are set specifically for speaking so that the kind of tasks and activities were different from activities to teach writing, reading, or listening. The principle of
group work activities essentially is to make the students speak English together with their partner.
As mentioned previously, the basic principle of group work activities is to create interactions among group members so that they can use English as a means
of communication. In the activities, the learners actively use English they have learnt so that they will become accustomed to use English.
B. Identification of the Problems
To identify the problem, the researcher carried out two techniques, those were, observations and interviews. The observations were carried out not
merely by observing the teacher taught the students but the researcher, in other occasion, directly taught them in the class. Therefore, the researcher really knew
the problems by doing interactions with the students. The interviews were done after the researcher conducted the observations. He asked several questions to the
students related to the problems occurred in the teaching and learning activities. From the observations and interviews, finally the researcher concluded several
problems occurred in teaching and learning process. Those problems were interaction in the classroom and the use of language, the limited sources for
teaching and learning activities, the limited time allocation for teaching speaking skill, the monotonous activities applied by the teacher, and the lack of media used
in teaching and learning activities.
Firstly, the problem was related to interaction in the classroom and the use of language. The interaction happened as usual like in common school; the
teacher delivered the materials by explaining them in front of the class while the students listened to the explanation. Based on the observation, the teacher rarely
employed English when he delivered the materials. He tended to use Indonesian language in delivering materials and interacting with the students. The researcher
found out the reason after he interviewed the English teacher, he said that most students did not understand when the teacher actively explained materials in
English. This statement, unfortunately, was true. When the researcher in one occasion delivered the materials using English, there was a student directly
complaining to the researcher because she did not understand the explanation. She eloquently complained using Javanese language.
Secondly, the problem was related to the limited learning sources. There was just a course book which was used in every meeting. In teaching and learning
process, the teacher mainly focused on the module. In addition, the teacher rarely brought additional materials from different sources. Not only the materials, the
tasks and the activities also focused on the module. The effect of focusing the materials and the tasks on the module was that the students easily got bored
because sometimes the students had read and done certain exercises in the course book. The students rarely got new information in the teaching and learning
activities since what they got was almost the same as what they learnt from the course book. This course book, in addition, was used by all students as the main
source.
Thirdly, the researcher was concerned about the problem dealing with limited time allocation of teaching speaking skills and the activities that the
researcher applied to deliver the materials. The researcher sensed that this problem occurred in most schools because there were four skills to be taught. The
teacher usually preferred giving writing tasks to giving speaking tasks because giving writing tasks would spend less time than speaking. For instance, the
competence should be speaking and the task should be practicing the dialogues, the tasks usually ended up in writing dialogues. The students, in the end, just
submitted the result of the writing without practicing the dialogue. Fourthly, the problem was related to limited use of media. There were
actually various media available in SMKN 1 Depok such as the LCDs in all classes, sound systems, and a language laboratory. However, based on the
student’s statement, the LCD was hardly used by the teacher to present the materials or to give additional materials taken from other sources. The language
laboratory was rarely used as well. This problem affected to the lack of students’ listening ability which lead to the students’ speaking ability.
C. Limitation of the Problems
Because it was impossible to solve all the problems that occurred in the teaching and learning activities, the researcher focused on solving activities and
tasks to improve students speaking ability. This selection was based on the lack activities applied by the teacher to stimulate students to actively use English as a
means of communication. The activities which the researcher applied were interactive group works. Based on the background and the identification of the
problem, the problems of this research were focused on the investigation to find out the use of interactive group work activities to improve the students’ speaking
ability in that school.
D. Formulation of the Problems
Based on the limitation of the problems, the problems of this research were formulated as follow:
1. How are interactive group work activities implemented to improve the
teaching of speaking skills of grade X PM 1 students of SMKN 1 Depok? 2.
How the improvement of the students’ speaking ability is described due to the improvement of the process?
E. Objectives of the Study
Related to the formulation of the problem, this research was aimed at describing how the interactive group work activities were implemented to
improve the teaching of speaking skills of grade X PM 1 students of SMKN 1 Depok and described the improvement of the students’ speaking skills due to the
improvement of the process.
F. Significances of the Study
The significances of the study covers several parties enlisted as follows: 1.
For the English teachers of SMK N 1 Depok This research can be used to improve the process of teaching speaking so
that the teaching learning process is successful and gives a great positive impact to the tenth-grade students’ speaking ability.
