Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
78
Educafl 2021. Vol 4 No 2 ISSN: 2540-7775
Doi:10.21776/ub.educafl.2021.004.02.04
The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve
the Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari
Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang [email protected]
Indonesia
Article Info ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received April 29, 2021 Revised May 10, 2021 Accepted June 30, 2021
Speaking English has been one of the most challenging skill for EFL students to master. Additionally, students should learn vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation in order to master speaking skill. The fluency and appropriateness of students’ speaking abilities should be improved. Speaking problems are common among students, including a lack of vocabulary, poor grammar and spelling, the last is the use of mother tongue. The researcher distributes a questionnaire to the participants in order to identify the students’
speaking difficulties and overcome them through a joyful Guessing Game technique. The participant in this study were students from Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri, who were in speaking class with various school levels. In conducting this research Classroom Action Research as a method and Guessing Game as a teaching strategy. The study was conducted in a specific class for a week. There were 45 students in total who took part in this study, and they were separated into three classes in the "Improving Speaking Class." This study used a pre-test, post-test, Hugher (2003:131) speaking rubrics, and a questionnaire adapted from Ratna S, et al. (2017:33) and Djasminar A, et al (2012). The data was calculated using Ms. Excel. The result of the study shows that only 27% students succeed in doing the pre-test before implementing guessing game. Surprisingly, after guessing game was implemented the number has increased into 62% of the students proven to be a success in the post-test. It is reasonable to conclude that using guessing game to teach speaking is success. Furthermore, the students responded positively to being taught via guessing game and they seemed to enjoy the learning process. The outcome of the students’ perception questionnaire demonstrates this.
Keywords:
guessing game, speaking ability, EFL students
Corresponding Author:
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari
Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang [email protected]
Indonesia
1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
English has four skills to master, one of which is speaking skill. Spoken language is one of the communication tools to convey information or meaning. [1]Brown (2001) mentions a situation in which people participating in a conversation will use a language called spoken language and have certain language skills.
Speaking English will help EF students travel without encountering any difficulties when communicating with people around the world [2]. Speaking skill should be mastered by English foreign language students. At present,
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
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the importance of mastering English is increasing because of the use of English as an International language for communication. Furthermore, EFL students can communicate their emotions and learn English by engaging with their peers and teachers. Cameron (2001:40) defines speaking as the conscious use of language to convey ideas in a way that everyone can understand. Furthermore, the speaker must select proper vocabulary and perfect grammar in order to appropriately express meaning and ensure that the listener understands what the speaker is saying.
Researcher found that the problems encountered by EF students in terms of speaking skills are: (1) Students are more willing to express their emotions in their native language, (2) Most students will worry about their mistakes in the case of grammatical errors, (3) Students are also afraid of making mistakes related to vocabulary use, (4) Being criticized and becoming a worry for students, (5) Most students do not know how to pronounce certain words. According to the research of [3]Anggreyni (2014), there are two factors that affect the ability of oral expression. The first factor comes from the students themselves and the second factor comes from the teacher. According to some issues mentioned by [4]Ur (1995), for example:
1. Inhibition- Fear of making mistakes, fear of being judged, and shyness are all common fears. When EFL students try to say anything in English in class or outside of class, they are generally frustrated: anxious about making mistakes, worried about criticism from the teacher or classmates.
2. Nothing to say- EFL students struggle to find motivation to speak, convey thoughts, or make related remarks.
3. Low participation- This is frequently due to the dominance of a few EFL students in the group. In a huge group of students, there is barely enough time for everyone to speak.
4. Use of mother tongue- Students choose to communicate with their mother tongue because it is more natural to them. Since most EFL students use the same native language, they choose to use it because it is easier for them to say or articulate themselves.
