Students` perception on the use of debate activities in improving students` speaking skills in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta

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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF DEBATE

ACTIVITIES IN

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING

SKILLS IN SMAN 8 YOGYAKARTA

A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By Astri Wulandari Student Number: 131214133

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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“

There are no

shortcuts to any

place worth going”

-

Beverly Sills

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vii ABSTRACT

Wulandari, Astri. (2017). Students’ Perception on The Use of Debate Activities in Improving Students’ Speaking Skills in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Department of Language and Arts Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University.

This research was about the use of debate activities which are implemented in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. The aim of this research was to find out students’ perception on the use of debate activities in improving students’ speaking skills. The researcher formulated two research questions in this study: (1) what is the eleventh grade students’ perception on the use of debate to improve students’ speaking skills? and (2) to what extent do debate activity help students to improve their speaking skills?

This research is a qualitative research. The participants of this research were eight members of debate extracurricular in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. The researcher conducted observations, distributed questionnaires, and conducted interviews. The researcher conducted three observations in the debate activities. After that, the researcher distributed the questionnaires to the debate members of SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. The researcher also conducted interviews with eight debate extracurricular members. The researcher presented data in a form of narrative description.

This study found that the students had a positive perception on the use of debate activities in improving speaking skills. All of the respondents agreed that debate helped them to improve their speaking skills: 62.5% strongly agree and 37.5% agree. Also, they all agreed that debate helped them to know many new English vocabularies: 25% strongly agree and 75% agree. In addition, debating activity taught them to speak orderly. They should prepare their speech before speaking in front of the audience. Moreover, the students realized that the implementation of debate activities not only helped them to improve their attitude while speaking in front of public but also gave many advantages in improving their speaking skills.

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viii ABSTRAK

Wulandari, Astri. (2017). Students’ Perception on The Use of Debate Activities in Improving Students’ Speaking Skills in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Department of Language and Arts Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University.

Penelitian ini meneliti tentang penggunaan debat untuk mengembangkan kemampuan berbicara siswa yang dilaksanakan di SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Tujuan dari penelitian iniadalah untuk mengetahui pandangan siswa mengenai penggunaan debat dalam mengembangkan kemampuan berbicara.

Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti menyusun dua (2) rumusan masalah: (1) bagaimana pandangan siswa mengenai debat yang dapat mengembangkan kemampuan berbicara? dan (2) sejauh mana debat membantu siswa untuk mengembangkan kemampuan berbicara?

Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif. Peserta dalam penelitian ini adalah delapan anggota extrakurikuler debat di SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Peneliti melakukan observasi, menyebar kuesioner, dan melakukan wawancara. Peneliti melakukan tiga kali observasi di aktivitas debat SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Setelah itu, peneliti membagikan kuesioner kepada anggota ekstrakurikuler debat SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Peneliti juga melakukan wawancara dengan delapan anggota ekstrakurikuler debat. Peneliti menyajikan data dalam bentuk deskripsi narasi. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa siswa mempunyai pandangan yang positif mengenai praktik debat dapat membantu mereka untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara. Seluruh responden setuju bahwa debat dapat membantu mereka untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara: 62.5% sangat setuju dan 37.5% setuju. Semua responden juga setuju bahwa debat membantu mereka untuk mengetahui banyak kosa kata bahasa Inggris: 25% sangat setuju dan 75% setuju. Sebagai tambahan, debat mengajarkan siswa untuk berbicara secara runtut. Siswa harus menyiapkan skema pembicaraan sebelum berbicara di depan publik. Para siswa menyadari bahwa praktik debat tidak hanya membantu mereka dalam mempebaiki sikap mereka saat berbicara di depan publik, namun juga memberikan banyak manfaat untuk mengembangkan kemampuan berbicara mereka.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Jesus Christ who always gives me endless blessing, love, and strengths. I know that I cannot finish this thesis without His help. I believe that He has great plans for my future.

My special regards are presented to my beloved family (Bapak, Ibuk, Mas Ajik, Mbak Lia, and Mbak Indri). Without their prayers, supports, love, and encouragement, I cannot finish this thesis.

My deepest gratitude goes to my advisor, Yohana Veniranda, M.Hum., M.A., Ph.D., for her willingness to spend her time reading and correcting my

thesis. Her guidance in the process of finishing this thesis and her recommendations on what I had to do in order to complete this thesis made me confident that I could finish the thesis when I started doubting my ability.

I would also like to express my sincere thankfulness to all PBI lecturers and staff who have given me great time and great experience during my study. My gratitude also goes to all the participants, for their cooperation and willingness in helping me obtain the data.

My special gratitude is also sent to my new family members in Yogyakarta, Fennie, Shinta, Lika, Tari, Dea, Rika, Liza, Juan, Evan, and Vian. I thank them for their supports, prayers, encouragement, and patience to

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Ndolu, Sane, and Ciu. I really appreciate our efforts to finish our own thesis.

Then, I thank my friends in small class E and big class D in PBI batch 2013 for being great friends and colleagues during my time in Yogyakarta.

Last but not least, I thank the people whose names I cannot mention one by one on this paper. I wish them all the best.

