Improving Speaking Skill

Improving Speaking skill of Grade XII students of secondary school through Role Play strategy.
A. Background of the Study

The language has many functions, Srijono (2006: 7) states that the language function is used for expressing and receiving some information, communication, persuasion, negotiation, and for socialization. We usually use language into two ways, verbal language and nonverbal language. It is so very important to communicate because the two components help us to speak up very well. Nonverbal language supports verbal language, it makes someone who listen our speech easier to understand. For example when we see someone who feels happy, in nonverbal language, we can see that their face will smile happily, clap their hand, jump, and in verbal language, they shout wow. The language production can be created naturally. The human can study language because everyone has Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in their left brain. Its function is to know the concept of language acquisition and universal grammar for the first language acquisition. Chomsky (1988) in Fauziati (2009: 103) states that children begin to listen from their parent, they will unconsciously recognize which kind of language they deal and they will set his grammar to correct one, this is known as setting the parameter. Speech organ and articulator phonetic also help people to produce the language, for example the ear helps to listen and the mouth uses to speak. From listening, the infants get new vocabulary, so they will repeat and drill it. The parent and environment help to grow up the child language. Everyone has a special skill to learn language. In fact, the baby was born in this world can speak with their local language (dialect). They are never shy, nervous, and afraid to make mistakes. Because they need language to communicate each other, without language they have many troubles and it is difficult to imagine. There are four skills that can be developed in English language. They are speaking, writing, listening and reading skill. And the researcher focuses on speaking because it is very crucial for the student. If the students study on writing, so they will rebuild the wrong sentences but when the students speak, so they do not correct the wrong sentences. So far, the students feel afraid or not self confident because they have many mistakes in their grammar, pronunciation, and diction. Speaking skill is needed by the students for communication in the target language. It is very important to master speaking well by implementing the experience of learning the language in the real life. To practice the speaking skill is not easy. Because many students get some problems to do it, so the teachers feel difficult to teach speaking too. There are many problems that occur in teaching speaking. First, the students who feel bored with the teaching speaking process make them difficult to say words and to remember during speaking class. Second, the teacher still uses the traditional technique. Third, the students rarely practice English language to communicate in the class and outside the class. It makes the students feel really clumsy to speak English in their daily activities. Fourth, the students just remember the speech script when they must speak up in front of the class. And they talk with similar words and sentences on the books. It shows that they don’t understand the content and they don’t speak spontaneously by their own word. Those problems are faced by students at the grade XII in secondary school for the year 2009/2010. Based on the phenomena above, the writer tries to find the effective solution to improve the speaking skill of tenth year students of grade XII in secondary school employing Role Play as a technique of teaching speaking, that is a flexible technique, and it can be adapted to nearly every proficiency level. Bailey (2005: 56) states that role plays are also excellent activities for speaking in the relatively safe environment of the classroom. While Newmark (1966) in Fauziati (2008: 122) states that role play is creating a dramatic situation in classroom, or in a part, simply acting out dialogues, but also in part relabeling object and people in the room to prepare for imaginative.
The reason of why this research focuses on the Role Play is that it could give the students new feeling in conversation session. Furthermore, the students feel bored of the similar technique in conversation subject applied by the teacher all the time. That is why the writer conducted a research is entitled, “Improving Students’ speaking" Skill by Using Role Play (an Action Research at grade XII in secondary school for the year 2009/2010. In accordance with the curriculum (English for Libya) intended for grade XII in secondary school for the year 2009/2010,teaching speaking skill objectives are enabling the students showing steady increase in speaking vocabulary in everyday conversation, students will extend their abilities to speak fluently in a verity of situations, for a variety of purposes and audiences and to students will acquire practical command of English Language. In terms of speaking skill there are some written texts for practicing speaking including daily life conversations and stories. From the researcher's experiences in teaching class XII of secondary school many of the students are not able to do an everyday life conversations, not able to express themselves in the desired way.
The researcher conducted a speaking test on February 12th 2010 for class XII secondary school and the test aimed to know the level of students' speaking skill. Then the researcher was not satisfied with the low scores and the students condition. This happened because some of the students did not comprehend the questions spoken out of the teacher and the other some lack speaking vocabulary and speaking abilities to answer the questions. The researcher assumed that there were some factors causing students' low abilities in speaking. And these are the factors:
1- because of the lack of collaborative study and using The Grammar Translation Method by the teacher.
2- Students law abilities speaking were due to the lack of vocabulary from the teacher’s side, actually there are many kinds of strategies that can be applied by the teacher in classroom. The teacher should be able to find the suitable strategies for the same situation class. One of them is cooperative learning . According to the researcher's experience, the students show more progress while studying in pairs or in groups rather than individually. They can share ideas and help each other.
After searching for a strategy that can improve the students' abilities in learning, the researcher conducted The Role Play strategy in teaching speaking skill.
And after implementing this strategy (The Role Play) the researcher found that this teaching strategy has improved the level of class XII secondary school.