Using Playing Card Games to improve the Eleventh Grade Students’ Speaking Ability at SMA Negeri 1 Ambulu in the 2008/2009 Academic Year

Abstract

Mastering the art of speaking English accurately, correctly, acceptably and fluently has become one of the goals of English learning. Nevertheless, to achieve this instructional goal is required by the operational curriculum is a daunting task for the eleventh grade students at SMA Negeri Ambulu in the 2008/2009 academic year. It was caused by either the students' inadequate mastery of the language system or even the techniques applied in the teaching learning process of speaking. For these reasons, it is crucial to find out a practical way to solve the problem by applying interesting, amusing, and interactive techniques in the teaching of speaking. One of the techniques which fulfills those requirements is game. The game applied the teaching learning process of speaking in this study, however, was playing card games. Playing card games is a game played with playing cards in which the materials required are two or more packs of playing cards and list of questions sheet. In this research, playing card games means asking students to answer the corresponding questions to those cards. Classroom action research with cycle model was applied in this study. It was carried out to improve the eleventh grade students' English speaking ability at SMA Negeri Ambulu Jember in the 2008/2009 academic year and to activate the students to be enthusiastically involved in the teaching learning process of speaking. The indicators used to measure the students’ activeness are asking question, answering the teacher’s questions, paying attention and answering to the corresponding cards. The implementation of the actions was conducted in two cycles in which each cycle