1

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

In this present-day, education is considered as the most important part of human

life for getting many knowledge and experiences as the human society. Veithzal (2008)

said that education is a process to gain knowledge also developing ability and skill. Of

the 4000 to 5000 language that exist, the most used language in the world by far is

English.

As an international language, English applied early in elementary school to

make sure students get used to English language learning. Language is a very deep

political issue because it’s bound with identity and power says Harmer (1998:4).

English sometimes get in a conflict with a local languages, such as Welsh in Wales, or

French in parts of French-speaking Canada, because of the consequences of lingua

franca status. Brown (2000:5) states that, “language is a system of arbitrary

conventionalized vocal, written, or gestural symbols that enable member of a given

community to communicate intelligibly with one another.”

Role play is an act that let student to act as other person in a certain situation.

Role play can be performed individually, pairs, or even in groups. Role play brings

students into real-life situation or a scenario that has a lot of situation like “stressful,

complex, unfamiliar or controversial” that need a personal emotion toward the situation

as (Bonwell & Eison, 1991) said.1

Speaking is one of the important skills between the four-language skill (reading,

writing, listening and speaking). Speaking is used to communicate with others to deliver

1
Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. Washington, DC:
The George Washington University. P.47
 2

an opinion or to achieve certain goals. Speaking is the most frequently used English

skill, it used twice more than reading and writing in communication, just as Rivers

(1981) says.

Speaking in daily life is also as important as speaking in academic, as stated

above, role-playing bring students to a real-life situation, role play is different as

simulation or games that often planned, role play is usually short and spontaneous. It

brings student to a situation such as marketing situation which they act like buy certain

things with an unpredictable condition.2

This research is based on the students’ grade that surprisingly increase after the

implementation of role play technique applied. All students that have been interviewed

has a high grade in speaking skills. So, the researcher wonders if it’s caused by the role-

playing technique, or it is because another factor.

B. Research Question

Based on the background of study above, the problem that will be discuss in this

paper is about the implementation of role playing in teaching students’ English spiking

skill. Furthermore, the researcher formulates the problem as follows

1. Is the implementation of role playing has a good impact in students’ English-

speaking skill?

2. How is the best way to implementing role play so the can enhance their English-

speaking skill?

2
Shaimaa Abd El Fattah Torky, (2006) The Effectiveness of a Task- Based Instruction program in Developing
the English Language Speaking Skillsof Secondary Stage Students. Ain Shams University. P 21
 3

C. Objectives of Study

Related to the problem above, the researcher formulates the major objective of this

study as follows:

1. To recognize an impact of role playing in students English speaking skill

2. To find out the best kind of role playing that can enhance students English speaking

skill

D. Significance of Study

The significance of this research is expected to be useful for giving an

information for the English teacher in managing technique that is used to teach students’

English speaking skill. It is also hope that this will be useful for other schools or which

may have students with less English speaking skills throughout the implementation of

role play. Moreover , hopefully it can be a good reference for other English teacher to

choose the best strategies on enhancing students speaking skill in teaching process.

The researchers also hope that result of this research will give good impact to

the English education department because from knowing the English teacher strategies

in enhancing students speaking skill, the department also will have the reference

strategies in creating many great candidates of english teacher who are studying in

English education department in area of vocabulary teaching.

Furthermore, this research also hopes will be useful as the literature review for

any further research which have the similar research topic with this research.

E. Definition of Key Terms

There are three key term which are defined in this research by researcher. That

is the definiton of role play, students, speaking skill and English speaking skill.

1. Role Play
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Role play is an act, related to real-life situation or scenario that can be

stressful, unfamiliar, complex, or even controversial.

2. Students

Students means someone who learn English at SMKN 1 Banjarmasin

3. Speaking skill

Speaking skill is one of four language skill that is the most frequently

used to communicate with each other or to deliver an opinion.

4. English speaking skill

English speaking skill is a language skill that is used to communicate or

deliver an opinion in English language.

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CHAPTER II
THEORITICAL REVIEW
A. Definition of Role play

Role playing bring student's into outside of the accustomed role that he plays in life,

ignore his usual patterns of behavior to be able for fulfilling the role and patterns of that

he/she has given to. This other role can be from a real person or fictitious character. In the

opening of the dialogue, characters and situation were fictitious, but the action was

designed to represent was a modification of the real student behavior.3

The implementation of role play let student to play a role or act as another person in a

random situation. Role play bring students a real-life situation which can be a very stressful

situation, unfamiliar, complex, or even controversial situation. Different with simulation,

that often have a preparation or set up, role play usually short and spontaneous act.

