RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Improving Students’ Listening Skill by Using English Songs

LECTURER :
Yuni Khairina , S.pd , M.Hum

SUBMITTED BY :
GROUP -
Sri Wahyuningsih 2183321028
Maruli Tua Hamongan Sinulingga 2183121048
Ryan Timotus Ginting 2183321023
Johannes Oliber Hutagalung 2183321013
Rizky Ananda Nasution 2183321053

ENG-EDU 18 C

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2019
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Praise and thank God the Almighty for giving us all his blessings and gifts . We are grateful to
be able to complete the engineering task of an idea with the theme "Improving Students’
Listening Skill by Using English Songs” . I would like to thank Ms. Yuni Khairina.S.Pd,M.Hum
As a lecturer in Academic Oral Language Skill who has given this assignment to us , as a
training and additional insight and knowledge in developing ways to initiate students'
improvement their listening skill .

The engineering of this idea is compiled to fulfill one of the Academic Oral Language Skill
courses, which in proposing this idea is based on understanding and what the author knows.
On this occasion we express my gratitude for his concern for the engineering of this idea useful
for ourselves and for the readers.

Medan , 6th November 2019

Writers
 TABLE OF CONTENT

Acknowledgement
Table of content
Chapter I (Preliminary)
a. Background
b. Identification of the problem
c. Limitation of the problem
d. Formulation of the problem
e. The objective of the research
f. The significance of the research
g. Scope of the research
h. Definition of key term

Chapter II (Literature Review)

a. Listening Skill
b. Song
c. Previous studies

Chapter III (methodology)

a. Research design
b. Subject of the research
c. Setting of the research
d. Research procedures
e. Research instrument
f. Instrument validity
g. Technique of data collection
h. Technique of data analysis

Chapter IV (closing)
a. Conclusion
b. Suggestion

References
 CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY

A. Background

from some researches about teaching and learning English as a second and foreign
language, especially in listening skill, there are some obstacles faced by students and teachers.
The obstacles are such as using unsuitable methods by the teachers and lack of motivation from
the students. Problem existing in students’ poor mastery of English Inspired listening skill is
most of they have very short attention span and lack of motivation (Tee and Fah, 2005: 1). The
teachers have to find the suitable methods to motivate the students in order to make them
interest in learning English. So, the goal of teaching listening is hoped can be reached.
As a foreign language, English has four skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking) that
have to be mastered by the students. From these skills, listening is a skill that felt difficult to
be mastered, because it needs more attention and concentration to comprehend the sounds
(listening material). It can be said that listening is not a passive skill; the process of listening is
a complex process in which many things happen simultaneously inside the mind. Besides being
complex, listening is far more difficult than many people can imagine (Mee, 1990).
There are some reasons why listening felt difficult to be mastered by the students. First, the
students begin to learn English by the way of reading, instead of listening. In fact, reading is
different from listening, like writing is different from speech. The biggest difference is that
speech consists of sounds. Listeners must know the sound system; otherwise, they cannot
understand speech. Moreover, writing uses different language.

Written English consists of neat, correct sentences, while speech does not.
Second, the materials on the tape are usually read by English speaking people. There are
different accents, difficult idioms and unfamiliar language chunks in their speaking. This is
another difficulty.

For the students, their English teachers are usually local people. So the students may not be
used to the accents of the foreign people. It is hard for them to understand native speakers.
Third, when English-speaking people speak English, they usually speak at a normal speed. It
is too fast for the students to follow. When listening, the students cannot choose a comfortable
listening speed; they have to keep pace with the speaker’s thinking process. So sometimes they
have not even got the meaning of the first sentence, before the second sentence has already
passed. Their results show that they have missed the whole passage.
Fourth, the contents of the tape are not always familiar with the students. Some of them are not
relevant to the students.

