Background of the Problem

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Problem

Listening skills are the important part of a communication. Listening skills are badly needed for the successful communication in an interaction. When someone has a good listening skill, they are able to exchange the information and ideas with others orally. Studies show that people spend 80 of their waking hours communicating, and 45 of that time is spent for listening Lawson: 2007. In teaching learning process especially in English Foreign Language EFL class, listening became very crucial. Without good listening skills, students have a risk to lose a lot of important information. Listening skills support the students to get the comprehensible input when they are learning. Students should have good ability to listen English words but most students cannot catch them well through listening. Most students cannot identify the grammatical of words so they cannot get the points of what speakers say when they are listening. Good listening is categorized by good comprehension of some information listened but many students fail in comprehending the information. Good listening is characterized by understanding what the speakers imply, but many students cannot identify expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning in interpreting the massages from what they listen. Good listening is also characterized by understanding the messages speakers imply from the context. Students are expected to listen carefully to get the example of using the target language in their speaking and writing with a good grammar but they usually refuse to listen. Good listeners will be able to re-tell what they listen accurately, but many students cannot get the information from what they listen as the result, they cannot re-tell information they listen to others. Using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm meaning and recalling important words and ideas are also the aspects in language, but many students have less of background knowledge about English world. SMP N 1 Bantul is one of the junior high school placed in Bantul district. Based on the preliminary observation, the data show that the eight grade students in SMP N 1 Bantul have low ability in listening. They tended to ask the teacher to repeat what the teacher said. Their ability in listening is far from the expectation. Teaching listening needs some appropriate technique. Many popular techniques can be applied by the teacher in order to improve the students‟ ability in listening. Dictogloss is a technique in which the teacher reads a short text and the learners make bries notes and then try to reconsruct the text in groups. The aim is not to reproduce the text word for word, but to convey the meaning and style of the text as closely as possible. This technique is simple techniques which can be applied to improve the studen ts‟ skills in listening. Considering the facts above, a step forward to enhance the eighth grade students of SMP N 1 Bantul is needed. The writer believes that Dictogloss can be one solution of the problem related to teaching listening to eighth students of SMPN 1 Bantul. By conducting several steps, Dictogloss book can be an appropriate technique in teaching listening to the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Bantul.

B. Identification of the Problem