The contribution of listening journal towards learner`s listening comprehension skills and learning autonomy.

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ABSTRACT

Estuarso, Dera. 2007. The Contribution of Listening Journal towards Learners

’

Listening Comprehension Skills and Learning Autonomy. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

The rationale that language learning does not only involve reading and writing could be seen from the fact that most of the instructions of language teaching are done orally, thus opening the responsibility for the ability to perceive what one utters. Listening comprehension skills become important. However, it is understood that lack of understanding of listening processes has been thought as impediment to one’s listening capacity. It calls for an approach for students to understand the process necessary. Metacognition is one alternative. Means to raise metacognition is needed and have brought teachers and researchers to examine the use of written reflection. Therefore, an attempt to verify previous researches and investigate the issue of written reflection is worthwhile.

This current study investigated the use of listening journal for young English Learners in local context. This study involves three participants in ten listening comprehension tests accompanied by regular listening journals. Document Analysis and Observational Study are the method best utilized to treat the data. Supported mainly by qualitative data, this study attempts to figure out the effect of Writing Listening Journal on Learners Listening Comprehension Skills and on Learner’s Learning Autonomy.

From the study, it was understood (1) that Listening Journal does not necessarily contribute improving effects to Participants’ Listening Comprehension Skill, which may be due to limitation of the listening journal, and (2) that Listening Journal contributes beneficial effects to Participants’ Learning Autonomy, fostering it up to an initial phase of Self-Regulation. As other findings are factors which affect the depth of a Listening Journal. They were (1) participants’ learning style and (2) difficulty level of task and text.

It is suggested that teachers who are interested in incorporating listening journal notice that explicit learning strategy practice and maintaining challenge and impressions in the listening activity may be necessary. Future research is directed to validation on relationship between the variables. Quantitative approach to validate the effectiveness of the use of Listening Journal and to investigate the correlation between the extent of learning autonomy of a learner and learner’s comprehension skills improvement is highly recommended.

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ABSTRAK

Estuarso, Dera. 2007. The Contribution of Listening Journal towards Learners

’

Listening Comprehension Skills and Learning Autonomy. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Rasional pembelajaran bahasa yang tidak hanya melibatkan membaca dan menulis jelas terlihat dari kenyataan bahwa instruksi dalam pengajaran bahasa diberikan secara verbal. Hal ini memberi tanggung jawab akan adanya kemampuan untuk memahami apa yang disampaikan. Kecakapan dalam menyimak menjadi penting. Telah dipahami bersama bahwa kurangnya pemahaman akan proses menyimak mengganggu kemampuan menyimak seseorang. Maka, diperlukan sebuah pendekatan agar pelajar dapat memahami proses yang diperlukan. Sarana untuk meningkatkan metakognisi dibutuhkan dan kenyataan ini telah mendorong para guru dan peneliti untuk menguji penggunaan refleksi tertulis. Oleh karena itu pasti berharga untuk mencoba meneguhkan hasil penelitian sebelumnya dan untuk menyelidiki lebih lanjut masalah yang berkenaan dengan refleksi tertulis ini.

Studi ini meneliti penggunaan jurnal menyimak untuk pelajar bahasa Inggris dalam konteks local. Studi ini melibatkan tiga peserta yang diminta mengerjakan sepuluh ujian menyimak dan menulis jurnal menyimak secara rutin setelahnya. Dengan dukungan data kualitatif, serta Analisa Dokumen dan Observasi, studi ini mencoba mencari tahu dampak dari kegiatan menulis jurnal menyimak pada kecakapan menyimak dan pada kemandirian belajar sang peserta.

Dari studi ini didapati bahwa (1) penggunaan jurnal menyimak tidak selalu memberikan dampak yang meningkatkan kecakapan menyimak para peserta, yang sangat mungkin disebabkan oleh keterbatasan jurnal menyimak, dan bahwa (2) jurnal menyimak memberikan manfaat pada peningkatan kemandirian belajar, yakini berupa dorongan hingga tahap regulasi-diri. Temuan lain adalah berupa faktor yang mempengaruhi dalam tidaknya jurnal menyimak. Faktor tersebut adalah (1) gaya belajar para peserta dan (2) kesulitan teks serta tugas menyimak yang diberikan.

Disarankan untuk para guru yang berminat untuk memasukkan jurnal menyimak dalam kelas mereka agar latihan strategi belajar yang eksplisit diberikan dan kesan serta tantangan dalam kegiatan menyimak dipertahankan. Studi di masa mendatang disarankan untuk validasi hubungan antar variabel yang ada dalam studi ini. Pendekatan kuantitatif untuk validasi keefektifan penggunaan jurnal menyimak dan untuk meneliti hubungan antara taraf kemandirian belajar dan kecakapan menyimak sangat disarankan.

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THE C

CONTRIB

BUTION OF LIST

TENING J

JOURNA

AL TOWA

ARDS

LE

EARNERS

S’ LISTE

ENING CO

OMPREH

HENSION

N SKILL

LS

AND LE

EARNING

G AUTON

NOMY

A THEESIS

Preseented as Parrtial Fulfillmment of the Requiremeents to Obtain tthe Sarjanaa Pendidikann Degree

in Ennglish Languuage Educattion

Byy

Dera Estuarso

Studdent Numbeer: 0312141147

ENGLISHH LANGUAAGE EDUCCATION STTUDY PROOGRAM D

DEPARTMMENT OF LLANGUAGGE AND AARTS EDUCATION F

FACULTYY OF TEACCHERS TRRAINING AAND EDUCCATION SANATAA DHARMMA UNIVERRSITY

YOGYAKKARTA 20007

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“. . .pay attention to how you listen. . .”

Luke 8:18

For Jehovah God, Lord Jesus and my beloved Family,

who make me learn Luke 8:18

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STATEMENT OF WORK ORIGINALITY

I honestly declare that this thesis which I wrote does not contain the works or part of the works of other people, except those cited in the quotations and references, as a scientific paper should.

Yogyakarta, June 29, 2007 The Writer

Dera Estuarso

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My biggest appreciation goes to my major sponsor, C. Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd. for her time and incessant support to the completion of this thesis. I am also indebted to my co-sponsor, Ouda Teda Ena, S.Pd, M.Pd., for sharing with me his critical thoughts, helpful suggestions and encouraging advice.

I am very much grateful to Ajeng, Ella, and Rayyan who have volunteered themselves participating in this study. My earnest gratitude also belongs to, as always, my family for their persistent effort to sweep the worries and weariness in the bumpy journey towards the completion of the thesis.

My thankfulness goes also to my PBI mates, who have supported me unwaveringly, Bunga, Candra, Nicko, Vendi, Febri, Tika, Timur, Debby, Titik, Dono, Joe, Non’ and for those whose names are not listed here.

Lastly, my great thankfulness is for those who have directly or indirectly helped and supported me in writing this thesis.

Dera Estuarso

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE ... i

PAGE OF APPROVAL ... ii

PAGE OF ACCEPTANCE ... iii

PAGE OF DEDICATION ... iv

STATEMENT OF WORK ORIGINALITY ... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vii

LIST OF TABLE ... x

LIST OF FIGURE ... xi

ABSTRACT ... xii

ABSTRAK ... xiii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study ... 1

B. Problem Identification ... 3

C. Limitation of the study ... 3

D. Problem Formulation ... 4

E. Objectives of the Study ... 4

F. Benefits of the Study ... 5

G. Definition of terms ... 5

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Theoretical Description ... 8

1. The Nature of Listening ... 8

2. The teaching of listening and Curriculum of English Language in High schools in Indonesia ... 10

3. Metacognition and Learning Autonomy ... 12

B. The Theoretical Framework ... 14

1. Listening Journal and Self-awareness ... 14

2. The listening journal in Classroom Listening activity ... 15

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Method ... 16

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B. Research Participants ... 17

C. Setting ... 18

D. Research Instruments ... 18

1. Listening journal ... 19

2. Field Notes ... 19

3. Interview Guidelines ... 20

4. Comprehension Test ... 20

E. Data Gathering Technique ... 20

F. Data Analysis ... 22

1. Data Reduction ... 22

2. Data Display ... 24

3. Data Summary ... 24

G. Research Procedure ... 25

CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS A. Research Findings ... 28

