THE COMBINATION OF "BATU ASIMTUT" AND "T2S: TEXT TO VOICE -READ ALOUD" APPLICATION TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILL

Listening is known as ‘receptive’ skill. Listening usually becomes the first skill acquired for everyone since babies. Babies tend to listen to their parents’ utterances. After that they repeat it, they learn to read, then finally they learn it. This is a natural process of learning language. To be able to learn a language, people should learn how to listen carefully first. This study is aimed to use the combination of “Batu Asimtut” and “T2S: Text to Voice – Read Aloud” software in order to improve the listening skill of the student of Akademi Maritim Nusantara-Cilacap especially in Nautical Science program. The researcher separated the students into 2 (two) classes. Control Class used Audio-Lingual method while Experimental Class used the combination of “Batu Asimtut” and “T2S: Text to Voice – Read Aloud”. The researcher used Standard Marine Communication Phrase (SMCP) as the material in 14 meetings. Then, he conducted two times of test; pre-test and final test. The researcher used Brown’s (2004) method in the assessment of listening. After that, the data are analyzed with SPSS program to see the correlation and the improvement of the students. The result showed that both classes showed an improvement in listening skill. The difference is the significance of each class on each test. The average mark of control class A increased from 39.5 to 58.5 while experimental class increased from 58 to 69.5. It may be concluded that the combination worked.