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Abstract
This article describes a classroom action research held in speaking class
through the implementation of trivia-based activity to improve the University
students speaking fluency and improve the classroom situation. The method used
in the reasearch is collaborative classroom action research which was conducted
in two cycles. Each cycle included four stages namely planning, implementing,
observing and reflecting. The data that were obtained qualitatively and
quantitatively show that through trivia-based activity could improve: (1) students
speaking fluency; (2) speaking classroom situation.
Keyword: Classroom action research, speaking fluency, trivia-based activity
new problem to be overcome. Now, the students live at a time where the ability to
speak a second language fluently has become necessary, especially for those who
want to advance in certain field of human endeavor. Fluency in speaking is known
as the natural ability to speak spontaneously, quickly and comprehensibly with
few numbers of errors that may distract the listener from the speakers message;
when accuracy is focus on the elements of phonology, grammar, and discourse in
spoken output.
Generally, the problem faced dealing with fluency was when the learners
speak to the others; the students tried to make the hearers understand about what
they want to say. The writer found that the students tended to hesitate and
fragmentary while speaking because of they have problems in retrieving the
lexical items, encoding the grammatical form of their message and correcting their
own output. This condition made the students speak hesitantly and fragmented, as
mean that the frequency of pause filler such as well, mm, ee and also the
production of dysfluency such as repetition, repair, restarts, and also prolongation
will fluently fulfilled their talks.
The other aspect that affected the students fluency in speaking was the
habit in using Indonesian or Javanese term when they could not find appropriate
English words. This phenomenon defined as pause fillers that usually occurred
when they tried to express complex ideas. The next important aspect is the high
frequency of silent pause that produced by the students. According to pretest
analyzed by the researcher, there were so many silent pauses occurred when the
students delivered their speech. The more silent pause produced means as the
more fragmented and hesitant the speech delivered.
Another aspect that also affected the students fluency in speaking was
related with the type of activities provided by lecturer in the teaching and learning
process. Lecturers need to be very careful in implementing and developing
particular methodology including choosing the approach and technique to be
implemented in teaching and learning process. Bygate (1987: viii), Development
in language teaching must depend on our ability to understand the effects of our
methodology.
based activity, first, by its nature, trivia leads to the asking and answering /
responding questions. Anderson & Lynch (1998, in Crawford, 2004) mentioned
that, To train learners to become effective communicators, listening and speaking
must be seen as interdependent. By questioning and responding will leads the
learners into the use of listening and speaking as communicative strategy and for
its interdependence that cannot be separated each other. Crawford (2004) also
states, Adapting trivia games such as those on TV for use in the classroom
creating an exciting atmosphere where students listen attentively and are eager to
respond. It means that by its very simple format and for its popularity to be
adapted in the teaching and learning activities in the classroom, it will create an
exciting atmosphere that makes the learners actively participating.
Another reason is by questioning and responding, it means that the
communication is focus only on the content of the message. Since it is only focus
on getting meanings across using any available communicative resources, the
learners have no reasons anymore to be afraid in making mistakes dealing with the
choosing of appropriate vocabulary, the structure of the sentences, the correct
grammar and phonology. Third, it deals mainly with fact; it introduces a wide
range of topics into the classroom, which can lead the learners to a free
interaction. It is one of the main reasons for the writer to choose trivia-based
activity as the technique to improve students speaking fluency. Since trivia-based
activity introduces a wide variety of topics, it can help them to develop a feel for
what interests their learners.
