THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TALKING STICK STRATEGY TO

IMPROVE THE STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN SPEAKING

AT GRADE XI SMA NEGERI 1 AEK KUASAN
IN 2014/2015 SCHOOL YEAR
BY. ELVIANA

Abstract
This research deals with the implementation of Talking Stick Strategy to
improve the students achievement in speaking. The objective of the research is to
know the effectiveness of Talking Stick Strategy in improving students
achievement in speaking. This research was conducted from January until
February 2015. The research was conducted at grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek Kuasan
in 2014/2015 School Year. There were four parallel classes consist of 152
students. In reflecting the sample, the researcher took one class consisting of 36
students as the sample of the research, so XI IPA 2 was chosen as the subject of
the research, because the speaking skill of the class was low. The design of this
research was done in Classroom Action Research (CAR). The data were collected
by implementing a test related to descriptive text. The result indicates that the
implementation of Talking Stick Strategy is satisfactory with thirty students
passed in test and only six students failed in test. Therefore, the students of SMA
Negeri 1 Aek Kuasan are categorized able.

Abstrak
Penelitian ini berkaitan dengan pelaksanaan Strategi Talking Stick untuk
meningkatkan prestasi siswa dalam berbicara. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah
untuk mengetahui efektivitas Talking Stick Strategi dalam meningkatkan prestasi
siswa dalam berbahasa. Penelitian ini dilakukan dari bulan Januari sampai
Februari 2015. Penelitian ini dilakukan di kelas XI SMAN 1 Aek Kuasan di
Tahun Ajaran 2014/ 2015. Ada empat kelas paralel terdiri dari 152 siswa. Dalam
merefleksikan sampel, peneliti mengambil satu kelas yang terdiri dari 36 siswa
sebagai sampel penelitian, sehingga XI IPA 2 dipilih sebagai subyek penelitian,
karena keterampilan berbicara kelas rendah. Desain penelitian ini dilakukan di
Penelitian Tindakan Kelas (PTK). Data dikumpulkan dengan menerapkan tes
yang berhubungan dengan teks deskriptif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa
pelaksanaan Talking Stick Strategi memuaskan dengan tiga puluh siswa lulus
dalam ujian dan hanya enam siswa yang gagal dalam ujian. Oleh karena itu, siswa
dari SMA Negeri 1 Aek Kuasan dikategorikan mampu.

1. Background
Speaking is one of difficult English skill for the students. The students
sometimes face many problems in learning speaking because many factors such as
shy to speak, have low motivation, have less self confidence, afraid of making
mistakes and etc. They sometimes understand about the topic or material but they
are difficult to share and express their idea to others. Therefore, it is important to
focus the teachers intention on the improvement to stimulate the students to
speak. For this purpose, active learning will be demanded. This problem actually
is a matter of teaching strategy that should be conducted by the teachers. The
students are very hard to speak because they mostly less ideas to express. So, the
teachers have to find out a special teaching strategy to facility the
students to solving their problems. Based on this statement, the researcher chooses
the Cooperative Learning Type Talking Stick Strategy to make the students
become active and improve their speaking ability.
Cooperative learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use
of cooperative activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in classroom.
Cooperative learning, like collaborative learning, entail small group working on
specific task. This model is allowed the interaction and transaction among the
student in the learning process that meets the rules of view of constructivist.
According to Noparat (2007) learning with cooperative strategy is proved very
effective in improving relationships between students. In practice the work of
cooperative learning team is systematically structure. So that, there is a positive
interdependence among the members in the groups. In group, the members feel
that they work together for emphasizes that in a well-functioning cooperative
group there is a sense of join responsibility where learners care about and get
committed together.
Noparat (2007) in www.philselflsupport.com/Workingingroup, state the
result of teaching English in some of the Junior High School and Senior High
School at South-East Asia, especially in speaking, it is still consider
unsatisfactory. The students still have very poor ability to use English for oral
communication. Based on the explanation above, the researcher doing the
interview and observation with Englishs teacher at Grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek
Kuasan, Mrs. Ummu Sri Maimunah, S. Pd. Actually she said that the students still
have low achievement in speaking and the result of their test still low in mark 55
to 65, while the complete criteria minimally is 75.
Researcher formulates the research question as follow: Is the
implementation of talking stick strategy effective to improve the students
achievement in speaking at grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek Kuasan in 2014-2015
School Year? In relating to the problem statements above, the objectives of the
study are to find out: The effectiveness of Talking Stick Strategy in improving
students achievement in speaking at Grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek Kuasan in 2014-
2015 school year.
Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested to present a
speaking teaching strategy to senior high school students. The teaching strategy is
about : The Implementation of Talking Stick Strategy to Improve the Students
Achievement in Speaking at Grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek Kuasan in 2014-2015
School Year.

