Jurnal Ilmiah Lingua Idea

Vol. 12, No. 2, December, pp.159-167

p-ISSN: 2086-1877; e-ISSN: 2580-1066
Website: http://jos.unsoed.ac.id/index.php/jli/

Improving Students’ Oral Communication Skills in Public

Speaking through Individual Presentation Task
Ahmad Burhanuddin
Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Ilmu Keguruan, IAIN Pekalongan, Indonesia
[email protected]

DOI: 10.20884/1.jli.2021.12.2.4002

Article History:
First Received: ABSTRACT
03/03/2021 This current study attempts to seek the answers of a question: how
effective is the individual presentation method in improving students'
Final Revision: oral communication skills, especially in public speaking? Designed as
06/12/2021 a qualitative research, this research was conducted at the Faculty of
Tarbiyah and Teacher Training of IAIN Pekalongan in the academic
Available online: year of 2019/2020. The research involved 100 of the second year
students of the English Education Department of IAIN Pekalongan
31/12/2021 who took Public Speaking course. The data were collected through an
open-ended questionnaire as the instruments of this study to get their
perception after taking the course with performing an individual
presentation as its main task. The research findings reveal despite the
obstacles they encountered, the presentation task was effective to
enhance students’ confidence as well as to give them experience to
speak in front of a crowd. The task also gave them more awareness
and self-evaluation on how to perform a good public speaking as they
received direct feedback from the audience while performing the
individual presentation.
Keywords: oral communication skills; public speaking; presentation

INTRODUCTION
Communicative competence can be defined as an individual ability to use language
effectively in actual communication (Hymes in Goh, C., M., & Burns, 2012). However, in the
classroom practice there is a tendency not to balance the four strands; in fact, some skills are
neglected such as oral communication skills. A well balanced language course should consist of
four equal strands which is meaning focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused
learning, and fluency development (Nation, 2012).
Communication is the exchange of ideas between people both verbally and in writing
where there is an exchange of meaning and information. A communication “involves not only
words, but also symbols and spoken word gestures because symbolic actions are not limited to

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communicative utterances” (Rahman, 2010). In oral communication, speaking occurs in front of

the listener because the listener responds to the speaker’s communication. Byrne defines, “oral
communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener and involves productive
speaking skills and receptive comprehension skills” (Byrne, 1986)He further defines “an
interactive process” in which two communications, namely sender and receiver, are involved in
the process. Effective OC cannot simply be ‘learned’ by reading. It needs to be planned,
strategized, practiced and assessed, preferably in an ‘authentic’ setting (Chan, 2011).
As the students in the Faculty of Education and Teachers Training are prepared to be
teachers, communicative skill, especially speaking in public, is a must have skill for them.
However, over the years, teaching speaking has become obsolete and English teachers have
continued to teach speaking only as a repetition of the practice or memorization of dialogue.
Consequently, the number of students’ who are able to communicate in English intelligibly is
still limited although they have been studying English for years (Lie, 2007). Thus, appropriate
method of teaching is one of pivotal factors to the success of the students in terms of building
their language skill, especially speaking in public. Teachers can use different strategies of
teaching to achieve teaching-learning goals and objectives (Reiser, R. A., & Dick, 1996). It is
the teacher’s role to provide effective plans/strategies in accomplishing students’ educational
needs, whose general purpose is to communicate using the language being learnt (Cole, 2008).
These imply that it is teachers’ responsibility to make students speak English by employing
suitable teaching strategies of speaking.
A various number of speaking teaching strategies are utilized and used in the classrooms
for many circumstances. Among others, the strategies of teaching speaking are simulation,
communication games, drilling and discussion. Simulations are activities where students are
asked to pretend to be in various social contexts and various social roles (Thornbury, 2005).
Discussion resemble real-life tasks as (Solcova, 2011) asserts that students develop their fluency
best, if engaged in tasks where all their concentration focuses on producing something, rather
than on the language itself. Drilling, as (Thornbury, 2005) argues, is a strategy to improve
pronunciation by imitating and repeating words, phrases, and even whole utterances. It functions
to make students pay attention to the new materials and emphasize words, phrases, or utterances
on students’ mind, move new items from working memory to long term memory, provide means
of gaining articulatory control over language (Thornbury, 2005).
Another skill which is essential for teachers is public speaking skill. Thus, courses on
public speaking typically cover topics such as listening, critical thinking, writing outlines,
and effectively organizing ideas and information—all of which are critically important

