IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILL OF THE EIGHTH

GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 5 MENGWI IN

ACADEMIC YEAR 2017/2018 THROUGH
CHAIN-DRILL TECHNIQUE

I Gusti Ngurah Arya Dwipayana

English Language Education Study Program
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
Mahasaraswati Denpasar University

ABSTRACT
Speaking is one of important language skill that should be mastered by the
students in learning English. In fact, speaking had become the main problem that
faced by the students especially the eighth grade students of SMPN 5 Mengwi in
academic year 2017/2018. The present study was intended to answer the following
research question: can speaking skill of the eighth grade students of SMPN 5
Mengwi be improved through chain-drill technique? The subjects of the study were
VIII E class which consisted of 35 students. Based on the result of tests which was
administered in each cycle, it showed the mean score of pre-test was 56.14. The
result of post-test 1 was 70.85 and the result of post-test 2 was 81.71. The result of
each cycle obviously showed that there was significant improvement to the
subjects’ ability. The computation of the scores also showed that 82.85% of subjects
under the study reached the standard minimum achievement, which meant that the
research was successful in improving subjects’ speaking skill. Moreover, this
research showed that there were positive responses concerning the implementation
of chain-drill technique. To sum up, the present classroom action research proved
that speaking skill of the eighth grade students of SMPN 5 Mengwi in academic
year 2017/2018 can be improved through chain-drill technique.

Keywords: improving, speaking skill and chain-drill technique.

INTRODUCTION English is a priority for many second-

Speaking is one of four skills in language learners (Richard, 2008:19).

learning English that should be It is because English is universal

mastered. Especially, speaking skill in language that used by all people

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around the world to communicate with Practicing speaking English in

others. Moreover, speaking is the classroom should use appropriate

productive that can be directly and technique or strategy in order to make

empirically observed (Brown, students’ speaking skill can be

2004:140). It means that learners’ improved and enjoy the learning

speaking skill can be directly seen by process. According to Brown

other people when they are able to (2004:10), speaking is productive skill

speak and deliver the message with no that can be directly and empirically

hesitation. observe. It means that the students’

Speaking skill is an important speaking skill can be directly seen by

part of curriculum in language other people when they are able to

teaching and this makes it important speak fluently with no hesitation. By

object of assessment as well (Louma, learning and mastering speaking skill,

2004:1). That is why teaching students are able to communicate with

speaking becomes important in order their friends, make themselves

to improve students’ ability and their confident to use the language skill in

confidence in speaking because the classroom and expressing their

speaking is one of productive skill feelings and opinions. As the result, a

beside writing. In addition, speaking is variety of English teaching techniques

a process of building and sharing or strategies have been found and

meaning and by mastering speaking applied in every level of education.

skill the learners will be able to Based on the interview that has

communicate with other and been conducted to the English teacher

expressing their feeling and ideas. in SMPN 5 Mengwi. The problem in

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speaking could be seen when the question on their textbook without

students were asked to speak. They give a chance to the students to

were only able to speak in lower voice practice their speaking. By this case,

and sometimes there were some the students could not perform

mispronunciation. Several times the maximally in speaking test and also

teacher had to pointed them to speak in achieve the Standard Minimum

the classroom but they often used their Achievement where the students

mother language than use English. should reach 77 points. Therefore, that

They did not know what they have to was why students need to be motivate

say, they became nervous and turned by applying technique or strategy in

to be silent. It was also caused by the teaching which is able to make them

limited of vocabularies, grammar enthusiastic and confident in

error, mispronunciation, less expressing their feeling and opinion in

comprehension and also low of the target language.

motivation to participate in speaking Considering those things, the

activity which caused the students shy teacher should pay attention to the

and fear in making mistake. characteristic of the technique chosen

The ineffective pre-speaking in teaching learning process. The

technique was one of evident factors teaching technique should be

which applied by English teacher. In beneficial for both teacher and

teaching learning process, the teacher students. Teacher should help the

only focused on giving material in student to understand why the

writing and reading, sometimes technique is useful, and when it is

teacher only asked student to answer appropriate to improve the students’

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speaking skill. There are so many using chain-drill the teacher can listen

techniques that can be applied to and tell which students are struggling

improve student’s speaking skill. In and need more practice.

the present study, the researcher was Furthermore, this technique

interested in conducting the study, gives opportunity to the students to

which was intended to improve practice their speaking and express

students speaking skill and their ideas or opinions. The practically

achievement by using chain-drill of chain-drill easy to apply and

technique. understood by the student because this

Chain-drill is a technique that technique help student and gives a

gives students an opportunity to speak chance to practice their speaking skill.