By understanding the EF students’ problems in speaking English, games will become one of the appropriate teaching strategy that can be used to improve students’ speaking ability. The strategy itself refers to an action plan or plan aimed at achieving the overall goal. According to the previous studies, an effective strategy for teaching students to speak is Guessing Game (Ghine, 2018:2). Guessing game is a game in which players or guessers must guess the answer correctly, and usually used metaphorically. In addition, when the teacher holds this game in the classroom, the atmosphere of the classroom will become more interactive ad pleasant. Guessing game can help students express their background knowledge. EFL students would have curiosity and competence to guess what the picture is, if they play the game. According to [3]Anggreyni (2014), there are many benefits to using games in the classroom, including (1) The atmosphere in the classroom more comfortable, (2) EF students attempting to talk in English, and (3) students’ willingness to engage in a variety of dialogs. This teaching strategy improved students’ speaking abilities. This teaching technique improve students’ fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar skills. After applying students’ motivation, self-confidence and group discussion, these are the main factors that affect students’ speaking ability. In addition, the guessing game can also create a pleasant learning process and create a different atmosphere in the classroom.
2. METHODS
The purpose of this research is to solve the problems of EFL students in improving their speaking ability through guessing game. This research uses an action research. [5]Burns (1995) defines action research as the application of discovering facts in solving practical problems in society through collaboration and cooperation among researcher, practitioners, and non-experts. In this study, the researchers collaborated with EFL students’
and the speaking teachers of Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. When conducting research, the researcher used guessing game as a tool in teaching process to solve speaking ability of EFL students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. The researcher only need to focus on the improvement of EFL students’
trough guessing game in the process of teaching and learning based on the pre-test and post-test score.
The study population was taken from EFL students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri.
Participant of this study was obtained from the Improving Speaking in Holiday Program, one classroom consists of 10 to 20 students, so the researcher used 3 classrooms to collect the data. The reason for using “improving oral English class” in this study is that students must speak out loud, and this class refers to the student center rather than the teacher center. Hope it can help students practice oral English. The action research procedure model used by the researchers comes from Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988) in [6]Rahayu et al., (2018).
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
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Adopt from Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988) in [6]Rahayu et al., (2018)
First, the researcher and the developing speaking instructor explored how to apply the guessing game to address the challenges after learning and finding the issues. The researcher then devised a strategy for resolving the students’ speech issues and improving their success in public speaking. The researcher devised four lesson plans, and each meeting was successful. The researcher devised four lesson plans, with each meeting lasting two hours and fifteen minutes. Second, in action, One Cycles were held, with each cycle consisting of four meetings.
- The first meeting about Job description
- The second meeting about Classmate description
- The third meeting about Public Transportation description - The last meeting post-test, describing Public Places
The researcher gathered data through the action of monitoring the teaching and learning speaking process, in order to identify any potential resistance in the classroom. The data had been complied by the instructor who was becoming an observer when the researcher retrieved the data from the observation checklist. It was used to determine students’ participation in the teaching and learning process, as well as their reactions to the implementation of guessing game and the situation in the classroom during the learning process. Reflection was the last steep. In this section, the researcher considers, analyses, and explains the consequences of the behavior of using guessing game as joyful learning process to make sense of what has resulted in the students’ ability t talk and understand problems clearly. The indicators to see if students are improving their speaking skills by playing a guessing game are as follows:
1. The students should explain something in Simple Present Tense 2. The students may use their own words to explain something 3. The students are able to clearly and fluently explain something
In addition, the testing instruments used in this study were a random sampling observation checklist for students’ problems, pre-test, post-test, speaking rubrics, and questionnaire for students’ problems.
3. FINDINGS
This study was completed in four meeting over the course of one cycle. On the 22nd of December 2019, the researcher was watching to learn about the students’ speech issues before performing the study. The researcher performed pre-test on the 23rd of December 2019 at the first conference. The second meeting, held on December 24th 2019, focused on teaching through guessing game. Following that, on the 25th of December 2019, the third meeting was held with the same practice as the day before, and on the 26th of December 2019, the fourth meeting was held with the post-test and questionnaire for the EFL students’ perceptions of guessing game in teaching speaking.
