IMPROVING STUDENT’S SPEAKING SKILL

Serba Serbi Pendidikan -- People as human being cannot live alone in the world without someone else. They need one another and cooperate with other to fulfill the necessity of their life. In order to realize a good cooperation, they need a means of communication called a language to express their ideas and wishes in this world. English has been considering as an international language. It becomes the language of international communication. People use language to communicate and interact with each other in daily activity. English as one of international language has become a lingua franca, even though it is not the language with the larger member of native speaker. Lingua franca can be defined ’’as language widely adopted for communication between two speaker whose native speaker language are different from each other’s and where one or two speakers are using it is a second language.3As defined by John B. Carrol (1992) cited by Ramelan :

Language is arbitrary system of speech sounds or sequences of speech pounds which are used in interpersonal communication by an aggregation of human being, and which rather exhaustively catalogs things, process and events in the human environment.

From the definition above, language can draw some characteristics of human language, among others that language is systematic, arbitrary, social and complete. Language is systematic it means that it implies orderly arrangement of the signaling units used by language. Language is arbitrary, which means thatalways use language for communication with other language. Language is social, which means that it is only used in social group which involves at least two people, the speaker and the hearer. Language is also complete, which means that human language is not limited to biological needs like animal. As Allah said in verse Al-Hujurat 13:

‘’Mankind….! We are created you from single (pair) of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise (each other)) verily the most honored of you I the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Al-Hujurat: 13)’’

From the verse in above, our God said that we created from single pair. Although different betweens nations and tribes. But we can from one. It is mean that we can know each other and there are not differences between each other. We have same destinations to pray our God, to created peaceful, and maintain the relationships to each other.

Since 1994, in Indonesia English has been taught for the students in Elementary school as a primary context. The objective of teaching English in elementary school is that the students have ability as the following:

1.    To develop their communication competence orally in language accompanying action in the school context.

2.    To motivate the students about the meaning and the importance of English community.

Now, the government implements program that English is taught at elementary school because the students are expected to have skill for listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In elementary with emphasizes on the mastery of speaking skill for communication using selected topics related to the environmental needs. Kasihani state that ‘’ English is necessity to be added in the learning programs as a local content subject of the study.8 The objective of learning English at elementary school is to improve students’ motivation to learning English in the school.

Learning foreign language is different from learning the first language, even for children at the young end of our age range, because the young learners already learned the first language in their surroundings and it has different patterns within foreign language.

In addition to developing a lifelong ability to communicate with more people in foreign language, children may derive some advantages for learning a foreign language. There are some advantages for children in learning a foreign language early:

1.    Children are more creative and better solving complex problems.

2.    Children are more likely to have native- like pronunciation.

3.    Children are improving their skills in global communication.

In basic way they can string some sentences together, construct a simple story, or take part in simple spoken.10 The fifth grades of elementary students in Indonesia are children in the age of ten years old. Some people believe that children seem to pick up new language effortlessly because of their brain can easily acquire language unconsciously. Therefore some parents have been taught English to their children since in the kindergarten.

Speaking is used for many different purposes, and each purpose involves different skill. When we use casual conversation, for example, our purposes may be to make social contact to with people, to establish rapport, or to engage in the harmless chitchat that occupies much of the time we spend with friends. Speaking is one of the central elements of communication. In EFL teaching, it is an aspect that needs special attention and instruction.

Speaking activities are important parts any young learner's ESL and EFL classroom and are often considered the focal point of instruction. When teaching speaking, it is especially important to select activities with match the objectives of your program. Speaking is second language is often viewed as important thing of the four skills, because it can indicate how far the students master a certain language.

However, some language learners are usually afraid of using the target language. Most of their reasons are shyness or afraid of doing grammatical errors. Based on the consideration above, the writer chooses a fishbowl technique to improve students speaking skill, because she thinks that it can motivate them to speak more, enrich their vocabulary, and also encourage them to work in group.

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