Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara

PING-010

Improving Students’ Speaking Skill through Role Play Technique

Fuad Arif*, Sunarmo, Chelvi Indriyanti
STKIP Kusuma Negara
*[email protected]

Abstract
The aim of the research is to improve student’s speaking skill through role play technique. Method
of the research is classroom action research. This research uses three cycles and each of cycle
consists of four steps. They are planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The data resources are
students of tenth grade MIA 1 of SMA Taman Harapan 1, Bekasi. The class consists of twenty-
four students. Fifteen male students and nine female students. Data collection of this research are
interview, test, observation and documentation. The result of the result showed that there was a
significant improvement of student’s speaking skill after using role play technique in teaching
learning process. The students are able to speak in English confidently, clearly and fluently. Based
on the statement, it can be concluded that role play technique can improve student’s speaking skill.

Keywords: role play, teaching learning process, speaking.

Introduction
Speaking is very important to be learned by the students to improve and
develop their skills in learning English. Its functions are to share and to express
the ideas. In the real classroom situation at the tenth grade MIA 1 students of
SMA Taman Harapan 1 Bekasi, teaching speaking has many problems. The first
problem faced by students is lack of vocabularies. They do not know what they
want to say in English, so they respond and answer the teacher’s question by their
local language or their mother tongue. Because of their limitation of vocabularies,
there were a lot of vocabularies that they unfamiliar with and it caused problems
because communication only happens when both the speaker and listener
understand what they are talking about.
The second problem is mispronunciation. The students get difficulties in
pronouncing some words because they are still confused on how to pronounce
them. The wrong pronunciation may cause misunderstanding between the speaker
and the listener. For the example, when the students pronounce “day” to be “die”
/dai/. The next problem is related to the students’ motivation. They fear of being
laughed by their friends and have less confidence with their own ability when they
studied in the class.
The last problem is the method used by the teacher. The teacher gives little
opportunity to students to express their idea. The materials learnt by students. It is
not suitable with the basic competence topic of tenth grade of senior high school,
because the teacher often teaches grammar and writing exercises. Based on the
reality above, the researcher decides to conduct classroom action research to
overcome the problems of the students in learning English, especially in
practicing speaking English. The researcher tries to conduct a communication
activity that is role play. As one of activities for speaking, role play activities give
the students lots of opportunity to communicate in different social contexts and
roles (Littlewood, 1981). Role play activities also develop conversational skill
among students. The flexibility of a role play forms a new conversational practice
and creates a positive environment in class, so the students can enjoy the speaking
practice (Budden, 2006).

6 Oktober 2019 1
Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara
PING-010

Definition of Speaking
Many definitions about speaking have been proposed by language theorists.
Harmer (1998; 2001; 2007) defines that speaking ability as the ability to speak
fluently presupposed not only knowledge of language features but also, the ability
to process information and language on the spot. It requires the ability to
cooperate in the management of speaking turns and non-verbal language. It
happens in the real situation and has little time for detailed planning. Therefore,
the fluency is required to reach the goal of the conversation. Brown (2000,2001,
2004) stated that when someone can speak a language it means that he can carry
on a conversation reasonably competently. In addition, he states that the
benchmark of successful acquisition of language is almost always the
demonstration of an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through an interactive
discourse with other language speakers.
Cameron (2001) also stated that “speaking is the active use of language to
express meaning so that other people can make sense of them”. It means that
speaking consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning
which make other people know what we are talking about clearly. Therefore, it is
often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving, but it is not completely
unpredictable.From the explanation above, the researcher concludes that speaking
is a process to convey and sharing ideas and feelings orally. Speaking involved
some skills such as accuracy, appropriateness, fluency and vocabulary building.
All of those elements need to be mastered by the students. Speaking, especially in
a foreign language, is a very necessary activity for all ages of learners. It is
expected to be understood by other people who use a foreign language; everyone
needs to pay attention to precise details of language. He needs to find the most
appropriate word and also the correct grammar to convey meaning precisely and
accurately.

Definition of Role Play

Role play is a method of acting out particular ways of behaving or
pretending to be other people who deal with new situations (Budden, 2006). In
this case, Ladousse (1987) argues that when students assume a “Role”, they play a
part (either their own or somebody else) in specific situation. “Play” means that is
taken on in a safe environment in which students are joyful and playful as
possible. According to Brown (2001), role play is a popular pedagogical activity
in communicative language-teaching classes. It makes the students free to be
someone based on their creativity linguistic input. Role-play will help the students
to achieve the fluency. Hwarmer claims that “role play can be used to encourage
general oral fluency or to train student for specific situation, especially where they
are studying for specific purpose”. For example, the students in vocational school
are drilled to practice several functions to book a hotel’s room. Moreover,
according to Ladousse (1987), role play is an enjoyable activity and does not
threaten the students.

