COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) APPROACH IN IMPROVING STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY IN EFL

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) APPROACH IN IMPROVING STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY IN EFL

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION

This chapter describes the general issues related to the present study. These include the background of the study, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problem, hypothesis of the study, definition of the key terms, the purposes and significance of the research. 

A. Background of the study

The recent change of our national curriculum has a great effect on the instructional procedures and material contents in Primary school, Junior High School and Senior High School. Especially in Junior High School, the curriculum change from Competence-Based Curriculum to School-Based Curriculum has given opportunities for teachers to plan and make the curriculum based on the set of competences. Teachers are obliged to be creative and innovative (Karnadi & Ansyar, 2007) in developing the curriculum and portraying lessons in classroom.

Karnadi (2006) stated that the Education Ministerial regulation no. 22, 23 and 24 year 2006, dated May 23, about School-Based Curriculum giving a broad opportunities for schools as well as the teachers to determine and develop the curriculum. The curriculum developed by the school should refer to national standard of education, and operationally should be in line with the standard of content and competence arranged by BSNP (The Board of National Standard of Education). In such a way, school has a full authority to determine and develop the syllabus, curriculum and indicators in order to show the schools' potentials and competitions (Bambang Wasito Adi, The head of Information centre of BSNP). Principally, it is always intended to have teaching and learning process that finally can lead to have better learning outcome.

The goal of teaching English in Junior High School level is to communicate in English at the level of literacy performative competence and literacy functional competence (PERMEN 22 in 2006). The literacy performative competence level leads the students to be able to read, write, listen and speak English in simple symbols. The literacy functional competence level encourages the students to communicate in English orally and written for their daily activity needs.

As such, the way of teaching and learning process of English should be taken more emphasize on communicative approach. This approach gives focus on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of structure (Richards, 1986 : 64). It is in line with the function of language that is to communicate opinion, ideas, information, etc. So that language is to communicate meaning as effectively as possible in concrete situation.

Nowadays, communication becomes more and more important in our daily life, because they are indispensable as a means of communication for Indonesia international activities. But it has been a big problem for Indonesian learners of English to develop communicative competence. This is partly because we have few opportunities to use English in a real world and partly because we usually regard English as knowledge instead of a mean of communication. As English is not the main approach for the people to transfer information with each other in Indonesia, it's mainly as the way of finding a good job and passing an examination. As a result, reading skills and linguistic competence are emphasized in school. What is more, Indonesia and English are completely different languages in many aspects, so it's difficult for the students to learn English. Also in Indonesia, there are a few opportunities for students to speak and listen to English; there is no real language environment for students to improve their communicative competence.

Additionally, there are two reasons why we should teach speaking skills in the classroom, they are;

- Motivation

Many students equate being able to speak a language as knowing the language and therefore view learning the language as learning how to speak the language, or as Nunan (1991) wrote, "Success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language." Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in the language classroom they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning. On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place to be.

- Speaking is fundamental to human communication.

Just think of all the different conversations we have in one day and compare that with how much written communication we do in one day. Which do we do more of ? In our daily lives most of us speak more than we write, yet many English teachers still spend the majority of class time on reading and writing practice almost ignoring speaking and listening skills. Do we think this is a good balance ?

If the goal of our language course is truly to enable our students to communicate in English, then speaking skills should be taught and practiced in the language classroom.

In case of teaching English as a foreign language, the goal of teaching as stated above is accordance with the standard and basic competence in school based curriculum (PERMEN 22 in 2006), especially for the eight-year of junior high school level, which take more emphasize on the students' communicative competence in speaking skill, as in the following that;

- The ability to express meaning in a simple short dialog with other people in transactional and interpersonal conversation. 

- The ability to express meaning in a simple short functional and monolog in descriptive and recount texts for interacting and communicating with other people.

- The ability to express meaning orally in transactional and interpersonal for interacting and communicating with other people.

- The ability to express meaning in a simple short functional and monolog in recount and narrative texts for interacting and communicating with other people.

Additionally, the standard of competence as stated above encourages the students to have the basic competence (PERMEN 22, 2006) as in the following;

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to ask for and give things.

