IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH DEBATE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background of the Problems
The fundamental function of language is an instrument of communication.
English is used by millions of people all over the world. In Indonesia English
is considered as a foreign language that has been taught to be elementary
school up to the university. In education aspect, the students hopefully to be
able to speak English fluently in order to the technology development.
Speaking is one of the important skills in language learning
besides listening, writing and reading. Speaking is the act, utterance or
discourse of one who speaks. It also can be defined as an activity in giving
and asking information as if dialoguing by two or more people. In speaking,
there is a process of communication between speaker and listener. People put
ideas into words, talking about perceptions and feeling they want other people
to understand.
In
teaching learning English as the foreign language, most students cannot speak
English well. For that condition, there are some factors of the difficulties.
There are internal and external factors. Internal factors come from the student
themselves. These concern with personality factors. Brown states that “Personality
factors within a person that contribute in some way to the success of language learning”.[1] He
explains that personality factor is an important aspect of carrying on
discourse. Another factor is feeling ashamed. The students were afraid to express
their ideas. They worried everyone will mock them. External factors come out
from students. These concern with their environment, parents and teaching
learning technique in their school. Teaching learning technique is the
important factor to the success of language learning for all aspects in
education. But for the fact, the teacher doesn’t choose the suitable technique
of teaching speaking. She teaches them by asking the students to read the
dialogue in front of the class. These activities do not give any opportunity to
express their idea directly. So, students cannot improve their speaking skill
in teaching learning process
[1]
H. Douglas
Brown. Principle of Language Learning and Teaching, (New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 2000) p. 100.