1

THE IMPROVING STUDENTS READING ABILITY BY USING

TALKING STICK TECHNIQUE

Teuku Basyarul Hafie

English Teaching and Training Faculty

Jabal Ghafur University
Gle Gapui, Sigli
2016

Abstract : The objective of the study is to find out

whether teaching reading by using Talking Stick technique
under cooperative learning can improve students reading
comprehension. To obtain the data for this study, the
writer conducted an experimental study at SMP Negeri 1
Sakti. The samples of the study was class, it was VIII-1 as
Experimental Group. The class was consisted of 27
students. The instruments were used for collecting the data
were pre-test and post-test. Based on the data analysis,
there is significance different to both Pre Test and Post
Test. The mean of pre-test is 437 and post-test is 77.7.
Meanwhile, the result of t-score in post-test is 10.6. So
Talking Stick technique under cooperative laerning is not
only effective in improving the students reading
comprehension but also in improving their participation in
learning process, particularly in responding to the
teachers questions. By using Talking Stick technique
under cooperative students appear more active and
cooperative in discussion section. Therefore, the writer
concluded that the implementation of Talking Stick
technique under cooperative learning was effective for
teaching reading comprehension.

Key Answer : Reading, Talking Stick under Cooperative

Learning

Nowadays, English is broadly spoken by most people of the countries in

the world. In indonesia, English has dominated the language teaching proogram.

The process of English teaching in indonesia has been marked by new objectives

and new methods. The new goals and techniques have resulted a great
 2

improvement in most areas of English instruction. In learning english, there are

four skills that should be learned and mastered by the students of junior high

school or senior high school. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Morever, one of the important skills mentioned is reading (brown, 2001 : 51).

Reading is a process in which our mind translates printed material into the

idea that the writer is trying to tell or communicate with the reader. We do not

really know what happen in our nervous system when we read a page of printed

materials, but in contrast with the extreme complexity of the visual and the mental

activit, the aim of reading in fact is very simple. We read because we want to

understand what the writer wants to convey. If we do not graps the writers

meaning we cannot be said we got meaning at all even we have read the word at

all. If we merely look at the printed symbols and our mind do not register the

amount of meaning we require,that mean we are practically reading waste of time.

According to school based English Curriculum (2006), the objective of the

teaching and learning English in junior high school in indonesia is to develop the

students ability to communicate in the language skills (listening, speaking,

reading, And writing).

In indonesia, reading as one of the four language skills of English that is

studied as a common foreign language and taught from junior high schools up to

university. People, for many reason, take a great interest to build up their reading.

They realized that the ability of understanding bookswritten in English

comprehensively is very important, because many subject matter are written in

English. Its popularly known that in teaching and learning english aas a foreign
 3

language, reading is completely regarded as one of important aspects. For the

learners in which the English environtment is not available. Reading would surely

play a very impotant role. It is a clear, as important skill, one skill should be

mastered in order to have ideas. In relation to the reading instructionof English

junior high school, the students should develop their reading skill besides

speaking, listening, and writing because the reading does not only gives

information to the students but it also gives students ideas. Cullough (1995 : 28)

state that a reader today id to tought to read for some purposes through many

kinds of materias in order to understand what he reads. He further claims that

reading is absolutely needed for those who wish to search for further knowledge.

Several methods and techniques are constucted some the linguist and

techer to make teaching and learning reading reading material effective and

ejoyable. How effective the methods and the techniques deppends mostly on how

the teacher apply it and the condition of the student in the classroom.

Based on the problem mentoned above, the writer would like to implement

an element of the cooperative learning that is talking stick. This techniques

provides the students a chance to broaden their skills that can be implemented

wheter at school or outside of school. The ethodology is interesting, if it is

collaborated with the reading course at school in order to develop student ability

in reading. (kagan : 1) state talking stick is also a group of study that students

learnt independetly from one another, each students has the same chance to

express their ideas and concern.

 4

Based on this statement, the writer choose the Group Work With Talking

Stick to improve the reading ability and make the students become active and

interested in learning process. Group Work with Talking Stick is combine

between technique and media. Group Work is include technique and Talking Stick

as media in teaching reading. According to Klingee and Vhaughn (in Nawangsasi,

2012:3) group work is the ability to work together toward a common vision.

