Type of Research Subject and Object of the Research Setting of the Research

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Type of Research

This research was categorized into action research. According to Burns 2010: 2, action research is a study that aimed to identify a ‘problematic’ situation or issue that the students consider worth looking into more deeply and systematically. This research focused on impr oving students’ speaking skill and was implemented in the form of collaborative action research. In this research, the researcher cooperated with the English teacher as the collaborator. Supported by the collaborator, Numbered Heads Strategy was applied to the teaching and learning process using the action research model proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart in Burns 2010: 7 that involved in four phases in a cycle of research: planning, action, observation, and reflection. Figure 1: Cyclical Action Research model based on Kemmis and Mc Taggart 1988

B. Subject and Object of the Research

The subjects of this research were class VIII B students of SMP Negeri 1 Jogonalan in the academic year of 20142015. The class consisted of forty students. Meanwh ile, the object of this research was the students’ speaking skills of class VIII B students of SMP Negeri 1 Jogonalan that it was considered low.

C. Setting of the Research

There was one group of participants in this research. The research took place in SMP Negeri 1 Jogonalan which is located in Plawikan, Jogonalan, Klaten. There are some facilities at this school. There are a hea dmaster’s room, an administrative office, an art facility, three laboratories, a teacher’s room, a room for guidance and counselling, a healthy service room, a mosque, a hall, fifteen classrooms, a library, a canteen and a basketball field. Each classroom has a whiteboard, thirteen tables and twenty six chairs, a schedule, an attendance board, an organization chart of the class and a schedule for cleaning the class. Unfortunately, those facilities did not use in the teaching and learning process. The English teacher usually used textbooks during the teaching and learning process. In this research, one of the eighth grade classrooms was used because it was more effective rather than building up a new class. The research had been conducted in the first semester of the academic year of 20142015. It was done from August to November 2014.

D. Procedure of the Research