The use of text - based task to improve students’ listening ability (a classroom action research at the 8th Grade Students of SMP N 10 Surakarta in 2008/2009 academic year)

Oleh :
Hanik Choiriyah - - Fak. KIP

ABSTRACT The Use of Text-Based Task to Improve Students’ Listening Ability (A Classroom Action Research at the 8th Grade Students of SMP N 10 Surakarta in 2008/2009 Academic Year). A thesis. Surakarta. Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sebelas Maret University. 2009. This study of action research is designed to implement TBT to improve the students’ listening ability. The aims of the research are to identify: 1) whether and to what extent the use of Text-Based Task improves the students’ listening ability, 2) the classroom situation when Text-Based Task is implemented in the listening class. This research is conducted through action research from November to December 2008 at the eighth grade students of SMP N 10 Surakarta in 2008/2009 Academic year. This research was carried out in two cycles; each cycle consists of two meetings. The data of this research are collected using: field notes, research’ diary, photograph, interview, students’ diary, questionnaire and listening test. The data are analyzed through constant comparative method and descriptive statistic by comparing the mean score of the students’ listening test from pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2. The research findings show that the students’ listening ability improved after implementing TBT in terms of their ability in: 1) identifying the words and grammatical characteristics of spoken text 2) finding the listening strategy to understand the content of spoken text 3) relating the clues with their background knowledge 4) doing the task to focus on their listening activity 5) understanding the speakers’ intention or meaning. Besides, the classroom situation also increased in terms of the students’ activeness in: 1) answering the questions 2) asking the teacher about their difficulties 3) paying attention to the teacher’s explanation 4) listening to the recorded text 5) increasing their motivation to learn. I come to the conclusion that TBT is able to improve the students’ listening ability and the classroom situation. TBT which exploits text using task creates an enjoyable and communicative classroom environment. Therefore, teachers can choose TBT to overcome students’ problems in learning listening and to improve classroom situation.