IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE GAMES AT SMPN 1 PRAMBANAN GRADE VIII A IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2013 / 2014

Abstrak / Ringkasan

This study aims at improving the speaking ability of the grade VIII A students of SMPN 1 Prambanan in the academic year of 2013 / 2014. Communicative language games were used in this study.
This study is an action research study which comprised two cycles. It involved me as the researcher, the principle of SMP N 1 Prambanan, the English teacher, and 24 students of VIII A class of SMPN 1 Prambanan in the academic year of 2013 / 2014. The steps of this study were reconnaissance, planning the actions, implementing and observing the actions, and reflecting the actions done. The data of this study are qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data were obtained by observing the teaching and learning process during the implementation of the actions and interviewing the students and the English teacher. The data were collected in the forms of field notes and interview transcripts. The quantitative data were taken by assessing the students speaking ability through the pre-test and the post-test which is in the form of scores. To get trustworthiness, investigator, time, and theoretical triangulation were used. Democratic, process, outcome, catalytic, dialogic validity was also employed to meet the validity and reliability of the data.
The research finding shows that the use of the communicative language games is effective to improve students’ speaking ability. The games are accompanied with other actions such as using classroom English, applying varied themes, using adequate media, doing language form activities, giving feedback, giving rewards, doing group works and rearranging the students seating arrangement. The indicators of the success of the implementation are that: (1) the students are more active in the speaking activities than they were; (2) the students are more enthusiastic in doing speaking activities; and (3) the students’ self-confidence and motivation to speak English improve. Furthermore, the findings are also supported by the means of the students’ speaking score which have increased from 2.1 and 2.2 in the pre-test to 3.3 and 3.4 in the post-test.

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