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List of Tables

Page

Table 2.1: Roles of Speakers in the Asian Parliamentary Format ... 25

Table 3.1: The description of questionnaire ... 33

Table 3.2: The description of interview ... 35

Table 4.1 Questionnaire result of the students’ motivation to join the debate extracurricular ... 37

Table 4.2 Questionnaire result of students’ feeling about the debate extracurricular ... 38

Table 4.3 Questionnaire result of students’ improvements ... 39

Table 4.4 Questionnaire result of students’ learning method ... 40

Table 4.5 The result of interview question number 1 ... 42

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List of Figures

Page

Figure 2.1: The Perceptual Process ... 11

Figure 2.2: Example of Mind-mapping ... 17

Figure 2.3: Degrees of cogency by Freely (1969)... 20

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List of Appendices

Page

Appendix A: Letters of Permission ... 63

Appendix B: Observation Sheets ... 66

Appendix C: Questionnairre ... 70

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides an introduction about the disscusion of this study. They include explanations about what made the writer chose this particular topic, the problems which solved in the study, and the advantages provided by this study. This chapter elaborates: Research background, Research questions, Research significance, and Definition of terms.

A. Research Background

English is the most well-known foreign language in communication for people who do not speak the same language. From the fact, we know that it is important to learn how to speak English because it is needed for communication. We need to learn English to participate in international communities and make people know more about Indonesia. This is why English has been taught as a compulsory subject in junior and senior high schools in Indonesia.

Students should master four English skills; reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Each skill is important for communication. This study focuses on speaking skills. People can measure the English competence through the way he/she speaks. Goh and Burns (2012) have described a good speaker:

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A competent second language speaker is a someone who has good pronunciation, speaks Standard English, can speak fluently and with few or no grammatical mistakes, speaks in manner indistinguishable from native speakers, confident when to a large audience, knows when to say the right things and says them in the most effective way possible, can communicate well with native speakers, can be understood easily by others, can speak effectively and clearly in various situations, can speak fluently and clearly on a wide range of topics (p. 50).

English speaking skills help students to express their opinions and feelings with no limitation of different native languages, cultures, and countries, even they can challenge themselves to apply for a scholarship or a job in international communities. By those reasons, the writer realized that English speaking skills are crucial for English learners.

A new global trend is taking place and people; especially the young generation has to adjust to the new trends. Zarefsky (1996) explained that today’s

society undergoes a shift in economy from “dominance by manufacture to dominance by information” (p. 5). Consequently, good communication skills play

a critical role. As seen in the title, the target group of this study is young people. There is a reason why they become the main focus of this study. It is because the future, or at least today, these young people will face greater competitive pressures in numerous aspects of life, for example, in college, communities, or workplaces, where they are required to have good communication skills. The most

obvious example is that today’s world obtaining employment is not at all easy;

therefore only those who are well-equipped and multi-skilled will be able to remain competitive. Zarefsky (1996) further explained that today, employers and career counselors consider communication skills to be important in placing

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employees in a particular position, and this applies in any field of work (p. 5). Grice and Skinner (1995) explained that the important factors for college graduates in getting a job are oral communication and listening skills. Consequently, the young generation should equip themselves with various skills, including oral communication so that in the future, or even in present times, they will stand out as applicants for job application because of their outstanding communication abilities. It is reaffirmed by Treece (1978) that success in career, no matter in what occupation, position, or organization will rely heavily on the ability to effectively communicate and this is possibly exceeding the necessity of any other skills (p. 4).

In Indonesia, being able to speak in public settings is also needed. In an increasingly competitive working world, public speaking is a necessity. It means the success of achieving a certain position or career enhancement cannot merely be relied on the mastery of the job itself, but also on the ability to communicate and express the ideas in front of an audience. This capability surely will be a valuable asset. Therefore, in many companies, public speaking has become a serious attention.

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students’ perception toward the debate activities in improving their speaking

skills.

Public speaking skills can be developed through debate because debating provides people with an opportunity to develop their debating skills, which include: English proficiency, logical and critical thinking, public speaking, and ability to formulate, present, and defend arguments. In addition, since competitive

debating aims to convince the judges that a certain team’s argument is better, it

gives the opportunity to use analytical, critical thinking and public speaking skills which are useful in daily life.

The debate extracurricular has been carried out for some years in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. Therefore, the students experienced the debate activities and they have formed perception of the activities. This research is concerned with the

students’ perception on the implementation of debate activities in improving speaking skills.

B. Research Questions

There are two research questions in this research. The research questions are presented s follow.

1. What is the eleventh grade students’ perception on the use of debate to improve students’ speaking skills?

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C. Research Significance

This research is expected to be beneficial for the following people:

a. Students

The materials in this research can motivate the students to improve their speaking skills through debate. If they have good speaking skills, they will be able to share their ideas and work with others without being nervous and shy.

b. Teacher

English teachers can apply debate as a technique to improve students’ speaking skills. This research will help the teachers to implement a new

technique and improve students’ speaking skills.

c. Future Researchers

The result and discussion of this study can be used as the materials to administer a study in the same field with different group of students. Future researchers, for example, can observe other senior high school students or undergraduate students.

D. Definition of Terms

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1. Debate

According to Hornby (1987), debate is a formal discussion, for example in public speaking; contest between two speakers or two group speakers, to show ability in arguing (p.221). Freely (1969) provided other definition. He mentioned that debate consists of argument for or against a given proportion (p. 3). In this study, debate is an activity where two groups of speakers show their arguing ability for or against a given proportion.

2. Perception

According to Kreitner & Kinicki (2008), perception is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings (p. 183). Perception involves receiving stimuli, organizing the stimuli, and translating or interpreting the organized stimuli to influence behavior and form attitudes such as thought, opinion, and feeling. In this study, perception is SMAN 8 Yogyakarta students’ thought, opinion, and feeling toward the implementation of debate in improving their speaking skills. 3. Extracurricular

Hornby (1987) defined extracurricular as “outside of the regular course of

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4. SMAN 8 Yogyakarta

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter discussed the theories underlying the research. To assist the organization, this chapter consists of two sub-sections; there are: (1) Theoretical description, and (2) Theoretical framework.