B. Benefits of Role Playing

Role playing is effective if used in the classroom while meant to:

• Motivate and engage students

• Enhance teaching strategy

• Give a real-life scenario to help students learn

• Learn speaking skills in real-life situation (negotiation, debate, cooperation

teamwork, persuasion)

C. Importance in Developing a Role Play

Harbour and Connick (2005) provide helpful guideline to develop a role play, those

guidelines are:

3
Mark Chesler & Robert Fox (1966). Role-Playing Methods in the Classroom, Chicago, Science research
associates, p 17
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• If you want to use role play as a graded exercise, provide a small, non-graded role

play in an early and during semester to help student make a large role play which

will be assessed.

• Find out how the role play will be assessed; will observer give an assessment

rubric? Will the observer share the score with role players?

• Tell the student that the purpose of role play is to communicate, about a topic and

not focus on the actual role.

• Make sure role plays is used as technique in learning objectives, so students see

their relevance to the course content.

• Give times for students to exercise for their role play, even if it’s spontaneous, so

they will understand about their role and can present in well.

• If there’s a lot of content in a role play, reduce the content which can be more

effective when presented as a role play.

• When assigning role plays, explain the purpose of the assigning the role play, and

answer questions so the students can prepare well for their role play.

• Assess all students equally and tell them, so they will know that their grade will be

on equal ground.

D. Definition of Speaking

Speaking, as the writer writes in the previous chapter, speaking is one of the important

skills between the four-language skill (reading, writing, listening and speaking). Speaking

is used to communicate with others to deliver an opinion or to achieve certain goals. Jones

(1989) state that speaking is a form of communication, it is important if what you say can

be conveyed in a most effective way. The way you say something, is as important as what

you say to get what you really mean4.

4
Rhodry Jones, (1989) Speaking and Listening, London, John Murray Publishers Ltd ,p.14
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Donough and Shaw Says that “There are some reasons for speaking involved

expressing ideas and opinions: expressing a wish or a desire to do something; negotiating

and/or solving a particular problem; or establishing and maintaining social relationships

and friendships. Besides, fluency, accuracy, and confidence are important goal in

speaking”. Therefore, as a language skill, speaking becomes the most important

component to master by the students as tool that helps with verbal communication because

it is the only way to express ideas and opinions directly what we have in our minds.5

Based on the definition above, can be said that speaking is the process that is used to

share information, knowledge, idea, and opinion to someone. furthermore, speaking

cannot be separated with listening aspect, because in speaking both speaker and listener

are needed.

E. Elements of Speaking

Speaking is a skill that requires simultaneous use a lot of different abilities, and those

abilities are:

• Pronunciation

Harmer stated that if students want to be able to fluently speak English, they require a

correct pronunciation of phonemes. Use the right stress and intonation pattern.6 A

speaker must be able to utter the words and create the sound that has a meaning. In

word pronunciation, second language learners usually have problem recognizing

between a sound in a new language that do not exist in languages they already know.

5
JO McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT, Melbourne: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p.134.
6
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching: Fourth Edition, (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2007),
p.343.
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• Grammar

Grammar is the basic unit of meaning, the rules to combine words to form a new

sentence.7 Thus, grammar is a very important elements in speaking because if the

speaker does not master the structure of grammar, they cannot speak well.

• Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a very basic element in language. Vocabulary is single words, set

phrases, variable phrases, phrasal verbs, and idioms.8 It is obvious if speaker lack of

vocabulary, its hard to maintain a conversation.

• Fluency

Fluency is the ability to talk without any hesitation that usually make speaker stops for

a while.9 When student able to speak fluently, it will be easy to deliver the meaning

across.

• Comprehension

Comprehension is an ability to understand something that being said. Comprehension

has to be discussed with both of the speaker, because this ability can make people get

the information directly just as you like.

7
Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, An Introduction to Language, (New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers,
1998), p.14.
8
Keith S. Folse, Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching, (Michigan: University of
Michigan, 2004), p.2.
9
David Riddel, Teach English as a Second Language, (Chicago: McGraw – Hill Companies, 2001), p. 118.
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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design

This research is belong to qualitative research by using descriptive method. It’s

belong to descriptive because the objective of the research is to describe and interpret

the phenomena based on facts in the field. The purpose of this study is to describe role

play technique that used by teacher in increasing their students’ English speaking skill.

