IMPROVING SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH BOARD GAME

Andi Chaerunnisa1, Ferry Rita2

English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
Tadulako University

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to prove whether or not the use of Board Game technique can
improve the speaking ability.The method used was a quasi-experimental research design which
involved two classes of junior high school students divided into experimental and control groups. The
research subjects were the eighth grade students. The data were collected by using oral pretest and
posttest. The pretest was administered to measure the students’ speaking ability before the treatment,
while the posttest was administered to measure the students’ speaking ability after the treatment. The
students were asked to describe about person in front of the class, the result of the pretest shows that
the mean score of the experimental group is lower than the control group. However, the mean score
in the posttest of the experimental group is higher than the control group. Furthermore, the result of
data analysis shows that t-counted is greater than the t-table indicates that the use of Board Game
technique has a positive effect on speaking ability of the eighth grade students at SMP Negeri 9 Palu.

Keyterms: Improving,Speaking Ability, Board Game

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk membuktikan bahwa penggunaan Board Game Technique
dapat meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa kelas 8. Metode penelitian ini adalah desain
penelitian eksperimen semu yang melibatkan dua kelas siswa sebagai kelompok eksperimen dan
kelompok kontrol. Sampel dipilih dengan menggunakan teknik cluster sampling. Sampel adalah siswa
VIII F sebagai kelompok eksperimen dan VIII I sebagai kelompok kontrol. Data dikumpulkan dengan
menggunakan pretest dan posttessecaralisan. Pretest diberikan untuk mengukur kemampuan
berbicara siswa sebelum perlakuan, sedangkan posttest diberikan untuk mengukur kemampuan
berbicara siswa setelah perlakuan. Hasil pretest menunjukkan bahwa skor rata-rata kelompok
eksperimen lebih rendah dari kelompok komtrol. Skor meningkat pada posttest dimana skor
kelompok eksperimen lebih tinggi dari kelompok kontrol. Selanjutnya, hasil analisis data
menunjukkan bahwa t-hitung lebih besar dari t-tabel. Ini menunjukkan bahwa hipotesis penelitian
diterima. Dengan demikian, penerapan teknik Board Game memiliki efek positif pada kemampuan
berbicara siswa kelas delapan di SMP Negeri 9 Palu.

Kata kunci: Meningkatkan, Kemampuan berbicara, Board Game

INTRODUCTION
Speaking is a communication tool to
enhance human’s life in society. Its form and
meaning depends on the context, including the
participants themselves, collective experiences,
the physical environment, and purpose for
speaking (Brown, 2001:267). From the
definition above, it is clear that the students
need to learn speaking in order to be able to
communicate or expresses idea, exchange the
information and share their feelings with
others.
In Curriculum 2013 for Junior High
School, the objective of teaching speaking for
the eighth grade is the students are expected to
be able to express meanings in transactional
1
E-mail:andiica48254@gmail.com
and interpersonal in daily life context. In the
teaching and learning process, the speaking
should be learned with an interactive way. It
consists of constructing meaning that involves
producing, receiving, and processing
information and the presence of speaker and
listener.
Based on the preliminary observation
in SMP Negeri 9 Palu there were some
problems that faced by the students. First, the
students got difficulty to express their ideas
freely in speaking activities. They did not
know how to construct meaningful phrase and
sentence in good grammar to deliver their
ideas. Second, they were lack of motivation.

