THE USE OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL
(A Classroom Action Research at One of Primary Schools in Bandung )
A Research Paper
Submitted to English Education Department of FPBS UPI as a partial
fulfillment for the requirement of Sarjana Pendidikan degree
By
Darini Bilqis Maulany
0807315
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
THE USE OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL
Oleh
Darini Bilqis Maulany
© Darini Bilqis 2013 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Juni 2013
Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang.
PAGE OF APPROVAL
THE USE OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL
(A Classroom Action Research at One of Elementary Schools in Bandung)
A Research Paper
By
Darini Bilqis Maulany
0807315
Approved by:Main Supervisor, Co-Supervisor,
Ika Lestari Damayanti, S.Pd., M.A. NIP 197709192001122001
Iyen Nurlaelawati, M.Pd. NIP 197709062009122002
Head of English Education Department Faculty of Language and Arts Education
Indonesia University of Education
ABSTRACT
The study entitled The Use of Project-Based Learning in Improving Students’ Speaking Skill is a two-cycles-action-research conducted at a Year 4 class at one primary school in Bandung. This study aims to find out whether Project-based learning can improve young learners’ speaking skill or not and what speaking aspects are improved through PBL. It also aims to investigate what speaking activities are used in PBL to improve their speaking skill. To collect the data, participatory observation was done for eight meetings and speaking assessment was conducted three times in the first, fifth, and eighth meetings (Pre-test, Post-test 1, Post-Post-test 2). Qualitative analysis was also used in this design of study. The findings show that PBL can improve the students’ speaking skill. It is indicated by the improvement of the students’ speaking aspects adapted from Harries (1984) and Brown (2004) which covers comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and pronunciation. Of all the five aspects of speaking skill, comprehension and vocabulary are improved most significantly. As for the speaking activities used in PBL, this study used the ones proposed by Brown (2004) and Kayi (2006). Of 21 speaking activities, nine of them were used, namely drilling, storytelling, directed response, picture-cued, translation of limited stretches of discourse, question and answer, discussion, games, and role-play. Based on this study, it is suggested that Project-Based Learning is implemented in teaching speaking in primary schools.
ABSTRAK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ... i
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS... ii
ABSTRACT ... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vi
LIST OF TABLES ... viii
LIST OF FIGURES ... ix
LIST OF APPENDICES ... x
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1. Background ... 1
1.2. Research Questions ... 5
1.3. Purpose of the Research ... 6
1.4. Scope of the Research ... 6
1.5. Significance of the Research ... 6
1.6. Clarification of the Key Terms ... 7
1.8. Organization of the Paper ... 7
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FOUNDATION ... 9
2.1. The Characteristics of Young Learner ... 9
2.2. Speaking Skill ... 10
2.2.1 Speaking Aspects ... 11
2.2.2 Speaking Activities ... 15
2.3. Teaching Speaking to Young Learners ... 28
2.4. Project-Based Learning ... 35
2.5. Teaching Speaking to Young Learners Using PBL ... 40
2.6. The previous Study of PBL ... 42
2.7. Concluding Remark ... 43
3.2 Research Site and Participants ... 48
3.3. Research Procedure ... 49
3.4. Data Collection... 50
3.4.1 Observation ... 50
3.4.2 Speaking Assessment ... 51
3.5. Data Analysis ... 55
3.5.1 Data Reduction ... 58
3.5.2 Data Display ... 58
3.5.3 Conclusion ... 59
3.6. Concluding Remark ... 59
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 60
4.1. The Improvement of the Students’ Speaking Skill through PBL ... 60
4.2. The Improvement of the Students’ Speaking Aspects through PBL .. 62
4.2.1 The Students’ Comprehension Aspect ... 62
4.2.2 The Students’ Vocabulary Aspect ... 69
4.2.3 The Students’ Grammar Aspect ... 75
4.2.4 The Students’ Fluency Aspect... 79
4.2.5 The Students’ Pronunciation Aspect ... 82
4.3. The Speaking Activities Used in PBL to Improve the Students’ Speaking Skill ... 86
4.4. Concluding Remark ... 118
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 119
5.1. Conclusions ... 119
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Speaking Performance ... 27
Table 3.1 Reflective Cycle of the Research ... 46
Table 3.2 Research Topics in Cycles 1 and 2 ... 48
Table 3.3 Research Procedures ... 49
Table 3.4 The Criteria of Speaking Aspects ... 54
Table 3.5 Video Transcript Codes for Speaking Aspect... 56
Table 3.6 Video Transcript Codes for Speaking Activities ... 57