1. The Effect of Writing Listening Journal on Participants’ Listening Comprehension Skills ... 28

a. Participants’ Listening Strategies ... 29

b. Listening Strategies reported in Listening Journal ... 33

1) Unspecific Strategies ... 33

2) Specific Strategies ... 34

c. The Depth of the Listening Journal ... 35

d. Listening Comprehension Skills and Depth of Listening Journal ... 36

2. The Effect of Writing Listening Journal on Participants’ Learning Autonomy ... 39

a. Self-Awareness ... 40

b. Self-Direction ... 40

c. Self-Regulation’s Self Monitor ... 42

B. Other Findings ... 46

1. Listening Journal Limitation ... 46

a. The difficulty level of text and task ... 46

b. Participants’ Learning Style ... 47

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A. Conclusions ... 48

B. Implications for Teaching ... 48

C. Suggestions for Future Research ... 49

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REFERENCES ... 50

APPENDICES A. Data Summary ... 53

a. Summary of Listening Journals ... 53

b. Summary of Listening Comprehension Test Score ... 59

B. Listening Comprehension Test ... 61

C. Listening Comprehension Test’s Text Transcript ... 76

D. Listening Journals ... 87

a. Participant No1 ... 87

b. Participant No2 ... 94

c. Participant No3 ... 102

E. Field Notes ... 110

F. Interview Transcript ... 124

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 4.1 Evidence of Clarification ... 32

Table 4.3 Summary of Comprehension Test Score ... 37

Table 4.6 Evidence of Self Direction ... 42

Table 4.7 Evidence of Self Regulation ... 43

Table 4.2 Evidence of Evaluation ... 33

Table 4.4 Summary of Summary of Effect of Listening Journal ... 48

Table 4.5 Evidence of Self Direction ... 41

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LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 2.1 Learning Autonomy Continuum ... 13 Figure 3.1 Flow Chart of Research Procedure ... 26 Figure 4.1 Summary of the Effect of Listening Journal ... 45

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ABSTRACT

Estuarso, Dera. 2007. The Contribution of Listening Journal towards Learners’ Listening Comprehension Skills and Learning Autonomy. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

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ABSTRAK

Estuarso, Dera. 2007. The Contribution of Listening Journal towards Learners’ Listening Comprehension Skills and Learning Autonomy. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

The trend a few decades ago had been that productive skills in language learning were more preferable to teach than the receptive ones –reading and writing skills. Many had emphasized that, based on product-oriented framework, one could be judged capable of communicating in a language if one is able to use it in terms of productivity.

The face of teaching and learning has changed with the emergence of firstly behaviorism and then later cognitivism. Both have contributed insights of how one should perceive learning process, in this case language learning process. Of important contribution is that to be able to communicate in the target language means to be able to produce and receive information in and from the target language. Emphasis began to move from productive to receptive skills in 1960’s. Since then, there have been many ways to achieve both types of skills. Furthermore, the emergence of the well-known communicative language teaching and learning also encourages that language learners’ ability to communicate in the target language should extend to all the four skills.

The rationale that language does not only involve reading and writing could be seen from the fact that most of the instructions of language teaching are done orally. Therefore, it is logical to put also oral skill -speaking- into the framework of Language Teaching and Learning. Next, to be able to produce sounds or expressions, sometimes responses, in the target language, the ability to perceive what one utters

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also matters; if not the most important. For this reason, this study attempts to look for more in-depth insights concerning with listening skill.

Even with the light shed from such modern view, listening skill is often treated under the product-oriented framework. Efforts have been made to emphasize the process of listening. It is no longer about whether students could perceive the texts but how students could perceive them. The attempts to understand the process have been supported by findings in many Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researches. With the understanding from the field of SLA, many new views of listening as a process have been implemented into practice with the emphasis on how to make students understand the process and therefore able to improve their process of perceiving the listening texts. Such, most teachers and teaching practitioners believe, is the way to make students listen in the target language better.

To sum up, the fact is that, because the view of language competence as products, most of students do not listen well. The cause, presumably, is students’ lack of understanding on listening processes. In effect, there is a need for a way so that students could understand the process.

Some teachers have tried to implement the use of written reflection; some reported its success, some otherwise. As Myers (2001) put it when he investigated the stream of thought through journal writing, “Students were able to trace their strengths and weaknesses and describe their own learning patterns and needs in regard to learning how to write in English for both personal expression and academic writing.” Some unpublished work of learning autonomy researcher also confirms positive result, such as “enhancement of learners’ critical thinking”. Certainly, such positive result could be anticipated from implementing the journal

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not for writing skill as in Myers’ case, hence, Listening Journal. Therefore, this research attempts to figure out the nature of this implementation.

B. Problem Identification

How to make students understand the process and be able to improve their process of perceiving the listening texts demands further investigation. First, inquiry should be taken into account concerning the nature of listening process. Once the processes are identified, the skill could be analyzed and treated by its micro skills derived from the processes later agreed as the complex which constitutes the listener comprehension of a listening text.

How to make language learners understand the process have been more intriguing and of interest for some teachers. The researcher is among them who feel the urge to inquire the issue. Reflection sheets have been used to seek explanation of what actually happens in learners’ mind while they are listening, or more precisely what the learners’ think of as actually happening in their learning. The nature of the use of such reflection sheets, a listening journal in this case, is the main problem the researcher would want to investigate. To see how it works and what further valuable information found from the research which would add to our knowledge, about whether or not, to what extent and why listening journals affects learners’ listening comprehension skills, are the main concerns of this research.

C. Limitation of the study

Problems are abundant and most of them are more theoretical than practical. However, theories underlie most practices. Therefore, the theoretical grounds from

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findings by SLA researches such as the nature of listening process is highly related. In order to provide reinforcement to such theory, be it negative or positive, problems which would be investigated being discussed in this study would be that which is related to the use of listening journal for English Learners.

It would be about whether and how listening journal raises learners’ self-awareness of the listening process involved, as well as their learning autonomy and listening comprehension skills. It would not, however, seek to cover understanding on how the three notions are related to each other.

D. Problem Formulation

Considering the background, this study attempts to answer these major questions:

1. How does listening journal affect learners’ listening comprehension skill?

2. How far in the autonomy-continuum does listening journal affect learner’s learning autonomy?

E. Objectives of the Study

This study attempts to look for insight of the nature of reflection in language learning, particularly in listening comprehension skill. Consequently, it would inform whether or not “listening journal” affects participants’ listening skills. Further, it would seek ways to understand whether the effect is improving or not. It would also find out whether “listening journal” affects participants’ learning autonomy. More importantly, it would also cover to what extent, in their relationship to the learning autonomy continuum, “listening journal” manages to affect.

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F. Benefits of the Study

Teachers are hoped to be benefited by the study as they may practice employing listening journal in their classes. Teachers could be encouraged to improve the form and the manner of the reflection. It is also the hope of the researcher that this study be a guideline to do typical research or activities in class.

G. Definition of terms

Below are some terms used in and closely related to this study. Common understanding of which is important for the direction of the study. More clarification would be found in the Literature Review.

1. Listening Comprehension

Listening is aural, real-time, receptive skill. Listening comprehension means the ability to receive real-time, oral message accurately (Helgesen, 2003). In this study, listening comprehension is perceived from how accurate a participant answers the comprehension questions in each test which they did.

2. Listening Process

Listening process is the approach in human mind to encode the received, oral, real-time message. It could be syntactical, semantical or, normally, both (Clark & Clark, 1977). This term, particularly in this study, refers also to the process of understanding the listening passage that the participants are aware of, represented by the strategies they use. Those strategies are predicting, inferring, monitoring, clarifying and evaluating which are related to syntactic and semantic approach.

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3. Listening Journal

Listening journal is a written journal which expresses learner’s feeling or strategy towards and for listening speeches, everything which the learners might think as related or necessary to write. It is a compilation of regularly distributed reflection sheets throughout the study.

4. Metacognition

Metacognition is thinking about the way oneself thinks. It involves metacognitive knowledge which is brought from unconsciousness to consciousness. Metacognitive knowledge is the belief a learner holds which controls his or her self-regulation in learning (Vermunt (1993) as cited in Ajisuksmo (1996)). In this study this term is helpful to a fuller understanding to the other two important terms below.

