Listening is one of the four skills of
learning second language that should be trained to students. It is the most
difficult skill among them so; it needs any help to perform it. This skill will
help them to be better listener. The main reason why the students are trained
to listen to spoken English is to have them hear different varieties and
accents rather than just hear their teacher’s voice with their own style. The students need to hear British, American,
Australian, Caribbean, Indian or West African English. There are many different
dialects and accents, not only in pronunciation of sounds but also in grammar.
Wishing that, when they go to the University where they might meet to any
people of different nationalities speak to each other, they might understand and
catch their communication well.
Intermediate students have
already achieved a lot, they could observe their progress almost daily but
sometimes they don’t improve much as what Harmer (2001) said that it was often
called plateau effect. Therefore, teacher has to make them know what is
actually still need to learn but they don’t feel discourage. Giving them more
challenging task such as to give them analyzed language more thoroughly, also
help them arrange some goals so they could be able to measure their achievement.
Being able to listen well is an
important part of communication for everyone. Especially for the intermediate
students guided practice is one of the best ways to improve their listening
skill. Student with good listening comprehension skills can be able to
participate more effectively in communication (Brown: 2001). Training listening
skill is not enough by practicing any communication in the classroom but
teacher should explore the useful areas to enhance the students’ skill. That is
why, as a language teacher we should find useful activities in the classroom to
prepare listening class – materials and strategies.
Opportunities for teaching
listening, as well as talking, have been limited because educators have
traditionally used reading and writing performance as measures of student
achievement. Research has shown, however, that listening comprehension can be
improved in a variety of ways when it’s taught in the correct of meaningful one
language experiences (Goodlad: 1984)
According to Nunan, develop
learners’ awareness in listening is based on the process of students own
underlying of learning. They will be able to take greater and greater
responsibility for that learning. It can be done through the adoption of a
learner-centered strategy. Through these, students will not only become better
listeners, but they will also become effective language learners because they
will be given opportunities to focus on, and reflect upon, the processes
underlying their own learning. The strategy to teach listening in the classroom
is selective listening. It includes listening for different purposes,
predicting, progressive structuring, inferencing, and personalizing. Nunan
characterized the effectiveness of listening course such as: a. Material should be authentic include
monologues and dialogues; b. Schema-building
tasks should precede the listening; c.
Strategies for effective listening should be incorporated into the material; d. Learners should know what they are
listening for and why; e. The task
should include opportunities for learners to play an active role in their own
learning; f. Content should be
personalized.
Effective approach to teach
listening is more easily by incorporating daily classroom language experiences.
For example, in the beginning of the class teachers can read literature aloud
while students listen. Teacher can also prompt and suggest students to give
spoken responses during and after listening experiences and focus on meaning in
listening and talking. Teachers can teach listening systematically by planning
student- led discussions, offering instruction in conversation skills, and
providing regular time for sharing (Harmer:2001).
TEACHING ACTIVITIES
Applying Listening
Underlining
the experts’ explanation above, teachers may try to conduct their role in their
intermediate listening class. At the beginning, the students are exposed to
spoken English from their own teacher. Then the spoken English is exposed through
the use of taped material with many ranges of topics such as advertisements,
news broadcasts, poetry reading, plays, and pop songs with lyrics, speeches,
telephone conversations, interview, radio program, stories read aloud and all
manner of spoken exchanges. Listening using appropriate tapes give the students
good information not only about grammar but also about pronunciation, rhythm,
intonation, pitch and stress. These kind of listening materials are realistic
which are related to the daily life. But, listening turns become valueless and
will be demotivating if the tapes play about a political speech. Though, it is
authentic it is too difficult and not interested for the intermediate students.
It can be concluded that the materials that go with a tape for the listening
class should be considered on the level of the students. It is suggested that
some authentic materials which are usable in their daily life are better for
intermediate or SMA level.
Materials and Methodology
of Listening
Material
should be focus on particular purpose of a listening activity. Worksheet should
be completed with the clearly example otherwise, it create the students feeling
confused and frustrated. The consequence of this case, the indication of the
students level in listening comprehension skill is not accurate because they
don’t understand the worksheet and not because of the listening activities
themselves. For instance the beginners’ level of SMA or X and XI class have
activities like as follows: pair work activities that is student A and student
B have the same worksheet -about lyrics of the songs, where some information
are missing. Thus, students must ask to each other for the missing words of the
song. In this case, the students have practiced the effective communication
with their partner. Finally, to confirm whether the answers are correct, it
confirms by listening the accurate song.
Group
work activities may provide to the students in learning listening skill. Before
the tape is operated twice, the students have their own worksheet which every
member of the groups is different. While
focus on listening the tape the students in group answer their own questions.
When the tape has already operated twice, all groups are expected to answer all
their questions. Thus, group by group write their answers on the display or
whiteboard in class. By helping their teacher, they discuss whether their
writing is correct or not. Teacher does not give the correction directly but,
the students are asked to listen the tape again while finding the right
answers. So the listening class will be more effective and the students catch
the class more actively.
Students allow having practice
listening comprehension and speaking such as interviewing other members in the
class about their daily life and asking for further information. Meaning that
the students make any conversation and listening about materials that they have
already known to them. They are freely applying their own communication based
on their knowledge. In this case the students will get happiness to explore
their abilities to share and to listen what their partner inform further information
or in other words they are freely perform the real communication in their real
life.
Teacher
may not always use the same way of strategies, they may be predictable and may
less interesting for the students. The several of strategies will challenge the
students, whereas, it is very important to be paid attention by the teachers. There
are still any other materials that can be trained to the students likes: cloze
activities, dictation, error correction, interviews, and so forth.
Listening for the
National Examination
The learning lesson is
focus on the students who sit in the last level of the Senior High School or the
XII class. Numbers of listening test in the National Examination are 15 from
all are 50. It is 30% from the score. Meaning that, it is very important to
provide the students listening comprehension to face the exam regularly. In the
last of their year school or in the sixth semester, they have the listening
class every week. The materials of the listening section in the National
Examination are divided into four parts.
The students will have the chance to show how well they understand about the
spoken English. In the first part
they will hear some dialogues and questions spoken in English that will not be
printed on the worksheet. While listening to the questions they read the five
possible answers and decide which one to be the best answer. Part two the students will hear some
incomplete dialogues and followed by the four responses. They should choose one
best response to answer. Part three
they will hear dialogues or monologues spoken in English then the students are
asked to look at the pictures provided in the worksheet and decide which would
be the most suitable one with the dialogues or monologues they have heard. The
last, part four the students will
hear several monologues and then they are asked to read the five possible
answers and decide one to be the best answer to the question given. Each part
of the monologues, dialogues, questions, and responses are spoken two times. In
holding a daily listening practice the students are being conditioned as sitting
in a real examination.
CONCLUSION
Listening
comprehension is required skill to maintain interactive and communication
activities in learning second language. The students need to be motivated to
join the listening class, that is why, in designing the lesson and teaching the
materials to improve the students listening comprehension skills should be more
attractive and authentically. To maintain a better result, it needs high focus
and more concentration; therefore, the students should have awareness with the
purpose of joining the lesson.
