IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL OF CLASS X5 IN SMAN 2 YOGYAKARTA THROUGH CONTENT-FOCUS ASSESSMENT A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL OF CLASS X5 IN SMAN 2 YOGYAKARTA THROUGH CONTENT-FOCUS ASSESSMENT A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  By Agnesia Febriani

  Student Number: 071214064

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

  IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL OF CLASS X5 IN SMAN 2 YOGYAKARTA THROUGH CONTENT-FOCUS ASSESSMENT A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  By Agnesia Febriani

  Student Number: 071214064

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

  A Thesis on

  

IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL OF CLASS X5 IN SMAN 2

YOGYAKARTA THROUGH CONTENT-FOCUS ASSESSMENT

  By Agnesia Febriani

  Student Number: 071214064 Approved by

  Date Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd. July 25, 2011

  

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

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

  Yogyakarta, July 25, 2011 The Writer

  Agnesia Febriani 071214064

  

ABSTRACT

  Febriani, Agnesia. 2011. Improving Listening Skill of Class X5 in SMAN 2

  

Yogyakarta through Content-Focus Assessment . Yogyakarta: English Language

Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

  Listening is one important skill in learning English. However, students often find difficulty in listening class. They feel difficult in understanding what the native speakers said. Students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta also had problems in listening class. They found difficulty to catch the words spoken by the speakers and to understand the content of the recording. From researcher’s observations and the informal interview, it was found that they had difficulty in absorbing the content of the recording. They tended to focus on word per word, so they could not understand the whole content of the recording. It was because they used to do word-focus assessment. In this research, the researcher gave content- focus assessment as the solution to this problem.

  This research was conducted to improve students’ listening skill in class X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. The research method used in this research was classroom action research. The research participants were 32 students in class X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. The research instruments used were content-focus assessments, questionnaires, field notes, observation sheets, and interview.

  Content-focus assessment helped them to change their focus from word per word to the whole content of the recording. Bit by bit, their listening skill in understanding the content of the recording improved. Hence, the goal of listening class, which is students understand what they listen to, is also achieved. More than half of students passed the passing grade. The number of students who passed the passing grade increased. Moreover, more than half of students rewrote equals or more than 50% of important information from the recording. The number of students who rewrote equals or more than 50% of important information from the recording increased. It is concluded that content-focus assessment helped them in improving their listening skill.

  It is suggested that teachers use content-focus assessment to improve students ’ listening skill so that students achieve the goal of listening class.

  Content-focus assessment helps students to understand more deeply and improve their listening skill. Students are also suggested to improve their own listening skill by focusing on the whole content of the recording. In other words, the use of content-focus assessment in listening class is highly recommended.

  Keywords: listening skill, word-focus assessment, content-focus assessment

  

ABSTRAK

  Febriani, Agnesia. 2011. Improving Listening Skill of Class X5 in SMAN 2

  

Yogyakarta through Content-Focus Assessment . Yogyakarta: Program Studi

Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

  Listening adalah keterampilan yang penting dalam pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris. Namun, para siswa sering mengalami kesulitan dalam kelas listening.

  Siswa kelas X5 di SMAN 2 Yogyakarta juga mengalami hal serupa. Mereka merasa sulit saat mencerna kata-kata yang diucapkan pembicara dan saat berusaha memahami konten dari rekaman listening. Sesuai dengan hasil obervasi peneliti dan wawancara informal, para siswa mengalami kesulitan dalam memahami konten rekaman. Mereka cenderung fokus ke kata per kata sehingga mereka tidak dapat memahami konten keseluruhan rekaman listening. Hal tersebut dikarenakan mereka terbiasa dengan penilaian yang terfokus pada kata. Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti memberikan penilaian yang terfokus pada konten rekaman sebagai solusi untuk masalah ini.

  Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk meningkatkan keterampilan listening siswa kelas X5 di SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah penelitian tindakan kelas. Partisipan penelitian ini adalah 32 siswa kelas X5 di SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan yaitu penilaian yang terfokus pada konten, kuesioner, catatan lapangan, lembar observasi, dan wawancara.

