only the implicit meaning of a photograph but also the explicit meaning beyond it.
When viewing a photograph, teachers can engages students to speak by asking them: who or what do you see?, when was this
photograph taken — what is happening in the photograph?, or where was this photograph taken?. Those variety types of questions can
stimuli the students to brainstorming and tell something about it.
B. Conceptual Framework
The fact in the field shows that nowadays English teachers mostly use lecturing and explaining techniques in the classroom. However, they give
students little opportunity to speak and communicate. Students tend to be bored and do not pay attention to the English lesson. Consequently, they have
low ability in speaking because they never practice speaking. Lack of vocabulary, less-confidence, unattractive material given by the teachers are
some causes that have to be focus on. Based on the reason that speaking is one skill that has to be mastered
by students, the teacher needs to find out the strategies to improve students speaking skill. One of the strategies is by using pictures to elaborate
interpretive skills in the instructional process. The use of pictures provides many advantages to support active
learning in the classroom and it can be used to improve the students speaking
skill. There are some benefits in using pictures in the teaching and learning process.
First, pictures and images can be used as a tool to communicate, e.g. for games. Images are extremely useful for a variety of communication
activities, especially where they have a game-like feel, such as describe and draw activities. Second, it will be very beneficial to explain something to
students to make them understand. One of the most appropriate uses for images is for presenting and checking of meaning. An easy way of explaining
the meaning of the word aeroplane, for example, is to have a picture of one. Then, we can also use photographs and images for prediction. Images are
useful for getting students to predict what is coming next in a lesson. Thus, students might look at an images and try to guess what it shows are the
people in it brother and sister, husband or wife, and what are they arguing about – or are they arguing? etc. Lastly, it can lead students to a further
discussion. Images can stimulate questions such as: what is it showing? How does it make you feel? What was the artist’sphotographer’s purpose in
designing it in that way? Would you like to have this image in your house? Why? Why not? How much will you pay for the image? is the image a work of
art? Harmer : 2001.
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A. Type of the Research
The approach used in this research is action research AR. Burns 1999: 30 says that “action research is the view to improve the quality of
action within social situation, involving collaboration and cooperation of researchers, practitioners and laymen”. Burns suggests some characteristics
of action research. First, action research is contextual, small-scale and localized as it identifies and investigates problems within a specific situation.
Second, it is aimed at bringing change and improvement in practice.
B. The Subject of the Research
The subjects of the research were all members involved in the English teaching learning processes in grade X. They were the English teacher of
class X Keperawatan 1 and the students of class X Keperawatan 1 SMK Muhammadiyah 3 Wates, Kulon Progo in the academic year of 20132014.
This class consisted of 20 students. This class was chosen as the subject of the research because based on the previous observations, the students in this class
experienced some problems in learning English. One of the problems was that which dealt with the speaking skills.
The researcher did not choose the students of the third year because they were preparing themselves for the final examination. As this research
took a lot of time, it was not wise to disturb them by involving them as the
