Using Impromptu Speech to Facilitate Senior High School Students’ Speaking Performance

Abstract

This Classroom Action Research (CAR) raised the issue of speaking skill, in particular, the Impromptu Speech as a technique of speaking skill to facilitate students’ speaking ability. An impromptu speech is a speech without preparation and note. From the result of the interview and observation of the preliminary study conducted at SMAN 1 Pamekasan, it was identified that the students of X BAHASA G experienced difficulties in speaking such as difficulty pronouncing words, lack of vocabulary, and difficulties to convey their ideas into spoken expression. The participants were 34 students in X BAHASA G. This present research was conducted within one cycle. The cycle consists of three meetings: two meetings for implementation of the action and one meeting for the test. This research investigated quantitative data (i.e. students’ speaking performance) were in the form of students speaking scores gathered through speaking tests. The result of the students’ speaking test in cycle 1 showed an improvement and the impromptu speech gave a chance for the students to have interaction and have more confidence. There were 29 students who could achieve ≥75 and 5 students achieve score below 75. It means that there were 85.2% of the students who got score ≥ 75 increased from 64.7% in Cycle 1. The result showed that the target of this research was achieved in cycle 1, so it did not continue to cycle 2. Finally, it can be concluded that the result of the action research proved that the use of impromptu speech could facilitate the speaking ability of X BAHASA G students of SMAN 1 Pamekasan, and also there were some changes in the way the students’ performance by implementing impromptu speech in English teaching and learning process. For the English teacher it is suggested that teacher to use impromptu speech as an input and consideration in teaching speaking due to the improvement of students’ speaking ability as the evidence showed in this research result. The result of this research also might be used as guidance for English teachers to find or create practices for speaking activities which lead students’ eagerness to develop their speaking ability. The result of this research could be also be used as a useful reference and information for future researchers in conducting further researchers.