IMPROVING THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY

BY USING PROBLEM BASED LEARNING AT SMP MUHAMMADIYAH 6

WULUHAN IN THE 2013/2014 ACADEMIC YEAR

Nur Muhammad Sholeh

Muhammadiyah University of Jember
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
English Department
Jember, East Java Indonesia

ABSTRACT
Key Words: Speaking Ability and Problem Based Learning.

Speaking is a crucial part of the language learning process. However, many

students find speaking as one of the most difficult skills in English. Therefore, the
researcher wants to improve the students’ speaking ability through the suitable
teaching method, in this case Problem Based Learning (PBL).
In this research, the problem is “how can the problem based learning method
improve speaking ability of the seventh grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 6
Wuluhan in the 2013 / 2014 academic year?” and the objective of this research
referring to the research problem is to find out how the PBL can improve speaking
ability. Based on the research problem and the relevant theory, the hypothesis of this
research is described as follows: PBL improves the speaking ability of the seventh
grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 6 Wuluhan in the 2013 / 2014 academic year
by developing their intrinsic motivation in expressing oral dialogue in a current
situation.
The design of this research is classroom action research. The research subject
is VII class consisting of 29 students. Test and observation are used to obtain the
data. In order to analyze the data, the researcher used the formula:
n
E 100 %
N
Problem Based Learning improves the students’ speaking ability in two cycles
from M = 61.20 in Cycle 1 to M = 66.79 in Cycle 2 and the percentage of students
who scored ≥ 65 is 62.07% in Cycle 1 to 78.57% in Cycle 2. The observation result
from 55.17% students’ activeness in Cycle 1 to 86.21% students’ activeness in Cycle
2. Based on the data above, there was significant impact of Cycle 2 implementation
on the students’ speaking ability. It can be concluded that problem based learning is
able to improve the students’ speaking ability by intrinsically motivating.
 ABSTRAK

Kata Kunci: Kemampuan berbicara dan pembelajaran berbasis masalah

Berbicara adalah bagian penting dari proses pembelajaran bahasa. Namun,

banyak siswa menganggap speaking sebagai salah satu keterampilan yang paling sulit
dalam bahasa Inggris. Oleh karena itu, peneliti ingin meningkatkan kemampuan
speaking siswa melalui metode pengajaran yang sesuai, dalam hal ini pembelajaran
berbasis masalah (PBL).
Dalam penelitian ini, masalahnya adalah "bagaimana metode pembelajaran
berbasis masalah meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa kelas tujuh SMP
Muhammadiyah 6 Wuluhan pada tahun akademik 2013/2014?" Dan tujuan dari
penelitian ini mengacu pada masalah penelitian yaitu untuk mengetahui bagaimana
PBL dapat meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara. Berdasarkan masalah penelitian dan
teori yang relevan, hipotesis penelitian ini dijelaskan sebagai berikut: PBL
meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa kelas tujuh SMP Muhammadiyah 6
Wuluhan pada tahun akademik 2013/2014 dengan mengembangkan motivasi intrinsik
mereka dalam mengungkapkan dialog lisan dalam situasi tertentu.
Desain penelitian ini adalah penelitian tindakan kelas. Subyek penelitian
adalah kelas VII yang terdiri dari 29 siswa. Tes dan observasi digunakan untuk
mendapatkan data. Untuk menganalisis data, peneliti menggunakan rumus:
n
E 100 %
N
Problem Based Learning meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa dalam
dua siklus dari M = 61.20 di Siklus 1 hingga M = 66,79 pada siklus 2 dan persentase
siswa yang mendapat nilai ≥ 65 adalah 62,07% pada siklus 1 hingga 78,57% pada
siklus 2. Pengamatan hasil dari 55,17% siswa keaktifan pada siklus 1 hingga 86,21%
siswa keaktifan pada siklus 2. Berdasarkan data di atas, ada dampak signifikan dari
Siklus 2 implementasi pada kemampuan berbicara siswa. Hal ini dapat disimpulkan
bahwa pembelajaran berbasis masalah dapat meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara
siswa dengan motivasi intrinsik.

