Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
Listening is crucial for developing a second or foreign language. Nation
and Newton (2009:37) state “Listening is the natural precursor to speaking; the
early stages of language development in a person’s first language (and in
naturalistic acquisition of other languages) are dependent on listening.” According
to Scarcella and Oxford (1992) in (Oxford, 1993:205), “Listening is a
fundamental language skill that typically develops faster than speaking and that
often influences the development of reading and writing ability in the new
language.” Listening skill develops faster than other skills in learning a new
language. Listening also influences reading and writing skills.
Listening comprehension is more than obtaining meaning from utterance.
It also involves a process in which students match utterance with what they
already know about the topic. When students know the context or the topic, they
can activate their prior knowledge to get something from that knowledge which is
needed for comprehending the message. Brown (2006:2) states “One very
important idea for teaching listening is that listening courses must make use of
students’ prior knowledge in order to improve listening comprehension.”
Consequently, designing listening materials based on Contextual Teaching
and Learning Approach is needed. This is because Contextual Teaching and
Learning Approach helps students to connect the content of the materials they are
learning to their prior knowledge and life contexts. After the writer had observed
the books which were used by the eleventh grade English teacher of SMA N 1
Ketapang in teaching listening which were Look Ahead and Developing English
Competencies, the writer found out that the units for listening activities had some
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components of CTL, but there were not any units in listening which had the seven
components of CTL.
Therefore, the writer designed listening comprehension material samples
based on Contextual Teaching and Learning Approach for the second semester of
eleventh grade students of SMA N 1 Ketapang which fulfilled the seven
components of CTL. The writer designed listening comprehension materials for
the units which were lack of CTL components. The listening comprehension
materials designed by the writer were intended to be used as supplementary
materials in teaching listening.
parts. In other words, the listener uses what they know of the context of
communication to predict what the message will contain, and uses parts of the
message to confirm, correct or add to this. “
There are seven components of CTL that have to be applied in designing
listening materials based on CTL. According to Johnson (2006), they are a)
constructivism, b) questioning, c) inquiry, d) learning community, e) modeling, f)
reflection, and g) authentic assessment.
The first component is constructivism. Students do not receive knowledge
from teacher, but they construct their own knowledge. Therefore, teachers should
pay more attention to the learning process rather than to the outcome of the
learning process.
The second component is questioning. Teachers use questioning for
prompting, guiding and assessing students’ thinking. In a productive teaching
learning, questioning is useful for checking students comprehension, solving
problems faced by the students, stimulating responses from the students,
measuring student’s curiosity, focusing student attention, and refreshing students
prior knowledge.
The third component is inquiry. Inquiry is the core of CTL. Inquiry
involves activities in which students observe a phenomenon and analyze the data
gained from the observation to produce students’ own discovery of information or
knowledge. In other words, students discover their own knowledge and skills.
The next component is learning community. Learning community suggests
that the outcome of learning is better gained from cooperating with others. It can
be gained from sharing with friends or other groups and from sharing knowledge
or information from the students who know it to the others who do not.
The fifth component is modeling. Modeling suggests that learning certain
skills and knowledge is followed by models that can be imitated by students. The
models can be giving examples such as how to operate something, showing result
of work, and giving performance.
The sixth component is reflection. Reflection is thinking about what
students have learned. By thinking about what have been learned, analyzing, and
responding to all activities or experiences which occur in learning, students are
able to realize that the knowledge they just obtained is enrichment or revision to
their prior knowledge.
The last component of CTL is authentic assessment. Authentic assessment
is not to judge students, but to find out students’ learning development. Teachers
assess not only the outcome of the learning process, but also the learning process.
Authentic assessment is the opposite of standardized examination.
In designing materials, there must be guidance for the writer on how to
design good materials. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) mention the principles in
designing good materials. They are: a) Materials provide a stimulus to learning, b)
Materials help to organize the teaching-learning process, c) Materials embody a
view of the nature of language and learning, d) Materials reflect the nature of the
learning task, e) Materials can have a very useful function in broadening the basis
of teacher training, and f) Materials provide models of correct and appropriate
language use.
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In carrying out the research, the writer used design and development
research. Richey and Klein (2007:1) define design and development research as
“the systematic study of design, development and evaluation processes with the
aim of establishing an empirical basis for the creation of instructional and non-
instructional products and tools and new or enhanced models that govern their
development.”
The population of this research was samples for designing listening
materials based on Contextual Teaching and Learning approach for the second
semester of eleventh grade students of SMA N 1 Ketapang and the sample of this
research was the selected samples from available sources for designing listening
materials based on Contextual Teaching and Learning approach for the second
semester of eleventh grade students of SMA N 1 Ketapang. The samples of the
listening material design which are related to the curriculum are narrative, spoof
and hortatory exposition.
