CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
B. Some Pertinent Ideas
1. General Concepts of Speaking a. Speaking Skill
Many language learners regard speaking as the measure of knowing a language. People who know a language are referred as “speaker” of that language. Learners then define fluency in a language as the ability to converse with others, more than the ability to read, write or comprehend oral language. They regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress in term of their accomplishments in spoken communication.
Speaking is one of the four language skills that should be mastered by the students or many peoples to communicate orally with other people. In conversation, speaking is primary vehicle to express enough idea with interlocutor of what we intend. In Webster encyclopedic states that speaking is the act, utterance, or discourse of a person who speaks. Speaking is as an instance of using communication. Therefore, as vehicle speaking is more direct to social interaction than other language skill.
Widdowson (1985:57) states that speaking is a means of oral communication that gives information involves two elements, namely speaker who gives the message and the listener who receptive the message in other world, the communication involves the productive skill of listening
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Byrne (1976:8) says that the oral communication is two way process between the speaker and the listener and in value the productive skill as speaking and receptive skill and listening, so both speaker and listener are active during the oral communication takes place. It means that a speaker may express his/her mind to the listeners later giving response related to the topic they are talking about.
While Harmer (1983:130) formulates that, when two people are engaged in talking to one another, we can be sure that they are in general way to suggest that the speaker makes a decision to address someone. Speaking may be forced on him in some ways but can still say that he wants or intends to speak, otherwise he would keep silent. He has some communicative purposes namely speaker says things because they what something to happen because of what they say. He selects from his language store. The teacher has an alternative capacity to create new sentences if he is a native speaker.
In relation with the statements above, speaking is a way of conveying message from one person to others. It is the most essential way in which the speaker can express himself through language. Where speaking skill involves fluency and accuracy expression meaning, the exercising of pragmatic or communicative competence and the observance of the rules of appropriateness, all this skill together may be said to make up the global skill of speaking as an act of communication and interaction with other.
Accuracy and fluency are emphasized in speaking in order to have more effective communication, meaningful and understandable by other. The
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description on speaking accuracy and fluency will be explained in the following details:
1) Speaking accuracy
Speaking accuracy lies on acceptable pronunciation, correct grammar and appropriate word choice. According Mc Keenhiil in Syahbuddin (2008:9) pronunciation is the act of manner of pronouncing something, articulate utterance. Certainly, pronunciation cannot be separated from intonation and stress. Pronunciation, intonation and stress are largely learnt successfully by imitating and repetition. Teacher should have a good standard of pronunciation in order that students can imitate their teacher in teaching and learning process.
2) Speaking fluency
Fluency is highly complex notion relate mainly to smoothness of continuity in discourse. It includes a consideration of how sentences are connected, how sentence patterns vary in word order and omit elements of structure and also certain aspects of the prosody of discourse.
Richards, Platt and Weber in Syahbuddin (2008:12) state that fluency is 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.
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a. The Elements of Speaking
As the other skills in English, there are some specific elements of speaking that have strong correlation with the skill. According to Harmer, (1991:159) aspects of speaking can be divided as follow:
1) Accuracy a) Pronunciation
Pronunciation is an act or result producing the sound of speech including articulation, vowel formation, accent and inflection. Sometimes the listener does not understand what we talking about because lack in pronunciation. Pronunciation is the fact of manner of articulate utterance.
Certainly, pronunciation cannot be separated from intonation and stress use, which are the indicators of someone whether he has good pronunciation in language spoken. Furthermore pronunciation and stress are largely learned successfully by imitating and repetition. Often with reference some standard of contents or acceptability, the concepts of pronunciation may be said to include:
(1) The sound of language
The sound of language may be well meaningless. If you said /t/
(the line shows that this is phonetic scrip) a few times, e.g. tu, tu, it will not be very much English. Neither will be sound /k/, /a/, or /s/ but if we put all these are sound together a certain order we and up the word catch and does mean something.
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(2) Stress
Native speakers of language unconsciously know about the stress and how it works, they know which syllables of words are stressed and they know how to use stress, to change the meaning of phrase, sentences and questions.
(3) Intonation
Intonation is clearly important item, and component user of language recognize what meaning it has and can change the meaning of word they say through using it in different ways, when we teach English language, students need to use rhythms and stress correctly if they are to be understood.
b) Vocabulary
Vocabulary is very important in speaking English. It is impossible to speak without mastery of vocabulary. Therefore, this element is somewhat essential to learn before practicing speaking. The students sometimes get trouble in memorizing all vocabulary that they have known because they seldom practice and use them. Thus, it needs to keep them in their mind.
Good (1973:662) defines vocabulary as content and function words of language which are learned so thoroughly so that becomes part of Childs’
understanding speaking, reading, and writing. It also means word having been heard or seen even though not produced by individual himself to communicate each other.
