According to Bygate (1987), the problem in
teaching a foreign language or
a second language
is to prepare
the students to use
the language. Indeed,
it is a demanding task for language teachers to
provide sufficient inputs for students to be competent speakers of English.
Different speech styles
reflect perceptions of the social roles of the participants in a speech event.
If the speaker and hearer are judged to be of more or less equal status, a
casual speech style that stresses affiliation and solidarity is appropriate. If
the participants are perceived as being of uneven power or status, a more formal
speech style is appropriate, one that marks the dominance of one speaker over
the other. Successful
management of speech
styles creates the sense of politeness that is essential for
harmonious social relations (Brown and Levinson, 1978).
The Natural Approach is
designed to develop basic communication skills.
The development stages are: (1) Comprehension (preproduction), (2) Early
Production, and (3) Speech Emergence.
This approach to teaching language has been proven to be particularly
effective with limited English proficient students. In order to maximize
opportunities for comprehension experiences. Natural Approach instructors (1)
create activities designed to teach students to recognize the meaning in words
used in meaningful contexts, and (2)
teach students to guess at the meaning of phrases without knowing all of the
words and structures of the sentences. In non-threatening environments,
students move voluntarily into Stage 2.
Stage 2 begins when students begin using English words to give:
a.
yes/no answers
b.
one-word answers
c.
lists of words
d.
two word strings and short phrases
During the Early Speech Stage,
the instructor must give a meaningful and understandable input which will
encourage the transition to Stage 3.
Therefore all student responses should be expanded if possible.
In addition, the researcher also found that language
teachers at schools
could not give
full attention on
speaking activities due to some constraints such the arrangement of
schedule/KBM and syllabus by following
the state annual plan,
prepare materials for lessons,
and be involved in
non-academic duties, etc.
Some teachers prefer individual
and pair work in class due to the fixed seating arrangement. Thus, emphasis
should be given to address this problem as speaking is an important element in
mastering English language.
Besides, there are three
important activities use in developing proficiency such as talk as interaction, transaction, or
performance, we need to consider what successful completion of the activity
involves.
Three core
issues need to be addressed
in planning speaking
activities for an English
class. The first
is to determine
what kinds of
speaking skills the
class will focus on. Is it all three of the genres described in the
preceding section, or will some receive greater attention than others? Informal
needs analysis is the starting
point here. Procedures
for determining needs
include observation of learners
carrying out different
kinds of communicative
tasks, questionnaires,
interviews, and diagnostic
testing (e.g., Tsang
and Wong 2002).
The second issue is to
identifying teaching strategies to “teach” (i.e., provide opportunities for
learners to acquire) each kind of talk.
There are routines to help
people establish themselves in certain positions: routines for taking off and
hanging up coats; arrangements concerning where one is to sit or stand at a
party or in a meeting; offers of hospitality; and so on. There are routines for beginnings and
endings of conversations, for leading into topics, and for moving away from one
topic to another. And there are routines for breaking up conversations, for
leaving a party, and for dissolving a gathering. It is difficult to imagine how
life could be lived without some routines.
This routine brought up by
Nurul Khasanah (2011) in her study of improving students’ ability through
pictures. In her research, there were some activities concerning pictures used
on and on. It’s concluded that continual improvement did well in it. Pictures
helped much in bridging between the students’ idea and the sound producing
through a better sentence construction.
Teaching speaking is the management of interaction
which involves such thing like how to invite someone else to speak, how to keep
conversation going, and how to terminate the conversation (Bintariyani, 2003). The statement above
implies about the goal of teaching speaking. Generally the goal of teaching
speaking is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to make
themselves understand, using the current proficiency that they mastery. They
should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation,
grammar or vocabulary and to observe the social and cultural rules
that apply in each communication situation.
Numerous attempts have been
made to classify the functions of speaking in human interactions. Brown and
Yule (1983) made a distinction between the interactional functions of speaking
(in which it serves to establish and maintain social relations), and the
transactional functions (which focus on the exchange of information). Richards
(1990) expanded three part version of Brown and Yule’s framework: Talk as
Interaction, Talk as transaction and Talk as Performance.
With the obvious connection between listening
and speaking, six similar categories proposed by Brown (2007) to the kinds of
oral production that students are expected to carry out in the classroom.
