"The use of Information Gap Activity (IGA) to improve students' Speaking Ability : Quasi-Experimental Study at the Second Grade of Junior High School Karya Budi

Speaking is one of the productive activities in daily life and the most important language skill because it is the main skill needed to carry out a conversation. In speaking skill, many students could not express their idea, did not understand the meaning of word, did not have sufficient vocabulary, and they could not pronounce the words well to speak in English. The teacher has to be creative in choosing the technique for teaching speaking in order to make the students more motivation in learning speaking. The teacher can use IGA technique for teaching speaking to improve students’ speaking ability. The purposes of this research are to find out; 1) the students’ speaking ability by using Information Gap Activities (IGA); 2) the students’ speaking ability by using Role Play; (3) the significant differences between students’ speaking ability by using Information Gap Activities (IGA) and using Role Play. This research used quantitative method in quasi-experimental design. The population of this research was 125 students of the second grade at SMP Karya Budi Bandung which had four classes with 30 to 32 students each class. Two classes were taken as sample; VIII A as the sample of experimental class consisting of 30 students and VIII B as the sample of control class consisting of 31 students. The data were collected by giving pretest and posttest for both of classes. The findings of the research show; 1) the mean of pretest scores in experimental class is 64.38 and the result of pretest control class is 65.23. Therefore the results of pretest mean in control class is higher than pretest in experimental class; 2) the mean of posttest scores in experimental class is 75.08 and the mean of posttest scores in control class is 65,38. It means that the mean of posttest scores in experimental is higher than control class; 3) the result of the data showed that the value of t_(-count) is 2.87 and t_(-table) with significance level 5% is 2,001. If t_(-count) > t_(-table) . (Ho) is rejected and (Ha) is accepted. It was proven that (Ha) is accepted, which means there is significant of students’ speaking ability by using information Gap Activity. The further result showed that the N-gain calculation in experimental class is (0.30 0r “average”) was greater than the control class (0.00 or “low”). Then, it was clear that students’ speaking ability enhancement with the IGA technique was more significant than with the Role Play technique. Based on the results in this research, the IGA technique can applied in teaching speaking ability