4 a type of cooperative learning that was developed by Spencer Kagan in 1992.
Kagan pointed out that Talking Chips strategy could be applied to improve the students’ interest during the process of teaching and learning speaking. In this
activity, the students are divided into several groups. Each member of the group would receive chips and each student has to speak in English during the
discussion. Every time they speak, they need to put a chip in the centre of the table. The activity is done when all members of the group already used their
chips. Talking Chips strategy also provides opportunity for every student to talk, so there is no gap between students who are active to speak and those who are
not. Furthermore, this technique would allow the students to practice their speaking and also give an equal opportunity for the students to speak during the
learning process. Previously, during speaking activities, the students were asked to make a dialogue, however not all of the students could have the same
opportunity to speak up their opinion and ideas since the teacher would only ask two or three groups to perform their dialogues. Based on the explanation above,
the researcher is interested to conduct a research about Talking Chips strategy on students’ speaking skill at Grade XI of SMAN 1 Pengasih.
B. Identification of the Problem
Based on the researcher’s observation and interview with the English teacher, there were some problems related to the teaching speaking process.
According to the teacher, the students were shy to speak in English, so they had low ability in speaking. They were afraid of making mistakes and they had
5 mindset that English is difficult, so that the students had low motivation on
speaking English. The researcher classified the factors that contributing to the students’ low speaking ability as follows.
The first problem was the opportunity to speak English. Most of the students did not have enough opportunities to practice their speaking ability
during the teaching and learning process. It is important to give the students opportunities to practice their speaking since it will help the students to improve
their speaking skills. Since English considered as foreign language in Indonesia, there are not many people who speak English in their daily life, so the students
are lack to get opportunity to speak English in daily conversation. The only opportunity that the students have is during the English teaching and learning
process. This opportunity should be maximized by the teacher to give the students opportunity to practice their English.
The second problem was lack of vocabulary. The mastery of vocabulary is really important in speaking. However, most of the students do not have
enough vocabulary so they find that speaking in English is difficult. For foreign language learners, lack of vocabulary is one of the major problems in learning
English. The students need to enrich their vocabulary as much as possible and the teacher could help the students to enrich their vocabulary by using English
during the teaching and learning process with some translation if it is needed. The third problem was mispronunciation. Since the students rarely use
English in their daily life, the students are not familiar with the words and the way to pronounce the English words, so they find difficulties in pronouncing the
6 English words. Another problem was the pronunciation of English words often
different from the words so the students find it difficult and confusing. Mispronunciation can lead to misunderstanding among the speaker and listeners,
as the consequence, it is important for the students to pronounce the words correctly.
The fourth problem was the source of materials used during the teaching and learning process.
Students’ worksheet
LKS
was used as the main source of materials being taught during the teaching and learning process. In order to
create a good atmosphere of teaching speaking, it would be better if the teacher used instructional media or more creative teaching techniques to stimulate the
students to speak, especially for those who did not have interest and motivation on learning speaking.
The fifth problem was the activities done in the class. The activities did not encourage the students’ interest to involve in the speaking activities. The
teacher dominated the opportunity to speak in the classroom. It would be better if the students dominate the opportunity to speak to practice and improve their
speaking ability. Based on the problems above, the researcher assumed that it was
necessary to find a proper solution to solve the problems found in the teaching- learning process, so that the speaking ability of the Grade XI students in SMAN
1 Pengasih could be improved. In order to improv e the students’ speaking skills,
the researcher proposed a strategy developed by Kagan called Talking Chips strategy. This strategy could give benefit both for the students and the teacher.
7 From the teacher aspect, Talking Chips strategy could help the teacher to vary
the activities to maintain the students’ motivation on learning, and gradually it would help the teacher to support the students to improve their speaking skills.
As for the students, this strategy could help the students to have equal opportunity to practice their speaking skills since they need to give contribution
during the learning process.
C. Delimitation of the Problem
The lack of students’ speaking skills were caused by many factors; the teacher, the students, and the activities done in the classroom. Based on the
problems presented above, Talking Chips strategy could be the way to solve the problems. From the teacher aspect, it would help the teacher to improve her
ability to create good atmosphere in learning and to be creative on the learning process. From the students’ aspect, Talking Chips strategy could give equal
opportunity for the students to practice their English speaking skills. From the process aspect, Talking Chips strategy could help the students to maintain their
motivation on learning since it could help the students to improve their speaking skills in a fun way.
D. Formulation of the Problem
Based on the limitation of the problem, the problem was formulated as follows “How could speaking ability be improved through the implementation of
Talking Chips strategy ?”