The writer used documentation technique in the research. Documentation
is a technique for finding the data about things or variables from various sources,
such as books, articles, transcripts, or internet. The writer collected texts from any
sources to design listening material samples based on Contextual Teaching and
Learning approach for the second semester students of the eleventh grade.
Tools of data collecting in this research were teacher’s interview and
teacher and students’ questionnaires. The writer interviewed the teacher to get
information about the difficulties which the teacher faced in teaching listening, the
syllabus, and the listening materials which were used by the teacher. The
questionnaires were contributed to the teacher and students after the listening
comprehension materials had been tried out by the English teacher. The
questionnaires were given to the students and the English teacher to get their
perception on the listening comprehension materials designed by the writer.
Table 1
Teacher’s Interview
No. Questions Answers
1 Do you have any difficulties in teaching Yes, many students have difficulties in
listening materials? answering the questions of the listening
materials, especially in listening to text.
So some of them usually got score
below the standard score. The standard
score is 62.
2 Why do you think they have difficulties Because there are many words that they
in answering the questions? don’t know the meaning. So they have
difficulties in understanding the text.
Sometimes the text is about something
that is not familiar with the students.
4 Where do you get listening materials? I get it from the textbooks.
5 How many textbooks do you use in I use two textbooks. They are Look
teaching listening and what are they? Ahead and Developing English
Competencies books.
6 Is there any audio provided for those There is a cassette for Look Ahead
textbooks? book, but it doesn’t work anymore. For
Developing English Competencies,
there is no audio.
7 So do you read the monologue text Yes.
yourself in teaching listening?
8 What is the basic competence of to respond meaning in monologue text
listening skill for the second semester of which uses oral language style
the eleventh grade students of SMA accurately, fluently, and appropriately
Negeri 1 Ketapang? in daily life contexts in text form:
narrative, spoof, and hortatory
exposition
The strengths and the weaknesses of the listening materials of Look Ahead
and Developing English Competencies books used by the teacher.
The writer observed the units for listening based on the syllabus which is
to respond meaning in monologue text which uses oral language style accurately,
fluently, and appropriately in daily life contexts in text form: narrative, spoof, and
hortatory exposition in the textbooks to find out the strengths and the weaknesses
of the books in terms of the seven components of CTL. The writer designed the
listening comprehension materials for the units which had not followed the seven
components of CTL.
Look Ahead book
Look Ahead is written by Th. M. Sudarwati and Eudia Grace and
published by Erlangga Publisher in 2007.
In narrative monologue text unit, there were some components of CTL
found in the book. They were constructivism, modeling, reflection and authentic
assessment. Unfortunately, constructivism could be found only in pre-activity.
This was to activate students’ knowledge related to the topic. On the other hand,
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8 the students did a project. In unit two authentic assessment could be found in six
and seven. The students discussed text organization and topic of the text in task
six and did a project in task seven. In unit three authentic assessment could be
found in task seven and eight. The students discussed text organization and topic
of the text in task seven and did a project in task eight.
The writer designed the units based on the weaknesses found in the units
of Look Ahead and Developing English Competencies books. It can be seen from
the following table:
Table 2
The Listening Comprehension Materials Designed based on the
Weaknesses Found in the Look Ahead and Developing English
Competencies Books
No. Weaknesses of Listening Listening Comprehension Material Design
Comprehension Materials
1 Constructivism which was Constructivism could be found in all units in pre-
found in the units was in pre- activity, whilst activity, and post activity. This
activity. Some units did not component could be seen from the warm up
have constructivism. activity, discussing phonetic symbols and
categorizing words and doing projects.
2 Questioning which could not Questioning could be found in all units. This
be found in some units. component could be seen from the pre-activity in
which students were given questions about the
pictures and related to the listening
comprehension materials.
3 Inquiry could not be found in Inquiry could be found in all units through
the units of the two books. discussing text organization and topic of the
texts.
4 Learning community could Learning community could be found through pair
not be found in the units of work and group work in all units.
the two books.
5 Modeling could be found in Modeling could be found in all units through
some units of the two books. pronunciation practice.
6 Reflection: no weaknesses Even though there was no weakness for
reflection, the writer put this component into her
listening comprehension material design. For
reflection component, the students were asked to
write like, dislike, and improvement after
learning the listening comprehension materials.
7 There were some assessments Authentic assessments measured the students’
found in some units which learning process, not only the result of the tasks.
did not really measure the Besides, the tasks given in the materials designed
students’ listening by the writer measured the students’ listening
comprehension because they comprehension because the students were not
were given incomplete texts given any incomplete texts so that they needed to
and questions related to the listen in order to be able to do the tasks.
text. The students could read
as well as listen.