The students may lack the background knowledge about foreign countries and cultures. So
sometimes they cannot understand the material or they may misunderstand the meaning of it.
Based on the researcher’s small observation at Junior High School in Medan the researchers
has also found that it is very difficult for the students to understand English through listening.
The problems are most students are from different minority areas. In some junior high schools,
there are no language labs to train their listening skills. Listening activities are not common for
the students. When they come to senior high school, they cannot adjust their study habits very
quickly. They still rely on their eyes instead of their ears to learn English.
Usually, in the lab, the students feel at a loss when they listen to some new text. Over 50% of
the students could not understand the meaning of the material after playing the tape for the first
time. Expecting them to understand the material, the teacher often gives them some instructions
and to play the tape again, at least three times. Still, at least 20% of students might not
understand it. Then, the teacher sometimes has to stop the tape to explain the difficult or
unfamiliar words and occasionally explain material sentence by sentence through the whole
text. So, this is a serious problem because some students cannot understand the whole text after
listening to it three times in class. Furthermore, the students might gradually lose their self-
confidence. They are afraid to go to the lab to listen to English again. When they are face to
face with listening material, they have little confidence in their listening comprehension
abilities. Therefore, they may not understand them because they have to battle the
psychological suggestion that they could not understand spoken English.
Beside of that, the teachers are difficult to find the suitable method or technique to stimulate
students in learning listening. If a teacher always uses the same teaching methodology, they
may become predictable and, perhaps, less interesting for their students (Ross, 2006).

The students have poor mastery of English listening skill because they have lack of motivation.
The motivation is much needed in learning listening, because sometimes students have to hear
the fast sounds or words more than one to be understood. Without high motivation, they will
be bored and can stop learning, and the goal of education cannot be reached. It will be
dangerous if there is no effort to reduce the problem.
In order to overcome those problems, it is better to look for good method in teaching listening.
We can use some activities that can stimulate the students to improve their listening skill. The
activities such as watching a film, listen to news report, and listen to English songs. In watching
a film, we can cover the subtitle with a piece of paper for a few minutes and try to predict what
is going to happen. In listen to news report, we can choose the topic that interests us such as
about sport, fashion, or education.

When listening, we can write the vocabularies that appear on the particular topic. In listening
English songs, we can listen to the pronunciation of words and sing along with the songs.
Listen to English song is felt more interesting from the other activities. English songs are a
great language package that bundles culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar and a host of other
language skills in just a few rhymes. Songs can also provide a relaxed lesson on a hot boring
day. It can also form the basis for many lessons. It can be used for a wide variety of English
for foreign language learning and teaching activities. It can start discussions on a topic or even
become the centre of debate (Futonge, 2005). Using songs in the classroom is a great way to
live up listening activities. It can be added a couple of steps that have been used with success
to the process though to make the listening activities more effective.
 Therefore, the researcher tries to reduce the problems of the students’ listening comprehension
and intends to find out what can be done to help them improve their listening skill.
B. Identification of the Problem

Based on the background above, there were some problems in teaching and learning
listening. The problems were:
1. Listening activities are not common for the students because most students are from
different junior high schools which there are no language labs to train their listening skills.
2. The students have little confidence in their listening comprehension abilities when they are
face to face with listening material.
3. The students may not understand listening material because they have to battle the
psychological suggestion that they could not understand spoken English.
4. The students have lack of motivation in learning listening.
5. The teachers are difficult to find the suitable method to stimulate students in learning
listening.

C. Limitation of the Problem

There were some activities that can improve students’ listening skill, such as listen to films,
listen to news reports, and listen to English songs. In this study, the problem was limited on
improving the second year students’ listening skill by using songs at Junior High School
(SMP) in academic year 2019/2020.

D. Formulation of the Problem

The problem of this research was formulated, “How does using songs improve the second
year students’ listening skill at Junior High School (SMP) in academic year 2019/2020 ?”

E . The Objective of the Research

The objective of this research was to find out whether using songs can improve the second

year students’ listening skill at Junior High School (SMP) in academic year 2019/2020 or

not.

F. The Significance of the Research

In general, the findings of this research are expected to be an effort of providing new
perception for the teachers of English. And then, it is expected to be useful information for
the teaching of listening improving students’ ability to heard and also beneficial for teachers
who understand ways of exploration potential effective teaching and learning by using
English Song . The research was conducted by expectation that it will be useful for many
sides. The significances are:
1. to improve teaching practice in listening in the classroom
2. to develop and implement the students’ listening comprehension skills.

