The use of bamboo dancing technique to improve students’ speaking skill (a classroom action research at the eighth grade of SMP Nurul Islam Semarang in the academic year of 2014/2015)

This study is about the use of Bamboo Dancing Technique to improve students’ speaking skill for eighth grade of SMP Nurul Islam Semarang. The background of the research was based on the phenomenon of students’ difficulties in speaking English. The problems were found from the students’ condition in learning speaking. The students’ less confident, often shy when they are asked to speak English and also vocabulary was poor in supporting their speaking. They were also still confused to use suitable grammar in exploring their ideas to speak target language. In addition, they couldn’t pay full attention during the lesson. Besides, teacher also usually used conventional method, namely speech method in teaching the students. The teaching learning process always focused on teacher-centered. The situation made the teaching learning process bored and monotonous. In order to improve the students’ speaking skill, the teacher needed a new game to make the students more enjoy and easier to speak. So, the researcher considered that by using Bamboo Dancing Technique could improve students’ speaking skill. The aim of this research is to find out the improvement of students’ achievement of speaking skill after being taught by using Bamboo Dancing Technique. The researcher conducted the research by using classroom action research. The subject of the study was class 8B of SMP Nurul Islam Semarang, the number of students was 36. The research was done in pre-cycle, and two cycles: cycle 1 and cycle 2. Each cycle comprised four components: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. To collect the data, the researcher used documentation, observation, and test. Then, the data was analyzed by quantitative-qualitative. Observation data was analyzed qualitatively and the speaking test was analyzed quantitatively. The average of students’ score in the pre-cycle research was 55.56 and only 36% students who participated in the class can pass the minimum standard score. Next, based on the result of first cycle it was obtain 62.91 for average and 60% students who participated and active in the class. Then, the average of students’ score in the second cycle was 69.50 and the activeness of students in the class is 76%. The result of the research showed that the use of Bamboo Dancing Technique was successful and could improve students’ achievement on speaking skill. In addition, the success of the research is supported also by students with giving positive response during teaching learning process. It can be seen from the result of graphic