IMPROVING THE VIII – A STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BY USING TAPE RECORDER

Abstract

In Indonesia, English is the first foreign language that has been taught from elementary schools up to university levels. In learning English, it is necessary for students to master the four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening is one of the four basic language skills that cannot be neglected in the English teaching because it is the first skill for students to start learning a language. Knowing that listening is necessary for communication, English teachers should be able to select an appropriate technique for teaching listening. Techniques in teaching listening are reading aloud done by the teacher and by using a tape recorder or audio media. Based on the preliminary study doing by informal interview with the English teacher at SMPN 2 Nguling-Pasuruan, it was known that the English teacher has never taught listening by using tape recorder. He only teaches listening orally. The students usually still get difficulties in comprehending the text. Moreover, their listening achievement was still low. It was supported by their average score on the listening test was 60. This research was intended to give actions in the form of teaching listening by using tape recorder to improve the VIII – A students’ listening comprehension achievement. So, the appropriate design of this research was a classroom action research. The subjects of this research were the students of class VIII-A determined purposively. They were chosen because their listening comprehension achievement xi average score was the lowest among the other seven existing classes (M=60 or fair category). This research was done in two cycles, in which each cycle covered four activities, namely; preparation of the action, implementation of the action, class observation, and reflection of the action. Then, each cycle was conducted in two meetings. The main data about the students’ listening comprehension achievement were collected by using listening test by using tape recorder and class observation in cycle I and II. The supporting data were collected by interview, and documents. The results of the mean score of listening test by using listening test with tape recorder in cycle 1 was M=64,4 or fair category. This mean score had not achieved the target mean score, that was M ≥ 70 or good category. Therefore, the actions were continued in cycle 2 by revising the teaching technique (the students did the listening exercises individually in cycle I changed into the students did the listening exercises in pairs) and the materials that were interesting for the students. The result of the mean score of listening test by using tape recorder in cycle 2 was better (M=74,7) or good category than that in cycle 1 (M=64,4) or fair category. It means that the student listening comprehension achievement by using tape recorder improved in cycle 2. Based on the results, it could be concluded that the use of tape recorder could improve the students’ listening comprehension achievement in two cycles. Then, it is suggested for English teachers to use tape recorder as an alternative technique to teach listening since it could attract the students’ interest in listening achievement and increase their listening achievement.