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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Mastering English means mastering the four language skills, they are
listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. In communication, speaking skill
seems to be the most visible skill. People usually see how well persons communicate
to one another from their speaking skill. Speaking is the process of building and
sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of
contexts, Chaney (1998: 13) in Kayi (2006: Vol. XII, No. 11). Speaking is a crucial
part of second language learning and teaching. Some experts also state that speaking
is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving
and processing information, Brown (1994: 112). Its form and meaning are dependent
on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their
collective experience, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking.
Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been
undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking by as
repetition of drill or memorization of dialogues. However, todays world requires
that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students communicative skills,
because only in that way students can express themselves by avoiding confusion in
the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary and learn how to
follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative
circumstances.
Based on the writers pre research done in the eleventh grade of SMA Negeri
7 Surakarta, the writer found out some problems dealing with students low speaking
skill. The problems were divided into two aspects. The students lacked of language
mastery and learning situation. The first aspect came from the students lack of
language mastery, such as the students less of vocabulary mastery. When teaching
new material, the English teacher drills vocabularies to the students. It was used to
help the students in comprehend the materials. Then the students mispronounced
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words. It was showed when the English
teacher
asked them to come forward to have

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a conversation, they often mispronounce many words. The other students difficulty
was in understanding grammar, it was showed when the teacher asked them to make
some questions in conversations; they made some mistakes and had difficulty in
making correct grammatical sentences. The last was the students found it very hard
to speak fluently in speaking class, it was showed when the students were confused
to start speaking and they seemed to have difficulties every time they want to express
their idea.
The second aspect was the learning situation. Mostly students became silent
and passive when the English teacher taught speaking class, because the students
were insufficiently motivated to speak. The teacher did not use method that can
encourage students to speak. Only few students who are involved themselves in
speaking process. Many learners found it difficult to follow the other speakers during
the discussion class. When the English teacher asked them to discuss in English,
most of them spoke Indonesian language even Javanese. They seemed not
encouraged to practice speaking English.
The sources of the problem dealt with teaching and learning process of
speaking. They were indicated by three kinds of perspective. They were students,
teacher and media.
First, the students were not enthusiastic and not interested in joining the
speaking activities. It was showed when the English teacher asked them to speak in
front of the class; only few students had great willingness to speak up voluntarily.
Most of them were passive; they wanted to speak up only if the teacher pointed out
them to speak. They sometimes liked to chat with their friends; made a noise and did
unnecessary activities during instructional process.
Secondly, the teacher used English in whole learning process. It was showed
when the researcher did pre-observation. As a result, most of students could not
catch the point of learning process. Then the teacher made the students bored in class
because the teacher did not check the students understanding and the way to teach
English is monotonous. There were no jokes during the instructional process; it
makes the classroom situation become boring. The teacher sat and explained the
to used
user conventional presentation during
material using laptop. The teachercommit
merely

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instructional process. It seemed not too encouraged and motivated the students to
fully pay attention.
The last source of problem is the media in teaching and learning process. The
teachers media to teach English was still less because the English teacher just used
one source book to teach her students.
All the problems dealing with students speaking skill may mainly be caused
by their low motivation in learning English. This low motivation is because they do
not like learning very much. This low motivation has a big impact on them in
learning English. They are not encouraged to have more practices in speaking or
reading to learn more vocabulary. The low motivation makes the students do nothing
so that they get nothing in learning English.
In fact, one characteristic of a successful speaking actually, according to Ur
(1984:120) is high motivation. Learners are eager to speak because they are
interested in the topic and have something new to say about it or because they want
to contribute in achieving a task objective. The teachers therefore are challenged to
develop various teaching techniques to raise students motivation.
The variety of teaching techniques will help learners to get higher motivation
to learn English. William and Burden (1997:111) say that motivation has the most
powerful influences on learning. Teachers can encourage the development of
speaking skill and enhance motivation, on the understanding that each will contribute
to the other.
Motivation is related to the psychological factor in communication. Rivers
(1968:76) states that desire to communicate is included to the psychological factors
in communication. As well having something to say, the student must have the desire
to communicate the message to some persons or group of persons. Some students
may not have interest in joining speaking activity for their teacher who does not
show sympathy and their classmates are uncongenial. Others may realize that they
have limitation in the new language and do not want to ridicule them.
Improving students speaking skill is not an easy task. Students often
consider that speaking is the most difficult skill to learn and they feel uninterested in
commit to state
user that learning to talk in the foreign
learning to talk. Brown and Yule (1983:48)

