Functional English IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN XI S 4 AT SMA N 1 MUNTILAN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2012/2013.

19 the language, and lexis Hinkel, 2005:485. Therefore, based on his opinion, speaking ability can be defined as the process of oral production along with language feature production to achieve transactional functions and ludic functions. Moreover, Thornbury 2005:7 proposes that speech production takes place in real time and is therefore essentially linear. Words come after words. Phrases come after phrases. Statements come after statements and other forms of language structure. Every word, phrase, and statement is connected one to another. That condition could lead to a spontaneous and dynamic speech. Brown 2001: 267 argues that when someone can speak a language, it means that he can carry on a conversation reasonably competently. Furthermore, he states that the benchmark of successful acquisition of language is almost always the demonstration of an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through an interactive discourse with other language speakers. Each participant has a purpose or an intention that shehe wants to achieve in the interaction. Heshe has to be able to interpret what is said to himher and reply with language he has at his disposal in a way that takes into account of what has just been said and which reflects his own intentions at this point of the interaction. Brown and Yule in Nunan 1989: 26 distinguish spoken language from written language. They point out that for most of its history, the teaching of language has not been concerned with spoken language 20 teaching. The spoken language is shorter, often fragmentary utterances. On the contrary, written language is characterized by well-formed sentences which are integrated into highly structured paragraphs.

2. Characteristics of Spoken Language

Spoken language is different from written language. Spoken language is more dynamic since it involves not only linguistics but also paralinguistic features. The similar chain of words can create different interpretation that comes from different paralinguistic feature used by the speaker. Moreover, Luoma 2009: 9 describes the characteristics of spoken language as follows : 1 Spoken language has sounds of speech. Speakers and listeners understand the very basic information from the sounds of speech. Thus, the sounds should be clear and appropriate to the focus and purpose of speech. 2 Spoken language focuses on content of the message instead of grammatical rules in common. However, it does not mean that spoken language does not take into account the use of grammar in the speech. Grammar is one of important elements in delivering a message since the words which bring meanings are bind by using grammar. The difference is in spoken language, the use of grammar is not as fixed as in written language. 3 Since spoken language focuses on the message, the form of spoken language is shorter than written language. There are some grammatical features that are eliminated or at least reduced in order to