When people listen carefully to each other, when they seek and take seriously

each of other opinions, they make use of each others competencies and expertise,

they are involved in team work. Group work is all about reaching the same goal,

not worrying about the single glory as a person, but the revolution as a group.

Reinforcing individual capabilities and making better decisions is one of benefits

for a group work.

Based on the discussion above, there are several steps in implementating

of talking stick as follow :

1. Start the session by placing the talking stick on the floor with everyone sitting

on chairs in a circle around it.

The writer gave a students an intruction how the way a teaching learning

procces

The writer explained the way in learning reading by using talking stick

The writer asked to the students to pay attention when the writer explained

the way to learn reading by using talking stick

The writer asked to the students to sit in the circle.

 5

2. Trainer explains the rules and everyone agrees to abid by them. No body who

rejects the rules can take part.

The writer gave a students a material. The material is a text which genre of

a descriptive text

The writer explained the material for students who had sat in the circles.

The writer explained about the grammar rule or the type of sentences in

the text

The writer asked to the students to fade back

3. Give some the role of time keeper

The writer asked to the students to read the text and comprehend a text.

If there is a crucial problems in comprehend a text. The writer gave the

time to the students who would submit a question for the writer.

The writer explained the material that would be hard to get a drift by

students.

4. If using topics or issue based on the material presented

The writer told to the students to share the opinion regard to the text with

their friends in pair.

The writer just observed the students while the students sharing the

opinion with anothers.

The writer gave opportunity to the students who would to give a question

if there was a crucial problem in comprehending a text.

5. Begin with one person holding the talking stick. When he/she holding the stick,

he/she can talk for the agreed amount of time

 6

The writer prepared one stick, and the writer explained it back the purpose

of that stick.

After the writer explained that step, the writer bagan to give a stick to the

first students, and the students who hold the stick, he/she is asked to

describe about the material, and it continued until the last man.

6. When the talker has stopped, he/she passes the talking stick to somebody else.

This section is the stick arrounded for all students. The students who hold

a stick, he/she had to describe a different meaning about the material that

had been comprehending.

The writer only observed the activity was going on in classroom.

When the writer found the students mistake while describing a text, the

writer take it, and it would be explained back in the end of meeting by the

writer.

7. The next person holding the stick repeats the same process.

The writer asked to the students in order they did not describe carelessly.

The writer told to students to pay attention to the students who was

describing a material.

8. Continue the session until no body else has anything left to say, which is

signalled by a noticable period when nobody is passed the stick.

This is the last step of applying talking stick in teaching reading ability.

The writer concluded all the opinion of the students who had described

about the material, and explained back if there was a mistake.

 7

Based on the description above, the writer is encouraged to see whether

the talking stick technique is applicabe for the second year of SMP Negeri 1 Sakti

through a reach on the improving of talking stick technique to improve

students reading comprehension ( an experimental study at the second year

students of SMP Negeri 1 Sakti).

METHOD

This study implemented a classroom as experimental teaching in VIII-A

Class of SMP Negeri 1 Sakti which consisted of 27 students. In conducting the

study, the researchers collaborated with the English teacher in preparing lesson

plans, determining the criteria of success, observing the teaching and learning

process, and correcting the tests before it was given to the students.

Talking stick is a method that use sticks to hold the students in group and

the student who get the stick have to talk about answer the question given by their

teacher based on the text.

Talking stick is a piece of wood that used in talking stick ceremony.

Anyone with the talking stick would have the right to talk as long as he/she need

to say without fear of interrupted with questions, criticism. Talking stick can be

any ordianry stick of any kind or any size.

Planning
In this stage, the writer prepared the materials, the research instruments,

the lesson plans, and determined the criteria of success. The researchers decided

that the criteria of success was 80% of the students obtain the score 75 and above

in reading test. The material used in this study were a text.

 8

Implementing

The action was conducted in SMP 1 Sakti that consisted of 3 meetings. It

is conducted on clas VIII-B. The test was a reading test consisting of 20 items in

the form of multiple choices. In this stage, one of the writer acted as the teacher

while the English teacher observed the teaching and learning process.

Observing

In the observation stage, the writer collected the data related to the

implementation of the action in the teaching and learning process. The data related

to the students performance were obtained from the students score in reading

test while the data related to the improving of cooperative script for students

reading in the teaching learning process were obtained from the test.