Table 4.1 The Increase of the Student Number in Speaking Aspect Criteria ... 61
Table 4.2 The Increase of The Student Number in Comprehension Aspect ... 63
Table 4.3 The Increase of The Student Number in Vocabulary Aspect ... 70
Table 4.4 The Increase of The Student Number in Grammar Aspect ... 76
Table 4.5 The Increase of The Student Number in Fluency Aspect ... 80
Table 4.6 The Increase of The Student Number in Pronunciation Aspect ... 83
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 The Stages of PBL Implementation ... 37
Figure 3.1 Cycle of Classroom Action Research adapted from Kemmis and
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses some aspects related to the background of the study.
It provides research questions, purpose of the research, scope of the research,
significance, clarification of key terms, and organization of the paper.
1.1. Background
In Indonesia, as the result of decentralization of education in 2001, English
as a foreign language may be taught in elementary school. It means that every
elementary school may include English to its curriculum depending on the
schools’ needs.
According to the national standards in Indonesia (Permen Depdiknas,
2006), English lesson in elementary school is aimed to develop students’ oral communication competence, limitedly to accompany action in school context.
Oral communication competence, or specifically called as speaking skill, which
becomes the goal of English learning in elementary school is considered as an
initial skill that leads learners to develop the other communication competences or
skills (reading and writing).
In line with this, Linse (2005:27) states that “children need to say a word before they can read it, and they need to read a word before they can write it.” It means that speaking is the first step that needs to be learned by young English
standards and Linse’s statement, teaching English in elementary school needs to
focus on oral communication.
However, it is assumed that developing speaking skill to young learners in
Indonesia is not easy because of the status of English as a foreign language. It
means “it is taught in schools, often widely, but it does not play an essential role
in national or social life” (Broughton, 2003: 6). Thus, children learning English as a foreign language tend to consider English as a subject, not as a language for
communication. They also tend to find that speaking English is meaningless since,
as Bruner (1983 as cited in Bas and Beyhan, 2010: 365-366) said, “children
experienced it as very separate from their real lives.” Actually children can learn
English as a foreign language for communication even though it is not used in
their real life. They can be set in arranged situations in which the situations force
them to communicate in English at least in the classroom.
An observation that I did in an elementary school in Northern Bandung,
exactly at a Year 4 class, proved that the difficulty of developing speaking skill in
that school. The school was developing English learning program to optimize the
use of English in verbal context. However, English was still considered merely as
a subject by the students so that the school needed to create situations in which
English was needed to be spoken by the students.
Based on the observation, it was found that the students’ initial speaking
skill in that school was still lack. Most of the students did not respond or answer
when the teacher greeted, asked, or instructed them in English. Whereas,
supposed to be able to answer or respond simple questions or instructions in
English from the teacher. They were also supposed to be able to introduce
themselves, do greeting, ask for help, etc. (see the basic competence standards in
Appendix B).
It was assumed that there were some possibilities why they did not respond
to the questions in English. First, the students perhaps were not familiar yet with
the vocabulary used by the teacher so that they did not understand what the
teacher said or asked. Second, they perhaps understood the questions or what the
teacher said but they did not know how to respond to them. Third, they might
understand and know how to respond, but they were not confident to say it.
Therefore, it can be said that the goal of learning English at the elementary
school had not been achieved satisfactorily yet. According to the English teachers
in the school, there are some obstacles encountered in teaching and learning
English, especially in developing speaking skill. First, the unbalance between the
time allotment and the learning goals of English lesson leads to the lack of
exposure to the language learned and unoptimal achievement of English learning
goal. Second, varieties of activities in teaching English tend to provide less
meaningful and contextual environment to practice speaking English.
