Background of the Study

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter describes background of the study, research questions, objectives of the study, and significance of the study.

A. Background of the Study

Recent trends in Indonesia‟s educational policy has focused on meeting the challenges of globalization and internationalization. As English has achieved the status of a major international language, the government of Indonesia has been actively expanding the teaching of English as an essential part of the school curriculum. The implementation of an English curriculum in schools has created a huge demand for qualified English teachers by placing more importance than ever on studying the issues related to teacher education. Concerning the learning English for Indonesia students, teacher takes an important role in helping students to learn English. Teachers have something to do with the successful of s tudents‟ learning English. Virtually all English teachers have certain preconceived ideas or beliefs about how the best approach in English teaching. They often come into an English classroom conditioned by their previous educational experiences, cultural backgrounds, and social interaction, which may further shape their beliefs about English teaching Johnson, 1992a; Richards Lockhart, 1996; Smith, 1996. Thus, this study is an attempt to examine issues concerning teaching English in high school with a p articular emphasis on the role of teachers‟ beliefs. perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user Khader 2012: 74 defines teachers‟ beliefs as a set of ideas rooted in these psychological and mental content of the teacher and play a central role in guiding hisher teaching behavior. In this context, beliefs are defined as conceptions, world views, and mental models that shape learning and teaching practices. Pajares 1992: 316 defines beliefs as an individual‟s judgment of truth or falsity of a proposition, a judgment that can only be inferred from a collective understanding of what human beings say, intend, and do. Other definition about teacher s‟ beliefs is from Borg 2011: 370-371 who says that beliefs are propositions individuals consider to be true and which are often tacit, have a strong evaluative and affective component, provide a basis for action, and are resistant to change. Therefore, teachers need to teach students in their ways by using understandable teaching materials since what they do in the class affected the students learning process. In relation to English teaching, teachers need to provide some teaching materials. Materials provide the content of the lesson, the balance of skills taught, and the language practice of the student. Materials support the teacher in teaching and the student in learning. Cunningsworth 1995:7 summarizes the role of materials particularly course books in language teaching as resources for presentation materials spoken and written, resources of activities for learner practice and communicative interaction, reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, a source of stimulation and ideas for classroom activities, syllabus where they reflect learning objectives that have already been perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user determined, a support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence. So, materials are considered beneficial for teachers to teach students. Teaching materials can be in the form of textbook and authentic materials. What needs to concern in this research is authentic materials. Authentic materials are materials which are produced by native speakers and used not for teaching purposes. Adams 1995:4 refers authentic materials as materials which has not been specifically produced for the purposes of language teaching. In addition, Gardner and Miller 1999:101 explaine that authentic materials means any texts printed or digital or tape which is produced for a purpose other than teaching the target language. In short, authentic materials can be a source to teach students by using materials taken not for teaching purpose. In addition, Lee 1995:324 states that a text is usually regarded as textually authentics if it is not written for teaching purposes, but for a real life communicative purpose, where the writer has a certain massage to pass on to the reader. By this, students are expected to expose the real language used by native speaker. In Indonesia, English has been taught in every level of education. English is learnt as foreign language that support students to use English for communication. There are four skills that must be learnt by students; listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the classroom, students listen carefully and attentively to lectures and class discussions in order to understand and to retain the information for later recall. In a language classroom, listening ability plays a significant role in the development of other language arts skills. When students first learn a language, they generally listen to the words several times before they perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user are able to recognize and pronounce those words. In short, listening skill plays a significant role in communication and in language learning Dunkel, 1991; Rost, 1990 and is perhaps the most fundamental language skill Oxford, 1993: 205. Underwood 1990:16 says that listening can also help students to build vocabulary, develop language proficiency, and improve language usage. Rost 1994 finds that listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply can not begin. Krashen 1987 in input hypothesis, states that listening materials