IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE THROUGH SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION (A Classroom Action Research in the Fifth Year of MI Al Islam Grobagan Surakarta in Academic Year of 2009/2010)

There are ways of communicating language. One of the ways is speaking. It is the way that a language communicated orally. Speaking, indeed, is not the most determining way whether a communication goes as it is expected or not. People can also write to communicate the language. But most people speak, they speak everyday. Therefore, the writer limits his study by carrying out a research on speaking, especially English speaking for real-life use. English speaking is very important to be mastered since it is worldwide used, in other words it is the language which is internationally used. As part of the international community, it is necessary to master English speaking for it plays important roles in the coming era where everything is going to be globalized. When someone is in Japan, for example (or in any other countries whose mother tongue is not English), and he does not speak Japanese, he can communicate with English to interact with people there. People will not excuse for he speaks English since it have been an agreement that English is the language which can connect people all over the world. That is why English is needed to be learnt