25 Harmer, 2001: 228. Hence, it is important to comprehend the elements of
listening.
a. The Nature of Listening
Listening is defined as a receptive skill. Listening requires people to receive and understand information come. Since listening is a receptive skill,
learners can listen to and understand things at a higher level than people can produce. Hence, people usually assume listening as a passive skill. Unfortunately,
this assumption is not true. In fact, listening is very active. When people listen, they not only process what they hear but also connect it to other information they
already know. They are “creating meaning” in their own minds by combining what they hear with their own ideas and experiences Nunan, 2003: 24.
b. Listening Process
There are two kinds of listening processes to comprehend the oral text. They are bottom up and top down processes. Bottom up processing is the use of
incoming data as a source of information about the meaning of the message. The listeners grasp the information they hear such as sounds, words, clauses, and
sentence so that they obtain the meanings. The top down processing is the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message. The
listeners use their prior knowledge about some topics, situations, characters, places, or events to catch the meaning of what they hear Nunan, 2003: 26-27.
Nunan 2003: 28 points out that to be successful in listening does not merely depend on one of the listening processing stated above. By combining
26 these kinds of processing, the learners can recognize the words and sentences they
hear and they can crate situations in their minds.
c. Principles in Developing the English Listening Materials
According to Rivers 1980: 18, in developing the instructional listening materials, there are some principles to consider. These principles are as follows:
1 Listening materials should fit to the learners’ level proficiency. The materials should be relevant to the learners’ background knowledge of the language and
the learners’ level of competence. 2 Listening materials should be as natural as the situation in the real life
communication. This means that the learners need materials which could be practiced in real life communication.
3 It is necessary to think about the sounding of the speech and its effects to the learners’ ability to comprehend the message.
4 Teachers should consider the length of the recordings to be presented to the students.
Besides considering the principles of developing the materials, it is also important to take into account the basic framework of designing a listening skills
lesson. According to Peachey 2002: 3-6, the basic framework to construct a listening skill lesson can be divided into three stages.
1 Pre-listening It is the stage during which teachers help students to prepare to listen.
There are certain goals that should be achieved before students attempt to listen to any text. There are motivation contextualization, and preparation.
27 2 While-listening
It is the stage during which teachers help to focus students’ attention on the listening text and guide the development of students’ understanding of the text.
Listening to a foreign language is a very intensive and challenging activity. Therefore, it is important to give the students ‘breathing’ or ‘thinking’ space
between listening. It can be done through giving the students chances to compare their answers with their peers before they listen again. By doing so, they can have
a chance not only to have some break from the listening, but also to check their understanding with their peers and reconsider before listening again.
3 Post listening It is the stage that aims to help the students integrate what they have
learned from the text into their existing knowledge. There are two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. These are reaction to the content of the text and
analysis of the linguistic features of the text. Besides, it is also necessary to provide the students with the activities to review the overall lesson.
5. Theory of Speaking
