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social element such as, mutual relationship and agreement, phatic language, the maintaining and modification of social identity, and the involvement of
interpersonal skills p. 17. This social element is expressed through wishes, feelings, attitudes opinions and judgments, which will influence the formal nature
of the classroom when teaching English conversation. As stated by McLuham, conversation is also multi-sensory as cited in Cane, 1998, p. 32. It consists of
features which influence the conversational flow, such as eye contact, facial expressions, body language, tempo, pauses, voice quality changes, and pitch
variation. There is also culture that seems to integrate in the construction of conversation and will affect the way English conversation is taught and learned.
According to Nunan 1999, conversation is a way to communicate verbally for interactional and transactional purposes p. 228. Interactional
language is purposed to use in social interaction, while transactional language is for service encounters like ordering food or buying tickets. Conversation is also
used to do some speech acts or speech functions, such as apologizing, promising, and inviting. Another function of conversation is to remark relationships, which
suspend social distance, status, and power as stated in Richards and Sukwiwat 1983, p. 117. These functions must be present in English conversation class.
b. English Conversation Class in SMAN 1 Kalasan
Related to this study, English conversation class is an extracurricular held by SMAN 1 Kalasan. English conversation is a special program that aims to
effectively improve students’ spoken English in conversation. Through English conversation class, the students are expected to be used to speak and understand
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English confidently and rapidly. The teachers are demanded to create materials and activities that suitable to meet the needs of the students.
In order to come up with the answers, a study was conducted. The teaching-learning process was conducted on learning English conversation in the
classroom within some literacy activities, namely, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, with the topic of drama. The material used in the teaching learning
process is suggested by Maley and Duff 2005. They state that drama can integrate both verbal and non-verbal communication and it can make the
classroom situation alive p. 1. Moreover, Maley and Duff suggest techniques and activities that will be substantially useful to the development of students’
language ability, especially English spoken ability. The essential part that teachers can take is that teachers do not need to be a trained drama expert to introduce and
offer the whole drama materials. Teachers need to be convinced when doing the activities so the students will not sense any nervousness. Teachers can be the key
to the success of the activities p. 4. To create and build students’ eagerness in order to start the new topic, the
writer led the students to do some preparation. It was a warming-up activity, which was done within a pair for getting ready to the main activity. It was done
for more or less ten minutes or whenever the teacher felt enough. After the warming-up activity was finished, the teaching-learning process was started. The
first teaching-learning experience was initiated through a discussion in which the students were encouraged to be involved in a brainstorming session about their
prior knowledge of drama Maley Duff, 2005. The students were asked and
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motivated to contribute and speak up their ideas about words and elements they already know, in relation to drama. It was to prepare and direct students’
enthusiasm to go to the topic, which was about drama. Along this activity, the investigation of the occurrence of scaffolding and its types had been started. After
the introduction about the topic was done, the students were going to the next activity, which was called working from scenarios or scripts, as suggested by
Maley and Duff 2005, p 207- 208. The students worked in pairs. Each pair was given a same short dialogue that was a part of scenario or scripts. They were
asked to interpret the same short dialogue. The determined scripts were the words to be spoken, and the students were given the opportunity and time to think about
the detailed description of the characters and the way they moved and spoke, and even the setting that might happen, according to the given scripts. With the same
dialogue given to all of the students on each time, each pair would have their own interpretations, event though they were circumscribed by the script. Along this
activity, the teacher provided her support and assistance whenever the students needed it. In the end, the students were going to perform the short dialogues in
front of the class. There were various stories that were performed, as the results of their own interpretations.
3. The Second Grade Students of High School
