Using authentic materials to improve students’ listening comprehension (a classroom action research in the Second Grade Students of English Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Nusantara PGRI Kediri University in the academic year 2008

Oleh :
Sulistyani - - Sekolah Pascasarjana

ABSTRAK This research is a classroom action research implementing authentic materials to improve students’ listening comprehension. The aims of this research is to identify whether authentic materials can improve students’ listening comprehension and to describe the classroom situation when authentic materials are used in teaching and learning process of listening comprehension. The research was carried out during the even semester of 2008/2009 academic year in the second grade class of English department of Nusantara PGRI Kediri University. This was conducted in two cycles: the first cycle consists of four meetings and the second cycle consists of two meetings. The procedures of the research consist of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. To collect the data some instruments namely: questionnaire, interview, classroom observation, tests, field notes, and video recording are used. The observation was done during the teaching-learning process was in progress. The questionnaire and interview were given to the students before and after the implementation of authentic materials. The tests were in the form of pre-test and post-test. The result of the research shows that authentic materials could improve students’ listening comprehension. The students were interested in listening materials and motivated to learn listening comprehension. During the teaching and learning process, the students looked more active than before. They paid attention to the lesson and participated in all listening activities. Besides, they expressed positive response toward the teaching and learning process when authentic materials were used. The students’ listening comprehension improvement was revealed in the test scores in which the mean scores improved from 56.67 (pre-test of Cycle 1) to 60.70 (post-test of Cycle 1). It improved again in the post-test of Cycle 2, which was 69.07. The analysis of t-test non independent scores between the pre-test and post-test 1 was 4.226 which was higher than t-table 2.779. The t-test between post-test 1 and post-test 2 was 7.0235,  = 0.05. Therefore, there is a significant difference between the condition before treatment and after treatment. Thus, it can be concluded that using authentic materials in teaching listening can improve students’ listening comprehension.