Background of Study

Background of Study

Topic: Speaking

By: Hendra

Principally, language is as a means of delivering ideas, thought, opinion and feeling. Therefore, teaching a language must emphasize on the students’ communication ability (Noam Chomsky.1957). Human activities in communication are a complicated phenomenon and have been changing continuously. That is why many theories are discovered to make the teaching language simple to learn.

English, which one of the paramount foreign languages, is regarded essential and strategic to gain and develop science, technology, art and culture as well as to establish international relationship in this universe. That all, especially the establishment of international relationship, would be more crucial on the framework of international interaction in this global era. Nowadays, the progress of various human lives demands mastering English accurately and effectively.

English is the first foreign language in Indonesia and becomes a compulsory subject at every extent of school and institution. Yet, many schools and institutions still find difficulties to apply it, mainly in applying as means of communication. Thus, after having graduated from the schools and institutions, the students still encounter the obstacles to make conversation among their friends. So the schools and institutions should be able to aid their students to improve their speaking abilities, and must be able to encourage them to be active in conversation.

According to Walter T petty and Julie M. Jensen in their book: Developing children’s language. Said:

“Learning to express one’s thought is an important aspect of growth. An ability to speak and write effectively is as a lifetime handicap. A substantial foundation for these necessary skills must be built in the school and institution.” (1975:P.265)

Whereas john Dixon stated in his book, Growth through English:

“Learning to read, to write… should not be made a sudden transition. These activities should be preceded, accompanied and followed by talk”. (1975: P.299)

In fact, not all students can speak English fluently; it means that their English communication proficiency is still poor. This weakness can be caused not only by minimum opportunity to practice English in their daily activities, but also by minimum consciousness to use English for communication. Consequently, it is hard for them to express their ideas in English. So they should take an extra English course in order to be able to practice it continuously.

From these drawbacks, it is necessary to find out the best way to make English simple easy to learn particularly in speaking ability. Nowadays, applied linguistic has been developed by the efforts to explain how the language reflects its communicative function. Moreover, the linguistic is being developed by the efforts to develop syllabus design and methodology that able to respond all the needs of communicative teaching learning. Than there are four assumptions about verbal communicative; namely language is meaningful, conventional appropriate interaction, and structured (Furqonul Azis and A. Chaedar Alwasih. 2000)

Mastering communication system is the first step in learning foreign language. Thus, in whatever level, teachers must be tolerant toward grammatical error. However, before active communication, students must master at least two hundreds active vocabularies and master basic structure.  It is not doubtful that every teacher must develop students’ speaking proficiency in their own method and approach.