USING SONGS TO DEVELOP LISTENING ABILITY

FOR THE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

AT SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

Alexsander Irfan Bramasto06 1214 062

English Language Education Study ProgramSanata Dharma University

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to describe the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their listening ability. The study was also aimed to find out what kinds of songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability.

There were two problems formulated in this study. The first problem dealt with the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their listening ability. The second problem concerned with kinds of songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability.

The research finding revealed that students were interested in the use of songs in developing their listening ability. Song was relaxing, fun and entertaining. There were sequences which can lead them to keep listening to the song, song was not boring. While they were listening to a song, indirectly they could learn to find new vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar and the implementation of a word in a phrase/sentence.

Finally, the writer concluded that using songs to develop listening ability was an interesting method in process of acquiring listening skill.

1. INTRODUCTION

In acquiring English language, there are four important skills need to be

acquired namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening is an important

skill in learning a language. It means that someone’s listening ability has strong

relationship with his/her ability in acquiring a language. In our daily life, we listen

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more than we read, speak or write. In acquiring a second language or foreign

language, listening ability should be developed intensively.

Bazo (2002) on http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-FourSkills.html states that

listening is the most difficult language skill which learners usually find. This is often

because they feel under pressured to understand every word. Bazo’s statement is

strengthened with the writer’s research that the participants are the sixth semester of

ELESP at Sanata Dharma University. The writer found some reasons why they

considered that listening was difficult to acquire namely problem with catch the

words/meaning of the words, difficult to listen to unfamiliar words, the speed of the

speech, and technical problem namely the quality of listening media (listening

passage, audio-tape, head phone). Instead, listening comprehension is a process, a

very complex process, and if we want to measure it, we must first understand how

that process works (Buck, 2001:1).

This study was conducted to find out the students’ perceptions towards the use of

songs in developing their listening ability. This study was also conducted to find out

what kinds of songs that may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to

develop their listening ability.

The writer distributed questionnaire as the research instrument. According to

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th Edition, questionnaire means a written list

of questions that are answered by a number of people so that information can be

collected from the answers. The writer distributed questionnaires to obtain the data.

The questionnaires were distributed to seven students of the sixth semester of ELESP

at Sanata Dharma University. There are two major problems formulated in this study.

Firstly, what are the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing

their listening ability? Secondly, what are the songs which may help students of

ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability?

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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Definition of listening

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th Edition, listen means

to pay attention to somebody/something that you can hear. Based on this definition, it

can be concluded that listening is a process of transferring information from an

oral/spoken language.

According to Doyle (2005) as cited in http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd

110td/interper/listen/listening.html, there are seven stages process of listening namely

hearing, selecting, attending, understanding, evaluating, remembering and

responding. It is clearly seen in figure one.

Figure 1: Seven stages process of listening

Source: http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd110td/interper/images/liststages.gif

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Hearing:Receiving raw data

Selecting:Choosing stimuli

Attending:Focusing attention

Understanding:Assigning meaning

Evaluating:Analyzing and judging

Remembering:Drawing on memory

Responding:Feedback

2.2 The differences between first and second language listening

Even they looked the same, but there are some differences between first language

and second language listening. When we talk about first language listening, we can

say that it is easy because we have mastered that. The process of acquiring first

language is automatically, because we use it in our daily life and we accustomed to

practice it. But, it will be different if we talk about second language listening. Buck

(2001, 49) states that we usually learn things differently in the case of a second

language, especially when we learn it as an adult. Knowledge of the language varies

considerably: from those who can understand only a few isolated words in their

second language, to those who appear to be indistinguishable from native speakers.

Rarely do second-language learners develop the same high level of ability as in their

first language.

2.3 The purposes of listening

Listening is different with hearing. Listening is following the sound and

understanding the meaning of the sound. On the other words, it can be described that

listening is hearing with a purpose. When we listen to somebody or listen to

conversation on television/radio, we actually try to absorb the meaning or ideas. So it

can be concluded that the purpose of listening is trying to catch the meaning or

understanding the ideas.

2.4 The definition of song

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song), a song is a

musical composition that contains vocal parts ("lyrics") that are performed ("sung"),

commonly accompanied by musical instruments (exceptions would be a cappella

songs). The lyrics of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, although they

may be religious verses or free prose.

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Subject

The participants were seven students semester 6 of ELESP at Sanata Dharma

University. The writer chose them as the participants because the writer believed that

they had experiences in listening to English songs.

3.2 Method

There were two questions formulated in the problem formulation. The first

question was aimed to find out the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in

developing their listening ability. The second question was aimed to find out what are

the songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to

develop their listening ability.

In order to answer those two questions, the writer distributed questionnaire as

the research instrument. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th

Edition, questionnaire means a written list of questions that are answered by a

number of people so that information can be collected from the answers.