G.. Scope of the Research

1. Listening skill is the students’ ability to listen the listening materials as well as possible.

2. Songs is a piece of music with words that is sung.

H. Definition of Key Term

1. Listening skill is the students’ ability to listen the listening materials as well as possible.
2. Songs is a piece of music with words that is sung.
 CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Listening Skill

In Indonesia, English as a foreign language has been learned at school, from elementary
school until senior high school. It has four skills that have to be mastered by students. These
skills are reading, listening, writing, and speaking. From these skills, listening is a skill that felt
difficult to be mastered, because it needs more attention and concentration to comprehend the
sounds (listening material). Allah SWT said in His sacred Book:
“And the example of those who disbelieve, is as that of him who shouts to the (flock of
sheep) that hears nothing but calls and cries. (They are) deaf, dumb and blind. So they do not
understand”. (Al Baqarah: 171)

From the verse above, it can be concluded that hearing carefully (listening) is a process to
start mind. Equally, by listening we can learn and understand many lessons.

1. Definition of Listening Skill

As defined by oxford (1993: 206), listening is a complex problem solving skill and it is
more than just perception of the sounds. Listening includes comprehension of meaning words,
phrases, clauses, sentences, and connected discourse. Furthermore, according to Bulletin in
Saricoban (1999), listening is one of the fundamental language skills. It is a medium through
which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of their information, their
understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their
appreciation. Rivers in Hasyuni (2006: 8) says that listening is a creative skill. It means we
comprehend the sound falling on our ears, and take the raw material of words, arrangements of
words, and the rise and fall the voice, and from this material we creative a significance. Russel
and Russel in Hasyuni (2006:8) also say that listening skill is listening with comprehension,
attention and appreciation. Then, listening activity needs integrating skill of language, such as
pronunciation, vocabulary mastery, writing, speaking, and reading.

Listening skill can be meant as ability to pay attention or to hear something. But,
listening is not same as hearing. Hearing is essentially an automatic, passive activity. It is
possible to hear sounds without consciously engaging in the process. While, in listening the
brain doesn’t automatically translate the words into the message they are conveying. That is
essentially what listening is determining the meaning and the message of the sounds or words.
It is active process that involves much more than assigning labels to sounds or words. As
mentioned in Mee (1990), listening is a complex process in which many things happen
simultaneously inside the mind. Besides being complex, listening is far more difficult than
many people can imagine. So, we can say that listening is the ability to identify and understand
what others are saying. It is also a complex activity, and we can help students comprehend
what they hear by activating their prior knowledge. Furthermore, it will consider another way
teachers can help ease the difficulty of listening by training students in different types of
listening.

2. Difficulties in Listening Skill

Listening is usually a hard skill to master by the students. The first reason is that the
students do not have the text in front of them to look at if they do not understand the
information. A second reason is the accent and intonation of the native English speaker. In
addition, each country has dialects and regional accents which can confuse the listener. All of
these make listening learning a major challenge and it is no surprise that the students can find
it difficult. Ur (1996: 111), says that there are some students difficulties in learning listening:
trouble with sounds, have to understand every word, can’t understand fast and natural native
speech, need to hear things more than once, find it difficult to keep up, and get tired.

The other problem in learning listening is the students have no control over the speed
of what they are hearing and they cannot go back or rewind to listen again. Although, in class
the listening materials are recorded and can be played again or students to listen again, it is
usually under the control. Also, because the speed at which native speakers usually speak,
students feel that the teacher asks the students to listen to the overall message and forget about
what they could not catch, which probably means what they did not understand, the teacher has
no idea that sometimes what they do not really understand can add up to 75% of what is heard
(Rixon, 1986: 37) Moreover, Underwood (1989: 17) mentions some other kinds of difficulties
that are directly related to the students themselves.
One of the problems which the students have established learning habits in the sense
that they were encouraged to understand everything by listening carefully to teachers who
probably speak slowly and clearly. Hence, when they fail to understand every word while
listening, they stop listening and lose the thread, which seems to be the reason for state of panic
and worrying they usually show before and during listening.

In relation to those problems, we cannot deny that students’ motivation plays important
role in learning listening . As mentioned in Brown (2006: 1), another theme will be motivation.
Because listening is so challenging, teachers need to think carefully about making the activities
successful and the content interesting. We can create the interest activity in learning listening
such as by listening English songs . By creating of high students’ motivation, it hoped can
reduce the listening difficulties . Furthermore, the students will be stimulated and not be panic
or worry when they are learning listening.

As mentioned in background, the students of MA Pancasila are very difficult

understand English through listening. The students could not understand the meaning of the
material after playing the tape for the three times in class. Furthermore, the students might
gradually lose their self-confidence. They are afraid to go to the lab to listen to English again.
When they are face to face with listening material, they have little confidence in their listening
comprehension abilities. Therefore, they may not understand them because they have to battle
the psychological suggestion that they could not understand spoken English.