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to ask and give opinions (make questions).

Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to invite people, agree and disagree, and talk about past experience.

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to express admiration and congratulation ask for and give ideas and ask for information.

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to talk about favorite tales, ask for a favor, ask and offer things.

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to get information, ask and give opinion, predict and retell the story.

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to ask for and give agreement, respond to a statement, talk about one's biography.

- Expressing meaning in transactional (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (socialization) to make a telephone call, leave and take messages, make an appointment, and tell funny experience.

This paradigm shifting has happened in English teaching in Junior High School especially in SMPN X where the goal of teaching is aimed at teaching English for communication. However, the application of teaching in the field is still far from satisfying. For instance; it often can be seen that English teaching still emphasize on language form. It also can be observed that many Junior High School students who have been studying English for more than 3 years are not able to speak English, even though it is in a simple conversation. Their English mark in their final examination (NEM) is considered low and their communicative proficiency is also poor. 

The students' achievement nationally makes parents as well as teachers unhappy. The unsatisfactory results make people then turn more intention to the implementers in the fields. The teachers become the scapegoat of the failure because they directly face the students in class. This phenomenon is concluded that English teaching result is still far from satisfaction. It means that the problem of English teaching still can not be overcome maximally. The implementation of the normative approach underlying the curriculum is considered on the teachers' hand. Teachers as the teaching implementers in the field should be able to understand the curriculum as part of the system, since it should be understood as guideline that give direction towards the target decided. Their understanding will very much determine their preparation and their actual implementation in class. But the case is not like what it has been expected. Teachers as the spearhead are not well prepared. They are predicted of not having enough knowledge or experience about the approach.

The purpose of English teaching in Indonesia is very often limited to the four language skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking). And all the classroom activities are designed around the four language skills. However this is not necessarily the case. Many teachers and learners get accustomed to traditional teaching methodology and neglect the nature of language and language teaching. To avoid such misunderstanding the thesis insists that the aim of English teaching is to develop the learners' communicative competence.

In Indonesia, some existing problems, of which dumb English and low efficiency are most evident. Generally, the learners have spent at least three years or so studying English before entering senior high school. During such long learning span too much emphasis has been put on rote learning and accumulation of English knowledge, such as the mastery of usage words and grammatical rules. Many learners with many years experience in English learning still have considerable difficulty coping with English in its normal oral communicative use. Therefore, it is of great significance and urgency to further discuss the objective of language teaching and the approach in English language teaching is most self-evident. The learners are required to develop the comprehensive ability to communicate orally in English. In the process of improving the comprehensive proficiency the teaching should focus on the learners' proficiency instead of the presentation of abstract linguistic forms.

The objective of the English teaching is to develop the learners' English communicative competence likewise. Viewing English as a kind of meaning potential and a functional system, its learning should be the realization of English behavior potential. English teaching will focus on how to use English grammatically and appropriately. In a word, our English teaching will concentrate on the knowledge and ability to use. In addition to the ability to produce and understand grammatical utterances the learners are to develop the ability to know when to select a particular grammatical sequence that should be appropriate to the context, both linguistic and situational.

The common problems encountered by teachers with the teaching of English, especially teaching of speaking skills in junior high school can be seen in the following that; 

1. Students won't talk or say anything

One way to tackle this problem is to find the root of the problem and start from there. A reason for student silence may simply be that the class activities are boring or are pitched at the wrong level. Very often our interesting communicative speaking activities are not quite as interesting or as communicative as we think they are and all the students are really required to do is answer 'yes' or 'no' which they do quickly and then just sit in silence or worse talking noisily in their L1.

2. When students work in pairs or groups they just end up chatting in their own language.

This problem is mostly happen when the activity or the task is not interesting to students. If students do not have something to say or do, or don't feel the need to speak, we can be sure it won't be long before they are chatting away in their L1.

3. Passive class

A common problem for EFL teachers is dealing with a passive class, where students are unresponsive and avoid interaction with the teacher. This is especially true when a teacher seeks interaction in a teacher-class dialog, such as asking questions to the class as a whole, expecting at least one student to respond. This can be a frustrating experience for both parties. Obviously, there will be times when no student can answer a teacher's question, but often students do not answer even if they understand the question, know the answer, and are able to produce the answer. Furthermore, students can often be very reluctant to give feedback or ask the teacher a question in front of the class.

