IMPROVING THE STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH ROLE PLAY TECHNIQUE (A Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya)

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1 IMPROVING THE STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH ROLE PLAY TECHNIQUE (A Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya) Desy Relistia Fauziah English Department, Siliwangi Uiversity, Tasikmalaya bluemei.d51@gmail.com Abstract The aim of this research is to know whether role play technique can improve the students speaking ability at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya or not. It is a classroom action research with the students speaking ability at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya as the object of the research and the students of at the VIII G with the 36 students as the subject of the research. The data needed are the quantitative data obtained from the students speaking test and the qualitative data obtained from the result of the observation of the teaching and learning process. Therefore, the test and observation are used as the techniques to collect the data needed in this research, and the oral test and the observation sheet are used as the instruments of this reserach. Meanwhile, to analyse the quantitative data uses the mathematics formula to calculate the percentage of the students who achieved the Minimum Accomplishment Criteria or MAC (76), and to analyse the qualitative data done by categorizing the collected data to know the quality of the learning process. The result of the research shows that role play technique is able to improve the students speaking ability at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya. It can be seen from the improvement of the percentage of the students who achieved the MAC from the cycle I (69.44%) to the cycle II (100%) and then also the improvement of the learning process quality. Keywords: speaking ability, role play technique Abstrak DESY RELISTIA FAUZIAH Improving the Students Speaking Ability through Role Play Technique (A Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya). Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris. Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan. Universitas Siliwangi. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui peningkatan kemampuan berbicara siswa melalui penggunaan teknik Role Play (Bermain Peran). Penelitian ini adalah penelitian tindakan kelas dengan objek penelitannya adalah kemampuan berbicara siswa kelas VIII SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya dan subjek penelitiannya adalah 36 siswa kelas VIII-G SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya. Data yang dikumpulkan berupa data kuantitatif yang didapat dari hasil tes berbicara siswa dengan data kualitatif yang 1

2 diperoleh dari hasil observasi selama proses pembelajaran berlangsung. Dengan demikian, teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah tes dan observasi, sementara instrumen yang digunakan adalah tes lisan dan lembar observasi. Adapun teknik yang digunanakan untuk menganalisis data kuantitatif adalah melalui perhitungan matematis menggunakan rumus persentase untuk mengetahui jumlah persentase siswa yang mencapai KKM (76). Sedangkan, untuk menganalisis data kualitatif dilakukan dengan cara mengkategorisasikan setiap data yang terkumpul untuk mengetahui kualitas proses pembelajaran. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan teknik role play dapat meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa di kelas VIII SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya. Hal ini dilihat dari peningkatan jumlah persentase siswa yang berhasil mencapai KKM pada siklus I (69.44%) menjadi (100%) pada siklus II serta meningkatnya kualitas proses pembelajaran. 2 Kata Kunci: speaking ability, role play technique Introduction Speaking is the ability to communicate and respond the thought, ideas, or feelings, but most of the students find some problems to speak up. Besides, the difficulties of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and fluency, the students have low confidence to speak because they are anxious to make any mistakes. Based on the result of the preliminary research and the writer s experience during professional training program, there are two factors of the problems found by the students in learning speaking. The first comes from the students internal factors, such as passive, self confidence, nervousness, anxiety of making mistakes, and so on. The second is the external factor, such as the unsuitable teaching technique used by the English teacher in teaching speaking. All of these factors give the impact to the students speaking ability improvement. Moreover, there is a technique which is very beneficial to be applied in teaching speaking. It has an advantage to motivate the students to learn speaking attractively. It is a technique which is able to help the quiet students to speak more freely (Harmer, Jeremy, 2007:183). The name of this technique is called role play. Brown, H., Douglas (2004:174) explains, Role playing is a popular pedagogical activity in communicative language teaching classes. Within constraints set forth by the guidelines, it frees students to be somewhat creative in their linguistic output. It means, role play offers the students to make an oral communication by interact with the other as if they are acting out the activities in daily life like they are very exist in the true situations. By using role play technique, the students are expected to be able to improve their English speaking ability in expressing their own ideas and in responding the others expressions, since it is very beneficial to improve their speaking ability by giving them many opportunities to analyse and understand the