plays a great role in “natural” development and moving from one step to the others, to learn effortlessly. He also argues that learners should be in a acquisition-rich environment and be in natural exposure to language. Therefore, listening need to be taught to students comprehensively as the fundamental language skill. In many cases, listening skill is considered as difficult skill to learn by senior high school students. Some reasons beyond this statement are the students are not accoustomed to listen sounds in English produced by native speaker. They are provided with the material in the form of created materials that purposely produced to teach listening. By this condition, the students are not interested in the materials given by teachers. due to being uninterested, the students are not motivated in learning English. The other reason is that it is difficult for teachers to find listening materials. Created material is quite expensive to buy. Besides, it is also difficult to find the material unless the teachers create it by themselves. It takes time to create the materials since the making of materials need preparation. perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user It is In line with the statement from Hedge 2000:237 who lists some problems which are internal to the listener such as lack of motivation towards the topic, negative reaction to the speaker or to the event; anxiety to rehearse one‟s own contribution to a debate or the next part of a conversation, to the extent of missing what the current speaker is saying; or distraction by the content of a talk into thinking about related topic thereby losing the thread of the argument. One of the way to minimalize the students‟ problem in listening is by providing them with authentic materials. These materials are inexpensive because the teachers do not need much money to get the materials. Besides, the access to the materials is quite easy because they can be obtained from many sources. By the development of technology, these kinds of materials can be obtained from internet. Toward this reasons, it is necessary to identify deeply about teachers‟ beliefs on the use of authentic materials to teach listening. Teacher s‟ beliefs have a broad areas to be investigated. Hofer and Pintrich 1997:117 explore part of beliefs in the terms of belief about schooling, epistemology, learning and teaching. In relation to it, researcher focused the scope of teachers ‟ beliefs about authentic material to teach listening. The recent research done by Soliman E. M. Soliman 2013 about Libyan teachers‟ Attitudes and Believes Regarding the Use of EFL Authentic material within Reading Lessons at Universities Levels in Libya resulted studen ts‟ achievement in learning an EFL is heavily influenced by teachers‟ beliefs; thus, understanding teachers‟ perspectives regarding the use of authentic material in reading instruction was essential for a successful application of this practice in Libyan university. However, materials commit to user should introduce students to how language is used in the real world and improve students‟ overall language proficiency as well as reading and listening comprehension, communicative competence, cultural awareness, lexical and stylistic knowledge, and motivation. There are some factors that affect the implementation of teacher s‟ beliefs in teaching learning activity. It is considered important to investigate some factors that may affect teacher s‟ beliefs on the use of authentic materials to teach listening. Borg 2003: 94 comments that factors such as parents, principals‟ requirements, the school, society, curriculum mandates, classroom and school lay- out, school policies, colleagues, standardized tests and the availability of resources m ay hinder language teachers‟ ability to carry out instructional practices reflecting their beliefs. Thus, the researcher also conducted research on it through interview to teachers. The study of teacher s‟ beliefs is rarely found in senior high school level. Moreover, in this level, students are expected to build up a good mindset about what they had learnt during learning English. It seems to be crucial since the students learning English in this level will affect their English skills in the future. There are three grade in senoir high school level. The first grade has to be given more attention in learning English. In this grade, students experince themselves for the first time as senior high school students. They have to face a new environment which is totally different from their previous school, that is junior high school. At this grade, students have more complex material in learning subject, including English. In building a good mindset, students need to recognize commit to user a real language that is used by native speaker. By using authentic materials, students are expected to be accoustomed to deal with native language. At this point, teacher takes important role on how their beliefs work in teaching students by using authentic materials. In this research, the researcher investigated teacher s‟ beliefs on the use of authentic materials in teaching listening at the first grade in one of Islamic High School in Surakarta. This school has a program for islamic boarding school and regular class. It has boarding school program that concentrates on the development of students‟ academic so they can compete in academic contest such as science olympiad, scientific work, and research. Two teachers are taken as the participants of this research. Finally, researcher formulates a research about teacher s‟ beliefs on the use of authentic materials to teach listening.

B. Research Questions