This condition interests the researcher to investigate the effectiveness of CLT to EFL teaching in order to overcome those problems, to help students to learn English more effectively and efficiently, especially in improving students' speaking ability.

B. Limitation of the Problem

It has been previously stated in the background that students with many years experience in English learning still have considerable difficulty coping with English in its normal oral communicative use. In the other hand, students who have been studying English for more than 3 years are not able to speak English, even though it is in a simple conversation. Their English mark in their final examination (NEM) is considered low and their communicative proficiency is also poor.

Concerning the outcome that has not made us happy yet, it is necessary to take a look at the communicative language teaching approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language. Through this study the researcher will investigate the effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the English Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, especially in improving students' speaking ability in SMPN X.

C. Formulation of the Problem

The problem that will be observed in this research is;

1. Is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach effective in improving students' speaking ability ?

2. Is there any significant difference between the speaking ability of the respondents who are trained on applying CLT with those who are not ?

D. Hypothesis of the Study

The researcher sets the hypothesis as follows that students who are taught using Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach get higher speaking ability than those who are taught using the conventional method.

E. Definition of the Key Terms

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. In other words, Communicative language teaching (CLT) is the way of teaching language that takes more emphasize on communicative approach (Wilkins, 1980s). CLT refers to the process of learning which makes use of real-life situation that necessitate communication (Ann Galloway, center for applied linguistics). The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audio-lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics.

Communicative language teaching (CLT) refers to both processes and goals in classroom learning. The central theoretical concept in communicative language teaching is ‘‘communicative competence,’’. Competence is defined in terms of the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning (Sauvignon, 1971). Sauvignon (1971) used the term ‘‘communicative competence’’ to characterize the ability of classroom language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning, as distinct from their ability to recite dialogues or perform on discrete-point tests of grammatical knowledge.

Approach, according to Anthony as quoted by Richards (1986) is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language and learning. Following Richards (1986), states that approach is theories about the nature of language and language learning that serve as the source of practices and principles in language teaching. Additionally, approach refers to the beliefs and theories about language, language learning and teaching that underlie a method. While speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking.

F. The Purpose of the Research

There are two purposes of the research : 

1. To investigate whether CLT is effective in improving students' speaking ability.

2. To find out the improvement of students' speaking ability after being trained compared to those who are not trained.

THE EFFECT OF USING SONG ON STUDENT'S SPEAKING ABILITY

THE EFFECT OF USING SONG ON STUDENT'S SPEAKING ABILITY

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the background of the study that describes the reason why the writer intends to conduct this study. First, the reasons or background of the study, problem of the study, and significance of the study are formulated. Next, the scope and limitation of the study is presented. The last part is the definition of the key terms.

A. Background of the Study

Generally, language is a system of arbitrary conventionalized vocal, written, gesture symbols that permit members of a given community to communicate intelligibly with each other. There are many languages in the world that used to communicate each other such as Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, English and etc. English is the important one, as international language, means that people around the world use it for communication each other in the daily life for relationship of business, trade, education and etc.

In Indonesian schools, thus, English, for the English department students is not a new subject, since English has been given when they were studying English in their junior high schools level. It is as one of main lesson that examined in UAN (Ujian Akhir Nasional). Based on the brief description of the English position, we know that English is very important to learn.

Talk about Language, it can not remove with teaching and learning. According to the 1994 curriculum, teach language, especially English. It magnifies on the development of four areas influencing the ability in mastering English as well. They are : reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Speaking and writing are productive skills, while reading and listening are the receptive skills. Therefore, in this thesis, the writer would like to discuss further more about one important aspect of language, speak. Speaking is the ability to express opinions, ideas, or thought orally; it consists of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning in order to be understood by the people we are speaking with.

We know that speaking is included all aspects of language like explain before, it is the most important to master it. It is also considered as the most difficult aspect and as primary skill. This opinion can be proved by the fact that almost speakers can orally use the language to carry out their daily activities and to communicate in their life experiences.

