A suggested technique for teaching speaking by using tape recorder to SMU students in extra curricular activity

Speaking is one of the four language skills that should be mastered by the SMU students in the teaching and learning of English. As it is stated in the 1994 Curriculum and the School Curriculum that by the end of the teaching and learning of English, students are expected to be able to rend. understand speak and write in English. However, the curriculum objective of the GBPP 1994 for SMU goes further by giving highlight to the speaking skill. It demands the students to be able to apply the speaking ability in English through simple conversation. The general objective of teaching the productive skill of speaking will be oral fluency. Thus, it is necessary for students to get suifficient practice to achieve good speaking ability. However, the students tend to be passive to their limited ability, shyness and fear of making mistakes. Here, the writer conducts library research and proposes a technique for teaching speaking by using a tape recorder as she wants to create relaxing situation, which can encourage the students to speak comfortably without being overly concerned to grammatical and pronunciation errors. The writer also prepares three steps to apply this technique. Furthermore, a sample of lesson plan is also designed to model the application of the suggested technique. The library research finds that there is a significant relationship between listening and speaking. In fact, listening plays an important role in speaking skill as speaking is learned through listening and imitation. Consequently, the words that the students use to convey their ideas are influenced and determined by the stimulus they have got before, that is through listening. Based on this assumption, the writer tries in her study to use listening to stimulate students to speak. She chooses tape recorder as the teaching aid and records several reading passage to which the students will have to listen and later on be stimulated and encouraged to speak. To accompany her technique, the writer also prepares three steps for the application of it. The first step is preparation. Here the teacher should determine the objective, choose the teaching materials including considering the students' level of proficiency and interest, determine the teaching steps and the evaluation. The second step is the presentation in which the teacher may start with triggering questions aimed to arouse the students' background knowledge related to the given topic. After listening to the tape, the teacher may ask some general questions to check the students’ understanding. The general questions here are also meant as the stepping-stone towards the teaching of speaking . The last step is evaluation, which can be in the form of speaking test. The speaking test is given to check the students' ability to speak after the listening activity. The students may be asked to prepare a story in their own words or dialogue based on the passage has been played previously. After that, the students should present the story or the dialogue they have made without looking at their notes