6

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter deals with some previous related findings, some pertinent
ideas, and theoretical framework.
A. Some Previous Related Findings
Brown and Yule in Zaim (2008) stated that one of the main aims of most
English teachers is to make their students able to communicate and convey
information effectively in spoken English. Besides, the teachers should create
active learning condition and develop their techniques. They should attend factor
of sex differences of their students. The sex differences factor can not be ignored
in learning language, because it can affect the students achievement and
proficiency in learning.
Kitchenham (2002) stated that achievement differences between genders
could be reducing through sound pedagogical strategies for instance, altering
between group discussion and structured instruction to accommodate different
learning needs for both genders.
Small group discussion or working in small groups has been shown to
improve the student understanding, retention of material, and problem solving
abilities. She further says that small group discussion can be applied not only for
speaking class, but also used in all language skills (Allen 2001).
Yusuf (2003) on his research concludes that a small group discussion is an
effective way to activate the student to speak English because it can provide more
7

opportunities for all students to speak English. He further states that student have
positive attitude toward the use of small group discussion in activating the student
to speak English.
Gurian,Clarke, in Fox (2008) stated one approach to help to brigde the
gender gap in student achievement is to group the same gender togather and or
have single-sex classroom.
From the previous related findings above, the researcher concludes that
there is a difference among the researches above and this research. The researcher
is interested to conduct a research through small group discussion based on gender
to improve the students speaking ability in reducing the difference of
achievement between male and female students.
B. Some Pertinent Ideas
1. Speaking
a. Definition of Speaking
Speaking is one of the skills that have to be mastered by students in learning
English. It is important to know the definition of speaking. Many experts define
speaking in different ways. Brown and Yule stated in their book. Speaking is to
express the needsrequest, information, service, etc.The speakers say words to
the listener not only to express what in her mind but also to express what he needs
whether information service. Most people might spend of their everyday life in
communicating with other. Revell defines communication as follow:
Communication, of ideas, of opinions, of feeling. Therefore, communication
8

involves at least two people where both sender and receiver need to communicate
to exchange information, ideas, opinions, views, or feelings.
Meanwhile, Jones stated, Speaking is a form of communication. We can
say that the speaker must consider the person they are talking to as listeners. The
activity that the person does primary based on particular goal. So, it is important
that everything we wants to say is conveyed in an effective way, because speaking
is not only producing sounds but also a process of achieving goals that involves
transferring messages across. Jone said, How you say something can be
important as what you say in getting your meaning across. Therefore, speaking
process should pay attention to want and how to say as well as to whom
appropriately.
Beside, Chastain (1976:334) stated that speaking is a productive skill. As
such, its development is undertaken after the receptive skill of listening
comprehension, and perhaps of reading and is always somewhat behind that
receptive skill. How far the productive skill language behind the receptive
depends upon the learner, how far has advance in his language learning and
linguistics.
b. Categories of Speaking
Gamber and Walter in Asmawati (2007:6) classify speaking into two
categories:
1) Speaking informatively
By informatively speaking we mean speaking appropriate to situation in
which the audience is not hostel in the speaker idea. An informatively speech
9

gives an audience more information about something than they already have. It
can update and add to their knowledge. Define their understanding or provide
background material. There are basic type of information presentation speech that
explain a process, describe person, place thing or define a term.
In order to be effective an informational speaker needs to accomplish four
tasks:
a) Make a listener wants to learn more about the topic.
b) Communicate the material clearly and understandly and not over
load the listener with information.
c) Stress the key points.
d) Find the way to involve the members of the audience in the
presentation.
2) Speaking persuasively
Persuasive speaking is appropriate to situation in which the speaker whishes
to change the attitude believe, values or behaviour of an audience. The goal of
persuasive speech is modify the true feelings and action of an audiences. To be an
effective persuasive speaker, you need first to identify your persuasive goal and
learn about general opinion of your specific purposal is likely to be source
credibilty what the audience think of you.
c. Activities to Promote Speaking Skill
There are some activities that can be used to promote speaking skill based
on Kayi (2006:2). They are :

