DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILL OF GRADE EIGHT STUDENTS THROUGH

GUIDED CONVERSATIONS

Vena Masyita Meidrina Umniyati1, Abdul Kamaruddin2

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

ABSTRACT
The objective of this research is to find out if using guided conversations can develop speaking skill of
grade VIII students of SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat. The researcher employed quasi-experimental
research design. The samples of this research were the students of VIII A as the control group and
VIII B as the experimental group selected by using cluster sampling technique. The data were
analyzed statistically in order to find out the significant difference of the students’ achievement before
and after the treatments. The result of data analysis indicates that there was a significant difference
between pretest of the experimental group was (36.30), while the control group was (36.95).The mean
score of posttest of the experimental group was (61.90) and the control group was (50). The writer
found that the tcounted (5.81) was higher than the value of the ttable (2.01) by applying 0.05 level of
significance and the degree of freedom (42). It means that the use of guided conversation can develop
speaking skill of grade VIII students of SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat. So, guided conversation
was effective to develop students speaking skill.

Keywords: Guided conversation, Developing, Speaking skill.

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui apakah menggunakan percakapan terpimpin
dapat mengembangkan keterampilan berbicara siswa kelas VIII SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat.
Peneliti menggunakan desain penelitian eksperimen semu. Sampel penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas
VIII A sebagai kelompok kontrol dan VIII B sebagai kelompok eksperimen yang dipilih dengan
menggunakan teknik cluster sampling. Data dianalisis secara statistik untuk mengetahui perbedaan
signifikan dari prestasi siswa sebelum dan sesudah perawatan. Hasil analisis data menunjukkan
bahwa terdapat perbedaan yang signifikan antara pretest dari kelompok eksperimen adalah (36,30),
sedangkan kelompok kontrol adalah (36,95). Skor rata-rata posttest kelompok eksperimen adalah
(61,90) dan kelompok kontrol adalah (50) Penulis menemukan bahwa t hitung (5,81) lebih tinggi dari
nilai ttabel (2,01) dengan menerapkan tingkat signifikansi 0,05 dan tingkat kebebasan (42). Ini
berarti bahwa penggunaan percakapan terpimpin dapat mengembangkan keterampilan berbicara
siswa kelas VIII SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat. Jadi, percakapan terpandu efektif untuk
mengembangkan keterampilan berbicara siswa .

Kata kunci: Percakapan terpandu, Pengembangan, Keterampilan Berbicara.

INTRODUCTION ©2020 –UniversitasTadulako

A language is the verbal and non-verbal
interaction with speaker and listener to
communicate thoughts, information, the
expression of ideas and feeling.
Communication is a part of human’s daily
activities. For many years, English has been
adopted as an international language. It means
that teachers must teach the students how to
communicate in English well.
A strategy has an important role in
teaching and learning process which is used by
the teachers to achieve teaching learning goals,
especially English teacher in teaching English
e-mail:venarotikan@gmail.com
as a foreign language. The effective strategy
creates a good result in the teaching and
learning process and absolutely we can
improve the students’ motivation. Additionally
according to Manurung (2012) Effective
teaching strategies help learners to apply,
analyze, and synthesize, to create new
knowledge, and solve new problem.
There are four skills that should be
mastered in learning English. There are
listening, speaking, reading, writing. Khameis
(2006: 111) states that the four skills (reading,
writing, speaking and listening) naturally
appear together in every English class, even in
the EFL context. Speaking needs that learner