  Penilaian yang terfokus pada konten membantu mengubah fokus mereka dari kata per kata ke keseluruhan konten rekaman. Sedikit demi sedikit kemampuan listening mereka meningkat. Jadi tujuan kelas listening, yakni siswa dapat mengerti apa yang mereka dengarkan, juga tercapai. Lebih dari setengah jumlah siswa mencapai Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal (KKM). Jumlah siswa yang mencapai KKM meningkat. Ditambah lagi, lebih dari setengah jumlah siswa menulis ulang sama dengan atau lebih dari 50% informasi penting dari rekaman. Jumlah siswa yang menulis sama dengan atau lebih dari 50% informasi penting dari rekaman juga meningkat. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa penilaian yang terfokus pada konten membantu dalam meningkatkan keterampilan listening mereka.

  Disarankan bagi para guru untuk menggunakan penilaian yang terfokus pada konten untuk meningkatkan keterampilan listening para siswa sehingga tujuan dari kelas listening juga tercapai. Penilaian yang terfokus pada konten membantu para siswa untuk memahami lebih dalam dan meningkatkan keterampilan listening mereka. Para siswa juga disarankan untuk meningkatkan keterampilan listening mereka dengan mengubah fokus pada keseluruhan konten rekaman. Dengan kata lain, penggunaan penilaian yang terfokus pada konten dalam kelas listening sangat direkomendasikan.

  

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

  Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Agnesia Febriani Nomor Mahasiswa : 071214064

  Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul : Improving Listening Skill of Class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta through Content- Focus Assessment beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

  Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal 24 Agustus 2011 Yang menyatakan

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I thank God because He has given the the best for me. He is everything for me. I realized that without Him, I could not finish this thesis. He is the One that gave me strength and capability in doing this thesis.

  I am very much grateful to my sponsor, Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd. for the time in reading my thesis, checking it, and giving me suggestions and encouragement. I also thank Drs. J.B. Gunawan, M.A. as the academic counselor in my class. His patience and encouragement are very sincere. My thankfulness also goes to all lecturers for their knowledge and life shared to me. All of the lessons and value they gave to me are very precious.

  I give my gratitude to my Dad and Mom for the support and encouragement. Both of them are the motivation for me. I also thank my grandmother for the sincere prayer. My thankfulness goes to my aunt, Mrs. Mulyani, who supported me since the beginning of the semester. I pray that God will give her and her family abundance of blessings.

  I am very grateful to the following persons for their help: Daniel Yanuar Rusli, Erastus Rico Septian, Julianto, and Widya Beatrix Simorangkir. My gratefulness is also for all my friends who support and motivate me all the time.

  Lastly, I thank those who helped me directly or indirectly.

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Page TITLE PAGE ............................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGES .................................................................................. ii STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ........................................... iv ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ v

  

ABSTRAK .................................................................................................... vi

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PUBLIKASI ....................................................... vii

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................ viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................ ix LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................... xi LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................... xii LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................. xiii

  CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

  1 A. Research Background ..................................................... 1 B.

  Problem Formulation ...................................................... 3 C. Problem Limitation ......................................................... 4 D.

  Research Objective ......................................................... 4 E. Research Benefits ........................................................... 4 F. Definition of Terms ........................................................ 5

  CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

  7 A. Theoretical Description ................................................... 7

  1. Listening ........................................................................... 7

  a. Definition of Listening ..................................................... 7

  b. Kinds of Listening ............................................................ 8

  c. Views in Learning Listening ............................................ 8

  2. Assessment ....................................................................... 8

  b. The Aim of Assessment ................................................... 9

  c. Assessment Focusing on Words ....................................... 9

  d. Assessment Focusing on the Content ............................... 9

  3. Assessing Listening .......................................................... 10

  B. Theoretical Framework .................................................... 10

  CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY

  13 A. Research Method ............................................................ 13 B.

  Research Participants ...................................................... 14 C. Research Instruments ...................................................... 15 D.

  Data Gathering Technique .............................................. 17 E. Data Analysis Technique ................................................ 18 F. Research Procedure ........................................................ 19

  CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

  21 A. Research Findings in the First Cycle .............................. 21 B. Research Findings in the Second Cycle .......................... 30 C.

