Improving the Eleventh Graders' Listening Skill by Using Metacognitive Strategy at SMAN 1 Dampit

ABSTRACT Mirantiraras, Pravianti Ayu. 2014. Improving the Eleventh Graders' Listening Skill By Using Metacognitive Strategy at SMAN 1 Dampit. Thesis, English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: Siti Muniroh, S.Pd., M.A. Key words: metacognitive strategy, pedagogical cycle, listening skill Listening is a difficult skill to master as it involves many complex processes, such as discriminating between sounds, understanding vocabulary and grammatical structure, and interpreting stress and intonation. Due to its complexity, many students find this skill hard to master. The difficulty of listening was also faced by the students of SMAN 1 Dampit. Based on the preliminary study, it was found out that the students' listening skill was low and only 46% of the students passed the passing grade. The students' difficulty in the listening activity can be minimized by activating a learning strategy namely metacognitive strategy. This strategy helps the students to elicit their own knowledge as well as provides them with a way to manage their listening process. The metacognitive strategy involves a task sequence namely ‘pedagogical cycle' engaging the students to predict, identify problems, monitor, and evaluate their listening performances. This study was a collaborative classroom action research. It employed metacognitive strategy utilizing the pedagogical cycle to improve the listening skill of the eleventh graders of SMAN 1 Dampit. The subject of the study was 30 students of class XI IPA 3 that were still taught with KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) curriculum. The instruments that were used to collect the data were field notes, observation checklist, listening test, and MALQ (Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire). From the two cycles of the implementation of the metacognitive strategy, it was revealed that the strategy successfully enhanced the students' listening skill and awareness on their listening process. In Cycle 1, the percentage of students who passed the passing grade was 67%. This percentage improved to 83% in Cycle 2. The mean score also improved from 77.5 in Cycle 1 to 82.6 in the Cycle 2. Moreover, the students' awareness to their own listening process also increased. This could be seen from their responses to statements related to the five factors influencing the listening process in MALQ. All in all, it could be concluded that the metacognitive strategy was successful to be used to improve the students' listening skill by guiding the students to predict the information to build the background knowledge, share and discuss to confirm as well as monitor the understanding, and do self-reflection to evaluate their performance. The English teacher is expected to implement this strategy in teaching listening skill so that the students can improve their listening performance as well as their awareness to their listening process.