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not only should know how to produce specific
points of language such as grammar,
pronunciation, or vocabulary but also they
understand when, why and in what ways to
produce language.
According to School-Based curriculum
(KTSP) in junior high school, students are
expected to develop communicative
competence in spoken and written language to
reach functional literacy. The students have to
be able both to understand and to create
various functional texts, monologues, as well
as essays in a form of procedure, descriptive,
recount, narrative, and report.
Ur (1996: 120), “Classroom activities that
develop learners ability to express themselves
through speech would therefore seem an
important component of a language course.”
Implementing and developing new approach,
method, and technique in teaching and
learning process. Ur (1996: p.120) also
provides some characteristics of successful
speaking activity.
First, the students talk a lot. As much as
possible of the period of time as long as which
given to the students, because often most of
the time is taken up with teacher talk or have
many pauses. Second, distribution to all of the
students. Classroom discussion is not just
dominated by a minority of talkative
participants: all get a chance to speak and
contributors to the all students. Third, they
have high motivation. The students are
interested to speak: because they are interested
in the topic and have something new to say
about it, or because they want to contribute to
get the result. The last, The Learners can
express themselves when they speak that are
relevant, easily comprehensible to each other,
and of an acceptable of language accuracy.
Based on the researcher’s observation in
SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat, she found
some problems in speaking activities. These
are some problem why they could not speak
English. Students had lack of confidence, they
had no topic to talk, they got difficulties in
arranging the words they have in mind into
sentences, they used mother tongue, they had
limited vocabulary, and they did not get
motivated to improve their speaking skill
because the teacher gave monotonous
technique. In order to solve all these problems,
the teachers are supposed to exert an
appropriate technique so that speaking in class
can be fun, raising general learning motivation
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and making English class becomes a dynamic
place to be. There are several techniques
which can be used by the teachers, one of them
is guided conversation. There are some
reasons for the researcher to use guided
conversations.
First the researcher give an interesting
topic and guideline, it motivated and build
self-confidents the learners because they could
express their opinion based on the guideline.
Another reason was Learners talk a lot and
give to the students to actively participate in
the classroom because teacher here just as a
facilitator.
The next reason in using guided
conversation is make the students feel
confident, because the situation will make just
as same as in their daily living like when they
talk to their neighbor, family and the others, so
they will enjoy English with their pleasure.
Students will not only choose what to study,
but also how to make conversation and why
that topic will be an interesting one to study.
Guided conversation are dialogues and
exercises that are the central learning devices
the lesson begins with a model guided
conversation that illustrate the use of one or
more functions and the structures students
require, all in the context of a meaning full
exchange of communication (Molinsky and
Bliss, 1986). It means that guided conversation
are the dialogue and the question and answer
exchanges, the students are presented with oral
communication that highlight a specific aspect
of comprehensibility, accuracy and fluency to
help students improve their speaking skill in
constructing the sentences.
According to Peterson (2007), that an
overview of the skills that speak English very
well through guided conversation there are
eight ways that often become the reference.
Eight references are as follows:
“First, knowing the size of difficulty and
easy of information gaps that exist in the
form of conversation. Second, Make
question are weighted so that the answer
given to attract the attention of students
and the need for further study. Third,
Listen carefully and remember what was
said or asked that the answer will be
clear and focus. Forth, provide
opportunities for student to use evidence
or reason. Fifth, inform all students to
participate in an open conversation so
indirectly can train yourself to do a
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 guided communication. Sixth, provide
chances for students to dig deeper to get
a definitive answer from a variety of
sources in order to create an atmosphere
of active book speaks English. Seventh,
students are given the chance to make
observation on the source or book
review approve accurately so as to
provide a report in the form of verbal
English. Eighth, Oral report means
students have to practice English
speaking skill through guided
conversation because it gives enough
time while giving a briefing on the result
of the student report.”
According to Molinsky&Bliss
(1989: IX) the procedures of teaching
guided conversation, as step:
