IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT BY USING

INSIDE-OUTSIDE CIRCLE TECHNIQUE

Diaz Pradya Azmi

English Professional School Teacher Program, English Education Department
Languages and Arts Faculty
UNIMED
Email : pra.azmi@gmail.com
Abstract : Speaking is one of four skills needed in mastering language and the purpose of
this research was to find out how Inside-Outside Circle Technique improved students’
speaking achievement at the twelfth grade students of MAN 2 Model Medan academic year
2018/ 2019. Classroom Action Research was applied in this research and the participants of
this research were 30 students from IPS 4 class. The writer used observation checklist,
interview guidelines and students’ speaking performance to collect the data. The result
shows that students could speak and express their ideas well with less hesitation through the
Inside-Outside Circle technique. Modelling the Inside-Outside Circle enhance students’
fluency to speak with less pauses and hesitation. Students’ mean score in orientation test was
66.4, it increased to 88.4 in cycle 1, and it increased to 90.2 in cycle 2. In conclusion, Inside-
Outside Circle technique improved students’ speaking achievement.
Keywords : Speaking, Inside-Outside Circle Technique
INTRODUCTION
Speaking is one of four skills needed in mastering language. It is important since it can
acommodate an interpersonal-transactional interaction process between a speaker and a
listener. The speaking activity itself is a kind of information processing that results a
product. Speaking is not easy for it is an active skill and involving some other supporting
language aspects such as pronunciation, grammatical structure and vocabulary. Furthermore,
the goal of teaching speaking is a mean of communicative efficiency. Based on the
researcher’s experience in teaching there are some factors causing a student hardly speak or
express their ideas through utterance. Some of them are the lack of vocabulary acquisition,
students’ interest, lack of confidence or even their anxiety of making some mistakes when
speaking. The students are expected to be able to express their mind orally both in
interpersonal and transactional text, both in formal and informal situation. Meaning that they
have to be able to communicate in daily life, such as complimenting others, stating their
opinion, or introducing others. The fact conveyed the contrary that the researcher found the
students’ speaking achievement related to the expressions of offering help is 66 meaning that
it was still under the Minimum Passing Grade (KBM) which 90 for English subject. To
solve the problem between the requirements and students low speaking ability, there are
many ways to be used and technique is one of them. Many techniques are used and one of
them is Inside-Outside Circle technique. The inside-outside circle technique will fit the
students’ need since it stimulates students to speak up and say everything in their mind
through the learning activities. They do not have to be shy or afraid of being wrong because
in the activity they can say everything as long as they stick to the theme or topic stated. It is
also a fun way of learning since it needs so many movement and students will never be
bored. As Lie (2002: 65) states that Inside-Outside Circle technique is a simple strategy to
apply in the classroom. Through Inside-Outside Circle technique, students can discuss and
share information and ideas to their classmates directly. It encourages students to move and
have a conversation. It also helps students to share ideas and hear the different opinion from
different partners.The objective of this technique is improving students’ speaking ability.

METHOD

The researcher applied the classroom action research and took a part as a teacher in 12
IPS 4 Class of MAN 2 Model Medan which consists of 30 students. The research procedure
was conducted in two cycles, cycle I and cycle II. It conducted in five meetings starting from
July. The first meeting was for pre-test in which the researcher tried to find out the students’
speaking achievement before they got treatment. The second meeting was for cycle one
treatment, the third meeting was for the cycle one test, the fourth meeting was for cycle two
treatment, and the last meeting was for post-test and administrating the questionnaire. Each
cycle consisted of four stages which were planning, action, observation and reflection. There
was pre-test before conducting the cycles and post-test in the end of each cycle.

a. Definition of Inside-Outside Circle

Lie (2002: 65) states that Inside-Outside Circle technique is a simple strategy to apply
in the classroom. Through Inside-Outside Circle technique, students can discuss and share
information and ideas to their classmates directly. It encourages students to move and have a
conversation. It also helps students to share ideas and hear the different opinion from
different partners.The objective of this technique is improving students’ speaking ability.
According to Bennet (2006), the strength of Inside–Outside Circle technique is: when
students have appropriate “think time”, and the quality of their responses improves. Then,
students are actively engaged in thinking with different questions and different partners. The
activity in inside-outside circle encourages community building among students while
incorporating movement and interaction.
b. Procedure of Inside-Outside Circle
The steps of Inside-Outside Circle technique according to Bennet (2006) are:

1. Make a group of 6 or more (½ in½ out).

2. Place students in two circles – one circle within the other.
3. Students face each other between circles.
4. Put a question on the board
5. Ask students to think about it; allow reasonable wait time
6. Then say, “Person on the inside, tell the person on the outside how you
would attempt to solve it. When you are finished sharing, say, ‘pass’, and
then the outside personal will share or extend the thinking of the inside
person for 1 minute.
7. When finished, outside people rotate one step to the left or right. Now
they are ready for the next question.

