teacher. The more learners are working independently, in pairs, or in small groups, the more successful the class.
2 Literacy- and beginning-level learners, as well as those at intermediate and
advanced levels, are highly competent individuals. They may lack English and for some school skills, and it i
s the teacher’s job to help them with that. These adults have successfully weathered many difficulties to get to class. Give them
credit they deserve. 3
Have fun. Communicative activities are designed to be lively, interactive, and fun. When people are comfortable they are likely to learn more. An active,
cooperative class is a class where a great deal of learning – social, cultural, and
linguistic – is evident.
A teacher should consider how to choose games as well. Here are some tips how to choose games suggested by Tyson 2000.
1 A game must be more than just fun.
2 A game should involve “friendly” competition.
3 A game should keep all of the students involved and interested.
4 A game should encourage students to focus on the use of language rather than on
the language itself. 5
A game should give students a chance to learn, practice, or review specific language material.
B. Related Studies
Some related studies of implementing games in teaching and learning process show the significance of using games. Chen 2005
in his journal entitled “Using Games to Promote Communicative Skills in Language Learning” states that games
stimulate communicative skills. Students say that they felt less afraid of using their English during game play. The competition gave students a natural opportunity to
work together and communicate using English with each other. Furthermore, by integrating playing and learning, students practiced the learned linguistic knowledge
in a vivid and meaningful context. In addition, Uberman in his journal entitled “The
Use of Games for Vocabulary Presentation and Revision” says that games encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency. If not for any of these reasons, they should be
used just because they help students see beauty in a foreign language and not just problems that at times seem overwhelming. It is clear that using games in teaching
and learning pro cess can enhance students’ language skills and help them more
confident in producing the target language. C.
Conceptual Framework
Speaking is one of the four skills of language that students have to master in order to prove that they master the target language, in this case, English. Speaking is
the most used skill to communicate with people, so it is clear that speaking is so much part of everybody’s life. To learn a foreign language, students find many
problems and difficulties, especially when they have to produce it in the spoken form.
To overcome the problems regarding speaking activities in the classroom, the teacher should creatively find new breakthrough in designing the activities.
Unfortunately, many teachers seem to see these problems as something simple. They tend to use very traditional ways of teaching English. In speaking activities, the most
commonly used task is memorization. Students are provided with a dialog. The next step will be practicing the dialog, and then acting it out in front of the class. It is so
boring. Students do not feel challenged and motivated in doing the task. It is neither communicative. Consequently, the real communication that should be established in
learning English does not exist. The goal of learning language is not achieved. The problems also occurred in MTs N Ngemplak when the researcher did the
observation. In order to make the teaching-learning process easier, the teacher simply gave a dialog to students and asked them to act the dialog out. The teacher said that it
is difficult to teach speaking if the students have to produce their own utterances, so that he provides a dialog and the students simply memorize it and act it out.
As what the researcher observed, students got bored. They memorized the dialog perfectly, but that was it. They only memorized without getting the real
communication. There was no information exchange in the activities. Based on the problems stated above, the researcher comes up with the idea of
using communicative games to improve students’ speaking skills. Communicative games are chosen, for they are fun, challenging, interesting, and motivating. Students
will feel that they are playing. Meanwhile, they are learning. They will enjoy learning to speak English. Their intrinsic motivation to be able to master English will be
triggered since they are happy with the learning process. Intrinsic motivation will lead them to meaningful learning. The knowledge and English mastery will be stored
in long-term memory and resulting automaticity in speaking English. Finally, the ultimate goal of teaching and learning speaking is achieved. The students’ speaking
skills are improved.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
This study is classroom action research. According to Burns 2010: 2, action research is related to the ideas of ‘reflective practice’ and ‘the teacher as researcher’.
Further, he also says that action research involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to exploring teaching contexts.
Burns 2010: 6 claims that for a teacher who is reflective, and committed to developing as a thinking professional, action research is an appealing way to look
more closely at puzzling classroom issues or to delve into teaching dilemmas. Action research also encourages teachers “to reach their own solutions and conclusions and
this is far more attractive and has more impact than being presented with ideals which cannot be attained” Burns, 1999, p.7 in Burns, 2010, p. 7. Burns 2010: 7 adds that
doing action research can reinvigorate our teaching, lead to positive change, raise our awareness of the complexities of our work, and show us what drives our personal
approaches to teaching.