Imitative
A very limited portion of classroom speaking time
may legitimately be spent generating “human tape recorder” speech, where for
example learners practice an intonation contour or try to pinpoint a certain
vowel sound. This kind of activities is not carried out the purpose of
meaningful interaction, but for focusing on some particular element of language
form.
Intensive
Intensive speaking goes one step beyond imitative
to include any speaking performance that is designed to practice some
phonological or grammatical aspects of language.
Responsive
A good deal of student speech in the classroom is
responsive; short replies to teacher or student-initiated questions or
comments. It can be meaningful and authentic.
Transactional (dialogue)
Transactional language, carried out for the
purpose of conveying or exchanging specific information, is an extended form of
responsive language. Conversations, for example, may have more of a negotiative
nature to them than does responsive speech.
Interpersonal (dialog)
The other form of conversation mentioned
previously was interpersonal, carried out more for the purpose of maintaining
social relationship than for the transmission of facts and information.
Extensive (monolog)
Finally, students at intermediate to advanced
levels are called on to give monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries,
or perhaps short speeches.
Media of teaching
languages is an aid as mediator for communicating message or information about
language in cognitive, affective and psychomotor from resource to receiver. In
teaching learning process message or information generally comes from resource
that is the teacher and students are as receiver. The media is as mediator,
Suparno said in his book Media Pendidikan “media is an aid used as channel for
delivering message from resource to receiver “. (Suparno, 1988, p. 1)
Real Object is kind of Media which is used in
learning process. It used for helping in learning process. Based on the
classification above real object is included in visual aids media exactly non
projection visual media. And in
this research the real objects that use are kinds of products likes, shampoo,
soap, detergent, food, medicines, cosmetics, etc. The teacher emphasizes the objects by showing and demonstrating
them into some relevant activities such as How to use it, how to save it and
the students also can explain about the product’s surplus.
Method
Conducting
Action Research in teams al lows mutual support for the resolution of mutual
issues. According to Greenwood and Levin (1998, p. 4), teams can work together
to “define the problems to be examined, co-generate relevant knowledge about
them, learn and execute social research techniques, take actions, and interpret
the results of actions based on what they have learned.
Planning
Based on the
previous explanation in Chapter 1 that: the researcher aimed to improve
speaking skill using real objects. The researcher prepared the teaching
strategy inside the lesson plan,
material, and media. During teaching
learning process, the researcher also prepared observation checklist in order
to observe the students’ activeness. It was expected that after five meetings,
the students could develop their self-convidence, be able to start
communication using English and raised a good score based on the minimum
standard.
Preparation of the Strategy
There were several activities to be considered as
the strategy to overcome the students’ problem especially on speaking. First
the researcher used imitative speaking activity to know how well they produce
correct sounds. For the second and third meeting the researcher used Radial
list to accompany students in taking note of some new words. And the third
moves to Who am I game?. For the fourth and fifth activities was in related
with speaking as transaction activity.
Due to the researcher analysis
on the use of Real Objects, there were some strategies which had the procedure to apply where the rule would lead and guide the students to know
how to do or use the strategy effectively. And the procedure of using real
objects, such as:
a.
The
teacher gives an assignment for students to bring a product that the students’
likes.
b.
The
teacher explains about what the students must do with the product, they must
explain the product’s surplus and how to use the product or the advantages of
using their products to their friends in front of class.
c.
The
student presents in front of the class by bring their products and begin to
explain it.
d.
The
others students can give their attention when their friends perform in front of
the class after that they can give some question for them.
e.
The
teacher can help their student that performs when the students find out the
difficulties in their speaking likes vocabulary, the pattern and the others.
f.
The
teacher can elicit their student to speak more by giving them some question
about their product.
Preparation of the Lesson Plan
As the Curriculum, the teacher should arrange
RPP/lesson plan. This would accompany the researcher to get the activities as
he wanted to do. Lesson plan also used as the guideline for the researcher to
run the class as well. Still, the researcher designed the Lesson Plan under
Competence Based Curriculum.
Acting
The researcher
implemented the lesson designed. There
were five meetings which is conducted by the researcher. On the first meeting, the researcher would like to
know the students’ ability in speaking even in a minimum range using imitative.