5. Learner’s self-awareness

Being self-aware is the state in the self of a learner when he or she could bring his metacognitive knowledge into consciousness (Wenden, (1999); Rivers (2001); Littlewood (1996)). Self-awareness, in this study, is visible through comparison between learners’ actual utilized strategies and the strategies learners think they did or did not utilize.

6. Learning Autonomy

Learning autonomy is not dichotomous. It is a continuum; starting from self-direction to self-regulation with various extents. To be able to self-direct and then self-regulate, a learner should be self-aware; to be self-aware learners need to bring

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his or her metacognitive knowledge to consciousness (Littlewood, 1996). In this study, learning autonomy is investigated stage by stage, that means exact points within the continuum is not searched but, rather, taking approximates near the three main ordered points: self-awareness, self-direction and self-regulation (See Figure 2.1).

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8 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter describes the theories adopted in this research to seek common ground in order to prolong the research. Principally essential is the understanding on listening; its nature and how it is taught in common schools. Not less important is the term learning autonomy, its components and their shares in improving learning autonomy. Listening journal and self-awareness would also be elaborated in to seek way to elicit learners’ learning autonomy, as well as how it works.

A. Theoretical Description

This section presents related theories which support this study. Presented in this section are three interrelated areas of inquiries which solidify the ground for this research. They are the nature of listening, its teaching practice in schools, and more important is metacognition and learning autonomy, discussed together to show their close relationship.

1. The Nature of Listening

Categorized distinctively from the other language skills, listening is in short a real-time, aural receptive skill (Clark and Clark, 1977; Helgesen, 2003). This skill is built up to acquire meaning from sounds which listeners perceive in a language. It is the most basic skill human beings have ever acquired to communicate with each other. Normally, humans listen to each other to get the meaning of the spoken utterance and to do something with the meaning; i.e. to utilize the acquired meaning.

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This means that most of the time, listeners are supposed to, verbally or non-verbally, respond the message they hear.

It seems evident that listening is a complicated process. Listening is indeed a complex mental process. Listening requires more than just capturing the sounds through ears and matches the strings of sounds with listeners’ mental lexical items stored in their brain to build the meaning. It also requires adequate world knowledge on the part of the listeners to both comprehend and utilize meaning out of the sounds they hear. It is this relation to the brain, reminding us of cognition, that listening is said as a mental process. (Helgesen, 2003)

To most psycholinguist this is called comprehension and utilization. To comprehend something, without yet utilizing it or simply speaking –responding to it, a listener should break down the sounds into pieces. Some possible approaches are proposed. They are syntactic approach and semantic approach. Syntactic approach would be that which uses to its most the face structure of an utterance and relies heavily on the use of the function words. While semantic approach is one that relies on the content words and refers to reality what the relationships between those content words, which would be thus forming the meaning. Psycholinguists do not agree about whether one approach dominates another. They agree, however, that most listeners use both approaches to get the meaning out of sounds. It means that listeners, in an attempt to understand or get the meaning of an utterance and in turn respond to it, use function words, content words and their knowledge of the world in which they live (Clark & Clark, 1977).

These processes, however, could be simplified. Most experts in language teaching and applied linguistics refer to those approaches with slight modification as

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top-down, bottom-up and interactive processing. Top-down process in listening is a process of getting the meaning out of sounds by making the most of content, that is general knowledge or life experience, and textual schema, their situational routines. On the other hand, bottom-up process in listening is a process that makes use of vocabulary, grammar, and sounds’ features. As it is disputed between Psycholinguists, these experts also find it more logical to believe that it is easier to comprehend the meaning if a listener operates within these two processes combined together; constituting what is then known as “interactive process” (Brown, 2001).

If these processes, despite the researcher’s attempt to simplify, are found to be intricate, it is the nature of listening. It is a very complex mental process. This mental process is there to always serve a purpose; to enable listener to respond both in verbal or non-verbal replies. It could, however, be broken down into top-down, bottom-up and interactive process of listening. They respectively related to semantic approach, syntactic approach and combination of the two. It is now clear to state that listening is a real-time, aural receptive skill (Helgesen, 2003).

2. The teaching of listening and Curriculum of English Language in High schools in Indonesia

For being its receptive nature, listening has to do with information processing. Nowadays, information in general could be acquired via various sources. Basically, one could acquire information of any kind in two forms; written and spoken. To understand the former is beyond this essay scope. The latter, however, could be understood by listening. The information, when processed, could add to the listener’s knowledge. It could also affect the listeners in various way; changes in

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viewpoint for instance. In its basic purpose, then, listening plays a great role to process oral information.

It has also become the concern of curriculum designers. The Latest Indonesian School Curriculum known as School-based Curriculum has put listening alongside the other receptive skill, as a means to prepare students for greater opportunities to find more information for their higher study in the future. Television, Internet, CDs and any other advancement of our civilization have brought more ease to obtain information, and not least of them are in the form of recording or even video, and are in English. If students have the ability to process this information using their listening skills, they would find it easier to find materials to support their study. The Curriculum is trying to prepare students to be able to process such materials especially to help them survive in higher education.

In order for students to acquire the skills and be able to meet the challenge of their future study, School-based Curriculum has equipped teachers to help students do so. It could be seen from the fact, and some are real results from The Latest Indonesian School Curriculum pilot project, that the Curriculum has been focusing students to be able to locate and identify certain information from oral monolog ( Kurikulum dan Kegiatan Hasil Belajar – Rumpun Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris., 2002). With some activities to listen to conversation or explanation, students are expected to be able to turn their vocabulary into use to listen to some short listening passages. Being flexible in terms of material, School-based Curriculum provides more opportunity for teachers to explore students’ potential and experiment with some more sophisticated materials and activities depending on students need. This way, The Curriculum may be used to teach students in such a way that the teaching

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of English Language in Indonesia could achieve the targeted role it is endeavoring to accomplish.

3. Metacognition and Learning Autonomy

In general, it could be said that metacognition is the protocol to think about one’s own thinking process. Metacognition has as its components, distinctive from each other, “metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategy” (Wenden, 1999). Metacognitive knowledge deals with the information of the thinking process while metacognitive strategy deals with the skills which are involved to manage, direct, regulate or guide the learning process.

Metacognitive knowledge is not yet unique to one learner. It is not value related (Wenden, 1999). What is distinctive from one learner to another is what experts call learner’s belief. Learner’s belief may take into account learning orientation, models of learning, regulation strategy and processing strategy (Vermunt (1993) as cited in (Ajisuksmo, 1996)). It is such beliefs which control each learner’s self-regulation in learning. Self-regulation in learning requires a learner to be first self-directed. A self-directed learner is one who possesses qualities such as ones that Skager (1984) has elaborated. They are self-acceptance, planfulness, intrinsic motivation, internalized evaluation, openness to experience, flexibility and autonomy.

It could be seen from Rivers’ (2001) and Wenden’s (1999) discussions on self-regulation that after one has been self-directed to continue learning, he or she could then self-regulate his or her learning. Rivers (2001) argues that Self-regulation involves self-monitor and executive controls. The control of the executive functions,

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which are self-assessment and self-management, is required before one could analyze the task of learning. Wenden (1999) implies that the cycle is continued by self-monitor only to be followed up by another self-management. It would continue to go this way so that students could reach various levels of autonomy, as Littlewood (1996) have listed.

Related to the main concern of the research, the concept of autonomy should be clarified. The researcher followed Littlewood (1996) in describing what autonomy involves. It requires on the part of the students knowledge, skills, motivation and confidence. The first two constitute ability and the others constitute willingness. These concept, ability and willingness, is what Littlewood (1996) refers to as the ones that would help students to become more autonomous in their communications, learning and personality. In the list Littlewood (1996) puts self-direction in learning somewhere in the middle of the hierarchical levels of autonomy. Self-direction is, therefore, a stage where a learner starts to choose and shape his or her own learning contexts.

To summarize, self-direction as one of the start to foster autonomous learning and self-regulation, which keeps up the autonomy, could not be brought up to reality before the knowledge to do so, the metacognitive knowledge is acquired. Therefore,

SELF REGULATION SELF AWARENESS SELF DIRECTION

SELF MONITOR

SELF ASSESSMENT

SELF MANAGEMENT AUTONOMY

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to bring metacognitive knowledge into awareness, that is self-awareness, would help learners to self-regulate his or her learning. Figure 2.1 describes the continuum of learning autonomy.