10

1) Discussions
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons.
The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find
solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the
purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the students do
not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. For example,
students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of
discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each
group, and provide controversial sentences like people learn best when they read
vs. people learn best when they travel. Then each group works on their topic for
a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. At the end, the class
decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way. This activity
fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to
express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others.
For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups,
because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups. The group
members can be either assigned by the teacher or the students may determine it by
themselves, but groups should be rearranged in every discussion activity so that
students can work with various people and learn to be open to different ideas.
Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should
always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check
for clarification, and so on.

11

2) Role Play
One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend
they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play
activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and
what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David,
you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and" (Harmer,
1984).
3) Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations
different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students
can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a
student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays
and simulations have many advantages.
First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students. Second, as
Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant students,
because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and
do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the
same responsibility.
4) Information Gap
In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student
will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will
share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as
solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important
12

role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the
information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has
the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language.
5) Brainstorming
On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending
on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners
generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming are
that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to
sharing new ideas.
6) Storytelling
Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody
beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story
telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format
of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a
story has to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very
beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short
riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address
students speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class.
7) Interviews
Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is
a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what
type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare
their own interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a
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chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and
helps them becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or
her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and
"introduce" his or her partner to the class.
8) Story Completion
This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which
students sits in a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a
few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from
the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from
four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so
on.
9) Reporting
Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine
and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting
news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth
telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
10) Playing Cards
In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a
topic. Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-
5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group.
However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that
students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no
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students get little practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask
open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.
11) Picture Narrating
This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to
tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the
criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or
structures they need to use while narrating.
12) Picture Describing
Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give
students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For
this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture.
Students discuss the picture with their groups, and then a spokesperson for each
group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity
and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills.
13) Find the Differences
For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two
different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another
picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or
differences in the pictures.
d. The Elements of Speaking
Chastain (1976:338) classify the elements of speaking into three categories :
1) Pronounciation
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Perhaps to much attention has been given to proper pronounciation. Many
students will not able to make all the sound, especially at the first and constans
correction may discourage them. In addition, perfect pronounciation of all souds is
not necessary in order to communicate. It is quate common to communicate well
with someone who has a noticeable accent. The goal should realistically, be the
abilty to talk successfully with a native, not have a native accent.
2) Vocabulary
Obviously, vocabulary is learned by means of receptive skills. Productive
skills are not efficient means of lerning words, but they are beneficial for practice
in using them to point out at which they are really available in the learners active
vocabulary. Acquring words is not the only problem in vocabulary building. The
learner also labors under the necessity of remembering the words previously new
words (Chastain 1976:340).
3) Grammar
Chastain (1976:340) states that at various grammar has been almost an
unmetional in second language education. Few people wanted to talk about it;
some pretended it didt exist. The difficulties associated with teaching grammar
will not dissapear by ignoring the problem, since grammar is inherent in the
language skill being learned.
e. Characteristics of a Successful Speaking
Ur (1996:120) classified some characteristics of a successful speaking
activity as follows:
1) Learners talk a lot
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As much as possible of the period of time alloted to the activity is in fact
occupied by learner talk. This is may seem obvious, but often most time is taken
up with teacher talk or pauses.
2) Participation in even
A minority or talk active participants does not dominate discussion: all get a
chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed.
3) Motivation is high
Learners are easier to speak, because they are interested In the topic and
have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to
achieving a task objective.
4) Language is of an acceptable level
Learners express themselves in utterance that is relevant, easly
comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy.
f. The Prinsiples of Teaching Speaking
Burn and Joyce (1997:50) write there are some general principles for the
teaching of speaking, Those are :
1) Learners need to understand the cultural and social puposes of spoken
interaction, which may be broadly classified as transactional or
interaction.
2) Speaking involves an understanding of the way in which context
influences the choices of the language made.
3) Speaking involves that spoken text in their grammatical patterns and
discource strategies.
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4) Speaking activities should focus on whole texts in context rather than
on sentence level gramatical construction in isolation.
5) Learning and practicing vocabulary, grammatical structures and
pronounciation should be related to context and lead to the use of
whole text.
2. Small Group Discussion Based on Gender
a. Definition of Small Group Discussion
Small group is a generic term conveying a multiplicity of techniques in
which two or more students are assigned a task that involvescollaboration and
self-initiated language. Note that we call pair work is a simply small group in two.
Small group itself, according to Baker (1987:159), is three or more people
interacting face to face, with or without an assigned leader in such a way that each
person influences, and is influenced by another person in the group. Johnson
(1975:78) gives solution that students should be arranged so that each student can
see all other members of his group and can be heard without shouting and
disturbing the other groups.
Small group discussion force student to take the activity role. Most teacher
should give student good amount predigested knowledge. Small group must be
stimulating, provocative, and existing the student. The teacher is not present the
answer not give the answer, and reward good thinking not just right answer
(Allen, 2001).
In a small group discussion, teacher divides class into some groups and they
are given a topic to discuss. Every group there will be four to five students. Every
18

