THE USE OF TEXT BASED TASK TO IMPROVE STUDENTS LISTENING ABILITY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study In the process of teaching and learning English, students ability in mastering the four language skills becomes an important goal. These will involve receptive skills; listening skill (understanding the spoken language), reading skill (understanding written language) and productive skills; speaking skill (producing spoken language) and writing skill (producing written language). Unfortunately, most of Indonesia education institutions in which English is one of first foreign languages have concerned with the teaching of written language. In fact, mastering spoken language is very important in communication. In order to master the spoken language, we must be able to speak and we must be able to listen to spoken language. English is one of the international languages that is used by many people in the world and in many areas of everyday life. Therefore, using English is the easiest way to communicate with people from other countries about many aspects in human life such as technology, economy, social, and politics. For Indonesia, English is a foreign language. Learning a foreign language is an integrated process that the learner should study the four basic skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. We use it to understand our world through listening and reading and to communicate our feeling, need, and desires through speaking and writing. By having more knowledge about language skill we have much better chance of understanding and being understood and getting what we want and need from these around us. Writing is one of four basic skills. It is very important in teaching and learning English. Writing involves some language components (spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation). This is in line with what is stated by Braine and Claire May (1996:60), writing clear sentences requires you to learn the rules of English grammar and mechanics such as the correct use of verbs and pronouns, as well as commas and other marks of punctuation.

There are various ways to organize the sentences in a piece of writing. One of them is recount text. Recount text is the form of text that aims at retelling events for the purpose of informing or entertaining. In the recount text, the sentences are usually organized according to time order or chronological order. One thing happens and then another thing happens, and the events are told in the same order. Based on my experiences, there are some problems found in the field when giving writing materials to the students, especially the recount text. The first problem is that the students writing is not comprehensible, because the content of the composition is not relevant to the topic, the ideas are not clearly stated, the ideas and sentences are not well organized. The second problem is that there are many errors in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. Another problem is the students have low motivation and are not interested in doing the task since the writing activities are not interesting. Usually, the students are asked to write sentences and paragraphs without being given some clue so that it is difficult for them to express their ideas on a piece of paper. Besides that, the students have difficulty at telling their experience. This is because writing is difficult for them since they have to master enough vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. In reference to the explanations above and the strong desire of finding the solution of these problems, the writer has motivation to do the research in improving the teaching of writing in real class by using picture series as the instructional media. It is hoped that the media improve the students ability in writing, especially recount text. In language classroom, listening tends to be neglected; many language educators assume that listening is automatically acquired while the learners learn to speak a language. Rost states that unlike speaking, however, through which we can record a childs first words and even measure the fluency of a persons contribution to a conversation, listening is less directly observed and less noticeable in both its development and its everyday use (1994:1). However, students need to learn how to listen to improve their listening ability. Listening is very important in language learning, students understand the content of spoken language by listening. The relationship between listening and language learning is that language learning depends on listening. Listening provides the aural input that serves

as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken language. Rost (1994: 148) states that teaching listening is an important part of second language teaching. Most teaching methodologies emphasize the role of listening in language learning. Listening is not a simple process. In order to understand the content of spoken language, students require some of listening skills. Nunan describes listening as follows: In relation to listening, learners need skills in segmenting the stream of speech into meaningful words and phrases: the ability to recognise words, phrases and words classes: ways of relating incoming message to ones own background knowledge, and identifying the rhetorical and functional intent of an utterance or parts of an aural text: skills in interpreting rhythm, stress and intonation to identify information focus and emotional/attitudinal tone: the ability to extract the gist/or essential information from longer aural texts without necessarily understanding every word (1998:6). In line with Rost (1994:136-137) states that understanding how listening ability develops requires a comprehensive view of what it means to improve. Listening involves psychological skills, such as recognizing between sounds, parsing speech into constituent parts and processing the discourse in term of cohesion, logic and relevant underlying schemas. Rost (1994:148) also says that listening can be taught as component skills. Specific learning activities can be designed which target specific skills. Furthermore, students listening ability can be improved by developing their listening skill. Teaching listening of foreign language is the most difficult one. Foreign language students do not have native speakers competence in using their background knowledge and for recognizing words or grammatical characteristic of spoken language easily. Listening is also more difficult than reading, a reader can cast an eye back over misunderstood phrase, but the listener gets no second time. English is a compulsory subject in Indonesia, which must be taught starting from Junior High School level until University level involving the teaching of listening. The problems which are faced by students in learning listening may be caused by many factors, such as teacher, students, teaching technique and teaching material. This research focuses on the listening problems as experienced by the eighth grade students of MAN.

