TIPS AND TRICK

 The Use of English Songs to Improve Listening Skills

            English has four abilities as a foreign language (reading, listening, writing, and speaking). Listening skill is part of the importance skill that should be mastered by students.   If we listen to the speaker but doesn't understand the meaning of language we can't communicates effectively.  There are some ways to improve listening skill using various of ways,  which will be discussed below is improving listening by using English songs.

There are several reasons why students found difficult to master.  First cause the accent of English songs is various, like Australian, American,  and British.  Indonesian tongue are different with those accent so student must get used to those native speaker songs to understand when we are listening to what they said.  According to ( lengkoan,  andries,  tati pang,  2022: 41 in Rossolino, Rinny, and Jenie)  students that not used to the pronunciation of native speaker of other countries,  they will found obstacle to understand what the speaker says.  So students must practice by listening a lot like songs that students found interesting.  Second, students didn't found the correct strategies in listening, like their listening speed that should be comfortable for students pace in listening.  Slow song, RnB, or andante song could be a great choice to start practice listening by songs.  Not just the pace but also student must be able to understand the content or the song. So they have to know background knowledge of that songs that they hear.

Based on Tri interview from 19 and 29 December with 5 informant there are some benefit we can get while listening to song : The first informant says that listening to song help us to be familiar with English vocabulary. Songs also appropriate for beginner level student. The second informant mention that English song increase curiosity of the learner to learn about the context of song. The third informant indicate English song will help listener to learn about some word stress and pronunciation. The fourth informant suggest that listening to song boost our vocabulary, grammar and the lesson will be really amusing. The last informant comment will fluently catching some information in English weather it is from song, news, or any other media. However English really usefull to improve our listening ability

Teachers play important role in learning process. Teacher become facilitator of the listening material. The use of song as authentic listening material According to (gushendra risky, 2017, 56) there are 2 ways to choose songs as material which is : choose student favorite song, and teacher choose the song. First, the teacher has to choose students favorite song, but if students did that, the teacher's weakness is having to listen to and understand the song lyric before come to the class. And the second way is to use an old song and ask students if they understand the song, then the new teacher can choose according to the topic of the material. The use of songs in learning English is needed because, from that songs students learn a lot of new vocabulary, grammar, and listening.

Songs create logical understanding to the context of listening that help person meaning in the conversation. When we speak we also listening, cause listening is most crucial skill in our daily activity. We have to construct our vocabulary to be better when we talk with others. The more vocabulary we know the better listener we will be. Based on (Murcia, 2001 : 461 in Dadang and prita) media like songs can inspire learner cause it brings a piece of daily activity into the learning process. It can be happened cause there are context provided in the process. Hence the input for student is more clearer and help student in progress to become a good communicator in the conversation

Listening is fundamental skill when learning English language cause from listening we learn about the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, which is very important in communication. Some reason why sometimes listening is difficult cause the accent of English is Different, and speaking pace is different. So there are some trick we can use to improve our listening ability one of them is using song. Teacher play important role to help student choose a proper song that student can use like, student favorite song or teacher use the old song. Songs can also help student to create logical context and understand more about what have been said.

 

References :

Listiyaningsih, Tri. 2017 The Influence Of Listening English Song To Improve Listening Skill In Listening Class. Surakarta

Prita, And Dadang. 2014 Improving Students Listening Skill By Using English Songs, Kuningan

Rossolino, Rinny, And Jennie. 2022 Improving Students Listening Skill By Using Songs Lyric A Study Conducted At SMAN 1 Melonguane: Manado

Gushendra, Rizky. 2017 An Experimental Study : Improving Students Vocabulary Mastery By Using English Songs, Riau