One’s autonomy is then fostered by this awareness since metacognitive knowledge may be brought in and out consciously and unconsciously. However, to have the awareness, learner should bring the metacognitive knowledge to consciousness. In sum, the idea of figuring out and digging out the metacognitive knowledge into the surface of consciousness in one’s own learning process is the core idea of metacognition.

B. The Theoretical Framework

This section presents framework adopted and adapted for this research based on theories in the field. Presented in this section are two pairs of interrelated areas of inquiries which make this research possible and applicable. The first is the relationship between listening journal and self awareness and the other is between listening journal and its use in classrooms.

1. Listening Journal and Self-awareness

Listening is a real-time, aural receptive skill. In line with School-based Curriculum, listening skill in high school is taught to prepare students to listen to process information in their future higher study. That means the purpose of teaching listening skill in high school is listening to learn. However, Vandergrift (2004) argues that in order for students to be able to “listen to learn”, they should first learn how to listen. In the framework of autonomous learning, as it has been elaborated,

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learner should bring the metacognitive knowledge into awareness, they should be self-aware; that is possessing self-awareness.

In his understanding of learning autonomy in language learning, Benson (2003) suggests that for a learner to be autonomous, he or she should be given the opportunities to reflect on his or her learning. Much in the same tone, Block (1997) maintains that there are many benefits to get what learners think of their cognition by listening to them.

Such views encourage the researcher to get students knowledge of their metacognition, their metacognitive knowledge and especially their beliefs in their learning, by giving them the opportunities to rise into consciousness, to be self-aware, through a reflection journal. The researcher calls this a listening journal because the journal would be about the listening skills the learner is learning.

2. The listening journal in Classroom Listening activity

Listening activity in classroom should aim at learner’s comprehension on the listening text and their awareness of the process. In order to do so, they (Brown, 2001; Helgesen, 2003; Rost, 2002) suggest that a listening activity should expose students to all the process approach in listening; bottom-up, top-down and interactive approach. To provide opportunities to reflect on their learning, at the final stage of his model of listening instruction, Vandergrift (2004), Goh and Taib (2006) provides a model of listening activity which is related to metacognitive strategies learners use in each stages of the instructional design. The researcher agrees with these experts and thus adopts and adapts the listening instruction they suggest.

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16 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology employed in this research. The discussion would be about the research method, research participants, research instruments, setting, research procedure, process of analyzing the data and the like which constitutes this chapter.

A. Method

The research was Qualitative in nature. The reason for using this method was that the Effect of Writing Listening Journal on Learners Listening Comprehension Skills and on Learners’ Learning Autonomy could be well understood not by numerical data, but through descriptive data. It means that this research was not meant to verify or interfere with existing body of theories not is it to generate new theories. Qualitative approach is used because this research attempts to describe particular phenomena occurring in reality from which qualitative data could be derived.

The main data to consider was the listening journal itself. As such, the researcher used Document Analysis. Document Analysis would allow the researcher to “focus on analyzing and interpreting recorded materials within its own context” (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 2002). In addition, observation during the activity was proven to be important. Observation also added to more comprehensive knowledge on the issue. Such is the case because recorded observation could function as quick, complete and objective reference whenever more details needed.

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The other techniques used in this study functions mostly to counter arguments that say mere unstructured observational methods diminish the reliability of the findings. Techniques such as interview would lend more credibility to the findings of the study.

Qualitative method is, therefore, best for such nature of the data. It also allows interpretative treatment which may bring us to different perspective important in understanding the nature of the data generated from the observation. Apart from all that, it could provide for further research detail descriptions future investigators may want to clarify and verify such as that is for their action research (Ary et al, 2002).

B. Research Participants

Method of sampling used in the research is Purposive Sampling. Three students were selected to be studied. Each of the students was distinct from one another in their capacity of English proficiency. Respectively, the first student represents high-level students, the second for intermediate-level and the last for low-level students. The selection and judgment of the participants’ relative capacity was given participants’ teacher in their high school upon intense discussion with the corresponding teacher.

To clarify their teacher judgment, confirmation on their position relative to each other was conducted through a pre-test. Helgesen (2003) has provided a continuum of authenticity. The researcher took the highest standard of authenticity. It would mean that the listening pre-test would be at normal speed, at adequate length and appropriate level of vocabulary. The listening transcripts of all listening materials, as well as the tasks involved, are attached herein (See Appendix C). The

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standard of high-intermediate-low was of norm-referenced. That is the standard of high-intermediate-low is set by first figuring out the highest score reached by all participants and ordering afterwards.

C. Setting

The study took place in the classrooms and the researcher’s residence. The form was similar to a student of a private course. The study was conducted from February 2007-May 2007.

The setting was as natural as possible. Participants might be well aware that they were being observed, but the researcher did not tell them that they were being observed. Instead, the researcher told them the activities they do from different perspective. The researcher did tell them that they were being helped and offered a chance to try a new method of learning how to listen. The researcher hope was that by this design their anxiety could be reduced to its most, as opposed to let them know that the activity is for research’s sake, which would raise pretense and unnatural behaviour.

The researcher did not participate during the observation. Therefore, the researcher watched very carefully interference to their ideas in the reflection. The researcher did not participate as a teacher, or as a facilitator to their learning; letting them to all extent drive their own learning.

D. Research Instruments

Listening Comprehension Test, Listening Journal, Field notes and Interview Guideline devises this research.

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1. Listening journal

Listening Journal is collected from regularly distributed reflection sheet (See Appendix D). It is student’s personal pieces of writing which are written down to answer some questions posed by the researcher. The nature of the questions was reflective and of various type. Every student had got same questions to answer under the same period. That means each student got the same sets of questions every time they fill their listening journal. The questions varied especially over the genres and difficulties of the text.

Since it was necessary for the students to really reflect on their listening, the reflection in the listening journal was in the native language of the students, that was Bahasa Indonesia. By this design the students could be more confident and free to express their ideas without any language barriers.

2. Field Notes

Observation was done for the researcher to objectively take notes on the events that happened during learning process. The observation, supported by tape recording, was then field-noted. The field notes consist of two major parts inseparable from one another. They are Objective and Subjective notes. Objective notes are that of rich description of the situations, objects, place, time and happenings during the study. Subjective notes are that of reflective notes that the researcher infer or conclude from, or simply comment on the situation, objects, place, time and happenings during the study. There were also themes of found strategies or pieces of information about participants’ autonomy. All notes, which constitute the researcher’s field notes, were very helpful in reviewing and crosschecking what

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happens during the study in the activity. Field Notes are attached herein (See Appendix E).

The observation which was done directly on site may not be complete and may lose some details depending on how much distracted the researcher on the meeting hours. To avoid lost of significant events which may occur during the observational note taking, all meetings were tape-recorded. With this support, the researcher was able to complete the details by interpreting the sounds and voice in the recording and add them to the existing notes.

3. Interview Guidelines

Open-ended interview helps the researcher to view more details which would function as data triangulation to the analyzed listening journal and the field notes. The interview questions were generated on course, i.e. emergent, also to triangulate the data. Interview Transcript is attached herein (See Appendix F).

4. Comprehension Test

There were ten sets of test and of progressive difficulty levels. The progress found in the tests’ results determines the states of participants’ listening capacity relative to each other and to his or her previous state. Comprehension Test is attached herein (See Appendix B).

E. Data Gathering Technique

Participants were facilitated with listening material for practice at home. At home, each participant could work on different materials at different pace. At the

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research site, participants were assigned the listening activity and asked to write in the listening journal every time the Participants finish working on a listening text. The listening journal was submitted in the end of the corresponding day’s listening activity. The researcher wrote in the observation sheets at any opportunity during learning process.

