Improving Speaking Skill of Senior High School Students

through Reading Aloud Practice Method

Introduction

In the four basic skills of English which are listening, speaking, reading,

and writing, speaking plays the most important role to gain the perfection of

English ability. A good speaking skill will show someone’s intelligence level to

other people. With a good speaking skill, people will think that the speaker is

smart and has a good intelligence. Also, in the theory of communication it says

that the basic form of communication is verbal communication which is displayed

by speaking. In daily life, speaking is always used to communicate each other and

to do the social interaction. Without speaking skill, everyone will find it is very

difficult to express their mind and their communicatively needs in daily

communication. Especially, for those who learn English as their second language.

So that is why speaking skill takes the most important role in gaining the

perfection of English ability to be mastered.

In this essay, the author will just talk about the two sub-skills of

speaking, both are fluency and pronunciation. Fluency and pronunciation are very

important to gain the perfection in speaking skill after mastering many

vocabularies and English structure. With fluency and a good pronunciation

someone is able to talk beautifully and it is easy to be understood. As the fact says

both sub-skills are very difficult to be mastered by most of senior high school

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students. However, they have mastered English structure and plenty of

vocabularies in their mind. Therefore, in this essay the author is trying to propose

the solution that can solve this problem, it is the difficulty of senior high school

students to master the two sub-skills of speaking skill. The solution that the author

proposes is through reading aloud because this way is a very effective way to help

senior high school students improve their speaking fluency and pronunciation.

So, they are able to master and gain the perfection of English speaking skill.

(Expert’s testimony on this case)

Reading Aloud

Reading aloud is a method that can help students of senior high school

improve their speaking skill especially for the two of its sub-skills, both are

fluency and pronunciation. Through reading aloud students are to train and to

accustom them selves to say words in English much harder than other ways.

When students do reading aloud, it means that they are to listen to them selves

including their own intonation, stress, fluency, and pronunciation. As a teacher we

have to realize what most students do not realize about the fact of reading. While

reading process is in progress, students’ minds do not only process the text that

they are reading but it also processes everything which is involved in that process.

For instance is the voice that comes out from their mouth. Minds process

everything in this progress.

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 One example that Kelly experienced, she told us in her article that when

she first came to China to teach Conversational English about two years ago, she

used this dialogic method, reading aloud, after perusing some ESL (English as

Second Language) sites. She had never studied English or any other language.

However, she knew English and Haitian, Creole, French and some Spanish, from

the natural language acquisition method. She knew nothing about teaching

conversation. She also said that being an English teacher there was just an

accident of having been born a native English speaker. The reading aloud method

that she used, worked after a fashion. It gave the students the illusion of learning

to speak. Further she said that with some practice, some elementary conversations

took place (Kelly, 2010).

From this example of what Kelly experienced it is really clear that

reading aloud really affects English learners in improving their speaking skill. It is

just as a wise word says that practice makes perfect. We can understand it clearly

that reading aloud process accustoms students’ tongue and lips to say words in

English. Their tongue and lips memorize them as their mind memorizes the

words. As the fact says there are too many English learners feel that learning

English is very difficult. They said it is very hard to say English words, it is very

difficult to memorize the words which what we see in written is not what we are

going to pronounce, and it is not easy to speak with those strange words fluently.

Looking at that fact of English speaking learning difficulties, reading aloud is the

best way. Making our tongue and lips accustomed to saying English words really

make it much easier.

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Fluency and Pronunciation in Speaking Skill

Speaking skill has four sub skills such as fluency, pronunciation, idea,

and vocabulary. From those four sub-skills two of them which have the most

important role in speaking skill are fluency and pronunciation. Fluency is shown

by the speed of speaking someone has. Besides, pronunciation is displayed by

someone’s ability to pronounce English words correctly and understandable.

These two are the sub-skills that we want to improve through reading aloud

practice method. For further discussion, we will discuss it more detail separately.

Fluency is a sub-skill of speaking that can be seen or proved physically.

It means that we may know whether someone is speaking fluently or not.

Actually, the fact about fluency is explained clearly by the process of speaking

itself. While speaking is in progress then the speaker’s mind must be processing

the idea that he or she wants to express verbally. Then mind trying to process the

idea by finding the most appropriate verbal expression in our brain or something

that we call as “data storage”. Once it finds those expressions they will be

processed to be expressed physically as verbal expression or what is very well

known as speaking. When the idea can be expressed fluently, we may say that the

speaker can speak with fluency. One truth about fluency is that someone can

speak fluently only if he or she is familiar to the expressions. On the other hand,

the fact says that many ESL learners find that it is very difficult to express those

ideas fluently due to their unfamiliarity to the expressions.