1) Improving EFL Students’ Speaking Ability Trough Guessing Game a. Plan
After knowing about the difficulties the EFL students have with speaking, the researcher can devise a solution by teaching speaking using a guessing game. Furthermore, in order to meet the teaching speaking devised a lesson plan based on the parameters of Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. The researcher chose the topic of descriptive text as his subject. The researchers lesson plan was created using the excellent course standards.
The researcher conducted a pre-test about describing “Jobs” during the first meeting. The researcher chose descriptive text as teaching materials, which included the meaning, social purpose, generic structure, and lexical grammar. The researcher then asked the students to ask the researcher a question about the materials that they still did not understand.
In the second meeting, the students learned about the distinguishing characteristics, how to identify them, and which adverb to use. The students also learned about vocabulary and how to properly pronounce it.
The researcher stu guessing game in the core activity, in which some students were clue givers and others were guessers.
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
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The researcher continued to teach about the descriptive text at the third meeting, but in this section with a different topic: Public Transportation. The researcher taught the students how to pronounce words and gave them vocabulary related to the subject. In this meeting the students have already understood the way to describe something clearly with a good pronunciation, correct vocabulary and grammar, and fluent in giving a clue for the students.
The researcher was doing a post-test with the speaking instructor for giving students’ scores in the last meeting. The students were divided into four classes by the researcher. After that, the researcher asked each group’s captain to play rock, paper, scissor, and took the lottery. The researcher gave some time to talk to the students. The loser of rock paper scissor could then become the clue-giver, while the winner becomes the guesser.
The researcher was assisted in assigning a score by the speaking instructor.
b. Action
Greetings and prayers were exchanged at the outset of the first meeting. Following that, the researcher introduced herself, and then the other students had to do the same. The researcher also mentioned that students’
motivation to learn English was simple when their heart and mind were in sync; when their heart liked something in learning English, their mind welcomed it as well. Just then, the EFL students’ knowledge of adjectives was being developed at the time, and they were using their days as a brainstorm. The researcher gave the students a pre-test before explaining the descriptive text in the core exercise. The concept of descriptive text, its social role, generic structure, and lexical structure were all clarified by the researcher. The researcher then asked the students to notice and describe their friend who was standing next to them. The adjectives berhidung pesek, berambut keriting, and berjilbab hitam were unfamiliar to some students. The researcher responded to the questions directly. The researcher asked the students to summarize the materials they had studied in closing tasks.
The second meeting is scheduled. The researcher began the second meeting by welcoming the students and inviting them to pray together. The researcher then tested the students’ attendance, to which the students replied by listing their own adjectives. The researcher then provided inspiration to the students prior to the class’s core activities. The researcher cited the importance of English as a communication language in today’s world as the motivation. The researcher also conducted a brainstorming session to help students become more engaged in class by creating class jargon [such as the password of the class]. They were stimulating, interviewing, gathering data, and talking in the core activities. The researcher inspired the participants by presenting materials that had descriptive and new vocabulary characteristics. The instructor divided the students into four groups for data collection, then selected a captain from each group to take the flashcard containing their classmates. From the flashcard, each student should compose three sentences describing their classmate. After that, each community should identify itself. From the flashcard, each student should write three sentences describing their classmate.
Then each group had to identify their classmate in front of the class, and the other groups had to guess who it was.
The researcher concluded and reflected on the materials during the post-teaching. The researcher concluded at the second meeting that the students were enthusiastic about learning to talk by playing a guessing game.
The researcher began the third meeting’s pre-teaching by welcoming and praying with the class. The researcher then tested the students’ attendance before motivating them by telling them how fortunate they were to be able to come to pare to learn English. In addition, the students were given the opportunity to brainstorm. The researcher discussed more about descriptive text and sentence structure in the core activities. The researcher then taught the students new vocabulary and how to pronounce it. The researcher then asked the students to describe the various modes of public transportation they used to get to pare. Then, by making a simple sentence and describing the public transportation that they used, their friends next to them discussed the adjective of certain types of public transportation. The researcher then instructed the students to inquire about any words or resources that they did not understand. The researcher divided the students into four classes in order to collect data. Each community should bring a flashcard with different modes of public transportation on it. Each member of the group should write four sentences describing the public transportation system. Following the development of the sentences, each group presented the sentences describing public transportation to the class. During the meeting’s closing events, the researcher came to a conclusion about the materials presented. The students were asked questions by the researcher, and the information was used to focus on teaching and learning experiences. The instructor unexpectedly ended the class by telling everyone to pray together.