2. The Review of Related Literature

Broom (2000) states that speaking is the vehicle of social solidarity, of
social making of professional achievement and of business. It is through their way
of speaking that people are most frequently judged. Traditional classroom
speaking practice often takes the form of drills in which one person asks a
question and another gives an answer. The question and the answer are structured
and predictable, and often there is one correct, predetermined answer. The
purpose of asking and answering the question is to demonstrate the ability to ask
and answer the question.
The goal of teaching speaking skill is communicative efficiency. The
students should be able to make themselves understood, using their current
proficiency to the fullest. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due
to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and
cultural rules that apply in each communication situation. To help students
develop communicative efficiency in speaking, the teachers use a balanced
activities approach that combines language input, structure output, and
communicative output ( Burkart: 2008).
Based on Burkart (2002 ) any some elements of speaking there are :
1. Accuracy
2. Fluency
Effective teachers teach the students speaking strategy using minimal
responses, recognizing scripts, and using language to talk about language that they
can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and their
confidence in using it. Robert Lado (2010) defines cooperative learning is one of
the learning strategy where student are engaged in groups when they receive
material from a teacher or do their task or assignment. Cooperative learning is an
strategy to organizing classroom activities into academic and social learning
experience. Student must in group to complete the two sets of task collectively.
Everyone succeeds when group succeeds.
According to Istarani, there some techniques used by the teachers in the
process of learning using talking stick such as:
1. Divide the students into a group in five.
2. Teacher prepares the stick (around 20 cm).
3. Teacher states the material and gives the students a chance to read and to
understand the material on their book.
4. Students discuss the material on group.
5. After they read the material, students have to close their book.
6. Teacher gives the stick to one member, then gives a question related with the
material.
7. The students who get the stick have to answer the question. The stick is passed
until all the students get the rank to answer the questions.
8. The other students may help if their members get difficulty to answer the
questions.
9. Teacher makes a conclusion.

3. Method
The location of this research was conducted at Grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek
Kuasan in 2014-2015 School Year. The researcher chooses the location because
researcher found the students speaking achievement is still low, besides that no
one has ever conducted a study with the same title at the school. The population of
this research was takes at Grade XI of SMAN 1 Aek Kuasan in 2014-2015 School
Year. Because this research design in Classroom Action Research, the researcher
takes class XI IPA 2 which have 36 students consist of 25 female and 11 male
students.
This study was conducted in Classroom Action Research. The design of
classroom action research uses in this study is a cyclical process adapted from the
model by Arikunto, Suharsimi. It consisted of four main steps, namely: planning,
action, observation, and reflection. Classroom action research is a problem
solving activity that starts from : a) Planning ( planning ); b) Implementation (
action ); c) Observation ( observing ) and d) to analyze data / information to
decide the extent to which strengths or weaknesses of these measures (reflecting ).
The stages of action of each cycle to be carried out by researchers are as
follow :
Cycle I
1. Planning
- Prepare lesson plans.
- Defining collaboration with peers as a research partner.
- Designing observation sheets for students.
- Designing for teacher observation sheet.
- Preparing the student worksheets and answer keys.
- Designing a formative test and answer keys.
- Preparing the enquette.
2. Action
- Teachers prepare the necessary props.
- Teachers held a presence on student attendance.
- Teacher explains to students about the patterns of cooperation among
students in a group.
- Teachers prepare teaching materials to do the group.
- Teachers provide pre-test to students about the material that will be taught.
- The teacher briefly explains the new material.
3. Observation
- Observation of the student :
- Supplies of equipment students.
- Attention to the way teachers explain the lesson material.
- Cooperation in the group.
- Facilities and Infrastructure
- Class a fun situation.
- Structuring student seating.
- The textbooks that support.
- Tools necessary props.
4. Reflection
Reflection is a step to analyze the students work. The analysis was performed
to measure both the strengths and weaknesses contained in Cycle I, then
discuss the results of the analysis in collaboration to improve the
implementation of Cycle II.