In each meeting, the activity included the listening activity itself apart from the pre-, and post-activity. In pre-activity, participants were told the title of the listening text. Then, participants were given some time to brainstorm on the title or topic. After they were ready, participants were to listen to listening text; this was the whilst-activity. In the whilst-activity, participants also answered some comprehension questions. After some time, depending on how many times the listening passages were informed to be played. They were to listen to the text again and, afterwards, to finish answering the comprehension questions. This comprehension activity resulted in the numerical data representing their skill in understanding the text. Later, as the post-activity, participants were given the opportunity to check together with the teacher the answers to the questions. Only upon requests, the researcher let participants know their mistakes. Then, participants were to fill their listening journal. Enough time was given to participants to reflect on the activity on that occasion, that was 30 to 45 minutes. This reflection sheets produced the listening journal with the thoughts of the participants. Researcher encoded the listening journal, and compared it to the comprehension test result done previously in the comprehension activity. This was to see whether better reflection means better comprehension or not, or any other significance necessary for the inquiry as to know the nature of the listening journal to participants’ learning

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autonomy and comprehension skill. This sequence was adapted from Goh’s Metacognition Instruction in Listening for Young Learners (Goh & Taib, 2006).

Every three to four reflection sheets were submitted, or every time significance was found, the researcher had the Participants interviewed. The result of the interview, the transcription, helped to clarify information in Listening Journal and information concerning the participants, whenever necessary. Therefore, the interview questions were generated periodically depending on the contents of the coded listening journals which were triangulated using the interview. Last interview had no distinct manner over other previously done interviews as its goals were similar.

F. Data Analysis

This section presents the process of analyzing the data which includes Data Reduction, Data Display and Data Summary.

1. Data Reduction

This subsection presents the process of reducing the raw data from the field in order to make the data ready for further analysis. Not all data were reduced and not all data were reduced in the same manner. Presented in this section is the process of data reduction by instruments which underwent process of reduction.

a. Data Reduction for Listening Journals

First of all, all entries in the reflection sheets were translated into English Language. After the translation was done, search for significance was made for each

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entry in the journal. Expected significances were the presence of Aspective Reflection and Strategic Reflection. Their natures are explained as follows:

1) Affective Data

Anytime the listening journals showed the feelings and attitude of the Participants towards what happened during their learning to listen sessions, marks were given on the data. This could mean any expressions started with “Menurut saya, saya pikir, bagi saya, (I feel, I think, I believe…)” and the like.

2) Learning Strategy

Anytime the Participants recall how they could understand the text and organize the information of the listening texts, marks were given on the data to signal that Participants were aware of their listening strategies. It would mean how they recall semantic, syntactic and other approach in understanding the text.

b. Data Reduction for Field Notes

At this point, the field notes were ready to be coded. The researcher was carefully searching for themes in the field notes. However, such themes were closely related to important terms in this study. Such is the search for the existence of self-awareness, self-direction, self-monitor, self-assessment and self-management. The finding of those qualities from events, activity and the like would help the researcher to conclude at which point a participant succeed to position his or herself in the continuum of learning autonomy.

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c. Data Reduction for Interview Transcript

The recording of the interview was fully transcribed. The transcriptions also help the search for existence of self-awareness, self-direction and self-regulation on the part of the participants. The reduced data was then used to triangulate findings from the listening journal and the field notes. As it has been explained earlier, the importance of the interview was to seek confirmation and verification of the content of listening journals, whether or not the Participants understood what they had written and elaborated in the journals.

2. Data Display

The Data are displayed under their instrument and significance and discussed individually, when matters, in the Data Analysis. Narrative field notes were displayed with labels to point out the significance. In the discussion however, only sample of significant excerpts from the interview were extracted.

3. Data Summary

In order for readers to easily review the data relevant to the study, a summary would be provided by instrument. This section explains how data was summarized in this research.

1) Summary of Listening Journal

After being coded, significant entries in the listening journal were put in a table whose columns of categories and rows of meetings collide with the data entries under the two categories: affective and strategic reflection. (See Appendix A.a). This

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summary serves as quick reference to improvements in the depth of listening journal of each participant.

2) Summary of Comprehension Test Score

The researcher scores the comprehension test by percentage of item correctly answered. These scores are presented in table whose columns of participants and rows of meetings collide with the corresponding scores (See Appendix A.b).

3) Summary of Interview Transcript and Field Notes

Interview transcripts were not summarized individually and neither were the field notes. The summary of the interview, as it mainly functions in data triangulation, was displayed directly in the discussion in Data Analysis to support arguments. Therefore, attached herein are full transcriptions of the interview.

Field notes summary take the same form of full notes for the purpose of not losing the context of the events that happened. Therefore, as were the interviews, there are no particular summary for this instrument (See Appendix E). However, coded field notes should be sufficient to help readers find the significance in the notes.

G. Research Procedure

The procedure of the research should have been visible at this point. However, to make it concise and yet comprehensible, the procedure is as follows. The first step would be to have the participant. They would be positioned as high-, -intermediate-, and low- proficiency learners. This was not to seek generalization but to see how the

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treatment differs from one case to another and instead seek inquiry for the accounted differences. Participants joined listening comprehension activity. The activity was field noted. The activity produced also participants’ comprehension test result from time to time. The activity also allowed participants to fill in the listening journal. This journal was coded from time to time during the period of the activity.

As the next step, periodically, the numerical data (the comprehension test result; See Appendix A.b) were compared to the listening journal to see whether or not there was significance. After the activity, from time to time during the program and in the final session of the program, participants were interviewed. The open-ended interview was, then, transcribed. The transcription functions as data triangulation to clarify the findings from the comprehension test result and the listening journal, and significance inquired from the comparison between the two. For following interview, questions were generated from previous interview functioning as guide. Figure 3.1 reviews the research procedure.

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To summarize, the recurrent cycle, up until the program was over, is as follows:

a. Observing Listening activity: brainstorming, listening comprehension test, listening while completing the test, checking answers (upon request), and finally, reflection by writing the listening journal.

b. Field noting: the result of the activity was then analyzed; coding the listening journal and matrix the comprehension test result; and compared.

c. Triangulation: Participants were interviewed individually to clarify the field notes and the listening journal.

This cycle continues until the program was over (10 meetings). The combination of these instruments sequenced in the procedure would help the researcher obtain the answers to the research questions.

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28 CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS

This section presents the findings from the study. It also discusses the findings. Each formulated problem is systematically answered by providing the background reasons and arguments to in the end reach conclusions which answer the problem questioned. Other findings which were not purposefully questioned are also presented and receive same treatment.

A. Research Findings

1. The Effect of Writing Listening Journal on Participants’ Listening Comprehension Skills

It is firstly necessary to know the previous state of Listener’s comprehension skills prior to the regulation of writing the listening journal. With an understanding that skills first take shape in the form of strategies, knowing the strategies that learners use could suggest the eventually shaping skills. Therefore, participants’ listening comprehension skills could be inquired through the utilized strategies. These strategies were inquired through interview and observation.

Listening strategies, as Helgesen (2003) cites from Rost (2002), cover predicting, inferring, monitoring, clarifying, responding and evaluating, that successful listeners apply in their process of understanding the listening text, as the test assesses participants’ comprehension on the text. While all strategies seem valuable to seek responding is excluded from this search. The reason of which is that the task did not give space for participants to respond to the text.

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a. Participants’ Listening Strategies

The aforementioned notions, with the exclusion of responding, serve as standard from which the researcher compares the strategies used by the participants to the ones revealed in the Listening Journal. The result of such comparison would function as means to seek whether participants develop or constantly use their already possessed strategies before they started writing the journal. As it were, this point on, reports on the strategies which participants use in their attempt to comprehend the listening text are presented.

1) Predicting

It is clearly visible that Participant No.1 uses a lot of predictions in his attempt to comprehend the listening text. He reported that he made selection on which part of the listening text he should pay more attention. He did this by taking into account the questions in the comprehension test. By selecting which parts he should listen to with more attention, he was actually looking for in the text information he expected to hear. Such anticipation indicates prediction, because by knowing what was expected to be understood he was making prediction for what would probably be spoken out in the listening text.

Participant No.1 also reported that he constantly attempted to make predictions not only in the initial phase of the listening process but also throughout his listening. He thought that prediction was crucial to understand the listening text. In making his prediction, he used context to guess what would come next in the passage.

Participant No. 2 reported that she made a lot of predictions before listening to the text. When asked how important a question to guiding her understanding of the

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text, she reported that such a question did ease her in making guesses. In her opinion, reflection of the topic from the questions in the comprehension test helped her make better predictions. Rarely did Participant No.2 listen to a text without making prediction. She admitted that she almost always made predictions.

