The Effectiveness Of Listening Podcasts To Improve Students’ Listening Skill ( An Experimental Study in the Second Grade of the SMAN 4 Bengkulu )

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of using podcasts to improve students' listening skills at SMAN 4 Bengkulu. The researcher applied the pre-experimental method with one group pre-test and post-test treatment which was carried out in four meetings. The population in this study were Second Grade students of SMAN 4 Bengkulu. The researcher used purposive sampling technique. The sample of this research is 999 students. The instrument used to collect data was a multiple-choice listening test and filling out a blank form consisting of 20 numbers. The data of this study were analyzed quantitatively using IBM SPSS 26. The average score of the students on the post-test was higher than the average score on the pre-test (79.29 >36.07). The researcher found that the significant value was 0.000, and the alpha was 0.05 (0.000 < 0.05). It can be concluded that the researcher's hypothesis (tt) is accepted, and the null hypothesis (t0) is rejected. The researcher concludes that podcasts are effective in improving students' listening skills.


INTRODUCTION
English has been a global language since a long time ago, it plays an important role in international interaction.It is also important in education because it is a language of science.There are so many scientific books written in English.Besides, it is also one of the most studied languages all over the world.Most countries teach it as a second language from primary school.
Nowadays, technology has been used in education.It is turning into a popular trend in the environment of teaching foreign languages such as English.In Indonesia, English is a foreign language.So, several students feel difficult to learn English.The student"s English skills are not good and still need enhancement (Mulyono, 2016).One of the skills in English that is considered difficult to be learned for students in Indonesia is listening since it needs listeners" focus and concentration.It happens because they are unable to listen to the English text well in class (Renandya, 2012).
Listening is one of the leading ways to learn English whether as a foreign language or a second language.As defined that: "Listening is the major component in language learning and teaching because in the classroom learners do more listening than 12 speaking" (Brown H. G., 2001).So, it can say that listening is one of the skills to recognize and know what the speakers are conveying.It is also a complete activity for helping the students to understand what the speakers say.Because of that, they can activate their previous knowledge.In another way, it could help out the trouble of listening by giving practice to students in other types of listening.
Based on the writer's observations at school during the internship, there are some problems found in the context of English teaching and learning 16 to listen at SMAN 4 Bengkulu.First, the students feel unfamiliar with the listening itself.It is just conducted once or twice a month.Second, the students also had a problem with spelling words.It means that they can speak up well, but cannot spell words well.The last problem, the teacher is rudimentary which gives listening input.The teacher feels that listening must do in the class during the teaching and learning process.Actually, the teacher not only can give listening lessons inside of the class but also outside class such as asking the students to practice listening in their home and write on paper the result of what they have heard.
There are a lot of advantages teaching listening by using podcasts application.As the results of the study, podcasts are a useful source for enhancing listening skills, especially when students listened extensively outside the classroom as it can increase their English vocabulary and make them familiar with speakers" different voices; hence, students" fluency in listening increases (Giordano, 2016).Those listening activities using podcasts can have great effects as an authentic resource geared specifically toward each level (Ahmed, 2016).It makes them have better skills than the students who are not listening to podcasts.Not only that, podcasts also can make the students more creative and active in class.Furthermore, podcasts can attract the students" interest as well as the students" trouble and uninterested in learning listening in English lessons (Aditya, 2018).
The skill of Listening can give a great contribution in pronunciation.The causes error of their English pronunciation is a lack of their confidence when listening to the information and speaking English and the media can also be an easy or difficult factor for students to learn English pronunciation.It can be concluded that is the right media for students' English pronunciation.(Yuneva et al, 2021) There are some previous studies that examined podcasts application that can be suitable media to enhance the students" extensive listening and the result is very obvious to students.First, the study was done by Ahmed entitled "Using Podcasts to Improve Listening Comprehension in the Arabic Classrooms".He found out that implementing podcasts in language teaching could help students to have a great understanding of the content and to The Effectiveness of Listening Podcasts to Improve Students' Listening... ... increase their competence in listening comprehension (Ahmed, 2016).17 The second study was done by Yoestara & Putri (2018) entitled "PODCAST: An Alternative Way to Improve EFL Students" Listening and speaking performance".They found out that podcasts could bring a lot of benefits in teaching listening and speaking to EFL learners Yoestara & Putri, 2018.Research studies on podcasting have already acknowledged its potentiality and have documented much evidence that podcasts can greatly help develop students" language skills, especially in developing students" speaking and listening skills in general.In line with the explanation above, the researcher entitles this research with "The Effectiveness of Listening Podcasts to Improve Students' Listening Skill (an experimental research) at XI IPS SMAN 4 Bengkulu"

METHODOLOGY
Research method that is used by the researcher in the study is the experimental research method.According to Sugiyono (2017:107), an experimental is the research method used to find out the effect of treatment on the order cases in restrained conditions.This research was to apply quasi-experimental research namely the research control group and experimental group.The experimental group receives a treatment of some sort (such as a new textbook or a different method of teaching), While the control group receives either no treatment or a standard treatment whose effect is already known, the research aims to measure the students' listening comprehension.

Finding
This pre-test is a research activity carried out to find out existing problems before taking action.These activities include observing the class to be studied and conducting a pretest to determine students' abilities.Here, the researcher presents the findings regarding the effect of podcasts on improving students' listening skills.To see the effect, some statistical calculations compare the pretest before treatment and the posttest after treatment.
The pre-test results before doing treatment showed that the student's ability in listening was less.They did not understand what the speaker said, and most of them asked to repeat the materials more than four times.After giving the treatment, the results of the post-test showed the students got an improvement on their listening skills.