According to Gorman and Clayton’s theory. Therefore, this study designed to be

descriptive qualitative study because the researcher wants to describe the phenomenon

of obtained data objectively and naturally. Descriptive research is a type of research

that observing problems systematically and accurately about current ability of certain

object. (Sumanto 1995:75) says that the descriptive research aims for explanation,

description, and mapping based on researcher’s perspective. The researcher wants to

investigate and describe the enhancement of students speaking skills before and after

the implementation role play in their learning process.

B. Research Setting

This research will be conducted at SMKN 1 Banjarmasin on Jl. Mulawarman,

Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, Post Code 70117. It’s a national school that has a

very good accreditation, that’s A.

C. Participant

The participant of this research is a whole 12th A Multimedia class academic

year 2020/2021.

D. Data

1. Types of data

There are two types of data used in this research, they are:

a. Primary data
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Primary data in this research are written forms of an interview and

observation about the implementation of role play to enhance students

speaking skill.

b. Secondary data

Video that recorded as documentation of the research process and

students’ brief profile.

2. Source of data

Both of the data in this research is acquired from 12th A Multimedia class.

After the observation in the classroom, there will be a depth interview for the

students and require certain file from students such as their report.

E. Technique of Data Collection

In this research, the data will be collected b the researcher through a depth

interview and observation. Before conducting the research, researcher will do a depth

interview with English teacher about the general situation and teaching technique and

strategy in classroom the complete data of the research problem will be collected after

passing the proposal examination.

The process of collecting data is:

1. To answer the first research question, Is the implementation of role playing

has a good impact in students’ English-speaking skill, the researcher will have

a brief interview toward the teacher while recording as a documentation. If

possible, ask the table of grading from the teacher.

2. The researcher will do an observation to the students’ role play activity in their

classroom to answer the second question How is the best way to implementing

role play so they can enhance their English-speaking skill.

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F. Data Analysis

The data which are collected by using observation and in depth interview will be

analyze by the theory suggested by Creswell (2008) as follow.

1. Verification or drawing

The data from observation will be selected and the selected data will be analyze.

The interview will be transcribe into file type to make easier for analyzing. After

organizing the data from observation and interview, the process will be continue to

explore the whole data to find the parts related to study in order to answer the

research question.

2. Editing

Creswell (2008) state that editing involves making sense of the data, or the lesson

learned’. Editing in this study means the researcher form some larger meaning and

stepped back about the phenomena based on researcher personal view. The

researcher gives meaning to the data and starts to analyze it.

After being editing, the findings will be validated. It means the researcher

determined the accuracy or credibility or the findings through checking.

3. Conclusion

The collected data will be specified in patterns and also classified based on research

question. The researcher also describe the finding and present it descriptively.

A. Research Procedure

1. Preliminary research

2. Classroom observation with the first English teacher

3. In depth interview with the first English teacher

4. Observation with the first English teacher in language teaching process

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5. Classroom observation with the second English teacher

6. In depth interview with the second English teacher

7. Observation with the second English teacher in language teaching process

8. Classroom observation with the third English teacher

9. In depth interview with the third English teacher

10. Observation with the third English teacher in language teaching process

11. Data analysis

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REFERENCES
Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom.
Washington, DC: The George Washington University.

Shaimaa Abd El Fattah Torky, (2006) The Effectiveness of a Task- Based Instruction program
in Developing the English Language Speaking Skillsof Secondary Stage Students. Ain Shams
University.

Mark Chesler & Robert Fox (1966). Role-Playing Methods in the Classroom, Chicago, Science
research associates.

Rhodry Jones, (1989) Speaking and Listening, London, John Murray Publishers Ltd.

JO McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT, Melbourne: Blackwell
Publishing, 2003).

Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching: Fourth Edition, (Harlow:
Pearson Education Limited, 2007).
Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, An Introduction to Language, (New York: Harcourt
Brace College Publishers, 1998).

Keith S. Folse, Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom

Teaching, (Michigan: University of Michigan, 2004).

David Riddel, Teach English as a Second Language, (Chicago: McGraw – Hill Companies,
2001).