Enhancing the VIIIb Students’ Pronunciation Accuracy in Reading a Descriptive Text by Implementing the Reading Aloud Technique at SMP Plus Darus Sholah Jember

Abstract

This research was conducted by applying a classroom action research. This action research aimed to enhance the second year students’ word pronunciation accuracy by implementing the Reading Aloud Technique in a Descriptive Text at SMP Plus Darus Sholah Jember. The researcher used the Reading Aloud Technique because the researcher believed the technique could improve the word pronunciation accuracy of the students of class VIIIB after having the treatment. This research applied the purposive method in choosing the research area and participants. The research was conducted in SMP Plus Darus Sholah Jember and class VIIIB was chosen as the participants because the students in this class had the lowest score on the pronunciation pretest. After the research participants were determined, there were two cycles administered in the class to give the treatment. These two cycles consisted of three meetings in which the first two meetings were for the treatment and the third meeting was for a pronunciation test. The treatment was a series of activities adapted from Gabrielatos (2002) and Haycraft B. (1985). The research was conducted by instructing the students to read the provided descriptive text (having theme of animals), pay attention and listen to the researcher reading aloud the text, mark a ‘/’ and ‘//’ to indicate the pause and fullstop respectively and also underline the stressed syllables and bracket the unstressed ones, pronounce the difficult words in an isolated way by repeating what the teacher said, and then practice the reading aloud together. In the research, the third activity was omitted due to the students’ request as they felt it would be easier to follow the activities without this third activity. Besides there was a pronunciation test after these activities had been carried out to measure the students’ pronunciation improvement. According to the research result, Cycle 1 was not successful. The percentage of the students’ achievement level was merely 68.75% out of 70.00% as the targeted one. This percentage indicated that there were only 16 students attending the test 1 and there were only 11 students achieving the acceptable achievement level out of 37 students in the classroom. It happened because there were 11 students met their parents in their dormitories and other 10 purposely were absent without any notification. The research result of Cycle 2, however, it was much better than before. There were 29 students joining pronunciation test 2 in which 27 students achieved the acceptable achievement level. There were totally 8 students did not achieved the acceptable achievement level including the students who did not attend the test that day. As a result, the percentage of the students’ achievement level increased as much as 93.10%. It showed that they had achieved the targeted achievement level. According to research result, it was proved that the technique could enhance the students’ pronunciation ability. It was because the activities designed enabled the students to learn a new language, in this case by listening carefully and repeating what the researcher said continuously in the form of oral reading (Kelly, 2000:15). As a result, they could perform their oral reading of a precise pronunciation better (Jacobs, 2011). Finally, the treatment administered in the classroom was able to make the students enhance their pronunciation ability as the theory stating that the reading aloud technique was applicable to enhance the students’ pronunciation ability (Huang, 2010 & Jacobs, 2011). On the other hand, another finding showed that the students’ self-confidence in practicing pronunciation did not easily emerge. It was stated that the technique could enhance the students’ self-confidence (Ninsuwan, 2015). The research proved that there was no change on this and it might take a longer time to take effect. Although the technique was not successful to promote the students’ self-confidence, it could enhance the VIIIB students’ pronunciation accuracy in reading a Descriptive Text at SMP Plus Darus Sholah Jember as the aim of the research.