A. Theoretical Description

There are explanations on several theories which support this research. To make it well-organized, the explanations are divided into two main sections as follow.

1. Perception

Theory of perception explains the definition of perception from some experts, components of perception, the process which is creating perception, and factors which might influence the process of forming perception.

a. Definition of Perception

Robbins (2001) stated that “perception is a process by which the individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment” (p. 55). According to Kreitner & Kinicki (2008), perception is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings (p. 183). According to George & Jones (2005) perception is the

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process by which individual select, organize, and interpret the input from our senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste) to give meaning and order to the world around us (p. 105). From those definitions, the researcher concluded that perception is a cognitive process by which the individuals select, organize, and interpret the environment. For examples: both people and animals recognize familiar objects in their environments. We would recognize a photo of our best friend; dogs can recognize their food dishes or a favorite toy.

b. Components of Perception

According to George & Jones (2005), perception has three components (p. 105). There are: the perceiver, the target of perception, and the situation. The first component is the perceiver. The perceiver is the person trying to interpret some observation that he or she has just made or the input from his or her senses. The second component is target. The target of perception is whatever the perceiver is trying to make sense of. The target can be another person, a group of people, an event, or an idea. The last component is situation. The situation is the context in which perception takes place. For examples: a committee meeting, the hallway, in front of the office, and so on.

c. The Perceptual Process

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interpret to the sensory message. The summarize of perceptual process can be seen below.

Figure 2.1: the perceptual process (1985)

d. Perception Factors

According to Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnely, and Konopaske (1985), each person has her or his own different perception toward particular thing because the factor in influencing the perception may be different (p. 98). There are six factors which might influence the process of forming perception. The six factors are stereotyping, selectivity, self-concept, situation, needs, and emotions.

(1) Stereotyping

Stereotype is an over generalized, oversimplified, and self-perpetuating belief

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(2) Selectivity

People often receive large amounts of information and may tend to select information that support their viewpoints. Sometimes people ignore information that might make them feel discomfort.

(3) Self-concept

People use themselves as benchmark in perceiving others. In other words, self-concept is the way people see themselves and it will affect the perception about something. Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnely, and Konopaske (1985) indicated that: (1) knowing oneself makes it easier to see others accurately,

(2) one’s own characteristics affect the characteristics identified in others, and

(3) persons who accept themselves are more likely to see favorable aspects of other people.

(4) Situation

Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnely, and Konopaske (1985) said that situation affected the feeling and habits in the daily life (p. 101). Also, situation affects how someone thinks about a particular context. If someone does not feel comfortable, he might have negative thought.

(5) Needs

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(6) Emotions

A person’s emotion state has a lot to do with perception. Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnely, and Konopaske (1985) noted perception formed through experiencing particular thing and it will influence the present and might be future perception.

2. Speaking

Theory of speaking skills explains the definition of speaking skills from some experts, speaking elements, speaking to persuade, public speaking, how to organize the speech, how to support the speech, and the types of supporting materials.

a. Definition of Speaking

People express the ideas and build communication through speaking. People can discuss, criticize, and give comments and suggestions to others by speaking. Good speaking skills help the speakers to deliver the correct messages to the listeners. Because its functions are important to daily life, speaking skills are decided as one of main skills in English. Goh and Burns (2012) stated that

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(2012) indicated speaking skills include the ability to use a range of strategies to composite for gaps in knowledge and ineffective speaking skills (p. 67).

Students have difficulties to speak Standard English because they have problems in some language components: vocabulary, fluency, and grammar. Lack of those language components make the messages cannot be delivered and the communication can be failed. This fact proves that students need more practices on speaking.

From the explanations in this study, speaking is a verbal communication skill that involved language components to express ideas and build social relationship because people can maintain the communication.

b. Speaking Elements

Many students have difficulties to speak English well. According to

Hammer (2002) “If students want to be able to speak fluently in English, they

need to be able pronounce phonemes correctly, use appropriate stress and intonation pattern and speak in connected speech” (p. 343).

1) Pronounce phonemes correctly. Sometimes, the speakers from different first languages have problems with different sounds. In this part, teachers must facilitate the students by showing the right pronunciation through demonstration and explanation.

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3) Speak in connected speech and fluency. Fluency is also helped by having students say phrase and sentences as quickly as possible, starting slowly and then speeding up.

c. Speaking to Persuade

Speakers delivering a speech must have a purpose whether this purpose is to inform, entertain, or persuade. Ross (1995) noted “persuasion is a nonviolent

means of ethically influencing and motivating others through messages” (p. 243).

It is an entirely the audience’s choice whether to maintain their attitudes towards a certain issue or not after listening to a speech.

According to Koch (1995), persuasive speech can be categorized into three types namely, speeches to convince, speeches to reinforce, and speeches to actuate

(p. 146). In the first type, Koch (1995) reminded us that “Speech to convince appeal to the listener’s intelligence rather than emotions” (p. 147). The first type is speeches to convince. Accordingly, a logical way of thinking is used to convey the message. This means that the speakers must incorporate valid facts and evidence into their speech. The second type is speeches to reinforce. Besides appealing to their intelligence, a speech to reinforce attracts to the motives, attitudes, and sentiments of the audience. Meanwhile, the third type of persuasive speech requires the audience to do a specific action.

