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ENCOURAGING STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING IN SPEAKING BY COMBINING SOCRATIC QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE AND TALKING
CHIPS TECHNIQUE AT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Oleh :Susi Zulhelmi *)
**) HANDAYANI Staff pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI SUMATERA BARAT
ABSTRAK
Penulisan makalah ini bertujuan untuk mengatasi salah satu permasalahan yang dihadapi oleh siswa dalam pembelajaran speaking, yaitu siswa kurang mampu berpikir kritis dalam mengembangkan ide serta sedikitnya kesempatan berbicara siswa pada pembelajaran speaking.
Selanjutnya, bertujuan untuk memberikan masukan kepada guru bahasa inggris, agar guru mampu membimbing siswa dalam meningkatkan berpikir kritis dan mengembangkan ide serta memberikan banyak kesempatan kepada siswa untuk berani menyampaikan ide dan gagasan mereka dengan struktur bahasa yang baik dan benar. Dalam makalah ini penulis membahas penggabungan dari dua teknik yang dapat meningkatkan kemampuan siswa dalam berpikir kritis dan memberikan kesempatan untuk berbicara.Yaitu Teknik Socratic Questioning dan Teknik Talking chips. Teknik Socratic Questioning adalah teknik yang digunakan dalam pembelajaran speaking dengan cara memberikan beberapa pertanyaan mengenai topik kepada siswa. Penulis menggunakan teknik ini pada aktivitas Pre-Speaking and Whilst-Speaking agar siswa mampu mengembangkan ide mengenai topik yang akan dibahas. Selanjutnya siswa diarahkan untuk mendiskusikan isu atau topik berdasarkan pendapat masing-masing. Sedangkan Teknik talking Chips yaitu teknik yang memberikan kesempatan kepada siswa untuk berbicara dengan menggunakan chips. Siswa yang berbicara harus meletakan chips diatas meja dibagian tengah.
Teknik ini diggunakan pada aktivitas Whilst-Speaking dan Post-Speaking agar siswa bebas menyampaikan ide dan pendapat mereka. Dengan penggabungan dua strategi tersebut, siswa mampu meningkatkan berpikir kritis serta mampu menyampaikan pendapat masing-masing di depan kelas.
Keyword : Berbicara, Socratic Questioning Technique and Talking Chips Technique
*) Penulis
**) Pembimbing
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Introduction
Students’ critical thinking is important in learning, especially in speaking because they have to be able to analyze what they are going to deliver by thinking it critically Critical thinking skills are not likely to develop spontaneously. Teacher must take a directive role initiating and guiding critical thinking. It is mode of thinking about any subject, content, or problem in which the thinker improves the quality in thinking by skillful analyzing.
Students’ critical thinking is making reasoned judgments that are logical and well thought out of one topic. It is a way of thinking which does not simply accept all arguments and conclusion are exposed to but rather have an attitude. When the teacher gives students questions or problems, students should answer and analyze all of them orally. It will encourage the students’
critical thinking in learning speaking. If the students do not think critically, they cannot produce their ideas and deliver it. So more of the students chosen keep silent than speak up.
Contrary with the previous explanation, the writer identifies some problem in encouraging students’ speaking skill. The first problem is less of students’
opportunity in speaking. It happens because of the centrality of teacher in speaking class.
The students were rarely given a chance to speak up. The second problem is the students feelling is bored in speaking activity since the activity is not challenged them to speak. The teacher only asks them to do simple dialogue from the book source or do class discussion. The third problem is students cannot encourage their critical thinking well during the teaching speaking process. Some of students could not develop their ideas overall because teacher gave some questions that cannot stimulate students to think critically.
Based on the problem that has been discussed; students have less self confidence to speak up, less practicing, less motivation to learn and cannot think critically.
Additionally, sometimes teacher used single technique only in teaching speaking activities. Therefore, the writer limits the problem by combining Socratic questioning technique and talking chips technique to encourage students’ critical thinking in
speaking classroom. These techniques will make students independently explore ideas, be active in thinking, discussing, debating, evaluating and analyzing the information which is given by the teacher.
Socratic Questioning Technique
In teaching learning process of speaking, every teacher needs to consider much about what technique that is appropriate to be implemented in motivate the students to speak up. At this point, one technique that can be used in teaching speaking is Socratic technique. It is a technique that requires the students to respond the questions given by teacher where the students need to think and to analyze it first before delivering it orally.
Some experts also explain about this technique. According to Modzierz et all (2014:30), Socratic technique is a systematic questioning technique which provides a graded series of questions designed to facilitate independent thinking of students. It implies that this technique provides the activity where the teacher delivers a series of question which requires the students to analyze it critically and independently, and then the students deliver their response verbally.