3. Principles of Teaching Listening Skill

When teaching listening skill, the teachers have to know the principles. There are
some principles of teaching listening skill (http://teachinglisteningcomprehension.html), they
are:
a. Listening should receive primary attention in the early stage of ESL instruction.
b. Maximize the use of material that is relevant to students’ real life.
c. Maximize the use of authentic language.
d. Vary the materials in terms of speakers’ gender, age, dialect, accent, topic, speed, noise,
level, and genre.
e. Always ask students to listen with a purpose and allow them to show their comprehension
in a task.
f. Language material intended to be used for training listening comprehension should never
be presented visually first.

Furthermore, the teachers have to take attention the principles in teaching listening
skill. As mentioned above, one of the principles in teaching listening is the teachers always
ask students to listen with the purpose of listening. So, we can help students listen more
effectively if we spend some time teaching them about purposes for listening. One way to do
that is to use a simple dialogue in order to show how they might listen differently depending
on their goals.

4. Listening Material

The material is very important for the students to improve their listening skill. A
suitable material can make the students want to learn. The material which suitable with the
students have to interesting, in the right level of students’ difficulty, and presented in various
activities (Puspita in Hasyuni 2006: 4). The interesting materials that are familiar meaningful
and various should be provided for the students. It can help them to understand more easily.
Beside of that, the material should be as natural as possible in order that students can practice
and imitate the original voice from the speakers. As mentioned by Paulston in Hasyuni (2006:
4), listening materials should consist of sample of natural language from as many different
sources as possible, so the students will have experience with many varieties of topics and
situations.

In concluding, the teachers are better to know the students’ interest in learning listening
with kind activities. If not, students will get bored and do not want to learn anymore. The use
of songs also can motivate the students to attend lesson and pay attention in class, because
songs can be used for a wide variety of learning and teaching activities.

5. A Good Listener

The students can be said that they are good in listening if they are active in learning listening
process (Http://www.learningthroughlistening.org). The characteristics of active listeners as
below:
a. Make eye contact/follow the listening
b. Summarize the listening material has heard
c. Make connection what are hearing to what already know
d. Ask and answer the question during the learning listening process.
In other hand, Saricoban (1999) says that a good listener is one who has the enabling skills.
The enabling skill characterizes the listener can follow the material by well. The skills are:
a. predicting what people are going to talk about
b. guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic
c. using one’s own knowledge of the subject to help one understand
d. identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information
e. retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)
f. recognizing discourse marker, cohesive devices, including linking words, pronouns,
references, etc
g. understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress
h. understanding inferred information.

In summary, the students are said well in listening skill if they are active when learning
listening. The activeness can be seen from the students’ motivation and enthusiasm during
learning listening. The students who active in listening are characterized they always focus on
what they hear, they ask and answer the questions, and they can make a summary from the
materials given in the post-listening.

6. Types of Listening Activities

We always have a purpose for listening. We may listen to radio in the morning to
know the up to date reports. We may listen to a song for pleasure. We listen in different ways
based on our purpose. Having a purpose helps us listen more effectively.

There are some types of activities that can be applied in learning listening. Ur (1996: 113)
provides four of listening activities as follow:
a. No overt response, the students do not have to do anything in response to the listening;
however facial expression and body language often show if they are following or not. It
includes stories, songs, and entertainment.
b. Short responses, includes obeying instructions, ticking of items, true/false, detecting
mistakes, cloze, guessing definitions, and skimming and scanning.

c. Longer responses, includes answering questions, note-taking, paraphrasing and translating,

summarizing, and long gap-filling.

d. Extended responses, here, the listening as only a ‘jump-off point’ for extended reading,
writing or speaking: in other words, there are ‘combined skills activities. It includes problem-
solving and interpretation.

Beside of that, there are the other activities to improve listening skill that provided by
PolyU ELC (http://elc.polyu.edu.hk):

a. Listen to English pop songs, includes write a summary, sing along with the melody, do a
cloze exercise, and dictate lyrics.
b. Listen to TV news reports, includes predications keep a diary, and record the news.
c. Listen to film, includes read film reviews, make a gap-filling exercise, cover the subtitles,
and read the novel of the film.
d. Listen to TV programs or videos, includes follow instructions without looking at the
screen, cover the subtitles, and watch the first language version in advance.
e. Listen to radio, includes listen to fast speech, approach other resources in advance, listen to
colloquial expressions, and write a summary.
From the types of listening above, it is regarded that songs activity can be used in learning
listening process, and it will be hoped can motivate students in improving their listening skill.