RESEARCH FINDING AND DISCUSSION

The research was conducted in 12 IPS 4 Class of MAN 2 Model Medan which consists of 30
students. The first competence test was given in the first meeting and the other tests were
given in the end of each cycle. Based on the preliminary of study, the researcher found there
were some problems. Some of students got difficulties to speak up when the speaking time
started. Therefore, the researcher implemented the Inside-Outside Circle technique as a
problem solving. The students were very enthusiastic when the learning process was
continuing. Although there were some obstacles, such as: the class situation was very noisy
when the teacher managed the students to make some group, and also most of students felt
uncomfortable when the teacher organized the members of group. The circle was too large
so that the class became so noisy and the technique could not work well. Since the members
of the group were made by the researcher, the students were unable to express their ideas
freely. After applying inside-outside circle technique in the class, the students’ score
improved continuously. The students’ improvement can be seen in table 4.1 below.

Table 4.1 The improvement of Students’ score

No. Students' Name Score 1 Score 2 Score 3

1 Andre Agung 82 92 94
2 Ariqah Nabila Tama 65 91 93
3 Ary Ahmad Yani 55 88 90
4 Asyla Silmi Amalia 68 91 92
5 Dian Puspita Puja 61 91 92
6 Elviana Safitri 71 92 92
7 Fairuz Firjatullah 65 88 90
8 Fajar Siddik 60 89 91
9 Fatiya Sakinah 67 90 92
10 Fatwa Mahesa C 59 80 86
11 Frenny Novrembianda 69 88 90
12 Ghilman Rozy Harahap 74 90 92
13 Ikhsanul Fatih 66 88 90
14 Indri Haningtyas 76 88 90
15 Mardiana Hasibuan 65 89 91
16 Moris Rambu Wijaya 66 82 84
17 M. Farhan Nasution 46 81 83
18 M. Hanif Ar-Ridha 91 94 96
19 Nadia Nurul Hasanah 65 88 90
20 Nikmal Maula 71 94 94
21 Nur Aini Hasan 65 88 90
22 Okky Pratiwi 72 88 90
23 Rabitha Minfadlin P 65 89 91
24 Rafly 59 83 83
25 Rahmat Efendi T 65 89 91
26 Salsabila Musdza S 69 89 91
27 Sandi Arya Darma 63 88 90
28 Shabrina Tusifa 68 87 87
29 Sri Isni Ramadhani 65 89 91
 30 Yolanda Ardita 61 88 90
TOTAL SCORE (∑X) 1994 2652 2706
MEAN SCORE (X) 66,4667 88,4 90,2

After analyzing the data, it was concluded that students’ speaking achievement had
improved from the first test to the last test through inside-outside circle technique. In the
first cycle, groups were made by the researcher so the students still did the learning-teaching
by speaking hesitatntly. In the second cycle, the way groups made was changed and students
could choose their group members as they wanted leading them into the more fun and
enjoyable learning. They spoke with less hesitance. It could be concluded that the use of
inside-outside circle technique improved the students’ speaking achievement.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Conclusion
After analyzing the data, it was found that the students’ speaking scores increased from the
orientation test, cycle I test and cycle II test. It means that there was an improvement on
students’ achievement in speaking by applying Inside-Outside Circle Technique. The
analysis of quantitative data shows that the scores improved significantly. Moreover, it was
also proved through the interviews which indicate that there was an improvement in learning
result after applying Inside-Outside Circle Technique. Therefore, Inside-Outside Circle
Technique could significantly improve the students’ speaking achievement.

Suggestion
The result of this study shows that the use of Inside-Outside Circle Technique
improved the students’ speaking achievement. These following suggestions are directed
to:
1. For the teacher

As a teacher we have to find and develop any kind of learning model and
technique as the source of building the human resource’s quality. Therefore what we
can do are:

a. Find a learning technique which can give an interactive, creative, effective

and pleasant learning.
b. Based on the research this technique (Inside-Outside Circle) is good as the
education instrument in teaching-learning process.
 2. For the students
a. The students have to participate actively in the classroom learning process,
especially in English lesson due to the importance of gaining their ability
helping them survive in a real life.
b. The students also have to help their classmates who have difficulties in
studying English or other lessons and have to pay attention when the
teacher gives explanation for their own sake.

REFERENCES

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Brown, H. Douglas.2001. Teaching by Principle An Interative Approach to Language

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Hughes, Arthur. 1989. Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press

Kagan, Spencer. 1992. Cooperative Learning. San Juan Capistrano: Kagan Cooperative
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Lie, Anita. 2002.Cooperative Learning for ESL Students.Cross Currents. USA.

Sudrajad, M and Armeria W. ”The effectivenes of Inside Outside Circle By Using Cue
Card for Students’ Speaking Skill at seventh Graders”, Journal of English
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Thornbury, Scott. 2005. How to Teach Speaking. Malaysia: Pearson Education Limited.

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