In teaching English to young learners, time allotment and the varieties of
activities are important. As Pinter (2006) states that teaching language to young
learners needs a lengthy process in which the young learners can have lots of
exposures to the language learned. It is supported by Harmer (2002) stating that
language acquisition.” Teaching English to young learners also needs a special
method that is appropriate to their characteristics. The method needs to provide
meaningful and contextual environment to practice speaking English. This is in
line with Pinter (2006) who states that learners need much practice to be able to
speak English fluently.
In the view of this, project based learning (PBL) is one of the methods
recommended to be used. PBL refers to a method that allows “students to design, plan, and carry out an extended project that produces a publicly exhibited output
such as a product, publication, or presentation” (Patton, 2012:13). PBL gives contextual and meaningful learning for the learners through the projects as their
learning environment. Through PBL, the learners are engaged in purposeful
communication to complete authentic activities (project-work), so that they have
the opportunity to use language in a relatively natural context (Haines, 1989, as
cited in Fragoulis, 2009) and participate in meaningful activities which require
authentic language use (Fragoulis, 2009).
PBL is also a method that can create optimal environment to practice
speaking English. It is basically an attempt to create new instructional practices
that reflect the environment in which children live and learn (Ozdemir, 2006, as
cited in Bas and Beyhan 2010), so that it can give optimal opportunity to improve
students’ language skill (Levine, 2004, as cited in Fragoulis, 2009).
A study of PBL by Gaer (1998) to a population of Southeast Asian Lao,
Hmong, Mien, and Lahu refugees who had been in their beginning-level ESOL
States in the early 1980s showed that learners had much more opportunity to
speak English in appropriate contexts. It is said that the refugees’ children seemed to lose their original culture (Asian culture) so that the project was preserving
their culture by telling it (in form of some Asian recipes and folktales) using
English to their children. The study showed that project led them to be able to
speak English with the benefit of clear context of learning which was telling some
Asian recipes and folktales in English to the students’ children.
Viewing the success of PBL implementation to Asian refugees in the
United States by Gaer, this study tries to apply PBL in Indonesian context.
Different from Gaer’s study which focused on adult learners, this study is focused
on young learners, specifically Year 4 of elementary school. The project given to
the students is to give presentation and to do conversation in English about some
tourism objects and public places in Bandung to some foreigners that are coming
to their school celebration. On the basis of the theories, this study entitled “The Use of Project-Based Learning in Improving Students’ Speaking Skill” is conducted to investigate the use of PBL in teaching speaking to elementary
students and its effect in improving their speaking skill.
1.2. Research Questions
This study investigates the following questions:
3. What speaking activities are used in PBL to improve the students’ speaking skill?
1.3. Purpose of the Research
Based on the research questions, the purposes of the study are as the
following:
1. To investigate whether PBL improves the students’ speaking skill or not. 2. To investigate what aspects of speaking are improved through PBL.
3. To explain speaking activities used in PBL to improve the students’ speaking skill.
1.4. Scope of the Research
This study was conducted at a Year 4 class in one of the elementary
schools in Northern Bandung. The concern of this study is the improvement of
speaking skill that was indicated by the improvement of its five aspects
(pronunciation, grammar, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) through
speaking activities that are used in PBL.
1.5. Significance of the Research
This study is expected to give significance to the development of teaching
and learning EFL in Indonesia. Hopefully this study can also enrich the literature
on teaching speaking to young learners and be a reference for those who want to
English teachers to provide some appropriate strategies to improve students’ speaking skill.
1.6. Clarification of Key Terms
1. Project-Based Learning: a learning method in which in the end of the lesson
students have specific goal or product based on authentic problem in form of
a show, presentation, etc. It is the chosen method to stimulate students to
speak English.
