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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
A. The Definition Of Interest
To see the success of the process of teaching-learning, all factors relating to
teachers and students should be considered. Students’ behavior when following the
learning process will indicate the students’ interest in lessons. There are some
definitions of interest described as follow;
According to M. Alisuf Sabri’s, Interest is the tendency to always pay attention
and remember things continually, this interest is closely related to feelings of
pleasure, because it can be said that interest happens because of his love for
something, people who are interested in something means that he is happy to
something1.
According to Ahmad D. Marimba, interest is the tendency of people to
something because they feel there is an interest in something 2.
According to Drs. Mahfudh Shalahuddin, Interest is a concern that contains
elements of feeling. With such interest, it can motivate the students to be active in a
job or their activity3.
According to Crow and Crow, interest can be associated with the movement
that encourages us feel attracted to people, objects, activities or experiences that can
be effectively stimulated by the activity itself4.
1
M. Alisuf Sabri, Psikologi Pendidikan, (Jakarta: Pedoman Ilmu Jaya, 1995), Cet. Ke-11, 84.
Muhibbin Syah, Psykologi Pendidikan Dengan Pendekatan Baru, (Bandung: PT. Remaja Rosdakarya,
2001), cet ke-6, 136
3
Mahfudh Shahuddin, Pengantar Psikologi Pendidikan, (Surabaya: Bina Ilmu, 1990), Cet. Ke-1, 95
2
10
11
From the explanations above, it can be concluded that somebody will be
interested in an object if any intrinsic tendency or stimulus encourages him/her from
outside.
If a teacher wants to succeed in teaching and learning activities, he or she
should be able to provide a stimulus to the students to make them interested in
following the teaching-learning process. If students feel interested in learning, he
will be able to understand easily. On the contrary if the students do not have interest
in learning they will be forced to follow the lesson.
B. Aspects of Learning Interests
Hurlock said that interest is the result of experience or the learning process.
He further argued that the interest has two aspects5.
1. Cognitive aspects
This aspect is based on a concept developed by one of the fields related to
interest. Concepts that build the cognitive aspect are based on the experience and
what is learned from the environment.
2. Affective aspects
Affective aspect of this is a concept that builds cognitive concepts and
attitudes expressed in the activities or objects that create interest. This aspect has a
major role in motivate one's actions.
4
5
Abd. Rachman Abror, Psykologi Pendidikan, (Yogyakarta: PT. Tiara Wacana, 1993), Cet. Ke-4, 112
Hurlock, Psikologi Perkembangan, (Jakarta: Erlangga, 1990), 422
12
Based on the description, interest of learning listening on the students is
not innate, but interest is learned through the process of cognitive and affective
assessment of students which is stated in their attitude. In other words, if the
process of cognitive and affective assessments of one's object of interest is
positive, it will generate a positive attitude and be able to create interest.
C. Indicators of Learning Interests
In Cambridge Advanced learner’s dictionary indicator is something that
shows what a situation is like 6. Relation to student interest, the indicator is as a
monitoring tool that can provide clues to the direction of interest.
In general, student's interest in something will be expressed through activities
related to his/her interest, to know the indicators of interest can be seen by analyzing
the activities by individuals or a favorite object, because the interest is a learned
pattern that encourages individuals active in a particular activity7. Thus to analyze
interest in learning can be used several indicators of interest described as follows:
According Sukartini as quoted by Nurhidayat analysis of interest can be made
by the following matters: The desire to know or have something, objects or activities
that are favored, types of activities to attain the desirable, efforts to realize the desire
or pleasure in something8.
The opinion is consistent with what is said by Slameto that interest can be
expressed through statement indicating that the students like a thing than anything
6
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 2008, third edition, Cambridge University Press.
Nurhidayati, Skripsi: “Hubungan Antara Minat Dengan Prestasi Belajar Siswa Dalam Bidan Studi
Sejarah Kebudayaan Islam” (Jakarta: UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, 2006), 2
8
Nurhidayati, Skripsi: “Hubungan Antara Minat …2
7
13
else. Interest can also be manifested through participation in an activity. Students
who have an interest in certain subjects tend to give greater attention to the subject 9.
