Teaching Listening through Islamic Storytelling in Indonesian Junior Secondary School Context

The objectives of this research were to find out whether or not the use of Islamic storytelling is effective in improving students‟ listening comprehension and to find out the students‟ interest during the process of teaching and learning through Islamic storytelling. The study employed mix-method design. The participants of the study wereeight yearsstudents of Al-Akhyar Islamic School. The data were collected by using listening test, questionnaire, and interview. The gathered data from listening test was tabulated and calculated by using t-test in SPSS program, while the collected data from questionnaire and interview were analyzed using Likert scale and open coding. The results of the study showed that the Islamic storytelling group outperformed the general storytelling group in posttests and it was indicated by the result of the t-test value (0.00 <0.05). It proves that the use of Islamic storytelling in learning listening was effective to increase students‟ listening comprehension. Moreover, the result of the questionnaire indicated that students were highly interested in learning listening through Islamic storytelling. Further analysis through interview revealed that there are four main reasons that foster the students‟ interest in learning through Islamic storytelling: learning through Islamic storytelling is a fun and interesting activity; the selected story is suitable with the student‟ needs; the story contain meaningful lesson which relevance with their life as a Muslim; and the existence of an illustration pictures.