2. Elementary students: Students from 7-12 years old (Slattery and Willis,
2001) who are learning in elementary school and chosen as participants of
this study. The focus of the study is the fourth grader (8-10 years old) at an
elementary school in Bandung.
3. Speaking skill: young learners’ ability to speak English involving comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and pronunciation. It is the
skill that becomes concern of this study.
4. Speaking Activity: activities conducted in the classroom to teach speaking.
The activities are aimed to give the students model of speaking and to give
them chances to practice their speaking.
1.7. Organization of the Paper
Chapter I: Introduction
This chapter presents general description of the paper entitled The Use of
Project-Based Learning in Improving Students’ Speaking Skill, consisting of the
background of the research, research questions, research purpose, research scope,
research significance, clarification of key terms, and the organization of the paper.
Chapter II: Theoretical Foundation
This chapter presents theoretical foundations about young learner’s characteristics, speaking skill, speaking activities, teaching speaking to young
learner, Project–Based Learning, and teaching speaking using PBL. Chapter III: Research Methodology
This chapter describes research methodology that is applied investigating the
study. It consists of research design, research site and participant, research
procedure, data collection and data analysis.
Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion
This chapter provides and discusses the result of the research findings about the
use PBL in improving students’ speaking skill. It also presents the writer’s
interpretation towards the findings of the study.
Chapter V: Conclusions and Suggestions
This chapter draws conclusion from the findings and offers some suggestions
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter tells about research method that is applied to find out the
research questions which are (1) does PBL improve the students’ speaking skill,
(2) what speaking aspects are improved through PBL, and (3) What speaking
activities are used in PBL to improve the students’ speaking skill. The chapter
consists of research design, research site and participants, research procedures,
data collection, and data analysis.
1.1 Research Design
The method that is employed in this research is action research. Action
research designs are systematic procedures conducted by teachers or other
individuals in educational setting to gather information about and subsequently
improve the ways their particular setting operates, their teaching and their student
learning (Mills, 2000 cited in Cresswel 1994). Ebutt (1985, cited in Hopkins
2008: 48) states that “CAR is the effort to improve the teaching learning process
by a series of practical actions and to reflect towards the results of actions.” This
design is used when teachers have specific educational problems to solve in
particular scope in educational setting such as classroom. According to Mettetal
(2003), Classroom Action Research (CAR) is a way for instructors to discover
teachers and students to improve their performance. Thus, by using this method, it
was expected that this study could investigate, analyze, and explain students’
speaking improvement using PBL.
According to Kemmis and McTaggart (1990), there are four basic steps in
action research. The first step is planning referring to the starting up of action
research in which teachers plan what action to do in the classroom (Burns, 2010).
This step might be based on previous observation or investigation done to get the
picture of respondents’ condition. The second step is action in which the teachers
put the plan into actions in order to collect information or data during teaching
and learning process. The third step is observing the result of the plan. The fourth
step is reflecting the previous actions or treatments for the next cycle. Those four
processes are considered as one cycle.
This study took two reflective cycles consisting of the four processes
proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart (1990).
Table 3.1 Reflective Cycle of the Research
Cycle Steps Description
Cycle 1
Planning Preparing pre-test assessment tools, conducting the pre-test to see
students’ speaking skill before given the treatments, making syllabus (see Appendix C), lesson plans (see Appendix D), media (see Appendix E), post-test assessment tools (see Page 54) to be used in the classroom during PBL implementation.
Action Implementing what had been planned in which the students were given necessary English materials related to their project (presenting Bandung tourism objects to audiences), such as related vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar, etc.
In this study, the materials and the actions of Cycle 1 can be seen in Table 3.2 and Appendix C and D.
Observation Observing the students during learning process to investigate their speaking skill improvement. The students were grouped, and each group was given a picture of a tourism object in Bandung. They were asked to discuss in the group about the following questions:
1) What is this place?
2) What can you see in this place? 3) What can you do in this place?
