THE EFFECT OF USING BOARD GAMES ON THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT IN TELLING EXPERIENCE AT SMPN 4 JEMBER IN THE 2014/2015 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

Games seem as activities that can give us enjoyment and pleasure. That is why, most people like to play many kinds of games in their lives. Games also can be implemented in the field of education. Therefore, applying games in English teaching and learning process can be seen as a good idea since English is considered as a foreign language that must be mastered by students as a means of being competitive in facing the modern era. In the context of English as a foreign language, Adler et al. (in Gareis, 2006:3) state that oral communication rank the highest. However, it is often considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of language learning for the students (Brown and Yule, 1983:25). In this case, the use of games was considered to be useful because teaching speaking using games can be more interesting. In this research, the researcher used one kind of games, that is, Board Games. Board Games are believed to be helpful because they provide a non-threatening, playful, and competitive environment in applying learning. This research was conducted to investigate the effect of using Board Games on the eighth grade students’ speaking achievement in telling experience at SMPN 4 Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year. The design used in this research was quasi experimental research with post-test only design. The research respondents were the eighth grade students of VIII A and VIII F at SMPN 4 Jember. The total number of the research respondents was 72. The respondents of the experimental group (VIII A) were 36 students, while the respondents of the control group (VIII F) were 36 students. In this research, the experimental group was taught speaking by using media, that is, Board Games while the control group was taught speaking without media. There were two kinds of data collection methods in this research, primary and secondary data collection methods. The primary data was got by conducting a speaking test as the post-test to the research respondents. Meanwhile, the results of the secondary data of the research were obtained from the result of documentation with the school administration staff and the interview with the English teacher of the eighth grade students. Since the approval to conduct the research was obtained, the researcher did a homegeneity analysis first. The homogeneity analysis was analyzed using ANOVA on SPSS based on the eighth grade students’ speaking scores from the English teacher. The output showed that the value of significance was 0.974 which was higher than 0.05 (p>0.05). The result implied that the population was homogeneous. Thus, two classes were taken randomly by using lottery. Soon after the treatment to the experimental group was conducted, the primary data gained from post-test given on both the experimental and the control groups were analyzed by using Independent Sample t-test on SPSS. The result of the data analysis showed that Board Games had a significant effect on the eighth grade students’ speaking achievement. It was proved that there was significance mean difference between the experimental and the control group. It was also verified by the value of Lavene’s test was 0.031 that was lower than 0.05 (confidence interval 95%). It means that the variability for the experimental group and the control group was assumed not to be equal. Thus, the second row as the one to read showed that the value of significance column (2-tailed) was 0.000, which was lower than 0.05 (p<0.05). Further, the value of t-computation was higher than that of t-table (3.836>1.994). Consequently, the formulated null hypothesis (H0) was rejected. On the contrary, the formulated alternative hypothesis (Ha) “there is a significant effect of using Board Games on the eighth grade students’ speaking achievement in telling experience at SMPN 4 Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year” was accepted. Based on the explanation, it was concluded that there was a significant effect of using Board Games on the eighth grade students’ speaking achievement in telling experience at SMPN 4 Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year.