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The table clearly shows that, based on the result of teacher’s questionnaire,
the listening materials designed by the writer had followed the principles of
material design. They motivated students to learn. They also contained interesting
materials and provided opportunities for the students to use their existing
knowledge. The listening materials helped to organize the teaching and learning
process so that the teacher knew what should be learnt by the students first and
what should be learnt next. They provided the real language use in real life.
Table 5
Aspects of Material Design
No. Statements Response
Yes No
13 Are the instructions for the tasks clear enough to be understood by
the students?
14 Are the illustrations connected to the content of the listening
materials?
15 Are the illustrations interesting?
The table clearly shows that the instructions for the tasks of the listening
comprehension materials were clear enough to be understood by the students. The
illustrations given were connected to the content of the listening materials. The
illustrations and appearance of the listening materials were interesting.
Table 6
Principles of Listening Material Development
No. Statements Response
Yes No
17 Are the listening materials relevant to the students?
Table 7
Students’ Questionnaire
No. Statement Frequency Percentage(%)
Yes No Yes No
1 Text yang terdapat dalam materi 28 4 87.5 12.5
pengajaran listening berkaitan dengan hal-
hal atau benda-benda yang dapat dilihat
atau ditemui dalam kehidupan sehari-hari.
The table clearly shows that the listening materials were related to the
students’ daily lives. 87.5% of the students agreed with the statement that the
listening materials were related to the things that they could find in their daily
lives. In addition, 84% of the students had heard and known the listening
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materials before so it meant the students could recall their prior knowledge related
to the materials. Besides relating to the students’ daily lives and prior knowledge,
the listening materials were interesting for the students because 100% of the
students agreed with the statement. 96% of the students could enjoy learning the
materials. All students thought that the listening materials could help them to
understand English which was related to their daily lives better. The listening
materials encouraged 96% of the students to use English more actively and
improve their listening skill. For 96% of the students, by listening to the materials
for several times, they could get the information better. In addition, all students
thought that they understood and got more knowledge by learning the listening
materials. 87.5% of the students could learn with other students or in groups
through discussing the listening materials and making conclusion.
Conclusion
Before the writer designed the listening comprehension materials, the
writer did a preliminary study. The writer interviewed the teacher and observed
the strengths and weaknesses of the listening material units in listening to
monologue text of the textbooks used by the teacher. The writer interviewed the
teacher in order to get information about the syllabus, textbooks which were used
in teaching listening, and the difficulties which the teacher faced in teaching
listening. The writer also observed the strengths and weaknesses of the textbooks
used by the teacher in teaching listening in terms of components of CTL. The
result of the textbook observation showed that the units for listening to monologue
texts had had some components of CTL. The weaknesses of the units were that
there were not any units which had the seven components of Contextual Teaching
and Learning. From this case, the writer designed the listening comprehension
material samples which fulfilled the seven components of CTL. The listening
comprehension materials designed by the writer were intended to be used as
supplementary materials in teaching listening.
In order to get the teacher and students’ perception on the listening
comprehension materials designed by the writer, the writer asked the teacher to
try out the materials and contributed the questionnaires to the teacher and students
after the listening materials had been tried out. The teacher’s perception on the
listening comprehension materials was that the listening comprehension materials
samples had fulfilled the components of CTL, principles of material design,
aspects of material design and principles of listening material development. The
students’ perception on the listening comprehension materials was that the
listening comprehension materials designed by the writer were interesting for the
students, the listening materials helped the students to understand English which
was related to their daily lives, and the students could understand and get more
knowledge by learning the listening materials designed by the writer.
Designing materials is quite challenging. Need analysis is needed before
designing materials to know what students really need. Therefore, a preliminary
study needs to be carried out. After the materials have been designed, they should
be tried out to know the weaknesses of them just like what the writer found out
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after the writer had tried out the materials. There were some minor changes made
to make the listening materials better. Even though designing materials is
challenging and takes time, it might be rewarding because designing materials
provides what students really need and helps them to understand the materials
better because the materials suit their level.
References
Berns, Robert G. & Erickson, Patricia M. (2001). Contextual Teaching and
Learning: Preparing Students for the New Economy, no. 5.
Brown, Steven. (2006). Teaching Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Celce-Murcia, Marianne. (2001). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign
Language. 3rd edition. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Flowerdew, John & Miller, Lindsay. (2005). Second Language Listening: Theory
and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hutchinson, Tom & Waters, Alan. (1987). English for Specific Purposes: A
Learning-Centered Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, Elaine B. (2006). Contextual Teaching and Learning: Menjadikan
Kegiatan Belajar-Mengajar. Bandung: Penerbit MLC.
Nation, I. S. P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking.
New York: Routledge.
Oxford, R. L. (1993). Research Update on Teaching L2 Listening. System, 21,
205-211.
Richey, R.C. & Klein, J.D. (2007). Design and Developmental Research. New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated.
Tomlinson, Brian & Masuhara, Hitomi. (2004). Developing Language Course
Materials. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Center.