IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH THROUGH

COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES OF GRADE 11 STUDENTS IN ARISTON-

BANTOG NATIONAL HIGHSCHOOL

I. INTRODUCTION

English is the International Language which is spoken by most of the

people from different countries. In fact, English is a well-accepted language in

our country. Majority of the educated people communicate using the English

language. The English language is global; and globalization is also reflected

in the worldwide use of English language. As a result, English plays a vital

role in many areas: education, science, technology, politics, and trade. It is

commonly used everywhere in media, in offices, in applying for a job, in legal

matters, in seminars and conference, in framing programs and most of the

subjects in schools.

Like Science and Math, English is a difficult but an important subject

because the curriculum considers it as a tool subject needed to understand

the different content subjects. Basically, it is concerned with developing

competencies in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and viewing. Speaking

includes skills in using the language expressions and grammatical structures

correctly in oral communication while writing skill includes readiness skills,

mechanics in guided writing, functional and creative writing (K to 12

Curriculum Guide for Grade 4).Teaching English starts as early as pre-school

and continuous in elementary and becomes more complex in the high school

- until college. Despite the multilingual background of Filipino students and the
constant instruction of English offered in schools as part of the core subjects,

still many students have difficulties in speaking and writing in the target

language ( Longino D. Ferrer, M.T, 2007 ).

Background of the Study

In Ariston-Bantog National High school, Asingan Pangasinan where

one of the researchers teaches, majority of the students preferred to use

their first language more than English especially when speaking. Poor

performance and practice in English has been observed. Students could

hardly assert their ideas so instead of speaking English language fluently in

reciting and expressing themselves, students often speak in “Taglish” and

sometimes prefer not to speak at all. The other two researchers who work in

Colegio de San Juan de Letran-Manaoag, have the same observation in

which college students are mainly involve. It was so alarming that, not only

students from a low year level have been observed to have inadequately

used of the English language, but also the college who were expected to

have mastered and developed their communicative competence.

Base from the researchers’ pre-observation, the main cause of the

problem is the use of the traditional language approach specifically the

Grammar – Translation method. The teachers remain firmly in charge of the

class which focuses in memorizing the rules of grammar and applied it

through paper-pencil tests. Teachers give more emphasis in grammar rather

than skills. Teaching grammar is only to meet students’ demand at that time

after high-school finals, students are not able to use English they have learnt

for a long time for the purpose of communication. They cannot speak English
even in a daily conversation, so how can they use English in a

communicative environment in their jobs?

The reality requires that high school English teachers need to pay more

attention to students’ listening and speaking skills. It is better for students if

teachers apply Communicative Language Teaching in classroom. To achieve

the goals of learning English – to be able to communicate with both native

and non-native speakers – communicative activities in English classes are

very necessary. Particularly, it seems to be easy for teachers to apply some

communicative activities in speaking lessons which always deal with an

important characteristic – “learners talk a lot” (Brown, 2001). However, in

reality, some challenges prevent teachers from organizing the

communicative activities in speaking classes; a common one is limited

teaching time.

Such problems mentioned above lead the researchers to study the ways

on how to improve the speaking skills of the students through communicative

activities. The study is done for Grade 11 Students at Ariston-Bantog National

High school, Asingan Pangasinan for four weeks in attempt to realize the real

practice of speaking classes and provide solutions for teachers to help their

students learn English better.

Statement of the Problem

This research aims to realize the reality of applying communicative

activities in speaking classes of grade 11th students at Ariston-Bantog

National High School – benefits and challenges; find out some solutions for
difficulties in teaching and learning process and suggest some implications for

practicing communicative activities.

This action research specifically aimed to answer the following questions:

1) What is the real practice of teaching and learning English in speaking

classes of grade 11th teachers and students at Ariston-Bantog National

High School?

2) What are the benefits and challenges of applying communicative

activities in speaking lessons?

3) How effective is communicative activities in improving the speaking

skills of the grade 11th students?

4) What are some implications for practicing communicative activities in

English?

Scope and Limitations

The study focused on the improvement of the speaking skills of grade 11th

students through communicative speaking skills conducted at Ariston-Bantog

National High School, Asingan, Pangasinan, where 20 students were selected

as the respondents and subject of the study. The study will make use of the

descriptive-qualitative research approach which mainly uses observation,

interviews and survey questions in a duration of four (4) weeks.

Significance of the Study

The study in “Improving the Speaking Skills in English through

Communicative Activities of the Grade 11 Students”, will benefit the

Department of Education, the Teachers, the Parents and the students. The
findings of this study would help increase the quality of teaching and learning

process of the English subjects.

 This would help the teachers in English improve their strategies and

techniques in teaching English lesson according to the capabilities of

their students. The teacher would be informed of the things that they

must do or must not do in conducting their classes and also in

preparing their lessons to be more effective and interesting to the

students. This document may also encourage teachers to pay more

attention to their teaching speaking skill lessons applying

communicative activities.

 Parents, who are directly concerned with the quality education of their

children will also benefit from the findings of the study in terms of better

education that their children will get from the improved English

subjects.

 Through this research, the students would be motivated to exert more

effort in studying English. It would also help them improve and develop

their attitude towards the English subject in order to gain more self-

esteem and self-confidence which are very useful in their daily lives.

The study may also help them to realize the significance of learning

speaking lessons, which they do not before. It is to wake them up to

see how their learning English speaking is and how interesting and

essential participating speaking activities in classroom is. It gives them

a chance to reconsider their learning at school as well. In brief, the

study brings advantages for both teachers and students

  To the Future Researchers, the results of this research may be used as

their basis for further investigation regarding the same research

problem.