E-journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS) Vol. No. 1

They often got bored in the class because the
teaching technique was not interesting. The
teaching technique only asked the students to
make a conversation rather than tried to give
interested media. To solve the problems above,
the researcher offered a solution that was board
game.
Speaking is one of the skills that
should be mastered from Junior High School
up to university level. It is important for
students to improve their skill to communicate
constructing meaning that involves producing,
accepting, and processing information. The
meaning depends on the context where it
occurs, including the participants, collective
experience and physical environment. It means
that to practice their understanding, how to
send idea, and how spell words well.
In building up speaking skill, the
students have to master three important
components of speaking skill. According to
Syakur (1987:3), “there are three components
of speaking skills, i.e. fluency, accuracy, and
comprehensibility”.
One of the goals of teaching speaking
is to develop fluency in language use.
Speaking fluently means being able to
communicate one’s ideas without having to
stop and think too much about what one is
saying. Fluency is the features which give
speech the qualities of being natural and
normal. According to Brown (1997:4), “Signs
of fluency include the reasonably fast speed of
speaking and only a small number of pauses
and “ums” or “ers””. These signs indicate that
the speaker does not have a lot of time
searching the language item which is needed to
express the message.
Accuracy is one of the factors which
can determine the success of English in future.
Accuracy is a skill to produce good grammar
and vocabulary. In this case, the speaker is
demanded to use well-formed sentences and
appropriate words. Bailey (2005:5) states,
“Accuracy refers to ability to speak properlyby
selecting the correct word and expressions to
convey the intended meaning, as well as using
the good grammatical pattern of English.”
Using the right word in the right order with the
correct pronunciation will help the speaker to
convey his/her messages to be understood. It is
very hard to tune in to a speaker when
E-journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS) Vol. No.
elocution is predictable and is a tiring to hear
one out who fluctuates significantly from
standard. Bad pronunciation can be a serious
block to communication.
Another component of speaking skill
is comprehensibility. In speaking, we should
pay attention to the sentence rules in order to
make out message we delivered can
beunderstood by listener. Harmer (2001:271)
defines, “Effective speakers need to be able to
process language in their own heads and put it
into coherent order so that it comes out in
forms those are not only comprehensible, but
also convey the meanings that are intended.” If
the conveyed message are not well arranged,
the meaning of them can neither be understood
nor comprehend. Therefore, the
communication cannot run effectively. To be
able speak well, students should arrange
his/her words in proper way. It means that the
arrange word should follow the rules of
language.
Game is a useful strategy to motivate
students to learn English, one of the games is
board game. Board game is a game that
involves counters or pieces moved or placed
on a pre-marked surface or “board” according
to a set of rules. Kinds of board game are
monopoly, snakes and ladders, ludo, etc. the
design can be adapted to the students’ English
lesson.
Chang and Jenny (2008) states that
using board games in the language classroom
is an effective, low-anxiety, and fun ways for
students to learn and practice communication
skills as well as develop their communication
strategies that can be ready apply to the real
world. It means that, it attract students’
motivation to follow the teaching and learning
process because board game can make the
students more focus in learning, because they
do not feel that they forced to learn. They also
enable learners to acquirenew experiences
within a foreign which are not always possible
during a typical lesson.
Board game is a technique that will
give many advantages for teacher and the
students either. The students playing board
game in the classroom only for language
learning and help them to increase their
speaking skill which they can apply outside of
the classroom.
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 Board game gives benefits to the
success of teaching and learning process.
Related to Rapika (2016) entitled “The Effect
of Board Game on Students’ Speaking Skill at
Grade XI of SMAN 1 Tambusai Rokan
Hulu.”The benefitsof using board game
technique are the students can express their
ideas using English with their friend in fun
ways and the students be able to increase their
fluency because they will repeat using the
same expressions and vocabulary.
There are some advantages of board
game in speaking (Carly 2010:21). “First, it is
motivating and challenging the students.
Second, they encourage students to interact
and communicate. Third, board game can help
the students learn and hang on to new words
more easily. Fourth, speaking skill through
board game will bring real world context into
the classroom and increase students’ use of
English in a flexible, meaningful, and
communicative way”.
In spite of the fact that it has some
advantages, it also has disadvantages. To
prepare the board game, the teacher needs to
prepare the board, dice, cards, etc in order to
make sure the activity runs well.
Considering the problems, the
researcher formulated a research questions as
follow: “Can the application of board game