Although it was more slightly difficult to see any strategy at all, it was still apparent in Participant No.3 that she also makes predictions. Such could be inferred from her opinion on the importance of knowing a title or heading of the listening text. In her opinion, the big picture of a topic would be seen from the title. Such belief was a proof that Participant No.3 made few predictions. However, it was also evident that there was no indication of intensive use of prediction in the case of Participant No.3.

2) Inferring

Throughout the study, there was no indication that Participant No.1 inferred from between the words he listened to. The case may be due to his ability to accurately recognize sounds and adequate collection of vocabulary necessary to understand the text. Often Participant No.1 transcribed most of the text in his personal sheets, and all information needed to answer the comprehension questions were transcribed well enough to fulfill the demand of the task. It was therefore not always necessary for him to infer.

Listening ‘between the lines’ did not always work for Participant No.2. The researcher was lead to such conclusion as the Participant herself admitted. She admitted that the only way she could understand a listening text in English was by mentally translating the words from English to Bahasa Indonesia. Comprehension

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broke down every time a word was not recognized in her collection of lexical items and their equivalents in Bahasa Indonesia. The fact that Participant No.2 always use mental translation brings to conclusion that she did not infer.

The case for Participant No.3 on Inferring was that, more often than not, she could not understand most of the words being said. It was of course difficult to infer if there was no source to infer from at all. In three of the tasks, when she was asked to list all words she managed to list not more than half of the words contained in the passage. Inferring was not one of the strategies Participant No.3 used.

3) Monitoring

Participant No.1 seems to be quite confident on knowing when he understands and when he does not. That would mean a successful self-monitor. Although it was never evident from his reflection sheets, the reason of which would be discussed later on, from interviews it was certain that participant No.1 monitored his learning. He often reported his disappointment whenever he understood his mistakes in answering the test’s questions or his misunderstanding of the passage.

There was a great tendency on the part of Participant No.2 in monitoring her understanding. She used the listening journal as a medium to share her monitoring. She always seek grounds to conclude for herself whether or not she was good enough in doing the listening test and in improving her listening capacity. She also wrote in her listening journal her disappointment when she found out that her guess was inaccurate. It was sure an evidence of Participant No.2’s monitoring since she could tell when she made mistakes or not, when she understood and when she did not.

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Much similar to Participant No.1 who left as soon as the listening program was over, Participant No.3 showed no interest of clarifying her understanding. It is inferred that the lack of motivation to monitor, clarify and evaluate may be caused by lack of confidence and fear of being assumed incapable of completing the task.

4) Clarifying

Throughout the study, not once did Participant No. 1 ask to clarify his score or to clarify his understanding on the text despite the fact that he was actually missing some points in the task or text, as later the researcher checked the result of his comprehension test. Whether it is a matter of the absence of intention to clarify or a matter of not utilizing the strategy intentionally, it is not too soon to conclude that Participant No. 1 utilized no clarification in his attempt to understand the text.

Participant No.2 almost always clarified what she thought she listened to and evaluated how many mistakes she might have made. She monitored and evaluated his listening capacity. Table 4.1 provides supports for such conclusion.

Events Source Participant No.2 asked for Field Notes for Meeting 8

sentence-per-sentence discussion

Participant No.2 asked for an Field Notes for Meeting 9 explanation on the topic’s gist

Table 4.1 Evidence of Clarification

5) Evaluating

As the intention to clarify was not visible, it is difficult to see further motivation for an evaluation. What happened every time the listening was over,

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altogether with the task and writing the listening journal, was that Participant No. 1 immediately asked permission to leave. Furthermore, there exists no statements or the like indicating any evaluation made in the listening journal. It is, therefore, not misleading to conclude that Participant No.1 did not evaluate his listening comprehension.

As further step of clarification, Participant No.2 managed to regularly check her results on the task (See Appendix E).

Events Source Participant No.2 asked to check her Field Notes for Meeting 7

answers, to see if she incorrectly answered the items

Table 4.2 Evidence of Evaluation

Table 4.2 shows that Participant No.2 made an evaluation on her comprehension. Sometimes she even wrote in her listening journal the reason of her failure to understand the text or in doing the task.

b. Listening Strategies reported in the Listening Journal

1) Unspecific Strategies

The listening journals reveal much about participants’ adapted strategies. However, the participants do not write specifically what such strategies mean to them much the same way they do not specify them procedurally. Below are some examples of answers to the question in the journal asking what they thought they should do if they want to improve their listening,

Konsentrasi Concentrate

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Belajar lebih giat studying more

Lebih sering mendengarkan hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan bahasa Inggris

listen to stuff in English more often

Such responses were not occasional. Almost in every journal, same unspecific strategies were written down and there seemed to be no urge to write the strategies in details.

2) Specific Strategies

Other strategies revealed, interestingly, were quite specific. From the listening journal entries, there were found strategies of syntactic and semantic nature. Syntactic in nature are surface sounds and structure approach. Semantic in nature is context approach, which involves guessing by context.

a) Syntactic Approach

Participant No.1 wrote about how he could identify a noun. He managed to see the distinct property of a noun. It shows that he was aware that he could use syntactic approach in understanding text.

Participant No.2 reflected on her strategies on approaching the text using prosodic importance. The surface sounds and the way they are pronounced were of great importance for this participant. She also wrote that it was imperative for her to know the meaning of the word.

The word “meaning” was later clarified through interview and referred to the equivalents of the word in her native language. That means that she always

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translated the text into her native language in order to comprehend the text. On the other hand, Participant No.3 wrote similar points, but only appeared in her listening journal entries once for prosodic approach and once for word meaning approach, although it was a good evidence of Participant No.3’s prediction.

b) Semantic Approach

Participant No.1 reported that he could often make wrong guesses. Clarified through interview, he was actually talking about guessing through context. Participant No.2 was also aware of the importance of the ‘meaning’, clarified through interview as “context”.

They were also aware of the necessity to guess the gist of the text. It was not a wild guess. As clarified in the interview, she explained the guess went mainly around predicting the context, the speakers and the content; building relationship from the words spoken; thus, semantic approach.

c. The depth of Listening Journal

Compared to his possessed strategies discussed in the previous section, Participant No.1’s listening journal was not deep. It was so because, although he made predictions and reflected on his prediction, he failed to write in details the strategies he utilized in finally understanding the text, which was how he monitored his learning. Therefore, it could be concluded that Participant No.1 did not reflect deeply.

Participant No.2’s listening journal was deep. It was so because she made predictions and reflected on her prediction, she also monitored and reflected on her

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monitoring. Therefore, it could be concluded that Participant No.2 did reflect deeply. Participant No.3’s listening journal was not deep. It was due to the fact that she predicted but never reflected on her prediction. It is probably due to lack or no other repertoire of strategies out of which she should have been able to write more. Therefore, it is not misguiding to say that Participant No.3 did not reflect deeply.

To summarize at this point, the Listening Journal could reveal both syntactic, as in sound and word meaning, and semantic approaches, as in context and gist listening, which are adapted as strategies. It shows that listening journal has made the participants able to be aware of some of the strategies they used. However, listening journal could not be a space for them to write more details about the strategies more procedurally. As for the quality of their listening journal, Participant No.2’s Listening Journal is the deepest, Participant No.1’s is the second deepest, and Participant No.3’s is the shallowest.

d. Listening Comprehension Skills and Depth of Listening Journal

Learners Comprehension Test Score serves as a means to observe participants’ progress in their listening comprehension capacity. The better the score means the better a participant listens, in turn, it also means the more strategies a participant utilizes in his or her attempt to comprehend a listening text. With rising level of difficulty, relatively stable scores with no significant decrease or increase indicate increase in his or her listening capacity, more so to constantly increasing score. While relatively lowering scores indicate decrease in his or her listening capacity.

Table 4.3 displays the scores of the participant in ten tests. The average result of the tests varies among all three participants. The highest is the average score of

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Participant No.1, the second highest is that of Participant No.2 and that of Participant No.3 is the lowest.