  The Improvement of Research Findings in the First and Second Cycle .................................................................. 42

  CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

  49 A. Conclusions .................................................................... 49 B.

  Suggestions ..................................................................... 49 REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 51 APPENDICES .............................................................................................. 53

  

LIST OF TABLES

  Table Page

  4.1 Students’ Scores in the First Cycle ...................................................... 23

  4.2 The Result o f Students’ Rewritings in the First Cycle ........................ 25

  4.3 Students’ Scores in the Second Cycle .................................................. 32

  4.4 The Result of Students’ Rewritings in the Second Cycle .................... 33

  4.5 The Result of the Questionnaire Two .................................................. 34

  4.6 Students’ Scores in Cycle One and Two ............................................. 43

  4.7 The Result of Students’ Rewritings in Cycle One and Two ............... 45

  

LIST OF FIGURES

  Figure Page

  4.1 The Improvement of Students’ Scores ................................................. 44

  4.2 The Improvement of Students’ Rewritings .......................................... 47

  

LIST OF APPENDICES

  Appendix 1 : Letters of Permission ................................................................... 54 Appendix 2 : Samples of the Assessments ....................................................... 57 Appendix 3 : Samples of Questionnaire 1 .......................................................... 76 Appendix 4 : Samples of Questionnaire 2 .......................................................... 79 Appendix 5 : Lesson Plans ................................................................................. 82 Appendix 6 : The Observation Sheets ................................................................ 89 Appendix 7 : The Interview Transcript .............................................................. 92

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the researcher presents the research background, the

  problem formulation, the problem limitation, the research objective, the research benefits, and the definiton of terms in the research.

A. Research Background

  Listening is one of the four skills learnt in English subject. Since English is a foreign language for Indonesian learners, English is often assumed as a difficult subject to learn. English learners in Indonesia are not accustomed to English, especially the pronunciation. The way to pronounce letters and words in Indonesian language is very different from the way to pronounce letters and words in English.

  Similar to most English learners in Indonesia, students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta had difficulty in mastering listening skill. As what the researcher observed, the students found difficulty in understanding the content of the recording. The students felt difficult in understanding the exact words pronounced in the recording. They looked confused and tried to find the answers by looking at other friends‟ answers.

  From the observation, the students focused on the words that they had to answer. Most of them did not pay attention to all information in the recording, when the listening recording was about recount and actually something funny happened there, only few students understood the content and laughed. The rest just asked their friends what made them laugh or still focused on the words they had to answer. It changed the goal of listening class itself. Gary Buck (2001: 2) stated, “The listener interprets that literal meaning in terms of the communicative situation to understand what the speaker means.” Therefore, the important thing in listening class is to understand what the students listen to.

  Moreover, based on the basic competence of listening skill number 3.1. in School-Based Curriculum (2006), students are able to respond to the meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (to socialize) formally and informally by using various verbal language accurately, fluently, and acceptably in daily life context. When students need to respond, it means that thay have to understand what they need to respond first. Therefore, content-focus assessment helps them to achieve the indicators and the learning goal.

  To ensure the problem, the researcher conducted an informal interview with 32 students and the result of the interview was that twenty out of 32 students said that the most difficult skill to master was listening skill. From the result of the observation and the interview, the researcher analyzed that the students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta found difficulty in understanding the whole content of the recording. They tend to focus on word per word.

  Finding the problem faced by the students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta related to listening skill, the researcher would like to conduct a recording by content-focus assessment. Grant Wiggins (1998: 7) explained the purpose of assessment as the tools to see students‟ improvement in the process of learning. Therefore, he emphasizes the assessment which is not merely easy to make as the tool to see students‟ final achievement. Wiggins (1998: 7) stated, “We sacrifice our aims and our children‟s intellectual needs when we test what is easy to test rather than the complex and rich tasks that we value in our classrooms and that are at the heart of our curriculum.” Making word-focus assessment in listening class is easier than making content-focus assessment because teachers just need to take out words from the complete dialogue. It makes students read the text given and only focus on listening to the answers they have to fill in. However, in making content-focus assessment, teachers need to understand the whole content of the recording first. Then, they list guiding questions related to the recording so that students are able to grasp the text spoken in the recording. It needs a little hard work from the teacher, but it helps students listen to the whole recording and understand the content of the recording.