Based on Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) in teaching listening at the eighth grade students of MAN, the students are expected to be able to: 1) understand the meaning of a simple transactional and interpersonal dialogue, 2) understand the meaning of a functional and short simple monologue spoken text in the form of descriptive, narrative, recount, procedure, and report text related to surrounding environment. In the real condition, the students have lack of listening ability in understanding the content of spoken text. This problem is indicated as follows: 1) the students are difficult to recognize the words and grammatical characteristic of spoken text, 2) the students are difficult to catch the clues information of spoken text, 3) the students are difficult to infer the speakers intention or meaning, 4) the students are difficult to do the listening task and 5) Most of the students are still confused with the purpose of their listening activity. In addition, the classroom situation is not live during the teaching and learning process, it is shown as follows: 1) Most of the students do not active in answering the teachers questions, 2) most of the students do not try to ask the teacher about their difficulties in listening, 3) Some of the students just listen to the teacher without doing the listening task, 4) Some of the students are busy in talking to their friends and 5) the students seem to be bored in doing the listening activity. Those problems are caused by: the lack of the students vocabularies and grammar, the low of the students listening strategy; they try to understand the content of spoken language word by word, rather than try to link what they hear with their previous knowledge or try to find clue information, and the difficulties of the listening tasks. Besides, the teaching technique and teaching material are the main factors causing the lack of the students listening ability. The technique which is used by the teacher is reading the text twice or three times and followed by several questions, rather than gives specific task to the students before listening. It makes the students confused with their listening purpose. The teacher hardly ever uses recorded material in listening that makes the students bored and very difficult to listen to the English of native speakers. To overcome these problems, the English teacher and I would like to conduct an action research study by using text-based task (TBT). In TBT, students process the text based on the listening task given. Willis gives the term text-based task to design communicative tasks based on reading and listening text or video extracts (1998:67).Text-based tasks

also bring efficient listening strategies, strategies to comprehend the content from detail linguistic components and from students background knowledge. This is argued by Willis (1998:75) who states: All text based-tasks aim to encourage natural and efficient reading/listening/viewing strategies, focusing initially on retrieval of sufficient relevant meaning for the purpose of the task. This will entail both holistic processing, i.e. gaining an overall impression, and picking up detailed linguistics clues: a combination of what are commonly called topdown and bottom-up processes. Task is used as a means of delivering teaching materials to students and to create enjoyable classroom environment by engaging students in the learning process through the use of task. According to Willis (1998:40), states that language learners need variety and security. A wide range of topics, texts and task types gives learners variety. A framework with three distinction phases; pre-task, task cycle and language focus also gives them a sense of security. Language focus phase after the task cycle makes students to begin to worry less about new language they meet during the task cycle because they know they will have a chance to explore it later. Willis (1998:83) also explains that the aims of text-based tasks are to provide a wide repertoire of task types and designs based on written and spoken texts and require learners to apply their real-world knowledge and experience to assign meaning to what they see, hear or read. The research uses recorded text by fluent or native speakers to give variety in teaching listening and to introduce the natural characteristics of spoken text to students. Cross (1995:250) argues that through recording, the class can be offered the chance to hear naturally spoken English, with elisions, linked consonants, weakened vowels and all the hesitations, false starts and imperfections of unplanned speech. In line with Rost (1996:160) states that many language educators, (e.g. Besse, et al) point out that there is a great advantage in using pre-recorded texts of native speaker conversations and native speakers oriented programmes in the classroom because of the genuiness they provide. Moreover Morton (1999:177) states that the use of authentic texts enable students to study real English instead of the English contrived by teachers. Authentic texts are thought to motivate students because they are derived from the ultimate goal of students studies-English as used by native speakers. Therefore, recorded text can motivate

students and they get a challenge to attempt to understand language as it as actually used by native speakers. Based on the descriptions above, I am inspired to conduct an action research study at the grade students of MAN. Through action research, the teacher and I can observe the students problems, monitor the students listening ability improvement by the action researchs cycle, and make some reflections to be implemented for further practice. Wallace states that action research involves the collection and analysis of data related to some aspect of our professional practice. This is done so we can reflect on what we have discovered and apply it to our professional action (1999: 16-17). This study aimed at the improvement of the students listening ability and at the improvement of the classroom listening situation using Text-Based Task. B. The Problem Statements The problems of this research can be formulated as follows: 1. Does and to what extent the use of Text-Based Task improve the students listening ability at the grade students of MAN? 2. How is the classroom situation when Text-Based Task is implemented in the listening class? C. The Objectives of the Study This study has some objectives which include: 1. To identify the improvement of the students listening ability during and after implementing Text-Based Task at the 8th grade students of MAN. 2. To identify the classroom situation when Text-Based Task is implemented in the listening class. D. The Benefits of the Study This research is expected to be able to give some benefits for the students, the teacher, the school and me myself. Through Text-Based Task, students become more purposeful in their listening activity, they know what they have to do because of the task appearance before listening. The function of integrated bottom-up and top-down strategies in TBT to process the text helps students to link what they heard and what they have known in listening text. The use of

text recorded by the native speakers introduces the natural characteristic of English speech and to motivate students in listening as it as actually used by native speakers. By this research, it is expected that the teacher can choose appropriate listening technique in improving students listening ability. Moreover, the school where the research is conducted get the beneficial contribution of the use of Text-Based Task to overcome the students problems in learning listening. The result of the study will also give a great experience to me myself to increase my knowledge about TBT and about listening. For English Department of X University and other researchers, the result of the study provides information to lead further study about listening and about action research.