improve speaking ability of the eighth grade
students at SMP Negeri 9 Palu?” .
RESEARCH METHOD
This research applied a quasi-
experimental research design. The sample was
separated into two groups; experimental and
control group. The researcher gave pretest and
posttest to both groups, but the treatment was
only given to the experimental one. The
research design can be see below:
Experimental O1 X O2
------------------------
Control O3 O4
Where:
O1 and O3 are pretest, X is treatment and O2
and O4 are posttest.
The research sample were the eighth
grade students of SMP Negeri 9 Palu, they
E-journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS) Vol. No.
were divided into two groups; class VIII F as
the experimental group and class VIII I as the
control group intake.
In collecting the data, the researcher
used an oral test to measure the fluency and
comprehensibility of speaking skills. The
testare pretest and posttest which were given to
the experimental and control group.
The pretest used to know students’
prior knowledge in speaking ability before
giving the treatment. In here, the students was
given a question about describe themselves
and then they come in front of the class to
describe themselves, the questions:
1. What is your name?
2. Where do you live?
3. What is your hobby?
4. What is your favorite food?
5. What is your favorite color?
After pretest, the students would be
given treatment to the experimental group, the
researcher applied board game technique. The
stage of applying board game technique first,
teacher divided students into six groups
consisted of 5 to 6 students each group.
Second, gave snakes and ladders board game
by giving the explanation rule first. The rule is
each member of the group has the same
opportunity to shake the dice. The dice have 6
sides that contain 1 to 6 numbers and in the
snakes and ladders board game consists of 30
numbers.
The question placed in the board of
snakes and ladders. How to play, first, one of
the students in the group shook the dice and for
example she/he got number 4 and the question
is describe about friends, so she/he answered
the question based on the board she/he steps
on.
Like as we know, snakes and ladders
have punishment and reward as the name.
When the students meet the head of snake in
the board they must turn back of the tail of the
snakes while they will meet the ladder they can
go forward to the top of the ladder.
The posttest was given after giving six
times treatment. The purpose of giving posttest
was to know whether or not the students
speaking ability improved afterreceiving the
treatment. In testing the students’ speaking
ability, the researcher focuses on two aspects
in speaking namely fluency and
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comprehensibility. Each aspect has the criteria means that there are developments for the
to be assessed. students of the result of the experimental group
it is increased and develop from 62.5 to 89.42.
FINDINGS There is a significant different in the students
The pretest and posttest focused on result in pretest and posttest for experimental
fluency and comprehensibility, by using voice group.
recorder as a helping instrument. The result of The result of the pretest and posttest of
both pretest and posttets was compared in control group is presented on table 2 below:
order to find out whether or not the use of
board game technique can improve students’ Table 2 Score of Pretest and Posttest of
speaking ability. Control Group
The result of the pretest and posttest of Students’ Standard Scores
Students’
experimental group is presented in table 1 No. Pretest Posttest Deviation
Initials
below: (𝑌1 ) (𝑌2 ) (𝑌2 − 𝑌1 )
1 AA 87.5 87.5 0
Table 1 Score of Pretest and Posttest of 2 AB 37.5 75 37.5
Experimental Group 3 AL 50 75 25
Students’ Standard Scores 4 AR 87.5 87.5 0
Students’ 5 ARN 62.5 75 12.5
No. Pretest Posttest Deviation
Initials
(𝑥1 ) (𝑥2 ) (𝑥2 − 𝑥1) 6 AYD 75 62.5 -12.5
1 AD 62.5 87.5 25 7 B 75 62.5 -12.5
2 ADR 62.5 87.5 25 8 DNA 75 100 25
3 AK 62.5 75 12.5 9 FA 50 75 25
4 AN 25 75 50 10 FF 75 50 -25
5 ASR 50 87.5 37.5 11 FS 75 75 0
6 AZ 62.5 100 37.5 12 FSY 25 50 25
7 BAS 50 75 25 13 JF 37.5 50 12.5
8 CR 75 100 25 14 LBM 50 62.5 12.5
9 DY 62.5 87.5 25 15 MA 50 75 25
10 HF 62.5 100 37.5 16 MAA 100 100 0
11 IA 50 75 25 17 MM 75 75 0
12 IP 75 87.5 12.5 18 MR 75 75 0
13 IBN 75 100 25 19 NFA 75 75 0
14 MA 62.5 87.5 25 20 NLS 62.5 75 12.5
15 MAM 75 87.5 12.5 21 NZ 50 62.5 12.5
16 MAR 62.5 87.5 25 22 RPN 50 62.5 12.5
17 NR 75 87.5 12.5 23 RG 62.5 75 12.5
18 NS 75 100 25 24 SI 50 75 25
19 NY 37.5 75 37.5 25 Y 75 50 -25
20 PH 75 100 25 26 V 62.5 75 12.5
21 RZ 37.5 87.5 50 Total 1650 1862.5 212.5
22 RC 50 100 50 In calculating the students’ individual
23 RD 62.5 100 37.5 score of the control group the researcher
24 RS 75 100 25 employ and apply the same formula used in
25 RY 87.5 87.5 0
experimental group. For result, the researcher
26 YAS 75 87.5 12.5
1625 2325 700
found that the mean score of pretest of control
Total
group is 63.46. The highest score is100 and the
After counting the pretest score of the
lowest is 25. The highest score of the posttest
experimental group, the researcher finds that
of control group is 100 and the lowest is 50.
the mean score of pretest experimental group is
Furthermore, the researcher found that
62.5. The highest score is 87.5 and the lowest
the mean score of posttest of control group
is 25. The highest score of the posttest of
is71.63. There is also a development of the
experimental group is 100 and the lowest is 75.
result of the control group. It rises up from
Furthermore, the mean score of the
63.46 to 71.63.After gathering all the data of
posttest of experimental group is 89.42 it
experimental and control groups, the

