Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, East Java, Indonesia

International Conference on
Education, Teacher Training, and
Professional Development
August 2021

Research Article
The Effect of Planted Questions Technique and
Students’ Motivation toward Their Speaking Ability
Setio wardoyo
(1) English Student of Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of UMM.
Email: setio.wd@gmail.com

KEYWORDS ABSTRACT
Planted Questions is an effective technique to enable teacher to
present information in response to questions which are planted with
selected students to attract their curiosity and to encourage their
motivation in speaking, especially questionning. This article
describes the study result of the effect of Planted Questions
technique and students’ motivation toward their speaking ability.
This is a quasi-experimental research with three variables;
independent variable (Planted Questions Technique), dependent
variable (students’ speaking ability) and moderate variable
(students’ motivation). The population of the research was the tenth
grade students of MAN 3 Pasaman Barat. The instruments of this
research were speaking ability test and speaking motivation
questionnaire. Then, the data were analyzed using t-test and two
ways ANOVA. The result of the study shows that: (1) students who
were taught by using Planted Questions technique got better
speaking ability than those taught by using Memorization
technique; (2) students with high speaking motivation who were
taught by using Planted Questions technique got significant
improvement score in speaking ability than those taught using
Memorization technique; (3) students with low speaking
motivation who were taught by using Planted Questions technique
got significant improvement score in speaking ability than those
taught using Memorization technique; (4) there was an interaction
between both techniques and students' speaking motivation toward
their speaking ability.

INTRODUCTION
Speaking is an oral productive skill that is essential to be mastered by the students for
more effective communication. By speaking, the students can present information, produce
ideas, and express meaning in their daily interaction directly and more easily. As stated by
Brown (1994); Burn and Joyce (1997), speaking is as an interactive process to construct
meaning that involves producing, receiving, and processing information. Nunan (1991) states
that the success of learning language is regarded from the ability to carry out a conversation
in the target language. Through speaking, the students can communicate with their teachers
and classmates. It allows the teacher to convey the lesson and leads students expand their

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August 2021

knowledge. The students are allowed to convey what they do not understand about the
lesson directly. Therefore, speaking ability is really needed in teaching and learning English.
Regarding the importance of speaking skill in language learning above, speaking is
included as one of the importance skills in Indonesian curriculum need to be mastered by the
learners at schools. Especially for tenth grade students, mastering transactional and
interpersonal texts is to be a must. However, there revealed different things suppose to be,
that was many senior high school students got difficulty to speak the texts. The result of
preliminary observation at research field, MAN 3 Pasaman Barat, showed that there were
some difficulties of students’ speaking ability. They are: first, they couldn’t speak English to
express their ideas, feeling, and questioning the difficullt learning materials as they did not
know the way of; second, they were lack of vocabulary mastery that led them to be stagnant.
Third, they were lack of practicing speaking. Fourth, they were lack of motivation in learning
speaking. Most of the students did not give any contribution during teaching speaking
process.
Those problems are due to some factors as several experts affirm. First, as mentioned
by Larzarton in Celce-Murcia (2001: 103), students’ readiness affects them to speak. Since
they not ready for real communication and cannot cope with all of the simultaneous demands
in learning activity, a few of them might want to express their ideas spontaneously in English
but they do not know how to, so they use their body language and speak with lot of pauses.
Second, Wendi (2008: 3) in Astiti (2012:2) states that the students’ speaking difficulties
could be caused by inside and outside factors. The inside factors are certain lacks such as lack
of self confidence and lack of motivation which could make students feel ashamed to speak,
scared to make mistakes, and have no confidence. Besides, Gardner (2002) in Astiti (2012: 2)
further states that the inside factors have a very important role to make students gain success
in learning a language. Meanwhile, the outside factor is related to the teacher. The teacher
should be able to recognize the students’ problem and to create conducive atmosphere in the
classroom that will raise the students’ ability to speak English. Consequently, English
teachers are expected to apply the appropriate technique which will surely work to fulfill
learners’ need of English communication. This notion is in line with the communicative
approach which defines language as communication and the goal of language teaching is to
develop communicative competence (Hymes in Richard & Rogers, 2002: 159). Speaking
instructors are also expected to provide themselves with wider variety of methodological
options to choose techniques and materials according to the learners’ needs.
As found in the research field during preliminary observation, the teaching technique
used by the teachers was not interesting and did not overcome students’ problems. It was
Memorization technique applied by the teacher, which requires a lot of time that caused the
teaching and learning process did not finish completely, such as: first, when the teachers
drilled the students with the lesson like repeating words, sentences or texts after spoken by
the teachers, the students should be ensured that they could repeat do it well. Consequently,
the teachers had to drill them for many times which consumed a lot of time. Then, when the
teachers asked the students to do rehearsal, the students took long time until they were
ready. In fact, the students had different capability of memorizing lesson. Consequently, for
those who had low capability of memorizing lesson, they took long time to rehearse it and
vice versa. Last, when the teachers asked the students to perform the lesson orally, without
looking at the texts, only some of them got opportunity to perform the lesson. Not enough
time was to be causal reason for this problem. It was not balanced between the time
allocation and the number of students in the class. Thus, when the students did not get
enough opportunity to perform their speaking ability, they became bored and passive to
follow the class. In short, this conventional technique can be stated as an uninteresting
technique as it did not provide the student with a wide chance to develop students’ speaking
ability.
In accordance to the factors contributed to above problems, it is better for the teacher
to be creative and innovative in teaching and learning process, especially in teaching
speaking such as using appropriate teaching techniques. Related to this need, Planted

