CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Definition of Speaking

Chaney (1998: 13) says that speaking is the process of building and sharing

meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts.

Speaking is a crucial part of second and foreign language learning and teaching.

Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and

English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of

drills or memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of

teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in

that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and

cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance.

Furthermore speaking is one of the central elements of communication. In

EFL (English as Foreigner language) teaching, it is an aspect that needs special

attention and instruction. In order to provide effective attention, it is necessary for a

teacher of EFL to carefully examine the factors, condition and components that

underlie speaking effectiveness (Richards, 1999:230). Effective instruction derived

from the careful analysis of this area, together with sufficient language input and

speech-promotion activities will gradually help learners improve their English

speaking ability.

Many factors cause students reluctant to communicate in English; some of

those are cultural factors, linguistic factors or ineffectual factor. Here the researcher

only focus on the students to explain the effective factors since it is strongly related
to the research being done by the researcher. The ineffectual factors include culture

shock, previous negative social and political experiences, lack of motivation, anxiety

and shyness in class, especially if their previous learning experiences were negative

(Nunan, 1999:231). All the factors stated above give the effect on the students’

speaking ability. So, the teacher has to solve this problem as good as possible.

Furthermore, students seem to possess a reluctance to speak in English may

be due to the students’ fear of looking and feeling foolish when they make a mistake

that would make the others laugh at them or even look down on them. This method

proposes to help the students eliminate their resistance to learning spoken language

by making them forget their difficulties in learning (Brown, (1994: 23). Yet,

countless studies and experiments in human learning have shown that motivation is a

key in learning. Therefore the teacher is expected to motivate the students the class

while they are learning English speaking skill.

2.2 The Importance of Speaking

In relation to the purpose of the teaching of English as a foreign language, a

crucial thing is to teach students to speak in order to communicate through the

language, Allen and Widdowson (in Brumfit and Keith, 1979) elaborate that English

teaching has been called upon to provide students with the basic ability to use the

language, to receive information, and to convey information associated with their

special study.

One of the aims of most language programs is to develop spoken language

skill and most programs aim to integrate both spoken and written language (Burn and

Joyce, 1997). Learning the language means using it in communication in oral or

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written form, and being able to express felling, thought, and experience in various

contexts, Lado (1964 : 51) states that to know the language is to use it. He further

states that students do not know a sentence until he can speak it.

The teaching of speaking skill will enable students to realize their progress or

maturity in thinking. It is important that the development of the spoken language is

not simply a matter of learning skills such as pronouncing English sounds or being

able to produce single utterances or phrases. The teaching of speaking conveys the

sense of exposing the students to express their thought, idea, and feelings. It is

considered important in terms of the teaching of language, since it can bring the

students to think creatively and through speaking they can express what they are

thinking about.

2.3 Teaching Speaking and the Learners’ Problem in Learning Speaking

Nunan (2003: 23) in this case formulates what is meant by teaching speaking:
- Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns

- Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the

second language.

- Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting,

audience, situation and subject matter.

- Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.

- Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.

- Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is

called as fluency.
In addition, Hayriye (http://unr.edu/homepage/hayriyek) provides some

suggestions for English teachers in teaching speaking. They are in the

following:

o Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target

language by providing a rich environment that contains

collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks, and shared

knowledge.

o Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this

aim, practice different ways of student participation.

o Reduce teacher’ speaking time in class while increasing student

speaking time. Step back and observe students.

o Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.

o Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you

reach that conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.

o Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great.

It was a good job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the

materials and efficient use of your voice…"

o Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while

they are speaking. Correction should not distract student from his

or her speech.

o Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class;

contact parents and other people who can help.

o Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right

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track and see whether they need your help while they work in

groups or pairs.

o Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking

activities.

o Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in

expressing themselves in the target language and provide more

opportunities to practice the spoken language.

Although teacher used a good method in teaching, students may be found

some difficulties in learning speaking. In this case, Richard (1990: 222) explains the

typical learner problems in speaking as follows:

- Speaks slowly and takes too long to compose utterances.

- Cannot participate actively in conversation.

- Spoken English doesn’t sound natural

- Poor grammar

- Poor pronunciation

Also Richard (1990: 233) says that there are many reasons causing English

learners are poor in speaking skills. There are as follows:

- Lack of curriculum emphasis on speaking skills

- Teachers’ limited English proficiency

- Class conditions do not favor oral activities

- Limited opportunities outside of class to practice

- Examination system does not emphasize oral skills

Hawes (1994:35) reveals that most of EFL teachers have often complained
about their learners, because they often do not pay attention to the instruction even

reluctant to participate actively in speaking class. Actually there are some factors

influenced, one of them is the activities which are provided by teachers in classroom.

