By Ritna Muslichatin [Kanjuruhan University of Malang, Teacher Training and Education Faculty, English Education Department].
ABSTRACT
Muslichatin, Ritna, 2011. Improving the Students’ Listening Skill By Using Listening Audiobook at Eleventh Grade of SMK Kartika IV – 2 Lawang, Thesis, English Education Department, Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Kanjuruhan University of Malang, Advisor (1) Dwi Fita Heriyawati, S.Pd., M.Pd. Advisor (2) Maria Cholifah, S.S., M.Pd Key words: Listening, Audiobook English has been used widely in all over the world.
The advances of technology, medical science, trade, communication have largely supported the English improvements. The use of English has been widespread to all level of society including education area. These matters have led people especially students to improve themselves in mastering English. In Indonesia, English has become an obligatory subject in high school, moreover, English is one of the national examination subject in order to be able to graduate from school.
English in vocational school, therefore is not a easy subject since most of vocational students, especially technical students, dislike English and consider that English is one of the most frightening lesson. In this study, the researcher attempted to perform listening skill by using listening audiobook. As a result, the questions appeared are: How can audiobook improve the students’ listening skill at eleventh grade of SMK Kartika IV-2 Lawang, Malang.
In this study, the researcher conducted Classroom Action Research (CAR) as the researcher is the English teacher of SMK Kartika IV – 2 Lawang and responsible to eleventh grade of all majors.
In this vocational school, there are three English teachers that each of which responsible to different grade. In this eleventh grade, there are three majors, automotive, machine, and computer. The researcher chose technical of computer. In this major, there are two classes, XI TKJ 1 and XI TKJ 2, the researcher conducted on XI TKJ 2. In this class there are 23 students, 8 girls and 15 boys. This class has two days of English class in a week at every Tuesday and Saturday. Each of the day has 90 minutes time.
In collecting the data, the researcher employed three instruments, observation, documentation and interview.
The finding shows that the students seemed notice the importance use of English in real life. At first, the researcher did not change the students’ seats in holding the listening class. This seemed difficult for the students to listen the records since the speaker’s volume was too low and the students could not hear clearly. At the cycle two, the researcher then changed the students’ seats into U form to overcome the previous problem and put the speakers in the middle of the seats form. From this, almost all students were able to listening the records clearly. The researcher Although most of the students felt difficult in having listening class, the students claimed that they needed to study more in listening the real English native speakers. The students realized that they needed English after they had graduated from school.
In then end, after the researcher observed and discussed this study, the researcher should advice teaching listening skill by using listening audiobook to improve the students’ listening skill.