Definition of Terms

To understand more of this study, the following terms are to consider:

Communicative Activities -communicative activities that promote language

learning. These activities use real life situations to trigger communication.

Communicative activities have real purposes such as finding and exchanging

information, breaking down barriers, talking about oneself, and learning about

culture.

Communicative Competence is a synthesis of knowledge of basic

grammatical principles, knowledge of how language is used in social settings

to perform communicative functions, and how knowledge of utterances and

communicative functions can be combined

Communicative Functions (reasons to communicate) divided into three

categories: Behavioral Regulation, Social Interaction, Joint Attention

Grammar-Translation- a traditional technique of foreign-language teaching

based on explicit instruction in the grammatical analysis of the target

language and translation of sentences from the native language into the target

language and vice versa.

Globalization-

Multilingual- using or able to speak several or many languages with some

facility

Taglish- a combination of Tagalog and English

II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

According to the Business English Index (BEI) report in 2012, only the

Philippines attained a score above 7.0, putting the country within range of a

high proficiency that indicates an ability to lead business discussions and

perform complex tasks. Moreover, in the recent news, Philippines landed as

rank four (4) Non-Native English Speaking countries. Hence, despite of this

claim, various studies reveal that English Proficiency in the Philippines is

continuously declining. This notion is based on the results of achievement

tests and board examinations which show that not only the elementary and

secondary graduates are affected but also the college graduates.

Furthermore, the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) reported that

passers of board examinations in all fields of endeavor continue to go down

(Racca and Lasaten, 2014). “The manifestations are incorrect grammar,

inability to use English language in connected discourse, poor reading

comprehension and poor disorganized writing” (Soriano, 1987). This

phenomenon is widespread in all levels of education in the country. Relative

to the said statement, was the news aired in ABS CBN TV PATROL on

February 8, 2018, which reported that the English proficiency level of the

professionals in our country can only be compared to the high school

graduates and cab drivers from other countries in Asia such as; Singapore,

Thailand and Vietnam. Thus some of the important causes for this

phenomenon are the students’ lack of practice and involvement in

communicative activities, specifically in speaking.

As educator, the teacher-researcher was motivated to conduct this action research on the
effectiveness of DI in teaching English on Grade Four pupils for a week-long lesson. She
also she wanted to know the effect of this method on the academic performance of the
pupils from results of the diagnostic and achievement test. The fact that many students in
the State Senior High School of
Karangpandan got difficulties in speaking English. Even some of them got a
very low speaking competence. It was unfortunate that many students still got
4
very low speaking competence. Therefore, it is the teacher’s duty to teach
speaking in a such way, so that the students can participate the lesson eagerly.
In this research, the writer, classified the difficulties into qualitative and
quantitative.
Based on quantitative data, the writer found based on speaking
assesment as a pre-test, who got mark more than 81 were only 3 students.
Those who got between 71 and 80 were 5 students, and the other students got
less than 7.0 from totally 22 students in that class. Shortly, they did not have
fluency expressions as well. Their fluency can be described that they spoke
very slowly, and they often stopped for few minutes before speaking. They did
not have fluency expressions as well. In short, the students who fulfill the
minimum passing grade (KKM: Kriteria Ketuntasan Belajar Minimal) of
speaking are only 36.4% .The result, of course, can’t be said as satisfying
result.
Pertaining to the students’ problems, there are many factors;
First, in teaching speaking, the teacher tended to teach text
Second, he asked the students to look at the structured dialogues
which had been stated in the text book to read together after him.
Third, he asked some of them to practice the dialogues in front of the
class in pairs.
The last, he asked them to answer the comprehensive questions
dealing with the written topics.
The weaknesses of what the teacher did above were as follows;
5
Firstly, the students didn’t have enough rehearsal time to practice
or to express their English so that they could not interact with one another in
English simultaneously.
Secondly, the teacher oriented his teaching at the written test held
in the mid or end semester, even in the final exam.
Thirdly, there was no specific time allocated to evaluate the
students’ speaking skills at the end of semester or final exam.
Fourthly, the teacher still teaches the students with routine
activities without realizing that it would make the students bored and lost their
attention to the teaching and learning process. This is stated by Douglas,
“Routine activities in learning can make the students bored. As the result, their
motivation and participation in learning will decrease” (1987:p. 48).
In teaching English, the teacher has to be able to make the students participate
in discussing the materials actively, so that they will be able to understand
what they are learning in the class and also express their own ideas orally. The
most important thing to carry out the English teaching is that the teacher has to
able to use the appropriate approach, design, and procedures.
One of the ways in improving students’ speaking skill is by giving
Role Play as a form of English learning activity in the classroom, Elizabeth
F.Barkley (2004: p. 150) says that Role Play is a created situation in which
students deliberatley act out or assume characters or identities they would not
normally asume in order to accomplish learning goal.
6
Role play is very important in communication language teaching
because it gives students an opportunity to practice communicating in
different social context and in different social roles. Therefore, communicative
language teaching (CLT) approach is very appropriate to support the above
problem because this approach is learner-centered and emphasizes
communication in real life situation (Fauziati, 2009:p.143)
To solve the problem in teaching speaking , the writer would like
to conduct a research about “Improving Student Speaking Skill by Role
Play” (An Action Research, in Eleventh Grade of Immersion Program 1 of
The State Senior High School of Karangpandan Academic Year 2009/2010)

III. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In real-life communication, people use a variety of language skills –

listening, speaking, reading, and writing. One of the characteristics of a

language is that –it is an interactive tool. “When people learn a foreign

language, they usually want to make use of that language to communicate

with people who speak the same language. They can find themselves in the

need of understanding them and talking to them. 201). As Raimes (1983)

states, “listening and speaking are, regardless of who the people using the

language are, at least as important as the other skills to communicate”. Byrne

(1991) states that “one should keep in mind that these skills are normally

integrated in real life” (p.21). The term integrated skills is frequently used as if

it were almost synonymous with reinforcement. Viewed in this way, the

process of integrating language skills involves linking them together in such a

way that what has been learnt and practiced through the exercise of one skill
is reinforced and perhaps extended through further language tasks which

bring different skills into use. Here, the use of any skill may quite naturally

lead to the use of other.

It is essential for students to understand the language they are exposed to

and to respond appropriately so that they can become competent users of

that particular language. Seferolu and Uzakgore (2004) claim that “listening is

usually an interactive process” (p. 2). The listener does not always just listen

to, but she or he also reacts to the speaker or asks questions for clarification.

The most essential issue for the students should be to understand what they

are listening to and to be able to give appropriate responses orally. This aim

brings us to the integration of listening and speaking while teaching, as our

main consideration should be not only learning the grammar of the target

language but also communicating in that language, which highlights the

importance of the integration of these two skills. As a result, it may be said

that the more the skills are taught individually, the less communication will

take place in the classroom. To avoid this, the skills should be taught in

integration to guide learners to develop their oral communicative

competencies.

Dell Hymes (1971) defined communicative competence as a term in

linguistics which refers to a language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax,

morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how

and when to use utterances appropriately. Within this process, communicative

competence is a way of describing what a language speaker knows which

enables him or her to interact effectively with others. Therefore, teachers

should give more importance to teaching of the skills in integration in order to

encourage the individuals become communicatively competent.

Speaking and listening skills have been regarded as being too difficult to cope

with ,so generally students are not willing to participate in tasks focusing on

these two skills. When they are integrated through information-gap tasks,

students might see the actual outcome and become more willing to practice to

achieve more success in communicating their ideas. Some instructors do not

prefer information-gap tasks thinking that the class may get out of control

which may cause barriers in communication process. Teachers should sweep

away the boundaries and create a safe stress-free environment to encourage

and motivate the students to speak. An information-gap task is a task where

learners have the lack of the needed information to complete a task and they

are in need of listening or speaking to each other in order to complete the task

as in real- life. Information gap tasks are beneficial in a foreign language

setting for various reasons. To start with, they both enhance the opportunity of

speaking practice and highlight the real communication, therefore; the

motivation of the students is high. One of the challenges that teachers meet in

the classroom is motivating the students to speak in the target language.

Active and confident students always participate, but the others who are less

confident are not willing to speak. As Lightbown and Spada (2006) suggest

“speaking in the target language requires more than one mental task at one

time like choosing words, pronouncing them, and stringing them together with

the appropriate grammatical markers” (p. 39). In order to perform these

operations while communicating, complex and nonspontaneous mental

operations are required and failure to do so may lead to reticence, self-

consciousness, fear, or even panic, similarly with respect to listening. “The

instructor should be the facilitator in the classroom to create an unthreatening

environment”.(Jones, 2004, p. 34). Hence, another important feature of

information-gap tasks is that each student has only part of the information

they need to complete a task, so they must cooperate and share their

information by speaking or listening to each other. Within this framework, in

the learning process the students talk to one another, not exclusively to the

teacher, which provides the involvement of all students into the tasks while at

the same time fostering student-centered learning in the classroom.

In real life, listening and speaking are always in integration, so teachers

should teach these two skills in an interacted way. Although the students may

know how to listen and speak in the language, they may still not be able to

communicate in this language mainly because these skills are not used in

integration. Use of authentic materials and real life situations could naturally

lead to the integration of skills since this is the case in real life. The aim of this

study is to prove that listening and speaking both in practice phase in the

classroom and in real communication situations entail unique features that

result in real contributions to overall language learning. It is the teacher’s task

to comprehend and make use of how closely listening is related to the

speaking skill and how listening can be integrated with speaking through

information-gap tasks. This study focuses on and sets forth the scientific view

of teaching listening and speaking in integration through information-gap

tasks. Integration of skills exposes English language learners to authentic

language and challenges them to interact naturally in the language. By this

way, English becomes a real means of interaction and sharing among people.

In addition to this, it allows the teacher to color his/her lesson with varieties

because the range of tasks is wider. “Real success in English teaching and

learning is when the learners can actually communicate in English inside and

outside the classroom” (Davies and Pearse, 2000, p. 99).

Chapter III

CONCLUSION

People listen or speak in order to obtain the presented information or to learn

about a content which is intellectual rather than factual as a way of developing

their own intellectual skills so that ideas can be more effectively manipulated,

possibly with the aim of influencing the behavior of others, or of determining

the outcome of a series of operations. These reasons for listening and

speaking are essentially practical. Thus, it can be said that listening is carried

out for many purposes other than listening to the language itself. Just as

messages are listened in order to be able to do something else, the student

speaking a foreign language should be less concerned with the language than

with the message sent to communicate. Therefore, students should develop

not only listening but also speaking skills in order to communicate with others.