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 International Conference on Education, Teacher Training, and Professional Development

August 2021

Questions technique might become potential to be implemented, which is expected to enable

students to promote their speaking ability. The Planted Questions technique centralizes its
activities through questioning. This is supported by several arguments that: 1) through
questioning the students are facilitated to be active in classroom speaking where they are
engaged, challenged, and motivated to take part in practicing speaking and to increase their
critical thinking, which gives impact on the increase of learning achievement (Mayberry &
Hartle, 2003: 94-95); 2) questioning is a way to start speaking, a central tool of interaction
for both teachers and students (Marsh, 1996: 120); 3) it helps the students to be active to
speak from beginning classroom interaction (Silberman (2006: 75).
In this case, Planted Questions technique as a kind of teaching technique that uses
questioning has some advantages. Those are: 1) stimulating a chain reaction among group
members in the learning classroom (Parker ,1990: 42); 2) stimulating students to convey
their ideas because some students are selected to give questions that have been prepared
before the lesson (Silberman, 2006: 156); 3) building an active student-centre learning
process in which a question-answer activity is being major interaction (Zaini, Munthe and
Aryani, 2008:46); 4) attracting students’ curiosity, motivation and confidence to ask
questions (Silberman, 2009: 144). Besides, Suprijono (2014: 113) also adds additional
advantages of the Planted Questions technique, they are: 1) helping students that neither
never ask questions or speak to ask or to be questioners to improve their self-confidence
during learning time; 2) helping students to learn the content of learning material which is
being discussed; 3) helping students to be able to listen to others’ point of views and record
the important things for collective importance; and 4) helping the students to get high
learning achievement and fix the relationship among them.
Besides, learning motivation is a very beneficial factor for the students to gain success.
Harmer (2007: 98) highlights that students’ success of learning English cannot be separated
from their motivation. Motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes them to do
things in order to achieve their language learning aim. If the students have high learning
motivation, they will do more learning activity. With strong motivation the learners are
expected to respond promptly to the learning situation, seek out all opportunities to acquire
the target language, make maximum use of the opportunities afforded to practice the target
language, possess analytic skill, be adaptable in learning situation possess, self-esteem, and
take a risk for their learning. Thus, undoubtedly the most frequently used catch-all term for
explaining the success or failure of virtually any complex task, motivation is a star player in
the cast of characters assigned to second language learning scenarios around the world
(Brown, 2007: 168).
For the teachers, knowing students’ English learning motivation has a very important
role to make them successful in learning a foreign language. They can recognize the students’
problem and create conducive atmosphere in the classroom that will drive the students to do
more toward learning English. Besides, the English learning reinforcement can also be
developed, learning objectives become clearer, and learning is to be persistent. Therefore, the
teacher is suggested to improve students’ English learning motivation, especially in speaking.
Without having high English speaking motivation, better speaking proficiency is very hard to
gain. Furthermore, students with higher levels of motivation will do better than students with
lower levels of English learning motivation (Gardner, 2006 in Tamimi and Shuib, 2009). He
further adds that if one is motivated, he/she has reasons (motives) for engaging in the
relevant activities, expends effort, persists in the activities, attends to the tasks, shows desire
to achieve the goal, enjoys the activities, etc. So, it is clear that motivation is like a smart
engine mover toward students’ successfulness.
In contrast, there are students who are not able to speak English spontaneously,
fluently, and comprehensively. One variable to be considered in relation to this lack of ability
is the students’ lack of motivation towards learning English, especially in speaking. This is
because learners’ motivation has been widely accepted as a key factor which influences the
rate and success in second/foreign language learning. Low motivation of the students is one
of the most important factors causing their failure in learning a foreign language. Realizing

