and writing. Those are four language skills, which are used to gain or to produce a discourse in society.
The initial goal of learning English in senior high school is mostly to direct and to develop the skill of communicating in English both in oral or written form.
The students are expected to gain communication comprehension after graduating from school so that they can make useful discourses in real setting within various
contexts. Thus, the language model must require communicative teaching and learning activities that puts language in a context of culture as well as a context of
situation in creating meaningful and purposeful interaction.
b. Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching is a methodology for the teacher in guiding and facilitating the students in the classroom to practice oral communication
more “real life” by looking also in the context that can be found in their daily routine. Communicative language teaching can be understood as a set of principles about the
goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the
classroom Richard and Rodgers, 2006:2.
Littlewood 1981 offers another discussion of learning theory. Element of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in some CLT practices, however. One
such element might be described as the communicative principle: Activities that involved real communication promote learning. The second element is the task
principle: Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning. The third element is the meaningfulness principle: Language that is
meaningful to the learner support the learning process. Moreover, Brown 2001:43
offers six characteristic as a description of Communicative Language teaching:
1 Classroom goals are focused on all of the components grammatical, discourse,
functional, sociolinguistic, and strategy of communicative competence. Goals therefore must intertwine the organizational aspects of language with the
pragmatic. 2
Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Organizational language
forms are not the central focus, but rather aspects of language that enable the learners to accomplish those purposes.
3 Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying
communicative techniques. At times fluency may have to take on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in
language use. 4
Students in a communicative class ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts outside the classroom.
Classroom tasks must therefore equip students with the skills necessary for communication in those contexts.
5 Students are given opportunities to focus on their own learning process through
an understanding of their own styles of learning and through the development of appropriate strategies for autonomous learning.
6 The role of the teacher is that of facilitator and guide, not an all-knowing
bestowed of knowledge. Students are therefore encouraged to construct meaning through genuine linguistic interaction with others.
Creating meaningful communicative activities can pursue the learners to get involved in practicing speaking session. According to Littlewood 1981:17 there are
four purposes of communicative activities. First, they provide” whole-task practice” that means communicative activities can structurally provide total task from
explanation until practicing it for real in the class. Secondly, they improve motivation for learners to build their self esteem in performing those activities so that they will
not reluctant to communicate naturally. Then, they allow natural learning among the learners in the class that happens inside the learner, as in fact many of them will get
frustration due to the speaking class. Finally, they can create a context which supports learning by means communicative activity provides opportunities for positive
personal relationships to develop among learners and between learners and teacher. These relationships can help to ‘humanize’ the classroom and to create an
environment that supports the individual in his efforts to learn. From those statements, communicative language teaching requires learners to
be more active in the class and the duty of the English teacher is just as a guide and
facilitator. Meaningful tasks with the appropriate context are needed to develop the students’ mind in creating new idea and their natural utterances in English. Grammar
is embedded in the learning process so that the students can explore by themselves. Both accuracy and fluency is important to create spoken activities more productive
and natural. In communicative language teaching there are many activities that can be done by the learners in the class such us a game. It is function as mind activator for
the learner to be willing to practice speaking skill. Game is one of the alternative ways to include the entire member in the class to be more active in speaking English
so that they will pay attention and can build self esteem first.
2. Teaching Speaking
Speaking as an oral productive skill is one of four skills of learning a foreign language. It is important to be mastered in order to achieve communicative goal in
EFL. This sub chapter describes teaching and learning of speaking skill which is presented into seven categories; the nature of speaking skill, aspects of speaking skill,
principles for designing speaking skill, teaching speaking in classroom performances, teacher’s role in classroom, assessing speaking and speaking activities.
a. The Nature of Speaking
Cameron 2001:40 states that speaking is the active use of language to express meaning so that the other people can make sense of them. It could be said
that the ability to speak a language is synonymously with knowing the language since
speech is the most basic means of human communication.