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speaker is, the more likely the listeners trust him or her. Similar to this, Freely (1969) mentioned some elements of Ethos; namely competence, integrity, and good will (p. 240). Speakers should lead the audience to believe that they have competence. Besides, the speakers should have integrity and good will towards the audience. Then, the second mode of being an effective persuasive speaker is logos. According to Hasling (1988), logos refers to the facts, the evidence, and the reasoning contained in the speech (p. 62). A good persuasive speech must have supporting by sufficient and valid evidence in order to convince the audience. Rybacki (1991) said that the evidences could be periodicals, newspaper, government documents, almanacs, and fact books (p. 137). The last strategy to give a persuasive speech is employing what so called pathos which mean the use of emotions or feeling to convince the listeners. With this mode, the speaker is able to make the audience feel some specific emotional effects such as being angry, proud, terrified, sad frustrated, to name a few. Pathos is a comprehensive technique because as Hasling (1988) pointed that “there are times when emotional factors must supersede evidence (p. 62).

d. Public Speaking

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public speech (content, organization, and delivery) should affect the audience (p. 16). Nicholls (1999) stated “almost every book which has been written on the

subject rightly dwells on the importance of preparation” (p. 45). A speaker can generate ideas in a rather random way. One of the techniques is mind-mapping. Mind mapping was developed in the 1970s by the academic Tony Buzan.

Figure 2.2: Example of Mind-mapping

Some important points in public speaking will be discussed in greater length in the following section.

(1) Understand the Topic

A speaker must know the topic they talk about, as Grice and Skinner

(1995) suggested, “A primary, vital requirement for preparing any speech is to know exactly what to do” (p. 16). A speaker can do kind of a small research to

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sources are divided into primary and secondary sources (p. 50). Primary sources means people with whom you have direct contact, by letter, telephone, or face-to-face. Secondary sources are almost always written, such as books, reports, journals, or newspaper.

(2) Develop the Speech Content

After knowing the topic, a speaker can decide the number of main ideas that will cover. A Speaker should know the audience’s needs and wants, so that

the speech can attract the audience’s attention. However, a speaker needs to limit the ideas and check to make sure that the ideas are relevant to the main topic. According to Nicholls (1999), a speaker can start by writing an outline to generate the ideas (p. 66). The speaker can use the brainstorming or mind-mapping methods, then the speaker will learn to think in a more creative way and ideas will flow. Nicholls (1999) recommended five steps to develop the speech content. First, write a rough draft. Second, refine the draft, adding illustrations and changing words. Third, rewrite the speech into spoken English, shortening sentences and changing words. Fourth, rehearse the speech aloud. Fifth, make alterations in order to fit the time slot

e. Organize the Speech

A speech has three parts; opening, body, and conclusion. Speakers should consider those three parts to determine the speech easy to follow. It is important to

make an interesting opening part. The opening part is the speaker’s first

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Skinner (1995) said “Well-prepared and well-delivered opening remarks will

make the audience want to listen and will prepare them for what comes next” (p.

18). Besides, a speaker must prepare the body well also. According to Grice and Skinner (1995), to help organizing the body speech, there is a four-step sequence

which is called the 4 S’s (p. 18). First, signpost the main ideas, for examples: one, initially, last, etc. Second, state the idea clearly. Third, support and explain the ideas. The last summarize the idea before moving to the next one. After preparing the opening and body parts, next is conclusion part. In this part, a speaker can make the list of the key ideas that have discussed in the body part. The speaker cannot bring new ideas in this part. This part should have a logical close from the speakers.

f. Supporting the Speech

A speaker cannot deliver a speech which do not have supporting materials. Effective supporting materials help the speaker to prove their statements to the audience. A speaker should use supporting materials which help the audience understand, remember, and believe their messages. Grice and Skinner (1995) noted that s speaker uses supporting materials to get three purpose: clarity, vividness, and credibility (p. 154). Clarity refers to the accuracy of the messages. The audience should get the right messages. Then, vividness is to help the audience remember the key ideas in the speech, as Grice & Skinner (1995) suggested “Vivid supporting materials are striking, graphic, intense, and

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someone can be believed or trusted. In this content, credibility refers to be believability of a speaker and their sources.

According to Freely (1969), there is degree of cogency, to measure an argument is well founded in fact, logic, or rationality (p. 79). The degrees of cogency are certainty, probability, plausibility, or possibility. These represented by the following diagram.

Figure 2.3: Degrees of cogency by Freely (1969)

Certainty is associated with absolute truth. Freely (1969) stated if a conclusion of an argument is a certainty, all competent observers are in agreement (p. 79). Then, probability is associated with a high degree of likelihood (but not certainty) that a conclusion is true. In other hand, plausibility is associated with a lesser degree of likelihood that a proposition is true. The last, possibility is associated with a low degree of likelihood that a proposition is true.

g. Types of Supporting Materials

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definition, narration, comparison, contrast, statistics, and testimony (p. 157). Examples are samples or illustrations of a category. The category may be people, a place or an objects. Example may be brief or extended, and actual or hypothetical. Actual examples are real or factual. Hypothetical examples are imaginary. Both types of examples make a general or abstract term more specific and vivid for the audience.

Definition is explanation of an unfamiliar term or a word having several possible meanings. Grice and Skinner (1995) said we can define terms by synomyn, by etymology, by example, or by operation (p. 159). Definition by synomyn offers a word or a phrase that is rough equivalent of the word being defined. Definition by etymology shows the origin of the word being defined. Definition by example gives an illustration or sample of the word in question. Definition by operation explains how something works or what it was designed to do. Definitions are crucial if your audience will not know, or if you want them to adopt one particular meaning for a term.