B. Song
According to Hornby (1990: 1133), song is a piece of music with words that is sung.
Song is also a great language package that bundles culture, vocabulary, listening, grammar
and a host of other language skills in just a few rhymes. Songs can also provide a relaxed
lesson on a hot boring day. They can also form the basis for many lessons (Futonge, 2005).

Almost everyone loves songs. It is a part of our language and life from before birth
onwards. As a baby, we often hear our mother and father sing a song to deliver us sleep in the
bedroom. When young children, we play, sing, and dance to a rhymes. As adolescents, we are
consumes by the beat of popular songs artist in the world. As adults, we often hear song on
television, movies, theater, and even nightly news. When we work, when we play, song is there
to reinforce or every mood and emotion.From explanation above, we are suggested to include
songs in language learning as well. Songs had heard by the people in the world since they are
born until died. So, listening to the songs has been a habitual and liked by everybody. Beside
of that, by songs we can provide a relaxed lesson on a hot boring day.
1. The Use of Song as Authentic Listening Material

The use of authentic materials is an important factor to take into consideration when
designing listening skill materials. By using such listening materials, the learner is given the
chance to develop the skills needed to comprehend and to use language that is commonly found
in real situations. Therefore, it is important to take the opportunity wherever possible to expose
students to example of real language usage to help them become more communicatively
competent. According to Ur (1996: 107), listening activities based on simulated real life
situation and likely to be most interesting and motivating to do than contrived textbook
comprehension exercise. The following features characterize real life listening activity:

a. We listen for a purpose and with certain expecting

b. We make an immediately response to what we hear
c. We see the person we are listening to
d. There are some visual or environment clues as to the meaning of what is heard
e. Stretches of hand discourse is spontaneous and therefore differs from formal spoken prose
in the amount of redundancy, noise and colloquialism, and it is auditory character.

From the features above, song is one of the authentic listening materials. Ross (2006)
says that the example of authentic listening materials is listening to song to learn more about
well-known bands that sing in English. As we know wherever we are, songs always follow us
at home, at school, at office, at cars, and so on. So, we can directly listen to the song and also
interest to learn the value of language in it.When designing lessons and teaching materials to
further develop listening comprehension skills, students need to be motivated and stay
motivated. This is best accomplished by determining the suitable of the listening material such
as the use of song as authentic material. The use of song stimulates and motivates students to
comprehend the content of materials.

2. Factors Contributing to Listening Comprehension of Song

The possibility of using songs in English as a foreign language class has been actively
considering for the last two decades. It is considered because songs have many value of
language.
Orlova (2003), states that it is possible to suggest that among the methodological
purposes with songs are used in class, it is possible to rank the following :
a. Practicing the rhythm, stress and the intonation patterns of the English language.
b. Teaching vocabulary, especially in the vocabulary reinforcement stage
c. Teaching grammar. In this respect songs are especially favored by teachers while
investigating the use of the tenses.
d. Teaching speaking. For this purpose, songs and mainly their lyrics are employed as a
stimulus for class discussion
e. Teaching listening comprehension
f. Developing writing skills. For this purpose a song can be used in a variety of ways.

According to Lynch (2008), there are three factors that contribute to listening comprehension
of song, they are:
a. Use of new vocabulary, idioms and expressions – It needs to address the new material
offered in each song. This includes grammar, vocabulary and usage.

b. Pronunciation and accent of the singer – Every native speaker doesn’t pronounce or sing
with the same accent. Students may be exposed to an accent which is outside the realm of
what they might normally hear in context.

c. Use of new grammar and structure Song researchers and singers are notoriously “loose”
when it comes to use of grammar, structure, pronunciation, stress and other language factors
applied to songs. The teacher must prepare for this.

In additional, the use of songs in teaching and learning English as a foreign language is felt
much needed. From the songs, we can learn many things such as vocabulary, grammar,
listening, speaking, writing, and especially in listening. .

