IMPROVING STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILL THROUGH PODCASTING PROGRAM
By
Yudi Juniardi
yjuniardi@yahoo.com (Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University)
I. Introduction
Listening is one of language skills that for students still difficult to master. It can be seen from students’ achievement of TOEFL. Their scores in listening are still low if it compares to others skills such as reading comprehension and written expression.
In learning a language, listening is one skill that should be acquired at early stage before other skills such as speaking, reading and writing. After listening some one will learn to speak a word or sentence that he or she heard. In learning a foreign language, for instance English, learning listening is not only study the utterances or word that we heard but learners should learn the utterances that happened in real context or situational context
The explanation above is appropriate for Indonesia which applies CBC (Competency based curriculum) that more focus on how students acquire competencies for their future relating with their daily live. In CBC, CTL (contextual teaching and Learning) as an approach is applied as students should learn from real context or what they see and do in their daily live. However, still, the students’ ability in listening skill is low. They find difficulties in understanding native speeches or utterances, especially in daily activity context.
There are some steps to overcome this problem: firstly, increasing frequency of listening native speaker. Secondly, using multimedia can encourage, stimulate and motivate students in learning listening. last but not the lest, giving contextual and situational sources of learning. material.
To overcome the problem above, applying multimedia can be one of solution as it has some advantages for improving students’ listening skill. By using multimedia students not only hear the sound but also can capture the pictures, moreover by using multimedia a teacher can download native voice as a source material for teaching listening. One of the programs that can be applied is podcast program.
Podcast is a program that can be applied in learning listening. By operating podcast it can operate music, news, TV program etc. podcast has two files audio (MP3) and video (MP4). These files can be down load free of charge fromwww.cnn.com. One of example can be down loaded from CNN is Larry King Live Podcast.
Another example, which is also interesting to be used as the teaching material, is taken from www.invisiblechildren.com . There are many videos which can be downloaded by subscribing to the website using iTunes.
These two examples are few of many others materials that can be freely downloaded from the internet by subscribing to the website using iTunes. The capacity of each file is varied (about 3 to 100 Mb) according to duration of the podcast. For instance, it takes at least one and a half hour to download a 15 minutes Larry King Live Podcast.
Relate to the explanation above, to overcome students difficulties in listening skill, a research has been done. The research is to investigate whether podcast can be a multimedia that can be applied to overcome students listening skill difficulties.
The aim of the research is .to find out the effectiveness of podcast in teaching listening. To investigate whether podcast can improve students listening skill. The design of the research is classroom action research. The research was conducted at third semester of English department students in academic year 2007-2008. They were having subject of listening III. The research involves three cycles to see the effectiveness of the media to improve students listening skill.
2. Literature review
Listening
Listening, like reading comprehension, is usually defined as a receptive skill comprising both a physical process and an interpretive, analytical process. (See Lundsteen 1979 for a discussion of listening.) However, this definition is often expanded to include critical listening skills (higher-order skills such as analysis and synthesis) and nonverbal listening (comprehending the meaning of tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and other nonverbal cues.)
Podcast
A podcast is not simply a link to an MP3 file that your customers can download off your Web page. While it is certainly possible for someone to listen to your recording on their iPod or other MP3 player, just putting the MP3 up does not make it a podcast.
A podcast is an MP3 or other audio file delivered off a Web site via an RSS feed. Podcast is derived from the terms "iPod" and "broadcast". It is attributed to the original creators of podcasting who used iPods to listen to their RSS broadcasts. Then Apple added an RSS reader to the iTunes software, making it simple for anyone with an iPod to subscribe and listen to podcasts. All you need to know is the URL of the RSS or XML.
Usage of podcasts
The term podcast means a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player. There are some reasons why we use podcast: firstly, the use & circulation of Podcasts is constantly increasing in popularity. Next, for the purpose of teaching languages, it is useful as a tool to activate the language, as students get to listen to the correct pronunciation of the words they have studied and then listen to examples of them in real life situations. Last but not the least; Podcasts can be listened to everywhere, not only on computers, but also, with digital portable music players (such as iPod or Zune.)
