LEARNING LISTENING COMPREHENSION by: Ratna Nur'aini

            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.