3. The Criteria of Song Selection

The important thing about choosing a song to do with a class is to make sure that the lyrics are
clear. It can be very frustrating for the students not to understand a word. The recording should
also be a good one. A studio album is probably going to be better than a live version.
Furthermore, M. Lynch (2008), provides three principal song selection criteria, they are:

a. Use songs that are popular with the students whenever possible. Unfortunately, students
frequently select songs for classroom use which are objectionable in some way making the
song unusable.
b. Songs must have clear and understandable lyrics. Nothing is worse than a song almost
nobody can understand. If you have trouble understanding the lyrics by listening, then
another song needs to be selected.
c. Songs should have an appropriate theme. There’s enough bad news, negativity and
violence in the world already. Songs with any type of negative theme should be avoided.
There are plenty of positive, upbeat, even humorous songs available.
In order hand, Orlova (2003) says that while encouraging students to choose the songs for
discussion, it needs to ask them to following criteria below:
a. The song must be an example of a particular musical trend
b. There shouldn’t be any form of violence in it.
c. The song should contain a certain artistic image.
It is realized when teaching the students; we should choose the songs that suitable level of
difficulty. The suitable of the song is a particularly important issue. It should be known whether
the students are going to like the song or not.

4. The use of Song Procedure

There are various ways of using songs in the classroom. The level of the students, the
interests and the age of the learners, the grammar point to be studied, and the song itself have
determinant roles on the procedure. Apart from them, it mainly depends on the creativity of the
teacher.

According to Saricoban and Metin (2000), at the primary level of singing the song, the
prosodic features of the language is emphasized. At the higher levels, where the practice of
grammar points is at the foreground, songs can be used with several techniques. Some
examples of these techniques are:

a. Gap fills or close texts

b. Focus questions
c. True-false statements
d. Put these lines into the correct sequence
e. Dictation
f. Add a final verse
g. Circle the antonyms/synonyms of the given words
h. Discuss

According to Yoo (2002), procedure of songs activity can be done by steps below:
a. Pre-listening
1) As a warm-up or schema building activity, ask students what they know about American
pop culture. You might also want to bring some pictures or CD's of popular actors or singers
to class.
2) Pass out the cloze activity handout, and have students read the lyrics and figure out what
the missing words might be, using their knowledge in grammar. Have the students compare
their guesses with their neighbors. Ask for volunteers to share their guesses with the class.

b. While-listening
Students listen for the missing words. Play the song once, and ask students whether they need
to listen to the song again. If they do, play it one more time.

c. Post-listening
After the second listening, go over the answers with the class. If necessary, replay the parts
where students had trouble understanding the words. Go over grammar points as necessary.
However in teaching listening by songs, there are three stages; pre-listening, while-listening,
and post-listening. Beside of that, the activity can be formed gap fills or close texts, true-false
statements, and dictation.

5. Benefit of Song

By using songs in the classroom, students can practice their listening skills and increase
their cultural knowledge. Almost any song can be used in the ESL classroom. The
pronunciation and rhythm lessons are the same as for the children's songs and the lessons may
help students become more interested in different types of songs. Practicing lyric reading,
studying the vocabulary, and listening to various songs can help students become more familiar
with popular
songs and make them more confident in their ability to listen and understand the
world around them (Brown, 2006).
The other benefits of using songs in the classroom are songs can be used:
a. to present a topic, a language point, lexis, etc.
b. to practice a language point, lexis, etc.
c. to focus on common learner errors in a more direct way
d. to encourage extensive and intensive listening
e. to stimulate discussion of attitudes and feelings
f. to encourage creativity and use of imagination
g. to provide a relaxed classroom atmosphere
h. to bring variety and fun to learning

From explanation above, it’s considered that songs have much benefit. Some of them
are songs can motivate the students and make them more confidence in their ability to listen
the materials.

C. Previous Studies

There are some studies related with the use of songs in learning listening. First, a research done
by Fismar (2003) entitled “The Correlation between Delighting in Listening to English Songs
and Students’ Achievement in Listening Comprehension of First Semester of English Study
Program at Universitas Bengkulu Academic Year 2001-2002”, where the result is the English
songs are helpful in stimulating the development of students’ listening comprehension.
Another study is a research done by Tee and Fah (2005) that use of songs in the teaching of
life skills modules for ITE students. The result is bringing in music and playing songs in the
classroom motivates the students to attend lessons and pay attention in class.
From those previous studies, this research is different in two cases. First, the study does not
make the correlation of using songs with listening achievement. Second, the study does not
using songs only to motivate the students to attend lessons and pay attention in class.
Furthermore, the study of this research is using songs to improve students’ listening skill.
 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