The students were also asked to make a dialogue about Bandung tourism objects they got that contained those questions (the dialogue was based on the dialogue that had been modeled by the teacher). After that, they were asked to come forward and perform their
dialogue. The students’ speaking proficiency was assessed by using students’ speaking skill assessment criteria adapted from Harries (1984) and Brown (2004) (See Page 54).
The teacher also videotaped all of the teaching and learning processes to be replayed, transcribed, and analyzed later.
Reflection Reflecting and evaluating the result to determine the next actions in the cycle 2.
Based on the result of Cycle 1, some actions were remained and some were changed. The actions that were remained were for example speaking activities such as storytelling, question and answer, etc. This was because it was believed that those activities
helped the students’ to improve their speaking skill in Cycle 1 and
could still be used in Cycle 2.
the assessment in Cycle 1 took much time, while the time in Cycle 2 was very limited.
Cycle 2
Planning Making lesson plans for new topic (Bandung public places) with some concerns based on the previous cycle.
Action/ Treatment
Implementing what had been planned in which the students were given necessary English materials related to the project (presenting Bandung public places to audiences), such as related vocabularies, pronunciation, grammar, etc.
The materials and actions of Cycle 2 can also be seen Table 3.2 and Appendix C and D.
Observation/ Assessment
Observing the students during learning process to investigate their speaking skill improvement. In Cycle 2, the students were introduced to some public places in Bandung and vocabularies related to the places. They were also grouped and each group was given a picture of Bandung public places and some pictures of things and activities that could be done in some public places. The students were asked to match the pictures.
In the end of the meeting, they were asked directly by the teachers:
1) What is this place?
2) What can you see in this place? 3) What can you do in this place?
In this cycle, the teacher also videotaped all of the teaching and learning processes to be replayed, transcribed, and analyzed later. Reflection Reflecting and evaluating the result.
Cycle 1 consisted of five meetings: one meeting for pre-test aimed to know
the students’ prior speaking skill, three meetings for treatments aimed to give the
students related and necessary materials, and one meeting for post-test aimed to
see their speaking skill improvement after PBL was implemented. While Cycle 2
consisted of three meetings: two for treatments and one for post-test.
The different number of the treatments in the two cycles was based on
some considerations. First, the given time by the school was only eight meetings.
Second, it was assumed that in Cycle 1 the students needed more time to be
introduced to the project and to the materials, while in Cycle 2 they did not need it
Table 3.2 Research Topics in Cycles 1 and 2
Cycle Meetings Topic Learning Objectives
1 vocabulary about things that can be seen and done in the vocabulary about things that can be seen and done in the
There are some reasons to make this school as the research site. First, English has
been introduced since the first grade. Second, the school was developing English
program to optimize students’ speaking skill. Third, the school’s facilities were
sophisticated enough since teachers could use projector, laptop, and other
facilities as teaching and learning media.
The participants of this study were Year 4 B consisting of 29 students. Of
the total number of the students, only 18 students were included as participant.
This was because of some considerations related to students’ absence and their
To picture the students’ condition and to decide appropriate project for
them, preliminary observation was done before conducting Cycle 1 and Cycle 2
treatments. Based on the observation, the students’ speaking proficiency varied. It
was categorized into three main groups. The first one was for the students that
could maintain simple conversations in English with the teacher even though
sometimes they mixed it with Indonesian or Sundanese Language. The second one
was for them who spoke mostly in Indonesian language but sometimes tried to
speak English even though with some long pauses and hesitancy, and most of the
students seemed to be in this second category. The last one was for them who
could not respond teacher’s talk in English at all.
