Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Improving Speaking Ability through Educational Drama by Applying Role Play at First Grade Students of SMK Multimedia Tumpang Malang

By Agung Priambodo
Abstract
The study was aimed to investigate the role play technique can be implement to improve speaking skill of the first frade student of Smk Multimedia Tumpang Malang who encounter the problem in speaking class. It is very important to implement the classroom action research since the student speaking skill in English is low. So far it is proven by the score of the student which was always under the passing grade. Role play as one of the drama education technique is very challenging. The researcher is very interested in conducting role play technique applied in this study. It motivated and triggered students to have self-confidence. There are at least four step that the researcher applying the process of role play, those are planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The main data was about students’ improvement skill in speaking. It was measured by giving test to the students. In the first cycle the average score of the students were 63.67 while in the second cycle the average score of the students were 74.20. This activity was done in group work. The researcher also managed the period of conducting the drama class in order to make the progress run smoothly. The conclusion based on the result, it could be taken that the use of role play as one of education drama improved students’ speaking skill. The students felt more confident to speak English. Then, he suggested to the English teacher to apply role play technique as the one of the method in teaching speaking to improve the students’ speaking skill. Moreover, many researchers are suggested to develop the teaching quality and to improve the students’ speaking skill.
Keywords: speaking skill, role play
Speaking English is considered as the most difficult language skill by students since they should have lot of vocabulary, pronounce them correctly, and use them in appropriate context    at the same time, speaking is one of the important skills that students need to have especially for students of vocational high school since it links to a great deal of their success in life especially in the work fields when they have graduated from the school.
            According to Nurlaelawati  and  Damayanti (2011), students of vocational high school are expected to have the ability to speak since many companies that hire SMK graduates often complain about their English proficiency. In this case, the students must study hard to master it and the teacher should create a good atmosphere in class. However, many speaking activities do not work in class because many factors prevent students from speaking English. They are afraid of making mistakes in their ability (Harmer, 2007).
It is in line with the result of preliminary investigation which I conducted in the class before conducting the research. There were still many students who were not able to speak English and were not active participants in the classroom, either because most of them have not been highly motivated to put forward their opinion and ideas even to ask a question. The teacher has also not created sufficient opportunities for the to use English language in meaningful situation and has not provided the appropriate method in teaching English.
In teaching speaking, teachers should strive to improve their students’ vocabulary and confidence by creating opportunities which will enable them to use the language within authentic context and learn in meaningful context (Brown, 2011). In addition, teachers should provide a good atmosphere in which students can get involved actively in teaching-learning process (Savignon, 1983). Therefore, teachers should apply various methods to teaching and learning such as co-operative learning, group work, and drama-on-education activities or Educational drama. Of all above mentioned speaking techniques, Educational Drama was regarded as a favourable technique in aiding vocational high school students to adapted to different level of proficiency and for different topics and they allow learners to experience autonomy in the speaking skill (Thornbury, 2005). Malan (1973 stated that drama-in-education aimed to develop students into confident and expressive speaker. Being confident, students can be willing to speak a lot. Thereby, by using Educational Drama, learning is expected to take place better since it can provide enjoyable experience, create variety of activities and give more opportunities for students to get involved in learning and develop their skill (Mcnaughton, 2006). According to Ulas (2008), drama has significant function especially in improving speaking skill among the basic language skill.
            It is with this background in mind, that this study aims to provide an outline of how the implementation of Educational Drama led to the overall improvement of the students’ speaking ability in an English language proficiency at a Vocational High School in SMK Kabupaten Malang.

References
Harmer, J. (2007).The practice of English language teaching (4th. Ed.). England: Longman.


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