In applying every technique in teaching, the teacher must understand much about the teaching procedures of a technique used because teaching procedures will guide the teacher to teach effectively. In this paper, the writer has some teaching procedure of Socratic questioning technique which is explained by experts. The expert is Conklin et al (2012:60). The writer chooses this procedure because applicable for the learners. According to them, teaching procedures of Socratic Questioning technique are:
Select the grade level objective you will be covering. Considering about the level of the grade that will be achieved will determine the successful in gaining the aim of the activity. Decide on the specific skills, concepts, or generalization that needs to be learned. It is important to be done in order to avoid the misconception of the lesson since different skill will need different approach. . Look for a topic that has more than one viewpoint within the objective you need to cover. Judging the topic that will be
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discussed will make the process running well and the objective can be achieved easily. Think of the final question or result teacher want students to reach.Then, work backward to design open-ended questions that progress and lead students to that desired result or end. The good organize of the frame work make the question will be effective to be asked.
Talking chips Technique
Other techniques that can be implemented in teaching speaking is Talking Chips technique. It is a technique where the students having a chance to share their ideas, opinion, or arguments based on the topic discussed. The definition of this technique is also explained by Jacobs et all (2002:71) mention that Talking Chips is a technique that encourages equal participation. Students surrender a chip every time they speak.
When they have used all their chips, they cannot speak again, except to ask question, until all their group mates surrendered their chips as well. It means that this technique is grouping technique which requires every member of a group to participate in responding or discussing a topic and turn taking of speaking is determined by using chips. Each of members in a group will be given the same number of chips and she or he will get the speaking chance based on number of their chips. For example, if each of members has 3 chips means she or he will get speaking chance for three times.
In applying Talking Chips technique, there are some procedures proposed by experts that must be understood by the teachers. The first teaching procedures of Talking Chips technique is explained by Bowers and Laura (2011:138). They state that the procedures are:
Before the lesson, assign the students to discussion group and give the students a designated number of chips to use during the discussion. Ask a question or provide a prompt to the groups and give students time to gather their thought and record some of their ideas. Tell the students that there is a maximum number of chips they must use during the discussion. As the students discuss, they place the chips at the center of the table when it is their turn to speak. The
teacher should circulate the room to monitor the discussion.
Discussion
Combining Socratic Questioning Technique and Talking Chips Technique
The combination of these techniques in encouraging students’ critical thinking about an issue will be begun with Socratic Questioning technique and continuing with Talking Chips technique. Socratic Questioning is a step where the students are invited to give questions based on the level needed. The process to encourage students’
critical thinking will be continued by giving the students turn to speak. Since this paper has purpose to encourage students’ critical thinking, therefore the questions should be in high level in order to help the students think hard to find the answer of the questions and give students chance to speak is Talking Chip technique where the students will be given chips to talk.
In this chapter, the writer will discuss about the procedures of teaching speaking by combining Socratic questioning and talking chips techniques. This paper will be divided into the result of combining Socratic questioning and Talking Chips techniques, preparations and implementation. The combination will be applied by using Socratic Questioning technique in pre- Speaking and whilst-Speaking as the starting point and ended by using talking chips technique in post-Speaking. The detailed combination of those techniques will be begun with selecting the grade level objective you will be covering. The teacher will decide one topic, concept, or generalization that will be discussed. In this paper the topic about pro and contra to give students’ homework. This topic is chosen because this topic is close to students’ life, therefore the students have background of knowledge about the topic. The steps will be done by following the procedures suggested till the end of the speaking activity.
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Conclusion and Sugestion
The combination of Socratic Questioning Technique and Talking Chips Technique are guided the students to encourage their critical thinking in speaking by answering some questions in specific grade level and promote students’ speaking turn by taking talking chips. Choosing appropriate topic to be implemented by combining these techniques will determine the successful of teaching speaking activity.
The writer suggests her idea to teacher as follows: first of all, it is important for the teacher to present the material and the information about the speaking techniques as clear as possible with obviously communication. Secondly, in combining these techniques the teacher should be able to increase students’
enthusiasm in developing their speaking ability by choosing compatible topic to be critique.
References
Bowers, Erica and Keisler, Laura. 2011.
Building Academic Language through Content-Area Text : Strategies to Support English Language Learning. California:
Shell Education.
Conklin, Wendy and Jeanine Manfro. 2010.
Strategies for Developing Higher- Order Thinking Skills. California:
Huntington Beach.
Jacobs, George M. 2002. The Teacher’s Sourcebook for Cooperative Learning. New York : Corwin Press, Inc.
Mozdzierz, Gerald; Paul R. Peluso and Joseph Lisiecki. 2014. Advanced Pinciples of Counseling and Psychotherapy : Learning, Integrating and Nunan, David.
1999. Second language teaching and lear ning. Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publisher.
