1 THE EFFECT OF YATAMA ENGLISH MEETING CLUB ON STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN SPEAKING AT SMA PESANTREN PUTRI YATAMA MANDIRI Zulkifli Akhmad, H. Hamzah A Machmoed and Hj. Sukmawaty Email: Kopihitammanis89@gmail.com English Language Studies Hasanuddin University Makassar Abstrak Keterampilan berbicara merupakan salah satu aspek terpenting dalam mempelajari bahasa asing. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dampak dariYatama English Meeting Club terhadap minat berbicara siswa di SMA Pesantren Yatama Mandiri. Jenis metode penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini yaitu kualitatif deskriptif. Sampel dalam penelitian ini yaitu semua siswa SMA Pesantren Yatama Mandiri yang mengikuti English Meeting Club dan seorang Guru Bahasa Inggris yang bertangung jawab dalam program ini. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa warming up merupakan salah satu kegiatan yang dapat memotivasi siswa dalam berbicara. Hal ini dikarenakan warming up memiliki beberapa jenis kegiatan di dalamnya. Misalnya chit-chat, permainanan atau bernyanyi. Selain itu, hasil juga menunjukan bahwa siswa memberikan tanggapan positif terhadap Yatama English Meeting Club sebagai salah satu ekstrakurikuler di SMA Pesantren Putri Yatama Mandiri. Kata kunci :Yatama English Meeting Club, KeterampilanBerbicara, MinatSiswa Abstract Speaking is one of the important skill in learning a foreign language. This research aimed to determine which type of activity in Yatama English Meeting Club that can encourage students in speaking and to find out the students’ interest toward Yatama English Meeting Club. The design of the research in this research was qualitative descriptive. The participants of this research were the all students of SMA Pesantren Putri Yatama Mandiri who joined English meeting club as one of extracurricular in their school and 1 teacher who is responsible for conducting it. The result of the research shows that warming up is a kind of activity in Yatama English Meeting Club that can encourage students to speak. It occurred since warming up consisted of various activities, such as chit-chat, game or singing. In addition, students gave positive responses to Yatama English Meeting Club. It indicate that they have interest toward this English meeting club as an extracurricular in SMA Pesantren Putri Yatama Mandiri. Keyword :Yatama English Meeting Club, Speaking, Students’ Interest 2 A. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, the modern world of media, mass communication, and internet demands a good knowledge of English, especially of spoken English. Every person wants to get the benefits of modern education, research, science, trade, fashion, art, etc. A person without oral communication skills will suffer in this era; he may find it difficult to achieve a higher position in his career. In Indonesia, the students are expected to be able to communicate fluently and accurately based on the social context. In spoken English, students are expected to be able to convey meanings and various spoken texts that have certain communicative purpose. Speaking is the primary competence to be developed. Crystal (2013),states that speaking is used as a tool of communication among many countries. For this reason, some countries decide to input English as compulsory foreign language subject in their education curriculum, including Indonesia. Brown (2007), stated that the first visible of one’s language quality can be seen from his speaking ability. However, Murcia and Olshtain in Juan & Flor (2006), said that from the four language skills, speaking is multifarious practice in building meaning. It means that one will measure another’s language ability from his verbal communication because speaking is noticeable and something complicated in constructing a meaning. According to Widiati &Cahyono (2006), the speaking problems of Indonesian learners can be related not only to their linguistic factor (e.g lack of grammatical knowledge and/or vocabulary limitations) and the personality factor (e.g lack of self confidence in using English), but also the types of teaching approach/instructions and classroom task provided by the teachers. Fitrianingsih (2012), Indonesians are still very poor in speaking English; it is because the goal of English teaching in secondary school in Indonesia is the acquisition of communicative competence with an emphasis on reading skill, and not speaking, because speaking is not easy to be scored, on the contrary, reading is more objectively measured; it is easy to administered and documented (Brown, 2007). There are many researchers who had been conducted the research about speaking. Among of them are Handayani(2006), had conducted her research entitled “The Role of BPEC (BentengPanynyua English Club) to improve the members’ speaking activity.The result of her research indicated that English Meeting Club was a very well way to improve English speaking ability and could activate and motivate members of BPEC on good speaking. Most of the learners were interested to the programs that presented in BPEC. The English learners had high motivation to practice their English speaking in discussion session. 3 Nurlailah (2012),conducted her research under the title Effective Learning Strategies Applied by the English Learners in Al-Markaz for Khudi Enlightening Studies (MAKES).the result of the research showed that the members of MAKES applied several of learning strategies; social strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and affective strategies. Various programs and policies that were implemented in MAKES, learning environment and atmosphere, members’ motivation and attitude, and the study habits of the members are the factor that contributes to the members’ success in learning English. Rosmiaty (2012), conducted her research about The Contribution of PEMCC (Pioneer English Meeting Conversation Club) Toward the Participant’s Speaking Skill.She found that the factors that contributed to the improvement of participant’s speaking skill were learning model, comfortable atmosphere of learning, and participant’s motivation. In this current research, the researcher attempts to do the research about English Meeting Club (EMC) considering the phenomenon that EMC became one of the solutions to improve one’s speaking ability. The aim of the research were to determine which type of activity in Yatama English Meeting Club that can encourage students in speaking and to find out the students’ interest toward Yatama English Meeting Club. B. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Design In this study, the researcher used qualitative study. Qualitative research is the collection, analysis, and interpretation of comprehensive narrative and visual (nonnumeric) data in order to gain insights into a particular phenomenon of interest (Gay et al., 2006). The main purpose of this study was to determine which type of activity in Yatama English Meeting Club that can encourage students in speaking. Role of the Researcher This research applied nonparticipant observation. It means that the researcher observed Yatama English meeting club activities without engaging in them directly (Freeman & Long, 1991). The researcher was not included in the situation of which this research takes place. Research Participant The participants of this research were the all students of SMA Pesantren Putri Yatama Mandiri who joined English meeting club as one of extracurricular in their school and 1 teacher who is responsible for conducting it. 4 Instrument of Collecting Data In collecting the data, the researcher used several kinds of instruments namely observation, questionnaire and interview. The observation was carried out to the meeting process. This is a nonparticipant observation. The researcher observed students activity by employing field notes. The questionnaire was given to the students after observation. The instrument was given to find out the responses shown by the students that indicate their perception toward the English meeting club. The researcher conducted interview to get supporting data about the session of English meeting club that enhance students’ perception and the responses toward English. It was designed to the students. There were some questions formulated by the researcher that were asked to the students to get need data. The researcher used structure interview. Structure interview is used as a technique of collecting data if the researcher knows about the wanted information (Sugiyono, 2015). Technique of Data Analysis The data from observation was written in the form of field note then described students’ activity along the meeting process. The researcher analyzed the data from the questionnaire to see the students’ attitude toward English meeting club as their extracurricular program. Their attitudes revealed their perception in joining English meeting club. The researcher conducted an interview with participant. Then the researcher transcripted the data of audio recording interview and coded the data transcription. C. FINDINGS The result shows that Yatama English Meeting Club (YEMC) held routine activities every meeting. The meeting was conducted twice in a week at four o’clock. Every meeting must be guided by a master of ceremony (MC), the MC was appointed in the previous meeting by the board of YEMC. The list of activities were opening speech, reciting holy Al- Quran, self-introduction, warming up, discussion, closing speech and the last is announcement. The data finding from the students’ questionnaire also shows that almost all of the students agree that English meeting club as one of extracurricular in their school. It were 65% students like to join English Meeting Club and 65% students feel enjoy in joining English Meeting Club while 85% students revealed that this activity is advantageous in improving their speaking skill. Almost all of the students revealed that through English Meeting Club, they can improve their self-confidence. 5 DISCUSSION The research shows the activity that was joined by participants in Yatama English Meeting Club. The list of activities actually was the adaptation from others general English Meeting Club in Makassar, such as BentengPannyua English Club (BPEC), Al-Markaz for Khudi Enlightening Studies (MAKES), and Pioneer English Meeting Conversation Club (PEMCC). The observation that conducted by the researcher started from first till tenth observation showed that the meeting was always guided by a master of ceremony and the list of activities were same, they are opening speech, reciting holy Qur’an, self-introduction, warming up, discussion or debate, closing speech and announcement except in tenth observation, the participants watched a movie and discussed about it. However, the content of warming up and discussion was always different. The result means that half of twenty students were still hard to decide whether discussion session is enjoyable. When the researcher tries to dig information about their hesitancy, he found that discussion has huge contribution to their speaking skill, however the topic of discussion somewhat difficult for the participants to deliver. They had limited knowledge about the topic. Instead, still from interview the participants prefered warming up rather than discussion as the most enjoyable session due to warming up session contains chit-chat, game, or singing which was made them more fun to speak up. It also could be seen from the data that researcher found through questionnaire where 80% students revealed that the most enjoyable session was warming up. The participants of English Meeting Club in school absolutely specialize for students. Thus, the guidance from instructor is necessary. Whereas in general English meeting club the attendance of English meeting board is enough, without an instructor. This fact is matched with Vgotsky’s theory (the social-cultural of learning), says that one learns from his interaction to adult or the same age as him who has more capability than him. The data from unstructured question, a respondent from 2 nd class said that join with students at higher classes made her more motivated to study and she get more knowledge. Respondent ZB:”it is more interested study with senior, so we are more spirit and we got new knowledge from them”. Respondent ZB says her feeling and experience about her increasing of knowledge due to her collaboration with her senior who has more knowledge than her. This statement is relevant to Vgotsky’s theory (1978) in Chaiklin (2003), quoted “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of 6 potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration withmore capable peers”. D. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Based on the data findings regarding the problem statements which were formulated before, it can be concluded that warming up is type of program in Yatama English Meeting Club that can encourage students to speak. It occurred since warming up consisted of various activities, such as chit-chat, game or singing. Students had positive responses to Yatama English Meeting Club that indicate their interest toward this English meeting club. English meeting club as an extracurricular in SMA Pesantren Putri Yatama Mandiri reached positive response from the students. They think that this activity can increase their self-confidence, motivation to learn English and practice their English. Based on the data findings and what this research intended to, it is suggested that the activity in Yatama English Meeting Club must be more fun. As suggestion from interviewers, they expected that Yatama English Meeting Club able to create another interesting activity. Extracurricular for school is accomplished as ruled in Government Regulation no. 62/2014 on National Education Standards. Even so, English language improvement does not lie on recommended kind of activities in that regulation. This research recommend to put English Meeting Club as one of activity for school in Indonesia as an extracurricular in order to encourage students to practice their speaking skill. 7 REFERENCES Brown H. D . (2007). Teaching by Principles: An Approach to Language Pedagogy (3 rd ed). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education. Chaiklin S. (2003). The zone of proximal development in Vygotsky’s analysis of learning and instruction. Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education Vol. 1, No. 1 (May 2003) 59 - 67 Crystal. (2013). English as Global Languange, 2 nd Ed. Cambridege University Press: New York Fitrianingsih.(2012). The Effects of Teaching Communication Strategies on Learners’ Speaking Performance.Unpublished Master Thesis. Makassar: Hasanuddin University. 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