E-journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS) Vol. No. 4

researcher counted the mean score of deviation
and the sum of square of deviationfrom both
groups. The researcher found that the mean
score of deviation of experimental group is
26.92 while the control group is 8.17.
Furthermore, the researcher calculated
the t-counted by using t-test formula as
proposed by Arikunto (2006:225) to see the
significant difference of both groups. By
applying the t-test formula, the researcher
found that the t-counted value is 4.64.
Afterwards, the researcher compared
the value of t-value to the value of t-table in order
to find out the significant difference between
them. By applying Nx+Ny–2= 26+26–2= 50
degree of freedom (df) and 0.05 level of
significance of two tailed of test, the researcher
found that the t-table value is 1.9895. It shows
that the t-value value 4.64 is greater than t-table
value 1.9895. It means that the research
hypothesis is accepted. In other words,
applying board game technique can improve
students’ speaking ability of the eighth grade
students at SMP Negeri 9 Palu.
DISCUSSION
To measure the students speaking
ability the researcher give a pretest to know the
students prior knowledge, the topic in pretest is
about descriptive text and they have to
describe themselves. The researcher used
voice recorder as the instrument to make sure
about the data that she got. The results of
pretest proved that the students had low ability
in speaking.
The results showed that in the
experimental group in pretest, there was only
10 students have the ability to speak with good
fluency and comprehensibility, 13 students
was poor, and 3 students was very poor. The
result of pretest in control group showed that
there was only 1 students very good in fluency
and comprehensibility, 11 students was good,
11 students was poor, and 3 students were very
poor. It caused the students are more difficult
to speak confidence and lack of motivation.
Some of the students speak in normal rate, but
most of them had long pauses in speaking.
In pretest, the researcher found that
there were some mistakes which made by the
students in speaking comprehensibility, first,
most of them were confused to speak
grammatically such as the pronunciation in
E-journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS) Vol. No.
introducing themselves. For example, let me
introdud… or I will intrupsi… the correct
should be let me introduce.. or I will introduce,
another problem in spaking fluency was the
difficulty to express their ideas. They usually
spoke with long pauses.For example, My
name…mmm… the correct one it should speak
naturally and directly think the English
sentence and also they lack of motivation
tospeak English which influence their fluency.
For example, they did the repetition in word
my name (in Indonesian pronunciation) my
name (in English pronunciation). The data
collected showed in the experimental group
there was only 10 students have the higher
score in pretest 87.50 and 75.00, and 16
students have the lower score 25.00 and 62.50.
By looking at the result of pretest in
experimental and control group, there were
some problems that the students faced during
teaching and learning process in speaking in
terms of fluency and comprehensibility.
Related to fluency, the researcher gave
pretest to both groups. The result of pretest
showed that the students were lack of
motivation. They were too nervous and afraid
to show up in front of the class. The students
got gap when they have no words to say which
influenced their performance in speaking.
Likewise in comprehensibility, in
measuring the students ability to deliver the
message that can be understood by the listener.
The researcher asked the students to come in
front of the class. The students have problems
in comprehensibility. First, they got difficulty
to express their ideas freely. Second, they did
not know how to construct meaningful phrase
and sentence in good grammar to deliver their
ideas.
Conversely, after the students of
experimental group got the treatment, the
students already know how to say, produce,
and pronounced the word well. Grammar and
sentence structure also develop in good way, it
caused they not only asks the teacher but also
can discuss with their friends. While the
students in control group which not received
the treatment do not make a significant effect
with the result they got in pretest
After giving treatment, the researcher
gave posttest. The question in pretest is similar
in the pretest but in posttest the students
describe about their friends. There was an