  Content-focus assessment is seen as the solution for students so that they do not focus on word per word. Content-focus assessment helps students to grasp and to understand the whole content of the recording. The focus of content-focus assessment is not word per word. Students are guided to know and to understand the whole content of the recording. By looking at this kind of assessment, the researcher chose content focus assessment as the way to solve the problem of students in class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. The students felt difficult in of the recording. By content focus assessment, the students would be guided to understand and to know the context of the recording so that they would know the words used in the recording. Hence, their listening skill would improve through the use of content focus assessment.

  B. Problem Formulation

  Based on the research background, the problem formulation in this research is: How does content-focus assessment improve students‟ listening skill in class

• X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta academic year 2010/2011?

  C. Problem Limitation

  The research is limited to the way in improving listening skill of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta academic year 2010/2011. Although in listening class other skills are also needed, in this research the researcher will only focus on their improvement in understanding the whole content of the recording. The problem of the students in class X5 was on the difficulty in identifying the words used in the recording, so the researcher used content-focus assessment to improve their listening skill in understanding the whole content so that they knew the words used in the recording.

  D. Research Objective students‟ listening skill in class X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta academic year 2010/2011.

  E. Research Benefits

  The benefit of the research is for the students in class X5 themselves so that they can improve their listening skill. Moreover, the English teacher of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta also obtains benefits. She can apply the solution in listening class whose problem is similar to the problem in class X5. Other English teachers can also apply the solution in their classes.

  F. Definition of Terms

  To have unambiguous terms and to have the same perception, in this part the researcher defined the terms of listening skill, content-focus assessment, and students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta.

1. Listening skill

  Listening skill is an important skill in learning English. Learning language needs mastery in listening skill because people learn from what they hear.

  Naizhao Guo and Robin Wills quoted Thomlison ‟s (1984: 2), “Listening includes

  „active listening,‟ which goes beyond comprehending as understanding the message content, to comprehension as an act of empathetic understanding of the speaker.” Therefore, the comprehension seen as the mastery of listening skill is the mastery of the message content. Related to the research, the researcher would year 2010/2011 in mastering the message content through the use of content-focus assessment.

  2. Content-focus assessment The second term defined is content-focus assessment. The content-focus assessment is the assessment in listening class in which the focus is the whole content of the recording. H. Douglas Brown (2004: 119) explained that through understanding the content of the message and the context of it, we could determine the words used in the text. The listener needs to see the context of the recording so that the message of the recording can be caught. Looking at the purpose and the form of it, the researcher used content-focus assessment to help and to guide students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta to understand the context and the content of the recording.

  3. Students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta SMAN 2 Yogyakarta is located in Bener street, Tegalrejo, Yogyakarta.

  The students of class X5 in this school academic year 2010/2011 consists of 32 students. Seventeen of them were girls and fifteen of them were boys. They were in the odd semester academic year 2010/2011.

  The students in class X5 were actually active. They responded the teacher well. Nevertheless, they still found difficulty when they did listening exercises.

  They looked confused and tried to find the answers from other friends. Moreover, most of them focused on the words they had to fill in, so that they did not catch the whole content of the recording.

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE In this chapter, the researcher presented the theoretical description and theoretical framework of this research. A. Theoretical Description There are three main topics which are discussed here. The first one is

  about listening, the second one is assessment, and the third one is assessing listening.

  1. Listening In this part, the researcher presented the definiton and kinds of listening, and views in learning listening.

  a. Definition of Listening Rivers (1981: 136) explained that listening is one of the linguistic competences which is very important in the language performance to communicate with each other. Communication does not only speak to each other, but also listens to each other. Moreover, Rivers (1981: 1

  36) stated, “Through the normal course of a day, listening is used nearly twice as much as speaking and four to five times as much as reading and writing.” It shows that listening comprehension is very important because listening is done even much more than speaking, reading, and writing. b. Kinds of Listening Gary Buck (2001: 1) explained different types of knowledge in listening.

  The first one is linguistic knowledge and the second one is non-linguistic knowledge. He defines linguistic knowledge as knowledge which focuses on phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, and discourse structure. Non-linguistic knowledge is defined as knowledge related to topic, context, and general knowledge.

  c. Views in Learning Listening Related to different types of knowledge in listening, the view in learning listening skill is also different. They are bottom-up view and top-down view.