student in each group must participate by giving his/her idea and opinion about
the topic.
Discussion in small group is an activity which is stimulate the student to
speak and as media to express their idea, opinion and point of view. Therefore, the
teacher should give a topic to be discussed by the student. The topic must interest
and have strong differences so that it will be responded differently by each group.
Some students or a few groups will agree and other will disagree. At the end of
this activity, the teacher explains some important things related to the topic talk
about.
b. The Advantage of Small Group Discussion
Some researchers have found the advantage of small group discussion.
Brown (1994) states that small group discussion provides opportunities for
students initiation, for face to face give and take, for practice in negotiation of
meaning, for extended conversational exchange, and for students adoption of rules
that otherwise be possible. He also states that he has seen the magic of small
group. Quite becomes a community of learners to cooperate each other in pursuit
common goals.
While Gilstrap and Martin (1975:18) in Yusuf (2003) state the advantage of
small group discussion as follows:
1) It frees the teacher to assume additional helping role within the class,
such as that of a silent recorder at the board or as a participant in
group discussion.
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2) It involves students directly in process of learning as they serve as
participant, group larders, and frames of discussion question.
3) It can provide opportunities for all students to participate, particularly
if the discussion is carried on in a smlall group.
4) It may cause participants in a discussion to again self confidence.
5) It arges students to learn and practice intellectual process such as
organizing fact, asking discerning question, and thinking reflectively
on relationships within and among personal ideas, the ideas of other
and the realities of the situation.
c. Definition of Gender
Gender has become a famous issue in social research. It is, therefore,
necessary to be observed in relation with the education in which it might influence
the education. Firstly, it is better to contrast between gender and sex. Sex refers to
the biological and psychological characteristics that define boys and girls or men
and women, whereas gender refers to socially constructed roles, behavior,
activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and
women.
Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary (2008) states that gender is the fact of
being male or female: issues of class, race and gender; each of classes (masculine,
feminine, and sometimes neuter) into which nouns, pronouns and adjectives are
divided; the division of nouns and adjectives into these differences genders.
Meanwhile sex is defined as the state of being male and female. Moreover, Coates
in Irawati (2008) states that gender is the term used to describe socially
20