Reflecting

In this stage, the data obtained from the observation stage were interpreted

to see whether the criteria of success was met or not and whether it was necessary

to conduct the next meetingor not.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The reading ability mastery

After the writer calculated statisticly formula score of test that was given

to the students, she found that the score of post test was higher teaching reading

comprehension by using talking stick got higher score when did post test

compared with Pre test.

The Students Responses towards the Implementation of Talking Stick

 9

Based on the result on the statistic, the writer gets value of students of

pretest is 43.7 and the post test is 77.7 and value the standard deviation of pre test

is 10.7 and post test 10.3. We can see that in the pre test only some students can

understand in studying reading before is taught by using talking stick but almost

of students can understand in post test after is taught by using talking stick

because of the result above we know that varience value more smaller in post

testthan pre test. The writer get t-score of the students that is 10.6, it is higher

value if compared with critical t score (2.05). it is important because the

students get higher value of post test and the students more succesful in studying

after they were taught by using talking stick Technique. so, the hypothesis can be

accepted.

DISCUSSIONS

The use of talking stick

This research, the writer uses group work as technique and talking stick as

a media in teaching reading of recount text. It means that is combine

between technique and media, because some reason why the writer use to

combine it. Through group work, the teacher must divide the class to get a

good product of reading. Generally, in teaching and learning process at school,

there are some steps:

First, the teacher gives greeting to the students and pray together.

Secondly, the teacher checks the students attendance list. Thirdly, the teacher

motivates the students by giving some simple question that related to the themes

about recount text. Next, the teacher divides the students into some groups. In
 10

one group consist of 3-5students. After that, the teacher gives text in each

group has one text. Each group must understand about the text with work

together. After that, the teacher gives a stick to each group, one group get one

stick.

From group one, a stick has move from one student to the other

students. It also happened in the other group. Then, the teacher starts with

the song or count to moving the stick. When the teacher says STOP, moving

stick activity must be stop in one person. Whoever get a stick, they must be

listen carefully about the question given by their teacher and they must be

answer the question, and the other quite listen. After they listen the question,

who get a stick early to answer it because the other group also think early to

answer. Here, the teacher chooses one group that they show the stick early. The

teacher gives time to answer, if they lost for answering and the time is up,so

the teacher gives change to other group to answer correctly. Repeat it until the

end of question.

And the last, the teacher announce which group as a winner from

how many they answer correctly and also the teacher closes the lesson. Through

group work, maybe can help students learn to work cooperative and it helps

them to develop interpersonal skills.

THE WEAKNESSES AND THE STRENGTHS OF COOPERATIVE

SCRIPT

The weakness
 11

Several weaknesses/problem can also be found in talking stick technique.

They are:

a. Time consuming

If students are getting more speaking during that time and are learning

useful language analysis skills and incidental language this doesn't have to be a

reason to abandon it, but it can still mean that students have forgotten about what

the listening is supposed to be about by the time the vocabulary pre-teach finishes.

Ways of avoiding this problem include: plan the elicitation and make sure the

teacher has found the quickest way, use pictures and other prompts if that will cut

down on the amount of time eliciting will take, and teach them the grammatical

jargon etc that they will need to understand when the teacher is eliciting (maybe

dedicating a whole section of a lesson to it).

b. It doesn't always lead to more STT

If the elicitation is much longer than the thing to elicit, it can actually

mean more TTT than if the teacher had just given them the answer. A general rule

is to make the question shorter than the answers. If that is impossible, explaining

might be better than eliciting at that stage.

c. One student can dominate answering your elicitation questions

Solutions include: nominate particular people to answer, give them the

elicitation stage written down to go through with a partner, follow all their

answers up with requests for additional ideas from the other students, or

occasionally tell them that the teacher would like someone else to answer.
 12

d. It can be met by silence

This could mean that students don't know the answer, that they do know

the answer but aren't confident, that they would know the answer but haven't

understood the teachers elicitation, that the people who do know the answer are

too shy to speak, that the person who knows the answer is trying to avoid

dominating the class, that giving the right answer before everyone else might

seem like boasting, that they have been put off answering by getting so many

previous answers wrong, that they know the teacher always give the answer if

they wait long enough, that they expect to be asked individually, that they don't

understand that teacher really want people to speak out, or even that they are

refusing to take part because they are unhappy with the teaching methodology of

the teacher. Knowing how to reduce the problem of silence depends firstly on the

teacher being able to identify which of these reasons is the most important for

class or a particular student.