  Buck (2001: 2) explained that bottom-up view focused on the linguistic aspect first. Hence, the linguistic aspect, such as definition of words, is the focus first, then later the learning process can go up to the higher stage. However, top-down view focuses on the understanding of the content. It focuses on the general understanding from the topic first, then general information in the recording, then goes to more specific information.

  2. Assessment There are four points presented here. They are the definition and aim of assessment, assessment focusing on words and assessment focusing on the content.

  a. Definition of Assessment which measures some aspect of a student’s education. Therefore, it does not only relate to test. Assessment can be anything which measures students’ comprehension.

  b. The Aim of Assessment R.N. Deale (1975: 13) explained that the aim of assessment was to discover the mastery of the topic from the students, so that they could continue to the next level. Hence, the assessment is used to measure the comprehension of the students so that the teacher knows whether they have understood and mastered the topic or not. After students pass one level, then they may continue to the next level.

  c. Assessment Focusing on Words Gary Buck (2001: 2) explained that in assessment which focused on words, students needed to identify individual words. Moreover, students analyzed the linguistic aspects, such as phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, and discourse structure. Therefore, the students’ focus is word per word. It is the assessment which teachers usually use in listening class.

  d. Assessment Focusing on the Content Theresa Butori (2010: 2) stated, “Assessment planning may focus content on topics that have significant impact on and linkages to student learning.” The

  National Strategies (2011: 3) explained, “Progression in response is characterized in terms of pupils’ increasing depth of comprehension and the quality of their interaction with speakers and other audio sources.” The assessment focusing on comprehension can be measured by content-focus assessment.

3. Assessing Listening

  Assessing listening is different from assessing other skills. H. Douglas Brown (2004: 120) explained four types of listening performance that can be assessed in listening class. Here are the four types of listening performances.

• This performance assesses students to listen for perception of the components, such as phonemes, words, intonation, etc).

  Intensive

• This performance assesses students to listen to a relatively short stretch of language, such as a greeting, question, command, comprehension check, etc.

  Responsive

• This performance assesses students to process stretches of discourse to scan for certain information.
• Extensive This performance assesses students to develop a top-down, global understanding of spoken language.

  Selective

B. Theoretical Framework

  In this part the researcher would relate the theory with this research. As what Rivers (1981) defined, this research was conducted because of the importance of listening. Listening is used more than speaking even in the need listening skill to understand.

  From the explanation of Gary Buck (2001) about different types of knowledge in listening, this research would use the second type, i.e. non-linguistic knowledge. The researcher looked into the participants’ understanding on the information from the recording. Therefore, other things related to linguistic knowledge would not be the focus in this research.

  The students’ problem was about the focus in listening class. Students focused more on word per word so that they could not understand the whole content of the recording that they heard. The focus of listening from word per word should be changed into focusing to the whole content of the recording.

  This research used top-down view. The information was understood from the top. The students understood the recording from the topic first. Then they went to more detailed information. The focus was that students understood what they heard.

  The researcher used content-focus assessment to replace word-focus assessment which teachers usually used in listening class. It aims to achieve the objective of this research, which is changing s tudents’ focus from word per word to the content. As what Theresa Butori (2010) explained about the significance impact from content-focus assessment, the researcher found that content-focus assessment could be the solution to research participants’ problem. It would change students’ focus to the content, so that the goal of listening itself would be achieved. research is the extensive one. The researcher limited the research to see stud ents’ perfomance related to their understanding of the spoken language from the recording. Therefore, the researcher used content-focus assessment to improve this performance.

  The materials used in this research were chosen based on the topic listed in the syllabus of English subject. From the topic listed, the researcher looked for the recordings in the online website. Therefore, the materials used were related to the curriculum.

  The National Strategies explanation about deeper comprehension that students can obtain is another advantage of content- focus assessment. Students’ understanding of the recording could be measured when they did content-focus assessment. Hence, students’ listening skill would also improve, from listening and focusing on word per word to listening and focusing on the whole content of the recording. That improvement showed the increase of students’ listening skill.