Narration is storytelling. Grice and Skinner (195) explained that narratives might be personal or third-person (p. 162). Personal narratives originate from the

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similarities. Contrast function like comparisons except that their purpose is to distinguish or show difference between two or more items.

Statistics are data collected in the form of numbers. Used properly,

statistics can bolster a speaker’s credibility and lend vivid support to the ideas of

the speech. Grice and Skinner (1995) concluded to ensure your speech use statistics, you should follow four guidelines (p. 165). First, do not rely exclusively on statistic, but combine them with other supporting materials. Second, round off statistics to help your listeners remember them. Third, either use units of measure familiar to your audience or translate your statistics into familiar units. Fourth, use visual aids to clarify the relationships among various statistics. The final form of support is testimony. Testimony is used to cite, quote, or paraphrase authoritative sources.

3. Debate

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explains the definition of debate from some experts, the types of debate, and ethical standards for debaters, debate objectives, and Asian Parliamentary Debate.

a. Definition of Debate

Debate is well known as arguing ideas between two opposite sides. In school environment, debate is known as one of English competitions is held by many institutions. Debate consists of argument for and against a given proportion. Debate helps students to defend their opinion and express their feeling, so it is a good practice to speak English fluently.

According to Quinn (2005), debating gives the chance to meet new people and new ideas (p. 23). Debate gives opportunities the students to stand up and argue with someone in public. Debate facilitates the students to discuss their ideas and try to defend their opinion to others. Also, debate has interaction role in each

practice. That fact shows debate improves students’ attitude in public.

Based on definitions above, the writer summarizes that debate is a communicative interaction that involves different perspective and build critical strong arguments. Debate facilitates the students to enrich their vocabularies through comprehending the issue and how the way they defend their perspectives. Also, students have to speak up their ideas fluently and grammatical correct. Those definitions and facts above proved that debate is good strategy to improve speaking skills.

b. Types of Debate

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substantive and educational debates. Substantive debate is aimed to establish facts, values, or policy and the debaters usually have interesting on the topic. Meanwhile, an educational debate is held to give educational opportunity for students.

c. Ethical Standards for Debaters

Freely (1969) also points out the minimum ethical standards for debaters. The debaters should know the subject and thoroughly prepared (p. 179). They should present facts and opinions accurately. Also, they must reveal the source of

the facts.

d. Debate Objectives

According to Kennedy (2007), debate is an instructional strategy enhances learning particularly, in areas of mastering in content and active engagement, developing critical thinking skills, oral communication skills, oral communication skills, and empathy.

(1) Mastering in content and active engagement means students have to be actively analyzing and discussing the issue in debate session. They cannot passively absorbing whole information. They have to re-think their own thinking then share and discuss in their team. Also, debate is a right place

to measure students’ responsibility of comprehension for individual and

teamwork.

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identifying and challenging assumptions, recognizing inconsistencies, and prioritizing the relevance.

(3) Developing oral communication skills means debate gives many experiences for students to analyze, deliver, and organize speeches quickly and correctly. Oral communication skills acnnot get by theory but by practice.

(4) Developing emphaty. Even though the debaters have different perspectives in an issue, they still listen each other. Through debate, students are able to learn how to be open-minded to see another perspective. This fact proved that sudents develop empathy by debate.

d. Asian Parliamentary Debate

Parliamentary debate is a debate system that be used in school debate competitions in Indonesia. The debate extracurricular in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta used Asian parlimentary debate for the training activity. This debate system was conducted by two groups, each group has three people (Debate Motions Headquarters, 2013, p.1). The speakers and the tasks will be described as follow:

Table 2.1: Roles of Speakers in the Asian Parliamentary Format

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Figure 2.4: Speaking order of the debate

The rules for all speakers:  Speak for 7 minutes

 Can accept Points of Information between the 1st and 6th minute  Can present rebuttals, examples and new analysis

 Can make new arguments (except Whips - Government Whip and Opposition Whip)

The rules for Opposition Reply, Government Reply:  Speak for 4 minutes

 Cannot accept Points of Information

 Cannot make new arguments, rebuttals, examples or analysis. Must only compare and analyze things that have already been said in the debate.

B. Theoretical Framework

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researcher wants to reveal the students’ perceptions on the use of debate activities in improving their speaking skills.

The researcher employs the theory of debate in order to compare how the real practice of teaching speaking skills compared to the debate which is used by the teacher in the extracurricular. Freely (1969) pointed out that debate encourages effective speech composition and delivery (p. 35). Moreover, to

observe the teacher’s role in the extracurricular, the researcher used theory from

Lepper (1988), teachers can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response (p. 13).

In addition, the researcher used the theory of generating ideas in speaking in order to observe what the students preparation before speaking. Nicholls (1990) said that a speaker could start by writing an outline to generate the ideas (p. 66). According to Grice and Skinner (1994), to help organizing the body speech, there is a four-step sequence which is called the 4 S’s – signpost, state, support, summarize - (p. 18).

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents more in-depth explanation of the methodology employed in this study to find the answers to the problems indicate earlier in the first chapter. There are five points to be discussed in this chapter. They are: (A) Research Method, (B) Research Setting, (C) Research Participants, (D) Instruments and Data Gathering Technique, (E) Data Analysis Technique.