Both experts’ opinion can be concluded that the students’ interests in learning
can be seen from how their interest in doing their activity or when they enjoy and
participate in the process of learning.
The indicators of interest as mentioned above can be used as references to
understand the next students. Those interests include the desire to know something or
new something, as like the activities they like, the effort to participate in those
activities and so on10.
D. Factors that Affect Interest in Learning
One of sustaining factors to be successful in studying is interest, particularly
someone who has high interest. Interest does not present itself, but there are many
factors can affect interest.
According D.P. Tampubolon those factors are students' interest in learning
namely; motivation, learning, learning materials and teacher attitude, family, friend,
environment, aspiration, talent, hobby, mass media, facilities 11.
1. Motivation
Interest will be higher if students have higher motivation, whether from
internal or external factors, such as students who want to master listening skill, of
9
Drs. Slameto Belajar dan Factor-Faktor yang Mempengaruhinya, (Jakarta, pt Rineka Cipta, 1995),180.
ibid
11
D.P. Tampbolon, Mengembangkan Minat Membaca Pada Anak, (Bandung: Angkasa, 1993), Cet, Ke-1,
10
14
course they have to study listening, either by listening radio, tape recorders,
watching movies and soon.
2. Learning
Interest can be acquired through learning because students who initially
do not like a particular subject, will ultimately like to learn that subject. So,
interests will increase, and the students will be more active to learn the lesson.
Interest will arise from what is known and we can find something because of
learning12.
3. Learning Materials and Teacher Attitudes
Learning materials are one of the factors which may arouse and stimulate
the students’ interest in learning. Learning materials that attract students’ interest
will often be learned by the students. On the contrary, students will ignore the
lesson because of unattractive learning materials13.
Teachers are also one of the objects that can stimulate and arouse
students' interest in learning. Teachers who successfully build a willingness to
teach his students. It means that he has done the most important things to do to
his students14.
Students’ interest will increase because the teacher’ attitude. For example;
if the teacher has a good attitude, friendly, smart, discipline, and the students like
him so much, it is easier to make the students’ interest in one object because the
12
Singgih D.G. dan Ny. SDG, Psikologi Perawatan, (Jakarta: BPK Gunung Mulia, 1989), Cet. Ke-3, 68.
Slameto, op.cit, (Jakarta: Rineka Cipta, 1991), Cet. Ke-2, 187.
14
Kurt Singer, Membina Hasrat Belajar di Sekolah, (Terj. Bergman Sitorus), (Bandung: Remaja Rosda
Karya, 1987), 93.
13
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students may imitate his/her attitude. On the contrary, teacher who has a bad
attitude and none of students like him will be difficult to stimulate the students’
interest and attention.
4. Family
Parents are the closest in the family, so family is very influential in
determining a students’ interest in the lesson. What their family given is very
influential for childhood development. In the process of growing interest, the
parents’ attention and guidance are needed to support the students’ interest.
5. Friends
By making friends or socializing with others, students’ interest will be
affected by them; this is because in social intercourse students do activities
together to slacken off that happened to them.
6. Environment
Environment plays a part in the students’ growth. Environment is a family
that takes care to the students, school is education places, public is association
places, and also places to play everyday. The size of the effect of the students’
growth depends on the situation of environment15.
7.
Wish or Desire
Every human being has a goal in his life, including the students.
Aspiration also affects students' learning interests; even aspiration can also be
regarded as a manifestation of one's interest in the prospect of future life.
15
M. Dalyono, Psikologi Pendidikan, (Jakarta: Rineka Cipta, 1997), 130.
16
Aspiration is always pursued and fought for achieving their targets, even though
the students get an obstacle, they still try to achieve it.
8. Talent
Through talents, the students would have an interest. It can be described
from this example: if students have a singing talent since childhood, they would
indirectly have an interest in singing. If they are forced to like something else,
probably they will hate it or it will be a burden to them. Therefore, in providing
the school program the teacher should be consider with the students talents.
