B. Concept of Speaking Skills
1. Components of Speaking Skill a. Accuracy
1. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is all the words that someone knows or uses to construct the sentences to be meaningful. A ―vocabulary‖ actually comprises 4 different kinds of vocabulary. The different types of vocabulary are:
Aural vocabulary — the words you hear;
Reading vocabulary — the words you read;
Spoken vocabulary — the words you speak; and
Writing vocabulary — the words you write.
The kinds of vocabularies above overlap, but not two of them are the same. For example, you might not use in your own writing a word you read in a book or hear someone say; it requires much less effort to understand a spoken or written word than it does to use that same word effectively Deighton as cited in Fitrianingsih (2012).
According to Simpson as cited in Fitrianingsih (2012), a word must be used in context 40 times before you can master that word and its meaning.
15 Broadly defined, vocabulary is knowledge of words and word meanings. However, vocabulary is more complex than this definition suggests. First, words come in two forms: oral and print. Oral vocabulary includes those words that we recognize and use in listening and speaking. Print vocabulary includes those words that we recognize and use in reading and writing. Second, word knowledge also comes in two forms, receptive and productive. Receptive vocabulary includes words that we recognize when we hear or see them. Productive vocabulary includes words that we use when we speak or write.
Receptive vocabulary is typically larger than productive vocabulary, and may include many words to which we assign some meaning, even if we don‘t know their full definitions and connotations – or ever use them ourselves as we speak and write, Kamil&Hiebert.
Adding further complexity, in education, the word vocabulary is used with varying meanings. For example, for beginning reading teachers, the word might be synonymous with ―sight vocabulary,‖ by which they mean a set of the most common words in English that young students need to be able to recognize quickly as they see them in print.
However, for teachers of upper elementary and secondary school students, vocabulary usually means the ―hard‖ words that students encounter in content area textbook and literature selections.
16 By seeing the definition from some experts above, the researcher defines vocabulary as knowledge of words and word meanings in both oral and print language and in productive and receptive forms. More specifically, we use vocabulary to refer to the kind of words that students must know to read or to speak increasingly demanding text or oral form with comprehension. Indeed, a vocabulary also involves knowing a word‘s sound, history, and associations. It is also worth knowing how great writers, such as Shakespeare, have used the word. Over all, a person with a "good vocabulary" has the ability to use the right word in the right place at the right time. Beside that to make a communication going along naturally, such as in discussion, the students must know the way to use the language by a lot of vocabulary mastery in order to produce the sentences that are going to be arranged into a good sentences, so that the listener may catch delivery messages.
2. Pronunciation
Byrne, (1981: 6) states that pronunciation is the sound that the speaker can imitate where are listening to other. Pronunciation is how to say a word in which made of sound, stress and intonation (Hammer, 1991: 11).
Sometimes the listener does not understand what we are talking about because lock in pronunciation. According to oxford dictionary
17 (1996: 343) pronunciation is the way in which a language or particular word or sound is spoken.
When a teacher teaches English, he/she need to be sure that the students can understand when they speak and the listener should be understood what the speakers mean. They need to be aware of the importance of the context of meaning. The students are expected to say what they are going to say correctly with the appropriate pronunciation to avoid misunderstanding between speaker and the listener.
Pronunciation cannot be separated from intonation, stress and rhythm. Pronunciation, intonation, stress and rhythm are largely learnt successfully by imitation and repetition. Therefore the teacher should have a good standards of pronunciation, in case a teacher need to be a figure who can give examples of good pronunciation with recognize the students the way in mastering a good pronunciation refers to international phonetic association (IPA). In order that students can imitate their teacher in any teaching and learning process and give the students opportunities to make a lot of repetition.
Correct pronunciation is primary importance in developing language mastery. None will deny that an appropriate pronunciation is extremely obstacle of speaking English well. Teaching the correct pronunciation is the main part of language learning.