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Harmer (1991:135) divides vocabulary in two types that is active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. Active vocabulary is the words that students have learned and they expect to be able to use them. Passive vocabulary is the words they can recognize but cannot be produced. Someone can be considered of having good vocabulary use, when the vocabulary produced is wide appropriate with certain situation of dialog of speech.
c) Grammar
According to David Crystal (2004) cites grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way we and others use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available in English. And it can help everyone--not only teachers of English, but teachers of anything, for all teaching are ultimately a matter of getting to grips with meaning.
2) Fluency
According to Hornby (1995:122) cites that fluency is the quality or condition of being fluent. Fluency is highly complex notion relate mainly to smoothness of continuity in discourse. It includes a consideration of how sentence are connected, how sentence patterns vary in word- order and omit elements of structure and also certain aspects of the prosody of discourse.
Byrne (1987:78) states that the main goal in teaching the produce speaking skill will be oral fluency. It can be differed as the ability to express oneself intelligibly reasonable accurately and without too much hesitation
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(otherwise communication my break down because the listener loses in interest best impatient. To attain this goal, you will have to bring the students from the stage where they are mainly imitating a model of some kind or responding to cues, to the point where they can use language fluency to express their own ideas.
According to Heaton (1989:115) the main factors in assessing ability, as follow:
1) Fluency refers to how well a learner communicates meaning rather than how many mistakes that they make in grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Fluency is often compared with accuracy, which is concerned with the type, amount and seriousness of mistakes made. Therefore, fluency is highly complex ration relate mainly to smoothness of continuity in discourse, it is include a consideration of how sentences pattern very in word order and omit element of structure and also certain aspect of the prosily of discourse.
For example: A learner might be fluent (make their meaning clear) but not
accurate (make a lot of mistake).
2) Intelligibility (accuracy) refers to how correct learner use of the language system, include grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Accuracy is often compared to fluency when we talk about a learner’s level of speaking and writing. Therefore, accuracy is an essential depend on the recognizably of the word and sentences pattern of speech. It therefore, involves us in
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considering the phonetic character of conventional English, particularly from the point of view segmental (vowel and consonant) system.
For example: in the classroom, language manipulation activities can help
to develop accuracy. These include of controlled practice, drills, study and application of grammar rules and activities can help the students to
‘notice’ their own mistakes.
Appropriateness (comprehensible) refers to suitability of language to situation. It is also about the way in which informality is expressed by choice of vocabulary, idiom system. Therefore, comprehensible is a language input that can be understood by listeners despite but not understand all the words and structures in it. According to Krashens, theory of language acquisition, giving learners is the kind of input to helps them in acquiring language naturally.
Based on the statement above, the researcher can conclude that fluency refers to be able to speak smoothly, and easy flow word or to person able to communication with base it suggested the ready flow an accomplished speaker and writer, it is usually a term of commendation.
2. Concept of Communicative Approach
According Broumfit and Johnsonin Munir (2005: 17) citethe approach of teaching which the communicative approach had adopted in the 1984 and it first discusses are concept of communicative approach, component of communicative approach, aspect of communicative approach, and communicative approach as foreign language teaching.
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a. Communicative Approach
According to Richards and Rogers (1986:42) define communicative is an adjective, which means ready and willing to talk and give information. The verb form of communicative is to communicate which means pass on news, information, feeling, etc. In other words, it can be said that people communicate to reveal something or give information to other people. The ability to communicate, to talk or give information, is communication. Communication is an exchange of information. Approach is a way of dealing with something, manner or method of doing in language teaching and learning.
Furthermore Newmark (1966) cites in Brumfit et al (1979:55) says the communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The points are that we are able to talk in foreign language; we communicate with other people and express our own thoughts. In order to speak in a foreign language; we should not be afraid of making mistakes in the language form structure, because the success of communication is not judged on the structural mistakes made by the speaker, rather on the success in sending the message to the other people. The communication can run well if we have good command of the language and the ability to use the language for communicative purpose. A person who has a good command of language and knows how to use it for communication will be able to express our ideas to someone else.
Widdowson (1972:72) defines that the communicative approach is an approach which view the language teaching with focuses on how people master the use of language not only just attempt how people master the language
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structure. From this statement, we can conclude that in communicative approach, we do not only teach form or structure language, but also have to give motivation so that the students are eager to use the language for communication in real situation.
Gumperz (1971) cites in Scarcely et al (1990:86) state that effective communication requires that speakers and audiences agree both on the meaning of words and on the social import or values attached to choice of expression. It means the whenever communication takes place, of course, there is a speaker and a listener, one presents the information or idea, and the other receives the information. In order to send our ideas or messages to the receiver, the receiver must also has a good ability in interpreting what is meant by the speaker if the interpretation interpreted by the receiver is not the same with what is meant by the informant, communication fails ion to communicative approach in language learning.