9. Hobby
Hobby is one of the factors that cause the rise of students’ interest. For
example, if students have a hobby in learning English, they will indirectly raise
their interest to pursue English, the same thing with other hobbies.
10. Facilities
A variety of facilities and infrastructure both located at home and at
school provides positive and negative effects. For example, if the facilities
supporting educational institution are complete, the students may study more to
increase their interest.
E. The Ways of Arousing Interest in Tasks
There are some ways of arousing interest in tasks namely: clear goals, varied topic
and tasks, visuals, tension and challenge game, entertainment, play-acting,
information gap, personalization, open-ended cues16.
1. Clear goals
16
Marion William - Tony Wright, “A Course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory (Penny Ur), (UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 280.
17
Learners should be aware of the objectives of the tasks-both languagelearning and content. For example, a guessing-game may have the languagelearning goal of practicing question, and the content goal of guessing answers.
2. Varied topics and tasks
Topics and task should be selected carefully to be as interesting as
possible; but few single types can interest every one, so there should be a wide
range of different ones over time.
3. Visuals
It is important for learners to have something to look at that is eyecatching and relevant to the task in hand.
4. Tension and challenge: games
Game-like activities provide pleasurable tension and challenge through the
process of attaining some ‘fun’ goal during the task. The introduction of such
rules (an arbitrary time limit, for example) can add spice to almost any goaloriented task.
5. Entertainment
Entertainment produces enjoyment; arouse motivation and self-confidence
to learner. Entertainment can be teacher-produced (jokes, stories, perhaps songs,
dramatic
presentations)
documentaries).
6. Play-acting
or
recorded
(movies,
video
clips,
television
18
Role play and simulation that use the imagination and take learners out of
them can be excellent; though some people are inhibited and may find such
activities intimidating at first.
7. Information gap
A particularly interesting type of task is based on the need to understand
of transmitted information, finding out what is in a partner’s picture, for example;
a variation on this is the opinion gap where participants exchange views on a
given issues.
8. Personalization
Learners are more likely to e interested in tasks that have to do with their
opinions, tastes, experiences, suggestions as well as others’.
9. Open-ended cues
A cue which invites a number of possible responses is usually much more
stimulating than one with only one right answer: participants’ contributions are
unpredictable, and more likely to be interesting, original or laughable.
F. The Definition of Listening
Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This
involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary, and grasping the meaning of what he listens. Furthermore, listening is
one of the fundamental language skills. It is a medium in which children, young
19
people and adults obtain the knowledge, information and understanding a lot of thing
such as human affairs, aspiration, life etc. 17.
G. Three Stages of Listening Process
We can divide listening process into three stages:
1. The pre-listening phase prepares students for both top-down and bottom-up
processing through activities involving activating prior knowledge, making
predictions, and reviewing key vocabulary.
2. While-listening phase focuses on comprehension through exercises that require
selective listening, gist listening, sequencing, etc.
3. The post-listening phase typically involves a response to comprehension and may
require students to give opinions about a topic. This may involve microanalysis
of sections of the text to enable students recognize such features as blends,
reduced words, ellipsis, and other features of spoken discourse that they were
unable to process or recognize18.
H. Listening Principles
There are several principles of teaching listening that should be considered by
a teacher to facilitate the students in comprehending the listening texts described as
follow19.
Principle 1: Encourage students to listen as often and as much as possible
The more students listen, the more they get at listening and the better they get
at understanding the pronunciation and using it appropriately. Therefore, the teacher
17
Austin S. Speaking & Listening: A Contemporary Approach. (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. USA.
1970), 22.
18
Robin, Wills: An Investigation of Factors Influencing English Listening Comprehension and Possible
Measures for Improvement (Australia University of Tasmania 2008), 10.
19
Jeremy Harmer, “How To Teach English”, (UK: Person Longman, 2008), 99.
20
ask students to practice as much listening in class as possible, and to encourage
students to listen as much English as they can (via the internet, podcast, CDs, tapes,
etc.)