18 3. Grammar
Grammar whose subject matter is the organization of words into variations of combinations, often representing may layers of structure, such as phrase sentences and complete utterances (Badulu, 2001: 15)
Grammar is a branch of linguistics study that deal with classes of words, their inflection or their means of indicating relation to each other function and relation in the sentences as employed according to established usage and that is sometimes extended include related matter Webster dictionary (1996: 275).
Grammar is the set of rules that related order sound sequences to meanings. In addition, it is rather the way of speaker to construct sentences in speech. Moreover, Webster's New World College Dictionary defined grammar as in the following:
1. That part of the study of language which deals with the forms and structure of words (MORPHOLOGY), with their customary arrangement in phrases and sentences (SYNTAX), and now often with language sounds (PHONOLOGY) and word meanings (SEMANTICS)
2. The system of a given language at a given time
19 3. A body of rules imposed on a given language for speaking and writing it, based on the study of its grammar (sense) or on some adaptation of another, esp. Latin, grammar
4. A book or treatise on grammar
5. One's manner of speaking or writing as judged by prescriptive grammatical rules: his GRAMMAR was poor 6. The elementary principles of a field of knowledge.
Based on the definition the writer may conclude that grammar is Grammar a description of structure of a change and the ways of arranging linguistic units, word and phrases to form a good sentence in a language. It usually concerns with the meaning and function of the sentences.
Moreover, to communicate efficiently, the speaker should give tidy pieces of language to work with, Harmer (1991). It means that structural patterns reveal understandable speaking. The speaker should consider what, when, and where to speak. He is not only conveying the utterances in a meaningful context.
b. Fluency
Brown (1994), teachers can promote fluency if they: (a) encourage students to go ahead and make constructive errors, (b) create many opportunities for students to practice, (c) create activities that force students to get a message across, (d) assess student's fluency not their accuracy, and (e)
20 talk openly to the students about fluency. It means that fluency is the capability of the speakers to use the language quickly, spontaneously, and confidently. Learners must be given the opportunity to develop both their fluency and accuracy. According to Nunan, ―Fluency is the extent to which the speakers use the target quickly and confidently with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts and word searches―. When the students get used to the language and learn to communicate properly than the fluency comes.
The beginner should not be expected to speak fluently. For improving fluency, the learner should be given the chance to speak spontaneously without worrying much about accuracy. Richards, Platt, and Weber (1985) define fluency as follows: "the features which give speech the qualities of being natural and normal, including native-like use of pausing, rhythm, intonation, stress, rate of speaking, and use of interjections and interruptions."
They further point out that, in second and foreign language learning, fluency is used to characterize a person's level of communication proficiency, including the following abilities:
1. Produce written and/or spoken language with ease
2. Speak with a good but not necessarily perfect command of intonation, vocabulary, and grammar.
3. Communicate ideas effectively
21 4. Produce continuous speech without causing comprehension difficulties or a breakdown of communication. richards et al.
(1985).
5. Tricia (1993), include fluency as a component of communicative competence, and define it as ‗the speaker‘s ability to make use of whatever linguistic and pragmatic competence they have.‘
language use, as exemplified in the following quote: ‖Fluency refers to the ability to produce rapid, flowing, natural speech, but not necessarily grammatically correct speech. This is often contrasted with accuracy‖ (ESLGlossary). With learners in mind, Brumfit has in addition given the following definition of fluency as
―The maximally effective operation of the language system so far acquired by the students‖. Furthermore Brumfit explained
"Fluency, then, can be seen as the maximally effective operation of the language system so far acquired by the student, Brumfit (1984).According to Chambers as cited in Aud Marit Simensen (2010), in studies of fluency an obvious first step is to differentiate fluency from overall language proficiency.
In sum, we may say that there are several perceptions of the concept
‗fluency‘. One type includes features such as speed and effortless, smooth and native-like use of language and a language spoken without many pauses. In
22 addition, there is an understanding of fluency which also gives credit to the use of inaccurate language as well as one that does not represent comprehensive language proficiency.