a learner approaches and manages a task, and listeners can be taught effective ways of approaching and managing their listening. These activities seek to involve listeners actively in the process of listening.

Buck (2001:104) identifies two kinds of strategies in listening:

1. Cognitive strategies: Mental activities related to comprehending and storing input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval

· Comprehension processes: Associated with the processing of linguistic and nonlinguistic input.

· Storing and memory processes: Associated with the storing of linguistic and nonlinguistic input in working memory or long-term memory

· Using and retrieval processes: Associated with accessing memory, to be readied for output

2. Metacognitive strategies: Those conscious or unconscious mental activities that perform an executive function in the management of cognitive strategies

· Assessing the situation: Taking stock of conditions surrounding a language task by assessing one’s own knowledge, one’s available internal and external resources, and the constraints of the situation before engaging in a task

· Monitoring: Determining the effectiveness of one’s own or another’s performance while engaged in a task

· Self-evaluating: Determining the effectiveness of one’s own or another’s performance after engaging in the activity

· Self-testing: Testing oneself to determine the effectiveness of one’s own language use or the lack thereof

Goh (1997, 1998) shows how the metacognitive activities of planning, monitoring, and evaluating can be applied to the teaching of listening.

a. Planning This is a strategy for determining learning objectives and deciding the means by which the objectives can be achieved.

· General , Identify learning objectives for listening development.

· Listening Development , Determine ways to achieve these objectives.

Set realistic short-term and long-term goals.

Seek opportunities for listening practice.

· Specific listening task , Preview main ideas before listening.

Rehearse language (e.g., pronunciation) necessary for the task.

Decide in advance which aspects of the text to concentrate on.

b. Monitoring This is a strategy for checking on the progress in the course of learning or carrying out a learning task.

· General , Consider progress against a set of predetermined criteria.

· Listening development , Determine how close it is to achieving short-term or long‑term goals.

Check and see if the same mistakes are still being made.

· Specific listening task , Check understanding during listening.

Check the appropriateness and the accuracy of what is understood and compare it with new information.

Identify the source of difficulty.

c. Evaluating This is a strategy for determining the success of the outcome of an attempt to learn or complete a learning task.

· General , Assess listening progress against a set of predetermined criteria.

· Listening development , Assess the effectiveness of learning and practice strategies.

Assess the appropriateness of learning goals and objectives set.

· Specific listening task , Check the appropriateness and the accuracy of what has been understood.

Determine the effectiveness of strategies used in the task

Assess overall comprehension of the text.

b. Object and subjek of the Study

c. Data and Data Sources

I done this research with doing observation from some student SMP N 2 Cawas. From them I get some infor mation about her school and about their teaching listening at their class. I ask them about their book is about Listening Comprehension.

Although listening is now well recognized as a critical dimension in language learning. It still remains one of the least understood processes. According to Morley (2001), during the 1980s special attention to listening was incorporated into new instructional frameworks, that is functional language and communicative approaches. Throughout the 1990s, attention to listening in language instruction increased dramatically. Listening comprehention is now generally acknowledge as in important faced on language learning: nevertheless, “much work remains to be done in both theory and practice” (Morley, 2001.

P.69).

Gebhard (2000: 143) is of the opinion that listening is not a passive skill but an active one because we need to be receptive to others, which include paying attention to explanations, questions, and opinions. Similarly, Brown (2001:249) also defines that listening is an interactive process involving a number of different cognitive, psychomotor, and affective mechanisms. Gebhard (2000:144) states that listening comprehension activity involves two distinct processes, bottom-up and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing in listening refers to a process of decoding a message that the listener hears through the analysis of sounds, words and grammar. Top-down process in listening refers to the process of using background knowledge to comprehend a message. The background knowledge can be in the form of previous knowledge about the topic, in the form of situational knowledge, and in the form of ‘schemata’ or plans about the overall structure of events and the relationship between them.

Gunning in Casper, et al. (1998) defines a schema as an organized knowledge that one already has about people, places, things, and events. The schemata relates especially to our real-world experiences and the expatiations we have, based on our experiences, about how people behave. The schemata we draw from includes our experience in assigning specific kinds of interaction to an event, the way we categorize language, and the ability to predict a topic in discourse and infer a sequence of events (Gebhard, 2000:145).

There are two purposes of listening: interactional function which is focusing on creating harmonious interaction among individuals, and transactional function which is focusing on transferring information and it is important for the listener to comprehend the content of the speaker’s message. Gebhard (2000: 147) states that we can provide the students with a variety of listening activities. The following are some of the listening activities for EFL students as suggested by Gebhard: (a) identifying linguistic feature, (b) a stress and rhythm listening activity, (c) a minimal pair listening activity, (d) responding to request and commands, (e) interacting as a listener, (f) eavesdropping, and (g) comprehending extended speech.

Teachers should be familiar with some practical principles for designing listening comprehension teaching technique. Brown (2001: 258-260) summarizes some of the listening teaching technique principles as elaborated in the following. First, in an interactive, four-skills curriculum, teachers should not overlook the importance of techniques that specifically develop listening comprehension competence. The second principle is that teachers should use techniques that are intrinsically motivating. In order to appeal to the students’ personal interest and goals, teachers should take into full account the experiences, goals and abilities of the students in designing lessons. The next principle is utilizing authentic language and context to enable students to see the relevance of classroom activity to their long-term communicative goals. The fourth is carefully considering the form of listeners’ responses to see whether or not their comprehension has been correct. Another principle is encouraging the development of listening strategies because most foreign language students are simply not aware of how to listen. The last principle in designing listening technique is that teachers should include both bottom-up and top-down listening techniques, because both of them can offer keys to determining the meaning of spoken discourse.

d. Method of Collecting Data

Data of the teaching listening at SMP N 2 Cawas i get from student of SMP N 2 Cawas. I ask them what are they learn at listening class. They tell me how their teacher teach, and so on. I read at their hand book too. I read some book of their hand book , at their hand book I get some strategis how to teaching listening in class. Not only from them, I searching in internet about strategies teaching listening too. In internet there are many ways to teaching listening.

In internet explain some strategies in teaching listening, there are:

a. Cognitive strategies: Mental activities related to comprehending and storing input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval

· Comprehension processes: Associated with the processing of linguistic and nonlinguistic input.

· Storing and memory processes: Associated with the storing of linguistic and nonlinguistic input in working memory or long-term memory

· Using and retrieval processes: Associated with accessing memory, to be readied for output

b. Metacognitive strategies: Those conscious or unconscious mental activities that perform an executive function in the management of cognitive strategies

· Monitoring: Determining the effectiveness of one’s own or another’s performance while engaged in a task

· Self-evaluating: Determining the effectiveness of one’s own or another’s performance after engaging in the activity

· Self-testing: Testing oneself to determine the effectiveness of one’s own language use or the lack thereof.

e. Technique of Analysing Data

For analyzing data I used technique of qualitative. Qualitative inquiry begins from a different methodological assumption namely, that the subject matter of the social or human sciences differs fundamentally from the subject matter of the physical or natural sciences and thereforerequires different goal for inquiry and different set of methods for investigation.

Qualitative research studies real world behavior as it occurs naturally in a classroom, an entire school, a playground, or in a organization.one of the major characteristics that distinguishes qualitative research is the method used to collect and analize data. In qualitative studies, the human investigator is the primary instrument for the gathering and analyzing of data.