The actions which were focused on implementing communicative activities to improve students speaking skills were conducted in six meetings on October
2,4,9,16 and November 18, 23 2013. When I conducted the actions, the collaborators took notes in the back of the class to observe the teaching learning
processes and also took some photographs related to the teaching and learning processes. The collaborators and I collected the data of cycle I through classroom
observation and interviews. The results of cycle I are presented below.
a. Using Classroom English in Teaching and Learning Processes
Before conducting the actions, the English teacher used English only to give instructions and the teaching and learning process was done using more both
Indonesian and English. Students were not exposed to produce English. They tended to be passive during the teaching and learning process. However, in these
actions, I used English classroom to make students familiar with English words and sentences as well as to improve their classroom production and create a good
atmosphere of English learning and production. The use of Bahasa Indonesia was limited and avoided as much as possible. I did code-switching only when the
students found difficulties or when they showed confusion in understanding my explanation.
However, I tended to simplify my utterances and used gestures to express what I meant. There was a process of improving students‘ classroom English in term of
their responsiveness. The improvement was achieved gradually from one meeting to the next meetings during cycle I. At first, they still hesitated to respond to my
questions in English. They still confirmed the instructions or the questions using
Indonesian. Students were not accustomed to the use of English all the time. They tended to answer the questions in Indonesian to avoid making mistakes. Their
responsiveness was still low. However, students knew that I expected them to respond to me in English, and I also guided the students to respond to me in
English by helping them translate the words or construct their utterance. I also had to invite and point the students to answer my questions. They seemed to hesitate
in speaking in English. Later, there was an improvement of students‘ responsiveness. The students
seemed to be more confident and comfortable to respond to me using English. They were not afraid of making mistakes again and I was very supporting. This
might be because I created a warm environment and the mistakes that the students made while speaking in English was regarded as something normal they should
not be ashamed of. However, I still made some code-switching by considering the conditions of the students. When they asked some vocabulary questions, then I
tried to explain it by simplifying my explanation or giving examples, but when needed, I translated the utterance using Indonesian.
The students seemed to be encouraged to speak in English; it could be seen from their responses to my questions. They tried to respond to my question using
English. They tried to ask questions in English and they gave comments also in English. They were confid
ent to ask me, for example, ―Today, the children are more..
dewasa tu apa ya?
The student asked me‖ What is ‗dewasa‘ in English? then I answered, ―Mature‖. Their response was better from one meeting to the
others. They were aware of their goal to learn English and they knew that they
were expected to use English during the class. It could be seen that they responded to my questions very enthusiastically and were motivated to produce English
utterances. Their responsiveness improved from one meeting to another. They even commented on their friend‘s response, tease their friends using English, etc.
However they were still a little confused about other constructions to explain or asking for, giving, and refusing goodsservices. Dealing with this problem, usually
I guided the students and gave some clues as how to start a sentence from determining the subject followed by the verb. I also asked the students to give
some examples if they had difficulties in explaining their arguments. In addition, there was an improvement in the class atmosphere. At first, the students were not
really attentive and they did not really engage in the discussion. However, the atmosphere of the class was more conducive. In fact, the students carefully try to
make correct sentences while speaking in front of the class or when they asked question, since the mistakes were treated quite seriously by corrections. The
students had more concentration toward the lesson and they did not make disturbing noise in the class. The complete description of each meeting in cycle I
could be seen on vignette on the appendix. Based on the informal interviews after the actions, the students confirmed that the
use of classroom English was important. In fact, they enjoyed the class using English, because they could try to understand spoken English and in turn try to
respond to the interaction in the class also by using English. They felt interested and they felt like learning the real English. However, they also wanted the teacher
to guide them more, so that they could also use active English. They admitted that
they could understand almost all of my explanation. However, the code-switching was also necessary when the students felt a bit confused about the materials. The
following interview transcript also d escribes the students‘ feeling toward the
classroom English. R: Kalau menggunakan bahasa Inggris selama pelajaran,kamu paham gak?
? ‗Do you understand if we use English routines during the teaching and learning
processes? ‘
S1: Dikit-dikit paham sir.
‗I understand just a little.‘
S4: Paham asal pelan-pelan dan bahasa inggrisnya gak sulit.
‗I understand but should be carefull and use a simple English.
‘
S5: Diselingi bahasa Indonesia aja sir,biar gak pusing,hehe.
‗You
have to mix English with Indonesia
n translation Sir, in order to make it easier.‘ R: Materinya susah atau mudah? ‗The material is easy or difficult?‘
S1: Mudah kog sir. ‗It‘s easy Sir.‘ S2: Lumayan mudah mister. ‗It‘s quite easy, Mister.‘
S5: Cukup mudah sir materinya. ‗The material is quite easy, Sir.‘
Interview transcript, September 20, 2013
b. Communicating the Objectives of the Lessons to the Students
