THE STUDENTS’ LISTENING MASTERY
(A Case Study of the Fifth Grade Students of SDN X in the Academic Year of 2008/2009)
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 General Background of the Study
Language is the most important thing for people as a means of
communication. It is basically a means of both oral and written communication.
People use language to express their ideas and wishes to others’ people such as
when they need others help so that close relation among members of the group
can be carried out (Ramelan, 1993: 8). Ramelan further states that “the use of
language enables the members of a social group to cooperate with one another for
their own benefit.”
It is important to learn English because it is an international language which is
used in many countries over the world and widely used in many sectors such as
information, trade, education, etc.
In Indonesia, English has an important role especially in education. Therefore,
English is taught as the first foreign language in all levels of schools and language
courses. In elementary school, English has been taught as a local content. Since
The Basic Course Outlines of the 2004 Curriculum states that the objective of
learning English at elementary school as a local content is to develop students'
communication ability in the context of school (2004: 7). It means that the
students are expected to be able to make simple transactional and interpersonal
conversation which is potentially needed to communicate in the context of school.
Here, the teacher plays important role since he has to be able to set students
interest and motivation in learning English in order to develop students’ ability to communicate using all the resources they have already acquired to interact with
others about their needs and interest.
In this study, I will focus on teaching listening in elementary school
considering that in learning language listening is the skill that children acquire
first. Listening is important to support learning English especially in enriching
vocabulary and gaining a large portion of their education. Therefore I consider
that listening can be taught at elementary schools.
There is no doubt that elementary students face some difficulties in learning
English because learning English as a second language is something new for
them, and it is different from learning their native language. Some of the students
think that English is difficult and some of them are curious and like to learn
English. The way in encouraging children to become accustomed to learn English
is by giving them listening material occasionally, in order to make the children
familiar with the language by listening its word and sentences.
In fact, listening is seldom taught in primary school. Although it is the first
skill which will be learned before the students have mastered the three other
skills; speaking, reading, and writing. Rost (1991: 3) states that progress in
listening will provide a basis for development of other language skills. In learning
language, students use listening to begin the process of learning to comprehend
and produce language. By listening to the language around them, they are
demanded to get the knowledge of speaking and get an introduction to reading
and writing.
Due to the importance of listening as explained above, the teachers have to
develop students’ listening ability since it is the first stage they learned English.
By developing students’ ability to listen well, the teachers develop their students’
ability to become more independent learners, as the students will be able to
reproduce language accurately and refine their understanding of grammar and
develop their own vocabulary. The better students improve their listening ability,
the better they reach the achievement in listening. Teachers, therefore, should
explore a new productive strategy in brightening listening classes in order to
encourage students in learning listening skill. They should create interesting and
entertaining materials to motivate the students’ active responds in doing listening
exercise. After the teaching and learning process and all the materials are given to
the students, there is an expectation that students will make a progress in their
study. To know whether the students make some progress in their study, it is
useful for teacher to conduct a test or an examination at the end of a program. So
the students will be motivated to learn and master the materials which have been
taught by the teacher.
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