1.3 Research Procedures
The procedure of this study is described in the following table:
Table 3.3 Research Procedures
At first, the project was “42 Days around
Bandung” (see Appendix A) because it was expected that the project would be conducted in a month and a half. However, after consulting with the school party, the project was changed to “30 Days Around
Bandung” because the given time by the
parents, teachers, and invited foreigners from Singapore at the end semester school celebration (school party). The purpose of this project is to get the students explore lesson plans (see Appendix D), media (See Appendix E), and the instrument used to assess students speaking skill were made. The instrument used was speaking assessment sheet adapted from Harries (1984) and Brown (2004) (See Page 53) 4 Observing and because the school authority gave limited time and there was demand from school transcriptions were coded (see Appendix F)
whether PBL improve students’ speaking
skill, what activities are used in PBL to
improve the students’ speaking skill, and
what aspect of speaking skill are improved through PBL.
research are observation, interview, survey, and assessing. To collect the data, this
study employed two of them, namely observation and assessing through pre-test
1.4.1 Observation
Observation is a process of collecting data by seeing the object of study
directly or indirectly to gain information needed. This study employed
participatory observation in which the researcher interacted with the subjects
while doing observation. Tomal (2003) states that by doing this kind of direct
observation, researchers can obtain actual firsthand information regarding the
subjects because the researchers picture directly what are observed in the real life
situation.
During the observation, the researcher videotaped the teaching and
learning process. Videotaping was employed to collect the data of the study. It
was process of collecting data by recording what happened in the classroom
during the implementation of PBL. There are some benefits of using videotaping.
First, videotape that is considered as audiovisual material can preserve the data
that will be analyzed by the researcher of the study or other researchers to gather
information needed (Cresswell, 1994). Second, videotaping could be replayed for
several times in order to check and assure the data (Fraenkel and Wallen, 1990).
Third, the videotape can be shown to other researchers that might be used in the
next relevant research (Fraenkel and Wallen, 1990).
In this study, videotaping was conducted to record students’ oral
communication during the teaching-learning process, especially during speaking
assessment so that the researcher can evaluate students speaking skill more
Moreover, in this study the researcher also wrote some journals (see
Appendix G) and field notes (see Appendix H). Journals were used to see how the
lesson plans that had been made worked in the classroom and to note what needed
to improve for the next meeting. While field notes were used to record students’
behavior, feelings, and incidents during Pretest and Post-test in Cycle 1 and Cycle
2. Tomal (2003) said that by writing the journals and field notes, the information
obtained was expected to be more detail.
1.4.2 Speaking Assessment
In this study, assessment technique that was used was limited response
technique in which the students were required to respond the questions limitedly
using aural cues (What is this place?) and by requiring spoken answer (This is
Tangkuban Parahu) (Madsen, 1983). This technique was used based on some
considerations. First, the students were considered as beginners that were assumed
that they had not known many vocabularies. Second, their skills (reading, writing,
listening, and speaking) had not developed yet (Madsen, 1983) so that the
assessment needed to be fitted with their schemata or prior knowledge. Third, in
the end of the lesson the students were expected to be able to answer those kinds
of questions in the exhibition in their school party.
During the study, the assessment was conducted three times: Pre-test,
Post-test 1 (in Cycle 1), and Post-Post-test 2 (in Cycle 2). In the pre-Post-test, the students were
and what could be seen and done there. After 10 minutes, the students were asked
three questions: 1) What is this place, 2) What can you see there, 3) What can you
do there. Their ability to speak English was then assessed using speaking
assessment sheet which was decided based on some criteria adapted from Harries
(1984) and Brown (2004) (see Page 54).
Post-tests 1 and 2 were conducted after the students were given some
treatments to know the improvement of students’ speaking skill after PBL was
implemented. In the post-tests, the students were asked to explain the picture of
certain tourism objects and public places in Bandung. In the post tests, their
speaking was also assessed using speaking assessment sheet used in the pre-test.
The speaking assessment sheet used contains five aspects of speaking skill,
namely comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and pronunciation. Each
aspect has its own criteria scaled from 1-5 (Harries, 1984). The criteria of
Table 3.4 The Criteria of Speaking Aspects
Criteria Comprehension Vocabulary Grammar Fluency Pronunciation
5
Appears to understand everything without difficulty
Speaks in L2 with accurate English words
Produces complete and accurate sentences (E.g. 1. This is Gasibu, 2. I can see many people there. 3. I can buy some clothes)
Speaks in L2 very fluently and effortlessly.
