Background of Study INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Listening was considered as a passive skill. However, in recent theories on language skills, listening is classified into receptive skill, and thus, is an active skill. When we participate in face-to-face communication or through telephone, we need to be receptive to others, which include paying attention to explanations, questions, and opinions. Even when we participate in one-way exchanges, such as listen to lectures, music or announcement, we pay attention to the information given and the most important thing is we give our respond. Listening process plays an important role in language learning. Listening comprehension is universally “larger” than speaking competence. Listening skill is the first skill to be acquired in both first and second language acquisition before other language skills are acquired Steinbergh, 1993 as quoted in Brown, 2001. In order to comprehend spoken English, students need to listen to the language. Students need to know how language is pronounced before they are able to imitate it and then produce it. Students will be able to communicate effectively if they have a good listening skill, because it is the first step of comprehending the context. Therefore, it is very important to introduce listening as a basic skill to students. Unfortunately, according to the writer’s experience during her time of study in primary and secondary school, listening comprehension and classroom practices were rarely given. The students were given a very limited opportunity to listen English utterances. Consequently, a lot of learners could not comprehend spoken 1 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 2 English, especially by native speakers. It leads the writer to the conclusion that this problem occurred because the learners were not accustomed to spoken English. For that reason, schools need to provide an adequate listening comprehension practice in order to help students develop their spoken English skill. The writer then paid attention to the vocational high school students who are demanded to enter the working world directly after they graduate. Since the need for the English-skilled-manpowers is increasing today, they are demanded to be able to communicate in English fluently. The bigger demand for mastering spoken English well is on the tourism department students. They will come into the tourism industry, in which English is used as a means of communication, which means that they will use English as the foreign language to communicate, especially when they have to communicate with native speakers. Therefore, mastering spoken English is a significant thing for the tourism department students and the first step in helping them develop their spoken English skill is by giving listening drills. Listening drill will be beneficial if it is given since students are in their first level of their education so they are familiar with spoken English since the first time they are studying English. Besides, they only have time for about three years to develop their spoken English skill. Then the writer paid attention to how to develop the listening skills of the first grade students of tourism department in vocational high school. How to help students develop effective listening skills brings attention to the methods used and the type of materials introduced to the learners. The aim of all listening lessons should be to allow learners a greater degree of independence when confronted with listening to the foreign language in a real world context, and that PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 3 means using authentic texts Miller, 1995. Thus, in this study the writer uses authentic materials as the main materials in designing a set of English instructional listening materials for the first semester students of the first grade of vocational high school especially tourism department students. Authentic texts, according to Miller 1995 are any spoken texts which have not been specially prepared for language learners, and they are often delivered via technologies like radio, televisionvideo, and the Internet or CD. As we know, language is introduced visually and aurally. We can find a lot of information through spoken mass media, such as television, radio, or internet. Furthermore, researchers now suggest that some people spend over a quarter of the time they are awaken listening to mass media. Considering the phenomenon, the authentic materials can be used as good materials to teach listening in order to give the opportunity to the learners to improve their English spoken competence. By using authentic materials students can get benefit of being exposed to the language used by native speakers for authentic materials are materials designed for native speakers of English used in the classroom in a way similar to the one it was designed for. From the explanation above, the writer intended to design a set of English instructional listening materials, which are interesting and enjoyable to learn through authentic materials as the main materials in designing a set of English Instructional listening materials the first grade students of tourism department in vocational high school.

B. Problem Limitation