The next reason in using trivia is where the learners can get a point when
they get tired of talking about oneself. Switching the topics into trivia will avoid
this situation and liven up the class. It is generally much easier to talk about
oneself than other topics. Encouraging risk taking can also be accomplished by
using trivia-based materials known as the next reason. Learners with low selfconfidence in their language ability may have a great deal of confidence in their
knowledge of history, politics, sports, music, etc. There will be a good chance for
their confidence in their ability to communicate in the target language will
increase, if they may be more willing to risk answering a question on one of the
topics they mastered well. Another reason of using trivia is it can be a very
effective way to improve learners language awareness.
errors that may distract the listener from the speakers message under the temporal
constraints of online processing.
learning, and to bring about change in classroom practices. The researcher chose
this method action research since by action research he can observe the students
closely, analyzing the students needs, and then adjusting the technique of
teaching to fit the need of all students. And then by involved in the research, it
means, the researcher can always fit his knowledge of what should be arranged so
it can always find better ways for maintaining the problems happened and
bringing the changes to the classroom.
Kemmis and Mc Taggart (in Burns, 1999: p.32), states that action
research occurs through a dynamic and complementary process that consists of
four essential moments of planning, action, observation, and reflection. Each
moment could be explained as follows: 1) Moment of planning; 2) Moment of
action; 3) Moment of observation, and; 4) Moment of reflection.
Procedure of the research
Figure of Research
Problems found as the result of observation:
1) Fragmentary, halting and incoherence
utterances still produced by the students,
2) Too many disfluencies such as repetition,
repair, restart and prolongation made the
speech hesitant
3) Pause filler such as laugh, using another
language terms or non-specific linguistic
vowel affected the students speech
performance
Planning
Setting out the procedures,
preparing lesson plans,
materials, media and
instruments such as
observation checklist, fieldnote, and interview guide
and specify some criteria of
success.
Successful
Unsuccessful
Stop
Revised
10
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students into larger range of topics in the classroom in order to made the students
easily responding questions, focused only to the content of the message while
communicating, built the students motivation in talking when they got tired of
talking something usual, and also built the students confidence in speaking since
they talked about something fact or real and related to their life.
Another improvements can be seen in the table of speaking fluency score
comparison between the pretest and the first postest as follows:
Table of speaking fluency score comparison between pretest and postest 1
NAME
Speech Rate
(syl/min)
ATIKA
CATUR
DIDIN
ENDANG
GESIT
LARAS
MILA
NURITA
RIFKI
YULI
105.14
75.72
102.39
81.72
75.08
51.85
149.93
98.11
79.74
130.06
POST
I
150.01
82.84
111.96
121.79
70.77
60.75
172.83
132.62
87.19
131.89
MEAN
94.97
112.27
PRE
Articulation
rate
(art/min)
POST
PRE
I
177.05 223.71
115.47 148.49
149.93 182.87
164.09 206.60
133.44 147.95
88.54 211.69
223.52 236.36
204.10 247.43
160.28 193.18
196.65 193.30
FLUENCY MEASUREMENT
Phonation
TN Silent of
time ratio
Pause
(%)
(sp/min)
POS
POS
PRE
PRE
TI
TI
63.42 72.03 29.86 33.34
73.86 61.84 26.88 27.36
75.08 69.88 23.66 34.41
57.11 64.12 33.13 26.84
61.07 43.94 19.76 29.28
63.20 30.12 25.51 18.87
76.91 77.23 28.58 19.86
51.94 56.78 29.10 33.22
52.26 46.97 19.97 35.35
70.72 74.98 25.68 24.24
161.31
64.56
199.16
59.79
26.21
28.28
0.74
0.59
0.63
0.78
1.18
0.87
0.48
0.99
0.96
0.68
POS
TI
0.50
0.84
0.53
0.80
1.15
2.22
0.69
0.78
0.90
0.62
TN of Pause
Filler
(PF/min)
POS
PRE
TI
6.89 11.11
10.88 8.99
13.27 14.20
12.31 10.97
6.42
5.69
3.29
3.02
12.31 11.41
9.56
9.26
3.48
3.53
9.67 14.45
TN Dysfluency
(dys/min)
POS
PRE
TI
5.61 8.73
14.07 4.87
21.01 16.93
12.31 12.69
3.46 6.91
6.58 6.79
11.87 13.04
4.57 3.81
2.41 1.77
5.67 3.73
0.79
0.90
8.81
8.76
MLP
(s/p)
PRE
9.26
7.93
From those explanations above, the writer also completed the analysis of
the posttest 1 by calculated the mean score of each variable in order to get easier
while monitoring the students progression in the level of speaking fluency.
