1

ENHANCING THE LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF THE

A Research Paper

presented to the faculty of

MINDORO STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

CALAPAN CITY CAMPUS

Masipit, Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH I

by

JERMAINE R. CARAY

October 2020
 2

Chapter I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING
Introduction

As technology continues to advance in people's lives, it has touched

and changed education intensifying its value. Aside from broadening the

access to learning opportunities, the power of technology has been utilized

to improve the teaching and learning process offering myriad of

possibilities to both teachers and students. It increases students

engagement in creating their own knowledge with the massive amounts of

information that Internet offers while teachers adopt new approaches to

teaching. Also, it expands connections and collaborations as it introduces

new ways of learning, communicating, and working collaboratively. It

breaks the relatively isolated classroom situation before by providing

technology-based tools that cater the needs of the learners. In the

process, learners take more responsibility of their own learning with their

teachers as their guide. Needless to say, technological innovations also

continue to influence the teaching approaches that harness the various

skills of the learners crucial in their academic and personal lives. Teachers

create and design instructional materials to enhance the skills of the

students especially in communication given that it plays a fundamental role

in technology use. Education also focuses on the improvement of the

communication skills as people spend most of their time listening,

speaking, reading, and writing. Likewise, instructional strategies now

include the efforts to improve these skills to prepare the students towards

more globalized system.

Apparently, technology has been put as a norm in all educational

areas especially in terms of teaching and learning materials. Besides,

Makhdum (2017) has noted that the present era is full of technological

implications in education that have brought transformation in many ways.

It enables the creation and upgrade of instructional materials that allow

people to learn and work together improving different skills especially in

communication. Nowadays, people are able to use language effectively as

they develop different skills in communication such as reading, speaking,

writing, and listening that are recognized as four macro skills crucial in

communicating. In reality, each skill is equally vital. However, among the

four macro skills, listening has been ignored in second language learning,

research, and teaching in spite of many studies proving its importance in

the learning process according to Ahmadi (2016). Likewise, Orbe (2019) in

her study has remarked that listening comprehension skills are generally

given lesser significance in language classroom despite the fact that it is

indispensable in communication, instruction, assessment, and learning.

Ulum (2015) has supported this notion in his research revealing that

listening is vividly the weakest skill of students studying English as a

foreign language.

With limited understanding of listening comprehension, recent

emerging evidence, however, suggests that this skill is a high-order skill

that warrants multiple language and cognitive skill as stated by Kim and

Pilcher (2016). This is one of the reasons why despite its significance,

language learners consider listening as the most difficult language skill to

learn. Basically, listening is fundamental for the lives of the students as it

is used as a means of learning at all phases of instructions. There are a

number of researches that attempt to explain its importance aside from

defining its scopes. Hamuda (2013) as cited by Gilakjani and Sabouri

(2016) has defined listening comprehension as an interactive process

wherein listeners are involved in constructing meaning. This is

accomplished by comprehending the oral input through sound

discrimination, previous knowledge, grammatical structures, stress and

intonation, and other linguistic or non-linguistic clues. Moreover, Nadig

(2013) as adduced by Gilakjani and Sabouri (2016) has defined listening

comprehension as the various processes of understanding and making

sense of spoken language involving recognizing speech sounds,

comprehending the meaning of individual words, and understanding the

syntax of sentences. These definitions highlight the importance of listening

comprehension in language learning. In fact, Cheung (2010) as cited by

Orbe (2019) has remarked that listening is prerequisite to other skills and

should be the primary skill acquired in language learning.

In the learning process, teachers and learners should pay attention

in developing the listening comprehension skills to achieve better learning

purpose particularly in English according to Siregar (2017). Moreover, the

author has remarked that with good skills in listening comes more effective

participation in communicative situation. This underscores the students'

need to gain adequate proficiency in this specific language skill. To achieve

this purpose, teachers have to design effective teaching classroom

practices as well as improve instructional and supplemental materials that

contribute to the accomplishment of successful listening instruction.

Gilakjani and Sabouri (2016) have supported this notion as the difficulty to

improve listening serves as a trigger for teachers to look for opportunities

to change their listening exercises into more effective ones. To overcome

the problems in enhancing the students' listening skills, Fajry et. al (2016)

have suggested that teachers should use appropriate media and materials
 6

and they believe that audiobook is a good media for teaching listening.