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 Besides, fluency cannot be separated from pronunciation. Pronunciation

is a sub-skill that shows the speaker’s professionalism. When the speaker can

speak with a high level of pronunciation, a very good pronunciation including

correct stress and intonation, people may think that the speaker is smart. However,

there is no an absolute rules for pronunciation itself. Pronunciation may differ

from place to place, from city to city and from country to country of English

speaking country. Yes it is true that the difference in pronunciation is not that

much. Just like the differences between American English and British English in

general. Besides, pronunciation is also very important and helpful for both sides

of speakers in conversation or dialogue. Without a good pronunciation both sides

of the speakers will find such difficulties to catch the idea and meaning of each

other.

(Theory supporting the effect of reading aloud to fluency

and pronunciation in speaking)

Problem of Speaking Skill in Senior High School

Senior high school is the last level of obligated formal education before

students continue their study to university level. In senior high school, English is

one of the six main subjects to be tested in National Examination. Therefore,

students cannot underestimate this subject only because they dislike it. Although,

it is irreversible that most senior high school students hate English subject due to

its difficulties, according to what most think about English subject. In this essay it

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is stated most students dislike English. The word “most” means that there is more

than 50% from the whole students.

So, the problem is that most of senior high school students have set their

mind not to like English subject. Students also have set not to consider anything

else to change what they think about English subject, especially for speaking skill.

When they have speaking class they will start to insult this subject and they will

be really minded and forced to join that class without any intention or willing

from them selves. These problems may not happen if we know the solution and

try to propose them this solution. What this essay is going to propose as the

solution is through loud reading practice method.

(Data supporting this fact)

How Reading Aloud Improves Speaking Skill

- Focus on fluency

How can reading aloud improve high school students’ speaking

skill? As it has been previewed before, with reading aloud practice method

students will be accustomed to English words. So, they will be familiar to

those words. Unconsciously, their mouth including tongue and lips are

accustomed to say them with no more doubt and no more fear to have

mistakes.

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 This method acquires students to have a lot of practice to gain

fluency in speaking English. Further, not only by accustoming English

words to senior high school students, it also makes the speaking skills which

have been learnt become more perfect and better. As the days passed and

meetings done by students, their ability in English speaking fluency will

increase and increase. Onece more, practice makes perfect.

(Theory supporting the effect of reading aloud

to fluency in speaking)

- Focus on pronunciation

For pronunciation improvement, this method will be very effective

as it is for fluency improvement. The author does believe it for reason that

this theory or method is not only supported by logical reasons but also

experts’ theories and testimonies. So, the question is “how does reading

aloud practice method improves senior high school students’ speaking skill

in fluency and pronunciation?” Of course, the answer is to be found in this

discussion.

Basically, reading aloud practice comes with much action and

practice in its process. As it is practical, we can say that pronunciation is

also practical. So far, it is commonly known that pronunciation can be

mastered only by having a lot of practice. It is very difficult to have a good

pronunciation if students do not have much practice. Due to students’

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 thoughts that it is difficult to pronounce English words correctly, they must

be trained regularly. Therefore, this theory exists.

(Theory supporting the effect of reading aloud

to pronunciation)

The Implementation of This Method in Classroom

Basically, the implementation of reading aloud method in classroom is

has the same stages as other subjects do such as pre, whilst, and post teaching

activities in general. Except, there are only some in which we are not going to use

in this method due to its tendency to practical rather than theoretical. As it has

been discussed before that this method requires students to act, so that they are

about to practice much in the classroom. Therefore, what teacher must be able in

implementing this method is to make fun atmosphere during learning process.

Once students get bored of learning, this method will be useless. These are the

steps to be used as a model of implementing reading aloud method in the

classroom with fun.

- Preparation

As the preparation teachers are supposed to, first, preparing the

materials. For the method is reading aloud, of course we need reading text

while teaching is taking place. Consequently, teachers have to prepare it

very well. Besides, teachers are also to select the best reading selections to

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 their children. It may be based of some considerations such as the

familiarity of the texts to the students, weather their language acquisition

level is appropriate to those reading selections or not, and are those reading

selections up to date or not.

These considerations above are very important to support this

method gains the purpose. For instance, keeping the material up dated is a

must because senior high school students like something new. They do not

like something old or something out of date. By keeping the materials up

dated, means we are trying to clear boredom in the classroom. Students will

be fun and they will enjoy the materials as learning process running.

Second, teachers are to master the materials before giving them to

students for sure. Otherwise, teachers’ professionalism will be questioned.

In this part, it is really necessary to gain the aim or purpose of teaching.