Steps of Teaching Using Role Play Technique

These are the steps of teaching using role play technique. They are
mentioned as follows: (a) students are divided into several groups, (b) teacher

6 Oktober 2019 2
Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara
PING-010

give a topic for each group (optional), (c) students select the situation and create
the dialogue, (d) practice for a few minutes in group, (e) perform the situation in
front of the class, (f) other groups’ member gives comments and suggestions, (g)
teacher gives comments after all groups performed (Brown, 2001; Ladousse,
1987; Budden, 2006). Ladousse (1987) explained that there are several types of
role. The first is the roles which correspond to a real need in the student’s lives. In
this category, it involves such roles as doctor dealing with patients, or salesman
traveling abroad. The second type of role is the students play themselves in a
variety of situations which may or may not have direct experience. The example
which include in this category is a customer complaining or a passenger asking
for information.
The third type is the type that few students will ever experience directly
themselves, but it is easy to play because the teachers have such vast indirect
experience of them. The television journalist is a good example of this type and it
is very useful kind of role taken from real life. The last type is fantasy roles,
which are fictitious, imaginary, and possible even absurd.

Research Method
In this research, the researcher used classroom action research to improve
student’s speaking skill through role play technique at the tenth grade of SMA
Taman Harapan 1, Bekasi. This research used three cycles and each of cycles
consisted of four steps. They are planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The
model of action research used in this research was adopted from Kemmis and Mc.
Taggart model (Burns, 1999; 2010). They illustrated their view of the action
research process as shown in figure below. Which each cycle has four steps, there
were planning, acting, observing and reflecting. According to Asmani (2011),
classroom action research is reflective research by doing the certain acts so that
can improve or enhance the learning and teaching in the classroom professionally.

Figure 1. Cycle of Action Research

The objective of the research was to improve students’ speaking skill

through role play technique at tenth grade of SMA Taman Harapan 1 Bekasi. The
classroom action research needed the data to support the investigation. In this
research, there are several methods using to collect the data, they are: (a)
observation, Its meant to give previous view to the researcher about the condition
of the students in SMA Taman Harapan 1 Bekasi, classroom observation was used

6 Oktober 2019 3
Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara
PING-010

in this study because of the researcher interest in finding out how the researcher
implemented the classroom practice to improve speaking to their students and the
type of the tasks they provided, the researcher was interested in the multiple
action and interaction of the teacher and students; (b) test, it was given at the end
of action step to determine student success in learning, the test results were also
used to measure the successful implementation of the action; (c) interview, it was
designed in face to face with the respondent, there was elaborated based on
teaching of the teacher, the class quantity, frequency of teaching writing, the
material of teaching writing, and the problem when teaching learning process; (d)
documentation, its is used in this study learning activities during the study. The
assessment of speaking is oral test or students’ performance. The students’
speaking performances were assessed using a scoring rubric proposed by Harris
(dalam Helmanda & Nisa, 2019; Louma, 2004). The rubric is shown in the
following Table 1 at appendix section.
To analyze the data from the classroom action research, the researcher used
some techniques as follows: (a) data reduction, it was done after collecting data,
this activity covered the categorization and data classification, after being
classified, the data was grouped and then continued to summarize, to summarize
the data, the researcher simplified the data by making the summary, code, reduce
the unused data and manage the problem in the classroom action research; (b) data
description, that was for summarizing the research result of the classroom action
research by interpreting the insight of the phenomenon performance on test, the
target population and the source of the information in this research was tenth
grade students of SMA Taman Harapan 1 Bekasi, and students as the source of
the data follow the learning process and oral performance in every cycle based on
the material which was given by the researcher.

Result and Discussion

This study has been in three cycles. The result of this study for every cycle
like in figure 2.

Finding research cycle I, II and III

150%
100%
100% 67%
46%
50%
0%
Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 3

Success/ pass

Figure 2. The percentage of students’ activity

In the cycle I, the researcher and collaborator found some facts that teaching
and learning process of speaking using role play technique was not running well
yet. The researcher found some factors like students were not confidence to
practice the script or dialogue in front of the class, the situation of the class that
was not comfortable enough and other factor. In practicing role play, they just

6 Oktober 2019 4
Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara
PING-010

spoke flat. There is no stressing, intonation and good pronunciation. That was
because of they were not had an enough example and time to practice. Finally, the
result wasn’t good enough for full fill the target. There were 11 students or 46%
passed the passing grade and 13 students or 54% failed. It meant that the research
must be continued and solved in the next cycle.
In the cycle II the condition of the class was better than previous cycle. It
could be seen from the result of the research in this cycle. The students who were
able to be more focus and pay attention on the teacher explanation because the
researcher had managed the condition of the class. When they followed the
speaking test, they were enjoying practice describing people using role play
technique. Even though, still there were some groups of student who need a lot of
time to practice speaking test. Some groups did not able to speak confidently. The
researcher should give more motivation and continue the research to the next
cycle. The result of cycle II There were 18 students or 67% passed the passing
grade and 6 students or 33% failed. Although there was improvement but that was
still not enough for classroom action research. So, the research continued and
solved the problem in cycle III.
In the cycle III, the situation of class is better, and the students were more
confidence to speak and do role play. The researcher gave the students motivation
and made some ice breaking so that the students enjoy and confident in practicing
speaking using role play technique. There was significant improvement in this
cycle, the result of the research in this cycle was 24 students or 100% of student
succeed. They were able to practice in speaking using role play technique
confidently, clearly and fluently.

