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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Speaking is one of the four skills that need to be mastered by everyone because by speaking, one is able to convey meaning, express feeling, give
opinion, etc. According to Thornburry 2005: 8 speaking is a speech production that becomes a part of daily activities which involves interaction. It means that if
one is able to communicate well she or he will be able to interact with the society, go to many places without having any obstacles, work in any work field because
speaking is of key to pass the interview test, etc. Furthermore, O’Malley and Pierce 1996: 11 state that speaking seems to
be an important skill that a learner should acquire. They add that speaking skill is very important to enable students to communicate effectively through oral
language, because disability of the students to speak may result in the inability to express their ideas even in a simple form conversation. In line with O’Malley,
Pierce and Kayi 2006: 1 state that the teaching of speaking is very important part of second language learning because it is clearly and efficiently contributes to the
success of the learners in school and success in their life. Thus, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to the teaching of speaking. Since speaking
is very important the government emphasizes speaking to be taught at school. Based on Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan nasional Tahun 2006. No.23 the
objectives of teaching speaking for senior high School is in order that the students are able to express meaning orally in interpersonal and transactional, formal and
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informal in form of recount, narrative, procedure, descriptive, news items, report, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition, spoof, explanation, discussion, and
review in daily life. It is hoped that the students are able to speak and tell a story in English, to produce the English speech sound, to select appropriate words and
sentences according to social setting, to organize their thoughts in meaningful and logical sequence, to use the language quickly and confidently However, the fact
shows that many students are not able to show their speaking ability. In the classroom during the teaching and learning process the students are
passive, they just listen to the teacher explaining the material without understanding the meaning and they just keep silent without any response when
the teacher asked them questions or when their friends were having conversation. Bisedes that, they can hardly use English for communication even in the simple
form, they always use their mother tongue for communication. They are not able to produce English word correctly and arrange English sentence even in simple
sentence that make them cannot produce the language correctly, etc. This fact can be proved by looking at percentage of students using English
well in telling their daily activities was only 29 from 31 the total number of students at SMAN 1 Sakra in 20102011 academic year. The researcher found that
there were only 9 students who got mark more than minimum standard 6.3 and there were 22 students who got under minimum standard. The average score is
53.41 the highest is 72 and the lowest one is 34. They often mispronounced certain words, often misunderstood with the hoped answer, did not have well
structure, and did not have fluent expressions as well. It can be recognized from
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the average score of the students in content, organization, grammar, pronunciation, and fluency which were low as shown in table 1. Those low
speaking aspects automatically affect the students’ speaking ability. Table 1: The Average Score of Speaking Aspects
No Aspect
Average score
Percentage Maximum
score 1
Content 2.98
60 5
2 Organization
2.95 59
5 3
Grammar 2.59
52 5
4 Pronunciation
2.32 46
5 5
Fluency 2.5
50 5
Total 13.34
53 25
Based on the result above, it is true that students’ speaking skill in SMAN 1 Sakra is still considered as the most difficult skill because the skill contains a
complex substance such as pronunciation, structure, discourse, and the social context of culture and situation. Those problems may come from the students
itself and from the outside of the students. The factor that come from the students cause the students have low speaking ability are passive, less motivated, less
confident, nervous, shy, afraid of making mistake, and afraid of being laugh by friend.
From the result of interview, the researcher obtained the data. When researcher asked them about their difficulties, a student with data source S10
admitted that: “Saya kurang aktif mengikuti pelajaran speaking dikelas karna kurang
mengerti apa yang disampaikan oleh guru, sebab kosa kata saya sangat kurang, lagi pula cara melafalkan kata-kata sagat sulit, apa lagi kalau di
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suruh ke depan menyampaikan ungkapan atau pendapat yang berhubung dengan topic sangat lah sulit dan takut salah, lagi pula kurang berlatih
disekolah maupun dirumah”. Friday, 20 February 2011.
From the data above, it is indentified that the student with the data source S10 is less understand because of lack vocabulary, difficult to pronounce English
words, afraid of making mistake and rarely practice at school or at home. Similar problems - less confident, afraid of making mistake and miss
understand, nervous, and has poor vocabulary are also faced by student with the data source S15. She wants to have speaking activity in a team because it will be
more comfortable and the students will be able to help each other as the researcher quoted below;
“Setiap saya maju kedepan, saya kurang percaya diri, saya merasa takut salah berbicara dalam Bahasa Inggris, gemetaran dan sangat kaku, untuk
menghadapi semua ini saya lebih suka belajar berkelompok atau tim, untuk menghilangkan rasa malu”. Friday, 20 February 2011.