Podcasts Subscription
Not similar to radio, we can listen to MP3 files at any time. However, podcasts combine the ability to subscribe to a Web site and learn about any new additions immediately with the MP3 downloads. So, unlike radio, when you sign up for a podcast, you can listen to either older editions of the podcast, or you can wait until the author creates and uploads a new one. You then set up your iPod to check periodically for updates. When a new podcast recording is available, iTunes downloads automatically. Podcasts can update as often as the author has time to make a recording. For example, some of the podcasts I subscribe to only update once a month or so. While others update daily and sometimes more often than that.
Previous research
Research on podcast has been done before by some researchers. Based on previous research, Chinnery, G. M. (2007). Turkish language students were able to use their iPods for listening to authentic songs and other audio materials. While uses of iPods and, more recently, podcasting are on the rise, Chinnery voices concerns about possible poor audio quality, limited availability (although mobile labs are one suggestion for combating this problem), lack of a cultural context, and limited social interaction.
Then, according to Lee, B. (2007, February 19) Lecturers are providing recording versions of their lectures in podcast format, deliverable with iTunesU. Lee interviews one ESL professor, Bob Cole, who podcasted teacher-training conferences for his graduate CALL course. Cole reported that "It kind of raised the level of the classroom discussion having it recorded." In addition to increasing the level of class discussion, students say they are using podcasts to review lecture information they may have missed; these recorded lectures come in handy when it comes to test time. Podcasting is reportedly just the beginning for online learning at Monterey's Naval Postgraduate school, which is also looking into using scenario-based interactive games.
Last but not the least, Stanley, G. (2006). In his paper : Podcasting: Audio on the Internet Comes of Age discusses issues related to audio and video podcasting, as well as webcasting, that are of interest to language teachers thinking about integrating these new technologies into their classrooms. Stanley begins with a brief overview of what podcasting is and how podcasts work, and then discusses possibilities for using podcasts in the language classroom, including as a supplement to textbook materials, as a source for authentic listening materials, and as a way for students to gain information on specific aspects of the language, such as idiomatic expressions or grammatical constructions. Stanley recommends many places to search for podcasts, including Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle, Englishcaster, or the Internet TESL Journal's links.
Listening and Podcasting
Teaching listening by using podcast is possible to increase student listening comprehension as podcast provide students with authentic and contextual material and it can improve students’ knowledge because they share their podcast.
Podcasting offers an ideal tool for the creative expression of knowledge preferred by today's students, and provides an exciting way for students and educators to explore and discover listening content or material. Podcasts are audio or video files that are automatically delivered over a network, and then played back on any Mac, PC, or iPod. When students create a podcast for class, they not only learn the content in a creative way, they learn 21st-century communications skills at the same time.
Podcasting allows teachers to take their students beyond traditional assignments by allowing them to include voice recordings, photos, movies, and sound effects to share their knowledge. For example, students can draft and perform scripts as a writing assignment, create a visual progress report for an ongoing project, or submit a recorded version of a science presentation.
Podcasting is also a great way for teachers to deliver listening content to their students. They can distribute homework assignments, record book narration for beginning readers to read along with, or create foreign language lessons that students can review at their own pace.
3. Research Methodology
The research was conducted by implemented classroom action research. The aim of the research is to find out the effectiveness of podcast in teaching listening. Then also, it is to investigate whether or not podcast can improve students listening skill. The design of the research was classroom action research. The research was conducted at third semester of English department students in academic year 2007-2008. They were having subject of listening III. The research involves three cycles to see the effectiveness of the media to improve students listening skill.
First cycle
At first cycles, the planning was implemented podcasting as a media for teaching listening. The aim of this lesson is to see whether students can understand the short conversation or speech in podcast. At this stage two materials through podcast program were given to students. The duration of one podcast not more than one minute
Second cycle
At second cycles, the planning was implemented podcasting as a media for teaching listening. The aim of this lesson is to see whether students can understand the long conversation or speech in podcast. At this stage two podcast was given to students. The duration of podcast not more than three minutes
Third cycle
At third cycles, the planning was implemented podcasting as a media for teaching listening. The aim of this lesson s to see whether students can understand the long the conversation or speech in podcast and they can retell them. At this stage two podcast was given to students. The duration of podcast is not more than five minutes.
