IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH GROUP INVESTIGATION TECHNIQUE (A Classroom Action Research to the Eight Grade Students of SMP Muhammadiyah Banyumas in the School Year of 2013/2014) - repository perpustakaan
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Speaking 1. The Nature of Speaking Speaking is a crucial part in human life in which it could carry
messages within the speech. It depends on how words are spoken and how manner are used. Then, some experts have some interpretations of speaking.
According to Nunan (2003 : 128) speaking is using the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency.
Furthermore, Tarigan stated that speaking ability is an ability to say or pronounce words and sounds articulation to express feeling, thought, and idea (1981 : 15). By organizing thought and words to be spoken then the students can easily tell their ideas, the students can also improve their speaking ability and increase their confidence.
2. The Importance of Speaking
The goal of language is communication and the aim of speaking in language context is to promote communicative proficiency; teacher wants student to actually be able to use the language as correctly as possible and with a purpose.
Students often value speaking more than the other skills of reading, writing, and listening. The students often feel more anxiety related to their oral production.
Then, Dr.Blash stated that one of the benefits of increased communicative competency is the opportunities to get the job easily, education, and travel opportunities; it is always be an asset to be able to communicate with the other people (2011).
In short, there are several facts which show the importance of speaking English for students in academic career and community. The facts are as following: a. Speaking English properly is now used for official internal communication.
b. Speaking English well is used in most cross-border communication; it is needed as a common language.
c. English is used as the language of instruction in most school and university in the world. d. English has become a window of better opportunity for further education and career path.
Speaking ability is important in language teaching and learning. We communicate through our oral expression to gain more information.
According to Chenfield (1978 : 13), speaking is the oldest and most universal way for human beings to express their thought and feeling by producing utterance in oral communication with two or more people.
By speaking, people will be able to communicate with the other because they can deliver their ideas, thought, and feeling. So, is not exaggerating when called speaking as one of the important skill that students have to master.
3. Speaking Skill
The main aim in teaching productive skill of speaking is to establish students‟ speaking skill. Then, speaking skill is ability to raise voices to express their feelings and ideas using appropriate language. It mean that students can speak fluently, grammatically correct, and easy to understand by the listener.
There are five components to measure speaking skill. It is stated by Hughes (2003) as follows:
a. Pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced (Hornby, 2000 : 1057). Therefore, students with good pronunciation will be much more confident because it sounds like native. Moreover, the way students speak will be easier to understand.
b. Grammar
It concerns with how sentences and utterances are formed (Carter & Mc Carthy, 2006 : 2).
According to Brown (2001 : 262) grammar is the system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of word in sentence. If the students‟ grammar is well mastered, then it can be ensured that their speaking would be so much accurate.
c. Vocabulary
Students need to learn vocabulary in context and visual clues to help them understand (Ybarra, 2003). By having a bunch of vocabularies the students do not have to be worry in uttering their ideas and feeling.
d. Fluency
Fluency is the quality of being able to speak or write a language, especially a foreign language easily and well (Hornby, 2000 : 516). Then, Nunan (2003 : 55) says that fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language quickly and confidently, with few hesitation or unnatural pauses, false starts, and word search. It refers to one‟s ability to speak smoothly and easily.
e. Comprehension
Hornby (2000 : 263) stated that comprehension is the power of understanding an exercise, it is aimed at improving or testing one understands of a language in written or spoken. It tackles deep role since without good comprehension it would be hard to have good speaking.
4. Speaking Activity
There were several activities that would promote teaching learning process in the classroom. The activities covered: a. Group Discussion
A group discussion could be held for various reasons. The students were aimed to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their group discussion. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity was set by the teacher.
In this way, the discussion points should relevant to the purpose, so that the students did not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things.
b. Role Play One way of getting students to speak was Role-playing. The students pretend to be someone in various social contexts and had some varieties of social roles.
In Role Play activities, the teacher gave information to the students such as who students were and what the students think or feel.
c. Presentation Presentation was one of the speaking activities in this research. The presentation activity could give the students an opportunity to shares their idea in front of their classmates. Then, through presentation, the students could build their confidence in speaking in front of other people.
d. Storytelling Story telli ng could enhance the students‟ creativity of thinking. It also helped the students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and sett a story had to have. The students also could tell riddles or jokes.