Step 1: Give the model conversation
offers initial practice with the
function and structures of the
lesson and the functional
expressions.
Step 2: Encourage the students to be
inventive as the create their
character and situation of the
model conversation
Step 3: Present to the class each sentences
of the model conversation a
containing footnotes expression
with is alternative.
Step 4: Have pairs the students present the
model conversation in the class
Step 5: Have pair the students practice all
the exercise using the footnoted
expression with is alternative.
Step 6: Assign the exercise as homework
and ask them to present to the
class next.
Based on the procedures above, the
researcher adapted, modified, adjust both of
the guided conversation teaching procedures
to fit on her style of teaching and her
participants. Therefore, the researcher had
point outs the procedure of guided
conversation for this research as follows:
1. The teacher explains to the students
about the topic.
2. The teacher gives outline the text
conversation based on the topic.
3. Ask the students to make groups.
4. Ask students to make a
e-Journal of ELTS (English Language Teaching Society) Vol. No.
conversation based on the outline of
the topic.
5. Ask students to practice in front of
their friends.
Based the problems above the researcher
formulates a researcher question as follows.
“Can the use of guided conversation technique
develop speaking skill of grade eight students
of SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat?
RESEARCH METHOD
Grade eight students of SMP Satap
Negeri 1 Parigi Barat have poor ability in
speaking. When the researcher conducted
observation in March 2019, she found some
problems in speaking activities. These are
some problem why they could not speak
English. Students had lack of confidence, they
had no topic to talk, they got difficulties in
arranging the words they have in mind into
sentences, they used mother tongue, they had
limited vocabulary, and they did not get
motivated to improve their speaking skill
because the teacher gave monotonous
technique. The above problems were solved
using guided conversation. The researcher then
formulated a researcher question as follows.
“Can the use of guided conversation technique
develop speaking skill of grade eight students
of SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat?
In conducting the research, the writer
used quasi experimental design. Quasi
experimental design is identified as a
comparison group that is as similar as
possible to the treatment group. This quasi-
experimental designed to find out the
effectiveness of using guided conversation
technique to enhance students’ speaking skill.
The sample of this research divided into two
groups, experimental and control group. The
experimental gave pretest, treatment, and
posttest. While the control class was not give
the treatment. The pretest held before the
treatment and the posttest is done after the
treatment. The following research design was
proposed by Best (1981: 70)
Pretest Treatment Post
Test
Experimental Group 01 X 02
Control Group 03 04
Where: 01,03 = Pretest
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 X =Treatment
02,04 = Post Test
There, researcher needs population to
conduct her research Sugiyono (2011: 80)
states that “Population is not only people, but
also all of the quantity of object or subject that
will be learnt, but also involve the whole of
characteristics of the subject or object.” The
population of this research is the grade eight
students of SMP SATAP Negeri 1 Parigi
Barat. It consists of 44 students.
Sugiyono (2009: 118) states that “The
sample is some part of the total and
characteristic that is has of the population.” It
was necessary for the researcher to determine
the sample of research in order to limit the
object so it would be easy for the researcher to
conduct the research. In selecting the sample
of this research, the writer applied cluster
sampling technique because the students in the
school divided into two classes.
In applying the cluster sampling, the
writer conducted five procedures. First, the
writer prepared two small pieces of papers.
Second, the writer wrote the name of the
classes on the piece of paper. They are class A
and class B. Third, all papers are put into a
small box. After that, the writer shaked the box
which contains the papers for a few minutes.
Fourth, to determine the experimental group,
the writer took the name of the class that falls
down first. Fifth, to determine the control
group, the writer did the same thing as in
experimental group.
There are two types of variable in
educational research, it is categorized into an
independent variable and dependent variable.
Creswell (2009:50) states “Independent
variables are those that (probably) cause,
influence, or affect outcomes. Dependent
variable is those that depend on the
independent variables; they are the outcomes
or results of the influence of the independent
variables.” In other word, dependent variable
is expected to change as a result of an
experimental manipulation of the independent
variable or variables The independent variable
on this research is the application of guided
conversation technique and the dependent
variable is the students speaking skill.
Technique of data collection was the
way to get accurate data in order to support the
success of this research. The name of
