Improving Students’ Speaking Skills through Information Gap Activities In XI Mia 3 of SMA Muhammadiyah 2 Yogyakarta in Academic Year of 2015/2016

Abstract

This research is aimed to improve the students’ speaking skills of the class XI MIA 3 students of SMA Muhammadiyah 2 Yogyakarta in the academic year of 2015/2016. The researcher tried to improve the speaking skills by implementing information gap activities. This study is an action research. The participants of the research were the students of class XI MIA 3 students of SMA Muhammadiyah 2 Yogyakarta in the academic year of 2015/2016 while the research members were the researcher, an English teacher, and a collaborator. The research steps consist of reconnaissance, planning, action and observation, and evaluation and reflection. The researcher collaborated with the English teacher in implementing the actions. The data were collected through observations in teaching and learning process and through interviews with the research members. The instruments for collecting the data were observation guidelines, interview guidelines and tests such as pre-test and post-test. The data, in the form of field notes and interview transcripts are analyzed qualitatively. Meanwhile, the scores which are obtained from the tests are analyzed quantitatively. The findings of this research show that the information gap activities were successfully implemented and the objective of the research had been achieved. The students’ mean scores in the post-test is higher than the students’ mean scores in the pre-test. The gain score is 0.47. It indicates that there is an improvement on the students’ speaking skills after the implementation of information gap activities.