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beneficial to the student who prefers to learn kinesthetically. Puppet activities keep students actively engaged with hands-on activities.
B. Conceptual Framework
English is one of the compulsory subjects for Elementary School students. According to the current curriculum, the School-based Curriculum KTSP the
purpose of teaching and learning process in Elementary School is to develop the students’ communicative competence, both in oral and written forms. SD N
Adisucipto II is one of the Elementary School which uses this curriculum. However, based on the observation and interview, the students still found some problems in the
class. One of the problems is the low mastery of speaking skills, whereas speaking is one of the skills that should be mastered by the students. For developing the students’
speaking skill, the teacher needs to provide fun activities in order to stimulate and encourage them to speak in the class.
Using English songs and puppets are suitable to be conducted in speaking class to improve the students’ speaking skills. First, it is neccesary to know how to
teach English in Elementary School which is different from teaching in Junior or Senior High School. In Elementary School it is important for the teacher to pay
attention to some practical approaches to teaching children, namely: 1 intellectual development; 2 attention span; 3 sensory input; 4 affective factors; and 5
authentic, meaningful language. Furthermore, in conducting the teaching and learning in the classroom teachers need to avoid explaining grammar explicitly and also
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stating the grammatical rules by using abstract terms. However, the teacher also should create fun and interesting activities in order to encourage the students to speak
because the goal of the learning itself is to be able to communicate in English. Using media namely English songs and puppets believed to be able toimprove the students’
interest in learning and speaking skill. Songs are one of the methods that achieve a weak affective filter and promote language learning, and can be used to present a
topic; practice language; stimulate discussion of attitude and feelings; provide a comfortable atmosphere and bring variety and fun to learning, while puppets helps
students to interact with each other. Efforts to improve students’ speaking skills can be made through action
research. The research participants including the principal, the English teacher and the researcher need to do collaborative work to reach success of the research. There
are five steps in conducting action research. The first step is identifying the problems in the English teaching and learning process at grade IV of SD N Adisucipto II, the
second step is planning the feasible actions to be carried out, the third step is implementing the planed actions, and the last one is evaluating the result of the
implemented actions.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter covers the following sections: type of research, setting of the research, subject of the research, time of the research, instruments of the research,
data collecting technique, data analysis technique, procedure of the research, and validity and reliability of the research data.
A. Type of Research
This research was an action research study. The structural research was adapted from the model proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart in Burns
1999.According to Winter and Munn-Giddings2001: 8 action research is a study of a social situation carried out by those involved in that situation in order to improve
both their practice and the quality of their understanding, captures the essence of the philosophy underlying the action research approach.
According to Burns 1999: 30, action research is the application of fact finding to practical problem solving in a social situation with a view to improve the
quality of action within it, involving collaboration and cooperation of researchers, practionersand laymen. Some of those definitions suggest a number of common
features which can beconsidered to characterize action research: 1.
Action research is contextual, small-scale, and localized. It identifies and investigates problems within a specific situation.