For some time in language teaching, it has been conventional to teach

speaking as being of primary importance, regarding listening to be less

important although it is known that oral skills and aural skills cannot be

separated from each other. Language teachers should encourage students to

predict, to tolerate ambiguity and to link ideas so that they stop dwelling on

isolated words often not vital for comprehension. To facilitate communicative

competence the teachers can also help students by discussing the title,

theme, and cultural background before starting the tasks. While choosing the

tasks, all types of materials from advertisements to literature can be used. In

the first language, students have ready access to language used in

meaningful contexts, and they incorporate needed patterns from those models

into their own changing and evolving the linguistic system. What they often

lack in the second foreign language classroom is the opportunity to develop a

sufficient language base from which to generate messages they would like to

communicate. Classroom use of comprehensible materials can help to

alleviate this problem. Thus, all tasks should serve to facilitate communicative

fluency in each of the other language skills including listening and speaking.

The students can speak at a much higher level of proficiency than in the past

when the preoccupation with grammar is used to deprive them of the

opportunity to speak for the meaning. Besides these, information-gap tasks

increase students’ motivation and improve their level of comprehension.

Within the framework of this study, it was realized that the students were

willing to participate in the tasks as the two skills were presented in integration

through information-gap tasks, which created real life situations in the

classroom. Listening is a receptive skill in that the listener is receiving a

message from a speaker, but it shouldn’t mean that the listener is passive

during a listening task. The listening process, in a way, is a very active

process as the listener needs to use background knowledge to understand

the intended message of the speaker; so, the listeners should deal with
various tasks while listening to activate their schemata. The follow-up of these

stages can easily be the production stage, which inevitably means the

integration of skills. Hence, teaching the skills separately will influence

negatively the communication in the classroom; therefore, the teachers should

create real life situations not only by integrating listening and speaking skills

but also by implementing information-gap tasks to enhance real

communication among the individuals.

In conclusion, it is seen that the results of the test show that students’

success increases when these two skills are taught in integration through

information-gap tasks. Moreover, practicing the skills through information gap

tasks carry up student involvement and motivation mainly because these

kinds of tasks are related to real life and thus leads to communication. It may

be said that the listening and speaking skills are at least as important as the

reading and writing skills. This study suggests that students’ success rises

when listening and speaking skills are integrated through information-gap

tasks.

One of the four macro skills everyone has to acquire is the speaking. It is

one of the productive activities in daily life and is the most important language

skill because it is the main skill needed to carry out a conversation. Besides,

speaking is an interactive process for constructing and receiving information.

Specifically, the mastery of speaking is a priority for students in schools and

universities. Thus, knowing English involves not only producing the language
correctly, but also using it for particular purposes. Students learning language

is considered to be successful if they can communicate effectively in their

second or foreign language. In the communicative level of speaking class,

the students should be taught how to speak well by using the components of

English speaking skills such as communication, grammar, vocabulary, fluency

and comprehension.

However, one of the second language learning theories which become

very well-known today is Kreshen’s (1987) mentioning the hypotheses on

language acquisition and learning as follows: there are two kinds of language

learning: Language acquisition; that is, the child acquires the mother tongue

or first language subconsciously which is not concerned with the rules of the

grammar but for the communication; on the other hand, Language learning:

the child learns the target language consciously with the learning of rules

enabling them to describe the rules of the language but may not necessarily

use in communication.

“Language learning helps to develop communication skills which are really

vital if you’re applying for a job or just in daily life, you need to be able to

communicate.” (Nuffield Languages Inquiry, 2000). This is also the purpose

of those who are learning English as a foreign language. The widespread of

English leads to a surprising increase of English learners nowadays.

Students study English as a preparation for their future jobs that usually

require communication in English.

