IMPROVING THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BY USING RECORDED TELEVISION NEWS ON VCD AT SMA PGRI 10 GLENMORE IN THE 2006/2007 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

Based on the result of informal interview with the first year English teacher of SMA PGRI 10 Glenmore, it was revealed that most of the students’ English scores were low. Furthermore, they often got difficulties in listening especially in finding general and specific information of news reports within the genre “news item”. Additionally, in teaching learning activities, especially in teaching listening, the way of the teacher in teaching listening was still monotonous. She just focused on the use of textbook materials. This way of teaching had resulted the students’ sleepiness and boredom. Considering the problems above, this research was undertaken to overcome the problems above by using recorded television news to improve the students’ listening achievement, to give the students new learning experience and arouse the students’ excitements. Additionally, in relation to recorded television news’ features for listening comprehension aids were some of considerations for the researcher in conducting this action research entitled “Improving the First Year Students’ Listening Comprehension Achievement by Using Recorded Television News on VCD at SMA PGRI 10 Glenmore in the 2006/2007 Academic Year”. To achieve the purpose, an action research was implemented through cycles. In the implementation, there were two meetings for each cycle. Furthermore, the research was conducted through the following procedures 1) Planning of the action, 2) Implementation of the action, 3) Classroom Observation and Evaluation, 4) Reflection of the action. Dealing with the data analysis method, the classroom observation used an observation checklist to identify the students’ activeness, while the results of evaluation were analyzed by using percentage method to measure the students listening comprehension achievement and improvement in their listening test. From the results of observation in the first cycle (Meeting 1 and 2), it was known that 77,68% of the students actively participated in teaching learning process. It means that those results had achieved one of the requirements, that is, the actions were considered to be successful if 75% of the students actively participated in the teaching learning process. On the other hands, the results of the students’ listening comprehension test, showed that only 73,21% of the students had achieved the standard score requirement of 60. It means that the percentage is less than 85%. Therefore, it was necessary for the action to be revised and continued to the second cycle. The second cycle was done by revising the weaknesses in the first cycle. The observation of revised action had found that there were 81,25% of the students actively participated in teaching learning process. It showed that the students’ activeness in this cycle improved as it was in the first cycle. Furthermore, the results of the students’ listening comprehension achievement showed that 87,50% of the students had achieved the standard score requirement of 60. It means that the percentage of the students who had achieved the standard score requirement of 60 was also improved. And as it was greater than 85%, it can be said that the actions given in the second cycle were successful to improve the students listening comprehension achievement in finding the general information and specific information of news report by using recorded television news. As a conclusion, teaching listening comprehension by using recorded television news can improve the students listening comprehension achievement especially in finding the general information and the specific information of news report. That is why it is suggested for the English teacher to apply this technique as an alternative technique in teaching listening in order to improve both of the students’ activeness and the students’ listening comprehension achievement.