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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 

 



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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. 



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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. 



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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. 

  



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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 



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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.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Crystal. (2013). English as Global Languange, 2
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Fitrianingsih.(2012). The Effects of Teaching Communication Strategies on Learners’ 

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