Cycle II
1. Planning
- Identify the problem and formulating the problem based on reflection on
the Cycle I.
- Determining back collaboration with peers as partners research.
- Designing observation sheets for students.
- Designing for teacher observation sheet.
- Designing returning student worksheets.
- Designing formative pre-test.
2. Action
- The teacher prepares the necessary props back.
- The teacher held a presence back on student attendance.
- The teacher held a question and answer that lead to the subject matter.
- Teacher redistributes student worksheet (LKS) for the trimmed individual.
- The teacher can provide assistance on an individual basis if there was a
mistake experienced the students.
- The teacher gives a score to the results of a successful group work brilliant
seen as less successful in solving task.
- The teacher provides materials briefly before giving assignments.
- Teachers conduct small tests based on the fact obtained by the students.
3. Observation
Observation of the student :
- Supplies of equipment students.
- Attention to the teacher explaining the subject matter.
- Facilities and Infrastructure
- Class a fun situation.
- Structuring student seating.
- The textbooks that support.
- Tools necessary props.
4. Reflection
Analyze again to obtain conclusions about the class action that action that has
been done. It is expected that by the end of Cycle II, the ability to speak can
be improved.
The data in the study sourced from the interaction of teachers and students
in learning and from of action learning of data generated from the act of teaching.
Data collecting will be done by; test, and observation.
4. Data Analysis
The data in the first cycle and the second cycle tell that Talking Stick
Strategy can improve the students speaking skills because the strategy give the
students opportunity to speak in speaking class with their members group and
another group. In the fact, in the first cycle the students cannot be able to reach the
criteria of success because they seldom practice speaking in the class due to lack
of confidence with their skills. In the second cycle the students speaking skills
better than the first cycle and they can use English as a tool of communication and
their pronunciation was better.
 Talking Stick Strategy is a cooperative learning strategy that is effective in
changing the discourse pattern in classroom. It challenges the assumption that all
recitations or discussions need to be held in whole group settings, and it has been
built in procedures for giving students more time to think, respond, and to help
each other. Besides, it encourages individual participation and it is applicable
across all grade levels and class sizes in addition to be helpful in organizing
students knowledge and motivating in learning new topics. As one of the
cooperating learning strategies, Talking Stick Strategy encourages the students to
work collaboratively faster and more efficiently. Have greater retention and feel
more positive about the learning experience.
The result of the research in implementation of using Talking Stick
Strategy in class indicated that there was an increase in student average scores, in
the first quiz, there were the students averages values about 72,77% where fifteen
students got 75 or more and twenty one students got the score less 75, in the
second quiz, there were the students average values about 82,72% where only six
students did not reach the criteria of success, and there were thirty students
reached the criteria of success.
The result of the study using Talking Stick Strategy showed that the
students speaking skills increased. The number of students shared, asked, answer
question, and remember some words increased. This occurred since the technique
encouraged students to share ideas, asking questions as well as answering
questions between groups. Thus, simultaneous interactions between groups and
among class were apparent.
The success of the implementation of Talking Stick Strategy that has been
proven to improve the students listening as well as enhancing student participation
in term of sharing ideas, asking, answering the questions, and making descriptive
text was closely related to the role of the teacher. The teacher did not only involve
in designing lesson plan, preparing the materials as well as the media but also in
developing the procedures of Talking Stick Strategy that ultimately resulted in the
increase of the student speaking scores and participation. Thus, the teacher role
was definitely crucial for the successful implementation of the strategy. It was
proven when the teacher developed the Talking Stick Strategy.