None of the students in the classroom prefer to see their teacher gets

confused while teaching. They will think that the teacher is not well

prepared for that class meeting. As a result, the teachers will loss students’

concern and attention. So, that is why you are provided with detail and

complete example to be followed in this essay.

- Pre Teaching

In pre teaching activity, teachers can use some activities which are

commonly used in this part like guessing or brainstorming. It is well known

that pre teaching activity is to collect students’ attention and concern toward

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 the lesson. So that teachers are highly recommended to build fun and

interesting atmosphere in the classroom after greeting the students. For

instance is brainstorming. To have a good and fun brainstorming teachers

are suggested to have materials related to the topic reading selection. Here is

one complete example of brainstorming.

The topic of reading selection is talking about “Facebook”. To do

brainstorming, teachers are to bring pictures or other material related to the

word “facebook”. For instance, a laptop opening “facebook” site, its logo,

picture of its homepage, etc. After that, teachers ask students to guess or to

say anything they know about those materials. Many of the students will

participate actively in this part. On the other word we can say that the

teachers have got students’ attention successfully.

- Whilst Teaching

For whilst teaching activity, teachers are about to come to the main

stage of this teaching acitvity with reading aloud practice method. In this

stage teachers are highly demanded to have a full readyness with the whole

preparation. First, they may provide reading selection materials in front of

the classroom. After that teachers can ask students to take their own reading

selection as the like, according to their own choice. Once more, the purpose

of letting students choose their own reading selection is to let them enjoy

this method. If they like the material means they enjoy the class and feel fun

with it.

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 Next, what teachers are supposed to do is making all students

participate actively in the class. Here, the author proposes two simple stage.

For the earlier, all students are asked to do reading aloud. Everyone to read

the reading selection they hold with loud voice. This method is what we call

as reading aloud practice method. Teachers assign students to read those

material as loud as possible untill the classroom become really crowded.

Later, the classroom will seem like they are screaming and shouting each

other. As a result, it does work to improve their fluency and pronunciation

step by step and gradually.

The later stage, students are to read their reading selection one by

one while others paying attention to the reader. They are not going to read

long paragraph because if they are given long paragraph other students who

are listening will get bored. In this stage teachers are requested to pay

attention to a student reading the text. Then teacher can ask student to stop

after a while of reading. Others are to pay attention and correct the reader’s

reading when they find a mistake. This is the end of session where students

are gathered together in reading aloud practice.

After that activity, students will be divided into small groups of

three or four. This is the third part in whilst teaching activity. Students are to

discuss the topic in group. Because one group may have four different

reading selections, they have to choose one of those texts. Then they start

the discussion verbally. In this part, students and teachers only will spend a

little time. Most of the time in that period is used in the first and second

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 activity. Teachers are supposed to be able to cover the whole students as the

supervisor in the classroom.

- Post-Teaching

Last, in the post teaching activity of this method, teachers are to

evaluate what they have done so far. The first evaluation part is group

evaluation. In group evaluation, teachers give some questions related to the

topic discussed by that group. The questions will go to each member of the

group. At the end of group evaluation, teachers ask students of that group to

recite the title of their reading selection with loud voice, as loud as possible.

This is another time when reading aloud taking place.

After that, the evaluation will come to general evaluation part.

Students are required to participate actively in this session. Teachers offer

some questions so students struggle to obtain themselves in answering those

questions. As the topic being questioned in this session is general, everyone

those pay attention to the lesson will be able to answer the questions easily.

To make the classroom fun, teachers can give such reward for students those

answer the questions correctly. For instance, they are allowed to read the

most impressive part of his reading selection in front of the class. This way

will help much in supporting this method.

Finally, teachers may close the lesson that period by giving some

advices to the students. Another thing that teachers must not forget beside

advices is motivation words. Hopefully, with those motivation words,

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 students’ interest and spirit in learning will increase. Besides, their skill will

be also improved.

Summary

According to the discussion above which is about using reading aloud

practice method to improve senior high school students’ speaking skill, we can

say that this method is really helpful for the reason that this method is rather

practical than theoretical at all. Everyone, not only teachers but also parents can

use this method to train or to teach their children in senior high school level to

master English speaking skill. As it has been mentioned, the theory is really

simple. You speak and your mind works as you read and your mind also works.

To take benefit from brain storage, everyone has to experience it first. That is

what reading aloud for.

In addition, the author has tried his best in writing and explaining the

method of reading aloud practice that he proposed. He expects that this method

will be useful and beneficial to the readers. In the future, this theory may be

developed to be much better to help students improve their speaking skill,

especially for their fluency and pronunciation. Practice makes perfect.

(Supporting expert’s theory or testimony)

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