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 International Conference on Education, Teacher Training, and Professional Development

August 2021

the role of English learning motivation previously described, the researcher affirmed that
students’ English learning motivation, especially in speaking is important to investigate.
Therefore be made it a moderator variable in this study. The consideration was that English
speaking motivation might encourage the students to do more practice in English, which will
support them in acquiring good ability for their speaking proficiency.
Addressing Planted Questions technique and students’ speaking motivation in learning
English, the study purported to answer four research questions, namely: 1) do the students
who are taught by using Planted Questions technique have better speaking ability than those
taught by using Memorization technique at grade X of MAN 3 Pasaman Barat?; 2) do the high
motivated students who are taught by using Planted Questions technique have better
speaking ability than those taught by using Memorization technique at grade X of MAN 3
Pasaman Barat?; 3) do the low motivated students who are taught by using Planted Questions
technique have better speaking ability than those taught by using Memorization teachnique
at grade X of MAN 3 Pasaman Barat?; and 4) is there any interaction between both techniques
(Planted Questions technique and Memorization technique) and students’ speaking
motivation toward their speaking ability at grade X of MAN 3 Pasaman Barat?

METHOD
This research was conducted at the tenth grade (X) students of Islamic Senior High
School (MAN) 3 Pasaman Barat, Sumatera Barat, Indonesia in July to September) at the odd
semester of 2020/2021 academic year. The population covered all tenth grade students in
social science program (X IPS), they were 80 students within three classes (X IPS1, XIPS2, and
X IPS3) while 52 of them were selected to be sample by using Random Sampling technique.
This research design was a quasi-experimental research in which post-test only was
applied through 2 x 2 factorial design. One class as experimental group was taught by Planted
Questions technique and another class as control group was taught by using the conventional
technique, namely Memorization technique. Three research variables were independent
variable (Planted Questions technique), moderator variable (English speaking motivation,
which was classified into high and low), and dependent variable (speaking ability). The data
were collected by using English speaking motivation questionnaire and a speaking test. The
data collected by test were scores of oral performance test which were obtained through an
analytical scoring rubric. The speaking scores were then rated by two raters to ensure the
reliability of the rater’s scores. While, the second type of data was collected by liker’s scale of
English speaking motivation questionnaire using a closed format question for all items and
five answers for positive and negative statements.
Data analysis was conducted after obtaining the normality and homogeneity of the data
distribution through Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics. In doing data analysis, descriptive
statistical was done through SPPS 16.0 by applying t-test and two–way ANOVA to find out the
interactional effect between the teaching techniques applied and the students’ English
speaking motivation toward their speaking ability.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

It has previously been stated that this research tried to answer four research questions.
The following description explains the findings that answer each research question.

1.1. The effect of Planted Questions technique on students’ speaking ability

The statistical analysis of the first hypothesis found that the mean score of students’ speaking
ability in experimental class (72.38) was higher than which was in control class (68.61). It
indicated that teaching speaking using Planted Questions technique produced higher
speaking ability rather than Memorization technique.
In fact, the Planted Questions technique had given some benefits in speaking classroom
interaction. First, it facilitated the teacher and the students to get started in speaking. The
interaction between them started through questioning activity. The questioning was done by
teacher’s guidance, which was by planting some questions to some selected (reluctant,

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 International Conference on Education, Teacher Training, and Professional Development