As a result, speaking activities could be combined with the teachers‟ technique and media in which it would help the teacher in boosting the students‟ speaking skill.
5. The Types of Speaking Test
The kind of test that was used in this research was role play test. Here the description of the test as follows: a. Role Play Test
In a role play, the students and her/his pairs were given information on which to base a role play, and the students were evaluated on their ability to carry out the task in the role play. The role play required the students to use various functions that he/she might need in real communication.
6. Media
In this research, the writer used some kinds of media as follow:
a. Pictures Pictures was used to stimulate the students to get the main point of one topic, and pictures could made the students be interested to follow the lesson.
b. Situational card In this research, the writer also used situational card to make the lesson more interactive. The students made their own dialogues based on the situational card that had been given, and it made the students be more interactive.
B. Group Investigation Technique 1. The Definition of Group Investigation Technique
Group investigation technique is one kind of Cooperative Learning (CL) that is more than having students work in group; it is a fundamental shift from teacher as information provider and sole source of truth. It involves the use of tasks whose completion requires the combined efforts and skills of the individual group members. Furthermore, Sharan stated that group investigation is a technique which is explores students‟ individual interest and give them more control over their learning than other cooperative methods do. In group investigation, the students are requires to applying their interpersonal and research ability to design a specific objective of learning (Sharan, 2012 : 166).
In group investigation, the students take an active part in planning what they will study and how. They form a cooperative group according to common interest in a topic. All group members help plan how to research their topic. Then, the members divide the work among themselves, and each group member carries out his or her part of the investigation. Finally, the group synthesizes and summarizes its work and presents the result in front of the class.
2. The Main Component of Group Investigation
The unique characteristic of group investigation is on the integration of four fundamental components such as investigation, interaction, interpretation, and intrinsic motivation (Sharan, 2012 : 167).
The further explanation about those four components of group investigation as follow:
a. Investigation
The first component of group investigation is the Investigation which refers to the general orientation of learning that taken by teachers and students. The class is a community of research when the students having their group investigation project. Then, the students‟ role is a researcher that coordinating their research with the learning objectives. In the same way, Thelen in Sharan stated that the class can be called as a community of research or community of researcher (2012 : 167).
The investigation starts when the teacher gives a challenging problem to the students. While doing their research, the students building their knowledge, instead of receive the information from the teacher. The investigation process emphasize on the students‟ initiative.
The students design their own investigation by making some of questions dealing with the topic, finding the resources of the topic and summarizing the result of their work. In the stage of investigation, the students cooperate with their partner to find the information. Then, the students will process the information and ideas into a new knowledge through the interpretation process.
b. Interaction
Group investigation taken place in a class which is deal with social context including the process of having conversation, helping each other and supporting each other. In every steps of the investigation, each student has the same opportunities to have an interaction with the others. The students discuss their research plan, compare their information and ideas, and decide how to summarize and merging their findings.
Then, the students plan how they will present the result of their woks in front of the class.
Interaction is effective in small group discussion that needs the knowledge of the nature of group work and discussion skill.
Interaction among the students is important in group investigation.
Through interaction, the students are able to support each other, evolving their ideas, and helping each other to focus on their work.
The students process their ideas and information through social and intellectual interaction while doing the investigation (Thelen in Sharan, 2012 : 170).
c. Interpretation
The next characteristic of group investigation is the interpretation. The students are cooperating with their partner to make an interpretation of their investigation result. The interpretation of the investigation result is a negotiation process between their personal knowledge and the new knowledge that they learned. In this context, the interpretation process is a real social
- – intellectual process. The interpretation process is in line with constructive approach which is developed by Piaget (Sigel & Cocking in Sharan, 2012 : 171). The approach was explained that most of individuals developing their ideas based on reality, experience, opinion, and information. Furthermore, the group investigation technique gives the students more opportunities to interacting with the other member group that investigating the different aspect, but still in the same topic.
The students are expected to be able designing, clarifying and presenting the result of their research.
d. Intrinsic Motivation
The group investigation is motivating the students to be active in deciding what they will learn and how. In this case, the students are free to make individual choices and group choices based on the problems that will be observed.
