THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING DIALOGUE IN IMPROVING STUDENTS

SPEAKING SKILL AT THE SECOND GRADE OF SMP N 2 SALAM.

By

EMMY EL AZIZAH,
English Department, eelazizah@yahoo.com
Abstract
The objective of the study is to find out whether dialogue is effective or not to improve
students speaking skill on the second grade of SMP Negeri 2 Salam in the academic year
of 2012/2013. The writer applies quantitative descriptive method to discuss and solve the
problem appearing in this study. Based on the analysis result of t-test, it was found that ttest account is 8.86. After getting the t-value, the writer consult it to the critical value of
the t-table to check whether the difference was significant or not. In this case, the writer
used the 5% (0,5) alpha level significance. The writer chooses t-table for 31 (df) is 2.03. the
obtained t-value of this research is 8.86. it can be seen that the t-value is higher than
critical value on the table (8.86>2.03). It means that dialogue is effective to improve the
students speaking skill of SMP Negeri 2 Salam in the academic year of 2012/2013.
Keywords: effectiveness, dialogue, speaking

A. Introduction
In modern world, English is widely spread out in every country as an
international language. It is used in several sectors of modern life especially in
science, culture, society and communication. Therefore English is very important
for students especially to face the globalization era.
Most of the Indonesian students face difficulties in speaking. Speaking has a
very important role in learning English. Speaking is needed to communicate their
own experience to each other. To communicate foreign language need more and
more experience such as talk with each other using dialogue. In this thesis the
writer wants to give applying the dialogue as one of the way to improving students
speaking skill.
Brown (2004:140) adds that speaking is the product of creative
construction of linguistics strings; the speaker makes choices of lexicon, structure,

discourses. This implies that speaking is not only one way activity, which is
conducted by the speakers who is responsible to produce and transmit the
information and the listener who accept and interprets the information exchanged
in which the interaction happens afterward.

Here is the reason the writer would like to state regarding with the importance
of conducting the study: The writer wants to know the improvement of the
students speaking skill by using dialogue.
There are many aspects involved in teaching learning process. So the writer
limits the problem in order to have a specific focus. In this study the writer will
investigate two aspects: they are dialogue as the independent variable and
speaking skill as the dependent variable. The objective of the study is to find out
whether dialogue is effective or not to improve students speaking skill on the
second grade of SMP Negeri 2 Salam in the academic year of 2012/2013.
Effectiveness is the capability of producing an effect, and the most
frequently used in connection with the degree to which something is capable of
producing a specific, desired effect.
(http://en.wikipedian.org/wiki/Effectiveness. Taken on

05th March, 2013 at

13:45.p.m)
Hornby (1995:319-320) state that dialogue is spoken or written
conversation or talk or a discussion between people in which opinions are
exchanged.
Hornby (1995:37) defines that speaking is the skill that the students will be
judged upon most in real-life situations. It is an important part of everyday
interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his/her
ability to speak fluently and comprehensively. So, as teachers, we have a
responsibility to prepare the students as much as possible to be able to speak in
English in the real world outside the classroom.

B. Method
In this section the writer formulizes the type of research, the writer
applies descriptive method to discuss and solve the problem appearing in this
study. It is a quantitative research which is directed to investigate the effectiveness
of using dialogue to improving students speaking skill at the second grade of SMP
Negeri 2 Salam in the Academic Year of 2012/2013. According to Arikunto
(2006:160), method is the way in which a researcher collects the data. The
researcher applies the research methods by using an appropriate instrument to get
better data.
The population of the research is the second grade students junior high
school on SMP Negeri 2 Salam which consists of seven classes and each class
consists of 32 students. The total population is 224 Students. In this research, the
sampling technique is used by the writer in this research is purposive sampling
technique.
The writer used oral and written test as instrument. The writer uses pre-test
and post-test in getting data. The writer holds the test twice. The type of test
which is used in this research is by practice the dialogue with some expression. The
research was conducted at SMP Negeri 2 Salam and was carried out on 05th 19th
November 2012. Precisely at first semester in the second grade of SMP Negeri 2
Salam. The first activity is pre-test and held on November, 07 th 2012. The second
activity is treatment of teaching speaking using dialogue and held on November, 08
th