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the researcher presents the research method, research

  participants, research instruments, data gathering technique, data anaysis technique, and research procedure.

A. Research Method

  The methodology used in this research is Classroom Action Research (CAR). Classroom Action Research is a method to improve the teaching learning process in the classroom. Gwynn Mettetal (2003: 5) defined, “CAR is a way for instructors to discover what works best in their own classroom situation, thus allowing informed decisions about teaching.” It is related to the objective of this research, which is to improve students’ listening skill in class X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta.

  In CAR, the research is started with question. Then, the researcher needed to analyze the problem and to find a solution, what works best to solve the problem. This research was conducted to see the problem in class X5 and to solve it.

  According to Gwynn Mettetal (2003: 6), there are seven steps in CAR. Step 1: The researcher identified the problem occurring in the classroom and then formed a problem formulation. The problem was found by observing the activity Step 2: After identifying a question, the researcher looked for information related to the research from the literature.

  Step 3: From the literature review, the researcher planned a research strategy, everything that would be conducted in the research.

  Step 4: After a fixed plan was constructed, the researcher conducted the plan and started collecting the data based on the plan.

  Step 5: The next step after collecting data was analyzing data. In this step, the researcher analyzed the data to know the result.

  Step 6: After analyzing the data and finding the result, the researcher took action based on the result. If the result showed that the solution improved the teaching learning process, the researcher would do the same solution for the second cycle. If the result showed that the solution did not improve the teaching learning process, the researcher would improve the solution by analyzing more what to improve. Step 7: The last cycle was sharing the findings in the form of thesis.

  Those were the steps which were conducted by the researcher to improve students’ listening skill in class X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta.

B. Research Participants

  The participants in this research were students of class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. The number of the students was 32 students. Seventeen of them were girls and fifteen of them were boys. They were in the odd semester academic year

  The students in class X5 were actually active. Nevertheless, they still found difficulty when they did listening exercises. Therefore, the researcher chose this class to improve students’ listening skill.

C. Research Instruments

  The research instruments would be divided into two parts, the research instruments before the implementation and the research instruments during the implementation.

1. The Research Instruments before the Implementation

  The instruments used before the implementation are field notes, informal interview, and word-focus assessment.

  a. Field Notes Field notes aimed to see the students’ condition while they were learning

  English before the research was going on. It helped the researcher analyze students’ problem.

  b. Informal Interview Informal interview aimed to know more students’ problems from their own opinion. It ensured the researcher about the problems faced by the students.

  Informal interview was conducted to all students in class X5 of SMAN 2 Yogyakarta.

  c. Word-Focus Assessment Word-focus assessment was the base-line of the research. It was taken class. Therefore, the researcher constructed word-focus assessment to obtain the base-line from the students.

2. The Research Instruments during the Implementation

  The research instruments used during the implementation are content- focus assessment, observation sheet, questionnaire, field notes, and semi- structured interview.

  a. Content-Focus Assessment Content- focus assessment aimed to improve students’ listening skill. It helped and guided students to grasp the information in the recording.

  b. Observation Sheet The observation sheet aimed to have feedback from the teaching learning process in the classroom. The English teacher of class X5 was the observer in this research. Besides, the researcher was also the observer of this research.

  c. Questionnaires The researcher gave two questionnaires to 32 students of class X5 in

  SMAN 2 Yogyakarta. Questionnaire One was given in the first cycle. It was an open questionnaire. Questionnaire Two was given in the second cycle. These questionnaires aimed to obtain the information from the students and to deepen the result of the research. Hence, the proof of the research success was not only based on the scores of the assessments, but also based on students’ opinions. The questionnaires guided students to realize the type of assessment that helped them d. Field Notes Field notes aimed to know everything happening in the classroom during the teaching learning process. The field notes were based on what the researcher saw in the classroom.

  e. Semi-Structured Interview The semi-structured interview aimed to check whether students realized the improvement in their listening skill. There were six open-ended questions in the interview. The researcher interviewed eleven participants to know deeper about what they felt and realized during the research. The researcher chose the participants randomly. There was no certain reason in choosing the participants to interview.

D. Data Gathering Technique The researcher used the assessments to obtain the scores from the students.

  The researcher would measure the improvements from the students meeting by meeting. It aimed to answer whether students have any improvement from the assessments used.

