first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada improve their speaking ability when the teacher uses Audio-Lingual Method

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Research

English becomes increasingly important in various fields such as business, finance, industry and education. Every students, they hope can speak English fluently. Besides, English is very important to be learnt, it have been referring that English is global language. Some people say that English would be the second language of the whole people in the world.

In Indonesian, English has been officially adopted as a foreign language which is first learnt at elementary school up to university level. It means that all Indonesian students start learning English at elementary school. In Indonesian education curriculum, English is also one of the lessons that are examined in national examination. And one of skills in English is speaking.

Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts (Richard, 1999: 204). Speaking is a crucial part of foreign language learning and teaching. Despite of its importance for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because only in that way the students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance.

Method is one of the important factors in teaching learning process. The appropriate method used by teacher motivated the students in studying. Having high motivation gives good effect on students in improving their performance. Therefore, the teachers have to pay any attention on the technique and method used in their teaching learning process of speaking. Many techniques the teacher use to motivating their students. One of them is Audio-Lingual Method to improving students’ speaking skill. This method is used by the teacher in teaching and learning process of speaking to the first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada.

Larsen-Freeman (1986:31) said that the goal of teachers who use audio lingual method is that they want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. In order to do this, they believe students need over learn the target language, to learn to use it automatically without stopping to think. Their students achieve this by forming new habit in the target language and overcoming the old habits of their native language.

Based on the explanation above the writer thinks that it is reasonable enough to be the reason why the writer is interested to do a classroom action research under the title improving speaking by using audio lingual method. Besides, this research is also deemed essential to be done in order to find an appropriate way of how to teach speaking and to find the effect of using this method that hopefully help the teacher and students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada in teaching and learning process of speaking. And finally it is hope that the implementation of the method can facilitate the student to improve their speaking ability.

1.2    Problem of the Research

The problems of this research are in the following:

1.    Can the first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada improve their speaking ability when the teacher uses Audio-Lingual Method?

2.    What are the advantages of using Audio-Lingual Method in teaching and learning process of speaking to the first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada?

1.3    Purpose of the Research

The purposes of this research based on the problem of this research are as follows:

1.      To know if the first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada can improve their speaking ability when the teacher uses Audio-Lingual Method.

2.      To find out the advantages of using Audio-Lingual Method in teaching speaking to the first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada.

1.4  Significance of the Research

This research is hoped can give meaningful knowledge both for theoretical and practical concerns. Theoretically, the study will give reasonable benefit in describing the mastering of speaking through Audio-Lingual Method, especially to the first year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada. Practically, the finding of the research is expected to the teacher can give a priority measures in teaching speaking. Meanwhile for the students, they are hoped to be able to improve their speaking ability through Audio-Lingual Method, so that they can communicate their ideas as clear as possible.

1.5 Scope of the Research

The scope of the research is focused on teaching speaking through Audio-Lingual Method at MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada. The writer wants to know whether the Audio-Lingual Method has the better effect in improving students’ speaking skill. The writer will focus on dialogue concerning with the expression of invitation, acceptance and refusal.

1.6  Definition of the Key Terms

In this thesis, the writer gives some explanation about a few key terms. These key terms’ function is to make the reader understand exactly about a few words or phrases.

1.        Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts (Richard, 1999:204). Speaking is an activity which involves two or more people reaction to what they hear and contribute and they can understand each other (Harmer, 2006:6). This research is not going to study on speaking in all languages but only on English speaking, especially on using the meeting and parting expression.

2.        Audio-Lingual Method is a method that is used by the teachers who want their students to be able to use the target language in daily speaking communicatively (Larsen-Freeman, 1986:31). In this research, this method was used in the classroom to improve the students’ speaking ability and it was hoped that this method facilitate students to use the target language, especially English, in their daily life.

3.      Classroom Action Research (CAR) is a form of reflective research that is conducted by teacher which its result can be used as a tool to improve the teaching and learning (McNiff, 1992:1 in Asrori, 2008:4). ). In this research, the researcher implements this kind of research to improve speaking teaching and learning process of second year students of MAS Darussa’adah Cot Bada.