In the process of teaching and learning, teachers often find situations when students are not motivated because they get bored, if the students are bored or emotionally upset they will find it difficult to concentrate and participate in the classroom activity. Beside that, according to the writer experience that the students also not confidence to speak English because they are not usual to do it and they are not very good at English and they know about it. They do not know many English words or, even if they remember some words they have problems with pronunciation, so do not want to speak, because they are shy to produce their language in front of the classroom.

In other way, part of the techniques of teaching and learning are still monotones (teacher only explain the material of the lesson and then give student some assignment), it causes the students are unless motivated to speak English. Actually, there are many methods that used by the teacher in English's teaching and learning in order to reach the goal, the student can speak English fluently such as; using cartoon movies, pictures, jigsaws, games and etc. But, in the study, the writer would like to use song as media teaching and learning. She thinks that songs are interesting way to teach English, especially in speaking class. Neurologists have found that musical and language processing occur in the same area of the brain, and there appear to be parallels in how musical and linguistic syntax are processed.

Noorman stated that no man can live without art and music is a part of it. That means, music is an important thing in human's life. And song is a part of music. It is defined as a sort piece of music that has words or musical words that use words on it which is called lyrics. It is human way in expressing their passion which is a part of music. It is a part of people collective history and also every day lives. People can express something that they feel by music. It has been received in all level people, such as; children, adult, old, or rich and poor, all of them can enjoy music. Noorman added that is considered as relaxing, they feel a little more comfortable in the class, music lovers suffer less from stress and high blood pressure than people who do not enjoy music.

Bertrand said (as cited by Ika) that songs makes the lesson more communicate, livelier to be motivated and one way to motivating them is by means songs. It is expected that song can be used as attractive in teaching English in order to the students will not get bored. Hancock said (as cited by Dessy) There are two advantages by using song in teaching English. First is to motivation. When songs are used in teaching learning process it is enjoyable. So the students are more motivated to learn English. Second is memorable. Songs have melodies that make to words or sentences easy to remember or memorize. A sentence without melody is much less memorable than the some sentence with melody. Song can be used to give students a break from the teachers they hear everyday which enable then to have a closer and stronger relationship with the teacher. Therefore, using songs material in the classroom activity can attract the student's interest and arouse the student's motivation in learning English.

In the other opinion, said that for two last decades, EFL (English as foreign language) methodology has been actively considering the possibility of using music and song in the class. Songs can be effectively used in an intermediate class for the purpose of teaching speaking to prospective EFL teachers. There are main reasons supported this idea. First, as a cultural phenomenon, songs can introduce students to the musical and cultural patterns typical for the target language community. Second, songs belong to a synthetic genre, which includes both lyrics, music and these two constituents may be used as a good incentive for speaking English in the class. Kisito said that English songs can be used for a wide variety of ESL learning and teaching activities. In speaking class, they can start discussions on a topic or even become the centre of debate. This is especially true of songs that develop a particular theme. Nevertheless, songs have their own identities such as it is convey a lower amount of information, have more redundancy and a personal quality. According to Wang B, songs present opportunities for developing automatic which is the main cognitive reason for using songs in the classroom. It means that automatic as "a component of language fluency which involves both knowing what to say and producing language rapidly without pauses”. Therefore, songs can help automatic the language development process.

B. Problem of Study

From the background of the study above, the writer states the problems as follows : 

1. How is the application of using song at MAN X ?

2. How is the effect of using song on students' speaking ability at MAN X ?

C. Objectives

In line with the problem of the study above, the writer states the objectives of the study such as : 

1. Describing the applications of using English songs at MAN X

2. Describing the effect of using song on students' speaking ability at MAN X.

D. Significance of the Study

Looking at the objectives above, this study is trying to develop the instructional practices at IPA study program of Man X by developing the student's speaking ability by using songs. The results of the study later are expected to : 

1. Give contribution to the development of English teaching, especially to the development of instruction.

2. Provide English teachers with the appropriate procedure to developing the student's speaking ability by using song,

3. Give the students experience in learning English by song.