INTRODUCTION

Language is very important for our daily life. English is the one of language
that is used as international language. The main skills of the language consist of four
language skills; they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the 2006 English
Competence Based Curriculum it is stated that one of the objectives of learning
English is to develop the communication competency, both spoken and written form
of language. This means that speaking is very important skill in studying language
because it is used to express idea, feeling, or make a communication. Speaking is so
much a part of daily life that we take it for granted (Thornbury, 2005:1).
Based on the interview with the English teacher in SMP Muhammadiyah 6
Wuluhan, it was found that actually the seventh grade students were not interested to
speak in the class. It was identified that the students still had some problems dealing
with speaking English in the class. They had problems in courage, self-reliance, and
sentence on the speaking ability. Besides they also have a problem dealing with the
motivation and concentration in communication orally. For the vast majority of
children, no one provides any instruction on how to speak the language (Yule,
2006:154). Therefore, giving various materials was not the only way to overcome the
problem, but an appropriate technique for teaching speaking was also required.
Related to the problem above, the researcher tried to conduct a classroom
action research using Problem Based Learning (PBL). Problem based learning gives
opportunities to examine and try out what they have already known; to discover what
they need to learn; to develop the people skills they need for improving their
performance in a team. According to Hmelo (1997 : 236) PBL helps students become
active learners because it situates learning in real – world problems and makes
students responsible for their learning. PBL demands a collaborative approach
towards problem solving, thus, creating an environment in which the students learn to
see various approaches to solve one problem through group interactions.
Based on the above discussion, a research entitled: Improving Students’
Speaking Ability by Using Problem Based Learning to Students at SMP
Muhammadiyah 6 Wuluhan in the Academic Year 2013/2014 is conducted to know
whether Problem Based Learning will be successful in improving the students
speaking ability.

RESEARCH METHOD

Participants
The population of this research was the VII class of SMP Muhammadiyah 6 Wuluhan
consisted of 88 students. The subject is VII C class that consist of 29 students.

Instrument
The instrument which was used to collect the data needed in this research was
speaking test. The form of the test given was subjective test in the form of oral test.
Regarding with the validity, the researcher used content validity which means that the
researcher made the test based on the curriculum where the research was conducted.
While the reliability of the test was analyzed by using alfa formula. The researcher
found that the reliability of the test was 0.86.

Procedure
A class were taken to conduct this research. Before the treatment was given, a pretest
was established to group. And the posttest was given after 3 meetings of teaching and
learning process. Each meeting lasted in 80 minutes. The group were taught with
exactly the same way of teaching before; the only difference was that the
implementation to the group was taught by using problem based learning during the
teaching and learning process.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

In general, to collect the data of the research, cycle 1 and cycle 2 were given
to group. The result of cycle 1 and cycle 2 of class can be described with the table
below.

Table: Comparison of the cycle 1 and cycle 2 scores

Percentage students
Cycle Mean
who score ≥ 65
1 61.20 62.07%
2 66.79 78.57%

Based on the table, the mean score was 61,20 and the percentage of students
who scored 65 was 62.07%. Based on the above table, teaching English through
problem based learning method in cycle one could not reach the mean of students
standard passing score (M = 65) and the requirement of students scoring 65 (75%).
From the data above, it can be concluded that Cycle 1 was not successful.
In the cycle 2, the mean score was 66.79 and the percentage of students who
scored 65 was 78.57%. It means that teaching English through problem based
learning method in Cycle 2 could reach the mean of students standard passing score
(M = 65) and the requirement of students scoring 65 (75%). There was significant
impact of Cycle 2 activities application on the students’ speaking ability. From the
data above, it can be concluded that the requirement in this research had already been
achieved.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Conclusion
Based on the problem and purpose of the research, result of the data analysis
of speaking test was achieved. Even though in the cycle 1 the score targeted have
achieve yet, but after giving the action in the second cycle, it was found that the
students’ speaking ability had significantly improved. The percentage of the students’
speaking skill had increased from 62.07 % in the first cycle up to 78.57% in the
second cycle. This means that the students’ speaking skill had achieved the standard
average score ≥ 65 was 78.57%. In relation to this case, moreover, the improvement
of the students’ speaking ability in the second cycle was also followed by the
improvement of their involvement in the process of speaking activities. The
improvement of students’ speaking ability is caused in teaching and learning process
in cycle two
Suggestion
The using Problem Based Learning is able to improve the seventh grade
students’ speaking ability at SMP Muhammadiyah 6 Wuluhan in the 2013-2014
academic year by the effectiveness using Problem Based Learning such as:
developing students’ problem-solving skills and encourage students to learn new
materials and concepts when solving problems. The suggestion gives for the English
teacher, the students, and the other researcher.

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