Group work activities for improving speaking skills

This study was conducted at SMAN 2 Sigli to improve speaking skills in English through group work activities with the third year students of XII-IPA1 through a Classroom Action Research project. Before this study was conducted, only 25% of the students met the speaking target test or Minimal Grade Criteria (Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal or KKM) which was 75. The researcher and the collaborator worked together in designing a new lesson plan, implementing the actions and making conclusions and reflections. The study was done in three cycles by following action research procedures: planning an action, implementing the plan, observing the action, and reflecting. To collect the data, observation sheets, tests and a questionnaire were used as instruments. The findings showed that group work activities were effective for improving the students’ ability in speaking and the teacher’s performance in teaching speaking as well. From the pre-test the highest score was 80 and the lowest 60 while from the post-test after the third cycle the highest score was 95 and the lowest was 70. This means that most of the students improved a lot in speaking. Also the results from the observations of the teacher, started from 58% and increased to 75% and 86% and for the students from 56% increased to 68% and 84% from the first cycle to the second and then the third cycle. The result of this research also indicates that the students responded very well towards the implementation of the group work activities. Based on these findings, it is suggested that other English teachers should use group work activities for the teaching of speaking English at schools. since they are get better result