Teaching English in Senior High Schools

14 traditional way about defining listening. Listening is viewed based on its main function in second language learning, i.e. to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse. Meanwhile, listening as acquisition is related to the role of consciousness in language learning, and in particular to the role of noticing in learning. Schmidt 1990 in Richards 2008 states that consciousness of features of input can trigger the process of incorporating new linguistic features into one’s language competence. According to this view, there is a difference between input what the learner hears and intake part of input that the learner notices, and only intake can serve as the basis for language development. A specific issue that is discussed in this research is listening comprehension. For further understanding about listening comprehension, it is necessary to provide more explanation about the nature of listening, listening comprehension, micro- skills of listening, listening strategies, and listening comprehension for tenth grade students. a. The Nature of Listening Listening is one of language competences which is very essential in communication. Listening takes a great part in learner’s second language acquisition. According to Rost 1990 in Carter and Nunan 2001, “listening is not only a skill area in language performance, but is also a critical means of acquiring a second language L2”. Listening becomes a bridge for the listener to obtain language inputs in the form of spoken language, e.g. sound, stress, and intonation. In the real time communication, the listener deals with some uniqueness of spoken language which employs pacing, encoding, and pausing. Those factors influence the listener in deriving the meaning from the utterances they hear. 15 Listening formerly appears as a passive skill and speaking is an active one. However, it is not really true because listening involves the decoding of a message which requires an active participation in the communication between participants Broughton et al., 2003. In addition, Rost 1990 in Carter and Nunan 2001 states that listening refers to a complex process to understand spoken language. Spoken language, also called oral language, consists of some types. As presented by Nunan 1991b: 20-21 in Brown 2001, oral language is categorized into two types i.e. monologue and dialogue. The classification is presented in the following chart. Figure 2.1. Types of oral language In monologues, a speaker uses spoken language for any length of time, for example in speeches, lectures, readings, and news broadcasts. Here, the listener must process the language input without any interruption. Planned monologues such as speeches and other prewritten materials usually contain little redundancy so they may be more difficult to understand. Unplanned monologues, for instance impromptu lectures and long stories in conversations, exhibit more redundancy, and it makes the listener easier to comprehend, but the presence of performance variables and other hesitations either help or make the listener difficult to comprehend. 16 Meanwhile, dialogues involve two or more speakers which can be classified according to the purposes whether for interpersonal to maintain social relationships or transactional to exchange factual information. For speakers who are familar to each other, the conversations will employ more assumptions and implications. While for the unfamiliar ones, the references and meanings should be told explicitly to avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations. Listening becomes not only the basis of language performance, but also serves as the basic skill for second language L2 acquisition. There are two broad types of listening models, namely bottom-up and top-down models. According to Morley 1991: 87 in Brown 2001, bottom-up processing allows the listeners to proceed from sounds to words to grammatical relationship to lexical meaning. This process focuses on sounds, words, intonation, grammatical structures, and the other small units in spoken language. Meanwhile, in top-down processing the listeners utilize schemata or background knowledge to create meaning. According to Brown 2006, schemata are abstract, generalized mental representations of our experience which are available to help understand new experiences. This process concerns with the application of schemata with the global understanding to interpret the meaning in the spoken language. Both processes are important for the learners depending on the contexts where or when the listening process occurs and the purpose of listening itself. In brief, listening can be defined as a complex and active process to understand the meaning of the utterances. It is a process to gain language inputs useful for communication. It involves both prior knowledge or experiences and grammatical knowledge of the listeners. 17 b. The Nature of Listening Comprehension