to understand fast and native-like speech, the need to listen more than once which can be troublesome in real-life situations, overwhelming reception of
information, and exhausting long passages.
9
To provide a clearer view, the final listening scores from 3 classes of the Department of English Education were reviewed and are represented on Table 1.1.
The scores range from around 60 to 80, and the average score had never exceeded 76. It should be noted that these scores may not entirely cover the students’
listening skill, because they were a combination of test scores and affective aspects, such as attendance and class participation.
Table 1.1 Listening Scores of English Education Students of Class 2011
Course Average score
Highest score Lowest score
Listening 1 74.29
84.30 61.45
Listening 2 75.12
85.80 62.20
Listening 3 68.75
83.20 61.90
Listening 4 70.75
87.2 58.00
After some preliminary observation, it was presumed that English Education students who had low listening skill were rarely exposed to the English language
outside the classsroom. On the other hand, the students who had better listening scores used learning strategies outside the classroom which allow them to be more
exposed to the language. These strategies can take forms of listening to music, watching English television programs, or watching English movies. The writer
himself mainly got exposure through English movies, even though he watched the movies for pleasure rather than an attempt to exclusively learn the language.
Intrigued, he then tried to explore the benefits of movies for language learners. Jane Sherman, in her book, included feature films as one of authentic materials
that can be used in language class to develop language skills.
10
She stated that English movies may provide a useful training for improving English listening
9
Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 111 – 112.
10
Jane Sherman, Using Authentic Video in the Language Classroom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 18 – 26.
skills because they contain utterances and conversations through which students can get accustomed to language. Johnson noted how movies can be one of the best
tools in language learning. Movies can enrich students’ vocabulary, improve their pronunciation, increase their ability to understand spoke language, and make
structure acquisition possible.
11
Based on those explanations and Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, it is theoretically possible that movies can provide comprehensible input and facilitate
the acquisition and development of listening skill. There should be a positive relationship between movie-watching activity and listening skill, i.e. people who
watch a lot of English movies should also have a good listening skill. However, there have not been many researches and publications that actually seek to prove
this. Yusvita tried to find the correlation between the students’ habit of watching movie and its impact on their listening skill.
12
She used questionnaire to gather the data on students’ watching habit then correlate it to their listening skill by using
statistical analysis. Her research did show that there is a correlation, but upon further examination, a glitch was found. The questionnaire in her research turned
out to ask more about students’ perception, while it should have concerned on the activity of watching movies itself, may it be the watching frequency, kinds of
movies, characteristics of the movie, etc. The issues presented above were found to be interesting and worth to be
researched under the title THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOVIE- WATCHING ACTIVITY AND LISTENING SKILL A Correlational Study of
the Fifth-semester Students at the Department of English Education of State Islamic University of Jakarta.
11
Laura B. Johnson, Films in Foreign Language Teaching, The French Review, Vol. 29, No. 5, 1956, pp. 414 – 417.
12
Riri Yusvita, “The Relationship between Students’ Habit of Watching Movie and Their Listening Skill”, An Undergraduate Thesis at State Islamic University of Jakarta, Jakarta, 2010,
unpublished.
B. The Identification of the Problems
From the background, several problems can be identified as the following: 1.
The students of Department of English Education still lack listening skill. They often have difficulties in understanding native speakers.
2. The students seem to have not yet received a sufficient amount of language
exposure to provide them with comprehensible input. 3.
There have not been many researches to prove that movies can provide input and help people acquire language and build their listening skill.
4. The previous related study was flawed, so an improvement was needed.
C. The Limitation of the Problems
After the problems had been identified, they were limited. The scope of this study was limited to English Education students of State Islamic University of
Jakarta. The students’ activity of watching English movies was variable x and it would signify the amount and kind of exposure that the students get. Their
listening scores was variable y and it would signify their listening skill.
D. The Formulation of the Problems
After the problems had been identified and limited, they were formulated into a research question: Is there any positive relationship between students’ movie-
watching activity and their listening skill?
E. The Objective of the Study
This study aimed to find and describe the relationship between students’ movie-watching activity and their listening skill.
