Improving Students’ Speaking Skills through Role Play at Grade XI of SMK N 6 Yogyakarta of Travel Tourism Program in the Year of 2014/2015

Abstract

The  objective  of  the  research  was  to  improve  the  students’ speaking  skill  through  role-play  technique  at  Grade  XI  of  SMK  N  6 Yogyakarta of travel tourism program in the academic year of 2014/2015. The research was classroom action research. The subjects of this research were the researcher, the English teacher and the students of SMK  N  6  Yogyakarta  at  Grade  XI  of  travel  tourism  program  which consisted of 30 students. This research was carried out in two cycles. The steps involved planning, doing action, observing, and reflecting. The data of this research were qualitative and supported by quantitative data. The qualitative data were obtained by observing the teaching and learning process, delivering the questionnaire, and interviewing the English teacher and the students of Grade XI at travel tourism program. The qualitative data were in the forms of field notes, interview transcripts, and the questionnaire responses. The instruments used to collect the data were observation sheets, interview guidelines, and questionnaires. Pre-test and post-test were administered to obtain the quantitative data which were in the forms of speaking scores. The research findings show that the use of role-play technique  improved students’ speaking skills. The improvement could be seen from: (1) the students’ pronunciation, vocabulary, fluency, and accuracy, (2) the students’ confidence, enthusiasm, and opportunity to speak up, and (3) the mean score of pretest (49.833), progress test (56.166), and posttest (64.833). In conclusion, role play is believed to be effective to improve students’ speaking skills.