The advantages of Talking Stick

1. Keep the students alert

When the teacher begin to apply the Talking Stick technique, every

students should focus with the material as when they get the talking stick and the

teacher asks a question, they can answer it correctly.

2. Helps the teacher realizes if the students listen and understand it or not

When the teacher applies this technique, the teacher can observe whether

or not the students listen to the material and understand it. When the teacher find
 13

the students do not focus to the material, she can directly tell them to be focus to

it.

3. The teacher talks less and the students talk more

In this technique, the teacher only tells the students about the rules and

asks some questions to the students about the material. Thus, the students should

be active by answering the question that is asked by the teacher. Even when they

do not know the answer, their group can help them to answer it.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Conclusions

From the research finding and discussion above, it can be concluded that

the implementation of talking stick technique can improve students reading

comprehension of the second year students of SMP Negeri 1 Sakti. They made a

progress in improving their ability in reading comprehension. Comparing to the

pre-test and post-test score, post-test gave a better score in almost all reading

compreension.

In other words, talking stick technique that was conducted as a treatment

in the experimental class is effective in improving students reading

comprehension. Based on the result above, 27 students got value of pre-test is

43.7 and post-test is 77.7 and value the standard deviation of pre-test is 10.7 and

post-test 10.3. we can see that in the pre-test only some students have good score

in learning reading before was taught by using talking stick, but after it was taught

by using talking stick, the students got higher score compared with pre-test. On
 14

the other hand, the writer concluded that it is an effect applying of talking stick

technique in teaching reading comprehension. It means that talking stick

technique in teaching reading comprehension. It means that talking stick

technique could improve students ability in reading skill.

Suggestions
Based on the result discussion of this study, talking stick technique is

significantly influence in increasing the reading ability of the second year students

of SMP Negeri 1 Sakti. Moreover, the writer would like to give some suggestions

to be considered by the classroom teacher in the course to help the students

improve their ability in mastering Ennglish subject. Those are follows :

1. English teacher should be creative in teaching learning process particularly

in teaching reading such as by varying teaching models including the

implementation of talking stick. In order to make students actively

participate and create a joyful learning situation.

2. The teacher should explain the topic and supporting sentences briefly as a

help to know the components in reading.

3. The teacher should give the students mre motivation in order to make

students interested to study English.

 15

REFERENCES

Brown, H. Douglas. 2001. Language assesment and classroom practice. San

Fransisco; San Fransisco State University : Longman

Cooper,Walt 2000. Reading Comprehension ; An introduction. New Jersey;

Prentise hail.

Cullogh, 1995. Teaching Strategies. Boston Houghton Muffin Company.

Dechant,Emerald.1993.Reading Improvement in the Secondary School

Englewood-Cliffs,New jersey:Prentice hall Inc.

Downing ,J.and Valtin,R 1990 Language Awareness and Learning to Read.New

York:Springer-Verlag,inc.

Finocchiaro, Mary.1995. Teaching english as Second language, New York:

Harper and Roe Publisher.

Grellet, Jean Wallace and Temple,Charles. 1994.Understanding Reading Problem

Assesment and intruction,Fourth Edition.New York : HarperCollins
Collage Publishers.

Kagan, S. 1992. The teaching of english language skill and english language
component. Malang : State University of Malang.

Knockwood, F. 1992. The teaching English language skill and english language
component. Malang : State University of Malang.

Nazir M. 2003. Metode penelitian. Ghalia indonesia: Medan.

River.Wilga M.1997 Teaching Foreign skills.Second Edition.Chicago.The

University Press.

Robert, E. Slavin. 2010. A Practical Guide to cooperative learning.

Massachussetss: Allyn and bacon publisher.

Sudijono, Anas. 2006. Pengantar Statistik Pendidikan, Jakarta: PT. Raja Grafindo
persada.

Yorkey. J.W 1998.Reading book; For Advantages Level India; Sangan Book.