Littlewood (1981:23) states that the communicative approach encourages to go beyond structure and takes account of the other aspects of communication.
That statement means that communicative approach provides the students to the situation in which they can communicate in the foreign language, so that they can develop their communicative competence. In applying communicative approach to develop communicative competence, the teacher must remember that she/he is ultimately concerned in the process of commutating through the learners’ ability, rather than with the perfect mastery of individual structure. In the communicative approach, the teaching of English involves communication activities in which the
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students do something that requires the use of English to achieve the intended purposes.
As Littlewood (1981:16) says that the teacher may have designed the activity so as to provide an opportunity for learners to produce language that they have recently learnt (e.g. through open or cued dialogues), this overall purpose prepare the learner for later communicative activity by providing him with necessary linguistic forms and the necessary links between forms and meaning.
To be able to make a situation that can encourage the students to communicate, we must be having communicative activities that can be applied in the classroom.
Haney (1960:132) defines that the teacher is a facilitator of his students learning process.
Above all, communicators, during the activities the teacher acts as an advisor, answering the students’ question and monitoring their performance. In the other words, in the communicative approach, the teacher organizes activities in such a way that the students can initiate and control much of the interaction, then the classroom is students-centered and the teacher as a facilitator.
b. The component of Communicative Competence
According to Canale in Huda (1999: 33) the component of communicative competence consists of four domains of knowledge and skills.
1) Grammatical competence is identical with linguistic competence. It can involve the mastery of language, such as vocabulary, sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling and semantics. This competence is required for understand and expressing literal meaning of an utterance.
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2) Sociolinguistic competence is related to the extent an utterance and functioned is to express and understood correctly in different sociolinguistic contexts. This statement can depend on certain factors.
3) Discourse competence is concerned with the mastery of ways to combine grammatical forms and meaning to produce either a spoken or written utterance. In this case, there are two forms: cohesion and coherence meaning where cohesion is the relationship between utterance and grammatical structure and the coherence is the relationship among several meaning in an utterance (text).
4) Strategic competence is the last component consists of the mastery of verbal and non-verbal communication and also on the other hand used to strengthen the effectiveness of communication.
c. Aspect of Communicative Approach
There are many aspect of the communicative approach. In this section it can be found and discussed by using any technique or material associated with the communicative approach.
According to Paulston and Bruder in Yanti (2011:39) the most obvious characteristic of the communication approach is that almost everything that is done with communicative intents. Students use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as game, role-play, and problem solving tasks where activities that is truly communicative.
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1) Authentic Materials
Adherents of the communicative approach advocate the use of authentic materials. On authentic materials, we can say that the teacher uses a copy of a genuine newspaper article and also assigns the students homework, requiring they listen to the radio or a life television broadcast. Another possibility to use of authentic material with a lower level class is to use regalia that do not contain a lot of language, but a lot of discussion can be generated.
2) Scrambled Sentences
The students are given a passage which the sentences are in a scrambled order. This type of exercise teaches students about the cohesion and coherent properties of language. The learners how sentences are bound together at the supra essential level through formal linguistic devise.
3) Picture Strip Story
Many activities can be done with picture strip stories. We suggest one of our discussions of scrambled sentences. In these activities, we observe one student in small group is given a strip story. One student shows the picture of the story to another member. So, the students in the groups do not know what the picture contain. They will a choice as to what their prediction and how they will word it and then able to view the picture and compare it with their prediction just now. It is called a communication technique in using a problem-solving task can work well in the communicative approach because they include the three features of communication.
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4) Role-Play
Role-plays are very important in the communicative approach because they give students an opportunity to practice communicating in different social context and different social roles. Role-play can be set up, there are many structures for example: the teacher tells the students who they are and what they will say and then the students determine what they will say. The later is more in keeping with the communicative approach.
d. Communicative Approach as Foreign Language Teaching
From this perspective is discussed the communicative approach as a several pint in foreign language teaching. In this case, we can define the goal of foreign language teaching in the following terms: to extend the range of communication situation which the learner can perform with focus on meaning without must attention to the linguistic form. In relation to this goal, Canale in Munir (2005. 26) says that the role of the two main category of activity can be summarized as follows:
1) Pre-communicative activities as aim to give the learner fluent control over linguistic forms, so that; the lower level process will be able to respond the higher level decisions based on meaning. The main criterion for success is whether the learner able to producing language.
2) In communicative activities, the production of linguistic forms becomes subordinates to higher-level decisions, related to the communication of meanings. The criterion for success is whether the meaning is conveyed effectively.