3 situations and the problems which are happened in playing the role (S., Djudju, Sudjana, 2005:136). Review Related Literature 1. Speaking Ability Speaking ability means the ability to express their sequences of ideas fluently. Therefore, if one s ability to speak is good, he will speak well certainly. Lado, Robert (1977:240) says, Speaking ability is described as the ability to express one self in life situations, or the ability to converse, or to express a sequence of ideas fluently. It means, speaking ability is defined as the ability to articulate the words or sounds for delivering informations, feelings, or ideas communicatively, clearly, and fluently in order to be understood and received easily by the others. 2. The Principles of Teaching Speaking In teaching speaking, the teacher, as a facilitator, should choose the appropriate techniques and strategies to organize speaking activities in the classroom, so the goals of learning process can be achieved effectively. Additionally, there are the principles in teaching speaking should be considered by the language teacher because by implementing it, the students will be assisted in achieving their speaking competence in appropriate way. According to Nunan, David (2003:54), The principles for teaching speaking are, as follows: 1) Be aware of the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts. 2) Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy. 3) Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work, and limiting teacher talk. 4) Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning. 5) Design classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both transactional and interactional speaking. In other words, the teacher should implement the principles of teaching speaking in order to know the rules and what should the teacher and the students do during teaching and learning process obviously. 3. Assessments of Speaking Ability To measure and determine the students speaking ability, the teacher needs to have a clear understanding about the criteria are going to be assessed. Therefore, it is very important to determine the criteria to assess the students speaking ability in order to measure their speaking ability appropriately. This measurement is also needed to decide whether the students speaking ability have been improved or not yet. Harris, David, P. (1969:81) explains, The criteria of speaking assessment are, as follows: 1) Pronunciation (including the segmental features-vowel and consonants-and the stress and intonation patterns) 3

4 4 2) Grammar 3) Vocabulary 4) Fluency (the ease and speed of the flow of speech) 5) Comprehension Those are components that used to assess the students speaking ability in speaking performance. 4. Role Play Technique There are some techniques that can improve speaking ability. According to Kayi, Hayriye (2006:1), Activities to Promote Speaking: 1) Discussions; 2) Role Play; 3) Simulations; 4) Information Gap; 5) Brainstorming; 6) Storytelling; 7) Interviews; 8) Story Completion; 9) Reporting; 10) Playing Cards; 11) Picture Narrating; 12) Picture Describing; 13) Find the Difference. Role play is stated as one of the teaching techniques used by the teacher to improve the students speaking ability whereas the students are placed to be the active learners and to work together with the other, so it can stimulate the students to be more creative and confidence in revealing their ideas or their feelings. It is in line with Livingstone, Carol (1983:6), Zaini, Hisyam, et al. (2008:101), and Harmer, Jeremy (2002:90, 274) who explain that role play is a classroom activity thus matched with physical action which gave the students the opportunity to practice the language, the aspects of role behavior, and the actual roles he may need outside the classroom because he will put into somebody else s shoes or into an imaginary situation and it is designed to reach the particular goals of learning. Therefore, role play is the interactive technique where the students are stimulated to explore their ideas, expressions, and feelings independently, confidently, and creatively. 5. Steps of Using Role Play Technique Besides considering the principles of teaching speaking, the teacher should also consider the steps of using one technique in teaching in order to reach the purposes of teaching and learning process effectively. Therefore, when the teacher uses role play technique, it means, the teacher has to determine obviously that the steps of teaching speaking contain the steps of using role play technique. Livingstone, Carol (1983:36) explains, The steps of using role play technique are, as follows: 1) Selection 2) Preparation 3) The role play 4) Follow-up It means, the steps of teaching speaking using role play technique begin with selection or selecting the situation or the topic of the activities will be given by the teacher including the explanation of the activities instructions should have to do by the students. The second is preparation means that the students are preparing the activities such as making a dialogue based on the role cards

5 before they play the role in front of the class. The third is playing the role, the students are performing the dialogues by playing the roles in front of the class. Then the last is follow-up or debriefing after the role play activities. It means, the teacher and the students are doing a reflection about the activities in learning process which have been done. 6. The Advantages of Role Play Technique Role play technique has many advantages to be applied as the technique in teaching speaking because it gives many opportunities for the students to improve their speaking ability. This technique will also stimulate the students to speak more, to be more confident and creative since it enables the students to interact with the other by portraying some roles and activities which are happened in daily life frequently as if they are really exist in that activities. Therefore, the students will not only able to speak in the speaking classroom activities but also in outside the classroom or in their daily life activities because they have been understood about the context or situation what they are speaking about and whom they are speaking to. It is in line with the theory stated by Harmer, Jeremy as quoted by Krish, Pamela (2001:1), There are three advantages in role play, as follows: 1) It s fun and motivating. 2) Quieter 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. It means, role play is not only able to improve the students speaking ability, but also gives the attractive learning atmosphere which can stimulate and encourage the students motivation in learning speaking. Therefore, they will be more active in learning process. 7. Action Research Classroom action research is used as the method of this research. It is a research used by the teacher to improve the quality of learning. According to Arikunto, Suharsimi (2010:8) states, Action research menunjuk pada action, artinya tindakan. Dalam penelitian tindakan ini, peneliti melakukan sesuatu tindakan, eksperimen, yang secara khusus diamati terus-menerus, dilihat plusminusnya, kemudian diadakan pengubahan terkontrol sampai pada upaya maksimal dalam bentuk tindakan yang paling tepat. It means, action research is concerned with action. In this action research, the researcher does an action, experiment, especially observed on and on, seen the plus-minus, and then held controlled changing until reach the maximum effort in the most appropriate action. In this present research, an action research is used to know how the improvement of the students speaking ability by using role play technique is. Action Framework 5

