THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
USING DIRECT METHOD TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY
(A Classroom Action
Research)
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background of the Study
Human being
needs each other. As a social culture, human needs to communicate with language
as a means
of communication with
other people. Language
is used by people to express and receive some
information, message, emotions and so on. There are many kinds of languages used by people such as
English, Dutch, India, French, Spanish, Arab, Indonesia, etc. It depends on
where the people live. English is a foreign language in Indonesia.
One of
the ways of
communication is through
speaking. For most
people, mastering ―the art‖ of speaking is the single most important
aspect of learning a second or
foreign language, and
success is measured
in terms of
the ability to
carry out a conversation in the language (Fauziati,
2008: 126).
Nowadays
English is an important language. It is the key to international currency of technology,
science, as well
as commerce. As
an international language,
English has gained its popularity
all over the world including Indonesia. In the past English was only taught in
high school. In current years, the teaching of English is expanding into
primary schools.
English
consists of four basic skills that students must master, they are speaking, writing, reading
and listening. The
first skill is
speaking, it controls
to learn and to
develop of an
individual‘s personality. The
second one is
writing, it is
a partial representation of units
of language expression. This is the chief means by which thought, ideas and
knowledge are preserved. The third is reading, it is to grasp language patterns
from their written
representation. The fourth
is listening; through
listening, we build knowledge by taking in new information
(Robert Lado, 1983: 143).
Speaking is
in many ways
an undervalued skill.
Perhaps this is
because we can almost all speak, and so take the skill
too much for granted. Speaking is often thought of as a popular form of
expression which uses the unprestigious colloquial register: literary skills are
on the whole
more prized. The
fact that speaking
is transient and
improvised, and can therefore be viewed as facile, superficial, or glib
(Bygate, 1987: 1 ). Speaking is, however,
a skill which
deserves attention every
bit as much
as literary skills, in both first and second languages. It is also a
medium through which many languages
is learnt, and
which for many
is particularly conducive
for learning. Perhaps, then, the teaching of speaking
merits more thought (Bygate, 1987: 1 ).
Mastering
speaking is not easy. The main problem faced by the students of senior high
school when they speak is the difficulty in composing the words or sentences.
When they are speaking,
they constantly estimate
the listener, knowledge
and assumption, in order
to select the
language that will
be interpreted in
accordance with our
intended meaning (Littlewood, 1984: 3).
Students are
taught by using
direct method needs
associate the meaning,
the spelling and the
target language directly.
To do this,
the teacher introduces
new target language words or???????????????????????????