A. Research Method

The goal of this study is to seek the solution of the problem: what is the

eleventh grade students’ perception on the use of debate to improve students’

speaking. In order to come up with the answers, a survey research method was employed. Brown and Rodger (2002) state, “Survey are most often use in most language education research and various kind of curriculum development

projects” (p. 372). This research investigated students’ perception on the use of debate activity in improving speaking skills in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. In addition, this research is a qualitative research. According to Wahyuni (2012), qualitative research method develops in the social science to enable the writer to study the topic (p. 11). Its goal is to gain a deeper understanding of people experiments.

The data obtained were presented in the form of a descriptive explanation. According to Fraenkel and Wallen (2015), descriptive research explains things the way they are (p. 218). In other words, the researcher does not have control over what already exist. This type of research is often related to the matters such as

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attitudes, opinions, demographic, information, conditions, and procedures. Descriptive data are usually obtained through questionnaires, survey, interviews, as well as observations. This study is related to understand some topic aspects by words since this study observed students’ perception on the use of debate activities in improving speaking skills. To initiate the study, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to debate extracurricular members of SMA N 8 Yogyakarta. The questionnaire to obtain necessary information about facts, such as their opinion and thought on a new technique to develop their speaking ability especially the skills related to speaking in public setting.

B. Research Setting

This study was conducted in SMA N 8 Yogyakarta. The study was done in debate extracurricular of SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. The researcher chose debate extracurricular of SMAN 8 Yogyakarta because the debate teams were great and had won many titles from school debate competitions.

To know the student’s improvement in speaking, the researcher conducted three observations in the extracurricular. First observation observed the teacher and students condition during the extracurricular. Second and third observation

observed the students’ improvement. The first observation and questionnaire distribution was conducted on March 29th 2017 at 7.30 PM. The researcher distributed the questionnaires on the first observation meeting because the

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third observation was conducted on April 17th, 2017 at 7.00 PM. The researcher could not interview all the eight students on the same day cause the time limitation. Therefore, the researcher interviewed them on different days. The interviews with the students were conducted on April 7th, 10th, and 11th 2017.

C. Research Participants

The participants of this study were members of debate extracurricular in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta. The researcher used debate extracurricular because the members had already experienced English debates. The number of respondents for each instrument (questionnaires and interviews) were the same.

D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

To conduct the study, instruments are needed so that the research will be easily administered and the gathered data will be well-organized. The research instruments that will be used in this study are qualitative observation and written description by participant. It will investigate the students’ perception on the use of debate activities in improving speaking skills.

1. Qualitative Observation

Observation seeks to ascertain what people think and do by watching them

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note, notes taken by an observer, without specifying in advance exactly what to be

observe” (p. 207). This study would be helped by qualitative observation since the observation observed all things that potentially relevant and connected to the topic.

2. Description by Participants

The writer analyzed the obvious evidence to produce a core description of the experience. According to Wahyuni (2012), the data from written description by participants serve as the ground on which the findings are based (p. 26). In constructing the study report, the researcher drew excerpts from the data to illustrate the findings and to show the readers how the findings were derived from the data. To complete the description by participants, the researcher conducted questionnaire and interview.

a. Questionnaire

In this study, the questionnaire was utilized in the needs survey as well as in efforts to obtain feedback on the designed set of material. This kind of instrument was primarily used to obtain written data to support this study. Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh (1990) said questionnaire can reveal more truthful responses which are sometimes hard to do in the interviews because the respondents are sometimes reluctant to answer questions honestly (p. 189). This kind of instrument was used to obtain written data to support this study.

There was a questionnaire in this study. It was written in English to

measure students’ English skills. The questionnaire consists of three parts. In the

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statements. Close-ended statements are needed because the researcher should

know students’ perception on the use of debate activities. The second part of questionnaire asked the respondents about their activities which can improve their speaking skills. The last part asked the respondents to rate their own speaking skills.

Table 3.1: The description of questionnaire

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3. Interview

Interview is a flexible instrument in research because the interviewer can observes the subject as well as the whole situation in which the subject gives the responses. If the question is unclear enough, the interviewer can explain it again to avoid misinterpretation. In this study, interview was used to obtain further information from the respondents in giving the answer in the questionnaire. Interview was important when the responses needed a clarification so that more complete comments and opinions were obtained.

Table 3.2: The description of interview

No. Aims Theories Questions naturally has to do with students' desire to subject and thoroughly prepared (p. 179).

effectiveness of debate

to improve students’ organize speeches quickly and correctly (p. 43). themes that be used for debate.

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E. Data Analysis Technique

There were three main parts of analyzing the data. The first was analyzing the observations; the researcher analyzed the observation and made a description of the observation. The next was analyzing the questionnaire. There were four degree of agreements, the researcher counted the number of thick from every degree of agreements. After that, the researcher counted the raw data into percentages and made an interpretation. The formula of the questionnaire analysis was presented here:

Note:

n : number of students who choose a certain option

∑n : total number of students

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CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents and discusses the results of research which are obtained from observation, questionnaire, and interview guided from the researcher. This chapter is divided by two parts; (A) Result and (B) Discussion.

A. Findings

This part shows the research results by observing the debate extracurricular. The researcher elaborated this section into three parts. First, the researcher distributed questionnaires to the debate extracurricular members. Second, the researcher observed the implementation of debate extracurricular. The last, the researcher interviewed the members of debate extracurricular.

1. Questionnaire

In the first observation, the researcher gave out questionnaires to eight members of debate extracurricular. The questionnaire contains 10 close-ended questions. The questionnaire helped the researcher to know the students’ perception on the use of debate activities in improving their speaking skills.