and 14 th 2012. The third activity is post-test and done on November, 15 th 2012.
The writer used a test as technique of collecting data. The writer carry out

some steps, there are: Preparing research instrument, giving pre-test to the
students, giving treatment to the students, giving post-test to the students,
scorring the data, and the last is analyzing the result of both test.
After collecting data, the writer should make data analysis. To analyze the data
of each variable, the writer used descriptive data analysis of the writer needs the
statistical analysis. According to Sugiyono (2008:29) stated that descriptive statistic

that has the function of describing or giving the description on the observed object
by data of population as in the fact, without doing analysis and making conclusion
which obtains to the general. This analysis is related to the computation in
answering the problem statement and the hypothesis testing presents.

C. Research Findings
From the data taken from pre-test, there are thirty two scores which can be
seen that the highest score (H) is 83, the lowest score (L) is 59, the range (R) is 24,
the mode (Mo) is 60, the median (Me) is 61, and the total score of pre-test (T) is
2184.
From the result, the writer gets the mean score of pre-test (M) is 68.25, and the
standard deviation (S) is 7.300. Variance is the square of deviation standard. It is
59.2902. The result of pre-test isnt categorized sufficient for the mean of pre-test
result is 68.25. The percentage of the students who got grade A were 12%, B were
41%, C were 47%.
From the data taken from post-test, there are 32 score which can be seen
that the highest score (H) is 88, the lowest score (L) is 68, the range (R) is 20, the
mode (Mo) is 77, the median (Me) is 75, and the total score (T) of post-test is 2492.
From the result, the writer gets the mean score of post-test (M) is 77.875, and the
standard deviation (S) is 9.158. Variance is the square of deviation standard. It is
83.8769. The result of post-test is categorized good for the mean of post-test result
is 77.875. The percentage of the students who got grade A were 10%, B were 22%.
As stated in the previous section, the mean of pre-test is 68.25 and the
mean of post-test is 77.875. The difference between the two means is 9.625. The
writer used t-test to determine the significant difference of the two means.
From the computation the result is 8.86 with degree of freedom (df) is 31, it will be
interpreted in hypothesis testing.
The number of subjects in this research is 32. The degree of freedom (df)
was N-1= 321=31. The writer chooses t-table for 31 (df) is 2.03. The obtained t-

value of this research is 8.86. it can be seen that the t-value is higher than the
critical value on the table (8.86>2.03).
The hypothesis said that the use of dialogue is effective to improve students
speaking skill. Furhermore, the null hyphotesis (Ho), the use of dialogue is not
effective to improve students speaking skill of SMP Negeri 2 Salam Magelang in
the academic year of 2012/2013, is rejected and the alternative hyphotesis (Ha),
the use of dialogue is effective to improve the students speaking skill of SMP
Negeri 2 Salam Magelang in the academic year of 2012/2013 is accepted. It means
that the use of dialogue is effective for improving students speaking skill.

D. Conclusion
Finally, it could be concluded that the method was successful and the use of
dialogue is effective to improve students speaking skill on second grade of SMP
Negeri 2 Salam Magelang in the academic year of 2012/2013. It can be seen that
the mean score of post-test was higher than pre-test. The mean of pre-test is 68.25
and the mean of post-test is 77.85. In addition, the result of t-test was 8.86.
There are some suggestion stated by the writer in order to develop and
increase students speaking skill. For the teacher, the teacher should know their
students ability in order to find out the students difficulties, so the teacher can
solve the students problem. The students must try to practice the dialogue in
every moment or in a real-life situation especially in English speaking class. For the
researches who intend to conduct the research more detail about the
effectiveness of using dialogue on improving students speaking skills, the writer
hopes that the research findings can be used as a starting point of the future
researchers who have the same problems and this research can be utilized as
reference.

E. References

Arikunto, Suharsimi. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian Suatu Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta. PT

Rineka Cipta.

Brown, H. Douglas. 2004. Language Assesment Principles and Classroom Practices.

New
York: Longman.
Hornby, AS. 1995. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Sugiyono. 2008. Statistik Untuk Penelitian. Bandung: Alfabeta
http://en.wikipedian.org/wiki/Effectiveness. Taken on
13:45.p.m)

05th March, 2013 at