STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PODCAST AS A LEARNING MEDIA TO IMPROVE THEIR LISTENING SKILL

Abstract

Despite the great number of research that focuses on the effects of Podcast on the student learning, the qualitative analysis that accounts for the students' voices on the role of Podcast in their listening activity is still under investigated. This paper is aimed at identifying the students’ perceptions on the use of podcast as media to improve their listening skill. To achieve the objective, the qualitative study was conducted to 2 participants of English Education Department in one of Universities in Garut who were chosen by using purposive sampling. The participants were asked to join the interview and answer 7 guiding questions. The data which were analysed using qualitative analysis showed that the students shared positive views on the topic. In this study, most of the participants claimed that the use of podcast have helped them increase their English listening skill. The possible explanation to the claimed is probably due to the understanding of the participants when they were listening to some vocabularies in audio
that using English. Upon exploring the situation, the use of podcast as media to improve student listening skills by the students’ perspective can be concluded that it is effective based on their feelings. This study confirms that Podcast is a learning media that can contribute to the development of students' English listening skills.