THE
ROLE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO IMPROVE
ENGLISH SPEAKING COMPETENCE
IN SMA NEGERI 1 SEDAYU IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014
Arranged
by :
Rahmat
Alfian Hadidharma
10004111
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER
TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITAS
AHMAD DAHLAN
2013
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A. Background
of the Study
Children are always learns the
languages by indirection. They use their prior knowledge to produce a language orally in the daily
communication. Furthermore, the children often associated the spoken language learning
process in the adventure to discover a new experience that never taught before in speaking skill. Brown (1994); Burns & Joyce (1997) add that speaking is an interactive process
of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving, and processing
information[1]. These
constructing meaning process will make the children are easy to receive the
information The children also only learn based on everything that they really
want to learn. Because of these facts, the children can’t be forced to
mastering particular language in one time.
To mastering the target language, the children need the long process. This
process influenced by the prior knowledge posessed by the children.
Biemans and Simons in “Background Knowledge” National Center of Assessing the
General Curriculum, Third Ed, 26th October 2004, define that prior
knowledge is all knowledge learners have when entering a learning environment
that is potentially relevant for acquiring new language (1996:6).[2]
Unfortunately,
in Indonesia the English speaking skill teaching process sometimes do not give attention to the
prior knowledge of the children. So, the children can’t activate their prior
knowledge to learn english that directly affect to the children’s english
speaking mastery. It invite some critical problem on
the children’s speaking skill such as the children feel unmotivated when they
assumed by the teachers as the learning object in the learning process, the teacher
haven’t creativity to make the learning process exciting with the provided
materials, the learning system implemented in the class aren’t activate the
prior knowledge of the children which will help them to comprehend the
materials, the teacher is difficult to give the right stimulus to the children
making them be able to participate in the class because of individual
difference, and the teacher teach English based on the time allocation only not
the student’s comprehension.
The learning system in Indonesia
mostly used the teacher centered approach, where the teacher has a dominant
role in the class. It caused by their paradigm assumed the teaching process
will not success if the teacher is not taking dominant role in the teaching
process. Meanwhile, the modern learning system used in the world is student
centered, where the most dominant role in the learning process handled by the
students and the teacher only has a role as the learning facilitators. Even, in
the west countries the student welcomed to choose the subject that wants to
learn by them. This traditional teaching approach make the students are less
interested in the learning process especially in the speaking skill. It
happened because in the teaching process the students assumed as the learning
object, where the students are not given the freedom to participate in the
learning process.
One of the most sadness realities
in the teaching speaking skill in Indonesia is the less creativity of the
teachers to provide the learning materials for the students. Often we see the
teacher only used one reference book in the teaching process. The teachers only
focus on the material given in the book to teach the student without adopting
the materials. It can invite the students’ confusedness because the students
always learn from their experiences. On the other hand the given materials in
the students’ textbooks are usually not touches their prior knowledge.
Moreover, recently the Indonesia’s Education Minister finds the student’s
textbook containing the learning materials that not according to the materials
that should be given to the students. These materials include the impolite
pictures, impolite words, and also the inappropriate story.
In the teaching process, sometimes
the teacher only delivers the teaching materials textually; it means that they only
give the concept without give the explanation about what the students do with
the materials should, and how to implement the materials in the students’ real
life. As the result, the students assume that these learning materials are
useless because they are unable to connect their prior knowledge to the
learning process in the class. Even, some Indonesian teachers are still
teaching English paying attention only to the student’s learning target
included in the lesson plan or syllabus not the students’ achievement. So, it
cause their paradigm to learn the material especially in teaching skills shift
from the “Learning as a need” to the “Learning as an importance”
The other problem is related to the
inability of the teacher to fulfill the right stimulus to the students in the
learning process, it happened because the students have different learning
style. According to Howard Gardner in Munif (2012:93), the children
intelligences influenced by the stimulus from their environment[3].
The teachers are expected to serve these differences. But they feel that to
fulfill all of the learning style is impossible. In addition the students also
have the multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner in Munif (2012:88) states that
there are 9 types of intelligences: Linguistics, Mathematic Logic, Visual
Spatial, Musical, Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist, and Existential
that give influences to the student learning style.[4]
The last problem of this research
deals with the time allocation in the teaching process. The teachers often ignore
the students’ inability to comprehend the material when the time allocation to
deliver the related material is up. This case will be influenced to the next
material delivered by the teacher, where the student will be difficult to
associate their prior knowledge to the material because of the students lack
readiness. It can invite the information gap of the material that in the end
the student will experience the educational shock.
This research will
be introduce one of the teaching media that recently used in most of the
English teaching process in the Senior high
School called authentic material. This research will measure
how far the authentic assessment implemented in the learning activity can
influence the increasing of childrens’ ability to speak english fluently.