Furthermore, students’ learning outcome which is still considered unsuccessful, has always been the focus of criticism towards the failure of
teaching of English in SMAN 1 Sakra. As a consequence English teachers are demanded to be responsible for the failure in making the students capable of using
English for communication both productively and receptively. To alleviate this ordeal, educators, practitioners, and policy makers quite often pay very much
attention to research dealing with the curriculum, methodology, and teachers excluding such significant variables as the learner perspective. They have rarely
considered the learner perspective as a very important contribution to the learning process.
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Pertaining to the students’ problems being faced, there are many factors causing their difficulties in achieving speaking competence, based on the result of
interview that the researcher got from the teacher informally, the causes are stated specifically as follows.
Firstly in teaching speaking, the teacher tended to teach text comprehension monotonously. For example, when the teacher taught a certain
topic, he or she just explained the expressions related to the topic while the students listened to the teacher’s explanation, and took notes, or even for
sometimes took a nap. Then, shehe asked the students to look at the structure of the dialogue which had been stated in the book to read together after her. After
that shehe asked some of them to practice the dialogue in front of the class in pairs. Shehe asked them to answer the comprehensive questions dealing with the
topic in written. The teacher would feel satisfied if the students could answer the questions correctly. The weaknesses of what the teacher did were as follows; the
students did not have more enough rehearsal time to practice or to express their own ideas so that they could not interact one to each other in English
simultaneously. They also tended to be shy, nervous, doubt, inferior, and afraid to make mistakes because they seldom used their own English to communicate with
others. Besides, they did not have creative and innovative activity. Secondly, the teacher oriented herhis teaching at the written test which
was held in the mid or end semester, even in the final exam. The teacher felt guilty if the students could not do the test correctly, because their English mark
automatically would be bad or less than standard score.
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Thirdly, there was no specially allocated time to evaluate the students’ speaking skill at the end of semester or final exam. This caused the teacher tend to
ignore the teaching of speaking communicatively. The marks of speaking skill were taken from the teacher’s daily observation.
Fourthly, the teacher still taught the students with routine activities without realizing that it would make the students bored and lost their attention to
the teaching learning process. As a result, the students were not able to catch the material easily because of their lost interest and participation. This is in line with
statement of Douglas in Suharno 2006: 6”Routine activities in learning can make the students bored. As result, their motivation and participation in learning
will decrease”. Moreover, recognizing students’ problems in learning English especially
in speaking skill, Ur 1996: 121 states some problems that may prohibit the students to develop their speaking skill. First, students have low motivation in
learning since English is not used all the time in classroom or at school or in their environment outside the school. Unfortunately, English is a foreign language for
the students. Second, students are lack of prior knowledge especially deals with vocabulary and grammar of the language. Third, students are lack of ideas, having
low participation and only using their mother tongue to talk in the classroom. Fourth, the teacher is not able to manage the classroom since he or she is not
familiar with various methods in teaching speaking skill. Fifth, teacher does not speak in English when giving instructions since most of the students do not
comprehend the teachers` point if learning is done in English. Finally, students are
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not facilitated by the school. School does not have sufficient source of material for learning to speak. Based on the problems and the causes above, the researcher
proposes Critical Debate Techique as a solution to develop the speaking ability of the second year students of SMAN 1 Sakra.
According to Barkley, et al. 2005: 4 collaborative learning is the process of students in which they work in pairs or small groups to achieve shared learning
goals. In further explanation they say clearly: “To
collaborate
is to work with another or others. In practice, collaborative learning has come to mean students working in pairs or small
groups to achieve shared goals. It is learning through group work rather than learning by working alone. There are other terms for this kind of
activity, such as
cooperative learning, team learning, group learning, or
peer-assisted learning
. In this case, however, we use the phrase
collaborative learning
to refer to learning activities expressly designed for and carried out through pairs or small interactive groups”.
By applying Critical Debate Technique, students are able to increase their motivation, enhance their skill, promote critical thinking, and develop
communication proficiency. Besides, the debates expose the class to a focused, in- depth, multiple-perspective analysis of issues. Because critical debates have the
added dimension of requiring students to assume a position opposite to their own, they encourage students to challenge their existing assumptions. This can move
students beyond simple dualistic thinking, deepen their understanding of an issue, and help them to recognize the range of perspective inherent in complex topics. In
this way, critical debate may also build appreciation for diversity and develop tolerance for other viewpoints.
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Critical Debate Technique has great contribution in speaking since it is a task-based. It encourages the students to practice their English in real
communication. By using Critical Debate Technique, it can activate the students’ speaking class, improve the students’ achievement-speaking ability such as to
produce the English speech sounds and sound pattern, to select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, to organize their thoughts in
meaningful and logical sequence, to use the language quickly and cofidently with few unnatural pauses which are called as fluency and to overcome the problem
face in learning teaching process.
B. Problem Formulation
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