Table 4.1 Questionnaire result of the students’ motivation to join the debate extracurricular

No. Statements Strongly

Agree Agree Disagree

Strongly Disagree 1. I join the debate extracurricular

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2. I join debate extracurricular because I think my English is quite good.

students’ motivation to join debate extracurricular. The first statement showed that five students (62.5%) chose “strongly agree” and three students (37.5%) improve their poor speaking skill through debate extracurricular.

Table 4.2 Questionnaire result of students’ feeling about the debate extracurricular

Strongly Disagree 1. The teacher lets me speaking

English during debate extracurricular.

4 (50%) 4 (50%) 0 (0 %) 0 (0 %) 2. I am confident to speak

English in front of my friends.

Based on table 4.2, four students (50%) chose “strongly agree” and four

students (50%) chose “agree” for the first statement. It meant the debate instructor let them to speak English during the activities and the students responded well by speaking English. In the statement number 2, seven students (87.5%) chose

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“agree” and just one student (12.5%) chose “disagree”. It showed the previous

statement influenced the second statement. They have enough confidence to speak English with others because their instructor let them to speak English in each

meeting. Four students (50%) chose “ strongly agree” and four students (50%)

chose “agree” in the third statement. It showed that they enjoy the English debate

activities.

Table 4.3 Questionnaire result of students’ improvements

Strongly

In the statement number 1, five students (62.5%) chose “strongly agree”

and three students (37.5%) chose “agree”. It meant the students felt the

differences between before and after joining debate extracurricular; they improved their speaking skills. For the second statement, one student (12.5%) chose

“strongly agree”, six students (75%) chose “agree”, and one student (12.5%)

chose “disagree”. It meant that most of the students have improvements in each

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and six students (75%) chose “agree” for the last statement in table 4.3. It meant

that the students enrich their English vocabularies through debate activities.

Table 4.4 Questionnaire result of students’ learning method

Strongly

In the first statement, two students (25%) chose “strongly agree” and six students (75%) chose “agree”. It meant all of them wrote the outlines or notes

before speaking. For the second statement, a student (12.5%) chose “strongly

agree”, four students (50%) chose “agree”, and three students (37.5%) chose

“disagree”. It meant that just some of them who repeat the debate material at

home.

The second part of questionnaire indicated students’ opinion on activities which can improve their speaking skills. Students had many ways to improve their speaking skills. Therefore, the researcher prepared activities list which probably students do in their daily life. The following table shows the result of the second part of questionnaire.

Activities Quantity

Listening to music 8

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Speaking English to my friends 5 Chatting with foreigners via social media 3

Reading English articles 7

From the table above, the activities there are done the most by students in their daily life to improve their speaking skills are listening to music and watching movies/English TV programs. There are a lot of English songs, movies and TV programs. The students easily found those files from internet. Besides, seven out of eight students like to read English articles in their free time. Nowadays, they could access many news portals via smartphone. The next activity which is done by students to improve their speaking skills is speaking English with friends. This activity helped students a lot because they could practice directly to speak English. The last activity is chatting with foreigners via social media that done by three out of eight students.

The third part of questionnaire indicated the quality of students’ speaking

skills. The researcher asked the students to rate their speaking skills. However, the researcher not only concluded the students’ speaking skills quality by the questionnaire result, but also from observations. From this part, the researcher found that most of the students, seven out of eight students, rated their speaking skills as good. The following table shows specific findings on the students’ opinion on their speaking skills.

Rates Quantity

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Good 7

Very good 0

Excellent 0

2. Interview

This part shows the results from the students’ interview. The researcher set an interview for each eight members of debate extracurricular. This method is used to know the deeper information from the students and to know the speaking level of each student. The researcher let the students to speak English and

answered the questions orally. From the students’ speaking way, the researcher can measure the vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar level of each student.

Table 4.5 The result of interview question number 1

Question: Why do you join this extracurricular? Quantity Response(s)

5 Improve the English skills

3 Want to open the mind to new

things

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Table 4.6 The result of interview question number 2.

Question: Does the instructor give you some tips and trick for debate? What are the activities in your debate extracurricular?

Quantity Response(s)

8 The instructor divided the students into two groups and gave a

topic. Then, stimulated a debate.

All of the students answered that they did not have kind of special activities. In the beginning of meeting, their instructor divided the students into two groups (pro and contra) and gave them a topic. After that, each group would discuss the topic for around 15 minutes. Then, the students have a kind of debate simulation. In this section, the instructor would be a time keeper. Also, he would

write some notes about the students’ performance. At the end of meeting, the

instructor evaluated the performance both in group and individually.

Q: Is debate effective to improve your speaking skills? Why? Quantity Response(s)

5 Yes, I gain many vocabularies in each meeting.

3 Yes, debate teach me to speak smartly, think before

speaking.

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said that the debate extracurricular gave them the opportunities to practice speaking English directly to other people. Beside that, they learn about how to respect other people, for examples: other people would not mock them if they made mistakes, they would listen if others speak.

Q: Do you have certain themes for debate practicing in the extracurricular?

Quantity Response(s)

8 Some parliament and small topics

The researcher also asked about the theme that used in the extracurricular. The students said that they talked about parliament topics because most of topics that used in debate competitions are about parliament, such as government policy. However, in their free time, they debated about little things, for example which better between chocolate and strawberry ice cream. Those little topics helped them to refresh their brain.

3. Observation

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He prepared the topic and set the activities, but he did not make a formal lesson plan because the school did not need the lesson plan for debate extracurricular.