constructed based on sex. Most societies operate in terms of two genders,
masculine and feminine, and it is tempting to treat the category of gender as a
simple binary opposition.
From the explanation above, the researcher limited this terms that gender
here only supposed to be male and female.
1) Definition of male and female
Based on the explanation of gender and sex above, we are going to the
definition of male and female to the Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary (2008)
as follow :
a) Male is belonging to the sex that does not give birth to babies; a male
person (p.894)
b) Female is being a woman or a girl; of the sex that can lay eggs or give
birth to babies; of woman; typical of woman; affecting woman (p.542)
The pasific College Dictionary defines male and female for the following:
a) Male is designing or of the sex that fertilizes the ovum of the female
and begets offspring (p.455)
b) Female is designing of the sex that produce ova and bears offspring
(p.277)
d. Small Group Discussion Based on Gender
Male and female students are different in speaking caused by their ability
and learning style. Myer in Zaim (2008) states that there are some differences
between what boys do and what girls do in organizing the component of speaking
in communication where the girl are superior in verbal ability, the use of sentence,
21

and variety of words. Girls are usually are better than boys in verbal fluency. Girls
also speak more clearly, read earlier, and consistently better than boys in test of
grammar and spelling.
Furthermore, Sunderland in Zaim (2008) stated that, when learning a new
language, male and female take different ways. Males tend to favor objectivity.
They have tendency to learn the rules, facts and logic of the language they are
learning. Females, in learning a new language are usually subjective. They put the
priority in using their feeling, cultural sensitivity and empathy.
At school, generally, the students are grouped in mix gender group. So,
there is no special concideration of the gender background related to the theories
above. In some condition, teachers often fail to appreciate the important difference
gender makes in learning, especially when student are in mixed-gender classroom
(Sadker,2002; Zittleman&Sadker, 2003). Meanwhile, Brown and Yule (1983:103)
say that one of the main aims of most English teachers is to make their students
able to communicate and convey information effectively in spoken English.
Besides, the teachers should create active learning condition and develop their
techniques. They should attend factor of sex differences of their students. The sex
differences factor can not be ignored in learning language, because it can affect
the students achievement and proficiency in learning. So, an English teacher
should create active learning condition and develop their techique to help learners
speaking more effectively by considering suitable activities for each group of
learners.
22

Achievement differences between genders could be reducing through sound
pedagogical strategies (Kitchenham, 2002); for instance, altering between group
discussion and structured instruction to accommodate different learning needs for
both genders. So, in this research the researcher take small group discussion as
alternative method to reduce this problem. Some researchers have found that it
can improve the students achievement. And the researcher believes that small
group discussion based on gender is the best way to solve the difference of
achievement between genders. It is link to Gurian,Clarke, in Fox (2008) stated one
approach to help to brigde the gender gap in student achievement is to group the
same gender togather and or have single-sex classroom.
In small group discussion based on gender, the researcher divides the
student into groups based on their gender called same gender group. So, there will
be two main composition groups, they are male and female groups. And each
group consists of four or five members. The group will be given topic to be
discussed in the classroom. Every student in each group must participate by
giving his/her idea and opinion about the topic. Meanwhile, the researcher
observes the student as long as the small group discussion based on gender runs to
know the ability of the students in speaking English.
C. Resume
Small group discussion based on gender is a good activity to encourage the
student to share ideas and help them to be more communicative and make the
class more active and dynamic in reducing difference achievement between
gender. The student get a better opportunity to clarify their concept and check
23

their understanding. Student also can express their thougth, construct arguments,
put reasonable question, analyze opinions, and discussion about topic by using
small group discussion based on gender.
D. Conceptual Framework
To clarify the description of this research, the reseacher presents theoretical
framework as follow.







Hypothesis

E. Hyphothesis
Based on the theoretical framework, the reseacher formulates hyphothesis as
follow:
1. The null hypothesis (H0): Small group discussion based on gender is
not effective to improve the students ability in speaking English.
2. The alternative hypothesis (H1): Small group discussion based on
gender is effective to improve the students ability in speaking English.
INPUT
PROCESS
OUTPUT
Small Group
Discussion
Based on
Gender
Using Small
Group
Discussion
Based on
Gender

Students
achievement
Teachers
instruction

Classroom
interaction
Students
participation