4. Discussion
Student Listening Comprehension On Short Conversation
At first cycles, students were given short podcast material. The duration of podcast material is not more than one minutes. At this cycles students seems busy with their PC. They try to operate podacst through ITune program. Most of them can operate it well. Simply, they only click the available material which provided by teacher.
At this cycle students were interested to new podcasting program which set up in learning listening. Students, previously, were given some instructions how to operate podcast program. Start from turning on the program until they are able to listen material. Some students still have difficulties how to turn on the program. They directly ask to teacher and some students ask to their friend who can run the program. When all students can operate the computer with podcast program, they seem busy listen to the material. The material is about environment which has one minute duration, however they can repeat many times.
To know the improvement of podacsting program in teaching listening students were given pretest and posttest. Before they have podcast material, they were given listening pre test on short conversation. The result of pre test, they get average score 64. It means that students ability on listening short comprehension still on average rate. Then student were given podcast material on listening. They seem motivated and eager to practice many times. Surprisingly, the result of post test was better than pretest. They got average score 87. It showed us that podcast media can increase students’ listening comprehension on short conversation
Students Listening Comprehension On Long Conversation
At the second and third cycle, students were given long conversations or speeches. The duration is about three to five minutes. Pre test was conducted previously, before they had podcast material. It is to see the effectiveness of podcast as media for teaching listening. The result of pretest, students got average score 65. Most of student are able to catch the main idea, however they still have problem with specific information, especially to find out about the number. After they had had podcast as media for teaching listening, they got improvement. Students’ average score was increasing 85. Most of students get score more than 70, and only a small number got 65. Similar to second cycle, at third cycle students listening comprehension score is also increasing. The average of pretest score is 64 and posttest score is 87.
5. Conclusion And Suggestion
Based on the result above, it can be concluded that podcast significantly effect students’ listening comprehension. There is improvement of students’ score after they had material through podcasting program. The improvement is not only on comprehension short conversation but also on long conversation.
Students’ motivation in learning listening is increasing. It can be seen from students’ activities. They repeat the material several times more than three times. They will stop when they have understood the material. Also, students’ interest, they like the material of listening as it is contextual and authentic material.
Podcasting program is helpful for teachers. Teacher only prepared some materials or download material which suitable for students’ level and goal of learning. The rest, teachers only give some instruction when it is needed.
Podcasting give some advantages for teaching listening. Podcasting allows us to download and/or subscribe to audio programs (in the form of MP3 files) which appropriate with our teaching goal. The material is then easily be transferred to a portable MP3 player. Finally, podcasts exist on a variety of topics, so teacher can choose which topic suitable for teaching listening. Teacher can download from several links such as school podcasting or language institution podcasting.
As suggestion, since podcasting can be implemented in teaching listening, firstly, teachers are suggested to use this media as an alternative media to improve students listening comprehension. Secondly, schools or institutions should provide their language laboratory with multimedia program connected to internet. Thus, it helps teachers and students to gain authentic and contextual material. Finally, it is suggested to other researchers to conducted further research on other skill such as the usage of podcasting in improving student’s communication skill.
References
Chinnery, G. M. (2007). Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning. Language Learning and Technology, 10(1), 9-16.
Goodwin-Jones, R. (2005). Emerging Technologies: Skype and Podcasting: Disruptive Technologies for Language Learning. Language Learning and Technology, 9(3), 9-12.
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/ict/podcasting.htm
Lee, B. (2007, February 19). Podcasts transforming campus life. The Monterey County Herald.
McCarty, S. (2005). Spoken Internet To Go: Popularization through Podcasting. JALT CALL, 1(2), 67-74
Stanley, G. (2006). Podcasting: Audio on the Internet Comes of Age. TESL-EJ, 9(4).
Thorne, S. and J. Payne (2005). Evolutionary Trajectories, Internetmediated Expression, and Language Education. CALICO, 22(3), 371-397.
Earp, Samantha. More Than Just the Internet: Technology for Language Teaching. ERIC Digest . http://www.ericdigests.org/1998-2/internet.htm
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