| Volume: 1 | Number: 1 | February 2016 | ISSN: |

The Influence of Using Talking Stick Technique to the Speaking Ability of

Eleventh Grade Students at SMAN 1 GondangNganjuk

Widiya Sari
University of Nusantara PGRI Kediri
E-mail Address:

Abstract

The aims of this research were to find out there was a significant
influence of students’ speaking ability before and after being taught use
talking stick technique. The sample of this research was class XI IPS 4 of
the second grade at SMAN 1 GondangNganjuk in the academic year
2014/2015. The research applied one group pre-test post-test design.
The result of the speaking ability by using talking stick technique type
of cooperative learning showed that there was a significant influence on
students’ speaking ability. The average of post-test score (73.25) was
higher than that of pre-test (50.52), and it has gain 22.73. It means that
there is an influence of using talking stick technique to the speaking
ability of eleventh grade students at SMAN 1 GondangNganjuk in
academic year 2014/2015.

Keywords: Speaking ability, Talking Stick Method

Introduction

As we know that language is the most important aspect in the human

interaction. People communicate and interaction using language. And English is

used in the world by the people. In Indonesia, not all of the citizen can speak

English, although English already studied by Indonesian people from

kindergartens until university, but English is uses just for formal occasion not in

informal occasion that cause only a few Indonesian people can speak English. As

the form of our government’s response toward this case, English language has

been put in the educational system in our country, and it is taught from elementary

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school tilluniversity and becomes a compulsory subject. So that way in our country

the students should learn English. It’s easy to communicate with other people in

another country.

There are four skills in the language, listening, speaking, reading and

writing. But the most important skill is speaking to communicate with the people.

So, it should be had by everyone because everyone needs to well. One of those

language skills that influence the language ability is speaking.Widdowson (1978:

59) states that “speaking as an instance for use, therefore, is a part of a reciprocal

exchange in which both reception and production play a part. In this sense, the

skill of speaking involves both receptive and productive participation”. It’s mean

that speaking is related between receptive and productive participation. Teaching

speaking is considered to be difficult among the four skills. Chastain in Paisal,

(2011: 1) stated that “learning to speak is obviously more difficult”. It means that

more effort is required by the students and various interesting activities are also

required by the teacher. Furthermore, he states that it is not enough for the

students to hear or listen the speech only. The teacher needs to give the

opportunities to the student to practice their oral language especially in speaking.

Teaching is an educational activitity. It is an activitiy that is done for giving

information, sciences and knowledge to the students. Teaching can be done

whether in formal situation or informal ones. Teaching is the process of giving

knowledge; it is done by the teacher in order to give the materials and information

to the students. Teachingcannot be defined apart from learning. Brown (2000: 7)

stated: “Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learners to learn,

and setting the conditions”. In teaching learning process, those aspects cannot be

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separated with others because all those components must be integrated to achieve

the goal. However, teaching a language, especially a foreign language is not an easy

task. Since English is a foreign language for Indonesian students, they surely get

difficulties in learning it. As we know that learning a foreign language is different

from learning a native language because the students’ environment in achieving

their first language and foreign language are different.

There are four basic skills in English language teaching that should be

mastered by the students. Those are speaking and writing as productive skills, and

listening and reading as receptive skills. In English teaching for speaking skill, the

English teachers must be creative to design many communication activities in the

classroom that urge and motivate students to use the language actively and

productively. For example, in oral language class, the student should be served

with conducive learning activity. So, they can practice English as well as possible.

In other words, the teacher is responsible for the situation where the student can

communicate orally with their classmates. Most of the students think that speaking

English is really difficult because we should adapt among the written form and the

pronunciations. We can see the fact that most of the Indonesian students can’t

perform speaking English well.

The observation result when the researcher conducted teaching practice at

the second year students of SMAN 1 GondangNganjuk in XI IIS 4 showed that

speaking is the most frustrating English skill for students. The students sometimes

face many problems in learning speaking because many factors such as shy to

speak, have low motivation, have less self confidence, afraid of making mistakes

and etc. Sometimes, they understand about the topic or material but they are

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difficult to share and express their idea to others. To solve the problems above,

teacher needs to use an interesting and student-centered method. One of the

teaching methods is cooperative. Through this method, students are active in the

learning process, because they learn more through a process of constructing and

creating, working in group and sharing knowledge. Therefore, it is important to

focus the teachers’ intention on the improvement to stimulate the students to

speak. For this purpose, active learning is demanded. So, the teachers have to find

out a special teaching method to facility the students to solving their problems.

As Slavin (1988: 31) said that “cooperative learning as a concept consists of

several instructional methods in which learners study a language in small groups

of 4-6, and group performance is rewarded in several different ways. Cooperative

learning method is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of

cooperative activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in classroom.

