The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code 333 Copyright © 2025 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 13, Number 1, June 2025 pp.333 - 340 Using Digital Storytelling to Improve Students’ Listening Ability Nur Afana1, Mashuri2, Sriati Usman3, Muhammad Arid4 E-mail: princessafana36@gmail.com 1,2,3,4Universitas Tadulako, Indonesia Received: 2024-07-07 Accepted: 2025-04-12 DOI: 10.24256/ideas. v13i1.5243 Abstract Listening ability is a skill that focuses on receiving, understanding and identifying a sound that includes several components of the language in this case specialized in English. Digital storytelling is the media that combine between audio and visual in story form. The purpose of this study is to prove whether or not there is an improvement in students' listening skills by using digital storytelling. This research used quasi-experimental. The population of this research was all of eight grade students at SMP Negeri 3 Banawa. The sample was 24 students from class D in experimental class and 24 students from class E in control class. After collecting data and conducting simple statistical analysis, it was found that the mean score of the experimental class (26.25) was higher than the control class (22.5). Then after applying a significant level of 0.5, it was found that the t-count (1.84) was higher than the t-table (1.68). It means the hypothesis is accepted. In conclusion, digital storytelling can improve the listening skills of the eighth-grade students. Keywords: Listening, Recount Text, Digital Storytelling Introduction Listening is one of the four main skills in learning English. When learning a language, the first thing we do is listen, from listening it will lead us to find new skills, namely speaking and then reading and then writing. Therefore, these skills are referred to as basic skills. As the first skill that we need to master, there are many problems occur in the learning process. Based on preliminary observation made at SMP Negeri 3 Banawa, the researcher got some problems related to the listening skills. Students tend to lose their concentration when doing listening activity and sometimes they will concentrate in the beginning of the class and then lose when entering the middle of class. In (Umiyati et al., 2022) research, they mention that the most listening http://u.lipi.go.id/1457703302 mailto:princessafana36@gmail.com Nur Afana, Mashuri, Sriati Usman, Muhammad Arid Evaluating Busuu.com application for speaking skills through Technology Acceptance Model (TAM): EFL Student's Perception 334 problem of Indonesian students is a difficult thing to do in learning English because the language still sounds foreign to Indonesians who are just learning it. Therefore, it is important to always stimulate students to get used to hearing native speaker conversations. Giving attractive methods can be done to stimulate students to be interested in learning and listening to native speaker conversations well. Accordingly, the researcher tries to use digital storytelling media which can provide more interesting method for students to stimulate their listening skills. There are 3 factor make students lose their concentration based on the research conducted by (Le, 2021) , the first is internal factor include students understanding and students interest. The second is external factor include school system, classroom environment, family and teaching methods. Based on that, researcher want to test the digital storytelling during students’s listening activity in the classroom. Literature Review Definition of Listening skills According to (Nurjanah, 2019), listening is the ability for identifying and understanding oral language through vocabulary, syntax, accent, and pronunciation. Listening skills is the skills related to the hearing device and it is clearly needed in communication. Good listening skills will affect the information received. Definition of Recount text Recount text is the text or story about the past. (Agustiawati, 2018) mentions recount text is a text that aims to tell something happened in the past including what happened, who was involved, where it happened, when it happened, and why it happened. Moreover, this text contains about particular story. Definition of Digital Storytelling Digital storytelling is the skill of storytelling combined with digital media— such as audio, video, and graphics—to tell a tale is known as digital storytelling (DST), (Rosli & Kamaruddin, 2020) Digital storytelling, as the name suggests, makes use of digital devices, software programs, and many media formats, including text, images, music, video, and voice (narration). In this research, digital storytelling is the media to help students to improve their listening skills. (Sulvika et al., 2021) stated that one contemporary storytelling art form is digital storytelling. These activities are able to incorporate multimedia technology into learning activities while also effectively communicating the lessons found in the narrative story. IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 1, June 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 335 A study related to digital storytelling has been conducted by (Khasanah et al., 2023) about the use of digital storytelling to stimulate learners’ listening comprehension of senior high school in Ciamis. The result of the research showed that students thought that using digital storytelling material in the classroom help them comprehend the speaker's remarks from the video, boost their enthusiasm, and enhance their ability for listening. Method This research used quasi-experimental with one experimental class and one control class. I chose this research design because I wanted to apply a creative learning media to students' listening skills. The population of the research was the eighth-grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Banawa. The sample was class VIIID as experimental class and class VIIIE as control class. Choosing samples by utilizing the purposive sampling technique. The instrument of this research was test include pretest and posttest. On the pretest, the researcher gives questions in the form of filling. They need to fill missing part with verb especially verb past. On the posttest, the form of the questions given is still the same as the form of the questions on the pretest filling