THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ HABIT IN WATCHING

MOVIE AND LISTENING SKILL AT THE FIRST SEMESTER OF

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF TARBIYAH
AND TEACHING SCIENCE FACULTY OF
UIN ALAUDDIN MAKASSAR

Usman Abdullah
English Education Department of UIN Alauddin Makassar
[email protected]

ABSTRACT: This study aimed to find and describe the relationship between
students’ habit in watching English movie (variable x) and their listening skill (variable
y). This study was conducted at the English Education Department of Tarbiyah and
Teaching Science Faculty of UIN Alauddin Makassar. The population in this study
was all of the first-semester students in the academic year 2016/2017 which consisted
102 students, and the sample taken was 30 students by using random sampling. The
method used in this study was the quantitative method with the correlational design.
The instruments used to gather the data were questionnaire and test. The scores from
both instruments were calculated and analyzed by using statistical procedure of
Product Moment Correlation to see whether there was a correlation between the two
variables or not. The result showed that there was a correlation, with the index value
of correlation coefficient (rxy) of 0.444 which meant there was a moderate correlation.
Furthermore, the hypothesis testing showed that the index value of correlation
coefficient (rxy) of 0,444 was higher than the index value of correlation coefficient of
the Product Moment table (rt) of 0,306 which meant that the null hypothesis (H0) was
rejected and alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted. In conclusion, there was a
moderate significance correlation between the two variables. Based on the findings
mentioned above, the researcher assumes that the more students watching English
movie the more their listening skill will be better which means movie can be used as
media to improve students’ listening skill. Therefore, the researcher suggests that the
English teacher could use movie as a media in language teaching in improving
students’ listening skill.

Keywords: Students, habit, movie correlation, and listening skill.

INTRODUCTION

Everybody has learned their language since they were children, especially their
mother tongue. The process occurs naturally and properly with a view to communicate
in society environment. The first step in this process is listening. It is often assumed
that listening is a passive process and it occurs without much effort. Lewis in
Dhamarullah (2015: 1) described listening is a complex process that involves the

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process of hearing, identifying, understanding, and interpreting spoken language.
According to Mendelsohn in Ahmadi and Gilakjani (2011: 977), listening plays an
important role in communication as it is said that out of the total time spent on
communicating, listening takes up 40-50%, speaking 25-30%, reading 11-16% and
writing about 9%. Thus, it can be concluded that listening is an active process, and it
is not as easy as it seems.
However, it has been debatable whether language skills are learnt or acquired.
According to Karshen (1982: 32), said that language acquisition is different from
language learning with the former being more important than the latter. According to
him, language acquisition involves a subconscious process in which a person is not
aware of the fact that he or she is acquiring a language, and it results into a
subconscious competence as in first language. On the contrary, language learning
involves a conscious process in which someone knows the knowledge and rule of a
language and is able to differ and explain the correct and incorrect sentence by
referring to the grammatical structure. Krashen’s input hypotesis is presumably the
principal theory that support this research. Krashen believed that to acquire a language,
there must be a comprehensible input, or language in a form that is both understandable
and meaningful to the person.
The way people understand this input is influenced by several factors,
including their attitudes toward the input and the exposure they get. The high amount
of exposure he gets, may it be in the form of teacher’s talk, radio shows, movies, or
TV shows, also make it possible for him to get more input. According to previous
issues, movie can be one of medias can affect a person listening skill, especially
English movie. Nowadays, movie becomes very familiar to various level of society,
especially student.

Based on Krashen's input hypothesis, it is theoritically possible that movies can

provide comprehensible input and facilitate the acquisition and development of

listening skill. There should be a positive relation between movie-watching activity

and listening skill.