43,94%
Table 1 shows that the improvement percentage of students in listening by using podcast was 43,21% after using podcast in listening.The mean score of the students in pre-test were 36,07% and post-test which to be 79,28%.Table 2 below shows that the improvement percentage of students in listening by using the traditional method was 0,75%.The mean score of the students in the pre-test was 31,67% and the post-test which to be 32,42%.Result of the obtained sig.(2 tailed) of 0.000 <0.05, it can be concluded that there is a difference in the average student learning outcomes between the experimental class and the control class Podcast media was effective to improve students" listening ability at SMAN 4 Bengkulu.Declared effective if the students" score can reach the KKM, which is a value between 76 until 100.Based on these results, it can be concluded that the use of podcasts is effective in improving students' listening skills.
The mean value of the pre-test was 37,12 (Poor) and the mean score of the post-test was 81,06 (Good).This shows that students' learning achievement on the post-test is higher than on the pre-test.The researcher found that the probability value was higher than alpha (α) (0.000 < 0.05).It can be concluded that the researcher's hypothesis (tt) is accepted, and the null hypothesis (t0) is rejected.

Discussions
Nowadays the spread of education was globally being one of the important of life, especially learning the language in order the considering of getting a job and other aspects of lifestyle.One of the harder to learn by students is listening skills.They thought that listening foreign language is hard to understand, too fast, and even it was a boring subject.That is why, the researcher researched to know the improvement of Podcasts as an interesting media for students to enhance their listening capability.Chan, Wai Meng, Seo Won Chi, and Chiung Yao Lin. (2011), the use of Podcast as a medium here because the researcher wants to develop school learning materials that can increase students' interest and learning ways.Learning media can role as a stimulant and well designed for learners.
Further, based on the result of the students listening in the pre-test was low, especially in finding the right answer in the test.In the pre-test, their listening skill was less good.Almost all of them were confused and spent much time thinking about the correct answers that speak by the speaker.They only listen, but they did not read the question and chose the correct answer.Based on the problem above, the researcher gave the treatment by using a podcast, so that the students could show the improvement in post-test.The post-test indicated how far the students achieved after giving treatment.The researcher's findings indicated that the student"s ability in listening by using podcasts showed improvement of the students listening ability.By using podcasts in the listening activity, the researcher found that the mean score of the posttest, it is similar to Becton Loveless.(2021).
There are significant differences in the listening skill of students who learn by using podcasts.This result of this indicates that the use of podcasts can enhance students' ability in listening skill.This research has proved that the podcast can help students improve their skills in English learning skills.This research was supported by research conducted by A"yun on her research found that using podcast had an impact in students" listening ability.After being treated with podcast in teaching listening, the students of experimental class seems more enjoyed listening to English conversations and talks.Similar opinion with Basalama, and Mohammad Rizky Widodo. (2018) they could get some exposures of different English spoken and they felt easy to listen to English spoken by using podcast.Therefore, using podcast got a The Effectiveness of Listening Podcasts to Improve Students' Listening... ... positive effect because it can make listening easier, comfortable, and fun for the students in learning English.Besides that, the research by Syahbuddin stated there was an improvement of students in their listening skill by using podcast.Similar opinion with Yuneva (2021), most teachers have mastered E-teaching equipment, particularly supporting software, and have adapted their teaching approaches to the online teaching model in order to polarize learners' learning activities.In addition, the majority of students actively participate in the learning process through E-teaching, activities, and answering questions presented by teachers.In another word that learning by podcast can improve four skills of English students.
The researcher using podcasts in teaching listening, the students" attitude toward listening activity changed into positive motivation.Students agree that podcasts can help them learn English and they use podcasts as an alternative way to learn English and sharpen their skills, especially in listening skill.Based on the results above, the researcher concludes that using podcasts in teaching listening can help the students to be more active and interested in learning listening activities.Wei (2016) also said that podcasts as learning media made the students enjoyable, happy, enthusiastic, not bored and attracted in listening.
Furthermore, the students could understand and memorize vocabularies from podcast.In addition, this media is very challenging the students to try all of the levels in podcast.Therefore, 58 of the students and the teachers were easy in using the podcast as learning media in the class.There is another research that supports the effectiveness of using podcast as listening learning media.The students were given the questionnaire and the results showed that they had more interest in the podcast as it provided authentic materials, exciting activities, and meaningful task that eventually motivated them more in learning and also can encourage the student's willingness to train their listening ability since it is one of the essential factors for adequate communication skills.
Another research Sartika (2020) showed that using podcasts has the potential to improve students" skills and awareness during the language learning process.Podcast motivates learners towards learning English and enhances their language skills, especially listening.The use of podcasts has an impact on the students" motivation in language learning.Podcast can help improve students" motivation because it has various choices of content those students can use in learning.Further, teachers could choose content that is proper for the student"s ability.Learners felt that podcast contents help them to be more motivated in language learning.From the three reviews above, it can be concluded that podcasts could be easily incorporated into the curriculum and once the content is deemed appropriate.

CONCLUSION
The results of the analysis showed a significant difference between before and after being given treatment using podcasts.Podcasts can be one of the media to teach listening skills because this media significantly gives positive results in improving students' listening skills.Podcasts can also make teaching listening easier for teachers and make listening to English comfortable and enjoyable for students.

Table 1 .
Experimental" Pre-test and Post-test Mean Score

Table 2 .
Experimental" Pre-test and Post-test Mean Score