The students sharing their experience in school, so that they dispose to give more efforts in learning than when they are required to learned something and informed how to learn it (Sharan&Shaulov in Sharan, 2012 : 172). The group investigation technique is enhancing the students‟ interest to find the information what they need.
3. Teaching Speaking Using Group Investigation
According to Sharan (2012 : 172), there are six steps of group investigation as follow: a. Step 1 : Identifying The Topic to be Investigated and Organizing The
Students Into Research Groups
In this stage, the teacher presents a broad topic to the whole class. The topic may be the part of the curriculum or may stem from the students‟ interest or from a current issue.
The teacher should phrase the topic into a question; instead of directly present the topic. The phrasing serves two purposes: it helps to divine the scope of the investigation, and it sets the tone for inquiry. The topic should be multifaceted one, so that it will trigger a variety of reactions from the students.
At this point, the students are not expected to show what they know but what they want to know. Some students will ask questions based on their reading, other may ask question related to their past experiences. If the teacher encourages diverse reactions, everyone will participate. Then, the teacher should avoid imposing their own suggestions or rejecting students‟ questions. The teacher can further stimulate inquiry by having students scan a variety of sources: films, texts, picture books, magazines, articles, and so on. These materials might be displayed on a table so that students can examine them whenever they have free time.
Furthermore, the teacher writes the general topic on the board and asks students to select one of subtopic that will be investigated. Then, the teacher will limit the number of a group; each group consisting four to five students.
The teaching learning process and teachers‟ roles in step 1 could be summarized as:
Table 1.1 The Teachers’ Roles in the Teaching Learning Process Teaching Learning Process Teachers’ Roles Identifying the topic Lead the research discussion Relating the problem to Sets the main topic the students‟ Deciding the subtopic Guide the subtopic arrangement
b. Step 2 : Planning The Investigation in Groups Upon joining their respective groups, the students turn their attention to the subtopic of their choice.
Together they formulate a researchable problem and plan their courses of action. Group members determine which aspect of subtopic they will investigate.
The members have to decide how to proceed and what resources they will need to carry out their investigation. As the teacher circulates among the groups, he/she can offer help to those who need it.
Instead of insisting that the group stick to a plan that has proven uninteresting to them, the teacher can discuss alternatives and help them redirect their goal.
Through discussion, group members exchange views about the scope of their inquiry. They clarify exactly what it is they want to investigate.
c. Step 3 : Carrying Out The Investigation In this stage, each groups carrying out the plans decided on in the step 2. Group members gather information from a variety of sources, analyze, and evaluate the data, reach conclusions, and apply their share of new knowledge to solving the groups‟ research problem.
Each class period at this stage begins with the teacher and the groups reviewing what it plans to do that day. Then, each group members discuss their work and help one another.
The groups may choose to have the recorder note their tentative conclusions, or each member may present a written summary of his/her findings.
The Groups carrying their first investigation, especially in the lower grades, may simply have each member present a short of summaries or answer to the question that he/she investigated.
At this point, the experienced students will often „discover‟ a new problem that evolves from their discussion of their findings.
d. Step 4: Preparing A Final Report This stage serves as a transition from data gathering and clarification on the presentation of the most significant result of the inquiry. It is primarily an organizational stage, yet it entails such intellectual activities as abstrac ting the main idea of the groups‟ project, pulling together all the parts into an integrated whole, and planning a presentation that will be both instructive and appealing.
Some groups decide what their final report will be when they begin their work. During the planning that groups conduct at this stage, students assume a new role as main source of learning. Then, they begin to plan how to teach their classmates, in an organized way, the essence of what they have learned.
When the teacher notes that the groups are nearing the end of their investigations, it is time to convene the members of the steering committee. The committee hears each group‟s plan for its report. The teacher writes down each group‟s requests for special materials and coordinates the sc hedule. With the teacher‟s guidance, the committee members make sure that the ideas for presentation are varied and clear and can indeed be carried out. The teacher continues in the role of advisor, helping the committee where needed, and reminding them th at each group‟s plan should involve all its members.
e. Step 5: Presenting The Final Report The groups are now prepared to present their final reports to the class. At this stage, all the groups meet and reconstitute the whole class as a social unite.