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improvement of the students in speaking
fluency and comprehensibility in experimental
group. First, in fluency, the students more
confidence to speak, they can speak without
any hesitate and long pauses because through
the technique they are motivated and
challenged, because in play board game they
competed to win the prize.
Second, in comprehensibility, the
students already know how to express their
ideas because they already know what should
they say in English and through the technique
it’s encourage students to interact and
communicate.
The data collected showed the
experimental group after giving treatment there
was 9 students have higher score 100.00 in
speaking especially the fluency and
comprehensibility and 17 students have score
75.00 to 87.50. The total score of the students
in control group was greater than the total
score of the students in control group. In
pretest there are only 10 students passed the
test (38.46%) while in posttest all students that
passed (100%)
There are several strength that make
the students achieve the improvement in
speaking ability especially in fluency and
comprehensibility in descriptive text through
the board game, first, the students could work
in groups, they were competed when play
board game in which they share their answer
and ideas and solve the problems in learning.
Second, board game technique makes
the students not so much dependent on
teachers but increases confidence inability to
think by themselves and learn from another
students. Third, this technique makes the
students have the motivation to speak because
it encourages students to speak in front of the
class every meeting.
The result of this research was
supported by Chang and Jenny (2008), it states
that using board game in language classroom is
effective, low-anxiety, and fun way for
students to learn and practice communication
skills as well as develop theircommunication
strategies that can be apply to the real world.
Board game technique is a technique
that is used to attract students’ motivation to
follow the teaching and learning process
because board game can make the students
more focus in learning, because they do not
E-journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS) Vol. No.
feel that they are forced to learn. After using
the board game technique, there is an
improvement value of the students in speaking
ability especially in fluency and
comprehensibility.
The improvement is also reflected in
Rapika’s (2016) and Azzahroh’s (2015) study
after the students were taught by using board
game technique. Both researchers stated that
there is significant level of improvement after
they conducted the treatment. This is why the
students in this study had also performed better
in terms of fluency ad comprehensibility as a
cause of the board game technique application
in the experimental group. They perform well
using this technique which is reflected in the
previous study.
In accordance with the result of this
research, by seeing the hypothesis verification
and data analysis, it showed that their ability in
speaking is improved in the result of posttest.
Finally, the researcher concludes that Board
Game technique certainly improves the
students’ speaking ability.
CONCLUSION
The effect of board game technique in
teaching and learning process definitely
change the students enthusiastic in learning
English. Before the treatment, the students felt
so hard to express their ideas and lack of
motivation in speaking English. They do not
know how to transfer what they wanted to say
in English.
Yet, after the board game technique
implemented in the experimental group, the
students showed a significant improvement in
speaking. After collecting and analyzing the
data the researcher concludes that the
application of Board Game can improve
speaking ability of the eighth grade students at
SMP Negeri 9 Palu.
The result of this research is supported
by seeing the data of the students mean score
both in experimental and control group. The
students’ mean score on experimental group
increase from 62.5 on the pretest to 89.42 on
the posttest, while the students’ mean score on
control group increase from 63.46 on the
pretest to 71.63 on the posttest. In other words
the students’ mean score of the posttest on
experimental group is higher than control
group. The result of t-counted is 4.64 and t-
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table is 1.9895, therefore the t-counted is
greater than t-table. It means the hypothesis is
accepted.
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