THE STUDY OF TEACHING SPEAKING

BY USING DISCUSSION AS AN ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE

TO THE TENTH YEAR STUDENTS AT MA. AL-ABROR

SUKOSEWU BOJONEGORO

2011/2012

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1.Bacground of The Study

English is the first foreign language in Indonesia. It is important language in the world. Its function is to communicate with other countries. It is also a compulsory subject at Senior High School. It’s functioning is as a means to develop the students’ ability to master the science, technology and culture. So they grow to be intelligent and skillful citizen. Nasr (1982) said “Language is an acquired habit of sistematic vocal activity representing meaning coming from human experience or language is an acquired vocal system for communicating mmeaning”.

            By using language, we can get information and knowledge. We also express feeling and emotions. We can influence the activities of other.

            One of Language used by most of the people around the world is Engish. In learning English, students have to practice some skills, namely speaking, reading and writing. Johnson (1980) said “Listen and speaking come first, and reading and writing come later. The procedure always begin with listening and speaking and the reading will be presented after learners master the spoken language”.

            Speaking is considered as an important and main factor for people in learning a Language. Richard and Rodgers (1986) said that primary function of the language is for communication and interaction, which both of these can be achieved through speaking.

Teaching speaking may become something difficult for English teachers. There are many factors about it. One of those factors is the number of the student in one class that is too many, therefore the teacher can not pay attention to every student in one class that is too many. When the students start to speak, the class is very noisy. The students do not talk using English but using their own language. It does not help them to improve their speaking.

English teacher should be able to encourage students to express their feelings, thoughts, and opinion using target language. They should be brought to the word they love. This is very important in order to avoid the feeling of boredom and the loss of motivation.

Interesting topic and method can increase the students’ participation in the classroom activities. It will bring them to the real situation and motivate them to speak. The teacher can choose an interesting topic not only from the text book but also from others sources in order to make students interested in the speaking class. Based on some problems above, the teacher must find a way to solve it. The writer is interested to apply discussion.

            Most of the student stated English as a difficult subject because of their lack of speaking ability. They prefer to keep silent during the class. The students are afraid when they are asked by the teacher in English. They become reluctant to communicate in the class because they are afraid of making mistakes. They are afraid of being laughed by their friends, Penny Ur says some problems, they are:

1.      Inhibition, unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience.

2.      Nothing to say, they can not think of anything to say, they have to motive to express.

3.      Low or uneven participation is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while other speaks very little or not at all.

4.      Mother tongue use, they feel unnatural to speak to one another foreign language and less exposed if they are speaking their mother tongue (1999:121).

            To master this competence is easy, since it has something to do not only with background of the knowledge but also with the background of the learner’s mental factor, such as mood, motivation and readiness. if the students should be encouraged to express their thought and felling in the language they are learning. Otherwise they will easily get bored, lose their motivation and be reluctant to participate in classroom activities.

            The English teacher can use some techniques of the teaching speaking, such as guessing, dialogue, retelling stories, debate, discussion and role play (Yunaini Lubis, 1998, 40-45). By applying one of the techniques, the students like speaking. The teacher should be able to encourage his student to express their idea without being afraid of making mistakes. This can be done by introducing topic, because they can be regarded as one of the most important factor in teaching speaking. Certain topic which accordance with the student needs or background of their knowledge can arouse the students’ motivations in speaking class. There are several ways that the teacher can use in developing the topics.

            Discussion is useful for the students. They think that their contributions have influenced the course of the discussion, and they can see how their comment has influenced the groups to the solution problem. Ozalp Ozer (2005:3) state, that: “Discussion is an excellent tool for developing student’s reasoning skills because it gives you access to their through process and opportunity to guide student to a higher level of thinking.

            The students understand that discussion is not simply an invitation to restate their opinions but to focus attention on the quality reason and can give feedback about the real word consequence of their choices.

            Discussion is different from other technique. In discussion, the students are given some topics to talk and express their idea. Then, one or two student present their opinions and fact concerning the topics. After that, they give response to the questions and comment his friends in class. The discussion might be a good technique to teach speaking. However, discussion without an interesting topic, it will be useless. Therefore, the English teacher must be selective in choosing the topic. In selecting the topic the firs, thing is to consider that it should be interesting. Second, it should be able to tagger individual to say something.

            The combination between a good technique and an interesting topic can increase the student’s participation in the classroom activities. It will arouse the student’s interest and bring them to a real situation that makes them highly motivated to speak. The students also learn how to express useful expression to the topic given by the teacher. The technique itself helps to students to communicate with others and the students use the target language appropriately in daily communication activities or in a real life situation.

1.2.            Statement of the problems

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