instrument used in collecting data, namely test.
The researcher used oral performance
e-Journal of ELTS (English Language Teaching Society) Vol. No.
technique. The test instrument covered pretest
and posttest. In conducting the research, the
researcher used test as the main instrument.
To collect data, the researcher employed
two types of data collections, they was pretest
and posttest. Pre-test applied in order to know
the students’ ability before the treatment being
conducted. Post-test administered after the
treatments done in order to know if there are
significant achievements on the speaking skill
or not. The test was recount students’
experience. The researcher used same test in
pre-test and post-test.
The researcher used the scoring system
adapted from Heaton (1988:100) in order to
analyze the students’ comprehensibility and
accuracy in speaking skill Pretest gave at the
first meeting to the grade eight students of
SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat in order to
know the basic knowledge of the students
speaking skill.
The researcher taught in experimental
class, the researcher used the guided
conversation technique to develop the
speaking skill, in control class teach by the
teacher. Since the researcher conducts quasi
experimental research, she focused on one
class, so the special treatment only gave to the
experimental class for six times. The
researcher gave two topics to be discussed.
After conducting the treatment, the
students gave posttest by the researcher.
Posttest administrated to measure whether the
students speaking skill can develop by using
guided conversation technique or not.
Besides using test as main instruments,
the researcher also used a supplementary
instrument to support the research to get more
complete data. To obtain the data, the
researcher used recorder to record the students
answer.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
In this part, the researcher analyzed
and presented the data obtained from the
results of test of the experimental and the
control group by using guided conversation.
The test is covering only two aspects were
comprehensibility and accuracy. It was done to
measure the student’s ability to speak directly.
For the first one the result of pretest of
experimental group and the second one was
the result of control group.
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 After analyzing the result from the it has a progress of mean score from 36.30 in
pretest, the researcher conducted a treatment to the pretest to 61.90 in the posttest. The result
the students of the experimental group. There of the pre-test and post-test of control group is
were six meetings of the treatment excluding presented on table 2:
pretest and posttest. To know the effectiveness Table 2
of guided conversation in developing speaking Students Score
skill, the researcher will test the hypothesis No. Initials
Pre-test Post-test
whether it is rejected or accepted. The criteria 1 AH 37.5 62.5
of the hypothesis are in the following: 2 AR 37.5 50
If the tcounted was higher than ttable, it means that
the hypothesis was accepted. However, if the 3 AS 37.5 50
ttable is higher than tcounted, it means that the 4 CK 37.5 50
hypothesis was rejected or the treatment did 5 CS 37.5 50
not give any significant for development of 6 FS 25 25
student speaking. The result of the pretest and 7 HA 37.5 50
posttest of experimental group is presented on 8 IH 50 62.5
table 1.
9 LT 37.5 50
10 LL 37.5 50
Table 1
Students Score 11 LA 37.5 50
No. Initials 12 LS 50 62.5
Pre-test Post-test
1 AR 37.5 62.5 13 MT 25 37.5
2 DW 37.5 50 14 MK 50 62.5
3 DS 50 75 15 MM 25 50
4 FD 25 62.5 16 NU 37.5 50
5 FZ 37.5 50
17 MF 37.5 50
6 FR 37.5 75
18 RR 37.5 50
7 FL 37.5 75
8 GR 25 62.5 19 SF 37.5 50
9 HS 37.5 75 20 SD 25 37.5
10 HD 37.5 50 21 SP 37.5 50
11 IS 37.5 62.5 22 UR 37.5 50
12 JR 37.5 62.5
23 ZR 37.5 50
13 KD 25 50
Total 850 1150
14 LAJ 25 50
15 MS 50 75 In calculating the students’ individual
16 MZ 37.5 50 score of the control group, the mean score
17 MA 37.5 62.5 control group in pretest was 36.95. The highest
18 MR 37.5 62.5 score is 50 and the lowest score is 25. It means
19 MZ 37.5 62.5 the pre-test in the control group was low same
20 MAL 37.5 75 as the score of experimental group in pretest
21 NR 37.5 50 before treatment. From both calculation, the
Total 762.5 1300 researcher found that the difference between
the mean score of both groups in pretest was
Based on the students’ score in the nearly equal before conducting the treatment.
pre-test above, it shows that the mean score of In the post-test, the highest score is 50 and the
experimental group in pre-test was 36.30 lowest score is 25. The highest score of the
which was totally low. The highest individual post-test of control group is 62.5 and the
score of the experimental group students on lowest score is 25. Furthermore, the researcher
the pretest was 50, while the lowest was 25. finds that the mean score of post-test of control
Compared to the standard score that used at group is 50.
SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat is 70, it was In order to prove that the hypothesis of
found that none students met the criterion. the research was accepted or rejected. The
Furthermore, the mean score in posttest of writer tested the hypothesis. If the t-counted
experimental group was 61.90. It indicated that was higher than t-table, it means that the