Principle 2: Help students prepare to listen
Students need to be made ready to listen. This means they will need to look at
the pictures, discuss the topic, or read the questions first, for example, to be in
position to predict what is coming; teacher will do their best to get students engaged
with the topic and the task and really want to listen.
Principle 3: Once may not be enough
There are almost no occasions when the teacher will play an audio track only
once. Students will want to hear it again to pick up the things they missed the first
time – we may well want them to have a chance to study some of the language
features on the tape. In the case of live listening, students should be encouraged to
ask for repetition and clarification when they need it.
The first listening to a text is often used just to give students an idea of what
the speakers sound like, and what the general topic is, so that subsequent listenings
are easy for them. For subsequent listening, we may stop the audio track at various
points or only play extracts from it. However, we will have to ensure that we don’t
go on and on working with the same audio track.
Principle 4: Encourage students to respond to the content of a listening, not just to
the language
An important part of listening sequence is for teachers to draw out the
meaning of what is being said, discern what is intended and find out what impression
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it makes or the students. Questions such as, “Do you agree with what they say?” and
“Did you find the listening interesting? Why?” are just important as questions like
“What language did she use to invite him?”. However, any listening material is also
useful for studying language use and range of pronunciation issues.
Principle 5: Different listening stages demand different listening tasks
Because there are different things we want to do with a listening text, we
need to set different tasks for different listening stages. This means that, for a first
listening, the task (s) may need to be fairly straightforward and general. That way,
the students’ general understanding and response can be successful – and the stress
associated with listening can be reduced. Later listenings, however, may focus on
detailed information, language use on pronunciation etc. it will be the teacher’s job
to help students to focus in on what they are listening for.
Principle 6: Good teachers exploit listening text to the full
If teachers ask students to invest time and emotional energy in a listening text
- and if they themselves have spent time choosing and preparing the listening
sequence - then it makes sense to use the audio track or live listening experience for
as many different applications as possible. Thus, after an initial listening, the teacher
can play a track again for various kinds of study before using the subject matter,
situation or audio script for new activity. The listening then becomes an important
event in a teaching sequence rather than just exercise by itself.
I. Strategies of Teaching Listening
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Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the
comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by
how the listener processes the input:
1. Bottom-up strategy
Traditionally, listening had been treated as a receptive skill, similar to
reading, as both require processing input. Hence models of listening followed the
same strategies as reading, namely bottom-up and top-down strategies. In the
1950s listening was consisted of three separated points of the language that was
the sounds, words and structures. They were a parts-to-whole approach according
to Hedge where the listener combined sound, grammar and vocabulary to create
meaning. In this case, the learner has to use knowledge of language and ability to
process clues they listen in order to create meaning. She further said that someone
has to “elucidate language into clear sounds and impose a structure which consists
of words, phrases, clauses, sentences and intonation patterns.” Because someone
can create meaning of what he or she listen and predict implied message of a text
if he or she pays attention much to lexical references, stress of words or phrase
intonation of text.
2. Top-down strategy
Another strategy of listening which based on listeners’ background
knowledge is top-down strategy. In this strategy, the listeners use his prior
knowledge or background knowledge and contextual clues to interpret what they
heard in listening. They have to create an appropriate interpretation by linking
what is said with what is known and then inferring, or interpreting, the message as
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well as what will come next. As a result, they may have good comprehension
about what they heard by combining previous knowledge and experience which
result in new input. So the listeners have to use three sources of knowledge for top
down strategy that are needed: schematic or background knowledge, context and
systemic knowledge.
Top-down strategy is a strategy from meaning to language which
emphasizes on context. Hedge recommends the following strategies for top-down
listening:
a. Listeners will work out the purpose of the message by considering contextual
clues, the content and the setting.
b. Listeners will activate schematic knowledge and bring knowledge of scripts
into play in order to make sense of content
c. Listeners will try to match their perception of meaning with the speaker’s
intended meaning, and this will depend on many different factors involved in
listening, both top-down and bottom-up.
3. Interactive strategy
Hedge thinks that if someone tends to the only one strategy will be less
interesting and boring. He may not always depend on background knowledge and
contextual clues and neglect the text, the words, grammar and intonation/stress.