A. Research Design

This research was a classroom action research. It meant that an action research which
is conducted in a classroom to increase the quality of learning teaching practices (Arikunto, S.,
Suhardjono & Supardi, 2008: 2). In other hands, it can be defined that it is an action that is
done to solve the problem in the classroom. Therefore, this research purposed to solve the
problems in teaching learning listening skill . In conducting this research, the researchers asked
an English teacher of Junior High School to help us . As mentioned in Arikunto, S., Suhardjono
& Supardi (2008: 22), it is suggested for the beginner researchers to make collaboration in
conducting an action research. The teacher helps the researchers in planning, action,
observation, and reflection. Moreover, it is also possible for the researchers to ask much
suggestion from her in conducting of the research.

B. Subject of the Research

Subject of the research was the second year students of Junior High School in
academic year 2019/2020 that was consisted of 32 students, 13 males and 19 females. Most
of the students are from some villages. In their some elementary schools in villages, usually
there is no language lab to train their listening skills. So, listening activities are not common
for the students. When they come to Junior High School , they cannot adjust their study
habits very quickly. Because of that, we need to find suitable method such as by using song
to make them enjoy the learning process.

C. Setting of the Research

According to Arikunto, S., Suhardjono & Supardi (2008:39), there is no population

and sample in an action research, but it is known as setting of the research. It is a place where
the research is conducted. Furthermore, the setting of the research was at Junior High School
in Medan .

D. Research Procedures

According to Arikunto, S., Suhardjono & Supardi (2008: 20), there are four steps in action
research: planning, actions, observation, and reflection. Clearly, can be seen below:
1. Pre-test, to know the score of students’ listening skill before treatments.
2. Treatments, the effort to improve students’ motivation in learning listening. There will be
two cycles in this step:
a. Cycle 1
1) Planning, making a plan what is needed and what will be done in action, and making a
lesson plan.
2) Actions, applying of songs activity in teaching listening based on the lesson plan.
3) Observation, observing and writing the situation and condition during the action.
4) Reflection, analyzing to know the effect of action and fixing the planning for the next
circle

b. Cycle 2
1) Planning, identifying the problem from action 1 and deciding the problem solving.
2) Actions, doing the program of action 2.
3) Observation, collecting data in action 2.
4) Reflection, evaluation of action 2.
3. Post-test, to know the score of students’ listening skill after giving the treatments.

E. Research Instrument

The instrument of this research was test; song sheets (lyric) that were given in pre-test, actions,
and post-test. The instrument for pre-test and post-test was the same, which was taken from
Futonge (2007). The test consisted of 30 items; 15 items of filling in the missing words and 15
items choosing the correct words in bold. The tests for two actions were adopted from Isabel
Perez (www.isabelperaz.com), which consisted of 11 items of filling in the blanks for action 1,
and 10 items of choosing the correct words in bold for action 2.

F. Instrument Validity

According to Lather in Arikunto, S., Suhardjono & Supardi (2006: 128), there are four
strategies to make the instrument is valid. The strategies are:

1. Face validity, the observers altogether check, make a score, and decide each other the
validity of instrument in process of collaboration.
2. Triangulation, the instrument is taken by using some data sources to improve the quality of
evaluation.
3. Critical reflection, the cycles are planned to improve the quality of understanding.
4. Catalytic validity, the instrument is gotten from the researcher’s knowledge himself as the
effort to get improvement.

In this research, the researcher used face validity and critical reflection from the researcher
and an English teacher of Junior High School . It means that the instrument was gotten by the
researchers from some sources, and it was always discussed together in order to get the
students’ improvement.

G. Technique of Data Collection

The data was collected by test and observation. Observation was done to know the students’
attitude (qualitative data) during the research. Meanwhile, quantitative data was taken from the
students’ score in pre-test, two actions, and post-test. The data in pre-test was taken to know
the students’ listening skill before treatment. In actions, the data was collected twice; in action
1 and 2. The data was to know students’ development during treatment. Then, post-test was
taken to know students’ ability in listening skill after giving the treatment.