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 Furthermore, the research problem of this research was “Is there a correlation
between students’ habit in watching English movie and their listening skill?”. Then,
the research objective was “To identify the correlation between students’ habit in
watching English movie and their listening skill?” In addition, this research was
beneficial practically in the context for the students (they can solve their listening
problems), the lecturers (they can provide an alternative solution to the problems in
teaching listening by using movie as media in language learning), and the further
researcher (they can use the finding of this study as one of their references). Finally, this
research was focused on students’ habit and it’s correlation toward students’ listening skill
at the first semester of English Education Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science
Faculty of UIN Alauddin Makassar

LITERATURE REVIEW
A number of researches had been conducted in order to find out the correlation
between students’ activity in watching movie and listening skill. First, Yusvita (2008) was
success to prove that there was a correlation between stunts’ habit in watching movie and
their listening skill. The findings of her research showed a moderate correlation between
the watching habit of students of MTs Hidayatut Thalibin and their listening skill with
index correlation value 0,46.
Furthermore, Rahman conducted a study under the title “Correlation between
Frequency of Watching English Movies and Vocabulary Mastery of Second Grade Students of MAN
1 Semarang in the Academic Year of 2011/2012”. He focused on how the amount of time
that students spent in watching Englis movies elates to their vocabulary mastery. He
found a correlation with index value 0,584. It was a positive correlation which means the
more students watch movies, the more they improve their vocabulary mastery.
It can be concluded that the researches above give some contributions to the
researcher. Therefore, the researcher would see whether is there any correlation between
students’ habit in watching movie and listening skill at the first semester of English
Education Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science Faculty of UIN Alauddin
Makassar or not.

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Habit

Habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regulary and tends to occur

subconsciously. According to Andrews, through in the American Journal of Psychology (1903:
53) it is defined in this way: “A habit, from the standpoint of psychology, is a more or less
fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental
experience”. Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a
person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habits
are sometimes compulsory. The process by which new behaviours become automatic is
habit formation.
Habit formation is the process by which a behavior, through regular repetition,
becomes automatic or habitual. This is modeled as an increase in automaticity with
number of repetitions up to an asymptote. This process of habit formation can be slow.
Lally et al. (2010: 37) found the average time for participants to reach the asymptote of
automaticity was 66 days with a range of 18–254 days.
As the habit is forming, it can be analyzed in three parts: the cue, the behavior,
and the reward. The cue is the thing that causes the habit to come about, the trigger of
the habitual behavior. This could be anything that one's mind associates with that habit
and one will automatically let a habit come to the surface. The behavior is the actual habit
that one exhibits, and the reward, a positive feeling, therefore continues the "habit loop".
A habit may initially be triggered by a goal, but over time that goal becomes less necessary
and the habit becomes more automatic.

Movies
According to Barsam and Monahan (2010: 2), a movie is a story, captured in a set
ofcelluloid strips/films, which are shown on a screen with certain speed to give the
impression of moving. Lately a lot of moviemakers have been shooting their movies
digitally, but the main characteristic of movies remains the same, a movie or a film is a
motion picture. Movies have been a big part of human life. Barsam and Monahan even
stated that calling movie as the most popular art form. is an understatement. That is how
influential movies are. Movies have become a big part of humans’ life and culture to the

4
point that it is undeniable to the people, even the most reclusive ones, must have watched
a movie at least once in their life.
People do not only watch movies for entertainment, but they also do it for
pedagogic purposes. An experiment conducted by Ismaili (2013: 121) shows that movies
can develop students’ listening and communication skills. Johnson (1956: 414) noted that
watching movies in foreign languages give benefits for students, such as their ability in
understanding spoken language increases, their pronunciation improves, they acquire new
vocabulary, they can develop students’ self-expression ability, and they unconsciously
adapt to the language’s grammatical forms and sentence patterns in context.
Barsam (2010: 5) stated the way the story in a movie is told is called its narrative.
The narrative structure of a movie has several elements, they are: Story and plot, Order,
events, duration, suspense and surprise, character, setting, scope, and narration and
narration. Film site in Dhamarullah (2015: 42) identifies 11 main genres, namely action,
adventure, comedy, crime/gangster, drama, epics, horror, musical, science-fiction, war,
and westerns; and 12 subgenres, including fantasy, romance, biography, and
thriller/suspense.