their feeling and opinion individually. This technique gets students to

According to Larsen-Freeman develop their skill in learning grammar

(2000:46), chain-drill technique and engaged the students in natural

integrating speaking and listening communicative tasks that were

skills in learning process. It is also roughly pitched at their level

used to make the students able to proficiency. The new style is the

speaking English communicatively. student have a group conversation of

Drill has been used in language expression like asking and giving

classroom for decades, and its useful opinion, expression of invitation and

way of giving all students some offering help which used in speaking

speaking practice when the class is too activity. According to the explanation

large for individual speaking above, teaching speaking by using

(Cameron, 2001:117). It means that by chain-drill technique will make all

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students have chance to speak. administered tests, scoring rubric and

Therefore, in the present study, the questionnaire. The subjects were

researcher tried to use chain-drill asked to constructed a short

technique in order to give chance to conversation based on the topic given

the students express their idea and also and performed it in front of the class

to find out whether or not chain-drill orally. The scoring rubric were

technique can improve speaking skill focused on four categories such as,
of the eighth grade students of SMPN pronunciation, comprehension,
5 Mengwi in academic year fluency and grammar to assess
2017/2018.
students speaking skill which it

adapted from Brown (2004:157). The

RESEARCH METHOD
questionnaire was administered
The classroom action research
consisted of 10 statements with 4 scale
would be used in this study to apply
bases of rating.
Chain-drill Technique and improve

students’ speaking skill of the eighth

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
grade of SMPN 5 Mengwi in academic
Findings
year 2017/2018. VIII E class was The finding of data that have

taken as the subject under the study been collected through the present

which consisted of 35 students. The classroom action study of the VIII E

researcher was conducted this research students at SMPN 5 Mengwi in

with continual cycles with four academic year 2017/2018 were

activities such as, planning, action, presented in this chapter. The data

observation and reflection. To obtain were collected by administering three

the data, the instruments were kinds of instrument: pre-test, post-test,

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and questionnaire. The collected data the material and taught grammar that

can be presented as follows: was used in asking and giving opinion.

After explained the material, the

Pre-test
researcher applied chain-drill
Pre-cycle or pre-test was
technique in teaching speaking in
conducted before the researcher taught
order to give a chance to the students
speaking by using chain-drill
to speak their idea. The students
technique to the subjects under study.
directly involved in teaching learning
It was used in order to know the
process where the students in chain
subjects’ speaking ability before the
were drilled questions about asking
technique was applied and before the
and giving opinion to their friends who
Cycle 1 began. The result of the pre-
was sitting next to him/her. The chain
cycle showed that the total score of
continued after all of the students got
pre-test was low. The total score was
chance to asked and gave opinion.
1965 and the mean score was 56.14. In
Second session started with the
this case, only 17.24% or 6 of 35
same topic about asking and giving
subjects under the study who reached
opinion in order to reviewing the
the Standard Minimum Achievement
material and gave reflection to the
score in pre-cycle.
students who still confused and had

Cycle I problem in speaking. In this session,

This cycle consisted of two the researcher also administered chain-

sessions where the researcher carried drill technique in teaching learning

out the main process of teaching process. The researcher also fixed

speaking by using chain-drill students’ mistake in pronouncing the

technique. The researcher explained words and the grammar directly during

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the chain-drill technique were applied be improved. Therefore, the researcher

because the students often made decided to continue the cycle II to get

mistakes in the first session. more improvement of the subjects’

After that, at the end of this mean score.

session the researcher administered a

Cycle II
post-test to find out the students’
According to the researcher, all
speaking improvement. Compared to
activities in previous cycle could run
the result of the subjects’ pre-test,
well. All of students were paying
there was an improvement of the
attention to the researcher during
subjects’ achievement. The post-test
teaching learning process. The
was used as feedback to carry out the
students did not seem to be worried
revision to solve the students’
and nervous anymore in participate the
weaknesses in Cycle I. The total score learning process. The activities in
of post-test 1 was 2480 and the mean cycle II were the same as in previous
score was 70.85. In this case, the activities in cycle I. The researcher

computation showed that 28.57% or still used chain-drill technique in

10 of 35 the subjects under the study teaching speaking with new topic

who reached the Standard Minimum about expression of invitation. Chain-

Achievement (KKM). Even though drill technique was done in this session

there was an improvement of students’ by proposing some questions which

mean score from the post-test of cycle related with the topic given.