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hypothesis was accepted. However, if the t-
table is higher than t-counted, it means that the
hypothesis was rejected or the treatment did
not give any significant for development of
students speaking skill.
To test significant difference of two
groups. The writer used the level of
significance 0.05 for one-tailed test by
applying 66 of the degree of freedom (fd) Nx
+ Ny – 2 = 42. Because df (42) is not listed on
the table. The writer computed it by using
interpolation in order to find out the value of t-
table. Where the formula:
t-table = x c
a = the subtraction of the degree of freedom
obtained from the students number in
sample and the degree of freedom whose
figure precedes right before the df
obtained on the table of critical values of
students distribution.
b = the subtraction of two degree of freedom
whose figure precedes and comes after
the degree of freedom obtained on the
table of critical values of the students
distribution.
c = the subtraction of values of degree of
freedom in b.
Based on the data analysis, t-counted
was 5.81 by applying 0.05 level of
significance with degree of freedom (df) = 42.
The writer found that the t-table was 2.01. It
means that the t-counted was higher than the t-
table value. Based on the statistical above, the
writer concluded that the research hypothesis
is accepted.
DISCUSSION
Guided conversation is strategy in
teaching learning English that helps the
students mastery in speaking skill. The first
activity that the researcher did pre-test, the
result of pre-test showed that the students were
low in speaking ability. The problem was
comprehensibility and accuracy. They often
did not understand what the speaker said, and
when they answering the question, sometimes
they errors in pronunciation are frequent or
some pronunciation is unclear or error but still
can be understood. But in the second the
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students got satisfied improvement score. In
this activity the researcher applied guided
conversation and to get better improvement to
the students score. Teacher motivated the
students to generate their interest in learning.
The research indicated that guided
conversation was effective or could be used in
teaching speaking. It could be seen from the
tables that showed us the increasing of
students score from pre-test, post-test. The
increasing because of the researcher as the
teacher knew how to control the class and
created the active class. Besides that, Guided
conversation helped the students to understand
how to speak easily. Based on the data and
data analysis, it shows that the improvement of
the students score were better.
The mean score of the control group
has a difference between pretest and posttest
but not significant as the experimental group.
It shows that there is progress in both classes
although they have different score. In the
experimental group, the researcher found the
highest progress in students comprehensibility.
Every student understood the questions. When
the researcher asked the students, they can
catch the general meaning and answer the
questions appropriately. The students also had
a significant progress in comprehensibility and
accuracy. Nevertheless, it indicated that they
have progress inasmuch as at the pretest, they
were hard to speak even just a few words. In
accuracy, most of the students good in
pronunciation, even though there was several
students who pronounced some words
incorrectly and made a little bit grammatical
mistakes, it showed that they have a significant
progress since at the pretest, most of them just
spoke Indonesian language and the others
could not speak few words which indicated
that they could not speak accurately. In
posttest, most of the students could respond
the questions which means that this technique
can developing the students speaking ability.
By implementing this technique, the
students were trained to speak English
language when performing so that the use of
mother tongue was reduced and the English
environment was built. Unconsciously, they
were accustomed to listen the English
language and it made them comprehend the
general meaning of the English language.
Additionally, in preparing the conversation,
although the students spoke Indonesian
language, they got new vocabularies from
Page 6
sharing and do the conversation so that they
could understand the conversation and it made
the students have an improvement in
comprehensibility.
The researcher then correlated the
findings to the previous studies conducted by
Herlina Muhamad (2014) entitled “Teaching
speaking skill by using guided conversation
technique to the seventh grade students of
SMP PTI Palembang”. The result is that
guided conversation technique can improve
students’ speaking skill. It indicated that there
was significant improvement on students
pretest to posttest scores taught using guided
conversation technique. It is because, guided
conversations techniques will make students
accustom to use English in real life
communication, and apply the conversation in
their life.
From the research above the
researcher concludes the similarity of this
research with previous research is about the
speaking activities through conversation. Even
so, we have different things as well, we use a
different kind of sample. Herlina’s used
convenience sampling method as the sample.
Meanwhile, in this research, the researcher
will use cluster sampling technique. There is
also a difference between previous research
and the researchers are research design.
Previous research used experimental design
and the researchers will use quasi
experimental. While Maghfira (2012) entitled
“Developing speaking skill of the eight grade
students of SMP Negeri 2 Dolo through short
conversation”. The result of this research
indicated that there was significant
improvement on students pretest to posttest
scores taught using short conversation
technique. It is because, short conversations
techniques will make students accustom to use
English in real life communication, and apply
the conversation in their life.
CONCLUSION
Based on result and discussion about
improving the students speaking ability by
using guided conversation strategy could be
conclude that:
This research is aimed to improve the
students‟ ability in speaking skill by applying
guided conversation strategy at grade eight
students of SMP Satap Negeri 1 Parigi Barat.
e-Journal of ELTS (English Language Teaching Society) Vol. No.
The research was conducted by using quasi
experimental design. Technique of analyzing
the data of this research is applied quantitative
data. The quantitative data were taken from,
speaking Test. The result of data analysis
showed that t-test value and t-table one in
which t-test value was higher than t-table
value (for t-counted achieved 5.81, t-table
2.01). It implies that the students speaking
skill can be developed through guided
conversation. So, the hypothesis of this
research is accepted because there is a
significant improvement of the students’
speaking skill. From the data, the researcher
can conclude that the students ability at
speaking has been improved by applying
Guided Conversation Strategy.
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