Brown (1994:266), states that the activities which are given by teachers may attract

students’ motivation to involve in speaking class. Thus, the teacher should use a

good method in the teaching and learning process of speaking.

2.4 The Several Techniques of Teaching Speaking

Teacher need to give their students many opportunities to practice speaking.

They will need to use their imaginations in devising situation which provoke the use

of language in expression to the students own meaning, even when students have

very limited recluse on which to draw, from the very beginning levels of language

learning students need to :

1) Experiences various kinds of spoken texts.

2) Developed knowledge about how social and culture contexts effect the type

of spoken language used.

3) Learn how to participate in different spoken interaction.

4) Expend their language recourses and to used a range of spoken language

strategies.

5) Learn how different spoken texts are constructed.

6) Develop greater control of the system of vocabulary, grammar, phonology

and intonation.

7) Develop skill which will enable them to predict what will occur in a

conversation.
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8) Improve their accuracy and fluency.

2.4 The Effective Activities in Teaching Speaking

 Anyway there are many activities which offer students much time to practice

their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming

socialized, and makes students more active in teaching and learning process and at

the same time makes their learning more meaningful and fun for them that quoted

from (Hayriye: http://unr.edu/homepage/hayriyek), they are role play, simulations,

information gap, brainstorming, storytelling, interview, Story Completion, Reporting,

Playing Cards, Picture Narrating, Picture Describing, Find the Difference. Each of

activities is explained as follows;

2.4.1 Role Play

One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend

they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play

activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what

they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go

to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)

2.4.2 Simulations

Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations

different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can

bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is

acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and

simulations have many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate

the students. Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of

hesitant students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a
 7

different role and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have

to take the same responsibility.

2.4.3 Information Gap

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will

have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their

information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a

problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role

because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information

the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity

to talk extensively in the target language.

2.4.4 Brainstorming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on

the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners

generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming are that

the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new

ideas.

2.4.5 Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody

beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling

fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of

beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has

to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of
each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as

an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address students’ speaking ability,

but also get the attention of the class.

2.4.6 Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a

good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type

of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their

own interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance

to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them

becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to

the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her

partner to the class.

2.4.7 Story Completion

This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in

a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he

or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the

previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences.

Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.

2.4.8 Reporting

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine

and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news.

Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling
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their friends in their daily lives before class.

2.4.9 Playing Cards

In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a

topic. For instance:

- Diamonds: Earning money

- Hearts: Love and relationships

- Spades: An unforgettable memory

- Clubs: Best teacher

Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5

questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example:

If the topic "Diamonds: Earning Money" is selected, here are some possible

questions:

- Is money important in your life? Why?

- What is the easiest way of earning money?

- What do you think about lottery? Etc.

However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that

students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no

students get little practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask open-

ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.

2.4.10 Picture Narrating

This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell

the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria

provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures
they need to use while narrating.

2.4.11 Picture Describing

Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students

just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity

students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students

discuss the picture with their groups, so a spokesperson for each group describes the

picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the

learners as well as their public speaking skills.

2.4.12 Find the Difference

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two

different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture

of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in

the pictures.

2.5 The Characteristics of the Audio-Lingual Method

The Audio-Lingual method of teaching English as a second language had its

origins during World War II when it became known as the Army method (Kifuthu,

2002:34). It was developed as a reaction to the grammar-translation method of

teaching foreign languages. Grammar-translation had been used to teach for

thousands of years, but the method was perceived as taking too long for learners to

be able to speak in the target language. The Audio-Lingual method set out to

achieve quick communicative competence through innovative methods. From about

1947-1967 the Audio-Lingual approach was the dominant foreign language teaching
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method in the United States.

The Audio-Lingual method is based on the theory that language learning is a

question of habit formation. It has its origins in Skinner’s principles of behavior

theory. Since learning is thought to be a question of habit formation, errors are

considered to be bad and to be avoided. Further, teachers “reward” students by

saying “Good!” and praising the class when they perform well.

The Audio-Lingual method addresses a need for people to learn foreign

languages rapidly. It is best for beginning level English classes in a foreign language

setting. All instructions in the class are given in English. A dialog is presented for

memorization. The teacher asks the class to repeat each line of the dialog.

Expansion drills are used for difficult sentences. The teacher starts with the end of

the sentence and the class repeats just two words. A series of pattern practice drills

then follow the introduction of the dialog.

One of the key principles of the Audio-Lingual method is that the language

teacher should provide students with a native-speaker-like model. By listening,

students are expected to be able to mimic the model. Based upon contrastive

analyses, students are drilled in pronunciation of words that are most dissimilar

between the target language and the first language. Grammar is not taught directly by

rule memorization, but by examples. The method presumes that second language

learning is very much like first language learning.