The second aspect is about the instructor’s capability. The statement for the second aspect is: the instructor is capable explaining the materials. The researcher gave five out of five points because he really did great job. He led the

students during the activities. He monitored the students’ performance in

debating, then gave evaluation for each students. He explain the students’ mistakes and gave them some solution for the mistakes. As the result, the students had some improvements for the next performances.

The third aspect is about the instructor’s delivery during the activities. The statement for this aspect is: the instructor conducts the activities interestingly. The researcher gave 4.3 out of five point. The instructor could take control the activities but still let the students to enjoy the activities. Sometimes, the instructor gave some ice breaking moments to refresh students’ brain. The instructor conducted student-centered learning activities. The instructor let the students to give their opinion about the issues. The instructor conducted the extracurricular outside of school, so the students had other new learning environments.

The last aspect is students’ responses. This aspect had three statements.

The first statement is: students are proactive during activities. For this statement, the researcher gave score 4.6 out of five. During the extracurricular meetings, the

students expressed their ideas freely. Each student respected to other’s opinions

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enthusiastic on debate activities. The researcher gave five out of five points for this statement. The students were enthusiastic to build some background knowledge from many sources and gave their opinion while debating with other group. The third statement is students have improvements during the activities. The researcher gave 4.3 out of five points to this statement. The researcher observed the extracurricular for three times. The students always attended the meetings and make some improvements. They enriched their vocabularies and spoke more fluently.

B. Discussion

The researcher had explained the findings in the previous section. After getting the findings, the researcher answered the research questions. This session showed the discussions to answer the research questions.

1. The eleventh grade students’ perception on the use of debate to improve

students’ speaking skills

The data presentation showed that students in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta had

positive perceptions on the use of debate to improve students’ speaking skills. All

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gain.

a. Debate activities taught the students to open their mind about issues

One of the reasons why the students decided to join this extracurricular was they wanted to open their mind to something which were taboo for some people. They wanted to be open-minded students. Kennedy (2007) said that debate develop empathy, even though the debaters have different perspectives in an issue, they still listen each other. They wanted to discuss some topics which are taboo and sensitive for most people. They said that some people would be mad to them if they brought up some sensitive topics, such as: LGBT, religions, etc. They like to discuss many things to other people because they can gain new knowledge from the conversation. The students had opinions that people who like debate are not conservative, so that they can get something new from them.

b. Debate activities helped the students to develop their attitude while speaking in front public

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public speech (content, organization, and delivery) should affect the audience (Grice & Skinner, 1994, p. 16). The students were trained to prepare their

speech’s contents, organize the key ideas, and deliver the message clearly, so that those two principles can be achieved.

c. Debate activities made the students to follow new issues

Debate also forced them to follow new issues. The instructor asked them to read every day. Read many articles also made them to develop their critical thinking. According to Kennedy (2007) debate develops critical thinking. They could not absorb the information without reaffirm it. The instructor thought that the students could get much information through many media, such as news websites, television programs, or social media. However, the students should be selective to read the news because there is much hoax news. Speakers use supporting materials to get three purpose: clarity, vividness, and credibility (Grice & Skinner, 1995, p. 154). They should read the news which is from the incredible sources. The students said that trust-worthy information could help them to

support their opinion later. The other reason why they should know the world’s

development was because the topics which are used are parliament topics. Of course, knowing about the new issues was important.

Besides, debate also made the students to repeat the material at home. Five out of eight students repeated the debate materials at home. They reflected their

previous performance and instructor’s evaluation at home. Also, they read any

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got something new about the issue. The knowledge that they got was really useful in their daily life. They had opinion that everyone should have enough knowledge to survive in this world. The themes which are used in the school debate competitions are parliamentary themes, so they should follow the world news.

2. Debate activities help students to improve their speaking skills

The students said that they could not speak fluently before joining the extracurricular. The members of debate extracurricular in SMAN 8 Yogyakarta said that all of them gained some benefits to improve their speaking skills. They said that the debate activities helped them to improve their speaking skills.

a. Debate activities taught the students to make outline before speaking. According to Kennedy (2007), debate gives many experiences for students to analyze, deliver, and organize speeches quickly and correctly (p. 43). Five out of eight students checked strongly agree column and three out of eight students checked agree column in the questionnaire. All of them agreed that debate activities helped them to improve their speaking skills. Besides, the students said that debate forced the students to think before speaking. All of students said that they made outlines before speaking. In the interview, students said that it was impossible to talk in front of public without outline. Nicholls (1990) said that a speaker could start by writing an outline to generate the ideas (p. 66).

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could not absorb the information without reaffirm it. The instructor thought that the students could get much information through many media, such as news websites, television programs, or social media. However, the students should be selective to read the news because there is much hoax news. According to Grice and Skinner (1994), speakers use supporting materials to get three purpose: clarity, vividness, and credibility (p. 154). They should read the news which is from the incredible sources. The students said that trust-worthy information could help them to support their opinion later. The other reason why they should know

the world’s development was because the topics which are used are parliament topics. Of course, knowing about the new issues was important.

Beside force students to follow the world’s development, debate also made

the students to repeat the material at home. Five out of eight students repeated the debate materials at home. They reflected their previous performance and

instructor’s evaluation at home. Also, they read any articles that related to the

topic, so that they gain new information about the issue. The students said that repeat the materials at home was important because they got something new about the issue. The knowledge that they got was really useful in their daily life. They had opinion that everyone should have enough knowledge to survive in this world. The themes which are used in the school debate competitions are parliamentary themes, so they should follow the world news.