IMPROVING THE STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH ROLE PLAY METHOD

Abstract

This research highlights the speaking ability of the students of SMA Negeri 3 Parepare. The students were taught through role play method to know the improvement of the students' speaking ability. The data were collected in 2012 by applying quasi-experimental method in which two groups were involved in pre-test and post-test. The research consisted of 43 students from two classes. The finding shows that the students' speaking skill improved significantly. It was shown by the mean score of pre-test was 49.34 and the post-test was 71.304. The result of t-test value in post-test 1.868 was higher than t-table value 1.684. It indicates that H 1 was accepted and H 0 was rejected and the students who were taught through role play method performed better than the students who were taught through conventional method. INTRODUCTION After doing a pre-observation at the tenth year students of SMA Negeri 3 Parepare, the researcher found that the students' speaking performance was still low. The average score of the students' speaking was 55, while the minimum standard of school score is 70. Instead of the average score, the students' score was also classified as poor score if compared to the clasification score by Dinas Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah. It was caused by several factors such as the influence of their native language or colloquial language, lack of motivation to practice English, the strategy, material, medium, and method in teaching speaking. This phenomenon drove the researcher to focus on speaking skill. The researcher tried to apply role play method from many available methods. Moreover, there are many research findings proving that this method is effective to use in teaching speaking. Role play is different from other methods in dialogue, where the students have to memorize the words or sentences that are given to them then formulating sentences in dialogue by using the words given. In role play, the students are given topics or situations to choose, otherwise they may choose a particular topics or situations by themselves. They are free to improvise the particular topic or situation and to improvise their performance by using useful expressions given by the teacher. From above mentioned rationales, the researcher tried to find out to what extent the use of role play method can improve the speaking ability of the tenth year students of SMA Negeri 3 Parepare.