3.3 Research Procedure

The writer distributed questionnaire as the research instrument. The writer

distributed questionnaires on 16th and 17th April 2009, and the writer received the

result of the questionnaires on 18th April 2009. After the writer received the result of

the questionnaires, the writer analyzed them. The writer compared the answers from

each participant and tried to classify the answers which had the same ideas. The last

step was writing the research paper.

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4. RESULT and DISCCUSSION

4.1 The result of the questionnaire

The research indicated that among seven research participants, four students

liked to listen to pop songs, one student liked to listen to rock songs, one student liked

to listen to grunge songs and one student liked to listen to emo songs. Figure 2 shows

the percentages of genres of music that students love to listen.

Figure 2: the percentage of genres of music that students love to listen

The questionnaire revealed that four students listen to English songs more than 3 hours in a day, two students listen to English songs between 2-3 hours in a day, one student listen to English songs between 1-2 hours in a day. Figure 3 shows the percentage of students’ intensity in listening to English songs.

Figure 3: the percentage of students’ intensity in listening to English songs.

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The questionnaire also revealed that there are some difficulties in acquiring

listening skill namely not accustomed to listen to English words, the speech of the

speaker was too fast to follow, different accents, and the quality of listening media

(tape, speaker, headphone). The students prefer to listen to English songs rather than

listen to English conversation because songs are enjoyable and fun. Through listening

to English songs, students can get new vocabularies, the implementation of words in

sentences, how to pronounce words correctly and students do not get bored in

listening to English songs. They think that listening to English songs can help them in

developing their listening ability. The songs should not too fast in rhyme and not too

slow. The songs should be interesting and easy to listen.

4.2 The difficulties in improving listening ability

Listening comprehension is a process, a very complex process, and if we want to

measure it, we must first understand how that process works (Buck, 2001:1). Based

on that statement, we can conclude that there were some difficulties in acquiring

listening skill for a second language learner. From the questionnaires result, the writer

discovered some difficulties in listening to English song namely phonological

changes, difficulties in convey the meaning of sentence/phrase and difficulties in

catching unfamiliar words.

4.3 The students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their

listening ability

The result of the questionnaires showed that the students of English Language

Education Study Program at Sanata Dharma University were interested at using songs

in developing their listening ability. They gave some reasons which made them

interested at using songs to develop their listening ability. The writer classified their

answers into two ideas namely enjoyable and practicality. The following sections

elaborate detailed findings of two answers.

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4.3.1 Enjoyable

The students told that using songs in developing listening ability is interesting.

It was caused of song itself was very familiar in their daily life. They accustomed to

listen to song. According to them, song was relaxing, fun and entertaining. There

were melodies which can lead them to keep listening to the song. Song was not

boring. While they were listening to a song, indirectly they could learn to find new

vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar and the implementation of a word in a

phrase/sentence. It was effective, because they could learn and entertain themselves at

the same time.

4.3.2 Practicality

The result showed that students interested at using songs in developing their

listening ability because its practicality. Logically, it was easier to find a song rather

than a listening passage. Students could choose the most appropriate song for them.

Each student must have different genre of music. For the example, from seven

participants, the writer found that there were five genres of music they love to hear

namely pop, slow rock, grunge, emo, and brit-pop. But, it could be generalized that

they liked to hear slow-rhythms music.

4.2 The kinds of songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma

University to develop their listening ability

From the result of questionnaire, the writer discovered kinds of songs which

may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening

ability. The most important is that song shall be ear catching, it means that the song

has interesting melody or poetic lyric. The song itself also should be simple in lyric, it

means that the students can understand what the lyric means or what the song writer

wants to convey. When a song is interesting and easy to listen, students will

encourage themselves to listen to every word in the song, they will try to find out

what the lyric means. When students enjoy song and find unfamiliar words/phrases,

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they will try to consult dictionary. It is very helpful in their process of acquiring

English language and indirectly it improves their listening ability.

5 CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study was to find out the students’ perceptions towards the

use of songs in developing their listening ability. There were two problems

formulated in the research problem formulation. The first question was to find out the

students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their listening ability.

The second question was to find out what kinds of songs which may help students of

ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability.

In order to answer two questions above, the writer distributed questionnaire as

the research instrument. The writer distributed questionnaires on 16 th and 17th April

2009, and the writer received the result of the questionnaires on 18 th April 2009. After

the writer received the result of the questionnaires, the writer analyzed them. The

writer compared the answers from each participant and tried to classify the answers

which had the same ideas. The last step was writing the research paper.

The participants told that they were interested in the use of songs in

developing their listening ability. Song was relaxing, fun and entertaining. While they

were listening to a song, indirectly they could learn to find new vocabularies,

pronunciation, grammar and the implementation of a word in a phrase/sentence.

REFERENCES

Bazo, Placido. 2002. Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom.

Downloaded on 4th April 2009 from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-

FourSkills.html

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Buck, Gary. 2001. Acquiring Listening. United Kingdom: Cambridge University

Press

_______. 2009. Song. Downloaded on 18th April 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/Song

Hornby, Albert. 1995. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English 5th

edition. Great Britain: Oxford University Press

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