Have and Pederson (2016) have defined audiobook as a sound recording

of a book that is performed by a professional narrator or the author. Also,

Mohamed (2018) has described audiobook as a printed book's audio

recorded versions of the narration in which a user listens to as well as

does repeated listening while reading the printed copy of the book.

Nowadays, the new technology enables listeners experience audiobooks

and some teachers adopt this kind of media as an aid in the teaching and

learning process.

The fact that listening skill has been ignored for a long time with the

idea that it is learned automatically and once for all though has resulted

for it to be accounted as the least developed of all the communication

skills in spite of being the most used skill according to Holm (n.d.). With

this, listening comprehension is considered as the most arduous task of all

four language skills as cited by Su and Liu (2012) and is regarded as the

most underestimated skill in EFL context as stated by Ulum (2015). This is

supported by Ghaderphanahi (2012) as cited in Ulum (2015) in which the

author has reasoned out that listening is seemingly the slightest accurate

of the four language skills that makes it the most difficult to acquire.

Regardless, Ahmadi (2016) has mentioned that many studies in language

learning have indicated that listening comprehension plays an important

role in the learning process. Recognizing its essence in both language

learning and in daily communication based from the idea of Hamouda

(2013), there has been relatively little research that focuses on the

features of audiobooks, the level of the listening comprehension skills of

the learners, the difficulties encountered, and possible intervention

activities that can enhance this specific skill. Determining the features of

audibooks will help in improving teachers' instructions by using appropriate

learning materials and activities. Also, recognizing the level of the

comprehension skills of the learners will monitor their current status as

well as the enhancement of their skills in terms of remembering,

understanding, discussing, and retelling. Moreover, uderstanding the

difficulties encountered will enable teachers and learners develop learning

strategies that will develop their listening abilities and will come up to

possible intervention activities that may enhance the listening

comprehension skills.

Various studies have been previously conducted to study the

listening comprehension skill and its significance. Specifically, recent

studies have investigated on how classroom practices as well as the

application of instructional methods and pedagogical strategies influence

this particular skill. In fact, they have concluded that with guidance and

practice, it is possible that the listening comprehension skill can be

improved. In line with this, the use of audiobook to enhance this skill has

increased its popularity and educators, according to Whittingham et. al.

(2013), are now interested in the validity of its use in literacy instruction.

The results of recent studies have indicated the significant contribution of

audiobooks on listening comprehension implying that they can be used as

supportive materials in listening classes. This present study seeks to

provide sufficient information about the features of audiobooks that make

it advantageous for learners in enhancing their listening comprehension

skills. They are factors to be considered if audiobooks are to be

incorporated in the educational settings along with the students' present

listening comprehension skill level. While the existing literature on

audiobooks indicate that it can be used with students at all proficiency

level, the current study has focused on using audiobooks at the secondary

level, specifically Senior High School students.

Given the current situation under the pandemic, the secondary

schools have started the implementation of either modular learning, online

learning or blended learning which is the combination of offline and online

learning. In Baco National High School, the teachers distribute the modules
 9

to the learners while they also monitor them online and provide them

additional learning materials using online platforms. This study is relevant

to the present situation since it aims to investigate the enhancement of

the listening comprehension skills of the learners through audiobooks that

can be implemented by educators through online distribution. Based on

the results of previous studies indicating the benefits of audiobooks in

listening activities, this research will determine the level of the listening

comprehension skills of the respondents in the research locale, Baco

National High School, through audiobooks. With this, the researcher will be

able to determine the listening proficiency of the learners that is crucial in

analyzing the capability of audiobooks in improving the listening

comprehension skills of the students. In this paper, the difficulties

encountered by the respondents in listening with the use of audiobooks

will also be identified. From this, the researcher will propose intervention

activities that can enhance this certain skill of the students.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to determine the listening comprehension skills of

the Grade 12 Senior High School students of Baco National High School

through audiobook.

Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the distinct features of audiobook?

2. What is the level of listening comprehension skills of the

respondents through audiobook in terms of:

2.1 remembering;

2.2 understanding;

2.3 discussing; and

2.4 retelling?

3. What are the difficulties encountered by the respondents in

listening through audiobook?

4. Based from the findings of the study, what intervention activities

may be proposed to enhance the listening comprehension skills

of the students?