THE EFFECT OF ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGY USING PRACTICE REHEARSAL PAIRS TYPE TOWARD STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT MTs LKMD KASIKAN KAMPAR Abstract * Miswan, **Betty Sailun, **Khulaifiyah ** Dosen FKIP Universitas Islam Riau * Mahasiswa FKIP Universitas Islam Riau The objective of this research was to find out how are student s learning activities in Practice Rehearsal Pair of the second year students at MTs LKMD Kasikan. As well as to learn skills and learning activities for students using active learning strategy by using practice rehearsal pairs type. in teaching and learning process to improve English students speaking ability. The Research was experimental research. The research was done at MTs LKMD Kasikan. As the sample of this research is the students are selected by using random sampling technique by the total number of students are 30. The instrument for collecting the data is the oral test. The data analyzed by using t-test formula. The result of the analysis shows that t-observed is higher than t-table (8,76 > 2,045)at the level significance 0,05 with the degree of freedom 58. It means that there is a significant effect of practice rehearsal pairs on students speaking ability. Based on the result of the above research, it can be inferred that uses practice rehearsal strategy better improves students speaking ability in teaching learning process. Keyword: Speaking Ability, PRP Strategy. Introduction Speaking is a process where someone expresses their idea, thought, feeling in oral communication. Speaking is a complex skill which can involve listening skill (knowledge of the language and the emotional part, this expectation intended as the step to develop speaking ability). As we know speaking ability needs direct interaction, in which someone speaks to someone else directly. There are many reasons causing English learners poor in speaking skills. They are as lack of curriculum emphasis on speaking skills, teachers limited english proficiency, class conditions do not favor oral activities, limited opportunities outside of class to practice, and examination system does not emphasize oral skills. The purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone message, obtaining information, or expressing an opinion. In real communication, participants must manage uncertainty about what the other person will say. Authentic 61
communication involves an information gap; each participant has information that the other does not have. In addition, to achieve their purpose, participants may have to clarify their meaning or ask for confirmation of their own understanding. So, based on the explanation above the writer has found some problems which nearly similar to those five typical problems explained above in at the second year students of MTs LKMD Kasikan where as the students in the school are speechless and when they speak English, they take so much time thinking what they are going to say. These problems are presented based on the writer s observation during practicing teaching at the school. To develop student s speaking skill; a teacher of the language has to be able to motivate his students in many ways. Wood (1991:44) and Rusli (2005:1) say that the technique used in the classroom will influence the students achievement in English. Anyway, so many kinds of methods and strategies that can use to teaching speaking, likes: grammar translation method, audio-lingual method and communicative method, active learning, collaborative learning, cooperative learning and etc. Some problems in teaching learning process. Inside the classroom, speaking is the most often used skill not only by the teachers, but also by learners. The writer found some problems in the classroom. First, the teacher do not use a good strategy in teaching English. The teacher still use much Indonesian in teaching speaking. There is no collaboration between teacher and students in teaching process because teacher explains material and asks the students to do the exercise on their LKS and no more. Second, the students are often inhibited about trying to say things in English in the classroom. The students are speechless and they confused to pronounce some words in English. There are no responds and stimulus from both in teaching learning process. The last, the students are bored and they also sometimes keep silent when they have no ideas to talk and they like to be listener better than to be speaker. The problems that appear from the teachers hold important think to make students to speak English. Methodology The design of this research was an experimental design. In this research there were two variables. They were independent variable and dependent variable. The independent variable was a variable that is identified as a casual variable was thought cause the independent variable in which symbolized by X. Meanwhile, the dependent variable was variable that is identified as an effect. The result of variable was thought to be caused by independent variable which symbolized by Y. In this research, the independent variable is practice rehearsal pairs. In conducting this research, the writer is going to have one group treatment design. The treatment is going to be given two meeting. Since the writer thinks that that is sufficient to see students improvement from first meeting. 62