Speaks mostly in L2 with few L1 words
Produces some phrases instead of complete sentences with consistent and accurate word order (E.g. 1. Gasibu. 2. Seeing many people. 3.buying some clothes) or produces consistent omitted sentence (E.g. buy some clothes, see many people)
Speaks in L2 less fluently due
to few problems of
Produces 4-6 English words. Produces inconsistent and incorrect sentences/ phrases (E.g. I can walking around, buy food, some game, etc).
Speaks mostly in L2 with speak in L2 but so halting with
so many pauses and “er..” conversation in L2 virtually
Unidentified because of speaking in L1 all the time.
Unidentified because of speaking in L1 all the time.
1.5 Data Analysis
Before analyzed, the data obtained from the observation were transcribed
and coded (see Appendix F) to make the analysis easier. Alwasilah (2011) states
that there are some benefits of coding the data. First, it helps the researcher to
simplify phenomena identification. Second, it helps the researcher to count the
frequent of phenomenon emerging. Third, it helps the researcher to see the
tendency of the findings. Fourth, it helps the researcher to organize the
categorizations and sub-categorization of the inventions.
In this study, there are two types of codes to differentiate two different
data. The first codes are used to analyze the students’ speaking aspect
improvement. The second ones are used to analyze speaking activities used in
PBL. The table below shows the video transcript codes used in analyzing the data
Table 3.5 Video Transcript Codes for Speaking Aspect
12. Pronunciation Criterion 1 (the lowest) P1 13. Pronunciation Criterion 2 P2 14. Pronunciation Criterion 3 P3 15. Pronunciation Criterion 4 P4 16. Pronunciation Criterion 5 (the highest) P5
17. Grammar G
18. Grammar Criterion 1 (the lowest) G1 19. Grammar Criterion 2 G2 20. Grammar Criterion 3 G3 21. Grammar Criterion 4 G4 22. Grammar Criterion 5 (the highest) G5 23. Vocabulary V
24. Vocabulary Criterion 1 (the lowest) V1 25. Vocabulary Criterion 2 V2 26. Vocabulary Criterion 3 V3 27. Vocabulary Criterion 4 V4 28. Vocabulary Criterion 5 (the highest) V5
29. Fluency F
30. Fluency criterion 1 (the lowest) F1 31. Fluency criterion 2 F2 32. Fluency criterion 3 F3 33. Fluency criterion 4 F4 34. Fluency criterion 5 (the highest) F5 35. Comprehension C
The table below shows the video transcript codes used in analyzing the
data from the video transcriptions of the whole meetings.
Table 3.6 Video Transcript Codes for Speaking Activities
No. Explanation Code
7. Sentence/Dialogue Completion SDC 8. Oral Questionnaire OQ 13. Giving Instruction and Direction GID 14. Paraphrasing PRH 15. Interactive: Transactional InTrans
16. Interview ITV
17. Discussion DSC
18. Games GMS
19. Interactive: Interpersonal Inter
20. Conversation CON
21. Role-play RP
22. Extensive EX
23. Oral Presentation OP 24. Picture-cued Storytelling PCST 25. Retelling A Story RS 26. Retelling News Event RN 27. Translation of extended prose TrEx
After coded, the data were analyzed using qualitative data analysis.
According to Powell and Renner (2003), qualitative data analysis is a process of
accordance with the characteristic of action research applied in this study, as
Alwasilah (2011) states that action research is very qualitative seen from the
research problems and research purposes.
The problems or questions that were tried to be answered in this study
were (1) to what extent PBL improves students speaking skill, (2) what aspect of
speaking skill improves, and (3) what speaking activities are used in PBL. To
answer those questions, there are three steps in analyzing the data. Those are data
reduction, data display, and conclusion (Miles and Huberman, 1984 as cited in
Alwasilah, 2011). Those steps are explained in the next section.
1.5.1 Data Reduction
Data reduction is a process of selecting data that were relevant to the
research questions (Alwasilah, 2011). The data that were not necessary were
reduced to make the analysis easier. After that, the relevant and selected data were
then coded and analyzed based on students speaking criteria adapted from Harries
(1984) and Brown (2004) to see students’ speaking skill improvement.