  The second instrument, observation sheet, was used to know what was going on during the class and to obtain feedback so that the researcher could improve the teaching learning activity in the following meeting. The researcher gave the observation sheet to the English teacher of class X5 to have feedback from her. The observation sheet format was the same in every cycle. The assessment used by the researcher, and also the situation during the class.

  The researcher used questionnaires to obtain information from the students about the use of content-focus assessment. The questionnaires would be given to 32 students of class X5. Then, from the students’ answers, the researcher would analyze the information. From the analysis, the result would show whether the students realized the improvement in their listening skill after they had content- focus assessment.

  The researcher used the field notes to describe what happened in the classroom during the teaching learning process. These field notes were used to ensure the improvement of students not only by looking at their result from the assessments, but also by observing their responses during the class.

  The interview was conducted to eleven participants. The participants were chosen randomly, so that it would be fairer. From the interview, the researcher obtained more information about what students achieved, felt, and realized after they had content-focus assessment in listening class.

E. Data Analysis Technique

  The first instrument was the content-focus assessment. The researcher distributed the assessments on October 18, 2010 and November 1, 2010. The researcher chose that date because the students had just finished their mid-term test. The next meeting was on November 1, 2010. The problem occurring on those dates was that there was one student who was absent. However, the researcher not influence the result.

  From the assessments, the researcher would check the answers and list the scores of all students. Then the researcher would write the five scores in the form of table to see the improvement of the students. Then the researcher would measure the percentage of the students who improved in their listening skill.

  From the assessment of rewriting, the researcher would list the amount of the information written by the students. Then, the researcher would compare it with the amount of the whole information in the recording. Then, the researcher would make percentage of it. From the five assessments, the researcher would write the five percentages into a table to see the improvement of the students.

  The research would be ended when the criteria of success were reached. There were four criteria of success in this research.

• SMAN 2 Yogyakarta, which is 71.

  More than half of students passed the passing grade of English subject in

  The number of students who passed the passing grade increased.

• More than half of students rewrote equal or more than 50% of important
• information from the recording.
• information from the recording increased.

  The number of students who rewrote equal or more than 50% of important

F. Research Procedure There are seven steps which were conducted by the researcher.

  The researcher observed class X5 in SMAN 2 Yogyakarta on July 19th, July 20th, and July 26th, 2010. The researcher was non-participant in these observations.

  2. Planning the research After observing and analyzing the result of the observations, the researcher planned the research strategy which would be conducted.

  3. Asking permission from Dinas Perijinan After planning the research, the researcher asked permission from Dinas Perijinan on September 6, 2010.

  4. Preparing the instruments Then, the researcher prepared all instruments which would be used in the research.

  5. Collecting the data The researcher collected the data on October 18, 2010 and on November 1,

  2010. The researcher taught the class and collected the data by distributing the assessments and the questionnaire and also conducting interview.

  6. Analyzing the data The next step was analyzing the data. From the data collected, the researcher analyzed and interpreted them to obtain the result.

  7. Reporting After analyzing the data and obtaining the result of the research, the researcher wrote a report about the research.

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The research was conducted in two cycles. They were conducted on October 18, 2010 and November 1, 2010. In both cycles, some students did not

  join the class. One student was absent in the first cycle because she was sick. In the second cycle, two students did not join the class because they joined a competition at school. However, the students who were absent did not influence the result of the research because the researcher analyzed the data from those who attended the class. The researcher presented the research findings and discussion in three parts, research findings in the first cycle, research findings in the second cycle, and the improvement of research findings in the first and second cycles.

A. Research Findings in the First Cycle

  In the first cycle, the researcher chose a topic of expressing happiness. At the beginning of the class, the students were very busy with their own activities. It was because in the previous period, there was no teacher who taught in that class. The researcher asked their attention first. However, after several minutes, a few students were still busy with themselves.

  The researcher showed a picture of ketupat and asked about their feeling when they celebrated Idul Fitri. Most students answered the question actively.

  Then, the researcher asked them about the expressions they used in expressing some expressions in expressing feeling, the researcher wrote the expressions on the whiteboard. The students were very enthusiastic and active in answering the questions.