5. Conclusions and Suggestions

The conclusions of the data study are :
1. In preliminary study, quantitatively, only fifteen students got a good score
and reached the criteria of success. Qualitatively, the students speaking
skills in descriptive text are unsatisfactory, most of the students cannot
speaking English well.
2. In cycle 1, quantitatively there were only 72,77% in which 15 students got
75 and 21 students got 75. This cycle still did not reach the criteria of
success yet, in other word, the research was still being continued to the
next cycle. Qualitatively, the students speaking skills have improved,
many students wants to share their ideas and show their performance in
front of class by using descriptive text.
 3. In cycle 2, quantitatively, the students score in practice speaking as well
as the students speaking skills, especially in descriptive text has improved.
There were 82,72% in which 30 students got 75 and 6 students got
75. In this cycle, the criteria of success have already reached or in other
word, the research is success and did not need to continue to the next
cycle. Qualitatively, most of students were active in the class using
Talking Stick Strategy in terms of sharing ideas, answering questions, and
making a descriptive text. In addition, the students opinion toward the
implementation of Talking Stick Strategy were positive.
4. By using Talking Stick Strategy especially on speaking, learning
achievement at grade XI SMA Negeri 1 Aek Kuasan can be improved.

There are some suggestions to offer to the English teachers and the
students based on the research findings and discussion. Based on the advantages
of using the Talking Stick Strategy in students speaking skills at SMA N1 Aek
Kuasan at grade XI in 2014/2015 school year, the researcher would like to give
some suggestions to be considered by English teachers and students as follows :
1. The Talking Stick Strategy is good used in training the students thought as
well. Thereafter, the talking stick strategy emphasize on increasing of the
power of students mind, the power of the students critical, the power of
students imagination and the power of analysis toward the problem. Based
on the effectiveness the implementation of the Talking Stick Strategy in
the teaching speaking and improving students learning motivation,
particularly in sharing ideas, answer question, and making a descriptive
text and also can be complete sentences, it is suggested that the English
teacher implement the strategy as an alternative strategy in English
instruction in addition to other strategies and create the student-center
instruction.
2. The Talking Stick Strategy increasing the cooperative between the student
because they are formed in group, it in increases the students skills
convey the opinion as implementation of the knowledge, and it increase
the students skills in speaking and appreciate the other opinion. Not only
that, it can increases the power of students mind, the power of students
critical, the power of students imagination and the power of analysis
toward the problem. And it recommended that the students employ
Talking Stick Strategy as a learning strategy to practice their speaking.
3. To motivate students learning activeness need for an appropriate learning
strategies, so that the process of teaching and learning activities to be
more variations and no monotonous.
4. The teacher more enables to enhance the children knowledge when
finished the discussion. And it can be used by other researchers to explore
more about strategy to improve the students speaking skills.

6. References
Broom, Martin. 2000. Teaching and Researching Speaking. London. Longman.
Burkart, Grace Stovall.2008. Spoken language: What it is and how to teach it.
http://www.nclrc.org/speaking.htm. Accessed on October 17th 2014.

Lado, Robert. 2003. Improving Speaking Skill. http://www.selfknowlegde.com.

Accessed on October 13th 2014.

Noparat.2007. Working in Group. www.Philselfsupported.com. Accessed on

November 2nd 2014.