H. Technique of Data Analysis

After collecting, the data was analyzed by the researcher in steps below.
1. Knowing the students’ individual score, by the formula:
Where:
S = score
= the students’ score
= total of sums
(Arikunto, 2002)

2. Knowing mean score each test, by the formula:

Where:
M = mean score
= total of the students’ score
N = number of the students
(Arikunto, 2002)

3. Comparing the result of each test to know whether using songs can improve students’
listening skill or not.
The score of objects were interpreted by consulting with the following interval of five scales
the students’ score based on the scoring at Junior High School :
Table 1. The five scales interval of students’ score
Scores Categories

85-100 Very Good

75-84 Good
60-74 Moderate
40-59 Low
0-39 Failure

In this research, the students would be hoped to get the score upper to moderate category. It
meant this research would be finished if the students got a good or very good score category.
In additional, the target was 75 to 100 students’ mean score.
 CHAPTER IV
CLOSING

A. CONCLUSION
Improvement of students' listening skills by using English song can be seen from the result of
the students' score. The students' score of listening skills can be seen from the test, there were
pre-test and post-test. Pre-test was given to know students' skills before they got a treatment,
and post-test for knowing the students' skills after they got a treatment and for the comparison
improvement of the technique. The improvement of the students' listening skills by using
English song can be seen from the paired test. It shows that t count is -32,697, and t table 30 is
2,042. It determined that t count is higher than t table, so Ha is accepted that English song can
improve students' listening skill. The students' attitude has 92% in level agreement and mean
142 that reflected it passes A to the SA of students’ response of questionnaire in students'
listening skill by using English song. The students used English song to improve their listening
skills as one of their meaningful strategies to overcome their problem in listening skills. English
song can make the students become active in the class, they are interest, so they can do listening
tasks well. In conclusion, the improvement of students' listening skills by using English song
was different after they got the treatment, it was seen from students' score in the pre-test to the
post-test that analyzed by paired test. The treatment of English is effective to improve students'
listening skills in eighth grade of junior high school.

B. SUGGESTION
There are several reasons why teaching English is not successful.
First, due to the curriculum, teaching materials and teaching approaches including the media used.
Second, the teacher's activities in implementing the curriculum and learning place more emphasis on
the completion of a program rather than mastering a program so that students know a lot but master a
little. Third, teaching English which gives more knowledge about English than training English-
speaking students, especially listening. Therefore, it is necessary to take steps as an alternative solution
in solving educational problems, especially learning in listening.
Development of interactive songs that the authors develop are expected to be able to
improve student learning outcomes. The author gives the following suggestions:
1. For students, with the presence of the application provider of various types of songs and music that
can apply the concept of mastery learning is expected to explore and practice the potential abilities of
individuals in listening lessons in English well. This is in accordance with the development of
interactive music applications that are individualized learning that can train all language skills that are
listening (speaking), speaking (speaking), reading (reading) and writing (writing).
2. In an effort to develop the quality of learning English, the teacher should apply the concept of
complete learning by using interactive multimedia that can apply the concept of complete learning.
This is given the problem of completeness in learning is an important problem, because it involves the
future of students, especially for those who have learning difficulties. The complete learning approach
is one of the efforts in education that aims to motivate students to achieve mastery (mastery level) on
certain competencies
3. To the policy makers in the school, the authors suggest attention specifically for the development of
multimedia learning by:
• provide adequate facilities and facilitate teachers to develop and use interactive multimedia.
• provide opportunities for teachers to develop their own potential for sake work professionalism.
4. For researchers who will conduct research with the same problem focus, it is recommended to
research and develop interactive multimedia for English subjects especially in the list so that developing
and applying the concept of learning through research can produce something that is considered a new
discovery
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Bengkulu

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in Teaching Conversation Classes. The Internet TESL Journal.
http://iteslj.org/Technoques/Orlova-Songs.html

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k/Listening.htm. March 25,2009.

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Teachers. The Internet TESL Journal. http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Ross-
ListeningComprehension.html

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http://iteslj.org/Articles/Saricoban-Listening.html

Saricoban, A. & Metin, E. (October 2000). Songs, Verse and Games for Teaching Grammar.
The Internet TESL Journal.
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Saricoban-Songs.html

Teaching Listening. http://teachinglisteningcomprehension.html. Retrieved March 25,2009.

Tee, Tan Siew & Fah, Shi Soi (2005). Use of Songs in the Teaching of Lifeskills Modules.
Paper presented at ITE Teaching Conference. http://edt.ite.edu.sgite_conf/teaching/tc0/5ts04.

Ur, Penny (1996). A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge:
University Press.

Yoo, Isaiah WonHo. (July 2002). Focused Listening with Songs. The Internet TESL Journal.
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Yoo-Songs.html
click link 80 clicks