6 Speaking ability is a skill or capability in expressing idea, thought, and feeling orally and it is used to communicate in daily life. The present research will be conducted to improve the students speaking ability, especially in making the interpersonal and transactional dialogues in using the expressions of invitation, agreement and disagreement, compliment, and congratulation at the Eighth Grade students of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya which would be improved by role play technique. Meanwhile, role play technique is the form of classroom activitiy that enables the students are strived to portray a character or a role as if they are truly doing the activity or the role in the real life situation. In other words, it is expected not only able to stimulate the students to be more confident to speak up, but also make them more enthusiastic in learning speaking. Therefore, role play technique is assumed as the appropriate technique in improving the students speaking ability. Action Hypothesis Action hypothesis of this research is the use of role play technique is able to improve the students speaking ability at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya. Methodology 1. Research Procedures In action research, there are four stages of research that commonly conducted, they are: a) Planning, b) Action, c) Observation, d) Reflection. The following are the steps of conducting the action research done in this research: a. Pre-Observation b. Cycle I 1) Planning (designing a lesson plan, speaking test, and observation sheet), 2) Action (implementing lesson plan in wich role play technique is used in teaching speaking), 3) Observation (the observer monitors the teaching and learning process and the students attitudes and makes some notes in observation sheet), 1) Reflection (analysing the data of speaking test and observation result, examining the action hypothesis whether the research should be continued to the next cycle or not, and finding out the solutions of the weaknesses as the revision for the next cylce planning). 6 c. Cycle II 1) Planning (designing a lesson plan dealing with the solutions of the weaknesses in the first cycle based on the reflection result done in cycle I), 2) Action (implementing the lesson plan), 3) Observation (the observer monitors the teaching and learning process and the students attitudes),

7 4) Reflection (doing a reflection towards the implementation of the second cycle and analysing the data of speaking test and observation result, and examining the action hypothesis). d. Reporting the result 2. Object and Subject of the Research The object of this research is the students speaking ability at the Eighth Grade which would be improved by role play technique. Meanwhile, the subject of this research is the 36 students of VIII-G of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya. 3. Techniques of Collecting the Data To obtain the data of this research, the oral test and observation form are used as the instrument of the research to collect the required data. The test is used to obtain the quantitative data from the students speaking test result. Meanwhile, the observation is used to collect the qualitative data from the learning process i.e. the data of the students and the teacher s actitivties during teaching and learning process. 4. Techniques of Analysing the Data To analyse the quantitative data use the mathematical formula, as follows: a. Students score B Students' score 100 N 7 Notes: B = the score which is obtained N = maximum score (Majid, Abdul, 2008:268) The students speaking test is scored based on the five components of the speaking assessment criteria addopted from Harris, David, P. (1969) including pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Its maximum score is 25. Therefore, the score achieved by the students is divided by 25 and multiplied by 100. b. The percentage of class that reach the MAC is obtained by using the formula, as follows, n P 100% N Notes: P = the percentage of reaching MAC n = the sum of the students who reach MAC N = the sum of the whole students MAC = Minimum Accomplishment Criteria (Ali, Mohammad, 1984:184) Meanwhile, the qualitative data analysed from the observation result about the process of teaching speaking by using role play technique.they are the

8 students activities doing role play, their speaking elements abilities involving pronunciation, grammar, vocbulary, fluency and comprehension, and then their attitudes involving their activeness, seriousness, enthusiasm, and disciplines during the learning process. Indicators of Success The success criteria are determined to measure the implementation of the classroom action research. The succes criteria are as follows: a. At least 75% of the students achieve the MAC (76). b. At least 75% of the students are motivated to learn speaking through role play technique. c. At least 75 % of the students indicate their speaking ability improvement. (The Criteria are Addopted from Mulyasa, H., E., 2009:183) Findings The research result shows that the use of role play technique can improve the students speaking ability at the Eighth Grade of SMPN 9 Tasikmalaya. It is proven by the improvement of the students test result from the pre-observation to the cycle II. At pre-observation, only 44.44% of the students, or 16 students who achieved the score equal or over the MAC, and 20 did not. Meanwhile, at the cycle I, it increases into 69.44%, or 25 students achieved the score equal or over the MAC, and 11 students achieved the score under the MAC. It means, the increasing percentage from the pre-observation to the cycle I is 25%. At the cycle II, 100% of the students were able to achieve the score equal or over the MAC. It means, the percentage from 69.44% into 100% increased 30.56%. Therefore, it can be seen that there is an improvement of the students speaking ability after learning speaking through role play technique. Besides, the observation result shows that the teacher and the students done a good learning process, and the students activities and attitudes given a good performance and good attitudes during teaching and learning process. In other words, it is proven that role play technique is able to improve the students speaking ability. Conclusion A classroom action research of improving the students speaking ability through role play technique has been conducted in two cycles gives the conclusions that the students speaking ability is improved after the students followed the teaching and learning process through role play technique. Besides, the students are able to express their ideas and respond their partners expression easier when making a dialogue, to speak English more fluent and confident, and they become more active in following the learning process too. Reference Ali, Mohammad. (1984). Penelitian Kependidikan Prosedur & Strategi. Bandung: Angkasa. 8

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