Improving Students Listening Skills By Using Popular English Songs Of Maher Zain

Listening is a fundamental skill in English language acquisition, however many students struggle with auditory comprehension due to conventional teaching methods that lack engaging materials. In the context of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), students often found it difficult to identify sounds and meanings in spoken English. The use of audio-based authentic materials, such as music, is considered an effective strategy to stimulate interest, increase motivation, and clarify pronunciation. Therefore, this study aimed to find out the effectiveness of popular English songs by Maher Zain to improving students’ listening skills at SMP Negeri 4 Tangse. This study employed a quantitative approach with an experimental design, specifically a pre-experimental study utilizing pre-tests and post-tests to collect data from the respondents. The sample consisted of students at SMP Negeri 4 Tangse, who were treated using Maher Zain’s songs as the primary instructional media. The findings indicated that the integration of these songs significantly improved students' listening skills. This improvement was clearly evident from the post-test results, which showed a considerable increase in mean scores compared to the pre-test scores. Furthermore, the statistical analysis through a t-test revealed that the calculated t-score was 21.36, which was significantly higher than the t-table value of 1.711 (21.36 > 1.711) at a significance level of 0.05. Consequently, the Null Hypothesis (Ho) was rejected, and the Alternative Hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. This confirmed that the use of Maher Zain’s popular English songs was an effective and pedagogically sound tool for enhancing students' listening proficiency, providing a more enjoyable and interactive learning atmosphere in the classroom.