xxvi Based on the above definition, it can be concluded that speaking ability is
an ability to express or communicate opinions, thoughts, and ideas and can be gained with practice.
b. Speaking in Second Language
There is no much difference between speaking in the first language and speaking in the second language. Second language speakers also produce speech
through a process of conceptualizing, formulating, and then articulating, during which there is a process of self-monitoring Thornburry, 2005: 28.
Thornburry states that the difference is on the language itself. The knowledge of second language speakers is not as extensive and as established as
their knowledge of the first language. Second language speakers tend to formulate utterances in the first language and, then, translate it into the second
language. He also states that the pressure to be accurate
– to avoid making humiliating errors may mean that the self monitoring process is overused and
over-prolonged, again with a negative effect in terms of fluency. In order to be understood, second language speakers apply, at least, two strategies in speaking,
namely communicative strategy and discourse strategy. Thornburry 2005: 40 proposes the terms of the basic knowledge that
enable speech in a second language, as follows: 1 a core grammar
2 a core vocabulary of at least 1000 high-frequency items 3 some common discourse markers
4 a core ‗phrase book‘ of multi-word units chunks
xxvii 5 formulaic ways of performing common speech acts, such as requesting or
inviting. 6 mastery of those features of pronunciation that inhibit intelligibility.
c. English Speaking in SMK
The newest curriculum or the so called ―KTSP‖ states that SMK is an
institutional which prepares students to be ready to enter job directly through education and training which are based on their competences, therefore it does not
only improve their productivity but also increase the competitive of employment in the global market.
The curriculum says, “SMK adalah pendidikan yang menyiapkan peserta didik menjadi
manusia yang produktif langsung dapat bekerja melalui pendidikan dan pelatihan berbasis kompetensi……..sehingga selain meningkatkan
produtifitasnya, meningkatkan pula daya saing tenaga kerja di pasar global………SMK harus……. Mengadopsi nilai-nilai yang diterapkan
dalam melaksanakan pekerjaan yaitu disiplin, taat azas, efektif, dan efisien”.
In the curriculum, it is stated that English is an international language for business, science, technology, and social gathering. SMK graduates should be
able to use English for communication, relevant to their level of difficulty and vocational skills. Related to the above statement, English teaching at SMK should
focus on the communicative competence. Vocational school graduates are expected to be able to communicate their personal and have professional skills in
the industrial global market. It means that speaking is the primary skill to develop. Therefore, to gain the competitive in industrial global market, vocational
school students should have standard score of TOEIC Test Of International
xxviii English Communication. TOEIC is a
standard evaluation to assess students‘ English proficiency.
Speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the
success of the learner in school and their success later in every phase of life. Therefore, speaking class should have more portions. It means that the teacher
have to give time as much as possible for the students to speak. English speaking class should be developed through various controlled conversation. Besides,
English is also used for a language of instruction in the classroom. The curriculum says 2004: 18.
“Unsur komunikasi hendaknya lebih ditekankan pada berbagai latihan untuk siswa. Artinya guru harus memberikan waktu sebanyak-banyaknya
bagi siswa untuk berbicara, sedangkan guru berbicara dikurangi. Selain itu, bahasa Inggris harus digunakan sebagai bahasa instruksional di
dalam kelas”. However, the teachers do not focus their teaching on speaking competence
but more on written. They focused on preparing the students for the final exam or UNAS. They felt guilty if their scores are low.
2. Teaching Speaking a. Micro and Macro-skills of Speaking
Brown 2003: 142-143 explains that a list of speaking skill can be drawn up for the purpose to serve as a taxonomy of skills from which we will
select one or several that will become the objectives of an assessment task. He suggests micro skills and macro skills to cope in speaking class.
The micro-skills refer to producing the smaller chunks of language such as phonemes morphemes, words, collations, and phrasal units. The macro-skills
xxix imply the speaker‘s focus on the larger elements: fluency, discourse, function,
style, cohesion, nonverbal communication and strategic option. The micro and macro-skills total roughly 16 objectives to assess in
speaking are described as follows: 1 Micro-skills
a. Produce chunks of language of different length.
b. Orally produce differences among English phonemes and allophonic
variants. c.
Produce English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation contours.
d. Produce reduced forms of words and phrases.
e. Use an adequate number of lexical units words to accomplish pragmatic
purposes. f.
Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery. g.
Monitor your own oral production and use various strategic devices-- pauses, fillers, self-corrections, backtracking
– to enhance the clarity of the message.
h. Use grammatical word classes nouns, verbs, etc, systems e.g., tense,
agreement, pluralization, word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. i.
Produce speech in natural constituents: in appropriate phrases, pause groups, breathe groups, and sentence constituents.
j. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical form.
k. Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
2 Macro-skills a.
Accomplish appropriately communicative function according to situations, participants, and goals.
b. Use appropriate styles, registers, implicative, redundancies, pragmatic
conventions, conversation rules, floor keeping and yielding, interrupting, and other sociolinguistic features in face-to face conversations.
xxx c.
Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as focal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings, new
information and given information, generalization and exemplification. d.
Use facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along with verbal language to convey meanings.
e. Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key
words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well your
interlocutor is understanding you. It can be concluded that in designing tasks for assessing spoken
language, these skills can act as a checklist of objectives. While the macro- skills have the appearance of being more complex than the micro skills, both
contain ingredients of difficulty, depending on the stage and context of the test-taker.
b. Indicators of Speaking Ability
The following are indicators stated by Brown 2000: 271-274 indicating that one can be called having a speaking ability. They are as
follows: 1. Imitative. Heshe is able to imitate a word or phrase or possibly a
sentence. 2. Intensive. Heshe is able to produce short stretches of oral language
designed to demonstrate ability in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological relationship such as prosodic
elements – intonation, stress, rhythm, juncture.
3. Responsive. Heshe is able to respond a very short conversation, standard greetings and small talk, simple requests and comments.
4. Transactional dialogue. Heshe is able to take the two forms of either transactional language which has the purpose of exchanging specific
information,
xxxi 5. Interpersonal. It has the purpose of maintaining social relationships
with the transmission of facts and information. 6. Extensive monologue. Heshe is able to develop monologue oral
production including speeches, oral presentation, and story telling, during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listeners is
either highly limited or ruled out together.
Meanwhile, Ur says 1999: 120 that the characteristics of a successful speaking activity are as follows:
1 Learners talk a lot. As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learners
‘ talk. This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses.
2 Participation is even. Classroom discussion is not determined by a minority of talkative participants; all get chance to speak, and
contributions are fairly evenly distributed. 3 Motivation is high, learners are eager to speak; because they are
interested in the topic and have something new to say about it or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective.
4 Language is of an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and
of an acceptable level of language accuracy.
From the statement above, it can be concluded that someone owns a certain language speaking competence if heshe can produce oral
language to participate in any kind of activity. Heshe can also respond the other ones‘ speaking to maintain hisher social relationship. Besides,
hisher language is acceptable and easily comprehensible at the level of language accuracy.
c. Problems in Speaking Class
