native speaker.
However, there are six components usually used to analyze speech performance, they are grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency,
pronunciation and task. The scoring also can include accuracy, articulation, eye contact, expression, intonation and gesture of the speaker.
The researcher uses those speaking scoring rubric to collect data.
B. Small group Discussion. 1. The Definition of Small Group Discussion
According to Kidsvatter as quoted by Argawati that a small-group discussion dividing the large classroom into small groups of students to
achieve specific objectives permits students to assume more responsibility for their own learning, develop social and leadership skills and become involved
in an alternative instructional approach.
11
Refer to Bany and Johnson in their book, a group may be said to exist when two or more persons have as one quality of their relationship some
interdependence and posses some recognizable unity.
12
Group discussion refers to one or more meetings of all small groups of people who thereby
communicate, face-to-face, in order to fulfill a common purpose and achieve a group goal. The key concept in the definition of group discussion is
communication. The practice of group discussion requires, therefore, an understanding of communication theory and an ability to communicate.
In the A System Approach to Small Group Interaction on chapter 1 page 6
th
, Forsyth in 1999 said that there are five different considerations in identifying a small group discussion. They are 1 interaction do groups
members communicate with each other?; 2 structure how are the members
11
Ningtyas Orilina Argawati, Improving Students’ Speaking, ELTIN JOURNAL, Volume 2II, 2014, p.3
12
Mart a. Bany Lois V. Johson, Classroom Group Behavior: Group Dinamic Education. New York and London: The Macmilan Company, 1964, p. 31
organized into certain roles, such as moderator and note taker?; 3 group cohesion how strongly do the members feel a sense of unity?; 4 social
identity do the group members share a perception of being members of the group? Is the membership important to their self-identity and 5 goals what
is it that the group is working to accomplish?
13
. From the explanation above, we can conclude that small group
discussion is the method which consist of two or more persons in small group for exchange of thought orally to achieve a result in team work, and they can
take assume more responsibility for their own learning, develop social and leadership skills and become involved in an alternative instructional
approach. So, this method is better used in learning process.
2. The Types of Small Group Discussion
Students learn best when they are actively involved in the process. Regardless subject matter, students working in small groups tend to learn
more of what is taught and retain it longer than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats.
14
To implement small group in teaching and learning process, teachers most often look to three types of group work, there are:
15
a Informal Learning Groups. Informal learning group consists of having students work
together to achieve a joint learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period. Teacher
can organize informal groups at any time in a class of any size to check
on students’
understanding material and give an
opportunity to apply what they are learning.
13
Stewart L.Tubbs, A System Approach to Small Group Interaction: Ed. 9, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., 2007, p. 6
14
Barbara Gross Davis, Tools For Teaching 2
nd
Edition San Fransisco: Jossy-Bass, 2009, p. 190.
15
Ibid, p. 191.
b Formal Learning Group. Formal learning group consists of students working together,
for one class period to several weeks, to achieve shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments.
c Study Teams. These are long-term groups with stable membership whose
primary responsibility is to provide members with support, encouragement, and assistance in completing course requirements
and assignments. Typically, study teams are heterogeneous in membership, meet regularly, and last for the duration of the class
a semester or year or preferably for several years. .
3. The Activities for Small group
Several types of activity are collaborative and easy using small group:
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a Games A game could be any activity that formalizes a technique into
units that can be scored in some way. Guessing games are common language classroom activities. The Yes-No question can be played
in group after a demonstration at the front. b Role play and simulation
This offers good follow up to allow a lesson in which the class practices a structure with a functional value. Role-play minimally
involves giving a role to one or more members of a group and assigning an objective or purpose that participants must be
accomplish. A group role-play might involve a discussion of political issue, with each person assigned to represent a particular
political point of view. Simulations involve a more complex
16
H.Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles :An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy 2
nd
Ed., Longman: 2000, p. 183-186
structure and often larger group where the entire group is working through imaginary situation as a social unit, the object of which is
to solve some specific the problem. c Drama
Drama is formalized form of role-play or simulations, with a story line and script. The students in small group may prepare their
own short dramatization of some event, writing the script and rehearsing the scene as a group.
d Projects For young learners who can greatly benefit from hands-on
approaches to language, certain project can be rewarding indeed. For example, various small groups could each be doing different
things: Group A creates the environmental bulletin boards for the rest of the school; Group B develops fact sheets; Group C makes a
three-dimensional display; Group D puts out newsletter for the rest of the school and so on. As learners get absorbed in purposeful
projects, both receptive and productive language is used meaningfully.
e Interview A popular activity for group work, interviews are useful at all
levels of proficiency. The goal of interview could be limited to using requesting function, learning vocabulary for expressing
personal data, producing question, etc. f Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a technique whose purpose is to initiate some sort of thinking process. It is often put to excellent use in preparing
students to read a text, to discuss a complex issue, or to write on a topic. In brainstorming, no discussion of relative merits of a
thought takes place; everything and anything goes. This way, all ideas are legitimate, and students are released to soar the heights
and plumb the depths, as it were, with no obligation to defend a concept.
g Information-gap Information-gap activities include a tremendous variety of
technique in which the objective is to convey or to request information. Learners’ primary attention to information and not to
language forms and the necessity of communicative interaction in order to reach the objective are two focal characteristics of
information-gap technique. The information that learners must seek can range from very simple to complex. For example, each member
of small group could be given the objective of finding out of the others their birthday, address, favorite food, etc., and filling it in
little chart with the information. h Jigsaw
Jigsaw techniques are a special form of information gap in which each member of a group is given some specific information
and the goal is to pool all information to achieve some objective. In large groups, “strip-story” is known to be most popular jigsaw
technique that can be used. The teachers takes a moderately short written narrative or conversation and cuts each sentence of the text
into a little strip, shuffles the strips and gives each learner a strip. The goal is for learners to determine where each of their sentences
belongs in the whole context of the story, to stand in their position once it is determined and to read off the reconstructed story.
i Problem solving and decision making Problem-solving group techniques focus on the group’s
solution of specified problem. They center learners’ attention on meaningful cognitive challenge and not so much on grammatical or
phonological form. Their problem might be relatively simple such as, giving direction on maps.
