THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATIONAL DEBATING METHOD TO FOSTER STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY AT THE ELEVENTH GRADE OF SMAN 1 SUMBER

Umarah Muhadharah

e-mail: umuhadharah@gmail.com

Department Of English Education Faculty Of Teaching And Educational Science University Of  Swadaya Gunung Jati Cirebon

ABSTRACT

This research entitled “The Implementation of Educational Debating Method to Foster Students’ Speaking Ability at the Eleventh Grade of SMAN 1 Sumber”. The research aims to investigate how the educational debating method can foster the students’ speaking ability at the eleventh grade of SMAN 1 Sumber, and to find out how the students’ activities in learning speaking using the educational debating method in fostering students’ speaking ability. This research primarily used a quantitative method to analyze the data with quasi-experimental method was chosen to test the hypothesis because the study focused on only one aspect of investigating, namely speaking ability without controlling all variables. There were two classes consisting of 28 students each class as sample in SMAN 1 Sumber. The data was obtained with students’ speaking scores, observation sheet, and questionnaire results. The speaking scores were analyzed with McMillan and Schumacher’s formula. The result of t _account is 2.25, t _table is 2.005 for α = 5%. So the conclusion is t _account is higher than t _table (t _account > t _table). The research found that the speaking scores of the experimental group was higher than the control group and it was also supported by the students’ activities from the questionnaire. The students felt that educational debating method can foster their speaking. It made the students enthusiastic to learn and help them to understand the matter of the subject. It was a pleasant and good method in teaching speaking, especially for asking and giving opinion. The students liked to participate in the use of educational debating method because they had an opportunity to study in pairs and improved their achievement in speaking by knowing pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. In this research, the educational debating method was recommended as an alternative technique to improve students’ speaking ability in teaching and learning speaking.

INTRODUCTION

Nation and Macalister (2010) reported that curriculum design is a kind of writing activity as a useful process in writing (gathering and ordering ideas, ideas to text, reviewing, editing) can be applied to curriculum design. The implementation of curriculum is a joint venture between the government and the provincial government and local government district/ city.

Curriculum 2013 puts attitude on the higher priority than skill competencies and knowledge. According to Bonwell and Eison (as cited in Kennedy, 2007) stated that “students learn more effectively by actively analyzing, discussing, and applying content in meaningful ways rather than by passively absorbing information”.

In addition, according to Lucas (as cited in Pracher, 1998) said that “the teaching of oral communication skills has been called a vital part of humanistic education and democratic citizenship”. Oral communication or speaking ability, especially in English language is considered to be an important skill needed by students. Unfortunately, the students focus on memorizing new vocabularies, discussing grammar formulas and analyzing dialogues, so they get less opportunities in speaking activities as needed in Curriculum 2013.

The problems which are faced by the teacher in teaching speaking are students do not have a good methodology and low speaking habit. Teaching methodology is needed which is not only designed to promote the students to speak the target language in the classroom circumstances but also to produce graduates who can participate in real life communication by using English. According to Konstantopoulos and Hedges (as cited in Brendefur et. all., 2014) wrote that learning to teach well, even for veteran teachers, is a complex, uncertain, and difficult task. However, quality teaching is an essential ingredient to increasing student achievement and promoting student understanding.

According to Florez (as cited in Bailey, 2004) said that speaking is about the concept of meaning in terms of delivering, accepting, and processing the information. Speaking is unplanned process, where the process can start and finish in any situation. So, students can exchange the information well with the appropriate form of language such as, in grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.

There are many activities to promote speaking. One of the activities is discussion or debate. According to Allison (as cited in Kennedy, 2007) said that “debating is the ultimate multi-task school activity since it involves research, writing, speaking, listening, and teamwork”. In addition, another study was conducted by Lilly from Virginia Military Institute. According to Bellon (as cited in Lily, 2012) wrote that “the educational debate is one form of active instruction, requiring students to prepare materials, obtain evidences, create arguments, evaluate opposing data, and construct rebuttals, resulting in greater mastery of the material”.

