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INTRODUCTION
being. Using language, people can express their idea to one another. There are many
languages that used by the people around the world. Each nation or tribe has their
own language. And English is one of the language that used by the majority people in
the world.
This is why English has been taught in every level of school from elementary
to the university. Each level of the education institution teaches English on its grade.
Many parents put their children in to the course to learn English more, because they
want their children to be able to speak English. By mastering English, someone could
reach his goal of life. English as an international language, is also used formally in
any ceremonies or other events. So it’s important to speak English well and also the
other skills.
In English subject, there are many skills that should be learned by the students
to master the four basics of language, the skills are: listening, reading, speaking, and
writing. Besides the four skills, they also have to master grammar properly.
There are some experts who state that speaking is the most important skill. Jo
McDonough and Christopher Shaw state that speaking is often the skill upon which a
person is judge ‘at face’. In other words, people may often form judgments about our
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language competence from our speaking rather than from any of the other language
skills.1 Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya also write in their book that speaking
Many students feel difficult in practicing speaking. They are not confident to
practice what they have learned in school. Based on the writer’s observation at the
speaking skill. When the writer asked them some questions about their self identity,
some of them cannot answer the questions correctly even some of them did not say
anything, they were just silent. The writer found that they are poor in pronouncing
their words, intonating their expressions, and they are less in mastering vocabulary.
Therefore, the students answered the questions unclear and there are major
hesitations. Actually, they have learned this lesson at their elementary school. Other
case, the students were shy in pronouncing the words because they are afraid to be
laughed at by others.
achieve the standard of English subject, which is decided in 60 on scale 10-100. And
50% others can not reach it. This means that half of the student in
The phenomenon happened because of some factors. The first factor is they
1 McDonough, Jo, and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT: Teacher’s Guide,
(Massachusetts: Lackwell Publisher, 1993), p. 151
2 Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya, Methodology in Language Teaching: an Anthology of
Current Practice, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 210.
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never practice to speak English formally and informally. The second factor is they are
afraid of making mistakes, both in the structuring and in the pronouncing the words,
so they will be laughed at by others. Moreover, it can make the students loose their
self-confidence. The last factor is because the teachers use unsuitable technique.
Today, many teachers still use traditional technique in teaching speaking. That
is the students read dialogues and then find the difficult words to get the meaning of
the dialogue. They are less in practice to speak English. One of the teacher’s reasons
The writer concludes that the time constraint and the class size as the big
problems involved. According to the writer, the solution of the problem is a technique
where the students can practice their speaking skill. Because the most important
students to get individual meanings across and utilize every area of knowledge they
have in the second or foreign language.3 Group or pair work activity can solve the
There are many activities to make a fun activity in teaching speaking in the
classroom. Using pictures, cards, and other visual aid usually add a great joy to the
class. Language teacher may use them as meaningful teaching aids in order to attract
students’ attention and facilitate them to understand the lesson better. The use of
music or recorded conversation also can be a good idea. Music makes students feel
3 Marianne Celce-Murcia and Elite Olshtain, Discourse and Context in Language Teaching,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 176-177.
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relaxed, and if it is well designed, music can be an interesting resource for listening
In the audio lingual method language learners are equipped with the
knowledge and skill required for effective communication in a foreign language. The
language learners are also required to understand the foreign people whose language
they are learning and the culture of the foreign people. The language learners have to
understand everyday life of the people, history of the people and their social life.4
In audio lingual method, structures are presented initially and students drill
those structures until they have mastered them orally. This method provides variety
The writer assumes that by using audio lingual method, learning English
audio lingual method. This method tries to make the teacher more easily in teaching
speaking to their students. This method gave the teacher many options in teaching
techniques in teaching English such as using dialog memorization by using role play
conduct a research under the title “Improving the Students’ Speaking Skill Through
of……………………………….)”.
Based on previous background, the writer would like to identify the problem,
as below:
speaking English?
In this research, the writer should focus the research on improving the
students’ speaking skill through audio lingual method at the Second Year Students of
………………..
After identifying the problem and then make the limitation of it, the writer
How to improve the speaking skill of the students by using audio lingual
method?
By doing this research, the writer would like to hope that the result of this
speaking.