I, the success indicator could not be The second session, the

reached yet in this cycle. Furthermore, researcher reviewed the same material

the subjects’ speaking skill needed to about expressing invitation in order to

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give a reflection and fixed the subjects who quite agree and 0%

students’ mistakes in the first session. subjects who disagree towards the

The researcher also fixed students’ implementation of chain-drill

mistakes directly during applying the technique.

technique. After that, at the end of this

Discussion
session, the researcher gave a post-test
Based on the result of data
to find out the students’ improvement.
analysis, there were significant
The result of the cycle II showed that
improvement of the students’ speaking
the mean score was 81.71 which mean
skill. The enhancement of the mean
29 of 35 subject who could reach the
scores on the students’ speaking skill
standard minimum achievement.
and the percentage of students who
Furthermore, the percentages of
reach the standard minimum
students’ responses showed that there
achievement can be seen by the
were 49.00% subjects who strongly
following table:
agree, 46% subjects who agree, 5%

Table 1. The summary of the Mean Score on Speaking Skill

Pre-cycle Cycle I Cycle II

Result
Pre-Test Post-Test 1 Post-Test 2
Mean Score 56.14 70.85 81.71
Percentage 17.24% 28.57% 82.85%

In the table 1, the improvement improvement in each cycle. The

of students’ speaking skill were implementation of chain-drill

obviously seen. The mean scores technique in speaking class has impact

showed that there was significant students’ knowledge and skill. The

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reason why chain-drill technique has conversation itself focus on students’

positive impact because chain-drill is a comprehension in speaking. A chain-

technique which gives a chance for drill also gives the teacher opportunity

each student in the classroom to speak to check each students’ speech.

and express their idea or opinion. as it Based on the observation, it

stated by Freeman (2000:48), chain- showed that subjects under the study

drill technique gets its name from were motivated and participate in

chain of conversation that forms as a learning process. Furthermore, most of

classical activity which can apply them could construct a good short

through one by one, ask and answer conversation and pronounce the words

question of each other. In addition, correctly. It is also because the

Richard & Schmidt (2002:170) states researcher also facilitated them by a

that drill is a technique commonly list of expression which used in

used in older methods of language constructing a short conversation

teaching particularly the audio-lingual based on the material given.

method and used for practicing sound To support the findings of the

or sentences pattern in a language, test, a questionnaire was administered

based on guided repetition or practice. at the end session of the cycle II by the

It means that, drill is a technique which researcher to get additional data

used for practicing sound based on related to subjects’ responsive and

guided repetition or practice. changing behavior in teaching

Moreover, A chain-drill allows some learning process after the

controlled communication, even implementation of chain-drill

though it is limited but the technique. To avoid confusion, the

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questionnaire would make in Bahasa (C), 3 mean agree (B), and 4 mean

Indonesia, it consisted of ten strongly agree (A). The data obtained

statements and four multiple choice from questionnaire was computed and

which each option was scored based discussed in this classroom action

on Likert’s scale of 4-1, in which 1 study. The detail of scores were

mean disagree (D), 2 mean quite agree tabulated as follows:

Table 4.2 Table of the Summary off the Subjects’ Responses

Responses (%)
Result
Strongly Agree Agree Quite Agree Disagree
Total of an Item 568 537 58 0
Total of all item 1159
Percentage 49.00% 46.00% 5.00% 0.00%

Based on the result of the findings above, the researcher

questionnaire, it can be concluded that concluded that chain-drill technique

the subjects of present classroom could improve speaking skill of the

action research gave positive eighth grade students of SMPN 5

responses toward implementation of Mengwi in academic year 2017/2018.

Chain-drill technique in teaching Moreover, through this technique the

English especially in improving their subjects could be more active and

speaking skill. joined each activity in teaching

learning process especially in

CONCLUSION
speaking. It could be seen from the
Based on the findings of this
findings of the data whether the data
research and the discussion of the

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taken form the test or the as one of technique in teaching

questionnaire. learning process.

2. The students of SMPN 5 Mengwi

SUGGESTION
are suggested to implement chain-
According to the result of this
drill technique in practicing their
present research the researcher
daily speaking activities due to the
purpose some suggestions for:
effectiveness of this technique in
1. The researcher suggests the English
improving their speaking skill and
teacher to be more creative and
their confidence in speaking
innovative in teaching learning
English.
process by using the proper strategy
3. The researcher suggests other
or technique and choose interesting
researcher to be more creative to
topics which going to be performed
choose the other topics that can
by the students. Moreover, the
support the effectiveness of the
researcher also suggests the English
implementation of chain-drill
teacher to implement the chain-drill
technique in conducting the same

research.

References
Brown H. D. (2004). Language Edition). New York: Oxford
Assessment Principles and University Press.
Classroom Practice. New York: Louma, S. (2004). Assessing
Pearson Education.
Speaking. New York:
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching
Cambridge University Press.
languages to Young Learners.
Richards, J. C. and Schmidt, R. (2002).
New York: Cambridge
Dictionary of Language
University Press.
Teaching & Applied Linguistics.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000).
(Third edition). London:
Technique and Principles in
Longman Dictionary
Language Teaching (Second

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