English Education Journal
Vol 6, No 3 (2015): English Education Journal (EEJ)

A CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH: IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES

M Afrizal (Almuslim University)



Article Info

Publish Date
31 Aug 2015

Abstract

The research was based on a preliminary study on the causes of problems related to the students’ inability to speak English. One of the research objectives is to describe the atmosphere in improving speaking by using activities in the Information Gap Technique (IGT). The researcher and the collaborator worked together in designing the lesson plans, implementing the actions, making observations and reflecting on the results. The subjects of this research study were second semester students from the English Department at Almuslim University. This study was conducted in three cycles following the procedures for action research, namely planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. To collect data, the researcher used instruments of observations, lists, tests and questionnaires. The data obtained was presented in two ways, qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings showed that IGT activities were effective in improving the speaking abilities of the student in class. This can be seen from the improvements after each cycle. This can be seen by the rise in the students’ mean scores in the test results: 58.8 in the first cycle, 68 in the second cycle and 81.3 in the third cycle. Improvement was also seen based on the results from the observations that showed positivity, and good responses from the students. From the questionnaire results, it was found that the mean score for the students’ perception was 3,616. This means that the students responded positively to the implementation of this technique.

Copyrights © 2015






Journal Info

Abbrev

EEJ

Publisher

Subject

Education Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

Description

EEJ (English Education Journal) is a peer-reviewed and open access academic journal published by the Graduate Program of English Language Education, University of Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. It presents the work/research of students and lecturers who are in the program. It is published four ...