For the second meeting the students should started their activity with listing
some difficult words using radial list. This done in order to know how many
words did the students acquire so far. On the third meeting, the students
should apply their ability in arranging the sentences as well in a small talk
using Who am I guessed game. For the fourth and fifth meetings, the researcher
challenged the students using real object with speaking for transactional
communication.
Observing
During the implementation of the strategy
the researcher involved the teacher to get brief information of the action
systematically and to document context, actions and opinions of those involved. It included to measure the activeness of
the students during teaching learning process
Reflecting
The researcher
needed to analyze the data directly from observation. The conclusion would be
used to know whether criteria of success could be achieved, what the problem
occurred when applying the use of real objects, how to overcome the problem,
and decide whether it was needed to continue on the next cycle or not.
Results
The
classroom was active, based on the observation checklist concerning the
activeness of the students during teaching learning process. Around 75% of the
students actively involved in the game and 25% were inactive. In every single meeting, the researcher took
field note concerning on the students’ improvement. From the data obtained, for
the first and second meetings there was only small number of students really
involved and tarted their sentence. But on the third, when the responsive
activity began, the students were challenged to start their sentence due to the
game served by the researcher.
Discussions
On
the first, second and third meeting the researcher paid more attention on the
process of imitative and responsive speaking activities. It is believed that
imitative and responsive was the first stages to acquire English in students’
view. They should follow the fixed frame on how the native use their English in
such the situation of convincing and persuading. Then on the second and the
third meeting the researcher conducted responsive speaking activities. The
researcher began to get the students’ interest on using English in a small talk
based on their needs. When the teacher grouped the students, it was on his way
to classify students on their ability of using English. The students who were
categorized as top should guide and train the middle and low. That was the
reason why the researcher also used peer assessment scoring rubrics. Talk as
transaction is more easily planned since current communicative materials are
a rich resource
of group activities,
information-gap activities, and
role plays that can provide a source for practicing how to use talk for
sharing and obtaining information, as well as for carrying out real-world
transactions. Richards (2008). Real world transactions, on the researcher’s
mind can be related with the use of real objects in the class.
Conclusions and Suggestions
To get the
students involved in teaching learning process, the researcher should prepare
an interesting media and teaching strategy. So that the students would be
interested in doing their activities in the class. The more the students apply
using English the easiest becomes. That’s the reason why the researcher
conducted speaking activities which was recognizable by the students. At the
first and second meetings, the students needed to know them self-using
imitative and responsive activity. Here the students should build their
confidence to start speaking. The researcher also proposed the use of real
object to gain the students’ interest.
On the third meeting they should enriched themselves with lot vocabularies
using pictures which represented the real object that they visited a day
before. For the last two meetings the students really get their confidence even
still there was some students who still got difficulties in starting
transactional conversation.
From the findings, the researcher believed that the students speaking
ability could be improved using real objects on this requirement:
1. The
teacher should pay more attention on the students’ characteristic so that the
students’ weaknesses could be obtained and could be directly solve.
2. It is better for the teacher to equip them
with many educational sources and varieties of teaching strategy.
3. Grouping
the students would help much for inactive students to support themselves become
much well.
There are others teaching speaking concept which is still waiting for us
to be planned as one of our duty to develop good research. Here, the researcher
only pay attention to the goal of speaking as transaction as his want to know
their students’ ability in speaking English. Also, the researcher tried to
provide a source for practicing how to use talk for sharing and obtaining
information, as well as for carrying out real-world transactions.
Therefore, the researcher suggests that the English teacher could apply
another meaningful activity, strategy and media. So that the students will not
stay in their boredom,
laziness and talkative.
Become an active students will lead you to a better future. It is a
pleasure for you to involve in every situation served by the teacher. And it’s
also better for you to know about your learning style and what do you prefer to
have during teaching learning process.
A good preparation to cover all the tasks will give you much advantages
and it will train you as much to do the various thing on the same time.
To do many activities in research would be a great deal for the
researcher to widen his ability. No wonder that we can train our ability to
develop our idea by conducting research as many as possible.
For the next
research the researcher would not only pay more attention on students only but
also to the environment around and school stake holder.
References
Brown, P. & S. Levinson.
(1978). Politeness: Some universals in
language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bintariyani, E. (2003). The effectiveness of discussion in improving
speaking ability. IKIP PGRI Kediri.
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