The fourth meeting was the final one in the classroom action study procedure’s acting steps. The researcher began the class by welcoming and praying together during the pre-teaching. The researcher then double-checked the students attend The researcher also inspired students to come to pare for a specific reason, especially in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. The researcher then used a tongue twister to agitate the students’ spirits. It was used to help students develop their fluency and pronunciation. Students listened and paid attention during the core teaching as the researcher discussed the content, which included the mechanisms for making a simple sentence to describe something, proper vocabulary collection, and how to pronounce English correctly. Then, one by one, they constructed a sentence using the vocabularies they had acquired. Following that, each student named one of his or her favorite public places, and another student next to him or her made a simple sentence describing that location.
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
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The researcher then started gathering data after asking the students about their interpretation of the materials.
The students were divided inti two to four groups by the researcher in this section. Each group’s delegate took the flashcard with public places on it. In front of the class, each student in each group wrote four sentence in their flashcard to describe the public space. The people who didn’t come forward guessed who the clue giver was wo stood and identified the public places. The researcher only gave a score to students who had good pronunciation, vocabulary, precision, and fluency when they were clue givers. Before finishing the class, the researcher asked the students to finish the, material to see how much they understood what they had learned, and then gave a reflection on the lesson. The researcher offered suggestions for improving the students’ pronunciation and sentence structure. When the timer ran out, the researcher said goodbye to the class. Furthermore, the last meeting went well, and the students enjoyed the learning process by playing a guessing game.
When the teaching and learning process occurred in each meeting, the observing phase was completed. The aim of this stage was to gain a better understanding of the teaching and learning process. The teacher who checked the observation checklist was the observer in this process. On December 26th, 2019, an observation made.
Teaching and learning were both involved and enjoyable. The researcher demonstrated and led the students to the information from the first meeting to the last meeting. When playing the guessing game, all of the students were excited and appreciated the learning process. The majority of them concentrated on what the researcher had said in class. However, some students seem perplexed about which vocabulary to use and how to pronounce everything correctly. Some of them continued to look through their vocabulary books for the adjective from the thing. Not only that, but some students were perplexed by the rules of the guessing games. They seemed to be looking at the researcher with a sharp look. The researcher then provided a more comprehensive explanation using an illustration. Nonetheless, the researcher inquired as to whether the students had any problems or concerns.
c. Reflecting
The aim of the reflecting stage was to see how much the students had progressed in their speaking ability by playing a guessing game. The students speaking success when playing the guessing game in the action illustrated this. The following is the outcome of the students speaking results as determined by the pre-test and post-test score. The pre-test was based on the score of speaking performance prior to the implementation of the guessing game, which was based on a job-related subject. The product of the post-test of speaking success after the introduction of the guessing game, on the other hand.
1. Pre-Test
The pre-test score was derived from the speaking performance score prior to the introduction of the Guessing Game Strategy, which concerned describing “Job”. Following the pre-test, it appeared that the EF students’
speaking abilities were insufficient. It was evident from their pre-test results, which revealed that the mean was 64,67 (grade C). Only 27% succeed out of a total of 100%. Students received a cumulative score of 2910 on the pre- test, with a mean score of 64,67.
The following formula was used to measure the percentage of students who were proficient in speaking before the pre-test;
= 73%
= 27%
2.1 Pre-Test Diagram
2. Post Test
The post –test result of the students. The researcher administered a post-test that included a guessing game to assess the students’ progress in speaking abilities. The researcher evaluated the post-test results to determine if the technique was accurate or not, based on whether or not the students passed the KKM. The researcher collaborated
Result of Pre-Test
Success Unsuccess
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
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with another rater [R], who was the speaking coach, in determining the final score of the post-test. The total score was 3407,5 and the number of students was 45, according to the post –test table.