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 Jurnal Ilmiah Lingua Idea
Vol. 12, No. 2, December, pp.159-167
p-ISSN: 2086-1877; e-ISSN: 2580-1066
Website: http://jos.unsoed.ac.id/index.php/jli/

skills for college success (Morgan, 2008). In this public speaking course students are given a
chance to practice in front of their classmates. The public speaking course is designed in such a
way as to encourage students to overcome fear of speaking in public and to enjoy it at the same
time (Al-Tamimi, 2014). Qutbi found that the students showed improvement after being given
the opportunity to practice spoken language, provided learning environment and using new
teaching strategies. Also found that over codes, self-error correction, the use of pauses and fillers
cannot be avoided to improve speaking skills in the second language learning process (Qutbi,
2013). Oradee found that speaking ability after using discussion method, problem solving, and
playing a much higher role than before the use of these methods (Oradee, 2012).Gudu
recommended that students should be given the opportunity to practice using native English in
context, the teacher must integrating various activities in the lesson to meet the needs of
participants students and 3) curriculum for cultural backgrounds in order to improve their
learning outcomes (Gudu, 2015).
The existing studies have examined various methods of teaching speaking skills or Oral
Communication Skill (OCS); however, none of them discussed about how students felt about
performing an individual presentation as one form of public speaking in relation with their
speaking skill. This study aims to find out to what extent the level of effectiveness of this
individual presentation method in improving students' oral communication skills (OCSs) in
using English from the students’ perspective. This study seeks to answer a question: How
effective is the individual presentation method in improving students' oral communication skills,
especially in public speaking?

MATERIALS AND METHOD

This study is a field research by using qualitative approach to produce descriptive data in
the form of words written or oral words and observable behavior. This approach describes data
through the form of words or sentences and separated according to existing theories, to obtain
clear and detailed information.
The participants of this research were 100second year students aged 19-20 in a university
in Central Java Indonesia. A survey research design was used in this study since its purpose was
find out the perception and preferences of a large group of the students on the use of presentation
task for English public speaking course. As it is explained by (Latief, 2011) a survey research is
normally used to describe point of views, attitudes, preferences, and perceptions of large

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population of interest to the researcher. By implementing this type of research, a representative

data of a large population can be collected, tabulated and analyzed.
The data for this research were ccollected through an online questionnaire which consisted
of 8 items of questions which were categorized into two types of questions, they were: questions
about pre-activity and post activity of the task. The items were constructed in English were in the
form of open-ended questions to get more information from the participants. In responding to the
questionnaire, the participants were anonymous and the author had checked that all participants
had responded to the questionnaire well.
The technique of data analysis also consisted of three stages, namely data reduction, data
display, and drawing conclusion or verification. Data reduction refers to the process of selecting,
focusing, simplifying, abstracting and transforming the data that appear in written-up field notes
or transcriptions. The second stage, data display is the second element or level in Miles and
Huberman’s model of qualitative data. Data display goes a step beyond data reduction to provide
an organized, compressed assembly of information that permits conclusion drawing and action.
The data displayed or presented. A display can be an extended piece of text or diagram; chart or
matrix that provided a new way of arranging and thinking about the more textually embedded
data. The last stage Conclusion drawing involves stepping back to consider what the analyzed
data mean and to assess their implications for the questions at hand.

RESULTS &DISCUSSION
The participants reported that despite the obstacles they encountered, the task of giving an
individual presentation has given positive impacts to their oral communication skills as it has
improved their confidence to speak in English.

Improving Students’ Confidence

To increase the self-confidence, the students can try to speak in public because public
speaking is about delivering material in public with many people as the audience. Public
speaking is becoming very helpful in everyday life especially in speech communication. Many
people especially students do not realize the advantages of public speaking. It offers their
opportunity to increase the level of confidence in their speech, gives them an opportunity to
engage in social conversations with more assurance, to approach others and to express
themselves freely in any situation (Adnan & Abidin, 2017). Nowak (2004) stated that public
speaking means that the way one expresses or communicates his or her opinions to the general
public (Pratama, 2019).

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 Jurnal Ilmiah Lingua Idea
Vol. 12, No. 2, December, pp.159-167
p-ISSN: 2086-1877; e-ISSN: 2580-1066
Website: http://jos.unsoed.ac.id/index.php/jli/

Most of the participants reported that doing individual presentation in front of their
classmates has improved their confidence. One of the participants said, “After participating in
this Public Speaking class, I felt a change that had occurred when I spoke in public. I feel more
confident and more relaxed in saying whatever I want to say.” Another participant reported a
similar tone “After taking this public speaking class, my confidence increased.
Performing a presentation in front of a crowd is a tough task as it requires high confidence.
Self-confidence is an essential thing in creating good communication, especially in public
speaking (Nadiah, 2019).Self-confidence is a positive attitude of the individual that enables
himself to against the environment or situation he faces. Lauster stated that self-confidence is
convincing in the ability and self-assessment of the task and it has a practical approach
(Indrawati, 2018).
By having a good confidence, it will be easier for us to convey message to the audience.
The students who have a good self-confidence will be able to overcome fears or negative
thoughts, so that they will communicate more effectively, especially in the oral presentation in
front of the class. The students who can communicate fluently and confidently as a good impact
of the high self-confidence is that the students can increase their academic achievement in the
speaking course because the students fulfill the criteria of the assessment on speaking skill
(Salim, 2015).
It means that someone who is confident and capable of dealing with the word includes he
belief that he or she can expect success or failure (Salim, 2015). Self-confidence is the feeling or
worthy that one feels for himself/herself (Nadiah, 2019). Feltz stated that self-confidence as
rather than a general feature, it is a belief of a person that they can successfully achieve an
activity and individuals' trust to their judgment, ability, strength, and decisions (Indrawati, 2018).