Listening Skill
Based on Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary in Dhamarullah (2015: 31),
listening means “To pay attention to somebody/something that you can hear. To take
notice of what somebody says to you so that you follow their advice or believe them”.
The listening activities develop a wide variety of listening in details, and inferring meaning
form context. These exercises often require completing an authentic task while listening,
such as taking missing words in completion items, text of the song, or taking telephone
messages. The recordings on the class cassettes contain both scripted and unscripted
conversation with natural pauses, hesitation and interruption that occur in real speech.
Brown (1987: 11) stated that there are two forms which spoken language takes. It can be
in the form of monologue or dialogue. The examples of monologue are speeches, lectures,
readings, or news broadcast, while the example of dialogue is a conversation between two
people. In real life, people generally have a purpose in listening, no matter to which form.
They may listen to a news broadcast to find out about the winner of the election, for

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instance. They listen to a stranger when asking for direction, they listen to a lecturer when
they are in the class, etc.
Wilson (2008: 41) mentioned the different sources of listening based on teaching
listening. They are: teacher talk, student talk, guest speakers, textbook recordings, songs,
television, video, DVD and radio. In this research, the researcher only focuses on video,
especially for movie. Nowadays, movie has become very familiar for students. Most of
students have watched at least one title of movie. Some of them also make it as their
hobby, spending a lot of time in front of TV, computer or laptop or even go to the cinema.
Besides as just a hobby, watching movie also can become as a media for them to learn.
The difficulties in listening may come from the listeners themselves (internal) or
from the characteristics of spoken language (external). Aside from learner’s internal
problems, there are also the external problems that come from the speech itself. Spoken
English language has special characteristics which differentiate it from written language.
These characteristics be problematic for ESL and EFL learners if they are not familiar. It
is important for learners to acknowledge the characteristics and be accustomed to them.
Brown (2000: 252) pointed out 8 characteristics as the following: Clustering, redundancy,
reduced forms, performance variable, Colloquial language, and rate of delivery.
RESEARCH METHOD

Research Design
In this research, the researcher used a descriptive correlation research. According
to Gay in Nurul Hidayah (2016: 23) correlational research is research study that involves
collecting data in order to determine whether and to what degree a relationship exist
between two or more quantifiable variables. The researcher presented the description of
the data dealing with students’ habit in watching English movie toward students’ listening
skill and their correlation.

X correlation Y
Students’ habit in
Students’ listening skill
watching English movie

Correlational Research Design

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 The variables of this research were students’ habit in watching English movie as
the independent variable (X) and students’ listening skill as the dependent variable (Y).
This research lasted for two weeks, started on January 16th until 27th 2017. The
researcher took English Education Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science Faculty
of UIN Alauddin Makassar as a place for this research which was located on H. Yasin
Limpo street No. 36 Samata-Gowa.
The populations of this research were the first semester students of English
Education Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science Faculty of UIN Alauddin
Makassar in academic year 2016/2017 that consisted 102 students and divided into 4
groups and 2 classes namely PBI 1-2 and PBI 3-4. This research used random sampling
in which the paticipants were randomly selected. The researher took 30 of 112 students
as a sample of this research.
Regarding to the different desired data, research instrument may be different from
one to another. The research instruments that were used by the researcher were
questionnaire and test. The questionnaire consisted two sections. The first section aimed
to collect the respondents’ background such as gender, age, length of exposure, preferred
genres, and preferred media in watching. The second section was the main questionnaire
that aimed to measure the respondents’ habit in watching English movie. One of the
instruments in this research was a test. Test was used to measure the students’ listening
skill because test was one of the techniques to get an objective data. In this case, the test
consisted 20 items. Based on the questionnaires that were given to the students, the test
contained 8 assessment aspect namely idiomatic expression, visual clues, gestures, slang,
interjection, detail information, vocabulary, and sentence. The test was divided into 3
sections namely multiple choice consisted 10 items, true/false consisted 5 items, and fill
in the blank consisted 5 items. In this test, the movie used was Furious 7.
In collecting the data of respondents’ habit in watching English movie, the
respondents were asked to fill the questionnaire. In collecting the data of respondents’
listening skill, the respondents taken a test that contained 8 assessment aspects. The
respondents were watching a short movie scene then answer the questions on their answer
sheet based on the movie that they had watched. In analyzing the data, the researcher used
quantitative approach by scoring the respondents’ questionnaire and listening test data
then distributed it into grouped distribution table. After the scores from questionnaire