Another study was conducted by Bell (as cited in Lily, 2012) noted that there is no focus on “winning” in this debate. Instead, debates are focused on only the collaborative nature of collective exploration. Students were instructed not to look for a winning or losing team, but to assess the information presented in the debate and use it to form their own opinions on the topic matter.

1.        Statement of the  Research

The writer tries to answer the following questions:

1.    How can the educational debating method foster the students’ speaking ability?

2.    How are the students’ activities in learning speaking using the educational debating method in fostering students’ speaking ability?

2.        The Aims of the Research

1.    To find out how the educational debating method can foster the students’ speaking ability.

2.    To find out how the students’ activities in learning speaking using the educational debating method in fostering students’ speaking ability.

3.        Limitation of the Research

There are two types of debate, namely substantive and educational debate. Substantive debate is one in which the speakers present arguments with a special interest that focuses on true and false facts before the judge attacks them, while the educational debate focuses on academic purposes and the judge evaluates the quality of student way of convincing others through their speaking ability.

So, based on that, this study focuses on the implementation of educational debating method to foster students’ speaking ability. The subjects are the eleventh graders of Senior High School (SMAN 1 Sumber).

4.        Hypothesis

The hypothesis that the writer wishes to investigate in this research is:

“The implementation of educational debating method can foster students’ speaking ability.”

5.        Review Related Study

There are related studies about the implementation of Educational Debating Method. In this section some related studies are discussed briefly to give clear foundation and support for the present study.

To begin with, a study conducted by Ruth Kennedy from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania wrote about her study in journal of International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Vol. 19, Num. 2 2007 entitled In-Class Debates: Fertile Ground for Active Learning and the Cultivation of Critical Thinking and Oral Communication Skills. This study investigated the debate as an active instructional strategy enhances learning particularly in the areas of mastering the content as well as developing critical thinking skills, oral communication skills, and empathy. The finding of this study clearly support that educational debating method can encourage the students’ class involvement, raise students’ motivation and attitudes towards learning English, and increase the class participation in terms of interaction among students themselves and between students and their teacher.

Furthermore, Emily L. Lilly wrote about her study in journal of International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Vol. 24, No. 1 2012, entitled Assigned Positions for In-Class Debates Influences Student Opinions. The finding of this study suggests that debates should be used with care in the classroom, and precautions taken to avoid biasing students positions.

In addition, another study was conducted by Mansoor Fahim from  Allameh Tabatabaie University  and Maryam Sa’eepour from Khatam State University, wrote about their study in  Journal of Language Teaching and Research Vol. 2, Num. 4, July 2011, entitled The Impact of Teaching Critical Thinking Skills on Reading Comprehension of Iranian EFL Learners. This study implemented debate as a method of critical thinking and reasoned decision making. It provides educational opportunities to improve critical thinking. The results of this study suggest that debate can motivate students to learn and created a positive atmosphere that practicing debate students showed obvious progress in expressing and defending their ideas.     

In addition, Mansoor Fahim and Maryam Sa’eepour said debate can inspire the syllabus and material designers to include critical thinking issues both in students' text books and in teacher training courses. Learners are in need of text books and teachers need to be trained to change their attitudes toward students and themselves. The teachers should be more flexible toward teaching, and they should consider students' attitudes, interests, and abilities encouraging them to use their thinking and express themselves critically and creatively. Of course, it can force students to speak more after they prepare the material and listen the arguments other students.

Based on those previous studies the researcher can conclude that Educational Debating Method is the more favorable technique that can make student active and become students centered in the classroom. It can be used as the alternative strategy to solve teaching and learning problem in school. So that teaching with Educational Debating Method can be tried to foster students’ speaking ability.

