CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A. Background
Language as the tool of communication has an
important role to reveal an intention to someone else. People will be able to
express their thought and feeling by using language. Language, communication
and life can not be separated. Language can be applied in many aspects, such
as: education, society, politics, economics, and culture. One of the ways in
communication is through speaking.
Speaking
is one of the important and essential skills that must be practised to
communicate orally. By speaking people are able to know what kinds of
situations the world. People who have ability in speaking will be better in
sending and receiving information or message to another. Speaking is the
process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non verbal
symbol in various contexts.
According
to Stevick (1982: 103) speaking refers to the gap between linguistic expertise
and teaching methodology. Linguistic expertise concerns with language structure
and language content. Teaching speaking is not like listening, reading, and
writing. It needs habit formation because it is a real communication. The speaking
needs to be practiced as often as possible. It is not like writing and reading
but speaking must be practiced directly in full expression.
Related to the
statements above, the researcher did pre - observation that was done at the
eighth year students of SMPN 27 Makassar, the researcher faced many problems in
teaching learning English. The crucial problems were the students’ problems in
speaking. The problems were; first, the students always did mistakes in
grammar and pronunciation aspect. Basically, they only spoke English but they
did not pay attention to the sentence structure and correct pronunciation.
Second, the students were afraid of making mistake in speaking English. It
indicates that the students had limited vocabulary. Third, the students were
difficult to speak fluently because they were seldom to practice their English
language.
Based on the result interview of the English teacher at the
eighth year students of SMPN 27 Makassar in VIII - I stated that the mean score
of the students’ achievement in speaking English was very low. It was about 5.5
mean score and the target score that would be achieved was 7.5.
From the problems above the researcher applied
one of teaching techniques. That was an interesting technique and it could
improve the student’s speaking ability, namely information gap technique. The technique
was designed
to create the students’ interest to learn with pleasant method. The core of
information gap technique is corporation between groups and shared.
Information gap is a useful activity in which
one person has information that the other lacks. Another advantage of
information gap activities is that students are forced to negotiate meaning
because they must make what they are saying comprehensible to others in order
to accomplish the task Neu and Reeser, 1997 in Sari (2008:3)
Based on the statements above, the researcher used information gap
technique to overcome the students’ problems in speaking. The researcher was
interested to apply this technique to teach speaking at the eighth year
students of SMPN 27 Makassar in order to improve their ability in speaking.
B. Problem Statement
Based on the background above,
the research questions are formulated as follows:
1.
How is the improvement of the students’ speaking accuracy
through information gap technique?
2.
How is the improvement of the
students’ speaking fluency through information gap technique?
C. Objective of the Study
Based on the research questions above, this
research aims as follows:
1.
To explain how the improvement of the students’ speaking
accuracy through information gap technique.
2.
To explain how the improvement of the students’ speaking
fluency through information gap technique.
D. Significance of the Study
The findings of the
research are expected to be useful information and positive contribution to the
English teacher, English students and those who concern with the language learning
process. This research gives the teachers a new method to encourage the
students to speak accurately and fluently.
The results of this research are expected to
suggest the teacher to give special attention to the students’ needs in
teaching and learning process such as a good atmosphere in the classroom, good
materials and good method. It is also hoped that the findings of this research
will be a piece of worthwhile references for English teacher in teaching
speaking by using information gap technique.
E. Scope of the Study
This
research is limited to the use of information gap technique to improve the
students’ speaking ability. It is focused on students’ speaking accuracy that
covers (vocabulary, grammar) and fluency that covers (self-confident,
effectiveness). These items are chosen
because those are very important to be identified by the researcher to improve
the role of information gap in motivating and overcoming the students’ problems
in learning speaking in English language.
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