Test Reflection Score

Participant Participant Participant

No.1 No.2 No.3

PreTest 1 Not scored Not scored Not scored

1 2 100% 85% 77%

2 3 65% 55% 40%

3 4 79% 43% 25%

4 5 71% 71% 57%

5 6 63% 52% 44%

6 7 90% 88% 63%

7 8 67% 50% 44%

8 9 70% 64% 73%

9 10 80% 50% 30%

10 No Reflection 60% 33% 45%

Mean 77% 59% 50%

Table 4.3 Summary of Comprehension Test Score

The development in the scores shows similar progress. When a participant scored lower than previous test, all other participants also scored lower. Likewise, when a participant scored higher than previous test, all other participants did so. Rarely, if ever, did an overlap of scores happen. This pattern indicates that all participants were able to maintain their relative position towards other participants, indicating no significant increase in each participant’s listening capacity.

The intermediate scorer proved to reflect on her listening progress and process more deeply than the low scorer. At this point it seems that the better, or the more deeply, she reflects on her learning, the better the score would be, which could mean the more developed her listening comprehension skills should be. Interestingly, however, the best scorer did not seem to reflect deeply in the listening journal. Most of his reflection was a mere ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or ‘yes there is’ or ‘no there isn’t any’

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(See the Appendix D). Nevertheless, he still managed to score higher than both the intermediate scorer and the low scorer.

It would be inappropriate to conclude the case of the low reflection as the cause of low score any more than deep reflection as the cause of high score, seeing that on one of the participant, low reflection does not make him suffer low scores. Therefore, the answer to the first formulated problem has appeared to be a negative one; it is that writing the listening journal does not necessarily improve participants’ comprehension skill. Table 4.4 summarizes the discussion up to this point.

DEPT TAILS NO 77% LOW PREDICT NO

HIGH

9% DEEP

MONITOR PREDICT / NO HIGH % LOW MONITOR CLARIFY EVALUATE PREDICT / ‐ /

PARTICIPANT SCORE DEPTH OF

(MEAN) LISTENING JOURNAL

H DE

LOW

Table 4.4 Summary of Effect of Listening Journal

The finding seems to oppose the results of previous research by Goh (1997) and Goh and Taib (2006). Goh reports that listening journal functions to add and sharpen listening strategies (Goh (1997) as cited in Rost (2002)). When reporting findings from the use of metacognitive instruction in listening with listening journal incorporated Goh and Taib (2006) reports that “there was strong indication that metacognitive instruction had contributed to the pupils’ improvement in two sets of listening scores”. Instead of viewing the finding as invalid, the researcher still follows his conclusion. The validity of the finding was bound by space and time in which the research was done. The researcher seeks no generalization of the findings.

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Instead, it was a description of the effect to the corresponding participants being studied, which as noted, limited in number and scope.

One possible cause of the neutral effect is at the listening journal. It may be the form or manner. Either case may cause the lack of strength in the instrument to elicit participants’ metacognitive knowledge. However, this possibility is not counted in this study because previous research (Fujiwara (1990) as cited in Rost (2002); Goh and Taib (2006)) reported positive results of the strength of reflection journal to elicit participants’ metacognitive knowledge. Moreover, the form and manner of the listening journal adapted in this study follows those of previous research.

Another possible cause is at the participants’ part. Chances are that participants were not honest. Honesty in this case refers to full willingness of the participant to exert their best effort to deeply reflect on their learning. It may be due to mere reluctance in doing the act of writing or to different learning styles which affect dislike to writing. This latter cause is discussed as other findings which may limit the use of listening journal in the next section.

2. The Effect of Writing Listening Journal on Participants’ Learning Autonomy

As reviewed in Chapter 2, autonomy is a continuum. Its starting point is Learner’s Self Awareness. The second checkpoint is Self Direction. The third, and the only one with its own cycle, is Self Regulation. Self Regulation is maintained through Self Monitor, Self Assessment and Self Management. This section reports the points on which listening journal had succeed in positioning each participant in the learning autonomy continuum.

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a. Self-Awareness

Despite various depths of the Listening Journal and its neutral effect to participants’ listening comprehension skills, it is obvious that participants were aware of the processing strategy they were using. Although not all strategies they possessed were written in details and procedurally in their Listening Journal, the fact that some of the strategies were actually poured into their reflection is unmistakably factual. The researcher, for this reason, concludes that Listening Journal has made the participant self-aware of the listening process which they experienced.

b. Self-Direction

Willingness is important to enhance Self-Direction in learning. If there was willingness on the side of the participants, it was almost clear that those participants were self directed. Willingness constitutes motivation and confidence, which may be visible from participants’ self-acceptance and planfulness. Therefore, finding these traits in the participants would help determine their position in the Self Direction.

Through observation it is true that, among others, Participant No.1 was the most reluctant in writing the Listening Journal. There were no clear-cut expressions in his Listening Journal which indicate willingness to improve his listening skills. Indeed, he was the most confident in believing that he would succeed understanding the text fully and doing the task perfectly.

There was, therefore, no sign that he was Self Directed. This does not mean, however, that he was nowhere near that point. For the mean time, the researcher does not conclude that the participant was not self directed, the reason of which would be discussed later on.

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From the Listening Journal, it is evident that Participant No.2 was willing to improve her listening skills. Such evidences were found through her writing expressing her disappointment about her progress and how she did on the task. From the Journal, she seemed to have the intention to improve herself, showing the willingness to learn. Repeatedly did she write on the need of more practice on her part.

Participant No.2, therefore, possessed the necessary trait to be regarded as being in the point of Self Direction. Listening Journal has helped her to motivate herself, which eventually directed her to make progress and improvement in her listening capacity. The motivation to change for the better had driven her to act accordingly.

Through observation, it could be seen that Participant No.2 did direct herself to practice listening at home. She had started to practice listening using the CD of compiled listening materials. Table 4.5 confirms the fact that Participant No.2 did not start listening to the CD until at least the fifth meeting of the program, which may positively mean that the activity has arouse self direction in herself. (See Appendix E).

Events Source Participant No.2 has started listening to Field Note Meeting 6

the CD of listening practice from the researcher

Table 4.5 Evidence of Self Direction

Participant No.3 often expressed her confidence by expressing her feelings towards English. She also wrote on her satisfaction. This way, the reflection

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No.3 (It depends on the situation and condition)

Researcher Sehari-harinya, suka nyatet, nulis diary nggak? (In daily basis, do you keep a diary?)

Participant Iya, tapi tergantung, yang berkesan tok. Tergantung mood sih, kalau No.3 misalnya lagi nggak males ya nulis.

(I do, but only if there is special impression. It depends on the mood actually, if I happened to be not lazy, I write)

Researcher Mengapa, menurut Anda, jurnal refleksi ini terasa monoton? (Why do you think writing the journal is monotonous)

Participant Soalnya soalnya itu itu terus, nggak ada variasinya. Pertanyaannya No.3 sama terus jadi masa jawabannya beda.

(Because the questions remain the same; no variation. How can I answer differently on same-old questions?)

Researcher Bagaimana refleksi-jurnal membantu Anda Memahami diri sendiri? Dalam segi apa?

(How does writing the journal help you understand yourself? In what way?)

Participant Namanya juga refleksi kan. Kan kita bisa mengukur sampai dimana No.3 kita, dari yang memuaskan, dari yang mengecewakan, kalau sempet

kan nanti jadi belajar gitu.

(It is a reflection, so we can measure how far are we, from my satisfaction, from my disappointment, and if I have time sure I will learn more right?)

Researcher Bagaimana refleksi-jurnal membantu Anda Mendorong diri Anda untuk meningkatkan kemampuan listening Anda?

(How does writing the journal encourage you to improve your listening capacity?)

Participant Kalau misalnya jawabannya mengecewakannya banyak terus kan, nanti jadi malu kan, jadi pinginnya suatu waktu nanti nggak

(2)

No.3 mengecewakan lagi

(Say, for instance, my answer on what I am disappointed for are always abundant, I will be ashamed myself right? That way I can hope not to be disappointed anymore)

(3)

Interview.8 Participant No.1

05 May 2007

Researcher Seberapa penting suara background untuk memahami isi listening? (How important is background to understand the listening text?)

Participant Tergantung. Listeningnya yang bagaimana, kalau peranan background No.1 itu cuma buat listening itu membosankan atau tidak, tapi kalau

konsentrasinya lebih baik backgroundnya tidak terlalu ditonjolkan. (It depends. What kind of listening, the role of background is just to make the listening boring or not, but for better concentration, it is better if background is not emphasized)

Researcher Seberapa penting mengetahui judul sebuah teks listening dalam memahami isi listening?

