Improving Students’ Speaking Skill through Communicative Activities at Grade VIII of SMPN 4 Yogyakarta in The Academic Year of 2016/2017

Abstract

The aim of this research is to improve the students’ speaking skill through communicative activities at grade VIII of SMP N 4 Yogyakarta in the academic year of 2016/2017. This research was categorized into Action Research (AR). The subject of this research were 34 students of VIII D SMP 4 Yogyakarta. The steps of the research were reconnaissance, planning, action and reflection. The data were in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. The instruments for collecting data were interview guidelines, observation sheet, observation checklists, questionnaire sheets, tests (post cycle I and post cycle II) and camera. The validity of the research was obtained through applying four kinds of validity criteria, namely, democratic validity, outcome validity, process validity and dialogic validity. In addition, to make the data reliable, three kinds of triangulation (time triangulation, investigator triangulation and theoretical triangulation) were used in this research. The actions implemented in this research were implementing communicative activities to improve the student’s speaking skill, implementing P-P-P method, giving listening and vocabulary task, giving pronunciation practice, distributing materials handout, using teaching media, and giving  reward. The research findings showed that the speaking skill of most of the students improved after communicative activities were used in the teaching and learning process. It was indicated by the increase in the mean of students’ speaking performance score in four aspects, namely fluency, pronunciation, accuracy, and vocabulary in the post-cycle I and post-cycle II tests. Communicative activities also improved the students’ enthusiasm towards English and the students’ involvement in the speaking teaching and learning process because they gave students more chance to practice their speaking skill and did not cause boredom.

Keywords: action research, speaking skill, communicative activities