in the blanks. The treatment is being done six times with a teaching schedule twice a week, once in the control class and once in the experimental class which took 90 minutes in each meeting. In analyzing the data, researcher used simple statistical analysis formula by (Arikunto, 2006) by using level significance 0.05. The hypothesis of this research is can digital storytelling improve listening skills of SMPN 3 Banawa students. Results After analyze data, the results showed there are the different score between before treatment and after treatment. On pretest, mean score of control class was 10.41 and experimental class was 12.08. On posttest the mean score showed improvement from two classes. Mean score of control class was 32.91 and experimental class was 38.33. The student’s standard and deviation score was following by the table below. Nur Afana, Mashuri, Sriati Usman, Muhammad Arid Evaluating Busuu.com application for speaking skills through Technology Acceptance Model (TAM): EFL Student's Perception 336 Table 1. Deviation of the pre-test and post-test of the experimental class No Initials Score Pretest Score posttest Deviation Square Deviation 1 RS 10 20 10 100 2 OKP 10 70 60 3600 3 AF 10 20 10 100 4 RR 20 70 50 2500 5 D 10 30 20 400 6 AD 20 80 60 3600 7 R 0 20 20 400 8 LA 10 20 10 100 9 RA 30 80 50 2500 10 RSA 0 20 20 400 11 ES 0 30 30 900 12 NA 30 80 50 2500 13 RAD 0 10 10 100 14 NAI 10 20 10 100 15 YA 0 10 10 100 16 RI 10 20 10 100 17 ZZ 0 10 10 100 18 FAZ 20 90 70 4900 19 Z 10 20 10 100 20 AA 10 10 0 0 21 M 20 70 50 2500 22 MAA 30 70 40 1600 23 ZM 20 30 10 100 24 AP 10 20 10 100 Total 630 26900 IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 1, June 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 337 Table 2. Deviation of the pre-test and post-test of the control class No Initials Score Pretest Score posttest Deviation Square Deviation 1 MIC 10 40 30 900 2 A 0 30 30 900 3 YA 20 40 20 400 4 Y 10 10 0 0 5 NA 10 40 30 900 6 C 10 70 60 3600 7 YAL 20 10 -10 100 8 WA 20 20 0 0 9 N 10 20 10 100 10 RR 0 60 60 3600 11 AN 10 30 20 400 12 FN 10 40 30 900 13 AG 10 30 20 400 14 BC 0 10 10 100 15 DA 0 40 40 1600 16 RA 10 50 40 1600 17 G 20 30 10 100 18 JK 10 20 10 100 19 PSL 0 40 40 1600 20 SM 10 30 20 400 21 RM 10 20 10 100 22 SF 20 50 30 900 23 FT 20 40 20 400 24 MK 10 20 10 100 Total 540 19200 The researcher utilized the t-counted formula to calculate the significant difference between the experimental class and the control class. It was found that the significance between the calculation results of the control class and the experimental class is 1.84. By applying t-count formula with significance level 0.05 and degree of freedom (df), the t-table value was 1.68 which lower than t-count. It Nur Afana, Mashuri, Sriati Usman, Muhammad Arid Evaluating Busuu.com application for speaking skills through Technology Acceptance Model (TAM): EFL Student's Perception 338 means the hypothesis was accepted and using digital storytelling proven to be able to improve students’ listening skills of the eighth-grade students at SMP Negeri 3 Banawa. Discussion This research aims to determine whether digital storytelling can improve students' listening skills at SMP Negeri 3 Banawa. From the findings that have been discussed previously, it shows that digital storytelling can improve students' listening skills. By carrying out 6 sessions of treatment. The result obtained in the data analysis is that the method is accepted. To see if digital storytelling can improve students' listening skills, the researcher used a test in the form of audio-visuals and then they were given a story where they were instructed to fill in the missing verbs in the story and fill them in according to what they listened to. The verbs they fill in are past tense verbs that are still related to the previous lesson. This is because the researcher used recount text like the lesson taught in the treatment where this text must use past tenses because it is a story that happened in the past. Before learning the recount text, students have first learned the past tense so that the material they get is still interrelated. While using digital storytelling media, students learn individually when presenting the results of the stories they have arranged using their language and what they understand from the stories provided. Students learn to perform public speaking. This can help increase students' confidence levels as well as train students' ability to speak in front of a crowd. It is consistent with the findings of (Normansyah, 2019), there are seven benefits of oral presentations based on students’ perception include enhancing students' confidence, helping them learn new things, improving their public speaking abilities, practicing oral presentations, teaching them communication skills, improving their writing and reading abilities, and training them in oral presentation techniques. Conclusion Listening skills are one of the foundations of learning English. By listening we can answer questions, or solve problems given. The good listening will also build more effective two-way communication. To get good listening we need strategy such as method or media to improve the listening skills. One of the latest media in improving listening skills is digital storytelling. This really helps to improve listening skills in the context of this research is students. The implication of this research is that it can encourage teachers to be more creative in the use of technological media in learning that can make students enjoy learning more and reduce their boredom so that their concentration level does not decrease. The result of the research showed digital storytelling can improve IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 1, June 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 339 students’ listening ability. Acknowledgement The researcher feels very grateful to have supervisors who are very nurturing and guide researcher wholeheartedly such as Drs. Muhammad Arid, M.Pd as reviewer, Dr. Hj. Sriati Usman, M.Hum as her supervisor, and Mr. Mashuri, S.Pd., M.A as her co-supervisor. Thank you for the input, suggestions, and some constructive comments that have been given to her so that she can compile this research until it is in the last chapter. References Agustiawati, H. 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