The Audio-lingual Method is a combination of structural linguistic theory,

aural-oral procedures, and behaviorist psychology, which endows it with its own

distinctive characteristics (Fries, 1992:25). There are mainly five of them:

 1) Separation of language skills into listening, speaking, reading and

writing, with emphasis on the teaching of listening and speaking

before reading and writing;

2) Use of dialogues as the chief means of presenting the language;

3) Emphasis on certain practice techniques: mimicry, memorization and

pattern drills;

4) Discouraging the use of the mother tongue in the classroom;

5) Use of language laboratory.

Based on the statements above, it is know that this method give emphasis to

oral skill, including speaking and listening. Reading and writing also taught through

this method, but after the teaching of listening and speaking skill. Other

characteristic of this method is that the using of mother tongue is not allowed. And

finally, the characteristic of this method is that the teaching and learning process take

place in a language laboratory.

2.6 Teaching Speaking Through the Audio-Lingual Method

The audio-lingual method is one of the techniques in teaching English

especially teaching speaking. Teacher who used this method not only improve the

students mastery on speaking but also on listening, pronunciation, grammar and

intonation. So that it will be able to teach the students in the target language.

Dialogue and drill form the basis of audio- lingual class room practices.

Dialogues provide the means of contextualizing key structure and illustrate situation

in which structure might be used as well as some cultural aspect of the target

language. Dialogues are used for repetition and memorization. Correct

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pronunciation, stress, and intonation are emphasized after a dialogue has been

presented and memorized, specific grammatical pattern in the dialogue are selected

and become the focus of varies kinds of drill and pattern – practice exercise.

The use of drills and pattern practice is a distinctive feature of the audio

lingual method. Various kinds of drills are used. Brooks (1964:156-61, in Larsen-

Freeman (1986:31) includes the following:

1. Repetition. The students repeat an utterance aloud as soon as he has heard it.

He does this without looking at a printed text. The utterance must be brief

enough to be and order.

2. Inflection. One word in an utterance appears in another form when repeated.

3. Replacement. One word in an utterance is replaced by another.

4. Restatement. The student rephrases an utterance and addresses it to someone

else, according to instructions.

5. Completion. The student hears an utterance that is complete except for one

word, and then repeats the utterance in completed form.

6. Transposition. A change in word order is necessary when a word is added.

7. Expansion. When a word is added it take a certain place in the sequence.

8. Contraction. A single word stands for a phase or clause.

9. Transformation. A sentence is transformed by being made negative or through

changes in tense, wood, voice, aspect, or modality.

10. Integration. Two separate utterances are integrated into one.

Instructional materials in the Audio-Language Method assist the teacher to

develop language mastery of the learner, especially speaking. A student’s text book
is often not used in the elementary phases of a course, where students are mostly

taught speaking, listening, repeating, and responding. Tape recorders and audiovisual

equipment often have central roles in an audio lingual course. If the teacher is not a

native speaker of the target language, the tape recorder provides accurate models for

dialogues and drills.

2.7 Previous Study on Improving Speaking.

There are several studies that have been done on improving speaking. Kartini

(2006) conducted a study intended to find out whether teaching English speaking

could be improve by mastering a lot of vocabulary and can increase the students’

achievement in speaking ability of the second year students of SMP N 3 Peusangan,

entitled “The Contribution of Vocabulary to the Improvement of Speaking for the

Second Year of SMP N 3 Peusangan”. The hypothesis of this study is the students

are more effective to increase their ability in speaking by knowing a lot of

vocabulary. The population of this study is the second year student of SMP N 3

Peusangan. The final result of this study is that the hypothesis is accepted.

In the year of 2009, Marlina conducted a research on improving the students’

speaking skill by using role play. The title of this research is “Improving the

Students’ Speaking Skill by Using Role Play. The research was a qualitative

approach by using a collaborative classroom action research. The subject of this

research is the second year students’ of SMP Islam Pase Batuphat Barat. The final

result of this research showed that the students’ achievement on speaking is better

than before they learnt speaking by using role play. This research also concluded that

the role play is effective to be used in learning and teaching process of speaking.
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In 2004, a research was conducted by Yusrawati on improving speaking. The

title of this research is “Improving Speaking by Using Role Play. The research

applied a collaborative classroom action research. The subject of this research is the

second year students’ of SMP N 5 Paya Reubek. The final result of this research is

the application of role play technique in teaching and learning process of speaking

could improve students’ ability, and it can motivated and made the students enjoy

learning speaking when the teacher applied role play technique in the classroom.