The ending of learning English is the learners are able to use it as a

means of communication either by speech or written, so the use of English for
the students is compulsory, because mastering English is a priority for many
second or foreign language learners. Jack Ricard (1990) says that “The
mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or foreign
language learners. Learners consequently often evaluate their success in
language learning as well as the effectiveness of English course on the basis of
how well they feel they have improved in their spoken language proficiency”
As an English teacher, the writer was faced by two choices in teaching
English whether for achieving good national examination grade (in written
test) or for training the students to speak English as a means of
communication well. It seems achieving good national examination grade (in
written test) is the main target, for the success measurement of English
learning is determined by how good the result of national exam grade in
written test is. The learning and teaching process in the classroom today is just
how to do the test in written.
The fact that many students in the State Senior High School of
Karangpandan got difficulties in speaking English. Even some of them got a
very low speaking competence. It was unfortunate that many students still got
4
very low speaking competence. Therefore, it is the teacher’s duty to teach
speaking in a such way, so that the students can participate the lesson eagerly.
In this research, the writer, classified the difficulties into qualitative and
quantitative.
Based on quantitative data, the writer found based on speaking
assesment as a pre-test, who got mark more than 81 were only 3 students.
Those who got between 71 and 80 were 5 students, and the other students got
less than 7.0 from totally 22 students in that class. Shortly, they did not have
fluency expressions as well. Their fluency can be described that they spoke
very slowly, and they often stopped for few minutes before speaking. They did
not have fluency expressions as well. In short, the students who fulfill the
minimum passing grade (KKM: Kriteria Ketuntasan Belajar Minimal) of
speaking are only 36.4% .The result, of course, can’t be said as satisfying
result.
Pertaining to the students’ problems, there are many factors;
First, in teaching speaking, the teacher tended to teach text
Second, he asked the students to look at the structured dialogues
which had been stated in the text book to read together after him.
Third, he asked some of them to practice the dialogues in front of the
class in pairs.
The last, he asked them to answer the comprehensive questions
dealing with the written topics.
The weaknesses of what the teacher did above were as follows;
5
Firstly, the students didn’t have enough rehearsal time to practice
or to express their English so that they could not interact with one another in
English simultaneously.
Secondly, the teacher oriented his teaching at the written test held
in the mid or end semester, even in the final exam.
Thirdly, there was no specific time allocated to evaluate the
students’ speaking skills at the end of semester or final exam.
Fourthly, the teacher still teaches the students with routine
activities without realizing that it would make the students bored and lost their
attention to the teaching and learning process. This is stated by Douglas,
“Routine activities in learning can make the students bored. As the result, their
motivation and participation in learning will decrease” (1987:p. 48).
In teaching English, the teacher has to be able to make the students participate
in discussing the materials actively, so that they will be able to understand
what they are learning in the class and also express their own ideas orally. The
most important thing to carry out the English teaching is that the teacher has to
able to use the appropriate approach, design, and procedures.
One of the ways in improving students’ speaking skill is by giving
Role Play as a form of English learning activity in the classroom, Elizabeth
F.Barkley (2004: p. 150) says that Role Play is a created situation in which
students deliberatley act out or assume characters or identities they would not
normally asume in order to accomplish learning goal.
6
Role play is very important in communication language teaching
because it gives students an opportunity to practice communicating in
different social context and in different social roles. Therefore, communicative
language teaching (CLT) approach is very appropriate to support the above
problem because this approach is learner-centered and emphasizes
communication in real life situation (Fauziati, 2009:p.143)
To solve the problem in teaching speaking , the writer would like
to conduct a research about “Improving Student Speaking Skill by Role
Play” (An Action Research, in Eleventh Grade of Immersion Program 1 of
The State Senior High School of Karangpandan Academic Year 2009/2010)
B. Problem Formulation
The problem statement of the research are as follows:
1. Does the use of Role-Play improve the speaking competence of the
students’ speaking skill in Senior High School of Karangpandan eleventh
grade of Immersion Program 1?
2. How effective does Role Play improve the speaking competence at
eleventh grade students of Immersion Program 1 of Senior High School of
Karangpandan?
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses during the application of Role-Play
strategy at eleventh grade of Immersion Program 1 State Senior High
School of Karangpandan?
C. The Objectives of the Research
Based on the background of the research, there are three objectives
which the writer wants to get, they are:
7
1. General Objective.
To find out whether the use of Role-Play in teaching English improves the
students English speaking competence at the eleventh grade students of
Immersion Program in the State Senior High School of Karangpandan.
2. Specific Objectives.
a. To find out whether Role-Play improves the speaking competence of
the students’ speaking skill in Senior High School of Karangpandan
eleventh grade of Immersion Program 1.
b. To find out the effectiveness of Role-Play in teaching speaking
English at the eleventh grade of the Immersion Program 1 of Senior
High School of Karangpandan.
c. To find out the strengths and weaknesses during the application of
Role-Play strategy in Senior High School of Karangpandan eleventh
grade of Immersion Program 1.
D. The Benefits of the Research
The research result is expected to be able to give some benefits for;
1. The teacher.
He can get a description about how to use the teaching technique to senior high
school students effectively in line with their characteristics
2. The students
They can provide a more comforting and interesting situation in the classroom
so that they are more interested in joining the class.
3. The readers
The research can be used as additional reference for those who want to
conduct a research an English teaching process, especially in improving
students􀍛 English speaking ability.
8
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
This chapter consists of some theories that support the reserach.
A. Theoritical Description
1. Speaking Competence
a. The meaning of speaking competence
S p eaking competence plays a necessary role in learning and
understanding any language. The term of speaking has several
meanings. Widdowson (1978) says that speaking has two meanings.
First, it refers to the manner in which language is manifested. Second,
it refers to the manner in which language is realized as communication
(p. 58).
The meaning of competence according to Chomsky in Brumfit