F. The Significance of the Study
This study is expected to contribute in the improvement of English Language Teaching, especially in the Department of English Education of State Islamic
University of Jakarta, both theoretically and practically:
1. For the lecturers and other language practitioners: should there be a
significant and positive correlation between the two variables, the lecturers at the Department of English Education may encourage the students to watch
English movies to improve their language skills. Furthermore, they can use movies in their classes if possible.
2. For the students: if they want to improve their language skills and
competence, especially listening, they can try to watch English movies in order to expose themselves to the language and develop their listening skill.
3. For the institution: the Department of English Education may conduct movie
screenings regularly to expose the students to English language. 4.
For other researchers: they may inspect this topic more thoroughly to see the extent of movies as a medium for language learning and language acquisition.
8
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Listening Skill
1. The Nature of Listening
In general, listening can be defined as a process of receiving and understanding information in spoken language. However, this process may not be
as simple as it appears to be. Listening differs from hearing in term of the process that occurs. Hearing is a physiological process, wherein a sound wave enters
someone‘s ears and this wave travels through the nerves into the brain in the form of electrical impulse. Meanwhile, listening process is more psychological. It
involves not only the process of hearing itself, but also the complex process of human brain to identify, understand, and interpret the sound or utterance.
1
Rubin described listening as ―an active process in which listeners select and interpret
information which comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express‖.
2
Brown went so far as describing eight rapid linear —if not simultaneous—
processes that are involved in listening. They are: 1 The listener receives a sound which is called raw speech; 2 The listener determines the type of the
speech, e.g. a conversation, or a news broadcast; 3 The listener determines the purpose of the speaker, e.g. to inform, to request, or to persuade; 4 The listener
recalls hisher background knowledge and chooses one that is relevant; 5 The listener tries to interpret what the speaker means literally by using hisher
background knowledge. For example, when the listener hears a question “Where
are my glasses?” the speaker may be talking about spectacles or about cups; 6 The listener tries to interpret what the speaker means contextually by considering
the situation. For the where are my glasses question, the listener may use hisher background knowledge as well as situation like visual clues so heshe can make
1
Robert Heinich, et al., Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2002, 7
th
edition, pp. 172 – 173.
2
Joan Rubin, ―An Overview‖, in David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin ed, A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening, San Diego: Dominie Press, Inc., 1995, p. 7.
sense of the question; 7 The listener determines whether to store the information in short-term or long-term memory; and 8 The listener deletes the form in which
the message was received and keeps important information or concept, if there is any.
3
The arguments above prove that, contrary to popular belief, listening is not a passive process of receiving whatever kinds of sound into the ears. Rather,
listening is a process where a listener actively processes the information behind
the sounds in order to understand what the speaker means.
Among the four language skills, listening and reading are categorized as receptive skills, while speaking and writing are productive skills. Even though
listening and reading are both receptive skills, the two certainly have differences. The main difference is the medium. Listening skill is concerned with spoken
language, while reading skill is concerned with written language. Buck stated that the medium is noteworthy because with spoken language, once the speaker
completed his or her utterance, it will be gone without a trace. Unlike when they read something, people cannot go back to see what they just listened. Therefore,
they need to rely on their own memory of what was said.
4
In addition, there are many other characteristics of spoken language that are different from written
language and are often problematic for English language learners. These characteristics will be discussed more thoroughly in the upcoming subchapter.
Listening is not the only skill that is concerned with spoken language. The other related skill is speaking. Between listening and speaking, the former usually
gets less attention than the latter even though listening is equally important as speaking. Brown exemplified how underrated listening is through a very common
case, namely the way people say the question ―Do you speak English?‖ In this
case, of course the asker means ―Do you listenunderstand English?‖ as well, but people tend to think of only speaking when they talk about foreign language.
5
He
3
H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles, New York: Pearson ESL, 2000, 2
nd
edition, pp. 249 – 250.
4
Gary Buck, ―How to Become a Good Listening Teacher‖, in David J. Mendelsohn and Joan Rubin ed, A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening, San Diego: Dominie
Press, Inc., 1995, p.113.
5
H. Douglas Brown, op. cit., p. 247.
