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and monitoring the learning activities. The students are able to choose which learning approaches are better for them adjusted with the learning situations.
Educators or teachers can identify their students’ learning style by asking the four
modes of learning experience and the behaviour levels. KLSI is arranged
to open the students’ perspective on their future behaviours and how to respond. On the contrary, KLSI is not used to direct the
students to have certain behaviours or to select certain jobs after they graduate. Therefore, the identification of
students’ learning style based on KLSI is a self- assessment exercise. Teachers or researchers are not allowed to direct any answer
of the inventory. This free-to-chose method in KLSI is also to get the trustworthiness of the inventory as a research instrument. The exercise is
organized by certain time so that the students are able to finish the exercise in manageable condition. The previous organization is also done to avoid any
influence by other people to the students to choose certain answers. The format of KLSI is arranged to measure the difference of learning styles
derived from the students’ learning experience. The KLSI must be brief and straightforward. It will help the researcher to formulate the learning process of the
students and to give feedback since the inventory formulation is easy to read and understand. The inventory must be constructed in a way as if they face their daily
learning situation which involves the four modes of learning experience. The result of KLSI is not used for
the students’ behaviour prediction but to construct validity of students’ learning experience. The validity of KLSI was already
internally proven in KLSI 3.1 in 2005 by showing significance level of correlation of the learning styles. The KLSI also showed external validity showed by the
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significant correlation based on the participants’ ages Kolb 1976b, genders in
which the KLSI can be applied to male or female Kolb 1985b and educational level in which the KLSI can be applied to various educational levels Kolb 1976b
4. Speaking Ability
Speaking is the key of oral communication. The communication involves speakers and listeners which complete each other. The speakers listen and then
respond to what other speakers utter. The speakers deliver messages and establish network of speakers
’ community with topics determined by the speakers. Brown and Yule 1983 define that speaking is
expressions showing speakers’ need and intention to get and deliver information. People are able to know what other
people want by listening what they speak about. Listening and speaking, hence, are interrelated each other. Listeners and speakers are parties which complement
each other and they are not able to be separated. People are not able to start oral communication if they do not have any specific material to discuss.
When the speakers deliver their intention in oral communication, then they produce sound of speaking heard by other speakers which are automatically
become listeners. Nunan 2003 states that speaking is production of verbal utterances to convey meaning. Listeners are automatically transforming to be
speakers if they want to express their own meanings. Speaking activities, then, are not always done in visual communication since the requirement of speaking
activities is as long as speakers listen and respond to other speakers. Speaking activities involve exchange of ideas among speakers. Each speaker may have
different opinion in viewing certain topic of conversation. The important role of
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speaking for people is that speaking are able to melt any situation since the people are able to know what other speakers would like to have during the conversation.
To have speaking activities, speakers do not need to provide any visual instruments like papers or pens in writing and reading activities. Speaking deals
with the production of sound and grammatical language so that listeners are able to hear and to understand the topic of conversation.
The intention of speaking can be interpersonal which means the speakers establish face to face communication with other speakers. In this kind of speaking
activities, speakers are able to deliver their own ideas and exchange their concepts of communication. West and Turner 2007 define that interpersonal
communication is the use of speaking to have correlation with other speakers. The speakers recognize other people they speak with because they know the thought of
the people by listening to them. When speakers are not able to deliver opinions and they tend to follow the flow of communication, then the transactional
communication occurs Richards 1990. This kind of communication is mostly one-side communication and communicators prosecute the people they
communicate with to follow the flow of communication. Speaking activities deliver messages among communicators. How people
convey their meanings are visible seen from the people’s expressions and mouth movements. In order to have good communication, people who involve in the
interaction should have good knowledge of the topic being discussed as well as the skill of delivering the messages so that other people are interested to listen and
to respond. Bygate 1987 states speaking has 2 aspects to be considered. They are knowledge and skill. Without adequate knowledge, there will be no responses in
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human interaction since people do not know what topic they deal with. In this case, speaking involves the activeness of having interaction between speakers and
listeners Byrne 1986. Both parties can be vice-versa in their roles whether they can be speakers or listeners. Once one speaks, other becomes the listeners. Hence,
to speak functions to communicate each others in oral communication. Once a speaker understands the topic of speaking being delivered,
interesting way of delivering and responding counter communication is needed. Here, the speaking skill of the speakers must be understood by the listeners. The
skill in speaking consists of two components. The first one is production skill which relates to the sound of speech delivered by the speakers. This skill needs
deep understanding of the language system such as pronunciation and grammar. The second one is interaction skill which deals with the expression of the speakers
using their body movements. Bygate 1987 states that speaking ability takes place under the pressure of time meaning that the speakers must deliver the
messages of their speaking in the proper time of human interaction based on the circumstances of speakers’ psychology. Hence, speaking relates to the reciprocity
condition which involves mutual needs of being listened and being given a chance to speak.
Being able to speak means being able to deliver messages of speaking based on the contexts or topic in a conversation. Brown 2004 states that speaking
ability is observable based on the listening skills of the listeners. If the listeners have good competence in the culture and grammar of the language, they will be
able to become good listeners and to judge whether the speakers ’ listening skill is
good or not. If the listeners transform to be the speakers, then they can use various
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speaking styles. The styles can be imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, and extensive Brown 2004. Imitative means the ability to imitate a word or phrase or
possibly a sentence. Intensive is the production of short stretches or oral language designed to demonstrate competence in grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or
phonological correlation. Responsive includes interaction and limited level of short conversations, standard greetings and small talk, simple request and
comments. Interactive stresses on the length and the complexity of the interaction. Extensive includes speeches, oral presentations, and story telling.
Related to English as a second language or foreign language for Vocational High School students, speaking in English is treated for specific purpose related to
certain social contexts. The students of Vocational High School must practice their English speaking in structural and continuous oral communication in order to
face various social contexts effectively. Shumin 2002 states that learning English speaking as the second or foreign language deals with the understanding
of the speakers in how and when the language should be used in oral communication effectively for different situation of communication. The oral
communication in foreign language will not be effective if the speakers have disability in sustaining spoken interaction beyond short segments, understanding
the topic of communication, getting adequate vocabulary, having adequate communication strategy, mastering the grammar, and practicing proper
pronunciation. In order to support the English learning, the students need the direction of
their English teachers to organize their English learning experience. Richards 1990 states that
teachers’ limitation in English proficiency and inadequate
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speaking materials for speaking learning activities are also the cause of less speaking ability of the students. The teachers are the agents of
learners’ adjustment in the English learning since learning English as a second or foreign
language is also affected by the speakers’ first language system. Since the
speakers get used to the use of the first language system, they should have huge efforts to speak the second or foreign language which has different language
system. Therefore, learning second or foreign language for adult is sometimes harder rather than for children since adult has deeper and much more
understanding on the system of the first language unless they already study the system of the second or foreign language when they were children. Speaking
English as foreign language, then, is hard since the speakers must understand the nature of the language and the topic of the language as a stretch. Therefore, from
four skills of English learning listening, speaking, reading, and writing, speaking skill is quite hard to learn since sometimes there is no enough time for the
speakers to edit and plan the material of speaking during the speech or conversation.
Tarigan 1988 states that there are four important points must be paid attention in speaking. They are the pronunciation of the language sounds or
words, expression of the idea or topic of communication, attitude in speaking, and social contexts of communication. From Tarrigan
’s statement, it is clearly proposed that speaking deals with the
speakers’ environment during their oral communication. It is also the learning environment of the speakers which shapes
the attitudes and level of practicing of the English language as second or foreign language. Therefore, the high level of English practicing skill affects a lot to the
