According to Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This process involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Improving listening skill through watching English movies is supported by theories of Schwartz. Movie is one of the new media used by the teacher to teach listening for the students which learn English as foreign language. Movie or video can enhance listening comprehension by providing learners with contextually rich, high interest, authentic and culturally appropriate communicative situations (Schwartz, 1998:46).
I believe that it will helpful in improving my listening skill. This theory worked on me. Fortunately, I actually love to watch movies, especially Western movies. From my experiences, I had improvement in listening after I applied this. When I was watching, I used the two subtitles at once. Another way is that if I had been watched the movie once using Indonesian subtitle, I will repeat to watch it another time using only English as subtitle. Those are the way I train my listening skill. When I found an unfamiliar word, I will look for the meaning through the dictionary on my phone. Besides, it will make the learning process being unconscious, we got the entertainment and also the knowledge.
