USING SONGS TO DEVELOP LISTENING ABILITY

FOR THE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

AT SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

Alexsander Irfan Bramasto

06 1214 062
English Language Education Study Program
Sanata Dharma University

ABSTRACT
This study was conducted to describe the students’ perceptions towards the
use of songs in developing their listening ability. The study was also aimed to find out
what kinds of songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University
to develop their listening ability.
There were two problems formulated in this study. The first problem dealt
with the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their listening
ability. The second problem concerned with kinds of songs which may help students
of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability.
The research finding revealed that students were interested in the use of songs
in developing their listening ability. Song was relaxing, fun and entertaining. There
were sequences which can lead them to keep listening to the song, song was not
boring. While they were listening to a song, indirectly they could learn to find new
vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar and the implementation of a word in a
phrase/sentence.
Finally, the writer concluded that using songs to develop listening ability was
an interesting method in process of acquiring listening skill.

1. INTRODUCTION

In acquiring English language, there are four important skills need to be

acquired namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening is an important
skill in learning a language. It means that someone’s listening ability has strong
relationship with his/her ability in acquiring a language. In our daily life, we listen

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more than we read, speak or write. In acquiring a second language or foreign
language, listening ability should be developed intensively.
Bazo (2002) on http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-FourSkills.html states that
listening is the most difficult language skill which learners usually find. This is often
because they feel under pressured to understand every word. Bazo’s statement is
strengthened with the writer’s research that the participants are the sixth semester of
ELESP at Sanata Dharma University. The writer found some reasons why they
considered that listening was difficult to acquire namely problem with catch the
words/meaning of the words, difficult to listen to unfamiliar words, the speed of the
speech, and technical problem namely the quality of listening media (listening
passage, audio-tape, head phone). Instead, listening comprehension is a process, a
very complex process, and if we want to measure it, we must first understand how
that process works (Buck, 2001:1).
This study was conducted to find out the students’ perceptions towards the use of
songs in developing their listening ability. This study was also conducted to find out
what kinds of songs that may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to
develop their listening ability.
The writer distributed questionnaire as the research instrument. According to
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th Edition, questionnaire means a written list
of questions that are answered by a number of people so that information can be
collected from the answers. The writer distributed questionnaires to obtain the data.
The questionnaires were distributed to seven students of the sixth semester of ELESP
at Sanata Dharma University. There are two major problems formulated in this study.
Firstly, what are the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their
listening ability? Secondly, what are the songs which may help students of ELESP at
Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability?

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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Definition of listening

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th Edition, listen means
to pay attention to somebody/something that you can hear. Based on this definition, it
can be concluded that listening is a process of transferring information from an
oral/spoken language.
According to Doyle (2005) as cited in http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd
110td/interper/listen/listening.html, there are seven stages process of listening namely
hearing, selecting, attending, understanding, evaluating, remembering and
responding. It is clearly seen in figure one.

Hearing: Selecting:
Receiving raw data Choosing stimuli

Attending:
Focusing attention

Responding:
Feedback

Understanding:
Assigning meaning

Evaluating: Remembering:
Analyzing and judging Drawing on memory

Figure 1: Seven stages process of listening

Source: http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd110td/interper/images/liststages.gif

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2.2 The differences between first and second language listening
Even they looked the same, but there are some differences between first language
and second language listening. When we talk about first language listening, we can
say that it is easy because we have mastered that. The process of acquiring first
language is automatically, because we use it in our daily life and we accustomed to
practice it. But, it will be different if we talk about second language listening. Buck
(2001, 49) states that we usually learn things differently in the case of a second
language, especially when we learn it as an adult. Knowledge of the language varies
considerably: from those who can understand only a few isolated words in their
second language, to those who appear to be indistinguishable from native speakers.
Rarely do second-language learners develop the same high level of ability as in their
first language.

2.3 The purposes of listening

Listening is different with hearing. Listening is following the sound and
understanding the meaning of the sound. On the other words, it can be described that
listening is hearing with a purpose. When we listen to somebody or listen to
conversation on television/radio, we actually try to absorb the meaning or ideas. So it
can be concluded that the purpose of listening is trying to catch the meaning or
understanding the ideas.

2.4 The definition of song

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song), a song is a
musical composition that contains vocal parts ("lyrics") that are performed ("sung"),
commonly accompanied by musical instruments (exceptions would be a cappella
songs). The lyrics of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, although they
may be religious verses or free prose.

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Subject
The participants were seven students semester 6 of ELESP at Sanata Dharma
University. The writer chose them as the participants because the writer believed that
they had experiences in listening to English songs.

3.2 Method
There were two questions formulated in the problem formulation. The first
question was aimed to find out the students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in
developing their listening ability. The second question was aimed to find out what are
the songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop
their listening ability.
In order to answer those two questions, the writer distributed questionnaire as
the research instrument. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th
Edition, questionnaire means a written list of questions that are answered by a
number of people so that information can be collected from the answers.

3.3 Research Procedure

The writer distributed questionnaire as the research instrument. The writer
distributed questionnaires on 16th and 17th April 2009, and the writer received the
result of the questionnaires on 18th April 2009. After the writer received the result of
the questionnaires, the writer analyzed them. The writer compared the answers from
each participant and tried to classify the answers which had the same ideas. The last
step was writing the research paper.