and Johnson (1998: p. 13) is “the speaker hearer’s knowledge of his
language”. It is seen as overall underlying linguistic knowledge and
ability thus includes concepts of appropriateness and acceptability.
While in Curriculum 2004 competence is defined as knowledge, skill,
behaviour, and values which accustom to be applied in the habitual
thought and action. Then according to Oxford Advance Dictionary by
Hornby, competence is (of person) having ability, power, authority,
skill, knowledge, etc. ( to do what is needed).
9
The target or the goal of language teaching is that the students
become communivatively competence in target language as capability
of using language well. Richard and Roger (1986: p. 66) state that
Communivative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach that aims to
create communicative competence and develop procedure for the
teaching of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and
writing) that acknowledge the interdependence of language and
communicative activities.
To develop communicative competence, the teacher is suggested
to use CTL (Chomsky, 1965: p. 3). While Douglas (19997; p. 247) says
that CLT is used to create communicative competence as the object to
use and to develop some procedures for teaching four basic skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing) function as the foundation to
master English. The students are engaged to use the language they
learnt through communicative activities
One of the four language skills being existed in an English
language teaching is speaking. Therefore, speaking component has the
same importance as the other language skills such as listening, reading
and writing.
2. Role –Play
a. The Meaning of Role-Play
According to Ladousse in Allan Makey (1987: p. 7) role-play is
one of a whole gamut of communication techniques which develops
10
fluency in language, which promotes interaction in the classroom, and
which increases motivation. Not only in peer learning encouraged by it,
but also the sharing between teacher and students’ responsbility for the
learning process.
Role play is a speaking activity where learners participate either
as themselves or as somebody else in a specific situation.
In this way they can act in various interaction patterns.
According to Ladousse (1989) the situation can correspond to:
1) a real need in the learners’ lives (at the doctor, at the station), the
learners may or may not have the direct experience;
2) the events that few learners will ever experience but which are easy
to play such as being a journalist;
3) fantasy roles which are imaginary, absurd and have nothing to do
with reality.
Role play is one of communicative techniques which
develops fluency in language students, which promotes interaction
in the classoom, and which increases motivation. Haycraft
mentioned the three elements in role playing: what the characters
want, who they are, and their moods or attitudes at the time. These
elements are ten affected by how the situation develops (Haycraft,
1978: 88).
Role play includes “all sorts of activities where learners
imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom, sometimes
11
playing the role of someone other than themselves, and using
language appropriate to this new context.” (Ur, 2000: 131).
Role Play is an example of “learning by doing” The word
role indicates that the students must actively apply knowledge,
skill, and understanding to successfully speak and act from
different, assigned perspective. The term play indicates that the
students use their imaginations and have fun, acting out their parts
in nonthreatening environment. Thus Role Play engages students in
a participatory activity that requires them to apply course concepts
as they assume factional identities or envision themselves in
unfamiliar situation (Barkley, 2005: 150).
b. The Ways to Do Role-Play
Ladousse in Allan Makey (1996: p. 9) says that there are two kind
of ways of looking at language work in role play. Either students
manage with the language they know, or they practice structures and
functions that have been presented to them at an earlier stage of the
lesson or the course, in a free and uncontroled way.
In the first situation, when the students just cope as best they can,
the teacher’s aim is to bring them to the point of awareness which the
necessity of acquiring certain structures evidence, as these structures are
immediate relevant. Students can see how they could have put them to
good use. They will retain them all the more easily because they are
rooted in a meaningful context.
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In the second situation, role play is the active phase of learning and
offers an opportunity for students to make personal use of language that
has been presented them formally. Role play can be used in this way
right from the start in elementary classes. As for the kind of language
work to be done, role play lends itself to almost every type: structures,
lexis, functions, intonation pattern and so on.
Based on the opinion above, the writer then takes the second
situatiuon in which the students have to do the dialogue using role play
because the research is done in the grade XI-Immersion of Natural
Science Program of SMA Karangpandan. Ultimately, he wants the
students to be both fluent and accurate in the way they speak.
c. The Reasons for Choosing Role-Play
Role-play is chosen as one of the tasks in the teaching learning for
the following reasons;
The main reasons stated by Ladousse (1997: p. 6-7) namely: first,
a very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom
through role-play.
Then role-play puts students in situations in which they are
required to use and develop those phatic forms of language which are so
necessary in oiling the works of social relationship, but which are so
often neglected by our language teaching syllabuses.
13
Next some people are learning English to prepare specific roles in
their lives: environment of a classroom. For these students, role-play is
a very useful dress rehearsal for real life. It enables them not just to
acquire set phrases, but also to learn how inter action take place in a
variety of situation.
Lastly, perhaps the most important reason for using role play is that
it is fun. Once students understand what is expected of them, they
thoroughly enjoy letting their imaginative trip. Jeremy Harmer
(Http://www.Teaching English.org.uk.think/speak/role-play. Shtml)
advocates the use of role play for following reasons:
1. It is fun and motivating.
2. Quiter students get the chance to express themselves in a more
forthright way.
3. The world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside
world- thus offering a much wider range of language opportunities.
4. Real situations can be created and students can get benefit from the
practice , mistakes can be made with no drastic consequence.
B. Rationale
In general, the students will be sucessful in their learning if they are
involved to participate into the teaching learning process in classroom actively.
As suggested by Lewis (2005: p. 28) that how classroom learning can be
more effectively managed to produce the desired outcomes of language
learning, that is, for learners ought to use the new language for a variety of
14
communicative purpose and contexts, so that, the objective of teaching learning
process can be reached optimally and successfully.
Based on the theories underlying the research and the problem which is
being faced by the students, that role play teaching technique has many
contributions to encourage the students’ interest and motivation in learning
English especially speaking.
C. Action Hypothesis
