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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

Speaking is the process of building, and sharing meaning through the use

of verbal and non-verbal symbols. Speaking is a crucial part of foreign language

learning and teaching in Indonesia. However today every schools is requires that

the goal of teaching speaking should improve students’ communicative skills

because students can express themselves and learn how to use a language.

Mostly the teaching method before the past few decades, found the

teacher tend to carry out the teaching process in the classroom by applying

traditional and monolingual principle ways of teaching unsatisfactorily. This

shows that teachers need enrichments to appropriate ways of teaching

atmosphere. That’s why in teaching English as the foreign language by applying

new and modified fashions in order that the result of the teaching learning process

would contribute more input to reach satisfied learning outcome. All over the

world recently, where the people encourage that English as their target language

used based on whole interactions and communication holding the dominant role

of very aspects of their life. English is most widely used in teaching learning

process of broader Educational occasions either formal or informal environment.

 Nowadays, many teachers agree that students should learn to speak the

foreign language by interacting to other. For this case, students should master

several speaking components, such as: comprehension, pronunciation, grammar,

vocabulary and fluency. In brief, English teacher should be creative in

developing their teaching learning process to create good atmosphere, improve

the students speaking skill, give attention to the speaking components and make

the English lesson more exciting.

Considering such the problems, relating to speaking activities in class and

helping students to improve their speaking skill is part of the teacher’s job. He or

she is expected to have right teaching techniques to provide students with

appropriate teaching materials and to create a positive classroom environment.

Therefore, the students will have opportunity to use English among themselves.

The teaching – learning process should not only happen between teacher and

students but also between students and students.

Speaking is an activity used by someone to communicate with other. It

takes place every where and has become part of our daily activities. When

someone speaks, he or she interacts and uses the language to express his or her

ideas, feeling and thought. He or she also shares information to other trough

communication.

Although speaking has been included in the educational plan for English

teaching at school in the past years, the percentage of time devoted to activities in

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which students can communicate with each other in English remains small in the

whole class. Speaking is the skill that the students will be judged upon most in

real-life situation .It is an important part of everyday interaction and most often

the first impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently and

comprehensibly .So, as teachers, we have a responsibility to prepare the students

as much as possible to be able to speak English in the real world outside the

classroom and the testing room.

In English subject, there are many skills that should be learned by the

students to master the four basics of language, the skills are: listening, reading,

speaking, and writing. Besides the four skills, they also have to master grammar

properly.

Many students feel difficult in practicing speaking. They are not

confident to practice what they have learned in school. Based on the writer’s

observation at the second grade of SMPN ……………….., the students are poor

in English speaking skill. When the writer asked them some questions about their

self identity, some of them cannot answer the questions correctly even some of

them did not say anything, they were just silent. The writer found that they are

poor in pronouncing their words, intonating their expressions, and they are less in

mastering vocabulary. Therefore, the students answered the questions unclear

and there are major hesitations. Actually, they have learned this lesson at their

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elementary school. Other case, the students were shy in pronouncing the words

because they are afraid to be laughed at by others.

English language teacher should also be able to play their role as

facilitator for students in their attempt to acquire the spoken language. In the

sense that English language teachers should facilitate students in learning the

spoken language by giving many oral practices. The other ways are doing group

discussion, conducting role play, drama technique and games . These can reduce

students’ boredom and allow students to interact with others naturally and may

create good competition among them.

The English teacher of SMPN ….…………, should apply appropriate

method and technique of teaching speaking. Therefore, to successful this method

the teacher need a technique and one of them is by using drama technique. Why

use drama? Because, it integrates verbal and non-verbal aspects of

communication, thus bringing together both mind and body, and restoring the

balance between physical and intellectual aspects of learning. Drama, integrates

language skills in a natural way. Careful listening is a key feature. Spontaneous

verbal expression is integral to most of the activities; and many of them require

reading and writing, both as part of the input and the output.

Language can be seen as having two functions: transferring information

(transactional function) and establishing/maintaining social relationships

(interactional function).

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 Interactional spoken language is characterized by shifts of topic and short turns.

The accuracy and clarity of information is not of primary importance, and

facts/views are not normally questioned or challenged. In transactional spoken

language longer turns are the norm and there is a clear topic. Since the effective

transference of information is the goal, interlocutors are actively engaged in the

negotiation of meaning.

This reason is transactional language (dialogue) will helps the students practice

in speech, pronunciation, intonation and stress like the native speaker.

Today, many teachers still use traditional technique in teaching speaking.

That is the students read dialogues and then find the difficult words to get the

meaning of the dialogue. They are less in practice to speak English. One of the

teacher’s reasons that the time constraint and the class size.

Based on the background above, the writer conducts as research entitled,

“Improving Students’ Speaking Skill through Drama technique: A Classroom

Action Research at Eighth Grade of SMPN ………………...

B. Identification of the Problem

Based on previous background, the researcher would like to identify the

problem, as follows:

1. Why do students feel unconfident and shy in speaking English?

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 2. Why are the students afraid of making mistakes in pronouncing word or

sentence?

3. What method can be applied in learning speaking?

4. How does drama technique improve the speaking ability of students?

5. What can teacher do to help students improve their speaking ability?

6. How to improve students’ speaking skill through drama technique?

C. Limitation of the Research

In this research, the writer should limitation the research on improving the

students’ speaking skill through drama technique at eighth grade students of

SMPN ……………………..

D. Formulation of the Problem

After identifying the problem and then make the limitation of it, the

writer would formulate the problem as follow:

“How to improve the speaking skill of the students through drama

technique?”

E. Benefits of the Study

The researcher hopes that this thesis can develop education institution to

perform a language laboratory, teacher to use the approach and method properly

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in teaching speaking to their students; it can be use for English teacher in studying

which guidelines of the better ways to achieve the successful English Study.

The benefit of this research for elementary in SMPN …………………

that the headmaster of the school knows actually teaching and the teacher expects

teaching speaking. The students and the headmaster tries provide the equipment

of speaking so that, the students speaking can be improved by practicing actively.

The students of STKIP ……………… can have a good reference for their

knowledge and someday they will make try connected with learning speaking.

Then they may make some references of this thesis because this thesis can be put

in the library of STKIP ………………… and everybody can read it.

By using drama technique in teaching speaking skill to the eighth grade

students of SMPN ……………………., it can motivate and encourages of the

students to practice speaking English. It makes them enjoy expressing their

feeling, ideas, opinion and even in messages and suggestions. Since it is fun

activity, it helps students to take port in practice.