Using Role-Play to Improve Eleventh Graders' Speaking Skills

Based on an interview to the English teacher of SMAN 10 Malang and a preliminary study, some problems were found among the XI MIA 2 students. Those problems were students' speaking skills were poor; their average score was 64, 04, their attitudes towards speaking English were poor, and their participations within the teaching and learning process were low. It was because the teacher used monotonous technique in teaching speaking and students were afraid to make mistakes. To overcome those problems, role-play was proposed as a technique to be implemented in the classroom. This report of this study was designed to improve the students' speaking skills using role play. The study was to describe how role play can improve the speaking skills of XI MIA 2 students of SMAN 10 Malang. This study was conducted in one cycle, which were carried out in six meetings. The model of implementing role-play to teach speaking includes the following procedures: (1) preparing students for the day’s lesson by giving them some questions related to the picture/video presented on the LCD, due to their prior knowledge, (2) discussing and/or reviewing the materials, (3) dividing students into small groups, (4) distributing the cards containing the situations and the roles to each group, (7) guiding the students to write a conversational script in their groups, (8) asking them to make their own script, and practiced on their own seat, (10) asking them to perform the role play in groups, and (11) providing feedback for students’ performances. The results of the study revealed that role-play successfully improved students’ speaking skills. The improvement of students could be seen from the average score 64, 04 during the preliminary study which increases to 83, 09. Besides, the students’ individual scores also increased within the implementation stage of the study. In addition, it was also found out that the students’ participations improved, as there was none of the students who remained passive during the teaching and learning process. Besides, the students’ attitudes and responses towards the implementation of role-play were positive. In conclusion, role-play was a useful technique to be used in teaching speaking. It was suggested for English teachers of XI MIA 2 or teachers who found similar problems with XI MIA 2 to implement role-play more often as it was proven to be helpful. For the future researchers, the findings of this study can become a good reference of role-play implementation to teach speaking