7
and the scores from the Listening test were obtained, the researcher used Product
Moment Correlation statistical procedure. The formula as follows:

N ∑ XY − (∑ X) (∑ Y)
𝑟𝑥𝑦 =
√[N ∑ X 2 − (∑ X)2 ][N ∑ Y 2 − (∑ Y)2 ]

In interpreting the coefficient of correlation, the guideline was used as follow:

Table Interpretation of Correlation.

The correlation coefficient Interpretation
0,00 – 0,19 Very low correlation
0,20 – 0,39 Low correlation
0,40 – 0,59 Moderate correlation
0,60 – 0,79 High correlation
0,80 – 1,00 Very high correlation
(Sugiyono, 2008: 231)

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The Findings of Research

The findings of this research were taken from the result of the questionnaire and
the test. The respondents’ background as follows:

Number of
Category Percentage
respondent
Gender
M (Male) 8 27%
F (Female) 22 73%
Age
A (17-18 years old) 22 73%
B (19-20 years old) 8 27%
C (21-22 years old) 0 0%
D (23-24 years old) 0 0%
Length of exposure
A (1-3 years) 6 20%
B (4-6 years) 6 20%
C (7-9 years) 15 50%
D (≥10 years) 3 10%

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 Beside from the respondents’ background, the first section of the questionnaire
also described the respondents’ preference in watching movies, namely the preferred
media and genres.The findings show that the most used media was digital media file. It
was probably because digital media file, such as mkv, mp4, or avi formats, were easier to
obtain through the internet. Interestingly, online streaming was the least used medium,
even though it also required internet. The findings also showed that the respondents’
preference in choosing the movie genres and subgenres was quite evenly distributed.
Action was the most preferred genre, chosen by 73% of the respondents, while fantasy
and animation were the second and the third most preferred ones, chosen by 50% and
46% of the respondents.
The second section of the questionnaire contaied 22 questions/statements. 20
were the main questions with scaled responses that were used in determining the
questionnaire score, while 2 questions were used to determine the subtitle language used
by the respondents. The findings show the total scores were 2216 points. The average
score was 73.86, and the highest and lowest scores were 80 and 68 respectively. From 30
respondents, 20 respondents chose to use Indonesian when they watch movies with
subtitle. Meanwhile, 10 respondents chose to use English. The grouped distribution of
questionnaire data as follows:
Grouped Distribution of Questionnaire Score

Score Frequency

68 - 69 2

70 - 71 1

72 - 73 11

74 - 75 11

76 - 77 2

78 - 79 1

80 - 81 2

Total 30

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 The listening scores were obtained from the listening test result. These scores
were expected to reflect their listening skill (variable y) more accurately. The findings
showed the total of listening score was 2240 with the average score was 74,67. The highest
score was 85 and the lowest was 60. The grouped distribution of listening score data as
follows:
Grouped Distribution of Listening Score

Score Frequency
60 - 63 1
64 - 67 1
68 - 71 11
72 - 75 8
76 - 79 0
80 - 83 4
84 - 86 5
Total 30

In this research, to interpret the result of this research, the writer used statistical
method, in which the data were analyzed by using the pearson product moment formula.
Product Moment Calculation Table
NO X Y XY X2 Y2
1-30
2216 2240 165675 163882 168450
Σ