August 2021

hostile, shamed) students. There were some index cards used to assist to get it done. Each
index card consisted of at least one question related to the lesson (transactional and
interactional texts) and a cue to signalize the selected students forward the questions to get
response from the teacher. At first, they kept silent but then by somewhat persuasion from
the teacher, they were actively tried to speak using the questions on the card. Besides,
Planted Questions technique also activated the students to get more participation in speaking
class. There were not only the selected students but the others also were encouraged to
participate in speaking activity. Another benefit from applying Planted Questions technique
was the improvement of students’ speaking ability. The students also got more knowledge of
developing questions from previously not knowing how to or to express their ideas to others
in their interaction. They were familiarized with the questions planted to them and directly
learned to develop their own question on well. While, their mean score of speaking test was
higher than the students’ mean score in the other class. Last, Planted questions technique was
successful in pushing students’ motivation in speaking. Since they got enough opportunity,
could involve in and learn better speaking, their motivation was increased.
The research findings were similar to the other researchers’ findings. First, Ari, Rahayu, &
Luwandi (2015) who applied Planted Questions technique to improve students’ speaking
participation at eighth grade students of MTsN 1 Mempawah Hilir, found that students’
speaking participation of asking question was successfully improved. It was proven that the
students who were previously silent, reluctant, shy, and unable to speak (ask questions)
related to the topic, after being taught by that technique, their participation reached 63,3 %
improved. While, Nurhasanah (2013), in her research on the effect of Planted Questions
technique toward students’ speaking competence at the eighth grade students o f MTsN
Langsat Kadap Rao Pasaman, showed that this technique was more effective for students’
speaking competence. The students were interested in learning process and were active to
explore their ideas, and they had critical thinking in speaking class as well. Last, Wahyudi
(2016) in his research of the use of questioning technique to enhance students’ speaking
ability of freshmen of English Education Department of Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau, found that
teaching using questioning could improve students’ speaking ability in terms of accent,
grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, in which speaking fluency was the highest
improvement of all. It led the students to have good self-confidence and classroom
participation as well. The more the students questioning, the better the students’ speaking
ability was. Briefly, as Planted Questions technique allowed the students to get started in
speaking, to get more participation in speaking, to increase speaking ability and fostering
motivation in speaking.

1.2. The effect of Planted Questions technique on students' speaking ability with high
speaking motivation
Based on the statistical analysis of the second hypothesis, it was found that students with
high speaking motivation in the experimental class produced higher speaking ability than
those in control class. It was due to the mean score of students with high speaking motivation
in experimental class (77.15) was higher than those in control class (74.57).
The high motivated students in speaking in experimental class got better speaking ability
since they got more opportunity to push themselves in learning speaking. They were not
reluctant, shy, and doubt while speaking. They endeavored to pay attention and do the entire
tasks given by the teacher delightfully. They were more active than the high motivated
students in control class. Besides, they also punctually did the tasks as they owned a good
control on themselves during studying and were not affected by crowded situation. They
were also more interested, attractive, and enthusiastic to do learning activities; even they
found it as a challenging task which encouraged them get better result. In supporting this
findings, Brown (1944: 168) urges that motivation is a star player in the cast of characters
assigned to second language learning scenarios around the world (Brown, 1944: 168).
Students with higher levels of motivation will do things better than those with lower
motivation in their learning (Garner, 2006 in Tamimi & Shuib, 2009). If the students are

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Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia
 International Conference on Education, Teacher Training, and Professional Development

August 2021

motivated, they have reasons (motives) for engaging in the relevant activities, expends effort,
persists in the activities, attends to the tasks, shows desire to achieve the goal, enjoys the
activities, etc. In other words, high motivated students can get better learning achievement.
Therefore, it can be synthesized that high motivated students who were taught by Planted
Questions technique had better speaking ability than by Memorization technique. Planted
Questions technique helped the students to foster themselves in learning speaking for the
better achievement. Planted Questions technique was appropriate to be applied in teaching
high motivated students in speaking.

1.3. The effect of Planted Questions technique on students' speaking ability with low
speaking motivation
The result of statistical analysis of the third hypothesis showed that students with low
speaking motivation in the experimental class produced better speaking ability than those in
the control class. It was proven from the finding that the mean score of students with low
speaking motivation in experimental class (67.42) was higher than those in control class
(62.57).
Teaching speaking by using Planted Questions technique has encouraged the students
with low speaking motivation in experimental class to get more practice speaking that
produced better speaking ability than in control class. It helped the students to get better
knowledge of how to express, produce, and deliver their ideas to the others. In the speaking
classroom, the students were taught to learn how to speak using good ways of questioning
which previously they did not understand to. Through this learning process, they were
adequately responsible to the activities in speaking class. Besides, the students were
proceeded to grow up their motivation to achieve better result that they became more
productive than receptive. They preferred inquiring more knowledge to just receiving from
the teacher for their own. Thus, it can be justified that Planted Questions technique is an
innovative motivation technique as it could stimulate the students with low motivated
students in speaking to have better learning attitude. Moore (2005) grants that attitude is a
kind of individual learner’s difference in acquiring second language. The students will show
their attitude along teaching and learning in the classroom. A way to change students’
attitude is by using innovative motivation techniques such as setting students’ mind, making
sure the students need spoken English, involving students in their own learning, and
stimulating their interest to speak up.
To deduce, teaching speaking by using Planted Questions technique was more beneficial
for low motivated students in speaking than by using Memorization technique. It has proven
that Planted Questions technique was more appropriate an interesting than the
Memorization technique in teaching the low motivated students in speaking.

