TEACHING SPEAKING BY COMBINING FLEXIBLE GROUPING AND COMMUNITY CIRCLE STRATEGIES FOR GRADE IX
AT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Yuliana*)
**) Hevriani Sevrika Staff Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
ABSTRAK
Penulisan jurnal ini bertujuan untuk mengatasi salah satu permasalahan yang ada dalam keterampilan berbicara. Berbicara adalah salah satu skill yang sangat penting dalam pengajaran bahasa Inggris. Dalam berbicara, siswa dituntut aktif dan percaya diri dalam menyampaikan pendapat dikelas, namun kenyataannya siswa masih banyak yang tidak aktif dalam berbagi pendapat saat pelajaran berlangsung. Selain itu, siswa menghadapi banyak kesulitan dalam berbicara dan juga siswa tidak percaya diri dalam berbicara dalam bahasa inggris.
Diantaranya: siswa menghadapi kesulitan menentukan kata-kata yang sesuai, mengekspresikan ide mereka secara baik dan benar, dan berbicara bahasa inggris dengan lancar dan tepat. Kesulitan siswa dalam berbicara juga dipicu oleh guru yang tidak melibatkan semua siswa untuk berbicara dalam bahasa Inggris.
Untuk mengurangi masalah dan dapat menarik minat siswa untu belajar yaitu dengan mengkombinasikan dua strategi yaitu flexible grouping dan community circle strategy.
Flexible grouping yaitu sebuah strategi dasar untuk membedakan instruksi yang memungkinkan siswa untuk bekerja sama dalam berbagai cara, dan dengan sejumlah pengaturan. Siswa akan di tuntut untuk saling berbagi pendapat mengenai pokok bahasan yang sedang di diskusikan. Community Circle adalah salah satu strategi yang mana siswa boleh mengembangkan kemampuan berbicara mereka dan memperoleh banyak kesempatan untuk menjawab pertanyaan berdasarkan topic atau permasalahan yang diberikan guru. Tujuan strategi ini adalah supaya siswa dapat berbagi informasi dan bias mengeluarkan pendapat atau ide mereka didepan kelompok teman-temannya. Untuk harapan kedepannya, penulis berharap semoga dengan strategi ini siswa lebih mudah dalam memikirkan ide-ide serta meningkatkan motivasi siswa dalam berbicara.
Keywords: Speaking, Flexible Grouping and Community Circle Strategies
*) Penulis
**) Pembimbing
INTRODUCTION
Speaking is a major skill in
someone to socialize, to inform, imagine, and persuade listeners. By speaking, someone can express their
thought and feeling to others. Learning how to speak is not easy, especially in English foreign language. Based on the writer’s experience during practice teaching, many of students are afraid with English subject. Most of students have less confidence, felt shy, and nervous to communicate in English in the classroom.
Therefore, to solve those problems there are some strategies that can be applied to improve students’
ability in speaking such as: the first, Plus minus interesting (PMI) strategy, Photo Analysis Strategy, Inside Outside Circle Strategy, Flexible Grouping Strategy, Community Circle Strategy. And based on the definition of some strategies above, the writer focuses on Flexible Grouping and Community Circle strategies in teaching speaking.
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
In fact, speaking skill should be acquired by the students.
Furthermore, speaking is a quite important for people in communication process. According to Ricard and Willy (2002), speaking is one of the central elements of
communication. The way to communicate, speaking is seen as a skill to convey information in the form of verbal communication in which speaking holds a vital part of communication. Then, Nunan (2003) states that speaking is the productive aural/oral skill. It means that speaker who sends the message that will produce systematic verbal utterance to deliver meaning to the listener. Then, Luoma (2004) states that speaking is as interaction and speaking as a social and situations based activity.
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that speaking is a tool of communication with others not only by oral but also body language or gesture. It is an activity with two directs which consist of listener and speaker.
Teaching Speaking
Teaching speaking is the one process in English teaching.
According to Nunan (2003), teaching speaking is sometimes considered a simple process. Moreover, Diaz (2004) states that “teaching speaking is an activity to help the students to practice the vocabulary and survey the content terrain before speaking.” Meanwhile,
Harmer (2007) explain that teaching speaking is one of the reasons to make the students to speak in the classroom is speaking task in which the students try to use any or all of the language that they know and provide feedback between the teacher and the students.
Based on the explanation above, teaching speaking is an activity on the classroom in which the teacher teach the students how to provide, the interaction between teacher and students, and then the teacher should be able make the students to arrange the words and sentence, and generate their idea in speaking.
Report Text
Report text is used to give or share information about something.
According to Sue and Wood (2000), report text is generally used to record or report information to another person in a precise format. Futhemore, Djusma et all (2008) state that report text is to report something, just like the way it is. Also, Linawati et all (2012) write that report text is a report provides factual information about a specific subject like social phenomena (e.g. riot, demonstration,
unemployment), nature (e.g.
earthquakes, floods, storm, animals, plants) and man-made things.