(How important is it to know the title of a listening text in helping understand the listening?)

Participant Setidaknya kan kita punya bayangan, kalau judulnya beda sama yang No.1 kita dengarkan kan aneh nanti.

(At least we have a big picture, if the title is different from what we listen to later, it sure will be weird, won’t it?)

Researcher Seberapa penting pertanyaan yang diajukan dalam menuntun pada pemahaman yang lebih sepenuhnya?

(How important is the questions posed in guiding you to understand the listening more fully?)

Participant Ya kan kita kalau tau pertanyaannya dahulu kan jadi kita tau poin mana No.1 yang kita perlu dengarkan. Jadi kalau nggak ditanyakan nggak usah

didengar.

(Well, if we already know the questions in advance, we would know which points we need to listen to. So if it is not questioned, it is not important to listen to.)

Researcher Kalau nggak ada pertanyaannya gimana? (What if there is no question?)

Participant Ya berarti kita harus kerja ekstra, semuanya harus didengerin. Kalau No.1 ada pilihannya, kita tetap bisa membayangkan, jadi ada clue juga.

(4)

(it would mean we have extra work to do, we should listen to everything in the passage. If we have the options, we still can picture it, so still it is a clue)

Researcher Mana yang lebih penting, detail atau garis besar? Mengapa? (which one is more important, details or gist? Why?)

Participant Tergantung, nanti pertanyaanya mau, kalau pertanyaanya gimana, No.1 kalau pertanyaannya pendek-pendek saja, kalau pertanyaannya nggak

membutuhkan yang detail ya gimana lagi.

Kalau fill in the blanks, ya garis besarnya aja. Kadang kronologi juga penting.

(it depends, if the questions are short ones, if the questions requires details, than inescapably I have to listen to the details. If it is filling in the blanks, gist is enough. Sometimes chronology is also important)

Researcher Seberapa penting prediksi/ tebakan/ guessing dalam memahami isi listening?

(How important is prediction/ gueesing in understanding a listening text?)

Participant Kalau udah dikasih judulnya, kan dari pengalaman kita dah punya No.1 topik bayangan di kepala. Kalau ditengah-tengah listening, pikiran selantjutnya pasti begini, pastinya kan ke lingkup itu aja, nggak bakalan keluar kan, jadi akhir ceritanya gimana ya udah tahu.

(If the title is known, from experience we would have the picture in our head. In the middle of the listening, our mind would tell what comes next, surely around the context, so the end of the story would be figured out this way)

Researcher Mana yang lebih penting, function words atau content words? Mengapa?

(which one is more important, function words or content words? Why?)

Participant Semua penting, kalau nggak dengerin salah satunya kan artinya juga No.1 nggak maksud. Jadi seimbang.

(Both are important, if we fail to listen to one of them, the meaning would be awkward. So, balanced)

(5)

Mengapa? Jelaskan!

(Are you confident with your listening capacity? Please explain why?) Participant Ya setidaknya kita tidak boleh meremehkan lah, pokoknya siaplah, No.1 yang penting nggak boleh minder, berusahalah kalau sudah dihadapi.

(Well at least we should not underestimare, just be ready, we should not think low, make the effort when you face it)

Researcher Apakah Anda dapat mengetahui bagian mana saja yang Anda mengerti dan bagian mana yang tidak mengerti?

(Can you tell when you understand the text and when you don’t?) Participant Mengerti, kalau nanti ketahuan mana yang nggak ngerti kan kecewa No.1 banget.

(I can. And if I find out which one I do not, I would be really dissapointed)

Researcher Apakah Anda pada dasarnya tidak suka menulis? Apakah Anda menulis buku harian?

(Do you basically hate to write? Do you keep a diary?) Participant Emang sedikit nulis, eksak eksak, sedikit aja..

No.1 _{(I do write a little, majoring exact science, just little writing)}

Researcher Mengapa, menurut Anda, jurnal refleksi ini terasa monoton? (Why do you think writing the journal is monotonous)

Participant Tentu, soale pertanyaannya sama aja. Tapi pada dasarnya kalau pada No.1 hari itu ada yang spesial nggak, kalau suasananya sama saja ya sama

aja.

(Sure, because the questions were just the same. But, basically it depends on whether there is something special that day or not, if the atmosphere is just the same then sure it is monotonous)

Researcher Bagaimana refleksi-jurnal membantu Anda Memahami diri sendiri? Dalam segi apa?

(How does writing the journal help you understand yourself? In what way?)

Participant Kalau soalnya susah, kalau yang mudah sama aja, kalau soalnya susah No.1 pasti banyak nulisnya.

(when the items are difficult, if they are easy, there would be no difference, if the items are difficult I will write a lot)

(6)

Researcher Bagaimana refleksi-jurnal membantu Anda Meningkatkan kemampuan listening? Mengapa demikian?

(How does writing the journal help you improve your listening?) Participant Ya, nggak ngefek lah

No.1 _{(I don’t think there is any relationship)}

Researcher Bagaimana refleksi-jurnal membantu Anda Mendorong diri Anda untuk meningkatkan kemampuan listening Anda?

(How does writing the journal encourage you to improve your listening capacity?)

Participant Kalau soalnya susah ya, jadi besoknya pasti ada motivasi tambahan No.1 untuk lebih baik lagi.

(Only when the questions are difficult, so there is motivation to be better the next day)

Researcher Apakah Anda sadar bahwa sebenarnya banyak strategi yang Anda miliki sewaktu mencoba memahami isi sebuah listening text, tetapi tidak semuanya Anda tuliskan pada reflection-journal Anda? Bagaimana pendapat Anda tentang hal ini?

(Do you realize that actually there are many strategies that you use to understand a listening text, but not all of them are written in the listening journal? What would you say about this?)

Participant Ya iya, karena personality saya membentuk saya sebagai orang yang No.1 menulis pendek-pendek, enak mengutarakan daripada menulis, toh

nanti walaupun ditulis penyampaiannya kurang gitu loh, daripada yang diutarakan.

(Well, since my personality shapes me to someone who write short points, I prefer saying to writing my thoughts. Even if I work on writing them, the delivery of ideas will lack of something, it is better to say it.)

The contribution of listening journal towards learner`s listening comprehension skills and learning autonomy.

’

’

THE C

CONTRIB

BUTION OF LIST

TENING J

JOURNA

AL TOWA

ARDS

LE

EARNERS

S’ LISTE

ENING CO

OMPREH

HENSION

N SKILL

LS

AND LE

EARNING

G AUTON

NOMY

“. . .pay attention to how you listen. . .”

Luke 8:18

For Jehovah God, Lord Jesus and my beloved Family,

who make me learn Luke 8:18

Parts

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Enhancing students` learning autonomy through the collaborative audio-journal project in listening comprehension III - USD Repository

Dukungan

Links

The contribution of listening journal towards learner`s listening comprehension skills and learning autonomy.

’

’

THE C

CONTRIB

BUTION OF LIST

TENING J

JOURNA

AL TOWA

ARDS

LE

EARNERS

S’ LISTE

ENING CO

OMPREH

HENSION

N SKILL

LS

AND LE

EARNING

G AUTON

NOMY

“. . .pay attention to how you listen. . .”

Luke 8:18

For Jehovah God, Lord Jesus and my beloved Family,

who make me learn Luke 8:18

Parts

Dokumen yang terkait

The Correlation between Listening Comprehension and Speaking Ability (A Correlational Study at the Third Semester of English Education Department Students of UIN Jakarta Academic Year 2013/2014)

The influence of computer assisted language learning on students' listening skill

The Effect of Using Decsriptive Video in Teaching Listening Comprehension

The Effect of Picture and Video on Students Listening Comprehension

The effect of fun listening android application (FLAP) on the listening comprehension of grade X students.

Listening materials for learning English skills through listening class.

THE EFFECTS OF VOCABULARY MASTERY AND LOGICAL REASONING TOWARDS STUDENT’S LISTENING SKILL

The Effect of Using Digital Storytelling on Students’ Reading Comprehension and Listening Comprehension

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF JIGSAW LISTENING AND COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS IN TEACHING LISTENING ON THE LISTENING ACHIEVEMENT OF GRADE X STUDENTS

Enhancing students` learning autonomy through the collaborative audio-journal project in listening comprehension III - USD Repository

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