1.4. The interaction between both techniques and students’ speaking motivation toward
their speaking ability
The result of analysis of the fourth hypothesis shows that the value of F observed (2.440) is
higher than Ftable (0.243). It means that hypothesis alternative was accepted which means that
there was an interaction between both Planted Questions and Memorization techniques and
students’ speaking motivation toward their speaking ability. In brief, the both techniques
influenced students’ speaking ability with high and low speaking motivation.
The interaction of both techniques and students’ speaking motivation toward students’
speaking ability can be detected through the comparison of mean scores of students’
speaking ability based on high and low speaking motivation. The mean score of students’
speaking ability with high speaking motivation in experimental class (100.2) was lower than
the mean score of students’ speaking ability with low speaking motivation in the control class
(95.8). However, the mean score of students’ speaking ability with low speaking motivation
in experimental class (78.5) was lower than the mean score of control class (79.5). Thus, it
means that Planted Questions technique had positive relation for the students with high
speaking motivation in increasing their speaking ability but it was not appropriate for the

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Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia
 International Conference on Education, Teacher Training, and Professional Development

August 2021

students with low speaking motivation. In other words, the Memorization technique assisted
them better in speaking than the Planted Questions technique.
Since both of the techniques brought positive effect toward students’ speaking ability,
there was an interaction between the both of techniques and students’ speaking motivation
toward their speaking ability.

CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION AND SUGGESTION

Based on the results of the data analysis, the conclusion of this study can be posed, as follows:
(1) Planted Questions technique produced higher speaking ability for the students in the
experimental class than Memorization technique in the control class; (2) Planted Questions
technique produced higher speaking ability for the students with high speaking motivation in
the class than in the control class; 3) Planted Questions technique produced better speaking
ability for the students with low speaking motivation in the experimental class than in the
control class; and (4) there was an interaction between the techniques applied and students’
speaking motivation toward the student’ speaking ability.
From the result of the above discussion, the implementation of Planted Questions
technique gave a better achievement of speaking ability than the Memorization technique as
it did not neglected the factor of learning motivation in speaking. Thus, this implication of
this study involves two main points. First, the Memorization technique that has been being
applied by the speaking teachers needs to be reconsidered in the future speaking technique.
The speaking teachers should consider implementing the Planted Questions technique as one
of potential techniques in teaching speaking since it had been proven in this study. It is found
that the application of Planted Questions technique supports better achievement in speaking
ability toward students who have both high English speaking motivations. Second, Planted
Questions technique is appropriate with high and low motivated students in speaking,
particularly for the students of program in speaking courses. Through Planted Questions
technique, high and low motivated students were able to be major processors and critical
thinkers; speaking teachers becomes the real facilitator and motivator for the students.
Therefore, this technique is suitable to be applied.
Referring to the conclusion and implication, some suggestions are proposed. First, English
speaking teachers are suggested to apply Planted Questions technique in their speaking
classes to engage students to have high responsibility and critical thinking; and become
autonomous learners in acquiring their foreign language. Besides, it is also suggested to the
English speaking teachers to realize the major role of knowing students’ English learning
motivation, especially speaking, which significantly influences their speaking ability. And for
further researchers, this research can be used as an insight to conduct further researches in
line with the variables studied.

REFERENCES
Brown, H. Douglas. 1994. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.
Burns, A., and Joyce, H. 1997. Focus on Speaking. Sydney: National Center for English Language
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Moore, Kenneth. 2005. Effective Instructional Strategies: from Theory to Practice. New York:
Sage publication. Inc.
Nunan, D. 1991. Language Teaching Methodology. New York: Prentice Hall International Ltd.
Silberman, Melvin L. 2005. 101 Ways to Make Training Active (2nd ed.). San Fransisco: Pleiffer.
Zaini, H., Munthe, B., Aryani, S.A. (2008). Strategi Pembelajaran Aktif. Yogyakarta: Pustaka
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August 2021

REFERENCES
Nurhasanah. 2013. The Effect of Planted Question Technique Toward Students’ Speaking
Competence: A Study of Eight Grade Students at MTsN Langsat Kadap Rao Pasaman.
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Ramadhan Ari, Aprilliani, Rahayu, and Suharsono, Luwandi. 2015. Improving Students’
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Tamimi, A, A and Shuib, M. 2009. Motivation and Attitudes toward Learning English : A Study
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