Judul Skripsi Bahasa Inggris
IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION THROUGH AURAL-ORAL LANGUAGE APPROACH (PTK)
Background
Language is a tool to convey ideas,
thoughts, and feelings. In learning language, there are some basic skills that
the students have to master. One of these basic skills is listening. Listening
is the foundation of all human communication.
According to Bowen (1985:74)
listening is attending to and interpreting oral language. It means that
communication will not be running well without listening comprehension.
Considering the importance of listening skill in daily communication, English
learners should work hard to develop their listening ability.
Heaton (1984:64) states that an
effective way of developing the listening skill is through provision of
carefully selected practice material. The materials for teaching listening
comprehension should be suitable to what is the students’ need and want. The
students will be
interested to study if the teaching materials are interesting for them and it
is what they want to know, but also the teacher should be considering the
students’ need.
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The auditory skills are closely
linked to the oral skills in normal speech situations. Sometimes although they
are closely linked but it is useful to separate the two skills for teaching and
testing, since it possible to develop
listening ability much beyond the range of speaking and writing ability if the
practice material is not dependent on spoken responses and writing exercises.
Heaton (1984:64) explains the
significant of the features for testing purposes. Those are; firstly, the ability
to distinguish between phonemes, however important, does not in itself imply an
ability to understand verbal messages. Secondly, impromptu speech is usually
easier to understand than carefully prepared (written) material when latter is
read aloud. Consequently it is essential to make provision for restating
important points, rewriting and rephrasing them when writing material for aural
test. It is also helpful if the speaker can be seen by the listeners, because
however excellent the quality of tape recorder, a disembodied voice is much
more difficult for the foreign learner to follow and also helpful for the
learner if they can see the speakers’ mouth.
Based on the information from an
English teacher of SMU ITTIHAD
Makassar through
observation to the teaching learning process in the classroom, especially at
the eleventh grade,
the students' achievement in Listening
comprehension is low. As a value observation in the
classroom the students’ score is about 5, in the last semester the students score between 50 – 65 while
the KKM is 70. This score is as a category poor. It
is because the students seldom practice listening in teaching-learning process.
They tend to focus on writing and grammar. Therefore, the researcher wants to
overcome this problem until the students get a good achievement by using an approach that related to the
student’s problem has been talked.
As long some approaches had been
applied to improve the students’ listening comprehension at the school, but those
approaches still weak, in the other words those approaches are not significant
to improve the students’ achievement in listening comprehension. In this case
the writer would like to introduce an approach that is assumed to be success to
improve the students’ listening comprehension. It is called Aural-Oral Language
Approach.
According to Ezinma in Fitri (2009:17)
Aural-Oral Language Approach is a method to the teaching language that emphazise on
mechanical drills and repetition. It focuses on mechanical
repetition through the use of oral drills lead also to complete neglience of
creative use of language and cognition.
Gaddes (2003:3) states during World
War II the American military need a quick and effective way to teach foreign
language skills in order to understand the oral commutation of the enemy. Then
they arrange the programs of second language teaching field back to focusing on
teaching listening and speaking skills.
The programs
developed by the American structural linguistics of the 1940’s then relied
heavily on oral drills and substitution practice in order to form these
speaking habits among language students. The result was Aural-Oral Approach
that became known as the Audio-Lingual Method Gaddes
(2003:3).
Drilling is a key feature of
Audio-Lingual Method as the result of Aural-Oral language approach to language
teaching which placed emphasis on repeating structural patterns through oral
practice. There are some good points that teachers may find when they use
Aural-Oral Method in their teaching, namely: (1) the classroom activity, which
is the teacher’s centered so that it makes the teacher easier to manage the
students (2) the usage of the target language in the classroom, which is meant
to make the students have the same abilities that the native speakers have (3)
the classroom activity, which focuses on pattern drills so that the teacher
only gives brief explanation, and focus on oral skills leading to good
pronunciation and speech Larsen (2002:46).
B.
Problem Statement
The
problems are
formulated in the questions as
below:
1.
Is the use of Aural-Oral Language Approach effective to improve the
students’ listening comprheshension?
2.
How is the students’
activeness toward teaching learning process through Aural-Oral Language
Approach?
