Results of the Interview

1. Research and Information Collecting

In this step, some instructional design steps proposed by Kemp were employed to obtain some information as the basis to develop the instructional materials. These steps were identifying learners’ characteristics, pre-assessment, and coordinating support services. A needs survey was employed as a means of gathering the information. The survey was administered through three different types of procedures, namely conducting an interview with the English teachers of SMA 9 Yogyakarta , distributing questionnaires to the tenth grade students of SMA 9 Yogyakarta , and conducting classroom observations.

a. Results of the Interview

To obtain the data concerning the students’ capabilities, needs, and background knowledge from the teacher’s perspective, an interview with the English teachers of SMA 9 Yogyakarta was conducted on 2 June 2008. In addition, the interview was also useful to supply the information on the facilities and learning media available to support the teaching-learning activities, especially in the listening class. The list of the interview questions can be seen in Appendix 2.The findings of the interview are presented as follows: 1 The time allocated for English listening class was uncertain. It was revealed that during the semester the listening class had only been conducted once. The teacher added that the only facility provided there, that is, a tape recorder, was broken. Therefore, it was impossible to conduct the listening class for the students. 2 Dealing with the English proficiency of the students, it was found out that the students’ grammar and writing competence was good. Besides, their reading level was also above the average. Nevertheless, according to the teacher, their listening competence was generally weak. The teacher also added that only a few the students had good listening competence. In fact, it was revealed that these students were frequently exposed to the English communities. 3 Generally, the students always actively participated in the English teaching- learning activities at school. Nevertheless, the teacher also informed that if they also often easily felt bored. If the teacher did not direct the students to continuously engage in various activities, they would no longer focus on the lesson. In addition to that, unfortunately in the listening class, the students who had good listening competence the smart ones tended to dominate the discussions. As a consequence, the students who had weak listening competence felt more discouraged to participate in the discussions. It was because they felt inferior to the smart ones and felt afraid of making mistakes. 4 In relation to the kinds of activities utilized in the listening class, it was known that cloze dictations were usually employed in the listening class. In addition to that, the teacher also exposed the students, especially the eleventh grade students, to several English proficiency test, such as TOEIC and TOEFL. 5 Based on the interview, it was revealed that individual work was the only learning strategy employed in the listening class. 6 There were two textbooks employed to support the listening teaching-learning activities there. Unfortunately, since the tape recorder, as the only facility available, was broken, the materials from the textbooks could not be utilized. According to the teacher, this was caused by the fact that the media of the listening materials from the textbooks were cassettes. Besides, the teacher also added that actually the listening materials provided were still very limited. 7 There were not any other resources or references, such as, the internet, radio, and TV that could support the available textbooks in conducting listening teaching-learning activities. Nevertheless, the teacher acknowledged that actually such additional resources or references were necessary. According to the teacher, such resources or references were essential as they were closely related to the real world events. 8 Dealing with the facilities provided to support the listening teaching-learning activities, it was revealed that there was no proper language laboratory available. The only facility available was only a tape recorder. Unfortunately, it was broken so that it could not be operated. Based on these facts, it was concluded that there was no adequate facility to support the listening teaching-learning activities. 9 As mentioned before, cassettes were the media for listening they employed. Unfortunately, there were some problems occurred in employing the media. First, a cassette is vulnerable to damage. If it is played repeatedly, the quality PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI of the sound is decreasing. Second, it is not practical. To play back a listening passage, the teacher needs to rewind it and spends longer time. 10 In fact, the English teachers there had laptops to support their teaching activities. Besides, there were some computers equipped with proper speakers available. Based on the data obtained from the interview, it was concluded that listening to English utterances was not easy to carry out by most students of SMA 9 Yogyakarta . Even though they had good English language proficiency, their listening competence was still below average. In fact, it should be apprehended that to listen and then comprehend English utterances is not always considered easy to carry out by many Indonesian students who are still struggling with the language. Therefore, in order to have good listening competence, students need a lot of deliberate and continual exposures to any kind of the spoken texts in the target language. It means that the students need any assistance to develop their listening skills. Unfortunately, what happened in SMA 9 Yogyakarta was the ignorance of the teaching of listening. There was a consideration that students’ listening skills could be developed through osmosis and without any assistance or help. No effort and serious response to overcome the problem, which caused inability to conduct proper listening teaching-learning activities, was the evidence of the ignorance of the teaching of listening at that school. Such ignorance finally resulted in students’ listening incompetence. Only a few of the students, particularly those who were frequently exposed to the English communities, had good listening competence. In addition, individual work was the only learning strategy employed in the listening class. In fact, in the real listening class, the individual work tended not to benefit the students who had below average listening competence. Moreover, the absence of the teaching of listening made the condition worse. Dealing with the instructional listening materials available, there were two books employed to support the listening teaching-learning activities. Unfortunately, they were no longer useful since the materials from the textbooks the spoken texts utilized cassettes as the listening media. As what was mentioned before, the tape recorder, as the only facility available, was broken. The listening activities employed were cloze dictation and TOEIC or TOEFL tests. The use of those kinds of listening activities pictured a condition in which the students were assigned to directly listen and answer some questions without being introduced to, at least, the topic of the spoken texts. This phenomenon could lead to the condition in which the students perceive that what they listen was not meaningful, monotonous and that listening made them anxious and strained. Consequently, it tended not to develop their listening skills Arnold, 2005, ¶ 5. In conclusion, there are three important things to consider. First, to enable the implementation of proper listening teaching-learning activities, there should be an effort to seek the alternative media and potential facility available that could support the alternative media. Second, there should be an effort to provide proper listening materials that enable the students to develop their listening skills. Third, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI there should be suitable learning activities to raise the achievements of all students, including the lower-achieving ones.

b. Results of the Questionnaires