6.        Research Methodology

This research primarily uses a quantitative method to analyze the data with quasi-experimental method is chosen to test the hypothesis because the study focused on only one aspect of investigating, namely speaking ability without controlling all variables. For that reason, this research uses two classes, the first class is structured as a control class and the second class is functioned as an experimental class. The population of this research was the eleventh grade of Senior High School in SMAN 1 Sumber. The sample in this research used purposive sample which used two classes of the first grade senior high school students which each class consist of 28 students. The writer chose XI MIA 2 class and XI MIA 3 where one class as an experimental class and another class as a control class. These classes almost have same capabilities based on the data from that school. The treatment was given to the experimental class while the control class did not has any special treatment.

7.        Analysis and Discussion

From the data, it shows:

t _account        = 2.25

t _table            = 2.005

In comparing t _table and t _account, the writer used the criteria as follows:

       If t _account < t _table = the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is rejected.

       If t _account > t _table = the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted.

It means that the value t _account is higher than t _table (2.25 t _account > 2.005 t _table). This result shown that this research had positive influence. Finally the writer states that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. Therefore, the writer states that the implementation of educational debating method can foster students’ speaking ability.

8.        Students’ Activities in Experimental Group

In the experimental group, the writer used educational debating method to teach speaking for asking and giving opinion. The writer did treatments based on the lesson plan that the writer had made before for experimental group. The step of teaching and learning process also based on the lesson plan that consists of 3 steps included pre-activity, main activity, and post-activity.  During teaching process the school teacher observed the students’ activities in experimental group.

In teaching and learning process the writer observed the activities in experimental group. The aspects that observer focused were (1) Students’ attention to the teacher’s and other student’s presentation, (2) Students’ respond toward the teacher’s question or students’ question, (3) Students’ activities and attempt to use English for asking and giving opinion, (4) Students’ cooperation with their partner when they are in the group, (5) Students’ responsibility to complete and do the task that is given by the teacher. The result of students’ activities from the first meeting until the last meeting can be seen in the table below.

Table

Observation Result of Students’ Activities

No	Aspects	Meeting
		1				2
		Assessment				Assessment
		1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4
1.	Paid attention to the teacher’s and other student’s presentation.			√					√
2.	Respond the teacher’s question or the student’s questions.			√					√
3.	Attempt to use English for asking and giving opinion when the opportunity comes.		√					√
4.	Cooperative with their partner when they are in the group			√					√
5.	Complete and do the task that is given by the teacher			√					√
Total		14				19

Based on the table, the students’ activities in the first meetings’ categorized into “good”. This happened because students still confused about the material and the teacher’s instruction during the implementation of educational debating method. Some of students found difficulties in comprehending the material of the motion and the rule of debate. The second meeting indicated students’ activities categorized into “very good”. In this meeting students knew clearly what they have to do. Based on the result of observation, it can be said that students paid careful attention to the teacher, active to ask or respond to the teacher’s and students’ question, more cooperative with their partner to comprehend and share the answer, and could complete and did the task well. According to the scores that were obtained by the students, it can be concluded that the educational debating method gave positive effect on the aspects of students’ speaking ability.

9.        Conclusion

Based on the result above, it can be concluded that the implementation of educational debating method gave positive effect on the aspects of students and made students to be centre in the classroom. It can be seen that their motivation in learning were increasing and encourage the students to discuss and share students’ opinion. They could be more confident to speak with better pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. They could answer the questions better and faster after using educational debating method in speaking.

10.    Suggestions

Educational debating method can be used as one of the alternative method in teaching speaking, especially in asking and giving opinion. English teacher who would like to apply the educational debating method in their classes must be well-aware that preparation before teaching is very important, because it can determine the success of teaching and learning process. Teacher should understand the important role that they have in classrooms to create a good learning environment.

Teacher should also consider about time management when using the educational debating method. They must be able to predict the time limited to work on a task in group. During the activities, the teacher also has to give clear instruction in order to avoid implementation failure. Give the instruction until all of students understand well about the educational debating method procedures. Moreover, the teacher also needs to do good monitoring. This is the important role of teacher in a cooperative class. With a good monitoring, a teacher can control students’ activities and make sure if there some problems in groups. Besides, do not forget to motivate the students to give the best shoot in study, especially for speaking.

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