Conclusion
Based on the result of the research on the previous chapter, the researcher
would like to make some conclusions as follow: (a) the research of speaking test
through role play technique in cycle I there were 11 students or 46% passed the
passing grade and 13 students or 54% were failed, in the cycle II there was
improvement, 16 (67%) students passed the passing grade and 8 (33%) failed. In
the cycle III, there was a significant improvement. 24 students (100%) passed the
passing grade, because the research was enough for filling the target, the cycle
stopped; (b) the researcher found that role play technique is good to improve
student’s speaking skill. In role play, students had responsibility to practice
speaking, they had partner to practice, and they didn’t shy to speak in English in
front of the class because the researcher had explained that they were other
character when they were practicing using role play, the researcher should explain
the condition of the material that would be practiced and explained the
procedures, the researcher gave motivation, stimulus and clear example, and
researcher also must control the condition and situation of the class.

Bibliography
Asmani, J. M. (2011). 7 Tips Aplikasi Pakem. Yogyakarta: Diva Press.
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language Learning and Teaching. New York:
Longman.
_________. (2004). Language Assessment Principles and Classroom Practices.
New York:Pearson Education, Inc.

6 Oktober 2019 5
Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara
PING-010

________. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language

Pedagogy (2nd Edition). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Budden, J. (2006). Role Play. UK, London: BBC.
Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
_______. (2010). Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching. New
York: Routledge.
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Harmer, J. (1998). How to teach English: an introduction to the practice of
English language teaching. New York: Longman.
_______. (2001). Practice of English Language Teaching. Edinburgh Gate:
Longman.
_______. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching. New Jersey:
Pearson Education.
Helmanda, C. M., & Nisa, R. (2019). The Analysis Of Students’ Oral
Performances By Using Speaking Scoring Rubric. Jurnal Dedikasi
Pendidikan, 3(2), 76-86.
Ladousse, G. P. (1987). Role Play. New York. Oxford University Press.
Louma, S. (2004). Assessing Speaking. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Littlewood, W. (1981). Communicative Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University press.

Appendix
Table 1. Scoring Rubric
Criteria Score Description
Pro- 5 Has few traces of foreign language
nunciation Always intelligible, thought one is conscious of a definite
4
accent.
Pronunciation problem necessities concentrated listening
3
and occasionally lead to misunderstanding.
Very hard to understand because of pronunciation problem,
2
most frequently be asked to repeat
Pronunciation problem to serve as to make speech virtually
1
unintelligible.
Grammar Make few (if any) noticeable errors of grammar and word
5
order.
Occasionally makes grammatical and or word orders errors
4
that do not, however obscure meaning
Make frequent errors of grammar and word order, which
3
occasionally obscure meaning.
Grammar and word order errors make comprehension
2
difficult, must often rephrases sentence.
Errors in grammar and word order, so, severe as to make
1
speech virtually unintelligible
Vocabulary Use of vocabulary and idioms is virtually that of native
5
speaker.

6 Oktober 2019 6
Prosiding Seminar Nasional Pendidikan STKIP Kusuma Negara
PING-010

Sometimes uses inappropriate terms and must rephrases

4
ideas because of lexical and equities.
Frequently uses the wrong words conversation somewhat
3
limited because of inadequate vocabulary.
Misuse of words and very limited vocabulary makes
2
comprehension quite difficult.
Vocabulary limitation so extreme as to make conversation
1
virtually impossible
Fluency 5 Speech as fluent and efforts less as that of native speaker.
Speed of speech seems to be slightly affected by language
4
problem.
Speed and fluency are rather strongly affected by language
3
problem.
Usually hesitant, often forced into silence by language
2
limitation
Speech is so halting and fragmentary as to make
1
conversation virtually impossible
Compre- 5 Appears to understand everything without difficulty
hension Understand nearly everything at normal speed although
4 occasionally repetition
may be necessary
Understand most of what is said at slower than normal
3
speed without repetition
Has great difficulty following what is said. Can comprehend
2 only “social conversation” spoken slowly and with frequent
repetitions.
1 Cannot be said to understand even simple Conversation.

6 Oktober 2019 7