activities. It also helped the students to understand materials besides the texts that were given to them. The use of media was used to attract students’ attention
because they liked the colorful foods and drinks flashcards. They also looked eager to take part in the activities when the researcher used various media.
However, there was a problem with the electricity in the second meeting so the researcher could not use the LCD wherein it was supposed to play the video. By
the help of the research collaborator, the video which contained the input to learn conversation in the restaurant replaced with the dialogue between them giving a
similar example as in the video. It worked well fortunately and the students could follow the teaching and learning activity.
e. Implementing More Challenging Interactive Group Work Activities
There were three interactive group work activities which were applied in cycle II; those were interviewing, a survey game, and a role play. Because
interviewing was performed in cycle I, there was no problem that occurred during the interview. The students also looked comfortable in asking and answering their
friends’ questions. They began accustomed to do a conversation in English with their friends especially those which used the expressions that the researcher gave.
Similar with the implementation of interviewing, the survey game was also successful though it was noisy when the students tried to move around and
look for friends who got similar preferences for foods. The students seemed amused while doing this activity and they could finish the activity properly in
which they had to found out at least three students who got similar preferences. To make sure that the students utilized the English well, the researcher monitored
the activity by not only watching them, but also taking part directly. To monitor 31 students at once was indeed hard so the researcher with the help of the research
collaborator cooperated together. The application of a role play was actually successful. All five groups
could perform their dialogue based on the material that they learnt. There was no problem dealing with the use of language because they have prepared the draft at
home. From the observations, the researcher concluded that the role play could encourage them utilized the language that they learnt. However, it was indeed
time consuming and as the students were not accustomed to perform in front of the class, some students seemed so nervous. Few students also tried hard to
memorize the sentences that they had to say. In this case, the automaticity principle was not well applied.
4. Findings of Cycle II
After 3 meetings conducted to implement the interactive group work activities, from data analysis which was resulted from the observations,
interviews, and questionnaires, the outcome of the research could be summarized that it was done well to facilitate the students to improve their speaking ability.
This assumption was obtained by taking into account several speaking aspects such as the students’ comprehension, pronunciation, vocabulary mastery, fluency,
and accuracy which were derived from the use of classroom English, vocabulary and word order drilling, pronunciation drilling, optimizing the use of media, and
implementing the interactive group work activities.
The implementation of classroom English by exposing the students various expressions was successfully improved the students’ comprehension as
part of speaking because they happened to be familiar with the new expression. Eventually, in some cases, they were able to guess certain new expressions by
referring to the knowledge that they learnt. As a result, they were able to give response though the researcher employed the new expressions. This improvement
could not be separated from the implementation of vocabulary drilling in which they were trained to guess the meaning of certain words based on their previous
knowledge. Beside introducing the unfamiliar words and guessing the meaning, the researcher also strived to drill them how to arrange the words into a sentence.
Accordingly, the students turned out to be accustomed to create sentence which were useful to help them in speaking activity.
The actions of implementing pronunciation drilling successfully improved their pronunciation skill as one of the important aspects of speaking because
intelligible pronunciation could avoid the listener misinterpretation and misunderstanding. The students, in this case, also stated that they way they
pronounced the words were getting better. When the researcher gave the tongue twisters, the students seemed attracted to this. Although they strived so hard to
pronounce the words, they enjoyed doing the activity. The use of media was really helpful not only to support teaching and
learning activities but also to get students’ attention. By utilizing the media, the teaching and learning activities as well as the interactive group works were well
conducted. There were also positive comments dealing with the media which were
applied in the teaching and learning activities; mostly, the students liked them because they were interesting.
Finally, the implementation of interactive group work activities as the main actions of the research which were expected to improve students’ speaking
ability was also successful to improve students’ speaking ability. In cycle II, the researcher perceived that gradually the students’ speaking ability was nicely
improved every time they carried out the interactive group work activities. Their improvement possibly happened because they turned out to be accustomed to take
part in speaking activity; they were being familiar with English especially to come up with ‘what to say’ and ‘how to say’.
In summary, the improvement of students’ speaking ability after the researcher applied interactive group work activities can be seen in table below.
The table shows the comparison among the students’ condition before doing cycle, cycle I, and cycle II.
Table 10: The Comparison of Cycle I and Cycle II
Before the actions Cycle I
Cycle II The students’
comprehension in understanding spoken
English was low. The students began more
familiar with English and able to understand the
spoken English by giving appropriate response.
The students were getting accustomed to give
response of various expressions.
Continued
Continued
The students made many errors in pronouncing the
English words. By drilling them how to
pronounce certain words their
pronunciation was getting better.
After frequently drilling them pronunciation and
giving them tongue twister, the students were able to
pronounce various words legibly.
It was found that the students got problems to find what to
say and how to say. By drilling them
vocabularies and applying interactive group work
activities, the students’ ability to find what to say
was improved though it was found that they were not
fluent yet. The students seemed fluent
enough to speak in English after the researcher applied
drilling word ordering and applying more challenging
interactive group work activities.
The students rarely employed English during
teaching and learning activity.
After implementing group work activities, the students
employed English more frequently.
Not only employing English more frequently, the students
also started being fluent in speaking English.
D. The Result of Speaking Test
The result of the speaking test was obtained by conducting pre-test and post test. Both of them were carried out by asking students in the form of
interview. To assess the speaking ability, the researcher adapted speaking rubric assessment issued by New York LOTE for interview which covers
comprehension, Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Fluency, and Grammar. Based on this