Giving Students’ Real Experience

Experience is the best teacher, and to get the first experience is so important. Everyone can
become a better public speaker through study and practice (Miller, 2017). Thus, we are going to
make our students better at public speaking, teachers must be able to apply the lessons of
instruction and imitation by practicing their speeches.
One participant reported, “I think giving a presentation in front of my classmates can
improve my public speaking skills because it's like a first step in developing the ability to speak
in public.” From this response it can be inferred that, basically, if they are offered an option to
speak in front of public, most of them prefer not doing it. In fact, they will never know how it

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feels until they experience it. Thus, giving opportunities to students to perform a presentation in
front of the class is a good start for their next public speaking experiences in the future. Thus, by
giving this individual presentation student are learning by doing. The learning by doing
approach is effective in stimulating the natural curiosity of learners. The students in this
approach develop critical thinking skills as well as the creativity in expressing themselves well
(Hackathorn, et.al, 2011).
This classroom performance for some students might be their first ever experience. After
they perform their first presentation, the second presentation in the future might be easier—at
least less scary than the first one, and they will be more ready. One of the participants reported,
“So when I've done well at public speaking in front of classmates, next I'll be braver or perhaps
even more challenging to do public speaking in front of a bigger community than classmates.”
Thus, by performing a presentation in front of their classmates the students have learned a very
good lesson about how to speak in front a crowd.

Making Students’ Better Public Speaker

The public speaking course is a unique course as it requires the students to both know
content and be able to perform a skill well. Students will learn important principles of public
speaking, but simply knowing these principles is insufficient; they must also be able to apply
them well (Miller, 2017). Most of public speaking is a pre-planned activity, one of which is
giving presentation. By giving a presentation—with advance preparation, students learned how
to open a presentation, carry on a discussion, answer questions, and also attract audience’s
attention. One of the participant said, “After I took public speaking class, I know I need steps and
many things we can pay attention to, before speaking in front of public, so I never feel nervous
or confused because I already know what to do and where to start.” Another participant said, “I
became aware of the techniques to do in public speaking, especially in attracting the attention of
audiences.” Besides, the students also realized how to use their body language properly and
effectively while performing a presentation. One of the participant said, “It can improve my
public speaking skill because I am taught to express my ideas. I can improve with gesture, ex. I
can use gesture with moving my hands to describe something that I tell the audience. I can
express my feeling with facial expression so the audiences can get meanings.” By using a correct
body language, a presentation will be a successful and powerful public speaking. Specifically,
the skills training approach involves training participants how to communicate effectively
through both verbal and non-verbal channels, how to conduct research, how to organize

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Vol. 12, No. 2, December, pp.159-167
p-ISSN: 2086-1877; e-ISSN: 2580-1066
Website: http://jos.unsoed.ac.id/index.php/jli/

thoughts, how to outline ideas, and how to practice speeches (Allen, M., Hunter, J. E., &
Donohue, 1989).
By performing directly in front of their classmates, the students train to move their hand
and head properly to support their performance. They can also identify which part of their boy
that might move uncontrollably as it might weaken the performance. One of the participants said
that, “The key to a successful presentation is a delightful delivery. Because no matter how good
the material is, if the way it is delivered is not interesting, it will seem boring.” Thus, in this case
after performing their presentation s/he could recognize his/her performance, whether it is
interesting or boring. The best public speakers not only speak smoothly, they also say important
and interesting things (Miller, 2017). In this case, students who perform should look at their
audience whether they are following their explanation or not. Thus, the students are expected to
self-evaluate their performance for their better future performance.

CONCLUSION
Giving a real experience to students especially for productive language skill such as
speaking is proven to be effective. This individual presentation task is seen effective as the best
way to enhance students’ confidence as well as to practice their mental readiness as well as to
train their body language to talk in front a crowd. In this case, once they can handle their
classmates, they have a bigger opportunity to perform well in the future to speak in front
different or even bigger audience. To be specified, this kind of skill is pivotal and essential for
those going to be teachers who have tasks to communicate their knowledge and values to their
students.
This present study reveals that the students’ needs more practice in order to improve their
speaking skill. This individual presentation gives the students to do learning by doing in which
they can also improve their critical thinking as well as self-evaluation from direct feedback they
receive while performing the presentation. However, this research lacks of precise measurement
of the students’ fluency in performing the presentation as one of oral communication skill tasks.
In the future, other researcher might conduct a further study to see how much the increasing
level of the fluency (such as the speed and the number of words per minute) before and after
students performing the individual presentation task.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like express my gratitude to the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs which
has given the financial support and made this research possible.

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