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. The Nature of Writing According to J.D Angelo (1989:5), writing is a form of thinking. It means that writing is an activity to express ideas, issues, events, feeling or thinking to the others through written form. Cohen and Reil in Kusumaningsih(2001:1) say that writing can be defined as communicate act, a way of sharing observation, thought, or ideas with ourselves and others. It is a tool of thinking. By writing we can tell about people, remember the facts and ideas. Based on the statement above, it can be concluded that writing is expressing ideas, facts, feeling, experience, and thought in written form. In writing, the aspects include the use of vocabulary, structure of the sentence, composition of the sentence, spelling, and punctuation. These aspects are important to master in order to be able to produce good writing. Writing, one of the productive skills, is considered difficult, especially writing in a foreign language. According to Axelord and cooper in Mamun (2004:5), writing is a complex process and such contains element of mastery and surprise. When students want to write something they should have a lot of information, ideas, and thought in their mind so that they will be able to express them into sentences, paragraphs, and an essay. The writing ability is the main activity of composition. The writing should be systematic and detail. A knowledge or study about good writing or how to write composition is much needed. B. The Teaching of Writing for MAN Students According to English Syllabus of School Unit Level Curriculum (KTSP), the teaching of writing for MAN students involves the teaching of paragraphs or text. The texts advocated are: recount, narrative, descriptive, procedure and report. Recount text is a kind of text that is usually found or presented in journals, diary, personal letter, biography, travel report, police report, sport report, history, etc. The main elements of recount are orientation, list of events, and reorientation. In the orientation step the writer mentions people and things that are involved, time of the event, the place, and the

situation. In the list of events, the writer tells the events happen chronologically. In the reorientation, the writer concludes the story by giving comments. Narrative text is a kind of text that tells a story. It is developed in some steps: orientation, complication, resolution, evaluation, and reorientation. In the step of orientation, the writer tells the characters in the story, their names and the place they live, their ages, their condition, and their willing. In the complication step, the writer presents the unexpected event that happens to the characters. In the resolution step, the writer tells how the complication is solved. In the evaluation step, the writer invites the reader to think what meaning or values that are taken from the story. In the reorientation step, the writer concludes the story by giving comments. Descriptive text is a kind of text to describe something, people, or objects. Procedure text is a kind of text that tells a procedure of making something. Meanwhile, report text is a kind of text to report an event, things in the world, animals, and flora. In this study, the focus is only to recount text, since this kind of text becomes problems for the students and it needs to be solved immediately. The strategy applied to improve the students ability in writing recount text is pyramid planning strategy. C. Pictures Series Students can construct their knowledge during learning recount text easily by using media. One of the media is picture series which draws a story. This medium fulfills the principles of using media issued by Nyoman S.Degeng (2001). Media which can be used to make the students learn more easily and the teacher teaches easily is the main part of the learning process. The media must be used in integrated way in teaching and learning and not only as ice breaker of teaching and learning. To understand the way of the picture series, the students need to appreciate it in abstract way. In the same way, when they express their ideas to construct the story in a good coherence as well as unity, they have to think it in abstract way too. Both of them will be easier for them in learning process if the teacher can use picture series. It can not only help the students to get ideas more realistic in understanding the recount text but also in constructing ideas to create it. During the students are writing the text, they can use top-down technique in predicting the content of the text based on understanding of picture series (Brown, 2004:217). They can predict the content of the text easily based on their understanding about the picture series. The

pictures give the schemata to the students to construct ideas from their background knowledge and experience. Reciprocal teaching involves a high degree of social interaction and collaboration, as students gradually learn to assume the role of teacher in helping their peers construct meaning from text. The National Education Department has applied the CBC 2004 and KTSP 2004 revised in 2006, the purpose is developing the communicative competence; especially reading comprehension. The reciprocal teaching is expected to be able to help the students comprehend the text easier. Hence, the researcher will observe the use of reciprocal teaching to activate the second year students of MAN to comprehend and understand such text.In doing the research, it is important to establish the target that wanted to be reached. The target of this research is that the students can improve their understanding of the text. Based on the target above, the researcher finally wishes that: 1) 100% of the students can understand in comprehending the text in terms of: a. finding the main idea; b. getting the content of the text; and c. raising the reading score. 2) 80% of the students can study more active to interact in the classroom and have higher motivation to study. 3) To gain the target of the research, the researcher will train the students to comprehend the text and help them to find main idea, supporting idea, explicit information, and master vocabulary. When the students are able to comprehend the text, it is expected that they can reach the understanding of the text.