Participants The participant of this research was the second grade students of junior high school (MTS LKMD Kasikan). Every class consists of 30 students. So the population of this research is 120 students. Instruments The reseach was to know the effectiveness of teaching speaking by using practice rehearsal pairs technique, the writer gave oral test to the students. Because the test was oral test, the writer divided the score into five criteria, which are the scores of accent, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Each criteria is rated into six scales of rating scores, it is based on Huges (2003: 131-132). Most of the test items was be adopted from English text book. The writer asked the students to make a conversation based on the topic given and practice it directly while writers give score and write it in the scoring sheet. Data Collection Procedure 1 Pre-test Before starting the experiment, a pre-test is needed to know how far the students know about the subject that would be thaugth. They was given pre-test before teaching presentation. The Activities of pre-test: 1. The writers enter the classroom and great the students 2. The writer exchanged information about the last materials. 3. The writer asked something to the students in speaking form about their last material in their own words 4. The writer gave them pre-test by asked them to express dialogues in pairs orally. 5. Finally, the writer combines the students score by adding them to be composite amount. 2. The Treatment Activities Several days after the pre-test, the students was thought these students by using active learning activities in experiment group while control group was not do this treatment. The procedure of teaching and learning processes was : 1. The writer entered the class and greats the students. 63
2. The writer teaching the materials based on the curriculum which was arranged in lesson plan. Then the writer explained the defenition of practice rehearsal pairs and the procedure of the activities. 3. The writers taught about expressing to invite someone. Then the writer gave a conversation about it. The students read a text and find a difficult word. Then the teacher gave them a question. 4. All the students was grouped into two pairs like a+b. Then the writer asked them to make a conversation based on the topic given.after finishing made the conversation, asked the pairs to study their text carefully, then practice it in front of the class 5. The pairs changed into b+a, the writer asked to rehearse their conversation in front of the class, so that everyone in the class was working in parallel. When all the pairs have finished, ask them to share and discuss what they experienced in their pair. 6. After their performance finished, the writer corrected their grammars, pronunciation and accent. 7. Every teaching, the writers reviewed and evaluated the progress of teaching and learning process to know whether the technique works well. 3. Post-test After teaching and learning process was finished at all, the writer gave times to the students to think and prepare vocabulary, expressions, attitude which may be use in perform. Then asked the students to perform in front of the class. The writer got post test date by asking the students to practice directly an expressing in front of the class while the writer make a test score for every students. Finally, the raters combine the students scores by adding them to be one composite amount. Results and Discussion Active learning involves providing opportunities for students to meaningfully talk and listen, write, read, and reflect on the content, ideas, issues, and concerns of an academic subject (Meyers and Jones, 1993, p.6). In the rehearsal stage, students do these activities. By interacting with their group member, students will have many idea and input about what they are going to say in the performance stage. Having analyzed the data of pre-test and post test by using t-test formula, the result shows that the coefficience is 8,76. It means that there is a significance effect in 64
teaching speaking by using Practice Rehearsal pairs. From the result of calculation. It is obtained the value of the t observation is 8,76, the degree of freedom (df) is 29 (obtained from n-1) = (30-1) = 29. Since to score obtained from result of calculating, the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted and the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected. Based on the result of the data analysis, it is proven that the students score of speaking taught by using practice rehearsal pairs is better. It means that the use of practice rehearsal pairs in teaching speaking is more effective. Another reason based on the students responses is because most students find that the practice rehearsal pairs are enjoyable. This reason leads to better attention in learning and stimulate them to participate in practice rehearsal pair activities. Conclusion There was a significant improvement in speaking performance in term of language content, a variety of language was used and no teacher intervention by using practice rehearsal pairs for the students. It can be proved by the fact that the result of post test was higher than pre-test score. Teaching English especially speaking by using practice rehearsal pairs significantly affects students speaking achievement. Based on the calculation of t- test above we can see that tobserved is more than ttable, 8,76 > 2.045. Meanwhile the value of ttable on the degree of freedom (df) 29 at ά 0.05 0f significant for two tails test is 2.045. It means that the t-test observed is higher than t table at the level significance of 0.05 (2.045). In the other word, it can be said that there is a significant effect of practice rehearsal pairs on students achievement in speaking and the hypothesis is accepted. Based on the result of the data analysis, it is proven that the students score of speaking taught by using practice rehearsal pairs is better. It means that the use of PRP in teaching speaking is quite effective. References Arikunto, S, Prof. Dr. 2005.Manajemen Penelitian. Jakarta: Penerbit RinekaCipta. Bonwell, C., Eison, J., &Bonwell, C.C.2000. Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom: article. (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Series ( AEHE). Washington, dc: George. Washington University Brown, G. and G. Yule, 1983. Teaching is the spoken language. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Dawes, and Haynes. 2007. Active Learning and Cooperative Learning: pratice rehearsal pairs. Chem. Engr. Education, Retrieve on 15 Juni 2012 from http://data.tp.ac.id/dokumen/practice+rehearshal+pairs 65
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