Therefore, he has to use both bottom up strategy and top down one to make
teaching process in the class lively. Hedge said that both strategies are mutually
24
dependent each other simultaneously. This strategy is called interactive strategy
which combines the use of bottom up and top down strategies independently 20.
There are two strategies of listening in which students can improve their
listening skill;
1. Extensive Listening
Extensive listening is the strategy where a teacher motivates students to
choose for themselves the materials for their listening class and they can enjoy
listening during the class. The materials of listening can be obtained from many
sources such as cassettes, CDs, etc. so that they can provide the different sources
of listening individually or in group, be more active in good competition to better
at listening class one another.
The teacher in this strategy will be a monitor or observer for whoever is
active, passive, and even distractive during the class. Furthermore, we can have
students make and perform their own tasks and let them to answer and solve the
problems they find in their listening sources.
2. Intensive Listening
This is the strategy where a teacher talks to the students in the class, it
means that this strategy will encourage the students to practice face-to-face
interactions and use some formulaic expressions such as (Sorry? What was that? I
20
Abd. Ghofur, Thesis: “Strategies of Teaching Listening at English Education Department of IAIN Sunan
Ampel Surabaya” (Surabaya: IAIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya 2010), 23
25
didn’t quite catch that, etc.), rising intonation such as (She didn’t like the…?),
rephrasing such as (You mean she said she didn’t know anything?)
Intensive listening can take the following forms:
I. Reading aloud
The teacher will read aloud to class as the students will listen a clear
spoken of written text, to make them more enjoyable, the teacher has to read
with expressions and conviction. Perhaps, he has to use Total Physical
Response or act out the written text to make them know him well that the
teacher is able to act in different settings.
II. Story-telling
In this activity, the teacher will be a story-teller, he will tell stories to
the students, as the consequence, they have to predict what will come next of
the story, describe the character in the story, and give a comment on it.
III. Interviews
One of the most motivating listening activities is the live interview,
particularly where the students determine the questions for them rather than
imitate other people’s questions.
IV. Conversations
If we can ask a colleague to come to the class, we can make
conversations with them about English or any other subject 21.
J. Previous Study
21
Harmer, Jeremy, The Practice of English Language Teaching (Fourth Edition, UK Pearson Longman,
1998), 86
26
To prove the originality of this study, the writer wants to present the previous
researches dealing with the listening comprehension in general. There has been other
researcher who studied about teaching listening. It has been done by Abdul Ghofur
(2010) in her paper “strategies of teaching listening at English education department
of IAIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya”. In Abdul Ghofur’s research, he focus on strategies
of teaching listening, the difficulties encountered by teacher in teaching listening,
and the responses of students in teaching listening strategies. In this research, the
researcher takes two points of Ghofur’s research questions (the responses of students
in teaching listening) which is dealing with the researcher question the researcher has
(the students’ interest in learning English listening), and (the strategies of teaching
listening) which is dealing with (the teacher strategies to enhance the student’s
interest in learning listening).
The next research is done by Agus Mawardani (2000) in his research, entitled
“The Implementation of Teaching listening At the Third Year Student of SMU
Negeri 1 Surakarta”. He described teaching learning process in the classroom
especially about the implementation of teaching listening to the third year student of
SMU Negeri 1 Surakarta. The result of the research is that the implementation of
teaching listening at the third year student of SMU Negeri 1 Surakarta is divided in
four main sections. First, the teacher’s activities consist of all preparation of the
teacher in teaching listening. Second, student’s activity concerns with what the
students do in pre- listening, while listening and post- listening. Meanwhile, the
problem of teaching listening is that the mechanical devices can influence teaching
27
learning process. While from the students have problems in vocabulary and the level
of difficulty in listening.
The next research is conducted by Diah Novia Sari (2003) entitled “A case
study of the seventh semester students of English Department FKIP UMS. She
investigates the strategies of a group of the seventh semester students. The result of
her study shows that most of the seventh semester 5 students find their own ways to
expose themselves on the four language skills. So, they are categorized as
autonomous learners.