In order to find the correlation coefficient, the questionnaire scores (variable x) and
listening scores (variable y) were calculated by using Product Moment Correlation
statistical procedure. The formula as follows:
𝑁 ∑ 𝑋𝑌 − (∑ 𝑋) (∑ 𝑌)
𝑟𝑥𝑦 =
ඥ[𝑁 ∑ 𝑋 2 −(∑ 𝑋)2 ] [𝑁 ∑ 𝑌 2 −(∑ 𝑌)2 ]

30.165675 −(2216)(2240)
=
ඥ[30.153433 −4910656] [30.165125 −5017600]

4970250 −(4963840)
=
ඥ[4916460 −4910656] [5053500 −5017600]

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 6410
=
ඥ[5804] [35900]
6410
=
ඥ[14435]
6410
=
14435

= 0,444

DISCUSSION
The findings of this research showed that the index value of coefficient correlation
was 0,444. Based on the table of interpretation correlation, the score of coefficient
correlation was a moderate correlation (see table 3.2). To know the significance
correlation between variable x and variable y, the rxy was compared with rt with the
number of df (N-nr) = 28 (30-2) and used level of significant of 5%. In educational
research, this level was common as a standard of rejection. 5 % meant that the writer
believed his hypothesis research was true as much as 95%. The rt showed that on the
accept point df = 28 and on 5% significant level, the point was 0,306 (see appendix 5).
The obtained result of the rxy above was 0,444. It meant that coefficient of calculation
(rxy) was higher than the coefficient of table (rt) Finally, the writer can conclude that null
hypothesis (H0) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted.
Based on the findings above, the reseracher assumed that the more student watch
English movie, the more their listening skill will be better. This statement supports what
Herron in Merita Ismaili (2013: 122) stated before that video is lauded for contextualizing
language (i.e., linking language form to meaning) and depicting the foreign culture more
effectively than other instructional materials. Videotapes permit students to hear native
speakers interacting in everyday conversational situations and to practice important
linguistic structures. Unlike audiocassettes, video's visual dimension is thought to reduce
ambiguities present in native speaker voices and to motivate students to want to learn the
foreign language. Movies also give a visual context that can help the students to
understand the story clearly.

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CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions of this research dealt with “The Correlation between Student
habit in Watching English Movie and Their Listening Skill at the First Semester of English
Education Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science Faculty of UIN Alauddin
Makassar”. There were some findings found based on data of students’ questionnaire
score and student’s listening scroe hereinafter formulated to find out the value of
correlation coefficient.
The result of coefficient correlation between two variables was 0,444. That result
indicated that there was moderate correlation between students’ habit in watching English
movie and their listening skill. This statement was proved based on the result rx was
higher than the rt (0,444 ≥ 0,306 in significant level 5%) it showed that the null hypothesis
(Ho) “There is no relationship between students’ habit in watching English movie and
their listening skill” is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (H1), “There is a positive
relationship between students’ habit in watching English movie and their listening skill”
is accepted.
In conclusion, there is positive correlation between students’ movie-watching
activity and their listening skill of the first semester students at English Education
Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science Faculty of UIN Alauddin Makassar.

SUGGESTION

Based on the findings of the research, some suggestions addressed to the

teacher/lecturer, the students, and the next researcher to improve students’ ability in
English especially listening skill.
1. In teaching/learning activity, especially in listening, the teacher/lecturer could give
the materials using different ways. For example, using English movie, in making it
effective and efficient.
2. It is suggested to the students who need improvement in their listening skill may
try to watch English movies frequently. This way, they can receive comprehensible
inputs that are needed in acquiring target language and building language

12
 competence. In addition, to optimize language acquisition, the movies must be
watched without subtitle.
3. It is suggested to other researchers to complete this research by conducting any
other researches on watching English movie. Based on the explanation above the
writer would like to suggest other researcher, that the result of the study can be
used as additional reference for further research with different sample and
occasions.

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