In this study, the data reduced were some data from some particular
students who did not follow the whole process of PBL treatments. From 29
students, only 18 of them were included as the participant of the study.
1.5.2 Data Display
The result of data analysis was explained descriptively. Descriptive
(non-numeric), not quantitative (numeric) and need to be given interpretation
(Alwasilah, 2011). Some tables and excerpts were also going to be displayed to
show the result briefly and clearly.
1.5.3 Conclusion
After displaying the result, the last step was drawing conclusion related to
the research questions: (1) to what extent PBL improves students speaking skill
and (2) what aspect of speaking was improved. Finally, the conclusion was going
to be explained in chapter 5.
1.6 Concluding Remark
This chapter has described research methodology that is used in this study.
The next chapter will present the findings and discussions of this study based on
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter draws the conclusion of this study and presents some
suggestions for future study with similar topic. This chapter will be divided to two
sections, namely conclusion and suggestion.
1.1 Conclusions
As stated in Chapter 1 that for primary school in Indonesian context,
speaking skill is the focus of teaching English (Permen Diknas 2006). It is
considered as the initial skill for elementary students to reach the other skills so
that speaking skill is needed to improve. This study tried to apply PBL as the
method to improve students’ speaking skill.
Based on the data obtained from observation and speaking assessment, this
study draws some conclusions related to the three research questions: 1) does PBL
improve the students’ speaking skill?; 2) What aspects of speaking skill are
improved through PBL?; and 3) what activities are used in PBL to improve the
students’ speaking skill? The conclusions are drawn as the following.
First, in this study PBL improves the students’ speaking skill. It was
proved by the improvement of speaking aspects proposed by Harries (1984) and
Brown (2004) that is used as the framework of this study.
pronunciation. The improvement of speaking aspects of each student is different
because of their different ZPD (zone of proximal Development) (Vygotski, as
cited in Cameron, 2001).
The last, among 21 activities proposed by Brown (2004), nine of them are
used in this study. Each activity helps to improve some particular speaking
aspects: 1) Drilling helps to improve the students’ comprehension, grammar, and
pronunciation aspect. 2) Storytelling helps to improve the students’
comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation aspect. 3) Directed
response helps to improve the students’ comprehension, grammar, fluency, and
pronunciation aspect. 4) Picture-cued helps to improve the students’
comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and pronunciation aspect. 5) Translation of
limited stretches of discourse helps to improve the students’ comprehension and
vocabulary aspect. 6) Question and answer helps to improve the students’
comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar aspect. 7) Discussion helps to improve
the students’ comprehension and vocabulary aspect. 8) Games help to improve the
students’ comprehension and vocabulary aspect. 9) Role-play helps to improve the
students’ comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and pronunciation
aspect.
1.2 Suggestions
This study has many limitations. Therefore, there are some suggestions for
Actually in action research, how many cycles used in a study is depended on
whether or not the goal of the study has been achieved satisfactorily or not, since
as Alwasilah (2011) says that Action research is a never ending process.
Therefore, it is suggested that the further researcher conduct the research in longer
time. However, if they have limited time like the researcher had in this study, it is
suggested that they choose a project that focus on merely a topic so that the
participants’ performance may be more optimal even though with the limited
time.
Second, in deciding the project, they need to consider their participants’
age and characteristic, whether they are ready to choose the project by themselves
or not. This was because even though PBL suggests that the students was the main
project decision maker, sometimes due to limited language or experience, they
need to be guided first (Gaer, 1998, and Moon, 2000).
Third, in this study, the students were given different pictures in the
pre-test, so that when they could not answer the questions, too many possibilities
appeared. Therefore, it is also suggested that when conducting a pretest, they need
to make sure that the materials that are going to be examined to the students are
the same so that examining the students’ prior knowledge would be easier. For
example all of the students are given a picture of Bandung Zoo and asked about it,
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