Cooperative learning, like collaborative learning, entail small group working on

specific task. This model is allows the interaction and transaction among the

student in the learning process that meets the rules of view of constructivist. In

practice the work of cooperative learning team is systematically structure. So,

there is a positive interdependence among the members in the groups. In group,

the members feel that they work together for emphasizes that “in a well-

functioning cooperative group there is a sense of join responsibility where learners

care about and get committed together”. It describes a team environment where

learners celebrate successes and provide assistance to each other is likely to

promote more positive peer relationship, social support, high self-esteem, and

academic achievement.

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There are many types of cooperative learning method that can use in

teaching classroom. The cooperative learning method is:

1. Jigsaw,

2. Team-Game-Tournament,

3. Talking Stick technique,

4. Bamboo Dancing technique,

5. Numbered Head Together,

6. Think Pair Share,

7. Group Investigation,

8. Make a Match,

9. Listening Team,

10. Snowball drilling, etc.

In this research, the researcher uses Talking Stick Method as a technique in

teaching speaking. It is one kinds of Cooperative learning method. Suprijono

(2009: 90) states that “Pembelajarandenganmetodetalking

stickmendorongpesertadidikuntukberanimengemukakanpendapat”. There is

definition about talking stick according Michael T Garret.

Talking Stick Method,According to Garret (1998: 82)

Talking stick method is a method that uses a stick well-known as a wooden
stick, which the facilitator or the leader begins by picking up the stick to
share the feeling or concern with the group. It is passed clockwise to the
next person, who may choose to speak or to remain silent. Then, the talking
stick is passed to each person for getting a chance to speak.

Based on the statement above, the researcher chooses the talking stick

method to improve their speaking ability and the students can speak

spontaneously and share their idea.

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From the statements above, the problem is the students can’t share their

idea although they understand about the topic. The students afraid make a mistake

when they are speaking. So, the researcher take the title of “The Influence Of Using

Talking Stick Technique To The Students Speaking Ability of Eleventh Grade at

SMAN 1 GondangNganjuk In Academic Year 2014/2015”.

Method
This research was quantitative research. According to Marczyk et al. (2005:
46) said that research is an examination of the relationship between one or more
independent variables and one or more dependent variables. In conducting this
research, the researcher used Pre test and Post test Design. In this research, the
students were given pre test before treatments and in the end of the research the
students were also given post test after giving treatments.
The treatment was conducted into one meeting of activities and take 2x45
minutes. The population of this research was all the eleventh grade students at
SMAN 1 GondangNganjuk in the academic year of 2014/2015. There were eight
classes available at the eleventh grade.From those classes, the reseacher chooses
one class, it was class XI IPS 4 consisting of 32 students.
In collecting the data, the researcher used pretest and post-test. Pretest was
administered in order to find out the students’ speaking ability before the
treatments, and post test was administered in order to find out the increase of the
treatments towards the students’ speaking ability after being given the treatments.
Pretest and posttest were used to get the data to analyze the hypothesis.

Research Result and Discussion

This research was primaly aimed at answering the question whether there
was a significant influence on students’ speaking ability before and after being
taught use talking stick technique type of cooperative learning.
It can be concluded that teaching speaking using talking stick technique in
English language teaching has significant influence. Before the students taught by
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talking stick technique in teaching speaking, their total score of speaking test is
1608 and the mean of their pre-test was 50,25. After they taught using talking stick
technique in teaching speaking, their total score of speaking test is 2344 and the
mean of their post test was 73,25. It can be said that the student’s score is
increasing after they taught by using talking stick technique in teaching speaking.
Besides, in analyze t-test, t-score is higher than t-table. The score of t-test is 20,017
and the t-table is 2,042 in the level of significant 5%. Based on the t-test result
which is obtained, the talking stick technique in teaching speaking has significant
influence to the student’s speaking ability of the eleventh grade students at SMAN
1 Gondang.
The data showed that t-score was higher than t-table in significance 5%.
Therefore, the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted and null hypothesis is
rejected. It can be concluded that teaching speaking using talking stick technique
has significant influence to the student’s speaking ability of the eleventh grade
students at SMAN 1 Gondang academic year 2014/2015.

Conclusion and Suggestion

Referring to the discussion, the researcher concludes that there is a
significant influence of using talking stick technique to the students speaking
ability of eleventh grade students at SMAN 1 Gondang Nganjuk. The average score
in pretest was 50.52 for pre-test and 73.25 for post-test. The gain is 22.73. It can be
said that the students’ post test score was higher than students’ pretest score. this
research showed that t-score is 2,071 at degree of freedom 31 and t-table is 2,042
at the level of significance 1% and 2,750 at the level of significance 5%. It means
that t-score (20,017) > t-table at the level of significance 1% (2,042) and t-score
(20,017) < t-table at the level of significant 5% (2,750).

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