According to the data analysis above, student’s achievement increased as they took the post-test. The pre-test mean of the students was 64,67, and the post-test mean was 75,72, an Improvement of 11,05. To see the number of the students who were competent in speaking pre-test was calculated by the following formula;
= 38%
= 62%
According to the table, 28 students passed the post-test with excellent grades. A good score (more than 70) was attained by 62%. In the other hand, only 17 students (or 38%) received a failing grade. While more than half of the students passed the post-test, the researcher opted not to do another cycle.
2.1 Post-Test Diagram
4. DISCUSSION
As previously mentioned, this study used the guessing game as a strategy to develop students speaking abilities. This study was organized into a single cycle that included preparation, intervention, observation, and reflection. The researcher did a speaking task in this report. The guessing game technique not only made the students happy and entertained them, but it also allowed them to engage in group work. The students were divided into four classes, each with five to six students. The aim of this design was to make them more appealing and excited about learning speaking. Aside from that, there was a goal to achieve. According to [3]Anggreyni (2014), group discussion in the implementation of a guessing game will help students solve problems. Students who didn’t know the vocabulary or how to say it might approach the smartest students for assistance. They might tell the rest of the group about their concept.
The researcher divided the evaluation into two meetings in this study. The first meeting was a warm-up session. This test was used before being taught, and it consisted of a guessing game with the subject of job descriptions. It was used to determine a student’s aptitude. The pre-test resulted in 73% failing the test and just 27% of students passing it. After the pre-test was done, the researcher implemented guessing game as the teaching strategy. In the last meeting, the researcher used guessing game as the strategy. Just then, the result of the post-test showed that 62%of students’ success to get up to the minimal score. The guessing game had a positive influence on the students' progress in speaking skills, as seen by the post-test results. [3]Anggreyni (2014) indicated in her report that after employing the guessing game as a teaching method, all of the students' speaking proficiencies scores were higher than the previous meeting, and the overall level was satisfactory. Furthermore, Dian Fitriana (2012) reported that the game operation yielded positive outcomes in her research. Despite their challenges in forming words, all of the children were not afraid to demonstrate their speaking abilities.
5. CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the study following the introduction of this guessing game strategy as the classroom action research (CAR) in improving speaking class, this strategy was found to be effective in resolving students speaking problems. Based on the advantages of [3]Anggreyni (2014) using guessing games, the researcher found that the implementation of guessing games the teaching process of oral class is considered to be effective in solving the problems of EFL students’ oral skills, such as the use of mother tongue and the motivation of students and restraint. For example, some students cannot discuss in English, but choose to use their mother tongue, but other students remind her to try to use English for oral communication in the learning process. To give another example, when some students in a group of students were unable to describe or choose the correct vocabulary in a guessing game, other students gave her motivation and help to find the correct vocabulary, and then arranged it into the correct sentence.
Pratiwi Tristin Puspitasari. The Implementation of Guessing Game to Improve The Speaking Ability of EFL Students in Excellent Course, Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. Education of English as Foreign Language Journal (EDUCAFL). 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 78-84
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Therefore, the researcher concluded that the guessing game is one of the best teaching strategies. It effectively improves the oral English ability of EFL students through a pleasant learning process. Not only that, because this strategy is conductive to students’ oral expressions to express their thoughts when describing things.
In the learning process of using guessing games, students will be more enthusiastic and enjoy. From the observation of the researchers, most students oral English skills in the classroom have been improved. Ghina Fairuz et al. (2018) mentioned that students can practice speaking more interestingly. Students can express their ideas and increase their confidence in speaking English. They can also improve their oral skills by practicing each other’s spoken language regularly.
REFERENCES
[1] H. . Brown, Teaching by Principle: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Pearson Education, 2001.
[2] A. Garg, S., and Gautam, “Learning English can Change your Life for The Better,” Int. J.
English Lang. Lit. Humanit., vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 560–566, 2015.