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language is often considered one of the most difficult aspects of language learning
for the teacher to help the students with. Students often think that the ability to speak
a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of
the language learning process. To help them, teacher needs to know why they
consider it is difficult and they are not motivated to learn speaking. Selecting
appropriate method or instructional model in speaking is not an easy task for the
teachers. That is why they should consider some factors.
According to Brown (1994:48), techniques are the specific activities
manifested in the classroom that are consisted with a method and therefore in
harmony with an approach as well. In other words, techniques include all task and
activities. Winataputra (in Sugiyanto, 2008) defines that the instructional model is a
conceptual framework that describes a systematic procedure in organizing learning
experiences to achieve specific learning objectives and serve as a guide for learning
crier and teachers in launching and implementing instructional activities.
Suyatno (2009) said that there are some 96 variations of cooperative
instructional models that promote speaking. One of them is Time-Token that Arends
(1998:331) defines Time Token is a kind of cooperative instructional model that
teaches participation skills, social skills, sharing skills, communication skills and
group skills.
Time-Token improves students' ability to communicate, in this case is
speaking aspect. It also encourages students to increase initiative and participation
because it leads students for not dominating the conversation or completely silent.
Besides, Time-Token trains students to express their opinion; cultivates the habit for
students to listen, to share, to provide input and openness to criticism; teaches
students to respect other people's opinions; and can also encourages students to
contribute to finding solutions to the problems encountered with. Therefore, all
students become active and motivated in learning activities.
Based on the explanation above, the writer conducted an action research
dealing with the improvement of speaking skill of eleventh grade of high school
students by using Time-Token cooperative instructional model. This research is
commitSPEAKING
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entitled IMPROVING STUDENTS
SKILL THROUGH TIME-

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TOKEN COOPERATIVE INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL (A Classroom Action

Research at the Eleventh Grade students of SMAN 7 Surakarta in the Academic Year
of 2012/2013)

B. Problem Statements
The problem of this research can thus be formulated in these questions below:
1.

Does and To what extent Time-Token improve students speaking skill?

2.

Does and To what extent Time-Token improve students motivation in

speaking?

C. The Objectives of the Research

The objectives of this research will be the answers to the questions stated in
the problem statements. In general, this research aims to improve the eleventh grade
students of SMAN 7 Surakarta speaking skill. In particular, this research aims to get
some information stated in the problem statements formulated as follows:
1.

To identify whether Time-Token improves the speaking skill of students of

SMAN 7 Surakarta in learning English.

2.

To find out whether the cooperative instructional model of Time-Token

improves students motivation in English speaking.

D. The Benefits of the Research

The results of the research hopefully will be beneficial to:
1.

The teachers of SMAN 7 Surakarta

It is expected that this research can give inspiration for the teachers of
SMAN 7 Surakarta to have efforts in developing various teaching techniques.
It is also expected that the teacher will conduct the same research with her
colleagues to get some improvements in the teaching learning process since
being a self-reflective teacher is important for teacher professionalism
development.
This research is also expected to give input to the school about
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suitable technique in teaching
English.

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education, school having good facilities that support teaching and learning
process is not enough. There should be some efforts for teacher
professionalism development. School regulator should make the efforts for
the sake of students, teacher and school committee itself.
2.

The other researchers

This study is one of the ways in improving students speaking skill. It
is expected that the findings will be used as starting points to conduct another
research.

3.

The researcher herself

This study is a self determination to what she will be in the future.
This has become a journey to a little bit mature to face her future. This is also
a proof that she can do the best for her family.

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