Thus, a report text is a text that contains information that describes something in reality, from a variety of sources such as social phenomena, nature, man-made things in our environment. There are three main points of generic structure in the report text, such as; general classification, description, and conclusion
Definition of Flexible Grouping Strategy
There are some explanations about flexible grouping that given by expert. Randencich and McKay (1995) defined that flexible grouping as”
grouping that is not static, where members of the reading group change frequently” (p.11). Then, Valentino (2000) had a notion that flexible grouping is discovering that informally grouping and regrouping students in variety of ways throughout the school day can make a teacher’s job easier and students more productive. Then, Coil (2009) states that flexible grouping is essential in the differentiated classroom.
Based on some definition above, it can conclude that flexible grouping is a basic strategy for diffentiating instruction that allows students to work together in variety of ways, and in a number of arrangements. Groupings may be whole group, small group, partners, individual, teacher led or student led, and depend on instructional activities, learning goals, and student needs.
The Procedures of Flexible Grouping
Flexible grouping strategy can help to speak with sharing the respons.
According to Valentino (2000), some steps to guidelines for flexible grouping strategy are:
a. Children/student sits in a large circle so that each student can see the rest.
b. The leader (either the teacher or a selected student) presents an open- ended statement or problem, and each student in turn responds with his or her own conclusion.
c. One student records each group member’s response in order.
Students may “pass” as their turn comes up, but they should have an
answer ready when the circle is completed.
Advantages of Flexible Grouping Strategy
Flexible grouping strategy has many advantages for students.
According to Valentino (2000), the benefit of used flexible grouping strategy is provided experience working with people with diverse backgrounds, different abilities, and different experiences (Similar to Real Life). It takes away the negative feelings and stigma of the struggling students because groups are always changing
Definition of Community Circle Strategy
Community circle strategy is a group discussion strategy designed to build a sense of classroom togetherness mutual respect, and emotional. According to Peery (2004), community circle is a way to build inclusion and teach social skills.
Moreover, Silver (2007) states that community circle is a strategy that develops student’s awareness of themselves, their feelings and values, and the feelings and values of their fellow students. Furthermore, Gregory
and Kuzmich (2007) state that community circle strategy is allows participants to feel included and have a voice and creates a positive climate.
Thus, based on the definition above the writer can conclude that Community Circle Strategy is a strategy in learning process that express our opinion and responds about topic of discussion and it will be interesting strategy in teaching English, especially speaking because the learning focus on topic and it is relevance to the students.
Procedures of Community Circle Strategy
Acording to Silver (2007) adds there are six steps of community circle strategy are:
a. Select or have students select a topic for discussion.
b. Arrange students in a circle.
Ideally, community circle should contain approximately 10 students. Larger groups are fine.
c. Allow each student a chance to speak by moving the discussion around the circle. Students are not obligated to speak. You may circle several times, but make sure students have the opportunity to
express feelings and personal values or responses at some point during the discussion.
d. After each circle is complete, conduct a review of what has been said. Encourage students to compare responses and look for patterns.
e. After all circling is complete, help students make conclusions and extend their thinking using synthesis questions. Help them reflect on the process and their own behaviors using reflection questions.
f. Help students assume leadership over future discussion by drawing attention to positive and negative behaviors and by modeling and suggesting hoe to avoid common discussion pitfalls.
Advantages of Community Circle Strategy
According to Silver (2007), community circle strategy had the advantages to develop student’s awareness of themselves, their feelings and values, and the feelings and values of their fellow students. This strategy also builds each student’s self-concept and fosters a classroom culture of
differences. And then, it also given the opportunity and training, every student has the ability to lead the group.
Combination of Flexible Grouping and Community Circle Strategies
The writer interested to combine Valentino’ procedures and Silver’ procedures in teaching speaking classroom by following steps:
a. Select or have students select a topic for discussion.
b. Arrange students in a circle.
Ideally, community circle should contain approximately 10 students. Larger groups are fine.
c. The leader (either the teacher or a selected student) presents an open- ended statement or problem, and each student in turn responds with his or her own conclusion.
d. One student records each group member’sresponse in order.
e. Students may “pass” as their turn comes up, but they should have an answer ready when the circle is completed.
f. Allow each student a chance to speak by moving the discussion around the circle. Students are not obligated to speak. You may
circle several times, but make sure students have the opportunity to express feelings and personal values or responses at some point during the discussion.
g. After each circle is complete, conduct a review of what has been said. Encourage students to compare responses and look for patterns.
h. After all circling is complete, help students make conclusions and extend their thinking using synthesis questions. Help them reflect on the process and their own behaviors using reflection questions.
i. Help students assume leadership over future discussion by drawing attention to positive and negative behaviors and by modeling and suggesting hoe to avoid common discussion pitfalls.
CONCLUSION
Based on the previous explanation, it can be concludes that speaking is a central element of communication, so it is important that speaking skill needs to be mastered by everyone. To develop the students speaking skill, the teacher should give interesting style in teaching. It
because, the students can feel bored with the usual style in teaching. The goal of speaking in classroom is to lead students to be able to speak English well. In speaking activity, the teacher must allow the students to speak up in the classroom in order to explore their ideas or opinions with speaking.
How to teach speaking by combining flexible grouping and community circle strategy at junior high school. Those strategies is appropriate to be combined in teaching speaking because the strategies guide the students to be active in speaking.
In this combine strategy, the students have opportunity to speak and make the students confident to express their idea and their opinion.
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