A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT AT SMAN RAMBIPUJI

Abstract

Learning English as a foreign language requires the students to learn the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Unfortunately, from those all four skills, speaking is stated by most Indonesian students as the most anxious producing experience. The skill is important to be mastered and it cannot be neglected because it plays an important role in communication. However, during the implementation of the curriculum (KTSP), there has been mismatch between the goals of the curriculum and the evaluation used to measure the success of the teaching and learning process. Teacher tended to teach listening and reading to prepare their students to face national examinations whilst the skills of writing and speaking got less focused in teaching learning process. Consequently, it makes students have very limited time to practise speaking and this may affect the students’ speaking achievement. Based on the above problem, the researcher was interested in conducting a descriptive study of the students’ speaking achievement based on five sub-skills of speaking (fluency, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension). The population of this research was the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri Rambipuji Jember in the 2015/2016 academic year. In order to be able to obtain more representative data, the researcher decided to apply proportional random sampling method by taking 10% of the total population (196 students). Thus, there were 20 students taken as the respondents. To obtain the data the researcher administered a speaking test on Monday, September 28th, 2015. The test was in the form of interview. In this test, the respondents were asked to answer the questions that consisted of 12 questions in five xv minutes on the topic of “Friendship” using the expression of giving advice, giving warning, granting request or expression relief, pain, and pleasure. In assessing the students’ speaking achievement, the researcher used analytical scoring rubric by considering the five sub-skills of speaking: fluency, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. The researcher used a formulae from Ali to analyze the students’ speaking achievement in general. Then, the students’ score distribution in speaking (per sub-skill) was analyzed based on the classification of score levels. The result of the analysis showed that the students’ average score in speaking was 64.2. It means that the eleventh grade students’ speaking achievement at SMA Negeri Rambipuji Jember was fair. The students’ grammar and comprehension achievement were categorized as good since the scores ranged between 70 – 79. The students’ grammar and comprehension scores were 70 and 72 respectively. The students’ pronunciation score was 65.5 which categorized as fair. Meanwhile, the average score of students’ fluency and vocabulary were 57.5 and 56 respectively which were categorized as poor. In conclusion, the result of the research showed that the students’ speaking achievement was in fair category. Therefore, the researcher hopes that the result of this study will become valuable information for the teacher in teaching speaking in order to improve the students’ speaking achievement.