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4. RESULT and DISCCUSSION

4.1 The result of the questionnaire

The research indicated that among seven research participants, four students
liked to listen to pop songs, one student liked to listen to rock songs, one student liked
to listen to grunge songs and one student liked to listen to emo songs. Figure 2 shows
the percentages of genres of music that students love to listen.

14%
pop

14% rock

58% grunge

14%
emo

Figure 2: the percentage of genres of music that students love to listen

The questionnaire revealed that four students listen to English songs more than
3 hours in a day, two students listen to English songs between 2-3 hours in a day, one
student listen to English songs between 1-2 hours in a day. Figure 3 shows the
percentage of students’ intensity in listening to English songs.

14%

1-2 hours/day

2-3 hours/day
57% 29%

> 3 hours

Figure 3: the percentage of students’ intensity in listening to English songs.

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 The questionnaire also revealed that there are some difficulties in acquiring
listening skill namely not accustomed to listen to English words, the speech of the
speaker was too fast to follow, different accents, and the quality of listening media
(tape, speaker, headphone). The students prefer to listen to English songs rather than
listen to English conversation because songs are enjoyable and fun. Through listening
to English songs, students can get new vocabularies, the implementation of words in
sentences, how to pronounce words correctly and students do not get bored in
listening to English songs. They think that listening to English songs can help them in
developing their listening ability. The songs should not too fast in rhyme and not too
slow. The songs should be interesting and easy to listen.

4.2 The difficulties in improving listening ability

Listening comprehension is a process, a very complex process, and if we want to
measure it, we must first understand how that process works (Buck, 2001:1). Based
on that statement, we can conclude that there were some difficulties in acquiring
listening skill for a second language learner. From the questionnaires result, the writer
discovered some difficulties in listening to English song namely phonological
changes, difficulties in convey the meaning of sentence/phrase and difficulties in
catching unfamiliar words.
4.3 The students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their
listening ability
The result of the questionnaires showed that the students of English Language
Education Study Program at Sanata Dharma University were interested at using songs
in developing their listening ability. They gave some reasons which made them
interested at using songs to develop their listening ability. The writer classified their
answers into two ideas namely enjoyable and practicality. The following sections
elaborate detailed findings of two answers.

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4.3.1 Enjoyable
The students told that using songs in developing listening ability is interesting.
It was caused of song itself was very familiar in their daily life. They accustomed to
listen to song. According to them, song was relaxing, fun and entertaining. There
were melodies which can lead them to keep listening to the song. Song was not
boring. While they were listening to a song, indirectly they could learn to find new
vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar and the implementation of a word in a
phrase/sentence. It was effective, because they could learn and entertain themselves at
the same time.

4.3.2 Practicality
The result showed that students interested at using songs in developing their
listening ability because its practicality. Logically, it was easier to find a song rather
than a listening passage. Students could choose the most appropriate song for them.
Each student must have different genre of music. For the example, from seven
participants, the writer found that there were five genres of music they love to hear
namely pop, slow rock, grunge, emo, and brit-pop. But, it could be generalized that
they liked to hear slow-rhythms music.

4.2 The kinds of songs which may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma
University to develop their listening ability
From the result of questionnaire, the writer discovered kinds of songs which
may help students of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening
ability. The most important is that song shall be ear catching, it means that the song
has interesting melody or poetic lyric. The song itself also should be simple in lyric, it
means that the students can understand what the lyric means or what the song writer
wants to convey. When a song is interesting and easy to listen, students will
encourage themselves to listen to every word in the song, they will try to find out
what the lyric means. When students enjoy song and find unfamiliar words/phrases,

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they will try to consult dictionary. It is very helpful in their process of acquiring
English language and indirectly it improves their listening ability.

5 CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study was to find out the students’ perceptions towards the
use of songs in developing their listening ability. There were two problems
formulated in the research problem formulation. The first question was to find out the
students’ perceptions towards the use of songs in developing their listening ability.
The second question was to find out what kinds of songs which may help students of
ELESP at Sanata Dharma University to develop their listening ability.
In order to answer two questions above, the writer distributed questionnaire as
the research instrument. The writer distributed questionnaires on 16th and 17th April
2009, and the writer received the result of the questionnaires on 18th April 2009. After
the writer received the result of the questionnaires, the writer analyzed them. The
writer compared the answers from each participant and tried to classify the answers
which had the same ideas. The last step was writing the research paper.
The participants told that they were interested in the use of songs in
developing their listening ability. Song was relaxing, fun and entertaining. While they
were listening to a song, indirectly they could learn to find new vocabularies,
pronunciation, grammar and the implementation of a word in a phrase/sentence.

REFERENCES

Bazo, Placido. 2002. Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom.
Downloaded on 4th April 2009 from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-
FourSkills.html

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Buck, Gary. 2001. Acquiring Listening. United Kingdom: Cambridge University
Press
_______. 2009. Song. Downloaded on 18th April 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Song
Hornby, Albert. 1995. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English 5th
edition. Great Britain: Oxford University Press

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