The hypothesis of the research are as follows:
1. The use of role-play improve the students’ speaking competence in learning
English in Senior high school because it enables the students to enhance the
speaking competence easily.
2. The use of role-play can motivate the students to practice speaking by using
English and also they are able to create comforting atmosphere in speaking
class .
3. Since role-play has a lot of advantages and contributions to English teaching
learning process, there is significant advance in the students’ achievement.
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Setting Description
This research is carried out at the State Senior High School of
Karangpandan, Karanganyar, Central Java. It is located on Jalan Blora,
15
Karangpandan. It is exactly in the east of Karanganyar Regency city. The
phone number is (0271) 662880.
B. Subject of the Research
This study is emphasized on the eleventh grade students of
Immersion Program 1 of the State Senior High School of Karangpandan
Academic Year of 2009/2010.
C. Data and Data Source
The data of this research can be divided into two: primary and
secondary data. The primary data are the answers to the interview,
document, and field notes.
The secondary data taken from the teachers and the surroundings
where the writer may get additional information. The source of data is the
information about teaching and learning process including:
a. Events, that is vocabulary learning at the second year students of
class grade XI-Immersion of Natural Science Program of the State
Senior High School of Karangpandan Academic Year 2009/2010.
b. Respondents related with the study as :
The teacher as the subject of teaching – learning process.
The students as the object of teaching learning process.
c. Documents : the students data, evaluation result and any related
documents.
D. Technique of Data Collection
16
This research uses three kinds of methods to collect the data.
They are interview, observation, and documentation.
a. Observation
The writer conducted a direct observation for a month which
was done when the students did the activities in learning English in
the classroom and then made such field note. Wenden (1992:80) states
that some limited information on student’s learning processes may be
gained by observation.
b. Documentation
The last method is documentation. The writer collected the
notes of the lesson written by the students. The documentation of their
notes will help the writer got additional data because it is possible to
know the strategies that may be unconsciously used.
In this research, the writer documented the exercises done by
the students, the questionnaire result, the interview and the students’
checking list to follow the students’ improvement of being
competence.
E. Data Validity
The data collected by the researcher must be validated. The data
validity is checked by triangulation technique. Triangulation is the
technique of checking the validity of data by using ‘things’outside the data
as comparing things to the data (Moleong, 2007:331). In this case, after
17
the teacher held vocabulary assessment (pre-test) toward the students, he
compared the pre-test results with the results of their daily exercises
(Ulangan Harian), mid-test and semester test.
F. Technique of Data Analysis
The technique of data analysis in this research is descriptive
analysis. Using this technique, the writer collects, arranges and presents
the data. The qualitative method is a kind of research without using any
calculation or statistic procedures.
Miles and Huberman model the data analysis (Sugiyono,
2007:338)
Table 3.1. Model of Data Analysis
The scheme above is the techniques in analyzing data by :
a. Data Collection
Collecting data from observation, interviewed and
documents to be presented in field notes including 1) field notes
identify: observation, interview or document analysis, 2)
Data Collection Data Presentation
Data Reduction
Verification /
Conclusion
18
description : the result of observation or interview from the data
gained in the field, 3) reflection : analysis and concluding the data.
b. Data Reduction
During the field notes processes, the data gained grow
much and complex. The data need to be reduced. Data reduction
means to summarize, to choose the points, to focus on the
important matters, in order to find the theme and the pattern.
c. Presentation
The data are organized and managed for they are able to be
understood. Data presentation enables the writer to understand the
problem and the whole situation and to plan the next steps.
d. Conclusion / Verification
The conclusion needs to be verified for its credibility.
Verification is some activities to check the writer’s carefulness and
to the accurate data.
G. Indicator
Research indicator is expectedly recognized after doing each cycle,
which shows positive result. Consequently, it will improve the final result
(KKM). After Classroom Action Research is applied, it is expected that:
1. 80% students are active in teaching – learning at English subject.
2. 80% students improve their vocabulary.
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3. 80% students fulfill KKM.
T h e indicator of successful teaching – learning process can be
drawn in the table below.
Table 3.2. Succesful Teaching – Learning Indicators
No Category Notes
1
2
3
4
Very Good
Good
Average
Low
Class Mean Score 90 – 100
Class Mean Score 75 – 89
Class Mean Score 60 – 74
Class Mean Score 􀂔 59
H. The Procedure of Action Research Technique
As explained in the previous chapter, action research was employed
in this research. followings were the procedures or steps employed in this
research.
1. Planning
Planning includes:
a. Problem Identification
This step achieved by using three techniques. They are:
1) Conducting an informal interview with the students of grade
XI-Immersion Natural Science Program 1 of the State Senior
High School of Karangpandan Academic Year 2009/2010, to
know how speaking was taught and the problems encountered
20
and their expectations of the teaching and learning process of
speaking in the future.
2) Observing the students’ behavior in the teaching-learning
process.
3) Conducting a pre-test to know the students’ speaking
competence.
b. Preparation
T h is step deal with the plan of action for overcoming the
students’ problems in speaking. Based on the result of the informal
interview, the writer decides to apply role play in English class.
Before implementing the plan, the writer arranged the necessary
preparations, such as:
1) Finding the available time for the implementation
2) Asking official permission
3) Preparing the learning materials using role playing.
4) Preparing sheets for classroom observation
5) Preparing a test
6) Preparing the questionnaire and interview question
2. Implementation
I n the implementation, the students were introduced to role
playing in the English class for four meetings through 3 cycles of
actions.
21
3. Observation
O b servation was carried out by asking the students to do
exercises in each meeting, to do pre-test and post-test, and to answer
questions either in a questionnaire or an interview to get the feedback
in the form of ideas or opinions about applying role play in speaking
class and its learning materials.
4. Reflection
A f ter carrying out the teaching learning using role play, the
writer recites the occurrences in the classroom as the effect of the
action. He evaluates the process and the result of the implementation
of role play in teaching speaking. The teacher makes reflection to
decide the next intervention step based on the best, evaluation and
observation.
CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH FINDINGS