According to mean score as written in the table 4.12 above, some improvements
made by the students in the level of speech rate, articulation rate and also the total
number of dysfluency per minute. These improvements however is still not
significant since there were also some score degradations made by the students,
for example in phonation time ratio, the total number of silent pause per minute,
the mean length of silent pause and also the total number of pause filler per
minute score. Therefore, the researcher concluded to continue the research to the
next cycle, the second cycle.
In the second cycle, added some new activities to gain the students
interest and motivation for being actively participating in the activities given, and
12
also did some revision dealing with the procedure that hopefully can easily be
understand by the students though it is new activities for them. Some of new
activities were simulation, oral presentation, and debate activity. The goal in
gaining the students motivation was because there were still some students not
present in some meetings as seen in the previous cycle.
In the second cycle, the students behavior in class situation dramatically
changed. The implementation of new modification of the new activities
successfully entertained and increased the students motivation and interests in
participating in every activity. The improvements were also occurred on the
students level of speaking fluency. Their utterances though still sometimes filled
with silent and pause fillers, there were no halting, fragmentary or even disjointed
utterances. The content of the message delivered successfully made the utterances
produced understandable easily by the listener. Though still hesitant, some
students gained in normal speed while the other students expertly gained fast
speed in speaking. It can be seen by the researcher when the students had
teamwork activities that led them into exchanging ideas, questioning, responding
and answering question. Another improvements made by the students that got the
researchers attention was the students sometimes reminded the lecturer about the
given homework and also when the students presented their ideas before the
lecturer had to point them one by one. It means that the class situation had
changed into better situation than happened in the previous cycle.
Table of speaking fluency score comparison between postest 1 and postest 2
FLUENCY MEASUREMENT
NAME
ATIKA
CATUR
DIDIN
ENDANG
GESIT
LARAS
MILA
NURITA
RIFKI
YULI
MEAN
SCORE
Speech Rate
(syl/min)
Articulation
rate
(syl/min)
Phonation
time ratio
(%)
I
150.01
82.84
111.96
121.79
70.77
60.75
172.83
132.62
87.19
131.89
II
146.63
142.83
172.72
128.41
114.47
166.91
227.73
183.07
170.83
181.60
I
223.71
148.49
182.87
206.60
174.95
211.69
236.36
247.43
193.18
193.30
II
202.12
208.19
224.10
219.67
188.39
244.92
273.01
269.19
213.77
216.38
I
72.03
61.84
69.88
64.12
43.94
30.12
77.23
56.78
49.97
74.98
II
75.75
71.81
79.63
62.49
61.69
44.61
85.73
70.78
80.76
84.00
112.27
163.82
199.16 225.97
59.79
71.73 28.28
13
I
0.50
0.84
0.53
0.80
1.15
2.22
0.69
0.78
0.90
0.62
II
0.43
0.53
0.45
0.58
0.66
0.77
0.45
0.49
0.39
0.35
TN of
Pause
Filler
(PF/min)
I
II
11.11 5.98
8.99 6.67
14.20 4.85
10.97 8.88
5.69 1.75
3.02 3.44
11.41 6.01
9.26 7.71
3.53 1.81
14.45 5.58
31.21 0.90
0.51
9.26
TN Silent of
Pause
(sp/min)
I
33.34
27.36
34.41
26.84
29.28
18.87
19.86
33.22
35.35
24.24
II
33.91
32.03
26.88
38.77
35.04
43.01
19.00
30.65
29.83
22.93
MLP
(s/p)
5.27
TN Dysfluency
(dys/min)
I
14.29
1349
24.58
14.14
10.57
7.54
17.34
6.54
2.95
9.79
II
6.98
6.67
15.86
14.54
7.01
14.63
5.07
3.85
2.71
5.58
7.93
8.29
14
15
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