The schedule of presentation is posted, and each group knows how much time it has for its presentation. After each group‟s turn, the members of the audience voice their reactions to what they saw and heard.
f. Step 6: Evaluation Group investigation exposes students to constant evaluation, by both peers and teacher. During the entire course of inquiry, the teacher has many opportunities to form reliable judgment on the basis of frequent conversations and observations of students‟ academic and social activity (Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowits in Sharan, 1990 : 4).
In assessing learning in group investigation, the teacher evaluates the students‟ higher-level thinking about the topic they studied. The evaluation focuses on the application of the knowledge to new problems, the use of inferences, and the drawing of conclusions. In addition, the teacher evaluates the investigation process itself.
Alternatively, teacher and students can collaborate in order to evaluate the learning. Each group can submit questions about the most important aspects of their subtopic.
Students‟ affective experiences during their investigation are also part of the evaluation. Students should reflect in how they feel in the topic they investigated as well as about how they carried out their investigation. The teacher might ask the students to write a short summary of what they felt, they learned about the topic, and about how to increase their effectiveness as investigators.
4. The Advantages of Group Investigation
There are several advantages of group investigation as follow: a.
Group investigation can enhance students‟ activeness in teaching learning process. The students are given many opportunities to take part of learning. Through Group Investigation, students can determined what topic will they learned and how.
b.
Group investigation can enhance students‟ opportunity for learning, especially in relation to applying theory to practice. For example: the students gained a lot of knowledge by discussing what was happening with users and helping to relate the theory to practice.
c.
Group investigation can gain students‟ critical thinking. d. Group investigation gives students opportunity to share their experiences and to learn from others experience.
e. The students are able to compare the progress of learning each other.
5. The Disadvantages of Group Investigation
Group investigation also has disadvantages such as:
a. The difficulty in catering a range of experiences and needs in the group. For example: there are specific issues that were relevant only to individual placement and the difficulty in having session to suit all students‟ concerned.
b. Losing out of individual time. Group investigation will take much time. The students will concern study in group and the teacher just has a little chance to give an individual explanation to the students.
c. The anxiety of being criticized in front of the class. Since group investigation requires a direct evaluation both from teacher and students so that make a few students feel afraid of being criticize in front of their classmates.
C. The Previous Research on Group Investigation
Group investigation is a successful cooperative learning technique that requires the students to be directly involved in the teaching learning process.
It is supported by some previous research which applied group investigation as the teaching strategy in the teaching learning process.
Firstly, in 2010, Wihdatul Haqqi and Kusumarasdyati had conducted their research titled „The Use of Group Investigation Technique in Teaching Speaking News Item Text for the Tenth Gr ades of SMA Negeri 3 Sidoarjo‟. The result of their research showed that the group Investigation Technique could run well during the teaching learning process.
Its technique helped the students to be more active in class because they could study by their experiences. The students also had same chance to improve their speaking skill and to be confidence to speak in public area.
Then, Sirajudin in 2010 also held his research titled „Improving Speaking Skill by Using Group Investigation Technique at the Grade Eight Students of SMP Wahid Hasyim Malang‟. The result of his research showed that there was an improvement in students‟ speaking skill after practicing group investigation technique. The data showed that the students had made some progresses. In the first cycle, the average of their score reached 69.27, it improved in the second cycle into 78.71.
Then, through the observation technique, the data showed that the students were actively involved in the teaching learning process.
In the first cycle, the avera ge of the students‟ writing score reached 65.71, it improved in the second cycle into 75. The result of her research showed an improvement of students‟ reading ability. In the first cycle, the average score of students‟ reading test reached 64.05, it improved in the second cycle into 75.23.
Based on those previous research which showed some progresses and improvement in the final result of the research, so the writer decide to implement the group investigation technique to improve the students‟ speaking skill at the Eight Grade in SMP Muhammadiyah Banyumas in the school year of 2013/2014.
D. Basic Assumption
Speaking ability is essential element in learning English. It is one of the results of learning English. For teaching speaking, the teacher should be creative in using teaching learning technique to motivate the students, because not all technique can be applied in a learning material.
Group investigation is one of the cooperative learning that is interesting to lead the students to decide what they will study and how.
Furthermore, group investigation is requires students to take part in the classroom. The students will give their all effort in doing the investigation. In short, group investigation is make students cooperate with their team work in improving their speaking skill.