A. Introduction
22
As it has been stated before in chapter 1, the students’ problem was
they were not active during the speaking class. Most of them were not actively
involved in oral communication it was due to the fact that the lack chance to
use English during the teaching learning process.
To solve the problem the writer offered a technique to promote the
students’ speaking skill. The technique is role – play. Role – play was held
regularly during speaking class as technique to practice speaking skill.
. The following is the description of initial reflection dealing with
above problem and fact finding analysis as the continuity of the initial
problem.
1. Initial Reflection
The students of XI Immersion 1 of Natural Science Program
in SMA Negeri Karangpandan faced serious problem dealing with their
oral English.
2. Fact Finding Analysis
After the writer realized that the students of SMA Negeri
Karangpandan grade XI- Immersion l of Natural Sceince Program got
difficulties dealing with their English speaking competence, he wanted to
prove whether what had been stated before was true or not.
The following is the description of the research
implementation.
B. Cycle 1
1. General Planning
23
The writer prepared two action steps in general planning. The first
was socialization.
The second step was socialization of how role – play carried out in
the class.
2. Action
Based on general planning above, the writer carried out two actions
related to the role playing in the class. The first action was socialization of
the technique and the second was the implementing of role play.
a. Socialization
In this activity the writer informed the students about the objectives
of how of Role-Play applied in teaching in the classroom.
b. Role 􀂱 Playing
After socializing the objective of teaching learning English in class
and the technique of role play, the writer started to apply role play in
the class. There were four meetings in implementing role play.
C. Cycle 2
In this part, the teacher did some activities as what he had done in
Cycle 1 among others, planning the action, implementing the action which
24
included four meetings and each meeting consisted of opening the class, main
activities, and closing the class. The followings are the detail information
about the above parts;
1. Revised Planning
Based on the result of reflection of cycle 1 and the result of
discussion with the collaborator.
2. Action
a. Introducing new language and new strategy
In this scenario the writer introduced the students a new
knowledge.
b. Modeling
The second step to solve the students’ problem in role playing was
modeling. The teacher was as a model.
c. Role Playing
1) The Students􀂱 Speaking Practice
After introducing the students with the new language and
providing the model, it was the time for the students to do role playing.
a. First Meeting
The first meeting of the second cycle was carried out on 5
April 2010. The topic was ‘Expressing Embarrassment’.
1) Opening the Class
25
2) Main Activities
3) Closing the Class
b. Second Meeting
The second meeting was conducted on Thursday, 8 April 2010.
The topic of this meeting was Interesting Person.
1) Opening the Class
2) Main Activities
3) Closing the Class
c. Third Meeting
In this activity, the students only repeated the previous activity
to practice again using role play.
1) Opening the Class
2) Main Activities
3) Closing the Class
d. Fourth Meeting
The fourth meeting was the last meeting of Cycle 2 and it was
conducted on the 15 April 2010.
1) Opening the Class
2) Main Activities
3) Closing the Class
.
26
3. Observing and Monitoring the Action
By observing and monitoring the teaching and learning process in
the second cycle, the writer knows how far the effectiveness of teaching
related to the approach and technique the teacher is being used.
4. Reflection and Evaluation
Reflecting the result of implementation in the second cycle will
answer the question as; ‘What have been succeeded already?’; ‘What
have not been succeeded yet?’; ‘Why have they been happened?’; and
then ‘How should it be?’
a. The Improvements
Implementing the action in the second cycle has succeeded in
enhancing the students’ speaking competence of what they had
learned before which was held in the fourth meeting.
D. Cycle 3
In this part, the teacher prepared some steps to do the activities. Those
were planning the action, implementing the action consisted of four meetings
in which each meeting included opening the class, main activities, and closure.
27
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
A. Conclusion
After conducting the research of teaching speaking at senior high school
students through the use of Role -Play strategy, the result shows that it can
improve the students’ speaking competence at the students of eleventh grade of
Immersion Program 1 of the State Senior High School of Karangpandan
Based on the result of research above, the writer concludes these following
important points:
1. The use of role play as teaching technique improved the students’ speaking
competence at the eleventh grade students of Immersion Program 1 of the
State Senior High School of Karangpandan in Academic Year 2009 / 2010.
2. The improvement in their speaking competence is quite significant. It was
reflected from the students’ attitude inside the class during the English
teaching learning process.
3. The strengths of the application of Role-at the eleventh grade students of
Immersion Program 1 of the State Senior High School of Karangpandan are
that; a) the students become more active, excited, and responsive to the
presented materials, 2) the atmosphere of English class became relax, fun, and
enjoyable, and c) the students’ English score fulfilled the KKM.
4. Based on the result of reflection, evaluation and observation, the teacher then
made some descriptions of the weaknesses of the research are as follows:
28
Table 8 : The Students􀂱 Problem and its Solution.
Students’ Problem Solution
A little passive Give a high motivation, create the class
to be enjoyable atmosphere.
Mispronouncing the words Lead the students to pronounce the
difficulty words many time in
presentation phase and giving some
more exercises in production phase.
Difficulty in grasping the meaning Lead the students to translate the
difficult words into Indonesian
repeatly in presentation phase and
giving some more exercises in
production phase.
Misuse the structure of the words or
sentences
Explain the right structure and give
more explanation and exercise.
Speaking in low voice. Support them to express louder, remind
them not to be afraid to make mistakes.
Feel shy or inferior to practice. Support them to behave commonly.
5. The class should be an environment that promotes speaking. Thus, the teacher
provides opportunities for the students to work together or individually in
doing their tasks or answering question.
B. Recommendation
Having concluded the result of students’ activities in every cycle, the
writer would like to propose some suggestion for English teacher, students,
and other researcher. The suggestions are as follows:
1. For English Teachers
The teacher should learn the characteristics of the students,
including the psychological condition before conducting the teaching
learning process.
29
2. For the students
The students can study English not only in the classroom but also
everywhere, such as watching English Cartoon film, playing computer,
and etcetera at home as long as they have motivation to do it.
3. For the Other Researchers
The writer is aware that this research is not the end of the problems
being studied. The result of the study doesn’t prove yet that the output of
this research is absolutely good for all time.