STORYTELLING AS A STRATEGY TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Abstrak

Listening is a foundational skill in English language learning, yet many junior high school students continue to struggle with limited vocabulary, low engagement, and teacher-centered instructional practices. To address these challenges, this study examines the effectiveness of storytelling as a strategy to enhance students’ listening comprehension. Employing a qualitative literature review approach, the study synthesizes findings from empirical research, scholarly articles, and pedagogical reports related to storytelling and listening development. The analysis shows that storytelling offers meaningful contextual input, reinforces comprehension through narrative structure, and stimulates cognitive processes such as inference-making and information retention. Furthermore, storytelling increases learner motivation and attention by presenting language in engaging and relatable formats. These findings indicate that storytelling is a pedagogically robust and contextually relevant approach that can significantly improve listening skills among junior high school learners. The study concludes that integrating storytelling into English classrooms has strong potential to enrich instructional practices and support communicative competence development.